Edinburgh's Dark Side

Croft-an-Righ

2020-12-21T20:55:00.001+00:00

Croft-an-Righ

Croft-an-Righ (which is thought to mean 'King's Field') is a turreted L-plan house (originally T-plan) which was first built in 1588 in the grounds of the Palace of Holyroodhouse as a town house for James Stewart, who was the Earl of Moray and Mary Queen of Scots' half brother (and later Regent Moray).

Some major reconstruction work was done to it in the late 17th century after a fire gutted it...it was considerably rebuilt to the point where it would be more accurate to refer to it as a 17th century house containing some 16th century material.

Is it a castle as some people say it is? If you define a castle as a fortified home, then yes, sort of. It was very late in the day in terms of castle building though, so I'm going with no. Really, it was a town house and a croft, meaning a fenced-off area of land for growing crops (usually, but not always, with a home on it) - this one helped feed the palace's occupants.

At one point it belonged to Lord Elphinstone and then later to William Graham, the Earl of Airth. Further alterations were made in the 1870s - the turrets were extended and capped, and a two-storey outshot (a projecting part of a wall or building, often upstairs) was removed along with its fore-stair.

In the 1900s, it was split in two - one family occupied the ground floor and the first floor, and another family lived upstairs in the second and third floors. Some of the children who lived there over the years used to dare each other to go into the ruined abbey at midnight! One man who lived there was Alex Duthie - he was a gardener at the palace from 1920 until just after WWII, and then his son Tosh Duthie took over from him until 1976. They were in charge of the greenhouses and nursery where plants were grown to decorate the palace and other places throughout Scotland. Another resident was Pierce Jones, the head warder at the palace in the 1930s.

In the 1970s, some of the yard was dug up to lay pipes and a load of old bones were discovered. Presumably it had once been a plague burial pit.

At some point in the mid-18th to mid-19th century, the gate was repositioned. The current roadway leading past it into Holyrood Park was laid out in the mid-to-late 19th century, and the gate was removed. The building itself has since been converted into offices and is now used by Historic Scotland as their regional office.

Cragiehall

2020-12-21T18:51:00.004+00:00

Grotto Bridge

The Cragie estate (near Cramond) first belonged to John de Cragie, who probably moved here by invitation of King David I (1124–1153). The king had decided that he wanted Scotland's still very tribal society to become more like England's, and so he invited the sons of prominent Norman families up here and gave them land. It was theirs for as long as they could hold onto it and the best way to do that was to build a castle, so presumably one was built in this area. It would've been made from timber and so all traces of it are gone.

There's evidence of prehistoric activity in the landscape here. There's a crop mark which indicates the existence of a round barrow (a burial mound), and there was once a standing stone known as the King's Stane.

In 1387 the estate passed to John Stewart of Durisdeer when he married Margaret Cragie. In 1643 the Stewarts sold it (by this point it included a stone tower house) to John Fairholm, who was Edinburgh's treasurer. In 1682 his granddaughter Sophia married William Johnstone, the 2nd Earl of Annandale, and the estate became his.

The pair of them decided to replace the old tower house with a fashionable new mansion (defencible homes were no longer needed by then). In 1694 the old building was pulled down and a new one was begun. Many of the people involved in the work were also involved in the construction of nearby Hopetoun House at the same time. The new mansion, Cragiehall, was finished in 1699.

In 1741, the estate passed on to Charles Hope-Weir, who made several improvements. In 1757 Grotto Bridge was built across the River Almond, named after the grotto and bathhouse (now in ruins) slightly further upstream. The bridge linked the Cragie estate to Lennie, the neighbouring estate also owned by Hope-Weir.

Nearby on top of Lennie Hill, Cragiehall Temple was built in 1759. Vandals burned it in the early 1970s, and in 1977 the upper storey of this two-storey, circular building was removed because it was thought to be a potential danger to the planes coming and going from Edinburgh Airport (a new, longer runway having been built). The ground floor became part of a private house.

A view of the river from Grotto Bridge

In 1811, Cragie passed on to Hope-Weir's grandson, James Joseph Hope-Vere, and more alterations were carried out. His grandson, James Hope-Vere, inherited the estate in 1916 and sold it to Archibald Philip Primrose, the 5th Earl of Rosebery and 1st Earl of Midlothian. He'd bought it for his son, Neil Primrose, but sadly the younger man was killed just a year later during WWI. The house was leased to James Morton, a textile manufacturer from Edinburgh, instead. Most of the land, however, was reserved and farmed alongside Rosebery's Dalmeny estate.

During WWII, various regiments were stationed at Cragie, in what was known as Cragiehall Camp (a two-storey concrete building). Ernest Thompson was renting the house at that point, and he decided he'd like to buy it. He had a right to do so as part of his lease but the problem was, the army was still there. In 1948 they offered to buy the house from him. The sale went through in 1951 and, as it then became the army's headquarters in Scotland, they made several alterations to it, including completely replacing the roof which was found to have woodworm. Later on they bought additional land from the Dalmeny estate and built barracks. The camp closed in March 2019.

Despite the army's alterations and additions, the estate is still very beautiful and a lot of the old design (open park, avenues, woodland) is still intact. The house itself is in excellent condition, although very little of the original decor is left. Some of the fireplaces, some wood panelling, and the wrought iron staircase from 1699 are still there.

Burgesses and the Luckenbooths

2020-12-21T16:16:00.002+00:00

St. Giles Cathedral/the High Kirk

A burgess was a freeman of the burgh. The word comes from an Old French word - burgeis - the inhabitant of a town; which itself comes from the Latin burgus. It generally referred to the merchant class.

Not just anyone could be one - you couldn't just set yourself up somewhere and start trading, it had to be earned. The various different trades came with long apprenticeships...five years for weaving and hat-making, and seven years for most of the others such as tailoring and shoe-making. At the end of their apprenticeships they were examined to see if they were good enough to pass. Those who didn't, if they were young enough, might be granted a second chance by way of an extension and retesting. Those deemed too old were not, and would forever be employees.

The ones who passed then had to pay a fee to become freemen. That done, they were allowed to set up a workshop and begin trading. Even then they would face regular inspections by the Deacon of their guild to make sure whatever it was they were producing was up to standard. The fleshers (butchers) faced particularly harsh penalties if the meat they were working with turned out to be diseased - they were banished from Edinburgh. No one wanted food poisoning.

The masons (stone workers) and the wrights (carpenters) faced the most rigorous checks - after all, if their work wasn't up to scratch, people might die.

The merchants began setting up stalls in the street or under their own stairs. It wasn't ideal and so in 1440 the Town Council decided to start building Edinburgh's first ever permanent shops, right beside St. Giles Cathedral (smack bang in the middle of the High Street). The first one was a two-storey wooden building - there were living quarters upstairs and an open merchant area on the ground floor facing the High Street.

Gradually the number of (very irregular) buildings grew until they were all the way along the side of the kirk with just a narrow path between it and them. It was first known as Buith-Raw (Booth Row), and later became known as the Luckenbooths (locked booths). They weren't the bonniest of sights to see, but given how much money the craftsmen contributed to the kirk's upkeep, no one from there was about to complain. The buildings were originally meant exclusively for the goldsmiths, silversmiths and jewellers but were later opened to other trades.

In the narrow gap between the Luckenbooths and the kirk were the Krames, a row of market stalls crammed in like a bazaar, selling all manner of different things. This passageway became known as Stinking Style, because the people living upstairs in the Luckenbooths would empty their chamber pots out of the windows. This practice was officially banned more than once by the Town Council but it didn't stop them. What else were they meant to do with it?

Sadly, the Luckenbooths and the Krames were demolished in 1817 along with the old Tolbooth, so that the road could be widened to ease traffic congestion.

Highway Robbery at St. Leonard's

2020-12-17T17:15:00.002+00:00

In St. Leonard's (on the road between Dalkeith and Edinburgh) on the 18th of April, 1826, a quarrier named Andrew Fullarton and two other men (Renton and Reid) attacked a cow-feeder called James Hunter, who was on his way back to Edinburgh from the Lauder fair, travelling with two women he'd met along the way.

The three men beat him up and stole eleven pounds, an umbrella and a neckcloth. It was an especially brutal attack and Fullarton was identified by one of the two female witnesses, as well as others who'd been nearby at the time.

Fullarton and Renton went on trial (Reid had escaped but was later caught and jailed) - Fullarton was found guilty of highway robbery but Renton's verdict was 'not proven' and so he was freed. Fullarton was sentenced to death, the sentence to be carried out on the 16th of August. His wife, who was in court to support him, cried out as if her heart was breaking.

On the day of the execution, Fullarton, aged twenty-six, appeared at the head of Libberton's Wynd at just after 8am. He made a speech warning those around him about the perils of drinking and keeping bad company, and prayed at great length. Finally, at around 9am, he was dropped.

Fiery Face - King James II

2020-12-17T17:15:00.001+00:00

Holyrood Abbey

King James II was born in Holyrood Abbey, the youngest of a pair of twins. His (slightly) older brother Alexander died before his first birthday, leaving James as heir to the throne. He became king in 1437 at just six years old, after his father was murdered.

When he was ten he witnessed the murder of his two new companions in an incident which has come to be known as the Black Dinner.

James had a prominent red birthmark which earned him the nickname 'Fiery Face'. He was a popular king, just as likely to spend his time with ordinary folk as he was with nobles. In 1449, when he was eighteen years old, he married fifteen-year-old Mary of Guelders, and the two of them went onto have seven children together (six of whom survived into adulthood).

He's probably best remembered the murder of William Douglas, the 8th Earl of Douglas. Douglas was the son of James the Gross, the 7th earl, who was involved in the Black Dinner conspiracy. Douglas himself may or may not have been involved. He certainly gained the earldom and lands after his father died just three years later, and then the lordships of Galloway and Bothwell when he married his cousin, Margaret Douglas. It made him an even bigger threat to the Crown.

