Latest news with #ScottishHistory
CNN
15-07-2025
- CNN
Man charged after kilt-wearing attacker smashes case holding Scotland's Stone of Destiny
A man from Australia has been charged with 'malicious mischief' for allegedly smashing a glass case holding the Stone of Destiny, an ancient symbol of Scottish nationhood. Arnaud Harixcalde Logan, 35, appeared at Perth Sheriff Court on Monday to face the charge, which is similar to vandalism. Logan, whose address was given as Sydney, wasn't asked to enter a plea and was ordered detained until a hearing next week. Police said that they were called to a 'disturbance' at Perth Museum in central Scotland on Saturday, after reports of a kilt-wearing man attempting to smash the case containing the royal rock. The 335-pound (150-kilogram) sandstone block is also known as the Stone of Scone (Skoon) — and was used in the crowning ceremonies of medieval Scottish monarchs at Scone Abbey, near Perth. It was stolen by England's King Edward I in the 13th century and taken to Westminster Abbey in London, where it was installed under the seat of the coronation chair. It has been used in coronations at the abbey ever since — first of English and then of British monarchs The English and Scottish crowns were united under one monarch in the 17th century. The stone's presence in London long irked Scottish nationalists. In 1950, it was stolen from Westminster Abbey by four Glasgow university students, but was returned in time for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953. It was given back to Scotland in 1996, 700 years after its seizure, and displayed in Edinburgh Castle, with the understanding that it would return to England for use in future coronations. Sensitivities around the stone meant that it had to be moved to London in secrecy and amid tight security for the coronation of King Charles III in 2023. Last year it was put on display at the newly renovated Perth Museum where, according to the building's website, there are 'a range of 24/7 security measures in place at the Museum to protect this precious object.' Culture Perth and Kinross, which oversees the museum, said the stone wasn't damaged in the incident.
Al Arabiya
14-07-2025
- Al Arabiya
Man Charged After Kilt-Wearing Attacker Smashes Case Holding Scotland's Stone of Destiny
An Australian man has been charged with malicious mischief for allegedly smashing a glass case holding the Stone of Destiny–an ancient symbol of Scottish nationhood. Arnaud Harixcalde Logan, 35, appeared at Perth Sheriff Court on Monday to face the charge, which is similar to vandalism. Logan, whose address was given as Sydney, wasn't asked to enter a plea and was ordered detained until a hearing next week. Police said that they were called to a disturbance at Perth Museum in central Scotland on Saturday after reports of a kilt-wearing man attempting to smash the case containing the royal rock. The 335-pound (150-kilogram) sandstone block is also known as the Stone of Scone–and was used in the crowning ceremonies of medieval Scottish monarchs at Scone Abbey near Perth. It was stolen by England's King Edward I in the 13th century and taken to Westminster Abbey in London, where it was installed under the seat of the coronation chair. It has been used in coronations at the abbey ever since–first of English and then of British monarchs. The English and Scottish crowns were united under one monarch in the 17th century. The stone's presence in London long irked Scottish nationalists. In 1950, it was stolen from Westminster Abbey by four Glasgow university students but was returned in time for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953. It was given back to Scotland in 1996, 700 years after its seizure, and displayed in Edinburgh Castle with the understanding that it would return to England for use in future coronations. Sensitivities around the stone meant that it had to be moved to London in secrecy and amid tight security for the coronation of King Charles III in 2023. Last year, it was put on display at the newly renovated Perth Museum, where, according to the building's website, there are a range of 24/7 security measures in place at the Museum to protect this precious object. Culture Perth and Kinross, which oversees the museum, said the stone wasn't damaged in the incident.
BBC News
09-07-2025
- Science
- BBC News
Ancient Stone Age farming hall discovered under Scottish school
Archaeologists have found the remains of an ancient hall at a school in eastern uncovered evidence of the structure on the grounds where two new football pitches were due to be believe that the timber-built building measured 35 metres long by 9 metres wide and was a place where some of Scotland's first farmers gathered for estimate that the hall dates back to the Neolithic period, which was around 4,500-6,000 years ago. What did experts find? Glasgow-based Guard Archaeology said it was the largest hall from that era to ever be found in discovered two structures on the site of the football pitches - a smaller hall was also found, measuring 20 metres by 8 metres, next to the larger it, archaeologists found a hearth with the remains of cereal grains and hazel said these were signs that "feasting and celebrating" took place in the building. Stone tools were also unearthed at the site, which researchers said offered "tantalising traces" of the hall's role in the local community's beliefs and the tools were items made from rocks found in other parts of Scotland, including fragments of Arran pitchstone and smoky quartz from the suggests that the building attracted visitors from far Ballin Smith, one of the co-authors of a new report on the find, explained how important the discovery was."It was fully formed, architecturally sophisticated, large, complex and required skills of design, planning, execution and carpentry," she said.
