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Title: Domestic Annals of Scotland from the Reformation to the Revolution
Author: Robert Chambers
Release date: May 25, 2024 [eBook #73695]
Language: English
Original publication: Edinburgh: W. & R. Chambers, 1859
Credits: Susan Skinner, Mr David Mowatt, Brian Wilcox and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DOMESTIC ANNALS OF SCOTLAND FROM THE REFORMATION TO THE REVOLUTION ***
Transcriber’s Notes:
Italic text is marked _thus_.
The original accentuation, and spelling has been retained. Hyphenation
has been made consistent as far as possible.
DOMESTIC
ANNALS OF SCOTLAND.
DOMESTIC
ANNALS OF SCOTLAND
From the Reformation to the Revolution.
BY ROBERT CHAMBERS,
F.R.S.E., F.S.A.Sc., &c.
SECOND EDITION.
VOLUME II.
[Illustration: Dunnottar Castle.]
W. & R. CHAMBERS, EDINBURGH AND LONDON.
MDCCCLIX.
Edinburgh:
Printed by W. and R. Chambers.
CONTENTS OF VOL. II.
PAGE
REIGN OF CHARLES I.: 1625-1637, 1
REIGN OF CHARLES I.: 1637-1649, 105
INTERREGNUM: 1649-1660, 174
REIGN OF CHARLES II.: 1660-1673, 255
REIGN OF CHARLES II.: 1673-1685, 349
REIGN OF JAMES VII.: 1685-1688, 469
GENERAL INDEX, 503
Illustrations.
VOL. II.
_Frontispiece Vignette._--DUNNOTTAR CASTLE.
PAGE
BOG AN GICHT CASTLE, 46
HOLYROOD PALACE, AS BEFORE THE FIRE OF 1650, 205
MONS MEG, 468
THE JOUGS--AT DUDDINGSTON CHURCH, 501
HALF-GLAZED WINDOW OF SEVENTEENTH CENTURY, 524
DOMESTIC
ANNALS OF SCOTLAND.
REIGN OF CHARLES I.: 1625-1637.
James I. was peaceably succeeded on the throne by his son Charles
I., then in the twenty-fifth year of his age. The administration of
Scottish affairs continued to be conducted by the Privy Council in
Edinburgh. For the endowment of the Episcopal Church now established,
the king (1625) attempted a revocation of the church-lands from the
lay nobles and others into whose hands they had fallen; but this
excited so strong a spirit of resistance, that he was obliged to
give it up. He ended by issuing (1627) a commission to receive the
surrender of impropriated tithes and benefices, and out of these, and
the superiorities of the church-lands, to increase the provisions
of the clergy. These proceedings, though legal, were unpopular. The
nobles, alarmed for their property, began to lean towards the middle
and humbler classes, who objected to a hierarchy on religious grounds
solely. While all was smooth on the surface, while the lords of the
Privy Council were full of expressions of servile obedience, while
they, as well as all judges and magistrates, gave most loyal and
regular attendance at church, and duly knelt at the communion--a
strong spirit of discontent ran through society. The more zealous
Presbyterians formed the habit of meeting in private houses for
prayer and worship. They beheld with apprehension the tendency to
medieval ceremonies which Charles, and his favourite councillor, Laud,
Archbishop of Canterbury, were manifesting in England. That leaning to
Arminianism which the English Church was also accused of--modifying
Calvinism so far as to say that the perdition of sinners had been only
foreseen, not decreed, and that God’s wrath against them was not to
last for ever--was viewed with the utmost alarm in Scotland. The only
means the king had of giving reassurance was to make a loud profession
of horror for popery, and to practise all possible severities upon its
adherents. That the king and his Council availed themselves of this
chance, will be found abundantly evidenced in our chronicle.
It is rather remarkable, that the adjustment of the tithes by King
Charles in 1627 has proved a most useful practical measure, in
annulling a certain class of disputes between the clergy and their
flocks; anticipating, in short, the valuable commutation acts of
England and Ireland by upwards of two centuries.
During the first few years of the reign, large bodies of troops were
raised in Scotland, and conducted by native officers to serve the
Protestant powers of the continent, engaged in the great thirty years’
struggle with Catholic Germany.
The king paid a visit to Scotland in 1633, in order to be crowned as
its sovereign, and to see what further could be done for perfecting the
Episcopal system. His reception was respectful, but not so affectionate
as that experienced by his father. He wanted the good-humour of James;
he treated all difficulties in a stern and imperious manner. The people
were overborne by his power and his obduracy, but left unconvinced,
unreconciled. In the subsequent year, he lost additional ground by
a tyrannical and unjust trial of the Lord Balmerino on a charge of
treason, for merely having in his possession the scroll of a petition
against the royal measures. At the same time, the Scotch people knew of
the king’s quarrels with the English patriots Elliot, Pym, and others;
they knew that he had resolved on calling no more parliaments; they
heard of Strafford’s despotic government in Ireland; they sympathised
with the Puritans who were now and then pilloried and cropped of their
ears, or driven in multitudes to Holland and America. Although, then,
there was a strong prepossession for the institution of monarchy,
there was also a steady muster of irritation and fear against the
government of this particular monarch. It might have been evident to
any dispassionate observer, that, if the present system were persevered
in, an explosion would sooner or later take place.
There was this further difference between the late and present king,
that while James was only anxious for a church polity which would
work harmoniously with his doctrines of state, Charles--who, unlike
his father, was an earnestly religious man--deemed Episcopacy a
necessary part of faith. The struggle was now, therefore, between
a people fanatic for one system, and a king fanatic for another.
One thing Charles had long considered as necessary to complete his
favourite project in Scotland--the introduction of a liturgy into the
ordinary worship. He thought the proper time was now come, because he
everywhere saw external obedience. A service-book being accordingly
prepared by Laud, on the basis of that commonly used in England, but
with a few innovations relishing of popery and Arminianism, an order
of Privy Council was given for its being read in the churches. This
was precisely what was necessary to exhaust the popular powers of
endurance. It seemed to the multitude as if popery, almost undisguised,
were once more about to be introduced. When the dreaded book was opened
in St Giles’s Church (July 1637), the congregation rose in violent
agitation to protest against it. It was hooted as a mass in disguise,
and a stool was thrown at the head of the reader. Similar scenes
occurred elsewhere; but the clergy in general had declined to bring
the book forward. The state-officers and bishops now found themselves
objects of popular hate to such an extent that they could not present
themselves in public. The service-book was not merely a failure in
itself, but it had produced a kind of rebellion. Charles discovered,
when too late, that, as usually happens with men of headstrong temper,
the truth had been concealed from him. The general obedience had been
a hypocrisy. Nineteen-twentieths of the people were in their hearts
opposed to his measures, and now he had given them occasion to declare
themselves and enter at all hazards upon a course of resistance.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1625.
MAY 28.]
This is the date of the patent of Charles I., conferring on Sir Robert
Gordon of Gordonstown the dignity of a baronet of Nova Scotia, being
the first patent of the kind granted. Gordon of Cluny and Gordon of
Lesmoir also got similar patents during the same year, and Lesmoir’s
eldest son, being of full age, was at the same time made a knight; such
being the original design regarding this honour. The order of baronets
of Nova Scotia, which still holds an honourable place in Scottish
society, was projected by King James, as an encouragement to gentlemen
of property in his native kingdom to enter into the scheme of Sir
William Alexander (subsequently Earl of Stirling) to plant Nova Scotia.
In the patent of each, a certain portion of land in that country is
assigned along with the honour, the infeoffment being executed on the
Castle Hill of Edinburgh; but this, as is well known, has never been
otherwise than an ideal advantage. ‘His majesty, the more to encourage
the baronets in that heroic enterprise [of planting Nova Scotia],
besides other privileges, did augment every one of their coats of arms
by joining thereto a saltire azure, or a blue St Andrew’s cross, set
in a white field, with another scutcheon in the middle of the blue
cross, comprehending a red rampant lion in a yellow field, with a red
tressure of fleur-de-luces about the lion, with an imperial crown above
the scutcheon, being the arms of New Scotland. The crest of the arms
of New Scotland is two hands joined together, the one armed, the other
unarmed, holding a laurel and a thistle twisted, issuing out of them,
with this motto, “_Munit hæc, et altera vincit_.” The supporters are a
unicorn upon the right side, and a savage man upon the left.’--_G. H.
S._
* * * * *
The town-council of Aberdeen at this time anticipated the wisdom and
good manners of a later age, by ordaining that ‘no person should, at
any public or private meeting, presume to compel his neighbour, at
table with him, to drink more wine or beer than what he pleased, under
the penalty of forty pounds.’[1]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 12.]
Thomas Crombie, burgess of Perth, was ‘summoned to underlie the law,
for the alleged slaughter of ane William Blair, a westland gentleman,
wha notwithstanding had done the same negligently to himself. Being
of intention to have struck the said Thomas with ane whinger, he hurt
himself in the arm, whereof he died twenty days after. The said Thomas
compeared with eighty burgesses of Perth, besides five earls, six
lords, and twenty-six barons, upon the burgh of Perth’s desire to back
him, [and] was clengit and freed therefrae.’--_Chron. Perth._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 20.]
By the royal command, a fast was held throughout Scotland, in
consequence of the heavy rains which had prevailed since the middle
of May, threatening the destruction of the fruits of the earth. It
was a time of calamity. The marriage of the king to the Princess
Henrietta Maria of France (June 16th), had of course brought the mass
into London, and ‘no sooner was the queen’s mass, the plague of the
soul, received, than a raging pestilence broke out in the city of
London and parts adjoining, which in a short time cut off above 40,000
persons.’--_Stevenson’s Hist. C. Scot._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 26.]
[Sidenote: 1625.]
The government was incensed by _bruits_ set in circulation by a
set of ‘restless and unquiet spirits,’ to the effect that the king
designed some change in the kirk and its canons. The king issued a
proclamation denouncing these injurious rumours as troublesome to the
commonwealth, and protesting that so well was he pleased with the
existing arrangements, that, if he had not found them established by
his late dear father, he would himself have never rested till they were
perfected as they now stood. It may be suspected that this proclamation
did not put an end to the _bruits_, for in October the king discovered
that a number of Catholic noblemen and gentlemen were bringing up their
children in popish seminaries abroad, and at the same time entertaining
popish priests at home; wherefore it had become necessary that some
suitable anti-papist edicts should be published. The parents of
children educated abroad were ordered to have them brought home before
a certain day, under severe penalties. Great pains were threatened
against those who should give entertainment or shelter to popish
priests after a certain day. Finally, the proclamation charged ‘all
our subjects, of whatsoever rank or degree, to conform themselves to
the publict profession of the true religion, prohibiting the exercise
of ony contrary profession, under the pains conteinit in the laws made
thereanent.’--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG. 30.]
A proclamation was resolved on for a strict execution of the laws
against the selling of tallow out of the country. Contrary to the views
of modern mercantile men, there was a general fear and dislike in those
days regarding export trade. It was always thought to have a bad effect
in making things scarce and dear at home. No one seems ever to have
dreamed of the profitable _quid pro quo_ without which the trade could
not have been carried on. We require to have a full conception of this
universal delusion, before we can understand the frame of mind under
which the Privy Council of the day could speak of the transport of
tallow as ‘a crime most pernicious and wicked,’ perpetrated by a set of
‘godless and avaritious persons,’ acting ‘without regard of honesty or
of those common duties of civil conversation whilk in a good conscience
they ought to carry in the estate.’
It was, to all appearance, under a sincere horror for ‘this mischeant
and wicked trade,’ which threatened to leave not enough of tallow to
supply the needs of the population, that the lords announced their
resolution to punish it with confiscation of all the remaining movable
goods of the guilty parties.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
John Gordon of Enbo, having suffered some injury at the hands of
Sutherland of Duffus, longed for revenge, but for some time in vain.
At length, riding with a single friend between Sideray and Skibo,
he encountered Duffus’s brother, the Laird of Clyne, also attended
by a single friend on horseback. Gordon, with a cudgel in his hand,
assaulted Clyne, and gave him many blows. ‘Then they drew their swords,
and, with their seconds, fell to it eagerly.’
[Sidenote: 1625.]
Clyne, after being sorely wounded in the head and hand, was suffered by
Eubo to escape with his life.
The curious part of the affair is to come. Enbo was prosecuted by
Duffus before the Privy Council, and committed to the Castle of
Edinburgh. The Duffus party were full of triumph, making sure of ample
retribution. At that crisis arrives the sage and courteous Sir Robert
Gordon of Gordonstown, who had heretofore made so many rough matters
smooth in the north. He first dealt with Duffus, to induce him to
withdraw the prosecution, which he apparently looked on in no other
light than as a species of unrighteous revenge. Duffus proved obdurate,
‘thinking to get great sums of money decerned to him by the lords from
John Gordon, for satisfaction of the wrong done to his brother, whereby
he might undo John Gordon’s estate.’ Feeling now relieved from all ties
towards Duffus, Sir Robert ‘dealt by all means for John Gordon’s relief
and mitigation of his fine.’ Very much by the interest of the Lord
Gordon, then in Edinburgh with the French commissioners, he succeeded
in inducing the Privy Council to let John Gordon off with a fine of
a hundred pounds Scots, equal to £8, 6s. 8d. sterling!--‘and nothing
to the party.’ Duffus left Edinburgh in sad discomfiture, to meet the
blame of his friends for not having accepted the better conditions
offered at first by Sir Robert Gordon. The proto-baronet at the same
time returned to the north, bringing John Gordon of Enbo along with
him, ‘beyond the expectation of all his friends and foes in those
parts, who thought that he should not have been released so soon, nor
fined at so small a rate, _wherein Sir Robert purchased himself great
credit and commendation_.’ So Sir Robert calmly assures us in his own
narrative of the transaction.--_G. H. S._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT. 27.]
[Sidenote: 1625.]
A convention of Estates was held, under the Earl of Nithsdale as
commissioner, to treat regarding the revocation of the church-lands.
Those whose fortunes were thus threatened were greatly alarmed and
incensed by the urgency of the king. The suspicion of the Earl of
Nithsdale being a papist must have added to the unpopularity of the
affair. If we are to believe a story which Burnet reports from Sir
Archibald Primrose, they held a private meeting to consult how they
might best protect their own interests, and it was agreed by them that,
when assembled, ‘if no other argument did prevail to make the Earl of
Nithsdale desist, they would fall upon him and all his party in the
old Scots manner, and knock them on the head.... One of these lords,
Belhaven, of the name of Douglas, who was blind, bid them set him by
one of the party, and he would make sure of _one_. So he was set next
the Earl of Dumfries. He was all the while holding him fast. And when
the other asked him what he meant by that, he said, ever since the
blindness was come on him, he was in such fear of falling, that he
could not help the holding fast to those who were next to him. He had
all the while a poniard in his other hand, with which he had certainly
stabbed Dumfries, if any disorder had happened. The appearance at that
time was so great, and so much heat was raised upon it, that the Earl
of Nithsdale would not open all his instructions, but came back to
court, looking on the service as desperate.’
It is much to be desired for this anecdote that it had some support in
other authority. The Lord Belhaven pointed to was then a man little
over fifty, and his epitaph in Holyrood Abbey describes him as kind
to his relations, charitable to the poor, moderate in prosperity, and
constant under adversity--though, to be sure, posthumous certificates
of that kind do not generally rank as evidence of the first class.[2]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT.]
A taxation was granted to the king by the Scottish parliament,
amounting to £40,000 Scots. Some of the burghs came to an agreement
with the lords of the Privy Council for certain proportions of this
taxation, to be paid annually while it continued; and we are thus
supplied with a means of estimating the comparative importance and
wealth of some of the principal towns in the kingdom. We find the
following towns set down, with the annexed sums at their names:
Glasgow, £815, 12s. 6d.; Linlithgow, £163, 2s. 6d.; Stirling, £422,
17s. 9d.; St Andrews, £490; Dunbar, £90, 15s.; Culross, £84, 10s.;
Canongate, £100; Hamilton, 100 merks.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1626.
APR.]
Paisley, now a huge city of the industrious, was, in the reign of
Charles I., only a village surrounding the ruins of an ancient abbey.
The dominant personage of the place was the Earl of Abercorn, a cadet
of the Hamilton family, enriched by the possession of the abbey-lands.
Through the influence of the earl’s mother, who had become a Catholic,
the town was described as ‘a nest of papists.’ Nevertheless, the
interest of Lady Abercorn’s relative, Lord Boyd, had procured a
presentation to the parish church in favour of Mr Robert Boyd of
Trochrig, recently principal of the Edinburgh University--one of a
group of men deep in theological learning, adepts in Latin versifying,
who then threw a lustre upon Scotland--but at the same time a zealous
protester against the late Episcopalian innovations in the church.
Being thus obnoxious to Lady Abercorn, albeit her ladyship’s relation,
his settling in Paisley was viewed by her, her sons, and her friends,
with great disrelish, and the consequence was a material resistance to
the presentee, being perhaps the first occurrence of the kind in our
country, the precursor of many.
‘He was ordained to have his manse in the fore-house of the abbey, as
the most convenient place for that use. And having put his books and
a bed thereintill; one Sunday, he being preaching, in the afternoon,
the Master of Paisley,[3] being the Earl of Abercorn’s brother, with
some others, came to the minister’s house, none being thereintill, and
cast all his books on the ground, and thereafter locked the door.’ On
a complaint from Boyd to the Privy Council, the Master was brought to
penitence for this outrage, and it was then hoped that matters would
go on smoothly. On his returning, however, to his manse, he found the
locks of the doors stopped up with stones, so that he could not get in
without force, which he was not permitted to use. As he was going away,
‘the rascally women of the town, coming to see the matter--for the
men purposely absented themselves--not only upbraided Mr Robert with
opprobrious speeches, and shouted and hoyed him, but likewise cast dirt
and stones at him; so that he was forced to leave the town and go to
Glasgow.’
Being a man of a gentle nature, Boyd withdrew to his house of Trochrig
in Ayrshire, without making any complaint as to his late ill-usage.
The case, however, being taken up by the Archbishop of Glasgow, and
brought before the Privy Council, Lady Abercorn, the earl her son, and
the Master her second son, all came to Edinburgh in the earl’s ‘gilded
carroch,’ accompanied in the usual manner with their friends, to answer
for the outrages which had been committed. An order was given for the
replacement of Boyd in his parish; but, meanwhile, he sunk under a
weakly and reduced constitution, and died, January 5, 1627, at the age
of forty-nine.[4]
[Sidenote: 1626.
JUNE 15.]
‘Betwixt the hours of eight and nine in the morning, there appeared
a phenomenon in the open firmament, which was looked on by many as
a presage of some future calamity. The sun shining bright, there
appeared, to the view of all people, as it were three suns; one
be-east, and the other south-be-west the true sun, and in appearance
not far from it. From that which lay south-west, there proceeded a
luminary in the form of a horn, that pointed north-west, and carried
as it were a rainbow, in colour gray, but clearer than the rest of
the sky. Whether these signs were ominous or not, manifold were the
calamities which then prevailed.[5]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE.]
[Sidenote: OCT. 10.]
Just before this time, a large body of men, variously stated at 3000
and 4400, was raised in Scotland by Sir Donald M‘Kay of Strathnaver, ‘a
gentleman of a stirring spirit,’ and Sir James Leslie--supposed to have
been of the Lindores family--to assist Ernest Count Mansfeldt in the
Bohemian army against the Emperor of Germany. This being the Protestant
cause, and likewise the cause of the king’s brother-in-law, the Elector
Palatine, who had accepted the crown of Bohemia, the enlistment
received the royal sanction and patronage, £2000 being disbursed
to Sir Donald, and £600 to Sir James, while a further sum of £400
was promised to be at the service of the troops on their landing in
Hamburg.[6] The movement harmonised with the feelings of the people of
Scotland, to many of whom an honourable military service with pay was
convenient and agreeable on less exalted considerations than that of
religious sympathy, as the industry of the country was then too little
advanced to hold out a gainful occupation to all who were anxious for
it. The estates and influence of Sir Donald being in Sutherlandshire,
it naturally fell out that a large portion of the officers of the
corps were from that county and the adjacent districts of Ross and
Caithness--Monroes, Mackenzies, Rosses, Gordons, Sinclairs, and Gunns.
The greater number of the recruits embarked at Cromarty in October, and
had a prosperous voyage to the Elbe; but their commander, Sir Donald,
was detained by sickness till the spring of the ensuing year. Owing to
the death of Count Mansfeldt, the corps took a new destination, though
adhering to the same cause, for they entered the service of the King of
Denmark, their own king’s uncle, who had engaged in the war against the
emperor.
[Sidenote: 1626.]
The exploits of these Scottish levies have been recorded in a curious
but confused narrative, the production of one of the officers, and
now a great rarity, entitled _Monro his Expedition, with the worthy
Scots Regiment called M‘Kay’s Regiment_, &c.[7] The author, Colonel
Robert Monro, states that he composed it at his spare hours, ‘for
the use of all worthy cavaliers favouring the laudable profession of
arms.’ He gives a long list of officers, all bearing familiar Scottish
names--as Forbes, Monro, M‘Kay, Sinclair, Ross, Gordon, Stewart, Innes,
Seton, Dunbar, Hay, and Gunn. In the ranks were included a small band
of Macgregors, who had been lying for some time in the Tolbooth of
Edinburgh, on account of their irregularities, and who are said to have
proved good soldiers under regular discipline and with a legitimate
outlet for their inherent turbulence and courage.
One portion of the Scots Regiment was sent to join the English
auxiliaries under General Morgan. Another was put to a severe duty in
defending the Pass of Oldenburg against Tilly’s army. The latter are
described as shewing a remarkable degree of firmness and gallantry in
that trying situation, from which they had to retire, after a loss of
four hundred men. Another party, of four companies, under Major Dunbar,
defended the Castle of Brandenburg in Holstein against 10,000 men
under Tilly, with such desperate and sanguinary pertinacity, that, on
the place being ultimately taken, they were all put to the sword. On
many other occasions, these valiant Scotsmen distinguished themselves
greatly, insomuch that they came to be called the Invincible Regiment.
It was greatly owing to them that Stralsund made such an obstinate
defence against Wallenstein. Here they lost 500 men in seven weeks,
only about 400 being now left. When the Danish king was forced to
evacuate Pomerania, the Scots defended the bridge at Wolgast, till he
was safe. So early as January 1628, Sir Donald M‘Kay had to go home for
fresh levies. He returned in July with as many as raised the corps to
1400 effective men. But before any further remarkable service had been
performed by the regiment, the King of Denmark was glad to make peace.
[Sidenote: 1626.]
The regiment then transferred itself to the service of Gustavus
Adolphus of Sweden, who had now put himself at the head of the
Protestant interest against Catholic Germany. Throughout his
remarkable campaign in Pomerania and Mecklenburg, our brave Scots were
on incessant service, and were usually employed on posts of peculiar
difficulty or danger. The waste of men was enormous; and in February
1631, Lord Reay--for so Sir Donald M‘Kay was now styled--returned
home once more for fresh levies. He was detained in England by some
circumstances of an unpleasant nature, which enter into our national
history; but the levies were sent out notwithstanding, and the
efficiency of the Scots Regiment, or rather regiments, never for a
moment flagged. At the brilliant capture of Frankfort-on-the-Oder, when
so many of the imperialists perished, and so much of their wealth fell
into the hands of the Swedish king, our countrymen had a distinguished
part. In the subsequent transactions ending with the splendid victory
of Leipsic, by which the Protestant world was for the time liberated,
they were ever in the front, doing and suffering much. And so it
went on, even after the death of the king at Lutzen in 1633, their
great losses being continually made up again by the arrival of fresh
levies from Scotland. Amongst many gallant officers who received their
training in these wars, were two men destined to take prominent parts
in the history of their country--namely, Colonels Alexander and David
Leslie.[8]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 19.]
Amongst the preparations for war at this time, the Privy Council,
reflecting on the inconveniences of being wholly dependent on foreign
countries for gunpowder, empowered Sir James Baillie of Lochend,
knight, to see if he could induce some Englishmen to come and settle in
Scotland for the manufacture of that article.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP.]
[Sidenote: 1626.]
Mr Thomas Ramsay, minister of Dumfries, was unusually zealous against
popery, probably by reason of its peculiar abundance within the bounds
of his cure. One day, as he and some co-presbyters were passing along
the bridge over the Nith, they encountered a person on horseback
whom they recognised to be ‘ane mess priest by whom numbers of the
country people are pervertit not only in their religion, but in their
allegiance to the king’s majesty.’ ‘Having used their best endeavours
to have apprehendit the priest, it fell out that, by the help of some
excommunicat papists, who was in company with him, he escaped.’
They, however, secured ‘his horse and cloak-bag, wherein there was a
number of oisties, superstitious pictures, priests’ vestments, altar,
chalice, plate-boxes with oils and ointments, with such other trash as
priests carry about with them for popish uses.’
Mr Thomas Ramsay and his friends immediately came to Edinburgh, and
presented themselves before the Privy Council, who, according to their
wishes, passed an act of approbation in their favour, and ordered them
to make a bonfire at the market-cross of Dumfries, and there burn all
the popish ‘trash’ excepting the silver articles, which were to be
melted down for the benefit of the poor.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1627.
JULY 17.]
Four of the bishops, and a number of commissioners from presbyteries,
met in Edinburgh to deliberate on church matters, being the nearest
approach to a General Assembly which could now be permitted. Amongst
the matters discussed were the increase of papistry and sin, the
persecutions of the Protestants in Germany, and the war against France.
Anxiety was also expressed regarding the prospects of the harvest.
‘Because of the extraordinar rains, which now threaten rotting of the
fruits of the ground before they be ripe, and so a fearful famine upon
this land in so dangerous a time, when the seas are closed by the
enemies, and no hope of help from other countries if God shall send
a famine, [it was resolved] to entreat the Lord that he wold cause
the heaven answer the earth, and the earth answer the corn, and the
corns to answer our necessity, and us to answer His will, in faith,
repentance, and obedience.’[9]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1627.]
At this time, Great Britain might be said to be drifting towards a war
with France. The king having offended Louis XIII. by turning off all
the Catholic priests who had come over in attendance upon his queen,
the French monarch retaliated by ordering the seizure of British
vessels within his ports. There were a hundred and twenty English and
Scottish ships in those ports, chiefly loading with wine, and the whole
were seized. The Scotch, however, contrived to make themselves appear
as still connected with France by an ancient league--a league which, it
is to be feared, only existed as a friendly illusion common to the two
nations. Out of deference to this notion, the Scotch vessels were all
dismissed, while the English were retained.--_Bal._
‘There was a warrant from the king’s majesty and his Council, for
listing in Scotland 9000 men, to go to serve under the king of Denmark,
in the German wars for renewing the palatinate and Bohemia.... There
was many forcit, as beggars, idle men, and [those wanting] competent
means to live upon, under the conduct of the Earl of Nithsdale, my Lord
Spynie, and the Laird of Murkle (Sinclair), as colonels.
‘There was the same year 2000 gentlemen, landed men, barons, lords, and
others of guid sort, levanted from Scotland under the Earl of Morton,
for helping to take the Isle of [Ré] in France. But the isle was
recovered by the French frae the English.’--_Chron. Perth._
The recruiting of these German legions does not appear to have been
conducted in a very scrupulous manner. Some of the circumstances afford
a rich illustration of the social condition of Scotland at that time.
On the 1st of November 1627, Robert Scott, bailie of Hawick, reported
to the Privy Council a number of ‘idle and masterless men, fit to be
employed in the wars’--namely, ‘Allan Deans, miller; Allan Wilson;
George Dickson, callit _the Wran_; John Rowcastle; Walter Scott,
maltman; John Tait, piper; William Beatison; Robert Lidderdale, callit
_the Corbie_; Robert Langlands; James Waugh, officiar; James Towdop;
William Scott, callit _Young Gillie_; John Laing, piper; William
M‘Vitie; Walter Fowler; and Andrew Deans.’ This proceeding of Bailie
Scott was in obedience to an act of Estates. The lords, having narrowly
examined these men, liberated seven as ‘not fit persons to be employed
in the wars.’ Two were set free, under surety to appear again when
called upon. The remaining persons they ordained to be delivered to
the Earl of Nithsdale, ‘to be sent by him with the rest of his company
to the wars in Germany.’ Seeing, however, that ‘the said persons are
men and servants to William Douglas of Drumlanrig, and that reason and
equity craves that they sould be rather delivered to Sir James Douglas
of Mowsill, brother to the said Laird, nor to any other colonel or
captain whatsoever,’ they ordained accordingly, provided that Sir James
should satisfy the Earl for his expenses. The men thus dealt with were
to be lodged in the Tolbooth, until the ship should be ready to carry
them abroad, the Earl undertaking to satisfy Andrew White the jailer,
‘for their expenses during the time of their remaining in ward.’--_P.
C. R._
[Sidenote: 1627.
AUG. 12.]
In the exigencies of the unfortunate wars in which the king became
involved with Spain and France, he was led to the strange idea of
raising a small troop of Highland bowmen. This weapon, which had
long since declined in most European countries before the advance of
firearms, was still in use in the north of Scotland--indeed, continued
partially so for sixty years yet to come. Most probably it was the
chief of the MacNaughtans, now a gentleman of the Privy Chamber, who
had suggested such a levy to the king, for he it was who undertook to
raise and command the corps. At the date noted, Charles wrote to the
Privy Council of Scotland, to the Earl of Morton, and the Laird of
Glenurchy, asking assistance and co-operation for MacNaughtan in his
endeavours to raise the men, it being declared that they should have
‘as large privileges as any has had heretofore in the like kind.’
It appears that MacNaughtan came to the Highlands in the course of the
autumn, and engaged upwards of one hundred men for this extraordinary
service. ‘George Mason’s ship’ was placed at Lochkilcheran, to receive
the men as they were engaged, and carry them to their field of action.
It seems to have been designed that they should join a regiment
commanded by the Earl of Morton, which was now lying at the Isle of
Wight, designed to support the Duke of Buckingham in the dismally
unfortunate expedition he had made for the relief of Rochelle. It was
not till some weeks after that affair was concluded by his Grace’s
evacuation of the Isle of Ré, that the bowmen, to the stinted number of
one hundred, left their native shores. Departing in the very middle of
winter, the ship encountered weather unusually tempestuous, was chased
by the enemy, and obliged to put into Falmouth. There MacNaughtan
wrote to the Earl of Morton--‘Our bagpipers and marlit plaids served
us to guid wise in the pursuit of ane man-of-war that hetly followit
us.’ He told his lordship he would come on with his men to the Isle of
Wight as soon as possible, _being afraid of a lack of victuals where
he was_; and meanwhile he entreated that his lordship would prepare
clothes for the corps, ‘for your lordship knows, although they be men
of personages, they cannot muster before your lordship in their plaids
and blue caps.’
What came of these ‘poor sojours, quho ar far from thair owin
countrie,’ we nowhere learn.[10]
[Sidenote: 1627.
AUG.]
‘... there being upon the coast of Zetland about the number of 250
Fleming busses at the herring-fishing, attended with nine waughters ...
there cam upon them fourteen great Biscayen Spanish ships, in whilk
there were 4000 soldiers, with ane great sum of money for the payment
of the Spanish army in Germany; whilk ships, being bound for Dunkirk,
cam that north way for their safest passage, till keep themselves free
from the harm of Flemish or English ships. But, approaching to the
said coast, they set upon the Hollanders, and, sinking three of the
waughters, the haill busses took the flight, some till little creeks
in Zetland, where the Spaniard did sink a number of their busses, and
taking their master, did put the rest of their company to the edge of
the sword, with some also of the country people, inhabitants thereof,
resisting their tyranny.’
The Privy Council, duly apprised of these outrages on the 13th of the
month, were taking measures for their correction, when, on the 16th,
‘there arase a great fray in the town of Edinburgh, for, the busses
having left the waughters combating with the Dunkirkers, and having
fled away therefrae, there cam of them the number of threescore all
together in form of ane half-moon, up the Firth of Forth; where, at
the first perceiving afar off of such a number of ships in the form
foresaid, as if they had been in battle or onset thereof, the haill
people thought they had been ane army of Spaniards and Dunkirkers
assuredly. Whereupon the Privy Council caused mak a proclamation,
that all manner of men, offensive and defensive, under the pain of
death, should all in arms to the sea-shore, upon the first touk of the
drum. All this day, the Lords of Council held their council at Leith,
where also David Aikenhead, provost of Edinburgh, with some of the
bailies and council thereof, attended the event of the said ships,
till advertise the people of the town what they sould do thereanent.
About eight hours at night, by command of the Privy Council, the
cannons were trailed down with furnishing thereto from the Castle of
Edinburgh till Leith, and the town of Edinburgh were put in arms under
ten handseignies, every man better resolved than another to abide the
worst till death, or they to put the enemies to destruction.... About
ten hours at night certain word cam, by two boats that was sent from
Leith, to the effect that they were our friends and only a number of
busses fled from the tyranny of the Dunkirkers ... and then the cannons
were trailed back again to the Castle, and the people were commanded to
their rest.’--_Jo. H._
[Sidenote: 1627.
OCT. 10.]
As the Privy Council was sitting in its chamber in Holyrood Palace, an
outrage took place, recalling the wild acts of thirty years since. One
John Young, poultry-man, attacked Mr Richard Bannatyne, bailie-depute
of the regality of Broughton, at the council-room door, and struck him
in the back with a whinger, to the peril of his life. The Council,
in great indignation, immediately sent off Young to be tried on the
morrow at the Tolbooth, with orders, ‘if he be convict, that his
majesty’s justice and his depute cause doom to be pronounced against
him, ordaining him to be drawn upon ane cart backward frae the Tolbooth
to the place of execution at the Mercat Cross of Edinburgh, and there
hangit to the deid and quartered, and his head to be set upon the
Nether Bow, and his hand to be set upon the Water Yett.’--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV. 27.]
A warrant was granted by the Privy Council regarding Alexander Robison,
a Jesuit lately taken and put into the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, ‘where
he has remained divers months bygane’ [since the 20th September of
preceding year]. As his staying in the country could not but lead to
the corruption of the people in their religious opinions and their
allegiance to the king, the Council deemed it expedient that Robison
be ‘sent away out of the country nor unnecessarily halden within the
same.’ He was therefore to be called before a justice court in the
Tolbooth, where, ‘after acknowledging of his offence in transgressing
of his majesty’s laws made against the resorting and remaining of
Jesuits within this kingdom,’ they were to ‘take him solemnly sworn and
judicially acted, that he sall depairt and pass furth of this kingdom
with the first commodity of a ship going toward the Low Countries, and
that he sall not return again within the same without his majesty’s
licence ... under pain of deid.’--_P. C. R._
Two days after, the Council took into consideration certain petitions
of Alexander Robison, ‘heavily regretting the want of means to
entertein him in ward and satisfy his bypast charges therein.’ ‘Seeing
it accords not with Christian charity to suffer him to starve for
hunger, he being his majesty’s prisoner,’ the lords agreed that he
should have 13s. 4d. [that is, 1s. 1-1/3d. sterling] per day, counting
from the 20th of September last.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1627.]
The latter part of this year, marked by a military disaster and
disgrace nearly unexampled in British annals[11], was made further
memorable by a tempest of extraordinary violence, which destroyed a
vast quantity of mercantile shipping, including many collier vessels
carrying their commodity to the Thames. At one part of the coast of
Scotland, a high tide, assisted by the storm, produced an inundation
over a large tract of low land. It came upon the Blackshaw in
Carlaverock parish, and upon certain parts of the parish of Ruthwell
‘in such a fearful manner as none then living had ever seen the like.
It went at least half a mile beyond the ordinary course, and threw down
a number of houses and bulwarks in its way, and many cattle and other
bestial were swept away with its rapidity; and, what was still more
melancholy, of the poor people who lived by making salt on Ruthwell
sands seventeen perished; thirteen of these were found next day, and
were all buried together in the churchyard of Ruthwell, which no doubt
was an affecting sight to their relations, widows, and children, &c.,
and even to all that beheld it. One circumstance more ought not to
be omitted. The house of Old Cockpool being environed on all hands,
the people fled to the top of it for safety; and so sudden was the
inundation upon them, that, in their confusion, they left a young child
in a cradle exposed to the flood, which very speedily carried away the
cradle; nor could the tender-hearted beholders save the child’s life
without the manifest danger of their own. But, by the good providence
of God, as the cradle, now afloat, was going forth of the outer door,
a corner of it struck against the door-post, by which the other end
was turned about; and, going across the door, it stuck there till the
waters were assuaged.
‘Upon the whole, that inundation made a most surprising devastation in
those parts; and the ruin occasioned by it had an agreeable influence
on the surviving inhabitants, convincing them, more than ever, of what
they owed to divine Providence; and for ten years thereafter, they had
the holy communion about that time, and thereby called to mind even
that bodily deliverance.’[12]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 25.]
[Sidenote: 1627.]
There now being much anxiety about foreign invasion, some care was
taken to ascertain the state of the national defences, and there
was also a proposal to fortify various places, of which, it may be
remarked, Leith was one. Sir John Stewart of Traquair had been sent
to inquire into the condition of Dumbarton Castle, and now reported
as follows: ‘At his entry within the castle, he found only three men
and a boy in ordinar guarding the same. The walls in the chief and
most important parts were ruinous and decayed; the house wanting
doors, locks, or bolts, and nather wind nor water tight; the ordnance
unmounted, and little or no provision of victuals and munition (except
some few rusty muskets) within the same.’
