The Bass Rock: its civil and ecclesiastical history, geology, martyrology, zoology and botany

Front matter

Eriatfl* in Od I. AVATER A ARBOREA.L. THE BASS ROCK ITS CIVIL AND ECCLESIASTIC HISTOKY GEOLOGY MAETYEOLOGY ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY. EDINBURGH: W. P. KENNEDY, ST ANDREW STREET. LONDON : HAMILTON, ADAMS & CO. MDCCCXLVIII. EDINBURGn: PRINTED EV JOnN GREIG, LAWXMARXET. CONTENTS. Preface. Civil and Ecclesiastic History of the Bass: by the Set. Thomas M'Crie, ..... [1] Geology of the Bass: by Hugh Miller, . . [49] The Martyrs of the Bass: by the Rev. James Anderson. Zoology of the Bass : by John Fleming, B.D., F.R.S.E., Professor of Natural Science in the New College. Edinburgh, ...... 383 Botany of the Bass: by John Hutton Balfour, M.D., F.R.S.E., Professor of Botany in the Universityof Edinburgh, ....... PEEFACE. n these days of joint-stock speculation, it will not excite surprise that a literary work should be got up on a principle somewhat similar.

We see no reason why authors may not invest their wits, as merchants do their wealth, in a common capital, nor why a good book may not be produced by a judicious combination of scrip and division of labour. The only feature of the present undertaking which seems to require explana tion, is the limited dimensions of the ground selected for our operations. We must confess that it has been barely sufficient to afford room for five of us, and that we have been in danger occasionally of jostling and tripping each other in the course of our proceedings. But it would ill have become us to quarrel with this, when we reflected how very different our confinement VI rREF.V'E. has been from that of the unhappy prisoners formerly doomed to languish on this barren rock, more especially when we were not only allowed, what they were often denied, " the liberty of the whole island," but invited to extend our researches as far back as the time when rocks and islands in general came into existence.

Nor is the narrowness of the spot, which may be re garded as the terminus of our diverging lines, altogether without its advantages. A larger field, embrac ing other castles formerly devoted to the same purposes with the Bass, might, no doubt, have furnished ampler materials for illustration ; but by confining ourselves to one, we secure unity of design, and what the scene lacks in point of grandeur, it gains in point of interest — on the same principle that Sterne " took his single captive, and having first shut him up in his dungeon, looked at him through the twilight of his grated door, to take his picture." The volume opens with the Civil and Ecclesiastic History of the Bass,— a precedence which this portion owes to its partaking, more than any of the other parts, of an introductory character.

Preface

. VII the surface of history, and which, like the ruins that attest them, were fast hastening into decomposition and " dumb forgetfulness." The Geological description of the rock which follows, comes from the pen of one of whom it may be truly said, as it was of Goldsmith, that " there was nothing he touched that he did not adorn." It would be mere affectation in one who can hardly boast of having mas tered the nomenclature of the science which Mr Miller has done so much to popularize and advance, to pretend to act as his cicerone. And, indeed, I feel very much in the predicament of the servant who, after in vain attempting to enunciate the name of a Russian noble man at a party, begged as a particular favour that his Excellence would " show up" himself. The Historical Notices of the prisoners confined in the Bass, as they necessarily form the longest, will not, it is hoped, prove the least interesting portion of the volume.

It was impossible, within shorter com pass, to do any measure of justice to so many names. A slight inspection of these biographies will show that they are no hasty compilations, nor one-sided pictures, but an accurate and impartial collection of facts, the result of laborious and intelligent inquiry into the most authentic sources. The Records of the Privy Council and the Justiciary Courts have been carefully examined, and the facts thus elicited have been pre sented exactly as they appeared when disinterred, many of them for the first time, from the archives of

PREFACE.

