IT was in this week in December, 1688, that one of the worst anti-Catholic riots in Scottish history took place. It became known as the Holyrood Riot but that is a misnomer because anti-Catholic mobs gathered across Scotland.

There were anti-Catholic demonstrations in Scotland before 1688 and certainly there have been a few since the 17th century, but the Holyrood Riot is usually singled out as the worst because of the damage done, the numbers killed, and the sheer ferocity of the mob in Edinburgh in particular.

It all kicked off because King James VII had a baby son. Having become king on the death of his brother, Charles II, in 1685, James survived the rebellions by the Duke of Monmouth and the Earl of Argyll, both of whom paid with their heads for their insurrection.

No doubt emboldened by his success, James had proclaimed tolerance of religion, especially his own Roman Catholicism which led him to establish a Jesuit academy in the Palace of Holyroodhouse in 1686. The following year many Christians in Scotland’s established Kirk welcomed the king’s intervention, the Declaration of Indulgence, which meant they could have their own places of worship, but James also continued with the persecution of the radical Presbyterians known as the Covenanters who refused to recognise his absolute monarchy.

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A 26-year-old minister, became the last of the Covenanter Martyrs when he disowned James VII’s royal authority and was hanged in the Grassmarket in Edinburgh on February 17, 1688. In any case the vast majority of the clergy and the people opposed any measure of tolerance towards Catholics which James had tried to impose by the “divine right” of kings after both the English and Scottish Parliaments rejected his measures.

James also began to put his fellow Catholics into positions of authority and Protestants could only hope that James, by then in his mid-50s, would soon die as his appointed heir was his daughter from his first marriage, Mary, a Protestant married to the very Protestant Prince William of Orange, the leader of the Dutch Republic.

On June 10, 1688, those hopes of a Protestant succession were dashed when James’s Catholic wife Mary of Modena gave birth to a son, James Francis Edward Stuart, who was baptised a Catholic.

Just five days after the new heir’s birth, seven bishops of the Church of England were put on trial for asking to be excused from reading from the pulpit James VII’s latest version of the Declaration of Indulgence. They included the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Sancroft.

Widespread anti-Catholic riots took place in England and Scotland during the trial which ended with the Seven Bishops being cleared. Senior Protestant politicians faced with a Catholic dynasty decided to invite William and Mary to take the throne and thus the so-called Glorious or Bloodless Revolution took place in November, 1688. It was neither Glorious nor Bloodless – as the Battle of Killiecrankie would show a few months later – but that’s how William’s spin doctors portrayed it.

James went into exile in France but to make sure he went, the Edinburgh Mob gathered on December 9 and 10, 1688, determined that the so-called “Jesuit threat” of Roman Catholicism would not return to Scotland.

On December 9, a mob began to gather and the following morning the Town Council rushed out a proclamation ordering children and servants to stay indoors.

Remarkably, we have an eye-witness account of the events in Edinburgh that day, preserved in the National Library of Scotland, produced by Alexander Adamson, then a divinity student in the capital, and one of the rioters.

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He wrote: “All continowed quiet till twilight when the Mob began to gather. The first appearance they made was about the Cougatte [Cowgate] head from thence going to the Grasse Mercatte [Grassmarket] where they provided themselves with staves and torches. They come up the West Bow and enter a drummers house in the Castel Hill [Castlehill] whence they took two drums, on[e] of which they broke before they passed the whyhous [weigh house] so doun the street they come beating with their drum, till past the Nether Bow and in the Canongate head they made a stope, seing the guaird [guard] drawing out att the Canongate tolbooth and sent one to enquire what the matter was.

“The Captain replyed it was to put respect upon them. They answeared they would have non[e] of his respect and required he might call in his guairds immediately. When he did so on they march till they com to the Cana. [Canongate] cross where they stop again and took down the Earl of Perth’s pictor which they caried down with them to the Aby [Abbey] where they mett Captain Wallace advanced with 2 fills [files] of Musketeers as far as the strand without the Aby gatte [Abbey Gate].

“Here they stopt and required entry into the court and being refused they beat their drum and advised to run in upon him, which as soon as he heard the cry of, he ordered thes[e] he had with him to fire upon them which did abundance of mischief, for several were killed upon the spotte and many wounded, the most pairt whereof shortly after dyed of their wounds to the number of 36 or 38 and verry few recovered.”

Adamson himself was one of the wounded but he found out later that the mob broke into the Abbey and did fearsome damage, including desecrating royal tombs, removing pictures, written records, and the Abbey’s gold and silver vessels which were burned.

Other Catholics and their clergy were attacked elsewhere in Scotland, but the riots soon died down when William and Mary had arrived in London.