The Honours of Scotland

Charles I, King of both Scotland and England, was executed in 1649 by Oliver Cromwell. The following year his son (later Charles II) arrived in north east Scotland in a bid to retake the two kingdoms and on his journey south he stayed overnight at Dunnottar Castle. However, in England, Oliver Cromwell was so enraged at the young King's arrival he invaded Scotland. In some haste therefore, Charles II was crowned at Scone, but the crown and the other coronation regalia could not be returned to Edinburgh Castle which had now been taken by Cromwell's army. The English crown jewels had already been destroyed by Cromwell and the Honours of Scotland, the most potent remaining icon of the monarchy, were next on his list. His army was fast advancing on Scone and the King ordered the Earl Marischal to secure the Honours and many of his personal papers at Dunnottar Castle. 

It was not long before Dunnottar was under siege and a scratch garrison of 70 men held out for eight months against the invading forces. Its unique position made the Castle impregnable to infantry attack, but when the heavy cannons finally arrived and began to raze the major buildings, the situation became untenable. Before surrender was contemplated, however, the King's papers were taken through the besieging forces by a brave young lady acquaintance of the Governor who secured them around her waist. The crown, sceptre and sword meanwhile, had been lowered over the seaward side of the Castle and received by a serving woman, there on pretence of gathering seaweed. They were thereafter taken to the church at Kinneff, a village several miles to the south where at first they were hidden at the bottom of the bed in the minister's house until he could bury them more securely in the kirk. There they remained undiscovered for eleven years. 

Strangely, the sword-belt was only rediscovered in 1790 - in a garden wall at Barras house - and sent back to join the other Honours in Edinburgh Castle in 1892. The people who saved the Honours paid for their patriotism, because Ogilvie's wife died as a result of her suffering in prison, where she is said to have been tortured to make her yield up knowledge of the Honours' whereabouts. The Grangers were also imprisoned and Mrs. Granger, too, died before the Restoration. But the most important thing about the Honours, as the devotion of those people shows, is not the magnificence they represented, but what they meant to the people of Scotland. To them, it embodied their nationhood and because of that they guarded the regalia jealously. After parliamentary union in 1707, the regalia was used for the last time, when the Earl of Seafield took up the sceptre to touch the finalised Treaty of Union and said sadly: "Now here's an end to an auld sang". Then the Honours were hidden away in Edinburgh Castle, walled up in a sealed room in high tower.