Dan Snow's History Hit - Edinburgh Castle

Episode Date: August 10, 2025

From its origins as a Bronze Age settlement, to a battleground for Robert the Bruce’s men during the Wars of Independence, and a refuge for Mary, Queen of Scots, this castle has stood witness to thousands of years of Scottish history.Dan joins Senior Guide Mhairi Summers at Edinburgh Castle to tell the tales of the kings, queens, rebels, and prisoners who have passed through its gates over the centuries, revealing how the castle shaped and was shaped by Scottish history.This is part of Dan's 'Guide to Europe' travel series.Produced by Mariana Des Forges and edited by Dougal PatmoreYou can find out more about visiting Edinburgh Castle here: https://www.edinburghcastle.scot/Join Dan and the team for a special LIVE recording of Dan Snow's History Hit on Friday, 12th September 2025! To celebrate 10 years of the podcast, Dan is putting on a special show of signature storytelling, never-before-heard anecdotes from his often stranger-than-fiction career, as well as answering the burning questions you've always wanted to ask!Get tickets here, before they sell out: https://www.kingsplace.co.uk/whats-on/words/dan-snows-history-hit/.We'd love to hear your feedback - you can take part in our podcast survey here: https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on.You can also email the podcast directly at [e-mail].

Hello folks, Dan Snow here. I am throwing a party to celebrate 10 years of Dan Snow's history hit. I'd love for you to be there. Join me for a very special live recording of the podcast in London, in England on the 12th of September to celebrate the 10 years. You can find out more about it and get tickets with the link in the show notes. Look forward to seeing you there. I'm Tom Newton-Dun from the General and the Journalist. If you like history hit, we think you'll love our new podcasts from The Times and the Sunday Times. Hearing history in the making today discussed each week with me, the journalist, and General Sir Patrick Saunders. The old global orders breaking down, conflicts on the rise, and the world is getting ever more dangerous.

Join us as we try to make sense of an ever more dangerous world. The general and the journalist, wherever you get your podcasts. Edinburgh is a city where there's no shortage of myth and legend, but also thankfully a vast reservoir of actual history as well. Beyond the tales of Arthur's Court and fearsome dragons, we have angles and picts, Jacobites, body snatchers and artists. It feels as though every street in Edinburgh has a story to tell. Built between seven hills, much like Rome.

Edinburgh has been a place of human settlement, we think, for 10,000 years at least. Around 2,000 years ago, we think a small fort called Dunedin was built by the Celtic Grodden people on what is now Castle Rock. It was later captured by the English-speaking angles and renamed Edwinsburg. Today, Edinburgh is Scotland's famously vibrant capital city

It's one of the great cities of the world. And right now it's particularly vibrant because it is the Edinburgh Festival and including the Fringe Festival. So these streets are chockful of creative people, up and coming, young hopefuls, students handing out flies, flashing QRcoes trying to get everyone to come to their shows.

There are street performers, musicians, acrobats, comedians, magicians. And collectively, that just turns this into a citywide party of comedy and street performance and cabaret and theatre and culture it's fantastic i love it in every corner of this place every basement every pub every garret every inch is turned into a venue and as i walk these colourful georgian and medieval streets with their quaint calves and their tourist shops and their lovely houses i'm always mindful that beneath my feet there's a network of eerie tunnels

and vaults which through the previous centuries have been used for all sorts of purposes sometimes squalid housing for the city's poorest. Other times, a place for stashing smuggled goods out of the way of the excisement, whiskey distilleries, prostitution, and they have hosted all sorts of crimes as well. I tell you all this, folks, because if you are even thinking of visiting the UK or Europe,

then Edinburgh should be right at the top of your list. I've been here a number of times to make history shows. I've looked at the story of the 1745 Jacoban Uprising about uprising when Bonnie Prince Charlie held court here. I've been to the festival loads. But one thing I have never ever done is visit Edinburgh's iconic and it's nice to be able to use that word. It's magnificent hilltop castle and that is a major source of shame and embarrassment to me.

It is quite simply on the world's finest castles nestled atop the medieval court of the city and I'm walking up to that castle now. It's the only major castle in Britain that I have never visited. So this is a red-letter day for me, folks. I might be slightly out of breath, as you can hear, because it sits right on top of Castle Rock, a prominent volcanic crag in the heart of the city. It's what really defines, makes Edinburgh so unusual and so unique.

And before he on panics, that volcano, that is now extinct. Do not worry. But it was the defensive feature, it was the prominent feature that attracted people to settle here and defend themselves here in the first place. the so-called Old Town, with its more medieval layout, that formed around the castle. The New Town, people saw early modern, the Georgian New Town stretches out below me now, which has a very different and equally magical character.

