Why do the Scots sometimes claim their country has never been conquored?

Question

I've been hearing this a lot recently. Correct me if I am wrong but aren't the Scots an Irish people who invaided and conquored all the West coast of modern Scotland, and exterminated the original Pictish inhabitants of that region until King Kenneth MacAlpin in 843 AD became King of both the conquering Scots and the remaining Picts.
Historically speaking it seems that the land now known as Scotland was conquored, in a reasonably bloody manner too.

I am intregued to hear people's views about this. I myself live in Yorkshire and am of mixed Romano-British and Nordic descent.

A good point from Cosmic Quest, but I am sure that many Scots say this as a literal thing as well as a spiritual one.

Answer 1

The usual shite written by bloody little englanders.
King Arthur!
Aye, right.
We were conquered (spelling correct) by mythical monarchs.
The problem with this part of the web is that it attracts complete idiots and this is a good case in point.
Any information you need is found elsewhere and by putting up idiot questions like this, the majority of answers will be ill-informed rubbish from sad individuals with no knowledge of the subject.
Yeah yeah yeah Scots is an Irish term.
As far as 'exterminating' the Picts this is both ignorant and equally ill-informed.
The questioner is showing their lack of intelligence.
But he/she is a bloody little englander talking shite and therefore does not deserve a reasonable answer.
No, the country we know as Scotland has never been conquered and subjugated.
England has.
Repeatedly.
The three lions on your chest are lying down and that is quite fitting.
The single lion of Scotland is rearing up and is bloody angry.
No wonder.
We might tire of your stupidy but we do not let the occasion pass without pointing it out.

Answer 2

It really is a question of how you define the term 'conquored'. The closest the English came to it was in the reign of King Edward I (The Hammer of the Scots). He was called by the Scots to arbitrate (or more likely, set himself up as arbitrator) in selecting their new king. Upon choosing John Balliol, he then claimed feudal overlordship of Scotland, something that he could quite legitimately do at the time and further exercised his rights of arbitration freely thereafter to the extent that anyone who Balliol judged against would seek representation to Edward I. This of course caused caused great distress to the Scottish and Edwards summoning of Balliol to Westminster to do homage to him was the final straw for some. When Balliol actually aceeded to the request, he found upon his return that the Scots had tired of his deeply compromised position and deposed him. Cue the Anglo-Scottish wars of Edward I and subsequently Edward II, but Edward II never completed the job. So, the closest that you could say that Scotland really came to being conquored was during the period where Balliol was Edward's man, this more of a legal nicety than a physical reality.

In later history, the Stuarts governance over both Engalnd and Scotland was never a union between the two, much less one or the other the conquered party and the Act of Union in the mid 18th Century left Scottish law and the Kirk intact.

So, if you accept that the Scottish nation (either as a very loose knit collection of clans or later as a intergrated whole) can only really be defined as 'Scottish' as we start to come out of the dark ages, their history from that point onwards supports the claim that they have never been conquored. Merely battered around quite a bit by the English (for which they gave as good as they got).

Obviously, the Scots did indeed occupy the north part of Ireland and moved across the sea moving the Picts to the margins. Subsequently you have Scandinavian and North European settlers, particularly on the Islands but inland as well. But, as above, I think it's a pretty fruitless task to look to this period as a time when nations were conquored by invading hordes when no cohesive nation existed.

Answer 3

I am a Scot and I hear this expressed a lot. It's a load of old tosh, of course.

I think they are really referring to the ROMAN invasion, which ran out of steam. The Romans didn't bother conquering all of Scotland, but the Irish, Danes etc made a good job of it.

I hate the term "Celt" and I don't understand what is meant by it. The indigenous population of the land which became Scotland were overrun by the Scots, who were an Irish tribe. . We know this from the Treaty of Arbroath which states "The Picts we utterly destroyed".......

Answer 4

Morgana-le-Fay, half sister to King Arthur and mother to Mordred-ap-Arthur lived in Scotland, though she was originally of Amrbosian (Normandy) and Cornish (Kernow) descent.

It was her influence that weakened the Picts, which led to their defeat, as you mention, by the Irish, who had been raiding the British and Anglesey (Yns Mon).

In fact the Irish were oppressing the British for hundreds of years, a total reversal of what they have been screaming about for the last few decades.

Answer 5

I always thought the the Scots were decendants (as well as the Irish) of ancient Gaelic speaking Celts....who were ancentors of seafaring Vikings who colonized much of the banks of Europe for several hundred years.....

Answer 6

For many who say this, they mean it in a metaphorical sense in that the Scottish spirit hasn't been diminished over time and people are still as proud of their nation and culture as ever.

Answer 7

DNA testing has proved that Celts came from a region of northern spain.

Scotland was also conquered by the english as well, in one form or another although they would not like to Admit it.

PS I was born in Glasgow

Answer 8

i am with George Spiggot they have drank 2 much scotch whisky and special brew and forgoting about it LOL we av all been there b4

Answer 9

special brew has rotted their brains