Craigiehall House - The Crown and the Nazis

Hidden from view to the general public, Craigiehall House is probably unfamiliar to many residents of Kirkliston and the surrounding area, despite a history dating back to the 12^th century. Situated within the campus of the former Scottish Army Headquarters just off the Burnshot Road between Kirkliston and Cramond, the house and grounds were requisitioned by the military at the outbreak of war in 1939. It was there in 1941, during the darkest days of World War Two that the house became the venue of a top-secret meeting between a prominent Nazi figure and a member of the British Royal Family. How this came to pass is a tale of intrigue, duplicity, subterfuge and treachery.

Map showing location of Craigiehall.

 One-Way Ticket

At around 11 pm on Saturday, 10th May 1941, a German Messerschmitt Me 110 fighter-bomber was nearing the end of its clandestine journey from Nazi Germany to Scotland. It was now time for the pilot – the aircraft’s only occupant - to bail out with his parachute, having failed to find a suitable landing site near his intended destination. Swinging back the cockpit cover, he began to lever himself upwards, only to be pushed back into his seat by the ferocious wind pressure. Suddenly remembering that the best way to escape was to turn the aircraft on its back and let gravity do its work, he pulled back the control column, inadvertently putting the plane into a nose dive and causing him to black out as the blood drained from his head. Fortunately, the aircraft then began to loop upwards until it reached stalling speed, affording the pilot an opportunity to regain consciousness. This time he was able to fall away from the aircraft and deploy his parachute, but not before striking his right foot hard on the tailplane of his aircraft as he fell to earth.

The pilot’s desperate attempts to escape from his aircraft had been under observation by one of the many Royal Observer Corps posts that kept a constant vigil against enemy attacks throughout the war. As the pilot floated safely earthwards under his parachute, a bright flash of flames lit the sky as his aircraft crashed to the ground. Despite blacking out once again on landing, the pilot was conscious by the time the first person to reach him arrived. David McLean, head ploughman at Floors Farm, Eaglesham helped the shaken man out of his parachute harness and asked him his nationality.

“German,” was his reply. He then introduced himself as Hauptmann (Captain) Alfred Horn and stated he wished to be taken to Dungavel House, the home of the Duke of Hamilton. However, his lengthy struggle to escape from the aircraft had carried him some considerable distance from where he meant to be. Instead, he had landed on Eaglesham Moor, 12 miles from Dungavel House where he had hoped to put down his aircraft on the nearby airstrip.

McLean helped the limping German to his cottage close by where members of the local Home Guard Unit and other military personnel soon arrived. After a rather fruitless interrogation of the pilot – now a prisoner, of course – he was shunted between various locations until someone with the necessary seniority could be found to take custody of the prisoner. Throughout, ‘Captain Horn’ persisted in his request to be taken to the Duke of Hamilton for whom he claimed, he had ‘a vital secret message’. By chance, one of the officers interrogating ‘Captain Horn’ had spent some time in Munich before the outbreak of war and thought he recognised the prisoner. “You look exactly like Rudolf Hess,” said the officer.

Rudolf Hess

Rudolf Hess loved Adolf Hitler; platonically. Hitler inspired Hess. They shared the same bitter resentment over the Treaty of Versailles which imposed crippling economic and military punishment on Germany after the Great War. Both ardently believed in the creation of an all-powerful Germanic Empire spanning the continent of Europe and for more than 20 years they worked together in creating what was to become the monstrous Third Reich.

As Deputy Führer, Hess was one of the most senior figures in Nazi Germany, which made his flight to Scotland in 1941 seem all the more preposterous and incomprehensible. However, Hess was convinced that the continuation of war between Britain and Germany was unnecessarily ruinous for both nations, although he was utterly convinced that Germany would be victorious sooner rather than later. Hess also believed there existed a powerful appeasement and anti-war lobby within Britain that was ready to oust Prime Minister Winston Churchill and replace his government with politicians that would sue for peace. There was another good reason for Hess wanting to make an early peace with Britain; Hitler was about to launch a massive attack on the Soviet Union. Having to fight Britain in the West and the Soviet Union in the East would place a heavy burden on Germany’s resources, one which should be avoided if at all possible. Hess’s mission was to bring peace proposals to the Duke of Hamilton and gain an audience with King George VI in the hope of persuading him to remove Churchill from office and replace him with a figurehead amenable to a cessation in hostilities and more sympathetic to Nazi Germany.

