Trail to Tranquility – A Scottish Wild West Film
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Huntly seems an unlikely venue for a film set in the American Wild West frontier. However, when you come up the Aberdeenshire country drive to the Tranquility Wild West Town for the first time, you feel like you've stepped back in time. On the weekend of 11 July director Paul Vernon, town founder and script writer Ally Baranowski, actors and crew worked at breakneck speed from dawn to dusk to film the short movie 'Trail to Tranquility'. Suzanne Kelly was on hand to report – and to take the role of Kitty, Tranquility's saloon owner.
Karl and Michael on the Tranquility set.
Trail to Tranquility is the latest in a series of films to be shot in Huntly's Wild West Town, Tranquility. When this film comes out in December, condensed to 35 minutes, it promises to be an action-filled, fast-paced adrenalin ride.
Without giving too much of the plot away, outlaws make their way to the little town of Tranquility, where they take a hostage. Battle rages between the US Marshal's forces and the outlaws, with fatal consequences for some.
Award-winning director Paul Vernon was joined by a hard working film crew including Calum McCrae / Patrick Haram on sound recording duties.
Professional makeup artists Deborah Cowan and Kym Murchie did an outstanding job ranging from making up the saloon girls to ensuring any wounds looked realistic.
Vernon told the team:
"Every single participant contributed to this overall project, whether it was a townsperson attending a scene on Sunday morning or a member of the main cast and crew, or even that person making teas, or cleaning out the toilets, to filling up the water trough, or making the director a cuppa! Each and every one is as important as the next."
The actors came from across the UK; with male lead Mikey Mccallen and others coming from the Southampton area for the shoot.
The cast and crew that made it all happen are:
Mikey Mcallen, Michael Lorsong, Gregor Cameron, Ryan Hamilton, Stuart McGough, Mikey Rennie, Dave Alexander, Roderick Mackenzie, Karl Fredrick Hiemeyer, Atholl Buchan, Alistair Baranowski, Andrew J Douglas, Stuart Patterson, Suzanne Kelly, Kiera Robertson, John Haram, William Kidd, Brian Grassie, Brian Watt, William Beaton, Brendan Moir, Patrick Haram, Andrew McDonald, Calum McCrae, Phil Vinden, John de Sykes, Larry Willett, Will Napier, Cameron Lawrie Ross, Jim Anderson, Jane Leiper and Danny, Vicky Largue, Kelly Moir, Samantha Domeracki, Erin Sharpe, Iona Rennie, Deborah Cowan, Kym Murchie, and a wonderful group of extras who came from all over the Aberdeenshire area.
Tranquility founder and scriptwriter Ally Baranowski said:
"This weekend was the culmination of months of preparation by both myself & Paul Vernon, the director & in the last few weeks by Debs & Kym. And over that long weekend everyone managed to gel together as a team so enabling a successful conclusion to the film making."
December will see the film's premier at Aberdeen's Belmont Cinema. Aberdeen Voice will keep you informed of developments and the launch date.
Posted by Suzanne at Aberdeen Voice at 00:21	Tagged with: Acting, Arts, Entertainment, Film, Huntly, Theatre
Big Country To Play The Stewart's Hall Huntly 24 July
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Tickets will be going fast for Big Country's upcoming Aberdeenshire appearance. On Friday 24 July the band will be at The Stewart's Hall, 15-17 Gordon Street, Huntly. With Thanks to Dave Hill.
Following the incredible success of their 30th Anniversary 'Steeltown' Tour, Big Country set off again on tour to celebrate their stunning catalogue of songs, taken from their multi-million selling and Number 1 hit albums.
The band will perform classic hits and favourites including Harvest Home, Fields of Fire, In A Big Country, Chance, Wonderland, Look Away and The Teacher.
Steeped in a stunning catalogue of proud and stirring hit songs such as Fields of Fire, Chance, In A Big Country (which sold 2 million), East Of Eden and their biggest UK hit Look Away, along with massive albums such The Seer, Steeltown, Peace In Our Time and the triple Grammy –nominated, The Crossing, Big Country continue to look beyond the next horizon in 2015
The band are Bruce Watson (guitars/vocals); Mark Brzezicki (drums, vocals); Jamie Watson (guitars/vocals) will be augmented on stage by Simon Hough ex-front man for Denny Laine (Wings), Eric Bell (Thin Lizzy) and more.
Seeing them in smaller spaces is a special experience; this is a show local Big Country fans will love.
Doors pen 7pm; tickets are £22 (inc BF) – contact www.brownpapertickets.com 07990978732
Posted by Suzanne at Aberdeen Voice at 07:07	Tagged with: Big Country, Huntly, July, Music
Tranquility Wild West Town: Hoedown Lowdown
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The Huntly area's Tranquility Wild West Town held an open day on 4th May. The rain came down nonstop, but that did not stop families, cowboys and girls, and people of all ages coming together for a great day of Wild West Fun. Suzanne Kelly, a new member to the Tranquility Wild West Town & Re-enactment Group gives the lowdown on this hoedown.
Tranquility Wild West Town reenactment the bad guys get ready to draw. By Suzanne Kelly
Despite the weather, a great time was had by visitors young and old to Tranquility Wild West Town on Sunday 4th May.
Those who braved the weather enjoyed tours of the authentic, fully-furnished town buildings, refreshments, two re-enactments, and a raffle.
If you assume the town is just fake building fronts, you'd be wrong.
The town boasts a Town Hall, the Tranquility Saloon, Telegraph Office, a barbershop and more – all fully and authentically furnished.
Visitors tried their hands at horseshoe pitching and knife throwing. A raffle was held, and youngsters were given toy guns, sheriff's badges and deputised.
