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BRIEF
GENERAL SKETCH OF DUMFRIESSHIRE – PHYSICAL ASPECT OF NITHSDALE,
ANNANDALE, ESKDALE, AND THE BURGH OF DUMFRIES – INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN
OF THE TOWN – ROMAN OCCUPATION OF THE DISTRICT – THE SELGOVǼ, THE
SCOTO-IRISH, THE SAXON AND NORMAN SETTLERS IN NITHSDALE – DEFEAT AND
EXODUS OF THE BRITISH INHABITANTS OF DUMFRIESSHIRE.
DUMFRIESSHIRE, about whose chief town this work is principally written,
lies in an elliptical form on the north side of the Solway Frith, its
greater diameter extending about fifty miles, from the mountain of
Corsincon in Ayrshire to Liddel Moat in Roxburghshire; and its smaller
diameter stretching from Loch Craig, on the confines of Peebleshire, to
Carlaverock Castle, on the Solway – a distance of about thirty-two miles.
It has a sea shore of fully twenty-one miles, running from the mouth of
the river Nith, the Lochar, the Annan, and the Sark: [Singer’s Survey of
Dumfriesshire, p. 2] its whole surface measuring 1,098 square miles.
The
County is separated from Kireudbrightshire for several miles, on the
south-west, by the water of Cairn, or Cluden; and from the point where
that stream ceases to become its boundary line it is cinctured by a high
mountain range, which breaks away westward from Cumberland into the south
of Scotland – the only exception being an open part of Liddesdale, that
slopes smoothly into the neighbouring shire of Roxburgh. At this
exceptional point a frontier is supplied by the Liddel, and afterwards by
the Liddel in conjunction with the Esk, till the line, coming overland
westward, touches the Sark, runs with that stream to the sea, then follows
the devious margin of the Solway till it terminates at the estuary of the
Nith; the Sark becoming in its course not simply the fringe of the County
in that direction, but the small, faint border-line which divides England
from Scotland. Dumfriesshire comprehends the districts of Nithsdale,
Annandale, and Eskdale: which natural divisions nearly agree with the
ancient jurisdictions that prevailed; the first having been governed as a
sheriffship, the second as a stewartry, and the third as a regality. Its
population, which was 39,788 in 1755, had risen to 75,878 in 1861. There
are fifty-three parishes in the Synod of Dumfries, ten of which are in the
stewartry of Kirkcudbright; these ten, with seven that are in the County,
making up the Presbytery of Dumfries. The Parish of Dumfries has an area
of fifteen square miles: its population a hundred years ago was about
5,500; at the beginning of the current century it was little more than
7,000; it is now double that amount.
The Nith
is the chief river of the County. Coming from its cradle among the
mountains east of Dalmellington, in Aryshire, it describes a
south-westerly course, watering by the way the Royal Burgh of Sanquhar, at
the head of the dale, and further down the ducal village of Thornhill,
around which the country opens well up – spacious plains, claiming with
success ample room and verge from the highlands, that seem at points
further north as if they wished to shut up the valley altogether. From an
eminence westward of Thornhill the enormous mass of Drumlanrig Castle is
seen, says Robert Chambers, looking down “with its innumerable windows
upon the plain, like a great presiding idol” – the embodied genius of
feudalism. One of the barrier ridges northward is pierced by the narrow
gloomy pass of Enterkin, through which the sister vales of Nith and Clyde
keep up precarious intercourse. Lower down, at Auldgirth Bridge, near
Blackwood, the mountain ranges that environ the dale approach each other
more closely, then recede, till round and below Dumfries a spacious plain,
like that of “Lombardy in miniature,” is formed; differing chiefly from
its beautiful Italian type in having a larger proportion of upland
compared to its champaign country. [Fullarton & Co.’s Gazetteer of
Scotland, vol. i., p. 425.] The Nith is swelled by numerous brooks at
various stages of its course – its latest and greatest acquisition being
the Cluden, a mile above Dumfries; and about eight miles below the Burgh
the river falls into the Solway Frith: its entire course being forty-five
miles.
An upland
spot, where the counties of Lanark, Peebles, and Dumfries confront each
other, gives birth to three streams, according to the popular rhyme,
“Annan, Tweed, and Clyde,
All arise from one hill-side.”
