|
The fifteenth
century—Alexander Stewart, earl of Mar: his career in Aberdeenshire, France,
and the Netherlands—the battle of Harlaw—Irvine of Drum and provost
Davidson—Mar as protector of Aberdeen—rise of the Gordons—Huntly appointed
lieutenant-general — his part in the civil wars— Aberdeen fortifications—the
second earl of Huntly—battle of Ssauchieburn and death of James III.—action
of Aberdeenshire lords — Sir Andrew Wood and the forest of Stocket—hospitality
of Aberdeen--royal visits — Perkin Warbeck—municipal organisation —
privileges of the guild — "simple burgesses" — civic oligarchy — burgesses
of trade — crafts v guildry — crimes and punishments — the candlfmas
pageant— maritime commerce — enlargement of St Nicholas' church — episcopal,
municipal, and private liberality—importation of materials — condition of
the church in the two counties— bishops as statesmen and courtiers — the
religious orders : arrival of the Franciscans—pestilence.
The great actor on the stage
of Aberdeenshire history during the first third of the fifteenth century,
and a man of more than provincial or even national celebrity, was Alexander
Stewart, Earl of Mar, illegitimate son of the Wolf of Badenoch. He had begun
life as a brigand chief or leader of Highland caterans, and in a wild time
his career was distinguished above all others as one of daring and
adventure. After the settlement of his quarrel with the bishop he seems to
have been on friendly terms with the leading citizens of Aberdeen, or
possibly they deemed it expedient to disarm the hostility of a person so
formidable for mischief. In the town's accounts for 1398 there are several
charges for the entertainment of Stewart and other "neighbours of the town "
at the tabernci or wine-booth of Robert Davidson, who was then one of the
four baillies, ending with a " stirrup-cup " as he was leaving. The earldom
of Mar was held at this time by Countess Isabel, wife of Sir Malcolm
Drummond, the brother of Queen Annabella. Drummond received the king's
licence to build a fortalice at Kindrochit, and during its construction he
was captured by a body of caterans, of whom Stewart was believed to be the
instigator, and thrown into a dungeon, where he soon died. A year or two
afterwards, in 1404, Stewart at the head of his caterans stormed the Castle
of Kildrummy, which was occupied by the widowed countess, persuaded or
compelled her to marry him, and in anticipation of the questions likely even
in that barbarous age to be raised concerning his conduct, assembled the
vassals and tenantry of the earldom, and in their presence and that of the
Bishop of Ross presented himself .at the outer gate, where he was met by the
countess, and there, with much ceremony, went through the form of
surrendering the keys of the castle into her hand, in order, as he
pretended, that she might dispose of them as she pleased. The countcss
discharged her part in this strange comedy by declaring, as she held the
keys in her hand, that she freely chose Stewart for her husband, and gave
him the Castle of Kildrummy, the earldom of Mar, the lordship of Garioch and
several baronies, the forest of Jedburgh, and all other lands belonging to
her in right either of her father or of her mother, to be held by herself,
her husband, and their heirs; whom failing, her own lawful heirs. Stewart
had been strong in lawlessness, but now he availed himself of the forms of
law and had charters executed to give effect to this arrangement so
beneficial to himself. To one signed at Kildrummy the witnesses were the
Bishop of Ross, Sir Andrew Leslie, Sir John Forbes, Alexander and Duncan
Forbes, Alexander Irvine of Drum, and William de Camera, or Chalmers, of
Findon, who had been Provost of Aberdeen. A confirmation charter by King
Robert III. was issued without delay, and henceforth Stewart's designation
was Earl of Mar and Lord of Garioch. The countess survived only three years.
