1.
Scottish Parliament Building
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The Scottish Parliament Building is the home of the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood, within the UNESCO World Heritage Site in central Edinburgh. Construction of the building commenced in June 1999 and the Members of the Scottish Parliament held their first debate in the new building on 7 September 2004, the formal opening by Queen Elizabeth II took place on 9 October 2004. Enric Miralles, the Spanish Catalan architect who designed the building, Office and administrative accommodation in support of the Parliament were provided in buildings leased from the City of Edinburgh Council. The new Scottish Parliament Building brought together these different elements into one purpose-built parliamentary complex, housing 129 MSPs and more than 1,000 staff, from the outset, the building and its construction have been controversial. The choices of location, architect, design, and construction company were all criticised by politicians, the media and the Scottish public. Scheduled to open in 2001, it did so in 2004, a major public inquiry into the handling of the construction, chaired by the former Lord Advocate, Peter Fraser, was established in 2003. The inquiry concluded in September 2004 and criticised the management of the project from the realisation of cost increases down to the way in which major design changes were implemented. Despite these criticisms and a public reaction, the building was welcomed by architectural academics and critics. The building aimed to achieve a union between the Scottish landscape, its people, its culture, and the city of Edinburgh. Comprising an area of 1.6 ha, with a perimeter of 480 m, the large site previously housed the headquarters of the Scottish and Newcastle brewery which were demolished to make way for the building. Reids Close connects the Canongate and Holyrood Road on the side of the complex. The south eastern side of the complex is bounded by the Our Dynamic Earth visitor attraction opened in July 1999. In the immediate vicinity of the building is the Palace of Holyroodhouse, to the south of the parliamentary complex are the steep slopes of the Salisbury Crags and Arthurs Seat. The Treaty of Union, signed in 1707, created a political union between the Kingdom of Scots and the Kingdom of England. The two previous Acts of Union had dissolved the previous parliaments, the Treaty of Union created the Parliament of Great Britain which was housed in the Palace of Westminster in London. As a consequence, Scotland was directly governed from London for the next 292 years without a legislature or a Parliament building of its own. Whilst much of this conversion was completed and the building was renamed New Parliament House it was determined that the facility was too small for its stated purpose. Following the April 1992 election, when a weakened John Major was re-elected, starting informally this became a permanently manned vigil to keep the concept in the public mind
2.
Parliament Square, Edinburgh
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Parliament Square, Edinburgh, is located off the High Street, part of the Royal Mile. The Queensberry Memorial to the 5th Duke of Buccleuch, stands in West Parliament Square, the square came into existence in 1632 as a forecourt to the Parliament House on the old graveyard of St Giles Kirk. Parliament House not only housed the pre-union Parliament of Scotland but also the Court of Session. Another building adjacent to the square was the Old Tolbooth, which was used variously as a place for the Town Council. It was from there in 1661 that those guilty of high treason after the Restoration were taken to be executed next to the mercat cross. Henry Cockburn lamented the loss of the historical name, Parliament Close. Anderson, James, Mrs. James Guthrie, Mrs. James Durham, and Mrs
3.
Society of Writers to Her Majesty's Signet
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The Society of Writers to Her Majesty’s Signet is a private society of Scottish solicitors, dating back to 1594 and part of the College of Justice. The Society maintains the Category A listed Signet Library, part of the Parliament House complex in Edinburgh, and members of the Society are entitled to the postnominal letters, WS. Solicitors in Scotland were previously known as writers, Writers to the Signet were the solicitors entitled to use of the Kings Signet. Records of that use date back to 1369, in 1532, the Writers to the Signet were included as Members in the newly established College of Justice, along with the Faculty of Advocates and the Clerks of the Court of Session. The Society was established in 1594, when the Kings Secretary, as Keeper of the Signet, gave commissions to a Deputy Keeper and 18 other writers. In civil actions in the Court of Session, a pursuer is required to have his writ stamped with the Signet to give him authority from the Queen to serve the writ on the defender. That conferral, called passing the Signet, was carried out by the Signet Office. In 1976 the Signet Office was merged into the General Department of the Court of Session, nevertheless, the requirement of passing the Signet survived. Nowadays, these functions are no longer performed by the Society, the Keeper of the Signet is one of the Great Officers of State of Scotland, and is one of the offices held by the Lord Clerk Register. The current Keeper of the Signet is Lord Mackay of Clashfern, former Lord Advocate of Scotland, the office is now a purely ceremonial one, as the Keeper of the Signet grants a commission to the Principal Clerk of Session to allow the Signet to be used. The Keeper of the Signet is the officer of the Society of Writers to the Signet. Although the Society is a body, the Register of Commissions forms part of the records of the Court of Session. The Keeper does not exercise administrative functions over the Society, these being delegated to the Deputy Keeper, the present Deputy Keeper is Caroline Docherty, Consultant at Morton Fraser LLP. Jurists, advocates and foreign lawyers may be granted membership of the Society. Associate members are entitled to use the designation, Associate Writer to the Signet with the postnominal letters, prominent associate members include Harvey McGregor QC and the late former President of Poland, Lech Aleksander Kaczyński. Edinburgh City Chambers The Society of Writers to Her Majestys Signet
4.
