Features - Notable Dates in History

1 August 1560	The Scottish Parliament abolished Papal jurisdiction and approved a Calvinistic Confession of Faith, thus founding the Presbyterian Church of Scotland under the leadership of John Knox.
5 December 1560	King Francis II of France, husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, died from a brain abscess in Paris, leaving her a widow at only 17.
20 December 1560	First General Assembly of the Church of Scotland met in Edinburgh.
14 August 1561	Mary, Queen of Scots, set sail from Calais for Scotland.
19 August 1561	Mary Queen of Scots landed at Leith from exile in France to take over the reins of government. She returned a widow following the death of her husband Francis, King of France, on 6 December 1560.
23 January 1562	Licence granted for lead-mining in Upper Clydesdale, including Wanlockhead.
28 October 1562	Royal forces led by James Stewart, Earl of Moray, defeated George Gordon, 4th Earl of Huntly, in the Battle of Corrichie. Huntly lost his life in taking up arms against Mary, Queen of Scots.
4 June 1563	Act passed by the Scottish Parliament, The Three Estates, making witchcraft punishable by death.
15 June 1563	Birth of George Heriot, ‘Jingling Geordie’, jeweller, goldsmith, benefactor and ‘banker’ to James VI, King of Scots, in Edinburgh. On his death he bequeathed £23,625 for the foundation of George Heriot’s Hospital/School in Edinburgh for educating the sons of impoverised burgesses.
11 September 1564	Mary Queen of Scots gifted the former orchard of the Greyfriars Monastery to the burgh of Dundee as a burial ground.
7 April 1565	Mary Queen of Scots ordered a Roman alter and bath-house discovered at Inveresk, near Musselburgh, to be protected.
29 July 1565	Mary Queen of Scots married her cousin Henry, Lord Darnley, in the old Abbey Chapel at Palace of Holyrood, Edinburgh.
9 March 1566	David Riccio, Italian-born confidential secretary to Mary, Queen of Scots, was murdered by Scottish nobles led by her husband Darnley, in the Palace of Holyrood.
19 June 1566	Birth of James VI, only son of Mary, Queen of Scots, and Lord Darnley, in Edinburgh.
10 February 1567	Murder of Henry, Lord Darnley, estranged husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, in Kirk o Field.
24 April 1567	First printed book ever published in Gaelic, translated from English by Bishop John Carsewell of the Isles, was 'Forms of Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and Catechism of the Christian Faith'.
15 May 1567	Marriage of Mary Queen of Scots and James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, in Holyroodhouse, “not with the mass but with preaching at ten hours afore noon”. “Bot within four dayis thaireftir, finding oportunitie, be ressoun we wer past secrtlie towartis Sttriveling to visit the Prince our derrest sone, in oure returning he awaited us be the way accumpaneit with a greit force, and led us with all diligence to Dunbar. Being thair, we reprochit him… Albeit we fand his doingis rude, yit wer his answer and wordis bot gentill. Eftir he had be thir meanis, and mony utheris, brocht us agaitward to his intent, he partlie extorted and partlie obtenit oure promeis to tak him to oure husband.” The Queen’s Account from her Instructions to the Bishop of Dunblane to the Court of France.
15 June 1567	Mary Queen of Scots surrendered to the Protestant Lords at Carberry Hill, near Musselburgh. She was imprisoned in Lochleven Castle but her husband, James Boswell, escaped abroad. “For the laird of Grange was declairen unto the Quen how that they all wald honour and sere hir, sa that sche wald abandon the Erle Bodowell, wha was the mourtherer of hir awen husband; and culd not be a husband unto hir, that had bot laitly married the Erle of Huntleis sister. Then the Quen sent again for the laird of Grange and said to him, that gin the lordis wald do as he had spoken to hir, sche suld put away the Erle Bodowell and com unto them. Then he raid up again and saw the Erle Bodowell part, and led Hir Maieste be the brydill doun the bra unto the lordis, Hir Maieste was that nycht convoyed to Edenbrough. As sche cam throw the toun, the common people cryed out against her Maieste at the windowes and staires, quhilk was a pitie to heir.” Sir James Melville – memoirs
17 June 1567	Mary, Queen of Scots, imprisoned in Lochleven castle by the Council of Scotland and compelled to abdicate in favour of her son (James VI).
29 July 1567	James VI was crowned at Stirling. Regarded as 'The Wisest Fool in Christendom' he succeeded to the English throne in 1603. He subsequently only revisited his Northern Kingdom once.
31 December 1567	Dundee merchant Robert Jack was hanged and quartered for bringing counterfeit coins called ‘hard heads’ into Scotland.
2 May 1568	Mary, Queen of Scots, escaped from Loch Leven Castle. She had been forced to abdicate in favour of her son James (VI) on 24 July 1567.
13 May 1568	Battle of Langside, the final defeat of Mary, Queen of Scots, in her attempt to regain the throne from her son, James V1, and his supporters. She fled to England and was imprisoned until her execution in 1587.
15 May 1568	Mary Queen of Scots sailed from Port Mary across the Solway Firth to begin her exile and imprisonment in England.
8 September 1568	An outbreak of plaque began in Edinburgh, brought to the city, it was said, by a merchant James Dalgleish. In six months some 2,500 died.
1 October 1568	The Bannatyne MS, the most extensive collection of early Scottish poetry extant, made by George Bannatyne, an Edinburgh merchant, while living in Newtyle in Angus, to escape the plaque. "Heir endis this buik, writtin in tyme of pest, Quhen we fra labor was compeld to rest Into the thre last monethis of this yeir, From oure Redemaris birth, to knaw it heir, Ane thousand is, fyve hundreth, threscoir aucht." From the Envoi of the Collection.
23 January 1570	James Stewart, Earl of Moray, Regent of Scotland, assassinated by James Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh at Linlithgow.
14 February 1570	Protestant Reformer John Knox conducted the funeral service of the assassinated Regent of Scotland, James Stewart, Earl of Moray. Known as ‘the good regent’, Moray was shot by James Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh as he rode through Linlithgow in January 1570 and died within hours.
4 September 1571	Regent Lennox, Mathew 4^th Earl of Lenox, was killed in a skirmish with Marian supporters. He became Regent in July 1570, on behalf of his grandson James VI, King of Scots, following the assassination of James Stewart, Earl of Moray and Regent and was succeeded by John Erskine, Earl of Mar.
5 September 1571	John Erskine, Earl of Mar, appointed as regent for the young James VI.
28 October 1572	Death of John Erskine, Earl of Mar, Regent for the young James VI, King of Scots. He had only served as Regent since 1571 when he succeeded Lennox.
9 November 1572	Protestant Reformer John Knox preached his last sermon in Edinburgh.
24 November 1572	Death of John Knox, leading Scottish Protestant reformer. He was the founder of Scottish Presbyterianism and author of the 'History of the Reformation in Scotland'. James Douglas, 4^th Earl of Morton, was appointed regent for the young James VI, King of Scots, in succession to James Erskine, Earl of Mar.
23 February 1573	Pacification of Perth ended fighting in Scotland between Regent Morton, James Douglas, 4^th Earl of Morton, and supporters of the deposed Mary Queen of Scots.
30 December 1574	The Kirk Session in Aberdeen chastised a group of citizens for playing and singing ‘filthy carols’ on Christmas Day.
14 April 1575	Death of James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, third husband of Mary Queen of Scots, at Dragsholm Castle in Denmark. He had been a prisoner since 1567 and is thought to have become mad. His body is preserved in Faarevejle Church.
7 July 1575	The Raid of the Reidswire, one of the last skirmishes between Scottish and English borderers, resulted in a victory for the Scots under the Laird of Carmichael. " Then raise the slogan with ane shout - 'Fy Tindaill to it! Jedbrugh's here! "
4 March 1578	A Dutchman was given a 19 year licence to search for gold and silver in Scotland: efforts were concentrated in Clydesdale and Nithsdale.
10 July 1579	The first Bible to be printed in Scotland was published.
17 August 1579	Dunbar herring fleet of 60 boats was devasted by hurricane force winds in the Forth Estuary; some 300 men were said to have perished.
28 January 1580	King James VI signed the Confession of Faith, "The King's or Negative Confession", later incorporated into the National Covenant of 1638.
2 June 1581	The Regent Morton was executed for complicity in the murder of Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley, it is said by the ‘Maiden’, a guillotine he himself had introduced to Scotland. “The man that brought me these news came from Edinburgh on Friday last at two of the clock, and then the said Earl of Morton was standing on the scaffold, and it is thought the accusations that were laid against him were very slender, and that he died very stoutly.” Letter from Sir John Fraser to Sir Francis Walsingham
7 November 1581	Heavy fines and imprisonment faced Scots who undertook pilgrimages, used crosses, observed saint’s days or sang carols, as Protestant Reformers tried to rove the last ‘dregs of idolatry.’
24 February 1582	Pope Gregory XIII announced the introduction of the Gregorian calendar, replacing the Julian calendar . That was acknowleged by Scotland in 1600, and adopted by England in 1752, by which time a loss adjustment of eleven days had to be 'fixed'.
14 April 1582	The University of Edinburgh was founded, the youngest of the four ancient Scottish universities – ‘The Tounis College’ was chartered by James VI, King of Scots, and opened in 1583 when 80 students were enrolled under Robert Rollock, the first ‘Regent’.
