With its distinct cultural identity, Scotland has a long and rich history that continues to resonate. One of the earliest visitors to its shores was the Greek explorer Pytheas, who wrote about his journey there in his 320 BCE On the Ocean, but with that account lost centuries ago the Romans are generally considered a more reliable starting point in the country’s recorded history. Since then the country has attracted all manner of incomers, from saints to invaders and today’s tourists, and given rise to numerous prominent figures. Looking through our bookshelves, we’ve unearthed some snippets from the stories of some of the major people and events in Scottish history that piqued our interest.
The Picts by Tim Clarkson
First appearing in historical records in the third century, much of what is known about the Picts is derived from medieval ‘king lists’ and those provide the basis for Tim Clarkson’s history. While early details are scant, the beginning of the reign of Brude, son of Maelchon in 554 is when ‘Pictish history finally emerges from the era of legend and uncertainty’. Brude’s thirty-year kingship saw the arrival of Columba in Pictavia and the first record of war between the Picts and the Scots – the people with whom the Picts are thought to have merged in the 8th century, when they vanish from history.
In Search of Angels: Travels to the Edge of the World by Alistair Moffat
Focusing on the Irish monks who sought solitude on the Hebrides in the sixth to eighth centuries, In Search of Angels visits ruins and locations such as Oban’s Dunollie Castle, once at the heart of the kingdom of the Cenel Loairn, and Reilig Odhrain on Iona – also known as St Oran’s graveyard, it is the site where St Columba is thought to have established a chapel, and over many centuries dozens of kings and clan chiefs were buried in its consecrated grounds.
William Wallace by Andrew Fisher
Despite having few prospects at birth, William Wallace rose to become a Guardian of Scotland. The tactics he and Andrew Murray employed at the 1297 Battle of Stirling – allowing the vanguard of the English army to cross the bridge northwards, where they were corralled by the bend of the river and massacred by the waiting Scots – have been well documented, and although debate continues about which side destroyed the bridge, and the battle itself wasn’t decisive in the War of Independence, the collaboration between Wallace and Murray marked a new approach to Scottish military leadership and its success sealed their reputations.
Robert the Bruce: Champion of a Nation by Stephen Spinks
Following personal losses and setbacks such as the defeat at Methven, but also a series of guerilla attacks on the English and a role in the murder of his rival, John Comyn, Robert the Bruce achieved heroic status when he led the defeat of the English army at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314. This biography also recalls how, despite the ruthlessness of his actions, he remained deeply pious and took part in numerous pilgrimages, including one just before his death in 1328 to St Ninian’s Cave, near Whithorn Abbey in Galloway.
The Reivers: The Story of the Border Reivers by Alistair Moffat
Among the pages of his history of reiving – Scottish raids over the border for essentials – Alistair Moffat offers a series of asides with notes on local customs, additional context and points of interest. One of these records the fate of Roxburgh, a large medieval town that for 200 years was one of the most prosperous in Scotland, with a large castle, wool and leather markets, four churches and a mint. Destroyed by decades of war, it lives on only in the county name, its physical remains removed for the Friars Haugh racecourse in the 19th century.
Homecoming: The Scottish Years of Mary, Queen of Scots by Rosemary Goring
As it traces the locations associated with Mary, Queen of Scots during her reign this volume takes the reader to many a grand building, including Stirling and Edinburgh Castles and Linlithgow Palace, but also to Jedburgh where she spent a month during 1566. Ignoring her own ill health, Mary undertook an arduous horse ride over rough terrain from Jedburgh to Hermitage Castle, where the Earl of Bothwell – with whom she was suspected of having an affair – was recovering from severe injury. The journey left Mary so weak there were fears for her life, prompting her to summon her courtiers and make clear that it was her son, not Lord Darnley, who should succeed her.
Discovering Battlefields of England and Scotland by John Kinross
Following Scotland’s allegiance to Charles II the Marquis of Argyll pieced together an army to support the new king in the face of English opposition. Led by Cromwell’s former ally David Leslie, they constructed entrenchments from Holyrood to Leith and held off some 15,000 soldiers from the New Model Army before succumbing to a surprise attack at Dunbar on 3 September 1650 and retreating to Stirling. A stone commemorating the battle can be seen near Doon Hill, where Leslie’s men had stationed themselves, and is inscribed with ‘The Covenant’ and ‘The Lord of Hosts’ to represent the two armies’ beliefs.
War Paths by Alistair Moffat
Touring Scotland’s battlefields, Alistair Moffat details the movements of the men but also the context in which they fought. In his assessment of the battle at Culloden in 1746 he notes the failed night attack on the English camp the previous night, which resulted in much of the Highland army entering the battle tired and hungry; that the Gaelic name for the location, Cuil Lodair, translates as ‘the corner of the little pools’, giving an indication of the terrain; how the notion that the battle pitched the Scots against the English is misleading; and how ‘the future had at last defeated the past’ with the clansmen falling to the well-drilled modern army, and the lives of the Highlanders changed forever.
The Flowers of the Forest: Scotland and the First World War by Trevor Royle
The passing of the Munitions of War Act in 1915 gave the government control over essential industries, including shipbuilding. In Clydeside, where most of Britain’s commercial and naval warships were built, this safeguarded jobs and brought prosperity, with working hours extended at Clydebank where HMS Hood was constructed in 1916 – at any one time, 1,000 men were employed on this innovative ship alone and these skilled workers were exempt from conscription and not allowed to volunteer for the military.
A Time of Tyrants: Scotland and the Second World War by Trevor Royle
In December 1941 Britain became the only combatant country to extend conscription to women, requiring those aged 20 to 30 who were unmarried to take on war work. Across Scotland, which played a crucial role in food production, the Land Army was perhaps the most popular option, with women embarking on four-week training courses to learn the basics of agriculture, market gardening, dairy work and poultry husbandry. The placements were poorly paid, but with subsidized accommodation, good rations and the general appeal of life on the land, morale tended to be high.
