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The nuckelavee ( /nʌklɑːˈviː/) or nuckalavee is a horse-like demon from Orcadian folklore that combines equine and human elements. British folklorist Katharine Briggs called it "the nastiest" of all the demons of Scotland's Northern Isles. The nuckelavee's breath was thought to wilt crops and sicken livestock, and the creature was held responsible for droughts and epidemics on land despite being predominantly a sea-dweller.
A graphic description of the nuckelavee as it appears on land was given by an islander who claimed to have had a confrontation with it, but accounts describing the details of the creature's appearance are inconsistent. In common with many other sea-monsters, it is unable to tolerate fresh water, therefore, those it is pursuing have only to cross a river or stream to be rid of it. The nuckelavee is kept in confinement during the summer months by the Mither o' the Sea, an ancient Orcadian spirit, and the only one able to control it. (Full article...) -
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Rachel Chiesley (baptised 4 February 1679 – 12 May 1745), usually known as Lady Grange, was the wife of Lord Grange, a Scottish lawyer with Jacobite sympathies. After 25 years of marriage and nine children, the Granges separated acrimoniously. When Lady Grange produced letters that she claimed were evidence of his treasonable plottings against the Hanoverian government in London, her husband had her kidnapped in 1732. She was incarcerated in various remote locations on the western seaboard of Scotland, including the Monach Isles, Skye and St Kilda.
Lady Grange's father was convicted of murder and she is known to have had a violent temper; initially her absence seems to have caused little comment. News of her plight eventually reached her home town of Edinburgh and an unsuccessful rescue attempt was undertaken by her lawyer, Thomas Hope of Rankeillor. She died in captivity, after being in effect imprisoned for over 13 years. Her life has been remembered in poetry, prose and plays. (Full article...) -
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The Isle of Skye, or simply Skye (/skaɪ/; Scottish Gaelic: An t-Eilean Sgitheanach or Eilean a' Cheò), is the largest and northernmost of the major islands in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. The island's peninsulas radiate from a mountainous hub dominated by the Cuillin, the rocky slopes of which provide some of the most dramatic mountain scenery in the country. Although Sgitheanach has been suggested to describe a winged shape, no definitive agreement exists as to the name's origins.
The island has been occupied since the Mesolithic period, and over its history has been occupied at various times by Celtic tribes including the Picts and the Gaels, Scandinavian Vikings, and most notably the powerful integrated Norse-Gaels clans of
MacLeod and MacDonald. The island was considered to be under Norwegian suzerainty until the 1266 Treaty of Perth, which transferred control over to Scotland. (Full article...) -
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Margaret Macpherson Grant (27 April 1834 – 14 April 1877) was a Scottish heiress and philanthropist. Born in Aberlour parish to a local surgeon, she was educated in Hampshire, and was left an only child when her elder brother died in India in 1852. Two years later, she inherited a large fortune from her uncle, Alexander Grant, an Aberlour-born planter and merchant who had become rich in Jamaica.
Macpherson Grant took up residence in Aberlour House, which had been built for her uncle by William Robertson. She lived unconventionally for a woman of her time, dressing in a manner one newspaper called "manly", and entering into what was described as a form of marriage with a female companion, Charlotte Temple, whom she had met in London in 1864. Macpherson Grant donated generously to charitable enterprises, especially those associated with the Scottish Episcopal Church, establishing an orphanage (now the Aberlour Child Care Trust) and founding St Margaret's Episcopal Church in Aberlour. She drank heavily, and despite attempts by friends and family members to persuade her to stop, she always relapsed into alcoholism. (Full article...) -
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The Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle is an order of chivalry associated with Scotland. The current version of the order was founded in 1687 by King James VII of Scotland, who asserted that he was reviving an earlier order. The order consists of the sovereign and sixteen knights and ladies, as well as certain "extra" knights (members of the British royal family and foreign monarchs). The sovereign alone grants membership of the order; they are not advised by the government, as occurs with most other orders.
The order's primary emblem is the thistle, the national flower of Scotland. The motto is Nemo me impune lacessit (Latin for "No one provokes me with impunity"). The same motto appears on the royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom for use in Scotland and pound coins minted in 1984, 1989, 1994, and 1999 (since withdrawn), and is also the motto of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards, the Scots Guards, the Royal Regiment of Scotland, and The Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) of Canada. The patron saint of the order is St Andrew. (Full article...) -
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Elgin Cathedral is a historic ruin in Elgin, Moray, north-east Scotland. The cathedral, dedicated to the Holy Trinity, was established in 1224 on land granted by King Alexander II outside the burgh of Elgin and close to the River Lossie. It replaced the cathedral at Spynie, 3 kilometres (2 mi) to the north, which was served by a small chapter of eight clerics. By 1226, the new and developing cathedral was staffed with 18 canons increasing to 23 by 1242. A damaging fire in 1270 prompted a significantly enlarged building. It remained unaffected by the Wars of Scottish Independence, but again suffered extensive fire damage in 1390 when attacked by Robert III's brother Alexander Stewart, Earl of Buchan, also known as the Wolf of Badenoch. In 1402, the cathedral precinct again suffered an incendiary attack by the Lord of the Isles followers.
As the cathedral grew, so did the number of clerics and craftsmen. The repairs following the 1270 and 1390 fires resulted in the doubling in length of the choir and the provision of outer aisles to both the nave and choir. Today, some parts of walls reach their full height while others are at foundation level, but the overall cruciform shape is still discernible. A mostly intact octagonal chapter house dates from the major enlargement after the fire of 1270. The gable wall above the double door entrance that links the west towers is nearly complete and was rebuilt after the fire of 1390. It accommodates a large window opening that now only contains stub tracery work and fragments of a large rose window. The transepts and the south aisle of the choir contain recessed and chest tombs with effigies of bishops and knights. The now grass-covered floor bears large flat slabs that mark the positions of early graves. The residences of the dignitaries, canons and chaplains that stood in the chanonry were also destroyed by the fires of 1270, 1390 and 1402 forming part of the reconstruction process. Only the precentor's manse is substantially intact, while two others have been incorporated into private buildings. Both west front towers are mostly complete and were part of the initial construction. A protective wall of massive proportions surrounded the cathedral precinct, but only two small sections have survived. The wall had four access gates but only one, the Pans Port, still exists. (Full article...) -
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Áedán mac Gabráin (Old Irish pronunciation: [ˈaiðaːn mak ˈɡaβraːnʲ]; Irish: Aodhán mac Gabhráin), also written as Aedan, was a king of Dál Riata from c. 574 until c. 609 AD. The kingdom of Dál Riata was situated in modern Argyll and Bute, Scotland, and parts of County Antrim, Ireland. Genealogies record that Áedán was a son of Gabrán mac Domangairt.
He was a contemporary of Saint Columba, and much that is recorded of his life and career comes from hagiography such as Adomnán of Iona's Life of Saint Columba. Áedán appears as a character in Old Irish and Middle Irish language works of prose and verse, some now lost. (Full article...) -
Image 8Asahi (朝日, Morning Sun) was a pre-dreadnought battleship built for the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) in the late 1890s. As Japan lacked the industrial capacity to build such warships itself, the ship was designed and built in the United Kingdom. Shortly after her arrival in Japan, she became flagship of the Standing Fleet, the IJN's primary combat fleet. She participated in every major naval battle of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905 and was lightly damaged during the Battle of the Yellow Sea and the Battle of Tsushima. Asahi saw no combat during World War I, although the ship participated in the Siberian Intervention in 1918.
Reclassified as a coastal defence ship in 1921, Asahi was disarmed two years later to meet the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty, after which she served as a training and submarine depot ship. She was modified into a submarine salvage and rescue ship before being placed in reserve in 1928. Asahi was recommissioned in late 1937, after the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War, and used to transport Japanese troops. In 1938, she was converted into a repair ship and based first at Japanese-occupied Shanghai, China, and then Cam Ranh Bay, French Indochina, from late 1938 to 1941. The ship was transferred to occupied Singapore in early 1942 to repair a damaged light cruiser and ordered to return home in May. She was sunk en route by the American submarine USS Salmon, although most of her crew survived. (Full article...) -
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The Westminster Assembly of Divines was a council of divines (theologians) and members of the English Parliament appointed from 1643 to 1653 to restructure the Church of England. Several Scots also attended, and the Assembly's work was adopted by the Church of Scotland. As many as 121 ministers were called to the Assembly, with nineteen others added later to replace those who did not attend or could no longer attend. It produced a new Form of Church Government, a Confession of Faith or statement of belief, two catechisms or manuals for religious instruction (Shorter and Larger), and a liturgical manual, the Directory for Public Worship, for the Churches of England and Scotland. The Confession and catechisms were adopted as doctrinal standards in the Church of Scotland and other Presbyterian churches, where they remain normative. Amended versions of the Confession were also adopted in Congregational and Baptist churches in England and New England in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The Confession became influential throughout the English-speaking world, but especially in American Protestant theology.
The Assembly was called by the Long Parliament before and during the beginning of the First English Civil War. The Long Parliament was influenced by Puritanism, a religious movement which sought to further reform the church. They were opposed to the religious policies of King Charles I and William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury. As part of a military alliance with Scotland, Parliament agreed that the outcome of the Assembly would bring the English Church into closer conformity with the Church of Scotland. The Scottish Church was governed by a system of elected assemblies of elders called presbyterianism, rather than rule by bishops, called episcopalianism, which was used in the English church. Scottish commissioners attended and advised the Assembly as part of the agreement. Disagreements over church government caused open division in the Assembly, despite attempts to maintain unity. The party of divines who favoured presbyterianism was in the majority, but the congregationalist party, which held greater influence in the military, favoured autonomy for individual congregations rather than the subjection of congregations to regional and national assemblies entailed in presbyterianism. Parliament eventually adopted a presbyterian form of government but lacked the power to implement it. During the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, all of the documents of the Assembly were repudiated and episcopal church government was reinstated in England. (Full article...) -
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Causantín mac Áeda (Modern Gaelic: Còiseam mac Aoidh, anglicised Constantine II; born no later than 879; died 952) was an early King of Scotland, known then by the Gaelic name Alba. The Kingdom of Alba, a name which first appears in Constantine's lifetime, was situated in modern-day Northern Scotland.