3 July 1582	James Crichton of Eliock, “the Admirable Crichton”, graduate of St Andrews University, tutor of James VI, King of Scots, soldier and scholar, was killed in a brawl in Mantua. “The Scotsman, James Crichton, is a youth who on the 19^th of August last completed his 20^th year. He is master of ten languages, Latin and Italian in perfection, and Greek so as to compose epigrams in that tongue, Hebrew, Chaldaic, Spanish, French, Flemish, English and Scots, and he also understands the German. He is most skilled in philosophy, theology, mathematics, and astrology…He possesses a most thorough knowledge of the Cabala. His memory is so astonishing that he knows not what it is to forget. In his person he is extremely beautiful: his address is that of a finished gentleman. A soldier at all points, he has attained to great excellence in leaping and dancing and to a remarkable skill in the use of every sort of arms. He is a remarkable horseman and an admirable jouster.” From a handbill by Domenico and Giovanni Battista – Guerra, Venice 1580.
22 August 1582	Ruthven Raid in which Protestant supporters captured James VI, King of Scots, while he was out hunting and held him captive until June 1583.
20 September 1582	Death of George Buchanan, noted historian, scholar and tutor to James VI, King of Scots, in Edinburgh. He was buried in Greyfriars’ Churchyard and was regarded as ‘The finest writer of the tongue of ancient Rome since the age of Augustus’ and ‘one of the founders of modern constitutional liberty.’
13 December 1583	Death of Thomas Smeton, leading minister of the Church of Scotland who twice served as Moderator and was Principal of Glasgow University.
23 June 1585	The coining of gold, silver and alloy switched from Edinburgh to Dundee; the Exchequer to Falkland and the Court of Session to Stirling because of plaque in the Capital.
13 December 1585	Birth of William Drummond of Hawthornden, poet, at Hawthornden Castle, the family home perched on a rock above Lothian river Esk. Educated at Edinburgh’s High School and University, he was well read in European literature and became a major poet of the late renaissance. He studied law at Bourges and Paris, but returned to Scotland when his father died in 1619, to become Laird of Hawthornden.
20 March 1586	Death of Sir Richard Maitland of Lethington, Lord Privy Seal, Senator of the College of Justice, poet, anthologist and historian. His two remarkable sons served both Mary, Queen of Scots, and James VI, King of Scots, and the family were rewarded in 1616 with the Earldom of Lauderdale.
21 October 1586	The coining of gold, silver and alloy which was being carried out in Dundee, after a plaque outbreak in Edinburgh, was transferred to Perth following a plaque outbreak in Dundee.
25 October 1586	Death sentence was pronounced against Mary, Queen of Scots. she had been imprisoned in England since 1568.
1 February 1587	Queen Elizabeth I of England signed warrant for the execution of her cousin Mary Queen of Scots.
8 February 1587	Mary Queen of Scots was executed, after nearly 19 years of imprisonment, for her implication in the Babington Plot to overthrow Queen Elizabeth I of England and restore Roman Catholicism in England. The execution took place at Fotheringay Castle in Northampshire, England.
28 May 1588	Alison Peirson, a healer of disease ‘by magical powers’, was tried for witchcraft and burnt at St Andrews.
29 September 1589	The court of James VI, King of Scots, was stunned by the death of Jane Kennedy, Lady Melville, who was drowned when a ferry sank in the Forth. She had attended Mary Queen of Scots on the scaffold at Fotheringay Castle, England, in 1587.
24 November 1589	Marriage of Anne of Denmark, daughter of Frederick II, to James VI, King of Scots, in Oslo.
1 April 1591	After a siege lasting a year Dumbarton Castle was taken in a daring action by Captain Thomas Crawford of Jordanhill on behalf of James VI, King of Scots. Only Edinburgh Castle was left in the hands of supporters of the deposed Mary, Queen of Scots.
21 November 1591	The town council of Edinburgh agreed to help establish a small house for lepers at a sheltered spot at Greenside to the north of Calton Hill.
28 February 1592	Richard Graham, who had been linked with the North Berwick witches and accused of raising the ‘Devil’ in a backyard off Edinburgh’s Canongate, was burned at the Cross.
5 June 1592	Scottish Parliament passed act which established Presbyterian government in the Scottish Church after the Reformation – “Act for abolishing of the Acts contrair the trew religion”.
1 July 1592	Charter granted to Sir Alexander Fraser of Philorth to found a university at Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire. "To edifie and big up collegis, nocht onlie till the great decoirement of the cuntrey, bot also to the advancement of the loist and tint youthe in bringing tham up in leirning and vertew." - Act of Scottish Parliament 16 December 1597 endowing the college.
2 April 1593	The College of New Aberdeen, founded by the Earl Marischal of Scotland, George Keith of Inverugie, now part of the University of Aberdeen.
6 December 1593	In the last major Border family clash the Johnstones of Annandale defeated the Maxwells of Nithsdale at Dryfe Sands, Dumfriesshire. Some 700 Maxwells were lost including their leader Lord Maxwell.
3 October 1594	Royal force under the 7th Earl of Argyll were defeated in the Battle of Glenlivet by Catholic lords led by the 4th Earl of Huntly.
19 January 1595	A street fight occurred between supporters of the Earl of Montrose and Sir James Sandilands at Edinburgh’s Salt Tron. At least two men were killed and Sandilands badly wounded.
24 March 1595	Peace of Boulogne ended England’s war with France and Scotland.
12 August 1595	Marion Martin, whose house was ‘ane resssavear of huirs and harlottes’, was ordered to make repentance in Govan Church.
15 September 1595	Edinburgh High School scholars rioted and seized control of the school buildings after being refused a holiday. Bailie John MacMorrane was shot dead by one of the scholars, William Sinclair, during the riot. The scholar was freed without punishment.
11 April 1596	William Armstrong, a noted moss-trooper, was rescued from English imprisonment in Carlise Castle, giving rise to the Border Ballad ‘Kinmont Willie’. The successful rescue was led by his kinsman Walter Scott of Buccleuch, Keeper of Liddlesdale, Armstrong of Kinmont, near Canonbie, was one of the most successful of the Border Reivers and could rally up to 1000 horsemen in his raids into Northumberland and Cumberland. “And when we cam to the lower prison. Where Willie of Kinmont he did lie, ‘O, sleep ye, wake ye, Kinmont Willie, Upon the morn that thou’s to die?... ‘Farewell, farewell. My gude Lord Scrope! My gude Lord Scrope, farewell!’ he cried; ‘I’ll pay you back for my lodging mail, When first we meet on the Borderside.’ “ From the Ballad of Kinmont Willie
3 August 1596	Englishman John Dickson was hanged in Edinburgh for calling James VI, King of Scots, “ane bastard king not worthy to be obeyed.” He had been requested to move his ship by royal officers.
21 December 1596	James Carmichael, second son of the Laird of Carmichael, killed Stephen Bruntfield, Captain of Tantallon in a duel at St Leonard's Craig, Edinburgh.
19 February 1597	Janet Wishart was burnt as a witch in Aberdeen.
23 March 1597	Edinburgh was ordered to pay James VI, King of Scots, 30,000 marks following a disturbance in December 1596 when the King was besieged in the town’s Tolbooth.
25 March 1597	A huge crowd witnessed the execution of Margaret Clerk or Bain, Lumphanan, as a witch in Aberdeen. It was claimed that she had been taught ‘The Black Art’ by her sister who had previously been executed as a witch in Edinburgh.
5 August 1598	A force of MacDonalds defeated the MacLeans in a conflict at Loch Gruinard in which the MacLean chief was slain.
17 December 1599	James VI, King of Scots, through the Privy Council, decided that Scotland should come into line with other 'well governit commonwealths'. like France and have New Year's Day on 1 January instead of 25 March.
1 January 1600	Scotland recognised 1 January for first time as the official start of the New Year. Previously the New Year officially started on 25 March (Lady Day). In December 1599 King James VI and his Privy Council resolved to bring Scotland into line with other 'well governit commonwealths' like France.
4 July 1600	Jean Livingstone, Lady Warriston, daughter of John Livingstone of Dunipace, was beheaded at the foot of the Canongate, Edinburgh, for the murder of her husband John Kincaid of Warriston.
5 August 1600	The Gowrie Conspiracy, an unsuccessful attempt by Alexander, Lord Ruthven, and his brother the Earl of Gowrie to seize James VI, King of Scots, at Gowrie House in Perth, The King alleged that he was threatened with death and his followers who ‘rescued’ him killed the brothers.
19 November 1600	Birth of Charles I, reigned 1625 - 1649, at Dunfermline Palace, Dunfermline.
4 December 1600	Death of John Craig, aged 88, eminent Reformation preacher and colleague of John Knox. He assisted in the compilation of the Second Book of Discipline.
5 December 1600	Founding of the Scots College, Collegio Scozzese, in Rome, Italy, by Pope Clement VIII, following the outlawing of receiving a Catholic education in Scotland.
24 November 1601	An outbreak of plague at Crail in Fife and in the Renfrewshire parishes of Eaglesham. Eastwood and Pollok was reported.
14 February 1602	James and George Vallum were hanged in Edinburgh for the crime of stouthreif – they had intercepted and spirited away a pack-train loaded with merchandise on its way to a fair at Brechin.
16 March 1602	With the royal family in residence at Dunfermline, the Queensferry passage across the Forth was suspended in order to prevent the plaque being brought from Edinburgh to Fife.
3 January 1603	Death of Captain Thomas Crawford, aged 73, who had captured Dumbarton Castle for Mary, Queen of Scots. He was buried at Kilbirnie, Ayrshire.
