Part 23

(Signed) "J. PRYMROIS."

It would appear from all this that there was a deal of trouble in connection with the erection of the Church of Crieff. One is apt to get confused among the Popes, Bishops, principal officials, and notaries public who were all concerned in the erection. We seem to reach the close of the long process on the first day of September, 1537, the year of the marriage of James V. to Madeleine of France, the year which lies almost exactly midway between the Battle of Flodden and the outbreak of the Reformation in 1560. Upon the second day of December, 1537, "the reverend father in Christ, Henry, by the Divine compassion, Bishop of the forenamed Chapel and of Candida Casa, from the tribunal with the consent of his brother canons, or at all events of the greater part of them, being assembled in Chapter, and as a memorial of a perpetual thing, ordered, ordained, and decreed that the erection of the Vicar Church of Crieff should be registered by Master John Lambert, Prebendary of the sacred Chapel and scribe of the foresaid Chapter, and to be inscribed and placed upon the books of the Registrars of the oft-mentioned Chapel."

I am greatly indebted to A. G. Reid, Esq., Auchterarder, for kindly furnishing me with the above valuable extracts, and I bring the paper to a close with a word or two about the Crieff of a later time. The annals of Crieff as a kirk-town are a dreary waste in the judgment of one who assures us that he has waded through the records of services from 1549 to 1700. One incident, however, took place between these dates which may be mentioned as being the last expiring flicker of the old jurisdiction exercised by the Stewards of Strathearn. The Earl of Perth discharged the duties of the office--what remained of them--down to the abolition of heritable jurisdictions in 1748. In the year 1682, the minister of Trinity-Gask, by name Richard Duncan, was condemned to death for the murder of a child which was found concealed under his own hearth-stone. Lord Fountainhall reports that he was convicted on very insufficient evidence, and the country people took the same view of the case. He was hanged on the "kind gallows of Crieff," on the knoll near the Cemetery, still marked by a solitary tree. The story goes that a messenger was seen and heard approaching, bearing a reprieve, but he came too late. Local sympathy asserted that the hour of execution was anticipated to gratify the spite of some one in authority. However this may be, the hanging of the Episcopal minister of Trinity-Gask was the last exercise of criminal jurisdiction on the part of the Steward of Strathearn. This was the last time the "kind gallows of Crieff" bore its ghastly fruit. The Highlanders' salutation to it is familiar to everybody.

A pleasanter sight by far than a string of dangling caterans was the great annual tryst, or Michaelmas Market. It was largely frequented, as being the only market of any consequence between Stirling and Inverness. We have it on the authority of Macky, a Government secret agent, who visited Scotland in 1723, that no fewer than thirty thousand cattle were sold to English dealers for thirty thousand guineas. He came from Stirling expressly to see the market, and here is his graphic description of what he saw:--

"The Highland gentlemen were mighty civil, dressed in their slash'd short waistcoats, a trousing (which is breechen and stockings of one piece of striped stuff), with a plaid for a cloak and a blue bonnet. They have a ponyard knife and a fork in one sheath, hanging at one side of their belt, their pistol at the other, and their snuff-mull before, with a great broadsword by their side. Their attendance was very numerous, all in belted plaids, girt like women's petticoats down to the knee, their thighs and half of the leg all bare. They had each also their broadsword and poynard, and spake all Irish, an unintelligible language to the English. However, these poor creatures hired themselves out for a shilling a day to drive cattle to England, and to return home at their own charge. There was no leaving anything loose here but it would have been stolen."

