Category: Time Period

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Going to the Mop in Stratford-upon-Avon & Henley-in-Arden 11th & 12th October

Stratford-upon-Avon Mop Festival

This year the Stratford mop festival was on the 11th and 12th October. I was in Stratford for it, and the centre of the Town is crowded with a cacophany of shooting galleries, stalls selling toffee apples, candy floss, burgers and all things bad for you. And a fun fair. Quite raucous, but they leave Henley Street free of it which is probably a good idea. Nothing at all sophisticated, or literary or dramatic, or folkloric. Just a good old-fashioned fun fair in the middle of the town. Below I tell the story of my discovery of the Mop.

2024 Statford-upon-Avon Mop. Photo Kevin Flude
2024 Stratford on Avon Mop. Photo Kevin Flude

Last year, at this time, I was on my way to Stratford-upon-Avon Railway station, I saw the sign above sign, but had no idea what on earth a Mop was.

So I put it to the back of my mind as I took the train to Henley-in-Arden. My interest in the town began because Shakespeare was born in Henley St in Stratford, and his mother was called Mary of Arden. So, naturally, I wanted to find out about Henley-in-Arden. To turn curiosity to action, it took our Tour Coach Driver telling me he lived there and that it was a pretty but small town.

I had a free afternoon from my duties as Course Director on the ‘Best of England’ Road Scholar trip, so I got on the very slow train to Henley-in-Arden. One of the first stops was Wilmcote, where Mary Arden’s House is. I visited two years ago, when I was astonished to find it was a different building to the one I had visited in the 1990s.

In 2000, they discovered they had been showing the wrong building to visitors for years! Mary Arden’s House was, in fact, her neighbour Adam Palmer’s. And her house was Glebe Farm. On that visit, I walked from Stratford on Avon to Anne Hathaway’s Cottage then to Mary Arden’s House and back to Stratford along the Stratford Canal – a lovely walk if you are ever in the area.

The train route to Henley is through what remains of the ancient forest of Arden. The forest features in, or inspired, the woody Arcadian idylls which feature in several of Shakespeare’s plays, particularly the Comedies. ‘As You Like It’, for example, is explicitly set in the Forest of Arden, as this quotation from AYL I.i.107 makes clear:

Oliver: Where will the old Duke live?

CHARLES: They say he is already in the Forest of Arden, and a many merry men with him; and there they live like the old Robin Hood of England: they say many young gentlemen flock to him every day, and fleet the time carelessly as they did in the golden world.

Henley-in-Arden turns out to be a quintessentially English little town full of beautiful timber framed buildings and a perfect Guildhall.

Guildhall, Henley-in-Arden

Further down the road is a lovely Heritage Centre full of old-fashioned and DIY Information panels. And that is not a criticism, it provided a very enjoyable visit full of interesting stuff and which gave me a couple of snippets of information I have not seen anywhere else.

So, to get back to the signpost for the Mop, I was delighted to find a panel dedicated to the Henley Mop. A mop turns out to be a hiring fair. Think of Gabriel Oak in Hardy’s ‘Far from the Madding Crowd’. His attempt to become an independent farmer destroyed when his sheepdog runs amok and sends his sheep over a cliff to their doom. So he takes his shepherd’s crock to the hiring fair or Mop as they are known in the Midlands. There, potential employers can size up possible employees and strike mutually agreed terms and conditions. And Gabriel becomes the shepherd for the delightful and wilful Bathsheba Everdene.

So, a shepherd would take his staff, or a loop of wool; a cleaner her mop (hence the name of the fair), a waggoner a piece of whipcord, a shearer their shears etc. Similarly, in the Woodlanders (by Thomas Hardy) the cider-maker, Giles Winterborne, brings an apple tree in a tub to Sherborne, to advertise his wares.

The retainers thus employed would be given an advance and would be engaged, normally, for the year. So there was quite a widespread moving around of working people to new jobs and often new housing. Not quite how we imagine the past?

The perceptive among you will have noted the bottom of the sign in Stratford which advertised the ‘Runaway Mop’. This was held later in the year, so that employers could replace those who ran away from their contracts, and where those who ran away could find a better, kinder or more generous boss.

