more turbulent nobles. Next year William Wallace surprised the English garrison in Aberdeen, but failed to capture the castle. In 1303 Edward again visited the county, halting at the Castle of Kildrummy, then in the possession of Robert Bruce, who shortly afterwards became the acknowledged leader of the Scots and made Aberdeen his headquarters for several months. Despite the seizure of Kildrummy Castle by the English in 1306, Bruce’s prospects brightened from 1308, when he defeated John Comyn, earl of Buchan (d. 1313?), at Inverurie. For a hundred years after Robert Bruce’s death (1329) there was intermittent anarchy in the shire. Aberdeen itself was burned by the English in 1336, and the re-settlement of the districts of Buchan and Strathbogie occasioned constant quarrels on the part of the dispossessed. Moreover, the crown had embroiled itself with some of the Highland chieftains, whose independence it sought to abolish. This policy culminated in the invasion of Aberdeenshire by Donald, lord of the Isles, who was, however, defeated at Harlaw, near Inverurie, by the earl of Mar in 1411. In the 15th century two other leading county families appeared, Sir Alexander Forbes being created Lord Forbes about 1442, and Sir Alexander Seton Lord Gordon in 1437 and earl of Huntly in 1445. Bitter feuds raged between these families for a long period, but the Gordons reached the height of their power in the first half of the 16th century, when their domains, already vast, were enhanced by the acquisition, through marriage, of the earldom of Sutherland (1514). Meanwhile commerce with the Low Countries, Poland and the Baltic had grown apace, Campvere, near Flushing in Holland, becoming the emporium of the Scottish traders, while education was fostered by the foundation of King’s College at Aberdeen in 1497 (Marischal College followed a century later). At the Reformation so little intuition had the clergy of the drift of opinion that at the very time that religious structures were being despoiled in the south, the building and decoration of churches went on in the shire. The change was acquiesced in without much tumult, though rioting took place in Aberdeen and St Machar’s cathedral in the city suffered damage. The 4th earl of Huntly offered some resistance, on behalf of the Catholics, to the influence of Lord James Stuart, afterwards the Regent Murray, but was defeated and killed at Corrichie on the hill of Fare in 1562. As years passed it was apparent that Presbyterianism was less generally acceptable than Episcopacy, of which system Aberdeenshire remained for generations the stronghold in Scotland. Another crisis in ecclesiastical affairs arose in 1638, when the National Covenant was ordered to be subscribed, a demand so grudgingly responded to that the marquis of Montrose visited the shire in the following year to enforce acceptance. The Cavaliers, not being disposed to yield, dispersed an armed gathering of Covenanters in the affair called the Trot of Turriff (1639), in which the first blood of the civil war was shed. The Covenanters obtained the upper hand in a few weeks, when Montrose appeared at the bridge of Dee and compelled the surrender of Aberdeen, which had no choice but to cast in its lot with the victors. Montrose, however, soon changed sides, and after defeating the Covenanters under Lord Balfour of Burleigh (1644), delivered the city to rapine. He worsted the Covenanters again after a stiff fight on the 2nd of July 1645, at Alford, a village in the beautiful Howe of Alford. Peace was temporarily restored on the “engagement” of the Scots commissioners to assist Charles I. On his return from Holland in 1650 Charles II. was welcomed in Aberdeen, but in little more than a year General Monk entered the city at the head of the Cromwellian regiments. The English garrison remained till 1659, and next year the Restoration was effusively hailed, and prelacy was once more in the ascendant. Most of the Presbyterians conformed, but the Quakers, more numerous in the shire and the adjoining county of Kincardine than anywhere else in Scotland, were systematically persecuted. After the Revolution (1688) episcopacy passed under a cloud, but the clergy, yielding to force majeure, gradually accepted the inevitable, hoping, as long as Queen Anne lived, that prelacy might yet be recognized as the national form of Church government. Her death dissipated these dreams, and as George I., her successor, was antipathetic to the clergy, it happened that Jacobitism and episcopalianism came to be regarded in the shire as identical, though in point of fact the non-jurors as a body never countenanced rebellion. The earl of Mar raised the standard of revolt in Braemar (6th of September 1715); a fortnight later James was proclaimed at Aberdeen cross; the Pretender landed at Peterhead on the 22nd of December, and in February 1716 he was back again in France. The collapse of the first rising ruined many of the lairds, and when the second rebellion occurred thirty years afterwards the county in the main was apathetic, though the insurgents held Aberdeen for five months, and Lord Lewis Gordon won a trifling victory for Prince Charles Edward at Inverurie (23rd of December 1745). The duke of Cumberland relieved Aberdeen at the end of February 1746, and in April the Young Pretender was a fugitive. Thereafter the people devoted themselves to agriculture, industry and commerce, which developed by leaps and bounds, and, along with equally remarkable progress in education, transformed the aspect of the shire and made the community as a whole one of the most prosperous in Scotland.
