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Edinburgh

capital city of Scotland, UK

72 dated entries naming Edinburgh, drawn from 67 separate years between 626 CE and 1994 CE. Nothing here is written by us: each line is the sentence a Wikipedia year article used, and the link beside it opens the exact revision.

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7th century

  • 626Edinburgh (Scotland) is founded by Edwin of Northumbria (approximate date).source
  • 638King Oswald and his Northumbrian army besiege and conquer Edinburgh (Scotland). His half-brother, Oswiu of Bernicia, marries Princess Rhiainfelt, heiress of North Rheged ("Old North"). Northumbria embraces North Rheged in a peaceful takeover, and Oswiu becomes a sub-king (approximate date).source

12th century

  • 1128Holyrood Abbey is founded in Edinburgh by King David I of Scotland.source

13th century

  • 1216Spring – First Barons' War: The English army, led by John, King of England ("Lackland"), sacks the town of Berwick-on-Tweed and raids southern Scotland. John pushes up towards Edinburgh over a ten-day period. On his return, he puts down a revolt in East Anglia. On March 24, he arrives at Hertford to deal with the challenge of a coming French invasion.source
  • 1298Summer – First War of Scottish Independence: King Edward I of England ("Longshanks") marches from Newcastle upon Tyne with his household to Alnwick and then by way of Chillingham to Roxburgh in Scotland, where he joins the army in July. He proceeds to Lauderdale and encamps at Kirkliston, to the west of Edinburgh, where he remains from July 15 to July 20. The army is accompanied by a long train of supply wagons. Meanwhile, English supply ships, delayed by bad weather, bring food to Leith.source

14th century

  • 1314June 19 – English forces march to the environs of Edinburgh; here Edward II waits for the wagon train of over 200 baggage and supply wagons – which straggle behind the long columns, to catch up. At the nearby port of Leith, English supply ships land stores for the army – who will be well rested before the 35 mi march that will bring them to Stirling Castle, before the deadline of June 24.source
  • 1385August 31 – King Richard II of England begins an invasion of Scotland. The English burn Holyrood and Edinburgh, but return home without a decisive battle.source
  • 1385March 13 – Officials in the Kingdom of Scotland discover that 700 pounds sterling of bullion has been taken from the customs collectors of Edinburgh by John Stewart, the Earl of Carrick, who diverted the funds while acting as Guardian of Scotland.source
  • 1385March 22 – From the port of Sluis (now in the Netherlands), the Kingdom of France dispatches a fleet of ships, carrying an army of 1,315 soldiers, 300 crossbowmen and 200 assistants, to aid the Kingdom of Scotland in defense of an invasion by the Kingdom of England. The fleet arrives at the Scottish port of Leith, near Scotland's capital, Edinburgh, on March 25.source
  • 1390December 1 – A treaty is signed between the Kingdom of Scotland and the Kingdom of France at Edinburgh and witnessed by Walter Forrester.source
  • 1400August 14 – King Henry IV leads the English Army into Scotland, after receiving no answer from Scotland's King Robert III to his August 6 demand. The troops reach Haddington, East Lothian the next day and at Leith, on the outskirts of Edinburgh, by August 18. As historian James Hamilton Wylie will note almost 500 years later, "the walls of Edinburgh did not fall before this ram's-horn blast, and August 23rd came and went without the required homage or recognition."source

15th century

  • 1437March 25 – In a ceremony in Holyrood Abbey, six-year old Prince James is crowned as James II of Scotland by Pope Eugene IV. For the security of the crown, the capital of Scotland is moved from Dunfermline to Edinburgh.source
  • 1449July 3 – King James II of Scotland marries Mary of Guelders at Holyrood Abbey in Edinburgh.source
  • 1452Edinburgh officially becomes the capital of the Kingdom of Scotland.source
  • 1467October 17 – King James III of Scotland gives royal assent to numerous laws passed by the Scottish Parliament in its six day session at Edinburgh, including the Ferries Act requiring the ramps of ferry boats be improved to support the weight of horses being shipped ("That briggis of buirdis be maide at ferryis for the eis of schipping of hors") and three acts relating to coins and currency.source
  • 1482August 1 – In the Anglo-Scottish Wars, Richard, Duke of Gloucester invades Scotland, and captures Edinburgh.source
  • 1490February 3 – The Scottish Parliament opens in Edinburgh to address matters of lands confiscated in the year before.source

