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The age of castle-building and Episcopalian culture — Advance of wealth and
taste—The seventeenth-century castles and mansions and their builders—George
Jamesone, "the Scottish Vandyck" —Description of the city of Aberdeen—The
darker side of the picture—Poverty and mendicancy—Cateran irruptions—Tumults
of "clannit men"—The burning of Frendraught—The prohibited General Assembly
of Aberdeen—Revival and reign of Episcopacy —Brilliant episcopate of Bishop
Patrick Forbes: Church organiser and patron of learning—Forbes and the
universities—"The Aberdeen Doctors "—Raban the first Aberdeen printer—Death
of Bishop Forbes. With
the accession of James to the English throne the prospect of national
tranquillity became much surer than it had been at any time since the days
of the Alexanders, and a marked advance was taking place in civilisation and
taste. The reign of James VI. is noted as the era of a new order of
castle-building. The old houses of the country gentlemen were not suited to
an age in which peace and security were rendering possible a greater
accumulation of wealth than had hitherto been known. Since the introduction
of artillery the old faith in the utility of the feudal fortresses had been
shaken, but castellated architecture had a longer life in Scotland than in
England, and all through the seventeenth century the northern
castle-building was a picturesque combination of the old and new ideas.
One of the most famous of the
Scottish castles of James's time is that of Fyvie, built by the latest but
not least of the Aberdeenshire notables of that time, Alexander Seton,
President of the Court of Session and Chancellor of Scotland. Seton, who had
been a student of theology in Rome but at the Reformation had abandoned
theology for law, and at different times was known as Prior of Pluscarden,
Lord Urquhart, Lord Fyvie, and Earl of Dunfermline, purchased the estate of
Fyvie in 1596 from the Meldrums, its former possessors, and immediately
proceeded to supplement its Preston and Meldrum Towers with a noble
residence, designed, it is believed, by a French architect, and
distinguished by a splendour of style and fineness of conception that give
it a place among the brightest examples of the domestic architecture of the
period. Another of the north-eastern castle-builders was the Marquis of
Huntly, who, though occasionally harassed by the stress of public affairs,
found time to carry out great improvements on his estates, as in planting
the moors with timber trees, and who added by purchase ofo his territories
the lands of Strathaven, Auchindoun, and Blackwater, in Banffshire, and
Melgum in Angus, as well as certain possessions in Cromar. He restored the
house of Strathbogie which had been destroyed after the battle of Glenlivet,
added co the castles of Bog of Gight (Gordon Castle) and Aboyne, and built
new houses in Badenoch, at Plewlands in Moray, and Cean - na - Coil on
Deeside, which as his occasional residence took the place of the Peel of
Kinnord. It is on record that Cean-na-Coil (or " Kandychyle") was built by
skilled workmen brought from Huntly, where they had been engaged on the
restoration of the castle and in building a bridge. Earl Marischal's part in
constructive enterprise was seen In his stately mansion of Inverugie and in
the Peterhead harbour ; Sir Alexander Fraser, the other college-founder,
built the castle at Kinnaird Head; and the Earl of Erroll, whose seat had
been demolished at the same time as that of Huntly, provided himself with a
new and better residence. Castle Fraser, the Deeside houses of Drum and
Crathes, and Mid-mar Castle on the north-east slope of the Hill of Fare, are
other significant examples of the transition to a higher standard of taste
and culture.
A typical Aberdeenshire man
of the time was William Forbes, a successful merchant in the Danzig trade,
who purchased from the decayed family of Mortimer, or its creditors, the
estate of Craigievar, adjacent to his elder brother's domain of Corse, and
made other extensive acquisitions of land— namely, the estates of Fintray
and Menie, and properties in Forfarshire, Fife, and East Lothian. The Castle
of Craigievar, begun by the Mortimers, was for the most part built by
Forbes. Other Aberdeenshire men were returning from abroad with money—Skenes
and Aedies from Poland, Duncan Liddel from his German seats of learning, and
other physicians from other places. Besides the older trade with the
Continent, Aberdeen merchants were now engaged in a growing commercial
intercourse with England. One result of all this was a large accession of
wealth in the two counties, another was an accentuation of the demand for
better houses and more luxurious furnishings.
Scotland at this period
produced one considerable painter, the Aberdonian George Jamesone, " the
Scottish Vandyck." After improving his artistic powers as a pupil of Ruoens
at Antwerp, Jamesone returned to Aberdeen ;n 1620, where he flourished amid
the brilliant group of cultured men in Church and University then gathered
together in the city. His fame as a portrait-painter led to his being
summoned to Edinburgh to receive sittings from Charles I., and henceforth he
was in constant request by the northern and other nobility and gentry, as is
shown by the numerous specimens of his work to be met with all over Scotland
from Dunrobin to Tweed-side.