. the Register Office, being left, in a great measure, to tell their own tale, and teach their own lessons. The volume closes with notices of the Natural His tory of the rock, as it now appears, since it has reverted into the possession of its original proprietors, the solan geese and other sea-fowl, and in the upper dress in which it presents itself to the admirers of nature. It can hardly fail to enhance the interest of our book, that it affords its readers the rare treat of a zoological and botanical survey of the island, in the company of such men as Professors Fleming and Balfour, both of whom are so celebrated in their respective walks, and so well fitted to communicate, in the best spirit, the stores of their varied information. It only remains for me to add, that the whole work was originally projected by a gentleman, whose warm interest in the history of the Bass Rock is strengthened by local associations — Mr James Crawford, jun., W.S., — to whose indefatigable exertions in securing the ser vices of those employed in the literary department, and in providing materials and embellishments for the volume, the public are mainly indebted for its appearance.

Thomas M'Crie. Edinburgh, December 1847. H1ST0EY OF THE BASS. BY THE REV. THOMAS M'CRIE. a HISTORY OF THE BASS. cr^gg^j/LD Hector Boece, speaking of the Bass as ** aPPeare(i in his day, describes it as " ane wounderful crag, risand within the sea, with l/^&S^D so narrow and strait hals (passage) that na schip nor boit may arrive bot allanerlie at ane part of it. This crag is callet the Bas ; unwinnabill by ingine of man. In it are coves, als profitable for defence of men, as (if) thay were biggit be crafty in dustry. Every thing that is in that crag is ful of ad miration and wounder."* Such as the Bass stood in the beginning of the sixteenth century when Boece flourished, so does it stand in the nineteenth century, unaltered in a single feature, and still " ful of admiration and Avounder."

Rising abruptly to the height of four hundred and twenty feet above the level ofthe sea, about two miles from the shore, and three miles east from the ancient royal burgh of North Berwick, it pre- * Bellendon's Boece, vol. i. p. 37. sents to the stranger one of the most striking objects on entering the mouth of the Firth ; and to the visitor in summer, when the dark-browed rock is encircled with myriads of sea-fowl, wheeling around it in all va rieties of plumage, and screaming in all the notes ofthe aquatic scale, when it may be said, The Isle is full of noises, Sounds, and u'ild airs, that give delight, and hurt not, the scene appears like enchantment, and leaves an im pression not easily forgotten. But leaving to be described by more competent hands, those natural features of the Bass which have remained unchanged by the lapse of ages, it falls to my lot to record scenes and events connected with its his tory which are past and gone — never, we hope, to re turn.

About halfway up the southern slope ofthe rock, are the remains of an ancient chapel, pointing to an early date, and associated with the introduction of Christianity into Scotland. At the base of the same slope, clinging as it were to the sides of the precipice, are the moulder ing walls ofa fortification, within which a number of our pious countrymen were incarcerated during the reigns of the last Stuarts. These two ruins, between which, judging even from their outward aspect and structure, there occurs a chasm of some duration, are curiously enough suggestive of the two periods to which our re searches extend ; the interval between the first and the second embracing what have been truly called the dark ages — dark in an historical as well as religious sense ; for it is a remarkable fact, that the lights of history shine more brightly on our earlier annals, when the simplicity of the Christian faith was retained, than on later times when the Pope reigned paramount in our land.

The old chapel carries us back to these times of primitive simplicity ; while to the associations connected with the battered fortress at its base, this rock, barren and insignificant in itself, is mainly in debted for the interest it now possesses in the eyes of Scotsmen. The first notice of the Bass in our ancient records, is in connection with one of those religious hermits, who at a very early period, driven probably by perse cution, or by the wars between the Scots and the Picts, selected it as his place of retreat. The name of this hermit of the Bass was Saint Baldred. He was of Scottish descent, and flourished at the end ofthe sixth and the beginning of the seventh century, having died in the year of our Lord 606 Our information concern ing him is not only meagre, but so mixed up with the legends of superstition, that it is difficult to distinguish between the true and the fabulous.

He has been termed, for example, Bishop of Glasgow, and the successor of St Kentigern or Mungo, the patron saint of that city.* Whereas, so far as authentic history goes, there is no evidence that Mungo was a bishop at all, any more than St Columba, who is acknowledged on all hands to have been no more than a Presbyter, though he was the head of the monastery, or religious college of Iona.t This fact, resting on the authority of the venerable Bede, has sadly puzzled our episcopal antiquaries, who have been obliged to resort to the ex traordinary supposition, that St Columba must have kept a bishop in his monastery, as a gentleman may keep a family doctor, expressly for the purpose of con ferring holy orders on those whom he sent forth to * Thorn. Dempsteri Hist. Eccl. Gent. Scot. torn. i. p. 65. f Dalrymple's Collections, p. 136. preach the gospel !* Of one thing we may be certain, that until Palladius was sent by the Pope in 420, the Scots knew nothing about bishops.

