‘…in the footsteps of the martyrs…’
The name Dumfries is said to be formed by two Gaelic terms ‘a castle, in ‘the copse’ or ‘brushwood’. It is more than probable that the nucleus of the town was a castle in brushwood.
It is argued by some that Dumfries was around at the time of the Romans. The evidence for this is tenacious. There are distinct traces of Dumfries’s existence in the Eleventh century. Around 1019 a Breton legend mentions Arthur and calls him king of the Britons. There is some dispute about this legend and its date, but we can say that Dumfries was around at that time.
The apostle Paul claimed rank and privilege as a Roman citizen on account of his birth at Tarsus; and it is a curious fact that the Caledonian tribes in the south of Scotland were invested with the same rights by an edict of Antoninus Pius.
In the middle of the Thirteenth century Lady Devorgilla comes to Dumfries. The population at that time being around 2,000. As a ready means of communication across the River Nith, Lady Devorgilla commissioned a bridge for the town which she was to take a considerable interest in.
The Lady Devorgilla belonged to one of the most opulent families in Europe: she was large-hearted and liberal-minded up to the full measure of her wealth; and no greater boon could she have conferred on the Dumfriesians of that and many after-generations than by linking together the two sides of Nithsdale.
The bed of the river is still essentially the same; but, down till the reign of William the Lion, its margin next the town had little natural and no artificial embankment. As a consequence, the upper sand beds, or Green-sands, and the lower sand beds, or White-sands, were seriously encroached upon; and a watery dominion, more or less wide, was established over the Dock Meadow as far down as the other stronghold of the Comyns at Castledykes – the high rock on which the fortress stood at this point giving the encroaching element a westward curve, till the river fringed an ancient mound on the Troqueer side, the mote-hill from which Devorgilla forefathers, as Lords of Galloway, must often have administered brehon law to their vassals.
She was full of spiritual fervour; and, quite in accordance with the practice of her family and of the age, her piety expressed itself in the erection of religious houses and the endowment of monastic fraternities. The vast extent of her wealth, and her desire, as she fondly thought, to store up a portion of it in heaven, were proved to the world, when a convent at Dundee – with which town she was connected through the Comyns – another at Wigtown, and Greyfriars’ Monastery at Dumfries, and, last of all, Newabbey in Kirkcudbrightshire, grew up at her command. Baliol died in 1269; and we are inclined to think that all these religious houses were erected after this date. Her affection for him seems to have been abounded: perhaps she sought, by the building of such expensive fanes, to promote the eternal well-being of her departed husband.
The Monastery that The Lady Devorgilla built in around 1230 was in what is called the Friars Vennel. The buildings no longer exist. This building work and ministry brought in, from all over Europe, foreign builders and educated monks. some of them spoke Norman-French, others the soft Italian tongue – in curious contrast to their rough attire, which consisted of a coarse grey grown having a hood of the same stuff, and fastened at the waist with a hempen cord by way of girdle. These grotesque-looking strangers were the original Grey Friars, the primitive tenants of the Monastery in the Vennel. Afterwards they would be joined by numerous recluses from the neighbourhood; and, when the foreign friars had acquired some knowledge of the native dialect, the order would enter upon its duties, which, as summarily expressed in the rules of its founder, were – “To live to preach, and beg to live.”
During the troubled times of the 17th Century Covenanters gathered and lived in the Vennel area of the town, while those of the kings men, the opposite came, gathered and lived in the Lochmaben Gate, now English Street.
The gentle lady who brought the brethren to Dumfries did not wish them to interpret these words too literally: she fancied that a fixed income would be an acceptable addition to precarious doles given by the charitable; and, accordingly, the house was endowed by her with the customs extracted at the bridge.
The bridge was a colossal one, of nine arches, having no equal at that time in Scotland Built in 1432. Some of the workmen, who literally left their mark on the monastery, would probably be employed in its construction also. Three years were spent, fully five centuries afterwards, in erecting the new bridge over the Nith; and we may reasonably suppose that the building of the old bridge would occupy a still longer period. This latter structure helped to make Dumfries: it was thereby brought into a close relationship with Galloway, and became an important station on the leading highway between England and Scotland. This bridge has been rebuilt many times. The currant one from the 1800’s shortened from the east, and still usable today. Many pilgrims on their way to Whithorn, an early Christian site in Scotland, would ford the river at this point. The building of Devorgilla’s bridge in 1230-1260 would have been a major boon.
