Two years after John Brughe suffered at Edinburgh, the quiet of the usually peaceful valley of the Devon was broken by the clatter of cavalry and the skirling of the pipes, as Montrose, having in his usual brilliant fashion outwitted Baillie, marched through, burning and plundering as he passed, leaving Muckhart, Dollar, and, above all, Castle Campbell, the lowland hold of the detested Argyles, heaps of blackened ruins, a march which was to end in the bloody Battle of Kilsyth, that "braw day" when, as the Highlander with grim humour remarked, "at every stroke I gave with my broadsword I cut an ell o' tamn'd Covenanting breeks." When Chambers says[8] that "the Covenanting army marched close upon the track of Montrose down Glendevon, at the distance of about a day's march behind," he, of course, means down the Devon valley, and not down Glendevon proper, since it is pretty certain that Montrose, in making his descent from the north, entered the low country not by Gleneagles, but by the south-east end of the Ochils. Glendevon Castle—originally built, it is supposed, by the Crawfords[9] in the sixteenth century—thus escaped the fate which befel Castle Campbell[10] and Menstrie House, and other places in the Devon and Ochil district at this time, when the fierce strife was not merely between cavaliers and Covenanters, but quite as much, and specially during the Devon valley march, between the Ogilvies and Macleans on the one hand, and the Campbells and their friends on the other. It is, however, impossible, to say whether the Keep, which has been in the possession of the Rutherford family since 1766, was actually at this time in the hands of the Crawfords, and, indeed, the traditions regarding its ownership are so vague—one of them assigning it to the Douglases—that, in the absence of authentic records, it is impossible to make any really satisfactory statement regarding its origin and history.
Some years later the parish of Glendevon came prominently before the public in connection with the deposition and excommunication of its doughty true-blue Presbyterian minister, the Rev. William Spence, M.A., though it was not till he had been removed from his living that the really romantic part of his career began. He had graduated at St. Andrews in 1654, and after some years of schoolmastering[11] and probationership he was, in 1664, duly admitted on the new Black Prelatic conditions to the parish of Glendevon. Under the mild rule of Bishops Leighton and Ramsay he lived quietly there for fourteen years. His name occasionally appears on the Synod and Presbytery Committees during this period, and he seems to have done his best to get the brethren stirred up to "better the provision of Glendovan." The Bishop and Synod did actually order a "perambulation" to be made to see if anything could be annexed from the adjacent parishes, especially "Denying and Fossoquhy," so that, as Mr Spence put it, "ane augmentation proportionablie might be made to him out of the vacant teindes of the said paroches in respect of the poornes and meannes of his stipend for the present."[12] The perambulation, beyond affording a pleasant outing to the visitors in the long May days, does not seem to have had any practical result. Mr Spence had, however, been thinking of higher things than teinds and augmentation, and had been looking far beyond the bounds of his own parish, and, spite of the extreme gentleness of the somewhat mongrel Prelatic-Presbyterian rule under which he was, and the general atmosphere of conformity which he breathed, he began to have serious searchings of heart about the state of the "poor afflicted" Church. Accordingly, towards the end of 1678 he took the bold step of presenting a paper[13] to the Presbytery of Auchterarder drawing the attention of the Court to the sundry gross corruptions under which the Church was suffering and to the horrid defection from its first purity, obvious to every man who did not wilfully shut his eyes. The evils against which he asked the Court to testify were doctrinal, liturgical, disciplinary, moral, and what may be called ecclesiastical. He includes in the sweep of his very impartial denunciation not only the pernicious tenets of Pelagianism, Arminianism, Latitudinarianism, and Popish errors, but "the dotage of Quakers and other enthusiasts," human inventions in worship, and the private essays made to introduce or impose an unwarrantable liturgie of unsound and useless form, the loose spirit of atheism, profaneness, and ungodliness reigning in all corners of the kingdom, and the dreadful differences that prevailed, and calls for a return to sound doctrine, the practice of "the gude Kirk primitif," the exercise of a strict discipline, and the ways of peace. At the special meeting of Presbytery called to consider his paper he asked to have it back, apparently because he now thought its terms were not strong enough, and meanwhile a committee was appointed not to deal but to confer with him "until he should get full satisfaction of everything that was