Notes from the North

The National Library of Scotland is one of six copyright libraries in the United Kingdom. This means it has a legal right to hold a copy of every book published in Great Britain. There is as a result an almost unimaginably rich hoard of words, images and film stacked, micro-fiched, digitised and filed within its walls on George IV Bridge, at Causewayside where maps are held, and at Kelvin Hall in Glasgow. One of the best known of its many treasures is probably the last letter Mary Queen of Scots wrote, to Henry 3 rd   of France, the brother of her first husband, just six hours before she was beheaded on 8 th   February 1587. One of her final requests to Henry is to make sure her servants are paid, (something he failed to do but which Philip II of Spain put right). one page of Mary's letter To begin with the library was not a public resource. It first opened as the Advocates’ Library in 1689 and it was only with the passing of the copyright Act in 1710 that it began to assume ...