In 1282, Devorgilla gave yet another proof of her extraordinary munificence by establishing Balliol College, in the University of Oxford, so called in memory of her deceased husband, who was rarely absent from her thought. [The original building has long since disappeared, and in the existing College there is nothing earlier than the middle of the Fifteenth century. The foundation at present comprises a master, twelve fellows, and fourteen scholars, besides exhibitioners.
Devorgilla breathed her last at Barnard Castle in 1289. Her husband, John Baliol died at the same place twenty-one years before, and was buried there – all except the heart: which symbol of our emotional nature the sorrowful widow caused to be embalmed, and placed in a little ivory casket, and kept beside her as a daily companion.
The Lady Devorgilla is important in Dumfries and Scotland because her son John became King John the 1st of Scotland, being crowned at Scone Palace in Perthshire on 30th November 1292.
This bridge upon which you stand marks the spot of the original thirteenth century bridge built by The Lady Devorgilla, who changed Dumfries and Scotland through the life she lived.
Dumfries was founded as a Royal Burgh in 1186 on the east side of the lowest crossing point of the River Nith.
Nine women were burned to death for witchcraft in the town in 1659, and two centuries later in 1868, Dumfries was the site of Scotland's last public hanging.
Dumfries Cattle market would supply Beef to the Kings of England in London.
Robert the Bruce
King Robert the Bruce I was born at Lochmaben Castle in 1274. He was Knight and Overlord of Annandale. In 1306 he was crowned King of Scotland and henceforth tried to free Scotland from the English enemy.
After being defeated at a battle, Bruce escaped and found a hideout in a cave. Hiding in a cave for three months, Bruce was at the lowest point of his life. He thought about leaving the country and never coming back.
While waiting, he watched a spider building a web in the cave's entrance. The spider fell down time after time, but finally he succeeded with his web. So Bruce decided also to retry his fight and told his men: "If at first you don't succeed, try, try and try again".
The Covenanters
Simply stated, the Covenanters were those people in Scotland who signed the National Covenant in 1638. They signed this Covenant to confirm their opposition to the interference by the Stuart kings in the affairs of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland.
The Stuart kings harboured the belief of the Divine Right of the Monarch. Not only did they believe that God wished them to be the infallible rulers of their kingdom - they also believed that they were the spiritual heads of the Church of Scotland. This latter belief could not be accepted by the Scots. No man, not even a king, could be spiritual head of their church. Only Jesus Christ could be spiritual head of a Christian church.
There followed a period of very severe repression. Ministers with Covenanting sympathies were "outed" from their churches by the authorities, and had to leave their parishes. Many continued to preach at "conventicles" in the open air or in barns and houses. This became an offence punishable by death. Citizens who did not attend their local churches (which were now in the charge of Episcopalian "curates") could be heavily fined, and such offenders were regarded as rebels, who could be questioned, even under torture. They could be asked to take various oaths, which not only declared loyalty to the king, but also to accept his as head of the church. Failure to take such an oath could result in summary execution by the muskets of the dragoons, who were scouring the districts looking for rebels.
Dumfries was strongly Presbyterian and Covenanting, and when King Charles II was restored to the throne the covenanter of Dumfries expected great things from him because he had, as a young man, signed the National Covenant in Scone. They were to be disappointed.
As Charles took hold of Scotland, Dumfries councillors hat to swear increasingly comprehensive and binding oaths to be the king’s men. The minutes of the Council meetings in the 1600’s show a broken hearted leadership surrendered and conformed to the kings wishes.
There is one occasion where vigour and zeal was restored to the town’s people when the council tried, (unsuccessfully), to get an order to display the heads of two covenanters on the Bridge Gate reversed.
Families fled Dumfries to England, Ireland, and Holland during the thirty years of Savage persecution from 1660-1688.
