32.3 Europe: a.d. 1701 to 1800  (Page 21/28)

The Act of Union joining the two countries did not prevent an occasional resurgence of Scottish national pride and attempts at forcing a new Stuart king on to the throne of Britain. Bonnie Prince Charlie, Catholic son of James III, spent his life trying, with interval help from France and various Scot clans, and he even invaded England with an army of about 10,000 in 1745 - the Jacobite Rebellion. It all came to naught and after the Highlanders' defeat at Culloden, Gaelic Scotland was broken, as the clans were dissolved, the bagpipe banned in war and the kilt outlawed. At the end of that f inal battle, the English killed all the wounded on the field, shot and hung fugitives and burned houses. Many Celtic Scots emigrated to Nova Scotia (New Scotland). (Ref. 194 ) In spite of that bloodbath, it is amazing that trade, industry and arts made a rapid and substantial recovery. At the end of the century the economy was helped as iron foundries started up, with contracts from the British navy. (Ref. 279 )

Every parish in Scotland tried to set up a school for its children and 4 universities offered the best education in the British Isles. Another student of Boerhaave of Leiden (see page 969), Alexander Monro, returned to his native Scotland to give new life to the ancient University of Edinburgh, which became the center of medical instruction for the English speaking world. (Ref. 125 ) This century has been called the era of "Scottish Enlightenment", with the philosophers David Hume and Thomas Reid, historian William Robertson, political economist Adam Smith, novelist Sir Walter Scott, who was born and educated in Edinburgh, and finally Robert Burns (1759-1796), who wrote some in English, but whose poems in Scottish have brought him everlasting fame. (Ref. 170 )

Ireland

Ireland had a far different situation from Scotland. As a result of repeated victories by English armies over native revolts, a code of laws had been set up that chained the Irish in body and soul. (Ref. 54 ) The landowners were almost all Protestants, most of them actually living in England and those who resided locally isolated themselves from the hostility of their surroundings with drink, quarreling, dueling and gambling. The Established (Anglican) Church in Ireland included only about 1/7 of the people, but was supported by tithes from the peasantry, almost all Catholics. The latter were excluded from public office, from all professions except medicine, could purchase no land or hold any valuable lease. Emigration continued with about 8,000 Irish going to America each year in the 8th decade. (Ref. 260 )

At the end of the century in 1798 a revolt broke out again in the country, which was put down by Lord Cornwallis, in spite of French assistance to the Irish. (Ref. 110 ) The

British leaders then decided to make Ireland- a part of the United Kingdom. An Act of Union was passed in 1800, which made all of the British Isles a single entity of Great Britain. The social pattern in Ireland resembled that of eastern Europe and the southern American colonies, in having a privileged body of landowners, who shared European civilization and a culturally deprived, psychologically alienated mass of agricultural laborers. (Ref. 139 ) One helpful feature at the century end was a rise in grain prices in England, which made the Irish potato culture more profitable and necessary. (Ref. 140 )