The core of the kingdom was formed by the lands around the River Tay. Its southern limit was the River Forth, northwards it extended towards the Moray Firth and perhaps to Caithness, while its western limits are uncertain. Constantine's grandfather Kenneth I of Scotland (Cináed mac Ailpín, died 858) was the first of the family recorded as a king, but as king of the Picts. This change of title, from king of the Picts to king of Alba, is part of a broader transformation of Pictland and the origins of the Kingdom of Alba are traced to Constantine's lifetime. (Full article...) -
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Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon (4 August 1900 – 30 March 2002) was Queen of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 to 6 February 1952 as the wife of King George VI. She was also the last Empress of India from 1936 until the British Raj was dissolved in August 1947. After her husband died, she was officially known as Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, to avoid confusion with her daughter Queen Elizabeth II.
Born into a family of British nobility, Elizabeth came to prominence in 1923 when she married Prince Albert, Duke of York, the second son of King George V and Queen Mary. The couple and their daughters, Elizabeth and Margaret, embodied traditional ideas of family and public service. The Duchess undertook a variety of public engagements and became known for her consistently cheerful countenance. (Full article...) -
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The Great North of Scotland Railway (GNSR) was one of the two smallest of the five major Scottish railway companies prior to the 1923 Grouping, operating in the north-east of the country. Formed in 1845, it carried its first passengers the 39 miles (63 km) from Kittybrewster, in Aberdeen, to Huntly on 20 September 1854. By 1867 it owned 226+1⁄4 route miles (364.1 km) of line and operated over a further 61 miles (98 km).
The early expansion was followed by a period of forced economy, but in the 1880s the railway was refurbished, express services began to run and by the end of that decade there was a suburban service in Aberdeen. The railway operated its main line between Aberdeen and Keith and two routes west to Elgin, connections could be made at both Keith and Elgin for Highland Railway services to Inverness. There were other junctions with the Highland Railway at Boat of Garten and Portessie, and at Aberdeen connections for journeys south over the Caledonian and North British Railways. Its eventual area encompassed the three Scottish counties of Aberdeenshire, Banffshire and Moray, with short lengths of line in Inverness-shire and Kincardineshire. (Full article...) -
Image 13"From the Doctor to My Son Thomas" is a viral video recorded by actor Peter Capaldi and sent to Thomas Goodall, an autistic nine-year-old boy in England, to console the child over grief from the death of Goodall's grandmother. Capaldi filmed the 42-second video in character as the Twelfth Doctor from the BBC science-fiction series Doctor Who. Capaldi's message had a positive effect on Thomas: he smiled for the first time since learning of his grandmother's death, and gained the courage to go to her funeral.
Thomas' father Ross Goodall posted the video to YouTube on 6 November 2014, wanting to make the video available to his family, but had no idea it would become popular online. The video was viewed over 200,000 times in its first 48 hours online, and more than doubled the next day, and less than a week later it had over 900,000 total views, making it a viral video, with the responses becoming a global phenomenon. (Full article...) -
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William McGregor (13 April 1846 – 20 December 1911) was a Scottish association football administrator in the Victorian era who was the founder of the Football League (now English Football League), the first organised association football league in the world.
After moving from Perthshire to Birmingham to set up business as a draper, McGregor became involved with local football club Aston Villa, which he helped to establish as one of the leading teams in England. He served the club for over 20 years in various capacities, including president, director and chairman. In 1888, frustrated by the regular cancellation of Villa's matches, McGregor organised a meeting of representatives of England's leading clubs, which led to the formation of the Football League, giving member clubs a guaranteed fixture list each season. This was instrumental in the transition of football from an amateur pastime to a professional business. (Full article...) -
Image 15Walter Weir Wilson Donaldson (2 February 1907 – 24 May 1973) was a Scottish professional snooker and billiards player. He contested eight consecutive world championship finals against Fred Davis from 1947 to 1954, and won the title in 1947 and 1950. Donaldson was known for his long potting and his consistency when playing, and had an aversion to the use of side. In 2012, he was inducted posthumously into the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association's World Snooker Hall of Fame.
Donaldson became a professional player shortly after winning the under-16's British Junior English Billiards Championship in 1922 and won the Scottish professional billiards title six times. He first competed in the World Snooker Championship in 1933, but after a heavy defeat by Joe Davis did not enter again until 1939. After serving in the Fourth Indian Division during World War II, Donaldson entered the 1946 World Championship, where he lost to Davis in his first match. As a player that did not reach the championship final, he was eligible to enter the 1946 Albany Club Professional Snooker Tournament, which he won. Following Joe Davis's retirement from the World Championship in 1946, Donaldson practised intensively and won the 1947 Championship by defeating Fred Davis in the final. Davis won the following two championships, with Donaldson taking the next and then being runner-up to Davis for the next four years. Donaldson then retired from World Championship competition, although he continued to play in the News of the World Snooker Tournament until 1959. (Full article...) -
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The Battle of Dunbar was fought between the English New Model Army, under Oliver Cromwell, and a Scottish army commanded by David Leslie on 3 September 1650 near Dunbar, Scotland. The battle resulted in a decisive victory for the English. It was the first major battle of the 1650 invasion of Scotland, which was triggered by Scotland's acceptance of Charles II as king of Britain after the beheading of his father, Charles I on 30 January 1649.
After Charles I's execution, the English Rump Parliament established a republican Commonwealth in England. When their erstwhile ally, Scotland, recognised Charles II as king of all of Britain on 1 May 1650 and began recruiting an army to support him, the English dispatched the New Model Army, under the command of Cromwell. The army crossed into Scotland on 22 July, with a force of over 16,000 men. The Scots withdrew to Edinburgh, stripping the land of provisions. Cromwell attempted to draw the Scots out into a set piece battle, but they resisted, and Cromwell was unable to break through their defensive line. At the end of August, with his army weakened through disease and lack of food, Cromwell withdrew to the port of Dunbar. The Scottish army followed and took up an unassailable position on Doon Hill, overlooking the town. On 2 September, the Scots advanced towards Dunbar and the English took up positions outside the town. The English army was greatly weakened by sickness and lack of food, while many of the Scots' most experienced men had been dismissed in religious purges. (Full article...) -
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John Michael Wright (May 1617 – July 1694) was an English painter, mainly of portraits in the Baroque style. Born and raised in London, Wright trained in Edinburgh under the Scots painter George Jamesone, and sometimes described himself as Scottish in documents. He acquired a considerable reputation as an artist and scholar during a long sojourn in Rome. There he was admitted to the Accademia di San Luca and was associated with some of the leading artists of his generation. He was engaged by Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria, the governor of the Spanish Netherlands, to acquire artworks in Oliver Cromwell's England in 1655.
He took up permanent residence in England from 1656 and served as court painter before and after the English Restoration. A convert to Roman Catholicism, he was a favourite of the restored Stuart court, a client of both Charles II and James II, and was a witness to many of the political manoeuvrings of the era. In the final years of the Stuart monarchy he returned to Rome as part of an embassy to Pope Innocent XI. (Full article...) -
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Jocelin (or Jocelyn) (died 1199) was a twelfth-century Cistercian monk and cleric who became the fourth Abbot of Melrose before becoming Bishop of Glasgow, Scotland. He was probably born in the 1130s, and in his teenage years became a monk of Melrose Abbey. He rose in the service of Abbot Waltheof, and by the time of the short abbacy of Waltheof's successor Abbot William, Jocelin had become prior. Then in 1170 Jocelin himself became abbot, a position he held for four years. Jocelin was responsible for promoting the cult of the emerging Saint Waltheof, and in this had the support of Enguerrand, Bishop of Glasgow.
His Glasgow connections and political profile were already well-established enough that in 1174 Jocelin succeeded Enguerrand as Glasgow's bishop. As Bishop of Glasgow, he was a royal official. In this capacity he travelled abroad on several occasions, and performed the marriage ceremony between King William the Lion and Ermengarde de Beaumont, later baptising their son, the future King Alexander II. Among other things, he has been credited by modern historians as "the founder of the burgh of Glasgow and initiator of the Glasgow fair", as well as being one of the greatest literary patrons in medieval Scotland, commissioning the Life of St Waltheof, the Life of St Kentigern and the Chronicle of Melrose. (Full article...) -
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General Gregor MacGregor (24 December 1786 – 4 December 1845) was a Scottish soldier, adventurer, and confidence trickster who attempted from 1821 to 1837 to draw British and French investors and settlers to "Poyais", a fictional Central American territory that he claimed to rule as "Cazique". Hundreds invested their savings in supposed Poyaisian government bonds and land certificates, while about 250 emigrated to MacGregor's invented country in 1822–23 to find only an untouched jungle; more than half of them died. Seen as a contributory factor to the "Panic of 1825", MacGregor's Poyais scheme has been called one of the most brazen confidence tricks in history.
From the Clan Gregor, MacGregor was an officer in the British Army from 1803 to 1810; he served in the Peninsular War. He joined the republican side in the Venezuelan War of Independence in 1812, quickly became a general and, over the next four years, operated against the Spanish on behalf of both Venezuela and its neighbour New Granada. His successes included a difficult month-long fighting retreat through northern Venezuela in 1816. He captured Amelia Island in 1817 under a mandate from revolutionary agents to conquer Florida from the Spanish, and there proclaimed a short-lived "Republic of the Floridas". He then oversaw two calamitous operations in New Granada during 1819 that each ended with his abandoning British volunteer troops under his command. (Full article...) -
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Bryan James Gunn (born 22 December 1963) is a Scottish former professional goalkeeper and football manager. After learning his trade with Aberdeen in the early 1980s, he spent most of his playing career at Norwich City, the club with which he came to be most closely associated. This was followed by a brief spell back in Scotland with Hibernian before his retirement as a player in 1998.