Henley Mop – panel from the heritage centre

Also of interest to me was the panel about Court Leets and Barons. These were the ancient courts which dealt with, respectively, crime and disorder, and property and neighbourhood disputes. Henley still has its ancient manorial systems in use, at least ceremonially. The Centre shows a video of a cigar-smoking Stetson-wearing large rich American arriving at the Guildhall to take over duties as lord of the manor after purchasing the title.

There was another panel of great interest to me as it told the history of Johnson’s Coach Company which was taking my group around England. And it was a delight to discover that it has a history that can be traced back to 1909 in Henley. I conveyed this information to our group on the following day as we toured the Cotswolds. Curtis, our driver, was able to update the panel and told us that the family were still involved with the firm, which is still operating from the area. He said the two brothers who run the company come in every working day and do everything they require of their drivers to do; i.e. they drive coaches, clean coaches, sweep the floors and generally treat their staff like part of a big family. I should have asked him whether he got his job at the Mop, while holding a steering wheel in his hands!

Johnson’s Coach Company -Panel from Henley Heritage Centre

First published in 2023 updated 2024

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Hardy’s Henge Given Protected Status

Through the window of Hardy’s Max Gate house, you can see a Prehistoric Sarsen Stone, originally part of a neolithic stone circle or henge. (bottom right window pane, top left corner). Photo: Kevin Flude

Author of ‘Tess of the d’Urbervilles’ Thomas Hardy was an architect and designed his own house. During the work on Max Gate, the builders came across a large block of sandstone of the type called ‘Sarsen’ at Stonehenge. Hardy, who loved history, had it relocated into his garden and called it his ‘druid stone’. One of the most famous scenes in Tess is when she is sleeping on the Altar Stone at Stonehenge as the Police move in to arrest her for murder. Hardy loved history, and how glad he would have been to know his house was in the middle of an important Henge. The Altar Stone, by the way, has very recently been discovered to be from Scotland. A discovery that confirms that Stonehenge was an immensely important site in the Neolithic and Bronze Age.

Sarsens at Max Gate
Sarsen stone at Max Gate (photo Kevin Flude)
Sarsen stone at Max Gate
Sarsen stone at Max Gate (Photo Kevin Flude

Hardy’s Henge (aka Flagstones) turns out to be older than Stonehenge. In the 1982, a geophysical survey in advance of the Dorchester Bypass, found evidence of a circular enclosure outside Hardy’s house. But there was an excavation in 1987-8 which discovered a large circular bank, 100m in diameter, from the Neolithic period. The other half of Flagstones, is largely preserved beneath Max Gate, and has now been official listed and therefore protected. The excavations suggested a date of construction of 3,000 BC, about the time of Stonehenge’s first construction.

Max Gate, Hardy’s House on the outskirts of Dorchester, Dorset. Photo Kevin Flude

In 2022, targeted excavation designed to explore the other half of the circle revealed further dating evidence that proposes it was built 500 years before Stonehenge, earlier than 3,500BC, making it one of the earliest in the South West. It was giving listed protection on the August 19th, 2024.

The enclosure consists of a single ring of unevenly spaced pits, forming an interrupted ditch system roughly circular, but the dating evidence does not prove that this circuit was built before 3,500 BC, but shows there was a neolithic presence on the site at an early date. Burials were found in the bottom of the pits forming the enclosure and in four of the pits were found markings on the lower pit walls cut by flint forming pictograms of varying forms from curvilinear, to linear. There was little activity in the Late Neolithic and the site seems to have been reused for funerary and ‘other practices’ during the Bronze, Iron Ages and Roman period.

The site is built on a ridge parallel with the River Frome. Dorchester is another ‘ritual landscape’ like Stonehenge, where there are a cluster of important Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments. In the centre of the Town, a couple of miles from Max Gate, was found evidence of a massive wooden circle. The postholes are found marked on the floor of the town centre car-park as shown below. The Great Henge is 360m in diameter, covering much of the much later Town Centre and built in around 2100 BC.

Neolithic Circle in Dorcester (photo Kevin Flude)

Just outside of Dorchester is a Roman Amphitheatre which began life as another Neolithic circular enclosure with an external bank, and an inner Ditch in which were dug 44 tapering pits, up to 10m in depth. Antler picks, chalk objects, including chalk phalluses, were found.