The description, it is to be feared, was generally characteristic. In
those days, which we look back upon as so romantic, there was one thing
wanting--revenue. In Scotland, owing to the poverty of the government,
national buildings alternated between long periods of neglect and
decay, and abrupt attempts at repair when there was a pressing need. As
to the case of Dumbarton, Sir John Stewart was empowered to get it put
into proper order, with a promise of reimbursement.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1629.
MAR. 11.]
The Privy Council took energetic measures against certain persons of
the south-western province, including Herbert Maxwell of Kirkconnel,
Charles Brown in New Abbey, Barbara Maxwell Lady Mabie, John
Little, master of household to the Earl of Nithsdale, John Allan in
Kirkgunzeon, John Williamson in Lochrutton, and many others, all
apparently people in respectable circumstances. It was found that
these individuals proudly and contemptuously disregarded both the
excommunication and the horning which they had brought upon themselves
by persisting in their ‘obdured and popish opinions and errors,’
haunted and frequented all public parts of the country, ‘as if they
were free and lawful subjects,’ and were ‘reset, supplied, and
furnished with all things necessar and comfortable unto them,’ a great
encouragement to them to continue in their erroneous opinions, ‘whereas
if this reset, supply, and comfort were refused unto them, they might
be reclaimed from their opinions, to the acknowledgment of their bypast
misdemeanours.’ As if to mark more effectually the infamy of these
recusants, a pair who had been excommunicated for adultery were classed
with them. A commission was issued for the apprehension and trial of
all persons ‘who are suspect guilty of the reset and supply of the said
excommunicat rebels.’
[Sidenote: 1628.]
Two of the commissioners--Sir William Grier of Lag and Sir John
Charteris of Amisfield--went very promptly to that peculiar nest of
papists, New Abbey, and there apprehended Charles and Gilbert Brown,
two of the ‘excommunicat rebels.’ Enraged by this act, the wife of
Charles Brown, and a number of other women, raised a mob against the
minister and schoolmaster of the parish, ‘whose wives and servants
they shamefully and mischantly abused, and pursued with rungs [sticks]
and casting of stones.’ This being held as a great insolency, and
likely to prove an evil example if unpunished, the Council ordered the
commissioners to hold a court at Dumfries for the trial and punishment
of the offenders.--_P. C. R._
A few weeks afterwards, one of the excommunicated ladies, Janet
Johnston, spouse of Brown of Lochhill, was taken into custody; but
being in a delicate state, she was allowed (June 26) to go home till
the time of her _accouchement_, on condition that she gave caution for
her living during the interval ‘without offence and scandal to the
kirk,’ and ‘conform with the ministry for giving unto them satisfaction
regarding her religion;’ failing which, immediately after her recovery,
‘she sall depairt furth of the kingdom, and not return again within
the same without his majesty’s licence, under pain of ane thousand
merks.’--_P. C. R._
These proceedings were followed up by some sharp handling of the
papists of Aberdeenshire and the priests trafficking there.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR. 2.]
[Sidenote: 1628.]
The clergy of the city of Edinburgh, eight in number, were now disposed
to sympathise in and support their flocks in the general repugnance
to the new arrangements at the celebration of the communion. They had
become sensible of the great inconvenience of dissent, and wished to
bring the people back to the churches. There was, however, but a faint
hope of prevailing with the king to sanction a return to the old simple
forms. At the approach of the Easter celebration of the communion,
‘there was in the Little East Kirk a private meeting of the ministers
of Edinburgh, and a certain number of the citizens of the said town,
to the end they might reconceil the hearts of the people to their
pastors, to the end, if it might be possible, they might have acquired
ane dispensation from the king to celebrate the sacrament of the Lord’s
Supper without kneeling, after the ancient form of the discipline of
the Kirk of Scotland.... The conveners, having met three or four times
thereupon, thought best to send Mr William Livingstone to the king’s
majesty to deal for obteining the said dispensation; but before he cam
to court, his majesty was informed of his message, and absolutely
refused the same until he were further advised.’--_Jo. H._ The king
afterwards sent an imperious order to the Archbishop of St Andrews,
desiring him to see to the condign punishment of the authors of this
movement. The people were silenced, but soured; and the course of
things that led to the Civil War went on.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 2.]
George Lauder of the Bass, and his mother, ‘Dame Isobel Hepburn Lady
Bass,’ were at this time in embarrassed circumstances, ‘standing at the
horn at the instance of divers of their creditors.’ Nevertheless, as
was complained of them, ‘they peaceably bruik and enjoy some of their
rents, and remain within the craig of the Bass, presuming to keep and
maintein themselves, so to elude justice and execution of the law.’ A
Scotch laird and his mother holding out against creditors in a tower
on that inaccessible sea-rock, form rather a striking picture to the
imagination. But debt even then had its power of exorcising romance.
The Lords of Council issued a proclamation, threatening George Lauder
and his mother with the highest pains if they did not submit to the
laws. A friend then came forward and represented to the lords ‘the hard
and desolate estate’ of the two rebels, and obtained a protection for
them, enabling them to come to Edinburgh to make arrangements for the
settlement of their affairs.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1628.]
Under encouragement, as was supposed, from the Duke of Buckingham, the
Scottish Catholics had for some time been raising their heads in a
manner not known for many years before. They began to indulge a hope
that possibly a certain degree of toleration might be extended to them.
Some impetuous spirits amongst them went so far in ‘insolency’ as to
write pasquinades upon the Bishop of Aberdeen, and post them upon
his own church doors. The Privy Council were too well aware of the
unpopularity of the king on account of the episcopal innovations which
he loved, to allow him to remain under any additional odium on account
of a faith about which he was, at the best, indifferent. Besides,
‘taking order’ with popery was always a cheap and ready means of making
political capital against Presbyterian opponents. We accordingly find
the Council at this date issuing orders regarding a number of persons
of consideration in the north, as well as the priests whom they
entertained, but particularly against the Marquis of Huntly, whose
protection they deemed to be the chief cause why popery was not better
repressed in that quarter.
There was first a recital regarding a host of men who acted as
officers, or lived as tenants, upon the extensive estates of the
marquis--‘Mr Robert Bisset of Lessendrum, bailie of Strabogie;
Alexander Gordon of Drumquhaill, chamberlain of Strabogie; Patrick
Gordon of Tilliesoul; John Gordon, in Little-mill; Adam Smith,
chamberlain of the Enzie; Robert Gordon, in Haddo; Barbara Law, spouse
to the said Adam Smith; Margaret Gordon, good wife of Cornmellat;
Malcolm Laing, in Gulburn; and Mr Adam Strachan, chamberlain to
the Earl of Aboyne.’ It was stated of them, that they had remained
indifferent under the ‘fearful sentence of excommunication,’ and the
consequent process of horning--that is, rebellion--frequenting all
parts of the country ‘as if they had been true and faithful subjects.’
They were alleged to be encouraged in their rebellious life by the
marquis, who was properly answerable for them; so he was charged to
present them on a certain day of February next, under pain of horning.
[Sidenote: 1628.]
There was next a recital regarding a number of persons, including,
besides several of the above, ‘Mr Alexander Irving, burgess of
Aberdeen; Thomas Menzies of Balgownie; Walter Leslie, in Aberdeen;
Robert Irwing, burgess there; John Gordon, appearand of Craig; James
Forbes of Blackton; Robert Gordon, in Cushnie; James Philip, in Easton;
James Con, in Knockie; John Gordon, in Bountie; Alexander Harvie, in
Inverury; John Gordon, in Troups-mill; John Spence, notar in Pewsmill;
Francis Leslie, brother to Capuchin Leslie; Alexander Leslie, brother
to the Laird of Pitcaple; Thomas Cheyne, in Ranniston; William Seton
of Blair; Thomas Laing, goldsmith, burgess of Aberdeen; Alexander
Gordon, in Tilliegreg; Alexander Gordon, in Convach; Agnes Gordon his
spouse; Margaret Gordon, spouse to Robert Innes, in Elgin;’ who had
all been excommunicated and denounced rebels for the same reason: also
seven men and two women, including, besides several of those formerly
cited, Alexander Gordon, in Badenoch; Angus M‘Ewen M‘William there;
and Alexander Gordon, ‘appearand’ of Cairnbarrow; and Helen Coutts his
spouse; who had been put to the horn for not coming to answer for their
‘not conforming themselves to the religion presently professed within
this kingdom, and for their scandalous behaviour otherwise, to the
offence of God, disgrace of the Gospel, and misregard of his majesty’s
authority.’ Having most ‘proudly and contemptuandly remained under
excommunication this long time bygane,’ they went about everywhere as
if they had been good subjects, ‘hunting and seeking all occasion where
they may have the exercise of their false religion; for which purpose
they are avowed resetters of Jesuits, seminary and mass priests,
accompanying them through the country, armed with unlawful weapons.’
The Marquis of Huntly, as sheriff-principal of Aberdeen, and Lord
Lovat, as ‘sheriff of Elgin and Forres,’ were charged to search for and
capture these persons, in order that they might be punished.
There was, finally, an order regarding the priests, who, it was said,
were not only corrupting the religion of the people, but perverting
their loyalty--‘namely, Mr Andrew Steven, callit _Father Steven_;
Mr John Ogilvie; Father Stitchill; Father Hegitts; Capuchin Leslie,
commonly callit _The Archangel_; Father Ogilvie; Mr William Leslie,
commonly callit _The Captain_; Mr Andrew Leslie; Mr John Leslie; ----
Christie, commonly callit _The Principal of Dowie_; with other twa
Christies; Father Brown, son to umwhile James Brown at the Nether
Bow of Edinburgh; Father Tyrie; three Robertsons, callit _Fathers_;
Father Robb; Father Paterson; Father Pittendreich; Father Dumbreck;
and Doctor William Leslie.’ The Marquis of Huntly, as the proper legal
authority for the purpose, ‘and the special man of power, friendship,
authority, and commandment in the north parts of the kingdom, and who
for many other respects is obleist to contribute his best means for the
furtherance and advancement of his majesty’s authority and service,’
was charged to hunt out and apprehend these pestilent men, that the
laws might be executed upon them.
To these measures was added a proclamation, chiefly to the people of
the northern districts, pointing out the priests by name, as the ‘most
pernicious pests in this commonweal,’ and commanding ‘that nane presume
nor take upon hand to reset, supply, nor furnish meat, drink, house,
nor harboury’ to them, ‘nor keep company with them, nor convoy them
through the country, nor to have no kind of dealing nor trafficking
with them,’ under the penalties laid down in the acts of parliament.
There was a like proclamation regarding the excommunicated laymen and
women above mentioned. At the same time, the bishop and magistrates of
Aberdeen were commissioned to go with armed bands, and endeavour to
apprehend both the priests and their resetters.
[Sidenote: 1628.]
While charging the Marquis of Huntly with some duty against the papists
on his own estates and those throughout his jurisdiction, the Council
were quite aware of their false position in regard to him, and they
deemed it proper (December 4) to send a letter to the king on that
special point. They expressed their belief that the chief cause of
the late increase of popery and insolency of the papists lay in the
fact, that the execution of the laws on these matters was in the
hands of notoriously avowed professors of the same faith--men of such
power, that inferior officers, however well affected to their duty,
were overawed. They in all grief and humility presented this case for
his majesty’s serious consideration, entreating that he would debar
from the Council and from public employments all who were suspected
of popery; manifestly pointing to the marquis. Meanwhile, they said,
we have directed warrants to the sheriffs and other authorities, ‘to
apprehend the delinquents _if they can or darr_.’
The Marquis of Huntly, who had been last converted from popery a dozen
years ago, and had since, as usual, relapsed, took little trouble
with a commission which he felt to be so disagreeable. When the 3d
of February arrived, his depute came before the Council, and made
some excuse for him, on the ground that execution of the warrants
had been delayed by the wintry weather until the delinquents had all
escaped; adding a petition that they would not press him to remove his
chamberlains till these men should have accounted to him for large sums
which they owed to him. Feeling that the marquis had wilfully failed in
his duty, they denounced him as a rebel.
[Sidenote: 1628.]
On the 18th of June 1629, the Council issued a charge against Sir John
Campbell of Caddell;[13] Mr Alexander Irving, burgess of Aberdeen;
Thomas Menzies of Balgownie; Mr Robert Bisset of Lessendrum; John
Gordon of Craig; James Forbes of Blackton; Thomas Cheyne of Ranniston;
William Seton of Blair; Alexander Gordon of Tilliegreg; Patrick
Gordon of Tilliesoul; and Margaret Gordon, goodwife of Cornmellat;
representing that, notwithstanding all that had been lately done, they
continue obdurate against kirk and law, going about as if nothing were
amiss, and enjoying possession of ‘their houses, goods, and geir,
whilk properly belongs to his majesty as escheat.’ Seeing that by the
latter circumstance they are ‘strengthened and fostered in their popish
courses,’ the Council ordained that officers-at-arms ‘pass, pursue,
and take the said rebels their houses, remove them and their families
furth thereof, and keep and detein the same in his majesty’s name;’
also to search out, poind, and uplift all ‘geir’ of theirs wherever to
be found, and bring it to the exchequer. All neighbours were commanded
to assist in enforcing these orders.
It was ascertained that the acts against resetting of priests had been
‘eluded by the wives of persons repute and esteemed to be sound in
religion, who, pretending misknowledge of the actions of their wives
in thir cases, thinks to liberate themselves of the danger of the
said resett, as if they were not to answer for their wives’ doings.’
Wherefore, the Council ordained that the husband shall be always, in
such cases, answerable for the wife.
At the same time, to gratify the desire of his Scottish Council, the
king sent an order that, for the detection of papists in high places,
the communion should be administered to all his councillors and judges,
all advocates, writers, and officers of the government, in his chapel
at Holyroodhouse, and this to be repeated at least once a year. At his
majesty’s command, a kind of convention of dignitaries of church and
state met at the same place to give the Council their assistance. The
result was a commission issued (July 25, 1629) to a great number of
nobles and gentlemen, in the several districts popishly affected, to
search for and bring to justice those ‘pernicious and wicked pests,’
‘avowed enemies to God’s truth and all Christian government,’ the
Jesuits, seminary and mass priests concealed throughout the country;
also to seize all persons of whatever rank, ‘whom they sall deprehend
going in pilgrimage to chapels and wells, or whom they sall know
themselves to be guilty of that crime,’ that they may be punished
according to act of parliament. Supposing the priests and other
delinquents should fly to fortified places, then the commissioners were
empowered and ordered to ‘follow, hunt, and pursue them with fire and
sword, assiege the said strengths and houses, raise fire, and use all
other force and warlike engine that can be had for winning and recovery
thereof, and apprehending of the said Jesuits and excommunicat papists
being therein.’ The commissioners at the same time received assurance
that no act of bloodshed on either side, or any destruction of property
occasioned in the execution of this order, should be imputed to them as
a fault.
[Sidenote: 1628.]
The dignitaries and ministers of the Established Church, without any
appearance of unwillingness, took part in this persecution. Many of
the bishops sat as members of the Privy Council, and we hear of the
‘dioceses and presbyteries’ helping the government to lists of avowed
and suspected papists, against whom proceedings might be taken. None
were more active than Spottiswoode, archbishop of St Andrews, and
Forbes, bishop of Aberdeen. It was no blank fusillade for mere terror.
A great number of the gentlemen and ladies aimed at in the fulminations
of the Council were really struck in their persons and estates. We
hear of many being thrown into prison, and kept there till they either
professed conformity or gave caution that they would depart from the
country. Their property was at the same time held as escheat to the
crown.
Agreeably to the royal order, the communion was administered in the
king’s chapel at Holyroodhouse in July, ‘by sound of trumpet,’ to all
such of his majesty’s councillors, members of the College of Justice,
and others, as were disposed thus to testify their worthiness of the
royal favour. On the 6th of November, the king wrote a letter to his
Scottish Council on this subject. ‘Understanding,’ he says, ‘that some
popishly affected have neglected this course, we, out of our care and
affection for the maintenance of the professed religion, are pleased to
will and require that you remove from our council-table all such who
are disobedient in that kind.’ This the Council (December 3) obediently
resolved to do.
[Sidenote: 1628.]
The Council was much importuned by the captive papists for relief; but
it was pithily ordained that none now or hereafter ‘sall be relieved
out of ward, but upon obedience and conformity to the true religion, or
else upon their _voluntary offer_ of banishment furth of his majesty’s
whole dominions.’
One remarkable captive was the Marchioness of Abercorn, whom we have
already seen manifesting some ultra-ardour on her own side. This lady
had lain for a long time in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh--a lodging which
was loathsome in the reign of George III., and may be presumed to have
been still worse in that of Charles I. The confinement had procured
her ladyship ‘many heavy diseases, so as this whole last winter she
was almost tied to her bed,’ and she now ‘found a daily decay and
weakness in her person.’ The severity of the fate of this, as of
some other persons, may be measured by the mercy extended to her. It
being represented to the king that her ladyship, being oppressed with
sickness and disease of body, required the benefit of a watering-place,
he, being inclined, on the one hand, to do nothing that would derogate
from the authority of the church, but, on the other, being unwilling
that the lady should be ‘brought to the extremity of losing her life
for want of ordinary remedies,’ ordered (July 9, 1629) that she should
have a licence to go to the baths of Bristol, but only on condition
that she should not attempt to appear at court, and after her recovery,
return and put herself again at the disposal of the Council.
Her ladyship, after all, did not go to the Bristol baths, but, after a
further restraint of six months in the Canongate [jail?], was permitted
to go to reside in the house of Duntarvie, on condition that ‘she
sall contain herself [therein] so warily and respectively as she sall
not fall under the break of any of his majesty’s laws;’ also that
she should, while living there, have conference with the ministry,
but allow none to Jesuits or mass priests. Her ladyship is found to
have ‘contained herself’ in Duntarvie for a considerable time, but to
have at length been under a necessity of resorting to Paisley for the
‘outred’ of some weighty affairs. In March 1631, when she had been
under restraint about three years, she was formally licensed to go to
Paisley, but only under condition that she should not, while there,
‘reset Thomas Algeo nor no Jesuits,’ and return by a certain day under
penalty of five thousand merks.
[Sidenote: 1628.]
Some, while preparing to pass into exile, were naturally concerned
about the means of living abroad. These persons, therefore, petitioned
that some portion of their confiscated fortunes might be granted
to them for their subsistence. The king took these petitions into
consideration, and ‘out of his gracious bounty and clemency, in hope of
their timely reclaiming,’ ordained that the proceeds of their estates
should be divided into three parts, ‘whereof twa sall wholly belong to
his majesty, and the third part his majesty does freely bestow upon the
said persons;’ this, however, to be wholly forfeited, if the inventory
of their possessions rendered by them should prove to be untrue.
Even the princely Huntly was obliged to bow to the storm. Breaking
through an order of the Scottish Privy Council, he proceeded direct
to court, in the hope of gaining something from the royal favour.
Having resigned into the king’s hands his sheriffship of Aberdeen, and
made some excuses for his non-execution of the Council’s orders, he
obtained certain ‘instructions for the clergy of Scotland,’ ordering
them to use Huntly, Angus, Nithsdale, and Abercorn ‘with discretion,’
and not proceed further against them till he should be consulted; also
commanding that papist peeresses be not excommunicated, provided their
husbands be responsible for them, and that they reset no Jesuits.[14]
Huntly then came (November 3) in humble form before the Council, made
excuses for his non-execution of their orders, and besought them for
a gift of his own confiscated property in behalf of some person whom
he might nominate. Notwithstanding the king’s favourable letter, they
demurred to this petition, and put him off for some weeks, at the same
time taking caution that he should not pass north of the Tay. Coming
again before them on the 8th of December, he was told that he could
not be excused from ‘exhibiting’ the papists residing on his estates.
He was also commanded to return on a certain day, when he might
witness his daughters being ‘sequestrat for their better breeding and
instruction in the grounds of the true religion.’
Amongst the movements in this important cause was one regarding the
children of noted papists. It was feared that the ordinances for having
them brought up under Protestant tutors had been much disregarded.
The Earl of Angus had been ordered to place his eldest son, James
Douglas, under Principal Adamson of the Edinburgh University, to have
remained with him some certain space, in order to have his doubts in
religion resolved. The young man had given his tutor the slip. The
earl was therefore called before the Council. He explained that he had
no knowledge of what the youth had done till it was past, and he had
since sent him to the Duke of Lennox, that he might be introduced to
some English university. He was obliged to crave pardon of the Council
for what he had done. The representative of the great Douglases of the
fifteenth century compelled, in the seventeenth, to give up the right
to educate his own son, and confess himself a delinquent for even
attempting such a thing! ‘The Earl of Errol’s twa daughters, the Laird
of Dalgetty’s bairns, and the bairns of Alexander Gordon of Dunkinty,’
were said to be under ‘vehement suspicion of being corrupted in their
religion by remaining in their fathers’ company.’ So likewise were the
daughters of the Marquis of Huntly, the children of Lord Gray, and many
others. The Earl of Nithsdale was ordered to ‘exhibit’ his son, that
the Council might see if he was right in the faith. Even Lord Gordon,
who soon after undertook a commission for the government against the
northern papists, was commanded to send his sons to a tutor approven of
by the Archbishop of St Andrews.
[Sidenote: 1628.]
We get a glimpse of some of the proceedings in regard to the estates
of the Catholic gentlemen from a supplication presented to the
Privy Council on the 15th of December 1629 by the commissioners
of the diocese of Aberdeen. It proceeds to narrate that, it having
pleased the Lords, ‘to the glory of God and _comfort of all
weel-affected subjects_, for purging the land of popery, to grant
sundry letters against excommunicat rebels, their persons, houses,
and rents’--decreets, moreover, having been obtained in the Court of
Session for poinding and arrestment--the officers had consequently
dealt with certain friends of the victims, who had undertaken to labour
the lands for the crop 1629, and to account for the result according
to a valuation made ‘before the corns came to the hook;’ but there
had been some slackness in the working out of these arrangements, ‘to
the great hinder of his majesty’s service, and encouraging of these
excommunicat rebels to continue in their obstinacy and disobedience.’
It was therefore necessary to take sharper methods; and a strict
commission to the Bishop of Aberdeen was suggested. The Council
accordingly ordered the bishop to call the officers before him, and
have them ‘tried of their diligence’ and honest and dutiful carriage in
this matter, and to see that they were prompted where necessary.
For further proceedings regarding the ‘excommunicat papists and
rebels,’ see forward, under January 1630.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1629.
JAN. 26.]
On this day--an unusual season for thunder in our climate--a
thunder-clap fell upon Castle-Kennedy, the seat of the Earl of
Cassillis in Ayrshire--‘which, falling into a room where there were
several children, crushed some dogs and furniture; but happily the
children escaped. From thence descending to a low apartment, it
destroyed a granary of meal. At the same time, a gentleman in the
neighbourhood had about thirty cows, that were feeding in the fields,
struck dead by the thunder.’[15]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR. 15.]
[Sidenote: 1629.]
The case of John Weir ‘in Clenochdyke,’ who had married Isobel Weddell,
the relict of his grand-uncle, and thus been guilty of ‘incest,’ was
under the consideration of the Privy Council. Weir had been three years
under excommunication for this crime, which the Council deemed ‘fit
to procure the wrath and displeasure of God to the whole nation.’ The
king’s advocate was now ordered to proceed with his trial, and, in
the event of his conviction, to cause sentence to be passed; but they
superseded execution till July. Weir was actually tried on the 25th
of April, found guilty, and sentenced to be beheaded at the Cross of
Edinburgh.[16] After suffering a twelvemonth’s imprisonment under this
sentence, he became a subject for the special mercy of the king, and
was only banished the island for life.
Weir’s is not a solitary case. On the 19th of August in the same
year, Henry Dick, ‘in Bandrum,’ was adjudged to lose his head for
a transgression in connection with the sister of his wife, this
offence being regarded as incest, and misinterpreted as a breach of a
well-known text which is still the basis of an English law. In July
1649, Donald Brymer for the same offence was sentenced to the same
punishment. It is worthy of notice that, in June 1643, Janet Imrie, who
had been the paramour of two brothers, was for that reason condemned to
be beheaded.
One of the most remarkable of a large class of cases of this kind was
that of Alexander Blair, a tailor in Currie, who had married his _first
wife’s half-brother’s daughter_.[17] For this offence, under reverence
for the same misinterpreted text, he was condemned to lose his head!
(September 9, 1630.)
It is deplorable to see these severe punishments inflicted for acts
which neither interfere with any principle of nature, nor tend in
any way to injure the rights of individuals or to trouble society.
At the same time, the marriage of first-cousins, which tends to the
deterioration of the race, was not forbidden.[18] And offences of
real consequence, as affecting the condition of individuals, were
visited with comparatively light penalties. Thus, on the same day when
Alexander Blair, tailor in Currie, was sentenced to lose his head for
marrying his first wife’s half-brother’s daughter, William Lachlane was
adjudged to banishment for life for bigamy. The jurisprudence of the
country on these points was mainly guided by a few semi-religious or
rather superstitious views, while the voice of God through nature no
one thought of listening to or applying.
[Sidenote: 1629.
MAY 14.]
Died Jean Gordon, remarkable in our history as the lady whom James
Hepburn Earl of Bothwell divorced in 1567, in order to be enabled to
ally himself to Queen Mary. She survived that frightful time, in peace
and honour, for sixty-two years, exemplifying how durable are calmness
and prudence in comparison with passion and guilt. Since her separation
from Bothwell, she had been the wife of two other husbands--first,
Alexander Earl of Sutherland; and second, the Laird of Boyne. ‘A
virtuous and comely lady, judicious, of excellent memory, and of
great understanding above the capacity of her sex; in this much to be
commended, that, during the continual changes and particular factions
of the court in the reign of Queen Mary, and in the minority of King
James VI., (which were many,) she always managed her affairs with so
great prudence and foresight, that the enemies of her family could
never prevail against her, nor move those that were the chief rulers of
the state at the time, to do anything to her prejudice; a time indeed
both dangerous and deceitful. Amidst all these troublesome storms, and
variable courses of fortune, she still enjoyed the possession of her
jointure, which was assigned unto her out of the earldom of Bothwell,
and kept the same until her death, yea, though that earldom had fallen
twice into the king’s hands by forfeiture in her time.... By reason of
her husband Earl Alexander his sickly disposition, together with her
son’s minority at the time of his father’s death, she was in a manner
forced to take upon her the managing of all the affairs of that house a
good while, which she did perform with great care, to her own credit,
and the weal of that family.... She was the first that caused work the
_coal heugh_ beside the river of Brora, and was the first instrument of
making salt there. This coal [now interesting chiefly in a geological
point of view, as connected with the oolitic formation] was found
before by Earl John, father of Earl Alexander; but he, being taken away
by an untimely death, had no time to enterprise this work. This lady
built the house of Cracock, where she dwelt a long time.’--_G. H. S._
This character, though drawn by the partial hand of a son, may be
accepted as on the whole a true, as it is certainly a pleasing
description, of the _divorcée_ of Bothwell. The lady was buried in
Dornoch Cathedral
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 18.]
[Sidenote: 1629.]
A service to property depending at this time before the Court of
Session between the Earl of Cassillis and the Earl of Wigton, these
nobles appeared in Edinburgh, each with a multitude of followers,
who paraded the streets in a tumultuous manner, and with such
demonstrations of animosity as must have recalled the days of James
VI. to many an anxious citizen. The Privy Council met in alarm, and
appointed a committee to go and admonish the two litigant nobles
about these unseemly appearances. It was enjoined that, while in town
waiting on the service, they should not appear on the streets with
more than twelve followers each, and that in peaceable manner, nor
come to the bar with more than six, dismissing all others who had not
known occasion to be present. At the same time, the noblemen who were
the friends of the several parties were ‘to forbear the backing of
them at this time,’ on pain of censure as ‘troublers of his majesty’s
peace.’--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
Throughout the whole time of the papist persecution, the Scottish
authorities found it necessary to give a good deal of attention to
matters of diablerie. Either witches and warlocks were particularly
rife at that time, or the same enlightened spirit which assailed the
papists was particularly keen-sighted and zealous in finding out
offenders connected with the other world.
On the 30th of October 1628, the Earl of Monteath, Lord Justice-general
of the kingdom, reported to the Privy Council the case of Janet Boyd,
spouse to Robert Neill, burgess of Dumbarton, who had freely confessed
that she had entered in covenant with the devil, had received his mark,
had renounced her baptism, and been much too intimate with the above
grisly personage, through whose power she had laid diseases upon sundry
persons. The Council approved of a commission for trying Janet and for
‘the punishing of so foul and detestable a crime.’--_P. C. R._
In the course of 1629, Isobel Young, spouse to George Smith, portioner
in East Barns in Haddingtonshire, was burnt for witchcraft. She had
been accused of both inflicting and curing diseases; and it appears
that she and her husband had sent to the Laird of Lee to borrow his
_curing-stone_ for their cattle, which had the ‘routing ill.’ This is
interesting as an early reference to the well-known _Lee Penny_, which
is yet preserved in the family of Lockhart of Lee, being an ancient
precious stone or amulet, set in a silver penny. It is related that
Lady Lee declined to lend the stone, but gave flagons of water in which
the penny had been steeped. This water, being drunk by the cattle, was
believed to have effected their cure.
[Sidenote: 1629.]
One Alexander Hamilton was apprehended as a notorious warlock, and put
into the Tolbooth of Edinburgh--where he would have for a companion in
captivity the Lady Abercorn, whose offence was not less metaphysical
than his own. He ‘delated’ four women of the burgh of Haddington, and
five other women of its neighbourhood, as guilty of witchcraft. The
Privy Council sent orders (November 1629) to have the whole Circean
nine apprehended; and as their poverty made it inconvenient to bring
them to Edinburgh, the presbytery of Haddington was enjoined to examine
them in their own district. What was done with them ultimately, we
are not informed. Another woman, named Katherine Oswald, residing at
Niddry near Edinburgh, was likewise accused by Hamilton, and taken into
custody. This seems to have been considered an unusually important
case, as four lawyers were appointed to act as assessors to the
justices on her trial.--_P. C. R._ It was alleged of Katherine that she
had that partial insensibility which was understood to be an undoubted
proof of the witch quality. Two witnesses stated that they ‘saw ane
preen put in to the heid, by Mr John Aird, minister, in the panel’s
shoulder, being the devil’s mark, and nae bluid following, nor she
naeways shrinking thereat.’[19]
Hamilton alleged that he had been with Katherine at a meeting of
witches between Niddry and Edmondstone, where they met with the devil.
It was also stated that she had been one of a witch-party who had met
at Prestonpans, and used charms, on the night of the great storm at the
end of March 1625. But the chief articles of her dittay bore reference
to cures which she had wrought by sorcery. Katherine was convicted and
burned.--_B. A._
[Sidenote: 1629.]
In November, the Privy Council issued a commission to the Bishop of
Dumblane for the examination of John Hog and Margaret Nicolson his
spouse, ‘upon their guiltiness of the crime of witchcraft, with power
to confront them with others who best can give evidence.’ This pair
were soon after brought to the Edinburgh prison, whence, however,
they were speedily released on caution for reappearance. The Lords,
on the same day, issued a charge against ‘Margaret Maxwell spouse to
Nicol Thomson, and Jean Thomson her daughter, spouse to umwhile Edward
Hamilton, in Dumfries,’ who, it was said, had procured the death of the
said Edward ‘by the devilish and detestable practice of witchcraft.’
Claud Hamilton of Mauchline-hole, brother of the deceased Edward, soon
after (December 22, 1629) presented a petition to the Privy Council,
claiming that they should order an examination of Geillie Duncan of
Dumfries, now in hands there on suspicion of a concern in the fact.
The Council accordingly commissioned the magistrates and ministers of
Dumfries to effect this examination.
The warlock Alexander Hamilton also accused the Lady Home of
Manderston, in Berwickshire, of having practised against the life of
her husband by witchcraft. Patrick Abernethy, notar in Dunse, and
William Mowat, a servant, were accordingly cited by the Council to come
and give information regarding the case. The presence of Sir George
himself was of course desirable; but Sir George, like many other good
Scotch lairds, of that day and of later days, was under some danger of
the law on account of his debts. It therefore became necessary to send
him a protection, in order that he might be enabled to appear in the
city. There does not seem to have been any other foundation for this
charge than the fact, that Sir George Home and his wife did not live on
amicable terms. Some months after (June 29, 1630), we find Sir George
giving caution that he will not molest his wife or any of her tenants,
‘in their bodies, lands, rooms, possessions, corns, cattle, guids or
geir, otherwise nor by order of law.’
Hamilton himself was tried (January 22, 1630), when it came out that
he had begun his wicked career in consequence of meeting the devil
in the form of a black man on Kingston Hills, in Haddingtonshire.
Being engaged to serve the fiend, he was instructed to raise him by
beating the ground thrice with a fir-stick, and crying: ‘Rise up, foul
thief!’ He had consequently had him up several times for consultations;
sometimes in the shape of a dog or cat, sometimes in that of a crow.
By diabolic aid, he had caused a mill full of corn, belonging to
Provost Cockburn, to be burned, merely by taking three stalks from
the provost’s stacks, and burning them on the Garleton Hills. He had
been at many witch-meetings where the enemy of man was present. This
wretched man was sentenced to be worried at a stake and burned.
[Sidenote: 1629.]
On the 3d of July 1630, the Council took order in the case of Alie
Nisbet, midwife, of Hilton (apparently in Berwickshire), and also in
that of John Neill, John Smith, and Katharine Wilson, ‘concerning their
practice of witchcraft.’ Nisbet was accused of curing a woman by taking
a pail with hot water and bathing the patient’s legs. This may appear
as a very natural and proper kind of treatment; but there was an
addition: she put her fingers into the water, and ran three times round
the bed _widdershins_, or contrary to the direction of the sun, crying:
‘The bones to the fire, and the soul to the devil!’ thereby putting the
disease upon another woman, who died in twenty-four hours. Nisbet also
had put some enchanted water under a threshold, for the injury of a
servant-girl against whom she had a spite, and who passing over it was
bewitched, and died instantly. She was ‘worried and burnt.’--_B. A._
In March 1631, occurred a case which throws some light upon the affair
in which Sir George Home of Manderston was the intended victim. John
Neill, in Tweedmouth, was then brought forward and tried for sorcery
and witchcraft. It was alleged of him that ‘he made a man’s wife
wash her husband’s shirt in a south running water, and then put it
on him; whereupon he recovered.’ He professed skill in both laying
on and taking off diseases. Amongst other things laid to his charge
was ‘meeting with the devil and other witches on Coldingham Law, and
consulting how Sir George Home of Manderston might be destroyed,
to that end getting ane enchanted dead foal, and putting it in Sir
George’s stable, under his horse’s manger, and putting a dead hand
enchanted by the devil in Sir George’s garden in Berwick; by which
enchantments Sir George contracted a grievous disease, of which he
could not be recovered till the said foal and hand were discovered and
burnt.’ He was found guilty.[20]--_B. A._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV. 19.]
At this time, the country was overrun by a multitude of ‘strong and
sturdy Irish beggars,’ who went in troops, extorting alms where it was
not freely given them. ‘Where they perceive they can be masters, they
commit sundry insolencies upon his majesty’s good subjects, who are not
able to withstand them.’ Thus ‘the native poor are prejudged of their
almous by the scoffery and oppression of thir sturdy beggars, who are
an heavy and insupportable burden to the country.’ An order was issued
by the Privy Council for clearing the country of this nuisance.--_P. C.
R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1629.]
Lady Jean Drummond, only daughter of the Earl of Perth, was married to
the Earl of Sutherland, with a portion of 5000 merks, ‘the greatest
portion that ever was given in Scotland before that time.’--_Hist.
House of Seytoun._
This notice may be held to imply that 5000 merks (£287, 17s. 4d.)
was an uncommonly liberal portion for a woman of family in that age;
but the writer is not correct in saying that it was unexampled till
1629. This will appear from the following notice, extracted from the
Caldwell Papers, in which there are instances of equal or larger
dowries before that time, as well as of some smaller: William Mure of
Glanderston, marrying Elizabeth Hamilton, aunt to Gavin Commendator
of Kilwinning, in 1559, received with her a dower of 400 merks, with
a beneficial interest in two farms. In 1583, Lady Anne Montgomery of
Eglintoun brought her husband, Lord Semple, 6000 merks. The dowry of
Jean Hamilton, the vicar of Dunlop’s daughter, in 1613, was 5000 merks;
that of Jean Knox of Ranfurly, 11,000 merks; Jean Mure of Glanderston,
in 1671, 8000 merks; Margaret Mowat of Ingliston, in 1682, 12,000 merks.
When we turn back to an earlier age, we find what appears much greater
simplicity on the point of tochering daughters. The Laird of Grant and
Margaret Ogilvie, daughter of James Ogilvie of Deskford, were married
in 1484. For a curious anecdote of their son, _Shemus nan Creagh_, see
under February 7, 1592. ‘Their marriage-contract yet extant [dated
1484] gives account of the tocher, jointure, and friendship between
these families. The tocher given by Sir James Ogilvie with his daughter
to the Laird of Grant was _three hundred merks_, paid at five terms or
years; that is, forty pounds Scots yearly; and the jointure given by
Sir John to his lady, together with the provision of their children,
was twenty merks’ worth of land yearly.’[21]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 26.]
[Sidenote: 1629.]
