Latineque apprime eruditus,”[1] and his scholarship is also praised by Lloyd, while his friendship with Sir Thomas Bodley procured gifts of books and manuscripts to the latter’s library. Fortescue married (1) Cecily, daughter of Sir Edmund Ashfield of Ewelme, by whom, besides a daughter, he had two sons, Sir Francis and Sir William; and (2) Alice, daughter of Christopher Smyth of Annabels in Hertfordshire, by whom he had one daughter. His descent in the male line became extinct with the death of Sir John Fortescue, 3rd baronet, in 1717.
Bibliography.—Article in the Dict. of Nat. Biography; Lord Clermont’s Hist. of the Family of the Fortescues; Hist. Notices of the Parishes of Swyncombe and Ewelme, by A. Napier, p. 390; D. Lloyd’s State Worthies (1670), p. 556; Add. MSS. 12497 f. 143 (“Sir John Fortescue’s meanes of gaine by Sir R. Thikstin told me [Sir Julius Caesar]”); Hist. MSS. Comm., Marquis of Salisbury’s MSS.; Spedding’s Life of Bacon; Architectural and Archaeological Soc. for Bucks, Records of Bucks, vol. i. p. 86. (P. C. Y.)
FORTEVIOT, a village and parish of Perthshire, Scotland, on
the Water of May, a right-hand affluent of the Earn, 634 m. S.W.
of Perth. Pop. of parish (1901) 562. It is a place of remote
antiquity, having been a capital of the Picts, when the district
was known as Fortrenn, and afterwards of the Scots. The army
led by Edward Baliol camped here before the battle of Dupplin
(1332), in which the regent, Donald, earl of Mar, was slain along
with 13,000 out of 30,000 men. The parish of Findo-Gask
adjoining it on the N.W. contains remains of a Roman road,
station and outpost, besides the “auld hoose” of Gask in which
the Baroness Nairne was born, and which forms the theme of one
of her most popular songs. The new house in which she died
dates from 1801.
FORT GEORGE, a military station of Inverness-shire, Scotland.
It lies 12 m. N.E. of Inverness, and is the terminus of the small
branch line connecting with the Highland railway at Gollanfield
junction. It occupies a sandy promontory forming the extreme
end of the southern shore of Inner Moray Firth (also called the
Firth of Inverness), which is here only 1 m. wide. There is
communication by ferry with Fortrose on the opposite coast of
the Black Isle. The fort was begun in 1748, partly after the plan
of one of Vauban’s works, and named in honour of George II.
Wolfe, who saw it in course of erection in 1751, was much impressed
with it and thought it would, when finished, be “the
most considerable fortress and best situated in Great Britain.”
It covers 16 acres and contains accommodation for nearly 2200
men. It is the depot of the Seaforth Highlanders, and a
military training-ground of some size and importance because
the surrounding country gives ample facilities for exercise and
manœuvres. General Wade’s road is maintained in good order.
Fort George, it is said, had almost been chosen as the place of
detention for Napoleon when the claims of St Helena were put
forward. About 2 m. S.E. is the fishing village of Campbelltown,
in growing repute as a seaside resort. Midway between the fort
and Inverness stands Castle Stuart, a shooting-box of the earl
of Moray.
FORTH, a river and firth of the east of Scotland. The river
is formed by two head streams, Duchray Water (12 m.) and
Avondhu (10 m.), or Laggan as it is called after it leaves Loch
Ard, both rising in the north-east of Ben Lomond in Stirlingshire,
and uniting 1 m. west of Aberfoyle. From this point till it
receives the Kelty, the Forth continues to be a Perthshire
stream, but afterwards it becomes the dividing line between
the counties of Perth and Stirling as far as the confluence of the
Allan. Thence it belongs to Stirlingshire to a point 112 m. due
west of Cambus, whence it serves as the boundary between the
shires of Stirling and Clackmannan. Owing to the extremely
tortuous character of its course between Gartmore and Alloa—the
famous “links of the Forth,”—the actual length of the river
is 66 m., or nearly double the distance in a direct line (30 m.)
