Bon-Accord; Aberdeen’s most famous battle that never was?

Aberdeen’s civic motto is a curiosity in heraldic history, as unlike many other medieval Scottish burghs which sported mottos of a religious theme, ours was a French phrase loosely translated as “good agreement”.  Heraldist, Sir George McKenzie, writing in 1680, described the motto’s origin: “the word was given them by King Robert Bruce, for killing all the English, in one night, in their Town, their word being that night ‘Bon-Accord’”.  The Lord Lyon, King of Arms made no mention of this in 1674 when Aberdeen’s coat of arms was officially recognised by his court.  Modern-day historians dismiss the tale of Bruce’s secret attack on Aberdeen castle in 1308 as a myth, especially its connection with the phrase ‘bon-accord’.  So is the recovery of what had been the late Alexander III’s local residence on Castlehill the most famous battle that never was?  To answer this we need some solid evidence.

Wind back the clock to the violent upheaval which was later known as the Scottish Wars of Independence.  With the Scottish succession in crisis and the English monarch snapping at his heels, Robert Bruce, who had a strong claim to the crown, finally seized it for himself in 1306.  Two years later he is in Aberdeen, having defeated his Scots enemies, the Comyns at the battle of Barra near Oldmeldrum.  William Kennedy’s 1818 Annals of Aberdeen states that buoyed up by this victory, Bruce led his army up to Aberdeen Castle under cover of darkness and slaughtered the English garrison.

However, in the very same volume, Kennedy quotes a contemporary letter sent by Edward II of England to Sir Gilbert Petchez, the knight he had appointed constable of Aberdeen Castle, dated July 1308, two months after Bruce’s victory over the Comyns, ordering him to “go to Scotland and aid in the relief of Aberdeen Castle which is besieged by land and sea”.  So perhaps it was no overnight raid?  Another royal missive from the same date orders William le Betour, English naval captain, to depart immediately from Hartlepool with the fleet to aid the retaking of the castle.  It now sounds as if Bruce was in possession, fending off the English reinforcements!

There is much argument as to whether Hector Boece, chronicler and principal of Kings College was correct in stating that “in order to leave no place of refuge for the English in Aberdeen, they removed all the fittings and levelled the Castle to the ground”, very shortly after routing the occupying force.  Considering that there is no further mention of Aberdeen Castle or this siege after 1308 in contemporary documents, we can surmise that Edward II, the rather ineffectual son of ‘The Hammer of the Scots’, failed to recover the castle before it was razed to its foundations by Bruce and the citizens of Aberdeen.  By 1313, the younger Edward grudgingly recognises Robert I in official communications, and would be left in no doubt after the decisive victory for the Scots which would follow at Bannockburn.

As to the veracity of our motto’s origin, I offer a personal theory; the soldiers of England were highly-trained knights of Norman descent, thus French would have been their first language.  Even the lowly Anglo-Saxon infantry would have at least recognised the tongue when they heard it.  So for Robert the Bruce to have given his forces such a phrase as the signal to attack that night showed a bit of ingenuity.  Any soldiers on duty who might have heard French spoken would hardly have suspected their local enemies were about to pounce, therefore it must have been a quick and bloody attack.

The real truth of the matter will never be known, as the council records from 1414-30, the time period when the motto was apparently chosen, have been lost.  Legend has taken over and perhaps explains why the name “Castlegate” (i.e. castle-gait, the way to the castle) still endures today.  

The Denburn Valley – 10,000 Years of Occupation

Looking down over Denburn Road from Union Bridge up towards Woolmanhill Hospital, it is difficult to imagine that once this area consisted of tall, grassy riverbanks, a wide, flowing river and a vast loch stretching across one hundred acres between Skene Square, Spring Garden, Loch Street, St. Andrew Street and Woolmanhill.  Yet this was the Denburn Valley at the end of the last Ice Age, and archaeological evidence tells us that our hunter-gatherer ancestors made seasonal camps here.  Wild boar, deer, bears, wolves, all roamed freely and some were likely to end up skewered by a hunter’s arrow to feed his family.

The identification of a Neolithic burial cairn on what is now Hill Street demonstrated to medieval residents that farmers had settled on the site from c.4,000BC.  The cairn was only removed in 1780 when the Boys’ Industrial School, the forerunner of Oakbank, was built.  For another century, two obelisks, known as the “Stones of Gilcom” remained in the school’s exercise ground until the site was cleared for tenements. 

Pre-industrial settlers were known to harvest the seagulls and geese which nested on the loch banks for food; indeed Spring Garden was named for its fertile ground in which vegetables were grown.  But by the 1630s, a council report showed that the water was “filthy, corrupt and defilet by folk again washing clothes, waste water draining from the gutters and other sorts of uncleanness”.  It would be 1706 before a plan was mooted to provide the city with a cleaner supply directly from Carden Haugh spring which flowed up from the Denburn near Cherrybank mansion – today, the car park of Carden Place Medical Centre. 

The last portion of the valley before the Denburn flowed out into the Dee had become a popular spot for bleaching linen, used mainly by the residents of Mutton Brae, the community situated on the slopes below Belmont Street and the Triple Kirks.  The Corbie Haugh (Crow’s Hollow) on the far bank featured the Corbie Well which provided refreshment for the washerwomen as they pegged out their sheets on the grass.  The coming of the railway however would do away with this leafy spot.  The new single track from Kittybrewster was laid out in 1867, which connected Aberdeen with the Highlands, by then patronised by royalty.  The council realised that they should beautify the old valley to make an attractive approach to the new Joint Station, thus plans were drawn up for an ornamental garden terminating at Union Bridge, in situ since 1803.  The “Denburn Gardens” as they were originally named, were landscaped in 1879.  By 1899 they were enclosed at the Rosemount side by the new stone viaduct which replaced the old iron footbridge over the Denburn near Black’s Buildings, now the theatre car park. 