7 February 1603	Clan Gregor led by Alasdair MacGregor of Glenstrae defeated the Colquhouns under Alexander Colquhoun of Luss at the Battle of Glen Fruin fought near Strone. 120 people were killed, including prisoners and government reprisals included the proscription of Clan Gregor.
24 March 1603	King James VI of Scotland succeeded to the throne of England to begin reign as James I of England on death of Queen Elizabeth. The news was brought from England by Sir Robert Carey who reached Hollyrood on the 26th March.
5 April 1603	James VI, King of Scots, left Edinburgh for his new kingdom of England. He only returned to Scotland once during his reign as King James I of England. “This I must say for Scotland, and may truly vaunt it. Here I sit and governe with my Pen. I write and it is done, and by a Clearke of the Councell I governe Scotland now, which others could not do by the sword.’ King James to the English Parliament, 1607.
5 May 1603	A public postal system, with posts between Edinburgh and Berwick, was established at Canongate Foot, Haddington and Cockburnspath. ‘To appoint, constitute and plaice in townes maist commodious for that purpois betwixt this and Berwick postmaisters haifing grantit unto thame allowance and standing fie for intertyning of hors for the pacquets and ar bund to serve the carriage thairof alsweiill by nicht and day.’ Register of the Privy Council VI. 567.
5 November 1605	The Gunpowder Plot to blow up James VI, King of Scots, II of England, and the English Houses of Parliament were foiled. ‘When Johnson [Guy Fawkes] was brought to the King’s presence, the King asked him how he could conspire so hideous a treason against his children, and so many innocent souls, which never offended him? He answered that it was true; but a dangerous disease required a desperate remedy. He told some of the Scots that his intent was to have blown them back again into Scotland.’ Letter from Sir E Hobart to English Ambassador at Brussels, 19 November 1605.
12 April 1606	A union flag incorporating the St George’s Cross of England and the St Andrew’s Cross of Scotland was introduced by proclamation by James VI, King of Scots, and I of England.
4 April 1609	The various clans forming Clan Chatton met at a house called Termit on Petty Ridge to renew their confederation of mutual support first created in 1397 after the Battle of the North Inch. ‘The Bond of Union’ was witnessed by the Inverness provost, the burgh clerk and the Petty minister. Clan Chatton which included MacPhersons, Macintoshes and MacGillvrays were loyal supporters of the Stewarts. The ‘Bond of Union’ was renewed in 1664 and extended to include the Farquharsons for the first time.
23 August 1609	The Statutes of Icolmkill were agreed upon by the chieftains of the Isles before Bishop Andrew Knox of the Isles at Iona.
27 July 1610	Twenty-seven pirates who had plaqued shipping around the coast of Scotland and had been captured in Orkney were hanged in Leith.
24 December 1610	A licence was granted for Scotland’s first glass-factory which opened a few years later at Wemyss in Fife making high quality window glass.
10 March 1615	St John Ogilvie, Banffshire-born Jesuit priest, the only Roman Catholic martyr in Scotland, was hanged for refusing to renounce the supremacy of the Pope. He was canonised in 1976.
14 August 1615	Three Edinburgh citizens convicted of helping Catholics, including John Ogilvie, received a stay of execution; their sentences were commuted to banishment.
6 November 1616	Captain William Murray was granted a patent giving him the sole privilege of importing tobacco to Scotland for a period of 21 years.
10 December 1616	Ordinance for establishment of parish schools in Scotland. The same act of the Privy Council commended the abolition of Gaelic. ‘The Kingis Majestie, with advise of the Lordis of his Secreit Counsall, hes thocht it necessar and expedient that in everie parroche of this Kingdome whair convenient meanes may be had for interteyning a scoole, that a scoole salbe establisheit, upoun the expensis of the parrochinneris. Register of the Privy Council X. 671. This had been approved by the General Assembly in 1652.
4 April 1617	Death of John Napier of Merchiston, Scotland's greatest mathematician and inventor of logarithms. "A Description of the Admirable Table of Logarithms; with a declaration of the most plentifull, easy and speedy use thereof in both kinds of Trigonometrie, as also in all Mathematical calculations." The Title of the English translation 1616
16 May 1617	Against the wishes of his English advisors, James VI, King of Scots, returned to Edinburgh, for his first and only visit to Scotland, following his accession to the English throne as James I in 1603 on the death of Elizabeth I.
24 September 1617	Death of Charles Ferme of Fairholme, minister of Fraserburgh and principal of the short-lived university of Fraserburgh.
2 November 1619	Patent granted to Nathaniel Udwart of Edinburgh for a monopoly in the manufacture of soap. 'Haveing fund his greene soap to be als goode and sufficient as the soape of that kind broght from Flanderis.' From the Privy Council Commission's Report, 1621.
29 June 1620	After earlier denouncing smoking as a health hazard, James VI, King of Scots and I of England, banned the growing of tobacco in his realms.
6 March 1621	The importation of foreign-made glass into Scotland was banned in an effort to encourage local manufacturers.
29 September 1621	Charter to colonise Nova Scotia granted to Sir William Alexander of Menstrie. "Our pleasure is, that yow graunt unto the sayd Sir William, his heires and assignes, or to anie other that will joyne with him ... a Signatour under our Great Seale of the sayde lands lying between New England and Newfoundland, To be holden off us from our Kingdome of Scotland as a part thereof." Letter of King James VI to the Privy Concil of Scotland, 5 August 1621
12 February 1624	Death of George Heriot, aged 61, ‘Jingling Geordie’ wealthy Edinburgh goldsmith to James VI, King of Scots. As banker to the king he moved with James to London in 1603 where he amassed further wealth and on his death bequeathed £23,625 to found the Edinburgh school and hospital which perpetuate his name.
13 February 1624	Aberdeen Town Council expressed disapproval of the amount of eating and drinking at baptisms and limited such celebrations to 12 people.
23 June 1624	King Charles I gave £500 towards a relief appeal following the destruction of his birthplace Dunfermline by fire; parishes throughout Scotland contributed to the appeal.
27 March 1625	Death of James VI, King of Scots, and 1 of England, son of Mary, Queen of Scots, at Theobalds House, Hertfordshire, England. He was succeeded by his son Charles I. The King James Version of the Bible, published in 1608, was dedicated to him.
28 December 1627	William Alexander, Earl of Stirling, was granted a 31-year licence to print the king’s version of the Psalms.
18 July 1629	Supporters of the rival Earls of Cassilis and Wigton were ordered off the streets of Edinburgh where they had been parading in a 'tumultous manner', recalling disorders of the previous century.
29 May 1630	Birth of King Charles II, known as 'The Merry Monarch', he was the last king to be crowned in Scotland, at Scone on 1 January 1651.
8 October 1630	Six people, including Lord Melcum, were burned to death when the castle of Frendraught near Huntly caught fire around midnight. Arson was suspected and John Meldrum was later tried, convicted and executed.
24 April 1633	Warrant from the Privy Council to Sir John Hepburn to raise regiment of 1200 men to fight in the French service. The recruits came mainly from Scottish mercenaries of Gustavus Aldolphus in the Thirty Years' War. The cops ultimately became the First Regiment of Foot, the Royal Scots.
19 June 1633	Charles I was crowned king of Scots at Holyroodhouse, eight years after his accession.
10 July 1633	In a sudden and violent storm King Charles I's baggage ferry, The Blessing', sank in the Forth off Burntisland. The King watched the ship sink. Thirty-three drowned and royal household goods and a vast treasure sank without trace.
14 October 1633	Birth of James VII, King of Scots, (II of England0, second son of King Charles I. He succeeded to the thrones on 5 February 1685 on the death of his brother Charles II.
23 July 1637	Laud’s Prayer Book riot in the High Kirk of St Giles, Edinburgh, when the Dean, James Hanna, started to read the new liturgy ordered by King Charles I. The Kirk was forcibly emptied and the doors locked. “The Dean, Mr James Hanna, was mightily upbraidit… One did cast a stool at him intending to have given him a ticket of remembrance; but jouking became his safeguard at that time… A good Christian woman betook herself to her Bible in a remote corner of the Church. A young man sitting behind her began to sound forth ‘Amen!’ At the hearing thereof, she quickly turned her about, and after she had warmed both his cheeks with the weight of her hands, she thus shot against him the thunderbolt of her zeal. ‘False thief!’ said she, ‘is there no other part of the kirk to sing mass in, but thou must sing it at my lug?’ “ From a pamphlet of the Covenanting period.
3 October 1637	Almost a hundred soldiers drowned when four ships lying at harbour in Aberdeen were driven ashore and wrecked during a gale.
28 February 1638	The launch of the document which became known as the National Covenant, a petition against King Charles 1's unpopular religious and political policies, in Greyfriars Kirkyard, Edinburgh. Before signing commenced the document was read by one of the authors, the lawyer Archibald Johnston of Wariston, and prayers had been said by his fellow co-author, Alexander Henderson, minister of Leuchars in Fife. Many of Scotland's noblemen then signed the document; this was followed the next day by the signatures of some 300 ministers and also representatives of Royal Burghs.
6 November 1638	Birth of James Gregory, inventor of the reflecting telescope, in Drumoak, Aberdeenshire. He was educated in Aberdeen and Padua and became professor in both St Andrews and Edinburgh.
14 May 1639	Trot of Turriff, opening engagement in the Covenating Wars: Aberdeenshire Royalists drove out a small force of Covenanters.
19 March 1641	Foundation stone of Hutcheson's Grammar School, Glasgow, laid by the philanthropist Thomas Hutcheson. It was established as a residential school for the poor of the city.
