Gordonstoun—A Glorious Playground—The Great Picture—The Dungeons—The
Charter Room—Old Letters—Ecclesiastical Censures—Successive
Lairds—Window-tax.
And now to turn to that beloved old grey home which Cosmo Innes
described as “the ghostly old palace of Gordonstoun.” Ghostly it well
might be, could its very numerous builders appear to give us an inkling
of all the changes it has undergone since those remote days ere drainage
was thought of, and its site, known as the Bog of Plewlands, was a low,
unhealthy swamp, but one which for security and concealment from the
sea, owing to the rising ground, aided by belts of oak and fir wood, was
selected by the Marquis of Huntly as a desirable site on which to build
a strong keep. It was part of the marsh which bordered the Loch of
Spynie, and which in rainy seasons was invariably flooded, so that the
vaulted chambers of the lower story were at any time liable to
inundation.
Marshland seems to have been greatly in favour in those troublous times,
for the site of old Gordon Castle, near Fochabers, now richly cultivated
land, was anciently called “The Bog of Gight,” and amongst the
miscellaneous papers of Gordonstoun are numerous letters to both
Cummings and Gordons from the old Dukes of Gordon, simply dated from
“the Bog.”
[Illustration:
_C. F. Gordon Cumming._
GORDONSTOUN PRIOR TO 1900.
]
With the exception of the vaulted base, little, if any, of that ancient
stronghold now remains, for each successive generation has altered and
added to it. At one time it resembled an old French castle, and must
have been a very stately house, embosomed in noble old trees. One of its
owners, having been educated in Holland, surrounded it with straight
terraces, avenues, and canals. Then the Sir Robert Gordon generally
known as “the Wizard,” pulled down the middle of the old house and built
the present centre, leaving the wings as they were, with turrets at the
corners of the steep roof of grey stone slabs.
That describes the exterior of the house as it continued till within the
last few years, when, alas! in the course of extensive internal
improvements, the venerable slabs were ruthlessly broken by careless
workmen, and replaced by modern slates. The long drawing-room, measuring
60 feet by 22, has seven tall windows, each 9 feet 6 in. by 4 feet, and
the dining-room, 44 by 24 feet, has four tall windows. Not content with
very heavy wooden frames, each of these upstairs windows was formerly
protected by heavy iron staunchions. Of course all those on the ground
floor were likewise guarded, and a most quaintly varied and irregular
series they are.
At least one large window, still partially built up, recalls the
lamentable tax on windows, which compelled so many people of small means
to shut out the light of heaven. To this day in many old houses, dummy
windows, half or wholly built up, are an abiding protest against that
unwise legislation, finally repealed only in 1851.
Just outside the house, on one side, are two old buildings in which we
delighted. One was a tall, conical white dove-cot (somewhat resembling
the dove-cots of Egypt), thirty feet in height, and constructed to
contain the nests of a multitude of pigeons.
The other was known as the Round Square—a title which sounds paradoxical
till you remember that all farm offices are called “the Square,” and the
peculiarity of these, which were used as stables, with an upper story of
rooms, was that they form a perfect circle, enclosing about an acre of
ground, which is laid out in a regularly concave pavement, in the very
centre of which a round stone lies in a hollow on the top of a low
pillar. When this stone is dropped into the hollow, the thud seems to
run right round the circle, forming a perfect echo.
Within the house, in and under the older parts, most dreary dungeons
told not only of sorrowful prisoners of war, but also of barbarously
harsh treatment of tenants and other neighbours.
And in the more modern centre, curiously constructed secret stairs and
hiding-places are abiding memorials of turbulent times, when kinsfolk of
the laird himself had to seek sanctuary within the walls of the great
house. Thus in my father’s dressing-room, two planks in the floor could
be lifted and a flight of narrow stone steps led to a hiding-place
ventilated only by a small eye-light opening into one of the courts. In
a room occupied by one of my brothers, a door like a cupboard concealed
a stone stair leading to one of the little turrets, and to the roof. In
another room is an ordinary-looking cupboard, but beneath its lower
shelf is a spring-bolt, by touching which the back of the press opens,
and reveals a dark recess in which six or eight people can stand.
The most curious of all these hiding-places was entered from the ground
floor of the west wing, where a movable stone in the pavement could be
lifted and a refugee (or prisoner) descended to a long, narrow cell in
the thickness of the foundation wall. This led into a large space
wherein fifty or sixty people could hide.
But the real horror centred round the gruesome dungeons, especially one
called the “Water Dungeon,” in which, so recently as 1880, and perhaps
later, water has risen to the depth of a couple of feet, but which in
the undrained days must often have filled to the level of the
side-planks on which alone poor prisoners could rest. I remember the
heavy iron gate of one dungeon, and great locks, the key of one was ten
inches long. There was also a ponderous rusty iron bar with two heavy
shackles attached for legs of prisoners, and smaller ones for their
wrists and neck. There were also a few old man-traps.
[Illustration:
THE ROUND SQUARE, GORDONSTOUN.
]
When my grandfather succeeded to these estates everything was in a most
dilapidated condition, all movables (except the mass of old papers in
the charter-room) having been removed. So my elder brothers and sisters
remembered how when they came to this glorious playground, prior to
1830, the family lived in one of the side wings, for the whole centre
was uninhabitable: all the joists and rafters were bare, there were no
ceilings nor any plaster on the walls, no glass in any windows, so it
was the nesting-home of innumerable jackdaws and pigeons. Their sport
was to enter one of the great rooms very gently, that they might startle
the birds and see them fly out by the hundred.
I am afraid to say how many cart-loads of birds’-nests and refuse were
removed from those rooms when, in 1830, my father turned in a regiment
of workmen to make the house habitable. The upper story of fine rooms
over the great drawing-room had apparently never been floored, the great
space under the side roofs was unsafe, so half-a-dozen carpenters were
at work here for two years, besides glaziers, plasterers, plumbers,
painters, etc., ere the family could move into the central rooms. The
large, very handsome doors can scarcely have been of local manufacture;
they were probably imported from Italy, as were the many beautiful
cabinets and other furniture, which so quickly transformed the
long-neglected house into a home—a home which has ever since been
accumulating treasures from all ends of the earth, trophies of the
chase, savage ornaments, pictures, etc.
