15
Oct

The Honours of Scotland

   Posted by: Win Tonkin   in Medieval Miscellany

This is the second part of Win’s interesting talk presented to our Branch on 9 October 2010.

On February 4th, 1818, a group of distinguished men, including the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, Senior Legal Representatives, the Commander in Chief of the Army and Sir Walter Scott, the poet and author, gathered outside the sealed door of the Crown Room in Edinburgh Castle.

Scott’s pleas to the Prince Regent, later George IV, had resulted in a Royal Warrant permitting him and Officers of the State to open the Crown Room. Masonry was removed from the doorway. Inside was a great oak chest.

They approached it apprehensively because there was a strong suspicion that the chest would be empty and that the Honours had been spirited away.

It was with great joy when the lid was raised to find the Regalia covered with linen cloths.

The discovery was communicated to the waiting public by the raising of the Royal Standard and the shouts of the soldiers of the garrison.

Win in front of a poster showing the Honours of Scotland

Sadly no regalia from early or medieval times have survived. However, the Honours of Scotland do predate the Regalia on display in the Tower of London.

The present Honours consist of the Crown, Sceptre and Sword of State and date from the time of King James IV.

The Sceptre was a gift from Pope Alexander VI. In 1502 James IV ordered a Sword of State from an Edinburgh cutler Robert Selkirk but this was superseded by another gift from the Pope, this time Julius II.

The Sword and scabbard were made by Domenico da Sutri and are highly decorated. Also a consecrated Hat was given but this has not survived.

The Sword blade is 991 cm long. The scabbard is made of wood covered in red velvet. The Sword belt is of woven silk with a silver buckle.

King James IV was killed in 1513 at the Battle of Flodden. He had marched his army south in an attack on England while Henry VIII, his brother-in-law, was in France. His army was decimated and no noble house in Scotland escaped the carnage.

This left James V another infant King. When he took power he began to enhance the symbols of his sovereignty. He began with the Sceptre.

In 1536 the Edinburgh goldsmith remodelled and lengthened the Sceptre and added engravings of thistles and fleur-de-lis and other devices.

This same year James V married Princess Madelaine, daughter of the King of France. Sadly Madelaine, a delicate girl, could not survive the Scottish weather and died seven weeks after her arrival in Scotland probably of tuberculosis.

In 1538 King James married another French bride, Mary of Guise, and he took this opportunity to remodel the Crown.

The goldsmith appointed to undertake the work was John Mosman, so in 1540 he started the work. He was given 41 ounces of gold mined at Crawford Moor and anyone who followed the series Britannia on TV would have seen gold being panned in the very burn. He was also provided with garnets and amethysts and an orb and cross to fix on the arches of the Crown.

To complete the renovation a new velvet bonnet lined with purple satin was added. It was tailored by Thomas Arthur who charged 5 shillings for the work and three pounds 12 shillings and sixpence for the materials.  When finished the Crown weighed 3 Ibs 10 oz. The King wore it for the first time at Queen Mary’s coronation in the Abbey Church at Holyrood.

King James V died on December 14, 1542, at Falkland Palace in Fife aged only 30. Six days earlier at Linlithgow Castle Queen Mary had given birth to a daughter, Mary Queen of Scots.

Scotland was once again at war with England.  The infant Queen was taken to the safety of Stirling Castle. At the age of 9 months she was crowned in the Chapel Royal and the new crown was used for the first time with the other Honours. It was a moving ceremony.  The Crown was placed on her head, the Sceptre in her little hand. It was reported that Mary cried throughout the procedure. Could it be that the child had some premonition of what would happen finally to that poor head?

At the age of five Mary went to France and was brought up with the French royal children. At the age of fifteen (15) she married the Dauphin, became Queen of France, was widowed, returned to Scotland, married Darnley, gave birth to James VI, was widowed again, married Bothwell, was forced to abdicate, fled to England and imprisonment, leaving once again an infant as King. He was crowned in 1567 at Stirling with the Honours which were then returned to Edinburgh and into the care of the Keeper, Sir William Kirkaldy, where he held the Castle under siege in the name of Queen Mary for 2 years called the “Lang Seige”.

In 1578 King James’ minority came to an end and he ruled Scotland for 25 years until 1603 when he succeeded to the crown of England on the death of Queen Elizabeth.

James’ departure for England increased the importance of the Honours, which remained in Scotland, to the Scottish people. In 1615 the Royal Apartments in Edinburgh Castle were refurbished for a visit of the King and a room was made to house the Honours and provide a safe and permanent repository.

