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Presbyterianism was fully
established in Scotland in 1700, and, with a very partial interruption, the
Presbyterian clergy have exercised all the powers and enjoyed all the
privileges of Established clergymen in Brechin since that time. The records
of the Presbyterian kirk of Brechin are commenced with a sketch of the state
of Church affairs in 1700, a sketch which we give at full length in
preference to any abridgment, as it appears to have been the joint
production of the committee of the presbytery of Brechin appointed to attend
to the settlement of all matters connected with the parish of Brechin. This
sketch is in these terms:—“The church of Brechin being a collegiate charge,
supplied by two ministers, the bishop in time of Episcopacy did supply the
vice and room of one of them two, either by himself or his chaplain
preaching a diet in the Sabbath’s forenoon; and he that was called the
second minister ordinarily preached the afternoon's diet. Episcopacy being
abolished in Scotland in the year 1689, Mr James Drummond (who was then
Bishop of Brechin) was laid aside, and his charge became vacant But
Presbyterian government not being then fully constitute, and judicatories
presently erected in Angus, Mr Lawrence Skinner, the Episcopal incumbent,
who supplied the afternoon s diet, took occasion to possess the forenoon’s
diet also, having assumed his son, Mr John Skinner, to be his helper; and
thus the whole charge was possessed and supplied for some years thereafter,
till the death of the said Mr Lawrence Skinner, which happened in August
1691, whereupou the said Mr John Skinner, his son, took possession of the
whole charge alone, and continued preaching the whole day till the month of
(blank) in the year 1695; at which time Mr (blank) Abercrombie, minister at
Lauder, by virtue of a commission from the Presbytery of Dundee, took
possession of the forenoon's diet of preaching in the church of Brechin, and
declared vacant that charge formerly supplied by the bishop; and thereafter
the said diet was supplied by several Presbyterian ministers, the said Mr
John Skinner still preaching in the afternoon, until the first day of August
1697 years, on which day Mr Ninian Lumie, minister at Preston, by commission
from the presbytery of Dundee, did declare vacant the charge possessed by
the said Mr John Skinner, and supplied the afternoon’s diet of preaching
also; after which time both diets of preaching, forenoon and afternoon, were
constantly supplied by Presbyterian ministers and probationers, until the
month of March 1703, at which time Mr John Skinner foresaid, at his own
hand, invaded the pulpit, and took possession of the afternoon's diet of
preaching, and dispossessed the presbytery thereof. Thereafter, the united
presbyteries of Brechin and Arbroath, in conjunction with a committee of the
synod, did, in the church of Brechin, upon the third day of December 1703
years, by prayer and imposition of hands, solemnly set apart, consecrate,
and ordain Mr John Willison, first minister of the Gospel there. There being
no session constitute at the time of the said Mr John Willison his
settlement, the foresaid united presbyteries did appoint a committee of
their number to meet at Brechin from time to time, and take care of the
concerns of said town and parish of Brechin instead of a session, and till
such time as they should procure the legal establishment of a session there,
as an extract under the hand of the presbytery clerk at more length bears,
the tenor whereof is as follows: At Brechin, December 29, 1703, the united
presbyteries of Brechin and Arbroath, taking under their consideration the
many scandals abounding in the parish of Brechin, and understanding by Mr
John Willison, now minister there, that there is a necessity of setting
about the establishment of an eldership in the place, for management of the
poor’s money, who are now at a great loss, Mr Skinner having deserted the
landward session, with whom formerly he had met, as also for exercise of
discipline against scandalous persons, and strengthening his hands in the
work of the ministry; therefore, for carrying on the foresaids ends, they do
nominate and appoint their following members, viz., Mr George Wemyss, Mr
James Forsyth, Mr John Glassford, Mr James Robertson, Mr John Willison,
together with Mr James Kerr, clerk, to meet as a committee of the said
united presbyteries:—and do hereby fully empower and authorise you to call
before you all scandalous persons in Brechin, and order them to satisfy the
discipline of the Church when required thereto, to take under their
inspection the case and necessities of the poor of the place, and to set
about the constituting an eldership, either by ordination or admission of
such persons in the place as have been formerly elders, or been named to be
elders, in Brechin, as they shall see cause, and to do every other thing
they shall find necessary and expedient for the exercise of discipline, for
suppressing of vice and immorality, removing of disorders and
irregularities, and strengthening Mr Willison's hands in the place:—and it
is hereby also appointed that the said committee (of whose number three are
to be a quorum) shall be answerable and accountable to the said united
presbyteries in all their actings and proceedings, and shall produce their
minutes to them when called for; and the said committee are appointed to
have their first meeting to-morrow, at Brechin, against ten o'clock in the
forenoon, with power to them to choose their own moderator and clerk, and to
appoint the diets of their meetings afterwards as they shall see cause.
Extracted furth of the records of the Presbytery by (sic subscribitur) James
Kerr, elk. presb/” This entry is succeeded by the records of the committee
of presbytery, acting as a session till February 1704, when a session is
constituted from the members of the congregation.
The Presbyterian Church
government, thus re-established, does not seem to have commanded unanimous
approbation—at least the town council talk very unceremoniously of Mr John
Willison and his pretended sessionand from various entries in the public
records, it is evident the gentry in the neighbourhood were still favourable
to Mr John Skinner, the deposed Episcopal clergyman.
