History Scotland

Explore centuries of Scottish history and archaeology with fascinating features on topics from all branches and periods of Scottish history and archaeology, written by leading historians, archaeologists and museum curators. With news on the latest research, opinion, expert reviews and spotlights on the country's most significant historical archives, this lavishly-illustrated magazine has everything you need to explore Scotland's rich past.

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MUSICAL ‘TIME MACHINE’ RECREATES LOST CONCERT AT LINLITHGOW PALACE • Virtual reality and ground-breaking acoustic techniques have been used to recreate historical music performances that took place more than half a millennium ago

Quest to reunite World War II photos with their families • A photograph album belonging to a kind-hearted US family who welcomed 150 British and Commonwealth servicemen into their home is at the heart of a quest to reunite precious images with their families around the world

Correction and clarification: The ‘richest commoner’ and his West Indian estates • During typesetting of the May/June issue 2021, part of the title of Neil Bruce’s article was omitted in error: the full title is “A ‘Proprietor here is not so independent a person as he would be at home’: the ‘richest commoner’ and his West Indian estates”.

A Robert Burns connection • Derek Inglis shares the story of his discovery that his paternal family line are the direct descendants of Reverend William Inglis, Robert Burns’ minister

‘A Roof o’er Their Heads’: The archaeology of Achtriachtan township in Glencoe • Derek Alexander of National Trust for Scotland reports on an archaeological survey and excavation work of settlement remains at Glencoe

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH WITCH-HUNT • As an introduction to our special issue on Scottish witchcraft, Dr Allan Kennedy offers a short overview of witch-hunting in early modern Scotland

Costs and profits of SCOTTISH WITCH-HUNTING • Professor Julian Goodare investigates the financial consequences of witch-hunting, demonstrating that it had the potential for generating windfalls for a few, but overall came with heavy costs to individuals and local communities

THE ANCRUM BUCKLE • Geoff Parkhouse takes a look at what post-excavation research can tell us about the story of a medieval buckle found at the Mantle Walls field in Ancrum, Scottish Borders

‘EROTIC RAVINGS’? THERIANTHROPY IN SCOTTISH WITCH TRIALS • Therianthropy – the transformation of people into animals – was an often-overlooked feature of magical thinking. Nicole Maceira Cumming explores the nature of the phenomenon, and asks what it can tell us about witchcraft and everyday belief in the early modern period

THE 6D PAMPHLET THAT CAUSED AN INVASION SCARE • Professor David Finkelstein takes a look at an anonymously-penned piece of invasion scare literature that became a publishing sensation, inviting Britons to imagine a military invasion 50 years on

LIKE A ROARING LION: THE DEVIL in early modern Scotland • The devil – the source of witches’ power and the master to whom they pledged their allegiance – was a frighteningly real presence in the early modern period, ever waiting, so it was thought, to lead the faithful astray. Professor Michelle D. Brock elaborates

‘FURY AND MADNESS’: THE STATUE SMASHING OF 1559 • Dr Bess Rhodes looks back at a tumultuous summer in the mid 16th century, when the traditions of centuries were swept away in an anger-fuelled mass movement that heralded the country’s ‘time of reformation’

WOMEN, WORDS AND WITCHCRAFT IN EARLY MODERN SCOTLAND • Dr Sierra Dye explains the role of disorderly speech in sustaining witch-belief and witch-hunting in Scotland, and also shows how such ideas were intimately bound up with...