his scruple." He refused, however, to meet the Committee or attend the Presbytery, on the ground that he had not "clearness" as to the authority and constitution of a semi-prelatic Court. The Bishop and Presbytery thereupon suspended him, and he was summoned before the Synod in April, 1679, but did not attend, on account of "ane aguish distemper which had seized on him." A Synodal Committee with full powers was then appointed, before which he compeared in May, but spite of earnest entreaties of the Bishop he would withdraw nothing, and even added that he did not think the present Church government agreeable to Scriptural rules—a view shared by some of the Episcopalian bishops themselves. The Bishop and Committee recorded their opinion that the paper was contrived and adhered to for advancing some private interest against the unity and peace of the Church, and rather unfairly insinuated that Mr Spence was the more hardened therein by the late execrable murder of the Bishop of St. Andrews and the expectation of a Revolution to follow thereupon, and unanimously resolved that this unruly and unreasonable member be deposed. Mr Spence was quite prepared for this, and, "with some signs of choler in his countenance," handed a second paper to the Bishop, which turned out to be a protest against the sentence of the "pretended" Bishop and Synod of Dunblane passed on him. He was asked to retire for a little till they should consult, but he scornfully replied that he did not own their jurisdiction, and was making for the church-door when the Bishop ordered the beadle to lay hold of him, and carry him to his house, and desire the Baillie to keep him safely until he should find caution to answer before a competent judicatory. This was Mr Spence's first taste of imprisonment, of which he was to have a very large supply, of very different quality, too, later on. The good Bishop on his own responsibility sent three of the brethren that night to reason with him, but Mr Spence would not yield, and was let out on bail. He appeared at the next meeting of Synod, but, spite of the threat of excommunication, stuck to his guns and argued against his treatment on technical grounds, and on the following day, when, after being duly cited, he neither compeared nor pled "ane aguish distemper," the Bishop and Synod charged the Presbytery of Auchterarder to proceed with the excommunication, which after some bungling they did, and finally the superior Court ordered the intimation of the excommunication to be read from every pulpit in the Diocese on the first Sabbath of January, 1681, but no attempt was made to detain the unruly member, and the door of grace was left open to the very last, quite remarkable leniency when it is remembered that 1680 was the year of the Sanquhar Declaration and Airds Moss, and that the peroration of Mr Spence's protest would have done credit to Cuddy Headrigg's mother. "For these reasons specially, and many others I need not mention now, I, the said William Spence, protest against the sentence aforesaid, and disown the same, seeing the said inflicters have hereby proclaimed themselves to be the patrones and abettors of all the said corruptions, supplanters of the Gospel faction for Anti-christ, promoters of the powers of darkness, enemies to the kingdom of Jesus Christ, and such from whom all good Christians ought to separate because of their maintaining and defending soul-murdering heresies, and in persecuting with the utmost violence and rigour any man who darr open his mouth for the truth of Christ. (Sic Subscribitur), Mr William Spence."[14]
Mr Spence as yet was only an ecclesiastical rebel, and instead of going over to the extreme Covenanters, made his way to Holland, where he joined the colony of Scotch refugees. Ultimately he attached himself to the Earl of Argyle as a kind of secretary, and conducted part of the correspondence between the Earl and the English plotters. He was in London in 1683, apparently on the Earl's business, when he was arrested and imprisoned for some months, but as he could not be efficiently examined in England, where torture was not legal, he was finally sent down to Scotland along with Carstares and other suspects in His Majesty's "Kitchin Yaucht," which did not go at a royal pace, for the journey to Leith took thirteen days. They arrived late at night on November 14th, having left London on the 1st, and were taken straight to the Tolbooth.[15] A week after, orders came from London that Mr Spence should be put to the torture, but for some reason or other he was left alone till the April of the following year, being evidently in irons all the time, his close connection with Argyle rendering his imprisonment extra rigorous.