Stirling Castle

There was a great deal of tension between James and Douglas. In 1452, Douglas was summoned to the king's presence (supposedly under 'safe conduct') at Stirling Castle and was told to withdraw from an agreement he'd made with Alexander Lindsay, the 4th Earl of Crawford, and John of Islay, the 4th Lord of the Isles. When Douglas refused, James stabbed him. Other men joined in, including Sir Patrick Gray who apparently hacked out Douglas' brains with a pole axe, and then they threw him out of a window.

James is also remembered for being really keen on guns. There were cannons from Flanders at his wedding, given to him as part of his bride's dowry. He collected them, and had a gun platform built beside David's Tower at Edinburgh Castle which allowed him to fire them down the Royal Mile at any approaching enemy. Nice for him and everyone else safely holed up in the castle maybe, but not so comforting for those whose homes were in the line of fire.

In 1460, aged twenty-nine, he took himself and several of his best guns off to Roxburgh, a thriving medieval town in the Scottish Borders (it's now completely vanished*), to lay siege to Roxburgh Castle** which was the last castle in Scotland still being held by an English garrison after the Wars of Independence. On the 3rd of August, he was standing next to one of them (called 'The Lion') when it exploded and killed him.

His body was taken back to Holyrood Abbey for burial and the Scots carried on with the siege, taking the castle a few days later. Mary of Guelders ordered it destroyed. She then acted as regent for her son, King James III (who was only nine when his father died), for the next three years until her own death.

A year before she died she had the beautiful Church of the Holy Trinity begun next to the Nor' Loch in memory of her husband. She never saw it finished but was buried in the north aisle. The kirk was demolished in 1848 to make way for the Waverley train station. They were going to resurrect it somewhere else and carefully numbered the stones before leaving them in a pile on Calton Hill, but when they finally got around to starting, so many of them had been stolen and used in other buildings that they could only recreate the apse.

The ruins of Roxburgh Castle can be found in the grounds of Floors Castle.

* The nearby village of Roxburgh was named after it but is otherwise unconnected.

** Mary Bruce, sister of King Robert I (Robert the Bruce) was suspended in an outdoor cage at this castle for four years.

The Blackfriars Monastery/High School Yards

2020-12-17T12:00:00.001+00:00

Drummond Street

In 1230, King Alexander II gifted a large area of land so that the first Black Friars monastery could be built in Scotland. It lay between the Cowgate and Drummond Street, east of the end of Infirmary Street, and had previously been the location of the building known as the King's Manor

The new monastery wasn't grand - the Dominican Friars weren't about money. They had no worldly possessions and spent most of their days in amongst the people, preaching their faith and depending on donations of food. Like many religious houses of this era, though, it did have one thing about it which beat any castle or manor house...an excellent drainage system. The monks considered sanitation very important, and it meant that the buildings were much in demand for all sorts of uses.

King Henry VI of England and his wife, Margaret of Anjou, stayed there in 1461, as did other prominent figures such as Perkin Warbeck (the imposter) in 1498 and Cardinal Beaton in 1520. Several important meetings were held there too.

High School Yards

The buildings were partially burned down in 1528 and again in 1544, but were rebuilt. Finally, a Protestant mob destroyed them in 1558 (along with the Greyfriars monastery). After the Reformation, the monks were offered a pension to pretty much get lost. Some went abroad, some converted and others stayed to minister to the remaining Catholics. Mary Queen of Scots, herself a Catholic, took two of them in - John Black and John Craig - and sheltered them at the Palace of Holyroodhouse. Black was murdered the same night as David Riccio. Craig decided to convert and became a minister at the High Kirk (St. Giles).

In 1560, the ruined monastery's stones were removed and incorporated into various new buildings, and all that was left was the burial ground and the vast gardens. In 1566, the queen granted the land to the burgh, and the original High School was built there in 1578. The area became known as High School Yards.

It was eventually decided that a new, bigger building was required, preferably closer to the ever-growing New Town. In 1829, a new Royal High School was built on Calton Hill, and the old High School closed down. In 1832 it reopened as a Surgical Hospital, and the University of Edinburgh held anatomy classes in there. It was a much needed extension of the Royal Infirmary which had been built on Infirmary Street in 1738.

Old Infirmary Lane

In 1879, a new Royal Infirmary opened in Lauriston Place and most of both old hospitals' work was transferred there. The Surgical Hospital became the City Hospital for Infectious Diseases and the original Royal Infirmary was demolished around 1884, replaced by swimming baths, the South Bridge School and an infant school. Today there's no trace of the original old infirmary building left, apart from the ornamental gates and carved gateposts on Drummond Street which have been preserved and now lead to the university's geography building, aka the New Surgical Hospital which opened in 1853.

By 1905, the university had acquired the old High School/Surgical Hospital and were using it to contain some of their science and engineering departments; it later housed geography. After that it became the Edinburgh Dental School, then in 1995 it became the Department of Archaeology.

Today the Blackfriars Monastery/High School Yards site is occupied by the Edinburgh University’s Centre for Carbon Innovation, which was built in 2013. During construction* the monastery's old burial ground was discovered - there were eighty-eight skeletons; men, women and children. One of them, an adult male, was buried with a sandstone slab which had a Calvary Cross and an ornate sword carved onto it. He'd clearly been a high status individual, probably a knight or some other kind of nobleman. How funny that the Department of Archaeology had been sitting right on top of such an important discovery.

Blackfriars Street

The infamous Surgeon's Square sits behind the Old High School building. Dr Robert Knox's house was demolished (along with various other surgeons' houses in the square where private anatomy classes were once held) to make way for the New Surgical Hospital (now the geography building).

The monastery's name lives on in Blackfriars Street (previously Blackfriars Wynd), which once led the way to it from the High Street.

* This construction work confirmed the precise location of the monastery. Previously, it was unknown/guessed at.

The Attempted Murder of the Lord Provost

2020-12-14T15:03:00.003+00:00

The City Chambers on the High Street

Between the 28th of April and the 1st of June in 1831, general elections were held for all 658 members of the House of Commons. In May, it was time to elect Edinburgh's member at the City Chambers on the High Street.

When William Dundas was re-elected, many people in Edinburgh weren't happy and the Lord Provost, William Allan of Glen*, knew it - he set off towards his home on Hillside Crescent with a large police escort.

A crowd gathered and followed them. When they reached the North Bridge they attacked, grabbing Allan and trying to throw him over the side.

He was rescued and hid inside a shop on Leith Street until help arrived in the form of soldiers from the Piershill Barracks. The crowd was read the Riot Act and Allan was safely taken home.

* Allan was born in Hillside House, a grand mansion located on what's now the east side of Gayfield Square at the top of Leith Walk. It was surrounded by a vast estate which included most of Calton Hill and the lands to the north - it's now long gone. He had a custom designed house built for himself at 11 Hillside Crescent and his brothers, Thomas and Alexander, lived at numbers 4 and 5. During his term as the Lord Provost (1829-31) he oversaw the building of the George IV Bridge and the Dean Bridge.

A Wild Circus

2020-12-14T11:32:00.002+00:00

The North Bridge

The police were half-expecting a riot on the 23rd of April in 1824, and they held a meeting in advance to discuss whether one was likely. On the basis of the information they had available to them at the time they decided that there probably wouldn't be one, and deployed their officers accordingly.

At 5pm there were 150 officers at the main Police Office, and one sergeant and eleven other officers were positioned at each of the five watch-houses. Another sergeant and six men were stationed at the Mound, where there were several caravans of wild animals belonging to a travelling circus. Two sergeants were sent to patrol the High Street and another man, Hart, was told to wander in amongst the crowds on the North and South bridges in plain clothes to gather information. For a riot that probably wasn't going to happen, that seemed like enough.

But, by 7pm, Hart had reported that a crowd was assembling on the North Bridge, and they were throwing squibs, dead cats, fish and other rubbish about. The notorious Edinburgh Mob was gathering.

By the time the main body of the police reached the bridge, things were already out of control. They managed to move the crowd off of the North Bridge and onto the South Bridge, but some of them managed to get away and they headed to the Mound, where they quickly overwhelmed the officers there and opened the doors to the cages. Chaos reigned there and on Princes Street (a lot of property was damaged), but eventually the police managed to regain control and the mob was dispersed.

The Umbrella Maker's Execution

2020-12-12T18:42:00.002+00:00

The Lawnmarket

On the 27th of January in 1840, James Wemyss (an umbrella maker) and his wife, Sally McRavey, who lived in Plainstanes Close (which led from the Grassmarket up to Castlehill), were both thoroughly drunk. They started to argue and it turned violent. Wemyss killed McRavey, then tucked her body into bed and made a run for it.

He was soon caught, and his trial took place on the 16th of March that same year. Having been found guilty of murder, his execution date was set for the 16th of April. In the meantime he was to be held prisoner in Calton Jail and fed on a diet of nothing but bread and water. It was noted that Wemyss didn't seem particularly bothered by what was happening, not throughout the trial nor when his sentence was pronounced. It was only as he was being led away that it really hit him and he went into shock.

Just before the execution he was taken to Lock-up House, where he was attended by ministers. At a few minutes before 8am he appeared at the scaffold at the head of Libberton's Wynd in the Lawnmarket and seemed, witnesses said later, to be a whole different person from the individual they'd watched at the trial.

The executioner, John Scott, bungled the hanging by not taking the right bolt out. The crowd who'd come to watch were horrified and threatened to revolt, but the matter was soon fixed. Just when it seemed he was dead, Wemyss jolted and began to struggle frantically for several minutes before his life at last came to an end.