The re-enacted gunfights were the highlight of the afternoon. One was humourous; the other a demonstration of what a lawman would have been up against defending his town from the lawless.
Some of the members explained their interest in the American Wild West goes back to their childhood days of going to Aberdeen's then many theatres. The cowboy films captured their imaginations. We mused that while we were here in Scotland surrounded by castles and thousands of years of history and re-enacting western life, undoubtedly in America there will be people gathering for Renaissance and Medieval festivals, dressed as knights and ladies.
The membership of Tranquility is growing; interested parties will find more information here. https://www.facebook.com/TranquilityWildWestTown?fref=ts
See y'all around town.
Posted by Fred at Aberdeen Voice at 02:51	Tagged with: Entertainment, Family, History, Huntly, Theatre, USA
An Interview With Maggie Craig – Part 3
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Maggie Craig's writing catalogue includes highly-rated and very readable insights into the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion and Red Clydeside. It was only natural then, when David Innes and Maggie met that a political discussion would ensue.
You're obviously a radical, given the content and viewpoint of the Jacobite and Red Clydeside books.
I think the worst thing that happened to Britain was Margaret Thatcher. Someone tried to tell me that she had a human side. I said that I didn't want to talk about Margaret Thatcher as we would fall out if we did.
I wouldn't wish ill on anyone, but that's one grave I would dance on because she skewed Britain. I'm not at all anti-English and I hate the Scottish nationalism that is, because that's a divide and conquer thing.
I remember when she was in power and I was a tourist guide taking German visitors around and they would often say, "I really admire your Mrs Thatcher", and I'd think, "I'm working, I must be careful here", but I knew I was tired when I said, "We wouldn't have had beggars in the street like we do now before Margaret Thatcher". If you've got beggars in the street, there's something seriously wrong with your society.
I was in Aberdeen for the book signing at Waterstones in October. It was about 6 o' clock and I'd parked up Huntly Street way and I passed the Cyrenians where there was a crowd of mainly men. I thought, "It's a soup kitchen! Here in the oil capital of Europe there are people queuing up for a bowl of soup". You wonder if there shouldn't be a levy on the oil companies – they haven't really done much for Aberdeen, have they? They haven't really left any sort of cultural development behind them.
I think people don't realise that they themselves have power. Maybe the one blessing of the financial crisis is that people who have been turned into consumers may think again. Shopping centres are the new cathedrals, and it's almost become like 'Brave New World' where people just have to get the latest model of phone. It used to be that you just worked and didn't have the money to buy the goods you produced, but now we've got this circle where you can buy all these goods; but do we need them all?
There's nothing wrong with honest trade. We need oil to keep our houses powered. I don't want to go back to candles, to that simple greeny thing. I think I'm quite anti-green and that there's quite a Fascist strand in a lot of green thought. I went to see the Trump development.
I know people don't like him and his ways, but I was quite impressed by the people telling us what they were going to do. I thought, "That means I can get down to those dunes where I couldn't get down before when Menie was a shooting estate". I'm horrified too, by how we're being forced to accept windfarms, industrialising the countryside. It's just people making a buck, little to do with greenness.
I believed in that and now it's been destroyed. Now it's been shown to be brutal
I suppose there have been entrepreneurs who have had social consciences but then they claw their way over everyone else. I don't know the full story of Andrew Carnegie, but I don't suppose he was lily-white as he made his way up the greasy pole.
I do think there is a 'zeitgeist' thing going on, where people are saying that we ought to think about society and community. I slightly despair of the anti-capitalist protestors because they don't seem to know what they want, what they're in favour of. It seems a bit vague and woolly. Someone said it was irrelevant that they went to Starbucks to buy their coffee, but to me that's an issue.
My dad was a member of the Scottish-USSR Friendship Society based in Belmont Street in Glasgow's west end, and we would meet people from the USSR, who were probably carefully selected, and here on holiday, and they would talk about Robert Burns. Then Prague happened and things went downhill after that. I was about 17 and it felt personal. I thought, "I believed in that and now it's been destroyed. Now it's been shown to be brutal."
The Communist experiment failed. You think about the Russian people, "How much more can they suffer?" because a strong man like Putin always seems to emerge in Russia and just take the country and use it. You wonder, "Is old-fashioned socialism really the answer?" but capitalism stinks, so maybe I'm as bad as the anti-capitalist protestors and don't know what is the middle ground and what we should be doing. I'm not sure how we can use the old left and right thing any more.
I'm coming round to thinking that everybody should get some sort of a basic wage, but that's too radical isn't it?
There's this dichotomy with the Scottish left. There's a nationalism and a pride in Scottishness, but there's also the feeling that the workers don't have a country – but they do. The workers of Germany, for example, have lots of reasons to be proud of Germany and their own culture.
The Labour Party has moved too far away from its roots and has become perceived as an anti-Scottish party. I think Johann Lamont has a helluva mountain to climb to persuade people that they're not. I like Alex Salmond. I think he's very sharp operator, like when he swooped down on to the lawn at Prestonfield House in the helicopter. Someone had produced a poster with Alex Salmond as Che Guevara, "El Presidente" and you can see how that could be dangerous, so I'm angry with the Labour Party for being useless, for taking their eye off the ball.
I think people who are working class kids made good felt that the Labour Party was saying to them that they had to pay higher taxes. But they'd only just clawed their way up to a better situation, so there was to be no help to get your kids to university, that you had to do it all yourself. There's a problem there in that the politicians themselves were in quite comfortable positions, but they were almost preaching.
