The Caledonian Society of Arizona

As we come back together, after two months off, it is time to start talking about the Games again. During our time off we have been busy getting a few things done. The application for use of Steele Indian School Park has been submitted and accepted. Leslie Grant resigned as Games Chair and we have found a new Games Chair. He is Jason Temple and he comes to us from Prescott, where he was Games Chair for five years. His business caused him to move to the valley and he now resides in Glendale. We have also gotten several other offers to help with the Games from new applicants off our web site. Things are looking up and we are very excited about the plans for our future.

I look forward to seeing you in September at our General Meeting on the 9th of September in the Scottsdale Senior Center on Granite Reef Road. The meeting starts at 6:30pm. Please come and join us.

Jean Latimer

Fall Kickoff Meeting

September 9
6:30pm
Scottsdale Senior Center

Join us for our first
meeting of the Fall.

MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS AND THE QUEEN’S FOUR MARYS
Part I

Born in 1542, Scotland’s Mary Stuart still holds the record for being the youngest queen ever. Before the baby was a week old, she was formally proclaimed Queen of Scots.

For her own safety, she was sent to France where she was to marry Francis, the Dauphin, and thereby firmly establish ‘the Auld Alliance’ between France and Scotland. There, the “Reinette” (little queen) excited a great deal of interest and admiration, and few royals could have experienced as idyllic a childhood as that enjoyed by Mary Stuart. To ensure she was never bored or lonely, she had the company of four other little girls of her own age as playmates.

The famous four were Mary Beton, Mary Seton, Mary Livingstone and Mary Fleming. These little girls romped with the little Queen of Scots at the French Court where the accent was on pleasure. There was no lack of ponies, pets, toys and trinkets; ponds were stocked with goldfish and swings were placed under selected trees for their enjoyment. They shared their lessons--and confidences, too, as they entered their teen years and acquired courtly admirers.

The wedding of Francis, Dauphin of France, and Mary, Queen of Scots, was a glittering occasion, with the bride’s four Marys in attendance. But Francis was not destined to enjoy married life for long. Mary was widowed at 18 and returned to Scotland accompanied by her hour constant companions who shared her name. If they had been quintuplets they could hardly have been closer.

In Scotland, too, the young Queen’s “demoiselles d’honneur” always rode beside her. All were athletic girls and much preferred being on horseback to traveling in a carriage, even in wet weather when a velvet canopy was held above their heads by 16 horsemen to protect their coiffures!

Each girl had her own fans in the crowd, with some preferring “lovely Livingstone” and others “bonnie Beaton.” Mary Fleming was the girl who most closely resembled the Queen, and indeed could have passed for her sister, while sweet Mary Seton was perhaps the most sedate of the four the “quiet one” of the group.

The Queen and her Marys rode races on the sands at Leith, went hunting and played golf which was already popular in Scotland.

Mary Stuart could beat her ladies at most sports, but when it came to archery contests, Mary Livingstone was unsurpassed. Lovely Livingstone’s arrows never failed to hit their mark, while those of the others tended to fall so wide everyone learned to keep well out of range.

On dreary days they turned to games of chess, cards or billiards, at which Mary Beton was very skillful. They were seldom to be found at their tapestry or embroidery frames unless they lightened their labors by competing to see who could finish an ambitious piece of work, such as a bead embroidered panel, first. The Queen kept her fine sewing for the sessions of the Scottish Parliament she was obliged to attend because having her hands occupied helped to prevent her from yawning.

Almost every merry, laughter-filled day was founded off nicely by a ball at Holyrood Palace where the nine-piece orchestra included the Rizzio brothers, Guiseppe and ill-starred David, who later became the Queen’s secretary and confidante. There were also musicians, songstresses and jesters.

“Joy, mirth, marvelous sights and great show and singular devices, nothing left undone that might either fill the bellies, feed the eyes, or content the mind,” is how Thomas Randolph, the English ambassador, described the Holyrood scene when writing home to his queen, Elizabeth I.

Oh ye’ll tak the high road
An’ I’ll tak the low road,
An’ I’ll be in Scotland afore ye,
But me and my true love will never meet again
On the bonnie bonnie bank o’ Loch Lomond.

These are the lyrics of the chorus of one of Scotland’s best known and loved ballads. The final two lines are more or less self-explanatory in that the storyteller will never again meet his true love by the shores of Loch Lomond. But what of the first two lines?

A myth revolves around an old Celtic doctrine that when a Scot dies wile in a foreign land, his spirit will return to the land of his birth via “the old road.”

It was during the 1745 Jacobite uprising, so the story goes, that some of Prince Charlie’s followers were taken prisoner in Carlisle, just short of the Scottish border. After a trial it was decided that one Scot was to be released while his colleague was to be executed. So it meant the condemned man would return to Scotland via the low road of death and arrive at Loch Lomond before his liberated companion who would have to take the earthly high road.

Some of you may have wondered about the meaning of the Flowers of the Forest when you read it in the minutes or when we list the death of a member or friend. The tradition of Flowers of the Forest has a touching background. In September 9, 1513 at the close of the Battle of Flodden, there lay dead “the flower of Scotland,” King James IV, an Archbishop, two Bishops, scores of noblemen and a great loss of the common man. Flodden was one of the battle disasters of Scottish history.

It is a Scottish tradition that following any battle, a piper is asked to compose a lament. Now all over the world, in times of mourning, the pipes recall the lament composed at the Battle of Flodden, The Flowers of the Forest

The Caledonian Society of Arizona
General Meeting Minutes

Due to hiatus, September minutes to come in October.
See archives for previous minutes.

The longest river in Scotland is the River Tay, famous for its salmon fishing. It runs for 117 miles.

Next comes the River Spey, which flows rapidly for 110 miles.
The River Clyde flows from Leadhills to the Firth of Clyde for a distance of 106 miles.

The Tweed, in the Scottish Borders has a course of 96 miles and the Dee, in the northeast runs for 90 miles emptying into the North Sea at Aberdeen.

The River Forth, flowing into the Firth of that name, has a length of 66 miles.

The River Clyde flows from Leadhills to the Firth of Clyde for a distance of 106 miles.

The Tweed, in the Scottish Borders has a course of 96 miles and the Dee, in the northeast runs for 90 miles emptying into the North Sea at Aberdeen.

The River Forth, flowing into the Firth of that name, has a length of 66 miles.