Gunn feels the peak of his playing career was making what he calls the save of his life in the UEFA Cup match against Bayern Munich in 1993. This event was called the summit of Norwich City's history by The Independent. He is one of only nine Norwich players to win the club's Player of the Year award twice. He was made an inaugural member of Norwich City's Hall of Fame. He was a member of the Scotland national football team, making six appearances for his country in the early 1990s. (Full article...) -
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Elizabeth Maitland, Duchess of Lauderdale, 2nd Countess of Dysart (née Murray; 28 September 1626 – 5 June 1698), was a Scottish noblewoman. She was the eldest daughter of William Murray and his wife Catherine, the Earl and Countess of Dysart. She was raised in English court circles during the years leading up to the English Civil War and received a well-rounded education from her parents. Her first husband was Lionel Tollemache, with whom she had eleven children. In 1672, three years after Lionel's death, she married John Maitland and gained a prominent position in the restored court.
After her father's death, Maitland held the title of Countess of Dysart in her own right. After her remarriage in 1672, she was also the Duchess of Lauderdale. She was famous for the political influence she exercised and for her support for Charles II during his exile. As an associate of the secret Royalist organisation known as the Sealed Knot, she actively supported the return of the monarchy after the execution of Charles I. She was also a lifelong patron of artists, particularly Peter Lely. She died at the age of 71 at her family home, Ham House near Richmond by the Thames, and is buried in the nearby parish church. (Full article...) -
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William Speirs Bruce FRSE (1 August 1867 – 28 October 1921) was a British naturalist, polar scientist and oceanographer who organised and led the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition (SNAE, 1902–04) to the South Orkney Islands and the Weddell Sea. Among other achievements, the expedition established the first permanent weather station in Antarctica. Bruce later founded the Scottish Oceanographical Laboratory in Edinburgh, but his plans for a transcontinental Antarctic march via the South Pole were abandoned because of lack of public and financial support.
In 1892 Bruce gave up his medical studies at the University of Edinburgh and joined the Dundee Whaling Expedition to Antarctica as a scientific assistant. This was followed by Arctic voyages to Novaya Zemlya, Spitsbergen and Franz Josef Land. In 1899 Bruce, by then Britain's most experienced polar scientist, applied for a post on Robert Falcon Scott's Discovery Expedition, but delays over this appointment and clashes with Royal Geographical Society (RGS) president Sir Clements Markham led him instead to organise his own expedition, and earned him the permanent enmity of the geographical establishment in London. Although Bruce received various awards for his polar work, including an honorary doctorate from the University of Aberdeen, neither he nor any of his SNAE colleagues were recommended by the RGS for the prestigious Polar Medal. (Full article...) -
Image 23In the United Kingdom, representative peers were those peers elected by the members of the Peerage of Scotland and the Peerage of Ireland to sit in the British House of Lords. Until 1999, all members of the Peerage of England held the right to sit in the House of Lords; they did not elect a limited group of representatives. All peers who were created after 1707 as Peers of Great Britain and after 1801 as Peers of the United Kingdom held the same right to sit in the House of Lords.
Representative peers were introduced in 1707, when the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland were united into the Kingdom of Great Britain. At the time there were 168 English and 154 Scottish peers. The English peers feared that the House of Lords would be swamped by the Scottish element, and consequently the election of a small number of representative peers to represent Scotland was negotiated. A similar arrangement was adopted when the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland merged into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in January 1801. (Full article...) -
Image 24The Second War of Scottish Independence broke out in 1332, when Edward Balliol led an English-backed invasion of Scotland. Balliol, the son of former Scottish king John Balliol, was attempting to make good his claim to the Scottish throne. He was opposed by Scots loyal to the occupant of the throne, eight-year-old David II. At the Battle of Dupplin Moor Balliol's force defeated a Scottish army ten times their size and Balliol was crowned king. Within three months David's partisans had regrouped and forced Balliol out of Scotland. He appealed to the English king, Edward III, who invaded Scotland in 1333 and besieged the important trading town of Berwick. A large Scottish army attempted to relieve it but was heavily defeated at the Battle of Halidon Hill. Balliol established his authority over most of Scotland, ceded to England the eight counties of south-east Scotland and did homage to Edward for the rest of the country as a fief.
As allies of Scotland via the Auld Alliance, the French were unhappy about an English expansion into Scotland and so covertly supported and financed David's loyalists. Balliol's allies fell out among themselves and he lost control of most of Scotland again by late 1334. In early 1335, the French attempted to broker a peace. However, the Scots were unable to agree on a position and Edward prevaricated while building a large army. He invaded in July and again overran most of Scotland. Tensions with France increased. Further French-sponsored peace talks failed in 1336; in May 1337, King Philip VI of France engineered a clear break between France and England, starting the Hundred Years' War. The Anglo-Scottish war became a subsidiary theatre of this larger Anglo-French war. Edward sent what troops he could spare to Scotland, in spite of which the English slowly lost ground in Scotland as they were forced to focus on the French theatre. Achieving his majority, David returned to Scotland from France in 1341; by 1342, the English had been cleared from north of the border. (Full article...) -
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A kelpie, or water kelpie (Scottish Gaelic: Each-Uisge), is a shape-shifting spirit inhabiting lochs in Irish and Scottish folklore. It is usually described as a grey or white horse-like creature, able to adopt human form. Some accounts state that the kelpie retains its hooves when appearing as a human, leading to its association with the Christian idea of Satan as alluded to by Robert Burns in his 1786 poem "Address to the Devil".
Almost every sizeable body of water in Scotland has an associated kelpie story, but the most extensively reported is that of Loch Ness. The kelpie has counterparts across the world, such as the Germanic nixie, the wihwin of Central America and the Australian bunyip. The origins of narratives about the creature are unclear, but the practical purposes of keeping children away from dangerous stretches of water and warning young women to be wary of handsome strangers has been noted in secondary literature. (Full article...) -
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HMS Ramillies (pennant number: 07) was one of five Revenge-class super-dreadnought battleships built for the Royal Navy during the First World War. They were developments of the Queen Elizabeth-class battleships, with reductions in size and speed to offset increases in the armour protection whilst retaining the same main battery of eight 15-inch (381 mm) guns. Completed in late 1917, Ramillies saw no combat during the war as both the British and the German fleets had adopted a more cautious strategy by this time owing to the increasing threat of naval mines and submarines.
Ramillies spent the 1920s and 1930s alternating between the Atlantic Fleet and the Mediterranean Fleet. Whilst serving in the Mediterranean and Black Seas in the early 1920s, the ship went to Turkey twice in response to crises arising from the Greco-Turkish War, including the Great Fire of Smyrna in 1922. She also saw limited involvement during the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War. The ship's interwar career was otherwise uneventful. With the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, Ramillies was initially assigned to escort duties in the North Atlantic. In May 1940, she was transferred to the Mediterranean Fleet as war with Italy loomed. After the Italians entered the war in June, Ramillies bombarded Italian ports in North Africa, escorted convoys to Malta, and supported the Taranto raid in November. (Full article...) -
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HMS Vanguard was a British fast battleship built during the Second World War and commissioned after the war ended. She was the largest and fastest of the Royal Navy's battleships, the only ship of her class, and the last battleship to be built.
The Royal Navy anticipated being outnumbered by the combined German and Japanese battleships in the early 1940s, and had therefore started building the Lion-class battleships. However, the time-consuming construction of the triple-16-inch (406 mm) turrets for the Lion class would delay their completion until 1943 at the earliest. The British had enough 15-inch (381 mm) guns and turrets in storage to allow one ship of a modified Lion-class design with four twin-15-inch turrets to be completed faster than the Lion-class vessels that had already been laid down. Work on Vanguard was started and stopped several times during the war, and her design was revised several times during her construction to reflect war experience. These stoppages and changes prevented her from being completed before the end of the war. (Full article...) -
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Captain Sir Murray Maxwell, CB, FRS (10 September 1775 – 26 June 1831) was a British Royal Navy officer who served with distinction in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, particularly during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Maxwell first gained recognition as one of the British captains involved in the successful Adriatic campaign of 1807–1814, during which he was responsible for the destruction of a French armaments convoy at the action of 29 November 1811. As a result of further success in the Mediterranean, Maxwell was given increasingly important commissions and, despite the loss of his ship HMS Daedalus off Ceylon in 1813, was appointed to escort the British Ambassador to China in 1816.
The voyage to China subsequently became famous when Maxwell's ship HMS Alceste was wrecked in the Gaspar Strait, and he and his crew became stranded on a nearby island. The shipwrecked sailors ran short of food and were repeatedly attacked by Malay pirates, but thanks to Maxwell's leadership there were no deaths. Eventually rescued by a British East India Company ship, the party returned to Britain as popular heroes, Maxwell being especially commended. He was knighted for his services, and made a brief and unsuccessful foray into politics before resuming his naval career. In 1831 Maxwell was appointed Lieutenant Governor of Prince Edward Island, but fell ill and died before he could take up the post. (Full article...) -
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The Anglo-Scottish war (1650–1652), also known as the Third Civil War, was the final conflict in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between shifting alliances of religious and political factions in England, Scotland and Ireland.
The 1650 English invasion of Scotland was a pre-emptive military incursion by the English Commonwealth's New Model Army, intended to allay the risk of Charles II invading England with a Scottish army. The First and Second English Civil Wars, in which English Royalists, loyal to Charles I, fought Parliamentarians for control of the country, took place between 1642 and 1648. When the Royalists were defeated for the second time the English government, exasperated by the duplicity of Charles I during negotiations, set up a High Court of Justice which found the King guilty of treason and executed him on 30 January 1649. At the time, England and Scotland were separate independent kingdoms, joined politically through a personal union; Charles I was, separately, both the King of Scotland, and the King of England. The Scots had fought in support of the English Parliamentarians in the First English Civil War, but sent an army in support of Charles I into England during the Second English Civil War. The Parliament of Scotland, which had not been consulted before the execution, declared his son, Charles II, King of Britain. (Full article...) -
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Mary, Queen of Scots (8 December 1542 – 8 February 1587), also known as Mary Stuart or Mary I of Scotland, was Queen of Scotland from 14 December 1542 until her forced abdication in 1567.
