Charting the ancient towns of Scotland: The enticing history of Paisley

Do you want to know about Paisley and many other towns in Scotland? Please read on …

Today, I begin a new series that I have been researching literally for years. For the next few weeks I will be charting the histories of the ancient towns of Scotland, and I hope you will find them as interesting as I did in visiting them and reading up on their histories.

I did not plan this series when I began my travels round Scotland but it seems a sensible thing to bring them together and I wouldn’t want to waste all the knowledge I have gathered.

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The fact is that Scotland is a “townie” nation, with more people living in towns and villages than in our eight cities combined, as confirmed by the population figures compiled by the National Records of Scotland.

To be included in the list of ancient towns, I set some criteria – the histories will all deal with towns up to the year 1900; they all had to have been “ancient” which I interpret as being founded before the Reformation, as religion will be mentioned in many of the columns.

I will be very much dwelling on the early history of these towns. They all had to have played a role, however small, in the history of our nation and they all had to have histories that have been thoroughly researched. They all have to be places I have been to, which sadly rules out Lerwick and Kirkwall – I aim to rectify those grievous omissions by visiting Shetland and Orkney next year.

I remind you that I am a writer about history, not a qualified historian, so this series, like much of my work, is based on other people’s prior research, which I will acknowledge when I can.

I have combined some of the towns due to geographical proximity. If I have left your town out of the list and want to draw my attention to it, please email me at nationalhamish@gmail.com

In no particular order, the columns will feature Paisley, Elgin, Stornoway, Dumfries, Hamilton, Lanark, Dumbarton, Ayr, Kilmarnock, St Andrews, Arbroath, Brechin, Montrose, Forfar, Kilwinning, Irvine and Renfrew. I may get some facts wrong along the way so please do email me if you think I have erred.

Let’s look at Paisley first, by dint of it being the largest town in Scotland by population and one of our most important towns in terms of Scottish and, as I shall show, British history.

There is some evidence of prehistoric occupation of that area of what became Renfrewshire, while some claim that Paisley was the Vanduaria noted on a map by the historian and geographer Ptolemy. Despite 19th-century “evidence” of a Roman fort where the town now stands, no archaeological remains have been produced.

Located west of Glasgow at the confluence of the River Clyde and White Cart Water, Paisley began life as a small settlement in the ancient Brythonic kingdom of Strathclyde.

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Tradition has it that an Irish missionary monk, Mirin, later acclaimed as a saint, came to the area and founded a church or chapel, and the settlement grew around this, its foundation contemporary with the establishment of Glasgow by St Kentigern, or Mungo.

St Mirin, who died around 620, certainly existed and the island of Inchmurrin in Loch Lomond is named after him. He was much venerated after his death and his burial place at his Paisley church became a place of pilgrimage. He is commemorated in Paisley by, among other things, the name of the town’s Premiership football club, St Mirren FC.

No-one knows the exact derivation of the name Paisley, with the most prevalent theories being that it came from the Brythonic word for a church, Basileg, or a pasture, Passileg. By the 12th century, the settlement was being referred to as Passelet or Passeleth.

The most influential man in the early history of Paisley was Walter FitzAlan, a knight of Anglo-Norman origin who was already a baron in England when the great reforming King David I of Scotland asked him to move to his court in 1136. He was appointed Steward to David and served under the king’s successors, Malcolm IV (the Maiden) and William I (the Lion).

He was given considerable grants of land by those monarchs, including most of what became Renfrewshire. In 1163, Walter founded a priory at Paisley that in time would become Paisley Abbey. Let the Abbey take up the story: “Paisley Abbey was founded around 1163 by Walter FitzAlan, a knight of Breton origin, who had been brought to Scotland by King David I and made the first High Steward of Scotland. This was a senior position at court and was hereditary. A charter was signed at Fotheringhay, Northamptonshire for the founding of a Cluniac monastery on land he owned in Renfrewshire.

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“Thirteen monks came from Much Wenlock in Shropshire to set up the priory on the site of an old Celtic church founded by St Mirin in the 6th century.

In 1245, the priory was raised to the status of an abbey, answerable only to the pope in Rome. The Abbey was dedicated to St Mary, St James, St Mirin (the local saint who had first brought Christianity to this part of Scotland in the sixth century) and St Milburga (the ‘local’ saint of Wenlock).

“Under royal patronage, the abbey became wealthy and influential and evidence exists of extensive trade between Paisley Abbey and commercial centres throughout Europe. The abbey was also a centre of learning and it is believed that William Wallace, who played a prominent part in the Wars of Independence in the 13th century, was educated by the monks of Paisley Abbey.”

