Scottish Flotsam from the Shetland Islands People, Scottish Kings, and Quotes

I imagine the first question anyone will ask is what is a column called "Scottish Flotsam". I guess we will have to begin with what is "flotsam". Among the definitions of the word are "things washed ashore" or "miscellaneous trifles". Well, we believe you can find some great treasure on the ocean shore. But -- you will never know what you will find or its value. So we decided that is what this column is - flotsam. We wanted a place to put things that didn't fit anywhere else and might be of interest. Each item could be a column itself and might be some day but for now it will be the flotsam, which washes our way.

George Mealmaker (1768 - 1808)
Mealmaker was a radical weaver who became secretary of the Dundee Friends of the People and was later prominent in the United Scotsman. During the sedition trials of Thomas Muir (1765-99) and his associates in 1703 -4 Mealmaker was an active propagandist against the government and the war with the French revolutionaries. By 1796 he was one of the leading organizers of the United Scotsman - whose aims he outlined in a pamphlet entitled The Moral and Political Catechism of Man (1797). Soon Mealmaker was arrested and charged with sedition and administering unlawful oaths. Following trial he was sentenced to fourteen years in Botany Bay. He spent the rest of his life in New South Wales, including four years as supervisor at the Female Factory in Paramatta. He died in exile in 1808. Mealmaker is often regarded, as one on the Scottish Martyrs' - though how much direct contact he had with them is unknown.

Now lets look at a Scottish King:

Macbeth
Macbeth's success against Duncan, whom he defeated and killed in battle, thus represented a native, or Celtic, reaction against the new southern ways, and it is significant of the prevailing distrust of those ways that he was able to rule with evident acceptance for seventeen years. He was finally ousted not because of a rising among his own people but because Malcolm Canmore, son of Duncan, had taken refuge in England and found an English, or at least Northumbrian, army to support his claims. Macbeth was defeated and killed, and Duncan's son became King Malcolm III. Macbeth, who had represented the old ways was buried in Iona like his predecessors, but Malcolm III and his English wife, Margaret, when they died in 1093, where buried in Dunfermline. Malcolm had made that place his headquarter in preference to the earlier seats of Scottish and Pictish royalty at Dunkeld, Scone, and Abernethy, and Margaret had introduced Benedictine monks to the church there, under the influence of Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury

Source - Scottish Kings by Gordon Donaldson which is currently out of print.

It is time to stop combing the library but we can not quit without some quotes from The Pocket Book of Scottish Quotations another great History bookshelf resident. Let's see what quotes we can find.

Biography and Memoirs

The great and good do not die even in this world. Embalmed in books their spirits walk abroad.
Samuel Smiles (1816 -1904), Character

Every person of importance ought to write his own memoirs, provided he has honesty enough to tell the truth.
Tobias Smollett (1721 - 1771)

These deathless names by this deak snake defiled.
Bid memory spit upon him for their sake. Algernon Sinburne (1837-1909), After Looking Into Carlyle's Reminiscences

Now for a Gaelic Proverb for this month.

Glòir mhòr an colainn bhig. Great talk in a small body

You can find more articles in the archive under Scottish Flotsam.

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