By far the most remarkable picture in the great drawing-room is a very
large one by Gavin Hamilton of “Andromache bewailing the death of
Hector,” while Helen of Troy stands at the foot of the bier in pitying
sympathy. The beautiful Duchess of Hamilton (afterwards Duchess of
Argyll, _née_ Elizabeth Gunning) stood for Helen; and strange to say,
that picture came into the market and was sold at Christie’s Auction
Rooms, where my grandfather, Sir Alexander, bought it, allowing it to
remain in London for a while on exhibition, and then bringing it to
Forres House, where it remained till Gordonstoun was renovated. He
little dreamt that in securing the portrait of the stately “Helen” he
was buying a family picture which would prove of such interest to all of
us, her descendants.
Even the regiment of workmen could not rout all invaders. Successive
swarms of bees had established themselves so securely in the high
pitched roof of the wings that it was impossible to dislodge them
without having recourse to smoke which was deemed unsafe, so the bees
continued in possession. They were, however, dislodged in the recent
extensive internal alterations, which included turning the waste space
within the high roofs into a series of excellent sleeping-rooms.
Heretofore that space was one of our favourite playgrounds. Stowed away
in a dark corner of one of these ghostly, gloomy roof-rooms (I cannot
call them attics, seeing they each ran round three sides of a court),
there lay an old coffin, which to our childish imagination was invested
with supernatural awe, and was supposed to be associated with some dark
tale of mystery. It was, however, only a shell, a piece of household
furniture, ever ready to receive any inmate, during the interval between
death and the manufacture of a permanent coffin. Apparently every great
house was also provided with a pall for use at its funerals, as the
public undertaker was only prepared to conduct the simple burial of the
townsfolk.
This accounts for a letter from a bereaved widow to Sir Ludovick Gordon,
dated January 1663, announcing that it has pleased the Lord to remove
her husband, the Laird of Newtoune, “from this lyffe, to that eternall.”
Therefore, writes the lady, “I do humbely entreat your honour for the
leine of your mort-clothe; for it is mor to his credit to have it, nor
the comone mort-clothe of Elgine, seing we expek sinderie of his friends
to be heire.”
[Illustration:
_Emery Walker, ph. sc._
_Andromache bewailing the death of Hector (the beautiful Duchess of
Hamilton as Helen of Troy)_
_Painted by Gavin Hamilton_
]
This curious old letter is one of a multitude preserved in the
charter-room, which is by no means the least interesting corner of the
house. It is a small chamber between thick stone walls. We enter by a
securely fastened door, opening off a narrow spiral stone stairway. Here
were piled thousands of musty, mouldy old manuscripts, the accumulation
of many generations, dating back to the reign of King David II.
The dusty shelves on which they lay heaped in the days of our childhood
fairly fell to pieces from sheer old age, and have been replaced by
substantial drawers of modern manufacture, wherein are stowed bundles
without number; while on a hanging shelf overhead are ranged a multitude
of old leathern bags, cunningly tied up with strips of leather, but all
containing manuscripts, the work of many busy hands, and the expression
of many an anxious thought, by eager, earnest men and women, whose very
names have long since been wholly forgotten. Here are public records,
letters concerning the movements of “the rebels,” and the claims of the
Church; letters on the encroachments of rivers, the draining of marshes,
the purchase of lands.
Here are political papers and family documents, cuttings from old
newspapers, account-books, long, intricate judicial cases, memoranda of
all sorts, half-written essays, carefully preserved letters, and even
some scraps of poetry, couplets which, albeit deemed heavy by us their
impatient descendants, were doubtless much esteemed by our ancestors.
Here are business letters from canny, close-fisted lairds, and here are
feminine notes which prove the Gordon ladies to have been abundantly
endowed with practical common-sense, and by no means lacking in “an eye
to the main chance.” There are wills and marriage-contracts, notably the
marriage-contract in French between Sir Robert Gordon and Louyse Gordon,
dated 22nd February 1613. There are letters from Charles I. and II.
There are permits to go and work plantations in New Jersey, and
indentures of Sir Ludovick Gordon’s son, binding himself apprentice to
Mr. Blaikwood, Edinburgh, Silk Mercer.
The fairly white paper on which they were inscribed has long since
turned yellow and brown from sheer old age; the ink has faded and is
well-nigh illegible, indeed in most cases only a long-practised eye,
aided by powerful glasses, can decipher the crabbed, contracted old
characters, with their strange and ever-varied spelling. In one charter
the name of Comyn is spelt five different ways. Some are written on
parchment, some in black letter.
To reduce such a mass of confusion to any sort of order long appeared an
utterly hopeless undertaking, but much was done by the widow of my
brother, Sir Alexander, and our cousin, Edward Dunbar-Dunbar of Sea
Park, whose researches were rewarded by many a curious glimpse into the
manners and customs of our forbears.[23]
A few specimens of these papers may prove interesting. For instance, now
that Lord Lovat’s Scouts have done such good work in the Transvaal, and
purpose being “Ready, Aye Ready” in time to come, it is curious to read
a letter from the celebrated Simon, Lord Lovat, to his kinsman, Captain
George Cumming, son of the Laird of Altyre, who had written to ask his
assistance in raising recruits for the Hanoverian army. Lord Lovat’s
loyalty was suspected, and he had been deprived of the command of his
own company of Clan Fraser, his men being drafted into other regiments.
But the old peer had not openly declared for the Jacobites, so he would
have helped his cousin had it been in his power.
He writes:—
“BEAUFORT, _1st March 1745_.
“MY DEAR CUSIN,—I received with vast pleasure the honor of your very
kind, polite, and oblidgeing well-writt letter, for which I give you
my most sincere, humble thanks.... I am extreamly sorry and troubled
that it is not in my power to serve you as I could wish ... but if it
was to save my life, I could not pitch this day upon half a dozen,
among all my common people, of the size that you desire, for there is
no country in Scotland so drained of men of size as mine is.”
He then alludes to his having been so unjustly deprived of his command,
and of having been compelled to give up
“my Company of a hundred men of my own, who had only engaged with me,
for the love they had to me as their Chief. And besides those that I
was oblidged to give in to make up my Lord Crawford’s regiment, now
Semple’s, there were fifty more Frasers in the other few Companys, so
that in Semple’s regiment, when they went out of Scotland, they had
two hundred Frasers in it, and out of the estate of Lovat and all of
them pretty handsome fellows about the size that you want, and fifty
of them above it, so that there is no such thing to be now seen as a
man of the size that you desire, among my common people, except it be
a few old married men.”