A Town Council Cock Up (of Royal Proportions)

2020-12-09T22:13:00.000+00:00

The Bass Rock in the Firth of Forth

In 1842, Queen Victoria made her first visit to Scotland. Her ship pulled into the Firth of Forth at a quarter to one in the morning on Thursday the 1st of September. The queen was awake and wrote in her diary about them all being relieved to hear the anchor being let down - perhaps it had been a rough journey. She mentioned seeing the Bass Rock, and the hills of Edinburgh (the Pentlands) shrouded in mist.

She and her party stayed onboard, having breakfast up on deck at around 7am. The delay had a lot to do with no one realising she was there - the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, James Forrest, and the Town Council had thought that she was arriving the day before. The people of Edinburgh had been out in force to meet their beautiful young queen - it was the first royal visit in twenty years - but she hadn't turned up. When she did put in an appearance, so very late at night, nobody noticed.

At around 8am at Granton pier, various high status individuals (having been rudely hauled out of their beds) came aboard to meet her. Despite the previous day's disappointment, a great many folk had gathered at the pier to see her and they cheered as she got into her horse-drawn carriage.

Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert, thought Edinburgh was beautiful (Albert described it as 'fairy-like') and quite unlike anywhere else they'd ever been. They avoided the Palace of Holyroodhouse on this initial visit because there had recently been a death from scarlet fever there, and went up the High Street to the castle accompanied by the Royal Archers Body Guard, who were - despite being made up of nobles and gentlemen - at first mistaken for a gang of assassins by her own personal body guard, which led to a near fatal fight. Then they were 'dreadfully pushed about' by the over-enthusiastic crowd. The Earl of Errol was almost run over by the queen's carriage.

Not long afterwards, a spectator stand collapsed, killing two and injuring fifty.

The royal couple also visited Leith, which was still a separate burgh back then (and remained so right up until 1920). Victoria described it as 'not a pretty town'. Oh well. She was quite taken with the fish-wives, who were apparently mostly young, pretty, very clean and 'Dutch looking'.

Queen Victoria then went to stay at Dalkeith Palace before moving on to the Highlands, which she fell in love with. Having later bought Balmoral, the Palace of Holyroodhouse became a convenient stopping place for her on future visits. It hadn't been a royal residence in quite some time and so it was renovated for her use. One of the major changes on the outside was the sweeping carriage driveway to the north - it was added by Albert (who made several changes to Holyrood Park), so that he and his wife wouldn't have to look at the poor in the Canongate slums when they visited.

The ruins of Holyrood Abbey

Victoria loved the palace and the ruined abbey (she and Albert used to wander through it by moonlight, and they both painted it), but she wasn't so keen on the William Younger and Company brewery which could be seen from the windows. She had walls built to hide it, and paid for brewery workers to patrol them dressed as soldiers, as if it were a much older castle's battlements.

She was quite fascinated by Mary, Queen of Scots (she once wrote 'For Stuart blood is in my veins and I am now, their representative [...]'). Victoria was a direct descendant through King James VI and I's daughter with Queen Anne of Denmark, Elizabeth of Bohemia. Describing Mary's rooms in 1872, Victoria wrote that they were, ‘[...] all hung with old tapestry, and the two little turret rooms; the one where she was supping when poor Rizzio was murdered, the other her dressing-room. Bits of the old tapestry which covered the walls at the time are hung up in frames in the rooms…’ and ‘Thence we were shown into poor Queen Mary’s bedroom, where are the faded old bed she used, the baby-basket sent her by Queen Elizabeth when King James I was born, and her work-box…’.

On the 5th of July in 1871, Victoria's daughter, the Princess Louise, dressed up as Mary Queen of Scots for the Waverley Ball, knowing it would please her mother.

More than one ballad was written about the initial 1842 visit, but this one, Jemmie Forrest, is probably the most well known:

Jemmie Forrest

Hey, Jemmie Forrest, are ye waukin' yet ?
Or are your Bailies snoring yet ?
If ye were waukin' I would wait,
Ye'd hae a merry, merry morning.

The frigate guns they loud did roar,
But louder did the Bailies snore,
And thought it was an unco bore
To rise up in the morning.

And syne the Castle thunder'd loud ;
But kipper it is savoury food,
And that the Bailies understood,
Sae early in the morning.

The Queen she's come to Granton Pier,
Nae Provost and nae Bailies here ?
They're in their beds, I muckle fear,
Sae early in the morning.

The Queen she's come to Brandon Street,
The Provost and the Keys to meet,
And div ye think that she's to wait
Your waukin' in the morning.

My Lord, my Lord, the Queen she's here,
And vow, my Lord he lookit queer?
And what sets her sae soon asteer ?
Its barely nine in the morning.

Gae bring to me my robes o' state ;
Come, Bailies, we will catch her yet.
Rin, rin, my Lord, ye'll be o'er late,
She's been through the town this morning.

Awa' to Dalkeith ye maun hie,
To make your best apologie.
The Queen, she'll say, O fie ! O flie !
Ye're lazy loons in the morning.

When Christmas was Illegal in Scotland...

2020-12-09T13:16:00.003+00:00

A view of Edinburgh

In post-Reformation Scotland, the Kirk began a war on Christmas - it was much too extravagant, too Catholic, too pagan. It didn't reflect what was written in the Bible. For years the ministers preached against it and finally managed to get it banned in 1640. There would be no more drunkenness, no more overindulgence!

It became a day like any other - you went to work as usual. There were harsh punishments (including prison) for anyone who dared to disobey. Bakers were expected to hand over the names of any customers who asked for special food such as Yule bread.

Some people continued to celebrate in secret (beginning the shift from it being a community-based celebration to a family-based one), but most folk simply moved their traditions on a week to Hogmanay. That's why, even now, Hogmanay is still the bigger deal here in Scotland.

The Act of Parliament which banned Christmas was repealed in 1686, but the Kirk continued to frown upon it and it never regained its former glory.

In 1647, Christmas was banned in England, Wales and Ireland as well, and it led to riots. Their ban was lifted nearly fifteen years later after Oliver Cromwell fell from grace, but it wasn't until the Victorian era that the festival really took off again. The Victorians went all out, introducing Christmas cards, Christmas trees (courtesy of Germany and Prince Albert*), Christmas crackers, synthetic decorations and Christmas stockings (an American import). They also revived carol singing, Yule logs, kissing under the mistletoe and the idea of St. Nicholas/Father Christmas (who'd been banned by the Church - by the end of the Victorian era, he and the Dutch/American Santa Claus had become one in the same).

They changed the food that was traditionally eaten for the feast - beef or goose became turkey (or rabbit if you were poor), and mince pie filling went from being made with meat to being made with fruit - and they moved gift giving from New Year to Christmas Day. As industrialisation and mass production increased, the gifts got bigger and became shop bought - instead of being modest, home-made gifts like mittens or embroidered handkerchiefs which could be tied to the Christmas tree's branches, soon things were being put underneath instead. In the spirit of giving, they also invented Boxing Day - a day when they'd reward their servants for their hard work with some money in a box.

None of this was happening in Scotland though, not on Christmas. Some of it happened on Hogmanay (that's when Father Christmas showed up!), but the day itself was still pretty much ignored. In 1871 it became a bank holiday here, so the banks were closed...but everyone else still had to go to work. It wasn't declared a public holiday until 1958 (with Boxing day following suit in 1974).

Bah humbug, indeed.

*The first UK royal to have a Christmas tree was actually Queen Charlotte, wife of King George III, but the general public never saw that one. It wasn't until a picture of Albert and Victoria's tree appeared in The Illustrated London News that the idea took off here.

Mrs Robinson's Diary

2020-12-06T12:41:00.002+00:00

Moray Place

In the mid-1800s, Lady Elizabeth Drysdale's parties at Royal Circus in the New Town were the place to be. Amongst her guests were several famous faces of the time - writers, intellectuals, naturalists, doctors, actors, publishers and more.

Drysdale lived with her daughter, Mary, and her son-in-law, Edward Lane. He was a twenty-seven-year-old lawyer, originally from Canada, who had just started retraining for a career in medicine. On a Friday evening, the 15th of November in 1850, he was there at one of the parties when Isabella Robinson showed up.

Robinson (née Walker), who lived on Moray Place, was thirty-seven and trapped in an unhappy marriage with civil engineer Henry Robinson, whom she described in her diary as an "uncongenial partner [...] uneducated, narrow-minded, harsh-tempered, selfish, proud". She'd married him in 1844 when she was thirty-one, her first husband having died of 'brain disease' (he was much older than her and seems to have suffered from some kind of mental illness). This first husband had left everything to his son from his own previous marriage, leaving Robinson and her son with nothing. Her family had stepped in to help - they'd secured her marriage to Henry Robinson by agreeing to provide a sum of money every year, and it must have been a fair amount because otherwise a widow with a child and no money of her own wouldn't have been a good prospect.

Perhaps at first, Henry Robinson had seemed like the answer to her problems, but he was constantly away on business (he was responsible for designing and building ships and mills for the sugar cane industry) and when he was home, he was cold and remote towards her and the children (by the time they moved to Moray Place, they had two sons of their own together as well).

Although she led a very comfortable life, she was an extremely intelligent, well-read woman who was deeply frustrated by the limitations placed on her by upper middle class Victorian society. She was interested in science, politics, poetry, literature, philosophy and more, but had no one to talk to. She'd come to the party alone because her husband was away again (quite possibly with one of his other women), and she was bored - perhaps the party would provide her with some interesting conversation?

She took an instant liking to Lane, who was - as she later wrote in her diary - fascinating. It was this diary - and her letters, poems and essays - that was to be her undoing. Over the course of the next five years she wrote in great detail about how unsatisfied she was with her husband, and how she and her children had grown closer to the Lane/Drysdale family - and exactly how much she longed for Lane. She wrote about her sexual fantasies and about how they'd gotten together at last, albeit briefly. It was all very 'poor me' and she doesn't seem to have felt any particular guilt about befriending Mary while lusting after her husband.

