Interesting Place Names and History of Scotland

Compiled by

Emily Stehr

Scots, Wha Hae Wi' Wallace Bled

Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled,Scots, wham Bruce has aften led,

Welcome to your gory bed,Or to victory!

Now's the day, and now's the hour;See the front o' battle lour,

See approach proud Edward's power— Chains and slavery!

Wha will be a traitor-knave?Wha can fill a coward's grave?Wha sae base as be a slave?

Let him turn and flee!

Wha for Scotland's king and lawFreedom's sword will strongly draw,

Freeman stand or freeman fa',Let him follow me!

By oppression's woes and pains,By your sons in servile chains,

We will drain our dearest veins,But they shall be free!

Lay the proud usurpers low!Tyrants fall in ev'ry foe!Liberty's in ev'ry blow!

Let us do or die!

Robert Burns

*INTRODUCTION*

I am an American of European descent. According to my family’s lore, I have genetic predecessors from Germany, France, England, Scotland, Hungry, with some Native American genes thrown into the mix as well. With the onset of genetic testing, I obtained cheek swabs from my father and mother to see what the geneticist’s report was compared to the family lore. My dad showed Haplogroup RB1 and my mom showed Haplogroup U5, which I translate as thus: “Dad gave me Cro-Magnon genes, and Mom gave me Sami reindeer herder genes.” Not really that exciting compared to the family lore, but the geneticist report has a scientific basis that family lore does not.

All this to say, I was disappointed that the geneticist report was unable to identify a specific Scottish gene area in my genetics. Because Scotland is awesome. Bagpipes, rolling hills, and the Loch Ness monster. I have a thing for cryptozoology. My husband and I had a blast visiting Loch Ness and failing miserably to find any signs of the monster. We also got the chance to visit other areas of Scotland, and were enraptured by her beauty.

So this is my homage to interesting place names and history of Scotland. These words are not my own; I compiled them into a unique collection that taught me so much about Scotland. I hope you enjoy and learn something too.

I can be reached at emilystehr@hotmail.com. Cheers!

*TABLE OF CONTENTS*

*TOPONYMY*

**ACT OF UNION**

**ANGLES**

**BRITONS**

**BUILDING OF THE WALLS**

**CELTS**

**GAELIC LANGUAGE**

**HADRIAN’S WALL**

**PICTS**

**SCOTS**

**ABERDEEN**

***CULTS, ABERDEEN***

***FOREST OF STOCKET, ABERDEEN***

***TORRY, ABERDEEN***

**ABERDEENSHIRE**

***DUNOTTAR, ABERDEENSHIRE 1 ***

***FETTERANGUS, ABERDEENSHIRE***

***FYVIE, ABERDEENSHIRE***

***HATTON OF FINTRAY, ABERDEENSHIRE***

***JOHNSHAVEN, ABERDEENSHIRE***

***KINCARDINE O’NEIL, ABERDEENSHIRE***

***MONYMUSK, ABERDEENSHIRE***

***STONE OF MORPHIE, ABERDEENSHIRE***

***STONEHAVEN, ABERDEENSHIRE***

**ANGUS**

***ARBROATH, ANGUS***

***BLACK WATCH MEMORIAL, ANGUS***

***DUNNICHEN, ANGUS***

***FORFAR, ANGUS 2 ***

***INVERQUHARITY CASTLE, ANGUS***

***RESTENNETH PRIORY, ANGUS***

**ARGYLL AND BUTE**

**ARGYLL**

**ARGYLLSHIRE**

**BUTE**

**BUTESHIRE**

***ARDENTINNY, ARGYLL AND BUTE***

***BURNT ISLANDS, ARGYLL AND BUTE***

***CARA ISLAND, ARGYLL AND BUTE***

***DUNADD, ARGYLL AND BUTE 3 ***

***IONA, ARGYLL AND BUTE***

***LOCHGILPHEAD, ARGYLL AND BUTE***

***SOUND OF MULL, ISLE OF MULL, ARGYLL AND BUTE 4 ***

***TOBERMORY, ARGYLL AND BUTE***

**CLACKMANNANSHIRE**

**CLACKMANNAN**

**CLACKMANNANSHIRE**

***DOLLAR, CLACKMANNANSHIRE***

**DUMFRIES AND GALLOWAY**

**DUMFRIES**

**DUMFRIESSHIRE**

**GALLOWAY**

***AIRD OF KELLS, DUMFRIES AND GALLOWAY***

***BRUNANBURH, LOCATION UNCERTAIN, POSSIBLY ANNANDALE, DUMFRIES AND GALLOWAY 5 ***

***CASTLE KENNEDY, DUMFRIES AND GALLOWAY***

***ECCLEFECHAN, DUMFRIES AND GALLOWAY***

***GRETNA GREEN, DUMFRIES AND GALLOWAY***

***SWEETHEART ABBEY, DUMFRIES AND GALLOWAY***

**DUNDEE**

***MENZIESHILL, DUNDEE***

***WILLIAM MCGONAGALL***

**EAST AYRSHIRE**

**AYR**

**AYRSHIRE**

***LOUDOUN HILL, AYRSHIRE***

**EAST DUNBARTONSHIRE**

**DUNBARTON**

**DUNBARTONSHIRE**

***AUCHENHOWIE, EAST DUNBARTONSHIRE***

***BALJAFFRAY, EAST DUNBARTONSHIRE***

***BISHOPBRIGGS, EAST DUNBARTONSHIRE***

***CLACHAN OF CAMPSIE, EAST DUNBARTONSHIRE***

**EAST LOTHIAN**

***BERWICK, EAST LOTHIAN 6 ***

***BURN’S MOTHER’S WELL, EAST LOTHIAN***

***DUNBAR, EAST LOTHIAN***

***JOHN MUIR WAY, EAST LOTHIAN***

***SALTCOATS CASTLE, EAST LOTHIAN***

***STONEYPATH TOWER, EAST LOTHIAN***

**EAST RENFREWSHIRE**

**RENFREW**

**RENFREWSHIRE**

***GIFFNOCK, EAST RENFREWSHIRE***

***STAMPERLAND, EAST RENFREWSHIRE***

**FALKIRK**

***BONNYBRIDGE, FALKIRK***

***CALIFORNIA, FALKIRK***

***DUNMORE PINEAPPLE, FALKIRK***

***ELPHINSTONE TOWER, FALKIRK***

***SKINFLATS, FALKIRK***

**FIFE**

***ABERCROMBIE, FIFE***

***AUCHTERMUCHTY, FIFE***

***FALKLAND PALACE, FIFE 7 ***

***FIFE NESS, FIFE***

***INVERKEITHING, FIFE***

***KINGHORN, FIFE 8 ***

***ST ANDREWS CASTLE, FIFE***

***TULLIALLAN, FIFE***

**GLASGOW**

***AUCHENSHUGGLE, GLASGOW***

***CASTLEMILK, GLASGOW***

***CROSSMYLOOF, GLASGOW***

***HOWWOOD, GLASGOW***

***MOTHERWELL, GLASGOW***

**HIGHLAND**

***AIRD OF SLEAT, HIGHLAND***

***BACK OF KEPPOCH, HIGHLAND***

***BALLACHULISH, HIGHLAND***

***CARBISDALE, HIGHLAND***

***DRUMNADROCHIT, HIGHLAND***

***EILEAN DONAN CASTLE, HIGHLAND 9 ***

***GLENCOE, HIGHLAND 10 ***

***INCHNADAMPH, HIGHLAND***

***INVERLOCHY, HIGHLAND***

***JOHN O’GROATS, HIGHLAND***

***KINLOCH, ISLE OF RUM, HIGHLAND 11 ***

***LOCH NESS, HIGHLAND***

***PORTMAHOMACK, HIGHLAND***

***TARSKAVAIG, HIGHLAND***

**MIDLOTHIAN**

***EDINBURGH, MIDLOTHIAN***

****HOLYROOD, EDINBURGH, MIDLOTHIAN 12 ****

****NETHERBOW GATE, EDINBURGH, MIDLOTHIAN****

***SOUTRA AISLE, MIDLOTHIAN***

**MORAY**

***ARCHIESTOWN, MORAY***

***DUFFUS CASTLE, MORAY***

***LOSSIEMOUTH, MORAY***

***NELSON TOWER, MORAY***

***URQUHART, MORAY***

**NORTH AYRSHIRE**

***LOCHRANZA, NORTH AYRSHIRE***

***PORTINCROSS, NORTH AYRSHIRE***

***SALTCOATS, NORTH AYRSHIRE***

**NORTH LANARKSHIRE**

**LANARK**

**LANARKSHIRE**

***CASTLE CARY, NORTH LANARKSHIRE***

***HOLYTOWN, NORTH LANARKSHIRE***

***KILSYTH, NORTH LANARKSHIRE***

***MOTHERWELL, NORTH LANARKSHIRE***

***QUEENZIEBURN, NORTH LANARKSHIRE***

**ORKNEY ISLANDS**

***LADY, ORKNEY ISLANDS***

***MAES HOWE, ORKNEY ISLANDS***

***PAPA WESTRAY, ORKNEY ISLANDS***

***SCAR, ORKNEY ISLANDS***

***ST MARGARET’S HOPE, ORKNEY ISLANDS***

***STONE CIRCLES OF STENNESS AND BRODGAR, ORKNEY ISLANDS***

**PERTH AND KINROSS**

**PERTH**

**PERTHSHIRE**

**KINROSS**

**KINROSS-SHIRE***

***BATTLE OF THE CLANS, PERTH AND KINROSS***

***DUNDURN, PERTH AND KINROSS 13 ***

***KENMORE, PERTH AND KINROSS 14 ***

***RUTHVEN CASTLE, PERTH AND KINROSS 15 ***

***SCONE, PERTH AND KINROSS 16 ***

**RENFREWSHIRE**

***PAISLEY, RENFREWSHIRE***

**SCOTTISH BORDERS**

***ASHIESTEIL, SCOTTISH BORDERS***

***BATTLE OF ANCRUM MOOR, SCOTTISH BORDERS***

***BATTLE OF CARHAM, SCOTTISH BORDERS 17 ***

***CUTHBERT OF LINDISFARNE, SCOTTISH BORDERS***

***EILDON HILL, SCOTTISH BORDERS***

***LADYKIRK, SCOTTISH BORDERS***

***LAUDER, SCOTTISH BORDERS 18 ***

***MOREBATTLE, SCOTTISH BORDERS***

***ROXBURGH, SCOTTISH BORDERS 19 ***

***THE BORDER ABBEYS, SCOTTISH BORDERS 20 ***

**SHETLAND ISLANDS**

***BURRAVOE, SHETLAND ISLANDS***

***ST NINIAN’S ISLE, SHETLAND ISLANDS***

**SOUTH AYRSHIRE**

***AUCHENSOUL, SOUTH AYRSHIRE***

***GRIMMET, SOUTH AYRSHIRE***

***KNOCKDOLIAN, SOUTH AYRSHIRE***

***LADYBANK, SOUTH AYRSHIRE***

***MAIDENS, SOUTH AYRSHIRE***

**SOUTH LANARKSHIRE**

***CRAWFORDJOHN, SOUTH LANARKSHIRE***

***DRUMCLOG, SOUTH LANARKSHIRE***

***QUARTER, SOUTH LANARKSHIRE***

***THANKERTON, SOUTH LANARKSHIRE***

***TINTO, SOUTH LANARKSHIRE***

**STIRLING**

**STIRLINGSHIRE**

***ABBEY CRAIG, STIRLING 21 ***

***ARGYLL’S LODGINGS, STIRLING***

***BANNOCKBURN, STIRLING 22 ***

***CAMBUSKENNETH ABBEY, STIRLING***

***INCHMAHOME, STIRLING***

***STIRLING BRIDGE, STIRLING***

***STIRLING CASTLE, STIRLING***

***WEST DUNBARTONSHIRE***

***ANTONINE WALL***

***INCHMURRIN, WEST DUNBARTONSHIRE***

***WILLIAM WALLACE***

**WEST LOTHIAN**

***ECCLESMACHAN, WEST LOTHIAN***

***HOPETOUN, WEST LOTHIAN***

***TORPHICHEN, WEST LOTHIAN***

*TOPONYMY*

Toponymy is the study of place names (toponyms), their origins, meanings, use, and typology. The word ‘toponymy’ is derived from the Greek words topos ‘place’ and onoma ‘name’. Toponymy is a branch of onomastics, which is the study of names of all kinds.23

**ACT OF UNION**

Andrew Fisher clarifies: “William and his wife, Mary, who died in 1694, had had no children; the obvious successor was therefore Mary’s sister, Anne. Unlike her sister, Anne, married to Prince George of Denmark, was extremely fertile, although of her 17 children most died in infancy. The death of her heir, William, duke of Gloucester, in 1700 at the age of 11, provoked a crisis about the eventual succession. Without reference to Scotland, the English parliament, by the Act of Settlement of 1701, decided that if Anne was predeceased by all of her children, as was indeed to be the case, the crown should be offered to Sophia, Electress of Hanover, granddaughter of James VI of Scotland (James I of England) and ‘the heirs of her body being Protestant’. The Scots in their turn made their own decision on the succession; the Act of Security of 1703 provided for them to make their own choice of a successor to Anne under certain circumstances. Not until the queen agreed to accept this would the Scots grant her supplies. If there was a loathing for the English in Scotland, in the south there were stronger emotions still, accentuated after the death of James VII in September 1701. For when Louis XIV of France, who was at war with England over the Spanish succession, recognized James VII’s son, Prince James Edward, as James VIII of Scotland (James III of England), it was viewed as a threat to England, where the thought of the Scots welcoming a Catholic restoration could not be tolerated. There was now the possibility of war between Scotland and England. Matters worsened with the Aliens Act of 1705 by which the English threatened to treat the Scots as aliens unless they agreed to the succession of Sophia and her heirs, and with the hanging in Scotland of three English merchant sailors on a trumped-up charge of piracy.

“It became clear, however, that war would benefit neither country. Scotland needed trade with England and the English, in the war with France, which would continue until 1713, knew that their northern boundary must be secure. Both William and Anne had realized that peace between Scotland and England was imperative and that it would best be found through union. Even as he lay dying, William had warned the English parliament that ‘nothing can contribute more to the present and future peace, security and happiness of England and Scotland than a firm and entire union’. Anne followed William’s lead with a plea that parliament look at means of achieving union. Despite anger and opposition in Scotland, where it was argued that the people would be ‘utterly ruined should these laws take effect’, 31 Scottish commissioners and a similar number of English commissioners were working on proposals for union by April 1706. It was inevitable that there would be a violent reaction to the terms for union when these were presented to the Scottish parliament on 12 October 1706. There were riots in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dumfries, and such was the atmosphere that English troops took up station on the border, ready to intervene in Scotland. In parliament, John Hamilton, second Lord Belhaven cried that the union meant the murder of Scotland and spoke, as so many did, of surrender. Against such a background and with prolonged debate the terms were confirmed, in contrast to the smooth passage the terms enjoyed in the English parliament at Westminster. In the end, the language of Belhaven counted for less than that of William Seton of Pitmedden who saw union more realistically: ‘This nation, being poor, and without force to protect its commerce, cannot reap great advantage by it, till it partake of the trade and protection of some powerful neighbor nation.’

“Scotland, after 400 years of independence from England, poor, beset by famine, and with the disaster of Darien still fresh in the memory, accepted what it could no longer refuse. On Tuesday 25 March 1707, Queen Anne’s commissioner to the Scottish parliament, James Douglas, second duke of Queensberry, and henceforth the ‘Union Duke’, pronounced the sentence, ‘My Lords and Gentlemen, the Public Business of this session being now over, it is full time to put an end to it’. The Scottish parliament would never meet again. The Act of Union passed into law on 1 May 1707. Scotland sent members to the Commons and peers to the Lords, received that equality of trade with England, which was held to be so important, accepted the succession of the Electress Sophie, agreed to a common system of coinage, but retained its own system of law. But just as the Act of Union did not bring an immediate prosperity to Scotland, so it did not remove the Jacobite threat. The year after the Act of Union was passed, the French attempted to land the young James Francis Edward, son of James VII of Scotland, on the Scottish coast at Burntisland. Admiral Forbin was driven off by bad weather and the proximity of George Byng, Viscount Torrington, with 26 ships – but it was a warning. The union continued unpopular in Scotland, where Belhaven’s view that it meant ‘entire surrender’ had seemed accurate in the light of what was seen as English arrogance. The financial advantages of the union to the Scots were not accruing and the inability of their representatives in parliament to affect policy was much resented. As late as 1713, when Earl Findlater argued against the union in the House of Lords, he was defeated in the subsequent vote by a margin of only four. In such an atmosphere, the Jacobites thought that they had good cause to hope for a restoration of the Stuart dynasty.”24

**ANGLES**

Andrew Fisher documents: “The Angles came to the province of Britain from their homeland in Europe, identified by Bede as Angelen and corresponding with modern Angeln at the base of the Schleswig-Jutland peninsula. Unlike the Picts and Scots they came not as enemies of the Romans, but at their invitation. The use of foederati or federates, that is, allies from barbarian tribes introduced into the empire to defend its frontiers in return for subsidies and grants of land, was tried as a matter of expediency in the third century. It was now developed from an expedient into a practice, and the Angles were imported into England in the course of the next century.

“At some stage in the fifth century, impossible to date, the relationship between the Angles and the post-Roman government of the province changed into the more familiar one of invasion and settlement. Two other tribes, the Saxons, who came from the area between the rivers Weser and Elbe, and the Jutes, whose territory was in the northern part of the Schleswig-Jutland peninsula, were also involved. The progress of the Angles northwards through eastern England and thus in the direction of Scotland was slow. The resistance of the native British population was considerable, and it is even possible that it reached such a peak that about the year 530 some of the invaders fled back to their German homelands. In 547, however, under their king, Ida the Flamebearer, they captured the British fortress of Dinguardi, now Bamburgh, which became the capital of their kingdom of Bernicia. This was to be the springboard for further expansion westwards into the land of the Britons and northwards into the Lowlands of Scotland. What Ida had begun, Ethelfrith, who became king near the end of the century, continued but to greater affect. His victory over the Scots in 603 was an event of such consequence that, according to Bede, from this time until 731, when Bede completed the Ecclesiastical History, ‘no king of the Scots (has) dared to come against the English in battle’.

“At Degsastan, probably Dawston in Liddlesdale, the king of the Scots, Aedan MacGarban, lost almost the whole of his army. Among the many dead at Degsastan was his son, Domangart, lost like his brothers, Artuir and Echoid Find, who had died in battle against the southern Picts. Aedan, it should be noted, had been so disturbed by the advance of the Angles into the southwest of Scotland that he and his army undertook what was a remarkable march for that time, of some 120 miles. They marched from Aedan’s capital at the fortress of Dunadd or Dunatt, which was situated on the Crinan isthmus of the Kintyre peninsula, in a disastrous attempt to halt the advance. This march was surpassed, however, in 616 by Ethelfrith, who having defeated Aedan, led his army across England from his capital at Bamburgh to Chester (approximately 175 miles) to inflict a severe beating on the Britons of north Wales. This was perhaps part of a general strategy to drive a wedge between them and their natural allies, the Britons of the kingdom of Rheged and Strathclyde. Ethelfrith was killed not long after Chester, a victim of an internal struggle for the kingship of Northumbria. Although this event was one in a series of similar political upheavals, which would, in the long run, seriously weaken Northumbria, it did not impede the momentum of the Angles’ expansion into Scotland. The British kingdom of Strathclyde was deprived of that part of its territory, which stretched deep into England; at some unknown date in the seventh century the land between the Solway and the Mersey passed under the dominion of the Angles. At the same time as they were exercising their lordship over the Britons to the west, the Angles, under Ethelfrith’s immediate successors, Edwin, Oswald, and Oswy, had strengthened their hold on the Lothians of Scotland. Nechtansmere put an end to their ambitions north of the Forth; their losses there meant, as Bede would later put it, that the kingdom of the Angles of Northumbria had ‘narrower bounds’. But if their kingdom was indeed more limited in territory than it had been before Nechtansmere, the influence of the Angles on Scotland would persist in one remarkable way long after their grip on the southern part of the country had slackened.

“The eighth century saw a diminution of the authority of Northumbria. The kingdom was not only torn with internal strife of the kind which had brought about the death of Ethelfrith, but it was beset by raids from Scandinavia. The language of the Angles, however, had become so entrenched in Scotland that it was able to survive these and other events and to emerge as a potent force in the continuing history of Scotland. Its fate was in complete contrast to that of the other languages of Scotland. Pictish, established in Scotland for centuries before the introduction of English, may well have been in decline before the accession of Kenneth MacAlpin altered the political complexion of the Pictish kingdom, and would eventually disappear. The other languages of Scotland, of Celtic origin, would likewise know a decline and, in recovering, would become the tools of minorities. The language of the Angles, Germanic in origin and a relative newcomer to Scotland, gained and maintained the primacy, which it has not subsequently lost.”25

**BRITONS**

Andrew Fisher observes: “Of the four peoples of whom Bede wrote in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, it was perhaps the Britons who were most radically affected by developments in the period between the Roman departures from Britain to 731, the year in which Bede closed his account. Their culture and language suffered an almost total extinction in the east of Britain, from the southeast of England to the Forth in Scotland. Not even the often unquestionably heroic resistance associated with the name of Arthur, the ubiquitous commander or even king, could prevent that catastrophe. The pressure from Angles, Saxons and Jutes was not to be denied, dislodging the Britons and forcing them into retreat where it did not exterminate them. The vigorous language of these Germanic invaders put

down its roots in the areas of political change and settlement. The Britons, gradually withdrawing into Cornwall, Wales, the northwest of England and the west of Scotland south of the Clyde, had quickly divided the land into a number of kingdoms, the boundaries of which varied according to circumstances. Even that line of British resistance was to be broken on occasion, most notably by the Battle of Chester in 616 to which reference has been made. Ethelfrith’s decision to march to Chester may have been an answer, long delayed, to the Battle of Ardderyd, thought to be Arthuret, eight miles to the north of Carlisle. Here, in 573, the Britons of the kingdom of Rheged, under the leadership of Rederich joined Rheged, its capital probably in Luguvallium or Carlisle, with the kingdom of the Britons of southwest Scotland, to form Strathclyde. Its new capital was at Alcluith or Dun Breatann, the fort of the Britons, modern Dumbarton. It was in Ethelfrith’s interests to sever the connection of this kingdom of Strathclyde with the Britons of Wales, and this he succeeded in doing.

“The kingdom of Strathclyde, in its form under Rederich, did not in any case survive. Ethelfrith’s successors brought the English part that is Cumbria under their control. Scottish Strathclyde, roughly the shires of Ayr, Dumbarton, Lanark, Renfrew and Stirling, was to enjoy a lengthier and somewhat more distinguished if no less turbulent history. Its independence was often challenged, by the Picts, the Angles of Northumbria, and by raiders from Scandinavia. Under such attacks it could play only a subordinate role in events, although it was not entirely without some impact. A short resurgence of the power of the Britons, coinciding with the decline of Northumbria, allowed the Britons of Cumbria to unite with their kinsmen in Scotland. A similar episode occurred in the tenth century but was brought to a conclusion at the Battle of Brunanburgh, a site somewhere in the north of England. The lands of the Britons of Strathclyde had been devastated by Athelstan, king of Wessex and Mercia and acknowledged as king of all the English between 926 and 939. Therefore the Britons entered into an unlikely alliance with Olaf, king of the Vikings of Dublin, who sought to reclaim from Athelstan the kingdom of York, as well as with the Picts and the Scots whose lands had also been ravaged by Athelstan. Unfortunately they suffered defeat at Brunanburgh. Eight years later, Strathclyde, once again devastated by a king of the English, this time Edmund, Athelstan’s half-brother, was handed over by him to Malcolm I, king of the Scots and the descendant of Kenneth MacAlpin.”26

**BUILDING OF THE WALLS**

Andrew Fisher recounts: “After Agricola’s departure to Rome for a triumph which Domitian, jealous of Agricola’s achievements, if we are to believe Tacitus, had arranged for him, the Romans maintained a presence in Scotland with the line of the Forth and Clyde as the frontier. Below this line there was much reconstruction of forts, with Dalswinton in the west and Newstead in the east the key positions. By 100 they had, however, effectively abandoned their original plan. Their inclination, as always, was to mark their boundaries, and this they did with the building of Hadrian’s Wall between 122 and 128. Hadrian, who succeeded Trajan as emperor in 117, arrived in Britain in 121 for a detailed tour of inspection. Having decided upon his policy, he appointed Antonius Platorius Nepos as governor in the next year with instructions to carry it out. The wall, 73 miles (122 kilometers) in length, stretching from Bowness on the Solway to Wallsend on the Tyne, and made of stone and turf, had 16 larger forts with smaller forts or ‘mile castles’ every thousand paces. It was a remarkable construction, much of it visible today, attracting understandable attention from the historian and archeologist and admiration from the tourist. However, the decision to build it in the first place was essentially an admission of the ambivalent attitude of the Romans to the problem of Scotland. Unable to impose their authority permanently on the country, they seemed unwilling to leave it alone, despite the threat from its tribes. Hadrian’s Wall, a

symbol of an empire to which Scotland could never be made to conform, was intended to bar the Scottish tribes from Roman Britain and to permit the Romans to undertake from its shelter those periodic descents upon Scotland which they could not resist. Inevitably in the case of the former it ultimately failed, as we can now appreciate, but not before the latter had been attempted under various emperors.

“Within less than 20 years of the start of the wall and within a few months of the death of the inspiration behind it, Hadrian’s successor as emperor, Antoninus Pius, had instructed the governor of Britain, Quintus Lollius Urbicus, to push the Roman frontier back into Scotland. This Urbicus did and himself built a wall, at the narrowest part of Scotland, between Bridgeness on the Forth and Old Kilpatrick on the Clyde, a distance of 37 miles (60 kilometers). The Antonine Wall, made of turf and about 9 feet in height (3 meters), was evidence of a new Roman determination to bring Scotland, or at least the Lowlands into the empire. It proved impossible to maintain the fiction of Roman occupation. The wall, completed in about 144, was overrun by the tribes of the Maeatae and the Caledonii at least twice during the next 40 years and retaken by the Romans on each occasion. Realism, lack of manpower, and strategic demands combined to force the Romans to withdraw again from Scotland before the end of the second century. So weak had their authority become, even in the north of England that elements of the Scottish tribes had penetrated beyond Hadrian’s Wall to join with the Brigantes in the sack of York in 197.

“In the Emperor Septimius Severus the Romans found, briefly, a second Agricola. Under him the restoration of Hadrian’s Wall was put in hand as a prelude to his own visit to Britain. He arrived in 208 at the suggestion of the governor, Senecio. Severus, resolved to subdue those Scottish tribes, the Maeatae of Strathearn and the Caledonii of the Central Highlands, who had allied themselves with the Brigantes in the rising of 197, imported experienced troops from the continent. From a base at Cramond, Severus’ army, either under his own leadership or that of his son, Caracalla, when Severus himself was ill in 210, reached as far as the northeast. Both the Maeatae and the Caledonii were defeated, but Severus knew that he had not accomplished his purpose. He was preparing another expedition to Scotland when he died at York in 211, a fortunate event for the tribes against whom it was to be directed. Severus was ambitious enough to envisage the reoccupation of at least some of the country and had demonstrated that he was competent enough to succeed. As it was, he had left Hadrian’s Wall once again secure and Scotland itself, with its tribes still recovering after Severus’ death, enjoying a period of peace and some prosperity. The growing number of village settlements in the southeast of the country in the century after his death testified to this. Scotland, then, was free of the Romans with the exception of those outpost forts, which were maintained with difficulty immediately to the north of Hadrian’s Wall. They can have presented no serious obstacle to the tribes of Scotland. These tribes were about to exact their revenge on the Romans, breaching or outflanking the great wall, which had been erected to pen them inside their own country.”27

**CELTS**

Andrew Fisher says: “It was during the Iron Age that, in all probability, the people known to us as the Celts established themselves in Scotland. Their reputation is a considerable one despite the fact that their numbers in the Iron Age may have been relatively small. That reputation is to some degree the result of their opposition to the Romans whose campaigns against them in Europe were chronicled by Julius Caesar and in Scotland by Cornelius Tacitus. The Celts lived in tribes with an economy based on

crops and animal husbandry. But it was for their fighting qualities that they had first been noted in Europe, with their invasion of northern Italy, and the capture of Rome in 390 BC. Their westward move had brought them from France to England before they descended upon Scotland and then Ireland. Their religion, organized by the Druids and involving human sacrifice, appalled the Romans and led to its extirpation in Britain in the reign of Nero.

“All this rather simplifies what was in fact a complex situation involving a life style which included an oral tradition of learning, a well-developed legal system, close-knit family and social obligations and a language, which, with regional variants, allowed the Celtic inhabitants of Scotland to converse with those of England, Wales, Cornwall, Ireland, and northern France. So tight was the relationship between the Celts of England and those of France that it forced Caesar to cross the Channel in two attempts to break in. Perhaps because of their history as much as because of their changing conditions, the Celts were conscious of the importance of strong defensive positions. In Scotland they took part – it would be incorrect to say that they introduced the idea – in the building of hill-forts. The larger ones may mark tribal capitals, for the majority of the people lived in farmsteads built not according to defensive criteria but as the fertility of the land allowed. Hill-forts are common in the Lowlands but rare in the Highlands. There [the Highlands] the fortification was more often the broch, a circular tower of dry masonry with cavity walls, examples of which have been found in Orkney and Shetland and on the mainland in Sutherland and Caithness. Although the broch is now usually dated to the first century AD (that is after the Roman invasion), it reflects a much older tradition. Other types of fortification included the ring-fort or the dun (a name which has persisted in a variety of locations throughout Scotland), or the artificial island of stones and tree-trunks called the crannog, one of which has been discovered at Ardanaiseig on Loch Awe in Argyll. Their efficacy and the resistance of the native population of Scotland to invasion were to be tested by the arrival, in the latter part of the first century AD, of the most formidable incomers Scotland had yet known, the Romans.”28

**GAELIC LANGUAGE**

Neil Oliver spotlights: “It was early evening and the place was full of Gaelic-speaking locals. Only one person, a Lewis man, was able to join in the chat without first asking everyone to speak English. It is a strange and vaguely unsettling experience to be in your own country and yet find yourself surrounded by fellow Scots whose language you do not understand. Beyond ‘Ciamar a tha thu? – ‘How are you?’ – and a few place names like Buachaille Etive Mor – ‘the Big Shepard of Etive’, in Glencoe – I am utterly lost among the Gaels. I would stand more chance of understanding and making myself understood in a pub in Paris, or Madrid, and that is saying something.

“At one point a man asked, ‘Why did some people want to destroy Gaelic? It’s the first language we all had.’ It is a good question, and one that lies at the heart of an uncomfortable truth.

“Scotland is a place of two countries, two languages and two cultures. Most Scots do not speak Gaelic and whether or not they admit it to themselves, they have to view their country through the prism of a language that was once foreign to the land – English.

“Scots Gaelic, like Irish and Welsh, hangs like a last apple of autumn from the old, Celtic branch of the Indo-European tree of languages. In the millennium before the birth of Christ, Celtic languages were being spoken right across Western Europe. Scots Gaelic seems to be part of the cultural package that

arrived with farming; indeed it is possible that hunter-gatherers had to pick up the new language in order to understand the business of farming in the first place.

“Whether it came with the farmers themselves – a new population of settlers – or arrived just as new words that has been passed from person to person over great distances, hardly matters. The point is that Gaelic, or a language very similar to Gaelic, was spoken throughout the British Isles long before anyone gave a moment’s thought to anything ‘English’. As the man in the pub on Skye said, it is the first language we all had. The story of how that first language fell from grace is also the story of how modern Scotland became the country it is today, a country divided.

“There is an old tale of a medieval Spanish traveler who came to Edinburgh to see the sights. When he got home someone asked him what the most wonderful thing he had seen was. The traveler thought for a moment and then answered: ‘A grand man called MacDonald, with a great train of men after him, called neither duke nor marquis.’

“By the time young James Stewart was being captured by English pirates off the Norfolk coast, the MacDonalds thought themselves ‘Righ Innse Gall’- the kings of the Hebrides. Along with the MacDougalls and the MacRuaries, they were descendants of Somerled, the Viking warlord who in the twelfth century had established a ‘kingdom’ stretching from the Isle of Man to the Butt of Lewis and from Kintyre to Knoydart. Norse-speaking Vikings they may once have been, but for reasons lost to time they had acquired the Gaelic language of their new home, gradually forgetting the tongue they had known before. The island kingdom, with its ancient traditions of seaborne warfare, had become part of the kingdom of Scotland in 1266. But that had not stopped the separate development of the unique culture of the Isles.”29

**HADRIAN’S WALL**

Neil Oliver underscores: “Hadrian’s Wall drew an unbroken line from one side of the country to the other, between the Tyne in the east and the Solway in the west. So that none could doubt the might of those who had built it (in just six short years, the work of three legions), it bristled with forts and watch-towers. It was painted brilliant white with lime mortar to make it visible for miles around. On the one hand it was a means of controlling trade moving north and south – passage through heavily guarded checkpoints along its length providing welcome opportunities to collect taxes. More than that, the wall was a line in the sand: where civilization ended and barbarism began.”30

**PICTS**

Andrew Fisher comments: “As we have already seen, the first appearance of the Picts in recorded history was in the year 297, in the reign of Emperor Diocletian, when the writer Eumenius mentioned a raid beyond Hadrian’s Wall by Picts and Scots. Whether the two had previously acted in concert against the Romans is unknown. However, it is unlikely that 297 was indeed the earliest occasion on which the Picts had struck at the Romans, in whose demonology their place was henceforth assured. Of the four peoples of Scotland we know least of the Picts, despite their undoubted contribution to its history. This is in part the consequence of a natural reliance on Roman sources for information, since they do not always clearly distinguish between individual units within a larger group. It was their practice to apply the name of the largest tribe to others with a separate identity. This was the case, for example, with the Caledonii; the primacy accorded to them by the Romans, it may be argued, is undeserved when they are

compared to the Picts. It is thus unclear whether the ‘Painted Men’ of Eumenius, much given to personal adornment with jewelry and tattooing, were by then a distinct entity or one of those loose collection or confederacy of tribes of the type which had faced Agricola at Mons Graupius. Even the readiness with which we call them ‘Painted Men’ may come from a misconception. The word Picti may be rather an equivalent of the Celtic word Priteni, used to describe the inhabitants of Britain in the fourth century BC and later, under the influence of Latin, changing to Britanni. Nor can we pronounce with confidence on when the Picts came to Scotland, although it is possible that their arrival may have preceded that of the earliest Celtic immigrants.

“No reconstruction of their language can be attempted, since no Pictish literature has been passed down to us. We do not know what they called themselves; in this sense the term ‘Picts’ may cover several racial and cultural groups. Their sculptured stones, on sites which underline the importance to them of areas like the Tay valley, Moray and Fife, portray animals both wild and domesticated: the bull of the Aberdeen Angus strain, the wolf, the Celtic horse, the deer and the eagle among them. They also show weapons, armor and costume, tools such as the hammer and pincers, individual figures of hunters and soldiers and mythological, sometimes disturbing creatures like the dog-headed and spiral-tailed dragon, and Christian crosses with elaborate designs. That these Pictish stones represent a remarkable achievement, unequalled among the other peoples of Scotland at the time, is undisputed; the symbols which decorate them convey messages, which intrigue and baffle scholars.

“The two original Pictish kingdoms of the ‘northern’ and ‘southern’ Picts were united in a single, extensive kingdom by the late sixth or early seventh century. It covered Scotland north of the Forth-Clyde line, excluding Argyll, but including the Orkneys, where some of the most impressive stones have been found, and perhaps, the Shetlands. At this time the Picts had not lost the warlike attributes of their ancestors from Roman times. In the seventh century the main threat to the territory of the Picts came from the Angles of Northumbria who, having defeated the Scots in 603, moved northwards and over the Forth. Here the Angles were able to impose a settlement on the southern half of the Pictish kingdom. In 685, however, at Nechtansmere, generally identified as Dunnichen southeast of Forfar in Angus, they were crushed by the Picts under Brude, son of the Pictish king, Bile, and their king, Egfrith, was slain. This catastrophe was revealed, we are told, in a vision granted to the Northumbrian saint, Cuthbert, then on a visit to Carlisle. So heavy were the losses inflicted by the Picts that the Angles were forced to call a halt to their expansion into Pictland, and the southern boundary of the kingdom of the Picts was reestablished on its previous line. Freed from the threat posed by the Angles, the Picts were able to resume their interrupted struggle with the Scots of the kingdom of Dalriada, their former allies against the Romans. It has been suggested that Dalriada was created when the Scots, at the instigation of the Britons of Strathclyde who sought a barrier against the Picts, took Argyll from the latter. If this was so, it would help to explain the intense rivalry between the Picts and Scots. This situation would also confirm the strength of the Pictish kingdom since the Scots and the Britons were not natural allies. After Nechtansmere, the Picts appear to have been in their ascendency. In the middle of the eighth century, their king, Oengus or Angus, was recognized as their overlord by the Scots of Dalriada. The reign of Oengus (731-61) saw the Pictish kingdom at perhaps its peak of authority. Oengus defeated the Britons of Strathclyde in 756 and, an indication of his realistic approach to politics, did so in alliance with the Angles of Northumbria. Under the successors of Angus, shadowy figures not all of whose names are known to us, the Picts maintained their superiority over the Scots until the ninth century when, with the

accession of Kenneth MacAlpin as king of the Scots, the position was brutally and permanently reversed.”31

**SCOTS**

Andrew Fisher emphasizes: “We read in the Roman accounts that before the end of the fourth century, when the Twentieth Legion had been withdrawn from Chester and the fort of Caernarvon had been evacuated, Scots from Ireland were taking advantage of the situation to settle in Wales. They settled in Pembrokeshire, the Gower peninsula, and in the Lleyn peninsula of Caernarvonshire. It is reasonable to suppose that the rest of their compatriots were descending on Scotland with like purpose at the same time, although it cannot be said that such arrivals were in accordance with a general plan. The settlements in Wales did not remain independent, but in Scotland, albeit almost a hundred years later, there was a powerful Scottish presence in Argyll, the kingdom of Dalriada. The Scots of Argyll, Gaelic speaking, took the name of their kingdom from their homeland in Antrim in Northern Ireland. In 500 the connection with Ireland was strong; Domangart, son of Fergus, son of Erc, king of the Scots of Irish Dalriada was also king of the Scots of Argyll. The tradition of the link with Fergus, son of Erc, and the value of a close relationship with Ireland were important to the Scots of Dalriada as they strove to hold on to their territory on the west coast of Scotland. As late as the ninth century they were able to call on the aid of the Irish in their wars with the Picts, although the two kingdoms had long been distinguished as Irish and Scottish Dalriada.

“The Scots of Dalriada, ambitious and aggressive, added much of Galloway to Argyll and the Western Isles, including Iona – the importance of which as a center of Christianity was becoming evident under St Columba – before turning their attention to the east of Scotland under their king, Aedan MacGabran, who ruled from about 574 to 608. They may have been motivated by the need to provide for a growing population as well as by the desire for territorial aggrandizement but, once committed to a thrust to the east and over the Forth, they could not avoid conflict with the Picts and the Angles of Northumbria. Initial successes were followed by defeat at the hands of both the Picts and the Angles. The territory gained was quickly lost and the political importance of the Scots now diminished. Their advance across the central belt of the Scotland and northeastwards had, however, produced an interesting situation. As their influence in political and military terms waned, their language and culture, crucial factors in their eventual supplanting of the Picts, gained ground. The defeat of the Picts by the Scots in the ninth century came about so abruptly that it is difficult to comprehend.

“The Picts, inhabitants of an extensive kingdom for centuries, lost it in circumstances which suggest an intrinsic weakness, hidden because of the greater weaknesses of the other kingdoms of Scotland in the period between the mid-seventh and early ninth centuries. The defeat of the Picts was more than a military one. One cause of instability, it has been stated, lay in their complicated system of succession, which allowed descent matrilineally, resulting in numbers of potential claimants. One who appears to have been able to use the system to his advantage was Kenneth MacAlpin. By the time of his accession as king of the Scots, in 843, the Picts were in some difficulty from external forces. They had already suffered extensively from irruptions from Scandinavia and a serious defeat at the hands of the Danes in 839. It is likely the Scots had called up reinforcements from Ireland as early as 836, thus tipping the balance further in their favor. Kenneth MacAlpin’s claim to the kingship of the Picts, whether or not it was superior to that of the other potential claimants, bestowed an element of legitimacy on his determination to rule the Picts as well as the Scots. In a similar way, his predecessor of the seventh

century Aedan had enjoyed the blessing of Columba in his expansionist policy. Kenneth MacAlpin was ruthless in his methods; a story of his luring some of the Pictish chiefs to a banquet only to slaughter them perhaps reflects with some accuracy his reputation among contemporaries. The Picts had been subdued by about 847, and he united them with the Scots in the new kingdom of Alba, once the name given by the Romans to that land north of Hadrian’s Wall, which they had failed to bring under their control. Alba was now the name given to Scotland north of the Forth over which Kenneth MacAlpin ruled from his capital at Scone until his death in 858 when he was succeeded by his brother, Donald.”32

Now we will begin going through Scotland district by district. Enjoy!

**ABERDEEN**

FH Groome gives: “Aberdeen, the ‘Granite City’, capital of Aberdeenshire, seat of a university, and chief town and seaport in the North of Scotland, lies in latitude 57 degrees 9’ north, and longitude 2 degrees 6’ west, on the left bank of the Dee, at its entrance into the German Ocean. It is both a royal and parliamentary burgh, the latter comprising all the district between the rivers Dee and Don for 3 miles inland, viz, the whole of St Nicholas or City parish (794 acres), part of Old Machar parish (5,115 acres), and part of Banchory-Devenick parish (33 acres), and thus having a total area of 5,942 acres: whilst the royal burgh, occupying the southeast angle of the parliamentary, includes, like it, the whole of St Nicholas, but only 376 acres of Old Machar, and measuring 1½ mile from north to south by 2¼ miles from east to west: has a total area of 1,170 acres. Aberdeen is 98 miles north-northeast of Edinburgh as the crow files, 111 by road, and 115¼ by rail (via Tay Bridge: 135¼ via Perth and Sterling). By the North British or the Caledonian it further is 42 miles north by east of Montrose, 73¾ north-northeast of Dundee, 89¾ northeast by north of Perth, 152¾ northeast of Glasgow, 513 north-northwest of London: by the Great North of Scotland it is 43½ miles east by north of Ballater, 29¼ east-southeast of Alford, 44¼ south by west of Peterhead, 47½ south of Fraserburgh, 53¼ southeast of Keith, 80¾ of Elgin, 108½ east-southeast of Inverness, and 202½ southeast of Thurso. By sea it has regular steam communication southwards with Dundee, Edinburgh, Newcastle, Stockton, Hull and London, northwards with Wick, Thurso, Orkney, Shetland, the Hebrides, and Liverpool.

“The East Prison, immediately behind the courthouse, is the only gaol of Aberdeen, the West Prison having been discontinued since 1863: and the East itself is shortly to be transferred to a different site. Built in 1831, and enlarged in 1868, it contains 95 cells, and was described as ‘bad in situation, with small dark cells, imperfect ventilation, and insufficient accommodation’, in the Inspector’s Report for the year ending 31 March 1879. In the twelve months following, 1,426 criminal and 58 civil prisoners were confined within it, and its gross expenditure was 1,564 pounds. During the same year Oldmill Reformatory (1857), 2¼ miles west of the town, was occupied on an average by 148 boys, and Mount Street Reformatory (1862) by 25 girls, their respective receipts being 2,645 pounds and 478 pounds. The Infantry Barracks, on the crest of the Castle Hill, stand on the site of a castle erected as early as 1264, and, as built in 1796 at a cost of 16,000 pounds, formed a plain winged oblong of three stories, but were greatly enlarged by the block added (1880-1) at a further cost of 11,000 pounds, with a frontage to Justice Street of 138½ feet. The King Street Militia Barracks were erected in 1864 at a cost of 10,000 pounds in the old Scottish Castellated style: the Rifle and the Artillery Volunteers have drill-halls in Blackfriars and Queen Streets.

“The only noticeable bridge within the city is Telford's Union Bridge, in the line of Union Street, over the Denburn (now the railway) Valley. Besides three blind arches, one on the west and two on the east, it

has an open arch of 132 feet span, with parapets 52 feet above the ground below, is 70 feet wide, with carriage-way of 21, and was constructed (1800-3) at a cost of 13,342 pounds. Dee Bridge, 1½ mile southwest of Union Place, was till recent time the only great thoroughfare over the Dee from Aberdeen to the south, and, though rurally situated, is connected with the city by a chain of suburbs, and is under the management of the town council. It originated in a bequest of 20,000 pounds, left by Bishop Elphinstone, to build a bridge across the Dee near Aberdeen. He died 25 Oct 1514: and his successor, Bishop Gavin Dunbar, carried out the intention of the legacy, and finished the bridge in 1527. Consisting of 7 arches, each of 50 feet span, this bridge eventually fell into decay, was restored (1718-21) out of funds belonging to itself, and was widened (1841-2) from 14½ to 26 feet, and otherwise greatly improved, at a cost of 7,250 pounds. Wellington Suspension Bridge, spanning the Dee at Craiglug in the vicinity of Ferryhill, 1½ mile below Dee Bridge, was erected in 1831 at a cost of 10,000 pounds, and is 220 feet long by 22 wide. The Railway Viaduct (1848), on the Aberdeen section of the Caledonian, crosses the Dee transversely, 3 furlongs above the Suspension Bridge, and designed by Messrs Locke & Errington, consists of 7 iron girder arches, each about 50 feet in span, with two land arches at its northern end. Victoria Bridge, over the Dee's new channel, in a line with Market Street and Cross Quay, is a granite five-arch structure, opened on 2 July 1881, having cost 25,000 pounds. The Auld Brig o' Balgownie, built about 1320, either by Bishop Cheyne or by King Robert Bruce, crosses the Don, 2½ miles north by west of Castle Street. A single Gothic arch, narrow and steep, of 67 feet span and 34½ high above the black deep salmon pool below, it is commemorated by Byron in Don Juan, where a note records how a dread prediction made him pause to cross it, and yet lean over it with a childish delight. For he was his mother's only son, and the prophecy runs:

‘Brig o’ Balgownie, black’s your wa’ (or, though wight be your wa’),

Wi’ a wife’s ae son. And a meer’s ae foal,

Down ye shall fa’!’

“In 1605 Sir Alexander Hay left lands of a yearly value of 2 pounds, 8 shillings, 5½ pence to keep the Auld Brig in repair: its accumulated funds amounted (1872) to 23,153 pounds, though out of those funds in 1825 was built the new Bridge of Don, 502 yards lower down, for 17,100 pounds. With five semicircular arches, each about 86 feet in span, this last is 26½ feet wide and 41 high.

“Colonel Robertson maintains, in his Gaelic Topography (1869), that by old writers New Aberdeen was always discriminated from Old Aberdon; the former he derives from the Gaelic abhir-reidh-an (‘smooth river confluence’), the latter from abhir-domhain (‘deep confluence’). Such discrimination, however, exists in his imagination only, the name of both kirktown and seaport being written indifferently Aberdoen, Aberdon, Aberdin, Aberdene, etc, and in Latin oftenest appearing as Aberdonia; so that one may take it to mean the ford or mouth of either Don or Dee, according as one assigns the priority of foundation to Old or New Aberdeen. And history fails us here, save only that, whilst Old Aberdeen was possibly the seat of a Columban monastery, New Aberdeen is certainly not identical with Devana, a town of the Taexali in 2nd century AD, Ptolemy placing this fully 30 miles inland, near the Pass of Ballater, and close to Loch Daven. The earliest mention, then, of Aberdeen is also the earliest mention of its see. … Next in Snorro’s Icelandic Heimskringla, we read, under date 1153, how Eysteinn, a Norwegian kinglet, set forth on a freebooting voyage, and touching at Orkney, thence spread his sails southwards, and ‘steering along the eastern shores of Scotland, brought his ships to the town of Apardion, where he killed many people, and wasted the city’. Again, the Orkneyinga Saga records how Swein Asleif’s son

went over to Caithness and up through Scotland, and in Apardion was well entertained a month by Malcolm IV, ‘who then was nine winters old’, which places this visit in 1162. Of authentic charters, the oldest was granted about 1179 by William the Lyon at Perth, and confirmed to his burgesses of Aberdoen the free-trade privilege enjoyed by their forefathers under his grandsire David I (1124-53): and William here established an exchequer with a mint, and built a palace, which he bestowed in 1211 on monks of the Holy Trinity. Alexander II kept Yule in Aberdeen (1222), founded its Blackfriars or Dominican priory, and allowed its burgesses to hold a Sunday market: during his reign the town was accidently destroyed by fire (1224). Under Alexander III (1249-85) the Castle was built, the burgh common seal is mentioned (1271), and we first hear of a provost or alderman (1284). On 14th July 1296, Edward I, in his progress through the realm, came unto Aberdeen, ‘a fair castell and a good town upon the see, and tarayed there v days’; a little latter Wallace is said by Blind Harry to have burned 100 English vessels in the haven. Bruce, from his rout at Methven (1306), took refuge in Aberdeen: and to this period belongs the legend how the citizens, waxing hot in his cause, rose suddenly by night in a well-planned insurrection, captured the castle, razed it to the ground, and put to the sword its English garrison. ‘In honor,’ adds Bailie Skene, ‘of that resolute act they got their Ensignes Armoriall, which to this day they bear – Gules, three Towres triple, towered on a double – Tressure counter flowered Argent, support by two Leopards proper: the Motto, in an Escroll above, their watchword Bon Accord.’ The legend is solely due to Hector Boece’s inventive genius, but the garrison was really driven out, and in 1319 King Robert conveyed to the community the royal forest of Stocket and the valuable fishings of the Dee and Don, with various other privileges and immunities, his ‘being the Great Charter of the city, from which it dates its political constitution’. In 1333, Edward III having sent a fleet to night the town of Aberdeen, which they burned and destroyed: in 1336, Edward himself having marched as far north as Inverness, the citizens stoutly encountered at the west end of the Green an English force which had landed at Dunnottar, and slew their leader, Sir Thomas Roslyne. In vengeance where of Edward, returning, once more burned the town, which, being rebuilt on an extended scale, with material aid from King David Bruce, received the title of ‘New Aberdeen’. That monarch resided sometime in the city, and erected a mint and held a parliament at it, whilst confirming all his predecessors’ grants: Robert III, too, struck coins at Aberdeen. During the captivity of James I and the minority of James II, the citizens bore arms for their own protection, built walls around the town, kept the gates carefully shut by night, and by day maintained an armed patrol of their own number. In 1411, when the Earl of Mar collected forces to oppose an inroad of Donald of the Isles upon the northwest of the shire, Sir Robert Davidson, Provost of Aberdeen, led a band of the citizens to swell the earl’s forces, and fell at their head in the Battle of Harlaw. In 1462 the magistrates entered into a ten years’ bond with the Earl of Huntly, to protect them in their freedom and property, whilst, saving their allegiance to the Crown, they should at any time receive him and his followers into the city. In 1497 a blockhouse was erected at the entrance of the harbor, as a protection against the English. James IV paid several visits to Aberdeen: and once, in 1507, he rode in a single day from Stirling, through Perth and Aberdeen, to Elgin. Margaret his queen was sumptuously entertained (1511), as also were James V (1537) and Mary of Guise (1556). In 1525 the citizens were attacked, and 80 of them killed or wounded by a foraging party under three country lairds: and in consequence the town was put into a better state of defense. The plague raged here in 1401, 1498, 1506, 1514, 1530, 1538, 1546, 1549, 1608, and 1647: and on the last occasion carried off 1,760 persons, or more than a fifth of the whole population. In 1547 a body of Aberdonians fought with great gallantry at the disastrous Battle of Pinkie: in the early part of 1560 the city firmly received the doctrines of the Reformation, and for ‘first minister of the true word of God’ had Adam

Heriott, who died in 1574. In 1562, during the conflict between the Earl of Huntly’s and Queen Mary’s forces, Aberdeen seems to have been awed equally by both parties: but it succumbed to the queen after her victory at Corrichie, and at it she witnessed the execution of Sir John Gordon, Huntly’s second son. On 20 Nov 1571, the Gordons and Forbeses met at the Craibstone between the city and the Bridge of Dee: and in a half-hour’s fight the Forbeses were routed, with a loss of 300 men to themselves, of 30 to the Gordons. James VI paid visits to Aberdeen in 1582, 1589, 1592, 1594, and 1600: on these occasions entailing much expense on the citizens, both in entertainments and in money-gifts. The witch persecution here about this time resulted in the death from torture of many persons in prison, and in the burning, within the two years 1596-7, of 22 women and 1 man on the Castle Hill. In 1605 a General Assembly was convened at Aberdeen by Melville and others of the High Presbyterian party, but only 9 attended, who for their pains were 5 of them banished the realm, the others summoned to the English Court: in 1616 another General Assembly resolved that ‘a liturgy be made and form of divine service’. A Cavalier stronghold, Aberdeen and the country around it rejected the Covenant, so in 1638 a committee of ministers – Henderson, Dixon and Andrew Cant – was sent, with the Earl of Montrose at their head, to compel the people to sign. Their mission was thwarted by the famous ‘Aberdeen Doctors’: but Montrose next year twice occupied and taxed the city, on the second occasion winning admittance by the trifling skirmish of the Bridge of Dee, 19 June 1639. In the following May, too, Monro with his thousand deboshed Covenanters, subjected the townsfolk to grievous oppression: and continued harassment had at last subdued them to the Covenanting cause, when, on 13 Sept 1644, Montrose, as Royalist, re-entered Aberdeen, having routed the Covenanters between the Craibstone and the Justice Mills. ‘In the fight,’ say Spalding, ‘there was little slaughter: but horrible the slaughter in the fight, the lieutenant’s men hewing down all they could overtake within and about the town.’ So that, as Dr Hill Burton observes, Montrose ‘in his two first visits chastised the community into conformity with the Covenant, and now made compensation by chastising them for having yielded to his inflictions’. Charles II lodged (7 July 1650) in a merchant’s house just opposite the Tolbooth, on which was fastened one of Montrose’s hands: on 7 Sept 1651, General Monk led a Commonwealth army into the city, where it continued several years. The Restoration was hailed by the Aberdonians with as great delight as the Revolution was looked on with disfavor: yet scant enthusiasm was roused in Sept 1715 by the Earl Marischal’s proclamation at the Cross of James VIII, who himself on 24 Dec passed incognito through the city, on his way from Peterhead to Fetteresso, where the Episcopal clergy and the new Jacobite magistrates of Aberdeen offered him homage. In the ’45 Cope’s force encamped on the site of Union Terrace, and embarked from Aberdeen for Dunbar: the Duke of Gordon’s chamberlain again proclaimed James VIII: Lord Lewis Gordon next occupied the city: and lastly the Duke of Cumberland lodged for 6 weeks in Guestrow. Two or three years before, between 500 and 600 persons of either sex had been kidnapped in Aberdeen for transportation to the American plantations: one of them, Peter Williamson, returning in 1765, and issuing the narrative of his bondage, was imprisoned and banished for defamation of the magistrates, but eventually obtained from them 285 pounds damages. In a riot on the King’s birthday (1802), 4 of the populace were shot by the military: 42 of the Oscar’s crew were drowned in Grayhope (1813): and out of 260 persons attacked by cholera (1835), 105 died. The Queen and Prince Albert visited Aberdeen on their way to Balmoral (7 Sept 1848), and the latter presided at the British Association (14 Sept 1859): whilst Her Majesty unveiled the Prince Consort Memorial (13 Oct 1863), and opened the waterworks (16 Oct 1866), then making her first public speech since her bereavement. Aberdeen has been the meeting-place of the British Association (1859), of the Social Science Congress (1877), and of the Highland and Agricultural Society (1840, ’47, ’58, ’68, and ’76).”33

John Bartholomew writes: “Aberdeen, county town of Aberdeenshire, parliamentary and royal burgh, and principal seaport in the north of Scotland, between the mouths of the Dee and the Don, 115 miles via Tay Bridge and 135 miles via Perth and Stirling by rail north of Edinburgh, and 518 miles north of London - parliamentary burgh, population 105,003; royal burgh, population 87,223; municipal burgh, population 105,189; 8 Banks, 8 newspapers. It is the fourth largest town in Scotland, and comprises Old and New Aberdeen, the former being about 1 mile to the north on the south side of the Don, and the latter on the Dee; the houses are mostly built of granite. It is the seat of a flourishing University, which was formed (1860) by the union of the University and King's College (founded 1494) of Old Aberdeen, and the University and Marischal College (founded 1593) of New Aberdeen, and has 21 professors and about 600 students. The largest and most imposing of Aberdeen's public edifices is the County and Municipal Buildings (commenced 1867, completed at cost of over 80,000 pounds), a granite structure with tower 190 feet high. Duthie Park (1883), 47 acres in extent, is on the southwest side of the city. The docks are extensive, the harbor having been enlarged and improved by the diversion of the Dee, the formation of a pier and breakwater, etc. Exports - linens, woolens, cotton yarns, granite, and fish. Aberdeen is the head of the fishery district between Montrose and Peterhead, and fish-curing is extensively carried on. There are important shipbuilding yards; engineering, chemical, tanning, and granite-polishing works; breweries, distilleries, and paper-mills; with manufactures of woolen, linen, cotton, combs, and tobacco. The existing part of the Cathedral of St Machar (begun about 1357, completed 1527), 126 feet long and 67½ broad, stands in Old Aberdeen. The burgh returns 2 members to Parliament (2 divisions, viz, North and South, 1 member for each division); the representation of the burgh was increased in 1885: the university unites with that of Glasgow in returning 1 member.”34

Neil Oliver pens: “First they defeated a much larger Covenanter army near Perth in September, before indulging themselves in a brutal ransack of the town. Aberdeen was next. Once again the army placed in their path was the greater in numbers, and once again it was crushed and brushed aside. The Irish Catholics and Highlanders then tore the place apart. As invariably happens when religion is involved, the victors easily cast aside any notions of humanity – the better to rape and murder and burn. Montrose and Colkitto presided over an orgy of violence against innocent civilians that damned forever any claims they might have had to righteousness.

“The secret of their military success lay in a tactic that had sprung fully formed from the cruel imagination of the giant Irishman. For decades to come the mere mention of ‘the Highland charge’ would be enough to make would-be opponents’ blood run cold. Having got within range, the Highlanders would swiftly fire a single round before dropping their muskets, taking up their broadswords and charging pell-mell into whatever hapless ranks were arranged against them. It was their custom to throw off their plaids as well, to make running easier. Who would dare to stand still, trying to reload a musket with shaking hands while a half-naked, howling horde, committed to death or glory, came on wild-eyed and roaring? Not the Covenanters in the months between 1644 and 1645, that much became clear.

“With blood drying list rust upon their blades, Colkitto and his countrymen parted with Montrose after Aberdeen and headed off into the west in search of reinforcements. It was Montrose alone then who had to face the consequences of their campaign so far. Argyll himself was coming, enraged by news of the slaughter of his Campbell brethren, and utterly convinced the Royalist forces would soon be in his grasp. But Montrose proved wily as well as brave and led his small force into the hills and out of reach.”35

***CULTS, ABERDEEN***

William Alexander scribes: “Cults: Called ‘the Cults’ in both cases by old dialect speakers. 1505, Quyltis. And other old spellings the same as for Culsh. The form Cults occurs in Fife and Wigton. A usual derivation is from coillte, ‘woods’, but the original word is more probably cuillte, ‘a recess’.”36

Roy Howard states: “To the west of the burn lies Cults, a name that has also been written as Queyltis, and to which the meaning ‘wooded place’ has been applied. Cults are also to be found in Banffshire and Fife. One suggested derivation of the name is from Cuiltean, meaning ‘secluded place’, but it may be derived from Coiltean (pronounced Cul-chen) meaning, like Queyltis, ‘woods’. The choice of possible derivation well illustrates the difficulties inherent in a study of the origin of place names, but anyone standing on the south bank of the Dee, opposite Cults – and especially in a summer month – should find the association with ‘woods’ does seem particularly appropriate for it is often difficult to locate and identify specific buildings through the canopy of trees that thrive on the south facing slope.

“If the estate of Pitfodels illustrates continuity of ownership for centuries, that of Cults may be seen as exhibiting variety of ownership. After being included in Crown lands, the estate of Cults was first noted as a separate estate in the seventeenth century when it was in the possession of Alexander Thomson, an advocate of Aberdeen. Alexander’s son John succeeded his father as Laird of Cults in 1674 when he received the estate, which consisted of ‘the lands of Cults, the Mill, Mill lands’ etc, together with the right to grind corn from the estate at his mill. If any mansion house existed at this date there is no mention of it in the document.”37

FH Groome alludes: “Cults, a hamlet in the Aberdeenshire section of Banchory-Devenick parish, near the left bank of the Dee, with a station on the Deeside railway, 4 miles west-southwest of Aberdeen, under which it has a post and telegraph office. At it are a Free church and an endowed school; and near it stands Cults House, whose owner, Rt Shirra-Gibb, Esq (born 1847; suc 1880), holds 981 acres in the shire, valued at 1,669 pounds per annum. Two stone coffins, containing human remains, were found a little to the north of this mansion in 1850; and three large cairns are still on the estate.”38

***FOREST OF STOCKET, ABERDEEN***

John Milne communicates: “Stocked Head, South Stocket, Stocket (for Cuid Stocaichte). Fold made with trunks of trees or posts planted upright in the ground so close that cattle could not pass between them. Cuid, ‘fold’; stocaichte, ‘planted with posts or stocks’. Folds of this description are in common use in Argentina at the present time. When the name had been corrupted, cuid and stocaichte were transposed, and cuid was aspirated. C being silent chuid became first huid and then head. The Stocked Head or South Stocket was between Oakbank School and Maryville. There was also a Stocket Head in Gamrie.

“Stockethill: Hill where there was a cattle-fold made with stocks or trunks of trees planted in the ground. Stocaichte, ‘planted with posts’. The site of the cattle-fold had been in the angle between Cairncry Road and Long Walk Road, perhaps in a rectangular plot where there is a well in the line of Mastrick Road. This had been the North Stocket.”39

GM Graser depicts: “Stocket Road is the most interesting street name in the neighborhood. There are three of them – the Low Stocket, the Mid Stocket, and the South Stocket Roads. They run over the ground covered by, and perpetuate the name of, the old Stocket Forest, one of the seven royal hunting

forests of Aberdeenshire. (The other six royal hunting forests were Mar, Birse, Drumoak, Benachie, Kintore and Dyce.) It is a name intimately associated with the liberties of Aberdeen. The Stocket Forest was granted to the Aberdonians in 1313 by Robert the Bruce, for signal services rendered; but in 1494 James IV, in some capricious mood, granted it to Sir Andrew Wood, which was so passionately resented by the citizens that they carried the matter before the Privy Council, and this iniquitous grant, which would probably have had the effect of reducing Aberdeen to a mere burgh of barony, was annulled.

“It was in the Stocket Forest that the incident occurred – or is said to have occurred – in the saving of the King from a ferocious wolf, which was slain by a Highland follower with his skein or dagger. His reward was a grant of land in the forest, and thus arose the family of Skene, and the property of Skene, which continues to be a place name on the lands in our own day. (In those days wolves were common enough in the neighborhood. In 1457 an Act of James II, ordained ‘for the destruction of wolves’, that the magistrates ‘sall gader the countrie folk three tymis in the yere betwixt Saint Merks Day and Lammes for that is the tyme of the quhelpis.’)

“It is a curious thing that the very earliest entries in our Aberdeen Burgh Register deal with the Stocket Forest. That invaluable series of registers run continuously (with the exception of a single volume) from 1398 to the present time. On 18th November, 1398, we are told, ‘Mathew Pynches placed himself under the will of the court for having neglected to discharge (the duties of) the office of Forester, which he ought to have done.’

“Then in the same year, 1398, ‘David Walker, Alexander Bennerman, Mathew Pinks, and William Spelding, Keepers of the Forest, were fined eight pennies for destroying, or suffering others to destroy, Deers.’

“Through centuries the Stocket Forest had suffered, but part of it, at least, was still under wood at the beginning of the eighteenth century, for the Magistrates of Aberdeen, ‘anxious to deprive marauders of the shelter afforded them by the Forest of the Stocket, gave permission to such of the citizens as chose to take wood from it for that purpose to add balconies to the fronts of their houses, projecting eight or ten feet into the street, viz, to the extent occupied by the outer stairs.’”40

Walter Thom enumerates: “In December 1320, Robert was at Berwick; and remembering the kindness of the citizens of Aberdeen, when he remained so long among them in a state of indisposition, at the time his affairs were at the lowest, and fortune was frowning upon him, he granted them a charter, confirming all their privileges, and bestowing on the community the forest of Stocket. This charter is dated at Berwick upon Tweed, the 10th December, and fourteenth year of his reign, anno 1320; and besides the forest of Stocket, he conveys a right to the fishings, mills, customs, tolls, etc, to the burgesses, their heirs and successors, forever, upon payment of 213 pounds, 6 shillings, 8 pence, annually, at two terms of the year. In 1324, he granted another charter to the burgesses, allowing them the assize of ale*, and liberty to catch red, as well as white fishes. He gave another charter, confirming the town’s rights, privileges, customs, etc, dated at Carrick, 6th February, 1329; and also a charter of the same tenor, dated Galloway, 16th March, of that year.

“*Ale was the common beverage of the people of Scotland long before this period. In every town, village, and hamlet, there were brew-houses or alehouses, which were regulated by an assize so early as in the time of David I. The kings of Scotland had malt-mills in every town, which were a source of revenue, and they frequently gave grants of these mills to the church, to corporations, or families.”41

***TORRY, ABERDEEN***

George Wood gives an account: “Early Torry: The origin of the name is almost certainly from Torr, Gaelic for ‘a rounded hill, hillocks or mounds’, the hill of Torry. The village, until the 1880s was built on a site on the south side of the River Dee, near the entrance to the Harbor, now known as Old Torry.

“Traditionally, and from earliest times Torry has depended mainly on fishing for its livelihood and its wealth. Before the arrival of trawl fishing in the late 19th century, the mode of fishing was by small lines from yawls fishing the inshore grounds. The lines baited by the fishermen’s wives before they sailed for the fishing grounds. Line fishing with all its uncertainties and dangers had been carried on in from Torry from generation to generation for centuries. The yawl with 4-5 men crew fishing 15-20 miles on grounds southeast from Girdleness, the fishermen depending and relying very much on the women folk, their wives, mothers and sisters to ‘sheel’ the mussels before baiting the lines, putting the bait on up to 1,000 hooks.

“Fishermen would normally marry young women from a fishing background, brought up in a fishing village and community, accustomed to this type of hard and heavy work, it being a very hard life for men and women. These communities seemed to breed people, of strong character with a sense of helpfulness and a friendly nature.

“Up to the late 18th century and 19th century, Torry did not figure prominently among the fishing villages north and south of Aberdeen, being only a small community of inshore small line fishermen similar to the other fishing communities on the East coast. It is recorded that in the 1870s there were over 160 line fishermen in Torry, said to be ‘industrious, frugal and clean’.

“Typical names of the fishermen of earlier days being mainly, Bruce, Caie, Christie, Buthlay, Cormack, Leiper, Main, Morrice and Wood. The use of By names or Tee names was very common then, as it was in the other fishing villages along the coast, there being so many fishermen with the same surname. As JJ Waterman records in Aberdeen and the Fishing Industry in the 1870s: ‘In the village of Downies in 1870, of the 249 inhabitants, 236 belonged to four fishing families, 95 Woods, 80 Mains, 46 Leipers, and 15 Knowles, the other 13 are not connected with the fishing.’”42

**ABERDEENSHIRE**

FH Groome points out: “Aberdeenshire, a maritime county, forming the extreme northeast of Scotland, lies between 56 degrees 52' and 57 degrees 42' north latitude, and between 1 degrees 48' and 3 degrees 46' west longitude. It is bounded north and east by the German Ocean, south by the counties of Kincardine, Forfar, and Perth, and west by those of Inverness and Banff. Its outline is very irregular: but roughly describes an oblong extending from northeast to southwest, broadest near the middle and narrowing towards the southwest. The greatest length, from Cairnbulg Head, on the east side of Fraserburgh Bay, to Cairn Ealer, at the meeting-point with Perth and Inverness shires, is 85½ miles: the greatest breadth, from the mouth of the river Dee to the head-springs of the river Don, is 47 miles: and the circuit line measures some 280 miles, 62 of which are sea-coast. Fifth in size of the Scottish counties, Aberdeenshire has an area of 1,970 square miles or 1,260,625 acres. It was anciently divided into Buchan in the north, Formartine, Strathbogie, and Garioch in the middle, and Mar in the southwest: it is now divided into the districts of Deer, Turriff, Huntly, Garioch, Alford, Ellon, Aberdeen, and Kincardine O'Neil.

“The territory now forming Aberdeenshire was anciently inhabited by the Caledonian Taexali. Many cairns and other antiquities, commonly assigned to the Caledonian times, are in the upland districts. A so-called ‘Pict's house’ is at Aboyne: vitrified forts are at Insch and Rhynie: and a notable standing-stone, the Maiden Stone, is in Chapel-of-Garioch. Old castles are at Abergeldie, Boddam, Corgarff, Coul, Dundargue, Dunideer, Fedderate, Lesmore, Slains, and other places. Chief septs, in times down almost to the present day, have been the Farquharsons, the Forbeses, and the Gordons. Principal events were the defeat of Comyn by Bruce, at the ‘herschip of Buchan’, near Barrahill: the defeat of Donald of the Isles by the Earl of Mar, in 1411, at Harlaw: the lesser conflicts of Corrichie, Alford, and the Craibstone: and other incidents noticed under Aberdeen.”43

John Bartholomew relates: “Aberdeenshire, a maritime county in the northeast of Scotland; bounded north and east by the German Ocean; south by the counties of Kincardine, Forfar, and Perth; and west by the counties of Inverness and Banff. Greatest length, northeast and southwest, 85 miles; greatest breadth, northwest and southeast, 42 miles; coastline, 60 miles. Area, 1,955.4 square miles, or 1,251,451 acres. Population 267,990, or 137 persons to each square mile. The coast is mostly bold and rocky, and with little indentation. The chief promontories are Kinnaird's Head, Rattray Head, and Buchan Ness, the last being the most easterly point of Scotland. The surface, on the whole, is hilly and mountainous. It is lowest in the districts bordering on the coasts; hilly in the interior, with much moor, but also with many slopes and hollows in a good state of cultivation; and grandly mountainous in the southwest, where numerous summits, including Ben Macdhui (4,296 ft), rise above 3,000 ft. Much of the country is well-wooded. The chief rivers are the Dee, Don, Ythan, Ugie, and Deveron. Granite is the principal rock, and is extensively quarried for exportation. The soil has been rendered highly productive under skillful farming. Large numbers of fat cattle are annually reared and sent to the principal markets of Scotland and England. The coast and river fisheries are extensive and valuable. The county comprises 76 parishes and 9 parts, the parliamentary burgh of Aberdeen (2 members), the parliamentary burghs of Inverurie, Kintore, and Peterhead (part of the Elgin Burghs), and the police burghs of Fraserburgh, Huntly, Inverurie, Peterhead, Turriff, etc. For parliamentary purposes it is divided into 2 divisions, viz, East and West, 1 member for each division.”44

***DUNOTTAR, ABERDEENSHIRE 45 ***

Neil Oliver stipulates: “Enough was not enough, however, for the King of the Angles. An admirer of the Romans, he considered himself their natural successor. As such, nothing less than conquest of the whole of Britain would satisfy his hunger. Like the commander of the imperial legions centuries before him, Aethelstan pushed northwards, driving Constantine and his warriors back. Finally the King of Scots was brought to bay behind the walls and natural defenses of mighty Dunottar, an awesome promontory fort near Aberdeen. Only a narrow, steep-sided sliver of land connected it to the main. Sheer cliffs into the sea made any other approach impossible. Constantine was secure as long as he stayed on the rock, but his kingdom had effectively been reduced to the few acres within the fortress.”46

***FETTERANGUS, ABERDEENSHIRE***

WM Alexander writes “... capella de fetheranus 1525, Fettirangus Arb 1725, Fetter-Angus, Fether-Angus. The present village of Fetterangus dates from the 18th century. The earlier mentions refer to the old churchyard to the west of it. Angus here is presumably the Celtic personal name now represented by the surnames Angus and Innes. Fetter is a frequent name-element in northeast Scotland. Watson quotes Faithir and Foithear from the West Highlands as indicating that fetter is ‘a slope, often shelving or

terraced’. Dinneen gives fothar for modern Irish Gaelic as meaning ‘a wood, forest, woody swamp’. Fetterangus village is colloquially called Fishy. The people say they do not know the origin of this term. Perhaps Fishy had been the name of a place there before the village was built.”47

***FYVIE, ABERDEENSHIRE***

WM Alexander articulates: “Fyvie, parish. 1189-1250, fyvyn, fiuin, fivi, Fiwyn Arb. 1313, burgum de Fyvyn Arb. 1325, parcus de Fywyn. 1502, Park de Fivye. 1596, baronia de Fyvie alias Foirmartene. 1736, barony of ffyvie alias Formartine. The equivalence implied in the phrase Fyvie alias Formartine was probably a purely titular affair of the feudal times. There is little doubt that the Fyvyn of the earliest records meant the same place as the Fyvie of today.”48

FH Groome describes: “Fyvie, a parish of Aberdeenshire, containing Woodhead village, 2 1/3 furlongs from the left bank of the river Ythan, and 3 miles east by south of Fyvie station on the Banff branch of the Great North of Scotland railway, this station being 7 miles south-southeast of Turriff, and 31¼ north-northwest of Aberdeen. In 1673 Alexander, third Earl of Dunfermline, obtained a charter, erecting the lordship of Fyvie into a free burgh of barony, with a tollbooth and market cross, at which should be held three annual fairs. With this burgh of Fyvie, Woodhead has been identified; and its dilapidated cross was rebuilt in 1846, some years before which date the tollbooth - long a dwelling-house - had been pulled down. The fairs have been discontinued, but a cattle market is held on the third Thursday of every month at Fyvie station, and on the second Monday of every month at Rothie station, also in Fyvie parish, 3¼ miles to the southwest. Fyvie besides has a post office, with money order, savings' bank, and railway telegraph departments, a branch of the Aberdeen Town and County Bank, 3 insurance agencies, and a horticultural association. The parish is bounded north and northeast by Monquhitter, east by Methlick, southeast by Tarves, south by Meldrum, southwest by Daviot and Rayne, west by Auchterless, and northwest by Turriff. Its utmost length, from northeast to southwest, is 10¾ miles; its breadth varies between 7 furlongs and 6½ miles; and its area is 29,650 acres, of which 64¾ are water. From Towie Castle, at the northwest corner of the parish, the Ythan, a small stream here, first traces 2 miles of the boundary with Auchterless, next winds 8¼ miles southeastward and northeastward through the interior, and lastly flows 2 3/8 miles east-by-northward along the Methlick border. It receives in its course a good many little affluents, and divides the parish into two pretty equal parts. Where, below Gight Castle, it passes off into Methlick, the surface declines to 88 feet above sea-level, thence rising southwestward to 499 feet at the Hill of Blairfowl, 691 near Stoneyfield, 629 near Waulkmill, and 700 on the Rayne border; northwestward to 466 near Monkshill, 587 near Gourdas, and 585 at Deers Hill. The leading rocks are greywacke and slate in the southwest, Old Red sandstone over a small portion of the northwest, and elsewhere greenstone or basalt, often intersected by veins of quartz, calcareous spar, hematite, etc. The soil along the banks of the Ythan is a lightish loam of great fertility, especially in the part called the Howe of Fyvie; and in other parts is extremely various-gravelly, mossy, etc. Fully four-sevenths of the entire area are in tillage, one-fifteenth is under wood, one-tenth is pasture, and the rest is either moss or heath. Founded by Fergus, Earl of Buchan, in 1179 for Benedictines of Tiron, and subordinate to Arbroath Abbey, St Mary's priory stood in a meadow between the Ythan and the parish church, a cross, on a base of hewn stones, surmounting a rough round cairn, having been erected in 1868 on the site of its church, which was built by Prior Mason in 1470. Gight Castle, on the Ythan, towards the eastern extremity of the parish, is an interesting ruin, noticed separately; and a ruined mill, 1¼ mile northeast of Fyvie Castle, was the scene of the ballad of Mill o' Tifty's Annie, or Agnes Smith, who died in 1678. On the outskirts of St John's Well farm are remains of a cairn, Cairnchedly, which has yielded a number of

small earthen urns; and, to the northeast of the Castle, Montrose, in Oct 1644, was nearly surprised by Argyll with a greatly superior force - an episode known as the ‘Skirmish of Fyvie’. Fyvie Castle, on the Ythan's left bank, ½ mile northeast of Fyvie station, dates from remote antiquity, it or a predecessor having received a visit from Edward I of England in 1296. It then was a royal seat, and such it continued till 1380, when the Earl of Carrick (later Robert III) made it over to his cousin, Sir James de Lindsay. From him it passed in 1397 to Sir Henry Preston, his brother-in-law, and from him about 1433 to the Meldrums, who sold it in 1596 to Sir Alexander Seton, an eminent lawyer, created first Earl of Dunfermline in 1606. The fourth and last Earl being outlawed in 1690, his forfeited estate was purchased from the Crown in 1726 by William, second Earl of Aberdeen, whose descendant, the present proprietor, Alexander Henry Gordon, Esq (born 1813; suc 1880), holds 11,700 acres in the shire, valued at 8,741 pounds per annum. The Fyvie Castle of today is a stately chateau-like pile erected at various periods, from the 15th on to the 18th century; and stands in the midst of a finely-wooded park, with an artificial lake (½ mile x ½ furlong). Other mansions are Rothie-Norman and Kintroon, and, in all, 7 proprietors hold each an annual value of 500 pounds and upwards, 3 of between 100 and 500 pounds, and 9 of from 20 to 50 pounds. In the presbytery of Turriff and synod of Aberdeen, Fyvie comprises chief part of Millbrex quoad sacra parish, and itself is a living worth 369 pounds. The church, originally dedicated to St Peter, stands near the left bank of the Ythan, 1 3/8 mile southeast of Fyvie station; and rebuilt in 1808, contains 1,114 sittings. At Woodhead are St Mary's Established mission church, a plain but commodious Free Church, altered and decorated in 1878, and All Saints' Episcopal Church, which, Early English in style, was built in 1849, and received the addition of a tower and spire in 1870. Another Episcopal church, St George's (1796-1848), is at Meiklefolla, 1¾ mile south-southeast of Rothie station. Seven schools - Fyvie, Meiklefolla, Steinmanhill, Woodhead, All Saints', Fyvie female, and St Katherine's -with total accommodation for 841 children, had (1881) an average attendance of 518, and grants amounting to 428 pounds, 8 shillings, 6 pence.”49

www.whichcastle.com establishes: “The 13th century Fyvie Castle is located in the town of Fyvie, near Turniff, and 27 miles northwest of Aberdeen. Throughout its 800 year history the castle has changed hands several times. Famous visitors to the castle include William I in 1214, Alexander II in 1222, Edward I of England in 1296 and Robert the Bruce in the early 1300s.

“In its early years Fyvie was a royal stronghold, but following the 1390 Battle of Otterburn, the castle ceased to be a royal residence. Five successive families then owned the residence: Preston, Meldrum, Seton, Gordon and Leith, each of which added a new tower to Fyvie. The castle’s final owner was the American industrialist Alexander Leith, who bought the castle in 1885, after the grounds and the adjoining Loch Fyvie were landscaped in the mid-19th century. Alexander Leith’s descendants sold the castle to the National Trust for Scotland in 1984.

“Each of the five families sought to make their own mark on Fyvie, which has made the castle seem imposingly large and complex. The castle’s five towers extend the castle skywards in addition to its large size. The south front of the castle shows the Meldrum and Preston towers, the central tower belongs to the Seton family, the north end of the west range is the Gordon Tower, and the final ‘tower’, which is really a projecting wing, is called the Leith tower.

“Inside Fyvie Castle, visitors can see the grand fireplace in the entrance hall, the enormous drawing room which occupies the entire second floor of the Gordon Tower, the gallery of the Leith Tower, in which Alexander Leith’s great tapestries are hung, and a magnificent organ occupies most of the upper

part of one wall in the tower. The library at Fyvie Castle is an intricately designed space worth a visit, as are the many intimate sitting rooms, bedrooms, and the grand dining room and billiard rooms. The charter room acts as the storage of deeds and charters, and it is said that immediately below this room is a secret chamber.

“Fyvie Castle is rumored to be haunted, and has featured in several television shows related to its ghostly reputation.”50

***HATTON OF FINTRAY, ABERDEENSHIRE***

WM Alexander highlights: “Hatton stands for ‘Hall-Town’. In the old rural economy the farmers house was the Ha’, ha’-hoose or Ha’-toon; as distinguished from the Cot-toon, (now Cotton) and other dwellings.”51

Sheila Hamilton portrays: “The name Hatton of Fintray means ha’ toun or ‘hall town’ of the ‘fair strand’ from fionn meaning ‘fair’ and traigh meaning ‘strand’.”52

FH Groome remarks: “Fintray, a village and a parish of southeast Aberdeenshire. The village, Hatton of Fintray, stands within 3 furlongs of the Don's left bank, 3¼ miles east by north of Kintore, and 1¼ mile north-northeast of Kinaldie station on the Great North of Scotland, this being 10½ miles northwest of Aberdeen, under which Fintray has a post office. Fairs are held here on the first Saturday of February, April, and December. The parish is bounded northeast by the Banffshire section of New Machar and by Udny, east by the main body of New Machar, south by Dyce and Kinnellar, southwest by Kintore, and west and northwest by Keithhall. Rudely resembling a triangle in outline, with northward apex, it has an utmost length from north by west to south by east of 4 miles, an utmost width from east to west of 5 1/8 miles, and an area of 7,389 acres, of which 69¾ are water. The Don, winding 7¼ miles east-by-southward, from just below Kintore to opposite the manse of Dyce, roughly traces all the southwestern and southern boundary; and, where it quits the parish, the surface sinks to 116 feet above sea-level, thence rising, in gentle knolls and rounded eminences, to 300 feet at Woodhill, 245 at the parish church, 325 near Cairnie, and 415 at the Hill of Tillykerrie in the furthest north. Granite and gneiss are the prevailing rocks, traversed by veins of coarsish limestone; and the soil of the haughs along the Don is a rich alluvium, of the grounds above them is dry and early on a gravelly subsoil, and elsewhere ranges from peat earth and blue gravelly clay to yellow loam of a more productive nature. Eleven-fourteenths of the entire area are regularly or occasionally in tillage, about 660 acres are under wood, and the rest is either pastoral or waste. Cothal Mill here was a large woolen factory, now stopped, with steam and water power, and upwards of 100 hands. Patrick Copland, professor of natural philosophy at Aberdeen, was a native, his father being parish minister. Fintray House, near the bank of the Don, 7 furlongs east of the village, is a large modern mansion in the Tudor style; the estate was acquired in 1610 by the first of the Forbeses of Craigievar, having belonged to the Abbey of Lindores in Fife from 1224 down to the Reformation. Another residence is Disblair Cottage; and 3 proprietors hold each an annual value of 500 pounds and upwards, 2 of between 100 and 500 pounds, and 2 of less than 100 pounds. Fintray is in the presbytery and synod of Aberdeen; the living is worth 391 pounds. The church, at the village, is a neat and substantial structure of 1821, containing 800 sittings; and 2 public schools, Disblair and Hatton, with respective accommodation for 100 and 140 children, had (1882) an average attendance of 57 and 116, and grants of 40 pounds, 18 shillings and 91 pounds, 6 shillings.”53

***JOHNSHAVEN, ABERDEENSHIRE***

Alexander Sutherland shares: “We enjoyed a full view of the sea till we reached Bervie. From the nature of the intervening ground, and the direction of the road, we could only discern the house tops to Johnshaven, and one or two meaner villages, chiefly inhabited by fishers, situated close to the beach. Gourdon, the insignificant port of Bervie, also encroaches on the strand. The rough shoulder of a hill compels the road to approach so near it, that one would have no difficulty in pitching a stone from thence into the chimneys of the nearest houses, several hundred feet below. Bervie is described from this spot, lying in a fertile vale, with a rude misshapen hill, styled Craig-David, lifting its rugged head in the background. The town, externally, looks filthy and insignificant: internally, it is mean, ill-built, and devoid of everything worthy of notice. Great numbers of squalid children and filthy ducks waddle about the street. A lofty and not inelegant bridge is thrown over a small stream which here falls into the sea. Craig-David, the bluff hill already mentioned, is indebted for its name to David II, who was forced on this part of the coast by stress of weather, and treated so hospitably by the natives, that, in gratitude for their attention, he generously conferred on the village the privileges of a royal burgh.”54

***KINCARDINE O’NEIL, ABERDEENSHIRE***

WM Alexander stresses: “Kincardine O’Neill is one of the most noticeable names on Deeside, on account of its anomalous form. It may be said to be explainable with adequacy, but not with complete certainty, chiefly because of the remoteness of the historical conditions implied in the qualifying term o’Neil. Neil, Neale, Oneill, was an ancient thanage; that it was, in origin, the name of a person, the well-known Gaelic personal name of Niall, is possible but incapable of proof. As early as the 13th century, when the regional history becomes clearer, we find that the lands of Neil were possessed by Alan Durward. The area dominated by him, from his center at Coull, formed what to the lawyers of the later feudal age was the ‘baronia de Neill’, as it is styled in the documents. The most straightforward reading of Kincardine O’Neil is to treat the intermediate o as simply meaning of; but it may be observed that it could be either of or in, since both these prepositions, in Scots speech, become a mere indefinite short vowel, and, before a consonant, it is impossible to say which is being used. On this footing Kincardine of Neil is merely a variant of forms like Logie-Mar and many more. The name Kincardine itself is well-known from its occurrences elsewhere. It is assigned to cardden, ‘a brake, thicket’, a word in Welsh, but not in modern Gaelic. This Kincardine, it may be imagined, required the defining term o’Neil in former times to distinguish it from Kincardine in the Mearns, the site of which is near Fettercairn. These two Kincardines are connected by the Grampian crossing called the Cairn o’Mount.”55

James MacDonald composes: “Neil is probably a personal name, and the old writers seem to have considered it so. Whether o is a contraction of, or, as in Irish names, means ‘family’ of Neil is doubtful. Compare to Obeyn (Aboyne), Camus o’May, perhaps also Tap o’Noth. The burn at Kincardine O’Neil is called The Neil, but we find in Irish names many streams bear the names of former owners of adjoining lands. It is called Wattir Kincardin in charter of 1539. Evidently showing that the Neil Burn is merely the burn of Kincardine O’Neil. Mr Macbain, Inverness, derives Kincardine from Welsh cardden, ‘a brake or thicket’, hence ‘the head of the brake or thicket.”56

Sheila Hamilton designates: “The old county town at the other end of the Cairn o’Mount was also named Kincardine, so presumably the o’Neill was added to distinguish them, thus it was called Kincardine in Oneal.

“In early medieval times, there was a district thanage of Oneal, which also gives its name to the Neal Burn. Kincardine is thought to come from the Gaelic ceann meaning ‘head’ and the Welsh cardden

meaning ‘a brake or thicket’ or the Gaelic garradh meaning ‘field’. This would give us ‘head field’ meaning the last cultivated area before the hills are reached.”57

FH Groome expands on: “Kincardine O'Neil, a village and a parish of south Aberdeenshire. The village stands, 234 feet above sea-level, near the left bank of the Dee, 2 miles east-southeast of Dess station and 2 7/8 southwest of Torphins station, this being 24 miles west by south of Aberdeen. It has a post office under Aberdeen, with money order and savings' bank departments, a hotel, and fairs on the second Tuesday of May and the Wednesday and Thursday after the last Tuesday of August.

“The parish, containing also Torphins village and station, is bounded northwest by Tough, northeast by Cluny and Midmar, east and southeast by Banchory-Ternan in Kincardineshire, southwest by Birse, and west by Aboyne and Lumphanan. Its utmost length, from north to south, is 8 5/8 miles; its utmost width, from east to west, is 7 miles; and its area is 18,260 2/5 acres, of which 16½ are water. The Dee winds 4¾ miles southeastward along all the southwestern border, being spanned, 1¾ mile south-southeast of the village, by the three-arched Bridge of Potarch (1812); and the interior is drained to the Dee by Belty Burn and several lesser rivulets. The surface may be described as comprising three straths or parts of straths, together with considerable flanking hills, and attains 700 feet at Sluie Woods, 655 at the Hill of Belty, 800 at Ord Fundlie, 1545 at the *Hill of Fare, 1,000 at Learney Hill, and 1,621 at *Benaquhallie or Corrennie, where asterisks mark those summits that culminate on the confines of the parish. The rocks include granite, trap, and sandstone; and the soils range from fertile alluvium to barren moor. Since the beginning of the present century reclamation of waste land has added fully 600 acres to the arable area; and general agricultural improvement has made corresponding progress. Plantations of larch and Scotch fir still cover a large area, though a good many of the older trees have been cut down of recent years. Natives were Alexander Ross (1699-1784), a minor poet, and the ‘Wizard of the North’, John Henry Anderson (1814-74). The principal mansions are Kincardine Lodge, Learney, and Desswood; and 9 proprietors hold each an annual value of 500 pounds and upwards, 5 of between 100 and 500 pounds, and 2 of from 20 to 50 pounds. Giving off since 1875 the quoad sacra parish of Torphins, Kincardine O'Neil is the seat of a presbytery in the synod of Aberdeen; the living is worth 372 pounds. The parish church, rebuilt about 1863, is situated in the middle of the village, at the west end of which stands Episcopal Christ Church, a Pointed edifice of 1865-6, with 100 sittings. At Craigmyle, 7 furlongs east-southeast of Torphins station, is a Free church; and four public schools - Greenburn, Kincardine O'Neil, Tornaveen, and Torphins - with respective accommodation for 69, 130, 90, and 143 children, had (1881) an average attendance of 37, 110, 69, and 102, and grants of 31 pounds, 16 shillings, 103 pounds, 9 shillings, 51 pounds, 10 shillings, and 95 pounds, 17 shillings.

“The presbytery of Kincardine O'Neil comprises the old parishes of Aboyne, Banchory-Ternan, Birse, Cluny, Coull, Crathie and Braemar, Echt, Glenmuick, Kincardine O'Neil, Logie-Coldstone, Lumphanan, Midmar, Strachan, and Tarland-Migvie, the quoad sacra parishes of Braemar, Dinnet, Glengairn, and Torphins, and the chapelry of Finzean. Population (1871) 19,653, (1881) 19,182, of whom 7,044 were communicants of the Church of Scotland in 1878. The Free Church also has a presbytery of Kincardine O'Neil, with churches at Aboyne, Ballater, Banchory-Ternan, Braemar, Cluny, Crathie, Cromar, Echt, Kincardine O'Neil, Lumphanan, Midmar, Strachan, and Tarland, which 13 churches together had 1692 communicants in 1883.”58

***MONYMUSK, ABERDEENSHIRE***

WM Alexander illustrates: “Monymusk, parish. In the dialect pronounced Minny Moss. The present spelling is in the oldest writings, 1211 and 1245, Monymuck. 1654, Monimusk – Gordon’s Map. Perhaps moine musgach, ‘muddy peat-moss’.”59

James MacDonald maintains: “Monymusk (Parish). 1654, Monimosk, Straloch’s map; Monymusk, March in writing of 16th century; the same in Conference of 1211, and in Bull of Pope Innocent of 1245. Perhaps Moine musgach ‘filthy bog’.”60

FH Groome presents: “Monymusk, a village and a parish of central Aberdeenshire. The village stands, 302 feet above sea-level, within 3 furlongs of the Don's south bank, and ¾ mile north by west of Monymusk station on the Alford branch of the Great North of Scotland railway, this being 8½ miles east by south of Alford, 7½ west-southwest of Kintore Junction, and 21¾ (19 by road) west-northwest of Aberdeen. A place of high antiquity, it was almost entirely rebuilt about 1840, and now forms a neat square, with some fine old trees in the center. It has a post and railway telegraph office and a hotel.

“The parish is bounded north by Oyne, northeast by Chapel-of-Garioch, east by Kemnay, south by Cluny, and west by Tough and Keig. Its utmost length, from east to west, is 5 miles; its breadth increases westward from ¼ mile to 4 7/8 miles; and its area is 10,816 acres, of which 87½ are water. The Don winds 10 miles east-southeastward, partly along the Keig, Oyne, and Kemnay boundaries, but mainly through the northeastern interior; and Ton Burn, its affluent, traces all the southern and southeastern boundary. Sinking along the Don to 250 feet above sea-level, the surface thence rises westward to 1,244 feet at Pitfichie Hill, 1,469 at Cairn William, and 1,306 at Green Hill. Granite is the predominant rock in the hills, and is largely quarried. Felspathic rock, of quality suitable for pottery purposes, also occurs, and was for some time worked by an agent of one of the Staffordshire potteries. Iron ore, containing 65 percent of iron, has long been known to exist, but has not been worked on account of the dearth of fuel. The soil of the arable lands is partly clayey, but principally a light loam. About three-sevenths of the entire area are in tillage; nearly one-third is under wood; and the rest is either pastoral or waste. The proportion under wood, it will be noticed, is very large, the planting of larches, spruces, Scotch firs, and hardwood trees having been begun in 1716, and carried on constantly to the present time. A field beside the Don, ½ mile east of Monymusk House, is said to have been the camping ground of Robert Bruce's army before the Battle of Barra (1308), and bears the name of Campfield. Antiquities are vestiges of two ancient Caledonian stone circles, a sculptured standing-stone and Latin cross, the roofless ruin of Pitfichie Castle, and vestiges of a chapel, which was one of the earliest seats of the Culdee missionaries in the North of Scotland. Malcolm Ceannmor in 1078, proceeding on a military expedition against the rebels of Moray, arrived at Monymusk; and, finding that its barony belonged to the Crown, he vowed it to St Andrew, in order to gain the victory, and is said to have marked out the base of the church tower with his spear. In 1170 we hear of the Keledei or Culdees of Munimusc, for whom thirty years later Gilchrist, Earl of Mar, appears to have built a priory, whilst enforcing on them the canonical rule. Disputes arose between them and the Bishops of St Andrews, and by 1245 the Culdees had quite given place to ‘the prior and convent of Munimusc, of the order of St Augustine’. The very foundations of the priory were dug up about 1726. Alexander Nicoll, (1793-1828), an eminent Orientalist and Regius Professor of Hebrew in the University of Oxford, was a native. Monymusk House, on the left bank of the Don, 3 furlongs northeast of the village, is a large old building, with a valuable library and a good collection of paintings. In 1712 the estate was purchased from Sir William Forbes, Bart, of the Pitsligo family, for 116,000 pounds by Sir Francis Grant, Bart (1660-1726), who, on his elevation to the bench in 1709, had assumed the title of Lord Cullen. His fifth descendant, Sir Archibald Grant, seventh Bart, since

1705 (born 1823; suc 1863), holds 14,881 acres in the shire, valued at 7,698 pounds per annum. Monymusk is in the presbytery of Garioch and the synod of Aberdeen; the living is worth 254 pounds. The parish church, St Mary's, on the east side of the village square, is a very old building, parts of it being doubtless coeval with the priory. Comprising the Norman basement of a west tower (17¼ x 15 feet; 50 high), a nave (48 2/3 x 20 feet), and a choir (16 5/8 x 14¾ feet), with a later polygonal apse, it was enlarged by a north aisle, reroofed, and reseated for 580 worshippers in 1822, when the spire was also renewed. Its two pure Norman arches of Queen Margaret's time are objects of much interest. An Episcopal church, containing 130 sittings, was converted from secular purposes in 1801; and the public school, with accommodation for 164 children, had (1883) an average attendance of 107, and a grant of 92 pounds, 2 shillings.”61

***STONE OF MORPHIE, ABERDEENSHIRE***

www.megalithic.co.uk conveys: “Standing Stone in Aberdeenshire. A massive and rugged unshaped standing stone of 3.4 meters in height. It is marked on the Ordnance Survey 1:50000 map. Situated at the side of the minor road which goes from the A92 just north of the Esk Bridge to Marykirk it stands on a little plateau with magnificent views of the Angus Hills to the West.

“Although the immediate vicinity of the stone consists of mundane farm buildings, it stands close by to some of the best coastal scenery of northeast Scotland associated with the River North Esk wending its way to the North Sea. The stone has been said to commemorate the burial place of Camus after a battle where the native Scots engaged the Danes. The base of this uninscribed stone is roughly rectangular, measuring approximately 70 by 100 centimeters. The content herein is based upon a review of literature and my site visits in 2006 and 2007.

“The Stone of Morphie was first noted in the archaeological literature in the mid-1800s. Prior to 1856 the stone was found lying down, but was re-erected in that era. Human skeletal remains were found at that time in ‘black unctuous earth’, potentially those of Camus. However, an alternative site for Camus' death in battle has been noted as Camuston. The Danish general Camus was slain in the Battle of Barrie in 1010 AD by a Chatti warrior. According to information from the Clan Keith, Malcolm II swiped three fingers in the blood of Camus and smeared a three stroke pattern in blood on the shield of the warrior. The Scottish name Keith was derived from ‘Chatti’. Since that time of Malcolm II, the chief of the Keiths has borne three red lines on his arms, observed as early as 1316 on the seal of Sir Robert de Keith, marischal.

“A few years after the Battle of Barrie, Malcolm consolidated his victories over the Danes, and granted extensive holdings of Lothian lands to the Camus Slayer. An alternative account of the Camus slaying indicates that Camus was retreating from a battle at Panbride, when native Scots surrounded and slew him. This second account is not inconsistent with the burial place at the Stone of Morphie. A later alternative account of Camus' death places the battle further north near Kintore.

“The stone stands readily visible from a minor public road on lands of the farm of the Stone of Morphie in the Parish of Saint Cyrus. The stone is situated approximately one kilometer west of the A92 North River Esk Bridge and about 0.4 kilometers east of the historic Mill of Morphie. Safe parking exists quite near the stone itself.”62

***STONEHAVEN, ABERDEENSHIRE***

BH Watt renders: “The following derivation appears to fit the town appropriately – The Stanehive, Stanehyf, and Stanehiffe. Stein, ‘stony’, and hyf, or ‘haven, port or shelter’. The stony haven or bay, which is an exact description of 1) the strand between the Bellman’s Heads and Downie, 2) the larger bay of Stonehaven.”63

Elizabeth Christie sheds light on: “In the beginning the town consisted of a group of houses clustered round the little inlet lying to the north of the headland known as Downie Point. It was a sheltered haven when the southerly gales, which could be frequent and fierce, raged along the coast. The greatest difficulty was a huge rock – Craig-ma-Cair – which lay in the entrance to the haven and proved a very troublesome blockage to the small boats which used the shore. This rock had been used as a quarry for building material until it became a hidden danger to boats when the tide was high. It was blown up and the entrance to the harbor cleared. Hence the name Stonehaven.”64

www.stonehavenguide.net suggests: “Stonehaven was first named Kilwhang and lies on the coast approximately fifteen miles south of Aberdeen. The town has an estimated population of 12,000 people. Stonehaven is spectacular with its bay surrounded on either side by approximately 100 ft high cliffs which carry the scenic coastal roads north and south.

“To the north is Garron Point and its amazing 18-hole golf course. Approximately 2 miles south of Stonehaven, is the hump backed Downie Point, which was the guardian to the town's spectacular Harbor, probably the most photographed in Britain.

“The best view of the 20 mile radius of breathtaking coastline, is from the Black Hill, where you will find in superb isolation, the Memorial to those who fought in both World War I and World War II.

“In 1562 from the Black Hill, Oliver Cromwell's troops tried unsuccessfully to seize the Crown Jewels of Scotland.

“With the cannon, they laid siege to the fortress of Dunnottar Castle, approximately one mile to the south, where the jewels stayed in safe keeping.

“Without the enemy knowing, the Crown Jewels were smuggled by the Garrison and were hidden under the floor of the Old Kirk of Kinneff for many years. The nation was eventually re-united with them some years later.

“Approximately one mile south of Dunnottar Castle, you will find the 150 ft cliffs of the Royal Society for Protection of Birds which is based at Crawton. This is one of the largest places in Britain where thousands of seabirds nest each year.

“Stonehaven has a Modern layout with 48 foot wide streets, some which are tree lined, these trees being centered round Stonehaven's Market Square. The Market Buildings, built in 1826 dominate the Market Square with its impressive town clock and spire.

“Erected in 1790, was the square-shaped Town House clock and spire, which is situated in the High Street of the Old Town near Stonehaven's Harbor.

“Designed in squares is the New Town, which drew attention from the continent and was designed by the 4th Robert Barclay. He also found fame as an agriculturist. Fame also came the way of the 4th

Robert Barclay's son Captain Robert Barclay-Allardice, once called the Great Pedestrian because of his feet. Wearing a tight fitting suit, cravat and top hat, he walked 1,000 miles in 1,000 hours in June 1809.

“Robert William Thomson was the first local Wool Mill owner of Stonehaven. He invented the Pneumatic Tyre, Solid Rubber Tyre and the self-filling Fountain Pen. After this he went about inventing the first road going Steam Tractor and Rotary Engine.

“Lord John Reith was born Stonehaven, Scotland, on 20th July, 1889. His father, Dr George Reith, was a minister of the United Free Church of Scotland. After being educated at Glasgow Academy, Reith served an engineering apprenticeship in London. He was appointed director-general of the BBC.

“Amongst other attractions in Stonehaven is a six-rink standard Indoor Bowling Stadium which cost approximately 250,000 pounds. This was completed over a three year period. Next door to the Outdoor Swimming Pool is the indoor Leisure Centre with its indoor pool, gym and sport facilities.

“Nearer to Stonehaven's Town Centre is the Bowling, Tennis and putting course, which is a prime example of the cooperation between Aberdeenshire Council and Stonehaven's local community which dates back over 100 years.

“The Dunnottar Quoiting Club is situated approximately seventy yards away from the local Bowling and Tennis courts. The Club is over one hundred years old. This is an example of Stonehaven's ancient past-time and the last of its kind from within the River Forth.

“The recreational Mineral Well Park is further west and is home to Football, Cricket, and the North of Scotland's only International Racing Car Circuit, which attracts many enthusiasts from throughout the United Kingdom and World Wide.

“This large open space also holds the Annual Highland Games. Here you get an excellent view of the Railway Bridge taking you South and North towards Aberdeen.”65

**ANGUS**

“Angus is a masculine given name in English. It is an Anglicized form of the Scottish Gaelic Aonghas, which is composed of Celtic elements meaning ‘one’, and ‘choice’. A variant spelling of the Scottish Gaelic name is Aonghus. The Irish form of the Scottish Gaelic name is Aengus. A pet form of the given name Angus is Angie, pronounced an-ghee, which represents the Scottish Gaelic Angaidh. A short form of the given name Angus is Gus. The feminine form of Angus is Angusina.

“The earliest form of the given name Angus, and its cognates, occurs in Adomnan’s Vita Columbae (English: ‘Life of Columba’) as Oinogusius, Oinogussius. This name likely refers to a Pictish king whose name is recorded variously as Onnust, Hungus. According to historian Alex Woolf, the early Gaelic form of the name, Oengus, was borrowed from the British Pictish Onuist, which appears in British as Ungust.”66

FH Groome calls attention to: “Angus, an ancient district nearly or quite conterminous with Forfarshire. Some archaeologists think that it got its name from Angus, a brother of Kenneth II, and recipient of title to proprietorship of the district, or to lordship over it, immediately after the conquest of the Picts: but others think that a hill a little to the eastward of Aberlemno church bore the name of Angus long previous to Kenneth II's time: had been a noted place of rendezvous on great public occasions: and

gradually or eventually gave its name to the surrounding country. A finely diversified strath or valley, from 4 to 6 miles broad, and upwards of 30 miles long, extending from the western boundary of Kettins parish to the month of the North Esk River, is called the Howe or Hollow of Angus. An earldom of Angus was created in favor of the Douglas family, some time prior to 1329: came in that year into the line of the Dukes of Hamilton: and ranks now as the oldest one of the present duke's numerous peerages.”67

John Bartholomew connotes: “Forfarshire (or Angus), maritime county in east of Scotland; is bounded north by the counties of Aberdeen and Kincardine, east by the North Sea, south by the Firth of Tay, and west by the county of Perth; greatest length, 37 miles; greatest breadth, 27 miles; area, 560,087 acres, population 266,360. The surface presents great variety. In the northwest are the Braes of Angus, a group of spurs of the Grampians, intersected by romantic glens; in the southwest, 8 miles from and parallel to the Firth of Tay, are the Sidlaw Hills; between the Braes of Angus and the Sidlaw Hills is the fertile valley of Strathmore (Great Valley) or Howe of Angus; from the Sidlaw Hills to the coast on the east and south the land is level and highly cultivated. From Dundee to Arbroath the coast consists of sand; from Arbroath to Lunan Bay it is formed of sandstone cliffs, culminating in the Red Head. The chief rivers are the Isla, a tributary of the Tay, and the North Esk and South Esk, which flow southeast to the North Sea. Agriculture has the advantage of the most approved methods, and cattle rearing is carried to great perfection; the polled Angus cattle, however, are now raised chiefly in the county of Aberdeen. Nearly the whole of the northwest of the county is either waste land, or is occupied as sheep-walks or deer-forests. Granite is the prevailing rock in the north portion of the Grampians, and sandstone in the neighborhood of the Sidlaw Hills; sandstone flags are quarried in the Carmylie district, and there are lime works in the neighborhood of Montrose. The principal industry is the manufacture of linen and jute, Dundee being the chief seat of those trades in Britain. The county contains 51 parishes, and a 5 parts, the parliamentary and police burgh of Dundee (2 members), the parliamentary and police burghs of Montrose, Arbroath, Brechin, and Forfar (part of the Montrose Burghs - 1 member), and the police burghs of Broughty Ferry and Kirriemuir. It returns 1 member to Parliament.”68

***ARBROATH, ANGUS***

Neil Oliver details: “A collection of thirty-eight Pictish stones from the site of a royal center near Arbroath reveals the time, fossilized in stone, when both pagan and Christian traditions could feature on the same slab. The Drosten Stone has on its reverse some of the classic images so beloved of the Picts – discs, a crescent, a comb, as well as unsuspecting animals being targeted by a huntsman armed with a bow. All of the images appear in relief, with the stone carefully chipped and pecked away until the symbol or animal stands proud in the background. A hind is lovingly depicted, her suckling fawn entwined with her legs – just one element of a masterpiece that makes plain the skill of the artist. On the front of the stone, in the prime location, is a cross – the empty Celtic cross that represents the risen Christ. A pagan past and the promise of salvation, each philosophy backed by the other.”69

***BLACK WATCH MEMORIAL, ANGUS***

www.scottish-places.info explains: “A monument to the north of Dundee off the main road from Dundee to Forfar, at the bottom of Powrie Brae, the Black Watch Memorial was erected in memory of those 440 men recruited from Dundee and Angus to serve in the Black Watch (4th and 5th Battalions) who died during the Second World War. Unveiled in 1959 by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother (1900-2002), in front of 3,000 people, the bronze memorial takes the form of a soldier in Black Watch service uniform looking down over the city. The memorial was moved during the

mid-1980s because its original site had become isolated by the building of the new A90 dual-carriageway. Following a 12,000 pounds restoration, managed by the Black Watch Association, the memorial was re-dedicated in 2009 by His Royal Highness Prince Charles, the Duke of Rothesay, in his position as Royal Colonel of the Black Watch Battalion.”70

***DUNNICHEN, ANGUS***

Neil Oliver imparts: “Dunnichen – also called Dun Nechtain, or Nechtansmere in some of the books – may well be the battle commemorated on the nearby Aberlemno Stone, a Pictish monument made a hundred years later. It depicts a bloodbath in graphic detail, in much the same way that the Bayeux Tapestry remembers the Norman victory at Hastings in 1066. In one corner of the fight are bare-headed, long-haired Pictish warriors, on the other the Angles wearing distinctive metal helmets. By all accounts it was a one-sided encounter. The massed and disciplined ranks of Pictish spearmen drove their enemy into the cold, dark waters of a loch and butchered them there. The final relief, in the lower right-hand corner of the stone, shows a raven pecking at the dead face of a fallen prince of the Angles. Bridei had done much more than win a battle. By the power of his own will he had forced the Picts to unite under the leadership of one king. The new confederation had a new name as well – it was Pictland.

“There are over 200 Pictish stones still standing in the modern landscape. By mapping their locations, it is possible to trace the extent of the kingdom. Following the defeat at Dunnichen, the Angles were driven back down south – and in the years to come the Picts gained the upper hand with the rest of their neighbors as well. In the west, both the Gaels and the Britons were overwhelmed, and, while each was able to retain some vestiges of its identity, both were forced to pay homage to the Pictish kings. By the middle of the eighth century, the confident young kingdom of Pictland was unquestionably the dominant presence in northern Britain.”71

***FORFAR, ANGUS 72 ***

Neil Oliver mentions: “Alexander II was in the fourteenth year of his reign when the MacWilliams found the will and the support for one final uprising, in 1228. Once he had crushed them, Alexander needed to show those men of will what will really was. On a mid-winter market day in 1230, in the settlement of Forfar, one of the king’s men marched out into the center of the town square to a position beside the market cross. In his arms he held the recently born daughter of the leader of the MacWilliams, taken from her mother’s arms.

“Alexander himself watched from nearby as the infant was held up to the people. Content that he had the attention of the assembled crowd, the henchman took hold of the baby by her ankles and swung her with all his might. Her head smashed like an egg against the column of the cross, her blood and brains stained the stones and splattered into the onlookers’ faces. In the words of the Lanercost Chronicle: ‘The daughter, who had not long left her mother’s womb, innocent as she was, was put to death in the view of the market place. Her head was struck against the column and her brains dashed out.’ This was the stuff of which kings were made: the will to do what others would not.

“Alexander II had been made King of Scots in a ceremony at Scone on 5 December 1214, when he was sixteen years old. His father had died just the day before, but there had been no time for mourning. In the chill of the dawn he and his entourage had been ferried across the River Tay. They had made their

way then to the same grass-covered mound of earth from which King Constantine and Bishop Cellach had pledged their allegiance to the land and to each other 308 years before. The place was known by then as Moot Hill, or the Hill of Belief, and on it had been placed the Stone of Destiny, the rock with the power to make kings.

“Alexander took his place, seated upon the stone, and listened while a bard recited his Gaelic patronymic, name by name. Like the baby girl he would one day send to an ugly death, he too was Mac Uilliem, after a fashion. He was the son of William – William the Lion. But unlike his distant, luckless relative, daughter of a disinherited line, he could count himself son of all the kings, all the way back to the first Scot himself, Iber Scot.

“Such a ceremony could only have fanned the flames of self-belief that burned within the boy-king. He was red-haired like all the men of his family, and he had the temperament to match. From boyhood he had been groomed for the kingship. William had seen to it that he featured prominently in treaties with England, and that he was involved in the business of government. The men of his family had fought for generations to preserve their bloodline, and Alexander was determined to do the same.”73

***INVERQUHARITY CASTLE, ANGUS***

FC Scharlau puts into words: “Inver means ‘at the mouth of’, therefore Inverarity is ‘at the mouth of the river Quharity’.”74

www.scotland.com reports: “Inverquharity Castle in Scotland takes its name from the adjacent Quharity Burn. It stands near the confluence of Quharity Burn and the South Esk River, 3 miles northeast of Kirriemuir. Inverquharity Castle is located in the lower section of Kirriemuir parish, and is one of the finest and most entire baronial buildings in Forfarshire. The original rectangular tower was built in the early 1440s by the Ogilvie family who owned the property from 1420 till the late 18th century. In 1444 King James II granted to Alexander Ogilvie, the 2nd Lord Inverquharity, the license to build an iron yett, an honor bestowed on only the most trusted.

“Alexander got into a dispute with the Earl of Crawford, of Finavon Castle in 1445, which culminated in the ‘Battle of Arbroath’, lasting two days. Both of them were killed in it, and Inverquharity’s east wing was destroyed in retaliation for the Earl’s death. The outline of a serving hatch, which used to open into the kitchen in the east wing, can still be seen low down on the east wall.

“Inverquharity Castle was extended in the 16th century into a four storied L-plan structure with a garret and a corbelled-out parapet over the entrance to the castle. It is a structure of strong ashlar work, in pointed architecture, with nine feet thick walls that project near the top, and terminate in a parapet. If you look up from the main door, you can see the machicolations over the gateway from which stones or boiling oil could be poured down on the enemy.

“Fourteen generations of Ogilvies have lived here from 1420. In 1626 they received a baronetcy, and that particular branch of the family is still designated of Inverquharity or Baldovan. Inverquharity Castle was sold by the Ogilvies in the late 18th century. This was around the same time that the 16th century wing was demolished, and the castle fell into disrepair.

“The castle is in the possession of the Grants who restored it in the 1960s. They rebuilt the 16th century wing, and the castle remains their family home today. The castle is not open to the public and is in a state of good preservation.”75

***RESTENNETH PRIORY, ANGUS***

FC Scharlau shows: “According to Reid’s History of Forfar, Restenneth derives from ‘a band of warriors made some inquiries regarding the foe of whom they were in pursuit of. Pointing them to a distant hollow, the natives assured them “they rest in it”.’”76

www.angus.gov.uk catalogs: “The ancient priory church at Restenneth, by Forfar, is believed to have been founded by Nechtan, king of the Picts about 715. He sent to the Abbot of Wearmouth, near Corbridge, to ask for instruction in the Christian faith, and also for builders who could build in the Roman style that is in stone, a new innovation for the period. In return Nechtan promised to dedicate the church to St Peter. Recent opinion favors a late 11th century date for the base of the tower. In either case, the church is one of the very earliest stone buildings in Scotland.

“Little is known about the first 400 years of the church's history until the reign of King David I. He granted a charter giving Restenneth various thanages and other royal lands. By 1162 Restenneth comes more into focus when the church is given by King Malcolm IV (1153-65) to the Abbey of Jedburgh, and it comes under the rule of the Augustinian canons. The king granted Restenneth to Jedburgh Abbey for the welfare of the soul of his grandfather David I, his parents Prince Henry and Ada, and the souls of his sisters and all of his other antecessors and successors. The priory also served as the parish church for the parish of Forfar.

“Malcolm IV's charter confirmed extensive land holdings and privileges including the lands of Craignathro, Pitreuchie, Tealing, Dunninald, Dysart and Egglispether with their benefits, teinds of the king’s holdings in Angus, which included money, wool, chickens, cheese, malt and those teinds of the mill and fish market of Forfar, the whole teinds of the king's farms or lordships of Salorch [Montrose], Montrose [Old Montrose], and Rossie, free passage on the Firth of Forth, a toft in each of the burghs of Perth, Stirling, Edinburgh, Montrose and Forfar and 20s for the light of the church in Salorch [Montrose], and the king's salt pits and mill of Montrose. The Priory was well endowed with material possessions.

“The area was popular with many of the early Scottish kings. Malcolm Canmore and Queen Margaret favored Forfar with both its castle and royal palace. It was also favored by William the Lion, Alexander II and Alexander III. They spent a time in Forfar hunting in the surrounding countryside. The palace or castle must have had a large garden as a royal gardener was employed, earning 5 merks a year.

“Life for the 8 or so canons who resided at Restenneth went on peaceably until the Wars of Independence. They continued to build and improve the church buildings. On August 1243 the church at Restenneth consecrated by David de Bernham, bishop of St Andrews, probably marking the completion of the chancel. Such building work was soon to be undone. Robert the Bruce and the English King Edward I fought over this part of Scotland. Each destroyed castles and other strategic buildings that they could not hold. Robert the Bruce destroyed the castle at Forfar, never to be rebuilt or be a royal residence again. During the Wars, the church at Restenneth was burned with the loss of its muniments, some national records and those of its motherhouse at Jedburgh. They were ‘lost and carried off by wars, and other accidental causes’. Later, in 1321, an inquest was carried out to determine and restore

the Priory's rights and privileges. Edward I did allow the canons to make some repairs and granted them 20 oaks from the forest of Plater (Finavon). Robert the Bruce was also subsequently a generous patron to the Priory. Around 1327 King Robert buried his infant son, Prince John, in the church, the only member of his family not to be buried in Dumfermline Abbey. Prince John may have been about 2 years old at the time of his death. King David II later generously supported Restenneth as the last resting place of his brother.

“As the years passed Restenneth faded into obscurity, never again to receive royal favor. By 1490 the last identifiable Prior was William Rutherford, and 10 years later only 2 canons were resident. This practice was not unusual. A substitute vicar would be paid to take the place of the absent canon. By the Reformation, Restenneth was ripe for dismantling. The lands became the property of the Home family. On 1 August 1560, Andrew, second son of George, Lord Home, sat in parliament as the commendator of both Jedburgh and Restenneth. By 1591 Restenneth no longer served Forfar as its parish church. The inhabitants cited the inconvenience of the site in the winter. Instead Restenneth's chapel in the town became the parish church. By 1593 Restenneth had a minister of its own. In the early 17th century Restenneth and its lands devolved to the Earls of Kelly through the female Home line. When James VI granted Thomas Erskine the lands, it was described as including the church, cloister, yards and orchards.

“The lands changed hands on a few more occasions passing through the Fletcher family of Saltoun and its cadet branch at Ballinshoe, near Kirriemuir. The Hunters of Burnside acquired the dominical lands of Restenneth with the fishings. By 1790 it was purchased by George Dempster who drained the loch and used the interior of the chapel as a family burying ground. The last flurry of excitement experienced by the priory was during the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745 when it sustained damage by troops before it settled into gentle obscurity.

“After many years being used as a cattle fold in the 19th century, the priory church was given into the care of Historic Scotland's forerunner in 1919. In 2005 Angus Archives relocated to the site, once more giving Restenneth a prominent part to play in the heritage of the area.”77

**ARGYLL AND BUTE**

**ARGYLL**

“The name derives from Old Gaelic airer Goídel (‘border region of the Gaels’). The early thirteenth-century author of De Situ Albanie explains that ‘the name Arregathel means margin (ie, border region) of the Scots or Irish, because all Scots and Irish are generally called Gattheli (ie, Gaels), from their ancient war leader known as Gaithelglas.’

“However, the word airer naturally carries the meaning of the word ‘coast’ when applied to maritime regions, so the place name can also be translated as ‘Coast of [the] Gaels’. Woolf has suggested that the name Airer Goídel replaced the name Dál Riata when the 9th-century Norse conquest split Irish Dál Riata and the islands of Alban Dál Riata off from mainland Alban Dál Riata. The mainland area, renamed Airer Goídel, would have contrasted with the offshore islands of Innse Gall, literally ‘islands of the foreigners’. They were referred to this way because during the 9th to 12th centuries, they were ruled by Norse-speaking Gall-Gaels.”78

FH Groome discusses: “Argyll, a district of Argyllshire, bonded northwest and north by Loch Melford, Loch Aich, and the lower part of Loch Awe, which separate it from Lorn; east and southeast by the upper

reach of Loch Fyne, which separates it from Cowal; south by Loch Gilp and the Crinan Canal, which separate it from Knapdale; west by reaches and straits of the Atlantic Ocean, which separate it from the Slate Islands and Mull. Its greatest length, from northeast to southwest, is 32 miles; and its greatest breadth is 15 miles. Abounding in grand romantic scenery of lake and mountain, particularly along Loch Fyne, up the course of the river Ary, and along the shores of Loch Awe, it is rich, too, in old historic associations; and as to both its contour and its history, it answers well to its name, which is said to be derived from the Gaelic words Airer-Gaedhil, signifying ‘land of the Gael’. It has given the title of Earl since 1457, and the title of Duke since 1701, in the peerage of Scotland, to the noble family of Campbell. One of the synods of the Church of Scotland bears the name of Argyll; meets at Ardrishaig on the first Wednesday of September; includes or superintends the presbyteries of Inverary, Dunoon, Kintyre, Islay and Jura, Lorn, and Mull, and, through these, exercises jurisdiction over all the old parishes of Argyllshire but one, and over five of the six old parishes of Buteshire. Population (1871) 90,948, of whom 9,581 were communicants of the Church of Scotland in 1878, when the sums raised in Christian liberality by its 76 congregations amounted to 7,464 pounds. There is also a Free Church synod of Argyll, meeting at Lochgilphead on the fourth Wednesday of April; comprising or superintending presbyteries of Dunoon, Inverary, Kintyre, Lorn, Mull, and Islay; and through these exercising jurisdiction over 54 congregations, with 12,816 members or adherents in 1880. The Episcopal Church of Scotland has a diocese of Argyll and the Isles, comprehending 25 churches or mission stations. The Cathedral is at Cumbrae, and the bishop's residence is Bishopton, near Lochgilphead. There is also a Roman Catholic see of Argyll and the Isles, comprising the counties of Argyll and Inverness, Bute, Arran, and the Hebrides. In 1881 it had 18 priests, 19 missions, 37 churches, chapels, and stations, and 4 day schools.”79

**ARGYLLSHIRE**

FH Groome expounds: “Argyllshire, a maritime, western, Highland county, the second in Scotland as to size, the twelfth as to population. It comprehends a very irregularly outlined portion of the mainland, and a large number of the western islands, the chief being Mull, Islay, Jura, Tiree, Coll, Rum, Lismore, and Colonsay. Extending from the extremity of Locheil district 11 miles north of Fort William to the extremity of Kintyre, 14 miles northeast of the Antrim coast of Ireland, it is only 22 miles short of being half as long as the entire mainland of Scotland. It is bounded north by Inverness-shire, east by Perthshire, Dumbartonshire, and the northern ramifications and main expanse of the Firth of Clyde, south by the Irish Sea, and by the Atlantic Ocean. Its greatest length, from north to south, is 115 miles; its greatest breadth, exclusive of the islands, is 55 miles; its greatest breadth, inclusive of the islands, is 87 miles; its breadth, over the southernmost 27 miles, is nowhere more than 9½ miles; and its area is 2,083,126 acres, or 3,255 square miles, of which islands comprise about 1,000 square miles. The outlines are so exceedingly irregular, the projections of mainland into ocean so bold, the intersections of mainland by sea-lochs so numerous and great, the interlocking of mainland and islands so intricate, and the distributions everywhere of land and water so manifold and erratic, that no fair notion of them can be formed except by examination of a map. No part of the interior is more than 12 miles distant from either the sea or some sea-loch. The entire circumference has been roughly stated at about 460 miles, and the proportion of the circumference washed by sea-water has been roughly stated at about 340 miles; but both of these estimates, if all the sinuosities of outline and sea-coast and sea-loch shore be followed, are greatly short of the reality.

“The coasts and sea-lochs present a marvelous wealth of picturesque scenery. The views of the Firth of Clyde are endlessly diversified; up Loch Long, are first richly impressive, next sternly grand; up Loch Goil

and Holy Loch, combine simplicity with grandeur; round the Kyles of Bute, are a circle of witchery; up Loch Fyne, pass from much variety of both shore and hill to striking scenes of wooded heights and lofty peaks; up the Firth of Lorn, are a gorgeous panorama of almost all styles and combinations of landscape; up Loch Linnhe, or round Mull island, are a rich succession of the beautiful and the romantic; and in many other quarters, as up Loch Etive, the Sound of Jura, West Loch Tarbert, and Kilbrannan Sound, are equally diversified and opulent. Their attractions, since the era of steam navigation, both for summer visitors and for transient tourists, have been very great. Not a few places or parts formerly without an inhabitant, or possessing only rude clachans or small villages, on points of the coasts or sea-lochs most easily accessible from Greenock or Glasgow, such as on the shores of Loch Long, Loch Goil, Holy Loch, the Firth of Clyde, the Kyles of Bute, and Loch Riddon, are now occupied by long ranges of villas and cottages-ornées. Most of the sea-waters, too, as well those most remote from Greenock as those near to it, are daily traversed during the summer months, by one or more of a fleet of first-rate steamers, carrying crowds of tourists mainly or solely to enjoy the delights of the scenery. No equal extent of coast in the world combines so largely a rich display of landscape with concourse of strangers to behold it. A great drawback, however, is excessive humidity of the climate, the rainfall at Oban being 65.29, the mean temperature 47.3. Another drawback, though operating vastly more in the summer than in the winter months, is occasional, fitfull, severe tempestuousness; and this combines with the prevailing boldness and rockiness of the shores to render navigation perilous. Lighthouses are at Corran in Loch Eil, Mousedale in Lismore, Runa-Gall in the Sound of Mull, Ardnamurchan Point at the extreme northwest of the mainland, Skerryvore west-southwest of Tiree, Rhu-Vaal at the north end of the Sound of Islay, Macarthur's-Head at the south end of the Sound of Islay, Rhinns at Oversay in Islay, Dune Point in Loch Indal, Skervuile near the south end of the Sound of Jura, Mull of Kintyre at the southern extremity of Kintyre, Sanda island, 6 miles east-southeast of the Mull of Kintyre, and Devaar island at the mouth of Campbeltown Loch.

“An ancient Caledonian tribe, called the Epidii, occupied the great part of what is now Argyllshire. They took their name from the word Ebyd, signifying ‘a peninsula’, and designating what is now Kintyre, which hence was anciently called the Epidian promontory. They spread as far north as to Loch Linnhe and the Braes of Glenorchy; they must have lived in a very dispersed condition; they necessarily were cut into sections by great natural barriers; they likewise, from the character of their boundaries on the north and the east, must have been much separated from the other Caledonian tribes; and they do not appear to have been disturbed even remotely by the Romans. They were, in great degree, an isolated people; and in so far as they had communication with other territories than their own, they seem to have had it, for a long time, far more with Erin than with Caledonia. Some of them, at an early period, probably before the Christian era, immigrated to the northeast coast of Ireland, and laid there the foundation of a prosperous settlement, under the name of Dalriada. A native tribe, called the Cruithne, was there before them; took its name from words signifying ‘eaters of corn’; is thought to have been addicted to the cultivation of the ground, in contrast to a pastoral or roving mode of life; and seems to have easily yielded itself into absorption with the immigrants. An intermingled race of Epidii and Cruithne arose, took the name of Dalriads or Dalriadans, adopted the Christian faith from the early Culdees of Erin, and are presumed to have combined the comparatively pastoral habits of the Epidii with the land-cultivating habits of the Cruithne. A colony of these Dalriads or Dalriadans came, in the year 503, to Kintyre; brought with them the practices of the Christian religion, and improved practices in the commoner arts of life; sent off detachments to various centers of the old Epidian region, especially to Islay and to Lorn; acquired ascendancy through all the country of the Epidii; and established at

Dunstaffnage, in the neighborhood of Oban, a monarchy which is usually regarded by historians as the parent monarchy of Scotland. Further notices of that early monarchy will be given in our Introduction and under Dunstaffnage. King Kenneth, who began to reign at Dunstaffnage in 835, was the maternal grandson of a king of Pictavia, who died without any male heir in 833, and he made a claim to be that king's successor, contested the claim for several years with two competitors, and eventually enforced it by strength of victory; united the crown of Pictavia to the crown of Dalriada; and established, in breadth and permanency, the kingdom of Scotland.

“The territory now forming Argyllshire, while it had been the cradle of the Scottish kingdom, became thenceforth no more than an outlying portion of it; and it soon began to be much disturbed by invasions and forays of Norsemen and other depredators who swept the seas. Numerous battles and heroic achievements, in consequence, took place within its bounds; but these, on account of its main territory becoming then much linked in history with the entire Western Highlands, will be more appropriately noticed in our article on the Hebrides. Some great events, indeed, if we may repose any confidence in the voice of tradition, events relating to Fingal and his heroes, were peculiarly its own, or at least belonged largely to its northern tracts of Morvern and Glencoe; but they are too doubtful and shadowy to admit of other than slight notice in merely the articles on the particular localities with which they are associated. The Macdougals of Lorn and the Macdonalds, Lords of the Isles, were almost independent thanes during much of the Middle Ages — the former in Lorn, Argyll, and Mull — the latter in Islay, Kintyre, and some other parts; but they were eventually reduced to subjection by James III. The leading events during their times will be noticed in our article on the Hebrides. The Stewarts afterwards became the leading clan in Appin; the Macarthurs, about Loch Awe; the Macgregors, in Glenorchy; the Macnaughtens, about parts of Loch Fyne; the Campbells, in parts of Lorn and Argyll. The Campbells, in particular, soon got high ascendancy, not only in their own original territory, but throughout the county and beyond it; they thoroughly defeated an insurrection of the Macdonalds in 1614; they extended their own acquisitions of territory near and far, till they came to hold an enormous proportion of all the land; and they concentrated their strength of descent in the two great noble families of Argyll and Breadalbane. The Argyll family got the Scottish peerage titles of Baron Campbell in 1452, Earl of Argyll in 1457, Baron of Lorn in 1470, Duke of Argyll, Marquis of Lorn and Kintyre, Earl of Campbell and Cowal, Viscount of Lochowe and Glenisla, and Baron Inverary, Mull, Morvern, and Tiree in 1701; they also got, in the peerage of Great Britain, the titles of Baron Sundridge in 1766 and Baron Hamilton in 1776; they likewise are hereditary keepers of the castles of Dunoon, Dunstaffnage, and Carrick; and, in 1871, through marriage of the Marquis of Lorn, the duke's eldest son, to the Princess Louise, they became allied to the Royal Family.

“The antiquities of Argyllshire are many and various. Caledonian remains, particularly stone circles and megalithic stones, occur frequently. Dalriadic remains, or what claim to be such, are prominent at ‘Berigonium’ and Dunstaffnage. Danish forts, in the shape of what are called ‘duns’, occur on different parts of the coast. Ecclesiastical remains occur on Iona, on Oronsay, in Ardchattan, at Kilmun, etc. Mediaeval castles, interesting for either their history, their architecture, or their remains, are at Dunolly, Kilchurn, Artornish, Mingarry, Skipness, and Carrick; and foundations of others are at Dunoon, Ardkinglass, and some other places.”80

John Bartholomew impresses: “Argyllshire, a maritime county in the west of Scotland, including nearly all the islands of the Inner Hebrides. In extreme length the mainland extends about 112 miles south from the boundary with Inverness-shire to the North Channel, and approaches the opposite coast of

Ireland within a distance of 13 miles. Area, 3,213.1 square miles, or 2,092,458 acres. Population 76,468, or 24 persons to each square mile. The mainland is much indented by picturesque and far-reaching sea-lochs, which render its coast-line proportionately very great. The peninsula of Kintyre extends about 55 miles south from the Crinan Canal to the Mull of Kintyre, and is from 5 miles to 10 miles broad. Ardnamurchan Point is the most westerly projection on the mainland of Scotland. The principal sea-lochs are Eil, Linnhe, Leven, Etive, and Firth of Lorne in the northwest; and Fyne, Striven, Long, and Goil branching from the Firth of Clyde. The sea views along the west coast and among the islands are magnificent, while the loch and mountain scenery is everywhere grand and picturesque. The surface is nearly all rugged and mountainous, the low and arable land lying chiefly round the coasts. The highest summit is Ben Cruachan, altitude 3,611 ft, in the northwest of the mainland; another lofty summit, Ben More, in the isle of Mull, rises to an altitude of 3,185 ft. The largest lake is Loch Awe, which stretches for upwards of 20 miles south from the base of Ben Cruachan. The chief islands are Mull, Islay, Jura, Tyree, Coll, Rum, Colonsay, and many smaller. The arable land constitutes about one-eighth of the entire area. Slate is extensively quarried and exported. The fisheries are very important, especially the herring fishery on Loch Fyne. There are several large distilleries in Islay and at Campbeltown. Railway communication extends through Perthshire to Oban, on the northwest of Argyllshire. The county comprises the districts of Lochiel, Ardgour, Sunart, Ardnamuchan, and Morven in the northwest detached section; Lorn, Argyll, Cowal, Knapdale, and Kintyre in the main body; 37 parishes, parts of 3 other parishes, the parliamentary and police burghs of Campbeltown, Inveraray, and Oban (part of the Ayr Burghs), and the police burghs of Dunoon, Lochgilphead, and Tobermory. It returns 1 member to Parliament.”81

**BUTE**

“The name Bute is of uncertain origin. According to Mac an Tàilleir (2003) it may be derived from the Old Irish bót, meaning ‘fire’. This opinion is supported by Watson (1926), who argues that signal fire may be the origin. He also states that there is no likely derivation from Ptolemy's Ebudae. This reference to beacon fires may date from the Norse period.

