GLADSTONE,
a surname originally Gladstanes, and derived from the estate of that
name in Teviotdale. The Gladstanes of that ilk, previously designed of
Cocklaw, were a pretty ancient family, as is proved by charters still
extant. In one, granted by Robert the Third, of several lands to William
Inglis of Manners, the right of Gladstanes of Cocklaw is reserved.
George Gladstanes and William Gladstanes are witnesses in a charter of
Archibald, earl of Angus, to his apparent heir, James Douglas, July 2,
1479. Nisbet mentions some charters of the Gladstanes’ family about the
same period. [Nisbet’s Heraldry, vol. I. P. 267.]
Mr. John
Gladstanes, LL.D., supposed to have belonged to the family of Gladstanes
of Gladstanes, was admitted a lord of session, 30th January
1542. From several instances being recorded of gifts and appointments
made to him, with the view of increasing his emoluments, it would appear
that he was by no means rich. While at the bar, he was, in March 1535,
selected by the lords of session, with “Master Thomas Majoribanks,” to
be advocate for the poor, on a letter from the king, enjoining them to
choose a an of “gude conscience” for that office, under the title of
Advocatus Pauperum. On the 3d September 1546, four years after being
raised to the bench, he was appointed collector of the contributions due
by the prelates, for the supply of the court, when he was designed
“licentiate in baith the lawis.” It does not appear that he adopted any
judicial title, but in a roll of the judges made up on 19th
January 1555, he is styled “My lord Doctor Mr. Jo. Gladstanes.” On 21st
May 1557, he obtained a gift from the court, of the arrears of the
contribution due by the minister of Failfurd, who was superior of the
Trinity or Red Friars.
George
Gladstanes, a native of Dundee, was, in 1600, made bishop of Caithness
by James the Sixth, and in 1606 was translated thence to the
archbishopric of St. Andrews. He had previously been minister of
Arbirlot in Forfarshire, and in 1597 was removed to be minister at St.
Andrews, of the university of which city he was, in 1599, appointed
vice-chancellor. In 1604, while bishop of Caithness, he was named a
commissioner for promoting the union of the two kingdoms, a favourite
project of James the Sixth after his accession to the English throne,
but which at that time proved abortive. Archbishop Gladstanes, whose
name often occurs in the ecclesiastical records of the period, died 2d
May 1615. His son, Mr. Alexander Gladstanes, was archdean of St.
Andrews.
Claiming
descent from the ancient family of Gladstanes of Gladstanes, Mr. John
Gladstones of Toftcombes, near Biggar, in the upper ward of Lanarkshire,
had by his wife Janet Aitken, a son, Thomas, prosperous trader in Leith,
who married Helen, daughter of Mr. Walter Neilson of Springfield, and
died in the year 1809. Of this marriage, Sir John Gladstone, the first
baronet, of Fasque, was the eldest son. Born at Leith on the 11th
of Dec. 1764, he commenced business there at an early age, but soon
removed to Liverpool, where he amassed considerable riches by his
enterprise, industry, and skill, and was munificent in their disposal.
In 1840, he built and endowed St. Thomas’ church at Leith, in communion
with the church of Scotland. He also built on the same spot – in the
neighbourhood of the Coal Hill, where his father had his place of trade
– a school, and an asylum with a revenue of £300 a-year for the support
of ten females labouring under incurable diseases. When carrying on
business in Liverpool – from which he retired in 1843 – he was a liberal
donor to the Church of England; and on returning to Scotland, he became
a not less liberal benefactor to the Scottish Episcopal church. His
gifts to Trinity college, Glenalmond, were princely; he contributed
largely to the fund for endowing the bishopric of Brechin; and at his
own charge he built and endowed a church – making his place of sepulture
within its walls – at his beautiful seat of Fasque in Kincardineshire,
which he had purchased. He likewise built two churches in Liverpool, and
one in the immediate neighbourhood where he had long resided.
In February
1835 he obtained the royal license to drop the final s at his name, and
to change it to Gladstone. His eminent position as a merchant, together
with his great talents and experience, gave much weight to his opinions
on commercial matters. He was frequently consulted on such subjects by
the ministers of the day, and was the author of several pamphlets and
letters to the newspapers on mercantile questions. He was almost to the
last a supporter of the protective policy which reigned supreme during
his youth and manhood; and three or four years before his death he wrote
against the repeal of the corn and navigation laws. Desire was more than
once expressed to see him in parliament, and he contested the
representation of Dundee and other places on those conservative
principles to which he adhered through life, but without success. On the
27th June, 1846, he was created a baronet, on the spontaneous
suggestion of Sir Robert Peel, then Premier, and his was one of the very
few baronetcies conferred by a minister more than commonly frugal in the
grant of titles. He was a magistrate both for Lancashire and
Kincardineshire. He died in December 1851.