At some point during those five years, the Robinson family moved away and Lane took the opportunity to sever his relationship with her. Perhaps she'd become a bit too needy. She then started to pursue one of her sons' tutors. A while later, she crossed paths with Lane again and went after him once more.

One day, when Robinson was lying ill in her bed, her husband found the diary and other private writings. He took the whole lot as evidence of adultery and sued for divorce. Robinson's diary was read out in court and, as the newspapers printed excerpts, it became a national scandal. Theirs was one of the first cases to be heard in the new Court of Divorce and Matrimonial Causes. Edward Lane was hauled in, but vehemently denied he'd had an affair with her - it was pure fantasy on her part.

Robinson was described by her own lawyers as a woman driven mad by 'uterine disease', living in a world of her own.

So did they have an affair? No one knows for sure. The original diary and other writings were destroyed afterwards, as were the copies - it was deemed much too disgusting to keep. She won the case and so Henry Robinson was not granted a divorce...not then, at least. Several years later she was discovered having an affair with another tutor and finally, that was the end of the marriage.

Ebenezer Scroggie

2020-12-05T18:57:00.006+00:00

Canongate Kirk

The story goes that as the sun was going down one evening in 1841, the author Charles Dickens (who was here to do a public reading of his work) was taking a walk through Canongate Kirkyard when he happened to notice a grave which he thought read 'Ebenezer Lennox Scrooge - mean man'. It actually read 'Ebenezer Lennox Scroggie - meal man', but nevertheless inspired him to write about the now infamous Scrooge in 1843's A Christmas Carol.

Scroggie wasn't anything like that character. Born in Kirkcaldy, Fife, in 1792, he was a vintner and corn merchant who won the first whisky supply contract with the Royal Navy and the catering contract for King George IV's visit to Edinburgh in 1822. He was a generous, sociable man who liked to throw wild parties. He had an illegitimate child with a maidservant with whom he'd had sex on a tombstone, and once caused an uproar during the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland by grabbing the Countess of Mansfield's arse.

Scroggie's grave was sadly lost in 1932 when the kirkyard was being redeveloped. Several people have suggested having a memorial made for him and maybe including him as a stop on one or two of the many walking tours of the city.

And...

...it's just as well they didn't do it, because unfortunately the whole thing is a load of nonsense made up by a man called Peter Clarke back in 1996. One huge giveaway is the Countess of Mansfield incident - women weren't allowed into the meetings! There's no evidence whatsoever that Scroggie ever existed - he's not listed in the post office directories of the time (and a merchant definitely would be); there's no evidence of his winning those contracts, and there are no parish birth or burial records for him. It's nothing more than a hoax.

Sinful Davey

2020-12-05T12:59:00.003+00:00

The Canongate

There was once a 'farm town' (a hamlet, really) just outside Edinburgh called Golden Acre (long since swallowed up and now just an area of the city known as Goldenacre). On the 24th of June, 1801, David Haggart was born there.

He did quite well at school but got himself into trouble outside it - he saw a Bantam cock in the New Town and offered to buy it, but when the woman who owned it said no, he stole it. He also went shoplifting in Stockbridge, and then later stole a pony he'd found by the side of the road because it was a long way home and he was tired.

His family moved to the Canongate and Haggart was taken on as an apprentice with a millwright. He seemed to have mended his youthful ways and was a well-liked, trustworthy employee, but then in 1817 the business went bust and Haggart couldn't find any other work. He fell in with an Irish pickpocket named Barney, who taught him various tricks. The pair of them went travelling together through Scotland and into England, funding their adventures by thieving.

Finally they were caught in York. At the trial they were found guilty and sentenced to death, but they escaped from prison and headed to Durham. Two police constables approached them and as one was arresting Haggart, he shot him. Whether he died or not, Haggart wasn't sure.

Next they headed to Coldstream where Barney got himself arrested again and spent three months in the jail at Jedburgh. Haggart took himself off to Newcastle, then home to Edinburgh where he was arrested and spent four months in the Bridewell. After he was released he went off with some other thieves to Aberdeen where he was promptly arrested and jailed again.

North Bridge

Back home again he came and committed more crimes. By now he'd moved on to house-breaking, targeting several houses in Edinburgh and Leith. On Hogmanay 1819/20, he managed to net himself five silver watches and one gold one, all taken from houses along the North and South bridges. Not long afterwards he was caught and thrown in the Lock-up, but escaped. Shortly afterwards he came back and got the turnkey so drunk that he managed to get his key off him, and liberated six other prisoners.

Haggart moved in with a woman friend in Leith and set about breaking into more houses and shops, both there and in Edinburgh. Next he moved in with another pickpocket called Forrest, and while he was there the police raided their flat. Forrest was arrested and Haggart was left behind with another officer. He shoved him into a bedroom and locked the door, meaning to make his escape, but there were other officers in the stairwell. A bloodied Haggart was carted off to the Police Office.

Shortly afterwards he managed to get hold of a small file and worked through the chains on his legs. He rescued Forrest and the pair of them took off. It was about 5am and they saw a man coming towards them, but he said "Run, Haggart, run. I won't touch ye." The pair of them ran all the way to Dalkeith, then the next day they headed to Kelso, then onto Dumfries where he met up with Barney.

Barney was arrested and Haggart tried to get to Carlisle, but was himself arrested and brought back to Leith. He stood trial at Edinburgh and got off, but was then sent to Dumfries where he stood trial again. While in jail there, he made a friend of John Dunbar, who was waiting for his transportation sentence to be carried out.

By now, Haggart saw himself as a heroic rescuer of criminals like himself. It would be a grand thing, would it not, if he could get the others out as well? One of them, a man called Laurie, suggested knocking out a turnkey with a rock. A suitable piece was found, put in a bag and hidden in a cupboard at the top of the stairs.

On Tuesday the 10th of October in 1820, the head turnkey went off to the Races, leaving another turnkey called Morrin in charge. Haggart hid himself in the cupboard where they'd put the rock. When Morrin passed by, he burst out of it, struck him with the rock and stole his keys. One of the other prisoners, Simpson, gave Morrin a beating, holding him by the shoulders and slamming his head against the stairs.

They all made their way out into the town and melted into the crowd. Haggart and Dunbar were together, but were soon spotted by a policeman. Dunbar was caught but Haggart kept running. After ten miles the police were still chasing him. He leapt into a field where several folk were digging up potatoes, and the police got them to join in the chase. With some doubling back on himself, he managed to give them all the shake and hid in a haystack overnight. As he lay there, he overheard a woman and a boy talking over the prison escape. The turnkey had died.

Taking some old clothes from a nearby scarecrow, Haggart headed for Carlisle and then Newcastle before coming back to Scotland. He stopped in Dunbar first and then came home to Edinburgh. Here he laid low in the Canongate for a bit, then moved to Jock's Lodge. Disguised in women's clothing, he visited family and friends.

Newhaven

One night, Haggart was walking from Portobello to Leith (in his own clothes, having grown complacent) when he came face to face with Captain Ross of the Leith Police. Both of them froze and stared at each other, then Haggart made as if to pull a pistol out of his pocket. He didn't actually have one but it was quite enough for Ross who took off running. Haggart ran in the opposite direction, eventually making his way to Dundee and then Perth (thieving as he went, to support himself). Unable to stay away for long, he came back to Newhaven and then Edinburgh, but when he saw his face on a 'Wanted' poster here complete with a large reward, he decided to go back to Perth.

After that he stayed in Glasgow for a while before taking a boat to Ireland. He was arrested for theft in Drummore but gave a false name and tried to pass himself off as an Irishman. They had a newspaper with his description it in it, but he'd perfected his friend Barney's accent and the magistrate couldn't decide if he was telling the truth or not. He decided to hold him prisoner until the matter could be resolved, but Haggart plied his guards with drink and managed to escape.

Not for long, though - he was soon arrested for robbing a drover. Before his trial he bribed the man to say it wasn't him, but even so was sentenced to seven years banishment. While he was still in jail the magistrate from Drummore showed up, identified him and recommended that they put him in chains. Haggart insisted he'd never been to Drummore in his life - clearly the magistrate had mistaken him for someone else! He must have been pretty convincing because he wasn't chained - instead he was taken to another jail where he was allowed to move freely amongst the other prisoners, and he made plans to escape. This time, though, one of the others informed on him and he was caught in the act.

The next day, when all of the prisoners were out in the yard, an officer who was originally from Dumfries recognised him. Haggart tried to bluff his way out of it but it did no good - he was clapped in irons and taken back to Scotland; firstly to Dumfries (where a crowd of people came out to meet the notorious thief by torchlight) and then back here to Calton Jail.

Haggart's trial took place on the 11th of June, 1821. He was found guilty and sentenced to death. While he waited for his execution date, he wrote down his life's story.

He was executed on the 18th of July at the head of Libberton's Wynd. There's a 1969 film that's loosely based on his life called 'Sinful Davey'.

Lock-Up House

2020-12-03T13:13:00.001+00:00

The Lawnmarket

After the Tolbooth was pulled down in 1817 and Calton Jail became the new prison, it was decided that executions would take place at the head of Libberton's Wynd. Temporary gallows were built which were stored underneath the North Bridge when they weren't needed.

A wee prison was built nearby in the Lawnmarket, known as the Lock-up or Lock-Up House. It was an annexe to the jail and it held condemned prisoners overnight before their executions. It was also sometimes used to hold people who'd been given short prison sentences.

The cell which held the condemned was called the iron room because the prisoners were chained to the walls to stop them from escaping. Quite often, a Kirk minister or two would spend the night in there with them, preparing them to meet their maker. They were unlikely to get any sleep - it was freezing cold and the sounds of the gallows being erected kept them (and everyone who lived nearby) awake half the night.

The conditions were so grim - worse than Calton Jail itself - that, for compassionate reasons, occasionally a prisoner wouldn't be taken there until the morning of their execution rather than the night before - if they were ill or in some other way vulnerable, for example.

