November-December 2020

History Scotland

The world's premier Scottish history magazine

History Scotland1 min read
From The Editor
A warm welcome to our themed Jacobite special, published to mark the 300th anniversary of the birth of Prince Charles Edward Stuart. We are honoured to feature contributions from world-class experts in the field of Jacobitism and I hope you’ll enjoy
History Scotland2 min read
Meet The Contributors
Professor Graeme Morton (Pg 49: Neo Jacobitism: looking beyond the fringe) Professor of History at the University of Dundee. He has written extensively on modern Scottish History, with a particular emphasis on issues of identity and diaspora in the V
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History Scotland
David Breeze Christopher Smout Historiographer Royal Elizabeth Ewan University of Guelph Mr Derek Alexander Archaeologist, National Trust for Scotland Dr John Atkinson Managing Director GUARD Archaeology Ltd Medieval and post-medieval settlement and
History Scotland1 min read
4 Million Edinburgh Gazette Records Released
Founded in 1699, eight years before the Treaty of Union, The Edinburgh Gazette was produced sporadically until 1793, since then it has been published continuously. Published twice weekly on Tuesdays and Fridays by The Stationery Office, on behalf of
History Scotland1 min readPsychology
New Study To Shed Light On The Literary And Cultural Lives Of Early Modern Merchants
Dr Angus Vine, of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at the University of Stirling, has received a prestigious grant from the British Academy to research the literary interests, collecting habits and the vocational, practical and scientific knowledge
History Scotland1 min read
Online Jacobite lecture
Professor Murray Pittock will deliver an online lecture as part of the Gresham College history series in November The talk, titled ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Jacobites’, will explore what kind of man Charles was, what his day-to-day life was like
History Scotland3 min read
Explore The Story Of Your Street
what can tenement features tell you about the history of your home? In our new #StoryOfOurStreet blog, Ana Sanchez of National Trust for Scotland explores four features of a tenement, explaining what these tell us about tenement history Since the 180
History Scotland3 min readMedical
Leith 1645 A Visitation Of The Plague
During the years 1644-49, outbreaks of the plague devastated large parts of Scotland. Understanding of what caused the disease was poor and many viewed it as a manifestation of divine wrath. Centuries of facing up to waves of the pestilence, from the
History Scotland14 min read
Re-interpreting The Lost Choir Of Dunfermline Abbey: History, Liturgy And Ground - Penetrating Radar
During our GPR fieldwork and research (2016-19), two themes were repeatedly underlined. First, the dangers of seeking a neat, consistent pattern of architectural and liturgical development in such a complex lost building as Dunfermline Abbey; and sec
History Scotland7 min read
The Jacobites In Scotland: A Brief Introduction
The Jacobite movement has produced some of the most familiar events and personalities in Scottish History. Images of Bonnie Prince Charlie and Flora MacDonald are mainstays of Scottish iconography, and from Robert Burns to Outlander, Jacobitism infus
History Scotland12 min read
The Enigma That Was The First Jacobite
Let no man miss his glas by stealth but all with one consent agree to drink a brimmer to the health of James the duke of Albany This optimistic song was sung in 1680 by Scotland’s bishops as they toasted the health of James, duke of Albany and York,
History Scotland7 min read
A ‘Virtuous Rabble’ Of Virtual Rebels
In this 275th anniversary year of the final Jacobite rising – commonly known today as ‘the ‘45’ – the cultural significance of Jacobitism and its historical legacy have never before enjoyed greater public interest. Thankfully, the venerable field of
History Scotland13 min read
Episcopalians And Jacobites
Upon hearing the news that William of Orange had landed in England with an army, Presbyterians set about ‘rabbling’ Episcopalians in the south-west of Scotland while simultaneously asking William to restore Presbyterian Church government in Scotland.
History Scotland11 min read
Petticoat Patronage Of The Stuart Cause
On 20 December 1746, the lord justice clerk, Andrew Fletcher, lord Milton, and William Anne Kepple, 2nd earl of Albemarle, gave orders for a search of all the suspicious places in the Canongate, Leith and other suburbs around Edinburgh. What, or whom
History Scotland2 min read
Feuding And Rivalry In An Exiled Court
In this fascinating special issue, we have been exploring the nature and purpose of Jacobite intelligence gathering and networks in the early 18th century, and the volume under the spotlight here complements this with its focus on the exiled Jacobite
History Scotland14 min readPolitics
Jacobitism, Espionage And Subversion
The Catholic priest James Carnegy was one of the most long-serving and successful of Jacobite spies, regularly passing vital intelligence from Scotland to the Jacobite court for more than 30 years, apparently without detection. Professor Daniel Szech
History Scotland3 min read
A Newly-recognised Sword Of Prince Charles Edward Stuart
When Bonnie Prince Charlie was a young man living in Rome, before he ever came to Scotland, he was already the proud owner of a superb set of highland weapons, including a magnificent cuirass and helmet, a dirk, a targe, some pistols, and a broadswor
History Scotland4 min readPolitics
From The Highlands To The Caribbean
reviews@historyscotland.com Lord Seaforth: Highland Landowner, Caribbean Governor Finlay McKichan Edinburgh University Press, 2018 320 pages Hardcover £80.00 / paperback £14.99 ISBN: 9781474438483 Finlay McKichan’s biography of Francis Humberston Mac
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Visit Scotland: 18th-century style
Stepping Westward: Writing the Highland Tour c.1720-1830 Nigel Leask Oxford University Press, 2020 Hardcover, £65.00 368 pages ISBN-13: 9780198850021 When the Napoleonic Wars ruled out tours of mainland Europe a ready-made alternative was to hand in
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Recently Published
Edge of Empire, Rome’s Scottish Frontier: The Antonine Wall By David J Breeze Birlinn, £14.99 ISBN 9781839830037 With reference to contemporary literary sources, together with the archaeological remains, inscriptions and sculpture from the Antonine W
History Scotland11 min read
NEO-JACOBITISM: Looking Beyond The Fringe
The reasons for the revival of Jacobitism in the late Victorian period are varied but not without explanation. The movement’s return to political consciousness arrived into what was arguably a less receptive world than had been the case in Georgian B
History Scotland1 min read
In The Next Issue Of History SCOTLAND
We kick off a major new series on the second phase of Scotland’s 14th-century Wars of Independence by exploring the beginnings of the Balliol challenge to the Bruce throne. What was the significance of the bagpipe, and bagpipe music, to Scottish sold
History Scotland7 min read
Eastern Encounters: Four Centuries Of Indo-scottish Connections
As Queen Victoria sat penning her journals in her Scottish summer hideaway at Balmoral, she had little idea that one day she would consent to their publication. Not only would her holiday diaries be published, they would become international bestsell
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Free Gift When You Subscribe
Receive every issue of History Scotland direct to your door and save money on the shop price. This book weaves together all the strands of this gripping saga into a vivid, sweeping narrative, full of insight, analysis and anecdote. This is the first
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Protect And Promote Local History
#StoryOfOurStreet has really taken off positively, with lots of discussions amongst History Scotland audiences. At the same time, other aspects of society’s interpretation of local history have taken an ugly turn. Protests in George Square and elsewh
History Scotland5 min read
Writing The Risings
In his 2019 King Over the Water – a complete history of the Jacobites, Desmond Seward provided a brief appendix looking at fictional treatments of Jacobitism. He mentioned Sir Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson, John Buchan, D.K. Broster and Naomi
History Scotland3 min read
Final Word
What was the original purpose of the archives studied by the One More Voice team? Such archives, very roughly speaking, originally served to preserve the documents of the British Empire. What One More Voice does is shift scholarly focus in these arch

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