Sir John
Gladstone was twice married: first, in 1792, to Jane, daughter of Mr.
Joseph Hall of Liverpool, who died in 1798, without issue; and,
secondly, on 29th April 1800, to Anne, daughter of Mr. Andrew
Robertson, for many years provost of Dingwall. By this lady, who died on
23d September 1835, he had, with two daughters, four sons, namely,
Thomas, second baronet; Robertson Gladstone, born in 1805, an eminent
merchant of Liverpool, and chairman of the Financial Reform Association
of that town, married, with issue; John Neilson Gladstone, born in 1807,
a commander R.N., M.P. for Walsall and subsequently for Devizes, married
with issue; and the Right Hon. William Ewart Gladstone, born in 1809,
was educated at Eton and at Christ church, Oxford, where he attained a
double first class in 1831, and received the honorary degree of D.C.L.
in 1848. In 1832 he was elected M.P. for Newark, which place he
represented till January 1846. He was a lord of the treasury in December
1834, and under secretary for the colonies from January to April 1835.
In September 1841, he was appointed vice-president of the board of trade
and master of the mint, and sworn a privy councillor. In May 1843, he
became president of the board of trade, retaining the mastership of the
mint, but resigned both offices in February 1845. In December of that
year he was appointed secretary f state for the colonies, which office
he held till July 1846. Elected in 1847 M.P. for the university of
Oxford; chancellor of the Exchequer, Dec. 1852 till Feb. 1855. In 1858
lord-high-commissioner extraordinary to the Ionian islands; in June 1859
re-appointed chancellor of the Exchequer. The same year he was elected
Rector of the University of Edinburgh. He married in 1839 the eldest
daughter of Sir Stephen R. Glynn, Bart., of Hawarden castle, Flintshire,
with issue. Author of ‘The State in its relation with the Church,’
London, 1838, 8vo. ‘Church Principles considered in their results,’
London, 1840, 8vo. ‘A Manual of Prayers from the Liturgy,’ 1845. ‘An
examination of the official Reply to the Neapolitan government,’ 1852.
‘Studies on Homer and the Homeric age.’ Oxford, 1858; and several
political and official papers, letters, and addresses.
The eldest
son, Sir Thomas 2d baronet, born at Annfield near Liverpool, in 1804,
was M.P. for Queensborough in 1830; for Portarlington from 1832 to 1835;
for Leicester from 1835 to 1838; and for Ipswich from June 1842 to
August in the same year, when he was unseated on petition. A deputy
lieutenant of Kincardineshire. He married in 1835, Louisa, daughter of
Robert Fellowes, Esq. of Shottisham Park, Norfolk, with issue. Heir, his
son, John Robert, born in 1852.
Mr. Gladstone’s Ancestors
THE GLEDSTANES OF GLEDSTANES AND COKLA A Chapter in Old Scottish Story.
This
account has been ocr'd from the article in Fraser's Magazine
THE small, yet ancient and picturesque town
of Biggar lies in the Upper Ward of Lanarkshire. It is some three miles
eastward from the main valley of the Clyde. But it has a stream of its
own— the Biggar Bum—which afterwards rises to the dignity of the Biggar
Water; and to the west and south of the town, Tinto and Culter Fell
throw grand shadows, towards the afternoon, over the otherwise flat and
uninteresting haughs. Biggar has grown up through the centuries under
the protection of the Lords Fleming, and their towers of Boghall. In
itself and its surroundings it has many interesting associations with
old story. Near it is Biggar Moss, where, as Blind Harry tells us in a
picturesque way, Wallace put to rout ‘ the reyffar King,’ as he
scornfully and defiantly called him,—the hated Edward. We need not
meanwhile disturb the old tradition. There is the ancient Pass of
Corscryne by which the broken English host fled southwards to Birkhill
and the Solway. The faces of old warriors and the scenes of old battles
are about us in a way tempting us to tarry over the past. But we have no
time to-day for this. It is the 2nd of January, 1880; the day is short,
the sky is grey, and we have a long walk before us. So, turning our back
on the railway station and the heights of Culter Fell and Cardon, we
make our way northwards for the line of the Biggar Burn; we pass through
the head of the town and up the hill by the bum-side. We pause but for a
moment by the wall of the ancient church, with its quaint Gothic
exterior and its pointed Romanesque windows. It dates from the turmoil
of the period immediately before the Reformation, and it recalls the
earnest but shortsighted and fruitless efforts of the Lords Fleming to
arrest the upbreaking of the ancient faith by finely wrought building
and new ecclesiastical endowments. For many more centuries than the
present Church has stood, the townsfolk and burgesses of Biggar have
been laid in the surrounding churchyard. And in it there is a spot set
apart to a name in which we take an interest, and into whose history we
are now inquiring. There we find lying several generations of men who
bore the name of Gledstanes, Gladstones, and finally Gladstone. The
first of the name was laid in Biggpr churchyard in 1756. Before that
period the Gledstanes had been buried in the churchyard of Liberton,
then a moorland parish to the north of Biggar. The change of
burying-place indicated a change in the fortunes of the family. When
they buried in Liberton, they were laid there a* the lairds of The
Gledstanes—as Gledstanes of that Ilk—and latterly as the lairds of
Arthurshiel in the same parish, and they were consigned with all the
reverence of privacy to their own aisle. But since 1756, they have been
laid in Biggar churchyard simply as honest tradesmen and burgesses of
the town are laid—in the piece of ground set apart for them among their
neighbours and equals in the daily life of the place. The men whose dust
lies here thus belong to a family to which a great interest attaches,
not only from the striking vicissitudes of fortune which it has
undergone, but also for the part which its members have played in local,
especially Border story, for its restoration in our times to its
original landed position, above all for the power which one of its
members in our own day has had and still has in moulding the policy and
the destinies of the British nation. For the great-grandson of the
Gladstones who was first laid in Biggar churchyard is the statesman and
scholar— William Ewart Gladstone.