APPEASERS, TRAITORS OR PATRIOTS?

Lord Halifax

Who were the most likely candidates in Britain willing to oust Churchill and sue for peace? The previous Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain had done everything he could to avert war, and his failed policy of appeasement had brought disgrace upon the nation in allowing Hitler to gobble up Czechoslovakia and Austria before finally declaring war on Germany after the invasion of Poland, (although it can also be argued that it bought precious time to enable Britain to build up the strength of its armed forces in order to better resist Nazi Germany in the future). However, Chamberlain’s early death from cancer in 1940 put him out of the equation as far as Hess’s plans were concerned, so it was to other figures that Hess hoped to appeal. In 1940, it seemed that the most likely successor to Chamberlain as Prime Minister was Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax, another notorious appeaser. As history records, it was Churchill who succeeded Chamberlain as Prime Minister and we know only too well that Churchill had every intention of pursuing the war until victory was achieved. Churchill got wind of clandestine attempts by Halifax to communicate with the Nazi regime in order to broker a peace agreement and therefore shunted him across the Atlantic as Ambassador to the United States. This kept Halifax at arms-length and well out of the immediate sphere of influence within the British Government. However, there were other eminent individuals and politicians within the British Government and society who were variously appeasers, anti-Semites and those who regarded Bolshevism in the Soviet Union as a much greater threat to peace in Europe than Nazi Germany and saw Hitler as a possible ally against the ‘Red Menace’.

The Duke of Hamilton

Among the dignitaries present at the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games was the Marquis of Clydesdale, MP, heir to the dukedoms of Hamilton and Brandon. Clydesdale was a renowned sportsman and aviator and had in fact been the first person to overfly Mount Everest back in 1933, a notable achievement in those early days of aviation. At the time, Clydesdale also belonged to the Anglo-German Fellowship, one of a number of British societies aimed at promoting trade and good relations with Germany. Although it is likely that Clydesdale (later to succeed as the 14th Duke of Hamilton upon his father’s death in 1940) had face-to-face conversations with Hess during the Olympic Games, it was through meetings and contacts later that decade with one of Hess’s staff that he may have been perceived as a useful conduit for Hess’s peace plans. Whilst having put out secret peace feelers to various British politicians, there was one other compelling reason why Hess wanted to meet with the Duke of Hamilton that day in 1941. As Lord Steward in the Royal Household the duke had direct access to King George VI – someone with the constitutional power to remove a Prime Minister from office!

The Duke of Windsor (formerly King Edward VIII)

Apart from the establishment and constitutional abohorrence at a British monarch wishing to marry a twice-divorced American citizen (bearing in mind that a reigning British monarch is the head of the Church of England and Defender of the Faith), the Duke of Windsor’s openly pro-Fascist views and his desire for an Anglo-German alliance were of great concern to the British Government. In 1937 he had visited Germany and was warmly received by Hitler and other prominent Nazis who saw him as a likely pawn in gaining Britain’s future acquiesence to Hitler’s plans for European expansion and domination.

In the early days of the war, approaches were made to the duke by German intermediaries regarding his desire for peace and willingness to be reinstated as King of Great Britain should circumstances change in the future. Again, news of these attempts to broker peace became known to Churchill. Again, it was deemed expedient to remove the troublesome individual to somewhere out of harm’s way; hence the duke’s appointment as Governor of the Bahamas on the other side of the Atlantic!

Prince George, The Duke of Kent

Before the war he worked closely with his brother David* (King Edward VIII) and shared openly, similar pro-German sympathies. At various times he served in all three branches of the Armed Forces and even worked as a Civil Servant in the Foreign Office and later the Home Office, the first member of the Royal Family to do so. Although married, he had a somewhat tarnished reputation as a playboy and cad and was reputed to have had affairs with various individuals ranging from Noël Coward and Anthony Blunt (later to be exposed as a Soviet spy) to the musical star Jessie Matthews. It was also rumoured he was addicted to drugs, especially morphine and cocaine which was not such a commonplace vice then, as it is today.