Lord Lovat, however, promises to do all in his power by bidding all his
bailies and chamberlains speak to all the gentlemen’s children of the
size required—
“And let them know the handsome offers you make; and it will oblidge
me mightily if they engage with you; and I will give them ane
obligation under my hand, to give them any tack of land that they are
capable of, when they come home with their discharge.”
Considering that the writer was seventy-eight years of age, his
postscript is worthy of record:—
“I beleive you will not be ill pleased to know that I have kept my
health better since the beginning of Jully last, than I have done
these thirty years past, and notwithstanding of this extraordinary
severe storm, that I do raly beleive that the like of it was never
seen in this country. _I take the cold bath every day, and since I
cannot go abroad, use the exercise of dancing every day with my
daughter and others_ that are here with me, and _I can dance as
cleverly as I have done these ten years past_.”
Two years passed by, and the active old dancer was led to execution on
Tower Hill.
Here is a royal letter, “From our Court at Falkland, 10th July 1633.” It
is from King Charles to James, Duke of Lennox, desiring that as Great
Chamberlain of Scotland, he will “visit, or cause visit, our Wardrobe
here, and make the master therof give an accompt and inventarie”
thereof.
The duke writes to his loving cousin, Sir Robert Gordon,
“Vice-Chamberlain of His Majestie’s Household in the Kingdom of
Scotland,” to depute him to fulfil this behest. He writes from Holyrood
Palace, which he calls the “Court at the Halyrudhouse.” He informs Sir
Robert that—
“owing to his necessary attendance on His Majestie’s person and His
other more weighty affairs, he has not leisure for this work and
accordingly deputes him as Vice-Chamberlain to visitt the said
Wardrobe, and make a full and perfect Inventory of the same, including
all such bedding and hangings and the like, as shall be found therein
requiring the Master of the Wardrobe to sett his hand ther-untill.”
In those days there were no British colonies as the natural destination
of the younger sons of great houses; it was therefore nowise remarkable
that such should enter trade as the most lucrative of professions.
Accordingly we here find the indentures of “George Gordoun, sone laufull
to Sir Lodovick Gordoun, Knight Barronett, as prentice to Mr. Robert
Blaikwood, merchand burgess of Edinburgh, whose shop is situated at the
east end of the Luckenbooths, whereby George Gordoun becomes bound
prenteise and servand to Mr. Blaikwood, to his airt and trade of
merchandizeing, and promises to serve his master leallie and truelie,
night and day, holyday and workday, in all things godlie and honest, and
shall not know nor heire of his master’s skaith, but shall reveal the
same to him and remedy it to his power.”
He promises never to absent himself from his master’s service without
special license, but should he do so, he vows to serve him “two dayes
for ilk daye’s absense efter the expyreing of thir indentors.”
Very quaint indeed are the exceedingly plain terms in which allusion is
made to matters of private moral life, such as do not usually enter into
business contracts; in relation to these, the young man undertakes, that
if it should happen him (as God forbid) to “comitt [any breach of the
seventh commandment] during the course of these ffyve yeirs,” he binds
himself to serve his master for three years extra, “in the same estate
as if he were bound prentise, Sir Ludovick Gordon being bound suertie
for him!”
Mr. Blaikwood on his part binds himself faithfully, “to instruct his
prenteise in all the poynts, pratiques, and ingynes of his trade of
merchandizeing, as well _without_ as _within_ the country, and to take
him once to London and once to Holland in the course of the ffyve
years.”
George Gordon must have got through his term of apprenticeship
satisfactorily, for we find a statement to that effect, duly signed by
Mr. Blaikwood, who next undertook the care of a younger brother, Charles
Gordon, who, however, could not brook the restraint of the dull little
shop in the Luckenbooths, with “bed and board” provided by the worthy
merchant, who found he could make nothing of the wild youth, and so
cancelled his indentures, whereupon he was bound prentice to a Writer to
the Signet, to learn the routine of a lawyer’s office, in the hope that
he might follow in the footsteps of his successful elder brother, Sir
John.
The elder brother seems to have been a promising and enterprising youth,
for we very soon find him starting with his Quaker cousin, Barclay of
Ury, to assist in the colonisation of New Jersey, “a tract of land in
America,” which had recently been purchased by William Pen of
Worminghurst, in the county of Sussex, and eleven partners. Glowing
accounts of the country had been received, but settlers were required to
till the ground, so in order to supply these, application was made to
Government for a grant of convicts. We accordingly find a document
headed, “_Ane list of the hundred prisoners_, in the Castle of Dunnottar
and under the Parliament House to be delyvered to Scott of Pitlochry,
_in order to their transportation to East Jersey_.”
While Sir Ludovick’s sons were serving their prenticeship at the little
shop in the Luckenbooths (so strange a contrast to the immense rooms of
their father’s great country house), their cousin Viscount Tarbat, son
of the Earl of Sutherland, went into partnership with Andrew Powrie,
druggist, John Dehen, glass-maker, and others, and took a lease of the
new Glasshouse in North Leith, where for many years they carried on
business as bottle-makers. Lord Tarbat duly remitted his bottle-making
accounts to Sir Ludovick, his trustee, so we know exactly what it cost
to make the bottles, and at what profit they were sold.
As a not very aristocratic resource for turning an honest penny, we may
next notice an advertisement in the Edinburgh papers for October 1760,
wherein Lady Murray offers for sale a quack “insect destroying” mixture,
“for effectually destroying that abominable vermin called the Bugs,”
which, if rightly applied, will undoubtedly cleanse this country of that
noxious vermin, with the whole sediment of them. To be had by applying
to Lady Murray, at her calendar-house in Weir’s Close in the Canongate,
who will show the performance of the same. This secret and infallible
mixture was purchased from a Jesuit for a considerable sum of money, by
a gentleman of distinction when on his travels in foreign parts. It is
offered for sale at seven shillings each Scotch pint. No less quantity
than a mutchkin is to be sold.
