January 5 – Twelve Days of Christmas.

Handsel Monday can fall, while January 7^th  is the latest; celebrated on the first Monday of the year. (Scotland).

1066 Edward the confessor died. Get ready for the Norman invasion of the British Isles, and the flight of the surviving Saxon royal house to Scotland and marriage to the King of Scots, preserving the Anglo Saxon blood line with all subsequent Royalty of Scots, and English from 12^th century.

Bayeux Tapestry. RIDE TO BOSHAM – THE CHURCH.

1141 sometime in September

John Marshal In September 1141, Matilda fled the siege of Winchester and took refuge in the Marshal’s castle at Ludgershall. While covering her retreat from Winchester, John Marshal was forced to take refuge at Wherwell Abbey. The attackers set fire to the building, and John lost an eye to dripping lead from the melting roof.

 Empress Matilda

1480 sometime this year.   Battle of Skibo and Strathfleet Clan Donald’s invasion of the area around Dornoch in northern Scotland in 1480. Two attacks were repulsed by the local clans of Clan Sutherland and Clan Murray.

1599 January 5^th never happened in Scotland.  The year 1599 ran from March 25^th to December 31^st, only.

1729 Catherine Cochrane (d 15.03.1786) married. (05.01.1729) Alexander Stewart, 6^th  Earl of Galloway (d 24.09.1773) and second (15.10.1715) Mary Osborne (d 04.02.1721-2, dau of Peregrine Osborne, 2nd Duke of Leeds).

Galloway Crest: A mound, bespread with the rays of the sun Proper embraced between two corn-ears in saltire, and ensigned with a crosslet Or Motto: HIGHER.

1746 [Scotland Calendar]. The Prince at Bannockburn House until the 16^th.

During the halt at Bannockburn the Prince was joined by the reinforcements that had been Bllllembling around Perth and Dunblane during his absence in England, in all about 4000 men. While at Bannockburn the Prince was visited privately by Sir John Douglas, M.P., with a private message from the London Jacobites, who stated that £10,000 were ready for him in London.

1751 did not occur in England, Ireland, British North America, and British colonies, as 1751 only had 282 days due to the Calendar Act of 1750. 1751 ran from March 25^th 1751 (Lady Day) to December 31^st 1751, the next date being January 1^st, 1752.  But this date in 1751 did occur in Scotland and most European countries.  Imagine the confusion.

1831 Joseph Smith the Prophet to James Covill, at Fayette, New York. (clan Mack of Inverness, descendant of Malcolm 3^rd  King of Scots), Doctrine and Covenants 39, ‘Hearken and listen to the voice of him who is from all eternity to all eternity, the Great I Am, even Jesus Christ.’

1840.  Between Glasgow and Bishopton. Elders Samuel Mulliner and Alexander Wright arrived in 1839. Appropriately, both had been born in Scotland. Both independently emigrated to Canada, joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and then made their ways to Missouri and Ohio to join the Saints. A century and a half later, Richard Van Hagen was driving through the mountains of Scotland. He was listening to a favorite radio program when interference caused him to switch to another station broadcasting a program about the [The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints] pioneers. As he listened, he concluded that the pioneers were to be admired. Ensign Oct 1978.

1886 The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, written by the Scottish author Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson (13 November 1850 Edinburgh – 3 December 1894 Vailima, Upolo Island Samoa). Plot is a split personality between good and evil.  

Western Samoa Robert Louis Stevenson, Tusitaisa. Long John Silver Treasure Island, Balfour and Stewart Kidnapped, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Archie Weir and Christiana Ellieott Weir of Hermiston. www.scotiana.com

1890 Cora Witherspoon (clan Witherspoon) was born in New Orleans on January 5, 1890, and became a noteworthy character actress in 48 films through the 1950s. Her most notable role was as W. C. Fields’  [William Claude Dukenfield] nagging wife in “The Bank Dick” (1940). Fields is Egbert Sousé, which Egbert informs others is pronounced “Sou- zay … accent grave over the ‘e’.” Reiterated during the movie, it is not an accent grave at all but an accent acute. Because people keep calling Fields “Souse” (rhymes with mouse, slang for drunkard). Fields has the movie take place in Lompoc, California (which had its start as a temperance community), and there Sousé regularly visits the Black Pussy Cat Café. Egbert lambastes Lompoc again by mispronouncing the town’s second syllable as “pock” rather than “poke”. This unemployed tippler is henpecked by three generations of women including his wife Agatha (Cora Witherspoon).

·      Sousé asks the bartender at the Black Pussy Cat Café, “Was I in here last night and did I spend a twenty dollar bill?”

Bartender Joe Guelpe responds, “Yeah.”

“Oh boy,” sighs Sousé, “what a load that is off my mind? I thought I’d lost it.

”  The audience discovers that Lompoc has something in common with New Orleans. The Times-Picayune is not the only newspaper of that name. While Sousé sits on the bus line bench, he is reading Lompoc’s Picayune Intelligencer when Egbert quite accidentally aids in the arrest of a bank robber and the recovery of the stolen cash. This misdiagnosed misanthrope is then bestowed hero status and a job as “Bank Dick”. And today the Picayune Intelligencer is the name of the official W. C. Fields Fan Club newsletter.

1905 William Claflin died (March 6, 1818 – January 5, 1905) was an industrialist and philanthropist who served as the 27^th  Governor of the Governor of Massachusetts from 1869–1872 and as a member of the United States Congress. Scots ancestry.

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