I'm walking up now to the main gate, really, it's the only gate, because you can only approach this castle from one side, up this volcanic crag. And this is where Mary Queen of Scots came seeking refuge. This is where her son James I was born, and he was the man who would eventually unite the crowd, of England and Scotland, become James I of England. It has been the site of countless sieges. It was captured by the English at one point. It was taken back by Robert the Bruce's nephew in the Wars of Independence.

Its vaults have held prisoners, both Napoleon Wars and the American Revolutionary Wars. It's been one of my lifelong ambitions to explore this castle, and I'm glad I'm bringing you along on this podcast to do it. I'm just coming up to the drawbridge now, and here is Marari Summers. She's the senior castle guide. How are you, Marie? Good to meet you. Hi, good to meet yourself. And you are going to show me around what you're going to show me around what you.

is, well, rightfully and obviously called the best castle in the UK. So, folks, for this episode of my summer guide to Europe, let's get on with our tour of Edinburgh Castle. So this castle originally started as an early Bronze Age settlement. There have been people living here for 3,000 years. We have archaeological evidence going back that far. We know that it is also the long. longest continuously occupied site, certainly in Scotland, most likely in the UK.

Yeah, take that Dover Castle. So we have early Bronze Age, absolutely, early Bronze Age hearths, we have Iron Age roundhouses, and then it goes all the way through, we have got evidence of Roman trading. Really? Yeah, as far north as Edinburgh, which people didn't really expect to see. The Romans got beyond Hadrian's walls, but certainly their traders and merchants and, and I guess Roman objects and ideas would have travelled even further than the legions. They did, absolutely.

We're all good. We're all good. We get to skip the queue. Okay, so we're coming up to our first layer of defence. Well, the first layer of defence is the geography, of course, but then we get to this point. Now, is this a moat? Is this a ditch that's been dug? So this is a dry ditch. We have never had a moat here at Edinburgh Castle.

Yep, we're at the top of a hill, the water doesn't stay here either. But it's a 40-foot drop into the ditch. So it's not particularly fun for anybody to try and climb back out of on the other side. And humans dug this out? Yes. So first things first, we've got this huge ditch. Yep. And then we come to this massive.

massive gatehouse. You come here and you're looking up at the main castle, the main medieval castle ahead of you, and you've got, again, almost, you've got cliffs here, or even once you're in the lower ward, you couldn't scale up there, and it's hewn from the living rock, and then walls built on top of those. It's just astonishingly strong, isn't it? Oh, it really is. We are the most besieged site in British history, with at least 26 sieges to our name. Wow. And not once were we taken by force. Is that right? Yes. We have been taken in many different ways. It's been surrendered. to the enemy, it's been hoodwinked and so on,

but it's never been taken by force. Unlike Tower London, where a bunch of random peasants ran in and sacked it. Absolutely. This is a proper castle. On a good day up here, your visibility is about 40 miles. Amazing.

It's amazing. We can see all the way out to the Isle of May going out towards the North Sea, if it's a really good day. But we quite regularly can see as far as North Berwick and over into Fife as well. There is no way to creep up on Edinburgh Castle. No.

That's for sure, particularly not when it was first being occupied. All of the town, city that you see now around you, it was all open field land. So there was no cover for people to be able to sneak in and attack the castle. That was as important in the early medieval period, what people used to call the Dark Ages, as it remains all the way through history, because the English have always been poking their little noses up here, haven't they? Yes, it has rather handed over from Scottish-English control several times throughout our history. So, but talk me through, so that post-Roman world, that's so fascinating, when the

nature and the complexion of these isles was really up for grabs. There were Viking armies, English armies marching deep into Scotland, there were Scottish armies marching to what's now Northern England. What was the status of Edinburgh during that period? So Edinburgh was the Royal Centre of Scotland and indeed as you're saying quite a lot of Northern England at times as well. So one of our strongest monarchies, Malcolm III and his wife Margaret, who went on to become Saint Margaret, they ruled from Edinburgh Castle. Now, the 11th century in Britain, it's politically a pretty confusing time. And as a result of that political and military upheaval, you get a web of dynastic marriages. As families seek diplomatic

and political advantage or conquest, there were shifting borders. If you aren't super familiar with the history of what's going on, don't worry. In fact, I've got an episode in the 11th century coming out in the podcast soon. But for the purposes of this podcast, this is the context you need. when the Normans conquered England from 1066 onwards, the last heir of Alfred and Athelstan, so that line of Wessex, those Anglo-Saxons, the last heir to that, the last man who could claim the English throne from that family, was called Edgar the Ethling,

and he'd fled to Scotland, where King Malcolm III welcomed him and gave him shelter. As a result, Malcolm, the Scottish king, married Edgar's sister, Margaret, who's Anglo-Saxon princess. It said this highly political arranged marriage was also in fact, a real romance, one for the ages. There were eight children. And their union gave Malcolm a decent stake in English politics. And he took the opportunity to raid Northern England on several occasions, which turned out to be an error, because on the other side of things was William the Conqueror. And a few times, the Conqueror marched north into Scotland, forcing Malcolm to swear oaths of allegiance to him.

