THE FIRST TRAITORS EXECUTED AT EDINBURGH NO PUNISHMENT IS ENOUGH FOR THESE DEGENERATE MURDERERS CROWD BAYS FOR THE BLOOD OF THE CONSPIRACY’S LEADERS. Professor Richard Oram. Vast crowds today gathered in Edinburgh’s High Street to witness the executions of the first of the traitors who murdered our liege lord, James, king of Scots, in his…
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Epidemics in James I’s Scotland. Professor Richard Oram. There is a certain grim sense of history repeating itself to think that exactly six hundred years ago, Scotland was in the grip of an epidemic of a new, previously unknown and terrifying disease. For the previous seventy years, the kingdom had suffered from recurring waves of…
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What is a Charterhouse? Professor Richard Oram. Perth Charterhouse was a key element in James I’s rebuilding of the place of the king as the principal patron and protector of the Church in Scotland. Scholars have long recognised the significance of his foundation of a Carthusian monastery and understood his deep personal connection with the…
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Tantallon Castle. Professor Richard Oram. In the middle of the fourteenth century, William, 1st earl of Douglas, started to build a great new castle for himself on a windswept coastal headland on the north-east knuckle of East Lothian. His castle, Tantallon, was intended from the outset to be a potent symbol of the power…
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Dunfermline Palace. Professor Richard Oram. To the south-west of the abbey at Dunfermline and connected to its refectory block by the inner gate tower rises a long, tall building that stands on the brink of the gorge of the Pittencrieff Burn. Few visitors pay it much attention, for what remains is principally its southern wall…
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Perth’s Lost Castle. Professor Richard Oram. People in Perth today often bemoan the fact that, unlike Edinburgh or Stirling, it has no medieval royal castle that might act as a draw for tourists. Medieval urban castles are actually a rarity in Scotland, with most of the original twelfth-century ones having been destroyed during the Wars…
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