[lxxxv] THE REGALITY OF GRANT.
In addition to the baronies and lordships already considered, acquired by the Lairds of Freuchie from time to time, separate lands in Strathspey and elsewhere were also added. by them to their estates. Some of these were only held for a4short time, but others became more permanent acquisitions. Among the latter was the barony of Mulben, comprising the lands of Mulben with tower and fortalice, Balnabreich, Cardeny, Auldcash, and Forgie, certain of which were in the possession of the Grants before 1510. They were parts of the earldom of Rothes, and were previously held by the families of Cumming of Erneside and Dumbreck of Orton. Other lands were those of Knockando, Glencumrie, and Brodland in the parish of Knockando, which originally pertained to the chaplainry of St. Andrews or Knockando, a dependency of the Cathedral Church of Moray, but were granted by Alexander Douglas, chaplain of St. Andrews in 1545, with consent of the dean and chapter of Moray, to James Grant of Freuchie and Christian Barclay his spouse.
These lands, with the baronies of Mulben, Freuchie, Cromdale, Urquhart, and Corriemony, the lands of Glencarnie and Ballindalloch, the barony of Cardells, the lands of Muldaries, Bridgeton of Spey, and the large tenement in the town of Elgin, which had belonged to Thomas Mackenzie of Pluscardine, were all consolidated by Laird Ludovick into one holding, called the REGALITY OF GRANT. The crown charter of erection is dated 28th February 1(94. It appointed the castle of Freuchie the chief messuage of the Regality, and changed its designation to the CASTLE OF GRANT. It also erected the Castletown of Freuchie into a town and burgh, to be called the Regality town of Grant, and confirmed in the hands of the Lairds of Freuchie, whose title henceforth became more uniformly than before LAIRDS OF GRANT, the patronages of the churches of Inveravon, Kirkmichael, Knockando, Urquhart, Glenmoriston, Cromdale, Advie, Abernethy, Kincardine, and Duthil.
This erection of the Regality of Grant invested the Lairds as Lords of [lxxxvi] Regality, with full jurisdiction of justiciary, free chapel and chancery, with power of holding courts, appointing all necessary officers therefor, and either by themselves or by bailies-depute, to sit as judges in all actions, civil and criminal, lese-majesty and treason only excepted. All escheats within the bounds of the Regality, save for the excepted crimes, were to belong to the Lords of Regality. Over several of the lands in the Regality, which were held from subject superiors, such as Cardells, the tenandry of Muldaries and several adjacent lands, the Lairds were appointed hereditary bailies, with powers similar to those they exercised within their own Regality. Vol. iii. of this work, pp. 476-482.
Five of the court books of the Regality, covering the period from 1690 to 1729, are still extant. Up to the year 1700 there seems to have been only one bailie, James Grant of Gellovie, cousin-german to Laird Ludovick. Except when the Laird was personally present, he presided over the courts. These were generally held at Balintome, which was the place of punishment and execution, and was near the confluence of the Dulnan with the Spey; but not unfrequently courts were held at Grantown, Castle Grant, Coulnakyle, Rothiemoon, or Duthil, to suit the convenience of those whose presence was required at the courts. Subsequently to the year 1700, district bailies were appointed, each of whom presided over the courts of the portion of the Grant estates committed to him. The Cross of Grantown was the Regality Cross from which proclamations were made.
The suppression of crime by punishments, the preservation of the policies, and of the rights of property in general, and the enactment of ordinances for the guidance of the subjects and vassals in the regality, were all portions of the jurisdiction and administration of the courts. The preservation of the forests of fir and birch frequently called for intervention, and the gentlemen wadsetters were taken under obligation to prevent their tenants and servants from destroying the woods. The killing of deer also formed a subject of inquiry, and was prohibited under severe penalties. To diminish the depredations made among flocks of sheep by foxes, it was in 1706 "statut and ordained, with consent of the haul parish of Duthell and lordship of Glencharnek," that each person who killed a fox should receive 20s. Scots and the skin of the animal. To create a [lxxxvii] fund for these payments, each "auchten pairt" was taxed one merk, or, if they preferred it, one lamb, and every "melander" (cottar) that had sheep half a merk. Twenty-one years later, when foxes and eagles both inflicted "continual and daily losses" by killing the sheep, each gentleman and tenant in the four parishes of Strathspey was ordained to pay one year old wedder or two shillings sterling, and each "melander" one lamb, or 12s. Scots. From the fund provided by this impost every man who killed a fox or an eagle, young or old, was to receive for each £2 Scots.
At another time it was ordained that every one who fished in Lochindorb, or in the burns thereof should be obliged to give the half of their fish for the Laird's table, either at Castle Grant or Coulnakyle, the Strathspey residences of the Lairds.
