Mountebank Returns!

In the late 17th century Scotland attempted to gain control of a tiny but immensely important trade choke point in a vast foreign empire we knew little about, the endeavour was widely unsuccessful and would result in thousands of deaths and economic disaster – it makes the Strait of Hormuz seem a little less ridiculous when you consider Donald trump has Scottish ancestry. The Scottish colony of New Caledonia on the Darien Isthmus of Panama was incompatible to colonial development due to its dense jungle, extreme climate and the fact the Scots colonists were being exposed to more diseases in a foreign climate than on your average 18-30 holiday. When King William declared a trade embargo against the Scots colony all hope was lost and the colony was abandoned. The colonists at Darien had opted not to mention they were sick and starving in the letters they sent back to Scotland, they just pretended everything was great and they were having a brilliant time, it was like holidaying at Centre Parcs. When their letters reached home, they were enthusiastically received by a Scottish population who were invigorated by tales of a friendly indigenous population, a tropical paradise and a Darien gold-rush. ‘Darien fever’ took hold in Scotland, thousands volunteered for the second expedition to the New World just as the Scots at New Caledonia were abandoning their colony. The shocking news of the abandonment of New Caledonia only reached Directors of the Company of Scotland twelve days after the departure of the second expedition to Darien. This second Darien expedition attempted to resurrect the Scottish colony but only lasted four months and twelve days at Darien before disease, starvation and a decisive Spanish attack ended Scotland’s brief attempt at becoming a colonial power once and for all. In the fallout of the disastrous Darien scheme anger was directed at King William, Jacobite sentiment grew, and a restless nation begun to consider its place within the Union of Crowns.

The 17th century came to an economically ruinous end for Scotland as it attempted to establish a colony on the Darien Isthmus in Panama. The settling of a colony at Darien was the sole obsession of one man, William Paterson. Paterson was a banking visionary who, despite his shady goings on in the Caribbean, had the ear and trust of some of the wealthiest and most powerful men in the country, a kind of 17th century Jeffrey Epstein. William Paterson loved capitalism and his misuse of it would destroy Scotland’s economy and bring us to the brink of economic collapse – it’s enough to bring a tear to Margaret Thatcher’s dead eye. When shareholders in The Company of Scotland became increasingly frustrated with the lack of mercantile colonial progress, they started to give serious consideration to Paterson’s Darien plan, eventually committing one third of the entire liquid capital of Scotland to establishing a colony in Panama. One in five Scots were invested, either directly or indirectly, in the success of the Darien plan. All the nation’s economic interests were now invested in one single entity and the success of one company, it’s like what the Irish do with Google. Darien represented the hopes of an entire nation; and never again would all of Scotland’s hopes and dreams be invested in one single entity until the birth of Andy Murray in the 20th century. Darien would turn out to be a national disaster. Scotland found itself swept up in a scheme peddled by a deluded narcissist who was able to convince a large number of people to part with their money and invest in a false paradise; Darien was Scotland’s Fyre Festival.

The 'ill years' of late 1690's Scotland was a period of Scottish history more depressing than the Bertie Vogt's era. Devastating famines in 1696, 1698 and 1699 created the most severe mortality crisis experienced in Scotland until the introduction of the deep-fried Mars Bar. Mortality rates in some parts of the country reached as high as 20%, about the same as your average ICE agent. The famines created an economic depression which was then exasperated further by the Nine Years War. The war was not going well for King William, in an effort to raise money to supply his armies on the continent, William imposed poll-taxes on Scotland. Worse still, Scotland's trade was being hampered by prohibitive trade tariffs that prevented trade with England and France. Famine, War, inflation and trade tariffs, it made 2024 - 2026 a terrible time to be alive. The best way to tackle food-shortage, inflation and a cost of living crisis is of course to build a ballroom and/or invade Iran, but the Scottish government of the late 17th century opted for a different approach, they floated a 'joint stock company' named 'The Company of Scotland' to try and keep pace with their powerful mercantile neighbours, it would not end well...   

The Massacre of clan Macdonald by Government troops in the winter of 1692 is one of the most shocking and infamous events in all of Scottish history. After the defeat of the first Jacobite Rising in Scotland in 1690, the Williamite Government demanded that all Highland Chieftains must make on oath of personal allegiance to King William and Queen Mary by the 1st of January 1692. This required them to sing 'Simply the Best' instead of 'Auld Lang Syne' at the bells, and to report in person to the necessary government magistrate who could record the official undertaking of the oath. When a series of calamitous and unfortunate events resulted in one of the clan chieftains, Alasdair MacIain Macdonald, chieftain of the Macdonald's of Glencoe, taking the oath five days after the January 1st deadline, Secretary of State for Scotland Sir John Dalrymple demanded the destruction of the Macdonald's of Glencoe 'by fire and by sword.' After being billeted with the Macdonalds for two weeks, in the early hours of the 13th of February 1692, government soldiers turned on their hosts and murdered them in their sleep. The soldiers had slept in the Macdonald's beds, ate their food, drunk their wine and joined their evening ceilidhs before turning on their hosts and massacring them. It was a shocking betrayal of the almost sacrosanct ethics of Highland hospitality and every Airbnb host's worst nightmare.