Charles II of England
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Charles II was king of England, Scotland and Ireland. He was king of Scotland from 1649 until his deposition in 1651, Charles IIs father, Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War. Cromwell defeated Charles II at the Battle of Worcester on 3 September 1651, Cromwell became virtual dictator of England, Scotland and Ireland, and Charles spent the next nine years in exile in France, the Dutch Republic and the Spanish Netherlands. A political crisis followed the death of Cromwell in 1658 resulted in the restoration of the monarchy. On 29 May 1660, his 30th birthday, he was received in London to public acclaim, after 1660, all legal documents were dated as if he had succeeded his father as king in 1649. Charless English parliament enacted laws known as the Clarendon Code, designed to shore up the position of the re-established Church of England, Charles acquiesced to the Clarendon Code even though he favoured a policy of religious tolerance. The major foreign policy issue of his reign was the Second Anglo-Dutch War. In 1670, he entered into the treaty of Dover. Louis agreed to aid him in the Third Anglo-Dutch War and pay him a pension, Charles attempted to introduce religious freedom for Catholics and Protestant dissenters with his 1672 Royal Declaration of Indulgence, but the English Parliament forced him to withdraw it. In 1679, Titus Oatess revelations of a supposed Popish Plot sparked the Exclusion Crisis when it was revealed that Charless brother, the crisis saw the birth of the pro-exclusion Whig and anti-exclusion Tory parties. Charles sided with the Tories, and, following the discovery of the Rye House Plot to murder Charles and James in 1683, Charles dissolved the English Parliament in 1681, and ruled alone until his death on 6 February 1685. He was received into the Roman Catholic Church on his deathbed, Charless wife, Catherine of Braganza, bore no live children, but Charles acknowledged at least twelve illegitimate children by various mistresses. He was succeeded by his brother James, Charles II was born in St Jamess Palace on 29 May 1630. His parents were Charles I and Henrietta Maria, Charles was their second son and child. Their first son was born about a year before Charles but died within a day, England, Scotland and Ireland were respectively predominantly Anglican, Presbyterian and Roman Catholic. At birth, Charles automatically became Duke of Cornwall and Duke of Rothesay, at or around his eighth birthday, he was designated Prince of Wales, though he was never formally invested. During the 1640s, when Charles was still young, his father fought Parliamentary, by spring 1646, his father was losing the war, and Charles left England due to fears for his safety. Charles I surrendered into captivity in May 1646, at The Hague, Charles had a brief affair with Lucy Walter, who later falsely claimed that they had secretly married
5.
