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Angus MacKay's mental health has recently been made an issue by the Piping Times without providing the most important evidence of all -- when did he first become mentally disturbed?
For that reason alone it has been decided to replace the text in the original Angus MacKay link in this website with the text from part three of the four-part Radio Scotland series, Pibroch, the Tangled Web, which I wrote and presented and for which I also played the musical examples. It may help pipers to come to their own conclusions including why a balanced account of the evidence was not earlier made available to them:-
Wacky attempts are now being made to rehabilitate the reputation of Angus MacKay, by publishing accounts of his suffering at Bedlam after he was certified insane there on 4 February 1854. It followed an incident personally involving Queen Victoria in Windsor Castle the previous Christmas when Angus was out of his mind with “ardent spirits” (i.e. brandy, or the like).
As he insisted he was married to the Queen and the Royal children were his, it is not known if he had made a pass at Queen Victoria but it seems unlikely. The Queen’s person was held to be sacred and to touch it was regarded as high treason. One way of dealing with it was to defenestrate the guilty person, or discreetly push him out of a high window.
In return I had to give a lecture to 200 shrinks - without notes. Almost all the material concerned which has now appeared in Piping Times was published in 1980 in my book, The MacCrimmon Legend or the Madness of Angus MacKay, which acknowledged the great help given by Patricia Allderidge, the archivist at Bethlem and Maudsley Hospital which provided Angus’s case history for the book. She also wrote a paper which she presented at the Spring Quarterly Meeting of the Royal College of Psychiatrists at Montrose on 27 April 1981, to which I was invited, first to play a few of Angus MacKay’s tunes then, at five minute’s notice, to give a lecture, without notes, to 200 psychiatrists, which I did on the essential theme of when Angus had first become mentally afflicted.
One of the tunes I had arranged to play was The Laying of the Foundation Stone at Balmoral Castle 1853, which is in his Seaforth MS, but it is unplayable like most of the others, which I discussed with a famous piper, who emphatically agreed. It also indicated Angus was disturbed long before he was committed.
And this is the real crux of the matter The Piobaireachd Society has always claimed that he had completed his work before he was certified. But other serious factors are involved, which are scrutinised in the book, but avoided by the Piping Times.
Now the P.T. which is seen to be the house magazine of the Piob. Society, is edited by Robert Wallace, who is also vice-president of the Society. He is, too, principal of the College of Piping, which was founded by Seumas MacNeill, himself the long-time secretary of the Society, who took the position on condition that he was give sole international rights of selling the Society’s publications through the College.
Yet Seumas MacNeill had written to The Scotsman newspaper on 7 May 1954, describing himself as “joint principal of the College of Piping”, specifying: “It is true that the tunes written by the Piobaireachd Society are not correct.” The books concerned have never been corrected, but were surreptitiously based on settings by Angus MacKay, although the editor, Archibald Campbell, the Society’s then music secretary, asserted they were mostly derived from two famous pipers, Sandy Cameron and J. MacDougall Gillies, which was untrue. (See The Snidebytes ).
Formerly the Society ignored all criticism, to which it refused to reply in public, privately preferring to smear anyone who held it to account. But the situation has moved on because the Society is now a registered charity (no. SC001113) and it is accountable to the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator. The Society is also legally required to prove that its various productions are educational and historically accurate.
To demonstrate my goodwill, I have therefore decided to replace the short existing link, Angus MacKay, in this website with a longer version which scrutinises the evidence for when Angus became mentally afflicted, thus affecting the provenance of his written work and also the historical accuracy of other productions.
I am sure this information will be gladly welcomed by William Grant & Son, whisky distillers, as a fitting example of what it has achieved in the conservation of traditional pibroch. (See Birth of ‘The Glenfiddich’ )
Alistair Campsie
Pibroch: The Tangled Web (3) ANGUS MACKAY – MESSIAH OR MADMAN?
Recorded 28.3.1984
Broadcast 13.10.1985
Words in (bold) – inserted by BBC. Words in (italics) -- removed by BBC
I think it must be accepted that Archibald Campbell who dominated the Piobaireachd Society between the wars tried to brainwash modern pipers into believing Angus MacKay was (a cult hero) some sort of Messiah. Old pipers had different views.