The gardens became a fashionable place to “promenade” for Victorians and Edwardians; there was a bandstand where concerts were held, chess/draught boards were painted on the high paths below Union Terrace near Robert Burns’ statue, and children were eternally amused by the movement of locos along the track between the Joint and Schoolhill stations. 

 The Denburn, once the lifeblood of the prehistoric settlement, was culverted by the 1960s to carry a new road, the single carriageway replaced by a dual one in 1993.   The whole history of the community built on the mouth of the Denburn – the most likely derivation of Aberdeen – is quite literally under our feet, or at least our car wheels.  The river gave food to the Mesolithic folk, the valley protected the medieval city, the ornamental landscape made a pretty view for English visitors heading to the Highlands, and the gardens were a source of entertainment and relaxation to hardworking locals across two centuries.  As the kernel of our civic existence, we do well to think very carefully about the future of the Denburn Valley.    

The Wreck of the Oscar 1813

“‘TWAS on the 1st of April, and in the year of Eighteen thirteen, / That the whaler “Oscar” was wrecked not far from Aberdeen” so wrote that dubious poet of Dundee, William Topaz McGonnagall.  Two centuries ago this would be the worst maritime disaster to occur on Aberdeen’s coastline; only two of the forty-six crew survived, young first mate, John Jamson, and steersman, James Venus. 

There had been an unusually calm spell of weather in the spring of 1813, thus the mighty squall which arose that morning took five whaling ships unawares.  Along with the Oscar, captained by John Innes, the Hercules, Latona, Middleton and St Andrew were riding at anchor when the wind whipped around to the south-west and forced three of the ships out of the Dee estuary to avoid damage.  Crewmen from the Latona and Oscar were still onshore enjoying liquid refreshment from the previous night, doubtless in some of the hostelries in Fittie or Torry; once they had been retrieved via a rowing boat, the sea lay disturbingly calm.  Captain Innes cleared the estuary, but struggled to steer with Venus’ help at the helm as the heavy sea rolled ominously beneath them.  By 11am, the Oscar was struck by a new gale which drove it hard inland towards Greyhope Bay.  A number of onlookers had already gathered there to watch the progress of the ships.  Half an hour later, the Oscar foundered on the Bruntscallie rocks by the bay, monstrous waves engulfing the vessel.

The Torry folk watched in horror as the crew clambered onto the rigging in a vain attempt to save themselves.  Captain Innes tried to shout to these observers, they tried to call to him, but the wind tore the words from their very lips.  The crew then cut down their mainmast, hoping it would fall straight onto the rocky shore and provide them with an escape route, but it crashed uselessly into the sea beside them.  Few of the whalers would have been able to swim due to the old seafaring superstition that if the sea gods wanted a sacrifice, they would not be denied, hence it was quicker to drown than fight.  Somehow, John Jamson made it ashore, and to his great surprise was dragged to safety by his own uncle, Richard Jamson, a retired whaling captain, who had been among the crowd at Greyhope Bay. 

By midday, the folk had sorrowfully observed Captain Innes and his remaining crew drown as the Oscar broke up beneath them.  For the next few weeks, bodies from the stricken ship would wash ashore; every other day a new widow would lament her loss.  The majority of the bodies were interred in a mass grave at old St Fittick’s Kirk not far from where they came ashore.

The other ships fared slightly better, and on the St Andrew, Captain Reid was lauded by the Aberdeen Journal for his amazing “seamanship and exertion” at being able to return to port while his fellows on the Oscar perished.

The outpouring of sorrow and sympathy was exemplified in the raising of £12,000 for the families of the crew.  The disaster, immortalised in poetry by local worthy, William Cadenhead, and an anonymous correspondent to the Aberdeen Journal, prompted renewed calls for a lighthouse to protect shipping, yet it took another twenty years before the Stevenson-designed beacon, built by James Gibbs was completed.  

Oddly enough, even the installation of a lighthouse was not enough to prevent another, though lesser disaster happening a century later in the same spot, when the Danish-registered G Coch ran aground with the loss of the seven-strong crew.   

If you walk through St Nicholas Kirkyard from Union Street and look for the headstone to John Coutts, only eighteen, son of a local shoemaker, “drowned by the wreck of the ship Oscar at the Girdleness”.  Perhaps it was all his father had to keep the harpooner laddie’s memory alive?  It is perhaps also the only visible monument in the city to the ship and her tragic crew, and thus will cause the more curious amongst us to “think of the mariners”, as McGonnagall charged the readers of his verbose epic to do.   

Hidden Aberdeen - NOW IN PRINT!

Last Tuesday I had the best night of my life - it was the book launch for Hidden Aberdeen - history under your feet and on your doorstep.  Many of the stories in this blog have gone into it and loads more that you've probably never heard.  You can buy a copy from Waterstones, WH Smith, and order online at Amazon.

I'm also now writing a column for the Daily Record's free paper Aberdeen Now, called The History Quine - you can follow it here, but I'll be posting the stories up on this blog as we go.