Maumbury Rings – Neolithic Enclosure, Roman Amphitheatre, place of execution, Civil War defense, and fictional meeting place of the Mayor of Casterbridge and his estranged wife, Susan Newson (or Henchard!)

A few miles away, at the Iron Age Hill Fort of Maiden Castle, is a Neolithic Causewayed Enclosure.

Maiden Castle. Iron Age Hillfort. the East End was originally a Neolithic Causewayed Enclosure

Together, with evidence from Stonehenge, Avebury, Heathrow and elsewhere shows a clustering of ritual places in important landscapes, which suggests, possible evidence of regional organisation. Stonehenge, however, continues to lead the way for evidence of an importance that drew people, or objects from not only England, Scotland and Wales, but also from the continent.

For further details of the Flagstones listing and excavation, here is the official listing document:

https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1489792?section=official-list-entry

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First & Last Coal-fired Power Stations September 30th 2024

Holborn Edison Electric Light Station

Today, Britain’s last coal-powered power station generated its final watt of electricity.  Ratcliffe-on-Stour’s closure means Britain is the first country to meet its target of phasing out coal.

The Nottingham power station opened in 1968, and once employed over 3000 people.

For more details follow this link https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/sep/30/end-of-an-era-as-britains-last-coal-fired-power-plant-shuts-down

The first coal-fired power station in Britain was at Holborn Viaduct in London, opened as the Edison Electric Light Station on 12th January 1882.

The power was generated by a steam engine powered by coal.  The electricity powered incandescent electric carbon-filament lights which lit up 986 lights to illuminate the road from Holborn Viaduct to St Martin’s-le-Grande.  The light bulb was invented 3 years previously. 

The number of lights was soon increased to 3,000. But the Station made a loss and was closed down 2 years later. The lights converted to gas.  The building was destroyed in the Blitz.

A couple of miles to the East, in 1895, the Shoreditch Electric Light Station was established.   It used waste to produce electricity and steam for the local public baths.  The generating and combustion chambers, now houses a Circus School which my children attended.

It was officially opened by Lord Kelvin, the famous physicist in 1897. The Consulting Engineer was Edward Manville who came up with a scheme for a ‘dust destructor’; an electricity generating station; a public bath heated by the waste heat from the generator; a library and museum.  It cost 200,000 pounds.  In 1899, in nearby Nile Street, the Shoreditch Vestry Council set up the first municipal housing scheme powered by electricity.

This level of enterprise by a local council seems like a fantasy of a distant past but also, given the sustainability of the project unbelievably modern.

The motto on the side of the Power Station was ‘Light and Power from Dust’. The scheme was run by the local vestry council which adopted the motto ‘More Light, More Power’. This was also adopted by the new municipal Borough of Shoreditch when it was formed as part of the new London County Council.  The Power Station was renamed as the rather wonderful: Shoreditch Borough Refuse Destructor and Generating Station and adorned with the motto: PULVERE LUX ET VIS ‘Out of the dust, light and power’.

The story of the dust destructor and the generating station is told in some detail here and well worth a read.

Municipal Electricity in Shoreditch: ‘More Light, More Power’

I will add a few more pictures once off the train.

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William the Bastard invades England September 28th 1066

Bayeux Tapestry, Harold with moustache swearing an oath, William with pudding basin haircut sitting down at left.

Harold II was scurrying south after almost annihilating the Viking army of Harold Hardrada, when he heard news that the Normans had landed at Pevensey. (see my post (battle-of-stamford-bridge-september-25th-1066)

William was an unlikely Duke because it is very rare for illegitimate children to take the title of their father. It was normally not even considered as an option. A legitimate cousin or uncle would be chosen instead.  But he not only got the title and survived many rebellions, but was known as the William the Bastard

He came to England in 1051 to see his distant cousin Edward the Confessor, who was the son of the English King Aethelred the Redeless (the Ill advised – more often called ‘the Unready) and Emma of Normandy.  Edward, whose marriage to Emma was not great, insofar as both made claims to be holy virgins, had no children and, according to William, offered the throne to him.

Did he, though? The Pope agreed he did.  William claimed that Harold of England agreed too. And not only that, but he agreed under Holy Oath.

