Scotland - 2008 Trip Summary

Here is an outline of Scottish history, and is very similar to the one we used for a Scotland Reformation presentation we did at our church with pictures from the Scotland Faith and Freedom Tour.



1. The British Museum - The Meaning of History

2. Kilmartin Cairn, 1500BC-200AD – Danger from within and without - A Contrast and a Warning

3. Iona, 520AD-800AD – The Power of the Gospel reaching the entire world and the Perpetuity of the Church

4. Urquhart/Loch Ness, 540AD – Crossroads of History - visited by Columba who founded Iona, attacked by one of Wallace's generals, and by a Jacobite force.

5. Edinburgh Castle / Margaret's Chapel 1100AD – Contrasts with Popery

6. William Wallace, 1250-1305AD – The Importance of Jurisdiction. The English can not rule Scotland, they are a separate jurisdiction.

7. Robert Bruce, Battle of Bannockburn, Declaration of Arborath, (Reign 1306-1329) – Precursor to the American Revolution

8. Highland Games established in Ceres to commemorate the battle of Bannockburn, 1315

9. St. Andrews, (Scottish Reformation) 1528-1547 – The blood of the martyrs

10. John Knox, 1510-1572 – Fearing no man, fearing God alone

11. Covenants, 1620-1660 – God’s people banding together

12. Covenanters, 1660-1688 – “There’s nae joukin in the cause of Christ” - James Guthrie

13. Puritans and Jacobites, 1688-1788 - Examples of Righteous and Unrighteous Rebellion

14. Livingston, 1813-1873 – Worked for Evangelism, Exploration and Emancipation

15. Spurgeon, 1832-1892 – The power of preaching

16. What this all means – we must spend and be spent for the bride of Christ

Alba Gu Bra,

Joshua Horn

Charlie Zahm in Scotland

When we first signed up for the Faith and Freedom Tour, we thought that the only way that the trip could be better would be that Charlie Zahm would come as our balladeer. When we went to the 200 Year Plan conference, Mr. Phillips told us that they had arranged for Mr. Zahm to come! We were really excited. We ordered another CD (Scotland's Heroes) from him to prepare for the trip.

Charlie Zahm mostly sings Scottish, American and Irish folk songs. We first heard him at the National Constitution Party convention in 2004, but when we really learned about him was on the Faith and Freedom Tour in Philadelphia. We also heard him at the Jamestown Quadricentenial Celebration, where we bought a CD.

It was wonderful to hear Mr. Zahm sing Scots Wae Hae at Stirling Castle, Will ye no come back again? at Culloden, and Scotland the Brave at the closing dinner. He did three concerts during the trip, and at many stops along the way.


Here is Mr. Zahm singing Scots Wae Hae at Stirling Castle. Mommy and Rachel and in the background.

'Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled,

Scots, wham Bruce has aften led,

Welcome tae your gory bed,

Or tae Victorie!

'Now's the day, and now's the hour:

See the front o' battle lour,

See approach proud Edward's power -

Chains and Slaverie!

'Wha will be a traitor knave?

Wha will fill a coward's grave?

Wha sae base as be a slave?

Let him turn and flee!

'Wha, for Scotland's king and law,

Freedom's sword will strongly draw,

Freeman stand, or Freeman fa',

Let him on wi' me!

'By Oppression's woes and pains!

By your sons in servile chains!

We will drain our dearest veins,

But they shall be free!

'Lay the proud usurpers low!

Tyrants fall in every foe!

Liberty's in every blow! -

Let us do or dee!'

If you enjoyed this, you might want to visit his website, http://www.charliezahm.com/ where you can order CDs, and listen to samples.

Scotland - Day 8

One more thing happened for the last day's post. At night we tried to view the videos of the speeches that Daddy and I had done. And then we found out that we got mixed up as to what as stop and what was go on the video camera (who would have thought red means "on" and green means "pause")! All we had was videos of the floors of castles. So we decided to go back to the places that we had messed up. So on the eighth day Daddy and I went back to Stirling Castle to film and Rachel, Stephen and Mommy went to a house near by, Argyl's Lodging. It was built for a nobleman and is within walking distance from the castle. We filmed and then came to meet up with the rest of them. Then we walked past the Church of the Holy Rude, where it was snowing a little bit, to the Old Town Jail. You can see some snowflakes in the picture of the church tower.
The Old Town Jail was built about 150 years ago. Here is a picture of the door to a cell:
This is Daddy in the office of the head of the prison:
There was a machine for the prisoners to use called the crank that they put sand in for the prisoners to do meaningless work. Here is Stephen using it without sand:
They gave us audio tours to listen to. They had them at most of the places we visited. Then we left and walked while Daddy went to get the car. We saw this statue of Rob Roy MacGregor:
Then we went to Bannockburn, the site of another battle. We went to the visitor center. Here are some pictures:
That is supposed to be William Wallace.
Stephen trying on a helmet.
That is the statue of Bruce on the battlefield.

