About Edinburgh
Edinburgh - is the capital of Scotland and its second largest city, after Glasgow, which is 45 miles away to the west.

It is in the south-east of Scotland, on the east coast of Scotland's Central Belt, on the south shore of the Firth of Forth, on the North Sea and, because of its rugged setting and vast collection of Medieval and Georgian architecture including numerous stone tenements, it is one of the most dramatic cities in Europe.
It forms the City of Edinburgh council area; the city council area includes urban Edinburgh and a 30sq mile rural area.
It has been the capital of Scotland since 1437 (replacing Scone) and is the seat of the Scottish Parliament. The city was one of the major centres of the Enlightenment, led by the University of Edinburgh, gaining the nickname Athens of the North. The Old Town and New Town districts of Edinburgh were listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1995. There are over 4,500 listed buildings within the city. In the census of 2001, Edinburgh had a total resident population of 448,624.

Edinburgh is well-known for the annual Edinburgh Festival, a collection of official and independent festivals held annually over about four weeks from early August. The number of visitors attracted to Edinburgh for the Festival is roughly equal to the settled population of the city. The most famous of these events are the Edinburgh Fringe (the largest performing arts festival in the world), the Edinburgh International Festival, the Edinburgh Military Tattoo, and the Edinburgh International Film Festival.

Other notable events include the Hogmanay street party (31 December), Burns Night (25 January), St. Andrew's Day (November 30), and the Beltane celebrations (30 April).
The city is one of Europe's major tourist destinations, attracting around 13 million visitors a year, and is the second most visited tourist destination in the United Kingdom, after London.
The origin of the city's name in English is understood to come from the Brythonic Din Eidyn (Fort of Eidyn) from the time when it was a Gododdin hillfort. In the 1st century the Romans recorded the Votadini as a Brythonic tribe in the area, and about 600 A.D. the poem Y Gododdin, using the Brythonic form of that name, describes warriors feasting "in Eidin's great hall".
It came to be known to the English, the Bernician Angles, as Edin-burh, which some people once believed derived from the Old English for "Edwin's fort", with a reference to the 7th century king Edwin of Northumbria. However, since the name apparently predates King Edwin, this is highly unlikely. The burgh element means "fortress" or "walled group of buildings", i.e. a town or city and is akin to the German burg, Latin parcus, Greek pyrgos etc. Burh is simply a translation of Brythonic Din; Edin is untranslated.
Documents from the 14th century show the name to have settled into its current form;[citation needed] with spelling variants including "Edynburgh" and "Edynburghe".

Other names
The city is affectionately nicknamed Auld Reekie (Scots for Old Stinky or Old Smoky), because the open sewers of the Old Town led to strong odours across the city, and, when buildings were heated by coal and wood fires, chimneys would spew thick columns of smoke into the air.

Some have called Edinburgh the Athens of the North and Auld Greekie for its intellectual history, and for its topography, with the Old Town of Edinburgh performing a similar role to the Athenian Acropolis.

Panorama of the Old Town and Southside of Edinburgh from the Nelson monument. Panorama was originally coined by the Irish painter Robert Barker to describe his panoramic paintings of Edinburgh

Edinburgh has also been known as Dunedin, deriving from the Scottish Gaelic, Dùn Èideann. Dunedin, New Zealand, was originally called "New Edinburgh" and is still nicknamed the "Edinburgh of the South". The Scots poets Robert Burns and Robert Fergusson sometimes used the city's Latin name, Edina. Ben Jonson described it as Britain's other eye, and Sir Walter Scott referred to the city as yon Empress of the North.

Areas of Edinburgh

The historic centre of Edinburgh is divided in two by the broad green swath of Princes Street Gardens. To the south the view is dominated by Edinburgh Castle, perched atop the extinct volcanic crag, and the long sweep of the Old Town trailing after it along the ridge. To the north lies Princes Street and the New Town. The gardens were begun in 1816 on bogland which had once been the Nor Loch.

To the immediate west of the castle lies the financial district, housing insurance and banking buildings. Probably the most noticeable building here is the circular sandstone building that is the Edinburgh International Conference Centre. Image:Scottish Sunset from North Bridge.jpg

Old Town, Edinburgh

View over Auld Reekie, with the Dugald Stewart Monument in the foreground
The Old Town has preserved its medieval plan and many Reformation-era buildings. One end is closed by the castle and the main artery, the Royal Mile, leads away from it; minor streets (called closes or wynds) lead downhill on either side of the main spine in a herringbone pattern. Large squares mark the location of markets or surround public buildings such as St Giles Cathedral and the Law Courts. Other notable places nearby include the Royal Museum of Scotland, Surgeons' Hall and McEwan Hall. The street layout is typical of the old quarters of many northern European cities, and where the castle perches on top of a rocky crag (the remnants of an extinct volcano) the Royal Mile runs down the crest of a ridge from it.

The Royal Mile in the Old Town during the Edinburgh Festival
Due to space restrictions imposed by the narrowness of the "tail," the Old Town became home to some of the earliest "high rise" residential buildings. Multi-storey dwellings known as lands were the norm from the 1500s onwards with ten and eleven stories being typical and one even reaching fourteen stories. Additionally, numerous vaults below street level were inhabited to accommodate the influx of mainly Irish immigrants during the Industrial Revolution. These continue to fuel legends of an underground city to this day.

New Town
Main article: New Town, Edinburgh

The New Town was an 18th century solution to the problem of an increasingly crowded Old Town. The city had remained incredibly compact, confined to the ridge running down from the castle. In 1766 a competition to design the New Town was won by James Craig, a 22-year-old architect. The plan that was built created a rigid, ordered grid, which fitted well with enlightenment ideas of rationality. The principal street was to be George Street, which follows the natural ridge to the north of the Old Town. Either side of it are the other main streets of Princes Street and Queen Street. Princes Street has since become the main shopping street in Edinburgh, and few Georgian buildings survive on it. Linking these streets were a series of perpendicular streets. At the east and west ends are St. Andrew Square and Charlotte Square respectively. The latter was designed by Robert Adam and is often considered one of the finest Georgian squares in the world. Bute House, the official residence of the First Minister of Scotland, is on the north side of Charlotte Square.
Sitting in the glen between the Old and New Towns was the Nor' Loch, which had been both the city's water supply and place for dumping sewage. By the 1820s it was drained. Some plans show that a canal was intended, but Princes Street Gardens were created instead. Excess soil from the construction of the buildings was dumped into the loch, creating what is now The Mound. In the mid-19th century the National Gallery of Scotland and Royal Scottish Academy Building were built on The Mound, and tunnels to Waverley Station driven through it.

The New Town was so successful that it was extended greatly. The grid pattern was not maintained, but rather a more picturesque layout was created. Today the New Town is considered by many to be one of the finest examples of Georgian architecture and planning in the world.

The Mound, Edinburgh
A popular residential part of the city is its south side, comprising a number of areas including Saint Leonards, Marchmont, Haymarket, Polwarth, Newington, Sciennes, The Grange, Bruntsfield, Morningside, and Merchiston. "South side" is broadly analogous to the area covered by the Burgh Muir, and grew in popularity as a residential area following the opening of the South Bridge. These areas are particularly popular with families (many well-regarded state and private schools are located here), students (the central University of Edinburgh campus is based around George Square just north of Marchmont and the Meadows, and Napier University has major campuses around Merchiston & Morningside), and with festival-goers. These areas are also the subject of fictional work: Ian Rankin's Inspector Rebus lives in Marchmont and worked in St Leonards; and Morningside is the home of Muriel Spark's Miss Jean Brodie. Today, the literary connection continues, with the area being home to the authors J. K. Rowling, Ian Rankin, and Alexander McCall Smith.

Leith is the port of Edinburgh. It still retains a separate identity from Edinburgh, and it was a matter of great resentment when, in 1920, the burgh of Leith was merged into the county of Edinburgh. Even today the parliamentary seat is known as 'Edinburgh North and Leith'. With the redevelopment of Leith, Edinburgh has gained the business of a number of cruise liner companies who now provide cruises to Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands. Leith also boasts the Royal Yacht Britannia, berthed behind the Ocean Terminal as well as being home to Hibernian F.C.

Viewpoints

The Scott Monument
The varied terrain of the city includes several summits which command sweeping views over Edinburgh.
To the southeast of central Edinburgh stands the eminence known as Arthur's Seat, overlooking Holyroodhouse and the Old Town beside it. The crag is a collection of side vents of the main volcano on which Edinburgh is built. The volcano slipped and tipped sideways, leaving these vents as the highest points for kilometres around. Arthur's Seat is now part of Holyrood Park, originally owned by the monarch and part of the grounds of the Palace of Holyroodhouse. It contains the United Kingdom's largest concentration of geological SSSIs, as well as providing the people of Edinburgh with spectacular views of and from Arthur's Seat and somewhere to relax after a long day in the city.
To the northeast, overlooking the New Town, is Calton Hill. It is topped by an assortment of buildings and monuments: two observatories, Nelson's Monument (a tower dedicated to Admiral Horatio Nelson), the old Royal High School (once almost the home of a devolved Scottish Assembly), and the unfinished National Monument, which is modelled on the Parthenon from the Athenian Acropolis and is nicknamed "Edinburgh's Disgrace". The nickname of the city, "Athens of the North", also hails partly from this monument. Calton Hill plays host to the Beltane Fire Festival on May 1.
The Royal Observatory rests on Blackford Hill, the third and Southernmost viewpoint of the city.

