History Scotland Magazine

Vol.5 No.5 September/October 2005

Contents

Fighting for the Lion: The Life of Andrew Murray.
James G Taylor

The author challenges the picture painted in fifteenth-century poem, “The Wallace” and the in the film, “ Braveheart” of Wallace as the sole leader of the resistance to King Edward. This article traces the life of Andrew Murray who also stepped forward in the spring of 1297 to share the burden of leadership. He came from a very different social background to Wallace, but shared his desire to free Scotland from English rule.

Dumbarton Rock - 1st & 2nd April 1571.
Harry Potter

Second article in the series on the Marian Civil War. At the beginning the supporters of Mary Queen of Scots held many of the greatest fortresses in Scotland, the foremost being Edinburgh Castle and Dumbarton Rock. These were the two pillars on which the hope of a restoration of the exiled Queen were founded. To sever one was to deal a mighty blow against her cause. Thus the consternation engendered among her supporters at home and abroad by the dramatic capture of the formidable Dumbarton Castle by Captain Thomas Crawford of Jordanhill on 2 April 1571.

The Merchants House of Glasgow, 1605–2005.
Susan Milligan

In 2005 Glasgow is celebrating 400 years of two major institutions in the city. The Merchants House and the Trades House both date their official existence from the Letter of Guildry, produced on 6 February 1605 by the provost, Sir George Elphinstone, and representatives of both Houses. The article deals with the changing role of the Merchants House from the 17th century onwards.

Conveyance & Contribution: Mormon Scots Gather to an American Zion - Part 2.
Fred E. Woods

Part 2 of the article dealing with mass influx of Mormons and their converts to the USA. Some ten thousand Scots converted to Mormonism, and about half (five thousand) responded to the call to gather to Zion.

Rheumatism, Romanticism & Revolution: Victoria, Balmorality and 1848.
Ian R. Mitchell

Queen Victoria and her Consort Albert took the lease of Balmoral Castle and estate on Deeside in Scotland in the year 1848. This was The Year of Revolutions in Europe, when from France to Austria, through the Italian and German states, the ancien régime was toppled, and monarchs were everywhere in flight. Louis Philippe escaped from Paris to Britain never to return, while temporary flights were made by the Prussian king Friedrich William IV from his capital Berlin to the army garrison at Potsdam, and by the Austrian Emperor who fled his revolutionary capital of Vienna for the safety of the mountains at Innsbruck in the Tyrol. The Flight to Balmoral by Victoria and Albert was a less dramatic, but nonetheless real, response to the spectre of revolt haunting Europe in the revolutionary year of 1848. But it would be inaccurate to say that this was the only motive. For revolution was but one of the three Rs that drove the royal couple to Balmoral, the others being romanticism - and rheumatism.

The Visit of Canadian & Iroquois Lacrosse Teams to Scotland, May 1883. Andrew G. Newby

Before European settlers reached North America, native tribes played a game which, reflecting the place of sport in many other contemporary cultures, was considered more a preparation for war than a recreation in itself. In various territories around the Great Lakes, this game was called baggataway or tewaraathon. In the mid-seventeenth century a Jesuit missionary, Fr. Jean de Brebeuf, described the sport and coined the name “lacrosse”, owing to a perceived similarity between the natives’ sticks and a bishop’s crozier. European settlers only slowly began to take up the game, but by the mid-nineteenth century it had captured their imagination to the extent that in 1859 it was declared the national sport.

Also:
Archaeolink : A Journey Through Prehistory. Liz Curtis
Medieval ring found in Kirkwall garden. Sigurd Towrie
Frontiers of the Roman Empire. David Breeze
Knowes o' Trotty gives up Bronze Age treasures. Sigurd Towrie
Reaper Launched for a Second Century. Richard J. King
Am Baile seeks memories, stories & anecdotes. Jamie Gaukroger
Scotland’s Secret War. Fiona Graham