The Babington Plot of 1586 was a conspiracy to co-ordinate a Spanish invasion of England with a rising of English Catholics, to assassinate Elizabeth I, and to replace her on the throne with Mary, Queen of Scots. Sir Anthony Babington was the go-between in the secret preparations. Walsingham monitored Babington's correspondence with the captive Queen Mary until he had enough evidence of her treasonable intentions to have her tried and executed in 1587, Babington having been executed after torture at Tyburn. Research Babington Plot
In old Scots law, a breve is a short, compendious writ issued from the crown to a judge, ordering him to try by jury the points outlined in the writ. Procedure by breve was introduced into Scotland by James I upon the model of the system in vogue in England. Research Breve
In Scots law, condescendence is one of the written pleadings in a process put in by the pursuer, and containing a distinct statement of the facts and allegations, together with the pleas in law on which his case is founded. Research Condescendence
In law, deforcement is the holding of lands or tenements to which another person has a right; a general term including any species of wrong by which he who has a right to the freehold is kept out of possession. In Scots law, it is the resisting of an officer in the execution of law. Research Deforcement
Fion or Fionn is a name given in the Ossianic poetry to a semi-mythical class of warriors of superhuman size, strength, speed, and prowess. Generally they are supposed to have been a sort of Irish militia, and to have had their name from Fion MacCumhal (the Finn MacCoul of Dunbar, and Fingal of Macpherson), their most distinguished leader; but Skene believes them to have been of the race that inhabited Germany before the Germans, and Scotland and Ireland before the Scots. Research Fion
In Scots law, horning was a writing commanding a debtor in the sovereign's name to pay within a certain time under pain of being 'put to the horn' and declared a rebel. Research Horning
Laws of Bretts and Scots was the name given in the 13th century to a code of laws in use among the Celtic tribes in Scotland, the Scots being the Celts north of the Forth and Clyde, and the Bretts being the remains of the British inhabitants of the kingdom of Cambria, Cumbria, or Strathclyde, and Reged. Edward I issued in 1305 an ordinance abolishing the usages of the Scots and Bretts. Only a fragment of them has been preserved. Research Laws of Bretts and Scots
The Siege Of Sidney Street was an incident that occurred in 1911 when two members of a gang of Latvian immigrant burglars (the Gardstein Gang) who were fleeing police after breaking into a jewellers' premises in Houndsditch and shooting dead three policemen and wounding two others who had tried to arrest them, sheltered in a second-floor flat at 100 Sidney Street, London. The Metropolitan Police cordoned off the area and evacuated the residents but found their weapons ineffective at flushing out the robbers who were armed with Mauser pistols capable of rapid and accurate fire. The police then requested and were granted assistance from the army, volunteers of the Scots Guards arriving from the Tower of London who with sniper fire forced the robbers to the lower floor. A fire broke out in the building, which the Home Secretary, Winston Churchill refused to allow the fire brigade to extinguish. After half-an-hour of no more shots being fired from the robbers the fire brigade tackled the blaze to prevent damage to other buildings, only for a wall to collapse and bury five people, one of which later died in hospital. The two robbers were found in the gutted building, one had been shot and the other overcome by smoke. The incident noted the ineffectiveness of the police marksmen and their equipment and resulted in better training and weapons to be issued. Research Siege Of Sidney Street
The Solemn League and Covenant was an alliance made in 1643 between the English Parliamentarians and the Scots to counteract the substantial help rendered to Charles I by the Irish, Vane, on behalf of the Parliament, effected a contract with Scotland agreeing, in return for the aid of a Scottish army of 20,000 men, that England should accept the Presbyterian form of church government. The treaty was signed on September the 25th 1643, and the Covenant was subscribed by large numbers of the English clergy. Research Solemn League and Covenant
In old Scots law, thirlage was a term applied to a tenure of land, the holder of which was obliged to have his grain ground at a specified mill, paying therefore a certain proportion of the flour. Research Thirlage
The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
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