Such were the means by which
a bold adventurer of ability possessed himself of the greatest position in
the north. He was appointed Sheriff of Abefdeenshire, and the English fleet
having appeared off the coast and attacked the fisheries, he put out to sea
with Aberdeen vessels and ravaged the Northumbrian coast. Stewart was a man
of the world, and he saw much of the world. There are on record several
letters of safe-conduct authorising him to pass through England at the head
of bodies of knights and retainers, from which it appears that he attended
and took part in the tournaments that were one of the features of the life
and fashion of the time. In 1408 he visited Flanders and the Court of
France, and made a brilliant display with his large train, which included
the young Lord of Sutherland, with Irvines, Keiths, Hays, and other
north-country gentlemen. Wyntoun the chronicler, who had his information
direct from members of Mar's retinue, and was sprung from a family long
connected with the earldom, tells how he "passed into France with a noble
company, well arrayed and dai. itily, knights, squires, and gentlemen, full
sixty," and how in royal state he kept open house and table in Paris for
twelve weeks, and was "commended of all nations for wit, virtue, and
largesse." On his way home he passed Bruges, then the great commcrcial
emporium, and was induced by the Duke of Holland to go to the help of the
secular bishop-elect of Liege, the duke's brother, in reducing the burghers
to subjection. With John Menzies for standard-bearer and Alexander Keith and
Alexander Irvine as his principal lieutenants, and his command consisting of
five banners besides his own, Mar threw himself into the fray and exercised
against the Walloon burghers the skill in warfare which he had acquired as a
brigand chief among the hills of Aberdeenshire. His arms prevailed, and
again he married an heiress with lands. He now called himself Lord of Duffle
in Brabant; but the lands were difficult to get hold of in those unsettled
times, and the marriage itself was soon dissolved. From this curious episode
the Aberdeenshire knights obtained an experience that was to serve them at
Harlaw.
The conflict there to be
waged began to loom vaguely in view. In a notable company assembled as the
earl's guests at Kildrummy in December 1410 were Gilbert Greenlaw, Bishop of
Aberdeen and Chancellor of Scotland; Henry de Lichtoun or Leighton, rector
of Kinkell and afterwards bishop; and two provosts of Aberdeen, William
Chalmers and Robert Davidson. Relations had of old existed between the
earldom and the civic chiefs, and Chalmers, who was a younger son of
Chalmers of Balnacraig in Cromar, had become the earl's vassal by acquiring
the lands of Easter Ruthven near Tarland, besides which he was clerk of the
Justiciary Rolls north of the Forth, and, as we have seen, he was one of the
witnesses to the charter or contract of marriage at Kildrummy in 1404. With
Chalmers or his son, who was also a Provost of Aberdeen and held national
office in connection with the Exchequer, Robert Davidson appears as
joint-collector of the king's or great customs at the port. While holding
this office and carrying on his taberna in the Shiprow, where he had
entertained Stewart, Davidson appeared professionally as a pleader in the
burgh court and collected debts or revenues for various clients, among whom
had been Sir Malcolm Drummond. James Stewart, brother of Robert III., and
the Duke of Rothesay. Fashionable life in Paris, and feats of war in the Low
Countries, had been talked of by this Yule-tile party, and coming events, in
which the earl and the provost were to be chief actors, may have been
sufficiently foreshadowed to be a subject of conference. Tor only a few
months were to elapse before it fell to the lot of Mar, as head of the
chivalry of the northern counties, to stem the invasion of Aberdeenshire
under Donald, Lord of the Isles. The encroachments which the Crown had for
some generations been making on the semi-independence of the island
chieftain, who was also Lord of Lochaber on the mainland and held some
baronial fiefs in Buchan, had embittered him against the Scottish Court and
led him into intrigues with England. Donald was closely connected with
Aberdeenshire through his wife, a daughter of Walter Leslie, Earl of Ross.
After Leslie's decease, his widow, who was countess in her own right,
married the Wolf of Badenoch, and her son, Alexander Leslie, came into the
succession, his wife being a daughter of the Regent Albany. On the
resignation of their daughter and heiress, who was weakly ana deformed, and
whom Albany persuaded to take the veil, her maternal uncle, John Stewart,
now Earl of Buchan, succeeded to the Ross earldom. It was claimed, however,
by Donald in right of his wife, and he proceeded to enforce the claim by
arms-Such was the pretext of Donald's inroad; but we must look upon the
movement which he headed as one of a long series of outbreaks of north
against south, Celt against Saxon, seen as far back as the early days of the
Teutonic colonisation and recurring down to 1745.