The only surviving legitimate child of James V of Scotland, Mary was six days old when her father died and she inherited the throne. During her childhood, Scotland was governed by regents, first by the heir to the throne, James Hamilton, Earl of Arran, and then by her mother, Mary of Guise. In 1548, she was betrothed to Francis, the Dauphin of France, and was sent to be brought up in France, where she would be safe from invading English forces during the Rough Wooing. Mary married Francis in 1558, becoming queen consort of France from his accession in 1559 until his death in December 1560. Widowed, Mary returned to Scotland in August 1561. The tense religious and political climate following the Scottish Reformation that Mary encountered on her return to Scotland was further agitated by prominent Scots such as John Knox, who openly questioned whether her subjects had a duty to obey her. The early years of her personal rule were marked by pragmatism, tolerance, and moderation. She issued a proclamation accepting the religious settlement in Scotland as she had found it upon her return, retained advisers such as James Stewart, Earl of Moray (her illegitimate half-brother), and William Maitland of Lethington, and governed as the Catholic monarch of a Protestant kingdom. (Full article...) -
Image 31The Scotland men's national football team represents Scotland in men's international football and is controlled by the Scottish Football Association. It competes in three major professional tournaments: the FIFA World Cup, UEFA Nations League and the UEFA European Championship. Scotland, as a country of the United Kingdom, is not a member of the International Olympic Committee, and therefore the national team does not compete in the Olympic Games. The majority of Scotland's home matches are played at the national stadium, Hampden Park.
Scotland is the joint oldest national football team in the world, alongside England, whom they played in the world's first international football match in 1872. Scotland has a long-standing rivalry with England, whom they played annually from 1872 until 1989. The teams have met only nine times since then, most recently in a friendly in September 2023. (Full article...) -
Image 32Nebula Science Fiction was the first Scottish science fiction magazine. It was published from 1952 to 1959, and was edited by Peter Hamilton, a young Scot who was able to take advantage of spare capacity at his parents' printing company, Crownpoint, to launch the magazine. Because Hamilton could only print Nebula when Crownpoint had no other work, the schedule was initially erratic. In 1955 he moved the printing to a Dublin-based firm, and the schedule became a little more regular, with a steady monthly run beginning in 1958 that lasted into the following year. Nebula's circulation was international, with only a quarter of the sales in the United Kingdom; this led to disaster when South Africa and Australia imposed import controls on foreign periodicals at the end of the 1950s. Excise duties imposed in the UK added to Hamilton's financial burdens, and he was rapidly forced to close the magazine. The last issue was dated June 1959.
The magazine was popular with writers, partly because Hamilton went to great lengths to encourage new writers, and partly because he paid better rates per word than much of his competition. Initially he could not compete with the American market, but he offered a bonus for the most popular story in the issue, and was eventually able to match the leading American magazines. He published the first stories of several well-known writers, including Robert Silverberg, Brian Aldiss, and Bob Shaw. Nebula was also a fan favourite: author Ken Bulmer recalled that it became "what many fans regard as the best-loved British SF magazine". (Full article...) -
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Neilston (Scots: Neilstoun, Scottish Gaelic: Baile Nèill, pronounced [paləˈnɛːʎ]) is a village and parish in East Renfrewshire in the west central Lowlands of Scotland. It is in the Levern Valley, two miles (three kilometres) southwest of Barrhead, 3+3⁄4 miles (6 kilometres) south of Paisley, and 5+3⁄4 miles (9.5 kilometres) south-southwest of Renfrew, at the southwestern fringe of the Greater Glasgow conurbation. Neilston is a dormitory village with a resident population of just over 5,000 people.
Neilston is mentioned in documents from the 12th century, when the feudal lord Robert de Croc, endowed a chapel to Paisley Abbey to the North. Neilston Parish Church—a Category B listed building—is said to be on the site of this original chapel and has been at the centre of the community since 1163. Little remains of the original structure. Before industrialisation, Neilston was a scattered farming settlement composed of a series of single-storey houses, many of them thatched. Some domestic weaving was carried out using local flax. Water power from nearby streams ground corn and provided a suitable environment for bleaching the flax. (Full article...) -
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HMS Hood (pennant number 51) was a battlecruiser of the Royal Navy (RN). Hood was the first of the planned four Admiral-class battlecruisers to be built during the First World War. Already under construction when the Battle of Jutland occurred in mid-1916, that battle revealed serious flaws in her design, and despite drastic revisions she was completed four years later. For this reason, she was the only ship of her class to be completed, as the Admiralty decided it would be better to start with a clean design on succeeding battlecruisers, leading to the never-built G-3 class. Despite the appearance of newer and more modern ships, Hood remained the largest warship in the world for 20 years after her commissioning, and her prestige was reflected in her nickname, "The Mighty Hood".
Hood was involved in many showing-the-flag exercises between her commissioning in 1920 and the outbreak of war in 1939, including training exercises in the Mediterranean Sea and a circumnavigation of the globe with the Special Service Squadron in 1923 and 1924. She was attached to the Mediterranean Fleet following the outbreak of the Second Italo-Ethiopian War in 1935. When the Spanish Civil War broke out the following year, Hood was officially assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet until she had to return to Britain in 1939 for an overhaul. By this time, advances in naval gunnery had reduced Hood's usefulness. She was scheduled to undergo a major rebuild in 1941 to correct these issues, but the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939 kept the ship in service without the upgrades. (Full article...) -
Image 35The Battle of Halidon Hill took place on 19 July 1333 when a Scottish army under Sir Archibald Douglas attacked an English army commanded by King Edward III of England (r. 1327–1377) and was heavily defeated. The year before, Edward Balliol had seized the Scottish Crown from five-year-old David II (r. 1329–1371), surreptitiously supported by Edward III. This marked the start of the Second War of Scottish Independence. Balliol was shortly expelled from Scotland by a popular uprising, which Edward III used as a casus belli, invading Scotland in 1333. The immediate target was the strategically-important border town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, which the English besieged in March.
A large Scottish army advanced to relieve the town. They attempted and failed to draw the English away from Berwick. By mid-July, knowing Berwick was on the verge of surrender and aware they were much stronger than the English, the Scots attacked. They unsuccessfully manoeuvred for position and then launched an assault on the English, who had taken up a favourable defensive position. English longbowmen caused heavy Scottish casualties during their approach, and when the Scots came into contact with the English infantry, the fight was short. The Scottish formations collapsed and the Scots fled in disorder. The English men-at-arms mounted and pursued the Scots for eight miles, causing further heavy casualties. The Scottish commander and many of the Scots' senior nobility were killed during the battle. (Full article...) -
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HMS Argus was a British aircraft carrier that served in the Royal Navy from 1918 to 1944. She was converted from an ocean liner that was under construction when the First World War began and became the first aircraft carrier with a full-length flight deck that allowed wheeled aircraft to take off and land. After commissioning, the ship was involved for several years in the development of the optimum design for other aircraft carriers. Argus also evaluated various types of arresting gear, general procedures needed to operate a number of aircraft in concert and fleet tactics. The ship was too top-heavy as originally built, and had to be modified to improve her stability in the mid-1920s. She spent one brief deployment on the China Station in the late 1920s before being placed in reserve for budgetary reasons.
Argus was recommissioned and partially modernised shortly before the Second World War and served as a training ship for deck-landing practice until June 1940. The following month she made the first of her many ferry trips to the Western Mediterranean to fly off fighters to Malta; she was largely occupied in this task for the next two years. The ship also delivered aircraft to Murmansk, Russia, Takoradi in the Gold Coast, and Reykjavík, Iceland. By 1942, the Royal Navy was very short of aircraft carriers, and Argus was pressed into front-line service despite her lack of speed and armament. In June, she participated in Operation Harpoon, providing air cover for the Malta-bound convoy. In November, the ship provided air cover during Operation Torch, the invasion of French North Africa, and was slightly damaged by a bomb. After returning to the UK for repairs, Argus was used again for deck-landing practice until late September 1944. In December, she became an accommodation ship, and was listed for disposal in mid-1946. The ship was sold in late 1946 and scrapped the following year. (Full article...) -
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Donnchadh (Scottish Gaelic pronunciation: [ˈt̪ɔn̪ˠɔxəɣ]; Latin: Duncanus; English: Duncan) was a Gall-Gaidhil prince and Scottish magnate in what is now south-western Scotland, whose career stretched from the last quarter of the 12th century until his death in 1250. His father, Gille-Brighde of Galloway, and his uncle, Uhtred of Galloway, were the two rival sons of Fergus, Prince or Lord of Galloway. As a result of Gille-Brighde's conflict with Uhtred and the Scottish monarch William the Lion, Donnchadh became a hostage of King Henry II of England. He probably remained in England for almost a decade before returning north on the death of his father. Although denied succession to all the lands of Galloway, he was granted lordship over Carrick in the north.
Allied to John de Courcy, Donnchadh fought battles in Ireland and acquired land there that he subsequently lost. A patron of religious houses, particularly Melrose Abbey and North Berwick priory nunnery, he attempted to establish a monastery in his own territory, at Crossraguel. He married the daughter of Alan fitz Walter, a leading member of the family later known as the House of Stewart—future monarchs of Scotland and England. Donnchadh was the first mormaer or earl of Carrick, a region he ruled for more than six decades, making him one of the longest serving magnates in medieval Scotland. His descendants include the Bruce and Stewart Kings of Scotland, and probably the Campbell Dukes of Argyll. (Full article...) -
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Charlotte Stuart, styled Duchess of Albany (29 October 1753 – 17 November 1789) was the illegitimate daughter of the Jacobite pretender Prince Charles Edward Stuart ("Bonnie Prince Charlie" or the "Young Pretender") and his only child to survive infancy.
Her mother was Clementina Walkinshaw, who was mistress to the Prince from 1752 until 1760. After years of abuse, Clementina left him, taking Charlotte with her. Charlotte spent most of her life in French convents, estranged from a father who refused to make any provision for her. Unable to marry, she herself became a mistress with illegitimate children, taking Ferdinand de Rohan, Archbishop of Bordeaux, as her lover. (Full article...) -
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The production of renewable energy in Scotland is a topic that came to the fore in technical, economic, and political terms during the opening years of the 21st century. The natural resource base for renewable energy is high by European, and even global standards, with the most important potential sources being wind, wave, and tide. Renewables generate almost all of Scotland's electricity, mostly from the country's wind power.
