A Brief History
The city of Edinburgh grew up around the steep, ragged cliff
of the Castle Rock and its easily defended summit. Archaeological
excavations have revealed evidence of habitation here as long ago as
900 b.c. Very little, however, is known about the Rock and its
inhabitants in the centuries between its first occupation and the time
of the MacAlpin kings. A few shadowy details have been left to us by
the Romans and by an epic poem from the seventh century.
Romans and Britons
The Romans invaded Scotland in a.d. 78–84, where they met a
fierce group called the Picts, whom they drove north. They consolidated
their gains by building Antonine’s Wall across the waist of Scotland
between the Firth of Forth and the River Clyde in about a.d. 150.
Roman legions encountered the strongholds of the Castle Rock
and Arthur’s Seat, held by a tribe of ancient Britons known as the
Votadini. Little is recorded about this group, but they were probably
the ancestors of the Gododdin, whose feats are told in a
seventh-century Old Welsh manuscript. The capital of the Gododdin was
Din Eidyn (the “Fort of Eidyn,” almost certainly the Castle Rock),
whose name lives on in the Edin- of Edinburgh. Din Eidyn fell to the
Angles in 638 and became part of the Anglian kingdom of Northumbria. It
was the first of many times that the Fort of Eidyn would change hands
between the kingdoms of the north and the south.
The MacAlpin Kings
Four distinct peoples once inhabited the land now known as
Scotland: the Picts in the north, the Britons in the southwest, the
invading Angles in the southeast, and the Scots in the west. The Scots
were Gaelic-speaking immigrants from the north of Ireland. Kenneth
MacAlpin, who ruled as king of Scots at Dunadd, acquired the Pictish
throne in 843, uniting Scotland north of the River Forth into a single
kingdom. He moved his capital — along with the Stone of Destiny (on
which Scottish kings were crowned) — to the sacred Pict site of Scone,
close to Perth. His great-great-great-grandson, Malcolm II (1005–1034),
defeated the Angles at the Battle of Carham in 1018 and extended
Scottish territory as far south as the River Tweed. These new lands
included the stronghold of Edinburgh.
Malcolm II’s own grandson, Malcolm Canmore (1058–1093),
often visited Edinburgh with his wife Margaret, a Saxon princess. They
crossed the Forth from Dunfermline at the narrows known to this day as
Queensferry. Margaret was a deeply pious woman who was subsequently
canonized, and her youngest son, David I (1124–1153), founded a church
in her name on the highest point of the Castle Rock (St. Margaret’s
Chapel). David also founded the Abbey of Holyrood and created several
royal burghs (towns with special trading privileges), including
Edinburgh and Canongate; the latter was under the jurisdiction of the
monks, or “canons,” of Holyrood.
At this time Edinburgh was still a very modest town, but
David’s successor, Malcolm IV (1153–1165), made its castle his main
residence. By the end of the 12th century, Edinburgh’s castle was used
as a royal treasury. The town’s High Street stretched beneath the
castle along the ridge to the east (today the Royal Mile), past the
parish church of St. Giles, and out to the Netherbow, where Edinburgh
ended and Canongate began.
Wars of Independence
In 1286 the MacAlpin dynasty ended, leaving Scotland
without a ruler. There were a number of claimants to the throne, among
them John Balliol, Lord of Galloway, and Robert de Brus, Lord of
Annandale. The guardians of Scotland were unable to decide who should
succeed and asked the English king, Edward I, to adjudicate. Edward,
seeing this invitation as a chance to assert his claim as overlord of
Scotland, chose John Balliol, whom he judged to be the weaker of the
two.
Edward treated King John as a vassal. However, when Edward
went to war with France in 1294 and summoned John along with other
knights, the Scottish king decided he had had enough. He ignored
Edward’s summons and instead negotiated a treaty with the French king,
the beginning of a long association between France and Scotland that
became known as the “Auld Alliance. ”
Edward was furious, and his reprisal was swift and bloody.
