THE LEITHS OF HARTHILL The Story of some turbulent Lairds and a Royalist Martyr by FRANCIS BICKLEY

With an Architectural Description of HARTHILL CASTLE by W. DOUGLAS SIMPSON, M.A., D.LITT.

LONDON ALEXANDER MACLEHOSE & CO. 58 Bloomsbury Street 1937 PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO, LTD, THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, GLASGOW floO

:ru=st Muor Pion«

GI ow,,1 111c,uc l'I ,,a.

~Swle if J'iii,,.... fimwml' r r r'

HARTHILL CASTLE

PREFACE

THE "only begetter" of this little book is Mr. James Leith Ross of Toronto, who for some fifty years has been collecting material relating to his family. I esteem it a great privilege that he should have entrusted it to me to augment and put into its present shape. To Mr. Leith Ross, to Sir Frederick Leith-Ross, , his cousin and my friend, to Dr. W. Douglas Simp­ son, Librarian of the University of Aberdeen, who has allowed me to print his description of Harthill Castle and has given me many valuable suggest­ ions, and to Mr. G. L. Allardyce, W.S., I am indebted for kindly assistance ; and I have to thank the Council of the Third Spalding Club and Aberdeen Newspapers Limited for permission to reproduce the illustrations. The principal sources of information are indi­ cated infootnotes. Of the abbreviations employed, R.M.. S. stands for Registrum Magni Sigilli Regum Scotorum, P.C.R. for Register of the Privy Council of Scotland-two invaluable publications of His Majesty's Stationery Office. F. B.

CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. ORIGINS : IIARTHILL, BENNACHIE AND THE EARLY LEITHS - I

II. THE LEITHS OF HAR.THILL AND THEIR FEUDS 13

III. THE VIOLENT LAIRD - 28

IV. JOHN LEITH AND THE TROUBLES 60

V. PATRICK LEITH, THE LOYAL MARTYR - 75

VI. THE END OF THE LEITHS OF HAR.THILL 92

DESCRIPTION OF HARTHILL CASTLE - 105

APPENDIX TO CHAPTER III 56

ILLUSTRATIONS

Fron#sp£ece : HARTHILL CASTLE PAGE HARTHILL CASTLE From a water-colour by James Giles, R.S.A., dated 1840 - 16

HARTHILL CASTLE From a photograph - 64

GENEALOGY

LEITH OF HARTHILL - End of book

I

ORIGINS: HARTHILL, BENNACHIE AND THE EARLY LEITHS

THE main purpose of these pages is to celebrate the heroic life and tragic death of one who barely came to man's estate. But before embarking on the story of that brief and memorable career, some­ thing must be said of the forces and influences which helped to make it what it was. In Patrick Leith, younger of Harthill, whose loyalty to a defeated king and all that he stood for brought him to the scaffold in 1647, there culmi­ nated and found noblest expression the qualities of an ancient race. Those qualities were devotion to whatever cause, whether good or bad, seemed worthy of devotion, tenacity of purpose, temerity and even violence in action, and, it would seem, an idealism which was probably most often uncon­ scious. These things were in Patrick's blood; and they had come into it, or at any rate taken their particular colour, from the nature of the land which his ancestors had for generations inhabited. A I B.L.H. 2 ORIGINS: HARTHILL, BENNACHIE The Castle of Harthill, a ruin now but once a castellated stronghold,1 stands in the parish of Oyne and the county of Aberdeen, in the very heart of that jutting angle of eastern Scotland which down to the days of Culloden was the cock-

1" It has been repeatedly stated", writes Dr. W. Douglas Simpson, Librarian of Aberdeen University, "that the castle was built in 1638, but I have been unable to find any authority for this date; while the pediment inscribed 1601 is conclusive of an earlier period, and doubtless represents the actual year of erection. The ' castle, fortalice, and manor of Harthill ' are mentioned in a charter of 1569, but the present ruin is dis­ tinctly of a later date. An important question is hereby raised : for the estate of Harthill is on record as a separate property from the fourteenth century onwards, and its earlier lairds must have had a residence of some sort. In this connection the name Old Harthill, applied to a site close beside the present church of Oyne, becomes of suggestive interest. In 1611 we have' Old Hairthill and the Mains of Old Hairthill'; in 1643, 'the mains and manor-place ofHarthill, the villa and lands of Auld Harthill '-the two being thus expressly con­ trasted. It would seem that the earlier castle had been at Old Harthill, in close juxtaposition with the Parish Church, as so often in the Middle Ages. The fifteenth century fireplace re­ used in the present castle is no doubt a relic of this earlier building". The legend that the house was built in 1638 is probably due to a confusion between its original erection and the repairs or extensions which John Leith, the " violent laird", appears to have 1nade about that date (seep. 51). For Dr. Simpson's architectural description of the castle, seep. 105. Harthill was also known as Torries. AND THE EARLY LEITHS 3 pit of a troubled country. It looks northward over Gadie Water, an affluent of the Don, and itself a stream which has had its singers ; for there is an old song which begins : Oh ! gin I war where Gadie rins, Where Gadie rins, where Gadie rins, Oh ! gin I war where Gadie rins At the back of Bennachie. and ends: Oh ! let me die where Gadie rins At the back of Bennachie. The earliest version of this ballad, so full of the nostalgia which characterises so much Scots poetry and comes perhaps to its highest expression in the Canadian Boat Song, is believed to have been written by Arthur Johnston, the famous scholar and physician of Aberdeen, who was for a time medical adviser to the first two Stuart Kings of England but afterwards returned to Aberdeen as Rector of King's College. Johnston, however, wrote most of his poetry in Latin, for which ac­ complishment his admirers esteemed him even above the still more famous George Buchanan, and it was in that language that he proclaimed that the renown of Gadie was world wide : toti notus jam Gadius orbi est. 4 ORIGINS: HARTIIILL., BENNACHIE Bennachie, the Mountain of the Mist, coupled with Gadie in the old song, rises to the south of Harthill : the house itself, being built on its lower slope, is said to have got its name from the deer that roamed there. Here Bennachie high towering spreads Around on all, his evening shades, as Arthur Johnston, standing on its crest at the hour of sunset, sang once more ; and though in truth, as compared with the giants of the Cairn­ gorms, it is a hill of little stature, for the chief of its six peaks, Mither Tap, is but 1,698 feet above sea level, its position gives it a peculiar prominence. Standing there i1J isolation, it can be seen in sharp, arresting outline from many miles away. It is an extreme outlier, a flying-buttress, of the vast con­ fused structure of the Grampians, and in its near neighbourhood it has no rival. West and South from its summit, which is easy of access, one looks across valleys and lesser summits towards the great hills, Cairn Gorm and Cairn Toul and Ben Mac­ dhui and Byron's dark Lochnagar; North and East across comparatively level agricultural country towards the sea. Bennachie has thus a separate­ ness, an individuality to impress itself on the minds AND THE EARLY LEITHS 5 of those who live within sight of it, and to be re­ membered in absence. It is the kind of mountain around which legends cluster, especially in Celtic lands, and though it is probable that there was little if any Celtic blood in the veins of the Leiths, for in that corner of Scotland the Gaels were early displaced by Scandinavian and Saxon invaders, there can be as little doubt that Patrick Leith knew the legends of Bennachie, and believed in its haunt­ ing presences, as that in boyhood he scaled its peaks. It was his genius loci, the tutelary spirit of his homeland, and something of its grandeur and mystery must have passed into him. It was not until early in the sixteenth century that the Leiths came to Harthill. As late as r513 the place belonged to the Abercrombys, now re­ presented by Sir •George William Abercromby, eighth baronet, of Birkenbog, county Banff; and the first record of a Leith as its laird is of some twenty years after that date. But they had long been inhabiting and acquiring lands in the neigh­ bourhood. Whence they came is unknown. That they were of French origin and that they were territorially connected with the seaport by Edinburgh which bears their name are matters of improbable con- 6 ORIGINS: HARTHILL, BENNACHIE jecture. With William Leith of Barnis, who lived in the days of King David Bruce, we are on surer ground. He was a merchant and burgess of Aber­ deen, evidently a man of substance, the owner of one ship if not more. Twice, from 1352 to 1355 and again in 1373, he was Provost of Aberdeen, and he was one of the town's representatives both in the General Council which met at Edinburgh in 1357 and in the Parliament which met at Scone in 1367. He was also Steward of the Household to Queen Joan, daughter of Edward II of England and sister of Edward III, the reigning English · sovereign ; and in 1357 he went to London with the ambassadors sent thither on the business of the ransom of the Scots King, recently released from the long captivity which had followed his defeat at Neville's Cross. On his return journey William Leith visited Isobel, the English Queen Mother, at Castle Rising in Norfolk, receiving from King Edward a safe-conduct thither and onwards into Scotland for himself and six knights. 1 Nor was this his only visit to England. It is clear that his slaughter of one Catanach, another magistrate of Aberdeen, which preceded these distinctions, was not regarded as a very 1 Rotuli Scotiae, i, 802. AND THE EARLY LEITHS 7 serious offence either by his fell ow-citizens or by the Court. Nevertheless his own conscience moved him to make atonement for this deed of violence by the gift of two great bells, called Maria and Lawrence, to the church of St. Nicholas. Nor was this his only benefaction to that church. " In the year of our Lord 1355 '', runs an entry in the cartulary, '' the beforementioned William de Leith lengthened the choir of the Virgin Mary towards the south by the space _of sixteen feet and there founded the Altar of the Blessed Lawrence and Ninian and adorned it with the images of the fore­ said Saints situated above the same altar. And also with a mass-book and breviary well lettered and (musically) noted and with divers priestly vestments and other necessaries suitable to Divine Service. And he was buried before the same altar. Whose soul may God lead into the heavenly fatherland (Cujus animam perducat deus in celestem patriam). '' Two centuries later that altar and all the others in the great church fell victim to the iconoclasm of the Reformers. Their sacred vessels and orna­ ments of gold and silver were sold at public auction-or " roup ", as the Scots still term it­ and the proceeds devoted to such secular uses as 8 ORIGINS: HARTHILL, BENNACHIE the repair of the bridges and the replenishment of the arsenal of the burgh. But in Patrick Leith's day Maria and Lawrence were still summoning men to worship, and doubtless the young opponent of the Covenant often heard and obeyed that sum­ mons and thought of the ancestor who had set the bells aloft in their tower. Here, perhaps, was a determining cause of the path he chose. In the transept, almost all that is left of the old St. Nicholas, there is a flat stone on which, though much defaced, may still be discerned what have been doubtfully interpreted as the Provost's arms, and above them the figures of a monk reading Mass and others listening to him. It was thought at one time that this stone was placed over Leith's body when he died in 1380 and was, as the cartu­ lary relates, buried before the altar which he had set up. But it seems more probable that it formed part of the altar itself.1 William Leith was a considerable landed pro­ prietor and it seems probable that the main part, at any rate, of his estates, all of which lay in Aber­ deenshire, were acquired by purchase. In 1359 he received a charter of Rothney:; Harebogge and 1 Munro, Memorials of the Provosts and Lord Provosts of Aberdeen, pp. 9, 10. ·AND THE EARLY LEITHS 9 Blakeboggys; in 1369 ofDrumrosay; and he also owned Capronstoun or Caprington, which was con­ firmed to his son Lawrence. There is indeed a statement in Sir Robert Douglas's Baronage which, were it correct, would tend to show that one, and apparently the most important, of his holdings came to him by descent. The distinguished bur­ gess of Aberdeen is usually described as William Leith of Barnis, a property which lay in the parish of Premnay, a mile or so to the north-west of Harthill. About the same distance both from Premnay and from Harthill, south of the one and west of the other, is a place called Licklihead or Likelyhead. This belonged to William Leith's descendants and was the manor-place or chief resi­ dence of the barony of Barnis.1 But it was also called Licklihead of Edingarrock. Now according to Douglas Sir Norman Leslie, an ancestor of the Earl of Rothes, living in the reign of Alexander III (who died in 1286), took to wife Elizabeth Leith, " a daughter of the family of Edingarrock ". From that premise, coupled with the undoubted fact that the western half of the lands of Edin­ garrock subsequently belonged to the Leslies, the 1 Barony . . . . In Scotland : A large freehold estate (even though owned by a commoner). Shorter Oxford Dictionary. 10 ORIGINS: HARTHILL, BENNACHIE obvious deduction would be that Elizabeth was a co-heiress and that while she carried one half of her paternal estate to her husband, the other came by descent to William Leith. But there is no au­ thentic evidence of this early ownership of Edin­ garrock by the Leiths or of this particular alliance between Leiths and Leslies, who later were to be more than once connected by marriage as they were often to be opposed in enmity, and Stodart, author of Scottish Arms, is justified in dismissing Douglas's assertion as a fable. Moreover, there is record that on January 31, 1500, George Leslie of . that ilk sold to William Leith, second son to Henry Leith late of Barnis (and his eventual heir, the elder brother dying without issue), all his lands of the western half of Edingarrock, and that on March 10, 1516, Alexander Leslie of that ilk made a similar sale of the eastern half to Patrick Leith of Crannoch, eldest son and heir apparent of William. Leith. The latter charter received royal confirmation on May 17, 1516,1 and three days earlier, on his father's resignation, Patrick had obtained a charter under the Great Seal of half­ presumably the western half-of the town and lands of Edingarrock. Clearly, therefore, it was 1 R.M.S. 1513-46, p. 16. AND THE EARLY LEITHS 11 not the Leslies who inherited this property, or any part thereof, from the Leiths, but the Leiths who purchased it from the Leslies. The township of Leslie, it may be noted, is in the near neighbour­ hood of Likelyhead and Premnay. However he acquired it, and whatever its precise extent, the first William Leith undoubtedly had a substantial estate to leave behind him. Whom he married is unknown, for that his wife was a daughter of the twelfth Earl of Mar (who was de­ feated and slain at Dupplin Moor in 1322, ten days after he had been made Regent of Scotland) is apparently another of Sir Robert Douglas's fables. But he seems to have had at least two sons, of whom the second, John, made some figure in the diplomatic service of his country, while the elder, Lawrence, inherited not only his father's lands but his civic interests also, being in his turn three times Provost of Aberdeen. Lawrence was succeeded by Norman, from whose youngest son descended the Leiths of Overhall (just north of Premnay), and Norman was succeeded by Henry, who in 1441 founded a chaplaincy in the church of St. Nicholas in Aber­ deen that Masses might be said before the altar which his great-grandfather had set up "for the 12 ORIGINS : THE EARLY LEITHS health of the soul of the founder Henry de Leith and that of his wife Marjory Stuart and for the health of the souls of all his ancestors and des­ cendants and for the health of the souls of all the faithful living and dead ". The endowment pro­ vided for the appointment of a perpetual succes­ sion of chaplains by the laird of Barnis holding the barony at the time of a vacancy. Henry's descendants in the elder line were con­ tinually adding to the lands of their fathers. But as they bought they also sold. Edingarrock., Kirk­ ton of Rayne, Bucharn (which they held in wad­ set 1 from the Marquess of Huntly) and New Leslie in turn provided them with territorial desig­ nations. Edingarrock, with Likelyhead, was sold to Forbes of Leslie, Kirkton of Rayne to the laird of Harthill. Eventually, about the middle of the seventeenth century, Leith Hall was built on land acquired with New Leslie, thenceforward to be the principal seat and to furnish the territorial designation of the head of the family. It was from Patrick, third son of Henry Leith of Barnis, that, according to Sir Robert Douglas, the lairds of Harthill derived. 1 The conveyance of land in satisfaction of or as security for a debt. Shorter Oxford Dictionary. II