Edinburgh
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Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 local government council areas. Located in Lothian on the Firth of Forths southern shore, it is Scotlands second most populous city and the seventh most populous in the United Kingdom. The 2014 official population estimates are 464,990 for the city of Edinburgh,492,680 for the authority area. Recognised as the capital of Scotland since at least the 15th century, Edinburgh is home to the Scottish Parliament and it is the largest financial centre in the UK after London. Historically part of Midlothian, the city has long been a centre of education, particularly in the fields of medicine, Scots law, literature, the sciences and engineering. The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1582 and now one of four in the city, was placed 17th in the QS World University Rankings in 2013 and 2014. The city is famous for the Edinburgh International Festival and the Fringe. The citys historical and cultural attractions have made it the United Kingdoms second most popular tourist destination after London, attracting over one million overseas visitors each year. Historic sites in Edinburgh include Edinburgh Castle, Holyrood Palace, the churches of St. Giles, Greyfriars and the Canongate, Edinburghs Old Town and New Town together are listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which has been managed by Edinburgh World Heritage since 1999. It appears to derive from the place name Eidyn mentioned in the Old Welsh epic poem Y Gododdin, the poem names Din Eidyn as a hill fort in the territory of the Gododdin. The Celtic element din was dropped and replaced by the Old English burh, the first documentary evidence of the medieval burgh is a royal charter, c. 1124–1127, by King David I granting a toft in burgo meo de Edenesburg to the Priory of Dunfermline. In modern Gaelic, the city is called Dùn Èideann, the earliest known human habitation in the Edinburgh area was at Cramond, where evidence was found of a Mesolithic camp site dated to c.8500 BC. Traces of later Bronze Age and Iron Age settlements have found on Castle Rock, Arthurs Seat, Craiglockhart Hill. When the Romans arrived in Lothian at the end of the 1st century AD, at some point before the 7th century AD, the Gododdin, who were presumably descendants of the Votadini, built the hill fort of Din Eidyn or Etin. Although its location has not been identified, it likely they would have chosen a commanding position like the Castle Rock, Arthurs Seat. In 638, the Gododdin stronghold was besieged by forces loyal to King Oswald of Northumbria and it thenceforth remained under their jurisdiction. The royal burgh was founded by King David I in the early 12th century on land belonging to the Crown, in 1638, King Charles Is attempt to introduce Anglican church forms in Scotland encountered stiff Presbyterian opposition culminating in the conflicts of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. In the 17th century, Edinburghs boundaries were defined by the citys defensive town walls
6.
Scotland
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Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and covers the northern third of the island of Great Britain. It shares a border with England to the south, and is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the North Sea to the east. In addition to the mainland, the country is made up of more than 790 islands, including the Northern Isles, the Kingdom of Scotland emerged as an independent sovereign state in the Early Middle Ages and continued to exist until 1707. By inheritance in 1603, James VI, King of Scots, became King of England and King of Ireland, Scotland subsequently entered into a political union with the Kingdom of England on 1 May 1707 to create the new Kingdom of Great Britain. The union also created a new Parliament of Great Britain, which succeeded both the Parliament of Scotland and the Parliament of England. Within Scotland, the monarchy of the United Kingdom has continued to use a variety of styles, titles, the legal system within Scotland has also remained separate from those of England and Wales and Northern Ireland, Scotland constitutes a distinct jurisdiction in both public and private law. Glasgow, Scotlands largest city, was one of the worlds leading industrial cities. Other major urban areas are Aberdeen and Dundee, Scottish waters consist of a large sector of the North Atlantic and the North Sea, containing the largest oil reserves in the European Union. This has given Aberdeen, the third-largest city in Scotland, the title of Europes oil capital, following a referendum in 1997, a Scottish Parliament was re-established, in the form of a devolved unicameral legislature comprising 129 members, having authority over many areas of domestic policy. Scotland is represented in the UK Parliament by 59 MPs and in the European Parliament by 6 MEPs, Scotland is also a member nation of the British–Irish Council, and the British–Irish Parliamentary Assembly. Scotland comes from Scoti, the Latin name for the Gaels, the Late Latin word Scotia was initially used to refer to Ireland. By the 11th century at the latest, Scotia was being used to refer to Scotland north of the River Forth, alongside Albania or Albany, the use of the words Scots and Scotland to encompass all of what is now Scotland became common in the Late Middle Ages. Repeated glaciations, which covered the land mass of modern Scotland. It is believed the first post-glacial groups of hunter-gatherers arrived in Scotland around 12,800 years ago, the groups of settlers began building the first known permanent houses on Scottish soil around 9,500 years ago, and the first villages around 6,000 years ago. The well-preserved village of Skara Brae on the mainland of Orkney dates from this period and it contains the remains of an early Bronze Age ruler laid out on white quartz pebbles and birch bark. It was also discovered for the first time that early Bronze Age people placed flowers in their graves, in the winter of 1850, a severe storm hit Scotland, causing widespread damage and over 200 deaths. In the Bay of Skaill, the storm stripped the earth from a large irregular knoll, when the storm cleared, local villagers found the outline of a village, consisting of a number of small houses without roofs. William Watt of Skaill, the laird, began an amateur excavation of the site, but after uncovering four houses
7.
