Curse of Scotland Gurney Benham's book about playing cards, in describing the game of Pope Joan he gives his own explanation for why this card is known as the Curse of Scotland: "The crown of Scotland contained only nine stones, as they never could afford a tenth". Eric Partridge's "Routledge Dictionary of Historical Slang" considers: “the various theories are as interesting as they are unconvincing”. "Collins Encyclopedia of Scotland" says for "Curse of Scotland" "This is usually taken to be the nine of diamonds playing card, though explanations differ". The 19th century Tarot of Marseilles is one of the standard designs for tarot
Curse of Scotland Royalty, for SCOTLAND'S "Kings" for many Ages, were observ'd, each "Ninth" to be a "Tyrant", who by Civil Wars, and all the fatal consequences of intestine discord, plunging the "Divided Kingdom" into strange Disorders, gave occasion, "in the course of time", to form the Proverb. A similar book of 1726 gives the same question and answer, still regarding the question as relating to a proverb. By 1757 the card was described as "commonly called the Curse of Scotland" with the explanation that the epithet refers to Lord Ormistoune, Lord Justice Clerk from 1692 to 1735, who suppressed the Jacobite rising