THE LEITHS OF HARTHILL AND THEIR FEUDS

THE earliest reference to a Leith as laird of Hart­ hill is a charter dated July 12, 1531, which Patrick Leith of Harthill witnessed.1 In December of the same year Robert Innes of Innermarkie granted, and the King confirmed, certain lands in Auch­ leven, Arderne, Buchanstoune and Harlaw to the same Patrick and Janet Leslie his wife (who is said to have been a daughter of John Leslie ofWardis) to be held by them conjointly and after them by their heirs. 2 It may be noted that in 1490 David Wemyss of Auchleven conveyed one half part of the lands of Auchleven, Arderne and Harlaw to Walter Innes of Innermarkie and the other half to Henry Leith of Barnis,3 and that in 1492 George Leith had seisin of those lands, all of which lie close to the other Leith estates.4 There would seem, as in the 1 R.M.S. 1513-46, p. 231. 2 Ibid. p. 239. 3 R.M.S. 1424-1513, p. 413. 4 Exchequer Rolls, x, 765. 13 14 THE LEITHS OF HARTHILL case of Edingarrock a little earlier, to have been in 1531 a consolidation of divided properties. But the precise significance of these transactions in land, as recorded in the Register of the Great Seal or elsewhere, is often rather difficult to determine. The exact relationship of Patrick Leith of Hart­ hill to the lairds of Barnis is also a matter of doubt. Douglas makes him a son of that Henry who founded the chantry in St. Nicholas's Church. But if, as stated in the Baronage, the latter died before 1479, he cannot have been purchasing land in 1490. There must have been a second Henry of Barnis, standing in the succession between the first Henry and George.. Stodart in his Scottish Arms (followed by the Rev. William Temple in the Thanage of Fermartyn) places both a William and a Henry in that position, and says that William was laird of Barnis (which implies that the first Henry was dead) in 1469, and that the second Henry was dead by 1493, leaving a widow, Eliza­ beth Gordon. If these statements be correct, it is more likely that Patrick Leith of Harthill was the son of the second Henry than of the first ; and even so he would have been a centenarian some years before his death in r597. This, of course, is possible: his son and successor, John of Harthill AND THEIR FEUDS 15 was described as an ''aged'' man in 1608. On the other hand, seeing that the said John lived on until 1625 or thereabouts, the epithet should not be given an exaggerated significance. A possible solution of the problem is that there were two suc­ cessive Patrick Leiths of Harthill who have been confused by the genealogists. Be all this as it may, the house and barony be­ tween Bennachie and Gadie were undoubtedly in the possession of a Patrick Leith throughout the greater part of the sixteenth century. He is des­ cribed as " a man of great merit ", but there is no long story to tell of him. After the flight of Queen Mary he accepted the new order, if order that can be called where all was confusion. In 1569, in which year he granted a charter of the town and lands of Harthill lying in the barony of Pitmedden to Robert Arbuthnott of Arbuthnott, he signed a bond of loyalty to the infant King James VI. Five years later he subscribed to the Bond of the Barons of the North and in 1589, after the Queen's exe­ cution, to another bond " in defence of the true religion and His Majesty's Government against Papists and not to assist the Catholic Earls of Huntly and Erroll ". But if he were really the Patrick who is presumed to have been born before 16 THE LEITHS OF HARTHILL 1493, or even the Patrick who was certainly married by 1531, he would have been an old l!lan indeed at this date, and hardly likely to have been taking a very active interest in public affairs. It is probable that, like many another, Catholic as well as Protestant, he was ready to swear fealty to the ruling powers for the sake of peace and quiet. Dying in 1597, he was succeeded at Harthill by his eldest son John,1 a man already of middle age, if not yet aged, who five years earlier had been in trouble on account of his connection with that Earl of Huntly whom his father had bound him­ self not to assist. The head of the powerful house of Gordon-the Cock of the North, as his pipers proudly proclaimed him-Huntly, the sixth Earl to bear the title and afterwards first Marquess, was, like many others of his line, a stormy petrel in the politics of Scotland. His allegiance to the older Church was not of the firmest and several times in the course of his long and adventurous

1 The name of William Leith, as son of Patrick Leith of Harthill, occurs in 1569, and as brother german of John Leith ofHarthillin 1604. R.M.S. 1546-80, p. 594; 1609-20, p. 317. William Leith, filius naturalis of Patrick Leith of Harthill, was acquiring land in 1546. R.M.S. 1513-46, p. 765. Christine, daughter of Patrick Leith of Harthill, was married· in 1548. R.M.S. 1546-80, p. 43. HARTHILL CASTLE,from a water-colour by James Glles, R.S.A., dated I840

AND THEIR FEUDS 17 career, from policy or under compulsion, he sub­ scribed to the Protestant confessions of faith. But at the time of the Armada he was suspected of in­ triguing with Spain and in 1589-hence the bond ·subscribed by the laird _of Harthill-he was in open rebellion with Erroll. James VI marched against him in person ; Huntly was captured and for a time held in durance ; but rr1aking his sub­ mission he was set at liberty and shortly afterwards received the King's commission to carry fire and sword against the " wizard " Earl of Bothwell and the " bonny " Earl of Moray. Huntly accordingly proceeded to Donibristle, Moray's house in Fife­ shire; the place was fired, and Moray, in attempt­ ing to escape, was slain. This deed was done, as has been said, with the warrant of a royal commission. Nevertheless the Presbyterian lords demanded Huntly's punish­ ment. Moray had been of their party and the King's animosity against him was alleged to have been personal, due, according to some, to the favour which he had found in the eyes of the new young Queen from Denmark. Huntly, with his usual pliancy, went into voluntary ward, and once more was soon at liberty. But many vicissitudes of fortune were still ahead ~f him. In I 594 he B B.L.H. 18 THE LEITHS OF HARTHILL was again in rebellion and again the King marched into Aberdeenshire to subdue him. Strathbogie, the Gordon stronghold, was destroyed with gun­ powder, and Erroll's castle of Slains and the house of Gordon of Newton shared the same fate. To what extent John Leith, younger ofHarthill, was implicated in Huntly's turbulent activities does not appear. But on March 4, I 593, just a year after the affair of Donibristle-which is comme­ morated in the ballad of the Bonny Earl of Moray -he, together with his kinsman William Leith of Likelyhead, gave bond to enter into ward at Edin­ burgh before the I 5th of that month. Both men - duly surrendered and on April 23 both were liberated on giving security that they would re­ main south of the North Water, then the general and still a local name for the North Esk.1 Their bondsmen were John Gordon of Newton in 1000 l. for Harthill and James Gordon of Les­ moir in 500 l. for Likelyhead, from which it may perhaps be deduced that Harthill was the more deeply involved. Two days later they gave further bonds, or cautions, that they would do nothing to the prejudice of the State or the " trew religioun " 1 P.C.R. v, 48, 70. AND THEIR FEUDS 19 and would not assist or intercommune with George, Earl of Huntly, and his associates or other persons denounced for the burning of the place of Donibristle and the murder of the Earl of Moray and that they would appear before the King and Council on eight days' warning. Those were indeed troublous times for Scotland. Religious differences and the contending ambitions of the great lords, each with his following of war­ like clansmen, split the country into factions and racked it with ,civil strife. And concomitant and sometimes complicated with these larger quarrels there went on innumerable private feuds, which were none the less fierce because they were local­ ised or because the antagonists were often closely related by ties of blood or marriage. Of nowhere is this truer than of that part of Aberdeenshire in which the Leiths had their estates. This was the Gordons' country. Strath­ bogie lay to the north of the Leith lands, Aboyne, their other chief stronghold, to the south. But hardly less powerful than the Gordons were the Forbeses, and between these two houses was an inveterate rivalry which manifested itself time and again in violent action. It culminated in 1571 in the fight of Tillyangus, when 120 Forbeses were 20 THE LEITHS OF HARTHILL slain, and the burning of the castle of Corgarff, a Forbes seat, with all its inhabitants. Nor did the smaller families live more peaceably together. Towards the end of the sixteenth cen­ tury a feud arose in which Leiths, Leslies, Aber­ crombys and the Gordons of Newton were in­ volved. Its origin is lost in obscurity, its details are confused, but it continued for many years. Presumably the first Leith of Harthill did not take a very active part in the quarrel. But that his age did not win him immunity from mole~tation is shown by the fact that in 1592 John Gordon of Newton, Duncan Leslie of Pitcaple, Robert Leslie of Auld Craig and others were called on to find securities that they would not harm either him or his son.1 It was Patrick's son and grand­ son, another John, who carried on the warfare in its earlier stages. They gave as good as they got, and now one party, now the other was bound over by the Privy Council to keep the peace. For instance, in August and September, 1594, Fraser of Phillorth became their surety that they would do no harm to Gordon of Newton. 2 One feels that, unless the Council was too busy with more important matters to enforce its de- 1 P.C.R. iv, 721. 2 P.C.R. v, 631, 635. AND THEIR FEUDS 21 crees, the cautioners must often have lost their money. The feud grew in intensity after Patrick's death. Its record is written at large in the registers of the Privy Council, but it would be as tedious as it would be difficult to follow it through all its com­ plications. Towards the end of the first decade of the seventeenth century the quarrel between Leiths and Leslies, closely related through Patrick Leith's marriage, came to a fatal climax. In October, 1607, George Leslie of Auld Craig, a notably desperate character and a member of the Knights of the Mortar or Company of the Boys­ a secret society carrying on its real business, which was rapine and plunder, under the guise of a Papist order 1-was, with others of his kin, put to the horn, that is to say outlawed, for an assault on the laird of Harthill and his sons, George and William, "within thair awnehous "; the invaders" schoot­ eing and dischargeing of the nomber of fourty schote of hagbutis and pistolettis '' and wounding

1 " A moist unlauchfull, rebellious, and detestable societie and fellowschip " that " go athort the cuntrey armed with hacquebutis and pistoletis, attending the occasioun to commit robreis, slaughteris and oppressionis quhair thay here quarrell or may be maisteris and commanderis ..• a handful} and infamous byk oflaules lymmaris ". P.C.R. viii., 271. 22 THE LEITHS OF HARTHILL William " in the richt hand and divers uther pairtis of his body to the effusioun of his blood in grite quantitie." 1 In the following year, undeterred by his outlawry, Auld Craig came once more to Hart­ hill and killed George Leith " before the eyes of his aged father ". The slaughter was committed with the kind of gun called a hagbut and Leslie completed his work by stripping the dead man of his habiliments, sword, steel bonnet and a purse containing 100 l. in gold and 10 l. in silver. 2 The laird himself" very narrowly escaped with his own life." It may be that George Leslie regarded these outrages as a just reprisal for some previous act of aggression on the part of the Leiths, for when, shortly afterwards, Harthill and his sons, John of Rayne, Patrick, George (who was already dead) and William, with others of the Leith family, were called upon to give bonds not to harm John Leslie of Wardis and his colleagues, the order was made in pursuance of royal letters dated March 15, I 606, some months, that is to say, before the wounding of William and the killing of George. 3 That the lairds of Auld Craig and Wardis were

1 P.C.R. ix, 322. 2 PCR• • • v111,... 204. 3 P.C.R. viii, 654. AND THEIR FEUDS 23 allies as well as kinsmen appears in the sequel. Eight years after the death of George Leith the Lords of the Council were still being called on to deal with its results. In August, 1616, both parties laid their grievances before them. First came Leslie of Wardis. He was, he alleged," rid­ ing in a quiet manner from his own house of Tilli­ foure towards the place ofNewtoun, and was look­ ing for no injury, especially as His Majesty's Council and a number of the clergy were within these bounds,1 when John Leith, apparent of Harthill, disguised with a blue bonnet and over­ come with drink, rode up to him, gave him the lie, drew his sword and attacked him." 2 The younger John Leith, denying the accusa­ tion on oath, was acquitted (assoilzied) and im­ mediately brought a more serious countercharge. He had, he said, " although with little success ", repeatedly petitioned their lordships against his brother's slayer, and on that account "the barons and gentlemen of the name of Leslie " had " con­ ceived a deadly hatred against him." " In July last ", he continued, " the laird of Wardis, who

1 A General Assembly was at this time in session at Aber­ deen. 2 P.C.R. x, 602. 24 THE LEITHS OF HARTHILL had many times sought his life, rode through his corn at Torreis by way of provocation." Leith had borne this and other disgraces patiently and would (he avowed) ever prefer the course of law to private and violent revenge. But on the 13th of that very August Wardis, accompanied by Normand Leslie 1 his brother-german and George Spence his brother-uterine, had come to John Leith's father's house of Harthill and in a scoffing manner called upon two or three of his father's servants to go to their master and in his (Leslie's) name to entreat him to prepare good cheer for . George Leslie of Auld Craig, his son's murderer, " seeing he wes to soupe with him that nicht, and upoun the · morne to dyne and thairefter to rype his cofferis." About the same time John Leslie, meeting the younger John Leith as he was return­ ing from his fields alone and unarmed, except with a sword, spat in his face and said, " Swin­ geour ! I have spittin a buble in thy face, and thow dar not querrell it." Then he and his two brothers attacked Leith with their swords and, Leith's horse falling, dismounted and held him

1 This Normand Leslie had married, or was to marry, Mar­ jory Leith, either a sister or, more probably, a daughter of the complainant. See Burke's Peerage and Baronetage, s.v. Leslie. AND THEIR FEUDS 25 down till he was almost breathless ; the two brothers gripping him fast by the hands, while John of Wardis seized his sword, declaring that he would keep it unless his victim would write him a challenge where and when they should meet. The Leslies rebutted the whole charge except the taking of the sword. According to their account Leith had drawn on Wardis, the weapon had fallen from his hand, and \Y/ardis had picked it up and carried it away. The Council ordered that the weapon should be restored to its owner, and that, for the moment, was the end of the matter. 1 About a year later something like a real conclu­ sion was reached. On July 17, 1617, William Leith of Newland.is, another of the laird of Hart­ hill's sons and tutor to George Leith, the mur­ dered George's only child,2 appeared before the Council as representative of his father, brothers, sisters and nephew ; George Leslie of Auld Craig also appeared ; and, having heard the case afresh, 1 P.C.R. x, 603. 2 That is to say, his only surviving child, for at the time of his death George (whose wife's name was Helen) had had two other sons. P.C.R. viii, 204, 694. In 1615 William Leith had prosecuted John Leslie ofWardis, John Leslie of Balquhain and John Leslie of Pitcaple for resetting-i.e. harbouring-Leslie of Auld Craig. P.C.R. x, 386, 800. 26 THE LEITHS OF HARTI-IILL and " haveing consideratioun of the grite trouble that the said George Leslie has sustenit and un­ dirlyne thir divers yeiris bigane upoun occasioun of the said slauchter, so that he is not able to gif suche assythment and satisfactioun in geir for the said slauchter as is requisite '', the lords ordained that he was to enter into an obligation to pay William Leith the sum of 3,500 marks Scots within eight days after the following Whitsunday, or alternatively 2,500 marks on Whitsunday itself, and that Leith on his part was to give Leslie a letter of slains, that is to say, an acknowledgement that satisfaction for the crime had been received. The parties were to come before the Council again at their first session in October, bringing with them the said obligation and letter, and to forgive and discharge all malice and rancour and keep the King's peace '' in forme and maner as gif the said slauchter had nevir fallin out." 1 In October they duly appeared, but whether the laird of Auld Craig paid his fine is not recorded. Nor, it seems, was peace completely restored; for in 1620 Leslie was complaining that he had been put to the horn at the instance of Harthill and his sons for not answering to a charge of wearing hagbuts and 1 P.C.R. xi, 193, 248. AND THEIR FEUDS 27 coming to John Leith's house "invaiding and persewing him and his saidis sones of their lyveis, schooting and dischairgeing a nomber of schotis of hagbuttis and pistolletis at theme." This charge was presumably the old one of 1607-8. The horning was suspended.1

