Replicated
from an article in "The Orkney Herald" of 8 May 1889
ORKNEY
NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY.
The
usual quarterly meeting of the Natural History Society was held in the
Museum, Stromness on Thursday evening last.
Present
- Rev. James Ritchie, president, in the chair; Capt. James Mowat, Capt.
George Baillie, Messrs A. Stewart, J.A.S. Brown, John Fiddler, James
Sinclair, A. Harvey, John L. Knarston, W. Rendall, and Samuel Brown,
secretary. The minutes of last quarterly meeting were read and approved,
after which the Chairman stated that he had received a paper, written by
Mr. W. Traill Dennison, West Brough, Sanday, but as that gentleman was not
present, the paper would be read. At the request of the meeting, the
Chairman then read the paper as follows: -
ORKNEY
TRADITIONS OF THE ARMADA.
The year
lately closed, the tri-centenary of the Spanish Armada, seems to point to
the present as a fitting time to recall some fragmentary and unwritten
memorials of the eventful year 1588. The issues at stake in that year were
indeed tremendous. Had Spain conquered England, the struggle for
independence in the Netherlands would have been crushed. France must have
fallen, and the Reformed States of Germany would have followed in the
full. Every spark of spiritual liberty, free thought, and national
independence, would have been quenched in blood, and trampled out under
the iron heel of an inexorable bigotry. And right nobly did England face
the terrible danger. I know not that all history presents a finer example
of patriotic compromise than is afforded by the English at that time.
England was then divided into many hostile sects, any of whom, excepting
the independents, would have persecuted all other sects if it only had the
power. Yet, every sectarian difference was laid aside in presence of the
all-absorbing danger. Anabaptist and High Churchman, Presbyterian and
Papist, all united in the one practical determination, England for the
English, and every Englishman for England to the death! Every believing
Christian may thank God for the failure of Philip's grand design, and
every sceptic may thank his stars - if he has nothing higher to thank -
that he can now publish the wildest theory in science of philosophy, and
the most heterodox in theology, without the risk of being burned alive. It
has been thought, that at this tri-centenary, the meagre traditions
connected with the Armada in Orkney might be of some little interest to
Orcadians. In this belief the following is given, not as historical
facts, but as traditions gathered from the lips of old people, and it is
hoped that the very incompleteness of this paper may induce any person
possessing traditions on the subject to give them to the public.
As is
well known, the mighty Armada, foiled by the gallant attacks of Drake,
Hawkins, and Frobisher, under command of the noble Howard, retreated to
the North Sea, their huge ships flying before the small but nimble crafts
of the English as a flock of whales is said to flee before the onslaught
of a shoal of dog fish. History tells us that the Admiral of the Spanish
fleet issued his last general orders off the coast of Norway. These orders
were that the ships were to run home west of the British Isles, and every
ship was told to make sure of standing far enough to the west, to avoid
the Irish shores. In obedience to this, the Spaniards stood to the west,
most of them, it is said, passing to the north of Shetland. Some of them,
however, passed, between those islands and Orkney.
Tradition
says that the Spanish fleet was scattered when off the coast of Norway,
and driven to the west by a heavy easterly gale. One of the ships, as is
well known, was wrecked on Fair Isle. An account of this wreck will be
found in every description of Fair Isle; but I should refer especially to
Sibbald's description of the catastrophe, as his is the oldest account I
have met with. It is said that the crew of this ship was first kindly
entertained by the natives, but provisions running short as the winter
came on, the Fair Isles men began to fear that the whole population would
be starved. It was therefore determined to diminish, as far as possible,
the number of their unwelcome visitors, and whenever an unfortunate
Spaniard was found by two ore three of the islanders wandering near the
shores, he was flung over the precipices that surround the island. But
notwithstanding this novel mode of avoiding starvation, the islanders
could only see famine staring them in the face.
It was
true that the Spaniards paid well for whatever they got from the natives;
but, as a Fair Isles man relating the story to me said; - "Spanish
money couldna' fill hungry bellies." So the islanders determined on a
more wholesale plan of ridding themselves of the unfortunate intruders. A
number of the Spaniards lodged in a long low hut, turf build, and covered
with large flag stones, probably erected for the shelter of the strangers.
