Scotland

A map of Scotland

Scotland is the original homeland of Goliath and his clan. Scotland is also the ancestral home of Macbeth and the Canmores; the Stone of Destiny and the Loch Ness Monster are likewise linked to it. The gargoyles of the Wyvern clan have had some involvement in noteworthy events in early Scottish history, including Constantine III's murder of Kenneth II in 995, and Macbeth's reign between 1040 and 1057. It is home to one surviving gargoyle clan, the Loch Ness Clan.

Real World History

Scotland is part of the United Kingdom. It makes up the northern part of Great Britain and is bordered in the south by England, in the west by the Atlantic Ocean and the North Channel, and in the north and east by the North Sea. Neighboring countries include Ireland, Denmark, Norway, and Iceland.

Scotland is named for the Scots, a Gaelic-speaking tribe who migrated from Ireland around A.D. 500. The principle inhabitants of Scotland in the first millennium A.D. were various Celtic tribes from England and Ireland, a people called Picts who may also have been Celtic, and the Anglo-Saxons of Northumbria. In A.D. 80 the Romans invaded Scotland, but they had little success. During the ninth through eleventh centuries, Viking raiders and settlers played a part in Scottish history as well.

In 843 the Scots king Kenneth mac Alpin, an ancestor of Macbeth, Duncan, and Constantine III, conquered or became king of the Picts and founded a united Scottish kingdom called Alba. The strife between Macbeth and Duncan was part of a pattern of violent succession among Kenneth mac Alpin's descendants in the tenth and eleventh centuries, probably related to the Scots' lack of a primogeniture custom.

Scotland defended its independence from England for several centuries. One of the most famous Scottish heroes was William Wallace, who led a revolt after Edward I of England invaded the country. Even when the Stuart king James VI of Scotland, a descendant of Canmore, became King James I of England in 1603, the two kingdoms remained separate. Scotland was not united with England until the Act of Union in 1707, during the reign of Queen Anne, when the separate Scottish Parliament was formally dissolved and the Scots began electing representatives to the United Kingdom parliament. Since then, some national groups have advocated for complete independence from England, while others have preferred to remain in the United Kingdom. A new Scottish Parliament was elected in 1999, but Scotland remains subject to the Westminster Parliament as well.

See also

• Scotland at Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia