Mary I (popularly known as Mary, Queen of Scots: French: Marie, reine des Écossais); (December 8, 1542 – February 8, 1587) was Queen of Scots (the monarch of the Kingdom of Scotland) from December 14, 1542, to July 24, 1567. She was also the queen consort of France (Reine de France) from July 10, 1559 to December 5, 1560.

Because of her tragic life, she is one of the best-known Scottish monarchs.

Alexander Graham Bell (3 March 1847 – 2 August 1922) was a Scottish scientist, inventor, and innovator. Born and raised in Edinburgh, Scotland, he emigrated to Canada in 1870, and then to the United States in 1871, becoming a U.S. citizen in 1882.

Alexander Graham was called "the father of the deaf".[2] With both his mother and wife deaf, he studied hereditary deafness in order to better understand the affliction.[3] His research on speech led him to experiment with hearing devices that eventually culminated in the telephone. Bell was awarded the first U.S. patent for the invention of the telephone in 1876. Although other inventors had claimed the honor, the Bell patent remained in effect. Many other inventions marked Bell's later years including groundbreaking work in hydrofoils and aeronautics.

John Napier of Merchistoun (1550 – 4 April 1617), nicknamed Marvellous Merchistoun, was a Scottish mathematician, physicist, astronomer/astrologer and 8th Laird of Merchistoun. He is most remembered as the inventor of logarithms and Napier's bones, and for popularizing the use of the decimal point. Napier's birth place, Merchiston Tower, Edinburgh, Scotland, is now part of Napier University. After dying of gout, Napier was buried in St Cuthbert's Church, Edinburgh.

My 1st Claw/RSC freak \o/
Got 4 cas in his 1st game with RSC

Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832) was a prolific Scottish historical novelist and poet popular throughout Europe during his time.

In some ways Scott was the first author to have a truly international career in his lifetime, with many contemporary readers all over Europe, Australia, and North America. His novels and poetry are still read, and many of his works remain classics of both English-language literature and specifically, of Scottish literature. Famous titles include Ivanhoe, Rob Roy, The Lady of the Lake, Waverley and The Heart of Midlothian.

Born in College Wynd in the Old Town of Edinburgh in 1771, the son of a solicitor, the young Walter Scott survived a childhood bout of polio in 1773 that would leave him lame in his right leg for the rest of his life. To restore his health he was sent in that year to live in the rural Borders region at his grandparents' farm at Sandyknowe, adjacent to the ruin of Smailholm Tower, the earlier family home. Here he was taught to read by his aunt Jenny, and learned from her the speech patterns and many of the tales and legends which characterized much of his work. In January 1775 he returned to Edinburgh, and that summer went with his aunt Jenny to take spa treatment at Bath in England. In the winter of 1776 he went back to Sandyknowe, with another attempt at a water cure being made at Prestonpans during the following summer.

Scott was also responsible, through a series of pseudonymous letters published in the Edinburgh Weekly News in 1826, for retaining the right of Scottish banks to issue their own banknotes, which is reflected to this day by his continued appearance on the front of all notes issued by the Bank of Scotland.

<b>My most useless player, skilled up really quickly, then got a double and took claw. He's done nothing besides become injured since, couldn't even get killed instead of a good player. Has since redeemed himself and been replaced by a certain useless Rotter.</b>

<i>Original team member.</i>

Dr. John Witherspoon (February 5, 1723 – November 15, 1794), was a signatory of the United States Declaration of Independence as a representative of New Jersey. He was the only clergyman and college president to sign the Declaration.

Season 4's dirtiest player

John Knox (c. 1514 – November 24, 1572) was a Scottish religious reformer who took the lead in reforming the Church in Scotland along Calvinist lines. He is widely regarded as the father of the Protestant Reformation in Scotland and of the Church of Scotland.

When the reformed religion was formally ratified by law in Scotland in 1560, Knox was appointed minister of the Church of St.Giles, then the great parish church of Edinburgh. He was at this time at the height of his powers, as is manifest in the style of his History of the Reformation—a work which he appears to have begun in about 1559 and completed over the next six or seven years.

At the very beginning of his labours as minister of Edinburgh, he had the misfortune to lose his much-loved young wife, Marjorie Bowes, who died in December 1560. She left two sons, one of whom, Nathaniel, died at Cambridge in 1580; the other, Eleazer, became vicar of Clacton Magna in the archdeaconry of Colchester and died in 1591, both without issue. In 1564 Knox made a second marriage, which was greatly talked of at the time, not only because the bride was distantly related to the royal family but because she was seventeen, while Knox was several years older. The young lady was Margaret, daughter of Andrew Stewart, Lord Ochiltree (d.1591). She bore Knox three daughters: Martha (1565), Margaret (c1567) and the youngest, Elizabeth (c1570) who became the wife, about 1594, of the famous John Welsh, minister of Ayr.

