The Crie Provosts and the '45 Rising


May 25th To Magistrates when Consulting Sheriff Craigie anent the Rebel Burgesses, five bottles wine, one bottle ale & 3 bakes .. £4 13s

Sept 13th To Magistrats after tryal of the Rebel Burgesses, Twelve bottles Claret at 16s. pr bottle in B Reoch’s .. .. £9 12s.


There can be litle doubt that the sympathies of James Crie, surgeon, and his probable cousin Patrick Crie, merchant, both Provosts of Perth, were with the Whig and Hanoverian Government in London, though Jacobite sympathy was widespread in Perth and the surrounding areas. Back in 1716 Patrick had presented an Accompt to the Town of Perth for £245 6s. 6d. for various victuals consumed from April to October of that year. The bill can still be seen and handled (with care) in Perth’s Sandeman Library, whose staff were most helpful when I visited. Some items from the bill are shown above.

Patrick Crie was already a member of the Magistracy as Dean of Guild in 1716 at the age of thirty-three and was doing very nicely thank you supplying his fellow magistrates with victuals. He would not have been numbered amongst the “rebel bur- gesses". He had followed the foots- teps of his merchant father, James Crie who had been six times Provost, and had too much to lose by fol- lowing the risky cause of the Jaco- bites. By l745 he had been Provost six times himself, and had relinquis- hed public office, possibly through ill-health. His cousin James Crie, a surgeon, had for many years ensured a Crie presence on the Magistracy and was actually Provost in that fateful year of ‘45.

R M H Cree of Glasgow passed me an extract from The Ancient Capital of Scotland in which Samuel Cowan describes how, as the Jacobite army under Prince Charles Edward Stuart drew near to the gates of Perth,

"the magistrates, town clerk, and some of the leading inhabitants, who were Royalists, left Perth and went to Edinburgh...”

A different version comes from Isabel Holtom, told to her by her father John Cree, with what reliabi- lity she knows not. Apparently James Crie was required to supply shoes for the Jacobite army and, being unable, rowed himself to Abemethy by night, and waited for them to go away. This has a ring of truth, for James's (probable) brother John had married and settled in Abemethy in 1706, followed by two of Patrick Crie’s brothers.

Abernethy was probably a pleasant “out of town" resort for well-to-do Perth merchants to settle in, near enough to commute for business but much healthier. “In l646," we are told,

“by Act of Parliament, the Sheriff Court of Perth was appointed to sit at Abernethy while the plague con- tinued in Perth."

Be that as it may it seems that in 1745, the “Old Provost" (that is the former Provost of 1742) Patrick Crie stayed in Perth. At sixty-two he may have been none too well to go riding off to Edinburgh or rowing down river at night. Certainly he had dropped out of civic affairs for a couple of years. And it was probably he who led the negotiations with Charles Stuart when the latter rode into Perth:

“That evening [4th September] Charles made a triumphal entry into the city on horseback at the head of his troops,” writes David Daiches. “This was the first time that Charles really savoured his role as Bonnie Prince Charlie, the dazzling young charmer whose very presence seemed to announce victory for his cause. He rode on a horse that had been given to him by Macdonald of Tirnadish, and he was attended by the Duke of Perth..., Oliphant of Gask and Robert Mercer of Aldie, who had joined him as he passed through their estates. He wore a handsome suit of tartan trimmed with gold lace. The Jaco- bites in the crowd cheered enthusias- tically as he rode by... If the magist- rates and merchants of the city were less enthusiatic they could hardly be blamed: Charles seized £500 of the city's public money...” (Charles Edward Stuart by David Daiches, London 1973).


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