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The Haunting of George ‘bloody’ Mackenzie
One of the most documented cases of poltergeist activity
Last week my son was holidaying in Scotland, renting a holiday place near Edinburgh. It’s been many years since I’ve been there, but I suggested that he visit the Greyfriars kirkyard and the black mausoleum, the final resting place of the infamous George ‘Bloody’ MacKenzie, who was interred there, following his death in 1691.
Up until the run up to the millennium, Greyfriars most famous piece of history was the little Skye terrier, Greyfriars Bobby, whose statue, outside the cemetery in Candlemaker Row, remains a huge tourist attraction. He was immortalised in a book by Eleanor Atkinson and then later a Walt Disney film, as the loyal dog who refused to leave his master’s side upon his death, sleeping on Auld Jock’s grave every night.
However, in the case of George Mackenzie, there is little such sweetness and light, neither in his life or death, his tale casting a cold shadow across the cemetery and his dreaded black mausoleum.
George Mackenzie was the Legal Advocate in Scotland for King Charles II. At the time, the royalty has more than a whiff of Catholicism about it, which ran counter to an overwhelmingly Protestant populace both in England and Scotland. But unlike England, the Scots had no tradition in the belief of a king’s divinity, acting as mediator between man and God. Scottish Presbyterianism forged the belief that neither pope, priest or king could act as a go-between the ordinary man and his covenant with God.
Trouble started during the reign of Charles I when English Episcopalianism was brought to Scotland through the introduction of the Authorised Prayer Book. This was a move too far in the direction of Catholicism for the average Scot and so initiated the Prayer Book Riots of 1637.
The following year the National Covenant was signed at Greyfriars Kirkland to keep Scotland resolutely Presbyterian who no hint of any Popery.
Fast forward through the Civil War, regicide, the Cromwell Protectorate and the return of royalty and a Stewart comeback… enter Charles II. Like his father he played at being Protestant though he was alleged to have sympathies with Catholicism. It was during the Restoration…