When Malcolm died in 1093, his crown was seized by his brother Donald, who sort of rejected the English, the Anglo-Saxon blood that ran in his nephews and nieces veins, and they were exiled to England, where they grew up in the Norman court. One of them, Malcolm and Margaret's youngest son, David, eventually returned to Scotland, becoming king in 1124. He returned to Adamary Castle, which at that stage was more of royal residence than a military fortress. And it's David I first that really turns the castle into a sort of fortress that we recognise today. He was the one that truly fortified Edinburgh Castle.

So he was the one who built a tower keep, which was the new Royal Residence, which St Margaret's Chapel was also a part of, and is now the only surviving building from. And he was the guy who grew up in the Norman court in England, and so he brought lots of Norman ideas, engineers. So he's building kind of French-style castles of which Edinburgh is just a classic example.

Oh, absolutely. He brought that funeral system with him. He took a lot of French inspiration. He took a lot of Norman inspiration, a lot of Anglo-Saxon inspiration and brought it all up to us here in Scotland. And that time as well was so tumultuous throughout Europe. So it's one of the reasons why we're also so heavily fortified

is because he was aware he could not turn this into any sort of palace. It had to be his fortified royal centre to make sure that he could actually shore up his defences and continue to rule. Because I'll tell you what, those plantagenets down south. Land-hungry folk, aren't they? Just a little. So the English Crown invading Ireland in this period, Wales and always pushing into Scotland as well.

Yes, but we did like to push back. I mean, there are several times where that border kept creeping a little bit further south. Also, David had the inn as it was with the English court because his sister was Queen Matilda. So that connection there kind of kept a little bit more peace between Scotland and England than it did for Wales and Ireland. So we're now in the middle ward. I'm seeing, to my left, further up the hill, more walls.

Are you telling me that there's a whole other layer of defences you've got to get through to get there out of the castle there is yes it's actually one of the most um mysterious of our defences right at the top of the hill there is a gate we call fug's gate and fug's gate well we don't know why it's called that there are several different theories as to why it got that name one is the weather scottish weather is well known for being temperamental and quite foggy so an old translation perhaps has gone awry so it's become fugues gate instead of foggy gate there's also a Dutch architect around the same time by the name of Fug but we have no record of him ever working in the UK

so that one's quite unlikely our personal favourite though is in Scots we can sometimes call older folk old fogies and at that time in the defences of the castle the oldest soldiers would have been the ones to have been posted at the last of the gates so it could have been that it was the old fogies gate Oh, I love that.

So that's the one we quite like here on site as well. Mahari is very fit, because we've basically been walking uphill throughout this entire interview, and you're not breathless at all. But it's a steep section here now. We're approaching the summit now. Yes, we're approaching the summit. So through the gate, you find the ancient castle, you find the royal castle. There's a lot of masonry up here, isn't it?

I mean, how are you bringing supplies? It just must be a huge effort to bring everything up this hill. It really is. It required a lot of manpower, but also horse and cart. And that actually is one of the most interesting parts of our roadway that we have. We have two separate types of cobbles. Thicker cobbles for wheels and humans. But in the middle there are smaller cobbles

and that is to allow horses' hoofs to actually gain traction so they can get themselves up the hill as well. So it means that it's not all humans having to carry large lumps of rock up to the top of the castle. Wow. We're passing through that gate now. These are the inner walls, are they? Yes.

These truly are the inner defence walls. You can still see, though, even up here we have got gun loops available. so that we could defend from here. But as we come up, we actually on our left have a water tower because, funnily enough, being at the top of a hill, water doesn't want to stay here. So the soldiers used to have to go down to one of the wells with buckets of water and come up and fill the well.

You're joking. Nope. Wow. I bet that's, if you go to sleep on guard duty, I bet that's your job. Yeah, I don't think that's one people we're volunteering for quickly. And we're now right, well, we're on top. I think we've reached the top, haven't we? We have, thankfully.

No more climbing today. But this is our royal heart and it is also home to the oldest building not just in the castle but also in the entirety of the city. This is St Margaret's Chapel. So that is a thousand years old approaching. Yes, it is magical. You can tell straight away by looking at very, very tiny little

rounded Norman windows with a whole wonderful mosaic of different types of masonry and things that they've been put in there. Keeps our conservation unit very busy, that's for sure. This building actually, though, did not use. used to sit separately, as was mentioned. Earlier, it used to be part of a much larger building. There used to be a tower keep sat to the left of the building.