The Lock-up's most famous prisoner was probably William Burke, held there the night before his execution. Apparently he slept like a baby.

A Blade, a Rope and a Kind Man

2020-12-01T20:14:00.002+00:00

Edinburgh Castle (from St. Cuthbert's Kirkyard)

In 1799, two French prisoners who were being held in Edinburgh Castle arranged for a sword blade to be smuggled in, then used it to saw through the bars of their window. Then they tied a rope around a cannon and lowered themselves down Castle Rock.

In town they met up with two escaped French officers (captive officers were allowed into town under escort, and these two had managed to give theirs the shake) and the four of them took refuge with a sympathetic Kirk minister for the night. The next day, they made their way down to the docks at Leith and got on a boat to France.

The Grassmarket

2020-12-01T12:32:00.000+00:00

The Grassmarket

There's evidence of human occupation in the valley we know as the Grassmarket from as far back as 1500 BCE. This evidence was discovered in 2008 when work was being done in the area, and was a bit of a surprise to archaeologists who had previously thought that the first use of this particular valley was in the 1300s. At first they thought what they'd found - which was hard to identify - was medieval, but radiocarbon dating proved that it was 3,000 years older than that.

It well and truly predated the evidence of occupation of Castle Rock from around 850 BCE (which was discovered in the 1980s), essentially rewriting what we thought we knew about Scottish history. If people were in the valley below Castle Rock, was there also a hill fort up top long before we thought? It seems very likely.

The only earlier evidence of human occupation in what's now Edinburgh comes from around 2000 BCE, found at Arthur's Seat.

Other evidence found during the 2008 excavations dated from about 650-900 CE, and from the medieval period, as expected.

The Grassmarket seen from the Cowgate

The Grassmarket was one of fifteen markets which were officially created in 1477 by King James III. It sold hay and seed and ran right up until 1911. Some of the other markets were the Lawnmarket (a corruption of 'landmarket' - it sold butter and cheese), the Fleshmarket (meat), the Fishmarket, the Cowgate (corn was sold there, but it was also a cattle-droving route, hence the name), a poultry market where Market Street is now and the cattle market in King Stables Road.

There was quite a bit of housing as well - it was a suburb of Edinburgh (as was the Cowgate, a fashionable place to live at the time), technically outside the town until the Flodden Wall was built, taking it in. By the 16th century there were taverns such as the White Hart Inn, and in 1560 the corn exchange was moved there from the Cowgate (it then went through various different incarnations).

By the 1700s there were two markets there - the grass market and the horse market. The West Bow, a steep Z-shaped street which led up to Castlehill from the Grassmarket (later replaced by Victoria Street and Victoria Terrace), was bristling with merchants selling things like flax, hemp, iron, paint, pitch, tar, wood and heavier goods (which were generally kept in warehouses elsewhere, but samples were available).

Victoria Street (and Victoria Terrace, above left)

There was once a dule tree in the Grassmarket which was used for executions long before the gallows were set up at the east end. Later on, more than one hundred Covenanters lost their lives there - the last of them to die was James Renwick, on the 17th of February, 1774.

From the early 1800s, the Grassmarket and the Cowgate started to fill up with incomers to the city, mostly from Ireland. With so many poor people packed into old housing, it soon became rundown and unsafe. Most famously, it also became the hunting ground of Burke and Hare.

To the south of the Grassmarket was the Greyfriars Monastery (built in 1447 and dismantled after the Reformation), now Greyfriars Kirkyard. The buildings in the Grassmarket which were built up against its walls (including the Temple tenements - buildings which belonged to the Knights Templar) and the ancient closes between them have been torn down and rebuilt several times and most of what's there today is of no historic interest.

The north side of the Grassmarket

The north side had several closes leading up to Castlehill (including Plainstanes Close, Beattie's Close, Currie's Close, Dewar's Close and Jamieson's Close), but these were all swept away courtesy of the Edinburgh Improvement Act 1867. Above them was a big chunk of the King's Wall and several gardens. These were removed so that Johnston Terrace could be built.

A new Corn Exchange was built in the west end of the Grassmarket in 1849; a three-storey building with a central cupola (or belfry) and a clock. Public festivals were often held there such as the Crimean banquet in 1856. In spite of it being a category B listed building, it was demolished in 1965.

The One o' Clock Gun

2020-11-22T10:35:00.000+00:00

Castle Street

In 1859, the UK was worried about a potential French invasion and so all across the land, groups of volunteers formed to help fight.

In Edinburgh, ours were called the 1st Edinburgh City Artillery Volunteers, and their headquarters were based at 21 Castle Street (it later moved to King Stables Road and then to York Place).

Most of the volunteers were artists. Their captain was Sir Joseph Noel Paton (an illustrator and sculptor) and the lieutenant was John Faed (a painter). They practised their drills with 12-pounder guns up at the castle, with 32-pounder guns at Leith, and did carbine practice in Holyrood Park.

The ships in the Firth of Forth were, as ever, a key part of the defences, and they needed to keep the right time. They'd been using the time ball at the top of Nelson's Monument on Calton Hill which had been installed in 1852, but it was impossible to see it drop on foggy days.

Nelson's Monument

In 1861, a businessman named John Hewitt suggested that the problem could be solved with a time gun like the one he'd seen in Paris. One was installed on the Half Moon Battery at the castle that same year by Ritchie's, the Edinburgh clockmakers.

The Astronomer Royal, Charles Piazza Smyth, invented a device which triggered the gun when the ball dropped, using a 4,000ft long steel cable which was put into place by the sailors from Leith. The cable is now gone and the gun is fired manually.

It was only ever once fired during hostilities - it was aimed at the Germans who were dropping bombs on us during WWI.

This new time-keeping system was much admired, and Glasgow, Newcastle and Greenock all decided to install guns of their own. Liverpool had one as well. Theirs are gone now but ours is still going, fired every day apart from Sundays, Good Friday and Christmas Day. The original gun was a 64-pounder but has been replaced more than once over the years. It's now located on the Mills Mount Battery rather than the Half Moon Battery, and draws a crowd when it's in use.

It's often been observed that if you're standing on Princes Street, you can tell who's a tourist and who's a local when it gets to one o' clock. The tourists jump and the locals don't!

Colliers, Coalbearers and Salters

2020-11-21T11:09:00.004+00:00

In medieval Scotland, many peasants were serfs* - unfree labourers who worked on their lord's land; in the fields, forests, mines and roads. Like slaves they could be bought, sold or traded with the land, and had few rights. They could be abused, and could not leave the land they were bound to. If they wanted to get married then they had to ask their lord for permission first.

The first plague outbreak in Scotland was in 1349, and so many died that it led to a shortage of labour. The peasants who survived suddenly had bargaining power and serfdom died away.

But by the late 1500s/early 1600s it was back in the form of colliers (coal miners), coalbearers and salters (salt production workers). They were more or less slaves, right up until 1799.

The colliers (men and older boys), coalbearers (women, girls and younger boys) and the salters lived in small, isolated communities beside the salt pans which were mostly located on the coast in Fife and the Lothians. The early coal mines were right beside them on the seashore. The mines - quarries, really, not yet going deep into the earth - were known as heughs at the time, a word which now means a steep glen or precipice. 'Collier' comes from 'coal hewer'. The coal mine owners often owned the salt pans as well, as coal was used to evaporate the sea water - the two industries were interdependent.

Although coal mining had been taking place in Scotland since at least the early 1200s (there are records from around this time of the Newbattle Abbey monks mining in Tranent) there wasn't much call for coal for domestic use, not yet - the industry was just getting started. In the previous centuries Scotland had had no need of it as there was plenty woodland, plenty trees, but by this point we'd cut most of them down and things were changing. To begin with, the salters had also worked at retrieving the coal as and when it was needed but as the salt production industry grew, coal mining became more extensive, going further into the earth, and became a craft in its own right.

Cut off as these workers were, it meant that the rest of society didn't have to think about their circumstances. It didn't much want to - what they were doing was low status, menial, dirty and unpleasant work. Very much ostracised, they were out of sight, out of mind...and easy to abuse.

After a while, the colliers' serfdom became hereditary. When the child of a collier was baptised, they were often bound to the coal master in front of the minister, with friends or neighbours acting as witnesses. In return for this, the family were guaranteed a house and garden.

As the demand for coal and salt grew both domestically and from abroad, new coal fields opened. These new coal mine owners didn't have colliers and so they would try to poach them with gifts and promises of better pay. It pissed off the colliers' owners and they turned to the Scottish Parliament.

In 1606, an Act was passed by the government which stated:

'No person within this realm shall, fee, hire, or conduce any collier, salter or coalbearer without a sufficient testimonial from their master whom they last served.'

After that, anyone who took one of these unfree workers without testimony faced a fine of 100 pounds Scots per stolen person. The workers who went elsewhere without testimony were treated as thieves (for the unlawful wages they'd received) and were punished accordingly. It had an unexpected and unfortunate side-effect - when there wasn't continuous work, a worker was trapped, going hungry, waiting to be called in (not unlike a modern zero-hours contract). The workers had no right to demand a testimony on leaving and indeed their owners saw no reason to provide one - it suited them to have a workforce on call.

The 1606 Act also gave the coal masters and salt masters the right to essentially kidnap any able-bodied beggar or homeless person they encountered and put them to work down the mines or in the salt pans.

In 1614, the masters were given the right to withhold their workers' wages or take their possessions as punishment. They could also whip them or place them in the jougs (an iron collar), or put them in the stocks.

In 1644, a new Act made things worse for the workers:

'[...] all hired servants [were] to serve their masters from this present time upon the same conditions as they have done formerly, and not to remove, nor leave their masters, without consent in writing, under a penalty of 50 pounds Scots.'

In 1647, another Act banned the workers from taking any holiday time. In 1698, another Act gave the masters the right to keep the children who were bound to their service until they were thirty.

