I’m showing the back cover of the second book, because the front cover tells you nothing about the subject. The front cover shows the title and that famous Röchling painting of Frederick carrying a colour at Zorndorf.
I knew the basic outlines of Keith’s life, but no detail. Before getting into the life story of James Keith, the book gives a brief history of the Keith family and their position as Earls Marishal of Scotland, equivalent to the Howard’s role as Earls Marshal (and Dukes of Norfolk) in England. Interestingly, the family were Covenanters during the Bishops and First Civil War, supporters of Charles II during the Second Civil War and Jacobites after the overthrow of James II (despite being Protestant). The other little snippet that I found surprising was that they were speakers of the Doric dialect of Scots* and not Gaelic.
That’s about as far as I’ve got for now. The other book caught my eye, covering the road less traveled in the historiography of the Seven Years War in English. The Reichsarmee is usually known as being the punchbag of the Battle of Rossbach. Then it barely makes an appearance again until 1762 when it turns up to be beaten by Old Fritz’s brother at Freiberg. So two books to fill some gaps. What’s not to like.
* Confession time. Until recently, I didn’t really appreciate that Scots was a distinct language, rather than a dialect of English. The great thing about this is that as an English speaker it’s one foreign language that I could readily learn!
Funnily enough I was just reading about the Keith's in Duffy's 'Fight for the Throne' about the '45. Didn't know about that Scots was a distinct language, so nice to learn something new:)!
ReplyDeleteYou know, and may the Lord forgive me for this, his writings on the '45 are one area of Duffy's work that I haven't been able to get on with.
DeleteThis is the updated version of an earlier work and so far plenty of interesting snippets, but it doesn't have the same feel of his SYW books, where his love of the period shines through. I enjoyed Reid's Military History of the '45, which is great for prepping the period, whilst this book fills in lots of the background fluff that Reid didn't cover. Still early days though...
DeleteVery interesting pair of books, I did vaguely know that about Scots but only vaguely!
ReplyDeleteBest Iain
I would have argued it was a dialect of English until I saw a 'thing' recently that explained it had a separate development with different influences once the Kingdom's of England and Scotland emerged and the Northern bit of Northumbria had broken off the rest.
DeleteAs a Scot myself, I am not sure Scots as a language is really totally separate from English. It would/might have been, IF there had been no union of the crowns in 1603 then a Union of the Parliaments in 1707 - but those two events thrust the countries together and the separate development of "Scots" (that might have made it a distinct language, as Dutch is similar but different to German - or Spanish/Italian) ceased. From then, it really is just a dialect of English, I think. If you go further back and look at the language in The Testament of Cresseid a poem by 15th-century Scottish poet Robert Henryson and contrast it with the language in Troilus and Criseyde by Geoffrey Chaucer, you can see how the two languages might have completely separated.
ReplyDeleteThere is a very good (but quite dated) TV series on YouTube called The Story of English that covers all this in an episode called "The Guid Scots Tongue" - the presenter is, I believe, a Canadian (probably dead now, as it's from the 70's and he looked late 50's or 60's then!)
Interesting comment Keith. I’ll look up that programme. Dutch/German is a good analogy. Or Danish/Norwegian/Swedish levels of mutual intelligibility. I’d say Scots is pretty intelligible to native (but non-Scots) English speakers but there’s lots to baffle us Sassenachs. There are still many different words and some grammatical differences in Scots as opposed to Scottish dialects of Standard English. Not just Rab C Nesbit levels of difference.
DeleteAnyway, my vote for it being a separate language is really because it gives me a better chance of being fluent in another language.
Chris