Edinburgh E-Book

Donald Smith

• Herausgeber: Luath Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 269

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Celebrating its 900th year, Edinburgh is an unrivalled theatre of story. In this commemorative book, Donald Smith unravels the city's storytelling evolution across the centuries, illustrated with vivid detail by Cat Outram.  How did Edinburgh get its name?   What gives the city its unique character?  Why do nation and planet come together here?  How did Edinburgh become the city of literature, and a Festival city?  Which books have made the most impact? Through its nine official centuries Edinburgh has thrived on books, words and ideas. Everyone who loves Edinburgh will love Donald Smith's exploration of this storied town, as will anyone interested in how place shapes people  and people, place. 

Leseprobe

DONALD SMITH is a storyteller of Scotland and noted performer. Inspired by his time at the School of Scottish Studies in Edinburgh, where he researched the pioneer feminist Naomi Mitchison, Donald became Director of The Netherbow Arts Centre and founding Director of the Scottish Storytelling Centre. In 2023 he received the Hamish Henderson Award for lifetime service to the Scottish arts. He is a longstanding activist in Earth Charter International, and co-founder of The Earth Stories Collection.

By the same author:

The Scottish Stage: A National Theatre Company for Scotland, Candlemaker Press, 1994

The Edinburgh Old Town Pilgrim’s Way, John Pearson Publishing, 1995

John Knox House: Gateway to Edinburgh’s Old Town, John Donald Publishing, 1996

Celtic Travellers, Stationery Office, 1997

Storytelling Scotland:A Nation in Narrative, Polygon, 2001

The English Spy, Luath Press, 2007

God, the Poet, and the Devil: Robert Burns and Religion, Saint Andrew Press, 2008

Between Ourselves, Luath Press, 2009

That Was Now, Scottish Arts Council, 2009

Arthur’s Seat, with Stuart McHardy, Luath Press, 2012

Ballad of the Five Marys, Luath Press, 2013

Calton Hill with Stuart McHardy, Luath Press, 2013

Freedom and Faith: A Question of Scottish Identity, Saint Andrew Press, 2013

Edinburgh Old Town, with John Fee, Luath Press, 2014

Scotland’s Democracy Trail, with Stuart McHardy, Luath Press, 2014

A Pilgrim Guide to Scotland, Saint Andrew Press, 2015

Flora McIvor, Luath Press, 2017

Travelling the Tweed Dales, with Elspeth Turner, Luath Press, 2018

Wee Folk Tales in Scots, Luath Press, 2018

Folk Tales from the Garden, The History Press, 2021

Storm and Shore: A Bardsaga, Luath Press, 2022

Saut an Bluid: A Scotsaga, Luath Press, 2022

CONTRIBUTOR: A History of Scottish Theatre, Mainstream; Scotland: A Concise Cultural History, Mainstream; Scottish Life and Society, European Ethnology Centre; Edinburgh Companion to Twentieth Century Scottish Literature,EUP; Edinburgh Companion to Scottish Drama,EUP; The Earth Stories Collection, Asociacion Avalon Project and Oxford Companion to Scottish Theatre,OUP.

PLAYS: The Blue Blanket, 1987; Farewell Miss Julie Logan, 2000; Memory Hill, 2002; Cradle King, 2003 and 2016; The Death of Arthur, 2006; Kidnapped: When Kilts Were Banned, 2007–16; Home to Neverland, 2007–10; Jekyll and Hyde: A Specimen, 2008 and 2017, Burns Roughcut, 2010–16; Leaving Iona, 2014; Playing Lear, 2016; The Laird’s Big Breaxit, 2018; Tour to the Hebrides, 2020; The Laird Strikes Back, 2021.

First published 2024

ISBN: 978-1-80425-183-6

The author’s right to be identified as author of this book under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 has been asserted.