Geography - Climate
Like much of the rest of Scotland, Edinburgh has a temperate maritime climate, which is relatively mild despite its northerly latitude. Winters are especially mild, considering that Moscow and Labrador in Newfoundland lie on the same latitude, with daytime temperatures rarely falling below freezing. Summer temperatures are normally moderate, with daily upper maxima rarely exceeding 28 °C. The proximity of the city to the sea mitigates any large variations in temperature or extremes of climate. Given Edinburgh's position between the coast and hills it is renowned as a windy city, with the prevailing wind direction coming from the south-west which is associated with warm, unstable air from the Gulf Stream that can give rise to rainfall - although far less than cities to the west such as Glasgow. Indeed Edinburgh has a lower annual precipitation than most UK cities outside the south-east, and over 100 mm less than Dublin. Winds from an easterly direction are usually drier but colder. Rainfall is distributed fairly evenly throughout the year. Vigorous Atlantic depressions - sometimes called European windstorms can affect the city between October and March.

Portobello Beach
As of 2005, the General Register Office for Scotland estimated that the City of Edinburgh council area had a resident population of 457,830. The 2001 UK census reported the population to be 448,624, making the city the seventh largest in the United Kingdom. The General Register Office also reported that this resident population was split between 220,094 males and 237,736 females.

Though Edinburgh's population is ageing, a very large and transient population of young students studying at the city universities, has offset this demographic problem. There are estimated to be around 100,000 students studying at the various Higher Education institutions in the city.

The population of the greater Edinburgh area (including parts of Fife and the Scottish Borders) is 1.25 million and is projected to grow to 1.33 million by 2020. City of Edinburgh Council hopes this will continue to grow to 1.5 million by 2040, which is in line with the current average population of the three leading city regions in northern Europe: Stockholm, Helsinki and Oslo.

Some 350 and 400 million years ago, the cores of several volcanic vents in the area cooled and solidified to form tough basalt volcanic plugs. Later, during the last ice age, glaciers moving from west to east eroded the area to its current conformation.

Old Town
Castle Rock is one such plug, which during ice ages sheltered the softer rock to the east forming a mile-long tail of material to the east, creating a distinctive crag and tail formation. This structure, along with a ravine to the south and a swampy valley to the north, formed an ideal natural fortress and recent excavations found material dating back to the Late Bronze Age, around 850BCE.

Over the last few hundred years, the area occupied by this geological feature has come to be known as the Old Town. Edinburgh Castle stands on the crag, and the Royal Mile follows the narrow crest of the steep-sided tail, descending from the castle to meet general ground level at Holyrood Palace. The Grassmarket and Cowgate run east-west through the ravine to the south, while the swamp of the Nor Loch has now been drained to form Princes Street Gardens, and accommodates Edinburgh Waverley railway station.

Arthur's Seat
Like the castle rock on which Edinburgh Castle is built, Arthur's Seat was formed by an extinct volcano system of the Carboniferous period, which was eroded by a glacier moving from west to east during the Quaternary, exposing rocky crags to the west and leaving a tail of material swept to the east. This is how the Salisbury Crags formed and became teschenite cliffs between Arthur's Seat and the city centre.

Culture - Festivals
Culturally, Edinburgh is best known for the Edinburgh Festival, although this is in fact a series of separate events, which run from the end of July until early September each year. The longest established festival is the Edinburgh International Festival, which first ran in 1947. The International Festival centres on a programme of high-profile theatre productions and classical music performances, featuring international directors, conductors, theatre companies and orchestras.

The International Festival has since been taken over in both size and popularity by the Edinburgh Fringe. What began as a programme of marginal acts has become the largest arts festival in the world, with 1867 different shows being staged in 2006, in 261 venues. Comedy is now one of the mainstays of the Fringe, with numerous notable comedians getting their 'break' here, often through receipt of the Perrier Award.

Alongside these major festivals, there is also the Edinburgh Art Festival, Edinburgh International Film Festival, the Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival, and the Edinburgh International Book Festival. T on the Fringe, a popular music offshoot of the Fringe, began in 2000, replacing the smaller Flux and Planet Pop series of shows. Tigerfest is an independent music festival which ran concurrently with the Fringe in 2004 and 2005 before moving to a May slot in 2006.

Running concurrently with the summer festivals, the Edinburgh Military Tattoo occupies the Castle Esplanade every night, with massed pipers and fireworks.
The Edinburgh International Science Festival is held annually in April and is one of the most popular science festivals in the world.

A Viking longship being burnt during Edinburgh's annual Beltane festival celebrations.
Equally famous is the annual Hogmanay celebration. Originally simply a street party held on Princes Street and the Royal Mile, the Hogmanay event has been officially organised since 1993. In 1996, over 300,000 people attended, leading to ticketing of the main street party in later years, with a limit of 100,000 tickets. Hogmanay now covers four days of processions, concerts and fireworks, and the event regularly attracts thousands of people. On the night of 30 April, the Beltane Fire Festival takes place on Edinburgh's Calton Hill. The festival involves a procession followed by the re-enactment of scenes inspired by pagan spring fertility celebrations.

Museums and libraries
Edinburgh is home to a large number of museums and libraries, especially ones that are considered the main national institutions, the most important are the Museum of Scotland, the Royal Museum, the National Library of Scotland, National War Museum of Scotland, the Museum of Edinburgh, Museum of Childhood (Edinburgh) and the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

Literature and philosophy
Edinburgh has a long literary tradition, going back to the Scottish Enlightenment. Writers such as James Boswell, Robert Louis Stevenson, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Sir Walter Scott all lived and worked in Edinburgh. More recently, Edinburgh has become associated with the crime novels of Ian Rankin; the work of Leith native Irvine Welsh, whose novels are mostly set in the city and are often written in colloquial Scots; and two of Edinburgh resident Alexander McCall Smith's book series. Edinburgh has been declared the first UNESCO City of Literature. J K Rowling is also a resident of Edinburgh.

Edinburgh's Enlightenment also produced philosopher David Hume and the pioneer of economics, Adam Smith.

The Royal Mile
Outside festival season, Edinburgh continues to support a number of theatres and production companies. The Royal Lyceum Theatre has its own company, while the King's Theatre, Edinburgh Festival Theatre, and Edinburgh Playhouse stage large touring shows. The Traverse Theatre presents a more contemporary programme of plays. Amateur theatre companies productions are staged at the Bedlam Theatre, Church Hill Theatre, and the King's Theatre amongst others.

The Usher Hall is Edinburgh's premier venue for classical music, as well as the occasional prestige popular music gig. Other halls staging music and theatre include The Hub, the Assembly Rooms and the Queen's Hall. The Scottish Chamber Orchestra is based in
Edinburgh has two repertory cinemas, the Edinburgh Filmhouse, and the Cameo, and the independent Dominion Cinema, as well as the usual range of multiplexes.
Edinburgh has a healthy popular music scene. Occasional large gigs are staged at Murrayfield, The Liquid Room, Meadowbank, and the Edinburgh Corn Exchange.
Edinburgh is also home to a flourishing group of contemporary composers such as Nigel Osborne, Peter Nelson, Lyell Cresswell, Haflidi Hallgrimsson, Edward Harper, Robert Crawford, Robert Dow, and John McLeod whose music is also heard regularly on BBC Radio 3 and throughout the UK.

The National Gallery of Scotland
Edinburgh is home to Scotland's five National Galleries. The national collection is housed in the National Gallery of Scotland, located on the Mound, and now linked to the Royal Scottish Academy, which holds regular major exhibitions of painting. The contemporary collections are shown in the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, and the nearby Dean Gallery. The Scottish National Portrait Gallery focuses on portraits and photography.

The council-owned City Arts Centre shows regular art exhibitions. Across the road, The Fruitmarket Gallery offers world class exhibitions of contemporary art, featuring work by British and international artists with both emerging and established international reputations.

Edinburgh is also home to several of Scotland’s galleries and organisations dedicated to contemporary visual art. Significant strands of this infrastructure include: The Scottish Arts Council, Inverleith House, Edinburgh College of Art, Talbot Rice Gallery (University of Edinburgh), The Travelling Gallery, Edinburgh Printmakers, WASPS, Artlink, Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, Doggerfisher, Stills, Collective Gallery, Out of the Blue, The Embassy, Magnifitat, Sleeper, Total Kunst, OneZero, Standby, Portfolio Magazine, MAP magazine, Edinburgh's One O'Clock Gun Periodical and Product magazine and the Edinburgh Annuale.