between the source of the Duchray and Kincardine, where the
firth begins. The river drains an area of 645 sq. m. Its general
direction is mainly easterly with a gentle trend towards the
south, and the principal tributaries on the left are the Goodie,
Teith, Allan and Devon, and on the right, the Kelty, Boquhan
and Bannock. The alluvial plain extending from Gartmore to
the county town is called the Carse of Stirling. The places of
interest on the banks are Aberfoyle, Kippen, Stirling, Cambuskenneth,
Alloa and Kincardine, but after it crosses the Highland
line the Forth does not present many passages of remarkable
beauty. There are bridges at Aberfoyle, Gartmore, Frew, Drip
and Stirling (2), besides railway viaducts at Stirling and Alloa,
and there are ferries at Stirling (for Cambuskenneth), Alloa (for
South Alloa) and Kincardine (for Airth). The tide rises to 412 m.
above Stirling, where the river is navigable at high water by
vessels of 100 tons. There is, however, a brisk shipping trade at
Alloa, where the dock accommodates vessels of at least 300 tons.
The Firth of Forth extends from Kincardine to the North Sea, that is, to an imaginary line drawn, just west of the Isle of May, from the East Neuk of Fife to the mouth of the Tyne in Haddingtonshire—a distance of 48 m. Thus, according to some calculations, the Forth measures from source to sea 114 m. The width of the firth varies from 12 m. at Kincardine and 112 m. at Queensferry to 612 m. at Leith and 1712 m. at the mouth. The chief affluents are, on the south, the Carron, Avon, Almond, Leith, Esk and Tyne, and on the north, the Tiel, Leven, Kiel and Dreel. The principal ports on the south shore are Grangemouth, Bo’ness, Granton and Leith, and on the north, Burntisland and Kirkcaldy; but fishery centres and holiday resorts are very numerous on both coasts. Since the opening of the Forth Bridge (see Bridges) in 1890 the ferries at Queensferry and Burntisland have greatly diminished in importance. The fisheries are still considerable, though the oyster trade is dwindling. The larger islands are Inchcolm, with the ruins of an abbey, Inchkeith, with fortifications and a lighthouse, and the Isle of May, with a lighthouse. The anchorage of St Margaret’s Hope, with the naval base of Rosyth, lies off the shore of Fife immediately to the west of the Forth Bridge.
The Forth was the Bodotria of Tacitus and the Scots Water of the chroniclers of the 11th and 12th centuries; while Bede (d. 735) knew the firth as Sinus orientalis (the Eastern Gulf), and Nennius (fl. 796) as Mare Friesicum (the Frisian Sea).
FORTIFICATION AND SIEGECRAFT. “Fortification” is
the military art of strengthening positions against attack. The
word (Lat. fortis, strong, and facere, to make) implies the creation
of defences. Thus the boy who from the top of a mound defies
his comrades, or shelters from their snowballs behind a fence,
is merely taking advantage of ground; but if he puts up a hurdle
on his mound and stands behind that he has fortified his position.
Fortification consists of two elements, viz. protection and obstacle. The protection shields the defender from the enemy’s missiles; the obstacle prevents the enemy from coming to close quarters, and delays him under fire.
Protection may be of several kinds, direct or indirect. Direct protection is given by a wall or rampart of earth, strong enough to stop the enemy’s missiles. The value of this is reduced in proportion as the defender has to expose himself to return the enemy’s fire, or to resist his attempts to destroy the defences. Indirect protection is given by distance, as for instance by a high wall placed on a cliff so that the defender on the top of the wall is out of reach of the enemy’s missiles if these are of short range, such as arrows. This kind of defence was very popular in the middle ages. In the present day the same object is attained by pushing out detached forts to such a distance from the town they are protecting that the besieger cannot bombard the town as long as he is outside the forts. Another form of indirect protection of great importance is concealment.
The obstacle may consist of anything which will impede the enemy’s advance and prevent him from coming to close quarters. In the earliest forms of fortification the protecting wall was also the obstacle, or it may be a wet or dry ditch, an entanglement, a swamp, a thorn hedge, a spiked palisade, or some temporary expedient, such as crows’ feet or chevaux de frise. The two elements must of course be arranged in combination. The besieged must be able to defend the obstacle from their protected position, otherwise it can be surmounted or destroyed at leisure. But a close connexion is no longer essential. The effect of modern
- ↑ Annales, 613.
