Thanks to the civil and religious broils of former days, and to the spirit of modern improvement, nearly all the antiquities of Perth—the relics of days when it was the seat of the Court, the centre of trade and religious life, and the great “objective” of warlike operations and political intrigue—have disappeared from the face of the earth. Of its Castle, which stood near the north end of what is now the Skinnergate, not a trace now remains; of its ancient walls, besieged and breached so often in the wars between Scots and English, scarcely a vestige. Four monasteries, and numerous other religious houses, once existed here; and according to information that reached Erasmus, their inmates led a specially delicate and lazy life. All disappeared—monks and monasteries together—at the Reformation, and the “rascall multitude,” who had perhaps seen too much of their cowled and cloistered neighbours to cherish a deep respect for them, showed little scruple in spoiling “the monuments of idolatry,” and in making free with the meat and drink with which buttery and cellar were found well stored, and bore in triumph through the streets the great dinner-pot of the Blackfriars, thus spreading abroad the last savour of the mediæval religious life of Perth. Blackfriars Wynd and Street indicate the position of this Dominican convent, and King James VI.’s Hospital serves to mark the site of the only Carthusian foundation that existed in Scotland. In the former, James I. was done to death, and in the latter, richly endowed by him, the murdered poet-king was buried. The dark tale—the portents and warnings vouchsafed to the victim, the midnight clash of arms and flare of torches in the Monastery gardens, while James was gaily chatting with the Queen and her ladies before retiring to rest; the heroism of Catherine Douglas, who thrust her arm through the staple of the door as a bar against the traitors; the temporary escape of the king into the vault below the floor; his discovery, the savage struggle before he was despatched, and the terrible revenge that was wreaked by the widowed Joanna—is as familiar as the Gowrie tragedy itself.
The Church of St. John is still a venerable and venerated object in Perth; although it also has suffered from the hard usage of time and the Reformers, and its roof now covers, in place of the numerous shrines and chapels of Roman Catholic days, three Presbyterian places of worship. It was in St. John’s that Knox preached his iconoclastic sermon; and many other conspicuous events in the civil and religious history of Scotland—and more particularly during the long struggle between Protestantism and Papacy, and between Episcopacy and the Covenant—were transacted within a stone-throw of its time-worn walls. Fourteen Scottish Parliaments, and a still larger number of Councils of Churchmen, are reckoned to have met in Perth previous to the Reformation. Here schism and martyrdom had begun a century and a half before Knox. Girdings and gibings at priestly ways crept even into the “Miracle Plays” annually performed on Corpus Christi Day; and the town and country around were “more infested with heresy than any other part of the nation.” Cardinal Beaton watched from the Spey Tower while example was made of heretics by hanging and drowning them “for the encouragement of others:” to such good effect that in a few years the monasteries were in ashes, and the Lords of the Congregation, assembled at Perth, had proclaimed their resolution to spend goods and lives in the cause of the “true worship of God, the public welfare of the nation, and the common liberty,” in token whereof the burghers set out on their southward march with ropes—“St. Johnston’s ribands”—about their necks. Mary Queen of Scots and her son had small reason to remember with pleasure their visits to Perth; and after the Gowrie incident King James did all in his power to humiliate the town. It was here that the Assemblies of the Kirk and Parliaments, or Conventions of Estates, alternately proclaimed and disowned the authority of the bishops; the town was the centre of fighting in the long battle between Prelacy and Presbytery. Perth loyally entertained Charles I., and thirteen brethren of the Craft of Glovers—fateful number!—danced the sword-dance before him; and soon after, these selfsame swords were girded to oppose the King at Duns. Montrose captured and pillaged the town, after defeating the Covenanting troops outside at Tibbermore; the young Charles II. lodged in the Gowrie House, and after vainly attempting to run away from the ministers and their long prayers and exhortations, signed the Solemn League and Covenant, and professed, as King of Scots, penitence for the sins and follies of himself and his House. Then came Cromwell and his Ironsides, and built a citadel on the South Inch and a pier on the Tay with the stones of the ruined convents; and Claverhouse, Mar, and Prince Charlie have helped since then to “make history” at Perth and in its neighbourhood.
ON THE FIRTH OF TAY.
For nearly a century and a half the annals have been comparatively peaceful and prosaic; even inundation and plague do not trouble the townsmen as of yore. The Tay no longer makes trysts with its tributaries to meet “at the bonny cross of St. Johnstoun.” Except in rare times of spate, it sweeps smoothly and sedately under the arches of the bridge, and past the green “Inches,” with their spreading trees and spacious walks—the fields of pastime and of strife since long before the memorable battle of the North Inch, when the blade of Hal o’ the Wynd, fighting “for his own hand,” turned the scale in favour of the champions of Clan Chattan—to meet tide-water and commerce below the town. It is the benefactor and the crowning ornament of Perth, which has considerably grown and beautified itself of recent years, not the least of its sources of wealth being the amenities and romantic associations of the ancient city, and the glorious scenery of the Tay, of which it may be described as at once the gateway and the centre.
THE NEW TAY VIADUCT, FROM THE SOUTH.
Within short walking distance of Perth are the Hills of Kinnoull and Moncrieffe. Tay, after leaving the town, turns sharply to the left between these two grand wooded heights—each of them rising over 700 feet above the river—and pursues its way, widening as it goes, between the rich low expanse of the Carse of Gowrie and the opposing shores of Fife. It were hard to decide which of these sentinel hills commands the more magnificent prospect. Each view might challenge comparison with any scene outside of the basin of the Tay for extent and for the mingling of all the elements of beauty in Highland and Lowland scenery. Yet, close as they stand to each other and to Perth, distinctly different panoramas, in foreground and in perspective, are unfolded from the summits of the two heights. They offer companion pictures, and not merely landscapes in duplicate, of the Tay from its sources in the distant blue ranges of the Grampians to the sea.
The top of Moncrieffe—or Moredun—beside the foundations of the old Pict fort or dun, is the right station whence to survey Strathearn—a valley that rivals that of the Tay itself in the place it holds in the national history and in the affections of the lovers of scenic beauty. Directly below the steep pine-covered crest of Moredun runs the winding Earn, separating the park and woods of Moncrieffe from the pleasant watering-place of Bridge of Earn. Near the confluence with the Tay is Abernethy, its “Round Tower” coeval, perhaps, with the introduction of Christianity to this part of the Tay, and its Castle Law on which, says tradition, Nechtan and other Pictish kings held their state during the two centuries and a half when this decayed little burgh was the capital of the land. Beyond, in the same