Telegraph
22-06-2025
- Telegraph
Why Scotland's most underrated city will soon be even easier to visit
Was Mary, Queen of Scots, the world's first footballer? Did Wild West outlaw Butch Cassidy take his inspiration from Rob Roy? And is William Wallace buried in a secret, unmarked grave? These are the questions travellers to Stirling are regularly asked by Ken Gray, a proud 70-something tour guide who fizzes with youthful enthusiasm about his hometown. His brainteasers spring up, have you puzzling, then leave you pondering why you've never visited this 900-year-old riddle of streets and spires before. 'Did you know Scotland's answer to the Wright Brothers launched their first plane over there?' he asked me, pointing to sunlit orchards in the distance. 'That's Stirling. Always ready to surprise.' More than one hundred years after the Barnwell Brothers made Scottish aviation history in summer 1909, Stirling is preparing for another first. From spring 2026, budget train operator Lumo is to launch the first direct service between Stirling and London. It will run up to five times daily, and as well as bringing Scots south, will put rail travellers from London Euston, Milton Keynes, Nuneaton, Crewe, Preston and Carlisle within grasp of all the same reasons I was there: forgetting Edinburgh, this is clearly the most history-rich city in Scotland. Certainly, seen from its crag-topped esplanade, Stirling gives the impression of not being quite real. To the north of us was its imposing castle, rising ragged from a bluff of cliffs, its ramparts and great halls bathed in sun. To the south, a sloping ridge underpinned by a jumble of Renaissance townhouses, tolbooths and a rippling cemetery of lopsided stones, among them that of Butch Cassidy's great-uncle. 'Stumbling on history is a given here,' chipped in the Scottish Tourist Guides Association guide, as the gravestones writhed around us. There is also the notion that this former barracks town is Scotland's real heart. A short stroll below the Old Town Jail – built in the mid-19 th century to replace what was then rated as Britain's worst prison – is The Stirling Smith Art Gallery & Museum. Tartan, woven nearby in Bannockburn, fills the galleries with colour. Paintings show Stirling and William Wallace at war and in watercolour. A football, made from a pig's bladder, dating to the 1540s and found lodged in the rafters of the Queen's Chamber in Stirling Castle, is labelled as the world's oldest. Not far away outside, two statues of Robert Burns and Rob Roy bookend the old Corn Exchange. This is Scotland by numbers. Who will come to Stirling once the sleek new train service starts? I asked. 'Who wouldn't?' replied Ken. 'If they can afford the train tickets, mind.' Those interested in history was my guess, but also those who love the best bits of a small city combined with a bigger adventure, including those offered on two wheels. At the handlebars of his bike that afternoon was Stuart Meldrum, aka the brains behind Stuart's Bicycle Tours, which launched in Stirling in January. He's another devotee of Stirling and is interested in helping visitors trace the city's myths of origin back to today. His new venture is helped by the £9.5 million recently spent on cycle corridors connecting the Old Town with the 330-acre University of Stirling campus. They only opened last month, and perhaps, that was why we saw few other riders. In future you'll be able to bring your own foldable bike onboard Lumo's services, too. We began our 11-mile ride by crossing the River Forth, rattling over Stirling Old Bridge, a pedestrian arc of silvery sandstone at a horseshoe bend on the burn. Its architects had conceived it as the lowest crossing point of the Forth, and during the Battle of Stirling Bridge in 1297, when the original timber crossing collapsed and was swept away, it was the key to Sir William Wallace and Sir Andrew Moray leading the Scottish army to victory over Edward I of England. 'This is the real 'Gateway to the Highlands',' said Stuart, as we paused mid-river, the noise of the Old Town having faded. 'It was always said that if you controlled Stirling Castle, you controlled the north. And the only way to get there was to cross here.' If those sorts of stories in stone suggest a dusty tour of dates, think again. Our journey was a rewarding pedal through Stirling's handsomest landscapes, from dairy farms to cygnet-stocked Airthrey Loch to the forests skirting the Ochil Hills. From there, it was a lung-swelling uphill sprint through oak and ash to Abbey Craig, location of The National Wallace Monument. The Romans were right to call the dark mountain bulks of the Highlands as seen from the summit 'an island apart', and the views compare to any in Central Scotland. We looked up at the church-like bell tower, watched by carrion crows. It felt a lot like Lord of the Rings. Similarly evocative are the ruins of Cambuskenneth Abbey, where we found ourselves alone. Back in the early 14 th century, the Augustinian monastery acted as Scotland's parliament under Robert the Bruce's leadership, but all that remains is an underappreciated bell tower and a legend that, frankly, few people believe. Cambuskenneth thrives in the imagination today thanks to its monks, who supposedly brought part of Wallace's dismembered arm to the abbey after he'd been hung, drawn and quartered, secretly giving him a proper burial. For me it was more than a little disappointing to find nothing but overgrown grass and fallen masonry. It was, however, the ideal spot for a last look back at Stirling Castle where, soon enough, we'd ended where we'd started. The restaurants and pubs of the Old Town helped me slip back into 21st-century Stirling. Swarms of people were filling the outside tables in the cobblestoned Old Town with beer and gossip, and soon I had joined them at No 2 Baker Street. Maybe it was the cold ale from nearby Harviestoun Brewery, but it struck me that if Robert the Bruce, Wallace and Mary were still around today, and ended up where I was, they'd probably be pretty happy with their lot. Essentials
Times
20-06-2025
- Politics
- Times
What was the worst moment in Scottish history?
