BRECHIN, a royal, municipal and police burgh of Forfarshire, Scotland. Pop. (1901) 8941. It lies on the left bank of the South Esk, 7¾ m. west of Montrose, and has a station on the loop line of the Caledonian railway from Forfar to Bridge of Dun. Brechin is a prosperous town, of great antiquity, having been the site of a Culdee abbey. The Danes are said to have burned the town in 1012. David I. erected it into a bishopric in 1150, and it is still a see of the Episcopal Church of Scotland. In 1452 the earl of Huntly crushed the insurrection led by the earl of Crawford at the battle of Brechin Muir, and in 1645 the town and castle were harried by the marquis of Montrose. James VI. gave a grant for founding a hospital in the burgh, which yet supplies the council with funds for charity. No trace remains of the old walls and gates of the town, but the river is crossed by a two-arched stone bridge of very early date. The cathedral church of the Holy Trinity belongs to the 13th century. It is in the Pointed style, but suffered maltreatment in 1806 at the hands of restorers, whose work, however, disappeared during the restoration completed in 1902. The western gable with its flamboyant window and Gothic door and the massive square tower are all that is left of the original edifice. The modern stained glass in the chancel is reckoned amongst the finest in Scotland. Immediately adjoining the cathedral to the south-west stands the Round Tower, built about 1000. It is 86¾ ft. high, has at the base a circumference of 50 ft. and a diameter of 16 ft., and is capped with a hexagonal spire of 18 ft., which was added in the 15th century. This type of structure is somewhat common in Ireland, but the only Scottish examples are those at Brechin, Abernethy in Perthshire, and Egilshay in the Orkneys. Brechin Castle played a prominent part in the Scottish War of Independence. In 1303 it withstood for twenty days a siege in force by the English under Edward I., surrendering only when its governor, Sir Thomas Maule, had been slain. From the Maule family it descended to the Dalhousies. Its library contains many important MSS., among them Burns’s correspondence with George Thomson, and several cartularies including those of St Andrews and Brechin. In the Vennel (alley or small street) some ruins remain of the maison dieu, or hospitium, founded in 1256 by William of Brechin. Besides these historical buildings the principal public structures include Smith’s school, the municipal buildings, the free library, the episcopal library (founded by Bishop Forbes, who, as well as Bishop Abernethy-Drummond, presented a large number of volumes). The principal industries include manufactures of linen and sailcloth, bleaching, rope-making, brewing, distilling, paper-making, in addition to nurseries and freestone quarries. Brechin—which is controlled by a provost, bailies and council—unites with Arbroath, Forfar, Inverbervie and Montrose to return one member to parliament.
Edzell (pronounced Edyell, and, locally, Aigle) lies about 6 m. north of Brechin, with which it is connected by rail. It is situated on the North Esk and near the West Water, which falls into the Esk 2 m. south-west. Edzell is on the threshold of romantic Highland scenery. The picturesque ruins of Edzell Castle lie a mile to the west of the town. Once the seat of the Lindsays the estate now belongs to the earl of Dalhousie. The church of the parish of Farnell, 3½ m. south-east of Brechin, was erected in 1806 after the model, so it is stated, of the famous Holy House (Casa Santa) of Loreto in Italy. It was here that the old sculptured stone giving a version of the Fall was found. Between Farnell and Brechin lies Kinnaird Castle, the seat of the earl of Southesk.
BRECKINRIDGE, JOHN CABELL (1821-1875), American soldier and political leader, was born near Lexington, Kentucky, on the 21st of January 1821. He was a member of a family prominent in the public life of Kentucky and the nation. His grandfather, John Breckinridge (1760-1806), who revised Jefferson’s draft of the “Kentucky Resolutions” of 1798, was a United States senator from Kentucky in 1801-1805 and attorney-general in President Jefferson’s cabinet in 1805-1806. His uncles, John Breckinridge (1797-1841), professor of pastoral theology in the Princeton Theological Seminary in 1836-1838 and for many years after secretary of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, and Robert Jefferson Breckinridge (1800-1871), for several years superintendent of public instruction in Kentucky, an important factor in the organization of the public school system of the state, a professor from 1853 to 1871 in the Danville Presbyterian Theological Seminary at Danville, Kentucky, and the temporary chairman of the national Republican convention of 1864, were both prominent clergymen of the Presbyterian Church. His cousin, William Campbell Preston Breckinridge (1837-1904), was a Democratic representative in Congress from 1885 to 1893. Another cousin, Joseph Cabell Breckinridge (1842- ), served on the Union side in the Civil War, was a major-general of volunteers during the Spanish-American War (1898), became a major-general in the regular United States army in 1903, and was inspector-general of the United States army from 1899 until his retirement from active service in 1904.