In 1296 he led a force of nearly 30,000 men into Scotland and captured
the castles of Roxburgh, Edinburgh, and Stirling. The Stone of Destiny
and the Scottish crown jewels were stolen, and Scotland’s Great Seal
was broken up. Oaths of fealty were demanded from Scottish nobles,
while English officials were installed to oversee the running of the
country. Scotland became little more than an English county.
But the Scots did not take this insult lying down. Bands of
rebels (such as those led by William Wallace) began to attack the
English garrisons and make raids into English territory. When Wallace
was captured, the Scots looked for a new leader and discovered one in
Robert the Bruce, grandson of the Robert de Brus rejected by Edward in
1292. He was crowned King of Scots at Scone in 1306 and began his
campaign to drive the English out of Scotland.
Edward I died in 1307 and was succeeded by his ineffectual
son, Edward II, who in 1314 led an army of some 25,000 men to confront
Bruce’s army at Bannockburn, near Stirling. Though outnumbered, the
Scots gained a famous victory and sent the English packing. Robert the
Bruce continued to harass the English until they were forced to sue for
peace. A truce was declared, and the Treaty of Northampton was
negotiated at Edinburgh in 1328.
Two of the recurring themes of Scottish history are minors
inheriting the throne and divided loyalties. Although many Scottish
nobles were dedicated to the cause of independence, others either bore
grudges against the ruling king or held lands in England that they
feared to lose. These divisions — later hardened by religious
schism — would forever deny Scotland a truly united voice.
When Robert the Bruce died in 1329, his son and heir, David
II, was only five years old. Within a few years the wars with England
resumed, aggravated by civil war at home as Edward Balliol (son of
John) tried to take the Scottish throne with the help of the English
king, Edward III.
The Stewart Dynasty
During these stormy years, the castle of Edinburgh was
occupied several times by English garrisons. In 1341 it was taken from
the English by William of Douglas. The young David II returned from
exile in France and made it his principal royal residence, building a
tower house (David’s Tower) on the site of what is now the Half Moon
Battery. He died in 1371 and was succeeded by his nephew, Robert II.
David’s sister Marjory had married Walter the Steward, and their son
was the first of the long line of Stewart (later spelled Stuart)
monarchs who would reign over Scotland — and, subsequently, Great
Britain — until the “Glorious Revolution” of 1688.
The strength and wealth of Scotland increased during the
reigns of the first Stewart kings. New castles were built and new
weapons acquired, including the famous gun called “Mons Meg.”
Edinburgh emerged as Scotland’s main political center and was declared
by James III (1460–1488) to be “the principal burgh of our kingdom.”
James IV (1488–1513) confirmed Edinburgh’s status as the
capital of Scotland by constructing a royal palace at Holyrood. He
cemented a peace treaty with England by marrying Margaret Tudor, the
daughter of Henry VII — the so-called Marriage of the Thistle and the
Rose — but this did not prevent him from making a raid into England in
1513. The attack culminated in the disastrous Battle of Flodden, near
the River Tweed, and the king was killed. Fearing invasion, the
Edinburgh town council built a protective wall (the “Flodden Wall”)
around the city boundaries.
Yet again a minor — the infant James V — succeeded to the
throne, and Scots nobles were divided as to whether Scotland should
draw closer to England or seek help from her old ally, France. The
adult James leaned toward France and in 1537 took a French wife, Mary
of Guise. She bore two sons who both died in infancy, but by the time
she was about to give birth to their third child, her husband lay dying
at Falkland Palace. On 8 December 1542 a messenger arrived with news
that the queen had produced a daughter at the palace of Linlithgow. A
few days later the king was dead, leaving a week-old baby girl to
inherit the Scottish crown.
Mary, Queen of Scots
The baby was Mary Stuart, who at the age of nine months was
crowned Queen of Scots at the Chapel Royal, Stirling. When the news
reached London, Henry VIII saw his chance to subdue Scotland again and
negotiated a marriage between the infant Mary and his son Edward. The
Scots refused, and Henry sent an army rampaging through Scotland on a
campaign known as the “Rough Wooing. ” The English king ordered his
general to “burn Edinburgh town so there may remain forever a perpetual
memory of the vengeance of God lightened upon the Scots. ”
But more was at stake than simply Scotland’s independence:
there was now a religious schism within Britain. In order to divorce
Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII had broken with
Rome and brought the English church under his own control. England was
thus now a Protestant country, caught between Catholic France and the
Scots with their new Catholic queen.