Scotland's stormy past, with its roll call of battles and assassinations, revolutions and revolts, can sometimes read like a masterclass in shooting ourselves in the foot. History, by definition, is a series of dramas stitched together by a running narrative in which those responsible for life-changing decisions, whether triumphant or disastrous, are held accountable: lauded, lambasted or simply airbrushed from the record. If asked to nominate the worst decision in Scottish history, most of us would have little problem coming up with a list, with several contenders jockeying for the dubious honour of first place. Some might say, of course, that even to ask this question is to indulge in a national stereotype, the bittersweet compulsion to pick at old scabs. Can you blame us? It feels as if for every brilliant innovation or intellectual breakthrough there has been an event, often avoidable, that has left the country reeling. Take the Battle of Flodden in 1513, which remains one of the frontrunners for the most reckless and needless decision ever made. When James IV marched into England and confronted Henry VIII's troops near the border, he had a larger army and a strong strategic advantage. Shortly before battle commenced, however, he switched position, rendering his cannons useless as they shot far beyond range. Even worse, when his men charged down the hillside they were trapped in mud, allowing the English to pick them off. Around 10,000 Scots died, including the king and many of the country's aristocracy. Since then, Flodden has become a byword for self-inflicted disaster, as when in 1961, one of the best Scottish football teams ever fielded lost 9-3 to England. The goalkeeper Frank Haffey was so vilified he emigrated to Australia. A rather worse calamity was the Darien Scheme of 1695. The idea of setting up a colony in Panama to trade with the Pacific and Atlantic was not, in theory, a bad one. But climate, geography and politics turned a potentially money-spinning venture into a nightmare, bringing the country close to bankruptcy. This debacle led almost directly to the Union of Parliaments, with whose consequences, good and ill, we're still grappling. 1707 remains a sour date for those who, despite the economic benefits the Union brought, say we threw away our independence for the enrichment of a handful of self-serving toffs. Dozens of dates vie for attention once, like fossil hunters, you start looking for footprints from the past. You could point to the Jacobites turning back at Derby in 1745 rather than marching on London, as planned. Who knows what might have happened had they taken the English capital. Yet I would argue that the entire Jacobite crusade was a mistake, given what followed: harsh reprisals and ill-feeling against the Highlands and Islands, an entrenching of anti-Catholic sentiment, and the start of an era of mass-emigration from the region, whose reverberations endure. The same, of course, could be said for the Clearances. Although the emptying of glens and straths to make way for sheep in counties such as Sutherland and Caithness was the work of more than one individual, the nation was brutalised by this barbaric process. Not only was it immeasurably cruel to those who were displaced but its environmentally baleful legacy lives on. There are countless other low points, among them the near collapse of the Royal Bank of Scotland in 2008 under Fred Goodwin's pugnaciously acquisitive regime. Overnight, the country's centuries-old pride for fiscal prudence evaporated. I'd also suggest that, for those keen to end the Union, holding the independence referendum in 2014 was, in retrospect, a mistake. Had it come a few years later, after the Brexit referendum — and when 56 of 59 Scottish MPs at Westminster were SNP — a majority might well have voted yes. For me, however, the most momentous date of all is 16 May, 1568. On that day, Mary, Queen of Scots stepped into a boat and sailed across the Solway Firth to England. Despite the protestations of her closest advisers, she was determined to seek help from Elizabeth I, confident that with her cousin's support she could regain the throne that had been forcibly taken from her. It was a stupendous miscalculation, one so ill-advised that before departing she was obliged to sign a statement, produced by her inner circle, saying she was acting against their advice. How Mary could have thought she would be safe in England is inexplicable, given the threat she posed. Within days she recognised she was a prisoner. Increasingly isolated and unwell, during the next 19 or so years she was drawn into conspiracies against her cousin. Nevertheless, it was a forged postscript to one of Mary's coded letters, by an agent acting for Elizabeth's spy master Sir Francis Walsingham, that led to her execution. Had Mary not fled to England, things might have gone very differently. Although at the time of her abdication she was reviled for allegedly colluding in her husband Darnley's murder, support for her had since grown. It was entirely possible that she could have raised an army, overthrown her enemies, and lived to reign for many more years. How different Scotland might then have looked. And how much more vulnerable England would have been, with a potential ally of European Catholic powers as a neighbour. Indeed, a Catholic invasion could have reshaped the entire British isles. You can also wonder what sort of man her son, the future James VI and I, would have been if raised by his mother rather than by fanatical Protestants. Might the shameful witchhunts he set in motion have been averted? But there's another lingering legacy of Mary's fatal error. Since her beheading at Fotheringhay Castle she has been cast as a tragic figure, either a heroine or a weak and foolish woman, depending on your view. In an era of profound misogyny, promoted by the likes of John Knox, her story became a cautionary tale about the fallibility of women and their inability to be leaders. An echo of that narrative remains to this day. One bad decision; so many consequences. Exile: The Captive Years of Mary, Queen of Scots by Rosemary Goring is published on 3 July by Birlinn.
