Blaeu Atlas of Scotland, 1654
Name: | Blaeu, Joan, 1596-1673 |
Title: | Angvsia, Angvs. |
Pagination: | 84-85 |
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Translation of text:
Then, facing the open Ocean, is Aber-broth, contracted Arbroath, a place once dedicated to religion with ample revenues by King William in honour of Thomas of Canterbury; next to it Red Head stretches into the sea, visible from a great distance. Nearby the South Esk rolls into the sea; flowing from a loch, it glides past the castle of Finhaven, famous for its inhabitants the Lindsays Earls of Crawford. [It ceased to be in the family of the Crawfords by the sale of all the lands, then by forfeiture, and finally by the death of Ludovic, who died recently in battle at Philiphaugh. But the title of Earls of Crawford, because of that forfeiture, was granted in 1644 by Act of Parliament to John Lord Lindsay, who displayed a contract between him and the foresaid Ludovic, and a royal infeftment on it, where it is provided, if there should be no male heirs of that Ludovic surviving at the time of his death, that the title and certain lands should pass to that John Lord Lindsay.]
Brechin next is positioned on the same river; David I adorned it with an episcopal seat. [The Barony of Brechin and Navar belonged to the Earl of Mar, but ten years ago he sold it to Patrick Maule of Panmure, one of the Gentlemen of the King’s Bedchamber, who now owns it. Brechin Castle is fortified to the highest degree, and is built of red squared stone. Brechin is thus celebrated by Arthur Johnston (Section Note):
Fertile Brechin lies between twin rivers,One faces north, the other looks south.
Enclosed by walls the waters are divided by bridges,
The rivers too are full of safe fords.
The victory of a northern king embellishes this,
When allied leaders treacherously turned tail.
This is the house of a holy bishop, and a pyramid is near
The church, perhaps the work of Phidian art.
If you look at the building, nothing is more slender than it,
Yet its peak touches the very supports of heaven.
It is a smooth structure, and not infrequently deceives the eyes,
Looking at it from a distance you would think it a needle.
The cunning construction laughs at both winds and rains,
Nor does it fear the three-forked weapons of great Jove.
If one wishes to compare the art, Brechin’s tower
Overcomes your pyramids, proud Nile.]
At the mouth of the same river lies Montrose, that is, the town Mount of Roses, formerly Celurca, risen from the decline of another of the same name; it lies between the two Esks, and bestows the title of Earl on the family of Grahams. [Montrose is a fine town at the actual mouth of the river, there is here a great flat area of fields extending for two miles. At the most recent Scottish Assembly, because of treachery against his country and taking up arms, James earl of Montrose was declared in Parliament guilty of treason, and a reward of £20,000 put on his head.] On Celurca thus J. Johnston:
City painted with golden roses, a mount gently above the cityHangs, hence they say the name was made for the city:
But tradition is that the ancients called it Celurca,
Thus it is renowned with an old name and a new.
Both old and new is known for virtue, and for the genius of the men
Who have produced distinction for their country.
[And thus Arthur Johnston (Section Note):
A noble city now enjoys the name of rosy mount,
Which previously had been called Celurca from heaven.
Very close to it is the mount, which a river glides past,
Both give the people Ambrosian feasts.
The mount produces choice cattle, the water salmon,
And anything more splendid that Nero’s ponds hold.
To refresh the eyes, lilies circle the banks,
And the ridges are painted with red roses.
On the east side a deep [vectigale]
Opens out, and the waters are covered with a thousand sails.
Beside the waters the plain offers spectacles to the people,
Washed by a river on both north and south.
Here some of the young men train horses, some use the bow,
Some swing huge stones with Herculean hand.
Some enjoy wrestling, some like to play at discus,
Or to strike swift balls with curved stick.
Famous city, if he saw you Juppiter would leave
Rome’s Capitol, cherishing Venus Idalium.]
Not far from here is Boschain[?], a property of the Barons of Ogilvy, whose origin and ancient nobility derives from that Alexander, Sheriff of Angus, killed in a bloody battle at Harlaw against the Macdonalds of the Isles. [However this Barony was sold some years since to the Lord of Southesk. Two nobles families in addition arose at this time, viz. that of David earl of Southesk, who was first called Baron of the Barony of Kinnaird. The other family is that of his brother, John Lord Lour (à Loeren) who was earlier called Baron of Ethie. Alexander, the third brother, holds various Baronies, certainly Careston formerly of the Crawfords, Balnamoon, and others. The Earls in Angus are Crawford, Kinghorn, Southesk, Gray, Spinie and Lour.