1 P.C.R. xii, 182. III

THE VIOLENT LAIRD

1 THE first John Leith died about 16~5 ; the second, apparently, in or before 1630, so that his reign at Harthill was a short one. Of the matri­ monial alliances of these two lairds various and contradictory accounts have been given. 2 It is quite certain, however, that the elder married 1 On October 4, 1625, John Leyth ofHarthill, heir male of John Leyth, his father, was retoured heir to Harthill and other premises, including common pasture in the forest of Ben­ nachie. · Thomson's Inquests (Inquisitionum ... Retornatorum ... Abbrevatio ), Aberdeen, 192. 2 According to Douglas, whose pedigree, as already men­ tioned, is extremely inaccurate, the elder John's wife was Beatrix Fraser. But elsewhere it is stated that this lady (who was perhaps of the Frasers of Philorth) was the first wife of the second John ; his second wife being Janet Gordon. Aber­ deenshire Valuation Roll for 1667 (Third Spalding Club, 1933), p. 127. A daughter of Gordon of Aebeniffhas also been given to the first John. There is, of course, no reason why either laird should not have been marrjed more than twice ; but for a pedigree which, being based entirely on the contemporary records, may be regarded as correct so far as it goes, see the end of this book. 28 THE VIOLENT LAIRD 29 Helen Auchinleck,1 who was dead by July, 1599, and was no doubt the mother ofthe elder at any rate of his children ; and virtually certain that he after­ wards married a daughter of the seventh Lord Forbes, who survived him.2 It also appears that the younger John was twice married : his first wife (perhaps Beatrix Fraser) bearing him a son, heir and namesake who was destined to a notoriety beyond that of any of his forbears ; while by a later union, with Janet, daughter of William Gordon of Gight, 3 he had at least five children : a daughter Elizabeth or Bessie, and four sons, Alexander (served heir to his sister in 1631), William, Patrick and George, all of whom played their parts in the turbulent history of their family and their times. Alexander, indeed, who was styled of Newrayne, was concerned in a tragedy as famous as, if not more famous than, the tragedy of Donibristle; or, to be exact, in the sequel to that tragedy. In 1630 Huntly's son, Lord Aboyne, and his kinsman, Gordon of Rothiemay, were the guests of Sir James Crichton of Frendraught at the castle from which he took his designation. The visit, although the two men were cordially entertained, was but an interlude or incident in a bitter feud ; for 1 R.M.S. 1593-1608, p. 310. 2 Seep. 53. 3 Seep. 55. 30 THE LEITHS OF HARTHILL Crichton was a strong challenger to the power of the Gordons in Aberdeenshire and had lately come to loggerheads with Rothiemay about the boun­ daries and fishings of some lands which he had purchased from that laird. He put his guests to sleep in a tower of his castle, and during the night a fire broke out there, in which both the Gordons perished. The cause of the fire, though judicially investigated, even to the torturing of two unlucky servants, was never ascertained ; but the Gordons believed that Crichton and his wife had so far vio­ lated the sacred laws of ·hospitality as themselves to kindle it in order to their guests' destruction. They instituted reprisals, raiding Frendraught and ravaging Crichton's lands with a horde of " brokin Hielandmen ". Such disorders did they commit that commissions were given the Sheriffs of Aber­ deen and the neighbouring counties to raise all fencible persons within their bounds and pursue them ; and among those named therein, as like­ wise in an order of July, 1636, for the apprehension of rebels returned from abroad to renew disorders in the North, was Alexander Leith., son to umquhile John Leith of Harthill.1 He also figured in his half-brother's feuds, now for and now against him, 1 P.C.R. 2nd ser. v, 431, 467; vi, 281. THE VIOLENT LA~RD 31 while his juniors, William and Patrick, were, or became, that half-brother's deadliest enemies. As for the third John Leith, he was outrageous even by the standards of his age. Long before he became head of the house of Harthill he was actively engaged in its wars. It may have been he, and not his father, who, disguised in a blue bonnet and liquor, assaulted Leslie ofWardis in 1616. To do so would have been entirely in keeping with his known character and habits. Quite possibly, though there is little evidence to support such a view,1 the elder John was sincere when he pro­ tested to the Lords of the Council that he would " ever prefer the course of law to private and violent revenge ". His son loved quarrelling and brawling for their own sakes. He was known as the violent laird, a distinction indeed when nearly all lairds were violent. That his brothers were of like temper was natu­ ral. Their mother, as has been said, was a daughter of William Gordon of Gight, and William Gordon of Gight was a most notable swashbuckler, the terror of Aberdeenshire. It was he who was the actual slayer of the bonny Earl of Moray, on the 1 Apart from their quarrels, all three John Leiths were fre­ quently accused of extortionate charges at fairs. 32 THE LEITHS OF HARTHILL day when the chieftain of his clan set fire to Doni­ bristle, and there was much other blood on his head. Moreover he was the father of fourteen children as fierce as himself, seven sons, one at least of whom was a member of that marauding brotherhood, the Knights of the Mortar, and seven amazonian daughters. Gight was a Catholic and when his wife, Isabel Ochterlony, died in 1604 he buried her with full Roman rites. A crucifix affixed to the point of a spear was carried before the body to the place of funeral. Such ceremony at that date was a crime, but the commission of crime meant little to the laird of Gight. A year later he was himself in­ terred with like honours, to an accompaniment of blazing torches. The coming of his daughter to Harthill was the origin of many troubles ; of war­ fare not only between brother and brother but also, perhaps, of son against father. For the future violent laird proved also un­ filial. On a June day of 1619, " shaiking aff that Ioveing respect quhilk he aucht to have borne " toward his father, he went to the latter's house of Torreis, took tl1e best horse from the stable, and carried it away with him ; carrying away also guns, l1agbuts and " certane uther plenisching ". When THE VIOLENT LAIRD 33 his father rebuked him for these'' undewtifull and insolent proceidingis ", he drew a sword and at­ tacked him. In the following March he went once more to Torreis, ·" under cloud and silence of night ", broke open the stable door and stole another horse ; and in the same month paid a visit to his father's yards of Auld Rayne and " violentlie pullit up be the rootis the nomber of thrie apill treis and planting being then growand within and aboute the saidis yairdis, and thairby defaiceit the same". Six months later, under­ standing that his father was in the house of Adam Abercromby of Threifeild, he went there armed and accompanied and '' in a swaggering maneir '' asked for him, and on being told that the man he sought had gone home to Torreis, '' presented ane bend pistollett to'' Abercromby's breast,'' preas­ sit to schoote the same at him, and had not faillit to have slayne him were not be the providence of God the pistollett misgaif ". For these unwarrant­ able actions, and for contravening the law against carrying hagbuts and pistolets, the young man was, in November, 1620, summoned before the Council and, on his failure to appear, denounced as a rebel.1 In April of the following year, however, he was

I P.C.R. xii, 372. C B.L.H. 34 THE LEITHS OF HARTHILL able to state that he had "gevin all satisfactioun, contentment, and obedience to my said father as becometh a dewtifull sone in all humilitie to do, and he has acceptit me in love and favour as be­ cometh a kyndlie father to do unto his sone, and we ar fullie and h~rtelie reconsiled." In proof of this touching assertion he produced a letter from the elder Leith, who expressed a desire that his son's outlawry might be relaxed.1 Nevertheless in July he had to find a cautioner for his appearance before the Council to answer to his father's com­ plaint. But by that time he was an outlaw on · another count. 2 A particular enemy of his was Hector Aber­ cromby of Westhall, who had already come into conflict with the Leiths about 1610. In October of that year Westhall had gone to Old Harthill and attacked the tenants. He had then returned to his own house, assembled Abercrombys, Leslies and others to the number of fifty and, as John Leith the second alleged, " with this convocation came to his lands of Harthill, fiercely set upon him and would have slain him if he had not by the provi­ dence of God and his own better defence escaped." A week later he came again, attended by a similar 1 P.C.R., xii, 773. 2 Ibid. 532. THE VIOLENT LAIRD 35 company on horseback or afoot, and searched the bounds and mains ofHarthill for the heir," avow­ ing to have his life as soon as they foregathered with him" 1• It was of this laird that the third John Leith fell foul in .March, 1621, when, according to Aber­ cromby, he and George Gordon, son of Gordon of Newton, rode to Westhall with intent to kill the laird. " They also rode upon the lands a little way from his gate, shouting and provoking him to come out to them and uttering reproachful speeches ". But Abercromby " from respect to his Majesty's peace refused to come forth ". Gordon and Leith thereupon disn1ounted and sent in John Gordon at the Braidford as their commissioner, '' who in thair name and at thair command provocked the said Hectour to come furth unto thame and to rander himselff absolutlie in thair will, utherwayes to his forder disgrace they wald come to his yett and break a nomber of lanceis upoun it. Quhair­ upoun Marjorie Gordoun, spous to the said Hec­ tour, who had a young infant soukand at hir breast, took such afra (fright) that scho, falling on a sowne, wes borne to hir bed and hes Iyine contenowsallie sensyne, and the young infant wes almost per-

1 P.C.R. ix, 115. 36 THE LEITHS OF HARTHILL rishit for want of naturall -interteynment befoir he could provyd or gett supplie for the said infant '' .1 Leith and others involved in this affair, includ­ ing Alexander Leith, son of the laird of Premnay, were ordered to enter in ward within the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, with which in time he was to become very familiar, on' penalty of horning. They do not appear to have obeyed, for a month later they were petitioning that the decree of horning might be annulled. They admitted that they had been riding " oute the hie way and commun mercatt gate " leading by Abercromby's house in George · Gordon's company. But Gordon, as their'' head­ isman ", had been fully punished for the '' over­ sicht " then committed-he had, in fact, been sent to the Tolbooth-and therefore "no forder pun­ ishernent " ought to be inflicted on them. In the sequel George Gordon of Ranny gave his bond that John Leith would enter in ward within the Tolbooth on Hector Abercromby's complaint that he had been wearing hagbuts " and searcheing and seiking of the said Hector at his house of purpois to have tane his ly:ff ", and that he would pay 20 l. to the Treasurer as his escheat or procure the an­ nulment of his horning. 2 1 P.C.R. xii, 468. 2 lbz"d. 532, 773 · THE VIOLENT LAIRD 37 George Gordon, the ringleader or '' headisman '' in the assault on Westhall, was apparently John Leith's brother-in-law. In 1620, the year before that event, John Leith of Rayne was suing John Gordon of Newton, George's father, for the pay­ ment of 4,500 marks of tocher, or dowry, with his daughter Margaret; and in 1624 John Leith, younger of Harthill, stated that George Gordon, now laird of Newton, had long ago been denounced as a rebel for not paying him that very sum. The obvious deduction is that these two complaints were made by one person., the future violent laird, whose father., while heir apparent of Harthill, had sometimes been described as John Leith of Rayne, and that he had married John Gordon of Newton's daughter. But if they, were brothers-in-law, and allies against Hector Abercromby, the friendship be­ tween Leith and George Gordon was very tran­ sient. No doubt it was brought to an end by the continued withholding of the tocher. At all events, within two months after the second complaint on that head, John Leith-described as fiar (owner of the fee-simple) of Harthill, so apparently the reigning laird and not his son-obtained, in con- 38 THE LEITHS OF HARTHILL junction with others, a commission to apprehend George Gordon, who, as the King's warrant ran, '' having shaken off all fear of God, reverence to the law and that deutifull respect quhilk he aucht to have carried to our princelie authoritie, hes not only this long time bygane behaved himself most unnaturallie against his own mother but most contemptuously against us ".1 The laird of Newton, refusing to surrender, was put to the horn. His offence against his mother had been fraud. Between her own family and her husband's the lot of Margaret Gordon can hardly have been a happy one. But she did not live to see the end of their differences, of which so far only the opening stages have been recorded. She must have died soon after the birth of her son Patrick, which pro­ bably took place in 1625,2 for by May, 1627, when he was put into possession of the estate of Luesk in Rayne by his father, John Leith had got himself another wife. Her name was Jean Forbes and she is said to have been a daughter of Forbes of Blacktoun and granddaughter of Lord Forbes. If this is correct, as there seems no reason to doubt, her father must have been the seventh baron's 1 P •CR • • x111,... 407. 2 See below, p. 76 n. THE VIOLENT LAIRD 39 sixth and youngest son, Abraham, who was laird of Blacktoun.1 Three years later, when the violent laird had at length come into his inheritance, his quarrel with George Gordon of Newton culminated in one of those acts of aggression which earned him his dis­ tinguishing epithet. On Whitsunday, " the Lord's Sabboth ", in 1630, believing Newton to be at home, " he associat to himself George Leith of Treefield and Adam Abercrombie of Auldrayne who horsed thamselffs with great lances in thair hands and assembled togidder the nomber of threescore persouns or thereby all boddin in feare of warre with swords, Jedburgh staffes " and other weapons including hagbuts and pistols, " with whome they come galloping in ane tumultuous and furious manner" to the house of Newton "and without respect to the Lord's day, brasched up the yetts of his said house and cried to the compleaner (Gordon of Newton),' Come out, feeble pultroun, and breake a speir ', otherwayes they threatned to

1 According to an early genealogy of the Forbeses, compiled by Matthew Lumsden of Tulliekerne and published in 1819, this Abraham's second daughter married '' one Harthill Leith". Quoted by James Ferguson of Kinmundie, Two Scottish Soldiers, p. 130. 40 THE LEITHS OF HARTHILL his forder shame to runne at the glove on his greene, and with that the said Johne Leith lighted aff his hors and sett up a glove ; whereat he being about to rin, George Dempster (Gordon's servant) come forth and declared to thame, as the truthe was, that his maister was not at home ; quhair­ upoun he fiercelie persewed the said George of his lyfe, ranne him throw the breaches with ane speir, strake him with the butt thairof diverse great straikes on the head, wounded him on diverse pairts of his bodie and namelie on the right hand to the effusioun of his blood, and thereafter the said John Leith verie barbarouslie and inhumane­ lie overraid the said George Gordoun's nurse maid with ane barne of three or four yeere old in her hand, quhairby the young barne was so affrighted that for the space of twa moneths thereafter he was distracted in his witts ". Moreover, not con­ tent with these brutalities, Harthill, Leith of Tree­ field 1 and Adam Abercromby rode furiously with drawn swords through Gordon's growing corn, crying, " Feeble poltroun, come out if you dare ",

1 This place, in the parish of Rayne, occurs also as Three­ field (Threifield, Thriefield). In 1702 it was bought with other lands by Alexander Leith, second son of James Leith of Leith Hall, and erected into the barony of Freefield. THE VIOLENT LAIRD 41 and uttering other disgraceful speeches.1 It is hardly surprising that the injured man described his enemy as " ane commoun tuilyear and turbu­ lent person " ; adding that, though he had often been punished for his insolencies and put under bond in 5,000 l. to keep the peace, he still con­ tinued in his lawless courses. He cited Harthill and his two companions to answer before the Council for their outrage, but through the media­ tion of several gentlemen, and on the promise of the accused to behave more peaceably for· the future, was persuaded to abandon the charge. The promise was ill observed. No sooner had Newton returned home from the Council, which was early in September, than he received a visit from a certain Captain John Forbes, otherwise called Captain Tulloch, who requested him to come forth to his parks and there informed him that he had been commissioned by Leith of Tree­ field '' to offer him the combat'' and arrange time and place for the meeting. Newton refused the challenge, and likewise one from Harthill which the emissary next delivered to him. But his enemies would not leave him in peace. They lay daily in wait to kill him, until the harrassed man 1 P.C.R. 2nd ser. iv, 91. 42 THE LEITHS OF HARTHILL was driven to summon them once more before the Council. Treefield duly appeared, and so did Aber­ cromby of Auldrayne. Harthill sent a certificate, signed by Doctor William Johnston, brother of Arthur Johnston the poet and himself first pro­ fessor of mathematics in Marischal College, to the effect that he was " heavilie visite with sicknesse " and so could not attend. Treefield was found guilty and committed to the Tolbooth of Edin­ burgh until he should have paid a fine of 40 l. The charge against Auldrayne was dismissed. Captain Forbes was put to the horn and Aber­ cromby and George Leith were ordered to restore to George Dempster, who had been so badly used that Whitsunday, his hagbut, pistol and whinger. There appears to be no direct evidence that Harthill was ever brought to book for this parti­ cular misdemeanour. In any case he shortly made his peace with Gordon of Newton and quarrelled with Adam Abercromby of Auldrayne, who had married his stepmother, the second John of Hart­ hill's widow. In 1631 there were charges and countercharges. Harthill, with whom on this occasion was associated William Areskine of Tocher, got in the first word. Abercromby had THE VIOLENT LAIRD 43 attacked him at Kirkton of Rayne, bringing with him a great number of armed men ; among them being George Gordon of Gight 1 and his brother John Gordon of Ardlogie, who in earlier days had been of the Knights of the Mortar, and Harthill's 1 Why Harthill and Gordon of Gight quarrelled is obscure. Up to this date these two lairds had apparently been on good terms. It may have been sufficient that Gight was friend to Alexander Leith., who rode with the Gordons in the raid on Frendraught. At any rate I-Iarthill had found a foeman worthy even of his fiercely tempered steel ; for George Gordon., like his father before him., was a very notorious dis­ turber of the peace-" a most rebellious and disobedient person ". He feared no man., and for prisons he had the con­ tempt bred of familiarity. It was his boast that'' he knew the Wynd of the Tolbuith and how to gyde his turn and that he had to do with the greatest of Scotland and had outit his turnis against thame ". He set no limits to his feuds : whoever was his enemy's friend was his enemy also. It is., he said.," a crime unpardonable• of any of my rank or within (lower) to resset (harbour) or scbow favour to ony person againis whome I beare quarrell ". He seems to have felt that there was a curse upon him. "I can tak no rest.," he told his wife., "I know I will die upon the scaffold. There is an evil turn in my hand which I avow to God presentlie to reform ". He neither kept his vow nor died on the scaffold. He nearly died in the Edin­ burgh Tolbooth which he knew so well. Captured by the Covenanters, whose depredations in Aberdeenshire he had resisted, he was sent there in I 640, a prisoner for once in a good cause. But being already a sick man, very near his end, he was set at liberty. 44 THE LEITHS OF HARTHILL half-brother, Alexander Leith of Newrayne. Hart­ hill was certain that he would have been murdered " if some noble weomen and ladies had not inter­ ceedit ". As it was he was wounded in the knee, " to the great effusioun of his blood ", by his half­ brother ; for which unfraternal action Alexander was adjudged to the Tolbooth. A little later Aber­ cromby and his friends came to the parish kirk where Harthill and Areskine worshipped and threatened if they " durst be seene in thair deskes to cutt thame in peeces and to banishe thame all out of the Garioch ". Harthill was obliged to flee to the neighbouring kirk of Ins ch " for saulfetie of his lyfe ".1 Such was the violent laird's story. But if Aber­ cromby is to be believed that last aggression was only a reprisal in kind. For on the previous Sun­ day, going to his own kirk of Auldrayne " and preasing to sit doun in his proper desk there, where John Leith of Harthill was sitting, he desired the said John to sitt up and to suffer the compleaner to sitt beside him, quhairunto he verie proudlie answered in the hearing of the haill people that he sould have no seate there and did quhat in him lay to stirre up the compleaner to enter in ane 1 P.C.R. 2nd ser. iv, 353. THE VIOLENT LAIRD 45 quarrell with him in the kirk, quhilk he Christianlie forboore, out of ane respect to his Majesteis !awes and discipline of the Kirk ". This, as will pres­ ently appear, was not the only occasion on which Harthill was guilty of brawling in church. A week later, on the very day of the incident in his own kirk, as he was walking by the Water of Don with the Bishop of the Isles, he chanced to meet his two enemies, Adam Abercromby and Alexander Leith ; and promptly called for his guns that he might shoot them.1 Nothing seems to have come of this gesture, but the violent laird was im­ placable. He rode into Lochaber, hired broken Highlanders there, and brought them to the market of Auldrayne ; where he threatened to kill Abercromby until he was persuaded by the parson of Rayne and other well-affected gentlemen to go peaceably away. This time it was Harthill's turn for the Tolbooth.2 According to Abercromby the only reason for Leith's malice against him was that he had married Leith's stepmother.3 It is clear, however, that