“Probably originally known to the Norse as Bót, later during the Viking period the island was known as ‘Rothesay’, possibly referring to a personal name ‘Roth’ or ‘Roderick’ with the Old Norse suffix ey, meaning ‘island’. This name eventually came to refer to the main town on the island, which was also known in Gaelic as Baile Bhòid, literally ‘the town of Bute’.

“Haswell-Smith (2004) states that the original derivation was from the Brythonic budh meaning ‘corn’. It has also been suggested that the name may mean ‘victory isle’ or have been named after St Brendan, although this is unlikely.”82

FH Groome notates: “Bute, an island in the north of Buteshire. It is surrounded by belts, bands, or expanses of the Firth of Clyde; and, round its northern half, is separated from Argyllshire only by the narrow semicircular belt called the Kyles of Bute. It extends south-southeastward from the elbow of the Kyles at the mouth of Loch Riddon to the narrow part of the fairway of the Firth of Clyde, only 2¼ miles wide between itself and Little Cumbrae Island. Its greatest length, from Buttock Point south-southeastward to Garroch Head, is 15½ miles; its breadth varies between 9 furlongs and 6 1/8 miles (from Bogany Point to Ardscalpsie Point); and its area, including Inchmarnock, is 31,836½ acres or 49¾ square miles. The coast is indented on the east by Kames, Rothesay, and Kilchattan Bays; on the west by Dunagoil, Stravanan, Scalpsie, St Ninians, and Etterick Bays; and, for the most part rocky, includes some

sweeps and stretches of fine beach. The interior seems at one time to have formed four hilly islands, and now is traversed by three low continuous, nearly parallel dingles, dividing it into four districts. The northernmost and largest of these, terminating in a dingle running from Kames Bay to Etterick Bay, has an extreme length and breadth of 5½ and 4 1/8 miles; and here, from north to south, rise Muclich Hill (638 feet), North Hill of Bullochreg (769), Torran Turach (745), Kilbride Hill (836), Kames Hill (875), and Eenan Hill (538). The second district extends to a dingle running from Rothesay Bay to Scalpsie Bay; measures 4 3/8 by 6 1/8 miles; and attains 457 feet above sea-level near Kamesburgh, 530 near Auchiemore Wood, and 477 to the west of the head of Loch Fad; and has a more diversified coast than any of the other districts. The third extends to a dingle running from Kilchattan Bay to Stravanan Bay; its highest point is Ardencraig (433 feet), ¾ mile east of Rothesay. The southernmost and smallest district measures only about 2½ miles by 2, and attains an elevation of 517 feet above sea-level near Kilchattan, of 485 in Torr Mor. The general surface displays a charming variety of contour and slope, containing thousands of points which command great sweeps of gorgeous prospect, and hundreds which command magnificent panoramic views. The views round the Kyles, up Lochs Striven, Riddon, and Fyne, down Kilbrannan Sound, over and along the Firth of Clyde, on to the mountains of Cowal, the swelling hills of Kintyre, the sublime peaks of Arran, the broken surfaces of the Cumbraes, and the rich, vast amphitheater of Ayrshire, are among the most exquisite in Scotland. Rothesay Bay alone, with the views outward from it, is worth a long journey to behold. The other bays also, and the entire semicircle of the Kyles, are brilliantly picturesque. A chain of lakes - Lochs Ascog (1 mile x 2 furlong), Fad (2½ x ¼ mile), Quien (5 x 2¾ furlong) - lies along most of the dingle separating the second district from the third. The longest rivulet, the Glenmore Burn, rises within 2 miles of the northern extremity, and runs 4½ miles south by eastward, along Glen More, to the northern side of Etterick Bay. Other streams are numerous, but most have a run of less than 2, and none of more than 2¾, miles. Micaceous schist is almost the sole formation throughout the northern district; clay and chlorite slate, resting in parts on great beds of quartz, prevail throughout the second; the third is composed of Old Red sandstone; and trap rocks, erupted through and overlying Old Red sandstone, predominate throughout the southernmost district. Veins of copper ore were discovered near Kames Bay shortly before 1859; and other mineral deposits are lime, coal, and slate, but all of inferior quality. The island is divided politically into Rothesay, North Bute, and Kingarth parishes; includes the quoad sacra parish of New Rothesay, and 2 chapelries in Rothesay; and is ecclesiastically in the presbytery of Dunoon and synod of Argyll. Its only town is Rothesay; and its chief villages are Port Bannatyne or Kamesburgh and Ascog. Its detailed features are noticed in articles on the parishes and principal localities; its antiquities and other special objects of interest under Rothesay, Kames, Dungyle, Blanes, and Mountstuart; and its history is given under Rothesay and the Hebrides. Bute gives the title of Earl in the peerage of Scotland, of Marquis in that of the United Kingdom, to a branch of the family of Stewart. The earldom was created in 1703, the marquisate in 1796; and the former was preceded by the titles of Baron Crichton, Viscount of Ayr, and Earl of Dumfries. The Marquis takes also from places in Bute the titles of Baron Mountstuart and Viscount of Kingarth; and, from other Buteshire islands, the titles of Baron Cumbrae and Baron Inchmarnock. His lordship's Scottish seats are Mountstuart in Bute, and Dumfries House in Ayrshire. Valuation (1881) 79,293 pounds, including 54,704 pounds for the burgh of Rothesay.”83

John Bartholomew puts pen to paper: “Bute, island, in Firth of Clyde, separated from Argyllshire by Kyles of Bute, a narrow channel less than 1 mile wide. It is distant 5 miles from the Ayrshire coast and 6 miles from Arran; is 16 miles long, and from 3 miles to 5 miles broad; area (including Inch marnock), 31,836½ acres, population 10,998. The coast is rocky, and in the interior are several small Lochs, the principal of

which are Lochs Fad and Ascog. The soil is light and gravelly, but produces excellent crops. There is no lack of soft red sandstone, slate, and whinstone, while grey granite is also found. The island is celebrated for its salubrious climate, which makes it a favorite resort of invalids. Rothesay, a fashionable watering-place, is the chief town; 4 miles south is Mountstuart, a seat of the Marquis of Bute.”84

**BUTESHIRE**

FH Groome represents: “Buteshire, an insular county, engirt and intersected by the waters of the Firth of Clyde, and by them separated from Ayr and Argyll shires. It consists of the 7 islands of Bute, Arran, Big and Little Cumbrae, Holy Isle, Pladda, and Inchmarnock. Its greatest length, from the northern extremity of Bute to the southern extremity of Pladda, is 35½ miles; its greatest breadth, from the northeastern extremity of Big Cumbrae to the western extremity of Inchmarnock, is 9¾ miles, or from the southeastern extremity of Holy Isle to Drumadoon Point in the southwest of Arran, is 11 miles; and its area is 143,997 acres, or 225 square miles. Its topography, hydrography, geognostic structure, history, and antiquities are noticed in our articles on its several islands. About one-third of the land is unprofitable, and a little more than one-sixth is under cultivation, great progress having been made in the course of the last half century, as shown by the agricultural statistics in our Introduction. The farms are commonly held on leases of 19 years. The farm buildings, in general, are neat and comfortable; the arable lands are enclosed; and the condition of agriculture, by means of reclamation, draining, and the adoption of the best systems of husbandry, has been rapidly and highly improved. The manufactures of Buteshire became a thing of the past with the collapse of the cotton-spinning, the weaving, and the shipbuilding of Rothesay. Fisheries of great extent are divided between the fishery districts of Rothesay and Campbeltown. General commerce is sufficiently extensive to give Rothesay the status of a head port; and extensive commerce, in the export of agricultural produce and in the import of miscellaneous small goods, is carried on by steamers plying from Greenock, Wemyss Bay, and Ardrossan to Rothesay, Millport, Brodick, and Lamlash. A great amount of local prosperity accrues also from large influx of summer visitors to Bute, Arran, and Big Cumbrae. Good roads traverse most parts, and are free from tolls, whilst easy communication with the railway system of the Scottish mainland is afforded by the steamers to Wemyss Bay and Ardrossan. The only royal burgh is Rothesay; the police burghs are Rothesay and Millport; and the chief villages are Kamesburgh, Ascog, Brodick, and Lamlash. Mansions are Mountstuart, Brodick Castle, Kirkmichael, Kames Castle, Hillside House, Ascog, Wyndham, and The Garrison.”85

John Bartholomew specifies: “Buteshire, an insular county of Scotland, comprising the islands of Bute, Arran, the Great and Little Cumbraes, Holy Isle, Inchmarnock, and Pladda, in Firth of Clyde. 139,440 acres, population 17,657. The principal industries are agriculture and the fisheries. The county comprises 6 parishes and a part, and the police burghs of Millport and Rothesay. It returns 1 member to Parliament.”86

***ARDENTINNY, ARGYLL AND BUTE***

FH Groome tells: “Ardentinny (Gaelic ard-an-teine, ‘height of the fire’), a picturesque village on the western shore of Loch Long, in the Kilmun portion of Dunoon-Kilmun parish, Cowal, Argyllshire, 4½ miles north of Strone Point, and 1 1/8 mile west of Coulport, with which it is connected by a ferry. Standing upon a spit of low ground, at the base of wood-skirted Stronchullin Hill (1,798 feet) and Cnap Ream (1,067), with Ben Ruadh (2,178) in their rear, it mainly consists of a few snug cottages, the summer resort of Glasgow citizens; and with Glasgow and Greenock it communicates twice a day by the

Lochgoilhead and Arrochar steamers, while a good carriage-road up Glen Finart, leads 4½ miles north-northwest to Whistlefield Inn upon Loch Eck. It has a post office under Greenock, an hotel, an Established church (erected in 1839 by A Douglas, Esq, at a cost of 500 pounds), and a public school, which, with accommodation for 45 children, had (1879) an average attendance of 24, and a grant of 31 pounds, 9 shillings. Tannahill's exquisite song, The Lass o' Arranteenie (published in 1807), has made this village famous; but nothing is known of the ‘sweet lass’ herself, whether she ever lived, or was only a creature of the poet's fancy. The quoad sacra parish of Ardentinny was erected in 1874 out of Kilmun and Lochgoilhead, measures 6½ by 4½ miles, and in winter has a population of barely 250.”87

***BURNT ISLANDS, ARGYLL AND BUTE***

Messrs Oliver and Boyd chronicle: “Three miles beyond Loch Striven is the ferry of Colintraive. The passage here narrows into the size of a small river, and the hills seem as if they were continuous. Here lie three rocky islets, with the appearance of having once been exposed to the action of fire, whence their name of the Burnt Islands. On the most northerly of them are the remains of a vitrified fort. A short way farther on, at the month of Loch Ridden, which now opens to view, appears the small isle of Ealan-Gheirrig, commonly called Eilangreig, with the remains of a strong castle of the fifteenth century, which was garrisoned by the Earl of Argyll in 1685, during his invasion of Scotland in concert with the Duke of Monmonth’s rising in England.”88

***CARA ISLAND, ARGYLL AND BUTE***

www.tutorgigpedia.com declares: “Cara Island, is a small island which is located off the west coast of Kintyre in Scotland.

“Cara is south of Gigha. It is accessible from Gigha, if you can find a local boatman who will take you over. The best view from the mainland is from the beach opposite Beachmenach Farm, about half way between Tayinloan and Muasdale.

“Cara has a translation in Gaelic as ‘dearest’ or ‘dear one’. Cara is a popular girl's name in the local area and in Scotland in general.

“Joan Blaeu's 1654 Atlas of Scotland, with Gigha and Cara in the center. The map is oriented with west at the top.

“Cara is owned by Mr MacDonald Lockhart of Kintyre and is reputed to be the only island still in the possession of a direct descendant of the Lords of the Isles.

“The only habitable building on the island is Cara House, but that is derelict.

“The liner Aska was sunk on 22 September 1940 on rocks northwest of the island after being struck by German bombers.

“Cara is well known for a herd of feral goats, which still thrive on the wild landscape.

“Mull of Cara, near Broonie’s Chair: Cara is famous as the home of the Uruisg/broonie, the familiar spirit of the Macdonald of Largie family. A rock formation known as the Broonie's Chair is found at the extreme southern tip of the island. It is said that the Broonie may grant a secret wish made when you sit in his chair.”89

***DUNADD, ARGYLL AND BUTE 90 ***

Neil Oliver displayed: “Whatever their origins, the Gaels had put down deep roots on and around the western seaboard by the start of the sixth century. Right at the heart of their kingdom was the hill fort of Dunadd, rising like a clenched first out of the flatlands that surround it. Brooding, menacing Dunadd glowers over the southern end of Kilmartin Glen above Lochgilphead, in Mid-Argyll. Its height, around 54 meters, is made more impressive by the flatness of the valley floor – a mire known then and now as Moine Mor, ‘the Great Bog’. Sea levels were higher in AD 500 than today, and the rocky citadel of Dunadd would have provided the perfect location for a people who needed to oversee and defend the comings and goings of their ships.

“Four massive circular circumstances defended the fortress. Much of the hard work had already been done by nature and gaps between cliffs of natural bedrock were plugged with dry-stone walls 10 meters thick. A narrow natural defile was left as an easily defended entrance that could be barred by gates in times of trouble. The whole thing is shaped much like a lopsided wedding cake, and on each successive tier there would have been plenty of room for houses, stores and workshops built of timber and stone. The Gaels who lived here had much in common with their Pictish neighbors in the east as well as with the Britons to the south – not least an appetite for war. But there were enough differences – subtle, cultural quirks – to mark them out as separate. While they sometimes formed alliances, they were just as often at each other’s throats.

“Archaeological evidence from Dunadd reveals a gentler, reflective side of the Gaels: an artistic tradition with a delicate beauty all of its own. Crucibles for melting gold, silver and bronze were found, along with moulds for casting brooches. Such a demand for and abundance of fine jewelry of the most expensive kind could mean just one thing: this fortress was home to the kingdom’s elite. The Gaelic kingdom was run from here; the kings themselves made upon its bedrock. Just below the summit of Dunadd, on a smooth and level shelf, a footprint has been carved (the original was being worn away by many Cinderella visitors, and what you see when you visit now is a convincing replica put in place by a helicopter). The ceremonies that were once held here married the kings to the land they sought to rule. For the crowds gathered below, the heir apparent would have appeared in silhouette against the sky as he stepped out onto the rock. At the appointed time he would have placed one naked foot into the footprint, demonstrating to his subjects that this land was both his servant and his master.

“There were evidence too for the sophistication of the trading links of the Gaels. A piece of yellow orpiment, used to make ink for illuminating manuscripts, was recovered from Dunadd. This valuable mineral had been imported from one of the Mediterranean countries and is a tantalizing hint about a change that had come over the Gaels by the end of the sixth century – a change that drove an unbreakable spiritual wedge between them and their Pictish neighbors. Illuminated manuscripts – and the very skill of writing, the literacy that creates them in the first place – came to the Gaels in the hand baggage of Christianity. While the Picts would hold onto their ancient pagan beliefs for many years to come, the Gaels had accepted conversion by one or other of the missionaries who were there in the years after Emperor Constantine turned Rome herself towards Christ.”

Oliver continues: “The future of the MacDonald’s, meanwhile, depended on the success or otherwise of Alexander’s son, John. He took his father’s place as Lord of the Isles in 1449 after an inauguration ceremony wrapped in all the lyrical mysticism of anything ever witnessed at Dunadd in the days of the ancient Gaelic kings of Dal Riata. Clothed all in white – symbolizing his innocence and integrity, that he

was a light for his people – John would have stood upon a large rectangular stone. With one naked foot placed into a footprint carved into the rock – ‘denoting that he should walk in the footsteps and uprightness of his predecessors’ – he would have been handed a white rod, demonstrating his right to rule. He would also have received his father’s sword – symbolic of his duty to protect his people.

‘True my praising of MacDonald, here I’m bound to, hero of every conflict,

Sun of the Gaels, face of Colla’s descendant, around the Bann’s borders, swift his galleys,

Meath’s confusion, wolf of Islay, root of bounty, each land’s defender,

None grew up around him but kings and queens, true these judgments, true my praising.’”91

***IONA, ARGYLL AND BUTE***

Peter Neville expresses: “The monastery which Columba founded on Iona was to become one of the greatest centers of Celtic Christianity, and it is still a place of pilgrimage today. From there successive abbots after Columba controlled not only monastic foundations in Scotland, but also major foundations in Ireland like Derry, Durrow and Kells (founded mid-6th century). The most distinguished was Adomnan, who died in 704, a scholar of some repute who wrote the life of his community’s founder. In 697, the centenary of Columba’s death, Adomnan held a great conference on Iona of bishops and fellow abbots which evolved the so-called ‘Law of Innocents’. This said that women and children were not to take part in battles, and that the former were to be protected from violence. That such a law needed to be put forward two hundred years after Patrick’s death demonstrates the savage nature of Celtic society at the time. After his death, Adomnan was also canonized.”92

Neil Oliver notes: “Tradition credits Columba with the single-handed conversion of the tribes to Christianity. But almost all we know about him comes from a single course: The Life of Saint Columba written around a century after his death by one of his own successors. Adomnan, a later abbot of Iona, was one of the great spin-doctors. Columba had founded Adomnan’s monastery, and it would have made perfect sense for the latest man in the post to make his predecessor the father of Christianity in Scotland.

“There is no denying that Columba’s work brought stability to the region around Iona and much further afield. As a noble man and a man of God, he was able to open doors that would have remained resolutely closed to preachers of more humble birth. As well as the new faith – a creed that offered answers to the eternal questions – Columba brought literacy to the kings. Here was magic every bit as powerful as the ability to make metal. This holy man wielded the pen as well as he ever wielded a sword and persuaded the rulers that he could take the very words from their mouths and make them permanent. Once a king’s wishes and demands were written down, copied and circulated, there was the basis of a legal system, of contracts and treaties. People, families and tribes could be bound one to another under terms that could be seen and understood by anyone who could read. The written word, like the soul of a man it seemed, could be raised up into the light by the hand of Christ. The monks of Iona, working in their sparse scriptorium near the beating heart of the monastery, eventually produced The Book of Kells.

“Kells, 40 miles north of Dublin in County Meath, was home to the book for centuries, but it was on the hauntingly beautiful island of Iona, a stone’s throw from Mull, that it was created. By any standards it is

a masterpiece. It comprises the gospels, together with a handful of other texts, but it is the artwork that marks it out for greatness. People, animals and mythical beasts; knot work and swirling patterns of the most intense intricacy; 10,000 dots of red ink around a single capital letter; livid, living colors like the yellow orpiment from the Mediterranean, found at Dunadd; blue lapis lazuli from Afghanistan. The peak of artistic achievement reached by the creator or creators of The Book of Kells is unsurpassed.

“Iona today feels remote: a tiny island to the west of a small island, to the west of Argyll in western Scotland. But in the time of Columba and for centuries to come it was a central point on the map of faith. That men living and working there could produce such a masterpiece is testament to what the place once meant. A thirteenth-century scholar praised the artistry of The Book of Kells: ‘You might believe it was the work of an angel rather than a human being,’ he wrote. Not everyone was so impressed by the work of the Christians’ God. While the Gaels had embraced Christianity long before the coming of Columba, their Pictish neighbors remained resolutely committed to their old religion. They put their faith in druids rather than monks and relied on memory, the oral tradition, rather than the written word.”93

***LOCHGILPHEAD, ARGYLL AND BUTE***

John Bartholomew records: “Lochgilphead, police burgh, Glassary parish, and quoad sacra parish, partly also in South Knapdale parish, Argyllshire - parish, population 2,381; burgh, at head of Loch Gilp, and near Crinan Canal, 2 miles north of Ardrishaig, population 1,489 … 2 Banks; the weaving of woolen cloth is carried on, and many of the inhabitants are engaged in fishing; Lochgilphead has steamboat communication with Glasgow, Inverness, Skye, Oban, etc.”94

FH Groome reveals: “Lochgilphead, a small town in Kilmichael-Glassary parish, Argyllshire, round the northern end of Loch Gilp, which opens from Loch Fyne, 125 miles west by north of Edinburgh, 80 west-northwest of Glasgow, 51 north by east of Campbeltown, 24½ south-southwest of Inveraray, 13½ north of Tarbert, and 2 north-northeast of Ardrishaig. By its nearness to the Crinan Canal, which passes within ¼ mile of the town, and to Ardrishaig where the canal joins Loch Fyne, Lochgilphead shares in the growing trade of the West Highlands, to which it owes its rise from a small fishing village to a prosperous well-built town, lighted with gas and plentifully supplied with water. In the summer it may be easily reached by the ‘swift’ steamers, and in winter there is regular communication, daily with Glasgow and twice a week with Inverness, Skye, Oban, etc. The main road from Campbeltown to Oban passes through it, and it is also on the route of the Loch Awe and Kilmartin coaches. Lochgilphead has a post office, with money order, savings' bank, insurance, and telegraph departments, branches of the Clydesdale and Union Banks, offices or agencies of 13 insurance companies, and five good inns. The weaving of woolen cloth is carried on in two factories, and dyeing is also engaged in. There is a considerable fishing population. Horse markets are held on the third Thursday of March, and on the second Thursday after the fourth Thursday in November. A cattle market is held on the Wednesday fourteen days after the Kilmichael fair on the last Wednesday in May. Lochgilphead contains the Argyll and Bute District Asylum for the Insane, and the Combination poorhouse for the parishes of Glassary, Kilmartin, Kilcalmonell, and North and South Knapdale. The former was erected in 1862-4. In 1883, the Lunacy Board for the counties of Argyll and Bute decided to obtain more accommodation by erecting a building apart from the Asylum, to be occupied mainly by industrial patients. The new building was 202 feet long and three stories high. It has accommodation for 120, and its cost was 11,000 pounds. The fittings are of the most complete description, and the arrangement of rooms, dormitories, bathrooms, etc, excellent. The

poorhouse has accommodation for 72 paupers. Places of worship are Lochgilphead parish church (1827-8), a Free church (1843), a Baptist church (1815), and Episcopal Christ Church, the last a Middle Pointed edifice, containing some fine stained glass. The government of Lochgilphead is carried on by a senior and 2 junior magistrates, and 9 commissioners of police. It is a police burgh. A sheriff court is held four times in the year, and justice of the peace courts each Wednesday after the first Sunday of every month. There is a good-sized courthouse. Connected with the town may be mentioned the public reading-room, mutual improvement association, a division of the Argyll and Bute Volunteers, Artillery. The quoad sacra parish of Lochgilphead included at one time Ardrishaig, which is now a separate quoad sacra parish. It is in the presbytery of Inveraray and synod of Argyll. The following schools are in Lochgilphead: Aird public, Ardrishaig public, Lochgilphead public, and Ardrishaig Episcopal, which, with respective accommodation for 50, 170, 325, and 114 scholars, had (1883) an average attendance of 24, 126, 203, and 66, and grants of 38 pounds, 5 shillings, 111 pounds, 3 shillings, 185 pounds, 17 shillings, and 56 pounds, 10 shillings.”95

***SOUND OF MULL, ISLE OF MULL, ARGYLL AND BUTE 96 ***

Neil Oliver spells out: “Folk myth has it that sometime in 1481, Angus turned up at his father’s hall with a troop of armed men. There was a terrible argument and John – Lord of the Isles – was flung unceremoniously out of his own home and forced to spend the night sheltering under an upturned boat. When news spread that Angus was seeking to overthrow his father, the Lordship erupted into full-scale civil war. There were those minded to follow the young pretender, but just as many who stayed by John’s side. The birlinns that had made the Lordship now gathered to tear it apart.

“The opposing forces met in the Sound of Mull, and amid the disastrous violence could be heard the death knell of a whole ancient world. The place is called ‘Bloody Bay’ now, and Angus Og is supposed to have emerged from its carnage as victor. But in truth, there were only losers. Angus won the battle, but it was a defeat for the whole of the Lordship. Something more than men died that day: the idea of a strong Gaelic world – a coherent entity that could deal on equal terms with the rest of Scotland – died too.”97

***TOBERMORY, ARGYLL AND BUTE***

FH Groome touches on: “Tobermory, a seaport village in the north of Mull Island, Argyllshire, 28 miles west-northwest of Oban, and 2½ west by south of the nearest point of the Morvern mainland. It stands at the head of a sheltered bay, on the southwest side, and towards the northwestern entrance of the Sound of Mull; and it was built in 1788, at the same time as Ullapool, by the British Fisheries Company, as the site of a fishing establishment, and the rendezvous of the herring vessels. Its name means ‘Mary’s Well’, and was taken from a fountain on the spot, which was dedicated to the Virgin, and had much celebrity in pre-Reformation days. The chief part of the town is arranged in the form of a crescent; but an upper town, surmounting a cliff to the rear, consists almost wholly of poor cottages or huts, though a number of villas have been recently built on the outskirts. The harbor or bay is spacious, and almost completely landlocked; and is sheltered across the entrance, and at a brief distance, by Calve Island. A new quay and pier, constructed by the proprietor, FW Caldwell, Esq, of Mishnish, at a cost of over 2,000 pounds, was opened in 1864. As the only town in Mull, and in a large circumjacent district, both Hebridean and continental, Tobermory possesses much provincial importance, and is the seat of some domestic trade. As a seaport, it is the natural outlet of the surplus produce of northern Mull; and enjoys regular steamboat communication with Oban, the Clyde, etc. It has a post office under Oban, with

money order, savings’ bank, and telegraph departments, branches of the Clydesdale and North of Scotland Bank, 18 insurance agencies, 3 hotels, a reading-room and library, a Scottish Baronial courthouse (1862), a public school, a girls’ industrial school, a poorhouse, etc. A new water supply was introduced in 1882 at a cost of over 6,000 pounds. Places of worship are the quoad sacra parochial church (1827-8), a Baptist chapel (1816), and a new Free Church (1878-9). The last is an Early English edifice, built at a cost of over 3,400 pounds, with a tower and spire, and 500 sittings. The quoad sacra parish, which was constituted ecclesiastically in 1827, and politically in 1845, is in the presbytery of Mull and the synod of Argyll; its minister’s stipend is 120 pounds, with manse and glebe. The town is a police burgh under the General Police and Improvement Act (Scot) of 1862, being governed by a chief magistrate and two bailies, who act, with three others, as police commissioners. Its prison was closed in 1884. The Florida, one of the ships of the Spanish Armada, in 1588 was blown up in Tobermory Bay, where the ill-fated Earl of Argyll put in on 11 May 1685, and where the Queen passed the night of 19 Aug 1847 on board the royal yacht.”98

LAN de Saussure clarifies: “August 28th. It was with much regret I quitted Ulva-House, and took leave of its amiable inmates. Mr Macdonald gave me letters of recommendation to all the proprietors of the isles which we were about to visit; he also took care to procure us excellent horses and a guide to conduct us to Tobermory, across the mountains to the north of Mull. We set out pretty late in the morning, and witnessed the manner by which horses are conveyed across the strait of Ulva; they are fastened by the head to the boat, which they are also compelled to follow by swimming. Having arrived in the Isle of Mull, we mounted on horseback, and first passed through the fine farm of Laggan-Ulva; by following a narrow path along the shore, we passed near the cascade seen from Ulva-House. This cascade, already rendered exceeding terrific by the height of the basaltic rock from which it rushes, had been much swollen by the late rains. A few miles further we passed the beautiful estate of Torloisk, on our right, belonging to Mrs Clephan-Maclean. The house is a handsome structure, and stands on a fine eminence clothed with verdure, and covered with trees and shrubs. Having reached Balachroi, a small village belonging to Mr Maclean of Coll, we next passed over a chain of hills covered with heath, and arrived at a narrow and dreary lake, designated in the map by the name of Loch-Friza, surrounding by barren and deserted mountains. After climbing up a second chain of hills, and discovering other lakes as dreary as the former, the fine Port of Tobermory suddenly burst upon our view, and it was not without an agreeable surprise that we saw the charming village of that name, which, by the beauty of its situation, the cleanliness and even elegance of the houses, strongly contrasted with the uncultivated regions we had just quitted. Tobermory signifies in Gaelic, ‘Mary’s Well’, and was formerly celebrated for a fountain consecrated to the virgin. It is a small town situate at the northern extremity of the Isle of Mull, and owes its existence to the efforts (unfortunately too feebly supported,) of the Society for the Encouragement of Sea Fishing in the Hebrides. When Pennant and Knox visited these isles, the Port of Tobermory was not in existence; for both travelers, who speak with admiration of the beauty of the bay, take no notice of the village. It is probably that what is at present a small town, then much resembled those poor hamlets which are everywhere seen in the Isle of Mull, and was too insignificant to attract the attention of travelers. At the present day a line of elegant stone houses, of two stories, and covered with slate, rises between a hill and the bay. A handsome quay, of hewn stone, separates them from the sea, and allows trading vessels to approach the shore, so as to load and unload their cargoes. At Tobermory we found a good inn and shops, seldom to be met with in these districts; there is altogether an air of comfort and cleanliness in this place, which is very rare in the Hebrides. The prohibitory laws which exist in Scotland, particularly those relative to commerce and to the manufactory of salt, are the

principal and notorious causes of the deplorable state of the fishery in the Hebrides, and why this sea port, which was intended to develop the industry of the inhabitants and diffuse abundance in this part of Mull, has not produced such effects, is rather irreconcilable. The united efforts of the Hebridean proprietors, and of the Society for the Encouragement of Fishery, have not yet succeeded in obtaining from the legislative powers the revocation of those laws so strongly called for by all the islanders.”99

**CLACKMANNANSHIRE**

**CLACKMANNAN**

www.clackmannantower.co.uk documents: “Clackmannan is the smallest county in Scotland. There are several Parishes, among them are Clackmannan, Alloa, Tillicoultry and Dollar, and the parish covers an area of 30,477 acres, stretching 10 miles north and south between Perthshire and the river Forth, and 11 miles east and west between Stirlingshire and Fife.

“It is located just south of the line from Dumbarton in the west to Stonehaven on the North Sea that marks the southern geographic boundary of the ‘Highlands’. Clackmannan, along with Kinross and Fife are part of the peninsula formed by the Firth of Forth and the Firth of Tay that was historically called the Kingdom of Fife.

“The township of Clackmannan is an ancient site made attractive to warring settlers by a hill that dominates the surrounding countryside. From the hill a defender could see enemies approaching from any direction, and that made it a natural location for the tower and castle first built there some time in the ninth century. The nearby Forth also provided access to the sea.

“The area was once part of the territory of the Gododdin, descendants of Iron Age Votadini tribe, centered on what is now Edinburgh.

“The origin of its name is one of Clackmannan's mysteries. The consensus explanation is given in T Crouther Gordon, The History of Clackmannan, published in 1936. According to Dr Gordon, clack means ‘stone’ in Gaelic and Mannan or Manau was a Celtic sea-god (who also provided the name for the Isle of Man). Evidently the name was applied to this particular site because there was a stone, ancient whinstone boulder called the clach originally on the bank of the Forth that was regarded by the Picts as a dwelling place of the spirit of the water.

“The dominant characteristic of Clackmannan is the Ochil's, breaking the rolling pastoral land with majestic hills to provide a view breathtaking in its diversity. The hills provide shelter for the ‘Hill foots’ villages below, a fertile place to graze sheep and also provide ample motive power for mill wheels in local textile factories during the early industrial revolution. The legacy of woolen products dates back to the 16th century and possibly much earlier, when the people of Clackmannan began taking advantage of locally available wool to start a textile industry.

“Clackmannan was a royal residence for three centuries. Malcolm IV, who reigned from 1141 to 1165, is the earliest Scottish king to have been in residence, and hunting seems to have been the primary attraction. The most famous royal resident was Robert the Bruce who reigned from 1306 to 1329. Bruce was of Norman descent, and most of Bruce's adult life was spent at war. He emerged as one of two primary contestants for the crown of Scotland after a long dispute. Edward I of England had been asked to arbitrate the question of succession, but he claimed the kingdom himself. Bruce secured Scotland's

independence from England at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314. Bruce's son David II (his tumultuous reign lasted from 1329-71) was the last royal resident of Clackmannan. After languishing in an English prison for eleven years following the battle of Neville's Cross in 1346, David raised part of the money for his ransom from the English by selling the castle in Clackmannan to a cousin.

“Clackmannan Tower stands on the site of an even older stronghold at the top a long ridge, which runs down through the town of Clackmannan below. The land was granted in 1360 to Robert Bruce, an illegitimate son of King David II (and thus a grandson of King Robert the Bruce). An original 14th century rectangular tower was added to in the 15th century by a taller square tower, creating an L-plan layout.

“The old Tollbooth, Merkit Cross and King Robert's Stone can be found in the center of Clackmannan town. The tower is all that remains of the Tollbooth, which was an administrative building for the town, Taxes, Courts and prison to name a few. The Merkit Cross or Market Cross marked the site of the town market. It is inscribed with the coat of arms of the Bruce family.

“As the eighteenth century ended, Clackmannan was a prosperous town of approximately 120 houses and 700 people. It was a market town and the site of the annual St Bartholomew's fair. Most of the residents were undoubtedly farmers, but there was other industry. Several shallow shaft coal mines provided upwards of 7,000 tons annual production, and Kilbagie distillery was famous as far away as London. Other residents worked as shoemaker, butcher, and baker or in the woolen mill on the Little Devon. Within a generation, however, its prosperity was on the wane, and many of Clackmannan's residents left for the new world or larger cities. Part of Clackmannan's folklore is a story about Robert the Bruce. He lost a glove there while hunting. Ever the thrifty Scot, he sent his lieutenant back to find it. ‘Go to a path near Clackmannan village,’ he instructed him, ‘and look aboot ye.’ The road is called Lookabootye Brae to this day, and tourism has adopted the slogan, ‘Look aboot ye,’ for visitors.”100

FH Groome observes: “Clackmannan, a town and a parish of Clackmannanshire. The town stands ½ mile south-southeast of a station of its own name on the Stirling and Dunfermline section of the North British, and 2 miles east by south of Alloa, being built on an eminence which rises gently out of the carse plain to a height of 100 feet above the Forth. On either side the ground has a gradual descent; but to the west, where the old Tower is placed, it is bold and rocky. The view from there is singularly fine. To the west are seen Alloa, Stirling, and St Ninians, and all the country as far as Ben Lomond; on the north the prospect is bounded by the Ochils; south and east are the fertile fields of Stirlingshire, and the towns of Kincardine, Falkirk, and Linlithgow; whilst the foreground is filled by the Forth, expanding into a broad sheet of water, like a large inland lake. In the town itself, with a wide main street, but many poor houses, there is little to admire beyond its ruined Tower and an old market cross, surmounted by the arms of Bruce. The Tower, said commonly to have been built by King Robert Bruce, dates rather from the 15th century. Oblong in plan, with a short projecting wing, it is 79 feet high, its modern slated roof being gained by a spiral stair; and it retains the cellars, kitchen, barrel-vaulted hall, upper chamber, machicoulis, corbie-stepped gables, and bartizan, with a 17th century belfry. Adjoining the Tower stood the old mansion, the seat of the lineal descendants of that Robert Bruce to whom King David, his cousin, granted the castle and barony of Clackmannan in 1359. Here were preserved the sword and helmet of the great King Robert; and here with the sword Mrs Bruce of Clackmannan (1701-96), the last laird's widow, and a zealous Jacobite, knighted Robert Burns, 26th August 1787. In name at least Clackmannan remains the county town, but it is quite eclipsed by Alloa, under which it has a post office; a fair is still held on 26 June. The parish church (1815; 1,250 sittings) has a lofty tower, on which a town clock was

placed in 1866. There are also a Free and a United Presbyterian church; and a cemetery was opened in 1857.

“The parish contains also the villages of Sauchie, Fish Cross, Kennet, Westfield, and Forrestmill. It is bounded north by Tillicoultry and Dollar, northeast by Muckart in Perthshire, east by Fossoway in Perthshire and Saline in Fife, southeast by Culross and Tulliallan in Perthshire (detached), southwest by the Forth, and west by Alloa. Its utmost length from northeast to southwest is 5¼ miles; its width varies between 1½ and 5 miles; and its area is 9,869 2/3 acres, of which 86¾ are foreshore and 355¾ water, whilst 1,020 belong to the outlying Sauchie section. The Forth, here from 3 to 7 furlongs broad, flows 1 mile along the southwest border; and its affluent, the Black Devon, after tracing 1¾ mile of the Saline boundary, winds 4½ miles west and southwest through the interior, sweeping round the northwest base of the eminence on which the town is built, and lastly for 2½ miles dividing Alloa from Clackmannan. On the northwest border lies Gartmorn Dam (6 x 2½ furlongs). The surface, for 1½ mile from the Forth, is almost a dead level, part of the Carse of Clackmannan; thence it rises, with a general northeastward ascent, to 117 feet near Kennet, 200 near Woodyett, 207 at Gartlove, 300 near Parklands, 265 at Meadowhill, and 365 at Weston. The rocks, to a great extent, are carboniferous. Sandstone, of various qualities, is worked in several quarries; coal has been largely mined for upwards of two centuries; and ironstone is likewise plentiful. The soil exhibits a considerable diversity of character, but almost everywhere rests on a hard cold till. Nearly all the parish, with the exception of about one-fifth under wood, is either regularly or occasionally in tillage. There are in the parish two woolen factories, a vat-building establishment, two saw-mills, and fire-brick works; and on the Forth are two harbors, Clackmannan Pow and Kennet Pans. Schaw Park, Kennet House, Kennet Pans, Kilbagie, Aberdona, Garlet, and Brucefield are the principal mansions; and 5 proprietors hold each an annual value of 500 pounds and upwards, 4 of between 100 and 500 pounds, 4 of from 50 to 100 pounds, and 23 of from 20 to 50 pounds. Clackmannan is in the presbytery of Stirling and synod of Perth and Stirling; the living is worth 360 pounds. It gives off a portion to the quoad sacra parish of Blairingone; and Sauchie was formed in 1877 into a separate quoad sacra parish. Clackmannan girls' school, and Clackmannan, Forrestmill, and Kennet public schools, with respective accommodation for 100, 350, 94, and 144 children, had (1880) an average attendance of 88, 207, 41, and 98, and grants of 51 pounds, 19 shillings, 6 pence, 180 pounds, 4 shillings, 45 pounds, 15 shillings, and 83 pounds, 19 shillings.”101

John Bartholomew recounts: “Clackmannan, parish and county town of Clackmannanshire, on river Devon, near its confluence with the Forth, ½ mile southeast of its railway station and 2 miles southeast of Alloa - parish, 9,427 acres, population 4,543; town population 1,503 … In 1330 century was the residence of King David Bruce.”102

**CLACKMANNANSHIRE**

FH Groome says: “Clackmannanshire, the smallest county in Scotland. It is bounded north by Perthshire, east by Perthshire, Fife, and the detached section of Perthshire, southwest by the upper waters of the Firth of Forth, which divides it from the main body of Stirlingshire, and west by Stirlingshire and Perthshire. Its length from north to south varies between 2¼ and 9¾ miles; its greatest breadth from east to west is 8¾ miles; and its area is 31,876 1/3 acres, of which 454½ are foreshore, and 945 water, this area including the little outlying Logie portion, but excluding the Stirlingshire parish of Alva. The Forth winds 10¼ miles southeastward here, broadening from 1 furlong to 7; other streams are the Devon, and, in Clackmannan parish, the Black Devon. Gartmorn Dam (6 x 2½ furlongs), on the mutual

border of Alloa and Clackmannan parishes, is the only large sheet of water. The surface in the south is low and flat; in the center is tumulated or moderately hilly; in the northern parishes of Tillicoultry and Dollar forms part of the Ochil Hills, including Benclench (2,363 feet), the Law (2,094), King's Seat Hill (2,111), and Whitewisp Hill (2,110). The rocks, in the south and the center, are mainly carboniferous; in the north, are eruptive. Sandstone and trap rock are abundant; coal is very extensively mined; ironstone is worked; and agates, topazes, other precious stones, and ores of copper, lead, antimony, cobalt, and silver, are found. The climate, in the south, is comparatively dry and warm; in the center is somewhat moister and colder; in the north is drier and warmer than the altitudes and breaks of the Ochils might lead one to anticipate. The scenery is richly diversified and highly picturesque.

“The territory now forming Clackmannanshire belonged anciently to the Caledonian Damnonii. Its chief matters of historical interest are noticed under Clackmannan and Alloa; and its chief antiquities are a Caledonian stone circle in Tillicoultry parish, Clackmannan, Alloa, and Sauchie towers, Castle-Campbell, and Cambuskenneth Abbey.”103

John Bartholomew spotlights: “Clackmannanshire, the smallest county of Scotland, extending 10 miles north and south between the main body of Perthshire and the river Forth, and 11 miles east and west between the counties of Stirling and Fife; area, 30,477 acres; population 25,680, or 539 persons to each square mile. The surface rises from the Forth by an easy ascent, broken by gentle undulations and by the valley of the river Devon, to the Ochil Hills, which extend along the north border. These hills afford excellent pasturage; the low grounds are well cultivated. Coal is raised in the Devon valley; the towns of Alloa and Tillicoultry have woolen manufactures. The county comprises 4 parishes, parts of 2 other parishes and also the police burghs of Alloa and Tillicoultry. Clackmannanshire unites with Kinross-shire in returning 1 member to Parliament.”104

***DOLLAR, CLACKMANNANSHIRE***

Janet Carolan underscores: “It first appears in the description of the Battle of Dollar in 875 or 877. This battle was fought between the Scots and the Danes (Vikings). The Scots were beaten, and their King Constantine was killed.

“The meaning of the name: it is obviously nothing to do with the money ‘dollar’ or German ‘taler’ as that language was not spoken in Scotland then. Nor is it French or English or Scots or Gaelic in origin as they were not spoken here then. The current thinking is that it is from the Britonic language spoken in this area at the time - the modern form of this language is Welsh.

“The meaning is ‘place of the water meadows’. If you look at photos of the area round Dollar online you will see that there are steep hills to the north, and the original village was just at the foot of the Ochils, the land then being almost flat across to the River Devon, which often floods on the flat fields - water meadows (in Scots called haughs).”105

FH Groome comments on: “Dollar (Celtic dal-aird, ‘vale amid the hills’), a small town and a parish of Clackmannanshire. The town stands at the foot of the Ochils, 180 feet above sea-level, and 5 furlongs north of the right bank of the Devon; and by the Devon Valley section (1851-71) of the North British it is 6¼ miles northeast by east of Alloa, 41¼ northwest of Edinburgh, 12¾ east-northeast of Stirling, and 10¾ west-southwest of Kinross. Traversed by Dollar Burn, whose glen, followed upwards, leads to the noble ruins of Castle-Campbell, it has been greatly improved and extended in recent years, and presents

a pleasant picturesque appearance; at it are a post office, with money order, savings' bank, and telegraph departments, a branch of the Clydesdale Bank, the Castle-Campbell hotel, gas-works, the Dollar club, a working men's reading-room, a bleach field (1787), and two brick and tile works. Fairs are held on the second Monday in May and the third Monday in October. Places of worship are the parish church (1841; 700 sittings), an imposing Gothic structure, with a conspicuous tower; a neat Free church (1858; 600 sittings); a United Presbyterian church (1876; 360 sittings), built at a cost of 4,500 pounds, and adorned with a spire 70 feet high; and the new Episcopal church of St James the Greater (1882), Early English in style, with apsidal chancel, 7 rose windows, 8 lancets, etc. John M’Nab (1732-1802), a Dollar herd-boy, who as a sea-captain had risen to wealth and settled at Mile-end, London, left 55,110 pounds Three per Cents, the half of his fortune, ‘for the endowment of a charity or school for the poor of the parish of Dollar’. With this bequest, which by the end of 1825 had accumulated to 74,236 pounds, was founded in 1818 Dollar Institution or Academy, whose board of trustees comprises 15 ex officio members under an Act of 1847, and which, with a principal and 20 other teachers, gives (1882) instruction to 402 paying and 110 free scholars in classics, French, German, English, history, mathematics, mechanics, science, drawing, singing, and other branches of a liberal education; whilst its lower and infant departments, with accommodation for 597 children, had (1880) an average attendance of 373, and a grant of 323 pounds. The building, erected in 1819 after designs by W Playfair, of Edinburgh, and greatly extended in 1867, is a Grecian edifice, 186 feet long and 63 wide, with a hexastyle portico; a dome, upborne by fluted columns; a library, 45 feet square and 45 high, containing 5,000 volumes; a splendid upper hall, 60 feet long, 42 wide, and 24 high; and a well-kept garden of 5 acres. The Institution has drawn, on the one hand, many families to Dollar; and, on the other, a number of its scholar’s board with the principal or under masters: its former alumni include James Dewar, since 1875 Jacksonian professor of natural and experimental philosophy at Cambridge, and a goodly list besides of distinguished ministers, engineers, merchants, and others. Its income in 1881 comprised 2,235 pounds from endowment, 1,750 pounds from school fees and 739 pounds from other sources; whilst the expenditure amounted to 4,605 pounds, of which 3,075 pounds was for salaries.

“The parish, containing also Sheardale village, 1¾ mile to the south-southwest, is bounded northwest by Blackford, and north by Glendevon, in Perthshire; east by Muckhart and Fossoway, both also in Perthshire; south by Clackmannan; and west by Tillicoultry. Its utmost length, from north to south, is 3¾ miles; its breadth, from east to west, varies between 1 3/8 and 3¾ miles; and its area is 4,795 1/3 acres, of which 22 are water. The Devon, entering from Muckhart, winds 3 3/8 miles westward, across the southern interior and on or close to the Tillicoultry border, and receives on the way Dollar Burn, which, itself hurrying 1½ mile south-by-eastward past the town, is formed just below Castle-Campbell by the Burns of Sorrow and Care, running 2¼ miles east-southeastward, and 1¼ mile south-southeastward and southward, from the northern confines of the parish. Westward along the Devon the surface declines to close upon 50 feet above sea-level, thence rising southward to 353 feet near Sheardale, and northward to 538 near Hilifoot House, 2,111 at King's Seat on the western border, and 2,110 at Whitewisp Hill in the north - smooth summits these of the green pastoral Ochils that command magnificent views. A spongy morass, Maddy Moss, on the northwest border, lying at an altitude of from 1,500 to 1,750 feet, and covering upwards of 150 acres, occasionally bursts its barrier, and sends down a muddy torrent, by the Buru of Sorrow, to the Devon. The rocks of the hills are eruptive, those of the valley carboniferous- Coal and sandstone are plentiful; copper, iron, and lead were formerly wrought in the Ochils, a little above the town; and beautiful agates have been found on the top of Whitewisp; whilst a chalybeate spring, powerfully astringent and of medicinal efficacy both externally and internally, was discovered in

1830 at Vicar's Bridge. The soil is argillaceous along the Devon, and on the lands thence to the hills is light and gravelly, about 1,740 acres being either arable or grass land, 230 under wood, and all the rest either hill-pasture or waste. In 877 the Danes, expelled by the Norwegians from Ireland, entered the Firth of Clyde, and, passing through the region watered by the Teith and Forth, attacked the province of Fife. A battle fought by them at Dollar went against the Scots, who, fleeing northeastward to Inverdovet in Forgan, were there a second time routed, King Constantin mac Kenneth being among the multitude of the slain. The other chief episode in Dollar's history is the burning of its vicar, Thomas Forret, for heresy, at Edinburgh, in 1538. From 1493 to 1605 most of the parish belonged to the Earls of Argyll; at present 4 proprietors hold each an annual value of 500 pounds and upwards, 10 of between 100 and 500 pounds, 18 of from 50 to 100 pounds, and 44 of from 20 to 50 pounds. Dollar is in the presbytery of Stirling and synod of Perth and Stirling; the living is worth 243 pounds.”106

**DUMFRIES AND GALLOWAY**

**DUMFRIES**

“There are at least two theories on the etymology of the name. One is that the name Dumfries originates from the Scottish Gaelic name Dún Phris which means ‘Fort of the Thicket’. According to another theory, the name is a corruption of two words which mean ‘the Friars’ Hill’; those who favor this idea allege the formation of a religious house near the head of what is now the Friars’ Vennel.”107

FH Groome emphasizes: “Dumfries, a town and a parish on the southwest border of Dumfriesshire. A royal and parliamentary burgh, a seaport – since the era of railways of little importance a seat of manufacture, the capital of Dumfriesshire, the assize town for the southwestern counties, and practically the metropolis of a great extent of the south of Scotland, the town stands on the left bank of the river Nith, and on the Glasgow and South-Western railway at the junction of the lines to Lockerbie and Portpatrick, by rail being 14½ miles west-southwest of Lockerbie, 15 west-northwest of Annan, 19¼ northeast of Castle-Douglas, 80½ east-northeast of Portpatrick, 42½ southeast of Cumnock, 92 southeast by south of Glasgow, 89¾ south by west of Edinburgh, 33 west-northwest of Carlisle, and 333¾ north-northwest of London. The site is mainly a gentle elevation, nowhere higher than 80 feet above sea-level, partly the low flat ground at its skirts; extends about 1 mile from north to south, parallel to the river; rises steeply from the banks at the north end, and is blocked there by a curve in the river’s course; and bears the lines of Castle Street and High Street along its summit. Maxwelltown, along the Kirkcudbrightshire bank of the Nith, directly opposite and nearly of the same length as Dumfries, seems to be rather a part of the town than a suburb, and is partly included in the parliamentary (though not in the royal) burgh. Behind Maxwelltown to the west is Corbelly Hill, a broad-based, round, and finely-outlined elevation, on the summit of which stand a church and convent of the Immaculate Conception, erected in 1881-2, from designs by Messrs Pugin, for Nuns of the Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament; whilst a little lower down is a picturesque building, serving the double purpose of an observatory and a museum of natural history and antiquities. The view from the top of this hill is very extensive, and also of great natural beauty – the broad and level valley, for the most part highly cultivated, of the Nith, abounding in mansions, villas, gardens, and nursery grounds; the Moffat and Galloway Hills, with the higher peaks of Queensberry and Criffel; and, over the Solway, the faraway Cumberland Mountains. Altogether, the landscape, seen from the top of Corbelly Hill, is not so unlike the plains of Lombardy. Dumfries itself, in architectural structure, relative position, social character, marketing importance, and general influence, holds a high rank among the towns of the kingdom. It is a

minor capital, ruling in the south with nearly as much sway as Edinburgh in the east. It has either within itself or in its immediate outskirts an unusually large proportion of educated and wealthy inhabitants, giving evident indication of their presence in the tone and manners; and is seen at once, by even a passing stranger, to be a place of opulence, taste, and pretension. It has sometimes been called, by its admirers, ‘the Queen of the South’; and it was designated by the poet Burns, ‘Maggie by the banks o, Nith, a dame wi’ pride eneuch.’ It is the cynosure of the southwestern counties; and it sways them alike in the interests of mind, of trade, and of commerce. It has no rival or competitor, none at least that can materially compare with, between Ayr and Carlisle, or between the Irish Sea and the Lowther Mountains. And even as a town, though other influential towns were not remote, it challenges notice for its terraces and pleasant walks beside the river; for its lines and groups of villas around its outskirts; for its picturesqueness of aspect as seen from many a vantage-ground in the near vicinity; for the spaciousness of its principal streets; and for a certain, curious, pleasing romance in the style and collocation of many of its edifices. It so blends regularity of alignment with irregularity as to be more fascinating than if it were strictly regular; and it so exhibits its building material, a red-colored Permian sandstone, now in the full flush of freshness from the quarry, now in worn aspects of erosion by time, as – to present a tout ensemble of mingled sadness and gaiety.

“Dumfries is broadly stamped with the name of the poet Burns (1759-96). His term of residence here flashed on the popular mind so vividly as to have been at once and till the present day esteemed an epoch ‘the time of Burns’. The places in it associated with his presence outnumber, at least outweigh, those in Ayr, Irvine, Kilmarnock, Tarbolton, Mauchline, or Edinburgh. He appeared first in the town on 4 June 1787, and came to it then on invitation to be made an honorary burgess. He became a resident in it, on removal from Ellisland, in December 1791. For eighteen months he lived in a house of three small apartments, on the second floor of a tenement on the north side of Bank Street, then called the Wee Vennel. He then removed to a small, self-contained, two-story house on the south side of a short mean street striking eastward from St Michael Street, in the northern vicinity of St Michael’s Church. The street was then called Millbrae or Millbrae-Hole; but, after Burns’ death, was designated Burns Street. The house, in the smaller of whose two bedrooms he died on 21 July 1796, was occupied afterwards by his widow down to her death in 1834, and purchased in 1850 by her son, Lieut Col William Nicol Burns. It is now occupied by the master of the adjoining Industrial School, continues to be as much as possible in the same condition as when Burns inhabited it, and, through courtesy of its present occupant, is shown to any respectable stranger. Nearly a hundred of Burns’ most popular songs, including Auld Langsyne, Scots wha hae wi’ Wallace bled, A man’s a man for a’ that, O whistle and I’ll come to ye, my lad, My love is like a red, red rose, Ye banks and braes o’ bonnie Doon, Cauld kail in Aberdeen, Willie Wastle, Auld Rob Morris, and Duncan Gray, were written by him either in this house or in the house in Bank Street. Many objects, too, in and near the town, and many persons who resided in or near it, are enshrined in his verse. The High School which preceded the present academy was made accessible to his children by a special deed of the Town Council (1793) that put him on the footing of a real freeman. The Antiburgher Church in Loreburn Street, on the site of the present United Presbyterian church there, was frequently attended by him in appreciation of the high excellence of the minister who then served it. The pew which he more regularly occupied in St Michael’s church bore the initials, ‘RB’, cut with a knife by his own hand; and was sold, at the repairing of the church in 1869, for 5 pounds. A window pane of the King’s Arms Hotel, on which he scratched an epigram, drew for a long time the attention of both townsmen and strangers. A volume of the Old Statistical Account of Scotland, belonging in his time to the public library of which he was a member, was transferred to the mechanics’ institute, and bears

and original verse of his in his own bold handwriting. Another volume there, a copy of De-Lolme on the British Constitution, presented by him to the library, contains an autograph of his which was interpreted at the time to indicate seditious sentiments. The Globe Tavern which he used to frequent, and on a window of which he inscribed the quadrain in praise of ‘Lovely Polly Stewart’ and a new version of Coming through the Rye, retains an old-fashioned chair on which he was wont to sit; and the mere building, situated in a narrow gloomy close off High Street, is hardly less replete with memories of him than is the house in which he lived and died. To the Trades’ Hall, already noticed, his coffined corpse was removed on the eve of his public funeral. The matrix of the cast of his skull, taken at the interment of his widow in 1834, continued in the possession of the townsman who took it, and probably is still in safekeeping in the town. His remains were originally buried in the north corner of St Michael’s churchyard, with no other monument than a simple slab of freestone erected by his widow; but, in 1815, were transferred to a vault in a more appropriate part on the southeast border, and honored with a mausoleum, erected by subscription of fifty guineas from the Prince Regent and of various sums from a multitude of admirers. The mausoleum, in the form of a Grecian temple, after a design by Thomas F Hunt, of London, cost originally 1,450 pounds, and contains a mural sculpture by Turnerelli, representing the Poetic Genius of Scotland throwing her mantle over Burns, in his rustle dress, at the plough. It is now glazed in the intervals between its pillars, to protect the sculpture from erosion by the weather; and, besides Burns’ own remains, covers those of his widow and their five sons. The late William Ewart, Member of Parliament, placed a bust of the poet in a niche of the front wall of the Industrial School; and on 6 April 1882 Lord Rosebery unveiled Mrs DO Hill’s fine marble statue, on an open space in front of Greyfriars Church. Nearly 10 feet high, it is raised 5 feet from the ground on a pedestal of grey Dalbeattie granite; and represents Burns, resting on an old tree root, in the act of producing one of his deathless lyrics. A collie snuggles to his right foot, and nearby lie bonnet, songbook, and shepherd’s pipe.

“The name Dumfries was anciently written Dunfres, and is supposed to have been derived from the Gaelic words dun and phreas, signifying ‘a mound covered with copsewood’, or ‘a hill-fort among shrubs’. A slight rising-ground on the area now occupied by Greyfriars Church was the site of an ancient fort, afterwards reconstructed into a strong castle; is presumed to have been clothed with copse or natural shrubs; and appears to have given origin to the name. The burgh's armorial bearing was anciently a chevron and three fleur-de-lis, but came to be a winged figure of St Michael, trampling on a dragon and holding a pastoral staff. The motto is, ‘A'loreburn’ - a word that, during centuries of struggle against invaders, was used as a war-cry to muster the townsmen. The side toward the English border being that whence invasion usually came, a place of rendezvous was appointed there on the banks of a rill called the Lower Burn, nearly in the line of the present Loreburn Street; and when the townsmen were summoned to the gathering, the cry was raised, ‘All at the Lower Burn’, - a phrase that passed by elision into the word ‘A'loreburn’. A village, which ere the close of the 10th century had sprung up under the shelter of the fort on the copse-covered mound, grew gradually into a town, and was the seat of the judges of Galloway in the reign of William the Lyon, who died in 1214, about which period or a little later it seems to have become a center of considerable traffic. Streets on the line of the present Friars' Vennel and of the northern part of High Street, with smaller thoroughfares toward Townhead and Loreburn Street, appear to have been its oldest portions; and are supposed to have had, about the middle of the 13th century, nearly 2,000 inhabitants. The erection of the old bridge before the middle of the 13th century, together with the high character which that structure originally possessed, indicates distinctly both the importance then attained by the town and the line in which its chief riverward thoroughfare

ran; and another structure, erected by the same bountiful lady who erected the bridge, also indicates the position of the nucleus around which the town lay. This was a Minorite or Greyfriars' monastery, situated near the head of Friars' Vennel, where now the Burns Statue stands; and, small though it was, as compared with many abbeys, it seems to have been a goodly First Pointed edifice, comprising an aisled church, a range of cloisters, a refectory, and a dormitory. In 1286 Robert Bruce the Competitor and the Earl of Carrick, his son, with banner displayed assaulted and captured the castle of Dumfries, a royal fortress of the child-queen Margaret, the Maid of Norway; and in the summer of 1300 King Edward I, on his way to the siege of Caerlaverock, seized and garrisoned this castle, and added the high square keep, part of which remained standing till 1719. In the beginning of 1306 the famous Robert Bruce was in London, called thither as King Edward's counsellor, when a warning of peril was sent him by the Duke of Gloucester, his friend a sum of money and a pair of spurs. The hint was enough; that day he started for Scotland, his horse shod backwards, that the hoof-prints might throw pursuers off the track. On February the 4th he halted at Dumfries, where the English justiciars were sitting in assize - John Comyn of Badenoch, surnamed the Red, among the throng of barons in attendance. Him Bruce encountered in the church of the Minorites, and, falling into discourse, made the proposal to him: ‘Take you my lands, and help me to the throne; or else let me take yours, and I will uphold your claim.’ Comyn refused, with talk of allegiance to Edward, and their words waxed hotter and hotter, till, drawing his dagger, Bruce struck a deadly blow, then hurried to his friends, who asked if aught were amiss. ‘I must be off,’ was the answer, ‘for I doubt I have slain the Red Comyn.’ ‘Doubt!’ cried Kirkpatrick of Closeburn, ‘I mak sikar’; and, with Sir John de Lindsay, rushing into the church, despatched the wounded renegade outright. A frenzy seized them; they carried the castle by assault; and thus was rekindled the War of Independence. One episode therein was that, in this same year of 1306, Sir Christopher Seton, Bruce's brother-in-law, was hanged by the English at Dumfries, on the Crystal Mount, where his widow afterwards founded a chapel in honor of the Holy Rood.

“The town was burned by the English prior to 1448; suffered devastation by them at other periods; and, in 1469, obtained from the Crown all the houses, gardens, revenues, and other property which had belonged to the Grey Friars. It was burned again by the English in 1536, and was then revenged by Lord Maxwell. That nobleman, with a small body of retainers, made an incursion into England, and reduced Penrith to ashes; and either he or some member of his family, mainly with materials from the Greyfriars' monastery, strongly reconstructed Dumfries Castle. Queen Mary, in October 1565, when the town was held by Murray and other disaffected nobles, favorers of the Reformation, marched against it with an army of 18,000 men, at whose approach the leaders of the opposition retreated over the Border. The castle was again taken, and the town sacked, in 1570, by the English under Lord Scrope and the Earl of Essex. The townsmen, in 1583, erected a bartizaned, two-storied stronghold, called the New Wark, to serve both as a fortress to resist invasion and as a retreat under discomfiture; and, either about the same time or at an earlier period, they constructed likewise, between the town and Lochar Moss, a rude fortification or extended rampart, called the Warder's Dike. But all vestiges of these works, of the castle, and of the monastery are now extinct.

“In 1617 James VI spent two days at Dumfries in royal state, and was sumptuously entertained at a public banquet. The town shared largely in the disasters that overspread Scotland under Charles l, and still more largely in those of the dark reign of Charles II, when, in November 1666, a fortnight before the battle of Rullion Green, fifty mounted Covenanters and a larger party of peasants on foot here seized Sir James Turner, and, with him, a considerable sum of money. The Cameronians, or those of the

Covenanters who resisted the settlement at the Revolution, were comparatively numerous in the surrounding district; and, on 20 Nov 1706, about 200 of them rode into the town, issued a manifesto against the impending union of Scotland and England, and burned the articles of union at the cross, but did not succeed in precipitating the town into any serious disaster. In October 1715 word was brought to the magistrates that the Jacobite gentry of the neighborhood had formed a design to surprise the town; and, it being the sacramental fast-day, and the provincial synod being then in session, the clergy mustered their fencible parishioners, so that ‘a crowd of stout Whigs flocked in from the surrounding districts and villages, with their broad bonnets and grey hose, some of them mounted on their plough-horses, others on foot’. That very evening they were joined by a strange ally, no other than Simon Fraser, the infamous Lord Lovat, who, with five followers, all armed to the teeth, rode up to the head inn, en route from London to the North. Hill Burton describes the suspicions aroused by the presence of this large, square-built, peculiar-looking man; how, having shown his credentials, he presently helped to bring in the Marquis of Annandale, beset by the Jacobites under Viscount Kenmure; and how their courteous and partly convivial meeting was interrupted by a rumor of attack, a body of horse having ridden up close to the town. A party of the townspeople, during the insurrection of 1745, cut off at Lockerbie a detachment of the Highlanders' baggage; and, in consequence, drew upon Dumfries a severer treatment from Prince Charles Edward than was inflicted on any other town of its size. Prince Charles, on his return from England, let loose his mountaineers to live at free quarters in Dumfries; and he levied the excise of the town, and demanded from its authorities a contribution of 2,000 pounds and of 1,000 pairs of shoes; but, an alarm having reached him that the Duke of Cumberland had mastered the garrison left at Carlisle and was marching rapidly on Dumfries, he hastily broke away northward, accepting for the present 1,100 pounds for his required exaction, and taking hostages for the payment of the remainder. The town suffered loss to the amount of about 4,000 pounds by his visit, besides the damage caused by the plundering of his troops; but, in acknowledgment of its loyalty to the Crown, and as part compensation for its loss, it afterwards got 2,800 pounds from the forfeited estate of Lord Elcho. Later events have mainly been either commercial, political, or social; and, with the exception of a dire visitation of cholera (15 Sept to 27 Nov 1832), by which nearly 500 perished, they have left no considerable mark on its annals. It may, however, be noticed that the Highland and Agricultural Society has held its meeting here in 1830, 1837, 1845, 1860, 1870, and 1878. The town, on the whole since 1746, has plenteously participated in the benign effects of peace and enlightenment; and, though moving more slowly than some other towns in the course of aggrandizement, it has been excelled by none in the gracefulness of its progress, and in the steadiness and substantiality of its improvement.

“The title Earl of Dumfries, in the peerage of Scotland, conferred in 1633 on the seventh - Baron Crichton of Sanquhar, passed in 1694 to an heiress who married the second son of the first Earl of Stair. Her eldest son, William, who succeeded her in 1742 as fourth Earl of Dumfries and his brother James in 1760 as fourth Earl of Stair, died without issue in 1768, when the former title devolved on his nephew, Patrick Macdowall of Feugh (1726-1803), whose daughter married the eldest son of the first Marquis of Bute; and the title now is borne by her great-grandson, John (born 1881), son and heir of the present Marquis of Bute. On the town's roll of fame are the following eminent natives or residents, the former distinguished by an asterisk: The Rev William Veitch, who was minister of Dumfries during the conflict between Presbyterianism and Episcopacy, and whose biography was written by the Rev Dr M’Crie; the Rev Dr Henry Duncan of Ruthwell (1774-1846), author of the Philosophy of the Seasons, who started the Courier, and founded here the earliest of all savings' banks, and a statue of whom is in front of the Savings' Bank building; Dr Benjamin Bell (1749-1806), the eminent surgeon; Sir Andrew Halliday (1783-

1839), a famous physician, who spent his latter years and died in Dumfries; Sir John Richardson (1787-1865), the surgeon and naturalist of Sir John Franklin's overland Polar expedition; Sir James Anderson (born 1824), the telegraph manager; Gen William M’Murdo, (born 1819), the son-in-law and favorite officer of Sir Charles Napier, the hero of Scinde; John M’Diarmid (1790-1852), editor of the Scrap Book, author of Sketches from nature and a Life of Cowper, and for 35 years the talented conductor of the Dumfries Courier; Thomas Aird (1802-76), the well-known poet, and editor of the Dumfriesshire Herald from 1835 to 1863; William M’Dowall (born 1815), author of the Man of the Woods and of the History of Dumfries, and editor of the Dumfries Standard from 1846 …

“The parish, containing also the villages of Georgetown, Gasstown, and Locharbriggs, with part of the village of Kelton, is bounded northwest by Holywood and Kirkmahoe, northeast by Tinwald, east by Torthorwald, south by Caerlaverock, and west by Troqueer and Terregles in Kirkcudbrightshire. Its greatest length, from north to south, is 6¾ miles; its greatest breadth is 3¼ miles; and its area is 10,200 acres, of which 69½ are foreshore and 98¼ water. The Nith winds 7 miles south-by-eastward along all the boundary with Holywood and Kirkcudbrightshire, and sluggish Lochar Water 7¾ south-southeastward along that with Tinwald and Torthorwald. Near Lochthorn, 2½ miles north-northeast of the town, is a little lake (1¼ X 2/3 furlongs), which, in time of hard frost, is much frequented by skaters and curlers. A mineral spring, called Crichton's Well, occurs in Lochar Moss; another, a strong chalybeate, on Fountainbleau farm. The picturesque low height of Clumpton rises 2 miles northeast of the town; and an undulating low eminence, as formerly noticed, forms chief part of the site of the town, southward of which another low ridge of hills runs nearly parallel to the Nith, at about half a mile's distance, into Caerlaverock; and rises at Trohoughton to 312 feet. The rest of the surface is nearly a dead level, sinking to 40, and rarely exceeding 100, feet. The western face of the ridge, overlooking the Nith, is gently sloping, and highly embellished; but the eastern breaks down in abrupt declivities, presents a bold front and a commanding outline, and forms, about 1¼ mile from the town, two precipitous ledges, called the Maiden Bower Craigs, one of them containing a remarkable cavity, said to have been used by those mythic beings, the Druids, as a sort of ‘St Wilfrid's needle’, or ordeal of chastity. A broad belt of Lochar Moss, along the eastern border, continued all sheer morass down into the present century, but now is extensively reclaimed, and partly clothed with verdure or with wood. Permian sandstone is the prevailing rock, and has been largely quarried. The soil, in the southwest, is a pretty strong clay; in the flat lands by the Nith, is mostly clay incumbent on gravel; in the north and northeast, is a light reddish sandy earth resting on sandstone; and in the east, is either native moss, reclaimed moss, or humus. Nearly four-fifths of the entire area are regularly or occasionally in tillage, some 350 acres are under wood, and nearly all the rest of the land is capable of remunerative reclamation or culture. An ancient castle of the Comyns stood ¾ mile south-southeast of the town, on a spot overlooking a beautiful bend of the Nith, and still called Castledykes. A meadow near it bears the name of Kingholm, and may have got that name either by corruption of Comyn's holm or in honor of Robert Bruce. Another meadow, by the riverside northward of the town, is called the Nunholm, from its lying opposite the ancient Benedictine nunnery of Lincluden. This parish is the seat of both a presbytery and a synod, and it is divided ecclesiastically into the three parishes of St Michael, Greyfriars, and St Mary, the value of the two first livings being 436 pounds and 336 pounds.”108

John Bartholomew gives: “Dumfries, capital of county, parliamentary and royal burgh, parish, and river port, Dumfries-shire, on river Nith, 33 miles northwest of Carlisle by rail, 92 southeast of Glasgow, and 324 northwest of London - parish, 10,032 acres, population 16,841; parliamentary burgh and town,

population 17,092; royal burgh, population 15,713 … 7 Banks, 3 newspapers. Market-day, Wednesday. Dumfries is the chief place in the south of Scotland. It is the capital of a rich rural district, and is an important manufacturing town. The staple is tweeds, but has also hosiery and hat manufactures, clog making, basket making, timber trade, ironworks, and tanneries. The traffic is now carried on chiefly by rail, and the port has decreased in importance and is connected with its suburb Maxwelltown (which, with the Terregles part of the town, is in Kirkcudbright) by a stone bridge of the 13th century. In the Minorite Convent Bruce slew the Red Comyn in 1305. The town was plundered and burned by the Highlanders in 1745. The poet Burns died at Dumfries in 1796. The Dumfries Burghs, for parliamentary purposes, consist of Dumfries, Annan, Lochmaben, and Sanquhar, in county of Dumfries, and Kirkcudbright, in county of same name; they send 1 member to Parliament.”109

**DUMFRIESSHIRE**

FH Groome pens: “Dumfriesshire, a coast and Border county in the south of Scotland. It is bounded north by Lanark, Peebles, and Selkirk shires; northeast by Roxburghshire; southeast by Cumberland; south by the Solway Firth; southwest by Kirkcudbrightshire; and northwest by Ayrshire. Its length, from west to east, varies between 21 and 46½ miles; its breadth, from north to south, between 13 and 32 miles; and its area is 1,103 square miles or 705,945¾ acres, of which 20,427 are foreshore and 5,301½ water. Its outline is irregularly ellipsoidal, being indented to the depth of 13 miles by the southern extremity of Lanarkshire, and to the depth of 5¾ miles by Ettrick Head in Selkirkshire. Its boundary line, over all the west, northwest, north, and northeast, to the aggregate extent of 120 miles, is mainly mountain watershed; over most of the march with Cumberland, to the aggregate extent of 11 miles, is variously Liddel Water, Esk river, and Sark Water; over all the south, to the extent of 21 miles, is the Solway Firth; along the southwest, to the extent of 15 miles, is the river Nith and Cluden Water. The summits on or near the upland boundary line include Auchenchain (1,271 feet) and Blackcraig (1,961) at the Kirkcudbrightshire border; Blacklorg (2,231), M’Crierick's Cairn (1,824), and Halfmerk Hill (1,478), at the Ayrshire border; Mount Stuart (1,567), Wanlock Dod (1,808), Lowther Hill (2,377), Well Hill (1,987), Wedder Law (2,185), and Queensberry (2,285), at the Lanarkshire border; Hartfell (2,651) and White Coomb (2,695), at the Peeblesshire border; Herman Law (2,014), Andrewhinney (2,220), Bodesbeck Law (2,173), Capel Fell (2,223), Ettrick Pen (2,269), Quickningair Hill (1,601), and Black Knowe (1,481), at the Selkirkshire border; and Stock Hill (1,561), Roan Fell (1,862), and Watch Hill (1,642), at the Roxburghshire border.

“The territory now forming Dumfriesshire, together with large part of Galloway, belonged to the Caledonian Selgovae; passed, after the Roman demission, to the kingdom of Cumbria or Strathclyde; was much overrun by the Dalriadans, both from the north of Ireland and from Kintyre; rose, for a time, into a condition of rude independence; was subjugated by the Scots or Scoto-Dalriadans after the union of the Scoto-Dalriadan and the Pictavian kingdoms; and was constituted a county or placed under a sheriff by William the Lyon. But, during a considerable period, its sheriffs had direct authority only within Nithsdale, and no more than nominal authority in the other districts. Both Annandale and Eskdale, from the time of David I till that of Robert Bruce, were under separate or independent baronial jurisdiction; held, in the former, by Robert Bruce's ancestors, in the latter, by various great landowners. The county then consisted of the sheriffship of Nithsdale, the stewartry of Annandale, and the regality of Eskdale; and was cut into three jurisdictions nearly corresponding in their limits to the basins of the three principal rivers. Bruce, after his accession to the throne, framed measures which issued in a

comprehensive hereditary sheriffship; and an Act, passed in the time of George II, adjusted the jurisdiction of the county to the condition in which it now exists.

“Great barons, about the time of David I, were proprietors of most of the lands in the county. Donegal, the ancestor of the Edgars, owned great part of Nithsdale, and was called Dunegal of Stranith. The Maccuswells, ancestors of the Maxwells, held the lands of Caerlaverock; the Comyns held the estates of Dalswinton and Duncow, and lands extending thence southward to Castledykes in the southern vicinity of Dumfries; the Bruces, ancestors of the royal Bruce, held Annandale, and resided chiefly at Lochmaben; the Kirkpatricks, the Johnstons, the Carlyles, and the Carnocs held portions of Annandale as retainers of the Bruces; and the Soulises, the Avenels, the Rossedals, and others held Eskdale. The Baliols also, though not properly barons of the county itself, but only impinging on it through succession to the lords of Galloway, yet powerfully affected its fortunes. Dumfriesshire, during the wars between the Bruces and the Baliols, was placed betwixt two fires; or, to use a different figure, it nursed at its breasts both of the competitors for the crown; and, from the nature of its position bearing aloft the Bruce in its right arm, and both the Baliol and the Comyn in its left, it was peculiarly exposed to suffering. The successful Bruce, after his victory of Bannockburn, gave the Comyns' manor of Dalswinton to Walter Stewart, and their manor of Duncow to Robert Boyd; bestowed his own lordship of Annandale, with the castle of Lochmaben, on Sir Thomas Randolph, and created him Earl of Moray; and conferred on Sir James Douglas, in addition to the gift of Douglasdale in Lanarkshire, the greater part of Eskdale, and other extensive possessions in Dumfriesshire. The county suffered again, and was once more the chief seat of strife during the conflicts between the Bruces and the Baliols in the time of David II. Nor did it suffer less in degree, while it suffered longer in duration, under the subsequent proceedings of the rebellious Douglases. These haughty barons, ‘whose coronet so often counterpoised the crown’, grew so rapidly in at once descent, acquisition, power, and ambition, as practically to become lords-paramount of both Dumfriesshire and Kirkcudbrightshire. Their possessions, at their attainder in 1455, reverted to the Crown, and were in part bestowed on the Earl of March; yet still, through old influence and through action of old retainers and their descendants, continued to give the Douglases a strong hold upon the county, such as enabled them to embroil it in further troubles. The county was invaded, in 1484, by the exiled Earl of Douglas and the Duke of Albany; and thence, during a century and a half, it appears never to have enjoyed a few years of continuous repose. Even so late as 1607, the martial followers of Lord Maxwell and the Earl of Morton were led out to battle on its soil, in a way to threaten it with desolation; and all onward till the union of the Scottish and the English crowns, marauding forces and invading armies, at only brief intervals of time, overran it from the southern border, and subjected it to pillage, fire, and bloodshed. The county sat down in quietude under James VI, and begun then to wear a dress of social comeliness; but again, during the reign of the Charleses, it was agitated with broils and insurrections; and, in the rebellions of 1715 and 1745, especially in the latter, it was the scene of numerous disasters. The Jacobites were strong in it, and worked so vigorously in the cause of the Chevalier and the Pretender as to draw destruction on their own families. The Maxwells, in particular, were utterly overthrown by the attainder of the Earl of Nithsdale in 1715; and several other great families lost all their possessions and their influence either then or in 1746. The Dukes of Buccleuch, partly through extension of their own proper territories, partly through inheritance of those of the Dukes of Queensberry, are now by far the largest and most influential landowners of the county; and the Marquis of Queensberry and Hope-Johnstone of Annandale hold a high rank. Caledonian cairns, camps, and hill-forts are numerous in many of the upland districts, particularly on the southeastern hills; remains of Caledonian stone circles are in the parishes of Gretna, Eskdalemuir, Wamphray, Moffat, and

Holywood; Roman stations, Roman camps, or remains of them are at Brunswark, Castle O'er, Raeburnfoot, Torwoodmoor, Trohoughton, Gallaberry, Wardlaw Hill, and Caerlaverock; Roman roads connected the Roman stations with one another, and went up Annandale, and westward thence to Nithsdale. A remarkable antiquity, supposed by some writers to be Anglo-Saxon, by others to be Danish, is in Ruthwell churchyard; old towers are at Amisfield, Lag, Achincass, Robgill, and Lochwood; and ancient castles, some in high preservation, others utterly dilapidated, are at Caerlaverock, Comlongan, Torthorwald, Closeburn, Morton, Sanquhar, Hoddam, Wauchope, and Langholm. Ancient monasteries were at Dumfries, Canonbie, Holywood, and other places; and a fine monastic ruin is still at Lincluden. Vast quantities of ancient coins, medals, weapons, and pieces of defensive armor have been found. Numerous places figure prominently in Sir Walter Scott’s Guy Mannering, Redgauntlet, and Abbot.”110

John Bartholomew scribes: “Dumfries-shire, maritime county, on south border of Scotland; adjoins the counties of Lanark, Peebles, and Selkirk on the north, and on the south is washed by the Solway Firth; extends about 53 miles northwest and southeast between Ayrshire and Cumberland, and about 32 miles northeast and southwest between Roxburghshire and Kirkcudbrightshire; coast-line, about 20 miles; area, 680,217 acres, population 76,140, or 72 persons to each square mile. The surface in general is bare and hilly. The dales of the Nith, Annan, and Esk, however, are rich in beauty, and contain fine holms for pasture and some good arable land. The rivers are numerous, and yield splendid salmon and trout fishing. The coast and south region is low and sandy; much of it is covered with morass, and lochs are numerous around Lockerbie; but there is also much excellent corn-growing land. The Lowther or Lead Hills along the north boundary are upwards of 2,000 ft in height, and abound in lead ore. These and the other hills round the borders are mostly smooth in outline, and afford excellent pasturage. Red sandstone is a prevailing rock, and limestone, coal, and lead, are worked. The county comprises 41 parishes, with 2 parts, the parliamentary burghs of Annan, Dumfries (greater part), Lochmaben and Sanquhar (part of the Dumfries Burghs - 1 member), and the police burghs of Annan, Dumfries, Lochmaben, Lockerbie, and Moffat. It returns 1 member to Parliament.”111

**GALLOWAY**

“Galloway (Scottish Gaelic: Gall-Ghaidhealaibh or Gallobha, Lowland Scots: Gallawa) is an area in southwestern Scotland. It is generally agreed that the name Galloway derives from the name Gaell-Gaidel, and indeed the modern and medieval words for Galloway in Gaelic are Gall-Ghàidhealaibh and Gallgaidelaib respectively, meaning ‘land of the foreign Gaels’. The term is not recorded until the 11th century.

“It usually refers to the counties of Wigtownshire (or historically West Galloway) and Kirkcudbrightshire (or historically East Galloway) in the Dumfries and Galloway administration council area of Scotland.”112

FH Groome states: “Galloway, an extensive district in the southwestern corner of Scotland, which originally and for a considerable period included also parts of Ayrshire and Dumfriesshire, has for ages past been identified simply and strictly with the shire of Wigtown and the stewartry of Kirkcudbright. The name, though inextricably interwoven with Scottish history, designates no political jurisdiction, and is unsanctioned by the strict or civil nomenclature of the country. The district is bounded on the north by Ayrshire and Dumfriesshire, on the east by Dumfriesshire, on the south by the Solway Firth and Irish Sea, and on the west by the Irish Channel and Firth of Clyde. Its greatest length, from east to west, is 63½ miles; and its greatest breadth, from north to south, is 43 miles. It is divided into three districts -

Upper Galloway, including the northern and more mountainous parts of the two shires; Lower Galloway, embracing the southern and lowland sections east of Luce Bay; and the Rhinns of Galloway, consisting of the peninsula southwest of Luce Bay and Loch Ryan. Galloway has long been famous as an excellent pastoral district; and though its unsettled condition long kept its agriculture in a backward state, the last hundred years have seen splendid progress made. The Galloway breed of horses is celebrated, and large droves of polled black cattle used to be reared for the southern markets. Of late, however, Ayrshire cattle have been superseding the native breed; and dairy-farming is coming into favor. The absence of coal, lime, and freestone has protected Galloway from the erection of busy industrial or manufacturing centers. The surface, on the whole, is undulating; and to quote Mr Henry Inglis, ‘there is no district of Scotland more rich in romantic scenery and association, few which possess the same combination of sterile grandeur and arcadian beauty, and fewer still which are blessed with a climate equal in mildness of temperature to that of Galloway. The tulip-tree flourishes and flowers at St Mary's Isle, and the arbutus bears fruit at Kirkdale.’

“The district, afterwards called Galloway, was in early times held by tribes of the nation of the Brigantes. Ptolemy, writing in the 2nd century of our era, calls them Novantes and Selgovae. The former occupied the country west of the Nith, and had two towns - Lucopibia at Whithorn, and Rerigonium on the east shore of Loch Ryan. The Selgovae or Elgovae lay to the east, extending over Dumfriesshire, and their towns were Trimontium, Uxellum, Corda, and Carbantorigum, whose sites Dr Skene finds respectively on Birrenswark Hill, on Wardlaw Hill, at Sanquhar, and at the Moat of Urr, between the Nith and Dee. A large amount of ethnological controversy has been waged over these peoples; some authorities recognizing in them a Gothic, others a Cymric, and others a Gaelic, race. The authority we have just named considers them to have been Celtic tribes of the Gaelic branch. Intercepted by the Britons of Strathclyde from their northern Gaelic relations, and surrounded in their little corner by a natural girdle of sea and mountain, this people long retained their individuality. They were known as the Picts of Galloway centuries after the word Pict had disappeared elsewhere from the country; and they appeared under that name as a division of the Scottish army at the Battle of the Standard in 1138. We know little concerning Galloway in Roman times. Agricola, overrunning it in 79 AD, added it to the Roman province in Britain, and Roman military remains are tolerably frequent in certain districts. In 397 it is related that St Ninian built a church at Candida Casa, formerly Lucopibia, dedicated it to St Martin of Tours, and began the conversion of the Picts. After the departure of the Romans from Britain, Galloway appears, from the evidence of topographical names and old chronicles, to have been governed by a series of Pictish kings; but probably early in the 7th century the Northumbrian rulers of Bernicia brought it under their sovereignty, and for several centuries remained the nominal superiors of its lords. There is no authority for the common narrative of immigrations of Irish Celts into Galloway during the 8th and following centuries. It is at this period that the modern name emerges. The district was known to the Irish as Gallgaidel or Gallgaidhel, and to the Welsh as Galwyddel, from the Celtic gall, ‘a stranger’; and the name, besides indicating the land of strangers, seems to have some reference also to the fact that the Gaelic population was under the rule of the Anglian Galle or strangers. From the above terms came Gallweithia, Galwethia, and many other forms, Latinized as Gallovidia, and appearing now as Galloway. Towards the end of the 8th century the power of the Angles began to decline. Bede, who gives to the Gallowegian Picts the alternative name of Niduari from Nid or Nith, like Novantae from Novius, the name under which Ptolemy knew the same river, relates that one of the four bishoprics into which Northumbria was divided had its seat at Candida Casa. The first bishop was appointed in 727; the Angles appear to have been too weak to appoint another after Beadulf about 796. The Northmen, who first

appeared in England in this century, did not overlook Galloway; and there is some ground for believing that the Gallowegians themselves partly adopted a piratical life. During the next two or three centuries Galloway was probably ruled by native rulers in tolerably complete independence; and it had the honor of being the locality whence Kenneth mac Alpin emerged to obtain the throne of Scotia. About the middle of the 11th century the name Galweya was used to include the whole country from Solway to Clyde. In the Orkneyinga Saga, which narrates the history of the Norwegian Jarl Thorfinn, a contemporary of Macbeth, Galloway is referred to under the name of Gadgeddli; and it probably formed one of the nine earldoms that Thorfinn possessed in Scotland. Malcolm Ceannmor, who succeeded to the throne of Scotia in 1057, recovered Galloway from the Norse supremacy, though it is probable that many Northmen remained in the district. In 1107, David, youngest son of Malcolm Ceannmor, received Scotland south of the Forth and Clyde as an earldom; and in the charter which he granted in 1113 to the newly-founded monastery of Selkirk, he assigned to the monks the tenth of his ‘can’ or dues from Galweir. David's ascent of the Scottish throne in 1124 may be regarded as the date of the union of Galloway with Scotland.

“Various attempts have been made to furnish Galloway with a line of independent lords during the earlier parts of its obscure history, and we even hear of a certain Jacob, Lord of Galloway, as having been one of the eight reguli who met Edgar at Chester in 973. But all these efforts are entirely unauthentic, and are based upon comparatively modern authorities. From the reign of David I, we are on more historical ground. After the death of Ulgric and Duvenald, described as the native leaders of the Galwenses, at the Battle of the Standard in 1138, Fergus, who may possibly have been of Norwegian connections, was appointed first Earl of Galloway. This powerful noble married Elizabeth, a natural daughter of Henry I of England. In 1160 he joined Somerled, Norse ruler of Argyll, in a revolt against Malcolm IV, but was subdued after three battles and compelled to resign his lordship to his sons. He retired as canon regular to Holyrood, where he died in the following year. His gifts and endowments to Holyrood Abbey were very extensive; and that house possessed more lands in the stewartry than any other. Uchtred and Gilbert, sons and successors of Fergus, accompanied King William the Lyon on his expedition to England in 1173; but when he was taken prisoner they hurried home, expelled with cruel slaughter the English and Norman inhabitants of Galloway, and attempted to establish their independence of the Scottish government, even offering to swear fealty to England. William, on his release in 1174, marched at once to Galloway, where, however, Gilbert, who had cruelly murdered his brother at Loch Fergus, made humble submission and gave hostages. Gilbert died in 1185, and Roland, son of the murdered Uchtred, succeeded, after first quelling a revolt under Gilpatrick, and subduing Gilcolm, a powerful freebooter, who had invaded Galloway. Duncan, the son of Gilbert, received the earldom of Carrick. Roland married Elena, daughter of the Constable of Scotland, and eventually succeeded to his father-in-law's high office. It is said that Roland swore allegiance to Henry II of England for the lands of Galloway, and that the English monarchs continued to look upon that district as part of their lawful dominions. Alan succeeded his father in 1200 as Lord of Galloway. He assisted King John in his Irish expedition in 1211, and appeared as one of the barons who extorted the Magna Charta from that king. Later, however, he returned to his Scotch allegiance, and succeeded to his father's office of constable. He died in 1234, leaving three daughters and an illegitimate son. On the king's refusal either to accept the lordship himself or to prevent the partition of the land among the Norman husbands of the three heiresses, the Gallowegians rose in fierce revolt, and were with difficulty reduced to obedience in 1235. Roger de Quincy, husband of Elena, Alan's eldest daughter, received the lordship. This strict enforcement of the rule of legitimate succession marks the transition in Galloway from the

Brehon law to feudalism. From that date lands began to be held by charter and lease, the rights of property began to be more secure, and agriculture began to be attempted. De Quincy died in 1264. In 1291, when the Scottish succession was disputed after the death of the Maid of Norway, one-half of the lordship of Galloway belonged to John Baliol, a son of Alan by Margaret, granddaughter of David I; the other half was shared by William de Ferrers, Alan de Zouch, and Alexander Comyn, Earl of Buchan, husbands of the three daughters of De Quincy. Of the three last, Comyn alone is of importance in the history of Galloway. The Gallowegians, during the wars of the succession, naturally sided with the Comyns and the Baliols, and speedily shared in their disasters. When John Baliol was obliged to resign his dependent crown, Edward I considered Galloway as his own; and he immediately appointed over it a governor and a justiciary, disposed of its ecclesiastical benefices, and obliged the sheriffs and bailiffs to account for the rents and profits of their bailiwicks in his exchequer at Berwick. In 1296 he granted to Thomas of Galloway all the lands, etc, that had been granted to him there by his father Alan; and at the same time he restored all their former liberties and customs to the men of Galloway. In 1297, Wallace is said to have marched into the west ‘to chastise the men of Galloway, who had espoused the party of the Comyns, and supported the pretensions of the English’; and a field in the farm of Borland, above the village of Minnigaff, still bears the name of Wallace's camp. During his campaign of 1300, Edward I marched from Carlisle through Dumfriesshire into Galloway; and though opposed first by the remonstrances, and next by the warlike demonstrations of the people, he overran the whole of the low country from the Nith to the Cree, pushed forward a detachment to Wigtown, and compelled the inhabitants to submit to his yoke. In 1307, Robert I marched into Galloway, and wasted the country, the people having refused to repair to his standard; but he was obliged speedily to retire. In the following year, Edward Bruce, the king's brother, invaded the district, defeated the chiefs in a pitched battle near the Dee, overpowered the English commander, reduced the several fortlets, and at length subdued the entire territory. Galloway was immediately conferred on him by the king, as a reward for his gallantry; but after the death of Alexander, his illegitimate son, whom the king had continued in the lordship, in 1333, it reverted to the crown. When Edward Baliol entered Scotland to renew the pretensions of his father, Galloway became again the wretched theatre of domestic war. In 1334, assisted and accompanied by Edward III, he made his way through this district into the territories to the north, and laid them waste as far as Glasgow. In 1347, in consequence of the defeat and capture of David II at the battle of Durham, Baliol regained possession of his patrimonial estates, and took up his residence in Buittle Castle, the ancient seat of his family. In 1347, heading a levy of Gallowegians, and aided by an English force, he invaded Lanarkshire and Lothian, and made Scotland feel that the power which had become enthroned in Galloway was a scourge rather than a protection. In 1353, Sir William Douglas overran Baliol's territories, and compelled M’Dowal, the hereditary enemy of the Bruces, to renounce his English adherence and swear fealty to his lawful sovereign. After the restoration of David II and the expulsion of Baliol, Archibald Douglas, the Grim, obtained, in 1369, Eastern and Middle Galloway, or Kirkcudbrightshire, in a grant from the crown, and, less than two years after, Western Galloway, or Wigtownshire, by purchase from Thomas Fleming, Earl of Wigtown. This illegitimate but most ambitious son of the celebrated Sir James Douglas obtained, at the death of his father, in 1388, on the field of Otterburn, the high honors and the original estates of the house of Douglas; and now, while holding in addition the superiority of all Galloway, became the most powerful as well as the most oppressive subject of Scotland. On an islet in the Dee, surmounting the site of an ancient fortlet, the residence of former lords of Galloway, he built the strong castle of Threave, whence he and his successors securely defied the enemies that their violence and oppression raised against them. About the middle of the 15th

century one of those earls of Douglas and lords of Galloway carried his lawless insolence so far as, on the occasion of a quarrel, to seize Sir Patrick Maclellan of Bombie, the sheriff of Galloway, and to hang him ignominiously as a felon in Threave Castle. The Douglases experienced some reverses, and were more than once sharply chastised in their own persons, yet they continued to oppress the Gallowegians, to disturb the whole country, and even to overawe and defy the crown, till their turbulence and treasons ended in their forfeiture. James, the ninth and last earl, and all his numerous relations, rose in rebellion in 1453; and, two years afterwards, were adjudged by parliament, and stripped of their immense possessions.

“The lordship of Galloway with the earldom of Wigtown was annexed to the crown, and in 1469 was conferred, with other possessions, upon Margaret of Denmark, as part of her dowry when she married James II. But although the king had introduced a milder and juster rule, the troubles of Galloway were not yet over. For some time after the fall of the Douglases it was occasionally distracted by the feuds of petty chiefs, familiarly known by the odd name of ‘Neighbour Weir’. Early in the 16th century a deadly feud between Gordon of Lochinvar and Dunbar of Mochrum led to the slaughter of Sir John Dunbar, who was then steward of Kirkcudbright; and, during the turbulent minority of James V, another feud between Gordon of Lochinvar and Maclellan of Bombie led to the slaughter of the latter at the door of St Giles's Church in Edinburgh. In 1547, during the reign of Mary, an English army overran Eastern Galloway, and compelled the submission of the principal inhabitants to the English government; and after the defeat of Langside, Mary is falsely said to have sought shelter in Dundrennan Abbey, previous to her flight into England across the Solway. In the following month (June 1568), the regent Moray entered the district to punish her friends; and he enforced the submission of some and demolished the houses of others. In 1570, when Elizabeth wished to overawe and punish the friends of Mary, her troops, under the Earl of Moray and Lord Scrope, overran and wasted Annandale and part of Galloway. As the men of Annandale, for the most part, stood between the Gallowegians and harm, they expected to receive compensation from their western neighbors for their service; and when they were refused it, they repaid themselves by plundering the district. The people of Galloway warmly adopted the Covenant, and suffered much in the religious persecutions of the time. The story of the martyrs of Wigtown will be told elsewhere. The rising that was crushed by General Dalziel, in 1666, at Rullion Green had its beginning at Dalry in Kirkcudbrightshire. Among the strict Cameronians and ‘wild western Whigs’, the men of Galloway were represented. In a happier age Loch Ryan sheltered William III's fleet on his voyage to Ireland in 1690; and since then the history of Galloway has mainly consisted in the advance of agriculture and of the social condition of the people. Galloway gives name to a synod of the Church of Scotland, a synod of the Free Church of Scotland, and to a presbytery of the United Presbyterian Church. The former synod, meeting at Newton-Stewart, and including the presbyteries of Stranraer, Wigtown, and Kirkcudbright, comprises the whole of Wigtownshire and all Kirkcudbrightshire west of the river Urr, besides Ballantrae and Colmonell parishes in Ayrshire. Population (1871) 67,280, (1881) 66,736, of whom 14,402 were communicants of the Church of Scotland in 1878. The Free Church synod, having the same limits, with the exclusion of the two Ayrshire parishes, and divided into three presbyteries of the same names as above, had 4,512 members in 1881; whilst the United Presbyterian presbytery had 1,704 in 1880. The pre-Reformation Church of Scotland had a see of Galloway, with a church at Whithorn; and the present Roman Catholic Church has a diocese of Galloway, re-established in 1878. The Episcopal Church has a united diocese of Glasgow and Galloway.”113

John Bartholomew sums: “Galloway, ancient district in southwest of Scotland; it comprised the counties of Kirkcudbright and Wigtown, and was divided into Upper Galloway in the north, Lower Galloway in the south, and the Rhinns of Galloway in the west.”114

***AIRD OF KELLS, DUMFRIES AND GALLOWAY***

Mairi Hunter alludes to: “Aird, ‘high, a height’. Kells, is derived from the British Cell, ‘a grove, a wood’.”115

www.airds.com communicates: “The lands of Airds are referred to in historical references from the 16th Century. The name Airds, from a Scots word meaning ‘a hill’, or ‘high place’, appears as a place name in a number of locations, making it difficult to attribute references to the Crossmichael location as opposed to the various alternative local sites bearing the same name, notably Airds of Kells (formerly known as Nether Airds and a listed building) and the long lost site of Upper Airds, both on the west side of Loch Ken. The Airds estate on the far side of the loch covers many acres and was owned in the 16th century by Alexander Gordon, a noted religious reformer.

“McKerlie’s Lands & their Owners in Scotland gives the earliest reference to ownership as Sir James Douglas of Drumlanrig in 1589. William Gordon is given as owner in 1682. The lands of Airds seem to have been recombined under one owner, the Rev Walter Laurie of Redcastle in 1733. His daughter, Margaret Laurie (wife of Andrew Laurie) had possession in 1762, and in 1799 Walter Sloan Laurie was owner. The land was then sold to Samuel Moffat in 1877.

“Airds in earlier times had as far as can be determined, two farm sites, Upper Airds and Nether Airds. The latter place, situated on the east shore of Loch Ken has now become a private house known as ‘Waterside’. Upper Airds is now known as Airds or Airds Farm. … The exact age of the farm buildings known as Airds is again uncertain. The 1856 Ordnance Survey map shows the outline of the present buildings in the form that they now are, so we can assume that they were built earlier than that date. Census records and anecdotal evidence also support the theory that the buildings were present at least 12 or more years before that, but earlier references to the buildings rather than the lands have not as yet been discovered. Most stone built farm buildings were constructed around the late 1700s or early 1800s, and it is probable that this was when the farm steading in its present form was created. However, some opinion has been expressed that an earlier date might apply. Lower parts of the main walls of the farmhouse reveal a rougher form of construction than at higher level suggesting the existence of an earlier building whose foundations may have been re-used.

“Some time ago we have uncovered a piece of stonework whose purpose and origin are unknown. Found by the side of the track only 50 meters or so from the farmhouse, this circular piece of red sandstone about 36 inches diameter presents a puzzle. With the circular stone, fragments of a ring of the same material and outer diameter were also found. Although at first glance it might be thought to be a millstone, examination of the underside shows no evidence of the grooving typical of such stones. Also the central hole is square, whereas millstones have a circular form. The radiussed edge does not support the alternative theory of a grindstone. Exponents of archeology and architecture are encouraged to suggest what the item might be.”116

***BRUNANBURH, LOCATION UNCERTAIN, POSSIBLY ANNANDALE, DUMFRIES AND GALLOWAY 117 ***

Neil Oliver depicts: “In AD 937 the very fate of Britain was at stake, and all of her peoples took up the cudgels to settle the matter. Out of the south came Aethelstan at the head of an army tens of

thousands strong. From the north came another huge force: Constantine and the Scots of Alba, Britons from Strathclyde, the King of the Vikings from across the Irish Sea. After weeks on the move, the huge armies finally met near the mouth of the Mersey River, at a place called Brunanburh.

“For lifetimes to come it was remembered simply as the ‘Great Battle’. It was the ultimate Dark Age bloodbath and defined the shape of Britain into the modern era. An Anglo-Saxon account of the fighting describes how: ‘They clove the shield wall, hewed the war lindens with hammered blades; the foe gave way; the folk of the Scots and the ship fleet fell death doomed. The field was slippery with the blood of warriors … The West Saxons in companies hewed the fugitives from behind cruelly with swords mill-sharpened.’ All day they fought, face to face in a butcher’s yard the like of which none had seen before. Only the coming of night brought an end to it, and by then the fields and beaches were strewn with the dead and dying. Animals moved among the cooling remains, wolves and carrion crows. It was an unlikely fellowship of death: Scots, Angles, Vikings, Saxons, Britons, men of Wales, Gaels from Ireland, Northumbrians, and Icelanders.

“From the greatest to the lowliest of men, anyone with a mind to lay claim on the future of Britain had come to Brunanburh. Constantine’s eldest boy was among the slain. Like thousands of others he lay dead upon a sword and a day forgotten now by all save the poets and the chroniclers. The Angles held the field. On paper it was their victory. But in truth, both sides had been so grievously hurt there was no triumph to be celebrated. Aethelstan, heir to Roman ambitions, had been forced to accept there would be no conquest of Scotland. Any attempt to subdue the men of the north would cost more than he had to give. Constantine and the survivors of the northern alliance dragged themselves away from that awful place, back to their homelands.

“Everyone has heard of Hastings, of 1066. But who has heard of Brunanburh? Even the site of the battle has been lost. The best bets place it on the Mersey but there is no consensus. Others place the fighting in the Midlands or the east of England; others say it was somewhere in southwest Scotland. And yet this more than anything that happened in Sussex a century and more later was what determined the shape of the Britain we live in today. In 1066 the Normans took over an England that was already made. In 937 the fighting was a battle for Britain, when everything was still to play for.

“Brunanburh was a showdown between two very different ethnic identities: a Norse/Celtic alliance versus an Anglo-Saxon one. It aimed to settle, once and for all, whether Britain would be controlled by a single ‘imperial’ power, or remain several, separate independent kingdoms. Brunanburh represented a split in perceptions which, like it or not, is still with us today.”118

***CASTLE KENNEDY, DUMFRIES AND GALLOWAY***

Mairi Hunter enumerates: “The seat of the Kennedy family in Wigtownshire was called Castle Kennedy, a fortlet of threatening aspect, in the peninsula which is formed by the loch of Inch. The Kennedy family were of Irish origin; Sir John Kennedy acquired the barony of Cassilis by marrying the daughter of Sir John Montgomery in 1509.”119

Andrew Agnew gives an account: “A curious circumstance occurred in 1629. In mid-winter (on the 26th of January), during a heavy thunderstorm, Castle Kennedy was struck by lightning. Several children and three dogs were in an upper room, which the electric fluid entered; the dogs were killed upon the spot, and the furniture seriously damaged, but the children escaped uninjured; the bolt buried itself in a room

below used as a granary, entirely destroying the store of meal, whilst near the castle a herd of some thirty cows were struck dead during the storm.”120

***ECCLEFECHAN, DUMFRIES AND GALLOWAY***

FH Groome points out: “Ecclefechan (Celtic ‘Church of Fechan’), the birthplace of Thomas Carlyle, is a village in Hoddam parish, Annandale, Dumfriesshire. It stands 171 feet above sea-level, ¾ mile east-southeast of Ecclefechan station, on the main line of the Caledonian, this being 3¼ miles west-northwest of Kirtlebidge, 20 northwest of Carlisle, 5¾ southwest by south of Lockerbie, 81 south by west of Edinburgh, and 81¼ southeast by south of Glasgow. At it are a post office, with money order, savings' bank, insurance, and railway telegraph departments, a branch of the Royal Bank, gas-works, 3 hotels, a Gothic Free church (1878; 280 sittings), a Gothic United Presbyterian church (1865; 600 sittings), and a public school; and fairs are held here on the Tuesday after 11 June and the Tuesday after 20 October. The village of Ecclefechan (we quote from the Scotsman of 11 Feb 1881) situated midway between Lockerbie and the Solway Firth, has been generally identified as the Entepfuhl of Carlyle's Sartor Resartus. There it is, little altered from what it was when Carlyle knew it in his early days, lying in a hollow, surrounded by wooded slopes, with its little Kuhbach still gushing kindly by - where not covered over - to join Mein Water at the foot of the town, before the Mein loses itself in Annan Water, 1¼ mile lower down the valley. There are the beech rows; and here, by the side of the road, is the field where the annual cattle fair is held ‘undoubtedly the grand summary of Entepfuhl child's culture, whither, assembling from all the four winds, come the elements of an unspeakable hurly-burly’. Built along the Glasgow and Carlisle highway, the stagecoach in the old days wended its way night and morning through Ecclefechan; but the cheery horn of the guard is no more heard, and, the railway having passed it by, the village is now probably the scene of less bustle than it was eighty years since. The weaving industry, which at a time less remote, gave employment to not a few men and women, has now almost deserted it, and the quietude of the place has been further increased by a diversion of the turnpike road to the higher ground along the western boundary, in order to avoid the hollow in which Ecclefechan is situated. The inhabitants are now, for the most part, people engaged in agricultural pursuits, and shopkeepers and others who minister to their wants. The village has a particularly neat and tidy appearance, from the fact that nearly all the houses not faced with the red sandstone of the district are regularly whitewashed about the time of the fair. Most of the older cottages and other tenements are said to have been erected by the father and uncle of Carlyle, who, it is known, followed the trade of mason, and who are still well remembered in Ecclefechan. The house in which Thomas Carlyle was born stands on the west side of the main street near the south end of the village. It is a plain two-story building, whitewashed like so many of its neighbors, and may be said to be divided into two parts by a large keyed arch, which gives access to a court and some gardens behind. At present it is occupied by two separate families, who enter their respective dwellings by doorways on either side of the arch. It was in the northernmost division, in a small chamber immediately over the archway, that Carlyle first saw the light, on 4 Dec 1795. The room, which is reached from the ground floor by a well-worn staircase of red sandstone flags, is of small proportions - 4 or 5 feet wide by 8 or 9 in length - with a bed-place formed in the old style by making a recess in the wall. Closely adjoining this interesting tenement is a lane, known as Carlyle's Close, in which stood a house afterwards tenanted by Carlyle's father, and in which all the other children were born. Here Carlyle was brought up. This house in the lapse of time has undergone considerable changes; and the Philistinism of Ecclefechan has at last transformed it into the village shambles. The churchyard lies on the west side of the village, 50 yards or thereby along the

beech-fringed road which leads to Hoddam Castle. It is only about half an acre in extent; and in the center of it many years ago stood the ancient church of St Fechan, of which not a stone remains. Close to the churchyard on the east side is a handsome Gothic church in red sandstone, cruciform in shape, with a square clock-tower, which is the most prominent object in the village. This belongs to the United Presbyterian congregation, and took the place of the old Secession church, in which, it is understood, Carlyle was baptized by the Rev Mr Johnston, who afterwards taught the youthful genius Latin. By the side of the churchyard is a long cottage-like building in a fair state of repair - the old parish school, where Carlyle learnt ‘those earliest tools of complicacy which a man of letters gets to handle - his class-books’. This old school-house, said to have been built with the stones of the ruined church, ceased some five and twenty years ago to be used by the village schoolmaster, who removed to a more commodious building within a stone's cast, which since the passing of the Education Act has been enlarged and dignified with a clock-tower. The old school-house is now a casual poorhouse and soup-kitchen. In the churchyard itself are headstones to Archibald Arnott, Esq, (1772-1855), Napoleon's medical attendant at St Helena; to Robert Peal (1692-1749), said to be the great-grandfather of Sir Robert Peel; and, in the west corner, to James Carlyle (1758-1832) and Margaret Aitken (1771-1853), his second wife, who ‘brought him nine children, whereof four sons and three daughters survived, gratefully reverent of such a father and mother’. Two of those sons have since been laid beside her - Dr John Aitken Carlyle (1801-79), the translator of Dante, and Thomas Carlyle himself, whose funeral on 10 Feb 1881, a cloudy, sleaty day, was attended by Prof Tyndall, Mr JA Froude, Mr JM Lecky, etc. No stone as yet marks his grave, but the churchyard wall was rebuilt and walks were laid out in the winter of 1881-2.”121

***GRETNA GREEN, DUMFRIES AND GALLOWAY***

JC Irving relates: “The name Gretna originates from Gretenhow which was an Angle term meaning ‘gravel hill’.”122

www.visitdumfriesandgalloway.co.uk stipulates: “Explore the romantic connections of this region and you’ll find countless tales of true love and of couples who overcame all the odds to be together in Gretna Green.

“This village in the east of the region, just on the Scottish side of the border, is famous for the weddings that have been held here. Due to the more relaxed marriage laws in Scotland, many couples made their way up north to tie the knot.

“Visit the World Famous Old Blacksmiths Shop to discover more about the town. Enter the ancient black and white building with the cottage and workshop which remains virtually untouched since days gone by, and contains a fascinating collection of memorabilia and artefacts. See letters, telegrams and marriage certificates of people from all ages who defied their friends and family, and stand in the actual room where they were married.

“The exhibition contains a number of different rooms filled with authentic items. See the ‘Repentance Stool’, a gallery of ‘Blacksmith Priests’ and even the original anvil, which the priest used to strike to declare the couple officially married.

“You’ll find a further romantic monument on the Solway Coast Heritage Trail – Sweetheart Abbey. This splendid ruin of a late 13th century abbey was built by Lady Devorgilla in memory of her late husband, John Balliol and is thought to have inspired the creation of the word sweetheart. After he died, she

carried his heart with her in a casket, referring to her dulce or - Latin for ‘sweetheart’ - which is what the abbey was named by monks when she died just a few years later. She was buried beneath the high altar alongside her late husband’s heart. The graceful building still inspires all who visit with its tale of divine love.

“Robert Burns, who lived in the region for the last eight years of his life, wrote many romantic poems such as Ae Fond Kiss and A Red, Red Rose. Find out more about his romantic side and love of the lassies at his former house, now a Burns museum in Dumfries, and his local pub, the Globe Inn.”123

Robert Wilson writes: “The village of Gretna Green is very pleasantly situated, and within five minutes’ walk of the railway station – certainly very convenient for those who are in haste to join the ‘happy state of double blessedness’. Gretna Hall, where the great majority of runaway marriages are performed, is situated in the center of a beautiful lawn, well planted with trees, and exquisitely laid off. The hall, which is the property of Colonel Maxwell, of Orchardton, is approached by a spacious avenue lined with trees on either side. The marriage ceremony used to be performed by Mr Linton; but since his death, which took place about 10 months since, Mrs Linton calls in the aid of a neighbor. The marriage register kept by Mrs Linton shews that parties from America, Germany, Spain, Italy, France, and, indeed, from almost every country in the world, have had the nuptial knot tied at Gretna. To some of our young readers a few words on the law of marriage and Gretna Green marriages may not be uninteresting. By the ancient law of England, as explained by Dr Lushington, ‘a marriage was good if celebrated in the presence of two witnesses without the introduction of a priest, but the decision of the Council of Trent rendered the solemnization by a priest necessary. At the Reformation the provision of the Council of Trent was rejected. The question was, in inconsequence, reduced to this state, that a marriage by civil contract was valid; but there was this extraordinary anomaly in the law, that while it was valid for some purposes, for others, such as the descent of real property to the heirs of the married, it was invalid. This was the state of the law till the Marriage Act of 1754 abolished all clandestine and irregular marriages, and compelled all persons, except Jews and Quakers, to be married according to the ritual of the Church of England. A loophole was soon found to escape from this stringent enactment in the state of the law of Scotland in regard to marriage, taken in connection with the rule of the law of England, that a marriage was valid in England if it had been validly contracted according to the law of the country in which it was contracted.’ In Scotland to the present day (1852) nothing further is necessary than a mutual declaration of consent before witnesses to constitute, from that date, the relation of husband and wife, which is perfectly legal and binding in all respects – hence the ‘roaring trade’ carried on at Gretna Green. There is no ceremony performed at the Gretna Green marriages, the fugitive lovers being only required to make a mutual declaration, in presence of two or more witnesses, after which they sign two certificates, one of which is retained by the individual who joins the hands of the young couple, and the other goes to the bride. The names are also inserted in the register, as a kind of reference, in case of legal proceedings on the part of relatives or friends. For the edification of the curious we subjoin a copy of the certificate granted at the Gretna Hall, and shall fit it up with fictitious names, so that it be better understood:

‘KINGDOM OF SCOTLAND,

COUNTY OF DUMFRIES,

PARISH OF GRETNA.’

“‘These are to certify to all to whom these presents may come, that James Johnstone, from the parish of Barony, in the county of Lanark, and Clementina Paul, from the parish of Annan, in the county of Dumfries, being now here present, and having declared themselves single persons, were this day married, agreeably to the laws of Scotland, as witness our hands.’”124

PO Hutchinson articulates:

“Some matters touching Gretna Hall,

An inn of goodly fame;

The chiefest place where ladies call,

Who go to change their name.”125

***SWEETHEART ABBEY, DUMFRIES AND GALLOWAY***

WH Lizars and John Wilcox describes: “It is not probable, that any stranger visiting Dumfries, will leave it without strolling as far as the ruins of Lincluden Abbey, situated about a mile to the north of the town, in a beautiful holm on the right bank of the Clouden, just before that stream merges into the Nith. The Abbey was of great extent, and the elegance of the workmanship, and general design of the remains, bear evidence of its former wealth and splendor. It owes its destruction to the energetic zeal of the Reformation; the leaders of which movement seem to have pursued the deformation of the splendid religious edifices wherewith the land was filled, with an alacrity second only to the reforming hatred of the doctrines promulgated within their walls. The more adventurous wanderer will feel highly gratified by a pilgrimage down the Nith, to the ruins of Sweetheart Abbey, or, as it is now more frequently denominated, New Abbey. It was built by Devorgilla, daughter of the Lord of Galloway. Her husband, John Baliol of Castlebernaird, was buried in the Abbey, and tradition adds, that his heart having been embalmed, and enclosed in an ivory box, bound by enameled silver bands, was built into the walls; from this it is said to have derived the name of Sweetheart Abbey. Its situation is one of those ‘lown and sunny neuks’, for the choice of which the churchmen of old were quite as much celebrated as for the telling of their bends, or the rigor of the penances they inflicted upon fair young damsels. On the prominent peninsula, on the opposite shore of the Ninth, stands the Castle of Caerlaverock, the Ellangowan of Guy Mannering, one of the most extensive and magnificent specimens of a feudal fortalice. It is entirely a ruin; but its massive and well-built walls, present as stout a resistance to the assaults of time, as of yore its mailed defenders offered to the incursions of their foes. The castle commands an extensive and beautiful view; to the west, Criffel rises up behind New Abbey; to the south, the shores of Cumberland and her distant mountains woo the eye; and, to the north, the ocean bounds the sight.”126

**DUNDEE**

Tim Lambert establishes: “Dundee grew up as a small port in the 11th and 12th centuries. Its name may be derived from the words Dun Diagh (Dun meant ‘fort’). In 1191 King William gave Dundee a charter. That was a document granting the townspeople certain rights. It gave them the right to have their own local government and their own court.

“By the 14th century Dundee was one of Scotland's most important towns. It may have had a population of 4,000 people. That seems tiny to us but settlements were very small in those days.

“Medieval Dundee was, of course, a busy port. Large quantities of wine were imported from France and Spain. Grain was also imported into Dundee. The main exports were hides and wool. At first raw wool was exported but by the 15th century wool was woven and dyed in Dundee.

“By the 13th century Dundee had an annual fair. In the Middle Ages fairs were like markets but they were held only once a year. People would come from all over Angus, Perthshire and Fife to buy and sell at a Dundee fair.

“In the 13th century friars arrived in Dundee. The friars were like monks but instead of withdrawing from the world they went out to preach. The friars in Dundee were Dominicans. They were known as black friars because of their black costumes. Furthermore St Mary's Church was built in the 14th century.

“In the Middle Ages Dundee had a castle. It was probably built at the end of the 12th century. Little is known about Dundee castle, and it is not known exactly when it was demolished. The castle lives on in the name Castle Street.

“Dunhope Castle was built in the 13th century for a family who were hereditary constables of Dundee. It was rebuilt in the 16th century.”127

FH Groome highlights: “Dundee, a town and a parish, or group of parishes on the southern border of Forfarshire. The town stands chiefly in its own parish, but partly also in the parish of Liff and Benvie. It is a royal burgh, a great seat of manufacture, an extensive seaport, the largest seat of population in Scotland next to Glasgow and Edinburgh, and the rival, or more than the rival, of these cities and of the most prosperous of other Scottish towns, in modern rapidity of extension. It occupies a reach of flats and slopes on the north side of the Firth of Tay, 3½ miles west of Broughty Ferry, 9 west of Budden Ness, 14 south by west of Forfar, 21¾ east-northeast of Perth, 42 (via Cupar Fife) north by east of Edinburgh, and 84 northeast of Glasgow. The ground beneath and around it rises around it rises rapidly from a belt of plain, through undulating braes, to rounded hills, and culminates directly north of the town, about 1¼ mile from the shore, in the summit of Dundee Law. The edificed area, seen in profile, is picturesque; the outskirts are well embellished with wood and culture; Dundee Law, rising to an altitude of 571 feet above sea-level, has a fine, verdant, dome-shaped summit; Balgay Hill, a lesser eminence a little further west, is sheeted with wood; and the entire town and environs, beheld in one view from Broughty Ferry Road, or from the south side of the Tay, look richly beautiful. ‘Bonnie Dundee’ is a designation originally given to the persecutor Claverhouse, recognizing his outward or physical comeliness, and ignoring his inward or moral hideousness; and it applies in a somewhat analogous way to the town, whence he took his title of Viscount, recognizing it truly as most attractive in its exterior, but making no allusion to the character of its interior. The site, having at once amenity, salubrity, and commerce, is singularly advantageous; but, for purposes of military defense it is utterly untenable, being thoroughly commanded by the neighboring heights, and for the uses of facile thoroughfare, social convenience, and sanitary law, it has not, as we shall see, been judiciously aligned.

“The Howff or old burying-ground lies off Barrack Street; superseded the three ancient burying-grounds of St Paul, St Roque, and St Clement, all now quite extinct; was forged, about 1567, in what had been the garden of the Greyfriars’ Monastery; became so crowded and insanitory as to be closed by order of the Privy Council in 1858; and equals or surpasses every other old burying-ground in Scotland, not excepting that of the Edinburgh Greyfriars, in the number and variety of its interesting old monuments.

The burying-ground, on the west side of Constitution Road, was opened of 1836; is tastefully laid out in mounds and walks; but, like the Howff, is now closed against interments. The Western Cemetery, on the north side of Perth Road, was opened in 1845; comprises six acres, beautifully laid out in compartments and promenades; has a very grand gateway; and contains a monument to the poet William Thom, who died in Dundee in 1848. The Eastern Necropolis, on the north side of Arbroath Road, about 2 miles from High Street, was opened in 1862; is laid out with great taste and beauty in serpentine walks; and has an admirably designed gateway. A project for a Roman Catholic cemetery was started about 1860, and won some contributions, but fell to the ground. Balgay Cemetery, which occupies the western portion of Balgay Hill, is very tastefully laid out.

“The name Dundee was anciently written Donde, Dondie, and Dondei; and is supposed by some to be a corruption of the Latin Dei Donum, signifying the ‘hill of God’, by others to be a variation of the Celtic Duntaw, signifying the ‘hill of Tay’. The name Alec or Alectum, signifying ‘a handsome place’, is alleged to have been previously used, but seems to have been merely a poetical epithet applied to Hector Boece. The town is said, by some old historians, to have been a place of importance and strength at the time of the Roman invasion under Agricola; but it really does not appear fairly on record till the year 834, and not very authentically even then; and, like all the other ancient towns of Scotland, it suffered obscuration or obliteration of its early history from destruction of public documents by Edward I of England. Elpin, King of the Scots, is said to have, in 834, made Dundee his headquarters in warfare against Brude, King of the Picts, to have led out from it an army of 20,000 against him to Dundee Law, and to have there been discomfited, captured, and beheaded. Malcolm II, in 1010, concentrated his forces in Dundee, and led them thence to his victory over the Danish general at Barrie. Malcolm Ceannmor, about 1071, as we have already noticed, erected in Dundee a palace for his Queen Margaret; and King Edgar, in 1106, as also we previously stated, died in that palace. David, Prince of Scotland, Earl of Huntingdon, the hero of Sir Walter Scott's graphic story of The Talisman, landed at Dundee on his return from the crusades; was met here, soon after his arrival, by his brother William the Lyon; received from William a gift of the town, together with conferment on it of extended privileges; and, in fulfilment of some vows which he had made in the spirit of the period, erected in it, on the site of the present Town churches, a magnificent chapel. His eldest daughter, mother of the Princess Devorgilla, and grandmother of King John Baliol, was married at Dundee, in 1209, to Alan, Lord of Galloway and Constable of Scotland.

“The town, at that time and onward to the Wars of the Succession, was the most important one in the kingdom, not even excepting Perth, Stirling, and Edinburgh, for at once wealth, population, and political consequence; it received confirmation of its immunities and privileges from Alexander III; and it, therefore, was a prime mark for Edward I of England's arrows in his usurpation of Scotland's rights. His forces came against it in 1291, took possession of its castle, burned or otherwise demolished its churches, sacked its private houses, destroyed or carried off its records, and inflicted ruthless barbarities on its inhabitants. Edward, himself, entered it in 1296, and again in 1303; and, in the latter year, subjected it once more to conflagration and disaster. Sir William Wallace had attended its grammar school when about 16 years of age; he began his public career by appearing in it amid the desolations done by Edward, and killing the son of the English governor who held its castle; he laid siege to it, with such forces as he could collect, in the summer of 1297; he temporarily relinquished the siege, in result of intelligence which drew him off to Stirling to achieve his great victory there; he returned to Dundee to resume the siege, immediately after his victory at Stirling; he promptly got possession of the town by

unconditional surrender; and he received from the burgesses a handsome guerdon in money and arms. Its castle, soon after Wallace's departure, was seized and garrisoned by a partisan of Edward; was speedily besieged again by Wallace; first in person, next through his lieutenant, Alexander Scrymseour; was pressed by the latter with a force of 8,000 men, and eventually reduced; and was ordered by Wallace to be demolished, that it might no more afford foothold to invading armies. Scrymseour, in reward of his bravery, was constituted by Wallace Constable of Dundee; and formed the source of a series of hereditary constables, one of whom became Viscount Dudhope. A great council, as we formerly noticed, was held within the Greyfriars' Monastery, in 1309, to recognize Robert Bruce as King of Scotland. The castle, in 1312, was rebuilt and garrisoned by the English; in the same year was captured by Prince Edward, brother of Robert Bruce; in the same year was recaptured by the English; and, in the early part of 1313, was captured again by Prince Edward. Robert Bruce resided in the town during part of 1314; and, while here, conferred upon it some new important gifts. Richard II of England, in 1385, attacked the town and burned it. James V and his Queen, in 1528, attended by a numerous train of prelates, nobles, and gentlemen, were magnificently entertained in the town for six days. Dundee was the first town in Scotland to receive, broadly and demonstratively, the doctrines of the Reformation; and it enjoyed, for a time, with impressiveness and in solemn circumstances, the ministry of the Reformer, Wishart. Wishart began his ministry here with public lectures on the Epistle to the Romans; had crowded and attentive audiences; was temporarily driven from the town at the instance of the Romish authorities; came back, four days afterwards, on learning that pestilential plague had struck it; preached to its terrified inhabitants, as we formerly noticed, from the battlements of Cowgate Port; and was instrumental of so great and permanent spiritual benefit to it, as to occasion it to be afterwards called the Second Geneva. An army of Henry VIII of England, after the battle of Pinkie in 1547, advanced to Dundee; entered it without opposition, such forces as could be raised in it retiring at their approach; began to fortify it with defensive walls at its most accessible parts; held possession for only eight days, in consequence of the rumored advance of French and other troops in the interest of the Queen Regent; and, on the eve of their departure, demolished the fortifications which they had begun to erect, rifled the town and set fire to its churches and to many of its houses. The Queen Regent's troops entered without resistance; united with the townspeople in quenching the conflagration which was going on; and reconstructed and extended the defensive fortifications. A body of the townsmen, to the number of nearly 1,000, headed by their provost, Hallyburton, in 1559, hearing of the hostile intentions of the Queen Regent, marched into junction with the army of the Reformers, and contributed largely to their victory at Perth. Queen Mary, during her progress through Scotland, in 1565, spent two days in Dundee; and, despite the antagonism between her religious tenets and those of the townspeople, was treated with every mark of loyalty and affection. The town gave refuge, in 1584, both to the celebrated Professor Melville of St Andrews and the notable Earl of Gowrie, who figured in the raid of Ruthven. James VI visited the town at periods between 1590 and 1594; revisited it, with pompous ceremonial, in 1617; and, on the latter occasion, was welcomed in a panegyrical speech and two Latin poems, delivered by the town-clerk.

“The Marquis of Montrose, in 1645, with a force of only about 750 men, stormed the town, plundered its churches and principal houses, and set parts of it on fire; but was suddenly chased from it by an army of 3,800 under Generals Baillie and Harry. Charles II, in 1651, immediately before his march into Worcester, spent some weeks in Dundee; got sumptuous entertainment from the magistrates; and was provided by the inhabitants with a stately pavilion, six pieces of artillery, and some troops of horse. General Monk, in the same year, besieged the town; encountered a stubborn, prolonged, and

sanguinary resistance beneath its walls; broke eventually into it with terrible impetuosity; slaughtered all its garrison and more than 1,200 of its inhabitants, and subjected it to such a pillage that each soldier in his army received nearly 60 pounds sterling. Graham of Claverhouse, in 1689, two years after he had been created Viscount Dundee, and about six weeks before he fell on the battlefield of Killiecrankie, approached the town with intention of inflicting on it signal vengeance; but was met, and mainly repelled, by a prompt armed embodiment of the burgesses; yet succeeded in setting fire to the entire suburb of Hilltown. Graham of Duntroon, in Sept 1715, proclaimed in Dundee the Pretender as King of the British dominions; and the Pretender himself, in the following January, made a public entrance into the town and spent a night, as we formerly mentioned, in the town mansion of Stewart of Grandtully. A force of Prince Charles Edward, consisting of about 600 men under the command of Sir James Kinloch, held possession of the town from 7 Sept 1745 till 14 Jan 1746. Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort, in Sept 1844, on their way to Blair Castle, landed at Dundee; and the Prince and Princess of Wales, in Sept 1864, embarked at it for Denmark. The Queen, the Prince and Princess of Wales, Prince Leopold, General Grant, ex-President of the United States, and other eminent personages also visited it after the first Tay Bridge was opened.”128

John Bartholomew portrays: “Dundee, parliamentary and royal burgh, manufacturing and market town, seaport, and parish, Forfarshire, at foot of the Law (571 ft), on north side of Firth of Tay, 21¾ miles east of Perth by rail, 42 north of Edinburgh, 84 northeast of Glasgow, and 441 northwest of London - parish, 4,349 acres, population 100,598; parliamentary and royal burgh, population 140,063; town, population 140,239; 9 Banks, 5 newspapers. Market-days, Tuesday and Friday. Dundee is in population the third town in Scotland. It is the first port in Britain for the seal and whale fishery, and the chief seat of the linen and jute manufacturers. The principal textile productions are Osnaburghs, dowlas, canvas, sheetings, bagging, and jute carpeting. The annual value of these fabrics is estimated at nearly 8,000,000 pounds. Among the other industries are shipbuilding, engineering, tanning, and shoemaking by machinery. There are also considerable foundries, breweries, corn and flour mills, and confectionery and fruit-preserving (the celebrated Dundee marmalade) works. The harbor works extend about 2 miles along the river side; the docks, 5 in number, cover an area of 35 acres. On middle and east piers, and at Camperdown Dock, are fixed lights (Dundee Harbor) seen 7 and 3 miles. There is regular steamboat communication with Leith, Newcastle, Hull, London, Liverpool, and Rotterdam. A steam service was arranged between Dundee and Antwerp in 1884. Communication with the south was rendered more direct by the Tay Bridge, opened in May 1878, and blown down in December 1879. Steps were almost immediately taken to have it rebuilt, and the work was begun in the spring of 1882. Dundee has a College (1882), with an endowment of 140,000 pounds, and chairs for natural history and mathematics, chemistry, classics and history, and English literature and language; it has also a Free Library, an Esplanade, extending along the river side between Magdalen Point and Craig Pier, and several public parks, the most notable of which is the Baxter Park (38 acres), presented to the community by Sir David Baxter. Its most remarkable antiquities are - the ‘Old Steeple’ (14th century), and the East Port, the sole relic of the ancient walls, allowed to stand in commemoration of Wishart the Martyr, who preached from it during the plague in 1544. Dundee was early a town of considerable note. It was made a royal burgh by William the Lion, and was twice taken possession of by the English during the War of Independence. In the reign of the Stuarts it was ranked the third town in Scotland after Edinburgh. In the 16th century it was the first Scottish town to renounce Popery; in 1645 it was pillaged by Montrose, and again by General Monk in 1651; it long suffered from these calamities, but in the end of the 18th

and the beginning of the 19th centuries it rapidly recovered even more than its former comparative importance. The burgh returns 2 members to Parliament.”129

***MENZIESHILL, DUNDEE***

David Dorward remarks: “Before the 1960s not many people in Dundee had heard of the name Menzieshill. This is hardly surprising, for it was merely an eminence overlooking the old Perth Road at Ninewells. There was a farm of the name on the Invergowrie estate, reachable by a track leading from Greystane House (now the Swallow Hotel) to the Balgay Cemetery. This terrain, which in living memory was rolling meadowland, is now entirely covered by the Kingsway, but the Dundee Technology Park, by Ninewells Hospital – and of course by the new suburb of Menzieshill.

“As you approach Dundee on the A90 from Perth your first sight of the city is stunning. Menzieshill, which dominates the scene, makes Dundee look like a metropolis of the future. So it is, possibly; and Menzieshill is an example which deserves to be followed – a true suburb, with a High School, two primary schools, a church, a police station, a post-office – and a bird’s eye view of one of the best hospitals in Europe. Menzieshill was built between 1960 and 1965 as part of the process of clearing some of the remaining overcrowded areas nearer to the center of the city; and if its five fifteen-storey blocks of flats are not perhaps to everybody’s taste, at least an attempt has been made to preserve the balance between high-density housing on the one hand and spacious living on the other.

“An odd thing about Menzieshill is that it has a pre-history and a future, but no recent history to speak of. Stone coffins were found here, evidence of human settlement in the Dundee area from prehistoric times (dating from as early as 6000 BC); and indeed the situation is so favorable that it is something of a miracle that it was not developed during the medieval or early modern periods. But nobody now remembers who the Menzies was who gave his name to the farm or to the hill; at a guess, he may have flourished around the end of the eighteenth century. Prior to that Menzieshill does not figure in the records.

“Menzies has been a familiar Perthshire surname from medieval times; originally from the Norman name Mesnieres (which is related to the noun demesne, ‘a manor’), it came to this country through the English surname Manners. We have cause to rejoice, however, that Menzieshill is invariably (and correctly) pronounced Mingiz-hill by Dundonians. If only this pronunciation were to be applied to other occurrences of the name – stationers, former Australian prime ministers and the like – a deal of necessary irritation would be avoided to those of us who dislike the sound Menzaze.”130

***WILLIAM MCGONAGALL***

www.tayroots.com shares: “William Topaz McGonagall is famous for being considered the world's worst poet - a title he strongly disputed. In fact, he would often proudly declare to a jeering audience that his poems were second only to William Shakespeare!

“William McGonagall was born in Edinburgh in 1825 but, when he was a young boy, the McGonagall family moved to Dundee when his father found a job in the Dundee textile industry.

