05.10.2011 – 05.10.2011  8 °C

Holy smokes it has been a cold day today. Yep winter is definitely on its way to the British Isles! Got going early as I had a pretty big day planned. My plan was originally to go for a walk up to Arthur’s seat (a hill that towers over Hollyrude Palace) then spend my morning in the National Museum of Scotland before ending up my day at the Castle. I had to modify my plan slightly as it was raining very consistently when I got started this morning and I couldn’t think of anything worse than climbing a mountain whilst it was pouring rain, below 10 degrees with wind chill! So I decided to attack the hill at the end of the day (weather permitting) and start off in the nice warm and dry museum. I want to warn everyone before they start reading this blog that it is very long and chock a block full of Scottish history so if you aren’t like me and you aren’t a history buff you may want to skim today’s blog.. Just warning you (I guess though if you are an avid reader of this blog you probably are a history buff cause that’s pretty much all I report on!!!!!)

The Museum of Scotland is a pretty good museum. It has been set up to cater for all walks of life. There are plenty of interactive exhibits to keep the kids amused as well as plenty of story boards to keep us adults amused! It’s probably one of the best museums I’ve actually been in, in regards to catering for all audiences. I spent all of my time in the Scottish History section, although the museum covers the whole gambit from racing cars to space to dinosaurs!

It was an interesting and enlightening morning. The museum was great at filling in some gaps I had with regards to Scottish history (although i reckon I only know a tincy percentage of the history!) particularly about the fall of the Scottish monarchy and the subsequent attempts to renew (most notably by Bonnie Prince Charles—from “carry the lad that’s born to be king, over the seas to Skye” fame—yes, obviously I don’t know what this famous song is called and yes, clearly I only know a couple of lines from this song and have probably garbled the words!)

I was surprised to see a timeline of Scottish kings since Robert the Bruce. The thing that really grabbed me is the tenure that most of the kings or queens had who ruled. Most only seemed to be on the throne for about ten years (some more some less) and many of the kings were actually killed by family members who wanted the throne! So the history leading up to the Jacobite revolution was fairly sordid anyhow! So the history gets exciting when James VI moved to England to take over the English crown and became James I and united the two crowns. No real issues and James’ big claim to fame is the King James’ Bible. James had two sons and a daughter. The oldest son died before he could take the throne and so his second son became king after James’ death and was crowned Charles I. This is the king that Oliver Cromwell beheaded! At the time of the revolution the Scots did not agree with the beheading of their king Charlie and so crowned his son Charles II as King of Scotland. Cromwell then invaded and Charles went to France in hiding. Eventually he was brought back by the English aristocracy once Cromwell had been replaced as leader and was crowned Charles II of both England and Scotland. On the death of Charles II, James III (James VII of Scotland) ascended the throne as a catholic king. Some members of the English aristocracy were concerned about a return to Catholicism, so to they invited William of Orange and Mary Stewart (descendant of James I’s daughter) to invade England and assume the crown. After usurping James III, William of Orange was crowned William III and so began the Jacobite revolution supported by members of the Scottish aristocracy. Bonnie Prince Charlie is the great grandson of James VI (James I of England) and is famous because he was the last Stewart to attempt to seize the thrones of England and Scotland. He did manage to raise an army and did take parts of Scotland but was eventually over run and escaped to Skye dressed as a chamber maid! He then returned to France and lived out the rest of his days.

Mary Queen of Scots also lived an interesting life. She is the mother of James VI and she was crowned Queen of Scotland at the age of just three! She grew up in the French court (her mother was French and they believe her mother moved her to France to reduce the likelihood of assassination) and was married three times! First time to the French Dauphin (Louis) who died at a young age (17 I think—she was married at 10!!!!), Second time to some Earl who she apparently despised and was the father of James VI and lastly to some random who lost his head for loving the Queen (wasn’t killed by the Queen but was killed by someone who didn’t support the Queen). Of her 50 odd years of life, she spent more time out of Scotland than in it! Firstly, in France and later in prison in England. Lastly, she was forced to abdicate in favour for her son! The poor thing had a pretty sad old life!

After my revel in history I got to continue the story up at the castle! The castle has been brooding down over the city since 1100 AD but it is assumed that people have used the hill above Edinburgh as a look out area for much longer than this! You are greeted as you walk up the hill with the imposing portcullis which is the main back drop for the Military Tattoo. I can only imagine what a fantastic show this must be in Aug. After taking too many photos of the front entrance I finally walked through and up further up the hill to the actual castle itself. By this time it was again raining steadily and the temp had dropped another degree or two so by this time my hands were absolutely frozen and I was almost starting to shake from the cold! I joined one of the free introductory tours of the castle grounds so was treated to a forty minute walk in the freezing cold and rain. I have to say I didn’t take in too much of the tour guides info but instead tried to focus on keeping my face out of the rain and trying to find spots out of the wind!

