Corbie

Principalior burgas regni nostri | "the principal burgh of our kingdom"

Piano Keys Lake, 1905, Frantisek Kupka

Medium: oil,canvas

Scotland Forever! By Lady Butler. 1881.

The glorious charge made by the Scots Greys at the Battle of Waterloo on the 18th of June, 1815. Known widely as the Scots Greys the Regiment was actually titled at this time 2nd Dragoons (Royal British North Dragoons) and it wasn’t officially known as the Royal Scots Greys until the late 19th Century.

Interestingly too modern evidence suggests that the state of the ground on the 18th meant the Greys did not charge at a gallop and instead attacked at more of a trot. Though I must confess I need to read into this.

That being said, whatever the speed the charge it proved a success and along with the rest of the Union Brigade and the Household Brigade the charging British cavalry removed the French 45th Line Regiment from the fight.

After the famous charge the Greys would see itself used in a further four charges and by the end of the day just 1 in 16 of the men could still be fielded. In all 102 men of the Greys were killed and 98 wounded out of the 391 that began the day of the 18th of June.

The painting by Lady Butler can be seen in the Leeds Art Gallery in the UK.

A conversation held sometime prior to 1922

     “Do ye remember the night that mother died?”

Scotland doesn’t know where the question comes from. Maybe a little of it’s the way the nearby firelight flickers on the auburn fox-fur of Ireland’s hair: her inheritance from their mother. Maybe a little bit more of it’s the wind wailing and moaning outside the walls of their home, rattling at the window panes.

Probably a lot of it is the bottle of good old single malt Scotch that he and his sister have diligently ploughed their way through since suppertime, the last dregs of which Scotland has just tipped into his tumbler.

December, 1865 The imperial house, rural England, in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

“Twinkle, twinkle, little bat! How I wonder what you’re at! Up above the world you fly, Like a teatray in the sky.”

“Bats don’t twinkle,” New South Wales says mutinously, and Scotland has to close his eyes and silently count to ten (because praying to God for strength hasn’t worked thus far). It’s New South Wales’ fifteenth objection to Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland since Scotland had picked up the book to read to the assorted bairns in the house around chapter 3.

Scotland hates raking up fucking leaves. It’s a Sisyphean task that has to be done if he doesn’t want his back garden to turn into a swampland of rotting mulch and have the nixies swarming him to bite his fingers and ears because they’re pissed about the state of their home, but, as much as he rakes outside - in the cold, and the wet, and with his dripping nose red enough it might as well go as a stop light for Halloween -, the bleeding leaves just keep on falling.

England hanging around the back and watching like the world’s most useless garden gnome (Scotland can’t even get away with kicking this one) doesn’t help either. “I’m sure there’s a saying. ‘Raking the garden when the leaves are still falling is like cleaning the house whilst the kids are still growing’?”

Seascape, 1904, Joaquín Sorolla

On the sands at Zarauz beach, 1910, Joaquín Sorolla