I think it's been advanced before, but I'm coming round to thinking that everybody should get some sort of a basic wage, but that's too radical isn't it? It would also give you buying power which would help the economy. If you're making widgets, someone's got to be buying them.
I was talking to a woman earlier who said that she couldn't afford to work and look after her children so she decided to give up work. I wondered when we'd got to the stage where a woman looking after her children was considered not to be contributing to society. It disturbs me that you're expected to be out there doing some god-awful job rather than being with your kids.
Although Maggie's only lived in the North East for 20 years, she still sometimes feels like an 'inabootcomer'. In the concluding part of our chat, she talks about this corner of the planet, and drops a hint that she may find inspiration to write about North East Scotland.
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Blood Feud – Part 3
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Continuing on from Part Two of Blood Feud, Voice's Alex Mitchell offers the final tranche of his account of Scotland's troubled and violent history. Last week Alex looked at how the fortunes of Clan Gordon changed in the turbulent times of Mary, Queen of Scots. In the concluding part religious and political tensions erupt, James succeeds Mary, and the ancient clan feuds continue.
Lord James Stewart, Earl of Moray, became the first of four Reformation Regents. He later became known as the "Good Regent Moray", not least in contrast with his successors. He was much better equipped for the responsibilities of kingship than was Mary Stuart, but, being of illegitimate birth, was ruled out of the succession.
He could attain kingly power only by becoming Regent for the infant James VI, which meant that Mary had to be removed, one way or another; and Mary, now widely denounced as an adulteress, a French/Papist whore and a husband-killer, had already self-destructed.
But Moray himself was assassinated in Linlithgow in January 1570, aged 39, having been Regent for less than three years.
Normal hostilities were resumed. An attempt had been made to end the ancient feud between the Gordons and the Forbeses by means of a marriage between the Master of Forbes and Lady Margaret Gordon, sister to the 5th Earl Huntly. But the union was a failure, ending in divorce, and relations were more embittered than ever. Following a running fight at Tillyangus near Alford in 1571, the Master of Forbes went south to look for allies.
Whilst he was away, the troops of Sir Adam Gordon, the victor of Tillyangus, attacked Corgarff Castle with the intention of claiming it for the deposed Queen of Scots. Meeting with firm resistance, Gordon set the castle ablaze, and Margaret Forbes, being the wife of Forbes of Towie, and her children and servants, amounting to 24 persons, all perished in the flames. This was a conspicuously dreadful deed, even by the standards of those times.
Infuriated to the point of madness by the cruelty of this act, the Master of Forbes lost no time in pursuit of his enemy. He now had the support of the new Regent, the Earl of Mar.
Forbes advanced northwards to Aberdeen.
The Burgh was occupied by the Gordons, who received intelligence of Forbes' approach and positioned themselves near what is now the top of the Hardgate, where it crosses Bon-Accord Terrace, whilst a party of musketeers were hidden in the hollow a little further west, now called Union Glen. These last were instructed to wait until battle commenced, then to attack the Forbeses from the rear.
The conflict, since known as the Battle of the Crabstane, on 20 November 1571, lasted about an hour. Finding themselves under attack from both front and rear, the Forbeses were thrown into confusion and were forced to withdraw, defeated, leaving some 60 persons dead and the Master of Forbes a prisoner of the Gordons of Huntly.
For the next 18 months,Aberdeenwas the base of Sir Adam Gordon's operations in support of the captive Mary Stuart, held prisoner by her cousin Elizabeth Tudor for some twenty years until her (Mary's) execution in 1587.
the last of the four Reformation Regents, the Earl of Morton, took a hostile attitude to the citizens of Aberdeen
Sir Adam Gordon subsequently fled toFrance, but only narrowly escaped an assassination attempt by the Forbeses whilst in Paris. Gordon had been given 600 merks to leave Aberdeen, which was by now shifting away from its traditional reliance on the (Catholic) Earls of Huntly in favour of the (Protestant) Earls Marischal, to whose stronghold at Dunnottar Castle the Burgh's title-deeds were sent for safe keeping in 1572.
But the last of the four Reformation Regents, the Earl of Morton, took a hostile attitude to the citizens of Aberdeen, whom he regarded as "art and part" of both the Gordon Rising and the Battle of the Crabstane. In 1574, he imposed a fine of 4,000 merks on the Burgh and demanded assurances that, henceforward, the Burgh would be ruled by sincere adherents of the Reformed faith, which, in principle, would have ruled out both the Gordons and their long-standing associates, the Menzies family of Pitfodels.
The Battle of the Crabstane was so-called because there lay nearby a large stone, irregularly square in shape, known as the Crab Stane, which relates to an Aberdeen mercantile family descended from John Crab, a 14th Century baillie of Flemish origin. Not far off was a longer, more slender stone, appropriately named the Lang Stane. The two stones may have been march-stones (or boundary stones) from their Crabstone Croft. It may be that the stones were once part of a stone circle.
They provided the names for two streets now in the neighbourhood, Langstane Place and Craibstone Street. The Lang Stane may be seen at the east end of Langstane Place, i.e., at the south-east corner of the first house in Dee Street. The Crab Stone abuts upon the pavement on the south side of the Hardgate near where it crosses Bon-Accord Terrace, close to where the battle between the Gordons and Forbeses took place in 1571.
The ongoing feud between the Gordons and the Stewarts flared up again in 1592 with the sensationally brutal murder at his mother's house at Donnibristle near Culross of James Stewart, the 2nd Earl of Moray, son-in-law of the late Regent Moray, by George Gordon (1562-1636), the 6th Earl of Huntly.
