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 VIII

the renewal of the Solemn League and Covenant by the people of Scotland, and the adhesion to it by the inhabitants of Dundee, were the occasion of bringing upon the town the awful visitation of fire and sword. Charles I., pursuing the same line of ecclesiastical policy with his father, sought to establish Episcopacy in Scotland by force, which compelled the people to form themselves into an association for the protection of their religious freedom. After the lapse of years, "the Covenant" was renewed in 1638, and acceded to by the inhabitants of Dundee; and no man was more enthusiastic in its support than James, Earl of Montrose, who very soon after became its bitterest enemy. Before this time, as we have seen, the town had been frequently taken by the English ; and now, in 1645, it was fated to experience the horrors of an assault and pillage from the fierce hordes that com­posed the army of Montrose, now almost the sole supporter of the Stuart dynasty, and whose gallant but misdirected zeal is thought to have precipitated the death of his unfortunate master. As the Town Council Records, so far as we can learn, contain no particulars of this assault, we must be content to glean what we can from other sources. A work, written by a companion and devotee of Montrose, (Dr George Wishart, who attended Montrose, during his career, as chaplain. In return for his devotion, he was afterwards rewarded with the Bishopric of Edinburgh, which was erected by Charles I.) gives a detailed account of his campaigns, and the miseries heaped upon the people of Scotland in 1644, 45, and 46, by his instrumentality,— deeds which found too able and willing an imitator afterwards in the notorious John Graham of Claverhouse.

We find no fault with Montrose,—the "Great Marquis of Montrose," as he has been called, —for his loyalty to his sovereign; but, unfortunately for his fame, there is too much evidence that his loyalty resulted in a great mea­sure from resentment against the Covenanters, in preferring to himself the Earl of Argyle and the Marquis of Hamilton. The people having risen up en masse in defence of their liberties, Montrose took his revenge by bringing Argyle to the scaffold, by betraying his ancient allies, and by obtaining from the king a commission to plunder and slay his countrymen throughout the length and breadth of the land. A careful perusal of the book above-mentioned, written expressly in defence of the conduct of Montrose, warrants the assertion that the gratification of his own passions, as much as the renovation of the king's affairs, was his principal care ; for, though he had been ever so well qualified to accomplish the latter object, he never had a force suf­ficiently numerous to support him. His idea of subduing an entire kingdom by an army consisting of a few hundred adventurers, was romantic and preposterous; and he soon found himself confronted with men animated by a spirit fiercer and braver than oven his own zeal in the cause of royalty." Perhaps no military career," says our latest historian, "has ever had a literary commemoration so disproportioned to its length and fruitfulness." Nor can we join in the high estimate which many form of Montrose's capacity. When we say that he was the desperate conductor of a bad and desperate cause, we have almost exhausted his lawful praise. His course was that of a meteor, swift and capricious, terrifying for a season the countries over which he passed; but not like the strong still eye of a sun, subduing them into permanent obedience.

In the course of his excursive warfare, Montrose, when at Dunkeld, was informed by his scouts that the Covenanters, under the orders of General Baillie, who had watched his motions, had all passed over the Tay. Resolving to avail himself of this movement of his opponents, he " thought it well worth his labour, if by the way he might take in Dundee, a seditious town; for that being the securest haunt and receptacle of the rebels in these parts, and a place that had contributed as much as any other to the rebellion, was kept by no other garrison but of the townsmen. He therefore commanded the weakest and worst armed men to go along by the bottom of the hills, and to meet him at Brechin. And he taking with him what horse he had (which were but one hundred and fifty in all), and six hundred nimble musqueteers, departing from Dunkeld about twelve o'clock in the night, made so great haste, that he came to Dundee by ten of the clock in the morning, on the 4th of April [1645]. He summoned the towns­men to deliver the town to the king, which was the only way to pre­serve their own lives and its safety. If they would not, then they must expect fire and sword.

