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Beginning of the " Troubles "—The nobility and the Church
endowments—Charles's ejection of Provost Patrick Leslie—The anti-Episcopal
party in municipal politics — Samuel Rutherford in Aberdee'n—Visit of the
Commissioners of the Tables—Death of the first Marquis of Huntly : Overtures
by the Covenanters to his successor—Rival proclamations at the Cross—The
Glasgow Assembly—: Abstention of Aberdeen clergy—Division of parties in Aberdeenshire—First occupation of the city by Montrose—Huntly entrapped and
sent to Edinburgh—The Trot of Turriff—Royalists again hold Aberdeen—Invasion
of the Mearns by Aboyne : Fiasco at Megray Hill—Battle of the Bridge of
Dee—The forced loan and Articles of Bon-Accord — Monro's sieges of
Royalists' residences— General Assembly in Aberdeen—Dr Guild appointed
Principal of King's College—Lord Gordon joins the Covenanters —Supplies for
the army in England—Rejection of northern recruits—Haddo and the Jaffrays—Execution
of Sir John Gordon— Montrose as Royalist leader—Fight at Justice Mills and
sack of Aberdeen—The "Cleansers" in Deeside—The battle of Alford —Huntly and
Montrose—Huntly again in command of Aberdeen —His execution.
We are now on the eve of the "Troubles" of which
so many pictures are preserved in the vivid ' Memorials' of Spalding. The
ecclesiastical measures of the later years of James's reign, and still more
those of Charles, alarmed the lay holders of the old Church lands and
revenues, who availed themselves of the incidents of Charles's visit to
Scotland in 1633 to make common cause with the Presbyterian clergy and
hasten on the crisis. Much of the legislation of 1633, however, was clearly
in the public interest, especially that relating to schools and vacant
churches, and while many of the Aberdeenshire heritors were keen in their
opposition to the Government and the bishops, their action has to be viewed
in the light of their dealings with the ecclesiastical revenues and of their
neglect to provide instruction for old or young.
Of the exercise of the royal
prerogative Aberdeen was soon to have its own direct and special experience.
The city had been represented in the Parliament of 1633 by Provost Sir Paul
Menzies—the last Menzies in the list of provosts — and Patrick Leslie, of
Iden, or Eden, on the banks of the Deveron, wrho was one of the baillies.
Charles had attended the meetings of the Parliament and its legislative
committee, and the attitude of the second representative of Aberdeen had
attracted his notice and excited his displeasure. On Leslie being appointed
to the provostship in the following year the king demanded his removal from
office, and called on the town council to reinstate Sir Paul Menzies. " Some
seditious convocations " connected with the election are mentioned in the
letter conveying this demand, and from Spalding we gather that Leslie and
his friends had succeeded in packing the council with a majority of their
own partisans. The demands of the king were complied with, and at the
election of the following year a letter was read from Archbishop
Spottiswoode, as Chancellor, forbidding the appointment of Leslie to the
provostship, and even his admission to the council. While the proceedings
were going on Bishop Bellenden, the successor of Patrick Forbes, accompanied
by the sheriff, intervened with a demand that an adjournment should take
place till the king and Privy Council should be consulted ; and as a
majority of the electing body—the old and new councils sitting together —
was still determined to go on with the election, the bishop, as a Privy
Councillor, dissolved the meeting. On the council reassembling a fortnight
afterwards a scene of violent disorder took place between the rival parties,
ending in the withdrawal of Leslie and his supporters in a body, and the
election as provost of Robert Johnston of Crimond, a relation of Dr Arthur
Johnston, and father of Colonel or "Crowner" William Johnston who had served
under Gustavus Adolphus, and was to be for a time the military strategist of
the Aberdeenshire royalists. This election, however, was annulled four
months afterwards by the Privy Council, which nominated to the provostship
Alexander Jaffray, father of the better-known provost, Member of Parliament,
State official, and diarist, of Cromwell's time. Spalding tells us that many
slighted the first Provost Jaffray as not being of " the old blood of the
town," but the " oe," or grandson, of a baker, and he was publicly insulted
by a "baken pie" being placed on the desk before his seat in church. In
point of fact, the new party was closely connected with many of the county
families—Patrick Leslie with the Leslies of Balquhain; Jaffray with the
Erskines of Pittodrie (an offshoot from the Earls of Mar); and Matthew
Lumsden, another of its members, with the Forbeses ; and it also included
Robert Farquhar of Mounie, a wealthy merchant, who was himself to be provost
and otherwise prominent as a Covenanter; and David Aedie, who was
unquestionably of "the old blood."
Thus also there was a close
affinity between this party and the lay holders of the Church endowments in
the county. To what extent it represented the general feeling and attitude
of the citizens is uncertain. One of the residents in Aberdeen in 1636-1638
was Samuel Rutherford, who had been removed from his incumbency in the south
of Scotland for contumacy, and banished to this stronghold of Episcopacy by
the High Commission j and from his correspondence we receive the information
that he knew of only one "pious family" in the city. Rutherford had written
his treatise against the "Arminian" doctrines, disputed with the doctors for
the benefit of whose tutelage he had been sent north, and had to listen in
silence while his Calvinism was controverted in three sermons by Dr Baron. A
proposal for union with, the Lutheran Church of Germany had been referred by
the Scottish Primate to the Aberdeen Doctors, and reported on with favour,
but Rutherford could see in t only a step towards "reconciliation with
Popery." If the new party in Aberdeen was opposed to Charles's measures and
disliked his use of the royal prerogative, it had as yet, we may infer, but
little of the temper of which Rutherford was a prominent example.
