The signing of the National Covenant on February 28, 1638, was not merely a religious petition; it was a gauntlet thrown at the feet of the Stuart monarchy. To King Charles I, who viewed his authority as a sacred trust handed down by God, the events at Greyfriars Kirkyard were a personal...
The Day the Ink Ran Red: 1638 and the Birth of the Covenanters The National Covenant of 1638 was a stunning gesture of defiance and declaration of independence against the King In the long, mist-shrouded memory of Scotland, there are dates that function as mere footnotes and dates that...
20 February 1472
Shetland and Orkney formally become part of Scotland under an Act of Parliament, so settling the northern extent of the kingdom.
When I look across the long arc of British history, I’m struck by how rarely the monarchy has been forced to confront real accountability. For centuries, the Crown has existed in a space above ordinary consequences — insulated by tradition, ceremony, and the sheer weight of its own...
A Valley Betrayed On 13 February 1692, a narrow Highland glen became the site of an act that would lodge itself in Scottish memory as both atrocity and allegory. Glen Coe’s steep slopes and river-carved floor—landscape and livelihood intertwined—were the stage for a betrayal that fused...
A Candle in Two Kingdoms: Writing on the Anniversary of Mary, Queen of Scots Every anniversary invites a particular kind of listening. Not the loud, modern kind—hot takes and hurried summaries—but the older kind, the way a chapel hears footsteps or the way a river remembers a bridge. When...
How one parish entry moved my ancestor from legend into landscape—and tied her more clearly to the Buchanans of Gartincaber. For years, I carried my understanding of my 7th great‑grandmother, Mary McGregor, the way many families carry the past: as oral history—names spoken across...