In the fertile district between Falkirk and Stirling, there was a
large moss with a little loch in the middle of it, occupying a piece
of gradually rising ground; a highly cultivated district of wheat-land
lay below. There had been a series of heavy rains, and the moss became
overcharged with moisture. After some days, during which slight
movements were visible on this quagmire, the whole mass began one night
to leave its native situation, and slide gently down to the lower
grounds. The people who lived on these lands, receiving sufficient
warning, fled and saved their lives; but in the morning light they
beheld their little farms, sixteen in number covered six feet deep
with liquid moss, and hopelessly lost.[22]
The singular nature of this calamity, and the sad case of the poor
people who had by it lost their all, drew general attention. The Privy
Councillors sent commissioners to the place to ‘give order where and in
what places draughts sall be casten, levels and passages made, and what
else is fitting to be done, for securing the neighbouring lands from
inundation and skaith.’ There was also a general collection of money
throughout the kingdom for the relief of the sufferers.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1630.
JAN.]
[Sidenote: JAN. 15.]
There is no room to doubt that the king, so far as he took any part in
the prosecution of the northern papists, only had in view ‘the comfort
of his weel-affected subjects,’ and was willing to make the papists
suffer no more than was fairly necessary to maintain the reputation of
his ecclesiastical policy. He must have strongly sympathised with the
Catholic nobles, all of whom were his personal friends, and supporters
of his government; nor could he have heard of even the sufferings of
the middle-class gentry without some compunctious visitings. We find
him in January 1630 venturing on a measure of lenient tendency. The
Lord Gordon, eldest son of the Marquis of Huntly, had been, through the
influence of the late king, brought up with Protestant leanings. To
him King Charles thought of granting a commission for the execution of
the laws against the excommunicated papists, no doubt calculating that
he would use a humane discretion in the business. The Privy Council
accordingly gave him such a commission, to last for four months, and to
include the power of appropriating the rebels’ rents to his own use. We
learn from Sir Robert Gordon, that Lord Gordon was unwilling to accept
this commission, lest he should offend his father and prejudice his
position as commander of the King of France’s Scots Guard. But he got
over his scruples, and, as Sir Robert tells, performed his duty with a
degree of ‘dexterity and moderation’ that gained him the approbation of
all parties.
While Lord Gordon proceeded northward with this large commission, his
father remained in restraint in Edinburgh, still under obligation to
exhibit the rebels on his own property, if Lord Gordon should fail to
do so; and his daughters rested there also, under ‘sequestration,’
that the ministers of the true gospel might have access to them and
induce them to attend church.
Lord Gordon had scarcely been a fortnight in enjoyment of his
commission, when he found occasion to petition the Privy Council
regarding the escheats of the rebels. If they gave these men a third
of their rents as a means of supporting them abroad, it would be a
deduction so far from the remuneration held out to him. Was this just?
They appear to have been sensible of the force of this appeal, for they
immediately decreed that no such deduction should be made. Whether Lord
Gordon actually meant to appropriate these rents wholly to himself,
does not appear.
On the 1st of June, Lord Gordon came before the Council to report
progress, and it appeared that he had really used some diligence.
Mr Robert Bisset; Gordon of Tilliesoul; John Gordon at the Mill of
Rathven; Gordon of Drumquhaill; Alaster Gordon, in Badenoch; Hugh
Hill; John Spence and his spouse; John Gordon, in Troups-mill, and his
spouse; and Alexander Gordon, had all ‘given obedience and reconciled
themselves to the kirk;’ that is, had put a constraint upon their
professions of belief, and conformed to what in their hearts they
detested. Others as yet stood out in their ‘obstinate disobedience to
the church’--namely, Robert Bisset’s spouse; Gordon of Cairnbarrow;
Gordon of Letterfour; the goodwife of Cornmellat; Malcolm Laing; Adam
Strachan; Angus M‘Ewen; Gordon of Corrichie; Forbes of Blackton and his
spouse; Robert Innes’s spouse; Con, at Knockmill; Leslie, in Convach;
the spouse of Thomas Menzies of Balgownie; and Alexander Irving, his
wife, and brother. Gordon of Craig and his eldest son offered caution
to retire from the country. Margaret Gordon was confined in Banff, and
Menzies of Balgownie was in exile.
[Sidenote: 1630.]
Of nearly every one of the obdurate we have some account of what they
afterwards did or suffered. Most of them appeared (July 20), and came
under obligation either to conform before a certain day or straightway
to leave the country. About the same time, Sir John Ogilvy of Craig,
who had long been warded in Edinburgh Castle for his religion, and
also Dr William Leslie, came under similar engagements. One of those
who seemed least likely to succumb was John Gordon of Bountie. Living
close to the gate of Viscount Melgum, the brother of Lord Gordon, he
had been bold enough to allow a priest, Mr Robert Mortimer by name,
to perform a mass before a large company in his house; and when two
of the presbytery came to Lord Melgum’s house to remonstrate, and
John was called in to speak for himself, he broke forth in outrageous
reviling speeches, saying he would leave the country, but before he
went he would take the lives of these two ministers. But even this
hot-headed gentleman was brought low. He was induced to make a humble
supplication to the Bishop of Aberdeen for reconciliation with the
church; and on an ample declaration of his repentance, he was absolved
from excommunication. It is lamentable to think, of such a zealot being
obliged, for the saving of his property and place in the country, to
swear on his ‘great oath’ eternal allegiance to the Protestant Church,
and, with a heart full of suppressed rage and indignation, sit down and
eat and drink unworthily of the feast which symbolises the union of the
heart to the religion of peace and love.
On the 27th of July, the Council received a petition from John Gordon
of Craig, which, on account of its simple and touching expression, may
be given entire.[23] It ‘humbly sheweth that, for religion, order hath
been given for banishing the petitioner’s son, his wife and children,
and confining himself--in respect of his great age--in a town within
Scotland [Cupar], which order they have all humbly obeyed, his son,
wife, and poor children having forthwith abandoned the kingdom. A two
part of the poor estate which he hath being allotted for his son and
his family, and a third part for himself, he now findeth that by such a
mean proportion he cannot be able to live, being both aged and sickly.
His humble suit is, that he may have leave to depart the kingdom to
live with his son, because by their estate undivided, they may all be
more able to subsist than otherwise.’ It will probably surprise the
reader, even after the preceding recital, to learn that the Council
found the desire of the supplication ‘unreasonable,’ and ‘forder
declare that the said John Gordon of Craig sall have no modification
nor allowance of ane third part of his estate and living, except he
remain within the kingdom and keep the bounds of his confinement.’
[Sidenote: 1630.]
On the 7th of February 1630, it was found that, owing to Cupar being
situated on a thoroughfare, old Craig was visited by a considerable
number of persons ‘suspect in religion, with whom he has not only
secret conference, but there is pregnant presumption that other
practices are enterteined amang them in hurt and prejudice to the true
religion.’ This being in contravention of the agreement made with
Craig, that he should have conference only with the ministry and not
with papists, he was ordered to be removed to the out-of-the-way burgh
of Crail, and to be confined there and within a mile thereof.
After the popish gentlemen had been thus dealt with, there remained a
considerable number of ladies who as yet had not been much troubled.
But these gentlewomen were not to escape. On the 23d of December
1630, the Privy Council adverted to ‘Madelen Wood, spouse to ----
Leslie of Kincraigie; Jonet Wood, spouse to John Gordon of Bountie;
Marjory Malcolm, spouse to Matthew Alexander, in Turriff; Barbara
Garden, spouse to ----]; ---- Gordon, spouse to Mr Robert Bisset of
Lessendrum; Isobel Strachan, spouse to John Spence, in Brunstain; and
---- ----, spouse to John Gordon at the Mill of Rathven, who are not
only professed and avowed papists, and excommunicat by orders of the
kirk for that cause, but with that they are denounced his majesty’s
rebels and contemptuously lies at the horn unrelaxt.’ It was further
alleged of these ladies, that they ‘are common resetters, hoorders,
and enterteiners of Jesuits, and mess priests, and trafficking
papists--hears mess of them, and otherwise lives aftir ane most
scandalous and offensive manner.’ An order was issued that these women
should appear personally with their husbands, ‘that order may be tane
with them.’
As a specimen of the dealing of the authorities with the gentler
and weaker sex:--On the 9th of September 1630, the Lords of Council
received a petition from Elizabeth Garioch, setting forth her case
as a sufferer for her ‘averseness and non-conformity to the religion
presently professed.’ She was an old decrepit woman, past threescore
and ten years, bedrid for the present, and not likely long to live.
She had lain for months in the Tolbooth of Aberdeen, with ‘no earthly
means to entertein herself but ane croft of sax bolls sawing, and
neither husband nor child to attend to the winning and in-gathering
thereof.’ The misery of her circumstances made her restraint, she
said, the more grievous. Therefore she craved release from prison,
professing, ‘for the eschewing of scandal, which her remaining in the
country may breed or occasion,’ her willingness to give security that
she should remove herself forth of the kingdom. The Lords mercifully
remitted to the Bishop of Aberdeen to see to Elizabeth Garioch being
liberated on her giving caution to the extent of a thousand merks for
her self-banishment.
[Sidenote: 1630.]
In November 1630, a curious circumstance is noted regarding the Dr
William Leslie above named. Licence was granted to him by the Privy
Council to return temporarily to medicate to the Marquis of Huntly,
he being the person ‘whose judgment in matters of that kind the said
marquis does only trust,’ it being provided ‘that the said Dr William
shall behave himself modestly, without giving offence and scandal in
matters concerning the religion.’--_P. C. R._
It is remarkable that, while the histories of our country and its
national church are careful to note every particular of the conflict
between presbytery and episcopacy at this period, there is nowhere the
slightest allusion to these sufferings of the remnant of Romanists,
towards which Presbyterians and Episcopalians alike contributed. It
is to be feared that the actual severities which were dealt upon the
party were not the worst evils in the case. In the external conformity
which was forced upon many--so many that only sixty avowed papists were
thought to be left in Scotland--we cannot doubt that there was involved
a hypocrisy which would be bitterly felt--always the more bitterly
where there was an upright and honourable spirit--and which would in
the long-run have the most demoralising effects.
[Sidenote: 1630.]
A full history of the proceedings of the Romish priests in Scotland,
during the reigns of James VI. and Charles I., would shew examples of
heroic courage, self-devotion, and religious enthusiasm, equalling any
that can be adduced from the reformed denominations. ‘Capuchin Leslie,
called the Archangel,’ appears, from his biography,[24] to have been
a man of singular gifts and earnestness. The eldest son of the Laird
of Monymusk, in Aberdeenshire, he had been brought up at Paris, and
there converted to Romanism in his youth. Before attaining majority,
he had gone to those heights in devotion and asceticism which produce
hallucinative voices and lights. Making his way through unnumbered
dangers to his native castle, he there set himself to the work of
preaching. He collected the people in the woods, or beset them as they
were leaving the parish church; addressed them in a style of burning
eloquence, with threats of the fate reserved for heretics; and is said
to have brought thousands into his views in a few weeks. His admiring
biographer tells how he confounded the minister of Monymusk by asking
him to exhibit any reference to the church of Geneva in the Bible,
shewing him at the same time the Scriptural foundation of the _true_
church, by pointing out Paul’s Epistle to the Romans! His mother and
other relatives were brought over to the ancient faith. For two years
he exposed his life in this manner, but was at length obliged to leave
the district by one of these threatening edicts. Meanwhile, his family,
being discovered to be Catholics, had their property confiscated, and
his mother was obliged to retire to a hovel, where she endeavoured to
support herself by spinning. It is related that Father Archangel, being
resolved at all hazards to visit her, dressed himself like a gardener,
and cried herbs through the village till he discovered his mother.
After a hurried interview, he was obliged to leave her once more, and
depart from the kingdom. He nevertheless returned and recommenced his
labours; and this extraordinary man ultimately sunk at an early age,
under a fever caught while making a skulking journey across the Border.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR. 21.]
John Hart, printer in Edinburgh, being about to bring out an edition of
the Bible, the Town Council gave him formal permission to take a new
apprentice ‘for the advancement of the said wark,’ ‘notwithstanding the
time of three years be not past, since he replaced an apprentice last;’
‘providing always it sall not be lawful to him to tak and have ane
other prentice before the expiring of six years.’--_Ed. Coun. Reg._
As restrictions on the taking of apprentices still exist in various
trades, we must not be too ready to smile at this as a peculiar trait
of the barbarous political economy of a past age.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAY 29.]
On the birth of the prince, afterwards Charles II., which took place
between eleven and twelve this forenoon, the Lyon King at Arms was
despatched by the king from London, to carry the news to Scotland. The
Lyon arrived in Edinburgh on the third day thereafter, June 1st, when
immediately cannon were shot, bells rung, and a table spread in the
High Street, between the Cross and the Tron, for two hundred persons,
including the nobility, Privy Council, and judges, the company being
waited on by the heralds and trumpeters in their official dress.--_Bal._
‘In this May were five Saturdays, five Mondays, twa changes of the
moon, twa eclipses of the sun, ane other of the moon, all in our
horizon.’--_Chron. Perth_.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 20.]
[Sidenote: 1630.]
Writers of the religious history of Scotland during the seventeenth
century, pause upon a remarkable administration of the communion which
took place at this date in the Kirk of Shotts. The great attraction
on the occasion was a young clergyman, afterwards famous, named John
Livingstone. In consequence of the impression now made, a great
portion of the assembled multitude remained at the place over the
night; so it was necessary for the favourite preacher to hold forth
next day. He did so with such power, and such a ‘down-pouring of the
spirit,’ that the congregation was thrown into ‘unusual motion,’ and
five hundred traced their conversion to that sermon alone. Amongst
the hearers were three young men of Glasgow, who, journeying to
Edinburgh on a pleasure-excursion, chanced to stop at the village
for breakfast and the refreshment of their horses. So affected were
they, that they entered into no amusements in Edinburgh, but speedily
returned home, and were ever after noted as serious Christians. This
is understood to have been the first instance of what has since been a
common custom; that is, to have services on the Monday following the
communion.--_Gillies._
In this year and for some time afterwards, the parish of Stewarton,
in Ayrshire, was the scene of ‘a very solemn and extraordinary
out-letting of the spirit,’ few Sundays passing ‘without some one being
converted, or some convincing proofs of the power of God accompanying
his word.’... ‘Yea, many were so choked and taken by the heart, that,
through terror, ... they have been made to fall over, and thus carried
out of the church, who after proved most solid and lively Christians.’
The fervour spread from house to house along both sides of Stewarton
Water. The profane called it the Stewarton Sickness.
[Sidenote: 1630.]
‘The poor people, purely from conscience, were seized with such an
apprehension of God’s wrath, and fear of eternal damnation because of
their sins, that rest they could have none. This they were able to
demonstrate to be no melancholy fancy, but a rational apprehension
of their real danger, being at that time both ignorant, profane, and
absolutely strangers to Jesus Christ, by [beside or apart from] whom
they could have neither hope of mercy nor title to salvation; and this
was beyond the reply of any divine. When by godly ministers ... they
were directed to the performance of those duties which accomplish
conversion from Satan to Christ, their peace became as strong as
their terror had been troublesome....’[25] ‘The Countess of Eglintoun
did much countenance them, and persuaded her noble lord to spare his
hunting and hawking some days to confer with some of them whom she
had sent for to that effect. Her lord, after conference with them,
protested that he never spoke with the like of them, and wondered at
the wisdom they manifested in their speech.’[26]
The Stewarton Sickness took its first rise in the ministrations of Mr
David Dickson, minister of Irvine, afterwards a conspicuous figure in
the time of the National Covenant. He was accustomed each Monday, being
the market-day of the burgh, to give a sermon for the benefit of those
who came there with their commodities for sale; and thus it was that
the Stewarton people had opportunities of kindling under his eloquence.
‘At Irvine, Mr Dickson’s ministry was singularly countenanced of
God. Multitudes were convinced and converted; and few that lived in
his day were more honoured to be instruments of conversion than he.
People under exercise and soul-concern came from every place about
Irvine and attended upon his sermons, and the most eminent and serious
Christians from all corners of the church came and joined him at his
communions, which were indeed times of refreshing from the presence of
the Lord.’[27] ‘Yea, not a few came from distant places and settled
at Irvine, that they might be under the drop of his ministry. Yet
he himself observed that the vintage of Irvine was not equal to the
gleanings of Ayr in Mr Welch’s time.’[28]
‘John Lockhart tells me (1727) that he was in company with an old
Christian who was a young man in the time of the famous Stewarton
Sickness.... In a great many, it came to a kindly conversion ... but
in severals it came to nothing, and in a little time wore off, and the
persons became just what they were formerly.’--_Wodrow._[29]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY.]
[Sidenote: 1630.]
At this time there lived near the town of Dunse a poor woman generally
believed to be possessed by an evil spirit. The Earl (afterwards
Duke) of Lauderdale, when a prisoner in Windsor Castle in 1659, sent
an account of her to Mr Richard Baxter, who has published it in his
_Certainty of the World of Spirits_. The earl, then a boy at school,
used to hear conversations about the possessed woman between his
father and the minister of Dunse, who was fully convinced of the fact
of the possession. This clergyman and some other clergymen proposed
to the Privy Council a fast for her benefit; but it was not allowed
by the bishops. ‘I will not,’ says the earl, ‘trouble you with many
circumstances; one only I shall tell you, which I think will evince a
real possession. The report being spread in the country, a knight of
the name of Forbes, who lived in the north of Scotland, being come to
Edinburgh, meeting there with a minister of the north, and both of them
desirous to see the woman, the northern minister invited the knight
to my father’s house (which was within ten or twelve miles of the
woman), whither they came, and next morning went to see the woman. They
found her a poor ignorant creature, and seeing nothing extraordinary,
the minister says in Latin to the knight: “Nondum audivimus spiritum
loquentem.” Presently a voice comes out of the woman’s mouth: “Audis
loquentem, audis loquentem.” This put the minister into some amazement
(which I think made him not mind his own Latin); he took off his hat,
and said: “Misereatur Deus peccatoris!” The voice presently out of the
woman’s mouth said: “Dic peccatricis, dic peccatricis;” whereupon both
of them came out of the house fully satisfied, took horse immediately,
and returned to my father’s house at Thirlstane Castle, in Lauderdale,
where they related this passage. This I do exactly remember. Many more
particulars might be got in that part of the country; but this Latin
criticism, in a most illiterate ignorant woman, where there was no
pretence to dispossessing, is enough, I think.’
It may be remarked that the speaking of various languages which they
had never learned, was one of the marks required by the canons of the
Romish Church to distinguish those under real possession. The Dunse
demoniac was remarkably superior in this respect to her contemporaries,
the nuns of Loudun, who, in their demonstrations of possession in the
celebrated case of Urban Grandier, spoke very bad Latin, not to mention
their utter inability to converse in Greek or Hebrew, and yet were held
by the authorities as genuine vessels of diabolic influence.
The fact of there being a reputedly possessed woman in Dunse at this
time, as the Earl of Lauderdale has stated, is verified by the Privy
Council Record, which contains, under date July 13, 1630, an order for
bringing before them Margaret Lumsden, ‘the possessed woman in Dunse,’
together with her brother and father-in-law, that order might be taken
concerning them, ‘as the importance and nature of such a great cause
requires.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP. 23.]
[Sidenote: 1630.]
Susanna Chancellor, daughter of the Laird of Shieldhill, was accused
before the presbytery of Lanark of consulting with charmers, and
‘burying a child’s clothes betwixt [three] lairds’ lands, for health.’
By penitently presenting herself on her knees before the reverend
brethren, she was saved from the due punishment.--_R. P. L._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT.]
At no great distance from the Castle of Strathbogie--the modern
Huntly--where the great marquis held state, dwelt two gentlemen of
figure, Gordon of Rothiemay and Crichton of Frendraught. In consequence
of a dispute about the salmon-fishings in the Doveran, these two
gentlemen fell into litigation and bad blood; and at length, from
finding Rothiemay obdurate, Frendraught had to get assistance from his
neighbours to execute the laws upon his antagonist. On New-year’s Day
1630, a bloody encounter took place between them, and Rothiemay was so
severely wounded as to die three days after.
[Sidenote: 1630.]
Frendraught could plead that he had been only carrying out the
behests of the law against one who set legal rights and decrees at
defiance. But the Marquis of Huntly and other Gordons felt that it was
a hard thing for Rothiemay to lose his life on such an account, and
Frendraught accordingly fell under their displeasure. The young Laird
of Rothiemay, calling in the assistance of the outlaw James Grant, laid
waste the lands of Frendraught, who was driven in succession to the
Earl of Moray, the king, and the Privy Council for the protection of
the laws. It was found necessary by the Council to send a commission
to allay the heats which this affair had called forth. When Sir Robert
Gordon and other commissioners arrived on the ground in May, they found
James Grant and two hundred Highlanders assembled at Rothiemay, ready
to lay waste Frendraught’s estate with fire and sword; and it was with
no small difficulty that they were stayed. Sir Robert, as a connection
of both Frendraught and the Gordon family, was well qualified to bring
about a reconciliation, and this he effected with the assistance of the
Marquis of Huntly. It was arranged that Frendraught should purchase the
forgiveness of the Rothiemay family by paying a sum of money. ‘And so,
all parties having shaken hands in the orchard of Strathbogie, they
were heartily reconciled,’ says Sir Robert in his gossiping history.
One cannot but see in this mode of stilling quarrels an encouragement
to new ones. Frendraught, having acted all along under law, ought to
have been protected by the law, instead of thus having to pay a fine
of fifty thousand merks[30] to buy off the vengeance of a family by
whom the law was disregarded and broken. But in those days the law
could only be executed by favour of the leading men of the country.
These leading men had their passions and their partialities. Sir Robert
Gordon probably purchased Frendraught’s safety on the best terms which,
in the circumstances, could be obtained.
[Illustration: Bog an Gicht Castle.]
[Sidenote: 1630.]
These circumstances form merely the introduction to a long series
of disastrous mischances which befell the Laird of Frendraught, and
which have made his name memorable in Scottish tradition. In the
course of autumn, a gentleman named John Meldrum, who had assisted
him in the fray with Rothiemay, quarrelled with him for not being
satisfactorily rewarded for his help on that occasion. To make matters
right, this gentleman came and took two horses from Frendraught’s
lands! Frendraught, hearing that the culprit was harboured by a
brother-in-law, Leslie of Pitcaple, came thither to seek back his
property; but the encounter only led to one of his friends wounding
a son of Pitcaple with a pistol-shot. Here was a new trouble for the
unfortunate Frendraught. In great concern for what had taken place, he
rode to the Marquis of Huntly at the Bog--the modern Gordon Castle--to
beseech his intercession for the stanching of the quarrel. At the same
time comes Pitcaple, full of designs of vengeance against Frendraught.
The marquis was obliged to detain the latter as his guest, to save him
from Pitcaple, who went away in great wrath.
Next day, when Frendraught proposed to go home, the marquis caused his
son, Viscount Melgum, to accompany him with some other friends, in
order to protect him from any attack which Pitcaple might make upon
him by the way. It chanced that the Laird of Rothiemay, so lately
reconciled to Frendraught, was present on this occasion; he generously
offered to be one of the escort. So Frendraught set out with his
gallant company, and reached home in safety.
It was only in conformity with the customs of the age that the laird
and his lady should invite Lord Melgum, Rothiemay, and the rest of the
party to remain for the night. They did so. The gentlemen consented;
and after a merry supper, were conducted to bedrooms in the tall
narrow old tower, which, with a modern addition, formed the Castle of
Frendraught. In the first floor, over a vault, through which there was
a round hole, lay Melgum and two servants; in the second was Rothiemay,
also with some servants; in the third, two gentlemen named Chalmers and
Rollock, and some more servants, were accommodated.
[Sidenote: OCT. 8.]
[Sidenote: 1630.]
About midnight, the tower took fire in a sudden manner, ‘yea, in
ane clap,’ says Spalding, and involved the whole of the inmates in
destruction, except Chalmers, Rollock, and a servant who slept beside
Lord Melgum. Swift as the fire was, three persons escaped, and Lord
Melgum might have also saved himself, if he had not, under a friendly
impulse, run up stairs to rouse Rothiemay. While he was engaged in
this act, ‘the timber passage and lofting of the chamber takes fire,
so that none of them could win down stairs again.’ So they turned to a
window looking towards the court-yard, where they were heard repeatedly
calling: ‘Help, help, for God’s cause!’ The windows being stanchioned,
and the access by the stair cut off by the flames, it was impossible
to render any assistance, and accordingly the six persons enclosed
in the burning tower were all piteously burnt to death. Melgum was
but twenty-four years of age, and left a widow and child; Rothiemay
was unmarried. It is stated by Lady Melgum’s chaplain, that in that
last moment of extremity, Lord Melgum induced Rothiemay to make open
profession of the Catholic faith; and so, ‘they two being at a window,
and whilst their legs were burning, did sing together _Te Deum_; which
ended, they did tell at the window that their legs were consumed,
recommending their souls to God, and the nobleman his wife and child,
first to God, and then to the king.’[31] A popular ballad of the day
speaks of their being called on to leap from the window:
‘How can I leap, how can I win,
How can I leap to thee?
My head’s fast in the wire-window,
My feet burning from me.’
He’s ta’en the rings from aff his hands,
And thrown them o’er the wall;
Saying: ‘Give them to my lady fair,
Where she sits in the hall.’
[Sidenote: 1630.]
This dismal event created a universal feeling of horror, and plunged
the friends of the deceased into the greatest grief. The Laird and
Lady of Frendraught were, to all appearance, deeply concerned for what
had taken place. On the morning after the fire, the lady, ‘busked in
a white plaid, and riding on a small nag, having a boy leading her
horse, without any more in her company, in this pitiful manner she
came weeping and mourning to the Bog, desiring entry to speak with my
lord; but this was refused; so she returned back to her own house,
the same gate she came, comfortless.’--_Spalding._ Her repulse was
the more remarkable, as Lady Frendraught was a cousin of the marquis,
and brought into bonds of sympathy with him and his family by being a
Catholic. A fixed suspicion that she and her husband were the authors
of the fire, had taken possession of the Huntly and Rothiemay families,
as well as of the populace generally, though not the slightest evidence
of guilt has ever been brought against them, and their loss of valuable
papers, and of gold and silver articles, to the value, it was alleged,
of a hundred thousand marks, rendered any concern of theirs in the
fire-raising the very reverse of probable. The laird himself acted in
the manner of an innocent man anxious to clear himself of suspicion.
He came immediately to the Chancellor Lord Dupplin at Perth, desiring
his protection, and offering to submit to trial. The Privy Council do
not seem ever to have felt that there were any grounds for charging him
with the guilt popularly imputed to him.
More particular suspicions fell upon John Meldrum of Redhill, the
_quondam_ adherent of Frendraught, but who had latterly fallen into
such bad terms with him; likewise upon John Tosh, the master-household
of Frendraught. These persons were accordingly apprehended, brought to
Edinburgh, and examined. A servant-girl called Wood was also seized
and subjected to torture, with a view to extracting her knowledge of
the circumstances; but this only produced prevarications, making her
evidence of no avail,[32] and for which she was scourged and banished
the kingdom.
In March 1631, the Marquis of Huntly, having resolved ‘not to revenge
himself by way of deed,’ as his panegyrist Spalding does not fail
to tell us--as if it were a great merit--proceeded to Edinburgh in
order to lay his wrongs before the Privy Council. Four commissioners
appointed by this body soon after proceeded to Frendraught, which
they examined with great care, in company with several noblemen and
gentlemen of the district. They found evidence that the fire had
originated in the ground-vault of the tower, where there were marks of
it in three several places, one of these being directly under the round
hole in the roof which communicated with Melgum’s apartment above. They
could not determine whether it was accidental; but they felt assured
that ‘no hand without could have raised the fire without aid from
within.’[33]
[Sidenote: 1630.]
While these matters were pending, there occurred an incident in itself
of little importance, but which marks the spirit of the time. The young
Earl of Sutherland, brother to Lady Frendraught, and whose late father
was cousin-german to Huntly, in the course of a journey to Edinburgh,
resolved to spend a night with the marquis, and for that purpose sent
forward his message from Elgin. When he arrived in the evening at Bog
of Gight, the marquis gave him a cold reception, and told him that he
must either break with his brother-in-law Frendraught, or with himself,
as he could no longer be the friend of both. The earl answered that
he would prefer the marquis to Frendraught, but that he could not with
honour throw off his sister’s husband as long as he was _law-free_.
Huntly immediately answered: ‘Then God be with you, my lord,’ and
turned away. The Earl of Sutherland lodged that night at a neighbouring
hostelry, and in the morning pursued his way south. The singularity of
such an event, in an age when it was disrespectful to pass a friend’s
door without partaking of his hospitality, gives it great significance.
John Tosh, after submitting to examinations by torture, and denying all
guilt, was charged (August 3, 1632) with the offence of setting fire
to the tower from within; but the charge was never brought before an
assize, the assessors finding that an insuperable bar lay in his having
passed through the ordeal of torture without confession. There were
some suspicious circumstances against him, chiefly of the nature of
inconsistencies in his own declarations; but it was certainly possible
to account for these upon a different theory from that of his being
guilty.
John Meldrum was tried a twelvemonth later, and as it clearly appeared
that he had uttered deadly threatenings against Frendraught’s life,
even specifying burning as the means, he was found guilty, and
executed. The theory of his guilt seems to have been, that he had
set fire to the tower, in the belief that the laird slept there, and
effected his purpose by thrusting combustibles and fire through three
slits in the wall. It must be admitted that Meldrum was the only man,
of all concerned, in whom motive for murder appears; but his guilt
is, after all, far from being clear. The wall was ten feet thick, and
the commission had decidedly pointed to an origin within. No trace of
combustibles was ever adduced, and it was proven that he had been at
Pitcaple, ten or twelve miles off, that night. On the whole, when the
matter is viewed without the passions of the time, it seems most likely
that the fire was accidental.
As for the Gordon family, it remained fully convinced of the guilt of
the Laird and Lady of Frendraught; and since full retribution could not
be obtained by the law, they behoved to have it in some other way. How
they proceeded, will be hereafter described.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC.]
[Sidenote: 1630.]
At Carron, on Speyside, dwelt a branch of the family of the Grants of
Glenmorriston, and near by, at Ballindalloch, was a more important
family of the same name. In consequence of a homicide which James
Grant of the Carron family had committed some years before, there was
a fierce feud between these two families. James, finding his enemies
irreconcilable, and seeing no prospect of peace, became lawless and
desperate. The power of the Earl of Moray proved ineffectual to repress
his constant incursions upon the lands of Ballindalloch, or to obtain
possession of his person. Ballindalloch himself consequently became
desperate. One day, learning that John Grant of Carron and some of his
people were in the forest of Abernethy cutting timber, he set upon him
with a party, and killed him, but not without loss of life on his own
side. He did this on the presumption that Carron aided his relative the
outlaw.--_G. H. S._
[Sidenote: DEC. 3.]
The Earl of Moray interposing his power as lord-lieutenant for the
protection of Ballindalloch, James Grant vowed to be avenged by his
own hand. On the day here noted, he came with a number of associates
to Pitchass, the residence of his enemy, who, for his part, had also
a number of friends attending him. ‘To train him out, he sets his
corn-yard on fire, and haill laigh bigging, barns, byres, stables,
wherein many horse, nolt, and sheep were burnt; and sic bestial as was
not burnt, they slew and destroyed. But young Ballindalloch kept the
house and durst not come out and make any defence. In like manner,
James Grant, with his complices, passed to the town and lands of
Tulchin, pertaining to old Ballindalloch, and burnt up and destroyed
the haill bigging thereof, corns, cattle, goods and geir, and all which
they could get, and to the hills goes he.’
[Sidenote: DEC. 13.]
The Earl of Moray, unable to see any better mode of dealing with this
case than to ‘gar one devil ding another,’ made a paction with three
broken men, the principal of whom was brother to the late chief of
the Clan Mackintosh; who undertook to bring James Grant to him dead
or alive. ‘They find him in the town of Auchnachill, at the head of
Strathaven, within a house, and ten men with him.... James and his men
wins out and takes to flight. They follow sharply, slew four of his
men, wounded himself with arrows in eleven parts of his body, and when
he could do no more, he was taken, and his six other men.’ As soon as
his wounds were cured, he was conducted to Edinburgh, and imprisoned
in the Castle, being ‘admired and looked upon as a man of great
vassalage;’ but his six men were all hanged.--_Spal._
[Sidenote: 1630.]
Grant lay a prisoner in Edinburgh Castle for nearly two years. It is
related that, a former neighbour, Grant of Tomnavoulen, passing one day
under his prison windows, he called to him, asking, ‘what news from
Speyside?’ ‘None very particular,’ rejoined his acquaintance; ‘the
best is that the country is rid of you.’ ‘Perhaps we shall meet again,’
said James.[34]
His wife having conveyed to him some ropes in what was believed to be
a cask of butter, Grant came over the walls of the Castle (October
15, 1632) at night, and being received into the arms of his bastard
son, immediately left town by a western road. For nine days he lay
sick in the woods of Herbertshire, near Denny, and then vanished into
the Highlands. The Privy Council, exasperated at his escape, offered
a large reward for his apprehension, but in vain. He remained quiet
till November 1633, when he began to resume the offensive, ‘partly
travelling through the country, sometimes on Speyside, sometimes here,
sometimes there, without fear or dread.’ His wife having retired in
a delicate condition to a small lodging at Carron on Speyside, where
Grant was known to visit her occasionally, young Ballindalloch hired
a party of the broken Clan Macgregor, under a renowned outlaw of
their tribe, named Patrick Dhu Ger, to beset him there. Grant being
at Carron one night with only his bastard son and a single attendant,
the Macgregors surrounded the house, and began to uncover it, in order
to get at their victim. ‘James Grant, hearing the noise, and seeing
himself so beset, that he was not able to keep that house nor win away,
resolved to keep the door with the other two as long as they might, and
shot out arrows at two windows, [so] that few did venture to come near
the door, except their captain ... whilk James Grant perceiving, and
knowing him well, presently bends a hagbut, and shoots him through both
the thighs, and to the ground falls he. His men leave the pursuit, and
loup about to lift him up again; but as they are at this work, James
Grant, with the other two, loups frae the house and flies, leaving his
wife behind him. He is sharply pursued, and many arrows shot at him;
yet he wan away safely to a bog near by with his two men. Patrick Ger
died of the shot, within short while, a notable thief, robber, and
briganer, oppressing the people wherever he came, and therefore they
rejoiced at his death.’--_Spal._
[Sidenote: 1630.]
Another year elapsed, during which there had been some abortive
attempts at a paction between Grant and young Ballindalloch. One
evening in the depth of winter (December 7, 1634), as the latter was
sitting at supper in his house of Pitchass, Grant’s wife came in
and whispered something in his ear. He rose, took his wife’s plaid
about him, and his sword and target in his hand, and went out with
the lady, his wife following under anxiety about his welfare. He thus
easily fell into an ambuscade which James Grant had set for him, and
was hurried off during the night, over moss and muir, to a kiln in
the low country near Elgin, where he was kept in bonds under a strong
guard, without any of the comforts of life, for three weeks. From this
miserable condition, he escaped by the aid of one of his guards named
Leonard Leslie, and got in safety to Innes House, where he was kindly
entertained. By his own exertions, one Thomas Grant, the owner of the
kiln, was hanged next summer for harbouring the outlaw James; two other
men were banished for the same offence. Meanwhile, the Macgregors
were active in despoiling and laying waste the lands of Corse and
Craigievar, in professed revenge for the slaughter of Patrick Ger; but
in February 1636, by the exertions of Stewart of Craigievar, seven of
them were taken and hanged at the Cross of Edinburgh. This, again,
brought into prominence a lawless Macgregor, known popularly under the
name of Gilderoy, who, desiring vengeance on the Stewarts, burned some
of their lands in Athole. Thus it was that wickedness continued its own
existence in those days when public justice was weak.
One Thomas Grant, believed to be the same person who had thrown a taunt
at James in Edinburgh Castle, was reputed to have undertaken, for
Ballindalloch, to bring the outlaw to him dead or alive. James, hearing
of this, came to Thomas’s house, and, missing him, killed sixteen of
his cattle. Lighting upon Thomas lying in bed at a friend’s house near
by, with his bastard brother, the pitiless outlaw took them both out
naked and killed them (April 5, 1636). A few days after, he came with
four men to Strathbogie, and by chance craved food at the hangman’s
house. The hangman, frightened at the appearance of his visitors,
stole away and gave information to the bailie, who presently came with
an armed party and surrounded the house. Then a desperate and bloody
conflict took place, in the course of which the bailie lost two of his
men. Grant after all got clear of his assailants under cloud of night;
leaving, however, his bastard son and two of his men a prey to justice.
Very soon after (July 27), Gilderoy and some of his associates were
likewise brought to Edinburgh, and hanged.
[Sidenote: 1630.]
Notwithstanding the accumulated guilt of James Grant, he subsequently
obtained a remission, and lived to take part in the troubles attending
the introduction of the Covenant.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 14.]
The Privy Council issued a thundering order for the putting down of
those ‘vagabonds, thieves, and limmers,’ the Egyptians, of whom large
bands were going about in the north parts of the kingdom, armed,
extorting whatever they needed from such of the lieges as were not able
to resist them.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1631.
JAN. 11.]
We get some idea of the difficulties which beset the people of a
country before time and means have been obtained for forming roads,
bridges, and other public works of utility, from a petition presented
to the Privy Council by the minister of Rattray regarding the river
Ericht, a well-known stream which debouches from the Highlands in
his neighbourhood, amidst a scene truly romantic to the gaze of the
modern tourist, but formerly pregnant with trouble to the people of the
country. A much-frequented road or line of communication between the
north and south parts of the kingdom crossed this stream at Craighall
without a bridge. In a time of stormy weather, this river runs with
such force that there is no ford, ‘and very oft for the space of aucht
days together all passage at that water, either by coble, horse, or
foot, is interrupted, to the great hinder of his majesty’s subjects,
and to the extreme hazard of many of their lives, of whom, during the
short time the supplicant has attended the kirk of Rattray, auchteen
persons to his knowledge have perished in that water.’ An order was
given for a general subscription to build a bridge.--P. C. R.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAR. 31.]
