Scotland

An Autobiography

Rosemary Goring

• Publisher: Abrams Press
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781590202913
• eBook ISBN: 9781468303124
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Scottish History
• Index: History

"A spirited collection of witnessing from all the periods of Scottish history"—in the words of Cromwell to Conan Doyle, poets to nurses to warriors ( The New York Review of Books).
This is a vivid, wide-ranging account of Scotland's history, composed of numerous stories and observations by those who experienced it firsthand through the centuries.
Contributors range from Tacitus, Mary, Queen of Scots, and Oliver Cromwell to Adam Smith, David Livingstone, and Billy Connolly. These include not only historic moments—from Bannockburn to the opening of the new Parliament in 1999—but also testimonies like that of the eight-year-old factory worker who was dangled by his ear out of a third-floor window for making a mistake; the survivors of the 1746 Battle of Culloden, who wished perhaps that they had died on the field; John Logie Baird, inventor of television; and great writers including Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, and the editor of Encyclopedia Britannica. From the battlefield to the sports field, this is living, accessible history told by criminals, servants, housewives, poets, journalists, nurses, prisoners, comedians, and many more.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Contents
• Introduction
• Discovering Skara Brae
• Agricola Sails around Scotland, AD c. 80
• Death of St Columba, 597
• Viking Invaders, 870
• Battle between the Saxons and Northmen, 937
• The King of Scots Insults the English King, c. 971–975
• English Fashion, Eleventh Century
• English Invective against the Scots, Eleventh Century
• Capture of William I by the English, 1174
• Guidelines for the Clergy, Thirteenth Century
• Religious Houses, 1207
• The Burning of a Bishop, 1222
• Church Corruption, 1271
• The Death of Alexander III, 19 March 1286
• The Death of the Maid of Norway, c. 26 September 1290
• The Rise and Fall of William Wallace, 1297–1305
• The Execution of William Wallace, 23 August 1305
• The Battle of Bannockburn, 23–24 June 1314
• The Battle of Bannockburn: an Englishman’s View, 23–24 June 1314
• The Declaration of Arbroath, 6 April 1320
• Robert Bruce’s Epitaph, 1329
• Bird Flu, or Similar, 1344
• The Black Death, 1350
• The Auld Alliance, 1385
• Acts of Parliament
• The Murder ofJames I, 20 February 1437
• The Battle of Flodden, 9 September 1513
• A Paen to Oatcakes, 1521
• The Burning of George Wishart, 1 March 1546
• The Murder of Cardinal David Beaton, 29 May 1546
• John Knox Apologizes to Queen Elizabeth I, 1559
• Schooldays, 1560s
• Mary, Queen of Scots, Arrives in Scotland, 19 August 1561
• The Murder of Riccio, 9 March 1566
• Mary, Queen of Scots, Appeals to Elizabeth I for Help, 1 May 1568
• Act against Luxury, 1581
• The Habits of Highlanders, 1582
• The Morning of Mary, Queen of Scots’s Execution, 8 February 1587
• The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, 8 February 1587
• The North Berwick Witches, 1591
• No Pipe-playing on Sundays, 1593
• Grammar School Mutiny, 1595
• Border Reivers Defy Capture, 14 April 1596
• The Scottish Diet, 1598
• The First New Year’s Day, 1600
• The Union of the Crowns, 24 March 1603
• The Evils of Tobacco, 1604
• Ben Jonson Walks to Scotland, 1618–1619
• A Visitor’s Impression of Edinburgh, 6 June 1634
• The National Covenant, 1638
• The Battle of Dunbar, 3 September 1650
• A Good Use for the Plantations, 1665
• Murder of Archbishop Sharp, 3 May 1679
• The Battle of Killiecrankie, 27 July 1689
• The Massacre of Glencoe, 13 February 1692
• A Gael’s View of the Islands, 1695
• Famine, 1698
• The Darien Venture, 25 December 1699
• The Run-up to the Union of the Scottish and English Parliaments, 1707
• A Jacobite Escapes from the Tower of London, 23 February 1716
• Manners, 1720
• The Aftermath of the Union of Parliaments, 1723
• The Porteous Riot, 14 April 1736
• The Battle of Prestonpans, 21 September 1745
• The Battle of Culloden, 16 April 1746
• The Aftermath of Culloden, April 1746
• Jacobite Orphans, 1746
• Superstition and Punishment, 1754–1777
• Taking a Play to London, 1755
• A Scot Meets Voltaire, 24 December 1764
• The New Town Is Conceived, 1767
• The Invention of the Steam Engine, 1769
• The Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1771
• Dr Johnson Arrives in Scotland, 14 August 1773
• A Visitor’s Impressions of Scotland, 1773
• The American Independence War, 19 June 1776
• The Wealth of Nations, March 1776
• Death of David Hume, 25 August 1776
• A Jamaican Sugar Plantation, 1784
• A Bagpipe Competition, 1784
• Robert Burns Is Hailed as a Genius, 1786
• The Age of the Earth Is Proved by James Hutton, 1788
• Robert Burns Meets Walter Scott, 1787
• Smallpox, 1791
• Twenty Years of Dramatic Change, c. 1792
• The Trial of ‘the Pest of Scotland’, 30–31 August 1793
• African Exploration, 1796
