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EDITOR’S PREFACE
HOWEVER crude or unsatisfying
the contents of the following sheets may appear to those who are accustomed
to the more copious and elaborate “County Histories” of England, so much has
a useful and not unpleasing field of literature been neglected in the
northern part of the island, that, perhaps, the present is the most
extensive collection of materials which has yet issued from the press to
illustrate the antiquities and topography of any Scottish shire.
The Description of the Sheriffdoms of Aberdeen and Banff, by Robert Gordon
of Straloch, which occupies the first place in the volume, was prepared by
that amiable and accomplished scholar, to accompany a Map of the counties,
which he contributed to Blaeu’s Theatrum Orbis Terrarum. The fifth part of
that work, containing the Atlas of Scotland, was published at Amsterdam in
the year mdcliv; but in this edition Straloch’s Description did not appear.
The publisher has been charged with intentionally omitting it; but the
probability seems to be, rather, that it did not reach him until after the
book had left his press. In the second edition, which was published in the
year mdclxii, the Description was inserted at length; and from this source
it is now reprinted, opportunity having been taken to amend a few manifest
faults, as well as to correct a more numerous class of errors, in the names
of places, which it was scarcely possible for a foreign printer altogether
to avoid. One or two defects, also, have been supplied by reference to
fragments of the Description, in the author’s handwriting, extant in a
volume which was at one time the property of the well-known antiquary Sir
Robert Sibbald, and is now preserved in the Library of the Faculty of
Advocates at Edinburgh.
The same noble repository contains an interesting volume of geographical
drawings by the laird of Straloch, and by his son, James Gordon, parson of
Rothiemay; and from a collation of these with the more elaborate, but
occasionally less exact, engraving in Blaeu’s Atlas Scotiae, the Map of the
Shires of Aberdeen, Banff, and The Mearns, has been constructed for the
present work.
It might have been expected that of Straloch’s many contributions to the
topography of Scotland, those which his filial regard designed for the
illustration of his native province, would be not the least valuable; and
they seem, indeed, to bear traces of more than common care. His Map, after
the lapse of nearly two centuries, still presents, in several respects, the
most instructive delineation which has appeared of the north-eastern
district of Scotland; and, certainly, no more recent account has surpassed,
either in point of accuracy or of interest, his Description, Praefecturarbm
Aberdonensis et Banfiensis.
The imperfect Description of Aberdeenshire, to which the second place in the
volume has been assigned, is printed from a copy, made under the care of Sir
Henry Ellis, of a manuscript in the British Museum. In Ayscough’s Catalogue
of the national collection, this fragment is attributed, on what authority
does not appear, to “the reverend Patrick Forbes but, by means of a
quotation preserved by Mr. James Man, in his “Memoirs of Scotish Affairs”
published in the year mdccxli, we are enabled to identify the work in the
Museum, with a "MS. Description of Aberdeenshire, by Sir Samuel Forbes of
Foveran,” of which several copies appear to have been known, as well in the
county as elsewhere. during the last century.
This gentleman, descended of the ancient family of Forbes of Tolquhon, was
born at Edinburgh, in the summer of the year mdcliii. He inherited the
barony of Foveran from his father. In the year mdcc, he was created a knight
baronet; and he died on the sixteenth of July, mdccxvii, leaving a son,
Alexander, who succeeded him in the title, and died about the year mdcclviii.
The Description of Aberdeenshire affords sufficient evidence in itself5 that
it was not written before the close of the eventful year m.dcc.xv; and, as
the author died within eighteen months of that period, we may, perhaps,
safely enough, conjecture that he left his work in the same imperfect state
in which it has reached us. It would appear, indeed, from the manuscript in
the British Museum, that he had abruptly broken away from the labour of
describing the county generally, to enter on the more congenial task of
expatiating on the history of his own parish of Foveran, and of recording
the multitudinous devices with which his pedantry had adorned his mansion
house of Tilliery.