At this time the reformer lived a very busy life. As well as being devoted to his work as a parish minister, he was much engrossed with the public affairs of the national Church and embroiled in continual controversies with the ecclesiastical and political factions of the day. He was, however, not without social and family enjoyments. A fair stipend of four hundred marks Scots, equal to about forty-four pounds of English money of that day, enabled him to afford hospitality and to advance money to a friend in need. Knox also received a stipend of an hundred pounds and a further hundred and sixty pounds scots directly from the queen's private rents in 1564 (NAS E30/11 f19r).He had a good house, which was provided and kept in repair by the municipality.

During the greater part of his ministry in Edinburgh he lived in a house on a site now occupied by the City Council Chambers. Another house in Edinburgh, still preserved with little change and known since the eighteenth century at the latest as "John Knox's house," may have been occupied by him toward the close of his life. With all his severity, there must have been much sympathy in a man who was repeatedly invited to reconcile the sundered, husband with wife, friend with friend. He lived on good terms with his neighbors, many of whom became his intimate friends. His writings reveal, along with other aspects of his personality, a lively sense of humour.

Robert Louis (Balfour) Stevenson (November 13, 1850 – December 3, 1894), was a Scottish novelist, poet, and travel writer, and a leading representative of Neo-romanticism in English literature. He was greatly admired by many authors, including Jorge Luis Borges, Ernest Hemingway, Rudyard Kipling and Vladimir Nabokov. Most modernist writers dismissed him, however, because he was popular and did not write within their narrow definition of literature. It is only recently that critics have begun to look beyond Stevenson's popularity and allow him a place in the canon. He prepared for a law career but never practiced. He traveled frequently, partly in search of better climates for his tuberculosis, which would eventually contribute to his death at age 44.

Stevenson was born Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson, in Edinburgh, Scotland, on November 13, 1850. His father was Thomas Stevenson, and his grandfather was Robert Stevenson; both were distinguished lighthouse designers and engineers, as was his great-grandfather. It was from this side of the family that he inherited his love of adventure, joy of the sea and for the open road. Through his mother he was descended from Gilbert Elliott, 1st Baronet of Minto, and was related to Arthur St. Clair. His maternal grandfather, Lewis Balfour, was a professor of moral philosophy and a minister, and Stevenson spent the greater part of his boyhood holidays in his house. "Now I often wonder", says Stevenson, "what I inherited from this old minister. I must suppose, indeed, that he was fond of preaching sermons, and so am I, though I never heard it maintained that either of us loved to hear them." From his mother, Margaret Balfour, he inherited weak lungs (perhaps tuberculosis), that kept him constantly in "the land of the counterpane" during the winter, where his nurse spent long hours by his bedside reading from the Bible, and lives of the old Covenanters. During the summer he was encouraged to play outside, where he proved to be a wild and carefree child, and by the age of eleven his health had improved so that his parents prepared him for the University of Edinburgh by attending Edinburgh Academy, planning for him to follow his father as a lighthouse engineer. During this period he read widely and especially enjoyed Shakespeare, Walter Scott, John Bunyan and The Arabian Nights.

Robert Fergusson (September 5, 1750 - October 16, 1774), Scottish poet, son of William Fergusson, a clerk in the British Linen Company, was born at Edinburgh.

Robert, Edinburgh's most gifted but least recognised poet, was educated at the Edinburgh Royal High School[1], High School of Dundee, and at the University of St Andrews, where he matriculated in 1765. His father, who was originally from Aberdeenshire but had moved to Edinburgh, died while Robert was still at college; but a bursary enabled him to complete his four years of study. He refused to study for the church, and was too nervous to study medicine as his friends wished. He quarrelled with his uncle, John Forbes of Round Lichnot, Aberdeenshire, and returned to Edinburgh, where he obtained employment as copying clerk in a lawyer's office. In this occupation he passed the remainder of his life. While at college he had written a clever elegy on Dr David Gregory, and in 1771 he began to contribute verses regularly to Ruddiman's Weekly Magazine.

<i>Original team member</i>

Bobby was described as a Skye Terrier dog that became famous in 19th-century Edinburgh, Scotland.