Parliament of Scotland
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The Parliament of Scotland, or Estates of Parliament, was the legislature of the Kingdom of Scotland. The parliament, like other such institutions, evolved during the Middle Ages from the council of bishops. It is first identifiable as a parliament in 1235, during the reign of Alexander II, by the early fourteenth century, the attendance of knights and freeholders had become important, and from 1326 commissioners from the burghs attended. Parliamentary business was carried out by sister institutions, such as General Councils or Convention of Estates. These could carry out much business also dealt with by parliament – taxation, legislation and policy-making –, the Parliament of Scotland met for more than four centuries, until it was prorogued sine die at the time of the Acts of Union in 1707. Thereafter the Parliament of Great Britain operated for both England and Scotland, thus creating the United Kingdom of Great Britain, when the Parliament of Ireland was abolished in 1801, its former members were merged into what was now called the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Later, the bishops themselves were removed from the Church of Scotland during the Glorious Revolution, the Second Estate was then split into two to retain the division into three. From the 16th century, the estate was reorganised by the selection of Shire Commissioners. During the 17th century, after the Union of the Crowns and these latter identifications remain highly controversial among parliamentary historians. Regardless, the used for the assembled members continued to be the Three Estates. A Shire Commissioner was the closest equivalent of the English office of Member of Parliament, because the parliament of Scotland was unicameral, all members sat in the same chamber, as opposed to the separate English House of Lords and House of Commons. The Scottish parliament evolved during the Middle Ages from the Kings Council and it is perhaps first identifiable as a parliament in 1235, described as a colloquium and already with a political and judicial role. In 1296 we have the first mention of burgh representatives taking part in decision making, by the early 14th century, the attendance of knights and freeholders had become important, and Robert the Bruce began regularly calling burgh commissioners to his Parliament. Consisting of The Three Estates – of clerics, lay Tenants-in-chief and burgh commissioners – sitting in a single chamber, parliamentary business was also carried out by sister institutions, before c.1500 by General Council and thereafter by the Convention of Estates. These could carry out much business also dealt with by Parliament – taxation, legislation and policy-making –, the Scottish parliament met in a number of different locations throughout its history. In addition to Edinburgh, meetings were held in Perth, Stirling, St Andrews, Dundee, Linlithgow, Dunfermline, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Inverness and Berwick-upon-Tweed. From the early 1450s until 1690, a deal of the legislative business of the Scottish Parliament was usually carried out by a parliamentary committee known as the Lords of the Articles. This was a chosen by the three estates to draft legislation which was then presented to the full assembly to be confirmed
8.
College of Justice
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The College of Justice includes the Supreme Courts of Scotland, and its associated bodies. The constituent bodies of the supreme courts are the Court of Session, the High Court of Justiciary. Its associated bodies are the Faculty of Advocates, the Society of Writers to Her Majestys Signet, the College was founded in 1532 by King James V following a bull issued by Pope Clement VII on 15 September 1531. The Parliament of Scotland passed an Act on 17 May 1532 authorising the creation of the college with 14 members, half spiritual, half temporal, plus a president, the college convened for the first time on 27 May 1532, in the royal presence. Supplementing the 14 ordinary lords, who were called Senators, were a number of supernumerary judges called extraordinary lords. The College at its foundation dealt with underdeveloped civil law and it did not dispense justice in criminal matters as that was an area of the law reserved to the Kings justice, through the justiciars, the Barony Courts and the Commission of Justiciary. The High Court of Justiciary was only incorporated into the College of Justice in 1672, initially, there was little legal literature. Acts of the Parliament of Scotland and the books of the Old Law as well as Roman Law and it was only after the establishment of the court that this situation improved, with judges noting their decisions in books of practicks. The Treaty of Union 1707 with England preserved the Scottish Legal System
9.
