History Scotland Magazine

Vol. 5 No. 6 November/December 2005

Contents

Vol.5 No.6 November/December 2005

Saints Wars – “Ninian” v. Columba.
Bridget Paterson

The author challenges the notion that Columba brought Christianity to Scotland. She discusses the life of both Columba and Uninnaiu/Ninian who was working, praying and evangelising, many years before Columba arrived in AD 563.

The Stirling Raid - 3rd & 4th September 1571
Harry Potter

Third article in the series on the Marian Civil War. At the beginning of September 1571 the forces supporting a restoration of Mary Queen of Scots were holed up in Edinburgh city and castle and were locked into a stalemate with the supporters of the Regent Lennox whose principal base was at Stirling. In a bold attempt to decapitate the opposition and bring a precipitate end to the Civil War, the governor of Edinburgh Castle and the leading Marian strategist, William Kirkcaldy of Grange, devised a plan which, had it been as successful as it was audacious, would have ended the conflict virtually bloodlessly and in total victory for the Marians. He proposed a night ride on Stirling to capture all the leaders of the King’s faction.

Skirmish on Granish Moor. June 1689: A Forgotten Episode in the Campaign of Bonnie Dundee. Part 1
David G. Rose

In the first section of a two-part article, David Rose discusses the background, past analysis and the historical sources of this little-known episode in the first Jacobite rising of 1689-90.

The Whisky Wars in Scotland
Ian R Mitchell

The phrase “illicit distilling” conjures up a picture of a Highland crofter, sitting patiently at his small still, producing a modest drop for friends and neighbours. For the last two centuries that has indeed been the reality of contraband whisky, but in the almost a century before then, illicit whisky production was one of Scotland’s largest industries, and it was based far more in the North-east of Scotland, than in the Highlands. This is the mostly-forgotten period of the Whisky Wars, which raged from the early eighteenth century until the 1820s

Keeping Track of Scotland’s Lost Railways
Alasdair Wham

An exploration of the many disused railway lines that criss-cross the Scottish countryside. During his walks along the tracks, the author discovered many stories behind the abandoned routes. Forgotten rivalries between fiercely competing railway companies, stations opened to appease local landowners which never saw any business, botched engineering, accidents and much more. He encourages the reader to look out for the abandoned embankment, the lost station platforms at the edge of the supermarket car park and the increasingly isolated signs of a forgotten industrial era. The legacy of the lost railways may literally be at the bottom of your garden!

Publishing, Education & Presbyterianism: The Scottish roots of modern management
Alistair Mutch

In the steady flow of books asserting the importance of the Scottish contribution to the modern world there is one omission. We have an impressive cast of explorers, doctors and engineers – but no managers. Now, managers may not seem to be particularly heroic figures but, in an increasingly managed world, there is considerable interest in historical origins. These are often seen to lie in the increasing corporate concentration of the late 19th century, particularly in the USA, but there is evidence that some of these changes were at least prefigured by individuals and ideas hailing from Scotland. In this article we look at some of this evidence, speculate on why this cluster of ideas emerged in late 18th and early 19th century Scotland and consider why its impact was somewhat limited.

Also:
Excavation of a Medieval fortified settlement on a sea stack in the Western Isles. Rachel Barrowman
First ever Iron Age Burial found on Skye
Joseph Lee, War Poet. Michael Bolik, Caroline Brown and Matthew Jarron
Making Waves in Scottish History. The Early Scottish Maritime History Project.
Eric Graham