" Before his arri val," says Fordun, " the Scots had presbyters and monks only, as teachers of the faith and ministers of the sacra ments, following the rule of the primitive church."t And it was long after this before they could be prevailed on to part with their ancient pastors, to whom they were naturally attached as having been chosen by themselves ; " for," says Bale, " they had their bishops and ministers formerly elected according to the Word, by the votes of the people, as appears to have been prac tised in Britain after the manner of Asia : But this did not please the Romans, who were fonder of cere monies and disliked the Asiatics."! In all probability, therefore, the veritable St Bald red of the Bass was a simple Culdee presbyter, residing for safety and retirement in the island, as Co lumba did in Iona, and Adamnan, another presbyter, in Inchkeith, but sallying forth occasionally to teach the rude natives on the mainland the doctrines of * Lloyd, bishop of St Asaph, Historical Account, p. 102.

Keith's Ca talogue of Scottish Bishops, pres. 20. In Spots-wood's list of the bishops of Glasgow, St Baldred is omitted, and from St Mungo, the first bishop in 599, there is a total blank to John Achaian in 1129 — the small space of about five centuries and a half! And yet Keith could be " pretty positive that St Mungo was truly a bishop." Spots-wood's Hist. App. p. 46. Keith's Cat. p. 137. This is as good as his setting down Amphibalus as the first archbishop of St Andrews, when it turns out that this amphibalus was the Latin or rather Greek for the shag-cloak of a certain abbot, which had been mistaken by some blundering monk for the proper name of a bishop! Usser. Antiq. p. 281. Lloyd, p. 151. Dalrymple, p. 119. t Joan. Fordun, Scotichronicon, lib. iii. ch. viii. His words are, " Ante cujus adventum, habebant Scoti fidei doctores, ac sacra iuentorum minis tratores, presbyteros solummodo vel monachos, ritum sequentes ecclesiæ primitivæ."

X Balœi Scrip. Brit, apud Usser. Brit. Eccl. Ant. p. 417. Christianity. " Impelled," says Bishop Lesley, " with an ardent desire for propagating religion, he devoted himself to the Picts, and instructed them in the way of Christ." * According to a still more ancient autho rity, Simeon of Durham, " the bounds of his pastoral care embraced the whole county, from Lammermoor to Inveresk."t " In these days," says Bede, " people never came into a church but only for hearing the word and prayer. All the care of these Doctors was to serve God, not the world, — to feed souls, not their own bodies. Wherefore a religious habit was then much reverenced ; and if any priest entered a village, incontinently all the people would assemble, being desirous to hear the word of life ; for the priests did not go into villages upon any other occasion, except to preach, or visit the sick, or in a word — to feed souls."!

But only mark how our simple hermit becomes trans mogrified, when viewed through monkish spectacles at the distance of some centuries. " This suffragan of St Kentigern," says one of these chroniclers, " flourished in Lothian, in virtues and in illustrious miracles. Being eminently devout he renounced all worldly pomp, and following the example of John the Divine, resided in solitary places, and betook himself to the islands of the sea. Among these, he had recourse to one called Bass, where he led a contemplative life, in which, for many years, he held up to remembrance the most blessed- Ken tigern his instructor." Then come the " illustrious mi racles," of which the following is a specimen : " There was a great rock between the said island (the Bass) and the adjacent land, which remained fixed in the middle * Lesl.

Hist. lib. iv. p. 145. f Statistical Account, parish of Whitekirk, vol. ii. 38. { Bed. Hist. lib. iii. c. 26. Petrie's Hist. p. 61. of the passage, often causing shipwrecks. The blessed Baldred, moved by piety, ordered himself to be placed on this rock , which being done, at his nod the rock was immediately lifted up, and like a ship driven by the wind, proceeded to the nearest shore, and thenceforth remained in the same place as a memorial of this mi racle, and is to this day called St Baldred's Coble or Cock -boat."* And, indeed, we are informed by a modern writer who has made St Baldred the hero of a poem,t that a small rock at the mouth of Aldhame Bay still bears the name of Baudrons Boat. We have also St Baldred's Cradle, another rock, " which tradition says elegantly is rocked by the winds and the waves," — Baldred's Well, and Baudron's (the Scotch name for Baldred's) Statue, which was demolished by " an irre verent mason."

