Burning Questions

Available for over a year

Burning questions of the day - racism, heresy and witchcraft. Pioneering pan-Africanist Dr James Africanus Beale Horton came to Edinburgh from Sierra Leone for his qualifications only to find the famous university town was a hot bed of a new kind of racism - Dr Henry Dee and Dr James Kennaway take us into that world. Moving back in time: you’ve heard of Henry VIII but how much do you know about the dramatic life and times of his rival James V of Scotland when both heretics and traitors burned? Dr Amy Blakeway of St Andrews University looks at the darker side of James’s brilliant Renaissance reign. James grandson, James VI, presided over burning people too - for witchcraft. We hear from Ashleigh Angus from Curtin University Australia on the Orkney rebels and the accused witches who were in their camp.