[16] He was taken out of irons on the 25th of that month, but it was not till the 24th of July that he was ordered to appear before the Council and required to take an oath to answer all the questions put to him. He refused and protested, and was tortured in the boot, but, spite of the awful agony, remained "obstinate and disingenuous," whereupon the Privy Council "resolved to use all methods necessary to bring the said Mr William Spence to a true and ingenuous confession, and for expiscating the truth in so important a matter, do recommend to General Dalziel forthwith to call for the said Mr William Spence from the Magistrates of Edinburgh, and to cause such of His Majesty's forces, officers, and soldiers, as shall be found most trusty, to watch the said Mr William Spence by turns, and not to suffer him to sleep by night or by day, and for that end to use all effectual means for keeping him awake."[17] The "effectual means" were "pricking,"[18] and the intention was to induce raving, so that in his delirium the brave prisoner might perhaps reveal his secrets. The torture was continued for eight or nine nights, but Mr Spence did not rave, and tired his tormentors out. It was next resolved to try the "thumbkins" on him, and, indeed, Spence seems to have been one of the first regular prisoners to suffer this new Muscovy torture,[19] for the Act of Council authorising the use of "the new invention and engine called the thumbkins" was passed only a fortnight before; but the sanguine expectations of the Lords were not fulfilled in the present case, for though he sank under the agonising torment, he would not yield. Ten days later he was again threatened with the boot, and having meanwhile understood from his friends that the Government practically knew already all he could tell them, he promised to make a free and ingenuous confession on certain conditions—namely, that no new questions should be put to him, that he should not be obliged to be a witness against any person, and that he himself should be pardoned. Unfortunately, by a sheer accident in disclosing the meaning of some of the ciphers used in Argyle's correspondence, he put the Council on the track of the cipher[20] which expressed the name of his fellow-prisoner, the famous Carstares, who, however, does not in any way blame Mr Spence for what happened. He was sent back to prison, strict orders being given that he was not to be permitted to see Carstares, and when the Council adjourned for the holidays on September 13th, he was removed to Dumbarton Castle, and granted liberty within the walls. Whether he escaped, or was allowed to go out of the country, we cannot tell, but it is clear at any rate that he rejoined his old master in Holland, and the next we hear of him is that he was one of those who accompanied Argyle when he made his disastrous descent on Scotland in the spring of 1685. When the little fleet arrived off Kirkwall Mr Spence must needs go ashore to visit his uncle who lived there, along with one of the Earl's scouts. "Both," says Wodrow,[21] "were discovered and catched by the old bishop there. The Earl was peremptorily resolved to recover the two gentlemen, and ordered Sir Patrick Hume with a party of Fusileers to attack the town"; but the captains were obdurate and nervous, and gave the Earl time only to seize seven islanders and a vessel "lying ther with meall and money," when the ships sailed away, leaving the unfortunate secretary to his fate.[22] He was sent down to Edinburgh,[23] indicted for treason, and remitted in due form to the Assizes, tried, and found guilty, and we seem at last to be near his end when we read that the Lords ordained Mr William Spence to be taken to the Cross of Edinburgh on Wednesday next, July 22nd, and there to be hanged. Before that day arrived, however, he got a reprieve, and on August 17th he was allowed to remove to a chamber in Edinburgh because of sickness—quite unaccountable leniency at a time when the authorities did not scruple to hang dying men in their night-shirts. The Magistrates were made responsible for his safe keeping, and he undertook to re-enter the prison on the first of September. His reprieve was now continued till November 1st, and the last we hear of him was that in a letter from the King, dated October 14th, orders were given that he was to be kept a close prisoner. His master had been executed on June 30th, and had testified before his death that Mr William Spence had been to him a faithful friend and servant. It is impossible to say what became of him between this time and the Revolution, and unless he succeeded in escaping, it is highly probable that he remained in prison till the general clearance made by the alarmed authorities on the eve of that event. All we know for certain is that the General Assembly of 1690, amongst other items of business, declared his deposition null and void, and restored him to his old parish, the minister, Alexander Meldrum, having been deposed shortly before for not reading the Proclamation of the Estates, and not praying for their Majesties William and Mary. He remained in it only a few months, and in the autumn of 1691 he was translated to Fossoway, where he ended his days in peace in 1715,[24] at the age of 80, a clear proof that he was a man of iron constitution as well as of iron will and iron convictions.
