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The history of Banffshire
touches national events at a number of interesting points. Whether the
county was ever invaded by the legions of Rome is a matter that has been
hotly disputed by antiquarians and historians, but in any case it was
certainly unconquered by them. A few centuries later it formed, with what is
the modern county of Aberdeen, one of the seven provinces of Pictland.
Interesting memorials still
remain of the Celtic missionaries who introduced Christianity among the
northern Picts. Brandon Fair, a feeing market in Banff, and "the Brannan
Howe," as well as the ruins of St Brandon's Church, remind us of the famous
saint. Mortlach was named after St Murthlac; and, of old, Aberlour bore the
name of its patron saint, St Drostan, Alvah still possesses St Columba's
well. Forglen parish used to be called Teunan or St Eunan, i.e. St Adamnan,
the biographer of St Columba. The parish of Marnoch commemorates its patron
saint in Marnan Fair. St Maelrubha was one of the most notable of Fathers of
the Faith in Northern Scotland, where more than twenty places show traces of
his presence. He was the patron saint of Keith, and his name is buried in
Summer-eve Fair, formerly one of the most important September markets in the
North. "Summer-eve" is an easy popular etymology of one of the corrupted
forms of St Maelrubha's name.
While civilising influences
were thus affecting the "barbarians" of the North, other movements that had
been for long in progress, came to affect profoundly the national life. The
pagan Vikings made descents on the growing wealth of the monastic
communities, and Banffshire was the scene of three events of more or less
national importance. On the muir of Findochty, in 961, the followers of Eric
of the Bloody Axe and the Scots under King Indulphus, met in what is known
as the Battle of the Baads. The invaders were routed, but the Scots King was
slain, a collection of stones commonly called the "King's Cairn" near the
farm of Woodside traditionally marking his grave. To the same epoch belongs
the battle of the "Bleedy" Pits in Gamrie, where the Scots defeated the
Danes with great slaughter on the top of Gamrie Mhor. The date assigned is
1004, the year inscribed on the ruins of the old church. The Scottish chief
vowed to St John to build a church on the spot where the invaders were
encamped if the Saint would lend his assistance in dislodging them. One who
wrote in 1832 recalled that three of the Danish chiefs were discovered
amongst the slain, "and I have seen their skulls grinning horrid and hollow,
in the wall where they had been fixed, inside the Church, directly east of
the pulpit, andwhere they have remained in their prison house Soo years."
Principal Sir W. D. Geddes has written how
Over brine, over faem,
Thorough flood, thorough flame,
The ravenous hordes of the Norsemen came
To ravage our fatherland...
The war, I ween, had a speedy close,
And the "Bloody Pits" to this day can tell
How the ravens were glutted with gore,
And the Church was garnished with trophies fell,
"Jesu, Maria, shield us well"
Three grim skulls of three Norse Kings
Grinning a grin of despair,
Each looking out from his stony cell—
They stared with a stony stare.
To the same period is
attributed the Battle of Mortlach, in which, opposite the present parish
church, then a chapel dedicated to St Murthlac, Malcolm in 1010 obtained a
complete victory over the Danes. It was to this chapel that Malcolm added
three spear-lengths in fulfilment of a vow.
If the Reformation brought no
leader from the county, and if that movement was acquiesced in rather than
warmly embraced, Banffshire was intimately involved in the troubles that
arose therefrom. Altochoylachan, a small stream near the eastern boundary of
Glenlivet, has acquired distinction because of the battle fought on its
right bank on 3rd Oct. 1594, the last struggle in the North between
Protestantism and Roman Catholicism, when 10,000 Protestants under the Earl
of Argyll were routed by the Catholic insurgents under the Earl of Huntly.
It was a barren victory, however, for the " Popish earls" were unable to
follow it up, and the King, going himself with an armed force to Strathbogie,
consented to the looting of Huntly's great castle and then to its
destruction. The only notable man who fell on Huntly's side was Sir Patrick
Gordon of Auchindoun; Argyll lost MacLean of Mull, MacNeill of Barra, two of
his Campbell cousins, and 500 rank and file. When MacLean was mortally
wounded, and felt himself dying, he said to his followers in Gaelic, "Let me
be buried in the churchyard of Downan, where the Saxon tongue will never be
heard spoken over my grave." But MacLean, if a brave warrior, was a
short-sighted prophet, for less than three centuries after, not two persons,
natives of the district, could have been found who could converse in Gaelic
at his grave. It was at the battle of Glenlivet that the Highland harp made
its last appearance on the field of battle, brought thither by Argyll. The
harp was finally discontinued in the Scottish Highlands about 1734, leaving
the bagpipe the instrument of Scottish martial music.
In the time of the
Covenanting troubles when the Marquis of Montrose was carrying devastation
among the Covenanters of the North, we read that "from Findlater, he marched
to the Boyne, plunders the country, and burns the bigging pitifully, and
spoilzied the minister's goods, gear and books. The laird himself keeps the
Craig of Boyne, wherein he was safe; but his haill lands, for the most part,
were thus burnt up and destroyit. Thereafter he marches to Banff, plunders
the samen pitifully, no merchant's goods nor gear left; they saw no man on
the street but was stripped naked to the skin."
The Rebellion of 1745-46
cannot be said to have met with much general sympathy in the district. From
contemporary ecclesiastical and other records it rather appears, indeed, to
have been regarded in the light of a nuisance, and in at least one parish
the church records state, under date April 23rd, 1746, that a thanksgiving
service was held "for the glorious victory over the Rebels 16th inst. where
numbers of the rebel army were slain and a complete victory obtained." Sir
John Cope, in 1745, on his return from Inverness, passed through Banff,
having under him 2100 foot. The Duke of Cumberland left Aberdeen with the
last division of his army on 8th April, 1746. Part of the Royal troops were
at that time in Strathbogie and part in Oldmeldrum, and these joined him at
Portsoy. He arrived on i oth April at Banff, where Lord Braco gave £250 of
drink-money to the common soldiers "merely that he might with more freedom
ask protection for the Houses, Cattle, Horses, and other effects of any of
his friends and relations who had the misfortune of being engaged." The
Earl. of Findlater, at Cullen House, which had been pillaged by the
Jacobites while the Earl was in attendance on Cumberland at Aberdeen, made
on the same occasion "handsome provision for the troops." One incident of
the Army's visit to Banff was the hanging of two men on the ground that they
were spies, but the first victim is described by a later historian as "a
poor innocent man"; and of both it is said that "such as knew them affirmed
they had scarce wit enough to do their own country business far less play
the spy." In their passage through Banff, the soldiers also "destroyed the
fine episcopal chapel, cutting down the roof, burning the seats, books,
pulpit and altar, and breaking the organ in pieces." Other places of worship
in the county suffered a similar fate. The Roman Catholic chapel at Shenval,
in the remote wilds of the Cabrach was burned, but the greatest loss to the
ancient faith was the destruction of the little college of Scalan in the
even more remote Braes of Glenlivet.
The name of Scalan lingers
fondly in the minds of Roman Catholics in Scotland. For the greater part of
the eighteenth century it was the centre of Catholic activity and over one
hundred missionaries were educated within its walls. In 1713 the idea
started of a seminary which would not only prepare boys for the colleges
abroad, but also fully educate them for the priesthood. The place chosen was
on the island of Loch Morar, but the civil disturbances of 1715 occasioned
its dissolution. The work was resumed in 1717 at Scalan, a most isolated
spot in Glenlivet. In May 1746 it was laid in ashes by Cumberland's troops,
but although parties of soldiers were stationed in Glenlivet for nine years
more, the educational work was continued and men who were to rise high in
the Church received their training here. In 1789 the seminary was
transferred to Aquhorthies in Aberdeenshire, and in 1829 to Blairs in
Kincardineshire. The chapel of Tombae, whose priest had joined Prince
Charles as chaplain to the Glenlivet and Strathaven contingent under Gordon
of Glenbucket, had its contents committed to the flames. In the other
ancient stronghold of Roman Catholicism in the county, the district of the
Enzie, due in large measure to the protecting influence of the Gordons, the
steps taken were much more lenient.
But if the Jacobite rising
found small popular sympathy in the greater part of the county, it is the
name of a Banffshire tenant farmer that stands in the front rank of those
who took part in the attempt to restore the Stuart dynasty—that of John
Gordon of Glenbucket, whose descendants, still known by the name of "Glen,"
although the family property of Glenbucket passed out of their family so
long ago as 1737, continue to have their home in an upland part of
Banffshire. In the same year, Glenbucket left Scotland to visit the
Chevalier at Rome, and papers that are quoted lead one historian to say that
"the sequence of events here narrated makes it plain that.. .it was Gordon
of Glenbucket whose initiative in 1737 originated the Jacobite revival which
eventually brought Prince Charles to Scotland." A legend lingered long in
the North that George II sometimes would waken from his sleep in terror lest
"de greet Glenbogget vas goming." And this although, according to an unknown
author, believed to be a contemporary, "he was so old and infirm that he
could not mount his horse, but behoved to be lifted into his saddle,
notwithstanding of which the old spirit still remained in him."
In a list of persons
concerned in the rebellion transmitted by the Supervisor of Excise at Banff,
nine names of persons from Banff appeared, one of them "now prisoner at
Carlisle"; three from Down; seventeen from Keith; twelve from Portsoy; seven
from Cullen, etc. But the much larger number came from the district of
Strathaven and Glenlivet, where the influence of Glenbucket was a powerful
factor. About 26 landed proprietors of the district joined in the rebellion,
of whom more than one half were Gordons.
The Forty-five brought in its
wake new ideals, new ambitions and an altogether fresh outlook to the North
of Scotland. Ancient influences in constituted society were obliterated or
modified, agriculture was developed, industry grew, means of communication
multiplied and from those days may be dated the modern activities of the
county of Banff. |