The year after the priory’s foundation, FitzAlan was probably leader of the royal forces that fought the Battle of Renfrew against the army of Somerled, Lord of the Isles, who had set out to vanquish Malcolm IV and capture the rest of Scotland.

The Steward became even more prominent in the governance of Scotland and in time the hereditary office of High Steward would see the family name become Stewart.

A sad connection to the royal family of Robert the Bruce came about through the marriage of the king’s beloved daughter Marjorie to Walter Stewart, a descendant of the original FitzAlan and the 6th Steward of Scotland.

This Walter had fought bravely for Robert the Bruce at the Battle of Bannockburn and was given Marjorie’s hand in marriage in 1315 after her years of capture in England.

In March 1316, a heavily pregnant Marjorie was riding home to Renfrew Castle when she was thrown from her horse in Paisley and suffered a fatal injury. An emergency caesarean operation was carried out, probably at Paisley Abbey where she was buried.

Her son Robert would succeed the childless David II as Robert II of Scotland and thus a Paisley-born king became ancestor of all subsequent kings of Scotland, then England and the United Kingdom, down to Charles III, whose son William has the title Baron Renfrew. I often chuckle when I think that all those royals are buddies of a sort, the nickname buddy coming from the local pronunciation of that guid Scots word body.

Despite much of the building being destroyed by fire in 1307, the abbey was rebuilt in its present magnificent form and remained at the centre of Paisley life for decades as shown by the fact that not only was Marjorie Bruce buried there but also kings Robert II and III.

It was another king, James II, who decided that Paisley should become a regality, a status that encouraged the trade and commerce on which the town thrived. James IV confirmed the town’s status by making it a burgh of barony in 1476. Paisley came to be governed by a town council which set up the first grammar school in 1576.

Like every other part of Scotland, Paisley was caught up in the foment of the Reformation which officially changed Scotland’s religion in 1560. Let the abbey take up the story again: “The collapse of the central tower in the mid-16th century destroyed the transepts and choir and a wall was built across the east end of the nave.

“At the Scottish Reformation in 1560, the monastery was disbanded, the monastic buildings handed over to the Hamilton family and the walled-off nave became the parish church of Paisley. The transepts and choir were to remain in ruins until the late 19th and early 20th centuries when they were restored to create one of the finest churches in Scotland.”

In the 17th century, the town gained notoriety for two separate executions. During the reign of Charles II, Paisley became a centre of the Covenanting movement. The Scottish Covenanter Memorials Association records: “James Algie and John Park were the tenants of a farm at Kennishead, in Eastwood parish, Renfrewshire.

It is claimed that Algie supported episcopacy until a few months before his death. They were asked to take the ‘Test Oath’ but had refused, so were taken to the tolbooth in Paisley where they were imprisoned.

“They were willing to take the Oath of Abjuration, but not the Test Act. The commissioner, the Laird of Orbiston, told them that if they did not take the Test, then they would hang. The two still refused. They were sentenced at 10 o’clock in the morning and were hanged at Paisley Green at 2 o’clock in the afternoon.

“The soldiers beat their drums until they were dead, to drown out their dying testimonies. Algie and Park were executed at the Cross of Paisley on February 3, 1685. They were buried at the Gallow Green, near the foot of Maxwellton Street.”

The two men are now commemorated by a large monument in the town.

The most disgraceful episode occurred in 1697 with the judicial murder of six people accused of witchcraft. A seventh accused person hanged himself.

It happened when an 11-year-old girl Christian Shaw, the daughter of the Laird of Bargarran, while suffering a mental disturbance, accused seven people of witchcraft. She said she had seen her father’s housemaid Catherine Campbell steal some milk and Campbell and her accomplices had then tormented her.

Eminent physicians examined Christian but could find no cause for her illness. Campbell, along with Margaret Lang, John Lindsay, James Lindsay, John Reid, Margaret Fulton, and Agnes Naismith, were then taken before a special commission set up by the Scottish Privy Council.

The jury, threatened by the prosecutors with damnation, found them guilty and they were all sentenced to death. Reid hanged himself in his cell and the others were then hanged and burned on Glasgow Green. It was the last mass execution of people accused of witchcraft in Europe.

Paisley developed rapidly before and during the Industrial Revolution and became a centre for weaving and other textile industries. By the end of the 18th century a new town had been laid out, and in the 19th century Paisley became a world centre for the production of thread, with the world-famous Paisley Pattern imported from Kashmir.

Its growing wealth in the Victorian era is shown by the fact that Paisley has more listed buildings than any other town in Scotland. It was also a centre for radical reform of politics and trade unionism.

That takes us up to the year 1900, and I’m sure I will return to Paisley in my history of 20th-century Scotland that will follow this series.