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I've culled some very interesting articles from these volumes and also found some great books as well. One of the benefits in reading through this publication is that they have a Book Review section where they give you a review of the book and many times I am able to find a pdf file of the book.
I also find the odd book which I deem important enough to actually ocr onto the site. And so my findings this week have a real mix of topics...
The Distaff Side : a Study in Matrimonial Adventure in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries
By Bruce Seton
A NOTICEABLE feature of histories and biographies is the slight attention paid by the compilers to the women of the families concerned. The achievements of men, their aspirations, their motives and their characters, are minutely considered and appraised; and, as far as is consistent with truthfulness or the bias of the writer success is ascribed partly to the man himself and partly to the generosity of his father in transmitting the requisite qualities to his son.
You can view this article at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...es/distaff.htm
The riddle of the Ruthvens and other studies
By William Roughead (1919)
THIS volume, of delightful and luxurious form, is full of Scottish story. It may be described as the happy result of the lucubrations of one of our lawyers, the most skilled perhaps (teste the late Mr. Andrew Lang) in placing Scottish yesterdays before us. Generally he does this with historical subjects, but not always, otherwise we would not have had his admirable poetic criticism (placed last in this book) on Robert Fergusson, the Edinburgh prototype of Burns. Still, it is with historical or legal subjects he is generally connected, at least in this collection. He begins with ' The Riddle of the Ruthvens,' an examination of the baffling 'Gowrie Conspiracy.' We now wonder with him whether the plot was not as much on the King's side as on that of the victims. .Many 'trials,' judicial or else so-called, help to fill the book. We get a magnificent view of legal Nemesis in the remote Highlands when the Pack of the Travelling Merchant is accounted for through a dream. Witchcraft is dealt with in three studies. Auld Auchindrayne's Murder of an innocent boy is narrated, as is the modern case of 'Antique Smith ' who 'uttered' forgeries of the works of the great Dead some of which may still unhappily be current. Scottish and Irish Law finds its crux in the curious tangle of the Yelverton Marriage Case. Two important papers on Lord Braxfield (whose portrait is twice given to show his different aspects), soften a little his fierce contours, and one on Lord Grange, who deported his ill-willywife to St. Kilda, are all well worth study. It is impossible to read the book which contains many other essays of interest without delighting in the writer's thoroughness, his knowledge of Scottish History, his skill in unfolding the half forgotten past, and his quaint humour.
You can view this book at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...s/roughead.htm
Address delivered by Mr. Raymond Poincaré, President of the French Republic Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow, 1914-1919 on November 13th 1919
FOR nearly five hundred years the University of Glasgow has elected a Rector, whose post has for long been an honorary one, entailing no greater labour than the delivery of one address during the three years' tenure of office. The post, during the last century or more, has usually been held by a distinguished statesman in earlier days by ecclesiastics; and it is curious that the highest honour which the undergraduates of the University have in their power to bestow, has rarely been offered to a man on account of his scholastic or literary or scientific work. The last holder of the office, however, was probably the only Lord Rector who was the head of a Great Nation, and M. Poincare's address, which was delivered in excellent English, was of unusual interest as expressing the feeling of France towards Great Britain, and especially towards Scotland. The tributes of praise to Scottish soldiers, sailors and nurses are as generous and as discriminating as those to Scottish scholars, statesmen and institutions, although the place and circumstances of the address naturally led the speaker to adopt a laudatory rather than a critical tone throughout. But what gives the address its peculiar value is the intimate estimate by the President of the French Republic of one great Scotsman, the British Commander-in-Chief, whom M. Poincare singled out as possessing typical national characteristics. Withdrawing for a moment the veil which usually hides the proceedings at critical conferences, M. Poincare told the story of his consultation with Field-Marshal Haig on two occasions, when the fate of the Western Powers seemed to be hanging in the balance, and when the Field-Marshal not only showed his clear-sightedness and moral energy, but acted with 'a patriotism and a loyalty which will make him still greater in the world's history.' The sincerity of this personal tribute is unmistakable. In addition to the print of the Rectorial Address, the French Government has also issued in their ' Petite Collection Historique ' a series of eleven charming booklets containing speeches by the President on various public occasions during the last two years. These cover a wide field, including an oration in memory of authors who have died during the War, an address delivered at the Sorbonne, and speeches at Verdun and Nancy.
You can view this talk at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...nce/rector.htm
The Fenwick Improvement of Knowledge Society
THE Editor of the Scottish Historical Review has to thank Mr. Hugh Fulton, Pollokshields, Glasgow, for the opportunity to print the following crisp, concise and racy record of winter-night debates in the village of Fenwick, in Ayrshire, in the years between the Reform Act and the repeal of the Corn Laws. The minute book of the little debating Society of young men in Fenwick belongs to Mr. Fulton, and its significance was indicated to the writer of this note by Mr. William Gemmill, Writer, Glasgow, who shares with Mr. Fulton a keen ancestral interest in Fenwick and its Reform debates. Accordingly there is now printed verbatim et literatim the text of the curious little minute book. It is six inches by four inches, in several handwritings, often ill spelt, and worse punctuated, but always brisk and entertaining, instructively disclosing a decisive and robust mentality among the young artisans of the Ayrshire village, situated about four miles from Kilmarnock. The parish, eight miles in extreme length, and from two to five miles broad, had, in 1831, a population of 2018. The almost coterminous villages of Fenwick and Low Fenwick, best known as Laigh Fenwick from which probably the membership of 'The Fenwick Improvement of Knowledge Society' was mainly recruited, can hardly have contained more than 500 inhabitants, whose prevalent industry was weaving.
