5 minute read
Notes from the isles
Our friend has been busy this issue, crossing down into England, before returning via the centre of 18th-century elopement – Gretna Green
Words by KATE FRANCIS
ABOVE:
Kate and Cronie, her faithful Border Terrier
OPPOSITE PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT:
The Famous Blacksmiths Shop at Gretna Green; Ruthven Barracks; a clan grave marker at Culloden Battlefi eld; Stirling Castle
Not long ago I drove down to Argyllshire to attend a memorial concert for Bill, a dear old friend whom I’d known since my teens. Due to lockdown, his funeral, eight months previously, had been for family only and this was a perfect celebration of the life of a man we shall all remember fondly, not least for his wicked sense of humour. The concert was at Crear, a striking venue near Kilberry, on the coast of the Knapdale peninsula, with its large glass-fronted building looking across the water to the islands of Jura and Islay. I’d joined up with three friends on my way there and it was a truly magical event. All 120 of us sat round tables in the main hall and I was lucky enough to be facing out over the panoramic view during the concert, listening to piano, ute, and song: Schumann, Bach, Debussy, and Schubert. To hear this soothing music while gazing across the Sound of Jura, with the sun shining down over the hills was the ideal tribute to a man whose honour and philanthropy had enriched the lives of countless people. As well as laying on musical events, Crear is also a popular wedding venue and with its staggering views and beaches, it’s easy to see why so many people choose it for perhaps the most important day of their lives.
During a recent seven-hour drive home from Yorkshire, I visualised a very different sort of wedding, as I crossed the Scottish border at Gretna Green. I’d been down to meet my rst great-grandson, Bertie, nearly a month old, and I was trying to revise my knowledge of Scottish history to keep my mind alert on that busy road. In 1754, the Marriage Act in England and Wales forbade anyone under 21 to get married without parental permission. In Scotland the legal age for marriage without parental permission was 14 for boys and 12 for girls. As Gretna Green was one of the rst villages over the border, it became the chosen destination for many love-sick youngsters. The blacksmith’s anvil represented a suitable altar and all that was required for a legal ceremony were two witnesses. The Anvil Priest, as the blacksmith became known, forged thousands of couples into wedlock and the resulting marriage certi cates were recognised in all countries. By 1929, both bride and groom had to be at least 16 and it then became the rule that one of them must be resident at Gretna for 21 days before the ceremony. To go to Gretna to be married today is a romantic adventure with every possible facility laid on, like at Crear, but in those days most of those fugitive unions were probably suffused with panic and fear.
When we reached Stirling, Cronie needed a comfort stop so I pulled off into a service station from which there was a narrow path up a hill through scrub and gorse, from the top of which I looked across a glen to magni cent Stirling Castle, perched high and proudly on its volcanic crag. There’s lots of history in Stirling Castle, but the most important for me is its association with Mary, Queen of Scots
who, I can never resist boasting, was my legitimate, 11-greats-grandmother, with 13 generations between us.
Mary spent most of the rst ve years of her tragic life at Stirling Castle. Born in Linlithgow Palace, she wasn’t even a week old when her father died, and she became Queen of Scotland. She was crowned in Stirling Castle’s Chapel Royal, in 1543, when she was 9 months old. Her son, later King James VI, of whom I don’t boast for understandable reasons, also spent much of his childhood in this ancient castle, which dates from at least the 12th century with most of the present buildings dating from the 15th and 16th centuries.
There was no snow on the Cairngorms as we drove past Aviemore, just the dramatic hills beckoning keen skiers, (not me) to return soon. More history ooded my mind as we went through Ruthven with its hilltop fort, built by the government in 1721 as a stronghold against the impending Jacobite rebellion, and captured by those same Jacobites in 1746. After their defeat at Culloden, 3,000 Jacobites gathered here, awaiting orders from Bonnie Prince Charlie, but their gallant idol reckoned that there was no hope for any of them and he issued his somewhat feeble message: “Let every man seek his own safety in the best way he can....” Charlie then set off on his own escape, taking refuge wherever he could nd it, in the Highlands and over the sea to Skye.... However strong one’s loyalties were to the leader of the Jacobite cause, it must have been a severe test of them, when he literally abandoned all his followers, putting his own safety rst.
The Culloden Battle eld, where there is now an excellent tourist centre which tells the whole story in graphic detail, lay to our east on the nal stage of our journey. In April every year, on the anniversary of the battle, all the clans gather here and enact memorial ceremonies around their ags, followed by a lunch with endless speeches. Since Douglas died, I am ashamed to say that I no longer join our Macdonald clan for their annual participation.
With all this history churning through my mind, mixed with thoughts of those happy two days I’d just spent cuddling bonny Bertie, we cruised over the Kessock Bridge, thankful that it wasn’t 40 years previous when we would have had to queue up for the ferry across the Beauly Firth. We were back on our beloved Black Isle by mid-afternoon, allowing plenty of time for me to take Cronie for a proper walk up the farm track and back along the shore, serenaded by the haunting cries of the curlews. I then collapsed into my armchair, lled with memories of those blissful two days with my family, and wondering how I can be so blessed. S
