The specific signing of the Statutes of Iona in August 1609 was accomplished at Iona itself — the sacred island of Scottish Christianity — giving the occasion a spiritual weight intended to reinforce the chiefs' compliance. Bishop Knox selected Iona deliberately, knowing that the sanctity of the island would make any breach of the oaths sworn there particularly heinous. The nine chiefs who signed did so under duress — having been arrested the previous year and threatened with forfeiture — but the location and ceremony were designed to create binding obligations that went beyond mere legal compulsion.
Aubrey generates in-depth historical research for any location in Britain — drawing on Domesday records, scheduled monuments, Victorian OS maps, geological data and archaeological archives to tell the full story of a place.
Research a location near this battlefield