Innholdsfortegnelse for September-October 2021 i History Scotland

The much-anticipated digital kirk session records release from National Records of Scotland has been welcomed by researchers around the country, particularly with so many libraries and archives still closed or working on reduced hours due to the ongoing effects of the pandemic. Don’t miss our exclusive feature (page 34) on how to use the records to explore the lives of ordinary Scots from the 16th century onwards. And from the everyday to the remarkable, we also explore the involvement of a ‘witch’ in Sir Francis Walsingham’s diplomatic mission to the court of James VI (page 10) and a jaw-dropping visit to Glasgow by the 'Queen of Demerara' back in 1810. Find out more on page 24. Enjoy the issue and do join us next time, when we’ll be celebrating twenty…

In September 1583, Queen Elizabeth I sent Sir Francis Walsingham, her principal secretary of state and spymaster, to Scotland with an entourage of 80 intelligence agents, men-at-arms and servants. Although the queen was notorious for her vacillation, her instructions to Walsingham were explicit: to confront the ‘young Prince’, King James VI, about his duplicity in professing ‘perfect amity’ with her while strengthening ties with England’s enemies, and to make it clear that if he desired a continuation of peaceful relations plus English financial support, he must cast aside ‘the seduction of his evil-affected counsellors’. Relations between the two countries were at a nadir. Scotland was perceived by the English as savage, ungovernable and ‘the old beggardly enemy, the people of which were known for “their aversion and natural alienation… from…

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Natural and Necessary Unions: Britain, Europe, and the Scottish Question D.H. Robinson Oxford University Press, 2020 384 pages Hardback, £25.00 ISBN: 9780198859710 Dan Robinson is a fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, and acquired both his first degree and PhD at Peterhouse College, Cambridge. He also served as a policy advisor in the Cabinet Office during Theresa May’s premiership. The cover blurb doesn’t mention that Dr Robinson was also an active campaigner for Brexit and contributed to Briefings for Brexit, one of the more cerebral Leaver websites. In addition, as he describes in the preface, Dr Robinson, during his brief time in government, was involved in a project designed to oppose Scottish independence and promote the union. Robinson’s former Cabinet Office minister, Ben Gummer, is referred to in the text as…

Elsewhere in this issue (page 34), we have been able to read a fascinating special report on kirk session records. This presents a wonderful opportunity to highlight the rich publishing history of these records by the Society, and in particular the most recent example: kirk session records from 16th-century Perth. Perth was one of Scotland’s most important urban settlements and royal burghs in the medieval and early modern periods. This volume presents the reader with a gloriously-detailed account of the activities and purview of its kirk session across the tumultuous years of the reformation. Its pages are thick with detail on all aspects of life: from the everyday behaviour (and misbehaviour) of the good parishioners of Perth to the complex politics of the reformation and the hive of economic and…

Dr David Alston Born and brought up in the highlands of Scotland, Dr David Alston is a freelance historian who has spent 20 years researching the role of highland Scots in the slave-worked plantations of the Caribbean, especially Guyana. On page 24 he tells the story of the remarkable Dorothy ‘Doll’ Thomas, a free black woman whose visit to early 19th-century Glasgow was as eye-catching as it was remarkable. Dr Timothy Ashby, a graduate of the University of Edinburgh, is the author of Elizabethan Secret Agent: The Untold Story of William Ashby (1536-1593), to be published by Scotland Street Press in 2022. Starting on page 10, Dr Ashby explores a visit by Sir Francis Walsingham to the court of James VI in Scotland, where this spymaster of Elizabeth I of…

This August marks 250 years since the birth of the great Scottish novelist and antiquarian, Sir Walter Scott. As part of a Scotland-wide celebration of his life and works, Walter Scott 250, National Museums Scotland’s tribute is a display called Inspiring Walter Scott. In this we focus on Scott’s two great passions – writing historical fiction and collecting antiquities – by bringing together Scott’s dramatic novels with some of the objects that populate them. Many people in Scotland today will probably know he wrote books. They perhaps also know about his baronial-style home Abbotsford House, near Melrose in the borders. However, in 19th-century Britain, Scott was not simply a successful writer, but a figure of international renown. The Walter Scott monument that towers over Edinburgh’s Princes Street is a lasting…