The next event of
considerable importance in the history of Aberdeen is the visit in 1638 of
the commissioners from the " Tables." Laud and the king, since their return
to England, had been aiming at a reconstruction of the Scottish Church on a
basis of Anglican ritual and of so-called Ar-minianism. The Book of Canons
had been printed by Raban at the beginning of 1636. Drafts or sketches of
the regulations had been prepared by some of the Scottish bishops, and
recast into a comprehensive and self-consistent unity by Laud. The
Service-Book followed in 1637, and led to the disturbances in Edinburgh, and
to widespread agitation. Spalding, writing from his Aberdeen point of view,
asserts that these disturbances were organised by a band of nobles whose
concern was with the Church endowments, and by some " miscontented
Puritans," headed by Alexander Henderson, David Dickson, and Andrew Cant,
who were envious of the bishops, and especially disliked the rule in the
Book of Canons that each bishop should be judge of all disorders in his
diocese.
The opponents of Episcopacy
and of liturgical forms appointed the committee or body called the Tables,
consisting of four members each from the nobility, lesser barons, burgesses,
and clergy, professedly to escape from the inconvenience attending
government by crowds and to try to arrange matters with the king's Council.
Ceasing, however, to be Supplicants, as they had hitherto called themselves,
the Tables proceeded to assume the powers of a provisional government and to
draw up the National Covenant, consisting of Craig's Confession of 1580, a
recital of Acts of Parliament in favour of the reformed religion, and a bond
or covenant whereby the subscribers bound themselves, as they interpreted
its terms, to oppose liturgical worship and the Episcopal system. The
National Covenant, first publicly subscribed in Edinburgh on February 28,
1638, was promptly condemned by the University of Aberdeen, and the pens of
Drs Baron and John Forbes were at once busy against it.
Almost alone among the
Scottish burghs Aberdeen was unrepresented by commissioners at the
ratification' of the Covenant, and during the progress of the subscription
it was the only considerable place that stood out for the king and the
episcopal establishment. Commissioners were sent north to procure its
adhesion. First came certain barons of Angus and Mearns. They were entirely
unsuccessful, and the king addressed a special missive of thanks to Aberdeen
for its resistance to their demands. A second and more imposing commission
followed in a few months, including James Graham3 Earl of
Montrose—Covenanter then, but the great Royalist captain of a later day—Lord
Coupar, and the Master of Forbes, with Sir Thomas Burnett of Leys, Graham of
Morphie, and the three " Apostles of the Covenant "— Henderson, Dickson, and
Cant. Cant, though born in Kincardineshire,—of the same family, it is
believed, from which descended Immanuel Kant, the German philosopher,—had
been educated in Aberdeen, and was minister first of Alford and then of
Pitsligo. He was the only prominent minister among the first Covenanters who
was born and bred in the north-east. Dickson also knew something of
Aberdeenshire, however, for he had been sentenced to rustication at Turriff
for non-compliance with the Perth Articles. This second deputation was
hospitably received by the town authorities and offered a public
entertainment and the time-honoured Cup of Bon-Accord. The offer was
refused—" the like was never done to Aberdeen," Spalding says—until the
Covenant were subscribed, whereupon, " somewhat offended " but without more
ado, Provost Johnston and the bailiies ordered the wine provided for the
entertainment of the visitors to be distributed among the poor men in the
bede-house.
In anticipation of the visit
of the Covenanters the Aberdeen Doctors had prepared a series of questions
concerning the lawfulness of the Covenant, and the authority by which it was
sought to be imposed. Conciliatory answers were returned by the three
Presbyterian divines, but the Aberdeen incumbents refused them the use of
the pulpits for the ventilation of doctrines contrary to the customary
teaching. Thus baulked, the Covenanters repaired on Sunday to the Earl
Marischal's residence in the Castlegate, from a balcony of which they
addressed an assemblage in the " close " or courtyard below. " Divers
people," Spalding tells us, flocked in "to hear these preachers and see this
novelty." There was an element of rowdyism in the crowd, but on the
following day, when the addresses were resumed, a few of the audience
subscribed the Covenant, including Patrick Leslie, Alexander Jaffray
(elder), and John Lundie, master of the grammar-school, with four or five
country ministers and, subject to reservations, Dr William Guild, city
minister and king's chaplain, who had signed the Doctors' queries a few days
before. The Covenanter delegation made a short tour through the county. Most
of the members of Cant's Presbytery of Deer, as also his former Presbytery
of Alford, in which the Forbes influence predominated, had already
subscribed. At Turriff, the minister, Thomas Mitchell, "finding the wind
like to change," and, according to the Parson of Rothiemay, having personal
reasons for shrinking from trial under the Canons by an impartial tribunal,
veered round betimes, and, " after an imperious satisfaction of their
scruples by Montrose," others were glad to subscribe.2 Strathbogie and
Banffshire were not visited.
On the return of the party to
Aberdeen, after a week's absence, they found a printed rejoinder from the
Doctors waiting them, to which a reply was written by Henderson and Dickson
during a few days' stay with Sir Thomas Burnett at Muchalls Castle, in
Kincardineshire, on their way south. " Duplies" from the Doctors followed,
and the Covenanters did not pursue the controversy. The Doctors were men of
argument, the Covenanters men of action.
The stand made by Aberdeen
was the subject of commendatory letters addressed by the king and the
Marquis of Hamilton, his Scottish commissioner, to the civic authorities and
the Doctors, and a few weeks afterwards the town received the more
substantial boon of a royal charter confirming all its ancient rights,
privileges, and immunities, and conferring on it additional grants and the
status of a sheriffdom. This important writ is the last general charter
granted to the citizens and their civic rulers.