Edinburgh has a large number of pubs, clubs and restaurants. The traditional areas were the Grassmarket, Lothian Road and surrounding streets, Rose Street and its surrounds and the Bridges. In recent years George Street in the New Town has grown in prominence, with a large number of new, upmarket public houses and nightclubs opening, along with a number on the parallel Queen Street. Stockbridge and the waterfront at Leith are also increasingly fashionable areas, with a number of pubs, clubs and restaurants.
Like many other cities in the UK, Edinburgh has numerous nightclubs that play popular and chart music. The underground nightclub scene playing music such as Techno, House, Electronica and Drum & Bass however has suffered in recent years with the closure of Wilkie House, The Venue, La Belle Angele (burned in a fire) and The Honeycomb (although it has recently reopened as The Hive). Berlin, Cabaret Voltaire, Ego, Studio 24, The Caves, The Hive, and The Liquid Room are the main nightclub venues in the city.
A fortnightly publication, The List, is dedicated to life in Edinburgh and Glasgow, and contains listings of all Nightclubs, as well as music, theatrical and other events. The List also regularly produces specialist guides such as its Food and Drink guide and its guide to the Edinburgh Festivals. There are also many competing magazines that can be found for free such as Flash Edinburgh or Gig Guide.

Edinburgh has two professional football clubs: Heart of Midlothian and Hibernian. They are known locally as Hearts and Hibs. Both teams currently play in the Scottish Premier League: Hearts at Tynecastle Stadium in Gorgie, and Hibernian at Easter Road Stadium, which straddles the former boundary between Edinburgh and Leith.

Edinburgh was also home to senior sides St Bernard's, Ferranti Thistle F.C. and most recently, Meadowbank Thistle until 1995, when the club moved to Livingston, shedding their old name and becoming Livingston F.C.. The Scottish national team usually plays at Hampden Park, in Glasgow, although in recent years it has played some friendly matches at Easter Road and Tynecastle.

Non-league sides include Spartans and Edinburgh City, who play in the East of Scotland League along with Civil Service Strollers F.C., Lothian Thistle F.C., Edinburgh University A.F.C., Edinburgh Athletic F.C., Tynecastle F.C., Craigroyston F.C. and Heriot-Watt University F.C.. There is one team who plays in the Scottish Junior Football Association, East Region: Edinburgh United F.C..

Other sports
The Scotland national rugby union team plays at Murrayfield Stadium, which is owned by the Scottish Rugby Union and is also used as a venue for other events, including music concerts. Edinburgh's professional rugby team, Edinburgh Rugby, play in the Celtic League at Murrayfield. It is the largest capacity stadium in Scotland. Raeburn Place is notable for holding the first ever rugby international game between Scotland and England.
The Scottish cricket team, who represent Scotland at cricket internationally and in the C&G Trophy, play their home matches at The Grange in Stockbridge.

The Edinburgh Capitals are the latest of a succession of ice hockey clubs to represent the Scottish capital. Previously Edinburgh was represented by the Murrayfield Racers and the Edinburgh Racers. The club play their home games at the Murrayfield Ice Rink and are the sole Scottish representative in the Elite Ice Hockey League.

The Edinburgh Diamond Devils are a baseball club claiming its first Scottish Championship in 1991 as the "Reivers." 1992 saw the team repeat as national champions, becoming the first team to do so in league history and saw the start of the club's first youth team, the Blue Jays. The name of the club was changed in 1999.

Edinburgh has also hosted various national and international sports events including the World Student Games, the 1970 British Commonwealth Games, the 1986 Commonwealth Games and the inaugural 2000 Commonwealth Youth Games. For the Games in 1970 the city built major Olympic standard venues and facilities including the Royal Commonwealth Pool and the Meadowbank Stadium.

In American football, the Scottish Claymores played WLAF/NFL Europe games at Murrayfield, including their World Bowl 96 victory. From 1995 to 1997 they played all their games there, from 1998 to 2000 they split their home matches between Murrayfield and Glasgow's Hampden Park, then moved to Glasgow full-time, with one final Murrayfield appearance in 2002. Their most successful non-professional team are the Edinburgh Wolves.

The Edinburgh Marathon has been held in the city since 1999 with more than 13,000 taking part annually.
Edinburgh has a speedway team - the Edinburgh Monarchs - who currently are based at the Lothian Arena in Armadale, West Lothian.

Economy
Main article: Economy of Edinburgh
Edinburgh has the strongest economy of any city in the UK outside London. The strength of Edinburgh's economy is reflected by its GDP per capita, which was measured at £27,600 (€40,700, $55,000) in 2004. The economy of Edinburgh and its hinterland has recently been announced as one of the fastest growing city regions in Europe. Education and health, finance and business services, retailing and tourism are the largest employers.[22] The economy of Edinburgh is largely based around the services sector — centred around banking, financial services, higher education, and tourism. Unemployment in Edinburgh is low at 2.2%, which has been consistently below the Scottish average.

The remains of Holyrood Abbey
Banking has been a part of the economic life of Edinburgh for over 300 years with the invention of capitalism in the city, with the establishment of the Bank of Scotland by an act of the original Parliament of Scotland in 1695. Their headquarters are on the Mound, overlooking Princes Street. Today, together with the burgeoning financial services industry, with particular strengths in insurance and investment underpinned by the presence Edinburgh based firms such as Scottish Widows and Standard Life, Edinburgh has emerged as Europe’s sixth largest financial centre. The Royal Bank of Scotland, which is the fifth largest in the world by market capitalisation, opened their new global headquarters at Gogarburn in the west of the city in October 2005; their registered office remains in St. Andrew Square.

Manufacturing has never had as strong presence in Edinburgh compared to Glasgow; however brewing, publishing, and nowadays electronics have maintained a foothold in the city. Whilst brewing has been in decline in recent years, with the closure of the McEwan's Brewery in 2005, Caledonian Brewery remains as the largest, with Scottish and Newcastle retaining their headquarters in the city.

Tourism is an important economic mainstay in the city. As a World Heritage Site, tourists come to visit such historical sites as Edinburgh Castle, the Palace of Holyroodhouse and the Georgian New Town. This is augmented in August of each year with the presence of the Edinburgh Festivals, which bring in large numbers of visitors, generating in excess of £100m for the Edinburgh economy.

As the centre of Scotland’s devolved government, as well as its legal system, the public sector plays a central role in the economy of Edinburgh with many departments of the Scottish Executive located in the city. Other major employers include NHS Scotland and local government administration.

Edinburgh has seventy post offices, one in St. Mary's Street (in the Old Town close to Waverley Station) is "central", in that it is the only one within the EH1 1 postcode zone, but the Royal Mail sorting office at 10 Brunswick Road has the latest collection. Edinburgh's General Post Office building, in Waterloo Place, no longer houses a post office, which has been moved into the nearby St. James' Centre. The façades of the Waterloo Place building still stand, but the interior has been removed and replaced with offices.

Government and politics

As capital of Scotland, Edinburgh is host to the national unicameral legislature, the Scottish Parliament. The Scottish Parliament Building, in the Holyrood area of Edinburgh, opened in September 2004.

The Scottish Executive, the devolved government of Scotland, has offices at St Andrew's House on Calton Hill in the city centre, and Victoria Quay in Leith. Bute House on Charlotte Square is the official residence of the First Minister of Scotland.

The city has hosted a number of international events, such as Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting and the Council of Europe.

Apart from elections to the Scottish Parliament, politics in Edinburgh are evident in elections to the City of Edinburgh Council and the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. For elections to the European Parliament, Edinburgh is within the Scotland constituency.

Local government
Bute House in Charlotte Square, official residence of the First Minister of Scotland
Edinburgh constitutes one of the 32 council areas of Scotland and, as such, is represented by the City of Edinburgh Council, a local authority composed of 58 elected councillor seach representing a multi-member electoral ward in the city. The council is led by the

Lord Provost.
The Liberal Democrats and Scottish National Party jointly run the council in a coalition. The Lord Provost of Edinburgh, George Grubb (who replaced Lesley Hinds on May 16, 2007), and the Leader of the Council, Jenny Dawe, are both Liberal Democrat Party members.
Elections to the council are held on a four year cycle, the last on 3 May 2007. Councillors are elected from multi-member wards, each electing three or four councillors by the single transferable vote system, to produce a form of proportional representation.
Boundaries date from 2007.

The new Scottish Parliament Building opened in October 2004.
In elections to the Scottish Parliament (Holyrood), the city area is divided between six of the nine constituencies in the Lothians electoral region. Each constituency elects one Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) by the first past the post system of election, and the region elects seven additional MSPs, to produce a form of proportional representation.

Five of the six Edinburgh constituencies, Edinburgh North and Leith, Edinburgh Central, Edinburgh Pentlands, Edinburgh South and Edinburgh West, are entirely within the city area. Musselburgh, in East Lothian, is included in the sixth, Edinburgh East and Musselburgh.

Boundaries date from 1999, and the creation of the Scottish Parliament itself.

Parliament of the United Kingdom
In elections to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom (Westminster), the city area is divided between five first past the post constituencies, all entirely within the city area, and each electing one Member of Parliament (MP): Edinburgh South, Edinburgh West, Edinburgh South West, Edinburgh North and Leith, and Edinburgh East.

Edinburgh is a major transport hub in east central Scotland, with arterial road and rail routes that connect the city to the rest of Scotland and with England. It is connected to the north of Scotland by the famous feats of engineering, the Forth Rail Bridge and the Forth Road Bridge.

Buses
Most public transport trips in Edinburgh are taken by bus, with Lothian Buses and First Bus operating an extensive system connecting most parts of the city, suburbs and surrounding city region.