The View of the Diocese of Aberdeen, which takes the last place in the
volume, is printed from a manuscript in the Library of the Faculty of
Advocates at Edinburgh. This is the only copy of the work now known to
exist, although another was extant about the middle of the last century,
among the manuscripts in the library of the Earl of Errol, at Slaines
Castle, and although traces of other transcriptshave been found, much more
recently, in different quarters of the diocese.
Of the writer nothing is known beyond what may be conjectured, as to his
name, from a note on one of the boards of the volume: "'Keith fin' haec mss.
Novr. 25. 1732”; and beyond what may be gathered, as to his calling, from
the work itself. A perusal of its pages will leave no room for doubt that
its author was a zealous presbyter of the Episcopal Church of Scotland; and
the persecutions which afflicted that communion, in his day, and during many
following years, as they may help to explain more than an occasional
acerbity of expression, or peculiarity of phrase, into which he has been
betrayed, so, perhaps, they may sufficiently account for the complete
oblivion which has fallen upon the learned and industrious compiler.
His work obviously has never been completed: it often presents, indeed, in
the shape in which we find it, less of the appearance of a continuous
narrative than of a series of tables of rough and disjointed notes, so that,
in order to exhibit its text in a manner that might be generally
intelligible, there has been found frequent necessity, while scrupulously
preserving the substance, to use a little freedom with the form and
arrangement of the manuscript.
The writer seems not only to have been diligent and painstaking in his
enquiries after such information as was to be looked for on the spot, but to
have possessed no mean knowledge of Scotish antiquities in general,
according to the defective measure of his time; and his work, on the whole,
must be admitted to be a creditable performance, if but due allowance be
made for the unfinished state in which it was left, and if we duly bear in
mind that the author’s object was to exhibit not so much the civil as the
ecclesiastical history and condition of the province.
It appeared to the Editor, from the manifest imperfections and somewhat
loose arrangement of the View of the Diocese of Aberdeen, that he might
venture freely to introduce, in appropriate places throughout its text, such
illustrative documents as he had been able to collect from other sources.
These pieces juxtificatives, (together with the annotations by which he
fears he may have too frequently cumbered the volume,) he has been careful
to distinguish from the work which they are designed to illustrate, by
printing them within brackets, and in a smaller type, subjoining such brief
notes as will, it is believed, in every instance, serve sufficiently to
indicate their nature, as well as the places where they are deposited. One
large class of them, it will be seen, has been derived from the charter
rooms of noble or ancient families within the limits of the two counties.
The “Topographical Collections” of the indefatigable laird of Macfarlane,
preserved in the Libraiy of the Faculty of Advocates at Edinburgh, have
supplied a second class; and a third has been furnished from the same
library, by the collections of charters made by Sir Janies Balfour and the
first Earl of Hadington, and by the registers of the great Benedictine
monasteries of Saint Mary, at Kelso, and of Saint Thomas the Martyr, at
Arbroath.
It has been deemed allowable, in most instances, so far to abbreviate the
charters, and other deeds of record, to which insertion has been given, as
to omit from them words or clauses of merely common form, or technical
import. This is a liberty which the Editor trusts will scarcely require an
apology: he fears that the fragmentary aspect which his method of
abbreviation has imposed on so many of the documents, will be less readily
forgiven. The plan which has been followed was not, however, adopted without
due consideration: its advantages, on the whole, appeared to outweigh its
obvious defects, and it was, besides, recommended by ancient precedent, as
in the instance of the earlier rolls of the Register of the Great Seal of
Scotland.
In printing a volume of such extent, and so abundant in names of places and
persons, many faults, doubtless, will be found. Against some such errors,
perhaps, no care or skill on the part of an Editor could wholly provide;
and, probably, they who have most reason to know the difficulties which
beset a work like this, will not be the least ready to excuse the
imperfections which may be discovered in its execution.
JOSEPH ROBERTSON.
Glasgow.
11th. November, mdcccxliii.
Collections for a History of the Shires
of Aberdeen and Banff
Presented to the Spalding Club by the Earl of Aberdeen (1813) (pdf) |
