Scottish Independence

The Scottish vote on the question of independence is this Thursday, September 18. I am among the many Americans whose ancestry is more Scottish than otherwise, so I look on this with interest. And I am a Son of the South, where we were not given an opportunity to vote on secession. Our wishes were clear, but they could not prevail against Sherman, Grant, Lincoln, and their armies [I spare a thought for the men in the trenches around Richmond and Petersburg one hundred fifty years ago, and in the Shenandoah Valley, where Gen. Sheridan was to defeat the Confederate forces there in battles on Sept. 19 and Sept. 21-22, freeing the Yankees to burn the Valley from end to end, destroying all the season's crops and turning it into a wasteland going into winter...]

If it were me, my vote would be a resounding YES, remembering Wallace, the Jacobite risings, the highland clearances, and noting the manner in which the financiers of the City of London currently suck all the life out of the realm (as Wall Street does in this country), leaving little but dregs for the likes of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

But I would not want to stray very far; I would remember fighting alongside the English in three centuries of wars. And I would still want to be a subject of the Queen and her successors. That is not directly at question tomorrow, and will take considerable sorting out, should the Yes vote prevail. So will many other things.

On Thursday, it is up to the Scottish people. I wish my Scottish friends – those in our companion diocese of Brechen, and elsewhere in that great Land – the very best, however it turns out.

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I have been away from the Music Box for too long, and should not be taking the time this evening to write these words. I do not know when I can return more regularly, but you, my readers, are in my thoughts. May God's blessings be with you.