To secure uniformity in the dress of the clan, the bailie of Tulchan and Skiradvie, on 27th July 1704, at the command of the Laird of Grant, younger, ordered that the whole tenants, cottars, maltmen, tradesmen, and servants on these lands should each provide, against 8th August following, Highland coats, trews, and short hose of tartan, of red and green set, broad-springed, with sword, pistol, and dirk, and be prepared to present themselves at a rendezvous within Strathspey, upon forty-eight hours' advertisement, for the hosting and hunting of the Laird or his father.
Social questions were not lost sight of in these courts. In 1712, Mr. James Chapman, minister of Duthil, complained that, on a couple giving in their banns to be proclaimed for marriage, the nephew of the intended bridegroom stopped the marriage by a grave charge against the bride. On the matter going to trial, and reference being made to the woman's oath, the charge was found to be false, and the slanderer was condemned to stand in the "jogs" during the pleasure of the session, or suffer imprisonment. Three years later, the minister of Abernethy, Mr. William Grant, made a representation to the bailie of the regality of Grant, "against the heathnish custom of calling of fidlers to likwakes, and other barbarous uses," whereupon the bailie "statute and ordained that no fidler, house keeper, or any other person within the said parish (Abernethy) be employed in fidling or dancing, or any other barbarous or sinful custome, or playes at the walking of dead people, under the faillzie of £10 Scots ilk person in [lxxxviii] all time coming toties quoties, to be uplifted by the session's collector after convictioune, by and attour being liable to church censure, and that ilk ane of them be liable in the failzie of £3 money forsaid toties quoties they shall disobey the church censure, to be likewayes uplifted by the said collector, and appoints this act to be intimate from the pulpit by the minister."
To protect the trading interest, the four bailies of Strathspey, in 1703, with consent of the gentlemen of the country, ordained that the brewers within the four parishes should buy their malt within them, and that "none
presume to buy or import malt out of any place without said parishes, under pain of confiscation ;" also that no aquavite be imported to the four parishes. The brewers were ordained to brew aquavite of the country malt, and serve the four parishes "at reasonable rates, of sufficient stuff." In his account of the parishes of Duthil and Rothiemurchus, about 1790, Mr. Patrick Grant says, "The only principal inn in the parish is at Aviemore. There are no alehouses. The number of houses in which whisky (a beverage which seems fit only for demons) is sold is ten. There were many more, until of late, when they were suppressed by the proprietor." [Old Statistical Account, vol iv. p. 317.]
In connection with the aquavite of the district a curious case is recorded in the court books of the Regality. In 1703 three women were charged with the crime of conveying aquavite clandestinely to prisoners in ward at Castle Grant, who drank to such excess that they died. So unique and peculiar was the charge that the ablest lawyers in the nation were consulted by the judge, who was on this occasion Brigadier Alexander Grant. He was advised that as the charge could not be made a capital one, and as it could not be construed into poisoning, the ends of justice might be served by the infliction of an arbitrary punishment with banishment upon the confession of the prisoners. The three women were condemned to be taken to the Regality Cross at Grantown and tied thereto, their bodies made bare from the belt upwards, and scourged with cords by the hangman, each receiving thirty stripes. They were then to be banished from the Regality. At the same sederunt the court adjudged another woman to be similarly scourged and banished, and one of her ears cut off, for haunting with a notorious freebooter called the Halkit Steir, and other outlaws.
Another case of scourging occurred with a man who had stolen a steer. He was ordained to be taken to the gallow's foot at the hill of Ballintome, [lxxxix] to be bound thereto' and scourged by the hangman with thirty stripes. His mother, who appears to have resetted the steer, was required to restore it, and to pay four pounds, under pain of poinding.
Thieve, however, did not always escape so easily. Banishment from the Regality, or in graver cases, "from the countrey of Strathspey and from all countries of Scotland benorth the toun of Perth, never to return, or reside, travel, or have any intercourse in the said places in time coming," under the pain of death, was the sentence sometimes pronounced. For the theft of the sock of a plough, a lad of seventeen years was sentenced to have "his lug nailed with ane irone naill to ane post, and to stand thus for the space of ane hour without motione, and then allowes him to break the grip nailed without drawing of the naile." For resetting the stolen sock, the lad's master was fined £50 Scots. The encouragement or concealment of theft was met with severe measures, and one ordinance of the Regality Court was to the effect that all persons within the country "apprehending theaves with the fang or without fang upon attemptes shall not ffyn with them and let them go frie, under the failzie of ane hundreth poundis totties quoties except they present the theaves to justice: Moreover, whoever compones with ane thief shall pay the same unlaw: Moreover, they shall be in the transgression of the premises if the theiff be in the power of any person to apprehend and lets him go frie."
