Part 13

The Church of Monzievaird was in all probability founded, by Saint Serf, and he was certainly its patron saint. If we are not compelled to postulate two saints of this name from the number of years covered by traditions which cannot all relate to the same person, we would incline to quit hold of the earlier and less definite tradition, and to consider Saint Serf as contemporary with Adamnan, the celebrated Abbot of Iona, and distinguished biographer of Saint Columba. St. Serf founded many churches, and his reputation in the Middle Ages for the neat and appropriate miracles attributed to him may be reckoned the measure of his eminence among Scotland's early evangelists. Wyntoun gives a quaint dialogue between St. Serf and the enemy of mankind, in which the Devil, plying the Saint with many knotty theological questions, wholly fails to overcome him, and suddenly departs. Another of these monkish miracles makes St. Serf discover the theft of a sheep by ordering it to bleat forth the story of its wrongs from the guilty stomach of the thief, and to redden his face with shame for having denied his crime! St. Serf's memory survives here in the well called after him, with its plentiful supply of water. As lately as 1760 the parishioners were wont to be drawn by a lurking superstition to drink of it on Lammas Day, leaving in it white stones, spoons, or rags, which they brought as remembrancers, just as devout Mohammedans still leave their prayer rags attached to the grating of the Mosque El-Aksa, at Jerusalem, or the lower branches of the giant oak that marks the site of the grove at Dan. St. Serf's festival and fair day long continued, and was kept on the 1st of July while the market lasted. The church itself was impropriated to the Abbey of Inchaffray, founded by the Earl of Strathearn about the beginning of the twelfth century, and was served by a vicar, to whom that monastery delegated the clerical duty, doubtless on the usual pittance of stipend.

The Tosachs, from the Gaelic word meaning "first" or "chief," were the old proprietors of Monzievaird. Their first residence was not at the old castle at Greenend, but at Balmuick, on the estate of Lawers, then called Fordie, and the foundation of the house was traceable at the close of last century. The chief of Monzievaird was accustomed to execute a man on the first day of every month, and this celebration of the almanac at Tom-an-Tosach was apparently designed to prevent the feudal rights of pit and gallows from falling into desuetude. The story runs that the last chief held nightly interviews with a fairy, a proceeding which aroused his wife's jealousy. She tracked him by a ball of worsted attached to his button, and, discovering him in conclave with the fairy, demanded her immediate destruction. Thereupon the fairy fled, and the power of the Tosach departed also. The inhabitants rose against him, and he had to seek refuge abroad.

Castle Cluggy, which stands on the peninsula on the north side of the Loch of Monzievaird, is undoubtedly very old, but how old no one can tell. A square tower, about 17 feet by 18 feet, with walls five or six feet thick, of tremendous strength, is all that now remains. It is said to have been a seat of the "Red Cumin," the rival of Robert the Bruce for the throne of Scotland, slain at Dumfries before the high altar. The prison is sometimes said to have been on the island in the loch, but really the dungeon must be sought under the foundations of the tower. In the charter giving Ochtertyre to the Murrays, in the year 1467, it is even then described as an "ancient fortalice." The key of the tower was found about fifty years ago on the east side of the building. The old church of Monzievaird, now converted into a mausoleum, was the scene of a dreadful tragedy, characteristic of the spirit of feudal times. The Murrays and the Drummonds were but ill neighbours in the days of James IV. The collision between them in this instance has been ascribed to the levying of tithes, but without historic grounds; and the law of retaliation is even older than that of teinds, and far more widely practised. In a foray which began near Knock Mary the Murrays or their retainers were overpowered and driven westward. They kept up a running fight round the western base of Tomachastel, and an obstinate struggle took place in the hollow between Westerton and the Loch, where many men fell. The Murrays, however, succeeded in reaching the church, where 120 men able to bear arms, with their wives and children, took refuge. They were followed by the Drummonds, reinforced, as some say, by Campbell of Dunstaffhage, and thirsting for vengeance. Even then they might have escaped, had not one of the Murray clan indiscreetly revealed their hiding-place by aiming a successful shot at one of the Drummonds. The Drummonds now summoned them to surrender, but in vain, and then piled wood round the long, low, heather-thatched edifice, and consumed it with its human holocaust. One Murray alone, David by name, escaped, being aided by one of the Drummonds, who was attached to his sister. He in turn was hated and persecuted by his own clan, and forced to escape to Ireland. After some years he returned thence under the effectual protection of the powerful Abbot of Inchaffray, who was a Murray. He was settled on the Abbey lands, and the property which he received still bears the name of Drummond-Ernoch (of Erin).