7 April 1641	Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromdale knighted by King Charles I at Whitehall, England. Poet, historian and eccentric humourist, he is best known for his translation of the first three books of Rabelais. he was educated at King's College, Aberdeen, fought on the royalist side in the Civil War, and is said to have died with laughter at the news of the Restoration in 1660.
28 March 1642	The Scots Guards were commissioned. "Whereas the Lords of our Privvy Councill of Scotland, enabled by an Act of Parliament to that purpose out of the speciall trust and confidence of the approved wisdome valour and abilities of Archibald Marquis of Argyle, have chosen and appointed the said Marquis to be chiefe comander of one Regiment of our Scottish subjects consisting of the number of fifteene hundred men more or fewer to be forthwith raysed in our Kingdome of Scotland..." From the Letters Patent under the Great Seal.
14 September 1643	Foundation of the Scots Church in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, by exiled Covenanters.
29 November 1643	The Solemn League and Covenant between Scottish Covenanters and English Parliamentarians against Charles I was signed.
24 March 1644	Ketherine Wallenge was the last witch to be burned at Kinghorn, Fife, on a spot known as Witches Hill.
13 April 1644	James Graham, 5th Earl and 1st Marquis of Montrose, unfurled the Royal Standard prior to a brilliant campaign against his former Covenanting allies.
1 September 1644	James Graham, 5th Earl and 1st Marquis of Montrose, began his victorious year-long campaign by defeating a larger Covenanter army under Lord Elcho at the Battle of Tippermuir, 4 miles from Perth.
13 September 1644	The city of Aberdeen was sacked by Royalist forces following their victory in the Battle of Aberdeen. The Royalists led by James Graham, 5th Earl and 1st Marquis of Montrose, lacked sufficient troops to hold the city and afterwards retreated towards Speyside.
10 January 1645	Archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud, was beheaded on Tower Hill, London, England, for treason. He introduced press censorship, persecuted Puritans and provoked the Bishops' War in Scotland by trying to impose the English Prayer Book.
2 February 1645	Royalist army led by James graham, 5th Earl and 1st Marquis of Montrose routed the Earl of Argyll's Covenating forces in the Battle of Inverlochy.
9 May 1645	James Graham, 5th Earl and 1st Marquis of Montrose led Royalist army to victory over Covenant forces under Hurry in the Battle of Auldearn, Nairnshire.
2 July 1645	The Royalist army led by James Graham, 5^th Earl and 1^st Marquis of Montrose, defeated Covenanting forces under William Baillie in the Battle of Alford.
15 August 1645	During his brilliant campaign against the Covenanters James Graham, 5th Earl and 1st Marquis of Montrose, routed a force under William Baillie at Kilsyth.
13 September 1645	The brilliant campaign waged by James Graham, 5th Earl and 1st Marquis of Montrose, on behalf of King Charles I ended at the Battle of Philiphaugh, near Selkirk, where his Royalist force was overwhelmingly defeated by the Scottish Covenanting army under General Sir David Leslie.
5 May 1646	King Charles I surrendered to the Scottish army at Newark. In settlement of the indemnity agreed at Ripon (The Treaty of Ripon, 1641) the Scots eventually agreed to hand the King over to the English parliament.
30 January 1647	Scots handed over King Charles I to English Parliamentary forces.
27 August 1647	The General Assembly approved the Westminster Confession of Faith.
17 August 1648	The Scottish Army of the Engagement and English Royalists, under the Duke of Hamilton, were defeated at the Battle of Preston by Oliver Cromwell’s parliamentary forces in the major battle of the Second English Civil War.
19 January 1649	King Charles I was put on trial before an unrepresentative English Parliament. He had surrendered to the Scottish army in 1646 and was handed over by the Scots to the English Parliament in 1647 following a settlement of indemnity agreed at Ripon.
30 January 1649	Charles I beheaded at Whitehall Palace, London, having been convicted of treason by the English Parliament.
4 February 1649	Charles II was proclaimed king in Edinburgh following his father’s execution in London. “We proclaimed on Monday last the Prince King of Brittaine, France and Ireland,,,The first necessare and prime one (as all here have without exception conceive) doth put his Majestie and his people both in a hopeful proceeding and his Majestie’s joyning with us in the Nationall Covenant, subscribed by his grandfather King James, and the Soleme League and Covenant, wherein all the well-affected of the three kingdoms are entered, and must live and die in, upon all hazards; if his Majestie may be moved to joyn with us in this one point, he will have all Scotland readie to sacrifice their lives for his service.” Letter of Robert Baillie to William Spang, minister of the Scots Kirk at Veere in the Netherlands, 7 February 1649.
9 March 1649	James 3^rd Marquis and 1^st Duke of Hamilton was executed in London. He was commander of the Royalist army in support of the Engagement which was defeated at Preston in 1648 and resulted in his capture by Oliver Cromwell’s forces.
29 March 1650	Birth of William Livingston, Third and last Viscount of Kilsyth. He opposed the 1707 Treaty of Union, between Scotland and England, and supported the Stewarts in the 1715 Jacobite Rising. He was attainted for high treason and his estate forfeited to the crown. He died in exile in Holland on 12 January 1733.
27 April 1650	A covenanting army under Alexander Strachan routed a royalist force led by James Graham, 5^th Earl and 1^st Marquis of Montrose, at Carisdale. Montrose was captured following the battle, sentenced to death by the Scottish Parliament, and executed in Edinburgh on 21 May 1650.
1 May 1650	The metrical version of the Psalms came into official use in the Church of Scotland.
21 May 1650	James Graham, 5th Earl and 1st Marquis of Montrose, was executed by hanging in Edinburgh.
3 September 1650	The Scottish Covenanting army of Charles II, King of Scots, under Sir David Leslie, routed by the English Parliamentarians under Oliver Cromwell at Dunbar.
13 November 1650	The Palace of Holyrood House was largely destroyed by fire whilst being occupied by Cromwell’s English troops. The apartments once used by Mary Queen of Scots were saved.
24 December 1650	Edinburgh Castle surrendered to English army under Oliver Cromwell
1 January 1651	King Charles II crowned at Scone. The last coronation in Scotland.
6 June 1651	The Committee of the Estates made provision for the safety of, amongst other things, the Scottish Regalia – The Honours of Scotland: the Crown, Sceptre and Sword – by placing them in the custody of the Earl Marischal. Cromwell who had occupied Edinburgh and was expected to assault Stirling had already destroyed the English crown jewels. The Honours were locked away in Dunnottar Castle and a garrison was established under the command of Captain George Ogilvy of Barrass.
20 July 1651	A Royalist force supporting King Charles II failed to halt the northward progress of the English Cromwellian army and were heavily defeated in the Battle of Inverkeithing on north shore of the Firth of Forth.
1 September 1651	Over 1,000 men, women and children were killed after General Monck besieged and took Dundee on behalf of the English Cromwellian authorities.
3 September 1651	A Scots Royalist army under King Charles I and David Leslie, Lord Newark, was defeated by Oliver Cromwell at the Battle of Worcester. David Leslie was taken prisoner and spent nine years imprisoned in the Tower Of London.
31 March 1652	The Scottish Regalia, (crown, sceptre and sword), was saved from England’s Oliver Cromwell and hidden beneath the floorboards of Kinneff Parish Church, south of Stonehaven, by the minister Rev James Granger. “I, Mr James Granger, minister at Kinneff, grant me to have in my custody the Honours of the Kingdom, viz. the croun, sceptre and sword. For the croun and sceptre I raised the pavement-stone just before the pulpit in the night tyme and digged under it ane hole and put them in there… The sword again at the west end of the church;… and if it shall please God to call me by death before they be called for, your Ladyship will find them in that place.” Mr James Granger to the Countess Marischall at Dunnotar
20 July 1653	A General Assembly of the Church of Scotland was broken up by Cromwellian troops who were ordered, if necessary, to drag out those attending.
13 September 1653	The Swan, a small three-masted ship, sank in a storm off the Isle of Mull. The vessel was part of a task force sent by Oliver Cromwell to attack Duart Castle, stronghold of the Maclean clan whose chief was loyal to King Charles II. After unloading troops, cannons and supplies, a fierce storm struck sinking three of the six ships, including The Swan. Of the sunken ships only The Swan has been found.
4 May 1654	Proclamation at the Mercat Cross, Edinburgh of the Protectorate and Union with England by General Monck.
25 June 1654	A group of Scots irregulars from the forces of the Earl of Glencairn, who had opposed the English Cromwellian Occupation, were deported from Leith to Barbados.
19 December 1655	Death of Sir William Dick, aged 76, a merchant reported to be the richest man in Scotland in his day, in London.
5 July 1656	Birth of John Hamilton, 2^nd Lord Belhaven, leading opponent of the 1707 incorporating Union between Scotland and England. I think I see a free and independent kingdom delivering up that which all the world hath been fighting for, since the days of Nimrod; yea, that for which most of all the Empires, Kingdoms, States and Principalities and Dukedoms of Europe, are at this time engaged in the most bloody and cruel wars that ever were, to wit a power to manage their own affairs by themselves without the assistance and counsel of any other. (Speech opposing the incorporating Union between Scotland and England 2 November 1706)
29 May 1660	After nearly nine years of exile, Charles II returned to London in triumph and was restored to the throne.
15 September 1660	The Rev William Wishart of Kinneil Kirk, a noted Covenanter, was arrested by the authority of the Committee of the Estates. He was imprisoned in the Edinburgh Tolbooth and was subsequently held in captivity for a year in Stirling Castle. On his release he was joined by his previous congregation in open-air conventicles.