At this time, as in every
crisis in the affairs of the two counties during the preceding two hundred
years, much depended on the attitude and action of Huntly. The first
Marquis, broken in spirit by the misfortunes of his latter days, was being
carried from Edinburgh to Strathbogie to die, in 1636, when his death
occurred at Dundee, and his son, the Earl of Enzie, who had been commander
of the Scottish Guards in France, having returned home, the Covenanters
tried by offers and menaces to enlist him on their side. To Colonel Robert
Monro, who had been an officer in the Swedish service, and whom the Earl of
Rothes, the head of the Protestant Leslies, had employed to make overtures,
the marquis replied with characteristic spirit that his family had risen and
stood by the kings of Scotland, and that if King Charles was to fall, his
own life, honours, and estate would be buried in the same ruins. Thus the
second Marquis assumed his hereditary position as Royalist leader in the
north.
The aspect of affairs changed
in the autumn when Charles in alarm revoked the Service-Book and Canons,
dissolved the High Commission, promised repeal of the Perth Articles, and
enjoined subscription to Craig's Negative Confession of 1580 and the Bond
for the Maintenance of the True Religion of 1589. Spottiswoode and other
members of the episcopate were already refugees in England, the Bishop of
Aberdeen alone having general support among his clergy. Many of the nobles
were satisfied with these concessions, and in a short time 28,000 signatures
to the Confession and Bond were obtained, 12,000 of them through the
influence of Huntly. As commissioner for obtaining the adhesion of the
counties of Aberdeen, Banff, and Inverness, he first called for the
signatures of the provost and magistrates of Aberdeen. Provost Jaffray, who
had just returned to the civic chair, " for removing all scruple out of the
minds of the people," called on Drs Baron and Sibbald to subscribe, and in
performing an act so little to their liking they declared that they accepted
the Confession as it condemned all Popish errors, but that they did not
understand the Perth Articles, Episcopal government, or any doctrine, rite,
or ceremony not repugnant to Scripture or to the practice of the ancient
Church or the modern reformed and sound Churches, to be condemned by it. In
this sense also the Confession and Bond were signed by the provost and
baillies. On the following day the marquis, accompanied by his sons and
others of the Gordons, with Irvine of Drum, sheriff of the county, and the
city authorities, proceeded to the market cross and had the proclamation
published by the Rothesay herald. As soon as the cross was cleared another
party ascended it, headed by Lord Fraser and the Master of Forbes, who
protested against the proclamation and "took instruments," according to
Scottish legal form and phraseology. Following the example that had been set
by Huntly, Fraser concluded by calling for cheers for the king; but while
there had been a general response to Huntly's call, few of the Aberdonians
paid any heed to that of the Covenanting peer.1 At Old Aberdeen the bishop,
the principal and regents, the resident gentry, and the general community
willingly signed the Confession and Bond.
The predominance of the
Covenanters in other parts of Scotland was, however, beginning to tell in
Aberdeen. The king had hoped that the Doctors would take part in the Glasgow
Assembly which met in November 1638, about a month after these events, and
Huntly also desired them to be in readiness; but (says Spalding) " none
obeyed for plain fear." Drs Baron and Sibbald were appointed commissioners,
with Guild, and Lindsay the parson of Belhelvie, but did not attend. King's
College sent John Luncie of the Grammar-School, its common procurator, with
a commission limited to answering complaints against the principal and
regents. Lundie, however, not only went beyond his commission but seems to
have acted in a manner entirely contrary to its spirit. At his instance, on
a petition for the abrogation of Elphinstone's foundation as revived by
Forbes, a committee was appointed to " visit" the college.
The proceedings of the
Glasgow Assembly are part of general history—how Hamilton, as king's
commissioner, dissolved it when it proceeded to pass judgment on the
bishops; how it sat on, nevertheless, declared the bishops to be deposed and
all acts of Assemblies at which they had been present annulled, and
re-established the Presbyterian system. Its acts were proclaimed illegal and
invalid by Hamilton in Edinburgh and by Huntly in Aberdeen, where the
magistrates and clergy refused to allow them to be read in the churches. But
Aberdeen was almost the only place where it was set at defiance.
Associated with Huntly in the
Royalist or anti-Covenant-ing interest was the powerful Gordon connection,
John Gordon of Haddo (ancestor of the Earls of Aberdeen) and George Gordon
of Gight being at this time its mest influential members. The Leslies were
divided, but the Leiths, Urquharts, Johnstons, Setons, Abercrombies, and
Elphinstones were Royalists. Royalist too were Sir Alexander Irvine of Drum,
with his considerable family connection and following, Sir Thomas Crombie of
Kemnay, luring of Foveran, Udny of Udny, and the city family of Menzies of
Pitfodels. In Banffshire the Ogilvies were Royalists at the earlier stages
of the Troubles, and though Lord Findlater soon fell away, Sir George
Ogilvie, afterwards Lord Banff, remained a leading member of the party.
Huntly also carried with him the Highlanders of Badenoch and Lochaber, and
his party had the support of the western Clan Donald. In the country beyond
the Spey, however, almost the only prominent Royalists were Lord Reay and
Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromarty. Generally speaking, the Scottish nobles,
with very few exceptions, allied themselves with the Covenanters. The
seventh Earl Marischal, then a very young man, had given assurances to the
king but soon turned to the Covenant. The leader of the Aberdeenshire
Covenanters was the Master of Forbes, who, in common with so many of his
contemporaries, had seen service in the Thirty Years' War; and he was
followed by nearly all the Forbes family, the notable exceptions being Dr
John Forbes of Corse and Abraham Forbes of Blackton. Associated with the
Forbeses were the Frasers and Crichtons. The Erskines, Barclays, and most of
the Burnets were also Covenanters. The Earl of Erroll was a minor under the
tutorship of the Earl of Kinghorn, by whom the administration of his estates
was turned to the Covenanting interest. A versatile soldier of fortune on
this side was Sir John Urrie or .Hurry, of Pitfichie, in Monymusk.
