helshades:

seppius:

jaimelannister:

“If you think this has a happy ending, you haven’t been paying attention.”

#why do i even like this series

YE WHO ENTER HERE, ABANDON ALL HOPE. (Dante Alighieri - Inferno)

(Source: riverandjoaquin)

braanstarks:

History Meme:

[8/10 Moments]: The Black Dinner.

_{Sir Alexander Livingston and Sir William Crichton, who had recently come to a power sharing agreement of sorts, were convinced that the Douglases, led by the young, headstrong 6th Earl of Douglas, were enemies of the throne. They felt it necessary to crush the Douglases to secure their own authority. Although it was fairly easy to secure sufficient evidence to support a charge of high treason against the 6th Earl of Douglas and his associates; it was an entirely different matter to arrest this powerful baron in the midst of his own people in his own castle.}

_{According to legend, a banquet was held in the Great Hall of Edinburgh Castle, and the young James II was charmed with the company of the Douglases. At the end of the feast, the head of a black bull was brought into the hall. Under Scottish custom, this formality presaged the death of the principal guest(s) at a dinner. James II is alleged to have pleaded for the lives of his new friends to be spared, but they were said to have been beheaded in front of the ten year old king.}

_{“But what we do know for certain is that on the arrival of the Earl of Douglas at the castle, he was at once arrrested, together with his only brother David, and his friend and consellor Sir Malcolm Fleming of Cumbernauld, who had accompanied him; that the three of them were hastily tried for high treason, found guilty, and proptly beheaded on the Castle Hill. The earl and his brother were executed on 24 November, 1440, and Sir Malcolm Fleming four days later. The later execution must have been carried out contrary to the wishes of Livingston, hence probably the four days’ delay. For about three years later, on 16 August 1443, Sir Alexander Livingston, in the presence of Robert Fleming and four bishops, solemnly purged himself upon oath of having given any counsel, assistance, or consent to the slaughter of Sir Malcolm Fleming.}

_{“Some of the old chronicle writers, who like some modern journalists were not averse to inserting fictitious picturesque details, so as to enliven their narratives, declare that the Douglases were arrested while sitting at dinner, on the signal being given by a black bull’s head, supposed to be a sign of sudden death, being placed on the table; and this fable, according to an old historian of the House of Douglas, gave rise to the following doggerel rhyme}

_{:— ‘Edinburgh castle, toun, and tower,
God grant ye sink for sin;
And that even for the black-dinner,
Earl Douglas gat therin.’}

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