Ordnance gazetteer of Scotland > Volume 5

PEEBLESSHIRE
Clmrch of the Holy Rood, founded at Peebles by-
Alexander III. Before 1286 the shire had already been
recognised ; and two sheriffs — one at each of the royal
seats — exercised jurisdiction. These, however, were
superseded by a single sheriff in 1304, while Edward I.
held the district. Carlops and Crosseryne Hill were the
northern limits of the region surrendered in 1334 by
Edward Baliol to Edward III. In the wars of the
succession Peeblesshire suffered severely, and was several
times harried by the English in spite of its mountain
barriers ; while the turbulent and lawless Border barons
distracted this along with the other southern counties
with their feuds and forays. This state of disturbance
continued more or less violently down to the time of
Charles I. and Cromwell. In 1650 Cromwell's troops
besieged and took Neidpath ; and the justice of peace
records of the county, which begin in 1656, contain in
the first volume a series of instructions from the council
of the Protector. Peeblesshire was not one of the centres
of the Covenanters ; nor did the rebellion of 1715-45
affect it very much, though in the latter year a division
of the Chevalier's array marched through the county on
their way to England. The high sheriffship of Peebles
had become almost hereditary in the family of the
ancestors of the Earl of Tweeddale, who in 16S6 sold his
lands, etc., to the second Duke of Queensberry. The
latter gave them to his son, the Earl of March, and the
representatives of the last, in 1747, claimed £4000, but
received only £3200, for the sheriffdom of Peebles on
the abolition of hereditary jurisdictions. The first
sheriff-depute under the new order was James Mont-
gomery, who afterwards rose to be Chief Baron of the
Exchequer and first baronet of Stanhope. From the
union of the Scottish and English parliaments in 1707
till 1832 Peeblesshire returned one member ; while the
burgh of Peebles united with Selkirk, Linlithgow, and
Lanark in returning a second. In 1832, however, the
burgh and county were made a united constituency with
one member, and this continued till 1868 when the pre-
sent division was made.
Eminent Men. — There are few old families in Peebles-
shire, for lands and houses there have changed hands
repeatedly ; and even the nobleman who derives his title
of Marquis from the shire is not in possession of his
ancestral lands. The Horsbrughs of Horsbrugh boast
the longest unbroken line of descent in the shire.
Among the old historical families most frequently
heard of in connection with some feud or raid are the
Tweedies of Drummelzier and the Veitches of Dawick,
the Hays of Yester, Geddeses of Eachan, Hunter of Pol-
mood, Murrays of Blackbarony and Elibank, and the
Erasers of Neidpath. The mighty wizard Merlin is
said to have lived, died, and been buried in Peeblesshire ;
and some authorities identify Caetcoit Celedon, the
site of King Arthur's seventh battle, with Cademuir. St
Kinian, otherwise Ringan, is said to have introduced
Christianity to the district ; and St Kentigern, called
also St Mungo, is said to have preached here in the
middle of the 6th century. Among less mythical
personages we note Sir John Stewart of Traquair, who
became Lord High Treasurer of Scotland, and in 1633
was created Earl of Traquair ; the lords of session
Cringletie, Murray, and Henderland ; Sir David Murray,
fourth baronet of Stanhope, who was the Chevalier's
secretary in the '45 ; and James Geddes, younger of
Rachan (1710-48), author of An Essay on the Cmnposi-
tion and Manner of the Ancients, particularly Plato.
Alexander Pennicuik, author of the Description of
Tweeddale, was, though he spent his life in Peeblesshire,
probably a native of Midlothian. Other noteworthy
natives of Peeblesshire are noted under Peebles and
the various parishes.
