25 March 1306: Six weeks after the murder of his main rival, John Comyn Lord of Badenoch, Robert the Bruce seized the vacant Scottish throne and was crowned king of Scots at Scone by Robert Wishart, Bishop of Glasgow. The following day Bruce was crowned a second time by Isabella, Countess of Buchan who had arrived late. Bruce’s wife Elizabeth de Burgh was crowned Queen Consort.
25 March 1437: Six-year-old James II was crowned in Edinburgh following the murder of his father James I on 21 February 1437 by a group of disgruntled nobles. Known as Firey Face due to a distinctive facial birthmark, James II was the first Scottish monarch not to be crowned at Scone and his reign was characterised by the struggle against the powerful Douglas family. He would be killed by an exploding cannon during the siege of the English-held Roxburgh Castle in 1460.
25 March 1689: Major-General Hugh Mackay arrives at Leith with the Scots-Dutch Brigade. He had been sent by William of Orange to secure Edinburgh and take control of the military situation in Scotland.
25 March 1746: Le Prince Charles, formerly HMS Hazard, ran aground in the Kyle of Tongue while being pursued by HMS Sheerness. The vessel was carrying £12,000 worth of gold coin as well as arms and supplies for the Jacobite army at Inverness.