1 lbid. 359. 2 Ibid. 367. 3 Alexander Leith ofNewrayne is described as Adam Aber­ cromby's son-in-law. The term was often used (at the time with which this narrative deals) to signify a stepson. There is 46 THE LEITHS OF HARTHILL some difference about the ownership of lands in Rayne (perhaps some settlement on Adam's wife) was at the bottom of it.1 This accounts for the proceedings of which Abercromby was complain­ ing in June, 1634. Between that date and No­ vember, 1631, when he had been sent to the Toi­ booth for his incursion into Auldrayne market, Harthill had been under a ban. His relations were penalised for intercommuning with him. How no evidence that Alexander married any daughter of Aber­ cromby's. One of these, however, became the wife of Alex­ ander's brother, George, who was killed by the man who was both his father-in-law and stepfather. "Upone the -- day of July (1643), Adam Abircrummy killit his wyfe's sone, callit George Leith, brother german (actually half-brother) to the goodman of Harthill, and who also wes mareit to the said Adames owne dochter. Thus, inane combat, the father in law slayis his sone in law by tuo degreis, and he wynis away onpunishit. Mervallous in thir dayes, but respect of birth or blood, to sie slauchter and blood daylie committit ! " Spald­ ing, ii, 258. On November 12, 1646, Abercromby was granted a remission of this slaughter. P.C.R. 2nd ser. viii, 173. George Leith is here described as of Newrayne, where he had presumably succeeded his brother Alexander. On April 13, 1659, Marjorie and Janet Leith were retoured heirs portioners of George Leith of Newrayne, their father," in the third part of the dominicall lands commonlie callit the Maynes of Hairt­ hill, called Old Hearthill ", etc. Thomson's Inquests, Aber- deen, 349. 1 But see p. 55. THE VIOLENT LAIRD 47 long was his continuous stay in the Tolbooth does not appear, but he was at home and at his old law­ less practices during the winter months of 1633-4, until he was " happilie tane and apprehended by the hazardous travellis and adventures of the gentlemen who were entrusted with commissioun against him'' and carried back to his prison.1 Thence, in May, he made an eloquent and pathetic supplication to the Lords of the Council. His youth, he said, and the follies incident to youth had brought upon him many troubles. He lay a close prisoner, deprived of the presence and comfort of his friends, who might have given him counsel and advice in his distress. That was so great that he had no means of supporting his natural life. " His credite is become so shorte as nane will undertake to furnish him, he being de­ prived of all possibilitie and meanes to releeve thame, his small estait being burdenned with lyverents whairof the greatest part, quhilk will surmount to twentie foure hundreth merkes, is in the hands of Adame Abircrombie, who hes so heavilie persecuted the supplicant, partlie be law and indirectlie be his craft and policie, as the 1 For the Lords' directions for his conveyance to Edinburgh see the appendix to this chapter. 48 THE LEITHS OF HARTHILL supplicant is now undone, for in all the informa­ tions that he hes made to the saids Lords agains him he hes made thame seeme to be mountanes ; and becaus the supplicant feared to compeir to justifie his owne doings all wes tane for good coyne that wes objected again him, and he wes made to be a verie rebellious and dissobedient person in the saids Lords their hearing, whereas if he had beene so happie as to have compeired and justified his awne doings, the most part of the informations made aganis him would have evanished in smoake ". He craved that a day might be named for his trial · and the Lords named June 24. Meanwhile the prisoner's friends were to have access to him.1 On the day appointed Abercromby appeared before the Council, to be confronted with his ad­ versary, and the tale which he had to tell in justifi­ cation of his animosity against that violent laird was a sensational one. In the previous March Harthill, " with convocation of a great number of sorners and broken men '', well armed, had come " under cloud and silence of night, by way of hamesucken ",2 to the house of Henry Clerk, a

1 P.C.R. 2nd ser. v, 252. 2 The crime of assaulting a person in his own house or dwelling-place. Shorter Oxford Dictionary. THE VIOLENT LAIRD 49 tenant in Auldrayne, "brasht the doores thairof" and searched for Clerk, " resolving if they had gottin him to have slaine him ''. '' Missing him they tooke a broust of new beir, dranke out a part thairof and spilt the rest upon the floore, brake up his kists and beeff fatts, cutted his seckes with swords and durkes, spulzied and away tooke his hail! salt beiff, muttoun and other victuall being within the hons, with his bed cloathes and what ellis they could find in the hous ''. Then the gang went on to the house of George Mathesone, a servant of Abercromby's, "strake up his doores, searched the poore man throw the haill hous with candle light, and missing him they threatend to hold his wifes soles to the fire whill she sould tell both where her husband and his moneyes wer." On a later day they returned to Clerk's and find­ ing him, to his misfortune, at hon1e, " patt violent hands on his person, tooke him captive, being his Majesteis free subject, band his hands and caried him as a prisouner with thame to the dwelling hous of Johne Alexander in the hill brae on the north side of Bannachie where he lay two nights in the yrnes, and caried· him over the hill to the dwelling hous of Thomas Gordoun in the Glentoun upon D B.L.H. 50 THE LEITHS OF HARTHILL the south side of the said hill, quhair they layed him three nights in the yrnes ". The unlucky farmer was "deeplie sworne ", at the dirk's point, " that he sould never strike pleuche nor harrow in the lands of Aldrayne ", forced to pay his captor a hundred marks, which his wife had to sell her '' best plenishing '' to get, and to give a discharge of the wrongs he had suffered, and threatened with death if he lodged any complaint. Harthill also commanded the other tenants to leave their fields untilled, " otherwayes he vowed to God to hang thame everie man over thair awne balkes. Upon occasioun whereof the haill labourers and occupyers of the lands of Aldrayne left the ground, so as there wes not a reiking hous within aucht plewes of the saids lands, aucht crofts and a myle of ground". One man only, a certain John Ker, " who maried one Leith to his wife ", had the courage to disobey the violent laird. Among others, including the parson of Rayne, who abetted Harthill in these high-handed proceedings was Alexander Leith of Newrayne.1 So there had evidently been a reconciliation between the half­ brothers. After the hearing Harthill was very naturally 1 P.C.R. 2nd ser. v, 289. THE VIOLENT LAIRD 51 sent back to the Tolbooth. A year later he was set at liberty under a penalty of 3,000 marks, for which Patrick Leith of Kirkton of Rayne gave bond, to appear before the Council in the following January. This he did, when the Bishop of Aber­ deen was appointed to make peace between him and Adam Abercromby. 1 But apparently it was not very long before he was in durance again, for in 1638 he was granted liberty and licence to "ne­ gociat his affair es and to repaire saifelie to and fra in the countrie to that effect without danger of the law till the feast of Yuill nixttocome ... free of all troubling, arresting or warding . . . for anie debts or soumes. ~f money or for anie of the causes for the quhilks he wes latelie warded." 2 It may also have been somewhere about this time, when not very much is recorded of him, that he was, as he boasted of having been, a prisoner in London. Even when free he was an outlaw, needing the protection of authority that he might attend to his affairs without fear of molestation. Those affairs were in a very bad way. Leith had apparently been spending money on the rebuiiding 1 P.C.R. 2nd ser. vi, 66, 167. 2 P.C.R. 2nd ser. vii, 39. 52 THE LEITHS OF HARTHILL and (not without reason) on the fortification of Harthill, and had run heavily into debt. The con­ sequences of his embarrassment make a compli­ cated story, in which several of his kin or name are involved as claimants to his estates. Firstly, by a decreet dated April 27, 1632, these were apprised to the laird's half-brothers, William, George and Patrick, for payment of 3,000 l. Scots principal with annual rents and expenses.1 That instru­ ment, as will presently be seen, led to a long sequel of violence. Meanwhile, in December 1633, Arthur, tenth Lord Forbes, John Leith's wife's · kinsman, described himself as heritably infeft in the lands of Harthill and the tower and f ortalice thereof. His right and peaceable possession had, he said, never been questioned until Abercromby of Auldrayne charged him to surrender it and on his refusal threatened legal proceedings. Forbes, who disclaimed any knowledge of or part in the quarrel between Abercromby and John Leith, " called of Harthill ", besought the Lords to sus­ pend the charge. This they refused to do, but ordered the Sheriff of Aberdeen to take possession of the house until it should be decided to whom 1 Signature of adjudication in favour of William Erskine of Pittodrie., January 25., 1693. THE VIOLENT LAIRD 53 it lawfully belonged .. 1 Forbes himself was charged with resetting John Leith ; to which he replied that he had only conferred with him, at his own house of Puttachie, for taking order with the rents and duties of the lands of Harthill due to Katherine Forbes, Lady Harthill, his father's sister.2 Now this Lady Harthill cannot have been the wife of the present laird, who was a Forbes but named Jean. Nor, it is certain,3 was she his father's wife, who had married Abercromby of Auldrayne, . the man now disputing with Lord Forbes for the possession of Harthill. The pre­ sumption is, therefore, that she was the widow of the first John of Harthill, the violent laird's grand­ father. Her nephew's reference to her great age supports this view. She was certainly a daughter of the seventh Lord Forbes ; and the violent laird's wife, if she was really the daughter of Abraham Forbes of Blacktoun, was her niece. According to Dugdale's Peerage (Balfour Paul's edition), the seventh Lord Forbes's daughter Katherine, who was born in 1554, and would

1 P.C.R. 2nd ser. v, 157, 168. A decreer of apprising at Lord Forbes's instance, dated July 1634, is cited in the signa­ ture referred to above. 2 Cf. above, p. 29. 3 See below, p. 55. 54 THE LEITHS OF HARTHILL therefore have been nearly eighty at the time of these proceedings, married Barclay of Gartly ; so that John Leith of Harthill must have been her second husband. Whatever Forbes's claim to Harthill, it was evi­ dently not very well founded. The place remained in the hands of the Sheriff of Aberdeen for eight months and was then restored to Harthill's wife, who, with her husband in prison and in debt, was in great extremity and misery. The Sheriff was ordered to deliver her the keys of the house that she might " peaceably dwell therein and · provide against the winter for fire ". The laird's imprisonment was declared to have purged the cause for which he had been deprived of it.1 Even so, he does not seem to have enjoyed complete possession. For in December, 1634, Alexander Leith of Newton, at whose instance there had been a decreet of apprisal against John in the previous April, was in a position to make an assignation of Harthill to George Leith, f aber murarius in Premnay, who five years later assigned it to George Leith of Overhall-a transaction which received royal confirmation on December 6, 1 P.C.R. 2nd ser. v, 350. THE VIOLENT LAIRD 55 1643.1 In years to come, when the estate was a bone of fierce contention between the violent laird and his younger half-brothers, William and Pat­ rick, Overhall's heir asserted his claim.

ADDITIONAL NOTE Since these pages went to the printer a document which amply explains the violent laird's animosity against Adam Abercromby has been brought to the author's notice. It is a vivid account, written in 1634, of Abercromby's ill deeds and, while confirming that the widow of the laird of Harthill (John Leith II) whom he married was Janet Gordon, sister to the then laird of Gight (George Gordon), it alleges that Abercromby, himself having a wife at the time, lived in adultery with her, had contracted to marry her, and was largely supported by her out of the estates of Harthill (she being seised in the Smithy lands of Auld Rayne) while her first husband was still alive. See The House of Forbes, edited by A. and H. Tayler (Third Spalding Club, 1937), p. 174. 1 R.M.S. 1634-51, p. 559. APPENDIX TO CHAPTER III

Directions for the conveyance to Edinburgh of John Leith of Harthill and two of his accomplices, all at the horn for civil and criminal causes. March 29, I 634. "Forsamekle as it is understand to the Lords of Privie Counsell that Johne Leith of Harthill, being a long tyme bygane rebell and at the horne als weill for civill as criminall causses, quhereupon not onelie followed the executioun of captiouns bot also of letters of treason, and ample comrnissiouns were direct aganis him, all quhilks he hes diss­ obeyed and slighted the executioun thairof by keeping his hous of Harthill as ane hous of warre and associating unto himselfe great nu1nbers of brokin men and sorners with whome he hes latelie verie heavilie infested diverse parts of the countrie beside Aberdein, by spoyling of the housses of nombers of his Majesteis good subjects, binding and carrying of thameselffes captives to the hillis, to the great terrour of the countrie people ; and now at last he is happilie tane and apprehended by the hazardous travellis and ad- 56 APPENDIX TO CHAPTER III 57 ventures of the gentlemen who wer entrusted with commissioun aganis him, in whois custodie and keeping he presentlie remaines. And whereas the examplar tryell and punishement of suche dis­ ordered and brokin men imports verie neerelie the peace and quyetness of the countrie, thairfoir the Lords of Secreit Counsel! hes thought fitt and expedient that the said J ohne Leith and Angus Schaw and pypper Boyne, two of his complices who wer tane with him, sall be brought heir to Edinburgh to underly thair tryell in maner follow­ ing, and thairfoir ordains letters to be direct charging the shireff of Aberdein to receave the said Johne Leith and his twa complices frome the commissioners who hes him in keeping within ane houre after they sall be presented unto him, under the pane of rebellioun and putting of thame to the horne, and if they failyie, to denunce, etc., and to transport and carie thame to the shireff of Kin­ cardin ; and siclyke charging the said shireff of Kincardin and his depots to receave the said Johne Leith and his saids complices frome the said shireff of Aberdein and suche as sall have the charge of thair convoy within ane houre nixt after they sall be presented unto thame, under the said pane of rebellioun, and to transport and carie 58 THE LEITHS OF HARTHILL thame in suretie to the shireff of Forfar and his deputs ; and siclyke to command and charge the shireff of Forfar and his deputs to receave the said Johne Leith and his twa complices frome the said shireff of Kincardin and his deputs and to trans­ port and carie thame to the shireff of Fyfe and his deputs ; and siclyke to command and charge the said shireff of Fyfe and his deputs to receave the said Johne and his saids complices from the said shireff of Forfar within ane houre nixt after they sall be presented unto thame, under the said pane of rebellioun, etc., and to transport and carie thame ·to the bailleis of Kingorne and to command and charge the saids bailleis of Kingorne to receave the said Johne Leith and his saids twa complices frome the said shireff of Fyfe and his deputs within ane houre after they sail be delyvered unto thame, under the pane of rebellioun, etc., and to transport thame over to the bailleis of Leith ; and siclyke to command and charge the saids bailleis of Leith to receave the saids Johne Leith and his saids complices frome the saids bailleis of Kingorne within ane houre nixt after they sall be presented unto thame, under the said pane of rebellioun, &c., and to carie him in suretie to the provest and bailleis of Edinburgh, and to command and charge APPENDIX TO CHAPTER III 59 the saids provest and bailleis of Edinburgh to receave the saids Johne Leith and his twa com­ plices frome the bailleis of Leith within ane houre nixt after they sall be presented unto thame, under the said pane of rebellion, &c., and to committ thame to waird within thair tolbuith, therein to remaine upon thair awne expenses till f order order and directioun be givin anent thair tryell as accords ; and if the saids shireffs and bailleis and thair deputs failyeis the tymes respective fore­ saids being bypast, to denunce thame rebellis and put thame to the horne and to escheit, etc." P.C.R., 2nd ser., v, 248. IV