To James Gordon, parson of
Rothiemay, son of Gordon of Straloch the Scottish topographer, we are
indebted for an exact description of " both towns of Aberdeen," written
shortly after the middle of the seventeenth century, and for a plan of the
city as it then stood. In earlier times the low ground near the Dee had been
occupied with houses, but gradually the Gallowgate Hill (called also
Windmill Hill), Castle Hill, and St Katharine's Hill had been built upon,
until in Gordon's time the best part of the city stood upon or between these
eminences. The streets and lanes had not been laid out according to any
regular design, but were neatly paved with a "grey kind of hard stone not
unlike to flint," the buildings were "of stone and lime, rigged above,
covered with slates, and mostly of three or four storeys' height, some of
them higher." Wooden buildings, which were numerous in the preceding
century, had now gone out of fashion, though numbers were in existence at a
much later date, for it was not till after a great fire which destroyed the
west side of the Broadgate in 1741 that the erection of houses having their
outside walls of wood was finally prohibited. "The dwelling-houses," Gordon
goes on to say, " are cleanly, and beautiful, and neat, both within and
without, and the side that looks to the street mostly adorned with galleries
of timber which they call forestairs. Many houses have their gardens and
orchards adjoining; every garden has its postern, and these are all planted
with all sorts of trees which the climate will suffer to grow; so that the
whole town, to such as draw near it upon some sides of it, looks as if it
stood in a garden or little wood." Admiration is due to an example of public
spirit in adding to the attractiveness of the town on the part of Jamesone
who, finding that a piece of ground called the Playfield, " where comedies
were acted of old beside the Well of Spa," was being destroyed by flooding
from the Denburn, feued it from the town, embanked it against inundation,
laid it out as a garden, planted it with trees, and bequeathed it to the
community as a place of public resort. A daughter of Jamesone, it may be
added, is believed to be the artist in needlework who sewed the beautiful
tapestry that still decorates the wall of the West Church of St Nicholas.
But while evidences of a
progressive state of wealth and culture at this period are not wanting, the
darker side of social life continues to press itself on attention. A new
generation had grown up and passed away since the outburst of clamorous
mendicancy following the dissolution of the monasteries, and since crowds of
beggars gathered at the doors of St Nicholas Church and tugged at the cloaks
of citizens, demanding alms, at the close of public worship; but in the
Church records both of town and county we find many evidences of the
prevalence of destitution. In Aberdeen this problem was dealt with at the
end of the sixteenth century by a classification of the poor into the four
orders of children, "decayed" persons, the lame and 'mpotent, and the aged
and infirm who had lived in the town for at least seven years. Each
householder was to receive one pauper child into his family, while relief to
the other destitute classes was to be provided by voluntary contributions.
Numerous edicts were passed for the repression of sturdy beggars and the
expulsion of strangers without visible means of subsistence. At Banff, in
1642, it was ordered that on complaint being made of annoyance by any "
strong beggars," the offenders were to be " put in the thief's hole till the
magistrates get convenient time to cause scourge them in most rigorous
manner without any pity."
Frequent irruptions of "caterans"
from the Highland districts of Aberdeenshire, Banffshire, and
Inverness-shire on predatory expeditions into the low country took place
throughout the seventeenth century, and must be attributed to poverty as
their predominant cause. The town itself was not wholly beyond the range of
their depredations, and it continued to suffer occasionally from the
turbulence of some of the lairds at the head of bodies of retainers.
Aberdeen was the central meeting-place to which large numbers of people from
the country resorted at the Martinmas and Whitsunday terms to collect moneys
and make payments, and these half-yearly gatherings were made the occasion
of reviving clan feuds and private quarrels and grudges. The magistrates
tried to suppress the tumults that arose in this way, but as the great
disturbers of the peace were " clannit men," who in great numbers fought for
their respective sides, the local authorities themselves incurred some
danger in attempting to mediate. The Privy Council was therefore petitioned
in 1603 by the provost and magistrates to charge the nobility, gentry, and
lieges of all ranks to put a stop to these disturbances. Four years
afterwards the magistrates had to appeal again to the Privy Council to free
them from the " letters of caption " that were frequently addressed to them
for apprehending and putting in ward "clannit gentlemen," which commissions
they declared themselves unable to fulfil, suggesting that this duty might
be transferred to the Marquis of Huntly, as sheriff of the shire. The town
occasionally look part in the strifes or in quelling the disorders of the
country, as when it sent a force to aid the Earl Marischal in recovering
Deer,1 and when, in 1603, it sent sixteen soldiers to assist the king's
guard in besieging the house of Dumbreck, held against its lawful owner, his
brother, by George Meldrum, who was soon afterwards beheaded " for his
oppressions and other crimes." Sometimes the citizens interposed to prevent
broils, as in the case of the factions of Earl Marischal and Gordon younger
of Cairnborrow, between whom a strife portending bloodshed arose at one of
these Martinmas gatherings. Another illustration of the state of the country
in these respects is found in the case of a society called the Knights of
the Mortar, or Society of the Boys, which was headed by some of the minor
Leslies and Forbeses. These bravados, who were bound by oath to stand by one
another in all their quarrels, went about terrorising and oppressing the
population. In 1609 the Lords of Council, considering it "a reproach and
scandal that such a handful and infamous byke of lawless limmars should be
so long suffered" in any part of the kingdom, granted a commission against
them to the Earl of Enzie, eldest son of the Marquis of Huntly, Sir
Alexander Gordon of Cluny, and others; but other three years elapsed before
the society was suppressed.
