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Not quite a hundred years
ago, on a summer's day, a large herd of cattle might have been seen
gathered in front of a Highland steading in the heart of Inverness-shire,
and some seventy or eighty people—men, women, and children—congregated on
the same spot. From the windows of a neighbouring manse the wife of the
parish minister watched the preparations with absorbing interest.
The cattle are driven on to
the road; the people, with pipers playing in front, fall into procession,
and march by. As they pass, they raise their bonnets, the good lady waves
her hand, and her husband, a white-haired minister, standing at the door,
bids them "God speed!" On they pass towards the head of the glen, and
before long a turn of the road hides them from view. Ere the sound of the
music has died away, the words which follow have been penned.
"One of the great concerns
of life here is settling the time and manner of these removals. Viewing
the procession pass is always very gratifying to my pastoral imagination.
. . . The people look so glad and contented, for they rejoice at going up;
but by the time the cattle have eat all the grass, and the time arrives
when they dare no longer fish and shoot, they find their old home a better
place, and return with nearly as much alacrity as they went."
Thus wrote Mrs Grant of
Laggan, the accomplished authoress of those "Letters from the Mountains,"
that have come down to us as one of the best examples of a literary style
no longer in fashion. What a picture of Highland life is this! Who will
not turn with pleasure from the dreary and monotonous labour of reading
the five thick octavo volumes embodying the labours of a Royal Commission,
appointed to inquire into the condition of the Highlanders of the present
day, to those epistles which bring before us here and there vivid
descriptions of a mode of life of which in many places scarcely a vestige
remains? So utterly different is it from what we are familiar with, that
it is hard to realise how comparatively short is the time which separates
it from us. That life seems some Utopian dream. There is no mention of the
grinding poverty, that semi-starvation which the advocates of Highland
improvement point to as the invariable concomitant of a pastoral life. Can
we wonder that the picture exerts a fascination on the mind of the people,
and that, in less fortunate circumstances, they look back to the days when
their ancestors went up to distant shielings and tended the herds on the
mountain tops, or beguiled the hours in fishing and shooting, or singing
and dancing through the long summer evenings? No monstrous sheep-farms
engulfed them—apparently not even game-laws restrained their liberty. It
would be strange if the traditions of such a time served not to keep alive
a spark of feeling that requires but little art and knowledge of human
nature to fan into a flame. Mrs Grant's testimony is not only trustworthy,
but it is peculiarly valuable. To arrive at the exact truth about the
condition of the people in the past is not easy. Those who are in favour
of emigration and sheep-farming are apt to exaggerate the poverty and
misery of the people under the old system. On the other hand, their
opponents are tempted to depict in too glowing colours their former
prosperity. But Mrs Grant's letters were written without any controversial
object. She was under no temptation to exaggerate. The following
description of the daily life on a Highland farm at the end of the last
century is not without interest:—
"As they must carry their
beds, food, and utensils, the housewife who furnishes and divides these
matters, has enough to do when her shepherd is in one glen and her
dairymaid in another with her milk cattle ; not to mention some of the
children, who are marched off to the glen as a discipline, to inure them
to hardness and simplicity of life. Meanwhile his reverence, with my
kitchen damsel and the ploughman, constitute another family at home, from
which all the rest are flying detachments, occasionally sent out and
recalled, and regularly furnished with provisions and forage. . . . I
shall, between fancy and memory, sketch out the diary of one July Monday.
I mention Monday, being the day that all dwellers in glens come down for
their supplies. Item, at four o'clock Donald arrives with a horse loaded
with butter, cheese, and milk. The former I must weigh instantly. He only
asks an additional blanket for the children, a covering for himself, two
milk tubs, . . . two stone of meal, a quart of salt, two pounds of flax
for the spinners, for the grass continues so good that they will stay a
week longer. . . . All this must be ready in an hour, before the
conclusion of which comes Ronald from the high hills, where our sheep and
young horses are all summer, and only desires meal, salt, and women with
shears to clip the lambs, and tar to smear them. . . . Before he departs
the tenants who do us service come; they are going to stay two days in the
oak wood, cutting timber for our new byre, and must have a competent
provision of bread, cheese, and all for the time they stay." The farm is
thus described elsewhere:— "We hold a farm at a very easy rent, which
supports a dozen milk cows and a couple of hundred sheep, with a range of
summer pasture on the mountains for our young stock, horses, &c. This farm
supplies us with everything absolutely necessary: even the wool and flax
which our handmaids manufacture to clothe the children, are our growth!"