8 January 1661	Publication of first Scottish newspaper, Mercurius Caledonius. It promised coverage of 'the Affairs now in Agitation in Scotland, with a Survey of Foreign Intelligence'. Only 9 numbers were published, the last dated 28 March 1661.
4 April 1661	Death of Sir Alexander Leslie, 1^st Earl of Leven, ‘Auld Crookit-Back’, leader of the Scottish Army of the Covenant, at Balgonie Castle, Fife. He was captured by Oliver Cromwell at the Battle of Dunbar and imprisoned in the Tower of London, Due to his previous service in the Swedish army, rising to Field Marshal in 1638, the Queen of Sweden interceded and won his parole.
19 April 1661	Sir Alexander Leslie, 1^st Earl of Leven, ‘Auld Crookit-Back’, leader of the Scottish Army of the Covenant, was interred in his own aisle at Markinch Church, Markinch, Fife.
18 June 1661	Act passed appointing a Council of Trade. “His Majestie with advice and consent of his Estates of Parliament, have thought it necessarie that a Councill of Trade be established with powers to… make and set down rules, acts, and ordinances for regulating, improveing and advanceing of trade, navigation, and manufactories, and to establish severall companies and impower them with such privileges, liberties, and immunities as shall be fittest for the good of the service.” Acts of Parliament Scotland VII, 273.
18 December 1661	The "Elizabeth" of Burntisland lost off the English coast with the Scottish records aboard, being returned from London to which they had been taken by Oliver Cromwell.
19 June 1633	Charles I was crowned king of Scots at Holyroodhouse, eight years after his accession.
22 July 1663	Sir Archibald Johnson of Warriston, who drew up the National Covenant (1638), a Lord of Session (1641), a commissioner to the Westminster Assembly (1643), Lord Advocate (1646), and Lord Clerk Register (1649 and again 1657 for Cromwell) was executed at the Mercat Cross, Edinburgh. Following the restoration of King Charles II he was tried and condemned to death for cooperation with the Cromwellian regime.
10 April 1664	Andrew Honyman was consecrated as Bishop of Orkney: he succeeded Bishop Sydserf.
6 February 1665	Birth of Queen Anne, last Stewart monarch, second daughter of King James VI and II.
28 November 1666	The Battle of Rullion Green and defeat of the Covenanters at the hands of Sir Thomas Dalyell.
22 December 1666	After making an impassioned defence of the Covenant, Hugh McKail was executed at the Mercat Cross in Edinburgh; he had been captured during the Pentland Rising.
31 January 1667	A regular horse-post, travelling north every Tuesday and Thursday, was established between Edinburgh and Aberdeen.
22 May 1668	Kilmarnock was badly damaged by a fire which made almost almost the entire population of 180 families homeless.
11 July 1668	Andrew Honyman, Bishop of Orkney, was wounded in the wrist by a poisoned bullet as he stepped into Archbishop Sharp’s coach on the High Street in Edinburgh. Sharp was the intended target by Covenanter James Mitchell who was executed ten years later for his deed. The wound never healed and greatly impaired the Bishop’s health – he died in February 1676.
28 January 1669	Postal service was established between Inverness and Edinburgh.
1 January 1671	Reconstitution of the High Court of Justicary, the supreme criminal court in Scotland. "That the ancient and necessar policie and custome of Justices aires and circuit courts, which upon occasion of the late troubles have bein intermitted, should be againe revived and continued." - Register of the Privy Council
9 January 1671	Steeple of St Magnus Cathedral in Orkney was badly damaged by fire after being struck by lightning.
19 January 1671	William Head and John Fergusson were given permission to stage a public lottery anywhere in Scotland; for several years they had operated a successful lottery in England.
7 March 1671	Baptism of Robert MacGregor or Campbell, ‘Rob Roy’, a noted Highland gentleman, freebooter and outlaw.
26 February 1672	Naturalisation granted to Philip van der Straten, a Fleming settled in Kelso, where he had set up a woollen manufactory, the beginning of the Border woollen industry. ‘Anent a petition presented by Philippus van der Straten… intending to reseid in this country and imploy a considerable stock of money in dressing and refining of wooll, in order to which he hath already sett up a work and imployed diverse workmen who are now refining and dressing of Scottes wooll at Kelso… being born in Bruges in Flanders.’ Register of the Privy Council.
5 September 1673	James Law of Brunton House was granted a charter by King Charles II elevating Markinch, Fife, to a burgh of barony.
3 November 1677	Hundreds were made homeless when a large section of Glasgow’s Saltmarket was destroyed by a fire which was started by an apprentice smith in revenge for a beating from his master.
26 December 1677	Commission to the Marquis of Atholl to raise 'The Highland Host' against the Covenanters.
23 September 1678	The Earl of Mar was commissioned to raise a regiment, to suppress the covenanters, the Earl of Mar's Gray Breeks, later the Royal Scots Fusiliers, who were amalgamated with the HLI to form the Royal Highland Fusiliers in 1959.
3 May 1679	Archbishop James Sharp, of St Andrews, murdered by Covenanters at Magnus Muir, Fife.
12 May 1679	Rev. James Kirkwood MA (1650-1708) became minister of Minto. The father of public libraries in Scotland and author of the anonymous publication of 1699: “An overture for establishing of Bibliothecks in every paroch throughout this kingdom”.
31 May 1679	The Rev John King and fourteen fellow Covenanters were seized by Graham of Claverhouse (Bonnie Dundee) in Hamilton. They were liberated the next day after Dundee’s defeat at Drumclog.
1 June 1679	Battle of Drumclog fought between victorious Covenanters, attending a Conventicle, and Royalist troops under Graham of Claverhouse ( Bonnie Dundee ) in Avondale Parish, Lanarkshire.
13 June 1679	A manifesto known as The Hamilton Declaration was issued by moderate Covenanters before the Battle of Bothwell Brig, demanding Presbyterian government and a free assembly and parliament but expressing loyalty to the King.
22 June 1679	Battle of Bothwell, defeat of the Covenanters under Balfour of Burleigh and Hackson of Rathillet, by Royal Troops led by the Duke of Monmouth.
10 December 1679	Over 200 Covenanter prisoners, taken at Bothwell Bridge, perished when the Crown, en route to the New World, was driven on to the Scarvataing Rocks, Orkney.
22 June 1680	In the Sanquhar Declaration Richard Cameron and his Covenater associates renounced allegiance to King Charles II and declared war on him and his agents.
22 July 1680	Covenanter leader Richard Cameron, ‘The Lion of the Covenant’, and his brother Michael were killed and his forces defeated after fierce resistance at the Battle of Airds ( or Airs) Moss, near Cumnock, by government troops led by Bruce of Earshall. Amongst those taken prisoner was David Hackston of Rathillet, one of Archbishop Sharp’s murderers and the ablest of the Cameronian commanders. The head and hands of Richard Cameron were cut off, taken to Edinburgh and presented to the Privy Council who ordered them to be displayed at the Netherbow.
30 July 1680	Covenanter leader David Hackston of Rathillet, captured at the Battle of Airds (or Airs) Moss, was cruelly executed in Edinburgh. His body was afterwards quartered and his head fixed upon the Netherbow. Other parts of his body were hung at St Andrews, Magnus Moor, Cupar, Burntisland, Leith and Glasgow.
27 July 1681	Leading Covenanter Donald Cargill was hanged and beheaded in Edinburgh.
25 November 1681	Commission from King Charles II to Sir Thomas Dalyell of the Binns to form a regiment of horse, the Royal Regiment of Scots Dragoons, later the Royal Scots Greys, originally for the suppression of the Covenanters.
29 November 1681	The Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh, was granted its charter by Charles II.
16 January 1682	Alexander Cockburn, the Edinburgh hangman, was sentenced to death for murdering a beggar.
11 February 1682	Three men drowned after falling through ice on Edinburgh’s Nor Loch, now the site of Waverley Station.
1 March 1682	The Advocates' Library (since 1925 the National Library of Scotland) opened by its founder, Sir George Mackenzie, the Lord Advocate.
13 June 1683	Following the killing of a government soldier, two Covenanters, John Wharry and James Smith, were executed and their bodies hung in chains from Inchbelly Bridge over the River Kelvin.
12 July 1683	Edinburgh merchant Thomas Hamilton, who had been importing beaver and racoon skins from North America, set up Scotland’s first beaver hat factory.
11 September 1683	The Privy Council recommended a licence to mine copper in Midlothian. "The many attempts for finding out and working of copper mines within this kingdom having hitherto proved altogether uneffectuall... and there being a German here called Joachim Gouel who is a skilfull man and hath been conversing all his life in such things he is content to begin so desirable a work without any other encouragement than a gift of a particular copper mine lying within the parish of Currie." Register of the Privy Council VIII.241.
8 April 1684	Most of Kelso was destroyed by a fire which started in a malt-kiln and 306 families lost their homes.
15 October 1684	Birth of Allan Ramsay, poet and editor, at Leadhills, a lead-mining village in Lanarkshire. His most celebrated work 'The Gentle Shepherd', a pastoral comedy, received much praise throughout the 18th and early 19th centuries for its portrayal of the rustic life and manners.
6 February 1685	Death of King Charles II. His coronation at Scone in 1651 was the last held in Scotland.
11 May 1685	Two female Covenanters, Margaret MacLauchlan and Margaret Wilson, were executed by drowning in the narrow channel of the Bladenoch a mile from Wigtown.