JOHN LEITH AND THE TROUBLES

THE violent laird of Harthill did not confine his activities to private warfare. He also played a minor part on a larger though still a local stage. During the years when he had been in and out of the Tolbooth the differences between Presby­ terian and Episcopalian had been growing more · and more acute. The King's revocation of the grants of Church lands made by his father was naturally resented by those whom it affected, while his attempt to enforce the use of a liturgy devised in the spirit of Laud's high Anglicanism seemed an outrage to Protestants who had derived their doctrine from Calvin and Knox. Nevertheless Charles had his loyal adherents, and nowhere were they more numerous than in Aberdeen. The burgh was the only town of importance where the National Covenant of 1638 was not acclaimed, and the majority of the lords and lairds of the county, led by the second Marquess of Huntly, son of the destroyer of Donibristle, were staunchly royalist. 60 JOHN LEITH AND THE TROUBLES 61 The Covenanters tried to convert them by dia­ lectic, but failed. They thereupon resorted to a more cogent argument. A small army under Montrose, who was presently to be the most de­ voted as he was the most brilliant of the King's generals, was sent into Aberdeenshire. It entered the capital without resistance, Huntly, who had been there, having disbanded his forces and re­ tired to his castle of Strathbogie. Why he took this step has never been fully explained. He does not seem to have lacked courage. Burnet, no friendly witness, says that he was " naturally a gallant man." When his time came to face death on the scaffold he was equal to the occasion. His character is one about which the historians are at odds, and there was a strain of infirmity in the blood of his race. At this time he was certainly in no position to meet Montrose., for he had been disappointed of reinforcements which he had ex­ pected from the Hamiltons. The two leaders met at Inverurie., where Mon­ trose, after his easy capture of Aberdeen, had fixed his headquarters. Huntly agreed to sign a document which bound him " to maintain the King's authority, together with the liberties both of Church and State, Religion and Laws ", a sort 62 THE LEITHS OF HARTHILL of modified Covenant probably concocted by Mon­ trose himself. Then Montrose returned to Aber­ deen, whither, by invitation, Huntly followed him ; and there, although he had come under a safe­ conduct, the royalist Marquess found himself a virtual prisoner. This looks very like treachery on the part of Montrose, that pattern of chivalry. Gardiner calls it " the only mean action in his life ". But it is possible that he was overruled by the Aberdeenshire Covenanters, many of whom were Huntly's personal enemies, and had not so much authority as he had counted on. Huntly was sent to Edinburgh, where he was offered his liberty on condition that he should sign the Cove­ nant. He refused. " I have already given my faith to my prince," he said proudly, " upon whose head this crown, by all law of nature and nations, is justly fallen ; and will not falsify that faith by joining with any in a pretence of religion, which my own judgment cannot excuse from rebellion ... I am in your power, and resolved not to leave that foul title of traitor as an inheritance upon my pos­ terity ; you may take my head from my shoulders, but not my heart from my sovereign ". With his eldest son, Lord Gordon, he was confined in Edin­ burgh Castle. JOHN LEITH AND THE TROUBLES 63 Meanwhile Harthill, like many another laird, " seeing no help nor releif ", had accepted the Covenant.1 But he had already subscribed to the compromise known as the King's Covenant, based on the Negative Confession of 1580, and all his sympathies w~re with the Royalists. He joined Lord Aboyne, Huntly's second son, who had taken his father's place as their leader; and when Aboyne abandoned his followers and went South to confer with the King, he was among the barons, Gordons for the most part, ,vho determined to continue the struggle under the leadership of Sir George Ogilvy of B_anff. It was not long before the Royalists scored a small success. A big meeting of Covenanters had been convened at Turriff for May 20. A week before that date some 1,200 had already gathered there, and at daybreak on May 14 Banff and his friends, who had four brass field-pieces, made an unexpected attack on them. The Covenanters, roused from their slumbers by a " feirfull noyse of drums and trumpettis '', offered but a brief re-

1 This was in April, 1639; so either the liberty granted him in July, 1638, until the following Christmas had been extended, he had outstayed his leave, or he had been newly released. The chief authority for this part of Harthill's story is John Spald­ ing's Memorialls of the Trubles. 64 THE LEITHS OF HARTHILL sistance. After an exchange of musket shots and the firing of two of the field-pieces, one of which went wide, they fled in confusion, leaving the enemy in possession of their commissariat and with a couple of lairds for prisoners. This engagement, which came to be known as the Trot of Turriff, was of no great significance, but it emboldened the Royalists to march on Aber­ deen. They took up their quarters in the houses of the Covenanting citizens, most of whom had made a hasty departure, leaving, however, their wives and bairns, who "furneshit the soldiours aboundantlie ". They also raided Durris, the seat of Forbes of Leslie, where " thay gat good heir and aill, bruk wp girnellis and book bannokis at good fyres, and dra~ mirrellie upone the lairdis best drink ''. Other houses of the Forbeses re­ ceived like treatment. The men of that clan were for the Covenant (though Arthur Forbes of Black­ toun, Harthili's wife's kinsman, was one of the Royalist commanders at Turriff) and no doubt the Gordons were rejoiced to have a legitimate excuse to prosecute their hereditary feud. Harthill was presumably at Turriff. He cer­ tainly went to Aberdeen, and when the barons de­ cided to send ambassadors to the Earl Marischal, HARTHILL CASTLE,from a photograph

JOHN LEITH AND THE TR.OUBLES 65 who had been the Covenanting Governor of Aber­ deen but was now at his own castle of Dunnottar, to try to discover his intentions towards them, they chose John Leith and William Lumsden, an advocate of the city. The choice was unlucky, for the Earl liked neither of his visitors. Lumsden was a Catholic and the laird was, in Spalding's phrase, " the maner of ane plesant "-a word which, at that time, sometimes signified drunken. So Marischal would give them no satisfaction, saying that he must have eight days in which to consult his friends. Nothing more is heard of Harthill for several months. The fortunes of war were turning against his party. On the approach of Montrose with a force of 6000 men the Royalists left Aberdeen. Then Aboyne returned by sea, with a commission of lieutenancy from the King, and reoccupied the city, which seems to have suffered about equally from both parties. He raised a new army and went forth to meet Montrose, who twice defeated him, at Megray Hill near Stonehaven and at the Bridge of Dee, and entered the unfortunate town in the middle of June. The Pacification of Ber­ wick, that unpalatable treaty which Charles, alarmed by Alexander Leslie's advance towards the E B.L.H. 66 THE LEITHS OF HARTHILL Border, felt constrained to make with the Coven­ anters, put a temporary end to active hostilities. But not for John Leith of Harthill. Towards the end of 1639 he was in Aberdeen, where he was surrounded by his enemies. That stronghold of royalism was now as completely under the do­ minion of the Covenant as the rest of the country. The Pacification of Berwick, though in terms a treaty, had been a triumph of Presbyterianism. The episcopate, which Charles had gone to war to defend, had been abolished by Act of Assembly and the new Scots Parliament. The Bishop of Aberdeen, Adam Bellenden, had fled, and the reigning Provost, Patrick Leslie, whom the King had once deprived of that office, was fervent in the Covenanting faith. In the churches, despoiled of their old rich ornaments, the old ceremonial was proscribed. To kneel at communion was pro­ claimed an offence. The congregation must re­ main seated, each communicant helping himself to the bread from a basin, while the cup was passed from hand to hand. The observance of Christmas Day, "balding the same haly day, and absteining fra labour, witht festing and playing", was forbidden as contrary to the ordinance of the Church. JOHN LEITH AND THE TROUBLES 67 Perhaps it was this last prohibition which par­ ticularly angered John Leith, to whom feasting, if not playing, was congenial, and provoked him to an action of characteristic arrogance which had remarkable consequences. For it was announced on Sunday, December 22, and two days later, Christmas Eve, he entered the church of St. Nicholas, which his ancestors had benefited and where they lay buried, in much such a mood as had once before taken him to the church of Auld­ rayne. Of what happened next there are two slightly different accounts. Spalding says that he sat down in the Provost's seat and that when Leslie arrived he " causit pull him out be the officiaris veray prydfullie, he being a barroun, and cheif of ane clan "-which is not quite accurate, for, strictly speaking, there was no Clan Leith. " Harthill gave him sum idle talk, for the quhilk he was presentlie wardit in the tolbuith ". According to another and more circumstantial story 1 the laird, who arrived at the church during the second prayer, never reached the Provost's seat. As he was trying to burst the fastenings of

1 Told by Joseph Robertson, an antiquary of good repute, in The Book of Bon Accord, published anonymously in 1839. His account is based on the Aberdeen Council Registers. 68 THE LEITHS OF HARTHILL its door, an attendant offered to find him accom­ modation elsewhere. "By God's wounds", ex­ claimed Harthill, "I shall sit beside the Provost and in no other place of the kirk ". And he swore that he would run his sword through the officer's body. A struggle followed and Harthill was haled off to the Tolbooth, violently protesting. '' If ye put me in waird, keep me weill, for if I come forth again, I vow to God I shall burn your town ". He may have had some thought of raising an incendiary insurrection, for among the common folk of Aberdeen there was much strong feeling against the innovations. " After the conclusion of the service so inde­ cently interrupted, the Magistrates proceeded to the trial of the offender. While one of the ser­ geants was repeating the usual words of form in constituting or fencing the court in the King's name, Leith interrupted him with the exclama­ tion, ' Ye are wrang, ye should fence it in the devil's name!' then drawing his hat down on his brows, and turning to the Provost who was sitting in judgment, ' What say ye to me ? ' he cried, ' Ye are but a doittit cock and ane ass ! A plack for your kindness, and for all your baillies, and for the haille tonne ! '." When the clerk began to read JOHN LEITH AND THE TROUBLES 69 the charge, the prisoner " not only violentlie plucked the paper furth of his hand, and reave the same in pieces, but lykewayes nuke the said Mr. George Robertson his penner and inkhorne quhilk was lying befoir him on the table, and cast the same eagerlie at his face, and thairwith hurt and wounded him in two severall parts, to the great effusion of his blood." Called upon to plead, he '' malapertly avowed " his offence, and was accordingly ordered to be detained until further order. In the opinion of Spalding, a sympathiser, he was " rochlie and uncharitablie usit ", " straitlie keipit for a little o:ffence ". But in the event the magistrates may be held to have been justified of their severity ; and in passing sentence they per­ haps took account not only of his contumacy and violence at the trial but of certain other irregu­ larities which he had recently committed. For on one occasion he broke into a burgess's house at midnight, made a murderous attack on the burgess (whom one may presume a Covenanter) and beat his wife; on another, he went "to a merchant buithe and violentlie took at his awin hand a stick of Frenshe sairge of a sad gray cullor ". His behaviour in the Aberdeen Tolbooth sug- 70 THE LEITHS OF HARTHILL gests that he was barely sane at this time. He first tried to set fire to the building, because, he said, the chimney smoked. Then, " with pick and gavelocke ", he made such a breach in the wall of his cell as cost 35 l. 3 s. Scots to repair ; which damage he refused to make good on the grounds that he had never paid for the like in London or Edinburgh. He had friends outside the prison, who smuggled in to him dirks and cudgels where­ with he attacked his warders and firearms which he discharged through the window of his cell at passing citizens, threatening to shoot any magis­ trate who came within range. To counter this menace, on May 6, 1640, " the prowest, baillies, and counsall, considering that John Leith of Hart­ hill does continew in his disorderis and mis­ cariage be shooting of gunes and pistolls out of the wyndoes of the wairdhous, whairin he is detenit prisoner, and daylie caries wapones wpoun him as if he wer at libertie, quhilkis ar secretlie convoyit to him at the saids wyndoes, notwithstanding of many admonitiounes and chairges gevin to him in the contrair ; thairfor thay all in ane voice ordaines the wyndoes of that chamber in the wairdhous whairin he remaines to be securit in all convenient diligence ather be plet stansheounes and tirleiss JOHN LEITH AND THE TROUBLES 71 of yron, or some wthuir suir devyce that he may be debarrit from the lyk insolencie ".1 The prisoner was kept short of food, and hunger, says Spalding, " bred him a sort of madness " ; though the stimulus was hardly needed. He be­ came " sum quhat seiklie ", but lost nothing of his indomitable spirit. Being shackled by the ankle to the wall of his cell, he contrived to get hold of a smith's file and the fetters quickly disappeared. When asked to account for them, he asserted that he had sent them to Harthill. He broke out of his cell and opened those of his fellow-captives, " going throw the hous as ane commander " and doing what Jie would; the jailors, it is to be pre­ sumed, being terrified into acquiescence. " Con­ sidering his life in jeopardy, he next proceeded to ' rameforce ' or barricade the outer door of the Tolbooth with great stones, effectually precluding either entry or egress, so that ' noe man could have access to minister meat or drink or speik with the rest of the prisoneris to their great hurt '." 2 Brought before the magistrates to answer for these misdemeanours, he at first denied them. " I will

1 Extracts from the Records of the Burgh of Aberdeen, 1625- 1642 (Scottish Burgh Records Society), p. 217. 2 Book of Bon Accord. 72 THE LEITHS OF HARTHILL not ", he declared, " confess against myself to be hanged". Later, however, he admitted, or boasted, that there were a hundred witnesses to his guilt. The distracted authorities took extraordinary measures against this extraordinary prisoner. The whole town was made responsible for his safe keeping. On September 23, 1640, "the prowest, baillies, new and auld councellis, with consent of the deacones of craftis, all personallie present at the electioun, appointis a watche of tuelf persones to be keipid everie night, beginning at eight houres at evin till fywe hour es in the morning, for keiping and watching of the wairdhous of this burghe, in respect of the insolence and miscareage of Johne Leithe of Harthill, and some other of the persones that ar presentlie lyand within the same. And the said watche to continew wnto the tyme a solid order be sett doune for the sure keiping of the said wairdhouse in tyme coming, and the haill inhabi­ tantis of this burghe, both frie and unfrie, ar ordanit to keip watche as thay salbe warnit to that effect be thameselflis in thair owin propper per­ sones, or be a sufficient habill persone for thame, under the paine of ane unlaw of tuentie sex schil­ lingis eight penneis, to be payed be ilk persone JOHN LEITH AND THE TROUBLES 73 absent to the deane of gild for the publict use of the toun, and furnishing candill and other neces­ saris to the watche, by and attour the refounding of suche losses as the toune shall happin to incurr, in default of any that sail be absent fra the watche, being warnit thairto as is said ".1 But Aberdeen was soon to be rid of the violent laird. For a second time he had broken the fetters which had been set on him. " Being louss he cam to the tolbuith windo, and horriblie cryit out, threatned and boastit Patrik Leslie, prouest, and Mr. Robert Farquhar '', a prominent bailie, '' with utheris his unfreindis, and with fyre intendit to burne throw the volt ".2 This was too much. The insulted magistrates besought the Committee of Estates, who now ruled Scotland, that the desperado might be removed to Edinburgh, " qu­ hairby thay micht be frie of his trubbill ". So on October 13, bound with three fathoms of rope, which cost the burgh 5sa, as is duly recorded in the Treasurer's accounts, Harthill '' weis tein doun out of ward perforce'' and carried to his old prison in the capital ; there to remain for many weary months. "Pitiful! to sie ", moralises Spald-

1 Burgh Records, ut supra, p. 241. 2 Spalding, i, 348. 74 THE LEITHS OF HARTHILL ing, " ane gentleman, chief of ane clan, of good rent, so extremelie hand.lit, but mitigatioun or agriement, seing none wold be cautioner in law­ borrowis for him, being a disperat peice.'' Harthill appears to have behaved more quietly at Edinburgh than at Aberdeen, or to have found more competent warders. During the summer of 1641 he was allowed out of the Tolbooth during the day ; though in his comings and goings he must be accompanied by an escort, who brought him back each evening to his cell. Before the end of the year, however, even this partial liberty was taken from him '' becaus he wold not set cautioun that the brughe of Abirdein sould be harmeless and skaithles of him, wnder the pane of fairfaltrie of his estait, quhilk he wold not, nor culd not do, and so he remanit fast ".1 This was at the instance of Provost Leslie of Aberdeen, who can hardly be blamed for his attitude. Harthill " remanit fast " for another four years. 1 Spalding, ii, 60, 91. V