The Interrogation of Hess

Even if Hess has landed successfully on the airstrip at Dungavel House at the end of his solo flight, he would have been hugely disappointed to discover that the Duke of Hamilton was not at home. In fact, he was at RAF Turnhouse in Edinburgh where he was station commander! Hamilton received a call in the middle of the night that a German airman had crash landed and was probably Rudolf Hess and that he urgently requested a meeting with him. It was evident that Hess’s arrival and demand to meet the duke was as much of a surprise and mystery to Hamilton as it was to most people. 

At this time, Hess was being held at Maryhill Barracks, Glasgow where a somewhat chaotic preliminary interrogation had gleaned little from a generally uncooperative Hess. On hearing his constant demands to meet with the Duke of Hamilton on matters of great importance, Hamilton was instructed by his superiors to drive the 50 miles from RAF Turnhouse to Maryhill Barracks where he arrived at 10 am that morning. At first, Hamilton did not recognise Hess, but was eventually persuaded of his identity when Hess reminded him that they had lunched together at Hess’s house in 1936 during the Olympics. Hess told Hamilton that he was ‘on a mission of humanity’ and that Hitler did not wish to defeat England [sic] and wished to stop fighting. Hess went to outline Hitler’s terms for peace and asked that the King give him ‘parole’ as he had come unarmed and of his own free will. 

Hamilton was soon to be called down to London to report in person to senior government figures including Churchill himself while Hess was transferred for safety to Drymen Military Hospital on the shores of Loch Lomond, as Maryhill was deemed too vulnerable to German air raids. However, it was not long before Hess was to be shifted again to yet another location …

-ooo-

On Tuesday,13th May, a pilot officer named Frank Day and 5 other young pilots were ordered to report to RAF Turnhouse where they were rather mysteriously told to stand guard duty. Soon afterwards they were driven a short distance – about 5 miles - to a large Victorian house. Later, a tall German officer in Luftwaffe uniform arrived escorted by two soldiers and was shown into one of the rooms outside which Frank Day was standing guard. Five minutes later a senior RAF officer arrived wearing a gold-braided cap and several medal ribbons. Day was later told that the RAF officer was ‘the duke’ who he assumed was the Duke of Hamilton. However, the gold braid and chest full of medals sported by the new arrival meant he could not possibly have been the Duke of Hamilton who was a Wing Commander and did not wear a cap with gold braid. Sensationally, the description certainly DID match that of another ‘duke’ with the rank of Air Vice-Marshal. The ‘large Victorian house’ in question was, of course, Craigiehall House and the ‘duke’ was none other than Prince George, Duke of Kent, the younger brother of King George VI.

In order to convince Hess that his peace proposals were being taken seriously Churchill thought a meeting with the king’s brother might cause Hess to reveal more information than he had thus far. With the duke being so closely related to the king, Hess might be convinced that the next step would be a meeting with the king himself and the culmination of his ambitions for the removal of the Churchill Government. Conveniently, at that time the Duke of Kent was residing at Pitliver House near Rosyth just across the Forth. It may have been possible that the duke would be recognised at Drymen Military Hospital whilst a short hop across the Forth to a secure military base like Craigiehall House would reduce the chances of this happening.

To this day, what took place at that meeting in Craigiehall House remains buried along with other sensitive state secrets. It seems possible that Hess may have been the victim of a ‘sting’ engineered by British Intelligence and lured to Scotland under false pretences. To keep Hitler thinking that a peace agreement was still on the table would let him concentrate on his forthcoming assault on the Soviet Union. It is uncertain whether Hitler’s denials that he knew of Hess’s planned peace mission were true or not. In any event, to be seen trying to negotiate peace might be perceived as a weakness, so Hitler could not publicly admit prior knowledge of Hess’s mission. Significantly, German air raids on London tailed off dramatically after Hess’s mission which may suggest that Hitler was still being given the impression that Britain would sue for peace.

Hess was eventually relocated to Aldershot (after a brief spell in the Tower of London) for the duration of the war and was spared the hangman’s noose at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials. Sentenced to life imprisonment, he spent the rest of his days in Spandau jail in Berlin where, ironically, he hanged himself at the age of 93 on 17th August 1987. By this time, he was the sole remaining inmate of Spandau; a pawn in the Cold War as his incarceration gave the Soviet Union access to democratic West Berlin as part of a shared guard duty roster between the victorious nations.

As for Prince George, the Duke of Kent, he met an untimely death on 25th August 1942 when the Sunderland flying boat in which he was a passenger crashed into a hillside near Dunbeath, Caithness.

