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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-46015580

So Netflix are about to kick the BBC's arse with a film about Robert the Bruce (something the BBC themselves should have made at some time in their history perhaps ?)- and this is how they report it's upcoming launch - one small snippet of conjecture from a new book by self-employed historian Dr Fiona Watson -  a graduate of Glasgow and St Andrews who formerly presented a show on the BBC. (gee, wonder how she got a plug on the BBC ?).

If I publish a book that says the BBC are crap - will that get on the news as well ?

And in those days the Nobility weren't Scottish or English - they were Norman first.. so I hold no illusions on that score - this is just the BBC in Scotland trying to diss the competition and stop the "jocks getting too uppity".

And to be fair to Dr Watson - her book looks pretty thorough and interesting -

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Traitor-Outlaw-King-Making-Robert-ebook/dp/B07GZ8L8MF

Out of all that, the BBC think they'll go with the amusing ... he was an "Essex boy"   ..... pricks - they do the Dr and her book a disservice, they do the film a disservice and they do their viewers  a disservice.

 

 

Edited by Lobey
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The evidence seems to be an english chronciler said he belonged to the english, and his parents owned land in essex. Can't find out anything else. A lot of these subjects use cargo-cult science though.

Hell even medical researchers are getting bad for bad science.

 

 

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My initial annoyance was with the the glib "Essex boy" thing on the live news and the dig at what seems to  be shaping up to have been a pretty succesfull film venture by Netflix - but I'm actually getting more annoyed on Dr Watson's behalf now - she has obviously been putting a lot of time and research in to her book and they reduce it to a trivial "funny"  throwaway like that ?

https://fionawatsonhistorian.wordpress.com/

This is out nations national news provider's idea of fit coverage on our nations History ? , Arts ?

It's not just cheap tabloidism it's moronic.

They do say however that there is no such thing as bad publicity - so everyone watch the film and read the book ..... and don't pay your licence fee...

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If The Bruce was born in England then so what ? What does it matter ? As pointed out above he was more Norman than Scots anyway.

Consider this:

Historian Andrew Fisher made a reasonable case a number of years ago, that a young William Wallace may have fought as a mercenary for Edward I in his war against Wales. Hence his knowledge of tactics, strategy and leadership when the time came to fight for Scotland's freedom.

Some historians believe that the "Aleyn Waleys of Are" (Alan Wallace of Ayr) listed on the infamous Ragman's Rolls *might* actually have been Wallace's father or uncle.

Would it really matter if Wallace had once been a mercenary in the pay of Edward I? No. It was just the cold, hard reality of the unforgiving, brutal world he lived in at the time. 

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Stuart Hardy questions the significance of the Norman aristocracy in Scotland, in his book Scotland's Future History that I mentioned in another thread (Neil Oliver). https://www.luath.co.uk/history/scotlands-future-history

He challenges what sees as a lazy assumption that Scotland was really feudal (a record of a king assigning lands is not evidence of actual control/occupation) or significantly over-run by Norman knights everywhere. He says there are few Norman names on the Declaration of Arbroath, for example.

I don't recall all the details but the gist of his argument was that emphasising Norman traditions of feudalism would tend to obscure the actual, local, more kinship based social structure in Scotland, and make it easier to see Scotland as simply a natural extension of Anglo-Norman feudalism (and so an extension of England or a territory that could be readily made subject to the English crown...). This point of view - told and sold as actual history - of course suited (a) the aristocracy (b) the unionist perspective of GB as an entity.       

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