With the clansmen of the
northern Hebrides, Ross, and Lochaber, the Lord of the Isles swept through
Moray, the Enzie, and Strathbogie, and arrived in the Ganoch on his way to
Aberdeen. The burghers knew full well what was involved in such an invasion
of Celtic barbarism, and southern towns recognised at once that the plunder
of Aberdeen would greatly increase their own peril. Coming forward as
natural leader, the Earl of Mar summoned to his aid the barons and burghers
not only of the region immediately threatened, but of the Mearns and Angus,
whence there responded to his call Sir Alexander Ogilvy, Sheriff of Angus ;
Sir Robert Maule of Panmure; Sir James Scrimgeour, Constable of Dundee; Sir
Robert Melville of Glenbervie, Sheriff of the Mearns and laird of Kemnay;
and Alexander Straiton of Lauriston, with their friends. Mar's own vassals
and retainers formed a nucleus, and the knights who had shared his
experiences on the Continent must have been invaluable in the hasty work of
organisation. A mounted squadron was led by Sir Andrew Leslie of Balquhain,
who had already defied his enemies from his fortress high .on Bennachie, a
man of roughest type, notable as a lawless barbarian even in the days of the
Wolf of Badenoch and his son. Of Aberdeenshire barons who hastened to meet
the invasion were Sir Alexander Irvine, Sir Alexander Keith, and the heads
of the rising families of Gordon, Forbes, and Leith, with several of the
lesser men of the Garioch and Buchan. Provost Davidson led forth a body of
his fellow-citizens, including, as would seem, forty burgesses, whose names
are recorded in the Council Register as having been specially " chosen to go
out against the caterans." The place of rendezvous was probably Inverurie,
whence on the 24th of July Mar advanced about three miles to Harlaw to meet
the Highland horde. In numbers the two forces were very unequally matched.
Donald's following is said to have been at least 10,000 strong, while that
of Mar hardly exceeded as many hundreds. Possibly there is some exaggeration
in the one case and under-statement in the other, for the chroniclers and
ballad-makers are on the Lowland side and may not be strictly impartial
historians. In the order of battle the southern auxiliaries and the
burgesses were placed in the vanguard. Mar commanded the centre ; on the
left were Irvine, the Leiths, the Leslies, and the Gordons, and on the right
the Keiths and Forbeses. The mail-clad Lowland warriors with their spears
ploughed through the Celtic host or withstood its furious rush, but the
Highlanders and Islesmen were able by their great superiority in numbers to
close round their assailants and attack them with claymore and dirk. The
battle lasted till evening, when Donald drew off in the direction from
whence he had come. Mar held the field, but with his exhausted and weakened
force he was unable to pursue the retiring host. Many of the flower of the
chivalry had fallen, among them Sir Alexander Irvine, Provost Davidson,
several of the southern knights, and six sons of Sir Andrew Leslie. Irvine
and Davidson were deeply lamented, and the oldest of the Harlaw ballads
recites their bravery in plaintive stanzas :—
"Good Sir Alexander Irvine
The much renounit Laird of Drum,
Nane in his days were better sene
When they were semblit all and some ;
To praise him we should not be dumb,
For valour, wit, and worthiness ;
To end his days he then did come
Whose ransom is remediless.
And there the knight of Lauriston
Was slain into his armour sheen,
And good Sir Robert Davidson
Who Provost was of Aberdeen."
It was, indeed, no
exaggeration of Sir Walter Scott to speak of the coronach for "the sair
field of Harlaw" having been cried in one day from the Tay to the Buck of
the Cabrach. It was at heavy cost, but Aberdeen was saved from an imminent
peril, and the counties to the south of it from the prospect of a
devastating raid.
Warned by this Highland
invasion and their narrow escape, the citizens of Aberdeen set about looking
after their defences ; but they were soon lulled into a sense of security
until new danger arose. The Earl of Mar was regarded as protector of the
town. An ordinance of the alderman, baillies, and count :1 of 1412 provides
that "nane haff lord na lordship" over the citizens other than the king, the
Duke of Albany, and the Earl of Mar. After Mar's death in 1435 Sir Alexander
Irvine of Drum was chosen by the citizens as their captain and governor, and
this arrangement was followed in the reign of James III. by the citizens
entering into a bond of manrent with the Earl of Huntly (1462) for ten
years, whereby he undertook to preserve the freedom and property of the
citizens, who on their part bound themselves to give their hospitality to
the earl and his company when he came to the burgh, and to take such part
with him in his defence as they would for the defence of their own persons.
The connection thus established was to continue not for ten years only but
for two centuries, until the power of the head of the house of Gordon was
broken by the wars of the Covenant.
