Why is the nine of diamonds known as the curse of Scotland?

I have attempted to answer this question before, but today I will give a much fuller explanation of my theory – one shared by many top experts on Scottish history, I must admit – that the Curse is heavily connected to one of the baddest men that ever lived in Scotland, bad at least from the point of view of those of us who have always accepted that the Union of 1707 was a poor deal for Scotland and the Scots.

It was on this date in that accursed year of 1707 that John Dalrymple, the first Earl of Stair, died at his lodgings in Edinburgh, apparently from an apoplexy – a brain haemorrhage or stroke – that may have been brought on by his huge efforts in trying to achieve the union of the Scottish and English Parliaments.

There were nine diamonds in Stair’s coat of arms, and while the term predates his death, within a few years of his passing the Curse of Scotland came into common usage, not least because, as I have shown elsewhere before, the Union brought no immediate appreciable benefits to Scotland and indeed was almost cancelled a few years after it took place when Scottish Lords forced a vote in Parliament that would have ended the Union – it failed by just four votes.

READ MORE: 1513 And All That: A Memorable History of Scotland - part two

There are many other theories about the Curse of Scotland, but these can be readily dismissed, though one explanation is very intriguing as it dates to 1708, just a year after Stair’s death.

In that year the Apollo publication stated about the Curse of Scotland: “Diamonds as the Ornamental Jewels of a Regnal Crown, imply no more in the above-nam’d Proverb than a mark of Royalty, for SCOTLAND’S Kings for many Ages, were observ’d, each Ninth to be a Tyrant, who by Civil Wars, and all the fatal consequences of intestine discord, plunging the Divided Kingdom into strange Disorders, gave occasion, in the course of time, to form the Proverb.”

That theory falls because not every ninth King of Scots was a tyrant. Other theories are that King James IV lost the nine of diamonds from his pack before the Battle of Flodden, and that Butcher Cumberland wrote his orders for no Jacobites to be taken alive after Culloden on the nine of diamonds, while in the card game Pope Joan the nine of diamonds signifies the Pope who was highly unpopular in Presbyterian Scotland.

None make more sense, however, than the connection with Stair who died 316 years ago today.

Stair was a lawyer by profession, and his unscrupulous use of the law has seen him reviled by many Scots because of his involvement in four major upheavals that affected Scotland – the usurpation of the throne of James II by William and Mary, the Jacobite Rising of 1689, the Massacre of Glencoe in 1692 and the Union of 1707.

Born in 1648 at Stair House in Ayrshire, he was the son of James Dalrymple, the First Viscount Stair, who is one of the greatest names in Scottish legal history, a notable judge and the author of the Institutions of the Law of Scotland who is regularly quoted by solicitors and advocates to this day.

It was therefore no surprise when John Dalrymple followed his father into the law, and by 1672 he was an advocate.

The likely succession of the Catholic Duke of York, later King James II, to the throne caused great difficulties for Presbyterians like James Dalrymple who refused to sign the 1681 Test Act oath promising loyalty to the King that included acknowledging his divine right to rule. Rather than sign it, James Dalrymple retired from the Bench and went into exile in the Netherlands in 1682.

John Dalrymple first came to prominence when he defended the Earl of Argyll on charges of treason for refusing to take the Test Act oath. The earl was found guilty and sentenced to death but escaped to the Netherlands.

Meanwhile Dalrymple found himself at loggerheads with John Graham of Claverhouse who had the Master of Stair, as Dalrymple now was, put in prison for more than a year for refusing to assist in the suppression of the Covenanters. He was released only after James II came to the throne and having reached an accommodation with the king, Dalrymple was appointed Lord Advocate of Scotland.

Behind the scenes, however, he was already working on his plan for Scotland should William and Mary usurp the throne, which they duly did. Indeed it was Dalrymple who was sent to London with the conditions of the Convention of Estates for William and Mary to be crowned King and Queen of Scotland.

Dalrymple then played a major part in suppressing the Jacobite rising of 1689 led by his old enemy Graham of Claverhouse, now Viscount “Bonnie” Dundee.

READ MORE: 1513 And All That: A Memorable History of Scotland

William was so impressed with the Master of Stair that he made him joint Secretary of State for Scotland and it was in that role that Dalrymple negotiated with the Jacobite clan chiefs before he ran out of patience and ordered the Massacre of Glencoe.

The chief of clan Macdonald in Glencoe failed to make an oath of loyalty to King William on time and even though he signed a few days later, Stair ordered the massacre, in which 70 men and women died, as an example to all Highland clans.

It backfired on him and Stair had to resign after a Scottish Parliament investigation found he had exceeded his orders. He was brought back into favour by Queen Anne who conferred an earldom on him in 1703.

The reason for that was obvious – Stair became one of the queen’s most favoured agents in the negotiations, ie: bribery, that brought about the Act of Union. One of the principal movers behind the Union, the irony is that he died a few months before the Union took place.