Typeset in 11 point Sabon by

Main Point Books, Edinburgh

text © Donald Smith 2024

illustrations © Cat Outram 2024

Contents

Map

Preface and Acknowledgements

Introduction

ONE Time Before Time: Myth and Legend

Oral tradition and sacred landscape · Tennoch, Triduana and Margaret · Earliest literature · Arthur and The Gododdin · History and legend

TWO Measuring Time: Chronicle and Saga

Early Chronicles · The Canmore master narrative · A European, Christian nation · David I and the Crusades · Norse Sagas · Thomas the Rhymer and Alexander III’s tragic end

THREE The 14th Century: Epic and Romance

A national crisis in prose and poetry · Extended struggle and the wheel of fortune · The Brus and The Scotichronicon raise literary achievement and ambition

FOUR The 15th Century: Poetry and Song

Scotland’s first Renaissance · Three Poet Kings · Robert Henryson · The Ballads and Blind Harry’s The Wallace · Gavin Douglas · Comic Tales · Poetic flytings

FIVE The 16th Century: History and Drama

The arts and disciplines of history · Hector Boece, John Knox and George Buchanan · David Lindsay, playwright and reformer · The Reformation and Mary Queen of Scots

SIX The 17th Century: Other Worlds

The Union of the Crowns and absentee kings · William Drummond and Ben Jonson · Wars of Religion · Literature in retreat and escape · Women’s Voices · Puritans and Royalists · Montrose and Thomas Urquhart · The first novels

SEVEN The 18th Century: Philosophers, Poets and Patriots

The Union of the Parliaments and the Jacobite Risings · The second Renaissance and the Enlightenment · Allan Ramsay · David Hume · Adam Smith · John Home’s Douglas and James Macpherson’s Ossian · James Boswell. Robert Fergusson · Robert Burns and Agnes Maclehose in Edinburgh

EIGHT The 19th Century: A Sense of Change

Walter Scott, poet, novelist and biographer · James Hogg in dissent · A new master narrative and the national drama · Thomas Carlyle, prophet, novelist and biographer · Margaret Oliphant, novelist, critic and biographer · RL Stevenson, home and away

NINE The 20th and 21st Centuries: City of Stage and Page

JM Barrie and Peter Pan · World War I · Patrick Geddes and new Enlightenment · Hugh MacDiarmid, Sorley MacLean and the third Renaissance · World War II and the Edinburgh Festivals · Culture and politics · Devolution and the Scottish Parliament · City of Literature · Poetry in stone and bronze

Conclusion

Timeline

Further Reading

Endnotes

For Alison

We twa hae rin aboot the braes

An pou’ed the gowans fine

Princes Street and New Town

A1 Playhouse Theatre

A2 Calton Hill

A3 Old Royal High School

A4 Burns Monument

A5 Calton Burial Ground

A6 Top of Leith Walk

A7 Sherlock Holmes statue

A8 Scottish National Portrait Gallery

A9 Elm Row – site of Gateway Theatre

A10 Old GPO – site of Theatre Royal

A11 Waverley Station

A12 Scott Monument

A13 National Gallery of Scotland

A14 Allan Ramsay statue (foot of Mound)

A15 17 Heriot Row – RL Stevenson birthplace

A16 39 North Castle Street – Sir Walter Scott’s House

A17 St Cuthbert’s Church

A18 Charlotte Square

A19 Royal Lyceum Theatre

Southside

B1 George Square

B2 Charles Street – site of Paperback Bookshop

B3 McEwan Hall

B4 Futures Institute Quartermile

B5 Meadows

B6 Bruntsfield Links – site of Muriel Spark’s school

B7 Kings Theatre

B8 Sandy Bells Bar

B9 Greyfriars Kirkyard

B10 Old College – site of Kirk O’ Field

B11 Festival Theatre

B12 Surgeons Hall

B13 Potterow/Nicolson Square – site of Clarinda’s house

B14 Sciennes Hill Place – Adam Ferguson’s House

B15 Pleasance Theatre

B16 St John’s Hill – site of James Hutton’s house

Old Town/Royal Mile

C1 Edinburgh Castle – St Margaret’s Chapel

C2 Scottish National War Memorial

C3 Ramsay Gardens

C4 Outlook Tower

Edinburgh Festival Hub

The General Assembly Hall

Riddle’s Court

Gladstone’s Land

St James’ Court – site of Traverse

Theatre Club

Makars Court

C5 The Writers Museum

C6 National Library of Scotland

C7 Central Library

C8 David Hume Statue

C9 St Giles Cathedral

Site of ‘Heart of Midlothian’

John Knox’s Grave – lot 23 Parliament Square

C10 Adam Smith Statue

C11 Tron Square – west side – site of George Buchanan’s house

C12 Fleshmarket Close

C13 Carrubber’s Close – site of Allan Ramsay’s Theatre

John Knox House

Scottish Book Trust

Patrick Geddes Sculpture (Sandeman House Garden)