The friendly attitude of
James towards Huntly was not continued by Charles. The new king had a
special antipathy to the jurisdictions exercised by the greater nobility,
and Huntly had his open or secret enemies whose whisperings may have excited
prejudice against him in the royal mmd. On the occasion of new trouble with
the Clanchattan, through which the marquis was suspected of acting against
Moray, now the northern lieutenant, Charles called upon him to resign the
sheriffships of Aberdeen and Inverness. That of Aberdeen was conferred on
Johnston of Caskieben, who had been created a baronet; and under the
patronage of the Court much progress in social distinction was made by the
branch of the great house of Crichton which had acquired the lordship of
Frendraught, in the vicinity of Huntly's seat in Strathbogie. Sir James
Crichton extended his possessions by a purchase of land from Gordon of
Rothie-may, whereupon followed a dispute as to boundaries and salmon-fishings,
a lawsuit in which Crichton prevailed, and a feud in which acts of
lawlessness were committed by the Gordons on Crichton's lands. Armed with a
warrant from the Lords of Council, early in 1630, Crichton was proceeding to
Rothiemay with a body of his retainers to arrest Gordon, but met him on the
way also at the head of an armed party. In the conflict which ensued Gordon
was fatally wounded. His son and successor allied himself with James Grant,
an outlaw and brigand chief of Upper Banffshire, for the purpose of
devastating the Frendraught lands; but after a reference of the matter to
the judgment of Huntly, Sir Robert Gordon of Gordonstown, and Sir William
Seton, and an unwilling payment by Crichton of 5000 merks as compensation to
Rothiemay's widow, all parties professed reconciliation.
Fresh trouble, however, soon
arose. In Crichton's party in the conflict had been John Meldrum of Reidhill
and James Leslie, son of the laird of Pitcaple; and Meldrum, who was married
to a sister of Pitcaple, had been wounded in the affray. Thinking himself
insufficiently rewarded, Meldrum possessed himself of two of Crichton's
horses. In virtue of one of the commissions or warrants, that were a cause
of so much bloodshed, Crichton proceeded for the purpose of exacting redress
to Pitcaple, where, much to his annoyance, one of his kinsmen entered into
an altercation with, and seriously wounded, James Leslie. The powerful
Leslie interest was now roused against Crichton, who appealed first to
Huntly and then to Moray. Moray thought he could do no good, but Huntly
ultimately agreed to mediate, and invited Leslie of Pitcaple and Crichton to
Bog of Gight. The Leslies were the first to leave, and hearing that they
were lying in wait for Crichton, whom he detained for two days, Huntly sent
his son, Lord John Gordon, who some years before had been created Viscount
Aboyne and Melgum, with young Gordon of Rothiemay and an escort, to
accompany him to Frendraught. There the party were hospitably entertained by
the Crichtons, and pressed to remain for the night.
The house of Frendraught, an
example of the new style of baronial residence, consisted of a tower and a
new building adjoining it, between the two being a passage and staircase of
timber. Rooms were assigned to the strangers in the tower, the viscount's
being on the lower floor; while Rothiemay and some of their retinue were
accommodated above. The household had gone to rest for the night. Presently
Lord Melgum became aware that the tower was on fire, and rushed upstairs to
apprise Rothiemay. The rapid progress of the flames prevented his return,
and all the occupants of the tower perished.
Over the burning of the tower
of Frendraught a mystery has always hung. Huntly and the Gordons suspected
Sir James and Lady Elizabeth Crichton of being the incendiaries, though Lady
Elizabeth was herself a Gordon, being daughter of the twelfth Earl of
Sutherland. Crichton blamed the Leslies and their connections, whose
supposed lying in wait for him was the cause of the party. being at
Frendraught. The Bishop of Aberdeen and others were appointed to visit the
place and take evidence as to the origin of the fire, but their report went
no further than to say that m their judgment it could not have been raised
by persons outside the house without aid from within. Judicial
investigations were instituted, but with no other result than the execution
of Meldrum upon meagre evidence except as regards his animus against
Crichton. Two servants at Frendraught, a man and a woman, were tried; they
were tortured to extract confession, and confessing nothing were set at
liberty. The balladists and Arthur Johnston, who has two contemporary poems
on the subject, voice the suspicion which from the first was directed
against Lady Elizabeth Crichton. On the other hand, the fire of Frendraught
was regarded as retribution on Huntly for the burning of Donibristle. But
Crichton and his people were mercilessly harassed by the Gordon partisans
and by lawless Highlanders with their connivance, by Gilderoy and his
freebooters, by " broken men" of the Grant connection, and even by hungry
Camerons and Macdonells from the west. Crichton, however, in the phrase of
Spalding, had "great moyan at Court, and some years after the fire the Privy
Council, at his instance, summoned Huntly before it in Edinburgh, and bound
him under a penalty of a hundred thousand merks to abstain from molesting
Frendraught. Broken in spirit by his reverses and sorrows, the marquis
addressed a pathetic petition to the king, in which he spoke of himself as "
robbed of a dear son and a near kinsman through the matchless treachery of
the laird of Frendraught," and stated that, though he had not hitherto
interfered to save Crichton from personal harm or his estates and goods from
the insolencies of others, he now in all humility acknowledged his error in
not preserving peace in the neighbourhood of his residence. Crichton
retained the royal favour, and lived to see his son raised to the peerage as
first Viscount Frendraught, but the house did not prosper or long survive.