It is perhaps not surprising that, in the generation which followed Burns, we should find in an Ayrshire village, sympathy alike with liberty and literature, yet the intensity of feeling manifest throughout, argues the existence of dominating inspirations in the minds of the leaders of the coterie which, from 1834 until 1842, discuss so many attractive and important themes. The minutes are a remarkable interpretation of their time, and could hardly have better conveyed than they have done, what these village politicians and social critics thought and said and sang.
You can view this article at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...es/fenwick.htm
Peter Hume Brown
Here is a memoir of Peter Hume Brown taken from the Scottish Historical Review and written by C H Firth. He was considered to be the best historian that Scotland produced and of course at a later date that others we have featured on the site. You can view this Memoir at
http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...rown_peter.htm
Seaforth Highlanders
An account of the Seaforth Highlanders between August 1914 to April 1916.
A truly terrible account of the loss of life during WWI
This is a pdf file which can be read at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist.../seaforths.pdf
The Highland Emigration
By Margaret I. Adam
POPULAR tradition, and even literary tradition have come to associate all the great Scottish emigration movements with poverty and distress. This is particularly so of emigrations from the Highlands. The mere mention of them suggests at once rackrents, brutal landlords, and evictions.
In the face of this prevailing impression, it is worth while to analyse the nature and the causes of the first great exodus from the Highlands, an exodus which reached its highest point of activity in the early seventies of the eighteenth century.
This is a good article with a follow on article in pdf format which can be viewed at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...ration1770.htm
John of Swinton
A Border fighter of the Middle Ages. This is an article in pdf format giving some very interesting information. It's rare to get such detail from this time period and this can be viewed at http://www.electricscotland.com/webc...oz/swinton.pdf
Peasant Life in Argyllshire in the end of the Eighteenth century
From the Scottish Historical Review
The following paper by Mrs. K. W. Grant of Oban gives an account of life in her native village as related to Mrs. Grant many years ago by her grandmother. This article can be viewed at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...easantlife.htm
And so I hope you'll find something of interest in this collection of articles.
Alastair
I also find the odd book which I deem important enough to actually ocr onto the site. And so my findings this week have a real mix of topics...
The Distaff Side : a Study in Matrimonial Adventure in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries
By Bruce Seton
A NOTICEABLE feature of histories and biographies is the slight attention paid by the compilers to the women of the families concerned. The achievements of men, their aspirations, their motives and their characters, are minutely considered and appraised; and, as far as is consistent with truthfulness or the bias of the writer success is ascribed partly to the man himself and partly to the generosity of his father in transmitting the requisite qualities to his son.
You can view this article at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...es/distaff.htm
The riddle of the Ruthvens and other studies
By William Roughead (1919)
THIS volume, of delightful and luxurious form, is full of Scottish story. It may be described as the happy result of the lucubrations of one of our lawyers, the most skilled perhaps (teste the late Mr. Andrew Lang) in placing Scottish yesterdays before us. Generally he does this with historical subjects, but not always, otherwise we would not have had his admirable poetic criticism (placed last in this book) on Robert Fergusson, the Edinburgh prototype of Burns. Still, it is with historical or legal subjects he is generally connected, at least in this collection. He begins with ' The Riddle of the Ruthvens,' an examination of the baffling 'Gowrie Conspiracy.' We now wonder with him whether the plot was not as much on the King's side as on that of the victims. .Many 'trials,' judicial or else so-called, help to fill the book. We get a magnificent view of legal Nemesis in the remote Highlands when the Pack of the Travelling Merchant is accounted for through a dream. Witchcraft is dealt with in three studies. Auld Auchindrayne's Murder of an innocent boy is narrated, as is the modern case of 'Antique Smith ' who 'uttered' forgeries of the works of the great Dead some of which may still unhappily be current. Scottish and Irish Law finds its crux in the curious tangle of the Yelverton Marriage Case. Two important papers on Lord Braxfield (whose portrait is twice given to show his different aspects), soften a little his fierce contours, and one on Lord Grange, who deported his ill-willywife to St. Kilda, are all well worth study. It is impossible to read the book which contains many other essays of interest without delighting in the writer's thoroughness, his knowledge of Scottish History, his skill in unfolding the half forgotten past, and his quaint humour.