C14 Blackfriars Street

Site of Chepman and Myllar’s printers – foot of Blackfriars Street

C15 Site of The Netherbow Port

C16 Tweeddale Court

C17 The Saltire Society

C18 Chessel’s Court

C19 Moray House – site of Canongate Playhouse

C20 Canongate Kirkyard

Robert Fergusson Sculpture

C21 Scottish Poetry Library

C22 Scottish Parliament

Wall of Quotes

C23 Holyroodhouse Palace

C24 Holyrood Abbey

C25 St Margaret’s Well

Preface and Acknowledgements

Edinburgh: Our Storied Town has been written as a contribution to the 900th anniversary of Edinburgh as a royal burgh in 2024, which also marks 20 years since the city became the world’s first UNESCO City of Literature. Edinburgh is a unique, creative place, a prime focus for Scotland’s literature, history and culture. This book weaves all these threads into one narrative tapestry. I would like to thank the teams behind both anniversaries for their support, as well as all at Luath Press, my wonderful illustrator, Cat Outram, and my colleagues at the Scottish International Storytelling Festival, TRACS and Festivals Edinburgh, without whom this book could not have happened.

Sources in copyright used with permission and under Fair Dealing rules are endnoted. Out-of-copyright quotations are drawn from open sources, principally Project Gutenburg and the Internet Archive. Scots orthography has been adapted for accessibility and Latin and Gaelic texts re-translated. I also acknowledge the superb research on Scottish Literature carried out in the last 50 years. You will find more information about these studies, anthologies and editions in the Further Reading section at the end of the book.

I have learned a lot from this research, but even more from writers, storytellers, adaptors, actors, radio producers and filmmakers in my 50 years of association with the Scottish Storytelling Centre, formerly The Netherbow, in Edinburgh. Through creative media, I have explored many of the texts and authors discussed here. Sometimes I feel they have become familiar friends, who have deepened my own sense of life and its challenges. My hope is that you might feel equally enriched.

Every so often you hit on a book that changes the way you look at things. Scottish writers are a diverse, forward-thinking community and in writing this book my thoughts have been changed by John MacQueen’s Ballatis of Luve (Edinburgh University Press, 1970); George Davie’s The Scottish Enlightenment with a foreword by James Kelman (Polygon, 1990); Sorley MacLean: Critical Essays edited by Raymond J Ross and Joy Hendry (Scottish Academic Press, 1986), DER Watt’s selections from Walter Bower in A History Book for Scots (Birlinn, 2019); Elizabeth Jay’s Mrs Oliphant: A Fiction to Herself (Clarendon Press, 1995); Kate Phillips’ Bought & Sold: Scotland, Jamaica and Slavery (Luath Press, 2022) and David Pollock’s Edinburgh’s Festivals: A Biography (Luath Press, 2023). All of these books throw new light on important subjects, and I am grateful for their insights.

Introduction

THIS BOOK IS an invitation to explore. It is for readers, writers and all those who are interested in how those activities interact with a sense of place. Anyone who loves Edinburgh should also dip in, because through its nine official centuries, this city has thrived on books, words and ideas. In times of change and crisis the distinction between a Scottish writer and one distinctive to Edinburgh and the eastern Lowlands becomes blurred. At different points, I cover both to make sense of the overall picture.

Edinburgh is much older than 900 years, but 1124 marks the first document which confirms its status as a royal burgh. It is an interesting date, coinciding with the growth of written literature and the start of Edinburgh’s journey towards becoming Scotland’s capital.

The city’s character is, however, founded on something more fundamental and prehistoric – its geology. This contributes not only the castle rock, which provided an ancient fortress, but the compact identity of a town which rests on an extinct volcano. The result combines surprising vistas with a diversity of intimate nooks and crannies, within metres of each other.

Architects have revelled in this urban identity, creating indoor and outdoor spaces that foster sociability, while also harbouring privacy. And that is how culture bubbles up with congenial possibilities for sharing ideas and experiences, alongside places for solitary reflections and dreams.

Edinburgh: Our Storied Town works broadly by centuries, but within each time period there is a focus on different forms of literature, and on some individual writers as artistic characters of continuing interest. The book is not a history lesson, though key background events are described. Rather, it engages with writers and texts that deserve to be read, without presuming prior knowledge. In reading, you join a continuing story which is still being created across the centuries. Literature is not trapped in the present tense.