Trams
Following a vote in the Scottish Parliament in June 2007, preliminary construction work (such as the diversion of utilities) has now started on the Edinburgh Tram Network, a light rapid transit tram line to connect Edinburgh Airport and Granton via the city centre and Leith Walk. Another loop may connect the city centre and the northern waterfront areas of Leith and Granton— areas which are undergoing major regeneration and redevelopment. Despite the reservations of First Minister Alex Salmond and the SNP minority Government, the project was voted through by the other parties in the Parliament.

Waverley (viewed from the Scott Monument), is located in the ravine between the Old and New Town on the drained Nor Loch.

Airport
Edinburgh is served by Edinburgh Airport (EDI), located approximately 13 km to the west of the city, with scheduled connections to many cities in Europe and an expanding international long-haul route network, including daily flights to Atlanta and Newark. Construction of a rail link to the airport had been due to commence in 2007 and be operational by 2009, however the project was cancelled by the SNP government in September 2007 in favour of an interchange at a new station at Gogar to the proposed Edinburgh Tram Network.

Cycling
Attempts to make Edinburgh more "cycle friendly" have been made, particularly by Spokes, the Lothian Cycle Campaign.

Park and Ride
Two new park and ride sites were opened in 2005 at Ingliston and Riccarton on the western outskirts of the city, in addition to facilities in Fife and Newcraighall.

For all other park and ride information visit:The National Park and Ride Directory

Congestion
Traffic congestion, especially at peak times, is viewed as a problem. The rise in car use in the city caused commuting trips to grow by 72% in Edinburgh between 1981 and 2001.

Various initiatives have been put in place to combat this, with "Greenways", dedicated bus lanes on primary routes into the city centre with strict traffic regulations, have been initiated in recent years. Improvements to the bus network have included guided busways in the west of the city and major improvements to bus services, such as clearer ticketing arrangements and better provision of bus stops. In 2005 Edinburgh Council's proposed congestion charging scheme was overwhelmingly rejected in a referendum.

The University of Edinburgh's Robert Adam-designed Old College building, home of its Law School
The University of Edinburgh was founded by Royal Charter in 1583, and is the fourth oldest university in Scotland, after St Andrews, Glasgow and Aberdeen. The Old College on South Bridge opened in the 1820s. As the institution continued to expand, new buildings were constructed around George Square, where the heart of the university remains, and the King's Buildings campus in southern Edinburgh. A third campus at Little France was established in 2002. Development of the University's estate continues on all three campuses in the 21st century.
The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh were established by Royal Charter, in 1506 and 1681 respectively. The Trustees Drawing Academy of Edinburgh was established in 1760, an institution that became the Edinburgh College of Art in 1907.
In the 1960s Heriot-Watt University and Napier Technical College were established. Heriot-Watt traces its origins to 1821, when a school for technical education of the working classes was opened. Heriot-Watt continues to have a strong reputation in engineering, and is based at Riccarton, in the west of the city.
Napier College, renamed Napier Polytechnic in 1986, gained university status in 1992. Napier University has several campuses in the south and west of the city, including the former Craiglockhart Hydropathic (of Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen fame) and Merchiston Tower (the family home of John Napier). The University contains several specialised research centres (including the Centre for Timber Engineering, the International Teledemocracy Centre and a large business school. In 2005 the University secured Skillset Screen Academy status for its film courses and now operates (in conjunction with Edinburgh College of Art) the Screen Academy Scotland, one of six accredited centres in the UK.

Queen Margaret University was founded in 1875 as a women's college, and today specialises in healthcare, theatre, media, hospitality and business.
Other colleges offering further education in Edinburgh include Telford College, opened in 1968, and Stevenson College, opened in 1970. Basil Paterson offers courses in languages and teaching. The Scottish Agricultural College also has a campus in south Edinburgh.

Schools
List of Edinburgh Schools
Edinburgh schools include Donaldson's College and the Royal Blind School, Scotland’s national residential and day schools for deaf and blind students, both of which serve Scotland and the north east of England. The Royal High School is considered to be the oldest school in Scotland.
Edinburgh also has several independent schools such as George Heriot's School, George Watson's College, Edinburgh Academy, Fettes College, and Stewarts Melville College.

List of hospitals in Edinburgh
Hospitals in Edinburgh include the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, which includes Edinburgh University Medical School, and the Western General Hospital, which includes a large cancer treatment centre. There is one private hospital, BUPA's Murrayfield Hospital. The Royal Infirmary is the main Accident & Emergency hospital not just for Edinburgh but also Midlothian and East Lothian, and is the headquarters of NHS Lothian, making it a centric focus for Edinburgh and its hinterland. The Royal Edinburgh Hospital specialises in mental health, it is situated in Morningside. The Royal Hospital for Sick Children is located in Sciennes Road; it is popularly known as the 'Sick Kids'.

The three spires of St Mary's Cathedral
The Church of Scotland is numerically the largest denomination in Edinburgh, its most important and historical church is St Giles' Cathedral, others include Greyfriars Kirk, Barclay Church, Canongate Kirk and St Andrew's and St George's Church, in the south east of the city is the 12th century Duddingston Kirk. The Church of Scotland Offices are located in Edinburgh, as is the Church's Assembly Hall and New College on The Mound.
Other faiths include the Roman Catholic Church, its notable buildings include St Mary's Cathedral at the top of Leith Walk, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, St Patrick's, St. Columba's, St. Peter's and Star of the Sea. The Free Church of Scotland (Reformed and Presbyterian) has congregations on the Royal Mile and Crosscauseway, its offices and College on the Mound and congregations on the Royal Mile and Crosscauseway. The Scottish Episcopal Church is part of the Anglican Communion. Its largest Edinburgh church is St Mary's

St. Giles' Cathedral
There is a number of independent evangelical churches are situated throughout the city, these churches have a high percentage of students and include Destiny Church, Charlotte Chapel, Carrubbers Christian Centre and Bellevue Chapel. Edinburgh's main mosque and Islamic Centre is located on Potterow on the city's southside, near Bristo Square, it was opened in the late 1990s and its construction was largely financed by a gift from King Fahd of Saudi Arabia. The first recorded presence of a Jewish community in Edinburgh dates back to the late 17th century.[citation needed] ,Edinburgh's Orthodox synagogue is located in Salisbury Road, which was opened in 1932 and can accommodate a congregation of 2000. A Liberal congregation also meets in the City. There are over 50 Bahá'ís in Edinburgh, dating from `Abdu'l-Bahá's visit to the city in 1911. The current Bahá'í Centre is located on Albany Street in the city's New Town. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has a chapel on Colinton Road.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Edinburgh ".

History of Scotland
The history of Scotland begins around 10,000 years ago, when humans first began to inhabit Scotland after the end of the Devensian glaciation, the last ice age. Of the Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age civilization that existed in the country, many artifacts remain, but few written records were left behind.

The written history of Scotland largely begins with the arrival of the Roman Empire in Britain, when the Romans occupied what is now England and Wales, administering it as a Roman province called Britannia. To the north was territory not governed by the Romans — Caledonia, by name. Its people were the Picts. From a classical historical viewpoint Scotland seemed a peripheral country, slow to gain advances filtering out from the Mediterranean fount of civilisation, but as knowledge of the past increases it has become apparent that some developments were earlier and more advanced than previously thought, and that the seaways were very important to Scottish history.

Because of the geographical orientation of Scotland and its strong reliance on trade routes by sea, the nation held close links in the south and east with the Baltic countries, and through Ireland with France and the continent of Europe. Following the Act of Union and the subsequent Scottish Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution, Scotland became one of the commercial, intellectual and industrial powerhouses of Europe. Its industrial decline following the Second World War was particularly acute, but in recent decades the country has enjoyed something of a cultural and economic renaissance, fuelled in part by a resurgent financial services sector, the proceeds of North Sea oil and gas, and latterly a devolved parliament.

People lived in Scotland for at least 8,500 years before recorded history dealt with Britain. At times during the last interglacial period (130,000 – 70,000 BCE) Europe had a climate warmer than today's, and early humans may have made their way to Scotland, though archaeologists have found no traces of this. Glaciers then scoured their way across most of Britain, and only after the ice retreated did Scotland again become habitable, around 9600 BCE.

Prehistoric settlement
Mesolithic hunter-gatherer encampments formed the first known settlements, and archaeologists have dated an example at Cramond near Edinburgh to around 8500 BC. Numerous other sites found around Scotland build up a picture of highly mobile boat-using people making tools from bone, stone and antlers.

In 3000 BC, some Neolithic farmers lived in stone houses (such as those at Skara Brae) set into existing middens Neolithic farming brought permanent settlements, and the wonderfully well-preserved stone house at Knap of Howar on Papa Westray dating from 3500 BC predates by about 500 years the village of similar houses at Skara Brae on West Mainland, Orkney. The settlers introduced chambered cairn tombs from around 3500 BC (Maeshowe offers a prime example), and from about 3000 BC the many standing stones and circles such as the Ring of Brodgar on Orkney and Callanish on Lewis. These form part of the Europe-wide Megalithic culture which also produced Stonehenge in Wiltshire, and which pre-historians now interpret as showing sophisticated use of astronomical observations.

The cairns and Megalithic monuments continued into the Bronze age, and hill forts started to appear, such as Eildon Hill near Melrose in the Scottish Borders, which goes back to around 1000 BC and which accommodated several hundred houses on a fortified hilltop.

