Forfarshire

“ Turning to the north window, a bright smile lit up his countenance, and “A blessing rest on you” escaped audibly from his lips, as he kissed his hand towards the cliffs of Forfarshire, which were seen like a faint blue line on the far-off horizon, with the town of Arbroath just rising above the morning mists.
He gazed out at this north window, and thought over all the scenes that had passed between him and Minnie from the time they first met, down to the day when they last parted. ”

“ KIRRIEMUIR, a police burgh of Forfarshire, Scotland. Pop. (1901) , 4096. It is situated on a height above the glen through which the Gairie flows, 61/4 m. N.W. of Forfar by a branch line of the Caledonian railway of which it is the terminus. There are libraries, a public hall and a park. The staple industry is linen-weaving. The hand-loom lingered longer here than in any other place in Scotland and is not yet wholly extinct. ”

“ Nor was even this all, for, as had been pointed out to them by some of the Established clergy of Forfarshire, these factors were persons dangerous to the government. For example, Sir John Carnegie of Pitarrow, factor on the Earl of Southesk’s estate, was the man who, on the synod of Angus uttering a declaration in 1712 for the House of Hanover, had caused it to be burned at the head burgh of the shire. ”

“ Forfarshire returns one member to Parliament. It is a sheriffdom and there is a resident sheriff-substitute at Dundee and another at Forfar, the county town, and courts are held also at Arbroath. In addition to numerous board schools there are secondary schools at Dundee, Montrose, Arbroath, Brechin, Forfar and Kirriemuir, and technical schools at Dundee and Arbroath. Many of the elementary schools earn grants for higher education. ”

“ A decree of the court of sessions, 25 July 1628, restored to Buchan and his wife the precedency over the earls of Eglinton, Montrose, Cassilis, Caithness, and Glencairn, which had been claimed by them, and granted by a former decree in 1606. On the accession of Charles I, Buchan became one of the lords of the bedchamber. He lived chiefly in London, where he died in 1640. He was buried at Auchterhouse, Forfarshire. ”

“ Again, the famous Pictish hill-fort in Forfarshire, known as the "White Cater Thun," is equally famous as a fairy stronghold. This celebrated fortress has been described on a previous page. It crowns a hill in the neighbourhood of the ancient city of Brechin, the centre of a district which was indisputably a territory of the Pechts. Even yet one may discern in the ruins of this fort the traces of the dwellings which so closely characterize the architecture of the Pechts, the chambers made within the thickness of the wall. ”

“ In many places, he says, he was the first Briton to visit the district since the outbreak of the revolutionary wars. Shortly after his return home, in 1820, he came into possession of a farm of three hundred acres at Balmadies in Forfarshire. ”

“ Those who are accustomed to salmon which has been carried in ice a long distance, and kept for some days before being eaten, do not always appreciate the newly-killed fish as it is given in Scotland, with its firm, flaky consistence and fresh curd. A Londoner, who had taken a house for the summer in Forfarshire, had made the acquaintance of the lessee of one of the salmon fisheries on the coast of that county, and asked him one day to be so good as allow him to have a fish for a dinner party which he was about to give. ”

“ My present abode in Morayshire is surrounded by as great a variety of beautiful scenery as can be found in any district in Britain; and no part of the country can produce a greater variety of objects of interest either to the naturalist or to the lover of the picturesque. The rapid and glorious Findhorn, the very perfection of a Highland river, here passes through one of the most fertile plains in Scotland, or indeed in the world ”

“ He arrived in London on the 1st of June, and was joyfully welcomed not only by Fairfax and the officers of the Army but by all ranks and all classes. It was now almost certain that the Scots would invade England in the King's [239] name, and no time was lost by the Council of State in appointing Fairfax and Cromwell to command the English army in the north. That they would work loyally together in the field no one could doubt; but when the Council consulted the two generals as to plan of campaign, their opinions were found to be diametrically opposed to each other. ”