The
Annan, after headlong rush from its highland home, five miles above the
pretty watering-place of Moffat, is joined two miles below that town by
several tributaries; it then proceeds more leisurely in a southerly
direction down the dale to which it gives a name, and which, narrowed at
first by rocks or ridges, expands into a wide fertile basin called the
Howe of Annandale, studded with villages and spangled by the nine lakes of
Lockmaben; Bruce’s ancient burgh and the town of Locherbie occupying
conspicuous situations on its western and eastern sides. Other rivulets,
including the Dryfe, give increased volume to the stream below Lochmaben;
the valley narrowing again as the waters grow wider and deeper. When
little more than a mile from its bourne in the sea, it waters the second
town of Dumfriesshire, the Royal Burgh of Annan; the entire course of the
river measuring nearly forty miles. The ancient stewartry of Annandale had
a wider range than the valley of the Annan, as it comprised the tracts of
country that lie eastward to the Sark, and westward along the Solway
towards the Lochar.
Dumfriesshire is separated from England for fully a mile in extent by the
Esk, which river, starting from the frontiers of Selkirkshire, takes a
southern route, sweeps past the baronial town of Langholm, and after being
a Scottish stream to the extent of thirty miles, it enters Cumberland,
passes by Longtown, then takes a westward turn, and falls like its two
sister rivers into the Solway. The length of the Esk is nearly forty
miles: part of its lower waters, meandering through the Debatable Land,
constitutes a portion of the Western Border; and often, as we shall have
to notice, its waves ran red with blood to the sea, owing to its boundary
position between two hostile nations.
Having
given these brief sketches of Nithsdale, Annandale, and Eskdale, let us
point out with a little more detail the position and aspect of the County
town. Snugly built on the left bank of the river, eight miles above where
it loses itself in the Solway, stands the Royal Burgh of Dumfries. When
viewed from the neighbouring heights, especially those on the opposite
Galloway side, the town with its environments forms a charming picture.
The old Burgh is seen lying nestled in the plain below, bosomed in
umbrageous woods, while gentle acclivities or bolder elevations rise like
the seats of an amphitheatre on every side. Hill and dale contrast finely
with each other; country and town seem linked in kindly fellowship – the
handicraft creations of man mingling without harshness or abrupt
transition with the inimitable works of nature; while here and there may
be noticed a barren track or rugged peak, varying without impairing the
attractiveness of the landscape. Nithsdale, with its queenly capital,
looks indeed beautiful when seen at summer tide from such a “coign of
vantage” – the sight suggesting the appreciative words of Burns: -
“How lovely, Nith, thy fruitful vales!
Where spreading hawthorns
gaily bloom;
How sweetly wind thy sloping dales!
Where lambkins wanton
through the broom.”
A range
of hills far to the north, or left, is cleft by the river; and one of the
separated portions, passing eastward, terminates in the heights of
Mouswald; while the other, taking a western sweep, culminates in Criffel.
Within the enclosure thus formed lies the oval-shaped strath itself; and
after marking its fertile fields, its “lown,” sunny nooks, and its smiling
groves, the eye rests with human interest on the spires and pinnacles,
that tall chimneys and clustering domiciles, just below, where a “link” of
the Nith is seen lying like a miniature lake – all telling that a hive of
industry, busy though small, has its homestead in these vernal bowers.
[Visitor’s Guide to Dumfries, p. 3.]
The
Burgh, thus pleasantly situated, lies in the latitude of 55 degrees, 8
minutes, and 30 seconds north; its longitude being 3 degrees, 36 minutes,
west. Its population at the date of the last census, in 1861, was 12,360.
Maxwelltown, separated from it by the river, joins with it to form a
Parliamentary Burgh. The Burghal constituency numbers 536, and the
Parliamentary constituency 651. The population of the Royalty has rapidly
increased since 1861, and may now be reckoned at about 13,500.
Such, in
brief, are the aspect and size of the Burgh in 1866; and after this
preliminary glance at it, the district with which it is associated, we
must withdraw from the picture for a long while. Going far back into the
misty depths of the past – the distant days of other years – we must
endeavour to ascertain the origin of the town – see how it looked in its
embryo state, when its first rude buildings threw shadows on the rising
beach, or were mirrored in the river’s bosom; then follow its varying
fortunes – mark its growth and periods of temporary decadence – till we
can reproduce the sketch just laid aside, of Dumfries as it now is, and
fill in a few details to render the likeness more complete.
