The History of Dundee,
1874 History by James Thomson

James Thomson's 1874 work

INTRODUCTION

This work has been transcribed - verbatim - from the 1874 edition. Much about the history of Dundee has been changed, revised and updated by Historians over the years - So please refer to those new histories of Dundee for a more modern understanding of the History of Dundee.
This exercise is to just to make available the original source material from the 1875 Book.

Iain D. McIntosh, Friends of Dundee City Archives

CHAPTER 1

Inquiries which have for their object the elucidation of a point placed beyond the reach of written records, degenerate into traditionary conjectures, which are only to be admitted, and with great caution, when other evidence cannot be procured. Traditions are commonly grounded upon some principle flattering to individual vanity, and the influence lent them by time will not blind the candid and impartial inquirer. For this reason, we reject the ordinary derivations of the term Dundee as childish, or at least merely fanciful—containing nothing calculated to gratify the curious, or to satisfy the philologist. We will allow, however, the reader to judge for himself. Dr Small informs us that Dundee "formerly, and even so late as the beginning of the present (18th) century, was generally spelled Donde or Dondie, and in Queen Mary's charter, Dondei. In Law-Latin it is Deidonum, and we have been assured by various Highlanders that they consider it as signifying what this Latin imports, the "gift," or otherwise the "hill of God." These circumstances give probability to the tradition that it obtained the name towards the end of the 12th century, from David, Earl of Huntingdon, who, landing here after a dreadful storm, on his return from the Holy Wars, designed by it to express his gratitude for his deliverance, and in consequence of a vow, built the old Parish Church. He certainly at this time received the town as a present from his brother, King William. Had the signification been the Hill of Tay or Taodunum, according to Buchanan, it would in Gaelic, have been pronounced Duntaw. The ancient name was Alec, in Boece's Latin Alectuin, and by this it is still distinguished in the Highlands. The signification of Alec is said to he pleasant and beautiful

Irvine also informs us that " Taodunum, the Hill of Tay, is the name of Dundee or Duntay—taken from the hill that riseth above the town called Dundee-law ; but this seemeth not to be the vera ratio nominis,—for besides that there are many duns or hills on the banks of Tay on both sides, more conspicuous than this, which might give it more justly that name, we find it in our histories to have taken this name from the safe arrival of David, Earl of Huntingdon, King William's brother, who, in his return from the Holy "War, in a great storm, from the sight of this hill received first comfort, and next his crazy vessel safe harboured at St Nicolas' Rock, upon which emergency he called it Donum-dei, because it was the first assurance he had that his prayers were heard."

The various spellings of the name in the former of these quotations and others that may be added, such as Downdie, Doundie, Dunde, Dundei, &c., are of no importance, as they only show the orthography used at different times, until the word was finally settled Dundee, and this we have seen indifferently adopted with the former in deeds and indentures between the years 1550 and 1600. We suspect that the story of the Earl of Huntingdon is the invention of some inhabitant of the cloister, in his anxiety to give a spiritual turn to the incident of David's arrival, who was a considerable benefactor to the church; nor in this view of the matter had he called it the Gift of Mary, or the Gift of Peter, or the Gift of any other Saint, would it have been less in keeping with the general custom of that remote period. Equally suspicious is the derivation from A lee, however respectable it may appear under the venerable shelter of Hector Boece's authority. Our acquaintance with the Gaelic is indeed limited ; but -we are afraid that, instead of Alec signifying "pleasant" or "beautiful,1' it will be found, upon being analysed—Ail-lech or Ailach—to signify a stony place or rocky field, neither very pleasant nor very beautiful—a singular root for the vernacular Scottish expression, " Bonnie Dundee."