Mr Skinner seems to have put
the presbytery to no little trouble before they got quit of him. In 1704 he
was called before that church court, but he gives the members plainly to
understand that he will continue to exercise the office of minister in the
church of Brechin as he had formerly done, upon which the presbytery
“declared the said Mr Skinner an intruder, and therefore to have no relation
to the parish or congregation of Brechin.” When this was intimated to Mr
Skinner, he, as the records of the presbytery inform us, very abruptly threw
down a paper, neither signed nor indorsed, and thereupon took instruments in
the hands of the clerk, and “ also at the same time delivered a double of
the said paper to one John Spence, fiscal in Brechin, and took instruments
in the hands of the said Spence,” a contumelious way of speaking which does
not show that the members of presbytery were then themselves in the mildest
of moods. Various attempts at adjustment seem to have been made, recommended
even by the Lord Advocate, but all apparently failed; and Mr Willison, the
Presbyterian clergyman, reported to the presbytery in 1705 that Mr Skinner
had repossessed himself of the afternoon diet, and that he, Mr Willison, had
been informed, that if he should adventure to retake the pulpit from Mr
Skinner, he would be actually rabbled by a violent mob, who were resolved to
support the Episcopalian clergyman, “to which they were not a little
encouraged by the magistrates, who refused all concurrence or assistance to
him, Mr Willison, on this matter.” Energetic measures were resolved upon by
the presbytery, and proceedings seem to have been commenced in different
courts of law, but still the matter hung up, and the affair is again and
again adverted to in the records of presbytery, till finally, in 1708, a
libel is raised against Mr Skinner, charging him as an intruder, and a
preacher of unsound doctrine. Mr Skinner declines the jurisdiction of the
presbytery upon various grounds, all of which are repelled, and a number of
witnesses being examined, the libel is found to be proven; and, finally, on
14th September 1709, Mr Skinner is deposed, a sentence which is subsequently
enforced by warrant of the Court of Justiciary. In one of his papers, Mr
Skinner states that he was “ legally settled minister at the church of
Brechin in the year 1687, as appears by my presentation, collation, and
instrument of institution," so that it would appear he had been twenty-two
years a clergyman in Brechin. Mr Skinner resumed the pulpit of Brechin in
1715, during the brief rebellion raised by the Earl of Mar, and in 1722, as
the presbytery records informs us, he attempted to open a “ meeting-house"
in Brechin, but we find no mention of Mr Skinner in any public, records
after this period, and we have understood that he left Brechin and went to
Edinburgh, where he died about 1725. There can be no doubt that Mr Skinner
was an intruder, and acting contrary to the laws of the land, but there
scarce appears to be any ground for the other charges brought against him,
and of this the presbytery themselves seem to have been aware, for, in 1709,
they “shew Mr Trail (then clerk) that it is not the mind of the presbytery
that the minutes of the process should be produced in open court" in the
General Assembly.
Mr Skinner being got rid of,
the next step was to fill up the vacancy in the church of Brechin, for which
purpose the presbytery named two of their number “ to speak to the
magistrates and desire them to call some fit person in time, and appointed
also letters to be written to the landward heritors about the same business.
The magistrates, however, did not pull with the church courts, and in March
1710, the presbytery find that the right to fill up the vacancy had fallen
into their hands, and they therefore choose Mr William Trail, probationer,
and appoint a call to be drawn up to him; but Mr Trail “because he had heard
the people in Brechin were dissatisfied with him upon the account of his
voice,” declined the office; and therefore the presbytery “resolved to give
a call to Mr John Johnston as soon as possible, seeing the people of Brechin
are so desirous of him." Mr Johnston was in consequence ordained minister of
Brechin, upon the 18th of May 1710, since which time the church of Brechin
has had two clergymen.
We have formerly noticed that
there were two sessions in Brechin, a landward session and a burghal
session; but by the exertions of Mr Willison, an Act of the General Assembly
was obtained in 1708, uniting the two into one session, and since then there
has been but one session in the parish of Brechin.
Mr Willison was a very
popular preacher in the Kirk of Scotland, a leading member in the local
church courts, and a firm supporter of the kirk. His name still stands
deservedly high as the author of the “Afflicted Man's Companion,” written,
as he himself says, “ that the afflicted may have a book in their houses,
and at their bedsides, as a monitor to preach to them in private, when they
are restrained from hearing sermons in public.” He is also the author of
“The Mother's Catechism,” a little work still in use, besides which he wrote
two treatises on the Lord's Supper, and a variety of other religious works.
Mr Willison was likewise the principal composer of the “ Impartial
Testimony,” a work held to contain a true statement of what were then deemed
the principles of the Kirk of Scotland. Mr Willison's Presbyterian
principles were not in accordance with the feelings of the people in
Brechin; and we are informed that he was persecuted in every way by the
inhabitants, especially by those of the higher ranks, most of whom were
violent Jacobites and Episcopalians. Mr Willison was translated from Brechin
to Dundee, where he died on 3d May 1750, in the seventieth year of his age,
and forty-seventh of his ministry. When he removed to Dundee he found it
impossible to command the services of a Brechin carter to convey his
furniture to his new charge, so violent was the prejudice against him. In
his difficulty he applied to Mr John Guthrie, tenant of Kincraig,
great-grandfather of Mr Alexander Guthrie, present provost of Brechin; and
Mr Willison received from Mr John Guthrie the assistance of which he stood
so much in need. In 1746, the horses of Mr John Guthrie were seized by the
Hanoverian party, to convey their baggage to the North, when the farmer of
Kincraig posted to Dundee, and obtained from his friend Mr Willison a letter
to the Duke of Cumberland, who, the moment he read the letter, caused the
horses to be returned to Mr Guthrie.
