THE WIND-battered west coast of Scotland is a long way from the balmier climes favoured by celluloid swashbucklers like those found in Pirates of the Caribbean. It is definitely way off course for a boat load of pirates more used to terrorising ships under the flag of the

.infamous pirate Black Bart 

Bartholomew Roberts, or Black Bart, was one of the most well known and feared pirates of the time.

No-one will ever know for sure if the pirates on board The Eagle were still flying their own black flag – emblazoned with the obligatory skull and cross bones and a man holding an hourglass and a cutlass – when they sailed into Loch Craignish, south of Oban, in February 1720 but they must have raised a few eyebrows. loc

Their presence in this remote Argyllshire sea loch did not go unnoticed for long and quickly aroused suspicion from local people. The laird, Campbell of Stonefield, went so far as to venture aboard and was no doubt amazed to discover that its hold was stuffed full of foreign gold coins.

After the alarm was raised with the authorities, almost all the pirates – except their "Captain", Walter Kennedy, who escaped – were captured, marched across the country where they were imprisoned in the dungeons beneath Edinburgh Castle. Later that year, all 21 men were put on trial for piracy and murder – 14 of them went to the gallows.

But what were the pirates of The Eagle doing in Scottish waters? Historic Scotland's principal historian, Chris Tabraham, says no-one really knows, and details of this long-forgotten episode only recently re-emerged, during research for the "Prisons of War" exhibition at Edinburgh Castle. However, it seems clear the pirates were on the run.

"They seem to have escaped from their pirate king, a chap called 'Black Bart', or Bartholomew Roberts, who was one of the most infamous pirates in the Caribbean," says Tabraham.

They had been found snooping around and the local laird, Campbell of Stonefield, got suspicious and discovered when he went aboard that the hold was full of Portuguese and French gold coin. So they had obviously escaped and sailed back to Britain with this stash of gold."

Whatever their plans had been to spend their ill-gotten booty, the pirates were taken to Edinburgh, probably after a short spell in custody in Greenock, arriving at the castle in the capital on 21 May.

Tabraham says the men were almost certainly held in one of the prison vaults underneath the Great Hall, which may not have been as uncomfortable as might be assumed.

We think the one vault they were held in would hold normally about 40 people in quite good conditions," he says. "There was a nice big window, facing south and it had quite a big fireplace in it.

"They had something called the 'Devil's Elbow', which was a wall walk in the castle, south of the Great Hall, which they could exercise on, and the latrines were at the end. So it wasn't too bad.

"But they were designed as prisons from the outset and if they were naughty they would be chucked into the pit below, which was a sort of solitary confinement cell."

The skull and crossbones was recognised as the pirate ensign.

The case went to trial at the High Court in November 1720. Perhaps not surprisingly, most of the men pleaded their innocence, claiming that they had been forced into piracy by Black Bart. "People like Black Bart did have wonderful reputations for intimidating people," says Tabraham.

Admirably enough, the leaders of this motley group – John Clark and Robert Hews – admitted their own guilt, yet tried to save their shipmates from the noose. In his dying speech, Clark said: "I go out of this world with a heavy heart, when I think of how innocently these poor men must suffer." Clark goes on to console himself that if Black Bart had caught up with the men instead, "they would all either have died by his hand, or at least been set ashore on some desolate island."

Seven men were let off, but Clark and Hews were the first to hang, says Tabraham. "On 14th December, they were escorted down to Leith Sands, and when the tide was out, they were hanged by the neck on the gibbet until dead, which is how pirates met their end through justice, between the high and the low watermarks.

"Only seven were found innocent. The others went down in January, and they too were hung, between the high and the low watermark."

Perhaps the men would take some comfort that their "Captain", Walter Kennedy, who abandoned them to their fate at Loch Craignish, did not escape from justice either.

"The Captain is interesting in himself," says Tabraham. "He escaped capture, but he was eventually betrayed by a lover down in London, and hanged at Execution Dock in Wapping."

One of the most enduring mysteries is what happened to all the gold found on board The Eagle. Did the laird help himself to a few coins or did the authorities confiscate all the pirates' loot?

"What happened to the gold is not known, but apparently the hold was stuffed," says Tabraham. "We haven't found any documentation as to what happened to it."