All this certainly proves the existence of such a personage, and the high repute in which he was held in that neighbourhood. But, at the risk of incurring the epithet bestowed on the iconoclastic ma son, we must say, with all respect for St Baldred's nod, that the agency of a good sea-storm or flood-tide ap pears to us a more probable explanation of the cock boat story. St Baldred, it would seem, died on the Bass,! on the 6th of March in the year 606. Even at that early age, Christians had begun to pay a superstitious veneration to the relics of distinguished saints ; and the honour of having the dead body of the revered anchorite deposited among them might naturally become an object of competition among his rude and half-civilized disciples. * Jamieson's Hist. Culdees, p. 190. f St Baldred of the Bass, and other Poems ; by James Miller.

Edin. 1824. X This at least is stated by Boece, though other accounts mention Ald hame as the place of his death. A story is told, however, relating to his burial, which, though not without its parallels in after times, bears too strong an impress of its monkish origin, to be referred so far back as the early date to which it lays claim. The legend, originating probably in some pious fraud of subsequent contrivance, " to avoid scandalous divisions," grows in pomp and circumstance even before our eyes, in the ancient records which have transmitted it. The first version of the story is very simple, being to the effect, " that the people waxing wroth, took arms, and each of them sought by force to enjoy the same ; and when the matter came to issue, the said sacred body was found all whole in three distinct places ofthe house where he died ; so as all the people of each village coming thither and carrying the same away, placed it in their churches, and kept it in great honour and veneration for the miracles that at each place it pleased God to work " The next version is more in accordance with the solemnity of the occasion : " The inhabitants ofthe three parishes which were under his charge (Aldharne, Tynningham, and Preston), as soon as they knew of his death, assembled in three different troops at Aldhame, where he breathed his last, severally begging his body.

But as they could not agree among themselves, they, by the advice of a certain old man, left the body unburied, and separately betook themselves to prayer. Morning being come, they found three bodies perfectly alike, and all prepared Avith equal pomp for interment." So saith the Breviary of Aberdeen. Time advances, and the wonder gathering in bulk, and catching up more rubbish in its way as it rolls down the dark ages, we are informed by Hector Boece in 1526, that the three bodies were found by the priests, when it was hardly dawn (sub dubiam lucern); and that, by orders of the bishop, they were conveyed, amidst the devout accla mations of the multitude, to the three neighbouring churches.* Another, improving on the miracle still farther, assures us that it was effected " by the prayers of the saint himself ;" and, to crown the whole, John Major adduces it as an irrefragable proof of transubstan tiation, — a doctrine, by the way, not even broached in the Church of Rome till three centuries after the death of Baldred !f This ridiculous story, fit only for the regions of romance, has been rendered into verse bv the poet already referred to : Each load was borne most pompously, Decked with its cross and rosary ; While, one by one, three corpses lay Like twin-brothers, transformed to clay, Moulded so nicely to each other, The eye no difference might discover.

And as the tapers flickered dim, The features looked uncouth — They raised the sheet from Baldred's face, They turned the corpses where they lay ; In each his features clearly trace, Crowned with a tuft of silvery grey. They deemed his bright etherial flame, Which mortal form could not control, From heaven had held a trio frame To suit his zealous warmth of soul.* With regard to the old Chapel of the Bass, though it may mark the spot of Baldred's humble cell, there is reason to believe that it is of comparatively modern * H. Boeth. lib. ix. ; Dempster, Hist. Eccl. i. 65. t Jamieson's Culdees, 188. Bishop Lesley seems half-ashamed of the story, (De Reb. Gest. lib. iv. 145). Archdeacon Nicolson, speaking of the credulity of Boece, says, " His terrible story of a monstrous otter, which struck down oaks with its steer, — the sea-monks ofthe Isle of Bass, — and the wild men, who could pull up the tallest fir with as much ease as an ordinary body can root up a turnip, — are proper companions.