So it used to be the small chapel, which was meant for the royals to use when they were staying in the castle. We actually used to have a second church here called St Mary's Church, which used to sit where our war memorial now sits. So the chapel itself, it's the oldest building on site by over 300 years, because after Thomas Randolph

came in and stole the castle in third, Unfortunately, Robert the Bruce did have a scorched earth policy as they were pushing down through Scotland. So from 1307 onwards, every castle keep, stately home that they captured, they destroyed. So Edinburgh Castle was raised to the ground. Was it really? It was. Wow. In telling the story, I can understand why some people find British history a little bit complicated. It can be hard to understand why the famous patriot king of Scotland, Robert the Bruce destroyed Edinburgh Castle, but hopefully this makes it a bit clearer. In the late 13th

century, Scotland had a succession crisis. There were no obvious Scottish heirs from the Royal Line to the throne, and so 13 candidates stepped forward to take the throne, 13 aristocrats who all thought they'd give it a go. Eventually it came down to just two, Robert Bruce, grandfather of the more famous Robert the Bruce that you'll have heard of, and John Balliol. The Scots decided they'd invite King Edward I of England to arbitrate over the final decision, which proved to be a terrible mistake. He supported John Balliol, but also demanded that his claim to be overlord of Scotland be recognised. Having got that agreed to, it didn't take long for Ebbard to invade, to make it real, to lock in that overlord ship. He sacked Berwick. He defeated Balliol, the Scottish King.

He removed the stone of destiny to England, the ancient symbol of Scottish kingship and sovereignty. And the Scots fought back. And from this mire, from this situation, what the first hero of the Scottish Wars of Independence emerges, William Wallace, he wins the Battle of Stirling Bridge, he becomes the guardian of Scotland, but his regime did not last. In 1297, less than a year late, he was captured by Edward's captured by Edward. He was captured by Edward. He was found guilty of treason, although he denied it because he said he'd never been a subject of King Ed, but it's impossible to be a traitor when he's never been subjected by someone. And then he was sentenced to death, one of the most brutal forms of execution in the medieval era. He was dragged naked behind a horse to Smithfield. He was then hanged. till the point he was almost dead, then he was cut down, his insides were removed while he was conscious, and burned, then his head was chopped off, and his body was cut into quarters. His head was dipped in tar and placed on a pike on London Bridge to dissuade others of rebellion, and even more grisly, his four limbs were then sent to be displayed in Newcastle, Berwick, Stirling and Perth. He obviously never then received a Christian burial.

But this grisly warning did not work. The lords and the people of Scotland were determined to fight the English. So the fighting rumbles on and a new leader emerges Robert the Bruce. He crowns himself King Robert I first of Scots in 306. He and his men sweep through Scotland, reclaiming important strongholds, castles, lands. It's during this time that Bruce's men arrive in Edinburgh and snatch the castle from the English in a daring raid led by his nephew. King Robert the Bruce, he never visited the castle but his nephew, Sir Thomas Randolph. He did. He was the man who recaptured the castle and he actually did so. with only 30 men.

So he was in the town and he met a man called William Francis who had been garrisoned here at Edinburgh Castle and he told them that he knew a route in over the castle walls. The reason he knew the route was because he apparently had climbed out several times before to go into town to meet his love.

Ah, that's the Achilles heel of all these castles, people sneaking it out for nefarious purposes. Always is. So William Francis, he leads Thomas Randolph and these 30 men up the back cliff face. Up the cliffs? Up the cliffs. There is routes, supposedly.

Maybe not these days, but there was back then. And they managed to climb over the castle defences, surprise the English garrison inside, and they then unlock the doors allowing the rest of the Scottish force in. That's an audacious commander-rored. There's anything in World War II. That's an extraordinary thing.

Absolutely, and it's one of those stories people don't really know about. But unfortunately, it did have a little bit of a downside for Edinburgh Castle itself. Because King Robert the Bruce, during the Wars of Independence, he had a scorched earth policy. So every castle they recaptured as they travelled south through Scotland, they destroyed. It was to try and stop an English force from coming in behind them and catching them in a pincer movement as it was. And when you got to Edinburgh Castle, it was no different.

At Edinburgh Castle, they also destroyed the entire site, with the exception of St Margaret's Chapel. Let's just quickly finish up, the story of Scotland's fight for its sovereignty. Robert the Bruce won a decisive victory at the Battle of Bannock, Burn in 1314, and from that point Scotland really regained control of its own affairs. There was a peace treaty signed between Robert the Bruce and Edward III, in which England recognises Scotland as an independent kingdom and Bruce as its rightful king. Only a year after that, though, in 1329,

Robert the Bruce dies, his son David II, takes over, and faces lots of English-backed in. evasions. He's actually captured by the English and held for 11 years until the enormous ransom is paid, and now the treaty is signed. But Scotland did remain sovereign until the Act of Union in 1707. We're going to spill forward now on our tour of Edinburgh Castle to the 16th century. We'll be looking at the Stuarts after this short break. Summer is finally here, but for those of you, just like me, who are counting down the days until the leaves turn golden, the nights start drawing in, and it's finally acceptable to spend a whole weekend binge watching true crime in your PJs. After dark, myths, misdeeds, and the paranormal can transport you there right now, twice a week, every week.

