Edinburgh


EDINBURGH is the jewel in Scotland's crown. The jewel has many facets: classical architecture piled on hills, tree-filled valleys, sweeping Georgian crescents, medieval closes, graceful bridges soaring across chasms, green parks, sudden views of the sea from street corners. And the castle. That supreme castle, which looks so right that it might have grown out of the rock by some natural process.
History
Castle Rock, a volcanic crag with three vertical sides, dominates the city centre. This natural defensive position was probably what first attracted settlers; the earliest signs of habitation date back to 850 BC.In the 4th century, there were two indigenous Celtic peoples in northern Britain: the Picts and the Britons. In the 6th century a third Celtic tribe, the Scotti, reached Scotland from northern Ireland and established a kingdom called Dalriada. In the 7th century, Northumbrian Angles from northeast England colonised southeast Scotland. They built their fortress on Castle Rock, which they called Edwinesburh. This served as the Scots' southern outpost until 1018 when Malcolm II established a frontier at the River Tweed. Nonetheless, the English sacked the city no less than seven times.Edinburgh really began to grow in the 11th century, when markets developed at the foot of the fortress, and from 1124, when David I held court at the castle and founded the abbey at Holyrood.The first effective town wall was constructed around 1450 and circled the Old Town and the area around Grassmarket. This restricted, defensible zone became a medieval Manhattan, forcing its densely packed inhabitants to build tenements that soared to 12 stories.A golden era that saw the foundation of the College of Surgeons and the introduction of printing ended with the death of James IV at the Battle of Flodden in 1513. England's Henry VIII attempted to force a marriage between Mary Queen of Scots (James V's daughter) and his son, but the Scots sent Mary