James Kirko
James Kirko was apprehended on the 12th March 1685 on these White Sands. James was a laird from the parish of Dunscore, a town not far from Dumfries. James was shot on sight for being part of The Pentland Rising and event which had taken place 20 years previously. Such was the zeal of their persecutors.
Rev Blackadder
John Blackadder was one of the most zealous and popular of the Covenanter`s field preachers and preached at many conventicles, often in the companionship of John Welch of Irongray, the great grandson of John Knox.
John Blackadder was born in December 1615 and educated at Glasgow University where his uncle, the Rev Dr Strang, was the Principal. He spent many years travelling the country preaching and was thirty seven years old when he was ordained minister of the parish of Troqueer in the Stewartry of Kirkcudbrightshire in 1652. He had 7 children of whom his eldest son, Dr Blackadder and his second son suffered imprisonment several times.
He preached wherever and whenever opportunity afforded itself, whether in houses or fields for some twenty years. He ranged far afield to Fifeshire, the Lothians, Lanarkshire, in Carrick and Cunningham in Ayrshire and among the hills of Galloway. During this time he preached at Fenwick in January 1669 where there had been no Presbyterian teaching since the Pentland Rising three years before. He established a new congregation at Bo`ness and had a crowd of 1200 hanging on his every word at Paisley.. At Dunscore in the midst of deep snow it is said that he sat on a chair in the open and preached to the populace who pulled up lumps of heather on which to sit and listen.
Blackadder preached with the outed John Welch of Irongray on several occasions, notably so in 1678 at what have been called the Communion Stones at Skeoch Hill near Irongray . Here rows of stones in an ampitheatre in the hills are a natural setting, surrounded by high hills from which look outs could keep watch for the troopers.. At Skeoch some 14,000 people attended over a period of three days and 3,000 took Communion.
A memorial plague in Troqueer parish church bears the following inscription:
To the Glory of God in memory of
The Reverend John Blackader
Born 1615
Ordained minister of the Parish of Troqueer 1653
Extruded 1662. Outlawed for preaching in the fields 1674
Imprisoned on the Bass Rock 1681
Died after a cruel confinement 1685
“ Faithful unto death “
Erected AD 1902.
The Pentland Rising
On 13 November 1666 soldiers from the garrison at Dalry were searching for Covenanters and came upon an old man of the name Grier, who had defaulted in payment of a fine. They were mistreating him in the village and were about to brand him with a hot iron when the villagers rose up against the soldiers, freeing Grier. The leader in the rising was John MacLellan of Barscobe Castle (NX 660806), who wounded Corporal George Deanes by shooting fragments of a clay pipe at his leg. The Covenanters later stormed the local garrison, killing one of the soldiers. Over 200 Covenanters then rode or marched to Dumfries where they kidnapped Sir James Turner, on 15 November.
The Covenanters returned to Galloway by way of Glencairn and Dalry, before heading north through Carsphairn to Ayr. From there they marched through Cumnock and Lanark towards Edinburgh. On 28 November at Rullion Green, on the edge of the Pentland Hills, the Covenanter force of around 900 were met by around 3,000 soldiers. A battle ensued in which 100 Covenanters were reported killed on the field, and a further 300 as they tried to escape. Around 120 Covenanters were taken prisoner and sentenced to death. Many were executed in Edinburgh, but a number were sentenced to hang back in south-west Scotland as a warning to others against future risings. Accordingly, seven Covenanters were hanged in Ayr, including James Smith, John Short and John Graham, who belonged to Dalry.
http://www.covenanter.org.uk/ 26/02/09
The Pentland Rising and the Battle of Rullion Green is an important event in Covenanter history because it was the first time the Covenanters had come together as a substantial force to protest the constraints upon their religion since the Restoration of King Charles II. Significantly it arose not from any great machinations of rebellion, but was a spontaneous event; the protest of downtrodden people against taskmasters whose cruelties had become insufferable .From its sudden inception until its bloody close only two weeks elapsed.
Rullion Green lies about 8 miles south of Edinburgh on the slopes of the Pentland Hills and was, as now, prime sheep country. On the fringe of a small wood there is a railed enclosure containing a single headstone commemorating the events of 1666. In April, 2000, the inscriptions on the solitary stone were almost indecipherable and badly in need of cleaning.
