The Mercat Cross on the Royal Mile has stood at the heart of Edinburgh's civic life since the Middle Ages. "Mercat" is simply Scots for market, and having a cross meant the town had royal permission to trade. This one, however, was less a place of commerce than a theatre of power.

Proclamations were read from its balcony. Punishments were handed out in its shadow. After Culloden, captured Jacobite flags were ceremoniously burnt beside it. And carved into its stonework is a gallery of Stuart monarchs, including an unfortunately noseless Mary Queen of Scots, whose portrait bears little resemblance, the tour scripts note, to a woman contemporaries described as beautiful, red-haired and nearly six feet tall.

VoiceMap's self-guided audio tours use the Mercat Cross to trace Edinburgh's centuries of crime, punishment and political theatre, following stories of royal intrigue and rebellion that played out on this very spot.