16th century

  • 1503August 8 – King James IV of Scotland marries Margaret Tudor, daughter of King Henry VII of England, at Holyrood Abbey, Edinburgh, Scotland.source
  • 1528May 9 – King James V of Scotland, 16, held captive for more than two years under the guardianship of the Earl of Angus, is able to escape from Edinburgh to Stirling after several failed rescue attempts.source
  • 1537January 1 – Princess Madeleine of Valois, the 16-year-old daughter of François I, King of France, is married to King James V of Scotland in a ceremony at the cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris. Already in ill health at the time of the marriage, Madaleine lives only six more months before dying at the Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh on July 7.source
  • 1544May 3 – Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, with an English army, captures Leith and Edinburgh from the Kingdom of Scotland.source
  • 1547September 10 – Battle of Pinkie Cleugh: An English army under the Duke of Somerset, Lord Protector of England, defeats a Scottish army under James Hamilton, 2nd Earl of Arran, the Regent. The English seize Edinburgh.source
  • 1559July 25 – The Articles of Leith are signed in Edinburgh between the Protestant Lords of the Congregation and the Roman Catholic representatives of the Scottish regent, Mary of Guise, the widow of King James V, who is ruling on behalf of her daughter, the 17-year-old Mary, Queen of Scots. The Lords, who have occupied Edinburgh since June, withdraw their troops in return for the Scottish crown's agreement to not interfere with the practice of Protestantism in Scotland.source
  • 1565August 31 – Chaseabout Raid: Moray and at least 1,000 of his rebels arrive in Edinburgh for a confrontation with the Scottish crown. After cannon fire from Edinburgh Castle, the rebels retreat toward England to seek help. The rebellion is ended by the end of September.source
  • 1567April 24 – Bothwell takes Mary prisoner at his castle at Dunbar after preventing her from traveling from her palace to Edinburgh, then rapes her.source
  • 1567February 10 – Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, is murdered at the Provost's House in Kirk o' Field, Edinburgh.source
  • 1590May 17 – Anne of Denmark is crowned queen consort of Scotland, at Holyrood Abbey in Edinburgh.source
  • 1591December 27 – Francis Stewart, Earl of Bothwell leads the attack on the Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh. Having been alerted by a premature attack on the palace's prison, King James VI of Scotland and Queen Anne are able to take refuge within the castle, and the raid fails. Seven of Bothwell's men are subsequently captured and hanged.source
  • 1597December 6 – Queen Elizabeth of England appoints George Nicholson as the English Resident in Scotland, the London's chief diplomatic official to Edinburgh, with a letter of accreditation for Nicholson to present to King James VI of Scotland.source

17th century

  • 1616English mathematician Henry Briggs goes to Edinburgh, to show John Napier his efficient method of finding logarithms, by the continued extraction of square roots.source
  • 1633June 18 – Charles I is crowned King of Scots at St Giles' Cathedral, Edinburgh, according to Anglican rite in his first visit to Scotland since early childhood, although he has been Scottish monarch since 1625.source
  • 1637July 23 – Introduction of a new Scottish Prayer Book is met with widespread demonstrations, notably that of Jenny Geddes at St Giles' Cathedral, Edinburgh, who is said to have thrown a stool at the Dean's head.source
  • 1638February 28 – The Scottish National Covenant is signed in Edinburgh, Scotland, in opposition to changes to the Church of Scotland proposed by King Charles I.source
  • 1644December – Bubonic plague breaks out in Edinburgh (Scotland).source
  • 1645April 10 – Because of the plague, the Edinburgh town council orders that the college graduation ceremony should be moved forward, so that students can leave the city (on November 19, teaching resumes in Linlithgow).source
  • 1645March 31 – Fearing the spread of the Black Death (plague), Edinburgh Town Council prohibits all gatherings except weddings and funerals.source
  • 1649February 5 – In Edinburgh, the Scottish Parliament declares Prince Charles, son of the recently executed King Charles I, as King Charles II of Scotland. Prince Charles, at the time, is at sea in charge of royalist forces fighting to drive Oliver Cromwell from the British Isles. Scotland is the first of the three Kingdoms to recognize his claim to the throne.source
  • 1650July 22 – Having completed his invasion of Ireland, England's General Oliver Cromwell begins the war against the Kingdom of Scotland, crossing from Northumberland at Berwick-upon-Tweed into Berwickshire, and leads troops toward Edinburgh.source
  • 1652February 4 – At Edinburgh, the parliamentary commissioners of the Commonwealth of England proclaim the Tender of Union to be in force in Scotland, annexing the Scottish nation with the concession that Scotland would have 30 representatives in the parliament of the English Commonwealth.source
  • 1654May 5 – Cromwell's Act of Grace, officially the Act of Pardon and Grace to the People of Scotland, is proclaimed at the Mercat Cross in Edinburgh.source
  • 1654November 23 – George Watson (accountant), a Scottish accountant and the founder of George Watson's College in Edinburgh (d. 1723)source
  • 1661May 27 – The Marquess of Argyll, one of the first of the Scottish-born people sentenced to death as a regicide for his role in the conviction and execution of King Charles I of England and Scotland in 1649, is beheaded at the Tolbooth Prison in Edinburgh using the "Scottish Maiden," almost immediately after his conviction of collaboration with the government of Oliver Cromwell. His head is then placed on a spike outside the prison.source
  • 1669October 19 – The Parliament of Scotland holds its first new session in six years (although two Conventions of Estates had been held briefly in 1665 and 1667). The session is opened in Edinburgh by Charles II of England in his capacity as King of Scotland.source
  • 1688February 17 – James Renwick, the last of the Covenanters in Scotland to be martyred for opposing the authority of King Charles II, is publicly hanged at Grassmarket square in Edinburgh.source
  • 1697January 8 – Thomas Aikenhead is hanged outside Edinburgh, becoming the last person in Great Britain to be executed for blasphemy.source
  • 1700February 3 – The 'Lesser Great Fire' destroys a substantial part of central Edinburgh, Scotland.source

