The Royal Mile of Murder Podcast

Public resentment at a possible reprieve was such that a plot to murder Captain Porteous was hatched, and when the authorities heard of this it was decided to increase the guard at the Tolbooth prison. However, on the evening before this was due to happen, a large crowd of over four thousand gathered at Portsburgh, west of the city.

Making their way across the Grassmarket to the Cowgate and up to the High Street, the mob c...

Porteous was arrested the same afternoon and charged with murder. He was tried at the High Court of Justiciary on 5 July 1736, where a majority of witnesses testified that Porteous had personally fired into the crowd on 14 April, although sixteen others said they had not seen him do so.

Feelings were running high in Edinburgh and the jury unanimously found Porteous guilty of murder. He was sentenced to death, the execution...

The Porteous Riots surrounded the activities of Captain John Porteous, (c. 1695 – 1736), Captain of the City Guard of Edinburgh, Scotland, who was lynched by a mob for his part in the killing of innocent civilians while ordering the men under his command to quell a disturbance during a public hanging in the Grassmarket, Edinburgh in April 1736. Although the rioters were generally supportive of the convicted smugglers, Porteous seem...

In 1440, the 16-year-old William Douglas, 6th Earl of Douglas, and his younger brother were invited to dine with the ten-year-old King James II of Scotland. Now known as the Black Dinner, the occasion was organised by the Lord Chancellor, Sir William Crichton. While they ate, a black bull's head, a symbol of death, was brought in and placed before the Earl. What follows is a gruesome tale motivated by greed, ambition and betra...