Innholdsfortegnelse for January-February 2022 i History Scotland

Stirling is dominated by monuments to the Wars of Independence. From the south there is the discrete and atmospheric rotunda of the National Trust for Scotland Bannockburn centre, while the north is dominated by the magnificent National Wallace Monument, the largest monument to a person in Britain. Both have stories to tell and tickets to sell; they celebrate the victories and honour the dead, but are best understood as war memorials, removed from the actual conflict. There are, of course, locations contemporary with the fighting: the castle, Cambuskenneth Abbey and St Ninians church. Stirling may even have a grave of a witness to the period. Following development at the site of the Dominican priory, a 13th- to 14thcentury friar was recently reburied with full Catholic Mass in Stirling’s Valley cemetery.…

Three-dimensional images of Burghead in Moray have been created based on archaeological excavations by the University of Aberdeen. Funded by Historic Environment Scotland as part of a wider video project to enable the public to learn more about Scotland’s Pictish past, the images showcase the enormous defensive ramparts, which are thought once to have been eight metres thick and six metres high, as well as dwellings within the fort It has long been known that Burghead was home to a Pictish settlement but it was thought that the 19th-century development of the modern town had eroded most traces of this important period of its history. The landward ramparts were levelled and part of the seaward defences was destroyed in order to build the modern harbour. More than 30 Pictish carved…

Little is known for certain about the historical Mac Bethad, king of Scots from 1040 to 1057. It is generally accepted among historians that he was born c.1005, held the title of mormaer of Moray from 1032 until his death, married his cousin’s widow at some point and later ruled as king of Scots until his death. Other elements of his life and kingship are uncertain. There is evidence Mac Bethad, following the death of his father, spent the remainder of his youth in the court of Malcolm II (r.1005-34), during which time he may have met with King Cnut. Following this, Mac Bethad may have been responsible for the burning of his cousin, Gilla Comgáin, and 50 of his men alive in 1032, possibly as some kind of revenge…

New Series: The first Scottish Enlightenment We begin a new, twopart study of the initial and overlooked phase of Enlightenment thought in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, during which Scottish intellectuals reconceptualised the nation’s relationship with its past. Scottish women and the Spanish Civil War Among the many Scots who got involved, directly or indirectly, in the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s were numerous women, often through fund-raising or providing medical aid, but sometimes in more unexpected ways as well. We delve into their stories. Building burghs: the conquest of civilisation of Moray, c.1150-c.1250 We explore the efforts of the Canmore kings of the 12th and 13th centuries to bring the often-unruly region of Moray more firmly under their control, in particular through an extensive programme of…

Pick up the first edition of Scotland’s newest paper The Edinburgh Courant, in February 1705 and not only would you read of embezzlement by Edinburgh bank teller Robert Pringle, who ‘went off with 425 lib. sterling’, but also about conflict on the continent: a siege in Gibraltar and civil unrest in Vienna. New postal services are announced for ‘Edinburgh… Wigtoun, and New-Galloway’ for ‘letters and paquets’. And then there are advertisements: ‘Famous Loozengees’ for ‘curing the Cold and stopping the pains in the Breast’. How do I know? I possess a facsimile: a fragile, double-sided sheet. The original was ‘Publish’d by Authority’, ‘printed by James Watson in Craig’s Close’, and ‘Sold at the Exchange Coffee-House’ in Edinburgh’. Read in the best coffee houses… This title was one of the first…

Andrew Donaldson, the subject of an article elsewhere in this issue (page 34), was the product of a highly intellectual, self-reflective Calvinist tradition within the Scottish Kirk. One manifestation of that tradition was a habit of autobiography; the godly tended to keep diaries and write accounts of their lives as part of their larger reckoning with the divine. In more recent years, as ‘life-writing’ has become the object of increasing scholarly and popular attention, these works have been rediscovered as vivid records of the spiritual experience of pre-modern Scots. Amongst the Scottish History Society’s publications are two particularly engaging examples of this autobiographical tradition: the Narrative of James Nimmo and the Diary of Andrew Hay. James Nimmo (1654-1709) was a covenanter, part of the faction in the Scottish Kirk which…