In 2020, Scotland had 12 gigawatts (GW) of renewable electricity capacity, which produced about a quarter of total UK renewable generation. In decreasing order of capacity, Scotland's renewable generation comes from onshore wind, hydropower, offshore wind, solar PV and biomass. Scotland exports much of this electricity. On 26 January 2024, the Scottish Government confirmed that Scotland generated the equivalent of 113% of Scotland's electricity consumption from renewable energy sources, making it the highest percentage figure ever recorded for renewable energy production in Scotland. It was hailed as "a significant milestone in Scotland's journey to net zero" by the Cabinet Secretary for Wellbeing Economy, Fair Work and Energy, Neil Gray. It becomes the first time that Scotland produced more renewable energy than it actually consumed, and demonstrates the "enormous potential of Scotland's green economy" as claimed by Gray. (Full article...) -
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HMS Royal Oak was one of five Revenge-class battleships built for the Royal Navy during the First World War. Completed in 1916, the ship first saw combat at the Battle of Jutland as part of the Grand Fleet. In peacetime, she served in the Atlantic, Home and Mediterranean fleets, more than once coming under accidental attack. Royal Oak drew worldwide attention in 1928 when her senior officers were controversially court-martialled, an event that brought considerable embarrassment to what was then the world's largest navy. Attempts to modernise Royal Oak throughout her 25-year career could not fix her fundamental lack of speed and, by the start of the Second World War, she was no longer suitable for front-line duty.
On 14 October 1939, Royal Oak was anchored at Scapa Flow in Orkney, Scotland, when she was torpedoed by the German submarine U-47. Of Royal Oak's complement of 1,234 men and boys, 835 were killed that night or died later of their wounds. The loss of the outdated ship—the first of five Royal Navy battleships and battlecruisers sunk in the Second World War—did little to affect the numerical superiority enjoyed by the British navy and its Allies, but it had a considerable effect on wartime morale. The raid made an immediate celebrity and war hero of the U-boat commander, Günther Prien, who became the first German submarine officer to be awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. Before the sinking of Royal Oak, the Royal Navy had considered the naval base at Scapa Flow impregnable to submarine attack, but U-47's raid demonstrated that the German navy was capable of bringing the war to British home waters. The shock resulted in rapid changes to dockland security and the construction of the Churchill Barriers around Scapa Flow, with the added advantage of being topped by roads running between the islands. (Full article...) -
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Sir William Bruce of Kinross, 1st Baronet (c. 1630 – 1710), was a Scottish gentleman-architect, "the effective founder of classical architecture in Scotland," as Howard Colvin observes. As a key figure in introducing the Palladian style into Scotland, he has been compared to the pioneering English architects Inigo Jones and Christopher Wren, and to the contemporaneous introducers of French style in English domestic architecture, Hugh May and Sir Roger Pratt.
Bruce was a merchant in Rotterdam during the 1650s, and played a role in the Restoration of Charles II in 1659. He carried messages between the exiled king and General Monck, and his loyalty to the king was rewarded with lucrative official appointments, including that of Surveyor General of the King's Works in Scotland, effectively making Bruce the "king's architect". His patrons included John Maitland, 1st Duke of Lauderdale, the most powerful man in Scotland at that time, and Bruce rose to become a member of Parliament, and briefly sat on the Scottish Privy Council. (Full article...) -
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Anne (6 February 1665 – 1 August 1714) was Queen of Great Britain and Ireland following the ratification of the Acts of Union on 1 May 1707, which merged the kingdoms of Scotland and England. Before this, she was Queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 8 March 1702.
Anne was born during the reign of her uncle King Charles II. Her father was Charles's younger brother and heir presumptive, James, whose suspected Roman Catholicism was unpopular in England. On Charles's instructions, Anne and her elder sister Mary were raised as Anglicans. Mary married their Dutch Protestant cousin, William III of Orange, in 1677, and Anne married the Lutheran Prince George of Denmark in 1683. On Charles's death in 1685, James succeeded to the throne, but just three years later he was deposed in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Mary and William became joint monarchs. Although the sisters had been close, disagreements over Anne's finances, status, and choice of acquaintances arose shortly after Mary's accession and they became estranged. William and Mary had no children. After Mary's death in 1694, William reigned alone until his own death in 1702, when Anne succeeded him. (Full article...) -
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The fauna of Scotland is generally typical of the northwest European part of the Palearctic realm, although several of the country's larger mammals were hunted to extinction in historic times and human activity has also led to various species of wildlife being introduced. Scotland's diverse temperate environments support 62 species of wild mammals, including a population of wild cats, important numbers of grey and harbour seals and the most northerly colony of bottlenose dolphins in the world.
Many populations of moorland birds, including the black and red grouse live here, and the country has internationally significant nesting grounds for seabirds such as the northern gannet. The golden eagle has become a national icon, and white-tailed eagles and ospreys have recently re-colonised the land. The Scottish crossbill is the only endemic vertebrate species in the UK. (Full article...) -
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Edward I (17/18 June 1239 – 7 July 1307), also known as Edward Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots, was King of England from 1272 to 1307. Concurrently, he was Lord of Ireland, and from 1254 to 1306 he ruled Gascony as Duke of Aquitaine in his capacity as a vassal of the French king. Before his accession to the throne, he was commonly referred to as the Lord Edward. The eldest son of Henry III, Edward was involved from an early age in the political intrigues of his father's reign. In 1259, he briefly sided with a baronial reform movement, supporting the Provisions of Oxford. After reconciliation with his father, he remained loyal throughout the subsequent armed conflict, known as the Second Barons' War. After the Battle of Lewes, Edward was held hostage by the rebellious barons, but escaped after a few months and defeated the baronial leader Simon de Montfort at the Battle of Evesham in 1265. Within two years, the rebellion was extinguished and, with England pacified, Edward left to join the Ninth Crusade to the Holy Land in 1270. He was on his way home in 1272 when he was informed of his father's death. Making a slow return, he reached England in 1274 and was crowned at Westminster Abbey.
Edward spent much of his reign reforming royal administration and common law. Through an extensive legal inquiry, he investigated the tenure of several feudal liberties. The law was reformed through a series of statutes regulating criminal and property law, but the King's attention was increasingly drawn towards military affairs. After suppressing a minor conflict in Wales in 1276–77, Edward responded to a second one in 1282–83 by conquering Wales. He then established English rule, built castles and towns in the countryside and settled them with English people. After the death of the heir to the Scottish throne, Edward was invited to arbitrate a succession dispute. He claimed feudal suzerainty over Scotland and invaded the country, and the ensuing First Scottish War of Independence continued after his death. Simultaneously, Edward found himself at war with France (a Scottish ally) after King Philip IV confiscated the Duchy of Gascony. The duchy was eventually recovered but the conflict relieved English military pressure against Scotland. By the mid-1290s, extensive military campaigns required high levels of taxation and this met with both lay and ecclesiastical opposition. When the King died in 1307, he left to his son Edward II a war with Scotland and other financial and political burdens. (Full article...) -
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Shapinsay (/ˈʃæpɪnziː/, Scots: Shapinsee) is one of the Orkney Islands off the north coast of mainland Scotland. With an area of 29.5 square kilometres (11.4 sq mi), it is the eighth largest island in the Orkney archipelago. It is low-lying and, with a bedrock formed from Old Red Sandstone overlain by boulder clay, fertile, causing most of the area to be used for farming. Shapinsay has two nature reserves and is notable for its bird life. Balfour Castle, built in the Scottish Baronial style, is one of the island's most prominent features, a reminder of the Balfour family's domination of Shapinsay during the 18th and 19th centuries; the Balfours transformed life on the island by introducing new agricultural techniques. Other landmarks include a standing stone, an Iron Age broch, a souterrain and a salt-water shower.
There is one village on the island, Balfour, from which roll-on/roll-off car ferries sail to Kirkwall on the Orkney Mainland. At the 2011 census, Shapinsay had a population of 307. The economy of the island is primarily based on agriculture with the exception of a few small businesses that are largely tourism-related. A community-owned wind turbine was constructed in 2011. The island has a primary school but, in part due to improving transport links with mainland Orkney, no longer has a secondary school. Shapinsay's long history has given rise to various folk tales. (Full article...) -
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John Wark (born 4 August 1957) is a Scottish former footballer who spent most of his playing time with Ipswich Town. He won a record four Player of the Year awards before becoming one of the four inaugural members of the club's Hall of Fame. Wark had long spells at the club, which bookended his career, and a third, brief interlude dividing his briefer periods at Liverpool and Middlesbrough. A versatile player, Wark played most of his professional games as a midfielder, although he sometimes played as a central defender and on occasion as a striker.
Born in Glasgow, Wark represented Scotland in international football, winning 29 caps and scoring seven goals. This included selection for Scotland in the 1982 FIFA World Cup in which he made three appearances and scored twice. (Full article...) -
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Alexander Frederick Douglas-Home, Baron Home of the Hirsel, KT, PC (/ˈhjuːm/; 2 July 1903 – 9 October 1995), styled as Lord Dunglass between 1918 and 1951 and the Earl of Home from 1951 until 1963, was a British statesman and Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1963 to 1964. He is notable for being the last prime minister to hold office while being a member of the House of Lords, before renouncing his peerage and taking up a seat in the House of Commons for the remainder of his premiership. His reputation, however, rests more on his two stints as Foreign Secretary than on his brief premiership.
Within six years of first entering the House of Commons in 1931, Douglas-Home (then called by the courtesy title Lord Dunglass) became a parliamentary aide to Neville Chamberlain, witnessing first-hand Chamberlain's efforts as prime minister to preserve peace through appeasement in the two years before the outbreak of the Second World War. In 1940 Dunglass was diagnosed with spinal tuberculosis and was immobilised for two years. By the later stages of the war he had recovered enough to resume his political career, but he lost his seat in the general election of 1945. He regained it in 1950, but the following year he left the Commons when, on the death of his father, he inherited the earldom of Home and thereby became a member of the House of Lords. Under the premierships of Winston Churchill, Anthony Eden and Harold Macmillan he was appointed to a series of increasingly senior posts, including Leader of the House of Lords and Foreign Secretary. In the latter post, which he held from 1960 to 1963, he supported United States resolve in the Cuban Missile Crisis and in August 1963 was the United Kingdom's signatory to the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. (Full article...) -
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The Pitfour Estate, in the Buchan area of North-East Scotland, was an ancient barony encompassing most of the extensive Longside Parish, stretching from St Fergus to New Pitsligo. It was purchased in 1700 by James Ferguson of Badifurrow, who became the first Laird of Pitfour.
