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Robert Burns may have been one of the greatest poets who ever lived, but it wasn't fine verse that paid his rent and bought the porridge and the haggis. Poetry was no more profitable in the 18th century than it is in the 20th, and Burns was barely scraping a living from "the miserable earth" of his farm. On top of this, his bachelor days were coming to an end. After "loving all women," as he put it, he came to love just one -- Jean Armour. He now had to prepare to support a family. It was 1788 and Burns went in search of a career and a regular income.
His occupational preference, the Excise service, was generally detested, but it had its compensations. For one thing, it extended into every district and parish in Scotland. It also had a starting salary of £35 a year, which was an enormous sum when compared to other professions. A postmaster, for example, earned little more than £10 annually.
Charity worker, women's rights activist, Queen of Scots, saint -- all of these words can be used to describe Saint Margaret of Scotland. As Queen of Scots, she ruled with such consistent humility and kindness that she stands out as one of the most remarkable monarchs in Mediaeval Europe.
They say that truth is stranger than fiction. The life of Saint Margaret bears witness to that. She was born in distant Hungary into an exiled English royal family. Her family had no Scottish connections at all -- indeed some of her ancestors had fought against the Scots! When she was born, no one could have foretold that this young English princess would later become a Scottish queen and then a Scottish saint!
Imagine the Highlands of Scotland in 1724 from the viewpoint of the British government in London. At the top of the country lie some 25,000 square miles of roadless mountain, moor and bog, peopled by savage, squabbling tribes who speak an outlandish language and have their own incomprehensible customs and dress. One would be pleased to ignore them except for the fact that virtually every man is skilled in the use of arms. Not only do they regularly descend to the Lowlands to rustle cattle, but also twice within living memory, armies of them have emerged from their wilderness to slaughter the King's troops and threaten the integrity of the state. Successive governments had built a chain of fortresses, put in garrisons and even tried to massacre an entire clan to frighten the Highlanders into submission, but nothing worked for long. So the government sent up its own man, Major General George Wade, to make a reconnaissance.
Wade did a tour of the north toward the end of 1724 and sent back his report. Wade realized that the impossibility of communications in the Highlands was the main factor in preserving this last tribal society in Europe. No wheeled vehicle could move in the mountain country. A "highway" was nothing more than a track along which a man or a horse could travel single file during the summer. In winter the bridgeless, rushing rivers prevented even this. A network of all-weather roads was needed that would penetrate the remote and lawless parts of the region. And over the next 10 years Wade used as many as 500 troops at a time to build roads -- some 250 miles of them, plus 40 bridges.
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