David Scott and Hugh Adamson were executed at Glasgow Cross on the 5th of June, 1805.
According to the website Capital Punishment UK (.org), between 1800 and 1868, there were 273 people publicly hanged in Scotland. Of those puir souls, 259 were men and 14 were women. A further 207 were sentenced to death, but escaped that fate by being reprieved or 'respited'. At the time, Scotland had a system of Assize Courts that covered four circuits; North, South, East and West, in case you hadn't guessed. There was a High Court of Justiciary, which sat in Edinburgh, but that was an independent court. In cases where the death sentence was pronounced, it had to be approved by the King and Privy Council, which meant that the condemned sometimes had a fair bit of time on their hands, between sentence and execution – or reprieve – during which to probe their conscience. Communications in Scotland weren't that quick, before the M8 was built, you'll understand.
Interestingly, less than
Tuesday, 5 June 2012
Monday, 28 May 2012
Alison Pearson, witch
Alison Pearson was tried for witchcraft and burnt at the stake, on the 28th of May, 1588.
The bewitching tale of Alison Pearson appears in several sources, notably in ''The Legend of the Bischop of St. Androis Lyfe' and the Survival of Scottish Poetry', by David J. Parkinson of the University of Saskatchewan, and Sir Walter Scott's 'Minstrelsy of the Scottish border', in his introduction to the tale of Tamlane; 'On the fairies of popular superstition'. Scott summed up Pearson's story very well, when he wrote, “For this idle story the poor woman actually suffered death.” What he meant, of course, was that stories of witches and suchlike are mere 'idle tales'. Nobody believes in fairies.
The trouble was that in post Reformation Scotland, plenty
The bewitching tale of Alison Pearson appears in several sources, notably in ''The Legend of the Bischop of St. Androis Lyfe' and the Survival of Scottish Poetry', by David J. Parkinson of the University of Saskatchewan, and Sir Walter Scott's 'Minstrelsy of the Scottish border', in his introduction to the tale of Tamlane; 'On the fairies of popular superstition'. Scott summed up Pearson's story very well, when he wrote, “For this idle story the poor woman actually suffered death.” What he meant, of course, was that stories of witches and suchlike are mere 'idle tales'. Nobody believes in fairies.
The trouble was that in post Reformation Scotland, plenty
Thursday, 17 May 2012
David Octavius Hill
David Octavius Hill, painter and pioneer of photography, died on the 17th of May, 1870.
With a name like David Octavius Hill, he was surely destined to become famous, but his partner, Robert Adamson deserves equal credit for the pair's photographic achievements, despite the lack of an intriguing middle name. According to Malcolm Daniel, of the Department of Photographs at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (at least he was in 2000), Hill and Adamson “pioneered the aesthetic terrain of photography and created a body of work that still ranks among the highest achievements of photographic portraiture.”
Others have written that the complementary skills of Hill and Adamson achieved results with the primitive calotype process that have served as a standard and challenge to
With a name like David Octavius Hill, he was surely destined to become famous, but his partner, Robert Adamson deserves equal credit for the pair's photographic achievements, despite the lack of an intriguing middle name. According to Malcolm Daniel, of the Department of Photographs at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (at least he was in 2000), Hill and Adamson “pioneered the aesthetic terrain of photography and created a body of work that still ranks among the highest achievements of photographic portraiture.”
Others have written that the complementary skills of Hill and Adamson achieved results with the primitive calotype process that have served as a standard and challenge to
Sunday, 13 May 2012
The Rev. James Kirkwood
The Rev. James Kirkwood became the Minister at Minto on the 12th of May, 1679.
The Rev. James Kirkwood seems to have been a very single minded individual, clear in his thinking and not to be readily swayed from his opinion or chosen course of action. This anniversary is of his becoming the Minister at Minto, but on balance, that's was a minor event in his eventful life. Kirkwood didn't invent anything or discover a miracle cure or write stirring poetry about his fellow man, but he stood by his principles, for which he was prepared to endure some measure of persecution and he deserves a mention for that. In addition, Christian that he was, the Reverend Kirkwood did
The Rev. James Kirkwood seems to have been a very single minded individual, clear in his thinking and not to be readily swayed from his opinion or chosen course of action. This anniversary is of his becoming the Minister at Minto, but on balance, that's was a minor event in his eventful life. Kirkwood didn't invent anything or discover a miracle cure or write stirring poetry about his fellow man, but he stood by his principles, for which he was prepared to endure some measure of persecution and he deserves a mention for that. In addition, Christian that he was, the Reverend Kirkwood did
Wednesday, 9 May 2012
The Battle of Auldearn
The Battle of Auldearn was fought on the 9th of May, 1645.