John Cabell Breckinridge graduated in 1838 at Centre College, Danville, Kentucky, continued his studies at Princeton, and then studied law at Transylvania University, Lexington, Kentucky. He practised law in Frankfort, Kentucky, in 1840-1841 and in Burlington, Iowa, from 1841 to 1843, and then returned to Kentucky and followed his profession at Lexington. In 1847 he went to Mexico as major in a volunteer regiment, but arrived too late for service in the field. In 1849 he was elected a Democratic member of the Kentucky legislature, and in 1851-1855 he served in the national House of Representatives. President Pierce offered him the position of minister to Spain, but he declined it. In 1856 he was chosen vice-president of the United States on the Buchanan ticket, and although a strong pro-slavery and states rights man, he presided over the Senate with conspicuous fairness and impartiality during the trying years before the Civil War. In 1860 he was nominated for the presidency by the pro-slavery seceders from the Democratic national convention, and received a total of 72 electoral votes, including those of every Southern state except Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Missouri. As vice-president and presiding officer of the Senate, it was his duty to make the official announcement of the election of his opponent, Lincoln. He succeeded John J. Crittenden as United States senator from Kentucky in March 1861, but having subsequently entered the Confederate service he was expelled from the Senate in December 1861. As brigadier-general he commanded the Confederate reserve at Shiloh, and in August 1862 he became major-general. On the 5th of this month he was repulsed in his attack on Baton Rouge, but he won distinction at Stone River (December 31, 1862-January 2, 1863), where his division lost nearly a third of its number. He took part in the battle of Chickamauga, defeated General Franz Sigel at Newmarket, Virginia, on the 15th of May 1864, and then, joined Lee and took part in the battles of Cold Harbor on the 1st and on the 3rd of June. In the autumn he operated in the Shenandoah Valley, and with Early was defeated by Sheridan at Winchester on the 19th of September. Being transferred to the department of South-west Virginia, he fought a number of minor engagements in eastern Tennessee, and in January 1865 became secretary of war for the Confederate States. At the close of the war he escaped to Cuba, and from there went to Europe. In 1868 he returned to the United States and resumed the practice of law at Lexington, Kentucky, where he died on the 17th of May 1875.
BRECON, or Brecknock, a market town and municipal borough, the capital of Breconshire, Wales, 183 m. from London by rail, picturesquely situated nearly in the centre of the county, at the confluence of the Honddu with the Usk. Half a mile higher up the Tarell also falls into the Usk from the south. The ecclesiastical parish of Brecon consists of the two civil parishes of St John the Evangelist and St Mary, both on the left bank of the Usk, while St David’s in Llanfaes is on the other side of the river, and was wholly outside the town walls. Pop. (1901) 5875. There is only one line of railway, over which several companies, however, have running powers, so that the town may be reached by the Brecon & Merthyr railway from Merthyr, Cardiff and Newport, by the Cambrian from Builth Wells, or by the Midland from Hereford and Swansea respectively. The Great Western railway has also a service of road motors between Abergavenny and Brecon. A canal running past Abergavenny connects Brecon with Merthyr.
The Priory church of St John, a massive cruciform building, originally Norman with Early English and Decorated additions, is the finest parish church in Wales, and even taking into account the cathedrals it is according to E.A. Freeman “indisputably the third church not in a state of ruin in the principality,” its choir furnishing “one of the choicest examples of the Early English style.” Previous to the dissolution, a rood-screen bearing a gigantic rood, the object of many pilgrimages, stood to the west of the tower. The church was restored under Sir Gilbert Scott between 1861 and 1875. St Mary’s, in the centre of the town, and St David’s, beyond the Usk, are now mainly modern, though the former has some of the Norman arches of the original church. There is also a Roman Catholic church (St Michael’s) opened in 1851, and chapels belonging to the Baptists, Calvinistic and Wesleyan Methodists, and to the Congregationalists. In Llanfaes there was formerly a Dominican priory, but in 1542 Henry VIII. granted it with all its possessions to a collegiate church, which was transferred thither from Abergwili, and was given the name of Christ College. Many of the bishops of St David’s during the 17th century occasionally resided here, and several are also buried here. A small part of the revenues went to the maintenance of a grammar-school, but in 1841 the collegiate body was dissolved, and its revenues, then amounting to about £8000 a year, were transferred to the ecclesiastical commissioners. In 1853 Henry VIII.’s charter was repealed, and under a chancery scheme adopted two years later, £1200 a year was appropriated for the school. New school buildings were erected at a cost of about £10,000 in 1862, and these were enlarged at a cost of about £5000 in 1880. The chancel of the old Dominican chapel, dating from the 13th century, was restored in 1864, and is now the school chapel. There is also a Congregationalist theological college, built in 1869 at a cost of £12,000, and now affiliated with the university of Wales. The other chief buildings of the town are the shire hall built in 1842 in the Doric style from designs by T.H. Wyatt; the Guildhall; the barracks, which are the headquarters of two battalions of the South Wales Borderers; the county infirmary founded in 1832; and the prison (in Llanfaes) for the counties of Brecon and Radnor. There is a bronze statue of the duke of Wellington (erected in 1854) by John Evan Thomas, a native of the town. The town commands a magnificent view of the Brecknock Beacons, and is noted for its promenades on the banks of the Usk, and in the priory groves. Brecon is favourably known as a fishing centre, and there is also boating on the Usk and the canal. There are several houses of interest, notably the Priory and Dr Awbrey’s residence (now called Buckingham House), both built about the middle of the 16th century, but the finest specimen is Newton (about a mile out, near Llanfaes) built in 1582 by Sir John Games (a descendant of Sir David Gam), but now a farmhouse. The “Shoulder of Mutton” Inn, now known as the “Siddons Wine Vaults,” was the birthplace in 1755 of Mrs Siddons.