The quotation from Irvine tends to support the derivation from Deidonum, and connects St Nicolas' Rock or Crag with it, which, to be sure, was in existence then; but there is no evidence that it was so early known by that name. It was Deidonum, the gift of God, indeed, to the Earl of Huntingdon to see the Law; but it is very strangeit should have been the first friendly land he saw. He might have seen it before he saw the heights to the eastward, but not before the summits of Sidlaw and Fife were visible. Upon the whole, any reasoning upon this, as well as other legends of the cloister, must be considered as thrown uselessly away.
Having thus rejected the commonly received derivations of the name Dundee, we will venture to bring forward one in place of them, which, if not certain, is at least plausible. Buchanan, we are aware, has given the same, but without adducing a reason for it. This is now to be done; and indeed it is surprising that this derivation has not been adopted to the exclusion of all others. In the vicinity of the harbour there was formerly an immense dark-coloured rock, through which Castle Street was cut, and of which a portion yet remains. On the summit of this rock, when entire, stood the castle, which was demolished during the wars between England and Scotland, after the death of the infant queen, Margaret, niece and successor of Alexander III.

At an early period, before Dundee was in being, the natural strength of this rocky eminence—one of three, the" others being to the north of the High Street, and the Windmill-hill, adjoining the Wards — would point it out as an eligible situation for a fortress, such as was used by our remote progenitors under the Druidical regime. Emi­nences and places of strength were by our Celtic ancestors denominated Duns, not from the want of terms in their language, but from their practice of calling things from the use to which they were applied; hence Dun, a hill, height, or eminence, would become the figurative appellation of whatever was erected on it.

The name of the hill having thus been transferred to the fortress, the town, formed under its protection, and built on the brink of the river, united the names of both in the compound Dun-Taw, changed into Taodunum by Carey in his " Macbeth." This term Duntaw, in English the hill or fort of Tay, is now corrupted into Dundee, which in fact is the old British expression of Blackhill, a name which well corresponds with the black colour of the rock. The import of the term Taw is heat; and hence, from a property, observed in ancient times, possessed by the water, the name Loch-taw or Tay, that is, the Warm Lake, is derived. Taw comes from the name of the Celtic deity Teuthaighte (Teutates lat.), i.e. warm or warmed.

With regard to the origin of the town, Heron1 says that David, Earl of Huntingdon, at his return from the crusade in which he had accompanied Richard I. of England, landed nearly on the site of the future town of Dundee ; and again in his notes adds, that the burgh of Dundee was certainly not of earlier origin than the end of the llth century. It is rather difficult to ascertain the meaning of the his­torian—to say nothing of the difference of nearly three-fourths of a century, between the end of the eleventh century and the time of the arrival of David, on " nearly the situation of the future town of Dundee"—whether he refers to it as a royal burgh, or simply a collec­tion of houses not incorporated. He seems to have been under the influence of the silly disputes about precedency that formerly agitated the lieges of Dundee and Perth and to have ascribed an earlier origin to the former would have risked galling the kibe of the latter. If Heron refers to the origin of Dundee as a royal burgh, we will not dispute with him; but, if as a town or large village, we must protest against his assertion, for this reason, that though kings no more than their subjects are bound to the possession of wisdom, William the Lion could not act so preposterously foolish a part as to bestow a charter on, and erect into a royal burgh, a place that was in nubibus. That Dundee is far more ancient than the time of William need not be questioned; and it is our belief that, so soon as the fortifications which at first occupied the summit of Duntaw were in a state to yield efficient protection, houses would begin to be formed in its neighbourhood to enjoy that protection; and these houses, continuing. to increase in number, would form the town near which King Alpin was defeated and beheaded (834), in which Malcolm II. refreshed his troops before the battle of Barrie (1012), and which William the Lion subsequently incorporated—if the bestowal of a charter constitutes incorporation—and conferred upon his brother David, Earl of Huntingdon. This is proved by several charters which are extant, given by the Earl, in particular one to the Abbey of Arbroath, in which he calls the town meo burgi de Dundee.