The nobility, as represented
by the Lords of Secret Council, having " turned their coats," in Spalding's
homely phrase, by accepting the decisions of the Glasgow Assembly within a
short time of their subscription of the King's Covenant, Charles declared
the Scots in rebellion, sent a force against them by sea under the command
of Hamilton, proceeded to raise an army in England which he was to accompany
in person to the Border, and commissioned Huntly to organise the Loyalists
north of the Grampians, the Earl of Airlie, and Lords Douglas, Nithsdale,
and Herries to co-operate in the centre and south of Scotland. The portents
of coming civil war were passing over the country. The nobility had been
recalling their cadets from the Continental wars, and the numerous body of
soldiers of fortune began to flock homeward. By the influence of Rothes the
task of organising an army to oppose the king and overthrow the
ecclesiastical system was committed to Alexander Leslie, who had been born
in humble circumstances, and returned from the Swedish service with the rank
of field-marshal; and when Charles reached the Border with his army of
undisciplined and discontented English levies, he found himself confronted
by a well-equipped Scottish army commanded and stiffened by experienced
soldiers.
In Aberdeen the military
training of " fencible persons," which had been neglected in the quiet
times, was systematically resumed a short time before the meeting of the
Glasgow Assembly, and in January 1639, when it had become manifest to the
municipal authorities that the distractions and divisions would end in
bloodshed, a council of war was appointed and a body of officers
commissioned under whom the fencible persons in the several quarters of the
town were to serve, the general military command being conferred on
Lieutenant-Colonel Johnston. Rumours of a projected attack on the city by
the army under Montrose led to the issuing of orders for the construction of
earthworks.
Both Royalists and
Covenanters had been holding meetings in the county. A large muster of the
Covenanters took place at Turriff on February 14, for the twofold object of
raising funds and obtaining lists of possible recruits from each parish, and
of consultation between the southern nobles and their Aberdeenshire and
Banffshire allies. Montrose, Kinghorn, Coupar, and others, with an escort,
had crossed the Grampians without approaching Aberdeen, and from Lord
Fraser's residence of Muchall-in-Mar had proceeded to Turnff, where the
Forbeses and Crichtons, with bodies of the Marischal and Erroll tenantry and
a contingent from Morayshire, were already assembled—in all, a force of
about 800 men. The Royalists had been summoned to rendezvous in the
neighbourhood of Turriff on the same day, with the intention, as would
appear, of occupying the place and preventing the Covenanters from holding
their meeting, and 2000 men, according to Spalding, responded to the call.
In battle array but indifferently armed, they marched into the town ; but
the Covenanters, having heard of this counter-move, were already in
possession, and their arms were imposingly displayed along the walls of the
churchyard. When Huntly, accompanied by Findlater and most of the prominent
Cavaliers of the north-east, entered the town and saw how matters stood,
they prudently passed on, the two parties surveying each other without
hostile act or word. Some of the Royalists counselled attack, but Huntly
replied that, having no warrant from the king, he would only act on the
defensive if assailed. Such a futile reconnaissance, as the chroniclers of
the Troubles remark, did little good to the royal cause, for it served as a
parade before the keen eye of Montrose of the forces with which he had to
reckon. One lesson which Huntly derived from it was that to cope with the
Covenanters his men must be better armed and disciplined. Arms, to a certain
extent, they were soon supplied with from a stock consigned to him in a
king's ship, from which also the city magistrates purchased additional
muskets, pikes, and ammunition.
The Royalists, now that
Huntly was residing in Aberdeen, had complete control of the town, and
citizens who had signed the Covenant co-operated with the rest in the common
defence. Even Provost Jaffray, whose loyalty had been impugned by some of
his opponents, was afterwards declared by the unanimous voice of a
head-court of the inhabitants, at the instance of Robert Johnston, his
predecessor in the provostship and an unimpeachable Royalist, to have
acquitted himself dutifully and honestly as a loyal subject and painstaking
magistrate. That a Covenanter like John Lundie should have gone to Huntly's
residence and subscribed the king's Covenant and Bond of Maintenance may be
regarded as an indication of the pressure of public sentiment or other
constraint.
Then it became known that
Montrose was coming north at the head of an army on the pretext of carrying
out the "visitation" of King's College ordered by the Glasgow Assembly and
to complete the overthrow of Episcopacy, the Doctors, who were still at
their posts, took alarm and left the town. That such was Montrose's pretext
had been elicited by a deputation sent to him by Huntly and the town to urge
a suspension of proceedings until it should be seen if there might not be a
treaty between the king and "the nobility." The deputation went a second
time—George Jamesone, the painter, being one of the delegates from the
town—to seek the good offices of Earl Marischal as they passed Dunnottar,
and to urge the nobility to send their committee to visit the college and
publish the acts of the Assembly with an escort of only a hundred men at
most. To this proposal a temporising answer was returned by Montrose, to
whom the deputation once more went back for the purpose of seeking an
assurance that no hostility should be used against the town, and that none
of its magistrates, ministers, or inhabitants should be "forced in their
consciences or wronged in person or goods." To these representations
Montrose gave a written answer to the effect that his visit to Aberdeen was
only to carry out the decisions of the Assembly as had been done in other
places, and that no violence was intended unless it should be necessary for
safety and the cause.1 Huntly thereupon left Aberdeen to meet his party and
followers at Inverurie, but Earl Findlater, "whom he chiefly expected," was
absent; and after stating that he was practically unable to resist the large
army coming from the south, especially having regard to the great assistance
ready to meet it in Aberdeenshire, he disbanded his forces and retired to
Strathbogie.
