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The Kinnoull Aisle and Monument

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 April 2016

Deborah Howard
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Extract

Inside the rubble-walled chapel known as the Kinnoull Aisle, across the Tay from the city of Perth, stands one of the most remarkable funeral monuments ever erected in Scotland (Fig. 1). Now abandoned and desolate, the monument commemorates the life of Sir George Hay, who was created Earl of Kinnoull in 1633, the year before his death, at the end of a brilliant career as a courtier, politician and industrialist. The burial chapel (Fig. 2) was originally attached to the former parish church of Kinnoull. Like the more celebrated Montgomery Aisle and Monument at Skelmorlie, near Largs, erected in the same years, it is now freestanding; the adjoining church was demolished in the nineteenth century, probably in 1826 when a new church was erected on a different site to serve the parish of Kinnoull. Before turning to the monument itself, it is expedient to introduce the formidable statesman whose memory it enshrines.

Type
Research Article
Information
Architectural History , Volume 39 , 1996 , pp. 36 - 53
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain 1996

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References

Notes

1 For general information on the Kinnoull Aisle and Monument see McGibbon, David and Ross, Thomas, The Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland, III (Edinburgh, 1897), pp. 580-81Google Scholar; David Graham-Campbell, , Scotland’s Story in Her Monuments (London, 1982), pp. 120-21Google Scholar; Findlay, W. H., Heritage of Perth (Perth, 1984), p. 76 Google Scholar; Gentles, J., Kinnoull Aisle, Perth: Monument to George Hay, first Earl qfKinnoull, Historic Scotland Conservator’s Report, unpublished (Edinburgh, 1992)Google Scholar; Tindall, Benjamin and Ainsworth, Gradella, Kinnoull Aisle and Monument, Restoration Feasibility Study, unpublished (Edinburgh, 1992)Google Scholar; Howard, Deborah, Scottish Architecture from the Reformation to the Restoration 1560–1660 (Edinburgh, 1995), pp. 205-07Google Scholar.

2 Taylor, David B. (ed.), The Third Statistical Account of Scotland: The Counties of Perth and Kinross (Coupar Angus, 1979)Google Scholar.

3 Nisbet, Alexander, A System of Heraldry … of the most considerable Simames and Families in Scotland, 2 vols. (Edinburgh, 1722), 1, p. 184 Google Scholar.

4 For biographical information see especially SirPaul, James Balfour (ed.), The Scots Peerages V (Edinburgh, 1908), pp. 219-23Google Scholar; The Dictionary of National Biography, ed. SirStephen, Leslie and SirLee, Sidney (London, 1921-22), IX, pp. 258-60Google Scholar.

5 Descriptions of Gowrie house and gardens are to be found in Grose, Francis, The Antiquities of Scotland, II (London, 1791), p. 244 Google Scholar; and Penny, George, Traditions of Perth … during the last century (Perth, 1836)Google Scholar; facsimile reprint (Coupar Angus, 1986), pp. 3-4.

6 Bowler, David and Cachait, Ray et al, ‘Tay Street Perth: the excavation of an early harbour site’, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 124 (1994), pp. 467-89Google Scholar.

7 See Grose, , Antiquities, II, pp. 244-45Google Scholar; Howard, Scottish Architecture, pp. 101-02.

8 Stell, Geoffrey, ‘Scottish Burgh Houses 1560-1707’, in Town Houses and Structures in Medieval Scotland; A Seminar, ed. Simpson, Anne Turner and Stevenson, Sylvia (Glasgow, 1980), pp. 1–31 (pp. 17-18)Google Scholar; Howard, Scottish Architecture, pp. 152, 155; Perth Museum and Art Gallery, Reflections of Old Perth (Perth, 1979), p. 35 Google Scholar.

9 Lee, Maurice, jun., Government by the Pen: Scotland under James VI and I (Urbana, Chicago and London, 1980), p. 164 Google Scholar.

10 Lythe, S. G. E., The Economy of Scotland in its European Setting 1550-1625 (Edinburgh and London, 1960), pp- 44–45 Google Scholar.

11 On Hay’s glass-making activities see Donaldson, Gordon, Scotland; James V—James VII (Edinburgh, 1987), p. 245 Google Scholar; Fleming, A., Scottish and Jacobite Glass (Glasgow, 1938), p. 95—99 Google Scholar; A., and Clow, N. L., The Chemical Revolution (London, 1952), pp. 26–27 Google Scholar; Lythe, The Economy, pp. 41-43; Lee, Government, p. 196.