Through many of these past centuries, women were not encouraged to be public writers. In some periods, repressive patriarchy persecuted women, yet in each century significant women have played a part. This is especially true of the earliest cultural layers, but a submerged richness of female voices continues as an integral part of the narrative until women claimed their equal public place to the huge benefit of literature.

Edinburgh’s long literary heritage is visible in the city, and I reference this throughout the text. You could walk the book through Edinburgh, and stumble on new points of interest in a poetry of stone and bronze. The map and Timeline provide some additional prompts. Like Edinburgh’s geology, this story has, thankfully, no prospect of an ending, though difficult challenges lie ahead for a city poised between land and sea.

ONE

Time Before Time: Myth and Legend

Sacred Landscape

LONG BEFORE EDINBURGH was accredited as a royal burgh, there was a fortress and settlement on the Castle Rock. The first name that has come down to us for this place is Din Eidyn, the fort of Eidyn. Who was Eidyn? God, king, hero, giant? We do not know, but the language is Cymric – what might now be called Old Welsh. Eidyn’s fort was in the Celtic kingdom of Gododdin, which had come to terms with the Roman Province of Britannia, whose shifting northern frontier eventually settled at Hadrian’s Wall.

Above Din Eidyn was what we now call Arthur’s Seat. Again we are in a realm of gods and heroes, not medieval knights or holy grails. Like Benarty in Fife or Ben Arthur in Argyll, the rocky summit was literally a seat where the god could touch the heavens, especially, in Arthur’s case, the Bear star, Arcturus. Like a hibernating bear, Arthur still sleeps below his mountains, waiting on the call to rescue his people.

So, remarkably, a sacred landscape sits in the centre of Edinburgh, with its hilltop seat and ascending terraces still visible. Beneath them is the holy water of Duddingston Loch – Trefyr Lin in Cymric – the settlement by the loch. Weapons and other metal offerings were cast in to the water as sacrifices, foreshadowing the myth of Arthur’s sword Excalibur. The medieval Duddingston Kirk still looks over the loch from what is likely an ancient religious site.

In general, our oldest folklore is about how the landscape was formed. The forces of volcanic fire and then grinding ice which shaped Edinburgh are represented in this lore by a mother goddess or Cailleach (Carlin in Scots) and her rock-chucking giant children. Tradition tells us that this formidable giantess ‘let fart Berwick Law’!

Later theories became more refined, but the core drama remains as land and sea, islands and hills, meet in a unique terrain. Arthur’s Seat, the Castle Crag and Calton Hill are remnants of one huge volcano worn down by the ice. To the east, Traprain Law, formerly Dunpelder, and North Berwick Law stand proud on the coastal plain below the long, low range of the Moorfoot and Lammermuir hills. Seawards, Inchkeith, the Bass Rock and May Isle, which sits in the mouth of what was called the Scottish Sea, are prominent. To the north, the Lomonds’ twin peaks – the Paps o Fife – complete the ensemble. From another angle, Edinburgh juts into the sea with Leith at its head, as if continuing the eastward run of the Pentlands which also extend westwards like a recumbent dragon.

The old stories, like later history and literature, are also formed by that interaction of sea and land. The legends of Edinburgh’s ‘Castle of the Maidens’ nod across to the Isle of May or Maidens, blending Celtic priestesses with early Christian saints. It was the sea which brought the Romans to Edinburgh, establishing a major port and fortress at Caer Amon – now Cramond. Though the Romans remained an occupying power, never absorbing Scotland into their empire, they had great influence on the tributary kingdoms like Gododdin. Their most lasting legacy was the spread of Christianity, and the fort by the River Almond later housed a church.

A dramatic story from this period is best viewed from Arthur’s Seat. Tennoch or Thenew (later known as the biblical Enoch) was the daughter of Loth, king of Gododdin, who gave his name to the Lothians. He decreed that Tennoch should marry her cousin Owen, Prince of Strathclyde, sealing a royal alliance between the Cymric kingdoms. But she refused, having come under the influence of women missionaries from Ireland. They offered a radically different path for women in a patriarchal culture. Enraged by her disobedience, Loth sent Tennoch into the Lammermuirs to labour as a swineherd. But her resolve was unbroken.