212 THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF
ABERDEEN.
The first event in the
ecclesiastico-political conflict of which Aberdeenshire was the arena in the
seventeenth century is the General Assembly of Aberdeen held in 1605 by a
few ministers of the extreme Presbyterian party in defiance of the royal
authority, and with disastrous results to themselves. The diocese of
Aberdeen had been divided into two provincial synods, and these into
presbyteries, a few years before James agreed reluctantly, in 1592, to the
abrogation of the episcopal system; but when he convoked a meeting of the
Estates, and a general synod of the Church at Perth in 1597, the ministers
of the north-eastern district showed a decided indisposition to respond to
the leading-strings of the Melvilles and other " Edinburgh popes." The
proceedings of this Assembly were followed later in the year by the Act of
the Estates providing for the restoration of episcopacy to the extent that
such pastors as the king should provide to the otfice of prelate should have
a vote in Parliament. The clergy of the north-eastern diocese, and even
those of Angus, where Erskine of Dun had been "superintendent," were more
favourably disposed than their brethren in the south towards the views in
favour with the king. The powerful support which these views received from
the accession of James to the English throne stimulated the Melville party
to make a bold incursion into the territory of their opponents by holding a
General Assembly at Aberdeen. It was to be held in July 1604, but was
prohibited by royal proclamation. On the appointed day of meeting James
Melville and two other commissioners from the Presbytery of St Andrews
appeared in St Nicholas Church and solemnly protested that they were there
to do their duty, but as it was only an assembly of nine they could merely
protest and adjourn. The most active members of the Presbyterian party in
Aberdeenshire at this time were Principal Ferme of the Fraserburgh College
and. John Forbes, minister of Alford, and at their instance in the Synod of
Aberdeen a process of excommunication was brought against the Marquis of
Huntly. On Huntly appealing to the Privy Council for an interdict, the
defence of the synod was undertaken by Ferme and Forbes, and proceedings
being threatened against the ministers, Forbes was sent to London to plead
their cause before the king. The Aberdeen Assembly was convoked again for
July 1605, and again it was proclaimed illegal; but as on this occasion
there were nineteen ministers in attendance, including those from the south,
it so far proceeded to business as to elect Forbes its moderator, and then
adjourned till the following September. Among the nineteen ministers
constituting the Assembly were William Forbes of Towie, Robert Youngson of
Clatt, and James Irwin of Tough, in the district where the Forbes influence
predominated, besides John Forbes of Alford, with Ferme, and Welsh the
son-in-law of Knox, all of whom were sent as prisoners to different places
for recusancy. They had not expected to be so severely dealt with, and John
Forbes pleaded that the Assembly had been held with the concurrence of
Chancellor Seton, a plea which the Chancellor in a letter to the king
denounced as a " manifest lie," inviting his Majesty to judge whether his
Chancellor or "a condemned traitor" was most worthy of credit. There can be
little doubt, however, that the ministers did receive encouragement from
Seton and others. The king, for his part, concluded that " the ministers
would betray religion rather than submit to government, and that the
Chancellor would betray the king for the malice he bore to the bishops."
Of the three great
ecclesiastical parties of Scotland, the thoroughgoing Presbyterians were
exceptionally weak in these counties; and the Aberdeen Assembly, which had
been convoked for the purpose of strengthening them, had led for the time to
their utter discomfiture and overthrow. The Roman Catholics, on the other
hand, were exceptionally strong, and though unable to continue the armed
struggle, they seemed to be rapidly regaining ground. The favour shown them
by Huntly was a cause of much concern to the Church by law established.
Huntly himself, after being repeatedly censured, suffered new
excommunication; but on again signing the Confession of Faith he received
absolution at the Glasgow Assembly of 1610,—only, however, to relapse once
more to his old position. Erroll, who had conformed to Protestantism with
Huntly in 159S, was more earnestly Catholic at heart, and though he agreed
to sign the Confession in 1610, his conscience smote him, and he drew back
with tears, his manifest conscientiousness leading, as Archbishop
Spottiswoode records, to his being " used with greater lenity than others of
that set." Most of the other Gordons and Hays were likewise Romanists in
profession or sympathy, as were several of the Leslies, some of the Irvines
and Cheynes, and among minor county families the Cons, Turings, and
Blakhalls. Robert Bisset of Lessen-drum, who was " bailie " to the Marquis
of Huntly, has the distinction of being set down in a list of adherents of
the Church of Rome drawn up at the beginning of the reign of Charles I. as
"the most pestilent and dangerous instrument in the north"; and James Forbes
of Blackton, the only Forbes on the list, is described as " a very
pernicious seducer and busy trafficker." Among priests engaged in the
mission against Protestantism in Aberdeenshire before the "troubles" broke
out were several of the name of Leslie, including the notorious Capuchin
known as Father Archangel, three Christies, of whom one was principal of the
College of Douai, and a band of other " Fathers." The energy and zeal put
forth in the Roman Catholic interest, however, were destined to be barren of
substantial or lasting result.
The third and for a time the
most powerful of the ecclesiastical parties were the Episcopalians. They had
the king on their side; they were the moderate party who attracted the
support of the burgesses ; their growing ascendancy and prestige checked the
reaction towards Romanism ; and their history during the second, third, and
fourth decades of the seventeenth century is the history of the intellectual
and religious life of Aberdeenshire. In the days of Bishop Patrick Forbes,
as in those of Bishop Elphinstone, Aberdeen had a celebrity far beyond the
limits of Scotland as a home of scholars and centre of light.