Aberdeen was one of the four
burghs which in 1424 made up the ransom of James I., and David Menzies, one
of its wealthiest citizens, was sent to England as a hostage for the payment
of the money. One of the earliest Acts of his reign commands all barons
north of the Mounth to repair or rebuild all ancient castles or fortalices,
and to reside in them, or at least expend on their respective estates the
rents locally collected. Absentee landlordism had become, in Aberdeenshire
in the fifteenth century, an evil -which was thought to call for legislative
intervention.
The troubles attendant on the
minorities of the second and third Jameses affected these counties only by
enabling the barons to secure an increase of power and independence. It was
on the death of the Earl of Mar that the primacy among the northern nobility
passed to the head of the Gordons. As in the case of so many other families,
the Gordon possessions descended to an heiress, Elizabeth Gordon, who in
1408 conveyed her name and possessions to Sir Alexander Seton, second son of
Sir William Seton "of that ilk," who thus became the ancestor of the noble
house of Huntly. Alexander Seton, Lord of Gordon, appears as one of the most
active statesmen and soldiers of his day. Soon after his connection with the
north began he fought under Mar at Harlaw, and though frequently employed in
missions to England, where also he was one of the hostages for James I., he
spent much of his time in Aberdeenshire, where he greatly extended the
Gordon lands and laid the foundations of a strong clan following. He is said
to have rewarded all who took the name of Gordon, and became his vassals,
with a gift of meal, whence certain branches of the clan wrere called the
"Bow or Meal" Gordons, as the "Jock" and "Tam" Gordons distinguished the
collateral or illegit;mate descendants of the original stock. It is only by
such a process of adoption that the large number of Gordon families existing
as early as the latter half of the fifteenth century can be accounted for.
In 1436, or the following year, Sir Alexander Seton was summoned as a peer
of Parliament by the title of Lord of Gordon ; and it was probably at the
same time that a similar call was addressed to his immediate neighbour, Sir
Alexander Forbes of Druminnor, as Lord Forbes. Forbes had hitherto been the
principal vassal of the earldom of Mar. Another peerage creation of this
time was the earldom of Rothes, to which George Leslie of the Aberdeenshire
family was called.
Alexander Gordon, the second
of the Seton-Gordon line, was created Earl of Huntly in 1444-1445. He was of
the party of the Regent and the Chancellor in their quarrels with the
Douglases, and it was probably through his influence that Aberdeen resolved
in 1444 to disregard the inhibition sent out by the queen's mother and the
Bishop of St Andrews against payment of revenues to the persons who had the
king in keeping—namely, Livingston and Crichton.
During the crisis which
followed the murder of the Earl of Douglas in Stirling Castle, when the
Earls of Crawford and Ross, with the Douglas Earls of Angus, Moray, and
Ormond, were ready for rebellion, Huntly was appointed Lieutenant-General of
the kingdom, and proceeded at the head of an armed force to join the king's
troops. Near Brechin he encountered the Earl of Crawford, called "the Tiger
Earl," in a protracted and sanguinary battle. The Gordons prevailed in the
end, but at heavy cost, two of the earl's brothers and several other
Aberdeenshire gentlemen having fallen in the fight. A threatened raid across
the Spey by Douglas, Earl of Moray, caused Huntly to retrace his steps. He
gave battle to Moray at Dunkinty in 1453 and was defeated, but in the
following year he succeeded in driving the Earls of Ormond and Moray out of
the north.
A new charter which Huntly
received in 1457 enumerates the possessions which had already come into the
hands of his house, constituting him the greatest power in the north of
Scotland. Strathbogie, Aboyne, Glentanar, Glenmuick, the lordship of
Badenoch, and the Enzie, with the original Gordon lands in Berwickshire,
were all the property of the first earl. The second earl added the lands of
Schivas, in Buchan, and Boyne and Netherdale in Banffshire. The influence of
Huntly pervaded the two counties; their dest inies were involved in his
fortunes; they shared in his ambitions and suffered by his fall.