No
positive information has been obtained of the era and circumstances in
which the town of Dumfries was founded. There are distinct traces of its
existence as far back as the eleventh century; and it may be fairly
inferred that it had its origin at a period much more remote – though we
fear those writers who hold that it flourished as a place of distinction
during the Roman occupation of North Britian, would experience great
difficulty in establishing their hypothesis. It is not unlikely that the
Selgovæ, who inhabited Nithdale and neighbouring districts at that time,
and who, by means of their rude but strong forts, long resisted the
legions of Agricola, may have raised some military works of a defensive
nature on or near the site of Dumfries; and it is more than probable that
a castle of some kind formed the nucleus of the town. This is inferred
from the etymology of the name, which, according to the learned Chalmers,
is resolvable into two Gaelic terms signifying a castle in the copse or
brushwood. [Caledonia, vol. iii., p. 44.]
According
to another theory, the name is a corruption of two words which mean the
Friars’ Hill; those who favour this idea alleging that St. Ninian, by
planting a religious house near the head of what is now the Friars’
Vennel, at the close of the fourth century, became the virtual founder of
the Burgh; [MS. Lecture by Rev. H. Small, Dumfries.] but Ninian, so far as
is known, did not originate any monastic establishments in Nithsdale or
elsewhere, and was simply a missionary or evangelist on a great scale. In
the list of British towns given by the ancient historian Nennius, the name
Caer Peris occurs, which some modern antiquarians – without any sufficient
warrant, we think – suppose to have been transmuted, by a change of
dialect, into Dumfries. [Paper read by Mr. Skene before the Society of
Antiquarians of Scotland, on the Early Frisian Settlements in Scotland.]
Others, again, fancy that Bede alludes to the town when he states that St.
Wilfred, a zealous North of England Bishop of the seventh century, held a
Synod “juxta fluvium Nidd.” [Bede, Eccles, Hist., lib. V., cap. 20.] But,
if so, it is singular that so careful a chronicler as Bede did not denote
the town in more specific terms. Most likely the Nidd he speaks of is the
river of that name in Yorkshire.
In
connection with this question there is yet another hypothesis. When, in
1069, Malcolm Canmore and Williams the Conqueror held a conference
respecting the claims of Edward Atheling to the English Crown, they met at
Abernithi – a term which in the old British tongue means a port at the
mouth of the Nith. [Redpath’s Border history, p. 63.] Surely, it has been
argued, the town thus characterized must have been Dumfries; and therefore
it must have existed as a port in the Kingdom of Strathclyde, if not in
the older Province of Valentia. Unfortunately for this assumption, the
town is situated eight or nine miles distant from the sea; and we cannot
suppose that the estuary of the river was higher up in the eleventh
century that it now is, whatever is may have been in the pre-historic
ages. Some forgotten village called Albernithi may have, long since,
looked out on the waters of the Solway; but that name could scarcely have
been borne by the Burgh of whose origin we are in search.
In the
earliest charter to the town, still extant – that of Robert III., dated 28th
April, 1395 – the appellation given is “Burgi de Dumfreiss,” a form of
spelling which, with one “s” omitted, continued in vogue till about 1780.
During the reign of Alexander III. and the long interregnum which
followed, the form nearly resembled that of the present day – the prefix
being generally Dun or Dum, rather than Drum: thus, in a contemporary
representation made to the English Government respecting the slaughter of
John Comyn in 1305, the locality is described as “en l’eglise de Freres
meneours de la ville de Dunfres;” [Sir Francis Palgrave’s Documents and
Records Illustrative of the History of Scotland, p. 335.] and, thirty
years afterwards, we read of the appointment of an official as “Vice
Comitatus de Dumfres.” [Rotuli Scotiæ, vol. i., p. 271.] Such uncouth
spellings of the name of Dunfreisch, Droonfreisch, and Drumfriesche,
occasionally occur in old documents; but the variations are never so great
as to leave any doubt as to the town that is meant; and nearly all more or
less embody the idea of a “castle in the shrubbery,” [The only exception
we have net with occurs in a Papal Bull issued against Bruce in 1320 for
the homicide of Comyn, which is stated to have been perpetrated in the
Minorite Church of “Dynifes.”] according to the etymology of Chalmers,
which we accept as preferable to any other that has been suggested.
[Chalmers’s words are: “This celebrated prefix
Dun must necessarily
have been appropriated to some fortlet, or strength, according to the
secondary signification of that ancient work. The
phrys of the British
speech, and the kindred phreas
of the Scoto, signify shrubs: and the Dun-fres must consequently mean the
castle among the shrubberies, or copsewood.” –
Caledonia, vol. iii., p.
45.]
