Our contribution to the "War, Destruction and Reform" exhibition now on at the Wardlaw Museum, University of St. Andrews

Guest blog by Dr. Amy Blakeway, Senior Lecturer in History at the University of St. Andrews

May 1548 was not a good month for the burgh clock in Aberdeen. A group of angry townsfolk had broken out into riot, protesting against the burgh council and, in the process, damaging the burgh clock.

What provoked these men to such violence? The Aberdeen Burgh Council Register (reference CA/1/1/20) recorded that not only had these men been the ringleaders of an ‘insurrecktion’ but that they were convicted ‘for the saying of impertunat language on the men of gud of the town and of thair feit men of weir [mercenaries] and capitane…’

Extract from Spalding Club Miscellany with transcription from Council Register CA/1/1/20

This detail that the men had been protesting about the ‘feit men of war’ – mercenaries – in the town, is hugely revealing of the tensions bubbling in Aberdeen by this time.  

Since 1544 Scotland had been intermittently at war with England, a conflict fought over the potential marriage of Mary, Queen of Scots, who had come to the throne aged six days old, with Edward, Prince of Wales – from 1547 and the death of his father, Henry VIII, Edward VI of England.  

When we think of Anglo-Scottish wars, it’s the borders which immediately come to mind – tales of steel bonnets and ballads of the reivers. But this riot in Aberdeen tells us to think again: the burgh was filled with mercenaries, hired for defence. The English were equipped with ships as well as horses, and since they took Broughty Craig Castle, just down-river from Dundee, in late 1547, they had been harrying the north-east coast. Arbroath and Montrose were burned. We know Aberdeen escaped, but those living through this bitter war did not, and had to prepare.  

Elsewhere in the burgh records we see the impact of the war spreading throughout the community. The crown demanded higher taxes for national defence, but local defence – like the wages for the mercenaries and the iron ball used to defend the harbour – also cost money and this meant rising local taxes too. Meanwhile in a country whose trade was disrupted by naval blockades and whose crops were being burned and livestock stolen, prices were slowly rising and households everywhere faced a cost-of-living crisis.  

And then there was the plague. Scotland was an internationally connected country in this period, so this deadly disease would have spread to Aberdeen without the war. However, the movement of armies helped to move the disease, and the only means to fight the ‘pest’, lockdown and a restriction of movement, caused economic disruption which must have exacerbated the effects of the war. Chillingly, in Aberdeen as elsewhere in the country, people’s wealth was used to determine how they would be treated: rich victims could remain enclosed in their own houses, poorer folk born in Aberdeen were given a ‘token’ to wear proving their right to remain and receive some charity in the plague camp on the Links. Those born elsewhere, not fortunate enough to receive this token, were ordered to leave the relative safety of the burgh walls and take their chances in the countryside. In the town, control was maintained by the paid fighters – although it seems that it was an Aberdonian, Sanders Rattray, given these responsibilities, not a paid fighter from abroad. 

Aberdeen’s precious burgh archives show in rich detail the impact of this international conflict on one community: a community which never saw an English soldier. 

Aberdeen wasn’t the only burgh whose people’s lives were turned upside down by dynastic diplomacy from far away. Putting these local stories together helps to build a national picture, and that is exactly what the free exhibition ‘War, Destruction and Reform: the early years of Mary, Queen of Scots’ at the Wardlaw Museum of the University of St Andrews is designed to do. Based on my new book with Edinburgh University Press the exhibition has one very special guest star – the very Aberdeen Council Register which records the May 1548 riot – taking its place alongside records from throughout the country to uncover ordinary folk surviving through extraordinary times.

You can explore the topics in this blog more via:

The exhibition ‘War, Destruction and Reform’ runs until 20th September 2026: https://mary-queen-of-scots.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/

The book ‘War and Governance in Scotland, 1543-1559’ published by Edinburgh University Press - War and Governance in Scotland, 1543-1559 

By Dr. Amy Blakeway

If you want to see other Aberdeen Burgh Council Registers, you can view volumes 1-8 and their transcripts online here: https://aberdeenregisters.org/. The rest can be viewed by making an appointment to visit our Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire Archives search room: aberdeencity.gov.uk/AAGM/plan-your-visit/archives.