William Douglas's Blog (638)

"Wasp" reviews  La piedra del destino by Jesús Maeso de la Torre:

This doorstop of a Spanish novel deals with the death of the Scots knight Sir James Douglas at Teba (southern Spain) in 1330. He had traveled there in fulfillment of a promise to his friend and lord, the late King Robert Bruce of Scotland. On his death bed the Bruce had asked that his heart be carried in battle against the Muslim 'enemies of God' as a token of his unrealised vow to go on crusade and so purge his soul…

Review by "Wasp":

This was a frustrating book to read. It is a lot more sensible than many patriotically inspired histories and avoids many of the pitfalls of the Douglas legend, only to tumble headlong into…

Every now and then, I realise that there are sufficient articles on a topic to require a catalogue, and reorganisation of the layout of my files, which I hope will help researchers find what they are looking for.

Today, I have introduced a new section listing Douglas presentation swords.

Along the way, I often discover new articles on the same topic. One such was about the…

The Office of Lord Lyon King of Arms will fall vacant at the end of December 2013, when Mr David Sellar the current Lord Lyon steps down. The Lord Lyon is appointed by Her Majesty the Queen on the recommendation of the First Minister under section 3 of the Lyon Kings of Arms (Scotland) Act 1867.

The Lord Lyon is the sole King of Arms in Scotland. He is the Head of the Heraldic Executive and the Judge of…

Richard Brown, a keelman, was executed on the Town Moor, Newcastle, on the 21st of August this year (1751) for the murder of his daughter; and on the 27th of the same month, Henry Douglas, a surgeon in the navy, on half-pay, was killed in a scuffle with Edward Holliday, a seaman, in the house of David Shield, an innkeeper. 

Capt. Douglas, late of the Cambridge (who was presented to Her Majesty, and knighted), having heard, whilst at Singapore, of the seizure of Capt. Elliot and the British residents at Canton, sold his cargo, and purchasing some 32-pounders and ammunition, sailed, with an addition to his crew, to their…

The Friends of Glasgow Necropolis, a Scottish Charitable organisation which is run entirely by volunteers, launch Phase I of their Public Appeal for the restoration of the Monteath Mausoleum.

The…

As a regular user of Google Books, I am delight that fter eight years of legal wrangling, a US federal judge delivered a resounding victory for Google on Thursday by dismissing a lawsuit from the Authors Guild challenging the tech giant’s ambitious book-scanning project.

In a landmark decision, Judge Denny Chin, of the United States Court of Appeals…

Croftdowglash, in Perthshire.

Loch Tummel was raised in the 1950s, I think, and so this may now be under water.

I wonder if anyone knows?

This came to light when researching  seven unroofed shieling-huts at a place called Allt Poll Dubh-Ghlas  a few miles to the north-west.

Australian/Scot Luke Douglas pushes through to score the third try for Scotland against the USA in the Rugby League World Cup quarter final

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Nick Kingsley writes a fascinating blog about the Landed families of Britain and Ireland.

A recent article has looked at Brandfold, in Goudhurst, Kent, built for the Edgeworth family.

Descent: Miss Edgeworth (date unknown); Charles Sneyd Edgeworth (1786-1864) let to Thomas Cramer…

Special Adviser to the President of Nigeria on Research and Documentation, Oronto Douglas is anxiously awaiting news of the release of his sister, Augusta Douglas-Ayam.

Bargaining has been continuing over the ransom to be paid, with observers hoping that the matter will be resolved satisfactorily today, Monday 21st October.…

Virginia Silvester has most kindly contributed the following article to TACA, in which she traces the fortunes of two of her great-grandmother's soldier brothers, one of whom was an army schoolmaster. Her account vividly illustrates both the mobility inherent in the military way of life, and the hardship endured by the wives and children of serving soldiers around a century ago. To discover more, read on .…

The Mission of The John Douglas French Alzheimer’s Foundation is to serve as a venture catalyst to provide critical seed money for novel and promising Alzheimer’s research, generally not funded by the government or pharmaceuticals.

Is this the same John Douglas who founded the Casa Hogar Douglas children's home in Mexico, which helps children and adolescents who for various reasons have been…

I came across the following in a comment made on the Wikipedia Clan Douglas entry:

Th A Fischer, in his books on Scots in Poland and Prussia, - "Scots in Eastern and Western Prussia" (1903)- http://archive.org/stream/scotsineasternwe00fisc#page/n5/mode/2up writes of the death of a Lord Douglas at the hands of English knights in Danzig/Gdansk, whilst a guest of the…

A Lady Margaret Douglas, a favourite of Henry VIII, negotiated the shady politics and shifting alliances of the courts of four Tudor monarchs. In her new book, Leanda de Lisle tells the story of the ‘progenitor of princes’, whose grandson, James VI of Scotland, became the first Stuart king of England.

Tudor: The Family Story (Chatto & Windus, 2013) is available to pre-order in the…

Our book store contains a wide selection of books about the Douglas family, and wider historical interests.

http://astore.amazon.co.uk/douglasarchives-21

Browsing costs nothing!

A Catholic church, St Brides, since the sixth century until the Reformation, the church served a relatively short spell as an Episcopalian place of worship before becoming Bothwell Parish Church in the early-1600s.

For sale on ebay, this antique print of The bugle horn of the castle of Carslogie and the Douglas banner.  

Entire carved elephant tusks, known as…

The truth about what happened to the beautiful Lady Jane Douglas in Paris in 1748 has never been established.  Did she give birth to twin boys in a bug-infested boarding house, or did she buy her two sons from poor French peasants to ensure that the distinguished line of Douglas survived in Scotland?  The exploration of this 18^th…