(Scottish Hist. Library, p. 9.) X St Baldred of the Bass, part i. 19, 21. date. It would appear that this island at one time formed a parish, and that the " parish kirk in the craig of the Bass" was consecrated, in honour of St Baldred, so late as 1542, when it is more than probable the structure was first erected, under the patronage of that notorious enemy ofthe Reformation, Cardinal Beaton.* Should any of our readers be curious to know the subsequent history of this Chapel, we fear they will be disappointed. All we can say about it is, that it may have been occasionally frequented as a place of worship till the Reformation. Tradition says that it was customary for the Cistercian nuns of the neigh bouring abbey of North Berwick, to pay an annual pilgrimage to another old chapel in the adjacent island of Feddery, the ruins of which still remain.

They may have sometimes visited the Bass chapel also. In 1544, there were twenty-two of these nuns, as we learn from a document which not one of the poor crea tures was able to subscribe ; each of them, from the prioress downwards, having this added to her signa ture by the notary, " With my hand at ye pen."f They must have been reduced to great poverty too by this time, for their convent had been pillaged, burnt, and destroyed in 1529,+ full thirty years before the Refor mation, which has been unjustly made the scape-goat of a great many offences of this kind. Our Reformers * The following is our authority :— " 1542. The v. d. of Jany. M. Vil lielm Gybsone, byschop of Libariensis and Sufiraganeus to Dawid Beton, Cardynall and Archebysschop of Santandros, consecrat and dedicat the paris kirk in the craig of the Bass, in honor of Sant Baldred, bysschop and confessor, in presens of maister Jhon Lawder, arsdene in Teuidaill, noter publict."

(Extracta ex Chronicis Scocie, p. 255. Printed by the Abbotsford Club, 1812). t Carte Monialium de North Berwic, printed for the Bannatyne Club, p. 60. X Ibid, p. 47. were exceedingly desirous to keep up all the " kirks oi the nunneries," or places of worship connected with these establishments, and to have them supplied with " qualified ministers." And it is remarkable how soon they provided all the parishes of Scotland, either with ministers or with readers, a humbler class of officials, whose duty it was to read the scriptures, and the simple prayers of Geneva prefixed to the psalms. But they had no notion of keeping up service at useless and empty shrines, where there was no population ; and little did they reck where St Baldred died, or in how many places he was buried. As the Bass, therefore, could furnish few or no hearers, we are not surprised to find in the " Buik of Assignations of the Ministers and Reidars Stipends for the year 1576," the following entry, " Bass and Auldhame neidis na reidaris."* All we can say of its future fate is comprehended in one sentence, written by Fraser of Brea in 1677: "Below the garden, there is a chapel for divine service ; but in regard no minister was allowed for it, the ammunition of the garrison was kept therein."

Notwithstanding this " desecration," we are informed that a " young lady, in the presence of her father, was here solemnly confirmed iii her Romish faith and profession, and the due ritual services were gone through in the presence of the keeper of the Bass and his boat assistant."t The earliest proprietors of the island on record were the ancient family of the Lauders, who from this were usually designated the Lauders of the Bass. A charter of it in favour of Robert Lauder from William de Lam bert, bishop of St Andrews, dates as far back as 1316. According to Henry the Minstrel, Robert Lauder ac- * Register of Ministers 1567, printed for Bannatyne Club, p. 74. t Statistical Account, North Berwick, vol. ii. p. 331. niSTORY OF THE BASS. companied Wallace in many of his exploits. In the aisle of the lairds of the Bass, in the old church of North Berwick, a tombstone once bore the following inscription, in Latin-Saxon characters, — " Here lies the good Robert Lauder, the great Laird of Congalton and the Bass, who died May 1311."

The crest they assumed from it was quite characteristic, — a solan goose sitting on a rock ; but the motto was rather a burlesque on the original, Sub umbra alarum tuarum* The island continued in the possession of this ancient fifmily for about five centuries.t It does not, however, appear when it first began to be used as a " strength" or fortified place. The first time we hear of it having been thus employed is in the year 1405, when it afforded a temporary retreat to James, the youngest son of Robert III., before embarking, under the guardianship of the Earl of Orkney, on that ill-fated expedition, which issued in his being taken by the English, and detained nineteen years in captivity. That even at that early period there was a castle, or some fortification on the island, is a supposition strengthened by another fact.