“ Perched up here beside the cairn, 1,792 feet above sea level, we look down upon every other height in all broad Shropshire; indeed, to find a rival to Brown Clee Hill, we should have to travel across the Welsh border. So let us now turn our attention to the spacious landscape which lies outspread around; a prospect that embraces the greater part of west-central England, and a good cantle of wild Wales to boot. ”

“ From the summit of the glorious old relic we can sweep the whole arch of the horizon, from the pale blue hills of Wales on the one hand, to the brown heathy wastes that once formed part of the great forest of Macclesfield on the other. The palatinate which boasts itself the Vale Royal of England is usually reckoned a flat county, and this is in a great measure true, for league upon league of broad, flat, fertile meadows spread before us, but the eye as it ranges into the distance passes over a rich variety of undulating country. ”

“ His son, the fifth Earl, having engaged in the rebellion of 1715, forfeited his estate and titles to the Crown; but in 1726 his lands were restored to him, and he, and his son after him, lived in wealth and honour as great Highland chiefs. The latter, who was by courtesy styled Lord Fortrose, represented his native county of Ross in several Parliaments about the middle of last century. In 1766, the honours of the peerage were restored to his son, who was created Viscount Fortrose, and in 1771, Earl of Seaforth ”

“ In Wessex and the east the counties are either older kingdoms, like Kent, Sussex, and Essex; or else tribal divisions of the kingdom, like Dorset, Somerset, Norfolk, Suffolk, and Surrey. In Mercia, the recovered country is artificially mapped out round the chief Danish burgs, as in the case of Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire, and Leicestershire, where the county town usually occupies the centre of the arbitrary shire. In Northumbria it is divided into equally artificial counties by the rivers. ”

“ It lay between the provinces of Stratherne and Menteath or Fortren on the south-west, and of Angus and Mearns or Maghgherghinn on the north-east, where, during the period of this dynasty, the men of Fortren on the one hand and the men of Mearns on the other appear as a separate people, and probably represented those remains of the older population which still preserved a separate existence. ”

“ King Canute said, ‘Let the free people of England manage their own townships and shires, and learn to govern themselves; let no man apply to the king unless he cannot get justice within his own hundred; let there be thrice a-year a burgh-gemot, and twice a-year a shire-gemot, unless there be need oftener; and let there be present the bishop of the shire and the elderman, and there let both expound as well the law of God as the law of man.’ But William the Norman alloweth not of these free things ”

“ In the north, the Earl of Newcastle not only garrisoned the most considerable places, but even the general possession of the north was for the king, excepting Hull, and some few places, which the old Lord Fairfax had taken up for the Parliament. On the other hand, entire Cornwall and most of the western counties were the king's. The Parliament had their chief interest in the south and eastern part of England, as Kent, Surrey, and, Sussex, Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridge, Bedford, Huntingdon, Hertford, Buckinghamshire, and the other midland counties. ”

“ Forster now set up the standard of the Pretender, and proclaimed him the lawful king of Great Britain and Scotland, wherever he went; and, eventually joining the Scotch rebels, he marched with them to Preston, in Lancashire. They were there attacked by Generals Carpenter and Wills, who succeeded in routing them, and in making 1500 persons prisoners; amongst whom were the Earl of Derwentwater and Lord Widrington, English peers; and the Earls of Nithisdale, Winton, and Carnwarth, Viscount Kenmore, and Lord Nairn, Scotch peers. ”

“ In the depth of the inclement winter, after the relief of Nantwich, Sir Thomas Fairfax, in obedience to the orders of the Parliament, marched back into Yorkshire to join his father, Lord Fairfax, who was hastening to unite his forces with the Scottish army, which, led by Lesley, Earl of Leven, had crossed the border and marched knee-deep in snow upon the soil of England, preparatory to an attack upon York. ”