There is little doubt that Campbell nursed a deep obsession over Angus on whom he adulated and even identified with. He wrote: "I can only say that I have made an exact copy by hand of the whole of his voluminous piobaireachd manuscript, volumes one and 2, and claim that anyone who does that must know something about the author when he has finished."
The statement tells us more about Archibald Campbell than it does about poor Angus. But Campbell did not stop there. He ridiculed, as was his custom, statements with which he disagreed. In particular previous statements that MacKay was uneducated and could not possibly have written out the music in the published book because he was ignorant of Italian musical terms.
Wherever Angus MacKay got his education, Campbell said. "I declare without hesitation that he was a well-educated man. His spelling may not always have been above reproach, but the same could be said about many a university graduate in honours. His calligraphy was marvellously good, and his capacity for expressing himself in English very remarkable."
Campbell went even further. Not only was MacKay well educated. He produced the published book unaided. "I am convinced," Campbell wrote in 1950, "from my knowledge of pipers, that the published book could not have received the immediate and unreserved reverence which it did if Angus MacKay were known to have had an assistant or assistants." (The) Odd that. Pipers couldn't have seen the book. It had been out of print for a century and was almost unobtainable.
Campbell also stated that because he had said MacKay was educated, all criticism should cease... but there was a contradiction here surely? If the book was universally revered how could there have been criticism?
Furthermore, Campbell asserted, the closest inspection of MacKay's writing revealed no trace whatsoever of abnormality, "the material for which he tells us in his own hand was collected by 1840." (Angus MacKay was certified insane in 1854) Angus MacKay was not certified insane until 1854.
And Campbell again: "The reverence with which pipers have treated Angus MacKay's book since its appearance is proof positive of the high reputation as an authority of John MacKay, of which there is much other evidence.
Campbell also alleged the Seaforth MS, written by MacKay in 1854, was "all beautifully and accurately written. Included was the statement that he had written all his pibroch from the 'canntireachd' of his father from 1826-1840."
Finally Archibald Campbell, a former Indian High Court Judge, revealed what might be the basis of his obsession. (“Inclined as I am,”) He preferred Angus because he was inclined "possibly by reason of my professional experience to discount oral tradition and, by preference, to grasp at any straws which can be gleaned from contemporary records."
Alas poor Angus made his claims about his father's music in a lunatic asylum. The manuscript in which he wrote the claims shows clear evidence of mental disturbance. And far from being beautifully written out, the urlar of MacLeod of Raasay's Salute trails away into stumbling incoherence. Other tunes are well written but unusual. One good piper I showed them to exclaimed that they were unplayable.
Perhaps I should recapitulate on Angus's life. He is believed to have been born on Raasay in 1813. His famous father John wanted to emigrate because of his acute poverty, but was found a job at Drummond Castle outside Crieff in Perthshire.
Angus was awarded 5s for writing out music in staff notation in 1825, as a boy, and was further rewarded the next year when he was given 4th prize at the Edinburgh contest over the head of his elder brother, Roderick.
He was not heard of again until he was suddenly and unexpectedly given 1st prize in Edinburgh in 1835; a curious award, as pipers were normally given 4th, 3rd, 2nd and 1st prize in successive years. He had somehow jumped the queue.
Could it have been this? Soon after the contest an advertisement came out for the published book. It claimed he was author - at the age of 21 - of a book which was to set the standards for all time to come. It was to be published the next year, in 1836.
It has been suggested the only part he played in the book was to have his name on the title page as editor. That is the charitable view, as the book was strewn with errors. It also contained the (first and) definitive account the MacCrimmons from which all other versions have been elaborated.
But most important to pipers, it was the first book which stipulated the length of the cadence E which was formerly written and (presumably) played as a grace-note. The new book gave them (quaver, dotted quaver or even crotchet) specific lengths.
The book was said to have been prepared for the press by an Edinburgh musician who had no knowledge of pipers, which would account for many of the blunders.
But the book did not come out in 1836 and, surprisingly Angus went next year to Islay, the home of the missing Campbell Canntaireachd, where an eye-witness said he had little or no knowledge of canntaireachd - a fact borne out by later evidence.
MacKay certainly had the missing fair copy of the Canntaireachd through his hands. Perhaps he had gone to Islay in the hope of finding someone to translate it. "For he knew little or nothing of canntaireachd when he came to Islay," J.F. Campbell, the noted folklorist, later wrote.
