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The Scottish Nation
Gladstone


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


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