marriage and illegitimate children

[ANDY-J2]

I'd be surprised if that would have been an issue for most people although I suppose it would depend on social class and what part of Scotland you lived in.I'm sure that for the wealthier classes mixed marriages would have been a relatively common occurence.In the borders for example there have always been close relationships between English and Scots and mixed marriages would have been commonplace.Perhaps in the highlands however antipathy towards the English would have been strong during the eighteenth-century as traditional Highland society was being systematically undermined both by lowland Scots and the government in England.Therefore Highlanders would perhaps not be happy at the prospect of intermarriage between a Scot and an English person.I think for most Scots at that time however anti-English sentiment was not the issue that it might have been a century or so previously.

[mell]

thankyou for your reply, was it very common for highlanders to be in the lowlands of scotland? i am gathering that niether was fond of the other in the 1700's, but could there have been exceptions do you think?

[ANDY-J2]

Highlanders would have been found throughout the Lowlands in great numbers.In order to diminish the threat which the "lawless Gaels" supposedly posed to Scotland's security succesive governments introduced legislation to undermine traditional Gaelic culture.One of the laws required that all Highland chieftans should have their sons educated at lowland schools where they could learn to adopt a more "civilised" lifestyle.In the cities of Scotland therefore one could find plenty of the sons of Highland Lairds and Chieftans.Also it is a mistake to imagine that wealthy highlanders remained isolated and aloof from Lowlanders.If one looks at architectural evidence from the period it is clear that wealthy highland families were living in houses which incorporated the latest architecture and furnishings,while many even possesed pieces of art by eminent continental painters.The eighteenth century was the age of enlightenment when wealthy highlanders sought to improve themselves and advertise their status and it would certainly have been common to find such men conducting their business in cities like Edinburgh and Glasgow.As for the poorer classes they were often compelled to seek work in the lowlands in the aftermath of the Jacobite rebellions and highland clearances so by the later eighteenth century there would certainly have been substantial numbers of highlanders present throughout the lowlands however particularly so in the cities.

[HollyElise]

Thank you, Andy,

I can see why when the Scots came to America they often identified with Native Americans. There are a number of parallels, but the forced outside education to discourage continuance of culture particularly struck me as a similar problem (though in the U.S. that came much later in history than it did in Scotland).

[Steaphan]

This Highlands/Lowlands thing is a bit of a misnomer in my view. It would be nice to define which parts of Scotland you wish to refer to as Lowlands and which parts as highlands. Geographically it's quite clear. The Highlands start just north of the River Clyde. But to refer to Scots as Highlanders or Lowlanders in cultural terms is very misleading. For a start in the 1700s the south-west of Scotland (Galloway) was still very much a Gaelic-speaking part of Scotland as were areas to the south of Glasgow where Scottish Gaels lived in their native land near to and in some places alongside Scottish Angles.