“ In Scotland the existing county franchise, which depended on a mere feudal right of superiority over lauds belonging to others, was to be annihilated; the election of members for boroughs was to be taken from the town-councils, and vested in the citizens at large; and the new English franchise was to be introduced, both in counties and in boroughs. Every resident owner of land or houses worth ten pounds per annum, and every tenant under a written lease for nineteen years or upwards, paying fifty pounds a year, was to have a vote in county elections ”

“ One daughter, love, becomes a countess on Thursday next, and [265] one daughter weds the finest property in Shropshire. I wonder you do not exult with me! I have been complimented with burning hearts, I am sure, by all my married friends, and, as Lady Farnborough said yesterday very truly, I have monopolized the first matches in the counties of Salop and Staffordshire. I am aware I have done so; I am aware I have taken great pains to promote my children's welfare. I may say, too, Julia's match was exclusively my own, in its invention and maturity. ”

“ Here, overlooking the beautiful river, he built a house, Wharfeside, which he always regarded as his home till the end of his life. In the ten following years Forster frequently appeared on platforms at Leeds and Bradford, discussing the interests of the working classes, parliamentary reform, or American slavery. After the dissolution in 1859 he was invited by the liberals of Leeds to come forward with Mr. Baines. Forster, though afterwards regarded as par excellence the conservative type of liberal, was chosen as the candidate of the advanced party. ”

“ During the rebellion of 1641 she was besieged in Castle Forbes, the family seat, for nine months, and Forbes raised men for her relief, though only eighteen years old. He is next heard of in Scotland, serving under Montrose in the cause of Charles I. On the defeat of Montrose in 1645 he was taken prisoner, and for two years confined in Edinburgh Castle. On his release he still embraced every opportunity to aid the fallen fortunes of the Stuarts, but, all efforts to restore them failing, he returned to Ireland in 1655. ”

“ This part of the country indeed is full of open plains, and somewhat sandy and barren, and feeds great flocks of good sheep; but put it all together, the county of Norfolk has the most people in the least tract of land of any county in England, except about London, and Exon, and the West Riding of Yorkshire, as above.
Add to this, that there is no single county in England, except as above, that can boast of three towns so populous, so rich, and so famous for trade and navigation, as in this county. By these three towns, I mean the city of Norwich, the towns of Yarmouth and Lynn. ”

“ The land is divided into counties, departments, provinces, administered according to such rules as the central legislature may think good to lay down. It is true that in our own country the shire is, both in idea and in part of the land in historical fact, older than the kingdom. But in a large part of England the shire is as truly a division of the kingdom as a French department, and where it is not so historically it has become so practically. ”

“ Take a map of England and its neighbouring Wales, and you will find a mysterious earthwork called “Offa’s Dyke,” traced from near Prestatyn, on the Flintshire coast, to Bridge Sollars, on the Wye in Herefordshire. That was the boundary set up by Offa, “the Terrible.” The Shropshire portion of it runs from Chirk, by Llanymynech, Welshpool, Montgomery, and Clun, and to this day not only the place-names, but the people on either side show a distinct cleavage between Saxon and Welsh. In the heart of Shropshire it is difficult to find a trace of the old race. ”

“ The three great battles of the independence were fought in the shire—Stirling Bridge (1297) , Falkirk (1298) , Bannockburn (1314) . James III. was stabbed to death in a cottage in the village of Milton after the battle of Sauchieburn (1488) , but apart from the disastrous defeat of the Covenanters at Kilsyth (1645) an< l the transitory triumph which Prince Charles Edward won at Falkirk (1746) , the history of the shire practically centres in that of the county town. ”

“ In several parts of England accounts have come down to us in the folk-lore or traditions and in historical references of a clan-like feeling between people of adjoining villages or districts. Traces of dislike or jealousy between village and village have been reported in several counties, notably in Hampshire and Cambridgeshire. [11] In the latter county Conybeare mentions the rivalry between the men of Barrington on the Mercian side of the Cam and those of Foxton on the East Anglian side. ”