The unfree workers weren't totally without rights, like slaves were...they could own property, were paid the same wages as free workers, and in return for their servitude they were given protection in the event of sickness or old age. They even had a certain amount of bargaining power, sometimes getting together and successfully demanding better conditions. But, they were low status, even in death - they were buried separately from the rest of society, in unconsecrated ground.

Up until 1661, all of this only applied to colliers, coalbearers and salters, but that year the 1606 Act was adjusted to include all colliery workers - watermen, windsmen and gatesmen, people whose positions hadn't existed in 1606. Such was the expansion of the industry.

It seems to have been widely believed by both masters and unfree workers that if a worker deserted and managed to evade capture for a year and a day (by going to England, for example), that was that - they were free to work wherever they chose to. The masters weren't happy and in 1700 they lobbied the government, but for once they didn't get their own way.

Even so, in 1701 there was an Act of Freedom which forbade the arrest of Scots subjects, but:

'[...] the present Act in no ways to be extended to colliers and salters'.

Sir Thomas Wallace Craigie, a coal mine owner, stopped working his coalfield around about 1700 or 1701, and didn't resume work for about seven or eight years. Understandably his colliers were forced to look for work elsewhere and they went to William Cunningham of Brownhill. In 1708, Cragie took Cunningham to court to get them back, claiming them as his slaves, not Cunningham's. He won and they were forced to go back (and presumably were punished as deserters and thieves).

The situation in England and Wales was very different. Colliers, coalbearers and salters there were free and could work for whomever they chose. They did have to enter into legally binding contracts with their employers but it was only for a year, not a lifetime, and their children weren't part of the deal. This was well-known in Scotland and only increased the resentment amongst the workers here.

In the mid-1700s the demand for coal increased (the Industrial Revolution was getting underway). The coal owners had themselves a problem. How were they supposed to meet the demand when they didn't have enough workers? Nobody wanted to become a collier! It was the colliers themselves who provided the obvious answer - in 1762, a group of them belonging to the Marquis of Lothian pointed out to him that if he increased their freedoms, more workers would come.

He and a few of the more progressive coal owners began to demand changes in the law - they wanted to employ free workers. But there was plenty opposition from other coal owners who were worried that if colliers were free, they'd be poached.

In 1775, the law was changed - the existing colliers would receive their freedom...eventually. Depending on their ages, they had to wait until anywhere from 1778 to 1785. They were only liberated gradually - those under twenty-one would be set free in seven years, and those between twenty-one and thirty-five would be set free in ten years. And even then, it wasn't automatic - they had to apply for permission from the Sheriff Court...and some of them were expected to find their own replacement apprentices before it was granted! So it didn't really change anything for most of the existing colliers, their liberation still only came with death. But any new workers were free.

Finally, in 1799, the law changed again and all colliers, coalbearers and salters were set free. After that they had all of the same rights as any other person in the UK.

* A peasant was one of the following three categories - a slave, a serf or a free tenant.

Kirkyards in Scotland - Places of Life

2020-11-17T20:18:00.003+00:00

St. Cuthbert's Kirkyard in Edinburgh (formally West Kirk)

In pre-Reformation Scotland, kirkyards (churchyards) were not just places where people buried their dead, they were also public meeting places. The kirk itself was the focal point of daily life, and in many parishes, the burial ground was the one open space you could pile just about everyone into all at once.

There was plenty room as there weren't many headstones - it used to be that those who could afford one would be buried inside the kirk, not outside. There were lots of graves without headstones though, and given that this was centuries before the Victorians decided that all burials had to be six feet under, these would have been shallow, foul-smelling pits. Seeing bones sticking out of the ground wouldn't have been unusual.

Sometimes the kirkyard was also where public announcements were made - some places had their mercat cross right in the middle of them. You can see two surviving examples from the medieval era at St. Peter's Kirk and at Michael Kirk, both in Duffus, and another in Dallas (known as the St. Michael's Cross)*.

Some of them also held fairs and markets - the various Roman Catholic festivals inevitably spilled out into the kirkyards, and stalls were set up to sell food and drink. In time these developed into full-on market places.

In the Dornoch Cathedral graveyard, the Plaiden Ell (plaiden means cloth) looks rather like a long flat gravestone but was actually used for measuring cloth during the markets held in there. It's marked with two metal points which are 39" apart, suggesting that it predates the 1661 Scottish standardisation of 37". There are two others like it in Scotland, at Fettercairn and Dunkeld.

These markets caused a lot of damage to the kirkyards...animals were brought in and their hooves made a real mess of the earth. Stallholders weren't above digging it up when it suited them either.

What used to be the kirkyard at St. Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh

It wasn't just during market time when animals caused damage - many of the kirkyards had no (or low) walls and so - much to the displeasure of the kirk officers - sheep, goats and more would wander in to graze. At least they helped to keep the grass short.

Speaking of animals - in rural parishes, people would often have to come for miles to get to the kirk each Sunday. If they had a horse or another suitable animal then they would ride. That meant that stables were needed in the kirkyards for the animals while their people were inside, and mounting blocks were also required to help people get back up on their mounts afterwards.

As the people had come a long way, refreshments were always a good thing - it wasn't unusual for there to be an inn right next to the kirkyard, as near to the entrance as possible!

Local guilds would hold their meetings in kirkyards, and children would play in them as well. None of this was meant as disrespect - it was just that there wasn't always much space available for everyday activities.

Because a kirk was often the only public building within a parish, they quite often served as places of punishment as well as worship. They also held their own prisoners. In 1649, an accused witch was imprisoned in the bell tower at Corstorphine (now part of Edinburgh's suburbs). In 1700, a prison tower was attached to the kirk at Greenlaw - there were five cells, one on top of the other, and a clock at the top. It was used right up until 1824.

When someone was hauled up in front of the Kirk for a crime such as adultery or sex outside marriage, the following Sunday they might be made to stand at the door of the kirk dressed in sackcloth while the rest of the congregation filed past them, and then would have to sit on a cutty stool (the stool of repentance!) at the front while the minister railed against them. This could go on for weeks if they were repeat offenders.

Other punishments took place in the kirkyard itself - there was a stone coffin at Barevan which was not for burials: it was there to punish offenders. The guilty party was made to climb inside and lie down, then the stone lid would be pulled almost all of the way over them. They had to lie there for hours, contemplating whatever it was they'd done. In other kirkyards you can still see the jougs (iron neck collars) hanging from the walls - the offender, barefoot and dressed in sackcloth, would be left there for a couple of hours to repent.

Kirkyards continued on as public meeting places - most famously, perhaps, in Greyfriars Kirkyard in 1638, when the National Covenant was signed.

One of Currie's old schoolhouses (the kirkyard is right behind it)

Up until the 1872 Education Act, the Kirk was closely involved with schooling, and quite often the kirk would also serve as the schoolhouse. On the stonework beside the door to the kirk at Stobo, you can see marks from when the kids used to sharpen their slate pencils on it.

Separate schoolhouses were often built in or along the walls of the kirkyard. There's a lovely example in Currie (now part of Edinburgh's suburbs) which has since been turned into cottages. There was a brewery right over the road from there, and an inn a wee bit further down.

Kirkyards and burial grounds were of course also places of criminal activity. In the Dalry Necropolis (now Dalry Cemetery), even after the body-snatchers had been put out of business, local residents were worried about whatever it was going on in there at night. It turned out that in that burial ground and in several others in Edinburgh, poor families who couldn't afford an official burial for their loved ones were sneaking them in after dark.

* In Edinburgh the Canongate Mercat Cross is inside the kirk's grounds, but it was moved there from another location.

Disease, Poverty = 'Improvements'

2020-11-10T21:19:00.003+00:00

Edinburgh

'As the epidemic cholera has now unfortunately appeared in several towns in the north of England, the Board of Health in Edinburgh think it is their duty again earnestly to impress upon their fellow citizens, of all ranks, the danger to which they will expose themselves, in the event of the disease reaching this city, by indulging in the use of strong liquors, and especially of ardent spirits.'

During the 19th century, the population of Edinburgh increased from 67,288 people in 1801 to 316,837 in 1901. Many of them were from elsewhere, displaced by the Highland Clearances, the Industrial Revolution and the famines in Ireland.

The majority of these extra people were forced to cram themselves into the Old Town slums, the wealthy having decanted themselves to the New Town. Many of the tenements in the Old Town were made of wood and were a terrible fire hazard. Thanks to the Flodden Wall, the buildings were very close together and piped in water still wasn't a thing - most of the 'better class' houses had it by 1821 but the poor continued to queue up at the wellheads as usual.

Diseases such as typhus and cholera were a major problem. The 1832 cholera epidemic killed 1,065 people in Edinburgh. A further 478 people died in the 1848-49 epidemic and still more (how many is unknown) in the 1854-55 epidemic. Nether Currie (then a village few miles outside Edinburgh, now an area of Currie in the suburbs) was completely wiped out by it.

It spread around the substandard housing of the Old Town like wild fire. Most believed it was because of a lack of education in general and of religious education in particular, too much booze, poor sanitation and poverty.

The hospitals struggled with the number of patients they were suddenly expected to care for and attempts were made to create new hospitals in suitable buildings. These were often thwarted by local residents who said the moment a cholera patient appeared, they would abandon their homes and leave the Board of Health responsible for their rent.

The cholera epidemics brought the awful conditions of the Old Town to the attention of the charitably-minded better off, and the authorities. In his 1849 report, Day and Night in the Wynds of Edinburgh, Dr. George Bell (from the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh) states:

'In one room, twelve feet long by ten broad, we once saw twelve women asleep. There was not even straw for them to lie on; but they lay on the boards, such as they were - for they were riddled with rat-holes - with their heads to the creviced wall, and their feet across the chamber. They had no covering save the rags in which they wandered about during the day.'