The estate was substantially renovated by Ferguson and the following two generations of his family. At the height of its development in the 18th and 19th centuries the 50-square-mile (130 km2) property had several extravagant features including a two-mile racecourse, an artificial lake and an observatory. The original mansion house was extended before being rebuilt. The surrounding parklands were landscaped, major renovations were undertaken, and follies such as a small replica Temple of Theseus were constructed, in which George Ferguson, the fifth laird, was thought to keep alligators in a cold bath. (Full article...) -
Image 49Cullen House is a large house, about 1 kilometre (0.6 mi) south-west of the coastal town of Cullen in Moray, Scotland. It was the seat of the Ogilvies of Findlater, who went on to become the Earls of Findlater and Seafield, and it remained in their family until 1982. Building work started on the house in 1600, incorporating some of the stonework of an earlier building on the site. The house has been extended and remodelled several times by prominent architects such as James Adam, John Adam, and David Bryce. It has been described by the architectural historian Charles McKean as "one of the grandest houses in Scotland" and is designated a Category A listed building. The grounds were enlarged in the 1820s when the entire village of Cullen, save for Cullen Old Church, was demolished to make way for improvements to the grounds by Ludovick Ogilvy-Grant, 5th Earl of Seafield; a new village, closer to the coast, was constructed for the inhabitants. Within the grounds are a bridge, a rotunda and a gatehouse, each of which is individually listed as a Category A structure.
Twice in its history, the house has been captured and ransacked. It was taken by forces acting under the orders of the Marquess of Montrose in 1645 during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. It was attacked again by a group of Jacobites during the rising of 1745, shortly before they were defeated at the Battle of Culloden. (Full article...) -
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David I or Dauíd mac Maíl Choluim (Modern: Daibhidh I mac [Mhaoil] Chaluim; c. 1084 – 24 May 1153) was a 12th-century ruler and saint who was Prince of the Cumbrians from 1113 to 1124 and later King of Scotland from 1124 to 1153. The youngest son of Malcolm III and Margaret of Wessex, David spent most of his childhood in Scotland, but was exiled to England temporarily in 1093. Perhaps after 1100, he became a dependent at the court of King Henry I of England, by whom he was influenced.
When David's brother Alexander I died in 1124, David chose, with the backing of Henry I, to take the Kingdom of Scotland (Alba) for himself. He was forced to engage in warfare against his rival and nephew, Máel Coluim mac Alaxandair. Subduing the latter seems to have taken David ten years, a struggle that involved the destruction of Óengus, Mormaer of Moray. David's victory allowed expansion of control over more distant regions theoretically part of his Kingdom. After the death of his former patron Henry I, David supported the claims of Henry's daughter and his own niece, Empress Matilda, to the throne of England. In the process, he came into conflict with King Stephen and was able to expand his power in northern England, despite his defeat at the Battle of the Standard in 1138. David I is a saint of the Catholic Church, with his feast day celebrated on 24 May. (Full article...)
Selection of good articles
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Literature in early modern Scotland is literature written in Scotland or by Scottish writers between the Renaissance in the early sixteenth century and the beginnings of the Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution in mid-eighteenth century. By the beginning of this era Gaelic had been in geographical decline for three centuries and had begun to be a second class language, confined to the Highlands and Islands, but the tradition of Classic Gaelic Poetry survived. Middle Scots became the language of both the nobility and the majority population. The establishment of a printing press in 1507 made it easier to disseminate Scottish literature and was probably aimed at bolstering Scottish national identity.
James IV's creation of a Renaissance court included the patronage of poets, or makars, who were mainly clerics. These included Gavin Douglas, whose Eneados (1513) was the first complete translation of a major classical text in an Anglian language. James V was also a major patron of poets. George Buchanan founded a tradition of neo-Latin poetry. In the reign of Mary, Queen of Scots and the minority of her son James VI, cultural pursuits were limited by the lack of a royal court and by political turmoil. The Kirk discouraged poetry that was not devotional in nature but secular poetry survived. In the 1580s and 1590s James VI promoted literature in Scots. He became patron and member of a loose circle of Scottish court poets and musicians, later called the Castalian Band. David Lyndsay's The Thrie Estaitis (1540) is the only complete play to survive from before the Reformation. Buchanan was major influence on Continental theatre, but his impact in Scotland was limited by his choice of Latin as a medium. There were isolated Scottish plays, but the system of professional companies of players and theatres that developed in England in this period was absent in Scotland. (Full article...) -
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Kirkandrews, sometimes written as Kirkanders in older documents, is a coastal hamlet about 9 kilometres (6 mi) west-southwest of Kirkcudbright in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. It sits in farmland at the head of Kirkandrews Bay, an inlet of Wigtown Bay.
The history of Kirkandrews' name is not altogether clear. Some authors have suggested that it was named for a Northumbrian or Irish saint who established a church here in the first millennium; certainly there was an ancient church at the site, but most recent scholarship suggests that both the original church and its name have been lost, and that a new church was built and dedicated to St Andrew, the apostle and patron saint of Scotland, at some point before 1174. (Full article...) -
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Prehistoric art in Scotland is visual art created or found within the modern borders of Scotland, before the departure of the Romans from southern and central Britain in the early fifth century CE, which is usually seen as the beginning of the early historic or Medieval era. There is no clear definition of prehistoric art among scholars and objects that may involve creativity often lack a context that would allow them to be understood.
The earliest examples of portable art from what is now Scotland are highly decorated carved stone balls from the Neolithic period, which share patterns with Irish and Scottish stone carvings. Other items from this period include elaborate carved maceheads and figurines from Links of Noltland, including the Westray Wife, which is the earliest known depiction of a human face from Scotland. (Full article...) -
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Trident, also known as the Trident nuclear programme or Trident nuclear deterrent, covers the development, procurement and operation of nuclear weapons in the United Kingdom and their means of delivery. Its purpose as stated by the Ministry of Defence is to "deter the most extreme threats to our national security and way of life, which cannot be done by other means". Trident is an operational system of four Vanguard-class submarines armed with Trident II D-5 ballistic missiles, able to deliver thermonuclear warheads from multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRVs). It is operated by the Royal Navy and based at Clyde Naval Base on the west coast of Scotland. At least one submarine is always on patrol to provide a continuous at-sea capability. The missiles are manufactured in the United States, while the warheads are British.
The British government initially negotiated with the Carter administration for the purchase of the Trident I C-4 missile. In 1981, the Reagan administration announced its decision to upgrade its Trident to the new Trident II D-5 missile. This necessitated another round of negotiations and concessions. The UK Trident programme was announced in July 1980 and patrols began in December 1994. Trident replaced the submarine-based Polaris system, in operation from 1968 until 1996. Trident is the only nuclear weapon system operated by the UK since the decommissioning of tactical WE.177 free-fall bombs in 1998. (Full article...) -
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The Battle of Kinghorn was fought on 6 August 1332 at Wester Kinghorn (now Burntisland), Fife, Scotland. An invading seaborne force of 1,500 men was commanded by Edward Balliol and Henry Beaumont, Earl of Buchan. A Scottish army, possibly 4,000 strong, commanded by Duncan, Earl of Fife, and Robert Bruce, Lord of Liddesdale (an illegitimate son of King Robert the Bruce) was defeated with heavy loss. Balliol was the son of King John Balliol and was attempting to make good his claim to be the rightful king of Scotland. He hoped that many of the Scots would desert to him.
Balliol and Beaumont's forces were still disembarking from their ships when the Scots attacked them. The Scots pressed hard, but were beaten off by English longbowmen and some supporting infantry even before Balliol's men-at-arms could get ashore. The Scottish losses are disputed, but included several nobles. The invaders fought the main Scottish army five days later at the Battle of Dupplin Moor and inflicted a crushing defeat. Balliol was crowned king of Scotland on 24 September. (Full article...) -
Image 6Alexander Buchan (died 17 April 1769) was a Scottish landscape artist. He is known for his participation in the 1768–1771 first voyage of James Cook aboard HMS Endeavour, where he was one of the artists in the entourage of botanist Joseph Banks. Buchan had epilepsy. On the journey, he had two documented seizures, the first during an expedition in Tierra del Fuego. Buchan died after the second seizure, shortly after Endeavour's arrival at Tahiti, and was buried at sea. Buchan produced landscapes, coastal views, ethnographic drawings and natural history drawings. He is best known for illustrations of the people of Tierra del Fuego, some of which were engraved for publication in accounts of the voyage. All of his drawings from the voyage were taken by his employer Joseph Banks and are now in the British Library and the Natural History Museum, London. (Full article...)
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Image 7Hibernian Football Club (/hɪˈbɜːrniən/), commonly known as Hibs, is a professional football club in Edinburgh, Scotland. The team competes in the Scottish Premiership, the top division of Scottish football. The club was founded in 1875 by members of Edinburgh's Irish community, and the name is derived from the Latin for Ireland. The Irish heritage of Hibernian is reflected in the name, colours and badge of the club. The green main shirt colour is usually accompanied by white sleeves and shorts. Their local rivals are Heart of Midlothian, with whom they contest the Edinburgh derby.
