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 [...]
The site of the Battle of Killiecrankie is said to be the most haunted of Scotland’s battlefields. The anniversary of the Battle of Culloden is said to be marked by the visitation of the ghostly soldiers who died there. Culloden is the site of the last Jacobite Battle and the last battle fought on British [...]
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 [...]
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 Declaration of Arbroath was signed on the 6th of April 1320. Robert the Bruce and a retinue of earls and knights met at Arbroath Abbey to sign the historic document. Not only was this most likely the most important document ever to be signed in Scotland but the ramifications of its ideals were to [...]
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 [...]
Patrick Hamilton was only 24 years old on that fateful day in 1528. A tempest was raging through the streets of St Andrews, home to Scotland’s oldest university and once the resting place of the bones of Scotland’s patron saint. Another storm was raging in the hearts of the Scottish people. The flames which consumed [...]
Murder! Massacre! Betrayal! Treason! Glencoe is one of the most spectacular areas of unspoiled wilderness in Scotland. There is a haunting quality about the moor-clad mountains that stand as sentinels over the eight-mile-long glen which runs from east to west along the northern border of Argyll. And there are those who say that the glen [...]
The Scottish poet and lyrist, Robert Burns, was born on January 25th, 1759 in Alloway in Ayrshire. He is regarded as one of the greatest poets to come out of Scotland and to this day, the world over, Burns Suppers are held to celebrate his birth. Perhaps one of his most famous poems is [...]