The name Brecknock is an anglicized form of Brycheiniog, the Welsh name of the territory of Brychan (whence the alternative form of Brecon), a Goidelic chieftain, who gained possession of the Usk valley in the 5th century. The Welsh name of the town, on the other hand, has always been Aber-Honddu (the estuary of the Honddu). There is no evidence of any settlement on the site of the present town prior to about 1092, when Bernard Newmarch, after defeating Bleddin ab Maenarch, built here a castle which he made his residence and the chief stronghold of his new lordship. For this purpose he utilized what remained of the materials of the Roman fort, 3 m. to the west, at Y Gaer, which some identify as Bannium. He subsequently founded, near the castle, the Benedictine priory of St John, which he endowed and constituted a cell of Battle Abbey. In time a town grew up outside the castle, and its inhabitants received a series of charters from the de Bohuns, into which family the castle and lordship passed, the earliest recorded charter being granted by Humphrey, 3rd earl of Hereford. Under the patronage of his great-grandson, the last earl of Hereford (who lived in great splendour at the castle), the town became one of the chief centres of trade in South Wales, and a sixteen days’ fair, which he granted, still survives as a hiring fair held in November. Further charters were granted by Henry IV. (who married Hereford’s co-heiress), by Henry V., who gave the town two more fairs, and by the Stafford family, to which the castle and lordship were allotted on the partition of the Bohun estates in 1421. Henry Stafford, 2nd duke of Buckingham, resided a good deal at the castle, and Morton, bishop of Ely, whose custody as a prisoner was entrusted to him, plotted with him there for the dethronement of Richard III., for which Stafford was executed in 1483. His son, Edward, the 3rd duke, who was born in the castle in 1478, had the estates restored to him, but, in 1521, suffered a like fate with his father, and the lordship and castle then vested in the crown. Both were acquired in the next century by the ancestors of Viscount Tredegar, to whom they now belong. By a statute of 1535 Brecon was made the county town of the new shire of Brecknock, and was granted the right of electing one burgess to represent it in parliament, a right which it retained till it was merged in the county representation in 1885. A chancery and exchequer for the counties of Brecknock and Radnor were also established at Brecon Castle, and from 1542 till 1830 the great sessions, and since then the assizes, and at all times the quarter sessions for the county, have been held at Brecon. The borough had also a separate court of quarter sessions till 1835. The town was incorporated by a charter granted by Philip and Mary in 1556 and confirmed by Elizabeth in the nineteenth year of her reign. A charter granted by James II. was never acted upon. The borough was placed under the Municipal Corporations Act 1835, and until then the town of Llywel, which is 10 m. off, formed a ward of the borough. There were formerly five trade gilds in the town, the chief industries being cloth and leather manufactures. There are five ancient fairs for stock, and formerly each of them was preceded by a leather fair. The fairs held in May and November were also for hiring, much of the hiring being now done at the Guildhall, and not in the streets as used to be the case.
During the Civil War the greater part of the castle and of the town walls (which with their four gates were until then well preserved) were demolished by the inhabitants in order to prevent the town being either garrisoned or besieged. Charles I., however, stayed a night at the priory house shortly after the battle of Naseby. The chief ruins of the castle are now enclosed in the grounds of the Castle Hotel, the principal object being Ely tower, where Bishop Morton was imprisoned.