Andrew Mansioun is mentioned as a French craftsman in several records from the 1530s until his death in Edinburgh in 1579. He worked on the buildings of James V and fitted out the royal ships, and made the cradle for Mary, Queen of Scots. He probably worked on the carved oak medallions for Stirling Castle…
Mary, Queen of Scots used buttons and dress fastenings made of gold, which were set with jewels and pearls and enamelled. Some were made in Portuguese style. These are detailed in her inventories (which have been published), and also in receipts written by James Mosman, one of her goldsmiths. On 6 January 1572, a large…
In July 1602 Jens Pierson wanted to go home to visit his parents and friends in Denmark. He had worked for twelve years in Scotland looking after Anna of Denmark’s horses. James VI noted that Jens ‘as yit is unrecompensit in any sort’ and gave him ten gold crowns. He seems to have missed an…
London-made furniture was popular in Scotland. John Gilmour, a rising advocate who prospered and bought Craigmillar Castle at the Restoration, bought eight chairs in London in March 1636. John Campbell, younger laird of Glenorchy had a great bundle of chairs and seven bundles of chair frames shipped from London to Perth in 1657. The wills…
Grace Mildmay's interest in physic has been described by Linda Pollock. Her daughter Mary Fane, Countess of Westmorland is rather less well-known, except for her letter to Secretary Windebank in May 1639 urging peace with Scotland, which has been published many times. Her eldest daughter Grace married James, Earl of Home in 1626, after the death of…
In July 1676 James, 2nd Marquis of Douglas recorded his use of relatively plain hangings which were now becoming unfashionable, writing to his factor about new hangings for the hall at Douglas Castle. The marquis was ashamed of the old hangings of plain sad coloured (grey or brown) cloth and requested new cloth which would…
An English diplomat Thomas Randolph wrote that the merry men of Edinburgh had a joke, that Inchkeith Island in the Forth, between Edinburgh and Fife, ought to be called the Isle des Femmes, because there were so many women on it. Usually called the Island of Horses, Mary of Guise, queen regent of Scotland preferred…
James VI explored various opportunities to maintain his via media in Scotland and secure his accession to the throne of England. When Anne of Denmark’s 19 year old brother Ulric, Duke of Holstein, visited Scotland in 1598 it was intended he would depart with a Scottish embassy to Denmark and the Holy Roman Empire. The…
Buying timber for building in early seventeenth-century Scotland: from Sweden or on the shore of Leith. Much timber for furniture and building was imported from Norway and Baltic sources and ports, as far east as Königsberg, now Kaliningrad in Russia.[1] Imported timber for Edinburgh and the Forth valley was stored and sold at the ‘Tymber…
This post is based on research for the National Trust for Scotland presented at a Gladstone’s Land Study Day, 11 November 2015, and discusses makers and the materials of the fabric of Gladstone’s Land in Edinburgh. Thomas Gladstones bought the house around 1618, planning to extend the property southward into the Lawnmarket, and use the…
Objects and the archive 