NÚRIA POPPINS VISITS THE HIGHLANDS IN SCOTLAND

William Wallace, Braveheart, in the Highlands

Núria Poppins is in the Highlands enjoying the Scottish hospitality. Núria is visiting this mysterious and enchanted nation to improve her job. Núria, as a good bagpiper, has gone to the Celtic country to learn new chords and songs and to be a better musician.

Núria has met one of her heroes: William Wallace, aka Braveheart, the Scottish knight who became one of the main leaders during the Wars of Scottish Independence.

More information: Scottish Government-Riaghaltas na h-Alba

Scotland, in Scottish Gaelic: Alba is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and covers the northern third of the island of Great Britain. It shares a border with England to the south, and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the North Sea to the east and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the south-west. In addition to the mainland, the country is made up of more than 790 islands, including the Northern Isles and the Hebrides.  

Flag of Scotland

Edinburgh, the country's capital and second-largest city, was the hub of the Scottish Enlightenment of the 18th century, which transformed Scotland into one of the commercial, intellectual, and industrial powerhouses of Europe. Glasgow, Scotland's largest city was once one of the world's leading industrial cities and now lies at the centre of the Greater Glasgow conurbation. Scottish waters consist of a large sector of the North Atlantic and the North Sea, containing the largest oil reserves in the European Union. This has given Aberdeen, the third-largest city in Scotland, the title of Europe's oil capital.

More information: The Official Gateway to Scotland

William Wallace

The Kingdom of Scotland emerged as an independent sovereign state in the Early Middle Ages and continued to exist until 1707. By inheritance in 1603, James VI, King of Scots, became King of England and King of Ireland, thus forming a personal union of the three kingdoms. Scotland subsequently entered into a political union with the Kingdom of England on 1 May 1707 to create the new Kingdom of Great Britain. (The Treaty of Union was agreed in 1706 and enacted by the twin Acts of Union 1707, passed by the Parliaments of both kingdoms, despite popular opposition and anti-union riots in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and elsewhere). 

The union also created a new Parliament of Great Britain, which succeeded both the Parliament of Scotland and the Parliament of England. In 1801, Great Britain itself entered into a political union with the Kingdom of Ireland to create the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland; the Parliament of Ireland merging with that of Great Britain to form the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Since the creation of the Irish Free State in 1922, the United Kingdom has comprised Great Britain and Northern Ireland. 

More information: Visit Scotland

Scotland comes from Scoti, the Latin name for the Gaels. The Late Latin word Scotia land of the Gaels was initially used to refer to Ireland. By the 11th century at the latest, Scotia was being used to refer to (Gaelic-speaking) Scotland north of the river Forth, alongside Albania or Albany, both derived from the Gaelic Alba. The use of the words Scots and Scotland to encompass all of what is now Scotland became common in the Late Middle Ages.

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I'm William Wallace, and the rest of you will be spared.

Go back to England and tell them... Scotland is free!

William Wallace