There is found in the Register a confirmation of an excambion between the Lords Marischal and Lindsay, who
Concerning the Earls of Angus, Gilchrist of Angus, known for actions under Malcolm IV, was the first Earl of Angus that I have read of. About the year 1242 John Comyn was Earl of Angus; he died in France, and his widow (perhaps heir to the Earldom) married an Englishman Gilbert Umfraville. For he and his successors were called to the Parliamentary Assemblies of England, down to the third year of Richard II, under the title of Earls of Angus. Yet lawyers in England refused to recognise that Earl in the formulae of the law, on the ground that Angus was not within the kingdom of England, until he had personally produced before the Tribunal a rescript, in which the King summoned him to the Parliamentary Assemblies under the name of Earl of Angus.
In the reign of David Bruce, Th. Stewart was Earl of Angus; he unexpectedly began attacks on Berwick, and immediately lost it, and shortly after died in the squalor of prison at Dumbarton. Now the Douglases, in the greatness of high and undefeated spirit, from the times of Robert III were famous under the title of Earls of Angus, after George Douglas had taken the king’s daughter as his wife, and were considered the leading Earls of Scotland, to whom it fell to carry the crown before the Kings at solemn gatherings of the kingdom. Now the sixth Earl of Angus of this family was Archibald, who married Margaret daughter of King Henry VII of England and mother of James V King of Scots; by her he fathered Margaret wife of Matthew Stewart Earl of Lennox; she, after the death of her brother without issue, willingly resigned, with the agreement of her husband and sons, from her right in this Earldom in favour of David Douglas of Pittindreich son of her paternal uncle, in order to bind that family, closely related in blood, even tighter to herself by the bond of benefaction, since her son Henry was soliciting marriage with Queen Mary, from whom for the good of Britain King James Monarch of Great Britain was auspiciously born.
STRATHEARN (Section Note)
Julius Agricola the best Governor of Britain under the worst Emperor Domitian, in the third year of his campaigns, reached with his victorious standards the Firth of Tay, which bounds Fife on the north, having laid waste the peoples up to that point. In this firth the distinguished River Earn mixes its waters with the Tay; rising from a loch of the same name, it lends its name to the region through which it flows, for it is called Strathearn, which in the old language of the British means ‘Enclosed valley on the Earn’. Drummond Castle adorns the bank of this Earn, in the family of the Barons of Drummond, who have achieved the most ample honours since King Robert Stewart the Third took his wife from among them. For the women from this family, of outstanding dignity of face and expression, have snatched the prize from others, to such an extent that they have been the delight of Kings.
On the same bank rises Tullibardine Castle, more joyful since by the propitious favour of King James VI John Moray or Murray Baron of Tullibardine was raised to the honour and dignity of Earl of Tullibardine. [Patrick Murray his brother bought this earldom from his brother, and his son now possesses it.] Lower down the other bank Dupplin Castle, the dwelling of the Barons Oliphant, still recalls what a defeat, quite unequalled previously, was there inflicted on the Scots by the English who had come to the aid of King Edward Balliol, so that English writers of that time write that they won this victory by divine rather than human virtue; and the Scots relate that eighty of the family of the Lindsays perished, and the name of the Hays would have totally disappeared if the head of the family had not left a pregnant wife at home. [One Francis with the surname Hay bought this Barony about the year 1640, son of the brother of the Earl of Dupplin of the Chancery of Scotland.] At no great distance is situated Innermeath, quite well known for its Lords, Stewarts from the family of Lorne. [These lands have now come by purchase to David Drummond.]
Now where the Earn has mixed its confluent waters with the Tay and the Tay is now wider, it has on its bank Abernethy, once the capital of the Picts and a populous city, which, as is read in an ancient fragment, ‘Nechtan King of the Picts gave to God and St Bridget until the day of judgement, with its boundaries which are set from the stone in Abertrent to the stone near Carful, that is Loch-fol, and from there to the Eden.’ It came much later into the possession of the Douglases Earls of Angus, who were called Lords Abernethy, and some of them are buried there.
The first Earl of Strathearn of whom I have read was Robert Stewart in the year 1380. Then David, younger son of King Robert II, whose only daughter was given to Patrick Graham and bore Mailisius or Malise Graham, from whom King James I took away the Earldom after he had learned from the Archives of the Kingdom that it had been given in male feu to his maternal grandfather. In this land, as in the adjacent Menteith, the Barons Drummond are in charge hereditarily with the authority of Steward.
MENTEITH (Section Note)
Menteith, they say, has its name from the River Teith, which they also call Taich, and hence in Latin this province is called Taichia. On its bank sits the bishopric of Dunblane, which King David I founded. At Kilbride, that is Shrine of Bridget, the Earls of Menteith have their principal seat, as too the Earls of Montrose of the same family not far away at Kincardine. Now this Menteith extends as far as the mountains, as I have learned, which enclose the eastern side of Loch Lomond. The ancient Earls of Menteith were from the family of Cumyn, which, once the most numerous and powerful in the whole of Scotland, collapsed under its own weight, the more recent from the family of the Grahams, from which Malise Graham gained the honour of Earl.