They began to make delays, and first to give no answer at all, and afterwards to commit the trumpet to prison; which affront provoked Montrose so highly, that he stormed the town in three places at once. The townsmen stood out a while and main­tained their works, but they had as good have done nothing; for the Irish and Highlanders would take no repulse, but with resolute assault some beat them out of their sconces, and possessing themselves of their ordinance, turned it against the town; others beat open the gates, and possessed themselves of the church and market place; and others set the town on fire in several places. (This burning of the town is an illustration of the character of Montrose, and shows the ingratitude of both him and his master. By an Act of Parliament, dated 27th February in the same year, Dundee had to furnish one hundred and eighty-six men for the royal service, and maintain them at the rate of £1674 per) And, indeed, had not the month, being 6s. Scots per day for each man; and yet, in less than two months after the passing of this Act, Montrose, acting for the sovereign so served, plun­dered and burned the town.) common soldiers, by an unseasonable avarice and intemperance, addicted themselves to pillage, that rich town had been immediately all on fire.

But as it happened it was better, both for the conquerors and the conquered; for all the intelligence the scouts had brought in concerning the enemy's coming in over the Tay, was absolutely false. It may be that they saw a few troops (and many they did not see) pass over it, which they believed to have been the whole body of the enemy; and by that means were like to have undone themselves and the whole army. Montrose stood upon the top of a hill close unto Dundee looking upon the skirmish, when his almost breathless scouts brought him news, that Baillie and Hurry, with three thousand foot and eight hundred horse, were scarce a mile off. He immediately calls his men out of the town, which he had much to do to persuade them; for the soldiers, thinking themselves sure of the victory, and thinking they had done a good day's work already, and, besides, being a little heated with drink, and much taken with so rich a booty, could hardly be brought to leave the town they had so newly taken. And truly, before they could be beaten off from the spoil, the enemy was come within musket-shot of them."

Although the belligerent parties had come so near to each other, our historian informs us that no battle took place, nor any kind of fighting, except some skirmishing; for Montrose's six hundred foot and one hundred and fifty horse—(it seems he did not lose a man; which is rather a singular occurrence in the taking of a fortified town by assault)—exhausted by a morning march of upwards of thirty miles, a hot engagement, and afterwards heated with drink, continued to keep Baillie and Hurry's forces at bay until night, when they suc­ceeded in making good their retreat to the neighbourhood of Arbroath, reached it about midnight, and thence proceeded to Brechin, crossing the Southesk at Cariston—a series of exploits which bear the marks of monstrous exaggeration.

A month afterwards, Montrose defeated Hurry and Baillie, in separate engagements, in the north; then, by a rapid movement, he appeared at Kilsyth, and was again victorious; but, in September, General Leslie surprised and routed his forces at Philiphaugh, after which Montrose passed over to the Continent. Returning in 1650, he again collected a flying force of wild and lawless men ; but, being brought to bay at Invercarron in Ross-shire, he was defeated by Colonel Strachan, and brought to Dundee, where he and his escort lodged one night as they journied to Edinburgh. Our historian observes—"Tis remarkable of the town of Dundee, in which he lodged one night, that though it had suffered more by his army than any town else within the kingdom, yet, were they amongst all the rest, so far from exulting over him, that the whole town testified a great deal of sorrow for his woeful condition; and there was he like­wise furnished with clothes suitable to his birth and person." This conduct was highly creditable to the town. The people were actuated by a better spirit than ever animated their now fallen and powerless oppressor; and, besides, were well aware that to insult him, would neither replace their burned dwelling, nor restore the property of which they were pillaged, by the ravagers whom he formerly led. When carried to Edinburgh, the captive nobleman was tried, and con­demned to be hanged and quartered; and, after the execution of the sentence, May 25th, 1650, one of his limbs, according to some writers, was sent to Dundee to be exhibited on a pole.