Owen, the story relates, came to claim his rights as a betrothed Prince. Later hagiography piously beat about the bush, but rape ensued and Tennoch fell pregnant. But still she resisted marriage. She was brought back to Traprain Law and sentenced by Loth to death by stoning. But, in biblical mode, the people refused to carry out the cruel sentence. Next, Loth ordered her thrown from the cliff in a ritual chariot. But the axle did not break, and Tennoch reached the ground bruised but alive. Lastly, stubborn old Loth had her cast off into the Forth in a coracle without sail, oar, food or water – an especially cruel, slow death in Celtic culture.

But as the coracle drifted seawards out of Aberlady Bay, it was followed in procession by seals, fish and porpoises, so that no sea harvest was ever landed at Aberlady again. The coracle went out with the tide, but beached on the May Isle, where there was the freshwater Maidens Well. In this way, Tennoch survived until her little craft could be borne upriver by the tide, landing eventually in the darkness at Culross. She gave birth to her son on the beach, stirring the embers of a fish-smoking fire that had been smoored by the monks of St Serf’s community. They found mother and baby alive in the morning.

The child became Kentigern, nicknamed Mungo, the founder of Glasgow. As for Tennoch, her wish to become a leader in the Celtic Church was fulfilled, and she founded a community of women on Inchcailloch in Loch Lomond. Her sacred well was in Glasgow Cathedral, and she was buried below what is still known as St Enoch’s Square.

The same themes of sexual resistance and independence feature in the legend of St Triduana, a woman saint whose principal shrine and burial place was at Restalrig in Edinburgh. Triduana was remorselessly pursued by a Prince, till finally she demanded to know what part of her inflamed his desire. Her eyes, he replied, on which she pricked them out with a twig of thorns and handed them over. Subsequently, Triduana’s healing work and her shrines were associated with diseases of the eye.

Triduana had chapels at Traprain, Rescobie in Angus and Papa Westray in Orkney. She may have been the same person as St Medana or Monenna in the Mull of Galloway, and this Saint is connected to the Chapel of the Maidens in Edinburgh Castle. Yet another legend in this cluster has Medanna accompanying St Rule when he brought the relics of St Andrew from Greece to Kilrymont, later St Andrews. These are the shifting sands of storytelling, yet the consequences were real in memory and devotion. Even in the 16th century, pilgrims came to Restalrig in significant numbers, while St Margaret’s Chapel in Edinburgh Castle, successor to the Maidens Chapel, is the city’s oldest surviving church building.

The Gododdin

Back in the 6th and 7th centuries, Anglo-Saxons from the north European mainland moved into gaps left by the withdrawal of the Romans. They pushed up from Northumbria into southern Scotland, clashing with Gododdin and Strathclyde, as well as the Gaelic kingdom of Dalriada in Argyll. Edinburgh’s earliest known poem laments the consequences of a great expedition south from Din Eidyn to repel the Saxon invaders.

Warriors from across the Cymric kingdoms gathered to train and feast at Din Eidyn before riding south to a disastrous but heroic defeat. The Gododdin poem, composed by the famous bard Aneirin, laments each of the fallen heroes and contains the first known reference in written literature to Arthur, already a legendary war leader of earlier times. ‘Though he was not Arthur,’ declaims Aneirin, ‘Gwarddur was the first line’s bulwark, and brought black crows to the fort’s wall.’ However, ‘weariness descended like death’, and like so many others he fell in the battle.

The Gododdin was probably composed in the 590s soon after the events described, which include Aneirin’s own escape from captivity after the fight. Edinburgh was captured by the Anglo-Saxons in 638 and was absorbed into Northumbria for a period, leading to the widespread confusion that Edinburgh’s name means (King) ‘Edwin’s burgh’. The poem survived through traditions of ‘the Men of the North’ which migrated south to Wales, and later through written manuscripts, the oldest of which is in the care of Cardiff City Council.

The era of Northumbrian power brought new cultural and religious influences, including the founding of a church in Edinburgh by St Cuthbert. His birth and upbringing in the Scottish Borders combined Celtic and Saxon traditions in attractive spirituality. He personally founded many churches including one below Edinburgh Castle in the West End, and perhaps another on the site of what is now Colinton Parish Church. Many other churches were later dedicated to this popular saint whose unworldly love of solitude and the natural world endeared him to succeeding generations. The founding of St Giles Church in Edinburgh belongs to a later period and is connected with the town’s growth as a centre of trade.

Writing Saint Margaret

A shift from legend towards history is associated with the 11th century life of Saint Margaret of Scotland, another powerful woman in Edinburgh’s early story. The shift is marked by an increased use of written manuscripts, and the growing status of literacy gradually displacing the respect accorded to oral tradition in Celtic culture. It is with Margaret that Edinburgh’s strictly literary history begins.