Tudor murder, ancient ghosts, Victorian mysteries, our podcast. has you covered. I'm Maddie Pelling. And I'm Anthony Delaney, and we are friends and historians who love to find out about the darker side of history. Join us on the scaffold for Anne Boleyn's final moments. Step inside Tutin Carmoon's tomb, which is apparently cursed. Watch a jury deliberate the fate of the last three women to be hanged for witchcraft in England. Find us every Monday and Thursday, wherever you get your podcast, and now on YouTube. After Dark, myths, misdeeds, and Paranormal is created by the award-winning network History Hit. So we've now arrived in Crown Square, which is the heart of the castle these days,

and we're going to be making our way over to the Great Hall, which is our royal banqueting hall here at the castle. So after Robert the Bruce smashed it down, it re-emerges as a sort of a military site or as a centre of royal power administration, government, domestic. How's the castle adapt? We return to being a royal site again. We are rebuilt this time by David the second. So he builds what we call David's Tower. David's Tower was another large tower keep and it stood all the way through until 1573 when it was destroyed in the Lang Siege. And realistically 1573 was the end of the royal power here at the castle. Wow, we've entered now at this astonishing hall where there's medieval suits of armour around.

Picture, friends, picture in your mind's eye what you would love a medieval hall to look like and that is what this one looks like. Wood panelling, stained glass windows, howlbirds, swords, spears, vaulted ceiling, unbelievable. Well, what you see is also a Victorian. Oh darn it, that's classic. A dream. Isn't it just? the Great Hall has actually itself seen several renovations over the years but the one original

feature in the room is our roof our ceiling is called a hammer beam roof that means there's absolutely no metal in it whatsoever it is all wooden pegs and it was constructed by shipbuilders rather than carpenters back in the early 1500s and it's meant to represent the upturned hull of a ship it looks exactly like that yeah so it was built for james the 4th who at the time had one had one of the largest Armadas in the world. Oh, yes, Henry 8th was very jealous of that, wasn't he? He was indeed, so much so that he decided to steal a couple of his ships at one point. So the story of British naval greatness, people don't realize.

It actually begins in Scotland, not England. That's what's fascinating, yeah. Yes, it really does. So our hammer beam roof is original. It's from nearly 1500s. It is one of only two surviving hammer beam roofs left. So you would eat in here, the king would receive diplomatic visitors. All of the above.

Yes, this was a... a banqueting hall when it was designed. The first use was in approximately 1511, 1512. James IV, unfortunately, didn't get much use out of it because he died in 1513 in battle, but it was actually designed not just for him, but also for his wife. So he married Margaret Tudor, Henry VIII's older sister, and it was to attempt to bring a treaty of peace between Scotland and England. But then awkwardly, he died fighting Henry the Eighth's army in Northern England? Yeah, it didn't last very long. Oh, brother-in-law, okay.

very complicated families at this point. So we're now into the famous Stuart dynasty that people have heard of? Yes. And many of them came to sticky ends. I won't test it you because they're impossible to remember but they're all weird and wonderful ends, aren't they? Oh, absolutely, yes.

I don't think one of them had a nice natural end to their life. And it's the Stuart family that give us the tragic and dramatic story of Mary Queen of Scots. She was heir to Stuart Scotland. She was indeed, yes. And Mary actually did spend several months living here at the castle. It wasn't her main residence in Edinburgh. That was the palace of Holyrood House. But she did live here, and very importantly to us, she gave birth to her son and heir, James' 6th here.

In 1542, the long line of Stuart Kings comes from an end. King James V of Scotland died whilst campaigning. He left no male heirs behind. He did leave a baby girl. Mary, who was just six days old. The reign of Mary, Queen of Scots, had begun, and it was fraught, to say the least. She spent much of her youth in France at the court of Catherine Namedici because she married the heir to the French throne. But then he died and she returned to Scotland at age 18. Scotland was a tumultuous country and it was the beginning of a very difficult period of personal rule.

Scotland was in the grip of a Protestant Reformation led by zealots like John Knox. And John Knox and others were pretty misogynist. They did not like the Queen. They took all opportunities they could to preach against her. She was a Catholic. She was a woman. she was everything he despised. And her life was one of scandal and murder and assault and abuse. In 1565, she married her cousin Henry Stewart, known as Lord Darnley.

He was descended through his mum from the Tudor family, so that strengthened her claim to the English throne, which she already had a good claim to through her great-grandfather, Henry the 7th. Their marriage was unhappy, he was a drunk and a lethario. He flew into a violent rage. she felt threatened by Mary's close relationship with her secretary, David Ritzio, and on the 9th of March the 9th, 1566, he burst into Mary's private chambers at the palace at Holyrood where she was dining with Rizio. He and his men dragged him out of the room,

stabbed him multiple times. He died in the outer chamber. Mary then fled for her own safety to Edinburgh Castle, which was more defensible, and it was a while she was at Edinburgh Castle that she gave birth to her only child, James, on the 19th of June 1566. So we are now in the royal apartments of Edinburgh Castle. This is where Mary would have lived when she was here in the castle. But this is also home to a very small room, but that is where she gave birth to James. Right, so a big moment for the future of Scotland and Britain.

