This is going to be a little different to my usual posts as this is to introduce you to a new podcast I’m producing called “When Grift Killed a Nation.” Please stick with me, I promise it’s quite fascinating. Over the past few weeks I’ve found myself indulging in conversation on the Threads app and getting stuck into research about grifters. What I came to realise is that what at first feels like a thoroughly contemporary issue is actually tied to one of the most pivotal moments in Scottish, and world, history. The rapidly dying old bird app, now called X, was bought by the billionaire tech bro of all tech bro’s Elon Musk. Since that purchase it seems Musk has done everything to entirely destroy the platform whilst claiming his actions to be some kind of greater good and incredibly successful. This is a pattern of build up and gaslight common for Musk. Indeed it seems to be a pattern with all the tech bro billionaires of the royal burgh of Palo Alto. These high priests have been making great promises of wondrous futures since the mid 90’s and virtually all of them have been complete failures. I remember the grand claims being made in the late 90’s about the huge productivity explosion that would come with the open internet and the use of the World Wide Web. The eventual outcome was the polar opposite.
There was a brief boost to productivity in the late 90’s as use of the World Wide Web spread, especially in areas such as academia, with annual increases in productivity being about 2.75%, nearly twice what it had been from 1973 to 1996. Yet, still lower than the post war years or the first two industrial revolutions. The fervour of this time brought to the surface the first generation of tech grifters, who bought every website they could make into a company and took them public, selling shares on the biggest stock markets in the world with promises of a bright utopian future. This was the so called Dot Com bubble, that turned into the Dot Com crash in the early 2000’s. Still, productivity increased to 3% per year and the tech optimists believed they’d been vindicated. With the invention of Web2.0 in 2004 those soothsayers would make their predictions of even greater results in the future. A world united like never before with open information and real time sharing. In 2005 with social media’s baby steps taking confident strides forward, productivity stagnated and then collapsed. From 2005 to present day 2024 productivity increase has fallen to a rate of 1.5%, the same as it was between 1973 and 1996. Today, the next thing predicted to bring massive increases to productivity is supposedly AI. Promises and predictions made by wealthy masters holding the potential of the future are nothing new though. This, although we often miss it, is just a grift. Promises and predictions with no actual evidence just an exciting story of a distant land that will change everything (or most things) for the better.
If you’ve followed Lost Lancastrian so far you’re probably wondering why I’m not talking about some pretty street in Edinburgh. Well this is where the street in Edinburgh comes in. A street I walk down on a regular basis, a street I’ve talked about before. Although, it isn’t a pretty one, not at the time I want you to imagine it. Place yourself in 1694 on Edinburgh’s High Street. The street ran up hill from the fresh Royal Palace and grounds of Holyrood for a little over 1.8km, or 1 Scottish Mile, eventually reaching the imposing mass of Edinburgh Castle. Closed in on either side by high tenement buildings, looming up to six storeys high, the rough cobbled road was coated in all manner of excrement and waste from horses, dogs, livestock and humans alike. It is true that the majority of human waste was actually diverted away from this main thoroughfare and down the north face of the castle’s rise into the Nor’ Loch. A fact that likely kept cholera outbreaks relatively low. The Nor’ Loch was a long finger of water that created something of a natural moat at the base of the volcanic lump, making the castle and little city all the more defensible. Of course over the years and growing population of the old town the Nor’ Loch had become a stinking cesspool of slowly stewed faeces and discarded human remains. Close to the castle and running past the Merket Cross, the footpaths flanking the street hugged the store fronts under the overhanging buildings and columned sheltering. This gave the city residents cover from the unusually harsh winter weather. Winter weather that had frozen the Nor’ Loch to the extent of allowing skating and the invention of a new sport, curling.