This is evident in Margaret’s own devotion to her illuminated Gospel book, which she used as a focus for contemplation in the style brought from the Mediterranean world by Irish and then Benedictine monks. Margaret was distressed when this book was lost crossing a stream on one of the royal court’s many journeys. Remarkably, the book was found and restored to its thankful owner with minimal damage. A Gospel book associated with Margaret, marked with water stains, is preserved in the Bodleian Library in Oxford.

The spread of literacy brought more than an increase in written texts; it also caused new narrative forms to emerge. This included the Lives of Saints, modelled on exemplars from the classical world such as Athanasius’ Life of Saint Anthony, the desert hermit. A notable early Scottish example was Abbot Adomnan’s Life of Columba, which was composed in Latin, marking the centenary of Columba’s death in 597. This is an outstanding book, still widely read, with a claim to be the first major work of Scottish Literature.

Like many of the genre, Adomnan’s Life of Columba is not a chronological account of the subject’s life. Adomnan drew on earlier traditions kept alive on Iona, but he developed his own sections of prophecies, visions and miracles, all culminating in the beloved Columba’s death. This is relayed as an island pilgrimage, establishing the holy places of Iona like those of Jerusalem.

Written books bring with them individual authors and editors whose viewpoints may narrow the more fluid interpretations of oral tradition. This is especially true of the surviving Life of Saint Margaret by her confessor and adviser Turgot, a Benedictine monk from Durham. Although Turgot relates that before Margaret died she told him the whole story of her life, he is more interested in her public role as a religious reformer. While acknowledging her learning, personal devotion and charitable support for orphans, the poor and prisoners of war, the Benedictine allocates most space to Margaret’s efforts to improve (to his eyes) defective Scottish customs by replacing them with English models. The picture he paints is of a bossy woman insisting on rule changes that seem petty beside the big issues that Margaret actually tackled.

By taking this ecclesiastical angle, Turgot excludes much of Margaret’s early life. Her family had fled persecution in England, and she was born in Hungary to Agatha, a Hungarian royal. He skips over her exceptional education in Hungary and subsequently at the court of Edward the Confessor in Westminster, and then plays down the family’s renewed flight following the conquest of England by Duke William of Normandy. Finally, Turgot has almost nothing to say about Margaret’s husband, Malcolm III, King of Scots. He had himself spent a long exile in England after his father, King Duncan, was killed and supplanted by Macbeth, but then courageously recovered his throne with help from England.

Fortunately, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle pays much more attention to these major matters, possibly incorporating material from another lost Life of Margaret. The Chronicle emphasises Margaret’s desire to fulfil her education by leading a devout religious life, perhaps as an Abbess. By contrast, Malcolm is determined to win her as his Queen, quietly banishing an existing Norse wife, Ingrid. In the end, says the Chronicle, Margaret gave way in order to fulfil God’s will that she should turn the Scottish kingdom towards ‘true religion’.

Many other interesting things about Margaret emerge from different sources. While founding a fine new church and monastery at Dunfermline, Malcolm and Margaret increasingly used Edinburgh as a centre of government. This included construction of a timber chapel in Edinburgh Castle, which Margaret’s son David converted to the stone building that still stands today. Margaret also supported the restoration of a Culdee (Companions of God) community on Iona. It is clear that Margaret combined her support for new European expressions of Christianity with a reverence for older patterns of devotion. By providing a ferry for pilgrims to St Andrews and pilgrim hostels on both sides of the Queensferry, Margaret helped renew an ancient Celtic shrine with a strengthened cult of St Andrew.

Margaret’s childhood and youth had been threatened by wars, and her old age was no different. She died besieged in Edinburgh Castle after Malcolm and her oldest son, Edward, had been killed in an ambush in Northumbria. She kept beside her a fragment of the true cross, her most precious relic, which was mounted in gold and silver and cased in ebony – the Haly Rude. She died in the castle and, according to what may be legendary embellishment, her body had to be lowered from the battlements and conveyed secretly across the Forth for burial at Dunfermline.

These events were, however, the beginning rather than the end of Margaret’s story and influence. In 1250, she became Scotland’s first officially canonised saint, and a rare example of a saint who had been a wife and mother. Pope Innocent IV, with some input from the Scottish bishops, rose to the occasion, putting Turgot to shame.