The Bayeaux Tapestry, shows Harold making an oath with his hands on holy relics. But British Historians see it as inadmissible as it either never happened or, if it did, then it was not freely given as Harold had been detained on a visit in 1064 and was probably never going to get home until he took the oath.

They also say that Harold was the legitimate King because he was elected as was traditional by the Witanagemote, the King’s Council.

But was he really? He had no English Royal blood in him, only a very distant touch of Danish royalty on his mum’s side.  It is true the Witan elected Kings and often did not choose the first in line but preferred the best suited candidate be he brother, cousin or uncle. But Harold was only the brother of the King’s wife, no royal blood there.  However, Harold was so powerful that he would have prepared the ground for his election irrespective of whether this was the freely given choice of the Witan. His father, Earl Godwin, had been a disloyal and over mighty subject of King Edward, but had prepared the way for Harold to be virtual ruler of the country long before the King died.

So, there was plenty of scope for a contested succession. Harold was the English contestant who had already defeated the Norwegian claimant. Now, he was rushing to put to rest the Norman claim.

William had begun by getting Pope Alexander II’s blessing and with that, spent 10 months planning the invasion. He recruited adventurers from Normandy, France, Brittany, and Flanders. His allies collected boats for the invasion, while William had hundreds of new boats built, using thousands of carpenters, metalworkers, carters etc and cutting down a vast number of trees. 

The boats were ready by 12 August near Caen on the River Dives.  They set sail, but contrary winds blew them into Saint Valery-sur-Seine.  Winds in the summer are usually blowing south on that coast, and William had a long, frustrating wait for a north wind.

Meanwhile, Harold was waiting with his army and a 400 ship navy at his manor of Bosham on the South Coast.  Then he heard about the Norwegian invasion of the north and calculating that it was getting too late in the year for William to risk invasion, decided, on September 18th to go North with his army, which was the more immediate risk to his throne.

Map of the the progress of William;s fleet. Opinion suggests landing was on 28th September 1066

On September 27th, the north winds blew, the Normans embarked, and on the 28th of September William and his boat, given as a present to him by his wife, found themselves alone in the Channel off the English coast.

After an anxious wait, the rest of the fleet was spotted sailing towards William.  They landed at Pevensey.  Built a castle at Hastings and proceeded to ravage the land of Harold’s homeland. Harold had by now destroyed the Norwegian threat at Stamford Bridge on 25th September, and was marching South when he heard William had landed.

To be continued

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‘Crack Me This Nut’ Play performed at the Rose in Southwark September 25th 1595

List of plays performed in February 1596 by the Admiral’s Men

‘Crack me this Nut’ was performed by the Admiral’s Men at the Rose Theatre in Southwark, London. One of the dates it was performed was on September 25th 1595, and as you can see, above, it was also performed on February 7th 1596.

The play was performed 16 times in all, then sold by Edward Alleyn. Sadly, no one knows what it was about. It might relate to the sense of our phrase ‘a tough nut to crack.’ You can find the other dates it was performed, and the income generated in this blog from Henslowe’s papers.

The list of February dates for the Admiral’s Men is from my dossier for my Shakespeare’s London walks. I’m not entirely sure of the book I photocopied it from, but it derives from the wonderful archive of Philip Henslowe and his leading actor Edward Alleyn. Henslowe’s records were stored in a locked trunk for 260 years.

Last year, marked the completion of the project to bring this archive to the public. The Henslowe-Alleyn Digitisation project. As well as digitising the Archive, elements that had been separated from the original archive have been brought back, so the greatest archive of information on the Shakespearean theatre is now unified and available. It is an immense bit of news for the Shakespeare industry.

I searched the archive for ‘Crack me this nut’ but their search engine searches for anything that mentions ANY of the words, and as the word ‘this’ is in virtually everything in the archive, the search is effectively useless. Putting ‘Crack me this nut’ in quotes does not help. I have emailed them!

A subscriber sent me another link which has various speculations, and the following entry.  For more read https://lostplays.folger.edu/Crack_Me_This_Nut

Master Ponsonby. Entred for his copie vnder the hands of the Wardens A booke
Intitled The Paragon of pleasaunt histories . . . vjd
Or this Nutt was neuer Cracked Contayninge a Discourse of a
nobl[e] kinge and his Three sonnes /


(S.R.1, 3.57 / Fol. 7)

This raises a possibility that it was not a comedy but a history or a tragedy.