The highlight of any trip to the castle (and my highlight because it was inside and warm) is the Scottish regalia. It is the oldest set of crown jewels in Britain and probably in Europe. The history of the jewels is also pretty interesting and one I thought I’d recount. The crown itself (according to legend) uses melted down gold from Robert the Bruce’s crown and was designed in the early 1500s. The regalia was commissioned by James V and the only kings and queens to wear the regalia are James V, Mary Queen of Scots, James VI, Charles I and Charles II. The last time the jewels were used was when Charles II was crowned during Cromwell’s time. The regalia was then taken from Edinburgh castle during Cromwell’s invasion and buried in a church yard so that Cromwell couldn’t melt the jewels down (as had been done in England). After Charles II was reinstituted as head of state the regalia returned to Edinburgh castle. It was then used at every session of the Scottish parliament to indicate the absence of a monarch. This is until the mid 1700s when the Scottish parliament formalised the union with England and the parliament was disbanded in favour of the British parliament in Westminster. At this time the regalia was placed in an oak box that was padlocked and it was sealed up in a room in Edinburgh castle. It wasn’t until the late 1800s that Sir Walter Scott gained permission to open the room to confirm that the jewels had not gone missing (there was a rumour that they had been stolen by the English!) The jewels still remained in the room and from this day forward have been placed on display in Edinburgh castle. The regalia certainly isn’t the most incredible crown jewels I’ve ever seen, just a crown and sceptre and some other personal jewellery of the Stewarts but it probably has the most interesting tale!

The other thing that is stored with the jewels is the Stone of Destiny. The Stone of Destiny is the coronation stone for the Scottish Kings and was ‘stolen’ by Edward II when he made himself king of Scotland. Up until 1996 it was stored within the coronation chair in Westminster Abbey. At this time, the current PM (I think John Major but don’t quote me) was looking for more Scottish votes so agreed to return the Stone back to Scotland on the condition that it would always be returned to Westminster for all coronations and that the Scots vote for him in the upcoming election. Needless to say he lost the election (it didn’t sway voters to vote for him) but the stone was still returned to Scotland.

The story I like the most about the Stone of Destiny is the story of when it was stolen during the 1970s. A couple of Glasgow students decided that it would be a great idea to travel down to London and steal the stone on the night before xmas. To steal the stone they decided that one of them would pose as a tourist and hide inside the abbey so that they would be locked in after closing. This person would then unlock the abbey doors and they would steal the stone and take it back to Scotland. Everything went swimmingly except they underestimated the weight of the stone so after picking it up they promptly dropped the stone at which time it broke into two! They then decided that the only way to get the bigger of the two pieces out was to drag the stone (they put it on a jumper) out of the abbey. By the time they had gotten the stone out, the jumper was in shreds but the stone was safely stowed in the back of their car. They then began the drive back to Glasgow.

Meanwhile the guard had returned to the abbey to open it up for xmas services and discovered the stone missing. He immediately contacted the police who decided to install road blocks into Scotland (assuming rightly that the thieves would have been Scottish). The media got a hold of the story and so the thieves were warned that they would be caught at the border if they still had the stone. They therefore decided to bury the stone in some random paddock in Kent and go and dig the stone up after the fuss had died down. They returned to Glasgow with none the wiser and decided to find a patriotic stone mason who they could tell so that he could come back with them to Kent to fix the stone. The found a guy and his concern was that they had buried the stone in Kent and that for the past couple of days it had rained continually so all he was worried about is how much degradation had already occurred to the very old sand stone block! He told them to bring the stone back to Glasgow and he would see if he could re-join the parts. By now the fuss had died down so the road block had been lifted and seemingly the student’s had gotten away with it! The stone was re-joined by the master mason, but now what to do with the stone? The students couldn’t very well just go and hand it in to police, and there was no real point in keeping it, so they decided to return it to Scone Palace the original resting place of the stone! Eventually the stone was returned and the police caught the students who were sent to prison. The stone was returned to England and as I said above it wasn’t until 1996 until the stone would return onto Scottish soil!

I’ll close this blog by saying that I did end up trying to climb Arthur’s seat, only to discover that part of the track had been closed due to poor conditions so I then went and saw the sunset up on Carlton Hill (another hill in Edinburgh). Here closeth this blog!