Very quaint are some of the revelations of family details. Here are
letters from Sir Ludovick’s third son John Gordon, who afterwards
received knighthood as an eminent lawyer, but who on arriving in London,
after a course of study at Utrecht, has to appeal to his father for
money to buy a “soot of cloaths to carrie me home”—and signs himself,
“Your sone and humble servant.”
Judging from the above, how exceedingly limited was the supply of ready
money at this young man’s disposal, it is curious to find a letter from
his stepmother to the young student, requesting him, ere he leaves
Utrecht, to buy her a necklace of fine pearls. She adds, “Let them not
be dear.” She was a widow with considerable private fortune; but, like
many persons who inflict troublesome commissions on their friends, she
omitted to supply ready money, but fears she must rest his debtor for a
while. She addresses him simply as “Sir,” but signs herself, “Your
affectionate Mother, Jean Stewart.”
“_P.S._—If there be anie lett book set out by our Deivyns, send me a
good one.”
This postscript, requesting the latest work on divinity, is a happy
corrective of the hankering after the frivolities of dress. It will be
observed that the lady (who was a daughter of Sir John Stewart of
Ladywell) continues to sign her maiden name, which would, according to
old Scots custom, be that eventually recorded on her tombstone.
Notwithstanding Dame Jean’s appreciation of theological books, the
ecclesiastical powers were by no means satisfied with her husband’s
laxity in church attendance. Consequently a formal remonstrance is
addressed to “the Right Worshipfull Sir Ludovick Gordoune off
Gordonstone,” stating that “the Synod att Elgin desire to take speciall
notice of his contempt of publick worship and of his withdrawing himself
from ordinances, which hath given a great scandal to the wholl land.” He
is, therefore, summoned to appear at the next presbyterial meeting, and,
if possible, vindicate himself.
The culprit having ignored the first summons, a second was sent to him,
to which he seems to have replied with a lack of befitting reverence,
for the Synod next despatched their officer to deliver to him a formal
summons to appear at Inverness and there answer for his subscribing of
“ane scandalous and sinfull protestatione against the Assemblie of
Murray.”
As he still failed to appear, the matter was referred by the irate
ecclesiastics to the Parliament assembled at Edinburgh, who inflicted on
the irreligious laird a fine of 3600 pounds Scots, which was paid in the
course of six months; but whether the culprit then amended his ways does
not appear.
Such fines would appear to have been a fruitful source of revenue, His
Majesty’s cash-keeper being ever on the alert to issue “letters of
horning” against all “withdrawers from public ordinances of religion,”
and very difficult it often was to shake off the persecution of these
meddlesome harpies.
Here is “the Petition of Dame Elizabeth Chrightan, Lady Douadger of
Frazer, unto the Right Honourable the Lords of His Majestie’s Privie
Counsell” protesting against the fine of £1833, 13s. 4d. Scots, decreed
against her on this pretext, before the Sheriff of Aberdeen. The old
lady represents that she was bred from her infancy under loyal and
regular parents, that she herself has never been at any Conventicle,
that her jointure house of Cairnbulg is three miles from any church, and
that as she has neither manservants nor horses, and is herself an aged,
“seiklie” person, she has not been able frequently to attend.
“But fearing that offence might be taken, she long ago took ane lodging
in the toune of Frazerburgh that she might the more conveniently wait
upon the public ordinances; where, ever since, she has been ane frequent
and constant hearer, and in particular, upon yesterday[24] last, did
take the Sacrament, as a testificat under the Bishop of Aberdeen’s hand,
heirwith produced, doeth testify. She therefore craves that their
Lordships will annul the decree, founded upon groundless mistakes.”
Methinks those “good old times” cannot have been an era of unmixed joy
even to the great folk, but still less to the poor, judging from the
records of even this one old house.
Evidently no one was too great to be really independent of
ecclesiastical censure or praise, for we find the first Sir Robert
carefully preserving a testimonial from the presbytery of Elgin, bearing
date A.D. 1646, setting forth that “since his residence among us, Sir
Robert Gordon hath bein a main advancer off the true religion, and a
great forderer and helpe in what concerned this present reformation; and
is weill affected to the church and peace of this country, and hath
yeelded full and constant obedience to all publick ordinances off the
Church.”
Let us glance at the history of the successive owners of Gordonstoun as
revealed by these voluminous documents.
The first Sir Robert Gordon was born A.D. 1580. He was the fourth son of
Alexander, Earl of Sutherland, by Lady Jane Gordon, daughter of the Earl
of Huntly. She had been previously married to James, Earl of Bothwell,
and was universally allowed to have all her life been a most virtuous
and excellent woman; consequently when, at the early age of twenty, she
was put away by Bothwell to make way for his marriage with Queen Mary,
she was wooed and won by the Earl of Sutherland, by whom she had five
sons and two daughters.
Bothwell’s ground for claiming to have his marriage with Lady Jane
annulled was that, being within the prohibited degrees of relationship,
he had never obtained a dispensation to sanction his marriage. Strange
to say, Lady Jane appears to have allowed this statement to pass
unchallenged, although the dispensation was actually in her own
possession, and has been found amongst the Sutherland archives at
Dunrobin.
She proved a careful mother, and trained her children in all goodness,
though they lost their father at a very early age. Her son Robert proved
to be “a youth of excellent parts” and a most accomplished scholar. He
was educated at the University of St. Andrews, and was then sent to
travel in France, whence he returned to London, to the Court of King
James VI., with whom, “by reason of his singular endowments and
remarkable affability,” he became a mighty favourite, and was appointed
one of the Gentlemen of the Bed Chamber, A.D. 1606, and was endowed with
a pension of two hundred pounds for life.
He likewise found favour with Charles I., who appointed him a member of
the Privy Council and Vice-Chamberlain; and also made him premier knight
baronet of the newly created order of Nova Scotia, an honour specially
devised as a reward to be conferred on gentlemen of good birth who
should assist in establishing a colony in that country.
In 1613, Sir Robert married Louyse, daughter of John Gordon, Dean of
Salisbury and Lord of Glenluce, by whom he had a large family. The
dean’s father combined the dignities of Bishop of Galloway and
Archbishop of Athens. Louyse was brought up with Queen Henrietta Maria.
