The 17th century was a disastrous period for Scotland with an almost unbroken series of wars for sixty years from 1639, mostly fought in Scotland but also with large interventions in Ireland & England. Estimates suggest twenty to thirty thousand deaths in action, plus another sixty to ninety from the diseases endemic in armies.  Add in thirty or forty thousand civilian deaths from military action and army-borne diseases and you have a total of ninety to one hundred and sixty thousand casualties from a population of at most 1.2 million. The disastrous famines of the 'seven ill years' in the 1680s and 1690s killed a further 5 to 15% of the population - up to 25% in Aberdeenshire. The social, economic and  political impacts must have been enormous. In the pages below we make light of this catastrophic time.

Netherlander merchants Erasmus van der Ark & Theophilus ten Caat get caught up in the activities of the Highland Host.
http://www.spodilicious.com/kirk-o-shotts.html

Covenanters hold off the Jacobite advance guard.
http://www.spodilicious.com/covenanters-at-pitlochry.html

Government dragoons attempt to arrest a Covenanter minister.
http://www.spodilicious.com/auchtermuchty.html

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