So we’ve waved Jimmy good bye for the moment; tough it is – but it’s au revoir rather than adieu, since it is contended that James would remain very muchRead More

So I left you at Drumlog, at a mass conventicle, and the Preacher has just dropped a bombshell – the Dragoons were on their way, and not because they wereRead More

We’ll start off this episode in Edinburgh known to some as the Athens of the north, and to Tom Stoppard as the Reykjavik of the South. Whichever, let me takeRead More

Now then everyone I have never managed to get into Pepys’ diaries. I feel a vague sense of shame about this, and it worries me, because just as no historianRead More

It is important in life, or at least I think it is, to celebrate your achievements as you go along. It puts you in a positive mood, and why dwellRead More

Last time, we had Charles II stepping aboard the good ship Naseby, sorry Royal Charles, on his way back to his three kingdoms, and everyone professed themselves to be jollyRead More

Now then, could be the start of a new era now that we’ve come to the end of Cromwellian Scotland, and do you know what – I believe it is,Read More

Scotland, it might be noted, had banned celebrating Christmas in 1640, which is one reason I am told, that Hogmanny is such an important thing in Scotland. That and theRead More

  On the 4th October 1648 the Committee of Estates, dominated now by the Anti Engagers, renewed its Act of classes. This Act, excluded all those naughty, naughty Engagers fromRead More