The program ended on Saturday, July 4 around noon. It was sad to see everyone dispersing to the corners of the earth, but it was a wonderful week, I think. Early that morning, Steve and I had been up walking in Port Meadow, the huge common meadow of Oxford. As we came into the meadow, the cows and horses that had been just dots far away started running to us all the way across the meadow. Very pretty but a little disconcerting. . . would they stop when they came to us or just run us down?
And now for Scotland.
On our first day we drove up to Edinburgh to spend the night. Of course, we were enthralled by all the sights of rural England and then Scotland. We drove a little ways off the main highway and into the Yorkshire Dales in honor of James Herriott and his influence on us. There were sheep, sheep everywhere and a few cows too. Steve got many many pictures of both, but I only include a few here, sprinkled throughout the post.
WELCOME TO SCOTLAND!
A veterinary surgery like we imagine James Herrott's looked like.
We spent the night at The Thistle in downtown Edinburough. In the morning, we had breakfast at Clarinda's, so named after a poem of Robert Burns'. My memory is that our family has some geneological connection to Burns. Who wants to check that out? The cafe was delightful and just as we might picture a tea shoppe in Edinborough should be.
We attended church at a Free Church called Blacneuch-Greyfriars. Apart from the accents, we could have been at a Covenanter church in North America. After the service we met an older man who was quite a historian and knew all about the Covenanters. This was the beginning of my broadening view of what the Covenanters were in Scotland. On an interesting note, he said the Thomas Jefferson had used the National Covenant as a model for writing the documents which spelled out religious freedom and separation of church and state in America. This is the church we worshipped in.
After church, we headed a few blocks away to the "real" Greyfriars Church" where many Covenanters had been imprisoned prior to execution. This is just outside the church yard--a tavern remember Greyfriars Bobby, a small dog that had an interesting story, memorialized in a Disney film many years ago.
The first of many memorials remembering the Covenanters at Greyfriars.
After seeing Greyfriars, we drove to the Grass Market where the execution of many Covenanters had taken place. It is still an open market today where we got a sandwich and browsed around, also reading the memorial set up there.
From there we headed north towards Bangkory (Aberdeenshire) with a stop along the way at Falkland Palace, where Steve had been as a 20-year-old. This is where the two Melville brothers gave a famous speech to King James saying there were two kings and two kingdoms in Scotland. They honored him as king over Scotland but only Christ could be king of the church. Here in Scotland was probably the first place that the Divine Right of Kings was protested--producing the fierce killing times in the mid 1600s and the birth of Presbyterianism.
Here is Falkland Palace, the hunting palace of the Stewart kings.
There used to be a Covenanter Tavern in Falkland, but Steve was disappointed to see that it was now gone and all that is left is a plaque.
We wanted to go walking there, so we went to the public grounds of the estate where a trail took us up a high hill (East Lohman -- I wonder if it's of "...the bonnie bonnie banks of Loch Lohman) with 360 degree views of the countryside around. There were sheep everywhere, even one ewe and lamb on the very top.
Bonnie lass
In contrast, a Scottish slug. We should have put our hand down for perspective, but it was BIG and its discovery was accompanied by an "eeeeewwwwwwww!"
Our friends, Kevin and Amy Offner and son David (4), were spending a two months' sabbatical staying in a friend of a friend's house in Bangkory, Scotland. Bangkory is about 20 miles west of Aberdeen, if I have it right. It's where a lot of oil companies have their headquarters because of off-shore drilling in the North Sea. This house is owned by an oil executive who lives in the Hague now, but keeps the house in Bangkory because everyone in the fmaily likes it best. However, no one lives there except on occasional weekend and vacation trips, I understand.
It's a beautiful, old 6-bedroom with numerous other wonderful rooms including a big solarium. It's the oldest house in the town and was once the manse of the parish church. But now it's completely modernized and decorated. So Kevin and Amy shared it with us for two nights.
Amy, David and I took a walk to a local tea shop through town, country, and lots of Queen Anne's Lace...(special because this was always the flower that my mom exclaimed about when we took road trips in the summer). On the way we crossed over a stream prized for its salmon fishing and saw several jumping up some rapids. My pictures of it weren't good enough to include.
At the tea shop for cream tea--
scones, jam, clotted cream, and tea, of course.
Pictures of taking pictures of taking pictures of taking pictures...
Of all the castles in the area, we chose Dunnator Castle because of its dramatic look. The set of Mel Gibson's "Hamlet" was fashioned after this castle. It sits on a huge wind-buffetted rock jutting out into the North Sea, attached to land only by a narrow land bridge.