I often use this list of plays performed in February 1596 in the walks and lectures I give on Shakespeare. It shows you how hard-working Shakespeare’s contemporaries were. The actor’s companies were essentially small repertory companies. This list shows that the Admiral’s Men performed 14 different plays, if I count correctly, in the short month of February. Moreover, the list is from a winter month. Now, the guides at the rebuilt Globe tell you the Shakespearian Playhouses were used in the Summer. No! This was deep winter and 23 performances in an outdoor theatre in February! Imagine what a modern actor would think of that work load.

A badly photocopied page of the archive.

First published on February 7th 2023, and revised and republished on September 25th 2024

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St Matthews Day September 21st

Christ’s Hospital from Wikipedia

In the City of London, this was the day that they elected Governors to Christ’s Hospital, it was followed by a service at Christchurch attended by Aldermen, Sheriffs, the Lord Mayor and a procession of the children attending the school. 

Christ’s Hospital was founded in 1552 by a settlement arranged by Edward VI after the Reformation.  The abolition of the Monasteries by Henry VIII caused a huge problem for the City of London with the destruction of education and social services managed by monks and nuns.  Henry VIII had already re-established St Bartholomew’s to look after the Poor Sick in the City.  Edward established three Royal Hospitals to sort out additional problems.  Bridewell Hospital became an orphanage and place of correction for wayward women.  St Thomas Hospital for the homeless and poor sick of South London. Christ’s Hospital was to provide schooling.  The school was originally near Newgate and Christchurch Church which was originally the Choir of the Greyfriars Church.

The school was set up in 1552 and was for boys and girls.   The Mathematical School was added in the late 17th Century to provide navigation skills for sailors.

In 1815 a shocking event took place. An MP named Sir Eyre Coote entered the Mathematical school.  He shooed  the younger boys away but paid the older ones to participate in mutual flogging. He was discovered by the school nurse doing up his breeches.  George Cruikshank, a vaunted caricaturist, created a cartoon of the occasion, and it is extraordinary how it was treated far from seriously.  In 2016 former pupils opened up about historic sexual abuse leading to the prosecution of 6 teachers.

Cruikshank Cartoon

The blue-coated boys of Christ’s Hospital, eventually moved to Hertford but are now in Horsham.  They maintain their City affiliation and still come to the City on or around St Matthews Day and take part in the Lord Mayor’s Show.  The school is a public school but has a large percentage of its students funded by bursaries. 

For more information look here: https://blogs.bl.uk/untoldlives/2015/09/st-matthews-day.html

Also on St Matthews Day, the historic Bush Hotel in Farnham distributed bread to the poor.  This began in 1660 a local benefactor bequeathed one pound annually to pay for the bread.

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Partial Eclipse September 18th 2024

Loughcrew Neolithic carvings.

September 17th/18th sees a partial lunar eclipse. In London, the peak of the eclipse will be visible around 3:45 a.m. BST on September 18, while it was on the 17th September in the USA.. And it’s also a supermoon when the moon is at its closest to the Earth.. Sorry, you are unlikely to get this on time!

Could ancient people’s predict eclipses? Well, lunar eclipses are relatively easy to predict, while solar eclipses are difficult. But it is likely that Babylonian and Assyrians astronomers could. Have a look at https://www.queensu.ca/gazette/stories/eclipses-were-once-associated-death-kings-attempting-predict-played-key-role-birth for more details,

There are plenty of people who believe that eclipses can be predicted by Stonehenge. And it certainly can be used that way, but this doesn’t mean it was. A series of stones, and posts in concentric circles with sight lines to innumerable features on the horizon offers many ways of making calculations which combined with observations over a long period COULD predict, predictable celestial phenomena. Doesn’t mean they were. So it is very difficult to say what they were capable of, and only the most obvious alignments can be certainly confirmed.

