Before we delve into the lives of our ancestors, we should first gain an understanding of the significant events that took place in Scotland during the years before the Industrial Revolution. Life was not easy. Looking back at it now, it seems like life was full of peril after peril - plague, famine, invasions from foreign armies, civil war... Considering everything that our ancestors went through, the Wightons of the 21st century should consider themselves lucky to be even here. Just one stray bullet, one contagious interaction, one struggle less determined - and we wouldn't be.
This web page presents a concise description of the significant macro-events that took place in Scotland between 1550 and 1800, particularly those that had the potential to impact people in Perthshire and Angus where the majority of our forebears lived.
1543 - 1548: Coming out of the Middle Ages, England felt trapped between two Catholic neighbours - France and Scotland. In an effort to break the Scottish-French alliance, England proposed a marriage between Mary, Queen of Scots, and Edward, the son of Henry VIII. In an attempt to impose the marriage on Mary, Henry invaded Scotland in 1544 and laid waste to the south of the country. (For example, he destroyed Dundee by naval bombardment just two years after a plague had devastated the city.) English raids continued until 1548 when Scotland agreed to a marriage between Mary and the Dauphin of France, thereby invoking an alliance with France that would protect it from England's rough-wooing.
1559-1560: Scotland in the 1500s was a Catholic country with close links to Rome, a pawn of France, and an enemy of England. However, many Scots had become increasingly concerned about the growing number of Frenchmen who were being put in positions of power in the court. In 1559, John Knox preached a sermon in Perth that served as a flashpoint for a Protestant uprising across Scotland. The religious movement became synonymous with a desire to rid Scotland of foreigners and in 1560, the Scottish parliament enacted laws that prohibited the Latin Mass, denied the authority of the Pope, and removed the influence of the French from Scottish affairs. A large French army had just arrived in Scotland, prepared to help the Regent restore order, when Queen Elizabeth I of England intervened, cutting off their supply lines to France and ensuring that the laws and the Scottish Presbyterianism would stand - at least for the moment. Naturally, Elizabeth was acting in the best interests of England, but her intervention would prove to be a significant point in Scotland's history.
1561 - 1573: Fears that Mary Queen of Scots would restore Catholicism led to attempted coups, murders, and civil war between Protestant and Catholic Scottish forces. In 1573, Mary was forced to abdicate.
1584, 1597, 1607: Plague returned three times to the Lowland of Scotland. The first instance was part of a plague that spread across all of Scotland.
1609: King James I of England (a.k.a. King James VI of Scotland) had lowland Scots forcibly removed from their homes and transported to Ulster in an attempt to pacify the Catholic Irish. Lowland Scotland at this time was unable to support its growing population, many of whom had turned to cattle rustling, kidnapping, and other thievery to support their families. James was attempting to solve two problems at one stroke. The concept of forced emigration would be used repeatedly in the coming years.
1633 - 1637: Charles I succeeded James I as King of both England and Scotland in 1633. Charles knew little about being a monarch other than the fact that he served by divine right. During the first years of his reign, he began to bring Scottish Protestantism into closer alignment with English Anglicanism. After he decreed in 1637 that Scotland had to use the same prayer book as England's, thousands of Scots signed the National Covenant which promised to use force if necessary to keep Scotland's religion separate from England's. In response, Charles collected an English army, invaded Scotland, and attacked the Covenanteer armies.
1637-1647: The Scottish uprising and Charles' inept rule led to similar uprisings in England and Ireland, and subsequently to the English Civil War. The Covenanteer armies joined forces with Parliament armies against Charles on the promise that the English parliament would respect their Covenant. While the Covenanteer armies were engaged in England, armies led by Scottish nobles supporting Charles attacked Covenant strongholds (e.g. Perth, Dundee) which were defended by conscripted and poorly trained levies of Lowland Scots. After Cromwell's forces defeated Charles' army in England, the Covenanteer army returned to Scotland, defeated the Scottish Royalists and, in the process, put all of their prisoners including women and children to the sword.
1645 - 1649: An estimated 30,000 Scots died of the plague which was spread more quickly by all the armies tramping around the countryside killing people.
1647 - 1660: With religious extremists exerting control over the English parliament, Scotland feared that the English would not honour their pledge to support their covenant. The republican Cromwell was not only a puritan, he was also uncompromisingly anti-Presbyterian. With Charles I beheaded, the Scots' only alternative was to try to wring a pledge out of his son (Charles) to support the Covenant if the Scots put him on their throne. After Charles II landed in Scotland, Cromwell invaded Scotland to prevent the pro-royalty sentiment from spreading to England. In response, the Scottish Parliament passed the Act of Levy requiring every burgh and shire to raise a quota of soldiers. Cromwell made short work of the conscripts while his general Monk captured most of southern Scotland. Dundee was particularly hard hit when Monk burned and pillaged the city. Monk installed military garrisons throughout Scotland, eliminated all remnants of royalist resistance, and re-established the practice of forced emigration, but this time to North America and the West Indies. The Scots who weren't emigrated paid the costs for Monk's occupation through heavy taxation.
