The events which led to the North Berwick Witch Trials began, not in Scotland, but at the other side of the North Sea. It all began on the 22nd October when James VI, King of Scots set sail for Norway to collect his bride, Anne of Denmark. The Scottish King got caught up in [...]
Between 1563 and 1763 Scotland was a country in flux and the resulting paranoia fueled the Scottish Witch Trials. Belief in witchcraft was common during the Middle Ages, but the leaders of the Catholic church were largely skeptical, seeing it as folklore rather than something sinister. Lawyers were only interested in cases were harm [...]
St Andrews Cathedral is the place to visit if you are interested in stones, bones, and ghostly groans. Like all of Scotland’s ancient buildings, it is shrouded in its fair share of myth and mystery. How could it be anything less when it once housed the bones of Scotland’s Patron Saint, Saint Andrew whose feast [...]
William Wallace was executed on the 23rd of August 1305. He began life as an obscure laird or lord, one of Scotland’s lesser nobility. Wallace was never king of Scotland but for a short while, he led the country. He was a soldier and yet he fought in relatively few battles. So what caused his [...]
As Janet Douglas, Lady Glamis was led towards the waiting pyre on that fateful day on July 17th, 1537, her eyes must have fallen upon one in the gathered crowd. Her young son, John Lyon, 7th Lord of Glamis, stood between his captors. Perhaps he called to his mother. Perhaps he hung his head in [...]
Alexander Stewart, otherwise known as the Wolf of Badenoch, is perhaps the most notorious character ever to set foot in the north of Scotland. From his lair at Lochindorb, he began a reign of terror which extended through his lands in Northern Perthshire, to Buchan in the East and Lewis to the West. He was [...]
Cardinal Beaton was a man of many properties, during his lifetime. Many of these were acquired due to his position in the church. However, these were dangerous times to be lining your pocket with your parishioners’ silver. After all, the Reformation was a powder keg waiting to explode in Scotland. His own actions were to [...]
The Battle of Culloden was the last battle to be fought upon British soil. The Battle would prove to be the death knell of the Jacobite cause. On the lead up to the Battle, there were who had premonitions that things would not go well for the Jacobites. Events at the Battle of Culloden The [...]
Perhaps nowhere in the world has as many tales of hauntings as Scotland's Haunted Highlands. The Landscape and Scotland's Haunted Highlands There is a haunting quality to the Highlands of Scotland which conjure up images of kilted clansmen appearing out of the mist. The ruins of abandoned cottages are remnants of a way of life [...]
The martyrdom of George Wishart at St Andrews on the 1st of March 1546 has a déjà vu feel to it. Only eighteen years prior to this, Patrick Hamilton had a similar fate at the hands of a Catholic Beaton in the town, once said to hold the relics of Scotland’s Patron Saint. George Wishart [...]