[At the time Montrose was returning to head his last and fruitless insurrection in favour of Charles II., an embassy from the Estates left Scotland to negotiate with that prince (then residing at the Hague) for his return to the throne, and to express their "readiness to espouse the king's cause, if he first will espouse God's cause." To their overtures Charles, with that dissimulation and falsehood of which he afterwards proved himself so great a master, readily assented, taking the most solemn obligations to support the Covenant and liberties of the coun­try. Landing at the mouth of the Spey, on 3d July, 1650, he passed by Aberdeen and Dunnottar to Dundee; whence, after a stay of some weeks, he passed over to Falkland. Meantime Cromwell and his Ironsides were advancing into Scotland, to expel this faithless monarch, whom, with all his solemn promises, the Covenanting army so distrusted that, while drifting into conflict with their natural allies on his behalf, they would not have him in their camp. The tactics of the veteran Leslie had so far succeeded as to drive Cromwell back from Edinburgh to Berwick, when, in an evil hour, the Scottish general was overruled by others, and forced to make a disadvantageous attack, resulting in his defeat at Dunbar. Withdrawing what remained of his army towards Falkirk, Leslie was there joined by reinforcements, and the king himself, who, after a ludicrous attempt to escape from his councillors, had been formally crowned and anointed at Scone. Cromwell, by a strategical movement, crossed the Forth, and, getting behind his opponents, seized and occupied Perth; but on learning, to his astonishment, that Leslie had played a still bolder stroke, by march­ing rapidly southwards to invade England, the Protector was obliged to follow in all haste, leaving General Monk with some 5000 men to look after Scotland. Before Cromwell could overtake Leslie and the royalists, they had reached Worcester; but the engagement there, on 3rd September, 1651, put an end to the hopes of the king's followers in that enterprise.

The sojourn of Charles in Dundee appears to have drawn to the town, from all parts of the country, those who favoured his cause. His quarters are said to have been in Whitehall Close, and here in the house fronting the street may still be seen a tolerable carving of the royal arms and legend, with the initials, C. E. G., and date I860. (This date, being nine years posterior to the king's visit, shows that the carv­ing was the work of some loyal owner of the place, and executed probably after the "glorious Restoration ;" at which time also the close had received the ambitious name which so ill suits that squalid neighbourhood.)
Besides large sums of money advanced for the king's use, the magistrates raised some troops of horse for his service, and presented him with a handsome equipage for the camp, and six pieces of artillery. These gifts, aud the circumstances connected with Charles' sojourn, marked out Dundee as a place to be promptly dealt with, and accordingly Monk lost no time in investing it. He had just become master of the great stronghold of Stirling, after a siege of three days, and doubtless anticipated as speedy a reduction of Dundee; but here lie found confirmation of his own saying—" Better than all ramparts is man's flesh."

It was towards the end of July, 1651, that Monk appeared at the gates of the town, and summoned Governor Lumsden to surrender. The reply, which the besiegers called arrogant, was at least defiant and soldierlike, and ran thus:—
"Sir,—"We received yours. For answer thereunto, we by these acquaint you, and all officers and troops that are at present in arms against the king's authority, to lay down your arms, and to come in and join with his majesty's forces in this kingdom, and to conform and give obedience to his majesty's declaration sent you herewith, which, if you will obey, we shall continue, Sir, your faithful friend in the old manner.—robert lumsden."

The siege was thereupon pressed with vigour; but the strength of the defences, combined with the resolution of the garrison, which numbered, according to Gumble, more fighting men than the besiegers, defied for weeks all their efforts.

Meanwhile a committee of Estates and of the Kirk had assembled at Alyth to concert measures for the relief of Dundee. (The Estates, Parliament, or National Council, consisted of the dignified clergy, as the first Estate; of the landed interest or tenants of the Crown, as the second; and of the burgesses of burghs or the commercial interest, as the third. After the Reformation, and until the introduction of Episcopacy, the clergy ceased to form an Estate, and Parliament was composed of only two, the landed and trading interests. All the three estates met and deliberated in one apartment; hence in the assemblies of the Estates, those only, whatever their rank, who possessed equal freeholds, were peers. Peerages, such as exist at present, had no being in Scotland even in the sixteenth century, as dignities were annexed to territory, and always accompanied it whether it passed from one person to another by descent or purchase. The clergy having been expelled by the Reformation and the Revolution, the nobility, or superior barons, were separated from the lesser free­holders, and substituted in the place of the Church dignitaries, and thus the three Estates still remained, lords, barons, and burgesses.)

