Part 10

It would be unpardonable to write anything about Comrie without making allusion to the earthquakes which have made it famous. In the Statistical Account of Scotland, published in the year 1794, the Rev. Mr M'Diarmid, minister of the parish, gives an account of the first recorded earthquake in the district. During the autumn of 1789 loud noises, unaccompanied by any concussion, were heard by the inhabitants of Glenlednock; but on the 5th of November of that year they were alarmed by a loud rumbling noise, accompanied with a severe shock of earthquake, which was felt over a tract of country of more than twenty miles in extent. The Rev. Mr Mackenzie, successor to Mr M'Diarmid, writing in 1838, in the last Statistical Account, says that "at and after the time of the last Statistical Account the earthquakes were so frequent and violent, and accompanied with such noises, as to occasion great alarm, especially one which occurred on a Sabbath while the congregation was assembled." The year 1839, however, was the time of the great earthquakes. Writing in 1842 in the last Statistical Account, the Rev. John Ferguson, minister of Monzievaird, says:--"At this time they began to be frequently felt, nearly 20 shocks being occasionally experienced in 24 hours. The most violent one happened about ten o'clock on the evening of 23d October, 1839. The shock seemed to pass along through the parish of Monzievaird from north-west to south-east. For a second or two every house for miles around the village of Comrie was shaken from top to bottom; and while the motion was passing away to the eastward it was accompanied by a tremendous noise like the roar of 100 pieces of ordnance discharged at once and gradually dying away in the distance. This earthquake was partially felt throughout a great part of Scotland, as far as Inverness, Dunbar, Berwick, and the banks of Loch Awe. In this neighbourhood it was very alarming. Several individuals fainted, and most of the inhabitants of the village of Comrie spent the whole night in the streets, or in the churches, which were very properly opened for prayer. Many stone dykes were thrown down, walls of houses rent, and chimney-stalks shattered, the stones being frequently shifted from their places, but no serious damage was sustained. The shocks have again diminished both in frequency and violence since the autumn of 1839." Another severe shock occurred in November, 1846, but from that date they have decreased both in number and intensity. The cause of these subterranean commotions is in this as in similar cases a matter of conjecture, but there is good cause for thankfulness that they have hitherto been attended with no serious damage to life or property.

The Session records of some parishes in Scotland are of some historical value, but this is not so with those of Comrie. Beyond the perpetual reiteration of cases of discipline and doles to the poor, there is little to be found in them to throw light upon the Christian life and work of the parish. So meagrely kept were these records that until the year 1829 the Christian name and surname of the Moderator and Clerk never appear in the minutes--not even the Secession of 1843 is recorded, though the minister left the church with a great majority of the congregation to worship upon Tomachessock. The only exception to what we have just stated, perhaps, is a minute of Kirk-Session dated 17th November, 1772, recording the honour due to Patrick Campbell, Esq. of Monzie, then deceased, and the Rev. Robert Menzies, minister of the parish, for the active and benevolent part they took in the building of the Dalginross Bridge over the Earn. The bridge was built in 1756 at a cost of £230.

The Parish Church was erected in 1805, and holds 1044 sitters. The manse was built in 1784, and an addition was made to it in 1822. A new church was built in St. Fillans in connection with the Church of Scotland in 1878, and in March, 1895, it was endowed and erected into a parish _quoad sacra_ under the old name of Dundurn. It is curious to note how the land has been changing hands during the last 180 years. In 1715, the heritors were the Earl of Perth, Duke of Athole, the proprietors of Aberuchill, Lawers, Monzie, Cultabraggan, Ardvoirlich, Comrie, Strowan, Drummond-Ernoch, and Balmacuin. At present they are the Earl of Ancaster, Marquis of Breadalbane, and the proprietors of Ardvoirlich, Dunira, Aberuchill, Strowan, Lawers, Dalchonzie, and Drumearn.

ON THE BANKS OF THE DEVON

By Rev. E. B. SPEIRS, B.D., Glendevon

Seeing that "St. Serf's Bridge" still spans the Devon at one part within the parish of Glendevon, and that the good Saint did not himself build the bridge, but, following a common practice, baptised and made Christian what was a Pagan structure, reared in this instance by the Imperial legionaries, it might be permissible for the local historian to go back at least to the times of the Roman occupation. After describing the camp and the Roman road which still exist in the mind's eye of the antiquaries, he might then go on to tell of holy St. Servan's feats in the way of detecting sheep-stealers by making them, like Speed under the influence of Proteus' reasoning, cry "Baa," or relate some such pretty human story as that of how he turned water into wine for the sake of a sick monk, or unfold the thrilling tale of how he fought the Dovan dragon, as Wyntoun sings, or at least says:--