“Until the age of 52, William McGonagall lived a relatively quiet, normal life, working as a handloom weaver and providing for his large family. Then, suddenly, McGonagall was struck by, as he said, ‘Divine

inspiration’ and, as a result, wrote a poem of appreciation about a Dundee minister and philanthropist, The Rev George Gilfillan.

“The poem appeared in The Weekly News, a publication which is printed in Dundee to this day. This was more than enough of an accolade for McGonagall and, despite the Rev Gilfillan tactfully saying that ‘Shakespeare never wrote anything like this,’ he decided he had found his calling. William McGonagall was going to be a poet.

“From then on, the poems flowed from McGonagall's pen, and he would often perform his latest works in pubs, bars and theatres across Dundee. Despite his own high opinion of his poems, the people of Dundee were much more critical, and McGonagall's public appearances almost always resulted in him being totally humiliated and pelted with eggs, fruit and vegetables.

“McGonagall was so convinced of the excellence of his poetry, he sailed to New York, and confident the Americans would appreciate his talent - only to return to Dundee, penniless. He even walked 50 miles from Dundee to Balmoral Castle in atrocious weather to present a volume of his poems to Queen Victoria. He had high hopes the Queen would read his poems and declare him Poet Laureate but when he arrived at the castle gates, footsore and soaking wet, he was turned away and told never to return.

“In the early days of his career as a poet, McGonagall had written a poem about the construction of the railway bridge over the River Tay. When the bridge crashed into the river in 1879, he was inspired to write what was to become his most famous poem, The Tay Bridge Disaster. The Tay Bridge Disaster carried all the unintentionally dreadful hallmarks of a McGonagall poem and included the memorable lines:

‘Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay

Alas I am very sorry to say

That ninety lives have been taken away

On the last Sabbath Day of 1879

Which will be remembered for a very long time.’

“Even this poem did not bring McGonagall the fame and fortune he felt he deserved, and he finally decided he'd had enough ‘harsh treatment’ in the City of Dundee. Accompanied by his wife, McGonagall moved to Perth, where he was given a warm welcome.

“Despite this, McGonagall was convinced his future lay in Edinburgh. Unfortunately, the people of Edinburgh proved to be just as critical of McGonagall's poetry as those in Dundee - but much less likely to pay to hear him read his latest poem. As a result, when McGonagall died in 1902, he was buried in a pauper's grave in Greyfriars Kirkyard. However, his obituary in The Dundee Courier finally granted McGonagall the acclaim he had yearned for, describing him as: ‘The Poet Laureate of the Silvery Tay’.”131

**EAST AYRSHIRE**

**AYR**

FH Groome stresses: “Ayr, the capital of Ayrshire, is a seaport, a seat of manufacture, and a royal and parliamentary burgh. It stands on the river Ayr, at its influx to the Bay of Ayr, and at a convergence of

railways southward, southwestward, and northward. By sea it is 23 miles south-southeast of Garroch Head in Bute, 14½ south-southeast of Ardrossan, 16¾ west of Arran, 25 northeast of Ailsa Craig, and 59 east-northeast of Torcar Point in Antrim, Ireland; by rail it is 15½ south-southwest of Kilmarnock, 41¾ south-southwest of Paisley, 40½ southwest by west of Glasgow (34 by road), 50½ west-southwest of Carstairs, 78 southwest by west of Edinburgh, 60 northwest by west of Dumfries, 93 northwest by west of Carlisle, and 66½ north-northeast of Portpatrick. Its site is low ground, on the lip or sea-margin of a champaign, about 4 or 5 miles broad, screened all round by gently-rising heights, which form a great natural amphitheater. It outskirts and environs, and many of its streets and houses, command a magnificent view over a large expanse of the Firth of Clyde, to Ailsa Craig, the alps of Arran, the Cumbrae isles, the hills of Bute, the mountains of Argyll, and the hanging plains of Cunninghame. Its own outlines, as seen with the great amphitheater around it for a background, particularly from the brow of Brown Carrick Hill (912 feet), which overhangs the left bank of the river Doon, 4¾ miles to the south-southwest, form a singularly brilliant and imposing picture. The general view from Brown Carrick Hill, indeed, away across Kyle and Cumminghame, and over the Firth of Clyde, is as extensive, and all so brilliant and exquisite as to dwarf the town and its environs into only one small feature of the whole; but that one feature, nevertheless, is very striking. Suburban villas and blocks of buildings, all more or less shaded by plantations, are seen on the hither side; the Gothic mass of Wallace Tower, and the lofty tapering spire of the Town’s Buildings soar from the center; the chimney tops and gable ends of the old parts of the town start up irregularly on the further side, and are seen through such vistas or in such arrangements as make the town appear much larger than it really is; and the entire place sits so grandly on the front of the great amphitheater, with the first sweeping round it in a great crescent blocked on the further side by the peaks of Arran, as to look like a proud metropolis of an extensive and highly picturesque region.

“A Roman road left from Dumfriesshire, through Galloway, into Ayrshire; passed by way of Dalmellington and Ponessan to Ayr; traversed the site of the town along the line of what is now Mill Street; and seems to have terminated in either a military station or a harbor at the month of the river. It could be traced in many parts within the town, so late as about the beginning of the present century; is still traceable in the southwest of Castlehill Gardens, within 1½ mile of the town; and, till about the beginning of the 18th century, formed the only line of communication from Ayr to Galloway and Dumfries. Some urns, culinary utensils, and other small objects, believed to be Roman, have been found when digging foundations in the town. A castle was built near the month of the river, about 1192, by William the Lyon, and is mentioned by him as his ‘new Castle of Ayr’, in a charter erecting the town into a burgh about 1200. Often destroyed and rebuilt in the course of successive wars, it held a strong garrison in 1263, to watch the progress of the Norwegian invasion under Haco, when it is said to have been assaulted and captured by the Norsemen. In 1298 it was burned by Robert Bruce, to prevent its becoming a stronghold of the English army, who were marching westward to attack him; but it was so repaired before 1314 as then to be garrisoned by Edward Bruce’s army of ‘full seven thousand men and mair’, raised for his expedition into Ireland; and it is said, but on very questionable authority, to have existed down to Cromwell’s day. No trace of it appears to have been visible for several centuries; but its site is supposed to have been a rising ground near the river, behind the present academy. The burgh seal is thought to have been adopted from the castle, exhibiting three battlemented towers, together with emblems of St John the Baptist. A temporary barrack, known in history as the Barns of Ayr, was erected by the forces of Edward I of England on the southeast side of the town, probably because they found the castle not sufficiently commodious or their occupancy; and that barrack was in 1297 the scene

of the famous tragical exploit of Sir William Wallace, separately noticed under Barns of Ayr. A citadel, afterwards called the Fort, was erected by Oliver Cromwell in 1652, on ground extending from the sea to the site of the present Fort Street; was built chiefly with stones freighted from Ardrossan, and at so great a cost as to have made Cromwell exclaim that it seemed to have been built of gold; occupied an area of about 12 acres, on a hexagonal ground plan; had bastions at the angles, with the main one close to the harbor, and commanding the entire circuit of the fortifications, the river’s mouth, and the town itself; and enclosed the cruciform church of St John the Baptist, founded in the 12th century, and converted by Cromwell into an armory and guardroom. The citadel was constructed for the occupancy of a large body of troops, both to command the town and harbor of Ayr, and to overawe and defend the west and south of Scotland; and it continued to be garrisoned till the end of Cromwell’s time, but was dismantled after the Restoration. The ground it occupied, together with such of its buildings as remained, was given to the Earl of Eglinton, in compensation for losses sustained during the Great Rebellion, and, under the name of Montgomerystown, it was created a burgh of regality, and became the seat of a considerable trade. In 1726, however, it was purchased by four merchants of the town, and during a few years prior to 1870, it was most of it covered with handsome villas.

“The bridges which link Ayr proper to its suburbs are ‘The Twa Brigs’ of Burns' famous poem. They stand within 150 yards of one another. The Auld Brig is the upper one; seems, on the evidence of record, to have been built at some time between 1470 and 1525; but is commonly said, without a shadow of proof, to have been erected in the reign of Alexander III (1249-86), at the expense of two maiden sisters of the name of Lowe, whose effigies, now crumbled away, were pointed out near the south end of the eastern parapet. It comprises four lofty and strongly-framed arches; and has a narrow enough roadway to have been fairly liable to the New Brig Spirit's taunt about its ‘poor narrow footpath of a street, where twa wheelbarrows tremble when they meet’. A ford, the Ducat Stream, immediately above the bridge, seems to have been the only passage from the town in olden times; and, prior to the erection of the bridge, was yearly the scene of much loss of life during the floods of winter and spring. The New Bridge was built (1785-8) chiefly through the exertions of Provost Ballantyne, to whom Burns dedicated his poem, and it was a neat structure, with five arches, after a design by Robert Adam. Injured by the floods of 1877, it was rebuilt (1878-9) at a cost of over 15,000 pounds; and thus was fulfilled the Auld Brig's prophecy:

‘and tho' wi' crazy eild I'm sair forfairn,

I'll be a brig when ye're a shapeless cairn.’

“Ayr may be presumed to have been a place of some importance long before the period of authentic record. It is not mentioned by any Roman writer; yet it clearly appears, from the Roman road to it, and from Roman relics found in and near it, to have been well known to the Roman forces in Britain. It comes into notice in the time of William the Lyon in aspects which imply it to have long before possessed at once political and commercial consequence. It also figured prominently both in the War of Independence and throughout the religions struggle at and after the Reformation. Wallace and Bruce on the one hand, and the forces of Edward I of England on the other, stand boldly out in connection with Ayr. Even the local disturbers of the public peace, the heads of septs in Kyle and Carrick, the Crawfurds, the Campbells, and the Kennedys, in the 16th and 17th centuries, made it the focus or scene of some of their endless quarrels. Famous natives and residents, too, have thrown luster over the town. Joannes Scotus Erigena, who shone like a star amid the darkness of Europe in the 9th century, is claimed by Ayr,

but was more probably an Irishman. John Welsh, the famous High Presbyterian divine, was minister of Ayr from 1590 to 1605; at Ayr, in 1625, died his wife, Elizabeth Knox, daughter of the great Reformer; and in Young's Life of him, edited by the Rev Jas Anderson (1866), is much of interest regarding Ayr. Andrew Michael Ramsay (1686-1743), commonly called the Chevalier de Ramsay, well known for his Travels of Cyrus, but better known as a convert to Romanism and as tutor to the Young Pretender, was a native. Dr M’Gill who, by his Essay on the Death of Christ, led the way to a great heresy in the latter part of last century, was one of the ministers of Ayr, and lies in its churchyard; his colleague was Dr Dalrymple, who figures in a poem of Burns as ‘D’rymple mild’. Dr William Peebles, who dragged M’Gill's heresy into notice, and is styled by Burns ‘Poet Willie’, was minister of Newton. Natives, too, were John Loudon Macadam (1756-1836) of road-making celebrity; David Cathcart, Lord Alloway (1764-1829), judge of the Court of Session; Archibald Crawford (1779-1843), a minor poet; and Jas Fergusson, (born 1808), writer on architecture. But on Alloway, Burns' birthplace, Ayr rests its highest claim to fame. He made the town so thoroughly his own by his graphic descriptions and humorous effusions that it blends itself with much of his biography, both as a man and as a poet; and he knew it so long and so intimately that his panegyric may well be taken for true:

‘Auld Ayr, wham ne'er a town surpasses

For honest men and bonny lasses.’”132

John Bartholomew composes: “Ayr - parish, parliamentary and royal burgh, and county town of Ayrshire, at mouth of river Ayr, 40½ miles southwest of Glasgow, 78½, miles southwest of Edinburgh, and 384 miles from London by rail - parish, 6,939 acres, population 10,182; parliamentary burgh, population 20,812; royal burgh, population 8,776; 7 Banks, 4 newspapers. Market-days, Tuesday and Friday. The town is connected with Newton and Wallaceton on north side of the river by the ‘Auld Brig’ and ‘New Brig’, cerebrated by Burns. There are manufacturers of carpets, woolen goods, and leather; iron foundries; engineering works; and shipbuilding yards. It has extensive docks; coal and iron are the chief exports. The fisheries and the shipping are important. There are still some fragments of the ramparts of the Fort of Ayr, which was built by Cromwell in 1652. At the south end of the town is the racecourse, where the Western Meeting takes place annually in September. Ayr unites with Irvine, Campbeltown, Inveraray, and Oban in returning 1 member to Parliament.”133

**AYRSHIRE**

FH Groome designates: “Ayrshire, a maritime county of southwest Scotland. It is bounded north by Renfrewshire, northeast by Renfrew and Lanark shires, east by Lanark and Dumfries shires, southeast by Kirkcudbrightshire, south by Wigtownshire, west by the North Channel and the Firth of Clyde. Its outline resembles that of a broad crescent, convex to the east, concave to the west. Its boundaries all-round the landward sides are mainly artificial, ie, though partly formed by watersheds, rivulets, and lakes, are principally capricious or conventional. Its length, from Kelly Burn, on the boundary with Renfrewshire on the north, to Galloway Burn on the boundary with Wigtownshire on the south, is 60 miles in a direct line, but 90 miles by the public road, the difference being chiefly due to the curvature of the coast; its breadth increases from 3½ miles at the northern, and 6 ½ at the southern, extremity to 28 eastward from Head of Ayr; and its area comprises 722,229 1/3 acres of land, 6,075 1/3 of foreshore, and 6,957 of water - in all 1,149 square miles. The rivers Irvine and Doon, the former running westward, the latter north-northwestward, cut the entire area into three sections, Cunninghame in the north, Kyle in the middle, Carrick in the south. These sections, if the entire area be represented as 52, have the

proportions of respectively 13, 19, and 20. The first and the second are predominantly lowland, while the third is predominantly upland. Cunninghame and Kyle also in a main degree have the form of an amphitheater, rich in inner beauty, and all looking across to the grand western mountain-screen of the Firth of Clyde; while Carrick, in a considerable degree, is a tumbling assemblage of brae and hill and mountain, with only close views in vale or glen, and outward views from seaboard vantage grounds. Yet the three sections somewhat fuse into one another in landscape character, and have peculiarities of feature each within itself. The northwestern section of Cunninghame, lying like a broad wedge between Renfrewshire and the Firth of Clyde, southward to the vicinity of Farland Head, is mainly a mass of lofty hills, with intersecting narrow vales, and has mostly a rocky coast. The rest of Cunninghame is principally a pleasant diversity of hill and dale and undulation, declining to the Bay of Ayr and to the river Irvine; yet rises in the extreme southeast into high moors contiguous to those around Drumclog in Lanarkshire, and dominated within its own limits by the conspicuous cone of London Hill (900 feet). The upper part of Kyle, to the average breadth of 9 or 10 miles, all round from the sources of the river Irvine to the source of the river Doon in Loch Doon, is mostly moorish, and contains a large aggregate both of high bleak plateau and of lofty barren mountain. In the north is Distinkhorn (1,258 feet), to east and south of which rise Blackside (1,342), Dibblon Hill (1,412), Middlefield Law (1,528), Priesthill Height (1,615), etc. Cairn Table, on the boundary with Lanarkshire, 2½ miles southeast of Muirkirk, has an altitude of 1,944 feet; Wardlaw hill, 2½ miles west-southwest of Cairn Table, has an altitude of 1,630 feet; Blacklorg, on the Dumfriesshire boundary, 6½ miles south-southeast of New Cumnock, has an altitude of 2,231 feet; and Blackcraig Hill, 1½ mile north by west of Blacklorg, has an altitude of 2,298 feet. All the section south and southwest of New Cumnock, to within 2¾ miles of Dalmellington, also lies within the basin of the river Nith, and is separated by lofty watersheds from the rest of the county. The middle and the western parts of Kyle are traversed through the center by the river Ayr, dividing them into Kyle - Stewart on the north and King's Kyle on the south; they form, in a general view, to within about 4 miles of the coast, a continuous hanging plain, little diversified except by deep beds of streams, and by swelling knolls and hillocks; they terminate in a flattish fertile seaboard; and, to a large aggregate of their extent, they are richly embellished with culture and with wood. A graphic writer says, respecting all Kyle: The hill-country, towards the east, is bleak, marshy, uncultivated, and uninteresting; and on that side, except at one or two places, the district was formerly impervious. In advancing from these heights to the sea, the symptoms of fertility and the beneficial effects of cultivation rapidly multiply; but there is no ‘sweet interchange of hill and valley’, no sprightliness of transition, and no bold and airy touches either to surprise or delight. There is little variety, or even distinctness of outline, except where the vermiculations of the rivers are marked by deep fringes of wood waving over the shelvy banks, or where the multitudinous islands and hills beyond the sea exalt their colossal heads above the waves, and lend an exterior beauty to that heavy continuity of flatness, which, from the higher grounds of Kyle, appears to pervade nearly the whole of its surface. The slope, both here and in Cunninghame, is pitted with numberless shallow depressions, which are surmounted by slender prominences, rarely swelling beyond the magnitude of hillocks or knolls. Over this dull expanse the hand of art has spread some exquisite embellishments, which in a great measure atone for the native insipidity of the scene, but which might be still farther heightened by covering many of these spaces with additional woods, free from the dismal intermixture of Scotch fir. Carrick contains several fine long narrow valleys, and numerous strips of low ground; but is mainly occupied by the western parts of the mountain ranges which extend across Scotland from the German Ocean, at the mutual border of Haddington and Berwick shires, through the southeastern wing of Edinburghshire, Selkirkshire, Peeblesshire, the south of Lanarkshire, the northwest

of Dumfriesshire, the southeast wing of Kyle, and the north of Kirkcudbrightshire, to the Firth of Clyde and the North Channel, along the whole seaboard of Carrick. These mountains are frequently designated the Southern Highlands of Scotland. Many of their summits around the sources of the rivers Tweed, Annan, and Clyde have altitudes of from 2,000 to 2,764 feet above the level of the sea; and their chief summits within Carrick have altitudes of from 1,000 to 2,520 feet; the latter being the height of Shalloch on Minnoch in Barr parish, the loftiest summit of Ayrshire. Keirs Hill, 4¼ miles west-northwest of Dalmellington, is 1,005 feet high; Dersalloch Hill, 2 miles south of Keirs Hill, 1,179 feet; Strawarren Fell, 6 miles east by south of Ballantrae, 1,040 feet; Altimeg Hill, 4 miles south-southeast of Ballantrae, 1,270 feet; and Beneraid, nearly midway between Altimeg Hill and Strawarren Fell, 1,435 feet. Most of Carrick is bleak and moorish; but many parts have rich scenery, ranging from the beautiful to the romantic or the wild.

“Sheep, of various breeds, receive some attention in the lowland districts; and sheep, chiefly of the black-faced breed, are objects of general care on the upland pastures. But cattle, especially dairy cows, throughout most of the county, are as pre-eminently cared for as to occasion comparative neglect of all other kinds of livestock. The Galloway cattle, a well-shaped, hardy, hornless breed, are prevalent in Carrick. The Irish, the Highland, and the Alderney breeds occur in some parts, but are few in number. The Holderness, the wide-horned, the Craven, the Lancashire, and the Leicester breeds have been shown and recommended, but cannot be said to have been introduced. The Ayrshire breed is native to the county, or has come into existence within the county; yet it does not appear to have existed earlier than about the third or fourth decade of last century; and it came into being in some way or under some circumstances which cannot be clearly traced. It is a middle-horn breed, and evidently allied to the North Devon, the Hereford, the Sussex, the Falkland, and the West Highland breeds, or to other descendants of the aboriginal cattle of Great Britain; and it possibly passed slowly into distinctive variety, under the modifying influences of Ayrshire local soil and local climate. It may really, as to nascent distinctive character, have existed long prior to last century; it may have begun to challenge attention only when men began to be agriculturally scientific; and it seems to have acquired development of shape, color, and other characteristics under crossing with imported individuals of English breeds. Several cows and a bull, thought to have been of the Tees Water breed, or of some other English breed allied to the Tees Water, and all of a high brown and white color, were brought, in the year 1750, to the Earl of Marchmont's estates in Kyle; and these may have been a source of the colors which now prevail in the Ayrshire breed. But however this breed originated, it was fully formed about the year 1780, and was then adopted, to the exclusion of every other breed, by the opulent farmers of Dunlop and Stewarton parishes; and it afterwards was adopted, as an exclusive breed, throughout most of the lowland farms of all Cunninghame, Kyle, and Carrick. Nor did it spread merely throughout Ayrshire, but also into Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire, and large portions of Stirlingshire, Dumbartonshire, and Linlithgowshire. The best cows vary in weight from 20 to 40 stone, according to the quality or quantity of their food; they are esteemed mainly for the abundance of their milk; and they yield so much as from 10 to 13 or even 14 Scotch pints per day. They were long, and generally considered the most lactiferous cows in Great Britain; but, though not in Ayrshire, yet in some other Scottish counties, and especially in England, they are now regarded as inferior to the shorthorns. The Ayrshires, according to the verdict of the best judges based on comprehensive evidence, ought to be retained as milkers only on cottage holdings, moorside farms, and similar situations; and are far less eligible than the short-horns on any middle-sized or large dairy farm. Short-horned cows are much larger than the Ayrshires, yet do not consume more food in proportion to their size; and they produce more valuable calves, yield larger

quantities of milk, require less extent of pasture, are less subject to disease, and occasion less care or labor proportionally to their produce. The beef of the Ayrshires is of good quality, and possesses a good admixture of lean and fat, but makes bad returns to the butcher, and is in no great request. The back of a prime specimen is straight and nearly level, yet has one straight depression at the top of the shoulder, and an evident tendency to another over the loin; the ribs are pretty round; the sides are deep, but show a deficiency in the fullness of the buttocks; the breast is comparatively narrow; the upper surface of the body shows far less breadth at the shoulder than at the hocks, and has a kind of wedge-shaped outline; the length of the body is proportionately greater than the height; the legs are comparatively short; the muzzle is fine; the face is broad but rather short; the eye is complacent; the expression of the face is gentle but dull; the horns are short and turned up; the skin is smooth and thin; the touch is good, yet wants the mellowness which accompanies a thick soft skin; and the colors are red and white like those of the short-horns, but not so rich, sometimes mixed with black, and always arranged in blotches and patches which are irregular, seldom circular, and never grizzled. The greater portion of the milk throughout Ayrshire is manufactured into cheese. The best of the cheese bears the name of Dunlop, from the parish where the Ayrshire breed was first systematically appreciated for the dairy; and it has long and steadily been in high demand as an article of export. The bull calves are usually fed for veal; and the heifer calves are kept to renew the stock of cows. Attention to cattle and to the dairy appears to have prevailed from a remote period, for Ortelius wrote in 1573 that ‘in Carrick are oxen of large size, whose flesh is tender and sweet and juicy’, and the well-known antiquated couplet runs:

‘Kyie for a man, Carrick for a cow,

Cunninghame for butter and cheese, and Galloway for woo.’

“The territory now forming Ayrshire was in the 2d century AD the southern part of the region of the Damnonii, one of whose towns, Vandogara, is placed by Skene ‘on the river Irvine, at London Hill, where there are the remains of a Roman camp, afterwards connected with Coria or Carstairs by a Roman road’ Two battles are said to have been fought, in early times, in the southwest of Kyle, the one between some native tribes and the Romans, the other between two confederacies of states of the natives themselves; but both battles, as to at once their date, their scene, the parties engaged, and the results, are so obscure as scarcely to be matters of history. Even the ancient inhabitants, as to who they were, whether descendants of the Damnonii or immigrants from the regions of some other tribes, from the establishing of the Roman domination onward through many centuries, cannot be historically identified. They seem, on the whole, from such evidence as exists, to have been in some way or other, more purely Celtic than the inhabitants of most of the other low-countries between the Grampians and the Tweed. Their descendants, too, down to so late a period as the 16th century, appear to have spoken the Gaelic language, or at least to have understood it. The entire territory, after the withdrawal of the Romans, became part of the kingdom of Strathclyde or Cumbria; but, in the 8th century, Kyle and Cunninghame became subject to the kings of Northumbria. The Saxons, under these kings, seem to have taken a firm grasp of the country, to have revolutionized its customs, and to have indoctrinated it with love of Saxon usages; and they have left in it numerous traces of their presence and power. Alpin, King of the Scoto-Irish, invaded the territory in the 9th century, but was defeated and slain in a battle at Dalmellington. Haco, King of Norway, in the course of his contest for the sovereignty of the Hebrides, made descents upon it in 1263, and suffered overwhelming discomfiture in a famous battle at Largs. The forces of Edward I of England, in the course of the wars of the succession, made considerable figure in it, particularly in Kyle and in the north of Carrick; and suffered humiliating reverses from Wallace and from

Bruce at Ayr, at Turnberry, and particularly at Loudon Hill. The career of Wallace began in the vicinity of Irvine; a signal exploit of his occurred at Ayr; the grand coup for wrenching the territory from the English was struck at Loudon; and the first parliament under Bruce was held at Ayr. The county, as a whole, played a vigorous, an honorable, and a persistent part throughout all the struggle which issued in Scottish independence. Nor was it less distinguished in the subsequent, higher, nobler struggle, from the time of Mary till the time of James VII, for achieving religions liberty. Both Wishart and Knox pursued their labors frequently in it; and many of the leaders of the Covenanting movements against the oppressive policy of Charles II and James VII, either were natives of its soil, rallying around them multitudes of zealous neighbors, or were strangers welcomed and supported by ready, generous local enthusiasm. Much of the history of the later Covenanters, especially what relates to the antecedents of the fights at Drumclog, at Rullion-Green, and at Airdsmoss, reads almost like a local history of Ayrshire. So conspicuously did the Ayrshire men contend for the rights of conscience, that they became the special object of the savage punishment inflicted by the Government, in 1678, in the letting loose of the wild well-known ‘Highland Host’. We might from these circumstances, says Chalmers, suppose that the people of Ayrshire would concur zealously in the Revolution of 1688. As one of the western shires, Ayrshire sent its full proportion of armed men to Edinburgh to protect the Convention of Estates. On the 6th of April 1689, the forces that had come from the western counties, having received thanks from the Convention for their seasonable service, immediately departed with their arms to their respective homes. They were offered some gratification; but they would receive none, saying that they came to save and serve their country, not to enrich themselves at the nation's expense. It was at the same time ordered ‘that the inhabitants of the town of Ayr should be kept together till further orders’. On the 14th of May arms were ordered to be given to Lord Bargeny, an Ayrshire baronet. On the 25th of May, in answer to a letter from the Earl of Eglinton, the Convention ordered ‘that the heritors and fencible men in the shire of Ayr be instantly raised and commanded in conformity to the appointment of the Estates’. But of such proofs of the revolutionary principles of Ayrshire enough! The men of Ayr not only approved of the Revolution, but they drew their swords in support of its establishment and principles. On that memorable occasion not only were the governors changed, but new principles were adopted, and better practices were introduced; and the Ayrshire people were gratified by the abolition of Episcopacy and by the substitution of Presbyterianism.

“Antiquities, of various kinds, are numerous. Cairns, stone circles, and such like Caledonian remains are at Sorn, Galston, and other places. Vestiges of a Roman road are in the vicinity of Ayr. Traces of Danish camps are at Dundonald and in the neighborhood of Ardrossan. Mediaeval castles, or remains of them, are at Loch Doon, Turnberry, Dundonald, and Sorn. Fine old monastic ruins are at Crossraguel and Kilwinning; and a ruined church, immortalized by Burns, is at Alloway. The most ancient families are the Auchinlecks, the Boswells, the Boyds, the Cathcarts, the Crawfords, the Cunninghams, the Dalrymples, the Dunlops, the Fullartons, the Kennedys, the Lindsays, the Montgomerys, and the Wallaces. The oldest peerage connected with the county is the Earldom of Carrick, which belonged to Bruce, and belongs now to the Prince of Wales. Other peerage titles are Baron Kilmaurs, created about 1450, united to the Earldom of Glencairn in 1503, and dormant since 1796; Earl of Eglinton, created in 1508, and conjoined with the title of Baron Ardrossan in the peerage of the United Kingdom in 1806; Earl of Cassillis, created in 1511, and conjoined with the title of Marquis of Ailsa in the peerage of the United Kingdom in 1801; Baron Ochiltree, created in 1543, and dormant since 1675; Earl of Loudoun, created in 1633; Viscount of Ayr, created in 1622, and conjoined since 1633 to the Earldom of Dumfries, and since 1796 to the Marquisate of Bute; Viscount Irvine, created in 1611, and extinct since 1778; Earl of Kilmarnock, created

in 1661, and attainted in 1716; and Earl of Dundonald, created in 1669, and united then with the title of Baron Cochrane of Paisley and Ochiltree. Distinguished natives of Ayrshire have been very numerous; the greatest of them has almost given it a new name - the ‘Land of Burns’.”134

John Bartholomew sums: “Ayrshire, a maritime county in the southwest of Scotland, adjoining the counties of Renfrew, Lanark, Dumfries, Kirkcudbright, and Wigtown. It is in the shape of a crescent, with the concave side, measuring about 70 miles, adjacent to the Firth of Clyde. Its greatest breadth, across the middle, is 30 miles. Area, 1,128.5 square miles, or 729,186 acres. Population 217,519, or 193 persons to each square mile. The coast in the south is rocky and destitute of natural harbors, but becomes row and sandy northwards from Ayr. The lofty islet of Ailsa Craig is comprised in this county. The surface slopes with slight undulations from the landward border, which is hilly in most parts, and is mountainous in the southeast. The soil is various, sandy near the coast, of a rich clay in the middle parts, and moor in the uplands. The rivers are the Garnock, Irvine, Ayr, Doon, Girvan, and Stinchar. The largest lake is Loch Doon, on the southeast border. The minerals are coal, iron, limestone, and sandstone, all of which are extensively worked. The county is famous for dairy produce and a fine breed of cows. The manufacturers are valuable, and include woolen, cotton, iron, and earthenware. The county comprises 43 parishes and 3 parts, the parliamentary and police burghs of Ayr and Irvine (part of the Ayr Burghs - 1 member), the parliamentary and police burgh of Kilmarnock (part of the Kilmarnock Burghs - 1 member), and the police burghs of Ardrossan, Darvel, Galston, Largs, Maybole, Newmilns and Greenholm, Cumnock, and Stewarton. For parliamentary purposes it is divided into 2 divisions, viz, North and South, 1 member for each division.”135

***LOUDOUN HILL, AYRSHIRE***

Neil Oliver expands: “King Robert landed on the Ayrshire coast, near Turnberry Castle, where he had been born thirty-two years before, with a few score Irishmen and Hebrideans. The English were everywhere and once again he was forced to hide in the wilds of his own kingdom. In spite of it all – the deaths of two more brothers included – he dug deep into his store of self-belief. He had no intention of following Wallace to an early grave and so set about making the most of what physical resources he had. Denied force of numbers, he formed his handful of knights and his few hundred spearmen and foot soldiers into a tight guerrilla unit, as described in the Scotichcronicon: ‘Let Scotland’s Warcraft be this: foot soldiers, mountains and marshy ground; and let her woods, her bow and spear serve for barricades. Let menace lurk in all her narrow places among her warrior bands, and let her plains so burn with fire that her enemies flee away. Crying out in the night, let her men be on their guard, and her enemies in confusion will flee from hunger’s sword. Surely it will be so, as we’re guided by Robert, our lord.’

“Just when he and his men needed a result in their favor, they came up trumps, in March 1307, by surprising and driving off a much larger English force, at Glen Trool, in Galloway. The enemy had been commanded by Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, and in May, desperate to crush the troublesome ‘King Hobbe’, he offered pitched battle in Ayrshire. Contrary to all the precepts of guerrilla warfare, the offer was accepted. But what Pembroke could not know was that his opponent planned to mould the scene of any encounter to suit his tools. While the English knights looked forward to galloping across some level field – and they were all around them in the gently rolling landscape of Ayrshire – the guerrilla leader selected the one location for miles around that would fight for him. He chose Loudoun Hill, a volcanic plug of rock marking the eastern end of the Irvine Valley. A decade before, William

Wallace had attacked and overpowered an English baggage train in its shadow, but the ill omens of the place passed Pembroke by.

“The Scots got there first and, while they waited for the English, they set to work. They would be uphill from the enemy, with their backs to the crags but, even so, there were crucial modifications to be made to the ground. King Robert ordered the digging of three great trenches on the slopes below them. These were filled with sharpened stakes and then carefully camouflaged so as to be invisible to approaching horsemen.

“All was ready by the time the 3,000-strong English force came into view – knights, mounted men-at-arms and infantry. If Pembroke had imaged having no more to do than unleash his heavy horse and have them run down the 600 or so Scots ranged against him in neat but comparatively flimsy lines, he was shortly to receive a crash course in the art of war. The knights duly charged, making the ground shake in the traditional manner, and clattered straight onto the traps.

“Horses and men, hundreds of them, were skewered on the stakes. Scots spearmen advanced sharply downhill and put the bleating mass of them out of their misery. Then they advanced again, stepping over the corpses into the confused tangle of men and horses trapped between fallen comrades and foot soldiers to the rear. They speared them as well. Now at last had come a chance for the Scots to snatch some revenge, to remind themselves of the metallic stink of enemy blood. So shaken were those English forces not yet engaged, they simply made a run for it. John Barbour described it all in his epic poem The Bruce:

‘The king’s men met them at the dyke

So stoutly that the most warlike

And strongest of them fell to the ground

Then could be heard a dreadful sound

As spears on armor rudely shattered,

And cries and groans the wounded uttered.

For those that first engaged in fight

Battled and fought with all their might.

Their shouts and cries rose loud and clear;

A grievous noise it was to hear.’

“With hindsight, the Battle of Loudoun Hill was the moment when King Robert revealed himself for what he truly was – a brilliant tactician and a winner.”136

**EAST DUNBARTONSHIRE**

**DUNBARTON**

“Dumbarton comes from the Scottish Gaelic Dùn Breatainn meaning ‘fort of the Britons’.

“Historically, the spelling of the county town and the county were not standardized, by the 18th century the names ‘County of Dunbarton’ and ‘County of Dumbarton’ were used interchangeably.”137

FH Groome illustrates: “Dumbarton, a town and parish of Dumbartonshire. A seaport, a royal and parliamentary burgh, and the capital of the county, the town stands on the left bank of the Level ¾ mile above its influx to the Clyde, and at the junction of the Glasgow & Helensburgh and Vale of Leven sections of the North British railway, by water being 4¾ miles east and north of Port Glasgow and 7¼ east of Greenock, by rail 4½ south of Balloch Junction, 34¾ west-southwest of Stirling, 8¼ east-southeast of Helensburgh, 16 west-northwest of Glasgow, and 63¼ west of Edinburgh. Its site is a low flat plain, skirted to the west by an east-southeasterly curve of the Leven, and screened to the east by the Kilpatrick Hills (1,313 feet), whilst south-southeastward, between the town and the Clyde, stands the castle-crowned Rock of Dumbarton. From the crescent-shaped High Street, running 5 furlongs concentric with and near the course of the Leven, Cross Vennel and Church Street strike north-northeastward to Broadmeadow; and a stone five-arch bridge, 300 feet long, built towards the middle of last century, leads over the Leven to the western suburbs, in Cardross parish, of Bridgend and Dennystoun – the latter founded in 1853, and named in honor of its projector, William Denny. Within and without, Dumbarton, it must be owned, presents an irregular and unattractive appearance, little in keeping with its fine surroundings; and, as seen from the Clyde, it looks a mere aggregate of huddled houses, chequered in front by the timbers of shipyards, and overtopped by more chimneys than steeples.

“The Castle of Dumbarton is situated on an acute peninsula at the left side of the Leven's influx to the Clyde, and consists partly of a mass of rock, partly of superincumbent buildings. The rock appears to overhang both rivers - huge, mural, weather-worn - for several hundred yards down to their point of confluence. It culminates at 240 feet above sea-level, measures 1 mile in circumference, and figures picturesquely in most of the views of the upper waters of the Firth of Clyde. The rock is of basalt, like Ailsa Craig, the lass, Stirling Castle Rock, and other single, sharply-outlined heights, that start abruptly from sea or plain. It rises sheer from the low circumjacent level, and stands by itself, without any hills near it. The basalt tends to the prismatic form, being slightly columnar, and in places magnetic; and is all the more curious for protruding through beds of sandstone, nearly a mile distant from any other eruptive formation. The rock towards the summit is cloven by a narrow deep chasm into a double park, and presents its cloven sides to south and north. The western peak is 30 feet higher than the eastern, but not so broad, and bears the name of Wallace's Seat. The buildings on the rock have differed in extent and form at different times, and do not seem to have ever had any high architectural merit. The entrance, in old times and till a recent period, was on the north side, by a gradually ascending footpath, through a series of gates, which now might be interesting antiquities had they not been sold for old iron. The present entrance is on the south side, through a gateway in a rampart, whence a long flight of steps leads to a battery and the governor's house - a modern white building utterly out of keeping with the character of the place, and used now as the quarter of the married men of the Coast Brigade stationed here. A second, narrower flight leads from the governor's house to the cleft between the two summits, and at one point is overarched by a small structure, alleged to have been the prison of Wallace, but clearly much later than Wallace's day. The barracks, the armory, the Duke of York's battery, and the water tank stand in the cleft of the rock, and a steep winding stair conducts thence to the top of the western summit, which is surmounted by a flagstaff, and retains vestiges of a small circular building, variously pronounced a windmill, a Roman fort, and a Roman pharos. The barracks contain

accommodation for only 150 men, and the armory has lost its 1,500 stand of arms since the Crimean war; while the batteries, though capable of mounting 16 guns, would be of little avail for defensive purposes, and at best could only serve to rake the channel of the Clyde. The castle, too, can be fully commanded by artillery from the brow of Dumbuck (547 feet), 1 mile to the east, so that ever since the invention of gunpowder it has been rendered unavailable for its original purposes, but it is maintained as a national fortress, in terms of the Articles of Union. Nor is it undeserving of good maintenance, for, besides forming a noble feature in a most noble landscape, it commands from its western summit three distant prospects - each different, and each of singular beauty. The first up the Clyde towards Glasgow - Dunglass Castle on its promontory, Erskine House opposite, with boats, ships, wooded hills, and many buildings; the second down the broadening estuary - Port Glasgow and Greenock, and the mountains that guard the entrance of Loch Long; and the third up the Vale of Leven, away to the dusky summits of Loch Lomond. ‘If the grand outline of any one of the views can be seen, it is sufficient recompense for the trouble of climbing the Rock of Dumbarton.’ So thought Dorothy Wordsworth, who, with her brother and Coleridge, made that climb, on 24 Aug 1803. Dumbarton has been identified with the Roman naval station Theodosia, with Ossian's Balclutha (‘town on the Clyde’), and with Urbs Legionis (‘city of the legion’), the scene of Arthur's ninth battle against the heathen Saxons in the beginning of the 6th century. The third identification slightly confirms the first, and itself is strengthened by the town's title of Castrum Arthuri in a record of David II (1367); of the second we are told that, whilst Ossian says of Balclutha, ‘The thistle shakes there its lovely head,’ the true Scotch thistle, though really rare in Scotland, does still grow wild on Dumbarton Rock. On this rock (in alto montis Dunbreten) the legend of St Monenna, who died in 519, records that, consecrated a virgin by St Patrick, she founded one of her seven Scotch churches. Be this as it may, from the battle of Ardderyd (573) we find the Cumbrian British kingdom of Strathclyde comprising the present counties of Cumberland, Westmoreland, Dumfries, Ayr, Lanark, Peebles, Renfrew, and Dumbarton; its northern half occupied by the Damnonii, belonging to the Cornish variety of the British race; its first king Rhydderch Hael, Columba's and Kentigern's friend; and its capital the strongly fortified rock on the Clyde's right bank, termed by the Briton's Alcluith (‘height on the Clyde’), and by the Gadhelic people Dunbreatan (‘fort of the Britons’). By the victory in 654 of Osuin or Osway of Northumbria over Penda of Mercia, the ally of these Britons, the latter became Osuin's tributaries; but Ecgfrid's crushing defeat at Dunnichen in 685 restored them to full independence. This lasted down to 756, when a Northumbrian and Pictish army under Eadberct and Angus mac Fergus pressed so hard upon Alclyde, that the place was surrendered after a four months' siege; and four years later we hear of the burning of its fortress, ‘which,’ says Hill Burton, ‘was probably, after the fashion of that day, a large collection of wooden houses, protected by the height of the rock on which it stood, and, where necessary, by embankments.’ In 870 Alclyde sustained a second four months' siege, this time by the Vikings, under Olaf the White, Norwegian King of Dublin, who reduced its defenders by famine. Before which siege, with the disorganization of Northumbria, the whole of the British territory from the Clyde to the Derwent had once more become united under its line of independent kings, claiming Roman descent, the last of whom, Donald, died in 908. Thereon the Britons elected Donald, brother to Constantin, King of Alban; and thus Alclyde became dependent on Alban, till in 1018 its sub-king Owen or Eugenius the Bald was succeeded by Duncan, Malcolm II's grandson - the ‘gracious Duncan’ of Macbeth. Malcolm dying in 1034, Duncan succeeded him as King of Scotia, in which Strathclyde thenceforth becomes absorbed. In 1175 the northern portion of the old Cumbrian kingdom, nearly represented by Dumbartonshire, was formed by William the Lyon into the earldom of Levenach or Lennox, and conferred on his brother David. By 1193 this earldom had

come into possession of Aluin, the first of a line of Celtic earls, who, down to their extinction in 1425, frequently figure in Dumbarton's history, but who only retained the castle till 1238, from which year onward it was always a royal fortress. As such, during the competition for the Scottish crown (1292), it was delivered up to Edward I of England, who gave it to Baliol, on the adjudication in his favor; but from 1296 to 1309 it was held again by the English, with Sir Alexander Monteith for governor. He it was who on 5 Aug 1305 took Wallace captive at Glasgow, so that likely enough the ‘ubiquitous troglodyte’ was really for a week a prisoner here, where (as elsewhere) his huge two-handed sword is preserved in the armory, along with old Lochaber axes and skene-dhus ‘from Bannockburn’, flint pistols, rude pikes, and tattered regimental colors. In 1313, according to our least veracious chroniclers, Bruce, almost single-handed, achieved the capture of Dumbarton Castle. A sort of Guy Fawkes and Bluebeard episode this, with keys and a cellar figuring largely therein - the cellar first full of armed English soldiery, who are overawed by the Monarch, and the traitor Monteith next led to it in fetters, but presently pardoned by the magnanimous Hero. Anyhow, by Bruce the castle was committed to the governorship of Sir Malcolm Fleming of Cumbernauld, whose son was one of the few that escaped from Halidon Hill (1333), when Dumbarton became the rallying-point of the remnant adhering to the boy-king, David II. Sir Robert de Erskine was next appointed governor (1357), and after him Sir John de Dennistoun or Danielstoun. He was succeeded by his son, Sir Robert, on whose death in 1399, Walter, his brother, the parson of Kincardine O'Neil, forcibly seized the castle, as belonging heritably to his family. He held it till 1402, surrendering it then in the hope of obtaining the vacant see of St Andrews - a hope cut short by his death before the end of the year. In 1425 James Stewart, son of the late Regent Albany, and grandson of the eighth and last Celtic Earl of Lennox, assaulted and burned the town of Dumbarton, and murdered the king's uncle, Sir John Stewart, who held the castle with only thirty-two men. Dumbarton was next besieged in 1481 by the fleet of Edward IV, but was bravely and successfully defended by Sir Andrew Wood of Largo. For the next half century the history of Dumbarton is virtually that of the Stewart Earls of Lennox. Their founder, John, having taken up arms against James IV, the castle was twice besieged in 1489 - first by the Earl of Argyll without success, and then by the young king himself, who after a six weeks' leaguer compelled the four sons of Lennox to capitulate. The surprise of the castle one stormy night by John, third Earl (1514), the landing here of Albany from France (1515), the establishment of a French garrison (1516), the interception of a large French subsidy (1543) by Matthew, fourth Earl, Lord Darnley's father, and his design of betraying the fortress to England (1544) - these are events that can merely be glanced at in passing. On 7 Aug 1548 Queen Mary, then six years old, embarked at Dumbarton for France; in July 1563 she paid a second visit to the castle; and hither her army was marching from Hamilton when its progress was barred at Langside, 13 May 1568. For nearly three years the castle held out for her under its governor, John, fifth Lord Fleming; and the story of how it was taken by escalade on the night of 1 April 1571 deserves to be told with some fullness. Captain Thomas Craufurd of Jordanhill, to whom the attack was entrusted, had long been attached to the house of Lennox. He it was whose evidence was so important regarding the death of Darnley, and who afterwards accused Lethington as one of the murderers, since which time he appears to have resumed the profession of arms. In the enterprise he was assisted by Cunningham, commonly called the Laird of Drumwhassel, one of the bravest and most skillful officers of his time, and he had been fortunate in bribing the assistance of a man named Robertson, who, having once been warden in the castle, knew every crag of the rock, ‘where it was best to climb, and where fewest ladders would serve.’ With him and a hundred picked men Craufurd set out from Glasgow after sunset. He had sent before him a few light horse to prevent intelligence by stopping all wayfarers, and about midnight he arrived at Dumbuck,

within a mile of the castle, where he was joined by Drumwhassel and Captain Hume. Here he explained to the soldiers the hazardous service on which they were engaged, provided them with ropes and scaling ladders, and, advancing quickly and noiselessly, reached the rock, whose summit was fortunately wrapped in a heavy fog, whilst the bottom was clear. But, on the first attempt, all was likely to be lost. The ladders lost their hold while the soldiers were on them; and had the garrison been on the alert, the noise must have inevitably betrayed them. They listened, however, and all was still. Again the ladders were fixed, and, their ‘craws’ or steel hooks this time catching firmly in the crevices, the leaders gained a small out-jutting ledge, where an ash tree had struck its roots. Fixing the ropes to its branches, they speedily towed up the rest of their comrades. They were still, however, fourscore fathoms from the wall. They had reached but the middle of the rock, day was breaking, and when, for the second time, they planted their ladders, a singular impediment occurred. One of the soldiers in ascending was seized with a fit, in which he convulsively grasped the steps so firmly, that no one could either pass him or unloose his hold. But Craufurd's presence of mind suggested a ready expedient; he tied him to the ladder and turned it round, so the passage was once more free. They were now at the bottom of the wall, where the footing was narrow and precarious; but once more fixing their ladders in the copestone, Alexander Ramsay, Craufurd's ensign, and two other soldiers, stole up, and though at once discovered by a sentinel, leapt down and slew him, sustaining the attack of three of the guard till they were joined by Craufurd and the rest. Their weight and struggles to surmount it brought the wall down with a run, and afforded an open breach, through which they rushed in shouting, ‘A Darnley, a Darnley!’ Craufurd's watchword, given evidently from affection to his hapless master, the murdered king. According to Dr Hill Burton, the point thus gained was the top of the western peak, the ascent being made to the left of the present entrance; and from this vantage-ground the assailants now turned the cannon on the garrison, who, panic-struck, attempted no resistance. Fleming, the governor, from long familiarity with the rock, managed to escape down the face of an almost perpendicular gully, and, passing through a postern which opened upon the Clyde, threw himself into a fishing-boat, and so passed over to Argyllshire. In this achievement the assailants lost not a man, and of the garrison only four were slain. In the castle were taken prisoner John Hamilton, Archbishop of St Andrews, who was found with mail shirt and steel cap on, Verac, the French ambassador, Fleming of Boghall, and John Hall, an English gentleman, who had fled to Scotland after Dacre's rebellion. Lady Fleming, the wife of the governor, was also taken, and treated by the Regent courteously, being suffered to go free, and carry off with her plate and furniture. But Hamilton, the primate, was instantly brought to trial for the murder of Darnley and Moray, condemned, and hanged and quartered without delay.

“In 1581, as a signal and crowning favor, Esmé Stewart, the new-made Duke of Lennox, received the governorship of Dumbarton Castle, one of the three great national fortresses; in 1639 it was seized on a Sunday by the Covenanters, its captain, ‘a vigilant gentleman’, attending church with so many of the garrison that, they being taken on their homeward way, the place was defenseless. It was, however, recaptured by the Royalists, to be lost again on 28 Aug of the following year. Thereafter the castle drops quietly out of history, a visit from Queen Victoria on 7 Aug 1847 being all that remains to be noticed. Nor of the town is there anything worthier of record than the injury done it by floods of the Leven in 1334, and again in the early years of the 17th century, when the magistrates felt obliged to apply to parliament for aid in constructing bulwarks. A commission of 1607 reported that ‘na less nor the sowme of threttie thousand poundis Scottis money was abill to beir out and furneis the necessar charges and expenses in pforming these warkis that are liable to saif the said burgh from utter destructioune’. A grant of 25,000 merks Scots was accordingly made for the purpose by parliament; and, this proving

insufficient, a farther sum of 12,000 was afterwards granted by King James. In 1675 Dumbarton gave the title of Earl in the peerage of Scotland to George, third son of the first Marquis of Douglas, but this peerage became extinct at the death of his son about the middle of the 18th century.

“The parish of Dumbarton is bounded northwest by Bonhill; north by Kilmaronock; northeast by Drymen and Killearn in Stirlingshire; southeast by Old Kilpatrick; south, for 3 furlongs, by the river Clyde, which separates it from Renfrewshire; and west by the river Leven, dividing it from Cardross. Its utmost length, from northeast to southwest, is 6½ miles; its breadth, from east to west, varies between 1½ furlong and 5 5/8 miles; and its area is 8,563 acres, of which 98¾ are foreshore and 174 water. The Leven winds 4 1/8 miles southward along all the western border, and is joined from the interior by Murroch Burn; whilst Overton Burn, tracing much of the southeastern boundary, and itself joined by Black Burn, flows direct to the Clyde. The southern and western districts, to the mean distance of 1¼ mile from the Leven, present no striking natural feature except the Castle Rock, in whose vicinity they lie as little above sea-level as to be sometimes flooded by spring tides. From this low valley the surface rises northeastward to Auchenreoch and Dumbarton Muirs, attaining 895 feet at Knockshanoch, 1,228 at Doughnot Hill, 1,118 at Knockupple, and 892 at Knockvadie. Limestone abounds at Murroch Glen, 2½ miles north-northeast of the town; red sandstone is quarried on the moors; and an excellent white sandstone occurs at Dalreoch, in Cardross parish. The soil - in a few fields a rich alluvinm - in some of the arable tracts is very clayey, in others gravelly, and in most somewhat shallow, yet generally fertile; whilst that of the moors is sparse, and of little value. Strathleven, on the river Leven opposite Renton, is the chief mansion. Dumbarton is seat of a presbytery in the Synod of Glasgow and Ayr; the living is worth 202 pounds. Valuation of landward portion (1882) 5,108 pounds, 5 shillings.”138

John Bartholomew maintains: “Dumbarton, capital of county, parliamentary and royal burgh, parish, market town, and seaport, Dumbartonshire, at the confluence of the Leven and the Clyde, 16 miles northwest of Glasgow by rail, 63 west of Edinburgh, and 400 northwest of London - parish, 8,291 acres, population 10,902; parliamentary burgh, population 13,782; royal burgh, population 10,898; town, population 14,172 … 3 Banks, 2 newspapers. Market-day, Tuesday. Dumbarton is an ancient place; it is supposed to have been a naval station of the Romans, and subsequently the capital of the British kingdom of Strathclyde. Its principal trade formerly was the manufacturer of crown glass; it is now shipbuilding, and particularly the construction of iron steamers. The harbor is commodious, and a pier constructed from the foot of the Rock gives access to the river steamers. Dumbarton Rock shoots sheer up to a height of 240 feet, and is almost insulated at high water; it is crowned by Dumbarton Castle, one of the four Scottish castles stipulated by the Treaty of Union to be garrisoned and kept in repair. The burgh unites with Kilmarnock, Renfrew, Rutherglen, and Port-Glasgow in returning 1 member to Parliament.”139

**DUNBARTONSHIRE**

FH Groome presents: “Dumbartonshire, a County, partly Maritime, but chiefly inland, in the west of Scotland, comprising a main body and a detached district. The main body is bounded north by Perthshire, east by Stirlingshire, southeast by Lanarkshire, south by the river Clyde and the upper Firth of Clyde, which divide it from Renfrewshire, and west by Argyllshire. Its eastern boundary, from Island Vow, above Inversnaid, to the mouth of Endrick Water, runs along the middle of Loch Lomond; thence, to the mouth of Catter Burn, is traced by Endrick Water; and, in the extreme southeast, for 3 miles above Maryhill, is traced by the river Kelvin. Its western boundary, except for 9¼ miles in the extreme

north, is all formed by Loch Long. Its outline bears some resemblance to that of a crescent with the convexity towards the northeast. Its length, from north to south, varies between 4 3/8 and 24¾ miles, its breadth, from east to west, between 1¼ and 18½ miles. The detached district, commencing 4¼ miles east by north of the nearest point of the main body, and 5 north-northeast of Glasgow, comprises the parishes of Kirkintilloch and Cumbernauld; is bounded north and east by Stirlingshire, south and west by Lanarkshire; and measures 12 5/8 miles in maximum length from west by south to east by north, and 4 in maximum breadth. The area of the entire county is 270 square miles or 172,677 acres, of which 3,814 are foreshore and 14,312½ water, whilst 19,030 belong to the detached district.

“All the northern or Arrochar district of the county, lying partly around the head of Loch Lomond, partly between that lake and Loch Long, is a group of mountains, intersected by deep glens. Culminating in Ben Vorlich (3,092 feet) and Ben Vane (3,004), it displays all the most characteristic features of grand, romantic, beautiful Highland scenery. The central part from Finnart and the middle of Loch Lomond to the hillscreens of the Firth of Clyde, but including the peninsula of Roseneath, is a region varying between the highland and lowland, and exquisitely blends many a feature of sternness and wildness with many of the sweetest loveliness. The lofty hills of Arrochar and Luss, in particular, contrast most strikingly with the wide expanse of the pellucid waves of the queen of lakes, far-famed Loch Lomond. ‘Here savage grandeur, in all the towering superiority of uncultivated nature, is seen side by side with the very emblem of peace and tranquility, an alpine lake, which the winds reach only by stealth.’ The southern district, comprising the seaboard of the Clyde, the Vale of Leven, and the tract eastward of that vale to the extremity of the main body of the county, is generally lowland and rich almost to excess with gentle contour and tasteful ornamentation; yet even this is diversified - to some extent broadly occupied - with characters of abruptness and boldness, shown in the shoulders of the Cardross hills, in the mass of Dumbarton Rock, in the brows of Dumbuck and of basaltic ranges northward of it, and in the capriciously escarped, romantic acclivities of the Kilpatrick Hills, which, extending 5½ miles from east to west, and attaining a maximum altitude of 1,313 feet in Duncomb and Fynloch, contain many rich close scenes, and command some of the finest and most extensive views in Scotland. The detached district is all lowland, and of tame appearance, nowhere exceeding 480 feet above sea-level, yet extends so near the roots of the Campsie Fells as to borrow effects of scenery similar to those which the tracts along the Clyde borrow from the Kilpatrick Hills. No region in Scotland can boast of finer scenery than the county of Dumbarton; and certainly none more varied, or oftener visited and admired by strangers. Considerably more than one-half of Loch Lomond, and fully two-thirds of the islands in it, belong to Dumbartonshire. Loch Sloy in Arrochar, Lochs Humphrey and Cochno in Old Kilpatrick, Fynloch in Dumbarton, Fannyside Loch in Cumbernauld, and several smaller lakes, have aggregately a considerable area. The river Clyde, from opposite Blythswood to the influx of the Leven, runs 8¼ miles along the southern border; and, like the Firth, onward to the southwestern extremity of Roseneath, teems with the vast commercial traffic of Glasgow. The Leven, winding 7¼ miles southward from Loch Lomond to the Clyde, bisects the lowland district of the county's main body, and is notable at once for the purity of its waters, the richness of its vale, and the profusion of bleach fields and print works on its banks. The Endrick, over all its run on the eastern boundary, is a beautiful stream. The Kelvin, though ditch-like where it approaches the main body's southeastern border, yet at Killermont and Garscube exhibits much exquisite beauty. Allander Water drains most of New Kilpatrick to the Kelvin. The Falloch, Inveruglas, Douglas, Luss, Finlas, Fruin, and other brooks and torrents, with many fine cascades, drain most of the Highland tracts into Loch Lomond. The Kelvin traces most of the northern boundary of the detached district, but everywhere there retains its ditch-like character. The sluggish Luggie drains the

western part of the detached district to the Kelvin, and some tiny streamlets drain the eastern part to the Carron. Many beautiful rivulets and burns are in the interior of the main body, running either to the principal rivers, or pursuing independent courses to the Clyde, Gare Loch, or Loch Long. The Forth and Clyde Canal traverses the north border of the detached district, and afterwards passes along the south border of the main body to the Clyde at Bowling Bay. Springs of excellent water are almost everywhere numerous and copious.

“The territory now forming Dumbartonshire belonged anciently to the Caledonian Damnonii or Attacotti; was included by the Romans in their province of Vespasiana; and, exclusive of its detached district, was long a main part of the ancient district of Lennox or Levenax. That district included a large part of what is now Stirlingshire, and portions of what are now Perthshire and Renfrewshire. It was constituted a county by William the Lyon, and underwent curtailments after some period in the 13th century, reducing it to the limits of the present main body of Dumbartonshire. The county then changed its name from Lennox to Dumbartonshire; and, in the time of Robert I, had annexed to it its present detached district. It was the scene of many contests between Caledonians and Romans, between Cumbrians and Saxons, between Scots and Picts, between Highland clan and Highland clan, between the caterans and the Lowlanders, between different parties in the several civil wars of Scotland; and made a great figure, especially in the affairs of Antoninus' Wall and those of the Cumbrian or Strathclyde kingdom, in the events of the wars of the succession, and the turmoils of the cateran forays in the time of Rob Roy. Some of the salient points in its history are touched in the account of Dumbarton Castle, and in the article on Lennox. Several cairns and a cromlech still extant, several rude stone coffins, and fire-hollowed canoes found imbedded in the mud of the river close to the castle a few years ago, are memorials of its Caledonian period. A number of old rude forts or entrenchments, particularly in its Highland districts, are memorials of Caledonian, Pictish, and Scandinavian warfare within its limits. Vestiges of Antoninus' Wall, and relics found on the site of that wall along all the north border of its detached district, and along the southeast border of its main body onward to the wall's western end at Chapelhill in the vicinity of Old Kilpatrick village, and an ancient bridge and a sudatorium at Duntocher, are memorials of the Romans. Several objects in Dumbarton Castle, and particularly historical records in connection with the castle, are memorials of the civil wars; a mound in the east end of Cardross parish, not far from Dumbarton town, indicates the last residence or death-place of Robert Bruce; numerous old castles, some scarcely traceable, some existing as ruins, some incorporated with modern buildings, as at Faslane, Balloch, Ardincaple, Dunglass, and Kirkintilloch, are relics of the several periods of the baronial times; and other objects in various parts, particularly in Glenfruin, are memorials of sanguinary conflicts among the clans.”140

John Bartholomew renders: “Dumbartonshire, county, partly maritime but chiefly inland, in west of Scotland, comprising a main body and a detached portion; area, 154,542 acres; population 75,333, or 312 persons to each square miles. The main body is in the shape of a crescent, having the convex side adjacent to the estuary of the Clyde, and measures 1½ to 14 miles in breadth, and about 38 miles between its extreme points. The north section (about two-thirds of the entire area), projecting between Loch Long and Loch Lomond, is wholly mountainous, and is celebrated for its picturesque and sublime scenery. Ben Vorlich and Ben Vane, in the extreme north, are 3,092 and 3,004 feet high. The lower district along the Clyde is flat, and in general under excellent cultivation. The peninsular parish of Roseneath separates Loch Long and the Gare Loch, offshoots of the Firth of Clyde. The detached section (12 miles by 4 miles) lies 4½ miles east of the nearest point of the main body. The rivers, besides the

Clyde, are the Leven, Allander, Kelvin, and Endrick. The manufacturers are very important; numerous bleach fields, dye, print, and other works line the banks of the Leven; and there are extensive shipbuilding yards along the Clyde. In former times formed part of the territory of Lennox. Vestiges of the Roman wall of Antoninus still exist. The county comprises 11 parishes, and a part, the parliamentary and royal burgh of Dumbarton (part of the Kilmarnock Burghs), and the police burghs of Cove and Kilcreggan, Helensburgh, and Kirkintilloch. It returns 1 member to Parliament.”141

***AUCHENHOWIE, EAST DUNBARTONSHIRE***

David Smith sheds light on: “Auchenhowie: Auchen is a variant form of achad [Gaelic] meaning ‘open space, field, place (with the)’. Howe is a ‘hollow’ or ‘low lying piece of ground’; in lowland areas, it is the elided form of halh [Old English] meaning ‘corner, angle, nook, enclosure’.”142

***BALJAFFRAY, EAST DUNBARTONSHIRE***

“Baljaffray: The name Baljaffray came from the Gaelic bal meaning ‘town’, and Jeffrey meaning the personal name, so this area was once named after the town of Jeffrey. Baljaffray has in the past been spelt differently: Baljaphrey is the earliest, about the 16th century, and Baljaffry in about 1810 (on a Richardson map). Also, Baljaffrey is mentioned in The History of Dunbartonshire by Irving, published 1924.”143

***BISHOPBRIGGS, EAST DUNBARTONSHIRE***

David Smith suggests: “Bishopbriggs: The derivation of the name Bishopbriggs has caused controversy over the years. The oldest documented name of the village is Bishop Bridge, which appears in parish records dated 1665. Certainly the land was given to the Bishop of Glasgow by Malcolm IV in 1159. Some say the place got its name from a bridge that spanned the Caille Burn.”144

***CLACHAN OF CAMPSIE, EAST DUNBARTONSHIRE***

David Smith calls attention to: “Clachan of Campsie refers to an ancient church township around the early church of St Machan, supposedly built over the grave of the Saint. The church was founded in 1430. Clachan means ‘village’, often also ‘church’. Campsie means ‘crooked hill’ or ‘hill range’ (as in Campsie Fells). Circa 1200 Campsie was found written as Camsy, Kamsi, Campsy.”145

**EAST LOTHIAN**

“The name of Lothian is said to derive from the Brythonic name Lleuddiniawn (in modernized spelling), from the time of the Gododdin.”146

FH Groome connotes: “Haddingtonshire or East Lothian, a maritime county in the southeast of Scotland, is situated between 55 degrees 46’ 10” and 56 degrees 4’ north latitude, and between 2 degrees 8’ and 2 degrees 49’ west longitude, and is bounded on the northwest and north by the Firth of Forth, on the northeast and east by the German Ocean, on the southwest and south by Berwickshire, and on the west by Edinburghshire. With the exception of four small streamlets which divide it towards the southwest, northeast, and southeast angles from Berwickshire and Edinburghshire, and the summit line of the Lammermuirs, which forms about one-half of the march with Berwickshire, the county has, along its southeast, south, and west frontiers, no natural or geographical features to mark its boundary. It has a total of coastline of 31¾ miles, of which 15¼ lie along the Firth of Forth to the west of North Berwick,

and present a flat and generally sandy beach; while the 16½ miles that extend along the German Ocean rise in irregular and bold cliffs. There are harbors at Prestonpans, Cockenzie, Port Seton, North Berwick, and Dunbar. The only bays of any size are Aberlady Bay, a wide sandy flat at low water, and Tyninghame Bay, at the mouth of the Tyne. Its land boundaries on the south and west extend respectively for 16 and 13 miles. The greatest length of Haddingtonshire, from east to west, is 26½ miles; its greatest breadth, from north by west to south by east, is 19 miles; and its circumference is roughly about 80 miles. Its total area is 280 square miles, or 179,142 acres, of which 173, 298 are land, 5,505 foreshore, and 189½ water. A small part of Humbie parish is quite detached from the body of the county, which includes also the Bass Rock.

“Haddingtonshire has on the whole a northern exposure, stretching from its highest point in the south, where the Lammermuir Hills rise, in a gradual though not unbroken slope to the seaboard on the north. The land in the higher region is almost entirely pasturage, of the Lowland Scotch hill character, though the skirts of the hills are, to a considerable extent, brought under cultivation. About one-third of the entire area of the county is occupied by this district, which commences at the east coast in Oldhamstocks and Innerwick parishes, and extends westwards across the southern part of the county to the boundary of Edinburghshire. The average height is not great, and the general aspect is not mountainous; for the Lammermuirs present a series of softly rounded hills, and their greatest elevation is attained in Lammer Law, which rises to a height of 1,733 feet above sea-level. Other summits are Clints Dod (1,307 feet), Lowrans Law (1,631), and Soutra Hill (1,209). The northern plain between the base of the hill country and the sea has its surface interrupted by the Garleton Hills (590 feet) on the west, by Gullane Hill on the northeast coast, and by the conspicuously isolated cones of North Berwick Law (612 feet) on the north coast and Traprain and Dumpender Law (700) near the center. The county, owing to its geographical position and limited extent, has few streams of any kind, and only one – the Tyne – of any importance. This last, 7 miles from its source, crosses the Edinburghshire border, 8 miles southwest of Ormiston, and flows through Haddingtonshire to the northeast seaboard, where it falls into the German Ocean at Tyninghame. Good trout, and in some places salmon, are caught in the Tyne. Among the smaller streams may be mentioned the Salton Water and the Gifford Water, flowing from the uplands to the Tyne; Peffer Burn, running to the German sea, about 2 miles southeast of Tantallon Castle; and the Belton Water, which debouches at Belhaven, near Dunbar. The Berwickshire stream – the Whitadder – has its source and upper course for some miles in East Lothian. The chief lakes are Presmennan and Danskine Lochs, both of small extent. The former was artificially made in 1819 by damming up a ravine through which a streamlet used to discharge its waters. Mineral springs are found in the parishes of Spott, Pencaitland, Humbie, and Salton, and some of them have had a certain medicinal repute.

“The broad tract of country extending from Dunbar to Aberlady, and from North Berwick to Gifford, is occupied with the members of this series, but differing in a marked degree from those just described. The type represented in this area is characterized by a remarkable development of volcanic rocks, which, indeed, cover the greater portion of the tract. Towards the beginning of the Calciferous Sandstone period volcanic activity commenced in the East Lothian district, and continued with little cessation to near the close. During this long interval the volcanoes discharged sheets of lava and showers of ashes till they reached a thickness of well-nigh 1,500 feet, but so local was the development that no trace of these volcanic materials is to be found in the Calciferous Sandstone area between Cockburnspath and Thorntonloch. The following is the succession of the strata given in descending

order: (a) sandstones, shales, and thin limestones; (b) thick sheets of porphyrite lavas, becoming more augitic towards the bottom of the series; (c) coarse ash and volcanic breccia; (d) red and white sandstones and marls. The sedimentary strata underlying the volcanic series are exposed on both sides of the mouth of the Tyne, where they are thrown into an anticlinal arch, the axis of which extends from Belhaven Bay southwest to Traprain Law. On the north side of this anticline the strata dip to the northwest, and pass underneath the great pile of lavas and tuffs of the Garleton Hills, while on the south side they are succeeded only by a portion of the volcanic series. The earliest ejections in Haddingtonshire consisted of tuffs and coarse breccias, which occupy the greater part of the coastline between North Berwick and Tantallon Castle. The base of the series is exposed on the shore at the Gegan about ½ mile to the east of Tantallon, where the tuff is under laid by sandstones and marls dipping to the west at a low angle. In places the ash forms prominent cliffs, as at the Gin Head, near Canty Bay, which afford excellent opportunities for studying the features of the deposit. Its general character is somewhat varied. On the whole, it is well stratified, showing alternations of coarse breccia and layers of fine tuff, with small felspathic lapilli. The volcanic breccia contains numerous bombs of porphyrite, the largest measuring 2 feet across, with fragments of sandstones, shales, and thin limestones. A characteristic feature of this deposit is the intercalation of thin seams and lenticular patches of sandstones, shales, and limestones, clearly proving the submarine character of the eruptions. One of these bands of limestone occurs near the base of the series at the Gegan, and another at the Rhodes quarry about 1 mile east of North Berwick. In places they emit a fetid odor. The tuff and volcanic breccia which cover such a great extent of coastline west of Tantallon Castle extend inland as far as Traprain, forming a belt of variable width round the base of the overlying lavas. They reappear on the south side of the anticline at Traprain Law, and can be followed east to the Biel Burn north of Stenton church, where they are truncated by the dislocation which brings the Calciferous Sandstones into conjunction with the Upper Old Red Sandstones and marls. Between Belhaven Bay and Dunbar, however, the tuffs are again exposed with a southeast inclination, where they present the characteristic features just described.

“The tuffs and volcanic breccias are overlaid by a great succession of porphyrite lavas which have no intercalation of ash or sedimentary deposits. They form the range of the Garleton Hills, and as they are inclined to the west at gentle angles, they present slight escarpments towards the east. The lavas first ejected, which rest on the tuff, are more augitic than the overlying sheets, the augite crystals being large, and the triclinic feldspars being well striated. The later ejections, on the other hand, are less basic, and present the characteristic microscopic characters of porphyrites. The lavas pass conformably below a limited thickness of sandstones, shales, and cement stones, filling the interval to the base of the Carboniferous Limestone. From the ashy character of the sandstones, it is evident that they were in a great measure formed from the trituration of the underlying volcanic materials, while the presence of thin sheets of tuff indicates faint volcanic outbursts after the main ejections had ceased. These sedimentary deposits stretch south by Aberlady, Bolton, and onwards to Fala, in all cases graduating upwards into the Carboniferous Limestone. They also cover a considerable tract of ground round Haddington, where they are associated with some thin seams of coal.

“Within the volcanic area and in the immediate vicinity there are numerous examples of 'necks' from which the igneous materials were discharged. Some of these are filled with crystalline rocks, such as basalt, porphyrite, or felstone, others with tuff and volcanic agglomerate. Perhaps the two most conspicuous examples of the former group are North Berwick Law (612 feet) and Traprain Law (724).

These eminences rise considerably above the level of the surrounding ground - a feature which is due to the unyielding nature of the compact felstone filling the vent. In the case of North Berwick Law the felstone penetrates the stratified ash at the base of the volcanic series, while the mass on Traprain Law pierces the underlying Calciferous Sandstones. On the shore to the east of Dunbar there is a remarkable example of a vent filled with volcanic agglomerate, and similar instances occur between North Berwick and Tantallon Castle.

“The history of what is now known as Haddingtonshire will be found under the articles Lothians and Dunbar; for its fate has always been closely connected with that of the Earls of Dunbar. It is enough to say here that Haddingtonshire shows traces of Roman occupation, and that, after for a time forming part of the Saxon kingdom of Northumbria, it passed under the scepter of Malcolm II of Scotland in 1020. It enjoyed undisturbed repose during the reigns of David I, Malcolm IV, and William the Lyon; but in the struggles of Scotland with the English in the 13th and following centuries it had its full share of troubles and fightings. The numerous ruined towers and castles in every part of the lowlands of the county bear ample testimony to the troublous times of that and the succeeding periods of history. Within the limits of the shire are the battlefields of Dunbar, where Cromwell defeated the Scottish army in 1650, and of Prestonpans where Prince Charles Edward met the English forces under General Cope in 1745. In connection with its more private history, some of its famous families and celebrated men should be mentioned. Among the former are the Fletchers of Salton, the Setons of Seton, the Hamiltons of Preston, the Maitlands of Lethington (now Lennoxlove), and the Dalrymples of Hailes. Walter Bower or Bowmaker, the continuer of Fordun's Scotichronicon; Andrew de Wyntoun, the metrical chronicler; and John Mair or Major, also a chronicler, are all claimed as East Lothian men. Sir R Maitland, who lived at Lethington, was a court poet in the days of Queen Mary; and James VI's Chancellor Maitland was born within the walls of the same old castle. Garmylton (now Garleton) Castle disputes with Fifeshire the honor of being the birthplace of Sir David Lindsay: and the poet's latest editor rather inclines to favor the claim of Garleton. William Dunbar, the poet, is claimed as a native by Salton parish, and George Heriot by Gladsmuir. John Knox is undoubtedly the most famous of East Lothian men; and others are noted in the local articles on the different towns and villages. Among the famous clergymen who have held charges in Haddingtonshire there may be mentioned Bishop Gilbert Burnet, who was parish minister of Salton from 1665 till 1669, and who left a bequest to the parish; Blair, author of the Grave, and Home, author of Doug as, were successive ministers at Athelstaneford; David Calderwood, author of the History of the Church of Scotland, was minister of Pencaitland; and William Robertson, the historian, and afterwards principal of Edinburgh University, filled the pulpit at Gladsmuir. George Wishart, the martyr, was seized by Bothwell at Ormiston.

“The antiquities of the county are both numerous and interesting, though some, as for example, a Caledonian stone circle in Tranent parish, and the traces of a Roman road from Lauderdale to the Forth, have been destroyed or removed. There are still extant tumuli, probably Caledonian, in Garvald and Innerwick parishes, and traces of ancient camps in Whittinghame, Garvald, Innerwick, Spott, Salton, and Ormiston parishes. Ruins and vestiges of mediaeval towers and castles are peculiarly numerous in this shire. The chief are those at Dunbar, Tantallon, Innerwick, and Dirleton; and there are others at Prestonkirk, Whittinahame, Garvald, Herdmanston, Redhouse, Fentoe, Falside, Elphinstone, Hailes, and Stoneypath. The Goblin Hall, mentioned in Scott's Marmion, is identified in an old stronghold of Sir Hugo de Gifford, near Yester House. The fortress on the Bass Rock attained a celebrity as the prison of some of the most noted Covenanters. The ecclesiastical remains in the county are deeply interesting. They

include the abbey at Haddington, of which the present Nunraw House was an appanage, a Cistercian convent at North Berwick, and several very ancient chapels and parish churches, that at Pencaitland, for example, being said to date from about 1213, while the Collegiate church of Seton in Tranent was built before 1390, and the old disused church at Gullane was abandoned in 1612 for a newer one at Dirleton. The topographical nomenclature itself in Haddingtonshire affords interesting matter of study to the archaeologist and philologer.”147

John Bartholomew details: “Haddingtonshire (or East Lothian), maritime county in southeast of Scotland; is bounded northwest, north, and northeast by the Firth of Forth and the North Sea, southeast and south by Berwickshire, and west by Edinburghshire (or Midlothian); greatest length, north and south, 17 miles; greatest breadth, east and west, 26 miles; seaboard, 31¾ miles; area, 173,298 acres, population 38,502. The coast along the Firth of Forth is flat and sandy; along the North Sea it is bold and rocky. In the south are the Lammermuir Hills, whence the surface slopes gently to the sea, in a vast plain, watered by the river Tyne, and broken by the Garleton Hills, and by the isolated summits of Traprain Law and North Berwick Law. Of the cultivated part of the county - finely diversified by woods and plantations - the soil is mostly a clayey loam, and is generally fertile, and Haddington is one of the foremost agricultural counties of Scotland. Great numbers of sheep are fed on the Lammermuir Hills. The manufacturers are unimportant; they consist of two or three foundries, breweries, potteries, brickworks, salt pans, a paper mill, a distillery, etc. The western part of the county forms the eastern margin of the Mid-Lothian coalfield, and is rich in coal and limestone, which are extensively worked. Fishing and fish-curing are carried on at Dunbar, Cockenzie, and other points. The county comprises 23 parishes, and parts of 2 others; the royal and police burghs of Dunbar, Haddington, and North Berwick, and the police burghs of East Linton, Prestonpans, and Tranent. It returns 1 member to Parliament.”148

***BERWICK, EAST LOTHIAN 149 ***

Neil Oliver explains: “As soon as Edward sent his troops into France, a Spanish force crossed the Border and attacked the English garrison at Carlisle. It was a show of commitment to the Treaty of Paris, but it had sown the wind. The people of Berwick reaped the whirlwind. Edward crossed the Tweed at Coldstream with a force estimated at 30,000 men and cavalry, far and away the largest army that had ever been sent north. Berwick was Scotland’s wealthiest burgh and obvious target. Easter celebrations were drawing to a close when nervous sentries keeping watch on the flimsy timber fortifications spotted the outriders of the English force. Word had reached them weeks before that English soldiers had been mobilized in the northern territories, and now here they were.

“Since there was no purposeful defense to be offered in the face of such a host, the garrison surrendered at once. Edward and his men swiftly took possession. What followed was once of the worst atrocities in the history of medieval Britain. A chronicler recorded how ‘for two days streams of blood flowed from the bodies of the slain, for in his tyrannous rage he ordered 7,500 souls of both sexes to be massacred … mills could be turned round by the flow of their blood’. Edward had wanted nothing less than wholesale slaughter. The orgy of killing only came to an end when the frantic pleading of local clergymen moved Edward to show some semblance of pity for those traumatized men, women and children still alive. Out of an original population of almost 13,000, fewer than 5,000 were still breathing when Edward’s men put their swords away.

“As things turned out, the rape of Berwick was just a warm-up. With a reputation for massive violence preceding him, Edward made a gruesome advance through the heartland of Scotland. A Scots force had

taken Dunbar Castle from its English garrison, and by the end of April John de Warenne, Earl of Surrey had arrived to put the place under siege. The main body of the Scots army advanced to try and drive them off on 27 April, only to be cut to pieces by better-trained English heavy horse and infantry. Whether the rout was as bloody as the English chroniclers said – they claimed as many as 10,000 Scots dead – it was the end of the war.”150

***BURN’S MOTHER’S WELL, EAST LOTHIAN***

www.scottish-places.info imparts: “On the roadside between Haddington and Bolton, around a mile (1.5 km) from the latter village, lies a well dedicated to Agnes Broun (1732-1820), mother of Scotland's national poet Robert Burns (1759-96). Burns’ mother had come to live with her son Gilbert (1760-1827) after he took the job of a farm-worker on the Lennoxlove estate. It was at this spring that Agnes had taken water for the family. The dedication states: ‘Drink of the pure crystals and not only be ye succored but also refreshed in the mind. Agnes Broun, 1732-1820. To the mortal and immortal memory and in noble tribute to her, who not only gave a son to Scotland but to the whole world and whose own doctrines he preached to humanity that we might learn.’

“The well was restored in 1932 by William Baxter. The Burns' former home at Grant's Braes is marked by a road-side monument, some 90m (100 yards) southwest of the well.”151

***DUNBAR, EAST LOTHIAN***

Neil Oliver mentions: “Had the Scots made the most of their battle-hardened army, they might have turned Cromwell back. He was soon pushed all the way to the sea, at Dunbar and turned round to find the doughty Alexander Leslie bearing down on him at the head of more than 20,000 men. The Protector might have been grateful just to be allowed to slink away, back across the Border to think again. But instead it was at this moment that Archibald Johnston of Wariston decided the Covenanting army must be purged of all ungodly elements. Leslie protested, but Wariston declared that ‘God can do much with a few’. The ungodly elements turned out, in the main, to be the professional soldiers upon whom so much depended. But by the time the purge had been completed, the Covenanters still outnumbered the English by almost two to one, but they were an army of amateurs.

“Cromwell could not believe his luck and promptly broke out of Dunbar on 3 September 1651, killing 4,000 Covenanters and taking 10,000 prisoner. The survivors ran for their lives, all the way back to Edinburgh. When they delivered their news, the men of both the town council and the Kirk Session promptly fled. English troops arrived soon afterwards and proceeded to loot the town.

“The Rule of the Saints was over and the Covenanting movement was split yet again – this time between the do-or-die Protesters and the ‘Resolutioners’ who would find ways to work with the Stewarts once more. It was the Resolutioners who crowned Charles II at Scone on 1 January 1651. Argyll set the crown upon the young king’s head and then sat back to enjoy a sermon that reminded them all that ‘a king hath not the power to do what he pleaseth’.

“Moderate or hardline – it mattered not a jot to Cromwell what sort of Presbyterians he had to deal with in Scotland. He let them have a honeymoon period while he endured long months of illness after his victory at Dunbar. But by the summer of 1651 he had the Scots on the rack yet again. There had been no shortage of volunteers ready to rally around the new king, and the Royalist army was thousands strong by the time Charles led it over the Border into England to try and regain his southern kingdom.”152

***JOHN MUIR WAY, EAST LOTHIAN***

www.johnmuirway.co.uk puts into words: “The John Muir Way runs along the coastline of East Lothian and is named after the father of the environment movement, John Muir, who lived in Dunbar as a boy and subsequently immigrated to the USA. He is responsible for the establishment of America's National Parks.”153

www.visiteastlothian.org reports: “The John Muir Way is a continuous path, which extends for almost 73km, linking East Lothian with the City of Edinburgh and the Scottish Borders. It links in with many other paths, so small sections can be tackled on their own or as part of a circular route. The route is named in honor of the conservationist and founder of America’s National Parks who was born in Dunbar in 1838. Along with Way, you will see striking geological features, such as the Bass Rock and North Berwick Law. Pause a while and enjoy the wildlife of the shore, the riverbank or hedgerow. Inland, in the summer, golden fields of wheat and barley rise to meet a green and purple patchwork of grassland and heather moor on the Lammermuir Hills to the south. East Lothian also has a colorful history, as can be seen by the number of ruined castles, such as Dunbar, Dirleton and Tantallon. Take your time, enjoy the great views, stay a while and seek out the many fascinating places along the John Muir Way that have helped to shape the county.

“Path information: The 10km section between Fisherrow and Cockenzie is mostly on level terrain and follows tarmac or gravel paths. The first 2.5km of the Cockenzie to Aberlady section follows tarmac paths and pavements. The remaining 6km is mainly sandy paths through the dunes. The 15km between Aberlady and North Berwick is on a variety of surfaces, including pavement, gravel and grass paths. The 24km North Berwick to Dunbar section is mainly over grass tracks and gravel paths. There are some steps and inclines, steepest near Dunbar where the path is sometimes close to cliff tops. The 16km section from Dunbar to Dunglass is over narrow tracks on grass and pebble beaches. There are some steep inclines.

“Some sections run along the side of golf courses. Please keep to the path, keep dogs on a short lead and try not to disturb play.”154

***SALTCOATS CASTLE, EAST LOTHIAN***

www.maybole.org shows: “To the south of the East Lothian village of Gullane sits the confused yellow rubble remains of Saltcoats castle on the site of an ancient salt marsh (which may explain why the castle is called Saltcoats), consisting of a late 16th century oblong hall house with ornate archway and immediately above a row of gargoyles which may have been part of a mock battlement walk way. To the north of this hall house is the shell of an oblong kitchen block and a square mid-17th century style lectern dovecot, all linked by a low courtyard wall raised in the late 17th century. Apparently the castle was originally surrounded by an extensive garden, orchard and to the east a bowling green, which was still discernible in the late 19th century, all now sadly gone. To the west of the castle is a row of modern (early 19th century) cottages built with material taken from the castle around 1810 when the site was used as a quarry.

“The lands of Gullane in the 12th century were held by the Anglo-Norman De-Vaux family who locally not only built the great castle of Dirleton around 1225 but also raised the Norman chapel on the outskirts of Gullane. However the present ruin of Saltcoats was not constructed by the De-Vauxs or their

descendants (through marriage) the Halyburtons. But by the Livingtouns or Lethingtons of Saltcoats, said to be ‘an ancient family in East Lothian’. Anciently, the Lethingtons are said to have built the L-plan Towerhouse of ‘Lethington’ near Haddington, known today as Lennoxlove. Which passed by marriage to the Maitlands.

“Interestingly there are some unintentional tenuous links between Dirleton castle and Saltcoats. First its ornate archway has a similar appearance to the gate house added to Dirleton by the Halyburton family in 1350. Secondly the heraldry of the Livingtouns is the same style as both the De-Vauxs and Halyburtons being made up of a diagonal bend. Though this doesn't necessarily suggest that the Livingtouns/Lethingtons were in anyway kin to the De-Vauxs or the Halyburtons. But because both the De-Vauxs and the Lethingtons were active in East Lothian around the same time it does seem likely that they were somehow related.

“Around 1590 local tradition claims a Patrick or Peter Livingtoun killed a notorious wild boar in the woods of Gullane. He was then rewarded with the lands of Saltcoats close to where he killed the wild beast. Certainly the Livingtoun heraldry was amended with a decapitated boar's head above the bend in recognition of this event. Ironically some writers have mistaken this boar's head to be an otter's head which hardly has the same significance. Killing a wild otter is unlikely to merit the gift of the lands of Saltcoats.

“Patrick built the castle and kitchen in 1590, though the ornate arch may have been added later since this section’s gun loops are in a 1600s style. The dovecot may have been built by Patrick's son as it is of a 1630 to 1660 style. Patrick's heraldry and that of his wife Margaret Fettis of Fawside are carved on a date stone of 1590 (which has been recut as 1390 for reasons unknown) embedded in a panel above the doorway of the modern cottage. Likely this panel was originally above the castle arch. In 1695 a G Livingtoun (possibly Patrick's grandson) built the courtyard wall connecting the castle, the kitchen and the dovecot. It is claimed there was a well nearby but since the whole site is based on drained salt marsh this seems unlikely.

“In the early 1700s the estate passed to the Hamiltons of Pencaitland and was intact until 1810 when it was turned into a quarry for the next 10 years to build the modern cottages and farm dykes. Thankfully during this demolition, Saltcoat's ‘stones were found to be so firmly cemented together that they were compared to having been sheathed in steel’. So the demolition was abandoned and at least some of the castle survives for us to view today.”155

***STONEYPATH TOWER, EAST LOTHIAN***

www.maybole.org talks about: “Between Whittinghame Tower and Nunraw near Garvald in East Lothian, on a rough grassy ridge beside the Pappana water stands the rose colored ruin of Stoneypath Tower. Originally held by several great Scots families of note, the Dunbars, the Douglases on two occasions, the Lyles, the Hamiltons and eventually the Setons.

“The Dunbars, originally known as Gospatrick, changed their name to Dunbar after their principal East Lothian coastal fortress. And are most noted in history because of this fortress since it was here in 1338 that Patrick Dunbar's young wife Black Agnes resisted a lengthy siege by the English. Fortunately, Alexander Ramsay of Dalhousie castle raised the siege by bringing supplies and troops in by sea. The Dunbar's Tower of Stoneypath was a classic L plan keep and probably dates from the late 1300s when it

passed from them to the Douglases of Dalkeith. Interestingly Dalkeith castle (before it was replaced by the present Adam's style Palace) was originally an L plan keep and may have proved inspirational in Stoneypath's construction. Though some historians have suggested that Stoneypath dates from the mid 1400s when it was held by the Lyles, since the heraldry inside is of the Lyles and not the Dunbars or Douglases.

“The Dalkeith Douglases were nephews of the notorious border Lord William Douglas ‘the knight of Liddesdale’ from Hermitage castle, who in 1342, for some unknown reason, killed Alexander Ramsay the hero of the Dunbar siege. Because of this he was ambushed and killed in 1353 in Ettrick forest by his Godson another William Douglas (later 1st Earl of Douglas). His Liddesdale lands and Hermitage castle were claimed by his Godson, which was contested unsuccessfully by the Dalkeith Douglases as their inheritance.

“In the rebellion of 1363 against King David II of Scots (1329-71), William 1st Earl of Douglas and George Dunbar (Black Agnes's son), having seized Dirleton castle and ambushed some Ramsays they believed were in league with the King, marched west to the battle of Lanark where they were defeated by King David and his familiar Archibald ‘the Grim’ Black Douglas (William's devious cousin). To compensate for his rebellion William was forced to give most of his Liddesdale lands to Archibald by the King.

“Archibald then gave these to his allies the Dalkeith Douglases, which would later become a bone of contention with William's illegitimate son George the ‘Red’ Douglas of Tantallon castle, near North Berwick.

“Stoneypath as already mentioned was held first by the Dunbars and was known as a ‘warsteed’, one of the ‘seven warsteeds of Dunbar’. There is still much debate as to which ‘seven’ castles made up the ‘warsteeds’. A possible list would include obviously Dunbar castle, Stoneypath, then Hailes castle near East Linton, Byres castle near Haddington, and Luffness castle beside Aberlady - all in East Lothian; then Coldbrandspath Tower (Cockburnspath) and Billie castle near Chirnside in the Borders. By the late 1300s these ‘warsteeds’ had passed to other Dunbar vassal families by peaceful and violent means. Stoneypath to the Dalkeith Douglases through marriage, Hailes to the Hepburns also through marriage, Byres to the Lyndsays, Luffness to the Bickertons then on to the Hepburns, while Dunbar castle, Coldbrandspath and Billie were all forcibly seized by the Douglases after 1400. (There is the possibility that Dunbar castle itself was not regarded as a ‘war steed’ since it was the family seat, therefore Fast castle near St Abbs may have be the missing seventh ‘war steed’).

“In 1384 William 1st Earl of Douglas died and was succeeded as 2nd Earl by his legitimate son James, who in 1388 was assassinated at the battle of Otterburn by his own armor bearer Bickerton of Luffness. Though the real mastermind behind the murder was probably Archibald ‘the Grim’ since he seized the title 3rd Earl of Douglas, despite the claim to the Earldom by James's illegitimate half-brother George the ‘Red’ Douglas. Also Bickerton was himself murdered outside Luffness before he could be arrested and questioned. Then his assassin Ramsay of Waughton castle mysteriously disappeared leaving no loose ends to link James's murder back to Archibald, who as Earl of Douglas seized the remaining lands in Liddesdale originally held by his cousin William the 1st Earl.

“In 1398, George the ‘Red’ Douglas, with his allies the Lyndsays of Byres and the Nisbets from Nisbet castle, attacked the lands around Dalkeith castle and Stoneypath tower as well as Dalkeith Douglas land interests in the west, demanding the return of his father's Liddesdale lands. Why the Nisbets became

entangled in this Douglas conflict is unclear since they were vassals to the Dunbar family. Perhaps their lands had suffered at the hands of the Dalkeith Douglases. Eventually in 1400 the ‘Red’ Douglas and his allies marched west to Bothwell castle for a meeting with Archibald ‘the Grim’ and agreed to end his assaults on Dalkeith and Stoneypath in exchange for some of the Liddesdale lands.

“By 1446 Stoneypath was in the hands of the Lyles who unlike the previous owners kept a low profile politically until 1488 when they were described as ‘rebels’ for having supported Hepburn of Hailes and Archibald ‘Bell the Cat’ Douglas at the battle of Sauchieburn, near Stirling, resulting in King James III's (1460-88) murder.

“In 1548 Stoneypath and Nunraw Tower appear to have been stormed by the English during the wars of the ‘rough wooing’, where by use of castle burning they hoped to force the marriage of the infant Mary Queen of Scots (1542-87) to the English Prince Edward. The raid on Nunraw was supported by Douglas of Whittingham, who was one of several East Lothian Lords known as ‘assured Scots’, who favored the marriage alliance and were willing to fight their own countrymen to achieve this goal.

“By late 1548 Stoneypath and several other towers were retaken by the Hamiltons, under the Earl of Arran, and ‘assured Scots’ such as Cockburn of Ormiston and Douglas of Longniddry had their homes slighted for their collaboration. Although it is unclear whether or not Whittingham Tower was attacked at this time.

“In 1611 George Lyle resigned Stoneypath to Alexander Hamilton of Innerwick castle near Dunbar. By 1616 it had passed to Archibald Douglas of Whittinghame and eventually on to the Setons, most noted in history for their medieval Seton Palace (replaced by modern Adam mansion) and its small collegiate church.

“Local tradition has it that Cromwell's men removed the roof during his sacking of East Lothian castles in the 1650s. Although at some point in the 1700s it was used as a quarry to build houses locally. During MacGibbon and Ross's study of the ruin, two interesting features were still present, an overhanging toilet and a stone clad conical cap on the turnpike stairwell, now sadly gone. There is the possibility of it being reconstructed and lived in as a home. But hopefully the new owners will not be as bloodthirsty and warlike as the Tower's medieval families.”156

**EAST RENFREWSHIRE**

**RENFREW**

“Renfrew: Rinn Friu (Goidelic/Brythonic) – ‘point of the current’.”157

FH Groome catalogs: “Renfrew, a market town, port, and royal burgh, and the county town of Renfrewshire, is in the east of the parish just described, and close to the south bank of the river Clyde. It is by rail 3 miles north by east of Paisley, and 6 west of Glasgow. The burgh is of considerable antiquity, for in the charter granted by Walter, the High Steward, when he founded the Abbey of Paisley in 1160, it is spoken of as ‘burgo meo de Reinfru’ and ‘oppidum meum de Reinfru’, so that it must even then have made some progress. The burgh, at first one of barony, became in the reign of Robert III, a royal burgh, having received a charter from that monarch in 1396, and subsequent confirmatory charters were granted by James VI in 1575 and 1614 – the former making an additional grant of all the religious houses and altarages connected with the burgh, and the latter making provision, among other things, for the

better maintenance of the grammar school; and again by Queen Anne in 1703. The burgh and district gave in 1404 the title of Baron Renfrew to the heir apparent to the Scottish throne, and the connection of the place with ‘the ancient Stewart line’ is still maintained by the retention of the title among those borne by the Prince of Wales. At the date of the charter of 1614 the burgh seems to have been the principal port of the Clyde, and as is mentioned in the article on Paisley, it had some bitter struggles with that place at earlier dates as to its privileges of trade. Its old prosperity has now, however, suffered decline, and it has been completely eclipsed by its younger and more vigorous rivals, though why it is a little hard to say. Probably when the pinch came it relied more on the dignity of its long descent and ancient origin than on its energy. The town now consists of a main body – the original town – about ½ mile distant from the present channel of the Clyde, and a more modern extension reaching down to the Clyde itself. From the Cross near the center of the main body of the town High Street passes to the east along the road to Glasgow, with Queen Street branching off it, while Fulbar Street continues the line to the west southward, along the Paisley Road, is Hairst Street; and northward are Canal Street and Ferry Road, with Orchard Street branching off to the westward. The older buildings have for the most part a humble and very unpretending appearance, but the outskirts have many villas and cottages. The old town was washed along the north by the old channel of the Clyde, which cut off the King’s Inch, as noticed in the last article; but this has long been closed up, though a portion of its course is occupied by the harbor at the month of Pudzeoch Burn and the course connecting that with the Clyde. These were constructed originally about 1785, and a stone wharf added in 1835 at a cost of about 800 pounds. During the year 1884 fresh operations were undertaken at a cost of 3,000 pounds for the purpose of giving greater accommodation and affording increased facility in loading and unloading vessels. After the improvements are completed the depth will be 6 feet at low water, and 16 feet at high water of ordinary spring tides, while in the former case the water area will be 1 to 169 acre, and in the latter 1 to 862 acre. Along the Clyde is a wharf, which is a place of call for steamers. The original castle of the Stewards probably stood on the Inch, but their later one was on a slightly elevated piece of ground on the west side of the road leading from the town to the ferry, and although all trace of the building has long been gone the site is still called Castlehill, and traces of the fosse remained till about 1775. Adjacent lands are known as the Orchard, the King’s Meadow, and the Dog Row, and the Castlehill and Orchard are excluded from the burgh royalty, though they are almost in its center. The foundation of the Abbey of Paisley seems to have been preceded by the establishment of a number of monks at Renfrew, as in one of the grants to the Benedictines of Paisley mention is made of ‘molendinum de Renfru et terram ubi monachi prius habitavertunt’; but whether the buildings they occupied were on the Inch or near Mill Burn House has been a matter of dispute.”158

FH Groome conveys: “Renfrew (Br Rhyn, ‘a point of land’, and frew, ‘the flowing of water’), a parish containing a town of the same name lying along and intersected by the Clyde in the northeast of Renfrewshire and in the Upper Ward of that county. It is bounded north by Dumbartonshire, east by Lanarkshire, south by Abbey parish, Paisley, west by Kilbarchan, and southwest by Inchinnan. On the north and east the parish and county boundaries coincide. Starting from the center of the Clyde at the mouth of the Black Cart, the line passes up the center of the former river till at Yoker Burn it strikes to the north, and follows the course of the burn for about 1 mile. It then strikes across to Yokermains Burn, and follows it up to beyond Scaterig, whence it turns southward and southwestward to the Clyde, which it reaches at the old position of Marline Ford. Crossing the Clyde the line continues near the east and south of the grounds of Elderslie House to Pudzeoch Burn, which it follows to Millburn Bridge, whence it follows the Mill Burn to the north end of the reservoir, and then proceeds irregularly to the corner of

Hillington Wood. There it quits the county boundary and takes first a southwesterly direction to a point a little east of the 5-mile post on the Glasgow and Paisley joint railway, and afterwards a northwesterly direction to a point on the road midway between Newmains and Bogside. From this the course is up a small burn to Arkleston Print-Works, and then westward to a point on the White Cart, opposite the mouth of Abbotsburn, up which it proceeds by Wester Walkinshaw to the Black Cart, the center of which it follows back to the Clyde. The greatest length, from the west-northwest at the junction of the Gryfe and the Black Cart to the east-southeast at Hillington Wood, is 4 miles; the greatest width, from the north at the mouth of the Black Cart to the south at Arkleston, is 2 3/8 miles … The Clyde divides the parish into two unequal portions, about one-third of the whole area lying to the north of the river. In the northern section, which is the only part of Renfrewshire lying north of the Clyde, the ground is flat along the edge of the river, but thereafter rises rapidly to 50 and then to 100 feet, and reaches, towards the northeast, in the grounds of Jordanhill House, an extreme height of 149 feet. On the south side of the Clyde the ground is flat, rising in the southwest to only from 17 to 20 feet above sea-level; in the southeast to from 28 to 30 feet; and in the extreme south, at Cockle and Knock Hills, to over 50, the latter (85 feet) being the highest point of the southern section. On the extreme south the parish includes a portion of the municipal and parliamentary burgh of Paisley. Both sections are well-wooded and highly cultivated, the soil being a rich and fertile alluvium, with a subsoil of sand or strong clay. The underlying rocks are carboniferous, and both coal and ironstone are worked. Some of the clays in the northeast and elsewhere are extensively used in the manufacture of bricks, and several of them contain arctic and recent shells. The drainage is effected by the streams and rivers mentioned in describing the boundaries. The ground between the policies of Elderslie House on the southwest and the river Clyde is known as the King's Inch, and was, down to the middle of the 17th century or later, an island - a narrow branch of the Clyde having struck off from the main river at Marline Ford and passed between it and the burgh. Somerled, Lord of the Isles, who had risen in rebellion against King Malcolm IV, was defeated and slain at Renfrew in 1164; and a mound with a stone on the top is noticed by Pennant as, traditionally, the memorial of the place of his defeat, but no trace of it now remains.

“The parish of Renfrew is distinguished for its connection with the ancient house of Stewart, the lands of Renfrew being the first mentioned of the estates specified in the charter granted by King Malcolm IV, in 1157 in favor of Walter, ‘son of Alan’, and confirming a grant previously made by King David I. The office of King's High Steward being also conferred on Walter and his descendants, they took thence the surname of Stewart, and so this corner of the land became the cradle of the illustrious race destined to ascend in succession the thrones of Scotland and England. Knock Hill on the south is still shown as the traditional spot where Marjory Bruce, wife of a succeeding Walter, High Steward of Scotland, was thrown from her horse and killed while hunting in 1316. She was far advanced in pregnancy at the time, and the Caesarean operation was resorted to in order to save the life of the child, who afterwards became Robert II. The tradition adds that an injury caused to his eyes during the operation was the occasion of the affection that procured him his popular name of ‘Bleary’. The spot was marked till somewhere between 1779 and 1782 by an octagonal pillar placed on an eight-sided base, and known, by some confusion of names, as Queen Bleary's Cross. The monument was then destroyed by a rustic vandal, who occupied the neighboring farm, and who used the pillar as a door lintel, and the stones of the supporting steps to repair a fence. Its site was to the east-southeast of Knock Farm, and a little farther to the east-southeast there was formerly a mound called Kempe Knowe. It was a circular mound of earth about 20 yards across, and surrounded by a moat about 5 yards wide, but no trace of it now remains. According to tradition it was constructed to be the place of contest between the last Sir John

Ross of Hawkhead and a noted English wrestler, whose match the English king of the period had challenged the Scotch king to produce. Ross disabled his adversary in a way that procured him the name of ‘Palm-mine-arms’, and was rewarded by the king with the lands and royal castle at ‘the Inch’; and the older inhabitants always referred to his monument, which is placed in a burial vault constructed for it by the Earl of Glasgow on the southeast of the new church, as ‘Palm-mine-arms’. Semple, in his continuation of Crawfurd's History, mentions that an urn had been dug up at the Knock Hill in 1746, and another in 1782, so that in all probability the mound had been a barrow much older that Sir John Ross's time. The lower part of the hill is called the ‘Butts’, and was probably the place where the burghers of Renfrew practiced archery. At the side of the road from Renfrew to Iuchinnan, near the bridge across the White and Black Carts, and within the policies of Blythswood House, is a large block of sandstone known as the Argyll Stone, and marking the spot where the Earl of Argyll was wounded and captured after the failure of his ill-conducted enterprise in 1685. After the dispersion of his forces in Dumbartonshire, he crossed the river Clyde, and was attempting to make his escape in disguise when he was stopped by a party of militia who were guarding the ford where the bridge now stands. Some reddish veins in the stone, long pointed out as the stains made by his blood as he leant wounded against the rock, are no longer visible. Besides the burgh of Renfrew, the parish also includes, on the north, the town of Yoker, and on the extreme northeast the small mining village of Scaterig. The portion to the north of the Clyde is traversed by the road from Glasgow along the north bank of the river; while the high road from Glasgow to Greenock passes through the southern portion. A road from north to south passes from Paisley through the burgh of Renfrew to the Clyde, where a ferry, with large ferry boats for horses and carts, provides communication with the opposite side at Yoker. To the west of this road is a branch railway line from Paisley to Renfrew. The mansions are Blythswood, Elderslie, Jordanhill, Scotstoun, and Walkingshaw. Besides agriculture and the industries connected with the burgh, there are pits, brick and tile works, and a distillery at Yoker. Eleven landowners hold each an annual value of 500 pounds and upwards, 19 hold each between 500 pounds and 100 pounds, 41 hold each between 100 pounds and 50 pounds, and there are a considerable number of smaller amount.”159

John Bartholomew sums: “Renfrew, parliamentary, royal, and police burgh, parish, and county town of Renfrewshire, on south bank of river Clyde, 3 miles northeast of Paisley and 5 west of Glasgow by rail - parish, 4,311 acres, population 7,439; royal burgh, population 5,115; parliamentary and police burgh, population 5,503; town, population 4,855 … 1 Bank. Renfrew was made a royal burgh in 1396, and in 1404 gave the title of baron to the heir-apparent of the Scottish throne, a title which is still borne by the Prince of Wales. Shipbuilding and weaving are the chief industries. Renfrew is one of the Kilmarnock Burghs, which return 1 member; its parliamentary limits were extended in 1885.”160

**RENFREWSHIRE**

FH Groome discusses: “Renfrewshire, anciently Strathgryfe, is a maritime county on the west coast of Scotland. Although only twenty-seventh among the Scottish counties as regards area, its industrial importance is so great that it ranks sixth in the order of valuation and fifth in the order of population, while it contests with Edinburgh the distinction of being the most densely populated county in Scotland, each of them having 1,075 inhabitants to the square mile. The county is bounded north by the river Clyde and Dumbartonshire, northeast, about Glasgow, and east by Lanarkshire, south-southwest by the Cunningham district of Ayrshire, and west by the Firth of Clyde. The shape is an irregular oblong. The greatest length, from Cloch Point on the northwest to near Laird's Seat on the southeast, is 30½ miles;

the greatest breadth near the center, from the grounds of Erskine House on the Clyde on the north to a point on Dubbs Burin near Beith Station on the south-southwest, is 13 miles.

“Commencing at the northwest corner at Kempock Point the boundary line follows the river Clyde for 17¾ miles to the mouth of Yoker Burn, up which it passes, following it nearly to its source. Thereafter it strikes across to Yokermains Burn, which it follows up till beyond Scaterig, whence it returns by the east side of Jordanhill and Scotstoun House grounds to the Clyde at the old line of the Marline Ford. Crossing the river it proceeds by an old channel of the Clyde along the western and southwestern boundaries of the parish of Govan to the line of railway now occupying the old course of the Glasgow and Paisley Canal. It passes thence north-eastward by Ibroxhill and the west side of Pollokshields, and entering Glasgow crosses Kinning Park to the east of Lambhill Street, turns eastward for a short distance along Paisley Road, again northwards between Main Street and Rutland Crescent and along Rutland Place, Greenlaw Place, and Kinning Place, till, nearly opposite Pollock Street, it passes northward to the Clyde, which it reaches close to Hyde Park Ferry. Leaving the river 150 yards farther up about the center of Springfield Quay, the line follows a very involved and zig-zag course through Kingston, up the center of the gas-works, along the east side of East Pollokshields, to the north of Strathbungo, between Govanhill and Crosshill, and to the north of Polmadie House, where it reaches Polmadie Burn. It passes up the Burn to the junction of Malls Mire Burn and West Burn, whence it follows the course of the former to its source. From this it bends southward and eastward to the White Cart, and follows the course of that stream for 5½ miles to the junction with Threepland Burn, which it follows for ¼ mile, and then winds southward and southwestward to a point midway between Quarry Hill and Muir Hill. Here it turns to the west-southwest in a very winding course, always near but seldom actually on the line of watershed between the streams that flow south-westward to the Garnock, Annick, and Irvine, and so to the Firth of Clyde; and those that flow north-eastward to the Gryfe, Black and White Carts, and so to the river Clyde. The line is therefore mostly artificial, but to the east of Beith station it follows the course of Roebank Burn, and to the west of the station the courses of Dubbs Burn and Maich Water, and passing between Misty Law Moor and Ladyland Moor, reaches the watershed at Misty Law (1,663 feet). It follows the watershed by East Girt Hill (1,673 feet) and Hill of Stake (1,711), to the east shoulder of Burnt Hill (1,572), whence it takes the line of Calder Water for 1½ mile, crosses to the upper waters of the North Rotten Burn, follows this down to about ½ mile from Loch Thom, and then striking across to Kelly Dam follows Kelly Water down to the pier at Wemyss Bay. From this back northward to Kempock Point, the Firth of Clyde is again the boundary.

“The territory now forming Renfrewshire belonged to the ancient Caledonian Damnii, and afterwards formed part of the kingdom of Strathclyde. The western portion bore the name of Strathgryfe, and was by that title granted to Walter, the first High Steward of Scotland, by David I. Prior to 1404 it seems to have been included in the county of Lanark, but to have then become a separate county when King Robert III granted to his son and heir James this barony and the other portions of his ancient patrimonial inheritance. Since that time the eldest son of the reigning monarch has, besides his other titles, been styled Prince and Steward of Scotland and Baron of Renfrew. When there is no heir-apparent these titles are merged in the Crown. Traces of Roman remains and of the Roman occupation are noticed under Paisley. The county is associated with the defeat and death of Somerled, Lord of the Isles, in 1164, when we are told by the Chronicler of Melrose, that after landing at Renfrew, that prince was overtaken by Divine vengeance, ‘and was there slain with his son and an immense number of his followers by a few of the people of the surrounding district.’ In a very curious Latin poem printed in the

appendix to Dr Skene’s edition of Fordun (1871), the ‘honor and praise’ of the victory is given to the exertions of St Kentigern in return for devastations which Somerled had committed in the Glasgow district several years before, and which the bishop of Glasgow had prayed very hard that the Saint might piously rebuke. During one of the many fruitless invasions of Scotland in the early years of Edward II, the English army in 1310 penetrated as far as Renfrewshire before returning. In 1489 the county was the scene of operations carried on by James IV against some of the nobles that had adhered to his father’s party, and in 1565 the Earl of Moray and the discontented barons assembled at Paisley, but marched into Lanarkshire almost immediately. Other historical events and antiquities will be found noticed particularly under the various parishes and places with which they are more immediately connected. Like most of the Scottish counties, Renfrewshire was seriously troubled with witches in the 17th century, and the case of the ‘Witches of Renfrew’ in 1697 became very famous. The person bewitched was Christian Shaw, a girl of eleven years of age, daughter of John Shaw, laird of Bargarran, who, ‘having had a quarrel with one of the maid-servants, pretended to be bewitched by her, and forthwith began, according to the common practice in such cases, to vomit all manner of trash; to be blind and deaf on occasion; to fall into convulsions; and to talk a world of nonsense, which the hearers received as the quintessence of afflicted piety. By degrees a great many persons were implicated in the guilt of the maidservant, and no less than twenty were condemned, and five suffered death on the Gallow Green of Paisley, While one strangled himself in prison, or, as report went, was strangled by the devil, lest he should make a confession to the detriment of the service.’”161

John Bartholomew expounds: “Renfrewshire, maritime county, in southwest of Scotland, bounded north by the river Clyde and Dumbartonshire, east by Lanarkshire, south by Ayrshire, and west by the Firth of Clyde; greatest length, northwest and southeast, 31 miles; greatest breadth, northeast and southwest, 14 miles; area, 150,785 acres, population 263,374. The principal streams, all flowing to the Clyde, are the Black Cart, the White Cart, and the Gryde. The surface in the south and southwest parts of the county is hilly, and somewhat bleak and moorish; it thence undulates to the banks of the Clyde, along which there is some rich and low-lying land. Coal, ironstone, and lime-stone are abundant; copper ore occurs near Gourock and Lochwinnoch. The principal industries, besides mining and agriculture, are the manufacturer of cotton and thread, sugar-refining, and shipbuilding. The county comprises 20 parishes, with parts of 4 others, the parliamentary and police burghs of Greenock (1 member), Paisley (1 member), and Port Glasgow and Renfrew (part of the Kilmarnock Burghs), the police burghs (suburban of Glasgow) of Crossbill, Kinning Park, Pollokshields, and Pollokshields East, and the police burghs of Gourock, Johnstone, and Pollokshaws. For parliamentary purposes the county is divided into 2 divisions - viz, Eastern and Western - each returning 1 member. The representation of the county was increased from 1 to 2 members in 1885.”162

***GIFFNOCK, EAST RENFREWSHIRE***

“The Scottish Gaelic name for Giffnock is Giofnag and is of partially Brythonic and Gaelic origin. Cefn (ie, Giff) comes from the Brythonic meaning ‘ridge’ and the Gaelic cnoc (ie, nock) meaning ‘hill’. In Gaelic, oc or og is a diminutive, and thus when added to cefn gives Giffnock the meaning of ‘Little Ridge’.”163

FH Groome impresses: “Giffnock, a hamlet in Eastwood parish, Renfrewshire, 1¼ mile south of Pollokshaws. It has a station on the Glasgow and Busby railway, and lies near extensive quarries of an excellent building sandstone, popularly called ‘liver rock’.”164

***STAMPERLAND, EAST RENFREWSHIRE***

Alan Steel notates: “This one is problematic, partly because there are two forms: Stalp + art + land and Stamp + er + land; but here’s a possible explanation. Stolp and stamp were Frisian terms borrowed into Scots and English along the east coast. They both mean a vicious trap for wee animals. The -art, -ard suffixes mean much the same as the -er suffix, so the Stalpartland or Stamperland was a piece of land assigned to a family of hereditary trappers. The surnames Stowpie [Fife] and Stampard [Berwickshire] died out … In England the cognate surnames Stoppard and Stobart survived … Central and East Renfrewshire have a number of peasant surnames from southeast Scotland which can be dated to the mid-12th century. A professional trapper would have been quite useful in the dense woodland between Cathcart and Mearns.”165

Stuart Nisbet puts pen to paper: “Stamperland takes its name from one of the four portions of the ancient land of Midlee. Several centuries ago the address of a Stamperland resident would have been: Stamperland, Midlee, Cathcart Parish, Renfrewshire.

“Midlee was originally a ‘four merk land’, made up of the one merk lands of Stamperland, Slamanshill, Muirhouse and Carolside. Modern Stamperland also contains parts of Overlee and smaller fragments of surrounding farms and estates.

“Nowadays it may appear that Stamperland is sandwiched, or almost lost between Netherlee and the main settlement of Clarkston. However Stamperland is much older than Clarkston, with a history spanning at least six centuries.

“There have been many attempts to explain the origin of the name Stamperland. The spelling has varied greatly over the years. The name which has come down to us today was the version current at the time of the first Ordnance Surveys. Perhaps the most obvious feature of the name is that it was frequently preceded by ‘Mid’. This may date from its early history as part of Midlee.

“1505: Stawpartislandis; 1621: Middill Stalpatislandis; 1646: Midlestalpatandis; 1688: Midletapart; 1690: Mid Stapartland; 1730: Midl Stampallands; 1763: Middle Starpartland; 1820: Stamperland

“The origin of adjacent Salmanshill is even more obscure, with a greater variety of spellings. As recently as the 1860s there were still at least three versions in the local estate records.

“Up to the late 17th century, the area was very sparsely populated and lay open and unenclosed. In some ways it was a backwater, being an outer limb of Cathcart Parish. However the area was not isolated, as the main road from Glasgow to Ayr passed through Midlee. This early route can still be seen as a line of trees through the center of Williamwood Golf Course. This road was improved and moved east in the 1780s to become the present Clarkston Road/Stamperland Crescent.

“In the 1660s Midlee was acquired by James Maxwell, the son of an adjacent landowner. Maxwell combined Midlee with surrounding lands, including Netherlee and Bogton, to form the estate of Williamwood. This was the beginning of gradual changes and improvements which culminated in the area of Stamperland known today.

“Through the ambitious plans of the Maxwells, Williamwood estate experienced a remarkable growth in value through the 18th century. Trees were planted and the land was enclosed. The clay soil was improved by drainage and adding lime.

“Farms: The locations of the farms and steadings which made up Stamperland are an important part of the identity of the area. A resident in Stamperland today will most likely live on either Stamperland or Slamanshill Farms. This part of Stamperland contains most of the housing. Despite the modern changes, it is still possible to track down the farm and even the field in which a house is built.

“A local golfer, would be more interested in the other half of Stamperland. This consists mainly of Williamwood Golf Course. This green space, plus Overlee Park and Clarkston Library Park, still preserve some of the identity of the old arms.

“Muirhouse Farm formed the northern part of the golf course. The standing was close to the Hole Burn, which forms the boundary with Eastwood Parish. This farm steading was demolished in about 1800. The farmland was then merged with other farms, mainly Stamperland. Muirhouse farm then disappeared, becoming something of a mystery. However the site still forms a hard area of ground in the golf course, where balls bounce extra high!

“Stamperland farmstead was situated in the center of The Oval, and survived until the 1940s. The farm steading was rebuilt several times, including in 1804 and 1859. In 1863 Stamperland mansion house was built beside the farm, and let out to the tenant of Williamwood Quarry. Over the years Stamperland House was occupied by several prominent businessmen.

“Slamanshill Farm comprises the largest part of modern Stamperland. Its steading originally lay in what is now The Quadrant. During the farming improvements in the 1760s, it was rebuilt slightly to the east, on the farm track which became Stamperland Avenue. Like Muirhouse, the Slamanshill farm buildings were demolished around 1800, and the exact site is lost among local gardens. In a press advert from 1804, the landlord offered to build a new steading for the incoming tenant, but this was never carried out. Despite the lack of a farmhouse or buildings, the farm lived on, but in name only. It was worked by the owner of adjacent Overlee Farm.

“Overlee was effectively independent from Williamwood estate, but is now part of modern Stamperland. Overlee farmstead (Overlee House) is one of the oldest buildings in the area, dating from the middle of the 19th century. Close to Overlee steading, a remarkable early settlement was found in the early 1800s. It consisted of a circle of stone dwellings and various artefacts. Unfortunately the site was never properly recorded, and remains an enigma to this day.

“Drumby (or Drumbyhill) was a relatively new farm, the name first appearing in the 1770s. Drumby Farm comprised most of the southern part of Williamwood Golf Course. The steading was severed from its farmland by the Busby railway in the 1860s. The site of the steading now lies out with modern Stamperland, at the Esso garage on Eastwoodmains Road.

“Williamwood Estate had two gatehouses or ‘lodges’, both on Clarkston Road. The southern lodge, at the end of modern Beechlands Drive, was known as Stamperland Lodge. In 1810 the mail coach called every day, and by the 1850s omnibuses passed the gate three times daily. Locals might argue that the bus service hasn’t improved since then!

“The fortunes of the farms depended largely on the attention paid to them by the landowner. By the end of the 18th century the Maxwells of Williamwood were in decline. The estate began to suffer from neglect, and by 1800 the farm buildings were in poor condition. This was when both Muirhouse and Slamanshill were demolished.”166

**FALKIRK**

Ian Scott represents: “In the famous memoirs of the 17th century Scottish soldier James Graham, Marquis of Montrose published in 1680, the author talks about Sir John de Graeme and says: ‘His tomb is yet to be seen in a little chapel, which takes the name of Falkirk, or Valkirk, (Fannum Valli) from the Grahams Dyke near which it stands.’ He was not the only observer before his time or since to think that the town takes its name from the Roman Antonine Wall (as Grahams Dyke is properly known) but he was wrong!

“When the town first appeared in written form around 1080, it was called in Gaelic Egglesbreth or possibly Egglesbrech which seems to mean the ‘speckled’ or ‘spotted’ church. Certainly that's what the scholarly churchmen of the 12th century thought because they called the place in Latin, Varia Capella, which means more or less the same thing. By the time the early form of English began to hold sway, and certainly by the time of the Wallace battle in 1298, it had become Fau or Faw (speckled) Kirk (church).

“The first time it appears as Falkirk is in 1458 when presumably some scribe or another thought that since the way we Scots say Wa’ instead of ‘Wall’ and Ba’ instead of ‘Ball’ then Fa in the town’s name should be written as Fal. And we have been making the same mistake ever since. Except the children and football fans who say Fa’Kirk. They are right!

“Going back to the beginning, there is a good argument (especially from Falkirk historian John Reid) which suggests that although people thought that the name meant ‘speckled church’ in the 11th century, it may be because an earlier version sounded like that, and they didn't know any better! John argues that other names in Scotland beginning with Eccles (the Latinized version of Eggles) like Ecclesmachan or Ecclefechan usually mean ‘the church of Machan’ or similar. This might mean that Falkirk's first church was the church of Brych or Brychan or Egglesbrich or something like it. These people probably spoke a form of Welsh, a Celtic language related to Gaelic, and when a future generation rendered it into the Gaelic of the time, it became ‘the speckled church’. If this is true then our church and the community of Falkirk may be a lot older than we usually claim. Back as far as the 5th century when the monks of St Ninian passed this way on their mission to convert northern Picts!”167

FH Groome specifies: “Falkirk, a town and parish of southeast Stirlingshire. An industry, and the virtual capital of the southeastern parliamentary burgh, a seat of considerable trade and portion of the county, the town stands near the southern bank of the Forth and Clyde Canal, and 3¼ miles southeast Grahamston, on the Polmont and Larbert loop-line of the right shore of the Firth of Forth. By road it is 1¾ mile south-southeast of Carron Iron-works, and 7½ miles east-northeast of Linlithgow; whilst from two North British stations - (1852), at the town, and Falkirk, on the Edinburgh and Glasgow section (1842), ¾ mile south-southwest - it is 25½ miles west by north of Edinburgh, 3 southwest of Grangemouth, 11 south-southeast of Stirling, and 21¾ east-northeast of Glasgow. The site is partly a gentle hillside, partly low level ground on the southern skirt of the Carse of Forth, and commands magnificent views of the Ochils, the Denny and Campsie Hills, and the Grampian Mountains. The town itself, as seen from vantage-grounds to the north and northwest, presents a striking appearance, and forms a fine foreground to the beautiful prospect beyond, but, when one enters it, disappoints expectation, and, for its size and importance, has few attractions to offer. Falkirk proper, as a whole, is still old-fashioned and irregular; but its far-spreading suburbs, Grahamston, Forganhall, Arnothill, etc, comprise a number of good recent streets, rows, villas, and cottages; and its environs are beautified by the woods of Callendar, Bantaskine, and other mansions.

“The town steeple, in the market-place, rebuilt in 1813 on the site of a tower of 1697, is 146 feet high, and contains a clock and two bells; immediately west of it is a stone equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington, erected by public subscription in 1854. The burgh buildings and prison (1866-9) are Scottish Baronial in style, and comprise a mansard-roofed southeast tower, 60 feet high, a spacious court-hall, and a council-room; the prison, containing nine cells, since 1878 has merely served as a place of imprisonment for terms of not more than fourteen days. The town-hall, Italian in style, and seated for upwards of 1,600 persons, is the corn exchange of 1859, reconstructed in 1879 at a cost of over 5,000 pounds. Italian, too, is the Science and Art School, which, opened by the Earl of Rosebery in 1878, has a large hall and five smaller ones, among them a chemical laboratory. Other noteworthy edifices are the National Bank (1863), the Young Men's Christian Association Hall (1880), and the Catholic Institute (1881).

“Falkirk in Latin is termed Varian Capella, and still is known to Highlanders as Eaglaisbreac. Both mean ‘the speckled church’, or ‘the church of the mixed people’; and Falkirk, or rather Fawkirk, is the Saxon equivalent for the same, being compounded of Anglo-Saxon fah, ‘of various colors’, and circe, ‘kirk or church’. Antoninus' Wall passed just to the south, and various Roman relics have from time to time been found. St Modan, fellow-worker with St Ronan, on a mission connected with the Romish party, appears to have been here about the year 717; and in 1080, in revenge for Malcolm Ceannmor's devastation of Northumberland, William the Conqueror sent his son Robert to Scotland, ‘who, having gone as far as Egglesbreth, returned without accomplishing anything.’ Prior to Sauchieburn (1488) the discontented nobles occupied Falkirk, whose old church witnessed a solemn subscription of the League and Covenant in 1643, and which two years later was decimated by the plague. These are the leading events in Falkirk's history, besides the two battles and passing visits from Robert Burns (25 Aug 1787), from Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy (14 Sept 1803), and from the Queen and Prince Consort (13 Sept 1843). ‘Like the bairns o' Fa'kirk, they'll end ere they mend,’ says a popular by-word, but Falkirk has produced one most illustrious ‘bairn’ in Admiral Sir Charles Napier (1786-1860), who was born at Merchiston Hall. Another native was Henry Belfrage, (1774-1835), an eminent Secession minister; whilst residents were William Symington (1760-1831), a claimant to the invention of steam navigation, and James Wilson, author of a History of Egypt, and minister of Falkirk from 1794 to his death in 1829.

“Of the two battles of Falkirk, the first was fought on 22 July 1298 between Scottish and English armies, led by Sir William Wallace, then guardian of the kingdom, and Edward I of England. The invading host is said by the English chroniclers of the day to have numbered 7,500 mounted men-at-arms (3,000 of them clad in coats of mail) and 80,000 foot - a force before which Wallace's poor army, less than a third of the enemy's, was fain to retreat, leaving Edward a desert to tread where neither was there food to eat nor man to direct him on the way. The plan bade fair to succeed, but treachery revealed the whereabouts of Wallace, and Edward at once advanced from Kirkliston to Linlithgow, so eager to bring the matter to an issue that not even the breaking of two of his ribs by a kick from a horse could make him defer the fight. For Wallace there was no alternative. ‘In the battle of Stirling,’ says Dr Hill Burton, ‘the great point made was the selection of the ground; in this he showed even more of the tactician in the disposal of his troops where they were compelled to fight. It is a strong testimony to skill in the ordering of an army that it should be not only distinct, but hold a shape of which we can estimate the merit by knowing how valuable it is in modern warfare. The English chronicler describes the marshalling of the Scots army with such clearness that a picture or diagram would not have improved it. Taking up a slightly inclined plain, Wallace drew up his small body of 1,000 mounted cavaliers in the rear, and distributed the footmen into

circular clumps. In each circle the men knelt down-those in the outer rim at least-and held their lances obliquely erect; within the circle of lancers were the bowmen. The arrangement, save that it was circular instead of rectangular, was precisely the same as the square to receive cavalry which has baffled and beaten back so many a brilliant army in later days. It seemed at first as if Wallace's circles were to have a similar history. The first efforts against them were ineffectual, and the horsemen seemed shy of charging the thick clumps of spears. The inequality of force was too great, however, to be neutralized by skill. The charges of Edward's mounted horsemen at last crushed the circles, one after another, and when this was done the rest was mere rout and slaughter. Wallace managed to carry a small body out of the field, and marched to Stirling. They found it useless to attempt to hold the place; so, destroying what they could, they marched on no one knows whither, the commander and his followers alike disappearing from the history of that war.’ No monument marks the field of battle itself, midway between the Carron and the town; but on the top of a hill, 1 mile southeast of Callendar Wood, stands ‘Wallace's Stone’, a pillar 10 feet high, erected in 1810 to replace the smaller original slab, a little to the west. In the churchyard of Falkirk is the gravestone of Sir John Graham of Abercorn, who fell in the action, and who, as well as Sir John Stewart of Bonkill, was here interred. The gravestone has been trebly renovated; or rather there are three superincumbent stones, each of the upper ones being a copy of the one beneath it. On all are the following inscriptions:

‘Mente manuque potens, et Vallae fidus achates.

Conditur hic Gramus, beilo interfectus ab angiis.’

‘xxii. Julii, anno 1298’

‘Here lyes Sir John the Grame, baith wight and wise,

Ane of the chiefs who reschewit Scotland thrice.

Ane better knight not to the world was lent.

Nor was gude Grame of truth and hardiment.’

“The second battle of Falkirk was fought on 17 Jan 1746, between the Highland army, 8,000 strong, of Prince Charles Edward, and 9,000 Hanoverians under General Hawley, 1,300 of whom were horse, and 1,000 Argyll Highlanders. The Prince was preparing to lay siege to Stirling Castle, but news being brought of Hawley's advance from Edinburgh to its relief, determined to give him battle. The English commander, arriving at Falkirk, encamped between the town and the former field of battle, there to wait till he should gather sufficient intelligence for the arrangement of his operations. The foe, so far from being daunted by his approach, resolved to attack him in his camp, and skillfully used such feints to divert and deceive the royal troops, that they were just about to cross the Carron at Dunipace before they were perceived. Hawley, a pig-headed disciplinarian, with an easy contempt for ‘undisciplined rabbles’, was breakfasting at Callander House with the Jacobite Countess of Kilmarnock; and ‘Where is the General?’- was his officers' frequent inquiry, till at length the General rode furiously up, his grey hair streaming in the wind. He found his men formed already, and, seeing the Highlanders advancing towards a hill near South Bantaskine, 1¼ mile southwest of the town, sent the dragoons on to seize and to hold the height, and ordered the foot to follow. The author of Douglas, John Hume, who served as lieutenant in the Glasgow Volunteers, describes how, ‘at the very instant the regiments of foot began to arch, the day was overcast; and by-and-by a storm of wind and rain beat directly in the face of the soldiers, who were

marching up the hill with their bayonets fixed, and could not secure their pieces from the rain. The cavalry was a good way before the infantry, and for some time it seemed a sort of race between the Highlanders and the dragoons which should get first to the top of the hill.’ The Highlanders won the race, and drew up in a battle array of two lines, with a reserve in the rear. The royal troops, making the most of their circumstances, formed in two lines along a ravine in front of the enemy; but, owing to the convexity of the ground, saw their antagonists, and were seen in turn, only in the central part of the line. Their dragoons were on the left, commanded by Hawley in person, and stretching parallel to more than two-thirds of the enemy's position; and their infantry were on the right, partly in rear of the cavalry, and outlined by two regiments the enemy's left. The armies standing within 100 yards of each other, both unprovided on the spot with artillery, Hawley ordered his dragoons to advance, sword in hand. Meeting with a warm reception, several companies, after the first onset, and receiving a volley at the distance of ten or twelve paces, wheeled round, and galloped out of sight, disordering the infantry and exposing their left flank by the flight. The Highlanders, taking advantage of the confusion, outflanked the royal forces, rushed down upon them with the broadsword, compelled them to give way, and commenced a pursuit. The King's troops, but for the spirited exertions of two unbroken regiments and a rally of some scattered battalions, who checked the pursuers, would have been annihilated; as it was, they had 12 officers and 55 privates killed, and in killed, wounded, and missing lost altogether 280 men according to their own returns, 1,300 according to the Jacobites. Among the persons of rank who were left dead on the field were Sir Robert Munro of Foulis, Bart, and his brother Duncan, a physician. They were buried beside each other in the churchyard of Falkirk, and commemorated in a superb monument erected over their ashes, and inscribed with a succinct statement of the circumstances of their death. The Jacobites' loss was only some 40 killed and 80 wounded; and they remained at Falkirk till the 19th, when they returned by Bannockburn to resume the investment of Stirling Castle.”168

John Bartholomew tells: “Falkirk, parliamentary burgh, market town, and parish, east Stirlingshire, on a declivity overlooking the Carse of Falkirk, 21¾ miles northeast of Glasgow, 25½ northwest of Edinburgh, and 396 northwest of London by rail - parish, 19,551 acres, population 25,143; parliamentary burgh, population 13,170; town, population 15,599; 5 Banks, 2 newspapers. Market-day, Thursday. The town of Falkirk includes Falkirk proper, Grahamston, Bainsford, Camelon and Lock 16, and Parkfoot and High Station. It is connected with the port of Grangemouth by a railway 3 miles long. In the town or its vicinity are the Carron Ironworks, the Falkirk Foundry at Bainsford, and the Rosebank Distillery; also, collieries, chemical works, brick and tile works, etc. The Falkirk trysts are the largest cattle fairs in Scotland. Two battles have been fought in the neighborhood of Falkirk - between Sir William Wallace and Edward I (July 1298), in which Wallace was defeated, and between the Royal forces and those of Prince Charles Stuart (January 1746), in which the Royal forces were defeated. In the churchyard are the graves of Sir John Graham and Sir John Stewart, who fell in the battle of 1298, and of Sir Robert Munro of Foulis and his brother, Dr Munro, who fell in the battle of 1746. The Falkirk Burghs, for parliamentary purposes, return 1 member; they consist of Falkirk, in Stirlingshire; of Lanark, Hamilton, and Airdrie, in Lanarkshire; and of Linlithgow, in Linlithgowshire.”169

Neil Oliver chronicles: “Edward was facing the prospect of a frustrating, even humiliating withdrawal when word reached him that Wallace and his force had been spotted just 20 miles away, at Falkirk. Determined the opportunity would not be missed, Edward force-marched his men towards what he hoped would be a final showdown. English and Welsh blood was already up; the anti-Wallace

propaganda machine had gone into overdrive in recent weeks and the soldiers believed they were in pursuit not of a man, but of an ogre who wanted to skin them alive.

“The sight of the English approach can only have been a mixed blessing at best for Wallace. It might have been better for him had Edward begun a frustrated march for home – at least then they could have been harried and tormented as they headed south through a wasted land. Now a pitched battle was in prospect. He had managed victory – resounding victory – at Stirling just the year before. Perhaps it was best to get it over with, while Scots spirits were high. Now, though, he was without Murray, a man often painted by history as the real tactical and military genius of the rebellion. Wallace was the heart and soul of Scotland, but would he also pass muster as her commander-in-chief?

“It was too late in the day for fighting by the time Edward got his men within reach of the rebels, so they hunkered down in their thousands for an uneasy night of mumbled rumors and broken sleep. With the dawn of 22 July came orders to form up and face the monster. Wallace had his men arrayed in gigantic schiltrons – thousands of men packed shoulder-to-shoulder, long spears prickling in every direction. Between those hedgehogs was a body of Ettrick archers, commanded by Sir John Stewart, and roving around the fringes and ready to be unloosed whenever needed were the horses and riders of the Scots cavalry. These were smaller beasts than those of fabled English heavy horse, their riders only lightly armed, but they might prove vital just the same.

