segunda-feira, 10 de dezembro de 2007

Scotland


The written history of Scotland starts, in general lines, with the occupation of the south and the center of Great-Britain by the Roman Empire, that is equivalent to England and the Country of Wales. The north of the island, known as Caledonia and inhabited by the pictos, was not conquered by the Romans. According to tradition, the Kingdom of the Scots was established in 843, when Kenneth I became king of the pictos and the escotos. The Norman conquest of England in the 1066 and ascension to the throne of Davi I allowed the introduction of feudalism in Scotland and a bigger commercial relationship with Europe. By the end of XIII century, diverse Norman and Anglo-Saxon families had received lands scothlans . The first session of the Scottish Parliament was carried through in that period. A dispute for the throne allowed that Eduardo I of England tried to crown a puppet as king of Scotland. The Scottish resistance, led by William Wallace and Andrew de Moray and, later, by Robert Bruce, led him to the trone in March 1306 . In 1603, King James VI of Scotland inherited the English throne and became James I of England. Scotland continued to be a separate State, except during the Protectorate of Cromwell. In 1707, after English threats to interrupt the commerce and the free circulation in the common border, the Parliaments of the Scotland and England promulgated the Acts of Union that created the Joined Kingdom of Great-Britain. After that Scotland became one of the commercial, intellectual and industrial powers of Europe. Its industrial decay after the Second World War I was serious, but more recently the country has lived a cultural and economic renaissance, particulary in the areas of financial services, electronics and oil. By means of the Scotland British Act of 1998, the Scottish Parliament was reopened.