Wooing - You're Doing It Wrong by Kimanda on DeviantArt (original) (raw)

Ireland: …what are you doing? Scotland: I’m… errm, I’m wooing you. Ireland: Excuse me? Scotland: My king asked me to woo you into accepting our proposal. He said I should tell you nice things and bend you to my will. Ireland: That’s not how wooing is done. Scotland: It isn’t? Ireland: No it is far more subtle than that and it takes longer… doesn’t your king know we’re brothers? Scotland: I don’t believe I ever mentioned it to him. Also he thinks you’re a female. Ireland: Christ, I don male clothing and people still assume that?? And your king encourages you to court me based on his assumption that I’m female and not your brother!? Do you really not know how wooing actually works? Do you even know what wooing is? Scotland: No…? Ireland: I knew what wooing was when I was half your age! You really shouldn’t do something you don’t fully understand. Can you comprehend that wooing is an activity done by a human who wishes to marry with another human? Was that your intention? Scotland: Is that what wooing entails?! Ireland: Oh Lord, unhand me immediately. I need a word with your king.

Interactions from the events of the Bruce campaign (1315-1318) which was when Edward the Bruce, the brother of the Scottish king Robert the Bruce, came to Ireland with the intent of kicking the English out and becoming the king of Ireland. The idea wasn’t met very warmly at first because Edward the Bruce invaded Ireland, it was a bit of an afterthought that the Scottish turned to the Irish and asked, “Hey we’re kicking the English out of your lands, wanna help?” After some negotiations most Gaelic chieftains agreed to the idea, because kicking the English out sounded like the best idea ever, however if I remember correctly there were a few chieftains that had their reservations about the whole thing. Well it did eventually all fall apart when Edward the Bruce died in battle and the Scottish scattered back to their lands.

This interaction happened shortly before Ireland agreed to ally with Scotland. I can imagine that Ireland was a bit huffy at having been invaded by Scotland, so Scotland’s king and the king’s brother sent Scotland to talk to Ireland to smooth things over and possibly “woo” him into accepting the proposal of an alliance. Unfortunately they didn’t expect Scotland to take their instructions literally and decided to woo Ireland according to what he thought wooing was. Scotland was a bit… naïve when it came to that kind of thing when he was younger. Then again Scotland’s bosses did think Ireland was a woman so they thought Scotland wouldn’t have to do much to convince Ireland into encouraging his chieftains to ally themselves to the Scottish. So this was a huge mess of miscommunications.

Clothing references were a pain to find, let me tell you! Ireland is wearing roughly what an Irishman would have been wearing for the time period. I hope I got it right, I looked into so many sites for descriptions and reconstructions to get this result. x~x Scotland was a bit difficult too because when I tried looking for clothes that he might have worn when he came to Ireland, it seems the style of armouring was extremely similar to what was going on in England. I literally couldn’t find any sources that could confirm a native variation… so I kinda cheated, because I wanted to take something from Scotland. So I took the appearance of a Gallowglass mercenary and gave that to Scotland… now I know this wasn’t something Scotland would have often worn, since it is very specifically Norse-Gaelic and would have been limited to Norse-Gaelic clans in western Scotland. However I justified that Scotland would have worn it when he came to meet Ireland as he hoped his more Gaelic appearance would have helped to mellow Ireland out more than his typical armour (that was similar in style to England’s) would have achieved. ^^