Brythonic Celtic culture and language spread into Scotland at some time after the 8th century BC, possibly through cultural contact rather than through mass invasion, and systems of kingdoms developed. From around 700 BC the Iron age brought numerous hill forts, brochs and fortified settlements which support the image of quarrelsome tribes and petty kingdoms later recorded by the Romans, though evidence that at times occupants neglected the defences might suggest that symbolic power had as much significance as warfare.

The written history of Scotland largely begins with the coming of the Roman Empire to Britain. Although the pre-Roman inhabitants occasionally used writing for commemorative purpose, these societies favoured a strong oral history. With the loss of the druidic tradition (due to war, famine, and particularly the proscriptions of later Christian missionaries), the people forgot much of this lore. The only surviving pre-Roman account of Scotland originated with the Greek Pytheas of Massalia who circumnavigated the British islands (which he called Pretaniké) in 325 BC, but the record of his visit dates from much later.

The Roman invasion of Britain began in earnest in AD 43. Following a series of military successes in the south, forces led by Gnaeus Julius Agricola entered Scotland in 79. The Romans met with fierce resistance from the local population of Caledonians. In 82 or 83 Agricola sent a fleet of galleys up round the coast of Scotland, as far as the Orkney Islands. In 84 Agricola defeated the Caledonian tribes at the Battle of Mons Graupius due to superior tactics and the use of professional troops.

The only historical source for this comes from the writings of Agricola's son-in-law, Tacitus. Archaeology backed up with accurate dating from dendrochronology suggests that the occupation of southern Scotland started before the arrival of Agricola. Whatever the exact dating, for the next 300 years Rome had some presence along the southern border.

Although the Romans had failed to conquer Caledonia they attempted to maintain control through military outposts and built a few roads. They were eventually forced or chose to withdraw, concluding that the wealth of the land did not justify the extensive garrisoning requirements.

Scotland's population comprised two main groups:
the Picts, the original peoples (possibly a Brythonic Celtic group) who occupied most of Scotland north of the Firth of Clyde and the Firth of Forth: the area known as "Pictavia"
the Britons formed a Roman-influenced Brythonic Celtic culture in the south, with the kingdom of Y Strad Glud (Strathclyde) from the Firth of Clyde southwards, Rheged in Cumbria, Selgovae in the central Borders area and the Votadini or Gododdin from the Firth of Forth down to the Tweed
Invasions brought three more groups, though the extent to which they replaced native populations is unknown
the Old Irish-speaking Scotti (Scots) or more specifically, the Dál Riatans, arrived from Ireland from the late 5th century onwards, taking possession of the Western Isles and the west coast in the Kingdom of Dál Riata.
the Anglo-Saxons expanding from Bernicia and the continent. Notably seizing Gododdin in the 7th Century. A legacy of this influence is the vernacular Scots language, a Germanic language similar to, but distinct from, English. The language was initially termed Inglis. Gaelic, which had earlier been referred to as "Scottis" (pronounced the same way as Scots). This terminology has now fallen out of use within Scottish Standard English, however, and Gaelic is now normally used instead.
in the aftermath of the 795 Viking raid on Iona, the Norse Jarls of Orkney took hold of the Western Isles, Caithness and Sutherland, while Norse settlers mixed with the inhabitants of Galloway to become the Gallgaels.
The British Saint Ninian conducted the first Christian mission in Scotland. From his base, the Candida Casa (present-day Whithorn) on the Solway Firth, he spread the faith in the south and east of Scotland and in the north of England. However, according to the writings of Saint Patrick and Saint Columba, the Picts appear to have renounced Christianity in the century between Ninian's death (432) and the arrival of Saint Columba in 563. The reason is not known. The Gaels re-introduced Christianity into Pictish Scotland, gradually pushing out worship of the older Celtic gods. The most famous evangelist of that period, Saint Columba, came to Scotland in 563 and settled on the island of Iona having obtained permission from the Pictish king at his court in Inverness to settle on Iona and to spread Christianity. Some consider his (possibly apocryphal) conversion of the Pictish king Bridei a key event in the Christianisation of Scotland.

Rise of the kingdom of Alba
The myth of MacAlpin's Treason tells how Alba was born when the Gael Cináed mac Ailpín conquered the Picts, however Alba is a creation of Constantine II. Cináed's son Constantine had the Series Longoir written to show his family's claim to the throne of a united Pictland. The triumph of Gaelic over Pictish and the change from Pictland to Alba is placed in the half-century reign of Constantine II. Why and how this happened is unknown.

At first this new kingdom corresponded to Scotland north of the Rivers Forth and Clyde. South west Scotland remained under the control of the Strathclyde Britons. South-east Scotland was under the control from around 638 of the proto-English kingdom of Bernicia, then of the Kingdom of Northumbria. This portion of Scotland was contested from the time of Constantine II and finally fell into Scottish hands in 1018, when Máel Coluim II pushed the border as far south as the River Tweed. This remains the south-eastern border to this day.

Scotland, in the geographical sense it has retained for nearly a millennium, completed its expansion by the gradual incorporation of the Britons' kingdom of Strathclyde into Alba. In 1034, Donnchad I inherited Alba from his maternal grandfather, Máel Coluim II. With the exception of Orkney, the Western Isles, Caithness and Sutherland, which had come under the sway of the Norse, Scotland stood unified.

Macbeth, the Cenél Loairn candidate for the throne whose family had been suppressed by Máel Coluim II, defeated Donnchad in battle in 1040. Macbeth then ruled well for seventeen years before Donnchad's son Máel Coluim III overthrew him. (William Shakespeare, in his play Macbeth, later immortalised these events, in a heavily fictionalised way based on inaccurate contemporary history that flattered the antecedents of James VI of Scotland/I of England at Macbeth's expense).

After the Norman Conquest in 1066, Edgar, one of the claimants of the English throne opposing William the Conqueror, fled to Scotland. Máel Coluim married Edgar's sister Margaret, and thus came into opposition to William who had already disputed Scotland's southern borders. William invaded Scotland in 1072, riding through Lothian and past Stirling on to the Firth of Tay where he met his fleet of ships. Máel Coluim submitted, paid homage to William, and surrendered his son Donnchad as a hostage.

Margaret herself had a great influence on Scotland. She is said to have brought European cultivation to the warlike Scottish court. She had an English father and a Hungarian mother and had grown up in Hungary, recently pagan and largely untouched by the European culture of the period. However at this point the Church explicitly recognised the Bishop of Rome (the Pope) as its head and at her instigation, the Benedictine order founded a monastery at Dunfermline, and St Andrews began to replace Iona as the centre of ecclesiastical leadership. The rites of the Scottish church became gradually re-integrated with mainstream Western Catholicism from that base.
When Malcolm died in 1093, his brother Domnall III succeeded him. However, William II of England backed Malcolm's son by his first marriage, Duncan, as a pretender to the throne. With the English behind him Donnchad briefly seized power. His murder within a few months saw Domnall restored with Edmund as his heir.

The two ruled Scotland until two of Edmund's younger brothers returned from exile in England with English military backing. Victorious, the younger brothers imprisoned Domnall and Edmund for life, and Edgar, the oldest of the three, became king in 1097. Shortly afterwards Edgar and the King of Norway, Magnus Bare Legs concluded a treaty recognizing Norwegian authority over the Western Isles. In practice Norse control of the Isles was of the loosest nature, with local chiefs enjoying a high degree of independence.

The following century, Somerled, the greatest of these, became King of the Hebrides in his own right. His descendants, the Lords of the Isles, continued to enjoy a semi-independent status until the end of the fifteenth century.

When Edgar died in 1107, Margaret's third son Alexander became king, and when he in turn died in 1124, the crown passed to her fourth son David I. During David's reign Lowland Scots (known as Inglis then) began to grow in south east Scotland, although Gaelic would continue to be spoken in many parts of what would become the Lowlands for centuries more.

The governmental and cultural innovations introduced by the Norman conquerors of England impressed David greatly, and he arranged for several notables to come north and take up places within the Scottish aristocracy. The Normans came into frequent conflict with the native nobility, especially in the north east and south west of the country.
In a mirror of the invitation of the Normans northwards, David received lands south of the border in fee from the English kings. This meant that the Kings of Scotland also functioned as Earls of Huntingdon, and that the Earls paid ceremonial homage to the English kings for the lands received.

This homage proved problematic, however, as Malcolm Canmore as the King of Scotland had paid homage to the new Norman Kings of England twice after defeats during his various campaigns against the Normans in support of his Anglo-Saxon brother-in-law Edgar Atheling's claim to the English throne.

In 1263 Scotland and Norway fought the Battle of Largs for control over the Western Isles. Although the battle was little more than a series of indecisive skirmishes, it did at least prove that the distant kings of Norway could not continue to control the Isles. This was recognized soon after when the Norwegian king Magnus VI of Norway signed the Treaty of Perth in 1266, acknowledging Scottish suzerainty over the islands. Bit by bit, the Island chiefs were politically integrated into the Scottish state.

