2 APRIL 1977, Page 12

The burden of history

Colin Bell

Edinburgh Lord Acton maintained that history provides neither compensation for suffering nor penalties for wrong; but Acton's background was staunchly Catholic, not Calvinist, and his Whiggish sensibilities would have been affronted to see history marshalled in support of modern grievance. He would, as no doubt would George Eliot, who thought the happiest nations had no history, have found the correspondence columns of the Scottish press in recent weeks entirely alien.

The events of 1707 have of course been picked over with very little pause for 270 years; and the present Jubilee, as did the Queen's accession, has reopened the debate on 1603, and the title and enumeration of the British monarchy. But these are things which even Englishmen might be willing to admit have some small bearing on our modern politics. Tam Dalyell recently observed that each time an English MP mispronounced 'Kirkcaldy,' another Scottish hackle rose; and there is general sport at present to be had from spotting the offending howlers in the colour supplements, with their incessant . talk of 'Elizabeth II, Queen of England.'

But these are all small beer, to be ranked with the BBC's curious illusion that all true Britons are passionately interested in the English cricket team or Mr Revie's troupe of stumbling cloggers. History, for a nation which has a disproportionate amount, and which finds it fascinating, is made of deeper stuff than that. We all know that the reason why the Duke of Windsor took the title of Edward VIII is because the alternative was to call him King David III, and thus puzzle the poor English. No, what really absorbs us here, while you grow fretful of devolution, are the Highland Clearances, the antiquity of Gaelic, the conduct of the Covenanters, the Highland and Lowland contributions to the Wars of Independence, and the character of the Campbells.

On all of these, a spirited, even abusive, correspondence is being waged. History here can still bring men to blows or resignations, perhaps because so much of it still lies about us. To take the case of the Countess of Sutherland, for example, or that of Inveraray Castle, reminds us that in Scotland enormous tracts of land are still owned by great aristocratic families, and that names of both landlord and tenant may not have changed over several centuries.

The Countess of Sutherland was asked by An Comunn Gaidhealach to serve as honorary president of this year's Mod, to be held in her ancestral territory of East Sutherland. She has now resigned, submerged in a tidal wave of recrimination and

counter-claim about the role of the Sutherlands in the Highland Clearances. The West Highland Free Press began the rumpus with an accusation that 'holding the Mod in Dunrobin is a bit like the Jews holding the Festival of Pentecost in the stadium that gave Nuremberg a bad name.' The Scotsman, showing a remarkable consistency over 150 years, countered with the beguiling theory that the Clearances had been all for the best, since if the crofters had not been cleared to make way for sheep, they would only have died in the potato famines a generation later.

Since then—and this particular battle has

been raging for nearly four months—the agricultural and social history of late Georgian Scotland has been exhaustively reworked on a daily basis. Against the charge that the present Countess, who entered the fray herself from the sanctuary of Kensington, could scarcely be held responsible for the brutalities of her forebears, it has been pointed out not only that the very principle of a hereditary aristocracy implies rewards, and therefore penalties, in perpetuity, but-most un-English—that the sins of the fathers shall indeed be visited upon the sons and upon the daughters too. The Duke of Argyll has had similar prob.lems. His castle had the misfortune to take fire; the Duke then launched a public aPPeal for funds with which to restore it. This evoked a widespread surliness, the rural population pointing out that he was stinking rich and still a vast landowner, so why nOt pay his bills himself, while the financial sophisticates of Edinburgh proclaimed the cardinal principle of Scottish prudence that a man should be adequately insured. The appeal did not do well in Scotland; and the Duke made some criticism of this, on the lines that Inveraray was part of the nationa', heritage, a priceless treasure, and that it was shameful that we should depend on Ameri. can generosity to maintain our birthright: etcetera. He would have been better advised to keep his counsel, and the dollars, since( his comment has merely reminded much ° the nation that Inveraray, and all its estates; may be his heritage but is certainly not our —yet. The troubles of the great have brought if, their train problems for the minor lan:_o u lings. Sir lain Moncreiffe of that Ilk, wn, might have been invented by the good Nigel Dempster, put his own head above the parapet with a defence of the clearin landlords which also denigrated th°se, „. modern historians who have studied tfitici Clearances. John Prebble laid him low both barrels of a scholarly elephant Oa". A minor combatant, concerned to illuste r t the iniquity of summoning the Past to illuminate the present, observed that nriPt ancestors had some grounds for comPilaildy against the original Tam Dalyell (Bu Tam, as opposed to Bluidless Tam), ,7e. that he harboured no inherited gru"_., This conjured forth the erstwhile chairrnt.a; of the Cambridge University Conserva Association, and present Labour

for West Lothian, who confused everytwMernr"s, u.'

with the information that in fact he was descended from the wicked Sutherland factor, Loch, who actually carried out the Clearances, This is all mere skirmishing, dating back no further than, in English terms, Titus Oates—although I recognise that singularly few English arguments turn upon issues of theology. Once the historic hare was running, the gates of every trap flew high. A, Passing slight upon the role of the Lowlanders in the seventeenth century has now unleashed a violent dispute about the Wars of independence, and whether Bruce and Wallace were supported, betrayed or oPPesed by Lowlanders, Highlanders, Gaels or gangs of Scots makars on Arts Council grants. This in its turn has spawned a whole new correspondence about the relative antiquity, and geographical distribution, of the Gaelic language and the Scots dialect. Of course, it will be said, there are besotted antiquarians in the South as well, who will, given the opportunity, write endlessly to The Times about the precise demarcation between Norse, Gaelic, Lallans, and Northumbrian English. But antiquarians they will be, retired from the ministry, or from Shrewsbury School, and desperate for audience. Here, the ancient is defended by the her itors of ancient wealth, and attacked by the tribunes of surviving wrong; facts, well polished by the attentions of a nation which loves argument, are chiels which winna ding. If

you the English wish to distract us from our present courses, ignore the cry that it is Shetland's oil, give up your efforts to inflame the Orange and the Green, and set us at each other's throats with a well-judged provocation about Cuchullin, Mons Graupius, or the Witches of Auldearn.