The City of Edinburgh Council, Scottish Canals, and partners will join to mark the 200th anniversary of the 16km waterway, which links Edinburgh with the Falkirk Wheel in Tamfourhill and onwards to the Forth and Clyde Canal. Amongst activities proposed for 2022 are the refresh of the Edinburgh Union canal strategy, commemorating the canal’s heritage through various events including a special edition of the Edinburgh canal festival in June 2022, and work to secure a new future for the Lockharton Bridge boat house. See History Scotland’s winter/spring online lectures programme at https://scot.sh/winterspring…

Women’s football in Scotland is often considered to be a relatively modern phenomenon, one which developed in the late 20th century. However, the sport in Scotland has a long, if relatively little celebrated, history. The origins of Scottish women’s football can be traced back to the 17th century, with women recorded in local kirk records of 1628 playing an early form of football near Carstairs. Fragmentary records such as this offer us glimpses of women’s engagement with folk football, the precursor to the modern game. This year marks a significant anniversary in the development of women’s football in the UK, as it is the 100th anniversary of the Football Association (FA) in England’s ban on the women’s game. This ban, which stopped women playing on any grounds affiliated to the…

When Margaret, maid of Norway – the designated successor of the late King Alexander III – died at Orkney in September 1290, Scotland found itself in a delicate predicament. The extinction of the royal line left no obvious heir to the throne, and ultimately thirteen different candidates emerged to lay claim to the kingship. Very quickly, however, it became clear that the most plausible contenders were two descendants of King David I (r.1125-53) through his son, Henry, earl of Huntingdon: John Balliol, the grandson of Henry’s eldest daughter, Margaret; and Robert Bruce, son of Henry’s second daughter, Isabella. With both factions beginning to mobilise in support of their candidate, the threat of civil war hung in the air throughout the winter of 1290-91, and the necessity of developing some kind…

Scotland’s hills draw in tourist and climber alike, their variety and changing weather providing challenge and delight in equal measure. Victorian photographs of rugged men and rugged rocks show how they drew in proponents of the then new sports of mountaineering and climbing. But where were the women? Petticoats and Pinnacles: Scotland’s pioneering mountain women, an exhibition at the National Library of Scotland, seeks to find them and reveal their voices. For centuries, the hills in Scotland have provided inspiration and solace to women from all walks of life. Whether a long-ago dairymaid wandering on a hot summer evening or a working mum training for her trip to climb in the Himalayas, their stories can inspire us. As authors and walkers, the achievements of these women have been ignored, undervalued…

One of the most infamous suffragettes in Scotland, Ethel Moorhead, appears in the records of the National Records of Scotland (NRS) under several aliases: Edith Johnson, Mary Humphreys or Margaret Morrison. Moorhead repeatedly made the papers through outrageous militant acts. This led to her being dubbed the ‘Scottish leader of the suffragettes’, despite no such position existing. Convicted a total of five times, Moorhead’s antics allowed ample opportunities to advertise women’s suffrage as her arrest, prosecution, release and re-arrest were followed by the press. • 7 September 1912 – As Edith Johnston, Moorhead smashes the display case holding the William Wallace sword in Stirling. Convicted of malicious mischief. • 2 November 1912 – As Ethel Moorhead, she attempts to whip a high school teacher, Mr Peter Ross, in the face,…

Archibald Menzies (1754-1852), ship’s surgeon and botanist, was born at Styx in Strathtay. Menzies enjoyed a varied career as a plant collector starting in 1786 when, as ship’s surgeon on HMS Prince of Wales, he journeyed to the north Pacific, taking in the west coast of North America, China and Hawaii, identifying and collecting new plants to bring back to the UK. He also embarked upon a five-year journey on HMS Discovery with George Vancouver. Today his name lives on in Banksia menziesii (Firewood), Pseudotsuga menziesii (Douglas Fir) and Arbutus menziesii (Pacific madrone). The bronze bust, which is an exact duplicate of the original standing in the VanDusen Botanical Garden in Vancouver, was given to the castle by a group of Canadian enthusiasts, who wanted a memorial to this eminent plant…