The literary associations of Peeblesshire are both
numerous and interesting. Very frequent reference is
made to Tweeddale person and place in the minstrelsy
of the Scottish border, whether ballad or simple song,
and the Tweed has given rise to more poetry than any
river in Scotland. One of the most pathetic ballads in
the language is The Lament of the Border Widow,
PEFFEES, THE
placed in the mouth of the wife of the notorious Cock-
burn of Henderland, whom James V. ' justified ' in
1529. Among the poems which have rendered various
spots in the county famous are Twccdside, by John
Earl of Tweeddale (1645-1713) ; the old ballad of the
Logan Lee, a place about 14 miles from Tweed's-Well ;
Robert Crawford^s (1695-1732) Bush aboon Traquair,
and Principal Shairp's new version under the same name ;
and William Laidlaw's tender ballad Lucy's Flittin',
which has immortalised the Glen. A graphic, if some-
what burlesque, picture of Scottish lowland life in the
early 15th century is given in PcUis to the Play, usually
ascribed to James I. ; and a more satirical account of
clerical vices towards the end of the same century, in
the anonymous Thrie Pricslis of PccUes. Alexander
Geddes (1737-1802), formerly tutor in the Earl of
Traquair's family, wrote about 1781, Linton; a Tweed-
dale Pastoral, in honour of the birth of the eighth Earl
of Traquair. Scotston House in Newlands parish was
for a time the residence of Smollett the novelist, whose
sister had married Mr Telfer, the proprietor. The banks
of a small rivulet flowing into the North Esk near
Carlops are popularly identified as the scene of Allan
Ramsay's famous pastoral The Gentle Shepherd; four
trees near the Tweed, on the farm of Patervan in Drum-
melzier, mark the former site of the hamlet referred to
by Burns in his song,
* Willie Wastle dwelt on Tweed,
The spot they ca"d it Linkuradoddie ; '
and several of James Hogg's songs have their scenes in
Peeblesshire, as Over the Hills to Traquair, The Bridal
of Polmood, The Brownie of Bodsheck. Sir Walter Scott
has many allusions to Peeblesshire in his works — prose
and poetry ; thus, e.g., St Bonan's Well is identified
with Innerleithen Spa ; and the old house of Traquair
is one of the prototypes of ' Tully veolan ' in Waverley.
In Manor parish, also, stood the cottage of David
Ritchie, ' The Black Dwarf,' whom Scott visited in
1797, while staying with the aged Professor Adam
Ferguson at the neighbouring mansion of Hallyards.
The conduct of the fourth Duke of Queensberry in
ruthlessly denuding the banks of the Tweed at Neidpath
of their beautiful timber, called forth an indignant
sonnet from Wordsworth. More modern poets are the
Rev. James Nicol (1793-1819), native of Innerleithen,
and minister of Traquair, who wrote Where Quair rins
sivcet amang the Flowers; Thomas Smibert (1810-45),
born at Peebles, whose lo anche ! Poems chiefly Lyrical,
contains some local pieces ; and Professor Veitch of
Glasgow, who, besides his Twccdside and Hillside
Rhymes, has written a sympathetic account of Border
history and poetry.
See Dr Alexander Pennicuik's Bescription of Tweed-
dale (1715 ; reissued with notes 1815 ; 3d ed. 1875) ;
Captain Armstrong's Companion to the Map of Tweed-
dale (1775) ; Rev. Charles Findlater's General View of
the Agriculture of the County of Peebles (1802) ; Dr
William Chambers' History of Peeblesshire (1864) ; an
article on the ' Topography and Agriculture of Peebles-
shire,' by Lawrence Anderson, in Trans. Highl. and
Ag. Soc. (1872) ; Professor John Veitch 's History and
Poetry of the Scottish Border (1878) ; and Watson's
Guide to Peeblesshire (2d ed., Peebles, 1881). A small
annual almanic is published at the office of the Peebles-
shire Adrertiscr.
Peel Fell. See Castleton, Eoxburghshire.
Peelwalls. See Ayton.
PefFer or Peffery, a picturesque stream of Fodderty
and Dingwall parishes, Ross-shire, rising at an altitude
of 1750 feet above sea-level, and winding 9§ miles south-
south-eastward and east-by-northward, till it falls into
the Cromarty Firth, near its head, and just below the
town of Dingwall. See Stkathpeffek. — Ord. Sur.,
shs. 93, 83, 1881.
Peffer Mill. See Liberton.
Peffers, The, two streamlets in the N of Haddington-
shire, rising within a brief distance of each other in a
meadow in Athelstaneford parish, and flowing the one
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