A scrutiny of, say, what is now known as Red Alexander of Glengarry's Lament proves this beyond doubt. In the Canntaireachd it is called Glengearries March, which MacKay actually copied out in his own hand - and a damned good march it is too. Not a cadence in sight, I may add.
So - if Angus understood canntaireachd why did he leave out the thumb variation which he actually copied out, obviously not knowing what the words stood for? It incidentally shows where the ground was wrongly (translated) written by Angus. Why the tune was never corrected and published properly in full by the Piob Society defeats me.
The book bearing Angus's name came out eventually in 1838. No explanation was given for the delay or why he had vanished to Islay.
In 1841 he married a loyal and devoted wife, the daughter of a farm servant from Crawford in Lanarkshire, and she bore him four healthy children who survived into old age. So did his wife.
In 1843 Angus was recommended by the Marquis of Breadalbane, a senior member of the Highland Society of London, as Queen Victoria's first piper. This incidentally gave Royal approval to the published book of 1838 which was largely financed by the Society.
In 1854 MacKay was certified insane after some sort of incident (the previous Christmas) that Christmas involving Queen Victoria to whom he later imagined he was married, thought the royal children were his and that Prince Albert was defrauding him of his marital rights.
He was confined to Bedlam and later transferred to the Crichton at Dumfries. He escaped in the Spring of 1854 (corrected in broadcast to 1859) and, trying to elude capture, drowned in the Nith.
When he was admitted to Bedlam his illness was said to be caused by alcoholism. This was later crossed out - no-one knows when - but when he was transferred to the Crichton (as "the most dangerous patient in England") his illness was again put down to alcohol. He was also noted to be suffering from advanced syphilis.
Because of my (line of teaching) reverence for the MacKays, I was most reluctant to investigate Angus MacKay's medical history. Others, mostly without a shred of traditional teaching had the grossness to (question my motives) accuse me of bad taste, which I found most (distasteful) offensive. (One of them was actually writing a book speculating on the length of Napoleon's penis)
But I well know that concealment of the facts was not acceptable. And I could not reconcile the facts that MacKay was suffering from advanced syphilis and yet had four healthy children, the youngest of whom was only 14 months old when Angus was certified insane.
(I was put in touch with the venerologist to the Tayside Health Board, who luckily also had an interest in history. Dr K.D. Cochran studied the case histories and other available evidence and stated: )
I was put in touch with a venereologist who had studied the case histories: and stated:
( "The likeliest explanation of the violent manias exhibited by this historical character is that he had cerebral syphilis. The chronology is important. He was born in 1813, married in 1841, (aged 27) was appointed Piper at age 29, and sacked at age 40 being then admitted to Bethlem.)
"In the 12 years of his conjugal life, four children were born, each of commendable ability. This suggests they did not have congenital syphilis, and in turn, that MacKay acquired the infection some years prior to marriage. He would become noninfectious after two-and-a-half years and, I suggest, did not infect his wife."
(Dr Cochran)The doctor listed three types of cerebral syphilis, the third of which was Grandiose. "This is the classical General Paralysis of the Insane. The patient is boastful, aggressive, hallucinated and deluded. He had maniacal outburst, or shows extreme irritability. As a rule, untreated patients died in three to five years."
("In the early stages, however, the grandiose aggressive personality may be capable of useful, even inspired concepts and work. James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, was probably in the early stages of G.P.I. when he first met and abducted Mary Queen of Scots. It could be argued that his swashbuckling behaviour may have attracted the young lady.
("It is in this type of recurrent manic cerebral syphilis that the most striking remissions occur and in which life may be prolonged. My position is that Angus MacKay and James Hepburn fit the clinical picture... In periods of lucidity or remission - perhaps lasting many weeks - he could probably have worked well. I think it is Carlyle who remarks on 'the gentle stimulation of syphilis' in certain authors and artists. Gaugin the painter had it." ) As I remarked the MacCrimmon legend may therefore have had a most unhappy genesis.
Now, if Angus MacKay acquired the infection some years prior to marriage in 1841, this indicates that the very latest he could have acquired the illness was in July 1838 - the exact month in which the book bearing his name came out.