Aberdeen and Banff were
touched only to a slight extent by the troubles through which the country
passed in the minority of James III. When James escaped from the power of
the Boyds and became his own master, only to fall into greater difficulties
with a disaffected and rebellious nobility, Huntly and the northern lords
held loyally by the cause of the Crown. The citizens of Aberdeen,
notwithstanding their paction with Huntly, do not seem to have been always
ready to take the field with him. When he desired them to meet him at the
Cabrach in July 1463, to take part in an expedition against another Donald
of the Isles, they craved through the provost to be excused on the ground
that they had no horses and could obtain none, as the country gentlemen had
likewise been summoned to this service, and also because the king had
charged them to attend to the defence of the town, being " sickerly
informed" that an English fleet was on the coast. In 1476 the king's
brother, John, Earl of Mar, was placed in a position of "charge and command"
in Aberdeen, and the citizens were enjoined to obey his call 111 regard to
any actions or quarrels he might have within the burgh. No long time had
elapsed, however, when Mar became an object of jealousy to the king and
ended his days under suspicious circumstances as a captive in Craigmillar
Castle. In 1480-1482 the Aberdonians were alarmed at the quarrels between
the king and his brothers, and, in view of the danger from the English
fleet, steps were taken to have a fosse constructed about the town and the
harbour blocked by a boom thrown across its entrance. The citizens were
ordered to have their weapons of war in readiness in their shops and booths,
and were forbidden to remove their goods from the town or shirk their part
in its defence under the penalty of loss of burgess-ship and forfeiture of
property.
The second Earl of Huntly,
who succeeded in 1470, married the Princess Annabella, daughter of James I.,
and added to the prestige and possessions of the house. When in i486 the
revolt of the nobles, with Angus at their head, drove James III. to the last
extremity, he came north and was joined by Huntly, the Earl Marischal, the
Earl of Erroll, and Lord Forbes, all of whom, with their followers,
accompanied him to the south to deal with the rebellion. The unsuccessful
conflict at Sauchieburn and the flight and death of the king soon followed.
The Aberdeenshire lords were eager for vengeance, and Lord Forbes and others
sought to stir up the citizens of Aberdeen by perambulating the streets with
the bloody garment of the late king displayed on a spear. The citizcns
agreed to take part in punishing the traitors and changing the Government;
but their opposition to the de facto rulers of the country soon abated, and
in a short time they had a new grievance, arising out of an attempt by Sir
Andrew Wood of Largo, the redoubtable Scottish admiral who had done gallant
service against the English, to possess himself of the forest of Stocket and
the Castle Hill, of which a gift, hitherto unheard-of, had been made to him
in writing by the late king in recompense for his deeds of naval war. The
citizens would brook no such invasion of their patrimony, and the provost
and four of his colleagues appeared before the Lords of Council in defence
of the town's rights, armed with the charter of Robert I. and the Exchequer
receipts. These documents were conclusive, and the judgment in favour of the
town was confirmed by letters under the great seal.
James IV. paid several visits
to Aberdeen in the early part of his reign, and, as had been the custom on
the occasion of previous royal visits, was loyally entertained by the town,
and presented with a "propine" or gift—a form of hospitality which sometimes
had to be provided by means of money borrowed from wealthy citizens. Less
welcome guests were eight English followers of "the Duke of York," or Perkin
War-beck, whom the king quartered upon the town. The impostor had married
Lady Catherine Gordon, Huntly's daughter, and when in 1496 the king
undertook an expedition into England to prosecute Warbeck's pretended claims
to the throne, Aberdeen was seriously alarmed at the prospect of a rupture
with Henry VII. It was not asked to join in the expedii on; but the
possibility of a landing of its "auld enemies of England'1 led the town
council to take measures for offering resistance. All freemen of the burgh
were summoned to a " wapinschaw," or military review, on Cunninghar Hill,
duly armed with a spear or bow and targe. A fosse and breastwork were to be
constructed, with the co-operation of the ecclesiastical authorities,
between the Dee and Don; a blockhouse of great strength was to be erected at
the Sandness to guard the harbour; the fishing-boats were to be kept atloat
for the safety of the men and lands of Torry, on the south side of the Dee;
and all " outdwellers" of the burgh were to be brought in as far as possible
for the common defence. In return for the co-operation of the ecclesiastical
authorities the citizens were to repair with all their strength to the
defence of the cathedral, the bishop's palace, and the families and
habitations of the canons in.Old Aberdeen. In connection with these
preparations we hear for the first time of "carts of war, guns, and
artillery." Happily the efficacy of these measures and munitions was never
put to the test.
