Catherine Rose married Dugald Gilchrist in 1800
when she was a girl of 16 or 17, and he ten years her senior. How or
when they met is not known, but her home was some distance away from
Ospisdale, and she was of the family of Tilliesnaught in Mar. Dugald
was an officer in the Fencibles, (a regiment raised by the Countess
of Sutherland in 1793) eventually attaining the rank of Major.
Catherine was descended on her father’s side from
General Middleton, one of Charles II’s commanders who played a minor
role in Dornoch’s history, and on her mother’s from Andrew Ross of
Shandwick, and so therefore it must have seemed a most suitable
match, for Dugald had recently inherited the Ospisdale estate from
his great uncle, and was already a man of some standing in
Sutherland.
The marriage certainly started very happily. While
Dugald was away with his regiment in Shetland, his bride wrote:
"Your letters are my chief, my only enjoyment. This is chapel week –
I go to church every day with every reason that must oppress my mind
in regard to my absent lord .... the plants look delightfully fresh
- all the Dutch flowers are blown and smell and look so fragrant –
just like you when you are fresh and blooming from the open air. I
have found a person to graft heels in your black silk stockings" ,
which shows that she had a care for his possessions, too.
Her mother was staying with her at this time. "My
mother desires to be remembered to you in the warmest, kindliest and
most affectionate manner, she loves you so much that I am almost
jealous .... people say that matrimony is a cure for love, but I do
not think of it that way ... it would certainly kill me if I could
suppose for one moment your affectionate feelings towards me had
suffered any diminution". They had by this time been married about
two months. She used to go to the quay to await the arrival of any
ship from Shetland that might bring mail "I always carry one of your
letters in my pocket until I receive another one, and then after
reading them over, I deposit them (my richest treasures) in my
bureau... sweet Ospisdale, I expect to pass many happy tranquil days
there, blessed with your society".
But alas, this happiness was not to last for ever.
Mrs. Rose, her mother, died within months, and afterwards Catherine
and her ever increasing family were left very much on their own,
with only occasional visits from her husband. In all, she had eight
babies, three sons (one dying in infancy) and five daughters, born
between 1801 and 1811. There were doubtless plenty of servants, and
people working on the estate, but nevertheless, it must have been a
lonely life, as there are, nor were then, few sizeable houses in the
vicinity, and social horizons were limited by the distance that a
horse could carry a rider or draw a carriage.
By 1806 Dugald Gilchrist had left the army, but was
away, either in Edinburgh or London attending to his business
affairs for much of the time. From a letter from his wife, addressed
to him in London, and dated February of that year, one gathers that
there had been a certain amount of disagreement between them, indeed
there is a coolness, even though the letter ends with "affectionate
esteem and sincere love, I remain, dearest Dugald, your warmly
attached Catherine G". But whatever Catherine’s shortcomings may
have been (and nothing specific is mentioned at this stage) life
cannot have been easy- at Ospisdale. The winter was hard "I am told
that never was such a fall of snow seen in this country". In another
letter she writes that being the mistress of "the big house" she
felt bound to supply gifts of food and sometimes of wine to elderly
tenants, particularly in cases of illness, "when we have barely
enough for this household", and she had to buy fodder for the few
cows which they had over-wintered.
The children were all ill at various times, and the
baby was in the care of a wet nurse whose milk had suddenly dried
up. Catherine had apparently undertaken to employ the woman for six
months – the woman did not wish to break the agreement, and
Catherine felt that she could not – "I did not like to object to it,
though I wished her away, though only to rid the house of one mouth
to feed" Food indeed seemed scarce – "the butcher only offered
£8.10.0d for the large cow, so of course she is here yet. I killed
one of the small ones who, contrary to what you expected, was far
gone in calf, and is tough indifferent beef". She goes on "I would
have given anything you had been at home". Poor Catherine! She
obviously still loved Dugald, but loneliness, added to the strain
and worry of running a large menage on a limited budget was
beginning to get too much for a 22 year old to bear, and she sought
consolation, as so many others have done before and since, in
alcoholic refreshment. This of course displeased, and doubtless
worried, her husband, but as yet the subject had not been referred
to in so many words, though in a letter a year later she says, "I am
extravagant enough to drink a bottle of porter each day .... but
when better will not do so. We are ill off for fresh meat, but hope
that will be remedied when you come, which I hope will be soon. The
children are well ... they now have plenty of milk, two of the cows
have calved since you left home". The letter ends rather
pathetically, "The child crying for me will relieve you from a
continuance of this most stupid scrawl, and with most affectionate
love, I am my most dear husband’s affectionate Catherine Gilchrist.
P.S. We will require candles this winter".
There is a gap in the letters of about five years,
and it seems that during this time, Catherine must have overstepped
the mark to such an extent that her husband could no longer have her
in his house, and he found a place in which she could stay in her
native Aberdeen. She writes long and rambling letters, very
difficult to read, pleading with him to allow her to return home ...