A little more than halfway up the high street the chatterbox of Scotland’s parliament had begun to freeze, along with the nation, into an increasingly ineffectual body politic. A process that began with the King of Scotland, James VI, failing to keep his promise of returning every three years after succeeding to the throne of England. James VI, and now I, almost immediately made attempts to unite his two kingdoms and drew up an act of union. Perhaps surprisingly to some today, the Scottish Parliament voted on and passed this act of union almost immediately. Many saw great opportunities in opening trade and cultural exchange with their closest neighbours. The English Parliament, however, set up an enquiry and investigative committee to ascertain the practicalities, potential steps forward, and implications of union. After dragging their feet taking two years for deliberation the English Parliament voted, no. The English parliamentarians argued that it was only to the detriment of England to be shackled to impoverished Scotland, a nation that would inevitably require propping up with English wealth. Personal correspondence and other writings from English parliamentarians of the time indicate that core concerns also included: fearing that the union would make it easier for the Scottish King to surround himself with a Scottish entourage. Also that the more democratically accountable, unicameral, Scottish Parliament would over power the weaker English Parliament or make it unnecessary.
When it came to King Charles I, son of James VI/I, Scotland was almost never visited. Something that remained true right up until he needed the support of Scots against Cromwell and the Parliamentarians. Even then visits were brief at best, right up until the English Parliamentarians chopped Charles’ head off outside the Westminster Banqueting Hall. In the early years of the revolutionary civil wars the Scottish Parliament had found a new ally in the English Parliamentarians. That was until there were disagreements over the future to be followed: either settlement with the crown or establishing a republic. Disagreement existed both between the two parliaments but, most of all, within the Scottish Parliament. The Scottish Covenanters had devised a settlement with the crown, the mostly Catholic highlanders had always supported the king, the lowland merchants and Lairds still sought the opportunities in close ties or union. After the death of Cromwell and the restoration of the Stuart Monarchy there was some hope in the Scottish Parliament. That was later dashed with a letter from English Parliamentarians to Duke William of Orange and Mary Stuart requesting they invade England to claim the throne from James VII/ II, who they feared to be a Catholic threat. The so called Glorious Revolution took place, putting William and Mary on the Throne of England and, by default, the Throne of Scotland. The wishes of the Scottish Parliament weren’t exactly taken into account.
The city of Edinburgh in 1694 was sick, the country was dying. The period often referred to as the “little ice age” was into its fourth year and every year had brought devastation to harvests across Europe. Particularly affected were northern climes, particularly Scotland. Hundreds of thousands of Scots had died already by 1694, including many in disastrous lost battles for William’s wars against Catholic Kingdoms. The wars had been draining the treasuries of both England and Scotland, but Scotland had less available to be squandered. Scotland was poorer than ever and since the Auld Alliance with Catholic France had been officially dissolved there were fewer trading partners available. English interests also saw any commercial competition from Scotland as a threat, befitting their mercantilist view of the world. This meant tariffs and barriers for Scots to trade with their wealthier neighbours to the south, the neighbours they still shared a king with.
To walk along what is now better known as the Royal Mile it seems almost unimaginable to picture Edinburgh in the late 17th century. Looking north from the great forecourt of the castle, over the New Town, to the stretching blue grey of the Forth, it seems like everything has always been there. Yet in 1694 none of it was there. Most of what you see today was farmland. The only thing still existing from that time sits nestled in the tight glen of the Water of Leith: Dean Village. Yet even most of that has long gone. Only scraps of the great wool mills with their churning water wheels are sat resting by the riverside. They sit on display, but go largely ignored by the joggers, dog walkers, and instagram influencers grabbing selfies on the footbridge.
Not far from the castle, around the original location of the Merket, there is one building that laid witness to this period of history. A building that housed someone important to my story. Gladstone’s Land is a Scottish National Trust property and is the oldest building on the Royal Mile. The ground floor currently houses the cafe and ice cream parlour but was almost always a shop of some description. The upper floors are accessed via external stone stairs to the front of the building. As the steps enter the building they become an internal, narrow, and semi-spiral set climbing a further three storeys. Today each floor demonstrates a different era, fashion and past occupant. Amongst the many historical occupants of this building was a merchant tailor and burgess of Edinburgh, John Sumervaill. He had obtained his position in 1691, by means of an apprenticeship to William Menzies. Yet this man’s career and fortunes would take a dramatic turn along with the fortunes of his country. He had believed fervently in a story of the great potential and happy future offered in the latest innovation: The Company of Scotland. It will be his story, and the story of a few others, that I cover in “When Grift Killed a Nation.” Coming out Friday 16th February on your favourite podcast player with each episode being released at 7pm UK time every Friday. A trailer will be out this Friday so you can add the series to your following and be alerted when the first episode lands.
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