#midlothian

Archibald Campbell, 9th Earl of Argyll was born on February 26th 1629 at Newbattle Abbey near Dalkeith.

Campbell was an energetic supporter of the royalist cause during the 1650s. His father was executed for treason in 1661, and although he was imprisoned, the new earl was released and restored to his titles and estates.

A member of the Scottish Privy Council and an Extraordinary Lord of Session,he was condemned to death in 1681 on a highly dubious charge of treason and libel, he escaped from prison in an almost comical way, that any fool could have saw through, leading me to believe that the guards were possibly bribed.

His daughter-in-law, Lady Sophia Lindsay, obtained permission to visit him in his confinement. She brought with her a servant who, she claimed, had recently been in a rather serious fight, resulting in severe facial injuries. That of course explained the bandages in which his head was entirely swathed, completely obscuring his identity. If you can see where this is headed, you are more astute than the entire garrison of Edinburgh Castle! The naïve-seeming scheme was to have Campbell swap clothes and wigs with the servant, wrap his head in bandages, and simply walk out of the building with Lady Sophia after her visit.

The Lady, demonstrating what must have been Oscar-worthy acting ability, left Campbell’s quarters in floods of tears, and was escorted by her “servant” back to her coach. Outside, Campbell ingeniously climbed onto the back of the coach rather than into it, preventing anyone from realising that he was a member of the aristocracy by proving that he could maintain a grip on a moving vehicle. Once outside the Castle’s bounds, he slipped quietly off down an alleyway to a friend’s house, from which he was smuggled under the name “Mr Hope” down to London.

After his escape, the Earl disappeared for much of his remaining life. Naturally, as a fugitive (and now actively engaged in resistance to the coming succession of James), his location was kept a closely guarded secret, although a few letters revealing his general location and activities remain.

However, he returned to Scotland in style in April 1685, at the head of an invading army supporting the Monmouth Rebellion against James II/VII (who had taken the throne in February, following Charles II’s death). He made several raids, which varied in success between “fleeting” at Inverary and “utterly pointless failure” at Greenock.

On February 24th 1303 the Scots, under Simon Fraser and John Comyn beat an English force at The Battle of Roslin.

On February 24th 1303 the Scots, under Simon Fraser and John Comyn beat an English force at The Battle of Roslin.

Now most of my history is self taught that I have picked up over the years, I was brought up near Roslin and my mum did take us there as bairns and told us all about the Chapel, the Apprentice Pillar and The Holy Grail, this was 30 years before Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code novel, so with all that you would think that I will have been told all about The Battle of Roslin?

Nope not a thing, I knew about Stirling Bridge, Bannockburn and Culloden, as well as other battles but I can’t recall my mum ever telling me about Roslin, so what I know is all learned over the past 20 years or so.

Fought between the Scots and English during the Wars of Scottish Independence and was a Scottish victory, but it does not figure in many history books and few people up until lately have even heard of it, yet the figures involved, especially on the English side, make it one of the biggest battles ever on Scots soil.

This was during the Wars of Scottish Independence, according to the stories I have read it was more of a fight over the love of a woman rather than a pure Scotland v England “match”.

Lady Margaret Ramsay of Dalhousie, who had become betrothed to the handsome Sir Henry St Clair, they of the Knights Templar folk. Enter your typical English arrogant guy in Sir John de Segrave, a seasoned campaigner in many a Scottish battle. Sir John is said to have fallen in love with oor Lady Margaret on may visits to Dalhousie Castle, on hearing of the impending marriage in a fit of jealousy decided he wanted the Lady for himself so sought out to sweep her off her feet and defeat the Scottish army all in one fell swoop.

It’s a great tale and sounds like a Hollywood film, but there never was any Lady Margaret Ramsay and we know that Sinclair married one Alicia de Fenton. So that’s the romance bit debunked.