The roof of this hut was supported by what was called rooflace, or
main-tree running from end to end of the building. Cross sticks were
placed at regular intervals, their lower ends on the side walls. When the
unlucky Spaniards had retired to rest at midnight, the islanders silently
placed a quantity of stones on the roof. Then, digging a hole through the
top of one of the gables, they fixed a rope to the end of the roof tree,
and pulled it completely away, the heavy roof falling on the sleeping
Spaniards. Many of the sleepers were at once killed, and those who were
disabled were easily thrown over the rocks, or, to use the native phrase,
"pitten ower da banks." The remaining Spaniards got alarmed for
their safety, and the islanders were induced to send a boat to Shetland,
whither the Spaniards were transported. Sibbald says that the ship wrecked
on Fair Isle was the flagship, and that the Admiral, the Duke of Medina,
lived on the island with his crew; and, after enjoying the hospitality of
a Shetland laird, was by him transported to Dunkirk.
While
many of the Spanish ships escaped to the Atlantic through what sailors
call "The Hole" - that is between Shetland and Fair Isle - some
of them were driven in a more southerly course. One of these ships fell
into what is believed to be the Rost of the Keels, south of Fair Isle,
where she lost mainmast and rudder, and was drifted helplessly on the
North Sea, until she neared the shores of North Ronaldshay. Here, from the
ship's lofty decks, her wretched crew beheld themselves being gradually
but swiftly hurried on into the foaming waters of Dennis Rost. They saw,
from the tremendous commotion of the waves before them, that their
disabled vessel could not live in such a sea, yet were powerless to alter
their course, or to avoid the death to which they were hastening. It
formed one of those frequently occurring and melancholy storms, in which
the vaunted power of man sinks into insignificance before the power of
nature. Most of the crew were sunk in despair, and commended themselves to
the Holy Mother, praying that if she would not save them in this world,
she would at least provide for them in the next. A few of the more
resolute of the crew took to the two remaining boats, rightly feeling that
active exertion in such an emergency was necessary as well as prayer. Not
long after the boats left the vessel she fell in two, and soon disappeared
amid the roaring waves of Dennis Rost. The boats rowed along the shores of
North Ronaldshay, where there were few places of apparent safety at which
to land, especially as the shores were enveloped in a heavy surf. So the
boats rowed to the westward. One of them had been disabled when the ship
was dismasted, and was said to have been badly managed by her crew. At all
events, she took a too northerly course, and fell into the Bear Rost,
where the whole force of the flood tide, backed by the constant flow of
the Gulf Stream and a roll of the Atlantic ground swell, rushes past the
north end of Westray from the Atlantic into the German Ocean. Let me here
say that I write rost because the word is so pronounced by the
inhabitants. Of course, this ill-fated boat and here crew were never heard
of.
The
other boat was more fortunate. She reached Pierowall, in Westray, where
her crew were hospitably entertained by the inhabitants. The Spaniards
seem to have taken kindly to the island, where they built houses for
themselves, married wives, and formed a little settlement by themselves on
what is called the North Shore. They and their descendants became most
active as fishermen and in every maritime adventure. After the first union
by marriage of the Spaniards with Orcadian females, none of the race were
allowed to marry with any but the descendants of the original settlers and
their descendants have since been termed dons. These Dons seem to have
kept themselves strictly from intermarrying with the rest of the people
for a time. But about the middle of the last century, a young don,
captivated by the charms of a Westray girl who did not belong to the Don
race, got himself three times proclaimed on one Sunday, and , in spite of
the warnings of his friends, married the lady of his love. The poor fellow
paid hard for his breach of Don etiquette. His neighbours on the North
Shore surrounded his house at night, dragged him out of bed from the arms
of his young wife, and thrashed him unmercifully, so that he was with
difficulty able to crawl into bed-a bed from which the poor man never
rose.
