Seventeenth Century
1600: Roads out of Edinburgh numbered twelve; royal printers active in the period included Robert Waldegrave and Robert Charteris
1602–c.1620: Construction of Greyfriars Kirk
1603: King James VI of Scotland succeeds to the English throne and leaves Edinburgh; Scottish Post Office headquarters located in Edinburgh, with a second office on the Canongate; golf clubs for the king manufactured by William Mayne
1604: Execution by hanging of a chief of the MacGregors and eleven of his clansmen for the Colquhoun massacre
1610–1621: Printer Andro Hart active; publications included Napier's book of logarithms
1613: John Maxwell, 9th Lord Maxwell hanged for the murder of the Laird of Johnstone
1615: Execution of Patrick Stewart, 2nd Earl of Orkney after rebellion to overthrow the king
1617: Expansion of Gladstone's Land, a 6-storey tenement in Lawnmarket built in the 1550s
1618: Some tenement buildings reach seven storeys; population c. 25,000, of which approx. 475 are merchants
1619: The privy council ordered the city to clean up its streets; a hospital of 1479 converted into a workhouse
1620: Construction of Tailors Hall in the Cowgate
1621: Edinburgh and Leith paid 44% of Scottish non-wine customs duty, and 66% of wine duty
1622: "Lady Gray's House", later "Lady Stair's House" (now the Writers' Museum), built; fleshers required to move slaughterhouses to banks of the North Loch
1624: Plague epidemic; George Heriot dies after bequeathing a hospital for the maintenance and education of the "puir, faitherless bairns" of deceased Edinburgh burgesses
1628–1659: Construction of Heriot's Hospital
c.1628-1636: Telfer Wall built to enclose Greyfriars Kirk and Heriot's Hospital within the town's defences
1632: Construction began on the new Parliament House for the Parliament of Scotland
1633: Edinburgh designated a bishopric; Scottish coronation of Charles I at Holyrood Abbey offends Presbyterian sentiments
1636: Construction of the Tron Kirk begun; population of the city c. 30,000
1637: Riots in protest at the introduction of a new Prayer Book; supplication to remove bishops from the privy council
1638: National Covenant signed in Greyfriars Kirkyard
1639: Decisions of Glasgow Church of Scotland assembly ratified
1640: Completion of Parliament House
1641: Birth of Sir Robert Sibbald, Geographer Royal
1642 or 1645: Mary King's Close abandoned
1645-46: Outbreak of plague in Edinburgh and Leith
1647: Rothiemay's map of Edinburgh; completion of the Tron Kirk
1649: Scottish Estates proclaim succession of Charles II on 5 February; execution of George Gordon, 2nd Marquis of Huntly by Covenanters; area around the West Port purchased by the Town Council
1650: Execution of James Graham, 1st Marquis of Montrose, by hanging; surrender of Edinburgh Castle to invading forces of Oliver Cromwell; early fire engines built by James Colquhoun, one for Edinburgh, one for Glasgow; much of the Palace of Holyrood destroyed by fire;
1652: Introduction of a Journey coach to London with a journey time of a fortnight
1653: General Assembly broken up by English forces
1655: Council of state established; ministers yielded to the English
c.1657: An engine for the occasion of sudden fire, in spouting out water thereon obtained by the city;
1659: Camel seen for the first time in the city ("Ane great beast calit ane drummondary, cleven futted like unto a kow.")
1660: Government of Scotland resumed by the Committee of Estates; the Mercurius Caledonius, arguably the first Scottish newspaper, written and edited by Thomas Sydserf, published on 31 December
1661: Execution of Archibald Campbell, 1st Marquis of Argyll
1663: Execution of Archibald Johnston of Warriston, co-author of the National Covenant of 1638
1671: John Law, founder of the National Bank of France, born
1673: City's first coffee house opens at the head of Parliament Close
1674: German engineer, Peter Brusche, creates a piped water supply, drawn gravitationally from Comiston Springs, three and a half miles from the city, to a cistern on Castle Hill
1675: Physic garden planted at Holyrood founded by Robert Sibbald
1678: First regular stagecoach to Glasgow
1679: Some 1200 Covenanters are imprisoned at Greyfriars after the battle of Bothwell Brig; some are executed in the Grassmarket; Town Council organised a Town Guard (or City Guard) for prevention of crime and disorder (disbanded 1817)
1681: Royal College of Physicians founded by Robert Sibbald under patronage of the Duke of Albany and York (later King James VII and II); Viscount Stair's Institutions of the Laws of Scotland published
1682: Advocates' Library, forerunner of the National Library of Scotland, founded by Sir George Mackenzie with the Duke of Albany as patron; Mons Meg bursts during salute to the Duke of York (later James VII and II)
1688: Collapse of royal government in Scotland after Lord Chancellor James Drummond, 4th Earl of Perth flees; riot wrecks James VII's royal chapel in Holyrood Abbey
1689: Leven's Regiment (later K.O.S.B.) raised for defence of the city against Jacobites; John Chiesley of Dalry is hanged for the murder of the Lord Advocate, Sir George Lockhart
1690s: Legal profession calculated to be more wealthy than merchant class; over 20% of the population employed in manufacture
1691: New Kirk of the Canongate completed; tax records reveal the town has 18 schoolmasters, 7 schoolmistresses, 40 booksellers, printers and stationers, and 65 wigmakers
1694: Professional classes outnumber merchants; 200 legals (advocates to lawyers), 24 surgeons, and 33 physicians; other occupations included aleseller, executioner, royal trumpeter, and keeper of the signet; ratio of sexes, 70 males:100 females; domestic servants number over 5000
1695: Bank of Scotland established by Act of Parliament; the Company of Scotland devises the Darien Scheme
1697: Execution of Thomas Aikenhead for blasphemy
1698: Five ships set sail from Leith on 14 July to found a Scottish colony on the Isthmus of Darien
Read more about this topic: Timeline Of Edinburgh History
Famous quotes related to seventeenth century:
“It is as if, to every period of history, there corresponded a privileged age and a particular division of human life: ‘youth’ is the privileged age of the seventeenth century, childhood of the nineteenth, adolescence of the twentieth.”
—Philippe Ariés (20th century)
“Nothing in medieval dress distinguished the child from the adult. In the seventeenth century, however, the child, or at least the child of quality, whether noble or middle-class, ceased to be dressed like the grown-up. This is the essential point: henceforth he had an outfit reserved for his age group, which set him apart from the adults. These can be seen from the first glance at any of the numerous child portraits painted at the beginning of the seventeenth century.”
—Philippe Ariés (20th century)
“The general feeling was, and for a long time remained, that one had several children in order to keep just a few. As late as the seventeenth century . . . people could not allow themselves to become too attached to something that was regarded as a probable loss. This is the reason for certain remarks which shock our present-day sensibility, such as Montaigne’s observation, ‘I have lost two or three children in their infancy, not without regret, but without great sorrow.’”
—Philippe Ariés (20th century)