It would be stretching coincidence to absurdity to claim that MacKay married immediately after he became non-infectious. How would he have known anyway? The indication is that he contracted his illness at some time previously, and married possibly in the knowledge it had not cleared up.
The book was advertised in 1835 when it was claimed to be ready for publication. The ads said: "The pibrochs have been collected and compiled with the greatest care and have in the state in which they are now offered to the public obtained the approbation of the best judges of performances on the Scottish Bagpipes and also of the most practised and skilful performers."
The book was supposed to have come out in February 1836. It seems reasonable to suggest his illness might have delayed publication. After which he mysteriously went to Islay. Was he really after a translation of the Campbell Canntaireachd, or was he hidden away as an embarrassment?
Angus thought he was married to the Queen I literally do not know. All that can be ascertained is that poor Angus was mentally disturbed by 1838. According to the psychiatrists his illness would have made him shrug off any mistakes, even bluster that he was right and everyone else was wrong. At the least, the book is suspect, and his illness may account for the litany of ludicrous errors.
But did he write the book or not? The historical parts are professionally written. But we have a sample of Angus MacKay's writing in English.
We also now have the preface handy, which was rarer than wealthy pipers when Archibald Campbell made his claim that no-one helped Angus MacKay. The preface unequivocally states in the gaudy prose of the time: "He hopes the Public will treat with leniency any defects that may be perceived. He avails himself of the opportunity of returning his deep acknowledgements to those noblemen and gentlemen who so freely encouraged the undertaking, and he has to offer deserved thanks to some literary friends who assisted him in the researches for the historical portion of the work."
I intend no disrespect to Angus MacKay who it must be remembered was a native Gaelic speaker, trying to express himself in a foreign language. But many years after he learned English he wrote in a single sentence: "This is a brief account of my father's family: John MacKay, commonly called Ian MacRuari of Eyre Rarsair, Isle of Skye; he was, I believe, left an orphan with one sister; he was reared up by Malcolm MacLeod, commonly called 'Fir Aire;' being there employed as a herd boy, etc. and in the house.
The next sentence states: "Fir Eyre played the pipes and was teaching a young lad; my father used to overhear them and pick up his lesson and play the same on the moors while herding; and that on a fiad an Sialeasda he was overheard by Fir Aire, who taught him and afterwards sent him to the College of the MacCrummens and to the Mackays of Gearloch; and he maried Margaret Maclean..."
This sentence, incidentally, contains the only “evidence” that John MacKay was trained by the MacCrimmons, written in a Victorian lunatic asylum by Angus MacKay after he had been certified insane. It should also be noted that John MacKay was only five or at most six when the last MacCrimmon left Skye.
For technical reasons as a professional writer I think it was impossible for the person to have written these words also to have written the preface apparently signed by Angus MacKay.
(I also asked Professor Tommy Dunn of the Department of English Studies, Stirling University, to examine the various samples of Angus MacKay's writing and the published book and give his opinion on whether the same person wrote both.
(He said: "I very much doubt it.")
Anyway the National Library and the British Museum have for long credited one James Logan with the authorship of the various written sections. He is perhaps better known as the man who wrote the book containing the famous MacIan prints of Highlanders, found in many gift shops. He was also secretary of the Highland Society of London when the book was in the making. The minutes for the time have mysteriously vanished.
As for who wrote out the music, no-one can be sure until the manuscript for the printed book turns up. If it ever does. Everything else has -- and its continued disappearance is increasingly suspicious. One thing we do know is Angus MacKay's distinctive handwriting and notation, which would tell us in a second if he did in fact write out the tunes.
Personally I think if Angus MacKay was responsible for editing the published book, he was gravely at fault. It’s stuffed with blunders. Not simple ones to explain away, either, but serious errors affecting the tunes claimed to be direct from the MacCrimmons.
(It was also the first book, as I've said, to give any melody note value to the cadence E. Donald MacDonald wrote them as grace notes. So did Angus MacArthur. So did Joseph MacDonald, published by his brother in 1803, but written around 1760. The Campbell Canntaireachd rarely if ever gave them.
What we also know is that Angus later rewrote his manuscript books to coincide with the style in the printed book, leaving out the tunes already published. The watermarks on the paper tell us that. All I know for sure is that the cadence E was introduced under Angus's name.