At the age of sixty-three, Sir Robert deemed himself entitled to devote
his remaining years to the care of his own estates and his duty as tutor
at law to his nephew John, Earl of Sutherland; so being heartily wearied
and highly dissatisfied with the proceedings of those troublesome times,
he returned to his own country, and spent the remainder of his days “in
remarkable acts of benevolence.”
Travelling from London to the north of Scotland was in those days no
easy matter. So great was the expense and trouble of a journey by land,
especially for “a family man,” that it was deemed better to travel by
sea. Being deeply attached to his widowed mother-in-law, Geneweiwe Petaw
(whose skilful needlework he specially bequeathed to his “heyres male”),
“he persuaded her, though far stricken in age, to accompanie him with
his wyf and familie, took shipp at Gravesend 21st April and landed
safely at Cowsoe the 31st of May.”
Thus the journey which we now accomplish in about fifteen hours, then
took just forty days!
The old lady ended her days peacefully in her new home in the grey
north; and here, at the age of eighty-three, she died and was buried;
and the weather-worn stone which bears her name has recently been raised
from the threshold of the old church, and placed within its shelter,
where her name is also recorded on the monumental list of the principal
members of the family there interred.
[Illustration:
_C. F. Gordon Cumming._
A CORNER OF THE OLD ROOF, GORDONSTOUN.
]
Judiciously profiting by the difficulties of some of his neighbours, Sir
Robert contrived to build up for himself a very pretty estate. First he
purchased the lands of Drainie from the old family of Innes; then, from
Lord Huntly, he obtained the lands of Ogstoun and Plewland. Belornie,
Ettles, and Salterhill were added one by one, and the estate thus built
up was by Crown Charter under the Great Seal dated 20th June 1642,
united into a barony, and called the Barony of Gordonstoun.
This was no empty title: it carried with it certain privileges,
conferring on the holder rights of jurisdiction within his barony. He
had power over life and limb with “the right of pit and gallows.”[25]
The old Gallowshill at Altyre still tells of the days when a dempster
(_i.e._ hangman) was a necessary appendage to each great family, and
when offenders were hanged for very trivial causes. The pit wherein
culprits were drowned seems to have been chiefly reserved for women, as
there existed some prejudice against hanging a female thief.
At Gordonstoun the neighbouring Loch of Spynie acted as the pit, and one
of the trials recorded is that of Janet Grant, who being taken
red-handed in the act of extensive theft, was sentenced to be carried to
the said Loch, and there be drowned under water till she be dead. The
sentence was duly carried out, and Janet went down “evacuating curses on
her persecutors.”
Besides the care of his own property, Sir Robert was, as we have seen,
guardian of the young Earl of Sutherland—no sinecure, as it required a
strong hand and a clear head to protect the large interests involved
from the encroachments of the Mackays, Sinclairs, and other powerful
clans, with whom there were constant feuds; and we must remember that
Dunrobin was by no means so easy of access in those days as it is now.
Notwithstanding these various causes of anxiety, Sir Robert found some
leisure for peaceful pursuits, notably for the compilation of a very
curious _Genealogy of the Earls of Sutherland_, a volume which contains
many remarkable details of the times, and of the general condition of
the country. It was published about a hundred and fifty years after his
death, and is now very rare.
He commenced the formation of a very valuable library, which was largely
increased by his grandson, the so-called Wizard, who collected all
possible books on necromancy, demonology, alchemy, and other subjects.
Sir Robert died in 1656, and was succeeded by his son Sir Ludovick, who
enlarged the estate by the purchase of lands in the parish of Duffus,
and of the barony of Dallas from Robert Comyn of Altyre. His daughter
Lucy, however, married the said Robert Comyn in 1666; and in virtue of
this alliance, the lands, not only of Dallas, but the whole estate of
Gordonstoun, were left to her descendants, after a lapse of a hundred
and thirty years, by the last lineal baronet of the old race.
The Gordon methods of working for their own advantage did not find
favour with their neighbours, and a popular rhyme classed them with the
farmer’s worst enemies, namely the large beautiful yellow daisy which
choked the corn, and the hooded crows which stole eggs and young
chicks:—
“The gowd, the Gordon, and the hoodie craw
Are the three worst ills that Moray ere saw.”
But whatever farmers thought, the “gowd” was a joy to us. I remember
when all the fields near Gordonstoun were a feast of colour by reason of
the abundance of scarlet poppies, golden gowans (_i.e._ daisies), blue
cornflowers, lilac corn-cockles, purple and yellow vetch, and many
another dainty flower. But, alas! for the destruction of natural beauty
all over the world before the improvements of cultivation. As in
tropical lands, miles of glorious forests with their fairy-like wealth
of tree-ferns and blossoming creepers must utterly perish to make way
for the planter with his prim little tea or coffee bushes, so in our own
little isle must all the lovely wild flowers which rank as weeds be
exterminated ere the farmer is satisfied with his clean land. So now in
those same fields you may seek till you are weary ere you can gather one
handful of wild blossoms.
In the same way in many moorland districts where sheep abound, the glory
of purple heather is a memory of the past in consequence of their close
grazing—in fact it is only within the belt protected by fences on either
side of the railway that purple bell heather and the delicate “blue bell
of Scotland” flourish undisturbed, so that the railway companies have
become almost the sole preservers of our native flowers.
Sir Ludovick died in 1688, and his son Sir Robert reigned in his stead.
This is the famous so-called Wizard, a name and character which in those
days were readily bestowed on any man of scientific tastes. Sir Robert
was undoubtedly a learned man. He had travelled much in foreign lands,
and is believed to have studied at one of the Italian colleges where the
occult sciences were much cultivated, so he was of course credited with
dabbling in astrology and necromancy.
That he was skilled in chemistry and mechanics is certain, and much of
his time was devoted to the perfecting of a wonderful nautical pump,
which was to prove a priceless boon to the navy. Among the papers in the
old charter-room are sundry letters from the celebrated Mr. Samuel Pepys
on the subject of this pump. The Lords of the Admiralty do not, however,
appear to have recognised its merits, for no encouragement was ever
given to the inventor, whose descendant notes in 1740, that “this
machine for raising water on board ships still remains a secret with the
family.”
Sir Robert seems to have kept up a scientific correspondence with
various philosophers of the day, and probably rather encouraged the
popular belief in his power as a magician, which ensured him an immunity
from idle visitors. Doubtless the red glare from the furnace in his
laboratory was often seen at night by passing peasants, who interpreted
it in their own fashion, and so came to look on the Laird of Gordonstoun
and his mysterious doings with the awe due to the supernatural.