The Scots themselves were divided, many embracing
Protestantism in the spirit of the Reformation while others remained
staunchly Catholic. However, fear of the rampaging English army led the
Scots again to seek help from their old allies in France, and the young
queen married the Dauphin François, son of the French king.
François II became king of France in 1559 but died soon
after. In 1561 the 18-year-old Mary returned to a Scotland in the grip
of the Reformation, as Protestant leaders had taken control of the
Scottish parliament and abolished the authority of the pope. Her
Protestant cousin, Elizabeth Tudor, was on the English throne, but
Elizabeth — the “Virgin Queen” — had no heir. Mary was next in line for
the English crown, and Elizabeth was suspicious of her intentions.
The six years of Mary’s reign were turbulent ones. She
clashed early on with Edinburgh’s famous Protestant reformer, John
Knox, who held sway in St. Giles but later adopted an uneasy policy of
religious tolerance. In 1565 she married her young cousin Henry, Lord
Darnley, much to the chagrin of Elizabeth (Darnley was a grandson of
Margaret Tudor and thus also had a claim to the English throne). On 19
June 1566, in the royal apartments in Edinburgh Castle, Mary gave birth
to a son, Prince James.
Within a year, however, Darnley was murdered, and Mary
immediately immersed herself in controversy by marrying the Earl of
Bothwell, the chief suspect. Mary was forcedto abdicate in 1567, and
the infant prince was crowned as James VI.
Mary sought asylum in England, only to be imprisoned by
Elizabeth. The English queen kept her cousin in captivity for 20 years
and finally had her beheaded on a trumped-up charge of treason. So it
was bitterly ironic when Elizabeth died without an heir and James,
Mary’s Catholic son, inherited the English throne.
In 1603 James VI of Scotland was thus crowned James I of
England, marking the Union of the Crowns. Although Scotland was still a
separate kingdom, the two countries would from that day be ruled by the
same monarch.
The Covenanters
Edinburgh’s population grew fast between 1500 and 1650, and
a maze of tall, unsanitary tenements sprouted along the spine of the
High Street. The castle was extended, and in 1582 the Town’s College
(the precursor of the University of Edinburgh) was founded. James died
in 1625, succeeded by his son, Charles I, who proved an incompetent
ruler. In 1637 his attempt to force the Scottish Presbyterian Church to
accept an English liturgy and the rule of bishops led to civil revolt
and rioting.
The next year, a large group of Scottish churchmen and
nobles signed the National Covenant, a declaration condemning the new
liturgy and pledging allegiance to the Presbyterian faith. The
Covenanters, as they were called, at first sided with Oliver Cromwell’s
Parliamentarians in the civil war that had erupted across the border.
But when the English revolutionaries beheaded Charles I in 1649, the
Scots rallied round his son, Charles II. Cromwell’s forces then invaded
Scotland, crushed the Covenanter army, and went on to take Edinburgh.
Scotland suffered ten years of military rule under Cromwell’s
Commonwealth.
Scotland’s troubles continued after Charles II’s
restoration to the throne in 1660. The Covenanters faced severe
persecution at the hands of the king’s supporters, who had decided to
follow his father’s policy of imposing bishops on the Scots. Hundreds
of Covenanters were imprisoned and executed.
In the end England underwent the “Glorious Revolution” of
1688, when Catholic James II (Scotland’s James VII) was deposed and the
Protestant William of Orange (1689–1702) took the British crown.
Presbyterianism was established as Scotland’s official state church and
the Covenanters prevailed.
Act of Union
On 1 May 1707 England and Scotland were formally joined
together by the “Act of Union” — establishing the Union of
Parliaments — and the United Kingdom was born. Despite the fact that
Scotland was allowed to retain its own legal system, education system,
and national Presbyterian Church, the move was opposed by the great
majority of Scots. The supporters of the deposed James VII and his
successors, exiled in France, were known as the “Jacobites. ” Several
times during the next 40 years they attempted to restore the Stuart
dynasty to the British throne, though by this time the crown had passed
to the German House of Hanover.