The massacre of Monzievaird was sternly avenged by King James IV. The Master of Drummond, leader of the party, and some of his followers were executed at Stirling. The estate of Drummond was required to provide for the widows and orphans, and further to expiate their sacrilegious crime by re-building the church. Even then the house of prayer could scarcely be called the abode of peace. It is said to have been the scene of fierce bickerings, and that the gauntlet of the Murrays was for many years fastened on a small gallery of the church, and formal challenge made to anyone to remove it before divine service was allowed to begin. When the foundations of the present mausoleum were being dug a quantity of charred wood was found, and very many calcined bones--those nearer the door on the west being of larger size than the others towards the east, which were probably those of women and children. They must have been buried as they lay.

The Murrays of Ochtertyre come of the Tullibardine family, and the present proprietor is the fifteenth in descent from the first. The addition of Keith to the ancient "Moray," changed to Murray, arose from marriage with the heiress of Dunnottar Castle, in Kincardineshire. It is a singular fact that the succession has uniformly descended from father to son. The existing house of Ochtertyre was built by the great-grandfather of the present Baronet, and for prospect it would be hard to equal it. The old house stood near the great ash tree further west, and a yet older is proved by a family record, which narrates the births of generations at Quoig House, above the church. Robert Burns' visit to Ochtertyre in 1787 and the two poems he produced are too familiar to need mention here. In the reign of Charles I. a mortality greater even than that caused by war almost depopulated the bonnie braes of Ochtertyre. The dreaded Plague assumed alarming proportions, and many huts were erected for isolation near the west end of Monzievaird Loch. The dead were not buried in the churchyard, but in a large sepulchral mound near the Marle Lodge gate.

The Right Honourable Sir George Murray, G.C.B., perhaps the most distinguished member of the Ochtertyre family, after meritorious service in Egypt and the Peninsular War, was chief of the general staff under Wellington at Waterloo. He also served the State as a politician, six times representing Perthshire in Parliament, and attaining among many honours the office of Secretary of State for the Colonies in the Duke of Wellington's Government of 1828. The present Baronet is a worthy successor of an honoured line, and his generous consideration for the public in throwing open his grounds and granting the fullest facilities for their enjoyment deserves the highest praise. It is claimed for Glenturret that the two last wolves seen in Scotland were killed there. But a similar claim has been advanced for Nairnshire, and, with far more likelihood, for the wilds of the Moor of Rannoch. The glen, however, was long famous for its falcons. In few places is the bird-life more various or abundant than in the woods of bonnie Ochtertyre. And the rabbit, introduced there while the present century was young, has evidently come to stay and to multiply.

At Upper Quoig two reputed witches once dwelt, but whether from greater fear or greater enlightenment here than elsewhere, they were never called to endure the ordeal either by fire or by water. They hunted in couples apparently, for the story goes that two men at Clathick, rising early on a May morning, saw them coming up the burn-side, putting a tether across the stream, and saying, "Come all to me." This incantation succeeded in providing the witches' dairy with a double supply of milk, while their neighbours had none! Verily many poor old crones have lost their lives on as trivial a charge. Passing westward to the compact property of Clathick, now owned by Captain Campbell Colquhoun, we learn that it was given off from Ochtertyre in dowry with a Miss Mary Murray. It was a curious marriage contract provision that her initials should be cut upon each lintel, and men were living thirty years ago who had seen "M.M." carved on the stones of the old house.

The estate of Lawers conjures up from the deep oblivion of ages many stirring times. It was originally "Fordie," but was named Lawers after the Campbells from Loch Tayside came into possession. How different our quiet Christian Lord's Days and "kirk-yard cracks" from these Sunday and festival occasions of bloodshed,

"When strangers from Breadalbane And clansmen from Loch Tay Brought to the priest their offerings, But fought each holy day!"

Still we may remark the ruined chapel almost smothered by the overturned yew trees that were planted, less, perhaps, to mark the "route" of the Mass carried in procession (hence "routine," corrupted into "Rotten Row,") than to furnish the twanging bow for these martial spirits. That great boulder-stone at the north-eastern end of the magnificent avenue opposite is, most likely, a Roman landmark, though it is customary to declare that the Earn once flowed past it. Colonel Campbell of Lawers was not only a sincere reformer, but John Knox's history tells us how he commanded a regiment raised to make good the cause of religious faith and freedom. His second successor was a yet more staunch and eminent Scotsman, knighted in 1620, and created Earl of Loudon in 1633. He proved himself a stout opponent of the arbitrary measures of Charles I. and Laud; was one of the most prominent actors in the Glasgow Assembly of 1638, and nominated to represent the Church of Scotland in the Westminster Assembly of Divines. He narrowly escaped being beheaded in the Tower of London, in spite of a safe conduct and without trial; but the fiat of the insensate monarch was recalled, and the warrant torn up by Charles a single day before the axe was doomed to fall, from fear of the odium and vengeance his death would have called forth. Not to remain Chancellor of Scotland (as he was for ten years) would he imperil the interests of religious liberty and national independence, just then threatened by Stuart absolutism; and yet he was a man of the type of the great Montrose, as loyal to the King as he was true to Church and people. Few deserve better to rank among "The Scots Worthies." He disponed Lawers estate to his brother, who, fighting against Cromwell at Inverkeithing, was badly beaten, and had his lands on the north of Loch Earn taken from him by an oppressive exaction put in force against him by the same Stuart dynasty, whose cause he had so faithfully championed.

