Confront the past, not erase it
John Blackadder
I have been thinking about lockdown and the 60-70,000 who have not climbed the hill to visit the Church of The Holy Rude. It’s an incredibly beautiful and important place: the site of James VI’s coronation, the second oldest building in Stirling. Of course you know all about it, but perhaps you never really paid attention to the memorials on its walls, which you certainly can’t see now?
I have to admit I tend to flash past them too, but one name always sticks out: Lieutenant Colonel John Blackadder. He lived at Craigforth and became the Deputy Governor of Stirling Castle. His father was a Covenanting minister who died in a damp cell on the Bass Rock.
John joined the military and served under William of Orange, securing the Glorious Revolution, fighting across Europe and even defending Stirling Bridge against the Jacobites in 1715, although they never got that far, having lost at Sheriffmuir. He saw Scotland move to Union with England and he and his family profited from the new state.
His Wikipedia page features a handsome portrait of him in armour, together with a spaniel and a small boy of African descent behind him, possibly a servant but potentially a slave. The composition of the painting reflects aspects of John’s life, his military career, his wealth and taste. The unknown and otherwise unrecorded boy’s face and posture deliberately echoes that of the dog, thus presumably reflecting John’s view of him.
John’s diaries were first printed in the early 19th century featuring this picture but in their later reprint the wee boy was removed.
What should we now think about John? All the various strands of his life are still highly contentious issues today but I have always believed that we should confront and learn from the past rather than erase it.