There being a scarcity at this time on the continent, while Scotland
possessed a considerable quantity of wheat, the Privy Council,
considering these facts, and, moreover, that wheat is not ‘the common
grain wherewith the whole lieges are ordinarily fed,’ granted licence
for the exporting of 4000 bolls.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR. 10.]
[Sidenote: 1631.]
The Town Council of Edinburgh forbade the wearing of plaids by women
in the streets, under pain of corporal punishment. The plaid was the
Scottish _mantilla_, and, serving to hide the face, was supposed to
afford a protection to immodest conduct. A few years later (1636), the
Council found that women were still addicted to the use of the plaid,
or went about with their skirts over their heads, ‘so that the same
is now become the ordinar habit of all women within the city, to the
general imputation of their sex, matrons not being able to be discerned
from loose-living women, to their awn dishonour and scandal of the
city.’ For these faults, heavy fines were announced.
It is amusing to find ladies subjecting themselves to false
imputations, by following this denounced fashion, when they had only to
walk about with their faces exhibited in order to refute or repel all
scandal.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 16.]
Died this day Francis, eighth Earl of Errol, noted about forty years
before for his concern in the various papist rebellions, by which the
reign of King James was so much troubled. ‘He was buried in the church
of Slaines, in the night, convoyed quietly with his own domestics and
country friends with torch-light. It was his will to have no gorgeous
burial, nor to convocate his noble friends with making great charges
and expenses, but to be buried quietly, and such expenses as should
be wared prodigally upon his burial, to give the same to the poor.
This was a noble man, of a great and courageous spirit, who had great
troubles in his time, which he stoutly and honourably still carried,
and now in favour died in peace with God and man, and a loyal subject
to the king, to the great grief of his kin and friends.’--_Spal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY.]
When word came to Scotland regarding the seven hundred Protestants
expelled from the Palatinate, and who had arrived in Nuremberg in great
distress, there was a strong feeling excited in their behalf, and a
collection for their relief was resolved on. It appears that, within
a twelvemonth, one thousand pounds sterling was collected and sent to
London; to which was afterwards added five hundred more. A considerable
sum, considering the time, means of the people, and the object.--_P. C.
R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG.]
[Sidenote: 1631.]
A levy of 6000 Scots passed to Germany for the assistance of Gustavus
Adolphus of Sweden against the emperor. They were under the command
of James Marquis of Hamilton, who appeared to have raised them on his
own account, and without any sanction from the king, though in reality
Charles was interested in the expedition, as calculated to favour the
restoration of his brother-in-law the Elector Palatine of the Rhine.
This body of troops contributed to the great victory of Leipzig, which
threw the whole of Northern Germany into the power of Gustavus, and it
afterwards helped in the recovery of Magdeburg; but bravery and zeal
could not save it from the diseases which afflicted a country reduced
by war to the last extremity of wretchedness. A year saw it the mere
shadow of what it originally was, while the marquis was recalled in
disgust to his own country. Nevertheless, the remains of the force
adhered to the Swedish service.
Monro, in his confused way, gives a list of the Scottish officers who
were under the command of Gustavus in the latter part of 1632, adding
in some instances particulars of their subsequent career. It may be
transferred to these pages, as the memorial of a brave and honourable
movement of the Scottish nation, and because the very names of these
Monroes, Leslies, and Ramsays of two hundred years ago, can scarcely be
read in such an association of ideas without exciting some interest in
a Scottish bosom.[35]
‘_Field Officers._--The Marquis of Hamilton, general of the British
army; Sir James Spence, general over Scots;[36] Sir Patrick Ruthven,
governor of Ulm, and since general;[37] Sir Alexander Leslie, governor
over the cities along the Baltic coast, and since field-marshal over
the army in Westphalia [subsequently Earl of Leven]; Major-general
James King, since lieutenant-general;[38] Sir David Drummond,
general-major and governor of Stettin, in Pomerania;[39] Sir James
Ramsay, general-major, had a regiment of Scots, and since was governor
of Hanau.[40]
[Sidenote: 1631.]
‘_Colonels that served then of Scots._--My Lord of Reay ( M‘Kay),
colonel to a brigade of Scots; Sir John Hepburn, colonel, succeeded
to command the Scottish brigade, and since was slain in France; Sir
John Ruthven, colonel to a brigade of Dutch, and since general-major;
Sir James Lumsden, colonel to a regiment of Scots; Alexander Ramsay,
colonel and governor of Creutzenach; Robert Leslie, colonel to a
regiment of Scots; Robert Monro, baron of Foulis, colonel of horse
and foot over Dutch, and since died of his wounds at Ulm; John Monro
of Obstell, colonel to a regiment of Scots, and since slain on the
Rhine at Weteraw; Ludovick Leslie, colonel to a regiment of Scots,
which was Sir John Hamilton’s; Robert Monro, colonel to a regiment of
Scots, which was my Lord of Reay’s; James Kerr, colonel to a regiment
of Scots, and since general-major; Sir Frederick Hamilton, colonel
to a regiment of Scots and Irish; the Master of Forbes, colonel to a
regiment of Scots;[41] Alexander Hamilton, colonel to a regiment of
Scots;[42] the Earl of Crawfurd-Lindsay, colonel to a foot-regiment of
Dutch, and since slain;[43] William Baillie, colonel to a regiment of
foot of Dutch; Sir William Ballantyne, colonel to a foot-regiment of
English; Sir James Ramsay, colonel to a foot-regiment of English, and
since died at London; Alexander Forbes, called Finnesse Forbes, colonel
to a regiment of Finnes; Walter Leckie, colonel to foot.
‘_Scots Colonels that served this time in Sweden, Liefland, and
Spruce._--James Seaton, colonel to foot of Swedes; Colonel Kinninmond,
colonel to foot of Swedes, since dead; Colonel Thomson, colonel to foot
of Swedes, since dead; Colonel Scott, colonel to foot of Finnes, since
dead; William Cunningham, colonel to foot of Scots, in Spruce; Francis
Ruthven, colonel to foot of Dutch, in Spruce; Sir John Meldrum, colonel
in Spruce to foot.
‘_Lieutenant-colonels._--Thomas Hume of Carolside, ---- Douglas, Henry
Muschamp, Alexander Leslie, Alexander Cunningham, ---- Vavasour,
William Gunn, John Leslie, Finnesse Forbes, Alexander Forbes, called
the Bald, Robert Stewart, Hector Monro, Sir George Douglas, George
Leslie, John Lindsay of Bainshow, ---- Monypenny, Alexander Lindsay,
John Sinclair, William Stewart, Henry Lindsay, William Lindsay, James
Henderson, Sir Arthur Forbes, Robert Weir, John Lyell, James Dickson,
---- Sandilands, William Borthwick, ---- Macdowgal, James Hepburn,
Robert Hannan, John Monro, Robert Lumsden, William Herring, Sir James
Cunningham, William Spence, John Ennis, Poytaghee Forbes, John Forbes
of Tulloch, George Forbes, Alexander Hay, David Leslie [Lord Newark].’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP.]
[Sidenote: 1631.]
The persecution of the Catholics had, in 1629, reached a pitch of
keenness which it was not possible to maintain. The king occasionally
ventured to interfere with special letters in favour of certain
Romanists of rank, his personal friends, allowing them to stay in the
country on hope of conversion, or else permitting them a temporary
return from exile to see after their private affairs. The Privy Council
itself could not always keep up the proper degree of severity. Being
partly a lay-body, it would now and then take a mild view of a case,
though in a hesitating manner.
Sir John Ogilvy of Craig, after enduring imprisonment for a time in
Edinburgh Castle, was allowed to live in Edinburgh and in St Andrews
under a modified restraint. Finally, he was permitted to go home to
his dwelling-house of Craig, ‘upon promise of ane sober and modest
behaviour without scandal or offence to the kirk.’ ‘Nevertheless,’ as
the Council proceeds to remark, ‘Sir John, since his going home, has
behaved himself very scandalously, daily conversing with excommunicat
persons, privately resetting seminary and mass priests, and restraining
his bairns and servants from coming to the kirk, to the heigh offence
of God and disgrace of his majesty’s government.’ For this reason, he
was ordered (September 22) to go into ward in St Andrews, ‘until he be
freed and relaxed by the Lords.’
[Sidenote: 1631.]
A supplication presented by Sir John, some weeks later, to the Council,
complained of his having been condemned without a hearing, and while
he was ‘innocent of these imputations.’ He went on to say that he had
nevertheless done his best to yield obedience to their order. He ‘took
journey from his awn house [in Forfarshire] toward St Andrews, being
heavily diseased by reason of a dizziness in his head, so that he was
not able to travel on horseback for fear of falling from his horse, and
therefore was compelled, although with great pain and travel, to make
journey upon his foot, being led all the way with two men. At last he
atteined with great trouble to the town of Dundee,’ where, however,
sickness stopped him. He petitioned, for the sake of his health, to
be allowed to return to Craig, ‘where, if he die, he may have the
presence and comfort of his wife and children.’ The Lords yielded to
this supplication, on condition of his giving a bond that ‘he sall
cause his eldest son and the remanent of his children and domestics,
resort to the kirk every Sabbath when possibly they may; that he sall
not travel on the Sabbath from his own house, or profane the same by
any slanderous behaviour in his own person, nor in any that is in his
power; that he sall remain in his awn house and twa mile about the
same; and that he sall not reset priests, nor be found reasoning
against the religion presently professed.’
On the 17th of November 1631, the Privy Council, considering that the
Earl of Nithsdale is ‘vehemently suspected in his religion, and that
the remaining of Lord Maxwell, his son, in his company, may prove very
dangerous to the youth, and now in his tender years infect and poison
him with opinions wherefra it will be difficult thereafter to reclaim
him,’ ordered his lordship to ‘exhibit’ his son, that ‘direction may
be given for his breeding and education in the true religion.’--_P. C.
R._ When we remember that the Earl of Nithsdale was the most powerful
man in the southern part of the kingdom, and had so lately as 1625
acted as the royal commissioner to parliament, and since conducted a
large auxiliary force for the service of the king’s brother-in-law
in Germany, the character of this interference with his domestic
arrangements becomes the more noticeable.
Patrick Con of Achry, having early yielded to the orders of Council,
and retired from the country, was nevertheless excommunicated by
the presbytery of Aberdeen; in consequence of which, those left in
charge of his estate appropriated it and threw him into destitution.
He presented a petition to the king for permission to return for a
time, and to have the benefit of a temporary relaxation of the pains
of excommunication, in order that he might recover his property; and
this permission, extending to a twelvemonth, was granted, on condition
‘that, during the said space, he give no scandal or just offence to the
kirk nor government.’ We shall presently see something more of Patrick.
In February 1632, Gordon of Craig petitioned the king for what the
Council had some time before refused; and his majesty, ‘conceiving his
demand to be very reasonable, and (in respect of his age and infirmity
of body) to require our princely commiseration,’ enjoined the Council
either to allow him to join his son abroad or live in such part of
Scotland as he himself chose. The Lords found it ‘no ways fitting’ that
Gordon should be allowed to leave the country, but gave him a licence
to take his choice of a place of residence within the country.
[Sidenote: 1631.]
At length the interferences of the king in behalf of the proscribed
papists produced in his Scottish councillors a degree of disapprobation
which could no longer be repressed. A diocesan assembly met at
Aberdeen, and elected Mr William Gould as a commissioner to proceed
to lay their views before the Privy Council (July 1632). It was
represented by this venerable person, that, when the exiled papists
were allowed to return temporarily, all of their profession were
‘thereby encouraged, upon expectation of finding the like liberty, to
return to the country when they sall be reduced to the same extremity.’
Some who had been brought to the point of yielding obedience, were now
become once more ‘so obstinate that they will abide the last dint of
excommunication.’ The returned exiles had ‘come not alone;’ but through
their means, priests were introduced in great numbers, and ‘going about
the houses of simple ones, perverts them.’ The hands and hearts of
pastors were much discouraged when they found that, after their great
trouble with the process of excommunication, and in urging the Council
to the execution of the laws, all ended in a licence to return from
banishment, ‘in ane increase of obstinacy.’ The petition concluded
with a wish that the Council would lay their grievances before the
king, with a view to inducing him to be more strict with the papists.
The Council complied with this request, and at the same time (July
12, 1632) caused two of the returned exiles, Dr William Leslie and Mr
Robert Irving, to be brought before them to exhibit their licences--a
movement, however, which was not attended with any remarkable result.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV. 17.]
The Privy Council heard of the apprehension of one Andrew Anderson,
‘are busy and trafficking papist,’ believed to be engaged at and about
Dumfries in arranging for the conducting of gentlemen’s sons beyond
sea, that they might be educated in the popish religion. Immediately
on his apprehension, he had been committed to the Pledge-chamber
in Dumfries. The Lords sent for him, that he might be subjected to
examination in Edinburgh; but before any progress had been made in his
case, he died in the Tolbooth. The Council could only issue an order to
the provost and bailies to inquire into the ‘form, manner, and cause of
his death.’--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1631.]
Serious people in Scotland were at this time much scandalised by
reports from England, regarding clergymen who openly preached
Arminianism, and others who wrote in favour of a lax observance of the
Sabbath. At home, the bishops and other leaders of the church were
manifestly departing from the old Scottish observances. ‘The house
of one Dickson in the Potterrow, in the suburbs of Edinburgh, was,
to some of them, their place of recreation on Sabbath afternoons. It
was remarked of Spottiswoode, and some other of the bishops, that
they sojourned [travelled] more on that than on other days. And Mr
Thomas Foster, minister at Melrose, having but one hutt of corn in
his barn-yard, would needs shew his Christian liberty, by causing his
servants cast it in upon that holy day. Thus fast were we hastening to
destruction.’[44]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1632.]
Witches being so numerous at this time, it was not surprising that
‘John Balfour in Corshouse’ took upon him the profession of a
discoverer of witches, ‘by remarking the devil’s mark upon some part
of their persons, and thristing of preens in the same.’ ‘Upon the
presumption of this knowledge,’ say the Privy Council, he ‘goes athort
the country abusing simple and ignorant people for his private gain and
commoditie.’ Measures were taken for looking into John’s pretensions to
such knowledge, ‘and how and by what means he has the same.’--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1633.
FEB. 7.]
‘There began a great storm of snow, with horrible high winds, whilk
were noted to be universal through all Scotland.... The like had never
been seen in these parts, for it would overturn countrymen’s houses to
the ground, and some persons suddenly smo’ered within, without relief.
It also threw down the stately crown bigged of curious ashler wark,
off the steeple of the King’s College of Old Aberdeen. This outrageous
storm stopped the ordinary course of ebbing and flowing on sundry
waters, by the space of twenty-four hours, such as the waters of Leith,
Dundee, Montrose, and other ports--whilk signified great troubles to be
in Scotland, as after ye sall hear how truly came to pass.’--_Spal._
An irregular tide on the east coast of Scotland is no unexampled
phenomenon, and could easily be explained; but it would probably defy
a Humboldt or a Whewell to explain another wonder which a grave church
historian of the eighteenth century--a ‘writer’ in Edinburgh, too--sets
down as occurring at the same time. ‘What was yet more marvellous,’
says he, ‘the moon, though in her first quarter, set not, but was seen
from the Wednesday to the Thursday at even.’[45]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1633.]
George Nicol, the son of a tailor in Edinburgh, and who had been
secretary or clerk to Sir Archibald Acheson, under an unlucky zeal for
the public good, resolved to expose some malpractices of the Scottish
rulers which had fallen under his attention, or which he believed to
exist. Being in London, he presented to the king some information
against the Chancellor, the Earls of Morton and Stratherne, the Lord
Traquair, the Lord Advocate, &c., for mismanagement of the treasury.
These officers were summoned to London to meet the charges brought
against them, when it soon appeared that Nicol had advanced what he
could not prove.
[Sidenote: MAR. 5.]
He was returned to Scotland under the power of the men whom he
had accused, and was adjudged by the Privy Council guilty of
_leasing-making_, and to stand at the entry of the session-house for
an hour, and two hours at the Cross, with a paper on his head bearing,
‘_Here stands Mr George Nicol, who is tried, found, and declared to be
a false calumnious liar_,’ and thereafter to receive six stripes on his
naked back by the hand of the hangman, and then to be led back to the
Tolbooth with his shoulders still exposed.[46]
This prototype of Scottish political reformers met ‘with much
compassion from the promiscuous beholders, who generally believed he
suffered wrongfully.’ He was afterwards deported to Flanders.
* * * * *
Colin Campbell, Laird of Glenurchy, who had succeeded his father Duncan
in 1631, seems to have outrivalled him in his taste for elegant things.
In the quaint memoir of his family written about this time, it is
stated: ‘The said Sir Colin bestowit and gave to ane German painter,
whom he entertainit in his house aucht month, and that for painting of
thretty brods of the kings of Scotland, and of Great Britain, France,
and Ireland, and twa of their majesties’ queens of guid memory, and
of the said Sir Colin his awn and his predecessors’ portraits, whilk
portraits are set up in the hall and chalmer of dais of the house of
Balloch, the soum of ane thousand pounds.’[47]
He also patronised the portrait-painter, George Jameson, now in the
zenith of his fame, and settled in Edinburgh. From a letter written
by this distinguished person to Sir Colin, June 23, 1635, it appears
that he charged for his portraits twenty merks each, he furnishing
‘claith and colours.’ The laird had given an order for pictures of a
considerable number of his friends, and Jameson promised, if he began
in July, to have sixteen ready in September.[48]
[Sidenote: 1633.]
His labours are thus spoken of in the family chronicle: ‘Sir Colin gave
unto George Jameson, painter in Edinburgh, for King Robert and King
David Bruces, kings of Scotland, and Charles I., king of Great Britain,
and his majesty’s queen, and for nine more of the queens of Scotland
their portraits, whilk are set up in the hall of Balloch, the soum of
twa hundred threescore pounds.’... ‘For the knight of Lochow’s lady,
and the first Countess of Argyle, and six of the ladies of Glenurchy
their portraits, and Sir Colin his awn portrait, whilk are set up
in the chalmer of dais of Balloch, [he gave] ane hundred fourscore
pounds.’[49] If we are to presume that Scots money is meant in all
these instances, it would appear that this eminent artist was content
to execute a bust portrait at a pound sterling!
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 13.]
The king arrived in Edinburgh, accompanied by the Duke of Lennox, the
Marquis of Hamilton, and divers other Scotch and English lords and
gentlemen, to the number of about five hundred. His furniture and
plate were carried about with him in princely form. He, riding on
horseback, was received at the West Port in a theatrical manner, after
the fashion of the allegorical entertainments with which Ben Jonson
has made us familiar. There was a kind of theatre under an arch, where
a nymph representing Edinburgh appeared on a mountain, which was so
arranged as to move at the approach of majesty. The nymph was attired
in a sea-green velvet mantle, with sleeves and under-robe of blue
tissue, and blue buskins on her feet: about her neck she wore a chain
of diamonds; her head-dress represented a castle with turrets, and her
locks dangled about her shoulders.
A speech of welcome was delivered by this fair lady, together with the
keys of the city. Meanwhile, the provost, Alexander Clark, and the
bailies, in furred red robes, with about threescore councillors and
others, in black velvet gowns, had taken up a position on a wooden
stand at the other side of the gate. Thence the provost addressed the
king in a brief speech, presenting him at the same time with a gold
basin worth five thousand merks, into which were shaken out of an
embroidered purse a thousand golden double angels, as a token of the
town’s love and service. ‘The king looked gladly upon the speech and
gift both; but the Marquis of Hamilton, master of his majesty’s horse,
hard beside, meddled with the gift, as due to him by virtue of his
office.’ [Sidenote: 1633.]
The provost then mounted his own horse, which was sumptuously attired,
and, followed by the councillors and others on foot attended his
majesty along the Grassmarket. Here appeared ‘a brave company of town’s
soldiers all clad in white satin doublets black velvet breeches, and
silk stockings, with hats, feathers, scarfs, bands, and the rest
correspondent. These gallants had dainty muskets, pikes, and gilded
partisans, and such like,’ and attended his majesty as a guard. At
the gate in the middle of the West Bow, there was another theatre,
presenting a Highland scene, labelled with the word GRAMPIUS, and from
which a female, representing the genius of Caledonia, welcomed his
majesty in verse. Coming to the west end of the Tolbooth, he there
found an arch across the narrowed street, surmounted by a crown; Mars,
as the protecting deity of the country, on one side, and Minerva on
the other. Here, on the withdrawal of a curtain, Mercury appeared,
as just arrived from the Elysian fields with his majesty’s deceased
progenitors. This was a part of the spectacle really interesting to the
king, for the portraits struck his tasteful eye as well executed; and
so they were, being the work of George Jameson of Aberdeen.[50] Here
there was a fourth speech.
‘At the Mercat Cross, he had a fifth speech, where his majesty’s health
was drunk by Bacchus on the Cross, and the haill stroups [spouts]
thereof running over with wine in abundance. At the Tron, Parnassus
hill was erected curiously, all green with birks, where nine pretty
boys, representing the nine nymphs or muses, was nymph-like clad [in
varying taffetas, cloth of silver, and purple].’ Amidst the trees,
appeared Endymion, like a shepherd, in a long coat of crimson velvet,
with gilt leather buskins, telling the king, in William Drummond’s
verse, that he had been despatched by Cynthia to celebrate the day.
‘Roused from the Latmian cave, where many years
That empress of the lowest of the spheres,
Who cheers the night, and kept me hid, apart
From mortal wights, to case her love-sick heart;
As young as when she did me first enclose,
As fresh in beauty as the Maying rose,
Endymion, that whilom kept my flocks
Upon Ionia’s flowery hills and rocks,
And sweet lays warbling to my Cynthia’s beams,
O’ersang the swannets of Meander’s streams,’ &c.
[Sidenote: 1633.]
At the Nether Bow, where he made his exit from the city, another
speech was addressed to him. ‘Whilk haill orations his majesty, with
great pleasure and delight, sitting on horseback, as his company did,
heard pleasantly; syne rode down the Canongate to his own palace of
Holyroodhouse, where he stayed that night. The provost with the rest
returned home.’--_Spal._[51]
Next day (Sunday) the king received Cornelius Smoski, the Polish
ambassador, in great state, in his privy chamber at Holyrood; and
on the ensuing day, the Prince Shemei and his brother, two proper
gentlemen, sons of the Duke de Arscotte, had audience in the same
place. The ambassador was entertained, while in Scotland, ‘upon his
majesty’s charges.’--_Bal._
On the same day, the king made a procession in his coach to the Castle,
where he was magnificently banqueted, ‘served with his awn official’s
and with his awn provision, vessels, and plate.’ Thence he returned
next day, conducted by his nobility in state, in his royal robes, to
the Abbey Kirk of Holyrood, and there was solemnly crowned by the
Bishop of Brechin. ‘It is markit that there was are four-nuikit table
in manner of ane altar, having standing thereon twa books called
_blind books_, with twa chandlers, and twa wax-candles, whilks were
unlichtit, and are basin wherein there was nothing. At the back of this
altar there was ane rich tapestry, wherein the crucifix was curiously
wrought; and as thir bishops who was in service passed by this
crucifix, they were seen to bow their knee and beck, which with their
habit was noted, and bred grit fear of inbringing of popery.’--_Spal._
[Sidenote: 1633.]
On the 20th, the Estates sat down, after one of those formal
processions so often alluded to in Scottish history as the _Riding of
the Parliament_. Such had been the custom from an early period; but
latterly the riding was an affair of greatly increased splendour, and
never had it been so grand as on this occasion. The procession started
at the Abbey Close, or court in front of the palace, and extended along
the principal street of the city to the Tolbooth, where the parliament
was to be held. First went the commissioners for burghs, ‘ilk ane in
their awn places, weel clad in cloaks, having on their horses black
velvet footmantles.’ Then in order went the commissioners for barons
or minor gentry, the lords of spirituality, and the bishops, the
latter being all present but the Bishop of Aberdeen, who lay sick at
home. The temporal lords, the viscounts, and earls followed in order
of rank and date, the Earl of Buchan carrying the sword, and Rothes
the sceptre; after whom came the Marquis of Douglas (lately Earl of
Angus) bearing the crown, and with the Duke of Hamilton on his right
hand, and the Marquis of Hamilton on his left. All the nobles rode in
scarlet furred robes, with footmantles. ‘Then cam his majesty riding
upon ane gallant chestnut-coloured horse having in his head ane fair
bunch of feathers, with ane foot-mantle of purpour velvet. His majesty
made choice to ride in King James IV.’s robe-royal, whilk was of
purpour velvet, richly furrit and lacit with gold, hanging over his
horse-tail ane great deal,’ and borne by five grooms in a line. The
king ‘had upon his head ane hat and ane rod in his hand. The lion
heralds, pursuivants, macers, and trumpeters followed his majesty in
silence.’ At the Nether Bow, where he entered the bounds of the city,
the king was saluted by the provost, who attended him closely the rest
of the way. Within the city there was a space of the street staked
off, sanded, and lined with a guard of armed citizens. At a style or
passage in the Luckenbooths, the king lighted, and was conducted by
the Lord High Constable, the Earl of Errol, to ‘the outer door of the
Heich Tolbooth,’ where ‘the Earl Marischal, as Marischal of Scotland,
with all humility received him, and convoyed him to his tribunal.’ On
the second day of the parliament, the king went in his coach, and after
the business was ended, walked back to the palace, moving so swiftly as
to throw his foot-guard into a perspiration, ‘being ane able footman
as was within, the town.’--_Spal._ The whole reception of King Charles
was magnificent to a degree unprecedented. The people viewed their
sovereign as a stranger of great distinction, and were more awed than
won by his grandeur, while under all lurked the dread of that constant
tampering with the national church and worship which for some years had
been so conspicuous.
[Sidenote: JUNE 23.]
[Sidenote: 1633.]
(Sunday) ‘the king came to St Giles’s Church to hear sermon, and
after he was set down in his awn place, the ordinary reader being
[engaged in] reading the word and singing psalms, before sermon, Mr
John Maxwell, minister of Edinburgh, came down from the king’s loft,
caused the reader remove from his place, and set down there two English
chaplains, clad with surplices, who with the help of other chaplains
and bishops there present, acted their English service. This being
ended, in came Mr John Guthrie, Bishop of Moray, clad also with a
surplice, went up to the pulpit, and taught a sermon. At thir things
many marvelled.
‘Sermon being ended, the king and all his nobles goes into the
banqueting-house, prepared by the town of Edinburgh, that they might
feast him. The banqueting-house was so near the kirk, and so great
noise in it of men, musical instruments, trumpets, playing, singing,
also shooting of cannon, that no service was had in the afternoon,
either in the greater or lesser kirk of St Giles.’--_Row._
Another contemporary says: ‘The people of Edinburgh, seeing the bishop
teach in his rochet, whilk was never seen in St Giles’s Kirk sin’
the Reformation, and by him who sometime was are of their awn town’s
puritan ministers, were grievit, thinking the same smellit of popery.’
Here lay the canker of this flowery scene. Could any one have foretold
that, in the course of a series of circumstances flowing from these
matters of dress and ceremonial, the youthful king now present in
such grandeur would perish on a scaffold; that Bishop Guthrie would,
for what he did this very day, be deposed and excommunicated; and
that Maxwell, who was now on the eve of being made a bishop, would
be deposed and frightened out of his country, be half cut to pieces
in a massacre in Ireland, and finally die of grief on account of his
sovereign’s irretrievable misfortunes--how strange it would have
appeared!
[Sidenote: JUNE 24.]
This day, being St John’s Day, the king went in state to the Chapel
Royal, Holyroodhouse, and there, after a solemn offertory, touched
about a hundred persons for the king’s evil, ‘putting about every one
of their necks a piece of gold, coined for the purpose, hung at a white
silk riband.’--_Bal._
On the same day, the city gave a banquet to the English nobility, ‘with
music and much merriment. After dinner, the provost, bailies, and
councillors, ilk are in others’ hands, with bare heads, cam dancing
down the High Street with all sort of music, trumpeters, and drums. The
nobles went to the king, and told him their entertainment, joy, and
gladness, whereat the king was weel pleasit.’--_Spal._
[Sidenote: JULY 8.]
[Sidenote: 1633.]
After a sporting tour by Linlithgow, Dunfermline, and Falkland, ‘his
majesty came to Perth, and was weel receivit with tenscore of men for
guard, all in white doublets and red breeks, with partisans. Mr William
Bell delivered him a speech.... There was are sword-dance dancit to his
majesty the morn after his coming, upon an island made of timmer on
the water of Tay, and certain verses spoken to his majesty by ane boy,
representing the person of the river Tay, and some conference in his
majesty’s praise betwixt Tay and another representing Perth, made by
Andrew Wilson, bailie.’--_Chron. Perth._
The king on this occasion lodged in the house which had belonged to the
late Earl of Gowrie, and where his father had had a memorable adventure
in 1600. The arrangement for the sword-dance is more particularly
described in the record of the corporation of glovers. His majesty
‘went down to the garden, and being set upon the wall next the water
of Tay, whereupon was ane fleeting stage of timber clad about with
birks, upon the whilk thirteen of this our calling of glovers, with
green caps, silver strings, red ribbons, white shoes, and bells about
their legs, shewing rapiers in their hands, and all other abulyiement,
dancit our sword-dance, with mony difficile knots, five being under and
five above, upon their shoulders, three of them dancing through their
feet and about them, drinking wine and breaking glasses. Whilk, God
be praisit, was actit and done without hurt or skaith till any. Whilk
drew us till great charges and expenses, amounting to the sum of 350
merks.’[52]
We have no actual account of Highlanders present on this occasion;
but it fully appears that Charles, ten days before, caused a letter
to be sent to the Laird of Glenurchy, desiring that there might be a
‘show and muster’ of that class of his subjects at Perth, ‘in their
country habit and best order.’ The laird was requested to ‘single out
and convene a number of [his] friends, followers, and dependers, men
personable for stature, and in their best array and equipage, with
trews, bows, dorlochs [swords], and others their ordinary weapons and
furniture, and to send them to the burgh of Perth,’ for the king’s
contentment.[53]
If these mountaineers made their appearance as requested, there must
have been precisely the same mixture of Highland and more civilised
costumes at Perth on this occasion, as was presented in Edinburgh at
the visit of George IV. in 1822.
[Sidenote: JULY 10.]
[Sidenote: 1633.]
On his return to Edinburgh, the king crossed the Firth of Forth, in
fair weather; nevertheless, a boat perished in his sight, containing
thirty-five of his domestics, all of whom excepting two were
drowned.[54] ‘His majesty’s silver plate and household stuff perished
with the rest; a pitiful sight, no doubt, to the king and the haill
beholders ... betokening great troubles to fall betwixt the king and
his subjects, as after does appear.’--_Spal._
[Sidenote: JULY 12.]
The aged Marquis of Huntly desired to take advantage of the king’s
presence in Scotland to interest him in the affair of Frendraught; but
in his journey from the north to Edinburgh he fell sick at Candechyll,
a country-house he had on Dee-side, and could go no further. ‘He
sent his lady with the Lady Aboyne [his daughter-in-law] to complain
unto his majesty anent the fire of Frendraught; who took their own
time as commodiously as they could, and, accompanied with some other
ladies in mourning weed, pitifully told the king of the murder ...
humbly craving at his hands justice. The king with great patience
heard this complaint, whilk he bewailed, comforted the ladies the best
way he could, and promised justice.’ They could get no more for the
present, but humbly took their leave at the king, and returned to their
lodgings.--_Spal._
This mourning procession for justice was in imitation of similar
incidents which took place while James lived in Holyrood. The two
ladies were not altogether unsuccessful, as they did not return from
Edinburgh till they had urged on the trial of John Meldrum, and seen
him executed. He ‘died but any certain or real confession, as was said,
anent this doleful fire.’--_Spal._
The king left Edinburgh on the 13th of July, on his journey to London.
‘It is said his majesty commendit our Scottish enterteinment and brave
behaviour, albeit some lords grudgit with him.’--_Spal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 30.]
Licence was given to one Edward Graham to have the keeping of a camel
belonging to the king, and to take the animal throughout the kingdom
that it might be shewn to the people, ‘by tuck of drum or sound of
trumpet, from time to time, without trouble or let,’ he and his
servants engaging to behave themselves modestly, and not exhibit the
camel on the Sabbath-day.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: _Aug. 19._]
[Sidenote: 1633]
The moral wildness which still clung to the Highlands was evinced by a
rude incident which happened in the course of a deer-stalking adventure
of Alexander Gordon of Dunkintie and his eldest son. Having gone into
the savage wilderness at the head of Strathaven, the two gentlemen
suddenly lighted upon a party of natives, believed to be of the Clan
Chattan, who were sleeping upon the hillside. Suspecting these men
to be rogues, the two gentlemen shot at them, and wounded one. The
men then set upon Gordon and his son, and killed both, but not before
two more of their party had fallen. The servants of the Gordons then
retreated to give an alarm.
When Dunkintie’s second son soon after came to the spot with a few
friends, he found his father’s and brother’s bodies lying on the
ground, beside one of the slain Highlanders, while the other two slain
men were very cunningly buried in one hole. The young man piously
disposed the bodies of his father and brother in two chests, to be
taken to Elgin for interment. Then cutting off the head of one of the
Highlanders, he caused it to be erected on a pointed stick, and carried
before the coffins on their way to the grave. ‘Upon the 22d day of
August, with great lamentation, they were buried within the Marquis’s
Aisle, and immediately thereafter this limmer’s head was set up on ane
iron stob, upon the end of the Tolbooth of Elgin, in example of others
to do the like.’
The Marquis of Huntly took the death of these his near relatives
greatly to heart, and used his utmost influence to detect the offenders
and bring them to justice, but in vain: ‘some thought this strange
that the great marquis should see his blood destroyed without trial or
reparation.’--_Spal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV.]
[Sidenote: 1633.]
The parish of Duddingstone, near Edinburgh, had for its pastor Mr
Robert Monteath, who came to have a strange history. Of Arminian
tendencies, and perhaps further infected with Romanism from his
parishioner the Marchioness of Abercorn, he incurred the enmity of
the Calvinists in consequence of pasquinading them. Such a walk as
his would have required great circumspection; he, on the contrary,
fell under the serious blame of adultery with the wife of another
parishioner, Sir James Hamilton of Priestfield. The unfortunate
minister fled to France, there joined the Catholic church, and attached
himself to the service, first of M. de la Porte, Grand Prior of France,
and afterwards of the famous Cardinal du Retz, who, forming a high
opinion of his talents, bestowed on him a canonry in Notre Dame. He
wrote _Histoire des Troubles de la Grande Brétagne depuis l’an 1633
jusques 1649_ (Paris, fol. 1661), of which an English translation
appeared in 1735, bearing the words ‘by Robert Monteth of Salmonet.’
It is told of him that, on arriving in France, being asked of what
family he was, and finding that ‘blood’ was essential to his prospering
there, he described himself as one of the Monteaths of _Salmonet_--a
word that sounded well, while the fact was that his father was a mere
fisherman (user of a _salmon-net_) on the Forth at Stirling; but
another account denies this story, and makes Salmonet a real house of
that age, and one in tolerable esteem, being a branch of the Monteaths
of Kerse.
* * * * *
William Coke and Alison Dick were burnt for witchcraft on the sands of
Kirkcaldy. An account, which has been preserved in the session records
of the parish, of the expenses incurred on the occasion, reveals some
parts of the process of witch-prosecution, including the lamentable
fact of the concern borne in such matters by the ministers of religion.
There is first paid, _for the kirk’s part_, £17, 10s., composed as
follows: Mr John Miller, when he went to Preston for a man to try
them, £2, 7s.; to the man of Culross, when he went away the first time
[probably a pricker], 12s.; for coals for the witches, £1, 4s.; in
purchasing the commission, £9, 3s.; for one to go to Finmouth for the
laird to sit upon their assize as judge, 6s.; for harden to be jumps to
them, £3, 10s.; for making of them, 8s. Then, of the town’s part, for
ten loads of coal to burn them, 5 merks, £3, 6s. 8d.; for a tar-barrel,
14s.; for tows, 6s.; to him that brought the executioner, £2, 18s.; to
the executioner for his pains, £8, 14s.; for his expenses here, 16s.
4d.; for one to go to Finmouth for the laird, 6s.; in all, £17, 1s. Sum
of the expense, £34, 11s. Scots.
[Sidenote: 1634.
MAR. 25.]
James Smith, ‘servitor to the Earl of Winton,’ having to build some
houses in the village of Seaton, found that he could not obtain the
proper timber required without sending for it to Norway. It occurred
to him that the wood might most conveniently be paid for by sending
thirty-six bolls of wheat of his own growth, the one article to be
exchanged against the other. This was a very rational idea; but how to
carry it out? In those days, exportation, as already explained, was
a thing generally unpopular, as being supposed to cause scarcity at
home; and the sending out of corn was forbidden by particular laws. It
affords a curious idea of the difficulties which might then attend the
simplest movements in life, through the efficacy of erroneous doctrines
in political economy, that James Smith had to petition the government
before he could get the Norwegian timber for those houses about to be
built at Seaton. By favour probably of the Earl of Winton, who sat in
the Council, he was permitted to export the thirty-six bolls of wheat
to ‘Birren [Bergen] in Norway.’--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAR.]
