Ordnance gazetteer of Scotland

MONTROSE
Montrose and Arbroath railway. The site of the town
is a peninsula jutting southwards, bounded on the E
by the sea, and on the S and W by the waters of the
South Esk. Except for the low sand-bank along the
edge of the links, the ground is almost entirely level.
To the W of the town the river expands into a broad
tidal loch known as the Montrose Basin and measuring
2 miles by If mile. At high water the whole area is
covered, but at low water by far the greater portion
becomes an unsightly expanse of mud, largely used for
mussel culture. As the channel to the NE of the town
is only from 115 to 130 yards wide, the tidal current
sets up and down with great swiftness — often from 6 to
8 miles an hour; but this rush of water is beneficial, as
its force clears off deposits from the town and river, and
prevents the formation of any considerable bar across
the mouth of the river. In 1670, by running a dyke
from near the Forthill along the bank of the South Esk
towards Dun, an attempt was made to drain and add to
that estate some 2000 acres, but the bulwark — known
as the 'Drainer's dike' — had hardly been completed
when it was breached and destroyed by a violent storm,
traditionally said to have been raised by Meggie Cowie,
one of the last local witches. A small portion of the
area has been reclaimed by the Montrose and Arbroath
railway company. The Basin is frequented by wild
geese, ducks, and other aquatic birds. Neither the. flat-
ness of the site nor the large expanse of water around
seem to have any injurious effect on the health of the
inhabitants. On the contrary the almost insular situ-
ation of the town makes the climate very mild; and the
Basin at high water adds materially to the beauty of
the neighbourhood.
History. — The origin of the name of Montrose has
given rise to many conjectures — Moiis Eosarum, the
French Mons-trois ('three hills '), the British Manterrose
( ' the mouth of the stream '), the Gaelic Mon-ross ( ' the
promontory hill'), Moin-ross ('the promontory of the
moss '), and Meadh-an-ross (' the field or plain of the
moss '), have all been brought forward, but the most
likely seems to be that at the beginning of the article,
which connects the name first with Old Montrose and
so with Montrose, and seems also to account for the
tradition (certainly unfounded), that the town at first
stood at the former place. According to Boece the
original name of the town was Celurca, but this seems
rather to have been a contiguous place, as both Montrose
and Salork are mentioned in a charter in the time of
Malcolm IV., and again in the time of William the
Lyon. All trace of the latter is now gone, but it was
possibly higher up the basin than Montrose. Of the
origin of the town nothing is known, but it has a high
antiquity, for as early as the 10th century, when the
Danes found the estuary a convenient anchorage, there
was, according to Boece, a town here, and in 9S0 the
inhabitants were massacred by a band of these sea-
rovers. In the 12th century, under Malcolm IV., we
find that mills and saltpans had been established, and
his successor, William the Lyon, lived in the castle
from time to time between 1178 and 1198. In 1244 the
town was burned, and at that time it seems to have been
one of the considerable places of the kingdom. When it
obtained burghal privileges is not known, but probably
in the time of David I. At any rate, burgesses of
Montrose are mentioned in 1261-62, and in 1296 twelve
burgesses went to Berwick, and in presence of Edward I.
took the oath of allegiance on behalf of themselves and
the burgh. Edward himself was in Montrose the same
year, from the 7th till the 12th July, when he lived at
the castle which then stood on the Forthill. According
to Wyntoun, Blind Harry, and Balfour, it was here that
John Baliol ' did render quietly the realme of Scotland
as he that had done amis.'
' This John the Baliol, on purpos
He tuk and browcht hym til Munros,
And in the castell of that town,
That then was famous in renown,
This John the Baliol dyspoyled he
Of all his robys of ryaltie.'
1180
MONTROSE
But this is a mistake, for, though the ceremony took
place while Edward was here, the scene was at Stra-
cathro, whither Edward went for the purpose, returning
the same day. The castle was captured by Wallace in
the following year, and seems to have been completely
destroyed, for there is no more word of it.* Wallace
landed here on his return from France : —
1 Baith Forth and Tay thai left and passyt by
On the north cost [g'ud] Guthre' was thar gfy,
In Munross hawyn thai brocht hym to the land; '
and, according to Froissart, Montrose was the port
whence Lord James Douglas, at the head of a brilliant
retinue, embarked in the spring of 1330 to fulfil the last
charge of King Robert Bruce to carry his heart to Jeru-
salem and deposit it in the holy sepulchre. This, how-
ever, is against the testimony of the Scottish historians,
particularly Barbour, who says Douglas sailed from
Berwick. In the rolls of the parliament, held in Edin-
burgh in 1357 to arrange the ransom of David II.,
Montrose occupies the central position among the royal
burghs, eight preceding and eight following it, and
would therefore appear to have, at that period, at-
tained considerable consequence. Subsequently, in
the same year, John Clark, one of the magistrates, was
among those who became hostages for the payment of
the ransom. In 1369, David himself visited the town ;
and when the truce made between France and England
in 1379 was renewed in 1383, with the stipulation that
Scotland should be included if that country wished, aband
of thirty distinguished French knights, who came to Scot-
land in the hope of the war going on, landed at Montrose
and passed S by Perth to Edinburgh. During the 15th
century the inhabitants had a bitter feud against the
Erskines of Dun, seemingly on account of oppression
endured at their hands, but this was changed by the
well-known laird who figured among the Reformers, and
who possessed great influence in the town, and estab-
lished there a school where the Greek language was
taught for the first time in Scotland by Pierre de
Marsiliers, who had been brought by Dun from France
in 1534. In 1648 the English fleet, which was sailing
along the coast doing whatever mischief was possible,
made a night attack, but the landing parties were, after
a stiff struggle, beaten back by the inhabitants with
Erskine at their head. Influenced, no doubt, by such
a leader, and probably also prepared for the reception of
the new views by their trading intercourse with the
Continent, and particularly with Holland, the people
early embraced the doctrines set forth by the Reformers.
The spread of these must have been greatly aided by the
teaching of George Wishart, who seems to have been
first a pupil of, and then assistant to, Marsiliers, and
who taught and circulated the Greek Testament so
extensively among his pupils, that in 1538 the Bishop
of Brechin summoned him to appear on a charge of
heresy, and he had to flee to England. He returned
in 1543, and for a time preached and taught openly
' in Montrois within a private house next unto the
church except one.' When he had again to flee, the
people, determined to have what they wished, got
another preacher named Paul Methven, originally a
baker in Dundee, who, we are told, having administered
the sacrament ' to several of the lieges in a manner far
different from the Divine and laudable use of the faith-
ful Catholic church, was denounced rebel and put to the
horn as fugitive ' in 1559, while the inhabitants were
ordered to conform to the old state of things and to
attend mass. Andrew Melvil, who was born at Bal-
dowie in the adjoining parish of Craig, was one of
Marsiliers' later pupils, and his nephew James Melvil,
who has in his Diary left an interesting account of his
* The castle seems to have been the royal residence when
William the Lyon was at Montrose, and Edward I. lived there,
but there is no record as to where David II. resided. In 1488 the
grant by James III. to David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford, of 'the
loftier title ' of Duke of Montrose, mentions no castle but only
the ' Castlested,' which would seem to imply that the castle was a
ruin, or had altogether disappeared. The site was at the Forthill,
near where the Infirmary now stands.