“The first charges by the English cavalry were galled by the stubborn resolve of the spearmen in their schiltrons. So long as order and discipline could be maintained, they made a formidable obstacle. No headway could be made by the infantry on either side and for a while it seemed deadlock might stifle any chances of a telling breakthrough. Wallace may even have found cause to hope his men might carry the day by dogged determination alone.

“In the end it was the Scots cavalry that made the difference – by unceremoniously quitting the field. No explanation for their action was available on the day and none has surfaced since. In the absence of fact there have been rumors – of cowardice, of treachery – but in any event their departure made all the difference. Emboldened by having the field to themselves, the English horse now advanced towards the Ettrick archers. Where before the bowmen had been protected by the presence of the Scots cavalry, now they were exposed and dangerously static on the field. Under the command of their leader, Wallace’s loyal follower Sir John Stewart, they bravely stood their ground. But the weight and purpose of the heavy horse was too much and they were soon cut down to the last man.”170

***BONNYBRIDGE, FALKIRK***

John Reid declares: “Early mentions of the place that came to be known as Bonnybridge name it as Ford of Bonny (Fuird of Bonny 1648). The part of the village on the south side of the River Bonny was also known as Bonnywater while the part on the north side was called Water of Bonny. The earliest record for the modern name comes from 1682, when it appears as Bonniebridge, which may give some indication of the period in which the first bridge there was built. Bonnywater lay in the barony of Seabegs, while Water of Bonny was in the lands of Seamore, a division of the barony of South Herbertshire. Throughout the greater part of its history the southern portion lay in the Parish of Falkirk, as did the northern one, until the seventeenth century when the parish of Denny was created. Bonnybridge only became an independent parish in 1878.

“There are indications that a settlement has existed near the river crossing for several centuries. A motte structure, probably dating from the twelfth century, which lies within the grounds of Antonine Primary School, along with early mentions of St Helens Chapel in the area, would seem to support this. Certainly, by the 1780s it is evident that a population large enough to warrant a school was living there and in the immediate vicinity.

“A little way to the south east of Bonnybridge is Roughcastle Roman fort. It lies on a tract of land called Bonnymuir whereon the Falkirk Trysts were held for a short period after the division of Reddingrig, and it was while the fairs were held there that the great bagpipe competitions began. It was on that muir in 1820 that a group of Radicals led by Andrew Hardie were confronted by Hussars in the action that came to be known as the Battle of Bonnymuir. The tunnel underneath the canal has long been associated with this event and today bears a plaque naming it ‘The Radical Pend’.

“The coming of the Forth & Clyde Canal caused Bonnybridge to grow and become a center for industrial production. Iron-founding was important, and the firm of Smith and Wellstood became prominent in that sphere. Chemical manufacturing and whisky distilling were also practiced close to the canal. Refractory brick making was also significant, an activity based on the presence of large quantities of fireclay found in association with the coal levels. The refractory brickworks were related to the railways rather than the canal. Bonnybridge was particularly well served by rail. The Edinburgh to Glasgow line runs on the south of High Bonnybridge and the Carlisle to Perth line on the north side. An important junction joins the two lines at Greenhill where, formerly, were large marshalling yards and a creosoting works for the preparation of railway sleepers and telegraph poles. A small engine shed was also in operation there in the first half of the twentieth century. The village of Greenhill originated as a railway village.”171

***CALIFORNIA, FALKIRK***

John Reid displays: “California, on the other hand, is an introduced name and, indeed, there are six instances of it found in Britain: this local one and five in England. In the eighteenth century the great annual cattle trysts moved from Crieff to Falkirk district. When this happened the common muir of Reddingrig and Whitesiderig was the first location of what came to be known as the ‘Falkirk Trysts?’ The focal point of these activities was at the place we now know as Shieldhill. In a field on the south side of what is now Main Street, close to the cross, were set the tents that housed the bankers, publicans and caterers. A contemporary map names it ‘The Place of the Tents’. All around the muir were stances where the animals were herded during the course of the tryst and some of these are reflected in local place-names such as Standrig and Standburn. Other names related to the pastoral activities, although not necessarily to the trysts, are Herdshill and Divoties, the latter relating to the temporary dwellings built of turf or divots called shiels erected by the herders. In the 1770s the commonly was divided amongst the feudal heritors and, as a consequence, the trysts were no longer held there.”172

***DUNMORE PINEAPPLE, FALKIRK***

Ian Scott expresses: “The Pineapple is one of Scotland's most famous follies. It is a huge stone replica of the fruit, beautifully carved to reproduce all the features of the real thing. It sits on top of a garden pavilion erected in 1761 by John Murray the 4th Earl of Dunmore, and stands some 45 feet above ground level on the south slope and 37 feet on the north. The pineapple part was probably added around 1777 when the Earl returned to Scotland after serving as Governor of the colonies of New

York and Virginia. On the east coast of the American colonies the pineapple was a symbol of welcome, and often the planters from the West Indies, who had big mansions in New York and New England, would place a real pineapple on their gate post as a sign that they were home and ready to receive visitors. Murray returned to the Americas after the War of Independence as Governor of the Bahamas where pineapples were a major product. It is just possible that the stone Pineapple was erected during or after his time there which would place it in the late 1780s or early 90s.

“The estate of Dunmore was acquired by John Murray in 1754 as a purchase from the Elphinstones. He was from a Perthshire family closely related to the Marquis of Atholl from Blair Castle. The name Dunmore came from their Perthshire estates and was transferred to the new properties in Stirlingshire. The village of Elphinstone Pans was renamed Dunmore and was rebuilt as a model village in the mid-19th century by one of John Murray's descendants.

“The designer of the pineapple has never been identified, though a number of names have been suggested, including Robert Mylne, a brilliant architect with connections to the family, William Chambers, the architect of Kew Gardens and Abraham Swan, a designer and wood carver with Blair Castle links and considerable experience of designing dome structures. However there is no direct evidence, and these designers make no reference to the project in their correspondence or work diaries. The same is true of the builders. It may be that the designers and masons were Italian and left no available record in this country. Some people have suggested that the family and possibly the designers were rather ashamed of the extravagant folly, which was more to do with the vanity of one man than to any attempt to advance architecture.

“Pineapples were certainly grown at Dunmore. The south facing wall is hollow and had a fairly sophisticated heating system pumping hot air through the cavities. This along with sloping glass and a mixture of horse manure and tanner's bark created the necessary temperature to produce the tropical fruit in cold Scotland. The urns on the wall head were chimney pots. Pineapple was a rare and exotic treat in the 18th century, and those who had the fruit were regarded as very wealthy indeed. Dunmore provided supplies to Holyrood House and other stately homes in central Scotland. The Dunmore family sold the estates in 1911, and the Pineapple and the buildings fell into disrepair. In 1973 it was given to the National Trust for Scotland and beautifully restored for them by the Landmark Trust who now use it as a holiday property.”173

Ian Scott describes ‘Walk Number 5’: “The Pineapple and Dunmore Village (approximately 3.5 miles): We begin our walk in the little car park at the Pineapple. This is quite small so doubling up car arrangements might make good sense.

“From the car park we make our way to the walled garden and to the spot near the pond where we have an excellent view of the structure from the south. The magnificent pineapple is an extremely realistic representation in stone of the fruit and was erected by John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore in the second half of the 18th century. He acquired the lands of Elphinstone in 1754, and the name Dunmore was transferred from his family estates in Perthshire. Sometime after this the walled garden was constructed, and in 1761 the Italian style portico on which the pineapple now sits was added. There is considerable dispute as to who designed the folly, who built it, and exactly when. Some argue that it was created at the same time as the portico and others that it was added after the Earl returned from a spell in America as Governor of New York and Virginia, around 1777. Pineapples were certainly grown here, and the sustained heat required for the process was obtained by cavity wall heating, organic heat

from tanners bark and manure and through south facing, sloping glass panels which were still there in photographs from the early 20th century. By the 1950s the whole area was much neglected but was restored by the Landmark Trust for the NTS in the early 1970s. The Pineapple can be rented as a holiday home.

“Leaving the Pineapple we pass out of the walled garden (we may be able to take a swift look at the other side if the holiday renters are not about!) and follow the path which leads us towards the ruined Elphinstone Tower. On the left of the pathway is Dunmore Hill or Airth Beg (Little Airth) as it used to be called. The tower is now in a very poor condition. It was formerly the castle of the Elphinstones, built around 1500 but was not used as a home by the Dunmores. When they built Dunmore Park in 1822, the old tower was adapted into a family Mausoleum with a graveyard adjoining. In 1845 the family built St Andrews Episcopal Church next to the tower. The church was demolished just a few years ago, and the bodies of the Murrays were moved after a number of cases of vandalism. The tower has been allowed to decay.

“We make our way back to the path which leads us parallel to the main road beyond which we can see across the River Forth to Clackmannan Church and Tower which are very prominent. On our left is the large house known as the Parsonage, presumably built for the episcopal vicar of St Andrews by the family. We can also see several circles of trees deliberately planted to provide cover for game and sport for the toffs, including the future King Edward VII, who spent a good deal of their time here and helped to bankrupt the Murrays!

“At the end of the path we turn left towards the estate and will be able to see the ruins of the fabulous Dunmore Park mansion. Unfortunately the ground conditions are such that we will only manage to see it from afar. This building was designed by William Wilkins and is on the same lines as Dalmeny House. It was built in 1822 but by 1911 had been sold by the departing Dunmores. It was a family home and briefly a girls' school before it was effectively abandoned in the 1960s. Many of the buildings to the rear of the main block were demolished in the 1970s for safety reasons, and so far all the visionary plans for restoration have come to nothing. The farm buildings are also very attractive with the familiar castle-like square crenellated towers.

“We now make our way down towards the main road and cross (with great care) to the road leading to Dunmore Home Farm. This takes us to a path parallel to the River which leads eventually to the village of Dunmore. Formerly known as Elphinstone Pans, the village was redesigned from the 1840s on by the Dunmore family as a kind of model ‘English’ village with its central green. The school building near the main road and the old smithy close to the river are the best known buildings, and the well with its poetic inscription is worth a look.

“After taking a look at the old harbor we will make our way back across the road and retrace our steps along the path that leads back to the Pineapple.”174

***ELPHINSTONE TOWER, FALKIRK***

Ian Scott notes: “Elphinstone Tower stands on rising ground to the west of the Airth to Stirling road nearly opposite the entrance to Dunmore village. It is currently in a dilapidated condition and may not survive for many more winters. The building was erected around 1510 for Sir John Elphinstone and remained the family home until the estates were sold to the Murrays of Dunmore in 1754. Thereafter it

appears to have been unoccupied until the conversion of the barrel-vaulted lower room into a family mausoleum around 1836.

“The tower was 57 foot high on a rectangular base, roughly 30 foot by 24 feet. There is evidence of alteration in the 17th and 19th centuries, particularly to the windows, and there was a two storey extension which is shown on the drawing. This was removed around 1840 to make way for the new St Andrew's Church. There were rooms on the first, second and third floors.

“The Murrays connection with the area ended in 1911, and the building has slowly decayed and been subject to vandalism including the tombs.”175

***SKINFLATS, FALKIRK***

www.falkirk.gov.uk records: “Skinflats is a village in the Falkirk Council area of Scotland. It lies on the A905 road north of Grangemouth and near to the River Carron and River Forth.

“The name of the village is sometimes claimed to be of Dutch origin, supposedly bestowed by Dutch engineers working on land reclamation in the 17th century, but there is no evidence that any such reclamation projects took place in the parish of Bothkennar, where Skinflats is located, and the place-name is readily explained as Scots in origin.

“Skinflats was originally a pit village, but no mining has taken place there for many years.

“According to the 2001 Census, Skinflats was recorded as having a resident population of 347, almost unchanged since 1991.”176

**FIFE**

www.ancestry.com reveals: “Fife: Scottish: regional name from the former kingdom of Fife in East Scotland, a name of obscure etymology. Tradition has it that the name is derived from an eponymous Fib, one of the seven sons of Cruithne, legendary founding father of the Picts.”177

FH Groome spells out: “Fife or Fifeshire, a maritime county on the east side of Scotland. It is bounded on the north by the Firth of Tay, on the east by the German Ocean, on the south by the Firth of Forth, and on the west by Perth, Clackmannan, and Kinross shires. Its greatest length, from Fife Ness west-southwestward to Torry, is 41½ miles; its greatest breadth in the opposite direction, from Newburgh on the Tay to Burntisland on the Firth of Forth, is 21 miles; and its area is 513 square miles or 328,427 acres, of which 12,338¼ are foreshore and 1,082 water. The western boundary, 61 miles long if one follows its ins and outs, is marked here and there, from south to north, by Comrie Burn, Loch Glow, Lochornie Burn, Benarty Hill, and the rivers Leven and Farg, but mostly is artificial. The northern coast, which has little curvature, trends mostly in an east-northeasterly direction, and measures 20¾ miles in length; the eastern is deeply indented by St Andrews Bay or the estuary of the Eden, and in its southern part forms a triangular peninsula, terminating in Fife Ness, on the north of the entrance to the Firth of Forth. The coast measures in a straight line from Tents Moor Point to Fife Ness 14½ miles, but along its curvatures 24 miles. The southern coast, 55 miles long, from Fife Ness to North Queensferry runs generally in a southwesterly direction, and from North Queensferry to the western boundary takes a west-northwesterly turn. The shoreline projects slightly at Elie Ness, Kinghorn Ness, and North Queensferry, and has considerable bays at Largo and Inverkeithing. It offers a pleasing variety of beach and shore, partly rocky and partly sandy, but generally low and gentle. The sea has, from time to time,

made great encroachments on the shores of Fife, at Burntisland, Kirkcaldy, Dysart, Crail, St Andrews, and other places, eating away fields, gardens, fences, piers, and even dwelling-houses.

“It is claimed by the natives of Fife that it has a more peaceful history than most other counties in Scotland, containing no great battlefields, and although prominent in many important events, displaying to view few signal crimes and no great national disasters. Ancient stone circles, standing stones, and cairns or tumuli abounded, but are not now to be found, though remains of hill forts exist in several places. On Dunearn there are remains of such a fort, and another strong one was on Carneil Hill, near Carnock, and stood adjacent to some tumuli which were found in 1774 to enshrine a number of urns containing Roman coins. Traces of two Roman military stations are found near the same locality; and a Roman camp for Agricola's ninth legion was pitched in the vicinity of Loch Orr, confronting Benarty Hill on the right and the Cleish Hills on the left. Human skeletons, found at various periods on the southern seaboard, are regarded as relics of conflicts with invading Danes in the 9th and following centuries. Great monastic establishments were formed at St Andrews, Dunfermline, Balmerino, Lindores, Inchcolm, and Pittenweem, and have left considerable remains. Mediaeval castles stood at St Andrews, Falkland, Leuchars, Kellie, Dunfermline, Bambriech, Balcomie, Dairsie, Aberdour, Seafield, Loch Orr, Tarbet, Rosyth, Inverkeithing, Ravenscraig, Wemyss, Monimail, Balwearie, etc, and have left a large aggregate of interesting ruins. Old churches, with more or less of interest, exist at Crail, St Monance, Leuchars, Dysart, Kirkforthar, Dunfermline, Dairsie, and St Andrews.

“Early in the summer of 83 AD Agricola had his army conveyed across the Bodotria, or Firth of Forth, and landing, as is said, at Burntisland, gradually but thoroughly made himself master of Fife, whilst his fleet crept round its shores, and penetrated into the Firth of Tay. The eastern half of the peninsula was then possessed by the Vernicomes, and the western by the Damnonii, one of whose three towns, the ‘Victoria’ of Ptolemy, was situated at Loch Orr, a lake, now drained, in Ballingry parish. The Damnonii, says Dr Skene, ‘belonged to the Cornish variety of the British race, and appear to have been incorporated with the southern Picts, into whose language they introduced a British element. The Frisian settlements, too, on the shores of the Firth of Forth, prior to 441, may also have left their stamp on this part of the nation; and the name of Fothrik, applied to a district now represented by Kinross-shire and the western part of Fife, may preserve a recollection of their Rik or kingdom.’ Fife itself is probably the Frisian Fibh, ‘a forest’; the name Frisian Sea is applied by Nennius to the Firth of Forth; and part of its northern shore was known as the Frisian Shore. By the establishment of the Scottish monarchy in the person of Kenneth mac Alpin (844-60), Fib or Fife, as part of southern Pictavia, became merged in the kingdom of Alban, of which under Constantin III (900-40), it is described as forming the second of seven provinces, a province comprising the entire peninsula, along with the district of Gowrie. It thus included the ancient Pictish capital, Abernethy, whither in 865 the primacy was transferred from Dunkeld, and whence in 908 it was again removed to St Andrews. In 877 the Danes, expelled by the Norwegians from Ireland, sailed up the Firth of Clyde, crossed the neck of the mainland, and attacked the province of Fife. They routed the ‘Scots’ at Dollar, and, chasing them northeastward to Inverdovet in Forgan, there gained a second and more signal victory, King Constantin, son of Kenneth mac Alpin, being among the multitude of the slain. On two accounts this battle is remarkable, first as the only great conflict known for certain to have been fought on Fife soil; and, secondly, as the earliest occasion when the term ‘Scotti’ or Scots is applied to any of the dwellers in Pictavia. According to Hector Boece and his followers, Kenneth mac Alpin appointed one Fifus Duffus thane or governor of the province of Fife, but thanes of Fife there never were at any time, and the first Makduf, Earl of Fife, figures in three successive charters

of David I (1124-53), first as simply ‘Gillemichel Makduf’, next as ‘Gillemichel Comes’, and lastly as ‘Gillemichel Comes de Fif’. In earlier charters of the same reign we hear, indeed, of other Earls of Fife - Edelrad, son of Malcolm Ceannmor, and Constantin, - but between these and the Macduffs there seems to have been no connection. The demesne of the Macduff Earls of Fife appears to have consisted of the parishes of Cupar, Kilmany, Ceres, and Cameron in Fife, and those of Strathmiglo and Auchtermuchty in Fothriff, near which Macduff's Cross was situated. Whether this sept were the remains of the old Celtic inhabitants of the province, or a Gaelic clan introduced into it when its chief was made Earl, it is difficult to say; but it is not impossible that it may have been a northern clan who followed Macbeth (1040-57) when the southern districts were subjected to his rule, and that there may be some foundation for the legend that the founder of the clan had rebelled against him, and adopted the cause of Malcolm Ceannmor, and so maintained his position. Some probability is lent to this supposition by the fact that the race from whom the Mormaers of Moray derived their origin is termed in one of the Irish genealogical MSS. Clan Duff, and that the Earls of Fife undoubtedly possessed from an early period large possessions in the North, including the district of Strathaven. The privileges of the clan, however, stand on a different footing. From the earliest period the territory of Fife comes prominently forward as the leading province of Scotland, and its earls occupied the first place among the seven earls of Scotland. The first two privileges, of placing the king on the Coronation Stone, and of heading the van in the army, were probably attached to the province of Fife, and not to any particular tribe from which its earls might have issued; on the other hand, the third seems derived from the institution connected with the ancient Finé, etc.

“The history of Fife centers round no one town, as that of Dumfriesshire round Dumfries, but is divided among three at least - St Andrews for matters ecclesiastical; for temporal, Dunfermline and Falkland. Each of the latter has its royal palace; and Dunfermline was the burial-place of eight of Scotland's kings, from Malcolm Ceannmor (1093) to the great Robert Bruce (1329), though not of Alexander II, who met with his death in Fife, being dashed from his horse over the headland of Kinghorn (1286). Duncan, Earl of Fife, was one of the three guardians appointed to rule the southern district of the kingdom in the absence of Alexander's infant daughter, the Maid of Norway; but he was murdered in 1288; and his son, the next earl, was too young to seat John Baliol on the Coronation Stone (1292) or to take any part in the earlier scenes of the War of Independence. During that war, in 1298, the Scottish victory of ‘Black Irnsyde’ is said to have been won by Wallace over Aymer de Valence in Abdie parish, near Newburgh. The young Earl was absent at the English court in 1306, but his sister, the Countess of Buchan, discharged his functions at Bruce's coronation, for which, being captured by Edward, she was hung in a cage from one of the towers of Berwick. Presently, however, we find him on Bruce's side; and, according to Barbour, it was he and the sheriff of Fife who, with 500 mounted men-at-arms, were flying before an English force that had landed at Donibristle, when they were rallied by William Sinclair, Bishop of Dunkeld. Another English force under the Earl of Pembroke, in 1327, landed in Fife, and stormed the Castle of Leuchars; and in 1332 Edward Bruce and the ‘disinherited barons’ landed at Kinghorn, and marched northwestward to Dupplin, in Strathearn. A parliament was held at Dairsie Castle in 1335, but failed to accomplish its purposes; and another was then held at Dunfermline, and appointed Sir Andrew Moray to the regency. The English immediately afterwards invaded Scotland, sent a powerful fleet into the Firth of Forth, and temporarily overmastered Fife. A Scottish army, soon collected by Sir Andrew Moray to confront them, besieged and captured the town and castle of St Andrews, and, save in some strongly garrisoned places, drove the English entirely from the county. The Steward of Scotland (afterwards Robert II) succeeded Sir Andrew Moray in the command and direction of that army; and, in

the year of his accession to the throne (1371), the earldom of Fife was resigned by the Countess Isabella, last of the Macduff line, to his third son, Robert, Earl of Menteith, whose brother Walter had been her second husband. The new Earl of Fife was created Duke of Albany in 1398, and it is as the Regent Albany that his name is best known in history, whilst the deed whereby that name is most familiar was the murder - if murder it were - of the Duke of Rothesay at Falkland (1402), which figures in Sir Walter Scott's Fair Maid of Perth.

“Andrew Wood, in 1480, attacked and repulsed a hostile English squadron, which appeared in the Firth of Forth; and he received, in guerdon of his services, a royal grant of the village and lands of Largo. A body of 13,000 infantry and 1,000 horse, suddenly levied in Fife and Forfarshire, formed part of the Scottish army, which, in 1488, fought in the battle of Sauchieburn. The Douglases, in 1526, after defeating their opponents at Linlithgow, advanced into Fife, and pillaged Dunfermline Abbey and St Andrews Castle. Fife figures prominently in Scottish Reformation history. At St Andrews were burned the English Wiclifite, John Reseby (1408), the German Hussite, Paul Crawar (1432), and Scotland's own martyrs, Patrick Hamilton (1528), Henry Forrest (1533), and George Wishart (1546). Barely two months had elapsed ere the last was avenged by the murder of Cardinal Beaton, and barely thirteen years ere, in the summer of 1559, John Knox's ‘idolatrous sermon’ had roused, in Tennant's words:

‘The steir, strabush, and strife,

Whan, bickerin' frae the towns o' Fife.

Great bangs o' bodies, thick and rife,

Gaed to Sanct Androis town,

And wi' John Calvin i' their heads,

And hammers i' their hands and spades,

Enraged at idois, mass, and beads,

Dang the Cathedral down.’

“At Crail the crusade began, and from Crail the preacher and his ‘rascal multitude’ passed on to Anstruther, Pittenweem, St Monance, St Andrews, the abbeys of Balmerino and Lindores, and almost every other edifice in the county, large or small, that seemed a prop of the Romish religion. Queen Mary, in 1563, spent nearly four months in Fife, moving frequently from place to place, but residing chiefly at Falkland and St Andrews, where Chastelard was beheaded for having burst into her chamber at Burntisland. Next year, she spent some time at the same places; and at Wemyss Castle in Feburary 1565 she first met her cousin, Lord Darnley. Donibristle, in 1592, was the scene of the murder commemorated in the ballad of The Bonnie Earl o' Moray; and Falkland Palace, in 1600, was the scene of the antecedent of the mysterious affair known as the Gowrie Conspiracy. Fife suffered more injury to trade than most other districts of Scotland, from the removal of the court to London, at the accession of James VI to the crown of England (1603). Its enthusiasm for the Covenant was great, and the seaports put themselves in a state of defense when, on 1 May 1639, the Marquis of Hamilton arrived in the Firth of Forth with 19 Royalist vessels and 5,000 well-armed men, of whom, however, only 200 knew how to fire a musket. This alarm passed off with the pacification of Berwick; and the next marked episode is the battle of Pitreavie, fought near Inverkeithing on 20 July 1651, when 6,000 of Cromwell's troopers

defeated 4,000 adherents of Charles II, killing 1,600 and taking 1,200 prisoners. Then comes that darkest scene in all Fife's history, the murder by men of Fife on Magus Muir of Archbishop Sharp, 3 May 1679, so strongly illustrative of the fanaticism, the superstition, and the unwarlike spirit of its perpetrators. The Revolution (1688) was followed by a long and severe famine, a great depression of commerce, and an exhaustion of almost every resource; the Darien scheme (1695-9) proved more disastrous to Fife than to most other parts of Scotland; at the Union (1707) legitimate commerce was all but annihilated, its place being taken by smuggling. The Earl of Mar landed from London at Elie in Aug 1715, the month of the famous gathering at Braemar; on 12 Oct Brigadier MacIntosh of Borlum succeeded in conveying 1,600 Jacobites from Fife to East Lothian over the Firth of Forth; and about the same time the Master of Sinclair, proceeding from Perth through Fife with 400 horsemen, surprised two Government vessels at Burntisland, which furnished the rebels with 420 stands of arms. The plundering of the custom-house at Pittenweem by Wilson, Robertson, and other smugglers, is memorable as leading to the Porteous Riot at Edinburgh (1736). Among many illustrious natives are Tennant and Dr Chalmers, born at Anstruther; Lady Ann Barnard, at Balcarres; Alexander Hamilton, at Creich; Sir David Wilkie, at Cults; Lord Chancellor Campbell, at Cupar; Charles I and Sir Noël Paton, at Dunfermline; Richard Cameron, at Falkland; Adam Smith, at Kirkcaldy; Alexander Selkirk, at Largo; Sir David Lindsay, at Monimail; Major Whyte Melville, at Mount Melville, near St Andrews; and Lady Elizabeth Halket, at Pitreavie.

“A characteristic feature of Fife is its large number of small seaport towns, in many places so close as to be practically a continuous town. Buchanan used the expression oppidulis praecingitur to describe it, and James VI called the county ‘a grey cloth mantle with a golden fringe’. The modern demand for harbors capable of admitting large vessels has tended to concentrate the shipping of Fife at Burntisland, and the establishment of large factories has in like manner concentrated population in such places as Dunfermline and Kirkcaldy. Thus, though Fife is rich and fruitful in its land, and has many important industries, as well as large import and export trades, most of the coast towns are as quiet and decayed as to give the casual visitor a much less favorable impression of the county than a complete examination affords.

“The county acquired its popular name of the ‘Kingdom of Fife’, partly from its great extent and value, and partly from its forming an important portion of the Pictish dominion. It anciently, as we have seen, was much more extensive than it now is, comprehending nearly all the region between the Tay and the Forth, or the present counties of Fife, Kinross, and Clackmannan, the detached or Culross district of Perthshire, and the districts of Strathearn and Monteith. Dismemberments of it were made at various periods. In 1426 the county of Kinross was formed; other changes were afterwards made to form the stewartries of Clackmannan and Culross; and in 1685 three parishes were cut off to complete the present county of Kinross. Numerous ancient hereditary jurisdictions existed in the county, and, in common with similar jurisdictions in other parts of Scotland, were abolished, under compensation, in 1747. The chief of these were that of the steward of the stewartry of Fife, for which the Duke of Athole received 1,200 pounds; that of the bailie of the regality of Dunfermline, for which the Marquis of Tweeddale received 2,672 pounds, 7 shillings; that of the bailie of the regality of St Andrews, for which the Earl of Crawford received 3,000 pounds; that of the regality of Aberdour, for which the Earl of Morton received 93 pounds, 2 shillings; that of the regality of Pittenweem, for which Sir John Anstruther received 282 pounds, 15 shillings, 3 pence; that of the regality of Lindores, for which Antonia Barclay of Collerny received 215 pounds; and that of the regality of Balmerino, which had been forfeited to the Crown through Lord Balmerino's participation in the rebellion of 1745, and so was not valued.”178

John Bartholomew touches on: “Fife (or Fifeshire), maritime county in east of Scotland; is bounded north by the Firth of Tay, east by the North Sea, south by the Firth of Forth, and west by the counties of Perth, Kinross, and Clackmannan; greatest length, 43 miles; greatest breadth, 18 miles; area, 314,952 acres, population 171,931. Fife forms the peninsula between the Firths of Forth and Tay. The coast is varied and picturesque; that part of it bordering on the Firth of Forth is lined with a succession of towns and villages, for the great number of which Fife is remarkable. The surface is pleasantly undulating. A ridge of high ground, commencing with the Lomond Hills, runs from west to east; to the north, between the Lomonds and a spur of the Ochils, lies an extensive plain called Strath Eden, or the Howe of Fife; to the south is another stretch of low land, broken by Saline Hill, Knock Hill, the Hill of Beath, and the Cullalo Hills. The principal rivers are the Eden and the Leven. In the northwest the soil is moss, moor, and rock; in the northeast. It consists of wet clay; the most fertile tracts are the Howe of Fife and the belt of loam which fringes the Firth of Forth. The formation is chiefly Carboniferous, and Fife is the third largest coal-producing county in Scotland. Limestone and freestone abound. Blackband ironstone is worked at Lochgelly and Oakley (where there are smelting furnaces); oil shale is worked near Burntisland. The principal manufacturer is linen - damasks and diapers at Dunfermline, checks and ticks at Kirkcaldy. The county comprises 61 parishes and 2 parts, the Kirkcaldy Burghs (1 member), the St Andrews Burghs (1 member), the parliamentary burghs of Dunfermline and Inverkeithing (part of the Stirling Burghs), and the police burghs of Anstruther Easter, Auchtermuchty, Burntisland, Cupar, Dunfermline, Dysart, Elie (Liberty and Williamsburgh), Inverkeithing, Kilrenny, Kinghorn, Kirkcaldy, Ladybank (and Monkston), Leslie, Leven, Lochgelly, Newburgh, Pittenweem, and St Andrews. For parliamentary purposes it is divided into 2 divisions, viz, Eastern and Western, 1 member for each division; it returned 1 member until 1885.”179

***ABERCROMBIE, FIFE***

FH Groome clarifies: “Abercrombie (Gaelic ‘curved confluence’), or St Monans, a coast parish of south Fife, containing the hamlet of Abercrombie, and, 1½ mile south-southeast, the fishing village and burgh of barony of St Monans. The latter has a station on the North British, 2¾ miles west-southwest of Anstruther, and 16 east by north of Thornton junction, and a post office, with money order, savings' bank, and telegraph departments. It contains, besides, the parish church, a Free Church, gas-works, and a town-hall: and is governed by a provost, 2 bailies, a treasurer, and 9 councilors. A good harbor, partly natural, and partly formed by a strong pier constructed in 1865, accommodates three or four trading vessels, and about 100 large fishing-boats belonging to the port, but is seldom frequented by strangers: and the herring fishery, a principal employment of the villagers, is now restricted to the neighboring waters, no longer extending to the Caithness coast. Population (1851) 1,241, (1871) 1,648, (1881) 2,000.

“The parish is bounded west, northwest, and northeast by Carnbee, east by Pittenweem, southeast by the Firth of Forth (here 9¼ miles wide, to North Berwick Links), and southwest by Elie and Kilconquhar. It has an extreme length from north-northwest to south-southeast of 1 7/8 mile, a width of from 1 to 1 3/8 mile, and an area of 1,282 acres, of which 79 are foreshore. Rising abruptly from a low rocky beach, the surface shows some diversities, but on the whole is flat, and nowhere much exceeds 100 feet of elevation. Dreel Burn traces the northeastern boundary, and Inweary or St Monans Burn follows the southwestern, to within 5 furlongs of its influx to the Firth at the western extremity of St Monans village. The rocks belong to the Carboniferous formation, and coal, limestone, and ironstone have all been worked: the soil is chiefly a light friable loam, with very little clay, and of great fertility. Balcaskie Park extends over the northeast corner of the parish, and in it stands the ruined church of Abercrombie,

disused for upwards of two centuries, but still the Anstruthers' burying-place. On the coast, at the southwest angle, is the ruinous mansion of Newark, where General David Leslie, first Lord Newark, resided till his death in 1682: and another family connected with the parish was that of the Sandilands, Lords Abercrombie from 1647 to 1681. At present 2 proprietors hold each an annual value of 500 pounds or upwards, 2 of between 100 and 500 pounds, 3 of from 50 to 100 pounds, and 22 of from 20 to 50 pounds. Including the barony of St Monans since 1646, Abercrombie is in the presbytery of St Andrews and synod of Fife: its minister's income is 271 pounds. According to the legend of St Adrian (given under Isle of May), Monanus, born in Pannonia, a province of Hungary, preached the gospel at Inverry or Abercrombie, and after his martyrdom was there enshrined. Skene, however, identifying Monanus with Moinenn, Bishop of Clonfert (died 571), holds that his relics were brought about 845 from Ireland to Fife, and deposited in a church erected to his honor. Legend again relates how David II, praying before St Monans' tomb, was freed miraculously of a barbed arrow, and for thanks-offering founded about 1362 the statelier cruciform church, which a century later James III bestowed on the Dominicans. Standing at the burn's mouth, and built in the Second Pointed style, this church was partly destroyed by the English in 1544, and now retains only its stunted central tower, crowned by a low octagonal spire, its transept, and its choir: the last measures 53 by 22½ feet, and ‘renovated and improved’ in 1772 and 1828, serves as the parish church, being seated for 528 worshippers. Features of special interest are the sedilia, a good pointed doorway, and the reticulated pattern of some of the windows. Of a public and a General Assembly school, only the former was open in 1879, having then accommodation for 285 children, an average attendance of 251, and a grant of 191 pounds, 11 shillings.”180

***AUCHTERMUCHTY, FIFE***

FH Groome documents: “Auchtermuchty (Gaelic uachdar-muic, ‘upper land of the wild sow’), a town and a parish of northwest Fife. The town is divided by the Loverspool, a tiny affluent of the Eden, into two nearly equal portions; and has a station on the Fife and Kinross section of the North British, 10¼ miles northeast of Kinross, 33¾ east-northeast of Stirling, 4¾ west-northwest of Ladybank Junction, 10¼ west-southwest of Cupar, and 33 north of Edinburgh (via Burntisland). It was made a royal burgh in 1517, and confirmed in its rights in 1595, but had ceased to return a Member of Parliament some time before the Union; and, becoming bankrupt in 1816, it suffered the sequestration of all its corporation property, except townhouse, jail, steeple, bell, and customs. Governed by a provost, 2 bailies, 2 treasurers, a procurator-fiscal, 2 joint-town-clerks, and 8 councilors, it has sheriff small debt courts on the second Monday of January, April, July, and October; a weekly corn market is held on Monday; and there are cattle, horse, and sheep fairs on the first Wednesday of February, the last Monday of April, the second Monday of July, and the first Monday of October and December. With three main streets and several lanes, Auchtermuchty is irregularly built, but of late years has been considerably improved, and commands fine views of the East and West Lomond Hills, which, distant 3½ miles south and 4 miles southwest, are 1,471 and 1,713 feet high. It was the birthplace of the Rev John Glas (1698-1773), founder of the sect of Glasites; but it is better known by the famous old ballad of The Wife of Auchtermuchty, wrongly ascribed to James V. There are a town hall; the Victoria Hall, erected in 1865 for lectures, concerts, and public meetings; a post office, with money order, savings' bank, and telegraph departments; branches of the Bank of Scotland and Union Bank; a savings' bank, and 8 insurance agencies; gas-works; 3 hotels; a choral union; and agricultural and horticultural societies. Places of worship are the parish church (built 1780; enlarged 1838; and seating 900), a Free church, and 2 United

Presbyterian churches (North and South); and the Madras Established school and North and South public schools, with respective accommodation for 127, 194, and 135 children, had (1879) an average attendance of 103, 129, and 102, and grants of 80 pounds, 15 shillings, 121 pounds, 5 shillings, 6 pence, and 86 pounds, 9 shillings. The industrial works comprise a printing office, a bleach field, an extensive distillery, 2 malt kilns, a scale-beam and weighing-machine factory, 3 sawmills, and 5 linen factories. The weaving of diapers, huckabacks, sheetings, etc, (chiefly by handloom), has long been the staple industry, but since 1817 has been carried on less by resident manufacturers than for houses in Kirkcaldy, Dunfermline, Dundee, Glasgow, and Aberdeen; there are now some 600 looms in the town, and 200 more in the parish. Burgh valuation (1881) 2,506 pounds.

“The parish, which also contains the village of Dunshelt, is bounded north by Perthshire, east by Collessie, south by Falkland and Strathmiglo, west by Strathmiglo and Abernethy. Its length from northwest to southeast is 4 7/8 miles; its greatest breadth from east to west is 2 5/8 miles; and its area is 3,533 acres, of which 3¼ are water. Three streams flow eastward - Beggar's Burn along most of the northern boundary, Barroway Burn through the southern interior, and the river Eden, near or upon the southern border; and from this last the surface rises northwestward to the Ochils - from 137 feet above sea-level at a point near Dunshelt to 554 feet at Mairsland, 898 in Pitlour Wood on the western boundary, and 843 in the northwestern angle of the parish. The soil of the lowlands is fertile and well cultivated, that in the southeast being deep rich alluvium, part of a plain that formerly was often flooded in winter, but is now as well-drained and luxuriant a district as any almost in Scotland; the soil of the uplands is light, but sharp and valuable for grass. About 220 acres are under wood. Myres Castle (Mrs Tyndall Bruce), ½ mile south by east of the town, is the only considerable mansion. It was long the residence of the Moncrieffs of Reedie, and was greatly enlarged about 1828. Two proprietors hold each an annual value of 500 pounds and upwards, 12 of between 100 and 500 pounds, 12 of from 50 to 100 pounds, and 36 of from 20 to 50 pounds. Auchtermuchty is in the presbytery of Cupar and synod of Fife; the minister's income is 465 pounds. Valuation of landward portion (1881) 8,497 pounds, 15 shillings, 6 pence.”181

***FALKLAND PALACE, FIFE 182 ***

Neil Oliver observes: “Falkland Palace was already a royal retreat, having been acquired for the crown from the local landowner in the fourteenth century. It had once been a fortified building – the castle in which the 1st Duke of Albany had left his nephew David, heir to the throne of Robert III, to starve to death. But from the start of the sixteenth century, James IV set about its transformation into an elegant Renaissance hunting lodge. By the time he had finished with it, Falkland Palace was among the finest residences in the country. Visit the place now and you notice that the interior decoration features thistles – everywhere you look, in fact. James had acquired the thistle as the symbol, the logo of the Stewart dynasty. It was a brilliant choice, and in time it came to symbolize not just the Stewarts, but Scotland as well. The two – family and crown – had become one.”183

***FIFE NESS, FIFE***

FH Groome recounts: “Fife Ness, a low headland in Crail parish, Fife, 2 miles northeast of Crail town, 5 north by west of the Isle of May, and 16 north-northeast of North Berwick. It flanks the northern side of the entrance of the Firth of Forth, is the most easterly point in Fife, and terminates the tract popularly called the East Neuk of Fife. It has traces of a defensive wall running across it, and said to have been

constructed by the Danes in 874 to cover an invasive debarkation; and it is subtended for a considerable distance seaward by a dangerous reef.”184

***INVERKEITHING, FIFE***

Felicia Soong says: “The earliest origins of Inverkeithing are lost in the obscurity of early times. The name is derived from the word Inver which means ‘mouth’, and keithing is the name of the rivulet (small stream), which takes its origin in the Fordell and other woods and which falls into the Ness Bay.

“The first certain mention of Inverkeithing is in the foundation charter of Scone Abbey granted in 1113-4 by Alexander I and Queen Isabella, but evidence is that the origin belongs to an even earlier date.

“The booklet was a publication by the Inverkeithing Museum entitled: The Royal Burgh of Inverkeithing. It may have been produced by the local history society. There is no author's name on the booklet.”185

***KINGHORN, FIFE 186 ***

Neil Oliver spotlights: “But Alexander had more to think about than rain and wind. Twenty-three-old Yolande was waiting for him in the royal manor of Kinghorn, on the other side of the Firth of Forth, and he had other duties to perform. At Dalmeny the ferryman tried to turn the king away, saying the 2-mile crossing to Inverkeithing was too dangerous. Alexander teased the man, asking him if he was scared. ‘By no means,’ the ferryman answered: ‘it would be a great honor to share the fate of your father’s son.’ At Inverkeithing he was met by one of the town bailies and offered lodgings for the night. But by now Alexander was too close to his goal to think about stopping. Shrugging aside the offer, the king mounted a horse and set out into the storm accompanied only by two ‘bondmen’.

“Whatever actually happened on that journey has been lost to history. All that is known for certain is that, somewhere along the treacherous cliff-top path leading to Kinghorn, Alexander became separated from the other riders. He never reached the royal manor. Next morning, 19 March 1286, the last of the Canmore kings was found dead on the beach beneath a high point known today as the ‘King’s Crag’, his neck broken. Scotland was without a king, and her future lay in the feeble grasp of a three-year-old girl.”187

***ST ANDREWS CASTLE, FIFE***

Neil Oliver underscores: “Between late 1544 and early 1546, the sermons of a Reforming preacher called George Wishart had been filling churches across Scotland. In February 1546 Cardinal Beaton had him arrested, tried and sentenced to a revolting debate. Beaton was as corrupt, venal and licentious a man as ever donned a surplice – owner of many mansions, immensely rich and the father of uncounted children from scores of mistresses. This guardian of the faith ordered Wishart to be strangled and then burned in St Andrews, in front of Beaton’s fellow men of God. Gunpowder had been packed into the condemned man’s clothes to ensure spectacular and spiritually enlivening fireworks.

“If Beaton thought he had nipped something in the bud, he was wrong. On 28 May a group of Protestant landowners from Fife burst into Beaton’s palace and hauled him from his bed – and from the arms of one of his many lovers. He was messily butchered, his genitals cut off and stuffed into his mouth before being put into a barrel and dumped in the bottle dungeon of St Andrews Castle. In sixteenth-century Scotland, forgiveness and brotherly love were low on everyone’s agenda. The killers holed themselves up behind the battlements and sent for help from England, which never came. Henry

was followed onto the throne by Edward VI; but of more significance for the Protestants in St Andrews Castle were events unfolding across the Channel.”188

***TULLIALLAN, FIFE***

Steven Scouller comments: “Tulliallan is Scottish Gaelic for ‘beautiful knoll’. A knoll being a common word for a small hillside or glen.”189

www.scottish-places.info emphasizes: “Tulliallan Castle: A castellated Tudor-Gothic mansion, Tulliallan Castle lies a quarter-mile (0.4 km) northeast of Kincardine in west Fife. Now the home of the Scottish Police College, the castle was built 1817-20 on the site of an earlier house for Admiral Lord Keith (1746-1823) by English architect William Atkinson (1774-1839), who had previously constructed Scone Palace for the Earl of Mansfield. The castle comprises a three-storey main block, with slender octagonal turrets at each corner and two-storey wings set back to the rear. The entrance is at the rear through a fine porte-cochère. Keith bought the estate in 1798, having spent much of his career fighting Napoleon. It is said that French prisoners of war were used amongst the workforce. The grounds were landscaped in the style of the Palace of Versailles by Keith's eldest daughter and once contained numerous specimen trees, shrub borders and Rhododendrons, together with fountains, statuary and an Italian-style Knot Garden. In 1901 the estate was acquired by Sir James Sivewright who added to the gardens and buildings, including the Arts & Crafts-style lodge and grand entrance gates. In 1923, the castle was sold to Colonel Alexander Mitchell of Luscar (1871-1934). During World War II, Tulliallan became the Scottish Headquarters of the Free Polish Army. Trees were planted in the grounds by Polish President Wladyslaw Raczkiewicz (1885-1947) and Prime Minister Wladyslaw Sikorski (1881-1943), and Polish symbols remain prominent in the house.

“Tulliallan was purchased in 1950 from Sir Harold Mitchell, a politician and 1st Baronet Mitchell of Tulliallan, by the Scottish Home Department for 9,100 pounds. The building was extended, modernized and restored to become the Scottish Police College. Inside, the castle is well maintained and features rib-vaulted plaster ceilings in several rooms, together with fine oak and marble chimney-pieces. Several classroom and accommodation blocks were constructed in the grounds, unfortunately destroying parts of the fine gardens. A 1-hectare (2.5-acre) walled garden, which appears on William Roy's map of 1750 and thus predates the current castle, partially remains in use for the cultivation of flowers, bedding plants and salad crops, with the remainder surfaced as a car park. A further 18th-century remnant is the lectern doo-cot. The mid-19th century stables were converted to form a driving school in 1964.”190

www.scottish-places.info gives: “Old Tulliallan Castle: Located amongst woodland a half-mile (1 km) north of Kincardine, Old Tulliallan Castle is an unusual 14th century hall-house surrounded by a D-shaped ditch and rampart. It comprises two storeys and a basement, with its principal rooms on the ground floor, modified through later additions and internal alterations. A castle was certainly here by 1304, when Edward I ordered it to be strengthened. Thereafter it became the property of the Douglas family, who granted it to the Edmonstones in 1402. In 1486, Tulliallan passed through marriage to the Blackadders, who were responsible for a major reconstruction. Finally, in 1605, the castle became the property of the Bruces of Carnock and was lived in until 1662. The estate was sold to Admiral Lord Keith in 1798 and he built a new castle a half-mile (1 km) to the southeast in 1820.

“Old Tulliallan Castle was restored by the Mitchell Trust in the late 1990s.”191

**GLASGOW**

“It is common to derive the name Glasgow from the older Cumbric glas cau or a Middle Gaelic cognate, which would have meant ‘green hollow’. The settlement probably had an earlier Cumbric name, Cathures; the modern name appears for the first time in the Gaelic period (1116), as Glasgu. It is also recorded that the King of Strathclyde, Rhydderch Hael, welcomed Saint Kentigern (also known as Saint Mungo), and procured his consecration as bishop about 540. For some thirteen years Kentigern labored in the region, building his church at the Molendinar Burn, and making many converts. A large community developed around him and became known as Glasgu (often glossed as ‘the dear Green’ or ‘dear green place’).”192

FH Groome pens: “Glasgow, the commercial and manufacturing capital of Scotland, and, in point of wealth, population, and importance, the second city of the British islands, is situated for the most part in the lower ward of Lanarkshire, but a small part of it is in the county of Renfrew. It stands on both banks of the river Clyde, 14 miles from its mouth at Dumbarton; but the larger portion of the city is on the north side of the river; latitude 55 degrees 51’ 32” north, and longitude 4 degrees 17’ 54” west. Its distance as the crow flies from John O’ Groat’s House is 197 miles, and from London 348. It is northwest by north of London and Carlisle, southwest of Aberdeen, Perth, and Stirling, southwest by west of Dundee, west by south of Edinburgh, and north by west of Dumfries. By road it is 42¾ miles from Edinburgh, 23 from Greenock, 34 from Ayr, 79 from Dumfries, and 396 from London; while by railway its distance is 7 miles from Paisley, 23 from Falkirk, 23 from Greenock, 29 from Stirling, 33¾ from Kilmarnock, 40½ from Ayr, 47½ from Edinburgh, 63¼ from Perth, 104½ from Berwick-on-Tweed, 105 from Carlisle, 152 from Aberdeen, 206½ from Iverness, 401½ from London by the West Coast route, 423 by the Midland, and 448½ by the East Coast route.

“Unlike many of the populous and enterprising towns of the present day, Glasgow can boast of a history which proves that, even in those remote times when trade and commerce were unknown, it was a place of considerable importance. The name Glasgow does not appear till the 12th century, but there were two villages called Deschu and Cathures on the same site. These names, however, bore so little resemblance to the present form that the connection was difficult to trace. M’Ure, the earliest historian of Glasgow, says that ‘it is called Glasgow because in the Highland or Irish language Glasgow signifies a grayhound or a gray-smith’. The New Statistical takes graysmith or dark glen, the latter referring to the ravine at the Molendinar Burn. Wade, in his History of Glasgow, gives Welsh glas, ‘green’, and coed, ‘a wood’, ‘the green wood’. But Mr Macgeorge, in his Old Glasgow, seems to have solved the difficulty. He suggests that the transcribers of the old MSS mistook cl for d, and so wrote Deschu instead of Cleschu, from which comes Gleschu, and hence Glasgu and Glasgow (Glas, ‘green’, and ghu, ‘beloved’, the name being therefore ‘the beloved green place’).

“In the early part of the Christian era we find the district inhabited by a tribe called the Damnonii, who were, during the time the Romans held the Wall of Antoninus, under Roman rule within the province of Valentia. This wall, in its course from Old Kilpatrick on the Clyde to Blackness, passed a short distance to the north of Glasgow; and there are also the remains of a large camp, said to be Roman, on the lands of Camphill, near the battleground of Langside, about 2 miles south of the city. Probably there were Roman garrisons at stations scattered among the conquered tribes behind the wall, and of these one is said to have been at Glasgow; but nothing except the vague tradition of its existence is known, not even its name. When the Romans retired, the district became part of the Cumbrian British kingdom of

Strathclyde; but the important place in this connection is Dumbarton, then the chief town, and called Alclyde or ‘the Rock of the Clyde’. St Ninian - who was trained at Rome, and founded the church of Whithorn in 397 - according to the 12th century Life of St Kentigern by Jocelyn of Furness, established a primitive church and consecrated a burial-ground at a place called Cathures, where Glasgow Cathedral now stands. This was about the beginning of the 5th century, but his influence seems to have passed away with himself; and when Deschu next emerges from obscurity, it is in connection with its later and locally more famous saint, Kentigern or Mungo, who made his appearance in the district somewhere near the middle of the 6th century, and probably about 543 AD. St Kentigern or Mungo was the son of Ewen ap Urien or Eugenius, a prince of the Britons of Strathclyde - according to some the King of Cumbria - and Thenew, daughter of Loth, King of Northumbria, or, according to others, King of the Lothians, to which he is supposed to have given name. Though Loth was ‘a man half pagan’, his daughter had become a convert to Christianity, and, according to the legend, in her zeal for her new faith, became desirous of rivalling the virginal honor and maternal blessedness of the Virgin Mary. In carrying out her purpose she scorned all suitors, Prince Eugenius, who had her father's influence to back him, among the rest. To escape from farther trouble, she at last fled to a remote part of the kingdom, and concealed herself in the lowly guise of a swineherd. Prince Eugenius, however, followed her and found her, and she returned to her father's court, only to be relentlessly condemned to death on account of her condition. Though she denied all crime, her father refused to listen to her prayers for life, and handed her over to the executioners to be stoned to death. They preferred the easier plan of casting her over a precipice, Dumpender or Traprain Law, but she escaped unhurt. This was considered clear proof of sorcery, and she was put into a corade, which was taken down the Forth to the Isle of May and there set adrift; but this was no more fatal to her than the former attempt, for a shoal of fishes made their appearance at this opportune moment and carried the boat on their backs to the shallow water at Culross, on the north side of the Firth of Forth. Here Thenew landed and gave birth to a son, and both mother and child were brought by some of the country people to St Serf or Servanus, a disciple of St Palladius, who had here established a little monastery. He received them into his household, where the infant received his nurture, and was taught the rudiments of his faith. The boy, named Kentigern (Welsh cyn, ‘chief’, and teyrn, ‘lord’), turned out so well as he grew up, that he became a great favorite with the aged Serf, who gave him the pet name of Munghu (Welsh mwyn, ‘amiable’, and cu, ‘dear’), whence came the second name of ‘Mungo’, by which the saint is now probably better known than by the name of Kentigern. As he grew in years and knowledge, he displayed a faculty for working miracles which soon attracted attention. He restored to life a robin-redbreast whose head had been cut off; one winter night when the fire was quenched by his enemies, he kindled it again with a frozen branch which he blew into a flame; during harvest the cook died, and there was no one to provide food for the reapers, whereupon St Serf himself came and enjoined his Mungo either to restore the cook to life or to fill his place, a command which he obeyed by bringing the cook to life again. Obeying a monition of the Spirit, he secretly left Culross to devote himself to work in other places, and went southward, the waters of the Forth opening to allow him to pass. He was followed by St Serf, who, looking forward to him as his successor, begged him to return; but feeling his duty to lie elsewhere, he would not go back. Journeying westward, he found, at a place called Kernach, an aged Christian named Fergus, to whom it had been revealed that he should not die until he had seen one who was to bring back the district to the faith of St Ninian, and who almost as soon as he saw St Mungo, fell dead on the ground. Taking the body with him in a cart drawn by two wild bulls, the saint proceeded on his journey till he reached Deschu and Cathures on the banks of the Clyde, and here, in the churchyard consecrated by St Ninian, he buried

Fergus. His fame must have either gone before him or must have spread very rapidly, for he was almost immediately visited by the king and the leading men of Strathclyde, who begged him to become their religious guide. The saint, who was only twenty-five, pleaded his youth as an excuse; but they were determined to have him, and he was consecrated by a bishop brought from Ireland for the purpose. His habits were very ascetic, for he is said to have been in the habit of often rising in the middle of the night and rushing into the Molendinar Burn, where he remained in the water, no matter what the season or the weather, till he had recited the whole of the Psalms of David. He still retained miraculous power. A young man who scoffed at him was killed suddenly by a falling weight; he sowed sand and a crop of fine grain grew; he ploughed a field with a team consisting of a wolf and a stag. At length, however, he became involved in a quarrel with the king – Morken - because in answer to a mocking taunt of his majesty he had actually caused the Clyde to sweep the contents of the king's barns at Cathures up the Molendinar Burn to Deschu. Morken shortly after, using violence to the saint, was killed by being flung from his horse, and the saint, to escape the vengeance of the king's relatives, had to flee to Wales. Here, after remaining for a time with St David, he founded a monastery, and gathered about him a band of disciples at the place now known, from the most celebrated of his followers, as St Asaph's. The victory of Arthuret (573) placed Rydderch Hael on the throne of Strathclyde, and he at once despatched an embassy to Wales to St Mungo to urge him to return to his old abode on the banks of the Clyde, and, the effort succeeding, the saint's power became greater than before. His miraculous gift continued, and was exemplified in a very wonderful way in connection with the queen. This lady, named Langueth, had received from her husband at their marriage a peculiar ring, of which she was not so careful as she should have been, and which she had entrusted to the keeping of a soldier with whom she was in some way connected. The king one day found the soldier sleeping, and noticed the ring on his finger, and, his anger being roused at the small value the queen thus seemed to set upon the jewel, he took it from the man's finger, and casting it into the river, went straightway to the queen and told her he wished for the ring. She urged delay, and sent at once for it, but it was, of course, not to be found; and her majesty in great dismay applied to the saint, who forthwith came to her rescue. He told her to cause a fishing line to be cast into the Clyde, when the first fish that was caught would be found to have the ring either in its mouth or in its stomach. This turned out exactly as he had said, and the ring being thus restored the jealous monarch was satisfied.

“This incident has given the city the main features of its armorial bearings, while other incidents in St Mungo's life have supplied the whole. The arms, as settled by the Lord Lyon, King of Arms, and described in his patent granted at Edinburgh on 25 Oct 1866, are – ‘Argent, on a mount in base vert an oak tree proper, the stem at the base thereof surmounted by a salmon on its back, also proper, with a signet ring in its mouth, or; on the top of the tree a redbreast, and on the sinister fess point an ancient hand-bell, both also proper. Above the shield is to be placed a suitable helmet, with a mantling gules, doubled argent, and issuing out of a wreath of the proper liveries is to be set for crest the half-length figure of St Kentigern, affronté, vested and mitred, his right hand raised in the act of benediction, and having in his left hand a crozier, all proper: in a compartment below the shield are to be placed for supporters two salmon proper, each holding in its mouth a signet ring, or; and in the escrol entwined with the compartment this motto, ‘Let Glasgow flourish’.’ The salmon and the ring are connected with the foregoing story; the tree is the branch with which the monastery fire was lighted; the bird is the robin that was miraculously restored to life; and the bell is the consecrated one that was brought from Rome by St Mungo when he visited the sacred city in his later years, and which was placed in the college buildings, and preserved in Glasgow till the Reformation, or perhaps to a later date. It was called St

Mungo's Bell, and was tolled through the city to warn the inhabitants to pray for the repose of a departed soul. These tokens appear on the seals of the bishops of Glasgow in the 12th and 13th centuries, from which they were transferred to the common seal of the city in the beginning of the 14th. This at least seems a probable explanation, and as such it is now accepted in preference to the fanciful theory propounded by Cleland in his Rise and Progress of Glasgow, where he says, ‘The tree is emblematical of the spreading of the Gospel: its leaves being represented as for the healing of the nations. The bird is also typical of that glorious event, so beautifully described under the similitude of the winter being passed, and the rain over and gone, the time of the singing of birds being come, and the voice of the turtle heard in our land. Bells for calling the faithful to prayers, and other holy Ordnances of the Church, have been considered so important in Roman Catholic countries that for several centuries past the right of consecration has been conferred on them by the dignitaries of the Church. That religion might not absorb the whole insignia of the town, the trade, which at that time was confined to fishing and curing salmon, came in for its share, and this circumstance gave rise to the idea of giving the salmon a place in the arms of the city.’ The motto, which is said to have been in its original form ‘Let Glasgow flourish by the preaching of the word’, traditionally takes its origin from a mound which the saint raised miraculously at the Dovehill east of the Cross, to enable him to get an elevation from which to preach to the crowd. Glasgow was to rise and flourish as this mound had done. The motto does not, however, seem to have been in use previous to 1699.

“The rest of the saint's life is little more than a record of the miracles he performed, not only in Strathclyde, but all over the country, his travels being widely extended, and on more than one occasion reaching as far as Rome, where he was kindly received by the Pope and confirmed in his bishopric. The one historic event of his later years appears to be his visit from Columba on the banks of the Molendinar about the year 584, when the saints interchanged their pastoral staves. His death took place probably in 612, and he was buried, according to the monkish chronicler, at the right hand side of the high altar of the cathedral.

“The successors of St Mungo are involved in obscurity, though no doubt the sanctity pertaining to the resting place of the bones of so holy a man would for a time keep his establishment together, and help to increase the size of the village close by. It must have suffered, however, in the struggle against the supremacy of the Roman Church, and probably also in the commotions and strife produced by the incursions of the Danes, as well as in the contest in which the kingdom of Strathclyde disappeared and the country passed under the sway of the king of the Scots. Whatever the cause, so at least it was; and, just as in the case of Lichfield, the records of the see of Glasgow disappear for full 500 years. ‘After St Mungo,’ says M’Ure, a quaint early historian of Glasgow, ‘for many ages the Episcopal see was overrun with heathenism and barbarity till the reign of Alexander I.’ When Alexander succeeded to the throne in 1107, he bestowed on his younger brother David, Prince of Cumbria, all the territory south of the Forth except the Lothians; and as David inherited all his mother's zeal for religion, he set himself to look after the spiritual condition of his subjects as vigorously as after their temporal welfare. The saintly character of St Mungo, and his connection with Glasgow, very soon attracted David's attention, and in 1115 he restored the see, and appointed his tutor and chaplain John (commonly called Achaius) the first of the new line of bishops. John, who was a man of learning and ability, as well as with considerable knowledge of the world, for he had travelled extensively on the Continent, was at first somewhat unwilling to accept the proffered promotion, but at last yielded to the prince's wishes, and was consecrated by Pope Paschal II, to whom he was well known. An inquisition ‘concerning the lands belonging to the church of

Glasgow’, a copy of which exists in the chartulary of Glasgow, was made in 1120. In this it is set forth that ‘various disturbances, everywhere arising, had not only destroyed the church and her possessions, but, wasting the whole country, driven the inhabitants into exile’; and that the inhabitants, thus left to themselves, had followed the manners of the Gentiles and lived ‘like brutes’; but that now ‘God sent unto them David as their prince’, who was to set this scandalous state of matters right, and who for that purpose had appointed John as their bishop. John, it goes on to say, was frightened at their barbarity and their abominable sins, but had been constrained by the Pope to enter upon the burdensome charge; and so the Prince had caused all the lands formerly belonging to the church of Glasgow to be found out and made over to the new bishop, that he might have sinews for his struggle with the wrong. The bishop had more trouble, too, than what merely arose from the condition of his see, for he got involved in a quarrel about church supremacy with the Archbishop of York, who claimed to be metropolitan of Scotland, and adduced in support of that claim a record (strongly, and with good cause, suspected of being a forgery) of three bishops of Glasgow consecrated at York in the 11th century. John resisted the York claims, and was so sorely tried that he quitted his see for the purpose of proceeding to the Holy Land. The Pope, however, ordered him to return, and 1124 found the good bishop not only settled again, but beginning to replace the primitive church of St Mungo by a statelier erection, of which some parts were of stone. The new cathedral was consecrated in presence of his royal patron, who was now King of Scotland, on 7 July 1136. The Prince had, on his accession to the throne, made large donations to the establishment, and he now further conferred on it the lands of Perdeyc [Partick], which still form part of the episcopal belongings, though they have passed into the hands of the University. According to the Registrum Episcopatus Glasguensis, ‘the king, David I, gave to the church the land of Perdeyc [Partick], which was soon afterwards erected, along with the church of Guvan [Govan]. Into a prebend of the cathedral. In addition to the long list of possessions restored to Glasgow upon the verdict of the assize of inquest, this saintly King granted to the bishop the church of Renfrew; Guvan, with its church; the church of Cadihou [Cadzow]; the tithe of his cane or duties paid in cattle and swine throughout Strathgrif, Cuningham, Kyle, and Carrick; and the eighth penny of all pleas of court throughout Cumbria (which included the greater part of Scotland south of the Forth and Clyde, as well as the English county of Cumberland). The bishop also acquired the church of Lochorwort, near Borthwick in Lothian, from the Bishop of St Andrews, the King and Prince present and consenting.’ David, the sainted son of St Margaret, was the greatest benefactor known in the annals of the see of Glasgow, and this is only one example of that liberality in gifting royal possessions to the Church which earned him from James VI the character of ‘ane sair sanct for the croon’. At the time of the consecration of the cathedral, ‘the diocese was divided into two archdeaconries of Glasgow and Teviotdale, and for the first time there were appointed a dean, sub-dean, chancellor, treasurer, sacrist, chanter, and sub-chanter, all of whom had prebends settled upon them out of the gifts received from the King.’ Bishop John died on 28 May 1147, after having held the see for the long period of thirty-two years. He was succeeded by Bishop Herbert, in whose time the strife with York was finally ended by Pope Alexander III, who decided that the only controlling power over the Church of Scotland was the see of Rome. He died in 1164, in which year also Malcolm IV made proclamation that tithes were to be paid in the bishopric of Glasgow just as elsewhere. Herbert was succeeded by Ingram, who died in 1174; and was in turn succeeded by Joceline, abbot of the Cistercian monastery of Melrose, who was consecrated at Clairvaux, in France, on 1 June 1175, by Esceline, the Pope's legate. He is reputed on all hands to have been a worthy and liberal-minded prelate, and his actions prove him to have been one of the greatest, if not the greatest, of the occupants of the episcopal throne of Glasgow. Above all others ought he to be held

in happy remembrance by the citizens of Glasgow, for, by a charter obtained from William the Lyon about 1180, the first start was given to the growth of Deschu into something more than a village. By this charter Glasgow was constituted a burgh of barony, holding of the bishop; and the King granted and confirmed ‘to God and St Kentigern, and Joceline, Bishop of Glasgow, and all his successors forever, that they shall hold a burgh at Glasgow, with a weekly market on Thursday, fully and freely, with all freedoms, liberties, and customs which any of my burghs throughout the whole of my kingdom enjoy’. Subsequently, about 1190, the bishop obtained for his burgh the further privilege of ‘a fair to be kept at Glasgow, and to be held every year for ever, from the octave of the Apostles Peter and Paul, for the space of eight days complete, with the King's’ full protection, and with every freedom and all other liberties belonging and granted to fairs throughout the whole of ‘his’ dominions, as fully and freely as all fairs are or ought to be held in any of ‘his dominions’. The octave of St Peter and St Paul fell on 6 July, and on that date the fair is still kept up with unfailing regularity, the only difference from the olden time being, that, instead of being held for business purposes, it is now characterized by the total want of it, Glasgow Fair being in those days the annual holidays, when labor is suspended and the industrious thousands enjoy a few days' recreation. While thus mindful of the temporal benefit of those under his charge, he was no less diligent in matters relating to their spiritual care. In 1192 the church built by Bishop John was burned, and so complete was the destruction that it is evident the greater portion must have been constructed of wood, though, judging from the fragments of Norman architecture that have since been dug up, some part at least was of stone. Joceline at once set himself to the task of rearing a new and more substantial edifice. He obtained a royal edict from his ever-ready patron, King William, which expressed the King's sympathy with the ruined condition of the church, which ‘consumed by fire’, required ‘the most ample expenditure for its repairs’, and charged all his servants throughout the kingdom to give what help they could to the ‘fraternity’ (a committee for gathering subscriptions?) appointed by the bishop. Aid was invoked from the pious all over Europe; and Joceline's appeal was so generously answered, that the present beautiful crypt known by his name was consecrated in 1197, on the octave of St Peter and St Paul, other two bishops besides Joceline himself taking part in the ceremony. In the crypt a tomb was erected, with a votive altar, dedicated to St Mungo. The merit has also been assigned to Joceline of having built the superincumbent choir and lady chapel; but it seems now proved that these were only commenced by him, and were completed by his successors. Still the honor belongs to him of being the founder of the existing magnificent and venerable structure, for it is certain that no part of the church built by Bishop John now remains above ground. After having held office for twenty-four years, Joceline died on 17 March 1199, and was buried on the right side of the choir. The next three bishops seem to have done little or nothing for the rising burgh; but in the time of the next bishop, Walter, a contest took place with Dumbarton and Rutherglen, both by that time royal burghs, with regard to tolls and customs. A royal charter had granted exemption to the bishop and his people from the dues levied by these places, and this the royal burghs resented and opposed as an infringement of their privileges; but, notwithstanding all their efforts, the bishop was powerful enough to obtain an edict declaring that his burgesses ‘were entitled to trade in Lennox and Argyll as freely as the men of Dumbarton’, and Rutherglen was prohibited from levying toll or custom nearer Glasgow than the cross of Shettlestone. Bishop Walter died in 1232, and was succeeded by William de Bondington, who pushed on the building of the cathedral, and in whose time the choir was either altogether or almost finished. A special canon was passed at a provincial council of the clergy, commending the work to the benevolence of the faithful, and promising certain indulgences to all who should contribute. This Bishop William, who also held the office of chancellor to King Alexander II during the latter half of his

reign, was a munificent prelate, and, besides his exertions on behalf of the cathedral, he aided, in 1246, in establishing at Glasgow a monastery of friars of the order of St Dominic (Black Friars). Their church, which is said to have rivalled the cathedral itself, was dedicated to the blessed Virgin and St John the Evangelist; and when the building commenced, Pope Innocent IV issued a bull of forty days' indulgence to all who should contribute to its completion. The church stood on the east side of High Street, and must have been a fine old building. M’Ure declares that it was ‘the ancientest building of Gothic kind of work that could be seen in the whole kingdom, as was observed by Mr Miln, the architect to King Charles I, who, when he surveyed it in 1638, declared that it had not its parallel in all Scotland, except Whittairn in Galloway’. Even in 1638, however, it must have lost some of its old grandeur, for at the time of the Reformation it was deserted and probably injured; and on 24 April 1574 it was ‘statute, thocht gude, and ordainit, be the provest, baillies, and counsale that the westir ruinous gavill of the Blackfreir kirk and the stanes thereof be tain doun’ and sold, and the proceeds applied to mending the windows and the minister's seat ‘in the said kirk’. The latter building survived till 1670, when, having been struck by lightning, it was taken down and replaced by the old College or Blackfriars church, which is now also gone. The adjoining ‘place’ or monastery of the friars was largely and richly endowed. When King Edward I of England remained in Glasgow for a fortnight in the autumn of 1301, he was lodged in the monastery of the Friars Preachers, from which it may be inferred that it was the only building in the town capable of accommodating the monarch and his train. Although his residence was with the friars, however, Edward, as became one desirous of being reputed a pious king, was constant in his offerings at the high altar and the shrine of St Mungo. The accounts of Edward's wardrobe show that he requited the hospitality of the brethren with a payment of six shillings. No vestiges of the monastery now remain. It occupied the site of the old university, near the place now occupied by the Midland Railway Company's offices.

“Bishop William died in 1258, and his two successors are of very little importance or influence, one of them being indeed so obnoxious to his flock that he resided at Rome. In 1273, however, Robert Wishart or Wischard, a man of eminence and a member of the council of Alexander III, became bishop. Unlike his predecessors his services were of a national rather than of a local nature. Being, after the death of the king, appointed one of the lords of regency, he took a vigorous part in the struggle for national independence; and in these perilous times no man exerted himself with more ardor or a purer patriotism towards the preservation of the independence of his country from the assaults of Edward I. It was in Glasgow during his episcopate that Wallace was captured on 5 Aug 1305 by Sir Alexander Monteith, and carried off to Dumbarton, thence a week later to be taken to London for trial and execution; and Wishart himself, although imprisoned by the English, and so cruelly treated that he became blind, yet lived to see the cause for which he had struggled entirely successful, and Robert the Bruce firmly seated on the Scottish throne. ‘The affectionate sympathy expressed by the King (Robert the Bruce) for the bishop would serve to give us some insight into his character, even if the history of Robert Wischard were not so well known. It was a time when strong oppression on the one side made the other almost forget the laws of good faith and humanity. Our bishop did homage to the Suzerain and transgressed it; he swore fidelity over and over again to the King of England, and as often broke his oath. He kept no faith with Edward. He preached against him; and when the occasion offered, he buckled on his armor like a Scotch baron and fought against him. But let it not be said that he changed sides as fortune changed. When the weak Baliol renounced his allegiance to his overlord, the bishop, who knew both, must have divined to which side victory would incline, and yet he opposed Edward. When Wallace, almost single-handed, set up the standard of revolt against the all-powerful Edward, the Bishop of

Glasgow immediately joined him. When Robert Bruce, friendless and a fugitive, raised the old war-cry of Scotland, the bishop supported him. Bruce was proscribed by Edward and under the anathema of the Church. The bishop assoilzied him for the sacrilegious slaughter of Comyn (in the Greyfriars' Church at Dumfries), and prepared the robes and royal banner for his coronation. Wischard was taken prisoner in the castle of Cupar, which he had held against the English in 1306, and was not liberated till after Bannockburn. … The bishop had grown blind in prison.’ Notwithstanding his activity in national matters he took also an interest in his cathedral, for he seems to have made arrangements for a supply of timber for the erection of a steeple, and part of this, curiously, he had procured from Edward himself; indeed one of the charges preferred by the English king against the bishop was ‘that he had used timber which he [Edward] had allowed him for building a steeple to his cathedral, in constructing engines of war against the King's castles, and especially the castle of Kirkintilloch’. So greatly was Edward's anger roused against the patriotic bishop that, had not fear of exciting the ire and resentment of the Pope restrained his hand, he would probably have put him to death. Wischard was, along with Bruce's queen and daughter, exchanged for the Earl of Hereford, who had been captured in Bothwell Castle by Edward Bruce immediately after the Battle of Bannockburn. The severity of his treatment, however, had proved too much for him, and he died in Nov 1316, and was buried in the cathedral between the altars of St Peter and St Andrew. During the earlier part of the national strife, an English garrison was quartered in the bishop's castle near the cathedral, and many of the older historians, following Blind Harry, make Glasgow the scene, in 1300, of a desperate conflict between the English and the Scots. However much the details may be open to question, there is probably some foundation of fact for the incident, though the blind bard has undoubtedly indulged his usual tendency to such exaggeration as would magnify the exploits of his hero. Edward, it is stated, had appointed one of his creatures named Anthony Beck or Beik Bishop of Glasgow during the captivity of Robert Wishart, and a large English force, under Earl Percy, was stationed in the neighborhood of the cathedral, both for the purpose of supporting the bishop in his new dignity and of overawing the discontented inhabitants of the western shires. Wallace, who was in possession of Ayr, after the burning of the barns, gathered his men and addressed them:

‘Ye knaw that thar wes set

Sic law as this now into Glaskow toune

Be byschope Beik and Persye off renoun,

Tharfor I will in haist we thidder fair.’

“He first summoned the men of Ayr:

‘And gaiff commaund in generall to thaim aw.

In Keepyng thai suld tak the houss off Ayr.

And hald it haill quhill tyme that we her mayr.’

“And that place being thus left safe, started with his company of 300 and made in hot haste for Glasgow. They pushed on so fast that they by:

‘Glaskow bryg that byggyt was off tree,

Weyll passit our or Sotheroun mycht thaim se.’

“After crossing the bridge Wallace divided his followers into two bodies, one of which, led by himself, marched by the High Street; while the other, under the Laird of Auchinleck, ‘for he the passage kend’, went by St Mungo's Lane and the Drygate. Percy had a force of 1,000 men, and with these between Bell o' the Brae and the site of the old university he met the body under Wallace. While the battle was doubtful the other body came rushing on from the Drygate, Percy being cut down by Wallace himself. The English were seized with a panic, and fled in all directions, notwithstanding that they were ‘gud men off wer’ like ‘all Northummyrland’.”193

John Bartholomew scribes: “Glasgow, parliamentary and royal burgh, partly in Renfrewshire but chiefly in Lanarkshire, on river Clyde, 14 miles southeast of Dumbarton (at the commencement of the Firth of Clyde), 47½ (by rail) west of Edinburgh, and 401½ (by West Coast route) northwest of London - royal burgh (co-extensive with City parish), population 166,128; parliamentary and municipal burgh, population 511,415; town (municipal and suburban), population 674,095; 13 newspapers. Market-day, Wednesday. Glasgow is the commercial and industrial metropolis of Scotland, and claims to be the second city of the British Empire. It is an ancient place, but almost the only monument of antiquity which it contains is the Cathedral (1179), dedicated to St Mungo, or Kentigern, the apostle of Strathclyde, who is said to have settled at Glasgow about 580. The old University buildings in High Street have been converted into a railway station; the new University buildings (1870), on Gilmore Hill, in the northwest of the city, are probably the finest modern specimen of secular architecture in Scotland. The University (1450) had in 1882-3 professors to the number of 27, and students to the number of 2,275, of whom 1,307 were Arts students. The commercial importance of Glasgow is of comparatively modern date. At the Reformation the population was about 5,000, at the Union about 12,000, and at the beginning of the 19th century about 77,000; it is now, including the neighboring burghs, which are essentially parts of Glasgow, about 750,000. The chief natural cause of the rapid growth of Glasgow is its position within the richest coal and ironstone field in Scotland, and on the banks of a river which has been rendered, by almost incredible labor, navigable for vessels of the largest tonnage. Its industries, which are characterized by their immense variety, include textile manufacturers (principally cotton, woolen, and carpets): bleaching, printing, and dyeing; chemical manufacturers; the iron manufacturer, engineering, and shipbuilding. All the iron trade of Scotland is controlled by Glasgow, which is also the headquarters of the great shipbuilding industry of the Clyde. Glasgow has 4 distilleries and 6 paper mills. It is one of the three principal seaports of the United Kingdom. The harbor extends along the river for over 2 miles, and includes 2 tidal docks, one of them (the Queen's Dock) the largest in Scotland. The foreign trade is with all parts of the world, but chiefly with India, the United States, Canada, and South America, Belgium, France, and Spain. Glasgow contains terminal stations of the 3 great trunk lines of Scotland; and its railway communications are assisted by the City Union Railway and the Underground Railway. Tramways penetrate into every suburb, and the Clyde is crossed by numerous bridges and ferries. There are 4 parks - the Green, the Kelvingrove or West End Park, the Queen's Park, and the Alexandra Park. The health of the city has been greatly benefited by the Loch Katrine water supply, completed in 1859, and by the Improvement Act of 1866. The New Municipal Buildings, at the east end of George Square, were founded October 1883. Glasgow is a brigade depot; the barracks (1876) are at Maryhill. The burgh returns 7 members to Parliament - 7 divisions, viz, Bridgeton, Camlachie, St Rollox, Central, College, Tradeston, and Blackfriars and Hutchesontown, 1 member for each division; its representation was increased from 3 to 7 members in 1885, when the parliamentary limits were extended; the Universities of Glasgow and Aberdeen return 1 member.”194

***AUCHENSHUGGLE, GLASGOW***

www.glasgowhistory.co.uk states: “Auchenshuggle is something of a myth in Glasgow largely because few people really believe that the place exists, other than appearing on the destination boards of generations of trams and buses or in the repartee of comedians.

“The name is derived from the Gaelic for ‘the field of rye’ so that in itself bears testimony to an ancient lineage. The community of Auchenshuggle was one of the three which made up latter day Tollcross and was centered on Easterhill St at Corbett St. Some small dwellings are still located there.

“The lands of that name extended south from Tollcross Rd at Tollcross Central Church. The site upon which the church and yard are formed is part of Auchenshuggle, and some maps show it extending as far southwards as London Rd. Part of Auchenshuggle was donated for the use of the church in 1805 by Clyde Iron Works proprietor, Mr Caddell. Tollcross Central commemorated this gesture in a memorial window to him.

“The dwellings and adjoining stable illustrated above were located at 67 Corbett St, between the street and the Battles Burn. They stood there as late as 1982 the remnants of a longer row of houses. They may have been part of the original village of Auchenshuggle, and certainly date from at least the late 18th or early 19th century.

“In recent times, the site was used as a scrap car lot. Although largely ruinous when photographed here in 1978, the red pantiled roof was remarkably intact. The houses were of very simple construction and showed no fittings for gas, electricity or running water. Sadly, the building deteriorated very rapidly in the 1980s, with the roof partially collapsing.

“In 1982 the People's Palace Museum launched a scheme to rescue what they took to be a unique structure within Glasgow, and it was eventually taken down and stored by the Parks Dept. It had been intended to rebuild it in the grounds of either the People's Palace or Tollcross Park as a weaver's cottage but lack of finance resulted in the plan's failure. The remains were disposed of and yet another piece of the east end's vanishing heritage was lost forever.

“Six pantiles were removed from the site and taken to the People's Palace where they can be seen in the reconstruction of an early Glasgow street.”195

***CASTLEMILK, GLASGOW***

Linda Burke alludes: “On the site of present-day Castlemilk in Glasgow there was an estate named Castleton (or Cassiltoun), owned by the Stuart family of Castlemilk in Dumfriesshire. The Stuarts became the owners of the Castleton estate in 1455, when family titles and estates were forfeited to the Crown after the Scottish wars of independence and the establishment of the Stuart monarchy. The Stuarts also owned an estate in Dumfriesshire named ‘Castlemilk’. This estate was sold to a Lord Maxwell in 1579. Some sources state that from this date, the Lanarkshire estate of Cassiltoun also became known as Castlemilk, while other sources believe this happened as late as 1759. The Dumfriesshire estate was named after the Stuart's castle beside the River Mylk (or Milk), hence ‘Castle-milk’. Although once home to Castlemilk House which was developed from the 15th century and stood until the late 1960s, the name ‘Castlemilk’ is know best known for being the site of a post-war housing estate on the outskirts of Glasgow.”196

Hugh MacDonald communicates: “We now proceed up the Kelvin by a somewhat devious path, for the purpose of visiting the aqueduct bridge in the vicinity of Maryhill. The distance between the two places, according to our computation, may be somewhere about a mile. On the way we pass several mills or bleach works, situated at intervals along the margin of the river, and which, however useful they may be, and far be it from us to call their utility into question, certainly detract considerably from the picturesque beauty of the scenery. Mr Lyle, in one of his verses, mentions, among the charms of ‘Kelvin Grove’:

‘That the rose in all her pride

Paints the hollow dingle side,

Where the midnight fairies glide,’ etc.

“We are afraid, however, that the green-coated gentry, who are said to be rather finical in their tastes, must long ago have taken their departure from the locality. Professor Aytoun himself has not a greater horror of everything in the shape of calico than (according to those who are skilled in fairy lore) the leaf-clad subjects of Oberon and Titania. We may therefore reasonably enough conclude that, where print works, bleach fields, and paper mills, not to mention snuff manufactories, etc, continue so abundant on the Kelvin, the ‘men of peace’ must to a man have ere this indignantly emigrated to a more congenial province. Be that as it may, however, there are still many delightful nooks among the banks and braes, through which, as rapidly as it is permitted by dams and other artificial barriers, the streamlet rolls its seaward course. Not the least attractive of these is in the vicinity of Gairbraid House. This handsome edifice is situated on an elevated position on the north bank of the Kelvin, and commands an extensive prospect of the surrounding country. A fine lawn slopes smoothly down in front to the water-edge, which is shaded by a belt of planting; while a shallow glen or dell, in its immediate neighborhood, has won our especial esteem as the habitat where the snowdrop (galanthus nivalis) makes its first appearance near Glasgow, in the early spring months. Our favorite locality, however, for this delicate looking but really hardy little flowers, is Castlemilk Glen; there they are to be seen in greater luxuriance and beauty than we have ever observed them elsewhere.”197

***CROSSMYLOOF, GLASGOW***

www.electricscotland.com depicts: “Crossmyloof, now a part of Greater Glasgow, is located on and near the Pollokshaws Road. The singular name of Crossmyloof is accounted for by a popular myth which is yet current. It is said that, immediately before the battle of Langside, the forces of Queen Mary were drawn up on the site of the village.

“A council of war was meanwhile held, at which it was debated whether they should, under the circumstances in which they were placed, risk a collision with the troops of Regent Murray. The Queen, always impetuous, was urgent that an attack should at once be made.

“From this resolution several of her adherents attempted to dissuade her, representing to her the advantages likely to result from delay. Tired at last of their importunities, and eager to decide her fate, the Queen pulled an ebony crucifix from her breast, and laid it on her snowy palm, saying at the same time, ‘As surely as that cross lies on my loof, I will this day fight the Regent.’

“From this circumstance, it is said, the spot received its name. Tradition in this, as in other instances that might be mentioned, has taken sad liberties with geography. The story is a pretty one nevertheless, and will continue, we daresay, to obtain credence at the winter evening hearth, in spite of the sneers of the prying student of history.

“Such is the tradition as recorded by that prince of local writers, Hugh Macdonald, but in spite of his skeptical comment, the story may be true in all its main particulars, except as regards the alleged site of the encampment and Council of war. This probability is strengthened by the fact that Miss Agnes Strickland, who records this interesting incident in her Life of Mary, omits these tainly erroneous details. As her historical rendering from oral chroniclers is brief, it may be both pleasing and instructive to quote it here for comparison with the purely traditionary account given above.

“This lady puts it on record that Maxwell, Laird of Pollok, one of Mary’s adherents, was created a baronet in the course of the eventful day the Queen spent in his vicinity, and that this was the last exercise of her power. She then relates as follows: ‘Queen Mary, on being assured by the gentlemen about her, ‘That in consequence of the position occupied by the rebel force, it would be impossible for her to get to Dumbarton,’ she placed her crucifix in the palm of her hand, and passionately exclaimed – ‘By the cross in my loof, I will be there to-night in spite of you traitors!’”

“The explanation seems palpable by simply tracing the movements of the rival forces, as given by Hugh Macdonald, who writes: ‘Marching from Hamilton with the intention of proceeding to Dumbarton by the northeast side of Glasgow, the Queen’s troops were confronted at Dalmarnock ford by the army of the Regent Murray, which was drawn up in order of battle in the vicinity of Barrowfield. Desirous of avoiding the impending engagement, Mary’s adherents altered their route, and, passing by Ruthergien and Hangingshaw, endeavored to accomplish their purpose of reaching Dumbarton by a forced march to the southwest of the city. Their course, however, was necessarily a circuitous one, and Murray having become aware of the alteration in their plans, at once pushed across Glasgow Green, forded the Clyde, and as we can see from the relative position of the places, was without difficulty able to intercept them in their progress.’ The council of war, and the dramatic incident recorded would, therefore, take place to the eastward of Langside, and immediately before the battle.”198

***HOWWOOD, GLASGOW***

david@fisheyes.co.uk writes: “The name Howwood probably comes from Hollow in the Wood. It was once known as Hollowood which later became Howwood.”199

John Warden enumerates: “At this point the village of Howwood, formerly called Houstoun, presents itself on the left. It consists of two long streets; the inhabitants are weavers of silk and cotton; the houses are substantial, for the most part two storeys in height, covered with slate. At a period of remote antiquity, there lived in this village one of those wonder-working saints, with whom Europe in the dark ages was so highly privileged. His name was St Fillan, and to a spring well near the church he communicated the miraculous property of healing diseases. All the sickly children in the neighborhood were carried to this well, and immersed in it by their superstitious mothers, who believed that by a dip in the sacred found their health would be restored. Absurd as was the prejudice in favor of the efficacy of this well, it lingered among the people till the beginning of the eighteenth century, when a stop was put to the sanitary influence of the water by filling it up.

“To a person connected with this village, so extraordinary a fluctuation of fortune happened, as is worth mentioning; especially as the account of it is one that may be relied on. At the latter end of the seventeenth century, the individual alluded to, was a destitute orphan boy, named Macrae, who wandered about Ayr, glad to receive a half penning for any message he might be employed to carry. Hugh M’Quire, a fiddler in Ayr, with a generosity of which the examples are very rare, took him off the streets, gave him a good education, and equipped him for a voyage to the East Indies, where, by a most astonishing movement in the wheel of his fortune, he mounted to the governorship of the presidency of Madras. Having realized a fortune, he returned to his native country, purchased the estate of Howwood, and at his death, in 1744, bequeathed all his property to the man to whose disinterested liberality he had been so deeply indebted. Of his attachment to the Revolution principles which seated William, Prince of Orange, on the British throne, the statue of that monarch at the cross of Glasgow, which was erected at his expense, is a splendid proof.”200

***MOTHERWELL, GLASGOW***

FH Groome gives an account: “Motherwell, a town in Dalziel and Hamilton parishes, Lanarkshire, on the Caledonian railway, at the junction of the two lines from the north and south sides of Glasgow, and at the intersection of the cross line from Holytown to Hamilton and Lesmahagow, ½ mile from the left bank of South Calder Water, 1¼ from the right bank of the Clyde, 2½ miles northeast of Hamilton, 2¼ south-southeast of Holytown, 12½ southeast by east of Glasgow, 15¼ northwest of Carstairs Junction, and 43 west by south of Edinburgh. It took its name from a famous well, dedicated in pre-Reformation times to the Virgin Mary; and it occupies flat ground, 300 feet above sea-level, amid richly cultivated and well-wooded environs. Consisting largely of the dwellings of miners and operatives employed in neighboring collieries and ironworks, it serves, in connection with the railway junctions, as a great and bustling center of traffic; and it ranks as a police burgh, governed by a senior magistrate, 2 junior magistrates, a clerk, a treasurer, and 6 commissioners. Motherwell has a post office, with money order, savings' bank, insurance, and railway telegraph departments, branches of the Bank of Scotland and the Clydesdale Bank, offices or agencies of 18 insurance companies, 5 hotels, the combination poorhouse for Dalziel, Bothwell, Cambusnethan, and Shotts parishes, and a Saturday paper, the Motherwell Times. The streets are lighted with gas; and in 1877 a splendid water supply was brought in from two burns on the estate of Lee at a cost of over 14,000 pounds. In Merry Street is the new parish church of Dalziel, erected in 1874 at a cost of 5,700 pounds; whilst the former parish church (1789; enlarged 1860) belongs now to the quoad sacra parish of South Dalziel, constituted in 1 880. One of the two United Presbyterian churches was built in 1881 at a cost of 3,750 pounds, and from its site - the highest in the town uprears a conspicuous steeple. There are also a Free church, a Primitive Methodist chapel, an Evangelical Union chapel, and the Roman Catholic church of Our Lady of Good Aid (1873; enlarged 1883). No Scottish Town - not even Hawick - has grown so rapidly as Motherwell, such growth being due to the vast extension of its mineral industries. These, at the census of 1881, employed 2,470 of the 3,671 persons here of the industrial class, - 1,024 being engaged in coal-mining, 20 in ironstone-mining, 1,069 in the iron manufacture, 58 in the steel manufacture, etc. The malleable iron-works of the Glasgow Iron Company are the largest in Scotland, with 50 puddling furnaces and 8 rolling mills; and Mr D Colville's steel-works, where operations were commenced on 20 Oct 1880, now employs over 1,000 men.”201

**HIGHLAND**

John Bartholomew points out: “Highlands, generally speaking, that portion of the mainland of Scotland on and beyond the Grampians, in which the population is (or was) mainly Celtic, and the language Gaelic. The imaginary line between the Highlands and the Lowlands has commonly been regarded as commencing at the mouth of the river Nairn (at Nairn, on the Moray Firth); it runs thence southeast to the Dee (at Dinnet, 4 miles west of Aboyne, Aberdeenshire); thence south to the West Water (a headstream of the North Esk, Forfarshire); and thence southwest to the Clyde at Ardmore (opposite Greenock). Some parts of this district, however (notably Caithness), are not marked by the usual physical features of the Highlands.”202

***AIRD OF SLEAT, HIGHLAND***

Susan Skelton relates: “Aird of Sleat: ‘height of the plain’.”203

www.ambaile.org.uk stipulates: “The walk from the old church at Aird of Sleat to Point of Sleat, the most southerly tip of Skye, is about four kilometers. The wooden bridge pictured is one of two which crosses the burn draining from Loch Aruisg. Surrounded by plentiful birdlife and native flora, the path leads to the ruins of croft houses dating from the 1850s near Acairseid an Rubha, with the calm, sandy bay of Camus Daraich and the lighthouse at Point of Sleat additional attractions. The original lighthouse was built in 1934 but replaced in 2003 with a concrete structure supporting a solar powered light.

“On a clear day the views are stunning in every direction, with Loch Nevis, Morar and Moidart to the east and southeast, the Cuillin to the northwest, and the islands of Rum and Eigg to the west and southwest.”204

***BACK OF KEPPOCH, HIGHLAND***

Susan Skelton writes: “Back of Keppoch: ‘bank of the tillage plot’.”205

www.ambaile.org.uk articulates: “This color photograph [see footnote for weblink] was taken from the back of Keppoch near Arisaig on the mainland. Travelling on the road from Fort William to Mallaig, this is where one would get the first glimpse of the Cuillin mountain range on the Isle of Skye. This Road to the Isles route is a popular tourist route, with wonderful scenery. The ferry at Mallaig provides, along with Kyle of Lochalsh, the mainland routes to Skye, landing at Armadale on the Sleat peninsula. This photo gives just a glimpse of the beautiful white sand which can be found along this coastline, and in good weather attracts beach lovers. It was near here that some of the scenes from the acclaimed movie Local Hero were filmed.”206

***BALLACHULISH, HIGHLAND***

FH Groome describes: “Ballachulish (Gaelic bail-a-ehaolais, ‘town of the strait’), a large but straggling village of Lismore and Appin parish, Argyllshire, extending along the southern shore of salt-water Loch Leven, on either side of the Laroch river, up to the month of Glencoe. Its central point, the bridge over the Laroch, is 1¾ mile west-southwest of Bridge of Coe, 2 3/8 miles east-southeast of Ballachulish Ferry, and 16½ south of Fort William; by coach and steamer Ballachulish in summer has constant communication with Tyndrum and Oban, and so with all parts of Scotland. At Ballachulish Ferry, where the entrance of Loch Leven narrows to 1 furlong, stands an excellent hotel; the steamboat pier is 1 mile further west; and the village has a post and telegraph office under Glencoe, an Established mission church (enlarged 1880), a Free church, St John's Episcopal church (1842-8; congregation, 600) in pseudo

Early English style, and St Mum's Roman Catholic church (1836; 100 sittings). A public and an Episcopal school, accommodating 58 and 126 children, had (1879) an attendance of 67 and 84, and grants of 48 pounds, 12 shillings and 28 pounds, 10 shillings. Population of village (1871) 944; of Glencoe and Ballachulish registration district (1871) 1,529, (1881) 1,441. The slate quarries, to quote from Trans Highl and Ag Soc (1878), p 77, were commenced about 1760, and at present are worked with great vigor under the trustees of the late Sir George Beresford. The vein of slate, which is at an angle of 80 degrees, stretches south and east from the shore along the side of Meall Mor (2,215 feet), and then runs into the center of it. The face of the rock is laid open by workings fronting north and west, the inclination of the vein being towards the east. The workings of the main or east quarries are conducted in four levels, above the common highway, and three sinkings, making an aggregate working face of 436 feet in depth - an increase of 230 feet since 1843.”207

***CARBISDALE, HIGHLAND***

Neil Oliver establishes: “Montrose had been four years on the Continent and sailed from Sweden to Orkney in March 1650. As things turned out, he should have stayed away. He managed to raise a force of committed but untrained and largely clueless Orcadians and crossed over to mainland Scotland in April. Intercepted by a Covenanter force at Carbisdale on 27 April 1650, his old skills deserted him and his force was soundly defeated. The young king-to-be promptly disowned him and left him to his fate. Betrayed and captured soon afterwards, he was taken to Edinburgh and executed as a traitor on 21 May.

“When the assembled crowd caught sight of the Marquis that morning, they gasped. He was immaculate – dressed, it was said, like a bridegroom, with his long dark hair curled to Cavalier perfection, black suit, scarlet cloak and ribboned shoes. Before his head was parted from his body, he recited a poem he had composed the night before:

‘Open all my veins, that I may swim

To Thee my Savior, in that crimson lake.’

“Why are style, wit, panache and class so often the preserve of the vanquished – while the grey-faced wee men grind on to victory, powered by the irresistible force of their mirthless drudgery?”208

***DRUMNADROCHIT, HIGHLAND***

Susan Skelton highlights: “Drumnadrochit: ‘ridge of the bridge’.”209

Sandra Bardwell portrays: “Although I'm not a local (I actually moved here from Melbourne, Australia 24 years ago), I pretty sure that the name is derived from the Gaelic language. Drum (originally Druim) means ‘high ground’ or ‘ridge’; na is a joining word (conjunction); and drochit means ‘bridge’, so you have ‘ridge or high ground near/by the bridge’.”210

Scotland, Society for the Benefit of the Sons, and Daughters of the Clergy remarks: “Glenmoriston, except near its mouth, where it is flat and deeply sunk among the high steep pine and birch-clad hills which rise abruptly on both sides of it, is an inclined valley, expanding in width as we ascend, and displaying in great extent and luxuriance the rounded forms and lively green of a birch forest, which stretch far up the mountain sides from the dark and mingled masses of native pine, oak, and roan-tree lining the rocky banks of the impetuous torrent, which forces its tortuous course along the center of the

glen. It is hence but little cultivated, and the district is almost exclusively a pastoral one. The lower parts of the valley, indeed, are almost entirely covered with birches, and towards the interior the hills are crowned with noble woods of the Scotch fir or pine. Urquhart, on the other hand, expands first from the waters of Loch Ness into a beautiful semicircular plain, divided by regularly shaped fields and hedge-rows, and having all the hill sides above it beautifully diversified by woods and cultivated grounds, where persevering labor is seen overcoming all the obstacles of situation and climate, and carrying tillage to a great elevation. By the course of the river Coiltie, which waters the southern side of this plain, the receding and smaller sized stripes of corn ground are seen extending into the natural domains of the birch tree and brown heath of the upland pastures; while the Enneric water on the west leads the eye past the white walls of the large and excellent inn of Drumnadrochit, (which corrupt word signifies ‘the height above the bridge’,) beyond which a reach of two or three miles of haugh land (affording room for some of the best farms in the district, and the site of its most populous hamlets,) conducts to a rocky pass or gorge: on turning this we attain the upper or inland valley of Urquhart, which is almost circular, its center being occupied by Loch Meikly, an elegant sheet of water, (about one mile long, and half a mile broad,) from the edges of which arise the green and highly improved lawns and cultivated grounds of Lakefield and Lochletter. Over a heathy ridge beyond these we reach, two or three miles farther on, the flat of Corrymony, which is adorned by some very large ash and beech trees, and where cultivation has been successfully introduced to a considerable extent, at a distance of twenty-five miles from the sea, and at least 800 or 900 feet above it.”211

James Grassie shares: “There are several obscure vestiges of Druidical superstition to be met with in the glen, the most extensive of which is at Corrymony. On the summit of Melfourvonie there is a hole, into which a burn flows, it is said, to Lochness, through three thousand feet of rock; and the Drumnadrochit bridge is built over a pool into which the Grants and Cummings threw an hundred Macweians, (a branch of the Clan Macdonald,) each having a huge stone attached to his neck.”212

***EILEAN DONAN CASTLE, HIGHLAND 213 ***

Neil Oliver stresses: “As things turned out, Spain was as far as he got. A combined Spanish-Jacobite force made a nuisance of itself in his name. Eilean Donan Castle was briefly garrisoned by Spaniards before being pounded to rubble by the guns of the British Navy. Spain had made noises about Jacobites rising in their tens of thousands, of wholesale rebellion, but it was cynical and empty talk. As could have been predicted, the whole dreamy fiasco arrived at a dead end – this time in a battle in the steep-sided valley of Glenshiel, on 10 Jun 1719.

“All the assembled Highlanders could do was fight bravely, standing up to artillery and well-drilled Hanoverian musketry as well as any regular army could have done. But, as ever, it was not enough – could never have been enough – and Jacobite dreams blew away on the Highland breeze. James had never put in an appearance and had stayed in Spain until advised by his hosts that his presence was no longer welcome.”214

***GLENCOE, HIGHLAND 215 ***

Neil Oliver sheds light on: “Like all the clans, the MacDonalds of Glencoe were cattle thieves, praying on their knees on Sundays, as they say, and praying upon their neighbors the rest of the week. Right at the end of December, the Maclain turned up at Fort William to swear his oath. The fort was commanded by Colonel John Hill, recently recalled from Ireland, who rightly told the chief he had no powers to

administer such an oath. The job required a royal sheriff and Sir Colin Campbell of Ardkinglas, believed to be at Inveraray, was the only man nearby of appropriate rank.

“Suddenly desperate, realizing the gravity of his situation, the Maclain set off into the teeth of a snowstorm in hope of reaching Inveraray in time. He arrived on 2 January 1692, one day past the deadline, to learn that Sir Colin was away from the fort celebrating Hogmanay. He did not return until three days later and, though he allowed the Maclain to swear his oath, both men knew it was invalid.

“The Master of Stair, loather of Highlanders and Jacobites alike, had his victims at last. Argyll’s regiment was chosen for the task of delivering a punishment both ‘secret and suddain’, and the officer selected for the job was one Robert Campbell of Glenlyon, a laird whose lands and people had been viciously attacked by MacDonalds of Glencoe during the 1689 rebellion.

“He and his men arrived at the home of the Maclain in early February, and were offered the hospitality demanded by Highland tradition. They stayed for some days until, on 12 February, Campbell received orders, approved by King William himself, that he was to massacre every man, woman and child. He attempted to carry out the gory work the following day but a combination of bad weather and professional ineptitude permitted two of the Maclain’s sons to raise the alarm and lead most of their kin out of reach of the troopers.

“Exposure took several of those who fled – and Campbell’s men put musket balls and bayonets through the Maclain and thirty-seven of his folk, including old women and toddlers. By any measure it was ugly, and when news of the crime reached the cities it was condemned even by those who feared the threat of Jacobite rebellion. The unrepentant Master of Stair wondered at the fuss made about ‘a sept of thieves’, but was eventually driven from office. That apart, no one individual was ever punished for the cruel butchery of Glencoe.

“Ugly it surely had been, but it was also a tactical disaster for the Williamite government that had ordered it. The intention had been to horrify the dissenting clans into submission, and yet it had generated only fury and renewed defiance. Cameron of Lochiel, a mighty and influential magnate, responded by ordering every government soldier off his lands. Even the MacDonalds of Glenroe, the survivors of the act itself, stood to arms from their temporary homes in the lands of sheltering neighbors.”216

Julie Davidson suggests: “The name of this gloomy but spectacular glen has become synonymous with perfidy. Few visitors pass through the mountain gates of Glen Coe without feeling the weight of its intimidating landscape, as if the glen is reluctant to throw off its reputation. People continue to die here; the formidable peaks of Buachaille Etive Mor, Bidean nam Bian and the ragged Aonach Eagach ridge take an annual toll of climbers, and loom over the road like a threat. But those who died in Glencoe on a winter morning in 1692 were not extreme sports enthusiasts, but victims of a covert Government plot driven by vicious Lowland prejudice.

“There has been much historical mythmaking about the Massacre of Glencoe, which was entirely the intention of those who planned it – the 17th-century spin doctors and establishment figures who helped create the popular belief that the mass murders were down to longstanding enmity between Clan Campbell and Clan MacDonald. To this day the Clachaig Inn in the village of Glencoe stokes the legend with a notice: ‘No hawkers or Campbells.’

“It is true that the military force sent to put the ‘miscreants’ to the sword was a regiment recruited from the Campbell heartland of Argyll, and commanded by Captain Robert Campbell of Glenlyon, who had a grievance against the Maclains, a sept of the MacDonald clan. (Some years earlier they had looted his lands.) But only a minority of the 120 Government soldiers had the name Campbell, many of the officers were Lowlanders and some were so appalled by the secret plot to attack the hospitable MacDonalds that they warned their hosts to flee. Two lieutenants even broke their swords and defied their orders.

“It is, more than anything, the abuse of Highland hospitality which has made the massacre so infamous. By the standards of the day there was no exceptional loss of life: Alastair Maclain, the 12th Chief of Glencoe, and 37 of his clansmen were killed, the old chief as he rose from his bed; 40 women and children died of exposure after their homes were burned. But Captain Campbell, a Highlander himself, had defiled something sacred in Highland culture; treated as guests he and his men turned on their hosts.

“Why were they there? The MacDonalds were Jacobites who had helped the efforts to restore the evicted King James II (James VII of Scotland) to the British throne, which was now occupied by William of Orange at the behest of the English Parliament. After the failure of this early Jacobite rebellion the Highland chiefs were ordered to swear an oath of loyalty to the new king, under threat of reprisal. They were given a deadline: January 1, 1692.

“Maclain waited until the last moment but duly presented himself to the governor of Fort William, who sent him to Inveraray to take the oath. There followed a series of misadventures which made him miss the deadline by three days, but he was assured his loyalty had been registered. The chief returned to his glen with an easy heart. In Edinburgh, however, Sir John Dalrymple, the Scottish Secretary, and Sir Thomas Livingstone, commander of the army in Scotland, saw an opportunity to teach the ‘Highland barbarians’ a lesson. King William was persuaded the MacDonalds had breached the terms of their pardon and signed the order to dispatch a regiment to Glencoe, where it was billeted to the clan communities.

“Despite the conspirators’ efforts to direct attention to tensions between Campbells and MacDonalds, there was an outcry when the massacre became public, followed by an inquiry which judged the slaughter ‘murder’. The king was exonerated, and Dalrymple was held to blame, but no-one was brought to justice. The Massacre of Glencoe became a propaganda tool for the Jacobites when they made their more determined attempt to restore the Stuart dynasty in 1745. It is also another example of the Scottish appetite for tragic myths.”217

***INCHNADAMPH, HIGHLAND***

Susan Skelton composes: “Inchnadamph: ‘water meadow of the stag’.”218

D MacDonald designates: “This road ascends by the side of the river Loanan to Loch Awe, and by Ledbeg and Ledmore (where a road branches off to Elphin and Ullapool) to Aultnacealgaich, where there is a hotel on the shores of Loch Borolan. It is worth noticing that here a part of the county of Ross is thrust into Sutherland like a wedge. It seems that there was once a dispute as to the exact boundary to the two counties, and the old Ross-shire witnesses came to settle the matter, and walked into Sutherland declaring all the time that they certainly were standing on Ross-shire soil. It was found that they had Ross-shire soil in their boots, and thus the place got its Gaelic name, which means ‘The Cheat’s Burn’.

Here the road passes into the county of Ross and Cromarty, and re-enters Sutherland again at Oykell Bridge. Three miles beyond this is Tuitim Tarvach (complete fall or slaughter), where in 1406 was fought one of the fiercest of clan fights. Macleod of Lewis heard that his sister, the widow of Angus Mackay of Strathnaver, was not well treated by her brother-in-law, Uistean Dow Mackay, and with a chosen body of men he came to see how she fared. He was anything but satisfied, and therefore on his homeward journey he spoiled Strathnaver and drove away much prey. Robert, Earl of Sutherland, sent Alexander Murray with a company to assist Uistean Dow to recover the spoil. They overtook Macleod at this spot. The fight was long and furious, and Macleod and all his company were killed, with the exception of one who managed to reach Lewis, and there, after telling his tale of woe, he died of his wounds.”219

***INVERLOCHY, HIGHLAND***

Neil Oliver expands: “By the time winter set in fully, Colkitto had returned with thousands more MacDonald clansmen and, while the weather did its worst, so did they. Rewriting the rulebook of military tactics as he went along, Montrose led his men on forced marches that ought to have been beyond human endurance. While Argyll and his forces made plans for one sort of battle, ‘the Great Marquis’ found ways to outflank and out maneuver them at will and to deliver wrathful surprise attacks that soon littered the hills and glens with more Covenanter dead. He appeared as though from nowhere to slaughter a predominantly Campbell force at Inverlochy, in February 1645. In May a Covenanter force tried to take Montrose and Colkitto unawares outside the village of Auldearn, near Nairn. The surprise attack nearly worked, but the Royalists replied with almost maniacal bravery and dash, breaking the Covenanter attack and smashing the force to pieces. There was another stunning victory at Alford, near Aberdeen, in July and then the bloodbath of Kilsyth on 15 August where 3,000 Covenanters fell beneath Royalist swords.

“Montrose’s run of victories made him seem invincible – that was the word they were starting to use about him in the Covenanter ranks – but in truth it was all form and no substance. The Marquis had all the dash and flair to make a dozen warriors seem heroic, but he was just one man. He had military brilliance in spades but he faced a whole ideology, a religious and political movement that would not be denied by a single brave soldier.”220

***JOHN O’GROATS, HIGHLAND***

FH Groome illustrates: “John o' Groat's House, a quondam octagonal domicile in Canisbay parish, northeast Caithness, on the flat downy shore of the Pentland Firth, 1¾ mile west of Duncansbay Head and 18 miles north of Wick. Its legend is told as follows: During the reign of James IV, a Lowlander of the name of Groat - or, according to some versions, a Dutchman of the name of John de Groot - arrived along with his brother in Caithness, bearing a letter from the King, which recommended them to the gentlemen of the county. They procured land at this remote spot, settled, and became the founders of families. When the race of Groat had increased to the number of eight different branches, the amity which had hitherto characterized them was unfortunately interrupted. One night, in the course of some festivity, a quarrel arose as to who had the best right to sit at the head of the table next to the door; high words ensued, and the ruin of the whole family, by their dissension, seemed at hand. In this emergency, however, one of them, John, rose, and having stilled their wrath by soft language, assured them that at their next meeting he would settle the point at issue to the satisfaction of all. Accordingly, he erected upon the extreme point of their territory an octagonal building, having a door and window at every side, and furnished with a table of exactly the same shape; and when the next family festival was

held, he desired each of his kin to enter at his own door, and take the corresponding seat at the table. The perfect equality of this arrangement satisfied all, and their former good humor was thus restored. There are many different versions of the above story, but all bearing a resemblance to the well-known legend of the Knights of the Round Table. One version represents John, the ingenious deviser of the octagonal house, to have been the ferryman from Canisbay to Orkney. The site of the house is only marked by an outline on the turf; but in 1875 a good hotel was built hard by, with an appropriate octagonal tower, which commands a magnificent view. The only European cowry known (Cyproea Europea) is cast up here by the tide, along with quantities of other beautiful shells, and bears the name of ‘John o' Groat's buckie’.”221

Caithness Official Guide maintains: “In the reign of James IV of Scotland three brothers, Malcolm, Gavin and John de Groat, natives of Holland – came to the County carrying with them a letter in Latin from that monarch. They purchased or obtained by Royal Charter the lands of Wares and Duncansby in the parish of Canisbay. As time passed, the families increased and the sub-divided lands became the possessions of eight different proprietors of the name of Groat. At the annual festival held to commemorate their landing, a dispute arose as to the right of entering the door and sitting at the head of the table. The quarrel became bitter and was likely to end in disaster when old John de Groat interposed promising that, if they went home in peace on this occasion, at their next gathering he would satisfy them all. Accordingly he built a house distinct by itself, octagonal in form, with eight doors and windows, and in the center of the room he placed an eight-sided table. When the next meeting took place, he invited each member to enter by his own door and to sit at the head of the table. By this happy idea the family disruption was prevented, and harmony and good humor restored.

“Such is the story which furnishes an excellent moral. Dr Morison adds that in 1732, there were those alive who had seen the oak table. There were Groats in possession of the lands until the 17th century, and John Groat was the Orkney ferryman until 1730. The surrounding natural features are unsurpassed. A long line of knolly links with soft and spring sward, lines a glistening white beach of broken shells lapped by a sea of deepest blue. The eastern part of the beach is thickly strewn with dainty little cowrie shells locally known as ‘groaties’ or ‘groatie-buckies’, which are carried to the ends of the earth by visitors.

“No one should return without seeing Duncansby Head, the finest headland in Scotland, a mile to the east of John o’ Groats. The cliffs which rise to a considerable height forming the extreme northeast corner of Caithness, are indented with chasms and goes, striking in their rugged boldness and grandeur. A recently-erected lighthouse sits while on the crown of the Head, relieving the monotonous loneliness but adding to the immensity. To the south of the promontory are the ‘Stacks’, two immense pillars of rock, fantastic in form, rising from the sea like Alpine peaks of a nether region and raising their heads to the height of the cliffs.”222

***KINLOCH, ISLE OF RUM, HIGHLAND 223 ***

Neil Oliver presents: “The importance of the site at Kinloch was confirmed by radiocarbon dates that revealed just how long ago those pioneers had begun spending time on the island – over 7,000 years BC. Other evidence from the dig – shadowy traces of shelters and fires – revealed they had not just been day-trippers either. On the northwest of the island is a mountain called Creag nan Stearnan, ‘Bloodstone Hill’, and it was this that made Rum a particularly useful destination for the bands of hunter-gatherers who pulled their boats ashore at Kinloch all those millennia ago. Bloodstone is a

chalcedonic silica that can be flaked and worked into sharp tools, much like flint, and the chalcedony of Creag nan Stearnan is particularly good-quality. It was ideal for making small blades – microliths – that could be mounted in shafts of wood, horn or bone to create a serrated edge. (Archeologists identify these microliths as the defining characteristic of the tool-making practices of the Mesolithic – hundreds of generations of people, classified just by tiny chips of stone.)

“As well as coming to the island to collect supplies of the raw material and to work some of it into tools, the bands of hunter-gatherers stayed on Rum – perhaps for weeks or months at a time. Nodules of bloodstone were collected at Guirdil Bay, below the mountain, and finds there showed the stone was quality-checked in situ before ‘blanks’ were worked up for completion back at a well-established and well-organized campsite at Kinloch.

“To make their stay more comfortable the travelers erected substantial shelters similar to tipis – frameworks of branches harvested from the hazel, birch and willow trees known to have grown on the island at the time, and covered with brushwood or animal hides. The people who lived upon and exploited the land before Scotland, 10,000 and more years ago, were the same as us in every way. In terms of their potential, their physical and mental abilities and their appearance, they were fully modern human beings indistinguishable from any person alive today. Their circumstances differed from ours enormously, their achievements limited by their technology. They are separated from us only by time.”224

***LOCH NESS, HIGHLAND***

AJ Shine renders: “It all began in 1882, just as stories of a ‘huge fish’ were circulating in the village of Drumnadrochit. Here, the old inn which stood on the loch-side road was being rebuilt in the sumptuous Victorian Baronial style. The new Drumnadrochit Hotel was to play an increasing part in a mystery that has captivated, or at least intrigued, seven generations and most of the world.

“Around 1916, a local gamekeeper came into the hotel ‘with his face as white as paper’. His encounter, in a small boat on Loch Ness was, like other accounts, not something people cared to talk about in those days. But all that changed with what the hotel manageress, Mrs MacKay, saw on a spring day in 1933. Not that she wanted publicity; she was afraid of being thought self-advertising, but the story leaked out and the rest, as they say, ‘is history’. Back then, the hotel had a regular fishing clientele, often staying for a couple of weeks with ghillies taking them out onto the loch. However, by 1960, increasing numbers of visitors were touring by coach. The Loch Ness question was finally taken seriously by people like the naturalist Sir Peter Scott. The Loch Ness Phenomenon Investigation Bureau arrived and organized research began.

“Now the ‘Drum’ Hotel became the gathering point for generations of investigators. Another arrival were the new owners, the Bremner family, and the beginning of a new vision. Together with designer Tony Harmsworth, they opened a small Loch Ness exhibition in the hotel’s old stables in 1980. The ‘Drum’ became ‘The Loch Ness Centre’ and soon a link was forged with the Loch Ness Project. The Project had succeeded the Loch Ness Investigation of the 1960s, and with it came the records of everything that had gone before. Support for the loch’s exploration provided by the public exhibition guaranteed that the enterprise would become a true research center for everything of significance since then. The Loch Ness Centre and Project association has provided support for two decades of research. The laboratories and classrooms have hosted collaborating scientists, university field trips and school

visits, while logistics are provided for individual studies from undergraduate to PhD. In the last decade, some 64 separate studies have been completed, ranging over every aspect of the loch. Always the answers lead to more questions.

“Visitors can participate too. Instead of the fishing ghillies of old, the Project’s research vessel ‘Deepscan’ now gives a flavor of what makes Loch Ness so special during summer cruises for visitors. Incidentally, ‘Operation Deepscan’, was the Project’s massive sonar sweep in 1987. This was the largest ever probe into the loch and was organized from the Centre. This was no mean task with 120 expedition members let along 326 media crews to be accommodated.

“In 1984, fire damaged the old ‘Drum’ hotel. It was the end of an era but led to something very new as the exhibition moved on. This was only a beginning. A new design; a multi-million pound development was planned for the millennium. The grand Victorian building still looks the same as it always did; on the outside! But, inside and behind it, an architectural challenge has been met with radical use of the space left by the fire. In the ‘underwater’ room, a clear void extends up through the entire height of the building, and even the old wine-cellar has been put to novel use! Large extensions house further displays, including ‘The Sonar Panel’ with its laser show and the actual 12m sonar search vessel from the 1980s.

“Everything in the exhibition is real! The Project researchers place their equipment here; the ROSETTA sediment coring machine for example. This retrieved and unlocked the 10,000 year time capsule of mud from the depths of the loch. It was built only yards from where it now stands. The tiny submersible ‘Machan’ was last used over thirty years ago in rather more adventurous times! When the exhibition presentation enters the ‘Ice Age Lost World’ 230m down, you may be sure the underwater footage of its creatures, was really filmed there, at a depth greater than the height of the London Telecom Tower.

“All this may help to explain why the exhibition is not what you might expect. The partnership between exhibition, field research and most importantly, our visitors, ensures that the exploration continues and that anything you find here will be exciting, objective and, above all, truthful. As you will see, truth is stranger than fiction.

“The land we mastered, water keeps its mystery; a threshold to another world. The folklore of people everywhere, sees lakes as an abode for monsters. If there are any real monsters left, then water is their most likely refuge. However, to society at large, folklore and fact seldom mix.

“Yet, few are aware of just how strong the human testimony from Loch Ness actually is. There are over a thousand reports which are more than most people think. Witnesses are not drunk, and they come from all walks of life. Almost all of them are wholly sincere. The Loch Ness Monster did not have its origins in the Scottish tourist industry; there are more reports from visitors than from the residents who are generally more reticent. Nor is the monster a wholly recent invention, though the modern Nessie stereotype certainly is.

“But there is a difficulty. There is more than one kind of monster report! To understand why and perhaps to find grains of truth being a myth, we must gather the threads of legend together.

“Ever since the prows of the Viking long ships bore the Sea Dragon as a figurehead, Norse and Celtic folklore spoke of the Orm of northern waters. Sea-serpent sightings were still debated with interest during the nineteenth century. Some of the reports were from the coast of Scotland.

“The story of St Columba’s encounter in 565AD was clearly intended to show the power of Christian prayer over pagan beliefs. Some of these beliefs survived though. Much later, Highland folklore was to speak of an ill-omened Kelpie or Water Horse in many lochs. It would drag unsuspecting travelers into the water to devour them.

“These were seldom matters confided to fashionable Victorians touring the new Caledonian Canal, but sometimes, in the camaraderie of their outdoor expeditions, fishing ghillies and deer stalkers might speak to the hunting and fishing gentlemen from the south. So it was that in 1857, Lord Malmesbury recorded a description of the ‘Lake Horse’ of Loch Arkaig given to him by a stalker and his boy. He emphasized how superstitious they were about it. In 1895 the Duke of Portland heard from the fishing ghillies, of ‘a horrible great beastie as they called it, which appeared in Loch Ness’.

“Yet, at least as early as 1868, there was a more solid, local tradition. On October 8th, the Inverness Courier reported a curious incident at Abriachan. A ‘huge fish’ was washed up dead on the beach. It was about 2 meters long. Some thought it was the strange fish which had ‘been occasionally seen gamboling in the loch for years back’. It was finally pronounced to be a skinned dolphin, possibly thrown overboard by ‘the waggish crew’ of a passing fishing boat to fool ‘the primitive inhabitants of Abriachan’. This incident is the earliest reference we’ve found to something more than the Water Horse of legend.

“Around 1916, James Cameron, the head keeper of the Balmacaan estate, came into the Drumnadrochit Hotel ‘with his face as white as paper’. He had been fishing when a huge animal surfaced by his boat. Then in 1933 the hotel manageress, Mrs Mackay saw ‘the beast’ and a sensation began. As north shore road improvements removed the screen of trees and increased the flow of visitors, there were more sightings. Most were and still are, of a huge multi-humped sea-serpent undulating across the loch. It was so powerful that waves often broke on the shore. However, there was another sort of monster about to make an entrance. Stories of ‘strange fish’ were about to be brushed aside.

“On the 4th of August, unprecedented news came from a Mr Spicer. Driving along the south shore on a hot July afternoon he’d glimpsed, as it crossed the road, ‘the nearest approach to a dragon or prehistoric animal that I have ever seen in my life’. He only saw it for a few seconds but it seemed to have a long neck and ponderous body. This was the first long neck report. Spicer had recently seen the film ‘King Kong’ and considered what he had seen resembled the screen animation of a Diplodocus.

“It was the long neck which alone created the world sensation of a ‘prehistoric’ plesiosaur. But in the midst of industrial depression, it was definitely entertaining. Prehistoric monsters had been in vogue since the Crystal Palace exhibition of 1854 and Conan Doyle’s 1912 book The Lost World.

“The sightings rocketed and now began to include long necks actually in the water. By September, Alex Campbell, the water-bailiff, had also claimed a plesiosaur sighting. Media attention grew, but scientific interest waned. The loch became a national joke in December when the Daily Mail newspaper sent a big game hunter to the loch.

“However, the next summer saw a serious expedition mounted by the insurance magnate, Sir Edward Mountain during his holiday at Beauly in 1934. Twenty unemployed Inverness men were enrolled as ‘watchers for the monster’ and paid 2 pounds a week. Eleven sightings were made and five photographs taken, most attributable to boat wakes. On 15th September, the expedition’s leader Capt James Fraser,

took a film from near Urquhart Castle. Sadly, the film has been lost but when shown to scientists they did at least believe that it showed a living animal. A seal!

“But sightings persisted and thanks to authors Rupert Gould, Constance Whyte and others, there are now over a thousand records. Eyewitness testimony is still the most impressive category of evidence because of its sheer volume and the manifest sincerity of the observers. Enthusiasts viewed scientific reticence as an affront to eyewitnesses where testimony would convince many a judge and jury. The refusal of science to accept the evidence of ordinary people roused a band of amateurs to confront academic arrogance in a crusade for truth. They were seldom naturalists, who generally recoiled from the prehistoric monster promoted by the media. Often, the hunters were engineers. They relished the technical challenge of search and observation in the dark and hostile underwater environment. Though their monster theories widened the gap with scientific credibility, their methods would reveal much about the loch. In the end, the scientific method was applied indirectly in a study of the loch’s environment which shed unexpected light upon the controversy. But that was in the future.

“However, even at the time, many people thought that the reports owed much to imagination. We now know more about the fallibility of eyewitness observations, and often it has as much to do with rationalization as imagination; that is, trying to make sense of what we see. Seen over water, especially calm water, it is hard to judge the size of an unknown object. Nevertheless, if people were seeing large animals, it was perfectly logical to start by looking for large animals.

“The Loch Ness Project believes that almost all reports are sincere but perception over water can mislead, reflecting our own expectations. Over analysis showed for the first time that although there were reports of a beast or strange fish dating back to 1868, there were no records of long neck sightings before Spicer’s encounter on land made the first connection to plesiosaurs. We wondered whether the expectations of a long neck might influence perceptions. Experiments did prove that expectations could sometimes influence recollections. In our case, because the observers were prepared for the experiment, their expectations were more focused around their thoughts about how we were contriving the event.

“But the impressive eyewitness testimony revealed by Constance Whyte in her 1957 book More than a Legend certainly justified an investigation. This, together with a series of puzzling change photographs which appeared over the years began to interest a few members of a zoological community.

“Organized investigation began in the spring of 1960 and slowly some answers, at least to the ‘Sea Serpent’ and Plesiosaur sightings began to emerge.”

AJ Shine continues: “History: 565AD, St Columba: This Christian missionary to King Brude of the Picts, ‘drove away a certain water monster’ in the River Ness. His biographer, St Adamnan, wrote that one of Columba’s followers was attacked as he swam across to collect a boat from the other side. The Saint ‘formed the sign of the cross in the empty air’ saying ‘Think not go further nor touch thou that man. Quick! Go back!’ The beast ‘fled backwards more rapidly than he came’.

“Folklore: 1st July 1853, The Kelpie: The Inverness Courier reports ‘A scene from Lochend’. Two strange animals were sighted. Some ‘thought it was the sea-serpent coiling along the surface, and others a couple of whales or large seals’. The inhabitants were ready with battle-axes and pitchforks. At last, a ‘venerable patriarch’ was about to fire his gun when he threw it down and shouted ‘God protect us they

are the Water Horses’, the ill-omened Kelpies of folklore. They did turn out to be horses; two ponies from the Aldourie estate over a mile away!

“Witness: 1933, Mrs A Mackay: Mrs Mackay, the manageress of the Drumnadrochit Hotel, was on the road from Inverness when she saw something resembling a whale. Her story was picked up by Alex Campbell, water bailiff and enthusiast of the legend. His article published in the Inverness Courier for the 2nd May is seen as the birth of the modern legend.

“Jokes and hoax: 1933, Master Hoaxer: Daily Mail sponsored Marmaduke Wetherell, big game hunter and master hoaxer, gravely submitted plaster casts of some strange footprints to the British Museum. He’d made them with one of his trophies, a hippopotamus foot ashtray. He was about to create the ultimate hoax which lasted for 60 years.

“Witness: 15th June, 1965, Ian Cameron: One evening, Detective Sergeant John Cameron was with a friend, fishing from the shore. They saw a ‘whale-like object’ between twenty and thirty feet long. They concluded that it was animate because it turned unexpectedly across the wind. There were other witnesses, and the incident is one of the longest on record.

“Witness: Oct 14th 1971, Father Gregory: Father Gregory Brusey, a monk from Fort Augustus Abbey, took a guest down to the lochside. They saw a neck they judged to be 10 feet high. It swam towards them and submerged with a sideways motion.

“Witness: July 30th 1979, Alastair Boyd: While Alastair and Sue Boyd parked in a lay-by above Temple Pier, a huge hump surfaced. It was about the size of a yacht hull, but in the time it took to get their camera, it disappeared.

“Tests: 1991, Perception Experiment: We invited people to observe and sketch an object surfacing. A third of the observers saw a submarine periscope, flagpole, tree branch, water bird or a crude model of a head and neck. Actually it was a simple wooden post and to be fair, most people got it right.”225

***PORTMAHOMACK, HIGHLAND***

Susan Skelton calls attention to: “Portmahomack: ‘port of [Saint] Colman’.”226

D MacDonald connotes: “The carved face has a linked border of free ornament at both sides, while the top panel contains the Pictish symbols of the spectacle ornament, the second panel contains a crescent ornamented with a Celtic fret, with two discs underneath elaborately filled in with Celtic interlacing. The third panel contains a hunting scene, with female on horseback, two horsemen with spears, swords and shields, two men blowing horns, three dogs and a deer, while in the left hand corner of panel appear a mirror and double comb.

“From the similarity of the free ornamentation of the border to that on the early Northumbrian sculptured stones, it is extremely likely that the Hilton Stone was erected under the influence of St Colman, who was Bishop of Lindisfarne, 660-4, but who left Northumbria for Iona after the great council of Whitby had decided to adopt the usages of the Church of Rome, and who is known to have labored in Easter Ross. He is the patron saint of Tarbat, and from the Portmahomack (Port mo Cholmaig, ‘St Colman’s Port’) gets its name. This stone, on the demolition of the Castle, was sent to the British Museum, but, on account of the protests raised, was returned to the National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh.”227

***TARSKAVAIG, HIGHLAND***

Susan Skelton details: “Tarskavaig: ‘across cod bay’.”228

DI Hutchison explains: “The small coastal crofting community of Tarskavaig is located, within Lord MacDonald’s old estate, on the Sleat peninsula of Skye. During the 19th century the estate also included land in North Uist and other areas on Skye.

“The name Tarskavaig (Old Norse: ‘Cod Bay’) probably dates back to around 875 AD, when the first Norwegian settlers arrived on Skye. The earliest reference is contained in a book about the history of Clan MacDonald which alludes to the planned murder of two MacDonald brothers from Tarskavaig in the year 1500.

“The first documentary evidence is contained in Lord MacDonald’s estate rental records of 1718. However, it was not until 1766 that a small farming community at Tarskavaig appeared on a map. The sale of black cattle, as in other parts of Skye at the time, provided the main source of income to pay the rent.

“The village of Tarskavaig was developed to allow Lord MacDonald to exploit the resources of the sea and the under-utilized, poorer-quality land along the coast.

“The village was established in 1811 when it was laid out to 31 small crofts. The plots were not big enough to support a family from the land alone, so the tenants were forced to earn money from kelping and fishing in order to pay the rent. In the hasty pursuit of profit, Lord Macdonald put far too many people on the land.

“The economy of Tarskavaig was dependent on five key activities: the breeding of black cattle for sale, growing potatoes, fishing, kelping, and the rearing of sheep for wool. Tragically, during the course of the 19th century these vital sources of employment and subsistence successively failed, or declined, leaving the economy of the village in ruins. It was only by finding ever more ‘work in the south’ that crofting families were able to survive.

“The ‘Year of Destitution’ in 1837 was the turning point in the history of Tarskavaig, as the land could no longer support the rising population. After reaching a peak of 250 in 1837, the number of inhabitants declined steadily. The Potato Blight of 1846 was another massive blow to the community, as around 80% of the diet was being provided by the humble potato. Crofting at Tarskavaig entered a period of decline, from which it would never recover.

“Regardless of all the improvements in land ownership brought about by the Crofters’ Holdings Act of 1886, traditional crofting continued its unrelenting decline into the 20th century. Increasingly the crofters had to derive substantial income from employment outside the village in order to keep the crofts functioning. Despite all their efforts, by 2001 the population had fallen to just 68.

“Following formation of the Clan Donald Lands Trust in 1971 and creation of the successful Sabhal Mòr Ostaig (Gaelic college) at Kilmore in 1974, there has been a major recovery in the population of Sleat. Despite the considerable depopulation which has taken place at Tarskavaig since 1837, it is hoped that the proposed expansion of Sabhal Mòr Ostaig will revitalize employment in the region and ultimately increase the number of full-time residents in the village.”229

**MIDLOTHIAN**

FH Groome imparts: “Edinburghshire or Midlothian, a maritime county in the eastern part of the southern division of Scotland, is bounded north by the Firth of Forth; east by Haddington, Berwick, and Roxburgh shires; south by Selkirk, Peebles, and Lanark shires; and west and northwest by Linlithgowshire. Its greatest length, from east to west, is 36 miles, its greatest breadth, from northwest to southeast, is 24 miles; and its area is estimated at 234,926 acres, or 367 square miles. Its outline is somewhat irregular, but forms approximately the figure of a half moon, with the convex side resting on the Forth, and the horns stretching respectively to the southeast and southwest. Its coast line is neither rugged nor bold, but stretches for about 12 miles along the southern shore of the Firth, for the most part in sandy or shingly beach. There are several havens for fishing boats, and large and important harbors at Leith and Granton.

“The surface of this county is exceedingly diversified with hill and dale, but on the whole gradually ascends from the sea towards the interior till it reaches its culminating point (2,136 feet) in Blackhope Scar among the Moorfoot Hills in the southeast. The effect of this far from regular upward incline is to produce scenery of a very tolerably varied kind; and though there is no part of Edinburghshire that can be described as grand, yet most parts are picturesque, and all are pleasant. There are several of those wooded dens or ‘clenchs’ that are almost peculiar to southern Scotland and northern England. On the southeastern boundary of Edinburghshire stretch the western slopes of the Lammermuirs; further west, and occupying the south of the county and extending into Peeblesshire, lie the Moorfoot Hills, in a large triangular mass. In this group, almost wholly pastoral, the summits are generally rounded, often isolated, and nowhere linked into a continuous chain. About 3 miles from their western limit rise the Pentland Hills, the chief range in the county. These, springing steeply and suddenly about 4 miles south-southwest of Edinburgh, stretch 12 miles south-southwest into Peeblesshire, with a breadth averaging 3 miles, but gradually increasing towards the south. The chief summits, in order from the north, are Castlelaw Hill (1,595 feet), Bell's Hill (1,330), Black Hill (1,628), Carnethy (1,890), Scald Law (1,898), West Kip (1,806), East Cairn Hill (1,839), and West Cairn Hill (1,844). The various volcanic eminences in the immediate neighborhood of Edinburgh, which add so much to the charm of the city, are specifically noticed in our article on Edinburgh. Corstorphine Hill, 3 miles west of the Castle rock, rises to 520 feet above sea-level, and stretches curvingly for about 2 miles. The Craiglockhart, Blackford, and Braid (698 feet) Hills form points in a rough semicircular line round the south of the city, none of them much more than 2 miles from it. The Carberry Hill ridge, on the northeast border, extends for nearly 6 miles from north to south, and attains its highest point at 680 feet above sea-level. The streams of Edinburghshire are all too small to deserve the name of river; but the deficiency in individual size is made up for by the number of small streams, which drain the county very thoroughly, and for the most part fall into the Forth. The most easterly is the Esk, formed by the junction of the North and South Esks about 6 miles from Musselburgh, where it debouches. The Water of Leith drains the northwest side of the Pentlands, and enters the Forth at Leith. The Almond enters Edinburghshire from Linlithgowshire, and, after forming the boundary between these two counties for some miles, falls into the Firth at Cramond. The Tyne, rising near the middle of the east border, passes off into Haddingtonshire after a course of 5 miles northwards; while the Gala, with its source in the eastern Moorfoots, flows south-southeast into Roxburghshire. Some of these streams, notably the North Esk and the Water of Leith, afford water-power for driving the numerous paper-mills, whose produce is the chief manufacture of the county. The natural lakes of Edinburghshire, with the exception of Duddingston Loch at the base of Arthur's Seat at

Edinburgh, need not be separately named; there are large artificial reservoirs at Threipmuir, Loganlee, Harelaw, Torduff, Clubbiedean, Gladsmuir, Rosebery, and Cobbinshaw. There are mineral springs at St Bernard's in Edinburgh, and at Bonnington, Cramond, Corstorphine, Midcalder, Penicuik, and St Catherine's.