Pressure had been building on the Covenanter ministers from 1662, when about 400 were ejected from their churches, and in 1664 more rules were introduced which prohibited any ejected minister living within 20 miles of his former church. Severe penalties were imposed on parishioners who failed to attend church services conducted by curates appointed by the government. The curates were required to furnish names of absentees from church to local military commanders for enforcement of fines. The military were frequently cruel and would be quartered on a a defaulter until the fine was paid, in the meantime eating him out of house and home and stealing his goods, chattels and livestock.
The spark to the march on Edinburgh occurred on November 13, 1666, at St. John's Dalry in Kirkcudbrightshire. An elderly man by the name of John Grier was unable to pay a fine for not attending church and was beaten severely by some of Sir James Turner's soldiers. A group of four local Covenanters led by MacLellan of Barscobe happened to be in the village . They went to the rescue and entreated the soldiers to let the old man go. However, swords were drawn and a pistol shot (loaded with a piece of clay pipe in the absence of a ball) wounded one of the soldiers, a Corporal George Deane. The Covenanters were joined by other villagers who helped disarm the soldiers.
A crowd of about ninety people gathered including a local landlord, John Neilson of Corsock. Reckoning that they would be severely punished by other soldiers in the vicinity, they resolved to take them prisoner. Knowing also, that they would receive little mercy from Sir James Turner, they decided to march on Dumfries where he was based. On their way they repeated their deed in Balmaclellan where they took 16 soldiers prisoner, killing one. So it happened that a band, now grown to about 250, marched to Baillie Finnie`s house in Dumfries between eight and nine in the morning of 15 November 1666. Here they took prisoner their zealous persecutor and local military commander, Sir James Turner - still in his nightclothes. They relieved him of monies sent from Edinburgh for paying his soldiers, and also fines that they had collected. His troops, of which there were only a dozen or so in the town, were disarmed with one soldier wounded. A curious incident then followed when the monies they had seized was entrusted to a Captain Gray, who promptly decamped with it the following night - never to be seen again.
http://www.thereformation.info/index.htm 26/02/09
The Lollards’
The Lollards’ reasons for opposing Romish practice were similar to the arguments made throughout the Scottish Reformation by John Knox and Andrew Melville (1545-1622). The Lollards condemned the doctrine of transubstantiation (the belief that bread and wine change into the actual body and blood of Jesus Christ during the Communion ceremony), the use of images in churches, pilgrimages, the rite of the mass, the use of holy water, the sacrament of penance, the veneration of relics, and prayers for intercession. Perhaps the most heinous act in Romish eyes was the fact that the Lollards preached in English and proclaimed that the faithful need only the Scriptures to gain salvation. This destroyed the mysticism of the Bible and exposed the priests who had hitherto been the only means of interpreting and delivering the Word of God - in whatever manner, or cost, they felt appropriate.
Now we will walk to Dumfries Museum and see in more detail the history of Christianity in the South West of Scotland.
Sir Walter Scott
Sir Walter Scott a novel entitled ‘Old Mortality’ the story of Robert Patterson, a stone mason who after conversion took it upon himself to repair and restore the crumbling remains of tomb stones and markers of the fall men of faith who became martyrs in the 1600’s.
Mary Queen of Scots
Mary Queen of Scots came to Dumfries on a number of occasions in the mid 1500’s to do business with the Maxwell’s.
Christian Jane Fergusson
Born in Dumfries in 1876, Chris studied at the Glasgow School of Art under the renowned tutelage of Fra Newberry, and at the Art School in Crystal Palace, London. She attended Art School when it was unusual for women to pursue a career, particularly in Art, but she was a working painter all of her life. She married and brought up three children with her husband, a Dumfries Solicitor. With fellow artists EA Taylor and Jessie M King she helped to establish the Dumfries and Galloway Fine Arts Society whose first exhibition was staged in Dumfries in 1922.
Chris was particularly talented in watercolour that she used to great effect to capture local scenes, displaying and selling her work to an appreciative audience Scotland-wide. Gracefield staged a retrospective of her work in 1999 with over 120 of her paintings on show and the work was as vibrant then as it had been when painted over 60 years before. Many of the older people commented on how local landmarks had or had not changed over the years.
