C. Wheeler Barnes of Denver, head of the Scottish Rite in Colorado, praised Pike as a historian, author, poet, journalist, lawyer, jurist, soldier and musician, who devoted most of his mature years to the strengthening of the Masonic Order.

* 1771 – Walter Scott, Scottish novelist and poet ( d. 1832 )

* 1892 – Hugh MacDiarmid, Scottish poet ( d. 1978 )

* 1609 – Alexander Hume, Scottish poet

* 1649 – William Drummond of Hawthornden, Scottish poet ( b. 1585 )

After drinking at the White Horse, a pub he had found through Scottish poet Ruthven Todd, Thomas returned to the Hotel Chelsea, declaring, " I've had 18 straight whiskies.

* 1585 – William Drummond of Hawthornden, Scottish poet ( d. 1649 )

By the 1930s, the five-line cinquain verse form became widely known in the poetry of the Scottish poet William Soutar.

* The Ossian cycle of ancient Celtic poetry supposedly rediscovered and published in 1760 by Scottish poet James Macpherson was actually written in the eighteenth century, possibly based on some fragments of earlier verses.

In the 1890s, English socialist poet Edward Carpenter and Scottish anarchist John Henry Mackay wrote in defense of same-sex love and androgyny ; Carpenter and British homosexual rights advocate John Addington Symonds contributed to the development of Havelock Ellis's groundbreaking book Sexual Inversion, which called for tolerance towards " inverts " and was suppressed when first published in England.

James Macpherson was the first Scottish poet to gain an international reputation, claiming to have found poetry written by Ossian, he published translations that acquired international popularity, being proclaimed as a Celtic equivalent of the Classical epics.

In literature the most successful figure of the mid-nineteenth century was Walter Scott, who began as a poet and also collected and published Scottish ballads.

He was also the first Scots Makar ( the official national poet ), appointed by the inaugural Scottish government in 2004.

From the 1980s Scottish literature enjoyed another major revival, particularly associated with a group of Glasgow writers focused around critic, poet and teacher Philip Hobsbaum and editor Peter Kravitz.

This period also saw the emergence of a new generation of Scottish poets that became leading figures on the UK stage, including Carol Ann Duffy, who was named as Poet Laureate in May 2009, the first woman, the first Scot and the first openly gay poet to take the post.

One of the earliest works on the subject of Halloween is from Scottish poet John Mayne, who, in 1780, made note of pranks at Halloween ; " What fearfu ' pranks ensue!

" This particular line of criticism also misses the obvious parallels that existed between the story's background ( England conquered by the Normans in 1066, when they killed Saxon King Harold at Hastings, about 130 years previously ) and the prevailing situation in Scott's native Scotland ( Scotland's union with England in 1707 – about the same length of time had elapsed before Scott's writing and the resurgence in his time of Scottish nationalism evidenced by the cult of Robert Burns, the famous poet who deliberately chose to work in Scots vernacular though he was an educated man and spoke modern English eloquently ).

* 1803 – Marjory Fleming, Scottish writer and poet ( d. 1811 )

* 1923 – Ivor Cutler, Scottish poet ( d. 2006 )

* 1759 – Robert Burns, Scottish poet ( d. 1796 )

* 1777 – Thomas Campbell, Scottish poet ( d. 1844 )

* 1562 – Mark Alexander Boyd, Scottish poet ( d. 1601 )

There are one hundred planned boxes, each of which contains a rubber stamp circle poem by the Scottish poet and artist, Alec Finlay.

* 1962 – Kathleen Jamie, Scottish poet

His family, like many Wallaces, claimed a connection to William Wallace, a Scottish patriot and leader during the Wars of Scottish Independence in the 13th century.

* 1754 – William Murdoch, Scottish engineer and inventor, created gas lighting ( d. 1839 )

He was born at Haddington, East Lothian, the only son of the Scottish king William the Lion and Ermengarde of Beaumont.

* 1903 – William Primrose, Scottish violist ( d. 1982 )

His uncle, George Lauder, whom he referred to as " Dod ", introduced him to the writings of Robert Burns and historical Scottish heroes such as Robert the Bruce, William Wallace, and Rob Roy.

* 1305 – William Wallace, who led the Scottish resistance against England, is captured by the English near Glasgow and transported to London where he is put on trial and executed.

Arbroath Abbey, in the Scottish town of Arbroath, was founded in 1178 by King William the Lion for a group of Tironensian Benedictine monks from Kelso Abbey.

Housman himself acknowledged the influence of the songs of William Shakespeare, the Scottish Border ballads and Heinrich Heine, but specifically denied any influence of Greek and Latin classics in his poetry.

In 1864 William Wallace Mitchell ( 1803 – 1884 ), a Glasgow Cotton Merchant, published his " Manual of Bowls Playing " following his work as the secretary formed in 1849 by Scottish bowling clubs which became the basis of the rules of the modern game.

Gibson portrays William Wallace, a 13th-century Scottish warrior who led the Scots in the First War of Scottish Independence against King Edward I of England.

Fans come from all over the world to see the places in Scotland where William Wallace fought for Scottish freedom, and also to the places in Scotland and Ireland to see the locations used in the film.

In Scotland the only one which has survived the convulsions of the 16th century is Aberdeen Breviary, a Scottish form of the Sarum Office ( the Sarum Rite was much favoured in Scotland as a kind of protest against the jurisdiction claimed by the diocese of York ), revised by William Elphinstone ( bishop 1483 – 1514 ), and printed at Edinburgh by Walter Chapman and Andrew Myllar in 1509 – 1510.

Standing at above sea level, it is located at the western end of the Grampian Mountains in the Lochaber area of the Scottish Highlands, close to the town of Fort William.

One role of the Swedish central bank was lending to the government, which was likewise true of the Bank of England, created in 1694 by Scottish businessman William Paterson in the City of London at the request of the English government to help pay for a war.

William Aiton, a Scottish botanist, included an entry for the cranberry in volume II of his 1789 work, Hortus Kewensis.

William " Captain " Kidd ( c. 1645 – 23 May 1701 ) was a Scottish sailor remembered for his trial and execution for piracy after returning from a voyage to the Indian Ocean.

In many Christadelphian hymn books a sizeable proportion of hymns are drawn from the Scottish Psalter and non-Christadelphian hymn-writers including Isaac Watts, Charles Wesley, William Cowper and John Newton.

The dukedom was created in 1702 by Queen Anne ; John Churchill, whose wife was a favourite of the queen, had earlier been made Lord Churchill of Eyemouth in the Scottish peerage ( 1682 ), which became extinct with his death, and Earl of Marlborough ( 1689 ) by King William III.

Ownership has changed many times, past owners including the Scottish publisher A & C Black, Horace Everett Hooper, Sears Roebuck and William Benton.