The first Scottish attempt to restore the deposed King James VII & II onto the thrones usurped by his daughter and son-in-law Queen Mary II & King William II & III, occurred in 1689. This first Jacobite Rising was unsuccessful, as were all subsequent Jacobite Risings in Scotland, the Jacobite Risings in Scotland were like successive Tory Prime Ministers in Britain between 2010 and 2024, they were all wholly unsuccessful but each in their own unique ways. This first Jacobite Rising received little support from anyone of any significance in Scotland. James had been stripped of all his royal titles, but his arrogance and hubris meant no one supported his attempts to try and get any of his titles back, he was like the Prince formerly known as Andrew. Despite its lack of support, the first Jacobite Rising was an initial success. Under the inspired leadership of its dashing leader John Claverhouse, ‘Bonnie Dundee’, the mostly Highland Jacobite army pulled off a spectacular victory at the Battle of Killiecrankie on the 27th of July 1689.  The victory at Killiecrankie would come at a cost however, the loss of the Jacobite army’s charismatic leader Dundee. Without Dundee’s inspired leadership the disparate group of Highland clansmen that comprised the first Jacobite army disintegrated, and the movement fizzled out after an inspired Cameronian defence of the town of Dunkeld in August 1689 led by the Covenanting hero William Clelland. The Williamite authorities in Scotland had managed to successfully curtail the Jacobite threat in Scotland, for the moment at least….

In 1688/89 King James VII & II's thrones were usurped by his daughter Mary and son-in-law William of Orange in the so-called 'Glorious Revolution' named so because of the rebellion's supposed bloodlessness. The revolution may have been 'Glorious' in England, but it would prove to be anything but bloodless in Scotland and Ireland, here it would have profound consequences for Scottish and Irish identity, culture, religion and the gable ends of houses for centuries to come. After successfully usurping his father-in-law's throne William had James arrested and then subsequently arranged for his escape to France in a breakout more carefully coordinated than a virus escaping from a Wuhan lab. James' attempts to gain back his lost British and Irish thrones through campaigns in Ireland and Scotland would become known as the 'Jacobite Risings' and would be the basis for some of the most significant set-piece moments in Scottish history in the late 17th and early 18th century. The Constitutional Settlements that underpinned the offer of the thrones to William and Mary remain the foundation of Britain's contemporary constitutional monarchy. The Constitutional Settlement saw the balance of power shift from the king to the Parliament, but it also prohibited any Roman Catholics from becoming head of state or holding any position of power within government; it was simultaneously progressive and backwards, like HS2.

The first two episodes of the brand new series of the Mountebank History of Scotland will be released on Wednesday the 6th of May!  

James VII & II was the last Catholic Stuart monarch of Britain and Ireland. As a Catholic he was viewed with suspicion by Protestants who were unhappy about James' placing of Catholics in prominent position within government - those positions were supposed to be exclusively for those who went to Eton - and his religious indulgences that allowed for Catholic toleration in England and Scotland. The Protestants were content, to an extent, to allow James his Catholic indulgences because all they had to do was wait for him to die and then his Protestant heir Mary would become queen. However, when James's wife Queen Mary of Modena gave birth, unexpectedly, to a male heir in June 1688 the Protestants were now faced with the prospect of a continuing Catholic Stuart line through the Prince of Wales. So, they turned to an Orangeman, William the Dutch Prince of Orange, to 'Make Britain Great Again' - although they could hardly complain about an unexpected birth to the orange guy, considering it was the orange guy who made it illegal to stop unexpected births in the first place.

In 1681 James Duke of York and Viceroy of Scotland passed the 'Test Act' demanding all office holders in Scotland swear an oath of loyalty to King Charles II, accept the king's position as the governor of church and state, and renounce any attempts to change the system of supreme royal authority in Scotland. Promising to never make any innovations, improvements and declaring your undying love for king Charles remains the oath MP's have to take before they can take their seat in Westminster to this day. Those who refused to 'take the test' could be put to death immediately. The needless persecution of protesting Presbyterians has been remembered by Whig historians as the 'Killing Time'. 78 people were killed for refusing to abjure to the Test Act, that's enough for this period of Scottish history to remembered as the 'Killing Time' in Scotland, in American history it would be considered rookie numbers.....

When Charles II introduced religious legislation in Scotland requiring parish ministers to pledge their allegiance to the restoration regime and denounce the National Covenant, many ministers refused. These ministers left their parishes - which were then converted into Wetherspoons - and took their parishioners into the wilds of the Scottish countryside in illegal religious gatherings known as 'conventicles'. Huge conventicles of up to 14,000 people congregated in the fields and hillsides of the Scottish countryside like an illegal rave, except not fun. The government attempted to forcibly break up these conventicles, and in response the congregations began to arm themselves. With large-scale, armed conventicles roaming the Scottish countryside, conflict between the Conventiclers and the government became inevitable....