Aberdeen in the fifteenth
century presents us with the most perfect specimen that we have of the
municipal organisation of a Scottish royal burgh. Unlike Edinburgh, Stirling,
or even Perth, it was rarely, and only for a brief interval, that the power
of the town council was overshadowed by the presence or intervention of the
Crown. Monopoly and exclusive privileges were the basis of the earlier
charters, and in the preservation of these rights an oligarchy naturally
arose which claimed the power to administer the town's affairs. The
privileged class consisted of the burgesses of guild, and to confine its
membership to the ruling families or to persons whose wealth or influence
could be of service to it was its steady policy. From an early period a
qualified freedom had been introduced and persons admitted as " simple
burgesses," who shared in the trading privileges of the guild as far as the
home trade in goods of Scottish origin was concerned, but were not allowed
to take part in the foreign trade, deal in imported goods, or share in the
government of the town.1 The policy of the Bruces and Stewarts- favoured
oligarchical rule in the royal burghs, and an Act of James III., after
reciting the " great trouble and contention " caused at popular elections,
prescribed that the outgoing town council should elect its successor and
both together appoint the magistrates and officials. In the preceding reign
Aberdeen had endeavoured to confine admission to the guild to sons and
sons-in-law of the burgesses. During the whole century the magistracy seems
to have been in the hands of a small number of families, including those of
Menzies, Chalmers, Rutherford, Reid, and Cullen, most of whom were already
becoming landholders in the county. Burgesses were admitted by favour at the
request of some of the neighbouring nobility, and honorary burgess - ship
was conferred as a distinction upon eminent visitors to the city; but the
council rolls show how limited was the concession of the franchise from all
causes. The aristocratic element in the government of the town became
further strengthened by the admission of sons and kinsmen of the country
gentry to the guild freedom; but occasional interference of the barons and
landholders in municipal affairs followed, which had to be met by repeated
enactments of the council against citizens purchasing "lordship" or the
countenance and support, in their contentions, of some feudal magnate.
The last class of citizens
were the burgesses of trade, whose freedom conveyed merely the right to
carry on their handicrafts and to be protected in the retail of their wares
in their own booths. From an early time the craftsmen had their own
particular guilds for the regulation of their affairs; and by a general Act
of 1424 parliamentary recognition was given to these bodies with their
deacons or masters, who were to "govern and assay" all work "so that the
king's lieges be not defrauded and skaithed" in time to come as they had
been in the past. But the rising power of the crafts soon began to be
regarded with jealousy by the town councils and with suspicion by the Crown,
and in 1427 the appointment of heads or wardens of the respective crafts and
general supervision were vested in the councils.
In Aberdeen, as in other
Scottish burghs, the craftsmen formed an opposition to the governing body,
and throughout the fifteenth century there was a growing friction of classes
in the town. About the middle of the century the crafts seem to have taken
the law into their own hands and appointed their deacons without reference
to the council The Crown naturally took the part of the oligarchy and
pronounced the elective powers of the craftsmen to be "dangerous." A law of
1491 checked their pretensions for a time, but only to stimulate a more
determined vindication of craft rights in the following century.
Though excluded from
participation in the government of the town and from all benefit from its
largely increasing property, the artisans had their full share of all the
municipal obligations. "As well unfree as free men" were bound to rise at
the bidding of the magistrates to keep watch and ward in their turns, to aid
in the "stanching" of trespassers and rebels, and to walk armed to and from
their work. The peace was frequently broken both by " outdwellers" and the
inhabitants themselves. Culprits were tried by an assize of the citizens
numbering from five to twenty. Slaughter in a broil was generally a matter
for composition. Crimes of violence, offences against the municipal
regulations, and interference with the town's property or with guild
privileges, seem to have been the most common offences that came before the
court. Forestalling and regrating were heinous offences and promptly
punished. In most breaches of public order the punishment had an
ecclesiastical as well as a civil side.