The Battle of Auldearn was the fifth in a series. Survive the lot and you'd have done pretty well. Prior to Auldearn, the Marquis of Montrose, Lieutenant-General of the forces of Charles I in Scotland, had helped himself to four victories, which meant that he topped the league table, without question, but tragically for him, he lost the cup final at Philliphaugh. That was in the future, however and not to spoil this story, which in some ways was a bit like
The Battle of Auldearn was the fifth in a series. Survive the lot and you'd have done pretty well. Prior to Auldearn, the Marquis of Montrose, Lieutenant-General of the forces of Charles I in Scotland, had helped himself to four victories, which meant that he topped the league table, without question, but tragically for him, he lost the cup final at Philliphaugh. That was in the future, however and not to spoil this story, which in some ways was a bit like
Tuesday, 8 May 2012
Sir George Mackenzie of Rosehaugh; 'Bluidy Mackenzie''
Sir George Mackenzie of Rosehaugh, better known as 'Bluidy Mackenzie', died on the 8th of May, 1691.
Sir George MacKenzie of Rosehaugh was seemingly a contradictory sort of a guy. On the one hand, he was praised by some for his “cultivated and learned” literary and legal skills. On the other hand, he was reviled – still is – by many for his persecution of the Covenanters. MacKenzie looms large in the history of the Covenanters and the years known in Scotland as 'the Killing Times'. If you're a Jacobite, without understanding why as in “I just love yon Bonnie Prince Charlie” you might want to think twice about Charlie's ancestors and the impact they had on Scotland in the 17th Century. Aye, he served well the heirs of Jamie Saxt; Charles II & II and his brother James VII & II, for both of whom MacKenzie's royalist disposition emerged; delivered with a vengeance.
As Lord Advocate or King's Advocate in Scotland, MacKenzie was largely responsible for persecuting the inhuman policies of successive Stuart Kings against the Covenanters. Perhaps those policies should only and ever be seen in the light of the times, but certainly, by modern, western standards, MacKenzie must be held accountable for the deaths of something like 18,000 Covenanters. If around today, he'd be on trial at the International Court of Human Rights in The Hague for crimes against humanity, except, he had the law on his side.
Those crimes took place during the nine years that MacKenzie was Lord Advocate, when there was hardly a prosecution in which he was not involved. Under MacKenzie, torture was routinely employed, in attempts to extract confessions from the accused or, in the case of witnesses, to implicate 'conspirators'. MacKenzie also had a penchant for bending the rules and soliciting perjury in pursuit of his prejudice. According to 'Men of the Covenant' by A. Smellie, MacKenzie had a violent temper and a vicious tongue that cowed defendants and even some judges. However, MacKenzie didn't have it all his own way and there are many tales of fervently religious Covenanters, simple folk and gentry alike, who resisted his bullying, albeit many perished, despite their stoic forbearance.
Brian J. Orr, who has written about the Covenanters at length, suggests that it is probable that MacKenzie's epithet stemmed from the belief and legal tenet that a murdered person's body would bleed if touched by the murderer, because McKenzie had used that belief in a court case and secured a conviction. Orr might be right, but MacKenzie, like John Graham of Claverhouse (Bonnie Dundee to the Jacobites, mind) certainly earned his 'Bluidy' title for his persecution of the Covenanters.
George Mackenzie was born in Dundee, in 1636, and was educated at that city's grammar school, before entering King's College at the University of Aberdeen, in 1650. Afterward, Mackenzie went to St. Andrews, from where he graduated at the age of sixteen. He then spent three years studying civil law at the University of Bourges, in France. MacKenzie returned to Scotland and was called to the bar, being elected to the Faculty of Advocates as they say, in 1659. According to the on-line 1911 Encyclopedia, immediately after the Restoration, MacKenzie, who had by then become a distinguished lawyer, was appointed a 'justice-depute' and he and his colleagues were ordained by the parliament in 1661 “to repair, once in the week at least, to Musselburgh and Dalkeith, and to try and judge such persons as are there or thereabouts delate of witchcraft.”