Was Prince George a traitor? Probably not. His meeting with Hess was engineered by the British Government and he did not seem to harbour any lasting empathy with Nazi Germany. Was the Duke of Hamilton a traitor? Highly unlikely. His bewilderment upon Hess’s unexpected arrival did not speak of someone who was plotting against the State and his war record was quite distinguished. Was the Duke of Windsor a traitor? There is persistent evidence that his sympathies remained heavily with the Third Reich and that he would have acquiesced to a resumption as monarch in the event of the fall of the Churchill Government and the deposal of King George VI, thence becoming a puppet king with Hitler pulling the strings.

• David was indeed the first baptismal name of King Edward VIII. The adoption of the name Edward was an example of a regnal name, often used by popes and monarchs during their reigns. It has occurred a number of times in the UK. Queen Victoria’s first name was Alexandrina and her son Albert became Edward VII (against his mother’s wishes) as he regarded Edward as an honoured name borne by six of his predecessors and did not want to diminish the status of his father, Prince Albert. After Edward VIII’s abdication, Prince Albert, Duke of York also chose one of his other Christian names and was crowned George VI. It had been speculated that King Charles III would choose to be King George VII in honour of his grandfather, although it would have been be more to do with the fact that the name ‘Charles’ has a chequered history as far as British monarchs are concerned. Charles I lost his head on the block and Charles II was reviled for his Catholic sympathies at a time when there was great animosity between Catholics and Protestants.

A P George

Kirkliston Heritage Society

SOURCES AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Military History Matters
Padfield, Peter, Hess, Hitler and Churchill, Icon Books Ltd, 2014
The Rake, The Modern Voice of Classic Elegance
Wikipedia

Pistols at Dawn - the Kirkliston Duel

Minutes earlier, the sun had risen above the Eastern horizon in a cloudless blue sky. The March hoar frost lay thick upon the meadow and crunched beneath the feet of the two army officers and their Seconds as they walked purposefully to the centre of the field. Their mounts, tethered to the wooden five-barred gate wickered nervously, as if they sensed the tension and foreboding their masters were feeling. The Principals stood looking grimly on as their Seconds conferred briefly before removing the loaded duelling pistols from the silk-lined wooden case offered up to them. Having confirmed that neither party was prepared to make apology or withdraw their challenge, each officer was handed an uncocked pistol and directed to move ten paces distance apart to await further instructions from the challenger’s Second.

“You may now cock your pistols gentlemen,” cried the Second in a firm voice lest there be any doubt or confusion.

Neither officer was unused to the ritual of the duel and dutifully pulled back the hammer of their respective weapons before pointing them to the ground with a straight arm down by their sides, awaiting the next command.

“When I drop my handkerchief you will bring your weapons to bear and fire,” cried the Second, his voice now trembling with emotion at the heart-breaking prospect of his best friend about to meet his Maker.

At the edge of the meadow, a few sheep grazed disinterestedly on the sparse grass, while in the distance the early rising farm workers could be seen making their way down Path Brae towards the allotted tasks which awaited them that day, unaware of the drama about to unfold on their doorstep. The Kirk bell was still, this day being a Wednesday and far too early for any worshippers to be abroad. The chill and absolute silence that pervaded the scene was about to be shattered by the loud report of deadly weapons.

The handkerchief fell, the officers raised their guns and blazed away – the crash of their volleys so close together that they merged into a single reverberating roar, sending startled crows croaking and flapping from the nearby trees. A dense cloud of powder smoke briefly obscured the combatants from the view of the Seconds who peered anxiously to determine the outcome of this bitter encounter, each hoping against hope that their man had survived …

The year was 1805. Nelson’s emphatic naval victory at Trafalgar was only a few months away and ‘mad’ King George III sat on the British throne. The war with Napoleonic France and her allies had been raging for many years, yet two officers garrisoned in the King’s service at Edinburgh Castle had somehow contrived to quarrel and were now about to settle a matter of ‘honour’ in a way that might reduce His Majesty’s forces by two in number. They had chosen Kirkliston for their encounter, possibly for its easy access along the Stirling road and being a reasonable distance from disapproving superiors, while dawn was a better time to ensure that there were as few witnesses as possible, for duelling in Britain was illegal and had been so for hundreds of years. In fact, causing someone’s death in that way was regarded as murder and punishable as such. Even so, among the upper classes, a man’s honour was sacrosanct and any perceived slight would invariably lead to a challenge which had to be accepted if one’s standing in polite society was to be maintained. Ironically, even the Duke of Wellington, who had forbidden his troops from duelling, famously was to fight a duel himself after challenging the Earl of Winchelsea in later years. Fortunately, on that occasion neither party was injured in the meeting and profound apologies were later expressed by the earl to the duke’s satisfaction.