In 1284 all of the descendants of Somerled attended a parliament called by Alexander III to acknowledge his granddaughter, Margaret, as heir to the throne. The subsequent dynastic crisis caused by the death of Margaret and the onset on the Wars of Independence reversed this process. By the middle of the fourteenth century the MacDonald Lords of the Isles were once again loosening their ties to the crown.

A series of deaths in the line of succession in the 1280s, followed by King Alexander III's death in 1286 left the Scottish crown in disarray. His grand-daughter Margaret, the "Maid of Norway", a four-year old girl, was the heir.

Edward I of England, as Margaret's great-uncle, suggested that his son (also a child) and Margaret should marry, stabilising the Scottish line of succession. In 1290 Margaret's guardians agreed to this, but Margaret herself died in Orkney on her voyage from Norway to Scotland before either her coronation or her marriage could take place.
The Auld Alliance

John Balliol, the man with the strongest claim to the throne, became king (30 November 1292). Robert Bruce of Annandale, the next strongest claimant, accepted this outcome with reluctance (his grandson and namesake later ascended the throne as Robert I).
Over the next few years Edward I used the concessions he had gained during the Great Cause systematically to undermine both the authority of King John and the liberty of Scotland. In 1295 John, on the urgings of his chief councillors, entered into an alliance with France. This was the beginning of the Auld Alliance.

In 1296 Edward invaded Scotland, deposing King John. The following year William Wallace and Andrew de Moray raised southern and northern parts of the country to resist the occupation. Under their joint leadership an English army was defeated at the Battle of Stirling Bridge. For a short time Wallace ruled Scotland in the name of John Balliol as Guardian of the realm.

Edward came north in person and defeated Wallace at the Battle of Falkirk (1298). Wallace escaped but resigned as Guardian of Scotland. John Comyn and Robert the Bruce were appointed in his place. In 1305 Wallace fell into the hands of the English, who executed him for treason despite the fact that he owed no allegiance to England.
In February 1306 Robert Bruce, the grandson of the Claimant, participated in the murder of John Comyn, a leading rival. Bruce went on to seize the crown, but Edward's forces overran the country after defeating Bruce's small army at the Battle of Methven. Despite the excommunication of Bruce and his followers by Pope Clement V his support slowly strengthened; and by 1314 with the help of leading nobles such as Sir James Douglas and the Earl of Moray only the castles at Bothwell and Stirling remained under English control. Edward I had died in 1307. His heir Edward II moved an army north to break the siege of Stirling Castle and reassert control. Robert defeated that army at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, securing de facto independence. In 1320 a remonstrance to the Pope from the nobles of Scotland (the Declaration of Arbroath) went part of the way towards convincing Pope John XXII to overturn the earlier excommunication and nullify the various acts of submission by Scottish kings to English ones so that Scotland's sovereignty could be recognised by the major European dynasties.

In 1326, the first full Parliament of Scotland met. The parliament had evolved from an earlier council of nobility and clergy, the colloquium, constituted around 1235, but in 1326 representatives of the burghs — the burgh commissioners — joined them to form the Three Estates.

In 1328, Edward III signed the Treaty of Northampton acknowledging Scottish independence under the rule of Robert the Bruce. Four years after Robert's death in 1329, however, England once more invaded on the pretext of restoring the "Rightful King" — Edward Balliol, son of John Balliol — to the Scottish throne, thus starting the Second War of Independence. In the face of tough Scottish resistance, led by Sir Andrew Murray, the son of Wallace's comrade in arms, successive attempts to secure Balliol on the throne failed. Edward III lost interest in the fate of his protege after the outbreak of the Hundred Years' War with France. In 1341 David II, King Robert's son and heir, was able to return from temporary exile in France. Balliol finally resigned his vacant claim to the throne to Edward in 1356, before retiring to Yorkshire, where he died in 1364.

Late medieval events
After David's death, Robert II, the first of the Stewart (later Stuart) kings, came to the throne in 1371. He was followed in 1390 by his ailing son John, who took the regnal name Robert III, to avoid awkward questions over the exact status of the first King John. During Robert III's reign (1390–1406), actual power rested largely in the hands of his brother, also named Robert, the Duke of Albany. In 1396 during this king's reign, the last trial by combat in Europe, the Battle of the Clans took place before the King in Perth.
However, problems with England continued. After the suspicious death (possibly on the orders of the Duke of Albany) of his elder son, David, Duke of Rothesay in 1402, Robert, fearful for the safety of his younger son, James (the future James I), sent him to France in 1406. Unfortunately, the English captured him en route and he spent the next 18 years as a prisoner held for ransom. As a result, after the death of Robert III, regents ruled Scotland: first, the Duke of Albany; and later his son, during whose office the country fell into near anarchy. When Scotland finally paid the ransom in 1424, James returned at the age of 32, with his English bride. He determined to restore justice and the rule of law and to deal with his enemies. He set about this immediately and ruthlessly, using military measures, reforming the parliamentary and court systems, and killing anyone who threatened his authority, including his cousin Albany. This resulted in a much greater amount of power in the hands of the Scottish government than at any time preceding, but the process led to great unpopularity for James and finally to his assassination in 1437. His son James II (reigned 1437–1460), when he came of age in 1449, continued his father's policy of weakening the great noble families, most notably taking on the great House of Douglas that had come to prominence at the time of the Bruce.

Scotland advanced markedly in educational terms during the fifteenth century with the founding of the University of St Andrews in 1413, the University of Glasgow in 1450 and the University of Aberdeen in 1494, and with the passing of the Education Act 1496.
In 1468 the last great acquisition of Scottish territory occurred when James III married Margaret of Denmark, receiving the Orkney Islands and the Shetland Islands in payment of her dowry.

After the death of James III in 1488, during or after the Battle of Sauchieburn, his successor James IV successfully ended the quasi-independent rule of the Lord of the Isles, bringing the Western Isles under effective Royal control for the first time. In 1503, he married Henry VII's daughter, Margaret Tudor, thus laying the foundation for the 17th century Union of the Crowns. James IV's reign is often considered to be a period of cultural flourishing, and it was around this period that the European Renaissance began to infiltrate Scotland. James IV was the last known Scottish king known to speak Gaelic, although some suggest his son could also.

In 1512, under a treaty extending the Auld Alliance, all nationals of Scotland and France also became nationals of each other's countries, a status not repealed in France until 1903 and which may never have been repealed in Scotland. However a year later, the Auld Alliance had more disastrous effects when James IV was required to launch an invasion of England to support the French when they were attacked by the English under Henry VIII. The invasion was stopped decisively at the battle of Flodden Field during which the King, many of his nobles, and over 10,000 troops — The Flowers of the Forest — were killed. The extent of the disaster impacted throughout Scotland because of the large numbers killed, and once again Scotland's government lay in the hands of regents. The song The Flooers o' the Forest commemorated this, an echo of the poem Y Gododdin on a similar tragedy in about 600.

When James V finally managed to escape from the custody of the regents with the aid of his redoubtable mother in 1528, he once again set about subduing the rebellious Highlands, Western and Northern isles, as his father had had to do. He married the French noblewoman Marie de Guise. His reign was fairly successful, until another disastrous campaign against England led to defeat at the battle of Solway Moss(1542). James died a short time later. The day before his death, he was brought news of the birth of an heir: a daughter, who became Mary I of Scotland (or 'Mary, Queen of Scots'). James is supposed to have remarked in Scots that "it cam wi a lass, it will gang wi a lass" - referring to the House of Stewart which began with Walter Stewart's marriage to the daughter of Robert the Bruce. Once again, Scotland was in the hands of a regent, James Hamilton, Earl of Arran.

Mary, Queen of Scots
Within two years, the Rough Wooing, Henry VIII's military attempt to force a marriage between Mary and his son, Edward, had begun. This took the form of border skirmishing. To avoid the "wooing", Mary was sent to France at the age of five, as the intended bride of the heir to the French throne. Her mother stayed in Scotland to look after the interests of Mary — and of France — although the Earl of Arran acted officially as regent.
In 1547, after the death of Henry VIII, forces under the English regent Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset were victorious at the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh, the climax of the Rough Wooing and followed up by occupying Edinburgh. However it was to no avail since Queen Mary was in France and Marie de Guise called on French reinforcements who helped stiffen resistance to the English occupation. By 1550, after a change of regent in England, the English withdrew from Scotland completely.

From 1554, Mary's mother, Marie, took over the regency and continued to advance French interests in Scotland. French cultural influence resulted in a large influx of French vocabulary into Scots, for example. But anti-French sentiment also grew, particularly among Protestants, who saw the English as their natural allies. In 1560 Marie died, and with her death the Auld Alliance also died at the Treaty of Edinburgh. Mary, now nineteen and recently widowed, returned to take up the government of Scotland in a hostile environment. She did not do well and after only seven turbulent years, at the end of which Protestants had gained complete control of Scotland, she had perforce to abdicate. Imprisoned for a time in Loch Leven Castle, she eventually escaped and attempted to regain the throne by force. After her defeat at the Battle of Langside in 1568 she took refuge in England, leaving her young son, James VI, in the hands of regents. In England she became a focal point for Catholic conspirators and was eventually executed on the orders of her kinswoman Elizabeth I.

