/. f : PUBLICATIONS OF THE SCOTTISH HISTORY SOCIETY VOLUME XLVII CHRONICLES OF THE FRASERS February 1905 I ' V CHRONICLES OF THE FRASERS THE WARDLAW MANUSCRIPT ENTITLED ‘POLICHRONICON SEU POLICRATICA TEMPORUM, OR, THE TRUE GENEALOGY OF THE FRASERS.’ 916-1674 By Master JAMES FRASER MINISTER OF THE PARISH OF WARDLAW (NOW KIRKHILL), INVERNESS Edited from the Original Manuscript with Notes and Introduction, by WILLIAM MACKAY EDINBURGH Printed at the University Press by T. and A. Constable for the Scottish History Society 1905 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION, vii Catalogue of Manuscripts, .... xliv Original Title-page of the Wardlaw Manuscript, . xlvii POLICHRONICON SEU POLB£RATICA TEMPORUM, I INDEX, 525 ILLUSTRATION REPRODUCTION OF PART OF A PAGE OF THE MANUSCRIPT, at page 1. INTRODUCTION The author of Polichronicon, which has for the last hundred years been better known as the ‘ Ward law Manuscript,’ was Master James Fraser of Phopachy, near Inverness, minister of the parish of Wardlaw or Kirkhill, in which Phopachy is situated. He was one of the twenty - four children of Mr. William Fraser of Phopachy and his good wife, Alison Fraser. Mr. William took the degrees of master of arts and doctor of medicine; but he ultimately studied divinity, and was minister of Kilmorack from 1630 to 1643, minister of Killearnan or Redcastle from 1643 to 1649, and minister of the Second Charge of Inverness from 1649 till his death in November 1659.1 Our author was born on 1st January 1634.2 The pro- bability is that he first saw the light at Phopachy, where his father may have resided when minister of Kilmorack, as he did while minister at Inverness. The child was named after his grandfather, James Fraser, Lord Lovat’s major domo, or fear-an-trgh (the man of the house), who, in 1599, acquired in wadset Lovat’s lands of Phopachy, which he had previously possessed under lease.3 To these lands James succeeded on his father’s death. He was succeeded in them by his son, Alexander, who was rewarded for his good services to Simon, the Lord Lovat of the Forty-five, by being 1 P. 117, and Scott’s Fasti. See his descent from the Frasers of Fruid, p. 115 etseq. 2 P- 268. 3 Pp, 235, 268. vii viii POLICHRONICON persecuted to death by that nobleman; and to Alexander succeeded his son, Robert, in whose time—about 1740— Lord Simon redeemed the wadset. The connection with Phopachy thus ceased, but Alexander’s son, James, the London apothecary who attended Lord Simon during his last hours, acquired the estate of Torbreck, near Inverness, which remained in his family until 1834. To him it was that Lovat said on the- scaffold, £ My dear James, I am going to heaven, but you must continue to crawl a little longer in this evil world.’ Several families of standing in Scotland and in England now trace their descent from the apothecary and his grandfather, the writer of the ‘ Wardlaw Manuscript.’ That writer received his early education in the grammar- school of Inverness. Along with his chiefs son, James Fraser, he boarded with his schoolmaster, John Robertson —‘ a pope,’ with whom ‘ we must content ourselves to remain sub ferula."11 He was with Robertson as late as 1650, and probably until 1651, when he entered King’s College, Aberdeen,2 where, in 1655, he took his degree of master of arts.3 A student of diligence and gifts, Mr. James, as he was now by virtue of his degree entitled to be called, ripened into a scholar of culture and erudition. In addition to English and Gaelic, he wrote Latin and French with ease; and he had some knowledge of Hebrew, Greek, German, and Italian. He was given to writing, and the Catalogue of his works, which he inserts in the Manuscript, and is printed in this volume, is a remarkable record of industry and versa- tility. Few literary workshops of his day saw so much 1 2 2 P. 349. P. 398; Alumni of Kings College, p. 19. Fasti Aberd. (Spalding Club), p. 515 ; Officers and Graduates of University and Kings College (New Spalding Club), p. 193. INTRODUCTION ix labour as the little room in the thatched manse of Kirkhill which he calls ‘ my studdy at Mons Mariae.’ From it came forth, during his incumbency of forty-eight years, upwards of fifty volumes on subjects varying from history and theology to songs and jests. These extended to thousands of pages of manuscript. The Polkhronicon alone, if printed in full, would make perhaps two volumes of the size of the present one; and the three volumes of ‘ Triennial Travels ’ would extend to almost as much. Mr. James wrote poetry in English and Gaelic, and he was the author of an ‘ Irish1 or Gaelic dictionary, and of a volume on place-names. In addition to the works specified in the Catalogue he wrote an account of Loch Ness, which appears in the Transactions of the Philosophical Society for 1699 ; ‘A Short Chronologic and Genealogie of the Bissets and Frasers of Lovat,’ given in volume ii. of Macfarlane's Genealogical Collections, printed by this Society; and ‘ A True Genealogie of the Frasers, . being the Marrow of y* he relates of ye Frasers in his Poli- chronicon.’ So far as the editor has been able to find, these writings are all lost, with the exception of Polichronicon; the ‘ Triennial Travels,’ which are in the possession of the author’s descendant, Miss Hilda M. Paterson, of Birkwood, Banchory, who has kindly allowed the editor to peruse them; ‘Providentia,’ which is in the Advocates’ Library; the ‘ Bill of Mortality,’ a most interesting record, which was discovered some years ago among the family papers of Mr. Ramsay Biscoe of Newton, and is now in the General Register House; and copies of the ‘ Short Chronologic ’ and ‘ True Genealogie.’ The loss of his sermons and theological and philosophical treatises is to be regretted, but more so the disappearance of his Gaelic poetry and Gaelic dictionary, his book on the flora of his parish, his works on place-names and weather lore, his medical treatise, and his collections of songs, epigrams, epitaphs, jests, and railleries. Specimens of POLICHRONICON his English verse are scattered throughout this volume,—the most ambitious being Lovat’s Last Farewell— ‘ Farewell, fond world, so vofull, full of care ! Map of all mourning, toil, trouble, and dispare. Now my Yule royall I will keep above ’Mongst saints and angels with the god of love. Farewell, fond world, all friends I bid adue Till they and I in glore our loves renue.’1 The Mournful Elegy on p. 510 appears also to be from his pen—- ‘ Farewell, dear soul, now fre’ed from haps and feares, Whilst we doe writ thin Epitaphs in teares. Alas ! unsavoury flowers bud their full prime, Whilst the fragrant rose is pluckt before its time !’ Fraser, having rested for a time after finishing his course at college, resolved to see something of the world. ‘ Travel,’ he writes, ‘ is by most men concluded to be one of the main meanes and advantages, conducible to compasse outward manners, to rectifie the judgement, enrich the mind with knowledge, and polish mankind.’2 Imbued by these sentiments, he, on 7th June 1657, and when he was in the twenty-fourth year of his age, mounted his Highland pony, and, accompanied by a Highland servant, left Phopachy on a tour through Great Britain and the Continent. He carried a testimonial in Latin from the Presbytery and Magistrates of Inverness, and the following passport from the acting colonel and the secretary of the English garrison of that town :— ' Permit the bearer hereoff. Master James Fraser, Student in Divinity, with his servant and horse, to passe to Aberdeen, and so forward to England, without let or molestation, he acting nothing prejudicial to his Highness or the Commonwealth. ‘ Given under my hand and scale, at the Sconce near Inverness, the 5 of June, 1657. Myles Man. * To all whom it may concern. Jo. Roklay.’ P. 311- a ‘ Triennial Travels.’ INTRODUCTION xi He that night lodged in the house of his uncle, Alexander Fraser, in the East Street (now High Street) of Inverness, to whom he next morning bade farewell in a pint of claret and sugar, for which he paid one shilling sterling. Travelling by Nairn, Forres, and Elgin, to Aberdeen, he there further armed himself with a Latin testimonial from the principal and professors of King’s College. In Edinburgh he was introduced to General Monk, from whom he obtained a second passport:— * Permit the bearer hereoff, Mr. James Fraser, Student in Divinity, with his servant, horse, and necessaries, to passe to Cambridge, Oxford, or any other part in England, without molestation. ‘Given under my hand and scale, at Dalkeith, the 17 day of June, 1657 yeares. George Monck. ‘ To all officers and souldrs and others qm these may concern. Jo. Clerk, Sec.’ From Edinburgh Mr. James travelled by Haddington and Berwick to Tynemouth, where he took ship for London. He arrived in the great city on 4th July, having called at the principal ports on the way. Making London his head- quarters, he thoroughly explored the city itself, and visited Oxford, Cambridge, and other places of interest. On 8th December he left London for the Continent, and, selling his horse at Hastings, crossed to Dieppe, with other nine passengers, in the good ship The Roe of Rye. In Dieppe resided his uncle, Captain Hugh Fraser, who settled in France many years previously, and whom our traveller had never seen. The old skipper refused to believe that the young man was his nephew—perhaps he had already been imposed ■upon by wanderers from Scotland; whereupon Mr.