It is curious enough to find
the Presbyterian Church drawing a revenue from a Popish ceremony. In 1704,
the session considering that it is ordinary for people to cause toll the
bells at the interment of their relations, fix the rates which are to be
paid for doubling of the three bells, knelling of them, or knelling any of
the bells. This practice, commenced in Popish times, and then intended to
give warning to those within hearing of the belta to pray for the souls of
the departed, whose bodies were about to be committed to the earth,
continued down as late as 1807; when, in consequence of the bells having
been frequently broken by this mode of tolling, the town council, at whose
expense the small bells then cracked were recast, prohibited the practice.
Mens minds were still
unsettled in regard to political matters, as well as in regard to church
government, and a good deal of manoeuvring seems to have taken place in the
burgh about the commencement of the century to gain the political
ascendancy; amongst which manoeuvres we may notice the resolution not to
elect a provost, whereby the bailie nominated by Lord Panmure would have
taken the chief direction as senior magistrate. But these plots were met by
counterplots, and it is hard to say which party was right, when Queen Ann
herself was hesitating between the Whigs who had called her to the throne,
and the Tories who supported her exiled brother. Still the town council,
although plotting with a view to the affairs of the State, found time for
minor matters. Thus, in 1703, they strictly prohibit any one from casting
feal in the Den, unless for the repair of the bow butts, that is, for repair
of the butts erected in the time of James I., for the practice of archery,
and retained as butts for ball shooting, till the late Mr. John Henderson
superseded them by shooting espaliers on the same place. Next year the
council make an ordinance, scarcely so legitimate; for they ratify the whole
former Acts of council, discharging the inhabitants from pursuing their
neighbour inhabitants before any judicatory without the burgh. An Act more
self-denying occurs in March 1705, when the council, “in respect that the
town's common good is greatly emburdened,” appoint that at all meetings 14
ordinary ale99 shall only be drunk, “and no strong drink to be called for or
paid on the public account." We have formerly adverted to the expense the
burgh incurred in supporting their member of Parliament. In May 1700, it is
enacted that there be allowed to the present session of Parliament, and in
all time coming, for the commissioner’s expenses, thirty shillings Scots
money for each day he is absent, and this besides the ordinary horse hire,
back and fore, and no more to be allowed, and that for each day the
commissioner is detained at the Parliament allenarly. The right to elect a
member to Parliament was then considered a burden, instead of a privilege,
as at the present day; and the member, we see, was allowed his expenses, in
place of being put to great cost in obtaining his seat, and maintaining
himself in it, as is the present not very creditable practice.
On 1st May 1707, England and
Scotland were legally united into one kingdom, under the title of Great
Britain, and the Parliament of Scotland was abolished. This measure created
no little sensation throughout the two kingdoms. The town council of Brechin
instructed their commissioner, Francis Moli-son, to vote in the Scotch
Parliament for the “union betwixt Scotland and England, and for all
necessary supplies by this kingdom,” thus showing that the court party was
then predominant in the burgh ; but we have understood that the commissioner
disobeyed these instructions and voted against the union. The mode of
electing the first member from this town to the British Parliament, is not
made plain in the burgh records. It is stated, on 24th September 1707, that
Provost Young is appointed “ commissioner to meet with the burghs of
Aberdeen, Montrose, Aberbrothick, and Bervie; and that at Montrose the 26th
day of September instant, anent giving instructions to (blank) Scott of
Logy, younger, who is to represent in the British Parliament, the 14th
October next, the burghs of Aberdeen, Brechin, Montrose, Arbroath, and
Bervie; and this is all which we learn from the record on the subject. In
May 1708, the council, in obedience to a precept from the Earl of Northesk,
then sheriff of Forfar, nominated. Provost Young their commissioner, to go
to Aberdeen on 26th May, and meet with the other commissioners from this
district of burghs, and elect a member to the Parliament of Great Britain,
summoned to meet at Westminster on the 8th July ensuing. Who was then
elected member is not recorded. This mode of election continued, each of the
five burghs presiding alternately, till the Act of 2 and 3 William IV., c.
65, in 1832, put the election directly into the hands of the people, and
conjoined Brechin with the other three Angus burghs, Forfar, Arbroath, and
Montrose, and with the burgh of Bervie in Kincardineshire, in the right to
return a member of Parliament. It may be noticed in passing, that the order
of precedence adopted in convening the burghs for the first election of a
member to the Parliament of Great Britain was “ Aberdeen, Montrose, Brechin,
Aberbrothock, Inverbervie; so that the designation of the “Montrose District
of Burghs” in the Reform Act, when Aberdeen had a member assigned to itself,
is only carrying out the old designation of this district of burghs,
notwithstanding that Arbroath certainly now is the largest of the whole.
According to the order in which the shires were called in the Scottish
Parliaments, Edinburgh of course stood first, Ross was the thirty-third and
last, while Forfar stood the twenty-fifth.