PATRICK LEITH, THE LOYAL MARTYR

WHILE the violent laird was cooling his heels in the Edinburgh Tolbooth his son and heir apparent was winning distinction in the royal cause. Hitherto nothing has been heard of Patrick Leith, younger of Harthill. He seems to have had no part in his father's quarrels. Too young to fight in the great battles against Adam Abercromby, he was evidently a man of a temper very different from John's. He was cast in a finer spiritual mould ; just as, in the physical aspect, he was " reckoned one of the most beautiful youths in any country.'' 1 He was ready enough, when the time came, to fight, and to die, for his king. The truce made at Berwick in June, 1639, did not endure long. The aims of Charles and the Presbyterians were irreconcileable. By the follow­ ing spring, war-the Bishops' \Xfar-had once more broken out. There is no need here to follow its unhappy course. It was not until March, 1644, when civil war had already been raging for nearly 1 Collections on the Shires of Aberdeen and Banff, p. 580. 75 PATRICK LEITH two years in England also, that Patrick Leith, a young man of eighteen or nineteen, 1 made his first recorded appearance in the field. He was most likely one of the little band of threescore horse­ men who on the 19th of that month made a sudden raid on Aberdeen, captured four important • Covenanting citizens, including Provost Leslie, 2 and carried them to Strathbogie ; for he is named among the larger company (including all those known to have been in the raid) which accom­ panied Huntly into the town a few days later.3 In 1 Different ages have been ascribed to him at the time of his death in 1647. Montereul, the French Ambassador, who is most likely to have been right, says that he was twenty-two. He was therefore probably born in or about 1625. There seems to be no doubt that he was the son of Harthill's first wife, Margaret Gordon. Young Gordon of Newton, his " dear comrade '' and fellow-sufferer on the scaffold, is des­ cribed as his cousin. 2 " Suirlie '', writes Spalding, " it is to be markit the like seldome hes bein sein, that so few men so pertlie and publictlie sould haue disgraceit sic a brave brughe, by taking away thair prouest and the rest men of not, without ony kynd of contra­ dictioun or obstacull ". Memorialls, ii, 325. 3 In Spalding's list of those then present (ii, 330) Harthill appears without qualification, and is not unnaturally identified with the laird by the editor of the Spalding Club edition of the Memorialls. But it is clear that Patrick must be meant, for his father was in prison. THE LOYAL MARTYR 77 July he was with his kinsman Nathaniel Gordon (Ardlogie's son and Gicht's cousin) when he and a small party went to Elgin market, " avaitit upone the cuming of the merchandis of Dundie and Abir­ dein cuming to this fair, and reft and spoilzeit the harmles merchandis of about 14,000 merkis money, to thair gryt hurt and skaith ". 1 Lord Gordon, Huntly's heir, who had gone over to the Covenant, was sent out to punish the pillagers, but failed to find them. It was, as some supposed, by way of retort to Patrick Leith's share in this business that three weeks later, on the order of the committee sitting at Aberdeen, Sir William Forbes of Craigievar, a prominent Covenanter, rode to the house of Hart­ hill " and thair cruellie took the gudwyf, hir barnes and seruandis, and most inhumanelie schot thame to the yettis ".2 The Harthill lands had already been "spoilit pitifullie" in 1640, and Forbes of Craigievar came there again in April, 1645; but this time he had a personal as well as a public injury to avenge. Three months earlier, learning that Forbes had a troop at Inverurie, Patrick Leith had collected the most enterprising of his friends, among them the younger Gordon of Gicht, and 1 Spalding, ii, 392. 2 Spalding, ii, 396. PATRICK LEITH made a night march thither. Surprising the troops in their beds, he captured (according to Bishop Guthry) the whole troop or (according to Spalding) ten men ; which may mean the same thing, for very small parties operated in this guerilla warfare. He let them go again., but dis­ armed them and gave their horses to his own followers ; shortly appearing with them before Montrose., who " highly applauded the courage and conduct of this brave young gentleman ". But Craigievar was " heichlie offendit " and raided Harthill at the first opportunity, driving away oxen and robbing one of Leith's servants of his baggage horse and some money. About the same time he made a prisoner of George Gordon of Rennie.1 It was Patrick Leith's turn to retaliate. He took two of Craigievar's cousins, John and Alexander Farquhar, and shut them up in Harthill until Rennie should be released. The exchange was duly made, but the heir of Harthill had already burned the town and lands of Thombeg, which, though belonging to Forbes of Monymusk, was in Craigievar's possession. Then, fearing further reprisals, which the Forbeses threatened but 1 Spalding, ii, 449, 469; Guthry. THE LOYAL MARTYR 79 did not execute, he fortified and garrisoned Harthill.1 All this looks remarkably like a private feud of the old pattern. But such was the way in which this war was largely carried on. Meanwhile Mon­ trose, now the most devoted of the King's servants, was engaged in winning that wonderful series of victories which were to lead, after all, only to de­ feat, betrayal and death on the scaffold. His successes, transient as they were, are rendered the more admirable by the difficulties under which they were gained. Crossing the Border in disguise and with but two companions, he must gather his forces as he advanced, and he fought his battles with an army perpetually fluctuating in numbers and never wholly to be trusted. Many chieftains, loyalist by inclination, were prevented from join­ ing him by lack of enthusiasm or fear of the consequences. Worst of all the Cock of the North, mindful of that apparent act of treachery at Aberdeen and jealous of Montrose's pres­ ent position, withheld the support which, whole­ heartedly given, might have brought the story to a ve~y different ending. His heir, on the other hand, changing sides once more, joined 1 Spalding, ii, 475, 477. 80 PATRICK LEITH the Royalist leader shortly after Inverlochy, the third of the six victorious battles, which was fought at the beginning of February, 1645 ; and brought with him some few members of his clan. Probably Patrick Leith also attached himself to the main army about that time. It was exactly three weeks after Inverlochy that he displayed the horses taken from Craigievar before the general's approving eye. A few days earlier, again with the assistance of the younger Gicht, he had done him a more valuable service, inter- . cepting an enemy messenger carrying important letters, which he sent unopened to Montrose at Elgin.1 It was from the Marquess's camp that he rode out to the spoiling of Thombeg in the following May, just after the battle of Auldearn. That he was in that battle and at Alford may be taken almost for granted ; and also that he ac­ quitted himself with valour and distinction. " He was," says Guthry, "a youth of extraordinary parts and undaunted resolution, and most inviol­ ably attached to the interests of the Royal family ". Young as he was, he received a colonel's commis-

1 Spalding, ii, 448, 449. THE LOY AL MARTYR 81 sion from the King 1 and became a man marked down by the Covenanters for destruction. He is known to have been at Kilsyth, the last of the victories, and doubtless shared in the disaster of Philiphaugh by which, on September 13, 1645, Montrose's hopes were shattered. Unfortunately, in the very midst of this fatal summer, Spalding's narrative, with its wealth of detail about the minor actors in the drama, comes to an abrupt conclusion. Little more is heard of Patrick Leith until he is near his own tragic end. One incident in his career, however, has been recorded by a man who was himself uncomfortably involved in it. As the heirs of Harthill and New­ ton were riding in triumph from the field of Kil­ syth they fell in with two distinguished Aber­ donians, Andrew Cant, a well-known Presbyterian divine (from whom Immanuel Kant may conceiv­ ably have been descended), and Alexander Jaffray, a future Provost of Aberdeen and Director of the Chancellary of Scotland during the Common-

1 Guthry implies that it was to get horses for the troop raised by virtue of this commission that he raided Craigievar's camp at Inverurie. The bishop, by the way, describes that incident as having occurred at Inveraray-rather a long night's march from the Garioch. p B.L.H. 82 PATRICK LEITH wealth. Together with }affray's brother they were journeying to Crathes in Kincardine to visit Cant's son, who was minister of Banchory ; but the Royalists stopped them and after threatening them with the sword-especially Jaffray, who they al­ leged had been responsible for the death of Sir John Gordon of Haddo 1-carried them to Aber­ deen and thence, after a night's confinement, to Pitcaple, a house of the Leslies then garrisoned by the Royalists, where they placed them in the charge of Petrie (? Patrick) Leith, the elder Hart­ hill's brother. In spite of renewed threats, and a great deal of language which was very painful to the ears of the precise, the prisoners were not ill-treated. Their gaolers were " vile profligate men ", yet they some­ times attended the Covenanters' " private exercise of worship'' and listened to Andrew Cant's elo­ quent and edifying discourses. '' Sometimes all of them were present, and had something like convictions at the hearing of the word, which was preached unto them with much boldness and freedom ". Nevertheless " they did go on in the

1 Taken by the Covenanters and executed in July, 1644. He had led the raid on Aberdeen in March (see above, p. 76) and among his prisoners had been }affray's father. THE LOYAL MARTYR 83 frequent practice of their drunkenness and abomi­ nable vices " ; so that the prisoners remained very willing to quit their company. An opportunity came when consternation at the news of Philip­ haugh caused a reduction in the number of their guard. Their escape, effected with the aid of friends outside, involved the firing of the house of Pitcaple ; an act for which the approbation of Parliament was subsequently sought and obtained.1 The battle of Kilsyth was fought on August 15, 1645. It was a complete victory, in which the Royalist Highlanders-Gordons and Ogilvies, Macleans and Macdonalds-acquitted themselves magnificently. But though Montrose could lead armies to victory, he could not keep them intact. The clansmen deserted by the hundred because they were not allowed to loot Glasgow, which they regarded as the due harvest of their exertions. There were jealousies and dissensions between the Highland and Lowland chieftains, resulting in many withdrawals. One of those who went was Lord Aboyne (his elder brother had been killed at Alford), and he took with him the bulk of the Gordons. When on September 13, at Philiphaugh 1 }affray's Diary, p. 51. Acts of Parliament of Scotland, vi, pt. ii, 702. PATRICK LEITH near Selkirk, Montrose met David Leslie, sum­ moned from England to stem the tide of Royalist success across the Border, he was no match for the ablest general whom he had yet encountered. The years which followed were years of sheer disaster for the loyalists. Charles's cause in Eng­ land, shattered at Marston Moor, had been irre­ trievably lost at Naseby, three months before Philiphaugh. In May, 1646, the King put himself in the hands of the Scots Commissioners, who, after months of haggling, surrendered him. to the English Parliament and his fate. For some time after his defeat Montrose con­ tinued the struggle in the ·Highlands. Patrick Leith was with him and played a gallant part in a rearguard action near Inverness, enabling the Marquess with his main force to escape the clutches of John Middleton, who had been Leslie's second-in-command at Philiphaugh and was now pressing him hard.1 When, in reluctant obedience to the King's desire, Montrose accepted a safe­ conduct and retired to the continent, young Hart­ hill transferred his services to Huntly, who, though he had refused to co-operate with Mon­ trose, was now in the field. 1 Britane's Distemper, p. 186. THE LOYAL MARTYR 85 The Cock of the North was no more successful than his old enemy had been. His followers were but a handful, and the Covenanters were bent on his downfall. A price was set on his head and his more notable supporters, Patrick Leith among them, were formally excommunicated by the Com­ missioners of the General Assembly. "Prymly active and instrumental! in killing, burning, des­ troying, robbing and spoyling, and guilty of many other insolencies " ; " notable enemies to the cause of Religion and the Covenants and pryme actors in that wicked and unnaturall rebellion " ; they were decreed to be "summarly excommunicat and declared to be these whom Christ commandeth to be holden by all and evrie one of the faithful! as ethniks and publicans ''. 1 Middleton drove Huntly and his little company --it numbered but two or three hundred-out of Aberdeenshire into Badenoch and thence into the wilds of Lochaber. This was a country of the Camerons, a clan which had once acknowledged the chieftain of the Gordons as their leader. But in the Troubles they had followed Argyll, the powerful head of the Campbells, who had com-

1 Records of Commissioners of General Assemblies, 1646-7, p. 269. 86 PATRICK LEITH mantled the armies of the Covenant against Mon­ trose before the arrival of David Leslie. Now, afraid of Huntly's resentment, they resolved to betray him ; for the Royalists " alwayes keept the feilds, and their litle campe was in such a stronge ground, as their enimies, without the conduct and aid of the countrie people, could never doe them harme ". The Camerons therefore went to Middleton and promised " that if he would let them haue the baggadge and the stufe, they would bring him and leid him such a way as he should be upon them · befor they knew of his coming : and altho in this they proued traitours to their master, yit ware they as good as their word ". . Acting on their advice and led by their guides., Middleton took the Royalists by surprise., falling upon them '' befor the could stand to their arms ". Once more., that the leader might get away, a rearguard action was fought ; and this time Patrick Leith had the direc­ tion of it. " Fourtie of their best men stayes in the reir with such curradge and walour, and ob­ stinat resolutione, as if the clan Camerone, climing over the rocks, had not incompassed them, they had mad the pass good in spight of all their enimies. This pairtie was commanded by Heart.,.. THE LOYAL MARTYR 87 hill, a youth of tuantie years, or little more, but of such admirable walour, curradge, and dexteritie in arms, as he was amongst his enimies the most redouted man that followed the marquise at that tyme ".1 On this occasion his courage and dexterity were of no avail. The odds against him were too great. It is true that he accomplished his main object: Huntly won clear, if only for a brief respite. But Leith himself was taken on the field, and with him Gordon of Invermarkie. Many of his men were - slain. Young Gordon of Newton, Harthill's" dear comrade ", made his immediate escape, but was presently betrayed to the enemy by the Forbeses, his kinsmen. The cavaliers they all were sold, And brave Harthill, a cavalier too. 2 The skirmish appears to have taken place in August, 1647. Of what happened to the prisoners during the next few weeks no record has been dis­ covered, but at the beginning of October they

1 Britane's Distemper, 204. 2 The ballad of " The Gallant Grahams " in Scott's Border Minstrelsy. Harthill's "fate has escaped my notice", says Scott, whose information about Patrick Leith is derived from Spalding. 88 PA TRICK LEITH came to Edinburgh. And on the twelfth day of that month their leader was brought to his trial. That day was a Tuesday, and Patrick was given only until the Friday to prepare his defence. His doom was certain from the beginning, though efforts were made to avert it. The King was ap­ plied to for a pardon ; a useless move, for Charles himself was virtually a prisoner and Argyll had openly declared that nothing could save that young but inveterate Royalist. Montereul,1 the French Ambassador in Edinburgh, interested himself in his behalf ; proposing that he should be banished ·from the country and offering to find security that he would never again take arms against the Parlia­ ment. David Leslie promised the Frenchman his support, but proved lukewarm in performance ; and all was vain. The authorities attempted to force the prisoner to declare himself repentant of what he had done in the King's cause by making that the condition on which the decree of excommunication pro­ nounced against him should be rescinded. But

-1 Montereul's letters to Cardinal Mazarin, well edited by J. G. Fotheringham and published by the Scottish History Society, are the fullest and most reliable source for Patrick Leith's last days. THE LOYAL MARTYR 89 Harthill refused to recant his faith ; nor would he plead for the removal of the ban of the Kirk, which doubtless he did not recognise as valid. He was condemned to death. His execution was fixed for October 26. On the previous day a royal warrant for his pardon and relaxation actually arrived. The city magis­ trates were inclined to respect it, but in a confer­ ence with certain members of the Committee of Estates, " there being neither president nor a full number ", their scruples were overruled and it was decided that the sentence should be carried out.1 Patrick Leith's conduct on the scaffold was worthy of his conduct in the field. '' II meurt avec une extreme constance ", Montereul reported on the day of the tragedy, " et ne dit rien qui ne soit tres digne d'un homme de coeur ". 2 The set