A thrilling tale introduces the next laird of Lawers, son of the last named. He executed a punitive commission against his uncanny neighbours, the Macgregors, who determined on revenge. They surprised him at Lawers in bed, and threatened instant death, even in his wife's presence. He urged for time to pray, and that it might be for quietness in the chapel hard by, which request they granted. On the way thither he so played on their cupidity, offering them 10,000 merks if they would spare his life, that at last he prevailed. Faithful to his engagement, he raised this immense sum, much of it being gathered in halfpence, and carried on horseback to the appointed trysting-place. But Lawers was better than his word, for soldiers surrounded the house, and made the Macgregors prisoners. The game ended with checkmate, when the duped freebooters paid the death penalty in Edinburgh. Colonel David R. Williamson, the present laird of Lawers, has been long noted for his public spirit and eminent services to agriculture.

Tomachastel, the central wooded height of the parish, now surmounted by the monument, erected by his widow, in 1832, to the memory of General Sir David Baird of Ferntower, is marked out beyond all reasonable doubt as the site of the ancient Castle of Earn, for long the fortress dwelling of the great and powerful Earls of Strathearn. The title is now merged in the names of Royalty, like the Dukedoms of Rothesay and Albany. Our own beloved Queen's father was the Duke of Kent and Strathearn, as her third son is Duke of Connaught and Strathearn. No situation within the wide strath can compare with it in fair and far-reaching prospect, combined with facilities for defence; and the lighting of its beacon fire would be so universally observed over a wide domain that a personal summons, like that of the fiery cross, would scarcely be needed. Romance and gruesome horror are strangely blended here; for was it not from the walks in close proximity to the castle that the fair Lady Mary Graham, only daughter of stout old Malise, Earl of Strathearn, espied her future husband, John Moray of Drumshergart, fishing in the well-stocked pools below? And did he not find her society more engrossing than any (whole or half) scaly inhabitant of the mermaid's pool? The Morays of Abercairny estate (the fair lady's marriage portion) and many another territorial family claim descent from the union of these happy lovers. The rough hospitality, and swift, if not always impartial, administration of feudal justice are themes inviting to historic imagination; nor is the religious element wanting, for the Earls of Strathearn, besides founding Inchaffray Abbey, endowed the Bishopric of Dunblane with one-third of their domains. A sad and shameful story links the castle with the good King Robert the Bruce, and probably brought about its destruction. Joanna, only child of the seventh Earl, was Countess in her own right, and married to John de Warenne, Earl of Surrey, and English Governor of Scotland. The husband and wife had different minds and purposes. The lady was found guilty of conspiracy, with Lord Soulis of Hermitage Castle and others, against the life of the good King Robert. She confessed her offence, and was condemned to perpetual imprisonment within her own castle. Constant tradition affirms that it was set on fire and burnt to the ground, whether as the result of accident or a successful siege. One story tells how the Earl tried to save his wife, but failed from the irresistible power of the flames. The castle became a ruin, and was never re-built. Actual observation, after more than 500 years, has confirmed the truth, in this case stranger than fiction. Sir David Baird, the hero of the Nile, Cape of Good Hope, Corunna, and Seringapatam (remembered by the oldest folk for hunting with hawks, attended by a native Indian), having died at Ferntower in 1832, was first buried in Monzievaird Churchyard, and old people still recall the extraordinary storm of thunder and rain which signalised his funeral day. His widow prepared the massive monumental obelisk of granite, said to be exactly similar to Cleopatra's Needle, since struck by lightning in 1878, and badly rent, but now restored. It required foundations broad and deep. Most of the stones of the old castle had gone to form dykes in the neighbourhood. The workmen, thinking they had to deal with solid rock, proceeded to blast it, when to their amazement the charge of gunpowder, instead of only throwing stones and debris into the air, operated downward and revealed a dungeon cut in the solid rock. There lay all that remained of the proud and daring Joanna, Countess of Strathearn and Princess of the Orkneys. A few gold and silver bracelets and ornaments, belonging to a lady's dress, were found among the black rubbish with another trinket, teaching the old, old lesson, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity."