In 1709 all the burghs of
Scotland were called upon to make returns of their setts to the Convention
of Royal Burghs, and the following is engrossed in the council book of
Brechin, as the then recognised constitution of the burgh, and as a copy of
what had been sent to the Convention:—“That the town council of the royal
burgh of Brechin consists of thirteen members, whereof eleven merchants and
free brethren of the guild of the said burgh, and two tradesmen, all
residenters and inhabitants of the said burgh, they do out of the aforesaid
number of eleven, elect and choose a provost and two bailies, a dean of
guild, town-treasurer, and master of the hospital. There is no fixed day for
the annual election of this burgh of Brechin, but either the town council of
the said burgh, some time before Michaelmas, yearly, do appoint and fix a
day for the same peremptorily, or otherwise, the provost or preses of the
town council for the time do call a council to meet at any time they think
fit, some few days more or less as they please, not exceeding five or six
days, and most frequently fewer days before Michaelmas, in order to choose a
new council and leet the magistrates; and then the old council elects the
new council, and both old and new councillors leet two persons of the new
council, in order to choose one of them provost; and a leet also of four
persons of the new council to the end two bailies may be chosen out of the
same; and cause public intimation thereof to be made by tuck of drum through
the whole burgh; and upon the day appointed for the election, the new
council meets, and in conjunction with the six deacons of crafts of the said
burgh, out of the foresaid leet of two persons for the provostry, do elect a
provost for the ensuing year, and then, by virtue of a contract betwixt the
Bishop of Brechin, Patrick Maule of Panmure, and the magistrates and town
council of Brechin in anno 1637, the Earl of Panmure, or any having right
from him, being called, name a bailie out of the said leet of four persons
so elected and chosen by the said town council of Brechin, and to which
bailie he is obliged to give and grant deputation of the offices of
justiciar and constabulary within the said burgh of Brechin; and then the
council and deacons of crafts, out of the remaining three persons, choose
another bailie, and thereafter the council choose a dean of guild,
treasurer, and master of the hospital for the ensuing year.” Subsequently,
in 1729, an Act of council was passed, declaring that in case of equality of
votes, the provost had both a deliberative and a casting vote, and that the
neglect to state this was an omission when transmitting the sett to the
Convention. This sett was slightly altered at different times. The family of
Panmure being forfeited in 1715, the council thereafter elected both bailies.
In 1726, by an agreement with the trades, the deacon convener was received
as one of the tradesmen who were necessarily members of council; and in
1820, by a like agreement, the incorporated trades were allowed to name both
the trades’ councillors; and the guildry incorporation were authorised to
elect their own dean, who was granted a seat in council. Of the thirteen
members of council, ten continued to be self-elected, while one was elected
by the guildry, and two by the incorporated trades, till the Act of
Parliament, passed in 1833, generally known as the Burgh Beform Act, placed
the election of the whole councillors upon a new footing, and gave to the
proprietors and tenants of houses rented at £10 the right and privilege of
electing the town council.
Mr John Doig, an elder of the
Presbyterian Church, and a decided enemy of the Jacobites and of Episcopacy,
had, in 1709; obtained the ascendancy in the councils of the burgh, and then
held the office of provost. He is not much indebted to popular tradition,
nor does he seem to have owed much to popularity during his life. No doubt
he was a zealous and able man, and did many things for the weil of the
burgh, as well as for his own benefit. In 1709 he had an Act passed
appointing the council to meet “each Monday by ten hours in the forenoon;”
but if such weekly meetings took place, the transactions then discussed have
not been minuted In April 1712, a serious riot is recorded as having
occurred in the burgh, in which James Millar, deacon of the shoemakers, led
on a party to “beat, blood, and wound in the head and other parts of the
body, the said John Doig,” and the offenders are recommended by the council
to the attention of the Lords of Justiciary. What was the result we are not
informed.
We have formerly mentioned
that the cathedral church was not originally supplied with fixed seats, but
that desks, as they are termed, gradually crept in after the Reformation. So
late as 1715, we find applications made for liberty to fix seats in empty
places in the church, and in 1710, the session appointed “ intimation to be
made to the people who take their chairs out of the church, that they who do
so shall lose their ground right.” In the subsequent year, 1711, the
session, with the view of increasing the poor s funds, granted liberty to
the parishioners to erect headstones in the churchyard ; but there is a
strange dietinction drawn between the burgh and landward part of the parish,
for, while the burgesses are allowed to erect headstones on payment of 20s.
Scots, the landward parishioners are ordained “to pay half-a-crown for the
said privilege.”
The linen trade had by this
time taken root in Brechin, and on 6th October 1712, Robert White and David
Windrim were appointed by the council “to be stamp-masters of this burgh for
stamping all linen cloth.” Under various Acts of Parliament this office of
stamp-master was continued, and by the increase of the linen trade the
situation came to be one of considerable emolument within the burgh; but, in
1824, Parliament saw cause to abolish the practice of stamping linens, and
it is believed that, since then, the linen cloth made has been fully as good
as it was during the period when each web was measured, examined, and
stamped by a public officer. When the council named the first linen
inspectors, they also ordained “ two stamps, bearing the town’s arms, to be
made and delivered to them for stamping of the cloth/’ The stamp which was
used when the office was abolished, was a large Scotch thistle, with the
name of the stamp-master and the word “ Brechin'’ below the thistle. This
same thistle, with the stamper’s name and residence effaced, was long used
in the office of the first printers in Brechin, as a decoration to the
ballads which they occasionally issued from their press. These same
printers, we may add, were, under the firm of Black & Co., the printers of
the first edition of this work.