James VI died in 1625 after a relatively peaceful reign. He said: “Here I sit and govern Scotland with my pen which others could not do by the sword.”

This cannot be said of his successor, Charles I. Troubled times followed. After a few false starts he did return eventually, in 1633, for his coronation which was conducted with great pomp, the Honours taking a prominent part in the Chapel Royal at Holyrood.

By 1636 Charles had got on the wrong side of his Scottish subjects by interfering in their religious life. At last they objected and signed the National Covenant. The Honours were removed to Dalkeith Castle where they stayed for three years. When the Covenanters and the Honours returned to Edinburgh Charles marched on Scotland with an army but was stopped at the border.  Finally, after surrendering to the Scots in 1646 he was handed over to the English under Oliver Cromwell who beheaded him.

Although the Scots disagreed with Charles over religious matters they did not wish to abolish the monarchy and after the King’s execution they proclaimed his son Charles II King of Scotland.
Cromwell was incensed and invaded, defeating the Scottish army and advancing on Edinburgh.

The Honours were taken north and preparations were made for Charles II’s coronation on 1st January, 1651, at Scone. The King was crowned, the last coronation to happen in Scotland.

With Cromwell in possession of Edinburgh the Honours could not be returned there and Charles II ordered them to be sent to Dunnottar Castle. He then marched south with the Scottish army to defeat at Worcester and his escape to France.

Cromwell was determined to get hold of the Honours and destroy them as he had done to the English Regalia. His troops, under the command of General Monk, marched north — Perth, Dundee and Aberdeen fell to him. Finally at Dunnottar the castle withstood a siege for 8 months.

The story of the smuggling of the Honours out of the Castle is the stuff of legend and there are several versions. One says they were lowered over the walls to a woman supposedly gathering seaweed. She put them in a creek and took them to Kinneff Church where they were buried beneath the floor.

Another version was that Christina Granger, the minister’s wife, with a servant obtained leave to enter the castle to visit the Governor’s wife and that she took the Honours out hidden in her clothes and the Sword in bundles of flax. By whatever means the minister did bury them under the floor of the church.

On May 26, 1652, the siege of Dunnottar ended with its surrender. Cromwell was bitterly disappointed not to find the Honours and took out his anger on the Governor George Ogilvie and his wife by imprisoning them harshly. Ogilvie survived to tell the tale but his wife died during her imprisonment.

King Charles II, on his Restoration, rewarded those involved in the saving of the Honours.

After 1651 the Honours were never used again in a coronation. They were used at sittings of Parliament in Edinburgh to signify the King’s presence and were treated with reverence and dignity.

When Parliament assembled in 1706 the Honours were used for the last time because in 1707 the Treaty of the Union of the Parliaments was ratified. The Lord Chancellor touched the Act with the Sceptre with the moving words: “Now there’s an end of an auld sang.”

There was some comfort as one of the Articles of the Act was that the Honours continue to be kept in that part of the United Kingdom now called Scotland.

The Honours were handed over to the Lord Treasurer and taken to the Castle and put in the Crown Room and locked in the great oak chest where they remained until 1818 when they were uncovered by Sir Walter Scott.

In 1822 King George IV, on his journey north, came to Edinburgh where he received the Honours ceremoniously.

From then on the Honours were on public display except for a time during World War II when they were buried secretly within the Castle.

When Elizabeth II paid her first State Visit to Scotland, at a service in St Giles High Kirk, she received them by touching each piece in turn.

They were later used at the opening of the Scottish Parliament in 1999.

They are now on display reunited with the Stone of Destiny at last.

There is a brief footnote to this account. It seems that the Regalia need some TLC from time to time and the man to give it is Bill Jamieson, jeweller, who has looked after them, man and boy and, aged eighty-seven in 2007, was invited to witness the Queen opening the Parliament.

Evidently, to be cleaned properly the Crown has to be taken to bits and then put together again and he recommends soapy water and elbow grease.

It is now kept in a glass case.

Source:

Series of Articles in Scots Magazine by Charles Burnett and Christoher Tabraham
Magnus Magnusson, History of Scotland.

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This entry was posted on Friday, October 15th, 2010 at 0:01 and is filed under Medieval Miscellany. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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  1. Richard III Society of NSW » Blog Archive » The 2010 AGM and Meeting of the Richard III Society, NSW Branch    Oct 16 2010 / 7am:

    […] interesting and comprehensive presentations were about ‘The Stone of Destiny’, and ‘The Honours of Scotland’. The Stone of Destiny is the block of stone dating back to biblical times upon which the ancient […]

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