Moray's mother had a portrait painted of her son's mutilated body, the famous 'Death Portrait', which depicts the 'Bonny Earl o' Moray' as having been shot several times, hacked about the body and slashed twice across the face by sword. The situation was that King James VI had asked Huntly to arrest the troublesome 5th Earl of Bothwell (nephew of Mary Stuart's Bothwell) and his associates, of whom Moray was one.
There was some evidence of a 'hit-list' of the King's enemies. Certainly the King took no action against Huntly, who was never brought to trial, and in fact received a Royal Pardon a week after the murder.
However, after Huntly and his ally Francis Hay, the 9th Earl of Erroll, attempted a Catholic rebellion in 1594, King James felt obliged, for the sake of appearances, to have their castles at Strathbogie and (Old) Slains blown up; and Huntly and Erroll were forced to depart Scotland for France. But they were soon pardoned and back home, and in 1599 King James promoted George Gordon to the rank of 1st Marquess of Huntly and the major responsibility of Lieutenant of the North.
Unlike his mother, Mary Stuart, King James knew who his real friends were, and kept them close, to the occasional extent of letting them get away with murder. The Gordons had come through 'interesting times' and had survived, but they were never again to be as 'gey' as in the glory days of George Gordon, the 4th Earl of Huntly.
Contributed by Alex Mitchell.
Posted by Fred at Aberdeen Voice at 22:20	Tagged with: Aberdeen, Alex Mitchell, Bothwell, Bruce, Burgh, Castle, Castlegate, Catholic, Darnley, Earl, Edinburgh, Edward, England, Episcopal, Erskine, Feud, Forbes, France, George, Gordon, Gunpowder, Hill, Huntly, I, II, III, IV, James, King, Langstane, Lord, Marischal, Mary, Menzies, Moray, Murder, protestant, Provost, Queen, Reformation, Regent, Robert, Royal, Scotland, Scots, Scottish, Spain, Stewart, Stuart, Treason, Trial, Tudor, V, VI, Violence
Continuing on from Part One of Blood Feud, Voice's Alex Mitchell offers up yet another slice of Scotland's troubled and violent history. Last week Alex looked at The Gordon, Forbes and Stewart Families in the Time of Mary Queen of Scots and King James VI This week we see how the fortunes of Clan Gordon changes in the turbulent times of Mary, Queen of Scots.
The Gordons, for their part, held back until the Earl of Huntly was 'put to the horn' or outlawed and rendered fugitive on a trumped-up charge of refusing to answer a summons from the Protestant-dominated Privy Council, of which he was still a member.
Huntly marched towards Aberdeenwith a force of about 1,000 men, almost all of them Gordon kinsfolk and dependents; no other gentry families joined his campaign to 'rescue' the Queen.
He mistakenly believed that many of the Queen's troops would join his side.
He took up a commanding position on the Hill of Fare, near Banchory, but his men melted away. His troops, now reduced to about 500, were assailed by some 2,000 men under the command of the Earls of Moray, Morton and Athole, and were forced down on to the swampy field next to the Corrichie Burn.
The Earl of Huntly, aged 50, corpulent and in poor health, and suffocated by his heavy armour, suffered a heart attack or stroke, and dropped down off his horse, dead.
Huntly's body was thrown over a pony and taken to Aberdeen, where it was put in the Tolbooth and gutted, salted and pickled. The body was then taken by sea to Edinburgh, where it was given a more comprehensive embalming. After lying unburied in the Abbey of Holyrood for some six months, the mummified corpse of the one-time Cock o' the North was brought in its coffin before the Scottish Parliament on29 May 1563 on a charge of High Treason.
The coffin was opened and propped up on end so that the deceased Earl could stand trial and 'hear' the charges against him.
Those present included the Queen and Huntly's eldest son George, himself under sentence of death, later repealed. A sentence of forfeiture was passed, stripping the Gordons of all their lands and possessions, which reverted to the Crown and were redistributed amongst favourites, not least the Earl of Moray.
The Gordon armorial bearings were struck from the Herald's Roll and the once-great dynasty was reduced to "insignificance and beggary". Huntly's body lay unburied in Holyrood for another three years until21 April 1566, when it was finally returned to Strathbogie and interred at Elgin Cathedral.
It has to be said that Mary's behaviour at this time makes little sense.
Two days after the Battle of Corrichie, Huntly's son, young Sir John Gordon, aged 24, was ineptly beheaded in front of the Tolbooth inAberdeen, to the visible distress of Queen Mary, who was in residence just across the Castlegate and was seen to observe the proceedings from an upstairs window.
It had been rumoured that the Queen and Sir John Gordon were lovers, although this is unlikely given that Mary was constantly under the guard of the Protestant Lords. They had achieved their twin purposes of destroying the Gordons of Huntly, the leading Catholic family inScotland, and of reassuring those Protestant Reformers suspicious of the Queen's own Catholic leanings.
It has to be said that Mary's behaviour at this time makes little sense. She was a devout and observing Catholic herself, yet she acquiesced in the legalised persecution of fellow-Catholics and the forfeiture and redistribution of their land and property.
The assumption has to be that she was not in control of events, partly because she was young and inexperienced and was disorientated by her return to Scotland, a country she had departed for France at the age of five; but also because she was fatally uninterested in the processes and responsibilities of government, seldom attending meetings of her own Privy Council at Holyrood. The judicial destruction of the Gordons of Huntly meant that Mary Stuart had lost her most substantial and dependable base of support, and put her thereafter in the grip of her political and religious enemies.
Mary Queen of Scots was made, probably unlawfully, to abdicate her throne on 24 July 1567, in favour of her infant son James, born 19 June 1566, by her second husband (and cousin) Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley, from whom she was already irretrievably estranged. Mary's effective reign had lasted just six years, and was over before she reached the age of 25.