On the return to Scotland of that young prince, now James the First, in the year 1424, we are informed that Walter Stewart, eldest son of Murdac or Murdo, Duke of Albany, who had acted as Regent, was arrested and " sent prisoner to the Castle of the Bass ;'% and soon after, his father was committed to Carlraverock Castle, and his mother, the duchess, to Tantallan, " places re- * Jamieson's Illustrations of Slezer. t In the Appendix to this part, the reader will find the above mentioned charter, and a full account of the family of Lauder, kindly furnished for our volume by the lineal descendant and representative of the family, Sir Thomas Dick Lauder. X Leslœi Historia, lib. vii. p. 262. ] CIVIL AND ECCLESIASTIC mote from the seat of their feudal influence."* This Walter Stewart was the first prisoner of the Bass that we read of in history, — a very different character, in deed, from those whom my friend Mr Anderson has in troduced to the readers of this volume.

He was a spoilt child, and a profligate youth, having, with his brothers, abandoned himself to every kind of licentiousness dur ing the loose administration of his father, who, like old Eli, connived at, and ultimately suffered for, their mis conduct. " The old man had a bird," says Buchanan, " which he highly prized, of the falcon species, which Walter having often asked from his father, and having been unable to obtain, at last, in contempt, snatched from his feeble hand, and wrung off its neck. To which outrage, his father thus replied, ' Since you cannot sub mit to obey me, I shall bring another, whom both you and I will be forced to obey :' and from that time he bent his whole mind to restore his relation James."t Within a year the father and two of his sons were be headed at Stirling.

A lively fancy might draw an affecting picture of the old duchess, as she gazed from the opposite towers of Tantallan on the ocean prison that held her wayward son, and describe her feelings as she saw him conveyed away to suffer an ignominious death. But our Scottish ladies of that period were made of sterner stuff than we are apt to imagine. " There is a report current," says Buchanan, " although I do not find it mentioned by any historian, that the king sent the heads of her father, husband, and chil dren, to Isab'ella, on purpose to try whether so violent a woman, in a paroxysm of grief, as sometimes happens, might not betray the secrets of her soul ; but she, though * Pinkerton, Hist. vol. i. p. 113 t Buch. Hist., lib. x. § 25. affected at the unexpected sight, used no intemperate expressions."

I have an old manuscript which records this piece of savage brutality, and adds that the old lady " said nothing, but that they worthilie died, gif that whilk wes laid against them were trew!" That the Bass continued as one of the strengths or fortresses of Old Scotland, during the sixteenth century, we have abundant evidence. Boece describes it in his day (1526) " as a castle in Lothian, fortified by nature in the most extraordinary manner, being situated on a very high rock, more than two miles from the shore, and surrounded on every side by the sea."* In 1548; after the treaty of peace, Lesley says, the French officers, " Monsieur de Termes, de la Chapelle, and sundrie utheris capitanis, remanit still in the countrey, and travellit throughout the most pairt of the realme, visit ing the situation of the townis, the strengthis of Dum bartane, Edinburgh, Tamptallon, the Bas, Dumbar, Fast Castell, Dunnottar, Phindlatir, and many utheris, as well boith upone the coast of the eist and west seyis.

They affearmed they had never sene in ony countrey so mony strengthis to natour, within ane prince's domi nion, as was within the realme of Scotland."! The island, with its castle, appears still to have remained the private property of the Lauders. In 1581, James the Sixth paid a visit to the Bass, j and seems to have conceived a strong desire to obtain possession of it for * Boece's Chronicles, as quoted by Dempster, and republished by Ilulin shed, chap. ix. f Bishop Lesley's Historie, Bannatyne Club edit. p. 233. X In the Treasurer's Accounts, in the reign of James YL, under the above date, is entered as paid : — " Item, To Alexander Zoung, his Hienes servitour for his Grace's ex traordinar expenses in his jornay towardis the Boss, ccnforme to his Hienes precept, as the samin with his acquittance producit vpon compt proportis, xl. li."