Fickleness of Mankind

April 14, 2019  Campbeltown Market Cross (front face)

The Campbeltown Market Cross provides insight into the fickleness of humankind...by retrospection. History judges all, as it were.

Campbeltown's Market Cross was something of a wanderer, literally.  In general, today most (but not all) accept that it was carved on Iona, and was probably created by the commission of Andrew MacEachern, pastor at Kilchoman parish church on the Isle of Islay, sometime around 1370 A.D.  Beyond this, the "stories" diverge.

A long enduring dispute exists over whether Campbeltown's Market Cross was originally erected at Kilkivan on Kintyre (as the Kintyriana claim) or was initially sited at Kilchoman on Islay (as the Illeach say) and was then taken (purloined) from Islay to Kintyre.  An intermediate stop, apparently, was the parish church at Kilkivan.  Regardless, the Market Cross eventually made its way to Main Street nearby Campeltown's Town Hall, at some point after 1608 A.D. when Campbeltown became a royal burgh.

One of the privileges of a royal burgh is that it can hold trade markets by its own authority.  Usually, a market cross served as the axis around which trade fairs assembled.  So, the royal burgh of Campbeltown required a Market Cross (or Mercat Cross) by the first decade of the 1600s.  Though perhaps a curious custom to us today, within the "boundaries" of a market cross not only were markets formed, but official public business was transacted as well.  This is evidenced in a royal charter by William III (William of Orange) issued April 19, 1700.

April 15, 2019  The Campbeltown Fair by Archibald MacKinnon (1886) 

The 1700 charter granted the Provost of Campbeltown "full liberty, licence and power...to have and erect a New Market Cross, weighing machine, weigh-house and a tollbooth."  At this Market Cross, it was "lawful for our lieges within the bounds of Kintyre, the Islands of Gigha and Cara to pound and appraise goods."

More onerous powers assigned to the Market Cross were also enumerated.  The Market Cross was where rebels were denounced.  And it was authorized:  "to do all other acts of proclamation and legal executions there at in like manner and as freely in all respects as if the same were the market cross of the principal burgh of the said Sheriffdom."

The royal charter of 1700 was retroactive, however, perhaps issued to recognize the de facto existence of Campbeltown's Market Cross.  Indeed, twenty years earlier, the Campbeltown Cross is known to have been standing.  A.I.B. Stewart ("Campbeltown Cross") noted that it was mentioned in criminal proceedings in 1680. A certain Finvall McCannill was "to be taken to the Mercat Cross of Campbeltwon and there to be whipt and scourgit by the hands of the common executioner."

Exactly when the Market Cross was removed from its ecclesiastical moorings (whether at Kilchoman on Islay of Kilkivan on Kintyre) and made its journey to Campbeltown in the 1600s may not be known.  But what is known is that it certainly did not escape unscathed in its wanderings.  More ardent critics of the era use the terms--desecrated or mutilated.

The Market Cross was indeed greatly "modified".  Figuratively speaking, its head was shamefully shaved by Reformation zealotry aimed at what they defined as graven images.  The Market Cross is emblematic, it bears witness of the fickleness of mankind, the mob.

A.I.B Stewart records that in 1640, at the beginning of the English Civil War (Oliver Cromwell and the Roundheads), an act of Parliament declared that "all idolatrous images, crucifixes, pictures of Christ and all other idolatrous pictures were to be demolished and removed forth from all churches, colleges, chapels and other public places."

April 15, 2019  Hogmanay at the Cross, Campbeltown by Archibald MacKinnon (1899) 

On July 8, 1642, the Synod of Argyll ordered every minister (installed to replace Catholic priests) was to report "all idolatrous monuments within their parishes to which the vulgar superstitiously resorts to worship, to the end the same may be demolished." 

Thus, some submit that the Market Cross made its journey to Campbeltown at this time in the early 1640s.   In any case, its carved image of our crucified Savior, which formerly occupied the central position on the disc head, was removed.  Two other figures (clerics--likely the MacEachern who commissioned the Cross) were chiseled away.  Interestingly though, the figure of Mary was left untouched by Reformation iconoclasts, as were images of St. John, the Archangel Michael slaying a dragon, a mermaid and various animals.