The unhappy condition of the
north-eastern province as regards both church and commonwealth was the
subject of a remarkable memorial addressed to the king by the Synod of
Aberdeen in February 1606. This document represented that "uncouth priests
and Jesuits" were received by the "great men and others under them," and
were saying mass and seducing the simple; that the lairds of Gight and
Newton —Gordons and " excommunicated papists " — were " chief maintainers of
these things " ; that when the Synods of Aberdeen and Moray sought by the
censures of the Kirk to reclaim Lords Kuntly and Erroll from "papistry"
these peers were continually discharged by royal letters; that much of the
country was left in spiritual destitution by the long confinement of its
ministers, while the neighbouring kirks had been left vacant since the
Reformation ; and that other ministers were condemned and railed upon, their
doctrine not heard and discipline mocked, while Jesuits ministered in the
churches and parishes without pastors. As for the commonwealth, it was rent
by deadly feuds of the Forbeses and Irvines, Leslies and Leiths. Another
head of complaint was that every man that pleased went about armed. The
memorial earnestly besought the royal intervention to remedy this state of
things.
The spiritual destitution
seems to have been greatest in the Presbytery of Alford, which had been
deprived of four of its ministers for their participation in the forbidden
Assembly. There was in this district a man of high culture, destined to
exert great influence over the religious condition of the two
counties—Patrick Forbes, laird of Corse and elder brother of John Forbes,
minister of Alford, William Forbes, founder of the family of Craigievar, and
Arthur Forbes who served in Sweden, settled in Ireland, was created a
baronet, and was father of the first Earl of Granard. Patrick Forbes was
educated in the south, first at Stirling, and afterwards at Glasgow
University under Andrew Melville, who was his kinsman, and whom he
accompanied from Glasgow to St Andrews. For a time he lived in England, and
he is said to have received part of his education at Oxford. lie had been in
full sympathy with the Melville party, under whose influence he had been
brought up. At Corse, to which he returned, he attended to his duties as
laird, pursued the literary and theological studies to which he was devoted,
and, in view of the lack of public ministrations of religion, he assembled
his family and dependants on Sundays and taught them in matters of faith and
duty.
A serious blow fell on the
Presbyterian interest when Andrew Melville, for his outbreak on the
Archbishop of Canterbury, was committed to the Tower, while James Melville
was exiled to England, and Welsh, John Forbes of Alford, and four of their
companions were finally condemned to banishment for their participation in
the Aberdeen Assembly. Deprived of its leaders, the Presbyterian party was
paralysed on the other hand, the powers of the bishops had been increased,
and Blackburn, who had been titular bishop of Aberdeen, with little more
than nominal powers, received episcopal consecration in 1611, along with the
other Scottish bishops, and became the regular president of the provincial
or diocesan synod. These changes being ratified by Parliament, the
importance of Presbyteries was lessened and Episcopacy was once more fully
established. The restoration of Episcopacy did no violence to public
sentiment in Aberdeenshire or Banffshire, but on its action with regard to
the former endowments of the Church depended the attitude of their lay
possessors.
Patrick Forbes was urged by
the bishop and diocesan synod to become an ordained clergyman in order that
the Church, in such times, might have his aid. He refused to take this step,
but with the approbation of these authorities was to continue his
expositions of Scripture until such time as a regular incumbent should be
appointed. Archbishop Gladstanes, however, on hearing that Forbes was acting
as a lay preacher, ordered him to desist, and a letter in the same sense
came down from the king's secretary. To this letter Forbes made a dignified
reply, stating that in the Presbyteries of Alford and Kincardine O'Neil at
least twenty-one churches " lay unplanted," and the condition of the people
was little removed from heathenism ; and he went on to narrate how he began
in simple and private manner to catechise his own family, how the churchmen
of the province pressed him to take some public charge in the ministry of
the Church, and how, on his refusal to do so, they requested that at least
for the good of others he would transfer his domestic services to the vacant
church near his house, which he had done, but he had never gone beyond
giving an ordinary lecture on Sunday. In obedience to the Primate, however,
he stopped his public teaching. A painful incident led to an alteration in
his course of life. John Chalmers, minister of Keith, who had been a regent
of Marischal College, fell into a morbid state of mind and attempted to
commit suicide. His self-inflicted wounds not proving at once fatal, he
became keenly remorseful and sent for Forbes, imploring him to enter the
ministry and take charge of the parish. Forbes at last resolved to take
orders, and in 1612, in the forty-seventh year of his age, he became
minister of Keith, where he remained till 1618, when he was raised to the
bishopric of Aberdeen. He had long parted company with the extreme
Presbyterians. Their principles now seemed to him incompatible with
discipline and civil government.
