Edinburgh is the home town of the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Tony Blair, who was born in the city and attended Fettes College ; Robin Harper the co-convener of the Scottish Green Party ; and John Witherspoon, the only clergyman to sign the United States Declaration of Independence, and later president of Princeton University.

* 1666 – At least 3000 men of the Scottish Royal Army led by Tam Dalyell of the Binns defeat about 900 Covenanter rebels in the Battle of Rullion Green.

Between 2007 and 2011, the Scottish Green Party supported the appointment of the SNP government under an agreement which also specified areas of common policy and gave the Greens input to the budget process and convenorship of the parliamentary committee on transport, infrastructure and climate change.

On Tristan da Cunha the population of 264 people share just seven surnames: Glass ( Scottish ), Green ( Dutch ), Hagan ( Irish ), Lavarello ( Italian, a typical Ligurian surname ), Repetto ( Italian, another typical Ligurian surname ), Rogers ( English ) and Swain ( English ).

* Scottish Green Party

The line runs from the 9th Green of the " Ike " Course and 18th Green of the " Babe " Course to the St Andrews Station, a replica of a Scottish station that houses concessions and eating areas with spectacular views of the two hillside courses.

Garden's impressions of the legendary rugby league commentator Eddie Waring and the popular Scottish TV presenter Fyfe Robertson, Oddie's frequent send-ups of the game-show host Hughie Green and Cleese's occasional but manic impressions of Patrick Moore ( astronomer and broadcaster ) built these people into eccentric celebrities in a way that the Mike Yarwood, Rory Bremner, Spitting Image and Dead Ringers programmes would do for other TV presenters with similar disrespect years later.

* The Scottish Green Party in the United Kingdom

It currently has friendly relations with its Scottish and Northern Irish counterparts, and is affiliated with the Global Greens and the European Green Party.

Scotland, in particular Gretna Green, the first village over the border from England, was the customary destination, but became less popular after 1856 when Scottish law was amended to require 21 days ' residence.

They were mainly consisting of German (" the Blue brigade ") and some Scottish mercenaries (" the Green brigade ") with a few national Swedish / Finnish regiments ( mostly cavalry ) and one national Swedish infantry brigade (" the Yellow brigade ").

In 1814 a Scottish immigrant named John Craig purchased a half section of of Green Township from Elias Boudinot.

Gretna Green is one of the world's most popular wedding destinations, hosting over 5000 weddings each year in the Gretna / Gretna Green area, and one of every six Scottish weddings.

It was, however, only in the 1770s, with the construction of a toll road passing through the hitherto obscure village of Graitney, that Gretna Green became the first easily reachable village over the Scottish border.

The Scottish Green Party, the Scottish Socialist Party and the Scottish Enterprise Party are most widely publicised, however all independence movements / parties are opposed by Unionists.

Some believe Wemyss possesses, like a number of Scottish Castles, a " Green Lady ".

Scottish & Newcastle used the John Smith's Brewery to brew many of its ale brands, including Courage Best Bitter, Director's and Russian Imperial Stout, Webster's Yorkshire Bitter and Green Label, Theakston Best Bitter and McEwan's Export.

An additional problem was competition in the Liberal heartlands in Scotland and Wales from the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru who both grew as electoral forces from the 1960s onwards.

The story got around that he had refused to join the new party because he feared he would not be able to keep his Hamilton seat at a general election ; local Scottish National Party supporters nicknamed him " Chicken George ".

* In 2005, David McLetchie, leader of the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party is forced to resign after claiming the highest taxi expenses of any MSP.

The split with Mebyon Kernow was down to the same debate that was occurring in most of the political parties campaigning for autonomy from the United Kingdom at the time ( for example the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru ), whether to be a centre-left party appealing to the electorate on a social democratic line, or whether to appeal emotionally on a centre-right cultural line.

It was addressed by Labour MPs Jon Trickett, Emily Thornberry, John McDonnell ( politician ) | John McDonnell, Michael Meacher, Diane Abbott and Jeremy Corbyn, and Elfyn Llwyd of Plaid Cymru and Angus MacNeil of the Scottish National Party.

Donald Campbell Dewar ( 21 August 1937 – 11 October 2000 ) was a Scottish politician who served as a Labour Party Member of Parliament ( MP ) in Scotland from 1966-1970, and then again from 1978 until his death in 2000.

He led the Scottish Labour Party into the first ever Scottish parliamentary election in 1999, and was elected both as an MSP and as First Minister of Scotland at the head of a Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition.

Following the return of the Labour Party to government in 1997, Dewar became the Secretary of State for Scotland and campaigned for a ' Yes-Yes ' vote in the successful referendum on Scottish devolution.

When elections were held to the newly created Scottish Parliament in 1999, as leader of the Scottish Labour Party and through a coalition with the Liberal Democrats, Dewar became the inaugural holder of the First Minister of Scotland post.

He was returned at a by-election on 13 April 1978, an important victory which was seen as halting the rise of the Scottish National Party.

The first elections to the Scottish Parliament were held on 6 May 1999, with Dewar leading the Scottish Labour Party against their main opponents, the SNP under Alex Salmond.