It has been said that Mrs
Grant's testimony is valuable because it was given with no controversial
purpose. But she lived in the Highlands long enough to witness changes
which she was not slow to denounce, and she raised her voice in warning
against what she regarded as a danger, socially and economically. Thus in
1791 she wrote:— "The only real grievance Scotland labours under,
originates with land-holders, perhaps more remotely in commerce; since the
tide of wealth which commerce has poured into the northern part of the
island, has led our trading people to contend with our gentry in all the
exterior elegancies of life. The latter seem stung with a jealous
solicitude to preserve their wonted ascendancy over their new rivals. This
preeminence can only be kept up by heightening at all hazards their lands.
Thus the ancient adherents of their families are displaced. These having
been accustomed to a life of devotion, simplicity, and frugality, and
being bred to endure hunger, fatigue, and hardship, while following their
cattle over the mountains or navigating the stormy seas that surround
their islands, form the best resource of the State when difficulties, such
as the inhabitants of a happier region are strangers to, must be
encountered for its service." Again:— "The only cause of complaint in
Scotland is the rage for sheep-farming. The families removed on that
account are often as numerous as our own. The poor people have neither
language, money, nor education to push their way anywhere else; though
they often possess feelings and principles that might almost rescue human
nature from the reproach which false philosophy and false refinement have
brought upon it. Though the poor Ross-shire people were driven to
desperation, they even then acted under a sense of rectitude, touched no
property, and injured no creature."
In the year following the
date of this letter, viz., in 1792, an Englishman was an eye-witness of
the trial of the "poor Ross-shire people" here alluded to. The
circumstances are interesting as affording an almost exact counterpart of
recent events in the Island of Skye.
"These disturbances have
arisen from the sudden extermination of a number of small farmers, who
have been used to maintain their families by a dairy, the rearing of a few
black cattle for sale, and a little tillage, in order to give place to the
establishment of extensive sheep-walks; which unite many of the old
divisions of estates under the occupation of a single tenant. People here
assert that thirty-seven families were lately turned adrift in the
prosecution of this scheme."
"The number may have been
exaggerated; and, as I am rather inclined to believe so, I should not have
ventured to particularize it had I not heard it repeated without variation
by different persons. But could it be affirmed that only half the number,
or even but a fourth part were included, under this calamity, the evil is
very great, and of such a nature as surely to merit the particular
attention of Government, so long as it shall be thought conducive to
national prosperity rather to have a country peopled by human creatures
than by sheep. The alarming migrations, which for some years have taken
place from the Highlands, are partly attributed to this innovation. That
the rent-rolls of estates are augmented, and the avarice of landlords
successfully gratified by it, cannot be doubted; but where individuals
grow opulent by the depopulation of a country, they make more haste to
grow rich than ought to be suffered by its rulers." The rioters were
indicted for "riot, assault, and battery by assembling with a number of
other persons and forcibly relieving from a poind fold certain cattle
confined therein, and at the same time assembling and beating the
gentleman and his servants who had poinded the cattle." [Lettice, "Tour in
Scotland."] As it was proved that legal notice had not been given to the
tenants, and that the prosecuting landlord had been guilty of violence,
the jury returned a verdict of not guilty. Some cottars who had driven off
the stock of certain proprietors fared differently. A few were sentenced
to transportation for seven years, others were fined and imprisoned.
During the last century the
Highlands underwent precisely the same changes in rural economy which
England passed through two centuries earlier. Such changes had long been
in gradual operation in the south of Scotland. In the Highlands they were
suddenly brought about in consequence of the fall of the clan system which
existed until the middle of the last century.
The clan system is commonly
spoken of as something very different from the feudal system in England.