Some of our ancient historians, indulging in their penchant for the marvellous, inform us that Dundee was a place of strength and import­ance at the time Agricola brought the Roman eagles into Scotland, and point it out as the place where Catanach, King of the Picts, entered into an agreement or league, offensive and defensive of course, with Galde—the Galgacus of the Latin historians—King of the Scots, against their common enemy, the Romans. They also inform us that their castle was strongly fortified, and the residence of Donald I. We, no more than the historians who record these things, know anything about them; but, when we call to remembrance that the Romans found the inhabitants of Caledonia acquainted with many of the useful and convenient arts—the use of money and the nature of traffic, whether by purchase or exchange, possessed of a system of religion, living under government, and not altogether ignorant of the abstruse branches of knowledge—we must needs own that they were not wholly barbarians; and when such was the case, they must necessarily have had some idea of erecting a residence. The possession of a residence would suggest some method of strengthening it—and a strong residence would suggest the improved notion of a fortification; different, indeed, from those of modern times, but not the less a fortification. The practice of their field warfare would, moreover, suggest the propriety of strengthening the weak parts of a position. Turf, stones, wood— the readiest materials that occurred—would be applied to that pur­pose ; and these articles, not being conveniently portable, would, on a change of position, be left behind, ready to be used on any succeeding emergency. This would also suggest the utility of places of strength, ready prepared for occupation as circumstances should direct; at first a mound of earth, or rude rampart of stones, or breastwork of felled wood, as each of them might most easily be erected; the second of which methods may be conceived as that adopted in the first erec­tion on Duntaw. To this method of defence we may suppose the vitrified erections succeeded; which, being superseded by the tower of masonry, opened the way to the erection of the almost innumer­able buildings which soon took place in all the varieties of square and circular towers, separate and mixed. Though nothing is known of the state of Dundee, nor that its castle or Dun was anywise remark­able for strength more than any other in the time of Donald I., whose reign is referred to the end of the second, and beginning of the third century—if there were ever a king Donald—yet it cannot be assumed that the town was not in being at that time, neither can it be said that before that time no kind of fortification had ever been erected near it, for that would be denying more than can be proved; yet, all things considered, the practice of the people and capabilities of the place, it may be safely assumed that there was a Duntaw— the rudiment or first element of Dundee—in being at the time ascribed to the league between Catanach and Galde. Nothing posi­tive can be advanced concerning this; for it is as probable that such was the case as that it was not, and may be adopted by anyone with­out subjecting his judgment to question, being purely a matter of opinion.
Frequent mention of Dundee in ancient chronicle is not to be ex­pected, and accordingly a mighty void occurs in its history from the year 209, the year in which the doubtful King, Donald I., died, until - 834, when we find it the head quarters of Alpin, King of the Scots, whose army lay encamped in its vicinity, a war having taken place between him and the Picts. At this time the territory of the Scots, called the kingdom of Dalriadic, a name which has made no small noise among antiquaries, consisted of the Western Islands, with the coun­tries of Lorn, Argyle, Knapdale, Kintire, Lochaber, and Breadalbane, on the main land. [The Pictish kingdom extended from the Firth of Forth, northward, hounded by the sea on the east, and by the territory of the Scots on the west, the precise boundary line being unknown. Like the Scots, whose chief seat was in Ireland—now generally admit­ted to be the ancient Scot-land—the Picts were a Celtic race, and in all probability the first known inhabitants of North Britain, if not also the Caledonii of Roman authors.]

Alpin became King of the Scots in the year 831, and being, by his mother, grandson to Hungus, King of Pictland, laid claim to that kingdom also, the family of his grandfather having been all carried off by violent deaths. After several vicissitudes of fortune the Picts chose Brude for their king, who immediately took measures to retrieve the loss of a recent battle fought with Alpin near Forfar. Henry Maule of Melgund, in his History of the Picts, thus narrates the story : "Brude, King of the Picts, taking it highly to heart that Alpin, King of Scots, with two thousand men, should have invaded Louthian, exercising all cruelty on the inhabitants, spairing sex nor age, in the preceding year, levies a great army, crosses the Tay at the castle of Caledonia [Dunkeld], and marches with all the speed he could to the country of Horestia [Angus], where he encamped on the side of a hill some thirteen or fourteen furlongs from the town of Alectum [Dundee], where he is met by King Alpin with twenty thousand Scots. With much blood was it foughten for many hours together, till Alpin with great force giving a fresh charge on his enemies was unfortunately taken; the Scots no sooner seeing their king taken, but they betake themselves to the mountains, so that the Picts that day remained victors, who take their prisoner, King Alpin, and beheaded him, leaving his body behind them, and carrying his head to their city of Camelon, where, in derision, they affixed it aloft on a pole in the middle of their city."