Of a studious man who busied himself with his books during the sunny
hours, strange reports might be raised, and pass uncontradicted, so it
was whispered that Sir Robert eschewed the sunlight to conceal the fact
that in its brightest glare he walked alone, no faithful shadow bore him
company. For he was believed to have studied the black art in a school
where the devil himself was master, claiming for his fee that now and
again one of the students should become his own for ever.
It was said that Sir Robert, like the rest, had signed this awful
compact, and when lots were cast to decide who must be the victim of the
year, the lot fell on him. But the canny young Scot proved a match for
Satan, for as he stood ready to secure the last student who passed out
of the hall as his lawful prize, Sir Robert pointed to his shadow on the
wall and bade him take that fellow. Thus was the devil cheated of his
dues. And so Sir Robert was thenceforth a shadowless man; and as he rode
forth in the sunlight, his horse, his hat, whip, even his spurs, cast
clear shadows, but he himself had none!
The peasants firmly believed that Sir Robert’s magic art enabled him to
defy all natural laws. They told how one frosty morning he had occasion
to drive to some place along the coast, but being too impatient to make
the usual wide circuit round the shores of the Loch of Spynie (which in
his time was a broad sheet of water, extending very nearly to
Gordonstoun), he determined to drive right across the loch, which was
covered only with a thin film of ice, the growth of one night. Bidding
his servant look straight before him and on no account turn his head,
Sir Robert urged his four fiery steeds, and drove lightly over the ice,
which bore him safely till, just as he reached the further shore—a
distance of four miles—the servant, inquisitive as Lot’s wife, looked
back, and beheld a great black raven perched on the back of the
carriage. As he turned, the foul fiend—for it was himself in the
likeness of the bird—flew off with heavy wing, and immediately the hind
wheels of the carriage sank, and it needed all the force of the good
team to extricate it.
Having thus proven his human servant unreliable, Sir Robert sought means
to secure a better one; and the people told with bated breath how, after
keeping the fires in his stone vault burning day and night for seven
years, he had succeeded in creating a salamander—a fire-imp—which,
dwelling in the furnace, was thenceforth ever ready to do his
unrighteous work.
Finally, a terrible story was told of how on two successive nights Sir
Robert and his boon companion, the parson of Duffus, were hunted by the
fiend, mounted on a jet-black horse, and attended by hell dogs, and both
were captured, their dead bodies being left behind.
If it seems strange that such tales could have found ready credence, we
must remember that even the civil and ecclesiastical teachers had the
firmest belief in witchcraft. Just a hundred years after the time of
“Ill Sir Robert,” as the Wizard was generally called, the Rev. Lachlan
Shaw, in writing his history of Moray, A.D. 1775, affirms that _he has
often been present_ when, four times in the year, all persons above the
age of twelve years were solemnly sworn that they would practise no
witchcraft, charms or spells; and we know what a multitude of poor old
women were done to death under such accusations. In Scotland alone the
number is estimated at fully four thousand, while in England three
thousand were thus put to death during the sitting of the Long
Parliament, and as many more soon afterwards. In Germany and Switzerland
the proportion of victims was even larger.
So we need not wonder that the credulous folk believed the neighbourhood
of Gordonstoun to be haunted by evil spirits, summoned by the laird, so
that for many a long year it was deemed dangerous to pass the house
after dark. Even the Memorial Chapel, which four years after his death
was erected by his widow, Dame Elizabeth Dundas, above his grave, on the
site of the ancient kirk of Ogston, was long shunned as “uncanny,”
albeit consecrated in the name of St. Michael and all good angels, to
whom also was dedicated St. Michael’s Well, near the house. There were
also two good wells within the house, a very needful matter in the olden
troublous times.
Notwithstanding his scientific pursuits, Sir Robert proved himself a
very good man of business in the management of his estates, to which he
made considerable additions. Moreover, his own two marriages and those
of his children all tended to strengthen the family position in the
north.
By the marriage of his daughter Lucy with David Scott of Scotstarvet,
the Dukes of Portland, the Earls of Moray, and the late Viscount Canning
all claim descent from this famous “Wizard of Gordonstoun,” who seems to
have really been one of the most polished and agreeable men of his day.
The next baronet—also Sir Robert—was a mere child at the time of his
father’s death. He held the estates for seventy-one years, _i.e._ till
1772, a long reign marked only by cruelty and oppression. He was a
gloomy and austere man, and to judge from his portrait in Innes House, a
man of most unprepossessing appearance. It is said that the artist
entreated his unattractive sitter to look as cheerful as possible; so it
is commonly said, “If this was his pleasantest expression, what must
have been his frown?”
And yet the frown must have been his familiar expression, for his life’s
history is one long story of evil. A very short experience of military
life (when in his early youth he joined Lord Mar in the rebellion of
1715) sufficed to sicken him of the war, and he thenceforward lived
almost entirely in his sombre, old, half-renovated house, most part of
which was disused to avoid the payment of a heavy window-tax.
This much-detested laird seems to have been wholly occupied in lawsuits
with his neighbours, and correspondence with lawyers, varied with
tyrannous oppression of his unfortunate tenants and a good deal of
smuggling. The latter was considerably facilitated by his receiving a
large portion of his rents in the form of grain and other farm produce,
which was shipped from Covesea or Burghead in large boats, and thence
transported to Inverness, the purchasers bringing in exchange wines,
spirits, clothing, groceries, and all other things needful.
But it was rumoured that oftentimes vessels not recognised by the
Government contrived to deposit cargoes in the caves of Covesea, whence
they were transported to Gordonstoun by a long, subterraneous tunnel.
Whether the latter statement be fact or fiction, I cannot say. If such a
tunnel did exist (nearly two miles in length) it has now fallen in, and
even when, more than half a century back, my eldest brothers attempted
to explore it with torches, by following the traditional entrance from
the cave known as “Sir Robert’s Stables,” they were only able to go a
very short distance. The “Stables,” however, was undoubtedly used, as a
place of concealment, where horses were kept in safety during any time
of special alarm, when royalists or rebels were likely to come and seize
them.
