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In Easter Ross there are no
fewer than thirty-one churches, of which the Church of Scotland has ten, the
United Free Church, twelve ; the Free Church, seven ; the Free Presbyterians
and the Episcopal Church, one each. All the clergymen having charge of these
separate congregations live in unity and those of the several denominations
exchange pulpits occasionally, but this happy condition of aftairs has been
reached only after some considerable heart-burnings and heart-searching on
the part of the eminent men who in the past officiated in the district, and
because of the broad view taken of their duties by those at present
occupying Easter Ross pulpits.
The story of the religious history of the district centres chiefly round the
churches of Tain, Fearn, and (in a lesser degree) Nigg.
Tain owes its first notice in history to St. Duthus who was born here,
educated in Ireland, and obtained such an accurate knowledge of the
Scriptures that he became “Chief Confessor of Ireland and Scotland.” To this
place the remains of this “godly and learned man” were translated about two
hundred years after his death which occurred in 1065. From him Tain takes
its Gaelic name of Baile Dhuthaich, and it is quite possible he had
something to do with making the place a sanctuary and so gave the Burgh
importance nearly a thousand years ago. The chapel in which he is supposed
to have worshipped was destroyed in 1427, and the ruins well preserved still
stand. Before then (circa 1370) there was built the old church of St. Duthus
possibly by William, Earl and Bishop of Ross, who would have the help of the
pilgrims attracted to it in the hope of miraculous healing—as at present
they are drawn to such places as Lourdes and St. Anne’s de Beaupre, and
leave their thank offerings. Thus we know that Sir James Douglas of Dalkeith
left for it his “robes of cloth of gold and silk and his furred robes.”
In the time of James III. the Church was by Papal Bull raised to the rank of
“Collegiate” with a Provost, five canons, two deacons, a sacrist, and three
choristers. This Bull is still to be seen in the Town Clerk’s office. James
IV. also in his various visits contributed to its upkeep. Because of its
eminence in affairs ecclesiastical there must have been regular
communication between the church dignitaries of Tain and the south, and thus
the Easter Ross people early became imbued with the thoughts of the men who
brought about the Reformation in Scotland, and when leaders like Munro of
Fowlis gave the weight of their influence to the new doctrines preached by
the Reformers there is little wonder that Tain should be the first town in
the north to embrace the reformed religion. So strong indeed was the tide
that Nicolas Ross, the then Provost of Tain, voted in the Parliament of 1560
for the suppression of the church in which he held office. The people also
became so zealous in furthering the new doctrines that the Good Regent Moray
presented them with a beautifully carved oaken pulpit which, when St. Duthus
Church stood vacant, had some of its ornamentation broken or carried away
but which has been replaced by an exact replica which is now one of the
sights of the town.
But the Reformation had also the effect of taking away the peculiar efficacy
of the place as a holy shrine, and pilgrims no longer resorted to it, and as
about that time laws were more justly administered criminals and “broken
men” in decreasing numbers, and with less security, fled to it for
sanctuary. From that time to this, however, it continued to be a centre of
light, learning, and commerce for the whole surrounding district.
Some of the emoluments or chaplainries pertaining to the old church here
were converted into bursaries to help young men to study at the
Universities. One of these bursars was John Munro who afterwards became
minister here, and he was brave enough to attend, at Aberdeen, an Assembly
interdicted by James VI. For this he was summoned before the Privy Council
and though the majority of those who “compeared” with him submitted, Mr
Munro maintained that the Assembly at Aberdeen was “a verie lawful General
Assembly.” For this “ contumacy ” he was imprisoned in Doune Castle but
escaped and resumed his work at Tain, but the Crown withheld his stipend.
The people saw to it that their minister was not starved out. The Privy
Council was not thus to be baulked and therefore addressed a strong letter
to the Town Council on the iniquity of their allowing “a person standing
under His Majesty’s offence to have so peaceable a residence as well as the
free exercise of his calling among them” and ordering them to imprison him.
It does not seem clear how the Council acted but this brave minister died
five years afterwards.