This Washington Post article below suggests the Loughcrew Cairns near Dublin were built about the time of a total eclipse, and that one of the stones with complicated carvings on may show a lunar eclipse. If you look at the sketch of the stone above, you will see the biggest circle, near the middle, may represent the moon, and it obscures the circle behind it which may represent the sun. Read this for the details: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/08/18/this-5000-year-old-stone-carving-may-be-the-worlds-first-drawing-of-an-eclipse/

What is striking is how can they say it was built around the time of a total eclipse and make that seem significant because there is no way archaeological dating is accurate enough to give any idea whether it was built for a particular day. Also, there are many more circles and objects on the large stone, and to pick two out to prove what you want it to prove, is not proof. We are left with the intriguing possibility, but it is no more than that.

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John Goodricke and the Variable Star. September 17th 1764

What I really admire are people who, through their sheer brain power, can change our views of the world.  The first example that comes to mind is Newton’s insight that if the universe were infinite, the night sky would not be dark as everywhere there would be tiny pinpricks of starlight.  So, we don’t live in a infinite universe. Another one is Einstein’s thought experiment that proves that time is relative. But see below for a description of that. 

But now to Goodricke.

Yesterday in York, near the Minster, I saw the blue sign above, which I read and thought, what on earth are ‘variable stars’?  Behind me, I heard two women say something like. ‘Here it is,”variable stars”‘.  I turned around and asked them what was a variable star?

‘Donno’ they said, ‘we’ve ‘just doing this escape room walk around York.’  They showed me a booklet they had received on the internet, which was what I would call a treasure trail.  But no, they insisted, ‘this is an escape room adventure where we collect clues to decipher the code to escape’.

Such is the modern tourist!  Sadly, they showed no interest in finding out what a variable star is!

Aristotle and ancient philosophers held that the universe was unchanging and eternal. The first breach in that theory was the identification in 1638 of star Omicron Ceti by Johannes Holwarda who discovered that the start pulsed on an 11 month cycle.  This and the discovery, of supernovae (first observed in 1572), proved that the ‘The starry sky was not eternally invariable’.

John Goodricke was educated at Thomas Braidwood‘s Academy, school for deaf pupils in Edinburgh, and Warrington Academy. He returned to live with his parents who rented an apartment at the Treasurer’s Hall, near the Minister in York, and used a friend’s personal observatory to look for variable stars. He found two of the first 10, and was the first to propose a solution, which was that two stars orbited each other causing eclipses between them and the observer, and thus creating a variation in the light emitted. To be able to extrapolate from a simple observation and provide an explanation which necessitates a complete rethink about the nature of the universe seems, to me, to be awesome.

Back to Einstein, his thought experiment was something like this:

A train is travelling through a station. There is an observer on the train towards the front, another on the platform as the train goes through. There are two simultaneous lighting strikes at either end of the train. The observer on the platform sees the strikes as simultaneous as she is in the middle between the two lighting strkes and light travels at the same speed. The observer on the train who is near the front of the train will see the lighting strike at the front of the train before the light from the back of the train can reach him as it has further to go.

This is mind-boggling, and I’m never sure what to make of it but it means that time is not a constant it is relative to the observer. And yet, we see time as a constant, something that remorselessly ticks forward and which we cannot alter. But it isn’t.

For a better explanation, see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativity_of_simultaneity

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The Ultimate RAF London Blitz Story September 15th 1940

Black and white photo from a german plane above another german bomber over docklands in the Blitz

On September 15th 1940 Ray Holmes, World War 2 RAF Pilot, flying a Hurricane, took on three Luftwaffe Bombers over Central London.  He shot one down, chased another off and engaged the third which seemed to be heading for Buckingham Palace. Between the 8th and 13th of September 1940, the Palace had been hit 5 times. The London Blitz had only ‘begun’ on September 7th though the first raid on the City of London was on the 25th August on Fore Street.

Holmes, by now had ran out of bullets, but deliberately targeted the fin of the Dornier bomber, and crashed into it causing the bomber to spiral down into Victoria Station. Holmes’ hurricane, spiralled down out of control, but he was able to bail out and landed in a dustbin, much to the bemusement of the locals. Holmes died aged 90 in 2005.

This post is heavily based on the story below, which is told in full detail.

https://www.mylondon.news/news/nostalgia/battle-britain-fighter-pilot-who-19963243

Al;so on September 26th – The Mayflower sails from Plymouth, finally getting away from the Old World for the New World. 1620

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The Queensberry House Cannibal, Inspector Rebus and the Scottish Referendum September 11th 1997

Queensberry House to the right, with the Scottish Parliament in the background. Royal Mile, Cannongate in the foreground. (Photo: K. Flude)

I am working on a booklist for Edinburgh, one of my favourite towns, and this was to be my Edinburgh Booklist post. But the first book has expanded to fill the space.

