The Man Who Was Robinson Crusoe

by Rick Wilson

  This is to be found at the side of the path leading from the top of the twelve entrance steps to the North transept. The stone is small, about two feet high, leaning at a ten-degree angle in a bed of white seashells, and very weather-worn. On the front can be read the initials JS and EM, standing for John Selcraig and Euphan Mackie, the parents of Alexander Selkirk; and on the back is the name Andrew Selkirk.*

  On the church’s front wall that overlooks the venerable village homes that seem to rise up and almost embrace it, there is a high stone panel with a faded winged angel-face that says simply FEAR GOD with the date 1623 at the foot of it. That date was 53 years before Alexander Selkirk was born, so although the site has housed a church since the 12th century, this building was of course a relatively new place when it called him to order so repeatedly as a young man.

  Did the boy fear God enough and attend the kirk as assiduously as his family? It seems unlikely, as it is generally agreed by all his chroniclers that the young Selkirk was of ‘a most unruly disposition’, with a violent temper; and the damning word ‘fornication’ appears among the church’s records pertinent to him.

  In the absence of police control, the parish churches tended to be the moral arbiters and punishers of the wayward in Selkirk’s time. A look back on their early 18th-century records throws illumination on the extent of their power and influence then over their parishioners, who were God-fearing in the most literal sense of the phrase. Ministers, often with the zealous help their under-officials, were like civil magistrates, who used a subject’s terror of a humiliating public sentence in front of the congregation to help check the progress of vice, mischief and perceived immorality.

  So it’s not hard to imagine that, as a troublesome teenager, the spoiled and unruly young Alexander didn’t always relish the trek up the hill to count his largely unappreciated blessings and listen to the interminable diatribes of the fire-breathing minister, the Revd Alex Moncrieff.

  Indeed, it was when that firepower was specifically aimed at him that he decided, before the chastising kirk session was done, that he might not wait around to find out what punishment they had in store for him. He was 19 years old when called to account over an incident that was to prove catalytic to his career, giving him a real taste for the salty life.

  1695, August 25 – The same day the Session mett.

  Alexr. Selchraige to be summoned.

  The qlk day Alexr Selcraige, son of John Selcraige, elder, in Nether Largo, was dilated for his undecent beaiviar in ye church; the church officer is ordirred to ga and cite him to compear befoor our Session again ye nixt dyett.

  What had he been up to that so offended the church? One account says was accused of having ‘thrawed his mouth’ at the minister. What did that mean? A couple of definitions of ‘thraw’ offered by the Concise Scots Dictionary might give us a clue. One is ‘a twisting of the face; a wry expression’; the other a more full-on ‘fit of obstinacy or ill-humour; the sulks.’ But indecent behaviour in the church? It sounds worse than insolence or the sulks, and modern writer Amanda Mitchison in her eponymous children’s book on Alexander Selkirk, suggests that it was. She writes that the previous Sunday, as his rasping and droning about Hell and damnation had gone on for almost three hours, the minister grew untypically quiet as he became aware of the spreading sound of muffled giggling among the pews, followed by a distinct splashing sound; then he noticed that the cheeky and uncontrollable Alexander Selkirk appeared to be relieving himself within the sacred walls of the church. To judge from the outrage on the minister’s face, when a suitable punishment was decided, Hell would have no comparable fury.

  True or not, it can be assumed that Alexander had never been popular with the church officers. At the age of 13, six years before this entry in the kirk records, he and older brother John had dared to lead a popular community protest against the minister of that time, who had raised funds for the poor but had been somewhat tardy about passing them on. The records of that minister are on display in the church today and recount that the Revd John Auchenleck was ‘ousted by the rabble between 29th May and 2nd June, 1689, being obstructed in his duty by a great mob armed with staves and bludgeons.’

