Duke of Perth

“ He was made justice-general and extraordinary lord of session in 1682, and was lord chancellor of Scotland from 1684 to 1688. As a convert to Roman Catholicism after the death of Charles II, he stood high in the favour of James II. Perth, who is credited with the introduction of the thumbscrew, was very unpopular with the Scottish people, and during the Revolution of 1688 he was imprisoned at Stirling. Released from captivity in 1693 he joined James II. at St Germains, and was made duke of Perth, a titular dignity only after the exiled king’s death in 1701. ”

“ Thus endowed, Lord George Murray showed how feeble are the advantages of birth, compared with those of nature's gift. In rank, if not in family connections, and in an hereditary hold upon the affections of his countrymen, the Duke of Perth might be esteemed superior; but, brave and honourable as he was, that amiable nobleman could never obtain the confidence of the army as a general. It is not, however, to be supposed that any commander would ever have obtained an influence over a [Pg 27] Highland army, if he had not added high birth to his other requisites. ”

“ Now, most of the nobles that are with the King at Perth, and with them Sir Patrick Charteris, your worthy provost, have declared for the proposals of the Douglas. The Duke of Albany had agreed to them—whether from goodwill or policy I know not. The good King is easily persuaded to mild and gentle courses. ”

“ But as Burton [1014] well remarks, “men of ability like Murray, unless they preserve a rigid restraint, are apt to let the contempt they feel for the silly people they are embarked with become unreasonably apparent, especially when they are interrupted in their plans by those who do not understand them.” The Duke of Perth, who was a Roman Catholic, on its being represented to him that it might injure the prince’s cause to have at the head of the army one of his persuasion, cheerfully resigned his commission. ”

“ The Duke of Perth wrote of him in 1705: ‘He has ever been scrupulously loyal [to the Jacobite cause] , and since his return to his own country would never take any oath nor meddle with those who now govern’ (the Duke of Perth's ‘Instructions’ in Hooke's Correspondence, p. 228) .
With about five hundred of his clan Struan joined the standard of Mar in 1715. Some time before 22 Sept. he was sent forward by Mar with a party of the Robertsons to reinforce Colonel Hay, who then occupied Perth. ”

“ Owing to his exertions, eighty-three of the officers were saved, besides hundreds of soldiers. "The Prince," writes Mr. Maxwell, "had a livelier sense of other people's misfortunes than of his own good-fortune."
This spirit of humanity was extended to the two Lieutenants-General. The conduct of the Duke of Perth was ever consistent with his mild character. On that occasion, at all events, Lord George participated in the noble clemency which usually characterized the Jacobites. ”

“ The mother of the first and last Duke of Perth caused the old castle to be blown up after her two sons had joined the rebellion in the '45, lest the keep should fall into the hands of King George's soldiers. [Footnote: She is said to have been the heroine of the popular Jacobite song, "When the King comes over the water."] The Queen alludes in her Journal to the steep ascent to the castle. The long narrow avenue leads up by the side of the fine castle rock, tufted with wild strawberries, ferns, and heather, to the courtyard. ”

“ On reaching manhood he returned to Scotland, interested himself in agriculture and manufactures, and, though his father's attainder had deprived him of a legal title, styled himself and was recognised by his neighbours as Duke of Perth. ”

“ Grant had advice that the Person called Duke of Perth was in Braemar raising the Highlanders in that country, that the Mackintoshes and M‘Phersons were all in concert with the Rebells [517] that their [Pg 272] plan was that they, and even the Pretender and the Highlanders with him, were to march down through Strathspey, and join Perth, and march through Strathaven, Glenlivet, and into Aberdeenshire and so Southward before Sir John Cope, raising all the men in the Country through which they marched. ”

“ The Duke of Cumberland had visited that interesting district; and it requires little more to be said, to comprehend that beauty was turned to desolation; that crimes hitherto unheard of among a British army reflected dishonour on the conquerors, and brought misery to the conquered. On the sixth of February, 1746, the Duke had arrived at Perth. His first orders were to seize the Duchess of Perth, the mother of the Duke, and the Viscountess Strathallan, and to carry them to a small, wretched prison in Edinburgh, where they remained nearly a year. ”

“ It is the Douglas and the Duke of Albany that will not let good King Robert hear the distresses of his people."
"Are we to be slain in our own streets for the King's softness of heart?" said the butcher. "The Bruce did otherwise. If the King will not keep us, we will keep ourselves. Ring the bells backward, every bell of them that is made of metal. Cry, and spare not, St. Johnston's hunt is up!"
"Ay," cried another citizen, "and let us to the holds of Albany and the Douglas, and burn them to the ground. Let the fires tell far and near that Perth knew how to avenge her stout Henry Gow. ”

“ He obtained, it is supposed, that shelter which, even under the most dangerous and disastrous circumstances, was rarely refused to the poor Jacobites. The exact spot of his retreat has never been ascertained; yet persons [Pg 295] living have been heard to say, that in the houses of their grandfathers or ancestors, the Duke of Perth took refuge, until the vigilance of pursuit had abated. ”

“ The Regent enters Perth, and at once breaks Faith with the Congregation.
On the twenty-ninth of May the Queen, the Duke, Monsieur D'Oysel, and the Frenchmen entered Perth.... The swarm of Papists that entered with her began at once to make provision for their Mass.... The Queen began to rage against all godly and honest men; their houses were oppressed by the Frenchmen; the lawful magistrates, Provost as well as Bailies, were unjustly and irregularly deposed from their authority. ”