"my bewildered and half recollected thoughts cannot suggest any plea
in my defence, I believe there is none. You will therefore have the
more merit in restoring me to your presence, unhappy wretch that I
am, that I cannot say to love and esteem, and to my innocent
infants, on whom otherwise such a stain will be cast forever...how I
would labour night and day to please you and if you recall me, may
the Great God in Heaven grant me neither peace here nor hereafter if
I ever break my promise of abjuring every kind of liquor except when
sickness or deathbed render it necessary... oh! forgive me, oh!
forgive me this and all the rest". As usual, there is a postscript
"the cheapest, meanest place (to live) is 5/-d, beef 10d per lb (it
was only 6d in Sutherland) a few strawberries as to keep my mouth
moist half a day cost 6d".
Catherine’s sister, Diana Rose, wrote from Aberdeen
about the same time imploring Dugald to make better arrangements for
his wife, "to put her in a more retired place, as she is not fit at
all times to be her own guide", but of course we do not know what
reactions either of these letters, or indeed several others from
Catherine, produced. Catherine writes again "who can describe the
sorrows of a disconsolate mother - for heaven’s sake restore me to
my children – Heaven will accept the pangs I feel at this moment as
some atonement for my crimes and my future life shall be devoted to
proving how sensible I will be to your goodness in recalling me.
Write and relieve my bursting heart...". These letters read as
though they would touch a heart of stone, as indeed they were
intended to do, but Dugald Gilchrist must have known what he was
doing. He must have been sorely tried in the past, and given her
chance after chance to break her drinking habit; nevertheless, the
fact that these letters have survived for so many years, is perhaps
indicative of the fact that, despite everything, he still retained
some shreds of affection for her, but could it not have been a
mistake to send her so far from home? So far from all her friends
and family, where she had no occupation (at least at first), and
where there was all too much time to mix with doubtful company, and
drink whatever she could lay her hands on. She was kept on a very
tight budget for obvious reasons ... not more than £100 per annum
and apart from her rent (usually 5/-) coal food and laundry to pay
for, so the one time mistress of Ospisdale found herself in sadly
reduced circumstances, which are referred to in every letter.
She remained in Scotland, latterly in Edinburgh,
for some years, but in December 1826 she was removed to Kennington
in London, travelling by sea on board the ‘Sir Walter Scott’ She was
supposedly going to live in the care of a Dr. Macleod, but she
writes back to say that when she arrived at his address, he said he
knew nothing about her and would have nothing to do with her, which
must have been disappointing for everyone. About the same time as
she left for the south, young Dugald, then aged 24 years, and
studying law in Edinburgh, wrote to his father to say that he had
seen his mother before she left (he had evidently been instructed to
do this) he refers to her as ‘Mrs. R.’ or just ‘she’ – no mention of
her as Mother. "When I saw her, everything that was proper was
promised for the future – such promises are to be listened to, as I
am aware, with the utmost caution; from the seeming earnestness and
sincerity and penitence which accompanied them (whether summoned up
for the occasion I cannot say), I am inclined to hope that a most
salutary change will take place. Time will show". He goes on to say
that, while he has the greatest respect for his father’s judgement,
and appreciates how much he has already had to put up with, he
ventures to suggest that his mother might be placed in a more
comfortable situation, and given the wherewithal to make her
independent of her own work for subsistence.. "she would be in less
temptation’s way and would not be brought continuously into contact
with women of her own propensity, into whose company, if not
willingly, she must sometimes now necessarily fall".
What could the work be that young Dugald refers to?
Opportunities for gentlewomen were, to say the least, limited ....
one can but hope that her work was confined to plying her needle.
"She is now becoming an old woman (at 40), and if not altogether
insane, as years advance upon her, must see her abandoned life and
reform her conduct". But despite her son’s pleas, Catherine’s lot in
London seemed to be little improved, and she told him she would have
to seek work as soon as she got there. It was not many months before
she was living in Yorkshire, in a rural district near Malton, where
presumably living was cheaper. Nevertheless, short of money as she
always was, she managed, especially in the earlier years, to send
gifts of books to her children from time to time, and to buy
knitting wool and so on, as well as expend a considerable amount on
postage.
She writes to young Dugald as unhappily as before
"would to God you could prevail on Mr. G. to alter his mind in
regard to my place of residence". A P.S. to the letter from London
(11 December 1826) "will you let me have my writing box – you did
promise it and my cloathes (sic), though they never came".
She was now lodging with some tradespeople in Sherriff Hutton
(near Malton) and "here I am safe from all temptations". In a
further letter she presses him for news of the others, and suggests
he might send her a shirt and a pair of stockings to be used as
patterns to make him some new ones. "It would be my greatest pride
to help you a little, though it were but half a dozen shirts and a
few stockings". Perhaps she really had reformed by now and one
wonders if the shirts and stockings ever materialised. That letter,
dated December 1827, was the last from the poor lady. One further
letter remains in this sad little bundle – one from a certain Donald
Munro in Lincoln, dated October 1833, announcing Catherine’s death
in Newark (Notts) some time previously (no date given) and enclosing
the surgeon’s certificate. Mr. Munro was evidently a lawyer acting
on Dugald’s behalf. He writes "I have given orders that she should
be interred decently, though with as little pomp as possible, and I
have advanced money to suffice until I have time to settle her
affairs". Poor unhappy Catherine, her situation was without doubt
caused by "that degrading propensity which has brought so much
misery on herself and her connections" as one writer so delicately
put it, but it is sad to think that she died so far from home and
family (indeed she hadn’t set eyes on most of her children for so
many years that only the two or three elder ones would have any
recollection of her), and she was still under 50 years
old.