The Union of 1707, Integration and the Scottish Burghs: The Case of the 1720 Food Riots

Abstract

Between the end ofjanuary and the middle of March 1720 a series of riots raged along Scotland's east coast. Appearing first in the south of Fife they spread like 'a fire or Contagion' to engulf Dysart (26 January), Methil, Leven, Elie and Pittenweem (2 and 3 February), Anstruther (5 Febru ary), Kingsbarns and Crail. The 'disease' worked northwards to Dundee and westwards alongside the River Forth, spreading to Valleyfield and Kincardine, and on or around 17 February, Blackness, Bo'ness and Linlithgow, not far from the capital city of Edinburgh. Its course was exhausted only after outbreaks of disorder in Montrose (14 March) and Arbroath (19 March).* Impressive as this list is, it does not capture the full geographical extent of the disturbances. In the Fife burghs, crowds were swollen by the inhabitants of adjacent villages such as Cellardyke, Markinch, St Monans and Buckhaven, who were drawn into the main centres of disorder. The confusion and ambiguity of the legal records from which much of the evidence of the disturbances is drawn also mean