The city was thus left in a
helpless plight. It had been depending on Huntly to lead in its defence, and
he had retired from the struggle. It had been looking for assistance from
the king, but none had arrived. Though there had been an appearance of
unanimity while the preparations had been in progress, this new situation of
affairs revived the old divisions and paralysed the Royalists. Many of them
left the town. Sixty young men took ship at Torry to proceed to the king,
and with them embarked Principal Leslie, Drs Baron, Sibbald, and Guild, Sir
Alexander Irvine of Drum, Menzies of Pitfodels, and others. Dr John Forbes,
Dr Scroggie, Bishop Bellenden, and the sub-principal and three of the
regents of King's College, retired to the country.
Montrose with about 6000 men
arrived at the Tollo Hill, near the Bridge of Dee, on the 29th of March
1639, and had an unopposed entry into the city on the 30th. He was
accompanied by General Leslie, and by Marischal, Kinghorn, Coupar, Elcho,
and others of the southern nobility. His ensign, inscribed with the motto, "
For Religion, the Covenant, and the Country," and four other banners, were
borne aloft as the Covenanter army slowly threaded its way by the Upper
Kirkgate, the Broadgate, the Castlegate, and the Justice Port to the Queen's
Links, each soldier wearing a blue ribbon, each regiment of horse preceded
by trumpeters, and each regiment of foot by drummers. To the Links also
repaired the forces of the Aberdeenshire Covenanters, some 2ooo strong. The
reception of this army by the Aberdonians being the reverse of cordial,
Montrose sent for Provost Jaffray and complained that the soldiers could get
neither welcome nor food, and that extortion was being practised, directing
him at the same time to have the trenches filled up without delay. Leaving
Kinghorn with 1800 men in command of Aberdeen, Montrose with the rest of the
army and its leaders proceeded to Inverurie; and on the following day, which
was a Sunday, " strange ministers " occupied the Aberdeen pulpits and read
the sentences on the bishops and the other decisions of the Assembly.
Demand after demand was made
upon the citizens. They were required to dismount their cannon and place
them in front of Earl Marischal's house, to deliver up their ammunition, to
fortify the blockhouse for the defence of the port, to agree to the
billeting of soldiers—the town council to provide payment in the first
instance—and to sign the Covenant with an additional article abjuring
Episcopacy and declaring the holding of civil offices by the clergy to be
unlawful. The town " took time to be advised before giving its answer" to
the last requirement; to the others it submitted at once, as being "under
bondage and thraldom for the present and nowise able to resist." A further
demand was that the town should pay an indemnity or contribution of 100,000
merks, together with the entire cost of the soldiers since they had come to
Aberdeen, the citizens who were Covenanters to be exempt from these
payments. This demand was rejected as unreasonable and beyond the power of
the town. " If the noblemen "—so runs the missive of the town council on
behalf of the citizens—" insist to have the said taxation, they desire a
competent time, a month or thereby, to be granted them to remove themselves
and their wives and bairns, with bag and baggage, out of the town, and
thereafter let the noblemen dispose of the town at their pleasure."
After Montrose's meeting with
the Aberdeenshire Covenanters at Inverurie a conference, ostensibly of a
friendly nature, took place between him and Huntly, who was afterwards
induced to visit Aberdeen and was entertained by the nobility at their
headquarters in " Skipper Anderson's house." Several demands were then made
upon him, in response to which he agreed to resign his lieutenancy and
contribute to the cost of the army; but to another demand he pleaded that,
having resigned his commission, he could do nothing against the outlaws
Grant and Dugar, and he absolutely refused reconciliation with Frendraught.
By this time he found himself a prisoner. It was vain to plead that he had
come to Aberdeen under assurances from Montrose, and that he had been made a
prisoner by unfair and dishonourable means. With his eldest son he had to
accompany the nobles to Edinburgh. Offered his liberty on condition of
accepting the Covenant, he replied that he was not so bad a merchant as to
buy liberty at the cost of conscience, fidelity, and honour, and that he
would not join in rebellion under a pretence of religion. "For my own part,"
he said, in the spirit of his answer to Monro, " I am in your power, but
resolved not to leave the name of traitor to my posterity : you may take my
head from my shoulders, but not my heart from my sovereign." During his
imprisonment the leadership devolved on his second son, Lord Aboyne, who had
been allowed to go to Strathbogie for money when his father went south, and
was persuaded by Banff and other chief men of the party to remain among
them.
Meanwhile the work of
enforcing acceptance of the Covenant was carried on, under menace of
plundering, by Marischal, Seaforth, Fraser, and the Master of Forbes. Both
Covenanters and Royalists made requisitions for the support of their troops,
and the system of raiding inseparable from such warfare began to be carried
on with unrelenting severity. Strachan of Glenkindie, " a great Covenanter,"
plundered Donald Farquharson of Tillygarmonth, Huntly's bailie in Strathaven,
and Farquharson retaliated by a foray on Earl Marischal's Deeside territory,
and by taking possession of Durris belonging to Forbes of Leslie. Montrose
himself had allowed his troopers to forage in Kemnay as they returned from
Inverurie, and a company of 500 Highlanders sent by Argyll to join him at
this time was ordered to "sorn " upon the lands of the Royalist lairds of
Drum and Pitfodels.
Shortly after the deportation
of Huntly a gathering of Covenanters was held at Monymusk, attended by a
commissioner from Aberdeen and eighty men; and one on a greater scale was to
take place at Turriff. On reports that Aboyne was calling the Royalists to
arms, however, the Turriff meeting was postponed, and a force of about 2000
men having responded to his call, he sent representations to Earl Marischal,
as Governor of Aberdeen, that it should be abandoned. The reply of Marischal
showed that the nobility were determined to persevere with their resolution
to bring the two counties into line with the rest of Scotland. In this
situation of affairs, cut off as he was from communication with the king,
Aboyne shrank, as his father had done, from the responsibility of entering
on a war. By their unaided exertions, it was evident, the north-eastern
Royalists could not prevail against the power of practically the whole body
of the Scottish nobles. So he disbanded his force, and sailed from the
Banffshire coast to consult with the king and his advisers.