There were no doubt social features in the clan system not to be found
elsewhere in Europe; but as far as regards the tenure of land and the
condition of the tillers of the soil, we shall find it is not possible to
draw any sound distinction between the clan system and the feudal system
in England and the Lowlands of Scotland. The former was the result, after
centuries of internecine warfare, of combining with the inveterate customs
of the Celt the more powerful, because more civilized, customs of southern
feudalism. But wherever the iron hand of feudalism extended, it is
impossible to exaggerate the misery of the lower orders of the people.
Whatever was harsh in the Celtic polity was stereotyped by feudalism.
Unfortunately, we cannot discover with any approach to certainty what the
state of the common people was under Celtic government; but when history
first begins to lift the veil, and we pass from the age of the unwritten
to the written law, the first thing which strikes us is the existence of
villainage, or some form of bondage throughout Scotland. Very many
charters of the crown in the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries
set the example of conveying, along with the right of property in the
soil, the right of property in those who cultivated it. "The greatest
curse," says the editor of "Fragments of Scottish History," "attendant on
mortals—the curse of slavery—was entailed on the ancient inhabitants of
Scotland. We have most ample evidence of this. It has been said, and by an
author whose opinion I highly respect, as that of the most learned
historian Scotland has produced—it has been said that few instances occur
of absolute villainage. It is true I have not found many. Some did exist:
and I question if we are entitled to say they were uncommon. Villainage is
but a superior species of slavery, yet we see examples of the most
humiliating bondage. Before 1189 two brothers, their children, and their
whole posterity are transferred to a person for three marks. The prior and
convent of St Andrews emancipate a man, his children, and property, or
rather give him permission to change his master, 1222. Malise, Earl of
Strathern, grants Gilmory Gillendes, his slave, to the monks of Inchaffry;
likewise Johannes Starnes, 1258. I have seen several charters cum villanis.
One of the Roberts grants certain lands, 'Marić Comyn, cum licentia
abducenti tenentes cum bovis suis, a terris, si non sint nativi et ligii
homines. . . .'
"There were various kinds
of slaves. The laws are copious respecting their state and manumission."
Another learned historian
[Chalmers' "Caledonia."] tells us that during the period above mentioned,
"no canon of the Church, no assize of the King, and no act of Parliament
appears in favour of freedom."
Let us pass to the
sixteenth century. For a century or more a great change has been in
progress. The process of manumission is nearly complete, and the great
bulk of the common people are in possession of personal freedom. Mr
Mackintosh, in his "History of Civilization in Scotland," has, with much
acuteness, questioned the soundness of the common theory that the process
had been fostered and encouraged by the clergy. He sees no evidence of
this, and is inclined to attribute the emancipation to the frequent wars
and the anarchy they entailed. Be this as it may, it is important to note
that while the people appear to have been settled in villages for mutual
support, and while something like a system of rural economy is developed,
the rights of the feudal lords are gradually strengthened. The decline of
feudalism has always been accompanied by grievous hardships to the
cultivators of the soil. The law survives, while the social fabric
dissolves. Power arises independently of law. The position of a villain in
the thirteenth century was infinitely preferable to that of a free tenant
in the fifteenth. Of this the Scottish Statute-book supplies abundant
evidence. First, let us note that the "nativi" had definite means of
escaping from servitude; e.g., if they remained for one year and a day in
a Royal burgh. But the law did more than this for them. It secured them
from being capriciously removed from their native dwelling and the land
which they had cultivated around it. The words of the charter, "Mariae
Comyn," which are italicised above, have reference to this custom. There
is extant a charter of Malcolm Caenmore which runs as follows: "Malcolmus
Rex., &c, Sciatis me concessisse et fermiter precipisse ut Prior et
monachi de Colling-ham secundum voluntatem suam adducant suos proprios
homines ubicunque maneant in terra sua ad habergandum villain de
Collingham" ["National MSS. of Scotland," No. xxxi. Introduction, page
10.] The royal prerogative is thus found dispensing with the law or custom
for certain public objects. But as we proceed we find all this changed. It
is true the Statute-book is full of Acts designed to protect the poor
against the exactions and oppressions of the rich; but the arm of the law
is too short to reach the offenders. The "Landlords, on the most frivolous
pretences, turned the tenants out of their holdings, and the labourers out
of their cottages. Parliament tried to check this, but in vain. ... In
1401 an Act was passed which declared all such resumptions by the overlord
to be null unless lawful excuse was shown; and it was provided that the
tenants turned out of their land should not lose it until after the lapse
of a year, if they repledged their lands within 40 days." [Mackintosh's
"History of Civilization in Scotland," vol. i.]