Bobby belonged to John Gray, who worked for the Edinburgh City Police as a night watchman, and the two were inseparable for approximately two years. Then, on 15 February 1858, Gray died of tuberculosis. He was buried in Greyfriars Kirkyard, the graveyard surrounding Greyfriars Kirk in the Old Town of Edinburgh. Bobby, who survived John Gray by 14 years, is said to have spent the rest of his life sitting on his master's grave. A more realistic account has it that he spent a great deal of time at Gray's grave, but that he left regularly for meals at a restaurant beside the graveyard, and may have spent colder winters in nearby houses.

In 1867, when it was pointed out that an unowned dog should be destroyed, the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, Sir William Chambers (who was also a director of the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals), paid for a renewal of Bobby's licence, making him the responsibility of the city council.

Bobby died in 1872 and could not be buried within the cemetery itself, since it was consecrated ground, instead he was buried just inside the gate of Greyfriars Kirkyard, not far from John Gray's grave.

William Burke (1792 - January 28, 1829) was an Irish-Scots serial killer who, along with William Hare committed a notorious series of murders in Edinburgh in the 19th century.

Burke was born in Urney, County Tyrone. After trying his hand at a variety of trades there and serving as an officer's servant in the Donegal Militia, he left his wife and two children in Ireland and emigrated to Scotland about 1817, working as a navvy for the Union Canal. He acquired a mistress, Helen MacDougal, and afterwards worked as a laborer, weaver, baker and lastly a cobbler. By 1827 he was living in a lodging-house in Edinburgh kept by Hare, another Irish laborer, and Maggie Laird.

Main article West Port murders
Condemned by Hare's evidence, Burke was found guilty and hanged at Edinburgh's Lawnmarket on January 28, 1829. According to a report in The Scotsman "During the time of the wretched man's suspension, not a single indication of pity was observable among the vast crowd: on the contrary, every countenance wore the aspect of a gala-day, while puns and jokes were freely bandied about."

The Anatomy Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh holds his death mask and a wallet allegedly made of his skin.

The Police Information office on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh (located just a few yards from where Burke was hanged) also houses a notebook made from the skin of Burke. This is located at the back of the office opposite the entrance.

From Burke's method of killing his victims has comes the verb

William Hare (born 1792 or 1804) was an Irish serial killer who, along with William Burke committed a notorious series of murders in Edinburgh in the 19th century.

His birthplace is as uncertain as his birth date, being variously given as Newry or Derry. He emigrated to Scotland and worked as a labourer on the Union Canal. He then moved to Edinburgh where he met a man named Logue. When Logue died in 1826, he took Margaret Laird, Logue's widow, as his common-law wife and the two ran a lodging house.

Main article West Port murders
Hare confessed to the murders and gave evidence against Burke in return for his freedom. As a result, Burke was hanged. Released the following February, there are various conflicting and unreliable accounts of Hare's later life, none of which records his eventual death:

Deciding to lie low, Hare travelled to Kilkeel and eventually sought relief in the workhouse. His identity was only revealed to the locals when a Dr Reid, a former medical student from Edinburgh, recognized him.
Hare migrated to Carlisle, England and disappeared from history.
A lynch mob blinded him and threw him into a lime pit.
Hare moved to London and died there destitute in 1859.

Allan Ramsay was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, the eldest son of Allan Ramsay, poet and author of The Gentle Shepherd.

From the age of twenty he studied in London under the Swedish painter Hans Huyssing, and at the St. Martin's Lane Academy; leaving in 1736 for Rome and Naples, where he worked for three years under Francesco Solimena and Imperiali (Francesco Fernandi). On his return in 1738 he first settled in Edinburgh, attracting attention by his head of Duncan Forbes of Culloden and his full-length portrait of the Duke of Argyll, later used on Royal Bank of Scotland banknotes. He later moved to London, where he was employed by the Duke of Bridgewater. His pleasant manners and varied culture, not less than his artistic skill, contributed to render him popular. His only serious competitor was Thomas Hudson, with whom he shared a drapery painter, Joseph van Aken. In 1739 he married his first wife, Anne Bayne, the daughter of a professor of Scots law at Edinburgh, Alexander Bayne of Rires (c.1684–1737), and Mary Carstairs (1695?–1759). None of their 3 children survived childhood, and she died on 4 February 1743 giving birth to the third of them.

<i>The team's most useless player, 22 games and 2 SPP
Finally skilled after 27 games and rolled a double! Now watch him die.
Made it to 2nd skill and aged -ST, he truly sucks so is doomed to LOS fodder.</i>