  So when the boy was summoned to appear before the 1695 kirk session, and reluctantly did so along with his furious and humiliated father, John, he was no doubt relieved to find his punishment ‘dilated’ – or delayed – until a further meeting two days later. But according to that day’s recorded entry, he did not attend to take his medicine and had simply decided to run off to sea.

  August 27 – Ye Session mett.

  Alexr. Selcraige did not compear.*

  The qlk day Alexr Selcraige, son to John Selcraige, elder, in Nether Largo, called, but did not compear, being gone away to ye seas; this business is continued ’till his return.

  In any case, like many a young man of his age, he had to get away; not just from the finger-wagging kirk but also from parental pressures. His father had wanted him to continue in the family’s successful tannery and shoemaking business, while his mother had more ambitious hopes for her seventh son, as in these days – to quote John Howell – ‘the superstition is not yet entirely given up in Scotland that the seventh son is endowed with much of which others are destitute ... he was thought to have the second sight or a foreknowledge of events; even at the present day male fortune tellers always pretend to be seventh sons.’

  In any case, Alexander’s mother had good reason to believe that he had some promise as ‘at a proper age he was sent to school [the parish school at Kirkston] where he made considerable progress, more especially in navigation, as the whole bent of his mind was to go to sea.’

  Howell adds: ‘He was of quick parts but a spoiled and wayward boy, frequently engaged in mischief and reckless in the extreme. This was much increased by the indulgence of his mother, who concealed as much as she could his faults from his father, who was a strict disciplinarian; she having formed the most extravagant hopes from the circumstances of his birth, as being a seventh son, or lucky lad.

  ‘These foolish hopes led her to encourage his going to sea, that he might obtain the good fortune on which her superstitious dreams were fixed. This was the cause of much domestic strife and bickering because it thwarted her husband’s attentions with regard to Alexander; his wish being to keep him at home to assist him in his trade.’

  There was another important point to consider of course – what Alexander himself wanted. Not that it would have carried much weight with either of his parents. But being so independent and headstrong, he would surely not have been content to buckle down to their expectations if he had other plans for himself. And he clearly did. There was little doubt that much of the volition that had pushed him ‘away to ye seas’ came out of his own head and heart.

  It is not known exactly on which ship or voyage he went on after leaving Largo for the first time, but he probably left from Edinburgh’s port of Leith and some have speculated that he signed up to take part in Scotland’s infamous year-long Darien expedition to Panama which, being a spectacular failure still etched painfully in Scotland’s history, was aborted in 1699. But if he got back from that, he must indeed have been a lucky lad, for only one ship out of 16 returned.

  But wherever he roamed, by November 7, 1701, he was back in Seatoun of Largo ... and in trouble again, this time with the relatively new minister, James Makgill. Basing himself again in the family’s Largo cottage, presumably a good deal hardened and experienced in the business of ship-sailing – otherwise he wouldn’t have got the job that later took him to his island – it could not be said that he had mellowed much. He had been home only a short while when a furious family quarrel resulted in a serious breach of village peace which in turn saw his reappearance before the kirk disciplinarians. What was this latest incident all about? It’s not difficult to imagine how tensions would rise and erupt quickly in the dark, crowded, smoky little family house, even though most of his brothers had now found homes of their own, an
d the village has never forgotten, to this day, that furious family row in which Alexander beat his brother Andrew with a wooden staff and assaulted his father, his brother John and even John’s wife Margaret Bell. To quote Robert Chambers’ 1827 book again:

  The following is the accredited family narrative of that event ... Alexander, coming home one evening and feeling thirsty, raised a pipkin of water to his mouth in order to take a drink. It turned out to be salt-water, and he immediately replaced the vessel on the ground with an exclamation of disgust. This excited the humour of his brother [Andrew], who was sitting by the fire, and with whom he had not lately been on good terms. The laugh and jibe were met on Alexander’s part with a frown and a blow. Both brothers immediately closed in a struggle, in which Alexander had the advantage. Their father attempted to interpose; but the offended youth was not to be prevented by even paternal authority from taking his revenge. A general family combat then took place, some siding with one brother and some with the other; and peace was not restored till the whole town, alarmed by the noise, was gathered in scandalised wonderment to the spot.