"In Dovyn of devotyoune And prayere, he slew a fell Dragoune, Quhare he was slayne, that place wes ay The Dragownys Den cald to this day."[1]

The more exact methods of writing history now in vogue, however, almost compel the chronicler to begin with the first certain mention of Glendevon in accredited records, and that belongs to the year 1521. On the eleventh of July of that year an interesting ceremony was gone through down at Cambuskenneth, on the banks of the Forth. Abbot Mylne, a man both of culture and character, who to a genuine love of letters added a love of art and architecture, and who was ultimately the first President of the Court of Session, had re-built the great altar, the chapter-house, and part of the cloister of his Abbey, and had laid out two new cemeteries. In order to signalise these notable additions and restorations he invited the Bishop of Dunblane to conduct a consecration and dedication service. The Bishop was directly assisted in this solemn function by three of his principal clergy--his archdeacon, George Newton; John Chesholme, prebendary of Kippane; and "Jacobus Wilson, prebandarius de Glendowane." John Tulydaf, warder of the Minorites of "Striueling" (Stirling), preached on the efficacy of dedication after the celebration of the Mass, and amongst those present were the "noble and powerful" Lord John Erskin, Jacobus Haldene of Glenegges (Gleneagles), Knight, and various others of the local clergy, nobility, and gentry, together with a large concourse of people from the surrounding district. The official account of what took place on this high day when Glendowane, Glendovan, Glenduen, or Glendevon, first emerges into the light of history, is duly signed by Jacobus Blakwood, presbyter of the Diocese of Dunblane, public notary by apostolic authority, who was on the spot and saw everything properly done.[2] The name of Prebendary Wilson occurs in several documents both before and after this, all of which have reference to matters connected either with Cambuskenneth or Dunblane. He gets prominent mention in a paper dated from Cambuskenneth, June, 1530, in which he is styled "Canonicus Dunblanensis," heading a list of "venerable and discreet" gentlemen, including Alanus Balward, vicar of Kalender, and Andreas Sym, vicar of Cumry, but we cannot trace him further down than March of the following year. It is clear from this that Glendevon was attached to the "Kirk of Dunblane," and that the Parish Church was served from there, not, it is to be hoped, in the slovenly fashion characteristic of these times, when the stipend was too often fought for by different teind hunters in the shape of the bishop of the diocese and the abbot of some neighbouring monastery, a state of things to which Prebendary Wilson himself bears witness. There is something almost pathetic in the thought that less than forty years after that dedication service in which the Prebendary of Glendevon took part, these additions were to be pulled to pieces by the savage mob which wrecked, amongst other religious houses, the stately monastery on the Links of the Forth; and it is just possible that the great destroyer--spiritually at least--of what Canon Wilson helped to build up was in his parish in 1556. At any rate a spot is still pointed out on the glebe where, according to tradition, John Knox preached. We know from his own statement[3] that he spent some time in the early part of the summer of that year at Castle Campbell--which is only some four or five miles distant--"whare he taught certane dayis"; so it is at least not utterly improbable that he may have come through Glenquey past the Maiden's Well, and visited a possible congregation in Glendovan, exhorting them to "prayaris, to reading of the Scriptures, and mutuall conference unto such tyme as God should give unto them grettar libertie."[4]