It only remains to describe the antiquities of Strowan. There was a Thane of "Struin" in Strathearn, in very early times, when Thanes were servants of the King, holding their land in fee-farm for a certain "census," or feu-duty. Strowan, like Monzievaird, had a Celtic saint for founder--St. Ronan. He is not to be identified with the saint of that name, of whom the venerable Bede records that he championed the later Roman method of calculating the time of the Easter festival against Bishop Finan of Lindisfarne, who stoutly held the Columban rule. Rather may we count him the same with the Abbot of Kingarth, in Bute (died 737 A.D.), and founder of Kilmaronog, on Loch Etive, the parish of similar name in Dumbartonshire, and the Parish Church of Iona, called after him "Tempul Ronain." St. Ronan's name is to this day associated with his well, the pool that never failed to supply him with fish on Fridays; the ruins of the old church or chapel, and St. Ronan's bell. Tradition says that the Cross of Crieff was taken from Strowan to Crieff upwards of 200 years ago. The market cross of Strowan now stands on a small mound west from the old kirk and near the mansion-house. A fine old lime tree which shaded it succumbed to the unprecedented storm of November, 1893; and all who know the venerable Laird of Strowan hope that he may live to see the young lime sapling with which he lately replaced it grow up to cast its shade over the cross once more. The latter is Maltese in form; and has on it, besides the initials of the Latin inscription on the Saviour's cross, I.N.R.I., the Moray star, and other symbols. It was probably taken from the churchyard. The arches of the bridge, with its narrow roadway and parapet, and little cities of refuge for foot-passengers, are not of a hoary antiquity; but the pillars, on which at one time planks used to be laid for crossing, are much older. The Kirk-Session records contain many entries of sums paid to the boatman for ferrying parishioners from the north side to Strowan Church. Picturesque ruin though the church is, it is not 230 years old in any part, and public worship on alternate Sundays was performed there till the beginning of this century. In 1669 the previous church was still standing, and in such repair that an application was made to the Synod to require the lairds of Monzievaird, Ochtertyre, Fordie, Clathick, &c., to attend the Church of Strowan in consequence of Monzievaird Church having become ruinous and past repair. The Commissioners of Teinds had ordered one church to be built near the present site, but the heritors of each of the united parishes did their best to evade complying. Two graves are deserving of special mention. One is the resting-place of "fair Helen of Ardoch"; the other marks the place of repose of the eldest son of the House of Strowan, who laid down his life on the sands of Tel-el-Kebir, bravely advancing to the charge against the Egyptian lines.

St. Ronan's Bell is preserved at Strowan House. It is small, circular, and looks as if it had been made to be grasped by the hand. Tradition says it was rung under the bell-man's gown when mass was said in Romish times. The tongue is wanting. Some say it never had one, but was meant to be struck from without. It never could have been heard afar off. Close scrutiny proves it to be slightly cracked. But worthless for music, it is excellent for law! It is the symbol of tenure of Ballindewar or Dewarland. (Dewar is from the Gaelic for keeper). The Dewars were the hereditary beadles of Strowan, and keepers of St. Ronan's bell. They held their croft free of all cess, stipend, or public burden, as it still remains. When the present Laird of Strowan negotiated at a high price the purchase of this piece of land, he received with "the bellman's pendicle" the bell itself as the charter of the feu lands, and as custodier of all rights of the same.

The saddest feature in making this short survey of the united parish is the great and continuous decline of the population. In 1755 there were 1460 people; in 1793 there were 1025; in 1891 the number had sunk to 490. No doubt the livelier prospects of town life allure many. No doubt many have profited by the fact of removal. The agricultural outlook appears gloomier than ever, which tends to restrict the area under cultivation. But it cannot be gainsaid that many have had to remove from the mistaken policy of adding land to land and field to field. It is breaking down when viewed in the sole interest of the proprietor; how much more is it found wanting when viewed from the standpoint of the wider interests and welfare of our common country?

The minister of Monzievaird and Strowan most likely to achieve immortality is the Rev. William Robertson, the gifted versifier and author of Hymns 3--"Thee God we praise, Thee Lord confess," the Monzievaird _Te Deum_, and 311--"A little child the Saviour came," the first baptismal hymn, in the Scottish Hymnal. To him the account now given, incomplete as it is, owes more than to any other. He has also cast into verse that seems worth preserving his parish musings in the following lines:--