30 June 1685	Archibald Campbell, 9^th Earl of Argyll, was executed in Edinburgh. He had refused to sign the Test Act and was condemned to death for treason in 1681 but escaped from Edinburgh castle to the Continent. He was captured in 1685 after returning to Scotland at the head of an invasion force designed to restore the Protestant religion. “We parted suddenly but I hope shall meete happily in heaven. I pray God to bless you and if you seeke him he will be found of you". From his last letter to his son.
4 December 1685	John Louden, a Covenanting martyr, who had fought at Drumclog and Bothwell Brig, was executed in Edinburgh, after being betrayed by a member of his own family.
10 June 1688	Birth of James Francis Edward Stewart, 'The Old Pretender'. His birth set in motion the events which led to the exile of his father James VII and I.
14 March 1689	Meeting of the Convention of Estates of the Scottish Parliament commenced in Edinburgh with the proclamation of the Claim of Right. “Therefore the Estates of the Kingdom of Scotland find and declaire that King James the Seventh being a profest papist did assume the Regall power and acted as king without ever taking the oath required by law, and hath by the advice of evill and wicked counsellors invaded the fundamentall constitution of the Kingdom and altered it from a legall limited monarchy to ane arbitrary despotick power and hath exercised the same to the subversione of the protestant religion and the violation of the laws and liberties of the Kingdome, inverting all the ends of government, whereby he hath forfaulted the right to the croune and throne is become vacant.” From the proclamation of the Convention of Estates.
18 March 1689	The Earl of Leven was commissioned to raise a regiment of 800 in Border country to hold Edinburgh against the Jacobites. It became the King's Own Borderers. James Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee, left Edinburgh to raise the Royal Standard on behalf of the exiled James VII, King of Scots.
21 March 1689	The Scottish Convention decided to create a fleet of two frigates, the Pelican and Janet, both of Glasgow, to patrol the west in order to prevent supporters coming from Ireland to join James Graham of Claverhouse’s Jacobite Rising.
11 April 1689	The Scottish Claim of Rights, signed by the Convention of Estates, declared that James VII, King of Scots, by his unconstitional acts had forfeited the Crown and offered vacant throne to William of Orange and his wife Mary, eldest daughter of James.
16 April 1689	John Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee, raised the Royal Standard on behalf of the exiled James VII on Dundee Law.
19 April 1689	Followers of the Covenater Richard Cameron who had assembled at Edinburgh to guard the Revolution Convention of Estates, formed into a regiment under the Earl of Angus. The Cameronians were disbanded in 1968.
18 May 1689	Jacobite clans mustered under James Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee, at Dalcomera. A month earlier he had raised the Royal standard on behalf of the exiled King James VII.
10 July 1689	Glasgow ships The Pelican and Janet were overwhelmed by three French frigates of superior power, who were bringing Irish Jacobite reinforcements to Scotland in support of the Dundee Rising on behalf of the exiled James VII, King of Scots, and II of England. The Scottish Convention had hired the two ships in an attempt to stop such reinforcements.
27 July 1689	Battle of Killiecrankie in which Williamite forces, under the Whig General Mackay, were routed by Jacobites led by John Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee, who was mortally wounded during the battle.
30 July 1689	James Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee, was buried at St Blair’s Kirk, near Blair Atholl, following his death at the Battle of Killiecrankie.
21 August 1689	Seige of Dunkeld where the Covenating Cameron Regiment under William Cleland repulsed attack by Jacobite forces. Cleland died in the engagement but the retreat from Dunkeld by the Jacobites heralded the end of the Rising.
1 May 1690	The defeat of the Jacobite army in the Battle of Cromdale by Government forces marked the end of the Rising raised by Viscount Dundee on behalf of the exiled James VII.
14 May 1690	A fleet of ships departed Greenock for the Western Highlands to begin construction of Fort William as a bastion against Jacobite clans.
3 May 1691	Death of Sir George MacKenzie of Rosehaugh, known as ‘Bluidy MacKenzie’, King’s Advocate and prosecutor of the Covenanters, at Westminster, England. He was the founder of the Advocate’s Library in Edinburgh and was buried in the city’s Greyfriars Kirkyard.
12 December 1691	James VII, in exile, signed an order at St Germain allowing the Jacobite clans to sign an oath of allegience to King William ' for their own safety'.
6 January 1692	At Inveraray, Argyll, MacIan, the Chief of Glencoe MacDonalds, was six days late in signing oath of allegiance to King William, setting in motion the events leading to the Glencoe Massacre of 13 February 1692.
13 February 1692	Under orders from King William a Royalist force, under the command of Captain Robert Campbell of Glenlyon, carried out the Massacre of Glencoe which resulted in the death of 38 MacIan MacDonalds.
24 June 1693	Commission set up by the Scottish Parliament into the Glencoe Massacre presented its findings; John Dalrymple, Master of Stair, had caused a 'barbarous murder', it concluded. Stair was to receive the support of King William (under whose signed order the Massacre took place) but was eventually forced to resign as Secretary of State in 1695.
4 June 1694	The Merchant Maiden Hospital, later to be known as The Mary Erskine School, was founded by Mary Erskine in Edinburgh's Cowgate.
4 October 1694	Birth of Lord George Murray, son of John Murray, 1^st Duke of Atholl, at Blair Castle. The leading commander of the 1745 Jacobite army he was also out in both the 1715 and 1719 Risings. Following the Jacobite defeat at Culloden he escaped to France.
26 June 1695	Formation of the Company which undertook the Darien Scheme and came to ruin five years later through English obstruction, Spanish hostility and Scottish mismanagement.
5 July 1695	The Scottish Parliament established a General Post Office. “Our Sovereign Lord, Considering that for the maintenance of mutual Correspondence several publick Post Offices have been heretofore erected… and that the well-ordering thereof is a matter of general concern and great advantage, as well for the Conveniences of Trade and Commerce, as otherways… statutes and ordains and appoynts a General Post Office to be keeped within the City of Edinburgh from whence all Letters and Packquets whatsoever may be with speed and expedition sent into any part of the Kingdom or any other of his Majesties Dominions or into any Kingdom or Contrey beyond Seas…” Acts of Parliament Scotland William III c.31.
17 July 1695	Establishment of the Bank of Scotland under an Act of the Scottish Parliament, The Three Estates.
20 November 1695	Death of James Dalrymple, the 1st Viscount of Stair, Covenanter, professor at Glasgow University and Lord President. He opposed the Test Acts and fled to Holland, a supporter of William of Orange he is best known for his masterly systematising of Scots Law in his "Institutions of the Law of Scotland", 1681.
11 June 1696	Birth of James Francis Edward Keith at Inverugie (Peterhead), son of 9th (sometime 8th) Lord Marischal. An active Jacobite he took part, with his elder brother George, in both the 1715 and 1719 Risings and in exile served in the Spanish, Russian and Prussian armies. As a Prussian Field Marshal, he was highly regarded by Frederick the Great, and is acknowledged as one of the most successful of all Scots who fought under foreign colours. He was mortally wounded at Hochkirch in1758.
26 July 1698	The ill-fated Darien Expedition, which attempted to set up a Scottish Colony in the jungles of Central America, sailed from Leith.
19 September 1698	Episcopacy (rule by Bishops) was formally abolished in Scotland and their revenues confiscated.
6 July 1699	Greenock-born privateer Captain William Kidd was captured in America and deported to England where he was executed in 1701.
5 January 1700	Moffat school teacher Robert Carmichael was scourged through the streets of Edinburgh and banished for killing one of his pupils during punishment for misbehaviour.
3 February 1700	A major fire, which made 400 families homeless, destroyed many buildings, some 14 storeys high, around Parliament Close in Edinburgh.
30 March 1700	Scottish colony of Darien, in the jungles of Central America, finally surrendered to Spanish forces, bringing an ill-fated venture to an end.
16 November 1700	James MacPherson, a freebooter, was hanged at Banff. The town clock was said to have been advanced to forestall a reprieve. He played his fiddle up to the last. His hanging is still remembered in Scottish Folk Song - "MacPherson's Fareweel".
14 March 1701	All illegal cargoes of grain brought to the West of Scotland from Ireland were ordered to be sunk.
23 May 1701	Captain William Kidd, Greenock-born privateer, was hanged at London’s Execution Dock for piracy.
31 May 1701	Birth of Alexander Cruden, author of ‘A Complete Concordance to the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament’ (first published 1737), in Aberdeen.
16 September 1701	Death of James VII, King of Scots, (King James II of England), in exile at the Chateau of St Germain-en-Laye, France.
8 March 1702	The last Stewart ruler, Queen Anne, acceded to the throne on the death of King William III in a riding accident. His horse had stumbled on a molehill and Jacobites toasted ‘The wee gentleman in the velvet jacket’.
5 August 1704	The Act of Security, which allowed The Three Estates to choose another successor to Queen Anne than the choice by the English Parliament if Scottish conditions were not met, was approved by the Scottish Parliament. The English responded with the Alien Act (1705) which demanded an Act of Union.
10 September 1704	Largo-born Alexander Selkirk was marooned on Masa Terra, in the Juan Fernandez group of islands, 500 miles off the coast of Chile. He remained on the remote volcanic rock for four years and four months and his story inspired Daniel Defoe to write the novel ‘Robinson Crusoe’.