Also in 1661, MacKenzie acted as counsel for Archibald Campbell, 1st Marquess (Marquis) of Argyle (Argyll). Now that affair only adds to the contradictory nature of the man as MacKenzie was then a defender of the Presbyterians, hence his role on behalf of Campbell. At that time, according to Brian Orr, MacKenzie professed “to be a sanctuary to such as are afflicted and to pull the innocent from the claws of his accuser.” Later on, he might have said, “I am a persecutor of the afflicted and seek to draw the innocent into the claws of death.” He was knighted around that time, before he was elected the Member of Parliament for the County of Ross. One more thing for which you might want to give MacKenzie credit is that, in 1669, during his early years as an MP, he opposed Lauderdale's move for a Union of the Kingdoms. That momentous event was destined to happen thirty-eight years later.
MacKenzie was appointed Lord Advocate in 1677, when he also then became a member the Privy Council of Scotland, in the aftermath of the Pentland Rising. His predecessor was Sir John Nisbet of Dirleton, who set MacKenzie a good example in mistreating Covenanters. Nisbet was the man who proposed that delinquents from the Rising who had not yet been brought to justice, should be tried in their absence, with no defence and liable to the death sentence. MacKenzie took a bit of time to come round to that way of thinking, but when he did, he went for it in a big way.
At the dethronement of James II and the 'Glorious Revolution', MacKenzie was, unsurprisingly, one of a minority of five against the forfeiture of the crown, but the new King, William of Orange, wasn't a vindictive kind of guy. MacKenzie was allowed to retire in peace to Oxford, where he was admitted as a student by a grace passed in 1690. MacKenzie was allowed to spend the rest of his days in Oxford, pursuing a prosecution of a different sort, that of his literary ambitions. One of his last acts before leaving Edinburgh in 1689, had been to pronounce, on the 15th of March, in his capacity as Dean of the Faculty of Advocates, the inaugural oration at the foundation of the Advocates' Library, which much later, in 1925, became the National Library of Scotland.
As a final titbit in MacKenzie's favour, courtesy of Wikipedia, is that when he was asked, in 1692 to resume the post of Lord Advocate, he declined, because a condition attached was that he should not prosecute the persons implicated in the Glencoe Massacre. Mackenzie apparently refused to concur in such a partial application of the penal laws. He must've been well into his dotage by then, comparing that attitude with his previous behaviour.
Sir George Mackenzie of Rosehaugh died in Westminster on the 8th of May, 1691, and he was buried in Greyfriars Kirkyard in Edinburgh, not too far from many of the Covenanters whose execution he ordered.
Sir George MacKenzie of Rosehaugh was seemingly a contradictory sort of a guy. On the one hand, he was praised by some for his “cultivated and learned” literary and legal skills. On the other hand, he was reviled – still is – by many for his persecution of the Covenanters. MacKenzie looms large in the history of the Covenanters and the years known in Scotland as 'the Killing Times'. If you're a Jacobite, without understanding why as in “I just love yon Bonnie Prince Charlie” you might want to think twice about Charlie's ancestors and the impact they had on Scotland in the 17th Century. Aye, he served well the heirs of Jamie Saxt; Charles II & II and his brother James VII & II, for both of whom MacKenzie's royalist disposition emerged; delivered with a vengeance.
As Lord Advocate or King's Advocate in Scotland, MacKenzie was largely responsible for persecuting the inhuman policies of successive Stuart Kings against the Covenanters. Perhaps those policies should only and ever be seen in the light of the times, but certainly, by modern, western standards, MacKenzie must be held accountable for the deaths of something like 18,000 Covenanters. If around today, he'd be on trial at the International Court of Human Rights in The Hague for crimes against humanity, except, he had the law on his side.
Those crimes took place during the nine years that MacKenzie was Lord Advocate, when there was hardly a prosecution in which he was not involved. Under MacKenzie, torture was routinely employed, in attempts to extract confessions from the accused or, in the case of witnesses, to implicate 'conspirators'. MacKenzie also had a penchant for bending the rules and soliciting perjury in pursuit of his prejudice. According to 'Men of the Covenant' by A. Smellie, MacKenzie had a violent temper and a vicious tongue that cowed defendants and even some judges. However, MacKenzie didn't have it all his own way and there are many tales of fervently religious Covenanters, simple folk and gentry alike, who resisted his bullying, albeit many perished, despite their stoic forbearance.
Brian J. Orr, who has written about the Covenanters at length, suggests that it is probable that MacKenzie's epithet stemmed from the belief and legal tenet that a murdered person's body would bleed if touched by the murderer, because McKenzie had used that belief in a court case and secured a conviction. Orr might be right, but MacKenzie, like John Graham of Claverhouse (Bonnie Dundee to the Jacobites, mind) certainly earned his 'Bluidy' title for his persecution of the Covenanters.