Let us go on now to see the original seat of this ancient and stalwart
line, and let us look for a little at the story of the race. We leave
the churchyard to the right and proceed northwards, following for the
most part the line of the Biggar Bum. We leave Cambus-Wallace, and go on
through the Carwood. Still ascending, we come to the pastoral uplands of
Muirlee. We go on past Castlelochy, and then reach the Bell Craig, 1,005
above the sea. Here the road descends, passes across a streamlet, and on
the rising knowes on the opposite side we first see the object of our
walk and interest—the two Gledstanes, Wester and Easter. It was on that
knowe lying below us, known as Easter Gledstanes, that the family named
of that Ilk had its original seat; it was there they lived in very early
times and for several generations, and it was from that spot they came
forth to add to the deeds-—many of them valiant, some of them dark
enough—of Border story.
Looking down and around from the Bell Craig, let us note the
surroundings of The Gledstanes. In the small valley on this side a
streamlet or syke makes its way as a feeder to a bum which flows
northward to the valley of the South Medwyn now before us, and joins it
ere it fuses with the North Medwyn, and the united stream makes its way
to the Clyde. This burn has its source in a long hill to our right,
which slopes upwards to the north, rises to a height of more than 1,000
feet, and is named Coklaw. The bum is the Ghyll Bum, showing that the
Scandinavians, who left a good sprinkling of their names along the
head-waters of the Tweed and the Clyde, reached as far as the valley of
the Medwyn and its tributary glens.
The surrounding outlook over earth and sky
is of the widest and finest kind—thoroughly characteristic of a Lowland,
even a Border landscape. There is no far prospect to the west; only the
Bell Craig, now wooded in the usual conventional .manner of the south of
Scotland, with the hardiest and the cheapest firs—monotonous and
crowded. But to the east nature is pure, intact, and grand. The Black
Mount, heather-covered to the top, and surrounded by two or three
heights, rises to about 1,700 feet—a massive and shapely hill. Boreland
Hill is to the north ; the Medwyn Water flanks it in that direction with
its pastoral and solitary valley ; and on tbe other side of the stream
Dunsyre Hill, with its white pointed top, gives a distinct and
picturesque impression in relief. Other lower hills flow along the north
side of the valley of the Medwyn, accompany it, and sink with it, as it
tends to its fall in the haugh of the Clyde. The plough has now told on
the knowes and valleys, and the natural pasture lands only recover their
verdure after being torn up, sown, and cropped; but there is still a
distinctive pastoral feeling in the region. The sheep dot the knowes,
and in the olden time, and not very long ago, these heights of the
Gledstanes and Coklaw would have seemed a typical specimen of the
secluded and pathetic uplands which form the true heart of the Border
Land of Scotland. But we make a slight descent, cross the valley, and we
are at the Gledstanes. And what are the Gledstanes now Wester Gledstanes,
which stands a few hundred yards from Easter Gledstanes, is an old
abandoned farm-house, with a line of outhouses and cottages adjoining.
Easter Gledstanes is a new farm-house with good capacious byres, on the
best principles for rearing and fattening cattle— suggesting modern
markets and their demands. Both farms are now the property of the
Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge; and the directors are
obviously careful of the farmer and the knout. But there is no mistaking
the old fashion of the surroundings. There is the avenue which led to
the castle, and of which one side at least retains its grand old
trees—chiefly ashes, as fine as are to be seen anywhere in the country.
