Prior to the 17th Century, Cupar was flanked by a sizable loch and wetland. Since drained, it required a ferry to cross it (dashed line) and kept the Lords of the Congregation and Mary of Guise’s armies apart in 1559. The Bonnygate and Crossgate are marked in red for ref.
In October 1785, Vincenzo Lunardi flew a hydrogen-powered balloon from George Heriot’s School in Edinburgh to Coaltown of Callange, near Ceres in Fife– a distance of 46 miles. It was the first successful aerial journey in Scotland.
A snuffbox made from the oak William Wallace hid in after the Battle of Falkirk was presented to George Washington in 1791 by David Erskine, Earl of Buchan. Erskine called GW the “modern American Wallace”.
Washington willed the box back to Buchan, who was to decide on a new worthy caretaker. Buchan sent it to the Washington College Library, but it was stolen en route. Washington’s box is still lost, but it probably looked similar to this one, made in 1794.
After cholera hit town in 1849, Eyemouth added 6ft of soil on top of the old cemetery to make a new one. The old headstones were lifted and used to make a watchhouse to guard against bodysnatchers.
Robert III hated himself and his reign. He told his wife: “So that my soul may be saved in the day of the lord, bury me, I beg you, in a midden, and write for my epitaph: Here lies the worst of kings and the most wretched of men.”
He got Paisley Abbey.
Whit’s in a name?
Across all Scotland:
Between 1855 and 1955, 24 children were named after Napoleon Bonaparte and 18 were named for General Garibaldi.
Between 1936 and 1945, at least 10 children were given “Josef Stalin” as first names.
In 1955, the British Empire expanded for the last time when the UK annexed Rockall.
Caithness councillor John Abrach MacKay wanted it back as his father, Murdoch, had claimed it for Clan MacKay in 1846.
I demand the admiralty hand it back, it’s no theirs’
J. Abrach MacKay
In 1437, James I might’ve escaped assassination if he didn’t love tennis so much.
He tried escaping down the sewer but he had ordered it blocked up 3 days earlier because “when he played at the [Tennis], the balls he played with often ran into that foul hole”
Twa Camels in Edinburgh:
In January 1659 a dromedary camel was brought to the Canongate in Edinburgh. Crowds paid 3 pence a head to see the “heich great beast callit ane Drummodary”. Probably the 1st camel in Scotland outside royal menageries of old.
Charles I had a camel his menagerie in Edinburgh in 1633. John Grahame got it on a 6 month lease “to carie said camel throughout the Kingdome an show the people by towcke of drum or sound of trumpet” but not “upon the Sabboth day”.
In 1964, miners from the Valleyfield coalfields in Fife and from the Bo’ness fields broke through a rock face and met eachother 500m underground. This was the first time anyone could walk directly to Fife from the Lothians “across” the River Forth.