30 January 1705	Falsely accused of witchcraft by 16-year-old Patrick Morton, Janet Cornfoot was killed by a mob in Pittenweem, Fife. She was dragged by the heels to the seafront and swung from a rope tied between a ship and the shore. She was stoned, beaten severely, and finally crushed to death under a door piled with rocks. Others accused, apart from Thomas Brown who was starved to death, were released when Morton was exposed as a liar. The mob was never brought to trial.
11 April 1705	A huge throng gathered at Leith to watch the execution of three English mariners accused of attacking a Scottish vessel off Malabar.
20 July 1705	Act passed for establishing herring fishing in and around Scotland. “Our Sovereign Lady and Estates of Parliament taking to consideration the great and many advantages that may arise to this nation by encouraging the Salmond White and Herring fishing they being only a natural and certain fund to advance the trade and increase the wealth thereof but also a true and ready way to breed seamen and set many poor and idle people to work.” Act of Parliament Scotland XI. 292.
12 October 1706	The Scottish Parliament, The Three Estates, began debating the proposed incorporating Treaty of Union with England. Procedural wranglings ensured that the first reading of the treaty was delayed for three days.
18 October 1706	The Church of Scotland held a Day of National Prayer as the Scottish Parliament, The Three Estates, debated the Treaty of Union.
19 October 1706	The city guard had to rescue Patrick Johnston, Lord Provost of Edinburgh, and his family from the Edinburgh mob who opposed the proposed Union with England and attempted to break into his home. Six of the mob were taken and imprisoned.
5 November 1706	The Rev James Clark, minister of the Tron Church, Glasgow, urged his flock in his Sunday sermon not to trust parliamentarians or princes but to be “up and valiant for the city of our God!” This led the next day to an outbreak of anti-Union rioting in the city.
6 November 1706	Anti-Union feeling broke out in Glasgow as a mob broke the windows in a coffee house from which Lord Provost John Aird fled. He had refused to draw up an address to the Scottish Parliament, The Three Estates, objecting to the proposed union between Scotland and England on behalf of the council. An unsuccessful attack led by two local men, Findlay and Montgomery, was made on the Tolbooth in search of arms. Two hundred dragoons were dispatched from Edinburgh to put down the ‘uprising’.
20 November 1706	A copy of the Articles of the Treaty of Union between Scotland and England was burnt at the Mercat Cross, Dumfries, along with a list of the Commissioners signing for the Union before an audience of many thousands on horse and foot.
16 January 1707	The Act of Union of the Parliaments of England and Scotland was ratified.
19 March 1707	Official copy of the Act of Union between Scotland and England was signed by the Scottish Chancellor. “The independence and sovereignty of the Kingdom, both with this dispising and contemning remark ‘Now there’s ane end of ane old song’.” Lockhart of Carnwath Papers I. 223.
25 April 1707	An enormous school of whales arrived in the Firth of Forth and 35 ran aground on the sands at Kirkcaldy.
28 April 1707	The dissolution of the last Scottish Parliament, The Three Estates.
1 May 1707	The Act of Union between Scotland and England came into force. Scottish Kirk Bells played the tune "Why Am I So Sad On My Wedding Day?" The Union was brought about in spite of the opposition by the majority of Scots.
21 June 1708	Death of John Hamilton, 2^nd Lord Belhaven, leading opponent of the 1707 incorporating Union between Scotland and England.
26 April 1709	General Assembly Act for erecting public libraries in presbyteries. "The General Assembly does hereby earnestly recommend it to such of the presbyteries of this Church as have not received any of the Books sent for that end from England, to contribute amongst themselves in order to lay a Foundation for a Library at each Presbytery seat; and also endeavour to procure Collections in their several Parishes of more or less, according as their Parishioners are able and willing to give and bestow." Acts of General Assembly 1709, Act XI.
3 May 1709	Elspeth Rule was the last person in Scotland to be tried before the High Court for witchcraft; the judge at Dumfries ordered her to be burned on the cheek and banished from Scotland for life.
26 April 1711	David Hume, noted Scottish Enlightenment philosopher, was born in Edinburgh. “Upon the whole then it seems undeniable that nothing can bestow more merit on any human creature than the sentiment of benevolence in an eminent degree; and that a part at least of its merit arises from the tendency to promote the interests of our species, and bestow happiness on human society.” From his ‘Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals’
3 October 1712	Warrant issued for the arrest of Rob Roy MacGregor, Highland Freebooter, by the Lord Advocate at the instigation of the Duke of Montrose.
1 August 1714	Death of Queen Anne, the last Stewart sovereign, aged 49. Under the 1701 English Act of Settlement she was succeeded by the Hanoverian King George I.
28 August 1715	Under the pretext of a stag hunting party (tichel), John, 6th Earl of Mar, Bobbing John, summoned leading Jacobite chiefs and gentlemen to gather at Braemar. On 6 September 1715 the standard of James Francis Stewart was unfurled, marking the start of the 1715 Jacobite Rising.
6 September 1715	The standard of the Old Pretender, the Jacobite "James VIII", was unfurled by the Earl of Mar, "Bobbing John", at Braemar in the first of the major Jacobite Risings.
13 November 1715	Battle of Sherrifmuir, near Dunblane, between the Jacobite army under the Earl of Mar and Hanverian troops led by the Duke of Argyll proved indecisive. But the failure of the Jacobite commander to press home his numerical advantage effectively signalled the end of the 1715 Rising.
15 November 1715	The first newspaper in Glasgow appeared. The ‘Glasgow Courant’ cover price was three halfpence.
22 December 1715	Prince James Francis Stewart, The Old Pretender, Jacobite James VIII, landed at Peterhead, too late to influence the abortive 1715 Jacobite Rising.
26 December 1715	Episcopal clergy in Aberdeen presented a loyal address to Prince James Francis Stewart, ‘The Old Pretender’, during the 1715 Jacobite Rising.
4 February 1716	Prince James Francis Stewart, The Old Pretender ( James VIII ) left Scotland from Montrose, following the abortive Jacobite Rising of 1715.
7 February 1716	Remnants of Jacobite army disbanded at Aberdeen.
24 February 1716	James Radcliffe, 3^rd Earl of Derwentwater and William Gordon, Viscount Kenmuir, were beheaded in London for their part in the 1715 Jacobite rising.
15 September 1716	Death of Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun, known as 'The Patriot', soldier, essayist and leading opponent of the 1707 incorporating Union between Scotland and England.
9 March 1719	James Stewart, the Old Pretender, Jacobite "James VIII", arrived in Spain to give his support to a Jacobite invasion force equipping at Cadiz.
29 March 1719	A storm dispersed Jacobite invasion-fleet which had set out from Cadiz in Spain and only two vessels reached Scotland. The 1719 Jacobite Rising ended in failure at Glenshiel.
10 June 1719	Battle of Glenshiel which saw the end of a minor Jacobite rising. Only 1000 men joined the Jacobite side under the 10th Earl Marischal. Faced by a Hanovarian army under General Wightman, after some hours of engagement, the Jacobite forces disbanded.
31 December 1720	Birth of Charles Edward Louis Casimir Silvester Maria Stewart, The Young Pretender, in the Palazzo Muti, Rome. Known as Bonnie Prince Charlie he led the 1745 Jacobite Rising.
3 October 1721	Birth of Rev. John Skinner, poet, theologian, Episcopalian minister at Longside in Buchan, at Balfour in the Parish of Birse, Aberdeenshire. His song ‘Tullochgorum’ was regarded by Robert Burns as “the best Scotch song ever Scotland saw”, (letter from Burns to Skinner October 1787).
5 October 1721	Dr William Wilkie, the 'Scottish Homer', author of the Epigoniad, was born at Dalmeny.
3 December 1721	Death of Lower Largo-born Alexander Selkirk, probably from yellow fever -he was buried at sea off Cape Coast Castle (West Africa). His years spent marooned on the uninhabited archipelago of Juan Fernandez was the inspiration for Daniel Defoe’s novel ‘Robertson Crusoe’.
4 May 1722	Birth of Robert Macqueen, lawyer and judge, oldest son of John MacQueen of Braxfield, Lanarkshire. He took the title of Lord Braxfield on being appointed a judge of the Court of Session (November 17760 and as Lord-Justice Clerk presided at Radical trials of such men as Thomas Muir and Maurice Margarot.
21 September 1722	Birth of Rev John Home, dramatist and author of ‘Douglas’, at Leith. ‘Douglas’ was first produced in Edinburgh in 1756 where it had a successful run. None of his further work was as successful as ‘Douglas’ which on the night of its first performance elicited the cry “Whaur’s yer Wullie Shakespeare noo?”
8 June 1723	The Honourable Society of Improvers in the Knowledge of Agriculture in Scotland was formed in Edinburgh by over 300 landowners. The Society lapsed after the 1745 Jacobite rising. "Considering in how low a state the Manufactures in Scotland are and how much the right Husbandry and Improvement of Ground is neglected, partly through want of skill in those who make Possession thereof, and partly through want of Encouragement for making proper Experiments of the several Improvements that the different Soils in this county are capable of." From the first Resolution of the Society
11 November 1723	Eighteen people were drowned in the River Tweed near Abbotsford when a ferry-boat capsized as travellers headed to a fair at Melrose.
20 March 1724	Duncan Ban MacIntyre, Donnachadh Bàn, one of the greatest Gaelic poets, was born in Glenorchy. “An t-turram thar gach beinn Aig Beinn-dòrain, De na chunnaic mi fo’n ghréin, ‘S I bu bhòidhche leam, Monadh fada, réidh, Cuile ‘m faighte féidh, Soilleireachd an t-sléibh, Bha mi sònrachadh. (Honour to Ben Doran above all mountains; of all I have seen under the sun, it is the most beautiful to me. The long smooth moorland, the nooks where the deer are found, the clearness of the mountain-side, I noted it all.) From his Moladh Beinn-dorain.