There are lines of green mounds marking the boundaries of parks or
squares, skirted also by stately trees—elms and planes, as well as
ashes. They are about nine hundred feet above sea level, yet rise
magnificently to the heavens. The ancient castle or peel-tower which
stood in a square of trees in front of the modern farm-house has wholly
disappeared. Only its green mounds remain, facing the small bum which,
as was wont, determined its site. But recently was the last or ground
arched roof of the tower cleared away; and so fast were its stones knit
together by the old mortar, that two or three charges of dynamite were
required to blast it into pieces—an application of the discoveries of
modem science for which of course we ought to be duly thankful Its
various coloured stones—telling of old volcanic forces in the Pent-lands
and regions immediately to the south—now make a curious and picturesque
mosaic in the ox-stalls required by modern farming wants. But let us be
just to the destroyers, or rather, I believe, to the architect acting
under their instructions. The old tower had for a lintel above a window
or doorway—I am not sure which—a curious stone, with carving and a
monogram. This has been carefully preserved and placed in the wall of a
new stable. Thus I represent it:—
This 1619 indicates a date too modem for the Gledstanes. The I M
represents, I think, John Menzies, of Culterallers, who had succeeded
the Menzies, to whom the Gledstanes disposed of the property some time
before.
Then there is another relique, which was got in the low cattle vault of
the tower. This, too, is built into the wall of the modem byres. It is
evidently the lower part of a handmill for corn. A more recent relique
there still is. We have a stone lintel with indented letters, now built
into one of the byres, with the inscription :—
17 G.R. K.M. 78
Who these were it is hard to say, though I was told the letters could
once be truthfully read.
Well, here, in this high bleak moorland, as it then was, we find the
first mention of the name of Gledestane, or Gledstanes as it was
afterwards commonly written. Herbert de Gledestane appears on the Ragman
Roll of 1296 as one of the lairds who swore fealty to Edward I. The
origin of the name is obvious. It is the gled or glede, the old Angle or
Scotch for hawk or falcon, and stane is for stone or rock. There may
have been some spot where Wester or Easter Gledstanes now stands once
known by the name of the GlecCs stane. But we have only to look a little
to the south-west, where Bell Craig rises to upwards of a thousand feet,
to see where of old the gled would find his resting-place, whither he
would retire with his prey, and where too of a morning he would tell of
the dawn, and rouse the inmates of the dwellings. As Gawain Douglas puts
it:—
East by my chalmir in heych wisnit trees
The soir gled quhisles loud with mony ane pew,
Quhairby the day was dawn weil I knew.
Originally apparently Gledestane or Gledstane, the name very soon came
to be written Gledstanes, Gledstaines, Gladstanes, Gladstones• Finally
it has become, what must be pronounced to be a meaningless form,
Gladstone.
Nearly fifty years pass on, over the struggles of Wallace and Bruce, and
the Gledstane is still at the head of the Ghyll Burn. In the time of
David II. the family add to their landed possessions. Now they get lands
in the valley of the Eddlestone Water, about a mile from the town of
Peebles, and some twenty miles south-east of the Ghyll Burn. They had
evidently been of use to the king. After David’s defeat and capture at
Neville’s Cross (1346), there were negotiations regarding the transfer
to England of the shires of Roxburgh, Selkirk, Tweeddale, and
Lauderdale. Umphraville, Percy, and Neville were the English
Commissioners; the abbots of Melrose, Jedburgh, Dryburgh, and several
laymen, including Patrick and William of Gledstanes, acted for Scotland.
In 1365, after David’s return to Scotland, he granted to William of
Gledstanes, the son and heir to William of Gledstanes, knight, deceased,
the lands of Woodgrenynton. These lands can still be identified. They
were then pleasant slopes and meadow lands near and around the old
religious house of Chapel-hill, which stood amid its orchards, watered
by the Eddlestone.
This was apparently the first addition to the fortunes of the laird of
Gledstanes. But another was soon to follow. One John Trumble [Turnbull]
held the lands of Hundleshope, ‘ the hungry, hungry Hundleshope ’ of the
old picturesque rhyme. For the haugh lands were then under water—in
fact, a loch—and the hills and glens now to be prized for their stem and
savage beauty, their alpine recesses, and their autumn glow of heather,
were, perhaps, looked at, in the 4 days of cattle and com,’ as but a
bare possession. Yet old Hundleshope has a fine ring about it—of the
sound of the horn and the tongue of the hound; for it is in its earliest
form the Houndwallshope, or the Hope of the Hound’s Well. And in those
far-back days its heights and its wild glens would be the hardest
hunting-ground, the best refuge for deer and boar and wolf which even
the grand hills around afforded.