In 1713, Brechin was the
returning burgh for this district of burghs, and Provost Doig was then named
commissioner; but Bailie James Spence was named the commissioner to choose a
member to the first Parliament of George I. in 1715, when Arbroath was the
presiding burgh. In this same year, 1715, Mr Andrew Doig was sent
commissioner to Arbroath to meet with commissioners from some other burghs,
appointed, agreeable to Act of Convention, “to endeavour to adjust a plan
for the common interest of the said burgh of Arbroath, so that the
magistrates thereof may proceed to elect a dean of guild and council.” This
was with a view to the establishment of a guildry in Arbroath, but we
presume the troubles which arose in Scotland at this time had prevented the
carrying out of this municipal improvement then; for it was not till 1725
that the magistrates and town council granted a seal of cause to the
incorporation of guildrymen, a legal recognition which they claimed in
virtue of a charter of Novodamus by James VI. in 1599. The guildry then
constituted in Arbroath was framed after the model of the Brechin guildry;
and the Brechin guildry would now do well to follow the example of the
Arbroath guildry, which in 1856 was formed into a friendly society by the
authority of the Court of Session, in virtue of the Act of Parliament for
abolishing the right of exclusive trading within burghs.
But we approach to “Mar’s
year,” the attempt to restore the exiled Stewarts in 1715, for which so many
plots and counterplots had been carried on in the State, in every burgh, and
in this our small city. Queen Ann died suddenly in 1714; George I. ascended
the throne ; he was austere with the Earl of Mar; that nobleman hastened to
Scotland; raised the standard of revolt in Braeinar; proclaimed James VIII.
of Scotland and III. of England as king of Great Britian, and involved
himself and many a noble family in ruin by a hasty and ill-timed rebellion.
Earl Panmure proclaimed King James at the cross of Brechin, and joined the
standard raised by Mar. Earl Southesk also joined this unfortunate attempt.
Both forfeited their estates in consequence. Many of smaller name, connected
with the burgh, also acceded to this rebellion; and for years afterwards we
find the kirk-session refusing church benefit to great numbers till they had
satisfied the discipline of the kirk for joining this “ unnatural rebellion/
The session-clerk chronicles the rising very briefly and distinctly. After
an entry, dated 31st August 1715, he says:—“ In the month of September
following broke out the late Earl of Mar’s rebellion, against our most
gracious sovereign, King George, and the Protestant succession in his
family, and in favour of a Popish Pretender whom they called King James the
Eighth ; the which rebellion continued till the month of February
thereafter; and this is the reason why there was no meeting of the session
from the foresaid thirty-first of August to the twenty-ninth of February
thereafter.”
The records of the session of
Menmuir show the distracted state of the times in a very interesting minute,
of which this is a copy:—“ 4th September 1715. After prayer, sederunt,
ministers and elders met in session. This session taking to their serious
consideration the troublesomeness of the times, and the distracted state of
this land, and considering also, that they have in their hands the most part
of the poor’s stock in specie, and being very solicitous and concerned that
it should be safe in this critical juncture; therefore earnestly recommend
to, and appoint the minister to secure and hide the poor s money the best
way he can—via, the money received from Grandtullie's factor, and a hundred
pounds Scots received from Bailie Spence, in name of the Laird of Balzeordie.
Sederunt closed with prayer. Whereupon the minister went to Brechin, and the
Reverend Mr John Willison, one of the ministers of Brechin, did direct him
to a retired and safe place for securing the said money ; upon which the
minister returned home, and did communicate the matter to two of the elders,
and with one of them did carry the money received from Grandtullie's factor
to the said place, and secured the other hundred pounds got from Bailie
Spence, in name of Balzeordie, another way." This retired and safe
hiding-place had most likely been somewhere about the church, not improbably
in the bottom of the round tower.
Mr Gideon Guthrie, an
Episcopal clergyman, or nonjurant minister, as those of his persuasion were
then generally termed, gave great offence to the Presbyterian clergymen at
this time, and in August 1715, Mr Johnston, one of the Established clergymen
of Brechin, reports to the Presbytery “ that the affair anent Mr Gideon
Guthrie is come to this issue, that he is discharged to preach or exercise
any part of the ministry within the parish of Brechin, under the pain of 500
merks, toiles quoties, and further declared incapable, for seven years, of
any post or benefice within Scotland, as also fined in 100 merks and ordered
to go to prison till payment thereof, as the sentence in itself more fully
bearsbut in place of going to prison, Mr Guthrie went to the pulpit of
Brechin, which he and Mr Skinner jointly assumed possession of, for the
brief period when their party was predominant during Mar’s rebellion. For
this proceeding, Guthrie was called to strict account by the presbytery when
the rebellion was suppressed, but he seems to have fled from the effects of
his rashness, and we hear no more of him after that. No proceedings
apparently were adopted against Mr Skinner, whose age probably had mollified
the feelings of his opponents in reference to him.