After the Restoration of 1660 three ministers of the district were ejected,
viz.—Rev. Thomas Ross of Kincardine, Andrew Ross of Tain, and M'Killigan of
Alness, as well as the famous Thomas Hog of Kiltearn, who was a native of
Tain. The sympathy of the people was evidently with the “outed” ministers,
but an Episcopalian was incumbent of St. Duthus from 1666 to 1700.
Then there was a sensational struggle to have the minister of Tarbat
“translated’’ to Tain. The manner of this translation is curious. The story
goes that a number of strong good people from Tain went one Sunday morning
to Tarbat, took the chosen minister out of his pulpit, carried him to Tain,
placed him in the Regent Moray’s pulpit and asked him to deliver the sermon
he was to have preached at Tarbat.
After this minister’s death in 1744 the magistrates agreed to give a
unanimous call to the minister of Auldearn, and in order that the call might
be unanimous and harmonious, declared “if any of the burgher inhabitants
will give opposition, the Council will look on the same as very unkind and
undutiful. as they wanted a speedy comfortable settlement to prevent the
abounding sin and wickedness of the place.”
In 1797 Angus Macintosh, D.D., was translated to Tain and died there in
1831. It was he who, after he on a Sunday morning got a newspaper with the
news of the victory at Waterloo, saw it his duty to take the paper with him
to church and read out to the people with much acceptance the story of that
victory. As a preacher he was said to combine all the excellencies of
M'Phail of Resolis, Fraser of Alness, and Porteous of Kilmuir Easter. He
died in 1831 and was succeeded by his son, Dr. Charles C. Macintosh, in
1831. In common with most Highland ministers he “came out1' at the
Disruption. There have been other ecclesiastical sensations in Easter Ross
churches since but none of such importance as this, and at present it would
appear that the next will be the day on which it is declared that the United
Free Church has entered into union with the Church of Scotland and the
bitterness of years absolutely buried.
FEARN.
Fearn occupies a prominent place in the ecclesiastical history of Ross
because of the somewhat strange history of its Abbey Church. It would appear
that when William the Lion was in the north he built not only a fort on the
Nigg Sutor, where the present Admiralty Fort is, but a castle at Edderton to
overawe the inhabitants of Easter Ross, and when not long after it became
fashionable for the nobility to build abbeys, Farquhar, Earl of Ross, in
1230, had one erected at Fearn in Edderton. The story of this Earl’s reason
for founding it as sometimes given is that when he accompanied his
sovereign, Alexander II., to London, he met a famous French champion whom he
challenged to mortal combat. Before engaging his foe, Farquhar in his
terror, vowed that if the Almighty helped him to win he would found an
Abbey. The Earl slew his opponent and on his way north called at Whithorn
and brought with him some of the relics of St. Ninian and two canons.
“Malcolm of Galloway” was the first abbot of the new abbey and conducted its
affairs with great piety and judgment for fifteen years. After about twenty
years the priests, according to one authority, because the devotions were
interrupted by the ferocity and savageness of the neighbouring inhabitants,
transported the abbey “for the more tranquillity, peace and quiet thereof”
to its present site and gave it the name by which it was at first known.
Another story is that the churchmen found their lands at Edderton rather
confined, and not so fertile as they would have wished, and therefore got a
new bull from the Pope for building the Abbey where it now stands in a
fertile and extensive plain. Earl Farquhar, the founder, is buried within
this Abbey and a stone effigy marks the spot where he lies.
In 1338 the Abbey was re-built, while a Mark Ross was abbot and later the
convent ventured to reject a presentee of the Prior of Whithorn.
There was also a stuggle
between another abbot, Thomas M'Culloch and Andrew Stewart, Bishop of
Caithness,rin which the former was ousted from the abbey and went to Mid
Geanies where he erecte'd a private opposition chapel. The most famous of
all the abbots, however, was Patrick Hamilton, who received the benefice
when quite a child, though it does not seem probable that he lived here. He
was the proto-martyr of the Reformation. He studied at St Andrews, travelled
in Germany, imbibed the Lutheran teaching at Wittenberg, and embodied his
theological convictions in a set of articles called “Patrick’s Pleas” which
is thoroughly Lutheran in standpoint, form, and expression, and it would
seem for a time as if it were he, rather than Knox, who was to give his
impress to the Reformation movement in Scotland. The church took alarm at
his preaching and James Beaton, Archbishop of St. Andrews, enticed him to
St. Andrews, where at a trial he was found guilty of thirteen different
articles of heresy, and was burned at the gate of St. Salvator’s on 28th
February 1528, and “his reek infected as many as it did blow upon.”