Examples are found in first Lament of Donald of Laggan, and secondly what is now called MacCrimmon's Sweetheart, but is known to traditional pipers as Muldoon -- and anyone who believes the latter-day tale about MacCrimmon's brown cow is literally up a kye.
When you examine the music for these tunes it is clear that Angus is responsible for stuffing lengthy E cadences into the tunes, in defiance of tradition. If someone else wrote his book, one can understand his dilemma. But not for later inserting it into his rewritten MSS books.
Perhaps I should now examine ex-judge Campbell's standards of proof that Angus MacKay's book was instantly accepted as the piper's Gospel, and by implication that Angus was the new Messiah.
It seems almost certain that Angus was mentally disturbed before the book bearing his name came out, after which he rewrote his manuscript books. If so all his work is suspect.
Despite Campbell's claims, Angus did not, in fact could not, write the editorial part of the book. If he did write out the music he was careless to the point of confusion.
(The book introduced long E cadences which his father did not use, and had never appeared in print before)
Despite Campbell's protestations about Angus being well-educated, his own argument falls flat when the admission sheet to Bedlam is scrutinised. Doctors who examined MacKay in person categorically stated his education, and I quote, was "inferior".
The book was specifically not held in reverence by pipers when it appeared, and John MacKay did not give it any traditional authority. How could he have? His music was changed. It was highly misleading of Campbell to claim that "authority", especially as evidence otherwise exists in the John MacKay MSS, which Campbell was art and part in suppressing.
The published book also destroyed traditional gracenoting; among other things introducing the clumsy and heavy low G on the D echoing beat, which none of the Camerons or their pupils played. It also wrecked the taorluath on low G.
John MacKay's famous pupil, John Bain MacKenzie, was quoted as saying "we had no gracenotes" when he was taught in the early 1800s. The Piobaireachd Society later claimed this meant there were no E cadences, thereby admitting they had wilfully inserted them.
After the book was published Angus MacKay must have had no option but to play in the same style, which incidentally destroyed the traditional gracenoting detailed by Joseph MacDonald in his Compleat Theory around 1760, the Campbell Canntaireachd around the end of the 1700's, Angus MacArthur around 1820, and by John Ban Mackenzie himself.
This led Sandy Cameron, whose father was taught by Angus MacKay's father, to state: "Angus had a style all of his own."
It also means that Sandy's father, Donald Cameron, was not taught by Angus MacKay, but by John Bain Mackenzie, who was taught, as I said, by John MacKay.
This in turn shows why the Cameron style differed from Angus MacKay. It came directly from John MacKay, the father.
It also shows why the MacPherson style differed. It came directly through the Bruces from the MacCrimmons, the last of whom was taught by a MacArthur.
We have specific evidence that Angus had "this style of his own." In 1926 GF Ross published Some Piobaireachd Studies. In it he quoted Simon Fraser of Melbourne who stated his own father "was well aware that Angus MacKay recorded various tunes differently to the way they were played by Iain Dubh MacCrimmon. And Fraser’s father should have known - he (was taught by Iain Dubh) actually knew Iain Dubh and Gesto.
As for the claim that the book was instantly accepted as their Gospel, Simon Fraser added: "At the time there was considerable adverse comment." GF Ross remarked: "Even allowing for some distortion of fact when such points come down a generation, it would seem to suggest that possibly Angus MacKay had a way of his own." There was the damning quote again.
And Book 5 of the earlier Piob Society series, suppressed by Campbell and others, actually claimed that Angus was no greater an authority than his brother, John. Little wonder the book had to be withdrawn, after what we have learned, especially as it refers time and time again to Angus's blunders.
The MacPhersons were so contemptuous of the published book they declared it was the errors in it that had driven poor Angus off his head.
Finally we have Archibald Campbell's statement that he preferred any scrap of written record to spoken tradition.
But the written record can only be as good as the source. Any researcher can tell you that. In this case Campbell took the non-traditional record of a person who altered his father's music while he was mentally disturbed. Then Campbell tried to foist this music, blunders and all, on the pipers he had tried to brainwash.
But that was only part of the scam. The softening-up process in a massive confidence trick. I'll tell you (next week) later how the scam operated -- to the musical detriment of us all.
(After the programme ended the announcer stated that I had asked for the date of Angus MacKay’s escape to be corrected to 1859)
(end part three)
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