John Trumble got the lands of Hundleshope from David II., between 1329
and 1371. Obviously he had come across from the old Turnbull country of
Bedrule. Margaret, John’s daughter, only child and heiress, was wooed
and won by William Gledstanes of Gledstanes. Matters had been fitly
arranged by John Trumble and young Gledstanes in the old quaint
fortalice of Hundleshope—now long passed away. In due time there came a
son, John Gledstanes; and finally Margaret, his mother, resigned to him
in her lifetime the lands of Hundleshope, which she had inherited from
her father. These lands were duly conveyed to the son by a charter of
Robert III., somewhere between 1390 and 1406. It was probably after
1390, as William Gledstanes, presumably the husband, was then living,
and appears as signatory to a charter of Robert III. of date 1391.
But Margaret Trumble was destined to bring to the Gledstanes another
territorial connection. She had property in Teviotdale. In her lifetime,
and still in the reign of Robert III., she further resigned to this
fortunate son John Gledstanes (called apparently after old John Trumble,
her father) certain other lands, which she inherited in the parish of
Roberton, by the Borthwick Water, not far from Brank-some, and also
lands in the town of Selkirk. About the same time the Gledstanes seem to
have got lands in the neighbourhood of Hawick, in the valley of the
Slitrig and parish of Cavers. These were probably also part of the
heritage of Margaret Trumble. They consisted of Ormiston, Orchard, and
Hummelknowes, lying to the south-east of the town of Hawick. They were
held by feudal tenure from the great Border house of Douglas. One is led
to think of Margaret Gledstanes as a sweet, gentle woman, and as a kind
and loving mother, thus to treat her son. She did for him all that she
could, and what she thought was kindest and best. Here was a lucky
chance for a lad to make his way in the world—for a laird to become a
lord—and adding gradually, as he now might have done, to his
possessions, to become a territorial magnate, like Scott of Buccleuch,
whose prospects at this time were by no means so great. But somehow or
other the tide was missed, and Margaret Trumble’s son does not seem to
have advanced in this line. Rather, after this he was more in Teviotdale,
where his possessions were comparatively small, than in the Upper Ward
and Tweeddale, where his estates were considerable. Perhaps there was an
impetuous temper in the family, which preferred the constant fervours of
the Border raids to the comparatively unfrequent intrusions on Upper
Tweeddale. The Gledstanes certainly after this period are heard of more,
in the neighbourhood of Hawick, than in their original district.
We come now to a curious incident in the history of the family. There is
an historical fact tolerably well ascertained, known as the Siege of
Coklaw. In 1403 the Earl of Northumberland and his son Hotspur followed
Earl Douglas, who had ravaged Northumberland with a band of Scots, and
caught them as they were making their way back to Scotland, on the
rugged slope of Homildon Hill, above Wooler. A night more, and Douglas
and the Scots would have been high up on the Cheviots, by the head of
the Kale Water, where the Percies would have found it hard to deal with
them, or even to catch them. But, as fate would have it, the tired Scots
encamped on the southern slope of Homildon Hill, amid broken and rugged
ground, with the heights of the Cheviots to their back, which cut off
all chance of retreat in case of disaster.
Douglas and the Scots were badly beaten. The mound down on the rough
road to Homildon shows where the hardest of the fight took place, and
where Scotch and English men lie buried. Douglas was made prisoner; and
Henry IV., in pursuance of the traditional Edwardian policy of asserting
feudal rights over Scotland, gave to the Earl of Northumberland a grant
of the whole Douglas territory in Teviotdale. This sort of present was,
of course, rather of a doubtful character. It was easy to offer, but not
so easy to take. But the Percies had deeper designs than Henry himself
surmised. They had aims at the Crown of England itself. They did not
thus care so much for the possession of the Douglas lands, as for
the-possession of the person and goodwill of the Douglas himself.