Whist we
are unable to identify Dumfries with any organized community of Britons
during the Roman period, there can be no doubt that the district in which
it lies was for several centuries ruled over and deemed of much importance
by the invading Romans. Apart from the written testimony on the subject,
many traces of their presence in Dumfrisshire are still to be found;
coins, weapons, sepulchral remains, military earthworks, and roads being
among the relics left by that conquering and civilizing race of their
lengthened sojourn in this part of Scotland. An interesting inquiry it
would be to consider how far they intermingled with the aboriginal
population, and let the impress of their genius on its living tide as well
as on the material soil; and we may fairly hazard the supposition, that
though the Romans visited the territory of the Selgovæ as enemies, they in
course of time became in numerous instances friends and relatives by
marriage, as well as conquerors. Thus, not only could the Dumfriesians of
a later date speak of their Celtic, Cimbrian, British, Saxon, and Norman
ancestors, but they might, in common with those of some other Scottish
districts, have claimed blood-relationship with the masters of the world.
The apostle Paul claimed rank and privilege as a Roman citizen on account
of his birth at Tarsus; and it is a curious fact that the Caledonian
tribes in the south of Scotland were invested with the same rights by an
edict of Antoninus Pius.
In all,
twenty-one British tribes occupied North Britain during the first century
of the Christian era, and remained for ages afterwards the chief occupiers
of the soil. Five of them, including the Selgovæ, subdued by the arms and
civilized by the arts of Rome, occupied the extensive range of country
which stretched from the rampart of Severus to the wall of Antonine, and
was called the Province of Valentia by Theodosuis, in honour of his
imperial colleague Valens. These Romanized Britons of Dumfriesshire,
Galloway, and the land further north, to the Frith of Forth on the east
and the Frith of Clyde on the west, received freedom as well as
civilization from their Italian conquerors. That the subjugated people
were treated generously, is proved by the circumstance that they were, as
we have said, made citizens of the Empire; and, as further evidence of the
same fact, they were permitted to choose their own chief governor, or
pendragon – whose rule, however, was often challenged by the district
chiefs, though rarely interfered with by the Roman Emperors – that is to
say, we suppose, when the tribute due by the province was promptly paid.
Late in
the fourth century, the masterful race who had exercised a beneficial
influence on Valentia took farewell of the country. The Empire, undermined
by luxury, and harassed by barbarous hordes from the north of Europe, was
falling to pieces; and its ruler Constantine, who for a time resided in
Britain, left its shores, taking with him the flower of his army – all the
forces belonging to Rome, in various parts of the world, being needed for
its defence. Then the Britons of Valentia, whom the Romans had helped to
protect when assailed by the Scots from Ireland and their Caledonian
neighbours in the North, found themselves in an unenviable predicament.
The sixteen aboriginal tribes who had never acknowledged the Roman yoke,
and remained as barbarous as they were brave, did not relish the idea of
being shut out of the rich district that lay south of the Rampart of
Severus. Impelled by acquisitiveness and a love of adventure, a portion of
them, under the name of Picts, sailed down the Frith of Forth in their
canoes and curraghs; whilst others of them, still more resolute, scaled
the interposing wall; and soon the Britons found, to their dismay, that
their hitherto happy district was overrun by painted savages, carrying
with them fire and sword.
The Picts
repeatedly ravaged Valentia in all its borders, and doubtless the Nith was
often stained by the blood they shed; and if, at this early period, as
some of our chroniclers assert, the drum or acclivity on which Dumfries
now stands was occupied by a fortress, there would, we may suppose, be
many a fierce struggle for its possession.
The
Valentians were unable to shut out the invaders from their territory; and
the latter, though powerful enough to plunder and slay, were not
sufficiently organized to take complete possession of the land. They were
wild marauding clans, held together by common instincts rather than by a
regular form of government, or even the asserted supremacy of a ruling
chief. It is probably owing to this circumstance that the Britons of the
far north, the un-Romanized Caledonians or Picts (for these are probably
the same people under different names [Caledonia, vol. ii., p. 6.]), did
not conquer the south of Scotland. Had they done so, and established their
authority over the whole country, the tide of its civilization would have
been rolled centuries backwards, and Scotland could scarcely ever, in the
nature of things, have occupied a high position in the scale of nations.
The brave defence made by the Selgovæ and their allies, combined with the
disorganization of the Picts, kept Valentia from being thrown back into
barbarism, and saved the sceptre of the future kingdom for better hands –
those of the Scots, a people of the same Celtic origin as the Britons, who
had long been settled in Ireland, had frequently sent over to Galloway and
other parts of Britain shoals of adventurers, and who eventually, after
subduing their Pictish rivals, conquered the Britons also, and gave their
rule and name to the entire country, from the Promontory of Orcas to the
Wall of Antonine.
