Scottish History Strange But True

This book contains hundreds of ‘strange but true’ stories about Scottish history. Arranged into a miniature history of Scotland, and with bizarre and hilarious true tales for every era, it will delight anyone with an interest in Scotland’s past.

This book is a treasure trove of English oddities, crammed with the most curious stories, remarkable facts and unexpected goings-on from the country’s long and convoluted history. From frogs’ legs at Stonehenge to knicker elastic in the Blitz, this is England – the unauthorised biography.

What have you heard about Scottish history?Don't believe a word!In Scotland we do not ponder 'Why?'; We demand 'How?' How do the characters and events of Scottish History make the Scotland of today? These stories researched by the authors of 'Scottish History: Strange but True' tell the 'Hows' and the 'Whys' of everything you need to know.

Shortlisted for the Saltire Society History Book of the Year The legendary Scottish king Máel Coluim III, also known as 'Malcolm Canmore', is often held to epitomise Scotland's 'ancient Gaelic kings'. But Máel Coluim and his dynasty were in fact newcomers, and their legitimacy and status were far from secure at the beginning of his rule. Máel Coluim's long reign from 1058 until 1093 coincided with the Norman Conquest of England, a revolutionary event that presented great opportunities and terrible dangers. Although his interventions in post-Conquest England eventually cost him his life, the book argues that they were crucial to his success as both king and dynasty-builder, creating internal stability and facilitating the takeover of Strathclyde and Lothian. As a result, Máel Coluim left to his successors a territory that stretched far to the south of the kingship's heartland north of the Forth, similar to the Scotland we know today. The book explores the wider political and cultural world in which Máel Coluim lived, guiding the reader through the pitfalls and possibilities offered by the sources that mediate access to that world. Our reliance on so few texts means that the eleventh century poses problems that historians of later eras can avoid. Nevertheless Scotland in Máel Coluim's time generated unprecedented levels of attention abroad and more vernacular literary output than at any time prior to the Stewart era.