This was felt to be an object of critical interest for the Government, the town hav­ing in fact become a city of refuge for those who had been driven out of Edinburgh, Stirling, and Perth, and who had hoped here to find protection for their persons and valuable moveables. To disperse this assemblage, which otherwise might threaten his rear, and compel him to raise the siege, Monk detached five hundred horse, under the command of Colonels Aldriche and Morgan. This expedition was conducted across the Sidlaws, by guides well acquainted with the neighbourhood—a circumstance which, along with others, points to the hostility of a portion of the population to the king's party.

A considerable force was assembled at Alyth, under the command of the aged Leslie, Earl of Leven; but the dragoons, in a night attack, dashed upon them before they had time to make even a show of resistance, and made prisoners of all the leading men (Especially the old General Leshly, who (some say) was taken out of a cupboard there hidden, upon the English entering the Town; but they do the Gentle­man wrong, for it was a Dutch Bed which hath shuts—the best provision that obscure place could afford such great Persons."—Gumble's Life of General Monk, p. 45.). Among these, besides Leslie, were the Earls Marischal, and Crawford; Lords Ogilvy, Home, and Bargeny; the Lairds of Colinton, Leys, and Powrie, &c.; and three of the leading ministers, one of whom was James Sharp, whose apostacy afterwards brought him the Archbishopric of St Andrews. Without waiting for the return of his cavalry, Monk felt himself in a position to make the assault on Dundee.  

It was the habit of that period, and which continued until late in the last century, for the townsmen of all ranks to breakfast in the alehouses; and in such a time of excitement, with crowds of strangers in the town, this prac­tice led to excesses, which proved their ruin. One contemporary writer tells us, "the tounesmen did no dewtey in their awn deffence, but wer most of them all drunken, lyke so maney beasts:" and Dr Gumble narrates how the fatal indulgence became known to Monk:—"The General had very good Intelligence, by the means of a Scotch Boy, who frequently used to get over the Works, in the sight of their own Sentinels, in the day-time, by way of sport and play, without notice taken. And this Youth (for he was very young) did use to bring word in what Condition the Town was, That at nine a Clock the Strangers and Souldiers used to take such large Morning-draughts (whether to make them forget the Misery that their Country was in at that time, or their own personal Troubles and Losses), that before the Twelfth, they were most of them well drenched in their Cups."

Taking advantage of this knowledge, the town was stormed on the 1st of September, and, after a sharp but unavailing resistance, lay at the mercy of the besiegers. Robert Lumsden, the governor, with a hand­ful of followers, retired fighting into the Old Steeple. Here, while the wild tumult of outrage and slaughter raged in the streets without, this gallant party made the last stand, but it was as unsuccessful as it was desperate. They were smothered out by the burning of wet straw, and yielded themselves to a Captain Kelly. This officer, recog­nising as a soldier the gallantry of Lumsden's defence of the town, was escorting him and his officers to General Monk, with the purpose of interceding for the governor's life, when a major named Butler bar­barously shot him dead. (Baker's Chronicle,—continuation p.629.—See also Lord Wharnciffe's Notes to M. Guizot's Life of Monk, p. 22—3).   

It is recorded that Monk was much troubled on hearing of this unfortunate occurrence; but even if we give the general the credit which his biographers claim for him as a man not naturally cruel or vindictive, the least that can be charged upon him, in view of the slaughter which followed, is that he imposed no restraint upon his soldiers, and must share with them the execration called forth by their wild and indiscriminate slaughter. Along with Lumsden, there fell, according to reliable accounts, between seven and eight hundred of the garrison and townsmen, while a deeper horror is added to the picture, if we can credit the statement of another writer, that two hundred defenceless women and children were massacred in the riot and pillage which ensued. (This rests on Balfour—Annales, p. 315. Other writers make no mention of it. Recent historians, like Dr Hill Burton, dismiss it as an exaggeration, like that which "local tradition—the parent of lies"—tells of the carnage ceasing only on the third day, when an infant was found at the breast of its dead mother near the Thorter Row.)