He woke one of the sleepers. She was an elderly woman from Ireland who paid a penny a night for the 'privilege' of sleeping in that filthy, stinking room, and earned that by begging on the streets. In the next room was a family of seven - the two men (father-in-law and son-in-law) were shoemakers but couldn't find regular work, and so whenever they could afford leather, they worked freelance in this tiny room for up to fifteen hours a day to try and feed themselves and their family. You can google for this report and read the whole thing. Google lists it as 'fiction' - it is not.

Blackfriar's Street, where Blackfriar's Wynd once was

This from S.R. Whitehead's Adventures of a Doll in Ainslie Place and Blackfriar's Wynd, 1853:

'Many of them live year round in cellars, where the light of day can only gain entrance through the doorway. Some of them have no beds, but lie all night on the cold floor; others sleep on a few shavings of wood or on straw with mere rags to cover them. When you are lying in your warm comfortable beds, and you hear the wind whistling in the chimney, and the rain pattering on the window, do you ever think of the shivering and wretched poor?'

The Vennel

At the foot of the Vennel (leading into the Grassmarket) was Brown's Court - a place where the authorities didn't expect to see so much poverty, as the buildings looked 'respectable' from the outside. From The Poor of Edinburgh and their Homes, 1867, by William Anderson:

'We found a still more miserable den, inhabited by a woman and two boys about eight and ten years of age respectively. The only piece of furniture in the house was a small table, on which were a teapot and a few other pieces of crockery. We asked the woman whether she had not a chair or stool to sit upon. "No, sir," she replied, "that's all the seat I got", pointing to a stone by the side of the fireplace, in which there were some dying embers. There was no bed, a few dirty rags lying in a corner showing the only place of repose.'

They realised during their visit that the room this family were living in had previously been a stable or byre, and was not fit for human habitation. There was an open drain in one corner and no natural light. Nevertheless, someone had let it out to this washer-woman and her sons.

The same report details a nearby 'dwelling' in the same neighbourhood - a tiny part of a lobby had been partitioned off for an elderly woman. It was four and a half feet by eight feet, and it was her home.

'A little straw and a small quantity of rags lying in a corner constituted the bed, and the floor was covered with jars and other pieces of crockery ware. The only thing in the place in good condition was a beautiful cat, which the woman told us was accustomed to jump through a hole in the roof which she pointed out to us. This person makes a livelihood by acting as an amanuensis - writing letters for people who are unable themselves to write; the ink bottle and pens we observed lying on a small shelf on one side of the apartment. The rent of the dwelling is sixpence a week.'

A man named Bruce reported the following:

'This is a truly horrible place. It is a cellar several feet below the level of the close, and entered by steps descending to it. Before the entrance there is a large pool of filth of the worst aspect and odour collected, and it is over this pool that all who enter must either wade or spring to get to the upper step in order to get down to the cellar.'

All of this and more led to the Edinburgh Improvement Act 1867, which meant that huge swathes of the Old Town were gutted and replaced by better housing. The sad loss of old architecture aside, you would think this improved the lives of Edinburgh's poorest...but it didn't. Unable to afford the much higher rents now being charged in their communities (where many of them had grown up), they were forced out.

Lady Janet Douglas

2020-10-31T11:57:00.003+00:00

Glamis Castle

Lady Janet Douglas was cursed with the misfortune of being Archibald Douglas's sister.

In 1514, her brother, the 6th Earl of Angus, had married Margaret Douglas, widow of King James IV, and so had become a stepfather to King James V.

A series of regents ruled on the young king's behalf until 1524, when 12-year-old James was declared an adult ruler. The following year, Angus took him prisoner, essentially making himself king. Various attempts were made to free James, but they were all unsuccessful - it would be three years before James managed to escape his stepfather's clutches by himself (during which time, Margaret divorced her husband).

After the king escaped he set about taking his revenge, not just on Angus but on the entire Douglas family. Angus ran to England, and so the next person in the firing line was his sister. That same year (1528) Janet was summoned to Edinburgh on a charge of treason, for bringing her brother's supporters into Scotland. There was also an accusation that she'd poisoned her first husband, John Lyon, the 6th Lord Glamis (who'd died in September that year). It all came to nothing and she was let go.

Janet married her second husband, Archibald Campbell of Skipness, in 1532. In 1537, James decided to have another go at her. This time she was accused of trying to poison the king himself.

She, her family and all of her household staff were taken from Glamis Castle (which James confiscated for his own use, holding court there from 1537 until 1542) and were brought to Edinburgh where they were thrown into the dungeons at Edinburgh Castle.

Glamis Castle

Putting her in prison was one thing, but getting people to testify against her was quite another. Janet was well-respected and very much loved by those who knew her. So James resorted to torture. The household staff were brutalised and Janet's sixteen-year-old son John, the 7th Lord Glamis, was forced to watch, knowing he was next. When his turn came it didn't take long before he 'confessed' that his mother had indeed made poisons with a view to killing the king, and that he, John, was himself guilty of witchcraft.

The first trial took place, and the verdict was not guilty. So, James insisted on a second trial, but again the verdict came back as not guilty. So there was a third trial...by this point, everyone had gotten the idea and the verdict came back guilty, of high treason*.

On the 17th of July in 1537, Janet was led from the dungeon, almost blind from her months of sitting in the dark, to the scaffold which had been built for her. She was burned alive, and John was forced to watch. Witnesses said that she went bravely to her death and refused to scream, knowing her son was watching and believing he'd been through more than enough already. Unlike at most of the usual executions, the crowd that gathered around didn't jeer or shout...instead they stood in silence, many of them crying. Nobody believed that Janet was guilty - it was a terrible injustice.

Janet's second husband, Archibald Campbell, managed to escape from the dungeon and fled with a view to getting them help, but sadly died doing so. After his mother's death, John continued to languish in the dungeon waiting for his own execution, but was finally released after James died in 1542. Glamis Castle was returned to him but it had been ransacked by the king and everything of value was gone.

Edinburgh Castle

Edinburgh Castle is said to be haunted by the sounds of the workmen building Janet's scaffold. Glamis Castle is haunted by Janet herself. She's sometimes seen in the grounds and in the chapel, where she has a favourite seat. If you sit in it, it feels weirdly cold**.

Years later, Mary Queen of Scots travelled to Glamis Castle and apologised for her father's actions. If you visit the castle, you'll see a great many portraits of Scottish royalty. One king in particular is conspicuously missing...

* Although many have said she was found guilty of witchcraft, that doesn't appear to have been the case. None of the records from any of her three trials show that was ever a charge.

** When we visited Glamis Castle my dad sat there, not realising it was the seat in question, and said he did feel extremely cold. And he's not one for ghosts!

A Random Murder

2020-10-19T22:08:00.001+01:00

New Street

On a Sunday evening in October 1831, 'dreadful cries' were heard coming from a house in Little Jack's Close* on the north side of the Canongate (near New Street). The police came and discovered a Mrs Beveridge lying in a pool of blood. She was still alive, but died an hour later in the Royal Infirmary. Her husband Thomas Beveridge, a blacksmith, was arrested not long afterwards, having been found in a nearby pub.

He was hanged for murder on the 2nd of December that same year.

* There was a Big Jack's Close as well. John Jack appears to have been a slater and a Bailie of the Canongate in the early 18th century. He and his brother Robert (also a slater) owned lands in the area. Both Big Jack's Close and Little Jack's Close led to a tobacco pipe factory.

Calton Jail

2020-10-19T21:00:00.001+01:00

The Governor's House

Calton Jail on Calton Hill was built to replace the Tolbooth, opening in 1817. It was a huge castellated prison which, according to Jules Verne who visited in 1859, looked a bit like a small-scale medieval town, and it thoroughly confused tourists who thought it was Edinburgh Castle.

Willie Gallacher, there for sedition during WWI, wrote: 'The one hour's exercise in the morning was the sole opportunity we had of seeing each other, when desperate attempts were made to exchange a whisper or two. For breakfast, we had thick porridge and sour milk. For dinner, soup and a piece of dry bread. And for supper, thick porridge and sour milk.'

After public executions became a thing of the past (the last one was George Bryce in 1864), they were carried out within the walls of the jail. At least ten executed murderers were buried within the grounds (including Jessie King, Eugéne Marie Chantrelle , Robert Vickers and William Innes, John Herdman, John Henry Savage, Patrick Higgins, and Philip Murray). People used to climb to the top of the hill so that they could look down on the prison, hoping to see the hangings take place. Others gathered in the streets below and waited for the black flag to be raised.

For all of the hoo-ha about this fancy new prison being more secure than the old Tolbooth, there were plenty of escapes and other serious incidents. In the springtime of 1823, three prisoners - Matthew Adie, James Curly and Lawrence Hughes - were carrying coal through the jail for a turnkey when they suddenly made a run for it. The three of them shimmied up one of the turrets above the gate and escaped. Adie and Hughes were eventually caught in Newcastle in England, but Curly (who had previous experience in escaping prison, having absconded from Stirling) was never found.

In 1824, pick-pocket Thomas Hamilton's cell was being repainted. He covered himself in paint and picked up one of the paint tins so that he would look like one of the decorators, and walked out.

That same year, twenty-two prisoners got together and quietly came up with a plan to escape. It involved a hole in the wall which led to a sewer, and the murder of a turnkey with a table-knife they'd found and sharpened. Mercifully their plans were discovered before they could carry them out, and the were shipped off to London in England. Presumably prison security was better there?

St. Andrew's House, where the prison was

In August 1825, the cells were pretty overcrowded - in one of them there were no fewer than eight prisoners. They banded together and beat up a turnkey, shoved others to the ground and escaped, either by climbing over the 18ft wall (according to one report) or getting out with a set of keys they'd been given by a dodgy turnkey (according to another) and heading for Arthur's Seat. Six of them were caught later that day but the other two managed to evade the authorities. It was another month before they were caught in Leadburn in Midlothian, about fifteen miles away from Edinburgh.

