Who didn’t pay the piper?

Keith Sanger on Lowland pipers' sleep-talking, Sabbath-breaking and scandal-makingKIRK Session Records are a prolific source of contemporary references to pipers, but by their nature the entries fall into a similar form, usually a result of the piper playing for dancing on the Sabbath. But in the following example, the circumstances are sufficiently different that they are worth a mention. It comes from the Longforgan Kirk record and appears to have been entered on the same dayas the offence was committed on the 23 June

Longforgan Kir

1695. “The Town's Piper Pat Morton for his drunkenness (on this day especially), and for his speaking in the Church in time of divine worship threw his sleep is to be called in ye next day and rebuked.”

The piper certainly did not appear the next day and the next reference to the event is a brief note in the session record for the 30th June that the piper had been compeared to appear but had not turned up. A similar entry was made on the 7th July and it was not until the 21st July that it was finally noted that “The piper being called compeared and willingly humbled himself before ye Session for his fault in crying out WHO PAYS ME in time of Sermon and he was absolved.” (1)

There are a number of interesting points raised here, not least the question of what in the sermon had penetrated the pipers sleep to trigger the “Who pays me”, which seems to have sufficiently shocked the Session Clerk that he had written it in capitals. He was described as “the Town's Piper”, but although Longforgan is a large parish starting about ten miles to the west of Dundee, the actual place is little more than a village even now, so it is possible that the piper's duties covered the whole parish rather than just the hamlet. Certainly that whole area covering Angus and eastern Perthshire is starting to show an increasing density of pipers, including one of the earliest references to a Lowland piper receiving a tack of land when, in February 1695, Patrick Syme in Coathill was granted two acres of land at Concragie, about six miles west of Blairgowrie, for his lifetime for various piping duties, from James Ogilvy of Cluny.(2)

The fact that that Patrick Morton was absolved despite what seems to have been a serious misdemeanour once more raises the question of the relationship between pipers and the Kirk, which perhaps requires a reassessment. Although some of the clergy undoubtedly would have taken a stern line against all music, there are sufficient references to ministers who were themselves actively involved in secular music, to suggest that the problem was not the music and musicians, but in a time when the only rest day in the week was on Sunday, it was primarily the clash of interests that generated between the ministers' desire for Sabbath observance and the people's desire for relaxation. One example of a more tolerant attitude in general, even among the clergy, can be seen in a letter to Bishop Alexander from his nephew in 1765, mentioning the marriage of the Bishop's niece Jean Allan, to “Lieutenant or Captain Skene ... not a man of the brightest parts nor yet of the finest appearance, but is a good natured man and liked the Women and his Bottle and to play a spring on the Bag Pipe.”(3)

The man in question was Captain James Skene (1727-1796), son of the George Skene whose trip to London in 1729 has been well covered before. Although by that period Captain Skene's father was a staid member of the Aberdeen establishment, clearly the son had continued his father's love of conviviality and the family's lax approach to society's norms can be seen in the process for divorce brought by the Hon Alexander Duff of Echt against his wife, Mary Skene, in 1789. Mary Skene was Captain Skene's sister, and in the action the cited correspondent was her nephew, Captain James Skene's son George.

Returning to a piper who may or may not have been paid when he first appears, it is far from certain whether he actually got to perform. An undated note from Donald Buchanan addressed to the Duke of Baccleuch at Dalkeith House, sits among a bundle of correspondence running from March 1796 to March 1797 so probably can be assigned to that period. In it Buchanan describes himself as having been piper to Lord Loudon for a good many years but having last Martinmas moved to Kelso and engaged as piper to the Duke of Roxburgh, who had given him leave to go through to Ayrshire to see Colonel Montgomery.

Now on his way back and passing through Dalkeith he would “if it should please your Grace to accept of a Tune either from the Bige Pipes or small pipes I shall be glad to have the Pleasure to play a Tune for your Grace”. Since the names Donald and Daniel were interchangeable it is likely that this is the same man who, described as Daniel Buchanan, town piper of Kelso, petitioned the Duke of Roxburghe in 1804, having been told he would get 2 guineas yearly from the Duke and what he could gather from the town of Kelso, but does not get enough to support his family, needs an addition.(4)

Moving on from the question of pipers being paid, (or not), it seems reasonable to suggest that we are also looking at a missing part of the history of the Montgomery pipe, or “the Rosetta Stone of Scottish piping” as it was called in an earlier edition of Common Stock.(5) Since the Colonel Montgomery associated with those pipes died in October 1796 and the bundle in which Donald Buchanan's letter sits commences in March of that year it would seem pretty certain that this was the Colonel Montgomery that he had gone to see. Clearly from the letter he had a small pipe in his possession on the return journey and finally, in closing the geographical gap between the Montgomery's and Ayrshire in 1757 to

the next firm reference to the pipes when they were recorded as being in the hands of a “well known Tyneside piper” in the early 1900's, the step from Kelso to Tyneside is much closer than from Ayrshire.

References

• National Archives of Scotland, (NAS), CH2/249/2/250 (2) NAS, GDI 6/28/186

(3) NAS, CH12/23/1308

(4) NAS, GD224/676/2

(5)    Cheape, Hugh, in Common Stock Vol 4, No 1, January 1989; Askew, Gilbert, Two Sets of Miniature Bagpipes in the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland. Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, Vol Lxxiii, 1938, page 346.