Another gifted member of the
Forbes family was already impressing his strong personality upon the
citizens of Aberdeen—namely, William Forbes, afterwards first Bishop of
Edinburgh. A General Assembly was held in Aberdeen, at the request of the
bishops, in August 1616. Huntly had been committed to ward for relapsing
into "popery," and after a short time had been released under a warrant from
the Chancellor, and absolved by the Archbishop of Canterbury. This Assembly,
under the presidency of Archbishop Spottis-woode, adopted a new Confession
of Faith, and Huntly was one of its earliest subscribers. In response to a
missive from the king desiring that the principal towns of the realm should
be planted with pastors and ministers of good literature and conversation,
and in particular that care be taken to have a qualified and sufficient
minister in the town of Aberdeen, the Assembly nominated William Forbes,
minister of Monymusk, to be one of the ministers of St Nicholas'. An
Aberdonian by birth, nephew of the two Cargills, and an alumnus of Marischal
College, he had been in Poland, and at several of the German and Dutch
universities, and through his relative Dr Gilbert Jack had made the
acquaintance of Scaliger, Grotius, Vossius, and other scholars. He had also
been at Oxford, and by the advice of Dr John Craig had declined an offer of
the chair of Hebrew there, and returned to the bracing climate of
Aberdeenshire. Degrees in divinity had been suppressed by the Reformers as
tending to "popery" and superstition, but were revived at St Andrews in
1616, and in the following year, on the occasion of the king's visit, the
doctorate was conferred on William Forbes. He took a leading part in the
Episcopalian and liturgical revival in Aberdeen, and may be said to have
been a High Churchman, in the modern or Tractarian sense, holding that many
of the differences between the Church of Rome and the Protestants were
merely superficial. Bishop Patrick Forbes, who by this time was presiding
over the diocese, reported to the king that his majesty had not "a more
learned, sound, sanctified, and diligent divine" than William Forbes. On the
resignation of the principalship of Marischal College by Aedie, who had but
meagre qualifications for it, Dr William Forbes became his successor.
The career of the new
Principal is very instructive as to the spirit prevailing in the north-east
and the contrast it presents with that exemplified in other parts of
Scotland. In 1621 he was appointed one of the ministers of Edinburgh, and
reluctantly left Aberdeen. In Aberdeen, the stronghold of Episcopacy, he had
been one of its leaders; in Edinburgh his life was one of contention and
turmoil, and his position had been prejudiced from the first by the fact
that the popular candidate when he was appointed had been Andrew Cant, an
Aberdonian of a very different school, and of great rhetorical powers as
well as aggressiveness. After battling with little effect against the
difficulties of his position, and experiencing the worry of organised
annoyance till his health threatened to give way, Forbes gladly availed
himself of an opportunity to return to his old charge in Aberdeen, where he
was welcomed back by all classes.
With his colleague, Dr
Baron—the two being foremost men in the Church—Dr William Forbes was sent by
Archbishop Spottiswoode to preach in Edinburgh before King Charles on his
visit to Scotland in 1633. One result of this royal visit was the erection
of the bishopric of Edinburgh and Forbes's appointment to it, no doubt on
the suggestion or with the concurrence of Laud. Bishop Burnet records that
his father, who had acted for Bishop William Forbes in matters of law, often
said that he never saw him without thinking his heart was in heaven, that he
preached " with a zeal and vehemence that made him forget all measures of
time," and that his sermons of two or three hours' duration so wasted his
strength, with his ascetic course of life, that he died within a year of his
promotion to the bishopric. In his " High" Churchism he went beyond the
other Aberdeen Doctors, and his only published work is "the first Scottish
theological treatise in which the writings of the Anglican divines are
constantly appealed to as authorities."
Much greater importance,
however, appertains to the career of Patrick Forbes. Immediately after his
consecration he made a notable public appearance as preacher before the
General Assembly at Perth. The Episcopal party controlled the Assembly, and
the " Perth Articles" were accordingly adopted; but strong dissension soon
began to manifest itself in the south, and with a view to composing
differences a conference between the bishops and some leading ministers of
the Presbyterian party was held a few months afterwards. At this conference
Archbishop Spottiswoode put Forbes forward to take the lead, believing that
his influence and sympathies would weigh with the ministers. From a summary
of his speech preserved by Calderwood it would seem that his tone was that
of moderation, and that he upheld the episcopal system and advocated
compliance with the Perth Articles on the practical ground not only that a
decree of the Church ought to command the obedience of any reasonable
person, but that it was necessary to have unity of purpose in dealing with
irreligion, the papists, and the weaklings who, "seeing such a distraction
of opinions and contrariety amongst ministers, doubted of all religion, and
knew not what side to take." Forbes seems to have become increasingly
impatient of schismatic and opinionative ministers; and when he found that
the ratification of the Perth Articles by Parliament was not unanimous, he
made a speech in which he declared that though he would himself have
preferred that the ceremonies which they authorised had not been introduced,
yet there was no danger in using them, and those who refused obedience in
regard to them were "contentious troublers of the peace of the Church, and
worthy to be punished." The principles of tolerance were still imperfectly
understood even by the most enlightened; its spirit was never characteristic
of reformers.