Prior to the 19th century, duels had largely been fought with swords, but pistols gradually displaced them as the weapons of choice. Over the years, etiquette and a clear set of rules for pistol duels began to develop. Some of these rules were:

no duels to be fought on a Sunday or near a place of worship;

surgical assistance should be conveniently at hand plus means of transporting the wounded with ease from the place of meeting;

the parties were to salute each other upon meeting “offering this evidence of civilisation”;

the combatants were to present and fire together without resting on their aim;

after firing one shot each, if neither combatant was hit but the challenger satisfied, the duel was declared over;

if the duel continued after one shot each, no more than three exchanges of fire were allowed, as to exchange more shots was considered ‘barbaric’;

the offended party determined what conclusion was acceptable and there were three possible outcomes: (1) first blood when one combatant was wounded; (2) if one combatant was unable physically to proceed; (3) the death of one of the combatants.

As the penalty for murder was death, it was agreed beforehand that should either party be killed, the witnesses at the scene would claim it was the result of a shooting accident to thwart the possibility of prosecution.

Exactly how many duels actually took place in Britain is impossible to quantify due to the veil of secrecy thrown over many of them. Even so, there were about 1,000 recorded between 1785 and 1845, although the last to be fought in England was between two Frenchmen in 1852 with both protagonists being fatally wounded. However, it was normal for strenuous efforts to be made by the representatives and Seconds of both parties beforehand to seek a non-violent remedy to the perceived slight and avoid a ‘meeting’ in the first place. For whatever reason, our two British Army officers were not to be placated, hence their journey in the early hours of that fateful Wednesday morning to meet at the appointed place.

As the powder smoke cleared agonisingly slowly in the still morning air, it seemed as if time itself stood still with both combatants standing rigidly, their pistol arms still outstretched.

“You were ever an indifferent marksman sir – for which I am much gladdened!” cried the challenger.

“No more so than you sir!” was the reply. “But I averted my aim with clear purpose at that sturdy oak which stands behind you.”

“Indeed? In which case we are both blessed with good fortune as my aim too was at an arboreal target some several paces athwart yourself. Your presence here today is suffice to satisfy the requirements of my honour without the need for blood-letting.”

“In which case,” said the other, “pray let us adjourn to our quarters at the castle before the colonel gets wind of our absence.”

Whilst this account of events is somewhat embroidered, it is a matter of record that a duel took place in Kirkliston on Wednesday, 20th March 1805. Here is the report from the Aberdeen Journal dated 23th March 1805:

Early on Wednesday morning, a duel took place at Kirkliston, between two military gentlemen previously quartered at the Castle. After exchanging shots, the matter was amicably adjusted, by the interference of the seconds, in a manner honourable to both parties.

In an age when duelling was fairly commonplace, it is not altogether surprising that such an event took place. Maybe ‘Kirky’ was not quite the sleepy little village people thought it was after all.

A P George
Kirkliston Heritage Society

SOURCES AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
National Library of Scotland

[Picture: Duel between USA Vice President Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton, the former Secretary of the Treasury, 1804. Hamilton was mortally wounded and died the following day.  The musical Hamilton is based on the life of Alexander Hamilton.]

Dreadful Gig Accident

Kylie Minogue at the Castle Esplanade or Foo Fighters at Murrayfield Stadium are perhaps what first spring to mind when the word ‘Gig’ is mentioned today. Indeed, it is slang for the word ‘engagement’ and has been in use to describe live musical performances since the 1920’s. However, this story relates to another meaning of a word which dates back as far as the 18th century and is the focus of a tragic local event which occurred in 1855.

