q & a
which were usually held in the market places of Covenanting and 1
th
-20
th
century coal mining.
country towns. A husband placed a symbolic halter Nearby Black Hill, a noted viewpoint, is topped by
over his wife’s head and drove her like a cow to the an Iron Age fort and settlement surrounding a Bronze
market place where she was sold to the highest bidder. Age cairn.
The successful bidder was often someone who had
previously agreed on the bargain, but went along with Q: Where does the name Scotia come from?
the public spectacle in the belief that this somehow A: Professor Croft Dickinson defined the use of
made the transaction legal. Often the hapless woman the term thus: “Until the 10
th
century Scotia meant
would be driven through a public tollbooth where a Ireland. In the 10
th
century Scotia was being used for
receipt would issued and this would likewise be seen the mainland of modern Scotland to the north of the
as a means of legitimising the sale. Forth and Clyde, and the Forth was sometimes called
In his book For Better For Worse, British Marriages ‘The Scots Water.’ From about the middle of the 11
th

1600 to the Present, John Gillis writes that the century Scotia gradually came to mean the whole of
same unfortunate experiences with marriage that modern Scotland.
moved many plebeian men and women to celibacy,
also propelled others in search of new forms of Q: What were the origins of Mary Queen of Scots
heterosexuality that promised to overcome the musician and courtier, David Rizzio?
contradictions of the nuclear family. A: David Rizzio or Riccio was born in 1533, the
“After separating from her potter husband in son of a Turin musician. Rizzio first played for the
1782,” he writes, “Luckie Buchan, a Banff woman, Archbishop of Turin, then at the court of Savoy.
declared herself “Friend Mother,” the third person of Accompanying a diplomatic mission from Savoy to
the Godhead. Having predicted the second coming Scotland in 1561, he won the attention of Queen Mary
of Christ, whom she regarded as her brother, she and became her confidante and French secretary. He
gathered around herself a small band of followers, probably did not become her lover and he supported
who, taking as their example the early apostles, “had her marriage to Lord Darnley. But as a low-born
all things in common,” including marriage. foreigner with high pretensions and a Catholic who
Mrs Buchan took up with a married man, Hugh doubtless encouraged the Queen in abandoning her
White; all the married women reverted to their maiden conciliatory policy toward her Protestant subjects,
names; and the resulting children were brought up he was cordially detested by almost everyone. The
by the community. Robert Burns, who was personally Queen’s decision to summon for trial those like
acquainted with the Buchanites, reported that “they James Stewart Earl of Moray who had opposed her
lodge & lye all together, & hold likewise a community in the Chaseabout Raid, precipitated action against
of women, as it is another of their tenents that they Rizzio. Darnley, jealous of Rizzio’s influence with
can commit no mortal sin.” the Queen, signed a bond undertaking to rid the
country of those, including ‘a stranger Italian called
Q: How did the Lanarkshire village of Lesmahagow David’, who abused the Queen’s hospitality; Moray
get its name? and his supporters, anxious to pre-empt their trial
A: The name of this village west of Lanark derives by a measure that would panic the Queen into
from “Les” meaning a green or enclosure (or possibly reconciliation, responded with a bond to support
from the French église meaning church), and Darnley in his claim to the matrimonial crown. The
“mahago”, a Celtic saint Latinised as “Machutus” murder took place in Holyroodhouse in the presence,
and to whom a priory was dedicated in 1144 by or near presence, of the Queen who was six-months
King David I. The monks, originally from Kelso, are pregnant. Patrick Lord Ruthven and James Douglas
said to have pioneered Clydesdale’s fruit growing Earl of Morton were amongst the butchers; but the
industry. Excavations in the 170s revealed part of dagger they left in Rizzio’s body was that of Darnley.
the priory’s foundations. Like other Lanarkshire
villages, Lesmahagow’s subsequent history includes

SCOTS44.indd 9 28/3/09 4:25:28 PM
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