Home matches are played at Easter Road, which has been in use since 1893, when the club joined the Scottish Football League. The name of the club is regularly shortened to Hibs, with the team also being known as The Hibees (pronounced /ˈhaɪbiːz/) and supporters known as Hibbies. Another nickname is The Cabbage, derived from the shortened rhyming slang for Hibs ("Cabbage and Ribs"). (Full article...) -
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St Peter's Roman Catholic Church is a large mid-nineteenth century church in Buckie, Moray, Scotland. Known locally as the Buckie Cathedral, it was built between 1851 and 1857, soon after the emancipation of Catholics in Scotland, to provide a place of worship for the local Catholic congregation. It was designed by James Kyle, Catholic bishop of Aberdeen, and built on land donated to the diocese by Sir William Gordon, Baronet of Letterfourie. It was extended and redecorated in the early twentieth century by Charles Ménart, and was designated a Category A listed building in 1972. It remains an active place of worship, under the governance of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Aberdeen. (Full article...) -
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Staffa (Scottish Gaelic: Stafa, pronounced [ˈs̪t̪afa], from the Old Norse for stave or pillar island) is an island of the Inner Hebrides in Argyll and Bute, Scotland. The Vikings gave it this name as its columnar basalt reminded them of their houses, which were built from vertically placed tree-logs.
Staffa lies about 10 kilometres (6 miles) west of the Isle of Mull; its area is 33 hectares (82 acres) and the highest point is 42 metres (138 feet) above sea level. (Full article...) -
Image 10Scotland in the modern era, from the end of the Jacobite risings and beginnings of industrialisation in the 18th century to the present day, has played a major part in the economic, military and political history of the United Kingdom, British Empire and Europe, while recurring issues over the status of Scotland, its status and identity have dominated political debate.
Scotland made a major contribution to the intellectual life of Europe, particularly in the Enlightenment, producing major figures including the economist Adam Smith, philosophers Francis Hutcheson and David Hume, and scientists William Cullen, Joseph Black and James Hutton. In the 19th century major figures included James Watt, James Clerk Maxwell, Lord Kelvin and Sir Walter Scott. Scotland's economic contribution to the Empire and the Industrial Revolution included its banking system and the development of cotton, coal mining, shipbuilding and an extensive railway network. Industrialisation and changes to agriculture and society led to depopulation and clearances of the largely rural highlands, migration to the towns and mass emigration, where Scots made a major contribution to the development of countries including the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. (Full article...) -
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Inchdrewer Castle is a 16th-century tower house in the parish of Banff, Aberdeenshire, in the north-east of Scotland. Situated on a slight rise 3.5 miles (5.6 km) south-west of Banff, it looks across to Banff Bay. Originally owned by the Currour family, it was purchased by the Ogilvies of Dunlugas in 1557 and became their main family seat. The Ogilvies were staunch Royalists, which resulted in the castle coming under attack from the Covenanters in 1640. George Ogilvy, 3rd Lord Banff was murdered in 1713 and his body hidden inside the castle, which was then set on fire. The castle came under siege again in 1746, during the Jacobite rising of 1745–46. At the start of the 19th century, following the death of the 8th Lord Banff, the property was inherited by the Abercromby of Birkenbog family, who leased it to a tenant. It became uninhabited after 1836 and the structure deteriorated.
Over the following century the neglect continued until some basic external renovation work was undertaken between 1965 and 1971, making the structure wind and water tight, although it remained unoccupied. The castle was again abandoned and left unmaintained. The condition of the building further declined, becoming derelict. It was in a ruinous state when marketed for sale in April 2013 after the death of Count Robin Mirrlees, who had owned it for about fifty years. At the end of that year it was purchased by the former model Olga Roh, who said she intended to restore it. Modern day reports suggest that the spirit of the 3rd Lord Banff and that of a white dog haunt the castle, which is classified as a category A listed building. (Full article...) -
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Lieutenant-Colonel Lord Ninian Edward Crichton-Stuart (15 May 1883 – 2 October 1915) was a Scottish senior officer in the British Army and Member of Parliament. He was killed in action in the First World War. The second son of the Honourable Gwendolen Mary Anne Fitzalan-Howard and John Crichton-Stuart, 3rd Marquess of Bute, he entered the army in 1903 and served in the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders and the Scots Guards as a lieutenant. After marrying he began a career in politics, serving first as a councillor on Fife County Council, Scotland. His family having close connections to the city of Cardiff in Wales, he fought and lost the January 1910 election there as a Liberal Unionist candidate. The resulting hung parliament led to a second election in December 1910, in which Crichton-Stuart won the seat.
In 1912, he took command of the 6th (Glamorgan) Battalion, The Welch Regiment. Upon the outbreak of the First World War, he volunteered his unit for service and joined the British Expeditionary Force on the Western Front. After eleven months on the front line, he was shot in the head and killed when leading his men in an attempt to repel a German counter-attack on 2 October 1915 during the Battle of Loos. He was one of 22 MPs that were killed during the conflict and the only serving MP from Wales to be killed. (Full article...) -
Image 13Mingulay (Scottish Gaelic: Miughalaigh) is the second largest of the Bishop's Isles in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. Located 12 nautical miles (22 kilometres) south of Barra, it is known for an extensive Gaelic oral tradition incorporating folklore, song and stories and its important seabird populations, including puffins, black-legged kittiwakes, and razorbills, which nest in the sea-cliffs, amongst the highest in the British Isles.
There are Iron Age remains, and the culture of the island was influenced by early Christianity and the Vikings. Between the 15th and 19th centuries Mingulay was part of the lands of Clan MacNeil of Barra, but subsequently suffered at the hands of absentee landlords. (Full article...) -
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Isobel Gowdie was a Scottish woman who confessed to witchcraft at Auldearn near Nairn during 1662. Scant information is available about her age or life and, although she was probably executed in line with the usual practice, it is uncertain whether this was the case or if she was allowed to return to the obscurity of her former life as a cottar’s wife. Her detailed testimony, apparently achieved without the use of violent torture, provides one of the most comprehensive insights into European witchcraft folklore at the end of the era of witch-hunts.
The four confessions she made over a period of six weeks include details of charms and rhymes, claims she was a member of a coven in the service of the Devil and that she met with the fairy queen and king. Lurid information concerning carnal dealings with the Devil were also provided. A combination of demonic and fairy beliefs, the narratives were used by Margaret Murray as the basis for her now mostly discredited theories about cults and witchcraft. (Full article...) -
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The flora of Scotland is an assemblage of native plant species including over 1,600 vascular plants, more than 1,500 lichens and nearly 1,000 bryophytes. The total number of vascular species is low by world standards but lichens and bryophytes are abundant and the latter form a population of global importance. Various populations of rare fern exist, although the impact of 19th-century collectors threatened the existence of several species. The flora is generally typical of the north-west European part of the Palearctic realm and prominent features of the Scottish flora include boreal Caledonian forest (much reduced from its natural extent), heather moorland and coastal machair. In addition to the native species of vascular plants there are numerous non-native introductions, now believed to make up some 43% of the species in the country.
There are a variety of important trees species and specimens; a Grand Fir in Argyll is the tallest tree in the United Kingdom and the Fortingall Yew may be the oldest tree in Europe. The Arran Whitebeams, Shetland Mouse-ear and Scottish Primrose are endemic flowering plants and there are a variety of endemic mosses and lichens. Conservation of the natural environment is well developed and various organisations play an important role in the stewardship of the country's flora. Numerous references to the country's flora appear in folklore, song and poetry. (Full article...) -
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The Schiehallion experiment was an 18th-century experiment to determine the mean density of the Earth. Funded by a grant from the Royal Society, it was conducted in the summer of 1774 around the Scottish mountain of Schiehallion, Perthshire. The experiment involved measuring the tiny deflection of the vertical due to the gravitational attraction of a nearby mountain. Schiehallion was considered the ideal location after a search for candidate mountains, thanks to its isolation and almost symmetrical shape.
The experiment had previously been considered, but rejected, by Isaac Newton as a practical demonstration of his theory of gravitation; however, a team of scientists, notably Nevil Maskelyne, the Astronomer Royal, was convinced that the effect would be detectable and undertook to conduct the experiment. The deflection angle depended on the relative densities and volumes of the Earth and the mountain: if the density and volume of Schiehallion could be ascertained, then so could the density of the Earth. Once this was known, it would in turn yield approximate values for those of the other planets, their moons, and the Sun, previously known only in terms of their relative ratios. (Full article...) -
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Eidyn was the region around modern Edinburgh in Britain's sub-Roman and early medieval periods, approximately the 5th–7th centuries. It centred on the stronghold of Din Eidyn, thought to have been at Castle Rock, now the site of Edinburgh Castle, and apparently included much of the area below the Firth of Forth. It was the most important district of the Brittonic kingdom of Gododdin, and a significant power in the Hen Ogledd, or Old North, the Brittonic-speaking area of what is now southern Scotland and northern England.
The site of Din Eidyn has been nearly continuously occupied since the Bronze Age, serving as a stronghold of the Votadini during the Roman era and later the principal centre of their successors, the Gododdin kingdom. Eidyn's importance to the Hen Ogledd is reflected in the medieval poem Y Gododdin, which concerns a war band that gathered there for a raid around AD 600. After years of decline, Eidyn was conquered by the Angles in 638. (Full article...) -
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The 1902 Ibrox disaster was the collapse of a stand at Ibrox Park (now Ibrox Stadium) in Govan (now part of Glasgow), Scotland. The incident led to the deaths of 25 supporters and injuries to 500 more during an international association football match between Scotland and England on 5 April 1902 as part of the 1901–02 British Home Championship.
Ibrox Park had completed construction less than three years before the incident and was hosting its first international fixture, with the crowd estimated to be over 68,000. The match was the first time that the ground had been used at more than half capacity since its opening. Scotland entered the game needing only to avoid defeat to win the British Home Championship title. During the first half of the match, a section of the newly built West Tribune Stand collapsed, dropping between 200 and 300 people to the concrete floor below. Two spectators were declared dead at the scene, and a further twenty-three died of injuries sustained in the incident soon after, the last victim dying three weeks later. (Full article...) -
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Education in early modern Scotland includes all forms of education within the modern borders of Scotland, between the end of the Middle Ages in the late fifteenth century and the beginnings of the Enlightenment in the mid-eighteenth century. By the sixteenth century such formal educational institutions as grammar schools, petty schools and sewing schools for girls were established in Scotland, while children of the nobility often studied under private tutors. Scotland had three universities, but the curriculum was limited and Scottish scholars had to go abroad to gain second degrees. These contacts were one of the most important ways in which the new ideas of Humanism were brought into Scottish intellectual life. Humanist concern with education and Latin culminated in the Education Act 1496.
