Book Description

Excerpt from Kingcraft in Scotland, and Other Essays and Sketches In studying the History of Scotland we get, among other things, a better idea of the rise, progress, value, and decay of the system of kingly power than possibly we could derive from reading the story of any other nation in Europe. We can trace the system of monarchial government from its earliest stage, when the king was simply a leader, until the year 1603 when the singular compound of ruler and teacher who then held sway gladly quitted Scotland for a new tenure of power in England. We find the monarchy at times held by a saint, a hero, a statesman, a woman, and by a dozen or so of nonentities, whose capacity for kingship, or even for ordinary leadership, was only perceptible to their courtiers and dependents. We find a long continued struggle for power with the nobility, we see the gradual rise of the people to influence, and finally hear the complaints of one who believed in the sacredness of his kingly calling as he realises that the people are wielding a power superior to all his divine right pretentions through their chosen leaders - the preachers of the Reformation and their immediate successors. It is an instructive story. It shows us that kingship is a special vocation - that means leadership. It proves that its strength, from the beginning, really lay in the love and confidence of the people, - and that when the qualities of leadership - whether superior sanctity, heroism, or statesmanship, were wanting, the kingly title was of very little value. When the wearer of the crown was a weakling, the power was wielded by someone else. When the sovereign was in sympathy with the desires or sentiments of the people his word was law; when the people distrusted, despised, or even disliked a king his real influence upon the community was small indeed. How truly royal in every way were such kings as the sainted David, the heroic Bruce, or the statesman-like first of the James's, and what miserable caricatures of royalty were most of the others, Davids, Roberts, and James's, who held the sceptre after Bannockburn made Scotland a nation? About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.