Around about the same time those two were caught and deposited back behind bars, some other prisoners decided to attack another turnkey, using lumps of coal as weapons. The 17th Foot Regiment were called in to get the prisoners back under control.

In 1840, the Bridewell, an earlier prison built on Calton Hill which had until then sat alongside it, was formally merged with it. In 1883 it was torn down and replaced by new cell blocks.

In October 1858, a group of former inmates broke into Calton Jail. They climbed the wall and picked the lock of the main gate, then stole everything of value they could carry.

In July 1883, the prison was having some renovation work done. A ladder had been carelessly left leaning up against the wall and a prisoner named Creamor saw his chance. Over he went...and fell onto the crags below, badly injuring himself. He was promptly retrieved.

In May 1900, William Wilson used a plank of wood to get over the wall and ran to a friend's house. He was caught later that day trying to board the Granton to Burnt Island ferry and was taken back to the prison.

The prison, all but the Governor's House and a bit of wall, was demolished between 1930 and 1935, replaced by Saughton Prison.

The Gowrie Conspiracy

2020-10-18T23:38:00.003+01:00

Huntingtower Castle (the Ruthven's main seat)

On the morning of the 5th of August in 1600, King James VI was out hunting with some of his friends near Falkland Palace. The party was approached by Alexander Ruthven, the Master of Gowrie. He was about twenty years old and was well known to the king - his sister Beatrix was one of Queen Anne's ladies.

He bowed low and asked James if he might speak to him privately. Thus granted, he told the king that he had a bit of a problem - he was holding a man prisoner at his home in Perth, Gowrie House. He'd met him the previous evening and had stopped him because he'd been trying to disguise himself with a cloak, and it had turned out that he was carrying a very large sum of gold.

The man wouldn't tell him anything and, knowing that the king was only a few miles away, Alexander had thought it best that he ask him to come and personally interrogate him. He'd left early at first light to find him, he told the king, so that he could be the first to hear about the treasure. James wasn't especially keen (or so he said later) but, suspecting it was foreign gold and therefore possibly part of some Catholic plot, agreed he would come when he was finished hunting. Alexander told him it was best to keep the matter to himself and not bring too many of his men with him.

With the hunt over, they set off towards Perth. With about a mile still to go, Alexander sent a servant on ahead to warn his older brother, John Ruthven, the 3rd Earl of Gowrie, about the royal visit. Having found Alexander's overall behaviour a wee bit odd (he wasn't usually given to bowing in the way he had, and his story seemed far-fetched), as they travelled, James told his cousin and companion, Ludovic Stewart, the Duke of Lennox, about the prisoner and the gold and asked him what he thought about it. Lennox replied that it seemed an unlikely tale. The king told him not to let on that he knew and that they were suspicious.

They arrived at Gowrie House, a large L-plan town house dating back to 1520, at around 1pm. John seemed surprised by the visit despite his brother having sent word, and no preparations had been made. John had already had his dinner, but instructed his servants to make another meal. The royal party was kept waiting for more than an hour and what was eventually produced wasn't that great. John was anxious and very apologetic - he'd been intending to leave Perth for Dirleton (his other castle in East Lothian) that afternoon and so there wasn't a lot he could offer.

Then Alexander led James - alone, because the prisoner and the gold were a secret - upstairs to where the prisoner was being held, and John took the others outside to the garden where they picked and ate fresh cherries. Gowrie House was set on the banks of the River Tay and it was very pleasant out there.

James and Alexander went up the main staircase and through two doors, both of which Alexander locked behind them, and up into a turret room overlooking a courtyard and the street. In there was the prisoner, he told James.

Huntingtower Castle

Only there was no prisoner - instead there was Henderson, the Gowrie brothers' servant, and he was armed. Alexander pulled out Henderson's dagger, held it against James's chest and told him that if he called out or attempted to open the window, he would kill him. If he kept quiet, all would be well.

Alexander left the room to fetch his brother (who would, apparently, explain everything to the king) and James turned to Henderson, who was trembling with fear and clearly not a willing participant. What was this all about, he asked him? Henderson said he didn't know - his master had locked him in the turret room not that long ago and he'd no idea what was going on. James asked him to open a window, promising not to call out, and Henderson did.

He was about to open the other one when Alexander walked back into the room. Furious, he went to bind the king's hands. There was a struggle and James called out "I am murdered! Treason!" His men were in the street below debating about whether or not they should leave as John had told them that James had ridden away (presumably his horse had been hidden, but they were still unsure, thinking it unlikely that James would go without them). They saw their king in the window of the turret room, red in the face, with someone's hand over his mouth and his hat knocked off, and raced back into the building.

They were thwarted by the first locked door and spent some time trying to batter it down. One of them, the king's young page, John Ramsay, had not been with the others but rather had been in the stables and so came running from a different direction. He spotted a door in the side of the house which revealed a narrow turnpike staircase, and it took him up to an inner chamber adjoining the turret room.

James was struggling with Alexander. When he saw Ramsay, he told him to draw his dagger and help him. Ramsay stabbed Alexander in the neck and face, then James managed to push him down the stairs Ramsay had just run up. During the fight, Henderson took off running. Ramsay went to the window and, seeing Thomas Erskine, yelled for him to come up the turnpike stairs. He and Hugh Herries did so and swiftly dispatched Alexander. At this point, John appeared. Seeing his brother's body he immediately went after Erskine and Herries but they easily took him out as well.

The Edinburgh Mercat Cross

The crisis over, they all returned to Falkland Palace and Ramsay, who was only about twelve years old, was knighted for his bravery. The king also granted him an estate and, every year on the 5th of August, for the rest of his life he held a feast for him in gratitude. After the Union of the Crowns when James became king of England as well as Scotland, Ramsay was made the Keeper of the King's Bedchamber, and later became the Earl of Holdernesse.

On the 7th of August the Privy Council declared that, as punishment, the corpses of the two Ruthven brothers would remain unburied (they were disembowelled and preserved), and no other Ruthven was allowed to come within 10 miles of the Royal Court. This was not the only time the Ruthven family had messed with the king (they'd kidnapped him as a boy, in an incident known as the Ruthven Raid), and he was finally sick of it. Arrest warrants were sent out for two other, younger, Ruthven brothers, Patrick and William, but they fled to England. On the 20th of November, the Ruthven name was declared extinct and their estates were forfeit (this is why the Place of Ruthven in Perthshire, the family's main seat, was renamed Huntingtower Castle).

In Edinburgh, the Ruthven brothers' corpses were hanged and quartered beside the Mercat Cross. Their heads were put on spikes on the Tolbooth and their limbs were put on spikes in various different locations in and around Perth.

There are so many questions about this case. Many people wondered if the Ruthvens had actually attacked the king at all. He owed the powerful family a lot of money, and destroying them solved that problem. There was also a rumour going around that one or the other of the brothers was the queen's lover*...if that was true, it was another excellent reason for him to want them dead.

Another point to consider is that John Ruthven was James's rival for the English throne (and it was believed that he had Queen Elizabeth I's favour). Lots of good reasons to get rid of them, then.

Did James go there planning to kill them? If the plot was his, why did Alexander lock the two doors behind them as they went upstairs?

And on that note, why did James, who said he was already suspicious of Alexander's story about the prisoner, even let him? Maybe he didn't realise - if they were spring locks then that's entirely possible.

Maybe he went there to have it out with them and it got heated and went horribly wrong. Did they lure the king there to kidnap him, not kill him? There were a great many plots and attempts to kidnap him in his lifetime: it was hardly an unusual political move.

Or did they, as James claimed, lure him there to kill him? They believed their father, William Ruthven, the 1st Earl of Gowrie, had been wrongly killed by the king after the Ruthven Raid (he was beheaded at Stirling Castle in 1584)...was this their revenge?

Lochend Castle** in Restalrig, Logan's main seat

Why did James go after William and Patrick, who weren't a part of it? Was it because, after John and Alexander, they were next in line as rivals to the English throne? Or was the conspiracy perhaps much wider than just the two older brothers? The government certainly seemed to think so. One particular man that they were convinced was involved was Sir Robert Logan of Restalrig - they convicted him of treason posthumously, exhuming his corpse and bringing it into court (he'd died of the plague in 1606, in the Canongate) in June, 1609.

The evidence for Logan's involvement was five letters which were produced by a notary, George Sprot. Sprot - who'd come to light after carelessly wittering on about them while drunk - testified that the letters had been written by Logan in July 1600. The handwriting experts of the time compared them to other letters definitely written by Logan and confirmed that these were also his. The letters showed that Logan's other castle, Fast Castle, had been part of the plot - the conspirators had been going to hold James prisoner there.

Another thing that didn't look too good for Logan was that he'd started selling off all of his lands in 1600, even though he wasn't in debt, then went off to London in England, then France, before coming back here to die. It led people to suppose that he'd been involved in something dodgy...the Gowrie Conspiracy?

The unfortunate Sprot was himself convicted for having foreknowledge of the plot and was hanged at the Mercat Cross on the 12th of August in 1608. Before he died he'd been tortured, and had recanted his claim that Logan had written the letters. He'd done it himself, he said, forging Logan's handwriting. The letters, which still exist, have been analysed by modern handwriting experts and compared to the other letters written by Logan, and the handwriting is not the same - they are indeed Sprot's work.

Historians can't agree on whether it was the Ruthvens who were the conspirators, or if it was the king. We'll probably never know.

* There were quite a few rumours about Queen Anne and various nobles. The queen was beautiful and her husband was, well, not. Unfortunately he didn't resemble either of his very good looking parents, Mary Queen of Scots and Lord Darnley. The rumours were probably nonsense - in the case of the Ruthvens, the gossips couldn't even make their minds up as to which brother it was.

** The remains of it, anyway - most of what you can see in the photo is an early 19th century villa which was built on top of it.