  We can presume that, being ‘accredited’ by the family and based on the church records, this is a fairly accurate account of the unforgotten fracas that sent Alexander back to sea again – and into history as the legendary Robinson Crusoe – though it is a touch incomplete. While it avoids the embellishment later used by many inventive writers, it errs on the conservative side. It does mention Alexander beating Andrew with a wooden staff, but not – as recorded by the church – his threatening to go up to the upper part of the house and get his pistol, or of challenging his brother to ‘a combate of Neiffells’ – bare-knuckled fisticuffs.

  Rather than stand and fight, Andrew fled the house to call for the help of his eldest brother John – who rushed to the house to find his distressed father blocking the door and Alexander throwing off his coat as if to come for him. As their father got between them, John’s wife Margaret Bell appeared to fight him free, shouting back at Alexander: ‘You fals loun, will you murder my husband and your father both.’

  Such domestic dramas were inevitably deemed fit for the attention of the kirk session. Alexander Selkirk, generally seen as the prime cause of the quarrel, was accordingly summoned before that venerable body and commanded to expiate his offence by standing for a certain number of Sundays in the church as a penitent, to be rebuked by the clergyman. Any seeker of the unalloyed version of the event ought really to go straight to the horse’s mouth and refer to the still-extant records. Readers can then judge for themselves.

  So where do we find the papers? They lurk in a strongroom in the bowels of St Andrews University’s modern library on North Street that contrasts sharply with the town’s many ancient academic buildings. Also on the lower floor, ensconsed in an office and chained to a big desk overflowing with papers – the evidence of much hard work – head of special collections Norman Reid is happy to help interested students or writers examine the actual 1691-1707 Kirk Session Minutes. As I leafed through the six precious yellowing pages between the 13-inch-long rebound brown covers, I was watched keenly by his colleagues. Curiously I was not asked to wear any gloves, rubber or otherwise, ‘as the lack of tactile sensation makes it likely that you could drop or tear something’, Norman said.

  The tightly curlicued copperplate penmanship on the old paper looks initially impressive but the reading of it is less easy on the eye. The sentences are almost impenetrable, even to a Scot familiar with old words and phraseology; but when transcribed from handwriting to type, the reports are a good deal easier to follow – and fascinating:

  1701, November 25, the Session mett.

  John Selcraige compeared

  The same day, John Selcraige, elder, called, compeared, and being examined what was the occasion of the tumult that was in his house, he said he knew not, but that Andrew Selcraige, having brought in a cane full of salt water, of qch his brother, Alexr did take a drink through mistake, and he laughing at him for it, his brother Alexr came and beat him, upon qch he rune out of the house, and called his brother. John Selcraige, elder, being againe questioned, what made him to site one the floor with his backe at the door, he said it was to keep down his sone Alexr, who was seeking to go up to get his pystole; and being enquired what he was to do with it, he said he could not tell.

  Alexr. Selcraige compeared not.

  The same day Alexr Selcraige, called, compeared not, because he was at Coupar, he is to be cited, pro secundo, again the nixt Session.

  John Selcraige, younger, compeared.

  The same day John Selcraige, younger, called, compeared, and being questioned concerning the tumult that was in his father’s house on the seventh of Novr, declared, that he being called by his brother Andrew, came to it and when he entered the house, his mother went out, and he seeing his father sitting on the floor, with his back at the door, was much troubled, and offered to help him up, and brang him to the fire, at which time he did see his brother Alexr in the other end of the house casting off his coate, and coming towards him, whereupon his father did get betwixt them, but he knew not what he did otherwayes, his head being born down by his brother Alexr, but afterwards being liberate by his wife, did mak his escape.

  Margaret Bell compeared.