There is one circumstance omitted by Maule, but noticed by other writers, which decided the day in favour of the Picts. During the battle, Brude caused all the attendants and women in his camp to put themselves in array, and, as a fresh reinforcement, make a show of attacking the Scots, a stratagem resorted to by Robert I. at Bannock-burn, and attended, as in this case, with complete success. At the time the armies joined battle, Alpin was looking on from the castle on the Law, and observing one of his wings begin to give way, he sallied out, with his attendants and the garrison, to support his troops; he arrived at the field, and gave the fresh charge, which, as Maule notices, proved fatal to him.

The place where Alpin was decapitated by the victorious Picts was, and is, called Pitalpy, formed by a corruption, or rather an elision of the final n in Alpin. Pitalpy is close to the road leading from Dundee to Coupar Angus, somewhat more than three miles from the former, and about one from the field of battle. At this place Alpin's body was buried, and hence its name—Pit-Alpin, the Hole or Grave of Alpin.

Dundee at this period must have been a place of some consequence, since it was able to accommodate an army of twenty thousand men. It is not necessary to account for the maintenance of such a number, as every-one knows that, down to a late period, the maintenance of a Scottish soldier was not an expensive matter. That our ancestors were brought up in a very hardy manner is notorious; and though, during the time that elapsed before the battle, the soldiers would have suffered no inconvenience from remaining in the field, yet still the presence of such an army forcibly induces the notion that the town, even at this early period, must have been of considerable extent, From being situated within the acknowledged territory of the Picts, and also occupied by Alpin, it would seem that conquest had been at work, gradually narrowing the limits of the Pictish sovereignty and extending that of the Scottish, until the reign of Kenneth, the son and successor of Alpin, who overthrew the Pictish dynasty altogether, annexed the dominions of that crown to his own, and became, by so doing, the first sole monarch of all Scotland. Before the battle which decided the fate of Pictland, Kenneth, according to Boece, offered to make peace with the Picts upon condition of receiving in absolute sovereignty the provinces of Fife, Forfar, and Mearns. As Alpin, before his defeat, was in possession of a part, if not the whole of Angus, which, with Mearns, formed the ancient Horestia, it is probable that the Picts had recovered it again; and it is also probable that, from his father having been possessed of it, in part or in whole, Ken­neth had considered it as belonging rightfully to himself, and that the peaceable and absolute cession to him of it, with Fife and Mearns, should be the price of peace. Kenneth's terms were rejected—battle joined, and, in refusing to yield a part, the Pictish Government lost all; and thus Dundee came to form a part of the Scottish dominions.

[This version of the battle of Pitalpin has been freely accepted by our local annalists ; but on reference to historians of greater weight, its accuracy, in many essential particulars, may well be questioned. Taking such authorities as Tytler, Skene, Pinkerton, Chalmers, &c., we find that Alpin, king of the Scots, who had a brief reign of only two years, did fight a bloody battle about 836, in which he was num­bered with the slain; but the scene of the conflict was in the parish of Dalmellington in Ayrshire, and not on the western slope of Dundee Law. The Register of St Andrews says that Alpin's only attempts to extend his territory, beyond his native mountains of Argyle, were directed to the district of Ayr and Galloway. Moreover, Drust IX. was then king of the Picts, Brude or Bridei being the chief wlio fought Egfrid and his Northumbrians at Duin-Nechtan [Dunnichen] in 685,—a century and a-half before he is made to figure on the field of Pitalpin. The latest writer we have consulted (Mr Jervise, in Memorials of Angus, p. 21), resolves the difficulty so far, by putting back the date of the battle to 730, and holding that Aengus was the Pictish leader who defeated Elpin, king of the Scots, at Pitalpin. There was an Alpin or Elpin who flourished 775—779 ; but, apart from the discrepancy of dates, he was a Pictish monarch (Chalmers' Caledonia; Eitson's Annals, vol. ii.); still, if we may assume, what is probable enough, that Alpin or Elpin was a name taken by a line of Dalriad kings, one of whom may have borne it about 730, this solution might be adopted, and justify us in believing the battle of Pitalpin to be matter of history.]

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