There's a fine line between fishing and standing on the shore looking like a
fool. We must, to outsiders look like fools not fishermen. The newly
invented history by well meaning but misguided people does not speak of
people such as the distinguished author George Sinclair, who died in 1696.
Professor of Philosophy at Glasgow, he was compelled to resign for
non-compliance with Episcopacy, but was reappointed after the insurgency at
1680 at Altimorloch (Allt a Mhullaich), just south of Garvan in Argyll
where the Campbells of Glenorchy battled Sinclairs. He was one of the
inventors in the use of the diving-bell, he was one of the first in Scotland
to use the barometer, and superintended the laying of Edinburgh water-pipes
in 1673 or Henry Sinclair, Bishop of Ross, and President of the Court of
Session, a member of Queen Mary's Privy Council, he was denounced by John
Knox, himself the son of a Sinclair mother, and wrote additions to Boece's
History of Scotland. We do not write of his brother John Sinclair, Bishop
of Brechin, who was believed to be the author of Sinclair's Practicks, was
also denounced by John Knox, and officiated at the marriage of the Queen to
Darnley, the son of a Sinclair mother, in 1565. How about the Master of
Sinclair, son of the tenth Lord Sinclair. He served with Marlborough in
Flanders in 1708, he was sentenced to death for shooting Captain Shaw. He
fled to Prussia until he was pardoned of the murder in 1712. In the
rebellion of 1715 he distinguished himself by the capture, at Burntisland,
near his own family estates, of a vessel with Government munitions of war,
intended for the Earl of Sutherland at Dunrobin. He was attainted, but
pardoned again in 1726, and was the author of Memoirs of the Rebellion,
printed in 1858. These were the fishermen. We might all be descended from
foolishly incompetent Oliver Sinclair, the infamous general of James V, who
was crushed and captured by the English at Solway Moss in 1542. He was the
brother of Bishops John and Henry.
Perhaps this was our international strategy, breed our women up and have the
progeny lay low until the signal came. The only problem someone forgot to
give us a whistle to signal with. What they gave us instead was living
breathing life. Heroes and heroines great men and everyday folk these are
Sinclairs.
We need no invention of international master plans. The truth is and was,
we are bit players. We carry an ancient and proud name. We were not
cousins to the William the conqueror. We were like any other family,
sprinkled with rogues and thieves with some men who stood above the madding
crowd. It is admitted not very exciting to lay a city's water pipes or
trade in cloth or automobiles but today and in days past Sinclairs were real
people. We do not need fairy tales to tell our history. The genuine people
who comprise this Sinclair family are those who work as bankers, bakers,
construction workers and teachers and other mundane jobs they are the true
backbone of a family whose real deeds and accomplishment are a legion. I am
proud to have the privilege the bear their name.
There is a deep commitment and deep doubt but no means an antagonistic one,
to the history of the family Sinclair. Commitment is firm when it's not
without doubt but in spite of doubt.
Unfettered myth making is on the list of things I worry about along with
subliminal advertising, genetic engineering, cloning, transplanted heads,
computer poetry and the unlimited growth of plastic flower sales.
Sinclair
----- Original Message -----
From: "twallace-murphy" <twallace-murphy@supanet.com>
To: <sinclair@quarterman.org>
Sent: Thursday, June 27, 2002 11:19 PM
Subject: Re: Intellectual Norman Families/
> Dear Mark,
>
> I regret that while I too am sometimes in despair at much that goes on in
> this world, I cannot endorse your charges of crminality etc which are
> largely aimed at organisations of which you show little understanding.
[ Excess quotations omitted. ]
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