You can view this book at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...s/roughead.htm
Address delivered by Mr. Raymond Poincaré, President of the French Republic Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow, 1914-1919 on November 13th 1919
FOR nearly five hundred years the University of Glasgow has elected a Rector, whose post has for long been an honorary one, entailing no greater labour than the delivery of one address during the three years' tenure of office. The post, during the last century or more, has usually been held by a distinguished statesman in earlier days by ecclesiastics; and it is curious that the highest honour which the undergraduates of the University have in their power to bestow, has rarely been offered to a man on account of his scholastic or literary or scientific work. The last holder of the office, however, was probably the only Lord Rector who was the head of a Great Nation, and M. Poincare's address, which was delivered in excellent English, was of unusual interest as expressing the feeling of France towards Great Britain, and especially towards Scotland. The tributes of praise to Scottish soldiers, sailors and nurses are as generous and as discriminating as those to Scottish scholars, statesmen and institutions, although the place and circumstances of the address naturally led the speaker to adopt a laudatory rather than a critical tone throughout. But what gives the address its peculiar value is the intimate estimate by the President of the French Republic of one great Scotsman, the British Commander-in-Chief, whom M. Poincare singled out as possessing typical national characteristics. Withdrawing for a moment the veil which usually hides the proceedings at critical conferences, M. Poincare told the story of his consultation with Field-Marshal Haig on two occasions, when the fate of the Western Powers seemed to be hanging in the balance, and when the Field-Marshal not only showed his clear-sightedness and moral energy, but acted with 'a patriotism and a loyalty which will make him still greater in the world's history.' The sincerity of this personal tribute is unmistakable. In addition to the print of the Rectorial Address, the French Government has also issued in their ' Petite Collection Historique ' a series of eleven charming booklets containing speeches by the President on various public occasions during the last two years. These cover a wide field, including an oration in memory of authors who have died during the War, an address delivered at the Sorbonne, and speeches at Verdun and Nancy.
You can view this talk at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...nce/rector.htm
The Fenwick Improvement of Knowledge Society
THE Editor of the Scottish Historical Review has to thank Mr. Hugh Fulton, Pollokshields, Glasgow, for the opportunity to print the following crisp, concise and racy record of winter-night debates in the village of Fenwick, in Ayrshire, in the years between the Reform Act and the repeal of the Corn Laws. The minute book of the little debating Society of young men in Fenwick belongs to Mr. Fulton, and its significance was indicated to the writer of this note by Mr. William Gemmill, Writer, Glasgow, who shares with Mr. Fulton a keen ancestral interest in Fenwick and its Reform debates. Accordingly there is now printed verbatim et literatim the text of the curious little minute book. It is six inches by four inches, in several handwritings, often ill spelt, and worse punctuated, but always brisk and entertaining, instructively disclosing a decisive and robust mentality among the young artisans of the Ayrshire village, situated about four miles from Kilmarnock. The parish, eight miles in extreme length, and from two to five miles broad, had, in 1831, a population of 2018. The almost coterminous villages of Fenwick and Low Fenwick, best known as Laigh Fenwick from which probably the membership of 'The Fenwick Improvement of Knowledge Society' was mainly recruited, can hardly have contained more than 500 inhabitants, whose prevalent industry was weaving.
It is perhaps not surprising that, in the generation which followed Burns, we should find in an Ayrshire village, sympathy alike with liberty and literature, yet the intensity of feeling manifest throughout, argues the existence of dominating inspirations in the minds of the leaders of the coterie which, from 1834 until 1842, discuss so many attractive and important themes. The minutes are a remarkable interpretation of their time, and could hardly have better conveyed than they have done, what these village politicians and social critics thought and said and sang.
You can view this article at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...es/fenwick.htm
Peter Hume Brown
Here is a memoir of Peter Hume Brown taken from the Scottish Historical Review and written by C H Firth. He was considered to be the best historian that Scotland produced and of course at a later date that others we have featured on the site. You can view this Memoir at
http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...rown_peter.htm
Seaforth Highlanders
An account of the Seaforth Highlanders between August 1914 to April 1916.
A truly terrible account of the loss of life during WWI
This is a pdf file which can be read at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist.../seaforths.pdf
The Highland Emigration
By Margaret I. Adam
POPULAR tradition, and even literary tradition have come to associate all the great Scottish emigration movements with poverty and distress. This is particularly so of emigrations from the Highlands. The mere mention of them suggests at once rackrents, brutal landlords, and evictions.
In the face of this prevailing impression, it is worth while to analyse the nature and the causes of the first great exodus from the Highlands, an exodus which reached its highest point of activity in the early seventies of the eighteenth century.
This is a good article with a follow on article in pdf format which can be viewed at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...ration1770.htm
John of Swinton
A Border fighter of the Middle Ages. This is an article in pdf format giving some very interesting information. It's rare to get such detail from this time period and this can be viewed at http://www.electricscotland.com/webc...oz/swinton.pdf
Peasant Life in Argyllshire in the end of the Eighteenth century
From the Scottish Historical Review
The following paper by Mrs. K. W. Grant of Oban gives an account of life in her native village as related to Mrs. Grant many years ago by her grandmother. This article can be viewed at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...easantlife.htm
And so I hope you'll find something of interest in this collection of articles.
Alastair