Thus, "purged of its Catholic excrescences" as one historian put it, it was erected (or possibly re-erected) as the town's Market Cross.  That it survived the destructiveness of the Protestant Reformation and mobs of iconoclasts at all is a wonder.  Local Reformationists were not so keen to destroy the magnificent artifact...as had been done so many times to countless others.

This was also not the end of its wandering.  In 1939, as the Battle of Britain raged in the skies over the United Kingdom, Campbeltown's Market Cross was taken down from its plinth at the Town Hall for safe keeping from German bombing raids.  After the Second World War, the Market Cross was relocated down Main Street from its former site to its current location at the Old Quay Head in the middle of the traffic roundabout...at Campbeltown's de facto gateway.

April 14, 2019  The Old Quay at Campbeltown

Prominently displayed in the Campbeltown Museum are two paintings by locally acclaimed artist, Archibald MacKinnon.  The Campbeltown Fair and Hogmanay at the Cross (shown above) feature the central place the Market Cross has had in Campbeltown's culture for hundreds of years.  Even today, most weddings and funerals customarily circumnavigate the Cross once before proceeding.

April 18, 2019  Davaar Island at the head of Campbeltown Loch

In 1887, MacKinnon had a dream or a vision that he was to paint the crucifixion of Christ in a sea cave on Davaar Island off Campbeltown.  Davarr is a tidal island off Campbeltown that is connected to the mainland at low tide via a causeway called The Doirlinn.

April 18, 2019  Davaar from the Doirlinn at low tide

We made the trek out to Davaar on Good Friday, an "appropriate" pilgrimage as one gentleman we met walking out to the sea caves styled it.  A few words of caution are necessary.  First, the ground is loose rounded cobble and boulder strewn.  It is challenging because you must mind your feet or risk turning your ankles severely.  A hiking staff would be helpful.  (The gentleman we met was using two staffs.)

April 18, 2019  Boulder field below the sea cliffs on Davaar Island

Second, care regarding tide tables is absolutely required when visiting Davaar.  For example, we were told by our Campbeltown hosts (Earadale B&B) that only a few days before we made our trek out to MacKinnon's sea cave painting a couple tourists had to be rescued off the Doirlinn beacon by the Royal Navy Life Boat Station at Campbeltown.

April 18, 2019  The Doirlinn Beacon; Campbeltown Loch in background

April 18, 2019  The Doirlinn Beacon

Though acclaimed today, MacKinnon was actually driven out of Campbeltown--in yet another testament of the fickleness of mankind's mob.  MacKinnon's painting was eventually discovered by fishermen.  Not knowing the source of the painting, locals declared it a miracle, a divine revelation.

April 18, 2019  Tidal flats on The Doirlinn

Once the source of the painting was known, MacKinnon suffered the indignation of public denouncements in the press...accused as an egotistical fame seeker, he was run off.  MacKinnon returned to Campbeltown to retouch his painting in 1902 and again in 1934.  

By then, the Campbeltown public opinion had markedly changed regarding MacKinnon.  He would be celebrated as a local artist, likely because many people came to Campbeltown to see the masterpiece.  Money (from enhancing the business of tourism)  certainly has a way of changing opinions.

Over the past century, many thousands have made a pilgrimage out to the Davaar sea cave.  When we visited, votive offerings and small crucifixes below the painting were evident. 

April 18, 2019  Votive offerings left at the Davaar sea cave painting  

Given more than a century since MacKinnon painted his sea cave work, some damage to the painting has been incurred due to water and the cave's humidity.  Restoration work has been done to the painting since MacKinnon last visited it in 1934.  A metal strip was installed above it help keep water from above running directly down the painting.  But all in all, given where it is--at sea level--the painting has survived well.

April 18, 2019  View from inside the Davaar sea cave

A note on the location, besides being on a boulder and shingled beach, the cave itself (despite claims on various websites) is not sign posted.  It is in what is claimed to be the seventh and final cave.  And so, we visited the various caves until we found what is today known as "The Crucifixion Cave".  But such is the stuff of pilgrimages...a search for quiet constancy beyond the howls of fickle mankind.

That is, as it has always been, a difficult path.      

April 18, 2019  The Crucifixion Cave, Davaar Island; by Archibald MacKinnon (1887)