A precious pearl saw the light in Hungary, and lived at the court of the Confessor, a School of Holiness. Torn from homeland, you embrace another. You became Queen and Mother, the glory of Scots. Your Queen’s crown, a crown of Charity. Your way, the Royal Way of the Cross. Once, mere men, placed crowns upon your head. But I, Innocent, Peter’s successor, Servant of Christ, now place upon your head, the greatest crown of all, sainthood.

In consequence, Margaret’s body was moved to a new shrine behind the high altar at Dunfermline Abbey. When her tomb was opened, according to The Book of Pluscarden, a monastic chronicle, the church was filled with the fragrance of flowers. Her remains were placed in a reliquary adorned with precious metals and borne towards the high altar with chants and hymns. But as the procession passed Malcolm’s tomb, the reliquary became unbearably heavy and had to be lowered to the ground. Then someone made the inspired suggestion that Malcom’s remains should also be moved to the new shrine, beside his Queen. Now the burden was lightened and husband and wife were reburied, mutually beloved in death as in life.

Three of Margaret’s children reigned as kings of Scots, culminating in the rule of David I. Her daughter Matilda married Henry I of England and, like Margaret, proved an effective ruler alongside her husband. Margaret’s younger daughter Maud married Count Eustace of Boulogne, and between them her children ensured that many of Europe’s royal houses could claim some descent from the saintly Queen.

The legends also multiplied. On Holy Cross Day 1127, King David went hunting against the advice of his counsellors. Coming on a white stag in the royal hunting park at Arthur’s Seat, David pursued his quarry and outrode his companions. Amidst bushes and low trees, the stag turned at bay. The King’s horse reared in fright and threw David. Then the stag lowered his antlers and charged. David reached out to ward off the sharp tines but found himself holding a cross. That night he had a dream vision that he should found an abbey near that spot in memory of his mother, Margaret, and her Haly Rude or Cross. So Holyrood Abbey came into being.

Close by the Abbey, in what was the royal hunting park, is St Margaret’s Well, the housing of which was brought from St Triduana’s Well on the pilgrim path to Restalrig. That route has recently been reopened as part of the development of Meadowbank Stadium. The old paths can be resilient through Edinburgh’s centuries.

TWO

Measuring Time: Chronicle and Saga

The Rise of Paperwork

QUEEN MARGARET DIED in 1093, and in the following 200 years her successors realised her dream of Scotland as a European Christian kingdom. Her youngest son David, who ruled from 1124 to 1153, proved to be an outstanding administrator and reformer, whose generous financial support of the Church earned him the tag – ‘ane sair sanct for the croun’.

David’s reign generated more documentation than ever, and it is no coincidence that charters confirming Edinburgh’s status as a royal burgh and St Giles as the burgh church are both dated 1124. Holyrood Abbey followed in 1128, as the new king’s reign gathered pace. Taken together, these developments underline the growing importance of Edinburgh, though Dunfermline continued to be of high value as the royal dynasty’s principal shrine.

Documentary records reinforced the status of the written word in this reforming kingdom, and also led to more recording of historical events. This work was carried out by churchmen, who were by definition ‘the clerics’. Some worked as part of the royal administration, but it was in the monasteries that chronicles were maintained. The monastic rules were dedicated to measuring time, so documenting by the calendar year came naturally. There may also have been a religious aspect to giving an account of events, and so justifying God’s sometimes mysterious providence. Such documents might provide some form of witness on the Day of Judgement.

However, it is also true that the monks kept classical or secular books and manuscripts in their libraries. Some also recorded local tales and traditions which might otherwise have been lost. Theirs was a genuine love of book learning.

The early chronicles can be terse and yet portentous. The oldest Scottish chronicle was kept on Iona, but was moved to Ireland after the Viking attacks. These events were preserved in succeeding Irish annals.

794: Devastation of all the islands of Britain by the gentiles (Norsemen).

806: The Community of Iona was slain by the gentiles, that is to say sixty-eight monks.

So began the enormous impact of Norse raiding, settlement, war and trade on England, Ireland and Scotland.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, though still concise, becomes more descriptive about events in Scotland, as in 1054:

This year went Siward the Earl with a great army into Scotland, both with a ship-force and a land-force, and fought against the Scots, and put to flight King Macbeth, and slew all who were the chief men in the land. And had there much booty, such as no man had obtained.