Thomas Menzies, burgess of Aberdeen, who had been driven into exile on
account of popery some years before, now petitioned the king for leave
to return for a few months, to dispose of his estate and recover some
money owing to him, in order ‘that he may abandon the kingdom, without
staying any longer to give offence to the present professed religion.’
The king, seeing that Thomas had comported himself modestly during his
exile, was pleased to recommend the case to his Scottish Council, by
whom the necessary permission and protection were granted.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 3.]
A fulmination took place in the Privy Council concerning the
south-country papists. They gave final decision in the case of Robert
Rig, wright at the Brig-end of Dumfries, who had been more than once
before the presbytery of that district for marrying Elspeth Maxwell,
‘ane excommunicat papist.’ Robert, on being questioned, owned that ‘he
was married by a popish priest, upon the 17th of November last, being
Sunday, at night, with candle-light, above the bridge of Cluden, in the
fields, and that four were present at the marriage, beside the priest,
whereof some were men and some were women, whom he knew not, because
they had their faces covered.’ Mr Thomas Ramsay, minister of Dumfries,
was present to support the proceedings of the presbytery in the case.
Robert himself was full of contrition, and humbly craved pardon for
his offence. The lords, having fully considered everything, found
that ‘Robert Rig has violat and contravened the laws of this kingdom,
in marrying ane excommunicat woman, by a priest who has no power to
exerce any function within this kingdom,’ and they sentenced him to
be imprisoned during their pleasure in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh; ‘no
person from the said Elspeth Maxwell, his wife, to have access to him
by word or write.’
[Sidenote: 1634.]
The Council, soon after, had in hands the case of Elspeth herself,
who for some time had been expiating her candle-light nuptials by
imprisonment in Dumfries jail. A group of people, fourteen of them
women, mostly wives of tradesmen in Dumfries, were also now or had
lately been, prisoners in the same jail, ‘for hearing of mass and being
present thereat sundry times within thir twelvemonths bygane, as their
confessions bears.’ The Council ordered that all these people should be
‘exhibit’ before them, on a certain day, ‘to the intent such order may
be ta’en with them as may give terror to others to commit the like.’
In obedience to the charge of the Council, Mr Thomas Ramsay, minister
of Dumfries, and John Williamson, one of the bailies, appeared on the
3d of July, and _exhibited_ nearly the whole of these delinquents.
Eight ‘declared that they were heartily sorrowful for the scandal
they had given to the kirk by hearing of mass, and craved pardon for
the same;’ adding a faithful promise ‘in all time coming to obey the
laws, and for that effect to resort to the kirk, hear preachings and
to communicate, and that they should not hear mass nor reset Jesuits.’
These were commanded to remain in their lodgings in Edinburgh till
further orders. Seven, wholly women, ‘refused to conform to the
religion presently professed within the kingdom; in respect whereof,
the Lords ordains them to be committed to ward within the Tolbooth
of Edinburgh, therein to remain upon their awn expenses till they be
freed and relieved by the said Lords.’ Five days after, the whole were
committed to the hands of Patrick, Archbishop of Glasgow, to be dealt
with as he might think fit.’--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 11.]
Walter, first Earl of Buccleuch, who had died in London towards the
close of the preceding year, was buried in the magnificent manner
then customary. His body, having been embalmed, was sent down to
Scotland ‘in one John Simpson’s ship of Kirkcaldy;’ but the ship,
meeting a storm, was driven to the coast of Norway, and only with great
difficulty, and after a long delay, reached Leith. After resting twenty
days in the church there, the corpse ‘were thence, by his honourable
friends, transported to his awn house of Branxholm, where they remained
till the 11th of June,’ when the funeral was at length solemnly
effected at Hawick.
[Sidenote: 1634.]
A striking sight it must have been, that long heraldic procession
which went before the body of the deceased noble, along the banks of
the Teviot, on that bright June day. First were forty-six _saulies_ in
black gowns and hoods, with black staves in their hands, headed by one
called a conductor, who was attended by an old man in a mourning-gown;
a trumpeter in the Buccleuch livery following, and sounding his
trumpet. Next came Robert Scott of Howshaw, fully armed, riding on a
fair horse, and carrying on the point of a lance a little banner of
the defunct’s colours, azure and or. Then a horse in black, led by a
lackey in mourning, a horse with a crimson velvet foot-mantle, and
‘three trumpets in mourning on foot, sounding sadly.’ Then, the great
gumpheon of black taffeta carried on a lance, the deceased’s spurs
carried by Walter Scott of Lauchope, his sword borne by Andrew Scott
of Broadmeadows, his gauntlets by Francis Scott of Castleside, and his
coat of honour by Mr Lawrence Scott.
The next great section of the procession was a purely heraldic display.
Eight gentlemen of the Clan Scott bore each the coat of arms of
one of the various paternal and maternal ancestors of the defunct.
Other gentlemen of the name--Scott of Harden, Scott of Scotstarvet,
&c.--carried the great pencil, the deceased’s standard, his coronet,
and his ‘arms in metal and colour.’ Near whom were three more trumpets,
and three pursuivants, all in mourning. ‘Last of all cam the corps,
carried under a fair pall of black velvet, decked with arms, larmes
[tears], and cipress of sattin, knopt with gold, and on the coffin
the defunct’s helmet and coronet, overlaid with cipress, to shew that
he was a soldier. And so in this order, with the conduct of many
honourable friends, marched they from Branxholm to Hawick Church,
where, after the funeral-sermon ended, the corps were interred amongst
his ancestors.’[55]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 14.]
An arrangement was made by royal authority for putting the sale of
tobacco under some restriction, so as to insure that only a good and
wholesome article should be presented to the public. Sir James Leslie,
knight, and Thomas Dalmahoy, servant to the Marquis of Hamilton, were
to sell licences to retailers, and account to the royal revenue for
the proceeds, as might be arranged between the parties. Thus it was
hoped that the great abuses from ‘the ungoverned sale and immoderate
use of tobacco’ might be abated.--_P. C. R._ Numberless entries in the
Record shew that great difficulty was experienced in carrying out this
arrangement.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 19.]
[Sidenote: 1634.]
The Privy Council had under its consideration a supplication from the
Bishops of Orkney and Caithness, setting forth the miserable condition
to which those districts were like to be reduced by famine. Owing to
tempestuous weather, the corns of the bypast year had not filled, or
proved answerable to the people’s expectation, ‘the boll of aits in
many parts not giving ane peck of meal.’ In the consequent deficiency
of seed, ‘the thrid rig lyeth unsown, and in many parts the half is
not sown.’ Even now, from the scarcity of victual, ‘multitudes die
in the open fields, and there is none to bury them, but where the
minister goeth furth with his man to bury them where they are found.
The ground,’ it was said, ‘yields them no corns, and the sea affords
no fishes unto them as it wont to do. The picture of Death is seen in
the faces of many. Some devour the sea-ware, some eat dogs, some steal
fowls. Of nine in a family, seven at once died, the husband and wife
expiring at one time. Many are reduced to that extremity that they are
forced to steal, and thereafter are execut, and some have desperately
run in the sea and drowned themselves. So great is the famine, that the
people of mean estate have nothing, and those of greater rank nothing
that they can spare.’
The lords recommended the case of these poor people to the charity of
their countrymen generally.--_P. C. R._ Supplies of food were soon
after sent, but not in time or quantity to save a deplorable mortality.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY.]
A project was submitted to the government by Colonel Robert Monro, for
erecting in Scotland an hospital for the reception of disabled Scottish
soldiers. It received some encouragement, and a general contribution
was authorised under the colonel’s care; but it does not appear that
the scheme was ever in any degree realised.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
‘About this time, a pot [eddy-pool] of the water of Brechin, called
South Esk, became suddenly dry, and for a short space continued so, but
bolts up again, and turns to its own course; which was thought to be an
ominous token for Scotland, as it so fell out.’
[Sidenote: 1634.]
A sudden desiccation or stoppage of the flow of rivers, is a phenomenon
not unknown to modern science. The rivers Teviot, Clyde, and Nith, were
all of them reduced, on the 27th of November 1838, to such a smallness
that the mills everywhere ceased to work. The small feeding-streams
were observed on this occasion to be completely dried up. The
phenomenon was variously attributed to an earthquake (though none was
felt), to a high wind obstructing the current, and to a frost. Mr David
Milne made some careful inquiries into the subject, and ascertained
that on the previous evening the thermometer had suddenly sunk to
26 degrees all over the south of Scotland, producing a very low
temperature. He considered the depletion to be caused by the frost,
arresting the small rills in the upper parts of the rivers, and yet not
sufficient to prevent the water further down from flowing away.[56]
* * * * *
Tired of the slow march of legal vengeance, and enraged that only John
Meldrum could be brought to death for the Frendraught tragedy, the
Gordons commenced this year to execute what they called _justice_ with
their own hand. The plan they followed was to take advantage of the
propensity of the neighbouring Highland clans to despoil the country of
Moray. The broken men of the Clan Gregor, the Clan Cameron under its
chief Allan M‘Ian Dhui, the Macdonalds of Glengarry and Clanranald, the
Clan Lachlan, were all ready instruments to their hands; and bands of
them, to the amount of several hundreds, were easily mustered. ‘They
came to the house of Chalmers of Ormiston, bound himself and his wife
hand and foot, spoiled his house, and reft and away took ane thousand
pounds or thereby.... They in like manner spoiled and herried the house
of Andrew Geddes in Gairmouth.... They came to the house of John Mair
in Braemurray, and robbed and spoiled the said John of his goods, and
gave Mr James Cumming (being in the house for the time) eleven wounds
with his own durk.... They violently lifted and took away ane _hership_
of fifty head of oxen off the mount of Dallas.... They stole three
mares from Thomas Gilyean in Halton, together with ane black horse,
and ... they violently drove away eleven horse and mares belonging to
John Hay in Orton; ... by the whilk and many more grievous oppressions
and depredations, committed upon his majesty’s good subjects in the
in-country of Moray by thir broken limmers and sorners, who go about
the country in great troops and companies, with unlawful weapons, the
_haill inhabitants in these bounds are in continual fear of their lives
and spoiling of their goods_, and dare not keep their horse or cattle
in the country.’
[Sidenote: SEP. 25.]
[Sidenote: 1634.]
A gentleman having come from Moray to Edinburgh, on purpose to give
information of these outrages, the Privy Council granted a commission
to fifteen men of name in the country, _not one of them a Gordon_,
to raise armed forces for the purpose of pursuing the ‘limmers’ and
bringing them to justice.
[Sidenote: NOV. 13.]
It soon after appears, from the proceedings of the Privy Council, that
the real authors of these disorders were believed to be the Marquis of
Huntly and a certain number of men of his house, lairds respectively of
Buckie, Carnbarrow, Tulloch, Lesmore, Letterfour, Ardlogie, Innermarky,
Park, Cluny, &c.; together with the Earl of Athole, Lord Lovat, Innes
of Balveny, the _Lady Rothiemay_, and a few other persons. And the
grand aim of the outbreak had developed itself in an attack upon the
lands of Frendraught. These lands had been visited with fire and sword,
and swept of all cattle and other ‘geir’ that could be carried away,
The act of Council speaks also of the laird’s servants killed and
maimed, his tenants and domestics frightened away from him, and himself
at the hazard of his life stealing away under night to claim the
protection of the Council in Edinburgh. The disorders of the country,
it further says, are come to such a height, ‘that almost nowhere in
the north country can his majesty’s subjects promise safety to their
persons or means ... the very burghs and towns themselves are in
continual fear of some sudden surprise, by fire or otherwise, from thir
broken men.’
[Sidenote: 1634.]
It appears, however, that Frendraught had not passively yielded to
these assaults. On a hership of goods being taken away in September,
‘he with some horsemen followed sharply, and brought back his
haill goods again but strake of sword.’ In October, a hership of
threescore nolt and elevenscore sheep was successfully taken away;
but shortly thereafter, on six hundred of the limmers coming into his
neighbourhood, he raised a force of two hundred foot and a hundred
and forty horsemen, and falling upon them by surprise, dispersed them
in flight. It was in November that, seeing the overpowering force
which was mustering against him, he went to claim the protection of
the Council. While the law was there issuing writs in his favour, the
Gordons openly broke out and took away another large hership of cattle
and sheep. ‘To hold siller among their hands,’ they took their prey to
a fair, and sold it, accepting a dollar for each cow, and a groat for
each sheep. Among other violent acts, finding one of Frendraught’s men
on the outlook for information, they hanged him as a spy. The quantity
of plunder they took from Frendraught almost reaches a fabulous amount.
After all they had already done, they ‘raised out of the ground
thirteenscore of nolt and eighteenscore of sheep,’ which they took
and stored in the Castle of Strathbogie, with a view to obtaining the
protection of the marquis for their misdeeds. They also burnt fourscore
stacks on his home-farm.--_Spal._
It was fully believed in the country that these violences were
committed under the sanction of the Lady Rothiemay, who had the death
of both a husband and a son to avenge upon Frendraught. At her trial
in Edinburgh, two years after, it was charged against her, that she
had received and entertained the Highlanders and their leaders, on
their coming to make the attack on Frendraught. Certain it is, they
now came with their prey to Rothiemay, entered the house, and began
to live in riotous style upon Frendraught’s bestial, killing at once
threescore bullocks and a hundred sheep. ‘Some they salted, some they
roasted, and some they ate fresh.’ They also compelled Frendraught’s
tenants to supply them with meal, malt, and poultry. According to
Spalding, there was an appearance of force exercised on the lady and
her two daughters, who were thrust into a kiln-barn to be out of the
way of the depredators. But no one doubted that, in reality, the lady
was happy to see them in her house. In her dittay, it is alleged that,
on their return from the first day’s adventures, she had tables spread
for them, and she and her daughters received them with salutations.
On the evening of the day when they burned Frendraught’s stackyard,
with twelvescore bolls of corn, the lady expressed herself as well
pleased with their success; and at Christmas ‘she dancit with the licht
horsemen in the place of Rothiemay, the _cushion-dance_, [bearing the
cushion] upon her shoulder.’ Till the house, indeed, was summoned and
rendered to the sheriff of Banff, in January 1635, she had given no
token of disrelish for any of the proceedings of the depredators.
[Sidenote: 1634.]
In November, a herald with a trumpeter, sent by the Privy Council, came
to summon the misdoers at the market-crosses of the northern burghs.
Between Banff and Elgin, ‘he meets with Captain Gordon [brother to
the Laird of Park, and one of the chief delinquents], to whom he told
his commission, and made intimation of his charges ... _who at the
giving thereof was weel fearit of his life_. Captain Gordon discreetly
answered, their blood was taken maist cruelly within the house of
Frendraught--justice is sought, but none found; whilk made them
desperately to seek revenge upon the Laird of Frendraught, his men,
tenants, and servants, at their own hands; but as to the rest of the
king’s lieges they would offer no injury.... The herald, glad of this
answer, _and blyth to win away with his life_, took his leave, and the
trumpeter sounded ... to whom the captain gave five dollars of wages.’
The herald also went to the Bog to summon the marquis, an extraordinary
piece of audacity: however, the marquis, who, in reality, had taken
no active part in the business, entertained the poor man civilly,
and allowed him to go on to Elgin, Forres, and Inverness, for the
fulfilment of his mission, as well as to return peaceably through Moray
when all was done.
[Sidenote: DEC. 30.]
The marquis represented to the Council that, from age and infirmity, he
was unable to obey their summons; but he sent several of the gentlemen
of his house who had been called upon to appear, and these were all put
into the Tolbooth of Edinburgh. The Council at the same time caused
the sheriff of Aberdeen to raise two hundred men and proceed to the
disturbed country. This officer found no violators of the law in his
own county, but learned that there was a host of them at Rothiemay, in
the county of Banff. These, being beyond his own bounds, he was obliged
to leave to the sheriff of Banff. The latter officer soon after went in
similar force to the place of Rothiemay, and, past expectation, ‘found
open yetts, enterit the place, sought the haill rooms, but no man was
there, for they had fled about twa hours before the sheriff’s coming;
whereupon he disbanded the gentlemen.... But the sheriff was no sooner
gone, but they came all back again to Rothiemay, where they held house
in wonted form.’
It is briefly noted in a manuscript written about 1720, that the
family of Frendraught, which once possessed three parishes (Forgue,
Inverkeithny, and Aberchirder), was by these inroads of their enemies
reduced to poverty, and in seventy years, was ‘stripped of all, and
extinguished.’[57]
* * * * *
The spring of this year was cold and dry. During the months of April
and May, there was no rain for seven weeks; consequently, the seed in
some places never germinated. The summer, however, proved so fine, that
after all there was a tolerable harvest.
‘The gose-summer[58] was matchless fair in Moray, without winds, wet,
or any storm; the corn was well won; the garden herbs revived, July
flowers and roses springing at Martinmass, whilk myself pulled. The
kale shot and came to seed, and the March violets were springing as in
April.’--_Spal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV.]
[Sidenote: 1634.]
A specimen of religious courtship of this age is given by Mr John
Livingstone in his Memoirs. The lady was daughter to Bartholomew
Fleming, merchant in Edinburgh. ‘When I went a visit to Ireland in
February 1634, Mr Blair propounded to me that marriage. I had seen
her before several times in Scotland, and heard the testimony of many
of her gracious disposition, yet I was for nine months seeking, as I
could, direction from God about that business; during which time I did
not offer to speak to her, who, I believe, had not heard anything of
the matter, only for want of clearness in my mind, although I was twice
or thrice in the house, and saw her frequently at communions and public
meetings, and it is like I might have been longer in such darkness,
except the Lord had presented me an occasion of our conferring
together; for in November 1634, when I was going to the Friday meeting
at Ancrum, I met with her and some others going thither, and propounded
to them by the way to confer upon a text whereupon I was to preach the
day after at Ancrum, wherein I found her conference so judicious and
spiritual, that I took that for some answer to my prayer to have my
mind cleared, and blamed myself that I had not before taken occasion to
confer with her. Four or five days after, I propounded the matter to
her, and desired her to think upon it; and after a week or two, I went
to her mother’s house, and being alone with her, desiring her answer,
I went to prayer, and urged her to pray, which at last she did; and in
that time I got abundance of clearness that it was the Lord’s mind that
I should marry her, and then propounded the matter more fully to her
mother. And although I was fully cleared, I may truly say it was above
a month before I got marriage affection to her, although she was for
personal endowments beyond many of her equals; and I got it not till
I obtained it by prayer. But thereafter I had a great difficulty to
moderate it.’
From this union proceeded a family which has made a distinguished
figure in the United States of America.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1634.]
The patent granted to Mr Nathaniel Uddart for twenty-one years, for
the sole making of soap within the kingdom, was now drawing near to
expiration; and by the king’s favour, a new one, to commence with the
close of the old, was granted to his ‘daily servitor, Patrick Mauld
of Panmure.’ The royal letter, recommending this matter to the Privy
Council, proceeds on the consideration how ‘necessar it is, for the
guid of his majesty’s ancient kingdom, that the same be furnished with
good soaps at reasonable prices within the self’--that is, within the
kingdom itself: further, that soap-making ‘is not a trade of such a
nature as can be communicat to all his majesty’s lieges, and that _the
publict would suffer if the same were left indifferently to all_;’
while it is equally true, that, such being the case, ‘the choice of the
person perteins to his majesty, as a part of his sovereign prerogative.’
Seeing that ‘Patrick Mauld is willing to undergo the said wark, and
to provide for all necessars for continuing the same,’ his majesty
granted to him and his representatives for thirty-one years ‘the sole
and full licence to make and cause to be made, within the said kingdom,
soap for washing of clothes, of all such colours and quantity as they
sall think good.’ Any quantity made beyond what was required for the
country, might be exported upon payment of a duty equal to that paid on
soap imported from abroad. Foreigners might be introduced to work for
Mauld; but were strictly forbidden to make soap for any other person.
As necessarily connected with this patent, the king granted to Mauld,
for the same time, ‘licence to fish and trade in the country and seas
of Greenland, and in the isles and other parts adjacent thereto, and
that for provision of the said soap-works with oils and other materials
necessar thereto,’ but solely so, free from all challenge or hinderance
on the part of any others of his majesty’s subjects. Considering that
there are certain ingredients necessary for the making of soap, and
which it would be well to obtain within the kingdom itself, the king
further gave Mauld sole licence ‘to make potasses of all sorts, of such
wood within the said kingdom, as is most fit for that purpose, and that
can be most conveniently spared;’ likewise ‘of all sorts of ferns and
other vegetable things whatsoever, fit for the purpose.’ Mauld was only
to pay twenty pounds sterling per annum for his privileges.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV. 25.]
A proclamation was made by the king regarding ‘an abuse that has of
late years prevailed in the kingdom, by the disorderly behaviour
of some disobedient people, who ordinarily, when the communion is
administrate in their parishes, and at all other times when their
occasions and humours serve them, run to seek the communion at the
hands of such ministers as they know to be disconforme to all good
order.’ Punishment was threatened according to act of parliament.--_P.
C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV.]
[Sidenote: 1634.]
John Urquhart of Craigston, in Aberdeenshire, had raised a handsome
estate, ‘but court or session’--that is to say, without court favour
or by legal oppression--and built himself a beautiful semi-castellated
house, the elegance of which is still calculated to impress those who
visit it. As grand-uncle of the well-known Sir Thomas Urquhart of
Cromarty, he had taken charge of that gentleman’s affairs, and thus
came to be generally recognised as the Tutor of Cromarty. His death in
November 1631 was bewailed by the elegant Aberdeenshire poet, Arthur
Johnston, who says of him, in his epitaph in Kinedart church:
‘Posteritas, cui liquit agros et prædia, disce
Illius exemplo vivere, disce mori.’
The son of the Tutor, John Urquhart of Laithers, being deep in
debt--to the extent of £40,000 Scots--his father settled the estate
upon the next generation, now a boy. As John Urquhart was returning
from his father’s funeral, he took sickness suddenly by the way, and
soon found himself upon his death-bed. It was a bitter moment for the
spendthrift, for he knew that his death would occasion severe losses
to many gentlemen who stood as cautioners for his debts, and leave his
own widow unprovided for. He could only call the boy to his bedside,
and desire him to be good to his step-mother, and pay his father’s
debts out of the large estate which would shortly be his. ‘The young
boy passed his mourning promise so to do. Then he desires the Laird
of Cromarty, who was present, to be nae waur tutor to his son nor his
father was to him, and to help to see his debts paid.’
It seems to have been impossible in that age for either boy or girl
to be left as this boy was, without becoming the subject of sordid
speculations amongst those who had any access to or influence over
them. The Laird of Innes, who was brother-in-law to the deceased
Laithers, immediately ‘gets the guiding of this young boy, and, but
advice of his friends, shortly and quietly marries him upon his awn
eldest dochter, Elizabeth Innes.’ Such an outrage to the decency of
nature for the sake of rich connection, does not seem to have been
thought more than dexterous in those days. Innes, who was one of
the first baronets of Nova Scotia, is described as ‘a man of great
worth and honour.’ As a member of the Committee of Estates, he took a
prominent part in the war which was some years afterwards commenced for
the defence of the national religion.
[Sidenote: 1634.
NOV. 30.]
To the boy the affair became sadly tragical. When craved by the
cautioners for his father’s debts, he was willing to comply; but
the selfish father-in-law would not listen to any such proposition.
The unfortunate gentlemen had to pay, in some instances to the wreck
of their own estates. The many maledictions which they consequently
launched at the youth, affected him greatly in his conscience and
feelings. ‘And so, through melancholy, as was thought, he contracts ane
consuming sickness, whereof he died, leaving behind him ane son called
John in the keeping of his mother.’--_Spal._
The singular fortunes of this boy of sixteen--for he is said to have
been no older at his death--became the subject of a ballad containing
some stanzas of a more poetical character than are usually found in
that class of compositions.[59]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 14.]
Died at Stirling, the Earl of Mar, Lord-treasurer of Scotland, the
school-friend of King James VI., and a most respectable nobleman. Scott
of Scotstarvet, who seems to have had rather more than the usual relish
for the misfortunes of his neighbours, says of Lord Mar: ‘His chief
delight was in hunting; and he procured by acts of parliament, that
none should hunt within divers miles of the king’s house; yet often
that which is most pleasant to a man is his overthrow; for, walking in
his own hall, a dog cast him off his feet, and lamed his leg, of which
he died; and at his burial, a hare having run through the company, his
special chamberlain, Alexander Stirling, fell off his horse and broke
his neck.’[60]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1635.]
The winter 1634-5 is described by a contemporary as ‘the most
tempestuous and stormy that was seen in Scotland these sixty years
past, with such abundance of snow and so rigid a frost, that the
snow lay in the plains from the 9th of December to the 9th of
March.’--_Bal._ Another chronicler says that between the 26th of
January and the 16th of February, ‘there fell furth ane huge snow,
that men nor women could not walk upon our streets [Perth]. It was
ten quarter or twa ell heich through all the town. Tay was thirty
days frozen ower. There was are fast appointit, and there came a
gentle thow, blissit be God.’ From the long stoppage of running waters
everywhere, it became impossible to get corn ground, and a scarcity
began to be felt. Ale became equally scarce, and no wonder--‘they
knockit malt in knocking stanes.’--_Chron. Perth._ Owing also to the
depth of the snow and its lying so long, ‘many bestial, both wild and
tame, died; the flocks of sheep in the Lowlands, and the goats in the
mountains, went all in effect to destruction.’--_Bal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JAN.]
The excuse of the Marquis of Huntly not being held sufficient by the
Privy Council, he was obliged to proceed to Edinburgh to answer for the
Frendraught outrages. He commenced his journey on the 9th of January,
and came by short stages to Aberdeen. In ten days, he had only reached
Fettercairn in Forfarshire. Thence, after being storm-stayed in the
place for three days, he advanced to Brechin, six miles; thence, next
day, proceeded two miles further to his own house of Melgum. Here the
snow detained him till the 10th of February. He and his lady then
proceeded, ‘in ane coach borne upon lang trees upon men’s arms, because
horse might not travel in respect of the great storm and deepness of
the way clad with snaw and frost.’ This journey of about a hundred and
fifty miles seems to have occupied fully five weeks, including the
detentions on the way.
The appearance of the marquis before the Council ended in his
liberation, and that of the gentlemen previously imprisoned, upon
their undertaking to repress the disorders, and give surety for a
second appearance at a fixed time, the marquis also giving caution to
Frendraught that he and his tenants should be unharmed, under a penalty
of a hundred thousand pounds [probably Scots money]. The affair being
thus so far settled, the marquis returned to his own country in May. He
returned to the capital in summer, and was favourably received by the
Council on account of his endeavours for the quieting of the country.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JAN?]
‘... there was seen in Scotland a great blazing star, _representing
the shape of a crab or cancer, having long spraings spreading from
it_. It was seen in the county of Moray, and thought by some that this
star, and the drying up of the pot of Brechin, as is before noted, were
prodigious signs of great troubles in Scotland.’--_Spal._
This portent is the more worth noting, as the description so curiously
recalls the appearance of some of the _nebulæ_ brought into view by the
powers of Lord Rosse’s telescope--though, of course, from anything we
know of the distance of these objects, the possibility of one of them
coming into view of the naked eye, would scarcely be surmised by any
modern astronomer. [Sidenote: 1635.]
Early in this year commenced a great mortality, probably in consequence
of the scarcity which prevailed during the preceding year. The
small-pox raged among the young for six or seven months with great
severity, and, what was remarked as unusual, some persons took the
disease for the second time.[61]
There was also a scarcity this year. ‘The fiar was ten pounds Scots the
boll of meal and beir.... Several of the clergy, to the shame of them
all, charged twelve pounds Scots and above.’[62]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAR. 26.]
Grant younger of Ballindalloch, reported to the Council that he had
lately taken an opportunity to attack some of the broken men who formed
the company of the outlaw James Grant. Entering into pursuit of two,
named Finlay M‘Grimmen and ---- Cumming, he and his people had killed
the first, and taken the second. They had carried Cumming three miles,
intending to exhibit him alive to the Council, along with the head of
M‘Grimmen; but the country rising upon them, they had been obliged to
put the man to death. The Lords accepted this act as good service, and
ordered M‘Grimmen’s head to be affixed to the Nether Bow Port; at the
same time giving the inbringer of it a guerdon of a hundred merks, ‘for
encouragement of others.’---_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1635.]
The year at which we are now arrived is the epoch of the establishment
of a regular letter-post in Scotland. There was previously a system of
_posts_, in the proper sense of the word--namely, establishments at
certain intervals, where horses could be had for travelling, and which
had the occasional duty of forwarding packets of letters regarding
public affairs. As illustrative of this system of posts, which was
probably limited to the road between Edinburgh and Berwick (as part
of the great line of communication with London), with possibly one or
two other roads--On the 29th of March 1631, the lords of the Privy
Council dealt with the fault of ---- Forres, postmaster of Haddington,
respecting a packet of his majesty’s letters which had been lost by his
carelessness. It appears that Forres was bound to have fresh horses
always ready for the forwarding of such packets; but on one late
occasion he had sent a packet by a foot-boy, who had lost it by the
way, and he had never taken any further trouble regarding it. On the
ensuing 3d of November, the Council had occasion to find fault with
William Duncan, postmaster in the Canongate, and more particularly
with a post-boy in Duncan’s employment, because the latter, instead
of carrying his majesty’s packet to the postmaster at Haddington, had
given it to ‘a whipman’ of Musselburgh, to be carried to Duncan’s house
there (designing probably that it should be forwarded by another hand).
The Council recommended Sir William Seton ‘to prescribe regulations
to the postmasters, for the sure and speedy despatch of his majesty’s
packet, both anent the postmasters their constant residence at the
place of their charge, and keeping of are register for receipt of the
packets.’--_P. C. R._
These circumstances appear as characteristic of a time when the postal
arrangements were at once very new and very simple.
The necessity of having this system of posts for the communication
of intelligence between the king and his Scottish Council was partly
incidental to the time. In the days of King James, things were of so
simple a nature, and in general so much left to the discretion of
the Council, that a system of posts for the despatch of packets was
scarcely required. Charles, having entered on a course more difficult,
and in which great energy on his own part and that of his subservient
Scottish Council was called for, and all little enough as being
contrary to the general inclinations of the people, found a need for
more frequent communication; and hence these posts in the Canongate and
at Haddington.
[Sidenote: 1635.]
At length this system merged in one applicable to the sister-kingdom
also, and in which a regular periodical transmission of letters
for private individuals was included. To quote from a contemporary
writer--‘Till this time [1635] there had been no certain or constant
intercourse between England and Scotland. Thomas Witherings, Esq., his
majesty’s postmaster of England for foreign parts, was now commanded
“to settle one running post, or two, to run day and night between
Edinburgh and London, to go thither and come back again in six days;
and to take with them all such letters as shall be directed to any
post-town in the said road; and the posts to be placed in several
places out of the road, to run and bring and carry out of the said
roads the letters, as there shall be occasion, and to pay twopence
for every single letter under fourscore miles; and if one hundred and
forty miles, fourpence; and if above, then sixpence. The like rule the
king is pleased to order to be observed to West Chester, Holyhead, and
thence to Ireland; and also to observe the like rule from London to
Plymouth, Exeter, and other places in that road; the like for Oxford,
Bristol, Colchester, Norwich, and other places. And the king doth
command that no other messenger, foot-post, or foot-posts, shall take
up, carry, receive, or deliver any letter or letters whatsoever, other
than the messengers appointed by the said Thomas Witherings: except
common known carriers, or a particular messenger to be sent on purpose
with a letter to a friend.”‘[63]
The post between London and Edinburgh was of course conducted on
horseback. It usually went twice a week, sometimes only once. Three
years after, when the troubles had begun, the communication became
insecure. A person in England then wrote to his friend in Scotland: ‘I
hear the posts are waylaid, and all letters taken from them and brought
to Secretary Cooke; therefore will I not, nor do you, send by that way
hereafter.’[64]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE.]
‘There was seen in the water of Don a monster-like beast, having the
head like to ane great mastiff dog or swine, and hands, arms, and paps
like to a man. The paps seemed to be white. It had hair on the head,
and the hinder parts, seen sometimes above the water, seemed clubbish,
short-legged, and short-footed, with ane tail. This monster was seen
swimming bodily above the water, about ten hours in the morning, and
continued all day visible, swimming above and below the bridge without
any fear. The town’s-people of both Aberdeens came out in great
multitudes to see this monster. Some threw stones; some shot guns and
pistols; and the salmon-fishers rowed cobles with nets to catch it, but
all in vain. It never shrinked nor feared, but would duck under the
water, snorting and bullering, terrible to the hearers and beholders.
It remained two days, and was seen no more.’--_Slightly altered from
Spalding._
It seems most probable that this was one of the herbivorous cetacea,
as the _manatus_. ‘They have,’ says Cuvier, ‘two mammæ on the breast,
and hairy moustaches; two circumstances which, when observed from a
distance, may give them some resemblance to human beings, and have
probably occasioned those fabulous accounts of Tritons and Sirens which
some travellers pretend to have seen.’ The manatus haunts the mouths
of rivers in the hottest parts of the Atlantic Ocean, and it is just
possible that a stray individual may have found its way to the coast of
Scotland, more especially as it was the summer season.
[Sidenote: 1635]
The author of an _Account of Buchan_,[65] supposed to have been written
about 1680, tells us that, some years before, two mermaids had been
seen at Pitsligo, by a group of persons, one of whom was Mr Alexander
Robertson, chaplain to the Laird of Pitsligo, ‘known to be ingenious.’
This writer refers to the strange marine animal of 1635, as a mermaid.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG. 19.]
George, first Earl of Kinnoul, Chancellor of Scotland, had died at
London in December 1634,[66] and now he was to be interred in his
family tomb at the parish church of Kinnoul, near Perth. The funeral
was one of those grand heraldic processions, of which that of the
Earl of Buccleuch, under June 11, 1634, has been given as an example.
There were _saulies_, trumpeters, and pursuivants in great numbers;
relatives to carry the arms of the deceased, his coronet, his spurs,
his gauntlet, his mace, and great seal, and the arms of many of his
ancestors on both sides. His physician and chaplain in mourning,
‘a horse in dule,’ and two pages of honour, were other figures.
And finally came the coffin, surmounted by a pall of black velvet,
carried by twelve gentlemen, followed by the deceased’s son, in a long
mourning robe and hood, assisted by six earls and three lords going
three abreast. ‘In this order went they through the town of Perth, and
near the bridge crossed the water (wharves and boats being appointed
on purpose), and so marched to Kinnoul church, where, after the
funeral-sermon being ended, the corps were set in the tomb prepared for
them.’[67]
A full-length figure of the earl still surmounts his tomb; a good
illustration of the full dress of a man of first rank in that age. The
spiteful Scott of Scotstarvet tells us, ‘he was a man of little or
no learning, yet had conquest a good estate--namely, the baronies of
Kinnoul, Aberdalgie, Dupplin, Kinfauns, Seggieden, Dunninald, and many
others; all which estates in a few years after his decease, his son
made havock of.’
[Sidenote: 1635.
SEP. 26.]
The pest was at this time at Cramond, near Edinburgh--supposed to have
been introduced by a ship from the Low Countries, where the disease
largely prevailed. The inhabitants were ordered to keep within their
own parish, and two _clengers_ from Newhaven were despatched to bury
the dead and take all other needful steps to prevent the spread of
infection. A strict order was issued to prevent the landing of people
out of ships from Holland, or any intercourse with such vessels as
might come into the Firth of Forth. The wife of Thomas Anderson,
skipper, having gone on board her husband’s vessel, and remained there
some time, after which she returned to her house in Leith, she was
commanded to remain within doors. One Francis Vanhoche, of Middleburg,
had embarked in a ship bound for Scotland, in order to settle his
accounts for lead ore; he had been detained by contrary winds, and
then landed at Hull, whence he proceeded to Edinburgh, and took up his
quarters with Gilbert Fraser, a merchant-burgess of the city. To the
surprise of Francis, he was shut up in the house as a dangerous person,
and not liberated till the Laird of Lamington engaged to take him
immediately off to Leadhills, where he had business to attend to. The
order for the seclusion of the parishioners of Cramond caused enormous
misery to the poor, who, being prevented from working, could obtain
no supply of the necessaries of life. After a representation of their
extreme sufferings, the order was removed (December 15).--_P. C. R._
During the ensuing year, the plague declared itself in London,
Newcastle, and other towns in England, but hardly appeared in Scotland
till November, when the towns of Preston, Prestonpans, and Musselburgh
were slightly infected.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: (NOV.)]
[Sidenote: 1635.]
Soon after the Marquis of Huntly’s summer journey to Edinburgh, Captain
Adam Gordon of Park, offended at the severe proceedings of the great
lord against himself and others, went to the Council in Edinburgh, and
making a separate peace, gave information which led the Council to
believe that the marquis had receipted and supplied some of the broken
men after undertaking their reduction. The aged noble was accordingly
summoned once more, and forced to obey, though it was now ‘the dead
of the year, cold, tempestuous, and stormy.’ He and his lady again
travelled ‘by chariot.’ On this occasion, he had to submit to a period
of imprisonment in the Castle of Edinburgh, in a room where he had no
light, and was denied the company of his lady, except on a visit at
Christmas. He was afterwards permitted to live in ‘his own lodging,
near to his majesty’s palace of Holyroodhouse, with liberty to walk
within ane of the gardens, of walks within the precinct of the said
palace, and no further.’ Thence, in June 1636, finding himself growing
weaker and weaker, he set out for his northern castle, ‘in a wand-bed
within his chariot, his lady still with him.’ He died on the journey,
in an inn at Dundee, whence his body was brought in a horse-litter to
Strathbogie, for burial.
