Ordnance gazetteer of Scotland > Volume 4

KIRKCUDBRIGHT
municipal constituency numbered 300 and 401 in 1883,
when the annual value of real property within the
burgh amounted to £8722 (£7155 in 1873), whilst in
1882 the corporation revenue was £1529, and the har-
bour revenue £130. Pop. (1841) 2606, (1851) 2687,
(1861) 2552, (1871) 2470, (1881) 2571, of whom 1428
were females. Houses (1881) 466 inhabited, 21 vacant.
Some have claimed for Kirkcudbright that it was
known to the Romans as Benutium, to the Celtic
Novantae as Caer-cuabrit ( ' fort on the bend of the river ') ;
but the earliest authentic mention of it is the visit of
Ailred, Abbot of Rievaux, in 1164, on the feast of St
Cuthbert, to whom its ancient kirk was dedicated.
The site of this church is marked by St Cuthbert's
Churchyard, 3 furlongs NE of the town, where, besides
Ewarts and Billy Marshall, the Tinkler (1672-1792), are
buried "William Hunter, Robert Smith, and John Hal-
lume, executed at Kirkcudbright for adherence to the
Covenant — the first two by Claverhouse in 1684, and
the last by Captain Douglas in 1685. Soon after 1164
the church of Kirkcuthbert was granted by Uchtred,
Lord of Galloway, to Holyrood Abbey, under which it
remained a vicarage down to the Reformation. That
Wallace sailed hence to France after the battle of Fal-
kirk (1298) is probably a myth; and it would seem that
the Regent Albany in 1523 landed, not here, but in
Arran from Brest. We have noticed the visits of
Edward I., James II., Henry VI., and James IV. to
Kirkcudbright, which in 1507 was nearly destroyed by
a body of furious Manxmen, under Thomas, Earl of
Derby. In 1547, in the warfare over the marriage
treaty of Mary and Edward VI., an English party
marched from Dumfries against ' Kirkobrie ; but, ' says
the English commander, ' they who saw us coming
barred their gates and kept their dikes, for the town is
diked on both sides, with a gate to the waterward and
a gate on the over end to the fellward.' A vigorous
assault having failed, the English retired, with the loss
of one man in the conflict. The tale of Queen Mary's
flight from Langside (1568) through Kirkcudbright
parish is discarded under Dundrennan and Terre-
gles ; but Kirkcudbright Harbour is said to have been
agreed on by Philip II. and the seventh Lord Maxwell
as a landing-place of the Spanish Armada (15S8), and
James VI. seems about this time to have visited the
burgh, and to have gifted the incorporated trades with
the small silver gun, which last was shot for on the
Queen's Coronation Day (1838). Figuring prominently
in the struggles of the Covenanters, Kirkcudbright
raised a serious riot to resist the induction of a curate
(1663) ; had exposed on its principal gate the heads
of three gentlemen captured at Rullion Green, and
executed at Edinburgh (1666) ; and witnessed, on one
of its streets, a sharp altercation between the perse-
cutor, Sir Robert Grierson of Lag, and Viscount Ken-
mure, step-father to one of Lag's victims, which, but
for Claverhouse's intervention, might have proved fatal
to the former (1685). The fleet of William III., in
16S9, on its passage to Ireland, lay some time wind-
bound in Kirkcudbright Bay ; and at Torrs Point are
traces of ' King William's Battery.' In 1698 a woman
accused of witchcraft was burned at the stake near the
town ; in 1706 a petition against the National Union
was signed by the magistrates and principal townsfolk,
and a riot soon after ensued. In 1715 the harbour was
the intended landing-place of the Pretender ; and the
townspeople showed such enthusiasm in the Hano-
verian cause that they sent a company of volunteers to
assist in the defence of Dumfries against the Jacobite
forces. In 1725 the Cameronians here held a sort of
agrarian parliament, where the people were invited to
state their grievances. Paul Jones, the American
privateer, who was born at Arbigland, Kirkcudbright-
shire, in 1778 made a descent on St Mary's Isle, and
entered the mansion of the Earl of Selkirk, with the
design of seizing him as a hostage. Finding that he
was away from home, he carried off all his silver plate,
but afterwards returned it uninjured to the Countess.