In the University of Stirling’s library archives rests a fascinating yet relatively unexplored Jacobite collection comprising intriguing Jacobite-related material culture, or Jacobitiana, and unpublished research by its collector. This eclectic assortment exists due to the lifelong antiquarian enthusiasms of Basil William Sholto Mackenzie, 2nd baron Amulree of Strathbraan (1900-83). Amulree’s enthusiasm for Jacobitism – which he went to great lengths to indulge through his collectorship – possibly germinated from both a deep Scottish ancestral connection that resulted in an innate interest throughout his private life, and from aspects of his professional career. The factors that drove someone like Amulree and others to accumulate pieces of material culture related to curiosity on a particular topic like Jacobitism are a complex minefield, and motivations were/are often individualistic. Therefore, understanding private collections (later…

The far north of Scotland has been described as Britain’s last great wilderness. The wild, rugged landscape has been revealed to increasing numbers of visitors since the introduction in 2015 of the NC500, ‘Scotland’s Route 66’. Starting in Inverness, convoys of cars and bikers, weaving their way between cyclists and usually led by one or two motorcaravans, proceed northwards up the east coast of Caithness, then along the entire length of the north coast, and on down the west coast as far as Applecross before heading back inland to Inverness. A feast, indeed, of some of Scotland’s finest scenery, including the Kyle of Tongue, with its magnificent views of Ben Loyal and Ben Hope. As the driver heads west, climbing steadily up and over the Moine, a lonely house appears…

Anyone who has been to Glasgow will probably have heard the phrase ‘People Make Glasgow’, but, as one placard at the Black Lives Matter demonstration on Glasgow Green put it recently, enslaved people made Glasgow. By the late 1700s, Jamaica was Britain’s wealthiest colony. About one-third of Jamaican plantations were owned – and many more were run – by Scots, including the Glasgow Plantation in the west, and the Galloway, Caledonia, Nairn, Clydeside, Wallace, and Hampden plantations. Although Scots comprised only ten per cant of the British population, fifteen per cent of enslavers compensated after the abolition of slavery were Scottish. Most of these merchants profited by produce, mostly sugar and tobacco (Glasgow sometimes traded more tobacco than all the English ports combined), but also sugar and cotton, grown by…

In early December 1746, well after the active threat of the last Jacobite rising had waned, the British government was still collecting intelligence about known rebels who had not yet been apprehended. A report from Alexander Robertson of Straloch in that month, presumably sent to the duke of Newcastle, is especially notable for two specific reasons. First, it explicitly calls out the forceful tactics of impressment used against allegedly unwilling tenants on the earl of Arlie’s estate in Angus. Second, within the report Straloch proposes an elaborate plan to trick lurking Jacobites into revealing themselves – a plan that is both calculated and impressively devious. Known informally as Baron Reid, Robertson of Straloch was a gentleman from the Strathardle area of Perthshire whose family had long been aligned with the…

ONLINE EVENTS Digitising the hidden voices of Scotland’s legal past, 12 January Join History Scotland for an exclusive talk by Dr Jim Ambuske on how a transatlantic team of scholars are unlocking Scotland’s Session Papers, until now a largely untapped resource. Using the intriguing saga of the Duguid family as a case study, Jim will illustrate how a team of researchers, digital humanists, and archivists based in Virginia and Edinburgh are creating new ways to unlock Session Papers for scholars and the wider public. Starts 6.30pm. Tickets £10. Book at https://scot.sh/2Ywwzhp Scottish Society for Northern Studies talks, 27 January and 24 February The society has two talks planned, both starting at 7pm: ‘The pre-reformation church in the dioceses of Caithness, Ross and Moray’ (27 January) and ‘An archaeological tale of…

The subject I chose for a lecture I recently presented to a family history society was wills and inventories, which can greatly add to your family history and in some cases may be the only way to prove links between family members. Scotland’s People www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk has digital copies (that can be downloaded for ten credits) of testaments, inventory and deed of settlement from 1513 to 1925. The country was divided into commissary courts and then sheriff courts, and you can search under those, but as the index covers all of Scotland I would suggest searching under location rather by than court. The date shown is the date the legal document was proved, not the date of death and this may be several months (or sometimes years) after the date of…