Burns lyric query - 'And All That"

Subject: RE: Burns lyric query
From: Van
Date: 22 Dec 10 - 08:19 AM

Allan - the only "fantasy stuff" I have about the royal family is OFF WITH THEIR HEADS ;)

history is for those who write it. I might write a different version to you but which of us is correct? And does it matter?

Subject: RE: Burns lyric query
From: GUEST,Allan Con
Date: 22 Dec 10 - 08:51 AM

Aye Van I agree with you about the monarchy. That is the existence of it. About the Britishness of it is not my version though. Just pointing out the facts about her ancestry. As far as we can ascertain anyone's ancestry is what they think it is of course:-) Basically her royal family line goes right back at least towards the beginnings of the first millenium in Scotland with only a handful of generations (in that line) living outwith the UK. Never mind the fact that they have all (ie monarch and close heirs) been brought up and lived in Britain all their lives.

Subject: RE: Burns lyric query
From: An Buachaill Caol Dubh
Date: 22 Dec 10 - 11:42 AM

An auld wife's ...heir's no something I'd gie mysel fash owre (to adapt anither line); I care as little about the pedigrees of the hale nest o' them as I do about the bloodlines of their cuddies and dugs, but (as Van noted) it's guid to laugh at aa that, though at ither times I call to mind the image near the end of the "Haggis", about the "Rustic", the peasant -

"Clap in his waly nieve a blade,
He'll mak it whistle---
And legs, and arms, and HEIDS he'll sned,
Like taps o' thrissle"

Subject: RE: Burns lyric query
From: GUEST,guest
Date: 22 Dec 10 - 12:28 PM

Gaun yersel ABCD.
Tell wis it Andra wha wis ne"r sichtit wi Lord Glenconner?

Subject: RE: Burns lyric query
From: GUEST,Guest: Maurice Mann
Date: 22 Dec 10 - 12:53 PM

Burn's also used the "a' that" line ending in The Bonniest Lass, from his Merry Muses of Caledonia - look them up if you're not easily offended by sexual content.

Subject: RE: Burns lyric query
From: GUEST,Allan Con
Date: 22 Dec 10 - 05:36 PM

I know this thread has drifted but as I had a wee bit time I worked out the ancestry showing the monarch's line back to the dawning of the Scottish kingdom. This is not someone impressed by aristocratic ancestry etc, or even someone supporting the monarchy, it is simply somoen interested in history dealing in facts and dispelling the ideas aired here that "the present monarch has no historic connection to any British/Scottish line" or that they "can't trace British lineage back very far"

For a start the Queen's mother is thoroughly British so the idea that someone born in Britain to a British mother and father should not be British or have a British lineage is just daft. Taking her mother aside we look at the Queen's ancestors through her paternal royal line which itself makes it at least easy to trace. Back through the generations we have

George VI, George V, Edward VII, Victoria, Prince Edward, George III............all of these people were born and raised in England. This in itself takes us back to 1738. That is almost 300 years straight off. This in itself would make it a British family of long standing by any sensible standards.

Then we have three generations where they were neither born in Britain nor had a British parent.

Frederick, Prince of Wales......born in Hanover but came to Britain as a 21 year old to join his father who had been here already for well over a decade.

George II....born in Hanover but again spent most of his time in Britain

George I......probably the most foreign on them and did not actually speak English but he still had a grannie who was a Scottish Princess so it can hardly be suggested he had no connections.

Sophia of Hanover was a daughter of Princess Elizabeth of Scotland.

Princess Elizabeth of Scotland was born in Scotland and was a daughter of James VI of Scotland and I of England.

All the remaining were born in Scotland

James VI
Mary Queen of Scots
James V
James IV (who married Margaret Tudor of England)
James III
James II
James I
Robert III
Robert II
Princess Marjorie (Bruce)
Robert I (the Bruce)
Robert de Bruce 6th Lord of Annandale
Robert de Bruce 5th Lord of Annandale
Isobel of Huntingdon (daughter of David of Scotland)
Prince David of Scotland (Earl of Huntingdon)
Prince Henry of Scotland (Earl of Huntingdon)
David I
Princess Bethoc
Malcom II (Canmore)
Kenneth II of Alba
Malcom I of Alba
Donald II King of Picts
Constantine I King of Picts
Kenneth MacAlpin King of Picts (there had been Pictish kings who had also been Kings of Dalriada prior to Kenneth but he was the first of the Dalriadan Scotti to be King of Picts)

Then it gets shady and it is best stopping here but this takes us back to 843AD when Kenneth's reign started. So not counting the monarch herself that is about 35 generations going back almost 1200 years with only 3 of these generations not actually being born here or themselves having a British parent.

Subject: RE: Burns lyric query
From: Van
Date: 22 Dec 10 - 06:45 PM

Allan

"Then we have three generations where they were neither born in Britain or had British parents" was the point I was making. There is no direct line of descent. but for a' that is it worth bothering about, we're lumbered with them anyway.

As for thread creep it's what lets us have discussions which can't be bad.

Subject: RE: Burns lyric query
From: GUEST,Allan Con
Date: 23 Dec 10 - 04:45 AM

"Then we have three generations where they were neither born in Britain or had British parents" was the point I was making. There is no direct line of descent."

Still don't get what you are saying just because someone isn't born in Britain it doesn't mean they aren't descended from their ancestors. I have showed the descent through Princess Elizabeth to Sophia of Hanover to her son George I. Princess Elizabeth was the eldest surviving child of James VI and was Charles I's eldest sister. Just because someone is either a younger brother or a female it doesn't mean they are any less descended from their parents than the eldest son is! What you actually said was that the present royal line had 'no historic connections to any Scottish/British line" which is what I replied too and as I have shown false.