Accordingly, they sought and succeeded in concerting an alliance with
Douglas while in captivity, to help them to dispossess Henry, and secure
the crown of England for their family. But, in obedience to Henry’s
orders, and as a formal taking possession of the lands of Douglas, they
marched for a day into Scotland, into the heart of the territory of
Douglas in Teviotdale, and laid siege to the somewhat insignificant
tower of Coklaw. This was on the lands of Ormiston. It was the property
of the feudal vassal of Douglas—Gledstanes of Gledstanes and Coklaw. The
Percies lay before this tower for some time. They battered it in a
listless sort of way, and after some days they retired to England, with
articles of agreement that it was to be delivered up after so many
weeks. The whole movement wa& a mere pretext, which concealed the design
of ascertaining the strength of the Douglas vassals, and organising the
conspiracy which they were plotting against their own king. The result
of the whole was the famous battle of Shrewsbury, in which the Percies,
aided by Douglas, rose against their king. They suffered a disastrous
defeat— Hotspur, the son, being slain, and Douglas wounded and taken
prisoner.1
As bearing on our present narrative, the
curious thing about the Percy movement is that the Earl, in his
despatches to the kingr speaks of the Castle he laid siege to as
Ormiston Castle. This was,, doubtless, the name of a part of the
Gledstanes’ property ; and it is said that the tower of Coklaw occupied
a site in front of the comparatively modern Ormiston House. The ruins of
Coklaw Castle remained until about the middle of last century. There can
be no* doubt that Gledstanes of Gledstanes was also, especially
latterly,* Gledstanes of Coklaw. He is named indifferently as both in an
indictment for slaughter, to be noticed subsequently. But the question
is, Where was this Coklaw ? Was it originally the Coklaw on Ormiston, or
was it the Coklaw which adjoins Easter Gledstanes in the parish of
Liberton? There is a hill so named—bounding with Easter Gledstanes—having
on its northern slope a small property called Gledstanes Boreland. Was
Coklaw then the property of the Gledstanes originally, and did they
retain this after parting with the Gledstanes estate ? This seems to me
very probable. When they left Lanarkshire to reside in Teviotdale, they
put up their tower on Ormiston; but they called the tower Coklaw in
memory of their original possession in Lanarkshire. Hence Percy
naturally spoke of Ormiston Castle. The Gledstanes had but newly
acquired it; and in process of time, through association with them, it
came to be called Coklaw. Gledstanes of Gledstanes was also Gledstanes
of Coklaw in the reign of Robert III. (1390-1406). Had Ormiston Castle
been at that time Coklaw, Percy would have so designated it in 1403.
After the time of the siege of Coklaw we find various references to
Gledstanes, chiefly signatures in public documents connected with
Teviotdale. On March 22, 1564, John Gledstanes of that Ilk is one of the
subscribers to a contract of reconciliation and amity between the Scotts
and the Kerrs after years of deadly feud; and Gledstanes appears as an
adherent of Buccleuch. Still more curious than this, looked at in the
light of modern times, is the circumstance suggested by the lines of old
Scott of Satchells. He tells us:—
The barons of Buccleuch they kept at their call
Four-and-twenty gentlemen in their hall;
All being of his name and kin,
Each two had a servant to wait on him.
Of these 'four-and-twenty gentlemen,’ twenty-three were Scotts, and the
twenty-fourth was Walter Gledstanes of Whitelaw—a cadet of Gledstanes of
that ilk—and ‘a near cousin of my lord.’ His father or grandfather had
married a Scott of Buccleuch.
The Gledstanes emerge again into public notice at the time of the Raid
of the Reidswire. This conflict took place in a sudden and unlooked-for
manner in the summer of 1575, on the southern slope of the Carter Fell,
as one passes downwards to the Reed Water—a charming hill-side, now full
of soft green pastoral beauty and peace, with pathos enough to touch the
sternest heart. It is a day of a Warden Court. The Scotch and English
representatives are there, with their followers. They, and all who come
to sue or to defend, are mounted and armed. Scotts, Elliotts, Armstrongs,
Turnbulls, Rutherfords—the keenest blood of the Borders—are there from
the north side of the Cheviots.
Then Teviotdale came to wi1 speed;
The Shirrif brought the Douglas down,
Wi* Cranstone, Gledstone, good at need,
Baith Rewle Water and Hawick Town.
It is an eager, keen-eyed, and impassioned assembly, and it needed but
the first semblance of impatient word on the part of a leader to stir
the string of every bow among his followers in the gathering. The
Redesdale Borderers—who had probably first heard service in the church
of Elsdon (Ellesdun), and ere leaving had sharpened, as was their wont,
their arrows on the sandstone pillars of the house of God—were the first
to yield to the impatient impulse. They sent a shower of arrows on the
Scots; the challenge was promptly returned ; and, amid the deafening
slogans of the Border names, an impetuous onslaught was made on the men
of Redesdale and Tyne-•dale; and, stalwart foes as they were, after a
stern conflict,—
Then ower the knowe, without good-night,
They fled, with mony a shout and yell.
Sir John Heron, on the English side, was killed; and Sir John
Carmichael, the Scottish warden, had to go and compose the matter of the
irregular skirmish with the strong-minded Elizabeth, who rated him
soundly for the whole business.
The Gledstanes held the Hundleshope estate,
from the time of Margaret Turnbull, for more than two hundred years.
During the greater part of that period there seems to have been a
chronic feud between the Gledstanes and the Town Council of the
neighbouring" burgh of Peebles. Among the large possessions of the burgh
at that time was the hill, or rather ‘ the four hillis,’ of Cademuir.
This ridge lay directly to the north of Hundleshope, and the two estates
marched with each other. Cademuir was a very ancient burghal property.