The Parliament of James I.
enacted that, "no man rydand or gangand in the countrie lead nor have
maa persons with him nor may suffice him nor till his estate, and for
quhom he will make readie payment."
In 1449 it was enacted,
"for the safetie and favour of the puir people that labouris the ground, '
that purchasers should keep the tacks set by the vendors.' "In 1457 the
setting of lands in feu is expressly declared to be a practice favoured by
the king. [This was re-enacted in 1503.]
The practice, under the
feudal law, which held possession by the tenant to be equivalent to
possession by the lord, and made the tenant's effects liable to be seized
in payment of the lord's debts, was found to bear so hardly on the people
that in 1469 it was enacted that the liability of the tenant should extend
only to the amount of the rent. In 1491 it became necessary to forbid any
lord, baron, freeholder, or gentleman, to compel any of the king's tenants
to perform any service "by exaction or dread," under pain of being
punished as oppressors of the king's lieges.
To this time belongs the
poet Henryson, who speaks of "ravenous wolves who have enough and to
spare, yet so greedy and covetous they will not suffer the poor to live in
peace. Over his head his rent they will lease, though he and his family
should die for want."
The third Parliament of
Queen Mary passed an Act, the preamble of which clearly shows that
evictions had been violently carried out throughout the country, and as
violently resisted. The Act forbids any convocation "for putting and
laying furth of ony tennenter," or "ony convocation or gaddering for
resistance to the lords of the ground." In the "Complaynt of Scotland," we
read, "i hef sene nyne or ten thousand gadyr to gidder vitht out ony
commissone of the kingis letteris, the quhilk grit conventione has been to
put their nychtbours furtht of their steding and takkis on vytson
veddyinsday, or ellis to leyde awaye ane puir manis kynd in heruyst."
In 1563 Parliament passed
an Act for securing possession for five years to tenants of Kirklands, who
were threatened with eviction from their "lawful and kindly possessions"
by feuars and tacksmen. It is unnecessary to adduce more in proof of the
misery of the people, both while feudal institutions were unimpaired and
during their decline. [Pinkerton divides the Feudal System into—I. The
Feudal System ; 2. The Corrupted Feudal System—the latter commencing with
the nth and ending with the 15th century. From a pure state in which
"nobility and estates annexed were not hereditary," it passed to one "of
aristocratic tyranny and oppression."—Dissertation on the Goths, Part ii.
chap. iv.]
There is an exact parallel
to the changes which the Highlands of Scotland underwent in the last
century. Green, in his "History of the English People," has given a
description of a social revolution which, if we substitute Highland tenant
for English yeoman, will serve as a description of the changes in Scotland
that followed the '45.
"But beneath this outer
order and prosperity a social revolution was beginning which tended as
strongly as the outrages of the baronage to the profit of the crown. The
rise in the price of wool was giving a fresh impulse to the changes in
agriculture which had begun with the Black Death and were to go steadily
on for a hundred years to come. These changes were the throwing together
of the smaller holdings and the introduction of sheep farming on an
enormous scale. The new wealth of the merchant classes helped on the
change. . . . The land indeed had been greatly underlet, and as its value
rose with the peace and firm government of the early Tudors, the
temptation to raise the customary rents became irresistible. . . But it
had been only by this low scale of rent that the small yeomanry class had
been enabled to exist."
What the Wars of the Roses
accomplished for the English yeoman, the Rebellion of '45 did for a class
whose history it is proposed to sketch in the following pages. |