Dr Small was able to trace, from the parish registers and other sources, the presence in the town at this time of the Earls of Buchan, Tweeddale, Buccleuch, and Roxburgh; Viscount Newburgh; Lords Balcarres, Elibank, Tester, and Ramsay; fifteen knights, eleven landed gentlemen, nine members of the Faculty of Advocates, twenty-four writers and indwellers of Edinburgh, and several clergymen from the south. Of these strangers none are certainly known to have been slain except Sir John Leslie of Newton and his servant; but of local individuals of note who fell the monuments in the Houff record Bailies George Brown of Horn, Alexander Mylne of Mylnefield, and Robert Davidson. Two of the clergymen, who appear to have opposed "hollding out the toune, knowing that such a drunken, debosht people could doe no good against so wigilant and active ane enemy," were sent by sea, along with other prisoners, to England; and it is graphi­cally told that, on one of them attempting to speak in his own defence, Monk told him angrily that, if he presumed to say a word, " he wold scobe his mouthe."

All accounts agree that the spoil which fell to the victors was un­precedented in quantity and value—exceeding, according to Balfour, two-and-a-half millions Scots. "It is reported by credible men," says another writer, "that the English army had gotten above twa hun­dred thousand pounds sterling, partly of ready gold, silver and silver wark, jewels, rings, merchandise, and merchant wares, and other pre­cious things belonging to the city of Edinburgh, beside all that belonged to the town, and other people of the country, wha had sent in their guids for safety to that town." "Some of my men," says White-locke, one of the officers of the Commonwealth, in a letter to the Parliament, " have gotten five hundred, others two hundred, and a hundred pounds a piece; none of them but are well paid for their service." About forty pieces of cannon, a great quantity of small arms, and a large store of ammunition were also taken. Sixty vessels then in the port, many of them doubtless brought there by the refugees, were laden with the booty—" the best Plunder that was gotten in the "Wars throughout all the Three Nations; but see," continues Gumble in his narrative, "the just judgment of God, the ships were cast away within sight of the Town, and the great wealth perished without any extraordinary storm"—as if Providence had wished to mark, by some sign of anger, the hateful success which it had con­sented to permit. Not a particle of the plunder crossed the bar of Tay, a circumstance on which the narrator makes the appropriate reflection, "ill got, soon lost."

General Monk, whois said to have occupied the house at the foot of Overgate, next the High Street, was detained for some weeks in Dun­dee by illness, which even his panegyrists appear to have regarded as a judgment upon the terrible service he had been engaged in. On the 19th October, he received a letter written from Inverary by the Marquis of Argyll, on hearing of the atrocities at Dundee, imploring him to assemble a Convention at some convenient place to devise means for stopping bloodshed. To this he refused to accede without an order from Parliament. Shortly after, he withdrew to the south with his troops, and the town was garrisoned by another body of Cromwell's troops, who conducted themselves with strict discipline and propriety. Many of the soldiers were tradesmen, and seem to have exercised their callings, and cultivated friendly relations among the inhabitants. Amor vincit omnia: within eight years, sixty-six of the garrison married as many of the townswomen, and 255 baptisms appear on the register as the result of these unions. Grievous as it may have been felt at the time, the occupation of Dundee and other places by Cromwell's Ironsides introduced such order and respect for the law, that Desborough, one of the members for Edinburgh in the Long Parliament, was able to boast that "a man may ride over all Scotland, with a switch in his hand, and a hundred pounds in his pocket, which he could not have done these five hundred years."

Although the strong arm of the law gave protection to the industrious, the poverty of the country was extreme. All the nobles had either sold or hopelessly mortgaged their properties; the trade of the burghs was paralysed; and the frequent recurrence of bad harvests and fatal epidemics reduced the common people to pitiable straits. In 1658, the native shipping of Dundee consisted of ten vessels, ranging from twelve to a hundred and fifty tons.