  The same day Margaret Bell, called, compeared, and being enquired what was the occasion of the tumult which fell out in her father of law’s house, on the seventh of Novr, she said, that Andrew Selcraige came running for her husband John, and desiring him to go to his father’s house, which he doing, the said Margaret did follow her husband; and coming into the house, she found Alexr Selcraige gripping both his father and her husband, and she labouring to loose Alexr’s hands from her husband’s head and breast, her husband fled out of doors and she followed him, and called back againe, you fals loun, will you murder your father and my husband both?’ whereupon he followed her to the door, but wither he beat her or not, she was in so great confusion, she cannot distinctly tell, but ever since she hath a sore pain in her head.

  Andrew Selcraige compeared.

  The same day Andrew Selcraige, called, compeared, but said nothing to purpose in the foresaid business. This business is delayed until the next Session, ’till further enquiry be mad yrunto.

  November 29, the Session mett.

  Alexr Selcraige compeared.

  The qlk day sederunt, the minister, moderator, John Lundine of Baldastard, Magnus Wilsone, James Beat, James Smith, in the Kirktowne, William Beat, John Guthrie, James Smith, in Drummechee. Thomas Ness, Thomas Mortone, and William Jervies. After prayer, Alexr Selcraige, scandalous for contention and disagreeing with his brothers, called, compeared, and being questioned concerning the tumult that was in his father’s house, whereof he was said to be the occasion, he confest that he, having taken a drink of salt water out of the cane, his younger brother, Andrew laughing at him for it, he did beat him twice with a stafe; he confest also, that he had spoken very ill words concerning his brothers, and particularly he challenged his eldest brother John to a combate, as he called it, of neiffells, then he said he would not come to do it even now, which afterward he did refuse and regrate; moreover he said several other things, whereupon the Session appointed him to compeare before the pulpit again tomorrow, and to be rebuked in the face of the congregation for his scandalous carriage.

  One can but imagine ‘the several other things’ he said before the grim-faced session of censorious elderly men with their self-righteous hand-wringing, and it would seem almost miraculous that he appeared before the pulpit the next day ‘to be rebuked’ before the congregation. But whatever Alexander Selkirk was, he was not stupid. So while he was first tempted to refuse to submit to so degrading an experience and stand by his pride, the entreaties of his friends and his own fear of excommunication brought him at least to the idea that by this humiliation – and perhaps by feigning some contrition – he could at least keep his options open when it came to the Final Judgement. But first had to com
e the final judgement of the kirk session, which was made in this manner:

  Alexr Selcraige’s public compearance before the Pulpit. November 30 – Alexr Selcraige, according to the Session’s appointment, compeared before the pulpit, and made acknowledgement of his sin in disagreeing with his brothers, and was rebuked in face of the congregation for it, and promised amendment in the strength of the Lord, and so was dismissed.

  Unsurprisingly, it was not a happy young man who then trudged down the hill resolved to make his escape – again – from the ‘mortifying censure of the church in all its contemptible detail’ and what he regarded as the small-minded people of his native parish. He resolved that as soon as circumstances would allow, he would make his way back to the broad ocean to find the space he needed, and of course his fortune.

  He resolved that he would be back to make his point and rub their noses in it one day, to show them that he was a bigger man than they had ever given him credit for. When that finally happened, it was to be a memorable moment (see chapter 7).

  If his spirit ever returns today to that church on the hill, it must truly wonder about the irony of the little gravestone to be found just beyond and to the left of the pretty building’s exterior entry steps. Its reverse is perhaps its most interesting surface; under a faded depiction of an angel’s head with wings, you can just make out the words ‘Here lyes Andrew Selkirk.’ Admittedly, brother Andrew was hard done by but was respected enough in the community to finally earn his angel wings, as it were. On the other hand, Alexander had made much trouble and many waves – waves so great that his story’s impact on world culture still resonates 300 years later.