The birth of a male heir to the throne meant that she had served her purpose, was now surplus to requirements and was in any case by this time dangerously out of control, having fallen under the destructive influence of James Hepburn (1535-78), the widely-detested 4th Earl of Bothwell, a Protestant, but intensely hostile to England.
The Queen's remaining authority was destroyed by the sensational murder of her husband Darnley, not yet 22 years of age, at Kirk o' Field on10 February 1567. Bothwell was instantly identified as prime suspect and the Queen as obviously complicit, an accessory, having gone to great lengths to seduce Darnley away from the protection of his Lennox Stewart relations in Glasgow and back to Edinburgh.
But how much did Mary really know? She would not have stayed overnight in the house at Kirk o' Field, just inside the Edinburgh city walls, only two miles from Holyrood, if she had known that its foundations were being stuffed with gunpowder. To the end of her life, Mary Stuart was convinced that the plot had been to blow up her and Darnley together. This is unlikely, given that the explosion, which literally blew the house sky-high, took place after Mary had left Kirk o' Field for Holyrood, which most people took to mean that Mary must have been party to the plot to murder Darnley.
But was she? And which plot? Or whose plot?
No-one as unpopular as Darnley was going to survive very long in 16th centuryScotland; but why murder him in such a sensational, attention-grabbing manner, when he could have been quietly dispatched back at Holyrood? Whatever the case, the ensuing scandal was hugely compounded by Mary's subsequent marriage to Bothwell (in a Protestant church) on 15 May 1567.
Prior to all this, on 8 October 1565, Mary had restored George Gordon, the eldest surviving son of the 4th Earl of Huntly, to most of his father's titles, including that of Lord High Chancellor, and some part of his former lands and property. This was little more than two years after the deceased 4th Earl had been found guilty of High Treason, his son George imprisoned and put under sentence of death, and his entire family reduced to "insignificance and beggary".
Mary was presumably trying to rebuild her support in the North-East, but it was too little, too late. On top of everything else, the 5th Earl's sister, Lady Jean Gordon, had made the mistake of marrying the Earl of Bothwell at Holyrood on24 February 1566. She was cruelly thrown aside and divorced within the year in order that Bothwell could marry his Queen.
Coming in Part 3: Alex Mitchell analyzes the changes sweeping through all aspects of Scottish life – dynasties rise and fall, clans battle for power and dominance, and religious conflicts dominate.
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Voice's Alex Mitchell offers up yet another slice of Scotland's troubled and violent history in the first part of Blood Feud: The Gordon, Forbes and Stewart Families in the Time of Mary Queen of Scots and King James VI
Following the death of her first husband, King Francis II of France in December 1560, the young Mary Queen of Scots, born 8 December 1542, resolved to return to Scotland.
Whilst still in France, she was visited by a deputation of Scottish Catholics, headed by her cousin, George Gordon, the 4th Earl of Huntly (1514-62). They entreated her to land at Aberdeen, where she was promised an army of 20,000 men under the leadership of Huntly himself, ready to protect her and convey her in triumph to Edinburgh. This would almost certainly have led to civil war between Catholic and Protestant factions in Scotland.
Instead, Mary chose to take the advice of her post-Reformation Parliament. She landed at Leith on 19 August 1561, and thereafter depended on the support and advice of her half-brother Lord James Stewart (1531-70), the illegitimate son of King James V and Margaret Erskine.
His two fixed principles were his support of, firstly, the Protestant Reformation of 1560, which sought to displace and abolish the Catholic religion, and secondly, closer relations with England rather than with England's enemies France and Spain.
To these ends, Lord James insisted that Mary, herself a devout Catholic, should respect the Reformation and defer to 'moderate' Protestant opinion rather than that of Catholic Earls, such as Huntly and Erroll. In return, Lord James would use his contacts in England to secure from Queen Elizabeth recognition of Mary's claim to be her legitimate successor. Mary was a grand-daughter of Margaret Tudor, elder sister to King Henry VIII, whose six wives between them produced only three surviving children, Mary, Elizabeth and Edward, none of whom had any children of their own.
Lord James Stewart favoured a middle way in religious matters, acceptable to mainstream opinion in England.
He tried to fend off the more radical Presbyterian reformers like John Knox, who intimidated the Episcopal Church of England. Similarly, he set out to crush unrepentant Catholics like the powerful George Gordon, 4th Earl Huntly, The Cock o' the North, whose opposition was substantially based on his justified resentment of Lord James himself.
Mary's elevation of Lord James to the vacant earldom of Mar in 1562, which he then resigned in favour of the earldom of Moray in 1563, both of which had been effectively under the control of the Gordons of Huntly, obviously threatened that family's long-standing domination of North East Scotland. Moray then, of course, was a much larger territory than it is now. Lord James, for his part, was fearful of the stated intention of Sir John Gordon, Huntly's violent and unstable third son, to marry the 19 year-old Queen Mary. That he was already married seemed not to concern him.
Aberdeen regularly paid the more powerful and aggressive of the local gentry families large sums of money
The Gordons had ruled the North East like provincial kings for about 250 years, having been granted the lands of Strathbogie by Robert the Bruce in 1307. They were an enormous kindred, with cadet branches throughout the North East, and prolific; George, the 4th Earl, had nine sons and three daughters.
