1. Mary, Queen of Scots, once pretended she couldn’t understand Latin when a papal legate came to bother her about counter Reformation. https://twitter.com/ok_thislooksbad/status/1253795255784296450

2. Robert the Bruce took Edinburgh Castle by having a small group of soldiers climb the sheer rock face. Apparently the soldier who knew the best route had grown up in the castle, and climbed down to the town regularly to go shagging.

3. Florence Nightingale invented (or at least popularised the usage of) the pie chart.

4. Countess Isabella MacDuff of Buchan allied with Robert the Bruce against her own family, and crowned Robert (in a second coronation ceremony, as she was late ) King of Scots, as a representative of the MacDuff family.

(These are not my fave historical figures but I’ll do that next, Kirsty has created a monster but we knew that already)

5. (And Kirsty even reminded me of this one) the oldest surviving building in Edinburgh is St Margaret’s Chapel in Edinburgh Castle, after Malcolm III’s Queen Consort, Margaret of Wessex. She was canonised in 1250.

My top 5 historical figures is like asking me to pick between my children, except worse!
1. Cleopatra
2. Anne Boleyn
3. Sophia Duleep Singh
4. Rosa Parks
5. Joan of Arc