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Rogues In A Nation Lyrics
Farewell to all our Scottish fame
Farewell our ancient glory
Farewell even to our Scottish name
Sae fam'd in martial story
Now Sark runs over the Solway sands
And Tweed runs to the ocean
To mark where England's province stands:
Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!
What force or gile could not subdue
Through many warlike ages
Is wrought now by a coward few
For hireling traitor's wages
The English steel we could disdain
Secure in valour's station
But English gold has been our bane:
Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!
I would, or I had seen the day
That treason thus could sell us
My auld gray head had lain in clay
Wi' Bruce and loyal Wallace!
But pith and power, till my last hour
I'll make this declaration
We were bought and sold for English gold:
Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!
Farewell our ancient glory
Farewell even to our Scottish name
Sae fam'd in martial story
Now Sark runs over the Solway sands
And Tweed runs to the ocean
To mark where England's province stands:
Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!
Through many warlike ages
Is wrought now by a coward few
For hireling traitor's wages
The English steel we could disdain
Secure in valour's station
But English gold has been our bane:
Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!
That treason thus could sell us
My auld gray head had lain in clay
Wi' Bruce and loyal Wallace!
But pith and power, till my last hour
I'll make this declaration
We were bought and sold for English gold:
Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!
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The words of the song are from a 1791 poem by Scottish poet Robert Burns. The poem expresses Burns' anger over the 1707 Act of Union, which ended Scotland's independence from England and dissolved the Scottish Parliament. Some of the members of the Scottish Parliament who supported the Act did so because they were essentially bribed: in return for their support of the Act, they were compensated for their losses in a disastrous investment scheme that had cost each of them huge sums of money. This is what Burns means when he speaks of the Scots being "bought and sold/for English gold".
The poem refers to two figures from Scottish history: "Bruce" is Robert the Bruce, a Scottish king who fought against the English in the 14th century. "loyal Wallace" is Sir William Wallace, a Scottish knight who was one of the Scottish leaders during the First Scottish War of Independence (and who is probably best known today through the heavily-fictionalized Mel Gibson film "Braveheart").