The original expression the Gey Gordons (note spelling) is a reference to this sense of the House of Gordon as being literally overwhelming, unforgiving and dangerous. They were also rich, and lived like princes; the 4th Earl rebuilt Huntly Castle as a splendid Renaissance palace. He had been created Lord High Chancellor in 1546, being a trusted supporter of Mary's redoubtable French mother, Mary of Guise, who ruled Scotland as Queen-Regent from sometime after the death of her husband King James V in 1542, until her own death in 1560.
At a time when Aberdeen regularly paid the more powerful and aggressive of the local gentry families large sums of money in the hope that they might then leave the Burgh alone, the Gordons were undoubtedly the family to have on your side – rich, numerous, widespread, possessed of great political influence and close to the Throne. Hence the close relationship between the (burgess) Menzies family of Aberdeen and the (gentry) Gordons of Huntly, to the occasional extent of inter-marriage. In fact, in 1545, Thomas Menzies resigned as Provost to allow George Gordon, 4th Earl Huntly, to succeed him, albeit for a period of only two years. George Gordon was the only Peer of the Realm ever to be Provost of Aberdeen.
There was intense hostility between the Gordon and Forbes families and their respective allies, the feud extending over some 200 years.
The Forbeses, as one of the few authentically Celtic of the twelve main land-owning families in Aberdeenshire, resented Norman-French incomers such as the Gordons, Hays, Burnets, Bissets, Frasers and Keiths.
They were now Protestant, and allied to the Ogilvies, with whom the Gordons were in a separate dispute. These were violent times.
In 1527, Alexander Seton of Meldrum, an ally of the Gordons, was murdered by the Master of Forbes in Provost Menzies' house in the Castlegate. A Commission was appointed, but it reached no conclusion.
As described, Huntly and his allies had expected the young Queen's support for their proposed Catholic uprising against the Reformation, to commence in Aberdeen. He and Mary were cousins, both being grandchildren of King James IV. But the Queen withheld her support.
In August 1562, Mary toured the North East in the safe keeping of the Protestant Lords of Moray, Morton and Maitland. They went out of their way to insult and provoke the Gordons, snubbing their invitation to visit Huntly Castle. The Royal party feared, with some reason, that the Gordons planned to capture the Queen, murder her Protestant minders and forcibly marry Mary to young Sir John Gordon.
On 27 August, the Queen's party, returning from Inverness, reached the Kirktoun of Aberdon, lodging at the Bishop's Palace in the Chanonry – the Bishop of Aberdeen remained in post for a good twenty years after the Reformation. In Aberdeen itself, the Queen was warmly received by Provost Thomas Menzies but, perhaps significantly, was accommodated in Earl Marischal's Hall on the south side of the Castlegate, and not in the adjacent Pitfodel's Lodging. Around this time, Lord James Stewart married Agnes Keith, daughter of the Protestant 1st Earl Marischal.
Alex's insight to those turbulent times and bitter familial relationships will continue in future editions of Aberdeen Voice.
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The Old Burghs Of Aberdeen – Part 6
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Alex Mitchell brings us the final part of his fascinating and informative series of articles on the development of Aberdeen City from its origin as two separate burghs.
Aberdeen was perhaps at its most important, relative to the rest of the world, and as a centre of trade and learning, in the early decades of the 17th century. The population of the two burghs approached 10,000 in the 1630s; about 8,500 in New Aberdeen and 1,000 in Old Aberdeen.
The Burgh maintained close links with the seaports of the Hanseatic League, of which Aberdeen was an early member, and their hinterlands of the Low Countries, Poland, Russia, the Baltic states and Scandinavia. Aberdeen was more open to European influences, to new ideas from the Continent, and was more diverse in its political and religious thinking, than were either Edinburgh or Glasgow.
Aberdeen (Old & New) now had its two small universities and there was hardly a European university of note that did not have an Aberdonian professor. George Keith, the 5th Earl Marischal, had set up a new college in 1593, being Marischal College, on the site of the old Franciscan Priory, to teach a Reformed (Protestant) curriculum in rivalry to King's College, (originally St. Mary's College), which had been established by Pope Alexander VI (Borgia) in 1495 at the request of Bishop William Elphinstone (1431-1514).
This reflected the post-Reformation decline in the standing of the Catholic Gordons of Huntly, the de facto protectors of the two Burghs and the real power behind the Menzies dynasty, and, correspondingly, the growing power and influence of the Protestant Keiths, the Earls Marischal, with their power-base at Dunnottar Castle; George Keith had been promoted to Lieutenant of the North by King James VI in 1593. But it was not until 1860 that the two universities of King's College and Marischal College were united into the single University of Aberdeen. Through King's College, Aberdeen can claim to have the fifth-oldest university in all of Great Britain.
The Reformation had not been welcomed in the North-East, where, as late as the 1620s, the majority of gentry families led by the Gordons of Huntly and their close allies the Hays of Erroll, remained Catholics "in their hearts". In Aberdeen itself, this was reflected in the succession of Menzies provosts.
Scotland was effectively put under military occupation during the nine years of Oliver Cromwell's British Commonwealth
Even as their Gordon overlords slowly weakened, so, perversely, the Menzies family tightened its grip, although their policy on religious matters might best be described as pragmatic; Aberdeen was regarded as a centre of Episcopalianism rather than of either unrepentant Catholicism or radical Presbyterianism.
By May 1638, Aberdeen was the only royal burgh still refusing, on the basis of loyalty to the King, to subscribe to the National Covenant, drawn up in Edinburgh earlier that year; but opinion amongst the townsfolk reflected the wider divisions within Scotland, between the largely Covenanting Lowlands and the Catholic and Royalist Highlands. Aberdeen was on the fringe of both territories and was too big a prize to be overlooked.