SPOTLIGHT: JACOBITES FRESH PERSPECTIVES ON THE JACOBITE ERA BY EMERGING VOICES IN SCHOLARSHIP There was a fair bit of commotion upon the mercat cross of Coupar Angus one mid-October day in 1745. Bailie Charles Hay, a locally known clerk and town magistrate, stood at the nexus of George and High Streets with a copy of Charles Edward Stuart’s manifesto and read it aloud to a rapidly assembling crowd. This was an overtly treasonous act by a man widely thought to have been loyal to the British government of George II. But as the ruckus played out, witnesses would allegedly see a number of prominent Jacobite personalities join Hay on the cross and physically compel him to address the busy town centre on behalf of the exiled Stuarts. According to some…

There are two statues in Ayr’s Burns Statue Square, which must each in its own way have held great significance for one of the most unusual commanders of a Scottish regiment in wartime. The less familiar of the two is the colonial wars memorial of the Royal Scots Fusiliers. Deneys Reitz of the Orange Free State, one of the smallest and newest of nations, enjoyed childhood familiarity with Scottish literature. He also made the exceptional but not unique transition from seventeen-year-old Boer guerrilla who describes killing a considerable number of British soldiers in ‘the old war’, to lieutenant-colonel of the Royal Scots Fusiliers in France. He made staunch friends at all levels of British society, and became an imperial cabinet minister in one of history’s most admirable reconciliations. ORIGINS OF…

reviews@historyscotland.com The Press and the People: Cheap Print & Society in Scotland, 1500-1785 Adam Fox Oxford University Press, 2020 480 pages Hardback, £75.00 ISBN: 9780198791294 This excellent book rests upon a wealth of comprehensive research. In part one, Fox explores the development of Scotland’s cheap print market. The ambitious chronology of 1500 to 1785 is divided by the 1660 Stuart restoration, which is treated by the author as ‘something of a watershed’ (p.390). Alongside establishing the conditions through which cheap print was produced, dispersed and read in pre-modern Scotland, these opening chapters give new insights into many central characters in Scottish print history, like the printers Robert Lekpreuik (fl. 1561-81) and Agnes Campbell (1637-1716). A welcome chapter on the book trade outside of Edinburgh exemplifies Fox’s consistent effort to reflect…

What would you say were the broad differences between the experiences of women migrants and their male counterparts? The initial struggles for first generation migrants were survival and learning to cope in an unfamiliar country. They went through considerable emotional and financial hardship, often feeling alone and isolated. Migrant men and women took on traditional gender roles upon arrival in the UK, with men becoming the main breadwinners while women retained their traditional responsibilities of housework and looking after children and the extended family. This allowed migrant men to integrate better into society due to their employment. On the other hand, integration was harder for migrant women due to language barriers, which meant there was a lack of opportunity for personal development and interaction with the outside world. Migrant families…

The Scottish privy council project We take a look at a major new research project aiming to expand our knowledge of Scotland under William II and Queen Anne. The Pluscarden rising The story of an often-forgotten highland rising against the covenanters in 1649. Sir Walter Scott and the enigma of the ‘moor proper’ We attempt to unravel the mystery of an unusual feature included in Sir Walter Scott’s 1820 coat of arms. HISTORY SCOTLAND 20TH ANNIVERSARY We’re celebrating 20 years of History Scotland with a look back at the earliest year of the magazine, and exploring how the fields of Scottish history, archaeology and heritage have changed over the past two decades. PLUS… Special report: archaeology in the ‘new normal’, tall chimneys architecture project, the story of Kirkcaldy in 50…

Scots and the Spanish Civil War: Solidarity, Activism and Humanitarianism Fraser Raeburn Edinburgh University Press, 2020 232 pages Hardback, £80.00 ISBN: 9781474459471 Even though it is almost 85 years since the end of the Spanish Civil War, and over 45 years since the death of Franco, the conflict continues to resonate, especially for those who tend to be on the left politically. The 520 Scots who are recorded as having served in the International Brigade in Spain are well memorialised throughout Scotland, while the music is still heard on the folk song circuit. In Scots and the Spanish Civil War, Fraser Raeburn sets out to explain why the Scottish response to Spain took the form it did, and to analyse how Scotland’s experience of the con_ ict differed from that…

Just as 1855 is important to statutory registration, 1845 is one of the most crucial years regarding the treatment of the poor in Scotland, since this was the year that An Act for the Amendment and better Administration of the Laws relating to the Relief of the Poor in Scotland was passed. So what was the situation prior to 1845? A good introduction is Sir George Nicholls’ A History of the Scotch Poor Law (https://scot.sh/scotch). After the reformation, when kirk sessions came into being, it was accepted that a percentage of the money raised through church collections could be used to provide assistance to the poor. In Scotland there was a separation between those who were deemed to be requiring permanent assistance, and those described as being ‘occasional poor’ –…