12 Fleming, Scottish and Jacobite Glass, p. 97.

13 Fleming, Scottish and Jacobite Glass, p. 98 (with the measurements translated from Scots ells and nails).

14 Batey, Colleen E. (ed.), Discovery and Excavation in Scotland 1993, Council for Scottish Archaeology (Edinburgh, 1994), p. 30 Google Scholar.

15 Fleming, Scottish and Jacobite Glass, p. 98.

16 Lee, Government, pp. 206–07.

17 Lee, Government, pp. 212-13.

18 Balfour Paul, The Scots Peerage, p. 222.

19 Balfour Paul, The Scots Peerage, p. 222.

20 Lee, Government, p. 130.

21 Lee, Government, p. 162.

22 Dictionary of National Biography, IX, p. 260.

23 Crawford, George, The Peerage of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1716), p. 249 Google Scholar.

24 Polybius, , The Histories of Polybius, transl. Shuckburgh, Evelyn S., I (London and New York, 1889), p. 467 (Book VI, 10)Google Scholar.

25 Rawson, Elizabeth, The Spartan Tradition in European Thought (Oxford, 1969), pp. 131–34 Google Scholar.

26 Rawson, The Spartan Tradition, p. 10.

27 Polybius, The Histories, p. 467 (Book VI, 10). Dr Arthur Johnston (1587-1641), MD Padua 1610, also published a translation of the Psalms into Latin verse in 1637. In the same year he edited and contributed to the Deliciae Poetorum Scotorum hujus Aevi, and became rector of Aberdeen University. The identity of Dr Johnston was kindly pointed out to me by Dr Jean Wilson, together with biographical details. For further information see Dictionary of National Biography, x, pp. 946–48.

28 Howard, Scottish Architecture, pp. 129-31.

29 Rawson, The Spartan Tradition, pp. 130-69.

30 See the view of the River Tay and Kinnoull Hill in Penny, Traditions, unnumbered plate.

31 The Revd Mylne, Robert Scott, The Master Masons to the Crown of Scotland and their Works (Edinburgh, 1983), pp. 80–100 Google Scholar.

32 Mylne, The Master Masons, pp. 100-03.

33 SirSinclair, John (ed.), The Statistical Account of Scotland 1791—8, XI: South and East Perthshire, Kinross-shire (Wakefield, 1976), pp. 295–97 Google Scholar.

34 Dupplin was not part of the Gowrie estates, but was transferred to Hay soon after it was sold by its owners, the Oliphants, to the 8th Earl of Morton in c. 1623. Service wings were added to the Casde in c. 1720-25 by Smith, James (Colvin, Howard, A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1600–1840 [London, 1995 edn], p. 896)Google Scholar, and he may have rebuilt the main house from c. 1707. The building was destroyed by fire in 1827 and rebuilt in the neo-Jacobean style by William Burn in 1828-32. It was demolished in 1967 (see Colvin, A Biographical Dictionary, p. 187; Walker, David, ‘William Burn: the country house in transition’, in Seven Victorian Architects, ed. Fawcett, Jane [London, 1976], pp. 8–31 [pis 2 and 3])Google Scholar. I am grateful to the anonymous reader of my manuscript for information contained in this note.

35 The highest monument in Westminster Abbey, that of Lord Hunsden (d. 1596) in the Chapel of St John the Baptist, is 36 feet high (Pevsner, London & Westminster, p. 436). See also White, Adam, ‘Westminster Abbey in the early Seventeenth Century: A Powerhouse of Ideas’, Church Monuments, IV (1989), pp. 16–53 Google Scholar.

36 For examples of the use by Nicholas Stone of engravings and portraits in the design of monuments, see White, Adam C. F., The Sculpture of Nicholas Stone, (unpublished M.A. report, Courtauld Institute of Art, London University, 1979), pp. 6, 16, 21-22Google Scholar. Dr Jean Wilson informs me of an interesting earlier example of a tomb effigy based on a portrait, although in a different pose, in the monument to Elizabeth, Lady Russell (d. 1609) atBisham, Berkshire.