The Michaelmas Market was shorn of its glory and its picturesque aspect by the transference of the cattle tryst to Falkirk in 1770. There was occasional bloodshed at these gatherings, the peace being with difficulty preserved by the authority of the Lord of Drummond, who collected the customs of the fairs of Crieff and Foulis. These customs amounted, in 1734, to nearly £600 Scots. The Lochaber axes carried by the guardians of the peace may still be seen in the armoury at Drummond Castle. This last shred of baronial supervision--the ghost of the ancient Stewardship--disappeared in 1831. But perhaps the most interesting memorial of the Crieff Michaelmas Tryst is a poem written by one of the Highland drovers, whose appearance moved the compassion of Macky, the tourist of 1723. His name is Robert Doun or Donn. He had left his heart behind him in his native glen, as people will do, drovers as well as others. There is a ring of genuine poetry in the verses in which he expresses his love-sickness--his desire to go upon the wings of the wind as it whistles northward, northward:--

"Easy is my bed--it is easy, But it is not to sleep that I incline. The wind whistles northwards, northwards, And my thoughts move with it. More pleasant were it to be with thee In the little glen of calves Than to be counting of droves In the enclosures of Crieff."

Mention of the name of Robert Doun brings up recollections of another literary name--that of David Mallet, or Malloch, who is said to have been born in Crieff. He has the honour of being mentioned several times in Boswell's Life of Johnson. The latter had no great respect for him, though, perhaps, he did not mean all he said in his famous criticism of Lord Bolingbroke's philosophy, which Mallet published after the author's death. "Sir, he was a scoundrel and a coward--a scoundrel, for charging a blunderbuss against religion and morality; a coward, because he had no resolution to fire it off himself, but left half-a-crown to a beggarly Scotchman to fire it off after his death." It has been disputed whether Mallet, or Thomson of the "Seasons," wrote "Rule Britannia." I do not care to enter into it. After all, David Mallet was a lesser light in the literary firmament. It more concerns the literary honour of Crieff that John Cunningham, the historian of the Church of Scotland, did his life-work here; and that in the year 1793, Rachel Barlas, daughter of the Secession minister of Crieff, went to Comrie as wife of Samuel Gilfillan and became the mother of George Gilfillan, late of Dundee, a man of fine gifts and of glowing imagination--somewhat loosely controlled, who wrote much--too much; but unfortunately left nothing worthy of the reputation he had among his intimates.

Vicars of Crieff at an earlier date were Bricius, who was a witness to the reconciliation of Earl Robert and Innocent, Abbot of Inchaffray, in the Church of Strogeth. The entry is--"Bricio persona de Creffe, et Malisio filio ejus," showing that celibacy was not the universal clerical custom; and Nicholas, who in one charter, of date 1258, is called "Camerario Comitis" (Malise); and in another, "Meo filio," by "Malisius filius Gilberti quondam Comitis de Stratherne." Hence he was a cousin of the Malise to whom he was "camerarius."

APPENDIX

In a number of the date ranges below, blank spaces represented missing dates. In this etext, to preserve formatting, missing dates are represented with question marks.]

ROLL OF MINISTERS WITHIN THE PRESBYTERY OF AUCHTERARDER FROM THE REFORMATION TO THE PRESENT TIME

By Rev. GEORGE D. MACNAUGHTAN, B.D., Ardoch

ARDOCH

(Chapel opened for Worship, 25th March, 1781.)

1781-1788--DAVID SIMPSON, tr. to Tulliallan.

1788-1792--GEORGE ERSKINE, tr. to Monzie.

1793-1802--GBORGE LOGAN, tr. to Eastwood.

1803-1812--LAURENCE MILLER, tr. to Abdie.

1813-1822--THOMAS YOUNG, tr. to Gask.

1823-1833--JOHN MACFARLANE, tr. to Collessie. Mr Macfarlane afterwards joined the Free Church; received degree of D.D., and died Free Church minister at Dalkeith in 1875.

1833-1839--ALEX. OSWALD LAIRD, tr. to Abbotshall. Afterwards joined Free Church; became minister of St. John's, Dundee; died in Crieff, 1891.

1840-1843--SAMUEL GRANT. Seceded in 1843, afterwards tr. to Aberdeen.

1843-1844--Chapel vacant.

1844-1858--DAVID BONALLO, tr. to Blackford.

Ardoch erected into parish quoad omnia, 21st February, 1855.

1858-1864--JOHN ROBERT CAMPBELL, tr. to Monzievaird.

1865-1869--WILLIAM MAIR, A.M., tr. to Earlston; now D.D., and author of "Digest of Church Laws."