What I have also read out about the battle is that Segrove split his army, of 30,000 troops, into three groups, to me this is more believable, well splitting the army, the numbers in my mind will have been a lot less. Anyone who knows the landscape of Roslin Glen will know that it lends itself to the theory that in battle on big force would find it difficult to gather there. The English army in three divisions was also common in armies at the time. The terrain in Roslin in the middle of winter would have made it very difficult for a large army to manouevre, so with that I am pretty sure the numbers have been exaggerated, put it this way, if 30,000 English were defeated at Roslin it would be bigger than Bannockburn.

This brings me to my third point about the battle, why are no accounts of it from people present at it? Well that is easily explained in the fact that one of the commanders of the Scots was John “The Red” Comyn. It’s a well know fact that history favours the winners, and we all know that The Bruce and Comyn were bitter rivals so it would be natural for any records of the battle to have been erased by Bruce. Well that’s my take on it.

A couple of other details often written about the battle is that William Wallace was present, Wallace by this time had given up the Guardianship and at some point was said to have been in France, when captured he was in possession of a “safe passage” letter from The King of France, so was he there? Again I refer to my local knowledge in that along the River Esk that runs through Roslin Glen, towards Hawthornden Castle is a cave we know as Wallace’s Cave, so there is a connection somewhere down the ages with our favourite Scottish patriot.

One as wee story regarding The Battle of Roslin is about the Cistercian Prior Abernethy of Mount Lothian to the west of Balantradoch, the Templar headquarters in Scotland, it was about 5 miles from Roslin, Abernethy, the monk, had been a Templar, a warrior, who had off his armour and lay down his sword to spend the remainder of his life praising God. Now the warrior priest’s blood rose again. The life of prayer, compilation of Gregorian chants was abandoned. God had called the Prior to the defence of Scotland. As men prepare for battle each pray to whatever God he knows “let us be victorious.”

Monks on horseback were sent to raise the alarm and warn the Scots of the danger facing them, they would have said a prayer for the Scots troops before the battle, as was normal, but another legend is that as the Scottish Army grew tired during the third stage of the battle. Abernethy is said to have been crucial with his local knowledge of the Glen, he also directed the Monks to erect a huge St Andrews Cross on the Pentland Hills, as the Scots tired the Cross was set alight and the Abernethy pointed towards it, saying it was a sign from God, it rallied the troops and the Battle was won.

On 26th December 1449 the first service was held at Crichton Collegiate Church, south of Edinburgh.

The church is one of few remaining pre-Reformation collegiate churches which are still in use in Scotland, Rosslyn Chapel, also in Midlothian being another.

Lying a quarter-mile southwest of the Midlothian village of Crichton, and just to the north of Crichton Castle, the Crichton Parish Church was established as a Collegiate Church in 1449 by Sir William Crichton, laird of the nearby Crichton Castle and Chancellor of Scotland.

Crichton is named after its lords, even though the “Lords” of Crichton were members of the ranks of the lesser mobility, until 1424, when William was knighted at the coronation of James I. His family fortunes were raised by his son, William, the Lord Chancellor of Scotland, who became, during the minority of James II, the most powerful person in the kingdom.

William Crichton spent much of his life quarrelling with the powerful Douglases. Crichton was responsible for the famous “Black Dinner” in Edinburgh Castle at which the Sixth Earl of Douglas and his brother were murdered.

As a consequence of the damage to the castle, William, who became Lord Chancellor in 1447, had to effect repairs. While he was at it, he decided to build Crichton Collegiate Church.

Confirmation of the status of a collegiate church was given by James Kennedy, Bishop of St. Andrews, and the church was finished in time to hold its first service on December 26th 1449, making it just a few years older than Midlothian’s other famous old kirk, the Collegiate Chapel of St Matthew, better known now as Rosslyn Chapel.

At its inauguration, provisions had been made for a provost, eight prebendaries, two boys or clerks and a sacrist. The money to sustain this religious community was coming from the revenue of neighbouring churches, and elsewhere.

By the time the new owners embarked on a major programme to rebuild Crichton Castle in the 1580s, the chapel was already in a state of disrepair. Still, in 1641, the church formerly known as collegiate became Crichton’s Presbyterian parish church.