Disappointed though they were
at this turn of affairs, the Cavaliers of the north-east resolved to keep
the field. Their first demonstration took place at Towie-Barclay, where some
arms taken from Sir Thomas Urquhart had been stored, but the house was
successfully held by the Covenanters. The Turriff meeting was to take place
on May 20, but by the 13th the Covenanters, 1200 strong, were already in
possession. At nightfall the Gordons and their allies from Central and
Western Aberdeenshire, Ogilvie of Banff with a party, and Colonel Johnston
with a number of the Huntly retainers and four field-pieces from Strathbogie,
quietly assembled in the neighbourhood, and as daybreak approached they
entered the town with a sudden blast of trumpets and drums (May 14). Some
volleys of musket-shot had been exchanged when one or two discharges of the
cannon threw the Covenanters into a panic and put them to flight—Skene of
Skene and Forbes of Echt, who had more nerve or less swiftness than the
rest, being taken prisoners by the Cavaliers. Such was the "Trot of Turriff,"
as it was called, a harmless and indeed ridiculous beginning of civil war in
the north-east. Following up their bloodless victory, the Cavaliers rode to
Aberdeen on the following day, and, improving on the example that had been
set by Montrose, demanded free quarters for themselves and their men in the
houses of the Covenanters. To this demand the citizens, at a general meeting
convened by Provost Jaffray, resolved to reply that, being "members of one
body and incorporation," they would equally share all burdens, it being
understood that this principle applied likewise to the exactions already
imposed by Huntly and Montrose. Another demand was for men for the king's
service, and to this the answer was that so many had gone to foreign
countries, while some were in the king's service already, that those
remaining in the town were too few for its defence in such dangerous times.
Similar demands by the Covenanters for aid to " the cause" in Edinburgh, and
for the transference of the Aberdeen artillery to the town of Montrose, had
met with no better response. A practical sense of the costs of political
steadfastness had been borne in upon the citizens, who now desired above
everything to be let alone — both by the southern nobility, who for their
own ends were working with the Covenanters, and by the north-eastern
Royalists, who, however strong in the two counties, were clearly the weaker
party f the issue was to be a national one and was to be fought out by the
sword.
An effort to come to terms
with Earl Marischal was barren of fruit, for the earl was dominated by
stronger wills than his own, and Montrose was immediately on the scene at
the head of a force of 6000 or 7000 men. On the approach of this army the
Royalist leaders disbanded their men and left Aberdeen, their departure
being immediately followed by the pillaging of the bishop's palace, and the
destruction of the corn and "girnals," or meal-storeS, of the Royalists near
the city. Spalding also mentions a slaughter of dogs, because waggish
Royalists had decorated them with blue (Covenanting) ribbons.
Having regard to the strength
of the army now brought against them, and the prospect of its being largely
reinforced from beyond the Spey, several of the Royalists, deeming further
resistance hopeless, followed Aboyne's example, and put to sea from Doune (Macduff)
in order to go to the king at Berwick. On the way, however, they met and
returned with a convoy of royal ships coming north with Aboyne, now
commissioned as king's lieutenant, Irvine of Drum, the Earls of Tullibardine
and Glencairn, and several of the Episcopalian clergy who had gone south as
refugees, one of them being John Gregory of Drumoak. The ships had also
military stores on board, and the king had ordered that soldiers should be
sent, but Hamilton, who was in command of the fleet in the Firth of Forth,
declared himself unable to send them at the time. A vessel southward-bound
with the cannon which the citizens had been obliged to surrender on the
return of the Covenanting nobility was intercepted by Aboyne, and brought
back to Aberdeen.
The arrival of these ships
once more changed the aspect of affairs, and Montrose, who had begun a siege
of the House of Gight, hastened south for reinforcements. Aboyne reoccupied
the town with a force at first consisting mainly of 1000 predatory caterans,
who had arrived by way of Deeside under the nominal command of his
boy-brother, Lord Lewis Gordon ; but in a short time the recently disbanded
men returned to the royal standard, so that he had in all a force of about
4000. With ill-directed energy he committed the provost and his son to
prison, and otherwise acted with a high hand. It was probably under a sense
of the necessity that spoliatory warfare should be in prospect if his
Highlanders were to be kept together, that he started on an expedition into
the Covenanters' territory of the Mearns. As military expert and chief of
the staff, a Colonel Gun had been sent with him from the royal headquarters.
Gun was a bad exchange for Johnston, and a fiasco resembling the Trot of
Turriff soon put an end to this expedition. When it reached Megray Hill,
near Stonehaven, it was met by a Covenanting force, which in turn began to
play upon it with artillery (June 15). A few shots broke up the Highlanders
and sent them in disorderly flight towards the hills, and they returned home
with such spoil as they could pick up by the way, especially on Marischal's
Strachan estate. Aboyne retired towards Aberdeen with the more reliable part
of his army, and prepared to defend the Bridge of Dee. He was closely
followed by Montrose, who, after encamping for a short time at the
Covenanters' Faulds, as the place was afterwards called, overlooking the
bridge, proceeded to open fire on the Royalists and the earthworks by which
they had fortified their position. For a whole day (June iS) a cannonade and
musketry fire were continued with little effect, and operations were resumed
next morning. By a feint of crossing the river at a point some little
distance above the bridge, Montrose lured away a large portion of the
defending force, and then by a vigorous attack overwhelmed the weakened
defence of the bridge itself. The town, again at the mercy of the
Covenanters and their able commander, escaped pillage on payment of a fine
of 7000 merks. Montrose was urged by some of those about him to give effect
to the orders of the Tables for its destruction, but, having no taste for
such barbarity, he first temporised, and then, fortifying himself by a
written guarantee of indemnity from Marischal and Fraser, he refused to
yield to these sinister counsels.