Capital punishment was frequently inflicted. On one occasion, two prisoners, for housebreaking and stealing cheese, were condemned "to be brought to the Gallow Hill of Belintome, and betwixt two and four hours in the afternoon, to be both hanged upon the gallows by the neck by the hand of the executioner till they be dead."
These powers of justiciary and general jurisdiction had also been exercised by the previous Lairds of Freuchie, fragmentary decisions of courts from about 1580 occasionally appearing among their papers. According to traditions in Abernethy, the bailies under the Lairds often wielded their power with despotic cruelty. In the parish of Abernethy it is said there were three such bailies, and that one of these, Robert Grant, called Bailie More, would hang people for merely disobliging him. He rarely called juries and is said to have on one occasion hanged two brothers on a tree, [xc] and buried both in one grave by the roadside. Another bailie. James Grant, called Bailie Roy, is said to have perpetrated an act of "Jeddart justice," by first hanging a man and then finding him guilty by an assize. On another occasion he is said to have hanged two notorious thieves, and after par boiling their heads, set them up on poles; and at another time to have placed two men in sacks and drowned them in the river. The third bailie bore the designation of Bailie Bain, and made himself so odious to the people that they drove him with his horse into the Spey, where he was drowned. By the execution of their office these bailies often enriched themselves. They had the bailie's darg, as it was called, or the services of each of the tenants for one day in the year; the escheated goods of all who suffered capitally; the fines of those who were mulcted for breach of the laws of Court; and the herial horse or cow, being the best horse or cow, or other article possessed by any tenant at the time of his death. Old Statistical Account, vol. xiii. p. 151
According to another authority, culprits often escaped by securing the favour of the bailie; but if this was not done, or any who were tried before these Courts were under the displeasure of the judge, they were almost certain to be hanged, even if innocent. Brigadier Grant is credited with putting an end to this injustice in Strathspey, by hanging eleven of his own clan in one day, and declaring his resolution never to show partiality or compassion to a thief of his own name. In 1704, when the Brigadier went to live at Ballindalloch, it is said "there were but four honest men in all the parish of lnverawen." MS. Notes by Mr. William Lorimer, at Castle Grant.
Over the Grant estates these unjust practices were terminated, about 1738, by Sir Ludovick Grant, and in 1747 such powers of jurisdiction were abolished over the whole country by the Heritable Jurisdictions Act, under which the present system of legal administration by sheriffs was introduced.
By the charter of erection of the Regality, as has been remarked, the Castletown of Freuchie was changed into the burgh and town of Grant or Grantown. It was to be the principal burgh of regality, containing a market cross, from which proclamations might be made, also a tolbooth and a jail. Burghal authorities were to be constituted. From the references to the town and cross of Grantown in the court books of the Regality [xci] already referred to, their existence then is established. This village appears to have been nearer the castle, and to have been removed on the foundation of the new town
The present town of. Grantown, however, is of more modern date, having been projected in 1765 by Sir Ludovick Grant of Grant and his son, the good Sir James. The site of this town was formerly a barren heath moor, called Feavoit. Plans and leases were prepared, and by 1766 the first houses were erected. it was especially the project of Sir James Grant, and hp used every means in his power to promote the prosperity of the town. Under his fostering care it prospered greatly, and in 1780 it had become so important as to memorialise for the establishment of a post office and special mail service. Establishments for brewing and baking were set up, linen and woollen manufactories and a bleachfield were commenced and carried on, and tradesmen of all kinds were encouraged to follow their crafts in the new town. Schools for boys and girls were erected, and so early as 1767 Sir James Grant had projected a technical school of arts to he maintained by voluntary contributions, where the children of artisans might be properly instructed in the process of linen and woollen manufacture and agriculture. Twenty-six years after its foundation the town could boast of three hundred inhabitants, many of whom when they settled "were worth nothing," but in 1792 are said to he "in affluent circumstances." A plentiful Supply of water has been introduced, new roads made and bridges built., and under the patronage of the succeeding Lairds, Grantown has continued to prosper, and to bring prosperity to its inhabitants. It consists of one long street with a large central square, adorned with trees, and is considered one of the healthiest towns in the north of Scotland. In 1871 the population had increased to upwards of thirteen hundred.
During one of her Highland tours with the Prince Consort, Her Majesty Queen Victoria passed a night in the old inn in the town of Grantown. The presence of royalty was kept a secret till the party
 |
 |
Volume I Introduction (x) |
 |
 |
 |