The great civic show of the
year was the procession of the craftsmen to St Nicholas' Kirk, on Candlemas
day, and a pageant supplied by the various trades. An abbot and a prior,
called the Lords of Bon-Accord, were chosen by the council to superintend
and head the pageant, while to each trade was assigned the charge of
providing certain characters to figure in the procession. Thus it was
ordered in 1442 that the litsters or dyers should provide the emperor, two
doctors, and an indefinite number of squires; the smiths and hammermen, the
three kings of Cologne; the tailors, Our Lady, St Bride, St Helen, and St
Joseph, with squires; the skinners, two bishops and four angels; the weavers
and waulkers, Simon and his disciples; the cordwainers, the messenger and
Moses; and the fleshers, two or four woodmen; while the brethren of the
guild were to provide the knights in harness with their squires, and the
bakers to supply the minstrels. The Lords of Bon-Accord were masters during
their term of office of the other holiday revels, such as the festivals of
St Nicholas the patron saint of the town, the 1st of May, and Corpus Christi
day. The saturnalia carried on under their auspices not infrequently drew
upon their rule the reprehension of the town council, but their proceedings
did not become licentious until the eve of the Refoimation. We find the
record of two miracle plays acted during the fifteenth century. One, the "
Haliblude," was performed at the Windmill Hill in 1440, and the other on the
feast of Corpus Christi, 1479. The former was given at the expense of
Richard Kyntore to procure his admittance to the guild, and the latter at
the expense of the town. These miracle plays, however, do not seem to have
been of common occurrence or a regular part of the proceedings of the Lords
of Bon-Accord.
Aberdeen had early embarked
in maritime commerce. During the fifteenth century Flanders was the chief
emporium of this commerce, which was also to a certain extent carried on in
times of peace with English ports, such as Yarmouth. But the English trade
had its risks from the frequent and sudden outbreaks of war, and in 1441 the
alderman and another citizen were sent to England at the expense of the town
to recover certain ships and merchandise which had been captured by the
English. Piracy being rife, Aberdeen merchantmen always put to sea in
fighting trim, and next year an English vessel was captured, brought into
the port, and ordered to be detained pending the judgment of the king and
his Council. When, however, a ship of Campvere, which had recently become
the staple port for Scottish merchants in place of Bruges, was driven upon
the coast in 1456 the town did its best, to save the property from the
rapacity of some of the lairds. The intercourse with Flanders was so
frequent at this period that the hos-pitium of Lawrence Pomstrat at
Flushing, near to which Campvere was situated, was marked out as that to
which Aberdeen traders should resort. A letter of James II. to the town
implies, indeed, that Pomstrat held a position in relation to Scottish trade
analogous to that of a modern consul. In 1478 Aberdeen agreed to share the
expense of a commercial mission to the Duke of Burgundy, but the death of
Charles the Bold interfered with its despatch. Skins, wool, and salmon were
still the principal exports, and the ships brought back wine, fine cloths,
spices, and hardwares. A similar trade on a much smaller scale was carried
on with some of the French ports. The king's revenue was partly paid in
barrels of fish, which were consigned to " factors" at the staple port to be
exchanged for the return cargoes.
A public work in which
Aberdeen was much interested in the latter half of the fifteenth century was
the enlargement of St Nicholas' Church. The two great bells called Lawrence
(" Lowrie") and Mary had been placed in the towei in 1351 by Provost Leith
as his atonement for slaying Baillie Catanach. Early in the fifteenth
century a demand for more altars and masses had set in. Chantries were
multiplied, little chapels were dotted all over the building, and the
traders and more important families had their separate altars and
chaplains.1 This development raised a question of discipline and the framing
of necessary regulations both by the municipal and the ecclesiastical
authorities, and to a demand for the extension of the church fabric. In 1449
the town council imposed taxes upon exports to Bruges for "the reparation of
the parish kirk," and on a lower scale upon certain exports to the Firth of
Forth or elsewhere. The work seems to have proceeded slowly till 1477, when
Bishop Spens gave his second tithes for the building of the choir, a gift
which the council and community immediately followed up with a donation of
all fees of the alderman, baillies, dean of guild, and "abbot and prior,"
the surplus revenue of the common good, and all other profits that might
accrue, for seven years, and "more if need be," as also £70 a-year from the
town's fishings in the Don and Dee until the choir were " fully built and
complete." There were also voluntary contributions on a liberal scale by
individual citizens. Bishop Blacader, afterwards first Archbishop of
Glasgow, on his appointment to the see of Aberdeen, but before his
consecration, withdrew the temporary gift of the second tithes, and the
c.'tizens in their wrath passed an ordinance that no "neighbour dwelling
within the burgh should give him support under penalty of loss of freedom
and possessions." It was under the vigorous administration of Blacader's
successor, the great Bishop Elphinstone, that the choir of St Nicholas was
completed and consecrated.