1660 - 1685:When Cromwell died, the English parliament invited Charles II (who had escaped to Europe) to take the throne. Royal control was quickly re-established. All of Scotland's Covenant-based legislation was declared null and void and a hierarchical, crown-controlled Episcopal church was imposed on the unwilling Scots. Starting with fines for not attending church services, increasingly repressive measures were taken to try to prevent the Scots from continuing their Presbyterian services. Ministers caught conducting secret services faced the death penalty; those caught attending a prohibited service were shipped to North America. Soldiers were empowered to administer an oath by which any suspect would be forced to disclaim any support for this group. Any Scot who refused to swear the oath could be shot on the spot. The King's brother, James, was the chief official in charge of Scotland during these killing times.
1685-90: After Charles II died, his brother James II (James VII in Scotland) assumed the throne. His role in the Killing Times did not endear him to his Scottish subjects, but it was his Catholic faith, his Catholic practices, and the birth of a Catholic son that prompted the English to act against him. On Parliament's invitation, the King of Holland and his Scottish wife, the daughter of James I, arrived in England with an army and James disappeared into exile. When William and Mary pledged to maintain a Presbyterian form of church government, the Scottish parliament offered them the Scottish crown. However, loyalty to the 300-year old Stuart dynasty was strong, especially in the Highlands. Jacobite supporters attempted a counter-revolution which had initial success but was eventually defeated by an army composed to a large extent of Covenanteers that had been persecuted by James. By 1690, Scotland had a Presbyterian religion, a church over which the monarch had no supremacy, and an independent parliament that was free to govern the country, including taking initiatives in diplomacy and commerce. The 60+ years of turmoil appeared to finally have ended.
1690-95: During 1690 and 1691 the Jacobites (with French support) caused the government much trouble and anxiety by their ceaseless plotting for an insurrection. In response, William required all highlander chiefs to swear an oath of allegiance to him by the end of 1691. Many of the clan were bound by an oath to James and it wasn't until December 28th that they received a message from James releasing them. MacDonald of Glencoe arrived in Fort William on the 31st to swear his oath, but the governor of the fort claimed it was outside his power to accept it. MacDonald did make the oath properly some days later. However, a government force lead by a Campbell was dispatched to enforce the law. Under the pretense of a friendly visit, the Campbells waited until the Macdonalds were asleep before butchering most of their hosts. The nation of Scotland was outraged and it became a powerful antigovernment symbol for the Jacobites.
1695-1700: To improve its commerce, Scotland needed to improve its international trade. England refused to give them access to trade with its colonies, so Scotland decided to create its own colony in Darien on the Panama Isthmus. The colony lasted for a year before they were attacked by Spanish forces garrisoned on the isthmus. When the English forces in the area ignored their pleas for help, the Scots had to surrender. (England was anxious to placate Spain because of its war with France.) Nobility and peasants alike lost all the money they had invested in the project and sentiment turned against William.
1700-1707: With relations between the two countries at a particularly low point, the English parliament decided to resolve a problem they would soon be facing - William and Mary's lack of children. Without consulting the Scottish parliament, they promulgated an Act of Succession that ensured that no Catholic monarch would reign. The Scots tried to take advantage of the situation by passing an act that said Scotland would not agree to England's choice of monarch unless they were granted equal access to colonial trade. For England, that meant they either had to give up some of their prosperous trade revenue or once again face a Catholic Stuart king on the Scottish throne with France as his ally. England answered Scotland's blackmail with its own. They enacted a law that prevented any Scot from inheriting land in England - a blow to Scottish nobility who owned such lands. And, unless Scotland agreed to an act of union, England threatened to cut off all trade with its northern neighbour. Since Scotland was heavily dependent on the English markets, this threat meant potential economic disaster for the country at a time when the countryside was only just recovering from years of famine. While the Scottish parliament debated the Act of Union, riots broke out in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Dumfries and an English army took up station on the border. Opponents to the union spoke of surrender and the murder of Scotland. Proponents argued that being poor, and without any power to protect its commerce, Scotland could not reap the advantage of commerce until it became part of the trade and protection of some powerful neighbour nation. Scotland responded to the threats, and the accompanying behind-the-scenes bribery, in the only way it could by agreeing to all the clauses of the Act of Union that the English dictated to them. Under this 1707 Act, Scottish law continued as before and the Presbyterian structure of their church was guaranteed. In addition, Scotland got the trade they wanted with the colonies. In return, they accepted England's choice of monarch, gave up their independence and became a part of the English parliament.