The second direct mention of Glendevon in public records is of a somewhat unsavoury order, and affords a rather curious illustration of the beliefs of the people of Scotland in the seventeenth century. John Brughe, one of the most notorious necromancers and wizards of his day, was tried at Edinburgh on November 24th, 1643, for practising sorcery and other unholy arts, and amongst the charges brought against him was that he had met Satan thrice "in the kirkyeard of Glendovan at quhilkis tymes ther was taine up thrie severall dead corps, ane of thame being of ane servand man named Johne Chrystiesone; the uther corps, tane up at the Kirk of Mukhart, the flesch of the quhilk corps was put above the byre and stable-dure headis" of certain individuals in order to destroy their cattle.[5] John's object in collecting Glendovan "muild" was, according to this indictment, not a beneficent one; but it is to be remembered to his credit that he used the powdered bones of the dead and other materials, notably "ane inchantit stane of the bignes of a dow egg,"[6] for the healing of man and beast, and we are told that for curing a number of oxen afflicted with the murrain by administering a pint of one of his patent medicines, accompanied with the invocation, "God put thame in their awin place," repeated thrice, he got "ellevin od schillings, with twa peckis of meill and thrie tailyeis of beiff." In those days, when not only human nature but Nature herself lay under the black shadow of one of the foulest of superstitions, the fair banks of the Devon were much frequented by the devil, who had whole "covins" of witches and wizards in his service, so that it is not surprising to hear that John was frequently in his company. "That John Brughe had been with the devil at the Rumbling Brigs and elsewhere was affirmed by Katherine Mitchell to be of veritie, at the tyme of hir criminall tryell at Culrose, and immediately befoir hir executione, the said John Brughe being confronted with hir at the tyme."[7] We can claim this renowned empiric not only for the Glendevon district, but in a sense for the Presbytery, since it was alleged against him that he had got his uncanny knowledge "from a wedow woman, named Neane Nikclerith, of threescoir years of age, quha wis sister dochter to Nik Neveding, that notorious infamous witche in Monzie, quha for her sorcerie and witchecraft was brunt fourscoir of yeir since or thereby." Spite of all he had done for the "bestiall," and all the testimonials he had from patients whom he had cured of their "seiknessis" by enchanted drinks, Glendovan and Mukhart mould, and sympathetic conjuring of "sarkis, coller bodies, beltis, and utheris pertaining als weill to men as to wemen," John was found guilty and condemned to be strangled and burned. These were the real Dark Ages, when intimations were frequently made from the Glendevon and other pulpits that the minister and session would be glad to receive information against suspected witches, and when the common pricker who pricked poor witches "with lang preins of thrie inches" to discover the marks of Satan, was specially busy in the vale of Devon, where in a record year no less than sixteen of the local "covin" were burned. In the Roll of Fugitives from kirk discipline drawn up by the Synod of Perth and Stirling in 1649, Glendevon was represented by a warlock, "Mart. Kennard, suspect of witchcraft," but of his fate we know nothing. In this connection it may be remarked that though the "Kirkyeard of Glendovan," immortalised by John Brughe's ghoulish visit, contains no epitaphs, humorous or otherwise, it possesses a "Plague Stone," a large rough slab, under which lie those who died of what is vaguely called the Plague (1645?), and the lifting of which was duly guarded against by a solemn curse pronounced over it on whoever would dare to remove it, for two hundred years ago a curse could break bones or "ryve the saull out of ye."

Two years after John Brughe suffered at Edinburgh, the quiet of the usually peaceful valley of the Devon was broken by the clatter of cavalry and the skirling of the pipes, as Montrose, having in his usual brilliant fashion outwitted Baillie, marched through, burning and plundering as he passed, leaving Muckhart, Dollar, and, above all, Castle Campbell, the lowland hold of the detested Argyles, heaps of blackened ruins, a march which was to end in the bloody Battle of Kilsyth, that "braw day" when, as the Highlander with grim humour remarked, "at every stroke I gave with my broadsword I cut an ell o' tamn'd Covenanting breeks." When Chambers says[8] that "the Covenanting army marched close upon the track of Montrose _down Glendevon_, at the distance of about a day's march behind," he, of course, means down the Devon valley, and not down Glendevon proper, since it is pretty certain that Montrose, in making his descent from the north, entered the low country not by Gleneagles, but by the south-east end of the Ochils. Glendevon Castle--originally built, it is supposed, by the Crawfords[9] in the sixteenth century--thus escaped the fate which befel Castle Campbell[10] and Menstrie House, and other places in the Devon and Ochil district at this time, when the fierce strife was not merely between cavaliers and Covenanters, but quite as much, and specially during the Devon valley march, between the Ogilvies and Macleans on the one hand, and the Campbells and their friends on the other. It is, however, impossible, to say whether the Keep, which has been in the possession of the Rutherford family since 1766, was actually at this time in the hands of the Crawfords, and, indeed, the traditions regarding its ownership are so vague--one of them assigning it to the Douglases--that, in the absence of authentic records, it is impossible to make any really satisfactory statement regarding its origin and history.