Among eminent natives or residents, other than those
420
KIRKCUDBRIGHT
already noticed, have been John Welsh of Ayr (1570-
1623), minister in 1590 ; John Maclellan, author of a
Latin description of Galloway (1665), and also for some
time minister ; Thomas Blacklock, D.D. (1721-91), the
blind poet, and minister in 1762-64 ; Basil William,
Lord Daer (1763-94), distinguished as an agricultural
improver ; his brother, Thomas, fifth Earl of Selkirk
(1771-1820), author and politician ; James Wedderburn
(d. 1822), solicitor-general of Scotland ; and John
Nicholson (1777-1866), publisher.
Kirkcudbright gave the title of Baron, in the Scot-
tish peerage, to the family of Maclellan of Bombie.
This family, once very powerful, the proprietors of
several castles, and wielding not a little influence in
Galloway, has already been incidentally noticed. Sir
Patrick Maclellan, proprietor of the barony of Bombie,
in the parish of Kirkcudbright, incurred forfeiture in
consequence of marauding depredations on the lands of
the Douglases, Lords of Galloway, and by the eighth
Earl of Douglas was beheaded at Threave Castle in
1452. Sir William, his son — incited by a proclamation
of James II. offering the forfeited barony to any per-
son who should disperse a band of Saracens or Gipsies
from Ireland who infested the country, and should
bring in their captain, dead or alive, in evidence of
success — rushed boldly in search of the proscribed
marauders, and earned back his patrimony, by carrying
to the King the head of their captain on the point of
his sword. To commemorate the manner in which he
regained the barony, he adopted as his crest a right
arm raised, the hand grasping a dagger, on the point of
which was a Moor's head, couped, proper ; with the
motto, ' Think on,' — intimating the steadiness of pur-
pose with which he contemplated his enterprise. * Sir
Robert, fourth in descent from Sir William, acted as
gentleman of the bedchamber to James VI. and
Charles I. ; and in 1633 was created by the latter
a baron, with the title of Lord Kirkcudbright. John,
the third Lord, commenced public life by a course of
fierce opposition to Cromwell and the Independents ;
and being at the time the proprietor of the greater part
of the parish, he compelled his vassals to take arms in the
cause of the King, brought desolation upon the villages
of Dunrod and Galtway by draining off nearly all their
male inhabitants, and incurred such enormous expenses
as nearly ruined his estates. But at the Restoration,
just when any royalist but himself thought everything
gained, and ran to the King in hope of compensation
and honours, he shied suddenly round, opposed the
royal government, sanctioned the riot for preventing
the induction of an Episcopalian minister, — and was
captured along with other influential persons, sent a
prisoner to Edinburgh, and driven to utter ruin. His
successors never afterwards regained so much as an
acre of their patrimony ; and, for a considerable period,
were conceded their baronial title only by courtesy.
One of them was the ' Lord Kilcoubrie,' whom Gold-
smith, in his sneers at the poverty of the Scottish
nobility, mentions as keeping a glove-shop in Edin-
burgh. In the reign of George HI. they were at last
formally and legally re-instated in their honours ; but,
in 1832, at the death of the ninth Lord, the title — -
alternately a coronet and a football, now glittering on
the head, and now tossed in the mire by the foot of
every wayfarer — sank quietly into extinction.
The parish of Kirkcudbright since 1683 has comprised
the ancient parishes of Kirkcudbright, Galtway, and
Dunrod, the first in the N, the second in the centre,
and the third in the S. It is bounded N by Kelton, E
by Rerwiek, S by the Irish Sea, and W by Kirkcudbright
* If one may credit the above tradition, this is the earliest cer-
tain notice of the presence of Gipsies in the British Isles. Unfor-
tunately it rests on no older authority than a MS. Baronage of
Sir George Mackenzie (1639-91), cited in Crawfurd'sPeera<7e(1716).
' Murray ' (? Moor) is said to have been the Gipsy chieftain's name
— a name preserved in Black Morrow Plantation and Blackmorrow
Well This well young Maclellan is said to have ' filled with spirits,
of which the outlaw drank so freely that he soon fell asleep, which
Maclellan perceiving sprang from his hiding-place, and at one blow
severed the head of Black Murray from his body.'