The outbreak of civil war between Covenanters and Royalists in 1639 was followed by a succession of invasions, occupations and lootings of the two Burghs by the rival armies, climaxing in 1644 in the three-days-long massacre of the unarmed and defenceless citizens of Aberdeen known as the Battle of Justice Mills, perpetrated by the Irish (Royalist) forces of the Marquis of Montrose. On a number of occasions the town became the battleground for the Royalists and Covenanters. About one-tenth of the population of Aberdeen died in these conflicts; another quarter died in the last but worst-ever outbreak of the bubonic plague in 1647, despite the desperate measures taken to exclude and contain it.
The city was badly affected by the widespread famines of 1695 and 1699; the population fell from about 7,100 in 1695 to 5,600 in 1700
The Marquis of Montrose was executed in Edinburgh in May 1650. One of his hands was sent to Aberdeen and was nailed to the front door of the Tolbooth. It remained there until July, when King Charles II, on his way to his Scottish Coronation at Scone and briefly in residence at Pitfodel's Lodging, just across the Castlegate, observed the blackened and decaying object and ordered its Christian burial.
Scotland was effectively put under military occupation during the nine years of Oliver Cromwell's British Commonwealth. General Monck's troops arrived in Aberdeen in Sept. 1651, built their new fort on the Castle Hill, and did not leave until 1659. The destruction during the Covenanting Wars contributed to a decline in Aberdeen's commercial importance. Aberdeen had accounted for 8% of all burghal tax revenues in 1635, but for only 4.5% by 1697. The city was badly affected by the widespread famines of 1695 and 1699; the population fell from about 7,100 in 1695 to 5,600 in 1700. It more than recovered by the mid-18th century, being estimated as 15,433 in 1755 and rising to 26,992 by the first census in 1801.
As elsewhere in Scotland, it was the rural hinterland that was worst affected by the 'Lean Years' of the 1690s, mainly because of the lack of overland transport and functioning markets via which food could be imported, compounded by the lack of any saleable product that could be traded for food. In Aberdeenshire, population in 1755 had still not regained its 1695 level. These grim circumstances at the close of the 17th century prompted the belief that Scotland could never be economically self-sufficient and had to obtain access to English markets. Thus the Union of Crowns in 1603 was followed by the Union of Parliaments in 1707.
Aberdeen's relative decline in economic importance continued through the 18th and 19th centuries, mainly because Britain's expanding trade with the Americas favoured west-coast ports like Glasgow rather than east-coast ports like Aberdeen, Dundee and Leith; also because of the Burgh's geographical remoteness from the basic resources of the Industrial Revolution, being coal and iron ore.
The 'Wallace Tower' in Netherkirkgate which set me off on these researches, as it turns out, had nothing to do with the Scottish patriot William Wallace (1272-1305) since it was not built until 1588. It was properly known as Benholm's Lodging, being originally the residence of Sir Robert Keith of Benholm, the younger brother of the 5th Earl Marischal, and stood just outside the old Netherkirkgate Port – demolished about 1770 – at the corner of Netherkirkgate and Carnegie's Brae; about where the M&S Food Hall is now.
Carnegie's Brae led down to the Green via Putachieside, so-named because the proprietor of Castle Forbes, then known as Putachie, had his town house there; it was latterly a particularly miserable street of slum tenements and was obliterated by the construction of Union St., and then of Market St. and Archibald Simpson's New Market in 1840.
Benholm's Lodging was a unique example of a Z-plan tower-house within a Scots town, and was one of only four 16th century buildings remaining in Aberdeen. It was demolished in 1964, along with part of the Netherkirkgate to make way for the extended M&S store, and it is unlikely that I ever actually saw it. A replica building, incorporating some of the original stonework and features was erected in far-off Tillydrone in the same year. This building is now empty, redundant, neglected and vandalised.
The useful suggestion has been made that it should now be moved back to its original location in the heart of Aberdeen, or at least on to our projected 'Civic Square' where it would complement Provost Skene's House, also of the time of Mary Queen of Scots and King James VI.
Footnote. Aberdeen Voice is grateful to Stanley Wright for all photos associated with the above article.
Posted by Fred at Aberdeen Voice at 05:00	Tagged with: Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire, Alex Mitchell, Battle, Commonwealth, Huntly, Keith, Kings College, Netherkirkgate, Oliver Cromwell, University
Highland League – Shocking!
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Shock after shock for Highland League fans as last Saturday's results came in. Voice's David Innes explains.
Deveronvale, perennially among the clubs tipped for trophies, are one of four clubs sitting on no points after Clach, unlucky at Buckie last week, came raiding and sauntered smugly back to the Highlands with all three points and a stunning 3-0 victory. Continue reading »
Posted by Fred at Aberdeen Voice at 05:00	Tagged with: Brora, Clachnacuddin, Cove, David Innes, Deveronvale, Football, Formartine, Forres Mechanics, Fort william, Highland, Huntly, Keith, League, Lossiemouth, Nairn County, Rothes, Strathspey, Turriff, Wick Academy
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By Alex Mitchell.
I have been much taken by two illustrated postcards I bought for 10p each in the Ferryhill Library. They depict the long-gone building popularly, if erroneously, known as the Wallace Tower; a once prominent feature of the Netherkirkgate, and are intensely evocative of the old medieval Burgh of Aberdeen, long-predating Union St., King St., Market St., Bridge St., Holburn St. and the later 19th century development of the West End.
