Scotland
in the
heat
The Scottish Review is on holiday for a week over Easter. The magazine will resume normal publication on Tuesday 17 April. SR’s average weekly readership in the first quarter of this year was 17,446 compared with 13,326 in the corresponding quarter of last year.
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Eriskay
Photograph by
Islay McLeod
Such is the power of art,
I look at a picture
and think ‘If only’
Barney MacFarlane
The real Battle of the Boyne actually took place on 1 July, but that’s a minor blip in the scheme of things. And poor King James – he might not have had to spend his final days in the Parisian ‘burbs confined to a but-an’-ben by the quaint name of Chateau de Saint-Germain-en-Laye.
And even if James II had still cut and run in 1688, eventually deploying a 6,000-strong invasion force from France in his desperate bid to regain his throne, there would have been no King William III (in Scotland just II, of course) to meet him at the Boyne on that year of 1690, a date so ingrained into the psyche of a certain class of Scots and Irish.
There would have been no siege of Londonderry a year earlier, during which 13 apprentices might ‘guard old Derry’s walls’ against a band of raw recruits led by James and a division of Scots Catholics heading for the besieged city.
There would therefore have been no order from James to the apprentice boys to ‘Surrender or you’ll die’ at the locked city gates, and subsequently the bitter and acrimonious phrase ‘No surrender’ would have been excluded from the lips of many an Ulsterman. Why, we might never even have heard of one Reverend Ian Paisley.
There would exist no Billy Boys or Orange Order to name themselves after a Dutchman who would be king. No marches on 12 July to commemorate a battle that never was. No proliferation of empty lager cans to litter Glasgow Green and Queen’s Park by way of celebrating a series of events whose facts are not ones to tax the brains of the bulk of said marchers.
The real Battle of the Boyne actually took place on 1 July, but that’s a minor blip in the scheme of things. And poor King James – he might not have had to spend his final days in the Parisian ‘burbs confined to a but-an’-ben by the quaint name of Chateau de Saint-Germain-en-Laye. What, too, of van de Welde? The artist, who became known as the father of British marine painting, went on to live until 1707, another memorable year in UK history.
Yet if the ‘Honeymoon Voyage’ had indeed foundered, van de Welde the Younger would never have completed the picture. His father, the journeyman technician, sailed with the royal party, making sketches for his son to utilise on his return.
So there would have been one fewer great painting to view at the current Tate exhibition. Which is perhaps quite fitting: the ‘Honeymoon Voyage’ picture is, in a broader sense, an illusion, the craft of official spin, showing off the might of the British empire, just as another gifted chap from the low countries, Sir Anthony Van Dyck, had done for Charles I, sire of Charles II and James II, many years earlier. One might think that James would have had reservations about all that divine right of kings guff after papa’s fate.
All rather a big ‘if’, of course. But as certain sections of society bray for cuts in funding to arts projects during these financially straitened times, it should be remembered that the ideas contained within the power of art are endless. Oh, and keeping an eye on the weather for the bigger picture is a must too, of course.
Barney MacFarlane is a former journalist, now involved in PR
and freelance editing
The Scottish Review is on holiday for a week over Easter. The magazine will resume normal publication on Tuesday 17 April.