“The history of Edinburghshire cannot well be separated from the history of the larger district of the Lothians. The territory now known as Midlothian was included in the district usually ascribed to the Caledonian Otaleni or Otadeni and Gadeni. In Roman times the tribe of Damnonii seems to have dwelt here; and the district was brought within the northern limit of the Roman province in Britain by Agricola in 81 AD. Thence onwards the Lothians were the scene of many struggles and wars for their possession; and about the beginning of the 7th century, when historians recognize the four kingdoms of Dalriada, Strathclyde, Bernicia, and the kingdom of the Picts, under tolerably definite limits, Edinburghshire was the center of what the latest historian of early Scotland calls the ‘debateable lands’ - a district in which the boundaries of the four kingdoms approached each other, and which was sometimes annexed to one of these kingdoms, sometimes to another. Lodoneia or the Lothians was thus peopled by a mixed race of Scots, Angles, and Picts; but seems most often to have been joined to Bernicia, with which it was absorbed into the great northern earldom of Northumbria. But the kings of Scotia or Alban, who, about the 9th century, had established their rule from the Spey to the Forth, succeeded, after many efforts, in bringing this rich district also under their scepter. The final scene was at the battle of Carham in 1018, in the reign of Malcolm II. From that date an integral part of political Scotland, practically without intermission, the county was the scene of many battles and skirmishes between the English and the Scotch. In 1303 a small native force defeated near Roslin a much larger army of Southrons; in 1334, the Boroughmuir, now a southern suburb of Edinburgh, witnessed another victory of the Scots under Sir Alexander Ramsay over the English under Count Guy. In 1385 the county was devastated by Richard II of England; a century and a half later it suffered the resentment of Henry VIII; and the fields of Pinkie (1,547), Carberry Hill (1,567), and Rullion Green (1,666), are all included within its limits.

“Central Lothian very probably was placed under the administration of a sheriff, or under some similar administration, as early as the epoch of the introduction of the Scoto Saxon laws. A sheriffdom over it can be traced in record from the reign of Malcolm IV down to the restoration of David II; but appears to have extended during that period over all the Lothians. The sheriffdom underwent successive limitations, at a number of periods, till it coincided with the present extent of the county; it also, for many ages, was abridged in its authority by various jurisdictions within its bounds; and it likewise, for a considerable time, was hampered in its administration by distribution into wards, each superintended by a sergeant. The last sheriff under the old regime was the Earl of Lauderdale, who succeeded his father as sheriff in 1744; and the first under the present improved system was Charles Maitland, who received his appointment in 1748. A constable was attached, from an early period, to Edinburgh Castle; and appears to have, as early as 1278, exercised civil jurisdiction. The provost of Edinburgh, from the year 1472, had the power of sheriff, coroner, and admiral, within Edinburgh royalty and its dependency of Leith. The abbot of Holyrood acquired from Robert III a right of regality over all the lands of the abbey, including the barony of Broughton; and, at the Reformation, he was succeeded in his jurisdiction by the trustees of Heriot's Hospital. The monks of Dunfermline obtained from David I a baronial jurisdiction over Inveresk manor, including the town of Musselburgh; and, at the Reformation, were succeeded in their jurisdiction by Sir John Maitland, who sold it in 1709 to the Duchess of Buccleuch. The barony of Ratho, at Robert II's accession to the crown, belonged to the royal Stewarts; was then, with

their other estates, erected into a royal jurisdiction; went, in that capacity, to Prince James, the son of Robert III; and, at the bisection of Lanarkshire into the counties of Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire, was disjoined from Edinburghshire and annexed to Renfrewshire. A right of regality over the lands of Dalkeith was obtained by the Douglases, and passed to the family of Buccleuch. The estates in Edinburghshire belonging to the see of St Andrews were erected into a regality, and placed under the control of a bailie appointed by the archbishop. The lands of Duddingston, of Prestonhall, of Carrington, and of Carberry also were regalities; and the first was administered by a bailie, the second by the Duke of Gordon, the third by Lord Dalmeny, the fourth by Sir Robert Dickson. These several jurisdictions comprised a large proportion of the county's territory, and a still longer one of the county's population; and they must, in the aggregate, have greatly embarrassed the paramount or comprehensive civil administration; but all were abolished in 1747. A justiciary of Lothian also was appointed in the time of Malcolm IV, exercised a power superior to that of the sheriff, and had successors wielding that superior power, or entitled to wield it, till the time when the baronial jurisdictions became extinct. The power of the Archbishop of St Andrews also, being both baronial over his own estates and ecclesiastical over the entire county, was often, in the Romish times, practically paramount to that of the sheriff; and even after the Reformation, when the archiepiscopal prerogatives were wholly or mainly abolished, it continued for a time to throw impediments in the way of the sheriff's movements. There are Caledonian stone circles in Kirknewton parish and at Heriot-town-hill; and there are cairns and tumuli at many places in the county. Pictish forts may probably have preceded the Castles of Edinburgh and Roslin; and it is very possible that the caves at Hawthornden House were either formed or enlarged by the Picts also. Traces of Roman occupation are still to be discerned; and Roman coins, weapons, etc, have been found in various parts. There are several old castles, some forming most picturesque ruins. In many cases comparatively modern erections have superseded the older buildings. Among the more interesting old castles are those at Roslin, Catcune, Borthwick, Crichton, have left their ruins at Holyrood, Newbattle, and Temple-the last, as its name suggests, having been an important house of the Knights Templars. There are vestiges of an ancient hospital on Soutra Hill.”230

John Bartholomew mentions: “Edinburghshire (or mid-Lothian), maritime county in southeast of Scotland; is bounded east by Haddington (or East-Lothian), Berwick, and Roxburgh; south by Selkirk and Peebles; southwest by Lanark; and northwest by Linlithgow (or West-Lothian); coast-line, 12 miles; 231,724 acres, population 389,164. The surface is finely diversified. The Moorfoot Hills, a continuation of the Lammermuirs, occupy the southeast; the Pentland Hills stretch across the county from the southwest. All the streams, with the exception of the Tyne and Gala, in the east and the southeast, run to the Firth of Forth; the principal are the North Esk, the South Esk, the Water of Leith, and the Almond; the North Esk especially is noted for its picturesque scenery. The lowlands towards the Forth are the most fertile; the hilly parts of the south are chiefly under pasture; in the west are dairy-farms; in the vicinity of the city of Edinburgh are extensive nursery grounds and market gardens. The principal crops are oats and barley, turnips and potatoes. The county consists chiefly of carboniferous strata; and coal, shale, ironstone, limestone, and freestone, are extensively worked. There are valuable herring fisheries in the Firth of Forth. The manufacturers are limited; but (beyond Edinburgh and Leith) there are numerous paper mills, oil-works, and several iron foundries and brick and tile works. Gunpowder is made at Roslyn. The county is traversed by the North British and Caledonian Railways, and by the Union Canal. It contains 28 parishes, and 4 parts, the parliamentary burgh of Edinburgh (4 members, and Edinburgh University, with St Andrews, 1 member), the Leith Burghs (Leith, Portobello, and Musselburgh

- 1 member), and the police burghs of Bonnyrigg, Dalkeith, Loanhead, and Penicuik. It returns 1 member to Parliament.”231

***EDINBURGH, MIDLOTHIAN***

FH Groome puts into words: “Edinburgh, the metropolis of Scotland and county town of Midlothian, is situated 2 miles south of the Firth of Forth. Its observatory on the Calton Hill stands in latitude 55 degrees 57’ 23” north, and longitude 3 degrees 10’ 30” west. It is south-southwest of Aberdeen, south by west of Dundee, south by east of Perth, east by north of Glasgow, northeast of Ayr, and north by east of Dumfries. Its distance in straight line, as the crow flies, is 186 miles from John o’ Groat’s House, and 337 from London. Its distance by road is 35½ miles from Stirling, 42 from Dundee, 42¾ from Glasgow, 44 from Perth, 49 from Hawick, 57 from Berwick-upon-Tweed, 71 from Dumfries, 92½ from Carlisle, 108 from Aberdeen, 156½ from Inverness, and 392 from London; while by railway the distance is 36 miles from Stirling, 45 from Perth, 47½ from Glasgow, 49½ from Dundee, 53 from Hawick, 57¾ from Berwick-upon-Tweed, 88 from Ayr, 90 from Dumfries, 98¼ from Carlisle, 112¾ from Aberdeen, 163 from Stranraer, 189 from Inverness, and 398½ from London by way of the Trent Valley or Midland Railway, 402 by way of Carlisle and Birmingham or London and North-Western, 407½ of Berwick and York, Great Northern and East Coast.

“Most travelers who have visited both cities have remarked a resemblance, as to site and general appearance, between Edinburgh and Athens. Stewart, the author of The Antiquities of Athens, was the first to remark and describe the similarity; and he has been followed by Dr Clarke, Mr HW Williams, and any other descriptive writers well qualified to form a correct judgment, so that Edinburgh has, by almost general consent, been called ‘Modern Athens’, and the ‘Athens of the North’. ‘The distant view of Athens from the Aegean Sea,’ says Mr Williams, ‘is extremely like that of Edinburgh from the Firth of Forth, though certainly the latter is considerably superior.’ ‘There are,’ he adds, ‘several points of view on the elevated grounds near Edinburgh, from which the resemblance between the two cities is complete. From Torphin in particular, one of the low heads of the Pentlands immediately above the villages of Colinton, the landscape is exactly that of the vicinity of Athens as viewed from the bottom of Mount Anchesmus. Close upon the right, Brilessus is represented by the Mound of Braid; before, in the abrupt and dark mass of the Castle, rises the Acropolis; the hill Lycabettus, joined to that of the Areopagus, appears in the Calton; in the Firth of Forth we behold the Aegean Sea; in Inchkeith, Aegina; and the hills of Peloponnesus are precisely those of the opposite coast of Fife. Nor is the resemblance less striking in the general characteristics of the scene; for, although we cannot exclaim, ‘These are the groves of the Academy, and that the Sacred Way!’ yet, as on the Attic shore, we certainly here behold ‘a country rich and gay, broke into hills with balmy odors crowned, and joyous vales, mountains and streams, and clustering towns, and monuments of fame, and scenes of glorious deeds, in little bounds.’ It is, indeed, most remarkable and astonishing that two cities, placed at such a distance from each other, and so different in every political and artificial circumstance, should naturally be so alike.’ When comparing the two cities as to their interior structure, however, Mr Williams sees a considerable difference between them, and pronounces Edinburgh to be the superior. He says, ‘The epithets Northern Athens and Modern Athens have been so frequently applied to Edinburgh that the mind unconsciously yields to the illusion awakened by these terms, and imagines that the resemblance between these cities must extend from the natural localities and the public buildings to the streets and private edifices. The very reverse of this is the case; for, setting aside for public structures, Athens, even in her best days, could not have coped with the capital of Scotland.’

“Edinburgh, from whatever point the eye regards it, presents a variety of scenic groupings of such singular effect as is met with in no other city of the world. Though there is nothing gorgeous or sumptuous in any one feature, neither is there anything mean; it is, in a scenic regard, a city all over, and bespeaks a presence as of something at once grand and venerable. A stranger coming within fair view of it from any quarter sees no aerial dome towering above a sea of humbler piles as in Rome and London, and no grove of turrets shooting up from some majestic cathedral as in Milan and York; but, wherever he turns, there is presented to him a rich and varied assemblage of substantial, often imposing, structures - now retiring into the valleys, now climbing the acclivities, now spreading over the slopes, and anon crowning the summits of its romantic hills. He observes nowhere, as in so many of the other cities of world repute, a mere dingy conglomeration of commonplace houses, clustered round some magnificent edifice, or hugging the environs of some handsome airy street, but on all hands elegance, beauty, variety, and grandeur struggling for ascendancy, and contributing by their harmony to produce the most unique and superb effects. Plainness, poverty, unsightliness, even offensive squalor, as well mal-arrangement and positive confusion, do, as in all our large towns, indeed challenge censurable regard; but these do not strike the eye with such obtrusiveness as to mar the general effect, or, if they do, it is often with some redeeming feature or association as to contribute to, rather than detract from, the impression the city as a rule imparts. Nor, as the eye surveys them, are the surroundings, far as well as near, of the city, the framework in which the jewel is set, less striking than the interior. These extend from the Lammermuirs on the southeast to the Grampians on the northwest, and from the open sea of the German Ocean to the very sources of the Forth; and, besides what may still further be regarded as background, consisting of high lands and low, they embrace nearly the whole of the Firth, a great part of Fife, and a still greater part of the richly cultivated, fairly wooded, hill-and-dale expanse of the Lothians; so that, if we except the moodily desolate, the wildly grand, and the savagely terrible, there is hardly a single aspect of Nature to be met with elsewhere of which we may not trace some feature here. It is thus these scenes are described by Delta in the well-known lines:

‘Traced like a map the landscape lies,

In cultured beauty stretching wide;

There Pentland's green acclivities,

There ocean with its azure tide,

There Arthur's Seat, and, gleaming through

The southern wing, Dunedin blue;

While in the Orient Lammer's daughters,

A distant giant range, are seen,

North Berwick Law, with cone of green,

And Bass amid the waters.’

“The view from the face of Salisbury Crags is thus described by Sir Walter Scott: ‘The prospect, in its general outline, commands a close-built, high-piled city, stretching itself out in a form which, to a romantic imagination, may be supposed to represent that of a dragon; now a noble arm of the sea, with

its rocks, isles, distant shores, and boundary of mountains; and now a fair and fertile champaign country, varied with hill, dale, and rock, and skirted by the picturesque ridge of the Pentland mountains; but as the path gently circles around the base of the cliffs, the prospect, composed as it is of these enchanting and sublime objects, changes at every step, and presents them blended with, or divided from, each other in every possible variety which can gratify the eye and the imagination.’ The view from the top of Arthur's Seat is much the same as that from Salisbury Crags, except that it is more sweeping, and has the crest of the crags on the western foreground. A good view from the east of the city proper, exclusive of the environs, is obtained from St Anthony's Chapel. Here at his feet the spectator sees on the right the northern section of the Queen's Park, with Holyrood Palace and the Chapel Royal; beyond these, the terraced ascent of the Calton Hill, with its tiers in rows and separate piles of remarkable architectures and sculptures; in front the valley between the Old Town and the New, spanned by the lofty North Bridge; and toward the left, all the old city itself, towering upward from the point of the wedge, ridge above ridge, and grandly fretted and crowned with heaven-pointing spires and defiant battlements. The views from the south, both near and distant, are at once numerous and excellent, most of these affording distinct profiles of Arthur's Seat and Salisbury Crags on the right and of the Castle rock and ramparts on the left, with much of the intermediate architecture of the Old Town and the suburb of the city in the foreground, which already all but occupies the entire southern slope. One of the noblest on this side is the view from Blackford Hill, and is thus described by Sir Walter Scott as seen by Lord Marmion, ‘fairer scene he ne'er surveyed’:

‘The wandering eye could o'er it go,

And mark the distant city glow

With gloomy splendour red;

For on the smoke-wreaths, huge and slow,

'That round her sable turrets flow,

The morning beams were shed,

And tinged them with a lustre proud

Like that which streaks a thundercloud.

Such dusky grandeur clothed the height

Where the huge castle holds its state,

And ail the steep slope down,

Whose ridgy back heaves to the sky,

Piled deep and massy, close and high,

Mine own romantic town!

But northward far, with purer blaze,

On Ochil mountains fell the rays,

And as each heathy top they kissed,

It gleamed a purple amethyst.

Yonder the shores of Fife you saw;

Here Preston Bay and Berwick Law;

And broad. Between them rolled,

The gallant Firth the eye might note,

Whose islands on its bosom float,

Like emeralds chased in gold.’

“The views of the city from the interior are often no less striking than those from without, and the former as well as the latter often give rise to impressions that are quite unique. Not to mention the ore artificial adornments, architectural and other, with their grouping and array, there are the imposing natural features, with beetling cliffs and hollow or open dells, and rich interspaces of wooded lawn, tended by the art of the gardener, and interspersed or bordered here and there with gay parterres. The streets also, even in the central parts, afford, through abrupt openings, numerous prospects, both charming and extensive, along unobstructed vistas, or over asses of house-tops, away, by varied landscape, over firth and dale, on to the often far-off mountains, and in one direction the open sea. The finest view from the interior, says Alexander Smith, is obtained from the corner of St Andrew Street, looking west. Straight before you the Mound crosses the valley, bearing the National Gallery buildings; beyond, the Castle lifts, from grassy slopes and billows of summer foliage, its weather-stained towers and fortifications, the half-moon battery giving the folds of its standard to the wind. Living in Edinburgh there abides, above all things, a sense of its beauty. Hill, crag, castle, rock, blue stretch of sea, the picturesque ridge of the Old Town, the squares and terraces of the New - these things, seen once are not to be forgotten. The quick life of today sounding around the relics of antiquity, and overshadowed by the august traditions of a kingdom, makes Edinburgh more impressive than residence in any other British city. What a poem is that Princes Street! The puppets of the busy any-colored hour move about on its pavement, while across the ravine Time has piled the Old Town, ridge on ridge, grey as a rocky coast washed and worn by the foam of centuries, peaked and jagged by gable and roof, windowed from basement to cope, the whole surmounted by St Giles's airy crown. The New is there looking at the Old. Two Times are brought face to face, and are yet separated by a thousand years. Wonderful on winter nights, when the gully is filled with darkness, and out of it rises, against the somber blue and the frosty stars, that mass and bulwark of gloom, pierced and quivering with innumerable lights! There is nothing in Europe to match that. Could you but roll a river down the valley, it would be sublime. Finer still, to place one's self near the Burns' Monument and look toward the Castle. It is more astonishing than an Eastern dream. A city rises up before you painted by fire on night. High on air a bridge of lights leaps the chasm; a few emerald lamps, like glowworms, are moving silently about in the railway station below; a solitary crimson one is at rest. That ridged and chimneyed bulk of blackness, with splendour bursting out at every pore, is the wonderful Old Town, where Scottish history mainly transacted itself; while, opposite, the modern Princes Street is blazing throughout its length. During the day the Castle looks down upon the city as if out of another world; stern with all its peacefulness, its garniture of trees, its slopes of grass. The rock is dingy enough in color; but, after a shower, its lichens laugh out greenly in the

returning sun, while the rainbow is brightening on the lowering sky beyond. How deep the shadow which the Castle throws at noon over the gardens at its feet where the children play! How grand when giant bulk and towery crown blacken against sunset! Fair, too, the New Town sloping to the sea. From George Street, which crowns the ridge, the eye is led down sweeping streets of stately architecture to the villas and woods that fill the lower ground and fringe the shore; to the bright azure belt of the Forth, with its smoking steamer or its creeping sail; beyond, to the shores of Fife, soft blue, and flecked with fleeting shadows in the keen clear light of spring, dark purple in the summer heat, tarnished gold in the autumn haze; and further away still, just distinguishable on the paler sky, the crest of some distant peak carrying the imagination into the illimitable world. The finest close view of the northern half of the city is seen at the head of the Castle Hill, from the north side of the Castle esplanade; or, still better, from the bomb-battery of the Castle itself, where the lovely space between the Old Town and the New appears almost perpendicularly under the eye, with the Scott Monument on its further verge, the Melville Monument rising a little beyond, and the greater part of the New Town all around:

‘Saint Margaret, what a sight is here!

Long lines of masonry appear;

Scott's Gothic pinnacles arise.

And Melvilie's statue greets the skies,

And sculptured front and Greeian pile

The pleased yet puzzled eye beguile;

From yon far landscape where the sea

Smiles on in softest witchery;

Till, riant all, the hills of Fife

Fill in the charms of country life.’

“The situation of Edinburgh is scarcely less subservient to advantage than its scenery is replete with beauty. The sloping inclination of the ground on all hands, with its close neighborhood to the sea, is favorable to drainage, and affords facilities for cleanliness. The elevation of the hills, with the spacious natural funnels that intervene, is provocative of a constant stir in the air, and contributes to a healthy ventilation. The comparative vicinity of coal fields and of seaports, with the easy access there is to these, offers ready facilities for manufacture and commerce, such a sight well tempt capitalists to essay here enterprises which have long been successfully prosecuted in towns far less favorably situated, such as Dunfermline, Hawick, and even Manchester, Leeds, and Sheffield, not to say Birmingham, and others which might be mentioned. As it is, the resources it possesses for a generous education, its varied natural stores, its splendid scenery, its historical associations, native to itself and as the capital of the country, as well as its institutions, expressly established, thoroughly equipped, and in active operation for this end, are such as to enable Edinburgh to compete with any other city as a seat of learning. If we add to these its tranquil air and its social atmosphere, as well as its museums, libraries, and schools of arts, there are few places better fitted for the cultivation of those studies which are best prosecuted away from the hum of busy labor, and the hurry and bustle of merely commercial life. Residence in

Edinburgh, remarks Alexander Smith, is an education in itself. Of all British cities - Weimar-like in its intellectual and aesthetic leanings, Florence-like in its freedom from the stains of trade, and more than Florence-like in its beauty - it is the one best suited for the conduct of a lettered life. The city, as an entity, does not stimulate like London; the present moment is not nearly so intense; life does not roar and chafe - it murmurs only; and this interest of the hour, mingled with something of the quietude of distance and the past - which is the spiritual atmosphere of the city - is the most favorable of all conditions for intellectual work or intellectual enjoyment. What the tour of Europe was necessary to see elsewhere, says Sir David Wilkie, I now find congregated in this one city. Here are alike the beauties of Prague and of Salzburg; here are the romantic sites of Orvietto and Tivoli; and here is all the magnificence of the admired bays of Genoa and Naples; here, indeed, to the poet's fancy, may be found realized the Roman Capitol and the Grecian Acropolis. And, says Mr Hallam:

‘Even thus, methinks, a city reared should be,

Yea, an imperial city, that might hold

Five times a hundred noble towns in fee,

And either with their might of Babel old

Or the rich Roman pomp of Empery,

Might stand compare, highest in arts enrolled,

Highest in arms, brave tenement for the free,

Who never crouch to thrones, or sin for gold.

Thus should her towers be raised, with vicinage

Of clear bold hills, that curve her very streets,

As if to vindicate mid choicest seats

Of art, abiding nature's majesty, -

And the broad sea beyond, in calm or rage,

Chainless alike, and teaching liberty.’

“The Royal Blind Asylum, or asylum for blind men and blind women, dates from 1793. It originated with Dr Blacklock, David Miller, the Rev Dr Johnston, and the celebrated Wilberforce, and first occupied a house in Shakepeare Square, whence it was removed in 1806 to No 58 Nicolson Street, where the large warehouse still is for the sale of the productions of the blind inmates. It included another house at No 38, obtained in 1822 for females, now used for the males who do not reside with friends; the females and the blind children being provided in 1876 with a spacious new building at West Craigmillar. The institution is managed by a body of seventeen directors; instructs and employs the males in making mattresses, brushes, baskets, mats and other objects, and in weaving sackcloth, matting and rag-carpets, - the females in knitting stockings, sewing covers for mattresses and feather beds, and in other employments; and had, as inmates, in 1870, 114 males and 34 females; in 1875, 146 males and 26 females. Both of its buildings in Nicolson Street were originally private houses; both were purchased for

its own uses, and fitted up with every requisite accommodation with appliance; and that at No 58 was altered and adorned, about 1860, at a cost of about 3,500 pounds. A handsome new façade, with stone-faced dormer windows, and a neat cornice and balustrade, was then erected; and is pierced with a large central doorway, flanked by two spacious windows, and surmounted by a bust of the Rev Dr Johnston. The new building at West Craigmillar stands on the rising-ground south of Powburn, and is approached from Newington Road, nearly opposite Echobank cemetery. It was erected in 1874-6 at a cost of 21,000 pounds; is in light French style, with a central handsome clock-tower 80 feet high, surmounted by dome and lantern; has a frontage 160 feet long, and chiefly three stories high; and contains a circular reception hall 111 feet in diameter, a dining hall and chapel 115 feet long and 28 wide, a workroom 72 feet long and 20 wide, and accommodation for about 200 inmates. The school for blind children, prior to its amalgamation with the Royal Blind Asylum, was in a commodious building, originally a private house, at No 2 Gayfield Square; was managed by a body of fourteen directors; and admitted boys and girls from 6 to 14 years of age. The Institution for the Deaf and Dumb dates from 1810; stood originally in Chessels Court, in Canongate; and acquired, in 1826, an edifice off the north side of Henderson Row, in the western vicinity of the Edinburgh Academy. It is managed by a body of fourteen directors, and conducted by a principal, two assistant teachers, a matron, a female teacher, and a drawing master; and early acquired so much celebrity, by the excellence and success of its system of training, as to be made a mode for similar institutions in other cities. The building was erected, by subscription, at a cost of 7,000 pounds; is large commodious, and of not unpleasing appearance; and is surrounded with pleasant garden grounds.

“There can be little doubt that the Castle rock early became a most desirable place in the eyes of the ancient inhabitants of the district on which to build their dwellings, since, from its precipitous character and limited accessibility, a defense could here be easily made against the assaults of their enemies. That it was so used in early times appears from the name given to the Castle in the oldest record which mentions it, viz, Castell-Mynd-Agned - signifying the ‘fortress of the hill of Agnes’; and there are some who affirm that, before it received this appellation, it had been fortified by the Ottadini ere their subjugation by the Romans, and after the introduction of Christianity dedicated to St Agnes. At a later date, according to a monkish fable, it is said to have been the refuge of the daughters of the Pictish kings, they being kept and educated here as a place of safety in barbarous and turbulent times; and, about 617, when the Anglo-Saxons absorbed the Lothians, it derived from Eadwine, a powerful king of Northumbria, the name of Eadwinesburh. The Castle and town - the latter, according to Simeon of Durham, being about 854 only a considerable village, on the eastern slope of the hill - next became a possession of the Celtic kings in the reign of Indulf (945-61), and was then called Dun-Edin, signifying, in their language, ‘the face of a hill’, and descriptive of its natural aspect. The name given to the Castle and the town, however, by King Eadwine proved to be the one by which it was ever afterwards fated to be known, though it was not till about the middle of the fifteenth century that it came to be recognized as the capital city, being long considered to be too near the English border to be a place of safety. In 1093, on the death of Malcolm Ceannmor, Edinburgh became the place of refuge of his widow and children, and was besieged by Malcolm's brother, Donald Bane, the usurper of the throne. The town, though still consisting of mean thatched houses, had grown to be one of the most important by the time of David I, being then constituted a royal burgh, and had in the reign of William the Lyon made material progress. King William made the Castle a frequent place of residence; but having attempted to seize a portion of Northumbria, the Scottish king was defeated by Henry II of England, who took possession of the Castle in 1174. On its restoration in 1186, Alexander II, son and successor of William the Lyon, held his first

parliament in Edinburgh, and in 1215 the pope's legate here held a provincial synod. Alexander III made it the residence of his youthful queen, the daughter of Henry III, and the depository of the regalia and the archives; and here also Alexander suffered a kind of blockade by the rebellious Earl of Dunbar.

“Edinburgh shared greatly in the turmoils arising from the wars of the succession, owing to the rivalry of Bruce and Baliol for the crown. The Castle was surrendered to Edward I in 1291; and, having afterwards thrown off his authority, it was again taken possession of by him in 1294, when the authorities of Holyrood swore fealty to the English king, the city holding out, however, till 1296. After holding it for about twenty years, the Castle was recaptured in 1313 by Randolph, Earl of Moray. According to a policy he adopted, Robert Bruce, after the battle of Bannockburn in 1314, ordered the demolition of this fortress, as he had done several others, lest they should again become places of protection and strength for the English. Holyrood Abbey was in 1322 plundered by an army of Edward II; in 1326 it was the meeting place of a parliament of Robert Bruce, and in 1328 of that parliament which ratified the treaty with Edward III which secured the independence of Scotland. In 1334, after Edward Baliol had usurped the throne of David Bruce, the Castle and town were again surrendered to Edward III, who had invaded Scotland to support Baliol. While the King of England lay encamped near Perth in 1336, after a campaign which inflicted great distress on Scotland and reflected little credit on England, the Earl of Moray encountered a body of mercenary troops under Guy, Count of Namur, on their way to join Edward at Perth at the Boroughmuir near Edinburgh. Moray defeated the mercenaries, drove them in confusion into the town, overtaking and slaying a number of them in St Mary's Wynd and Candlemaker Row, and pursued the rest to the dismantled heights of the Castle rock. Being unable to defend themselves here, they surrendered next day to Moray, by whom they were set free on condition of never again bearing arms against David Bruce. The Castle was rebuilt and strongly garrisoned in 1337 by Edward III on his return from the north, but in 1341 it was captured by Sir William Douglas through means of a singularly expert stratagem. One of Douglas's party, feigning to be an English merchant, went to the governor of the Castle and represented that he had a cargo of wine, beer, and spiced biscuits in his vessel, just arrived in the Forth, which he wished the governor to purchase. Producing a sample of the wine and another of the beer, both of which pleased the governor, he agreed upon a price and an hour for the delivery of the goods, which was to be early in the morning, that they might not be intercepted by the Scots. At the hour appointed the merchant arrived, accompanied by twelve resolute and well-armed followers, habited as sailors, and the Castle gates were immediately opened for their reception. On entering the Castle, they easily contrived to overturn the waggon on which the supposed goods were piled, and instantly put to death the warder and the sentries. The appointed signal being given, Douglas, with a chosen band of armed followers, quitted their place of concealment in the neighborhood, and rushed into the Castle. Being joined by their confederates, the pretended sailors, they put the garrison, after a brief resistance, to the sword, and the fortress was thus regained by the Scots.

“Edinburgh now ceased for a time to be harassed by the English, and began to grow more into consideration. During the reign of David II, it was the seat of numerous parliaments, the source of several issues of coin, and confessedly the chief town, though not yet the actual capital of Scotland. It was on the accession of the Stuart dynasty that Edinburgh first became the chief burgh of the kingdom, and its fortunes became identified all throughout with those of that ill-fated house. In the reign of Robert II, the first king of that line, and who made it the royal residence, the city was visited by a body of French knights and gentlemen, who came to give aid to the King against the English. Froissart describes the city at this time as consisting of about 4,000 houses, so poor that they could not afford these French

visitors anything like proper accommodation. Richard II, in 1385, in retaliation for alleged wrongs, made an incursion into Scotland, set fire to St Giles' Church, Holyrood Abbey, and the greater part of the town, spending five days in their destruction, but was foiled in his attempt to capture the Castle. Henry IV, in 1400, repeatedly assaulted the Castle, but he was firmly repelled by the Duke of Rothesay, then heir apparent to the Scottish crown. In 1402, Edinburgh again became the meeting place of a parliament, convened at this time to inquire into the assassination of the Duke of Rothesay; but while James I of Scotland was a prisoner in England, the city partook of the desolation which swept generally over the country, arising very much from the continual strife of the dominant parties for the ascendency, when the Castle was taken and retaken. After his release from captivity on the payment of the ransom, to which the city contributed 50,000 English merks, King James frequently resided here, and received, in 1429, at Holyrood, the submission of the rebellious Lord of the Isles. At Holyrood his queen gave birth to a son, who afterwards became James II; and the city in 1431, was scourged with a pestilence, which added not a little to the general desolation resulting from the continual strifes of the turbulent nobility.

“Edinburgh in 1436 was the scene of the last parliament of James I, and after his murder on Feb 20, 1437, it became formally the metropolis of Scotland. James II became king when only seven years of age, and was the first king crowned at Holyrood, this ceremony having previously taken place at the palace of Scone, near Perth. During his minority, the Castle was a frequent scene of contests and intrigues for the custody of his person; and this stronghold in 1444 was held by ex-chancellor Crichton, in opposition to the regent, Sir Thomas Livingstone. A serious quarrel having occurred between the regent and Crichton, the king for a time was kept as a kind of prisoner in the Castle, from which he was released by the artifices of his mother, who favored the regent's party. In 1445-6 the Castle was besieged by the King in person, and Crichton at last capitulated on terms of restoration to royal favor. About this time there occurred within its walls a singular instance of the revolting barbarity of the times. The Earl of Douglas, in the exercise of the great power which he possessed, encouraged the most galling oppression over the country, and was sufficiently strong in his numerous retainers to bid defiance to the authority of the state. Cunning and unscrupulous in their policy, the regent Livingstone and Crichton managed to decoy Douglas into the Castle, where he was received with the most hypocritical demonstrations of friendship and marks of favor. At the close of a banquet, of which Douglas had partaken in company with the King, a bloody bull's head was set before him - a signal then well known to be the precursor of an immediate and violent death to him before whom it was presented. Understanding the fatal symbol too well, Douglas sprang to his feet, but both he and his brother, who was present with him, were instantly seized by armed men, and, despite the tears and entreaties of the young king for their preservation, dragged to the outer court of the Castle, and there murdered. James II and his queen, Mary of Gueldres, whom he married in 1449, were both great benefactors to the city, which, by the grants and immunities they bestowed, was more indebted for its prosperity to them than to any previous monarch.

“James III, during the course of his troubled reign, also conferred on the city, which he made his chief place of residence, various other privileges; and during his time Edinburgh became a place of refuge to Henry VI of England, after his defeat at Towton in 1461. James III married the Princess Margaret of Denmark in 1469, an event which was celebrated by the city with much rejoicing; but, shortly after, Edinburgh suffered again the desolating effects of pestilence, which was so deadly and destructive that a parliament, summoned to meet in 1475, was deterred from assembling. Troubles of another kind soon followed, for in 1478 the Duke of Albany, a putative brother of the King, commenced a series of intrigues

which caused much disaster to the city and kingdom. Albany was imprisoned in the Castle, but effected his escape to France, whence he passed in 1482 into England, and bargained there with Edward IV for assistance in seizing the crown of Scotland, pledging himself to hold it as Edward's vassal. In consequence of this, an English army under the Duke of Gloucester marched on Edinburgh, meeting there with little or no resistance. The King took refuge in the Castle, and the English were only induced to depart after the reconciliation of the King and Albany, on payment of certain sums of money claimed by the English, and the permanent cession of the town of Berwick. The citizens contributed the money, and proceeded to the Castle to escort the King and Albany to Holyrood, where they received from James munificent expressions of gratitude. Albany not long after again conspired against the King, who at once retired to the Castle and roused the citizens, from whom he received such support as entirely crushed Albany's treason. Early in 1488 James again became hard pressed by a powerful combination of insurgent nobles, when he deposited his treasure and other valuable effects in the Castle, and retired to the North. The royal army was defeated by the rebels at Sanchie on 18 June 1488, and though the King escaped from the field, he was afterwards discovered by one of the rebels and murdered.

“Edinburgh, in the latter part of 1488, amid the turbulence of rebellious faction, was the meeting place of the first parliament of James IV, and for some time the city and Castle were under the domination of the Earl of Bothwell. James IV, as he grew in years, made the city a frequent scene of tournaments and other like entertainments, and in 1503 he was married at Holyrood to the Princess Margaret of England, daughter of Henry VII, from which union descended that line of Stuart sovereigns which, in the following century, united both kingdoms under one crown. In 1513, while a dreadful plague was desolating the city, James IV made preparations for an imprudent expedition into England. After inspecting his artillery in the Castle and the outfit of his navy at Newhaven, he mustered all his available forces on the Boroughmuir, from whence he marched to encounter death on the field of Flodden. The city lent him vigorous aid, sending many of its burgesses in his train to the field; and, on receiving news of his total defeat and death, adopted resolute measures for a stern resistance - fortifying the town, and ordering all the inhabitants to assemble in military array to oppose the expected approach of the enemy. The privy-council withdrew for some time to Stirling, but, a peace with England having been effected, James V was there crowned. The Duke of Albany in 1515 was appointed regent by a parliament in Edinburgh, receiving from the citizens great demonstrations in his favor; and he took up his residence at Holyrood in all the grandeur of royalty, causing the young King and his mother to retire to the Castle. Albany afterwards adopted measures which first drove the dowager queen to take flight with the young King to Stirling, and next compelled her to surrender that fortress and return to Edinburgh, when the regent converted the Castle into a state prison for the King. The contentions of parties at this time filled the city with excitement, deprived it of the most ordinary protection of common law, and made it the scene of frequent strifes among the turbulent nobles. One of the most noted of these tumults arose between the Earl of Arran and Cardinal Beaton on the one side, and the Earl of Angus on the other. Angus having roused the jealousy of the opposite party by the influence he had gained over the young King through his marriage with the queen dowager, he and his friends were set upon near the Netherbow on 20 April 1515, and upwards of 250 persons were slain in the skirmish, which was long afterwards known under the name of ‘Cleanse the causeway’. Not many years after a similar skirmish occurred, through a dispute which had arisen between the Earl of Rothes and Lord Lindsay. With characteristic ferocity they attacked each other with their retainers on the High Street, to the great danger of the inhabitants, and such was the fury of the strife that peace was not restored till both noblemen were made prisoners by the city authorities. Pestilence also, and a menacing armed force from the Borders, combined in 1519 and 1520

to add to the city's calamities. Parliaments were held in 1522 and 1523, mainly to devise measures for suppressing the prevailing lawlessness, but without much effect. In May 1524 Albany departed for ever from Holyrood to France, leaving state affairs in utter confusion; and the dowager-queen in the following July proclaimed that James V, then in his thirteenth year, had assumed the reins of government. While parliament was sitting in the November following, the Earl of Angus raised a disturbance, which drew disastrous fire from the Castle upon a part of the city. Early in 1525 James V removed from the Castle to Holyrood, and met his parliament in the Tolbooth; and Angus, in the same year, acquired such ascendency as enabled him to impoverish the city for the pampering of his favorites. From this time till his forfeiture in 1528, he had the entire kingdom under his control, occasioning incessant disturbances not only in Edinburgh, but throughout the whole country.

“The College of Justice, the germ of the present Court of Session, being instituted in 1532, speedily contributed to raise the dignity of the city, and draw to it many wealthy residents. The principles of the Reformation had also begun to be privately diffused, and in 1534 the fact was publicly notified in the execution at Greenside of the martyrs Norman Gourlay and David Straiton. The two successive consorts of James V, Magdalene and Mary of Guise, in 1537 and 1538 respectively, made public entrances into Edinburgh amid great rejoicings, and James, having died at Falkland in December 1542, was buried in Holyrood by the side of Magdalene, his first queen. Shortly after the death of James, Henry VIII of England proposed an alliance between his son Edward and the infant Queen Mary, daughter of James V, on terms unequal and dishonorable to the Scots, in order to obtain the dominion of their country; but this proposal, though at first favorably entertained as containing provisions agreeable to the reformed doctrines, was resisted powerfully and successfully by Cardinal Beaton and the Catholic party. To revenge this insult, King Henry sent an army under the Earl of Hertford, which, after landing at Leith, set fire to Edinburgh, Holyrood Abbey, the castles of Roslin and Craigmillar, and made an unsuccessful attempt upon Edinburgh Castle. John Lesley, Bishop of Ross, who wrote a History of Scotland in the Scottish language, of which a modernized edition was printed by the Bannatyne Club in 1830, gives the following account of this event: ‘On the next day, being the sixth May’ [the day after the English army marched from Leith], ‘the great army came forward with the haill Ordnances, and assailed the town, which they found void of all resistance, saving the ports of the town were closed, which they broke up with great artillery, and entered thereat, carrying carted Ordnances before them till they came in sight of the Castle, where they placed them, purposing to siege the Castle. But the laird of Stanehouse, captain there of, caused shoot at them in so great abundance, and with so good measure, that they slew a great number of Englishmen, amongst whom there was some principal captains and gentlemen; and one of the greatest pieces of the English Ordnances was broken; where through they were constrained to raise the siege shortly and retire them. The same day the English men set fire in diverse places of the town, but were not suffered to maintain it, through continual shooting of Ordnance forth of the Castle, wherewith they were so sore troubled, that they were constrained to return to their camp at Leith. But the next day they returned again, and did what they could to consume all the town with fires. So likewise they continued some days after, so that the most part of the town was burnt in cruel manner; during the which time their horsemen did great hurt in the country, spoiling and burning sundry places thereabout, and in special all the Castle and place of Craigmillar, where the most part of the whole riches of Edinburgh was put by the merchants of the town in keeping, which not without frand of the keepers, as was reported, was betrayed to the English men for a part of the booty and spoil thereof.’

“After the battle of Pinkie in 1547, the city was again troubled and pillaged by an English force, and in 1548 was garrisoned by a French corps of 6,000 men, sent by Henry II of France to facilitate the intrigues of the queen-dowager, Mary of Guise, in procuring the marriage of the infant Queen Mary to the Dauphin of France. In 1551, the city gave a great reception to the queen-dowager, on her return from the court of Henry II, after witnessing there the marriage of Queen Mary to the Dauphin Francis. John Knox arrived in Edinburgh in 1555, and by his impressive discourses to large and excited audiences, soon attracted many zealous adherents, and speedily gained for the principles of the Reformation general and popular acceptance. He retired for a time to Geneva, but returning in 1559, found his partisans in an attitude of open resistance to the suppressive measures of the queen regent. Multitudes of the Reformers party organized themselves into an army at Perth, under the name of the Army of the Congregation, and, marching triumphantly to Edinburgh, took possession of the mint and other offices of government, and presented a front of open hostility to the royal forces. Leith, which was then put in a fortified condition, became the headquarters of the Romish or government party, who were aided by the opportune arrival of an auxiliary force from France. Edinburgh was the headquarters of the Reform party, and entirely in their possession, whilst the plain which stretches between the Calton Hill and Leith became the scene of frequent skirmishes and resolute onslaughts. The irregular troops of the Reformers could ill cope with the well-disciplined auxiliaries from France; but eventually, aided by a force sent by Elizabeth of England, they succeeded about the middle of 1560 in expelling the queen regent's forces from the kingdom. They then dismantled Leith, and removed every hindrance to the ascendency and civil establishment of the principles for which they contended. A parliament immediately assembled in the city, and enacted laws for the abolition of Popery and the establishment of the Presbyterian form of worship.

“Queen Mary, after the death of her husband Francis, sailed from France, and made a public entrance into Edinburgh in August 1561. The Ettrick Shepherd indulges a poetic license in the Queen's Wake, when describing Queen Mary's progress from Leith to Holyrood, after her return from France:

‘Slowly she ambled on her way,

Amid her lords and ladies gay.

Priest, abbot, layman. All were there,

And presbyter with look severe.

There rode the lords of France and Spain,

Of England, Flanders, and Lorrane;

While serried thousands round them stood

From shore of Leith to Holyrood.’

“Mary set up her government at Holyrood, where she gave formal countenance publicly, but not privately, to the settlement of the Reformation, and the city, with Knox for its minister, and the general assembly for its most influential court, now gave tone to the whole country, sought to make an end of the very remnants of Popery, and kept a keen and observant watch on the religious predilections and

social manners of the court. General displeasure soon showed itself at Mary's fondness for the Romish ritual, and her disregard of the Reformers rigid notions of morality. Riotous crowds again and again assembled beneath her palace windows; Rizzio, her favorite, was slain at her feet; and on the death of her second husband, Lord Darnley, and her subsequent marriage to Bothwell, the popular indignation burst into fury, the people pursuing her and Bothwell from the city, and taking possession of the seat and powers of government. Mary was brought back a captive from Carberry Hill, and conducted through the streets amid the jeers and insult of the citizens to the house of Sir Simon Preston, the provost, and sent off a prisoner next day to Loch Leven Castle. All these portentous events were crowded into the space of one year, 1567. Four successive regents, thence till 1573, failed either to bring peace to the metropolis, or a cessation of hostilities between the two great conflicting parties of King's men and Queen's men, as the respective partisans of Mary and her son, James VI, styled themselves. The city, at the time of Mary's escape from Loch Leven in 1568, was both desolated with pestilence and bristling with arms; and, after the assassination of Regent Moray at Linlithgow in 1570, suddenly passed under the military ascendency of the Queen's party. Kirkcaldy of Grange, provost of the city, and governor of the Castle, and one of the ablest soldiers of the period, ordered all opponents of the Queen to leave the city within six hours, planted a battery on the roof of St Giles' Church, strengthened the City Walls, and provoked a long and disastrous strife. Two parliaments sat in the city in May 1571 - the one on the Queen's part in the Tolbooth, the other for King James in Canongate, and while they fulminated forfeitures at each other, their respective partisans maintained a continuous conflict with frequent skirmishes in the streets and lanes of the harassed city. The Castle was held for the Queen with great superiority of advantage; Calton Hill, overlooking and protecting Holyrood, maintained a front of bravery for the young King, till an army sent by Queen Elizabeth in 1573 from Berwick eventually brought victory to the followers of the King, and forced the Castle to surrender.”232

John Bartholomew reports: “Edinburgh, ancient capital of Scotland, parliamentary and royal burgh, and county town of Mid-Lothian, 1½ mile from its seaport Leith on south shore of Firth of Forth, 42 east of Glasgow, and 3,961 north of London by East Coast route - parliamentary and municipal burgh, 17,028 acres, population 236,032; 7 Banks, 10 newspapers. Market-day, Wednesday. (The municipal limits were extended in 1882, and the parliamentary limits in 1885, when the members were increased from 2 to 4). Edinburgh is one of the most picturesque of cities, and its beauties and historical associations attract a constant influx of visitors. It is built on 3 ridges running east and west, and is surrounded on all sides, except the north, by lofty hills. The Old Town occupies the central ridge, terminated by the Castle on the west, and by Holyrood on the east; the Castle Rock is 437 ft high. The Castle was built in the 7th century by Edwin of Northumbria, on a site previously occupied, in all probability, by the Romans and the Southern Picts. Edinburgh was added to the kingdom of the Scots in the 10th century, and was made a burgh by David I, who, in 1128, founded the Abbey of Holyrood. From 1437 (when James I was murdered at Perth) until the Union in 1603, it was the favorite capital of the Stuart kings. It was walled and fortified by James II in 1450. The Old Town contains many buildings of historical interest, notably the ancient Parliament House (now forming part of the supreme courts of law) and the collegiate church or cathedral of St Giles (built 1110, restored 1883). The New Town, which occupies the north ridge, took its rise towards the end of the 18th century. It presents a splendid assemblage of streets, squares, gardens, and monuments. More recently the city has extended rapidly towards the south and the west. The principal industries of Edinburgh are printing, type-founding, bookbinding, lithographing, and engraving; machine-making and brass-founding; coach-building; manufacturers of glass and jewelry; tanning, brewing, and distilling. There are 3 distilleries. Edinburgh is the seat of the Government

departments for Scotland, and is a garrison town. It is also the center of the railway and the banking systems of Scotland. A railway, 7 miles long, round the south suburbs, was begun in 1881 and opened in 1884. It has railway and tramway communication with Leith, which at one point it conjoins. Edinburgh, however, depends for its prosperity chiefly on its courts of law, colleges, and schools, on its attractions for visitors, and its amenity as a place of residence. The University (1582) had in 1883-4 professors to the number of 41, and students to the number of 3,408, of whom 1,559 were medical students. Edinburgh has long been famous for its medical schools, which have attracted students from all parts of the world. The new Medical School, adjacent to the new Royal Infirmary, was built in 1878-83. Of the other educational institutions the more prominent are the Theological Colleges, the Training Colleges, the High School, the Merchant Company's Schools, Fettes College (modeled after the great public schools of England), the Royal Scottish Academy of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture, and the School of Arts. There are also numerous hospitals (Heriot's, Donaldson's, etc) for the maintenance and education of poor children. The burgh returns 4 members to Parliament - 4 divisions, viz, East, West, Central, and South, 1 member for each division. The Universities of Edinburgh and St Andrews return 1 member.”233

****HOLYROOD, EDINBURGH, MIDLOTHIAN 234 ****

Neil Oliver shows: “There was a pious side to the king as well. The four great abbeys of the Scottish Borders – Kelso, Melrose, Jedburgh and Dryburgh – were all David’s work. And a legend has it that while hunting near Drumselch church near Edinburgh, David was unhorsed by a white stag. As he lay on the ground, with the beast poised to gore him, he beheld his mother’s ‘Black Rood’ suspended between its antlers. Rather kill him the stag suddenly withdrew back into the forest. David’s vision had convinced him to found an abbey on the site and Holyrood was the result. In addition he founded St Mary of Cambuskenneth beside the Forth, Newbattle on the River Esk and upgraded his mother Margaret’s Benedictine priory at Dumfermline to abbey status. Godly works were much on his mind.”

He continues: “The Scots’ change of heart, their refusal to hand over Mary, made Henry VIII as angry as he had ever been. Diplomacy having failed him, he turned to violence and in May 1544 sent tens of thousands of soldiers north in a two-pronged invasion. Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, attacked the city of Edinburgh, ordering wholesale murder and rape. With innocent blood pooling in the streets, Hertford’s men then set the place alight. Holyrood Abbey was desecrated and destroyed, along with the Palace of Holyroodhouse. Only Edinburgh Castle itself managed to resist the onslaught. The second English force crossed the border at Coldstream and destroyed the great abbeys of Dryburgh, Jedburgh, Kelso and Melrose. Hundreds of civilians were raped and murdered, their homes destroyed. It was Sir Walter Scott who coined the phrase ‘the Rough Wooing’ to describe Henry’s clumsy attempts to get his hands on the toddler Queen of Scots. It was murder, rape and wanton destruction choreographed by a psychopath blinded by rage.”235

****NETHERBOW GATE, EDINBURGH, MIDLOTHIAN****

Neil Oliver talks about: “It was already clear that James, Duke of York, would succeed as king, and his commitment to religious oppression made his ascent to the throne a frighteningly unappetizing prospect for men like Renwick. In 1681 the king-to-be forced the Scots parliament to pass the Test Act, which demanded an oath of loyalty to the king from all holders of public office, and soon Scotland descended into a sad horror remembered as the ‘Killing Times’.

“The Protesters were becoming a war cry that had no mouth or tongue. The ministers who had once stood among the hills and led the rebellious prayers had either been cowed into submission or had their heads on spikes by Edinburgh’s Netherbow Gate. So when a group of them gathered at Lesmahagow to form an alternative government called The United Societies, Renwick was prominent and vocal among them. Now their calls for a return to the perfection of the Rule of the Saints could be heard once more. Prophet Peden wanted to be among them and returned from one of his regular periods of self-imposed exile in Ireland to preach in their support. But time had moved on and those committed to the cause had grown more radical. Renwick ridiculed Peden for valuing his own neck too highly – for staying alive when what was required was a martyr’s death.

“To prepare himself for holy war, Renwick departed Scotland for the Netherlands, where he was ordained as a minister. Returning to Scotland in 1683, he began to preach. He was also an author of what he called The Apologetical Declaration – in reality less an apology than a declaration of war on all officials, judges, soldiers and ministers loyal to the king. For good measure it promised death to any who informed about the activities of the Societies. The royal response to the document came in the form of the Abjuration Oath. Any man or woman could be stopped and, on pain of death, ordered to say ‘God Save the King’. It was a simple enough phrase and guaranteed to save your life, but it was poison on the lips of Covenanters. None could say it and hold true to their deal with God.

“These, then, were the Killing Times. During the course of a little less than a year, some eighty souls would be sent to their Maker for failing to ask god to save their monarch. It the context of the period, the number was small; but it was the arbitrary nature of the killings that was remembered. There were no trials, no juries. Men and women were simply stopped in their tracks and challenged. Failure to say four little words would be followed by a bullet to the head, or worse.

“On 11 May 1685, two Wigtown women were singled out. Margaret Maclauchlan was over sixty, and Margaret Wilson was just eighteen. One was already in custody for her outspoken opposition to the king, the other her regular visitor in prison. Both were frog-marched onto a beach near the town and tied to wooden stakes placed below the high tide mark. When the seawater was up to their chins and they were struggling to breathe, the soldiers waded in and asked them one more time to save themselves by saving the king. They refused, and the men held the women’s heads under the water until the struggling stopped.

“Charles II had died of a stroke, and James VII was king by then. It was like the good old days – or the bad, depending on your point of view – and the new king’s attitude to kingship was the same: he was anointed by God and he sat above all other men.”236

***SOUTRA AISLE, MIDLOTHIAN***

Dr Brian Moffat shares: “The enclosed pamphlet expands much what of the name means, apart from the name Aisle. In 1590, the Scottish Church prohibited personal and family burial monuments within ‘the kirk’. They were ‘a vanity’. Certain families responded by building instantly ancient monuments in the kirkyard. Soutra Aisle is all that is left of such a kirkyard. There are hundreds of Aisles especially in southeast Scotland, but this usage of Aisle seems not to have reached dictionaries of Scots.

“Soutra Aisle: Site of the ‘once powerful’ medieval hospital. Midway between Edinburgh and the magnificent Borders abbeys from the 12th to 17th centuries stood Soutra medieval hospital, a refuge for wayfarers and the needy, high on the Royal Road – the main Anglo-Scottish highway.

“Midway, still, on modern roads, is the site of the great hospital – the spectacular viewpoint – the memorial Aisle – and the unique archaeo-medical investigations.

“Soutra hospital was dedicated as the House of the Holy Trinity at Soutra. Run by the ‘Master & Brethren’ of the Augustinian Order, charters tell us that it looked after the poor, travelers and pilgrims, the aged and, of course – the sick and infirm – in fact, a general hospital stressing poor relief. All was funded from the income from vast hospital estates – clustered mainly in the Lothians along the Royal Road (Via Regia) towards Edinburgh – around 20 square miles in all.

“First heard of in 1164 AD when King Malcolm IV confirmed the now lost foundation charter, the founder and circumstances of the foundation remain a mystery. From 1164 AD to circa 1320, Soutra inexorably gained lands and wealth, and grew in power – despite being in the war zone. The 14th century heyday resulted from the generosity of thankful patients, and their heirs. After 1399, Soutra gained only urban lands.

“Soutra’s decline followed a major scandal in the 1460s when a renegade Master, Stephen Fleming, was finally disposed after many offenses had been reported to the Papal authorities. The Scottish Crown confiscated the hospital estates, apart from Soutra itself, re-assigning them to the new Trinity College Hospital (now beneath Edinburgh Waverly railway station). With a royal signature, Soutra was impoverished – and a hospital of international status reduced to local significance. Edinburgh’s gain laid foundations for it to become a medical center of international renown – while the Soutra hospital struggled on until around 1650.

“As Soutra shrank, buildings were removed, and the site converted from gardens and waste-dumps into predictably fertile farmland – leaving only Soutra Aisle. Aisles were family burial vaults built mainly in southeastern Scotland, after the Scottish Church banned monuments inside churches in 1590. Mellowed, pinky-red sandstone from the hospital is much used in the Aisle. The lintel is dated 1686, and inscribed to the Pringles (‘DP AP’). Soutra Aisle acts as a monument to ‘the once powerful hospice [= hospital] of Soltre’.

“The Aisle is cherished by locals, exiles and strangers – with it and the investigations, attracting over 400,000 visitors since 1986.

“The Viewpoint: As the hilltop opened up, the spectacular all-round view became evident – with all mainland regions of Scotland visible. In guidebooks, it is rightly called ‘The finest view in southern Scotland’. At least 60 major, Highland and Grampian peaks may be clearly made out – the Pentlands, Ochils, Sidlaws, Lomonds – the majestic sweep of the Firth of Forth and more. This unique prospect shows all the diversity of Scotland.

“The investigations – what was medieval medicine? Aided by demolition to ground – level and excellent preservation of human remains and herbal remains, Soutra hospital proves an ideal site for the unique archaeo-medical investigation (1986-now) – exploring actual medical practice through the distinctive waste produced. Being Augustinian, it was of the order that ran more hospitals than any other. Augustinian medicine was mainstream and well-funded.

“What recipes were selected – for what purpose – and with what outcome for the patient? Making and using medieval medicines leaves waste which may be interpreted – understood – by consulting medieval recipe-collections. These give us a narrative – a guidebook. We enter the physician’s mind, share his plans – and, more than in the best museum, we empathize with the patient in his plight.

“Beyond this we are in the unprecedented position to evaluate this system of medicine, recipe by recipe – and ask, did all of it – or any of it – work??

“We reconstruct Medicines from the Mud. That is the uniqueness of the Soutra investigations.

“Highlights in the Investigations, 1986 to 2011: anesthesia, blood-letting, childbirth management, dentistry, deficiency diseases and dietary supplements, disinfection and containment of diseases, epidemic management, famine management, food and water poisoning, parasitology and purgatives, psychiatric illnesses, and surgical amputation.

“All the above make sense in that the remains of herbal treatments and pathogens and human parts correspond and, in turn, match the medical manuals of the time. The potent plants of the Middle Ages endure in the hospital’s drains and persist alive on and near the site. The Poison Garden at Alnwick Castle has been supplied with many of these.”237

**MORAY**

Lachlan Shaw catalogs: “The only name by which I have found the country called, is Moravia or Moray. Hector Boece writes, that, in the first century, a colony from Moravia in Germany settled in this country, and gave it the name of the country from which they came. But he did not consider, that, at that time, the country called Moravia was called Marcomania, and the inhabitants Marcomani and Quadi. Others, finding the word Mureff in some ancient manuscripts, and Rief signifying Bent, will have it called Mureff, from the abundance of that grass growing on the sea shore. But, in my opinion, those having changed the V into F, and made it Mureff, instead of Murev or Murav. The Highlanders call it Murav or Morav, from the Celtic words Mur or Mor, ‘the Sea’, and Taobh or Tav, ‘the side’; and in construction, Mor’av, ie, ‘the Sea side’. This, I think, is the true notation of the name, answering to the situation of the country, by the side of the sea.”238

www.scotland.org conveys: “Murray is a variation of the word Moray (meaning ‘sea settlement’), and the name originally denoted someone from the district on the south shore of the Moray Firth. The Murray spelling is no longer used for the geographical area, but it became the commonest form of the surname, especially among Scottish emigrants, to the extent that the surname Murray is now much more common than the original Moray.”239

FH Groome discusses: “Elginshire or Moray, a maritime county on the southern shore of the Moray Firth, forming the central division of the old Province of Moray. It used formerly to consist of two separate though not widely detached parts, a portion of Inverness-shire having, by one of those zig-zag arrangements that may be traced back to the days of feudal jurisdiction, got between the two portions. In 1870, however, by The Inverness and Elgin County Boundaries Act, a part of the united parishes of Cromdale and Inverallan, including the village of Grantown, was transferred from Inverness to Elgin, and portions of the parishes of Abernethy and Duthil from Elgin to Inverness. The population of the former district was (1861) 3,377; and of the latter in the same year 2,750, so that Elginshire gained somewhat in population by the change. The new arrangement has proved in many ways advantageous, and has

rendered the county more compact. Elginshire is bounded on the north by the Moray Firth, on the east and southeast by Banffshire, on the south and southwest by Inverness-shire, and on the west by Nairnshire; and on the center of the western border it surrounds two small detached portions of the latter county. Its greatest length from northeast to southwest, from Lossiemouth to Dulnan Bridge in Strathspey, is 34 miles; its greatest breadth from east to west, from Bridge of Haughs near Keith to Macbeth's Hillock on the Hardmuir to the west of Forres, is 29½ miles. The coast-line along the shore at high-water mark measures 30 miles, and a straight line from the mouth of the Spey on the east to the sea near Maviston sandhills on the west measures 26 miles. The total area, according to the Ordnance Survey, and inclusive of inland waters and foreshores, is 312,378.81 acres. Roughly speaking, the county forms a sort of triangle, with a sharp apex to the northwest, and somewhat blunt corners to the south and northeast, and in this triangle the northern and western sides measure 25 miles, and the southeastern side somewhat more - all the measurements being in straight lines. Over 25 miles of the accurate boundary on the east is traced by the river Spey, and over 24 on the west by the watershed along the northeastern prolongation of the Monadhliath Mountains; but everywhere else, except along the Moray Firth, the boundary is purely artificial. Starting from the northeast corner the boundary-line follows the principal channel of the Spey for the time being for about 2 miles, and then strikes south-eastward through Gordon Castle part of which is in Elginshire and part in Banffshire till it reaches Bridge of Haughs about ¾ mile to the west of Keith. It then skirts the south side of the Highland railway to near Mulben station, where it turns abruptly away to the south, and takes in a part of the long slope of Ben Aigan. Returning to the Highland railway, it skirts the north side of the line as far as the bridge over the Spey. From this point it follows the course of the Spey for many miles up as far as Inveraven church, when it leaves the river, and takes in a part of Inveraven parish, measuring about 2½ miles by 1 mile, passes back along the river Aven, and again up the Spey for a mile. It then strikes to the southwest along the watershed of the Cromdale Hills, but returns to the Spey about 2 miles due east of Grantown, and keeps to the river as far as Dulnan Bridge. It then turns up the Dulnan for about a mile, and from that point proceeds in a direction more or less northerly (not taking minor irregularities into account), until it reaches the Moray Firth about 5 miles west of the mouth of the river Findhorn. The lower part of the county is flat, and remarkable for its amenity of climate, high cultivation, and beauty of landscape, in which respects it holds the highest position in the northern lowlands. The only exception is a part between the mouth of the Findhorn and the western boundary, which is covered by a mass of sand constantly in motion in the slightest breeze of wind, and known as the Culbin Sands. Culbin was at one time almost the richest and most fertile part of the county, but now some 3,600 acres are little better than an arid waste. In 1693 the rental was worth what might be represented by 6,000 pounds of our present money, but in 1694 or 1695 sand began to blow in from the shore, and rapidly overwhelmed the whole district. From the Findhorn eastward to Burghead, the tract along the coast is also barren and sandy, and from Lossiemouth eastward to the mouth of the Spey there are a series of great gravel ridges formed from the boulders brought down by the Spey, which have been in the course of ages carried westward by the inshore current, and thrown up by the sea. The district adjoining the coast along the parishes of Urquhart, St Andrews-Lhanbryd, Drainie, Duffus, Spynie, Alves, Kinloss and Dyke, and Moy is rich and fertile with heavy loam and strong clay soils, and is so flat that it might be mistaken for a portion of England set down there by accident. High wooded ridges running through Alves, Elgin, and St Andrews-Lhanbryd separate this from another flat district, not, however, of so great extent as the last, nor so level, extending through Speymouth, Elgin, and Forres, and sweeping up to the south to the beginning of the hill country, which occupies the south part of the county, where the land is mostly

covered with heather and given over to grouse and the red deer, and where cultivation, when carried on at all, is under much harder conditions of soil and climate than in the rich and fertile ‘Laigh of Moray’. There are, however, along the courses of all the streams numerous, though small, flats or haughs of great fertility. The soil of the arable lands of the county may be classified under the general names of sand, clay, loam, and reclaimed moss. Sand, or a light soil in which sand predominates, extends, with inconsiderable exceptions, over the eastern half of the lowlands, or most of Speymouth, Urquhart, St Andrews-Lhanbryd, and Drainie, the eastern part of Spynie, part of Elgin, and the lower lands of Birnie and Dallas. A clay soil prevails throughout Duffus and Alves, part of Spynie, and small strips in the sandy district. A loamy soil covers extensive tracts in Duffus, Alves, and Spynie, and nearly the whole of Kinloss, Forres, Dyke, the lower lands of Rafford and Edenkillie, and the alluvial grounds of the highland straths. A clay loam covers a considerable part of Knockando. Moss, worked into a condition of tillage, occurs to a considerable extent in Knockando, and in strips in the flat districts in the low situations. It is superincumbent on sand, and is so peculiar in quality as to emit, on a hot day, a sulphureous smell, and to strongly affect the color and formation of rising grain: it occurs also on the flats and slopes of the lower hills of the uplands, peaty in quality, but corrected by the admixture of sand. The far extending upland regions are prevailing moss and heath. Though the low district has a northern exposure, the climate is so mild that the hardier kinds of fruit - all the varieties of the apple, and most of the varieties of the pear and the plum - may, with very little attention, be grown abundantly; and fruits of greater delicacy the apricot, the nectarine, and the peach-ripen sufficiently on a wall in the open air. The wind blows from some point near the west during about 260 days in the year, and in summer it is for the most part a gentle breeze, coming oftener from the south than from the north side of the west. Winds from the northwest or north generally bring the heaviest and longest rains. The district has no hills sufficiently elevated to attract the clouds while they sail from the mass of mountains in the south towards the heights of Sutherland. The winter is singularly mild, and snow lies generally for only a very brief period. In the upland districts rain falls to the amount of 5 or 6 inches more than the mean depth in the low country, and there the seasons are often boisterous and severe, and unpropitious weather delays and, by no means seldom altogether, defies the efforts of the former. Rather more than half the county is drained by the Spey and its tributaries. Of the latter the most important are the Aven and the Dulnan, neither of which have, however, more than a very small portion of their course within the county. The middle part of the county is drained by the river Lossie. It rises near the center of the upper part of the shire, and has a very sinuous course in a general northeasterly direction, till it enters the sea at Lossiemouth. Its principal tributaries are the Lochty or Black Burn, the Burn of Glen Latterich, and the Burn of Shogle. The western part is drained by the Findhorn and its tributaries. The whole course of the Findhorn is very beautiful and picturesque, till it expands, near the mouth, into the open sheet of Findhorn Loch or Findhorn Bay. There is at the mouth, between the village of Findhorn and the Culbin Sands, a dangerous and much-dreaded bar. The principal tributaries are the Divie and the Dorbock. The latter issues from Lochindorb, and flows parallel to the western boundary of the county, at a distance of about a mile, along a course of about 10 miles, when, after uniting with the Divie, the streams fall into the Findhorn near Relugas. The principal lochs are - Lochindorb, which lies among the mountains, near the point where Elgin, Nairn, and Inverness unite. It is 2 1/8 miles long and 5 furlongs broad at the widest part. The Loch of Spynie, now only 5 furlongs long by 1½ furlong wide, was formerly an extensive lake 3 miles long and ¾ mile wide, but by the drain age operations carried on from time to time between 1779 and 1860, the whole of the loch was drained excepting a mere pool a little to the west of the old Castle of Spynie. The present sheet of water has been reformed by the proprietor of Pitgaveny. Loch-na-

Bo (4 x 1 ½ furlong) lies 1 mile to the southeast of the village of Lhanbryd. It contains a large number of excellent trout. The banks are prettily wooded, though up to 1773 the surrounding tract was merely a barren heathy moor. There are a number of chalybeate springs in the county, but none of them are at all distinguished for their medicinal properties. The surface of the county rises gradually from north to south, the ridges getting higher and higher till between Creag-an-Tarmachan and the Cromdale Hills, a height of 2,328 feet is attained. The principal elevations going from east to west and from north to south are Findlay Seat (1,116 feet), Eildon or Heldun Hill (767), Hill of the Wangie (1,020), Knock of Braemory (1,493), James Roy's Cairn (1,691), Cairn-an-Loin (1,797), Craig Tiribeg (1,586), Carn Sgriob (1,590), Creag-an-Righ (1,568).

“The territory now forming Elginshire belonged to the ancient Caledonian Vacomagi, and was included in the Roman division or so-called province of Vespasiana. It formed part of the kingdom of Pictavia, and underwent many changes in connection with descents and settlements of the Scandinavians. In the Middle Ages, it formed the middle part of the great province of Moray, although it early became a separate part of that province. It seems to have been disjoined from Inverness as early as 1263, for in that year Gilbert de Rule is mentioned in the Registrum Moraviense as sheriff of Elgin. The sheriff of Inverness still, however, at times exercised a jurisdiction within the county of Elgin; and the proper erection of the county and sheriffdom was not till the time of James II, the earlier sheriffs having probably had much narrower limits to their power. The principal antiquities are the so-called Roman well and bulls at Burghead, standing stones at Urquhart and elsewhere, cup-marked stones near Burghead and near Alves, the cathedral, etc, at Elgin, Spynie palace, Birnie church, the abbey of Kinloss, the priory of Pluscarden, the Michael kirk at Gordonstown, the old porch of Duffus church, Sueno's Stone at Forres, remains of Caledonian encampments on the Culbin Sands, a sculptured cave near Hopeman, castles at Elgin, Forres, Lochindorb, Rothes, and Duffus, and the towers at Coxton and Blervie.”240

John Bartholomew expounds: “Elginshire (or Morayshire), maritime county, in northeast of Scotland; is bounded north by the Moray Firth, east and southeast by Banff, southwest by Inverness, and west by Nairn; coast-line, 30 miles; 304,606 acres; population 43,788. Along the sea-coast the surface is mostly low and sandy; inland it consists of fertile valleys, divided by low hills, which gradually rise to the mountains on the south border. In the south a large portion of the surface is still covered by forest. The principal rivers are the Spey, Lossie, and Findhorn; the Spey and the Findhorn have salmon and grilse, and in the lochs there is abundance of trout; large quantities of haddock, cod, and ling are caught in the Moray Firth. In the lower part of the county farming and stock-raising are prosecuted with great success. The principal crops are wheat, oats, potatoes, and turnips. Granite occurs in the south, and red sandstone in the north. There are large quarries of freestone and a few slate quarries; whisky is distilled; and there is some shipbuilding at the mouth of the Spey; but otherwise the industries, besides agriculture and fishing, are unimportant. Corn, timber, salmon, and whisky are the chief exports. The county comprises 15 parishes, and 7 parts, the parliamentary and royal burgh of Elgin (part of Elgin Burghs - 1 member), and the parliamentary and royal burgh of Forres (part of Inverness Burghs). It unites with the county of Nairn in returning 1 member to Parliament.”241

***ARCHIESTOWN, MORAY***

www.thisismoray.com impresses: “Archiestown is a small village in Moray with a population of around 180 residents (officially 147 in the census of 2001). It is the largest village in the parish

of Knockando and is situated to the south of Elchies forest and to the north of the River Spey on the slopes of the Ballintomb moor.

“Archiestown lies in the heart of Speyside, around four miles off the A941 between Elgin and Craigellachie on the B9102 which is the scenic route to Grantown.

“The first thing that strikes a visitor to Archiestown is the peace and tranquility of the village. On a late spring day, the sound of silence is punctuated only by birdsong and the rustle of the trees. Beautiful countryside can be seen from every part of the village, with the mountain of Ben Rinnes (One of the Scottish Corbetts) dominating the view to the south.

“Archiestown dates from 1760 and is built in a grid system along one main road lying in an east/west direction with lanes and streets running off this road to the north and south. Archiestown is one of the highest villages in Moray at a height of some 776 feet above sea level.

“In the center of the village of Archiestown is its square, with the Archiestown hotel in its southeastern corner and with its prominent 18 foot high war memorial, which was unveiled by the Duke of Richmond and Gordon in 1920, in the center. The square seems very unusual for a small agricultural and distilling village, with what can only be described as tree lined avenues running from the memorial to the north and south. The effect is very attractive. This central area of the village is designated as a conservation area.

“Although the community of Archiestown is small in number, it is big in heart as is evident in the tidy nature of the village. Archiestown has frequently won the Moray village in bloom competition. Archiestown no longer has its own school and is serviced by the primary school in the tiny village of Knockando which lies around 3 miles to the west.

“Archiestown is situated on the Malt Whisky Trail and is flanked by the famous Macallan distillery to the east and the Cardhu distillery to the west. The malt whisky from the Cardhu distillery is used as the base for the internationally famous Johnny Walker blended whisky.

“Archiestown has its own tiny post office come village shop which brings mail to and from the area as well as supplying general merchandise and newspapers. Archiestown also has a village hall, one or two guest houses and a hotel and bar which is a focal point for the community as well as attracting guests and tourists to the area for fine cuisine. There is also a caravan and camping club site just a mile or so to the east of Archiestown which welcomes non-members, in a striking rural setting.

“Archiestown was founded in 1760 by Sir Archibald Grant of Monymusk, under the original name of Ballintomb. Sir Archibald Grant was known and respected as an agricultural reformer, who brought the Agricultural revolution to his own estate in Monymusk and with it, immense change. These changes were good for the economy of the area but resulted in the requirement for relocation of redundant farmworkers to new planned villages from where they were encouraged to become involved in agricultural and trade based employment.

“Archiestown in common with many other villages in the mid-18th century was a planned village and was built around a linen factory as well as supporting other trades and agriculture.

“In 1783 Archiestown was severely damaged by fire and did not really recover until the early 1800s. This was partly due to the devastation caused by the fire, but also due to the remoteness of the location with the transport links of the time which resulted in a temporary depopulation of the village.”242

***DUFFUS CASTLE, MORAY***

Neil Oliver notates: “There was no one left to protect the Comyn lands now, but that was not enough for Good King Robert. There was still a debt to be paid it seemed, and only he would say when the books were straight once more. He marched to Duffus Castle, a Comyn stronghold near Elgin, and utterly destroyed it. He visited upon Buchan a devastation that might be described as apocalyptic. Every village, every settlement was burned. Such was the mayhem wrought upon the territory in 1308 that the land was left barren for a generation or more. But it was not the farmland the Bruce damaged: burning the crops would just have improved fertility. Rather it was the people he punished, and the animals they tended. Every man, woman and child that came the Bruce’s way was put to the sword. Buchan was barren because there was no one left alive.

“And after all that, while the Bruce’s hands were still slick with the blood and brains of his people and their children, the Pope lifted the ban of excommunication and welcomed King Robert back into the fold. It was therefore with the reassurance that even sacrilegious murder and the wholesale slaughter of infants would not close the door to heaven for a king that he started 1309 determined to get on with the business of governing his kingdom.”243

***LOSSIEMOUTH, MORAY***

www.lossiemouth.co.uk puts pen to paper: “Set at the mouth of the River Lossie on the beautiful coast of Scotland, the town of Lossiemouth is a busy port town. In the beginning, the town was to be a harbor to help with its trading and house craftsmen, merchants, and builders. Over the years since it was established in the mid-1700s, the new Lossiemouth has transformed from a small port town serving Elgin to a thriving port in its own right.

“Lossiemouth is home to several examples of incredible architecture from different centuries. As you tour through the area, there are some landmark buildings that you cannot help but be drawn to. The history that permeates this area cannot help but be felt by those that visit Lossiemouth.

“The Elgin Cathedral has parts that date from the 13th century as well as the best example of an octagonal chapter house in Scotland. The chapter house was constructed in the 15th century.

“Unfortunately Duffus Castle was deserted in 1705 and is now in ruins. Andrew Moray burned the original motte-and-bailey castle to the ground in 1297. Duffus Castle was rebuilt as a more secure stone castle in the early 1300s and was occupied until it was abandoned.

“Originally built in the early 1200s and rebuilt in the early 1400s, Spynie Palace was the fortified seat of power for the Moray bishops for over 500 years. This impressive structure was left empty and uncared for from 1688. In recent years, Historic Scotland has undertaken restoration work on the palace.

“Gordonstoun School is housed in an excellent example of 17th century architecture. This huge and magnificent building set on 150 acres was converted to coed school in 1934.

“Covesea Skerries Lighthouse was designed by Alan Stevenson, the uncle of Robert Louis Stevenson, and was completed in 1846. The impetus to build the lighthouse stems from 16 ships being wrecked in a single storm during 1826.

“Perhaps the most famous son of Lossiemouth is Ramsay Macdonald, the first Prime Minister from the Labour Party. He rose above the encumbrance of his illegitimacy, as well his poverty stricken beginnings to become a very visible and powerful political figure. He was unpopular for his outspoken views against the involvement of Britain’s involvement in World War 2, and his pacifist views led to his expulsion from the Moray Golf Club. His health in decline, he agreed to step down as Prime Minister in 1935 and subsequently passed away in 1937.

“As with many towns and villages in Scotland, Lossiemouth has an amazing tapestry of history. In addition to the history, Lossiemouth offers so much diversity that there is something for everyone to do and see.”244

***NELSON TOWER, MORAY***

Liz Trevethick represents: “The story of the building of the earliest monument to be raised to Lord Nelson begins a few months after his victory at Cape Trafalgar in 1805 and tragic death in the battle. The following public announcement was proclaimed in Forres: ‘It is proposed to erect, by subscription, on the summit of the Cluny Hills, near Forres, a tower of which a plan, furnished gratuitously by Mr Charles Stuart, architect at Darnaway, is herewith laid before the publick.’

“The Tower was described as: ‘A monument to departed heroism’. While its situation had other advantages: ‘Exclusive of answering the intended purpose, it will form a most agreeable object to every traveler and the country at large, an useful sea beacon, an excellent observatory, and a commanding alarm post in the event of an enemy’s approach by sea or land.’

“The sum for the purpose was estimated at 700 guineas and 610 pounds was raised from the 269 subscribers. At a public meeting of the Subscribers, a Committee of Management was elected. The committee applied to Forres Town Council requesting: ‘The use of roads and the site at the top of the Hill, and also ground for the site of the proposed memorial, to be the joint and perpetual property of the inhabitants of Forres and the whole subscribers to the said Tower, and to be occupied by them solely for the purpose of recreation and amusement.’

“The Building of the Tower: The foundation stone was laid on the 26th August, 1806 by James Brodie of Brodie. The Provincial Grand Master Mason with his Grand Masters and Chaplain proceeded from St Laurence Lodge, accompanied by the Forres Volunteers, sailors carrying naval flags, the Right Worshipful Masters and Brethren of the Lodges of St John and St Laurence, the Provost and Magistrates of the Burgh, many of the subscribers, and a detachment of the Forres Rifle Corps as bodyguard. Coins and a parchment scroll were placed under the stone. After a speech and prayer, the Volunteers fired three volleys in the air, then the procession returned to town for a celebration at Maclean’s Inn.”245

***URQUHART, MORAY***

FH Groome specifies: “Urquhart (oldest known form Urqwhard; present form dating from the early part of 16th century; Gaelic form Urchadain, but the derivation is uncertain), a coast parish, containing a village of the same name, in the northeast of the county of Elgin. It is bounded north-northeast by the

Spey Bay portion of the Moray Firth; at the northeast corner it is separated from Banffshire for 1¾ mile, partly by the present and partly by the former course of the river Spey; and it is bounded southeast by the parish of Speymouth, and southwest by the parishes of St Andrews-Lhanbryd and Drainie. Except for 2 7/8 miles at the northwest corner, where the river Lossie forms the whole boundary, from Arthur's Bridge at Inchbroom to the sea, along the north-northeast side, and at the mouth of the Spey, the boundary line is almost entirely artificial. In shape the parish is triangular - one side lying along the coast from the mouth of the Lossie to the month of the Spey; another from the mouth of the Lossie in an irregular line southeastward to the point on the extreme south where the parishes of Urquhart and St Andrews meet; and the shortest side from this point in an irregular line northeastward to near the present mouth of the Spey. The first side measures 7½, the second 8½, and the third 5½ miles, all in straight lines; and the area is 13,660.765 acres, of which 70.988 are water, 501.81 foreshore, and 22.174 tidal water. The coast is low and sandy, and rising from the sand are a series of bent-covered hillocks and pebble beaches, the peculiar features of which have been already noticed under Elginshire. Part of these to the northwest, extending over an area of from 2 to 3 square miles, and covered with heathy scrub, forms a flat tract very little above sea-level, and known as the Links of Innes. The rest of the surface is undulating, but nowhere reaches any great height, the highest point being the Bin Hill or Black Hill of Moray (223 feet), close to the sea-coast west of Garmouth. The small Loch of Cotts (400 x 200 yards) was at one time much larger, but has been reduced by drainage. In the northwest the drainage is carried off to the Lossie by means of the Innes Canal, and elsewhere by small streamlets to the Spey or the sea. Much of the surface is well wooded, but more than half is under cultivation, though towards the northwest there is a good deal waste. The soil is light and sandy, but kindly, and the climate is early and warm. The underlying rocks are Old Red Sandstone, but the beds are deeply covered by alluvial deposits, and mixed with the soil and clay there are in many parts large numbers of small fragments of rocks belonging to different beds of Jurassic age. There is a well-preserved though small stone circle on the farm of Viewfield, north of the village, and on the side of the road leading from it to the east gate of Innes House; and at many points cists and flint and stone implements of Neolithic age have been found, as well as some fine gold armlets. A particularly large and interesting find of these was made in 1870 on the farm of Meft near the southwest border. The place seemed to be an abandoned manufactory of flint implements. All the best of the specimens found are now in the Antiquarian Museum in Edinburgh, and an interesting account of some of them and of all the pre-historic antiquities of the parish will be found in a paper by the Rev James Morrison in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland for 1871. It seems to have been in this parish that Malcolm IV defeated the Mormaer of Moray and his followers in 1160, when the lands of Innes between Lossie and Spey were granted to Bereowald of Flanders, and large settlements of ‘peaceful’ Flemings introduced. Prior to this David I had attempted to introduce civilization among the Celtic natives of the district, by the foundation of a priory, which stood on low ground to the east-northeast of the village. No remains of the buildings have existed since 1654, when the material was carried off and used for the construction of a granary at Garmouth and the repair of the manse and churchyard wall. The site can still be traced. Founded in 1125, the priory was a cell of Dunfermline Abbey, the Benedictines who were its first inmates coming from Canterbury. It was united to Pluscarden by a bull of Pope Nicholas V in 1453, and the buildings seem thereafter to have fallen into decay. In 1866 some oak beams and a curious bronze vessel were found on the site. The former are in the Elgin Museum, and the latter is at Duff House. The possessions of the priory were extensive, and included the lordship of Urquhart, Fochabers, lands in Durris, Auldearn, and Dalcross, and fishings on the Spey. The south and east parts of the parish were in 1591 erected into a temporal lordship in favor of

Alexander Seton, Commendator of Pluscarden, Baron Urquhart, afterwards Earl of Dunfermline. They were purchased by the Duke of Gordon in 1730, and in 1777 passed by excambion to the Earl of Fife, who had acquired the estate of Innes in 1767. An old ruined church, dedicated to St Margaret, wife of Malcolm Ceannmor, which stood at the village, is said to have been pulled down, and the materials used in the construction of the present Free and Established churches in 1844. The village of Urquhart, in the southwest, 1¾ mile northeast of Lhanbryd station, is a small place, occupied mostly by crofters and laborers. The parish, which contains also the villages of Kingston and Garmouth at the mouth of the Spey, is traversed for 1¾ mile on the south by the Forres and Keith section of the Highland railway, and for 4 miles near the center by the Elgin and Buckie section of the Great North of Scotland railway, with stations at Urquhart village and Garmouth, the former 5 and the latter 8 miles east by north of Elgin; and there are a number of good district roads. The parish is in the presbytery of Elgin and the synod of Moray, and the living is worth 350 pounds a year. The villages of Garmouth and Kingston, though in the civil parish, are quoad sacra in the parish of Speymouth. The parish church, on high ground to the north of the village, is a good building, with a high square tower, erected in 1844 and reseated in 1878. There are Free churches at the village and at Garmouth. Under the school board, the Urquhart public school, with accommodation for 195 pupils, had in 1884 an attendance of 151, and a grant of 158 pounds, 5 shillings, 2pence. The school at Garmouth is under the Speymouth school board. The largest proprietor is the Earl of Fife, and the Duke of Richmond and Gordon holds an annual value of more than 1,100 pounds, 2 other proprietors hold each between 500 pounds and 100 pounds, 6 hold each between 100 pounds and 50 pounds, and 10 hold each between 50 pounds and 20 pounds. Mansions are Innes House and Leuchars House.”246

**NORTH AYRSHIRE**

***LOCHRANZA, NORTH AYRSHIRE***

FH Groome tells: “Loch Ranza, a small village, situated round the head of a bay or loch of the same name, on the north coast of Arran, Buteshire. The loch, which opens from Kilbrannan Sound, pierces the land in a south-southeast direction, and has a length of 7 furlongs and a breadth of ½ mile. At its upper end, a grass-covered peninsula, terminating in a shingly spit, stretches almost across the loch, and leaves only a narrow opening for the water to pass into the inner harbor, formed by this natural breakwater. This harbor affords safer anchoring ground than the loch, which is much exposed to sudden squalls, and, in consequence, the fishermen prefer to lay their boats up in it. In the herring-season, however, the loch is often crowded with fishing-boats, as it is conveniently near Loch Fyne, Kilbrannan Sound, etc. Beyond the harbor lies a stretch of marshy ground, through which the Ranza Burn flows by many channels to the sea. On both sides of the loch the hills rise to a considerable height, while the low ground behind the harbor is backed by the range of Caisteal Abhael (2,735 feet), Meall Mor (1,602), and Torr Nead an Eoin (1,057), mountains which are separated by two glens. On the east is Glen Chalmadale, up which passes the carriage road to Corrie; and on the west is Glen Easan Biarach, which contains some very grand scenery. Such are the natural surroundings that belong:

‘To the lone hamlet, which her inland bay

And circling mountains sever from the world.’

“The village of Loch Ranza may be approached either by land from Brodick (15 miles south-southeast) or direct by sea, the Campbeltown steamers stopping off the mouth of the bay, and a large ferry-boat

going out for goods and passengers. It contains a post-office under Greenock, an inn, a public school, two or three small shops, a line of cottages on the west side of the bay, and a few houses, irregularly dotted round the head and east side of the loch. The Free Church is a neat, modern building of reddish sandstone. Service is held regularly in it, and it is the only church in the neighborhood, the nearest Established church being at Brodick. Loch Ranza gives name to a registration district. Population (1861) 824, (1871) 777, (1881) 714.

“Loch Ranza Castle stands upon the peninsula which stretches across the bay. All that now remains is a square tower with thick walls, which, combined with its situation, must have made the Castle almost impregnable. The building is now roofless. Although it is not known when the Castle was erected, it must be very old, since it is mentioned as ‘a hunting-seat of the Scottish kings in 1380, when it was regarded as one of the royal castles.’ Like many other places in Arran, Loch Ranza and its castle are associated with the name of Robert the Bruce. No vestige now remains either of the chapel, built by Anne, Duchess of Hamilton, or of the convent of St Bride.”247

‘Lord of the Isles’ shares:

“On fair Lochranza streamed the early day;

There wreaths of cottage-smoke are upward curl’d

From the lone hamlet, which her inland bay

And circling mountains sever from the world;

And there the fishermen his sail unfurl’d,

The goat-herd drove his kids to steep Ben-ghoil;

Before the hut the dame her spindle twirl’d,

Courting the sun-beam, as she plied her toil –

For wake where’er he may, man wakes to care and toil.”248

***PORTINCROSS, NORTH AYRSHIRE***

Timothy Pont chronicles: “Port na’croisse, in Celtic, signifies the ‘Port, or Ferry, of the Cross’.

“The fortalice of Portincross, the walls of which are still pretty entire, though unroofed and ruinous for more than a century, is seated, within the sea-wash, on a ledge of rock forming the most projecting point of the Kilbryde coast, inland of which rise the ‘grate heigh rockes’ of ‘Goudberrie-head’. It appears to have been the chief messuage of the barony of Ardneil, which, prior to the succession of Bruce, was the inheritance of the Rosses, Sherrifs of Ayr. But on the fall of that great family, who had taken the part of Balliol, it was conferred by Bruce on the ancestor of the family of Kilmarnock, and, about the time of Robert II, became the patrimony of a third son of Sir Thomas Boyd of Kilmarnock, viz, Robert Boyd of Portincross, with whose descendants it remained until the year 1737. Several Charters of the first two Stewart Kings bear to have received the royal sign manual at ‘Arnele’, which unquestionably refers to this place, and which circumstance has led to a belief that Portincross had been at that period a royal residence. But there is no good reason to suppose that it ever was such, in the proper sense of the term. The probability is, that these Sovereigns, in passing betwixt Dundonald in Kyle, and Rothesay in

Bute, had crossed the channel at this point, and, as circumstances, or inclination, suggested, may have prolonged their stay at this romantic place. In viewing the walls of this little sea-beat tower, it is no doubt difficult to conceive how it should have afforded accommodation to a Royal Court, yet, when we reflect on the circumscribed nature of Dundonald itself, the favorite residence of these same Sovereigns, the contrast appears by no means so extraordinary. Indeed, no satisfactory idea can be come to of the manners of those times by any reference to those of the present.”249

***SALTCOATS, NORTH AYRSHIRE***

FH Groome declares: “Saltcoats, a watering-place of Cunninghame district, Ayrshire, in the parishes of Ardrossan and Stevenston. Lying about the middle of the northern side of the Bay of Ayr, 1¼ mile east-southeast of the town of Ardrossan, it has a station on a branch-line of the Glasgow and South-Western railway, 4 miles west-southwest of Kilwinning Junction, and 29½ southwest of Glasgow. Its site is low level ground in the vicinity of sandy bluffs and flat expanses, but is relieved from dullness by the vicinity of a range of high ground to the north, and by the prospect, across the waters, of the splendid mountains of Arran. Great improvements have been effected in recent years; some of the churches, one or two other public buildings, and a handsome spire on the town-house (1825), have claims to architectural beauty; the near neighborhood of Ardrossan also is not a little pleasant; and the accommodations of Saltcoats itself, together with the character of its sea-beach, are such as to draw to it many families for summer sea-bathing. Places of worship within it are Ardrossan parish church (1774), the North church, the Free Church, the Gaelic Free church, the East and West United Presbyterian churches, the Congregational church (1863), and the Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady, Star of the Sea (1856). The last is a good Early English edifice, built at a cost of 2,200 pounds. A new public school, French Gothic in style, with accommodation for 500 children, and with a bell-tower 60 feet high, was erected in 1876; and in 1882 a new Academy, for 280 pupils, was built midway between Ardrossan and Saltcoats. The town has a post office, with money order, savings' bank, insurance, and telegraph departments, branches of the Bank of Scotland and Royal Bank, agencies of 19 insurance companies, an hotel, sea-baths, a gas company, an admirable drainage system, a cemetery, a horticultural society, a mission coast home, etc. Saltcoats was made a burgh of barony by a charter of 1528; but it soon lost its burghal character, and almost sank into extinction. It was originally a collection of clay-built cots, inhabited by poor persons who manufactured salt in small pans and kettles; and it thence obtained the name of Saltcotes. But it possessed only a fitful prosperity; and, about the year 1660, it had dwindled away to only four houses. In 1686, however, Robert Cuninghame, whose uncle, Sir Robert, had purchased the barony of Stevenston in 1656, built several large saltpans at Saltcoats, placed the manufacture of salt on an entirely new and advantageous footing, constructed a harbor on a scale which the circumstances of the case rendered large and enterprising, and opened various coal-pits in the vicinity on a plan to render the new harbor a place of large export for coal. The decayed hamlet grew suddenly into a considerable village; and the village thenceforth enlarged into a small town. The salt manufacture, engaging seven large saltpans, continued to flourish till the repeal of the salt duty in 1827, and is not yet quite extinct. A magnesia work, started in connection with the saltpans in 1802, was the earliest establishment of its kind in Scotland. Ship-building has, at various periods, been vigorously conducted, but has been as fitful as alternately to rise into prominence and to sink into extinction. Rope-making, also, has been a fluctuating trade. The commerce of the port has ceased for a good many years, having been absorbed by Ardrossan. It consisted chiefly in the export of coals to Ireland, and was of such extent that the amount of local dues yielded by it was about 120 pounds a year. The harbor is a creek of

the port of Irvine. A fair for cattle, pigs, and hiring is held on the last Thursday of May; and a justice of peace court sits on the first Friday of every month.”250

R and M Merry displays: “Saltcoats derives its name from the ancient practice of boiling sea water to extract salt, a practice which its inhabitants once carried out in their beachside cots (‘houses’). The fuel needed for salt production was provided by locally mined coal, and as the town’s fishing industry prospered, demand for salt, used to cure fish, steadily increased. These industries – salt production, coal mining, and fishing – along with local handloom weaving, provided the basis for Saltcoats’ expansion and prosperity.

“A crumbling stone (no longer extent) in a churchyard neighboring Kilwinning Abbey is reported to have mentioned ‘Hew Fergus, curate of Ye Chappel Brae Saut-Cottes’ and borne the date 1272. Whatever the true date of its foundation, Saltcoats was well established by 1528, when a charter was granted to Hugh, Earl of Eglinton, allowing the settlement to become a Burgh of Barony. Feuding between the Cunninghames of Glencairn and the Montgomeries of Eglinton led to violence and recrimination in Saltcoats, with the unrest coming to a head in 1526. Edward Cunninghame, Lord Glencairn, was murdered by the Montgomeries and their allies, and in revenge, Glencairn’s eldest son and his supporters raided Montgomerie territory burning the castle and lands, and leaving tenants destitute and starving. Restoration of the peace was due in part to the intervention of James V, who entered the fray on behalf of the Earl of Elginton.

“But Saltcoats became a Burgh of the Barony in 1528, at which time stability and harmony was restored. The town’s inhabitants received trading rights and were also permitted to hold two annual fairs, both of which led to social and economic improvements. Local industry flourished, aided by the construction of a harbor which was begun in 1684 and completed six years later. Busy with both local and foreign shipping trade, this was expanded with the addition of an outer pier around 1800, while a two mile stretch of canal, constructed in 1772, connected it with local coal fields. Meanwhile, two large salt pans were created to cope with the burgeoning salt trade, several shipbuilding yards were active, and Saltcoats’ population of handloom weavers numbered around five hundred.

“Around the turn of the twentieth century new manufacturing processes led to the decline of salt panning in Saltcoats, and this had a knock-on effect on the local coal industry, which applied the fuel necessary for salt extraction. However, as traditional local industries fell into decline, Saltcoats benefitted from its increasing popularity as a holiday destination. The addition of esplanades to both the east and west shores constituted significant improvements to the seafront, and during the thirties the old bathing pond was reconstructed. As the largest tidal pool in Scotland, this proved extremely popular, with both locals and visitors keeping the turnstiles clicking, especially during the summer months. Minstrels, pierrots, and other traveling entertainers provided amusement for the holiday-makers, while bands frequently performed at the Melbourne Park bandstand. From the twenties to the fifties, many well-known stage entertainers played at the Beach Pavilion during the summer ‘season’. But as foreign travel became increasingly popular and affordable, Saltcoats’ holiday trade declined. The bathing pool closed, and after being used by the shellfish industry for a time it was finally demolished in 1985.

“Saltcoats ceased to exist as an independent burgh in 1975, when it was integrated within Cunninghame District Council. Enormous changes have been made to the town over the centuries, and several of the places illustrated in this book have long since vanished. Many of Saltcoats’ landmarks owe their

memory to the postcard producers, who so avidly recorded the face of Britain at the turn of the century.”251

**NORTH LANARKSHIRE**

**LANARK**

“Lanark (Scottish Gaelic: Lannraig, Scots: Lanrik) is a small town in the central belt of Scotland. Its population of 8,253 makes it the 100th largest settlement in Scotland. The name is believed to come from the Cumbric Lanerc meaning ‘clear space, glade’.”252

William Davidson expresses: “Etymologists who have directed their attention to the subject, have wearied themselves in vain, to account for the origin of Lanark. Both the Welch and Gaelic languages have been ransacked, to sanction the derivation, to no purpose. The original orthography being Lanarc, as appears from the seal of the burgh, it requires no straining, nor fanciful interpretation. Bishop Lesley derives it ‘a lanarum area’, an ark, or repository of wool; and the charter granted by Alexander, fully bears him out. This of itself appears so satisfactory, that it would be superfluous to enumerate more.”253

FH Groome notes: “Lanark (Cymric llanerch, ‘a forest glade’), a town and a parish in the Upper Ward of Lanarkshire. The capital of the county, and a royal, parliamentary, and police burgh, the town is built on a southwestward slope, 500 to 750 feet above sea-level, within ½ mile of the Clyde's right bank, by rail being 4¼ miles west-southwest of Carstairs Junction, 33¼ southwest of Edinburgh, and 31¼ southeast by east of Glasgow. Its environs are singularly pleasant, comprising the three celebrated Falls of Clyde (Bonnington, Corra, and Stonebyres Linns) and the deep, narrow chasm of Mouse Water beneath the stupendous Cartland Crags, with a wealth of minor embellishment in the shape of undulating surface, woods, and mansions. The town, which on 20 Aug 1804 received a visit from Coleridge, Wordsworth, and his sister Dorothy, then showed a sort of French face, and would have done so more, had it not been for the true British tinge of coal smoke; the doors and windows dirty, the shops dull, the women too seemed to be very dirty in their dress. The place itself is not ugly; the houses are of grey stone, the streets not very narrow, and the marketplace decent. The New Inn is a handsome old stone building, formerly a gentleman's house. We were conducted into a parlor, where people had been drinking; the tables were unwiped, chairs in disorder, the floor dirty, and the smell of liquors was most offensive. We were tired, however, and rejoiced in our tea. The evening sun was now sending a glorious light through the street, which ran from west to east; the houses were of a fine red, and the faces of the people as they walked westward were almost like a blacksmith's when he is at work by night. Great changes have taken place since Dorothy Wordsworth wrote, especially since 1823; and now, to quote Irving's History of Lanarkshire (1864), ‘though many of the houses in the burgh must occupy the sites of buildings erected at a very early date, the progress of improvement and alteration has left little or nothing to interest the archaeological inquirer into the domestic architecture of our ancestors. A local antiquary, following up a house-to-house visitation, may discover some faint traces of earlier work, but he will fail to find any building which, in its main features and as a whole, can date prior to the commencement of last century. Many of the houses were till recently covered with thatch, and some instances of this style of roofing still exist.’ Lanark chiefly consists of one main line of street, bearing the names of High Street and Westport, with several smaller streets or lanes diverging on either side. It contains some good public buildings and many handsome well-appointed shops; and possesses so many amenities in itself and such full command of its beautiful environs, as to be both a very agreeable place of stated residence and a crowded resort of summer tourists.

“An artificial mound, the Castle Hill, at the foot of the Castle Gate, on the side of the town towards the Clyde, is believed to have been occupied by a Roman station, and was long surmounted by a royal castle, which is thought to have been founded by David I, and was an occasional residence of William the Lyon and other kings. It was mortgaged in 1295, in connection with negotiations for the marriage of the niece of King Philip of France with the son and heir of John Baliol; was held by an English garrison for a number of years till 1310; went afterwards to ruin; and has utterly disappeared, its site being now a bowling green. Some places in the neighborhood still bear such names as King-son's Knowe, King-son's Moss, and King-son's Stane - survivals, seemingly, of royal residence in the castle. An eminence, Gallow Hill, a little north of the town, was the place of capital punishment in feudal times, and commands a magnificent view along Strathclyde, from Tinto to Ben Lomond. The ancient parish church, St Kentigern's, 3 furlongs southeast of the town, was granted by David I, as early as 1150-3, to the monks of Dryburgh, who held the rectorial tithes thenceforward on to the Reformation; but from the style of its architecture - First Pointed or Early English - the present ruin appears to date from the succeeding century. It consisted of two six-bayed aisles, each with a chancel, but without a nave; and of these the portions that remain are the lofty, pointed arches dividing the two aisles, the wall of the south one, and a fragment of the chancels. In the south wall is a doorway, exhibiting ‘the round moulding with a fillet on the face, while the capitals, which are all that remain of two nook shafts, are richly sculptured’ (Bloxam's Gothic Architecture). It continued to be used for some time after the Reformation, but seems to have fallen into a ruinous condition by 1657, and in 1777 was finally superseded by the present church, whither its bell was transferred, which, according to an inscription on it, has ‘three times, Phenix-like, past thro' fiery furnace’ - in 1110, 1659, and 1740. Irvine of Bonshaw, who in 1681 seized Donald Cargill at Covington Mill, lies buried in the south aisle; and in the churchyard is the grave of ‘William Henri, who suffered at the Cross of Lanark, 2 March 1682, age 38, for his adherence to the Word of God and Scotland's covenanted work of Reformation’. Within the burgh stood the chapel of St Nicholas, which existed at the beginning of the 13th century, but to assist in building which five merks were left so late as 1550. Its very site is forgotten, but it is known to have possessed four altars or chantries; and, passing to the magistrates at the Reformation, it served as a chapel of ease from 1590 till 1777. In the present yard of the Clydesdale Hotel stood an Observantine or Franciscan friary, which is said to have been founded by Robert Bruce in 1314 (the year of Bannockburn), and where a chapter of the whole Scottish Franciscan order was held in 1496. To Robert I is also ascribed the foundation of St Leonard's Hospital, ½ mile east of the town; but from a charter this seems to have existed at least a century earlier.

“Lanark has been identified with Ptolemy’s Colania, a town of the Damnonii in the 2d century AD, which Skene, however, places ‘near the sources of the Clyde,’ and describes as ‘a frontier but apparently unimportant post.’ Nor does Buchanan’s statement, that Kenneth II in 978 here held an assembly of the estates of the realm, appear to rest on any sufficient basis. And Chalmers is certainly wrong in asserting that ‘we hear nothing of any royal castle or place of royal residence in this city’, for as early as the 12th century royal charters are known to have been dated from the Castle of Lanark. This castle it is that figures in the metrical narratives by Wyntoun and Blind Harry of Sir William Wallace’s first collision with the English, in May 1297. He had just taken to wife a virtuous damsel named Bradfute. She resides in the town of Lanark, where there is an English garrison; and as he is a marked man, from having already resented the insults of the invaders, it is not safe for him to reside there, and he must be content with stealthy visits to his bride. One day, having just heard mass, he encounters some straggling soldiers, who treat him with ribaldry and practical jokes. A very animated scene of taunt and retort, what is

vulgarly called chaffing, is given by the minstrel; but it must be held as in the style of the fifteenth rather than of the thirteenth century. Wallace bears all with good temper, until a foul jest is flung at his wife. Then he draws his great sword, and cuts off the offender’s hand. He is joined by a few of his countrymen, and there is a scuffle; but the English are many times their number, and they must seek safety. His own door is opened for Wallace by his wife, and he escapes through it into the open country. For this service his poor wife is slain, and then he vows eternal vengeance. Gathering a few daring hearts round him, he falls upon the garrison in the night, burns their quarters, and kills several of them, among the rest William de Hazelrig, whom Edward had made Earl of Clydesdale and Sherrif of Ayr. Thus Dr Hill Burton, who adds that the story is not, on the whole, improbable: we can easily believe in such a man being driven desperate by insults and injuries to himself and to those dear to him. But the latter portion of the story is confirmed in a curious manner. About sixty years later, a Northumbrian knight, Sir Thomas de Grey, had been taken prisoner in the Scots wars, and was committed to the Castle of Edinburgh. There, like Raleigh, he bethought him of writing something like a history of the world; but it fortunately gave a disproportionate prominence to events in or near his own day, especially those in which he and his father participated. He tells how, in the month of May 1297, his father was in garrison at Lanark, and that Wallace fell upon the quarters at night, killed Hazelrig, and set fire to the place. The father had good reason to remember and tell about the affair, for he wounded in it, and left on the street for dead. Had it not been that he lay between two blazing buildings, he would have died, wounded as he was, of exposure in that chill May night, but he was recognized by his comrade, William de Lundy, and tended by him till he recovered. Further, it was charged against Wallace, when indicted in London, that he had slain Hazelrig and cut his body in pieces. Tradition says that the house to which Wallace resided stood at the head of the Castlegate, opposite the church; and that a vaulted passage led from it to the Cartland Crags; but the latter part of the statement is clearly false. The English continued to hold the castle and the town till 1310, when Edward II occupied Lanark for the 11th till the 13th of October. The castle was then surrendered to Robert the Bruce, who seems to have either rebuilt or enlarged it. On the common muir of Lanark – now the racecourse – encamped the armies of James II (1452), of James, ninth Earl of Douglas (1454), and of Charles II (1651), Lanark the year before having been occupied by 4,000 English horse. In Nov 1666, 3,000 West Country Covenanters, after here renewing the Covenant, set out to meet defeat at Rullion Green; and on 12 Jan 1682, a well-armed body of 40 horse and 20 foot affixed to the Cross of Lanark a confirmation of the ‘Sanquhar Testimony’, and burned both the Test and the Act of Succession, for which the Privy Council fined the magistrates in 6,000 merks. Among eminent natives and residents – the former distinguished by an asterisk – of town or parish have been *William Lithgow (1583-1645), who trudged more than 36,000 miles over Europe, the Levant, and Northern Africa, and was buried in the old churchyard; *Sir William Lockhart of Lee (1620-75), ‘one of the Commonwealth’s best generals, and by far its best diplomatist’; Robert Baillie of Jerviswood (executed 1684); Sir John Lockhart-Ross (1721-90), the gallant admiral; *Robert Macqueen, Lord Braxfield (1722-99), the able lawyer and judge, who received his education at the grammar school, as also did Major-Gen William Roy (1726-90), of Ordnance fame; *Gavin Hamilton (died 1797), historical painter; David Dale (1739-1806); his son-in-law, Robert Owen (1771-1858); and his sons, Robert Dale Owen (1801-77), and *David Dale Owen (1807-60). The Duke of Hamilton bears the title of Earl of Arran and Lanark (created 1643) in the peerage of Scotland.”254

John Bartholomew records: “Lanark, parliamentary and royal burgh, parish, and county town of Lanarkshire, near river Clyde, 31 miles southeast of Glasgow, and 366 northwest of London by rail - parish 10,385 acres, population 7,580; royal burgh, population 5,874; parliamentary burgh and town,

population 4,910 … 4 Banks. Market-days, Tuesday and Saturday. Lanark is an ancient place, said to have been erected from a royal burgh by Alexander I. The name is associated with the early struggles of Sir William Wallace. The principal industries are weaving, shoemaking, and brewing. The Falls of Clyde, in the neighborhood, attract numerous visitors. Lanark is one of the Falkirk District of Parliamentary Burghs, which returns 1 member.”255

**LANARKSHIRE**

FH Groome reveals: “Lanarkshire, one of the southwestern counties of Scotland, and the most important county of the country. It ranks only tenth among the Scottish counties as to area, but is by far the most populous - containing, indeed, as many inhabitants as the three next in order all taken together, and very nearly a quarter of the whole population of Scotland - and the most valuable, as the valuation, exclusive of burghs, is greater than that of the next two in order taken both together. It is bounded north by Stirlingshire and a detached portion of Dumbartonshire, northeast by Stirlingshire, Linlithgowshire, and Edinburghshire, east by Peeblesshire, southeast and south by Dumfriesshire, southwest by Dumfriesshire and Ayrshire, and west by Ayrshire, Renfrewshire, and Dumbartonshire. Its greatest breadth, from east to west, is near the center, from the point on the west on Glen Water (afterwards the Irvine), where the counties of Ayr, Renfrew, and Lanark meet, to Tarth Water east of Dolphinton, and this measures in a straight line 33 miles. Its greatest length, from northwest, at the bridge over the Kelvin beyond Maryhill near Glasgow, to Earncraig Hill on the southeast, is 50 miles. The total area is 888.981 square miles or 568,867.656 acres, of which, at the time of the Ordnance Survey, 564,283.928 were land, 27,408 foreshore, and 4556.320 water, but there now falls to be added to the water space and deducted from the land space other 33.75 acres for the new Queen's Dock, and this will be still farther increased when the new dock at Cessnock is constructed. Meanwhile the land area is therefore 564,250.178 acres, of which barely one-half is cultivated, there being 251,121 acres in 1882 under crop, bare fallow, and grass, while 18,780 were under wood, most of the rest being rough hill pasture, barren moorland, or covered with pit, etc, refuse. A small proportion of the untilled ground might, however, still be improved. Although the most populous county in Scotland, it is, in consequence of its size and of the barren nature of the southern part, not the most densely populated, being beaten in this respect by both Edinburgh and Renfrew, each of which has 1,075 persons to the square mile, while Lanark has 1,026; the next, far behind, being Clackmannan with 539.

“The surface of the county is very varied, but, speaking generally, rises from northwest to south and southeast up the valley of the Clyde, and from this again towards either side, the highest ground lying mostly along the borders; while the whole of the south is simply a choppy sea of rounded hill tops, with great undulating stretches of moorland, stretching away brown and bare as far as the eye can reach. ‘The mountains,’ says Mr Naismith in his Agricultural Survey of Clydesdale in 1794, ‘are so huddled together that their grandeur is lost to the eye of a beholder. When he traverses a hollow only the sides of the nearest mountain are presented to his view; and when he climbs an eminence he sees nothing but a confused group of rugged tops, with the naked rock frequently appearing among the herbage.’ But though they thus lack the greatness of the Highland mountains, the hills of this beginning of the Southern Uplands have peculiar characteristics of their own. They are, says Dr John Brown, ‘not sharp and ridgy like the Highland mountains:

‘Curling their monstrous heads and hanging them’ –

Like the fierce uplifted waves of a prodigious sea - they are more like round-backed lazy billows in the after swell of a storm, as if tumbling about in their sleep. They have all a sonsie, good-humored, buirdly look.’ Dr Archibald Geikie has the same praise for it. ‘It is,’ he says in his Scenery and Geology of Scotland, speaking, however, generally of the Southern Uplands, ‘in short, a smooth, green, pastoral country, cultivated along the larger valleys, with its hills left bare for sheep, yet showing enough of dark bushless moor to remind us of its altitude above the more fertile plains that bound it on the northern and southern sides. Yet with all this tameness and uniformity of outline, there is something irresistibly attractive in the green monotony of these lonely hills, with their never-ending repetitions of the same pasture-covered slopes, sweeping down into the same narrow valleys, through which, amid strips of fairy-like meadow, the same clear stream seems ever to be murmuring on its way beside us. Save among the higher districts, there is nothing savage or rugged in the landscapes. Wandering through these uplands, we feel none of that oppressive awe which is called forth by the sterner features of the north. There is a tenderness in the landscape:

‘A grace of forest charms decayed

And pastoral melancholy’ –

That, in place of subduing and overawing us, calls forth a sympathy which, though we cannot perchance tell why it should be given, we can hardly refuse to give.’

“The Roman roads by which the district was traversed during the time that the Wall of Antoninus was held are noticed subsequently. Some parts of the modern lines of road coincide with the old ones. The main routes are now (1) roads passing from Glasgow to Edinburgh by Bathgate and by Shotts and Midcalder, and a road from Lanark to Edinburgh, joining the second of the two just mentioned at Midcalder; (2) roads passing from Glasgow up both sides of the valley of the Clyde to a point 2 miles north of Abington, where they unite. At Abington one branch passes by Glengonner Water to Leadhills and into Nithsdale; while another keeps to the Clyde to Wellshot Hill, 2½ miles south of Crawford, where it divides, and one branch passes by Powtrail Water to Nithsdale and the other Clydes Burn to Annandale. Main roads also run up the valley of the Avon into Ayrshire by Darvel, and up the valleys of the Avon, Nethan, and Douglas into Ayrshire by Muirkirk. In the upper part of the county the main cross roads pass from Lanark eastward by Biggar, from Douglas to Wiston, and from Douglas to Abington; while in the lower district they form such an extensive network as to be beyond particular mention. For the purposes of the Road Act of 1878, the upper and lower wards and the two divisions of the middle ward are treated as if each was a separate county. Railway communication was first opened up for a considerable part of the county by the opening of the Caledonian railway in 1847; and now the lower part of the county, with its extensive mineral traffic, is accommodated by lines far too numerous to be particularly mentioned. Main lines pass from Glasgow by Coatbridge and Bathgate to Edinburgh (North British), and by Shotts and Midcalder to Edinburgh (Caledonian); southward up the valley of the Clyde on the northeast and east side to Clydes Burn, and up this into Annandale, and from northeast to southwest by a line from Edinburgh by Carstairs and Muirkirk to Ayr – both of the latter routes being on the Caledonian system. The Forth and Clyde Canal passes through the northwest corner of the country; and the Monkland Canal, branching off at Maryhill north of Glasgow, winds eastward by Coatbridge to Calderbank.

“Lanarkshire anciently belonged to the Caledonian tribe called the Damnii, and was over-run by the Romans when they extended their territories to the Wall of Antoninus, between the Firths of Clyde and

Forth. This wall passed through the northwestern corner of the county north of Bishopbriggs and Cadder, and communication was kept up with the south by roads which passed from Annandale and Nithsdale through the south part of the county, and uniting to the north of Crawford village and the east of Crawford Castle, wound from the down the valley of the Clyde. Near Little Clydes Burn there is a camp on the line of it, and in places the present road coincides with it, ie, on both sides of Ehanfoot and Watling Street in Crawford village. The Roman occupation of the district must have been principally military, for traces of roads and camps are found, but not of towns or villages. Coins, weapons, and other relics of the Romans have also been found in many places. After the departure of the Romans, the district was held by the old tribe, who now became known as the Strathclyde Britons, with their capital at Alcluith, Alclwyd, or Dunbreatan, the modern Dumbarton. This nation in 654 aided Penda, King of Mercia, against Osuiu or Oswy, King of Anglia, and on the victory of the latter fell under his sway, and were subject to Anglia for thirty years till 684. On the defeat of Ecgfrid by the Picts, the Dalriadic Scots and the portion of the Britons who dwelt between the Solway and the Clyde regained their freedom. In 756 Edgbert, King of Northumbria, and Angus, King of the Picts, united against the district and took possession of it, though how long they kept it does not appear; but part of Edgbert’s army was lost from some unascertained cause, but seemingly not in battle, while they were between Strathavon and Newburgh on their way home. Independence must have been, at the very latest, regained by a little after the middle of the 9th century; for in 870 the Ulster Annals mention that Alclwyd was besieged and captured by Northmen, and the same authority mentions the death of Artgha, King of the Strathclyde Britons, in 872. In 875 the lower part of the county was laid waste by the Danes. Within the next forty years the kingdom prospered, and by the beginning of the 10th century it extended from the Clyde southward to the Derwent in Cumberland. The then king, Donald, dying, however, without heirs, the King of Alban, who had been Donald’s ally and friend, was chosen ruler, and the kingdoms united. In 956 Eadmund, King of the Saxons, conquered it and handed it over to Malcolm, a gift which was confirmed by Siward to the succeeding Malcolm in 1054. In after years it was associated with the career of Wallace, whose first exploit was that of driving the English out of the town of Lanark. After the triumph of Bruce, the county enjoyed peace till the time of James II, when the ambition of the Douglas family and the intrigues of the first Lord Hamilton plunged the district into all the horrors of civil war, as it recorded in Grey’s MS Chronicle: ‘In March 1455 James the Second cast doune the castel of Inveravyne; and syne incontinent past to Glasgu, and gaderit the westland men with part of the Areschery [Irishry] and passed to Lanerik, and to Douglas, and syne brynt all Douglasdale, and all Avendale, and all the Lord Hamiltoune’s lands, and heriit them clerlye; and syne passit to Edinburgh.’ From this time there was again quiet till the escape of Queen Mary from Lochleven Castle and the battle of Langside; and from this again till the time of the Presbyterian persecution in the reign of Charles II, in the troubles of which time, the oppression of the ‘Highland Host’, the Pentland Rising, the battles of Drumclog and Bothwell Bridge, Lanarkshire had its full share, while the great tracts of moor in the upper districts afforded many places of shelter, both to those who were in danger of their lives and to those who wished to hold meetings for worship. The Revolution of 1688 brought more peaceful times, and Glasgow was the first place in Scotland where the Declaration of the Prince of Orange was published. The people were bitterly opposed to the Union in 1707, when there was scarcely a town or village in the county which did not make a demonstration against this then obnoxious measure. Subsequent events of importance are connected with the towns, to which reference may be made.”256

John Bartholomew spells out: “Lanarkshire, inland county in southwest of Scotland; is bounded north by Dumbartonshire and Stirlingshire, east by Linlithgowshire, Edinburghshire, and Peeblesshire, south by

Dumfriesshire, and west by Ayrshire and Renfrewshire; greatest length, northwest and southeast, 52 miles; greatest breadth, northeast and southwest, 34 miles; area, 564,284 acres, population 904,412. Lanarkshire is often called Clydesdale, occupying, as it does, the valley of the Clyde, which traverses the county from southeast to northwest, and receives numerous tributary streams, including the Douglas, Avon, and Calder. The surface rises towards the south, where the Lowther or Lead Hills reach an altitude of 2,403 ft. The Upper Ward is chiefly hill or moorland, affording excellent pasture for sheep; the Middle Ward contains the orchards for which Clydesdale has long been famous; and in the Lower Ward are some rich alluvial lands along the Clyde; but all over the county a considerable proportion of the soil is moist, marshy, and barren. Dairy-farming is prosecuted with success. The minerals are very valuable; coal and iron are wrought to such an extent that Lanarkshire is one of the principal seats of the iron trade; lead is mined in the Upper Ward. The county comprises 40 parishes and 4 parts, the parliamentary and municipal burgh of Glasgow (7 members, and Glasgow University, with that of Aberdeen, 1 member), the parliamentary and police burghs of Airdrie, Hamilton, and Lanark (part of the Falkirk Burghs), the parliamentary and police burgh of Rutherglen (part of the Kilmarnock Burghs), and the police burghs of Biggar, Govan, Govanhill, Hillhead, Maryhill, Motherwell, Partick, and Wishaw. For parliamentary purposes it is divided into 6 divisions - viz, Govan, Partick, North-Western, North-Eastern, Mid, and Southern, 1 member for each division. The representation of Lanarkshire was increased from 2 to 6 members in 1885.”257

***CASTLE CARY, NORTH LANARKSHIRE***

Karen Gallagher clarifies: “Castle Cary is the name of a late Medieval (15th century) tower house which stands on the banks of a stream called the Red Burn in Stirlingshire. The small village on the other side of the Red Burn took its name from this tower house and is called Castlecary. This has led to the tower house being mistakenly called ‘Castlecary Castle’ both in publications and in everyday life. The component ‘Cary’ comes from the word caer, the ancient British word meaning ‘fort’. This alludes to the fact that Castle Cary was built close to the location of a fort on the Antonine Wall and that stones from the fort were re-used in the building of Castle Cary. (The Antonine Wall was a structure built and abandoned by Roman invaders in the 2nd Century AD.)”258

***HOLYTOWN, NORTH LANARKSHIRE***

Margaret McGarry documents: “The origins of the name Holytown are not known. One of the earliest references to the name is found in a Hamilton Presbytery minute book of 1688 when it was referred to as ‘Hollowtown’. Locals still pronounce the name Hollyton or Holliton rather than Holy Town. The attached newspaper article on Holytown suggests that that the name was changed from Hollowtown to Holytown by the Caledonian Railway Company. This is incorrect as the name Holytown can be found on maps such as John Thomson's map, 1820 many years before the railways were introduced to the area. A Ross map of 1773 refers to the name Halowtown. One source claims that Holytown had a meeting place for prayer services dating back to the 17th century, but any other ‘holy’ associations are not documented.”259

The Motherwell Times erringly wrote: “Before the advent of railways this portion of Bothwell Parish was designated ‘Hollowtown’.

“In the minute book of Hamilton Presbytery dated June 28, 1688, it is recorded: The parishioners call Mr John Orr … He was ordained at Hollowtown on 26th September, 1688, in face of the congregation.’

“When the Caledonian Railway Company opened their new station on the route between Glasgow and Edinburgh, they considered ‘Hollowtown’ took up too much space in their timetables and accordingly reduced the name to Holytown.”260

***KILSYTH, NORTH LANARKSHIRE***

FH Groome touches on: “Kilsyth, a town and a parish on the southern border of Stirlingshire. The town, standing within 5 furlongs of the north bank of the Kelvin and of the Forth and Clyde Canal, by road is 1¾ mile north of Croy station, 4 miles west-northwest of Cumbernauld, 12 west by south of Falkirk, 15 south-southwest of Stirling, 12½ northeast of Glasgow, and 35 west by north of Edinburgh; whilst by rail it is 4½ miles east-northeast of Kirkintilloch, and 9 miles east-northeast of Maryhill, as terminus of the Kelvin Valley branch of the North British, formed in 1876-8, which branch, under an Act of 1882 is to be continued east-northeastward into connection with the Denny branch of the Caledonian. Overhung by the Kilsyth Hills, and threaded by Garrel Burn, it occupies a small rising-ground 180 feet above sea-level; and, viewed from the neighboring heights or from the canal, presents a bleak and dingy appearance, with straggling, irregular streets. An older village, called Monaebrugh, was situated on a different part of the banks of Garrel Burn; but the present place was founded in 1665, and took its name of Kilsyth from the proprietor's title. For some time it derived considerable consequence from being a stage on the great thoroughfare from Glasgow to Stirling, and from Glasgow, by way of Falkirk, to Edinburgh; and, after the cessation of that traffic, it continued to maintain itself by connection with the cotton manufacturers of Glasgow, acquiring, about 1845, a factory of its own. Kilsyth has a post office under Glasgow, with money order, savings' bank, insurance, and telegraph departments, branches of the National and Royal Banks, a National Security savings' bank (1829), 7 insurance agencies, 3 hotels, a town hall, assembly rooms, a cemetery, gasworks, a good water supply, a new drainage system, effected at a cost of 2,250 pounds, fairs on the second Friday in April and the third Friday in November, and sheriff small-debt courts on the fourth Thursday of March, June, September, and December. The parish church, at the west end of the town, is an elegant structure of 1816, containing 860 sittings. Other places of worship are a recent and handsome Free Church, a United Presbyterian church (1768; 559 sittings), Independent and Wesleyan chapels, and St Patrick's Roman Catholic Church (1866; 450 sittings). The Burgh Academy, at Craigend, is an Italian edifice of 1875-6, built at a cost of 4,800 pounds. A burgh of barony since 1826, and also a police burgh, Kilsyth is governed by a provost, a senior and a junior bailie, and 6 councilors.

“The battle of Kilsyth was fought on 15 Aug 1645, between the army of Montrose and the Covenanters under Baillie. The scene of action was the tract around the hollow which now contains the reservoir of the Forth and Clyde Canal - a field so broken and irregular, that, did not tradition and history concur in identifying it, few persons could believe it to have been the arena of any military operation. Montrose and his men took up their ground to their own liking, to abide the onset of forces specially deputed against them by the Scottish council. When Baillie arrived to make the attack, he found his authority all but superseded by a committee, headed by Argyll, and shorn of power to exert subordinating influence on the portion of the army placed specially under his control. Montrose's army consisted of only 4,400 foot, with 500 horse, while that of his antagonist amounted to 6,000 foot and 1,000 horse; but Montrose had the high advantages of having chosen his ground, of possessing the supreme command, and of having arranged his troops in the best possible manner for confronting his opponents. The weather being very hot, Montrose bade his followers doff their outer garments - a circumstance which gave rise to a tradition that they fought naked; and, making a general assault, he almost instantly - aided

or rather led by the impetuosity of his Highlanders - threw his antagonists, reserve and all, into such confusion, that prodigies of velour, on the part of their nominal commander, utterly failed to rally even a portion of them and incite them to withstand the foe. A total rout taking place, Montrose's forces cut down or captured almost the whole of the infantry, and even coolly massacred many of the unarmed inhabitants of the country. Though Baillie's cavalry, for the most part, escaped death from the conqueror, very many of them met it in fleeing from his pursuit across the then dangerous morass of Dullatur Bog. Incredible as it may seem, only 7 or 8 in Montrose's army were slain. It belongs not to me, says the Rev Robert Rennie, in the Old Statistical Account, to give any detail of that engagement, suffice it to say, that every little hill and valley bears the name, or records the deeds of that day; so that the situation of each army can be distinctly traced. Such as the Bullet and Baggage Knowe, the Drum Burn, the Slaughter Howe or hollow, Kill-e-many Butts, etc, etc. In the Bullet Knowe and neighborhood, bullets are found every year; and in some places so thick, that you may lift three or four without moving a step. In the Slaughter Howe, and a variety of other places, bones and skeletons maybe dug up everywhere; and in every little bog or marsh for 3 miles, especially in the Dullatur Bog, they have been discovered in almost every ditch. The places where the bodies lie in any number may be easily known; as the grass is always of a more luxuriant growth in summer, and of a yellowish tinge in spring and harvest. Kilsyth is remarkable as the scene of two religious revivals which occurred respectively in the years 1742 and 1839, and excited great interest throughout the country. Narratives of them were written and published by the Rev Mr Robe and the Rev Mr Burns, the incumbents at their respective dates. Kilsyth Castle, ½ mile north of the town, was the seat from the first half of the 15th century of a junior branch of the Livingstones of Callendar, and, strengthened and garrisoned against Oliver Cromwell in 1650, is now a ruin. In 1661 Sir James Livingstone was created Viscount Kilsyth and Baron Campsie, but his second son, William, third Viscount Kilsyth, engaged in the rebellion of 1715, and suffered attainder in the following year. The family burying vault in the old churchyard measures 16 feet each way; and, in 1795, was found by some Glasgow students to contain an embalmed body of the last Viscount's first wife and infant son in a state of complete preservation. It was afterwards so closed with flat stones as to be rendered inaccessible.”261

***MOTHERWELL, NORTH LANARKSHIRE***

FH Groome observes: “Motherwell, a town in Dalziel and Hamilton parishes, Lanarkshire, on the Caledonian railway, at the junction of the two lines from the north and south sides of Glasgow, and at the intersection of the cross line from Holytown to Hamilton and Lesmahagow, ½ mile from the left bank of South Calder Water, 1¼ from the right bank of the Clyde, 2½ miles northeast of Hamilton, 2¼ south-southeast of Holytown, 12½ southeast by east of Glasgow, 15¼ northwest of Carstairs Junction, and 43 west by south of Edinburgh. It took its name from a famous well, dedicated in pre-Reformation times to the Virgin Mary; and it occupies flat ground, 300 feet above sea-level, amid richly cultivated and well-wooded environs. Consisting largely of the dwellings of miners and operatives employed in neighboring collieries and ironworks, it serves, in connection with the railway junctions, as a great and bustling center of traffic; and it ranks as a police burgh, governed by a senior magistrate, 2 junior magistrates, a clerk, a treasurer, and 6 commissioners. Motherwell has a post office, with money order, savings' bank, insurance, and railway telegraph departments, branches of the Bank of Scotland and the Clydesdale Bank, offices or agencies of 18 insurance companies, 5 hotels, the combination poorhouse for Dalziel, Bothwell, Cambusnethan, and Shotts parishes, and a Saturday paper, the Motherwell Times. The streets are lighted with gas; and in 1877 a splendid water supply was brought in from two burns on the estate

of Lee at a cost of over 14,000 pounds. In Merry Street is the new parish church of Dalziel, erected in 1874 at a cost of 5,700 pounds; whilst the former parish church (1789; enlarged 1860) belongs now to the quoad sacra parish of South Dalziel, constituted in 1880. One of the two United Presbyterian churches was built in 1881 at a cost of 3,750 pounds, and from its site - the highest in the town uprears a conspicuous steeple. There are also a Free church, a Primitive Methodist chapel, an Evangelical Union chapel, and the Roman Catholic church of Our Lady of Good Aid (1873; enlarged 1883). No Scottish Town - not even Hawick - has grown so rapidly as Motherwell, such growth being due to the vast extension of its mineral industries. These, at the census of 1881, employed 2,470 of the 3,671 persons here of the industrial class, - 1,024 being engaged in coal-mining, 20 in ironstone-mining, 1,069 in the iron manufacture, 58 in the steel manufacture, etc. The malleable iron-works of the Glasgow Iron Company are the largest in Scotland, with 50 puddling furnaces and 8 rolling mills; and Mr D Colville's steel-works, where operations were commenced on 20 Oct 1880, now employs over 1,000 men.”262

***QUEENZIEBURN, NORTH LANARKSHIRE***

Karen Gallagher recounts: “Queenzieburn (pronounced Queenyburn) is a village adjoining the western edge of the town of Kilsyth. The name comes from the Gaelic language Caoin-ne-burn meaning ‘gentle stream’. The village owes its existence to an ironworks that used to exist at that location.”263

**ORKNEY ISLANDS**

www.orkneyjar.com says: “The name Orkney, as it comes to us today, is simply a corruption of the islands' Old Norse name - Orkneyjar.

“Pronounced orc-nee-yahr, the name is generally taken to mean ‘Seal Islands’ - the Norsemen's interpretation of the islands' older name. However, the Ork-element predates the Norse interpretation by centuries.

“It is first mentioned by the Roman writer, Diodurus Siculus, in the first century BC, who referred to the islands as ‘the Orchades’, a name echoed by the Roman geographer Pliny, who calls them ‘Orcades’.

“Pliny added that, across the Pentland Firth from Orkney, on the northern tip of the Scottish mainland, was ‘Cape Orcas’ - a location that has been suggested is Duncansby Head in Caithness.

“Away from the classical scribes, the old Gaelic name for Orkney, used by Irish historians, was Insi Orc and simply meant ‘Island of the Orcs’. Here, the orc element, means ‘young pig’, and is thought to refer to the wild boar. So, we have the ‘Islands of the Wild Boar’.

“This has led to the theory that, at one time, a predominant ‘tribe’ in the islands - possibly Pictish - had the boar as some form of tribal totem. It is interesting to note that the early Norwegian settlers in Orkney referred to the chambered cairn Maeshowe as Orkahaugr, ‘the mound of the Orcs’.

“When the Norsemen settled in Orkney, they interpreted the ancient orc element as orkn, their word for ‘seal’. The added the suffix -eyjar meaning ‘islands’, and the islands became known as Orkneyjar – ‘the Seal Islands’.