The church was wholly under
the control of the town, and the bishop's relation to it was merely that of
its vicar. Though there was so large a clerical staff, divine service does
not appear to have always been performed with regularity, and the council
resolved that chaplains should regularly maintain matins, high mass, and
evensong under penalty of suspension for a year. The chaplains were a
troublesome body to keep in order, and their constant appeals to the town
council to take action for the recovery of the r dues seems to indicate
personal unpopularity. St Nicholas' Church was the visible representation of
the religion, the patriotism, the wealth, and the taste of the burgesses.
The st machar's cathedral. materials used in building it were procured from
distant places at heavy cost. The stone for the walls was not the native
granite but freestone imported from Covesea, in Morayshire ; lime for use by
the masons was specially brought from Dysart, and lead for covering the roof
was purchased in England at a cost of four and a-half lasts of salmon.
As to the condition of the
Church throughout the two counties at this period there is little definite
information on record. The lives of the bishops were written by Hector Boece,
and the chartulary of the diocese is extant; but from neither of these
sources is there much to be gathered concerning the state of religion or the
rural clergy. Aberdeen was on the whole fortunate in its bishops, but many
of them were statesmen and held office at Court, necessitating frequent
absence from the diocese. Gilbert Greenlaw, who was bishop at the beginning
of the century, was chancellor under Robert III., and ambassador to Charles
VII. On his return he found the Church in a very low state, attributed by
Boece to che oppression and rapacity of the nobles. Henry de Lich-toun, the
next bishop, translated from Moray in 1422, was frequently called upon to
undertake embassies. He was sent to England, where he was one of the
commissioners for obtaining the ransom of James I.; to Rome, and to France,
where he was concerned in the negotiation of the unfortunate marriage of the
Princess Margaret to the Dauphin, afterwards Louis XI. St Machar's Cathedral
had been originally designed by the second Bishop Alexander Kinninmond, but
it was Bishop Lichtoun who laid the foundations of the great central
steeple, which fell in 1688, and of the two western granite towers. Boece is
full of the praises of Bishop Lichtoun, but in the chartulary we find him
diverting revenues to the maintenance of the hospitalities of the episcopal
palace. The efforts of James I. to raise the standard of morality among the
priests of the diocese were, it is to be hoped, unnecessary; at ail events,
we find no evidence of the king's policy having been actively seconded by
the bishop and chapter. Ingram de Lindsay, the next bishop, is stated by
Boece to have been beloved by his people, and to have chosen to incur the
royal displeasure rather than promote unworthy men to benefices. His
successor, Bishop Thomas Spens, was an active courtier and statesman, whose
d'ocese saw little of him during the twenty years of his episcopate ; but he
rebuilt the bishop's palace beside the cathedral, and erected a chapel at
Glenbucket in consequence of six of the parishioners there having been
drowned in crossing the Don while on the long journey to their church of
Logie-Mar at Eastertide. Bishop Blacader's reign was brief, and apart from
his resumption of the revenues which Lis predecessors had dedicated to
church-building, the chief recorded act of his episcopate is the
excommunication of the Highlanders who had raided his lands of Birse. After
he had been translated to Glasgow, where he became first archbishop, he
prosecuted before the Lords of the Council some burgesses of Aberdeen and
other inhabitants of his former diocese for debts due to him before his
translation.
The religious orders
continued to flourish throughout the fifteenth century, though perhaps with
less influence in the north - east than in other parts of Scotland. The
Trinity Friars, with their ample endowments coming down from the days of the
Celtic dynasty, were the principal order in Aberdeen. The Dominicans, or
Black Friars, had the benefit of the special devotion of the Marischal
family and the benefactions of James III. The Carmelites were a poorer and
less important bod)-, and did not, like the Dominicans and Trinity Friars,
hold lands in the county. To these orders were added in 1471 the Franciscan
or Grey Friars, whose monastery occupied the site of Marischal College.
As the century had begun so
it ended with a visitation of pestilence, which in 1499 and 1500 made its
appearance all over Scotland. A number of the houses where the plague had
appeared were closed for fifteen days, and orders given for burning all
goods and clothes liable to carry infection. The epidemic was brought to
Aberdeen by a ship from Danzig. |