Old Town, Edinburgh
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The Old Town is the name popularly given to the oldest part of Scotlands capital city of Edinburgh. The area has preserved much of its street plan and many Reformation-era buildings. Together with the 18th-century New Town, it part of a protected UNESCO World Heritage Site. Narrow closes, often no more than a few feet wide, the area has a number of underground vaults and hidden passages that are relics of previous phases of construction. No part of the street is officially called The Royal Mile in terms of legal addresses, the actual street names are Castlehill, Lawnmarket, High Street, Canongate and Abbey Strand. This crag and tail landform was created during the last ice age when receding glaciers scoured across the land pushing soft soil aside, the hilltop crag was the earliest part of the city to develop, becoming fortified and eventually developing into the current Edinburgh Castle. The rest of the city grew slowly down the tail of land from the Castle Rock and this was an easily defended spot with marshland on the south and a man-made loch, the Nor Loch, on the north. Access up the road to the settlement was therefore restricted by means of various gates. The original strong linear spine of the Royal Mile only had narrow closes and these began to be supplemented from the late 18th century with wide new north–south routes, beginning with the North Bridge/South Bridge route, and then George IV Bridge. The Edinburgh City Improvement Act of 1866 further added to the north south routes and this was devised by the architects David Cousin and John Lessels. It had quite radical effects, St Marys Wynd was demolished and replaced by the much wider St Marys Street with all new buildings, Leith Wynd which descended from the High Street to the Low Calton was demolished. Jeffrey Street started from Leith Wynds junction with the High Street, opposite St Marys Street, east Market Street was built to connect Market Street and New Street. Blackfriars Street was created by the widening of Blackfriars Wynd, removing all the buildings on the east side, Chambers Street was created, replacing N College Street and removing Brown Square and Adam Square. It was named after the then Lord Provost of Edinburgh, Sir William Chambers, guthrie Street was created, linking the new Chambers Street to the Cowgate. Multi-storey dwellings became the norm from the 16th century onwards, the construction of new streets including North Bridge and South Bridge in the 18th century also created underground spaces, such as the Edinburgh Vaults below the latter. Traditionally buildings were less dense in the eastern, Canongate, section and this area underwent major slum clearance and reconstruction in the 1950s, thereafter becoming an area largely of Council housing. Further Council housing was built on the fringe of the Canongate in the 1960s and 1970s in an area generally called Dumbiedykes. From 1990 to 2010 major new housing schemes appeared throughout the Canongate and these were built to a much higher scale than the traditional buildings and have greatly increased the population of the area
10.
Royal Mile
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The Royal Mile is the name given to a succession of streets forming the main thoroughfare of the Old Town of the city of Edinburgh in Scotland. The name was first used in W M Gilberts Edinburgh in the Nineteenth Century, the streets which make up the Royal Mile are Castlehill, the Lawnmarket, the High Street, the Canongate and Abbey Strand. The Royal Mile is the busiest tourist street in the Old Town, running eastwards from the crag, the Royal Mile sits upon the ridge of the tail which slopes gently down to Holyrood Palace. Steep closes run between the many tall lands off the main thoroughfare, the route runs from an elevation of 42 meters above sea level at the palace, to 109 meters at the castle, for an average gradient of 4. 1%. The Castle Esplanade was laid out as a ground, in 1753. It was formalised in 1816 when it was widened and provided with decorative railings, the Esplanade with its several monuments has been A-listed by Historic Scotland. It is the venue of the annual Edinburgh Military Tattoo at which time specially designed temporary grandstands are erected, the Assembly Hall of the Church of Scotland and New College are further down on the same side, in an architecturally somewhat understated building as seen from this side. The Scottish Parliament met in the Assembly Hall between 1999 and 2004, the Lawnmarket was originally part of the High Street before its separate naming, which accounts for the street numbering being a continuation of the High Street numbers. A charter of 1477 designated this part of the High Street as the market-place for what was called inland merchandise - items such as yarn, stockings, coarse cloth, in later years, linen was the main product sold. As a result, it known as the Land Market which was later corrupted to Lawn Market. Today, the majority of shops in the street are aimed at tourists, on the north side is the preserved 17th century merchants townhouse Gladstones Land owned by the National Trust for Scotland. The south side has a strong Dutch influence in its 17th-century gables, the lower end of the Lawnmarket is intersected by George IV Bridge on the right and Bank Street on the left, leading to The Mound and the New Town. The view down Bank Street is closed by the headquarters of the Bank of Scotland. On the south-west corner of intersection, with its entrance on George IV Bridge, is a new hotel. This building is of controversial design winning both best building awards and carbuncle awards in 2009/10. Between Bank Street and St Giles Street, marking the end of the Lawnmarket, St Giles Cathedral, the High Kirk of Edinburgh, also stands in Parliament Square. The prison was described by Sir Walter Scott as the Heart of Midlothian, locals have traditionally spat upon the heart, presumably to express disgust. The custom has been to some extent sanitised by tourist guides who claim that the spitting is merely for good luck, on the north side, opposite St Giles, stand Edinburgh City Chambers, where the City of Edinburgh Council meets
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