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St Andrews Day Quiz – Answers and Winners

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St Andrews Day Quiz – Answers and Winners

Thanks to all who took part in our quiz and congrats to the winners. Copies of Willie McIntyre’s Present Tense and £25 M&S vouchers are on their way….

The answers are:

  1. Scotland can lay claim to inventing the guillotine with the construction of an ‘Iron Maiden’ ordered by the Provost and magistrates of Edinburgh in 1564. It is now on display in the National Museum.

  2. The Duchess of Argyll was the subject of fairly compelling photographic evidence in her divorce case when her husband alleged adultery and produced a photograph of her wearing only a three-string pearl necklace in the presence of a ‘headless man’.

  3. Sir Walter Scott observed ‘Oh what a tangled web we weave….’ – a quote that is frequently misattributed to William Shakespeare.

  4. Russel + Aitken is thought to be the oldest legal firm in Scotland to retain its original name having been established in 1818. (R&R Urquhart are mere striplings having been established in 1829.)

  5. Sheipthreiving is our invention. Hamesucken and stouthrief are still offences in Scotland.

  6. Lord Cockburn described Dundee as the ‘Palace of Scottish Blackguardism’ – a title which some would say it still zealously defends…

  7. Former Lord Chancellor Lord Mackay of Clashfern is a Sabbatarian and was brought up as a ‘wee free’.

  8. Robert Burns wrote ‘courts for cowards were erected’ in the Jolly Beggars cantata. He was wont to repeat it during the infamous Trials for Sedition of the Scottish radicals which began with the prosecution of advocate Thomas Muir in 1793 who was sentenced to 14 years transportation.

  9. Mike Russell does not possess a law degree.

  10. Willie McIntrye is a solicitor with Russel+Aitken and an author, not an advocate.

  11. James Wilson, the son of a Fife farmer, became the first great Legal theoretician of the United States and played a key role in the drafting of the US constitution.

  12. The assassination of the Earl of Moray took place at Linlithgow where it is commemorated by a plaque on the Sheriff Court.

  13. Fidel Castro cited John Knox as a moral authority for rebellion during his trial after his failed assault on the Moncada barracks.

  14. PC Murdoch was the beat bobby in the ‘Oor Wullie’ cartoons. His first name was Joe.

    15. The winners are:

    • Gordon Cameron of Stuart and Stuart

    • Scott Clair of Balfour + Manson

    • Kate Murphy of the Scottish Arbitration Centre

    • Paula Wilkie of the Scottish Arbitration Centre

    • Michael Boyd of Boyd’s in Forfar

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