Inverness, United Kingdom

Inverness had four traditional fairs, including Legavrik or "Leth-Gheamhradh", meaning midwinter, and Faoilleach. William the Lion (d. 1214) granted Inverness four charters, by one of which it was created a royal burgh. Of the Dominican friary founded by Alexander III in 1233, only one pillar and a worn knight's effigy survive in a secluded graveyard near the city centre.

Medieval Inverness suffered regular raids from the Hebrides, particularly by the MacDonald Lords of the Isles in the 15th century. In 1187, one Dòmhnall Bàn (Donald Ban) led islanders in a battle at Torvean against men from Inverness Castle led by the governor's son, Donnchadh Mac an Tòisich (Duncan Mackintosh). Both leaders were killed in the battle, and Dòmhnall Bàn is said to have been buried in a large cairn near the river, close to where the silver chain was found. Local tradition says that the citizens fought off the Clan Donald in 1340 at the Battle of Blairnacoi on Drumderfit Hill, north of Inverness across the Beauly Firth. In the late 14th-early 15 century, Inverness was a symbol of the Duke of Albany's power. On his way to the Battle of Harlaw in 1411, Donald of Islay took the town and burned the bridge over the River Ness. Sixteen years later, James I held a parliament in the castle to which the northern chieftains were summoned, of whom three were arrested for defying the king's command. Clan Munro defeated Clan Mackintosh in 1454 at the Battle of Clachnaharry just west of the city. Clan Donald and their allies stormed the castle during the Raid on Ross in 1491.

In 1562, during the progress undertaken to suppress Huntly's insurrection, Mary, Queen of Scots, was denied admittance into Inverness Castle by the governor, who belonged to the earl's faction, and whom she afterwards caused to be hanged. The Clan Munro and Clan Fraser of Lovat took the castle for her. The house in which she lived meanwhile stood in Bridge Street until the 1970s, when it was demolished to make way for the second Bridge Street development.

Beyond the then northern limits of the town, Oliver Cromwell built a citadel capable of accommodating 1,000 men, but with the exception of a portion of the ramparts it was demolished at the Restoration. A clock tower today called Cromwell's Tower is located in the Citadel area of Inverness but was actually part of a former hemp cloth factory built c. 1765.

Inverness played a role in the Jacobite rising of 1689. In early May, it was besieged by a contingent of Jacobites led by MacDonell of Keppoch. The town was rescued by Viscount Dundee, the overall Jacobite commander, when he arrived with the main Jacobite army, although he required Inverness to profess loyalty to King James VII.

In 1715, the Jacobites occupied the royal fortress as a barracks. In 1727, the government built the first Fort George here but, in 1746, it surrendered to the Jacobites and they blew it up. Culloden Moor lies nearby and was the site of the Battle of Culloden in 1746, which ended the Jacobite rising of 1745–46.

In 1783, the year that saw the end of the American Revolution and the beginning of the Highland Clearances in Inverness-shire, Coinneach MacChoinnich (1758–1837), a poet from Clan MacKenzie who was born at Castle Heather, then known as Castle Leather (Caisteal Leothair), composed the Gaelic poem The Lament of the North. In the poem, MacChionnich mocks the Highland gentry for becoming absentee landlords, evicting their tenants en masse in favour of sheep, and of "spending their wealth uselessly", in London. He accuses King George III both of tyranny and of steering the ship of state into shipwreck. MacChionnich also argues that truth is on the side of George Washington and the Continental Army and that the Scottish Gaels would do well to emigrate to the New World before the King and the landlords take every farthing they have left.