Oh my goodness, we've just entered a very, very small wood panel room with some beautiful painting onto that wood. And an astonishing view over Edinburgh. And we're all alone in this room. This is extraordinary. So this, Mary was in here? Yes, well, that is what we currently believe, although historical documentation is being discovered as we speak,

and we don't quite know these days. But this is certainly the room that is now considered the shrine to her giving birth. Wow. So James would then go on to become James the sixth of Scotland and First of England, but at the time, very soon after his birth, his mother was forced to abdicate in his favour. This was because of yet more scandal surrounding Mary. In 1567, the year after Ritschio's murder, Darnley himself,

well, his house was blown up and he was found in the gardens, having been strangled. It's a real mystery that's never been solved. Many believe Mary was involved, perhaps with a man called James Hepburn, the Earl of Bothwell, but to this day no one can say for certain. After the murder of Laundarney, Bothwell took mate Dunbar Castle, claiming it was for own safety. It was there that he was believed to have sexually assaulted her

and then forced her to marry him. This marriage outraged Scottish nobles. Mary was captured by rebel lords at Carbury Hill and imprisoned at Lockleaven Castle. She was then forced to abdicate in favour of her infant son, James VI. As I said, this was not an easy life, and it was one that only got worse from this point on. And she went on to a very tragic life.

She escaped to England, was a prisoner of her cousin, Queen Elizabeth of England, and then eventually executed by Elizabeth. Yes, she'd met a very unfortunate end, 19 years imprisoned in England, before she was eventually executed. She should never have left these walls. No, she really shouldn't have.

So her son, James the 6th of Scotland, the boy king, he grows up, he plays his cards right, Elizabeth Tudor dies with no airs, and all thanks to that fact that Henry VIII married his sister to the King of Scotland, through that line the Stuarts, James the 6th. He's the closest male relative. Yes, he is.

So that was actually something that Mary had set in motion herself. She had spoken in correspondence with Elizabeth and had begged her to make James her heir because by this point Elizabeth had already claimed to be the virgin queen and that she would never marry. So Mary saw her opportunity to get her son on the throne even if she never would. So James was always there lurking

all the way through the end of Elizabeth's reign and when she died eventually he was given the monarchy. And James is 6th. Via a few jumps from one branch of the family treaty next, the current kings and queens of Great Britain are directly descended from Jones and 6th. Yes, it's come all the way down that Stuart line. And here we are in the room which she was born.

Yes. Very special. Yeah. So we're now going to make her way up to see the crown jewels of Scotland. Really? Yes. Nice. So these are what we call the honours of the kingdom.

And they are a very small collection in comparison. to the ones you'll see in the Tower of London, but they are very special to us. So the Scottish honours, the honours of the kingdom, they're made up of three pieces. We have the sceptre, the sword of state,

and the crown of Scotland. The sceptre was gifted in 1494, the sword in 1507. They're both Italian papal gifts to King James, the fourth of Scotland. So much older, than the English crown jewels, which are all hastily reconstructed after the civil wars. Absolutely. So our jewels, our crown from 1540 is Scottish, and it's actually possibly a

little bit older. It's got bits of an old Scottish crown in it. But when Oliver Cromwell came along in 1650, he tried to steal our jewels, much like he destroyed the English jewels. But we had heard what had happened in England and in London, and so we were very canny, and we actually hid our crown jewels in a castle in the very north of Scotland, the Nauter Castle. Nice. Yes. So they were there.

Cromwell worked out where they were and an army was sent to go and retrieve them. But two very impressive local women went in under the guise

of delivering supplies to those inside the castle and left with their skirts a little fuller than before. No. Yes. So as it turns out actually everything's quite

collapsible in our collection. The sceptor comes apart in the middle. They actually unscrews. That's clever. Yes, it was built. They added a section in the middle and made sure it could unscrew in the middle at that point, which was good foresight.

Collapsable. Yep. The crown actually splits into two. So again, very easy to hide. Swords are not meant to be destroyed, unfortunately. So they did have to cut it in half. And to this day, you can actually see the markings on the blade of the sword. But they stuck them in their skirts and their baskets, and they carried them out.