“ The names of the boy’s sponsors are recorded, as “Ane Hie and Michty Lord, Archibald Erl of Douglas, ane Honorabil and gude Knicht, Schir Patrick Charteris of Kinfauns, and ane Gracious Princess, Marjory Dowaire of his Serene Highness David, umquhile Duke of Rothsay.”
Under such patronage a family rises fast; and several of the most respected houses in Scotland, but especially in Perthshire, and many individuals distinguished both in arts and arms, record with pride their descent from the Gow Chrom and the Fair Maid of Perth. ”

“ Secondly, the accession of foreign troops to the Duke of Argyle's force. Lastly, the reduced number of the Chevalier's troops, which then amounted to four thousand, only two thousand three hundred of which were properly armed. Even in that weak condition the Chevalier would, according to Lord Mar's subsequent statement, gladly have maintained Perth, or ventured a battle; but when the enemy with an army of eight thousand men were actually advanced near to the place, it was found impracticable to defend Perth, the town being little more at that time than an open village ”

“ We dimly see a presentable mother piteously gathering up such crumbs as fell from the tables of the illustrious families with whom she was remotely connected. But the Duke of Lauderdale himself was now dead, and the Earl of Perth had passed the zenith of his power. No doubt in the seventeenth century the protection of poor relations was carried on more systematically than it is to-day, and certainly Mrs. ”

“ The porter of Kinfauns, who knew from a distance the persons and characters of the party, had already opened the courtyard gate for their entrance, and sent notice to Sir Patrick Charteris that the eldest bailie of Perth, with some other good citizens, were approaching the castle. The good knight, who was getting ready for a hawking party, heard the intimation with pretty much the same feelings that the modern representative of a burgh hears of the menaced visitation of a party of his worthy electors, at a time rather unseasonable for their reception. ”

“ The adjacent city of Perth, with its Castle, its Cathedral, and its four monasteries, was the Winchester of Scotland, as Scone the Westminster. The early Parliaments met at Perth more often than at other towns that might suit the convenience of kings who had to be much on the move through their agitated dominion. During the English intrusion, Perth was garrisoned by the Edwards’ lieutenants, and suffered repeated attacks from Wallace and Bruce, who found concealment and rallying-place in the{7} wild woods within a few miles of the city walls. ”

“ The King then opened the purpose of their meeting by saying, with much dignity:
“Our business, my lords, respected these unhappy dissensions in the Highlands, which, we learn by our latest messengers, are about to occasion the waste and destruction of the country, even within a few miles of this our own court. But, near as this trouble is, our ill fate, and the instigations of wicked men, have raised up one yet nearer, by throwing strife and contention among the citizens of Perth and those attendants who follow your lordships and others our knights and nobles. ”

“ One of the most beautiful points of view which Britain, or perhaps the world, can afford is, or rather we may say was, the prospect from a spot called the Wicks of Baiglie, being a species of niche at which the traveller arrived, after a long stage from Kinross, through a waste and uninteresting country, and from which, as forming a pass over the summit of a ridgy eminence which he had gradually surmounted, he beheld, stretching beneath him, the valley of the Tay, traversed by its ample and lordly stream; the town of Perth, with its two large meadows, or inches, its steeples, and its towers ”

“ Perth (30) , the county-town of Perthshire, on the Tay, 22 m. W. of Dundee: is a beautifully situated town, with fine buildings, the only old one being the restored St. John's Church. Its industries are dyeing and ink-making. At Scone, 2 m. distant, the kings of Scotland were crowned; and the murder of James I., the Gowrie conspiracy, and the battle of Tippermuir are but a few of its many historical associations. "The Five Articles of Perth," adopted by a General Assembly held there in 1618, did much to precipitate the conflict between the Royal power and the Scottish Church ”

“ Enforced also by the addition of two hundred Highlanders from different quarters, the Earl of Mar resolved to make the town of Perth his head-quarters.
This was a wise resolution: the situation of that fine city presented the most important advantages to the General of the Jacobite forces. Seated on the river Tay, and near the sea-coast, it gave the Earl the control of the East Lowlands, of the rich counties of Angus, the Carse of Gowrie, Mearns, Murray, Aberdeen, and Banff, and also of the Shire of Fife. ”

“ This, however, was superseded by Captain Stirling, on his arrival with the first immigrants, in the ship "Parmelia," in June, 1829, by placing the capital, Perth, about twelve miles from the port, at which he settled the town of Fremantle. The elucidation of the naming of Perth after the birthplace of Sir George Murray, the then Secretary of State for the Colonies, in honor of whom also towns in New South Wales, Tasmania, and Canada were named, and the origin of the naming of Mount Eliza after Lady Darling, should set aside many absurd stories for these nomenclatures. ”

“ There was more patriotism than parity in the comparison. The Italian river is a Rhine in history, but a mere Goose Creek within its actual banks compared with the Tay. In history, Perth has its full share of “love and murder,” rhyme and romance, sieges, battering and burning, royals and rebels. In the practical life of to-day, it is a progressive, thriving town, busy, intelligent, respected and honorable. The two natural features which would attract, perhaps, the most special attention of the traveller are the two Inches, North and South, divided by the city. ”