Provost Doig was superseded
during this rising—Bailie Spence, whom we have alluded to as the
commissioner for electing a member of Parliament to the first House of
Commons assembled by King George, having apparently assumed the sway of the
town. On 29th September 1715, eight of the members of council meet, the
whole council, as the minute bears, having been lawfully summoned “except
John Doig, who could not be found at home,” and these eight re-elect six of
themselves with seven others of true Jacobite principles, and this Jacobite
council then choose office-bearers, carefully, however, avoiding to elect a
provost, an office which they probably held belonged to the bishop, whom
doubtless they expected to see restored. Spence is named by Panmure to be
his bailie, “justiciar, and constable,” and thus Spence in fact acquired all
the powers of chief magistrate. The minutes of this council are few, and
only such as appear to have been forced upon them in ordinary routine. This
council had more important matters to attend to than make minutes. On 11th
May 1716, however, a poll election takes place in the church of Brechin,
under the superintendence of John Scott of Heatherwick, Esq.; Alexander
Duncan of Lundie, Esq.; and Colonel Robert Reid, commissioners appointed by
Government; when all our Jacobite friends are superseded by Provost Doig and
his party. The whole thirteen members of council are unanimously elected on
this occasion, from which circumstance we may fairly infer that, in 1716,
none dared vote but in such way as Mr Doig chose, without the risk of being
reckoned Jacobites and enemies to the Government of King George. Previous to
the poll election the town seems to have been ruled by Governors, likely
appointed by the Government of George I. Thus the mills, weighhouse, and
flesh booths are exposed to let on 4th May 1716, in presence of “ Mr Andrew
Doig, one of the govemours of Brechine,” and they are finally let on 7th
May. in presence of “ John Doig, Mr Andrew Doig, and Robert Whyte, govern
our s.” We presume Mr Andrew Doig had been a literary man ; for while he
always receives this title in the council minutes, the other members are
designated by their simple names. The Doigs were a powerful family about
Brechin at this time; and the board in the session-house records that Bailie
David Doig of Cookston gave the church a new folio Bible in 1728, which we
believe was in use till another was got when the church was repaired in
1807. Bailie Doig’s Bible superseded that given to the church in 1655 by the
Rev. Mr Lawrence Skinner, as recorded on the session-house board ; and we
have it from tradition that Bailie Doig’s book was given to supply the place
of Mr Skinner's, because the latter was of a prelatic, if not of a Popish
tendency!
But the session record gives
the most graphic account of the state of matters, and we quote it at length,
leaving our readers to apply such saving clauses as their own feelings may
suggest:— “ Brechin, March 4,1716. The session being constitute, sederunt,
ministers, elders, and session clerk ut supra. This day the session taking
to consideration that during the late unnatural rebellion the ministers were
forced to retire for their safety, and the church was intruded upon by Mr
John Skinner, late Episcopal incumbent here, now deposed by the church and
banished out of the bounds of this presbytery by a sentence of the Lords of
Justiciary, and Mr Gideon Guthrie, late Episcopal preacher in the
meeting-house here, and turned out by a sentence of the said Lords, and that
John Doig of Unthank, the present provost, was imprisoned by the rebels, and
Bailie Spence usurped a most tyrannical power over men’s bodies and
consciences, and threatened and forced people to hear the foresaid
rebellious intruders drink disloyal healths, and otherwise to countenance
the said rebellion, and particularly did wickedly impose a base and
traitorous oath upon the people, called the Test, in which, beside other
absurdities and contradictions, they did swear to the Popish Pretender as
king, and renounce our only lawful sovereign King George as a foreign
prince, with which wicked impositions and base oath a great number of the
people, and even several of (he elders, have complied, either out of
ignorance or slavish fear, or desire to shun suffering. And the ministers
having laid this affair before the presbytery for advice, it was the
presbytery’s judgment that all the elders who had so complied and taken the
foresaid oath, should be discharged from the exercise of their function of
elders, and for removing of the scandal that they and all others, guilty of
the foresaid compliances, should not only confess their sin in so doing
before the session, but appear publicly and acknowledge the same before the
congregation, and that they and every one of them should do this before they
be admitted to partake of sealing ordinances or church benefits. And the
ministers having represented this day to the session that they had
accordingly been dealing with the elders and a great many others, privately,
who had made defection and sinfully complied as aforesaid, in order to bring
them to a sense of their sin, and they being willing to compear and confess
in manner above written, and for that end were attending this meeting of the
session, in order to appear this day before the congregation, whereupon
compeared (certain individuals who are named,) all which persons above
mentioned professed their sorrow to the session for their said defection,
and their willingness to acknowledge the same before the congregation and be
rebuked therefor.” But no “ rebuke ” was given, the session contenting
themselves with the admission of their power to rebuke. With more
contumacious spirits, some years afterwards, the session was more severe.
The church records of the
neighbouring parish of Stracathro are much of the same stamp. They state,
under date 2d November 1715, that “ Mr John Davie, factor to the Earl of
Southesque, intruded on the ministers charge by taking the keys of the
church, ordering the kirk-officer to ring the bells at the ordinary time of
day, the people being warned the day before to wait on, and join in, the
worship of a pretended fast or humiliation-day for success to the
Pretender’s arms, and that under the pain of taking each man, master and
servant, to the camp at Perth ; which warning so prevailed that it brought
the whole parish together at the time appointed to the church, where and
when Mr Davie himself came in the head of near eighty men under arms, with
beating drums and flying colours, and preached a little in the church, and
after that kind of worship was over, he mustered up his men again at the
kirk gate, and on their front went to Kinnaird.’* Truly Mr Davie had been a
factor, and not a mere rent collector. The same minutes mention that during
this intrusion, which continued to February 1716, the minister preached in
the manse, and the collections made being inconsiderable, he applied them “
to the relief of some poor indigent people in the parish of Brechin *—true
Hanoverians, no doubt. Order being restored, the minister, in April 1716,
laid before the session an appointment on him by the presbytery of Brechin
to inquire at them the reasons why they joined Mr Davie, “ and the minister
finding their reasons no way satisfactory, he solemnly rebuked them,” and
also for their pecuniary intromissions with the collections, of which they
were unable to give any account, further than it was spent on the poor. The
minister, Mr Glassfurd, seems to have been in a minority in his own parish,
James, “the Pretender/* as it
is known to the historical reader, landed at Peterhead on 22d December 1715;
came to Brechin on Monday 2d January 1716; remained there till Wednesday;
then went to Perth and met his army, the members of which were as little
pleased with him as he was with them. After playing the king at Perth for a
brief space, James returned to Montrose, and from thence quitted for ever
“his ancient kingdom of Scotland,” having embarked with the Earl of Mar on
the evening of 4th February 1716, on board a French vessel lying off
Montrose to receive them.
