subs. phr. (popular).—The nine of diamonds. [The suggested derivations are inconclusive. The locution has nothing to do with Culloden and the Duke of Cumberland, for the card was nicknamed the JUSTICE-CLERK, in allusion to the Lord Justice-Clerk Ormistone, who, for his severity in suppressing the Rebellion of 1715, was called the CURSE OF SCOTLAND. Other suggestions are: (1) That it is derived from the game of Pope Joan, the nine of diamonds there being called the ‘pope,’ of whom the Scotch have always stood in horror. (2) The word ‘curse’ is a corruption of cross, and the nine of diamonds is so arranged as to form a St. Andrew’s Cross. (3) That it refers to the arms of Dalrymple, Earl of Stair (viz., or, on a saltire azure, nine lozenges of the field), who was held in abhorrence for the Massacre of Glencoe; or to Colonel Packer, who attended Charles I. on the scaffold, and had for his arms nine lozenges conjoined, or in the heraldic language, GULES, a cross of lozenges. These conflicting views were discussed at length in Notes and Queries, 1 S., i., 61, 90; iii., 22, 253, 423, 483; v., 619; 3 S., xii., 24, 96; 4 S., vi., 194, 289; also, see Chambers’ Encyclopædia.]
1791. Gentleman’s Magazine, vol. LXI., p. 141. The Queen of Clubs is … called Queen Bess … The Nine of Diamonds, the CURSE OF SCOTLAND.