“The name was shortened by later Scots speakers, who dropped the last syllable of the Norse name, leaving Orkney.”264

FH Groome spotlights: “Orkney, a group of islands and islets of the eastern part of the north coast of Scotland, and forming a division of the county of Orkney and Shetland. The group, which is separated from the mainland of Scotland by the Pentland Firth, contains 28 inhabited islands, 39 smaller islands used for grazing purposes, locally known as holms, and a large number of waste rocky islets or skerries. The islands extend from north latitude 58 degrees 44’ (Brough Ness at the south end of South Ronaldsay) to north latitude 59 degrees 23’ 40” (Point of Sinsoss in the north of North Ronaldsay), and from west latitude 2 degrees 22’ 34” (Start Point in Sanday) to west latitude 3 degrees 26’ 22” (Rora Head at the west end of Hoy). The distance in a straight line from Point of Sinsoss south-southwest to Brough Ness in South Ronaldsay is 50 miles, or south-southwest by south to Tor Ness in Hoy is 53½ miles, and the greatest width of the group is from Burgh Head in Stronsay on the east to Outshore Point midway between Marwick Head and Bay of Skaill on the west side of Pomona on the west, a distance of 29½ miles. The islands are divided into three groups. The first, nearest the mainland, is known as the South Isles, and comprises the large islands of Hoy (west) and South Ronaldsay (east), and the smaller ones that surround them. To the north of Hoy is Graemsay, northeast is Risa, and east are Flotta and South Walls. To the north of South Ronaldsay and separated from it by Water Sound is Burray with the smaller islands of Glimps Holm and Hunda; on the south are the Pentland Skerries, and southeast is Swona. The water space between Hoy and South Walls is the well-known anchorage of Long Hope. The passage between Fara and Flotta is Weddel Sound, and between Flotta and Switha is Switha Sound. The passage between Flotta and South Ronaldsay is the Sound of Hoxa. The South Isles are separated from the mainland by the Pentland Firth, the distance across which, from Dunnet Head to Tor Ness (Hoy), is 7 7/8 miles, from St John's Point to Tarff Tail (Swona) 6¾ Miles, and from Duncansbay Head to Brough Ness (South Ronaldsay) 6½ miles. The second group lies to the north of those just described, and consists of Pomona or the Mainland - the principal island in the Orkneys, containing nearly half the entire area and more than half the whole population - and the smaller islands to the northeast. The deep sweep of Kirkwall Bay on the north and Scapa Bay on the south narrows Pomona at one point so that it is divided into two parts of unequal size, that to the west being the larger. Off the northeast coast of this larger portion are the islands of Rousay - with the smaller islands of Egilsay (east), Viera (southeast), and Eynhallow (southwest) - and Gairsay with Sweyn Holm; off the south coast, but nearer Hoy, is the small island of Cava. To the north of the smaller eastern portion is Shapinsay with Helliar Holm; to the southeast is Copinsay with the Horse of Copinsay and Corn Holm; to the south is the small Lamb Holm. This the Mainland group is separated from the northeast of Hoy by Hoy Sound; from the east of Hoy, and from Fara, Flotta, and the northwest of South Ronaldsay, by Scapa Flow; and from Burray by Holm Sound. The third group lies northeast of the Mainland islands, and consists of Westray, Eday, and Stronsay in a line from northwest to southeast, with Papa Westray to the northeast of Westray; Sanday northeast of Eday, and North Ronaldsay still farther to the northeast. To the east of Papa Westray is the small Holm of Huip, northeast of Eday is the Calf of Eday, southwest of it are Muckle and Little Green Holms, and west of it are Fara and Holm of Fara. To the north of Stronsay is Holm of Huip, northeast is Papa Stronsay, south is Auskerry, west is Linga Holm, and northwest - is Little - Linga. This group is known as the North Isles, and sometimes Ronsay and Shapinsay are included in it. Westray and Eday are separated from Rousay and Egilsay by the Westray Firth (varying from 4 to 8 miles wide), and the portion of sea east of Shapinsay and southwest of Stronsay is known as Stronsay Firth. Westray is separated from Papa Westray by Papa Sound (1½ mile), and from Holm of Fara by Rapness Sound (1¼ mile) and Weatherness Sound (3 furlongs). Eday is separated from Fara by Sound of Fara (varying from 1 to 1½ mile), from Muckle Green Holm by Fall of Warness (1¼ mile), from Calf of Eday by Calf Sound (½

mile), and from the southwest of Sanday by Eday Sound (1¾ mile) and Lashy Sound (at Calf of Eday, 1 mile). Stronsay is separated from Linga Holm by Linga Sound (½ mile), from Auskerry by Ingale Sound (2½ miles), from Papa Stronsay by Papa Sound (½ mile), from Holm of Huip by Huip Sound (½ mile); and between Holm of Huip and the southwest end of Sanday is Spurness Sound (1¾ mile). The sea north of Eday, between Westray and Sanday, is known as the North Sound; while along the south coast of Sanday, between that island and Stronsay, is Sanday Sound (4½ miles at narrowest point), and between Sanday and North Ronaldsay is the North Ronaldsay Firth (2 miles 3 furlongs at the narrowest part). Except along the cliffs of the southern and western sides the coast-line of all the islands is extremely irregular, there being everywhere numerous deep bays. Of these the chief are Long Hope, near the southeast end of Hoy; Pan Hope in Flotta; Widewall Bay on the west side, and St Margaret's Hope in the north end, of South Ronaldsay; Echnaloch Bay in the northwest of Burray; Bay of Ireland and Scapa Bay on the south side of Pomona; Bay of Firth and Bay of Kirkwall opening off the Wide Firth, Bay of Meil and Inganess Bay opening off Shapinsay Sound, and Deer Sound farther east, all in Pomona; Veantrow Bay on the north side of Shapinsay; Saviskaill Bay on the north side of Rousay; Bay of Pierowall on the east side of Westray, opposite the south end of Papa Westray; Bay of Tuquoy on the south side of Westray; Fersness Bay on the west coast of Eday; St Catherine's Bay on the west coast, Bay of Holland on the south coast, Odin Bay and Mill Bay on the east coast, of Stronsay; North Bay on the west coast, Backaskaill Bay, Kettletoft Bay, Cat-a-Sand, and Lopness Bay on the south coast, Scuthvie Bay on the east coast, and Otters Wick Bay on the north coast, of Sanday; and Linklet Bay in North Ronaldsay. The surface of the islands lies low, and, except Hoy, none of them can be called hilly. The general rise is from northeast to southwest, a height of 333 feet being reached at the Ward Hill at the south end of Eday; 880 at the Ward Hill in the southwest of the Mainland, midway between Bay of Ireland and Scapa Bay; and 1,420 at Cuilags, 1,564 at the Ward Hill, and 1,308 at Knap of Trewieglen, the three highest points in Hoy and in the whole group of islands. Except in the Pentland Firth, where the depth of the sea reaches 40 fathoms, the water in the straits between the islands and in their immediate neighborhood is nowhere deeper than 20 fathoms. A rise of 120 feet in the sea bottom would unite the whole group, except Swona - and the pent land Skerries, into one mass of land, which would be separated from the mainland of Scotland by a strait from 2 to 3 miles broad where the Pentland Firth is, with a long pointed projection passing by Swona through the Sound of Hoxa into Scapa Flow, a little beyond Roan Head, at the northeast corner of Flotta; and from this a narrow strait, about a mile wide, would pass along the southwest side of Hoy. If these sounds are, however, of moderate depth, their number and the broken and winding outline of the coast are evidences of the hard struggle that constantly takes place between the land and the Atlantic surge. ‘The intricate indented coast-line, worn into creeks and caves, and overhanging cliffs; the crags and skerries, and sea stacks, once a part of the solid land, but now isolated among the breakers; the huge piles of fragments that lie on the beach, or have been heaped far up above the tide-mark, tell only too plainly how vain is the resistance, even of the hardest rocks, to the onward march of the ocean. The rate of waste along some parts of these islands is so rapid as to be distinctly appreciable within a human lifetime. Thus the Start Point of Sanday was found by Mr Stevenson, in 1816, to be an island every flood tide; yet even within the memory of some old people then alive, it had formed one continuous tract of firm ground. Nay, it appears that during the 10 years previous to 1816, the channel had been worn down at least 2 feet.’ Through these narrow sounds the tidal wave, rushing along with a speed varying from 4 miles an hour at neap to 12 miles an hour at spring tides (the latter being the speed it is said to attain in the Pentland Firth), causes currents and eddies that everywhere require the greatest skill and care in their navigation, and that become in stormy weather,

often for days and sometimes even for weeks, quite impassable. ‘With such tideways, the slightest inequality in the bottom produces a ripple on the surface, increasing in places to the dangerous whirlpools called rosts or roosts, which have, in the case of the Pentland Firth, so long given it a bad name amongst mariners. What those rosts are, especially when a flood spring is met dead on end by a gale from the opposite quarter, only those who have seen them or similar tidal-races can realize. ... In August 1858, three fishermen named Hercus, whilst saith-fishing, were sucked into the Bore of Papa, as a dangerous roost to the north of Papa Westray is called, and drowned; and probably many instances could be cited of similar accidents, though, owing to the Orcadians being compelled to study the run and set of the tides, not so many as might be expected. Some few years back [in 1874], when the Channel Fleet were in the north, they attempted to pass to the westward through Westray Firth in the teeth of a strong spring flood, but all the Queen's horse-power, and all the Queen's men could not do it, and they had to turn tail.’ Tradition accounts for at least one of those roosts in a highly satisfactory manner, but leaves it doubtful whether the others are mere sympathetic outbreaks, or are not worth accounting for. Off the northwestern corner of the island of Stroma, in the Pentland Firth, on the coast of, and in the county of, Caithness, is a dangerous whirlpool called the Swelkie, and connected with it is the following story: ‘A certain King Fródi possessed a magical quern or hand-mill, called Grotti, which had been found in Denmark, and was the largest quern ever know. Grotti, which ground gold or peace for King Fródi, as he willed, was stolen by a sea-king called Mysing, who set it to grind white salt for his ships. Whether Mysing, like many another purloiner of magic working implements, had only learned the spell to set it going, and did not know how to stop it, is not stated. Anyhow, his ships became so full of salt that they sank, and Grotti with them. Hence the Swelkie. As the water falls through the eye of the quern, the sea roars, and the quern goes on grinding the salt, which gives its saltness to the ocean.’

“The scenery of the Orkneys is somewhat tame. ‘The Orkney Islands,’ says Dr Archibald Geikie, ‘are as tame and as flat as Caithness. But in Hoy they certainly make amends for their generally featureless surface. Yet even there it is not the interior, hilly though it be, but the western coast cliffs which redeem the whole of the far north of Scotland from the charge of failure in picturesque and impressive scenery. One looks across the Pentland Firth and marks how the flat islands of the Orkney group rise from its northern side as a long low line until westwards they mount into the rounded heights of Hoy, and how these again plunge in a range of precipices into the Atlantic. Yellow and red in hue, these marvelous cliffs gleam across the water as if the sunlight always bathed them. They brighten a grey day, and grey days are only too common in the northern summer; on a sunny forenoon, or still better on a clear evening, when the sun is sinking beneath the western waters, they glow and burn, yet behind such a dreamy sea-born haze that the onlooker can hardly believe himself to be in the far north, but recalls perhaps memories of Capri and Sorrento and the blue Mediterranean.’ Inland from this coast-line is the highest ground in the islands, and there are hilly, though less rugged, districts in Rousay (sometimes called the Orcadian Highlands), and in the western parts of the Mainland and of Eday, but these grassy or heath-clad heights, with the rounded outlines and undulating character seemingly inseparably associated with the Old Red Sandstone formation, have but little of the picturesque, a want still further increased by the utter absence of wood. This last often altogether removes or at least conceals bareness of outline; but though trees of considerable size must once have existed all over the islands, none -except those mentioned at Kirkwall and a few others in sheltered situations, and these of small size - are now able to withstand the force of the violent winter winds, which shake such as may be planted round and round, till the roots are slackened and fatally injured, and the plant dies. Although, however, the low-lying land and the green or brown softly-swelling heights, unrelieved by any wood, are apt to

become somewhat monotonous - a monotony that also exists along the coasts, which generally lie low, except where, on the west and south, they present long lines of cliff to the sea - there are times that the islands present features of great beauty, a beauty which is, however, almost always associated with the constant presence of water, often of the sea, with all the sense of power which that presence gives. It is almost impossible to get out of sight of either lochs or the sea, from which, indeed, no place in Orkney is more than five miles distant, and most places very much less; and in calm bright weather, with strong sunlight casting a glow over the low rounded islands, shrouding them in a soft haze, and sparkling on the ripples that dance along the sounds or on the white waves that break on the beach of some quiet bay or at the foot of some lofty range of cliffs, the islands present views of soft and quiet beauty which is almost entirely their own. ‘In calm weather the sea, landlocked by the islands, resembles a vast lake, clear and bright as a mirror, and without a ripple, save from the gentle impulse of the tide. Here a bluff headland stands out in bold relief against the horizon; there the more distant islet is lost in sea and sky; on one side a shelving rock sends out a black tongue-like point, sharp as a needle, losing itself in the water, where it forms one of those reefs so common among the islands, and so fatal to strangers, but which every Orkney boatman knows, as we do the streets of our native town; while on the other side a green holm, covered with cattle and ponies, slopes gently to the water's edge. Then there is the dovetailing and intercrossing of one point with another, the purple tints of the islands, the deep blue of the sea, the indentations of the coast, the boats plying their oars or lingering lazily on the waters, the white sails of the pleasure yachts contrasting with the dark brown canvas of the fishing craft, and here and there a large merchant vessel entering or leaving the harbor; all these combine to make a lovely picture, in which the additional ornament of trees is not missed. You feel that trees here would be out of their element. In calm weather they are not needed, in a storm they would seem out of place. Anyone who has seen an Orkney sunset in June or July tracing its diamond path across island reef, and tideway, must confess that it is scarcely possible to suggest an addition to its beauty.’ One has, however, to see the hilly districts in the midst of thick driving mists, or the narrow tideways during a storm, to be able to appreciate thoroughly all the grandeur which the district is capable of assuming, and the truth of the sailor-poet Vedder's description of his fatherland, when he speaks of it as a:

‘Land of the whirlpool,—torrent,—foam,

Where oceans meet in madd'ning shock;

The beetling cliff—the shelving holm,—

The dark insidious rock.

Land of the bleak,—the treeless moor,—

The sterile mountain, sered and riven,—

The shapeless cairn, the ruined tower,

Scathed by the Bolts of heaven,—

The yawning gulf,—the treacherous sand,—

The roaring flood,—the rushing stream,—

The promontory wild and bare,—

The pyramid, where sea-birds scream,

Aloft in middle air.’

‘If, however,’ says Dr Clouston of Sandwick, in Anderson's Guide to the Highlands, ‘the tourist has the good fortune to be in Orkney during a storm, he will cease to regret the absence of some of the softer and more common beauties of landscape in the contemplation of the most sublime spectacle which he ever witnessed. By repairing at such a time to the weather shore, particularly if it be on the west side of the country, he will behold waves, of the magnitude and force of which he could not have previously formed any adequate conception, tumbling across the Atlantic like monsters of the deep, their heads erect, their manes streaming in the wind, roaring and foaming as with rage, till each discharges such a Niagara flood against the opposing precipices as makes the rocks tremble to their foundations, while the sheets of water that immediately ascend, as if from artillery, hundreds of feet above their summits, deluge the surrounding country, and fall like showers on the opposite side of the island. All the springs within a mile of the weather coast are rendered brackish for some days after such a storm. Those living half a mile from the precipice declare that the earthen floors of their cots are shaken by the concussion of the waves. Rocks that two or three men could not lift are washed about, even on the tops of cliffs which are between 60 and 100 feet above the surface of the sea when smooth, and detached masses of rock of an enormous size are well known to have been carried a considerable distance between low and high water mark. Having visited the west crags some days after a recent storm, the writer found sea insects abundant on the hills near them, though about 100 feet high; and a solitary limpet, which is proverbial for its strong attachment to its native rock, but which also seemed on this occasion to have been thrown up, was discovered adhering to the top of the cliff, 70 feet above its usual position.’ Short storms of great violence are not the worst, being surpassed by the long continuance of an ordinary gale, and during great storms the devastation and ruin is very great. During a particularly severe storm in 1862, in Stroma (in Caithness), in the Pentland Firth, the sea swept right over the north end of the island, rose bodily up the vertical cliffs at the west end, lodged fragments of wreckage, stones, seaweed, etc, on the top, 200 feet above ordinary sea-level, and then rushed in torrents across the island, tearing up the ground and rocks in their course towards the opposite side.

“The Orcadians, though sprung from the same Scandinavian stock as the Shetlanders, have, probably from their more extensive and ready intercourse with the mainland, fewer and less marked peculiarities of manner, and it is but seldom that you find a decidedly Scandinavian face. The men, a fine powerful race, have, too, lost much of the swinging walk that is to be found among the Shetlanders, and have more of the slow plodding step characteristic of the agricultural laborer. They are very gentle in their manner and in their style of speech, and yet cool and brave in the face of danger. From the nature of their country, many of them are first-rate boatmen, and during the season of egg-gathering the risks run and the escapes made lead to a habit of at least seeming indifference to danger and death. Many stories are told of the matter-of-fact way in which such things are treated. One is of a man whose son had descended a cliff while he himself, in case of accident, kept watch in his boat below. The rope by which the young man was partly supported having given way he fell into the sea and was almost drowned before his father reached him and dragged him into the boat, but all that the old man had to say was ‘Eh! I’m thinking thou’s wat, Tam.’ On another occasion a cragsman working his way along a narrow shelf came to a corner which he had to turn, but found at the critical moment that he had the wrong foot first. Pausing for a moment he took off his broad bonnet, in which was his snuff-horn, refreshed himself with a pinch, and then making a spring got the proper foot to the front. When he had

reached the top of the cliff safe, a friend said to him, ‘Man, Johnnie, were ye no feared.’ ‘Eh man, if I had been feared I wudna be here.’ ‘I daresay that,’ was the answer, ‘but what made you think of taking a snuff when you were in such danger?’ ‘Weel,’ replied John, ‘I thocht I was needin’t.’ Many of the old superstitions lingered long and lovingly about the whole group of islands, but they have now retreated into the more out-of-the-way district, where beliefs in fairies, in the right hand course and the left hand course, a dislike for turbot or even the mention of the name of turbot while at sea, and other ideas of a similar kind are still held, though they are now kept a good deal out of sight, as things not to be talked of to scoffers. The language is a variety of Scotch with a peculiar accent or intonation, the voice rising and falling in a sort of rough cadence, and the peculiarity varies from island to island, so that those acquainted with the whole district can distinguish the natives of the different islands. ‘Thou’ and ‘thee’ are used instead of ‘you’, and there are many peculiar words which are survivals of Norse. The place names in Orkney belong almost without exception to this dialect, and many Norse family names still survive among the common people, while some of the small crofter proprietors in the parish of Harray, in the western district of the mainland, are said to retain not only the old name, but also the very lands, held by their forefathers many centuries ago. The parish was the last stronghold of the Norse tongue in Orkney, and it is said to have been spoken here down to 1757.

“The derivation of the name is uncertain. Orc is given in the Welsh Triads as one of the three principal isles of Britain, and it is also given as the modern Welsh name of the Orkneys. The present name is sometimes derived from the British Orch, which means ‘on the edge or bordering’, and ynys, or inis, ‘an islands’. Other derivations are the Scandinavian Orkin, ‘a sea monster’, and ey, ‘an island’, and Ork, or Oerk, ‘a desert or uninhabited place’, and ey, ‘an island’; but the whole matter must be left in the realms of conjecture. The first historical mention seems to be by Diodorus Siculus, who, in the year 57, mentions Cape Orcas as one of the extremities of Britain. In AD 86 Agricola's fleet passed northward, after the battle of Mons Granpius or Graupius, and must have reached these islands whence the sailors saw or fancied they saw the renowned Thule. Pomponius Mela mentions the islands about the middle of the second century, and states their number at 30. Pliny gives the number at 40, and Ptolemy at 30, while Solinus, writing in 240, and having heard probably only of the islands next the mainland, puts it at 3. From Claudian's account of the exploits of Theodosius in the end of the 4th century, we are able to infer that the Saxons had settlements among the islands, or visited them; and Nennius in his Historia Britonum says that in 449 the Saxon chiefs, Ochtha and Ebissa, ‘with forty keels’ laid waste the Orkneys. The next reference is in Adamnan's Life of St Columba, where it is stated that the Saint was, when he visited Brude, King of the Picts, AD 563, in some concern for Cormac, grandson of Lethan, ‘who not less than three times went in search of a desert in the ocean, but did not find it,’ and who, he knew, would ‘after a few months arrive at the Orcades’; so he ‘recommended him in the following terms to King Brude in the presence of the ruler of the Orcades: ‘Some of our brethren have lately set sail and are anxious to discover a desert in the pathless sea; should they happen, after many wanderings, to come to the Orcadian islands, do thou carefully instruct this chief, whose hostages are in thy hand, that no evil befall them within his dominions;’’ and we are further told that ‘so it afterwards came to pass, and to this advice of the holy man Cormac owed his escape from impending death’. Who the people were who inhabited them, or what was their connection with Brude, is not clear, but it may be reasonably supposed that they were Picts, who, lying on the borders of the northern Pictish kingdom, were somewhat turbulent. Nennius, who wrote about the middle of the 9th century, says that the people were Picts in his day, and among the Scandinavians who afterwards peopled the islands, the traditions of an early race of ‘Pights’, who were small men, have been very persistent. Before the death

of Brude, which took place in 584, Edan, king of Dalriada, had, according to the Ulster Annals, sent an expedition against the Orkneys, and from this time there is no further mention of them for almost a century; but probably the expedition had been successful, and the group had been under Dalriadic rule, for in 682 we find Brude mac Bile, the then king of the Northern Picts, undertaking an expedition against them, and adding them again to the Pictish domains. During this period Christian missionaries had spread all over the islands and reached as far as Iceland, as we know from the Irish Monk Dicuil, who wrote a treatise De Mensura Orbis Terrarum in or about 825. Though this early Christianity disappeared after the Norse occupation, traces of it still remain in the islands named ‘Papa’, that being a name given by the Norsemen to the early Christian missionaries, as well as in the islands of Ronaldsay, the Norse name of which was Rinansey or St Ninian's or Ringan's Isle, in the sculptured stones similar to the early Christian monuments of the mainland of Scotland, in the old square-shaped ecclesiastical bells that have been found at several places, and in the names of places where chapels had been dedicated to various of the early Irish and Columban saints.

“The Norse rovers seem to have begun to visit Britain regularly in search of plunder about the close of the 8th century, and by the middle of the 9th, Olaf the White had established a powerful kingdom in Ireland. When Harald Harfagri therefore by his victory of Hafursfiord in 872 made himself master of Norway, and many of the large landowners and their followers opposed to his usurpation or dispossessed of their territories were compelled to flee from his anger, one of the first districts in which they sought shelter and safety was among the Orkney Islands; and having settled permanently there, as well as in Iceland, the Faeroes, and the Hebrides, they ‘turned their haven of refuge into a base of operations for retaliatory warfare, harrying the coasts of Norway during the summer months and living at leisure in the islands during winter on the plunder.’ Harold was not, however, to be thus treated with impunity, so in 875 he fitted out a fleet and made a descent on both Orkneys and Hebrides, subduing them and bringing them under his government. As Ivar the son of Rognvald, Jarl of Moeri, one of his chief supporters, was killed, in Sanday probably, during the fighting, and probably also with an eye to a vigorous and powerful ruler who would be able to maintain the conquest, Harald appointed this Rognvald also Jarl of Orkney, but as the latter preferred to return to Norway, he was allowed to hand over the title and power to his brother Sigurd, who indulged the restless nature of himself and his followers by expeditions against the mainland of Scotland, in the course of which he conquered the greater portion of Caithness, Sutherland, Ross, and Moray, in the latter of which districts he finally died. He was succeeded by his son Guttorm, who, however, ruled only one year, when he died, and was succeeded by Hallad, son of Rognvald, for whom his father had obtained the earldom on the news of Sigurd's death reaching Norway. Contrary, however, to the spirit of the times, Hallad was a man of peace, and wearying of the struggle with his piratical subjects - if they may so be called - soon returned to Norway. He was succeeded by his brother Einar, who proved a rigorous ruler. He is said to have been the first to teach the Orcadians to use turf for fuel, and so he came to be known as Torf Einar. He was succeeded by his son, Thorfinn, who by his marriage with Grelauga, daughter of Duncan, Earl of Caithness, again united the mainland Norse districts to the Orkney Jarldom. He left five sons, who devoted their energies to murdering one another, till Hlodver, the last of them, was left in sole possession of power, which, however, he did not long enjoy. At his death in 980 his son, Sigurd the Stout, succeeded, and had to defend his mainland possessions, first against Finleikr, Mormaer of Moray, and father of Macbeth, and again, according to the Njal Saga, against Finleikr's successor, Melsnechtan, and another Scottish Mormaer, who is called Hundi. In both contests he was successful, and made himself master of the greater part of the North of Scotland, penetrating even south of the Moray Firth.

He was, however, afterwards reconciled to King Malcolm, and obtained his daughter as a second wife, after which his forays against the Scottish dominions ceased. This latter event came about as the Orkneyinga Saga tells in the following manner: ‘Olaf, Tryggvi's son, returning from a Viking expedition to the west, came to the Orkneys with his men and seized Earl Sigurd in Rorvaag [in Hoy, or according to Olaf's Saga at Asmundarvag, also in Hoy], as he lay there with a single ship. King Olaf offered the Earl to ransom his life on condition that he should embrace the true faith and be baptized; that he should become his man and proclaim Christianity over all the Orkneys. He took his son, Hundi or Hvelp, as a hostage, and left the Orkneys for Norway, where he became King; and Hundi stayed with him some years, and died there. After that, Earl Sigurd paid no allegiance to King Olaf. He married the daughter of Malcolm, King of Scots, and their son was Earl Thorfinn; his elder sons were Sumarlidi, Brusi, and Einar.’ Such was the second introduction of Christianity among the islanders. Sigurd's second marriage took place about 1006, and as Scotland was now shut against his enterprise, he soon began to look about for fresh fields of adventure. Thoroughly tired of the repose of his own shores, he started in 1014 to assist Brodir, a Viking Leader, against Brian Boroime, King of Munster. On Good Friday in that year, the great battle of Christianity against Paganism was fought, and the Pagans were defeated. Sigurd no sooner tried himself to carry forward his magic banner, which brought victory to him before whom it was borne, but death to him who bore it, than he fell pierced by a spear, and so died the ablest of all the early Norse Jarls. It was in connection with this battle that the weird sisters sang that ghastly song which Gray has paraphrased in the Fatal Sisters, and the Norse version of which was preserved in North Ronaldsay till the latter half of the 18th century. King Malcolm gave the Earldom of Caithness to Thorfinn, then only five years of age, and Sumarlidi, Brusi, and Einar divided the Orkneys among them, but by the death of the first, and the murder of the last, Brusi obtained the whole of the islands. Thorfinn resembled his father in vigor and ambition; he commenced, at the age of fourteen, his career as a Viking, and often, even during his grandfather's reign, kept the coast in fear by his daring and ruthless exploits. On the death of his two half-brothers and the succession of Brusi, he claimed a share, and ultimately got a third. When Duncan succeeded Malcolm, he claimed tribute from Thorfinn, who refused it, and hence the war in which Duncan lost his life at the hands of Macbeth, and after which Thorfinn took possession of a considerable portion of Scotland, and became the most powerful of the Jarls. On the death of Brusi, his son, Rognvald Brusison, came over from Norway and claimed his father's share of the islands, but he came to terms with Thorfinn, and there was no fighting for eight years, when the quarrel broke out afresh and Rognvald was defeated and fled, only, however, to return in a few years and try the fortune of war again. This time he was killed, and Thorfinn thereafter held undisputed sway. In 1047 he was reconciled to King Magnus of Norway, who recognized him as Jarl of Orkney. Thereafter he visited Rome to obtain pardon for his many misdeeds, and after his return devoted the larger part of his time to the government of his dominions, his old excursions being abandoned. He died in 1064, and was succeeded by his sons, Paul and Erlend, who ruled jointly till they were deposed by King Magnus, who made his own son, Sigurd, Jarl. On Sigurd's succession to the throne of Norway in 1103, Hakon, son of Paul, and Magnus, son of Erlend, succeeded and ruled jointly till 1115, when Magnus (the St Magnus to whom the cathedral at Kirkwall is dedicated) was murdered in Egilsay. Notwithstanding this foul deed, Hakon seems to have been a good ruler. His sons, Paul and Harald, succeeded, but Harald was accidently put to death by his mother - by a poisoned shirt the Saga say, which was intended for Paul. Kali, son of Kol, who had married a sister of Magnus, now claimed half the islands, and had his claim allowed. He changed his name to Rognvald, and was the founder of the cathedral at Kirkwall, but there was for many years after this a conflict between different claimants,

whose rights or supposed rights are too complex to be here minutely detailed. The Norse line finally became extinct in 1231, with the murder of the then Jarl John.

“The earldom of Caithness was then given by Alexander II to Magnus, second son of Gilbride, Earl of Angus, who seems to have also received the earldom of Orkiney from the King of Norway, but little is known of him or of his successors. One of them, Magnus III, accompanied the great expedition which King Haco assembled in the Orkneys in 1263, and survived the battle of Largs, for his death is recorded in 1273. The return of the broken-hearted Haco is noticed under Kirkwall. This Magnus was succeeded by his son Magnus IV, who is styled Earl of Orkney in the document by which Margaret Maid of Norway was declared next heir to the Scottish throne. John and Magnus V succeeded, and with the latter the Angus line ended. His daughter had married Malise, Earl of Stratherne, who, about 1321, succeeded to the earldom in right of his wife, and his son Malise, who succeeded, was confirmed in the earldom of Orkney by the King of Norway, but he was afterwards deprived of it on suspicion of treason in 1357. In 1379 Henry St Clair or Sinclair and Malise Sparre preferred claims to it as heirs of this Malise of Stratherne. How the former was descended from, or connected with, he seems to be involved in inextricable confusion, but his title to succeed must have been sufficiently clear at the time, for in the year mentioned he was formally recognized by King Hakon of Norway. The death of Hakon shortly afterwards enabled him to become semi-independent, and he seems to have acted very much like a small king. While William Sinclair, the third of the line, held the earldom, the young King of Scotland, James III, pressed by Christian I, King of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, for payment of a long arrear of ‘the annual of Norway’ for the Hebrides, compromised the matter by marrying Margaret, princess of Denmark, and as only 2,000 crowns of her dowry of 60,000 were forthcoming in ready money at the time, he received the Orkneys in pledge for 50,000 crowns and the Shetlands for 8,000 more. As the islands were never ransomed, they became thenceforth attached to Scotland. In 1470-1 the earldom of Orkney and the lordship of Shetland were, as to their ‘haill richt’, purchased by James III from the Sinclairs and annexed to the Crown, not to be alienated except in favor of a lawful son of the king. But the royal rights were somewhat involved. The power of the Bishop of Orkney, which had, since Bishop William, grown up from littleness to grandeur under the administration of the later earls, was, to a certain extent, co-ordinate with that of the king as lord of the islands. ‘The old bishopric of Orkney was a greate thing, and lay sparsism throughout the haill parochines of Orknay and Zetland. Beside his lands, he had ye teinds of auchteen kirks: his lands grew daily, as delinquencies increased in the countray.’ Many small proprietors, too – odallers – had heritages mixed up everywhere with the lands of the quondam earls and with those of the bishop; and while they paid scat to the superior of the soil, they claimed to retain Norwegian customs and to be governed by Norwegian laws. Down to the death of James III in 1488, the islands were almost entirely managed by the bishop, but in 1489 and in 1501, Henry, Lord Sinclair, obtained from James IV leases of the earldom at the extremely low rent of 336 pounds, 13 shillings, 4 pence. Scots, at which it had been leased to the bishops; and though he fell at Flodden in 1513, the property was given in successive leases to his widow, Lady Margaret, at the same rent. In 1529, the Earl of Caithness and Lord Sinclair, for what purpose is not very clear, but doubtless in some way to increase their own power and wealth, invaded Orkney at the head of an armed force, but were met by the Orkney men at Summerdale, in Stenness, and totally routed, the Earl being killed and Lord Sinclair taken prisoner. In 1530 a grant of the islands in feu was made - in defiance of the Act of annexation under James III, and also of Lady Margaret Sinclair's lease - to the Earl of Moray, the natural brother of James V, but it never yielded him any proceeds. About 1535 the islands were honored by James V with the only royal visit they have received from Scottish or British sovereigns. The king

remained sometime in the then bishop's palace, which stood on the west side of Victoria Street at Kirkwall, receiving homage and administering justice. In 1540 the favorable leases to Lady Margaret Sinclair were terminated, and Oliver Sinclair of Pitcairns whose name is associated with the shameful Rout of Solway - became the last lessee of the Sinclair family, at, however, the advanced rent of 2,000 pounds. The last of his two leases expired in 1548, and of the former greatness of the family in Orkney there now remains no trace.

“The earldom of Orkney became part of the jointure of the widow of James V, and was by her placed under the administration of one Bonot, a Frenchman, and the Earl of Huntly. How it was disposed of during the fourteen years following her death in 1560 is not known, the only records of the islands being respites and pardons for murder. In 1564 Lord Robert Stewart, a natural son of James V, received a charter granting him for an annual rent of 2,000 pounds, 13 shillings, 4 pence. Scots, not only the offices of Sheriff of Orkney and Fowd of Shetland, but the whole lands, whether held odally or otherwise. The grant does not seem to have been at first acted on, but Stewart, who was also commendator of Holyrood, had exchanged temporalities with the bishop, and thus united the crown and episcopal rights. In 1567, a little before Queen Mary's marriage, he had to give up his rights in favor of Bothwell, who was at the same time created Duke of Orkney, but did not long enjoy his title or domains. At the close of the same year it was debated in parliament ‘quhider Orknay and Zetland sal be subject to the commone law of this realme or gif thai sal bruike thair awne lawis ?-when it was found that thai aught to be subject to thair awne lawis.’

“Lord Robert Stewart seems to have resumed possession after Bothwell's flight, but his heavy oppression of the people caused such an outcry, that at length he was deprived of his lordship, only, however, to receive it again in 1581, from which date he held the islands till 1587, when the grant was revoked, and they were leased to Sir John Maitland of Thirlstane and Sir Ludovick Ballantine for two years at a rent of 4,000 pounds Scots a year. In 1589 they were again granted to Lord Robert Stewart at a rent of 2,073 pounds, 6 shillings, 8 pence. Scots, and in 1591 they were given to him in life rent and to his son Patrick in fee. Lord Robert died in 1591, and his son succeeded; but a fresh outcry arising against his exactions, there was a brief resumption by the Crown. Lord Patrick, however, obtained a new charter in 1600, which, while not granting him the ‘whole’ lands or the ‘superiority’, and binding him to administer justice according to the old laws of the country, yet concentrated in him the rights of both Crown and bishop.

“Earls Robert and Patrick both aimed at destroying the odal system, and as lands so held could not be alienated without the consent of all the heirs in the Fowdra court, they so summoned and adjourned this court and filled it up with creatures of their own, that it became a mere instrument in their hands; they silenced and overawed the refractory odallers by their men-at-arms, and they employed their rights over the temporalities of the bishopric as a pretext for levying fines from such landholders as incurred any censure of the church. They thus succeeded in wresting much landed property from the rightful owners, and terrified not a few of the odal proprietors into a surrender of their peculiar privileges, an acknowledgment of feudal vassalage, and an acceptance of tenure by charter. The rent of the earldom, too, being paid chiefly in kind, they increased it by increasing the value of the weights used; raising the mark from 8 ounces to 12, and the lispund from 12 pounds to 18. Earl Patrick even excelled his father in his despotism, compelling the people to work like slaves in carrying on buildings and other works for him, confiscating the lands of the inhabitants on the most trivial pretenses, carrying off the movable goods of any one who dared to leave the islands without special permission from

himself or his deputies, and - crowning display of his savage temper and avarice - ordaining that ‘if any man tried to - supply or give relief to ships, or any vessel distressed by tempest, the same shall be punished in his person and fined at the Earl's pleasure.’ Bishop Law, however, interfered, more because the Earl's claims clashed with his than from any desire for justice, and Earl Patrick was summoned to Edinburgh in 1609 and kept in prison there and at Dumbarton till 1615. In 1614 his illegitimate son, Robert, had seized the Castle of Kirkwall and the steeple of the cathedral, and held them with an armed force, but the outbreak was put down by the Earl of Caithness, and both father and son were executed at Edinburgh in 1615 on a charge of treason.

“Under the pretext that a forfeiture might injure those proprietors who had resigned their odal tenures and accepted charters, the lands of the earldom were not immediately declared forfeited, and many of the proprietors were alarmed into the measure of asking and accepting charters from the Crown in the usual feudal form; while all, fearing another taskmaster akin in character to the two last, importuned the king to annex the islands inalienably to the Crown. James VI, after thus all but completing the ruin of the odal tenures, formally annexed ‘the lands of Orkney and Zetland to the Crown to remain in all time coming’, and though he admonished the people by proclamation against all fear of the islands reverting ‘to their former condition of misrule, trouble, and oppression’, he made no restoration of the lands which had been unlawfully seized by the last earls, and setting up the rental of Earl Patrick as the rule for future guidance, he immediately began to let the islands out to a series of farmers-general. The people thus oppressed without mercy petitioned the King that no man might ‘be interposed between his Majesty and them, but that they might remain his Majesty's immediate vassals’. In response to this appeal the islands were for a few years closely annexed to the Crown, but were soon again leased out as before, and subjected to such oppression as was utterly incompatible with any prosperity.

“In 1643 they were, with all the regalities belonging to them, granted by Charles I in mortgage to the Earl of Morton, but were redeemable by the Crown on payment of an alleged debt of 30,000 pounds. They were confiscated by Cromwell, but after the Restoration, were again in 1662 given back to the Earl of Morton, under whose arbitrary control the Fowdra court was abolished. In 1669 they were again, by act of parliament, annexed ‘forever’ to the Crown and leased out as before, but in 1707 were granted in mortgage - redeemable for 30,000 pounds, but with an annual feuduty of 500 pounds - to James, Earl of Morton, who was appointed admiral and hereditary steward and justiciary. In 1742 the Earl, though his revenues from the islands amounted to 3,000 pounds a year, pretended that they did not yield a rental equal to the interest of the supposed mortgage, and contrived on this - pretext to get an act of parliament declaring them irredeemable. On the abolition of the hereditary jurisdictions in 1747 he received compensation, but being harassed by lawsuits in connection with the weights and other matters, he sold the whole in 1766 to Sir Lawrence Dundas, afterwards Earl of Zetland, with whose descendants they still remain. The title of Earl of Orkney in the peerage of Scotland was granted in 1696, together with those of Viscount Kirkwall and Baron Dechmont to the Fitzmaurice family, who are, however, connected territorially with Wigtownshire. The bishopric lands are in possession of the Crown. The antiquities of the Orkneys are numerous and interesting, and the brochs or burghs, cairns, Picts' houses, castles, and old churches will be found noticed either under the islands or parishes in which they are. Some of the more important are treated separately.”265

John Bartholomew underscores: “Orkney, insular county of Scotland, separated from Caithness by the Pentland Firth (6½ to 8 miles broad); area, 240,476 acres, population 32,044; population of Pomona, or Mainland, 17,165. The Orkneys comprise 67 islands, 28 of which are inhabited, besides a large number

of rocky islets or skerries. They are divided into 3 groups - the South Isles, comprising the large islands of Hoy, South Ronaldshay, and many smaller ones; Pomona, or Mainland, the largest island of the Orkneys; and the North Isles, comprising Rousay, Shapinshay, Westray, Papa Westray, Eday, Stronsay, Sanday, and North Ronaldshay. Except on the south and west sides, where the cliffs are bold and precipitous, the coasts of the islands are extremely irregular, abounding in bays and headlands. The surface - most elevated in Hoy, which is hilly - is generally low, and much interspersed with rocks, swamps, and lochs. The climate, prevailingly moist, is mild and equable for the latitude. The soil mostly consists of peat or moss, but is either sandy or of a good loam where the land is arable. The farms are usually of small size; oats, barley, and turnips are grown. Livestock, poultry, and eggs are largely exported. There is regular steam communication between Leith and Kirkwall, an active trade being kept up. Orkney forms one of the great Scottish fishery districts. Fishing and agriculture are the chief industries. There are two distilleries in Pomona. The Orkneys were known to the Romans as the Orcades, and seem to have been originally peopled by Celts. About the beginning of the 4th century the islands were visited by the Norse sea-rovers, who ultimately settled upon them. They were annexed to Norway in the latter part of the 9th century, and in 1468 were attached to Scotland as a pledge for the dowry of the Princess of Denmark who married James III. The people still retain some traces of their Scandinavian descent. Orkney comprises 18 parishes, the parliamentary and police burgh of Kirkwall (part of the Wick Burghs), and the police burgh of Stromness. It unites with Shetland in returning 1 member to Parliament.”266

Neil Oliver comments: “The boats set sail from the Orkney mainland in the spring of AD 43. The trip in prospect could hardly have been completed in one go – the distance was too great, the boats designed for coasting from one safe harbor to the next – but it was a routine undertaking just the same. In the end it would have taken several weeks to cover the distance, but posed no unfamiliar risks or problems.

“Boats had been plying up and down the length of the long island for thousands of years carrying people, livestock, surplus crops and other trade goods, as well as the news and gossip from elsewhere that is the stock in trade of people on the move. In 325 BC, the geographer Pytheas had been sent out by the leaders of the city of Massilia – Marseilles in modern France – to explore the origins and destinations of their various trading goods. When he wrote up his travels a few years later, in a work he called On the Ocean, he described a journey round the coastline of Britain that took in, among other near-mystical places, the Orcas, or Orkney Islands.

“It was via journeys such as these that the science and magic of the henges and stone circles had been passed from north to south three millennia before. If that religion had depended upon travel overland it would likely still have been on its way south in the first century AD, lost in a wood somewhere or bogged down in some trackless mire. Stonehenge, Avebury and the rest might never have been built.

“If there was anything out of the ordinary about the trip south from Orkney during the April and May of AD 43, it was the importance of its principal passenger. Any loss of life at sea was to be regretted but the consequences of losing a king did not bear thinking about. It was also vital the trip be completed in good time because the man the king needed to see would not be in Britain for long. He had considerable interests elsewhere, to put it mildly. It would not do at all to be late for such a man – in fact the possible repercussions of the breach of etiquette might be dire.

“Thanks to the skill and experience of the seamen in charge of the little flotilla, the journey was completed in good time. So it was that the King of Orkney arrived in Camulodunum, the place we know today as Colchester but for long the capital of the Trinovantes tribe of southern Britain. Along with ten

other British kings he bowed his head to Tiberius Caesar Augustus Germanicus. Emperor of Rome and conqueror of Britannia. Such a rendezvous, dependent upon keeping up with the news in distant places and being able to stick to a complicated and demanding schedule, might sound remarkable for a man living in Orkney in AD 43. But Claudius only stayed in Britain for sixteen days, so the king’s knowledge of the itinerary had to be detailed and precise – to enable him to leave home long before the emperor even arrived in Colchester.

“It is tempting to imagine the first-century inhabitants of the far north of Britain as somehow cut off and existing in a vacuum, a primitive space in which they knew and cared little about the world beyond their horizon. Nothing could be further from the truth. Whatever else they might have been, the people of the land before Scotland were not primitive, neither were they cut off. While people, goods and information traveled more slowly than today, they moved with just as much urgency and determination.

“The existence of Rome and her empire – ceaselessly on the move and covering more and more of the world with the shadow of her hand – would have been common knowledge among the tribes living the length and breadth of the British Isles. No doubt even in Orkney – and certainly around the hearths of the royal palace of Gurness, where the king made his home – people would have remembered the stories of the last time the Romans had made landfall on the British side of the English Channel.

“Emperor Julius Caesar had tried invading Britannia on two occasions, in 55 and 54 BC, determined to place this northern land under his thrall – but to no avail. He was forced to pull his forces out on both occasions. In 44 BC he was murdered by his fellows – at least in part because they feared he was about to make a foreigner, an Egyptian named Cleopatra, Empress of Rome. Did word of that legendary beauty, even just her name, make it to the cooking fires of Gurness in the last years of the first millennium BC?

“The Romans of 54 BC had observed, among other things, how the locals in Britannia painted their bodies with blue woad so that their very skins declared their identity and their place in the world. It was a practice the Roman soldiers had noticed again and again among the so-called barbarians, people of many different names who had sought to defy them all across northern Europe. It is yet another sign of the long-distance connections and relationships carefully cultivated and tended by Iron Age Britons. It was also an observation of local custom that would prove telling more than a century later when another Roman emperor sent his soldiers across the water.

“So the decision by a King of Orkney to travel hundreds of miles in order to bend the knee before Emperor Claudius of Rome comes as no surprise. All kings, or at least those who want to survive longer than the ceremonies that name them as such, are politicians. It made sense for that local ruler to put himself in front of the most powerful man in the world. If he had differences of opinion with tribes on the British mainland, it might have suited him perfectly to try to ally himself with the man who might well prove to be the new leader.

“Until recently the only evidence for the meeting was revealed in relief on a fragment of a triumphal arch in Rome. Even so, many historians were convinced the mention of a King of Orkney was no more than a mistranslation, a misunderstanding. More recently archaeologists working at Gurness unearthed fragments of Roman pottery. To be more specific, they found shards from a style of amphora, clay bottles used for transporting wine and olive oil, which had gone out of use completely by AD 60. If the trading connections were moving fine Roman wine and oil to a powerful man living in Gurness before

AD 60, then it is possible that news of a visit to the southernmost territories by the Emperor of Rome himself reached that man as well.”267

Neil Oliver adds: “He had married Margrethe of Denmark in July 1469. In lieu of her dowry, her father King Kristian had mortgaged Orkney and Shetland. Both sets of islands had come under the Danish flag when Denmark took over control of Norway, which still owned the islands, and it is likely Kristian meant to keep up his repayments. For his own reasons he failed to do so, and in 1472 James III claimed them for the Scottish crown. As well as completing the map of Scotland we know today, the union of James and Margrethe also produced three sons to secure the future of the dynasty – two named James and one called John. When the elder James was a year old, he was promised in marriage to the Lady Cecelia, daughter of the Yorkist King of England Edward IV.”268

***LADY, ORKNEY ISLANDS***

Gregor Lamb emphasizes: “Lady: Named after the Lady Kirk (Church), named for the Virgin Mary.”269

FH Groome gives: “Lady, a parish in the northeast of Orkney, comprising the northeastern part of Sanday Island. Bounded southwest by Cross parish, and on all other sides by the sea, it has an utmost length from northeast to southwest of 7 miles, a varying breadth of ½ mile and 2½ miles, and an area of 5,233 acres. The coast, if one follows its ins and outs, has an extent of not less than 24 miles, being deeply indented on the northwest by Otterswick Bay, on the south by Stywick Bay. It projects the headlands of Tafts Ness on the north, Start Point on the northeast, Tress Ness on the southeast, and Els Ness on the south; and includes two lagoons adjacent to Els Ness and Tress Ness, dry at low water, and capable of easy conversion into fine harbors. The interior is mostly low and flat, and is divided into the districts of Northwall, Sellibister, Newark, Tresness, Coligarth, Overbister, and Elsness. The soil is very various, but in most parts is a fertile mixture of mould and sand. About one-third of the land is waste and heathy, and the rest either forms good natural pasture or is under cultivation. A lighthouse is on Start Point; remains of Scandinavian buildings are in several places; three pretty large tumuli, partly surrounded by a square enclosure, are near Coligarth; and each of the seven districts is supposed to have anciently had its church or chapel. The property is divided between two. Lady is in the presbytery of North Isles and synod of Orkney; the living is worth 183 pounds. The parish church was rebuilt about 1832, and is amply commodious.”270

***MAES HOWE, ORKNEY ISLANDS***

Neil Oliver pens: “Some of the dead were being treated in a different way as well. Where before the tombs had acted as communal storerooms for the bones of many people, now certain individuals were granted burial in tombs and graves made just for one. For the first time there is the suggestion of hierarchies and elites. Some people and their families were deemed special – deserving of special treatment in death as in life. The great tomb of Maes Howe, near Tormiston Mill on Mainland Orkney, was built on a site that had earlier been marked off and enclosed by a henge. The tomb is an architectural marvel constructed of enormous stones, some weighing as much as 30 tons but fitted together without the need for mortar. This was a last resting place not for representatives of all of the society’s dead, but for a special few. It is the advent of them and us.”271

***PAPA WESTRAY, ORKNEY ISLANDS***

Hugh Marwick scribes: “Papa Westray: Old Norse papey is Papae (early Catholic clergy) and Westray means Western isle.”272

FH Groome states: “Papa Westray, an island of Westray parish, Orkney, 1¼ mile east of the northern part of Westray Island, and 22¼ miles in a direct line north by east of Kirkwall, but 25 by the shortest sea-route. Its utmost length, from north by east to south by west, is 4 3/8 miles; and its breadth varies between ¼ and 1 1/8 mile. The surface culminates in North Hill (156 feet), beyond which the northern extremity forms a bold and lofty headland, the Mull of Papa, well known to mariners, and pierced with a cavern, from 48 to 60 feet wide, and upwards of 70 feet high. The southern half is partly occupied by a freshwater lake, the Loch of St Tredwall (7 x 3½ furlongs), on an islet in which are ruins of a pre-Reformation chapel. The soil, to the extent of some 1,000 acres, is very fertile, and under regular cultivation. Midway along the east coast is a pastoral islet, the Holm of Papa, which is denizened by myriads of sea-fowl. The whole island of Papa Westray, with the exception of a small glebe, belongs to a single proprietor, Thomas Traill (born 1822; suc 1840), who holds 5,780 acres, valued at 1,629 pounds per annum. His mansion, Holland, stands near the middle of the island, in which are also a remarkably large Picts' house and three vitrified cairns, and which was the scene of the death of Ronald, Earl of Orkney, by the hand of Thorfinn, Earl of Caithness. Anciently a separate and independent parish, Papa Westray, though now annexed to Westray, has still its own parish church, besides a Free church and a public school.”273

Neil Oliver alludes to: “At Knap of Howar on the island of Papa Westray on Orkney, archeologists excavated two well-built houses that were occupied for half a millennium either side of 3600 BC. They are built close together – roughly rectangular in shape, though with rounded corners – and are of dry-stone construction. The entrances are low down, probably for protection from the wind and weather, and a further passage connects the two buildings. Animal bones recovered from the site suggest the farmers kept cattle, pigs and sheep and also grew a small amount of cereal crops.

“By 3100 BC a farming community was up and running at Skara Brae, close to the Bay of Skaill on the west coast of Mainland Orkney. The site came to light in 1850 when a storm took a great bite out of a bank of sand dunes close to the sea. Revealed beneath the sand and grasses was a cluster of houses that had been enveloped by the dunes unknown centuries or millennia before (it is possible that a severe storm and consequent inundation by sand may even have been the reason the village was abandoned in the first place). Seven self-contained buildings survive, along with an eighth structure that was probably a workshop. In its original form the village may have had more homes – houses lost to earlier erosion by sand and sea centuries ago – and it was occupied continuously for a least 500 years before it was abandoned.

“Visitors view the houses from above, by walking on carefully tended turf that has been allowed to grow along the tops of the walls. It is impossible not to marvel at the skill of the builders. Into an enormous midden of their own rubbish, they burrowed passageways and excavated house-sized chambers. These tunnels and spaces they lined with elegantly constructed dry-stone walls built of the naturally occurring Orkney flagstones. As the walls passed above head height, the builders stepped the successive layers of stonework inwards so that they began to close over. The passageways and houses could then be topped either with capstones or with roofs of timber accordingly.

“The passageways linked the houses, one to another, to create a veritable warren, snugly insulated against the weather. The midden would have smelled a bit rich in warm weather – especially from the

point of view of our modern, deodorized sensibilities – but the protection it afforded from the elements would have made it indispensable. The atmosphere may have been ripe but for folk gathered by roaring fires while storms raged all around, they would have been the coziest homes imaginable. Inside each was a stone ‘dresser’ upon which valuables could be displayed. Sleeping spaces were marked out with stones and a large hearth occupied the center of each home. There is even evidence for a running water channel passing by each of the houses to create what may effectively have been flushing indoor toilets.

“Looking down on Skara Brae is a surreal experience, like a glimpse of something more than just the work of people – something grown in the earth rather than built; or like a giant wasps’ nest cut in two to reveal cells and passageways within. The preservation – and ongoing conservation – gives a look of manicured perfection that suggests the whole place might have been built just a year or two ago as a film set.

“Sometimes if feels like its inhabitants have just this minute walked away. On a day when it is busy with tourists, the murmur of many voices serves to remind you the village would have teamed with life and industry. It is at such moments too that you cannot help but wonder what the inhabitants would have sounded like. It is supposed their language would have been something akin to Gaelic or Welsh – an ancient tongue that had traveled across Europe from east to west before arriving in these lands along with the first hunter-gatherers. Whatever it was, they left no written trace of it. We do not know what they thought of the world around them. We do not even know what they called themselves. So the village of Skara Brae is a silent, voiceless place, fossilized within a silent, voiceless world.”274

***SCAR, ORKNEY ISLANDS***

Sigurd Towrie communicates: “Scar - Old Norse skör (‘a rim or edge’).”275

www.orkneyjar.com goes on: “One of Orkney's most important archaeological finds of the 20th century came to light on the island of Sanday after a fearsome storm.

“In 1985, while walking along the long, sandy shore at Scar, on the northwestern coast of Sanday, a local farmer, the late John Dearness, found a number of bones jutting out from an exposed sandbank.

“The ferocity of a storm, a few days previously, had stripped away the side of the bank, revealing the bones. Lying nearby was a small round lead object, about a quarter of an inch in diameter.

“Thinking he had stumbled across the grave a sailor who had perished at sea, Mr Dearness picked up the lead object and carried it home. After showing it to a friend, they decided it was simply part of a car battery so it was placed in a kitchen drawer, shut away and forgotten about.

“This little lead object proved to be the key to a 1,100 year old mystery.

“In 1991, after lying hidden for six years, the object was shown to visiting archaeologist, Julie Gibson, who recognized it as a significant archaeological find.

“The object was taken back to Kirkwall where it was identified as a lead bullion weight once used by Norse traders to weigh gold and silver on a balance scale.

“Excited by the find, Julie Gibson returned to Sanday with Dr Raymond Lamb where they uncovered a few rusty pieces of iron rivet at the site. The true significance of Mr Dearness' chance discovery was rapidly becoming clear.

“It looked as though they had found a Viking boat burial.

“This instigated a frantic race against time.

“With Orkney's notorious autumn storms – the Gore Vellye - imminent, an urgent rescue mission had to be mounted before the storms that had revealed the site, returned again and destroyed it.

“Historic Scotland acted quickly. A team of archaeologists was sent north to investigate and record the discovery before the rest of the archaeological evidence was washed away forever.

“Their efforts were soon rewarded when the excavation uncovered a pagan Norse boat burial.

“Although all wood of the boat had rotted away, the marks left in the sand by over 300 rusted iron rivets marked out the shape of the vessel that had carried its occupants to the Viking otherworld.

“The 6.5 meter long boat had been a wooden, plank-built, oared rowing boat of a type known as a faering, but, by the time of the excavation, one side had already been washed away by the fierce tides.

“The boat had been buried in a stone-lined pit - a pit, the excavations revealed, had been dug too big. Because of this, the vessel had been packed securely into position with stones.

“A stone wall had been built across the interior of the boat, forming a chamber of sorts and in this were the remains of three people - a man, a woman and a child.

“Alongside the human remains was a treasure trove of grave goods - objects that were included to accompany the deceased into the afterlife. These objects were unparalleled in Britain both in quality and state of preservation.

“Among these discoveries was a decorated whalebone plaque - now known as the Scar Plaque - and a gilded brooch. Beside the man was an iron sword, a quiver containing eight arrows, a bone comb and a set of 22 gaming pieces.

“Alongside the woman was a comb, a sickle, a weaving sword, shears and two spindle whorls.

“On the basis of these artefacts and later radio-carbon dating, the grave was dated to between 875 AD and 950 AD.”276

***ST MARGARET’S HOPE, ORKNEY ISLANDS***

www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk depicts: “The origin of the name of St Margaret's Hope is the subject of disagreement. It was probably named after Malcolm III’s wife, who became St Margaret after her death in 1093. The existence of an early chapel here dedicated to her supports this view.

“The confusion is caused because of an event that took place here in 1290. After the untimely death of Alexander III in 1286, the crown of Scotland passed to his granddaughter, Margaret the Maid of Norway. She was three years old, and the daughter of the King of Norway. In July 1290, the Treaty of Birgham between Scotland, Norway and England agreed to the marriage between Margaret, Maid of Norway, and Edward, the son of Edward I of England and heir to the Crown of England.

“In September 1290, Margaret set sail in a Norwegian ship from Bergen, bound for Leith. Storms drove the ship off course to Orkney, and it eventually landed at St Margaret's Hope. Here Margaret, Maid of Norway, died, apparently from the effects of sea-sickness, still aged only eight.

“Had her marriage to Edward gone ahead, the crowns of Scotland and England would have been united some three hundred years earlier than they eventually were, in 1603. And three hundred years of bloody history would probably have been very different.

“Today's St Margaret's Hope is the third largest settlement in Orkney and sits at the head of a sheltered bay at the northern end of South Ronaldsay. The village has become a busier place than it used to be following the opening of a car ferry link to Gills Bay near John o’ Groats by Pentland Ferries in 2001.

“The village's growth owed much to the establishment of a herring fishery here in the early 1800s, and this was consolidated through the development of a naval base in Scapa Flow during the two world wars. Fishing has diminished in importance, but the harbor, boatyard and slipway areas remain very active, even when the ferry isn't berthed.

“St Margaret's Hope itself offers visitors a step back in time with its interesting streets and attractive waterfront. There are a number of things to do in the village, including a visit to the William Hourston Smiddy Museum celebrating the role of the village blacksmith in local communities. You can also visit the Hoxa Tapestry Gallery here.”277

***STONE CIRCLES OF STENNESS AND BRODGAR, ORKNEY ISLANDS***

Neil Oliver enumerates: “Close by Maes Howe, and related to it, are the stone circles of Stenness and Brodgar. More sites – fragments of a long-lost religion or science – are all around. What a place Orkney must have been when that whole landscape of ritual and ceremony was complete and in use. For people tending their fields, herding their animals, the ritual and ceremonial places would have been a constant and unavoidable presence. Throughout the day, as they went about their business, they would find themselves near one or other of the monuments. Carefully sited to be visible from miles around, those circles of stone, tombs and processional ways between them would catch the eye and hold the attention again and again. Here was a world where daily life and spiritual life existed side by side. There can be no doubting, either, that a ruling class had emerged with the clout to demand and organize the building of such places.

“Stenness and Brodgar were half a millennium old by the time the henges and circles of Avebury were built in Wessex. The rest of the henges thereabouts are similarly young, by comparison to those in Orkney. Whatever the new religion was, it emerged first in the far north. Only the earliest places of Stonehenge are as old, suggesting that the idea for circles made of ditches, banks and stones may have been passed from north to south. Calanais on Lewis suggests the same presence – of an elite inspired by a new way of interpreting the mysteries of the world; so too the awe-inspiring ritual landscape of Kilmartin Valley, in Argyll.”278

**PERTH AND KINROSS**

**PERTH**

“The name Perth comes from a Pictish word for ‘wood or copse’. There has been a settlement at Perth since prehistoric times, on a natural mound raised slightly above the flood plain of the Tay, where the

river could be crossed at low tide. The area surrounding the modern city is known to have been occupied since Mesolithic hunter-gatherers arrived more than 8,000 years ago.

“Nearby Neolithic standing stones and circles also exist, dating from about 4000 BC, following the introduction of farming in the area.”279

FH Groome gives an account: “Perth (perhaps from Gaelic Bar-tatha, ‘height of Tay’), formerly also St Johnstoun, is the name of an ancient city, four parishes, and a district in the southeast of Perthshire. The city is a royal and parliamentary burgh, a river-port, a post and market town, the seat of a presbytery and synod, the capital of its county, and one of the assize towns of Scotland. It is situated on the river Tay, at the junction of several important railways, 15¾ miles south-southeast of Dunkeld, 21¾ west-southwest of Dundee, 89¾ southwest by south of Aberdeen, 47 north-northwest of Edinburgh, 33 northeast of Stirling, and 62½ northeast of Glasgow. Its bounds include three cognominal parishes and part of St Paul's a fourth, besides portions of Kinnoull, Scone, and Tibbermuir parishes. The main part of the town, including all the ancient quarters, is on the right bank of the Tay; but the chief suburb, named Bridgend, is situated on the left bank immediately opposite. The site of the whole is a flat-bottomed hollow or plain bisected by the river Tay and environed with rising ground, and overlooked from a little distance by an amphitheater of well-wooded hills, whose skirts are thickly dotted with villas. The situation of Perth, its beautiful environments, its fine buildings, and its magnificent view, amply justify its old title of ‘The Fair City’. The more prominent natural features in the vicinity are the broad river, with Moncreiffe Island, to the southeast of the city; Moncreiffe Hill to the south, and Kinnoull Hill to the north, of the Tay; the Wicks of Baiglie to the south; and the two public parks. The views from points of vantage in these hills are very extensive and beautiful. According to an anecdote, repeated in every description of the city, when the Roman legionaries, in their march of invasion, came in view of the city's site as seen from the Wicks of Baiglie, they cried out ‘Ecee Tiber! Ecce Campus Martius!’ But Sir Walter Scott, looking at the comparison from a Scotsman's point of view, wrote the retort long after:

‘Behold the Tiber! the lain Roman cried,

Viewing the ample Tay from Baiglie's side.

But where's the Coot that would the vaunt repay,

And hail the puny Tiber for the Tay?’

“The two public meadows or parks of Perth are called Inches (ie, islands), from the fact that they used at one time to be insulated by the Tay, along the right bank of which they still extend. Separated from each other by the main body of the city, they add very greatly to its beauty and airiness, and serve as spacious grounds for the recreation of the inhabitants. They are said to have been exchanged by the Mercer family (their original possessors) for a vault under St John's church, and this gale rise to the couplet:

‘Folks say the Mercers tried the town to cheat,

When for twa Inches they did win six feet.’

“The North Inch, which has received considerable additions at comparatively modern dates, begins near the main bridge, and extends northwards beyond the town, forming an oblong measuring about 1,400 yards by 330, and containing an area of 98 acres. Previous to about 1790, when the present road was formed considerably to the west, this Inch was traversed through the middle by the road to Dunkeld and

Inverness. A racecourse, curling at the extremities, and measuring about 950 yards from end to end, is laid out upon it parallel to the river bank. The Perthshire Hunt races are held here annually, and those of the Caledonian Hunt once every four years. The Inch is used now for military reviews, golf, and other games; and in ancient times it seems to have been the favorite arena for judicial combats. Here a combat took place under Robert Bruce between Hugh Harding and William de Saintlowe; and in the reign of Robert III, it was the scene of the deadly encounter between the clans Chattan and Kay or Quhele, so graphically described by Scott in his Fair Maid of Perth. The South Inch stretches southwards from a point opposite Moncreiffe Island, about 130 yards south of the Central station, and forms a square of about 680 yards each way, with an area of 72 acres. An avenue of stately trees surrounds it on three sides; and the Edinburgh Road, opened about 1760, which traverses its center, is also similarly shaded. The trees on the north side were removed in 1801, when the handsome houses of Marshall Place were begun. King's Place also overlooks its north side; and on the west is a line of ornate villas called St Leonard's Bank, and the buildings of the railway station. The South Inch had formerly a racecourse, and was anciently the place for witch-burnings, military displays, and archery-practicings; and stones were set up on it at the distance of 500 fathoms from each other, to mark the proper flight of an arrow.

“Perth was early a commercial center of importance and reputation. Alexander Neckam, who died Abbot of Cirencester in 1217, noticed the town in a Latin distich, quoted in Camden's Britannia, and thus Englished by Bishop Gibson, translator of Camden's work:

‘Great Tay through Perth, through towns, through country flies,

Perth the whole kingdom with her wealth supplies.’

“Perth merchants carried on trade with the Netherlands before 1286 and long after, and visited the Hanse towns in their own ships. Germans and Flemings very early frequented the city in turn; many settled in it; and had it not been for the usual short-sighted restrictive policy adopted towards foreigners, would have developed its trade and manufactures even more rapidly and more extensively than they did. The rebellion of 1745 demonstrated the convenience of Perth as a focus of trade for the north part of Scotland; and after that date the commerce of the city once more reviled, but it has never again assumed anything like a leading position among the commercial towns of Scotland. In 1840 it was made a head port, and as such it has jurisdiction down the Tay as far as Carncase Burn on the right, and Powgalie on the left; over the supports of Newburgh, PortAllen, Carpow, Pitfour, and Powgalie.

“In David I’s confirmation charter to Dunfermline Abbey (1127) is mentioned the ‘burgh of Perth’; and by David, Perth claims to have been made a royal burgh, although its oldest royal charter is dated 1210, and attributed to William the Lyon. There are numerous minor charters by Robert I, David II, Robert III (one conferring the right of choosing a sheriff), and James VI; but the governing and most important charter in the possession of the city is dated 1600, under the hand of James VI, confirming all previous charters and the whole rights and privileges of the burgh. Till 1482, in the reign of James III, Perth was generally regarded as the capital or seat of government of the country, and even at present takes precedence of all royal burghs except Edinburgh. The burgh records are of great antiquity, and supply an uninterrupted list of magistrates from 1465. It is interesting to note that among the list of chief magistrates, there appear very often the names of some of the neighboring nobility, as, ie, the Earl of Gowrie, Earl of Montrose, Earl of Athole, Lord Ruthven, Viscount Stormont, Threipland of Fingask, etc. The burgh is now governed by a lord Provost, 4 bailies, a treasurer, and nineteen councilors, who are

also commissioners of police, gas, and water. The burgh is divided into four wards for the election of the council; the number of voters in 1883-4 was 5,334, of whom 1,322 were females. The burgh possessed a seal as early as the first half of the 13th century; but at the beginning of the 15th century it used a different seal, representing on one side the beheading of John the Baptist, and on the other his enshrinement. The present seal is said to have taken into two-headed eagle from the tradition of the Roman origin of the town. The number of the police force in 1884 was 33, including a superintendent, who is also procurator-fiscal for the city, with a salary of 220 pounds. Burgh, police, and guildry courts are held in the town. A sheriff court is held every Tuesday and Friday during session, and at least once in each vacation. The convener court, acting as trustees for Stewart’s Free School, consists of the deacons of the various trade-guilds, viz, the hammermen, bakers, glovers, wrights, tailors, fleshers, shoemakers, and weavers; but the ancient rigidly maintained privileges of these incorporations no longer exist. The entire corporation revenue in 1883-4 was 6,557 pounds.

“With the exception of St John's Church already described, there are no extant ancient buildings of interest in Perth, though it has the memory of many now vanished. Military walls, of sufficient strength to resist vigorous sieges, surrounded the town from a very early date till far into last century. Their builder and the date of their origin is unknown, although Adamson, in the Muses Threnodie, boldly ascribes them to Agricola. They often underwent partial demolitions and changes, but now have completely disappeared, with the exception of a small fragment still to be seen in an entry off George Street. The walls seem at one time to have been strengthened with forts, of which the Spey Tower was one. This, the last remnant of the fortifications, stood near the site of the County Buildings, and contained a strong prison, in which Cardinal Beaton imprisoned certain Protestants whom he caused to be put to death. From its walls also he witnessed their execution. The tower was demolished in 1766. The Monk's Tower, demolished in 1806, formed the former southeastern angle of the old city-wall, and had a ceiling curiously decorated with allegorical and symbolical paintings at the command of the first Earl of Gowrie. A fosse or aqueduct, supplied with water from the Almond, went round the outside of the walls, but this has very largely been built over or narrowed. The old castle of Perth stood without the walls at the end of the Skinner-gate, and, before the erection of the Blackfriars' monastery, was the usual Perth residence of the Scottish kings. A very large and strong citadel, built by Cromwell's army in 1652 on the South Inch, was one of the four erected after the battle of Dunbar to overawe Scotland. It was a solid and stately work, 266 feet square, with earthen ramparts and deep moat filled with water, and it had a bastion at each corner, and an iron gate on the side next the town; a pier was built beside it. Many buildings, including the hospital, the schoolhouse, and parts of the bridge, were demolished to supply the materials for this work; and the gravestones and walls were taken from the Greyfriars' churchyard for the same purpose. Soon after the Restoration the citadel was given by Charles II to the town, and almost immediately was used as a quarry; in 1666 it was sold for 4,702 merks, but under conditions which made the wreck of it again public property, when it was finally removed piece-meal. During some years before the building of the barracks, a remnant of it was used as a cavalry stable for 200 horses, a riding school, etc; but now the trenches hale been filled up, and all traces of its existence have disappeared from the spot, across which the Edinburgh road now passes. The old Parliament House, which has left its name in Parliament Close off High Street, lingered as a humble tenement, inhabited by the poor, yet with a few tarnished relics of its former grandeur, till 1818, when it was taken down to make room for the Freemasons' Hall. A stone in the causeway of the High Street marks the site of the former pillory; and between Skinner-gate and Kirkgate, in the same street, others define the site of the market cross. In 1668 Robert Mylne of Balfargie, the King's master-mason in Scotland, built, for

200 pounds, a new cross (in room of that demolished by Cromwell), which was 12 feet high, had a flight of steps within, and terminated in a terrace, and was emblazoned with both the royal and the city arms. In 1765 this fine structure was decreed by the town council to be a mere worthless obstruction to the thoroughfare, and it was accordingly sold by auction for 5 pounds to a mason, who immediately removed it. Earl Gowrie's palace, scene of the Gowrie conspiracy in 1600, stood on the site now occupied by the County Buildings; was surrounded by a garden; and in the prosperous days of the city was known as the Whitehall of Perth. Built in 1520 by the Countess of Huntly, and afterwards purchased by Lord Ruthven, it passed, after the murder of the Earl of Gowrie, into the possession of the city, which presented it in 1746 to the Duke of Cumberland. For some time it had been possessed by the Earl of Kinnoull, who received in it Charles II in 1663. The Duke of Cumberland sold it to Government, by whom it was used for many years as artillery barracks; and finally resold to the city in 1805, when it was demolished, and its materials sold for about 600 pounds, to make room for the present County Buildings. The last fragment disappeared in 1865. Lord Chancellor Hay, the Earl of Errol, the Earl of Athole, the Bishop of Dunkeld, Lord Crichton of Sanquhar, Lord John Murray, and other nobles had mansions in the city, but all have now disappeared. In Curfew Row there is an old tenement, formerly the Glovers' Hall, and now pointed out as the house of Simon Glover, father of the ‘Fair Maid’; while the Skinners' or Glovers' yard in front (now covered with buildings) was the supposed scene of the conflict between Hal o' the Wynd and Bonthron. Old Perth abounded in ecclesiastical buildings and establishments. The Blackfriars' or Dominican Monastery, on the north side of the town, was founded in 1231 by Alexander II. It was a frequent residence of the kings, on which account it is sometimes spoken of as a palace; and it had a church attached to it, in which some parliaments were held. From the Gilten Arbour in its garden, Robert III witnessed the combat of the clans, already alluded to. In 1437 the monastery was the scene of the murder of James I. The Carthusian Monastery or Charter-house, the only house of the order in Scotland, stood on the present site of James VI's hospital, and was founded in 1429 by James I or his Queen for thirteen monks and their servants. Its church contained the tombs of James I, his Queen, and of Margaret, mother of James V. The sumptuous building was a great ornament to the city, but was completely destroyed by the mob in 1559. The same fate befell the Greyfriars' or Franciscan Monastery, founded in 1460, in the southeast of the town, by Lord Oliphant. The Whitefriars' Monastery, known as the ‘Prior and Convent of the Carmelite Friars of Tulilum, near Perth’, dated from the reign of Alexander III. St Leonard's Nunnery stood a little south of the town, and was founded in the 13th century. Along with the other nunnery of St Mary Magdalene, it was suppressed on the erection of the Carthusian Monastery, to which the revenues of both were assigned. Our Lady's Chapel, or the Chapel of St Mary, already an old building (1210), was destroyed then by a flood; and was afterwards built farther from the river, and eventually became part of the old town buildings, taken down in 1876. St Ann's Chapel, dedicated to the mother of the Virgin, had attached to it a hospital for the poor, and stood on the south side of St John's Church. The chapel of Our Lady of Loretto or Allareit stood near the head of South Street, on the north side. The Rood Chapel, or Chapel of the Holy Cross, stood at the north side of the South Street port. St Paul's Chapel, founded in 1434 by Sir John Spens of Glen Douglas, had a hospital for strangers and poor, and stood at the northwest corner of the New Row. St James' and Thomas's Chapel stood on the south side of St John's Church. St Catherine's was founded in 1523 by Sir John Tyrie, provost of the collegiate church of Methven, and had a hospice for poor travelers; it stood at Claypots, in the west of the town. St Laurence's Chapel was founded before 1405, and was granted by Robert III to the Dominicans, who suffered it to go to ruin. At the junction of the Watergate and High Street, a marble tablet on the front of a house notes that ‘Here stood the Castle of the Green’, an

ancient house in which golfers used to keep their clubs and balls. The house row occupying the site was built in 1788, and on clearing the site for its erection, two underground chambers were found, each 26 feet by 14, covered with a flat arch, and with strongly cemented walls of masonry 3½ feet thick. Some local antiquaries have not scrupled to recognize in these the remains of an ancient British temple, said by Holinshed to have been founded at Perth by a grandson of King Lear, and traditionally reported to have preceded the Castle of the Green on its site. Other remains and relics hale been exhumed in the course of excavations, going to prove that the level of the streets has been considerably raised in the course of time.

“Both the etymology of the name and the earliest site and date of the city of Perth have been keenly discussed by antiquaries. Some are for identifying it with the ‘Victoria’, some with the ‘Orrea’, of Ptolemy (2d century AD); but Victoria Skene places at Loch Orr in Fife, whilst ‘Orrea must have been situated near the junction of the Earn with the Tay, perhaps at Abernethy’. Others, again, assert that the present city was only founded by William the Lyon after the destruction by the Tay of ‘Bertha’ or Old Perth in 1210; and Bertha they place at the mouth of the Almond, 2½ miles higher up the Tay. All that is certain is that Perth is of very high antiquity; and that for some time it was known as St John's town or St Johnstoun. The latter name, though it occurs in some ballads and other old writings, is said never to have been generally adopted by the people. It survives in the phrase a ‘St Johnstoun's tippet’, meaning a hempen halter, from the fact or statement that each of the 300 burgesses, who marched to oppose the Queen-Regent, Mary of Guise (1559), wore a rope round his neck, as a symbol of the punishment he would deserve if he deserted his colors. The vicinity of Scone, where the Scottish kings were crowned, and the magnificence of the ecclesiastical buildings at Perth gave it the character of capital of the kingdom till 1482, in the reign of James II. Fourteen parliaments are said to have been held in it between 1201 and 1459; and sixteen out of thirty-seven ecclesiastical councils held in Scotland between 1201 and 1405 took place at Perth. In the history of Scotland, Perth figures very prominently. In 1298 Edward I of England fortified it as the capital, and his deputy, Aymer de Valence, took up his residence in it. In 1311 Robert Bruce took the city by storm, razed the walls, and filled up the moat. After the battle of Dupplin in 1332, Perth came into the hands of Edward Balliol, and three years later was skillfully fortified and strongly garrisoned by Edward III. But in 1339, Robert, Lord High Steward, regent of the kingdom, laid siege to the fortress, and compelled it to surrender. Perth, in the reign of Robert III, is well described by Sir Walter Scott in his Fair Maid of Perth; and the novel contains a graphic account of the chief outstanding historical event of the time, viz, the judicial combat between the clans Quhele or Chattan and Kay, which took place on the North Inch, in 1396, before the king and his nobles. The following is Dr Hill Burton's more prosaic account of the same interesting event: ‘On the 23d of October 1396, on the beautiful diluvial meadow by the Tay called the North Inch of Perth, lists were staked off as for a great tournament, and benches and stands were erected for spectators. A last crowd gathered there of all ranks, from the king himself downwards. The spectacle which drew them together was a battle between two bodies of the wild Highlanders, thirty on each side. They were to fight in their native fashion with axes, swords, or bows, having no defensive armor. The chronicles mention an odd incident in the arrangements. A combatant on one side losing heart swam the Tay and made off. The question then came how the equality of numbers was to be made up. A common artificer of Perth - a little man, but strong and able at his weapon - agreed to fill the empty place for a small fee, and a life provision should he survive after having done his work well; and the bargain was accepted. Though but briefly noted as a piece of eccentric courage in a person of humble condition, this incident has come up so often and in so many shapes in literature and tradition that the story of the Gow-chrom, or Crooked Smith as he is

sometimes called, is as familiar as many leading events in history. Such a contest would make a lively variation in the monotony of the tournament, with its stately etiquettes and regulated restraints. It was the nature of the beings brought together to fly at each other like wildcats, and kill in any way they could. The affair was as bloody as heart could desire. Of one side but ten remained, all wounded; of the other but one.’ The object of this extraordinary conflict is quite uncertain, and even the families to which the leaders in the fight belonged, are not definitely known. The earliest account of the affair is given by Wyntoun (about 1422):

‘They thre score ware clannys twa,

Clahynnbe Qwhewyl, and Clachinyha,

Of thir twa kynnys ware thay men

Tretty again thretty then,

And thare thai had than chiftany s twa—

Scha Ferqwharis sone wes ane of thay,

The tother Cristy Johnesone.’

“Wyntoun makes no mention of the volunteer, who is introduced, first by Bower, who wrote about 1445. In 1437 Perth was the scene of the assassination of James I, who was murdered in the Blackfriars' Monastery. The king had spent his Christmas at the monastery, and still lingered as the guest of the monks. Various portents are related, which warned the king of his approaching death. But James jested and disregarded all superstitious warnings. On the evening of 20 Feb, the arch-conspirator Sir Robert Graham, followed by a large body of retainers, overcame the king's guards and broke into the royal apartments. The king was chatting with the queen and her ladies in the reception-room, having laid aside his robes and his weapons. On the first alarm he rushed to fasten the door, but found that treachery had removed the bar. The windows were too securely fastened to admit of escape; but recollecting a vault underneath the room, the king prized up some planks of the floor, and leapt down. The ladies could do but little to resist the conspirators; but one is said to have dared the courageous deed thus described by DG Rossetti in his fine ballad on this King's Tragedy:

‘Like iron felt my arm, as through

The staple I made it pass—

Alack it was flesh and bone-no more!

'Twas Catherine Douglas sprang to the door,

But I fell back Kate Barlass.’

“The conspirators burst into the room, discovered the King's hiding-place after a little delay, and beheld their victim standing at bay. Till a few days before there had been an opening into the courtyard from the vault by which the king might have escaped, but James had ordered it to be built up, because the balls at tennis were apt to fall into it. The first two conspirators who leapt into the vault were seized by the king with his naked hands, and their throats bore the mark of his fingers for long afterwards; but with their daggers they overcame his resistance; others of the accomplices came to their assistance, and

the poet-king fell with 16 wounds in his breast. But his murder was fully avenged by his widow, who relentlessly tracked out his assassins and put them to death with the cruelest tortures. In the early history of the Reformation in Scotland, Perth made a considerable figure. In 1544 it was the scene of the martyrdom of five Protestants, who were burned at the instance of Cardinal Beaton. But a few years later it saw the first blow struck in the wholesale destruction and disfigurement by the mob of the Roman Catholic churches and monasteries in Scotland; the first impetus having been given by a sermon preached in St John's church by John Knox on 11 May 1559, and celebrated for two centuries after by a weekly service. This demonstration of popular feeling, though unpremeditated and condemned by the leaders of the Reforming party, was a true indication of the disposition of the town; and although the Queen Regent immediately obtained possession of the city and reintroduced the old worship under the guard of a French garrison, the citizens rose in revolt as soon as she had departed. In 1600 Gowrie House in Perth was the scene of the mysterious occurrence known as the Gowrie conspiracy, which resulted in the assassination of the Earl of Gowrie, then provost of the city, and his brother, on the pretext that they had attempted to murder the king, James VI. King James had been prevailed upon by Alexander Ruthven, brother of the Earl of Gowrie, to visit Gowrie House, the pretext being a story of a mysterious captive with a large store of foreign gold. James, who was hunting at Falkland at the time, rode to Perth, accompanied by about twenty attendants, among whom were the Duke of Lennox and the Earl of Mar. After dinner, the king was led aside by Alexander Ruthven, and when his attendants missed him, they were told he had left Gowrie House by a back way. For what had really happened we are chiefly dependent on what is practically the king's own account. Ruthven conducted him by the great staircase, and through several apartments, the doors of which he carefully locked after him to a small turret at the southwest corner of the southern wing of the house, and overhanging the wall. More direct access to this turret was obtained by the ‘black turnpike’ stair, which led into the larger apartment, off which the turret opened. In this chamber - one window of which looked into the courtyard, and the other into the Speygate - James found no captive, but an armed man; and an excited and threatening colloquy ensued between the king and Ruthven. The latter retired to bring his brother the Earl, but returning almost immediately attempted to seize and bind the king's hands. A desperate struggle then followed, during which the armed man, according to his own account, stood entirely neutral, except only that he first opened the window over the Speygate, and then the other over the courtyard. In the struggle James was thrust near this latter window, and putting his head out he called lustily for help. One of his attendants, Sir John Ramsay, hearing the alarm, hastened up the ‘black turnpike’, burst into the turret, and stabbed the king's assailant, whose dead body the king himself hurled down the stair. Meanwhile the alarm had spread, and the Earl of Gowrie, eluding the efforts made to seize him, rushed up the turnpike stair, followed by five friends. These were met by the king, Ramsay, and another; and after a brief contest, Gowrie fell dead under Ramsay's sword. The other attendants of the king, hearing the alarm, hastened to his assistance by the great staircase, but they were retarded by the massive doors, which they had to break down with hammers; and when at last they made their way to the turret, the tragic event had been accomplished. The alarm quickly spread among the townspeople, who crowded about the palace, threatening vengeance for the death of their beloved provost; but the magistrates succeeded in quieting them, and the king stole away at night by boat across the Tay. The object of this affair has never been satisfactorily cleared up. Burton says that ‘the theory that the whole was a plot by the Court to ruin the powerful house of Gowrie must at once, after a calm weighing of the evidence, be dismissed as beyond the range of sane conclusions’. He leans to the belief that it was a genuine conspiracy, not to murder but to kidnap the king, with the view of

acquiring political influence. In Perth, however, the former view is still cherished, and three books have been produced there in the present century in support of it. On 2 Sept 1644, the day after his victory of Tibbermuir, Perth was taken possession of by the Marquis of Montrose; and in 1651, when besieged by Oliver Cromwell, the citizens, by a deceptive appearance of military bustle and alertness, secured good terms of surrender. In 1689, Claverhouse, with 80 horse, seized the city. In 1715 the city was occupied by Mar for the Pretender, and James VIII was proclaimed king at the cross; and in January of the following year he visited Perth in person. Again in 1745 Perth became a center of the Jacobite rising; and from 4 till 11 Sept, Prince Charles and his army remained within its walls. On both occasions the burgesses were subjected to a tax of several hundred pounds. Though after 1482 Perth was no longer a frequent residence of the kings, it has received many royal visits. James VI visited it in 1601 and 1617, and Charles l in 1633; and both monarchs were received with pageants and rejoicings. Queen Victoria visited Perth on 6 Sept 1842; and, on 29 Sept 1848, she spent a night at the Royal George Hotel. Perth has suffered a good deal from inundations and plague; and it is still liable to the former. There were great floods in 1210, 1621, 1740, 1773, 1814, 1847, and 1849. There is an old Gaelic prophecy to the effect that ‘Great Tay of the waves will sweep Perth bare’; and there is a Lowland rhyme, equally threatening, concerning two streams which fall into the Tay, about 5 miles from the town:

‘Says the Shochie to the Ordie

Where shall we meet?

At the Cross of Perth

When men are a' asleep.’

“It is said that this prophecy was harmlessly fulfilled by building the stones of an old cross into the bridge across the Tay. Plagues visited Perth in 1512, 1585-7, 1608, and 1645, and cholera in 1832. Allan Ramsay's poem on Bessie Bell and Mary Gray describes the fate of two young ladies, who, though they had retired into the country for fear of the plague, yet caught the infection from a young gentleman of Perth who visited them, and is said to have been in love with both. The real event is said to have happened in 1645.

“James, fourth Lord Drummond, was created Earl of Perth in 1605; and the fourth Earl, who embraced the Jacobite cause, received the title of Duke of Perth from James II at St Germains in 1695. The earldoms of Perth and Melfort, attainted in 1695 and 1715, were restored by Act of Parliament in 1853 to George Drummond, sixth Duc de Melfort, Comte de Lussan, and Baron de Valrose (France), the fifth descendant of the third Earl of Perth.”280

John Bartholomew points out: “Perth, ancient city, parliamentary and royal burgh, parish, river port, and county town of Perthshire, on river Tay, 21 miles west of Dundee, 47 miles north of Edinburgh, 62½ miles northeast of Glasgow, and 437 miles northwest of London by rail - parish (divided into Perth East parish, population 12,102; Perth Middle parish, population 4,902; Perth St Paul parish, population 3,009; and Perth West parish, population 6,223), population 26,236; parliamentary burgh, population 28,949; royal burgh, population 27,207; police burgh, population 26,951; town, population 28,980; 8 Banks, 3 newspapers. Market-day, Friday. The parliamentary and royal burgh, and the town, extend into Kinnoull, Scone, and Tibbermore parishes. Perth is situated amid enchanting scenery, and is overlooked from a short distance by finely wooded eminences, which command magnificent views. Two public meadows or

parks, called the North Inch and the South Inch, extend along the right bank of the Tay, and on the opposite side of the river (which is crossed, by a handsome 9-arched bridge, 840 feet long) is the suburb of Bridgend. Perth was for some time called St John’s Town or St Johnstoun, and was long regarded as the capital of Scotland, being a favorite residence of the kings. It still takes precedence of all royal burghs except Edinburgh. It is remarkable for the wealth of its historical associations. It was also remarkable for the magnificence of its ecclesiastical buildings, of which the ancient church of St John still remains. The General Convict Prison for Scotland, at the South Inch, is a very extensive building, having been originally erected in 1812 for French prisoners of war. The chief industries of Perth are dyeing and the manufacturer of ink and gauge-glasses. The manufacturers of linen, winceys, floorcloth, ropes and twine, and chemicals are also carried on. There are several breweries and iron foundries. Perth is an important center for the sale of livestock and other agricultural produce. The river is navigable to the town for vessels under 200 tons. The burgh returns 1 member to Parliament.”281

**PERTHSHIRE**

FH Groome relates: “Perthshire is a large inland county in the center of Scotland, consisting of a main body and a small detached portion. The latter comprises the parishes of Culross and Tulliallan, and is separated from the former by a belt of Clackmannanshire and Fife, which is only 1¾ mile wide at its narrowest part; it is 6¼ miles long from east to west, and 4½ miles broad from north to south, and contains an area of 11,170 acres. There is also a minute detached portion of Kippen lying south of the Forth. The main body of the county is bounded northwest by Inverness-shire, north by Inverness-shire and Aberdeenshire, east by Forfarshire, southwest by Fifeshire and Kinross-shire, south by Clackmannanshire and Stirlingshire and Dumbartonshire, and west by Argyllshire. The boundary is in great part natural and well-defined, but in some places it is quite artificial. From a point on the southwest within about 3 miles of the head of Loch Fyne to a point at the base of Mount Blair between Glenshee and Glenisla in the east, a distance of 117 miles at least, the boundary line along the west, north, and most of the east of the county, follows the watershed or summit-lines of some of the loftiest and most elongated mountain-chains in Scotland. The only exceptions to this are at the points where the Moor of Rannoch places Loch Lydoch and the little Lochanachly on the west border, and where the south half of Loch Ericht forms part of the northwest boundary. From Mount Blair the boundary follows southwards for 2 miles the river Shee, then for 12 miles runs along secondary watersheds and watercourses west of the course of the Isla, which it follows to the confluence with the Dean. After turning northwest by 3½ miles along the Dean, the boundary again bends south, and making a considerable loop westwards, strikes the Firth of Tay at Invergowrie, 3 miles above Dundee, after an irregular course of 27 or 28 miles. Thence it continues along the north bank of the Tay for 11 miles, crosses to the south bank at Mugdrum Island, and runs 36 miles to the southeast in a sinuous and irregular line along the ridges and streamlets of the Ochils to a point upon the South Devon, ¾ south of Solsgirth. Thence it recedes for nearly 5 miles up the South Devon, 17 miles west and southwest across the Ochils and Strathallan, till it falls upon the river Forth just at its confluence with the Teith. Thence, except for cutting off a few farms in Kippen parish south of the Forth, the boundary follows the Forth and its head-stream, the Duchray, for 30 miles to a point within 3¾ miles of Ben Lomond; thence northwest by Lochs Arklet and Katrine, along Glengyle Water and the heights round the north end of the Loch Lomond; and so up a tributary of the Falloch, through Lochanlarig to Crochrechan, the point whence the boundary was first traced. The outline thus traced presents the appearance of an irregular circle, described with a radius of about 32 miles from a center near the head of Glenalmond. The

extreme length of the country, from east to west, is 77 miles; its extreme breadth, from north to south, is 68 miles; and its total area is 2,601 square miles or 1,604,690 acres, of which 46,882 are water and foreshore, lying between 56 degrees 4’ and 56 degrees 57’ north latitude, and between 3 degrees 4’ and 4 degrees 50’ west longitude. It is the fourth county of Scotland in point of size, and the eighth in population.

“Amid all the provinces in Scotland, writes Scott in The Fair Maid of Perth, if an intelligent stranger were asked to describe the most varied and the most beautiful, it is probable he would name the county of Perth. A native, also, of any other district of Caledonia, though his partialities might lead him to prefer his native county in the first instance, would certainly class that of Perth in the second, and thus give its inhabitants a fair right to plead that – prejudice apart – Perthshire forms the fairest portion of the northern kingdom. Its scenery includes some of the loveliest as well – as some of the most romantic and grandest scenes in Scotland, and all kinds of landscape are represented within its borders. Its mountains, lochs, and rivers, its wild moors and smiling fertile plains, its passes and glens, its waterfalls and its forests, have all in turn justly been the subjects of admiration and praise. Hardly less interesting has been the romantic course of its history and the wild character of its people, for it is in Perthshire that the division between the Lowlands and the Highlands of Scotland may be located. A line drawn irregularly northeast from Loch Katrine through Crieff and Dunkeld and thence eastwards to Strathardle would, in general, have the Highlands to the north and the Lowlands to the south, though of course there are many tracts which are of an intermediate character throughout the shire. Thus no general description of the aspect of the county would fit all or nearly all its diverse characteristics. In a general view Perthshire has a southeastern slope. Though about the region of the moor of Rannoch in the northwest it receives one or two inconsiderable streams from the west, it nowhere sends even a burn in return; and all along the rest of the west and all along the north it is walled in by a stupendous mountain barrier which effectually shuts off intercommunication except at a few passes, such as those at the head of the rivers Shee, Bruar, and Garry. Mountain ridges stretch far into the interior southward from the northern barrier, southeastward from the inner edge of Rannoch Moor, and eastward from the western range; these generally spring from the higher ranges in lofty broad-based masses, and vary in breadth while they diminish in height as they advance towards the interior of the country; and they are separated from each other by wild, deep, narrow glens, which sometimes, however, expand into sketches of valley or mountain plain. Eventually they die away or several ridges or ranges merge into one; while almost everywhere they send off spurs and irregular massy projections and sub ranges, so that the country, from a bird’s-eye view, would seem to be covered with a confused assemblage of peaks, and ranges, and mountain groups. A few isolated mountains, as for example Schiehallion, stand in the wider spaces between the mutual recessions of the ridges. Towards the south of the Highland line, the country in much less rugged, its hills are lower; while across the whole county, at the base of the Highland hills, runs from southwest and northeast the valley known as Strathmore; while the northern part of the valley of the Forth which lies in Perthshire is even more level and lowland in its character. But the lie of the mountains, the position of the chief valleys or straths, and the general river system of the county are described more particularly below.

“It will be convenient here to note the ancient divisions of Perthshire, which still have a local significance, though no longer a judicial or civil existence. Menteith comprehended all the territory west of the Ochils and drained by the Forth and its tributaries except the parish of Balquhidder. Breadalbane included the western division by the county from the northwest boundary to the south screen of

Glendochart; its northwestern corner was termed Rannoch. Strathearn included Balquhidder and all the country drained by the Earn and tributaries and the country north of Menteith. Methven comprehended a small territory round the present village, northwest of the city of Perth. Athole was a very large territory embracing the whole north and northwestern parts of the county down to the heights overlooking Dunkeld and Blairgowrie. Strathardle and Glenshee, along the rivers Ardle and Shee in the east, were subdivisions of Athole. Stormont stretched in a zone 7 miles broad from the Ericht and Isla to near Dunkeld, immediately south of Athole; Gowrie was a district on the eastern frontier between Stormont and the Tay; and Perth was a district embracing Strathtay between Stormont and the point at which the Carse of Gowrie met Strathearn. Constant reference of these divisions is made in the geography of Perthshire.

“The antiquities of Perthshire are both numerous and interesting, but for anything beyond a brief mention of the most important, reference must be made to the articles on the various parishes and towns. Caledonian cairns, standing stones, cromlechs, and stone circles are found scattered over the entire county; and there are famous rocking-stones at Abernethy, Dron, and Kirkmichael. There is a vitrified fort on Craig Rossie, one of the Ochils; and on Castle Law there are the remains of what is said to be a Scandinavian camp, 500 feet in diameter. But by far the most important military antiquity is the famous Roman camp at Ardoch, the largest of the kind in the kingdom. There are other Roman camps at Fendoch, Dalginross, Fortingall, and Dunkeld; and there are various stretches of Roman road more or less distinctly traceable in different regions. In this connection should be mentioned the roads made by General Wade, about which a well-known distich remarks:

‘Had you seen these roads before they were made,

You would lift up your hands and bless General Wade.’

“The curious high-pitched bridge across the Tay at Aberfeldy is an interesting specimen of the General's engineering. The cylindrical tower at Abernethy is the most interesting of the old watch-towers. There are localities and objects traditionally associated with King Arthur at Meigle, with Fingal at Glenalmond, and at Monzie and Killin, and with Ossian at Monzie and in Glen Beg. The quondam town of Bertha is separately noted. At Scone is the historic palace, and also the Boot-hill. Among the interesting castles, some now in ruins, are Macbeth's on Dunsinane Hill, Huntingtower or Ruthven, Castle-Campbell, Garth, Doune, Elcho, Drummond, Blair Athole, Kinclaven, Moulin, and Glasclune. The cathedrals at Dunblane and Dunkeld are described under those towns; other ecclesiastical and religious institutions were the collegiate churches of Methven and Tullybardine; and abbeys or priories, etc, at Scone, Inchaffray, Inchmahome, Abernethy, Culross, Coupar-Angus, Strathfillan, Elcho in Rhynd, and Loch Tay.

“The ancient inhabitants of Perthshire were known as the Daranii, Horestii, etc, and the names of the Caledonian ‘towns’ of Alaunea on the Allan, Lindun near Ardoch, Victoria on the Ruchill, and Orrea on the Tay, have been recited by antiquarians. The county was traversed by the Romans under Agricola and Severus, and on their retirement became chief center of a Pictish kingdom with capitals at Abernethy and Forteviot. A subsequent Scoto-Saxon monarchy held its seat at Perth and Scone; and the former of these places became, as we have seen, the capital of modern Scotland, and remained so till 1482. Most of the history of the county centers in Perth, with the exception of the obscure feuds of the Highland clans. The chief battles fought within the limits of the shire are Mons Granpius in AD 86, where Agricola won a victory; Luncarty, where the Danes were defeated by Kenneth III in 990; Methven, 1306; Dupplin, 1332; defeat of the Covenanters by Montrose at Tibbermuir, 1645; Killiecrankie, 1689; and Sheriffmuir,

1715; while in 1745-6 the county was deeply involved in the proceedings of the rebellion. The ancient jurisdictions have already been mentioned; it only remains to say that Menteith was a stewartry, Breadalbane a bailiary or separate jurisdiction of its earls, Strathearn a stewartry, Methven a separate regality, and Atholl a regality of very large extent. Since the abolition of hereditary jurisdictions in 1747, the sheriff, with his two substitutes, has exercised jurisdiction over the county, and in 1795 the present ten divisions, already referred to, were defined by Act of parliament.”282

John Bartholomew stipulates: “Perthshire, east-midland county of Scotland, bounded north by Inverness-shire and Aberdeenshire, east by Forfarshire, southeast by Fife and Kinross-shire, south by Clackmannanshire and Stirlingshire, southwest by Stirlingshire and Dumbartonshire, and west by Argyllshire; greatest length, east and west, 72 miles; greatest breadth, north and south, 60 miles; the detached portion (lying along the upper reach of the Firth of Forth, and separated from the main body by a belt of Fife and Clackmannanshire) is 6½ miles by 4½ miles; area, 1,617,808 acres; population 129,007. Perthshire includes some of the grandest and most beautiful scenery in Scotland, combining features characteristic both of the Highlands and the Lowlands. The ranges of the Ochils and the Sidlaw Hills, which are parted by the estuary of the Tay, occupy the southeast; while the north and northwest districts, to the extent of more than one-half of the entire county, are occupied with the mountains of the Grampian system, this Highland region being intersected by numerous lochs and glens. The rich and beautiful valley of Strathmore, extending from the southwest to the northeast across the whole county, lies between the base of the mountains in the north and northwest and the lower ranges in the southeast; the fertile alluvial tract known as the Carse of Gowrie stretches between the Sidlaw Hills and the Firth of Tay; while the Carse of the Forth lies along the south border. The general slope of the county is towards the southeast. The principal rivers are the Forth and the Tay. The largest tributaries of the Forth within the county are the Teith, the Allan, and the Devon; while those of the Tay are the Tummel, the Lyon, the Isla, the Bran, the Almond, and the Earn. The largest lochs are Lochs Ericht and Rannoch in the north, Lochs Tay and Earn in the northwest, and Lochs Katrine, Achray, Vennachar, and Menteith in the southwest. The soils of this county are of the most varied character - rich deep clay or loam in the straths, a light sandy or gravelly soil in the hill valleys, and moorland on the higher lands. Coal and ironstone are wrought in the detached section of the county; roofing slate is obtained near Alyth, Comrie, and Dunkeld; and limestone is quarried at various places. Agriculture and sheep-farming are the chief industries. There are extensive deer forests, and the fisheries on the Tay are of very considerable value. The manufacturers of woolen and tartan stuffs, cotton, and coarse linens are carried on to some extent. The ancient divisions of Perthshire, now only of local significance, were Athole, Breadalbane, Gowrie, Menteith, Methven, Perth, and Stormont. The county comprises 68 parishes, with parts of 13 others, the parliamentary and police burgh of Perth (1 member), the parliamentary burgh of Culross (part of the Stirling Burghs), and the police burghs of Abernethy, Alyth, Blairgowrie, Callander, Coupar Angus (part of), Crieff, Dunblane, and Rattray. For parliamentary purposes the county is divided into 2 divisions - viz, Eastern and Western, each returning 1 member. The representation of the county was increased from 1 to 2 members in 1885.”283

**KINROSS**

Ebenezer Henderson and William Haldane write: “The name Kinross, like many other names of places flowing from an early etymology, has undergone many changes in its orthography. In old writings it is to be found under the following spellings, viz: Caen-rhos, Kaen-rhos, Kyneros, Kenros, Kinros, and Kinross.

“These words, it is obvious, proceed from one common root, they are synonymous, and undoubtedly refer to the early dwellings, which, in prehistoric times, occupied the head or point of the miniature peninsula or promontory, projected into the Loch on its western side, about three quarters of a mile east from the lower part of the present site of the town, and half a mile or so west of the Castle island. The Celtic words Caen, ie, Kin, and Rhos, or Ross, signifying when united; Kinross, Kin, ‘the head’, and Ross, ‘a promontory’; thus Kinross signifies ‘the head of the promontory’, the head of the promontory on which the aboriginal habitants had their dwellings, near to the site of the Old Churchyard.

“The Kinross of the present day has no claim on any language for the origin of its name. The contour of the ground on which it stands, and its surroundings, do not bring out the word or name Kinross. But being so near the original locus, the original name has, for convenience, been transferred to it. Had ‘the men of the olden time’ selected the present site they would assuredly have bestowed on it a name significant of its immediate local surroundings, such as Kinleven, ‘the head of the Leven’; or Kinloch, ‘the head of the Loch’.”284

FH Groome articulates: “Kinross, a town and a parish in Kinross-shire. The town stands, 370 feet above sea-level, near the west end of Loch Leven, at a convergence of railways, and on the old direct road from Edinburgh to Perth, by road being 13 miles north of Inverkeithing, 27 north-northwest of Edinburgh, and 19 southwest of Cupar; by railway, 15¼ north by east of Dunfermline, and 18¼ west-northwest of Thornton Junction. Dating from ancient times, it was treated by Alexander III, in the early part of his reign, as a sort of capital, and was the place where he and his young queen were seized in 1257 by the faction of the Comyns. It figures in connection with Queen Mary’s escape from Lochleven Castle, as narrated by Sir Walter Scott in the Abbot; and on 6 Sept 1842 Queen Victoria drove through it on her way to Perthshire. It was formerly a very mean place, but has been much improved in recent times. The streets present a fair appearance, and have been lighted with gas since 1835; and a large proportion of the private houses are modern, substantial, and neat. The former town hall was built in 1837 on the site of the old parish church; but, proving too small, was replaced in 1868 by a new and more commodious structure. The county hall, erected in 1826 at a cost of 2,000 pounds, is a handsome edifice; its prison was closed in 1878. Conspicuous on a rising-ground, the parish church was built in 1832 at a cost of 1,527 pounds, and is a neat structure in the Gothic Style. The Free Church was built soon after the Disruption; and two United Presbyterian churches belonged originally to the Burgher and Anti-burgher sections of the Secession. St Paul’s Episcopal Church, built in 1875 and consecrated in 1881, is Gothic in style, comprising chancel, nave, north transept, and tower. The general aspect of the town, as combined with the landscape around, particularly with Loch Leven and the encincturing hills, is very pleasing. Three lines of railway go one towards Dollar and Alloa, one towards Dunfermline and Thorton Junction, and one towards Ladybank, Perth, and Dundee.

“The town has a post office, with money order, savings’ bank, insurance, and telegraph departments, branches of the British Linen Co, Clydesdale, and Royal Banks, the Kinross-shire Savings’ Bank, agencies of 13 insurance companies, 4 hotels, a library, a reading-room, a temperance hall, an agricultural society, two curling clubs, a fishing club, a cricket club, a masonic lodge, several benevolent and religious societies, and a Saturday newspaper, the Kinross-shire Advertiser (1847). A weekly corn market is held on Monday; cattle, sheep, and horse fairs are held on the second Monday of June, and the fourth Monday of March, July, and October; and a hiring fair is held on the Thursday after the second Tuesday of October. The manufacture of cutlery was introduced at a comparatively early period, and acquired much celebrity; the manufacture of linen attained some importance about the middle of last century,

and progressed so well as, in 1790, to employ nearly 200 looms, and to produce goods to the value of 5,000 pounds a year; the weaving of cotton was introduced about 1809, and became so flourishing as to substitute power looms for hand looms; the weaving of woolen fabrics employed many hands from 1836 till 1845; and the manufacture of shawls and plaids was commenced about 1846, and promised for two or three years to be highly vigorous and remunerative. But all these departments of industry became extinct, and the buildings they had occupied ceased to be used as factories. A wool-spinning mill was erected about 1840 at Bellfield; another in 1846 at the south end of the town; a third about 1867, opposite the second, on the South Queich rivulet; a fourth and larger one about 1867 in the neighboring small town of Milnathort; a large linen factory about 1874 on the South Queich; and all these have continued to prosper. The town was formerly governed by a committee of the inhabitants, annually chosen at a public meeting; but not it is governed, under the General Police and Improvement Act (Scotland) by a senior magistrate, 2 junior magistrates, and 5 other commissioners. The sheriff court for the county sits on every Tuesday during session; the sheriff small debt court sits on every Tuesday during session, and once a fortnight, or oftener if required, during vacation; and courts of quarter session are held on the first Tuesday of March, May, and August, and the last Tuesday of October. Kinross House, on a peninsula between the town and Loch Leven, is a large and elegant edifice, built in 1685-92 after designs by Sir William Bruce, the architect of the later portions of Holyrood. It is commonly but falsely said to have been intended for a residence of the Duke of York, afterwards James VII, in the event of the Exclusion Bill becoming law; in the 18th century was the seat of the Grahams of Kinross; and through the marriage (1816) of Helen, daughter of the last of these, is now the property of Sir Graham Montgomery, Bart of Stobo Castle, Peeblesshire. An older mansion, on a site near that of Kinross House, was for many generations the residence of the Earls of Morton, and was taken down in 1723. The original parish church stood near the extremity of the peninsula, in the southeastern vicinity of Kinross House; and, taking from its situation the name Kinross (Gaelic ceannrois, ‘head of the promontory’), bequeathed the name to the town and parish. The municipal constituency numbered 296 in 1883, when the annual value of real property within the burgh was 5,283 pounds. … The parish is bounded north by Orwell, east by Loch Leven, southeast by Portmoak, south by Cleish, and west by Foosoway. Its utmost length, from east to west, is 4 3/8 miles; its utmost breadth, from north to south, is 4 miles; and its area is 10,588 acres, of which 3,313¼ are water. To Loch Leven flow North Queich Water, running 2 miles east-southeastward on or close to the northern border; South Queich Water, running 4½ miles east-by-southward through the interior; and Gairney Water, running 3 5/8 miles east-northeastward along the Cleish and Portmoak boundary. The surface, flat over its eastern half, rises gradually westward from 360 feet about sea-level to 536 at West Cockairney and 629 at Hillhead in the northwest corner; and, being rimmed in the four circumjacent parishes by a cordon of hills, is often called the Laigh or Level of Kinross. The rocks are trap, sandstone, and limestone. The soil is partly clay, but chiefly a thin blackish loam on a gravelly bottom. About 280 acres are under wood; nearly 160 are pastoral or waste; and almost all the rest of the land is arable. Lochleven Castle is a chief antiquity, and, with Loch Level itself, is separately noticed. Gallows Knowe, on the Lathro estate, appears to have been a place of public execution in the feudal times, and was found in 1822 to contain thirteen old graves. About 350 silver coins, chiefly of Edward I and Edward II of England, were discovered in 1820 on the lands of Coldon; and an ancient circular gold seal was exhumed in 1829 on the grounds of West Green. Among its natives were the distinguished architect, Sir William Bruce, and the Edinburgh professor of pathology, Dr John Thomson. Seventeen proprietors hold each an annual value of 500 pounds and upwards, 22 of between 100 and 500 pounds, 15 of from 50 to 100 pounds, and 45 of from 20 to 50

pounds. Kinross is the seat of a presbytery in the synod of Fife; the living is worth 381 pounds. The two public schools, North and South, with respective accommodation for 300 and 115 children, had (1881) an average attendance of 214 and 73, and grants of 194 pounds and 46 pounds, 19 shillings, 6 pence.”285

John Bartholomew describes: “Kinross, market town, parish, and capital of Kinross-shire, on west side of Loch Leven, 15 miles north of Dunfermline and 424 miles northwest of London by rail - parish, 7,275 acres, population 2,492; town, population 1,960 … 3 Banks, 1 newspaper. Market-day, Monday. Kinross is an ancient place, and was a favorite residence of Alexander III. It is situated at the junction of three lines of railway, and on the direct road from Edinburgh to Perth. Its industries comprise wool-spinning mills and a linen factory. On the peninsula between the town and Loch Leven is Kinross House (1685), built after designs by Sir William Bruce, the architect of Holyrood, who was a native of Kinross. Adjacent are the sites of the old residence of the Earls of Morton and of the original parish church of Kinross.”286

**KINROSS-SHIRE**

FH Groome establishes: “Kinross-shire, a small inland county, bounded west and north by Perthshire, east and south by Fife. Its utmost length, from north to south, is 9¾ miles; its breadth varies between 2¼ and 12¼ miles; and its area is 49,812¼ acres, of which 3,327¼ are water. Loch Leven (3 5/8 x 2½ miles) lies in the southeast of the county at an altitude of 353 feet, and receives the North and the South Queich, with a number of lesser burns; but the drainage is partly carried eastward to the Eden, partly northward to the Farg and the Water of May. From Loch Leven the surface rises eastward to White Craigs (1,492 feet), southward to Benarty (1,167) and Dumglow (1,241), westward to White Hill (734), and northwestward to Cloon (1,134), Melloch Hill (1,573), Warroch Hill (1,133), Slungie Hill (1,354), Docbrie Hill (1,194), and Tilliery Hill (1,087). Thus a cordon of hills forms the greater part of the county's boundary, and projects more or less within its borders - the Ochils on the west and northwest, the Lomond Hills on the east, and Benarty and the Cleish Hills on the south. Several depressions, variously defile, glen, and valley, cut the engirdling hills into sections - a wide one on the west, leading to Dollar and Stirling; another wide one on the northeast, leading to Strathmiglo and Auchtermuchty; a narrow one on the southeast, traversed by the river Leven; and a considerable one on the south, leading towards Inverkeithing and Edinburgh. The central districts are occupied by Loch Leven and the Laigh or Level of Kinross; the districts between these and the hills are a diversity of slopes and braes; and the aspect of the entire county, though destitute of any of the first-class features of landscape, presents to the eye a profusion of charms both natural and artificial.

“The county is of very ancient date. In Nesbet’s Heraldry the name of John Kinross is mentioned as sheriff thereof in 1252. In the Registrum Magni Sigilli Regum Scotorum there are many charters of David II and Robert II (from 1366 to 1407) in which grants of lands are described as lying ‘infra vicecomitatum de Kynros’, among others being ‘Castrum nostrum lacus de Levyn cum pertinentibvus’ (Robert II 1371). That Kinross-shire became a separate county in 1426 is a pure historic fallacy, traceable probably to the fact that that in that year Kinross and Clackmannan were ordered or appointed to send each a representative to the Scottish parliament. It comprised originally the three parishes of Kinross, Orwell, and Portmoak; but in 1685, in order, as the Act says, to enlarge the boundaries of the small sheriffdom then presided over by Sir William Bruce, an act of parliament was obtained by which the parishes of Cleish and Tullibole, along with portions of Arngask and Orwell, which had formerly been within the county of Perth, were added to the original sheriffdom, and have ever since formed the country proper,

although the boundaries of the county for parliamentary voting purposes are considerably larger, comprehending the parishes of Fossoway, Muckart, and part of Forgandenny.”287

John Bartholomew highlights: “Kinross-shire, inland county of Scotland; is bounded west and north by Perthshire, and east and south by Fifeshire; greatest length, north and south, 10 miles; greatest breadth, east and west, 12 miles; 46,485 acres; population 6,697. After Clackmannan, Kinross is the smallest county in Scotland. The surface presents the appearance of a level plain almost surrounded by hills - the Ochil Hills in the northwest, the Lomond Hills in the east, Benarty Hill in the south, and the Cleish Hills in the southwest; in the center of this plain is Loch Leven. The higher regions are principally devoted to cattle and sheep farming; the low-lying lands are well sheltered and tolerably fertile. Limestone and sandstone are abundant, and coal is found in the south. The manufacturers are woolens (including plaids, shawls, etc) and linens. Loch Leven is famous for its trout fishing. The county contains 4 parishes and 3 parts, the police burgh of Kinross, the village of Milnathort, and part of the village of Kelty. The counties of Kinross and Clackmannan jointly return 1 member to Parliament.”288

***BATTLE OF THE CLANS, PERTH AND KINROSS***

Andrew Fisher portrays: “It is perhaps indicative of the failure of Robert III to impose his rule on his kingdom and of his desperation at the disorder inside it that he should have lent his presence, and therefore his encouragement, to an event which took place at Perth on 28 September 1396, in which he apparently saw the prospect of bringing an end to the troubles in the Highlands. The situation involved two clans, Chattan and Kay, who were engaged in a feud the origins of which, as so often, are today obscure. They met before the king, some nobles, and a number of French and English knights, on the North Inch at Perth to put the merits of their respective cases to the test in judicial combat on a grand scale. An enclosure of wood and iron had been erected at a cost of 14 pounds, 2 shillings, 11 pence in which 60 men, 30 from each clan, joined in battle. It is recorded that when the king threw down his baton to end the affair, Clan Chattan had emerged victors. Twenty-eight of their opponents lay dead inside the enclosure with perhaps as many of 21 of Clan Chattan killed. We do not know whether as a result of this bloodthirsty encounter the feud between these two clans ceased, but it is certain that this example of the king’s justice did not bring about the return of peace to the Highlands he had hoped for. Contemporary accounts do not tell of any such peace but of ‘great and horrible destruction’ with ‘justice, as if outlawed, in exile outside the boundaries of the realm’.”289

***DUNDURN, PERTH AND KINROSS 290 ***

Neil Oliver remarks: “After a decade or more in Ireland, the exiles were ready to return home and claim their birthright. With righteous revenge in their hearts they sailed back across the Irish Sea and raised a rebellion against the usurper. Giric must have known the day would come – and it seems likely he chose the mighty fortress of Dundrun in Perthshire for the showdown. Behind its massive walls Giric might have felt he would prevail, but in the end, age and guile were not enough to counter the youth and innocence of those he had wronged.

“One of the chronicles has it simply that ‘in Dundrun the upright man was taken by death’. The wistful, almost elegiac tone suggests there were those who lamented the fall of Giric; but archaeological remains at Dundrun paint a darker picture. Burned timbers and arrowheads were recovered during excavations, and these at least bear witness to some kind of violence. Given the Ire of Donald,

Constantine and those loyal to the House of Alpin, it is tempting to imagine Giric met his death in that moment, among those flames.

“In any event, Donald reclaimed the Pictish throne. If his supporters had expected Giric’s Gaelic reforms to be swept away, replaced by the old ways, they were disappointed. Donald and Constantine had left as Pictish children, but they returned as Gaelic princes. The same transformation Giric had visited upon the land had been wrought upon the heirs of MacAlpin as well. They viewed their homeland now with different eyes. Far from being rolled back, under King Donald the Gaelic takeover continued and was made permanent. When he died in AD 900, chroniclers in Ireland recorded his passing, not as the death of a King of Pictland, but of Alba.”291

***KENMORE, PERTH AND KINROSS 292 ***

Neil Oliver shares: “Crannogs were built in Scotland for thousands of years – in some cases they were still in use in the seventeenth century – and were certainly part of the Pictish way of life. It took a great deal of effort as well as sophisticated technology to build out into water. Explanations for such labor-intensive effort range from defense and security – the only access to such dwellings was over a narrow bridge or causeway, either of which was easily defended – to the suggestion that the residents were maximizing their farmland by moving the clutter of their homes out onto the surfaces of the convenient and plentiful lochs. Whatever the reason for balancing a home over water, a crannog is a substantial dwelling, and Pictish society had to be well organized to construct such things. In the village of Kenmore, on the shore of Loch Tay, members of the Scottish Trust for Underwater Archaeology have built a full-size replica of the kind of crannog that would once have been commonplace.

“It has stood for more than ten years now, and if you come across it unexpectedly, you could be forgiven for thinking it has been there centuries longer. The walk across the narrow, high-sided bridge that links the house to the mainland is a journey through time. Inside, the crannog is spacious and surprisingly comfortable. A thick carpet of dry bracken and straw covers the floor of woven branches, so it is soft and silent underfoot. It is instantly easy to imagine how small items must have got lost in the tangle every day, only to discover their way eventually into the water beneath, for archeologists to find in centuries to come.

“A central hearth dominates the circular interior and supplies the majority of the light. Around the walls, partitions mark out private sleeping places on two levels. There is also plentiful room for storage and every inch of every horizontal beam and branch seems draped with something useful – drying foodstuffs or raw materials for making clothes, tools and the rest of the paraphernalia of daily life. The gentle lapping of the waters of the loch against the upright posts that support the whole structure provides a constant, soothing music. It has to be said, though, that the fire blazing in the midst of all this tinder is a constant worry to modern eyes. Surely these dwellings fell victim to fire on a regular basis.

“The construction process convinced the archaeologists that whoever lived in such places was in control of people and resources in large quantities. Remains recovered from the loch revealed the Iron Age inhabitants enjoyed a rich and varied diet, and that they were sitting within trading networks that reached far and wide. Some of the small objects recovered from the water and silt were made of jet – the fossilized remains of ancient monkey puzzle trees – and must have come from at least as far away as Whitby in Yorkshire.

“The Kenmore reconstruction, based on the excavated remains of the Oakbank Crannog which was found on the northeast shore of the loch, could accommodate at least twenty and perhaps as many as forty people. It seems likely that while a high-ranking family may have lived in it full-time, dependents living onshore in less secure housing might have retreated to the crannog, effectively a water castle, for protection in times of strife.”293

***RUTHVEN CASTLE, PERTH AND KINROSS 294 ***

Neil Oliver stresses: “In 1581 Esme used his position to accuse Morton of having been involved in Darnley’s murder, and the regent was swiftly tried, convicted and executed. James’ undoubted love soon caused Esme more trouble than it was worth, when a group of jealous nobles lost patience with being passed over in favor of the foreigner. In August 1582 they kidnapped the king and bundled him into captivity in Ruthven Castle, near Atholl, in Perthshire. William Ruthven, Earl of Gowrie was the ringleader of what became known as the ‘Ruthven Raid’. What nobles need and desire most is the ear of the king, and with Esme around they had been shut out. The death of Morton was the last straw – even Queen Elizabeth had grown anxious about the level of influence being wielded over the King of Scotland by a man with Catholic leanings. It was with her support, therefore, that James remained in captivity, in one fortress or another, for almost a year. Deprived of the king’s protection, Esme soon saw the wisdom of returning to France.”295

***SCONE, PERTH AND KINROSS 296 ***

Andrew Fisher composes: “The Stone of Destiny (Stone of Scone) was kept in the abbey until it was removed by Edward I in 1296. Kings of Scotland were crowned on the nearby Moot Hill, which is in the grounds of Scone Palace, built in the early part of the last century.”297

Neil Oliver designates: “In AD 906 Constantine traveled to Scone for a ceremony to celebrate his accession. Like the creation of Alba it was about the making of something quite new – but something that had ancient ingredients mixed within it. This is the first mention of Scone in the historical record, and so it too appears to have been part of the new, established as a political center not long before AD 906. From now on it was to be the place where kings of Scotland were made.

“Seated upon a block of old red sandstone that had been quarried nearby, Constantine received the blessing of a Gaelic bishop called Cellach. It may be that Bishop Cellach had been a support of Giric, and that the ceremony was in part a public demonstration of continuing spiritual backing for the new king. Cellach and Constantine also declared together that the rights of the Church would be upheld. Perhaps the ceremony had elements too of a coronation, with the king sat upon and wedded to the bedrock in a self-conscious nod to the footprint ceremony of Dunadd.

“The stone used as a seat that day was the same we know now as the Stone of Destiny. For centuries after and up to the present day, it has been used in the inauguration of kings and queens. It is on display now in Edinburgh Castle – nothing more or less than a block of the land itself. It is the legacy of the rivers, seas and deserts that worked unwittingly and long ago to make this place. It is a memory of the sand and water of other places and other times. But for all of the time of man it has been rock. The chip of it that is the Stone of Destiny has, like the rest of Scotland, been fought over time and again. It has become the stuff of myth, fantasy and romance – the very symbol of a nation. It is the rock, and the rock has always been at the root of it all.”

Neil Oliver continues: “Just six weeks after felling his rival in Dumfries, Bruce was at Scone to don his crown. When word of the event reached Edward, he may have taken some comfort knowing the Scots lacked even the tools with which to make a king: he had the Stone of Destiny, the Black Rood of St Margaret and all the regalia of sword, scepter and crown – he even had in his custody the sixteen-year-old Earl of Fife, whose ancient privilege it was to inaugurate the King of Scotland.

“The bishops, however, had the man, and they made him king just the same. Wishart produced a set of royal robes, carefully hidden away for just such an occasion, so the Bruce will have looked the part. His second wife, Queen Elizabeth, was at his side. In the absence of the Earl of Fife, the crown was placed upon Robert’s head by Isabella of Fife, Countess of Buchan. Her husband, the Earl, was a cousin of the murdered Red Comyn. He was not a little put out by Isabella’s betrayal, and it was a move that in time would cost her dearly. The available records show that among others present were four earls and three bishops: Lamberton, Wishart and David Murray, Bishop of Moray (three of a kind – the better to shape a winning hand). It was Friday, 25 March 1306. King Robert I was thirty-one years old.

“Lamberton was certainly in attendance two days later when he celebrated a High Mass. If the new king took the opportunity to pray for help and protection from the Almighty, then he had more than his own hide to worry about. There were his followers and anyone else who had acted or spoken up in his support. He was the eldest of ten children: four brothers – Edward, Alexander, Thomas and Neil – and five sisters – Mary, Christian, Matilda, Margaret and Isabella. There was also his eleven-year-old daughter Marjorie, by his first wife, Isabella, who had died giving birth to her. Bruce’s actions imperiled them all and their fates in the months and years ahead would hang around his neck like a servant’s yoke.”298

**RENFREWSHIRE**

***PAISLEY, RENFREWSHIRE***

“Formerly and variously known as Paislay, Passelet, Passeleth, and Passelay the burgh's name is of uncertain origin; some sources suggest a derivation either from the Brythonic word, pasgill, ‘pasture’, or more likely, passeleg, ‘basilica’, (ie, major church), itself derived from the Greek basilika. However, some Scottish place-name books suggest ‘Paessa's wood/clearing’, from the Old English personal name Paessa, ‘clearing’, and leāh, ‘wood’. Pasilege (1182) and Paslie (1214) are recorded previous spellings of the name. The Gaelic spelling is Pàislig.”299

JW Craig expands: “Paisley, under the name of Vanduara, was occupied by the Romans during their sway in Scotland, between the years 80 and 446 … Little however is known of the place till its possession by the Stewards in the twelfth century; and since then it has been called Paslet, Passseleth, Passelay, etc.”300

WM Metcalfe illustrates: “Of the origin nothing is known … Its oldest recorded name is Paslet, Passelay, Passelet, and Passeleth. The spelling varies at different periods; but there is no evidence that the place ever bore any other name than some form of the word ‘Paisley’.”301

James Cameron Lees maintains: “1) Paselet, ‘brow of a rock’, from a great ridge of rocks across the river Cart. 2) Pas, ‘a crossing, ferry’ and let, ‘a house’, in Strathclyde Welsh, the name given to some house at a ferry on the river. 3) Pasgel-laith, meaning ‘moist pasture ground’. 4) Basletum on the Romans

occupying this part of the country and hearing the name Bas referring to some place of execution, they added their own word for death and called the place Pas-letum, afterwards Saxonized in Paseleth.”302

David Rowand presents: “A man by the name of William Passelewe was recorded in the charters dated between 1179-90. In 1202, William Passelewe witnessed a charter by Alan, the son of Walter, Paisley’s own High Steward. The High Steward and his early retainers, as a rule were of Norman or Flemish descent. Passelewe derives from the old French name Passe-leau meaning ‘to pass over the water’.”303

FH Groome renders: “Paisley, a large parliamentary burgh in the Upper Ward of Renfrewshire and in the northeast part of the county. It is a seat of important manufactures, a river port, the political capital of the Upper Ward, and the sixth most populous town in Scotland. It stands on both banks of the river White Cart, about 3 miles from its junction with the Clyde, and is in the Abbey parish of Paisley, which has been already noticed. The town has a railway station, used by both the Caledonian and the Glasgow and South-Western railway companies, and by rail is 3 miles south-southwest of Renfrew, 3 east by north of Johnstone, 7 west by south of Glasgow, 16 east-southeast of Greenock, and 33½ north-northeast of Ayr. There is another station to accommodate the district to the west; and on the line occupying the course of the Glasgow and Paisley Canal, there is to be a station at Causewayside. Part of the site is a gentle hilly ridge extending westward from the Cart; part is the north side of a similar ridge running parallel on the south, and the rest is partly low ground lying between and around these ridges on the west-bank of the river, and partly an expanse of level ground lying along the east bank. The height of the low ground is about 40 feet above sea-level. The town itself can hardly be said to be pretty or picturesque, but there is good scenery around, and from the rising grounds to the southward good views of the valley of the Clyde, the Kilpatrick Hills and some of the Grampians, of the valley of the Gryfe, and of Gleniffer Braes and many of the scenes of Tannahill's poems, may all be obtained.

“The derivation of the name is somewhat doubtful. The older forms are Passelet, Passeleth, and Passelay, for which the conjectural derivations have been given of ‘the moist pasture-land’ from the British Pasgel-laith, or ‘the flat stone shoal’ from the British Bas-leeh or the Gaelic Bas-leae, the latter derivation having reference to the ledge of rock running across the channel of the White Cart near the town. In the 16th century the name was changed into Paslay and Pasley, and in the course of the 18th century it took its present form. Paisley was till very recently looked on as the site of the Roman station of Vanduara, properly Vandogara, mentioned by Ptolemy, the identification resting mainly on the resemblance of the name of the station to the British Gwen-dwr or ‘white water’, which was supposed to have been the name then given to the White Cart. Principal Dunlop, writing in the end of the 17th century, and Crawford, who published his history of Renfrewshire in 1710, both describe Roman remains in the neighborhood. Principal Dunlop says: ‘At Paisley there is a large Roman Camp to be seen. The praetorium or innermost part of the camp is on the west end of a rising ground, or little hill, called Cap Shawhead, on the southeast descent of which hill standeth the town of Paisley. The praetorium is not very large, but hath been well fortified with three fosses and dykes of earth, which must have been large, when to this day their vestiges are so great that men on horseback will not see over them. The camp itself hath been great and large, it comprehending the whole hill. There are vestiges, on the north side, of the fosses and dyke, whereby it appears that the camp reached to the river Cart. On the north side the dyke goeth alongst the foot of the hill; and if we allow it to have gone so far on the other side, it hath enclosed all the space of ground on which the town of Paisley stands, and it may be guessed to be about a mile in compass. Its situation was both strong and pleasant, overlooking the whole country. I have not heard that any have been so curious as to dig the ground into this praetorium; but when they

tread upon it gives a sound as if it were hollow below, where belike there are some of their vaults. Near to this camp, about a quarter of a mile, stand two other rises or little hills, the one to the west, the other to the south, which with this make almost a triangular form, where have been stations for the outer guards. The vestiges of these appear and make them little larger than the praetorium of the other camp of the same form, without any other fortification than a fosse and a dyke.’ The large camp must have been at Oakshawhead, and the outposts at Woodside and Castle Head, but the extension of the town has now obliterated the traces of them. Gordon, in 1725, traced a military road from the great Clydesdale Road at Glasgow, across the Clyde by a ford that remained till 1772, and on to Paisley. In his Celtic Scotland, published in 1876, Dr Skene combats the old view, objecting to the Gwen-dwr theory on the principle that rivers do not change their names, and also giving reasons for thinking that Vandogara was at Loudoun Hill, on the river Irvine in Ayrshire; and so the matter rests.

“The first authentic reference to the present place must, therefore, be supposed to be in 1157, when King Malcolm IV granted a charter in favor of Walter, the son of Alan, High Steward of Scotland, confirming a gift (not now extant) of certain extensive possessions, which King David had conferred on Walter. Lands called Passeleth formed part of those specified in the grant; and on these lands, on the east bank of the river, Walter founded the famous Abbey of Paisley. No village appears to have been on the lands when the monastery was founded, but the opposite bank was soon occupied by one inhabited by the retainers and ‘kindly tenants’ of the monks, to whom it belonged. Under the fostering care of the church, and belonging to an abbey specially favored by the Bruces and Stewarts, it must have thriven, and towards the end of the 15th century it had an opportunity of thriving still more, for Abbot Shaw, who had sided with the rebellious nobles against James III, obtained from the new government in 1488 a charter creating the village of Paisley, a free burgh of barony, with ‘the full and free liberty of buying and selling in the said burgh, wire, wax, woolen and linen cloths, wholesale or retail, and all other goods and wares coming to it; with power and liberty of having and holding in the same place, bakers, brewers, butchers, and sellers both of flesh and fish, and workmen in the several crafts, ... likewise to possess a cross and market forever, every week, on Monday, and two public fairs yearly, forever; namely one on the day of St Mirren, and the other on the day of St Marnoch’; and in 1490 the abbot and chapter granted to the magistrates of the burgh in feu-farm the ground on which the old town stands, and certain other privileges. The neighboring burgh of Renfrew, to which the Paisley people had formerly been subject, looked on all this as an invasion of its privileges, and entered into a series of quarrels with the new burgh, and even went the length of violently seizing goods exposed for sale in order to compel payment of customs. The result of a lawsuit was a decision in favor of the magistrates of Paisley, given, however, on the ground that that town lay within the regality of the abbey, and was not therefore included in the charter granted to Renfrew in 1396, as the regality grant to the abbey was of prior date to that given to the burgh. This settled the matter, and the town remained subject to the abbot, and after the Reformation to the commendator till 1658, when the magistrates purchased the superiority of the town and other privileges from William Lord Cochrane, who was then Lord of Paisley. In 1665 they obtained a royal charter confirming the burgh in its lands and privileges, and in 1690 an act of parliament to allow them to hold two additional fairs. From this time, Paisley, holding directly of the Crown, has had practically all the privileges of a royal burgh, except that down to the passing of the Reform Bill of 1832, it had no direct parliamentary representative. In 1489 King James IV, in the course of his military operations, visited the town, and he was here again in 1504 and 1507. It was at Paisley that the Lords of the Congregation assembled in 1565, but on the appearance of the royal troops at Glasgow, they moved off to Hamilton. In 1597 there was expectation of a visit from the Queen, and in

1617 James VI himself made his appearance at the abbey, where he was hospitably entertained; but there is a local tradition that ‘the bailies supplicated his Majesty not to enter into their bounds, their common burse being then so miserably reduced that they could not entertain him with that sumptuousness befitting their respective estates.’ The next visit of a member of the royal family was that paid by the late Duke of Albany, when at Blythswood House, in 1875. In 1588 and again in 1602 the town suffered severely from the plague; and the gates, of which there were then five - one at the Bridge, one at the foot of St Miren Street, one in High Street, one in Moss Street, and one in the School Wynd - were guarded with great vigilance, while no person was allowed to admit any one into the town by the gardens behind the houses. There was another outbreak of plague in 1645. In 1649 the town seems to have furnished a troop of horse for service in the army that was defeated at Dunbar, and subsequently the magistrates again provided six troopers for service against the English - proceedings which procured for the inhabitants the presence of a garrison of Cromwellian soldiers, whose support seems to have been felt as a very heavy burden. Paisley does not seem to have suffered so much as other places in the west during the Covenanting troubles, but the Cross was the scene in 1685 of the death of two farmers named Algie and Park from the neighboring parish of Eastwood, who were executed for refusing to take the oath of abjuration. They were buried at the Gallowgreen, near the foot of Maxwellton Street; but when it was to be built on in 1779, there remains were removed to Broomlands burying-ground, which now forms part of the cemetery, and an obelisk was there erected to their memory in 1835. Between 1677 and 1697 a considerable number of reputed witches were executed, but none of the cases except that afterwards alluded to are of any general note. With the rest of the west the district hailed the Revolution of 1688 with great eagerness, and furnished its quota to the Renfrewshire men who went to Edinburgh to support the Convention. There is no record of the behavior of the burgh in connection with the Union in 1707, but in 1715 we find a number of the townsmen binding themselves to raise and maintain a body of men because ‘considering the imminent danger we are in from the threatened invasion of the Pretender, and the danger from many within our own bossoms that are to joyn with him, ... it lyes upon all honest men as their indespensable duty to provid tymously for the defense our Soveraign and our own sacred and civile interests.’ In August, of the same year a guard of 20 men was set every night, two flags were purchased, and a number of muskets, and 20 men were sent to the Duke of Argyll at Stirling, and one hundred and twenty Paisley Volunteers also joined the expedition against the Macgregors. During the rebellion of 1745, Paisley raised a company of militia to aid the Hanoverian forces, and was in consequence fined 1,000 pounds by Prince Charles Edward when he was at Glasgow, 500 pounds of which was paid. From this time till 1819, the history of the town is connected with the development of trade, but in that year a body of Chartists from Glasgow, who had been attending a great reform meeting at Meiklerigs Moor, attempted to march through the town with flags contrary to an order of the magistrates. The police interfered, and serious rioting ensued, lasting for several days. The Paisley Chartists took an active part in the Unions and in the intended rising on 1 April 1820, and many of them had in consequence to flee to America. Except the outbreaks of cholera in 1832, 1834, and 1848, and the troubles thereby occasioned, the subsequent history of the place may be said to be trading and municipal.