In that election five regionalist parties got seats: the Social Democratic and Labour Party ( SDLP ) of Northern Ireland, the Scottish National Party ( SNP ), the Flemish People's Union ( VU ), the Walloon Democratic Front of Francophones ( FDF ) and the South Tyrolean People's Party ( SVP ).

The other members of the Bureau are all vice-presidents: Jill Evans ( Plaid Cymru ), Gustave Alirol ( Occitan Party ), Fabrizio Comencini ( Liga Veneta Repubblica ), Ana Miranda Paz ( Galician Nationalist Bloc ), Ian Hudghton ( Scottish National Party ), Sybren Posthumus ( Frisian National Party ), Sebastian Colio ( Basque Solidarity ), Dimitrios Ioannou ( Rainbow ), Rolf Granlund ( Future of Åland ), Reinhild Campidell ( South Tyrolean Freedom ) and Lucy Collyer ( Majorca Socialist Party ).

The growing importance of the working classes was marked by Keir Hardie's success in the Mid Lanarkshire by-election, 1888, leading to the foundation of the Scottish Labour Party, which was absorbed into the Independent Labour Party in 1895, with Hardie as its first leader.

With all the main parties committed to the Union, new nationalist and independent political groupings began to emerge, including the National Party of Scotland in 1928 and Scottish Party in 1930.

In Sir Walter Scott's The Heart of Midlothian, for example, the heroine, Jeanie Deans, a Scottish Presbyterian, writes to her father about the church situation she has found in England ( bold added ):

" Boudica has also been the primary subject of songs by Irish singer / songwriter Enya, Dutch soprano Petra Berger, Scottish singer / songwriter Steve McDonald, English metal band Bal-Sagoth, Faith and the Muse and Dreams in the Witching House.

In Scotland the only one which has survived the convulsions of the 16th century is Aberdeen Breviary, a Scottish form of the Sarum Office ( the Sarum Rite was much favoured in Scotland as a kind of protest against the jurisdiction claimed by the diocese of York ), revised by William Elphinstone ( bishop 1483 – 1514 ), and printed at Edinburgh by Walter Chapman and Andrew Myllar in 1509 – 1510.

As significant as he is to the plot, he has fewer lines than the relatively insignificant Ross, a Scottish nobleman who survives the play.

* Strathspeys are specific to Highland Scotland, for example, and it has been hypothesized that they mimic the rhythms of the Scottish Gaelic language.

Within the Protestant tradition the Presbyterian Church ( which has its roots in Scottish Presbyterianism ) also has parishes named in honour of Columba.

The Scottish Gaelic form is and has the additional meanings of " pulpit " and " churn ".

The actual number in Scotland varies considerably — between approximately 350 to 500 due to the use of the term " island dun " for well over one hundred Hebridean examples — a distinction that has created a divide between mainland Scottish crannog and Hebridean islet settlement studies.

The central argument in Principles was that the present is the key to the past – a concept of the Scottish Enlightenment which David Hume had stated as " all inferences from experience suppose ... that the future will resemble the past ", and James Hutton had described when he wrote in 1788 that " from what has actually been, we have data for concluding with regard to that which is to happen thereafter.

Dewar's work for the Scottish Parliament has led him to be called the " Father of the Nation ".

Ownership has changed many times, past owners including the Scottish publisher A & C Black, Horace Everett Hooper, Sears Roebuck and William Benton.

The Scottish Agricultural College also has a campus in south Edinburgh.

Edinburgh has a long literary tradition, going back to the Scottish Enlightenment and in more recent years being declared the first UNESCO City of Literature in 2004.

The Scottish national team has occasionally played at Easter Road and Tynecastle.

The town also has a football team, Fort William F. C., competing in the Scottish Highland Football League.

The theory was popularized in the 1840s by Scottish writer Thomas Carlyle, and in 1860 Herbert Spencer formulated a counter-argument that has remained influential throughout the 20th century to the present ; Spencer said that such great men are the products of their societies, and that their actions would be impossible without the social conditions built before their lifetimes.

Although Irish and Manx are often referred to as Irish Gaelic and Manx Gaelic ( as they are Goidelic or Gaelic languages ), the use of the word Gaelic is unnecessary because the terms Irish and Manx, when referring to language, only ever refer to these languages, whereas Scots has come to refer to a Germanic language, and therefore " Scottish " can refer to things not at all Gaelic.

The Declaration has also been seen as one of the most important documents in the development of a Scottish national identity.

Scottish crime fiction has been a major area of growth, particularly the success of Edinburgh's Ian Rankin and his Inspector Rebus novels.

The Scottish Law Commission, in its Discussion Paper No 122 on Insanity and Diminished Responsibility ( 2003 ), pp. 16 / 18 confirms that the law has not substantially changed from the position stated in Hume's Commentaries:

Controversially, in England there has been some screening in sensitive security cases, but the Scottish courts have firmly set themselves against any form of jury vetting.

He has been inducted into both the Scottish and English Football Halls of Fame.

The Scottish Tartans Authority, however, has described the practice as childish and unhygienic.

The Scottish artist Alec Finlay has placed letterboxes with rubber stamp circle poems at locations around the world, including Yorkshire Sculpture Park.