Subject: RE: Burns lyric query
From: Jim McLean
Date: 23 Dec 10 - 05:03 AM

I wonder why the monarchy has always taken English titles rather than British regnal numbers? We were taught the Union of the crowns took place in 1603 but that was actually a misnomer as James Succeeded dynasticaly to the Egnlish throne and became king of three countries, Scotland England and Ireland. it wasn't unitil the parliaments of England and Scotland united in 1707 that both countries became one kingdom but the English establishment carried on as if nothing had changed, hence the English regnal numbers ... James the second, not seventh, but Edward the Seventh etecera. If William succeeds to the throne he will be known as William the fifth whereas he should be William the fourth of Britain. If the Scottish people have woken up by then we should have no king atall!

Subject: RE: Burns lyric query
From: BobKnight
Date: 23 Dec 10 - 05:26 AM

Aye Jim, it rather annoys me that a statue of Edward the Seventh occupies a prime site on Union Street, the main street of Aberdeen, when thanks to Bruce and Wallace we never had the first six.

Mind you, the name Union Street bugs me too, as does the siting of the greatest statue in Scotland to William Wallace on "Union Terrace." He would be spinning in his grave... if he had one.

Subject: RE: Burns lyric query
From: Marje
Date: 23 Dec 10 - 11:35 AM

I'm sure the choice of numbering is due in part to the Anglo-centric view of Britain that prevails in much of England. You will still hear people here saying that Charles or William will one day be "King of England", which irritates me.

The logical thing would be to use the highest number that applies. That's the only way of avoiding confusion arising from two people sharing one title. If there have already been, say, four King Andrews in Scotland and only two in England (or vice versa), the next King Andrew of the UK should be known as the Fifth, etc. By that system, James the first-and-sixth should have been the Sixth, Charles should one day be the Third, and William the Fifth.

But when has logic had anything to do with royalty?

Marje

Subject: RE: Burns lyric query
From: GUEST,Allan Con
Date: 23 Dec 10 - 12:14 PM

"The logical thing would be to use the highest number that applies."

I think that is the position of the palace which they stated after the hullabaloo and legal case in Scotland in the 50s when the present monarch took the title Elizabeth II. Both Jim's and you own point about ut being Anglo-centric still stand though. One can imagine let's say william and kate's son being called Edward - but I doubt very much whether he'd ever be called David, Robert or Alexander. I wonder how the English would take to an Alexander IV?

Subject: RE: Burns lyric query
From: michaelr
Date: 23 Dec 10 - 12:49 PM

Jeez! I keep opening my thread to see if anyone had anything new to say about the subject, but nooo...

Perhaps I should ask Joe to split all this royalty waffle off into a separate thread. I mean, really.

Subject: RE: Burns lyric query
From: An Buachaill Caol Dubh
Date: 23 Dec 10 - 01:50 PM

Well, hasn't the original enquiry been fairly comprehensively dealt with, at least with regard to the syntax and sense of the opening lines? It wasn't originally a discussion about the entire work, desirable as that might be, and the royalty material seems to be partly thrown in by those wanting to cut them down to size metaphorically, if not literally, that is, in the way that Mary Stuart and her grandson were cut down to size. I know that's what I've been doing; we pay enough for the bastards, so at least let's look and laugh at them. (Don't, for heaven's sake, someone start chatting about how each year the monarch signs over the Crown estates in return for a Civil List - you really need the horse-face of Norman StJohn Stevens to do that piece of horse-shit justice).

There's plenty to be made of Burns's "A Man's a Man", such as the fact that he stated it was not a song, but "a number of good prose thoughts inverted into rhyme", but all the royalty genealogy has brought this to mind; does anyone know the origin of the line Burns quoted about "my ancient, but ignoble blood/Has crept through scoundrels, ever since the Flood"?

Subject: RE: Burns lyric query
From: michaelr
Date: 23 Dec 10 - 03:56 PM

Well, hasn't the original enquiry been fairly comprehensively dealt with, at least with regard to the syntax and sense of the opening lines?

It certainly has, and I thank you for it.

As to thread creep - it's more like a gallop away. Oh well, That too is Mudcat.

;-)

Subject: RE: Burns lyric query
From: Marje
Date: 24 Dec 10 - 03:44 AM

Anyway, I'm sure Burns would be delighted to think that his words had provoked a wider discussion about equality and the monarchy and a' that, more than 200 years on and among people of various countries.

Marje

Subject: RE: Burns lyric query
From: Jim McLean
Date: 24 Dec 10 - 05:10 AM

ABCD, the quote is from Alexander Pope's Essay on Man:

Stuck o'er with titles, and hung round with strings,
That thou mayst be by kings, or whores of kings,
Boast the pure blood of an illustrious race,
In quiet flow from Lucrece to Lucrece:
But by your fathers' worth if yours you rate,
Count me those only who were good and great.
Go! if your ancient but ignoble blood
Has crept thro' scroundrels ever since the flood,
Go! and pretend your family is young,
Nor own your fathers have been fools so long.
What can ennoble sots, or slaves, or cowards?
Alas! not all the blood of all the Howards.


The whole Essay is worth reading and probably indicates inspiration for Burns' song (being discussed).

Subject: RE: Burns lyric query
From: An Buachaill Caol Dubh
Date: 24 Dec 10 - 07:08 AM

Yes, I'd thought it would be "Augustan", but didn't know whom to choose among Goldsmith or Dryden or Thomson or even Johnson, and it turns out to be Pope! Despite all the pose as thon "Heav'n taught Ploughman", RB knew as much of "polite" Poetry as any of them; and not only knew, but made, a great deal of other material, "not quite so genteel". It's been a good discussion; maybe in exactly a month's time there will be more? Aa the Best!