At the end of August, this great man was buried in state at Elgin,
according to the forms of the Catholic Church, to which he belonged.
‘He had torch-lights carried in great numbers by friends and
gentlemen.’ His son and three other nobles bore the coffin. ‘He was
carried to the east style of the College Kirk, in at the south door,
[and] buried in his own aile, with much mourning and lamentation;
the like form of burial with torchlight was seldom seen here
before.’--_Spal._
This grand old nobleman had been in possession of his honours for sixty
years. In his youth, he had great troubles from his rivalry with the
Earl of Moray, and his adherence to the ancient faith. But he had lived
down all difficulties, and, considering the sad affair at Dunnibrissle
in 1592, died with a wonderfully good character. ‘The marquis,’ says
Spalding, ‘was of a great spirit, for in time of trouble he was of
invincible courage, and boldly bare down all his enemies. He was never
inclined to war himself, but by the pride and influence of his kin, was
diverse times drawn into troubles, whilk he did bear through valiantly.
He loved not to be in the law contending against any man, but loved
rest and quietness with all his heart, and in time of peace he lived
moderately and temperately in his diet, and fully set to building all
curious devices. A good neighbour in his marches, disposed rather to
give than to take a foot wrongously. He was heard to say he never drew
sword in his own quarrel. In his youth, a prodigal spender; in his old
age, more wise and worldly, yet never counted for cost in matters of
credit and honour. A great householder; a terror to his enemies, whom
he ever with his prideful kin held under subjection and obedience. Just
in all his bargains, and was never _heard_ for his true debt.’
[Sidenote: 1635]
The marquis had had infinite trouble through life in maintaining his
faith as a son of the Church of Rome, and it fully appears that the
Presbyterians had the trouble of converting him four or five times.
‘In 1588, he gave in his adherence to the reformed establishment,
and subscribed the Confession; but in his intercepted letters to the
Spanish king, he says that “the whole had been extorted from him
against his conscience.” In 1597, his lordship was again reconciled
to the kirk, with much public solemnity, signed the Confession of
Faith, and partook of the sacrament. His fidelity, however, was wholly
feigned, and did not last long. In 1607, Mr George Gladstanes, minister
at St Andrews, was appointed by the General Assembly to remain with the
Marquis of Huntly “for ane quarter or ane half year, to the effect by
his travels and labours, the said noble lord and his family might be
informit in the word of truth.” In the following year, Mr Gladstanes
reported that he had stayed three days with the marquis, apparently
at the time when his lordship was engaged in the re-edification of
his castle of Strathbogie, of whose grandeur the existing remains as
yet afford ample proof; and having among other things inquired at his
lordship “why he resorted not to the preaching at the ordinar times
in parish kirks,” he was informed that he could not well resort to
the parish kirk, partly in respect of the mean rank of such as were
within the parish, and partly in respect his lordship’s predecessors
were in use to have ane chapel in their awn house, whilk he was
minded to prosecute now, “seeing he was presently preparing his house
of Strathbogie.” In 1606, he was accused of giving encouragement to
the Roman Catholics, and thereby occasioning a great defection from
the reformed opinions, and in 1608 he was excommunicated. In 1616, he
was absolved from excommunication by the Archbishop of Canterbury,
and afterwards by the General Assembly which met at Aberdeen in that
year. There is, however, no doubt that during his whole life he was
a warm adherent of the ancient religion.’[68] It would be difficult
for a candid mind to say which was most to blame in all this--the
marquis for his insincerity, or the church-courts for exercising force
and accepting professions where they knew that there was no hearty
concession attainable.
[Sidenote: 1635.]
In his latter years, the marquis devoted himself much to what was then
called _policy_--that is, building and planting. We have already seen
that he erected an elegant mansion at Strathbogie--the now ruinous
Huntly Castle. ‘He built a house at Kinkail on the Dee, called the
New-house, which standeth amidst three hunting-forests of his own.
He built the house of Ruthven in Badenoch twice, [it] being burnt by
aventure or negligence of his servants after he had once finished the
same. He built a new house in Aboyne; he repaired his house in Elgin;
he hath built a house in the Plewlands in Moray; he hath enlarged and
decored the house of Bog-Gicht, which he hath parked about; he repaired
his house in the old town of Aberdeen.’--_G. H. S._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC.]
We light upon a curious bit of life in the book of the Privy Council.
One day, not long before the date noted, Nicolas Johnston, wife of
Mr Francis Irving, commissary-clerk of Dumfries, was walking on the
street of that burgh, passing from her mother’s house to the residence
of ‘Lady Cockpool,’ when she met Marion Gladstanes, spouse of the
schoolmaster. Marion, after many flattering words, invited Nicolas
Johnston into her house ‘to drink with her.’ Yielding with some
reluctance to this invitation, Nicolas was taken into a quiet room in
Marion’s house, where presently a mutchkin of white wine was brought
in for the solacement of the two ladies. Marion, as the hostess,
drank the first cupful to the health of her gossip’s husband; then,
while Nicolas was looking at the hangings of a bed (few rooms were in
those days without beds), she filled the cup again. ‘Nicolas, looking
about, perceived her tottering the cup in her hand, as if she had
the perellis’ [paralysis]. Then she gave it to Nicolas to drink. It
appeared to have some brayed nutmeg infused into it. Nicolas, having
drunk a little, handed back the cup to Marion, who, ‘pretending it was
to the said Nicolas’s husband’s health, urged her at three drinks to
drink the same out. Thereafter Marion took the cup, and set it down,
saying: “The last that drank out of that cup, loved the wine the better
of the nutmegs,” and with that changed her countenance and grew red.
Nicolas, fearing some harm, and yet not suspecting any poison to be in
the cup, the said Marion took ane clean linen and said: “I think you
love not nutmegs,” rubbed the cup clean, filled a drink of wine, drank
thereof, and her servant also.’
[Sidenote: 1635.]
Nicolas Johnston afterwards proceeded to Lady Cockpool’s, but in the
way experienced a violent attack of thirst, ‘so that she was forced to
call for drink, and could scarce be slockened. Thereafter, she came
to her mother’s house, and being troubled with the like thirst, drank
weak ale and got little rest all the night.’ Next day, her body, from
the middle downwards, was enormously swelled, making her a monstrous
figure, and this illness did not much abate for twenty days. Soon
after, she had to take to her bed again, nor did she begin to recover
‘till she received an antidote from Dr Hamilton.’ Her health did not
fully come back.
A commission was issued for inquiry into this affair, but with what
result does not appear.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1636.
JAN. 14.]
Instances of the capture of Scottish mariners by Barbary rovers, and of
charitable efforts at home to redeem them from a cruel slavery, have
been already intimated as numerous. At this time, we are informed of
one which must have formed a powerful appeal to the humane bosom. A
ship called the _John_ of Leith, commanded by John Brown, and having
ten sailors on board, is quietly proceeding on a mercantile voyage
from London to Rochelle. Near the coast of France, it encounters three
Turkish men-of-war, who give chase from sunrise to sundown, and at last
take and sink the vessel, after easing her of her crew and all her
valuable goods.
The poor skipper Brown and his ten men, being carried to Sallee,
were taken to market and sold as slaves. Each bearing iron chains to
the weight of eighty pounds, the eleven men were employed all day in
grinding in a mill, with nothing to eat but a little dusty bread. ‘In
the night, they are put in foul holes, twenty foot under the ground,
where they lie miserably, looking nightly to be eaten with rottens
and mice.’ It was further stated, that ‘being but a company of poor
seafaring men, having nothing but their hires whereby to redeem
themselves, and their kin are so mean and unworthy as they will do
nothing in that errand, their thraldom and misery will be perpetual
unless they be assisted and helped by the charitable benevolence of his
majesty’s good subjects.’
The Privy Council, looking kindly on the wretched state of the men,
recommended a contribution in their behalf throughout Lothian, Berwick,
Stirling, and Fife, under the care of ‘John Brown and Walter Ross,
indwellers in Preston.’
[Sidenote: 1636.]
In the ensuing month, the Privy Council had in their hands a
supplication from James Duncher, setting forth his pitiful estate as a
prisoner among the Turks in Algiers. He had been kept for a long time
there, forced to carry water on his back through the town, ‘with an
iron chain about his leg and round his middle, instead of sark, hose,
and shoes;’ and no food ‘but four unce of bread daily, as black as
tar,’ while obliged to endure ‘forty or threescore of stripes with are
rope of four inches great upon his naked body, sometimes on his back,
and sometimes on his belly.’ ‘When the ship is to go to the sea, he
must go perforce and sustein the like misery there, and all because he
will not renunce his faith in Christ and become ane Turk.’ His cruel
masters having offered to liberate him for twelve hundred merks, he now
entreated the Privy Council to recommend his case to the charity of his
fellow-countrymen, that that sum might be raised and sent to him. The
Council looked kindly on this sad petition, and appointed a collection
to be made in the sheriffdoms of Edinburgh and Berwick, the proceeds to
be handed to ‘David Corsaw in Dysart, uncle of the supplicant,’ who had
undertaken to administer the money for Duncher’s relief.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JAN. 27.]
[Sidenote: 1636.]
A bark belonging to Dundee, carrying goods from Camphire, was overtaken
near the mouth of the Firth of Forth by a storm, which obliged the
master, after struggling with great difficulties, to run the vessel
on shore in an inlet called Thornton Loch, near Dunbar. Immediately
she was beset by a multitude of farmers, Dunbar tradesmen, and others,
provided with horses and carts, who, cutting a hole in her side with
axes, seized and took away her whole cargo. The enumeration of the
articles gives some idea of what might constitute a grocer’s stock in
those days, and speaks rather more strongly of comfort and luxury than
many may be prepared for. There were ‘ten lasts of white pease, three
lasts and a half of soap, four great pipes of “alme” [alum?] and three
puncheons of “alme,” a ball of madder, three balls of galls, twenty
hundred pund weight of sugar, ten trees [barrels] of white stiffin
[starch], twenty trees of raisins of the sun, three trees of figs,
[three] puncheons of Corse raisins, ten kinkens [kegs] of powder, twa
small trees of brimstone, are thousand pund weight of tobacco, seven
barrel pipes, four kinkens of indigo, four hundred pund of pepper,
fifty pund of cannell [cinnamon], thirteen pund of maces, fifteen pund
of saffron, twenty pund of nutmegs, ane thousand pund of ridbrissels
(?), ten piece of Holland cloth, thirty-six pund of silk, ane steik of
Spanish taffeta, three trees of capers, ane packet of pannis’ (?), and
‘four hundred pund of pewter vessel and stoups,’ besides ‘six hundred
and fifty merks of ready gold and silver, being in a purse, with the
haill abulyiements and clothing belonging to the company and equipage
of the ship.’ Having carried off these articles, they proceeded to sell
them to the country people, without any regard to the remonstrances
of the master of the ship. ‘The like of whilk barbarous violence,
committed in the heart of the country by people who ought to have
respect for law and justice, has not been heard of; whereanent some
exemplar and severe course ought to be ta’en, lest the oversight and
impunity thereof make others to commit the like.’
It is gratifying to find the Council taking up the East Lothian
wreckers in this spirit. They did proceed with great energy against
such of the individuals accused as they found to be truly guilty,
imposing on them severally certain fines, from fifty merks up to fifty
pounds, in order to make up a proper compensation to the owners of the
goods.--_P. C. R._
In July 1636, the Council dealt with a case of wrecking which strongly
illustrates the state of morals in the Western Islands. The _Susanna_,
a bark of twenty-four tons, was proceeding, in December 1634, from the
port of St Malo, in France, to Limerick, with wines and other goods
to the value of a thousand pounds, when she twice encountered stormy
weather, and by force of winds and waves, was carried to an inlet in
one of the Hebrides. Having lost their boat, the mariners made signs to
the people on shore, who presently came on board, armed with swords,
pikes, and crossbows, ‘and demanded of the company of the bark what
they would give to bring the bark into are harbour.’ It was agreed by
the distressed crew, that a butt of sack and a barrel of raisins should
be given for that service and for some provisions of which they stood
in need. Then the islanders cut the ship’s cable and brought her to
land.
The master and his crew expected here to find kindly entertainment and
to be in full security; but, instead of this, a great number of people,
of whom the captain of the Clanranald and the Laird of Castleborrow
were the chief (three hundred in all, it is said), came down upon them
in armed fashion, and furnished with barrels and other conveniences;
‘drank and drew out the wine day by day, carried away all their goods
and merchandise,’ and even robbed the strangers of their wearing
apparel, ‘as weel that upon their bodies as whilk was in the bark.’ By
threats and ill-usage, they also obliged a young man, a member of the
crew, to assume the character of factor of the vessel, and make a mock
sale of her merchandise, ‘in consideration of a sowm of money, although
he received nane.’ Finally, under a threat of being sent with the crew
‘to the savages that dwells in the mayne,’ the owner was compelled to
accept eight pounds for the vessel, though it was worth a hundred and
fifty; and then the crew found it necessary to get away as best they
could, for fear of their lives.
[Sidenote: 1636.]
The Council summoned the accused persons, and on their failing to
appear, denounced them as rebels.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JAN.]
A difficulty occurring about the election of magistrates for Aberdeen,
a _leet_ was sent to the Privy Council, who selected out of it
Alexander Jaffray, a distinguished merchant, whom we shall meet again
in this chronicle. ‘Many lichtlied both the man and the election, not
being of the old blood of the town, but the oy [grandson] of ane baxter
[baker], and therefore was set down in the provost’s dais, before his
entering, are baken pie, to sermon. This was done divers times; but he
miskenned [overlooked] all, and never quarrelled the samen.’--_Spal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR. 1.]
On the application of Mr William Gordon, professor of medicine and
anatomy in the university of Aberdeen, who had hitherto been obliged
to illustrate his lessons by dissecting beasts, the Privy Council gave
warrant to the sheriffs and magistrates of Aberdeen to allow him the
bodies of a couple of malefactors for the service of his class, if
such could be had, but, failing these, the bodies of any poor people
who might die in hospitals or otherwise, and have no friends to take
exception; this being with the approbation of the Bishop of Aberdeen,
chancellor of the university.[69]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 27.]
[Sidenote: 1636.]
This was a terrible day for the _broken men_ who had for the last few
years been carrying on such wild proceedings in Morayland and other
districts bordering on the Highlands. Lord Lorn--who soon after, as
Marquis of Argyle, became the leader of the Covenanting party--had
exerted himself with diligence to put down the system of robbery and
oppression by which the country had been so long harassed; and he
had succeeded in capturing ten of the most noted of the catterans,
including one whose name enjoys a popular celebrity even to the present
day. This was Gilderoy or Gillieroy; such at least was his common
appellation--a descriptive term signifying the Red Lad--but he actually
bore the name of Patrick Macgregor, being a member of that unhappy clan
which the severity of the government had driven to desperate courses
about thirty years before. Another of the captured men was John Forbes,
who seems to have been the _fidus Achates_ of the notorious outlaw,
James Grant. A natural son of Grant was also of the party. These ten
men were now brought to trial in Edinburgh.
It was alleged of Gilderoy that he and his band had for three years
past _sorned_ ‘through the haill bounds of Strathspey, Braemar, Cromar,
and countries thereabout, oppressing the common and poor people,
violently taking away from them their meat, drink, and provision,
and their haill guids.’ They had taken fifteen nolt from one farm in
Glenprosen; had lain for days at Balreny, eating up the country, and
possessing themselves of whatever they could lay hands on, and in some
instances they had carried off the goodman himself, or the man and wife
together, in order to extort money for their ransom. One of the charges
leads us to the romantic scenery of Loch Lomond, where there is an
island called Inchcailloch (Women’s Island), from having been the seat
of a nunnery in ancient times. Gilderoy, in company with his brother,
John Dhu Roy, and his half-brother, John Graham, had come to William
Stewart’s house in this island, and taken from it ‘the whole insight
plenishing, guids, and geir,’ besides the legal papers belonging to the
proprietor. There had also been a cruel slaughter of one of the Clan
Cameron. The other men were taxed with offences of a similar kind.
If the doom of the ten catterans was duly executed--and we know nothing
to the contrary--they were all, two days after, drawn backwards on
a hurdle to the Cross, and there hanged, Gilderoy and John Forbes
suffering on a gallows ‘ane degree higher’ than that on which their
companions suffered, and further having their heads and right hands
struck off for exhibition on the city ports.[70]
Gilderoy, as is well known, attained a ballad fame. There is a
broadside of the time, containing a lament for him by his mistress, in
rude verses not altogether devoid of pathos. She says:
‘My love he was as brave a man
As ever Scotland bred,
Descended from a Highland clan,
A catter to his trade.
No woman then or womankind
Had ever greater joy
Than we two when we lodged alone,
I and my Gilderoy.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1630.]
There is something almost fine in the close of the piece:
‘And now he is in Edinburgh town,
’Twas long ere I came there;
They hanged him upon a pin,
And he wagged in the air:
His relics they were more esteemed
Than Hector’s were at Troy--
_I never love to see the face
That gazed on Gilderoy_.’
A various version of this doleful ditty appears in _A Collection of Old
Ballads_ (London, printed for J. Roberts, &c., 1724). It contains some
stanzas not quite consistent with modern taste, and takes such a view
of the offences of the hero as might be expected from a woman and a
mistress:
‘What kind of cruelty is this,
_To hang such handsome men_!’
As it breathed, however, a strain of natural feeling, it attracted
the attention of Lady Wardlaw, the authoress of the fine ballad of
_Hardiknute_, and by her was put into such an improved form as may be
said to have rendered the name of Gilderoy classical.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 28.]
A petition given in to the Privy Council by the parishioners of
Denny, craving assistance to rebuild a bridge which had been carried
away by a ‘speat’ of the Carron, stated the circumstances of the
accident in terms which illustrate the power of running-water in a
remarkable manner. The tempest, it was said, exceeded all that could be
remembered, ‘by the violence whereof not only houses, with men, wives,
and bairns, were pitifully carried away and drowned, but great craigs
and rocks were rent, and huge parts of the same, of forty foot of
length and above, carried with the violence of the speat, above four or
five pair of butts length from the craig, within the water of Carron,
to the dry land.’--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG. 3.]
Lady Rothiemay, after a long detention under caution, was this day
subjected to trial for giving encouragement to the Frendraught spoilers
two years before. There seems to have been a disposition to look
lightly on the offence of a woman who had had the deaths of a husband
and a son to excite her feelings, and the charge, after being twice
delayed, was finally allowed to fall to the ground.
[Sidenote: 1636.
NOV. 10.]
The Privy Council, learning that a number of gipsies had been seized
a month before, and thrown into jail at Haddington, decreed that,
‘whereas the keeping of them longer there is troublesome and burdenable
to the town,’ therefore the sheriff or his depute should pronounce
sentence of death ‘against so many of thir counterfeit thieves as are
men, and against so many of the women as wants children, ordaining the
men to be hangit, and the women to be drowned;’ while ‘such of the
women as has children should be scourged through the burgh.’[71]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 8.]
John Greg, ‘in the Haughs of Fingoth,’ complained to the Privy Council
of the conduct of Mr James Stuart, commissary of Dunkeld, who, after
passing upon him sundry affronts, had lately fallen upon a new trick
for his disgrace--namely, to insert ‘Macgregor’ as his name in all
public documents in which he was concerned either as pursuer or
defender. ‘Now, lately, under the borrowed name of David Martin,
servitor to the Laird of Ballechin, he has ta’en the gift of the
complainer’s escheat, and in that same gift he calls the complainer
John Macgregor, _alias_ Greg.’ By this it was assumed that the Dunkeld
commissary intended ‘to draw the complainer under all the courses that
sall be ta’en with the Clan Gregor.’ Greg further affirmed that his
family name for generations past memory had been simply Greg, ‘and had
nothing to do with the race of Clan Gregor.’
The Council obliged Stuart to give caution that he would discontinue
this singular kind of persecution.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1637.
FEB. 23.]
We have notice at this time of a very pretty quarrel between Lord
Fraser and the Laird of Philorth. ‘The kirkyard dike of Rathin being
altogether ruinous and decayed, the gentlemen and others of the parish,
out of respect to the honour of God and credit of the parish, concluded
to repair and big up the said kirkyard dike,’ except a part which fell
properly to be done by the late Lords of Lovat and Fraser. Owing to
the death of Lord Lovat, the duty of building the latter portion fell
solely upon Lord Fraser, who, when he had executed it, ‘caused put
up aboon the kirkstyle his name and arms in carved stones, after a
decent and comely order, never thinking that any man would have been
so void of modesty and discretion as to have maligned the said wark.’
Nevertheless, Alexander Frisell of Philorth had come with a number of
armed followers, under cloud of night, and put up three great brods
with the arms of Philorth painted on them, right over the Lord Fraser’s
arms, which were now consequently invisible.
Such a proceeding, it was held, could only be interpreted as meant to
stir up Lord Fraser into a deadly quarrel; ‘but he, out of respect to
his majesty’s obedience and laws, whilk he will ever prefer to his awn
unruly passions, has forborne to tak upon him the sword of justice.’ He
applies to the Privy Council for the just redress of ‘this inexcusable
wrong.’
The Council had the accused parties summoned before them, and the Laird
of Philorth, having appeared, could only excuse himself by alleging
what he felt to be due to his late father’s ‘funerals.’ The Lords
therefore contented themselves with ordering the ‘brod’ with the arms
to be taken down ‘at mid-day, in presence of the minister of Rathin.’ A
counter complaint from Philorth against Lord Fraser for putting up his
arms in stone on the kirkyard dike, was remitted to the judge ordinary
of the district.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: FEB. 23.]
It is remarkable that the government never previously exerted itself
more strenuously for the repression of spoliation and common theft than
just before its hands were paralysed by the outbreak of the religious
spirit. We have just seen justice done upon a number of broken men of
the north and the gipsies of the south; we have now to see even more
stern proceedings against the Border thieves. A commission, headed by
the Earl of Traquair, sat at Jedburgh on the day noted, when whole
droves of culprits came before them, and were dealt with in the most
rigorous manner. The number hanged was thirty! Five were burned, and as
many fined. Fifteen were banished from the country, under caution never
to return. While fifteen were ‘cleansed,’ forty were declared fugitives
for non-appearance, and twenty dismissed with assurance that they
should be treated in a similar manner if they failed to bring forward
caution before a particular day.
[Sidenote: 1637.]
The commissioners framed a number of statutes, some of which speak
strongly of the state of things which they were meant to correct. Any
person going to Ireland without a licence was to be held as a thief,
and brought to trial. It was culpable for any innkeeper to have beef,
mutton, or lamb in his house, without ‘presenting the skin, heed, and
lugs thereof, to two or more of their honest neighbours, who may
bear witness of the mark and birn of the skin and hide, and that the
flesh thereof is lawfully becomit.’ No one was to purchase cattle
or sheep otherwise than in open market, ‘at the least before twa
famous witnesses testifying that the guids is lawfully becomit.’ It
was a misdemeanour for any one who had goods stolen to negotiate for
their recovery and leave the thief unprosecuted. No one was to give
harbourage or assistance in any way to men declared fugitives from
justice.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE.]
During the spring and early summer of this year, the border counties
were afflicted with the pest. Various orders were issued with a view to
confining the range of the sickness as much as possible. From one of
these arose a complaint on the part of Sir John Murray of Philiphaugh,
who, as convener of the justices of his county, had occasion to see the
arrangements carried out. Having gone to Selkirk for this purpose, he
found a citizen named James Murray about to have a daughter married,
and ‘a great part of the country’ expected to gather to the ceremony.
He forbade the assemblage as dangerous, and enjoined that not above
four or five should be present as witnesses; but James Murray would not
listen to his remonstrances. When Sir John afterwards sent for him to
press still further the necessity of having only a small company, James
Murray proudly answered: ‘If ye be feared, come not there.’ Sir John
then called on the bailies to commit him to prison, but ‘there was no
obedience given thereto;’ and next day, when the marriage took place,
‘there was about four or five score persons who met and drank together
all that day till night.’--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 23.]
The intrusion of a service-book or liturgy, upon the Scottish Church
has been alluded to in the introduction to the present section. There
was an almost universal unwillingness, even among the friends of the
reigning system, to give efficacy to the royal orders; for it was seen
that the congregations would not calmly see this innovation effected.
It was resolved, however, that on Sunday the 23d of July the book
should be used in the cathedral of Edinburgh--the ‘Great Church’ of St
Giles--where the privy councillors, including the bishops and the lords
of session, as well as the city magistrates, usually attended worship,
besides a large congregation of the upper class of citizens.
[Sidenote: 1637.]
To pursue the narrative of a contemporary:--‘How soon as Dr George
Hanna, dean of Edinburgh, who was to officiate that day, had opened
the service-book, a number of the meaner sort of people, most of them
waiting-maids and women, who use in that town to keep places for the
better sort, with clapping of their hands, cursings, and outcries,
raised such an uncouth noise and hubbub in the church, that not any one
could either hear or be heard. The gentlewomen did fall a tearing and
crying that the mass was entered amongst them, and Baal in the church.
There was a gentleman standing behind a pew and answering “Amen” to
what the dean was reading; a she-zealot, hearing him, starts up in
choler: “Traitor,” says she, “does thou say mass at my ear!” and with
that struck him on the face with her Bible in great fury.
‘The bishop of Edinburgh, Mr David Lindsay, stepped into the pulpit,
above the dean, intending to appease the tumult, minding them of the
place where they were, and entreating them to desist from profaning
it. But he met with as little reverence (albeit with more violence) as
the dean had found;[72] for they were more enraged, and began to throw
at him stools, and their very Bibles, and what arms were in the way
of [their] fury. It is reported that he hardly escaped the blow of a
stool, which one present diverted. Nor were their tongues idler than
their hands. Upon this, John Spottiswoode, archbishop of St Andrews,
then Lord Chancellor, and some others, offering to assist the bishop
in quelling the multitude, were made partners of the suffering of all
these curses and imprecations which they began to pray to the bishops
and their abettors. The archbishop, finding himself unable to prevail
with the people, was forced to call down from their gallery the provost
and bailies and others of the town-council of Edinburgh, who at length,
with much tumult and confusion, thrust the unruly rabble out of the
church, and made fast the church doors.
[Sidenote: 1637.]
‘The multitude being removed, the dean falls again to read, in
presence of the better sort who stayed behind; but all this while,
those who had been turned out of doors, kept such a quarter with
clamours without, and rapping at the church doors, and pelting the
windows with stones, as that the dean might once more be interrupted.
This put the bailies once more to the pains to come down from their
seat, and interpose with the clamorous multitude to make them quiet. In
the midst of these clamours, the service was brought to an end; but the
people’s fury was not a whit settled; for after the bishop had stepped
up into the pulpit and preached, and the congregation dismissed, the
bishop of Edinburgh retiring to his lodging not far distant from the
church, was environed and set upon with a multitude of the meaner
people, cursing him and crowding about him, that he was in danger
of his life, and to be trodden down amongst the people; and having
recovered the stairs of his lodging, he no sooner began to go up, but
he was pulled so rudely by the sleeve of his gown that he was like to
have fallen backwards. Nor was he in more security, having gotten to
the top of the stairs; for the door he did find shut against him, and
so was at a stand, likely to have been oppressed, had not the Earl of
Wemyss, who from the next lodging saw the bishop in danger, sent his
servants for to rescue him, who got him at last, breathless, and in
much amazement, into his lodging.’--_Gordon’s Hist. of Scots Affairs._
Tradition in modern times has represented an herb-woman, named Jenny
Geddes, as the heroine who more especially cast her stool at the
bishop. Wodrow, however, has given us a different account in his
_Analecta_. ‘It is,’ says he, ‘a constantly believed tradition, that it
was Mrs Mean, wife to John Mean, merchant in Edinburgh, that cast the
first stool when the service-book was read in the New Kirk, Edinburgh,
1637; and that many of the lasses that carried on the fray were
prentices in disguise, for they threw stools to a great length.’ Mrs
Mean had been the subject of a relenting and humane act on the part of
the government. When her husband was under restraint for nonconformity
in 1624, he was liberated on a petition setting forth the delicate
state of his wife’s health, in order that he might be enabled to return
to Edinburgh and attend upon her.[73]
[Sidenote: 1637.]
‘After this Sunday’s wark, the haill kirk doors of Edinburgh was
lockit, and no more preaching heard [for four or five weeks]. The
zealous puritans flockit ilk Sunday to hear devotion in Fife; syne
returned to their houses.’--_Spal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY.]
The poor and scattered success of the new liturgy is quaintly dwelt
on by a nobleman who took a leading part in the proceedings for
obtaining its abrogation. ‘Sundry bishops,’ he says, ‘did establish
[the service-book] at their cathedrals, as the bishop of Ross in
the Chanrie, Brechin at the kirk of Brechin, Dunblane at Dunblane.
It was not fully practised at St Andrews; only a few of the prayers
were read by the archdeacon, and having no assistance, left the same,
after a few months’ practice of a part of it only. The minister of
Brechin, Mr Alexander Bisset, would not practise it; but the bishop
read it by his own servant. At Dunblane, the ordinary minister, Mr
Pearson, a corrupt worldling, read it ... yet did the said Pearson,
after consideration of the general dislike of the service-book, at a
meeting of the small barons of Strathearn, subscribe the supplication
against the service-book, as the Laird of Kippenross. At Chanrie, it
was read by one appointed by the bishop. Except these places, it was
not entered nor practised in no place in Scotland; except Dr Scrimgeour
at St Fillans read it, and neither being dextrous, nor having any to
assist him, as it began to be discountenanced, he dishaunted it. Also
in Dingwall in Ross, one Mr Murdo Mackenzie, under censure for divers
heinous and foul crimes, practised the same, to obtain remission of
his offences. Certain prayers were also read in the New College at St
Andrews, some of these that are not themselves corrupt, though joined
with the rest--and this obedience given by that fearful man, Dr Howie,
who hath fallen back from the truth of his first profession.’[74]
REIGN OF CHARLES I.: 1637-1649.
It was a terrible and most exciting crisis for Scotland, when the
people found themselves constrained by all they held sacred to resist
their sovereign. Revering the institution of monarchy, and long
accustomed to yield to the powerful king of Great Britain a deference
which had neither been asked by nor paid to the sovereign of their own
rude and inferior state, nothing could have brought them into such
an attitude but their anxiety for the avoidance of soul-endangering
errors. Even after the riots of July--such was the unwillingness to
adopt strong measures--they might have been induced to remain at peace
under bishops and Perth articles, if the king had been so far well
counselled as at once and gracefully to withdraw the Service-book.
So might a moderate Episcopacy have been preserved in Scotland, and
the Civil War itself avoided or postponed. The king unfortunately
determined to persevere in his unlucky course. The consequence was
that the great mass of the people, including many of the nobility and
gentry, was led into measures, at first of protestation, and latterly
of resistance. There was indeed a district in the north-east where
Episcopacy was the favourite system. In some other places, papist
nobles exercised a limited local influence. The Highlanders were an
uninstructed people, with no religious predilections. But in the
Lowland provinces generally, a people far from void of intelligence
were intensely earnest in favour of their old simple forms of worship
and model of church-government. In the agitation of the subject during
a few months, their prepossessions acquired a strength and fervour
which never had been known before. It were quite impossible for any
individual of our cool and temperate age, to form an adequate idea of
the earnest feelings of the men who now arrayed themselves against
Charles’s Episcopal innovations, without a careful perusal of the
numberless documents in which these feelings found expression.
In the latter part of 1637, the Service-book not being withdrawn, four
committees, called _Tables_, respectively representing the nobles,
gentry, clergy, and burgesses, met in Edinburgh to concert measures
for giving it an effective resistance. When it became evident, in
the ensuing February, that the king was obdurate, the Tables framed
a NATIONAL COVENANT, binding all who should sign it to spare nothing
which might save their religion. It was signed by a large majority
of the people, in a paroxysm of enthusiasm beyond all example in our
history. The king, at length alarmed, sent the Marquis of Hamilton
(June 1638) as a commissioner to treat with the Covenanters; and he
soon after was induced to offer concessions far beyond what would
have been grasped at a twelvemonth before--namely, to withdraw the
Service-book and an equally unpopular Book of Canons, to abrogate the
Court of High Commission, and place the Perth articles on a footing of
indifferency. But while the people at large were at first disposed to
be at peace on these terms, the leaders were by this time influenced
with higher views. Feeling their power, they now hoped by perseverance
to obtain a complete abolition of Episcopacy. Accordingly, when the
matter came to be debated in a General Assembly of the Church, which
sat at Glasgow in November, the royal commissioner proved unable to
keep them within moderate bounds. On his formally dissolving the
Assembly, they sat still under a clerical president, until they had
deposed the bishops and declared Episcopacy wholly at an end.
The king, notwithstanding that a respect for his person and rule was
still professed, could not acquiesce in a movement so contrary to the
policy he had so long maintained, and which interfered so violently
with his own religious convictions. He began to prepare an army for
the subjugation of the Covenanters. They on their part made ready for
an armed resistance, not professedly to their sovereign, but to the
statesmen who guided his counsels. By a great effort, he got together
twenty thousand men, and (May 1639) led them towards the Border. A
fleet, having a few thousand troops on board, at the same time entered
the Firth of Forth, under the command of the Marquis of Hamilton.
Under their nobles, gentry, and clergy, the Scots mustered forces to
defend their shores from the fleet, to meet the anti-Covenanting party
in the north, and to oppose the king at the Border. To the number
of about twenty thousand men, commanded by Sir Alexander Leslie, an
experienced officer from the German wars, they took post on Dunse Law,
while the king advanced with his army towards the Tweed. What with
constant praying, preaching, and fasting, it was such a camp as perhaps
never existed before or since. The king, seeing their resolution and
discipline, and feeling that he had but slack support from his own
army, was induced to offer a pacification. He could not sanction the
acts of a General Assembly which had defied his authority; but he
proposed that everything should Be submitted to another such body
sitting under his representative, and to a subsequent parliament. His
hope was that time and his personal influence with the leaders might
bring things to some passable issue. At the worst, he should meanwhile
prepare a greater army for enforcing subjection.
The new General Assembly and the parliament met in the course of
summer (1639) under royal commissioners, but with only the effect of
formally affirming the abolition of Episcopacy. The king accordingly
resolved on a second expedition against the Scots. After trying in
vain to induce an English parliament to grant supplies, he obtained
some assistance from a convocation of the English clergy, and from a
number of friends among the gentry. He calculated much on the public
fortresses of Scotland being now in his hands, and on the zeal of a
small loyal party. All his hopes were frustrated. In the early part
of 1640, the Scots mustered a second army as good as his own. They
succeeded in seizing the most of the fortresses. His expectations of
co-operation from the loyalists in Aberdeenshire proved fallacious.
The attention of a patriotic party in England was now hopefully fixed
on the proceedings of the Scots. The truth is, Charles was leading the
army of a party of his English subjects through a country generally
disaffected to his policy, against a country altogether hostile. In
such circumstances, a great blow to his authority was inevitable.
The Covenanters did not now deem it necessary to confine themselves
to a defence of their own borders. They crossed the Tweed with a
gallant army (August 28, 1640), and advanced on the Tyne. After a smart
action, in which they were victorious, they crossed that river, and
took possession of Newcastle. With a disaffected army, and all but a
few zealots muttering around him, the king could only come a second
time to a convention, but now it was upon less favourable terms than
before. It was arranged that a new parliament should be called in
England for the settlement of the affairs of the kingdom, and that
meanwhile the Scottish army should remain in the north under English
pay; thus the patriotic party calculated on having a guard to protect
them while reforming the state. Efforts were made to raise resentment
against the Scots as invaders of the English territory; but the Scots
took care, by their published declarations, to shew that they solely
aimed at the preservation of the religious forms which had long before
been established among them, and that they desired nothing more than
the friendship of the English people. Among the English themselves,
objections to Episcopal authority and a formal style of worship had
been advancing since early in the reign of Elizabeth; giving rise to
what was called the Puritanic party. English Puritans, aiming at the
same objects as the Scottish Covenanters, readily gave them their
sympathy. Thus it was with the cordial concurrence of a large portion
of the English nation that the Covenanters rested under arms in England.
The parliament which now sat down, and which was not to rise again
for eleven years, proceeded to take into consideration a number of
grievances under which the country was considered as having suffered
during the king’s reign. His prime advisers, Laud, archbishop of
Canterbury, and the Earl of Strafford, were imprisoned. Other ministers
of the king--opprobriously styled _Malignants_--were obliged to fly
from the kingdom. It became evident that the church itself was in
danger. Strafford, after a trial in which it has never been pretended
that he got fair-play, was (May 1641) condemned and beheaded. While
thus sorely pressed by his English parliament, Charles began to think
that his Scottish subjects might be conciliated so as to become his
friends, and perhaps to some degree his partisans. In August 1641, he
revisited Edinburgh, in order to preside at a meeting of the Estates;
and there he sanctioned all the measures they had themselves taken,
and distributed honours and rewards among the Covenanting leaders. He
spent three months in Edinburgh, doing all in his power to cultivate
the affections of the Covenanters, and apparently with success, though
there were not wanting some troubles, occasioned by a small loyalist
party, who wished to act more energetically in his behalf than was
convenient for him. He at length returned, as he said, a contented
prince from a contented people. Before this time, the Scottish army had
been satisfied of their pay by the English parliament, and had returned
from Newcastle, and been disbanded.