1 Rushworth, Historical Collections, pt. IV, ii, 859. 2 A week later the Ambassador wrote : " De tous ceux que l'on a executes dans cette isle depuis quelques annees, pour la cause de leur roi, il n'y en a point asseurement qui ait te­ moigne plus de constance en mourant qu'a fait Hartil, a qui l'on trancha la teste il ya aujourd'huy huit jours. On ne le vit pas seulement changer de couleur sur l'echafaud, et il parla au peuple avant (sic) tant de grace et d'asseurance de la, justice de la cause pour laquelle il alloit mourir, qu'ils (sic) ne seroit pas 90 PATRICK LEITH speech which he had prepared he was not allowed to make, but he had with him a few copies of it, which he threw among the crowd, having already given others to his friends : it was reported to " mention strangely new troubles in England ".1 Such words as he actually spoke were a reaffirma­ tion of his loyalty to the King and of Jµs belief in the justice of his cause. Although, being still ex­ communicate, he was denied the consolations of religion, he did not lose colour at sight of the headsman's axe. Like him for whom he was laying down his life, He nothing common did, or mean, Upon that memorable scene. A few days later, once more in Montereul's despite, William Gordon, younger of Newton, followed his cousin to the block. " Had they pre­ serued the liues of thos two youths ", Patrick avantageux a ce Part d'avoir souvent de telles executions a faire et que de semblables martyrs de la Royaute n' avance­ roient peu, en ce pays, la cause de la monarchie." 1 Rushworth, Zoe. cit. Montereul made a translation of the speech for Mazarin ; deeming it necessary to excuse its deficiency on the score of the author's youth and lack of culture. THE LOYAL MARTYR 91 Gordon of Ruthven reflected, " they could haue done their natione more honour and more accept­ able service against a forraine enimie then a thou­ sand common souldiours.'' 1

1 Britane's Distemper, p. 205. VI

THE END OF THE LEITHS OF HARTHILL

DURING the earlier davs.., of Patrick Leith's can1- paigning his father lay close in the Tolbooth. About the end of 1645 he was at last released, and in M,arch, 1647, he was at Lesmoir Castle, helping in its defence against David Leslie. His presence there may have been due to the fact that the laird, Sir James Gordon, a boy of fifteen or sixteen, was the ward of Jo~ Leith of New Leslie, Harthill's kinsman and head of his family. While Middleton was harrying Huntly in the field, Leslie was busy reducing the Gordon strongholds. Having taken Strathbogie he turned his attention to Lesmoir, which he described, in a letter to the Committee of Estates, as " a place of considerable strength and compassed with water ". The water was diverted and the castle close gained with small loss, but the defenders " burned the low houses and betook themselves to the tower ", whence Captain Mortimer, the commander of the garrison, requested a parley. 92 LEITHS OF HARTHILL 93 Leslie, not wishing to hazard further casualties, assented, and terms of surrender were arranged. The house and its contents were to be given up, the Irishmen who formed the bulk of the small garrison to be hanged, and Mortimer and Harthill to be kept prisoners " until they satisfied church and state, otherwyse to be banished from the king­ dom". "So I caused hang 27 Irish," Leslie tersely informed the Committee. He apologised for his clemency in sparing their leaders : " where­ in if I have done anything amisse. . . . I desire your Lordships' positive orders in tyme coming that I may rule myself accordingly ". David Leslie had his full share of that Puritan ruthless­ ness of which Cromwell was so eminent an ex­ ponent. John Leith was sent back to the Edinburgh Tolbooth. There must have been a period when he was out on parole, for he was at Harthill in November, 1647.1 But he continued a prisoner of State until the end of July, 1649. On the thirtieth of that month he petitioned Parliament for his liberty, complaining that of those taken at Lesmoir all but he had been released on capitulation and agreement. Next day an Act was passed for his 1 Acts of Parliament of Scotland, vi, pt~ ii, 438. 94 THE END OF THE enfranchisement ; with a proviso that, should they disobey it, the Provost and Bailies of Edinburgh were to be put to the horn. 1 Presbyterianism was triumphant and John Leith returned to Harthill to find a Presbyterian winister officiating in the kirk of Oyne. He proceeded to make the life of Mr. William Burnet a burden to him. Shortly after the laird's homecoming the minister '' regretted to the Presbytery the great wrong and violence offered to him by John Leith of Harthill in the time of divine service ". The martyred Patrick, as devout as he was loyal, had presented (mortified) some silver cups to the kirks of Oyne and Rayne. His father " in ane unchristian way with cursing and swearing " de­ manded their surrender. He probably con­ sidered that a church which had renounced epis­ copacy and its ceremonies had no right to retain such a gift. The cups were ordered to be brought to the Presbytery to be "disponed upon"; but either the decision which the elders took did not satisfy John Leith or he found a new cause of offence. For in April, 1652, he "in ane most blasphemous way compeared before the Presby­ terie with cursing and imprecations and did 1 lbid. 511, 738. LEITHS OF HARTHILL 95 threaten divers brethern and did break the windows." 1 His private fortunes, meanwhile, had grown more involved than ever. Already deep in debt, during the years of his imprisonment he had been unable to attend effectively to the management of his estates. Nor, indeed, was he secure in the profits of them. In 1645 the lands of Harthill " with their pairtes and pendicles " were among a number of properties belonging to " malignants " the rents of which were granted to the Earl Maris­ chal. 2 In March, 1649, they were seized by the laird's half-brothers, William Leith of Old Rayne and Patrick Leith, to whom, with their murdered brother George, they had been apprised in 1632,3 and although on his liberation from the Tolbooth John recovered possession, in 1650, with his wife and daughter, he was again ejected by these" wn­ naturall and wicked breithering ". Thus began a family quarrel which was to continue not only to the end of the violent laird's life but for many years beyond it. 4 1 Davidson, lnverurie, 305, 310. 2 Acts of ParHament, vi, pt. i, 462. 3 See above, p. 52. 4 The account of the quarrel down to I 662 is based on the Acts of Parliament of Scotland, vols. vi and vii. For its later stages see the Privy Council Register, particularly 3rd ser. vii, 478-80. 96 THE END OF THE William Leith claimed justification of his pro­ ceedings on the ground that the estate was in debt to him in respect of a life rent payable to his mother and also of certain moneys raised by a sale for the benefit of creditors. But his method of prosecuting his claim was worthy of the violent laird himself. Indeed he seems to have been as desperate a character as any in this story. Not content with forcibly expelling his half-brother and his family from Harthill and seizing their writs, evidences and jewels, he threatened their very lives ; declaring that he would drown Lady Harthill and pistol her daughter. He actually murdered one of their servants. Fire-raising, plunder, rape and adultery were also among his misdemeanours. Of all these things he was accused by John, who in May, 1651, sought redress of his injuries.1 The petition was successful, but it was only for a very short time that the laird was allowed to enjoy his own. On a decreet of the Sheriff of Aberdeen, who upheld the claim of William and Patrick to 1000 marks from the estate, he was thrust forth again " in extream cold of winter ". He countered by obtaining letters of horning against his perse-

1 Acts of Parliament, vi, pt. ii, 668. LEITHS OF HARTHILL 97 cutors, who were summoned to appear before Parliament and, disobeying the summons, were denounced as rebels. Thenceforward John Leith was in uninter­ rupted possession of Harthill until 1657. But in that year a new enemy appeared in the person of George Leith of Overhall, who obtained a decreet upon certain heritable rights 1 in virtue whereof the laird and his family were once more ejected and William Leith re-entered by a right flowing from George. " Through the iniquity of the time " he and his brother Patrick remained in possession and " uplifted the haill maille and dewties" until February, 1661, when John com­ plained to Parliament afresh and an Act was passed in his favour. It provided not only for his reinstatement but that he should receive the profits of his lands and of the crops thereon which had been taken by his half-brothers since 1657.2 In 1662, William and Patrick still proving recalci­ trant, and having again forced themselves into 1 On June 15, 1655, George Leith, heir of George Leith of Overhall., had been retoured heir to his father in the lands and mains ofHarthill, the lands of Auld Harthill, etc .., etc. Thom­ son's Inquests, Aberdeen, 328. For the elder George's title, see above, p. 54. 2 Acts of Parliament, vii, 34. G B.L.H. 98 THE END OF THE Harthill, the parties to the dispute were summoned to appear before arbitrators appointed by the Lord Commissioner and the Lords of the Articles, who heard their stories and adjudicated between them. The verdict was not absolutelyin the laird's favour~ William and Patrick were to give up their pre­ tended rights to the estates, but they were to receive satisfaction of moneys due to them on" ex­ pired comprisings " and the parties were to con­ tinue in their present possessions until the ac­ counts should be cleared.1 The essential point, however, was that John Leith's title was estab­ lished ; and this was confirmed by the Lords of Session in 1669, after William and Patrick had obtained a " pretended decreet of removing, sus­ pension and reduction " By that date the stormy career of the violent laird had come to its end or ,vas very near it. He was alive in 1667 2 and apparently dead by 1671. His wife, Jean Forbes, survived him; as did also his daughter Anna, the only child of his second 1 Acts of Parliament, vii, 411; P.C.R. 3rd ser. i, 249. 2 The editors of the Aberdeen Valuation Rollfor 1667 (Third Spalding Club) describe the John Leith of Harthill appearing therein as the_ violent laird's son. He must have been the violent laird himself, for, as there is abundant documentary evidence to show, he had no son to survive him. LEITHS OF HARTHILL 99 marriage as Patrick would seem to have been of his first. Anna had been married, some time before 1661, to Alexander Gordon, a brother of that William Gordon of Newton who had been her own half-brother's companion in arms. She bore him a son John, who died in 1681 or 1682, and a daughter Anna. Against John Leith's widow, his daughter, son­ in-law and grandchildren, William Leith, setting at nought the pronouncements of Parliament and Sessions and his own undertakings, persevered in his implacable vendetta. In 1671 he and Patrick gave a mutual bond of caution for the indemnity of Alexander Gordon, 1 who is here described as of Torreis (as Harthill was often called) and elsewhere as of Harthill ; but eleven years later the Lords of the Council were listening to a lament­ able tale of violence and brutality. Patrick's name does not occur in it, so he was probably dead,2 but William now had two sons to support him, another 1 P.C.R. 3rd ser. iii, 694. 2 He was presumably the Patrick Leith of Harthill whose son Alexander by his wife, Anna Abercromby of Birkenbog, entered the Scots College at Douai in 1649, a Catholic convert of the age of one and twenty. Records of Scots Colleges, i, 39. It was in 1649 that William and Patrick first took possession of Harthill. 100 THE END OF THE Patrick and George. In November, 1681, so ran the complaint, they went by night with a number of companions to the houses of several of the Hart­ hill tenants and threatened to evict them if they should take tacks (leases) from Jean Forbes or her family : a threat which they subsequently carried out, giving entry to new ~enants of their own. They then proceeded to the house of Harthill, broke open the gates and doors, and assaulted the inmates. Jean, the dowager Lady Harthill, was eighty years old, her daughter Anna was going on crutches as the result of a previous assault, while .Anna's son John lay on his deathbed ; but these disabilities did not save them from the fury of William Leith and his friends, who beat Anna and threw her mother downstairs. After remaining for the space of five hours, " in a military manner offering to discharge their gunes and hagebutts at such as should come near the house '', the invaders departed to the lands of Kirkton of Oyne, which Jean Forbes held in life rent, and "having vio­ lently beat up severall doores did fence and hold courts and threatned and minaced the tennants to take tacks and assedations from William and Patrick Leith, so that they were forced to flie and have left the lands wast ''. LEITHS OF HARTHILL IOI Six months later, in May r682, they went again to Kirkton, turned out Jean's tenant, James Anderson, and possessed themselves of his house ; and then to Harthill where, after threatening to pull Jean and Anna out of doors by force, they flung great stones at the windows and insults at Alexander Gordon, Jean's son-in-law; calling him " a feeble cullion and provockeing him in ane disdainful! manner in contempt of the Councills authority to come furth with there Councill letters and lawborrowes 1 which he raised against them for their former violences and oppressiones that they might cause him eat them ". Later they actually kidnapped Gordon and kept him con­ cealed from his relations, while they continued to molest the other members of the family, lying in wait for them armed and seizing their goods and their corn as it was being carted to the mills. Perhaps this imposing catalogue of crimes was to some extent exaggerated. The Lords of the Council at any rate found the greater part of it not proven ; only ordering the defendants to remove from Kirkton of Oyne and to pay the expenses of

1 Lawburrows : a process for compelling a man to find caution that he will do no harm to the person or property of the complainer, his family or tenants. 102 THE END OF THE the witnesses in the case, the hearing of which lasted eighteen days,at the rate of 16s. Scots a dayto those who came on horseback and 8s. to those who came afoot. This order, however, was not obeyed, and William Leith and his eldest son,'l>atrick, were put to the horn. In January, 1684, just eighteen months after their indictment before the Council, they entered into a bond to repossess Jean Forbes and the others in the lands of Kirkton of Oyne. That, so far as has been ascertained, was the end of this longdrawn quarrel. On January 25, 1687, Henry Gordon of Avachie was retoured as heir of his father, John Gordon of Avachie, in the town and lands of Harthill.1 The latter may be sup­ posed to have inherited from Alexander Gordon and .Anna Leith ; but his son's tenancy was very brief, for in a document of 169 I William and Patrick Leith are described as" older and younger of Hart­ hill ".2 At last they had gained the prize which they had pursued with such fury and pertinacity. But they did not keep it for long. By a decreet 1 Thomson's Inquests, Aberdeen, 469. On January 11, 1684, John Gordon, younger of Avochie, protested on behalf of him­ self and of Jean Forbes, etc., against the suspension of the horning of William and Patrick Leith. P.C.R. 3rd ser. viii, 19. 2 Jacobite Gess Roll for Aberdeen in 1715. (Third Spalding Club), p. 87. LEITHS OF HARTHILL 103 obtained before the Lords of Council and Session on July 23, 1692, Harthill and its members were adjudged to William Erskine of Pittodrie for pay­ ment and satisfaction of sums of money then amounting to 25,499 l. Scots. A signature of ad­ judication followed on January 25, 1693; and on March 2 sasine of the estate was granted to Erskine and registered six days later. There was a pro~ vision that the lands should be redeemable by William and Patrick on payment of the sums mentioned in the decreet ; but this was never made, and thenceforward Harthill was merged, as it remains, in Pittodrie. Tradition has it that the last Leith of Harthill, finding himself deeply involved in debt (as is apparent from the documents just cited), set fire to the house which had been his ancestors' through good and evil fortune for nearly two hundred years and afterwards fled his country.1 A rock shelter on Bennachie, from which he is supposed to have watched the conflagration, is still called Harthill's Cave. But whether the in­ cendiary was William or Patrick cannot be decided; for even the son, though he never succeeded to the lairdship, continued to be described as of Harthill. 1 New Stati"stical Account of Scotland, xii, 635. 104 END OF LEITHS OF HARTHILL He was so called, without the qualifying " younger ", so that William must by then have been dead, when his son and namesake, born to him by his wife Joan Ogilvy, entered the Scots College at Rome in 1712.1 This latest Patrick, who while at Rome was suspected of the Jansenist heresy, died in London on May 5, 1760. Twenty years later, under the date of April 2, 1780, the columns of the Gentle­ man's Magazine, that invaluable repository of the minutiae of eighteenth century history, contained a curious entry. "In the King's Bench, aged 91, Capt. James Leith of Harthill, Aberdeenshire, in Scotland, who married the Countess of Bucking­ ham, and has been for six years and upwards con­ fined, and supported chiefly by the charity of individuals in that place ". The unfortunate nonagenarian may have been a younger brother of Patrick of the Scots College, who, having been twenty-four in 1712, must have been born about 1688; but to style him" of Harthill" had become indeed an anachronism, and the statement as to his exalted alliance finds no corroboration in the peerage books.

1 Records of the Scots Colleges, i, 128. DESCRIPTION OF HARTHILL CASTLE By W. DOUGLAS SIMPSON, M.A., D.Litt., F.S.A., Scot.