The common pasture of Cademuir was confirmed to the burgh, as even then
an ancient right, by James II. (1451-2). It was as old as the first
infeftment of the burgh. Its ‘four hillis' are beautiful pasture land,
except on the south side facing Hundleshope, which are craggy, and for
the most part covered with ‘ slidders,’ or screes. Cademuir was in the
old times partly in natural pasture, and partly under the plough. It was
even famous for its oats, for the old local rhyme speaks of—
Cademuir cakes, Bonnington Lakes,
Crookston, and the Wrae;
Hungry, hungry Hundleshope,
And scawed Bell’s Brae.
It was thus a tempting bit of land to be so near ‘hungry Hundleshope.’
This was more remarkable for the savage grandeur of its glens, and the
dark russet of the heather through nine months of the year, than for its
verdure or its oats. The Gledstanes had not been long in Hundleshope
until they advanced a claim to at least some part of Cademuir. The
succeeding years are mainly a record of their restless desire to get
hold of the hill in part or in whole.. Claims to a share in the common
lands were preferred by John Gledstanes of that ilk, and Thomas Lowis of
Menner; and these the king (March 26, 1482) appointed to be determined
by an ‘inquisition,’ to be chosen by the next Justice Aire at Peebles.
This* Aire, sitting in the Tolbuith at Peebles, found, after inquiry
(February 18, 1484-5), that ‘the communitie of the burgh of Peblis is in
possession in propirte of the occupaccioun and sawing of the common of
Cadismure, and common Strouthir, debatable betwit thame and Johne
Gledstanes of that ilk and Thomas of Lowis of Menner/ Notwithstanding
this legal decision, John of Gledstanes of Coklaw still persists in
letting out to tenants parts of the lands of Cademuir* These tenants and
he himself are again prosecuted before the Lords of Council (January 17,
1505-6), and they are prohibited from further interference with the
common, the decision of the Justice Aire of 1484 being confirmed. As
Gledstanes’ tenants amounted to twenty, the portion of Cademuir he
claimed must have been by no means inconsiderable. The rights of the
burgh to the hill were again, for purpose of greater security, fully
confirmed by charter of James IV. (July 24, 1506). Next year (January 2,
1506-7) appeared at Peebles most of those who had been Gledstanes’
tenants, dwellers near the marches of Cademuir, and acknowledged their
wrong-doing in occupying the lands, and declared they would in time
coming cease to do so. But John of Gledstanes of Coklaw—for this he is
named, as well as of that Ilk—was a persistent man. Twelve years after
the first troubling of the burgh 4 in the brooking of their lands of €ademuir,’
he was at the business again. The Governor of Scotland was out of the
country, and there was general insecurity. This was John’s opportunity.
Accordingly, on the Sunday before June 8, 1518, 4 the said Johne ’ sent
his household men and servants, and 4 cruelly dang and hurt thair [the
burgh’s] hirdis and servants, that were kepand thair come and gudis
within thair said propir lands, and left twa of them liand on the field
for deid, and houndit thair cattale furth of their awne grund.’ And what
is worse, when in the afternoon of the same Sunday the Peebles folk came
up to the hill to look after their wounded servants, John, 4perseverand
in his evill mynd, send furth Johne of Gledstanes his nevoy and apperand
air, Archibald Gledstanes, his sone, and others to the number of
twenty-six men,* attacked and chased the burghers off their own ground.
This feud of the Gledstanes with the burghers of Peebles continued for
many years, and was marked by such atrocities as at length roused their
peaceful neighbours to judicial action against them. In 1561 we find 4
John Gledstanes, of Coklaw, dilatit for the slaughter of umquhile Thomas
Peblis and William Bell,’ before the Lords of Council. But nothing came
of the business—either punishment for the crime, or compensation to the
relatives of the murdered men; and the terror of the Gledstanes lay so
heavily upon the burgesses of Peebles that the lands of Cademuir were
left waste and untilled for some years. The im-potency of law and the
power of the individual in these terrible times could not receive a
stronger illustration than in such a fact as this.
Forty years afterwards the descendants of
the murdered man are found still pursuing the family of the Gledstanes
for redress, but without success. The murder was not disputed, the
simple question was as to compensation to relatives; and even of this
they got nothing. The usual barren phrase was 4 sureties to satisfy
parties for the slaughter of the said umquhile Thomas Peiblis.’ Such was
the state of Scotland even after the union of the crowns.
