King Constantine II







Towards the end of the first millennium, life expectancy was short and that of kings, even shorter. How remarkable then that Constantine II ruled for 43 years before doing the unthinkable for a Monarch - then and now - by retiring.

This consummate survivor not only had beaten the Vikings in Battle, he then employed the cunning strategy of making them his allies by marriage.

No wonder that he felt qualified in retirement to tell his successor, Malcolm I, what he should be doing. It is a scenario we have been familiar with, even after another millenium.

As Constantine is our forgotten hero king, so St Andrew is the saint, we Scots, tend to forget or at best, under-value.

We need, at this point,  to put aside our present day thoughts and ideas on religion and transport our minds back to a period when christianity figured in everyone's daily life. Scotland was regarded as an important Land by Rome. St Andrew has put us in the league of National Saints, men straight out of the bible, who actually knew Jesus. We are up there with Rome, which has Andrew's brother Peter; and Spain with James. 

For centuries he brought us renown throughout Christendom and through the pilgrimage to St Andrews, he could be seen as the founder of our tourist trade.

Scotland has an absolute wealth of local Saints; Columba, Ninian, Cuthbert, Mungo amongst them but Andrew gave our kings a symbol round which people could be united and in turn, gave us the Saltire, which Scots at home and abroad are proud to wave, wear and paint on our faces.

 On top of this, when we lost some of our relics, the pope gave us others, which are in safe keeping in St Marys Catholic Cathedral in Edinburgh.

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