There are related volcanic formations on the adjacent island of Craigleith and within nearby Edinburgh, namely Arthur's Seat, Calton Hill and Castle Rock.

Sir Robert de Lawedre is mentioned by Blind Harry in The Actes and Deidis of the Illustre and Vallyeant Campioun Schir William Wallace as a compatriot of William Wallace, and Alexander Nisbet recorded his tombstone in 1718, in the floor of the old kirk in North Berwick: "here lies Sir Robert de Lawedre, great laird of the Bass, who died May 1311".

The person who received the payments for the prisoner's support was Sir Robert Lauder", whom Tytler further describes as "a firm friend of the King".

Another curtain wall at right-angles runs down to the sea close to the landing-place, ending in a ruined round tower, whose vaulted base has poorly splayed and apparently rather unskilfully constructed embrasures.

A little beyond the entrance there was a tower that formed a simple keep/bastion and to which had been added a gabled chamber in the 17th century, which, though of restricted dimensions, must have been comfortable enough, with blue Dutch tiles round its moulded fireplace, later very much decayed.

Halfway up the island stands the ruin of St Baldred's Chapel, which is sited upon a cell or cave in which this Scottish Saint spent some time.

A papal bull dated 6 May 1493, refers to the parish church of the Bass, or the Chapel of St Baldred, being noviter erecta (newly established) at that time.

According to one website Following the murder of King James at Perth in 1437 Neil escaped from the Bass and was proclaimed 8th Chief of the Clan Mackay.

[23]After almost 600 years, the Lauders lost the Bass in the 17th century during Cromwell's invasion, and the castle subsequently (in 1671) became a notorious gaol to which for many decades religious and political prisoners, especially Covenanters were sent.

[26] Alexander Shields the Covenanting preacher, imprisoned on the island, later described the Bass as "a dry and cold rock in the sea, where they had no fresh water nor any provision but what they had brought many miles from the country, and when they got it, it would not keep unspoiled".

[31] An extraordinary chapter in the Bass Rock's history was its seizure by four Jacobites imprisoned in its castle, which they then held against government forces for nearly three years, 1691–1694.

During the ensuing years, supporters of exiled King James, known as ‘Jacobites’, fought unsuccessful wars of resistance in Scotland and Ireland, where Catholic allegiances were strongest.

The Bass Rock's castle was one of the last places in Scotland to be surrendered to William III's new government, being handed over in 1690 by governor Charles Maitland.

On 18 June 1691, they managed to seize the Bass Rock's castle while the much-depleted garrison was outside its walls for the difficult task of unloading a coal ship on the rocky landing stage.

When news spread on the nearby Scottish mainland, Jacobite supporters made covert boat trips to the Bass Rock with supplies and with men who wished to join the defenders.

William III's government sent two large warships to bombard the castle but its position high above a sheer rock face made it impregnable.

In early 1694 the Bass Rock prisoners’ leader, Captain Michael Middleton, negotiated a visit by government representatives to discuss a solution.

Middleton guessed that his adversaries lacked any means for estimating the number of defenders or their reserves of food, in view of the covert comings and goings to the island by ships from the mainland or from France.

On 18 April 1694 the Jacobite defenders accepted the very attractive surrender terms which they were offered – freedom, free transport to France if they wished, and release from prison for people who had been caught helping them from the mainland.

Described famously by naturalists as "one of the wildlife wonders of the world" (often credited to David Attenborough),[35] it was also awarded BBC Countryfile Magazine's Nature Reserve of the Year, following a nomination by Chris Packham, in 2014/15.

When viewed from the mainland, large regions of the surface appear white owing to the sheer number of birds (and their droppings, which give off 152,000 kg of ammonia per year, equivalent to the achievements of 10 million broilers).

[37] The natural history of the rock was written about almost five hundred years ago in John Mair's De Gestis Scotorum ("The deeds of the Scots"), published in 1521.

[41] In mid-June 2022 highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) was detected in the northern gannets connected to the Bass Rock, at that time the world's largest colony.

The book begins with a dedication to Charles Baxter, a friend of Stevenson, written in his home in Western Samoa and says: There should be left in our native city some seed of the elect; some long-legged, hot-headed youth must repeat to-day our dreams and wanderings of so many years ago; he will relish the pleasure, which should have been ours, to follow among named streets and numbered houses the country walks of David Balfour, to identify Dean, and Silvermills, and Broughton, and Hope Park, and Pilrig, and poor old Lochend – if it still be standing, and the Figgate Whins [the area near Portobello] – if there be any of them left; or to push (on a long holiday) so far afield as Gillane or the Bass.

So, perhaps, his eye shall be opened to behold the series of the generations, and he shall weigh with surprise his momentous and nugatory gift of life.Chapter XIV is entitled simply The Bass, and gives a long description of the island, which is described as "just the one crag of rock, as everybody knows, but great enough to carve a city from".

When the waves were anyway great they roared about the rock like thunder and the drums of armies, dreadful, but merry to hear, and it was in the calm days when a man could daunt himself with listening; so many still, hollow noises haunted and reverberated in the porches of the rock.Scottish writer Bruce Marshall used Bass Rock as the miraculous destination of the "Garden of Eden", a dance hall of dubious reputation in his 1938 novel Father Malachy's Miracle.

Jane Lane’s 1950 Fortress in the Forth is a historical novel based on the actual 1691–1694 seizure of the Bass Rock castle by four Jacobite officers imprisoned there and their subsequent defence of the island against William III's government for nearly three years.

The final page summarises the differences between this fictional account and actual events: the names of the main characters have been changed to justify novelist inventions about their personalities, but otherwise the story largely follows the historical facts.

A pibroch was written by Iain Dall MacAoidh (MacKay), commemorating Neil Bhass' imprisonment and escape from the island, entitled "The Unjust Incarceration".