“The town is the ‘Greysley’ of Alexander Smith's story Of Fred Hagart's Household, where the town, as it appeared 50 years ago, and as in some respects it still appears, is thus described: ‘Greysley had no variety of occupation. It was to all intents and purposes a weaving town. During the entire day, in the old-fashioned, crooked side-streets, the monotonous click of the loom and the sharp whir of the shuttle were continually heard. While trade was brisk, Greysley stuck to its work a lived well; when depressed -

it stood in groups about the market-place and the corners of the streets, and in the evenings read and argued over the fiercest of political newspapers. Thirty years ago trade was good; and in the spring and summer evenings the weaver, having comfortably dined, bird-nested - or botanized, and later still discussed European and local politics in coxy taverns, went to bed with the idea that he was the most intelligent of human beings, and that Greysley generally was the axis on which the world revolved. In the eastern extremity of the town was an old abbey with old graves about it, and at night the moon silvered very prettily the broken arches and the fine traceries of the main window. Past the abbey, across the bridge, through the market-place and away westward, ran the principal street, till it disappeared in a sort of open suburb of houses of one story, across whose windowpanes festoons of birds' eggs were hanging, and on whose window-sills flowers were blowing in summer, and where loom and shuttle were constantly heard. In the market-place was an inn, a picture of a ferocious Saracen, with a crooked scimitar, stuck upon the front of it like a hatchment; and on market days, at the open windows, groups of rosy-faced farmers were continually smoking and drinking ale. Beside the inn was a tall steeple, with a dial with gilded hours; and on a parapet beneath the clock, Roman candles were displayed, the grown-up inhabitants could remember - on great occasions, when a prince was born, or when Lord Wellington gained another victory in Spain. Then Greysley had a river which came flowing into it very prettily from the moors; and at the entrance to the town, flanked on either side by flour-mills, where meal was continually flying about, said river tumbled with creditable noise and foam over a ridge of rocks. These rocks were regarded by the inhabitants with pride, and great was the uproar when the river came down after a day's rain, or better still, when a six weeks' frost broke up, and the boards of ice were wedged and jammed and crushed and broken there. The river came into Greysley with a bold look enough, but after its fall over the rocks, it lost spirit, and sneaked through the town in a broad, shallow stream, which carters and their horses forded on occasion; at the further end of the town stood a small disconsolate quay, which seemed always waiting for vessels that never came. The scenery around Greysley was distinctly pretty. To the south rose a range of green hills, and one with a taste for the picturesque could hardly employ his time better than by walking to the summit, and sitting down there for an hour. There could he see Greysley at his feet, blurred with smoke, with church spires and one or two tall chimneys sticking out of it. Beyond, the Hawkshead [Glasgow] river on its way to the sea; in the other direction, to the northeast, the great smoky stain of Hawkshead; and if possessed of a glass, he could discern the canal that connected that city with Greysley, and perhaps on its way the long white passage-boat drawn by trotting horses, and the black caps and scarlet jackets of the riders. He would see also woods and an old castle or so, a score of gentlemen's seats, and farm-houses without number, with the yellow stacks of last year yet standing in the comfortable yards. And he would be touched by the silence and movelessness of the mighty landscape, for at the distance of a few miles man is invisible, the noise of his tools is unheard, his biggest cities become smoky ant-hills; and at the distance of a few years!’

“The manufacture of the shawls known as Paisley shawls, for which the town has long been celebrated, was introduced during the best period of the muslin trade, and though at first limited and confined to the manufacture of soft silk shawls, it at length outstripped the muslin, and, branching out in various lines, became for many years one of the leading industries of the town. In consequence, however, of the change of fashion, Paisley plaids have not now been worn for several years, and the trade is consequently not in its former thriving condition. Imitations of India shawls were made in soft silk, in spun silk, in cotton, and in mixtures of the three. Ladies' dresses also were made of the same materials, in the same style of raised work on white grounds with small figured spots. Imitations, likewise, were made in silk of the stripped scarfs and turbans worn by the natives of oriental countries, and called

zebras. Closer imitations of real India or Cashmere shawls were next produced from mixtures of fine wool and silk waste. Yet notwithstanding the energy and enterprise displayed, the Paisley manufacturers found to their great astonishment that France could produce shawls superior in quality to those of home manufacture, a result obtained by the use of genuine Cashmere wools. Thus set on their mettle, the home producers also imported their wool, much of it in the form of yarn, while the improved Jacquard loom enabled them to turn out better work. Much cloth, also, for Cashmere shawls and plaids was imported from France and from England merely to be filled up and finished in Paisley. The patterns of the Paisley shawls are contrived with reference to the best patterns of India and France, but with individually characteristic details. Besides these, there are several very extensive starch and corn-flour works, silk-throwing works, bleach works, machine works, chemical works, soap works, dye works, print works, brick works, three large wholesale houses dealing in preserves, and a small shipbuilding yard. Between 1786 and 1791, the Cart was rendered navigable for ships drawing not more than five feet of water; and between 1835 and 1842, attempts were made to deepen and improve it still farther, at a cost of over 20,000 pounds, but not very successfully, a reef of rocks across the bed of the river preventing any great depth from being reached. A scheme for the further improvement of the river is at present (1884) under consideration. The engineers, Messrs Bell & Miller, propose to cut a new channel so as to get rid of the sharp bend near Porterfield; to widen the rest of the present course; to deepen it from 8 to 12 feet; and to construct docks and a graving dock a little below the present harbor. Between 1838 and 1844, ship-building was vigorously carried on, the swiftest river steamers then on the Clyde having been built at Paisley; and for the Cart must be claimed the honor of having definitely settled the advantage of iron over wood in the construction of ships.

“Three bridges cross the river Cart (exclusive of the railway bridges), and connect the old and new towns. The old stone bridge at the end of High Street used to be very narrow and inconvenient, as were also the other two, but under the Improvement Act of 1877, they have all been greatly widened and improved, the old Sneddon Bridge (now known as Abercorn Bridge) and Seedhill or Abbey Bridge having been reconstructed with iron girders, and the Old Bridge itself again farther improved in connection with the erection of the Clark Hall. When the first tollbooth was erected is not exactly known - seemingly by Abbot Tervas in the 15th century - but by the middle of the 18th century the existing one had become very insecure, and in 1756 the magistrates resolved to erect a new one at the Cross, on the same site, at a cost of 325 pounds. It had a steeple of considerable height, which remained till 1870. It was perfectly sound till 1868, but in that year a deep drain dug near it injured the foundation, which had already become somewhat insecure in consequence of the street level having been lowered, and it began to lean over in a dangerous manner. It was at first shored up, but was ordered to be taken down in 1869. An unsuccessful attempt was made to interdict the magistrates from removing it, and it disappeared completely in 1870. It was at the Cross Steeple that public executions latterly took place, and the bats to which the gibbet was fastened are now in the museum. The Abbey grounds were first feued in 1757 by Lord Dundonald, and a considerable portion of the Abbey ruins were used as building material by the feuars in the erection of the houses adjoining the Abbey. Some of these were removed in 1874, including the town houses of Abercorn and Dundonald, but others still remain. A house in High Street in the old Scottish style, with the arms of the Sempills on its front, was erected in 1862 on the site of Lord Sempill's old town mansion. In 1618 the town council erected a Town's Hospital on the north side of High Street with materials taken from the old chapel of St Roque, and part of the building became subsequently a school. In 1723 the old building was taken down, and a new one erected, which

contained a public hall and a clock steeple known as the ‘Wee Steeple’, in which there was a bell which was rung when funerals were passing. On one part of it was the inscription:

‘He that hath pitie on the por

Of grace and mercie sall be sor’

And on another:

‘Quha gives the puir, to God he lends,

And God, again, mare grace him sends.’

“The most prominent of the churches is of course the part of the old Abbey of Paisley which is still used as the parish church for Abbey parish. The remains of the Abbey are on the east side of the Cart opposite the Clark Hall. It was founded about 1163 by Walter, High Steward of Scotland, for monks of the Cluniac order of reformed Benedictines, and its first inmates came from the Cluniac priory of Wenlock in Shropshire, the High Steward's native county. They were originally settled at Renfrew, but afterwards transferred their place of residence to Paisley, where, finding a church already dedicated to St Mirren or Mirinus, a confessor who is said to have spent a considerable part of his life at the place, and who, according to the Aberdeen Breviary, was buried there, they combined his name with those of St James and of their patron saint at Wenlock, St Milburga, granddaughter of Penda, king of Mercia, and so dedicated the monastery church to St James, St Milburga, and St Mirren. The monastery was so richly endowed by the founder and his successors, as well as by the Lords of Lennox, that it soon became one of the most opulent houses in Scotland, none surpassing it except St Andrews, Kelso, Dunfermline, and Arbroath. Until 1219 it was only a priory, but it then received a bull from Pope Honorius constituting it an Abbey and separating it from the parent house at Wenlock, a privilege confirmed in 1334 by Pope Benedict, who declared the abbot entitled to wear a miter and ring, and the other marks of his dignity. What may have been the nature of the original buildings it is impossible to tell, for they were burned by the English in 1307 during the war of independence, and seem to have been almost entirely destroyed, and, notwithstanding that the Stewarts had their residence at hand, and that the abbey was their family burial place before their accession, and even occasionally afterwards, for both the queens of Robert II were buried here as well as Robert III, but little seems to have been done towards rebuilding or repair till the 15th century, although in 1380 a charter was obtained from Robert II erecting the lands of the Abbey in Dumbartonshire into a jurisdiction of regality, and another from Robert III in 1396 erecting the estates in Renfrew, Ayr, Roxburgh, and Peebles into a similar jurisdiction. The powers of the abbot were afterwards still farther extended in 1452 by James II, who granted to the regality court the power of trying the four crown pleas; and again in 1488 by James IV, who added the power of ‘repleging’ the tenants and inhabitants of the abbey estates from the king's courts. The greater part of the buildings now existing seem to have been erected by Abbot Thomas Tervas, who died in 1459, and Abbot George Shaw (1472-99). Of the former the Auchinleck Chronicle says that he ‘Wes ane richt gud man and helplyk to the place of ony that ever wes, for he did mony notabil things and held ane nobil hous and wes ay wele purvait. He fand the place al out of gud reule and destitute of leving and al the kirkis in lordis handis and the kirk unbiggit. The body of the kirk fra the bucht stair up he biggit, and put on the ruf and theekit it with sclats, and riggit it with stane, and biggit ane great porcioun of the steple and ane staitlie yet hous, and brocht hame mony gud jowellis and clathis of gold, silver, and silk, and mony gud bukis, and made statelie stallis and glassynnit mekle of al the kirk, and brocht hame the staitliest

tabernakle that wes in al Skotland, and the maist costlie; and schortlie he brocht al the place to fredome and fra nocht till ane michty place and left it out of al kind of det and al fredome, till dispone as them lykit, and left ane of the best myteris that was in Skotland, and chandillaris of silver and ane lettren of brass with mony uther gud jowellis.’ Abbot George Shaw, a younger son of Shaw of Sauchie in Stirlingshire, besides adding to the buildings, surrounded the abbey gardens and grounds by a magnificent stone wall, which ran from the north transept along the line of Lawn Street to the Wall Neuk, where it turned and ran along the line of Inkle Street; it then turned to the south by the edge of Mill Road till it terminated at the Pigeonhouse on the edge of the Cart, close to the waterfall at Seedhill mills. A stone with the inscription in old English characters:

‘Thei callit ye Abbot Georg of Schawe,

About yis Abbay gart mak yis waw;

A thousande four hundreth zheyr

Auchty and fyve, the date but ueir.

Pray for his salvatioun

That made this nobil fundacioun’

taken from the wall was formerly placed over the lintel of the door of a dwelling-house at the corner of Lawn Street and Inkle Street, but it is now fixed to the wall east of the door of the Public Library. The fifth line of the inscription was effaced by order, it is said, of one of the presbyterian ministers of the burgh, who thought it savored too much of prayer for the dead. Grose says that in his time there was at one of the corners of the wall a statue of the Virgin with the motto below:

‘Hac ne vade via nisi dixeris Ave Maria

Sit semper sine vae, qui tibi dicet Ave.’

“The wall remained nearly entire till 1781, when the Earl of Abercorn sold the stones to the feuars of the new town, who used them for building their houses, and a portion near Seedhill Bridge remained till after the middle of the present century. The first tower that was erected seems to have had insecure foundations, as it fell. The last abbot, John Hamilton (1525-45), rebuilt it at immense cost, but about the close of the century it again ‘fell with its own weight, and with it the Quire of the church’; at least so says Hamilton of Wishaw, but another account states that it was struck by lightning. In 1557 a body of Reformers attacked the abbey, ‘burnt all the ymages and ydols and popish stuff in the same’, and drove the monks out of the building, but owing to the somewhat unusual attachment of the people to the old faith, the abbey was ‘steyked’ against the reforming preachers, and in 1563 the charge was brought against the abbot of ‘in the town of Paslay, Kirkyard and Abbey place thereof, openlie, publiclie, and plainlie, taking auricular confession in the said kirk, toun, kirkyaird, chalmeries, barns, middens, killogies thereof’, but he seems to have got off lightly. Although John Hamilton had properly ceased to be abbot in 1545, he retained the abbacy, by consent of the queen, in trust for his nephew, Lord Claud Hamilton. He adhered to the cause of Queen Mary, and was consequently in 1568 declared a traitor by Regent Murray, and in 1571 captured and hanged. Lord Claud, having been present at the battle of Langside in the Queen's interest, was forfeited, and the lands of the abbey were bestowed on Robert, son of William Lord Sempil, till 1585, when Lord Claud returned from England and was restored to his property

and rights. Two years later the whole property which he had held hitherto merely as commendator, was erected into a temporal lordship, and granted to him and his heirs and assigns in fee, while he himself was created Lord Paisley. In 1652, his grandson and successor, the second earl, sold his opulent lordship to the Earl of Angus, from whom next year the larger part of it was purchased by Lord Cochrane, afterwards Earl of Dundonald. Large portions were at different times sold by the Dundonald family, and in 1764 what remained was repurchased from Thomas, eighth Earl of Dundonald, by James, eighth Earl of Abercorn, to whose descendant, the Duke of Abercorn, it now belongs.”304

John Bartholomew sheds light on: “Paisley, parliamentary and police burgh, parish, river port, and manufacturing town, Renfrewshire, on White Cart Water (3 miles from its confluence with the Clyde), 6 miles west of Glasgow and 396 miles northwest of London by rail - parish (divided into Paisley Abbey parish, population 34,393; Paisley High Church parish, population 17,914; Paisley Low Church parish, population 7,095; and Paisley Middle Church parish, population 13,128), 16,794 acres, population 72,530; parliamentary and police burgh, population 55,027; town, population 55,638; 7 Banks, 3 newspapers. Market-day, Thursday. Paisley, originally called Passeleth, sprang from the Abbey of Paisley, which was founded by Walter, High Steward of Scotland, about the year 1163. This abbey was burned by the English in 1307, and was not rebuilt till the 15th century. The nave is still used as the church of Abbey parish, and the edifice now belongs to the Duke of Abercorn. Paisley was made a burgh of barony in 1488, and was granted a crown charter in 1665. It is now a great seat of manufacture. The manufacturer of sewing thread made from linen yarn was introduced in 1722, and that of cotton thread is now the staple industry. Paisley has long been famous for its plaids or shawls, but owing to changes in fashion the trade in these shawls has much declined. Tapestry, embroidery, tartan, and carpet manufacturers are also carried on. There are extensive starch and corn-flour works, bleaching and dye works, chemical works, and a ship-building yard. The river Cart has been deepened from 8 to 12 ft, and new docks have been constructed. Among other distinguished natives of Paisley are Robert Tannahill (1774-1810), poet; Alexander Wilson (1766-1813), poet and American ornithologist; and Professor John Wilson (‘Christopher North’, 1785-1854), poet and essayist. Paisley returns 1 member to Parliament.”305

John Parkhill suggests: “Paisley has been long celebrated for the manufacture of thread. At first it was made from linen yarn, and originated with a Miss Shaw, daughter of the Laird of Bargarran, in the parish of Erskine. Miss Shaw is otherwise noted in the history and traditions of Paisley, by her connection with one of the last convictions for witchcraft in Scotland; it may, therefore, be interesting to notice this episode in her history, previous to our entering on our review of the thread trade. Hugo Arnot, Esq, introduces the story thus: ‘An imposter appeared in the character of a person tormented by witches. Christean Shaw, daughter of John Shaw, of Bargarran, a gentlemen of some note in the county of Renfrew. She is said to have been but eleven years of age. It is probable that hysterical affections may have occasioned her rhapsodies to proceed from real illusion, which would account in some measure for the contortions of her body. Yet, she seems to have displayed an artifice above her years, and an address superior to her situation. This mixed imposter quarreled with one of the mail-servants, Kate Campbell, which brought an angry retort from the Highland maiden. This was the prelude to the whole tragical imposition. It was not long till Miss Shaw began her work. She charged Kate Campbell (August, 1696) with being a witch, along with several others, among whom was the celebrated Maggy Lang, a midwife, in the parish of Erskine, an aged woman, pious, and, according to the concurrent testimony of tradition, of very superior talents. She declared she was tormented by these witches, was thrown into

strange contortions. She put out of her mouth egg-shells, feathers of wild and bones of tame fowl, hair of various colors, hot cinders, crooked pins, etc. This continued for ten months.

“The whole country was alarmed. Noblemen, gentlemen, ministers, judges, lawyers, and physicians, visited the diabolical and unhappy girl. The witches were brought to a trial, and condemned to be hanged, or rather half hanged, and burned. The ministers of the Presbytery joined heartily in the prosecution, held fast-days, and dealt with the prisoners. Not a voice was raised throughout Scotland in behalf of the poor injured creatures. Philosophy was extinct. It was even said that some of the prisoners confessed their guilt. No wonder, when they saw the contortions of Miss Shaw, and were told by everybody they conversed with that they were witches. They were so worn out and silly, they were actually in the belief they were witches, and so confessed. But it was strange that the ministers of the church, who had so recently come through the fiery ordeal of a bloody and cruel prosecution, did not lift up their voice in behalf of the poor wretches.

“The seven prisoners were taken to the place of execution on the forenoon of the 10th of June, 1687, and hanged for a short time, and then cut down, their bodies placed among a quantity of peats, on which was thrown a barrel of tar, and so burned to ashes. The place was at the foot of Maxwellton Street, where it crosses George Street. A vast concourse of people attend the execution, amongst whom was the most of the nobility and gentry of the country, together with the members of the Presbytery, who were appointed to attend. After the lapse of a few years, the Bargarran family began to think shame of the whole transaction, collected all the books of the witch narrative, and gave them the same law as the witches – burned them.”306

**SCOTTISH BORDERS**

“The Scottish Borders (Scots: The Mairches) is one of 32 council areas of Scotland. It is bordered by Dumfries and Galloway to the west, South Lanarkshire and West Lothian to the northwest, the City of Edinburgh, East Lothian and Midlothian to the north; and the non-metropolitan counties of Cumbria and Northumberland in England to the south and east. The administrative center of the area is Newtown St Boswells.

“Historically, the name Scottish Borders designated the entire border region of southern Scotland and, together with neighboring areas of England, was part of the historical Borders region.

“The Scottish Borders are located in the eastern part of the Southern Uplands.

“The region is hilly and largely rural, with the River Tweed flowing west to east through the region. In the east of the region the area that borders the River Tweed is flat and is known as 'The Merse'. The Tweed and its tributaries drain the entire region with the river flowing into the North Sea at Berwick-upon-Tweed, and forming the border with England for the last twenty miles or so of its length.

“The term ‘Central Borders’ refers to the area in which the majority of the main towns of Galashiels, Selkirk, Hawick, Jedburgh, Earlston, Kelso, Newtown St Boswells, St Boswells, Peebles, Melrose and Tweedbank are located.

“Historically, the term Borders has a wider meaning, referring to all of the burghs adjoining the English border, also including Dumfriesshire and Kirkcudbrightshire — as well as Northumberland, Cumberland and Westmorland in England.

“Roxburghshire and Berwickshire historically bore the brunt of the conflicts with England, both during declared wars such as the Wars of Scottish Independence, and armed raids which took place in the times of the Border Reivers. Thus, across the region are to be seen the ruins of many castles, abbeys and even towns.

“The area was created in 1975, by merging the former counties of Berwickshire, Peeblesshire, Roxburghshire, and Selkirkshire and part of Midlothian, as a two-tier region with the districts of Berwickshire, Ettrick and Lauderdale, Roxburgh, and Tweeddale within it. In 1996 the region became a unitary authority area and the districts were wound up. The region was created with the name ‘Borders’. Following the election of a shadow area council in 1995, the name was changed to ‘Scottish Borders’ with effect from 1996.

“Although there is evidence of some Scottish Gaelic in the origins of place names such as Innerleithen (‘confluence of the Leithen’), Kilbucho and Longformacus, which contain identifiably Goidelic rather than Brythonic Celtic elements, the language has tended to be weak to non-existent in most parts of the region. Since the 5th century, there has been evidence of two main languages in the area: Brythonic (in the west) and Old English (in the east), the latter of which developed into its modern forms of English and Scots.”307

***ASHIESTEIL, SCOTTISH BORDERS***

JM Wilson calls attention to: “Ashiestiel, a mansion on the right side of the Tweed, about midway between Traquair and Selkirk. It is situated among woods, at a beautiful reach of the river. Colonel William Russell of Ashiestiel earned a high military name in the wars of India, and particularly at Manilla. Sir Walter Scott, during ten years after the colonel’s death in 1802, resided at Ashiestiel; and he wrote here his Lay of the Last Minstrel, his Marmion, his Waverly, and some other of his immortal works. He was then commonly styled ‘The Sherra’; and a little hillock covered with trees, beneath whose shade much of his poetry was penned, still bears the name of ‘The Sherra’s Knowe’.”308

***BATTLE OF ANCRUM MOOR, SCOTTISH BORDERS***

www.well.com connotes: “According to Border legend, the Scottish woman warrior Maid Lilliard, was central in the defeat of the English at the Battle of Ancrum Moor in 1545, fighting and killing the English Commander in armed combat. There is a monument to Maid Lilliard, near Dere Street at the Scottish Border town of Lilliard Edge, the site of the battle.

“The Battle of Ancrum Moor was a decisive victory for Scotland, under Red Douglas, the Earl of Angus. The War was ‘The Rough Wooing’. The foe was Henry VIII's Army that had laid waste to much of Southern Scotland after the Scots refused to betroth the infant Mary Queen of Scots to Henry's son Edward. According to some accounts, it was Maid Lilliard who killed the brutal English leader Sir Ralph Evers. In other accounts, she rallied the far outnumbered Scottish forces and inspired the ensuing victory over Henry VIII's Army.

“By many accounts, Maid Lilliard was from Maxton, a town that in 1544 was viciously attacked by the English who killed many of the residents, including her family. Her lover was either killed in battle at Ancrum Moor or by Evers' Army at Maxton. By most accounts, Lilliard Edge, the site of the Battle, was named for Maid Lilliard; by other accounts Lilliard Edge was already the name of that part of the battle

site, indicating either that she was fighting to defend family lands or that she was given the name of the battle (as was the Maid of Orleans).

“The words inscribed on Maid Lilliard's grave are:

‘Fair maiden Lilliard lies under this stane,

Little was her stature, but great was her fame,

Upon the English loons she laid many thumps,

And when her legs were smitten off she fought upon her stumps.’

“There is some question as to whether this is a real description of the battle or - as happened in ancient history - an existing epigram adapted for a heroine.

“But the legend has endured, and there is no reason to suppose that such a story of female heroism would be invented.

“Beannachd Dia dhuit, Maid Lilliard!”309

***BATTLE OF CARHAM, SCOTTISH BORDERS 310 ***

Andrew Fisher details: “It was not to be expected that the arrangements entered into in the middle and latter parts of the tenth century would go unchallenged. The unsettled earldom of Northumbria tempted by the Scots. We cannot know whether Edgar, had he lived beyond 975, would have gone on to test the relationship with Scotland. His successor, Ethelred, to whom history has given the name of ‘Unready’ or devoid of counsel, was weak where Edgar had been strong. His inability to counter a renewal of the Danish attacks on England encouraged Malcolm II. In 1006 he mounted an invasion of Northumbria which like the rest of England was in a state of turmoil. Malcolm was repulsed by its earl and lost the Lothians. The reverse was temporary. Ethelred’s position deteriorated, and he was ousted by Sweyn I, ‘Forkbeard’, king of Denmark in his third invasion of England in 1013. When, a year later, he died suddenly, Ethelred was restored briefly until 1016. A further struggle for control of England ensued, culminating with the crowning of Cnut of Denmark as king of England. These continuing upheavals in England were not overlooked by Malcolm II. At the Battle of Carham which was fought on the Tweed either in 1016 or 1018, in alliance with Owen, titular king of Strathclyde, he destroyed the Northumbrian army and regained the Lothians. Owen of Strathclyde died about this time, either in the Battle of Carham or in its aftermath, and Malcolm made Duncan, his grandson, king of Strathclyde. Duncan came into an inheritance in 1034, as successor to Malcolm, of a kingdom which roughly covered modern Scotland with the exception of those areas still held by the Vikings. What had been the territory of the Scots, Pictland, the Lothians, Cumbria and Strathclyde were now united.”311

***CUTHBERT OF LINDISFARNE, SCOTTISH BORDERS***

www.englandsnortheast.co.uk explains: “Holy Island – Lindisfarne: Island and Causeway: Beyond Bamburgh and the tidal estuary-like mud flats of Budle Bay, is Holy Island, still often known by its more ancient name of Lindisfarne. It is only accessible from the mainland at low tide by means of a causeway, which can be reached from the village of Beal. To the south of the more modern road-surface causeway, a series of stakes mark the old route across to the island called the ‘Pilgrims Way’ which was

used in ancient times by visitors to the great Christian center of Lindisfarne. Again this could be crossed only at low tide, a situation perfectly described by Sir Walter Scott:

‘For with the flow and ebb, its style

Varies from continent to isle;

Dry shood o'er sands, twice every day,

The pilgrims to the shrine find way;

Twice every day the waves efface

Of staves and sandelled feet the trace.’

“The modern causeway reaches the island at a point called ‘the snook’, at the western tip of a long sandy peninsula, which leads the road to the attractive Holy Island village and the nearby ruins of a Norman priory.

“Lindisfarne's Norman priory stands on the site of an Anglo-Saxon monastery founded by St Aidan in AD 635, on land granted by Oswald, King and Saint of Northumbria. Aidan is believed to have chosen the island site because of its isolation and proximity to the Northumbrian capital at Bamburgh. Aidan, the first Bishop of Lindisfarne, a Scots-Celtic monk from the isle of Iona, travelled widely throughout Northumbria and with the help of King Oswald as interpreter, began the conversion of the pagan Northumbrians to Christianity. The conversion of the Northumbrians to Christianity by Aidan and Oswald, cannot have been an easy task.

“The Northumbrians were the descendants of a heathen race of people who were in many ways no more civilized than the Scandinavian Vikings, who invaded Britain centuries later. St Aidan's death in 651 AD, is said to have been related in a vision to a young shepherd boy called Cuthbert who lived in the hills somewhere near the River Tweed. The vision convinced Cuthbert that he should take up the life of a monk and at the age of sixteen, he entered the Northumbrian monastery of Melrose in Tweeddale (now in the southern borders of Scotland).

“In 654 Cuthbert came to Lindisfarne, where his reputed gift of healing and legendary ability to work miracles, achieved far reaching fame for the island. Cuthbert was elected Bishop of Hexham in 684 AD but exchanged the see for Lindisfarne, to become the fifth successor to Bishop Aidan. When Cuthbert died in 687 AD, he was buried in accordance with his wishes on the island of Lindisfarne, but eleven years after his death, his body was found to be in an incorrupt state by the astonished monks of the island. The monks were now convinced that Cuthbert was a saint, and pilgrims continued to flock to Lindisfarne in numbers as great as during Cuthbert's lifetime.

“In 793 AD Lindisfarne was to witness the first Viking raid on the coast of Britain, which was recorded with much drama by an informative book of the period called the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: ‘793. In this year terrible portents appeared over Northumbria, which sorely affrighted the inhabitants: there were exceptional flashes of lightning, and fiery dragons were seen flying through the air. A great famine followed hard upon these signs; and a little later in that same year, on the 8th June, the harrying of the heathen miserably destroyed God's church by rapine and slaughter.’

“The Anglo-Saxon chroniclers were largely responsible for giving the Vikings the ‘bad press’ they still have today. The chroniclers fail to mention that the Anglo-Saxons had invaded Britain in much the same way, two and a half centuries earlier. Nevertheless Viking raids on Lindisfarne's wealthy coastal monastery did continue throughout the following century, and in 875 AD the monks of Lindisfarne fled their Holy Island with the body of Cuthbert, remembering the dying wishes of their saint: ‘...if necessity compels you to chose between one of two evils, I would much rather you take my bones from their tomb and carry them away with you to whatever place of rest God may decree, rather than consent to iniquity and put your necks under the yokes of schismatics.’ For many years the monks wandered the north of England, with the coffin of St Cuthbert, until they eventually settled at Durham in 995 AD where St Cuthbert's body lies to this day.

“Just offshore from Holy Island village, is the small Island of Hobthrush, or St Cuthbert's Isle, where the saint was said to have crafted the legendary beads described by Sir Walter Scott in Marmion:

‘But fain St Hilda's nuns would learn

If on a rock by Lindisfarne

St Cuthbert sits and toils to frame

The sea borne beads that bear his name.

Such tales had Whitby's fishers told,

And said they might his shape behold,

And here his anvil sound:

A deadened clang - a huge dim form

Seen but and heart when gathering storm

And night were closing round.

But this, a tale of idle fame,

The nuns of Lindisfarne disclaim.’

“Cuthbert's or ‘Cuddy's Beads’ can still sometimes be seen washed up on the shores of Holy Island. They are in fact the fossilized remains of tiny sea creatures of the Crinoid type, which inhabited the ocean depths in prehistoric times. Supposedly resembling the shape of the cross, they were once used as Rosary beads.

“Although in Norman times Holy Island priory became a cell of Durham Cathedral, little is known of the island's history or people in the centuries following the Norman Conquest. There is, however one account which gives us an amusing insight into the attitudes of the island people in later centuries. The account is an observation by Captain Robin Rugg, the seventeenth century governor of Holy Island: ‘The common people there do pray for ships which they see in danger. They all sit down upon their knees and hold up their hands and say very devotedly, ‘Lord send her to us, God send her to us.’ You seeing them upon their knees, and their hands joined, do think that they are praying for your safety; but their minds are far from that. They pray, not to God to save you, or send you to port, but to send you to them

by shipwreck, that they may get the spoil of her. And to show that this is their meaning, if the ship come well to port, they get up in anger crying the Devil stick her, she is away from us.’

“Not exactly what we would expect from a ‘Holy’ Island, it seems that the islanders had inherited the rough ways of the border folk, so typical of Northumberland in those days gone by.

“Today the only feature of Holy Island, that suggests any involvement with the violet border history of Northumberland, is Lindisfarne Castle. First built in 1550, it sits romantically on the highest point of the island, a whin stone hill called Beblowe. The Castle has never witnessed any major battle or Border siege, although it was occupied by some Northumbrian Jacobites at the time of the 1715 Rising. Lindisfarne Castle was converted into a private residence by the well-known British architect Sir Edwin Lutyens in 1903. A small but superbly rugged looking building, it has been a National Trust property since 1944.”312

www.visitscottishborders.com imparts: “St Cuthbert’s Way crosses the national Scotland –England border.

“St Cuthbert: The life and progress of St Cuthbert has provided the inspiration for this route to be developed. St Cuthbert started his ministry in Melrose in about 650 AD. After a period at Ripon, he came to Lindisfarne to be Prior. While here, he became famous for his healing powers. He was appointed Bishop of Lindisfarne, and for several years travelled widely, preaching the Gospel.

“He spent the last part of his life on Inner Farne Island in retreat, where he died. He was buried on Lindisfarne. Eleven years later his coffin was opened, and his body was found to be perfectly preserved, which led to his beatification. In the following century, the Community of St Cuthbert was responsible for the Lindisfarne Gospels, perhaps the greatest work of art of the Anglo-Saxon period.

“In 875 AD, following a number of Viking raids, the Community left Lindisfarne carrying the saints’ relics, and were said to have rested in the spot now known as St Cuthbert’s Cave. The route of St Cuthbert’s Way thus links a number of places associated with his story. A fuller account is provided in the trail guide, and books about the saint can be purchased at the church, or at shops on Holy Island.

“The walk starts at the superb Melrose Abbey, a 12th century Cistercian foundation. From here it crosses the Eildon Hills to Bowden, and continues through Newtown St Boswells, and along the River Tweed to Maxton.

“Dere Street (Roman Road) is followed to the Harestanes Countryside Visitor Centre. A detour will allow you to visit the Waterloo Monument. The route continues to Cessford, where the formidable remains of Cessford Castle can be seen.

“The route continues through Morebattle and then climbs onto the 310m/1000ft Grubbit Law. From here a ridge walk with splendid views leads to the twin villages of Town and Kirk Yetholm. The route crosses the Border fence below Eccles Cairn and enters the Northumberland National Park.

“From Hethpool in the College Valley, a high level route crosses a moorland area rich in prehistoric remains before dropping down into the market town of Wooler. St Cuthbert’s Way then crosses Weetwood Moor and the River Till, reaching St Cuthbert’s Cave and soon gaining the first view of Lindisfarne. The final section leads on to the coast at the edge of the Holy Island sands. Take the

causeway onto the island, or follow the posts of the historic Pilgrims Path across the sands (for which a far shorter safe crossing time applies).”313

***EILDON HILL, SCOTTISH BORDERS***

Neil Oliver mentions: “While the hills were emptying in the north and west of Scotland, the ruling elites in the south and east began enforcing control of their own uplands by building grand hill forts on top of the most prominent summits. The effects of climate change were not uniform throughout the land, and the uplands of southern Scotland may have remained attractive for longer than those in the north. Eildon Hill in the Borders had space for as many as 6,000 people, but its severely exposed location, coupled with the absence of a water supply, make it obvious the place could never have been permanently occupied on such a scale. It is more likely Eildon and other similar forts were places for gatherings and festivals – and where people from the surrounding area, together with their livestock and other valuables, might retreat to in times of acute strife. Partly defensive and partly for show, these lofty residences speak loudly and clearly of control – control of a population large enough first of all to tackle the building jobs and then to maintain and occasionally defend the places.”314

***LADYKIRK, SCOTTISH BORDERS***

WH Purvis puts into words: “Ladykirk: The parish sits on the north bank (Scots side) of the river Tweed more or less opposite Norham and its formidable castle on the English side. It was once called Upsettintoune (Upsettlington), and a small settlement nearby still bears that name. In the late 1400s, King James IV of Scotland was nearly drowned when crossing the river nearby and vowed to build a church in memory of the ‘Blessed Virgin of the Steill’ who had saved him. (A steill is a deep pool where salmon nets are placed). The church was originally known as ‘The Kirk of Our Lady of the Steill’ (Kirk being Scots for church) which through time became known as the Lady’s Kirk or Ladykirk.

“The church was originally built entirely of stone so that it could not be burnt by cross-border raiders. At one time even the pews (seats) were stone although these were replaced by wooden ones many years ago.

“As an aside King James IV and a large number of Scottish nobility were killed at the battle of Flodden in September 1513, and events are being held on both sides of the border to commemorate the 500th anniversary of this including a flower festival in Ladykirk Church.

“I enclose a leaflet giving some details of the church.

“Ladykirk Church or The Kirk of Our Lady of the Steill: The parish of Ladykirk lies along the northern bank of the River Tweed, which separates Scotland and England, and is about a halfway between Coldstream and Berwick. Norham Castle – the stronghold for the north of England – stands just across the river, whilst Halidon Hill and Flodden Field (two of the battles between the nations) are just seven miles away (1333 and 1513 respectively).

“The Kirk of Our Lady of the Steill (or, as it is now called, Ladykirk) originated during one of the many raids across the border, when, so the legend goes, King James IV of Scotland was nearly drowned crossing the ford which is just below the church. He, it is claimed, vowed to build a church in memory of the Blessed Virgin of the Steill who had saved him. (A steill is a deep pool where salmon nets are placed.) His vow included the fact that the church should be one that could not be destroyed by either

fire or flood (thus the very unusual stone roof), thinking, no doubt, of the many cross-border burning raids and the frequent floods of the Tweed valley. When exactly this event took place we do not know, but it is known that James IV passed this way in 1496 and 1497. By 5th March 1500 the building had commenced, and the work was entrusted to Sir Patrick Blackadder, and then in 1504 to George Ker. The stone used came from the Swinton Quarry (about 3 miles west), and the cost was about 1,200 pounds (1.5 million pounds in today’s prices). The king came often to see how the church was progressing – in 1501, twice in 1505, in 1507 and before the ill-fated Flodden in 1513. He was present at a service in 1505 and gave ‘14/-’ as an offering.

“On first appearance the kirk looks large and imposing with its twenty large buttresses. These are necessary to support the weight of the roof which is covered with overlapping stones of wrought ashlar. Each of the buttresses is topped with a pinnacle – one of which bears a St Andrew’s Cross, and another a sundial. The tower was completed in 1743, only the lower part being original (to just above the clock). The upper portion was designed by William Adam (father of Robert Adam), whilst the clock was put in in 1882 by Lady Marjoribanks. Both of these alterations are commemorated inside the building on the west gable wall. There is a marble slab in Latin for the 1743 alteration, and the gift of the clock is recognized by the brass memorial. Between the two is a reminder that the kirk was also restored in 1861. At that time the kirk was reseated and the walls were cleaned. It was probably at the time that wooden pews were first introduced. Over the chancel door (southeast door) there is a stone slab with another inscription reminding us of the gift from James IV and the founding of the kirk in 1500 – the year of the Papal Jubilee. This probably dates from the 1743 restoration. There were originally four doors into the kirk, but the door into the south transept has long since been blocked up. The priest’s door into the chancel, and the main door into the nave have heavy iron gates on the outside. Over the main door there probably was a statue of the Virgin, but there is no trace of it now. Over the north door, which now leads into the vestry, was a stone which had the Royal Arms of Scotland surrounded by the Collar of the Garter. This reminded people of the fact that Henry VII of England did compliment James IV with the Order of the Garter, as James was about to marry ‘Margarita Henrici, nata major filia’; an event which was of great consequence as it led, in the third generation, to the Union of the Crowns of Scotland and England in 1603. Sadly that stone has disappeared too.

“One of the most striking features of the kirk is the elliptic form of the arches over the windows on the south side. This unusual form is obviously from the understandable desire to make these windows as wide as possible to admit more light, but it is strange that these windows are not reciprocated on the north side of the kirk.

“‘The kirk is cruciform in plan and consists of the aisleless nave with a tower at the west end, a chancel with a semi-hexagonal termination, and north and south transepts, or transeptal chapels, similar in form to the chancel’, so wrote Mr John Ferguson, FSA, before the First World War. The nave is actually 41’ 8” in length (12.7 meters) whilst the chancel is 36’ long (11m) and both are 23’ 3” wide (7.1m). When the width of the transepts is taken into account, the whole kirk is 94’ 6” in length (28.8m). The internal projections of the chapels are 15’ 10” on the north (4.8m) and 16’ 4” on the south (5m). The walls above the arches that lead into the transepts are carried vertically up above the roof outside, and form gables for the transept roofs – a very unusual, if not unique feature.

“The body of the church and the transepts are covered with pointed barrel vaults, with ribs at intervals, springing from small corbels, and the whole is roofed with overlapping stone flags. The side windows,

although they are of considerable width, are low compared with the height of the church as they are entirely below the springing of the vault. The side walls rise greatly above the windows, and this with the lofty vault makes the building dark. The arches which open from the main church into the transepts are also kept below the springing of the main vault, and are therefore low, but the windows in the transepts are kept well up. The height of the roof, 36’ (11m), is impressive and there are only the transverse ribs to relieve the baldness of the stone roof. A number of memorials help to break the bareness of the walls, and five stained glass windows lend a touch of color. The arrangement of the seating was altered in 1987 so that all the congregation now face east, where both the Communion Table and the pulpit are. The pews and the pulpit came from Berwick St Andrew’s which, sadly, had to be demolished, and these new pews have given the kirk a brighter and lighter look, as well as being better acoustically and aesthetically. Behind the pulpit can be found an old mort chest which came from Liverpool: St Nicholas’. This was gifted to Ladykirk by Lady Marjoribanks, and it has a carving of the Flight into Egypt as well as the motto ‘God’s worst is better than the world’s best’.

“At the west end of the kirk is a modern bust of James IV by Mr Handyside Ritchie, and there is also a door which leads into the newel stair by which access can be gained to the upper floors of the tower. These were the priest’s rooms, and are vaulted. One of them had a window through which the priest could look at the church, whilst the other has a fireplace. It is possible that when the kirk was originally built that the tower was used as a watch tower as it commands a great view not only of the ford across the Tweed, but also of Norham Castle. Across that ford came many famous people – Malcolm IV, Robert the Bruce, William the Conqueror, Edward I, Queen Mary of Lorraine, John Knox, Oliver Cromwell, Sir Walter Scott, and also Sir Robert Carey, who in 1603 rushed north to proclaim James IV’s great-grandson, James VI, King of England as well as Scotland.

“After that peace came to this area, and Ladykirk became one of the best ‘livings’ in Scotland, and the crown decided who was to be the minister (until 1874 when it passed to the congregation). The last minister to be presented by the crown was Rev W Dobie, and a copy of the parchment sealed by Queen Victoria is in the north transept.

“The parish of Ladykirk itself is made up of two old parishes – Horndean and Upsettlington – both of which go back to the time of King Edgar (1097-1107). In the first recorded decision under Scottish Law, the King’s brother had to decide who owned Horndean parish. The parish of Upsettlington was founded by monks going to and fro between Melrose Abbey and Holy Island. At the ford they rested for the night (settled up above the ford). This piece of Scotland was long held for the English Church by the Bishops of Durham via the Vicar of Norham, and this parish of Upsettlington was recognized by both sides as ‘debatable ground’. It was therefore in the parish of Upsettlington that the Wardens of the East Marches met to decide upon the many grievances that arose between the two nations of Scotland and England.

“This privilege of being the meeting place of the Wardens passed to Ladykirk, and it was in Ladykirk that the Earl of Bothwell and his English counterpart met and decided upon over one thousand complaints. It was also in the Ladykirk that the Supplementary Treaty of the Treaty of Chateau Cambresis was signed in 1559, bringing to an end the many years of conflict. This was the last Peace Treaty to be signed between the two nations ending forever the comings and goings of war. This event took place in the same parish as one of the first events in the Scottish Wars of Independence when, 1291, the rival claimants for the Scottish throne appeared in front of Edward I of England. So it can be said that

Ladykirk saw both the beginning and the end of the time of war between the two nations who now live in peace and harmony (but with some friendly rivalry).

“Within Ladykirk are various links with other churches, to remind us that we are part of the Universal Church of Jesus Church – The mort chest, behind the pulpit, came from St Nicholas’ Parish Church in Liverpool; the pews and pulpit are from St Andrew’s Church of Scotland in Berwick; and the pipe organ came from The Kirk of the Holy Rood in Grangemouth.

“In 1992 the pipe organ was installed at the west end of the kirk. It was built by Henry Willis in 1963, and was overhauled and built into Ladykirk by Julian Bonia from Norham. The organ pipes are divided in two and are fixed to the west wall and flank the bust of James IV, whilst the console is in the south transept – some 60 feet away (17m).

“Although the Kirk of Our Lady of the Steill was built in the middle of a period of war, it has withstood the fires of war and the floods of time to become a place where men met to negotiate peace, and where people from both nations (and other nations too) meet to worship the Prince of Peace.”315

***LAUDER, SCOTTISH BORDERS 316 ***

Neil Oliver reports: “Spurred into action, King James led his own army south. He got as far as Lauder, in July 1482, before a farcical coup d’etat was attempted by some of his nobles. In the huff about non-nobles in positions of command in the army, they took the law into their own hands, cancelling the invasion and kidnapping the king. James was frog-marched all the way home and shut up in Edinburgh Castle. He must have been livid. After mysterious negotiations that may have involved Queen Margrethe and the elder Prince James, the king was triumphantly released – by his brother Albany! The affair has gone down in history as the ‘Lauder Lynching’, and the alleged involvement of his eldest son may explain the sour relations that existed between the pair for the rest of the reign.”317

***MOREBATTLE, SCOTTISH BORDERS***

FH Groome shows: “Morebattle, a Border village and parish of east Roxburghshire. The village stands, 320 feet above sea, level, on a gentle eminence, not far from the left bank of the winding Kale, 4 1/8 miles southwest of Yetholm and 7½ south-southeast of Kelso, under which it has a post office, with money order, savings' bank, and telegraph departments. Population (1871) 327, (1881) 322.

“The parish, comprising the ancient parish of Mow, is bounded northwest by Linton, northeast by Yetholm, east and southeast by Northumberland, southwest by Hounam, and west by Eckford. Its utmost length, from north-northwest to south-southeast, is 9 5/8 miles; its utmost breadth is 7 miles; and its area is 35 1/6 square miles or 22,518 acres, of which 183½ are water. Kale Water flows 4 1/8 miles northward and westward, partly along the Hounam and Linton boundaries, partly across the western interior; and Bowmont Water, formed at Cocklawfoot (780 feet) by head-streams that rise among the Cheviots on the English Border at altitudes of from 1,700 to 2,350 feet, runs 7 5/8 miles north-westward and northward till it passes off near Hayhope into Yetholm parish. Yetholm or Primside Loch (3 x 1 2/3 furlongs) lies just on the Yetholm boundary. Along Bowmont Water the surface declines to 385, along Kale Water to 220, feet above the sea; and chief elevations, from north to south, are *Linton Hill (926 feet), Clifton Hill (905), *Windshaw Hill (1067), Morebattle Hill (719), the Curr (1,849), the *Schel (1,979), *Auchopecairn (2,422), and *Windygate Hill (2,034), where asterisks mark those summits that culminate on the confines of the parish. Indeed, excepting two small tracts in the extreme

northwest and north, all Morebattle consists of hills and narrow valleys, and runs up along the whole boundary with England to the highest summits of the Cheviots. Its heights command, in many instances, very grand and map-like views of Teviotdale, Merse, and Northumberland, fringed on the east by the German Ocean; and generally have a graceful outline and a deep verdure, unlike the usual stern features of a mountainous district. Only a fair proportion of wood is wanted to complete that blending of grandeur into beauty which is due to the district's natural form and clothing. The predominant rocks are eruptive; and the soil of the arable lands is mostly light, well suited to the turnip husbandry. The higher grounds are chiefly disposed in pasture. Corbet Tower, near the Kale's left bank, 1 mile south-southeast of the village of Morebattle, was burned by the English in 1522 and 1545. Rebuilt in 1575, it gradually fell into decay, till early in this century it was renovated by Sir Charles Ker of Gateshaw, though never inhabited. Whitton Tower, 1 7/8 mile south-southwest of the village, was sacked by the Earl of Surrey in 1523, and burned by Hertford in 1545, and is now in a ruinous condition. Other towers and peel-houses of the parish which figure in Border records have disappeared; but on many of the heights are encampments. The church of Merebotle or Morebattle (‘village on the mere or lake’) belonged to Glasgow cathedral as early as the 12th century, but was the subject of pertinacious controversy regarding the right to its temporalities; and eventually, in 1228, was declared to be a pre-bend of Glasgow, whose archdeacon should receive thirty merks a year for a mansion, but should claim nothing of the rectory. There were two pre-Reformation chapels in the parish: the one at Clifton on Bowmont Water, and the other at Whitton, now called Nether-Whitton. Mow or Moll included the highest grounds or southern and southeastern parts of the united parish. Its village stood on Bowmont Water near Mowhaugh, 5¼ miles south of Yetholm; and its church stood a little lower down the river. The church belonged to the monks of Kelso. Those of Melrose also held lands in the parish; and their refusal to pay the tithes gave rise to a dispute, which was finally settled in 1309. The principal residences are Lochside, Otterburn, and Gateshaw; and 7 proprietors hold each an annual value of 500 pounds and upwards, 2 of between 100 and 500 pounds, and 4 of from 20 to 50 pounds. Morebattle is in the presbytery of Kelso and the synod of Merse and Teviotdale; the living is worth 343 pounds. The parish church, at the village, was built in 1757, and contains 300 sittings. In the village are also a Free and a United Presbyterian church, the latter representing the oldest Secession congregation in the South of Scotland. Their first minister, Mr Hunter, was ordained in 1739, and was the earliest Secession licentiate; but he died a few months after his ordination. The original meeting-house stood at Gateshaw Brae or Corbet, and the present one was built in 1866. A great religious meeting, conducted by a body of Secession ministers from a distance, was held in 1839, on Gateshaw Brae, to celebrate the centenary of Mr Hunter's ordination. Two public schools, Morebattle and Mowhaugh, with respective accommodation for 125 and 28 children, had (1883) an average attendance of 104 and 19, and grants of 94 pounds, 11 shillings and 34 pounds, 2 shillings, 6 pence.”318

***ROXBURGH, SCOTTISH BORDERS 319 ***

Neil Oliver talks about: “It was in his treatment of two of Robert’s women that Edward revealed the true temperature of his vengeful wrath. He had two cages built, one each in Roxburgh and Berwick castles. Robert’s twenty-four-year-old sister Mary was imprisoned in the first and Isabella, Countess of Buchan – who had placed the gold circlet on the king’s head – in the second. The cages were hung from turrets, in public view, and may have been open to the elements. Both remained in those conditions until at least 1310, when it seems they may have been moved into convents. Edward initially sentenced little Marjorie, just eleven or twelve years old, to the same fate. Just in time he relented and sent her to a

convent instead. Queen Elizabeth was placed under house arrest in Holderness. She would not see her husband again for eight years. Her sister-in-law Christian Bruce was sent to a convent.”

Neil Oliver continues: “James was at Roxburgh Castle on 3 August 1460, in the middle of a long, hot summer campaign, when word reached him that his wife, Queen Mary, was about to arrive for a visit. Excited by the news, he gave orders to prepare one of his cannons to fire a salute in her honor. He was standing close by the weapon when the gunner put fire to it. A fault in the casting, or maybe over-use that hot day? Who knows? In any case the gun tore itself apart, sending lethal lumps and shards of metal flying in all directions. King James II, just twenty-nine, was dead.”320

***THE BORDER ABBEYS, SCOTTISH BORDERS 321 ***

Julie Davidson catalogs: “The malevolent ghost of Henry VIII stalks the empty naves and shattered walls of the four 12th-century Border abbeys: Jedburgh, Dryburgh, Melrose and Kelso, splendid ruins which have acquired a dignity that defies their lost purpose. England’s wife-swapping Tudor king has become almost a comic figure in popular culture for the brevity of his marital attention-span – and his bloodthirsty option to the quickie divorce – but he was a violent and vindictive man. When the Scottish government, led by Cardinal Beaton and Mary of Guise, mother of Mary Queen of Scots, resisted his efforts to broker a marriage between his son Edward and the infant Mary (a union which would have dissolved the ‘Auld Alliance’ between Scotland and France and given Henry a stranglehold on Scotland), he pursued a policy of ‘rough wooing’, as it came to be called. His armies rampaged through the Borders with sword and torch, and the great abbeys fell.

“Three of them are embedded in their venerable towns, but Dryburgh’s setting is pastoral and stands among trees beside the River Tweed. The most complete of the quartet, it was founded in 1150, probably by Sir Hugh de Montford, Constable of Scotland. Successive assaults by the English reached their climax in 1544, when it became another casualty of Henry’s Rough Wooing. In the early 1700s the abbey lands belonged to the great-grandfather of Sir Walter Scott, and even when they had passed out of their hands, the family retained the right to ‘stretch their bones’ there. The writer is buried in the abbey church, and it’s said that when the mile-long cortege was on its way from Abbotsford, the horses automatically stopped at Sir Walter’s favorite view of the triple peaks of the Eildon Hills, now called ‘Scott’s View’.

“The abbeys of Jedburgh, Melrose and Kelso all owe their existence to one of Scotland’s most pious and influential kings: David I. The oldest is Kelso, which David established in 1128, and its remnants are sparse. What remains – a mixture of Norman and Gothic styles – is only the West end of what was a monumental church, which claimed precedence over St Andrews. Its definitive catastrophe arrived in 1545 with one of Henry’s generals, who found the abbey garrisoned, killed all defenders, including 12 monks, and razed the buildings.

“Melrose Abbey belongs to the Borders’ most picturesque town, which lies at the foot of the Eildon Hills. It was founded in 1136 for Cistercian monks from Rievaulx, in Yorkshire, and was a successor to the 7th century monastery of Old Melrose. It sits in peaceful gardens between the Eildon slopes, the small town center and the Tweed, and despite the fact that it was repeatedly wrecked over four centuries and then used for building material, some of its elaborate stonework and fine carvings have survived. The abbey is more popularly famous for its claim on the heart of Robert the Bruce, who restored it in 1326 after the

first English demolition and bequeathed his vital organ in his handiwork. It, too, was destroyed and abandoned in 1545, after another bout of Rough Wooing.

“The town of Jedburgh is only 10 miles from the thrilling Border crossing of Carter Bar, a high gateway in the Cheviot Hills. Its abbey dominates an early Christian site above the Jed Water and was originally a priory, founded in 1138, which achieved abbey status nine years later. It, too, endured the usual cycle of English sacking and Scots restoration until it was finally destroyed between 1544 and 1545. It should be added that, from the 16th century onwards, the neglect of all these noble buildings was down to Scotland’s Protestant Reformation, which was not kind to Catholic churches and expunged their statuary and works of art. The Reformers also requisitioned the buildings for their new form of worship, and part of Jedburgh’s nave was used as the parish church until 1875.”322

**SHETLAND ISLANDS**

“In AD 43 and 77 the Roman authors Pomponius Mela and Pliny the Elder referred to the seven islands they call Haemodae and Acmodae respectively, both of which are assumed to be Shetland. Another possible early written reference to the islands is Tacitus' report in AD 98, after describing the discovery and conquest of Orkney, that the Roman fleet had seen ‘Thule, too’. In early Irish literature, Shetland is referred to as Inse Catt — ‘the Isles of Cats’, which may have been the pre-Norse inhabitants' name for the islands. The Cat tribe also occupied parts of the northern Scottish mainland, and their name can be found in Caithness, and in the Gaelic name for Sutherland (Cataibh, meaning ‘among the Cats’).

“The oldest version of the modern name Shetland is Hetlandensis, the Latinized genitive form of the Old Norse name recorded in a letter from Harald count of Shetland in 1190, becoming Hetland in 1431 after various intermediate transformations. It is possible that the Pictish ‘cat’ sound forms part of this Norse name. It then became Hjaltland in the 16th century.

“As Norse was gradually replaced by Scots, Hjaltland became Zetland. The initial letter is the Middle Scots letter, ‘yogh’, the pronunciation of which is almost identical to the original Norn sound, ‘/hj/’. When the use of the letter yogh was discontinued, it was often replaced by the similar-looking letter ‘z’, hence Zetland, the misspelt form used to describe the pre-1975 county council.

“Most of the individual islands have Norse names, although the derivations of some are obscure and may represent pre-Norse, possibly Pictish or even pre-Celtic names or elements.”323

FH Groome conveys: “Shetland, a group of islands and islets lying northeast of the Orkney Islands, forming a division of the county of Orkney and Shetland, and the most northerly part of the whole of Scotland. The group consists of 29 inhabited islands, about 71 smaller islands used for grazing purposes, and a very large number of waste rocky islets and skerries. All the islands except two - Fair lsle and Foula - form a compact group, the most southerly point of which, Sumburgh Head, is 50 miles northeast of Point of Sinsoss, the most northerly point of North Ronaldshay. Fair Isle is 27 miles east-northeast of Point of Sinsoss and 24 southwest of Sumburgh Head, and Foula is 27 miles west of Scalloway and 16 west-southwest of the nearest part of the Mainland Island at Wats Ness in the parish of Delting. Four miles northeast of Foula are the Havre de Grind Rocks. The group extends from north latitude 60 degrees 51’ 45” (Out Stack, north of Unst) to 59 degrees 30’ 30” (Meo Ness at the south end of Fair Isle), and from west longitude 0 degrees 40’ 20” (Bound Skerry, one of the Out Skerries northeast of Whalsey) to west longitude 2 degrees 7’ (Wester Hoevdi on the west side of Foula). Excluding the outlying islands,

the compact main portion extends from north latitude 60 degrees 51’ 45” (at Out Stack) to 59 degrees 50’ 56” at Horse Island west by south of Sumburgh Head, and from west longitude 0 degrees 40’ 20” (at Bound Skerry) to 1 degrees 40’ 30” at Fogla Skerry west of Papa Stour. The distance in a straight line, from either The Gord or The Noup at the north end of Unst south-southwestward to Sumburgh Head, is 70 miles, and the breadth, from Bound Skerry west-southwestward to Fogla Skerry, 35¾ miles, but the average breadth is very much less. Sumburgh Head lies 170 miles north of Buchan Ness, and the distance from Out Skerries across the North Sea to the mainland of Norway near Bergen is 204 miles. The principal island of the group is the Mainland, which comprises more than half the area, and contains fully two-thirds of the inhabitants. It extends from north to south for 54 miles - that being the distance in a straight line from Point of Fethaland (north) to Sumburgh Head (south) - and has an extreme breadth of 21 5/8 miles from Stava Ness on the south side of Dury Voe opposite Whalsey, to Matta Taing on the west near Melby. It is impossible to give any general idea of its outline, as the coast-line is everywhere broken up by deep voes, some of which run so far inland as almost to divide the land into several islands. The chief of these bays or inlets are, from north to south, along the east coast, Burra Voe, Colla Firth, Gluss Voe, Sullom Voe - including Ell Wick (at the head) and Garths Voe (east) - Orka Voe, Dales Voe, another Colla Firth, Swining Voe, and Lunna Voe - these four all close together west of Lunnasting - Hamna Voe, Vidlin Voe, Dury Voe, South Nesting Bay, Cat Firth, Wadbister Voe, Lax Firth, another Dales Voe - these four close together to the north of Bressay Sound - Brei Wick, Voe of Sound, Gulber Wick, Aith Voe, Sand Wick, Hos Wick, Channer Wick, and Leven Wick - the last four all branches of one great opening near Sandwick: at the south end West Voe of Sumburgh, and on the other side of Scatness Quendale Bay: on the west side of the long promontory that runs southward and terminates at Sumburgh Head are St Ninian's Bay and Bigton Wick, and away to the north of this is Clift Sound, at the upper end of which is Scalloway Bay, and farther north are Whiteness Voe, Stromness Voe, Weisdale Voe, Sandsound Voe, Sand Voe, Seli Voe, Skelda Voe - the last five opening out into The Deeps and Sandsound Voe passing up into Sandsting Firth and Bixter Voe: farther west are Gruting Voe passing up into Browland Voe, and Vaila Sound; and on the west side of the island is the great St Magnus Bay (12 x 7 miles), with Voe of Snarraness, West Burra Firth, Brindister Voe, and Voe of Clousta on the south; Aith Voe (southeast), Gon Firth and Olna Firth (center), and Busta Voe (northeast) - at the head; and Mangaster Voe, Ura Firth, and Brei Wick, on the north: and farther north still is Ronas Voe. Many of the inlets are well sheltered, and afford convenient anchorages. St Magnus Bay and Ell Wick at the head of Sullom Voe approach so near to one another that the parish of Delting is connected with the rest of the mainland by a narrow neck of land only some hundred yards wide, and at Gluss Voe, Orka Voe, Lunna Voe, and elsewhere there are also very narrow necks. All round Mainland are many islands and islets, the chief of the former, exclusive of Yell, being West Linga, Whalsey, Bressay, Isle of Noss, and Mousa on the east side; East Burra, West Burra, Trondra, and Vaila on the southwest; Papa Stour on the west, and Muckle Rooe, Vementry, and Papa Little at the head of St Magnus Bay. Of the islets the chief are Gruney (¾ mile north of Point of Fethaland), Muckle Holm, Lamba, Brother Isle, Little Roe, Uynarey, Bigga, Samphrey, Fish Holm, Linga, and Lunna Holm, all in Yell Sound; East Linga, east of Whalsey; Colsay, at St Ninian's Bay; South Havra, south of Burra; Papa, Oxna, Langa, and Hildasay, northwest of Burra; and Linga, east of Muckle Rooe. West Linga is separated from the main island by Lunning Sound (1 1/8 mile), and from Whalsey by Linga Sound (4 furlongs); Bressay from the main island by Bressay Sound (¼ to 1 mile), and Isle of Noss from Bressay by Noss Sound (200 yards); Mousa from the main island by Mousa Sound (½ mile at narrowest part); East Burra and Trondra from the main island by Clift Sound (¼ to ¾ mile), the one from the other by Stream Sound (200 yards), and East Burra from West Burra by Long

Sound (north), South Voe (middle), and West Voe (south), none of these being anywhere more than ½ mile wide, and so narrow at the junction of Long Sound and South Voe that the two islands are here connected by a bridge; Vaila is separated from the main island by Wester Sound (¼ mile northwest), Vaila Sound (north), and Easter Sound (300 yards northeast); Papa Stour from the main island by Sound of Papa (1 mile); Vementry by Criba Sound and Uyea Sound (100 to 400 yards, both southeast); Papa Little by The Rona (3 furl southwest) and Sound of Houbansetter (¼ to ½ mile east); and Muckle Rooe from Vementry by Swarbacks Minn (1 mile south) and from the main island by Roe Sound (150 to 300 yards northeast). Four miles northeast of Whalsey are the Out Skerries, the most easterly of them being Bound Skerry; and northeast of Mainland are the large islands of Yell, Unst, and Fetlar. Yell is separated from Mainland by Yell Sound, which runs due north and south for 10 miles, and then passes southeast for 2½ miles, and east for 4. The north-and-south portion has an average breadth of from 3½ to 4 miles; the narrowest part is about the middle of the southeasterly portion, where, at the island of Bigga, the width is only 2¼ miles; and at the east end the distance from Lunna Holm (Mainland) to Burra Ness (Yell) is fully 2¼ miles. The small islands lying in the Sound have been already mentioned, and at the northwest corner of Yell is the small Gloup Holm, at the south end of Bluemull Sound is one of the many islands called Linga, and farther south opposite the middle of the east coast is Hascosay, separated from Yell by Hascosay Sound (½ mile), to the east of which beyond Colgrave Sound (¾ mile to 4 miles) is Fetlar. To the northeast of Yell, and separated from it by Bluemull Sound (½ to 1 mile wide and 4 miles long), is Unst, with the Rumblings, Tipta, Muckle Flugga, and Out Stack skerries to the north, the last being the most northerly portion of Scottish land. Off the middle of the east coast are Balta and Huney; near the southeast corner is the small Haaf Gruney; and at the south end is Uyea, separated from Unst by Uyea Sound (2½ furlongs northwest) and Skuda Sound (¼ to ½ mile north-northeast).

“Set thus ‘far amid the melancholy main’, and that main, too, of such a boisterous and uncertain nature, it is hardly to be wondered that the Shetland Islands long remained a terra incognita - of which the inhabitants of the adjacent islands of Great Britain and Ireland, had only the vaguest idea, and that idea, like everything vague, almost entirely wrong - more especially when we consider that the only means of communication in the beginning of the century was a sloop, which was supposed to sail from Aberdeen once a month for Lerwick; but as the start depended on the weather and the skipper, only some seven voyages a year were actually made. Yet notwithstanding this, one is hardly prepared to find in the edition of Bailey's Dictionary, published in 1800, Shetland described as consisting of about forty islands at the north of Scotland, where the sun does not set for two months in summer, and does not rise for two months in winter; or that somewhere about 1810, the Commissioners of Customs refused to pay bounty on some herring caught about Shetland in the winter, on the ground that, as the islands were surrounded by ice at that season of the year, no fish could possibly have been caught there; though perhaps such ignorance can hardly be wondered at when we reflect that about 1854, the Home Office authorities seem to have labored under the delusion that Gaelic was the common dialect in Orkney; that in 1872 the Education Department were so ignorant of the real condition of the islands, that they approved of plans whereby the school board of Mid and South Yell proposed to spend about 7,000 pounds in the erection of six schools, while the whole rental of the parish, from rates on which this was to be paid, amounted to only 1,300 pounds; and that in 1882, one of the leading London dailies informed its readers that a Glasgow artist had been drowned at ‘Kirkwall, Shetland!’ Except business men and an occasional traveler of scientific tastes, the islands had, before the publication of the Pirate, and still more the introduction of steam communication all the year round in 1853, practically no visitors at all, but this is now changed, and the northern archipelago has a very large tourist traffic.

Nor is this to be wondered at, for the scenery of Shetland is far before that of Orkney, and the rocks are surpassed by nothing anywhere in Britain, and hardly equaled out of Cornwall – ‘a strange wild land of stacks and skerries, of voes and geos, and of cliffs and caves’, with but few things to compare with the grand sweep of St Magnus Bay, as seen from the top of Sandness Hill, or with the cliffs of Foula. ‘It would almost seem,’ says Sheriff Rampini, ‘as if the Shetland Islands had been specially prepared by nature to be the home of a Scandinavian people. None but the hardy Norsemen:

‘Whose house, of yore,

Was on the foaming wave,’

would voluntarily have selected this desert of peat-moss and weathered rock – ‘this wilderness of mount and moor and moss, quhairin are divers great waters’, - for his chosen resting place. For, after all, this ‘Old Rock’, as its sons love to call it, is no land flowing with milk and honey, no Goshen, no Deseret, no Land of Promise, no:

‘Emerald isles of Paradise

Set in an azure sea.’

“The name is derived from the Scandinavia Hjaltland or ‘high-land’ – whence Hjatland, Zetland, and Shetland. The history is so largely identified and intermixed with that of Orkney that the outline given in dealing with that group is in great measure applicable to both. In 1195 the lordship of Shetland became separated from that of Orkney in consequence of the rebellion of Jarl Harald against Sverrir, King of Norway, and the two were not again united till the grant by King Hakon to Henry St Clair in 1379. During the interval the islands are in the happy condition of having no history except what may be connected with the forays of the Vikings that frequented their bays and sounds; and yet it was during this period that the Norseman, with all his ways, took firm root here, and laid the foundation of all the peculiarities of the Shetlander to the present day. Gifford, who wrote in 1733, draws indeed a melancholy picture of the state of the islands during this period under the direct rule of the Kings of Norway, but whence he procured his materials is very doubtful. If any really exist, they must be in the archives at Bergen. ‘The poor udallers,’ he says, ‘were miserably oppressed by the governor or Foud and kept under, being forbidden all sort of commerce with foreigners, as the subjects of that king are to this day in Faro and Island: so there was no such thing as money amongst them; and what they had of the country product more than paid the corn rent, they were obliged to bring to the governor, who gave them for it such necessaries as they could not be without, and at what prices he had a mind, wherewith they were obliged to rest content, having no way to be redressed. Kept under this slavery they were miserably poor, careless, and indolent, and most of their young men, when grown up, finding the poor living their native country was likely to afford them, went abroad, and served in foreign countries for their bread, and seldom or never returned: so that these Islands were but thinly inhabited, an excellent lesson this last for the Highland and Island crofters. After the islands passed under the sway of the Scottish kings, the government was still more oppressive, as Crown donator after Crown donatory, looking on them as a milch cow to be squeezed for their own especial benefit, laid heavier and heavier imposts on the long suffering people, and it is to this time that the old hatred of Scotland and the ‘ferry-loupin’ Scots is to be traced. The history during this whole period and down to 1766, when Shetland was sold by the Earl of Morton to the ancestor of the Earls of Zetland, is simply one long tale of oppression. During the 18th century, the government was based on a series of ‘Country Acts’ applicable to this stewartry, and passed

with consent of the heritors and kirk-session. They are excellent specimens of good old grandmotherly legislation, providing among other things that all persons should punctually attend the diets of catechizing; that no person should ‘flight’ with or provoke his neighbor; that no servant should disobey his or her master’s or mistress’ lawful commands, or use provoking and unbecoming language towards them; that no one should keep more servants than they had absolute need for; that none should marry who not 40 pounds Scots of free gear to set up house on, or a lawful trade whereby to subsist, and so on, all the enactments being enforceable by fine or ‘personal punishment’; and besides this, the Rancelmen or balifs had the power of inquiry into all domestic relations, as well as the highly important duty of finding out all witches and persons using charms. In 1817 the eminent French savant, M Biot, carried on experiments with the pendulum at Buness, and was much struck by the simplicity of life and freedom from excitement enjoyed in this northern land. ‘During the twenty-five years,’ he says, ‘in which Europe was devouring herself, the sound of a drum had not been heard in Unst, scarcely in Lerwick; during twenty-five years the door of the house I inhabited had remained open day and night. In all this interval of time neither conscription nor press-gang had troubled or afflicted the poor but tranquil inhabitants of this little Isle. The numerous reefs which surround it, and which render it accessible only at favorable seasons, serve them for defense against privateers in time of war; and what is it that privateers would come to seek for? If there were only trees and sun, no residence could be more pleasant; but it there were trees and sun everybody would wish to go thither, and peace would exist no longer.’ In 1818 Captain Kater conducted similar experiments in the same place. The title of Earl of Zetland in the peerage of the United Kingdom was granted, in 1838, to Baron Dundas of Aske. The present – the third – earl, born in 1844, succeeded his uncle in 1873, but his estates in Shetland are not of very large size. His Scottish seats are at Kerse House, Stirlinghouse, and Dunbog, Fifeshire. The antiquities of the Shetland Islands are numerous and interesting, and the brochs or burghs, cairns, castles, and old castles will be found noticed either under the islands or parishes in which they are.”324

John Bartholomew discusses: “Shetland, insular county of Scotland, 50 miles northeast of Orkney, 352,876 acres, population 29,705; Mainland, population 20,821; it consists of about 100 islands, 29 of which are inhabited - Mainland, Yell, Unst, Fetlar, Whalsay, and Bressay being the largest. Mainland, comprising more than half the area of the whole group, extends north and south for 54 miles, and has an extreme, breadth of 21 miles, but the coast-line is so irregular and deeply indented that no spot is 4 miles from the sea. The surface of Shetland is generally bleak and moorish, and rises to a maximum altitude of 1,475 ft, but only in a few places higher than 500 ft. The rock scenery around the coasts is exceedingly grand and interesting. The climate is humid and comparatively mild, but severe storms are frequent. Large numbers of cattle and sheep of native breeds are reared, and the small Shetland ponies are remarkable for their strength and hardiness. Barley, oats, turnips, and potatoes are grown. The fisheries, especially the herring fishery, are of the greatest importance, and afford the chief employment. The knitting of woolen articles is also a great industry. Shetland comprises 12 parishes, and the police burgh of Lerwick. It unites with Orkney in returning 1 member to Parliament.”325

***BURRAVOE, SHETLAND ISLANDS***

Mark Smith expounds: “Burravoe. From Old Norse Borgarvágr. Borg meaning ‘a broch or fort’, and vágr meaning ‘a bay’, u-shaped or longer, which can afford shelter for vessels.”326

FH Groome impresses: “Burravoe, a bay and a hamlet in Mid and South Yell parish, Shetland. The bay is in the southeast of Yell island; opens 4½ miles north by west of Lunaness on the mainland, and 26¼

miles north by east of Lerwick; penetrates the land 2 1/3 miles north-northeastward; is flanked on all the east side by a narrow peninsula, terminating in Burra Head; and forms a good harbor. The hamlet lies at the head of the bay; has a post office under Lerwick, and a girls' school; it gives name to a presbytery in the synod of Shetland. The presbytery comprehends the old parishes of Mid and South Yell, Fetlar and North Yell, and Unst, with the quoad sacra parishes of North Yell and South Yell. Population (1871) 6,033, (1881) 5,141, of whom 1,414 were communicants of the Church of Scotland in 1878, the sums raised by them that year in Christian liberality amounting to 89 pounds.”327

***ST NINIAN’S ISLE, SHETLAND ISLANDS***

Neil Oliver notates: “It was the Northern Isles of Scotland, however, that bore the brunt of the Vikings’ unwanted attentions. In 1958 an archaeological excavation was searching for the remains of an early Christian church on St Ninian’s Isle, in Shetland. The place had fallen into disrepair after the Reformation, and the steady advance of sand dunes had long since swallowed any trace of it. A schoolboy, Douglas Coutts, was helping the architectural when he found a sandstone slab lightly incised with a cross. The slab had been broken, and beneath it he found a collection of Pictish silver bowls, cups and jewelry, dating from before AD 800. The hoard has become known as the St Ninian’s Isle Treasure. There were traces of a wooden box that had been used to contain the treasure, but the bowls were overturned, and all the other items in a tangle around them. It seemed the box had been buried upside down – and in a hurry. All the evidence suggested the monks had quickly hidden their most precious belongings under the church floor, desperate to protect them from a Viking raid. That no one ever came back to retrieve the hoard is a sobering clue as to what befell the monks.

“The Vikings who roamed Britain’s shoreline were not only interested in gold and silver. They came in search of people as well. Captured men, women and children were shipped back to Scandinavia and then on a Constantinople, where they were traded for Middle Eastern gold and silver. It was a ninth-century international slave trade that swept thousands of natives of these islands halfway around the known world.

“Over the next hundred years, the Vikings did indeed turn colonizers, claiming and settling vast swathes of Northumbria, Ireland, the Hebrides and the area of the Gaels. Danish Vikings began to get in on the act as well, though they concentrated on England. The reach of the Vikings was astounding by any measure. Eventually they had control of territory in regions as diverse as Normandy – France, Greenland, Sicily and parts of Russia. It is also beyond doubt that they were the first Europeans to reach North America, centuries before Columbus.

“The north and east of Scotland was comprehensively invaded and settled: like a silent witness coiled within the cells of the living, the DNA of people living in Orkney today makes it plain the Vikings either slaughtered the Pictish men or forced them to leave the islands forever. The vast majority of the men have Scandinavian DNA – grim evidence of slaughter or eviction. The women are mostly descended from the islands’ original inhabitants, ultimately from the hunter-gatherers who settled Scotland after the retreat of the ice. It seems that while the Vikings got rid of the local men, they took the local Pictish women as wives. Some form of ethnic cleansing is also suggested by the fact that almost no Pictish place names survive on Orkney or Shetland. Everywhere the hills, bays, villages and towns bear names with Scandinavian roots.

“At Brough of Birsay, on a tidal island just off the northeast tip of the West Mainland of Orkney, is stark evidence of the way in which one culture was completely consumed by another. Roundhouses of the style preferred by Picts for hundreds of years are abruptly overlain by the rectangular longhouses of the Vikings, cuckoos in the nest. In some of the Viking houses, Pictish artefacts were found, suggesting the new landowners had even kept the personal belongings of those they had dispossessed.

“Every year on the last Tuesday in January, the modern people of Shetland celebrate their Viking history with an all-night celebration they call Up Helly Aa. Squads of men dress in extravagant costumes – not all of them Viking – and parade through the streets of the Shetland capital, Lerwick. Every one of them bears a huge burning torch, and at the climax, hundreds upon hundreds of torches are flung into a replica long ship that is the focus of the night. The flames swiftly costume the vessel, and the crowds remember how their forebears chose to burn their boats and stay on the islands, rather than return home to Norway.

“It is no ancient festival. It was invested at the end of the nineteenth century as a way of bringing a sense of purpose and excitement to a time of year that is, otherwise, staggeringly bleak. It is a thrilling spectacle nonetheless. But if you forget the air of celebration and pageantry and imagine instead the horror of waking up one morning to find a howling horde of murderous warriors leaping from their long ships onto the beach below your home, then it is easy to understand how such a sight would have been a glimpse of how the world ends. It would have meant the end of everything you understood and everything you had ever held dear – unless of course somebody somewhere could find a way to stop it.”328

**SOUTH AYRSHIRE**

***AUCHENSOUL, SOUTH AYRSHIRE***

Tom Barclay puts pen in paper: “This is now a farm in Barr parish. In 1260 King Alexander III of Scotland ordered an inquest to be held into a dispute about its ownership. In this document it appears as Ackinsauhile. It is on record as Auchinsowill in 1542, and Auchinsowle in 1544. The first element is very common in areas of Scotland where Gaelic is or has been spoken. It was originally achadh-an-, meaning ‘the field of’. The farm is near the site of the old chapel of Kirk Dominae, with its holy well, where an annual country fair was held for centuries, well into the nineteenth century. JK McDowall thought that the second element of the name might be Gaelic suil, meaning ‘an eye or an opening’, possibly referring to the mouth of the well. This seems unlikely, however – if the name was derived from the well, the Gaelic for ‘a well’, tobar, would have been more likely to have been used. (There are places in Ayrshire called Auchentibber and Knockentibber, from the Gaelic for ‘field of the well’ and ‘hill of the well’.) McDowall also suggested the Gaelic soicheal, (pronounced so-weh-hel) meaning ‘joy, merry-making, celebration’, as the second element, referring to the fair held in the vicinity, and this seems more likely. If this is so, the name would originally have been Achadh-an-soicheal, ‘the field of celebration or festivity’.”329

***GRIMMET, SOUTH AYRSHIRE***

Tom Barclay represents: “This is now a farm northeast of the town of Maybole. It is on record as Grumet in 1529, Grymmet in 1618, and Grimet in 1628. JK McDowall speculated that it came from ancient Gaelic griom meaning ‘war or battle’, followed by Gaelic at meaning ‘a low hill’. The only similar names I could

find existing elsewhere in Scotland seem to incorporate an old Gaelic word for ‘a mossy place’ which can appear either as groan or as groam. The ending seems to be rare in a Gaelic place-name, and it is possible that the name originated in a language other than Gaelic – names originating in another branch of the Celtic languages, the Cumbric or Brythonic branch which now survives only in Wales and Brittany, also occur in South Ayrshire.”330

***KNOCKDOLIAN, SOUTH AYRSHIRE***

Tom Barclay specifies: “This is a prominent hill in Ballantrae parish, which gave its name to a castle on its lower slopes. It is on record as Knokdoleane in 1555 and Knokdoliane in 1606. The first element is the Gaelic cnoc, meaning ‘a hill’. JK McDowall considered the second element to be Gaelic doilean, meaning ‘eddying winds or circling breezes’, and this seems reasonable. The name would thus mean ‘the hill of the winds, or the storm-swept hill’.”331

***LADYBANK, SOUTH AYRSHIRE***

Tom Barclay tells: “This is a farm in Kirkoswald parish situated beside the Lady Burn, a stream which flows into the sea about four miles north of the town of Girvan. It presumably gets its name from being on the north bank of the Lady Burn. About a mile and a half southwest of it is another farm named Ladywell. There are other place-names in South Ayrshire incorporating the element ‘lady’, and these are either known to be or assumed to be connected with chapels dedicated to Our Lady, the Blessed Virgin Mary, or with church land associated with such chapels. These connections were broken at the Scottish Reformation in 1560, when Roman Catholic institutions were abolished, and church lands were taken over by local landowners. About three miles northeast of Ladybank, near the source of the Lady Burn, is a farm called Chapelton, but no record appears to have survived of the chapel which must once have existed in the area.”332

***MAIDENS, SOUTH AYRSHIRE***

Tom Barclay chronicles: “This is a shore-side village in Kirkoswald parish, just north of Turnberry Point and its famous golf course. The village grew up in the nineteenth century, and took its name from Maidens Bay, on the shore of which it lies. The bay in turn takes its name from The Maidens, a row of high rocks which rise out of the sea across the mouth of the bay, narrowing the entrance to it. Most of them are now joined to the shore by a breakwater. In the 1590s Timothy Pont carried out a survey of Scotland. His maps for Ayrshire have not survived, but in 1654 the Dutch cartographer Johan Blaeu published maps based on them. The rocks are shown, and are marked ‘Maidens of Turnberry’. No tradition seems to have survived of how the rocks came to have this name. Some local sources refer to them as the Maidenhead Rocks. It has been suggested in recent times that there might be a connection with an early Christian female missionary, Saint Medan or Meddan. One of the legends connected with her is that she made a miraculous voyage from Ireland to Scotland on a great rock which sank off the west coast of Scotland.”333

**SOUTH LANARKSHIRE**

***CRAWFORDJOHN, SOUTH LANARKSHIRE***

The Statistical Account of Lanarkshire declares: “The origin of the name cannot be easily discovered. Chalmers, in his Caledonia, relates a story on the subject, with all becoming gravity, proceeding upon the

supposition, that names of a similar construction are to be discovered everywhere throughout Scotland. ‘John the son of Baldwin de Biggar,’ he says, ‘held in the reign of Malcolm IV a portion of this extensive mountainous district. He assumed the name Crawford, and fixed his residence on Duneaton river, and from him the name of his settlement was called John’s town, and in some charters it is designed villa Johannis privigni Baldwinnii’ – ‘Before 1279 the district of Crawfordjohn,’ he continues, ‘was established as a distinct parish, and the chapel of John’s town became the parish church, hence the name of Crawfordjohn was affixed to the parish.’ But this summary mode of accounting for the name cannot be satisfactory to anyone who recollects, that there are no authorities produced by him, and that it is not merely the only parish, but the only village (I presume) in Scotland, which is designated by a Christian and family name, joined together in this awkward, unusual form.”334

FH Groome displays: “Crawfordjohn, a village and a parish in the southwest of the upper ward of Lanarkshire. The village stands, 950 feet above sea-level, near the left bank of Duneaton Water, 6¾ miles north by east of Leadhills, and 4 west of its post-town and station, Abington, this being 43¼ miles southwest of Edinburgh. At it are a post office, 2 inns, the manse, the parish church, and a public school; and by Dorothy Wordsworth, who, with her brother and Coleridge, drove through it in August 1803, it was described as ‘a pretty, cheerful-looking village, but one that must be very cold in winter, for it stands on a hillside, and the vale itself is very high ground, unsheltered by trees.’ One specialty has Crawfordjohn, that the curling-stones made at it are the best to be found in Scotland. The parish, containing also Abington village, is bounded north by Douglas, northeast by Wiston, east by Lamington, southeast by Crawford, southwest by Sanquhar and Kirkconnel in Dumfriesshire, west by Auchinleck and Muirkirk in Ayrshire. Its utmost length is 12 7/8 miles from east by north to west by south, viz, from Abington to the Ayrshire boundary; its breadth diminishes from 9 1/8 miles in the east to 7 furlongs in the west; and its area is 26,460¼ acres, of which 103 are water. The Clyde flows 2½ miles northward along all the western boundary, whilst the southeastern is traced for 2½ miles by its affluent, Glengonner Water. Snar Water, draining the southeastern district, runs 6 miles northward to Duneaton Water; and Duneaton Water itself rises close to the Ayrshire border, and thence winds 19 miles east-by-northward to the Clyde, its first 6¾ miles following the Douglas, and its last 1¾ mile the Wiston, boundary. Where the Clyde quits the parish, the surface sinks to 750 feet above sea-level, thence rising to 1,130 at Knock Leaven, 1,260 at Black Hill, 1,400 at Mountherrick, 1,584 at Drake Law, 1,620 at Rake Law, 1,808 at Wanlock Dod (just within Sanquhar), 1,616 at Cairn Kinny, and 1,843 at Stony Hill (just within Auchinleck). The rocks are mainly metamorphic and Silurian, partly carboniferous; and they include limestone and white sandstone, with traces of coal and of lead and copper ores. The soil of some of the low grounds along the streams is a deep rich loam, of others sandy or gravelly; whilst here and there on the hill-slopes it is a strong red clay, and elsewhere generally moorish. Some 3,200 acres are arable, and not more than 50 are under wood. Vestiges of three old castles are at Moss Castle, Glendorch, and Snar; and traces of one large ancient camp crown the southeast shoulder of Black Hill; whilst near Shieldholm is another, supposed to be Roman. In 1839, the Eglinton Tournament year, Prince Louis Napoleon, French emperor that was to be, arrived at Abington inn, wet, tired, and hungry, from a day's grouse-shooting on Crawford Muir. He could get no sitting-room, so took his supper by the kitchen fire, slipped away to bed, and early next morning started again on foot - Abington House is the only mansion; and 3 proprietors hold each an annual value of 500 pounds and upwards, 6 of between 100 and 500 pounds, and 5 of from 20 to 50 pounds. Giving off a small portion to Leadhills quoad sacra parish, Crawfordjohn is in the presbytery of Lanark and synod of Glasgow and Ayr; the living is worth 356 pounds. The parish church, enlarged and renewed in 1817, contains 310 sittings. At Abington

is a Free church; and three schools - Crawfordjohn, Whitccleuch, and Abington - with respective accommodation for 72, 23, and 93 children, had (1880) an average attendance of 64, 12, and 50, and grants of 54 pounds, 17 shillings, 27 pounds, 8 shillings, 2 pence, and 53 pence.”335

***DRUMCLOG, SOUTH LANARKSHIRE***

Neil Oliver expresses: “At the first real encounter, though, he was lucky to escape with his life. Running across an armed conventicle at Drumclog, in South Lanarkshire, on 1 June 1679, he found himself confronted by thousands of men, women and children, many of them armed. During a courageous advance by the Covenanter menfolk, Claverhouse’s horse was injured and bolted from the field, taking its rider with it. Panicked by the sudden departure of their leader, the dragoons broke and ran.

“Emboldened by a victory that seemed like a gift from God, thousands more Covenanters rallied to the cause and gathered at Bothwell Brig, near Hamilton. With Claverhouse licking his wounds, a new government army was prepared and sent into action under James Scott, Duke of Monmouth and the eldest of Charles’ many illegitimate sons. More interested in talking theology and splitting into factions, the rebels were hopelessly unprepared when Monmouth and his men set about them. After the victory of Drumclog, the defeat of Bothwell Brig was especially hard to take – but it was total. Hundreds of them were slaughtered on the field, and 1,200 or more taken prisoner and dragged off to Edinburgh to await justice. Around 400 were kept in a cage in Greyfriars churchyard.

“It is said the Prophet Peden had prophesized the butchers yard of Bothwell Brig, and that from many miles away in Galloway, he saw too the fate of the Greyfriars captives. They had done something to try to save their skins, he said, but the waves of the sea would be their winding sheets. In fact, most of the imprisoned Covenanters had signed the ‘Black Bond’ – a document, written for them, that declared they had acted in simple rebellion and would never again behave in such a way. As a reward their lives were spared. The rest, like Peden had been before them, were sentenced to transportation to the American colonies. They would not be as lucky as the prophet, however. Their ship, the Croune of Orkney, was caught out by bad weather and sank off the coast of the Orkney Islands. Fewer than fifty survived.”336

***QUARTER, SOUTH LANARKSHIRE***

FH Groome notes: “Quarter Ironworks and Darngaber, a conjoint village in Hamilton parish, Lanarkshire, 3 miles south of Hamilton town and ½ mile east-northeast of Quarter Road station on the Strathaven branch of the Caledonian railway. It has a post office (Quarter) under Hamilton, an Established chapel of ease, a public school, and iron-works with five blast furnaces. The chapel of ease is an Early Decorated edifice of 1884, containing 430 sittings. Population (1871) 544, (1881) 886.”337

***THANKERTON, SOUTH LANARKSHIRE***

The New Statistical Account of Scotland: Lanark records: “The parish of Thankerton is said to have derived its name from a Flemish settler of the name of Tancard, who obtained a grant of lands therein during the twelfth century. In the charters of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, it is called Tankards-toun, villa Tankardi, villa Thankardi, the same Tankard, or another individual of the same name, obtained from Malcolm IV, a grant of lands in the lordship and parish of Bothwell, where he settled, and to which he gave the same appellation – Tankardstoun.”338

***TINTO, SOUTH LANARKSHIRE***

“Tinto is a hill in South Lanarkshire, Scotland. Tinto is an outlying part of the Southern Uplands, comprising little more than this one hill, which stands on the west bank of the River Clyde, some 8 kilometers (5.0 miles) west of Biggar. The peak is also called ‘Tinto Tap’, with the name Tinto possibly deriving from the Scottish Gaelic word teinnteach, meaning ‘fiery’.

“An old Scots children's rhyme tells of the ‘kist in the mist’ at ‘Tintock tap’, kist being the Scots word for ‘chest’.

‘On Tintock tap, there is a mist,

And in that mist, there is a kist,

And in that kist, there is a cup,

And in that cup, there is a drap.

Tak' up that cup, and drink that drap, that's in yon kist, on Tintock tap!’”339

The Statistical Account of Lanarkshire reveals: “Notwithstanding my friend’s correct taste as an artist, and my own partiality for the picturesque, I should be most happy to see one and all of our villagers put in possession of such snug and comfortable dwellings, as that lately built, upon his own feu, by Archibald French in Lammingtoune, with its neat ‘roof of straw’, its little enclosed garden behind, and a tidy flower plot in front, bordering the public road. Few situations, indeed, surpass in beauty that of the village of Lammingtoune, - with its clear winding burn rippling by, to mingle its waters with the far-famed Clyde, - its smooth grassy hills forming the background, from which may be seen, in a clear summer morning, the ‘top of the lofty Benlomond’, sixty miles to the westward; - the ‘hill of fire’, Tinto, in front, and just at such a desirable distance, as to enable the naked eye to trace correctly all its striking and massive outlines, - its fine old trees, the twisted elm, the stately ash, the lofty beech, all dropt here and there amid its lowly cottages in graceful variety; and, - not least in point of attraction, - its little kailyards so trimly dressed, - with their gooseberry bushes, (the ‘poor man’s vinery’,) and their apple trees, - their ‘rose trees’ and ‘southern-wood’, from which to cull, in good old Scottish fashion, ‘a posy for the kirk’, upon a sultry Sabbath morn!”

The Statistical Account of Lanarkshire continues: “The arable land lies along the banks of the Clyde, and the pasture reaches to the top of Tinto, on which is a cairn of stones, said to be the remains of a Druidical temple. This mountain, though not the highest in Scotland, yet being about 2,400 feet above the level of the sea, commands a beautiful and most extensive prospect: With the naked eye, you can see part of sixteen different counties. The village is situated at the foot of a rising ground, called the Castle-hill, which has formerly been a place of strength, and is now planted with various kinds of trees.”340

**STIRLING**

“The origin of the name Stirling is uncertain, but folk etymology suggests that it originates in either a Scots or Gaelic term meaning ‘the place of battle, struggle or strife’. Other sources suggest that it originates in a Brythonic name meaning ‘dwelling place of Melyn’. The town has two Latin mottoes, which appeared on the earliest burgh seal of which an impression of 1296 is on record:

‘Hic Armis Bruti Scoti Stant Hic Cruce Tuti’ (‘The Britons stand by force of arms, The Scots are by this cross preserved from harms’) and

‘Continet Hoc in Se Nemus et Castrum Strivilinse’ (‘The Castle and Wood of Stirling town are in the compass of this seal set down.’)”341

FH Groome spells out: “Stirling, a small parish, containing the royal burgh of the same name, in the northeast of Stirlingshire, and extending also on the northeast into a detached section of the county of Clackmannan. It is bounded north by the parish of Logie and a detached portion of St Ninians, and elsewhere by the parish of St Ninians. The shape is highly irregular, and the boundary, except where it likes along the Forth, almost entirely artificial. Beginning at the northwest corner, opposite the old Toll House beyond Raploch, the line passes down the center of the river to the Old Bridge of Stirling, zig-zags thence eastward to the river a little below Queenshaugh, and then passes up the river, till, and about half way round the bend below the Old Bridge, it strikes due south to the Forth near the quay. From this it follows the river up to Ladyneuk, then winds eastward and along the course of a small rivulet back to the Forth once more near West Grange, and follows up the river to the bend east of the railway station. From this it twists very irregularly first southeast and then back southwest to the south side of the burgh of Stirling, and after skirting the south side of the King’s Park, passes down the Mill Burn to the road at Raploch, and back along the road to the point on the river opposite the old Toll House. The portion in the loop of the Forth between Ladyneuk and the station is in Clackmannanshire and the rest in Stirlingshire. The former is the barony of Cambuskenneth, and was formerly a separate parish, but is now ecclesiastically in Stirling, though for poor law purposes it is included in Logie. Its area is 241 acres, of which 8¼ are foreshore and 32½ water; while the area of the Stirlingshire portion of the parish is 1,271¾ acres, of which 12½ are foreshore and 46¾ water. The castle and park were, till the first half of the present century, excluded from the parish. The ground outside the town is mostly low and level, the highest point being in the King’s Park, where a height of over 200 feet is reached. The castle ridge in the town is 420 feet. The soil on the low flats is a rich carse clay, and elsewhere it is a sharp friable earth. The underlying rocks are carboniferous, with masses of intrusive basalt. The parish is traversed by different sections of the Caledonian and North British railway systems, as well as by the main roads that radiate from the town.

“Stirling was anciently in the diocese of St Andrews, but being comprehended within the archdeaconry of Lothian, it followed the fortunes of that district when it was in 1633 erected by Charles I into the diocese of Edinburgh, the minister becoming one of the prebendaries of the cathedral church of St Giles. It is the seat of a presbytery in the synod of Perth and Stirling, and has three charges, with livings worth respectively 490 pounds, 250 pounds, and 200 pounds a year. The churches are noticed in the following article. Under the landward school board, Abbey School, at Cambuskenneth, with accommodation for 48 scholars, had in 1884 an attendance of 42, and a grant of 35 pounds, 9 shillings. The parishes of Stirling, St Ninians, and Kilsyth form a poor-law combination with a poorhouse at the north end of Stirling. There is accommodation for 200 inmates, and the average number in it is about 120. The village of Raploch is separately noticed. Seven proprietors hold each an annual value of 500 pounds and upwards, 107 hold each between 500 pounds and 100 pounds, 113 hold each between 100 pounds and 50 pounds, and there are a large number of smaller amount. Valuation, exclusive of the burgh (1884-5), 2,435 pounds, 12 shillings, 2 pence, of which 1,629 pounds, 12 shillings, 2 pence was for the Stirlingshire portion.

“The Presbytery of Stirling comprehends the quoad civilia parishes of Airth, Alloa, Alva, Bothkennar, Clackmannan, Denny, Dollar, Gargunnock, Larbert, St Ninians, and Stirling; the quoad sacra parishes of Bannockburn, Bonnybridge, Haggs, Marykirk, Plean, and Sauchie, and mission stations at Alloa and Carronshore; the total number of charges being 21. The Free Church has a presbytery of Stirling, with charges at Alloa (2), Alva, Bannockburn, Cambusbarron, Clackmannan, Denny, Dollar, Dunipace, Larbert, St Ninians, Stirling (4), and Tullibody – in all 16. The United Presbyterian Church has also a presbytery of Stirling, with charges at Alloa, Alva, Brannockburn, Blairlogie, Bridge of Allan, Bridge of Teith, Bucklyvie, Clackmannan, Dollar, Dunblane, Greenloaning, St Ninians, Stirling (3), and Tillicoultry – in all, 16.”342

FH Groome touches on: “Stirling (old forms Strivelin, Striveling, Strivelyn, Strewelin, Sterling), a market town, a royal and parliamentary burgh, and the county town of Stirlingshire, occupying part of the parish just described, but having outlying suburbs extending into the parishes of St Ninians and Logie. Standing on the river Forth 16 5/8 miles from its mouth opposite Kincardine, the town is connected with Leith by steamer, but in consequence of this having to accommodate itself to the tide, and owing also to the winding course of the river, there is but little river trade. Stirling is, however, a railway center, the joint line used by both the Caledonian and North British companies between Larbert Junction and Perth passing through it, and lines belonging to the latter company also branching off to the eastward through Fife, and westward along the valley of the Forth. It is by rail 7 miles west of Alloa, 10 northwest of Falkirk, 13 west by south of Dollar, 24 west by south of Kinross, 29 northeast of Glasgow, 30 east-northeast of Balloch on Loch Lomond, 33 southwest of Perth, 36 west-northwest of Edinburgh, and 84 east-southeast of Oban. The town owes its origin to the well-known castle of Stirling, which holds such a prominent position in Scottish history. The castle occupies the summit of an isolated hill of intrusive basalt, which, springing abruptly from the valley of the Forth, presents a precipitous front to the northwest, and slopes from this eastward. It has been often compared to the Acropolis at Athens, and bears a considerable resemblance to the long ridge of the old town of Edinburgh, extending from the Castle to Holyrood, but the ridge at Stirling is much shorter. The more modern districts of the town and the suburbs extend over the flatter ground around the base. The higher parts of the rock - particularly along the Back Walk, and still more in the Castle gardens northwest of the Douglas Room and southwest of the Palace - command very fine views. ‘Who,’ says Dr Macculloch, ‘does not know Stirling's noble rock, rising, the monarch of the landscape, its majestic and picturesque towers, its splendid plain, its amphitheater of mountain, and the windings of its marvelous river; and who that has once seen the sun descending here in all the blaze of its beauty beyond the purple hills of the west can ever forget the plain of Stirling, the endless charm of this wonderful scene, the wealth, the splendour, the variety, the majesty of all which here lies between earth and heaven.’ The foreground is everywhere a rich alluvial plain, fertile, highly cultivated, and well wooded, with here and there an abrupt protruded hillock, starting abruptly from the flat, and relieving it from tameness. To the north and northeast are the woods about Bridge of Allan and Dunblane, and the hill-screened vale of Allan Water, then the picturesque wood-crowned cliffs of Abbey Craig, and the soft pastoral slopes of the Ochils. To the east and southeast are the fertile carses of Stirling and Falkirk, with the Forth winding her silvery course to the sea, and beyond, the distant hills of Fife and the Lothians; while to the southwest is the termination of the Lennox Hills. To the west and northwest are the flat valleys of the upper Forth and Teith with winding rivers and wooded policies, and shut in by the Campsie Fells, the Monteith Hills, the Braes of Doune, and behind and beyond, sweeping round from west to north, are a great semicircle of distant peaks, the most conspicuous of which are Ben Lomond (3,192 feet), Ben Venue (2,393), Ben A'an (1,851), Ben Ledi (2,875), Ben Voirlich (3,224), and Uamh Mhor (Uam Var; 2,179). ‘Eastward from the castle ramparts,’

says Alexander Smith, ‘stretches a great plain bounded on either side by mountains, and before you the vast fertility dies into distance flat as the ocean when winds are asleep. It is through this plain that the Forth has drawn her glittering coils - a silvery entanglement of loops and links - a watery labyrinth - which Macneil has sung in no ignoble numbers, and which every summer the whole world flocks to see. Turn round, look in the opposite direction, and the aspect of the country has entirely changed. It undulates like a rolling sea. Heights swell up into the blackness of pines, and then sink away into valleys of fertile green. At your feet the Bridge of Allan sleeps in azure smoke - the most fashionable of all the Scottish spas, wherein, by hundreds of invalids, the last new novel is being diligently perused. Beyond are the classic woods of Keir; and ten miles further, what see you? A multitude of blue mountains climbing the heavens! The heart leaps up to greet them - the ramparts of the land of romance, from the mouths of whose glens broke of old the foray of the freebooter; and with a chief in front with banner and pibroch in the wind, the terror of the Highland war. Stirling, like a huge brooch, clasps Highlands and Lowlands together.’

“When the first fort or village was formed at Stirling must remain doubtful, for though the isolated position of the rock, and its nearness to what must always have been the principal ford along the lower part of the Forth, point it out as the natural key of the Highlands and an important strength, it is extremely difficult to say whether it was so occupied prior to and during the Roman times or not. Situated near the skirts of the great Caledonian Forest, and in the midst of a flat that must at that time have been, to a considerable extent, a marsh, we might expect to find it one of the strongholds of the Damnonii who inhabited the district, but Ptolemy places their chief town Alauna - not to be confounded with Alauna of the Gadeni - to the northwest on the point at the junction of the Allan and the Forth. The Roman road from Camelon northward passed to the west of the Castle rock, and seems to have crossed the river close to this at a ford called ‘the Drip’; but whether the Romans had a camp on the high ground cannot be ascertained, though during the period when they held the district north of Antoninus' Wall, they certainly seem to have had an outpost here. At least Sir Robert Sibbald, writing in the end of the 17th or the beginning of the 18th century, says that there was at that time on a stone on the brow of the hill overlooking Ballengeich Road, opposite the old gate of the Castle, an inscription ‘In excu agit leg II’, which has been extended into ‘In excubias agitantes legionis secundae’, the suggested rendering being ‘for the daily and nightly watch of the second legion’. The inscription was obliterated by the close of the 18th century, but a large boulder with a defaced inscription is still pointed out as ‘the Roman Stone’. It is now marked by an iron rod. What the history of the place may have been from the 5th to the 10th century it is hardly possible to conjecture - probably that of any border fortress lying between two peoples who were often at war, and it is to this period that the modern name - the first part of which is said to be a word meaning ‘strife’, is supposed to be due; and hence also a name used by some of the chroniclers Mons Dolorum. Another name, used subsequently and referred to by Sir David Lindsay in his Complaint of the Papino (1539), was Snawdon or Snowdoun, which Chalmers has derived from the British Snuadun, ‘the fortified hill on the river’. According to Boece, followed by Buchanan, the Northumbrian princes, Osbrecht and Ella, in the 9th century subdued the whole country as far as Stirling, where they built a strong fort and also a bridge across the river, but the story is undoubtedly fabulous, for these princes were in reality rival claimants of the throne of Northumbria, and were, in 867, both slain in a battle against the Danes at York, the danger of the realm from the sea-rovers having compelled them to unite their forces. There certainly was war between Alban and Northumbria a century later, about 971 or 975, when, however, the attack was made from the Scottish side by Kenneth

III, whom we find also, as a means of protection, fortifying the fords of the Forth, which was the boundary of his kingdom to the south, but no specific mention is made of Stirling.

“By the 12th century, when the place finally emerges from its historic obscurity, it must have made considerable progress. Alexander I died in the castle in 1124; David I, in a grant to the church of the Holy Trinity at Dunfermline between 1124 and 1127, speaks of his burgh of Stirling; in 1175 the case must have been one of the five most important strength in Scotland, for it was one of those selected to be held by English garrisons till the conditions under which Henry II had released William the Lyon should be fulfilled; and William himself, after holding his last parliament here in 1214, and getting his son accepted as their future king by the bishops, earls, and barons, died in the Castle ‘full of goodly days and at a good old age, fully armed with thorough devoutness, a clear shrift, true charity, the viaticum of Christ's body, and the rest of the sacraments.’ From this time onward the Castle became a favorite royal residence, and here Alexander II is said to have been when he promulgated his law establishing trial by jury; and here John Baliol held the convention which, in 1295, agreed to the formation of an offensive and defensive league with France against England, and for the marriage of his son Edward with the daughter of the French King. On the approach of Edward I with his army in 1296, the Castle was either abandoned or at once surrendered, only to be recaptured the following year, after the battle of Stirling Bridge. This was fought at the site of the earliest bridge that existed in the neighborhood of Stirling, at Kildean, about five furlongs northwest of Stirling Castle. Sibbald says that a bridge was built here by Agricola, but there does not seem to be any authority for the statement. That there was one at a very early date is, however, clear, for it is probable that this Kildean Bridge is the one mentioned in the old laws printed at the beginning of the Record edition of the Scots Acts. It seems to have been formed by beams resting on stone pillars, remains of which were to be seen till about the end of the 18th century. In 1279, after the departure of Edward I for Flanders, Wallace, having raised a large army in the districts north of the Tay, and got possession of all the strongholds there, was besieging Dundee, when news arrived that the Earl of Surrey was pressing forward at the head of a large English army in order to attack him. He immediately advanced to the Forth, judging that to be the best position for receiving their attack; and took up his position along the loop of the Forth in front of the Abbey Craig, where the massive tower reared to his memory now stands. Terms offered by the English leaders having been rejected, they advanced to the attack. A proposal that a portion of the army should cross by the neighboring ford was not acted on, and the whole line began to advance by the bridge, which was so narrow that only two persons could pass abreast. When about half of the English force had crossed, a body of spearmen, sent by Wallace for the purpose, dashing suddenly forward, gained and took possession of the end of the bridge, and Surrey and the rest of his forces had to stand helplessly by and see their comrades who had crossed attacked and routed by the Scottish army. Only a few were able again to cross the river in safety, and the body that had not crossed retired in great disorder. Blind Harry accounts for the severance of the two portions of the English army somewhat differently. After recording Wallace's intention:

‘Bot ner the bryg my purposs is to be

And wyrk for thaim sum suttell jeperté’;

he goes on to tell how

‘On Setterday on to the bryg thai raid,

Off gud playne burd was weill and junctly maid:

Gert wachis wait that nane suld fra thaim pass.

A wricht he tuk. The suttellast at thar was,

And ordand him to saw the burd in twa.

Be the myd streit, that nane mycht our it ga;

On charnaill bandis naid it full fast and sone,

Syne fyld with clay as na thing had beyne done.

The tothir end he ordand for to be.

How it suld stand on thre rowaris off tre,

Quhen ane war out, that the laiff doun suld fall;

Him sclff wndyr he ordand thar with all,

Bownd on the trest in a creddill to sit,

To louss the pyn quhen Wallace leit him wit.

Bot with a horn, quhen it was tyme to be,

In all the ost suld no man blaw bot he.’

“And so when Wallace blew his horn, part of the bridge fell. The cognomen of ‘Pin’ Wright was given to the man who undertook to ‘louss the pyn’; and a descendant who now lives in Stirling still bears the name, the family having for their coat of arms a carpenter's axe, the crest being a mailed arm grasping an axe, and the motto ‘Tam arte quam marte’.

“Between this and 1303 the Castle seems to have changed hands several times, but when Edward l commenced his great invasion in the year just mentioned, it was held by a Scottish garrison. So strong did Edward deem the position that he passed it by when he went north, and did not turn his attention to it till ‘all magnates but William Wallace had made their submission unto him, and all castles and towns -except Strivelyn Castle and the warden thereof - were surrendered unto him.’ After keeping lent at St Andrews, and holding a parliament at which Sir William Wallace, Sir Simon Frazer, and the garrison of Stirling Castle, were outlawed, he began at Easter 1304 the siege which is memorable for the determination with which the small garrison of less than 200 men held, for more than three months, against the whole English army, this the last spot of ground that was not in the hands of the foreign foe. The Castle seems to have been partly rebuilt, not long before, on the Norman model, and here not only did the strength of the masonry offer stout resistance to the battering machines of the besiegers, but there was the additional difficulty of the steep rock on which the Castle stood. Some of the machines threw very heavy stones, and one is mentioned as being able to hurl against the walls blocks weighing from two to three hundredweights. King Edward himself, though sixty-five years old, was in the midst of the work. ‘He was,’ says Dr Burton, ‘repeatedly hit, and the chronicles record with reverence the miraculous interventions for his preservation. On one occasion Satan had instigated one of the Scots to

draw an arblast and aim an arrow against the Lord's anointed, who was riding exposed in the front. A devil's angel sped the shaft in so far that it pierced a chink of the mail, but then one of heaven's angels came to the rescue and stopped it from penetrating the sacred body of the conquering king - for it is curious to observe, that it is all along not from the justice or holiness of his cause, but from his success as a conqueror that these chroniclers treat his cause as a holy one, and denounce the resistance it met with as unholy rebellion. Stronger evidence still of his fixed determination to leave no means untried for the reduction of the Castle is his bringing the lead from the roofs of churches and religious houses in St Andrews and Brechin to be made into weights in working the siege engines.’ He was a superstitious man, and knew that this was sacrilege, but he gave orders that no altar was to be uncovered, and by-and-by, when he had attained his object, payment was made to the Bishop of Brechin and the Prior of St Andrews ‘pro plumbo quod dextrahi fecimus tam de ecclesiis quam de aliis domibus ipsorum Episcopi et Prioris apud Breghyn et Sanctum Andream’. When Sir William Oliphant and his garrison were at last driven by famine to surrender, they numbered only 140. From this time the Castle remained in the hands of the English till 1314, when it was surrendered the day after the battle of Bannockburn. In 1333 it was taken by Baliol's party, and though it was besieged in 1336 and again in 1337 by Sir Andrew Moray, it was on both occasions relieved by the English, and did not fall into the hands of David Bruce's friends till 1339. In 1360 Sir Robert Erskine was appointed governor of the Castle by King David, and besides ample allowances for the maintenance of the garrison, obtained a grant of all the feus and revenues in Stirlingshire belonging to the Crown, with the wardships, escheats, and other emoluments annexed to them. This office was hereditary in the Erskine family till the forfeiture of the Earl of Mar in 1715. During the times of Robert II and Robert III, though the Castle was occasionally the royal residence, there is but little mention of it otherwise.

“The warlike operations of the 13th and the beginning of the 14th centuries were by no means in favor of the burgh, for after it had been accidentally destroyed by fire in 1244, it was again burnt in 1298 by Wallace on his retreat from Falkirk, so that it might not afford shelter to the English. It was also burned in 1385 by Richard II, and though its losses were partly compensated by the grants to the burgesses by Robert II of fishings and petty customs, it was not till the time of James l that it may be said to have fairly started in its course of progress. The Castle was the birthplace of James II, and after the murder of his father, it afforded a place of refuge for him and his mother against the ambitious designs of Sir William Crichton. Subsequently, in 1452, one of the rooms in the Castle was the scene of the murder of the Earl of Douglas, who, having come to Stirling at the King's command and with a royal safe-conduct, and having been ‘well received and entertained by the king, who thereafter called him to the supper, and banquetted him very royally’, yet haughtily refused to break the agreements that he had entered into with the Earls of Crawford and Ross. He even retaliated and ‘reproached the king very arrogantly’, so that at last the royal patience gave way, and James ‘took a high anger and thought to do the thing that was less skaith to the commonwealth than to trouble the whole realm therewith; and so he pulled forth a sword, and said, ‘I see well, my lord, my prayer cannot prevail to cause you desist from your wicked counsel and enterprizes, I shall cause all your wicked conspiracies to cease.’ Thereafter immediately he struck him through the body with the sword; and thereafter the guard, hearing the tumult within the chamber, rushed in and slew the earl out of hand.’ The Earl's brother and many of his friends were in the town, and as they were unable to revenge themselves on the king, they wreaked their wrath on the burgesses, which was hardly fair. The Earl's brother ‘made a long harangue and exhortation to his friends to siege the Castle and to revenge the unworthy slaughter of his brother with the king's life. But when they saw it was impossible to do, seeing they had no munition fitting for this effect, the Castle

being so strong, they gave the king very contumelious words, saying, ‘that they should never obey nor know him again as a king or prince, but should be revenged upon him and his cruel tyranny or ever they ceased.’ After this they burned and herried the town of Stirling.’ James III found its retirement congenial to his artistic tastes, and made the Castle his chief residence, while it was also a favorite residence of James IV, who is said to have done penance in the neighboring church of the Franciscans for the share he had taken in the insurrection that ended with his father's death. James V was born at Stirling and also crowned there, and the Castle afforded him a place of refuge when he escaped from the power of the Douglases in 1528, and the pass to the northeast of it furnished him with the name he so often adopted in his wild incognito rambles and adventures among his people - the Gudeman of Ballengeich. His infant daughter Mary and her mother were brought here in 1543, Stirling being deemed a safer place than Edinburgh or Linlithgow, on account of its nearness to the Highlands, - and here the infant queen was crowned when scarcely nine months old, the Regent Arran carrying the crown and Lennox the scepter; and the Estates fixed the Castle as the royal residence for the time being. In the early times of the Reformation it became, in consequence, one of the centers of the influence of Mary of Guise, who was here when the news came of the first outbreak of popular fury at Perth against the Roman Catholic Church in 1559. Later she intended to garrison the place with French soldiers, but was prevented by the Earl of Argyll, Lord James Stewart, and the other Lords of the Congregation, who ‘reformed Stirling’ in the usual manner, and also entered there into their third bond of mutual adherence and defense. Stirling is closely associated with many of the important events of Mary's reign after her return from France. In 1561 ‘her grace's devout chaplains would, by the good device of Arthur Erskine, have sung a high mass’, but ‘the Earl of Argyle and the Lord James so disturbed the quire, that some, both priests and clerks, left their places with broken heads and bloody ears.’ It was here that the special council was held at which she announced her intended marriage with Lord Darnley, and here her infant son, afterwards James VI, was baptized with great pomp in December 1566, the Privy Council levying a sum of 12,000 pounds to defray the expense, the large amount being necessary from the fact that ‘sum of the grettest princes in Christendome hes ernestlie requirit of our soveranis that be thair ambassatouris thai may be witnessis and gosseppis at the baptisme of thair Majesteis derrist sone’. Queen Elizabeth, who was godmother, sent a gold font weighing 333 ounces, which her ambassador was told to ‘say pleasantly was made as soon as we heard of the prince's birth, and then 'twas big enough for him; but now he, being grown, is too big for it; therefore it may be better used for the next child, provided it be christened before it outgrows the font.’ The Countess of Argyll represented the English Queen, and as the ceremony was a Roman Catholic one, and the countess was a member of the Reformed Church, she came under the displeasure of the General Assembly of 1567, which ordered her to make public repentance in the Chapel Royal of Stirling - the place of her offence – ‘upon ane Sunday in time of preaching, for assisting at the prince's baptism, performed in a papistical manner’. In the following year, Mary having abdicated, James was crowned here, and the Castle remained his residence for the first thirteen years of his life, and was the meeting-place of the parliaments convened by the various regents as well as the scene of several other incidents connected with the struggles for power going on at the time. In May 1569 four priests of Dunblane, who had been sentenced to be hanged at Stirling for saying mass contrary to act of parliament, had their punishment commuted, and were instead chained to the market-cross wearing their vestments, and after they had stood thus for an hour, while the mob pelted them with stones and offered them other indignities, they were loosed, but their vestments, books, and chalices were burned by the hangman. During part of the regency of Lennox, the Court of Session sat here, as also did the General Assembly in 1571 and 1578. In the former year also, Stirling was the scene

of the execution of John Hamilton, Archbishop of St Andrews, who was captured at Dumbarton Castle early in the year, and hanged at the common place of execution at the market-place of Stirling shortly afterwards on charges of being accessory to the murders of Darnley and the Regent Murray, and of conspiring against King James. In the same year too, while a parliament, summoned by Lennox -contemptuously styled by its opponents the Black Parliament - was sitting, a number of Queen Mary's supporters who had been threatened with forfeiture, sent a party of horsemen, led by Kirkaldy of Grange, from Edinburgh by night, to attempt to surprise and seize a number of the nobles attending the parliament. Reaching the town before daybreak, they surrounded the houses where the leading men were lodged, and meeting with no resistance except from Morton, who would not surrender till his house had been set on fire, they started on their return to Edinburgh, carrying off Regent Lennox and ten other noblemen as prisoners. Some of the followers of Scott of Buccleuch having, however, stayed behind for the purpose of plundering, caused an alarm in the Castle; and the Earl of Mar, marching out with a body of soldiers, soon not only put the plunderers to flight, but, having aroused the townsmen, pursued the main body so hotly that all the prisoners were rescued, the Regent being, however, mortally injured in the struggle. In 1578 the first parliament convened by James VI, after he nominally took the government into his own hands, met in the hall of the Castle; but the place of meeting was so displeasing to the party opposed to Morton - who maintained ‘that a meeting of the Estates held within a fortress commanded by an enemy of his country was no free parliament’ - that its choice almost led to civil war. After a great reconciliation banquet given subsequently in the Castle, the Earl of Athole died suddenly, and it was asserted that he had been poisoned. In 1584 the Earls of Angus and Mar, the Master of Glamis, and others of the Ruthven party, seized the Castle; but being unable to hold it against the force raised by the Earl of Arran, they retired to the Highlands, and finally fled to England, only, however, to return in 1585, when, in the Raid of Stirling, they took possession of the place, where James was himself residing at the time, and procured from the king a reversal of their own forfeitures and the restoration of the Gowrie family to their vast estates. In 1594 the town witnessed the greatest pageant that it ever saw, or probably ever will see, at the baptism of Prince Henry, the eldest son of James VI. ‘The noble and most potent prince of Scotland was born in the castle of Striviling, the 19 day of February 1594, upon which occasion the King's majestie sent for the nobles of his land, and to all the capitall burrows thereof ... and proposed unto them that it was necessary to direct out ambassadours to France, England, Denmark, the Low Countries, the Duke of Brunswicke, his brother-in-law, and to the Duke of Magdelburg, the queenis majestie's grandfather, and to such other princes as should be thought expedient. Likewise he thought the castle of Striviling the most convenient place for the residence of this most noble and mightie prince, in respect that he was borne there; as also, it was necessary, that sufficient preparation might be made for the ambassadours that should be invited to come, for honor of the crown and countrey. And besides all this, because the Chapell Royal was ruinous and too little, concluded that the old chapell should be utterly rased, and a new erected in the same place, that should be more large, long, and glorious, to entertain the great number of straungers expected. These propositions at length considered, they all, with a free voluntarie deliberation, graunted unto his majestie the summe of an hundred thousand pounds money of Scotland.’ And so the new chapel was built by the ‘greatest number of skilled workmen’, James himself superintending; and the ceiling was adorned with gold, and the walls decorated with paintings and sculpture. During the two days before the baptism, which took place on 30 Aug, sports were held in ‘The Valley’. After all the pompous ceremonial of the baptism, which was too long to be here minutely detailed, a banquet took place in the Parliament House, where ‘the kinge, queene, and ambassadours were placed all at one table, being

formed of three parts, after a geometricall figure, in such sort that every one might have a full sight of the other.’ During the progress of the feast, a triumphal car, seemingly drawn by a Moorish slave, entered, full of fruits and delicacies, which were distributed among the guests by six damsels clothed in satin and glittering with gold and silver. Thereafter there entered a boat eighteen feet in length, placed on wheels and moved by invisible springs. The masts, which were forty feet high, were red, the ropes of red silk, and the blocks were of gold. The sails were of white taffety, and the anchors were tipped with silver. She was loaded with sweetmeats, and on board were Neptune, Thetis, Arion, and Triton, while three syrens floated in the artificial sea that surrounded the vessel.

“In 1637 the meetings of the privy council and of the Court of Session were held at Stirling for several months in consequence of the disturbed state of Edinburgh arising out of the attempted introduction of the liturgy. In 1645 the plague raged in the town from the middle of July till October, and obliged the parliament which had been already driven by it from Edinburgh to adjourn to Perth. During this time the meetings of town council are said to have been held in the Cow Park. In the same year the opposing armies of Montrose and Baillie passed the Forth at Kildean ford on their way to Kilsyth, but they seem both to have avoided the town in consequence of the plague. The Castle was held for the Covenanters. In 1648 the Highland followers of the Marquis of Argyll, on their way to join the forces being assembled by the anti-royalist minority of the Estates, were attacked and defeated by a portion of the Duke of Hamilton's army under Sir George Munro. Stirling was the rallying point of the force defeated by Cromwell at Dunbar, and afforded at that time a place of refuge for the Committees of Church and State, and the magistrates of Edinburgh who endeavored to concert a plan of future operations, while at the same time a parliament - afterwards adjourned to Perth, and the last in Scotland at which the sovereign personally presided - was held; and it was thence that Charles II started in 1651 for the march into England that terminated at the disastrous battle of Worcester. In 1651 the Castle was besieged and reduced by Monk, and the national records, which had been lodged here for safety, were seized and sent to London. At the time of the Union, it was declared one of the four Scottish fortresses which were to be ever afterwards kept in repair, and in 1715 it afforded valuable support to the small force with which Argyll held the passage of the Forth against Mar and the Jacobites. In the subsequent rebellion in 1745-6, though the town wall had been repaired in the former year, the inhabitants made no resistance to the Highland army on its retreat, but having sent all their arms into the Castle, and obtained a promise that no man's person should be injured, and all articles required should be paid for, admitted the Jacobites within the town, when they kept their pledge so well that within two hours they had plundered the houses and shops of all the leading inhabitants opposed to their cause. They began to besiege the Castle, but though General Hawley's effort to cause them to raise the siege failed in consequence of the disaster at Falkirk, the attack was made in vain, and was hurriedly abandoned on the approach of the Duke of Cumberland's army. The only other historical event of general note connected with the town is the execution of Andrew Hardie and John Baird, who were in 1820 beheaded in front of the Town House for high treason, they having been two of the leaders of the Radical rising at Bonnymuir. The Highland and Agricultural Society's Show has been held here in 1833, 1864, 1873, 1881.

“The last sovereign who resided in the Castle was James VI, but in 1681 the Duke of York, afterwards James VII, was here with his family, including Princess - afterwards Queen - Anne; and in September 1842 the Queen and the Prince Consort were here on their way from Taymouth to Dalkeith, on which occasion her Majesty was presented with the silver keys of the burgh in due form and the Prince Consort was made a burgess. The Prince of Wales visited the town in 1859. Stirling gave successively the title of

Viscount and Earl to the family of Alexander of Menstrie and Tullibody, William Alexander having in 1630 been created by Charles I. Viscount Stirling and Baron Alexander of Tullibody, and in 1633 he became Earl of Stirling and Viscount Canada. The title became dormant at the death of Henry V, Earl in 1739, but there are still claimants. The only distinguished native of Stirling may be said to be Dr John Moore (1730-1802), author of Zeluco and other works now forgotten, and father of General Sir John Moore; but of those connected with the place by residence, besides the historical characters already spoken of, we may here mention George Buchanan (1506-82), who was tutor to James VI during his early residence at the Castle; the Rev Patrick Simpson, one of the ministers, who about 1600 published a History of the Church; the Rev Henry Guthrie (1600-76), another of the ministers, author of Memoirs of Scotch Affairs from 1637 to 1649; the Rev James Guthrie, his successor, one of the leading Remonstrants, who was executed in Edinburgh in 1661; Lieutenant-Colonel John Blackader (1664-1729), deputy-governor of Stirling Castle; the Rev. Ebenezer Erskine (1680-1754), one of the founders of the Secession Church; Dr David Doig (1718-1800), rector of the grammar school, a literary opponent of Lord Kames, whom Burns, who met him while at Stirling in 1787, describes as ‘a queerish figure and something of a pedant’; and the Rev John Russel (1740-1817), the ‘Black Russel’ of The Holy Fair, who was translated from Kilmarnock to Stirling in 1800 and who is buried in the old churchyard.

“The Castle Hill proper and some other heights associated with it form a triangular group to the northwest of the town, the apex of the triangle being to the west, and the rock occupied by the Castle buildings and the Esplanade in front lying along the southwest side. Along the northeast side of the Castle Rock is the deep hollow known as Ballengeich, and beyond this is the undulating height known as Gowling or Gowan Hill. This was the site of one of the Jacobite batteries during the siege of the Castle in 1746. Near the north corner is the rounded grassy summit called the Mote Hill or Heading Hill, the:

‘Sad and fatal mound!

That oft hast heard the death-axe sound.

As on the noblest of the land

Fell the stern headsman's bloody hand.’

“It was the scene of the execution of the Duke of Albany, his two sons, and his father-in-law, the Earl of Lennox, in 1425; and as the Castle and Braes of Doune are visible from it, Albany's last glance must have been over his own wide domain. It seems to have been here also that in 1437, Sir Robert Graham and those of his associates in the murder of James I, who were executed at Stirling, had an end put to their torments. The Mote Hill is known locally as Hurly-Haaky, a name said to be derived from an amusement indulged in here by James V when he was young, and alluded to by Sir David Lindsay, who says:

‘Some harlit hym to the Hurlie-Hackit.’

“It seems to have consisted in sliding down a steep bank in some sort of sleigh. Sir Walter Scott says the Edinburgh boys in the beginning of the present century indulged in such a game on the Calton Hill, ‘using for their seat a horse's skull’; and as hawky or haaky is a Scottish word meaning ‘a cow’, it is possible that a cow's skull may have been used formerly for the same purpose. All this tract of ground is now open to the public, and walks beginning here extend round the base of the Castle Rock and along the wooded slopes to the southwest of the old town, the principal path in this latter portion being the Back Walk with its fine trees. It was laid out in 1724 at the instigation of William Edmonstone of Cambus

Wallace. To the south of the Esplanade, and between it and the northwest end of this walk, is a flat-bottomed hollow now occupied by part of the cemetery, but known particularly as The Valley, and said to have been the ground used for tournaments and sports in the time of the Stewart Kings. A rocky eminence on the south side, called The Ladies' Rock, is traditionally the spot whence the ladies of the Court surveyed the feats of strength and skill. To the southwest of this were the Royal Gardens or Haining, now simply laid out in grass, and with but few traces of the terraces and canal that once existed, though in this respect the Government have in recent years caused considerable improvement to be made. The canal seems to have been near the line of the modern Dumbarton Road. Near the extreme southwest side of the gardens is an octagonal earthen mound with terraces and a depressed center known as the King's Knot, and probably the place where the old game called The Round Table was played. The older name of the mound seems to have been also The Round Table, and it must have been here from a very early date, for Barbour speaks of King Edward and some of his followers who had in vain sought refuge at Stirling Castle after the battle of Bannockburn going:

‘Rycht by the Round Table away’;

so that it must have been there in his time; and Sir David Lindsay, in his Farewell of the Papingo (1539), also mentions it:

‘Adew fair Snawdoun. With thy towris hie,

Thy Chapill royall, Park, and Tabill Round.

May, June, and July waid I dweil in thee,

War lane man, to heir the birdis sound

Quhilk doth agane thy Royall Rocke resound.’

“The Castle is approached by Broad Street and Mar Place, which lead to the spacious Esplanade or parade-ground, on the northeast side of which is a gigantic statue of King Robert Bruce, erected in 1877 on a spot from which are visible the fields of Stirling Bridge and Bannockburn. The statue, which is 11 feet high, and represents the king in chain armor looking towards Bannockburn as he sheathes his sword, was executed by Currie. The entrance to the Castle is in the center of the curtain wall at the northwest end of the Esplanade, the outer wall being protected by a ditch with a drawbridge. The inner ditch and entrance are commanded by the Overport Battery, while the bomb-proof structure on the left, known as Queen Anne's Battery, with the adjacent unfinished works, was erected in Queen Anne's reign - whence the name - when the Castle was enlarged. The Queen's initials and the date, ‘A R 1794’, may be seen on the second arch. To the north are the gun sheds, and adjoining them on the northeast is the Spur or French or Ten-gun Battery, built by the French engineers of Mary of Guise in 1559, and overlooking Ballengeich and the Gowan Hill. At the southwest end of the gun sheds is the old entrance, with two towers - not now as high as they formerly were - and a flagstaff. To the left of it is the Princes Walk, and inside the entrance is the open space called the Lower Square, on the northeast side of which is the Grand Battery, while to the left is the Palace. This building, commenced by James V and finished by Queen Mary, surrounds a central quadrangular court, and is very fantastic in its architecture - the north, east, and south sides having five or six curious pillars, formed by emblematic figures standing on carved balustrade columns, with pediments supported by grotesque figures. All the statues are much -defaced, but those on the east side, which is the most richly - or wildly - ornamented, are supposed to represent

Diana, Venus, Omphale, Perseus, and other mythological personages. Those on the north side include figures of James V and his daughter, and one showing Cleopatra with the asp on her breast. The statue of James represents him with a bushy beard and wearing a hat. Over him is an allegorical personage holding a crown and a scroll with the kingly title; and he is attended by a royal lion and a cup-bearer, the former crouching at his feet, and the latter a beardless youth holding forth a cup. In the small interior square is the Lion's Den, said to have been the place where lions were kept for the royal amusement. Defoe waxes quite eloquent in praise of this building: ‘King James the Fifth,’ he says, ‘also built a noble Palace here, adorn'd without with Pillars finely engrav'd, and Statues as big as the Life at the Top and Bottom. In this Palace is one Apartment of Six Rooms of State, the noblest I ever saw in Europe, both in Heighth, Length and Breadth: And for the Fineness of the Carv'd Work, in Wainscot and on the Cieling, there's no Apartment in Windsor or Hampton-Court that comes near it. And at the Top of this Royal Apartment, the late Earl of Mar, when he was Governor, made a very convenient Apartment of a Dozen Rooms of a Floor, for the Governors to lodge in. Joining to the Royal Apartments aforemention'd, is the Great Hall of Audience, roof'd at the Top with Irish Oak like that of Westminster-Hall at London: And in the Roof of the Presence-Chamber, are carv'd the Heads of the Kings and Queens of Scotland.’ Though Defoe's description is not quite clear, it is evident that the latter part of it refers not to the palace but to the Parliament Hall mentioned below. The oak carvings of the heads of the kings and queens, known as ‘the Stirling heads’, were taken down in 1777, as they had become insecure, and one of them had fallen on the head of a soldier. The burgh prison afforded them a place of refuge during 40 years of subsequent neglect, and since then they have been scattered. A few are preserved in the Smith Institute. The spacious rooms of the palace itself have since Defoe's time also suffered badly, some of them having been partitioned off as barrack stores, and the others for similar purposes.