Protestant Reformation
During the 16th century, Scotland underwent a Protestant Reformation. In the earlier part of the century, the teachings of first Martin Luther and then John Calvin began to influence Scotland. The execution of a number of Protestant preachers, most notably the Lutheran influenced Patrick Hamilton in 1528 and later the proto-Calvinist George Wishart in 1546 who was burnt at the stake in St Andrews by Cardinal Beaton for heresy, did nothing to stem the growth of these ideas. Beaton was assassinated shortly after the execution of George Wishart.

The eventual Reformation of the Scottish Church followed a brief civil war in 1559-60, in which English intervention on the Protestant side was decisive. A Reformed confession of faith was adopted by Parliament in 1560, while the young Mary Queen of Scots was still in France. The most influential figure was John Knox, who had been a disciple of both John Calvin and George Wishart. Roman Catholicism was not totally eliminated, and remained strong particularly in parts of the highlands.
The Reformation remained somewhat precarious through the reign of Queen Mary, who remained Roman Catholic but tolerated Protestantism. Following her deposition in 1567, her infant son James VI was raised as a Protestant. In 1603, following the death of the childless Queen Elizabeth I, the crown of England passed to James. He took the title James I of England and James VI of Scotland, thus unifying these two countries under his personal rule. For a time, this remained the only political connection between two independent nations, but it foreshadowed the eventual 1707 union of Scotland and England under the banner of the Great Britain.
Bishops' Wars
Although Scotland and England had both rejected papal authority, the Reformation in each country proceeded in slightly different directions. England retained much of the old Catholic practice, including a formal liturgy and order of service, whereas the Scots embraced more of a free-form Calvinism. Although James had tried to get the Scottish Church to accept some of the High Church Anglicanism of his southern kingdom, he met with limited success. His son and successor, Charles I, took matters further, introducing an English-style Prayer Book into the Scottish church in 1637. This resulted in anger and widespread rioting. (The story goes that it was initiated by a certain Jenny Geddes who threw a stool in St Giles Cathedral). Representatives of various sections of Scottish society drew up the National Covenant in 1638, objecting to the King's liturgical innovations. In November of the same year matters were taken even further, when at a meeting of the General Assembly in Glasgow the Scottish bishops were formally expelled from the Church, which was then established on a full Presbyterian basis.

Charles gathered a military force; but as neither side wished to push the matter to a full military conflict, a temporary settlement was concluded at Berwick. Matters remained unresolved until 1640 when, in a renewal of hostilities, Charles's northern forces were defeated by the Scots at Newburn to the west of Newcastle. During the course of these "Bishops' Wars" Charles tried to raise an army of Irish Catholics, but was forced to back down after a storm of protest in Scotland and England. The backlash from this venture provoked a rebellion in Ireland and Charles was forced to appeal to the English Parliament for funds. Parliament's demands for reform in England eventually resulted in the English Civil War.

This series of civil wars that engulfed England in the 1640s and 50s is known to modern historians as the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. The Covenanters meanwhile, were left governing Scotland, where they raised a large army of their own and tried to impose their religious settlement on Episcopalians and Roman Catholics in the north of the country.
Civil war
As the civil wars developed, the English Parliamentarians appealed to the Scots Covenanters for military aid against the King. A Solemn League and Covenant was entered into, guaranteeing the Scottish Church settlement and promising further reform in England. Scottish troops played a major part in the defeat of Charles I, notably at the battle of Marston Moor. An army under the Earl of Leven occupied the North of England for some time.

However, not all Scots supported the Covenanter's taking arms against their King. In 1645, James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose attempted to raise the Highlands for the King. Few Scots would follow him, but, aided by 1,000 Irish, Highland and Islesmen troops sent by the Irish Confederates under Alasdair MacColla, and an instinctive genius for mobile warfare, he was stunningly successful.

A Scottish Civil War began in September 1644 with his victory at battle of Tippermuir. After a series of victories over poorly trained Covenanter militias, the lowlands were at his mercy. However, at this high point, his army was reduced in size, as MacColla and the Highlanders preferred to continue the war in the north against the Campbells. Shortly after, what was left of his force was defeated at the Battle of Philiphaugh. Escaping to the north, Montrose attempted to continue the struggle with fresh troops; but in July 1646 his army was disbanded after the King surrendered to the Scots army at Newark, and the civil war came to an end.

The following year Charles, while he was being held captive in Carisbrooke Castle, entered into an agreement with moderate Scots Presbyterians. In this secret 'Engagement', the Scots promised military aid in return for the King's agreement to implement Presbyterianism in England on a three-year trial basis. The Duke of Hamilton led an invasion of England to free the King, but he was defeated by Oliver Cromwell in August 1648 at the Battle of Preston.

Cromwellian occupation and restoration
The Covenanter government was outraged by Parliament's execution of Charles I in 1649, carried out in the face of their strongest objections. No sooner did news of his death reach the north than his son was proclaimed King Charles II in Edinburgh. Oliver Cromwell invaded Scotland in 1650, and defeated the Scottish army in battles at Dunbar and Worcester. Scotland was then occupied by an English force under George Monck throughout the Interregnum and incorporated into the Puritan-governed Commonwealth.

From 1652 to 1660, Scotland was part of the Commonwealth and Protectorate, under English control but gaining equal trading rights. Upon its collapse, and with the restoration of Charles II, Scottish independence returned. Scotland regained its parliament, but the English Navigation Acts prevented the Scots engaging in what would have been lucrative trading with England's growing colonies. The formal frontier between the two countries was re-established, with customs duties which, while they protected Scottish cloth industries from cheap English imports, also denied access to English markets for Scottish cattle or Scottish linens. (Braudel 1984 p 370).

After the Restoration, Charles' Scottish affairs were managed by senior noblemen, the most prominent of whom was John Maitland, Duke of Lauderdale, his Secretary of State and High Commissioner to the Scottish Parliament. Near the outset of the reign Episcopacy was reintroduced. This was to be a source of particular trouble in the south-west of the country, an area particularly strong in its Presbyterian sympathies. Abandoning the official church, many of the people here began to attend illegal field assemblies, known as conventicles. Official attempts to suppress these led to a rising in 1679, defeated by James Duke of Monmouth, the King's illegitimate son, at the Battle of Bothwell Bridge. In the early 1680s a more intense phase of persecution began, in what was later to be called the "the Killing Time". When Charles died in 1685 and his brother, a Roman Catholic, succeeded him as James VII of Scotland (and II of England), matters came to a head.

James's attempt to introduce religious toleration to England's Roman Catholics alienated his Protestant subjects. Neither this, nor his moves towards absolutism, provoked outright rebellion, as it was believed that he would be succeeded by his daughter Mary, a Protestant and the wife of William of Orange. When, in 1688, James produced a male heir, everything changed. At the invitation of seven Englishmen, William landed in England with 40,000 men, and James fled. Whilst this was primarily an English event, the "Glorious Revolution" had a great impact on Scottish history. Whilst William accepted limits on royal power, under the Bill of Rights (a contract between himself and the English parliament), Scotland had an equivalent document in the Claim of Rights. This is an important document in the evolution of the rule of law and the rights of subjects.

Most Scots supported William of Orange, but many (particularly in the Highlands) remained sympathetic to James VII. His cause, which became known as Jacobitism, spawned a series of uprisings. An initial Jacobite rising under John Graham, 1st Viscount Dundee (Bonnie Dundee) defeated William's forces at the Battle of Killiecrankie in 1689, but Dundee was slain in the fighting, and the army was soon defeated at the Battle of Dunkeld. The complete defeat of James in Ireland by William at the Battle of the Boyne (1690), ended matters for a time. (Ironically, the Protestant William had also enjoyed the support of the Pope and the Catholic Habsburg monarchy against the aggressive foreign policy of Louis XIV of France).
The late 17th century was economically difficult for Scotland. The bad harvests of the seven ill years in the 1690s led to severe famine and depopulation. English protectionism kept Scots traders out of the new colonies, and English foreign policy disrupted trade with France. Many Scots emigrated to Ulster (the Ulster-Scots). The Parliament of Scotland of 1695 enacted a number of remedies for the desperate economic situation, including setting up the Bank of Scotland. The Act for the Settling of Schools established a parish-based system of public education throughout Scotland. The Company of Scotland received a charter to raise capital through public subscription to trade with Africa and the Indies.
Scottish overseas colonies
In attempts to expand the Scots established abortive colonies both in Nova Scotia and also at Stuart's Town in what is now South Carolina. Scottish settlers had also been sent to the English colony of New Jersey. The Company of Scotland soon became involved with the Darien scheme, an ambitious plan devised by William Paterson to establish a colony on the Isthmus of Panama in the hope of establishing trade with the Far East — the principle that led to the construction of the Panama Canal much later. The Company of Scotland easily raised subscriptions in London for the scheme.[1] But the English government opposed the idea: involved in the War of the Grand Alliance from 1689 to 1697 against France, it did not want to offend Spain, which claimed the territory as part of New Granada. The English investors had perforce to withdraw. Returning to Edinburgh, the Company raised 400,000 pounds in a few weeks. Three small fleets with a total of 3000 men eventually set out for Panama in 1698. The exercise proved a disaster. Poorly equipped; beset by incessant rain; under attack by the Spanish from nearby Cartagena; and refused aid by the English in the West Indies, the colonists abandoned their project in 1700. Only 1000 survived and only one ship managed to return to Scotland. A desperate ship from the colony which called at Port Royal received no assistance—on the orders of the English government. Realising the dangers of the conflicting claims and aims of two independent kingdoms at odds with one another, William of Orange called for a union of the two countries. It did not happen. Union, when it did come in 1707, restored free trade between the countries and gave the Scots access to the burgeoning English Empire.