It is by Ian Rankin and one of the Inspector Rebus series. What makes Rankin a great crime writer is how the author makes Edinburgh central to the story. It adds realism to his stories and as you read the stories you enjoy learning about Edinburgh, its cultural, its history, its people, its streets and its topography. And get insights into Edinburgh’s moods.

Model of the Scottish Parliament, with Queensberry House in the bottome right hand corner.

I haven’t read all the Rebus books but the one I want to feature is ‘Set in Darkness’ published in 2000.  It is set in the period immediately after the success of the Scottish Referendum to set up a Scottish Parliament. The story also takes us back to 1979 when the first Scottish Referendum ‘failed’.

It begins with a body found in Queensbury House, which is being preserved and incorporated into the new Scottish Parliament buildings.

Scottish Parliament Building (photo by the author)

This setting was suggested by the well-known tale of the Queensberry House Cannibal; James Douglas the 3rd Marquess of Queensberry and, for a time, the Earl of Drumlanrig. On the day, in 1707, that the Scottish Parliament agreed to disband itself and voted for an Act of Union with the United Kingdom, the young Lord was left alone in Queensbury House with no one to look after him, except a kitchen boy. James had mental issues, and when the adults came home, they discovered him eating the kitchen boy whom Douglas had spit-roasted in the oven. The ghost of the boy is said to haunt the house. Or so the story goes.  It’s always treated as a true story, but there is a suspicion it was a black calumny on those who agreed to the end of the Scottish Parliament.

For more on the event, look here. As you can see, Rankin’s book is keyed into Edinburgh’s deep history as well as contemporary political events.

So, as today (11th September 1997) is the anniversary of the day the Scots voted Yes to a restoration of its Parliament, let’s have a look at the long history of devolution. We will take the story backwards.

The referendum asked the Scots two questions. The first was: did they support a separate Parliament for Scotland? The second. Should it have the power to vary levels of taxation? 74.3% voted yes to the Parliament, and 63.5% voted yes for powers of taxation. On the 1st July 1999 the Scottish Parliament was set up by the Blair Government.

In 1979, the Scottish Act set up a referendum for a Scottish assembly.  It was won with a majority of 52%, but an amendment to the Act had a stipulation that there had to be a vote of at least  40% of the registered electorate for the vote to succeed. It won only 32% of the 62% turnout so failed. (if only Cameron had done something similar for the Brexit Referendum!).

So it would be another almost 20 years before the Scots got their own debating chamber.

The Scots lost their Parliament on the 1st May 1707 when the Act of Union with England was enacted.  The Scottish Parliament had been in existence since the early 13th Century.  The Scots had no House of Commons, but its unicameral Parliament had representatives from the Three Estates: prelates representing the Church; Aristocrats representing the nobility, and Burgh Commissioners representing the Towns.  Later, Shire Commissioners were added to represent the countryside.

The decision to disband the Parliament of Scotland was very controversial, and blamed on the self-interest of the Nobility against the wishes of the people. Scotland had lost out on the huge profits being made by the Empire by England, excluded as the Scots were by the Navigation Acts from trading freely within the British Empire. So the Scots set up their own  Company of Scotland Trading to Africa and the Indies which invested in the disastrous  Darién scheme, The idea was to build a colony on the Isthmus of Panama.  80% of the participants in the settlement died, and the 20% of Scottish wealth which was invested in the scheme was lost. Many of the Scottish members of Parliament lost money in the Scheme and compensation and bribery offered by the English encouraged the Parliamentarians to accept the advantages of free trade within the British Empire and to join the Westminster Parliament

In 1603, the Scottish and English monarchies joined in the person of James VI of Scotland and James 1st of England on the death of his childless aunt, Queen Elizabeth 1. But the Scots kept their own Parliament and legal system. There were attempts to bring a closer Union, but these all failed until 1707.

The original Scottish Parliament

How the Scottish Parliament works

(My post on poetry on the wall of the Scottish Parliament)