Book Description
In 1645 and 1646 the Scottish royal burgh of Elgin was thrust into the front line of the Civil War that wracked the three kingdoms of King Charles' realm during the 1640s. The town was successively occupied by the parliamentary forces of the Marquis of Argyll, the royalist army of the Marquis of Montrose, and detachments of the Marquis of Huntly's royalist Strathbogie regiment, who ravaged the defenceless community; houses were looted and burnt, both the rich and poor terrorised. The indignities heaped upon the Elgin townsfolk are graphically described in a unique roll of honour, now published as The Elgin Depositions. This astonishing document was compiled as a testimony of the community's steadfastness in adversity; of sufferings not shirked but embraced as Elgin's Love-gift. The story of Elgin's Love-gift is told in national records, in contemporary narratives, and in the unregarded heritage of local archives. At the heart of this history, The Elgin Depositions speak in the authentic voices of ordinary Scottish folk to offer an unrivalled insight into just one of the local triumphs and petty tragedies that compose, and indeed epitomise, the struggle for God, King and a Covenanted Commonwealth within a dramatic period of national history.
