William Oddie: CatholicHerald.co.uk I begin with a Ricardian footnote to the Scottish referendum, which is taking place this year, some say, because Alex Salmond was seized by the notion that that by causing it to happen near the 710th anniversary of the Scottish victory at Bannockburn (1314) he would stoke up the anti-English triumphalism of his followers. Who knows?
But if historical triumphalism is the name of the game, it may perhaps be permitted to an Englishman who thinks that Richard III was not the villain depicted by Tudor propaganda to remark that it was Richard who as Duke of Gloucester definitively recaptured Berwick upon Tweed (on 24 August 1482): it was the last time that the Royal Burgh changed hands between the two realms. So we English (and the Royal Burghers in particular) have that at least to thank him for. Read more here.