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Some years later the parish of Glendevon came prominently before the public in connection with the deposition and excommunication of its doughty true-blue Presbyterian minister, the Rev. William Spence, M.A., though it was not till he had been removed from his living that the really romantic part of his career began. He had graduated at St. Andrews in 1654, and after some years of schoolmastering[11] and probationership he was, in 1664, duly admitted on the new Black Prelatic conditions to the parish of Glendevon. Under the mild rule of Bishops Leighton and Ramsay he lived quietly there for fourteen years. His name occasionally appears on the Synod and Presbytery Committees during this period, and he seems to have done his best to get the brethren stirred up to "better the provision of Glendovan." The Bishop and Synod did actually order a "perambulation" to be made to see if anything could be annexed from the adjacent parishes, especially "Denying and Fossoquhy," so that, as Mr Spence put it, "ane augmentation proportionablie might {196} be made to him out of the vacant teindes of the said paroches in respect of the poornes and meannes of his stipend for the present."[12] The perambulation, beyond affording a pleasant outing to the visitors in the long May days, does not seem to have had any practical result. Mr Spence had, however, been thinking of higher things than teinds and augmentation, and had been looking far beyond the bounds of his own parish, and, spite of the extreme gentleness of the somewhat mongrel Prelatic-Presbyterian rule under which he was, and the general atmosphere of conformity which he breathed, he began to have serious searchings of heart about the state of the "poor afflicted" Church. Accordingly, towards the end of 1678 he took the bold step of presenting a paper[13] to the Presbytery of Auchterarder drawing the attention of the Court to the sundry gross corruptions under which the Church was suffering and to the horrid defection from its first purity, obvious to {197} every man who did not wilfully shut his eyes. The evils against which he asked the Court to testify were doctrinal, liturgical, disciplinary, moral, and what may be called ecclesiastical. He includes in the sweep of his very impartial denunciation not only the pernicious tenets of Pelagianism, Arminianism, Latitudinarianism, and Popish errors, but "the dotage of Quakers and other enthusiasts," human inventions in worship, and the private essays made to introduce or impose an unwarrantable liturgie of unsound and useless form, the loose spirit of atheism, profaneness, and ungodliness reigning in all corners of the kingdom, and the dreadful differences that prevailed, and calls for a return to sound doctrine, the practice of "the gude Kirk primitif," the exercise of a strict discipline, and the ways of peace. At the special meeting of Presbytery called to consider his paper he asked to have it back, apparently because he now thought its terms were not strong enough, and meanwhile a committee was appointed not to deal but to confer with him "until he should get full satisfaction of everything that was his scruple." He refused, however, to meet the Committee or attend the Presbytery, on the ground that he had {198} not "clearness" as to the authority and constitution of a semi-prelatic Court. The Bishop and Presbytery thereupon suspended him, and he was summoned before the Synod in April, 1679, but did not attend, on account of "ane aguish distemper which had seized on him." A Synodal Committee with full powers was then appointed, before which he compeared in May, but spite of earnest entreaties of the Bishop he would withdraw nothing, and even added that he did not think the present Church government agreeable to Scriptural rules--a view shared by some of the Episcopalian bishops themselves. The Bishop and Committee recorded their opinion that the paper was contrived and adhered to for advancing some private interest against the unity and peace of the Church, and rather unfairly insinuated that Mr Spence was the more hardened therein by the late execrable murder of the Bishop of St. Andrews and the expectation of a Revolution to follow thereupon, and unanimously resolved that this unruly and unreasonable member be deposed. Mr Spence was quite prepared for this, and, "with some signs of choler in his countenance," handed a second paper to the Bishop, which turned out to {199} be a protest against the sentence of the "pretended" Bishop and Synod of Dunblane passed on him. He was asked to retire for a little till they should consult, but he scornfully replied that he did not own their jurisdiction, and was making for the church-door when the Bishop ordered the beadle to lay hold of him, and carry him to his house, and desire the Baillie to keep him safely until he should find caution to answer before a competent judicatory. This was Mr Spence's first taste of imprisonment, of which he was to have a very large supply, of very different quality, too, later on. The good Bishop on his own responsibility sent three of the brethren that night to reason with him, but Mr Spence would not yield, and was let out on bail. He appeared at the next meeting of Synod, but, spite of the threat of excommunication, stuck to his guns and argued against his treatment on technical grounds, and on the following day, when, after being duly cited, he neither compeared nor pled "ane aguish distemper," the Bishop and Synod charged the Presbytery of Auchterarder to proceed with the excommunication, which after some bungling they did, and finally the superior Court ordered the {200} intimation of the excommunication to be read from every pulpit in the Diocese on the first Sabbath of January, 1681, but no attempt was made to detain the unruly member, and the door of grace was left open to the very last, quite remarkable leniency when it is remembered that 1680 was the year of the Sanquhar Declaration and Airds Moss, and that the peroration of Mr Spence's protest would have done credit to Cuddy Headrigg's mother. "For these reasons specially, and many others I need not mention now, I, the said William Spence, protest against the sentence aforesaid, and disown the same, seeing the said inflicters have hereby proclaimed themselves to be the patrones and abettors of all the said corruptions, supplanters of the Gospel faction for Anti-christ, promoters of the powers of darkness, enemies to the kingdom of Jesus Christ, and such from whom all good Christians ought to separate because of their maintaining and defending soul-murdering heresies, and in persecuting with the utmost violence and rigour any man who darr open his mouth for the truth of Christ. (_Sic Subscribitur_), Mr William Spence."[14]

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