After the Reformation the Humanist concern with education became part of a programme of godly education, with an attempt to establish a system of parish schools administered by the Church of Scotland (the "Kirk"). A new university was established in Edinburgh and the existing universities underwent a series of reforms associated with Andrew Melville that revitalised them and brought them up to the standards of Humanist scholarship and methods of teaching of institutions elsewhere. In the seventeenth century there were attempts to organise and finance the system of parish schools and a successful expansion of the university system. By the early eighteenth century the network of parish schools was reasonably complete in the Lowlands, but limited in the Highlands where it was supplemented by the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge. Scotland began to reap the benefits of its university system, with major early figures of the Enlightenment including Francis Hutcheson, Colin Maclaurin and David Hume. (Full article...) -
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Elcho Castle (/ˈɛl.xoʊ/) is located close to the south bank of the River Tay approximately four miles south-east of Perth, Scotland, in the region of Perth and Kinross. It was maintained by Clan Wemyss from its construction around 1560 until it was put into the care of the Secretary of State for Scotland in the early 20th century, though was not occupied for the entire time. In around 1830 it was re-roofed and a nearby cottage constructed. The castle has been a scheduled monument since 1920 on the grounds of being "a particularly fine example of a Medieval tower-house", and the cottage became a listed building in 1971 in recognition of its national importance. The castle is unusual in that it has both en suite guest accommodation like a mansion, but also a large number of gun loops. (Full article...) -
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The Forth Bridge is a cantilever railway bridge across the Firth of Forth in the east of Scotland, 9 miles (14 kilometres) west of central Edinburgh. Completed in 1890, it is considered a symbol of Scotland (having been voted Scotland's greatest man-made wonder in 2016), and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was designed by English engineers Sir John Fowler and Sir Benjamin Baker. It is sometimes referred to as the Forth Rail Bridge (to distinguish it from the adjacent Forth Road Bridge), although this is not its official name.
Construction of the bridge began in 1882 and it was opened on 4 March 1890 by the Duke of Rothesay, the future Edward VII. The bridge carries the Edinburgh–Aberdeen line across the Forth between the villages of South Queensferry and North Queensferry and has a total length of 8,094 feet (2,467 m). When it opened it had the longest single cantilever bridge span in the world, until 1919 when the Quebec Bridge in Canada was completed. It continues to be the world's second-longest single cantilever span, with a span of 1,709 feet (521 m). (Full article...) -
Image 22Andrew Wodrow (1752–1814) was a prominent Scottish American merchant, militia officer, clerk of court, lawyer, and landowner in the colony (and later U.S. state) of Virginia.
Wodrow was born in Scotland in 1752 and immigrated to Virginia in 1768. In Fredericksburg, he engaged in a thriving import business. Following the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War, Wodrow placed his entire inventory up for public auction and contributed the profits to the American Revolutionary patriot cause. During the war, Wodrow served as a lieutenant colonel in command of cavalry in the Continental Army. (Full article...) -
Image 23The 1884 FA Cup final was a football match between Blackburn Rovers and Queen's Park contested on 29 March 1884 at the Kennington Oval. It was the showpiece match of English football's primary cup competition, the Football Association Challenge Cup (better known as the FA Cup), it was the 13th Cup final. It was the first time that a Scottish team reached the final of the tournament, with Queen's Park knocking out the previous holders of the trophy en route.
Both teams received protests from the defeated teams following the semi-final matches, but each were turned down by the Football Association. By the time the match was played, Queen's Park had already been awarded the Scottish Cup after Vale of Leven declined to participate in the final. Prior to the match there were temporary stands built at the Oval as the Pavilion was reserved for members of the Surrey County Cricket Club. There was a record breaking attendance at the match, with between 10,000 and 12,000 fans attending making it the most attended match in London; special trains were laid on by the railways to transport spectators from Lancashire. (Full article...) -
Image 24The English invasion of Scotland of August 1400 was the first military campaign undertaken by Henry IV of England after deposing the previous king, his cousin Richard II. Henry IV urgently wanted to defend the Anglo-Scottish border, and to overcome his predecessor's legacy of failed military campaigns.
A large army was assembled slowly and marched into Scotland. Not only was no pitched battle ever attempted, but the king did not try and besiege Scotland's capital, Edinburgh. Henry's army left at the end of the summer after only a brief stay, mostly camped near Leith (near Edinburgh) where it could maintain contact with its supply fleet. The campaign ultimately accomplished little except to further deplete the king's coffers, and is historically notable only for being the last one led by an English king on Scottish soil. (Full article...) -
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Urquhart Castle (/ˈɜːrkərt/ ⓘ UR-kərt; Scottish Gaelic: Caisteal na Sròine) is a ruined castle that sits beside Loch Ness in the Highlands of Scotland. The castle is on the A82 road, 21 kilometres (13 mi) south-west of Inverness and 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) east of the village of Drumnadrochit.
The present ruins date from the 13th to the 16th centuries, though built on the site of an early medieval fortification. Founded in the 13th century, Urquhart played a role in the Wars of Scottish Independence in the 14th century. It was subsequently held as a royal castle and was raided on several occasions by the MacDonald Earls of Ross. The castle was granted to the Clan Grant in 1509, though conflict with the MacDonalds continued. Despite a series of further raids the castle was strengthened, only to be largely abandoned by the middle of the 17th century. Urquhart was partially destroyed in 1692 to prevent its use by Jacobite forces, and subsequently decayed. In the 20th century, it was placed in state care as a scheduled monument and opened to the public: it is now one of the most-visited castles in Scotland and received 547,518 visitors in 2019. (Full article...)
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- Alec Sutherland
- Tay Bridge
- Treasure Island
- William Morrison (chemist)
Featured lists
- List of islands of Scotland
- List of Celtic F.C. managers
- List of Scottish Football League clubs
- List of Scotland international footballers
- List of Scotland ODI cricketers
- List of Scotland national football team hat-tricks
- List of Scottish football champions
- List of Scottish football clubs in the FA Cup
- PFA Scotland Players' Player of the Year
- SFWA Footballer of the Year
- Scotland national football team results (1872–1914)
- Timeline of prehistoric Scotland
- Timeline of Scottish football
Featured pictures
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13-06-07 RaR Biffy Clyro Simon Neil 02
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Aerial View of Edinburgh, by Alfred Buckham, from about 1920
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Arthur-James-Balfour-1st-Earl-of-Balfour
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CAMPBELL, George W-Treasury (BEP engraved portrait)
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Charles Robert Leslie - Sir Walter Scott - Ravenswood and Lucy at the Mermaiden's Well - Bride of Lammermoor
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Common seal (Phoca vitulina) 2
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Dalziel Brothers - Sir Walter Scott - The Talisman - Sir Kenneth before the King
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Daniel Craig McCallum by The Brady National Photographic Art Gallery
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David Livingstone by Thomas Annan
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Dunrobin Castle -Sutherland -Scotland-26May2008 (2)
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Edinburgh Castle from Grass Market
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Eilean Donan Castle, Scotland - Jan 2011
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Falkirk Wheel Timelapse, Scotland - Diliff
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FalkirkWheelSide 2004 SeanMcClean
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Gavin Hamilton - Coriolanus Act V, Scene III edit2
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Jaguar at Edinburgh Zoo
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Jeremiah Gurney - Photograph of Euphrosyne Parepa-Rosa
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Loch Torridon, Scotland
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Mount Stuart House 2018-08-25
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N. M. Price - Sir Walter Scott - Guy Mannering - At the Kaim of Derncleugh
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NEWScotland-2016-Aerial-Blackness Castle 01
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Nils Olav inspects the Kings Guard of Norway after being bestowed with a knighthood at Edinburgh Zoo in Scotland
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Paisley Abbey Interior East
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Paisley Abbey from the south east
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Prince James Francis Edward Stuart by Alexis Simon Belle
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Robert William Thomson - Illustrated London News March 29 1873
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Scotland-2016-West Lothian-Hopetoun House 02
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Sgùrr nan Gillean from Sligachan, Isle of Skye, Scotland - Diliff
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Sir Anthony Van Dyck - Charles I (1600-49) - Google Art Project
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St Matthew's Church - Paisley - Interior - 5
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Synthetic Production of Penicillin TR1468
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The Air Ministry, 1939-1945. CH10270 – Edit 1
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The Monarch of the Glen, Edwin Landseer, 1851
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The Skating Minister
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Thomas Keene in Macbeth 1884 Wikipedia crop
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View of loch lomond
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Wemyss Bay railway station concourse 2018-08-25 2
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William John Macquorn Rankine by Thomas Annan
Get involved
For editor resources and to collaborate with other editors on improving Wikipedia's Scotland-related articles, see WikiProject Scotland.
To get involved in helping to improve Wikipedia's Scotland related content, please consider doing some of the following tasks or joining one or more of the associated Wikiprojects:
- Visit the Scottish Wikipedians' notice board and help to write new Scotland-related articles, and expand and improve existing ones.
- Visit Wikipedia:WikiProject Scotland/Assessment, and help out by assessing unrated Scottish articles.
- Add the Project Banner to Scottish articles around Wikipedia.
- Participate in WikiProject Scotland's Peer Review, including responding to PR requests and nominating Scottish articles.
- Help nominate and select new content for the Scotland portal.
Do you have a question about The Scotland Portal that you can't find the answer to?
Post a question on the Talk Page or consider asking it at the Wikipedia reference desk.
Related portals
Wikipedia in other relevant languages
Associated Wikimedia
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Wikinews
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Collection of quotations -
Wikisource
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Wikispecies
Directory of species -
Wikiversity
Free learning tools -
Wikivoyage
Free travel guide -
Wiktionary
Dictionary and thesaurus
Hidden categories:
- Pages with Old Irish IPA
- Pages using Template:Post-nominals with customized linking
- Pages with Scottish Gaelic IPA
- Pages using the Phonos extension
- Pages including recorded pronunciations
- Automated article-slideshow portals with 51–100 articles in article list
- Automated article-slideshow portals with embedded list
- Automated article-slideshow portals with 201–500 articles in article list