John Paul Jones
John Paul Jones helped establish the traditions of courage and professionalism that the United States Navy proudly maintains today.
In life and battle he exemplified a hero's determination and upheld America's ideals of liberty and independence from tyranny.
Jones was born 6 July 1747 in Kirkcudbrightshire, Scotland to John Paul, gardener at Arbigland, Kirkbean,and mother of MacDuff Clan. His birth was not registered.
In 1759 he apprenticed aboard "Friendship" to Fredricksburg, VA. Between 1764 and 1773 he worked on slave ships, first as third mate and later as first mate. He was accused of murder while he pledged on self defense. Avoiding court of justice he flees to America. In 1774 he arrives back in Fredericksburg, VA
Jones writes to Joseph Hewes, John Morris, Thomas Jefferson requesting naval appointment.In December 1775 Jones received his lieutenant's commission from the Continental Congress for its navy. On 3 December 1775, as first lieutenant of Alfred, he hoisted the Grand Union flag for the first time on a Continental warship. The flag's Union Jack in the upper left canton and thirteen red and white stripes represented a united resistance to tyranny but loyalty to the British King.
On 6 July 1997 the Navy commemorates the 250th anniversary of the birth of John Paul Jones. The man whom Thomas Jefferson later described as "the principal hope of America's future efforts on the ocean"
William Paterson
William Paterson was born in his parent's farmhouse of Skipmyre in Tinwald, Scotland, and lived with them until he was seventeen, when he emigrated first (briefly) to Bristol and then to the Bahamas. It was here that he first conceived the Darién scheme, his plan to create a colony on the Isthmus of Panama, facilitating trade with the Far East. He later founded the Bank of England.
Duncan, Dr Henry
(1774 - 1846), led to the founding of a great banking movement.
If one were looking for a man out of Scotland's past to serve as an object lesson for her present he wouldn't be Burns, or even Robert Bruce. He would be someone like Henry Duncan ... who typifies the Scots in one of his greatest epochs.
In 1810 Dr Duncan opened the world's first commercial savings bank, paying interest on its investors' modest savings.
Of all his skills and interests, geology and science were his passions. He is best remembered by today's geologists as the man who identified the first fossil footprints in Britain. He presented a paper to the Royal Society in Edinburgh on the discovery of the footprints at Cornockle Quarry, near Lochmaben.
Dr Duncan was minister of the parish church in Ruthwell for nearly 50 years. He became a moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, as well as a leading light in the Disruption of the Church in 1843. He also restored the magnificent Ruthwell Cross in 1818, which arguably is the most discussed mediaeval monument in the world.
The above extract has been taken from the leaflet:
Savings Banks Museum, Ruthwell, Dr Henry Duncan 1774-1846, The Father of Savings Banks
Peter Pan
Scottish playwright, journalist and author Sir James Matthew Barrie (1860-1937) left a considerable literary legacy.
Born in Kirriemuir, James Matthew Barrie moved to Dumfries in 1873 at the age of 13 to attend the town's academy.
He quickly became friends with the two boys who lived at Moat Brae House, which was owned by a prominent local solicitor.
In his memoirs published in 1904 Barrie wrote of Peter Pan: "Our escapades in a certain Dumfries garden which was an enchanted land to me was certainly the genesis of this work."
Barrie spent five years studying at Dumfries Academy, where he immersed himself in student life, founding the Dumfries Dramatic Club and joining the debating society and football team.
He went on to serve as chancellor of Edinburgh University and rector of St Andrews University before his death in 1937 at the age of 7
In 1929, Barrie announced that the copyright of his literary success, Peter Pan, would go to Great Ormond Street Hospital for children. Barrie's copyright gift has made a significant and lasting financial legacy to the hospital's work.
Robert Burns
Robert's grave was so insignificant that when no less than Dorothy and William Wordsworth visited Dumfries in 1803 they had difficulty finding it.
John Laurie
John Laurie (1897 - 1980) was an actor who's most famous role was Private Frazer in 'Dad's Army'.
Born in Dumfries on 25th March 1897, John's parents were William Laurie and Jesse Anne Brown.
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