The disasters of the siege had so prostrated the town that the magistrates applied to Parliament. for relief and assistance; but it was not till 1659 that three Acts were passed—the first of which imposed a duty of fourteen pence Scots upon each pint of French wine, and twenty pence upon every pint of Rhenish, sack, brandy, or tent, vended within the town. This Act expired in five years ; during which time, from the habits of the people, and the circumstance that Dundee was the place of importation for a large section of the kingdom,(In the "Black Book of Taymouth" entries are found of claret and white wine brought from Dundee. The "Chronicle of Perth" (1590), records a severe frost in 1624, of which advantage was taken to transport twenty-one puncheons of wine, in carts, upon the frozen Tay, from Dundee to the Fair City.) it is probable that the tax had produced a considerable sum.

The second Act authorised a general collection to be made throughout the kingdom, for the purpose of repairing the harbour; and the third granted two additional yearly markets or fairs, to be held on the first Tuesday of July and October respectively. The former acquired the name of Stobb's Fair, from an individual connected with the ground on which it was first held, and where it continued to take place down to the year 1846. The tolls and customs of both fairs, like the impost on wines, were applied in aid of the town's funds.

The population of the town prior to the siege by General Monk, has been the subject of some speculation. Dr Small, in the old Statisti­cal Account, made an ingenious calculation, based on the ascertained marriages and births prior and subsequent to that occurrence, from which he estimated the population at between eight and nine thou­sand, and put the loss of life at one-sixth. More recent researches, proceeding upon direct testimony, show this estimate of the slaughter to be much exaggerated, while, on the contrary, the population is understated. Five years previously, the Estates had ordered the counties and burghs to raise and maintain a certain number of foot soldiers, in proportion to the population. Dundee was required to muster 186 men, and, assuming the ratio to be one soldier for every sixty souls, the entire population would be over 11,000. Another point of enquiry has reference to the place of interment of the large numbers said to have fallen by the sword. Dr Burton remarks that "Wanton cruelty was not one of Monk's vices; and, had the storm­ing of Dundee been such a deed as some have described, it would have' hung more weightily on his memory, and been more frequently referred to in contemporary history than it has been.

There is nothing in local record to confirm the aggravations, and antiquaries have in vain tried to find where the crowd of sufferers was buried. This last observation at least, is certainly open to question, as it is matter of fact that, in 1810, when the Nethergate was widened, by the removal of the row of houses which formerly stood in front of the churches, and the round or churchyard improved—which never was more than nominally a burying-place—and still more recently, when the drainage of South Lindsay Street was being executed, vast quantities of human bones were discovered From the shallowness of their covering the bodies, of which these were the remains, seemed to have been hastily interred, and it can hardly be doubted were those of the victims who perished in the assault, or the slaughter which succeeded.

Of Governor Lumsden, little is known beyond his gallantry, which even his enemies acknowledged, and his fate, which all deplored. He was not a native of Dundee, and we have no certain accounts of how he came to occupy this important position. He was the second son of a Sir James Lumsden or Lumsdaine, who, in 1640, pur­chased the lands of Innergelly, in Fifeshire. The elder brother, Sir James, was a major-general under Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, and distinguished himself by the taking of Frankfort; but, returning to Scotland, he was made prisoner by Cromwell at Dunbar, the year before the siege of Dundee. Robert Lumsden, of Stravithie and Montquhaney,(In Lament's Diary this entry occurs: "1652, April.—The Lady Bawhannie. surnamed Weyms, in Fife, depairted out of this life at Bawhaunie; her husband, Rob. Lumsdaine, was slain at Dundie.") also served with distinction in the wars of the great Gustavus, and his name occurs in a list of Scottish officers serving that prince in 1632, when he had attained the rank of lieutenant-colonel. Sir Alexander Leslie, afterwards Earl of Leven, held a high command at the same time in Sweden; and it is probable that, when he came to be the commander of the Covenanting army in Scotland, he had selected his old comrade, Robert Lumsden, to conduct the defence of Dundee. "We have already seen that Leslie was captured at Alyth while concerting measures to raise the siege.]

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