The gig to which this newspaper article refers was a light, two-wheeled vehicle pulled by one horse. (See photograph below.) The driver (and passenger in some versions) were seated high up above the wheels and being sprung, a gig was more comfortable than a simple cart. As a fast and highly manoeuvrable vehicle – the light sports car of its day - gigs were often driven recklessly causing frequent spills and narrow escapes. Was this the cause of our gig tragedy? Was George Kynoch the 19th century equivalent of a boy racer? We may never know, but it is not difficult to imagine the inherent dangers of driving a horse-drawn vehicle down the steep hill which still exists on the approach to Queensferry. 

Quite apart from the actual accident, the newspaper article also gives us some interesting insights into life during the mid-19th century. Motor vehicles were still some way off and the railway had not yet come to Kirkliston or Queensferry at the time of the accident. Horse-drawn travel was the main alternative to Shanks’s Pony for those who could afford it. The article also tells us something about the mobility of the population, for William Gilfillan was from Glasgow whilst George Kynoch hailed from Aberdeen. These cities were rather more than a 40 minute or 2-hour car journey away yet people were clearly prepared to travel quite far from their homes in search of employment.

The distillery in Kirkliston to which the article refers was established in 1795 and was located at the bottom of Path Brae. It ceased to be a distillery in 1920 but continued life as a malster (the preparation of malt for brewing purposes) until closure in 1988. The sprawling complex was finally demolished in September 2006, apart from a single kiln tower preserved for posterity in Pikes Pool Drive (see below) and now converted into a desirable residence. Much to the disgust of local residents, the site remained an ugly eyesore for several years until the homes that stand there now were built.

One final point of interest regarding gigs – older readers may be familiar with the slang word ‘giglamps’ applied to ‘spectacles’. This came about as - at night - gigs carried two oil lamps with thick glass, known as gig-lamps, hence the word coming into popular use.

A P George
Kirkliston Heritage Society

SOURCES AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Google Earth
Wikipedia
National Library of Scotland

Kirkliston - First of the Many

What do the following 3 locations have in common?

Hopefully you may recognise our very own Kirkliston (Parish Church pictured). The second location is Parliament Hall, Parliament Square, Edinburgh whilst the third building is the Church of Scotland Assembly Hall, Edinburgh. None the wiser? Well, they have all served as the venue for the Scottish Parliament at some stage in the last 700 years or so. In fact, Kirkliston was FIRST to do so back in 1235 during the reign of King Alexander II.

How on earth, you may wonder, did our wee village come to join the exalted ranks of such iconic locations? Well, it was largely down to the way royalty conducted its affairs and kept the realm under close control back in antiquity. A monarch needed to be seen out and about from time to time and this necessitated the royal court touring the kingdom and pausing at key locations to deal with various legal matters such as disputes and clarification of the laws of the land, rather like a court of law today. At the same time, it offered an opportunity to bestow favours on the most loyal and influential supporters of whose accommodation (a free Airbnb?) they would make fulsome use. Expensive for the host perhaps, but just think of all the brownie points scored when the king, no less, stays at your castle for the night! 

Throughout the ages, numerous locations across Scotland were employed for the parliament, ranging from Aberdeen in the north to Berwick-upon-Tweed in the south, although the vast majority were held – unsurprisingly - in Edinburgh. Some were even conducted outdoors if no suitable building was available at the time and one wonders how they coped with the unpredictable Scottish weather when all four seasons can be experienced on the same day!

Over the centuries, the ‘Parliaments’ did not necessarily conform to our modern day image of what constitutes a parliament. The meetings were variously described as Councils, General Councils, Assemblies, Parliamentary Committees, Parliamentary Commissions, Meetings of the Estates, Conventions and Colloquiums. However, before we take a look at what actually happened all those years ago in Kirkliston, let us hear a little more about King Alexander II and his major contributions to Scotland.

When William I (the Lion) died on 4^th December 1214, his only son Alexander became king, the coronation taking place at Scone a mere two days later. Alexander was only 16 at the time, yet by all accounts he made a good initial impression on his nobility who helped him to subdue an early revolt in 1215 by the clans MacWilliam and MacHeth who had long been enemies of the Scottish crown. The retribution served on the MacWilliams was total and savage, they being hunted down and exterminated to the very last few individuals - notably one of whom was a baby girl who had her brains cruelly dashed out against the Mercat Cross in Forfar. Brutal times indeed, but deemed necessary to secure the monarch from further challenges to his succession. Later that year, perhaps heartened by this early success, Alexander then joined the English barons who were on bad terms with King John of England. Long before The Proclaimers he marched an army 500 miles south to Dover in 1216 (further even than Bonnie Prince Charlie, who only ever got as far as Derby) and paid homage to Prince Louis of France who the English barons wanted to replace the unpopular King John. Unfortunately, John then died and the barons’ plans were scuppered as the Pope and the English aristocracy switched their allegiance to John’s son Henry, later to be crowned Henry III. Would a French prince on the English throne have averted much of the centuries of Anglo-Scottish strife? Sadly, we will never know.

