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5 August 1600: An attempt is allegedly made on James VI's life by the Gowrie family in Perth during what is known as the Gowrie conspiracy. Others suggest it was a plot by the King to avoid paying the £80,000 owed by the crown to the family.
24 March 1603: Elizabeth I of England dies. The news is carried in two days to 36 year old James VI of Scotland in Edinburgh that he is now also King James I of England. He styles himself "King of Great Britain" and the crowns of Scotland and England are unified under the Stewart dynasty, though increasingly the family name is now spelled "Stuart".
3 April 1603: James leaves Edinburgh for London, promising to return every three years. He will in fact only return once, in 1617.
1609: Nine highland chieftains are tricked into captivity on a naval ship and only released from the island of Iona when they agree a programme designed to undermine the Gaelic language and culture.
1609: James I/VI begins the plantation of Scots Protestants into Ulster as a means of pacification.
1611: The growth in use of the English language King James Bible by Scottish Protestants helps weaken the Gaelic language.
1614: John Napier publishes the "Description of the Marvelous Canon of Logarithms": or log tables to everyone using them over the 360 years that follow until the invention of the electronic calculator.
23 August 1614: Forces under the command of the Earl of Caithness land on Orkney to suppress a revolt by Robert Stewart, son of Patrick Stewart, 2nd Earl of Orkney.
6 February 1615 : Patrick Stewart, 2nd Earl of Orkney is beheaded for treason following an uprising by his son in Orkney.
1616: The Scottish church sets up schools in every parish to teach children "godliness and knowledge": and to read and write in English and not Gaelic, which it considers "the chief cause of the barbaritie and incivilitie of the people."
4 April 1617 : The death of John Napier, the hugely influential mathematician who invented logarithms, who produced a calculating machine, and who did much to further the interests of the decimal point in mathematics.
15 March 1617: James I/VI visits Scotland and gets into an argument with the Kirk over his wish for them to align more closely to practices in the Anglican Church.
12 February 1624: Goldsmith and philanthropist George Heriot dies.
27 March 1625: At the age of 58, James I/VI dies. His eldest son, Prince Henry, had died in 1612, so James is succeeded by his younger son, Charles I. Charles Stewart is aged 24 and knows little about being a king: except that it comes with a Divine Right to rule direct from God.
1 May 1625: Charles I marries Henrietta Maria, daughter of King Henry IV of France.
1633: Charles I comes to Scotland for his coronation as King of Scots, using full Anglican rites to the dismay of many in the Church of Scotland.
23 July 1637: A riot erupts in St Giles' Cathedral, Edinburgh, when when a street-seller called Jenny Geddes thows a stool at the Dean after he tries to use the Book of Common Prayer as newly imposed by King Charles I for use throughout his United Kingdom.
28 February 1638: The National Covenant is signed, eventually by thousands of Scots. It seeks to preserve distinctive Scots cultural and religious practices against the increasingly arbitrary and Kingdom-wide approach of Charles I.
21 November 1638: The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland begins a month-long meeting in Glasgow despite the efforts of the King's Lord High Commissioner in Scotland, the Marquis of Hamilton, to dissolve it. By continuing with the meeting, the Assembly members effectively declare themselves as rebels against the King.
May 1639: The Wars of the Covenant begin with the First Bishops' War. Fighting is focused in the north east of Scotland. The Marquess of Montrose for the Covenanters takes Aberdeen, and captures the royalist commander, the Marquess of Huntly. Huntly's son is beaten at Brig o' Dee on 19 June. Promised support from Charles I's forces in England and Ulster fails to materialise.
18 June 1639: Charles' English army reaches Berwick-upon-Tweed but when confronted with a much larger Scots army he agrees a truce, the "Pacification of Berwick".
September 1639: The Scottish "Free Parliament" confirms the decisions of the General Assembly the previous year.