Empire

The extraordinary lives of three Scotsmen - John Henderson, Richard Oswald, and David Livingstone - encapsulate the polarities of the Scottish experience in Africa prior to the 20th century. Henderson, formerly a soldier for the Swedes and the Danes in Europe, was captured and enslaved by the Arabs of Zanzibar in the Mediterranean. Before long though, he had won the heart of a prin

In the wake of Culloden, much of Scotland was on its knees. Crippled by defeat and the subsequent backlash of the British government, along with famine and poverty, they were in dire need of new horizons. The nascent British Empire would provide it. The Scottish Highlanders had developed a fearsome reputation during their struggles against the English, and would prove just as indom

Few battles in history have been remembered as powerfully, nor been as mythologised, as Culloden on the 16th of April 1746. Under the leadership of Charles Edward Stuart - Bonnie Prince Charlie, ‘the Young Pretender’ - the Jacobites fight to the death upon Culloden Moor to place their own king on the British throne. Outgunned, outnumbered, the kilted swordsmen and musketeers to

In 1688 the Stuart King James II was ousted from the throne by his daughter Mary and her husband William of Orange, in what is called the Glorious Revolution. This momentous change would set in motion decades of unrest across the British Isles, as the supporters of James Stuart; his son the ‘Old Pretender’ James, and his flamboyant grandson, ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’, both ex

With the accession of James I and VI in 1603, Scotland was assimilated into the composite monarchy of the United Kingdom. James, an eccentric, insecure and rambling figure, preoccupied with witches, was himself an alien in his new English court. Even at this stage though, it seems unlikely that the two nations would be legally combined under one parliament. But, with Scottish inter

When charting the rise of Scotland’s global influence, few events have been as tragically remarkable as the Darien Scheme of 1698, which saw woefully unprepared Scottish pioneers attempt to settle and colonise the Isthmus of Panama. Scotland during this period was a country bound to England under one crown, originally that of James I and VI, though still in its own right a sovere

In the 9th century AD, two years after the Holy Roman Empire was established in Western Christendom, another world-shaking empire was rising in the east, more powerful even than that of Charlemagne and far wealthier. Born in what is today Northern Cambodia but long before the horrors of the Khmer Rouge, the mighty Khmer empire dominated most of mainland Southeast Asia, stretching a

While in the West the legends of King Arthur were being born, a Buddhist tantric magician of immense magical powers - Vajrabodhi - was enshrining himself as the Merlin of first India, and then China. Undeniably one of the most extraordinary characters of the 8th century, Vajrabodhi would play a crucial role in transporting Buddhism to the Chinese court, along with Indian scholarshi

India’s transformation of the ancient world is indisputable, and tangible evidence of this can be found in the magnificent Hindu and Buddhist temples scattered across the landscapes of South East Asia. But what was the process by which India transported its vast empire of art, culture, architecture, technology, religion and even writing to South East Asia? The story largely deriv

Having garnered absolute power through bloody means, Empress Wu Zetian begins seeing apparitions, haunted by her violent schemes. With her husband incapacitated, the Empress at first held counsel on his behalf from behind a curtain. But she soon officially proclaimed herself a divine ruler. Working alongside a prominent Buddhist monk, she built temples and universities in China, cr