The
union of Spanish blood with the Norse produced a race of men active and
daring; with dark eyes and sometimes with features of a foreign caste; in
manners fidgety and restless-a true Don being rarely able to sit in one
position for five minutes, unless he was dead drunk; and in conversation
more demonstrative, and more given to gesticulate than the true Orcadian;
while in ready wit and to perpetration a practical joke, he was far
superior to the native race. The Dons seem to have adopted in most cases
Orkney names. Among their principal names were Petrie, Reid, and Hughison
etc. Though their descendants in some cases can still be traced, the Dons,
as a separate caste, no longer exist. During their existence, however,
they were among the most daring seafarers in Orkney in trading to Norway
and Hamburg. And when British law laid a duty on the import of foreign
spirits, the Dons became the most notorious and daring smugglers. When
returning from a most successful smuggling expedition, it was their wont
to put a guinea in the poor-box as a thanks offering for their lucky
adventure.
Some
time in the seventeenth century a party of the Dons was said to have met
with a sad disaster. Some five or six of them sailed in a large boat laden
with grain and other commodities for sale in Norway. While sailing across
the North Sea they were captured by a French privateer or perhaps by a
pirate. The Frenchmen ran into the Shetland Isles to trade with the
natives. While lying in one of the Shetland bays, the Frenchmen unwilling
to be encumbered by their prisoners, set the Dons at liberty a day or two
before the Frenchmen intended to sail. The Dons were set on shore stripped
of everything, and arrayed in the rags of the French sailors instead of
their own clothes. The high spirit of the Dons could ill break such
treatment; and they determined on being revenged. They took their way to
the house of a neighbouring laird; where they were kindly entertained, and
secretly furnished with weapons. They determined to board and seize the
French vessel, but even the Dons felt that this was a desperate
undertaking considering the number of the crew. The Dons therefore
determined to make the attempt when some of the Frenchmen were on shore.
They sat and watched in a house near the shore, consoling themselves in
the weary hours of watching by long draughts of gin. At last word was
brought to them that a boat had left, the French vessel, and had gone
ashore for a supply of fresh water. The dons hurried out but to their
dismay one of their mates was unable to move. Entreaties, curses and blows
were of no avail. The fellow had taken more than his share of the potable
gin, and lay on the floor utterly insensible. However the opportunity was
not to be lost; the sober Dons seized the first boat they could lay hands
on, concealed their arms in the bottom of the boat, and rowed deliberately
to the French vessel as if to trade with the Frenchmen. No sooner, had
they made fast alongside than they sprang on board, sword in hand. The
Frenchmen were taken wholly unawares. A desperate struggle however ensued;
but no one came back to tell how the struggle went; only, in half an hour
after the boarding of the Frenchmen, her cable was cut, and she was seen
to stand out of the harbour in full sail, greatly to the horror of the
Frenchmen on shore. There is no doubt that the dons succeeded in capturing
the vessel, for their victims were found floating in the bay, viz: the
bodies of the Frenchmen, nine in number. During the succeeding night a
heavy gale set in, raising a dangerous sea all round. And the brave Dons,
who had fought so gallantly, must have perished along with their prize, as
they were never more heard of. Their drunken comrade returned home to tell
what he knew of their story and he obtained the sobriquet of drunken Hugh
ever afterwards.