“To the north of the Palace is the Upper Square, the south side of which is formed by the Palace itself. On the east side is the Parliament Hall or Parliament House, erected by James III. It was originally a fine building, the hall proper having been 120 feet in length, but it has, like the other buildings, suffered greatly by being converted into barrack rooms. On the north side of the square is the building erected by James VI as a chapel, but used as a store, and generally called the Armoury. It at one time contained 15,000 stand of arms and many pieces of old armor, but most of these have now been removed to the Tower of London. There seems to have been a chapel in the Castle founded by Alexander I, and attached to the monastery at Dunfermline, and the Capella Castelli de Strivelin is mentioned in a deed of David I (1124-53), and in another in the reign of William the Lyon (1165-1214). What the original dedication was is unknown, as the earlier documents mention only the King's Chapel, but in the 14th century, perhaps earlier, there is mention of the chapel of St Michael, which may probably date from the time when St Malachi or Michael - the Irish ecclesiastic - visited David I at Stirling Castle and healed his son Prince Henry. The chapel was rebuilt in the early part of the 15th century, but it was not till the time of James III that it became a foundation of importance. That monarch seems to have added to his other artistic tastes a great love of music, and this led him to determine that St Michael's Chapel should be rebuilt and constituted both as a royal chapel and as a musical college, and in the High Treasurer's accounts for 1473 and 1474, we find a number of entries of expenses in connection with the new building. He also endowed the new foundation with the rich temporalities of the Abbey of Coldingham, the annexation of which interfered with the interests of the powerful family of Home, and so led to the downfall and death of James himself. The chapel thus erected was the scene of the penitence of James IV, who, after the victory at Sauchie, ‘daily passed to the Chapel Royal, and heard matins and evening-song; in the which every day the chaplains prayed for the king's grace, deploring and lamenting the death of his

father; which moved to be counselled to come against his father in battle, where - through he was murdered and slain. To that effect he was moved to pass to the dean of the said Chapel Royal, and to have his counsel how he might be satisfied, in his own conscience; of the art and part of the cruel deed which was done to his father. The dean, being a godly man, gave the king a good comfort; and seeing him in repentance, was very glad thereof.’ Whether from this penitence or from a devotion to music itself, James IV carried out his father's purposes, and endowed the foundation with large revenues. The deans of the chapel, who were first the provosts of Kirkheugh at St Andrews, afterwards the bishops of Galloway, and eventually the bishops of Dunblane, possessed in their capacity as deans an episcopal jurisdiction, and in 1501 the chapel was erected into a collegiate church. The chapel erected by James III seems, however, to have been a poor structure, for in 1583 mention is made that ‘the thak thair of resavis weit and rane in sic sort that the King is hieness may nocht weill remane within the same in tyme of weitt or rane’, and as ‘the ruif thairof hes bene wrang wrocht mekil under square that the thak of the same is aff skailze, and is ane werray licht thak’, and as there are ‘many kyppillis thairof broken, swa it is necessary to put ane new ruif upone the said Chapell’, and so on, the whole structure being evidently in very ruinous condition. Nothing was, however, done till 1594, when James VI pulled the old building down and erected on its site the very poor erection now standing, which was the scene of the baptism of Prince Henry. It was subsequently destroyed internally by being converted into an armory. It is to be hoped that the singularly inappropriate use to which the old portions of the Castles of Stirling and Edinburgh are put, may finally cease and determine under the regime of the coming Secretary of State for Scotland. The buildings on the southwest side of the Upper Square are partly older in date than the others, some of them having been erected in the end of the reign of James I. They are now used as officers' quarters and offices, the officers' mess-room being what is known as Queen Mary's Boudoir. Over the gable window are the letters ‘M R’, with a crown and thistle, and over another window the monogram ‘M R’, with the date 1557. A passage to the west of the Chapel Royal leads to a garden opening off which is the Douglas Room or King's Closet, the reputed scene of the murder of the Earl of Douglas by James II. The skeleton of an armed man found in the garden in 1797 is supposed to have been that of Douglas. This portion of the Castle was destroyed by fire in 1855, but was, in 1856, restored from designs by RW Billings, in keeping with the old design. In the small closet opening off the room is a stained-glass window with the Douglas arms and the motto, ‘Lock Sicker’. A small door opening off at one side leads to an underground passage, which is supposed to have come out at Ballengeich. Round the cornice of the closet is the inscription: Pie Jesus Hominum Salvator P1a Maria Salvete 1gem, and beneath, Jacobus Scotor. Rex. In the Douglas Room itself may be seen the communion table used in the Castle by John Knox, an old pulpit from the Chapel Royal, an old clock from Linlithgow, several personal relics of the Stewart sovereigns, and a number of pikes used at the Bonnymuir rising in 1820. From the ramparts on the north side of the garden there is a magnificent view. The best is from what is called Queen Victoria's Look-out at the northwest corner - though the Queen saw but little when she was there as the day was misty - but good views may also be obtained from Queen Mary’s Look-out on the west, and from the Ladies' Look-out Battery southwest of the Palace, where the rock is steepest. To the north of the buildings just described, but at a lower level, is a rampart-protected plateau on which are the magazines. The Castle is now used as an infantry barracks, forming the head-quarters of the 91st regimental district, and the depot for the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, formerly the 91st and 93d regiments, with whom are associated as 3d and 4th battalions the Highland Borderers Militia (Stirling) and the Royal Renfrew Militia (Paisley).

“To the southeast of the Esplanade is the spacious quadrangular edifice called Argyll's Lodging. It is Jacobean in style, and was built in 1630 by the first Earl of Stirling. On his death in 1640 it passed into the possession of the Argyll family, and was the temporary residence of Charles II in 1650, of the Duke of York in 1681; was the headquarters of the Duke of Argyll in 1715; and was occupied by the Duke of Cumberland in 1746 when he was on his march to the north. It was purchased by the government in 1799 and converted into a military hospital, for which it is still used. Above the doorway are the arms of the Earl of Stirling, with the mottos ‘Per mare per terras’, and ‘Aut spero aut sperno’. Above some of the windows is the boar's head of Argyll. Farther to the south is the ruin known as Mar's Work, the remains of the palace built by the Earl of Mar in 1570, and a notable specimen of the work of that age. Sir Robert Sibbald says that ‘the Earl lived splendidly here’, and that James VI and his Queen resided in it till a portion of the Castle was got ready for their reception, but of the buildings which once surrounded a central quadrangular court only the front portion now remains, and it is very doubtful whether this was ever finished. Over the entrance gateway are the royal arms, while on the towers at either side are those of the Earl and his wife. As the stones used were taken from the Abbey of Cambuskenneth, the noble builder was at the time charged with sacrilege. The inscriptions on three tablets built into the wall seem to give his answer. The first is inscribed:

‘I pray al luikaris on this lugging

With gentile to gif thair juging.’

Another:

‘The moir I stand on oppin hitht.

My faultis moir subject ar to sitht’,

And the third:

‘Esspy speik furth and spair notht,

Considdir weil I cair notht.’

“The ‘luging’ became in its turn a quarry, whence stones were procured for a churchyard wall at St Ninians, and had it not been that it sheltered the market-place from the west winds it would probably have been entirely removed. Opposite Argyll's Lodging was a house with a projecting turret, said to have been the residence of George Buchanan when he was here during the minority of James VI. Regent Morton's house occupied a site near the south corner of Broad Street; and east of Cowane's Hospital is a house said to have belonged to the Earl of Bothwell, and called Bothwell House or Bogle Hall. At the foot of Broad Street is Darnley House, bearing a tablet with the inscription ‘The nursery of James VI and his son Prince Henry’; and at the south end of Bow Street was a house used as the mint. It was removed in 1870. Many of the houses in Broad Street and Baker Street are characteristic specimens of old Scottish architecture, and several of them have the quaint mottoes which our ancestors of the 16th and 17th centuries were so fond of. One at least takes a somewhat unusual form:

‘Heir I forbeare my name or armcs to fix,

Least I or myne should sell these stones and sticks.’

On another house is a stone tablet - possibly older than the house itself - with a tailor's scissors, and the inscription, ‘this hous is foundit for support of ye puir be Robert Spittal, taill your to James ye 4th. Anno 1530, R S.’”343

John Bartholomew clarifies: “Stirling, parliamentary and royal burgh, county town of Stirlingshire, and parish, partly also in Clackmannanshire, on river Forth, 29 miles northeast of Glasgow, 33 miles southwest of Perth, 36 miles northwest of Edinburgh, and 408 miles northwest of London by rail - parish, 1,412 acres, population 13,480; parliamentary and police burgh (extending into St Ninians parish), population 16,001; royal burgh (extending into St Ninians and Logic parishes), population 12,194; town (extending into St Ninians parish), population 16,012; 7 Banks, 5 news-papers. Market-day, Friday. Stirling is one of the oldest and most interesting towns of Scotland, and is associated with many important events in Scottish history. The castle is finely situated on the summit of a precipitous rock, the abrupt termination of the rising ground on which the town stands, and commands a magnificent view. It was taken by the English in 1296, was held by them from 1304-14, was long a favorite royal residence, and was the birthplace of James II and James V, the latter of whom was also crowned here. The buildings consist of the Chapel Royal (originally founded by Alexander I and rebuilt by James VI), the Parliament House (built by James III), the Palace (by James V), and other portions, which now serve as infantry barracks. There are many other objects of interest, including the King's Knot, the King's Park, the Mote Hill or Heading Hill, Argyll's Lodging, the Old Greyfriars Church, etc. Stirling is situated on the line of communication between the Highlands and the Lowlands, and is a railway center. There is a jetty on the Forth, but the shipping trade is now almost superseded by the railway traffic. A steamer plies to and from Leith, the passage being greatly lengthened by the numerous windings of the river. Manufactures of tartans, tweeds, winceys, carpets, leather, and agricultural implements are carried on. The Stirling District of Parliamentary Burghs (Stirling, Dunfermline, Culross, Inverkeithing, and Queensferry) returns 1 member.”344

**STIRLINGSHIRE**

FH Groome documents: “Stirlingshire, one of the midland counties of Scotland, partly Lowland and partly Highland, and consisting of a main portion and two detached sections to the northeast, included in Perthshire and Clackmannan. The main portion is bounded north by the county of Perth, northeast by the county of Clackmannan and the detached portion of Perthshire about Culross, east by the Firth of Forth and Linlithgowshire, southeast by Linlithgowshire, south by Lanarkshire and a detached portion of Dumbartonshire about Kirkintilloch, and southwest and west by Dumbartonshire. The first detached section lies 3 miles northeast of Bridge of Allan, and measures 2 by 1¼ mile. It is entirely surrounded by Perthshire. The second detached section lies 1½ mile east of this, and is much larger, extending northward from the Devon at Alva for over 4 miles, and averaging 2 miles wide at right angles to this. It is bounded on the north by Perthshire, and east, south, and west by Clackmannanshire. The shape of the main body of the county is irregular, but there may be said to be a compact eastern portion measuring 27½ miles, from Grangemouth on the east to the junction of Catter Burn with Endrick Water on the west, and averaging 13 miles from north to south at right angles to this; and from this compact portion a long projection passes up the northeast side of Loch Lomond for 20 miles, 6½ miles wide at starting, and tapering to the head of Glen Gyle. The extreme length of the county, from the head of Glen Gyle southeastward to Linlithgow Bridge, is 45¾ miles; and the extreme breadth, from the boundary line northeast of Bridge of Allan southwestward to the Kelvin near Killermont House, is 22½ miles. The boundaries are largely natural. Beginning at the northwest corner, the boundary line follows

the stream in Glen Gyle down the glen to Loch Katrine (364 feet), and then passes along the loch itself to Coalburns, southeast of Stronachlachlar, whence it strikes straight west-southwestward to Loch Arklet (463). From near the northeast end of this loch it passes south-southeastward to the top of Beinn Uaimhe, and thence southeastward by the summits of Beinn Dubh (1,675 feet) and Mulan an t’ Sagairt (1,398) to Duchray Water at the entrance to Gleann Dubh, 1 5/8 mile west of the west end of the Loch Ard. From this the boundary is Duchray Water, to a point ¾ mile below Duchray Castle, and thereafter the line winds southeastward till it reaches a tributary of Kelty Water, ¼ mile west-southwest of Gartmore. It follows this stream to the Kelty, then the Kelty to the Forth, and thereafter the last river for 4¼ miles, till, west-northwest of Port of Monteith station, it turns southward to Bucklyvie Moor, then eastward for 1¼ mile, and again northward back to the Forth ¼ mile above Arngomery Burn, and from this it follows the Forth for 19¾ miles to the junction of the Forth and Teith. Here it passes north-northeastward, to the southeast of the policies of Keir, and Lecropt church, curves round, 1 mile north of Bridge of Allan, and then turns back through the policies of Airthrey Castle to the Forth near Causewayhead station, whence it follows the main channel of the river and the firth all the way to the mouth of the river Avon. The latter river separates the county from Linlithgowshire for 13¾ miles, upwards to the junction of the Drumtassie Burn, while then forms the boundary to its source, and after this the line passes westward to North Calder Water, which it follows for 1 mile up to Black Loch. Crossing this loch, it curves northwestward to the river Avon, ½ mile below the great bend near Fannyside Loch, and follows this river up to Jawcraig, whence it passes westward to the Castlecary Burn, and follows this downwards to Bonny Water. Thereafter it keeps near the Forth and Clyde Canal on the north side, along a small stream that forms the head source of the Kelvin, and then with minor irregularities follows the Kelvin for 12½ miles to a point barely ½ mile above Killermont House. From this the line passes irregularly to the northwest, till near Clober House it reaches the Allander Water, up which and the Auldmurrouch Burn it passes to Auchingree Reservoir. From the reservoir it runs northwestward, partly by Crooks Burn, to Catter Burn, follows this downward to Endrick Water, and then the course of the latter to Loch Lomond, where, curving outwards to include the islands of Clairinch, Inchcailloch, Inchfad, Inchruim, and Bucinch, it passes between Inchlonaigh (Dumbartonshire) and Strathcashell Point, and then up the center of the loch till opposite Island Vow, 2 miles from the north end of the loch, where it turns eastward to the summit of Beinn a’ Choin (2,524 feet), and thence by Stob nan Eighrach (2,011) to the stream in Glen Gyle. Near the place where Perthshire crosses to the north side of the Forth, Stirlingshire includes, between Arngomery and Kippen, a portion of Perthshire measuring 2½ miles by fully ¼ mile. The area of the county is 466.53 square miles or 298,578.65 acres, of which 3,294 are foreshore and 8,946 are water, while of the whole 9,176 acres lie north of the Forth, including the two detached portions of the county. Of the land surface of 286,388.65 acres, 114,687 were under crop, bare, fallow, and grass in 1884, and 12,483 under wood – increase in the former case of 23,278 acres within the last thirty years, and a decrease in the latter case of about 500 in the same period. The mean summer and winter temperatures differ but little from what (58 degrees and 37 degrees) may be taken as those for the central Scottish counties; and the mean average annual rainfall varies greatly, being only about 35 inches for the district about Stirling, while at the lower end of Loch Lomond it is 55, and farther up the loch rises to over 90. Among the counties of Scotland, Stirling is twentieth as regards area; ninth as regards population, both absolutely and in respect of the number of persons (251) to the square mile; and tenth as regards valuation.

“The county belonged anciently to the Caledonian Damnonii, and was afterwards partly included in the Roman province of Valentia, partly in that of Vespasiana. Still later it lay on the debatable land between

the Angles, the Picts, and the Britons of Stratchclyde; became the sea of a Scotic kingdom, thereafter of Cumbria, and finally almost the central point of modern Scotland; and associated with many of the leading events in its history. Few counties can boast of being the scene of so many decisive battles as this. Stirling Bridge, 1297; Falkirk, 1298; Bannockburn, 1314; Sauchie, 1488; Kilsyth, 1645; and the second battle of Falkirk, 1746. The antiquities are both numerous and important, but for them reference may be made to the articles on the different parishes and towns and the others therein referred to. The Roman Wall, between the Firths of Forth and Clyde, which passed through portions of the county on the south, is separately noticed (see Antoninus’ Wall), as is also Arthur’s Oven.”345

John Bartholomew observes: “Stirlingshire, west-midland county of Scotland; consists of a main portion and two detached sections to the northeast included in Perthshire and Clackmannanshire; is bounded north by Perthshire, northeast by Clackmannanshire and a detached portion of Perthshire, east by the Firth of Forth and Linlithgowshire, south by Linlithgowshire, Lanarkshire, and detached part of Dumbartonshire, and west by Dumbartonshire; greatest length, northwest and southeast, 46 miles; greatest breadth, northeast and southwest, 22 miles; area, 286,338 acres, population 112,443. The east part of the county is flat, finely wooded, and well cultivated; and the valley of the Forth along the north boundary includes some of the finest land in Scotland. The middle and south are occupied with hills and valleys - the principal ridges being the Campsie Fells and Kilsyth Hills, and the Fintry Hills and Gargunnock Hills. On the west a long projection extends northwards, including a mountainous district in which Ben Lomond rises to an alt of 3,192 ft, and parts of Loch Lomond and Loch Katrine. Besides the Forth, the chief streams are the Avon, Carron, Bannock, Allan, Endrick, and Blane. Coal and ironstone are extensively worked; limestone and sandstone are abundant. There are important manufactures of woolens, cotton, and iron; and there are several large chemical works and distilleries. The county comprises 21 parishes, with parts of 5 others, the parliamentary and police burgh of Stirling (part of the Stirling District of Burghs - 1 member), the parliamentary and police burgh of Falkirk (part of the Falkirk District of Burghs - 1 member), and the police burghs of Alva, Bridge of Allan, Denny and Dunipace, Grangemouth, Kilsyth, and Milngavie. It returns 1 member to Parliament.”346

***ABBEY CRAIG, STIRLING 347 ***

Neil Oliver recounts: “Wallace and Murray had gathered their forces on the slopes of the rocky eminence known as Abbey Craig – the site nowadays of the Wallace Monument – and must have looked at those English comings and goings with amazement. Then from their high ground they spotted the approach of another party of horsemen. This time it was a pair of Dominican friars sent by Warenne to see if the Scots would come to terms. Wallace told them: ‘Tell your commander that we are not here to make peace but to do battle to defend ourselves and liberate our kingdom. Let them come on, and we shall prove this in their very beards.’

“Warenne and Cressingham cared little that a battle now seemed imminent. They had a couple of hundred knights and mounted men-at-arms, backed by several thousand well-armed foot soldiers, many of them Welsh. The Scots force a mile or so away at Abbey Craig had similar numbers, but they were hopelessly outgunned in terms of horse and armaments. The English commanders were advised then of the existence of a ford across the Forth, perhaps a mile upriver. The horses could cross there and move into a position from which the Scots might be outflanked. This was sound tactical advice but the Englishmen were impatient to let their forces in amongst the rebels, and saw no need anyway for such precautions. Warenne ordered his men to begin crossing the bridge.

“Up on Abbey Craig, Wallace and Murray could not believe their luck. The old timber bridge (destroyed after the fighting and long since replaced by one of stone) was only wide enough to allow two or maybe three horses to ride across abreast. It was going to take half a day to get the army across. Cressingham, hugely fat and probably recognizable from a mile off, was among the first to trot over, smug arrogance radiating from every fold and roll.

“The first sense of unease was not long in coming though. First the horsemen found the ground on the far bank a little on the soft side – too soft for easy deployment of any kind of massed, cohesive charge. Secondly, and even more troubling, they were milling about in a bend of the river. The Forth below Stirling Castle is all lazy meanders and loops, and it was into one such watery noose that the English horse and the first of the foot soldiers had willingly slipped their own necks.

“To their left lay the only hope of advance: a narrow bottleneck of dry land between two stretches of the Forth. They had their backs to deep, fast-flowing water, and there was no other way out except the way they had just come, back across the crowded bridge. If it was a trap, it was one of their own making. The English chronicler Walter Guisborough wrote: ‘There was, indeed, no better place in all the land to deliver the English into the hands of the Scots, and so many into the power of the few.’ Guisborough’s words, with their echoes of Churchill’s, tell it just about right. Perhaps the first flutterings of panic was felt then in the guts of a few of the foot soldiers as well. As the lumbering heavy horses moved around them in mild confusion, snorting and champing at their cruel bits, their riders unable to see what should be done for the best, some of the men could hear the howling approach of the Scots. The horses’ ears had pricked up first, alive to the distant hubbub of many armed men on the move.

“Wallace and Murray had waited until perhaps half of the English army was across the river, crowded into the river bend with nowhere to go, and had then given the signal to advance. On had come the Scots at a confident jog – lesser gentry, countrymen, ordinary folk with extraordinary hopes – and the English could only wait upon their arrival. What followed was bloody slaughter.

“Cavalry without order and room to deploy are little more than sitting ducks in the face of advancing schiltrons. Foot soldiers without orders will fare no better. Horses screamed as long spears were thrust home. Riders were hauled from saddles and messily dispatched. Cressingham too, unable to escape the melee, was pulled to the ground and butchered. The skin was later flayed from his great, bloated corpse. He had tried to tax the very skins off Scots’ backs after all, and now they offered the same service in return. Wallace would have part of it fashioned into a sword belt.

“Warenne never crossed the bridge. Together with the lucky half of the force he watched the butchery helplessly, with wide eyes. He was an older man, in his late sixties, and cannot have witnessed many reverses like this one. Accepting there was nothing to be done but flee, he ordered the destruction of the bridge and made first for the castle.

“A few of the embattled English and Welsh had got back by swimming clear of the fighting. Among them was a Yorkshire knight with the luxurious and memorable name of Sir Marmaduke Tweng. Warenne hastily put him in charge of Stirling Castle while he himself fled for the Border. Behind him on the Carse of Stirling lay at least 100 dead knights and several thousand foot soldiers. True to their treacherous and unreliable natures, Stewart and the Earl of Lennox had changed sides. Having seen the way things were going for the visitors, they had scuttled away to join in the looting of the English baggage train.

“Here was something far greater than could have been hoped for by even the most recklessly optimistic Scot. The English war machine – supposedly invincible, that had smashed the Welsh into submission, that was famed across Europe – had been taken apart piece by piece. Not just a victory, but a stunning, staggering victory. Scots ears were rendered briefly deaf – not by the battle’s roar but by the sudden rush of blood to the head. For the English survivors, hardest of all to swallow was the fact they had been sent running for their lives by peasant amateurs – Scots peasant amateurs at that. And for the first time, Edward would have to pay attention to the name William Wallace. One thing was certain: he would never forget it.

“The remnant threads of the Scottish nobility, either languishing in imprisonment, fighting for Edward in France or hiding from the fight behind the sick-note of the Ragman Roll, were stunned too. In a desperate bid to ride the unexpected tsunami of patriotic fervor, smuggle themselves somehow into the midst of the celebrations, they made Wallace Guardian of Scotland. In a separate impromptu ceremony at the church of Kirk o’ the Forest, near Selkirk, he was dubbed a knight and thereby elevated at a stroke to the nobility. His able accomplice Murray, son of nobility and Wallace’s social superior, would have been an easier choice for the Scots magnates, but he had died of awful wounds sustained amid the gilded victory.

“Exactly when he had succumbed is not known, although he was certainly dead within a couple of months of the fighting. His name is alongside that of Wallace on a letter written in Haddington, in East Lothian, on 11 October 1297. It was sent ‘To the Senate and Commoners of Lubeck and Hamburg’ to try and persuade the trading nations of the North Sea that it was business as usual in Scotland: ‘we ask you to make it known among your merchants that they can now have safe access with their merchandise to all harbors of the Kingdom of Scotland, because the Kingdom of Scotland has, thanks be to God, by war been recovered from the power of the English’.”348

***ARGYLL’S LODGINGS, STIRLING***

Clifton Wilkinson says: “Visit Argyll's Lodging, Scotland's best example of a 17th-century aristocratic town house, standing in the shadow of Stirling Castle.

“Standing almost opposite Stirling Castle, Argyll’s Lodging dates from a period when living as close to the monarch as possible increased your social status.

“Originally a two-storey, mid-16th-century tower house, the building’s stately appearance today is the result of work by Sir William Alexander – Charles I’s secretary for Scotland – and Archibald Campbell, Earl of Argyll. Anticipating the King’s visit to Scotland for his coronation, Alexander expanded the house in 1630 and was made earl of Stirling for his efforts. It was bought by Argyll in the 1660s and enlarged again with many of the rooms and furnishings visible today dating from then.

“The ground floor comprises a relatively spartan set of rooms, primarily used by servants and where visitors would have waited to ascend the magnificent staircase when visiting the Earl. Upstairs the high dining room is entered by a door with the initials ‘AA’ above it (for Archibald and his second wife Anna) and still has some of the original painted columns on the walls, dating from 1675.

“Beyond lies the drawing room, lady’s closet and the bedchamber, done out in sumptuous purple and where the Earl and his wife would have received special guests. The house remained a family home until

around 1800 when it became a military hospital. Historic Scotland took over the building in 1996 and has since restored much of its splendour.

“Don’t miss: The en-suite toilet with padded seat just off the bedchamber.”349

***BANNOCKBURN, STIRLING 350 ***

Andrew Fisher spotlights: “The success which Bruce enjoyed in 1308 continued in the following years. Beset by problems in England and indifferent to events Scotland, Edward II allowed Bruce a freedom of action which would have been inconceivable under Edward I. Bruce pursued with vigor the conquest of Scotland, but to achieve his ends he had to take the castles held by the English. This was inevitably a slow process with such strategically important and widely separated castles as Perth and Dumfries holding out as late as 1313; even to Edward their value was clear, and he had done his best to maintain and supply their garrisons. James Douglas took Roxburgh in February 1314, and Thomas Randolph with Douglas. the most able of Bruce’s lieutenants, took the prize of Edinburgh a month later. Berwick stayed English until 1318.

“Stirling, however, perhaps the most important of all because of its dominant position overlooking the Forth, continued to defy Bruce. Between Lent and midsummer 1313, Edward Bruce lay siege to it but without success. The commander of Stirling, Sir Philip Mowbray, a Scot who had kept his faith with the English, asked for a year’s truce at the end of which the castle would either be relieved or surrendered to Bruce. This Edward Bruce granted, and in so doing committed his brother, the king, to what he had always hoped to avoid, a trial of strength with the English. Edward II could not refuse to bring relief to Mowbray; honor and the belief that in a pitched battle Bruce would be vulnerable as, traditionally, the Scots had always been, combined to ensure that the English would act.

“The agreement between Mowbray and Edward Bruce meant that the battle would take place outside Stirling. If neither the battle itself nor the site were of Bruce’s own choosing, he prepared meticulously for what was about to occur. Like Wallace at Falkirk, Bruce selected a position which would restrict the English cavalry. Unlike Wallace, however, Bruce had a force of cavalry whose presence was to prove crucial. It is likely that the English outnumbered the Scots by three to one, but the morale of the Scots was high. Moreover, the English, after a long approach to the field of battle and led by a soldier inferior in ability if not in courage to Bruce, were already dispirited when the Battle of Bannockburn entered its first stages on 23 June 1314. In a memorable encounter which preceded the main battle, Bruce killed in single combat Henry de Bohun, whose ambition had encouraged him to attack Bruce. The English army, in its turn, was no more successful than Bohun. Bruce’s schiltroms were able to contain the repeated English cavalry charges but were threatened by Edward’s bowmen who may have numbered as many as 5,000. Bruce, perhaps remembering Falkirk, had held in reserve some 500 light-horsemen under Sir Robert Keith, and their intervention against the archers prevented the kind of disaster which had befallen the Scots as the earlier battle. Keith’s horsemen drove the archers from the field, and the schiltroms, whose discipline had sustained them in the face of the heavy English cavalry, were slowly turned into an offensive weapon, pushing with their 12-foot pikes against the English ranks and exercising what became an overwhelming pressure. The English were driven in upon themselves, unable to act in concert or even to wield their swords. Those English who tried to make their way from the battle were in danger of drowning, either in the Bannock burn, which gave its name to the battle, or in the Forth. Edward II fought almost to the end but was taken from the field by his own men, conscious of the effect that his capture would have. The English losses at Bannockburn were severe over the two

days on which the battle was fought and included the earl of Gloucester, Bruce’s own cousin. The English baggage-train fell into Scottish hands as did Edward’s shield, and considerable ransoms were obtained for those magnates taken in the battle. The earl of Hereford was later exchanged for Bruce’s wife, his daughter Marjory, his sister and Robert Wishart. Of those English who fled, some were able to reach Carlisle under the leadership of Aymer de Valence, Bruce’s old enemy. Edward was able to escape to Dunbar where he took a boat first to Bamburgh and then to Berwick.”351

***CAMBUSKENNETH ABBEY, STIRLING***

FH Groome emphasizes: “Cambuskenneth, an ancient abbey on a low peninsula, on the left bank of the river Forth, ¾ mile east of Stirling. The tract around it is within Clackmannanshire, was long extra-parochial, and is now in dispute between the parishes of Stirling and Logie. This tract is supposed to have been the scene of a conflict with the Picts by Kenneth II, or some other of the royal Kenneths, and to have thence derived its name of Cambuskenneth, signifying ‘Field of Kenneth’. It is all alluvial and very fertile, forming one of those rich loops of the Forth, respecting which an old rhyme says: ‘A crook o’ the Forth Is worth an earldom in the North’. The abbey on it was founded in 1147 by David I; was dedicated to the Virgin Mary; was planted with a community of monks of St Augustine, or canons-regular, from Aroise, near Arras, in the French province of Artois; was sometimes called the Monastery of Stirling; gave name to St Mary’s Wynd, leading from High Street in Stirling; was very richly endowed; and, in 1445, was occupied by an abbot, a prior, and 17 monks. Its abbots, from the beginning of the 15th century, were often employed in high state duties, or raised to high civil offices. Abbot Henry, in 1493, was made high treasurer of Scotland; Abbot Patrick Panther (1470-1519), reckoned one of the most accomplished scholars of his day, was secretary to James IV, a privy councilor, and afterwards ambassador to France; Abbot Alexander Myln (died 1542), author of a Latin history of the Bishops of Dunkeld, twice printed for the Bannatyne Club, was employed by James V in several states transactions with England, and became the first president of the Court of Session in 1532; and David Panther (died 1558), last abbot of the monastery, and a distinguished scholar, was a privy councilor, secretary of state, and a frequent ambassador to foreign courts. The abbey itself, too, figured prominently in several great national affairs. Edward I of was here on 1 Nov 1303 and 5 March 1304; Sir Niel Campbell, Sir Gilbert Hay, and other barons, in 1308, here swore on the High Altar to defend the title of Robert Bruce to the Scottish crown; a parliament assembled here in July 1326, remarkable as the earliest in which the representatives of burghs are minuted as having assisted; other parliaments, at other periods, assembled here; several of the Scottish kings here granted charters; and James III (died 1488) and Margaret of Denmark, his queen, were here interred before the high altar. The barony or property of the abbey, shortly after the accession of James VI to the English throne, was given to John, Earl of Mar; was transferred by him to his brother, Alexander Erskine of Alva; remained with that gentleman’s family till 1709; and then was purchased by the town-council of Stirling for the benefit of Cowan’s Hospital. The abbey building were pillaged during the wars of the succession; were sacked and in great measure demolished, 1559, by the iconoclasts of the Reformation; and are now represented by little more than one massive four-storied tower. This, 35 high square and 70 high, is pure First Pointed in style; has a south doorway in a pedimental-headed projection, a polygonal northeast stair-turret, and a low saddle-back roof, rising in a thin corbelled parapet; and thence commands a wide and brilliant view. A renovation was lately carried out to maintain its stability, but without effacing or altering its original or architectural features. Excavations also were made, in 1864, to discover the tomb of James III, and to ascertain the extent and alignment of the entire buildings; and were so far successful as to exhume the

relics of the king and queen, and to lay bare the foundations of the cruciform church (178 x 37 feet) and the chapter-house. The sub-basement of the high altar was found about 3 feet beneath the surface, near the center of the ruins; and a large flat block of limestone, covering the remains of the king and the queen, was found immediately in front of the high altar. The skull and other remains of the king were found in an oak coffin beneath the limestone block; at close by were remains of a female figure, evidently the queen’s. These, after a stucco cast of the king’s skull had been taken for Stirling Museum, were carefully reinterred in an oak box; and a neat stone altar monument was erected over them, in 1865, by command of Queen Victoria. The chartulary of the abbey, written on 174 leaves of vellum, is preserved in the Advocates Library in Edinburgh, and was reproduced in facsimile for the Grampian Club in 1872 by W Fraser.”352

***INCHMAHOME, STIRLING***

FH Groome gives: “Inchmahome (Gaelic ‘island of my little Colman’), the larger of the two islets in the Lake of Monteith, Port of Monteith parish, southwest Perthshire, 3 ¾ miles east by south of Aberfoyle and 5 furlongs southwest of Port of Monteith village. With an utmost length and breadth of only 1 1/8 and 1 furlong, it lies on the unruffled water near Inch Talla, level but plump with rich foliage, brooding like great birds of calm. You somehow think of them as on, not in the lake, or like clouds lying in a nether sky – ‘like ships waiting for the wind’. You get a coble, and a yauld old Celt, its master, and are rowed across to Inchmahome, the Isle of Rest. Here you find on landing huge Spanish chestnuts, one lying dead, others standing stark and peeled, like gigantic antlers, and others flourishing in their viridis senectus; and in a thicket of wood you see the remains of a monastery of great beauty, the design and workmanship exquisite. You wander through the ruins, overgrown with ferns and Spanish filberts, and old fruit trees, and at the corner of the old monkish garden you come upon one of the strangest and most touching sights you ever saw - an oval space of 18 feet by 12, with the remains of a double row of boxwood all round. What is this? It is called in the guide-books ‘Queen Mary's Bower’; but, besides its being plainly not in the least a bower, what could the little Queen, then five years old, and ‘fancy free’, do with a bower? It is plainly the Child-Queen's Garden, with her little walk, and its rows of boxwood, left to themselves for three hundred years. Yet, without doubt, ‘here is that first garden of her simpleness’. Fancy the little, lovely royal child, with her four Marys, her playfellows, her child maids-of-honor, with their little hands and feet, and their innocent and happy eyes, pattering about that garden all that time ago, laughing, and running, and gardening as only children do and can. As is well known, Mary was placed by her mother in this Isle of Rest from soon after the battle of Pinkie, Sept 1547, till towards the end of the following February she left for Dumbarton, thence to take ship to France. Thus the author of Rab and his Friends; and Mr Hutchison, in Trans Highl and Ag Soc (1879-80), more minutely describes ‘the quaint and simple arrangements of this mediaeval garden - the three straggling boxwood trees, evidently grown from the boxwood edgings of a former oval flower-bed still discernible. They are 20 ½ feet high, and upwards of 3 in girth at 1 foot from the ground, where they branch into several stems, the result probably of early clipping. In the center of the plot is a quaint old thorn tree, 22 feet high, and 16 inches in girth, but much destroyed by the prevalent west winds which sweep across the island, and to whose influence it is much exposed.’ In 1238 Walter Comyn, Earl of Menteith, obtained authority from Pope Gregory IX to build an Augustinian priory on the island of Inchmaquhomok. The church was dedicated to Colman, an Irish Pict, who founded the monastery of Dromore in Ireland prior to 514. Robert Bruce was at least three times at Inchmahome, in 1306, 1308, and 1310; and here in 1363 his son, David II, widower, wedded Margaret Logie, widow. First Pointed in

style, and measuring 115 feet by 36, the church consisted of a three-bayed nave, a north aisle, an aisleless choir, and a square four-storied bell-tower. The western doorway is deeply recessed and richly sculptured; and the choir retains a piscina, sedilia, and an interesting though mutilated monument (circa 1294) with recumbent effigies of Walter Stewart, Earl of Menteith, and his Countess, his legs being crossed crusader-wise, and her arm twined around his neck. South of the church are some remains of the dormitory, refectory, and vaulted kitchen; but the cloisters in 1644 made way for an awkward mausoleum, run hurriedly up to receive the corpse of John Graham, Lord Kilpont, who was murdered in Montrose's camp at Collace by one of his own vassals, James Stewart of Ardvoirlich. Lord Kilpont's son, the second and last Earl of Airth and Menteith, disposed of Inchmahome to the Marquis of Montrose, with whose descendant, the Duke, it still remains.”353

***STIRLING BRIDGE, STIRLING***

www.bbc.co.uk underscores: “‘For this reason the Scots adopted a stout heart at the instigation of William Wallace, who taught them to fight, so that those whom the English nation held as living captives might be made renewed Scots in their own homeland, ... Hence in the year one thousand three hundred, less three time one the Scots vanquished the English, whom they put into mourning for death, as the bridge bears witness, where the great battle is recorded, which lies beyond Stirling on the River Forth.’ Poem in Bower's Scotichronicon on the Battle of Stirling Bridge.

“John de Warenne marches north with a huge force of cavalry and infantry. Earl of Surrey, Governor in Scotland for Edward I of England, and spearhead of his imperial ambitions north of the border, he is confident of victory, whether by battle or negotiation. It has been four months since the rising of William Wallace and Andrew Murray began.

“Near Stirling Castle he arrives at a narrow, wooden bridge which crosses The River Forth. There, on the opposite bank is Wallace and Murray's army. Warenne delays his crossing for several days to allow for negotiations, cocksure that the Scots will choose peace over war in the light of recent English victories and their obvious military superiority. He is surprised by their refusal to surrender and on the 11th September decides to force the crossing.

“The Scots were encamped on the Abbey Craig, where the National Wallace Monument stands today. Their army was predominantly infantry armed with long spears, and was drawn mainly from the ‘lesser’ ranks of society - not because the Scots nobles completely resisted Wallace, but because many of them were being held captive in England.

“From the base of Abbey Craig a causeway stretched for a mile across The River Forth's flood plain (roughly in line with the present day road between The Craig and the river). At the end of the causeway stood the bridge (lying 180 yards upstream from the 15th century stone that still crosses the river today).

“It was wide enough to pass with only two horsemen abreast and the entire English army would have taken several hours to cross, after which they would have to enter a confined narrow loop in the river, leaving their flank dangerously exposed to attack. All this before they were even ready to give battle.

“At dawn the English and Welsh infantry start to cross only to be recalled due to the fact that their leader, Warenne, has overslept. Again they cross the bridge and again they are recalled: as Warenne believes the Scots might finally negotiate. Two Dominican friars are sent to Wallace to acquire his

surrender and return shortly afterwards with William Wallace's first recorded speech: ‘Tell your commander that we are not here to make peace but to do battle, defend ourselves and liberate our kingdom. Let them come on, and we shall prove this in their very beards.’

“Warenne decides to advance. He is advised to send a cavalry force upstream to The Ford of Drip in order to cover the infantry's crossing, however Edward's treasurer, Hugh de Cressingham, intervenes, pointing out that too much of the king's money has already been wasted and insisting that they cross at once to bring the campaign to a swift end.

“Wallace and Murray wait until more than half the English army has crossed the bridge before springing their trap. The Scots spearmen rush down the causeway. Those on the right flank force their way along the river bank to the north end of the bridge, cutting off any hope of escape.

“Trapped in a confined space with the river to their backs, the English heavy cavalry is virtually useless. Only one group of English knights, under Sir Marmaduke Tweng, succeed in cutting their way back to the bridge. After they have crossed, Warenne, who has wisely stayed put, has the bridge destroyed and flees to Berwick.

“Over half the English army is left to its fate on the Scots side of the river. Those that can swim do so, the rest (over 100 men-at-arms and 5,000 infantry) are inevitably massacred. Many of them are Welsh, but among them is Hugh de Cressingham, Edward's hated tax collector, who had crossed first.

“On the Scots side, Andrew Murray is fatally wounded. He dies two months later and is buried at Fortrose Cathedral on Black Isle, north of Inverness.

“Victory brings the collapse of English occupation. Wallace, now Guardian of Scotland, goes on to devastate the north of England in the hope of forcing Edward to acknowledge defeat. Records show that 715 villages are burnt, and many helpless people are no doubt slain. The cycle of brutality, started by Edward at Berwick, rolls remorselessly on.

“Until 1297 the heavily armed and mounted knight had been an invincible force on the battlefield. Stirling Bridge was the first battle in Europe to see a common army of spearmen defeat a feudal host. Only five years later, a host of French knights were to go down to similarly-armed Flemish townsmen at The Battle of Courtrai.

“Stirling Bridge also destroyed the myth of English invincibility. The Scots had not defeated a major English army since the Dark Ages, but this victory seems to have strengthened their will to resist Edward I. However, the humiliation of losing to lowly Scots only strengthened Edward's determination: under a year later Wallace's Scots Army was defeated at The Battle of Falkirk.”354

Andrew Fisher comments: “Cressingham had written of an ‘immense army’ under Wallace’s leadership. This is unlikely to have been an accurate assessment; Wallace, we may be sure, preferred the mobility which smaller numbers allowed, and Cressingham may have employed exaggeration as a means of inducing the return of Surrey. Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that Wallace’s success against the English was encouraging men to join him, and the size of his army was radically increased when he was joined by forces under the leadership of Andrew Murray. Murray, after his escape from Chester, had made his way back to his homeland, in Morayshire, and led an intelligent resistance, based on principles similar to those of Wallace, against the English. Murray assaulted Castle Urquhart, took Inverness, Elgin

and Banff. Like Wallace in the south he became the head of the resistance movement in the north. At some date unknown to us, Wallace and Murray must have met, to plan a coordinated strategy. By the end of August, 1297, their armies had united and were advancing on Stirling. Surrey had finally left Yorkshire, unable any longer to avoid his responsibilities, and with Cressingham, the one lethargic, the other eager for glory in war, moved from Berwick towards Stirling. Although we do not know the exact numbers of either army, it is clear that the Scots were largely infantry, while the English infantry was supported by a considerable force of cavalry.

“When Surrey and Cressingham reached Stirling in the first week of September, the Scots were already in position on the Abbey Craig, a mile to the north of the bridge over the Forth. Wallace had no intention of repeating the mistake of Dunbar and losing the advantage which the heights gave him. Surrey, having failed in prevarication and attempts to talk Wallace into surrender, sent his army across the bridge on 11 September. Wallace allowed the English vanguard onto the bridge and then, with the timing of a great commander, released his infantry against it. The momentum of the Scots carried them onto the bridge and drove the English into the river. Many were drowned, others killed before they could raise their weapons. It was impossible either to advance or retreat. Surrey with the rest of the English army could only watch the slaughter. Among the dead was Cressingham, and after the battle, the Scots flayed his body, dispatching strips of his skin throughout Scotland to tell of the great victory. There were individual acts of bravery in the English army, but Surrey himself was no hero. He fled to Berwick to take ship to England. It is believed that a hundred English knights and some 5,000 foot-soldiers were killed at Stirling. By any standards, it was a magnificent victory, achieved against the odds and by a man who had never before been involved of this kind.”355

***STIRLING CASTLE, STIRLING***

Neil Oliver pens: “Stirling Castle was the last stronghold to fall to Edward during the spring and summer of 1304. He had saved it to the end as a showpiece finale – revenge for Stirling Bridge seven years before. Between the last week of April and the last week of July, the Scots garrison under the command of Sir William Oliphant put up a dogged resistance. Edward flung everything he had at the walls, even providing the ladies of his court with a grandstand view of the bombardment by his siege engines.

“The greatest of these was a monstrous catapult, a trebuchet he called ‘Warwolf’. It had taken twenty-seven wagons to carry its component parts to Stirling and the town’s defenders had had to watch while it was constructed beneath the castle walls. Once it was completed, Edward used it to launch huge stone walls as well as earthenware jars of ‘Greek fire’ onto the terrified inhabitants. Here was a medieval weapon of shock and awe. In spite of the battering by Warwolf and the rest of the English king’s armaments, the garrison held out. Only when they finally ran out of food did they open the doors to the enemy.”

Neil Oliver continues: “When it came, the biggest gamble was made not by King Robert, but by his brother Edward [Bruce]. In the same month that Robert had retaken Man, Edward was put in control of the siege of Stirling Castle. With the king out of the way, the English constable of the castle, Sir Philip Mowbray, offered Edward a deal: if an English force had not arrived to lift the Scots siege by Midsummer’s Day – 24 June 1314 – he would hand over the keys. Edward agreed at once … and Robert was furious. This was counter to every strategy that had brought King Robert so far. He had always used the element of surprise to gain the upper hand over superior numbers. Now his brother had forced him into a situation where Edward II could work towards a specific date! On 24 June 1314 the

King of England would know where the King of Scots would be – at Stirling Castle readying his forces to try to drive off the massed might of the English war machine. There was no way King Robert could allow the English to retain their grip on Stirling.

“His un-asked-for predicament also presented an opportunity to deliver another kind of surprise, a surprise of a different order of magnitude. Here he had been, working away for years, grimly retaking his kingdom stone by stone. Despite his success, none of it had served to proclaim him as unquestionable, beyond the reach of any challenger. A victory over the English in the shadow of Stirling Castle, however, might do that for him at a single stroke … might make of him a legend.

“Still he hedged his bets, kept his head. He had his men on site well ahead of the English, training and training again in the arts of the schiltron. They were in ‘the park’, acres of open woodland stretching south from the castle. It was ideal territory for men on foot. The trees offered one kind of natural protection, especially from cavalry, while the nearby ‘cause’ – the boggy floodplain of the River Forth, off to the east – presented another. Some time immemorial, the few miles of solid ground beside the castle rock had offered the only guarantee of dry feet for men and animals traveling north or south. It was this that made the rock so important: whoever held it controlled the coming and going. The Romans had appreciated the fact, and had built a road leading straight to it. It was along this same, already ancient thoroughfare that King Robert expected his foe to advance.

“With this in mind, he had had his men dig hundreds of meter-deep trenches either side of the road. Camouflaged out of sight with turf and grasses, they presented a lethal hazard to men and horses at full tilt. Above all else he was allowing himself to remain undecided about how deeply to commit to the fight. On paper, a pitched battle with the English was beyond him, and regardless of what his brother had agreed, he was keeping open as many options as possible. Were the enemy to advance in formation up the line of the road, they would see the Scots ahead of them and lose their heavy horse. The pits would gall the advance and enable the Scots spearmen to get in among them. It might not add up to a total victory, but it would serve to bloody King Edward’s nose at least.

“When the English army finally came into view, on 23 June, it was a sight to behold. No doubt King Robert felt vindicated for having mixed such a measure of caution into his thinking. It was a force as large as anything sent north since the glory days of Longshanks himself. Thousands upon thousands of them: knights, mounted men-at-arms, longbow-men, foot soldiers. There were fabled names too – like Sir Giles d’Argentan, third best knight in all of Christendom. Accurate reckonings are non-existent, but best guesses suggest 15,000 men on foot and up to 3,000 horse. They certainly outnumbered the Scots, perhaps by as much as two to one. But while Edward II had been able to summon impressive numbers, they had been assembled at the last minute. His men had finally come together as a single unit only days before – quite a handicap in the face of an enemy that had at its core a hard-bitten team of men who had been learning and growing together for long years.

“The fighting that first day, the last before Midsummer, was mostly an untidy affair. None of it worked out as King Robert had planned. Instead of galloping headlong into the leg-snapping pits, the English knights circled around the body of the Scots forces, looking for openings that did not exist, losing tempers and lances in the process. But one event, up near the road, will be remembered as long as there is a Scotsman left alive.

“An English knight named Sir Henry de Bohun, nephew of the hereditary Constable of England, Sir Humphrey de Bohun, was trotting in line with his fellows when he spied an unexpected target: a mounted knight wearing a golden crown. Here was immortality in the making, a chance to defeat the King of Scots in single combat. Lowering visor and lance, he spurred his war horse out of the formation and galloped forward. It is hard to imagine that poor deluded de Bohun ever stood a chance. King Robert was alone right enough, and mounted on a pony rather than a war horse. But he had been fighting and killing as king for seven relentless years; fighting and killing to protect his lands and name and title for a lifetime before that. He had lost brothers and friends to the English butcher’s slab and hangman’s noose. His wife, daughter and sister were imprisoned, along with the bishops who had offered him his throne. He had fought his way all the way back from a cave to a kingdom.

“As de Bohun bore down on him, King Robert judged the moment and move aside. He stood up in his stirrups, holding his favorite battle-axe with both hands. It was the weight of all he had suffered at English hands that he brought the mill-sharpened weapon down upon his young adversary’s helmeted head. The axe shaft snapped in two and de Bohun’s head was cleft from crown to chin. When King Robert trotted back to rejoin his nobles, they scolded him for taking such a risk. He replied only that he was sorry about his axe.

“The long summer evening drew to a close and both sides withdrew, the Scots into the cover of the trees and the English onto the sogginess of the carse. During the night that followed, a Scots knight who had been fighting for Edward changed sides. He trotted into the Scots camp and said English morale was dangerously low. A swift attack at first light might just carry the day for the Scots.

“24 June was a Sunday, and the Scots celebrated Mass in the half-light of dawn. The English were still half-asleep when word spread that the enemy was on the move. This was a disappointment. The English had hoped the Scots might have taken the opportunity to drift away to their homes during the night, content to have settled at least some scores. Instead they looked up towards the trees and saw Scots spearmen stepping out of the shadows by the thousand, dropping to their knees. Edward joked that the enemy had come to ask his forgiveness. A traitor Scot, Sir Ingraham de Umfraville, corrected him: ‘they want forgiveness – not from you, but from God, for what they are about to do.’

“Just as it had for Wallace at Stirling Bridge all those years before, the land fought for King Robert as well. Down on the floodplain, within loops of a Forth tributary stream called the Bannock Burn, the English cavalry could not deploy. Rather than achieve any kind of order, they just got in each other’s way. Archers too – some of the same who had been so effective at Falkirk – were hemmed in by stumbling horses and foot soldiers. The English strength in numbers proved meaningless. Only a narrow front of cavalry and infantry had their faces towards the Scots – and those Scots were advancing towards them at a trot, armed with long spears. It was a bloodbath that turned the Bannock Burn dark red.

“Those English that could extricate themselves from marsh, stream, river and Scottish spearmen took the only sensible option and made a run for it. King Edward ran too, all the way to the castle. Turning up at the gates, he found them barred against him. With more sense than his king, Mowbray had seen what way the wind was blowing. From the battlements he told Edward he had no forces to protect him, and urged him to head for home. Humiliated, Edward did as he was told. The Battle of Bannockburn, 23-4 June 1314. King Robert I had his legend.”

Neil Oliver continues: “In February 1452 he invited William Douglas to dinner at Stirling Castle. William was a fifteenth-century pin-up, a man of the world with an international reputation and the vast family wealth to back it up. He was also shrewd, in the manner taught to his ilk by hard lessons in betrayal. Smelling a rat, thinking the king had more in mind than a conversation about fine Burgundy wine and big guns, he requested and received a letter from James guaranteeing safe conduct for himself and his entourage. Despite the precautions, it was the dinner party from hell. The king was jumpy and volatile, and William was understandably edgy himself. The fact that the two men – one a twenty-seven-year-old playboy, the other a twenty-two-year-old king of all he surveyed – had been drinking all day did not help. Only one thing seemed certain, and that was trouble.

“Late in the evening and full of drink, James pressed William to break his bond with John MacDonald. When William refused, the king leapt to his feet. He was at boiling point. He called William a traitor and, drawing a knife from his sleeve, plunged it hilt-deep into his foe’s body. As the blood flowed, the king’s courtiers seized the moment and rushed to gather round the mortally wounded earl. Time and again they stabbed and hacked at him. Legend has it that when the frenzy was over, William’s lifeless body was flung from a first-floor window into a garden below. True or false, the place is called the Douglas Garden to this day. When William’s followers recovered their master’s corpse, they found it had twenty-six separate stab wounds. The head had been cleft in two with an axe.

“By any standards it was shocking behavior for a king, a brutal violation of all notions of honor and trust. William’s followers tied a copy of James’ signed letter of safe conduct to a horse’s tail and led the beast through the streets before ransacking the town. But James had shown he was a monarch to be taken seriously.

“James wanted the lands and wealth of the Black Douglases, and he did not mind getting his hands dirty in the process. Military and political maneuverings during the three years that followed the murder ended with William’s brother and heir, James, driven into permanent exile, with the loss of all his lands. Two more Douglas earls, brothers of Earl James, were executed, and their lands confiscated by the crown.”

Neil Oliver continues: “Stirling Castle is to me the most impressive and romantic fortress in all of Scotland – easily superior to that of Edinburgh. A lot of my affection comes from living in its shadow, but context is everything, and really it is the setting, in the center of one of the most stunning views in the whole country that adds unequalled grandeur to the stones and stained glass of the buildings themselves. The Ochil Hills provide the backdrop, their colors changing moment by moment at the whim of sun and cloud. It is across the almost unnaturally flat floodplain of the Carse, at the Ochils’ feet, that the silver ribbon of the River Forth winds absent-mindedly, as though having forgotten where it is supposed to be going.

“The real genius of the natural design is in the presence of two great craggy ridges that rear up out of the Carse like ancient, battered sharks’ fins. On top of one of them, Abbey Craig, is the Wallace Monument, erected in the early nineteenth century by Unionist Scots living in self-imposed exile in London. On the other is Stirling Castle. Writing in the early nineteenth century, the geologist Dr John MacCulloch had this to say: ‘Who does not know Stirling’s noble rock, rising, the monarch of the landscape, its majestic and picturesque towers, its splendid plain, its amphitheater of mountain, and the windings of its marvelous river; and who that has once seen the sun descending here in all the blaze of its beauty beyond the purple hills of the west can ever forget the plain of Stirling, the endless charm of

this wonderful scene, the wealth, the splendor, the variety, the majesty of all which here lies between earth and heaven.’ Quite so. The Great Hall of James IV, with its coat of line harl, shines like a nugget of pale gold from within the battlements, the piece de resistance. Restored to its original glory in 1999, after years in a more work-a-day incarnation as a barracks for men of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, it is a beacon and magnet for the thousands of visitors who make a tour of the castle every year.”

Neil Oliver continues: “In 1967 Roy Williamson of the folk group The Corries presented his Scottish countrymen with Flower of Scotland. The lyrics were as simple as they were powerful. They recalled the spirit that Robert the Bruce had required of his men when they strode onto the Carse of Stirling on the morning of 24 June 1314 to confront the English army of King Edward II.

‘The hills are bare now

And autumn leaves lie thick and still,

O’er land that is lost now,

Which those so dearly held,

That stood against him,

Proud Edward’s army,

And sent him homeward,

To think again.

Those days are past now,

And in the past they must remain,

But we can still rise now,

And be a nation again …’

“If the pledges of the established political parties must come to nothing, went the Nationalist thinking, then perhaps dreams of a different kind of future were more deserving of faith.”356

***WEST DUNBARTONSHIRE***

***ANTONINE WALL***

www.historic-scotland.gov.uk scribes: “Nearly 2,000 years ago, the Antonine Wall was the northwest frontier of the Roman Empire. Built on the orders of the Emperor Antoninus Pius in the years following AD 140, it ran for 40 Roman miles (60 km) from modern Bo’ness on the Firth of Forth to Old Kilpatrick on the River Clyde.

“The Antonine Wall was both a physical barrier and a symbol of the Roman Empire’s power and control. It was never a stone wall, but consisted of a turf rampart fronted by a wide and deep ditch. Forts and fortlets provided accommodation for the troops stationed on the frontier and acted as secure crossing

points to control movement north and south. Behind the rampart, all the forts were linked by a road known as the Military Way. The wall was the most northerly frontier of the empire and, when it was built, was the most complex frontier ever constructed by the Roman army. It was the last of the linear frontiers to be built by the Romans and was only occupied for about a generation before being abandoned in the AD 160s.

“The line of the wall crosses five modern local authorities (East Dunbartonshire, Falkirk, Glasgow, North Lanarkshire and West Dunbartonshire), and there are a number of sites and museums in each of these areas.

“Inscription and Significance: The Antonine Wall was inscribed by UNESCO in 2008, becoming part of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire World Heritage Site, along with Hadrian’s Wall (inscribed in 1987) and the German Limes (inscribed in 2005).

“The Outstanding Universal Value of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire lies in the survival of the second century Roman frontier system across Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, reflecting the development and breadth of Roman military architecture and power. The Antonine Wall incorporated many technical and design elements not seen in earlier frontiers, represented a physical manifestation of a change in Roman imperial foreign policy, and illustrates the technological skill of the army in frontier areas.

“Location: The Antonine Wall runs across central Scotland, from Old Kilpatrick in the West to Bo’Ness in the East.

“Managing the Site: The Site is managed and cared for by East Dunbartonshire Council, Falkirk Council, Glasgow City Council, Historic Scotland, North Lanarkshire Council and West Dunbartonshire Council. The Site Management Plan guides sustainable management to maintain the Outstanding Universal Value.

“Visiting the Site: Nearly 8 km of the Wall is in the care of Historic Scotland, including the best surviving stretch of ditch at Watling Lodge, Falkirk; the earthworks of the fort together with the rampart ditch and Military Way at Rough Castle, Bonnybridge; the rampart and ditch in Seabegs Wood, Bonnybridge; the ditch and expansions on Croy Hill; the fort on Bar Hill, Twechar; and the bath-house and latrine at Bearsden.

“Several lengths of the Wall are in the ownership of local authorities including: the fort site at Kirkintilloch and the rampart base in New Kilpatrick Cemetery, Bearsden (East Dunbartonshire Council); the fortlet at Kinneil, Bo’ness, and several lengths of the ditch including Callendar Park (Falkirk Council); Cleddans Burn (Glasgow City Council); Castlecary (North Lanarkshire Council); and the fort-site and rampart base at Duntocher (West Dunbartonshire Council).”357

Neil Oliver states: “Twenty years later the Romans made yet another attempt to push north and finish the job of subduing the tribes. As a demonstration of their commitment they built another barrier – the Antonine Wall – stretching nearly 40 miles from Old Kilpatrick on the Firth of Clyde in the west of Bo’ness on the Firth of Forth in the east. It was not to be, this dream of total conquest. Within twenty years of drawing the new line in the sand, they were forced back behind Hadrian’s Wall – where they would remain for the rest of their stay in these islands.

“The tribes of Caledonia made life intermittently unpleasant for the Romans during the four centuries or so they spent here. Even the wall itself was the target for attacks of varying degrees of seriousness. For their own part the invaders kept trying to score the final success that would bring the remainder of the country to heel – but always they were undone, usually by events elsewhere. Long before the end of the Roman occupation, Britain was attempting to claim independence from the empire. Finally, in AD 410, Alaric the Goth captured the city of Rome itself. The time of the Roman Empire had passed and, back in the stubbornly defiant lands of northern Scotland, the Caledonian tribes were on hand to speed the final expulsion of the enemies at the gate.”358

***INCHMURRIN, WEST DUNBARTONSHIRE***

Billy Scobie alludes: “Inchmurrin forms part of the geological highland boundary fault line which runs through the Scottish mainland from Helensburgh to Stonehaven. The island, which is one and a half miles long and 291 feet high, is the southernmost isle of Loch Lomond and the largest freshwater island in Britain. Its name comes from the Gaelic and means ‘the island of Mirren’. Saint Mirren (also known as Merinus) was born in Ireland around 560 AD. He later sailed to Scotland and founded a religious house at Paisley. He evangelized widely and is remembered through various place-names including Inchmurrin. He built a chapel on the island, and the ruins of his monastery are evident on the hill of Tom Bay.

“The Earls of Lennox had castles at Faslane, Drymen, Balloch and Inchmurrin. Traces of the most of their Balloch Castle may yet be seen by the mouth of the River Leven in Balloch Park. It is known that the earls took refuge from the plague in their stronghold at the southern tip of Inchmurrin, and charters sealed by them on the island date back to the 1300s.

“In 1425 King James I of Scots ordered the execution of the Duke of Albany, his sons Walter and Alexander, and Duncan Earl of Lennox, all on charges of treason. Isabella Countess of Lennox, as daughter of the earl and wife of the duke, was imprisoned first in Tantallon Castle, then on Inchmurrin, where she died in 1460. Countess Isabella was the founder of St Mary’s Collegiate Church in Dumbarton.

“Robert the Bruce is understood to have had a deer park at Auchendennan near to today’s Duck Bay. It is more than likely he would have used Inchmurrin for hunting. Certainly the Stewart monarchs used the island for this purpose for hundreds of years. James IV is reported to have been on Inchmurrin in 1506. Mary Queen of Scots dined in Dumbarton Castle on Thursday, July 15, 1563 then spent a couple of days at the Colquhoun castle of Rossdhu near Luss. It was probably at this time that she visited Inchmurrin. Her son, King James VI, was notably fond of the chase, so he would have hunted the deer on Inchmurrin often. He ascended to the throne of the United Kingdom in 1603, returning to Scotland only once, 14 years later. On that occasion, he was the guest of the Duke of Lennox for the hunting on Inchmurrin.

“During the Jacobite uprising of 1715, on Michaelmas Day (September 29), a force of some 300 clansmen, led by Rob Roy’s nephew, Gregor MacGregor of Glengyle, carried out a raid deep into the Lennox lands. Their main purpose was to seize all the sailing craft and secure the estuaries in the south of Loch Lomond. At midnight a war party sailed from Inchmurrin, down the Leven to Bonhill. The villagers sounded the alarm by ringing the kirk-bell. This alerted the government garrison at Dumbarton

Castle, and the Jacobites withdrew to Inchmurrin. They rounded up the island’s cattle and deer and sailed northward for Inversnaid.

“In the 18th century, the glens surrounding, and the islands upon, Loch Lomond were used for the illicit distilling of whiskey. Inchmurrin was famed for the quality of its ‘water of life’. Good profits were to be made selling this produce to Glasgow and other Lowland towns until the government provided the excise men with an armed cutter with which to sail the loch and patrol the islands.

“When the Duke of Montrose took over ownership of Inchmurrin, he too used it predominantly as a deer park. In the late 1700s, however, there was on the island a place of secure sanctuary for persons who were mentally disturbed. Reading between the lines of the discreet language, which reflects the different morality of that time, it may be understood that young unmarried women who had shown ‘pregnant proofs of their frailty’ were also lodged on Inchmurrin, out of sight if not out of mind.

“In 1930 the Duke of Montrose sold Inchmurrin to a Mr A Melville. For the past 70 years, however, the island has been owned by the Scott family.

“Brothers Tom and Jay Scott were born in Ayrshire. While they were in their infancy, the family moved to Inchmurrin. Hard and heavy work on the island’s farmlands helped to develop strong, athletic physiques and, in 1947 at Luss, the brothers began their competitive careers at Highland Gatherings. In the fifties and sixties, Jay in particular excelled as an all-rounder – running, pole-vaulting, shot-putting, hammer-throwing, caber-tossing, and setting a high-jump record which has not been broken to this day. Jay died in June 1997. The Scott family continue to run the Inchmurrin Hotel and restaurant.

“Since the 1940s a discreet presence has been maintained on the island, in their secluded chalets, by the Scottish Outdoor Naturist Club.”359

***WILLIAM WALLACE***

Marc Mclean communicates: “Historians reckon they have uncovered a secret site at Dumbarton Castle with sensational links to both William Wallace and Robert the Bruce.

“Local group Strathleven Artizans believe they have located a dungeon where Wallace was kept prisoner before his death – and also where a plan was hatched to capture Bruce.

“Members of the Renton-based Artizans have this week urged Historic Scotland to properly investigate these claims, describing them as ‘tourist gold’.

“A spokesman for the Strathleven Artizans said: ‘There is a pit deep within a pit at Dumbarton Castle which has huge economic and tourism potential.

“‘We would like this site to be properly investigated by Historic Scotland through more research and taking soil samples to try and substantiate these links to Wallace and Bruce.

“‘There is a difference between what has not been proven and cannot be proven.’

“The pit area, which is now covered by an iron grid, is situated below the Wallace Tower part of the castle, built in the 16th century in the national hero’s honor.

“Historians believe William Wallace was imprisoned at Dumbarton Castle by Sir John Menteith before being sent to London to be executed in 1305.

“Strathleven Artizans believe he was kept in a pit – possibly even deeper below the hole currently covered by an iron grid – and they also link this particular spot to King Robert the Bruce.

“Traitor Menteith, who governed the castle and apparently sent Wallace to his death, reportedly tried to capture Bruce in this same area a few years later.

“A spokesman for the Strathleven Artizans explained: ‘This pit also fits the description of a place where Menteith is supposed to have tried to capture Bruce.

“‘The story appears in a chronicle by John of Fordun, which was published in 1360. He stated that, sometime between the death of Wallace in 1305 and the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, Bruce was invited to Dumbarton Castle by Menteith.

“‘But, as Bruce rode towards the castle, he was stopped by a carpenter, who is referred to as Oliver in some books, and was warned about the ambush.’

“Stories of this trap refer to the ‘hole cellar’ at the castle – a description which ties in with the pit the Strathleven Artizans are focusing on.

“Gary Stewart, vice convener of The Wallace Society, said: ‘Wallace was definitely taken to Dumbarton Castle. Whether he was imprisoned for any length of time we cannot prove because there’s no documentation about it.

“‘His sword was certainly left there until it was given over to the National Wallace Museum. The fact that the sword was there after he died suggests it all ties up.

“‘With Dumbarton Castle you also have links with Robert the Bruce, and Mary Queen of Scots was imprisoned there after the Battle of Langside.

“‘We support this work by the Strathleven Artizans as anything that promotes William Wallace we will be behind 100 percent.’

“A spokeswoman for Historic Scotland described Dumbarton Castle as one of its ‘key sites’ in the West of Scotland and added: ‘Our interpretation and guidebook reflect the local traditional claims that William Wallace was held prisoner in Dumbarton after being captured near Glasgow by Sir John Menteith, the keeper of the castle.

“‘We are looking at improving access to the Wallace Tower remains as part of a long-term program of improvements at the castle. As with any interpretation project, we will carry out research into the building, its features and history.’”360

Andrew Fisher depicts: “Edward crossed the Tweed into England on 17 September 1296, leaving behind him a far from secure situation. It was soon evident that without his presence, the English administration in Scotland would face with opposition. Surrey, aged 65, was no longer an energetic man and in any case preferred his estates in Yorkshire to life in Scotland where, we are told, he believed the air was harmful to his health. The treasurer, Cressingham, was an able administrator, but he was forceful, arrogant and was mocked for his illegitimate birth and unprepossessing appearance. He found himself faced with insurrections over too wide an area to cover; there were reports of problems in the Western Highlands, in Aberdeenshire and in Galloway. The English were right to see in the Church in Scotland an implacable enemy, but their belief that it was Wishart and Stewart who prompted William

Wallace into rebellion does not stand up to close scrutiny. As a true son of the Church and a vassal of Stewart, Wallace would have listened to both Wishart and Stewart, but our knowledge of Wallace gives to believe that he was very much his own man.

“Almost nothing is known about Wallace before 1297. All we know is that he was the second son of Sir Malcolm Wallace of Elderslie near Paisley in Renfrewshire and came from a family which arrived in Scotland in the second half of the twelfth century from the borders of Wales. Wallace was, for his time, well-educated and, contrary to English propaganda, was not base-born but of respectable, landed background. He may well have drifted into crime and outlawry. He was not important enough to merit attention in the records of the time, for his name does not appear on the Ragman Roll. The traditional date given for his rebellion against the English is May 1297, when he murdered that English sheriff of Lanark, William Heselrig, in revenge, it is said, for Heselrig’s murder of Marion Braidfute, Wallace’s wife or mistress. The occasion may have been less romantic; perhaps the origins of the quarrel with Heselrig lay elsewhere. Like Robert Bruce, the future king in 1306, Wallace was forced into hiding from the English and then into rebellion against them, in circumstances not of his own choosing.

“Without as far as we know any military training, Wallace proved himself an outstanding soldier in guerrilla warfare, and as at Stirling Bridge, on a greater scale. The natural leaders of the Scottish resistance, Robert Bruce, Stewart, and Wishart, had proved to be inept when faced with the English at Irvine, so Wallace carried out a raid on Scone, 80 miles from Lanark, in an audacious and almost successful plan to capture William Ormsby. Wallace already understood the value of speed and mobility, and his sudden appearance at Scone surprised the English and encouraged rebellion against them in the land between the Forth and the Tay. Wallace returned to the forest of Selkirk, a natural habitat for him, after Scone, and continued to plague the English with his tactics so alien to those they were used to. Cressingham’s reports on the situation tell us of its gravity from the English point of view. He could not, however, convince Surrey to abandon his idyllic retreat in England and take up his post again in Scotland. Inside their castles, the English were invulnerable, but they could not restrain Wallace, who rode across Scotland, through Perthshire and Fife, to Dundee and possibly as far as Aberdeen. He did not seek a pitched battle but instead, sensibly, struck at the English unexpectedly, inflicting casualties and unsettling them, before moving on. It was a strategy impossible to counter.”361

Neil Oliver enumerates: “Wallace had notoriously committed killings, they said. Arson, destruction of property, sacrilege – Edward was master of the law, and he was showing off. Wallace had assumed the title of Guardian and had seduced his fellow Scots into an alliance with the French. Only at the utterance of the words ‘treason’ and ‘traitor’ did Wallace raise his voice in reply. He had never in his life sworn allegiance to the English king – his name, after all, was absent from the Ragman Roll. ‘How am I a traitor,’ he demanded to know, ‘when England is foreign to me?’ Edward’s judges were unmoved, of course. When King John had sworn allegiance to Edward in return for his throne, they said, he had done so on behalf of every one of his subjects. Wallace was trapped in the web of Edward’s legal arguments, the outcome a foregone conclusion.

“It was 23 August 1305, and with the sentence of the court ringing in his ears, Wallace was marched outside. The butchery of Scotland’s finest patriot was performed on a spot across the road from the modern Smithfield Meat Market. In accordance with the conventions demanded by a hangman’s noose. Once he had regained full consciousness his genitals were cut from his body. The knife was used then to open his abdomen so that his stomach, intestines and lungs could be ‘drawn’ from inside him. His heart

was last, wretched from his chest and held aloft for the appreciation of the crowd. Finally he was beheaded with a blow of the executioner’s axe. His head was exhibited upon a spike on London Bridge. His corpse was cut in four and the quarters sent for public display in Newcastle, Berwick, Stirling and Perth.

“The destruction of the body was a deliberate and calculated act. It was Edwards’s hope that without a body to be buried, a grave for mourners to gather round, the man would soon be forgotten. Of course the opposite was true, and the Wallace legend is immortal.”362

**WEST LOTHIAN**

FH Groome gives an account: “Linlithgowshire or West Lothian, a midland county of Scotland, on the southern edge of the upper reach of the Firth of Forth. It is bounded north by the Firth, southeast by the county of Edinburgh, southwest by Lanarkshire, and northwest by Stirlingshire. In shape it is an irregular four-sided figure, running southwestward from the shore of the Firth. Along the northern side, from west to east, in a straight line, from the mouth of the Avon to the mouth of the Almond, is 14½ miles; the southeast side, in a straight line from the mouth of the Almond to the point where the counties of Edinburgh, Lanark, and Linlithgow meet, at the junction of Fauldhouse Burn with the Almond, is 19½ miles; the southwest side, from the point just indicated to the point on North Calder Water, between Black Loch and Hillend Reservoir, where the counties of Stirling, Lanark, and Linlithgow meet, is 7 miles, but as this side is very irregular it is, following the curves, about double this; and the northwest side, from the point mentioned straight to the mouth of the Avon, is 10 miles. The boundaries are mostly natural. From the mouth of the Avon eastwards to the mouth of the Almond, the line follows the shore of the Firth; it then turns southwest along the course of the Almond for 10½ miles, till at Clapertonhall Burn, it turns northwestward along its course and across to Caw Burn, up which it passes to the source. North of Mossend it turns again back by the southwest side of Howden grounds to the Almond, the course of which it then follows for 3 miles to the junction of the Briech. Here it takes to the course of that stream, and follows it up for 8½ miles to the mouth of Fauldhouse Burn, which is the extreme south point of the county. After following this burn to its source, the line passes across Fauldhouse and Polkemmet moors, east of the village of Harthill, to the How Burn, down which it passes to the junction with a burn from the north, whence it follows the course of the latter, till within ¾ mile of its source. It then passes straight north by west to Barbauchlaw Burn, and up its course to a point 3 furlongs north by east of Forrestburn Mill, and thence in an irregular line to the sharp bend on North Calder Water between Black Loch and Hillend Reservoir east of the reservoir. It follows up the course of this stream for ¾ mile, and then crossing to the source of Drumtassie Burn, follows the burn 4¾ miles to the Avon, and thence the course of the Avon, for 12¾ miles, to the sea. Along almost the whole course of these streams, the scenery is soft and prettily wooded. The area of the county is 126.74 square miles or 81,113½ acres, of which 3,857¼ are foreshore and 456¼ are water. Of the land surface of 76,800 acres, 59,575 were under cultivation in 1882, and 4,899 under wood, an increase of about 1,000 acres in the former case within the last thirty years, and in the latter case of 1,577 acres within the same period. About 6,000 acres, mostly in the center and southwest, are heath, rocky ground, and rough pasture. The mean summer temperature is 58 degrees, and the mean winter temperature 37 degrees, while rain or snow falls on an average on two hundred days of the year, the mean depth being about 32 inches, though, of course, it varies considerably, and is higher in the upper districts than in the lower. Among the counties of Scotland, Linlithgow is thirty-first as regards area, the only smaller ones being Cromarty, Kinross, and Clackmannan, but eighteenth as regards population, and twenty-third as regards valuation.

“A monastery is said to have existed at Abercorn as early as 675, but it was abandoned ten years after, and on the rise of the Roman Church, the county became part of the diocese of Lindisfarne, and was subsequently comprehended in that of St Andrews. The old archdeaconry had probably the same limits as the modern presbytery, including not only the whole county itself, except a part of Cramond, but several parishes in Stirlingshire and in Edinburghshire. The Bishop of St Andrews had a regality jurisdiction over all the lands in the see lying to the south of the Forth, and the court sat at Kirkliston. During the time of the short-lived Protestant bishopric of Edinburgh, Linlithgowshire lay within the limits of that see. Though the Knights of St John and their seat at Torphichen – which thus passed into the hands of the present proprietors, the first Lord Torphichen being the last preceptor, and Lord St John of Jerusalem in Scotland – there were anciently in the county but few religious houses, two monasteries and a hospitium at Linlithgow and a Carmelite convent near Queensferry being the chief. The brass seal of the presbytery of Linlithgow dates from 1583, and has the inscription ‘Sigillum presbyterii Linlithcu’ round the edge while on the face is ‘Verbum Dei nostril stabit in oeternum’. At the dawn of the historic period we find the county within the limits usually given to the Otaleni or Otadeni or Gadeni; but when the district was, in AD 81, brought by Agricola within the limits of the Roman power, the tribe that inhabited it are called the Damnonii, and from Carriden the great general himself set sail to the opposite shore to attack the Horestii. He probably began his chain of forts at the same place. When Antonine’s Wall was constructed in 139, almost the whole of the shire fell within the limits of Roman government, for the wall passed through the extreme northwest corner of the county, beginning at the east corner of Carriden grounds and running westward for 5 miles by Kinneil House to the bridge near Inveravon, where it crossed the Avon and passed into Stirlingshire. From the Roman station at Cramond, a road passed along near the coast to the end of the Roman wall at Carriden. Traces of a reputed Roman camp exist to the east of Abercorn; Blackness is said to have been a Roman port; and at Bridgeness there was found in 1868 one of the finest legionary tablets in the country. A facsimile of it has been placed on the spot, but the stone itself is in the Antiquarian Society’s Museum at Edinburgh. It is 9 feet long, 2 feet 11 inches wide, and 9 inches thick. On one side of a central inscription, a Roman soldier is sculptured, riding triumphantly over conquered Britons; on the other is the representation of a sacrificial ceremony. The inscription itself records that the Augustan Legion, after making 4,652 paces of the wall, set up and dedicated the stone to the Emperor Cesar Titus Antoninus. It was at Kinneil that St Serf stood and threw his staff across the Firth, in order to find out where he was to settle; and, according to Dr Skene, the twelfth of the great Arthurian battles was fought at Bowden Hill in 516. Edwin of Northumbria in 617 extended his dominion over all the Lothians, and afterwards Kenneth Macalpine led the Scots to the conquest of these provinces, and they finally became incorporated with the Scottish kingdom about 1020. Traces of cairns or tumuli of these and earlier periods exist on the Lochcote Hills, on the Forth near Barnbougle, near Kirkliston, and on the south bank of the Almond near Livingston; and in the old bed of Lochcote, there are the remains of a crannoge. There are standing-stones near Abercorn, near Bathgate, and near Torphichen, while there are traces of hill forts at Cocklerue, Bowden Hill, Cairn-naple, and Binns. The county was probably a sheriffdom in the time of David I, and certainly was so in the reign of Malcolm IV, and thus it remained down to the time of Robert Bruce, though after William the Lyon’s reign, the rule of the sheriffs was nominal rather than real. By Robert I the district was put under a constable, whose successors held office till the reign of James III, when we find it again under a sheriff. In 1600 the latter office was granted to James Hamilton, the eldest son of Claude, Lord Paisley, and to his heirs, and was again, soon after the Restoration, given hereditarily to John Hope of Hopetoun, the ancestor of the Earls of Hopetoun. At the abolition of the hereditary jurisdictions in 1747, the then

earl claimed 10,500 pounds as compensation for the sheriffdom of Linlithgow, the sheriffwick of Bathgage, the regality of St Andrews at Kirkliston, the bailiery of Crawfordmuir, and the regality of Kirkheugh, and obtained 4,569 pounds. No county in the whole of Scotland had probably so many independent petty jurisdictions of baronies, regalities, and bailieries. Kirkliston and other lands were a regality, with an attached bailiery; Bathgate was long a barony, and afterwards became a separate sheriffwick; Torphichen was a regality first of the Knights of St John, and next to the Lords Torphichen. Other regalities were Kinneil, under the Duke of Hamilton; Philpstoun, under the monks of Culross, and afterwards under the Earls of Stair; and Brighouse and Ogleface, under the Earl of Linlithgow. Linlithgow was a hereditary royal bailiery, belonging, like the last-named regality, to the Linlithgow family, while Abercorn, Barnbougle, Caribber, Dalmeny, Livingston, and Strathbrock had baronial jurisdictions. The principal dating from medieval times are Dalmeny church, the peel of Linlithgow, the castles of Abercorn, Barnbougle, Blackness, Bridgehouse, Dundas, Mannerston, and Niddry, the towers of Binny, Ochiltree, Midhope, and Torphichen, and the vestiges of a castle that afforded a retreat to Walter, Steward of Scotland, in a morass near Bathgate. Part of Dundas Castle is supposed to have stood since the beginning of the 11th century, and the family was the oldest in the county.”363

John Bartholomew points out: “Linlithgowshire (or West Lothian), maritime county in southeast of Scotland; is bounded north by Firth of Forth, southeast by Edinburghshire, and west by Lanarkshire and Stirlingshire; greatest length, northeast and southwest, 19 miles; greatest breadth, east and west, 14 miles; area, 76,806 acres, population 43,510. The coast is low; the surface is varied, but there are few hills of any height; the chief rivers are the Avon on the west and the Almond on the east border. Much of the soil is fertile, and agriculture is in an advanced condition. Linlithgowshire is one of the richest mineral counties in Scotland, coal, shales, ironstone, freestone, limestone, etc, being very abundant. Paraffin oil is largely manufactured at Bathgate, Broxburn, and Uphall. The county contains 12 parishes, and 2 parts, the parliamentary and royal burghs of Linlithgow (Falkirk Burghs) and Queensferry (Stirling Burghs), and the police burghs of Armadale, Bathgate, Borrowstounness, and Whitburn. It returns 1 member.”364

***ECCLESMACHAN, WEST LOTHIAN***

John Penney relates: “Whether the church of Ecclesmachan was dedicated to a saint of that name, is uncertain, saith the learned minister; yet, as the name implies, the church was certainly dedicated to St Machan. The church of Ecclesmachan appears to have been, of old, only of middling value; and in the ancient Taxatio it is rated at 24 marks. It continued a rectory till the Reformation. In Bagimont’s roll, as it stood under James V, the rectory of Inchmachan was taxed at six pounds, 13 shillings, 4 pence. And the same rectory appears in the archbishop’s tax-roll in 1547. Sir James Sandilands, the last preceptor of the knights of St John of Jerusalem, claimed the patronage of this parish, though without absolute right, as we see the church taxed in Bagimont’s roll. Whatever there may be in this, the lands of Ecclesmachan and the patronage of the church were afterwards acquired by the Hopes, who are now represented by the Earl of Hopeton, who is the proprietor of one-half of the parish.”365

***HOPETOUN, WEST LOTHIAN***

www.hopetoun.co.uk stipulates: “Hopetoun has been the ancestral home of the Hope family for over 300 years; the present Earl of Hopetoun lives in the house, and The 4th Marquess of Linlithgow (the head of the family and Lord Hopetoun's father) lives on the Estate. The Hope family has a long and honorable record of service to crown, country, the law and the military. The family origins are generally

believed to date back to a John Hope, shown in the Edinburgh Burgess Rolls of 1516-7 with the alias Petit Johnne, Trumpetour. Later he became a merchant and a Guildbrother: it is recorded that he had property in the High Street, Edinburgh and lands near Leith at Newhaven or Le Porte de Grace as it was then known.

“John's son Henry (circa 1533-91) was a burgess both of Dieppe and of Edinburgh and his son, Sir Thomas Hope of Craighall (1573-1646), studied law and was appointed King's Advocate by Charles I in 1626. Sir Thomas' fourth son, Sir James Hope (1614-61) was the first to style himself ‘of Hopetoun’, using the old name for Leadhills in Lanarkshire where, through his marriage with the heiress Anne Foulis, he came into possession of valuable lead mines. This increased wealth enabled his son, John Hope (1650-82) to purchase the lands of Abercorn with a view to building a fine house for himself. Unfortunately, before he could do so, he drowned in the shipwreck of the Gloucester whilst accompanying the Duke of York (later James VII/II) on a journey to Scotland.

“His widow, Lady Margaret Hamilton, continued the discussions and plans to erect a mansion on the site: in 1699 she commissioned the building of Hopetoun for her young son Charles Hope (1681-1742), on the occasion of his marriage to the sister of the Marquess of Annandale. The Marquess was a noted connoisseur of the arts, and his collection was bequeathed to Hopetoun on his death. Charles was created the first Earl of Hopetoun in 1703.

“Work on the House began in 1699 under the auspices of Sir William Bruce who was recognized as one of the most brilliant architects of the day. The works were completed in 1707 and produced some of the finest examples of carving, wainscoting and ceiling painting in Scotland, reflecting the fashions and tastes of Scottish nobility at that time. Many details were executed by local craftsmen, such as the grand staircase carved by Alexander Eizat who had worked with Bruce during renovations at Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh.

“Some fourteen years later in 1721, the renowned Scottish architect William Adam was commissioned to undertake a program of alterations and improvements that lasted until 1767. This saw the addition of an imposing facade with magnificent colonnades, north and south pavilions and the creation of grand State Apartments to be used for entertaining and socializing. The work outlived William Adam, however, and after his death in 1748, the interior decoration of the House was carried out by his sons John, James and Robert. The work also outlived the 1st Earl: his son John the 2nd Earl (1704-81) oversaw the completion of the interiors. The 2nd Earl was a very religious man and a noted agricultural improver, who purchased the Ormiston Estates in East Lothian. He was also one of the first Governors of The Edinburgh Infirmary (later The Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh).

“Hopetoun House not only represents the aristocratic grandeur of the early 18th century, boasting many fine architectural features, but it clearly demonstrates a distinct change in taste and design influences that prevailed at that time. The marked differences in style between the original Bruce House and the later Adam additions can still be appreciated today. The older, more sedate Bruce House has the look and feel of a comfortable country house, whilst the Adam House has an altogether more sophisticated feel with the influences of grand European palaces such as Versailles very much in evidence. Since its completion in the mid-18th century, the House has remained substantially unaltered save for the 4th Earl's internal modifications between 1816 and 1823, including the creation of the Large and Small Libraries and the decoration of the State Dining Room by James Gillespie Graham.

“By the time of James the 3rd Earl (1741-1816), the family owned large areas of land in East and West Lothian, Fife and Lanarkshire. However, as James had no son, he was succeeded by his half-brother General Sir John Hope (1765-1823) as 4th Earl. The 4th Earl had a distinguished military career. He completed the evacuation of British troops from Corunna after the death of Sir John Moore, commanded one of Wellington's divisions in the Peninsular War and received honors for his outstanding services and bravery. A statue of the 4th Earl in Roman dress can still be seen in the garden courtyard of Dundas House, the former headquarters of the Royal Bank of Scotland (of which he was Governor) in St Andrew's Square, Edinburgh; other monuments to him exist in Fife and East Lothian.

“It is a measure of Hopetoun's importance that, in 1822, George IV visited the House at the end of his state visit to Scotland and was received by the 4th Earl. The state visit was the first time a reigning British sovereign had visited Scotland for 170 years, and it was stage-managed by Sir Walter Scott as an important part of his Romantic Movement in Scotland. Throughout the tour, the King wore Highland dress, which had been banned from 1745 until 1782, following the Jacobite Rebellions: the King's gesture was viewed as an act of reconciliation between Scotland and England. Records show that the King arrived at Hopetoun at 1.15pm, and that after being received by the Earl and Countess, he lunched sparingly on turtle soup and three glasses of wine. He then knighted Sir Henry Raeburn, the Scottish portraitist, and Captain Adam Ferguson, Keeper of the Regalia in Scotland, in the Yellow Drawing Room using Lord Hopetoun's sword. At 3pm he made his farewells and made his way by carriage to Port Edgar, just outside South Queensferry, where the Royal Yacht waited to return him to England.The 4th Earl was the Captain General of the Royal Company of Archers, which was recognized during the visit as the King's bodyguard in Scotland. The Royal Company, still the Sovereign's personal Bodyguard for Scotland, is still in existence today and parades on formal occasions such as the Queen's annual Garden Party at Holyrood Palace. It also meets at Hopetoun every summer to shoot for the Hopetoun Royal Commemoration Prize, which was presented by the 4th Earl to the Company to commemorate its role in the visit. The present Earl is an active member of the Royal Company.

“The 5th Earl was active in Scottish affairs and in the continued improvements of his estates. The 6th Earl died of typhoid at the age of 42 after a brief life devoted to Paris and the Pytchley Hunt. The 7th Earl, John (1860-1908), however, was to become one of the most eminent members of the family and was created the 1st Marquess of Linlithgow. After serving as Governor of Victoria, Australia at the age of 29, he returned to Britain to become Queen Victoria's Lord Chamberlain. He went back as the first Governor General of the newly-formed Commonwealth of Australia in 1900. He was also Secretary for Scotland in Arthur Balfour's Government of 1905.

“His son Victor, 8th Earl and 2nd Marquess (1887-1952), eclipsed even these great achievements. He was civil Lord of the Admiralty from 1922 to 1924. He chaired the Royal Commission on Agriculture in India from 1926 to 1928. In 1928 he was made a Knight of the Order of the Thistle. He chaired the committee on Indian constitutional reform in 1933 and helped formulate the Government of India Act of 1935. Following his experience in India, he returned there as Viceroy and Governor General from 1936 to 1943, almost two full terms of office, making him the longest-serving Viceroy. For this he was created a Knight of the Order of the Garter, one of only a handful of non-royals to be a Knight both of the Garter and of the Thistle. He was the Chancellor of Edinburgh University from 1944 until his death in 1952 and the Chairman of Midland Bank.

“Charles, 9th Earl and 3rd Marquess (1912-87) served in the Second World War, winning a Military Cross, and was taken prisoner with the 51st (Highland) Division in 1940 before being held at Colditz as one of the ‘prominente’. He was a partner in Joseph Sebag, the London stockbrokers, and a director of Eagle Star Insurance.”366

***TORPHICHEN, WEST LOTHIAN***

www.mostly-medieval.com writes: “The Hospital, or Preceptory, of Torphichen was the Scottish headquarters of the Knights Hospitaller, or Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem. Founded during the reign of David I (1124-53), construction of the church - nave, aisle, transepts and central tower - was started around 1200 and completed by the mid-13th century. Located within the village of Torphichen, the preceptory stands in a sheltered valley on the western side of the Torphichen Hills. Torphichen is derived from Gaelic: torr-fithichean, ‘the raven's hill’.

“The Hospitallers had come to Scotland to recruit and collect funds for the Crusades. There were administration, monastic and domestic buildings. There was also a small hospital or hospice, as there was at all settlements of the Order. Within the Preceptory lived a number of brothers, headed by a Preceptor, who oversaw the estates and collected the rents in cash or goods. The rents for all of the Hospitaller properties in Scotland were collected at Torphichen. Much of the daily work of the brethren would have involved growing food and herbs for medicine.

“A stone in the churchyard, resembling a milestone with a cross carved on top, marked the center of privileged sanctuary ground. A circle of similar stones stood around the edge of the estate, each a mile distant from the center and some still standing. All of the space within the circle formed by these ‘refuge stones’ was as much a legal sanctuary as the church itself and offered protection against the law to every criminal or debtor who entered and remained within its precincts.

“During the war between Scotland and England, the Hospitallers took the side of the English. For several months between the Battle of Stirling (September 1297) and the Battle of Falkirk (July 1298), William Wallace and his army were said to have camped at Torphichen. It is reasonable to assume that the Hospitallers would have removed themselves to the priory at nearby Kirkliston during this time. In 1298 Edward I sent for Brian deJay, Master of the Knights Templar in England, to fight for England in Scotland. DeJay did go; but once he was in Scotland, he made straight for Torphichen - and did not fight.

“The tower and transcepts, substantially heightened in the 15th century, were used after the Reformation as the courthouse of the Regality of Torphichen, granted around 1560 to the last Preceptor, Sir James Sandilands, who was later raised to the peerage as Lord Torphichen.”367

Coming soon…

Interesting Place Names and History of South Africa

Already published:

Revised Interesting Place Names and History of Australia

Interesting Place Names and History of Canada

Interesting Place Names and History of England

Interesting Place Names and History of Ireland

Interesting Place Names and History of New Zealand

Interesting Place Names and History of Northern Ireland

1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunnottar_Castle

2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forfar

3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunadd

4 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_of_Mull; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isle_of_Mull

5 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Brunanburh; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annandale

6 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Berwick

7 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falkland_Palace

8 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinghorn

9 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eilean_Donan

10 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glencoe,_Highland

11 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%B9m

12 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holyrood_Abbey; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edinburgh; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lothian

13 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dundurn; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strathearn

14 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenmore,_Perth_and_Kinross

15 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huntingtower_Castle

16 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scone,_Scotland

17 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Carham; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coldstream

18 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lauder

19 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roxburgh

20 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jedburgh

21 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbey_Craig

22 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bannockburn

23 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toponymy

24 Andrew Fisher; A Traveller’s History of Scotland; Interlink Books; 2000

25 Andrew Fisher; A Traveller’s History of Scotland; Interlink Books; 2000

26 Andrew Fisher; A Traveller’s History of Scotland; Interlink Books; 2000

27 Andrew Fisher; A Traveller’s History of Scotland; Interlink Books; 2000

28 Andrew Fisher; A Traveller’s History of Scotland; Interlink Books; 2000

29 Neil Oliver; A History of Scotland; Phoenix; 2010

30 Neil Oliver; A History of Scotland; Phoenix; 2010

31 Andrew Fisher; A Traveller’s History of Scotland; Interlink Books; 2000

32 Andrew Fisher; A Traveller’s History of Scotland; Interlink Books; 2000

33 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/entry_page.jsp?text_id=79050&word=NULL

34 John Bartholomew; Gazetteer of the British Isles; 1887; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/16318

35 Neil Oliver; A History of Scotland; Phoenix; 2010

36 William Alexander; The Place Names of Aberdeenshire; Third Spalding Club; 1952; provided by Edith Wemyss, Team Librarian, Local Studies, Library and Information Services, Education, Culture and Sport, Aberdeen City Council, Central Library, Rosemount Viaduct, Aberdeen AB25 1GW, Scotland; http://www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/Library/local_studies/Lib_LocalStudies.asp; LocalStudiesLibrary@aberdeencity.gov.uk

37 Roy Howard; Cults Past and Present; 1988; provided by Edith Wemyss, Team Librarian, Local Studies, Library and Information Services, Education, Culture and Sport, Aberdeen City Council, Central Library, Rosemount Viaduct, Aberdeen AB25 1GW, Scotland; http://www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/Library/local_studies/Lib_LocalStudies.asp; LocalStudiesLibrary@aberdeencity.gov.uk

38 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/place_page.jsp?p_id=22070

39 John Milne; Celtic Place Names in Aberdeenshire; 1912; provided by Edith Wemyss, Team Librarian, Local Studies, Library and Information Services, Education, Culture and Sport, Aberdeen City Council, Central Library, Rosemount Viaduct, Aberdeen AB25 1GW, Scotland; http://www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/Library/local_studies/Lib_LocalStudies.asp; LocalStudiesLibrary@aberdeencity.gov.uk

40 GM Graser; Aberdeen Street Names; 1911; provided by Edith Wemyss, Team Librarian, Local Studies, Library and Information Services, Education, Culture and Sport, Aberdeen City Council, Central Library, Rosemount Viaduct, Aberdeen AB25 1GW, Scotland; http://www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/Library/local_studies/Lib_LocalStudies.asp; LocalStudiesLibrary@aberdeencity.gov.uk

41 Walter Thom; The History of Aberdeen; 1811

42 George Wood; Torry Past to Present; 1995; provided by Edith Wemyss, Team Librarian, Local Studies, Library and Information Services, Education, Culture and Sport, Aberdeen City Council, Central Library, Rosemount Viaduct, Aberdeen AB25 1GW, Scotland; http://www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/Library/local_studies/Lib_LocalStudies.asp; LocalStudiesLibrary@aberdeencity.gov.uk

43 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/79020

44 John Bartholomew; Gazetteer of the British Isles; 1887; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/17192

45 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunnottar_Castle

46 Neil Oliver; A History of Scotland; Phoenix; 2010

47 William M Alexander; The Place-names of Aberdeenshire; Third Spalding Club; 1952; provided by Judith Legg, Senior Library Assistant, Local Studies Dept, Aberdeenshire Libraries HQ, Meldrum Meg Way, The Meadows Industrial Estate, Oldmeldrum, AB51 0GN, Scotland; http://www.aberdeenshire.gov.uk/libraries/information/local_studies.asp#contact; Judith.Legg@aberdeenshire.gov.uk

48 William M Alexander; The Place-names of Aberdeenshire; Third Spalding Club; 1952; provided by Judith Legg, Senior Library Assistant, Local Studies Dept, Aberdeenshire Libraries HQ, Meldrum Meg Way, The Meadows Industrial Estate, Oldmeldrum, AB51 0GN, Scotland; http://www.aberdeenshire.gov.uk/libraries/information/local_studies.asp#contact; Judith.Legg@aberdeenshire.gov.uk

49 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/entry_page.jsp?text_id=113090&word=NULL

50 http://www.whichcastle.com/aberdeenshire/fyviecastle.htm

51 William M Alexander; The Place-names of Aberdeenshire; Third Spalding Club; 1952; provided by Judith Legg, Senior Library Assistant, Local Studies Dept, Aberdeenshire Libraries HQ, Meldrum Meg Way, The Meadows Industrial Estate, Oldmeldrum, AB51 0GN, Scotland; http://www.aberdeenshire.gov.uk/libraries/information/local_studies.asp#contact; Judith.Legg@aberdeenshire.gov.uk

52 Sheila Hamilton; A Miller’s Tale of Witchcraft; Evening Express; September 24, 1983; provided by Judith Legg, Senior Library Assistant, Local Studies Dept, Aberdeenshire Libraries HQ, Meldrum Meg Way, The Meadows Industrial Estate, Oldmeldrum, AB51 0GN, Scotland; http://www.aberdeenshire.gov.uk/libraries/information/local_studies.asp#contact; Judith.Legg@aberdeenshire.gov.uk

53 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/entry_page.jsp?text_id=111670&word=NULL

54 Alexander Sutherland; A Summer Ramble in the North Highlands; William Hunter; 1825

55 William M Alexander; The Place-names of Aberdeenshire; Third Spalding Club; 1952; provided by Judith Legg, Senior Library Assistant, Local Studies Dept, Aberdeenshire Libraries HQ, Meldrum Meg Way, The Meadows Industrial Estate, Oldmeldrum, AB51 0GN, Scotland; http://www.aberdeenshire.gov.uk/libraries/information/local_studies.asp#contact; Judith.Legg@aberdeenshire.gov.uk

56 James MacDonald; Place Names of West Aberdeenshire; New Spalding Club; 1899; provided by Judith Legg, Senior Library Assistant, Local Studies Dept, Aberdeenshire Libraries HQ, Meldrum Meg Way, The Meadows Industrial Estate, Oldmeldrum, AB51 0GN, Scotland; http://www.aberdeenshire.gov.uk/libraries/information/local_studies.asp#contact; Judith.Legg@aberdeenshire.gov.uk

57 Sheila Hamilton; Respectable Last Outpost of Civilization; Evening Express; date unknown; provided by Judith Legg, Senior Library Assistant, Local Studies Dept, Aberdeenshire Libraries HQ, Meldrum Meg Way, The Meadows Industrial Estate, Oldmeldrum, AB51 0GN, Scotland; http://www.aberdeenshire.gov.uk/libraries/information/local_studies.asp#contact; Judith.Legg@aberdeenshire.gov.uk

58 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/entry_page.jsp?text_id=124170&word=NULL

59 William M Alexander; The Place-names of Aberdeenshire; Third Spalding Club; 1952; provided by Judith Legg, Senior Library Assistant, Local Studies Dept, Aberdeenshire Libraries HQ, Meldrum Meg Way, The Meadows Industrial Estate, Oldmeldrum, AB51 0GN, Scotland; http://www.aberdeenshire.gov.uk/libraries/information/local_studies.asp#contact; Judith.Legg@aberdeenshire.gov.uk

60 James MacDonald; Place Names of West Aberdeenshire; New Spalding Club; 1899; provided by Judith Legg, Senior Library Assistant, Local Studies Dept, Aberdeenshire Libraries HQ, Meldrum Meg Way, The Meadows Industrial Estate, Oldmeldrum, AB51 0GN, Scotland; http://www.aberdeenshire.gov.uk/libraries/information/local_studies.asp#contact; Judith.Legg@aberdeenshire.gov.uk

61 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/entry_page.jsp?text_id=132490&word=NULL

62 http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=8404

63 Brian H Watt; Old Stonehaven; provided by Judith Legg, Senior Library Assistant, Local Studies Dept, Aberdeenshire Libraries HQ, Meldrum Meg Way, The Meadows Industrial Estate, Oldmeldrum, AB51 0GN, Scotland; http://www.aberdeenshire.gov.uk/libraries/information/local_studies.asp#contact; Judith.Legg@aberdeenshire.gov.uk

64 Elizabeth Christie; The Haven Under the Hill: The Story of Stonehaven; James A Bruce; 1977; provided by Judith Legg, Senior Library Assistant, Local Studies Dept, Aberdeenshire Libraries HQ, Meldrum Meg Way, The Meadows Industrial Estate, Oldmeldrum, AB51 0GN, Scotland; http://www.aberdeenshire.gov.uk/libraries/information/local_studies.asp#contact; Judith.Legg@aberdeenshire.gov.uk

65 http://www.stonehavenguide.net/stonehaven-history.html

66 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angus_(given_name)

67 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/entry_page.jsp?text_id=76590&word=NULL

68 John Bartholomew; Gazetteer of the British Isles; 1887; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/place_page.jsp?p_id=17303&st=Angus

69 Neil Oliver; A History of Scotland; Phoenix; 2010

70 http://www.scottish-places.info/features/featurefirst8250.html

71 Neil Oliver; A History of Scotland; Phoenix; 2010

72 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forfar

73 Neil Oliver; A History of Scotland; Phoenix; 2010

74 Fiona C Scharlau, Archive Manager, Angus Archives, Hunter Library, Restenneth, By Forfar, DD8 2SZ, Scotland; angus.archives@angus.gov.uk; www.angus.gov.uk/history/archives/default.htm

75 http://www.scotland.com/castles/angus-dundee/inverquharity/

76 Fiona C Scharlau, Archive Manager, Angus Archives, Hunter Library, Restenneth, By Forfar, DD8 2SZ, Scotland; angus.archives@angus.gov.uk; www.angus.gov.uk/history/archives/default.htm

77 http://www.angus.gov.uk/history/features/buildings/2006-02-restenneth.htm

78 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argyll

79 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/21721

80 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/entry_page.jsp?text_id=74990&word=NULL

81 John Bartholomew; Gazetteer of the British Isles; 1887; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/place_page.jsp?p_id=17460&st=Argyll%20and%20Bute

82 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isle_of_Bute

83 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/91400

84 John Bartholomew; Gazetteer of the British Isles; 1887; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/21759

85 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/91430

86 John Bartholomew; Gazetteer of the British Isles; 1887; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/17456

87 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/place_page.jsp?p_id=21318&st=Ardentinny

88 Messrs Oliver and Boyd; Oliver and Boyd’s Guide to the West Highlands; 1860

89 http://www.tutorgigpedia.com/ed/Cara_Island

90 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunadd

91 Neil Oliver; A History of Scotland; Phoenix; 2010

92 Peter Neville; A Traveller’s History of Ireland; Interlink Books; 1997

93 Neil Oliver; A History of Scotland; Phoenix; 2010

94 John Bartholomew; Gazetteer of the British Isles; 1887; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/place_page.jsp?p_id=17381&st=Lochgilphead

95 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/entry_page.jsp?text_id=128790&word=NULL

96 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_of_Mull; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isle_of_Mull

97 Neil Oliver; A History of Scotland; Phoenix; 2010

98 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/entry_page.jsp?text_id=142940&word=NULL

99 Louis Albert Necker de Saussure; A Voyage to the Hebrides, or Western Isles of Scotland; With Observations on the Manners and Customs of the Highlanders; Sir Richard Phillips & Co; 1822; http://www.ambaile.org.uk/en/item/photograph_zoom.jsp?item_id=81694&zoom=3; http://www.ambaile.org.uk/en/item/photograph_zoom.jsp?item_id=81695&zoom=3

100 http://www.clackmannantower.co.uk/around.html

101 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/96710

102 John Bartholomew; Gazetteer of the British Isles; 1887; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/16711

103 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/entry_page.jsp?text_id=96730&word=NULL

104 John Bartholomew; Gazetteer of the British Isles; 1887; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/place_page.jsp?p_id=17334&st=Clackmannanshire

105 Janet Carolan, Castle Campbell Hall, 1 High Street, Dollar, Clackmannanshire, FK14 7AY, Scotland; http://home.btconnect.com/dollarmuseum/; janet.carolan@btinternet.com

106 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/entry_page.jsp?text_id=104590&word=NULL

107 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumfries

108 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/106410

109 John Bartholomew; Gazetteer of the British Isles; 1887; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/16451

110 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/entry_page.jsp?text_id=106430&word=NULL

111 John Bartholomew; Gazetteer of the British Isles; 1887; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/place_page.jsp?p_id=17452&st=Dumfries

112 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galloway

113 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/entry_page.jsp?text_id=113290&word=NULL

114 John Bartholomew; Gazetteer of the British Isles; 1887; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/place_page.jsp?p_id=20057&st=Galloway

115 Mairi Hunter, Reference and Local Studies, Dumfries and Galloway Libraries, Information and Archives, Ewart Library, Catherine Street, Dumfries DG1 1JB, Scotland; www.dumgal.gov.uk/lia; ref.1@dumgal.gov.uk

116 http://www.airds.com/history.html

117 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Brunanburh; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annandale

118 Neil Oliver; A History of Scotland; Phoenix; 2010

119 Mairi Hunter, Reference and Local Studies, Dumfries and Galloway Libraries, Information and Archives, Ewart Library, Catherine Street, Dumfries DG1 1JB, Scotland; www.dumgal.gov.uk/lia; ref.1@dumgal.gov.uk

120 Andrew Agnew; The Agnews of Lochnaw: A History of the Hereditary Sheriffs of Galloway; Adam and Charles Black; 1864

121 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/entry_page.jsp?text_id=108420&word=NULL

122 Jane C Irving, Senior Customer Services Advisor - Annandale & Eskdale, Community and Customer Services - Gretna Registration Office, Dumfries and Galloway Council, Central Avenue, Gretna, DG16 5AQ, Scotland; http://dumgal.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=3685; jane.irving@dumgal.gov.uk

123 http://www.visitdumfriesandgalloway.co.uk/about/history/gretna-green

124 Robert Wilson; Guide to Dumfries and Surrounding Neighborhood, Via the Glasgow and South-Western Railway; 1852

125 Peter Orlando Hutchinson; Chronicles of Gretna Green; 1844

126 William Home Lizars and John Wilcox; Lizars’ Views of the Principals Cities and Towns in Scotland; With Illustration Letter-Press; 1843

127 Tim Lambert; A Brief History of Dundee; http://www.localhistories.org/dundee.html

128 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/106850

129 John Bartholomew; Gazetteer of the British Isles; 1887; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/place_page.jsp?p_id=16319&st=Dundee

130 David Dorward; Dundee: Names, People and Places; Mercat Press; provided by Iain EF Flett, City Archivist, Dundee City Archives, Corporate Services, 21 City Square, Dundee DD1 3BY, Scotland; http://www.dundeecity.gov.uk/archive/; iain.flett@dundeecity.gov.uk

131 http://www.tayroots.com/People/AngusLives/McGonagall.aspx

132 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/73160

133 John Bartholomew; Gazetteer of the British Isles; 1887; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/16466

134 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/entry_page.jsp?text_id=73090&word=NULL

135 John Bartholomew; Gazetteer of the British Isles; 1887; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/place_page.jsp?p_id=17454&st=Ayrshire

136 Neil Oliver; A History of Scotland; Phoenix; 2010

137 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbartonshire

138 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/106330

139 John Bartholomew; Gazetteer of the British Isles; 1887; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/16890

140 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/entry_page.jsp?text_id=106340&word=NULL

141 John Bartholomew; Gazetteer of the British Isles; 1887; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/place_page.jsp?p_id=17472&st=Dunbartonshire

142 David Smith, Libraries WebMail, East Dunbartonshire Leisure & Culture, William Patrick Library, 2/4 West High Street, Kirkintilloch, G66 1AD, Scotland; http://www.edlc.co.uk; libraries@eastdunbarton.gov.uk

143 David Smith, Libraries WebMail, East Dunbartonshire Leisure & Culture, William Patrick Library, 2/4 West High Street, Kirkintilloch, G66 1AD, Scotland; http://www.edlc.co.uk; libraries@eastdunbarton.gov.uk

144 David Smith, Libraries WebMail, East Dunbartonshire Leisure & Culture, William Patrick Library, 2/4 West High Street, Kirkintilloch, G66 1AD, Scotland; http://www.edlc.co.uk; libraries@eastdunbarton.gov.uk

145 David Smith, Libraries WebMail, East Dunbartonshire Leisure & Culture, William Patrick Library, 2/4 West High Street, Kirkintilloch, G66 1AD, Scotland; http://www.edlc.co.uk; libraries@eastdunbarton.gov.uk

146 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lothian

147 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/118430

148 John Bartholomew; Gazetteer of the British Isles; 1887; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/place_page.jsp?p_id=17222&st=Lothian

149 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Berwick

150 Neil Oliver; A History of Scotland; Phoenix; 2010

151 http://www.scottish-places.info/features/featurefirst8218.html; provided by Bill Wilson, Local History Officer, John Gray Centre, 15 Lodge Street, Haddington, EH41 3DX, Scotland; www.johngraycentre.org; bwilson@eastlothian.gov.uk

152 Neil Oliver; A History of Scotland; Phoenix; 2010

153 http://www.johnmuirway.co.uk/; provided by Bill Wilson, Local History Officer, John Gray Centre, 15 Lodge Street, Haddington, EH41 3DX, Scotland; www.johngraycentre.org; bwilson@eastlothian.gov.uk

154 http://www.visiteastlothian.org/assets/pdfs/jmw_overall_0207_fin1.pdf; provided by Bill Wilson, Local History Officer, John Gray Centre, 15 Lodge Street, Haddington, EH41 3DX, Scotland; www.johngraycentre.org; bwilson@eastlothian.gov.uk

155 http://www.maybole.org/history/castles/saltcoats.htm; provided by Bill Wilson, Local History Officer, John Gray Centre, 15 Lodge Street, Haddington, EH41 3DX, Scotland; www.johngraycentre.org; bwilson@eastlothian.gov.uk

156 http://www.maybole.org/history/castles/stoneypath.htm; provided by Bill Wilson, Local History Officer, John Gray Centre, 15 Lodge Street, Haddington, EH41 3DX, Scotland; www.johngraycentre.org; bwilson@eastlothian.gov.uk

157 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toponymical_list_of_counties_of_the_United_Kingdom

158 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/138440

159 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/138430

160 John Bartholomew; Gazetteer of the British Isles; 1887; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/16801

161 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/entry_page.jsp?text_id=138450&word=NULL

162 John Bartholomew; Gazetteer of the British Isles; 1887; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/place_page.jsp?p_id=17301&st=Renfrewshire

163 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giffnock

164 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/place_page.jsp?p_id=21845&st=Giffnock

165 Alan Steel; provided by Amanda J Robb, Local Studies Librarian, Library and Information Services, Education Department, Council Headquarters, Eastwood Park, Rouken Glen Road, Giffnock, G46 6UG, Scotland; www.eastrenfrewshire.gov.uk/libraries; Amanda.Robb@eastrenfrewshire.gov.uk

166 Stuart Nisbet; Stamperland: An Early History; provided by Amanda J Robb, Local Studies Librarian, Library and Information Services, Education Department, Council Headquarters, Eastwood Park, Rouken Glen Road, Giffnock, G46 6UG, Scotland; www.eastrenfrewshire.gov.uk/libraries; Amanda.Robb@eastrenfrewshire.gov.uk

167 Ian Scott; How did Falkirk get its name? 2005; http://www.falkirklocalhistorysociety.co.uk/home/index.php?id=73

168 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/entry_page.jsp?text_id=110460&word=NULL

169 John Bartholomew; Gazetteer of the British Isles; 1887; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/place_page.jsp?p_id=16422&st=Falkirk

170 Neil Oliver; A History of Scotland; Phoenix; 2010

171 John Reid; 2005; http://www.falkirklocalhistorysociety.co.uk/home/index.php?id=62

172 John Reid; California and Shieldhill; 2005; http://www.falkirklocalhistorysociety.co.uk/home/index.php?id=61

173 Ian Scott; The Pineapple at Dunmore; February 2005; http://www.falkirklocalhistorysociety.co.uk/home/index.php?id=49

174 Ian Scott; 2005; http://www.falkirklocalhistorysociety.co.uk/home/index.php?id=54

175 Ian Scott; Elphinstone or Dunmore Tower; 2005; http://www.falkirklocalhistorysociety.co.uk/home/index.php?id=126

176 http://www.falkirk.gov.uk/the_area/grangemouth_skinflats/skinflats/skinflats.aspx

177 http://www.ancestry.com/name-origin?surname=fife

178 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/entry_page.jsp?text_id=111300&word=NULL

179 John Bartholomew; Gazetteer of the British Isles; 1887; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/place_page.jsp?p_id=17330&st=Fife

180 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/entry_page.jsp?text_id=79070&word=NULL

181 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/entry_page.jsp?text_id=74000&word=NULL

182 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falkland_Palace

183 Neil Oliver; A History of Scotland; Phoenix; 2010

184 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/place_page.jsp?p_id=21805&st=Fife%20Ness

185 Felicia Soong, Inverkeithing Library, Inverkeithing Local Office Civic Centre, 10 Queen Street, Inverkeithing, KY11 1PA, Scotland; http://www.fifedirect.org.uk/atoz/index.cfm?fuseaction=facility.display&facid=1A6D7F8B-BC98-4897-B1DE5A59159C86B1; Felicia.Soong@fife.gov.uk

186 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinghorn

187 Neil Oliver; A History of Scotland; Phoenix; 2010

188 Neil Oliver; A History of Scotland; Phoenix; 2010

189 Steven Scouller, Audio/Visual Officer & Curator of the Scottish Police Museum, College Coordination Unit, Television Studio, Scottish Police College, Scottish Police Services Authority, Tulliallan Castle, Kincardine, Fife, FK10 4BE, Scotland; http://tulliallan.police.uk/; steven.scouller@spsa.pnn.police.uk

190 http://www.scottish-places.info/scotgaz/features/featurefirst16940.html

191 http://www.scottish-places.info/features/featurefirst16942.html

192 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasgow

193 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/entry_page.jsp?text_id=114810&word=NULL

194 John Bartholomew; Gazetteer of the British Isles; 1887; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/place_page.jsp?p_id=16317&st=Glasgow

195 http://www.glasgowhistory.co.uk/Books/Tollcross&Dalbeth/TollcrossCHapters/Auchenshuggle.htm

196 Linda Burke, Librarian, Special Collections, The Mitchell Library, North Street, Glasgow, G3 7DN, Scotland; http://www.glasgowlife.org.uk/libraries/the-mitchell-library/Pages/home.aspx; Histoy.Glasgow@csglasgow.org; libraries@glasgowlife.org.uk

197 Hugh MacDonald; Rambles Round Glasgow: Descriptive, Historical, and Traditional; John Cameron; 1860

198 The Anecdotage of Glasgow: Crossmyloof: Said to Have Got Its Name through Queen Mary; http://www.electricscotland.com/history/glasgow/anec24.htm

199 david@fisheyes.co.uk

200 John Warden; The Glasgow and Ayr and Glasgow and Greenock Railway Companion: Containing a Description of the Railroads; with Notices of the Towns, Villages, Antiquities… in Their Vicinity…; J Morrison; 1841

201 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/place_page.jsp?p_id=20373&st=Motherwell

202 John Bartholomew; Gazetteer of the British Isles; 1887; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/place_page.jsp?p_id=17310&st=Highland

203 Susan Skelton, Library Supervisor, High Life Highland, Inverness Library, Farraline Park, Inverness, IV1 1NH, Scotland; http://highlifehighland.com/libraries/inverness-library; invernessreference.library@highlifehighland.com

204 http://www.ambaile.org.uk/en/item/item_photograph.jsp?item_id=128248

205 Susan Skelton, Library Supervisor, High Life Highland, Inverness Library, Farraline Park, Inverness, IV1 1NH, Scotland; http://highlifehighland.com/libraries/inverness-library; invernessreference.library@highlifehighland.com

206 http://www.ambaile.org.uk/en/item/item_photograph.jsp?item_id=38081

207 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/place_page.jsp?p_id=20171&st=Ballachulish

208 Neil Oliver; A History of Scotland; Phoenix; 2010

209 Susan Skelton, Library Supervisor, High Life Highland, Inverness Library, Farraline Park, Inverness, IV1 1NH, Scotland; http://highlifehighland.com/libraries/inverness-library; invernessreference.library@highlifehighland.com

210 sandy.bardwell21@gmail.com

211 Scotland, Society for the Benefit of the Sons, and Daughters of the Clergy; The New Statistical Account of Scotland: Inverness, Ross and Cromarty; Vol 14; W Blackwood and Sons; 1845

212 James Grassie; Legends of the Highlands from Scotland: From Oral Tradition; James Smith; 1843

213 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eilean_Donan

214 Neil Oliver; A History of Scotland; Phoenix; 2010

215 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glencoe,_Highland

216 Neil Oliver; A History of Scotland; Phoenix; 2010

217 Julie Davidson; Reflections of Scotland; Lomond; 2009

218 Susan Skelton, Library Supervisor, High Life Highland, Inverness Library, Farraline Park, Inverness, IV1 1NH, Scotland; http://highlifehighland.com/libraries/inverness-library; invernessreference.library@highlifehighland.com

219 D MacDonald; The Book of Ross, Sutherland & Caithness; 1931; http://www.ambaile.org.uk/en/item/photograph_zoom.jsp?item_id=82349&zoom=3

220 Neil Oliver; A History of Scotland; Phoenix; 2010

221 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/place_page.jsp?p_id=21870&st=John%20o'%20Groats

222 Caithness Official Guide (1920s); http://www.ambaile.org.uk/en/item/photograph_zoom.jsp?item_id=82182&zoom=3

223 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%B9m

224 Neil Oliver; A History of Scotland; Phoenix; 2010

225 Adrian J Shine; Loch Ness; Loch Ness Project; 2006

226 Susan Skelton, Library Supervisor, High Life Highland, Inverness Library, Farraline Park, Inverness, IV1 1NH, Scotland; http://highlifehighland.com/libraries/inverness-library; invernessreference.library@highlifehighland.com

227 D MacDonald; The Book of Ross, Sutherland & Caithness; 1931; http://www.ambaile.org.uk/en/item/photograph_zoom.jsp?item_id=82269&zoom=3

228 Susan Skelton, Library Supervisor, High Life Highland, Inverness Library, Farraline Park, Inverness, IV1 1NH, Scotland; http://highlifehighland.com/libraries/inverness-library; invernessreference.library@highlifehighland.com

229 DI Hutchison; History of Tarskavaig, 1500 – 2010: The Emergence and Economic Collapse of a Coastal Crofting Village during the 19th Century; 16 December 2012; http://www.theislandsbooktrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Tarskavaig-History.pdf; robyardsb@hotmail.co.uk

230 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/entry_page.jsp?text_id=108710&word=NULL

231 John Bartholomew; Gazetteer of the British Isles; 1887; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/place_page.jsp?p_id=17184&st=Midlothian

232 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/108700

233 John Bartholomew; Gazetteer of the British Isles; 1887; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/16316

234 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holyrood_Abbey; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edinburgh; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lothian

235 Neil Oliver; A History of Scotland; Phoenix; 2010

236 Neil Oliver; A History of Scotland; Phoenix; 2010

237 Provided by Dr Brian Moffat, SHARP, 5 Fala, Midlothian, EH37 5SY, Scotland; brianmoffat@soutraaisle.org

238 Lachlan Shaw; The History of the Province of Moray; J Grant; 1827

239 http://www.scotland.org/features/names-heard-around-the-world

240 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/entry_page.jsp?text_id=108960&word=NULL

241 John Bartholomew; Gazetteer of the British Isles; 1887; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/place_page.jsp?p_id=17242&st=Moray

242 http://www.thisismoray.com/archiestown-in-moray-c144.html

243 Neil Oliver; A History of Scotland; Phoenix; 2010

244 http://www.lossiemouth.co.uk/category/lossiemouth-history/

245 Liz Trevethick, Museums Officer, Education and Social Care, Falconer Museum, Tolbooth Street, Forres, IV36 1PH, Scotland; http://www.moray.gov.uk/museums; liz.trevethick@moray.gov.uk

246 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/entry_page.jsp?text_id=143930&word=NULL

247 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/place_page.jsp?p_id=20354&st=Lochranza

248 David Landsborough; Excursions to Arran, Ailsa Craig, and the Two Cumbraes, with Reference to the Natural History of these Islands: To which are Added, Directions for Laying out Seaweeds, and Preparing them for the Herbarium. Johnstone and Hunter; 1851

249 Timothy Pont; Cuninghame Topographized; John Tweed; 1876; provided by Hazel Menzies, Research Assistant, North Ayrshire Heritage Centre, Manse Street, Saltcoats, Ayrshire, KA21 5AA, Scotland; http://www.ers.north-ayrshire.gov.uk/heritage/heritagemuseums.cfm; naheritage@north-ayrshire.gov.uk

250 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/entry_page.jsp?text_id=139830&word=NULL

251 R&M Merry; Old Saltcoats; Ochiltree: Richard Stenlake; 1995; provided by Hazel Menzies, Research Assistant, North Ayrshire Heritage Centre, Manse Street, Saltcoats, Ayrshire, KA21 5AA, Scotland; http://www.ers.north-ayrshire.gov.uk/heritage/heritagemuseums.cfm; naheritage@north-ayrshire.gov.uk

252 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanark

253 William Davidson; History of Lanark, and Guide to the Scenery; Shepherd & Roberton; 1828

254 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/126610

255 John Bartholomew; Gazetteer of the British Isles; 1887; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/16511

256 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/entry_page.jsp?text_id=126630&word=NULL

257 John Bartholomew; Gazetteer of the British Isles; 1887; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/place_page.jsp?p_id=17447&st=Lanarkshire

258 Karen Gallagher, Archives Assistant, Museums & Heritage, North Lanarkshire Heritage Centre, High Road, Motherwell, ML1 3HU, Scotland; http://www.northlanarkshire.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=1047; gallagherka@culturenl.co.uk

259 Margaret McGarry, CultureNL Ltd, North Lanarkshire Heritage Centre, High Road, Motherwell, ML1 3HU, Scotland; http://www.northlanarkshire.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=15875; McGarryM@culturenl.co.uk

260 The Motherwell Times; provided by Margaret McGarry, CultureNL Ltd, North Lanarkshire Heritage Centre, High Road, Motherwell, ML1 3HU, Scotland; http://www.northlanarkshire.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=15875; McGarryM@culturenl.co.uk

261 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/entry_page.jsp?text_id=123930&word=NULL

262 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/place_page.jsp?p_id=20373&st=Motherwell

263 Karen Gallagher, Archives Assistant, Museums & Heritage, North Lanarkshire Heritage Centre, High Road, Motherwell, ML1 3HU, Scotland; http://www.northlanarkshire.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=1047; gallagherka@culturenl.co.uk

264 http://www.orkneyjar.com/placenames/orkney.htm

265 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/entry_page.jsp?text_id=135520&word=NULL

266 John Bartholomew; Gazetteer of the British Isles; 1887; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/place_page.jsp?p_id=17294&st=Orkney

267 Neil Oliver; A History of Scotland; Phoenix; 2010

268 Neil Oliver; A History of Scotland; Phoenix; 2010

269 Gregor Lamb; Naggles o Piapittem: Place Names of Sanday, Orkney; Byrgisey; 1992; provided by Sarah Maclean, Archive Assistant, Orkney Library and Archive, 44 Junction Road, Kirkwall, Orkney, KW15 1AG, Scotland; http://www.orkney.gov.uk/Service-Directory/S/orkney-library-and-archive.htm; archives@orkney.gov.uk

270 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/place_page.jsp?p_id=16652&st=Lady

271 Neil Oliver; A History of Scotland; Phoenix; 2010

272 Hugh Marwick; Orkney Farm-names; WR Mackintosh; 1952; provided by Sarah Maclean, Archive Assistant, Orkney Library and Archive, 44 Junction Road, Kirkwall, Orkney, KW15 1AG, Scotland; http://www.orkney.gov.uk/Service-Directory/S/orkney-library-and-archive.htm; archives@orkney.gov.uk

273 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/place_page.jsp?p_id=16377&st=Papa%20Westray

274 Neil Oliver; A History of Scotland; Phoenix; 2010

275 Sigurd Towrie; http://www.orkneyjar.com/myself.htm; sigurd@orkneyjar.com

276 http://www.orkneyjar.com/history/scarboat/index.html

277 http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/southronaldsay/stmargaretshope/index.html

278 Neil Oliver; A History of Scotland; Phoenix; 2010

279 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perth,_Scotland

280 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/136350

281 John Bartholomew; Gazetteer of the British Isles; 1887; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/16794

282 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/entry_page.jsp?text_id=136370&word=NULL

283 John Bartholomew; Gazetteer of the British Isles; 1887; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/place_page.jsp?p_id=17444&st=Perth

284 Ebenezer Henderson and William Haldane; The Annals of Kinross-shire: 490-1870 AD; Fossoway Community Council; 1990; http://www.kinrossmuseum.co.uk/annals1.htm

285 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/124950

286 John Bartholomew; Gazetteer of the British Isles; 1887; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/17046

287 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/entry_page.jsp?text_id=124970&word=NULL

288 John Bartholomew; Gazetteer of the British Isles; 1887; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/place_page.jsp?p_id=17484&st=Kinross

289 Andrew Fisher; A Traveller’s History of Scotland; Interlink Books; 2000

290 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dundurn; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strathearn

291 Neil Oliver; A History of Scotland; Phoenix; 2010

292 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenmore,_Perth_and_Kinross

293 Neil Oliver; A History of Scotland; Phoenix; 2010

294 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huntingtower_Castle

295 Neil Oliver; A History of Scotland; Phoenix; 2010

296 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scone,_Scotland

297 Andrew Fisher; A Traveller’s History of Scotland; Interlink Books; 2000

298 Neil Oliver; A History of Scotland; Phoenix; 2010

299 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paisley

300 James Whitelaw Craig; Historical Notes on Paisley; J&R Parlane; 1881; provided by Denise Williams, Heritage Services Assistant, Heritage and Information, Paisley Central Library, Renfrewshire Libraries, 68 High Street, Paisley, Renfrewshire, PA1 2BB, Scotland; http://www.renfrewshire.gov.uk/webcontent/Home/Services/Libraries/Libraries+and+opening+times/

Paisley+Central+Library/; denise.williams@renfrewshire.gov.uk

301 William Musham Metcalfe; A History of Paisley, 600-1908; Alexander Gardner Paisley; 1909; provided by Denise Williams, Heritage Services Assistant, Heritage and Information, Paisley Central Library, Renfrewshire Libraries, 68 High Street, Paisley, Renfrewshire, PA1 2BB, Scotland; http://www.renfrewshire.gov.uk/webcontent/Home/Services/Libraries/Libraries+and+opening+times/Paisley+Central+Library/; denise.williams@renfrewshire.gov.uk

302 James Cameron Lees; History of the Abbey of Paisley; Tobersnorey; 1878; provided by Denise Williams, Heritage Services Assistant, Heritage and Information, Paisley Central Library, Renfrewshire Libraries, 68 High Street, Paisley, Renfrewshire, PA1 2BB, Scotland; http://www.renfrewshire.gov.uk/webcontent/Home/Services/Libraries/Libraries+and+opening+times/Paisley+Central+Library/; denise.williams@renfrewshire.gov.uk

303 David Rowand; Golden Threads: A Look at Paisley’s Past; Paisley Daily Express; 1999; provided by Denise Williams, Heritage Services Assistant, Heritage and Information, Paisley Central Library, Renfrewshire Libraries, 68 High Street, Paisley, Renfrewshire, PA1 2BB, Scotland; http://www.renfrewshire.gov.uk/webcontent/Home/Services/Libraries/Libraries+and+opening+times/Paisley+Central+Library/; denise.williams@renfrewshire.gov.uk

304 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/entry_page.jsp?text_id=135820&word=NULL

305 John Bartholomew; Gazetteer of the British Isles; 1887; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/place_page.jsp?p_id=17167&st=Paisley

306 John Parkhill; The History of Paisley; Robert Steward; 1857

307 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Borders

308 John Marius Wilson; The Land of Scott; or, Abbotsford, the Country on the Tweed and Its Tributaries, and St Mary’s Loch, by the Author of Historical and Descriptive Hand-book to Edinburgh; 1859

309 http://www.well.com/user/jmalloy/maid_lilliard.html

310 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Carham; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coldstream

311 Andrew Fisher; A Traveller’s History of Scotland; Interlink Books; 2000

312 http://www.englandsnortheast.co.uk/Lindisfarne.html

313 www.visitscottishborders.com

314 Neil Oliver; A History of Scotland; Phoenix; 2010

315 William H Purvis, Secretary, Swinton and Ladykirk Community Council, Braeside, Swinton, Duns, TD11 3JH, Scotland; billpurvis@supanet.com

316 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lauder

317 Neil Oliver; A History of Scotland; Phoenix; 2010

318 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/entry_page.jsp?text_id=132630&word=NULL

319 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roxburgh

320 Neil Oliver; A History of Scotland; Phoenix; 2010

321 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jedburgh

322 Julie Davidson; Reflections of Scotland; Lomond; 2009

323 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shetland

324 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/entry_page.jsp?text_id=140470&word=NULL

325 John Bartholomew; Gazetteer of the British Isles; 1887; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/place_page.jsp?p_id=17214&st=Shetland%20Islands

326 Mark Smith, Archives Assistant, Shetland Museum & Archives, Hay's Dock, Lerwick, Shetland, ZE1 0WP, Scotland; http://www.shetland-museum.org.uk/; mark@shetland-archives.org.uk

327 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/place_page.jsp?p_id=22013&st=Burravoe

328 Neil Oliver; A History of Scotland; Phoenix; 2010

329 Tom Barclay, Reference & Local History Librarian, South Ayrshire Council, Carnegie Library, 12 Main Street, Ayr, KA8 8EB, Scotland; http://www.south-ayrshire.gov.uk/libraries/branches/carnegie-library.aspx; LocalHistory@south-ayrshire.gov.uk

330 Tom Barclay, Reference & Local History Librarian, South Ayrshire Council, Carnegie Library, 12 Main Street, Ayr, KA8 8EB, Scotland; http://www.south-ayrshire.gov.uk/libraries/branches/carnegie-library.aspx; LocalHistory@south-ayrshire.gov.uk

331 Tom Barclay, Reference & Local History Librarian, South Ayrshire Council, Carnegie Library, 12 Main Street, Ayr, KA8 8EB, Scotland; http://www.south-ayrshire.gov.uk/libraries/branches/carnegie-library.aspx; LocalHistory@south-ayrshire.gov.uk

332 Tom Barclay, Reference & Local History Librarian, South Ayrshire Council, Carnegie Library, 12 Main Street, Ayr, KA8 8EB, Scotland; http://www.south-ayrshire.gov.uk/libraries/branches/carnegie-library.aspx; LocalHistory@south-ayrshire.gov.uk

333 Tom Barclay, Reference & Local History Librarian, South Ayrshire Council, Carnegie Library, 12 Main Street, Ayr, KA8 8EB, Scotland; http://www.south-ayrshire.gov.uk/libraries/branches/carnegie-library.aspx; LocalHistory@south-ayrshire.gov.uk

334 Society for the Benefit of the Sons, and Daughters of the Clergy of the Church of Scotland; The Statistical Account of Lanarkshire; W Blackwood; 1841

335 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/entry_page.jsp?text_id=100810&word=NULL

336 Neil Oliver; A History of Scotland; Phoenix; 2010

337 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/place_page.jsp?p_id=22405&st=Quarter

338 Scotland, Society for the Benefit of the Sons, and Daughters of the Clergy; The New Statistical Account of Scotland: Lanark; Vol 6; W Blackwood and Sons; 1845

339 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinto

340 Society for the Benefit of the Sons, and Daughters of the Clergy of the Church of Scotland; The Statistical Account of Lanarkshire; W Blackwood; 1841

341 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirling

342 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/141500

343 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/141510

344 John Bartholomew; Gazetteer of the British Isles; 1887; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/16634

345 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/entry_page.jsp?text_id=141520&word=NULL

346 John Bartholomew; Gazetteer of the British Isles; 1887; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/place_page.jsp?p_id=17442&st=Stirling

347 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbey_Craig

348 Neil Oliver; A History of Scotland; Phoenix; 2010

349 Clifton Wilkinson; Argyll’s Lodging, Stirling; http://www.historyextra.com/visit/argyll%E2%80%99s-lodging-stirling

350 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bannockburn

351 Andrew Fisher; A Traveller’s History of Scotland; Interlink Books; 2000

352 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/entry_page.jsp?text_id=92880&word=NULL

353 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/entry_page.jsp?text_id=120870&word=NULL

354 The Battle of Stirling Bridge, 1297; http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/history/articles/battle_of_stirling_bridge/

355 Andrew Fisher; A Traveller’s History of Scotland; Interlink Books; 2000

356 Neil Oliver; A History of Scotland; Phoenix; 2010

357 http://www.historic-scotland.gov.uk/antoninewall

358 Neil Oliver; A History of Scotland; Phoenix; 2010

359 Billy Scobie; Inchmurrin Crescent; Lennox Herald; 13 June 2008; provided by Isabel Paterson, Local History and Reference Assistant, Heritage Centre @Dumbarton Library, Strathleven Place, Dumbarton, G82 1BD, Scotland; http://www.west-dunbarton.gov.uk/tourism-and-visitor-attractions/local-history-and-heritage/dumbarton-heritage-centre/#.UnaZqvmsg68; local.history@west-dunbarton.gov.uk

360 Marc Mclean; Dumbarton Castle’s New Links to Wallace and Bruce; Lennox Herald; April 6, 2012; http://www.lennoxherald.co.uk/dunbartonshire-news/dunbartonshire-news/dumbarton-news/2012/04/06/dumbarton-castle-s-new-links-to-wallace-and-bruce-114557-30685746/

361 Andrew Fisher; A Traveller’s History of Scotland; Interlink Books; 2000

362 Neil Oliver; A History of Scotland; Phoenix; 2010

363 FH Groome; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland; 1882-4; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/entry_page.jsp?text_id=128230&word=NULL

364 John Bartholomew; Gazetteer of the British Isles; 1887; http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/place_page.jsp?p_id=17194&st=West%20Lothian

365 John Penney; A Topographical and Historical Account of Linlithgowshire; Stevenson; 1831

366 The Hopetoun House Preservation Trust; Hopetoun House; South Queensferry, EH30 9SL, Scotland; http://www.hopetoun.co.uk/History-of-the-Hope-Family.html

367 http://www.mostly-medieval.com/explore/torphichen.htm