18th century

  • 1703April 21 – The Company of Quenching of Fire (i.e., a fire brigade) is founded in Edinburgh, Scotland.source
  • 1715September 6 – The first major Jacobite rising in Scotland against the rule of King George I of Great Britain breaks out. The Earl of Mar raises the standard of James Edward Stuart, and marches on Edinburgh. James, the son of the deposed King James VII, arrives from France.source
  • 1727May 31 – The Royal Bank of Scotland is founded by Royal Charter in Edinburgh.source
  • 1728May 31 – The Royal Bank of Scotland invents the overdraft, allowing Edinburgh merchant William Hogg cash credit (in the amount of £1,000) for his creditors to be paid by the bank until Hogg receives expected revenue to repay the amount owed, plus interest.source
  • 1736April 14 – The Porteous Riots erupt in Edinburgh (Scotland), after the execution of smuggler Andrew Wilson, when town guard Captain John Porteous orders his men to fire at the crowd. Porteous is arrested later.source
  • 1745September 11 – Jacobite rising of 1745: Jacobites enter Edinburgh; six days later, Charles Edward Stuart proclaims his father as James VIII of Scotland.source
  • 1748Adam Smith begins to deliver public lectures in Edinburgh.source
  • 1756December 14 – Rev. John Home's tragedy Douglas is performed for the first time in Edinburgh, with overwhelming success, in spite of the opposition of the local church presbytery, who summon Alexander Carlyle to answer for having attended its representation. However, it fails in its early promise to set up a new Scottish dramatic tradition.source
  • 1760Abbé Charles-Michel de l'Épée opens a school for deaf education in Paris which becomes the Institut National de Jeunes Sourds de Paris, the world's first free school for the deaf; Thomas Braidwood establishes Braidwood's Academy for the Deaf and Dumb in Edinburgh, the first school for the deaf in Britain.source
  • 1766February 5 – An observer in Wilmington, North Carolina reports to the Edinburgh newspaper Caledonian Mercury that three ships have been seized by British men-of-war, on the charge of carrying official documents without stamps. The strict enforcement causes seven other ships to leave Wilmington for other ports.source
  • 1768December 10 – The first of the weekly numbers of the Encyclopædia Britannica, edited by William Smellie, are published in Edinburgh; one hundred are planned.source
  • 1777June 21 – Encyclopædia Britannica Second Edition begins publication in Edinburgh.source
  • 1786December 20 – Robert Burns's Address to a Haggis is first published, in Edinburgh.source
  • 1788August 27 – The trial of Deacon William Brodie for burglary begins in Edinburgh, Scotland; he is sentenced to death by hanging.source

19th century

  • 1808March 2 – The inaugural meeting of the Wernerian Natural History Society, a Scottish learned society, is held in Edinburgh (preliminary meeting January 12).source
  • 1814July 7 – Walter Scott's Waverley, his first prose fiction and one of the first significant historical novels in English, is published anonymously by Archibald Constable in Edinburgh, selling out in two days.source
  • 1817A typhus epidemic occurs in Edinburgh and Glasgow.source
  • 1822July 31 – The last public whipping is carried out in Edinburgh.source
  • 1824October 10 – The Edinburgh Town Council founds the Edinburgh Municipal Fire Brigade, the first fire brigade in Britain, under the leadership of James Braidwood.source
  • 1826January 17 – The Ballantyne printing business in Edinburgh (Scotland) crashes, ruining novelist Sir Walter Scott as a principal investor. He undertakes to repay his creditors from his writings. His publisher, Archibald Constable, also fails.source
  • 1847November 4–8 – James Young Simpson discovers the anesthetic properties of chloroform and first uses it, successfully, on a patient, in an obstetric case in Edinburgh.source
  • 1875August 6 – Hibernian F.C. is founded by Irishmen in Edinburgh, Scotland.source
  • 1884July 1 – First International Forestry Exhibition opens in Edinburgh, Scotland.source

20th century

  • 1917August 17 – One of English literature's important meetings takes place, when Wilfred Owen introduces himself to Siegfried Sassoon at the Craiglockhart War Hospital in Edinburgh.source
  • 1950In an election speech at Edinburgh, Winston Churchill proposes "a parley at the summit" with Soviet leaders, the first use of the term "summit" for such a meeting.source
  • 1994May 20 – After a funeral in Cluny Parish Church, Edinburgh attended by 900 people and after which 3,000 people line the streets, UK Labour Party leader John Smith is buried in a private family funeral on the island of Iona, at the sacred burial ground of Reilig Odhráin, which contains the graves of several Scottish kings as well as monarchs of Ireland, Norway and France.source

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