Another
anecdote may be related of one of the Dons - a tale which goes to prove
that there is nothing new under the sun. The Orkney boats were waiting in
one of the bays on the west coast of Shetland for favourable weather in
which to return home. The weather had continued rough for many days. At
last the wind fell, and it appeared to the Orkney men that a favourable
opportunity for returning had arrived. Two of the boats sailed about
midday, but Hugh Petrie, skipper of the other boat, still lingered,
waiting for the captain of an Orkney vessel who had been in Shetland on
business of his own, and to whom he had promised a passage home. The
captain, by the by, was an ancestor of the writer. While Petrie waited for
his friend, he surprised the crew by purchasing two kegs of oil from a
Shetland man. At last the captain came, he apologized to Petrie for the
delay he had caused him; but Petrie said the delay would be an advantage
in the voyage, because he did not want to come up to Fair Isles till the
flood was run, which would make a heavy sea with the wind at its present
quarter. The fair weather that had induced the boats to leave Shetland
proved to be only a momentary lull. Scarcely had the boats cleared
Shetland, when the wind blew strong, accompanied with a drizzling rain,
and the sea was high and dangerous. Petrie's boat was well manned and
dexterously handled, and sped on full over the stormy sea lying between
Shetland and Fair Isle. But as night came on the wind increased, and the
sea became still dangerous, so that some of the crew began to despair of
ever reaching land. With the last glimmer of daylight Petrie shaped his
course by the compass; and as the ever-increasing depth of the waves made
the management of the boat more difficult, and her safety still more
perilous, Petrie said to his friend, the captain-"Take this pin in
yer hand, gudeman," meaning the helm, "an keep her in the same
course, in God's name, as long as ye can." The captain at first
refused, knowing that few men could steer better than Petrie; but Petrie
said-"Ye're skipper in yer ain sloop, but I am skipper here, an ye
mean das what ye're tauld." No sooner had his friend taken the helm
than Petrie knocked the head out of one of his kegs of oil, and began to
empty the oil on the sea, slowly, in small and regular quantities. The oil
had the immediate effect of making the sea smoother for the boat. The moon
rose as they neared Fair Isle; and, after a perilous run, Petrie and his
crew succeeded in obtaining shelter in the north bay of the island, where
they were detained some days by the storm before getting home to Westray.
The two boats which preceded Petrie were never heard of and the captain
ever after declared that but for the two kegs of oil the boat in which he
sailed must have perished like the others; whilst some of Petrie's crew
attributed the smoothing of the waters to a charm which they said he had
bought from a Shetland witch.
Tradition
says that during the tyranny exercised on land and sea in Orkney by Earl
Patrick, the Dons propitiated the Earl by presenting him and his
adventures with a large share of their profits in trading to Continental
ports. But at length the Dons got tired of the Earl's ever-increasing
exactions, and a quarrel arose between some of them and Earl Patrick. The
Earl sent a boat with an armed crew to Pierowall to apprehend and bring to
Kirkwall a Gilbert Hewieson and five other men of the Dons on a charge,
among many other grievous crimes, that they had sailed to Norway without a
license from the Earl. It was evening when the Earl's boat arrived at
Westray. The armed crew surrounded Hewieson's house, summoning him and his
accomplices to deliver themselves up. Hewieson came out to the officers,
and addressing them in the most friendly style invited them into his
house, saying it was too much late to take the firth that night, and
assuring them that he and his comrades would accompany them at day break.
The Earl's men were only too glad to rest for the night knowing well that
the Dons' hospitality would not be niggardly; and in this supposition they
were not mistaken. Gin and brandy flowed freely, and the Earl's men, as
was intended, soon began to succumb to the effects of the spirits. Shortly
after midnight all of the Earl's men were stretched on the floor, with the
exception of two, who sat boasting that "na Westray drink could lay
them under the table." While the drinking had been going on,
Hewieson's comrades had gradually dropped in and Hewieson, when he saw the
proper time had come said to his two guests, who still preserved their
sitting position, "Faith I'll show you if Westray drink canna lay
you, Westray hands can." The two men were seized and bound hand and
foot. Each of the drunken companions were served in the same way. The six
Dons then hurried to the shore and left the island in the Earl's boat,
said to be the best in Orkney at the time. What treatment the Earl's men
received from their tyrannical master, tradition does not say. For a time
no one in Orkney knew what had become of Hewieson and his comrades; and
many gave them up for lost, thinking they had perished at sea in
attempting to reach Norway. But after the fall of Earl Patrick, Hewieson
and his comrades all returned safe and sound. They had found an asylum in
one of the Western Isles, probably Lewis, and from these had traded to
Norway, as they used to do from Orkney.