George Mackenzie was born in Dundee, in 1636, and was educated at that city's grammar school, before entering King's College at the University of Aberdeen, in 1650. Afterward, Mackenzie went to St. Andrews, from where he graduated at the age of sixteen. He then spent three years studying civil law at the University of Bourges, in France. MacKenzie returned to Scotland and was called to the bar, being elected to the Faculty of Advocates as they say, in 1659. According to the on-line 1911 Encyclopedia, immediately after the Restoration, MacKenzie, who had by then become a distinguished lawyer, was appointed a 'justice-depute' and he and his colleagues were ordained by the parliament in 1661 “to repair, once in the week at least, to Musselburgh and Dalkeith, and to try and judge such persons as are there or thereabouts delate of witchcraft.”
Also in 1661, MacKenzie acted as counsel for Archibald Campbell, 1st Marquess (Marquis) of Argyle (Argyll). Now that affair only adds to the contradictory nature of the man as MacKenzie was then a defender of the Presbyterians, hence his role on behalf of Campbell. At that time, according to Brian Orr, MacKenzie professed “to be a sanctuary to such as are afflicted and to pull the innocent from the claws of his accuser.” Later on, he might have said, “I am a persecutor of the afflicted and seek to draw the innocent into the claws of death.” He was knighted around that time, before he was elected the Member of Parliament for the County of Ross. One more thing for which you might want to give MacKenzie credit is that, in 1669, during his early years as an MP, he opposed Lauderdale's move for a Union of the Kingdoms. That momentous event was destined to happen thirty-eight years later.
MacKenzie was appointed Lord Advocate in 1677, when he also then became a member the Privy Council of Scotland, in the aftermath of the Pentland Rising. His predecessor was Sir John Nisbet of Dirleton, who set MacKenzie a good example in mistreating Covenanters. Nisbet was the man who proposed that delinquents from the Rising who had not yet been brought to justice, should be tried in their absence, with no defence and liable to the death sentence. MacKenzie took a bit of time to come round to that way of thinking, but when he did, he went for it in a big way.
At the dethronement of James II and the 'Glorious Revolution', MacKenzie was, unsurprisingly, one of a minority of five against the forfeiture of the crown, but the new King, William of Orange, wasn't a vindictive kind of guy. MacKenzie was allowed to retire in peace to Oxford, where he was admitted as a student by a grace passed in 1690. MacKenzie was allowed to spend the rest of his days in Oxford, pursuing a prosecution of a different sort, that of his literary ambitions. One of his last acts before leaving Edinburgh in 1689, had been to pronounce, on the 15th of March, in his capacity as Dean of the Faculty of Advocates, the inaugural oration at the foundation of the Advocates' Library, which much later, in 1925, became the National Library of Scotland.
As a final titbit in MacKenzie's favour, courtesy of Wikipedia, is that when he was asked, in 1692 to resume the post of Lord Advocate, he declined, because a condition attached was that he should not prosecute the persons implicated in the Glencoe Massacre. Mackenzie apparently refused to concur in such a partial application of the penal laws. He must've been well into his dotage by then, comparing that attitude with his previous behaviour.
Sir George Mackenzie of Rosehaugh died in Westminster on the 8th of May, 1691, and he was buried in Greyfriars Kirkyard in Edinburgh, not too far from many of the Covenanters whose execution he ordered.
Tuesday, 1 May 2012
The Battle of Arkinholm
The Battle of Erkinholme was fought on the 1st of May, 1455.
The Battle of Erkinholme is more commonly referred to as the Battle of Arkinholm, albeit it's known by some as the Battle of Langholm, primarily because it was fought where the town of Langholm now stands. More accurately, the battle was fought on the outskirts of present day Langholm, opposite the lower return of a distinctive Z-shaped bend in the river Esk, which flows through the town, at least according to The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments and Constructions of Scotland. The battle is noteworthy for having pitched two sides of the Douglas family at each other's throats, but then again, that sort of thing wasn't so unusual in mediaeval Scotland or elsewhere, for that matter.
The two sides of Douglas were known as
The Battle of Erkinholme is more commonly referred to as the Battle of Arkinholm, albeit it's known by some as the Battle of Langholm, primarily because it was fought where the town of Langholm now stands. More accurately, the battle was fought on the outskirts of present day Langholm, opposite the lower return of a distinctive Z-shaped bend in the river Esk, which flows through the town, at least according to The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments and Constructions of Scotland. The battle is noteworthy for having pitched two sides of the Douglas family at each other's throats, but then again, that sort of thing wasn't so unusual in mediaeval Scotland or elsewhere, for that matter.
The two sides of Douglas were known as
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