In the 19th century, the future of Crichton looked equally bleak. In 1822, it was decided that repairs had to be carried out imminently, or, it was suggested, perhaps it was better to abandon the chapel altogether – underlining the desperate state in which the building was found to be in. It was nevertheless decided that repairs should be carried out, which occurred in 1825.

The church, now without its original nave, saw a pulpit placed high on the south wall (a ring in the wall is today the only remnant of it), and with the extensive use of galleries around three walls, as many as 600 people could be seated in what must have been a very cramped space when full.

Charles Thomson Rees Wilson, Noble Laureate and Scottish physicist and meteorologist died on November 15th 1959.

C.T .R, as he became known , is also the only Scottish-born physicist ever to have won the Prize for Physics.

C.T.R. was inspired by the cloud formations he had witnessed on Ben Nevis. He started out attempting to recreate clouds in his laboratory, but his invention and experiments led on to massive strides in the science of particle physics. The search for the Higgs Boson at the Large Hadron Collider is the latest stage in the hunt for answers about fundamental particles of life, however, in the late 19th Century, very little was known about protons, neutrons and electrons. Photons, neutrinos, muons and quarks were a long way from being discovered.

C.T.R. was given the Nobel Prize in 1927 “for his method of making the paths of electrically charged particles visible by condensation of vapour” - but essentially it was for his invention of the cloud chamber. Throughout his career, he got the opportunity to conduct research, teach and work as a reader and demonstrator at the Cambridge university. His most significant works include his observation on the formation of clouds and subsequent development of the cloud chamber, research on the behaviour of ions and so on.

He was honoured with several other awards and recognitions for his research and contribution to physics. Throughout his life, he remained active in the field of science and during his retirement, he shifted to Edinburgh, and later to the village of Carlops at Glencorse. During this time, he worked on his manuscript on the ‘theory of thundercloud electricity’. He died on 15th November 1959 in Edinburgh aged 90.

On October 17th 1850 James Young obtained the patent for the extraction of paraffin from shale.

One morning in 1847, James Young was asked to investigate a deposit of rock that, according to a student of his, had been leaking a strange liquid. What he found would change his life — and the world — forever.

Upon the discovery of recently excavated ground, Young confirmed that oil was flowing out of the broken rocks that had been unearthed. Being a renowned chemistry professor, Young harvested what oil he could and started experimenting. At this point, he had only just scratched the surface... eventually, through much tinkering, Young found a way to convert the oil seeping from the rocks into paraffin (kerosene), naphtha, and machinery lubricants.

Such was the discovery and his developments James would forever be called James ‘Paraffin’ Young.

On that day James's sole focus was on the study of chemistry, and he had no clue what he'd found. That was until the student who had tipped him off to the oil-laden rocks wrote him and said, “Perhaps you could make a capital thing out of this industry.” From there, Young secured patents, and with some financial backing, he started EW Binney & Co.

He was crowned the "world’s first oilman"

The products created in his Lothian works had a wide range of applications, from waxes for lamp fuel and waterproofing to oils and naphtha for the textiles and dry-cleaning industries, meaning that Young's business was a huge success. It employed 13,000 men at its height. Some of the shale used in this process was later used to construct the M8 motorway.

However, James, who had a reputation as a warm-hearted, generous man, had many other interests besides oil refinery. A lifelong friend of David Livingstone, whom he had originally met at Anderson’s Institution, he funded many of the explorer’s expeditions and helped to support the explorer’s family after his death in Africa.

He also erected the statues of David Livingstone and Thomas Graham in George Square and contributed significantly to the anti-slavery movement.

Towards the end of his life, James returned to Anderson’s Institution, becoming President in 1868 and serving until 1877. There, perhaps in the hope that others would repeat his astonishing success, he founded the Young Chair of Technical Chemistry, the first chair of its type in the world.

he proposal to found a Chair of Technical Chemistry met fierce opposition from the existing chemistry professors, who feared that the establishment of the new chair would result in a decline in student numbers attending their own classes. The Young Laboratory was housed in a building adjoining the Andersonian, and was equipped to the best modern standards.