We must,
however, confine our attention at present to the fortunes of the primitive
inhabitants of Dumfriesshire. Two of the tribes with whom they were
associated, the Ottadini an Gadeni, though able to hold their own against
the Picts, were subdued by the Saxons from Northumbria, who, after
defeating them at the battle of Cattraeth, occupied their territory, which
lay between the Tweed and Forth. Thus Valentia came to be restricted to
Teviotdale, Dumfriesshire, Galloway, Ayrshire, Renfrewshire, Strathclyde,
and parts of Stirlingshire and Dumbartonshire. This district, still a very
extensive one, was called
Regnum Cambrense, the Kingdom of Cumbria, and sometimes the Kingdom
of Strathcluyd, its metropolis being Alcluyd, which the Scoto-Irish
subsequently called Dunbritton, the fortress of Britons – hence the modern
name of the town, Dumbarton. For at least a century after the Scots had
established their supremacy over the rest of the country, the Strathcluyd
Britons maintained their independence. The Saxons and Danes sometimes
invaded their territory; and the former appear to have subdued a portion
of it at the close of the seventh century, and to have partially colonized
Dumfriesshire, or, as Chalmers says, to have scattered over it “a very
thin settlement.” [Calndonia, vol. iii., p. 61.]
A century
later, however, we find members of their royal family intermarrying with
those of the Scottish monarch – a proof that the Selgovæ and their kinsmen
were still a powerful race. Gradually, however, their strength became
reduced, and their dominions circumscribed. The nuptial alliances made
with the neighbouring sovereigns proved a new source of weakness to the
dispirited Britons, as they were the means of introducing amongst them so
many Scots that they could scarcely call the place their own. The
strangers settled in great numbers throughout Galloway, and not a few of
them passed from that province to the left bank of the Nith, till all the
southern portion of Strathcluyd seemed to be on the verge of a peaceful
social revolution.
The
Cumbrians were almost subdued by the new comers before they fairly
realized their danger; and, thoroughly jostled out of the territory which
their race had colonized and occupied for many centuries before the
Christian era, they arranged with Gregory, King of Scots, to leave it and
seek asylum from their British countrymen in Wales. Whilst on their
sorrowful journey southward, they were seized with home sickness –
repented that they had tamely yielded up their rich heritage, and resolved
to win it back or perish, rather than pine in exile. A report reached them
that the King of Scots had, after their departure, disbanded his army, and
was therefore defenceless – which news either originated or confirmed
their determination to retrace their steps.
Our
historians do not exactly agree in their account of subsequent events; but
they concur in stating that after the expatriated Britons has re-entered
their territory, and plundered the new settlers to a large extent, they
heard with alarm that Gregory had collected a considerable force, and was
hastening to overtake them. The tidings proved to be correct. The
infuriated monarch fell upon them at the place now occupied as Lochmaben:
a brief but sanguinary struggle ensued, which ended in the utter rout of
the Britons, Constantine their king falling among heaps of slain. His
followers who escaped the battle were slaughtered in the pursuit, few of
them being spared to tell the tale; but the huge
Tumuli, still visible at
the scene of the contact, [Statistical Account, vol. iii., p. 241.] tell
of the terrible carnage in which the vengeance of Gregory was slaked, and
the Kingdom of Cumbria annihilated. [Buchanan’s History of Scotland, book
vi., chap. xi.; and Chalmers’s Caledonia, vol. iii., p. 61.] After this
decisive engagement, which took place in the year 890, the Britons existed
no more as a separate people in Scotland; and the government of that
country began to be consolidated and directed by a single sovereign.
In is not
to be supposed, however, that the British element was, by this memorable
exodus and overthrow, entirely blotted from the population of
Dumfriesshire. Many of the Cumbrians formed matrimonial alliances with the
dominant Scots, and many others would probably remain in the district
while the great body of their countrymen went on their forlorn expedition
to Wales. We think there is every reason to believe that the people who
lived in it for eleven centuries at least, and were the first to settle in
it, of which history takes notice, became nearly as much as either the
Scoto-Irish or the Saxons the progenitors of the existing race; and if
they are thus in one sense continuing to occupy a part of the soil, which
they long exclusively held, we know that their language still survives in
the names of rivers, streams, mountains, and headlands, most of which in
Dumfriesshire and Galloway are British: the nomenclature of the first
colonists thus remaining unchanging by the conflicts of race or the flight
of ages. |
