September-October 2023

History Scotland

The world's premier Scottish history magazine

History Scotland2 min read
Welcome...
This is the seventh time in the last ten years that Mary, Queen of Scots has appeared as a History Scotland cover star. Perennially popular, it seems that there’ll always be more to discover and talk about when it comes to Mary’s personal life, reign
History Scotland1 min read
Fife Pilgrim Way Reaches Milestone At St Andrews
Since opening in 2019, the 64-mile route has become popular both with walkers and with modern-day pilgrims following in the footsteps of their medieval forebears. Starting in Culross or North Queensferry, the fully waymarked route winds from the coas
History Scotland1 min read
Most Popular Baby Names Across Eight Decades Revealed
This is the first time National Records of Scotland has crunched the numbers for the most popular names given to babies born in Scotland in every year from 1935 to 2022 The results shed light on how Scotland’s tastes for names have changed over the y
History Scotland7 min read
The Quest For The Lost Church Of Saline
Saline is a small village in West Fife, close to the county of Clackmannanshire. Our Heritage Society was founded in 2011 by the late John Crane, a local historian, to help celebrate the bi-centenary of the church in 2012. John’s long-held wish was t
History Scotland3 min read
Stirling’s Lost Hogback
Hogbacks are stone burials monuments dating from the 10th to 12th centuries, often linked to Viking or Norse influence, though the situation is complex. The best preserved and most highly decorated examples look like long houses. On paper, Stirling h
History Scotland2 min read
Historic Environment Scotland Unveils Plans For New Archive House Covering 5,000 Years Of History
Archive House, an existing building in the Sherwood Industrial Estate in Bonnyrigg, will be converted to a world-class facility to house the extensive records and archives of Historic Environment Scotland (HES), which give a unique insight in to over
History Scotland15 min read
Máel Coluim III: The Complicated Legacy Of An 11th-century King
On St Brice’s Day (13 November) 1093, the reigning Scottish king was killed in a skirmish. So ended the 35-year reign of Máel Coluim mac Donnchada, likely more familiar to most readers as either Malcolm III or Malcolm Canmore. He was probably in his
History Scotland8 min read
Seeking Social History In Scottish Criminal Records: What Else Can Crime Tell Us?
Cases of sexual assault can be an ugly area of criminal history to research. However, set aside the minutiae of who did what to whom, and a wealth of social history details can be discovered among the criminal case files. The high court of justiciary
History Scotland3 min read
...thomas And Jean Weir
Thomas Weir was a respected pillar of Edinburgh society, renowned for his robust Presbyterian piety. Indeed, some people were so awed by the intensity of his godliness that they were afraid even to be in his presence. But Weir was harbouring a dark s
History Scotland15 min read
‘The Tourist Industry Had Been Killed Almost Stone Dead By The Restrictions’: The North Of Scotland In 1940
In 1940, news took time to reach all of the north of Scotland, even Kiltarlity, twelve miles outside Inverness. Though weeks earlier newspapers had reported the introduction of wartime restrictions, Mrs Donald MacPhee was unaware she needed to obtain
History Scotland12 min read
EMBROIDERING HER TRUTH: Mary, Queen Of Scots And The Language Of Power
When there are hundreds of books written about Mary, queen of Scots it might seem superfluous to add yet another. Many would argue that the story of the Scottish queen has been sufficiently mined and that the attention she has claimed has deflected i
History Scotland7 min read
What’s In The Name Of My Street?
What links a London borough, a grand house in Kent, over 20 towns, cities and counties in the United States, two Caribbean slavery plantations and a street in a small town in the Scottish highlands? The answer is a constitutional lawyer and a leading
History Scotland5 min read
Donald Ross And The Highland Clearances
Donald Ross was the most outspoken critic of the highland clearances in the 1850s. His most famous publication was The Massacre of the Rosses, which described the women of Greenyards in Ross and Cromarty being brutally beaten by policemen for refusin
History Scotland15 min read
The Daphne Disaster, Part 2: Inquiry And Relief Fund
OAlthough fatal accident inquiries were not introduced in Scotland for a further decade, an event as serious as the sinking of the Clyde steamer Daphne in 1883 automatically would be investigated, in this case by James N. Hart, procurator fiscal for
History Scotland3 min read
‘The Fool Of The Piece’ Balfour And Gladstone’s ‘Highland Fling’
In 2022, National Records of Scotland (NRS) in Edinburgh bought the papers of the Balfour of Whittingehame family, earls of Balfour, on behalf of the nation. Before its purchase, the collection had been on loan to NRS from the family since the 1960s.
History Scotland4 min readDiet & Nutrition
Dining At School Training A Generation Of Scotland’s Dinner Ladies
It is no secret that the war had a vast impact on Scottish society and culture. It also had a profound impact on the nation’s diet. Food rationing created a sense of a shared national diet, with everyone eating broadly the same foods each week. Peopl
History Scotland6 min read
Care And Feeding Of A Rebel
Archival accounts from the many prisons in both Scotland and England during the mid-18th century are remarkably grim. The horrid conditions were well-documented, both by those who were incarcerated and by those who held the keys. Virtually no signifi
History Scotland2 min read
Diary Dates
Animals in the court of James VI, 20 September Nicole Maceira Cumming explores the role of animals within the court of James VI and considers what the royal beasts can tell us about the relationship between human and animal in early modern Scotland.
History Scotland4 min read
Book Reviews
Explore a selection of digital history guides in the History Scotland store: https://scot.sh/hsdownload Edited by Dr Louise Heren reviews@historyscotland.com Human Capital and Empire: Scotland, Ireland, Wales and British imperialism in Asia, c.169
History Scotland3 min read
Travelling Into The Wilds
The Immeasurable Wilds: Travellers to the Far North of Scotland, 1600-1900 Alastair Mitchell Whittles Publishing, (May 2022) pp.224 Paperback, £14.99 ISBN: 9781849954921 Scotland, and in particular the Scottish highlands, began attracting travellers
History Scotland2 min read
Reconsidering medieval Scotland
This collection of essays is in honour of Dr Alexander Grant from Lancaster University, whose breadth of interests across lowland medieval Scotland and northern England are clearly reflected in this volume through the key themes of kingship, lordship
History Scotland2 min read
Archives Reimagined
LISTEN HERE to a sound clip from the University of Edinburgh’s archive recordings project The new commissions, which feature recordings from a University of Edinburgh resource, take gallery-goers on a sensory journey around cities and towns, country
History Scotland3 min read
The Golden Age Of Elite Publishing
Mary, queen of Scots - whose embroidery is the subject of an article on page 22 - is surely one of the most written-about of Scottish monarchs. It is a little surprising, then, to dig into the archives of the Scottish History Society and find compara
History Scotland2 min readCrime & Violence
Gleaning Clues From Jail Records
The Scotland’s People website www.scotlandspeople.gov. uk has recently seen the release of an extended series of jail records in addition to the Perth prison records which have been available for a few years. The records released recently were for La
History Scotland3 min read
Final Word
Tourism operators and residents of remote rural regions of Scotland are significantly more susceptible to the influences of seasonality, and as a consequence, face more social challenges than urban locations. For many residents, particularly the youn

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