1707 - 1715: The Act of Union changed Scotland's established trading destinations. Under English law, trade with France and Holland was banned and consequently east coast cities such as Dundee and Perth that had a well-established trade with Europe suffered a severe decline in prosperity. Commercial and industrial activity shifted to Glasgow which was geographically positioned to be able to take advantage of trade with the Americas. As unhappiness with the union spread, sentiment in Scotland began to favour support for the old monarchy in the person of James, son of James II who had died in exile. Support for James was somewhat higher in the Highlands than in the Lowlands, although the majority of opinion in the country as a whole was against James. Jacobite supporters thought the time was right to try a military uprising when a new monarch, George I, assumed the throne in 1714. The Jacobites captured Perth and Inverness, but with no active support from the French (who were not at war with Britain that particular year), the rebellion failed miserably. King George I recognized that repression would be counterproductive and a second rising in 1719 had little support.
1715-1745: In time, the prosperity of east coast cities began to recover. Dundee, for example, was developing a very prosperous trade in linens and this former Jacobite city found its sympathies for any further uprising much less supportive. The union with England had resulted in economic prosperity for much of Scotland, so when James II's grandson, Charles, arrived on Scottish soil to claim his crown, most of his support came from the Highlands. (The French were at war with England again, so they provided Charles with some money and some soldiers in order to distract the English from the main events on the continent.) The Jacobites had initial success, taking Perth and then Edinburgh. Not content with what he had gained, Charles decided to invade England, expecting Jacobite support from the population. None was forthcoming. Pressured by the menace of armies approaching him on three sides, Charles retreated to Scotland, and then to Culloden where his followers were slaughtered in 1745. This was the last Scottish uprising.
1746: Parliament in London took measures to ensure that there could never be another Highland uprising. The clans were stripped of their weapons, bagpipes, and kilts. The bond of military service by clansmen to their chief was abolished, and other powers that the chiefs had over their clan were stripped away.
1750 ...>: With increasing economic prosperity on the horizon, an established Presbyterian religion, accord with England, and the most warlike members of the country disarmed, Scotland was poised to enter a period of peace and prosperity. As the industrial revolution took hold, the population began to move from the countryside into the burghs where they found work in the new manufactories. A rising merchant class took the place of the landed nobles who had displaced themselves to London where they could socialize with the English ruling class. Scotland's economy improved dramatically on the backs of the new industries (e.g., jute) where steam power made the home-based crafters obsolete. To keep their costs under control, and to give their workers quick access to their jobs, plant owners built living quarters near the mills. These were generally squalid tenement buildings with minimal sanitation and water. Work hours were long (even for children) and conditions were crowded, noisy and dangerous. The Industrial Revolution had arrived.
1750 ...>: Land owners became attracted by the new agricultural tools that became available at this time. However, those tools and their high initial capital expense only made economic sense for large farms. As Scottish society began to gravitate to the accumulation of wealth as an indicator of power, land owners too looked to prosper. (Previously, the power of Scottish landowners was reflected in the number of people on their lands, their fealty (e.g., in the Highlands), and the rents that they paid them.) That feudal-based system did not exist any longer. Individual rents were insignificant now. What counted was the ability to grow large quantities of produce that could be sold both domestically and as exports. Unfortunately, landowners couldn't consolidate their holdings into large farms because tenant farmers had a traditional claim on the land and many resisted any changes in their agricultural practices. Landowners solved the problem by making it impossible for their tenants to survive on their small parcels of land. (This process was known as the Lowland Clearances.) Rents were doubled and then tripled. In addition, they made changes to the leases encouraging tenants who adopted the new farming ways but making it impossible for anyone else to survive. Unlike the Highland Clearances which would follow in about 50 years, there was no use of force and no destruction of property, but the end-result was the same. An entire generation of farmers quickly disappeared off the land and into low paid agricultural jobs, into the towns, or off to the colonies. For example, in Angus and Fife, between one-third and one-half of the population was displaced within a few decades. Emigration records reveal that the number of people leaving Scotland during this extended period was far higher than previously thought and far exceeded the number who were forced out of the Highlands later. Owning and farming their own property was a possibility in Canada - it would never be a possibility for them in Scotland.
Sources
Various web sites, including:
Scotland, a Concise History (http://www.electricscotland.com/history/scotland/)
Undiscovered Scotland (http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/usfeatures/timeline/index.html)
The Forgotten Clearances (http://www.sundayherald.com/49258)