4 million Edinburgh Gazette records released

FROM THE EDITOR

A warm welcome to our themed Jacobite special,

Newstudytoshedlightontheliteraryandculturallivesofearlymodernmerchants 

A new University of Stirling study investigating the literary and cultural activities of merchants in early modern Britain could help inform present-day educational debates

EXPLORE THE STORY OF YOUR STREET

Our street history project continues with advice on tracing the history of a tenement, plus reader Iain Peebles’ intriguing research into the story behind a decorated bell pull

A NEWLYRECOGNISED WORD OF PRICE CHARLES EDWARD STUART

Professor Edward Corp and Graeme Rimer share news of their recent research into a silver-hilted sword that they believe originally belonged to Prince Charles Edward Stuart

EASTERN ENCOUNTERS: FOUR CENTURIES OF INDO-SCOTTISH CONNECTIONS

Emily Hannam provides a curator’s preview of Eastern Encounters, a new exhibition that explores 400 years of British-Indian royal relations and South Asian artistic production

LEITH 1645 A VISITATION OF THE PLAGUE

Alison Rosie examines a church record of 1645, the year the plague struck Leith, with echoes of today’s pandemic

FEUDING AND RIVALRY IN AN EXILED COURT

Dr Annie Tindley introduces a diary that fascinates with its detailed portrait of wasted talent and petty rivalries at the exiled Jacobite court in 18th-century Rome

RECENTLY PUBLISHED

Edge of Empire, Rome’s

FINAL WORD

History Scotland talks to Professor Adrian S. Wisnicki, lead project scholar on One More Voice, a work of digital humanities scholarship that focuses on recovering non-European contributions from 19th-century British imperial and colonial archives. The team will be working with a number of archive partners and outside collaboraters over the coming months

RE-INTERPRETING THE LOST CHOIR OF DUNFERMLINE ABBEY: HISTORY, LITURGY AND GROUNDPENETRATING RADAR

In part 2 of his research article, Dr Michael Penman explains how GPR scans have thrown doubt on oral tradition surrounding where in the abbey church the Bruce grave is located

PROTECT AND PROMOTE LOCAL HISTORY

Neil McLennan continues his regular hidden histories series with a look at how local history is promoted – and the implications of the recent statue protests as part of the Black Lives Matter movement

WRITING THE RISINGS

David McVey of New College Lanarkshire takes a look at how historical novelists have portrayed the Jacobite period over the centuries, allowing the reader to experience reallife historical events through the eyes of fictional characters

The Jacobites in Scotland: a brief introduction

As an introduction to this special issue of History Scotland, Dr Allan Kennedy offers a bird-eye view of Scottish Jacobitism, discussing the movement’s aims, support-base and activities between the late 17th and late 18th centuries

THE ENIGMA THAT WAS THE FIRST JACOBITE

Jacobitism began with King James VII & II, the man who lost his thrones in the revolution of 1688-89. But who was this complex, enigmatic, much-maligned king, and what was his relationship with Scotland? Dr Alastair Mann discusses James and his legacy

A ‘VIRTUOUS RABBLE’ OF VIRTUAL REBELS

In this History Scotland exclusive, Dr Darren Scott Layne introduces The Jacobite Database of 1745, an ongoing prosopographical research project that focuses upon compiling archival information about common Jacobite soldiers and civilians to present a detailed social history of Jacobitism from the bottom-up during its final historical phase

EPICOPALIANS AND JACOBITE

Often characterised as simply the spiritual wing of the Jacobite movement, Scottish Episcopalians in fact had a much more complicated and nuanced relationship with both the Jacobite and Hanoverian causes. Dr Kieran German explains

PETTICOAT PATRONAGE OF THE STUART CAUSE

Prince Charles Edward famously proved popular with many Scottish women during the ’45, and some of them provided him with important support. Dr Anita Gillespie explores this ‘petticoat patronage’ through the stories of two Jacobite-supporting ladies called Jean

Jacobitism, espionage and subversion James Carnegy’s personal war against the British state, 1697-1734

The Catholic priest James Carnegy was one of the most long-serving and successful of Jacobite spies, regularly passing vital intelligence from Scotland to the Jacobite court for more than 30 years, apparently without detection. Professor Daniel Szechi reconstructs the career of this remarkable secret agent

NEO JACOBITISM: lookingbeyondthefringe

Long after its apparent end in the mid-18th century, Jacobitism as a political creed experienced a Victorian resurgence to match its cultural cache. Professor Graeme Morton discusses the nature and meaning of this ‘neo-Jacobitism’

FromtheHighlandstotheCaribbean

Nicola Martin analyses a valuable biography of Lord Seaforth, politician and landowner

VisitScotland:18th-centurystyle

Sandy Thomson reflects on a new survey of a century’s worth of travel in the highlands