24 December 1724	General George Wade was appointed Commander-in-Chief in Scotland after his report on the need for military roads in Scotland. If you had seen these roads before they were made, You would hold up your hands and bless General Wade. Anon
6 March 1725	Birth of Prince Henry, Cardinal Duke of York, brother of Charles Edward Stewart and second son of James Stewart, ‘The Old Pretender’, and Clemintina in the Palazzo Muti, Rome. He was baptized on the day of his birth by Pope Benedict XIII.
12 May 1725	The Black Watch, The Forty-Twa, was commissioned under General Wade as the Independent Companies to police the Highlands. Deoch slainte an Fhreiceadain 'S àill leinn gun cheist i, 'S i an fhàilte nach beag oirnn Dhol deiseal ar chléibh... Na curaidhean calma G'am buineadh bhi 'n Albain Feadh mhonianean garbhlaich A' sealg air na féidh. (a drink to the health of the Watch, and a pleasure to us without reserve, Our salute is no small one to go with good omen round our breasts... That the brave warriors may belong to Scotland among the rugged moors to hunt the deer.) From Oran do 'n T-sean Fhreiceadan Ghaidhealach - Duncan Ban MacIntyre
20 November 1725	The horse-post from Edinburgh to London vanished after passing through Berwick; both horse and rider were thought to have perished on tidal sands near Holy Island.
23 June 1726	Professional Irish swordsman Andrew Bryan was defeated in a public duel in Edinburgh by 62-year-old Killiecrankie veteran Donald Bane ‘to the great joy of the Edinburgh citizenry’.
31 May 1727	The Royal Bank of Scotland was founded from a company of debenture holders of the Equivalent stock; chartered with £111,000 capital.
13 February 1728	Birth of John Hunter, noted physiologist and surgeon, in East Kilbride.
26 October 1729	Birth of Henry Thomas Cockburn, Lord Cockburn, Judge and Man of Letters, in Edinburgh. His journals, published posthumously, provided social historians with valuable insight of his age and times. He became a Lord of Session in 1834.
14 December 1730	Birth of African explorer James Bruce at Kinnaird House, Stirlingshire. Known as "The Abyssinian", Bruce, who was also an astronomer, naturalist and linguist, won fame for his journey in search of the source of the Nile.
1 July 1731	Birth of Adam Duncan, Viscount Dundee of Camperdown, the son of a former Provost of Dundee, in the Seagate, Dundee. For his heroic sea victory against the Dutch fleet of Admiral De Wynter at Camperdown, he was made a Peer of the Realm and Viscount Dundee of Camperdown.
23 April 1733	The first stone of the five arches Wade Bridge at Aberfeldy was laid. The bridge was opened at the end of October 1733, but not formally opened, in the presence of General George Wade, until 8 August 1735. The total cost was £3,596 and the design was by the foremost Scottish architect William Adam.
6 August 1734	The town of Gaeta, Italy, fell to Spanish, French and Sardinian forces – Prince Charles Edward Stewart participated in the siege as a General of Artillery; his only military experience prior to the ill-fated 1745 Jacobite Rising.
29 September 1734	Birth of William Julius Mickle, poet, at Langham. Translator of The Lusiad and author of works such as Comnor Hall and There's Nae Luck Aboot The Hoose.
28 December 1734	Death of Robert MacGregor or Campbell, of Inversnaid, Rob Roy, Highland gentleman, freebooter and outlaw, immortalised by Sir Walter Scott in his novel Rob Roy, at Balquhidder, Perthshire, aged 74. “Rob Roy, though a kittle neighbour to the Low Country, and particularly obnoxious to his Grace [the Duke of Montrose] and though he maybe carried the cateran trade farther than ony man o’ his day, was an auld-farrand carle, and there might be some means found of making him hear reason; whereas his wife and sons were reckless fiends, without either fear or mercy about them, and at the head of a’ his limmer louns, would be a worse plague to the country than ever he had been.” Sir Walter Scott - Rob Roy
8 August 1735	Nearly two years after it opened to traffic, the Wade Bridge at Aberfeldy was officially opened in the presence of Lieutenant-General George Wade. The bridge, designed by leading Scottish architect William Adam, cost £3,596.
30 November 1735	Birth of Admiral Samuel Grieg, ‘Father of the Russian Navy’, at Inverkeithing in Fife. He served with distinction with the Royal navy particularly in engagements at Quiberton Bay (1759) and the reduction of Havana (1762) but at the invitation of Catherine the Great he transferred to the Russian Navy where he rose to the rank of full Admiral in 1782. He transformed the Russian Navy into a modern and effective fighting force. In a short visit to Scotland in 1777 he was awarded the Freedom of Edinburgh.
19 January 1736	Birth of James Watt, engineer and inventor, at Greenock. “Watt, James, Son lawful to James Watt, wright in Greenock, and Agnes Muireheid, his spouse, was born the 19^th and baptised the 25^th.” Register of Baptisms for Greenock
19 July 1736	The Edinburgh mob broke into the Tolbooth, seized John Porteous and hung him from a dryer's pole in the Grassmarket. As Captain of the City Guard, Porteous had ordered the guard to open fire when on duty at the execution of a smuggler, Andrew Wilson, in the Grassmarket. Deaths and injuries ensued and Porteous stood trial for murder, was found guilty but granted a Royal pardon. His death, in what became known as The Porteous Riots, was used by Sir Walter Scott in his novel 'The Heart of Midlothian'.
8 November 1736	The first regular public theatre in Scotland was opened in Carruber's Close, Edinburgh by the poet, editor and playwrite Allan Ramsay.
12 December 1738	Birth of William Cochran, noted Italian-trained portrait painter, at Strathaven, Lanarkshire.
6 January 1739	Birth of David Dale, banker, industrialist and philanthropist, at Stewarton in Aryshire. He founded the forward-looking cotton mills at New Lanark, opened 1786, with provision for welfare and education for the mill workers. In 1800 he sold New Lanark to his son-in-law Robert Owen and retired to estate near Cambuslang where he died in 1806.
28 October 1739	The Scots Magazine, the world's oldest popular periodical, made its first appearance.
29 October 1740	James Boswell, lawyer, diarist and biographer of Samuel Johnson, was born in Edinburgh: son of Alexander Boswell, a prominent advocate who became Lord Auchinlech on his appointment as Lord of Session (1754).
6 May 1743	Ayr-born Andrew Ramsay, aged 57, who supervised the education of Charles and Henry, sons of James Stewart, ‘The Old Pretender’, died in France.
27 June 1743	Scots Greys, Scots Guards and Scots Fusiliers took part in the Battle of Dettingen, Germany, defeating a French army in the War of the Austrian Succession, where King George II became the last monarch of Britain to personally command his troops.
2 March 1744	Death of exiled Jacobite William Maxwell, 5^th Earl of Nithsdale, in Rome. For his part in the 1715 Jacobite Rising he was sentenced to death but escaped from the Tower of London on the eve of his execution with the aid of his wife Winifred. They lived, in great poverty, in Rome in attendance on their exiled king, James Stewart.
6 August 1744	Birth of David Allan, Alloa, Scottish genre painter famed for his Edinburgh street scenes.
6 October 1744	James McGill, who became a fur-trader after emigrating to Canada and founded the university in Montreal which bears his name, was born in Glasgow.
15 July 1745	The outstanding Gaelic poet Alasdair MacMhaighstir Alasdair was dismissed from his S.P.C.K. school at Ardnamurchan for desertion of his post. A devoted Jacobite, he acted as Gaelic tutor to Prince Charles Edward Stewart during the 1745 Jacobite Rising and is best remembered for his masterpiece Birlinn Chlann-Raghnaill (Clan Ranald’s Galley).
16 July 1745	Prince Charles Edward Stewart, 'The Young Chevalier', set sail from the mouth of the River Loire, France, for Scotland on board the French ship Le du Teillay, accompanied by a ship borrowed from the French Navy L'Elisabeth. After an encounter with a British ship-of-the-line, Lion, the badly mauled L.Elisabeth had to return to France.
23 July 1745	Prince Charles Edward Stewart, 'The Young Pretender', landed in Eriskay with only seven men. The last Jacobite Rising was to follow.
30 July 1745	Prince Charles Edward Stewart met with Cameron of Lochiel on board the frigate Le du Teillay. The support of Lochiel was essential to the 1745 Jacobite Rising.
6 August 1745	Prince Charles Edward Stewart wrote to the Highland Chiefs requesting their presence at Glenfinnan on the 19th August or as soon thereafter as possible.
8 August 1745	Having successfully landed in Scotland Prince Charles Edward Stewart ordered the frigate Le du Teillay to return to France.
16 August 1745	Prior to the raising of the Jacobite banner at Glenfinnan the first military engagement of the 1745 Jacobite Rising took place when Donald MacDonell of Tirnadris, with eleven men and a piper from Keppoch’s clan, prevented two companies of the 1^st Royal Regiment of Foot (later the Royal Scots) from crossing the High Bridge over the River Spean. The Hanoverian force consisting of some 85 men had been sent from Fort Augustus to reinforce the garrison at Fort William.
19 August 1745	Prince Charles Edward Stewart's standard unfurled at Glenfinnan to start the most famous Jacobite Rising which ended tragically on the field of Culloden on 16 April 1746.