“THE CURSE OF SCOTLAND’9

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28630, 5 July 1958, Page 10

“THE CURSE OF SCOTLAND’ 9

Unhappy Nine Of Diamonds LONDON For hundreds of years the nine of diamonds has been known to many card-players as the “Curse of Scotland.” In a recent edition of the “Scottish Magazine” programme, broadcast each week in the 8.8.C.’s General Overseas Service, A. J. Campbell touched on some of the explanations given for this strange name. “One links the card with the betrayal of Sir William Wallace to the English in 1305,’’ he said, “because it is said that information leading to his capture was scribbled on the back of a playing card of that number and suit. Alas for the detail of that story! It was more than 100 years later before playing cards reached Scotland!”

Neither does the theory that tne order for the execution of Mary Queen of Scots was written by her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I, on the back of the nine of diamonds stand up to scrutiny, because the official warrant bearing Queen Elizabeth’s signature is still to be seen.

Equally unfounded is the belief that the Duke of Cumberland originated the phrase, by writing his cruel “no quarter” order after the Battle of Culloden on the back of such a card. Culloden was fought in 1746, and there is a record of the phrase as far back as 1710. A. J. Campbell said that he had always thought that the most likely explanation was one that connected the “Curse of Scotland” with Sir John Dalrymple, who was Secretary of State for Scotland at the time of the massacre of Glencoe in 1692. Sir John’s coat-of-arms contained nine “lozenges,” which looked just like the nine of diamonds. Campbell still favoured this theory, although recently he had come across another explanation “It goes back to the days of Mary Queen of Scots,” he said, “when her French followers introduced new card games to Scotland. One game of chance was ‘Pope Joan.’ in which the nine of diamonds was the highest card in the pack. ‘‘So many fortunes were lost in a gambling craze, so manv families ruined, that the nine of diamonds earned its unhappy name.”