OLD GRAVESTONES IN SCOTLAND.
A very peculiar interest attaches to the old stones which survive
in the burial-grounds of Scotland. Regarded generally they are of a
description quite apart from the prevalent features of their English
and Irish prototypes. Taking the same period as hitherto in limiting
our purview of the subject, that is from the latter part of the
seventeenth to the early part of the nineteenth century, it may
perhaps be said that the Scottish headstones are tablets of Scottish
history and registers of Scottish character during a long and
memorable time. The one all-prevalent feature everywhere is indicative
of the severe piety and self-sacrifice of an age and a people
remarkable for one of the simplest professions of faith that has
ever existed under the Christian dispensation. The rigid discipline,
contempt for form, and sustained humility of the old Covenanters are
written deeply in the modest stones which mark the green graves of
their faithful dead during a period of fully two hundred years. The
vainglory of a graven stone to exalt the virtues of imperfect men and
women was to them a forbidden thing; the ostentation even of a name
carved on a slab was at variance with doctrine; the cravings of a poor
humanity to be remembered after death had to be satisfied with bare
initials, and initials are all that were written on the gravestones
in many thousands of cases, probably ninety per cent, of the whole,
throughout the eighteenth century and approximate years. But the
rule was not without its exceptions, often of novel and peculiar
description. The skull and crossbone series, so common in the south,
have no place in North Britain; while the symbol of the cross, so
frequent in Ireland, is very rarely to be found in any shape whatever
within the boundaries of a Scottish burial-place. I present four
specimen types from the old chapel-yard at Inverness.
[Illustration: FIG. 92. INVERNESS.]
[Illustration: FIG. 93. BRAEMAR.]
FIG. 92.--AT INVERNESS.
On the stone No. 2 the tailor's tools--shears, goose, and bodkin--are
clear enough, and I was told that the figures on the stone in the
lower left-hand corner (No. 3) are locally recognized as the shuttle
and some other requisite of the weaver's trade. Inverness had spinning
and weaving for its staple industries when Pennant visited the place
in 1759. Its exports of cordage and sacking were considerable, and
(says Pennant) "the linen manufacture saves the town above £3000 a
year, which used to go to Holland."
In the 1698 example (No. 1) the short "and" (&) leaves no doubt that
W.F. & J. McP. (probably McPherson and his wife) are there buried;
and the similar information is almost as certainly conveyed in the
manifold cases in which appears the sign which occupies the same
position in the two lower stones (Nos. 3 and 4). These, however, are
all of later date, and may be set down as developments, or rather
corruptions, of the original form. The same signs, however, constantly
occur in all the northern graveyards.
Scotland has also its cruder form of memorial in the rough unhewn
slabs of native freestone, which are used in all parts of the British
Isles wherever such material is readily procurable.
FIG. 93.--AT BRAEMAR.
Two of these slabs of different degrees are seen in my Braemar sketch,
but both seem of one family and serve to shew us the unconscious
evolution of a doctrinal law into a national custom. The employment
of initials, originally the sacrifice and self-denial of a dissentient
faith, is here, as in other instances, combined with the Catholic
emblem of the Cross. This little graveyard of Braemar, lying among
the moors and mountains which surround Balmoral, and accustomed to
receiving illustrious pilgrims whose shoe-string the poor gravestone
tramp is not worthy to unloose, is still used for indiscriminate
burials, and furnishes several examples of Roman Catholic interments.
Wherever such are found in Scotland, bearing dates of the eighteenth
century, they are usually of the rough character depicted in the
sketch. The recumbent slab in the same drawing is given to illustrate
the table or altar stone, which throughout Scotland has been used
all through the Covenantic period to evade the Covenantic rule of the
simple anonymous gravestone, for such memorials are almost invariably
engraved and inscribed with designs and epitaphs, sometimes of the
most elaborate character. But these are not mere gravestones: they are
"tombs."
[Illustration: FIG. 94. STIRLING]
FIG. 94.--AT STIRLING.