HARTHILL CASTLE is an excellent specimen of that type of fortified mansion, or-'' house of fence'', whose distinguishing characteristic is the presence of a flanking tower at each of two diagonally opposite corners. Each tower, being placed en echelon to the main house, commands two faces of it, while the main house similarly enfilades the towers, and thus the defensive arrangement is complete : the different parts of the building, also, are so placed in relation to each other as to secure the maximum amount of lighting to the whole. This type of building-known as the Z-plan from its resemblance to that letter-flourished specially in the north parts of Scotland during the latter half of the ·sixteenth century. The main house lies north and south,1 and measures about 43 feet by 27. At its north-east corner is a rectangular tower, about 25 feet by 22,

1 At least, I have assumed so for convenience of reference. The correct orientation is shown on the plans. 105 106 DESCRIPTION OF set with a projection of 17 feet 5 inches from the east side of the main house, and 5 feet 7 inches from its north end. At the south-west corner is another tower, circular, not quite 20 feet in dia­ meter, one quarter engaged with the main house, and united to its western wall by a diagonal pan of masonry, so as to afford room for a newel stair within. Round the whole was a barmkin or court­ yard, enclosed by a wall of which a considerable portion, including the fine gatehouse, remains in a ruinous condition on the south side of the castle. The portal is in the south face of the north-east tower. It is round arched, and slightly drop­ centred, 6 feet 7 inches in height and 4 feet 4 inches broad, and exhibits the usual half-engaged roll moulding set on a chamfer. There was an outer door and an inner iron yett : the yett was secured by a couple of sliding bars, withdrawn into the east jamb. Within, a vaulted corridor or passage to the left turns the angle and conducts along the east side of the main house, giving access to the two apartments in its basement. The square tower itself is taken up at this level partly with the main stair and partly with a dark vaulted guardroom or cellar, entered by a door directly opposite the portal. This guardroom has three HARTHILL CASTLE 107 loops, one in the north wall, one in the east wall, and one flanking the entrance in a deep recess in the south wall, caused by the projection of the corridor. Beneath this loop is a wide-mouthed gunloop of ornate design.. Another loophole, opening from the corridor, flanks the entrance on the opposite side. At the north-west angle of the guardroom is a low recess with a runnel, the purpose of which is not apparent : perhaps it represents part ofthe arrangements of a brewhouse. To the left of the guardroom, and also contained in the square tower, is the main stair. For the first four steps this is straight, but thereafter it becomes a spiral stair 4 feet 7 inches in diameter, and ascending to the summit of the castle. The stair comprises fifty-four newel steps, of which the upper six are ruinous. It is lit by a series of loop­ holes which betray its presence outside in the north wall and shoulder of the tower. The lowest of these openings on the north side is rather wider than usual, and has jambs wrought with a cham­ fered roll-and-hollow moulding. Beyond the main stair the corridor turns south and runs along the east face of the central house for a distance of 17 feet 6 inches. It has two loops to the field, which in addition to providing light 108 DESCRIPTION OF could be used at need for bringing the approach to the portal under a cross fire. The basement of the main house is taken up by two vaulted apartments : the kitchen at its north end, whose .width is contracted by the passage; and a cellar beyond, which is L-shaped, lapping round the passage end. The kitchen has the usual large fireplace in its north wall, I 3 feet 10 inches wide internally, and 5 feet 6 inches deep from the outside of the arch, the span of which measures 8 feet. This arch is more rudely con­ structed than usual, the granite voussoirs being roughly dressed and without a splay. At the east end of the fireplace. is a benched recess, from which a widely-splayed shothole covers the ad­ jacent shoulder of the square tower. From the kitchen a service window, checked for a shutter, opens at the elbow of the corridor. On the opposite side are a sink and also the mouth of a runnel from a stone water-supply trough outside. In the mid-wall between the kitchen and the cellar is a recess or cup board, and in the east wall is a small aumbry. The kitchen is lit by a single window of fair size in the west wall : from the north ingoing of this a narrow straight service stair, lit by small loops, conducts to the screens HARTHILL CASTLE 109 in the hall above, turning the corner round a newel at the top. This stair is now in a ruinous con­ dition. The cellar beyond the kitchen has few features of interest. It receives light through two loop­ holes, east and south : from the latter opens a small angled aumbry, and there is a similar aumbry in the corner adjoining. In the west wall an oblique flight of four steps mounts southward, . conducting to a newel stair which, like the main stair at the diagonally opposite corner of the building, ascends to the topmost floor. This stair is likewise in good preservation, and consists of fifty-four steps : it is lit by narrow loopholes, and at its foot a double gunloop is arranged so as to command the field and also to rake the main house. From the south-west angle of the cellar, which is canted, access is obtained to a second and very dark cellar or store, circular and dome vaulted. This cellar is lit by a single loop to the south, and has a gunloop flanking each adjoining side of the main house. On the first floor the whole of the main house is occupied by the hall, and there is a private chamber in each tower. The main stair at the north-east angle communicates directly with the 110 DESCRIPTION OF chamber in the square tower, and through the in­ going of a window with the hall : the south-west stair is similarly arranged to serve both the hall and the room in the round tower. The service stair from the kitchen also reaches the hall by a landing and a door in its north-west angle. The convenience and skilful designing of all these service arrangements are an outstanding feature of the plan. The hall measures 30 feet by 18. In its east wall is a large straight lintelled fireplace, 9 feet 5 inches broad by 4 feet deep from the outside of the lintel, with moulded jambs and a cornice over the lintel. Chamfered laterally, the jambs carry in front a large half-engaged roll with a broad shallow fillet. The caps have a bold necking, and a heavy abacus, moulded with a quirked half en­ gaged bowtell, sweeps in a semi-hexagonal profile over the cap without reference to its outline. At the point where the tall splayed bases unite with the jamb there is a bowtell. The total over-all height of the jamb, cap and base included, is 4 feet 8 inches. Probably to admit of some con­ struction or piece of furniture, the north jamb has been partly cloured away. Over the lintel the cornice is hollowed beneath and splayed above. . HARTHILL CASTLE III This fireplace is a remarkable feature of the castle. Its whole character suggests the fifteenth century and leads to the idea that it has been taken from some older building. The lintel is formed of an enormous slab of granite, I I feet long, I foot 7 inches broad, and 7 inches thick : it has cracked through, and urgently requires a gun-metal clamp. The ingoings on each side have stone benches, above which on the north is an angled aumbry. The west wall of the hall is pierced by two good windows, of which the northern one is kept higher in order to clear a buffet in connection with the service stair : there is a small sink or slop drain close adjoining. This window has been subse­ quently contracted. In each other wall is a single window: from that on the east a passage (now blocked) leads through the south wall to the building that had stood against the interior of the barmkin wall. At either end it is checked for a door, and on the exterior was provided with a mantlet, the chase of which is clearly visible on the wall. The hall windows are of good size, with arched ingoings but without the usual benches. The private chambers off the hall in the two towers are well appointed. That in the north-east tower is rectangular : it has a small, bowtell- II2 DESCRIPTION OF moulded fireplace on the north side, and a good window in each of the other two outer walls. The south window has an angled aumbry. At the north-east corner is a mural garderobe. Between this room and the hall, but opening only from the former, and without direct communication with the stair, is a large vaulted strong-room, lit by a double window in the re-entrant angle. The other private chamber, in the round tower, is an irregular heptagon, and has a fireplace on the south side (the dressed stones of which have been torn out), two good windows, a spacious cupboard, and a small mural garderobe on the east side, with a nook for a lamp. None of the garderobes in the castle, it may be mentioned, appear to be furnished with shafts, but in each there are chases for a wooden seat. Both these private rooms, unlike the hall, are vaulted. Most of the vaulting of that in the square tower has collapsed : in the round tower the vault is quadripartite, with a moulded sand­ stone pendent of floriated design. Above this level there have been one other full storey and a garret in the main house, the arrange­ ment on each flat being similar to that on the main floor-one large apartment in the central house and HARTHILL CASTLE 113 a private room in each tower. As the timber floors have perished, the upper rooms in the main house are now quite empty and inaccessible, though their fireplaces, windows, mural recesses, garderobes, and the joist-holes still remain in the outer walls. The second floor in the main house was subdivided by a timber partition, as appears from its being furnished with two fireplaces, one in the south and one in the east wall : the garret had no fireplace at all. On the second floor the rooms in the two towers, being over the vaulted private chambers below, are still accessible. That in the square tower has two windows, a fireplace, a garderobe, a cupboard recess, and a large vaulted closet in the west wall, similar to that below, but lit by a window to the south, adjoining which is an aumbry. The room in the round tower is very similar to that below, having a fireplace, two windows, a mural recess, and a garderobe. The towers each contain one storey more than the main house, having thus four storeys and a garret in all. The main house and square tower are both finished off with the usual steep crowstepped gables and tall chimneys with broad, finely pro­ filed copings, of which some are wrought with a H B.L.H. 114 DESCRIPTION OF pleasing billet or checker-pattern moulding. On the two eastern angles of the square tower, and on the two free angles of the main building, are large round corbelled turrets, big enough to contain small chambers, from which open ornate gun­ loops of various design. As commonly in the period, these turrets are depressed below the eaves, and are set back well into the building. The cor­ belling is plain and continuous, in four courses ; except in the south-east turret, the middle course of which is in separate corbels, moulded and filleted, similar to those on the gatehouse. This mode of corbelling, with its alternation of single and continuous courses, is an early seventeenth century type-it is found, for example, at Blervie Castle, 1598 ; at Muchalls Castle, 1619-27; and in the near neighbourhood at Lickleyhead Castle, 1629. The two turrets on the main house were reached by wall-head steps from the garret; the third, at the north angle of the square tower, is entered on the level ; while the fourth, at the south angle of the square tower, communicates with an open parapet walk on the adjoining wall­ head, directly above and covering the portal. The battlement of this walk, which rested on a con­ tinuous one course corbel table, has fallen, so that HARTHILL CASTLE 115 what remains is a level path, the breadth of the wall-here 4 feet 7 inches thick-and 13 feet in length, which has been covered with cement to protect it from the weather. The height of this wall-walk above ground is about 41 feet. It is reached by a small subsidiary newel stair of five steps, entered from the main stair head. This small stair, after serving the parapet, was carried up higher so as to afford access to a cap house chamber over the main stair. In the west wall of this chamber is a neat fireplace, the lintel borne by filleted two course corbels. This bartisan over the door is an instructive example of the localised survival of wall-head de­ fence in a late fortified house, in all other parts of which this method of defence in the vertical plane has been succeeded by horizontal enfilading with gunloops, so that the parapets are everywhere else omitted, and the roofs rest on the eaves as in a modern house. There is a similar local parapet over the door at Tillycairn Castle, Cluny, Aber­ deenshire. The square tower was not roofed separately, but its roof died into that of the main house, an in­ terior gable being provided against the cap house over the stair. Everywhere the main gables spring 116 DESCRIPTION OF clear of the turrets and have curved skewputts, without shield or inscription. The round tower had a conical roof, whose chase appears on its chimney. Fragments of the Foudland slating are still embedded in the various raggles. The west re-entrant of the square tower shows a continuous corbel course just beneath the eaves. The castle is built of the usual rough, sub­ stantial, partly coursed rubble work, showing the frequent use of horizontal pinnings common at the period. In the basement the outer walls are mostly about 4 feet 7 inches thick. The upper two-thirds of the walls everywhere exhibit the beautifully battered profile always found in old Scottish buildings. Quoins, corbelling, copings, gunloops and the dressings at the various voids are all very carefully wrought in the finely toned pink Bennachie granite : and good relieving arches are inserted over all the major openings. The win­ dows are grooved for glass in their upper portions and were provided with shutters below : exter­ nally they were defended by iron gratings. A 4-inch chamfer is found on all the larger reveals. In the basement the large splayed gunloops are ornamented in various ways, and the smaller ones in the turrets are circular or diamond-shaped. HARTHILL CASTLE 117 Doubtless the walls externally were cased in harl, although no trace of this remains. To the interior faces large portions of the original very excellent plaster still adhere. Over the portal is a projecting moulded panel for a coat of arms. Within the guardroom are preserved two pediments, one of a late Gothic or pseudo-Gothic design, with a depressed double ogee moulded arch: it bears the date 1601, and a much worn inscription in large, well-formed, raised letters, of which . . . MOST LIBERA • • • can still be read. The other pediment is semi-round, with a finial on top, and displays a winged angel­ head. Various carved pieces are built into the adjoining farm steading. They include a large granite keystone pendent, no doubt from the fallen vault on the first floor of the square tower : it is eight sided, the sides being mostly carved with foliaceous designs, while the boss exhibits a five­ leaved rosette. Another fragment shows what seems to be part of a chevron enrichment of Romanesque appearance, being evidently an example of that harking back to mediaeval motifs which was not uncommon in the early seven­ teenth century, particularly in the north-east. Over the farm.house door is a freestone slab show- 118 DESCRIPTION OF ing a unicorn gorged and chained-evidently -a supporter of the royal arms, which no doubt occu­ pied one of the now empty panels over the gate­ house. Alike in design and in detail Harthill Castle is one of the finest specim.ens of its class. The plan is an exceedingly skilful one. The Z-arrangement of the balanced and echeloned towers, besides its defensive quality, is also admirably suited for lighting, and permits of a very ingenious and com­ pact grouping together of the private and public apartments on each flat, with stairs conveniently arranged to serve both. And the elevation pro­ duced by the Z-plan, with its receding planes of building, is altogether admirable. Seen from the front, the castle seems to face the spectator like a man in a defensive posture, with one arm on guard against his assailant and the other with­ drawn for a blow. This sturdy and repelling quality in the elevations, arising from the plan, is emphasised by the martial garniture of the wall­ heads, with their picturesque baronial features of turrets and corbie-steps. The moulded detail is always well thought out and refined, even in the loftiest and most inaccessible parts, such as the chimney copes. HARTHILL CASTLE II9 One of the most valuable features at Harthill Castle is the partial preservation of the barmkin wall, with the gatehouse. The barmkin appears originally to have been of considerable extent, enclosing the east side of the castle : but only the south wall remains, and there is no indication of where it returned against the castle" At a point a little east from the middle of the south face of the main house, a wall 3 feet thick, and originally some 14 feet in height, runs southward for a distance of 12 feet 8 inches, when it turns to the east at an angle of 102°, and con­ tinues 37 feet 6 inches to the gatehouse. Part of a single plain continuous corbel course remains at a height of 9 feet 9 inches, ranging with the lowest member of the corbel-table on the gatehouse. Along the inside of the wall were offices, of which one window in part remains, with a slop drain below. The gatehouse consists of an oblong building, with a frontage of I I feet and a projec­ tion of 2 feet. The portal is round arched and slightly drop-centred, 8 feet 9 inches high and 5 feet 8 inches broad, with a large roll, half­ engaged on a broad chamfer. No bar-hole is apparent. Within, a passage 5 feet 1 1 inches wide lies between two cheeks of walling 7 feet long, at 120 DESCRIPTION OF HARTHILL CASTLE the inner end of which are the rebates for a second door. Behind this the trance has been prolonged into the courtyard for at least I 5 feet. East of the gatehouse, where the barmkin wall remains for a length of some 14 feet, there appears to have been a guardroom, the foundations of which may still be traced. Above the arch the gatehouse is projected on a remarkably rich and effective corbel table, forming a cap house, the floor of which, over the trance, was of wood. The corbelling is similar to that on the south-east turret of the castle. In the front of this cap house is a tall window, which was glazed above, shuttered below, and barred without, having an empty moulded panel on either side : above there has been a gable with flat skews, moulded spur-stones, and on the latter obelisk finials of an early Renaiss­ ance pattern. The shoulders of the cap house are furnished with small ornamental gunloops raking the barmkin wall. In the east shoulder a small window partly remains. East and north of the castle the old garden en­ closure, measuring about 90 yards along the re­ spective fronts, is still marked out by venerable ash trees.

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO, LTD, THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, GLASGOW LEITH OF HARTHILL A PEDIGREE NEWLY CONSTRUCTED FROM CONTEMPORARY SOURCES Patrick Leith Janet Leslie of Harthill [? dau. of John d. 1597 Leslie of Wardis] [descended from William Leith of Barnis, d. 1380] I I I I (1) Helen Auchinleck=John ' Leith= (2) Katherine, William Christine dead in of Harthill dau. of William of Premnay, m. 1548, 1599 d.c. 1625 seventh Lord Forbes living 1604 John Lummisden, [m. (1) Barclay of son and heir of Thomas Gartly] Lummisden of Clovay

I I I I I I I I ( 1) [? Beatrix =John Leith= (2) Janet, dau. of Patrick George, =Helen ... William Helen Bessie Jean

Fraser] I of Harthill 1 William Gordon portioner of ofNewlandis m. John m. James d.c. 1630 of Gight, Bonytoun., Seaton of Ogilby m. (2) Adam slain 1608 John of Achorteis Abercromby of Newlandis Auldrayne I I I Robert John George d. before 1617 d. before 1617

I I I ! I ' (1) Margaret,=John Leith=(2) Jean, dau. Alexander William Leith Patrick= [Anna Aber­ George, ... dau. of Elizabeth dau. of John of Harthill ' of Abraham of Newrayne of Auldrayne, cromby of slain 1643 Adam Aber­ d.c. 1631 Gordon of d.c. 1670 Forbes of afterwards of Birkenbog] cromby of Newton Blacktoun Harthill, d. before Auldrayne 1712 [Alexander] I Patrick Leith Anna= Alexander I I Marjorie Janet b.c. 1625 Gordon of Patrick Leith= Joan George executed Harthill, of Harthill I Ogilby Oct. 26, 1647 son of Gordon of Newton I I Patrick Leith James Leith = [Countess of d. May 5,1760 [called of Harthill] Buckingham] d. Apr. 2, 1780