There is no reason to dissent
from the view of Spottiswoode that Forbes was the best prelate Scotland had
known since Elphinstone. "So wise and judicious, so grave and graceful a
pastor," says the archbishop, " I have not known in all my time in any
church." Without delay he proceeded to make himself exactly acquainted with
the condition of the diocese, and to remedy abuses, supply defects,
stimulate the clergy, and allay dissensions. Without warning and without
attendants he would arrive in a particular district on Saturday evening,
attend the church on Sunday, and take note of what was defective or amiss ;
he removed unworthy ministers and put better men in their place, procured
the division of large parishes into areas of more manageable compass, and
even succeeded to some extent in overcoming the rapacity of the lay
impropriators of the tithes who had favoured the system of placing two or
more parishes under the charge of a single minister, and were in large
measure responsible for the spiritual destitution prevailing in the diocese.
Preeminently a working bishop, the whole diocese was his parish and the
whole people his flock, and he left an enduring impression on the religious
life of Aberdeenshire.
But it was not alone, or
perhaps even chiefly, in his direct dealings with the clergy and people that
his influence was effectively exerted. The universities had his early care.
In 1619 a commission of visitation was appointed to inquire into the
management of their revenues and the manner of teaching, to correct abuses,
and to report to the Privy Council; and it was to act through a quorum of at
least seven members, of whom the bishop was always to be one. At King's
College Principal Rait was severely censured by the commissioners, who found
that he had usurped the office of common procurator, had been negligent in
teaching, and had maladministered the college affairs. Though the revenues
of the deanery, the sub-chantry, and the parsonage of Methlic had lately
been annexed, the management was so corrupt that the condition of the
college had not improved; while there was " no ministry of the gospel in the
kirks of the deanery, but lamentable heathenism and such looseness as is
horrible to record, even about the cathedral kirk of the uiocese." The
principal, in accordance with the terms of the foundation, was held
personally liable to make good any deficiency in the furnishings or fabric
of the college; but rather than proceed to a sentence against him, the
bishop and his fellow-commissioners allowed him to enter into a bond to
provide from the rents of the deanery a minister for the parish of
Monycabock or Newmachar, to restore the internal furnishings of the college,
repair the buildings, and clear away the debt. The commission appointed a
rector, dean of faculty, and professor of civil law; the professorship of
canon law, abolished by the New Foundation of the Presbyterian party, was
restored, as also that of physic, to which Dr Patrick Dun of Marischal
College was appointed, while the office of grammarian or humanist was
conferred on Wedderburn. Some of these appointments seem to have been
provisional and without salary, but they betoken a desire on the part of the
bishop to infuse new life into Elphinstone's university and to revive his
spirit within it. Another step was to re-establish the professorship of
divinity, for which purpose the bishop and clergy raised among themselves
the necessary fund.
After sitting for three days
at King's College the commissioners proceeded to the sister university, but
only to find its gates closed against them. When they had knocked for some
time the porter came to a window and told them that he himself was locked
in, and that Dr Strachan, rector of the college, Gilbert Keith, son of Earl
Marischal, and William Ogston, newly appointed as a regent, had taken away
the keys. Earl Marischal, though he had been appointed one of the
commissioners, had not attended the King's College visitation, nor was he
disposed to have his own college interfered with by the bishop. The king's
commission was read at the gate, the principal and his colleagues being
summoned to appear. Principal Aedie answered that he was ready to welcome
the visitation provided the commissioners guaranteed him against danger from
his patron, Earl Marischal, and he produced a letter from the earl
forbidding the principal and regents to acknowledge the commission in any
way. Strachan. on being personally summoned to desist from impeding the
visitation, "refused to compear or deliver any keys or open any gates,"
alleging that he had orders to a contrary effect from his "lord and master"
Earl Marischal. An adjournment for a few days took place, as Lord Chancellor
Seton, who was at the head of the commission, was about to visit Aberdeen.
On the advice of Seton it was agreed by the commissioners to request the
earl to give way to the visitation, and Principal Aedie undertook to deliver
letters in this sense from the chancellor and the bishop, and to report the
answer. On the following day the principal reported that he had not seen
Lord Marischal, and that the countess " told him that he might carry back
the letters, for he would not find the earl or any answer to them at that
time." But the resignation of Principal Aedie and the appointment of Dr
William Forbes to the principalship may be regarded as practical evidence
that the bishop prevailed. Forbes had held a readership in theology created
by the town council in 1616, and on the endowment of a professorship Dr
Robert Baron was presented to the chair — a profound scholar and theologian
after the bishop's own heart.
Bishop Forbes "visited"
King's College again in 1628, when he stopped the costly banquets which
students on graduating gave to the professors, and ordered the money thus
wasted to be expended on the library. The university under his influence was
essentially a school of philosophy, but in the hands of theologians of a
different order from the Melvilles and those whom they inspired. It was the
great centre of Episcopalian culture in Scotland.