Tradition tells us that the
northern lights were extremely brilliant during the winter of 1714-15, and
we have ourselves received it from a person who was told by her mother,
that, during this winter, armies of men and horses were seen fighting in the
sky! Our narrator believed this as much as she believed the holy writ, and
said that all Mar's fortunes and misfortunes were distinctly portrayed in
the sky ere he himself had raised the standard of revolt. Truly might the
fate of this nobleman be compared, in the words of Burns, to
“the Borealis race,
That flit ere you can point their place.”
So far all appears, Brechin
became perfectly quiet after this insurrection was quelled. A company of
soldiers was stationed in Brechin for some time, but these soldiers were
more an annoyance than a protection to the civil and ecclesiastical
authorities. Provost Doig remained in office till his death in 1726. Bailie
Spence died some time previous to 1722, for we find in that year his
daughter, Miss Katherine Spence, designed as daughter of the deceased Bailie
James Spence, elected to the office of schoolmistress, for instructing
little ladies “in the arts of sewing and working of lace.” Miss Spence is
the first schoolmistress of the burgh, and it is pleasing to observe Provost
Doig, her father’s opponent, voting her a salary of £30 Scots for her
services. In this same year 1722, the meal-market was erected, in the street
now called Swan Street, on the site of an old tenement purchased for the
purpose. This erection, demolished in 1788, led to the opening up of the
street alluded to, which still occasionally receives, jointly with its new
title, its old name of the Meal-Market Wynd, although the meal-market was
removed about 1787 to the same place as the butcher-market, in a building a
little below the Bishops Close. The meal-market has been long non-existent,
the trade being carried on by grocers and bakers in their private shops, and
the place formerly used as the public meal-market being let for a warehouse.
The butcher-market also is now non-existent, all the modem fleshers
resorting to separate shops, and the court and covered sheds formerly
occupied by them being now used on Tuesdays as a market for poultry, butter,
and eggs, brought into town by the country people; and the front part of the
house, where carcasses were formerly hung in warm weather, being now wholly
occupied as a public weigh-house, for which it was originally intended, and
always partially used.
In 1723 the six incorporated
trades established a general fund for the relief of their poor. It was
agreed that this fund should be maintained by small contributions levied on
each entrant freeman or apprentice, by fines imposed for offences against
the rules of the corporation, and by a fine imposed in these words: “ And if
any prentice, journeyman, freeman, either young men or widowers, shall (as
God forbid) fall in the sin of fornication, then, and in that case, each
person so transgressing shall pay into this fund the sum of two pounds
Scots,” to be doubled in case of aggravation. The fund has been long in
abeyance, but we humbly think the six trades might do worse than apply their
funds for the maintenance of such a charity. In 1726, as already noticed, an
arrangement was made between the town council and the trades, whereby the
council agreed to receive the deacon convener, ex officio, as a member of
council yearly. This arrangement was effected by a bond subscribed by. seven
members of council only, and seems to have arisen out of a wish to give the
superiority to the then dominant party in council; but the agreement,
although frequently questioned, was regularly acted upon, and so became part
of the set of the burgh after its date, the convener, when changed by the
trades, being as ai matter of course changed by the council.
The affairs of the guildry
appear to have excited very little interest about this period. Tear after
year passes without any meeting, and even when a meeting does occur, a brief
minute is entered as an apology for the neglect; but in 1748, the members
resolved to meet on the third Thursday of October yearly, a practice which
has been pretty regularly followed ever since. The dean of this time was Mr
John Lyon, a connexion of the Strathmore family, through that branch to
which the estate of Aldbar for some time belonged.
The north side and north
aisle of the church having fallen into decay, the session, after much
difficulty, prevailed on the heritors to repair the building in 1718, “the
factors appointed by the Government on the forfeited estates of Panmure and
Southesk promising to pay what lies to their share when called for." But
this repair does not seem to have been complete, for next year the session
demand a further repair on the steeples and aisles, an expense to which the
heritors again demurred, but which they were ultimately compelled by
“homing” to pay. Some of the items of the expenses of the repairs are
curious as showing the price of building materials in 1722; they are thus
stated in the Act of Presbytery on which the law proceedings followed:
Thirty-two bolls of lime with the sand cost Is. 6d. per boll of lime, and
2s. Scots for the load of sand to each boll, inde £32 Scots; forty deals are
12s. Scots each; three hundred nails are £2, 8s. Scots; twenty garron nails,
10s. Scots; “item for a big teakil, being double the hight of the small
steeple, £40 Scots;” but this “big teakil/' whatever that word may mean, and
certainly it had been big, when it. was double the height of the small
steeple—this teakil, after being used, is to be sold, along with some other
materials for scaffolding, at £33, 6s. 4d. Scots. The slating is estimated
to cost ten merks Scots per rood, and there being three roods and
twenty-four ells of slater-work required, the expense of the roof is £21?,
10s. Scots. The whole repairs, after deducting for scaffolding, &c., to be
sold, are decreed to cost the heritors £380 Scots.