• Henry Raeburn, Early 1800s
• Highland Emigration, 1806
• The Ossian Fraud, 1806
• Building the Bell Rock Lighthouse, 2 September 1807
• Conditions in the Mines, 1808
• The Historical Novel Is Born, 1814
• The Battle of Waterloo, 18 June 1815
• Law and Justice in the Highlands, c. 1816–1826
• An Experiment in Humanity, 1816
• The Sutherland Clearances, 1816
• The Scotsman Is Launched, January 1817
• Radicals in the Playground, 1819
• George IV Visits Scotland, 14 August 1822
• Child Worker in a Dundee Factory, 1824
• The Recipe for Haggis, 1826
• The Search for the Sugar Pine, 1826
• Travelling Conditions for Emigrants, 1827
• The Sale of a Wife, 1828
• Sutherland after the Clearances, 1828
• The Trial of Burke and Hare, 24 December 1828
• Mendelssohn Visits Scotland, 1829
• Reminiscences of Edinburgh Life, Early 1800s
• Cholera Epidemic, 1832
• Testimony of Coal Workers, 1840
• Streets of Sewage, 1842
• The Disruption of the Church of Scotland, 1843
• The Origins of Photography, 1845
• Railway Mania, 1847
• Experimenting with Chloroform, 1847
• Rioting in Caithness, 1847
• Victoria and Albert at Balmoral, 1848
• Andrew Carnegie Shows an Early Interest in Libraries, 1853
• Thomas Carlyle’s Tax Return, 21 November 1855
• Fish Gutters, 1859
• Scavenging, May 1859
• The Glorious Twelfth, 1859
• An Edinburgh Detective at Work, 1861
• Abbotsford, the Tourist Trap, 1863
• A Missionary Visits Greenock, 1865
• The First Scottish Football Match, 1868
• Mayhem at Musselburgh Golf Match, 22–23 April 1870
• Dr Livingstone Is Found by Henry Morton Stanley, November 1871
• The Invention of the Telephone, 1875
• ‘Saxpence in ma claes, ninepence in ma skin’, 1876
• Mary Slessor’s Campaign to Save Babies, Late 1870s/1880s
• The Mental Asylum, 1878
• The Tay Railway Bridge Disaster, 28 December 1879
• Among the Residents of Black Houses, c. 1880
• The Eyemouth Fishing Disaster, 14 October 1881
• The Battle of the Braes, 18 April 1882
• Treasure Island, 1882
• The Origins of Sherlock Holmes, 1891
• Keir Hardie Elected as First Labour MP, 3 August 1892
• Unknown Comedian Tries His Luck in London, March 1900
• Down the Mine in Fife, 1900
• The Opening of Peter Pan, December 1904
• The Early Adventures of Toad, May 1907
• Force-feeding Suffragettes, 1909
• Life at the Front in France, 1915–1918
• Glasgow Rent Strike, September–October 1915
• A Hospital on the Western Front, July 1916
• Red Clydeside Erupts, 31 January 1919
• The Scuttling of the German Grand Fleet at ScapaFlow, 21 June 1919
• Churchill on the Eve of Defeat, 14 November 1922
• Sectarian Anxieties, 1923
• Eric Liddell Wins Gold at the Olympics, 11 July 1924
• The Invention of Television, October 19
• The Origins of Miss Jean Brodie, 1929
• The Evacuation of St Kilda, 29 and 30 August 1930
• Burns’s Halo Is Tarnished, 1930
• The Loch Ness Monster, 1933
• The Queen’s Governess, 1933
• Edinburgh and Its Street Girls, 1934
• The Hungry Prostitute, 1935
• The Spanish Civil War, May 1937
• Benny Lynch Retains His Triple Crown, 12 October 1937
• A Glasgow Orange March, 1938
• Rape, Late 1930s
• The Sinking of the Arandora Star, 2 July 1940
• The Travelling Family, 1941
• The Clydebank Blitz, 13 March 1941
• A Conscientious Objector, 1941
• Rudolf Hess Crash-lands in Scotland, 13 May 1941
• Prisoner of War, 1944–5
• The Second Edinburgh Festival, 1948
• Stealing the Stone of Destiny, 25 December 1950
• Jimmy MacBeath, King of the Cornkisters, 1951
• The Flodden of Football, 15 April 1961
• Petition for Women to Become Ministers in the Churchof Scotland, 26 May 1963
• Prince Charles and the Cherry Brandy, 20 June 1963
• Nudity at the Edinburgh Festival, September 1963
• Gordonstoun School, 1965
• A Glasgow Gang, 1966
• Scotland Beats the English World Cup Team, 15 April 1967
• Celtic Win the European Cup, 25 May 1967
• The SNP Take Their Second Seat at Parliament, 17 November 1967
• Prison, November 1967
• The Ibrox Disaster, 2 January 1971
• The Upper Clydeside Shipyards’ Work-in, 18 August 1971
• The Big Yin, 1975
• The Death of Hugh MacDiarmid, 9 September 1978
• Allan Wells Wins Olympic Gold, 25 July 1980
• The Pope Visits Scotland, June 1982
• Munro-bagging, 1980s
• The Miners’ Strike, March 1984 to March 1985
• Glasgow’s Cultural Credentials Are Recognized, 1986
• The Lockerbie Disaster, 22 December 1988
• Porridge, 1990
• Scotland Win the Grand Slam, 17 March 1990
• Trainspotting, August 1993
• The Flying Scotsman Breaks the World Hour Record, 17 July 1993
• The Poll that Put Gordon Brown out of the LeadershipRace, 26 May 1994
• James Kelman Wins the Booker Prize, 11 October 1994
• The Dunblane Massacre, 13 March 1996
• Dolly the Sheep, 5 July 1996
• The Day They Buried Princess Diana, 6 September 1997
• The Scottish Parliament Reconvenes, 12 May 1999
• Sean Connery: a Lifetime’s Perspective
• The Death of Donald Dewar, 11 October 2000
• The SNP Come to Power, 4 May 2007
• Appendices
• Personal Acknowledgements
• Sources and Permissions
• Select Bibliography
• Index