They were actually escorted through the camp by the commander. So he escorted the crown jewels that he was there for away. one of the women her husband was the local minister so they were buried in the floorboards of Keneff Church nearby no way what a story oh yeah and they were kept there for eight years until the restoration of Charles II and at that point they were then returned to Edinburgh Castle

I've always read about one of the most famous novelists in Scottish British history so Walter Scott he was involved with the Crown Jules so what's going on there yes so our Crown Jules were actually retired in 1707 in favour of the British Crown Jules that were made after 1660. And at that point they were put in an oak chest that we still have to this day

and it was put into our crown room and the doors were bricked up. Really? Yes. And they were left for 111 years and this is where Walter Scott comes in. He has been doing research for his novels and he's been researching the castle and on old maps he finds note of a crown room

or an inventory room and when he does so, he realizes that it's not there now. So he asked for permission from his friend, who just so happens to be the future King George IV, if he can go in and investigate. So they knock down the wall, open the doors, and there are the crown jewels. I mean, I'm sorry, but that's the most exciting thing I've ever heard.

Absolutely. 111 years, nobody has seen them, but Walter Scott finds them. I mean, that's full-on Indiana Jones style. 100%. Oh yeah. And of all the men to do it, it would be Walter Scott. Exactly. Wow. And so that's why they're now on display here, looking at the magnificent. Yes. So his discovery turned them into one of the earliest tourist attractions. So the public could come and visit them from 1820 onwards. So people could come into the site because at that time we were still a major military garrison. So they had to come in in very small numbers, but they could come and visit the Crown Jules then. But it's obviously a highlight of the trip to the castle. Oh, it really is. everyone coming up wants to come and see the cringles. You're listening to Dan Snow's history here. There's more to come.

Summer is finally here. But for those of you, just like me, who are counting down the days until the leaves turn golden, the nights start drawing in. And it's finally acceptable to spend a whole weekend binge-watching true crime in your PJs, After dark, myths, misdeeds and the paranormal can transport you there right now, twice a week, every week. Tudor murder, ancient ghosts, Victorian mysteries, our podcast has you covered. I'm Maddie Pelling.

And I'm Anthony Delaney, and we are friends and historians who love to find out about the darker side of history. Join us on the scaffold for Anne Boleyn's final moments. Step inside Tutin Carmoon's tomb, which is apparently cursed. Watch a jury deliberate the fate of the last. three women to be hanged for witchcraft in England. Find us every Monday and Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts, and now on YouTube. After Dark, myths, misdeeds and the paranormal is created by the award-winning network History Hit. Okay, so we're back on the battlements here, and we've got, well, it's a battery, got more of these cannon.

And we're looking out of, what, look at that view. What a beautiful view over the old town and bits of the new town as well. And we should probably skip forward. I mean, we are basically telling the whole story of the history of Scotland here, but the Stuart family all fall out with each other dramatically over who should be the rightful kings of Britain.

And we get to the Jacobite Rebellions. 1715 is a very famous one. 1745 is one of people might have heard of, which is Bonnie Prince Charlie. Prince Charles Edward Stuart, who's seeking to get the throne back for his bronze. of the Stuart family over the German branch, who were ruling Britain at that point.

And Edinburgh's a really interesting case, isn't it? Because Bonnie Prince Charlie takes Edinburgh, but not quite. Yeah, he never gets the castle. So he's another one of those amazing Scottish figures in our history that has never set foot within our grounds. Really? Is that right? So he did manage to take the whole of Edinburgh City. And he besieged the front door of the castle,

but he could never get in through force or through any sort of wily nature. and instead we just occasionally would take pot shots down into the city at him and presumably this is the battery where that happened from right? Yes it's got a great vantage point here. Yes it is and in fact actually one of our cannonballs from the castle does still exist in one of the buildings in the old town

yes it's a restaurant we now call cannonball but I love those stories because Bonnie Prince Charlie was holding court having balls acting like a monarch and occasionally a cannonball from the castle comes sort of crashing through and try and ruin the party yeah absolutely we love trying to stop a wee party every now and again.

It's an amazing story. And then Bonnie Prince Charlie eventually driven north and defeated by his cousin, the Duke Cumberland, the famous, infamous Battle of Culloden in 1746. Yes, which was an absolute whitewash against the Scots who supported Charlie because that is one thing we always struggle with in our history is differentiating

because at that point it was very much so many folk see it to be the Scots versus the English but it was very much a civil war. So you'd have had Scottish to vendors the castle up here backing King George, you'd have had actually some English supporters of Bonnie Prince Charlie down there with his army. Absolutely, yes. It was very much down to which branch of the family you felt was more suited to you. And was that the last time the castle saw a shot fired in anger? World War I. Okay. We had a singular shot. Really? Yes. And it was from our one o'clock gun,

funnily enough. There was a zeppelin flying over the city and they attempted to fire the one o'clock gun to either skate it off or shoot it out the sky. So a huge German airship is over the city and you're using what had been a sort of signal cannon, which had been for show all through the years before. And now you're actually trying to take pot shot as an airship. That's an amazing story. Only time the one o'clock gun has ever been fired in anger.