The Pacification of Berwick
gave a shortlived respite from the alternate oppressions of Royalists and
Covenanters; but the meetings of the Assembly and the Parliament, with their
confirmation of the abolition of Episcopacy, were soon followed by the
resumption of the war. In the spring of 1640 Earl Marischal exacted a
so-called "loan" from the citizens of all their gold and silver work and
coined money for the Covenanters' war - chest ; while towards the end of May
General Monro arrived with about 1000 men, and imposed the "Articles of
Bon-Accord," by which the town was bound to furnish supplies on an extensive
scale for the army. Recruits were impressed for service in General Leslie's
expedition to England ; an instrument of torture called " the wooden mare "
was employed for the punishment of recalcitrants, and requisitioning in its
severest form was again directed against the Royalists of Aberdeenshire.
Drum and other residences were besieged; Monro himself took possession of
Strathbogie Castle, and cleared the district round it of men, money, horses,
and arms, and the towns of Banff and Peterhead were occupied. For
outstanding against "the good cause" Irvine of Drum and Gordon of Haddo,
with many country gentlemen and burgesses, were arrested and sent in custody
to Edinburgh. One of the prisoners was Sir George Gordon of Gight, but as he
was dying his liberation took place soon after their arrival in Edinburgh.
Most of the other prisoners were kept in the Tolbooth for six months, and
then set free on payment of heavy fines. One of them was Jamesone, who had
painted the portraits of Rothes, Montrose, Marischal, Kinghorn, and most of
the northern chiefs of the party in power, and Spalding records that " by
moyan he wan free and paid no fine."
During Monro's occupation of
Aberdeen the General Assembly met in Greyfriars' Church and deposed the
Doctors, Archdeacon Logie, John Gregory, and other clergymen. It also
conferred the benefit of Andrew Cant's ministrations upon the congregation
of St Nicholas' by appointing him one of the city ministers. Gregory was
treated with exceptional harshness, being taken from his bed at night by a
party of Monro's troopers, and closely secluded in Skipper Anderson's house.
The universities had already been "visited," and their anti - Covenanting
professors removed from office. The principalship of King's College, from
which Dr Leslie had been ousted, was conferred upon Dr Guild, who had
returned from exile, made his peace with the prevailing powers, and
displayed the zeal of a turncoat, —to be ousted in turn by General Monk and
the Commonwealth as too much of a Royalist. The Snow Church and the bishop's
house were demolished by the new principal, the stones of the church being
used to build "the college-yard dyke" and the windows of his own house; and
destruction of churches and their "ornaments" was again in fashion. Guild is
more favourably remembered as the great benefactor of the Incorporated
Trades of Aberdeen, to which he gifted the Trinity monastery and chapel for
a hospital and meeting-house. These properties he had acquired by purchase
some years before the Troubles began.
The north-eastern Royalists
gradually succumbed to the pressure that was forcing the Covenant upon them.
On his liberation at the Peace of Berwick Huntly went abroad for a time, and
Lord Gordon, on the advice of his uncle, Argyll, subscribed and made his
peace with the Covenanters. Requisitions were imposed on the counties for
the supply of provisions for the Scottish army occupying the north of
England, and 12,000 bolls of oatmeal had to be shipped for Newcastle in 1641
at the Aberdeenshire and Banffshire ports. The contribution of the town of
Aberdeen was in clothing. Men were also in request, and 100 recruits from
the Gordon estates were directed by Earl Marischal to proceed to Morpeth,
but when they reached Edinburgh their uncouth appearance so little commended
them to the Committee of the Estates that it sent them home again as "
unworthy soldiers."
Meanwhile Montrose had parted
company with Argyll and the extreme Covenanters, and as a signatory of the
Cumbernauld Bond and an alleged plotter against Argyll, he now suffered
imprisonment at the instance of his former associates. For a time he
withdrew from public affairs, but in the early days of the English Civil War
we find him at Kelly in consultation with Marischal, who was also inclined
to dissociate himself from the extreme party, and with Gordon of Haddo,
Ogilvie of Banff, and others of his former opponents.
Sir John Gordon of Haddo, who
had a strong dislike for Covenanters, resented the incarceration of one of
his servants by Alexander Jaffray, the younger, in the exercise of
magisterial functions in Aberdeen, and meeting Jaffray and his brother at
Kintore, he gave them a line of his mind and a thrust with his sword,
following up this action by a foolish parade at the Cross of Aberdeen. On
the suit of the Jaffrays the Privy Council imposed on him a fine of 20,000
merks. When hostilities broke out again in 1644 one of his first acts was to
ride to Aberdeen with a party of his friends and about 60 horse, seize the
four most prominent Covenanting laymen—Provost Patrick Leslie, Robert
Farquhar, and Alexander and John Jaffray—and lodge them in the cells of
Strathbogie Castle, whence they were transferred to Auchindoun.
The enforcement of the
international Solemn League and Covenant and the alliance of the Scottish
Convention with the English Parliament revived the struggle in these
counties. Dr John Forbes, who wished to live at peace with the
Presbyterians, left the country when acceptance of this Covenant was made
compulsory; Robert Burnet of Crimond, the father of Bishop Burnet, followed
the same course. Huntly called his men to arms, but on the approach of
forces from Fife and Argyle he retired from the strife in despair. His heir
and the Banffshire Ogilvies were now acting with the Covenanters, and being
excommunicated along with Montrose, the marquis took refuge in the obscurity
of Strathnaver. Sir John Gordon of Haddo and John Logie, son of the
archdeacon, were captured, conveyed to Edinburgh, and beheaded — the first
victims of the political vengeance of the Covenanters (July 19, 1644).