This is what the statue says:

"For God and St. Andrew Robert Bruce King of Scots Planted his Standard Near this Spot When the Scottish patriots under his command vanquished the Army of Edward II of England at the Battle of Bannockburn 24th June 1314"

The quote below is from a covenant that the Scots signed later in 1320 called the Declaration of Arbroath Abbey. It says

"For as long as a hundred of us remain, we will yield in no least way the in English dominion. We fight not for glory, nor for wealth, nor for honor, but for freedom, for that and that alone, which no honest man surrenders but with his life."

The Battle of Bannockburn occurred on June 23 and 24, 1314. It was between Robert Bruce of Scotland and Edward II of England. The Scots had about 8000 men and the English 20,000 trained soldiers. There was a small battle the first day, and then the second day they Scots moved out to attack the English, who were still in their camp.

When the Scots knelt in prayer Edward said, "They pray for mercy!" "For mercy, yes," one of his attendants replied, "But from God, not you. These men will conquer or die."
The Scots ended up destroying the English army, which resulted in Scotland claiming it's independence.

While we were video taping, the camera battery died, so we had to come back the next day.
Then we went to Castle Campbell in Dollar Glen and took a hike because the castle was closed until spring. My feet got tired because it was a very long trail. Here is a picture of Castle Campbell. We hiked up to it, and then down the stream which is in the left side of the picture, then to the bottom of the Glen, and then back up the right side.

Scotland - Day 5

On March 13 we got up and drove to Stirling, a town in the middle of Scotland. There was still very much snow on the ground, so there were not many people there. I enjoyed this a lot. Here is a picture of the front of the castle, from the parking lot. We took this picture when we came back later in the week when the snow had melted.
To the right, out of this picture this is a statue of Robert the Bruce. Robert the Bruce was one of the very famous early kings of Scotland. He was made king after William Wallace died, who I will talk about in a little bit. Here is the statue in the snow looking over the town of Stirling:

Bruce and his father were on the side of the English at the beginning of the war, but they switched when the Scots won. When he decided to finally be on the Scot's side, he was continually being beaten in the battles. He tried seven times to drive out the English and free the Scots, and seven times he was defeated. When he was in hiding in a cave, he watched a spider on the wall trying to spin a web. It tried seven times, and the eighth time is succeeded. Therefore he was encouraged to try again and he succeeded. This is one of my favorite pictures from the trip. It was taken a few days after the previous one:
Here are some pictures from inside the castle:
First a picture of me in front of the Forework built for King James IV in the years around 1500. This is from the first time we went there:
Some guns on the Grand Battery, which is part of the Outer Close which is one of the two main courtyards.There where statues of Kings on the wall of the palace which was built for James V and was started in 1538.
During one of the sieges of the castle, some of the statues were knocked out of place:

We video-taped (or thought we did, more on that later) one of the speeches I did to our family on Scottish history. Here are a few good scenic pictures we took at various times from there:

After spending 4 hours there, we went to Wallace Monument, a monument to the Scottish hero William Wallace. When we got there, they were not selling tickets at the bottom of the hill, because the walkway was icey and slippery, and many people were turning back before they got to the top, but the Horns pressed onward and upward.

At the tower there were three levels.
There was a room about William Wallace's history. They had Wallace's sword in a case:
There was a room of Scottish heroes, and one about building the monument. When you climbed 220 feet and 246 steps you reached the crown, or top. It was very cold and windy there since it was sleeting, snowing, and freezing rain. I got really cold when I did my speech on the battle of Stirling Bridge out there.

Stirling Bridge was Sir William Wallace's first large engagement with the English. He had fought in several small battles, one of which we visited later. The English held Stirling Castle and Wallace was on Abbey Craig, the place where the Wallace monument now stands. The English decided to attack the Scots over a narrow bridge. Here is a picture of the battleground: (the old bridge is right next to the new bridge, which is in the middle of the picture).

Wallace waited until some of the English went over the bridge, and then attacked. He drove them into the loop of the river and destroyed them. The other English which had not crossed retreated back to England. This was one of my favorite battles. I enjoyed this day of our Scotland vacation.