While the king still remained in Scotland (November 1641), intelligence
arrived of a frightful outbreak of the Catholics in Ireland, and
the dreadful vengeance executed by them upon their Protestant
fellow-subjects. Ten thousand Scottish troops were quickly mustered,
and sent over to assist in preserving the king’s authority in that
country.
The arbitrary rule which King Charles had exercised down to 1637, had
in four years been brought low in both Scotland and England. A severe
lesson had been read to him, if he had had the wisdom to profit by it.
After such a struggle, it is not easy, either for the monarch to rest
corrected, or for his subjects to make moderate uses of their victory.
Bigoted views on his part as to both state and church, fostered by
the support of a loyal party more generous than wise; a strong sense
in the patriotic or parliamentary party that the king and his friends
would resume the system of arbitrary authority if possible, and use
it mercilessly against all who had taken part in the late movements;
made it in a manner impossible that things should rest at the point now
attained. Accordingly, soon after the return of the king to London, the
popular party in the English parliament presented to him their famous
_Remonstrance_, recapitulating all the errors of his past government,
and recommending that he should put himself into the hands of ministers
who enjoyed the confidence of the people. His imperious spirit,
strengthened by his hopes of support in Scotland, refused to yield to
such counsels. When he made his unfortunate attempt (January 1642) to
seize the five leading patriots in the House of Commons, the distrust
of the parliament was completed, and reconciliation became impossible.
The king had for some time contemplated warlike means of recovering
his lost ground; but it was not till the bishops had been impeached,
and he had been asked to surrender the command of the militia to the
parliament, that he raised his standard at Nottingham (August 1642),
with the support of a large body of loyal gentry.
In this civil war, the Scottish nation had no formal reason or pretext
for joining on one side or the other; but their sympathies and
interests were all engaged in behalf of the parliamentary cause. When
the first two campaigns, therefore, made it seem likely that the king
would be triumphant, they naturally felt some uneasiness, as fearful
that if he should put down the parliament, their recovered liberties
and reinstated church would be in danger. The temptation to assist the
English patriots thus became irresistible. A set of commissioners from
the English parliament came into Scotland to court its alliance; they
were instructed to give the Scottish nation hopes that, in the event
of success against the king, the Presbyterian model should supersede
the Episcopalian both in England and Ireland. With the enthusiastic
conceptions the Scots then had of the value of Presbyterianism, as the
only pure and saving vehicle of the gospel, they were unable to resist
this bait, though it was after all put into an ambiguous shape. Their
Estates, accordingly, entered into what was called a SOLEMN LEAGUE
AND COVENANT with the English parliament (August 1643), one of the
provisions of which engaged them to send an army against the king.
Eighteen thousand foot and three thousand horse, to be supported by
English pay at the rate of £30,000 a month, crossed the Tweed in the
depth of winter (January 1644). With a view to gratify and encourage
them, their enemy, Laud, was taken from his prison in the Tower,
tried, and sent to the block--a piece of political revenge merely,
as the old man was unable to have done any one further harm. Joining
the parliamentary troops at York, the Scots assisted materially in
gaining the important victory of Marston Moor, from which the king’s
party never entirely recovered. They also besieged and took Newcastle,
preserving a laudable moderation in their triumph. The season ended
with a marked depression of the royal cause.
While affairs in Scotland were wholly managed by a Committee of the
Estates and the Commission of the kirk, several of the nobles and the
inhabitants of certain districts, chiefly in the Highlands, formed a
tacitly royalist party. The young Earl of Montrose, raised to the rank
of marquis, and invested by the king with a commission, set up the
royal standard in Perthshire (August 1644), and was soon surrounded,
by three thousand men, part of whom were Irish papists. Montrose was
a man of extraordinary genius, with conceptions far beyond his narrow
sphere. Originally a zealous Covenanter, he had changed when he thought
the king too hard pressed by his subjects. A generous loyalty and
romantic heroism enabled him to perform wonderful exploits; but it is
at the same time to be owned that he was fearfully unscrupulous about
plunder and the shedding of blood. With his ill-armed followers, he
overthrew a carefully embodied army of militia, of twice his number, at
Tippermuir (September 1644). Then marching to Aberdeen, he defeated a
second army under Lord Burleigh, and entering the city, subjected it to
a pillage even severer than any he had inflicted on it as a Covenanter.
The Marquis of Argyle pursued him round the Highlands without gaining
any advantage. Suddenly breaking off his course, he invaded Argyleshire
in the depth of winter, and ravaged it without mercy, killing a
great number of the men fit to bear arms. The Marquis of Argyle came
to revenge this frightful proceeding at Inverlochy, but was there
defeated with immense slaughter (February 1645). Montrose then made a
deliberate march through Inverness-shire, Moray, Banffshire, and the
east coast, using fire and sword wherever the king’s cause was not at
once acknowledged and supported. It was a warfare such as had not taken
place in England since the contentions of the Roses, and strongly marks
the lower civilisation of Scotland at this date. At Dundee, he received
a check from a Covenanting army under General Baillie, and with some
difficulty succeeded in obtaining a refuge in the mountains. Descending
again to the plains in Nairnshire, he defeated with great slaughter
a small army under Colonel Urry at Auldearn; soon after, he in like
manner overthrew Baillie’s forces at Alford. He was now confident
enough to promise King Charles the speedy recovery of Scotland; and
the king, finding his affairs becoming more and more discouraging in
England, was inclined to trust to this promise, and migrate northward.
Montrose, however, only distressed his country; he did not conquer or
convert it to loyalty. He never accomplished any solid or permanent
advantage, but was as much the mere guerrilla chief at the last as at
the first. One other victory, gained over a large militia force at
Kilsyth (August 1645), left him without any apparent opposition in
Scotland. Yet within a few weeks (September 13), he was completely
defeated at Philiphaugh, in Selkirkshire, by a body of horse detached
under David Leslie from the Scottish army in England; and he was soon
after obliged to retire to the continent. Montrose’s course was like
that of a meteor, which alarms and excites wonder, but passes without
leaving any tangible effects.
Meanwhile the battle of Naseby and the second battle of Newbury had
left the king’s cause in a hopeless condition, and at the close of
1645, he was scarcely able to keep the field. It was now absolutely
necessary for him to make peace with his subjects, if he hoped to
retain even a nominal power or place in the state, and, seeing that
the resources of the pure royalists had proved insufficient for his
support, his best course would have been to place himself in the hands
of the party next in the sentiment of regard for his person. This was
the party of Presbyterians, as distinguished from a more extreme
party, which had latterly sprang into importance in England, under
the name of Independents, who professed to support a primitive form
of Christianity without any ecclesiastical organisation whatever.
The Presbyterians hated Episcopacy; but they were not averse to a
moderate or limited monarchy; while the Independents were generally of
republican principles. Charles, unfortunately a bigot for Episcopacy,
could not bring himself to sanction the Presbyterian model, even for a
limited time on trial. He hoped to bring out a better issue for himself
by the dangerous game of playing off the various parties against each
other. Having thus lost a good opportunity of treating, he was obliged,
in May 1646, to take refuge with the Scottish army at Newark.
Whatever may be thought of the conduct of the Scots in entering into
the Solemn League and Covenant, and sending troops against a sovereign
who had so thoroughly redressed their own national grievances, there
can be no reasonable doubt that they were prompted on that occasion by
a pure zeal for their church establishment, and a sympathy with those
of the neighbouring nation who desired to be equally free from the
rule of bishops. But it cannot be denied that in engaging themselves
to ‘endeavour, without respect of persons, the extirpation of popery,
prelacy, superstition, heresy, schism, profaneness, and whatsoever
shall be contrary to sound doctrine’--for such are the terms of the
League--they had wholly changed the nature of their policy. From a
laudable defence of cherished institutions of their own, menaced with
danger, they passed into a very questionable system of propagandism and
aggression. It might be said that they were committing the same mistake
as King Charles had done in his original policy towards themselves,
going against the religious traditions and prepossessions of a people;
for, while Puritans and Independents had an apparent ascendency in
England, ‘the church,’ nursed by the blood of martyrs, and endeared
by long habit, had still a great hold on the bulk of the English
nation. Success in such a movement, if it could by any be considered as
deserved, was scarcely by common sense to be expected. As if in natural
punishment for a great error, nothing had gone well with the Scots ever
since. An Assembly of Divines, including commissioners from Scotland,
had sat at Westminster for two years, in deliberation on the proper
ecclesiastical system and articles of faith to be adopted by both
nations; and its decision was substantially for the Presbyterian forms
and Calvinistic doctrines so much beloved in the north. But the English
House of Commons could never be induced to take any active measures for
imposing this decision on the nation, doubtless feeling that it was not
generally acceptable. Pure presbytery never came into true operation
except in London and in Lancashire. To the Scottish leaders, who had
been accustomed to impose and enforce doctrine upon all recusants in
their own country, this slackness seemed inexcusable, and occasioned
the deepest disappointment. They also found that their army, after the
first useful service at Marston Moor, was comparatively neglected in
England, and its pay allowed to fall into arrear. Themselves courted
at first as allies, they had latterly been little inquired for or
consulted; their advices and their remonstrances were alike overlooked.
Sternest punishment of all, while their best troops were kept idle and
half mendicant in England, Montrose avenged the king’s sense of injury
by sweeping their defenceless provinces with the besom of destruction,
and putting thousands of hastily armed citizens to the sword. It was
a most melancholy result of a movement entered on, as they in all
sincerity protested, purely for the glory of God.
There still remained an event most unfortunate for Scotland
before the war could be concluded. The arrears of pay due by the
English parliament to the Scottish army had been allowed to run
up to £1,400,000. The House of Commons tried to abate the sum to
a comparative trifle, but ultimately (August 1646) agreed to pay
£400,000, the one half immediately, after which the Scots were to
retire into their own country. But, meanwhile, the Scots were awkwardly
placed by the king being in their camp. If he had agreed to the
propositions of the parliament, all would have been well, for then he
would have proceeded in peace and honour to London. As he could not be
induced to assent to these propositions, a question arose between the
two nations as to the disposal of his person. The English parliament
affected the sole right to deal with it. The Scottish Estates could
not agree to this; but as they were not disposed to take up the king’s
cause against the English--and, indeed, such a step would have been
ruinous--it was not easy for them on any terms or understanding to
retain him within their grasp. After much troublesome negotiation, they
were induced by some of the leading English Presbyterians to give up
the king, in order to facilitate the disbanding of the English army,
which latterly was manifesting a refractory spirit. There was scarcely
a relation, if any, between the receiving of the arrears of pay and the
surrender of the king; nevertheless, as the events took place about
the same time, they have become connected in popular conception, to
the discredit of the Scottish name. It will be ages before the English
commonalty ceases to believe that the Scots sold their king, and for
slaughter too, although such a tragical end for his life was certainly
not dreamed of by anybody till long after.
The king being now a captive, and his friends reduced to silence, the
English parliament set themselves to two objects--a re-establishment
of the royal authority on suitable terms, and the disbanding of the
army. The king’s obstinacy defeated the one object; the growth of
sectarianism in the army balked the other. Charles hoped to thrive by
the disunion of these two bodies, and coquetted with both. The army
seized his person; but he afterwards escaped, and fell under the care
of a kind of neutral power, in the person of the governor of Carisbrook
Castle, in the Isle of Wight. The Scots, hating sectarianism, still
maintained a modified loyalty. Under the influence of the Duke of
Hamilton and a few other nobles, who had come to an understanding or
_engagement_ with the king regarding a possible restoration of his
authority, the Estates in spring 1648 raised an army in his behalf,
thus renewing the Civil War; and with this movement the remaining
English loyalists concurred. The more zealous Presbyterians of Scotland
denounced it on that account, notwithstanding many plausible pretences
set forth in its favour. The English Presbyterians gave it their
good-will, but could do little in its behalf. In July, a too hastily
prepared army of 15,000 Scots entered England under the command of
Hamilton, and proceeded as far as Preston, while a small army of
English loyalists marched near by, but, for the sake of appearances,
carefully abstained from a junction. A portion of the English army,
under Oliver Cromwell, attacked the small body of loyalists and
destroyed it; then met and overthrew the Scottish army; soon after
which, the Duke of Hamilton was taken prisoner. Cromwell came to
Edinburgh, and fraternised with the more zealous Presbyterian leaders,
who had by that time resumed an ascendency. Then, returning as a victor
to London, with no force to oppose him in any part of the island, he
joined with a number of other men of his own stamp, in putting an end
to the English monarchy. In January 1649, the king was tried for the
alleged crime of raising war upon his subjects, and publicly beheaded.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1637.
JULY.]
Till the occurrence of the tumult this month, there was, according
to the confession of Clarendon, so little curiosity felt in England,
either in the court or country, ‘to know anything of Scotland, or what
was done there, that, when the whole nation was solicitous to know what
passed weekly in Germany, Poland, and other parts of Europe, no man
ever inquired what was doing in Scotland, nor had that kingdom a place
or mention in one page of any gazette.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT. 3.]
[Sidenote: 1637.]
This day began a fall of rain in Moray-land, of ten days’ continuance,
and attended by effects which remind us of the celebrated flood of
1829; ‘waters and burns flowing up over bank and brae; corn-mills and
mill-houses washen down; houses, kilns, cots, faulds wherein beasts
were keipit, all destroyed. The corns, weel stacked, began to moch[75]
and rot till they were casten over again. Lamentable to see, and
whereof the like was never seen before.... There were four ships lying
at anchor in the harbour of Aberdeen; in one of which ships Major Ker
and Captain Lumsden had a number of soldiers. Through a great spate[76]
of the water of Dee, occasioned by this extraordinary rain, thir haill
four ships brake loose, for neither tow nor anchor could hold them, and
were driven out at the water mouth, upon the night, and by a south-east
wind were driven to the north shore, where thir ships were miserably
bladded [beaten] with leaks by striking upon the sands. The soldiers,
sleeping carelessly in the bottom of the ship upon heather, were all in
a swim, to their great amazement and dread. They got up, with horrible
crying and shouting; some escaped, other some pitifully perished. About
the number of fourscore and twelve soldiers were wanting, drowned or
got away.’--_Slightly altered from Spalding._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT. 19.]
A quantity of gold had been brought into the kingdom by ‘the
adventurers of Guinee.’ It was ordered to be formed into coin by
Nicolas Briot and John Falconer, masters of the cunyie-house, according
to the arrangements ordered by the Privy Council in April 1625.--_P. C.
R._ Some gold subsequently brought from the same country to England by
the African Company, ‘administered the first occasion,’ as Clarendon
tells us, ‘for the coinage of those pieces which, from thence, had the
denomination of _guineas_.’[77]
The digging of gold in Guinea is connected in a melancholy way with
Scotland, for fifteen hundred of the Scottish prisoners taken at
Worcester in September 1651, were granted to the Guinea merchants, ‘to
be transported to Guinea to work in the mines there.’[78]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 4.]
In the night arose ‘ane horrible high wind,’ which blew down the
rafters of the choir of Elgin Cathedral, left without the slates eighty
years before. This fact reminds us how much of the destruction of our
ancient ecclesiastical buildings was owing, not to actual or immediate
damage at the Reformation, but to neglect afterwards.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 26.]
[Sidenote: 1637.]
This day, in consequence of the late inundation and storms, a bar made
its appearance athwart the mouth of the river Dee, ‘mixed with marble,
clay, and stones.’ The contemplation of so fatal a stoppage to their
harbour threw the citizens of Aberdeen into a state of the greatest
anxiety. ‘They fell to with fasting, praying, preaching, mourning, and
weeping all day and night. Then they went out with spades, shools,
mattocks, and mells, in great numbers, men and women, young and old,
at low-water, to cast down this dreadful bar; but all for nought, for
as fast as they cast down at a low-water, it gathered again as fast at
a full sea.’ The people had resigned themselves to despair, when ‘the
Lord, of his great mercy, without help of mortal man, removed and swept
clean away this fearful bar, and made the water mouth to keep its own
course, as it was before.’--_Slightly altered from Spalding._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1637-8.]
On the hill of Echt, in Aberdeenshire, famous for its ancient
fortification called the Barmkyn of Echt, there was heard, almost every
night, all this winter, a prodigious beating of drums, supposed to
foretell the bloody civil wars which soon after ensued. The parade and
retiring of guards, their tattoos, their reveilles, and marches, were
all heard distinctly by multitudes of people. ‘Ear-witnesses, soldiers
of credit, have told me,’ says Gordon of Rothiemay, ‘that when the
parade was beating, they could discern when the drummer walked towards
them, or when he turned about, as the fashion is for drummers, to walk
to and again, upon the head or front of a company drawn up. At such
times, also, they could distinguish the marches of several nations;
and the first marches that were heard there were the Scottish March;
afterwards, the Irish March was heard; then the English March. But
before these noises ceased, those who had been trained up much of their
lives abroad in the German wars, affirmed that they could perfectly,
by their hearing, discern the marches upon the drum of several foreign
nations of Europe--such as the French, Dutch, Danish, &c. These drums
were so constantly heard, that all the country people next adjacent
were therewith accustomed; and sometimes these drummers were heard off
that hill, in places two or three miles distant. Some people in the
night, travelling near by the Loch of Skene, within three mile of that
hill, were frighted with the loud noise of drums, struck hard by them,
which did convoy them along the way, but saw nothing; as I had it often
from such as heard these noises, from the Laird of Skene and his lady,
from the Laird of Echt, and my own wife then living in Skene, almost
immediately after the people thus terrified had come and told it.
Some gentlemen of known integrity and truth affirmed that, near these
places, they heard as perfect shot of cannon go off as ever they heard
at the battle of Nordlingen, where themselves some years before had
been present.’[79]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1638.
FEB. 8 or 9.]
By order of the king, in consideration of the rebellious proceedings in
Edinburgh, ‘the session sat down in Stirling. Ye may guess if the town
of Edinburgh was angry or not.’--_Chron. Perth._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: FEB. 28.]
[Sidenote: 1633.]
This day commenced at Edinburgh the signing of that NATIONAL COVENANT
which for some years exercised so strong an influence over the affairs
of Scotland. Public feeling, as far as the great bulk of the people
was concerned, had been wrought up to a paroxysm of anxiety and
enthusiasm regarding the preservation of the Presbyterian model. An
eternal interest was supposed to depend on their not allowing their
religion to be assimilated to that of England, and, weighed against
this, everything else looked mean and of no account. After the document
had been subscribed by the congregation at the Greyfriars’ Church,
before whom it was first presented, it went through the city, every one
contesting who might be first, many blindly following the example of
others--not only men, but ‘women, young people, and servants did swear
and hold up their hands to the Covenant.’ Many copies, written out on
parchment, and signed by the leading nobles, were carried into the
country, and laid before the people of the several towns and districts.
‘The greater that the number of subscribents grew,’ says the parson
of Rothiemay, ‘the more imperious they were in exacting subscriptions
from others who refused to subscribe; so that by degrees they proceeded
to contumelies, and exposing of many to injuries and reproaches,
and some were threatened and beaten who durst refuse, especially in
greatest cities.... Gentlemen and noblemen carried copies of it about
in their portmantles and pockets, requiring subscriptions thereto, and
using their utmost endeavours with their friends in private for to
subscribe.... All had power to take the oath, and were licensed and
welcome to come in.... Such was the zeal of many subscribents, that,
for a while, many subscribed with tears on their cheeks; and it is
constantly reported that some did draw their own blood, and used it in
place of ink to underwrite their names. Such ministers as spoke for it
were heard so passionately and with such frequency, that churches could
not contain their hearers in cities; some of the devouter sex (as if
they had kept vigils) keeping their seats from Friday to Sunday, to get
the communion given them sitting; some sitting alway let before such
sermons in the churches, for fear of losing a room or place of hearing;
or at the least some of their handmaids sitting constantly there all
night till their mistresses came to take up their places and to relieve
them; so that several (as I heard from very sober and credible men)
under that religious confinement, were----These things will scarce be
believed, but I relate them upon the credit of such as knew this to be
truth.’
The Rev. John Livingstone says: ‘I was present at Lanark, and at
several other parishes, when, on a Sabbath, after the forenoon sermon,
the Covenant was read and sworn, and may truly say that in all my
lifetime, except one day at the Kirk of Shotts, I never saw such
motions from the Spirit of God; all the people generally and most
willingly concurring; where I have seen more than a thousand persons
all at once lifting up their hands, and the tears falling down from
their eyes.’
Maitland, describing the Edinburgh copy of the Covenant, says: ‘It is
written on a parchment of the length of four feet, and the depth of
three feet eight inches, and is so crowded with names on both sides,
that there is not the smallest space left for more. It appears that,
when there was little room left to sign on, the subscriptions were
shortened by only inserting the initials of the Covenanters’ names;
which the margin and other parts are so full of, and the subscriptions
so close, that it were a difficult task to number them. However, by a
cursory view, I take them to be about five thousand in number.--_Hist.
Ed._
[Sidenote: APR.]
The household book of the Dowager-countess of Mar[80] commencing at
this time, and running on for several years, affords a few rays of
scattered light regarding the domestic life of the aristocracy of the
period.[81] They are not susceptible of being worked up to any general
effect, and the reader must therefore take them as they occur.
[Sidenote: 1638.]
‘April 21, to ane little boy for two buiks of the Covenant, 12_s._[82]
May 4, for pressing ane red scarlet riding-coat for John the Bairn
[a grandson of the countess], 12_s._ May 16, to ane blind singer who
sang the time of dinner, 12_s._ May 17, ane quire paper, 5_s._ May
18, to ane of the nourices who dwells at the Muir, who came to thig
[beg], 29_s._ May 25, for ane belt to Lord James [an elder grandson of
the countess], 18_s._; for ane powder-horn to him, 4_s._ 6_d._; for
raisins to Lord James and Charles, 10_s._ June, to William Shearer his
wife for ane pair hose to Lord James, £3. Paid for contribution to
the Confederat Lords, £4. To ane old blind man as my lady came from
prayers, 4_s._ Edinburgh, July 18, for a periwig to Lord James, £8,
2_s._ July 19, ane pound and ane half pound of candles, 6_s._ July
21, ane pound raisins to keep the fasting Sunday, 6_s._ 8_d._ July
27, given to the kirk brodd [board], as my lady went to sermon in the
High Kirk, 6_s._ Stirling, August 17, to my lady to give to the French
lacquey that served my Lord Erskine when he went back to France, 4_s._
August 25, sent to my lady, to play with the Lady Glenurchy after
supper, 4_s._ September 1, for making a chest [coffin] to Katherine
Ramsay, who deceased the night before, 20_s._; for two half pounds
tobacco ane eighteen pipes to spend at her lykewake, 21_s._; to the
bellman that went through the town to warn to her burial, 12_s._; to
the makers of the graff, 12_s._ 4_d._ September 8, to twa Highland
singing-women, at my lady’s command, 6_s._ September 23, to ane lame
man callit Ross, who plays the plaisant, 3_s._ Paid for ane golf-club
to John the Bairn, 5_s._ 9th November, to Andrew Erskine, to give to
the poor at my lady’s onlouping, 12_s._ December, paid to John, that he
gave to ane woman who brought ane dwarf by my lady, 12_s._ [Edinburgh],
January 23, 1639, to my lady as she went to Lord Belhaven his burial,
and to visit my Lady Hume, £5, 8_s._ February, to Charles [son of
the countess], the night he was married, to give the poor, £5, 8_s._
3_d._ February 23, paid for ane pound of raisins to my lady again’ the
fasting Sunday, 8_s._ June 11, to Thom Eld, sent to Alloa for horses
to take my lady’s children ane servants to the army then lying at the
Border, 2_s._ Paid to the Lady Glenurchy for aqua-vitæ that she bought
to my lady, 6_s._ Paid for carrying down the silver wark to the Council
house, to be weighed ane delivered to the town-treasurer of Edinburgh,
10_s._[83] August 23, paid for twa pair sweet gloves to Lord James and
Mr Will. Erskine, £3. September 9, to Lord James to play at the totum
with John Hamilton, 1_s._ 4_d._ To my lady as she went to dine with
my Lord Haddington [for vails to the servants?], ane dollar and four
shillings. Paid in contribution to Edward the fool, 12_s._ Paid to
Gilbert Somerville, for making ane suit clothes to Lord James of red
lined with satin, £7, 10_s._ November 29, paid to the Lady Glenurchy
her man, for ane little barrel of aqua-vitæ, £3. May 27, 1640, to ane
man who brought the parroquet her cage, 4_s._ June 15, to ane poor
woman as my lady sat at the fishing, 6_d._ August, for tobacco to my
lady’s use, 1_s._ March 4, 1641, to Blind Wat the piper that day, as
my lady went to the Exercise, 4_s._ March 6, given to John Erskine to
buy a cock to fight on Fasten’s Even [Shrovetide], 6_s._ June 8, to ane
masterful beggar who did knock at the gate, my lady being at table,
2_s._ [It was then customary to lock the outer door during dinner.]
November 15, [the countess having visited Edinburgh to see the king],
given for two torches to lighten in my lady to court, to take her leave
of the king, 24_s._ February 21, 1642, sent to Sir Charles Erskine
to buy escorse de sidrone and marmolat, £5, 6_s._ 8_d._ March 21, to
ane woman clairshocher [harper] who usit the house in my lord his
time, 12_s._ August 10, to John Erskine to buy a bladder for trying a
mathematical conclusion. December 7, paid for three white night-mutches
[caps] to my Lord of Buchan, £3, 12_s._ January 13, 1643, for ane
Prognostication [an almanac], 8_d._ February 17, for dressing ane red
four-tailed coat of Mr William’s, 1_s._ 8_d._ February 13, to my lady
in her own chamber, when the Valentines were a-drawing, £10, 12_s._
4_d._ April 13, to Mr William Erskine, to go to the dwarf’s marriage,
7_s._ 6_d._’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 20.]
While the generality of the Lowland people of Scotland were wrought
up to the highest pitch of enthusiasm in favour of Presbyterianism,
the inhabitants of Aberdeen and the surrounding district remained
faithful to a moderate Episcopacy, and therefore disinclined to accept
the Covenant. It was a crisis to make men impatient of dissent in
a milder age than the seventeenth century. As men then felt about
religion--perfectly assured that they themselves were right, and that
dissent was perdition--this Aberdonian recusancy could look for no
gentle treatment; and it met with none. The first assault, however, was
not of a very deadly character.
[Sidenote: 1638.]
It was under the leadership of the young Earl of Montrose--afterwards
so energetic on the other side--that a Covenanting deputation came to
Aberdeen with the bond into which most of the nation had entered.
‘The provost and bailies courteously salute them at their lodging,
offers them wine and comfits, according to their laudable custom,
for their welcome; but this their courteous offer was disdainfully
refused, saying they would drink none with them while [till] first the
Covenant was subscribed; whereat the provost and bailies were somewhat
offended. Always they took their leave, [and] suddenly cause deal the
wine in the Bede-house amang the puir men, whilk they so disdainfully
had refused; whereof the like was never done to Aberdeen in no man’s
memory.’--_Spal._
This discourteous party included, besides the Earl of Montrose, Lord
Arbuthnot, the Lairds of Morphy and Dun, and three ministers, Cant,
Dickson, and Henderson. ‘Because they could not get entres to our
church to preach, they went to the Earl of Marischal his close in the
Castle Gate, and preached three sermons on Sunday, where they had
such enticing sermons for the common people, that after ages will
not believe it. I was both an eye and ear witness to them. At that
time, they were [sae] cried up and doated upon, that the Laird of
Leys (otherwise ane wise man) did carry Mr Andrew Cant his books. Yet
at that time there was but very few that subscribed, only fourteen
men, [including] Provost Lesly, ane ringleader, but afterwards he did
repent it ... Alexander Jaffray, Alexander Burnet ... and some others,
but not of great quality; for at this time, good reader, thou shalt
understand that there was worthy preachers in Aberdeen, as Britain
could afford.... Thir men had many disputes with the Covenanters,
for they wrote against other plies, replies, duplies, thriplies, and
quadruplies; but in all these disputes the Covenanters came as short to
the ministers of Aberdeen as are grammarian to a divine.’--_Ab. Re._
[Sidenote: 1638.]
The Aberdeen doctors, as they were called, formed a remarkable body
of men, learned much above Scotch divines in general, of that or
any subsequent age. Dr John Forbes of Corse, professor of divinity;
Dr William Leslie, principal and professor of divinity in King’s
College; Dr Robert Barron, principal and professor of divinity in
Marischal College; and Drs Scroggie, Sibbald, and Ross, ministers;
were all prepared to defend the moderate Episcopacy against which the
Covenanters were waging war; and there exists an unchallenged and
uniform report of their having had the superiority in the argument,
though all incompetent to stem the torrent of enthusiasm which had set
in against them. It was under the dignified patronage and care of the
late Bishop Patrick Forbes, that these men had grown up in Aberdeen,
‘a society more learned and accomplished than Scotland had hitherto
known.’[84] Connected with them in locality were other men of talents
and accomplishment--Arthur Johnston, John Leech, and David Wedderburn,
all writers of elegant Latin poetry--thus adding to the reputation
which Aberdeen enjoyed as a seat of learning, that of a favourite seat
of the Muses. For some years this system of things had flourished at
the northern city, amidst handsome collegiate buildings, tasteful
churches, and scenes of elegant domestic life. One cannot reflect
without a pang on the wreck it was destined to sustain under the rude
shocks imparted by a religious enthusiasm which regarded nothing but
its own dogmas, and for these sacrificed everything. The university
sustained a visitation from the Presbyterian Assembly of 1640, and
was thenceforth much changed. ‘The Assembly’s errand,’ says Gordon of
Rothiemay, ‘was thoroughly done; these eminent divines of Aberdeen
either dead, deposed, or banished; in whom fell more learning than was
left in all Scotland beside at that time. Nor has that city, nor any
city in Scotland, ever since seen so many learned divines and scholars
at one time together as were immediately before this in Aberdeen. From
that time forwards, learning began to be discountenanced; and such as
were knowing in antiquity and in the writings of the fathers, were had
in suspicion as men who smelled of popery; and he was most esteemed
of, who affected novelism and singularity most; and the very form of
preaching, as weel as the materials, was changed for the most part.
Learning was nicknamed human learning, and some ministers so far cried
it down in their pulpits, as they were heard to say: “Down doctrine,
and up Christ!”’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG. 8.]
[Sidenote: 1638.]
As a characteristic incident of the period--an outlaw of the Macgregor
clan, named John Dhu Ger, came this day with his associates to the
lands of Stuart, Laird of Corse, in the upper vales of Aberdeenshire,
and began to despoil them, pretending to be the king’s man, and that
what he did was only justice, as against a rebellious Covenanter.
‘Wherever he came in Strylay and other places, he would take their
horse, kine, and oxen, and cause the owners compound and pay for
their own geir.... He took out of the Laird of Corse’s bounds a brave
gentleman-tenant dwelling there, and carried him with him, and sent
word to the laird, desiring him to send him a thousand pounds, whilk
the lords of Council had given his name [the Stuarts of Athole] for
taking of Gilderoy, or then he would send this man’s head to him. The
Laird of Corse rode shortly to Strathbogie, and told the marquis, who
quickly wrote to Macgregor, to send back Mr George Forbes again, or
then he would come himself for him. But he was obeyed, and [Forbes]
came to Strathbogie, haill and sound upon the 15th of August, but
[without] payment of any ransom.’--_Altered from Spalding._
* * * * *
‘This year was ane very dry year, for about the end of August all the
corns was within the yards.’--_Ab. Re._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT.]
[Sidenote: 1638.]
Amidst the excitement of the time, a young woman named Mitchelson,
who had been subject to fits, attracted attention in Edinburgh by
becoming a sort of prophetess or Pythoness of the Covenant. ‘She was
acquainted with the Scripture, and much taken with the Covenant, and
in her fits spoke much to its advantage, and much ill to its opposers,
that would, or at least that she wished to befall them. Great numbers
of all ranks of people were her daily hearers; and many of the devouter
sex prayed and wept, with joy and wonder, to hear her speak. When her
fits came upon her, she was ordinarily thrown upon a down bed, and
there prostrate, with her face downwards, spoke such words as were
for a while carefully taken from her mouth by such as were skilful
in brachygraphy. She had intermissions of her discourses for days
and weeks; and before she began to speak, it was made known through
Edinburgh. Mr Harry Rollock [one of the clergymen of Edinburgh], who
often came to see her, said that he thought it was not good manners
to speak while his Master was speaking, and that he acknowledged his
Master’s voice in her. Some misconstered her to be suborned by the
Covenanters, and at least that she had nothing that savoured of a
rapture, but only of memory, and that still she knew what she spoke,
and, being interrupted in her discourse, answered pertinently to the
purpose. Her language signified little: she spoke of Christ, and called
him Covenanting Jesus; that the Covenant was approved from heaven;
that the king’s covenant was Satan’s invention; that the Covenant
should prosper, but the adherents to the king’s covenant should be
confounded; and much other stuff of this nature, which savoured at
best of senseless simplicity. The Earl of Airth, upon a time, getting
a paper of her prophecies, which was inscribed, “that, such a day and
such a year, Mrs Mitchelson awoke and spoke gloriously,” in place of
the word “gloriously,” which he blotted out, writt over it the word
“gowkedly” or foolishly, [and] was so much distested for a while among
the superstitious admirers of this maid, that he had like to have
run the fate of one of the bishops, by a charge with stones upon the
street. But this blazing star quickly vanished....’[85]
There seems no reason to doubt that Mrs Mitchelson was a sincere young
woman, but in an unsound nervous condition. Ecstatics like her are
common in the Romish Church, in which case there is much tendency to
visions of St Catherine, instead of ravings about the Covenant. From
analogous cases of persons under hallucinations, the giving pertinent
answers to ordinary questions, which Gordon adduces as a ground of
doubt, does not necessarily infer that Mrs Mitchelson was a cunning
woman playing a part.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1639.
FEB.]
The Earl of Montrose went about in the north country with a large armed
band, forcing the Covenant upon those who were disinclined to sign it,
and raising funds for the use of the Covenanting party. As it never
once occurred to the ‘Tables’ that anybody could have a conscientious
scruple on the subject, much less that any scruple called for respect
and forbearance, force seemed quite fair as a means of attaining to
uniformity. The city of Aberdeen, looking with apprehension to this
kind of mission, ‘began to choose out captains, ensigns, sergeants,
and other officers for drilling their men in the Links, and learning
them to handle their arms;’ also ‘to big up their back yetts, close
their ports, have their catbands in readiness, their cannons clear,
and had ane strict watch day and night keepit.’--_Spal._ All this to
battle off an Idea. Still they feared it might not be sufficient. So,
looking to the victual they had against a siege, they began to cast
ditches, and towards the south raised up timber sconces, clad with
deals. They had eleven pieces of ordnance, each provided with a sconce,
planted commodiously on the streets. In short, it was a town pretty
well fortified, as such things were in those days, and no doubt the
worthy citizens were in good hopes of resisting the storm of Christian
reformation which was mustering against them. Alas!
[Sidenote: 1639.]
It soon became evident to the poor Aberdonians that, however well
their doctors might argue, the Covenant was not to be resisted.
Dismayed at the accounts they got of large forces mustering against
them, they abandoned all design of defence. All that the more notable
friends of the king and church could do was to fly.
Spalding’s account of the entry of the Covenanting militia under
Montrose and Leslie into Aberdeen is highly picturesque.
[Sidenote: MAR. 30.]
[Sidenote: 1839.]
‘... they came in order of battle, weel armed both on horse and foot,
ilk horseman having five shot at the least, ... ane carabine on his
hand, two pistols by his sides, and two at his saddle-tore. The pikemen
in their ranks [with] pike and sword; the musketeers in their ranks
with musket, musket-staff, bandelier, sword, powder, ball, and match.
Ilk company both on horse and foot had their captains, lieutenants,
ensigns, sergeants, and other officers and commanders, all for the
most part in buff coats and goodly order. They had five colours or
ensigns.... They had trumpeters to ilk company of horsemen, and
drummers to ilk company of footmen. They had their meat, drink, and
other provision, bag and baggage, carried with them, done all by advice
of his Excellency Field-marshal Leslie.... Few of this army wanted ane
blue ribbon hung about his craig [neck] down under his left arm, whilk
they called the _Covenanter’s Ribbon_.... [Having passed to the Links],
muster being made, all men was commanded to go to breakfast, either in
the Links or in the town. The general himself, the nobles, captains,
commanders, for the most part, and soldiers, sat down, and of their
awn provision, upon ane serviet on their knee, took their breakfast.’
Here was a sight for a poor town of Episcopalian prepossessions--eleven
thousand men come to convert them to proper views! This was on
Saturday: on the Tuesday, all persons of any note, and all persons
in any authority in the city, were glad to come before the marching
committee and subscribe and swear the Covenant, ‘albeit they had sworn
the king’s covenant before.’ A week later, a solemn fast was kept;
and after sermon by one of the marching clergy, the Covenant was read
out, and he ‘causit the haill town’s people convened, who had not yet
subscribed, to stand up before him in the kirk, both men and women, and
the men subscribed this Covenant. Thereafter, both men and women was
urged to swear by their uplifted hands to God, that they did subscribe
and swear this Covenant _willingly, freely, and from their hearts_,
and not from any fear or dread that could happen. Syne the kirk sealed
and dissolved. But the Lord knows that thir town’s people were brought
under perjury for plain fear, and not from a willing mind, by tyranny
and oppression of thir Covenanters, who compelled them to swear and
subscribe, suppose they knew it was against their hearts.’--_Spal._
As a pleasant finale, to compensate in some degree for the trouble they
had given, the citizens were laid under a contribution of ten thousand
merks, besides being forced to promise their taking share in all
expenses that might thereafter be necessary for promotion of the good
cause.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAY 25.]
