HISTORY, ETC: THE SUNDAY SNAP

A picture for today, and a look at the week ahead on History, Etc.

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Edinburgh is one of my favourite cities in the world. I lived there for a few years when I was a child, and love to go back as often as I can. When I visit, I like to stay right in the middle of town, in tourist country: apartments off the Royal Mile with big windows that look out over Princes Street and the Scott Monument, at which I can gaze while I lie in the bath with a bottle of beer and a book.

Walk out of those apartments and the first landmark you meet is St Giles’ Cathedral, founded in 1124, though much changed since. The cathedral (also known as the High Kirk of Edinburgh) was remodelled and refurbished in the nineteenth century, and there’s plenty of Victorian stained glass to see - if that’s your jam.

Here is one of those pieces of stained glass, depicting a famous event in Scottish history: the assassination of James Stewart, 1st earl of Moray. An illegitimate son of James V of Scotland, Moray was acting as regent for the young James VI, until he was gunned down in Linlithgow, halfway between Edinburgh and Falkirk, on this day in history, 23rd January, 1570.

As sixteenth-century Scottish history goes, being murdered in high office was pretty much par for the course. But Moray is notable for the fact that he was the first head of state to be assassinated with a firearm. A long and ignoble history stretches from Linlithgow 1570 to Dallas 1963 and beyond.

This week on History, Etc, I’ll be writing about animal culls and pandemics, connecting the Hong Kong Covid hamster slaughter with a medieval pope’s alleged orders to kill cats suspected of being Satan’s familiars - and its role (or not) in causing the Black Death. There’ll be an exclusive subscriber post, a Q&A and another edition of the podcast, First Draft. I hope you enjoy it.