Union, the Hanoverians and the Jacobites
By 1700, the Protestant monarchy seemed in danger of coming to an end with the childless Stuart Princess Anne. Rather than return to her Roman Catholic brother James Francis Edward Stuart, the English Parliament enacted that Sophia of Hanover and her descendants should succeed (Act of Settlement 1701). However, the Scottish counterpart, the Act of Security, prohibited a Roman Catholic successor, leaving open the possibility that the crowns would diverge.

Rather than risk the possible return of James Francis Edward Stuart, then living in France, the English parliament pressed for full union of the two countries. In 1707, despite much opposition in Scotland, the Treaty of Union was concluded.
The treaty, which became the Act of Union 1707, confirmed the Hanoverian succession. It abolished both the Parliaments of England and Scotland, and established the Parliament of Great Britain. Scotland was to have 45 seats in the House of Commons, and a representation in the House of Lords. The act also created a common citizenship, giving Scots free access to English markets. The Church of Scotland and Scottish law and courts remained separate. This union was highly controversial among Scots, and increasingly so as the hoped-for economic revival was not immediately forthcoming. When it did come, in the second half of the century, it was Lowland Scotland that received the benefits.

Jacobitism, however, was not yet a spent force. Indeed it was revived by the unpopularity of the union. In 1708 James Francis Edward Stuart attempted an invasion with a French fleet, but the Royal Navy prevented any from landing. A more serious attempt occurred in 1715. This rising (known as The 'Fifteen) envisaged simultaneous uprisings in Wales, Devon and Scotland. However, government arrests forestalled the southern ventures. In Scotland, John Erskine, Earl of Mar, nicknamed Bobbin' John, raised the Jacobite clans but proved to be an indecisive leader and an incompetent soldier. Mar captured Perth, but let a smaller government force under the Duke of Argyll hold the Stirling plain. Part of Mar's army joined up with risings in northern England and southern Scotland, and the Jacobites fought their way into England before being defeated at the Battle of Preston, surrendering on 14 November 1715. The day before, Mar failed to defeat Argyll at the Battle of Sheriffmuir. At this point, James belatedly landed in Scotland, but was advised that the cause was hopeless. He fled back to France. An attempted Jacobite invasion with Spanish assistance in 1719 met with little support from the clans and ended at the Battle of Glen Shiel.

In 1745 the Jacobite rising known as The 'Forty-Five began. Charles Edward Stuart, known to history as Bonnie Prince Charlie or the Young Pretender, son of the Old Pretender, landed on the island of Eriskay in the Outer Hebrides. Several clans unenthusiastically joined him. At the outset he was successful, taking Edinburgh and then defeating the only government army in Scotland at the Battle of Prestonpans. They marched into England and got as far as Derby. It became increasingly evident that England would not support a Roman Catholic Stuart monarch. The Jacobite leadership had a crisis of confidence and retreated to Scotland.
The Duke of Cumberland crushed the "Forty-Five" and the hopes of the Jacobites at the Battle of Culloden on 16 April 1746. Charles hid in Scotland with the aid of Highlanders until September 1746, when he escaped back to France with the help of Flora Macdonald. France expelled him in accordance with the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748). He died a broken man, and his cause died with him.

Industrial Revolution, Clearances, and the Enlightenment
After 1745, British authorities acted to destroy the Scottish clan system in parliamentary acts of extreme vengeance. All aspects of Highland culture including the language were forbidden on pain of death. Highlanders were forced into the British Army to serve in the wider British Empire. Clan Chiefs were encouraged to consider themselves as owners of the land in their control, in the English manner - it was previously considered common to the clan.

As these new landowners converted land to more profitable sheep pasture, many of the peoples were dispossessed, facing forcible eviction. In what became known as the "Highland Clearances", the population fell significantly. Large numbers of Highlanders relocated to the lowland cities, becoming the labour force for the emerging industrial revolution, many were banished to other parts of the British Empire, particularly Nova Scotia, the Eastern Townships of Quebec, and Upper Canada (later known as Ontario).
At the same time, the Scottish Agricultural Revolution changed the face of the Scottish Lowlands and transformed the traditional system of subsistence farming into a stable and productive agricultural system. This also had effects on population and precipitated a migration of Lowlanders.

Scots contributed to culture and science with such visionaries as the father of modern Economics, Adam Smith.

Internationally, Scotland's fate was tied to that of the United Kingdom as a whole. Shortly after Culloden, Britain successfully fought the Seven Years' War (1756 – 1763), demonstrating its rising significance as a great power. As a partner in the new Britain, Scotland began to flourish in ways that she never had as an independent nation. As the memory of the Jacobite rebellion faded away, the 1770s and 80s saw the repeal of much of the draconian laws passed earlier. Most were repealed by 1792 as the Episcopalian and Roman Catholic clergy no longer refused to pray for the reigning monarch, although Unitarians were still affected.

Economically, Glasgow and Edinburgh began to grow at a tremendous rate at the end of the 18th century. The Scottish Renaissance was one of philosophy and science. The Scottish Enlightenment involved names such as Adam Smith, David Hume and James Boswell. Scientific progress was led by James Hutton and William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin and James Watt (instrument maker to the University of Glasgow).

Pre-eminent in contemporary literature were Robert Burns, an Ayrshire poet, and Sir Walter Scott, a prolific writer of ballads, poems and the historical novels. His romantic portrayals of Scottish life in centuries past still continue to have a disproportionate effect on the public perception of "authentic Scottish culture," and the pageantry he organised for the Visit of King George IV to Scotland made tartan and kilts into national symbols. George MacDonald also influenced views of Scotland in the latter parts of the 19th century.

As the 19th century wore on, Lowland Scotland turned more and more towards heavy industry. Glasgow and the River Clyde became a major ship-building centre. Glasgow became one of the largest cities in the world, and known as "the Second City of Empire" after London.

20th century Scotland
Tied as it was to the health of the British Empire, Scotland suffered after the First World War as it had gained beforehand. In the Highlands, which had provided a disproportionate number of recruits for the army, a whole generation of young men were lost, and many villages and communities suffered greatly. In the Lowlands, particularly Glasgow, poor working and living conditions led to industrial and political unrest. John MacLean became a key political figure in what became known as Red Clydeside, and in January 1919, the British Government, fearful of a revolutionary uprising, deployed tanks and soldiers in central Glasgow. During the 1920s and 1930s, due to global depression and foreign competition, Glasgow and Clydebank experienced high unemployment.

In the Second World War naval bases and infrastructure in Scotland were primary German targets. Attacks on Scapa Flow and Rosyth gave RAF fighters their first successes downing bombers in Firth of Forth and East Lothian. The shipyards and heavy engineering factories in Glasgow and Clydeside played a key part in the war effort, and suffered attacks from the Luftwaffe. Clydebank endured great destruction and loss of life. The Highlands again provided a large number of troops for the war effort. Commandos and resistance fighters received training in the harsh conditions of the Lochaber mountains.

As transatlantic voyages involved negotiating the north-west, Scotland played a key part in the battle of the North Atlantic. As in World War I, Scapa Flow in Orkney served as an important Royal Navy base. Shetland's relative proximity to occupied Norway, resulted in the Shetland Bus — fishing boats helping Norwegians flee the Nazis, and expeditions across the North Sea to assist resistance. Perhaps Scotland's most bizarre wartime episode occurred in 1941 when Rudolf Hess flew to Renfrewshire, possibly intending to broker a peace deal through the Duke of Hamilton.

After World War II, Scotland's economic situation became progressively worse due to overseas competition, inefficient industry, and industrial disputes. This only began to change in the 1970s, partly due to the discovery and development of North Sea oil and gas and partly as Scotland moved towards a more service-based economy. This period saw the emergence of the Scottish National Party and movements for both Scottish independence and more popularly devolution. However, a referendum on devolution in 1979 was unsuccessful.

As the Cold War intensified, the United States deployed Polaris ballistic missiles, and submarines, in the Firth of Clyde's Holy Loch (1961). This was despite opposition from CND campaigners. A Royal Navy nuclear submarine base followed for Resolution class Polaris submarines at the expanded Faslane Naval Base on the Gare Loch. The first patrol of a Trident-armed submarine occurred in 1994, although the US base was closed at the end of the Cold War.

On 11 September 1997, the Blair Labour government again held a referendum on the issue of devolution. A positive outcome led to the establishment of a devolved Scottish Parliament in 1999. The Scottish Parliament Building is adjacent to Holyrood House in Edinburgh.

21st century Scotland
The feudal system lingered on in Scots law on land ownership, so that a landowner still had obligations to a feudal superior including payment of feu duty. In 1974 legislation began a process of redeeming feu duties so that most of these payments were ended, but it was only with the attention of the Scottish Parliament that a series of acts were passed, the first in 2000, for The Abolition of Feudal Tenure on November 28, 2004.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "History of Scotland "

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