James Coleman is a freelance historian, he is currently based at the University of Glasgow.

A salutary warning to today’s politicians and pundits. Even the recent past is too slippery to be invoked convincingly by either side in the referendum debate. Nineteenth-century Scots constructed a national mythology in which the ecclesiastical trumped the political, and where unionism and nationalism were complacently conjoined.

• Contents, Acknowledgements, Introduction: The Valley CemeteryChapter 1: Nationality, Memory and CommemorationChapter 2: Scottish Nationality in the Nineteenth CenturyChapter 3: ‘Not Servile and Conquered, but Free and Independent’: Commemorating William Wallace and Robert the BruceChapter 4: ‘The Highest Position in the Civilised World’: Commemorating John Knox and the Second ReformationChapter 5:‘If They Were Rebels Then, We Are Rebels Now’: Commemorating the Covenanters and the Glorious RevolutionChapter 6: ‘By the imprudence of his ancestors’: Commemorating Jacobitism and Mary Queen of ScotsChapter 7: ‘Staunch Loyalty to the Flag that Stands for Union’Bibliography

James Coleman is a freelance historian, he is currently based at the University of Glasgow.

A salutary warning to today’s politicians and pundits. Even the recent past is too slippery to be invoked convincingly by either side in the referendum debate. Nineteenth-century Scots constructed a national mythology in which the ecclesiastical trumped the political, and where unionism and nationalism were complacently conjoined.

• Contents, Acknowledgements, Introduction: The Valley CemeteryChapter 1: Nationality, Memory and CommemorationChapter 2: Scottish Nationality in the Nineteenth CenturyChapter 3: ‘Not Servile and Conquered, but Free and Independent’: Commemorating William Wallace and Robert the BruceChapter 4: ‘The Highest Position in the Civilised World’: Commemorating John Knox and the Second ReformationChapter 5:‘If They Were Rebels Then, We Are Rebels Now’: Commemorating the Covenanters and the Glorious RevolutionChapter 6: ‘By the imprudence of his ancestors’: Commemorating Jacobitism and Mary Queen of ScotsChapter 7: ‘Staunch Loyalty to the Flag that Stands for Union’Bibliography

James Coleman is a freelance historian, he is currently based at the University of Glasgow.

A salutary warning to today’s politicians and pundits. Even the recent past is too slippery to be invoked convincingly by either side in the referendum debate. Nineteenth-century Scots constructed a national mythology in which the ecclesiastical trumped the political, and where unionism and nationalism were complacently conjoined.

• Contents, Acknowledgements, Introduction: The Valley CemeteryChapter 1: Nationality, Memory and CommemorationChapter 2: Scottish Nationality in the Nineteenth CenturyChapter 3: ‘Not Servile and Conquered, but Free and Independent’: Commemorating William Wallace and Robert the BruceChapter 4: ‘The Highest Position in the Civilised World’: Commemorating John Knox and the Second ReformationChapter 5:‘If They Were Rebels Then, We Are Rebels Now’: Commemorating the Covenanters and the Glorious RevolutionChapter 6: ‘By the imprudence of his ancestors’: Commemorating Jacobitism and Mary Queen of ScotsChapter 7: ‘Staunch Loyalty to the Flag that Stands for Union’Bibliography