Why is “The Most Haunted Place on Earth” So Haunted?

What Is The Black Mausoleum?

Edinburgh is practically oozing horror, mystery and darkness. Go on any of the numerous ghost and history tours and you’ll hear “the most haunted town in the world” or “more recorded sighting than in any other town in the world.” Now, this is rather hard to prove either way, but it must be admitted that Edinburgh does have an awful lot of hauntings under its belt. One of these, however, CAN be said to be “the most well documented” ghostly phenomenon in the world.

Thousands of people were once crammed into the Old Town of Edinburgh, trapped behind a great defensive wall in a space only 1/4 mile by 1 mile. In the 1700 upwards of 80,000 people lived in this tiny little space, perched on the tail of a glacial feature (Edinburgh Castle sits on the ‘crag’). Disease, murder, fires, body snatching and all sorts of horrible things happened in this city. But perhaps one of the most horrific events was the imprisonment, torture and execution of The Covenanters.

These Presbyterian zealots, for want of a better word, believed they were God’s chosen and in 1637 they signed, in Greyfriars Kirkyard, the “National Covenant with God.” They then set out on a religious crusade against the south and King Charles I (a Scotsman by heritage) and later his son.

Needless to say, they eventually lost (at least the people themselves; the Presbyterian movement crossed the ocean and lived on strong in America). At the last encounter of this holy war, the Battle of Bothwell Brig, Charles II crushed the Covenanters’ army and imprisoned 1200 survivors in Greyfriars Kirkyard, the very place their movement had begun. The area is now known as the ‘Covenanter’s Prison’ and was effectively the world’s first concentration camp (though some ancient historians may beg to differ). Having visited this small enclosure I can tell you; I can’t see how 1200 people could even fit in there, let alone ‘live.’

These martyrs, so Robert Louis Stevenson recounts, were kept day and night, lying on the ground for months on end. They were fed only bread and water, unable to move for fear of the guards’ punishments. Their voices drowned out by the beat of army drums. Terrible treatment indeed, yet this is not the worst of it.

Lord Advocate George Mackenzie was their keeper and tormentor, so the story goes. Despite his early essays on tolerance and the fact he defended Presbytarians in court during his early career, he supposedly brutally tortured and mutilated these captives in an area now housing The Black Mausoleum. This small yet ominous crypt lies inside the now locked Covenanters Prison.