The site of Aberdeen has been inhabited since about 6,000 BC. There was a settlement known to the Romans as Devana and identified as such in Ptolemy's Systems Of Geography of 79 AD. They knew the rivers Dee and Don, which used to conjoin on the Queen's Links, as the Deva and Devona. Some scholars derive 'Aberdeen' from the Pictish-Gaelic aber-devan, meaning 'at the meeting of two rivers'. It is likely that Roman fleets used the natural harbour at the mouth of the River Dee (Deva) in preparation for their great battle of Mons Graupius against the Caledonians in 83 AD. Thereafter, Aberdeen developed as two settlements: the Royal Burgh of Aberdeen from the mid 12th century which developed around the natural harbour at the mouth of the River Dee and the Episcopal Burgh or Kirk-toun of St. Mary's from 1498, later the Kirk-toun of Aber-don, which grew up around St Machar's Cathedral and King's College and later became known as Old Aberdeen. The two burghs did not become one until 1891.
Trade outside the Burghs was banned. For the residents of a Royal Burgh, the feudal superior was the King himself.
The medieval township was well established as an un-walled trading community by the mid 12th century. Aberdeen was granted the status of a Royal Burgh by King David I (1124-53), with concomitant rights and privileges relating to manufacturing and trade. The effect was that Aberdeen was permitted a degree of autonomy in the conduct of its affairs although it had to conform to the accepted mercantile and burgh law common to England, Scotland and northern France. The trading and other privileges of the older Royal Burgh of Perth were granted to Aberdeen.
It should be realised that markets, fairs etc. could be held only by permission of the landowner or feudal superior. This meant in practice that trade in agricultural and other products could only take place in the fairs and markets of the Burghs which became processing plants for the products of the rural hinterland. Trade outside the Burghs was banned. For the residents of a Royal Burgh, the feudal superior was the King himself. There were none of the usual feudal obligations to any local Earl or lesser landowner but taxes were payable to the Exchequer.
The most powerful of the townsfolk were the burgesses; generally merchants and traders, who had commercial privileges. Only burgesses could own and operate businesses as well as having certain civic responsibilities. Most of the early burgesses came from Flanders, northern France, England and Lothian, bringing with them skills and expertise hitherto lacking in Scotland. They spoke many different tongues, but settled on English as their common language. The burghs became enclaves of English-speakers and their use of English spread outwards to the surrounding hinterlands. In addition, the Royal Burghs, which were almost all east-coast seaports like Aberdeen, Dundee, Perth, Leith and Berwick, had a legal monopoly of trade with foreign countries; in return, the burghs were responsible for the collection of the duties levied on both imported and exported goods and for remitting these revenues, plus sundry rents, fines and tolls, to the Exchequer. The burghs thus became the main source of revenue for the kings of Scotland and, in consequence, the burgesses became men of national significance.
Six members of the Menzies family were Provosts for a total of eighty-three years out of the 16th century alone
Aberdeen's earliest extant Charter, detailing its privileges, rights and responsibilities, is that granted by William the Lion, grandson of David I, about 1171. In 1211, William the Lion granted his palace in the Green to the Trinity or Red Friars for use as a monastery. The Dominican or Black Friars and the Carmelite or White Friars settled in the same area whilst the Franciscan or Grey Friars had their monastery adjacent to the Broadgate; hence various street and place names still in use in our own time. The Burgh had become an efficient municipal organisation by the 14th century. Its first recorded Provost was Ricardus Cementarius, Richard the Mason, in 1272.
The Burgh had a system of higher and lower courts and a Council drawn from the burgesses of the Merchant Guild of between 12 and 24 members and other officers, sergeants, treasurers etc. In practice, the Council became a self-perpetuating oligarchy dominated by the Menzies family of Pitfodels; successive members of which served as Provosts of Aberdeen for 114 of the 212 years from 1423 to 1635. Six members of the Menzies family were Provosts for a total of eighty-three years out of the 16th century alone including (one such) Thomas Menzies. He served three terms (of) in office – the longest for the period 1547-75 totalling forty years. Aberdeen became something like a European city-state with a single ruling family whose autocracy was, however, subject to the constraint of other burgesses such as the Rutherfords, Chalmers and Cullens.
There was a degree of dictation from the Court and Parliament in Edinburgh and, occasionally, an attempt by neighbouring landowners like the Forbeses, the Gordon's or the Seton's to take over the Burgh or to seize some of its possessions. Substantial sums of what amounted to protection money were paid to these families, to keep them at bay.
The Gordons of Huntly were by far the largest and most powerful of the local landowning families and it was to them that the Burgh looked for protection and support. There was a close working relationship between the (burgess) Menzies family and the (aristocratic) Gordons of Huntly to the extent of intermarriage. In 1545, Thomas Menzies resigned as Provost to be succeeded by George Gordon, the 4th Earl of Huntly – the only peer ever to hold that office, albeit for a period of only two years.
But, for most intents and purposes, the Burgh was both independent and autonomous; the more so because of the grant to the Burgh in 1314 by King Robert I (Bruce) of the Royal Forest of Stocket. This became the basis of the Common Good Fund and guaranteed the Burgh a substantial source of revenue such as could finance significant investments and improvements thereafter. Another of the many benefactions from Good King Robert was the Brig o' Balgownie, built at his order across the River Don in 1320 to facilitate trade with the lands of Buchan, Formartine and the Garioch.
King Robert's daughter Matilda married Thomas Isaac, the Town Clerk of Aberdeen, and his (Bruce's) sister Christian latterly lived and died in Aberdeen. These things are indicative of the Bruce's close relationship with, and affection for, the Burgh of Aberdeen and its citizens.
Posted by Fred at Aberdeen Voice at 05:00	Tagged with: Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire, Alex Mitchell, Balgownie, Ferryhill, History, Huntly, River Dee, River Don, Robert The Bruce, Stocket, Wallace