37 For surveys of Scottish funerary art in this period see Graham Campbell, Scotland’s Story, pp. 101-43, and most recently Howard, Scottish Architecture, pp. 198-209. General surveys of English tombs of the time may be found in Mann, J. G., ‘English Church Monuments, 1536-1625’, Walpole Society, XXI (1932-33), pp. 1–22 Google Scholar; MrsEsdaile, Katharine A., English Church Monuments 1510-1840 (London, 1946)Google Scholar; Whinney, Margaret, Sculpture in Britain 1530-1830 (Harmondsworth, 1964)Google Scholar. See also White, Adam, ‘Classical Learning and the Early Stuart Renaissance’, Church Monuments, I, part 1 (1985), pp. 20–33 Google Scholar; Llewellyn, Nigel, The Art of Death: Visual Culture in the English Death Ritual c 1500-c. 1800, Victoria & Albert Museum exhibition catalogue (London, 1991)Google Scholar; and White, Adam, ‘England c.1560-c.1660: A Hundred Years of Continental Influence’, Church Monuments, VII (1992), pp. 34–53 Google Scholar.

38 On the Renaissance tendency to glorify intellectual achievement in continental funerary art, see Panofsky, Erwin, Tomb Sculpture, ed. Janson, H. W. (London, 1964), pp. 69–70 Google Scholar.

39 The Workes of Iohn Boys D.D., Dean of Canterbury, (London, 1622). The frontispiece by John Payne shows four scenes from the author’s life. He is seen writing at his desk on the left side, reading in his library on the right, preaching at the foot of the page, and praying at the top.

40 Dictionary of National Biography, 11, pp. 1036-37.

41 See Panofsky, Tomb Sculpture, p. 79 and figs 324, 346, 348-49.

42 Aries, Philippe, The Hour of our Death, trans. Weaver, Helen (New York, 1982), pp. 299–300 Google Scholar. A fine example, of a knight startled at the sight of the Garden of Gethsemane, may be seen on a sixteenth-century tomb in the parish church of St Mary in Wittenberg, Luther’s home town. On the activation of tomb effigies see Panofsky, Tomb Sculpture, pp. 76-83.

43 See Panofsky, Tomb Sculpture, pp. 86, 88, figs 413-16. More Michelangelesque than the scholar effigies already mentioned is Nicholas Stone’s statue of the Hon. Francis Holies of 1623/4-27 in Westminster Abbey.

44 The likeness is said to have been taken by Stone from a painting made during Donne’s last illness. See Spiers, Walter Lewis, ‘The Notebooks and Accounts of Nicholas Stone’, Walpole Society (Oxford, 1918-19), pp. 38–138 (p. 64)Google Scholar.

45 Examples may be seen in the monument to Peregrine, Lord Willoughby and his daughter of 1611–12 in Spilsby, Lincolnshire, and that commemorating Sir George Holies in Westminster Abbey of c. 1631.

46 A further example is the monument to Robert Graye, in St Mary Magdalene, Taunton, Somerset, though he died after the Earl of Kinnoull, in 1635. The standing effigy of John Cole (d. 1632) at Ottery St Mary, Devon, is depicted in armour.

47 Johnson, Alfred Forbes, A Catalogue of Engraved and Etched English Title Pages … to 1691 (Oxford, 1934)Google Scholar; Corbett, Margery and Lightbown, Ronald, The Comely Frontispiece: The Emblematic Title-Page in England (London, Henley and Boston, 1979)Google Scholar.

48 Firth, Charles H., ‘Sir Walter Raleigh’s History of the World’, Proceedings of the British Academy, VIII (1917-18), pp. 427-46 (pp. 443-44)Google Scholar; Woolf, D. R., The Idea of History in Early Stuart England (Toronto, Buffalo and London, 1990), pp. 45–55 Google Scholar; Anderson, Christy J., ‘Learning to read architecture in the English Renaissance’, in Albion’s Classicism: The Visual Arts in Britain 1650-1660, ed. Gent, Lucy (New Haven and London, 1995), PP- 239-86 (pp. 253-55)Google Scholar.

49 Firth, ‘Sir Walter Raleigh’s History’, p. 434.

50 I am grateful for Professor John Crook for recognizing the correct reading of the inscription and identifying its source.

51 Firth, ‘Sir Walter Raleigh’s History’, pp. 439, 441.

52 Firth, ‘Sir Walter Raleigh’s History’, p. 439.

53 An earlier instance of the privy purse appearing on a funeral monument is to be seen in that of Sir John Puckering (d. 1596) and his wife in the chapel of St Paul in Westminster Abbey.