See W. Watt, History of Aberdeen and Banff (Edinburgh, 1900); Collections for a History of the Shires of Aberdeen and Banff (edited by Dr Joseph Robertson, Spalding Club); Sir A. Leith-Hay, Castles of Aberdeenshire (Aberdeen, 1887); J. Davidson, Inverurie and the Earldom of the Garioch (Edinburgh, 1878); Pratt, Buchan (rev. by R. Anderson), (Aberdeen, 1900); A. I. M‘Connochie, Deeside (Aberdeen, 1895).
ABERDOUR, a village of Fifeshire, Scotland. Pleasantly situated on the shore of the Firth of Forth, 1712 m. N.W. of Edinburgh by the North British railway and 7 m. N.W. of Leith by steamer, it is much resorted to for its excellent sea-bathing. There are ruins of a castle and an old decayed church, which contains some fine Norman work. About 3 m. S.W. is Donibristle House, the seat of the earl of Murray (Moray), and the scene of the murder (Feb. 7, 1592) of James, 2nd (Stuart) earl of Murray. The island of Inchcolm, or Island of Columba, 34 m. from the shore, is in the parish of Aberdour. As its name implies, its associations date back to the time of Columba. The primitive stone-roofed oratory is supposed to have been a hermit’s cell. The Augustinian monastery was founded in 1123 by Alexander I. The buildings are well preserved, consisting of a low square tower, church, cloisters, refectory and small chapter-house. The island of Columba was occasionally plundered by English and other rovers, but in the 16th century it became the property of Sir James Stuart, whose grandson became 2nd earl of Murray by virtue of his marriage to the elder daughter of the 1st earl. From it comes the earl’s title of Lord St Colme (1611).
ABERDOVEY (Aberdyfi: the Dyfi is the county frontier), a seaside village of Merionethshire, North Wales, on the Cambrian railway. Pop. (1901) 1466. It lies in the midst of beautiful scenery, 4 m. from Towyn, on the N. bank of the Dyfi estuary, commanding views of Snowdon, Cader Idris, Arran Mawddy and Plynlimmon. The Dyfi, here a mile broad, is crossed by a ferry to Borth sands, whence a road leads to Aberystwyth. The submerged “bells of Aberdovey” (since Seithennin “the drunkard” caused the formation of Cardigan Bay) are famous in a Welsh song. Aberdovey is a health and bathing resort.
ABERFOYLE, a village and parish of Perthshire, Scotland, 3414 m. N. by W. of Glasgow by the North British railway. Pop. of parish (1901) 1052. The village is situated at the base of Craigmore (1271 ft. high) and on the Laggan, a head-water of the Forth. Since 1885, when the duke of Montrose constructed a road over the eastern shoulder of Craigmore to join the older road at the entrance of the Trossachs pass, Aberfoyle has become the alternative route to the Trossachs and Loch Katrine. Loch Ard, about 2 m. W. of Aberfoyle, lies 105 ft. above the sea. It is 3 m. long (including the narrows at the east end) and 1 m. broad. Towards the west end is Eilean Gorm (the green isle), and near the north-western shore are the falls of Ledard. Two m. N.W. is Loch Chon, 290 ft. above the sea, 134 m. long, and about 12 m. broad. It drains by the Avon Dhu to Loch Ard, which is drained in turn by the Laggan. The slate quarries on Craigmore are the only industry in Aberfoyle.