He was succeeded by Donald Dunoon, who came from Argyllshire and grew
wealthy here. The lands of Cadboll, once abbey lands, passed into his hands.
His nephew Andrew succeeded to these lands and was the second laird of
Cadboll of that name. About that time there was also a Sir David Dunoon who
had property in the neighbourhood. It is interesting to note that although
the lands of Cadboll have changed hands several times during the past three
centuries, there are still families bearing the name of Dunoon in Easter
Ross, no doubt descendants of this ancient family. He was succeeded by a
Robert Cairncross, who was appointed because he was wealthy and was able to
restore the abbey which was then badly out of repair. Nicolas Ross of Tain
was also in charge for a time. The next abbot, Thomas Ross, who was also
Provost of the Church at Tain, and Vicar of Alness, had to face troublous
times, during which he lived in Forres. The kind of trouble to be dealt with
may be inferred from the story of the complaint made by William Gray to the
Privy Council in 1569. He tells that when after preaching he had descended
to administer the Sacrament, one Robert Lennox, whom he debarred from the
Communion, in a great fury and rage came to him with a drawn sword, with
which he struck him and would have killed him but for the interference of
the parishioners who stopped him. Lennox did not appear when summoned to
trial, was declared a rebel, put to the horn, and had his goods forfeited.
In 1599, most or the lands belonging to the Abbey were made the Barony of
Geanies and granted to Sir Patrick Murray, who did not find them profitable,
and in 1607 or 1617, all the other lands belonging to the Abbey and not
included in the Barony, were annexed to the Bishopric of Ross and this
institution after existing for nearly four hundred years became extinct.
The Abbey is now the Fearn Parish Church. In the story of “The Washing of
the Mermaid,” Hugh Miller in Scenes and Legends graphically describes the
fall of the roof of the Abbey on a Sunday morning in 1742 while the
congregation was^ worshipping, a catastrophe in which thirty-six persons
were killed and many more so dreadfully injured that they never recovered.
This place is certainly worth a visit by any one interested in the history
of Ross-shire.
NIGG.
The parish of Nigg has borne its share in the ecclesiastical strife of the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. From 1729 to 1752 this parish enjoyed
the ministrations of Mr Balfour, an eminent and successful divine in his
time, but on his death, owing to a Royal presentation being given to, and
accepted by a Mr Patrick Grant, regarding whom unfavourable reports reached
the parish, the congregation resolved to do all in their power to prevent
his settlement in Nigg. The majority of the members of the Presbytery sided
with the congregation in their opposition and refused to induct him. The
Assembly acquitted Mr Grant of the charge brought against him and again
ordered the Presbytery to induct him. A minister was sent to Nigg to explain
the Assembly’s decision. He reported on his return that he found only two
servants and therefore he did not preach but that he left the edict in the
keyhole of the church door. On hearing this the Presbytery determined to
disobey the Assembly’s order. Again it went to the Assembly which threatened
the Presbytery. The latter in alarm agreed to induct Mr Grant, but when the
day came, only four members were present, and according to Scott’s Fasti,
two of the four men were found at six o’clock in the evening to have
withdrawn in fear, leaving the Presbytery without a quorum and nothing was
done. A third time Mr Grant appealed to the Assembly and a motion was made
that the whole Presbytery of Tain be deposed instanter, but this was lost as
against one that the Presbytery be solemnly rebuked, and the obnoxious
presentee was inducted to “ the bare walls ” of the church of Nigg. It was
at one of these Presbytery meetings that the famous scene occurred which
Hugh Miller so graphically describes in Chapter X. of Scenes and Legends,
when Donald Roy, the famous and venerable second sight elder of the
congregation, appeared and with prophetic fervour warned them that the blood
of the people of the parish would be on their heads if they dared to induct
Mr Grant, which so terrified them that they on that occasion quickly carried
a motion for delay. Mr Grant acted as pastor for about thirty years after
his induction. The people, however, refused to attend the Parish Church, and
built for themselves a meeting house at Ankerville. For a time they were
without any minister, but in 1760, they heard of a young man who was in
Inverness and could preach Gaelic. He came to Nigg, but it appeared that
while he was in Inverness he had fallen into debt, and only three years
later his landlady found out where her erstwhile lodger was. She set the
machinery of the law in motion, and a messenger-at-arms was sent out to
arrest him. The men of Nigg were in Logie that day cutting peats, but the
women on hearing ot what was to happen to their minister, met in a body at
the Red Bridges, filled their pockets with stones and chased him to within
two miles of Tain.
