By A. G. REID, F.S.A., Scot., Auchterarder
Tradition asserts that the Castle of Auchterarder was one of the seats of the Scottish Kings and the residence of King Malcolm Canmore, who granted the Common Muir to the neighbouring burgh. The Barony was originally a Crown possession. Being situated on the road from the Royal Palaces of Scone and Forteviot to Stirling, and the principal manor place of a Barony belonging to the Crown, there is every probability that the tradition of its having been a royal palace is correct, and that the warlike Malcolm and the sainted Margaret abode within its walls.
Auchterarder was one of the Royal Burghs of Scotland. It may be said that no charter of erection is in existence, but its absence is explained by the fact that the proximity of a royal seat gave the neighbouring town the status of a Royal Burgh. Whether or not Auchterarder got a charter of erection from the Sovereign, no doubt can exist that at a very early period it was one of the Royal Burghs of Scotland. In the charter of William, the son of Malise, of the lands within or outside the town of Auchterarder, still known as the Abbey lands, granted to the Canons of Inchaffray, which lands he had bought from John, the son of Baltin, he not only appended his own seal to the writing, but, for greater security and fuller evidence, procured to be appended thereto the common seal of the Burgh of Auchterarder.
The Barony of Auchterarder remained Crown property until the time of King Robert the Bruce. King Alexander II., by charter, dated at Cluny, the 13th day of August, in the eleventh year of his reign (1227), granted to the Canons of the Abbey of Inchaffray the teind of his duties of Auchterarder to be drawn yearly by the hands of his tacksmen and bailies of Auchterarder.
In 1296, Edward I. invaded Scotland with 5000 armed horse and 30,000 footmen. He passed the River Tweed on 28th March, and continued his progress until 24th April, when he routed the Scots at Dunbar with great slaughter. He continued his triumphant progress northwards, resting at various places. We are told that "on the Thursday he went to Stirling, and they who were within the Castle fled, and none remained but the porter, who surrendered the Castle, and there came the Earl of Strathearn 'to the peace,' and there tarried the King five days. On the Wednesday before the Feast of St. John (20th June) the King passed the Scottish sea, and lay at Auchterarder, his Castle; on the Thursday, at St. John of Perth, a good town, and there abode Friday, Saturday, and Sunday; this same day was John the Baptist's Day." His progress and the places at which he stayed are circumstantially narrated in the Itinerary from which we quote. He returned to Berwick on 22nd August, and the chronicler adds—"And he conquered the realm of Scotland, and searched it, as is above written, within twenty-one weeks without any more."[1]
Attention is directed to the terms of the words of the Norman French Itinerary in reference to the King having taken up his residence in Auchterarder Castle. "Le Mescredy devaunt Seint Johne passa le roi le Mere d'Escoce et jut â Outreard, son chastelle." Reference is made in the narrative to many other castles in which the King lay, but only in this instance is the castle stated to have belonged to him. This is conclusive evidence that the Castle was the property of the Crown, and that the King took up his abode in it as such.
The halting of Edward I. with his army at Auchterarder was not the only occasion upon which Auchterarder received an embattled host. In 1332 the Scottish army of Donald, the Earl of Mar, 30,000 strong, lay at Auchterarder previous to the disastrous Battle of Dupplin,[2] and in 1559 the army of the Dowager Queen Mary, under the Duke of Hamilton and Monsieur d'Osel, lay there, prepared to encounter the Lords of the Congregation.[3] The most disastrous military visit and the last was when the Earl of Mar, in 1716, burnt the town.
Auchterarder being the only Royal Burgh in Strathearn, was the head burgh of that County Palatine and the seat of a Sheriffdom, the area of which was probably co-extensive with Strathearn. In the interregnum after the death of Alexander III. the office of Sheriff was vested in Malcolm of Innerpeffray, who, in the compotus of the extent of all the King's lands of Scotland for the period between 25th April, 1304, and 28th February, 1305, accounted as "Sheriff of Uthrardor of its issues, iocs."; and again, "from said Sir Malcolm of the issues of the Sheriffdom of Uthrardor and the farms of Glendowiche, £58."[4]
The Sheriff figures in a transaction in the Scottish War of Independence. There was an Inquisition at Perth held on 1st September, 1305, before Malise, Earl of Stratherne, lieutenant of the warden north of Forth, and Malcolm de Inverpefray, Knight, Deputy of John de Sandale, Chamberlain, and William de Bevercotts, Chancellor of Scotland, on certain articles touching the person of Michael de Miggal by Gilbert de Hay, David de Graham, and others; "who say on oath in Michael's presence that he had been lately taken prisoner forcibly against his will by William le Waleys, that he twice escaped, but was followed and brought back, and he was told if he tried to get away a third time he should lose his life. Thus, it appears, he remained with William through fear of death and not of his own will." The following deliverance is endorsed:—"The Chamberlain is 'commanded to give him his goods and chattels of the King's special grace.'"[5] The Sheriff, as Chamberlain, no doubt favourably represented to the King Michael's excuse, as the subsequent conduct of both the Earl of Strathearn and himself showed a fellow-feeling, and that, like Michael, they had been acting under constraint.
On 15th September, 1305, King Edward I., with the concurrence of ten Scots and twenty-two English Commissioners to his Parliament, made an ordinance containing certain regulations "for the settlement of Scotland." Amongst these regulations was the following:—"That there should be Sheriffs natives either of Scotland or England, to be appointed or removed by the Lieutenant or the Chamberlain, at discretion, who should execute the office of escheatry as usual, and that none should be appointed but the most sufficient men and most profitable for the King, and people, and the maintenance of peace." Sir Malcolm de Innerpeffer was appointed, or rather continued, in office of Sheriff of Auchterarder, and he was at same time appointed Sheriff of the shire of Clackmannan.[6] The appointment did not, however, extinguish the Sheriff's patriotism, as the next thing we hear of him is:—