Montrose, now raised to the
marquisate and appo.nted the king's Lieutenant-General for Scotland, with a
fluctuating army of plunder-loving Highlanders, opened his wonderful
campaign by defeating Lord Elcho at Tippermuir, near Perth (September 1).
Gathering recruits from the Braes of Angus, he hastened on towards Aberdeen,
crossed the Dee at Mills of Drum, and encamped at the Two-mile Cross, from
which he despatched a letter to the local authorities notifying that "being
there for the maintenance of religion and liberty and his Majesty's just
authority and service," he demanded the immediate surrender of the town,
failing which, he advised all old men, women, and children to leave, as no
quarter would be shown. The committee of the Covenanters resolved to resist
him, and Montrose advanced towards the town (September 13). He was met by
Lord Burleigh and the Aberdeenshire Covenanters with nearly 3000 men, his
own force being little more than half that number. An encounter took place
at the Justice Mills, near the scene of the Crabstane skirmish. It lasted
tvo hours, and was not deadly until the Covenanters began to give way before
their skilful opponent. Then followed a disorderly rout, in which about 150
of the Covenanters fell, and the town was given over to rapine and violence.
Montrose had saved it on previous occasions, but his present army was
differently composed, and could not be restrained from plunder. Spalding
records, in illustration of the savagery of Montrose's "Irish," that seeing
a man well clad, they would first strip him to save the clothes, and then
put him to death.
From Aberdeen the victorious
leader passed to Strathbogie in the hope of enlisting the co-operation of
Huntly, but the marquis was nowhere to be found, and without him all appeals
to the loyalty and patriotism of his people were vain. Argyll had been
ravaging Aberdeenshire and planting on Deeside a body of his Highland and
Irish soldiery, who were called " the Cleansers," from the thoroughness with
which they stripped the country of everything that could be consumed or
taken away, and now he retired for the winter to his own country. Thither
Montrose unexpectedly followed him, and inflicted the sharp defeat at
Inverlochy. Montrose's motions were swift, and to his opponents bewildering.
Early in spring he surprised the town of Dundee. In May, when he had been
joined by Lord Gordon (who had now left the Covenanters) and Lord Aboyne, he
was attacked by Urrie at the head of a superior force at Auldearn, where a
blunder of one of Urrie's subordinates enabled him to carry the day with the
rush and claymores of the Hignlanders. But as usual, the greater part of his
army melted away after the battle, and for a time he had to evade General
Baillie, who had hastened through West Aberdeenshire to the assistance of
the Covenanting force.
Having collected his men
again to the number of about 2000, Montrose took up his position on the
rising ground near the village of Alford, and with Lords Gordon and Aboyne
in command of small bodies of horse on the right and left respectively, the
centre consisting mainly of the Gordon tenants and vassals, he awaited the
attack of the Covenanters. There was no great disparity of numbers, but
Baillie had the advantage in cavalry with Lord Balcarres's strong regiment.
A stiffly-contested battle resulted in another important success for the
Royalist cause (July 2), won, however, at the cost of Lord Gordon's life.
With the further victory at Kilsyth the Royalist cause seemed destined to
triumph in Scotland. Montrose, in his desire to raise a reliable Lowland
army, offended the Highland leaders, and General David Leslie, who had been
sent in haste from England to check the rising tide of Royalism, achieved
his signal victory at Philiphaugh.
The spell was now broken.
Montrose retired to the north to reorganise his forces, and tried earnestly
to enlist the cooperation of Huntly. Huntly, however, had not forgotten or
forgiven the treachery that led to his imprisonment, and was not cordial in
his response to the overtures, but presently he took the held in person.
General Middleton,
commissioned by the Estates to watch Huntly and Montrose, passed through the
two shires in April on his way to Inverness, which Montrose was besieging,
and when he had crossed the Spey the Aberdeenshire Royalists were mustered
by Huntly at Inverurie and Kintore to the number of 1500 foot and 500 horse.
After repulsing Colonel Hew Montgomerie, wrho had been left in command and
had gone out to reconnoitre, the Royalists advanced towards the city. They
attacked simultaneously at three points (May 14), and Aboyne, getting
entrance at a part which had been set on fire, routed Mont gomerie's
cavalry, the thinned ranks of which escaped by swimming the Dee. The
infantry took refuge in the Tol-booth and in the residences of Marischal and
Menzies of Pitfodels, but soon had to surrender, and 350 prisoners, 16
colours, and a large quantity of ammunition fell into Huntly's hands.
But Charles had surrendered
himself to the Scottish army at Newark, and his orders immediately reached
Aberdeen calling on Huntly to lay down his arms. Never was conclusion of
peace more welcome than it was at this time to the sorely - tried Cuizens of
Bon - Accord. Aberdeen had suffered grievously by the Troubles. Its trade
had fallen off, its population had been thinned, and it had been subjected
to intolerable exactions by its successive military masters.
The dark sequel belongs for
the most part to general history. Charles's "Engagement" with the Scottish
commissioners added greatly to the number of Scottish Royalists. Huntly laid
down his arms, but he had an implacable foe in Argyll—none the less
implacable that Charles had come to terms with the more moderate of the
Scottish nobility. The reward that had been offered years before for his
body, living or dead, was still held out. His sons retired to France, and he
himself went afresh into hiding. Betrayed at last at Delnabo, in Upper
Banffshire, he was led to the block in Edinburgh a few weeks after Charles
had similarly perished in London. Montrose, who had reluctantly laid down
his arms at the king's command and retired to Norway, returned, with Sir
John Urrie, now turned Royalist, for one of his lieutenants, to fight the
battles of Charles II. His fate, however, was defeat and betrayal, and to be
conveyed in ignominy through these counties, and beheaded in Edinburgh
without fresh trial. |
