Hello All,

I want to wish you a Happy October, 2010. The really hot days of summer are behind us and we are back to our regular meetings again. We have been getting a nice steady flow of new members from the web site and we have been very blessed to find Jason Temple to serve as our Games Chairperson, and Myron Thiessen to serve as Co-Chair of Facilities. Dr. Otis White and his wife Barbara have joined the Society and he is already busy working on Fund-raising and doing the review of our long over due Policies and Procedures Manual. We have a couple of young families who have joined also and are busy finding areas where they can best serve. We are trying to keep the meetings short and spend more of our time on programs that teach us interesting facts about our heritage, and of course time to snack and visit!

The Games Committee is up and running at full speed to get the Games put on “one more time”! October 1st we will be opening the POD to survey the damage done to our stored materials. This will let us know how much repair or replace work we have facing us. Jackie is very busy finding new Sponsors for us and of course talking with our long time friends about this year’s commitments. Jason is working to get a feel for the various areas and what their needs are for the up-coming Games.

There are lots of things going on in the Society as well. The Board took a hard look at the price of Scottsdale Senior Center rent and the fact that it is due to go up (noticeably) in January of 2012. After some discussion they voted to move to the Irish Cultural Center starting in January of 2011, for half of the current rent. We felt this was better stewardship of our money and the more centralized location will even up the driving distance for some of our members. Karen Murdock, President of the Westside Scots has graciously extended an invitation to us to come over and join them for their Robert Burns Dinner on January 24, 2011. Thank you Karen, we are pleased to be invited and will let you know if we need reservations and how many. Sue Wallace will be letting us know of our own plans for our Robert Burns Dinner at the October meeting.

Please remember that October is our big Annual Business Meeting and there will be items that need to be voted on - so please make an effort to come out and join us for this important review of the past year and the votes for up-coming changes. It will be October 14, 2010 at 6:45pm in the Scottsdale Senior Center, 1700 N. Granite Reef Road. I look forward to seeing everyone.
 
Jean Latimer, President
 

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A Bowl of Porridge

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In Scotland no self-respecting breakfast would begin without a bowl of steaming, nourishing porridge. “The haesome parritch, Chief of Scotia’s food,” as Robbie Burns called it has a fascinating tradition. The celebrated Scottish porridge developed over the years from a basic gruel, made originally with barley meal, and then more often with oatmeal, into a creation with a personality of its own. The word porridge is now associated with oatmeal.

As the Scots say, all you need for perfect porridge, besides the oatmeal, is some fresh spring water, a little salt, and some Scottish hill or sea air. Porridge was once called stirabout, because it was stirred in a clockwise or “sunwise” direction with the right hand. Scots believed that the routine ensured good luck. Traditionally, porridge was eaten while standing. It used to be bad manners in Scotland to sit down to eat porridge. Perhaps the custom dates back to the days of feuding clansmen when it was advisable to have one’s back to the wall.

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MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS AND THE QUEEN’S FOUR MARYS
Part II
 
Thomas Randolph, the English Ambassador may have made the life of Queen Mary and her four companions seem idyllic when he reported to Queen Elizabeth I. He made Holyrood seem like a 16th-century version of an upmarket holiday camp, but in fact many little economies were practiced in court. Tapers and coal were strictly rationed and each of the Queen’s ladies were allocated provisioning for only one horse and one hound.

In addition, the royal diet was quite a simple one although dinners were ample. A table of eight would be offered a choice o four soups, followed--on meat days--by a piece of boiled beef, a loin of mutton, and a boiled capon. Some days fish took the place of meat and included shellfish. Desert offered a choice of seven dishes of fruit and “chicory paste.” The supper menu was similar and the ladies drank white wine and claret. Meals were shared by their lap dogs, whose purpose in 16th-century society was to attract fleas which otherwise would have settled on the dogs’ owners.
Each of the Marys had a personal bodyguard--a burly manservant. These dined with the Usher of the Ladies, the court perfumer and the passementier, a man whose unusual job was that of making and repairing the stiffly embroidered borders of their dresses. At another table sat the junior maids of honor, including the younger sister of Mary Beton and Mary Livingstone, and their governess.

The absence of pastry at the top table was unusual, but the Queen could not have eaten a hearty meal even if she had wanted to--she habitually wore steel corsets that gripped her incredibly slender 15-inch waist. In addition to her extreme slimness, she was remarkably tall even by today’s standards, reaching six feet in height.

Ambassador Randolph had been commissioned to persuade the Queen of Scots to accept a suitor of Elizabeth’s choice--Sir Robert Dudley perhaps or the Earl of Leicester. But his recommendations of these gentlemen had no effect, even when he asked Mary Stuart to take pity on her four Marys who would not take husbands until she did.

The Queen had no wish that any of her Marys should remain single for her sake, and gladly gave her blessing to the marriage of Mary Livingstone to Lord John Sempill. They had been betrothed to one another as children and were married on March 5, 1565. By now the Queen and her other Marys were in their early twenties, but none of them showed any signs of following Livingstone down the aisle.

Mary Fleming’s suitors were men suspected of spying for the English: Sir Henry Sidney, Sir Henry Killigrew and Sir William Maitland. Thomas Randolph, the English ambassador had courted Mary Beton. The Queen herself had fallen in love with her cousin, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley--nicknamed “the lang lad” because he was even taller than she--which may well have been one of the reasons she was attracted to him. To please their suitors, Randolph and Maitland, Mary Beton and Mary Fleming tried to coax their royal mistress to accept Elizabeth’s choice of husband and reject the advances of Darnley. But this only made Mary Stuart the more determined to have him. Despite all opposition, Mary Stuart married Henry, Duke of Darnley, in 1566. But Mary’s decision to have her new husband proclaimed king could not have been more unpopular. A stony silence followed the proclamation, with only one solitary voice, that of Darnley’s father, shouting defiantly “God save his Grace.”

Having abandoned his courtship of Mary Beton, Randolph remarked that “the three Marys remain unmarried.” But better late than never Mary Beton finally married Alexander Ogilvey of Boyne and Mary Fleming became the second wife of widower Sir William Maitland. Mary Stuart’s marriage to Darnley lasted just long enough for her to conceive and bear a son, James in 1566. She had quickly become disenchanted with Darnley and infatuated with James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell. Darnley died under suspicious circumstances, and in 1567 the Queen of Scots married Bothwell.

In 1568 Mary’s army was defeated at Langside, Glasgow by the forces of the Scottish Protestant Reformers. Bothwell was taken prisoner and suffered life imprisonment. Mary fled to England, hoping for refuge from Elizabeth, but instead she, too, was imprisoned for almost 20 years. The faithful Mary Seton was imprisoned with the Queen, by her own choice,, but her health declined so much that she was finally convinced by her royal mistress to enter a Flemish convent.

So none of the Queen’s Marys were with her when she walked to her death on the block at Fotheringay Castle on a February morning in 1587.
 

Richard Thornton
5447 W. Greenbriar Dr.
Glendale, AZ 85308
Telephone 602-298-1400
Clan: Bruce/ Douglas
email: RWThornton@cox.net
 
Otis & Barbara White
8825 S. 13th Way
Phoenix, AZ 85042
480-363-0776
email: otis.white@asu.edu
Clan: MacPherson/Lamont
 
Jason Temple
20259 N. 56th Dr.
Glendale, AZ 85308
602-920-5445
email: Celticbuilders@gmail.com

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Glenda King
Peoria Mobil Estates
6942 W. Olive Ave. #119
Peoria, AZ 85345
Tel: 602-818-3384

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The Caledonian Society of Arizona
General Meeting Minutes

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