In all parts of Scotland at which we find departures from the
conventional simplicity of the gravestone, the variation inclines
abundantly towards the symbols of trade and husbandry. At Stirling, in
the noble churchyard perched on the Castle Rock, the weaver's shuttle
noticed at Inverness appears in many varieties, for Pennant tells us
that in 1772 Stirling, with only 4000 inhabitants, was an important
factory of "tartanes and shalloons," and employed about thirty looms
in making carpets.[12] Occasionally the bobbin is represented alone,
but the predominant fashion is the shuttle open and revealing the
bobbin in its place. This is as it appears in No. 1 of the four
sketches from Stirling, where it seems to indicate, with the shovel
and rake, a mingling of weaver and agriculturist. The other trade
emblems speak for themselves, excepting the reversed figure 4 in the
stone of 1710 (No. 3). This sign has been variously interpreted, but
the most reliable authorities say that it is a merchant's mark
used not only in Stirling but in other parts of Scotland, if not of
England. There are in Howff Burial-ground, Dundee, and in many country
churchyards round about that town and Stirling, numerous varieties
of this figure, some having the "4" in the ordinary unreversed shape,
some with and some without the *, some of both shapes resting on the
letter "M," and others independent of any support whatever. It has
also been supposed to have some connection with the masons' marks
frequently to be seen in old churches, and is even regarded as
possibly of prehistoric origin.[13]
[Footnote 12: Pennant pronounced the view from Stirling heights "the
finest in Scotland."]
[Footnote 13: The vulgar explanation of the sign is "4d. discount
on the shilling," and some of the guide-books are not much better
informed when they assume that it marks Stirling as the fourth city
of Scotland, for in the old roll of Scottish burghs Stirling stands
fifth.]
FIG. 95.--AT BLAIRGOWRIE.
The stone copied at Blairgowrie is an enigma which I scarcely dare to
unravel, but it will admit of several interpretations. "I.E." probably
stands for John Elder and "M.H." for his "spouse," but to set out John
Elder's name in full, and at the same time to insert his initials,
shews either a misconception of, or disregard for, the principles and
usages of the Presbytery. Otherwise, in some respects, this example
is almost worthy to be classed with the more degenerate forms of
churchyard sculpture in England; the skull, the crown, the hour-glass,
the coffin, and the bones being all well-known and conventional signs.
The compasses may stand for John Elder's profession, but the figure
which resembles a cheese-cutter, just below the crown, can only be a
subject of conjecture. This stone, which is one of the least artistic
I have met with in Scotland, is an evidence to shew that the rural
sculptor was as ready in the north as in the south to blossom forth
had he not been checked by the rigours of the Church. At times indeed
the mortal passion for a name to live to posterity was too strong to
be altogether curbed, as we may see manifested even in the prescribed
initials when they are moulded of heroic size, from 8 to 10 inches
being no uncommon height. Remarkable also is the fact just mentioned
(page 86) that, concurrently with the erection of these dumb
headstones, there were flat or table stones[14] allowed, upon which not
only were the names and virtues of the departed fully set forth,
but all sorts of emblematical devices introduced. The table tomb was
probably in itself a vanity, and, the boundary passed, there appears
to have been no limit to its excesses. There are a great many
instances of this at Inverness, Aberdeen, Keith, Dunblane, and
elsewhere, and the stone which appears in the sketch from Braemar is
only one of several in that very limited space. Such exceptional
cases seem to indicate some local relaxation from the austerity of
the period, which was apparently most intense in the centres of
population. Humility at the grave extended even to the material of
the gravestone. At Aberdeen, the Granite City, few of the last-century
gravestones are of any better material than the soft sandstones which
must have been imported from Elgin or the south. The rule of initials
was almost universal. In like manner, when it became the custom to
purchase grave-spaces, the simplest possible words were employed to
denote the ownership. I noticed one stone in Aberdeen bearing on its
face the medallion portrait of a lady, and only the words of Isaiah,
chapter xl. verse 6: "The voice said, All flesh is grass, and all the
goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field." At the back of the
stone is written: "This burying ground, containing two graves, belongs
to William Rait, Merchant. Aberdeen, 1800." The practice of carving on
both faces of the headstone is very common in Scotland, and, so far
as I have observed, in Scotland alone; but, strange as it may seem,
Scotland and Ireland when they write gravestone inscriptions have one
habit in common, that of beginning their epitaphs, not with the name
of the deceased person, but with the name of the person who provides
the stone. Thus:--
Erected by William Brown
to his Father John Brown,
etc., etc.
[Footnote 14: It has been suggested to me that these "tombs" were the
luxuries of the wealthier inhabitants.]
[Illustration: FIG. 95. BLAIRGOWRIE.]
[Illustration: FIG. 96. LAUFEN.
1. Cut into stone.
2. Anchor of iron on dwarf stone pillar.
3. Heart and anchor of thin iron on dwarf stone pillar.
4. Iron plate and rod.
5. Wooden cross.
6. Wooden cross.]