The long list of Sir Robert’s interminable and vexatious litigations
with his neighbours was not confined to the little lairds (some of whom
he well-nigh ruined), but included such powerful names as the Duke of
Gordon, William, Lord Braco, Dunbar of Duffus, and above all, Lady
Elizabeth Sutherland, whose lands of Dunrobin, together with the
earldom, were claimed by Sir Robert on the death of her father. A very
lengthy and expensive suit, which was carried to the House of Lords, and
in which all the great legal men of the day took an active part and keen
interest, was at length decided in favour of the lady, and it was
determined that the Sutherland peerage could go in the female line.
After this Sir Robert, soured and impoverished, made himself more
obnoxious than ever to all around him.
When this strange litigious mortal could find no other means of
harassing his neighbours, he took advantage of a strong wind from the
east, and proceeded to plough up a tract of worthless soil, or rather
sand, in order that it might be blown all over the fields of Dunbar of
Newtown, who, however, was able to repay the delicate attention with
interest by ploughing a similar tract in a westerly gale. Pleasant,
loving neighbours these!
This genial landlord turned his house into a regular prison, into whose
horrid dungeons men and women were cast for the most trivial offences,
and sometimes for no offence at all. To his wife, Dame Agnes, daughter
of Sir William Maxwell of Calderwood, and the mother of his five
children (a daughter and four sons) he was by no means a faithful
spouse; and a skeleton, with long, fair, silken tresses, which was found
by my grandfather in one of the lowest dungeons, is said to have been
that of the wife of one of his poorer neighbours, who would not respond
to his attentions. Another equally resolute lady was confined for many
days in the horrible water-dungeon, so called because of its sympathy
with the overflow from the neighbouring marches.
Thanks to a memorial presented to the Court of Session in 1740 by the
friends of Alexander Leslie, tenant of the farm of Windy-hills of
Gordonstoun, we have an authentic record of a few of the dark stories of
cruel oppression connected with this gruesome dungeon.
As Laird of the barony of Gordonstoun, Sir Robert was empowered to hold
courts for the trial and punishment of offenders within his barony; and
this power he used most tyrannically and unscrupulously, rarely
referring any case to the decision of a regular judge, but seizing
whosoever displeased him, and causing them to be thrown into pits and
vaults, as is shown in this memorial, which sets forth how, by Sir
Robert Gordon’s constant acts and conduct in the shire of Moray,
especially among his own tenants, he is a known oppressor, and “it is
not possible to enumerate the whole instances of slavery he puts poor
tenants to.” Seizure of horses and fines are recorded; as, for instance,
when William Macgowan, sometime Sir Robert’s tenant in Dallas, was fined
in forty pounds Scots for not spreading three heaps of burnt ground. We
must, however, recollect that the pound Scots was only equivalent to
about eightpence of our present coinage.
Those who imagine that in the good old times there was no law against
trespassers may be interested by a remarkable notice of Sir Robert’s
physical strength, preserved in a note from the Rev. Alexander Murray,
who tells of much sickness among his parishioners, so that “severats are
daily dieing, and we sometimes bury at the rate of three a-day. Sir
Robert, I am told, was like to have gone to the Elysian fields, but _has
so far recovered as to be able to thrash John Gow’s wife, for travelling
on his forbidden ground_.”
But far more serious are the records of imprisonment. Thus, for some
trifling offence was Alexander Lesslie, tenant of Windy-hills, dragged a
prisoner to Gordonstoun and put in a prison, “which, in place of being a
civil prison” (_i.e._ a debtors’ prison), “is a most nasty dark vault
with an iron grate, having neither door, window, nor chimney, and where
he lies in a cold and most miserable condition, and is in much danger of
his life; for if it were in the winter time, he behoved to have a foot
or two of stones _for keeping him from the water, because the vault is
under ground about two feet_.”
Numerous other cases are cited as “facts which can all be proven and
made such use of as the lawyer thinks fit.”
“Janet Grant, servant to James Forsyth in Crosshill, was, without any
reason, put into the pit of Gordonstoun, and died soon after being
released.”
“James Marshall, James Robertson, and William Robertson, three skippers
in Covesea, a fisher-town of Sir Robert’s, were arrested and kept in the
stocks a whole night, without any just cause assigned, and had not the
privilege of a house, but were confined in the open air, in a back
close, in a wild and stormy night, and the said James Marshall was
thereafter put another time in prison, _in a most nasty pit far below
ground_, where he lay several days, and _a short time thereafter died_,
and upon his deathbed declared the imprisonment to be the reason of his
death, which happened about a fortnight thereafter: and James Marshall,
his son, was also imprisoned without any cause, and died also, some time
thereafter.”
Tradition affirms that these luckless fishers had neglected to secure
some of the laird’s boats which had got adrift from their moorings—hence
his wrath. But tyrannous oppression would appear to have reached its
widest possibilities when we learn that a poor old woman, Margaret
Collie, spouse to Alexander Grant in Muir of Drainie, was cast into Sir
Robert’s noxious dungeon solely for taking the head of a ling out of the
midden or dunghill, believing that it was “good for curing the gout.”
[Illustration:
_C. F. Gordon Cumming._
OLD DOVE-COT AT GORDONSTOUN.
]
This, by the way, is not our sole glimpse of the “folk-medicine” of this
period. Among the multitudinous “varieties” of old papers, we find a
prescription by the learned Dr. Clark of Edinburgh, for Sir Robert
Gordon’s son, who was suffering from an obstinate cough, suggestive of
the east winds of the fair city. May 20th 1739.—“Give him twice a day
the juice of twenty slettars, squeezed through a muslin rag, in whey: to
be continued while he has any remains of the cough.” The _sletters_
which were to work this cure are those little, grey, armour-plated
wood-lice which are found under old stones, and which, when alarmed,
roll themselves up into hard balls.
Speaking of odd superstitions, there is one which somehow connected
pigeons with death. It was said that a person lying on a bed of pigeon’s
feathers could not die, and it was customary to apply living pigeons to
the feet of a person _in extremis_. Thus Samuel Pepys speaks of a man
whose “breath rattled in his throat, and they did lay pigeons at his
feet, and all despair of him.” He also notes how the queen of Charles
II. was so ill as to have pigeons put to her feet, and extreme unction
administered. From this the birds would appear to have been applied as a
last resource to prevent (or was it to facilitate?) death.