Alexander’s other achievements had more far-reaching implications and benefits for Scotland and helped to expand and delineate the borders of the realm. In 1216 he brought Argyll under control of the Scottish crown and suppressed the revolting folk in Galloway. In 1222 he asserted his claims to Caithness, hitherto the mainland part of Orkney which belonged to the Kingdom of Norway, but not before hanging and mutilating some farmers there who were implicated in the murder by burning of Bishop Adam of those parts. (Apparently their punishment was met with the hearty approval of Pope Honorius III who was clearly one of the ‘hanging and mutilating lobby’!) However, these notable achievements pale into insignificance compared to the Treaty of York in 1237. Alexander and his brother-in-law Henry III of England (oh – did I forget to mention that Alexander married Henry’s 11-year-old sister Joan back in 1221? Before you ask, Alexander was 23 at the time!) The treaty defined the boundary between England and Scotland as running between the Solway Firth in the west and the mouth of the River Tweed in the east. This demarcation line, with the exception of Berwick-upon-Tweed, (and thereby hangs a tale far too complicated for this little article) has endured more or less in its original form to the present day - no mean achievement!

Having had a cursory glance at Alexander’s CV as a king, let us now discover what he was up to in Kirkliston all those years ago. In 1235, King Alexander II held a Colloquium in Kirkliston. To save you dashing off to consult your dictionary, a Colloquium is defined as ‘an academic conference or seminar’. This was effectively a parliament where the king, nobility and clergy met together to hear and give judgement on matters brought before them.

A contemporary record shows that Alexander’s Kirkliston Colloquium (a bit of a tongue twister, that!) was asked to give judgement on a dispute between the abbot and monks of Melrose and a chappie named Roger Avenel. Apparently, Roger had been a bit of a chancer by grazing his horses and livestock on the abbot’s land and causing a fair bit of argy-bargy and damage to buildings and ditches. The Colloquium ruled in the abbot’s favour, but made it clear that the abbot and his folk also had to abide by the law and allow Roger to hunt the wild game on the abbot’s land.

What else transpired on that fateful day in 1235 is not recorded, but the Colloquium Record from that very first ‘parliament’ gives Kirkliston a unique position in Scottish history. Why was this the one and only time Kirkliston hosted the parliament? Despite it being a useful staging point between Edinburgh and Stirling, the village clearly hadn’t established itself as a parliamentary venue. Perhaps the catering wasn’t up to scratch - maybe the roast swan was a bit too dry and the larks’ tongues overspiced? Or was it the first instance of the infamous Kirkliston cheese pieces, for which the village may have gained its nickname Cheesetown, that displeased His Grace?

As we now know, Alexander II’s reign was one of significant achievements and he was on the threshold of adding even more land to his realm in the west, but fell ill and died on the island of Kerrera in 1249. He was succeeded by his seven-year-old son, Alexander III, the only (legitimate) child from his marriage to Marie de Coucy in 1239, poor Joan having died childless the year before.

As for the Scottish Parliament, it continued in its many locations and forms until 1639 when it settled at last in Parliament Hall in Edinburgh until 1707 and the union of the Scottish and English parliaments. It remains the oldest existing purpose-built parliamentary building in the British Isles.

What of the Church of Scotland Assembly Hall? When devolution resulted in Scotland re-establishing its own parliament in 1999 the new parliament building sited at the bottom of the Royal Mile was unfinished. The Kirk came to the rescue and sanctioned the use of its premises until the completion of Holyrood in 2004. Ironically, this was another example of the cart coming before the horse, in that Parliament Hall too was incomplete in 1239, the members having to endure another two years of noisy builders about the place.

A P George
Kirkliston Heritage Society

SOURCES AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

National Galleries Scotland
National Library of Scotland
undiscoveredscotland.co.uk
University of St Andrews