In 1765, the Presbytery of
Dunfermline and Perth, as there was no Secession Presbytery further north,
inducted a Mr Buchanan from Callander. During the last year of Buchanan’s
ministry, the heritors resolved that he must have no successor, and thought
the best way to do this was to deprive the congregation of their church. A
day was appointed for demolishing the building, but no one in the parish
would do it. Next day, however, a squad from Logie came and knocked it to
pieces. As it was known that the church stones were to be used in the
building of the Shandwick Mansion-house, one of the people pronounced a
curse on the proprietor and his mansion ; and the remarkable thing is that
the mansion was never finished, and stands to this day a saddening sight
with its walls unfinished, and now crumbling to ruin, with bats, moles, and
rats as its only inhabitants, the red stones of Nigg being conspicuous owing
to the lime never adhering to them. A second church was then erected on the
Pitcalnie estate. It was thus it came about that before the union of 1900
there were only three United Presbyterian Churches on the mainland, north of
Inverness, viz. :—Wick, Tain, and rural Chapelhill in this parish.
The bell of Nigg Parish Church bears the inscription, “Michael Bvrgerhvys,
me.1624. Soli Deo Gloria,” while the present church was built on the old
site about 1626. The story goes that the people of Nigg and Fearn were
expecting bells for their churches from Holland by the same vessel and
deputations from both congregations went to Cromarty on the same day to
carry them home. After some jollification, they were both crossing to the
Nigg side by the same boat and during the passage quarrelled and one of the
bells was thrown overboard. Both parties were determined to bring home a
bell and had a regular fight, in which it is said the Nigg men won, and this
Dutch bell still rings the parishioners to worship.
There is another famous bell, large and well-toned, in the Parish Church of
Kincardine, and which has been in regular use since 1778, On a marble tablet
under the belfry is the following inscription
This Bell, Captured from a French Ship of War of 74 Guns, was Gifted By
Admiral Sir Joiin Ross of Balnagown, Bart., in the year 1778,
To the Parish of Kincardine
“When Britain's navies did a world control,
And spread her empire to the farthest pole;
High stood our hero in the rolls of fame,
And Lockhart then became a deathless name,
This bell no more shall witness blood or gore,
Nor shall his voice mix with the cannon’s roar;
But to Kincardine by the hero given,
Shall call the sinner to the peace of heaven."
In the other parishes there
have been clergymen who were famous over a wide area for their eloquence and
spirituality of their preaching like Rev. John Porteous who was minister of
Kilmuir Easter from 1732 to 1775; Rev. Dr Bethune, minister of Rosskeen
between 1717 and 1754 ; and the Rev. Thomas Ross of Kincardine, who as a
Covenanter was imprisoned in Tain in 1675, and to whom Rev. James Fraser of
Brea and Culross dedicated his memoirs.
There were in those days “men” in every parish, many of whom possessed not
only of the highest character because of the sanctity ot their lives but
because of their gifts of oratory as well. Some were possessed even of
second sight. Several of these second sight stories are told by Hugh Miller
regarding Donald Roy. Of another, Alexander Ross of Edderton, similar tales
are also told. |