James Edward Stuart, known as the “Old Pretender,” traveled
up the Firth of Forth in 1708 but was driven back by British ships and
bad weather. Another campaign was held in 1715 under the Jacobite Earl
of Mar, but it was the 1745 rising of Prince Charles Edward Stuart, the
“Young Pretender,” which became the stuff of legend.
The prince, known as Bonnie Prince Charlie (the grandson of
James VII), raised an army of Jacobite highlanders and swept through
Scotland. They occupied Edinburgh (but not the castle) and defeated a
government army at the Battle of Prestonpans. In November of that year
he invaded England, capturing Carlisle and driving south as far as
Derby, only 200 km (130 miles) short of London.
Finding his forces outnumbered and overextended here, the
young prince beat a tactical retreat, but the English army hounded him
relentlessly. The final showdown — at Culloden in 1746 — saw the
Jacobite army slaughtered. Prince Charlie fled and was pursued over the
Highlands before escaping in a French ship. He died in Rome in 1788,
disillusioned and drunk.
The Scottish Enlightenment
The Jacobite uprisings found little support in such lowland
cities as Edinburgh. Here there was a growing sense that the Union was
around to stay. Within ten years of the Young Pretender’s occupation of
Holyrood, Edinburgh’s town council proposed a plan to relieve the
chronic overcrowding of the Royal Mile tenements by constructing a New
Town on land to the north of the castle. In 1767 a design by a young
and previously unknown architect, James Craig, was approved and work
began.
This architectural renaissance in Edinburgh was followed by
an intellectual flowering in the sciences, philosophy, and medicine
that revolutionized Western society in the late 18th century and saw
the city dubbed the “Athens of the North. ” Famous Edinburgh residents
of this period — later known as the Scottish Enlightenment — included
David Hume, author of A Treatise of Human Nature and one of Britain’s
greatest philosophers; Adam Smith, author of The Wealth of Nations, a
pioneer in the study of political economy; and Joseph Black, the
scientist who discovered the concept of latent heat. Robert Burns’s
poems and Walter Scott’s novels rekindled interest in Scotland’s
history and nationhood; Scott especially worked hard to raise
Scotland’s profile.
The Modern City
In the 19th century Edinburgh was swept up in the
Industrial Revolution. The coalfields of Lothian and Fife fueled the
growth of baking, distilling, printing, and machine-making industries,
giving Edinburgh the epithet “Auld Reekie” (Old Smoky). With the
arrival of the railways in the mid-1800s, the city grew almost
exponentially as new lines led to the spread of Victorian suburbs such
as Marchmont and Morningside.
During the 20th century Edinburgh became a European center
of learning and culture. The University of Edinburgh has made
outstanding contributions to various fields. The Edinburgh
International Festival (held annually since 1947) is acknowledged as
one of the world’s most important arts festivals. In addition, the
city’s rich history and architecture have made it one of the most
popular tourist destinations in the United Kingdom.
Nationalism never completely disappeared, however, and in
the latter part of the century there has been a concerted (though
peaceful) effort to gain self-determination for Scotland. In 1979 the
nationalists were in disarray when a referendum was defeated, and
further efforts came to nought during Conservative rule in the British
Parliament at Westminster through the 1980s and early 1990s. But the
Stone of Destiny was returned to Scottish soil in 1996 — 700 years
after it had been taken south by the English.
The general election of May 1997 proved to be a turning
point. The British Labour Party supported the return of domestic
policy-making power to Scotland. When it was victorious at the ballot
box, among the new government’s first tasks was to organize a
referendum on Scottish devolution. This took place in September 1997,
with the majority supporting the creation of a Scottish Parliament,
although many strident nationalists thought the proposals did not go
far enough. The Scotland Bill was put before the British Parliament in
January 1998 and became law as the “Scotland Act” in November 1998.
Political power thus returned to Edinburgh after nearly 300
years. Elections were held in May 1999, and the new Parliament opened
on the first of July. The city now buzzes with energy and confidence as
MPs and policy makers gather to make plans for the future of the
Scottish people.