54 See McLagan, Michael, ‘Genealogy and Heraldry in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries’, in English Historical Scholarship in the 16th and 17th centuries, ed. Fox, Leri (Oxford, 1956), pp. 31–48 Google Scholar; Woodcock, Thomas and Robinson, John Martin, The Oxford Guide to Heraldry (Oxford, 1988)Google Scholar; Llewellyn, Nigel, ‘Claims to Status through Visual Codes: Heraldry on post-Reformation Funeral Monuments’, in Anglo, Sydney (ed.), Chivalry in the Renaissance (Woodbridge, 1990), pp. 144–160 Google Scholar; Day, J. E. R., ‘Primers of Honor: Heraldry, Heraldry Books, and English Renaissance Literature’, Sixteenth Century Journal, XXI (1990), pp. 92–103 Google Scholar.

55 Legh, Gerard, The Accedens of Armory (London, 1562)Google Scholar; Bossewell, John, Workes of Armorie (London, 1572)Google Scholar; Ferne, John, The Blazon of Gentrie (London, 1586)Google Scholar; Bolton, Edmund, The Elements of Armories (London, 1610)Google Scholar; Guillim, John, A Display of Heraldrie (London, 1610)Google Scholar; and Guillim, John, A Display ofHeraldrie … corrected and much enlarged by the Author (London, 1632)Google Scholar. See also Day, J. E. R., ‘Primers of Honor: Heraldry, Heraldry Books, and English Renaissance Literature’, Sixteenth Century Journal, XXI (1990), pp. 93–103 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

56 Hart, Vaughan, ‘ “A peece rather of good Heraldry than of Architecture”: Heraldry and the orders of architecture as joint emblems of chivalry’, Res, 23 (Spring 1993), pp. 52–66 Google Scholar; Anderson, ‘Learning to read’, pp. 261-62.

57 Guillim, A Display (1632 edn), preface.

58 Nisbet, A System, 11, pp. 186-87.

59 Nisbet, A System, 11, p. 184.

60 Guillim, A Display (1632 edn), p. 186.

61 Guillim, A Display, p. 18.

62 Guillim, A Display, p. 401.

63 Nisbet, A System, p. 187.

64 Nisbet, A System, p. 184.

65 Crowning obelisks had become a popular convention on late Elizabethan monuments (several prominent examples can be seen in Westminster Abbey).

66 Graham Campbell, Scotland’s Story, pp. 116-17; Howarth, David, ‘Sculpture and Scotland 1540-1700’, in Virtue and Vision: Sculpture and Scotland 1540–1990, ed.Pearson, Fiona, National Gallery of Scodand exhibition catalogue (Edinburgh, 1991), pp. 27–37 Google Scholar (p. 28, figs 19 and 29).

67 McGibbon, David and Ross, Thomas, The Castellated and Domestic Architecture of Scotland, III (Edinburgh, 1889), pp. 584-87Google Scholar.

68 Sinclair, The Statistical Account, XI, p. 304.

69 Spiers, ‘The Notebooks’, pp. 38-138.

70 White, The Sculpture, p. 3. The burial chapel is dated 1633, and the first payment for the monument is 1636. Wyn was Treasurer to Queen Henrietta Maria.

71 Stone’s notebooks reveal that he remained in close contact with the de Keyser family, both professionally and socially. E.g. see Spiers, ‘The notebooks’, pp. 93, 116–17. On de Keyser see Kuyper, Wouter, Dutch Classicist Architecture (Delft, 1980), pp. 8–14, 28-31Google Scholar.

72 As Kemp points out, ‘garlands of leaves, fruit and flowers, masks, curtains, drapes and objects alluding to the profession of the deceased’ became increasingly popular in English monuments after 1610 (Kemp, English Church Monuments, p. 90).

73 Mylne, The Master Masons, pp. 104-32. The clearest summary of the confusingly overlapping careers of the three seventeenth-century John Mylnes is in Colvin, A Biographical Dictionary (1995 edn), pp. 674-78. See also Howard, Scottish Architecture, pp. 216-17.

74 Weever, John, Ancient Funeral Monuments, London, 1631 Google Scholar.

75 Ferne, The Blazon, p. 26.

76 Panofsky, Tomb Sculpture, pp. 74–96.

77 Plutarch, , ‘Life of Lycurgus’, in Plutarch’s Lives, the Translation called Dryden’s, ed. Clough, A. H. (Liverpool, 1883), 1, pp. 83–126 (p. 119)Google Scholar.

78 Plutarch,’Life of Lycurgus’, p. 119.