Slaughter under Trust: Glencoe, Scotland

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Lead: Glencoe is one of the most beautiful valleys in the Highlands of Scotland. Through it the River Coe flows westward to Loch Leven and the sea. In the winter of 1692 it was witness to one of the saddest events in Scottish history.

Intro: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts

Content: Four years before, England and Scotland had acquired a new King and Queen. Weary of the rule of James Stuart, Parliament had offered the crown to James' sister Mary and her husband William, the rulers of Holland.

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Robert the Bruce of Scotland II

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Lead: Some wag has said that treason is often a matter of timing. He could not have found a better example of that truism than the conflicted career of Scotland’s liberator, Robert the Bruce.

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: In the 1290s English King Edward I was meddling in Scottish affairs. He forced the Scottish nobles to heel and to accept his candidate for the empty throne, John de Balliol. This was a bit too much for the Scots who rebelled and took up with the French. Edward invaded in 1296 and beat them badly, confiscating the sacred Stone of Scone on which Scottish kings had been crowned. Edward also crushed William Wallace’s popular rebellion at Falkirk in 1298, but the English king, despite prodigious campaigning, could not completely subdue the Scots.

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Robert the Bruce of Scotland I

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Lead: Through the years of lonely separation and worry that are part of the life of a military spouse, Mamie Geneva Doud Eisenhower never liked it but loved her Kansas farm boy and was there for the long haul.

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: Dwight Eisenhower was a second lieutenant fresh from West Point when he first laid eyes on Mamie Geneva Doud, daughter of a wealthy Denver family who wintered in San Antonio. She was standing on the porch of the Officer’s Club at Fort Sam Houston when as Officer of the Day he walked by on his rounds. She thought he was the most handsome male she had ever seen; he was struck with her vivacious personality and attractive, saucy looks. They were married in the summer of 1916.

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William Wallace III

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Lead: His reputation was that of a hard-hitting guerilla fighter and anti-English rogue, but after Stirling Bridge, William Wallace became the symbol of the fight for Scottish independence.

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: England had conquered Scotland, but not the national spirit. Whereas many of the Scottish nobility were prepared to bow the knee to England, resistance continued under partisan leaders such as commoner William Wallace. In September 1297 he led a ragtag brigade to Stirling Castle, northwest of Edinburgh, an important English outpost. On September 11th an English army under the Earl of Surrey arrived to deal with this west-country upstart. Wallace was vastly outnumbered, but the English troops had to cross a narrow wooden bridge to get to him. When they did he and his band slaughtered them mercilessly as they poured off the bridge at the other side. As many as 5,000 English died in the day’s fighting. Wallace became a national hero.

 

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William Wallace II

PermalinkToday's AMIT,
Lead: In 1297 Edward of England crushed the weak Scottish army and established himself as ruler of the Kingdom to the North. His attempts to pacify the resistant Scots were complicated by guerilla fighters such as William Wallace.

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: In the years following the death of Scottish King Alexander III, King Edward I of England, had, with ill-disguised intensity, interfered in the affairs of his neighbor to the north. He tried to marry his son to Alexander’s heir, Margaret, but when she died, he shamelessly played the Scottish nobility against one another in their internecine conflict to determine who would be the next King of Scotland. Edward’s choice was John de Balliol whom he thought could be easily manipulated. When Balliol proved more resistant than expected, in 1297 Edward marched north and in five months had defeated the weak Scottish army, deposed and imprisoned John Balliol, and had himself made ruler of Scotland. To add insult to injury, he confiscated the legendary Scottish Coronation Stone of Scone and had it shipped south to Westminster.

 

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William Wallace I

PermalinkToday's AMIT,
Lead: As the ages pass, accurate portraits of historic persons are hard to come by. The Scottish patriot and guerilla leader William Wallace is one such figure in whom legend and reality mix in fanciful confusion.

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: Historian Ernest Renan insists that ‘forgetting history’ or perpetuating ‘historical error’ are essential in the formation of a nation. As Graeme Morton points out, Renan’s conclusions work precisely in the case of William Wallace. The Scottish rogue was a child of wealth and privilege, son of a knight, grandson of a sheriff, born in County Ayr in southwest Scotland. He was a teenager in 1286 when Scottish King Alexander III died leaving as heir a four-year old daughter living in Norway. Her death four years later left the succession and Scotland in hopeless confusion. Scottish independence was imperiled by the struggle for the throne within the Scottish aristocracy, but also by the imperial intentions of English King Edward I known as “Old Longshanks” because of his height.

 

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