Wow. And is the one o'clock going still fire at one o'clock? It does indeed, yes. And that's the same gun that once fired... Not anymore. No, thankfully not. No, I think that might give our gunner a little bit of a heart attack. The gun we've got now we've had since 2001. It's a newbie. Newby, in comparison, yes.

Wow, that is amazing. So it sought action during the First World War. Yes. So with that exception of the First World War, Edinburgh Castle, not really on the front line from the 18th century onwards, but I guess it had a military purpose. We did, yes. We were a fully functioning military garrison.

Indeed, we actually still are to this day, but we at one point could have over a thousand men stationed in the castle. One other side of that, though, was we also had prisons here. Oh, really? Yes. So we did have prisons for, our own soldiers who may have misbehaved, shall we say, but we actually had prisons of war for international soldiers as well.

Isn't that fascinating? So what are you talking, Napoleonic Wars, that kind of thing? Yeah, we're talking Napoleonic Wars, and we're talking the American Wars of Independence. So there are Americans up here? Or French sailors captured, particularly, I guess. French, Italian, Dutch, Spanish. Yeah, no, we were fighting everyone now. Oh, yeah, we really were, we're having fun.

But our American prisoners, because a lot of folk don't realize that American ships did actually attack British ports, to try and stop supplies making their way to America to support the troops there. And if they were captured in our waters, that was when they were kept here. And they were often sent to Edinburgh Castle because it was seen as the back end of nowhere.

And they were almost forgotten about. Some of the Americans were here for seven years. Wow. And then were there German prisoners during the First World War and Second World War? We did have some injured prisoners during World War II who were kept here in our hospital, actually. Down to Em and things like that. Yes, that's exactly what we had here.

But World War I, we did have a very important. interesting gentleman who ended up staying here. His nickname is the Red Clydesider. And he was actually a trade union man over in Glasgow originally. And he then had been exiled from Glasgow. Sent all the way to Edinburgh. Yes. Poor thing.

Indeed. And he was here. And he got himself in so much trouble that he ended up spending a night imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle. And he was regarded what as such a threat to national security? I think they were more trying to scare the living daylights out of him and they put him in one of the darkest of the cellars

and he was said to have remarked afterwards that he thought he was going to be left there to die no the police just put him there for one night to scare him hopefully right because he was what I guess a radical socialist or communists he was a radical socialist and he was also very opposed

to the war and that was the main reason why was because he was seen to be affecting wartime morale the gentleman was called Davy Kirkwood and to this day we actually know his cell as Davy Kirkwood's hole. So it's still named after him even a hundred years later. His name lives on. Indeed. Well, Barry, thank you so much. We galloped through thousands of years of history up here. I thank you for all the insights you brought. When people come to the castle today, because it's

been through so many different iterations and periods, what do people ask you? What's the number one thing? Well, funnily enough, one of our number one questions is a rather entertaining one for the staff, and that is, what time is the one o'clock gun? That's too good. Why is that an institution? Oh, it really is, yes. People come and will wait for an hour to see the gun fired. And actually today we're very lucky that we're going to be able to be right beside the gun as it is being fired. That is amazing and I obviously was not going to ask what time it was fired, but it had crossed my mind. You never know in Britain, in Scotland, because we've got a lot of weird traditions which aren't actually what they say on the tin.

Oh, they really are, yes. But this is one that is exactly as advertised. Right. So you need to put your earplugs in. Thank you very much. Brilliant. The gun has been loaded. The blank shell, you'll be glad to here, because the gun's pointed directly at the lower town in Edinburgh. Do some damage this gun.

He's elevating the gun, so it's no longer aiming. It's aiming at Fife now. Yeah. It's their daily wake-up call. It's a classic 105-millimeter gun used by the British Army. since the 70s and we're just getting ready to fire it now the gunner is just checking his watch

we've got 10 seconds to go it's 1 o'clock folks well that's the most spectacular end of the podcast I've ever done marie thank you so much thank you so if anyone is interested in coming to visit Edinburgh Castle you can visit our website which is Edinburghcastle.scott, and you can buy your tickets there. Do it, folks.

Thank you again to my excellent guide at Edinburgh Castle and centuries of Scottish history, Māori Summer, senior castle guide and to all the folks also at Edinburgh Castle who organised our visit. Thank you very much. You can find out more about the castle and how to visit in the link in our show notes. You've got to go, folks. Make sure you join me at the next stop on our summer tour of Europe

as I tell you everything you need to know about the ancient ruins of Pompeii. Make sure you hit following your podcast players so you don't miss it. Check it out on Friday. podcasts from The Times and the Sunday Times. Hearing history in the making today discussed each week with me, the journalist, and General Sir Patrick Sanders. The old global orders breaking down, conflicts on the rise, and the world is getting ever more dangerous. Join us as we try to make sense of an ever more dangerous world. The general and the journalist, wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you.