The " Aberdeen Doctors" whom
the bishop gathered round him, and who made Aberdeen famous in the world of
learning, were his son, Dr John Forbes, professor of divinity in King's
College, and reputedly the most learned of the group; Dr Robert Baron, a St
Andrews' graduate, who had succeeded to the incumbency at Keith, had been
translated to St Nicholas' Church, was shortly afterwards appointed first
professor of divinity in Marischal College, and at his decease, which
occurred prematurely, was bishop-designate of Orkney; Dr William Leslie,
successively regent, sub-principal, and principal of King's College; Dr
Alexander Scroggie, promoted by Bishop Forbes from the parish of Drumoak to
the Cathedral of St Machar; Dr James Sibbald, of the Sibbalds of Kair, in
Kincardineshire, regent of Marischal College in 1619, and minister of St
Nicholas' in 1626, " to whom nothing could be objected," says the parson of
Rothiemay, " if you call not anti-covenanting a crime "; and Dr Alexander
Ross, another of the city ministers, but not, as has sometimes been alleged,
the author read by Samuel Butler's " ancient sage philosopher." Dr William
Forbes had been of the same goodly fellowship; and Dr William Guild, another
of the city ministers, and afterwards principal of King's College, also
belonged to the group, but when stormy weather began to arise he cast in his
lot with the Covenanters. There were other eminent men in the Aberdeen
society of this brilliant episcopate. Dr Arthur Johnston, whose sympathies
were at one with those of the Doctors of Divinity, was in frequent residence
at his house in Aberdeen, and Dr William Johnston, on his return from Sedan,
was established as first professor of mathematics in Marischal College. John
Lundie, master of the grammar-school and King's College humanist, and David
Leech, sub-principal, emerged under Bishop Forbes and changed with the
times. David Wedderburn, Principals Patrick Dun and David Rait, the latter
being Dean of Aberdeen, and George Jamesone, who cultivated his art and saw
much of aristocratic society while his contemporaries were pursuing
learning, have each a recognisable individuality and position in the
numerous company.
One other name must be
mentioned, that of Edward Raban the printer. The art of printing had been
introduced into Scotland at the instance of Bishop Elphinstone, but it was
not until after the lapse of more than a century, under the stimulating
influence of Bishop Patrick Forbes, that the first printing-press was set up
in Aberdeen. Regent Andrew Strachan, the contemporary panegyrist of the
founders and benefactors of the university, m an oration printed by Raban in
1631, records in grandiloquent Latin how the bishop, "when he perceived the
printing-press to be a nursery of the library, brought hither as if from
heaven the art of printing, an art divine and worthy of the brain of Jove
which never before had greeted the furests of Caledonia and the Grampian
mountains"; and how "by this privilege our academy is exalted above all
others in the country." Raban, who was by birth an Englishman, appears to
have settled for a short time in Edinburgh, from which he removed to St
Andrews as printer to the university. His stay at St Andrews did not exceed
two years (1620-1622), but during that period he did some work for Dr Baron,
whose connection with St Salvator's College seems not to have ceased when he
became minister of Keith. Before July 1622 Raban was exercising his art in
Aberdeen as printer to the university; in November of the same year the town
council appointed him printer to the town at a salary of ^40 Scots, and, in
respect of the cheapening of school-books, each scholar at the
grammar-school and the English and music schools was to pay him eightpence
quarterly. Many works issued from his press during the next quarter of a
century — yearly almanacs and "prognostications," popular poetry,
controversial pamphlets, university theses, Wedder-burn's grammars and other
educational publications, editions of the Latin classics, various works of
Arthur Johnston, sermons, theological treatises, psalm-books and liturgies,
and a famous national work, the Book of Canons, the supervision of which was
entrusted to Dr Baron. By this time (1636) the hostility to the Episcopal
Church in southern Scotland was ominously strong, and other reasons than Dr
Baron's editorship may have dictated the production in Aberdeen of the Book
of Canons.1
Never had scholarship been so
highly valued or so fully provided for in Scotland as it was in Aberdeen in
the days of Bishop Forbes and the eminent men he gathered round him. In the
divinity curriculum at King's College a prominent place was assigned to
Church History, which had hitherto been entirely neglected : it was taught
by Dr John Forbes, and the historical spirit accompanied the philosophical
in the erudite Dr Baron, whose special strength was in the Fathers and
Schoolmen. Bishop Forbes revived the old ordinance by which the regents were
obliged at the end of six years, if required, to pass from the university to
the charge of parochial cures, and make way for younger men in training for
the ministry. This system is said to have invigorated both the university
and the Church. Otherwise, Forbes's rule left a lasting impression, which
the coming " Troubles" served only to deepen. His rule was gentle, and he
lived on cordial terms with the clergy, but where principle and duty were
concerned he was inflexible. On the occasion of a dispute between two
heritors as to sittings in one of the churches, the more influential of the
two obtained a letter from the king ordering an award in his favour, but the
bishop paid no attention to the missive, decided in favour of the other, and
wrote to the Privy Council, of which he was himself a member, saying that he
was indeed indebted for his position to the Crown, but that his conscience
was God's, and by its guidance he must act. This incident is in keeping with
his whole character and practice. After being struck with paralysis in 1632
and physically disabled, so that he had to be carried into church, he
continued to preach and to preside over meetings of the clergy. When he died
on March 28, 1635, his body was removed from the Episcopal Palace in Old
Aberdeen to St Ninian's Chapel, on the Castle Hill, and there lay in state
till April 9, when a public funeral took place with elaborate solemnities.
During his comparatively short episcopate of seventeen years, Bishop Forbes
effected a transformation in the religious life of the diocese; and a
remarkable literary monument to his memory was issued from Raban's press in
the course of the year of his death, in a volume containing funeral sermons
by all the Aberdeen Doctors, with letters from the king and the Scottish
archbishops and bishops, and poetical and other tributes to his memory by
Arthur Johnston, Wedderburn, and numerous other writers. |
