Various covenanting bands were
quartered in the city from time to time, and the magistrates were hard
put to it indeed to find provender and pay for them, as they were
ordered. The surrounding countryside, too, suffered. There were constant
forages for food, and the castles of royalist lairds were attacked. At
this time, too, that is to say in 1640, a meeting of the General
Assembly of the Church was convened in the Greyfriars Kirk. It was not a
meeting of note, but the decision was taken to remove all signs of
popery from local religious buildings. The general opinion of the time
was that little real harm was done.
But the burdens the citizens had to bear left the city almost
destitute and powerless. The Gordons took advantage of this weak state
to enter the town one March morning in 1644 and kidnap the provost and
three leading citizens, and hold them in the castle of Strathbogie. The
prisoners were liberated, however, when it was learned that a strong
covenanting force under Argyll was headed northward. Argyll, too,
requisitioned supplies from the town, but mercifully did not stay long.
Aberdeen was now to suffer the greatest blow of them all. The Marquis
of Montrose, who had been the outstanding covenanting leader, had now
turned his coat and become the king's general in Scotland. After
defeating the covenanting forces at Tippermuir, he again marched north,
as he had done several time before in a different cause. He crossed the
river at Drum and advanced on the city along the north bank of the Dee
to attempt to force allegiance to the king. He encamped on the hill
where the Garthdee housing scheme is now being erected, at a point then
known as the Twa Mile Cross. He sent a messenger and a drummer boy into
the city, under a flag of truce, to demand surrender in the king's name,
or that they should stand to arms. The chief citizens had assembled in a
house in the Green, and there they rejected Montrose's ultimatum.
Unfortunately, a rowdy shot the drummer boy, and Montrose, in great
exasperation, launched an attack. A small covenanting force under Lord
Burleigh, and all the able-bodied citizens, proceeded to the defence of
the city. The two forces met near the Craibstone, and the battle was
fought on the sloping ground below Bon-Accord Crescent. Montrose swept
the opposition away, killing 160 of the defenders. His army of
Highlanders, and Irishmen under the celebrated Colkitto, wreaked havoc
throughout the city, pillaging and murdering. Thereafter all the towns
in the neighbourhood were similarly dealt with. That took place in May,
1644, and when Montrose was executed in May 1650, there must have been
few sore hearts in Aberdeen.
Montrose being ousted, Huntly attacked Aberdeen for the king. The
city was in the hands of a small Covenanting force under the Earl of
Eglinton, as he later became. Huntly stormed the city, and in the fight
which ensued the most colourful episode was the duel between Huntly's
brother, Lord Gordon, and the Master of Forbes. This took place near the
Broad Street. Their parties met head on, and these two fought hand to
hand till Forbes was killed. Huntly won the day, but he gained little
advantage, because Charles I was shortly to surrender to the Scottish
army.
For some years now Aberdeen had been a battleground. It had lost many
of its men, and was nearly bankrupt, so that however the Commonwealth
may have been hated elsewhere, it certainly brought peace and an
opportunity for recovery to our city. And it needed rest badly, for not
only had it been torn between two rival parties, but it had to endure a
horrid outbreak of plague in 1647 in which, it is said, 1600 people
died.
It may interest you to learn that Charles II spent some time in
Aberdeen after his defeat at Worcester in 1650. It is known that he
lodged in a house in Castle Street, which stood roughly opposite where
the Town House now stands. Shortly after, General Monk, the Roundhead
leader, also arrived. It was he who was later to restore Charles to the
throne.
When Charles II was eventually restored, there was great joy in the
city, for Aberdeen had always been a loyal town. Covenanting battles
there still were, but they were confined to the south, and the people of
Aberdeen were left to get on with their work, as they did throughout
Charles' reign. But when James II abdicated, the city was troubled by
bands of roving Highlandmen, after their check at Killiecrankie. They
did not plunder as did their predecessors, but contented themselves with
demands for provisions, for which they never paid. And so the 17th
century drew to a comparative peaceful close.
But before we leave it, just a word about the Quakers. Although
Aberdonians knew the horrors of persecution themselves, they were still
not prepared to let the Friends worship as they pleased. They were not a
numerous body, and were a quiet, law-abiding folk, yet they incurred the
hatred of the mob. When they appeared in the streets they were stoned
and jeered at, but they would do nothing to protect themselves. They
were also cast into prison, and there were so many of them in the
Tolbooth that they had to sit up and lie down by turns. Those who were
shut up in the cells at St Ninian's Church on the Castlehill required
candles to see their food even in broad daylight. Most dreadful was the
treatment meted out to Barclay of Ury. He had been a soldier of
distinction under Gustavus Adolphus, and had been honoured on several
occasions by Aberdeen. Yet when he became a Quaker he was reviled in the
streets, and mocked by everyone, so much so, indeed, that he became an
almost legendary figure and the hero of a poem by Whittier.
Long after the persecution came to an end, Quakers still held their
meetings in a small house off the Gallowgate, in the garden of which
they also buried their dead, since they were not allowed the right of
burial in the communal cemeteries.
Trusty and Well-Beloved
The Story of Aberdeen
by Alexander MacLeod
1949