This desire for getting hold of Cademuir seems to have been hereditary
with the Gledstanes, to have continued after they had parted with
Hundleshope, and to have extended even to the ladies of the family. For
we find in 1620 (March 30) that the provost and bailies of the burgh of
Peebles complain that on the 10th inst. Beatrix Ker Lady Gladstanes,
William, Robert, and James, her sons, Robert Dickson in Hundelshope,
Alexander Melrose there, and William Ker, plowman there, with about ten
other persons, 'all born in feir of weir' —the lady included—came to the
commontie of the burgh called Kaidmuir, whair some of the inhabitants
were occupied in their lauchful affairs, upon their awin heritage, and
thair threatened them with death gif they did not quit the ground.’ The
defenders not appearing are denounced rebels. This seems to have been
the last attempt on Cademuir by any one of the name of Gledstanes. It
was reserved for a later time to see this old burgh possession swallowed
up in the properties of neighbouring lairds. While it was held directly
by the burgh, and only let out to tenants, it •continued safe. But when
the council embarked on the hazardous policy of giving rights of tenure
and alienation to the burgesses, these proprietors readily became an
easy prey in succession to the grasping neighbouring lairds; and now
Cademuir, and the Strouthir, and Whitehaugh, and Eschiels, and Glentress,
and many other fair lands have passed away for ever from the common good
of the burgh.
Gledstanes of that ilk seems to have parted with his property in
Lanarkshire shortly before Hundleshope passed to the Scots—a branch of
the house of Thirlestane. There was, however, in the immediate
neighbourhood of the original lands another estate, though a small one,
which had belonged to the Gledstanes from an early period ; this was
Arthurshiel. It lies to the west of the Gledstanes, nearer to Tinto, and
is divided from them by White Castle, an old historic estate. This
property was held in succession by members of the family till towards
the close of the eighteenth century, when the son of the last Gledstanes
of Arthurshiel removed to the neighbouring town of Biggar, and commenced
business there as a maltman, then a flourishing trade in the town. This
was William Gledstanes. He died in 1728, and was interred in the old
family burying-ground in Liberton churchyard—the last earthly link of
the Gledstanes with the old race whence they had sprung.
John Gledstanes, the eldest son of William Gledstanes, and grandson of
the last laird of Arthurshiel, was bom about 1693. He succeeded his
father in the business of maltman ; and his name appears as a witness on
a legal document of 1730 as 6 John Gladstones, maltman and burgess in
Biggar.’ He was also keeper of the baron’s giraal, or storehouse of the
rents in kind, paid by tenants to the Lords Fleming, now Earls of Wigton.
He died in 1756, leaving five sons and six daughters. Of these Thomas,
the fourth son, left Biggar, and settled in Leith as a com merchant. His
son John went to Liverpool, engaged in the West India trade, and
acquired a large fortune. He purchased the estate of Fasque, and was
created a baronet in 1846.’ Thomas his son succeeded him. Once again,
then, after many vicissitudes of fortune, the old name of Gledstanes,
somewhat modified and clipped, but by no means improved, has taken its
place among ‘ landit men ’—the greatest social distinction even in
Radical Scotland. The brother of Sir Thomas, and third son of Sir John,
is William Ewart Gladstone, of whom it may be said, that besides doing
all that the scholar does in the study, he is still foremost in energy
among energetic statesmen, and unsurpassed, if indeed equalled, by any
living orator in the marvellous spontaneity of noble thought and burning
word.
It is but a few weeks ago since Mr.
Gladstone made a short visit to the Border Country, passing along the
line of railway from Edinburgh to Peebles, There he spoke a few words to
an eager gathering. He said it was a fair land which he looked upon, and
he added that the trampling on the political birthright of the people of
the district, persistently done there, was not congruous with the
natural beauty which he saw. He was probably not aware that the locality
and surrounding scenes, though new to himself, were the familiar places
of his forefathers. Within a mile of where he stood lay Winkston.
Mailingsland, Acolmfield, his ancestral lands; and while addressing his
audience his eye might have rested on the heights of Hundleshope, the
old Turnbull and Gledstanes hills. Had this occurred to him, an historic
touch would certainly have lent a thrill of more than usual ardour even
to his impassioned speech. Mr. Gladstone vindicating citizen rights, and
generally quickening the moral sense of the country by his persuasive
appeals, is a marked contrast to the Gledstanes of the sixteenth century
and their doings on Tweedside. But we cannot help thinking that the
strong spirit of the old Borderer is in the modern type of the
nineteenth century, only inspiring and sustaining a nobler purpose, and
working by different and higher ways. The eminent statesman sometimes
speaks of there being only Scottish blood in his veins; he may even say
that he has the blood, in a long and continuous stream, of the old
Scottish Borderer; and therein has always lain an intense fervour—perhaps
the truest per-fervid genius of the Scot—not unattended by a fine
chivalry, a resolute independence, and a noble daring. This nature has
never had much sense of compromise; it has been accustomed to straight
aim and effort, to a grand self-reliance; and this joined, or rather
subordinated, to a burning moral purpose, may explain the fervour— the
attraction to some, and the repulsion to others—of the career of a great
modern statesman.
Gladstone in
Scotland