It was
not alone in such adventures that the Dons showed their ability. The
writer's grandfather traded to the nearer Continental ports during the
summer months; and while residing on his own property at the Castle of
Noltland, he used to teach, during the long winter nights, to such young
men as wished to learn navigation. During a pretty long life he taught the
nautical science of 140 young men, eighty per cent of whom are said to
have been Dons. Most of these men left the county as sailors, and many of
them became sea captains. Sometime in the fourth decade of the eighteenth
century, a number of young gentlemen in the North Isles held a private
theatrical entertainment in the old hall of Noltland Castle. The tragedy
acted was Cato. The lairds of Clestran, Trenabie, Westove, Tirlet, Airie,
and Breck, with one of the Dons, formed the actors in the drama. The Dons'
name was George Logie, and he acted Sempronius. One of the lairds, who
acted Juba broke down in his part; his place was immediately taken and his
part will acted by Benjamin Hewieson; another of the Dons. The acting of
the Dons was held to be the best, and a Don also acted as prompter. I
suspect, with all the rudeness attributed to the olden times the gentlemen
of the last century could appreciate literature as highly as their
grandchildren of the present day. Fancy the once famous drama of Addison
acted in a remote island of Orkney a hundred and fifty years ago.
It may
be thought a needless labour thus to multiply instances of the superior
quickness of the Dons. This superiority was not possessed by the Spaniards
who were wrecked on our shores; but their contact and amalgamation with
the Norse blood of the Orcadians caused this superiority in the
descendants of the amalgamated nationalities. This illustrates a curious
law in ethnology, and also a great fact in history, which historians have
been slow to perceive or too prejudiced to acknowledge the fact that
wherever the Norse race has been united to a race suited to that union,
the descendants of such an amalgamation have become mentally, morally, and
physically the finest specimens of humanity. A slight mixture of Norse
blood has made the Scotch highlander a better citizen than his Celtic
brother of Ireland, and a better soldier than his Welsh brother. The Norse
blood has made Britain, in all the arts of war and peace, if we except
painting and sculpture, the greatest nation that ever existed. Had not
Charles of Anjou's followers been contaminated with too great an admixture
of Gaelic blood, it is probable that the Sicilian vespers had never rung
in a night of horrid bloodshed and slaughter, and had the Spanish
peninsula been conquered by the hardy Norsemen instead of the Moslem
Moors, in all probability Spain would have been today, what it was once -
the first nation in Europe.
There
are so far as I know, few relics remaining in Orkney of the Armada. The
late Col. Balfour possessed a silver cup given by the Spanish Admiral who
was wrecked on Fair Isle to his host, the Shetland laird. My friend, Mr.
Cursiter, possesses, if memory fails me not, a small gun brought from Fair
Isle, probably a vestige of the Spanish vessel wrecked there. The writer
has in his possession a rapier said to have been given to the founder of
the Traill families in Orkney by a Spanish officer belonging to the
Armada. There is a pathos in the tradition regarding this sword. Traill
had taken the sick Spaniard to his house and showed him every kindness in
his power. When the dying officer took to bed, he kept his sword behind
him in bed, and was often seen to grasp its hilt convulsively. And about
an hour before the Spaniard died, he called for Mr. Traill, and with tears
in his eyes, presented his sword to his host, saying " It is the only
reward I can make for your kindness to me. This sword has not done much
for me in this world; but if I thought I could use it in the next, I would
not part with it yet." I wonder if the owner of this sword was the
same who lies buried in St. Magnus Cathedral, and whose simple epitaph was
transcribed for me by my friend, Mr. Robert Tulloch. It is as
follows:-"Here lyes Captain Patricio, of the Spanish Armada, who was
wrecked on Fair Isle 1588."
Perhaps
the best account of the Spanish ship wrecked on Fair Isle is to be found
in Sir Robert Sibbald's description of the islands of Orkney and Shetland.
And there is an interesting allusion to it in the diary of James Melvill,
written in the dear old Doric. But, like other historians, there two
authorities disagree. The latter, however, makes it plain that it was from
Orkney that some of the wrecked Spaniards set out on their return voyage.
At the close of the paper, Captain MOWAT moved a hearty vote to Mr.
Dennison.
Captain
BAILLIE seconded, and the chairman was instructed to convey to Mr.
Dennison the Society's indebtedness for his interesting paper.