We have to go forward something like a hundred years before the parish or its fair stream comes again into notice, though probably in the interval occurred the summary act of justice commemorated by the Glendevon "Gallows Knowe," on which some of the last Highland reivers were hung, and also the tragic event at "Paton's Fauld," a spot a short distance from the old drove road opposite the "Court Knowe," where two local gipsy families effectively settled their quarrel by practically annihilating each other.[25] It was in August, 1787, that Burns first made acquaintance with the Devon, which he has celebrated in three of his poems, though it is evident that both on his flying visit to Harvieston and during the longer stay he made in October of the same year he was more pleased with the human flowers that bloomed on its banks than with the awesome grandeur of the Rumbling Brig, and that Peggy Chalmers and Charlotte Hamilton were more intimately associated with his fond memories of the Devon valley than Caudron Linn and the Deil's Mill. Although the ladies at Harvieston were somewhat disappointed[26] that the more prominent local glories did not inspire the poet to an outburst, it is clear that the subtle softness of the Devon scenery made a deep impression on Burns, if the more aggressive beauty of its waterfalls and gorges left him cold. You feel this in all he has written about it, and it is significant that in one of his last songs, composed when he was down in body, mind, and estate, his thoughts went back to the "crystal Devon, winding Devon," whose music seems to have got into his verse, and to the happy days he had spent on its "romantic banks" and amidst its "wild sequestered shades." It may be noted here that the "Holy Fair" was continued in Glendevon long after Burns' famous attack, and that down to 1835 the minister of the parish received an annual grant of five, and sometimes ten shillings, for grass destroyed at the Sacrament; while a handy parishioner also drew five shillings per annum for putting up the Communion tent on the glebe, and a little extra now and then for making a road to it.[27] It is impossible to say if Burns when at Harvieston was ever actually in Glendevon, but about thirty years later the home of the Taits, which the poet found so pleasant, is brought into close connection with the parish owing to an incident which had its own share in giving to the Church of England one of its wisest, if not one of its greatest, primates. It was in Glendevon House that young Archibald Campbell Tait, according to his own statement, which was found in his desk after his death, written on a sheet of foolscap, had an experience which he never forgot. His words are—"I had ridden over with my brother Crawfurd from Harvieston to Glendevon to visit old Miss Rutherford, and stayed the night in her house. I distinctly remember in the middle of the night awaking with a deep impression on my mind of the reality and nearness of the world unseen, such as through God's mercy has never left me."[28] And with this fragment of spiritual history our local record comes to a close. If the parish of Glendevon, nestling, like Burns' Peggy, "where braving angry winter's storm the lofty Ochils rise," and its clear winding river, occupy but a lowly place in Scottish story, they have something better even than archaeological treasures and stirring memories—the abiding presence of that spirit of beauty, which is above all change, and which ever haunts
"The green valleys
Where Devon, sweet Devon, meandering flows."
[1] Much of the legendary history of the Devon is given in the extraordinary poem "Glenochel," by Mr James Kennedy.
[2] See Registrum Monasterii S. Marie De Cambuskenneth, A.D. 1147-1535. Edinburgi: 1872; p. 122.
[3] History of the Reformation, Vol. I., p. 233.