On the other hand, it was supposed that if a man wished to get rid of
his wife he had only to build a pigeon-house. Sir Robert, who hated his
wife, seems to have tried this remedy, for he built no less than four
large dove-cots—circular towers of about thirty feet in height by
sixty-three in diameter at the base, the interior being curiously fitted
with hundreds of little compartments for nests. One of these still
stands close to the house, and another at a very short distance. One of
the four seems to have been built for the annoyance of his neighbours,
being on a moorland marsh far from his own cultivated lands, but close
to theirs, and especially to those of Brodie of Brodie, the Lord Lyon
King of Arms. Hence we find a lawyer’s letter of remonstrance, showing
that “Sir Robert’s doves in that dovecoat will be fedd by the Lyon’s
tennant’s corns, especially the pease of Kinnedar.... The building of
this fourth dovecoat is an iniquous burden levelled at the Lyon.”
How the aggrieved neighbours must have rejoiced when the Jacobite
soldiers found their way to Gordonstoun and made a raid on the
dove-cots! In the spring of 1746 Sir Robert writes: “The Rebells
destroyed my pigeons at Gordonstoun by shooting the doves; and in the
evening, when it was to be presumed the doves had entered the dovecott,
they first stoped the dovecott, that the pigeons could not get out, then
broke open the door, and entering, destroyed the doves within.... They
also destroyed my dovecott of Bellormy.”
Whatever hope Sir Robert may have entertained of expediting the death of
Dame Agnes, he failed signally, though he succeeded in making her life
so miserable that she left Gordonstoun and went with two of her sons to
live at Pitgaveny, beside the Loch of Spynie. Whereupon her loving
spouse devised a very remarkable means to avoid being compelled to make
her an allowance for aliment. _As he sat down to every meal he sent a
servant to Lady Gordon’s deserted apartments to summon her._ Thus was
Lady Gordon “called to her meals”!
When at length he was legally compelled to grant her maintenance, he
assigned to her use the produce of certain outlying fields, on the verge
of which (or, as the old record says, “on Lady Gordon’s extremities”) he
built one of his great dove-cots with intent that the hungry birds
should feed at her expense.
This much-aggrieved wife survived not only her loving spouse, but also
her four sons, and even Sir Alexander Penrose Cumming of Altyre, who
then succeeded to the estates, but died in 1806, SO THAT HER JOINTURE
WAS PAID FOR SOME YEARS BY MY FATHER—a circumstance which certainly
seems to bring us very near to all these strangely old-world doings.
In her later years she moved to a house at Lossiemouth, where she lived
well into the nineteenth century, and was long remembered by the
inhabitants as an energetic old lady with a gold-headed cane, living in
great alarm of an invasion by the French, against whose approach she
fortified herself by an expedient which was then deemed as ingenious as
it was novel, namely, to crest her high garden walls with broken glass
strongly embedded in lime.
Great was the rejoicing of rich and poor when in 1772 Sir Robert died,
having, as aforesaid, actually been in possession of the estate for
seventy-one years.
Gladly was the accession of his eldest son hailed, and great were the
hopes that he might long be spared to hold his lands in peace and
prosperity. For this young Sir Robert was an accomplished and kindly
man, who, having escaped from his gloomy home, had spent much of his
time in travel, and now gave promise of becoming a most useful county
gentleman. Several very interesting and beautifully written diaries
remain to prove his keen powers of observation at home and abroad.
But, alas! his career was hardly begun when, within three years, he
died, and was succeeded by his brother William, who proved well-nigh as
gloomy, retired, eccentric, and litigious as his father. Shutting up the
greater part of the house, he lived entirely in one wing, practising
strict economy. This measure was partly the result of the heavy tax on
windows, which, having been first imposed in 1695, was considerably
increased in 1784, in consequence of which many of the gentry resorted
to the dismal expedient of building up several of their windows, while
others gave up the use of half their houses, abandoning their empty
rooms to the bats and owls. Nevertheless the obnoxious tax was still
further increased in 1808, nor was it till 1823 that an alleviation was
procured, and the final repeal was enacted in 1851. How quickly we
forget pain when past! How few of the present generation remember the
struggles of the last to secure the free use of light and air!
Sir William lived till 1795, and on his deathbed, knowing that the title
must pass away to the family of Gordon of Letterfourie, and determined
that they should not possess the estates, he made a will, leaving all
his personal property and the valuable old library[26] to his natural
son, and all his lands to Sir Alexander Penrose Cumming of Altyre, as
the direct descendant of Lucy Gordon, the daughter of Sir Ludovick.
Knowing that such a will was liable to be disputed unless it could be
proven that the writer was not only of sound mind but had also been seen
“at kirk and mercat”[27] at a subsequent date to that of his signing the
document, Sir William actually left his sick-bed to show himself
publicly in the parish church, and on his return home wrote a letter to
the father of the minister to say how much he had been gratified by the
sermon preached that morning by his son. The cunning old gentleman was
well assured that his carefully dated letter would be preserved by the
proud father, and could be called for should any vexatious questions
arise.
So the broad lands passed into the hands of Sir Alexander Cumming, who
consequently assumed the name of Gordon. But he was by no means suffered
to possess the estates unchallenged, the Duchess of Portland laying
claim to them in right of her descent from another Lucy Gordon, of a
later generation, the daughter of Sir Robert the Wizard. This Lucy had
married David Scott of Scotstarvet, and some eminent lawyers maintained
that her right by inheritance was sufficiently strong to upset Sir
William’s will. So a tedious lawsuit commenced which wore on through
weary years at an enormous expense to all concerned. The chances of the
litigants appeared so well balanced that Sir Alexander, dreading the
overwhelming costs that would be entailed on him should he lose his
suit, strove to make some preparation for such a contingency by
wholesale cutting of the fine old timber around the house—ornamental
timber, which was so doubly valuable in this monotonously flat country.
[Illustration:
AN ATTIC WINDOW IN THE INNER COURT.
]
From that evil period, it is needless to say, the estate has never
recovered, so far as its appearance is concerned, though, happily,
enough of the ancestral trees remain to satisfy the rooks, those most
faithful adherents to old rook-traditions, whose cawing chorus and eerie
flight at sunrise and sunset awaken such multitudinous memories of the
past.