In consequence of the
disturbed state of the kingdom after 1714, the sacrament of the Lord's
Supper was not celebrated in the church of Brechin for several years, but in
1720 the session “resolved to set about that work/' and in the March of that
year the ordinance was dispensed. The discipline of the church gradually
grew stricter after this period; and persons were now censured for faults
which had for some time previously been looked over, the session having
resolved “to revive their old laudable custom of sending some of their
number through the several corners of the town every Lords day.” Marriages,
up to this date, were usually celebrated in the cathedral, and we have
various acts of the session censuring individuals whose mirth had overcome
their prudence, and led them to behave indecorously at such ceremonials. In
1717, however, marriages in private houses are recognised by the session,
for there is a minute in that year imposing a small fine on parties who
prefer to have the ceremony performed elsewhere than in church. A public
marriage, in a Presbyterian kirk, before the congregation, would at the
present day draw general attention—no such thing having occurred with the
parents of any of the oldest persons alive.
Although Mr Skinner had now
retired from the field, the Presbyterian kirk was annoyed by Episcopalian
clergymen still visiting the burgh, and in 1726 the ministers of Brechin
laid before the presbytery “ a presentation against Masters John Grub and
Francis Rait, who keep an illegal meeting-house in the town and parish of
Brechin, and baptize and marry, to the great disturbance of the said town ;
” a presentation which was subsequently enforced before the Lords of
Justiciary to the effect of shutting up this meeting-house.
George I. died in 1727, and
with the close of his reign we shall close our chapter.
Amongst the poets of the
period to which this chapter relates, we can notice, as connected with
Brechin, David Watson and James Carnegy. Mr Watson was born at Brechin in
1710, was educated at Saint Andrews, and afterwards became Professor of
Moral Philosophy in Saint Leonard’s College of that city, but retired from
the Professor’s chair when his college was united with Saint “Salvador’s in
1747. He then became author by trade, went to London, and fell a prey in
1750 to the dissipation which was the ruling vice amongst the wits of that
time. He published a translation of Horace of no mean merit, and a “History
of the Heathen Gods,” which, in our day, was a standard school-book. Mr
Carnegy was the son of the laird of Balnamoon, where he was bom in 1715. He
came of a good stock —in the moral acceptation of the word—and was himself a
man of genuine worth and warmth of heart. In early life he composed the
beautiful and still popular ballad of “Low Down in the Broom,” adapted to a
chorus of great antiquity, noticed in the “ Complaynt of Scotland,'1 written
about 1540. Mr Carnegy was a staunch Jacobite, and was out in 1745, after
which he was obliged to consult his safety by living as a servant with one
of his own tenants, till the Act of grace in 1748 restored him to his family
and the world.
William Guthrie, an eminent
miscellaneous writer, was the son of Mr Gideon Guthrie, the Episcopal
clergyman spoken of above, and was born at Brechin in 1708. In early life he
commenced author by profession, and removed to London in 1730-For many years
he collected and arranged the parliamentary debates for the Gentleman*8
Magazine and other periodicals, and lived in habits of intimacy with Dr
Johnson. About 1745, he managed to let it be known to Government that he was
a person who could write well, and that it might depend on circumstances
whether he should use his pen as the medium of attack or of defence. The
matter was placed on its proper footing, and Mr Guthrie received from the
Pelham administration a pension of £200 a year. On a change of the ministry,
nearly twenty years afterwards, we find him making efforts for the
continuance of his allowance. “The following letter, addressed to a
minister/1 says Mr Bobert Chambers, in his “Biographical Dictionary." is one
of the coolest specimens of literary commerce on record. June 3,1762,—My
Lord, In the year 1745-6, Mr Pelham, then first lord of the treasury,
acquainted me that it was his Majesty’s pleasure I should receive, till
better provided for, which never has happened, £200 a year, to be paid by
him and his successors in the treasury. I was satisfied with the august name
made use of, and the appointment has been regularly and quarterly paid me
ever since. I have been punctual in doing the Government all the services
that fell within my abilities or sphere of life, especially in those
critical situations which call for unanimity in the service of the Crown.
Your lordship will possibly now suspect that I am an author by
profession—you are not deceived, and you will be less so, if you believe
that I am disposed to serve his Majesty under your lordship’s future
patronage and protection, with greater zeal, if possible, than ever. I have
the honour to be, my Lord, &c., William Guthrie." As a reward for his
submission to the powers that were, Mr Guthrie’s pension was continued to
the day of his death, which took place on the 9th March 1770, in the
sixty-second year of his age. His body was interred in the churchyard of
Mary-le-bon, London, where a neat monument, which we have seen, erected to
his memory, states him to have been “the representative of the antient
family of Guthrie of Halkerton, in the county of Angus, North Britain,” a
statement erroneous at least in one respect, as to the locality of Halkerton,
which is in Kincardineshire. Mr Guthrie’s name is best known by his
“Historical and Geographical Grammar,” which had reached its twenty-fourth
edition in 1818. In 1765, he published, jointly with Gray and other literary
men, “A History of the World,” and in 1767 appeared his “ History of
Scotland,” in ten volumes, in which, with true national fervour, he
maintains the high antiquity of everything connected with Scotland. |