We didn't know when we chose to go there that it also had some very interesting Covenanter history.
167 Covenanters were imprisoned in a "vault" for 9 weeks before being shipped to the New Indies. 70 of them died on that trip, another 2 died in trying to escape (falling from the cliffs) at Dunnator.
Me looking out the seaward window from the Whig's Vault. The window looks out over the sheer cliff drop to the sea hundreds of feet below.
Here are the names of those prisoners. Two of them were Gilchrists--Steve's mother's family name. So our relatives were among those in the group. Look in the very middle of the picture for their names. (Shoot! We should have named one of our kids Cuthbert!)
Ominous sky over Dunnator
Inside the castle walls, this I believe is what's left of the chapel. It was first burned to the ground with a battalion of English soldiers in it by William Wallace himself in the 1200s.
Bleeding hearts of Dunnator
Ancestor of Cuthbert and Robert Gilchrist, once prisoners at Dunnator.
Another interesting note is that one of the earls of Dunnator was a Covenanter himself, but lost his lands and castle for that reason, and it was passed on to someone loyal to the crown and the divine rights of kings.
Within the castle walls, the old hall.
Ever the lover of flowers, wherever they may be found.
From Bangkory we headed west through the southern part of the Scottish Highlands. We went right past Balmoral Castle, favorite summer home of Queen Elizabeth. This is near there and reminded us very much of some of the scenes from the movie, "The Queen."
Wild fox gloves on the moors
Our goal that night was to reach Wigtown in the southwest corner of Scotland. It was at Wigtown that the two Margarets were martyred and by whom my name is inspired. All my growing up years, my mother read us stories of the Scottish killing times and of the inspiring bravery and loyalty of the Scottish Covenanters to Christ's Crown and Covenant. Now we wanted to see their memorials.
Below is the bed and breakfast we stayed in--a huge old stone house overlooking the Wigtown Bay where the Margarets, one age 63 and one age 18, were staked out to be drowned by the incoming tide. The older Margaret was staked out further in hopes that seeing her suffering and death would cause the younger Margaret to recant, but her courage carried her to heaven soon after the elder. I realized that all my life I have identified with the younger Margaret, Margaret Wilson, but now it would be much more appropriate for me to identify myself with the older Margaret, and be inspired to be a courageous model for all the younger "Margarets" of my day.
Our bedroom in the B & B. We felt like the king and queen instead of the peasant martyrs.
A traquil herd of cattle now graze in the marshes bordering the bay.
On the way down the path to the memorial stake marking the spot of the martyrdom.
I felt I needed to look sober for the weightiness of the place.
The memorial stake that marks the spot of the martyrdom. The course of the river and bay has been changed several times over the years to accommodate industry and shipping, so it is no longer in the water but in the marshes bordering the water.
This is the grave of the Margarets just a stone's throw from the site of their deaths with complete explanation of who condemned them also.
Happily for the three of us, Wigtown is also "Scotland's Book Town" with the largest used book store in Scotland. So after ruminating over the Margarets for the appropriate amount of time, there was still time to browse the book shops and find a good many interesting fiction and nonfiction books about the Covenanters. Steve has been devouring them one-by-one,and I hope to follow.
A post on Scotland wouldn't be complete without our thistle pictures. They are beautiful plants that remind us of our heritage as Scots--a bit prickley to the touch but bringing beauty wherever we may be found.
This may be blooming heather, but I can't quite tell!
One of our last stops before high-tailing it back to Oxford to return our rental car before 6 pm (source of considerable stress), was Anwoth. As a young man, Steve had spent a night in this church yard (cemetary). It is beautiful and quaint and also the burial place of some famous Covenanter whose name is eluding me at the moment.
The cottage right across the lane from Anwoth Churchyard--a perfect little Scottish cottage, I thought.
Ferns in a stone wall.
Hills and moors along the way in their summer glory.
As soon as we arrived home, we got on the internet to see about renting a Scottish cottage for a month-6 weeks of sabbatical writing or studying some summer too. Yes, it
can be done, so who knows!
"The Pig" was the focal point of the dinner. Steve and I put it on around 9:00 a.m. with some difficulty. Note to self: Do not start the coals before you put the pig on or you will burn yourself as you situate the pig. The blister on my ring finger knuckle is just now healing! But once it was on and situated it rotated throughout the day getting browner and browner, as you can see from these pictures at the end of the roasting, and smelling more and more delicious.
