Scotland and the Four Nations of Britain

Page 1 of 7

• 1. Four Countries
• 2. The Scottish people
• 3. Separate Scotland
• 4. Different identities
• 5. Roots of Scottish Nationalism
• 6. The united kingdom
• 7. Find out more
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Four Countries

It makes perfect sense, in this day and age, to wonder how Britain came to be made up of four distinctive countries. The essential point to be stressed is that neither the creation of Britain, nor the much earlier emergence of the nations of the English, the Irish, the Scots and the Welsh was inevitable. We could have ended up with far more national units; or far fewer.

We should also remember - and Britain exemplifies this point very well - that there was more than one route towards political organisation and the development of an overarching identity in each country. Both England and Scotland went down the road of a single, unified kingship, though the extent to which power was centralised in the hands of the king was by no means the same.

'Resistance to this common enemy helped to promote unity among the native tribes.'

Wales and Ireland, on the other hand, preferred to leave predominant identification and power with smaller groupings within the larger unit. As we should all be more aware these days, thanks to the recent devolution of power away from London, the desire for centralisation or decentralisation varies over time, and there is no moral or political superiority of one over other.

The accidents of history that produced the four nations of Britain happened partly because of the dynamic interaction between native tribes and incoming settlers. In England, conquest by the Romans provided a model of centralised government, administration and economic life that was eventually resurrected long after the legions had gone.

In Scotland, resistance to this common enemy helped to promote unity among the native tribes. However, contacts with continental Europe, and areas that had been imperialised closer to home, meant that native rulers could take on aspects of centralisation if they wanted to. The earliest native tax assessment known in Britain is the seventh-century Senchus Fer nAlban - a list of the numbers of men that the various families of the Scoto-Irish kingdom of Dal Riata centred on Argyll could provide for their navy.

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Published: 2001-05-01