Aberdeen had not kept steady in the Covenanting faith--since so
solemnly and sincerely signing the bond in April, it had maintained
a loyal correspondence with the king. The Covenanters, now on the
eve of their expedition to Dunse Law, had to take order with it; and
as the movement at such a moment was inconvenient, they were in no
good-humour. What happened, as described in the simple notes of the
town-clerk Spalding, gives such a picture of civil war as it may be
salutary to keep in mind.
‘They were estimate to 4000 men, foot and horse, by [besides]
baggage-horse 300, having and carrying their provision, with thirteen
field-pieces. They enterit the town at the over Kirkgate in order of
battle, with sounding of trumpets, touting of drams, and displayed
banners; went down through the Braid-gate, through the Castle-gate, and
to the Queen’s Links march they.... Now Aberdeen began to groan and
make sore lamentation at the incoming of this huge army, whom they were
unable to sustein, or get meat to buy.
[Sidenote: 1639.]
‘Upon the 26th, being Sunday, the Earl of Montrose, with the rest of
the nobles, heard devotion; but the renegate soldiers, in time of both
preachings, is abusing and plundering New Aberdeen pitifully, without
regard to God or man. And in the meantime, garse and corn eaten and
destroyed about both Aberdeens, without fear of the maledictions of the
poor labourers of the ground.... The bishop’s servants saved his books,
and other insight and plenishing, and hid them in neighbours’ houses
of the town, from the violence of the soldiers, who brake down and
demolishit all they could get within the bishop’s house, without making
any great benefit to themselves.... Richt sae, the corns were eaten and
destroyed by the horse of this great army, both night and day, during
their abode. The salmon-fishers, both of Dee and Don, masterfully
oppressed, and their salmon taken from them.... The country round about
was pitifully plundered, meal girnels broken up, eaten, and consumed;
no fowl, cock or hen, left unkilled. The haill house-dogs, messans,
and whelps within Aberdeen, fellit and slain upon the gate, so that
neither hound nor messan nor other dog was left that they could see.
The reason was, when the first army came here, ilk captain, commander,
servant, and soldier had ane blue ribbon about his craig [neck]; in
despite and derision whereof, when they removed frae Aberdeen, some
women, as was alleged, knit blue ribbons about their messans’ craigs,
whereat their soldiers took offence, and killit all the dogs for this
cause.
‘They took frae Aberdeen ten thousand merks to save it from plundering,
and took twelve pieces of ordnance also from them.... The town, seeing
themselves sore oppressed by the feeding and susteining of thir armies
without payment, besides other slaveries, began heavily to regret their
miseries to the general and rest of the nobles and commanders, saying
they had subscribed the Covenant.... There was no compassion had to
their complaints.... So the country anti-Covenanters was pitifully
plagued and plundered in their victuals, fleshes, fowls, and other
commodities, whilk bred great scarcity in this land....’
This was but a beginning of the troubles and damages of Aberdeen from
civil war. In the very next month, in consequence of the town being
taken possession of by a royalist band under the Earl of Aboyne, a
Covenanting army came against it, and forcing its way in, subjected it
to further fining and spoiling. Altogether, the Aberdonians considered
themselves as having been injured to the extent of £12,000 sterling in
the first half of this year, besides thirty-two of the citizens being
fined specially in 42,000 merks. It would be tedious to enumerate the
losses of the city during the few subsequent years.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAY.]
[Sidenote: 1639.]
Gordon of Rothiemay notes a _quasi_ prodigy as happening at Dunse
Law while the Scottish army lay there. It has a whimsical character,
as connecting the Covenanting war with a geological fact. The matter
consisted of ‘the falling of a part of a bank upon the steep side
of a hill near by to the Scottish camp, which of its own accord had
shuffled downward, and by its fall discovered innumerable stones,
round, for the most part, in shape, and perfectly spherical, some
of them oval-shapen. They were of a dark gray colour, some of them
yellowish, and for quantity they looked like ball of all sizes, from a
pistol to field-pieces, such as sakers or robenets, or battering-pieces
upwards. Smooth they were, and polished without, but lighter than lead
by many degrees, so that they were only for show, but not for use.
Many of them were carried about in men’s pockets, to be seen for the
rarity. Nor wanted there a few who interpreted this stone magazine at
Dunse Hill as a miracle, as if God had sent this by ane hid providence
for the use of the Covenanters; for at this time all things were
interpreted for the advantage of the Covenant. Others looked upon these
pebble-stones as prodigious, and the wiser sort took no notice of them
at all. I suppose that at this present the quarry is extant, where
they are yet to be seen, no more a miracle; but whether the event has
determined them to be a prodigy or not, I shall not take it upon me to
define _pro_ or _con_.’
A modern writer may feel little difficulty in defining this magazine
of pebbles as merely part of an ancient alluvial terrace, such as
are found in most mountain valleys in Scotland, being, in geological
theory, the relics of gravel-beds deposited in these situations by
the streams, when, from a lower relative position of the land, the
sea partially occupied these glens in the form of estuaries. On the
banks of the Whitadder, close to Dunse Law, we still see such banks
of pebbles, the water-rolled spoils of the Lammermuirs, and chiefly
of the transition or Silurian rocks. It gives a lively impression of
the excited state of men’s minds in the time and place, to find them
accepting, or disposed to accept, so simple a natural phenomenon as
something significant of the attention of Providence to the strife
which they were unhappily waging.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY.]
At this time we hear of some strangers from England and Ireland who
had crept in and drawn the people to certain religious practices,
accordant with the general strain of the period, but not exactly
with the specific regulations prescribed by the Presbyterian Kirk.
At their own hands, without the allowance of minister or elders, the
people had begun to convene themselves confusedly about bedtime in
private houses, where, for the greater part of the night, they would
expound Scripture, pray, and sing psalms, besides ‘discussing questions
of divinity, whereof some sae curious that they do not understand,
and some so ridiculous that they cannot be edified by them.’ The
consequence was, that they began to ‘lichtly and set at naught the
public worship of God.’ Seeing in this a movement towards Brownism, the
kirk-session of Stirling called on the presbytery to take the matter
into consideration, and meanwhile discharged the congregation from
giving any favour to such practices.[86]
[Sidenote: 1639.
NOV. 1.]
Owing to the confusions, the Court of Session did not sit down as
usual for the winter session to-day; ‘but was vacant the haill winter
session, to the great grief of the true creditor, and the pleasure of
the debtor unwilling to pay his debt.’--_Spal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV. 2.]
A base coin called Turners had been struck by the Earl of Stirling
under royal licence, and were to him a source of considerable gain, at
the expense of the rest of the community. On the day marginally noted,
‘King Charles’s turners stricken by the Earl of Stirling, was, by
proclamation at the Cross of Edinburgh, cryit down frae twa pennies to
ane penny; King James’s turners to pass for twa pennies, because they
were no less worth; and the caird turners[87] simpliciter discharged as
false cunyie. But this proclamation was shortly recalled, because there
was no other money passing to make change.’ _April 1640._--‘You see
before some order taken with the passing of turners, whereof some was
appointit to pass for ane penny. Now they would give nothing, penny nor
half-penny, for King Charles’s turners; but King James’s turners only
should pass. Whereby all change and trade was taken away through want
of current money, because thir slight turners was the only money almost
passing through all Scotland.’--_Spal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV.]
John Dhu Ger, the Highland robber, came with twenty-four men to William
Stewart’s house on Speyside, set out watches, and took up house there.
From this post he sent armed emissaries here and there to raise money
by practising on the terrors of the people. The people gave fair
words, but privately were active in collecting men for an effectual
resistance. ‘And John Dhu Ger, being informed of their gathering by
his watches, shortly takes both the ferry-boats, and carries over his
men to the Stannars, whilk is in the midst of the water of Spey, and
keepit the ferry-boats close beside himself, so that there was no
other boat near enough to follow them.’ The country people had then
to commence firing at the robbers from the bank, exposing themselves
of course to be fired at in return. At length, by a shot from the gun
of one Alexander Anderson, John Dhu Ger fell dead, and his followers
dispersed.--_Spal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1639.]
The Viscountess Melgum, widow of the young nobleman who had been burnt
in Frendraught Castle, lived for several years in Aboyne Castle on the
Dee, a gentle, charitable, and devout life, being a strict Catholic. A
certain Father Blackhall, who was her domestic chaplain or _frere_ from
July 1638 till her death in March 1642, has left a copious gossiping
narrative of his career as a priest in Scotland, including much that is
curious regarding the private life of the lady, as well as the state of
the country in that agitated time. He tells us that he had an apartment
to himself, where four dishes of meat, as well as wine and ale, were
sent to him at every meal, till, remonstrating about the expensiveness
of this practice to the lady, he was allowed by her to eat at her own
table. It was customary, he says, for a domestic priest in those days
to confine himself very much to his chamber; and if he but opened his
window, ‘the people would run to get a sight of him as a monstrous
thing.’ But he, going freely about, soon ceased to be an object of
curiosity.
By permission of his lady--whom, by the by, he always calls by her
inferior title of Lady Aboyne--he made professional tours through the
country, to confess and communicate the Catholics scattered about,
usually staying a night in each house, or convening the poorer sort in
a tavern. He does not speak of any dangers or difficulties encountered
in performing this duty. He tells us, however, of some considerable
troubles he had in defending the widow lady’s castle from the armed
bands of Highlanders and others who were continually going about
the country in consequence of the Covenanting wars. If he is to be
believed, he was as much his lady’s captain as her priest.
[Sidenote: 1639.]
On one occasion, a party of the Clan Cameron, forty or fifty in
number, vassals of the Huntly family, came into the court of Aboyne
Castle, asking to see my lady, with the hope of obtaining money from
her. Blackhall, finding there was no other man in the house besides a
porter and himself, amused them with fair speeches till he obtained
assistance, and then closing the gates against them, sent them out some
food, as all that Lady Aboyne was willing to bestow upon them. They
went away grumbling, and presently quartered themselves upon one of her
ladyship’s tenants, named Finlay, who kept a tavern, compelling him to
kill poultry and mutton for their supper; and next day, they plundered
the house, and set out for another, the Mill of Bountie, which they
seemed likely to treat in the same way. Blackhall, hearing of their
doings, mustered an armed party of sixteen, and set out to surprise the
depredators. The dispositions he made shewed a good deal of sagacity,
and were attended with the desired effect.
Marching in single file, after the Highland fashion, and in perfect
silence, they had got near the house before the Cameron sentinel
observed them. ‘Having discovered us, he did run to the house, and we
after him, so near that he had not leisure to shut the gate of the
court behind him. All the vantage that he had before us was to win
the house, and shut that door behind him, which chanced well for both
parties; for if we could have entered the house with him, we should
have killed every one another, for we were in great fury to be revenged
of them, and they could do no less than defend themselves, selling
their lives at the dearest rate they could, as men in despair should
do. They would have had a great advantage upon us, for they, being in a
dark house, would have seen us well, and we, coming in from the snow,
would have been blind for some length of time, in the which they might
have done us great skaith, before we could have done them any, not
seeing them. But God provided better for us.
[Sidenote: 1639.]
‘How soon we were in the court, I said with a loud voice: “Every one
to his post;” which was done in the twinkling of an eye. Then I went
to the door, thinking to break it up with my foot: but it was a thick
double door, and the lock very strong. Whilst I was at the door, one of
them did come to bolt it, and I hearing him at it, did shoot a pistolet
at him. He said afterwards that the balls did pass through the hair
of his head; whether he said true or not, I know not. I did go from
the door to the windows, and back again, still encouraging them, and
praying them at the windows to hold their eyes still upon our enemies,
and to kill such as would lay their hands to a weapon; and to these at
the door to have their guns ever ready to discharge at such as would
choose to come forth without my leave. And I still threatened to burn
the house, and them all into it, if they would not render themselves at
my discretion, which they were loath to do, until they saw the light
of bits of straw, that I had kindled to throw upon the thatch of the
house, although I did not intend to do it, nor burn our friends with
our foes. But if Malcolm Dorward, and his wife and servants, and his
son George Dorward, and John Cordoner, all whom the Highlanders had
lying in bonds by them, had been out, I would have made no scruple
to have burned the house and all the Highlanders within it, to give
terror to others who would be so brutal as to oppress ladies who never
wronged them.
‘They seeing the light of the burning straw coming in at the windows,
and the keepers of the windows bidding them render themselves before
they be burned, they called for quarters. I told them they should get
no other quarters but my discretion, unto which, if they would submit
themselves faithfully, they would find the better quarters; if not, be
it at their hazard. Thereupon I bid their captain come and speak with
me all alone, with his gun under his arm, disbended, and the stock
foremost. Then I went to the door and bid the keepers thereof let out
one man all alone, with his gun under his arm, and the stock foremost;
but if any did press to follow him, that they should kill both him and
them who pressed to follow him. He did come out as I ordained, and
trembled as the leaf of a tree. I believe he thought we would kill him
there. I did take his gun from him, and discharged it, and laid it down
upon the earth by the side of the house. Then, after I had threatened
him, and reproached their ingratitude, who durst trouble my lady or her
tenants, who was and yet is the best friend that their chief, Donald
Cameron, hath in all the world. “For,” said I, “he will tell you how I
and another man of my lady’s went to him where he was hiding himself,
with his cousin, Ewen Cameron, in my lady’s land, and brought them in
croup to Aboyne, where they were kept secretly three weeks, until their
enemies, the Covenanters, had left off the seeking of them; and you,
unthankful beast as you are, have rendered a displeasure to my lady for
her goodness toward you.” He pretended ignorance of that courtesy that
she had done to his chief.
[Sidenote: 1639.]
‘“Be not afraid, sir,” said I; “you shall find my discretion to you
better than any quarters that you could have gotten by capitulation;
for I shall impose nothing to you but that which you shall confess to
be just.” This encouraged him, for he was exceeding feared. Then I
said: “Think you it is not just that you pay this poor man, Alexander
Finlay, what you spent in his house, and render what you plundered from
him?” He said: “It is very just,” and paid him what he asked; to wit,
four crowns in ready money; and promised to restore what other things
they had plundered from him as soon as his companions, who had the
things, were come out. All which he performed. “Is it not just,” said
I, “that you render to Malcolm Dorward, in whose house you are here,
and to his son, George Dorward, and to their friend, John Cordoner, all
whatsoever you have taken from them?” “It is just,” said he; “and I
shall not go out of his court in which I stand, until I have satisfied
everybody.” “Is it not just,” said I, “that you promise and swear
that you shall go out of the land pertaining to my lady peaceably,
untroubling any of her tenants or servants any more; and that you
promise and swear never to molest her tenants hereafter?” “It is just,”
said he; and did swear to perform all these things. When he had sworn
by his part of Heaven to keep these articles, I made him swear by the
soul of his father, that neither he, nor none whom he could hinder,
should ever thereafter trouble or molest my lady, nor any of her
tenants. Then I sent him into his company in the house to see if they
would stand to all that he had promised and sworn. He said: “They have
all sworn fidelity and obedience to me, and therefore they must stand
to whatsoever I promise, and perform it.” “Notwithstanding,” said I,
“send me them out as you did come--their guns under their arms, the
stocks foremost; and send no more out but one at a time; and let no
more out until he who is out return in again; and when you have all
come out severally, and made the same oath which you have made, you
shall have leave to take up all your guns, but upon your oaths that you
shall not charge them again until you be out of the lands pertaining to
my lady.”
[Sidenote: 1639.]
“They did all come out severally as I had commanded, and as they did
come to me, I discharged their guns to the number of six or eight and
forty, which made the tenants convene to us from the parties where the
shots were heard; so that, before they had all come out, we were near
as many as they, armed with swords, and targes, and guns. When they
all had made their oaths to me, I ranked our people like two hedges,
five paces distance from one another rank, and but one pace every man
from another in that same rank, and turn[ed] the mouths of their guns
and their faces one rank to another, so as the Highlanders might pass
two and two together betwixt their ranks. They passed so from the door
of the hall in which they were, to the place where their guns were
lying all empty. They trembled passing, as if they had been in a fever
quartan. I asked their captain, when they had taken up their guns, what
way they would hold to go out of my lady’s land. He said, they desired
to go to Birse. I said we would convoy them to the boat of Birse,
a good mile from the place where we were. I did so, because I had
promised never to come in my lady’s sight if I did not put them out of
her lands; and therefore, to come in her house, I would see them pass
over the water of Dye, out of her lands, which went to the water-side,
and we stood by the water-side until the boat did take them over in
three voyages; and when they were all over the water, we returned home.
Alexander Davidson returned from Bountie how soon they began to march
away. He told to my lady the event of our siege, who was very joyful
that no blood was shed on either side.”
‘Their captain and I going together to the water-side, [he] said to me:
“Sir, you have been happy in surprising us, for if our watchman had
advertised us before your entry into the court, but only so long as we
might have taken our arms in our hands and gone to the court, we could
have killed you all before you had come near us, we being covered from
you, and you in an open field to us; or if we had but gone the first
to the windows, we could have beaten you out of the court, or killed
you all in it.” “Good friend,” said I, “you think you had to do with
children; but know that I was a soldier before you could wipe your own
nose, and could have ranged my men so by the side of the house wherein
you was, that you should not have seen them through the windows, and in
that posture kept the door so well that none of you should have come
out unkilled, and so kept you within until the country had convened
against you. I confess, if you had been masters of the court, and we
in open fields, you might have done what you say; but we were not such
fools as to lay ourselves wide open to you, being covered from us. If
any house had been near us, we could have made a sconce of it to cover
ourselves; if none were near us, we could retire in order, and you
could not pursue us, unlaid yourselves as open to us as we were to you,
and there we should have seen who did best.”
[Sidenote: 1639.]
‘In the parish of Birse, these same fellows did call away a prey of
cattle, and killed some men who resisted them. Then they went to
Craigyvar, and although he was esteemed the most active man in all
the name of Forbes, they plundered his tenants, and carried away a
prey of cattle, for all that he could do against them. And this I
say, to shew that these Highlanders were active and stout fellows,
and that, consequently, it was God, and not I with sixteen boys, that
did put them out of the lands of that pious and devout lady, whom he
did protect, and would not suffer to be oppressed. And to shew that
it was he himself, and none other, he made choice of weak and unfit
instruments; to wit, a poor priest, who made no profession of arms,
unless charity, as at this time, or his own just defence obliged him
to it, and sixteen boys, who had never been at such play before, to
whom he gave on this occasion both resolution and courage, and to
me better conduct than could have proceeded from my simple spirit,
without his particular inspiration; to whom I render, as I should, with
unfeigned submission, all the glory of that action.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: (NOV.?)]
The Marquis of Huntly being at this time resident in the Canongate,
two of his daughters were married there ‘with great solemnities’--Lady
Anne, who was ‘ane precise puritan,’ to Lord Drummond; and Lady
Henrietta, who was a Roman Catholic, to Lord Seton, son of the Earl of
Wintoun. The ladies had each 40,000 merks, Scots money, as her fortune,
their uncle the Earl of Argyle being cautioner for the payment, ‘for
relief whereof he got the wadset of Lochaber and Badenoch.’--_Spal._
Lady Jean, the third daughter, was married in the ensuing January to
the Earl of Haddington, with 30,000 merks as her ‘tocher good.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1640.
MAR.]
In Aberdeenshire, there were ‘in this ait-seed time, great frosts and
snaw, no ploughs going, and little seed sawing, so vehement was this
storm. No peats could be had to burn, for ane lead [horse-burden] would
have cost 13s. 4d. [1s. 1-1/3d. sterling], whilk would have been cost
[bought] other years for 2s. [2d. sterling]. The brewsters left aff to
brew for want of fire. The reason of this scarcity was, because the
Covenanters, coming here in March 1639, causit the haill servants, who
should have casten the peats for serving of both Aberdeens, flee out of
the country for fear; and so not only was our peats dear, but, through
the unseasonableness of the spring, the victual also became very
dear.’--_Spal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAY 8.]
[Sidenote: 1640.]
As the young Earl Marischal was returning from Aberdeen to his castle
of Dunnottar, a quarrel arose amongst some of the large party of
gentlemen convoying him; and in a fight between Forbes, the young Laird
of Tolquhon, and Mr George Leslie, the former was wounded in the head.
Leslie was returned in shackles to Aberdeen, along with an associate
named Fraser, to be punished. At the command of the earl, who acted
as general and governor of the district for the Covenanters, a stock
or block with an axe beside it was raised at the market-cross, with a
scaffold round about, and a fire; these being meant as preparations
for cutting off Leslie’s hand. The hangman stood ready to do his
office, when the young man was brought out, amidst the pitiful cries
of the populace, who deemed the punishment a monstrous cruelty. The
arm had been laid down on the block, and the axe was raised for the
stroke, when, past the expectation of the beholders, the Master of
Forbes suddenly approached and forbade the execution; ‘whereat the
people mightily rejoiced.’ The general did this for satisfying of young
Tolquhon, but was believed to have from the first designed to grant a
pardon.--_Spal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY.]
Eight hundred Covenanting troops, under the command of General Munro,
marched from Aberdeen, to take rule in the estate of the Marquis of
Huntly at Strathbogie, the marquis himself being now with the king in
England. They carried six _putters_, or short pieces of ordnance. On
approaching Strathbogie, where there was no resistance, ‘they took
horse, nolt, sheep, and kine, drove the bestial before them, slew and
did eat at their pleasure. They brak up girnels wherever they came, to
furnish themselves bread. Coming after this manner to Strathbogie, the
first thing they entered to do was hewing down the pleasant planting
about Strathbogie, to be huts for the soldiers to sleep in upon
the night.... Then they fell to and meddled with the meal girnels,
whereof there was store within that place, took in the office-houses,
began shortly to bake and brew, and make ready good cheer; and when
they wanted, took in beef, mutton, hen, capon, and such-like, out of
Glenfiddich and Auchindown, where the country people had transported
their bestial, of purpose out of the way, from the bounds of
Strathbogie. Always they wanted not good cheer for a little pains.’
[Sidenote: 1640.]
Seeing the world run in this fashion, John Dhu Ger, the Highland rogue,
broke loose also,[88] and fell to plundering throughout the land of
Moray. Munro, hearing that he had collected an immense _spreath_ of
cattle and sheep at Auchindown, sent Rittmaster Forbes with a small
party to rescue the goods out of his hands; but John stood his ground,
and defended his prey manfully. The Rittmaster retired with his party,
and told Munro in excuse that he did not find it good riding-ground.
Afterwards Munro made good his point, and took out of Auchindown John
Dhu Ger’s plunder and other bestial, to the amount of ‘2500 head of
horse, mares, nolt, and kine, with great number of sheep, and brought
them to Strathbogie,’ where, it is said, ‘they were sold by the
soldiers to the owners back again, for 13s. 4d. the sheep, and ane
dollar the nolt,’ the horse remaining unsold.
The head men of the country, deprived of the presence of their chief,
the marquis, were obliged to bow to the rule of General Munro. Some
came in, and undertook to join the Covenanting army; others, who
did not do so, submitted to large fines. ‘Neither work-horse nor
saddle-horse was left about Strathbogie, but either the master was
forced to buy his own horses, or let them go for the service of the
army;’ all arms being likewise taken from them. ‘Baron, gentleman,
herd, and hireman,’ all alike suffered. Amongst other spoil, Munro
seized a great quantity of home-made cloth which he found bleaching
about the country, hanging it over the lofty walls of Strathbogie
Castle to dry--‘pity to behold!’ At length, after oppressing the
country for upwards of a month, this Covenanting party ‘flitted their
camp,’ previously setting fire to their wooden lodges, and emptying
out what was unspent from the girnels. ‘They left that country almost
manless, moneyless, horseless, and armless.’--_Spal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG. 5.]
At the command of a committee of the General Assembly, some memorials
of the ancient worship, hitherto surviving in Aberdeen, were removed.
In Machar Kirk, they ‘ordained our blessed Lord Jesus Christ his
arms to be hewen out of the front of the pulpit, and to take down
the portrait of our blessed Virgin Mary, and her dear son baby Jesus
in her arms, that had stood since the up-putting thereof, in curious
work, under the sill-ring at the west end of the pend whereon the great
steeple stands.... Besides, where there was ane crucifix set in glassen
windows, this he [the Master of Forbes] caused pull out in honest men’s
houses. He caused ane mason strike out Christ’s arms in hewen wark
on ilk end of Bishop Gavin Dunbar’s tomb, and siclike chisel out the
name of Jesus, drawn cypher-wise IHS, out of the timber wall on the
fore-side of Machar aile, anent the consistory door. The crucifix on
the Old Town cross dung down; the crucifix on the New Town cross closed
up, being loath to break the stone; the crucifix on the west end of
St Nicholas’ Kirk in New Aberdeen dung down, whilk was never troubled
before.’--_Spal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG. 30.]
[Sidenote: 1640.]
This day, being Sunday, a dismal accident happened, of some consequence
for its bearing on the interests of the Covenant, as it caused the
destruction of a considerable number of gentlemen who were preparing to
act in that cause. The Earl of Haddington was at this time stationed
at Dunglass Castle, in Berwickshire, along with a number of other
Covenanting chiefs, and a store of ammunition. On the day noted, the
house was blown up by the explosion of the powder, which was placed
in a vault underneath. There perished the earl himself, his brother
Robert, and a bastard brother; Colonel Alexander Erskine, son of the
Earl of Mar; Sir John Hamilton of Redhouse; Sir Gideon Baillie of
Lochend; James Inglis of Ingliston; John Coupar of Gogar; Sir Alexander
Hamilton of Innerwick; and some others, including about fifty-four
servants, men and women; while thirty gentlemen, and others of inferior
degree, were sore hurt, but not irrecoverably. It was thought that an
English page, named Edward Paris, who was trusted by the earl with the
key of the vault, set fire to the powder voluntarily, in consequence of
pet; but accident is much more probable. ‘No part of him was ever found
but ane arm, holding ane iron spoon in his hand.’
‘One thing wonderful happened, about eight of the clock, on the
Thursday at night, before the blowing up of the house of Dunglass.
There appeared a very great pillar of fire to arise from the north-east
of Dunbar, as appeared to them in Fife who did behold it, and so
ascended towards the south, until it approached the vertical point of
our hemisphere, yielding light as the moon at her full, and by little
evanishing until it became like a parallax, and so quite evanished
about eleven of the clock in the night.’--_Bal._
The Earl of Haddington, being only the second generation of a family
raised by state employment and royal favour to extraordinary wealth,
might have been expected to take no part against King Charles. It is
stated that when the king heard of the accident, he remarked that
‘albeit Lord Haddington had been very ungrateful to him, yet he was
sorry that he had not at his dying some time to repent.’[89]
Amongst the killed was Colonel Alexander Erskine, a younger son of the
late Earl of Mar. He was a handsome and gallant soldier, originally in
the French service, and is noted as the lover whose faithlessness is
bewailed in _Lady Anne Bothwell’s Lament_:
‘I wish I were within the bounds,
Where he lies smothered in his wounds,
Repeating, as he pants for air,
My name whom once he called his fair:
No woman’s yet so fiercely set,
But she’ll forgive, though not forget.’
[Sidenote: 1640.]
The orders for the discipline of the school at the kirk of Dundonald,
in Ayrshire, in this year, have been preserved,[90] and exhibit
arrangements and rules surprisingly little different from what might
now be found in a good Scotch parish school. There were to be prayers
morning and evening, and a lesson each day on the Lord’s Prayer,
Belief, Commands, Graces, or Catechism. Somewhat unexpectedly, we find
it enjoined on the master, that he teach his scholars good manners,
‘how to carry themselves fashionably towards all ... the forms of
courtesy to be used towards himself in the schule, their parents at
hame, gentlemen, eldermen, and others of honest fashion, abroad.’ One
arrangement seems of questionable tendency, and certainly has not
taken root amongst us--namely, ‘for the mair perfyte understanding of
the children’s behaviour, there shall be a _clandestine censor_, of
whom nane shall know but the master, that he may secretly acquaint the
master with all things, and, according to the quality of the faults,
the master shall inflict punishment, striking some on the lufe with
a birk wand or pair of taws, others on the hips, as their faults
deserve, but none at ony time or in ony case on the head or cheeks.’
The conclusion conveys an impression of good sense in the deviser of
the rules. ‘Especially is the master to kythe [shew] his prudence
in taking up the several inclinations of his scholars, and applying
himself thereunto, commendations, allurements, fair words, drawing
from vice, and provoking to virtue, such as may be won thereby, and
others by moderate severity, if that be fund maist convenient for
their stubbornness. And _let the wise master rather by a grave and an
authoritative countenance repress insolence, and gain every one to his
duty, than by strokes, yet not neglecting the rod when it is needful_.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 28.]
[Sidenote: 1640.]
At the command of the minister of the parish, accompanied by several
gentlemen of the Covenanting party, the timber-screen of Elgin
Cathedral, which had outlived the Reformation, was cast down. ‘On the
west side was painted in excellent colours, illuminate with stars of
bright gold, the crucifixion of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
This piece was so excellently done, that the colours and stars never
faded nor evanished, but keepit hale and sound, as they were at the
beginning, notwithstanding this college or canonry kirk wanted the
roof since the Reformation, and no hale window therein to save the
same from storm, snow, sleet, nor weet; whilk myself saw.... On
the other side of this wall, towards the east, was drawn the Day of
Judgment.... It was said, this minister caused bring home to his house
the timber thereof, and burn the same for serving his kitchen and other
uses; but ilk night the fire went out wherein it was burnt, and could
not be holden in to kindle the morning fire, as use is; whereat the
servants and others marvelled, and thereupon the minister left off
any further to bring in or burn any more of that timber in his house.
This was marked and spread through Elgin, and credibly reported to
myself.’--_Spal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1641.
JUNE.]
[Sidenote: 1641.]
The present was a sad time for the professors of the Catholic religion
in Scotland. Spalding relates in feeling terms the unavoidable exile
of the Dowager-marchioness of Huntly, a lady (daughter of Esme Duke of
Lennox) who had been born and educated in France, and could not now,
with one foot in the grave, alter her religion, while neither could her
high rank and powerful connections avail to obtain for her toleration.
‘Thus, resolutely she settles her estate, rents, and living, and leaves
with woe heart her stately building of the Bog, beautified with many
yards, parks, and pleasures--closes up the yetts, and takes journey
with about sixteen horse; and upon Saturday, the 26th of June, comes
to Aberdeen, lodged in Mr Alexander Reid’s house; and upon Monday
thereafter, she rides frae Aberdeen towards Edinburgh. A strange thing
to see a worthy lady, near seventy years of age, put to such trouble
and travail, being a widow, her eldest son the Lord Marquis being out
of the kingdom, her bairns and oyes dispersed and spread--and, albeit
nobly born, yet left helpless and comfortless, and so put at by the
kirk, that she behoved to go or else to bide excommunication, and
thereby lose her estate and living, whilk she was loath to do! She left
her oye [grandson] Charles, son to the marquis, being but ane bairn,
with Robert Gordon, bailie of the Enzie, to be entertained by him,
when she came from the Bog; and she also sent another of his bairns,
called Lady Mary, to Anna Countess of Perth, her own eldest sister,
to remain with her.... She remains [in Edinburgh] till about the end
of September, but help or remede, syne rides directly to Berwick,
there to abide during her pleasure. It is said she had about 300,000
merks in gold and jewels with her, by and attour the gold and silver
plate of both houses of Bog and Strathbogie; which did little good to
the distressed estate of that noble house.’--_Spal._ It is the more
remarkable that the marchioness found no remedy in Edinburgh, as King
Charles was there during her stay, and he, as her relative, and the
friend of her loyal family, must have been disposed to interfere in her
behalf, if in his power to do so. The marchioness died in France in the
ensuing year.
When the highest rank could not procure the slightest toleration for a
professor of the Romish faith, it was not to be expected that Catholics
of mean estate should be unmolested. In April 1642, Peter Jop, sailor
in Aberdeen, gave in a supplication to the Privy Council, representing
his ‘miserable condition upon occasion of the imprisonment of Isobel
Robertson, his spouse, ane excommunicat papist.’ The Lords wrote to the
magistrates and ministers of Aberdeen, requesting Isobel’s ‘enlargement
upon assurance of conformity, or of removal out of the country;’ and
accordingly she was allowed till the 15th of October to make up her
mind about these alternatives. Now, in the month of July, Peter Jop
represents that his wife is in a delicate condition, and will be
undergoing confinement of another kind about the time assigned as her
longest day. ‘The soonest she can be transported out of the country,
if she do not conform, will be about the month of March’--so declares
Peter; but he humbly assures the Lords that if they will so far extend
the term assigned to her, she will then give obedience without further
delay. The Lords were mercifully inclined, and allowed Isobel to remain
unmolested till the last day of March.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG.]
‘In this month, ane great death, both in burgh and land, of young
bairns in the pox; so that nine or ten children would be buried in New
Aberdeen in one day, and continued a long time. All for our sins, and
yet not taken to heart.’ ‘There was reckoned buried in Aberdeen about
twelve score bairns in this disease,’
Spalding, who notes these particulars, remarks that, since the
beginning of the troubles, there had been no sea-mews seen in the lochs
of New or Old Aberdeen, ‘who before flocked and clecked in so great
abundance, that it was pleasure to behold them flying above our heads,
yea, and some made use of their eggs and birds. In like manner, few or
no corbies seen in either Aberdeens at the water-side of Dee or Don, or
shore, where they wont to flock abundantly for salmon gouries.’
[Sidenote: 1641.]
He tells us that the 14th of September was kept as a solemn
thanksgiving throughout Scotland, on account of the settlement between
the king and Estates. ‘Here it is to be marked, that this day of
thanksgiving was strictly kept, the weather being wonderful fair, and
the poor country people rather wishing to have been at home winning
their corns.... Which is more to be noted, this day of thanksgiving,
being ane wonderful fair day, fit for harvest, whereon they are forced
to sit idle; thereafter there was nothing but tempestuous rains till
the 10th of October, whilk was again ane day of fast; whereby the
people’s hearts were casten down, fearing the loss of their harvest
through this wicked weather.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT. 28.]
At the meeting of the Estates this day, the king communicated
intelligence of the outbreak in Ireland, but without as yet being
able to state whether it was a small or a great revolt. It was not
till Monday, the 1st of November, that he came to the house with the
statement that it appeared to be a general rebellion, from which only
Dublin was safe.[91] He, on that occasion, urged the Estates to send
an armament as soon as possible, to aid in maintaining order in that
distracted country.
Mr Tytler of Woodhouselee had learned, through the medium of tradition,
that the king was engaged in a match at golf, on Leith Links, when a
letter was delivered into his hands, giving him the first intelligence
of the Irish rebellion. ‘On reading which,’ adds Mr Tytler, ‘he
suddenly called for his coach, and leaning on one of his attendants,
and in great agitation, drove to the Palace of Holyroodhouse, from
whence next day he set out for London.[92]
This anecdote is certainly wrong in the last particular, as the king
did not leave Edinburgh on his return to England till the 18th of
November. The remainder of the anecdote may be true. Mr Tytler states
that the king was fond of the game of golf. In Wodrow’s _Analecta_, the
story is related with a wholly different cast, from two sources. It
is here said that the king had been participant in hatching the Irish
rebellion for his own ends, and, when the accounts of the massacre
came, ‘he was playing at the gowf in the Links of Leith. When he
opened the letters and had looked at them, he seemed not in the least
concerned, but ruffled the letter up, and called to his company to play
about.’[93]
[Sidenote: 1641.
DEC. 25.]
The town-clerk of Aberdeen bewails the suppression of old kindly
Christian customs at this time, as gentle Izaak Walton might have
done, if it had been vouchsafed to him to exercise his rod upon the
Dee. Whereas, in former times, Christmas or Yule-day had been observed
with preachings, and praises, and thanksgiving, ‘in remembrance of the
birth of our blessed Saviour,’ and friends and neighbours made merry
with each other and had good cheer, ‘now this day,’ says Spalding,
‘no such preachings nor such meetings with merriness, walking up and
down,’ in Aberdeen, but, on the contrair, it was ‘commanded to be
keepit as ane work-day, ilk burgess to keep his booth, ilk craftsman
his wark, feasting and idleset forbidden out of pulpits.... The people
was otherwise inclined, but durst not disobey; yet little merchandise
was sold, and as little work done on this day in either Aberdeens. The
colliginers and other scholars keep the school against their wills.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1642.
FEB. 16.]
Owing to the sending of forces from Scotland to put down the Irish
rebellion, a considerable intercourse had sprung up between the
two countries. The Privy Council accordingly found it necessary to
establish postages betwixt Port-Patrick and Edinburgh, and betwixt
Port-Patrick and Carlisle, for the conveyance of packets of letters.
In this movement, England was more concerned than Scotland, and she
therefore cordially agreed to bear all the expense that should be
required. It is interesting to trace the first steps in a system now so
important as the Post-office.
[Sidenote: 1642.]
On a resolution being formed by the parliament of England and the
Scottish commissioners, to establish a line of posts between Edinburgh
and Port-Patrick, and Port-Patrick and Carlisle, the business of
making the arrangements was confided to Robert Glencorse, merchant
in Dumfries, under a duty of consulting ‘Mr Burlmakie, master of the
letter-office.’ Robert was himself ‘established postmaster betwix Annan
and Dumfries, twelve mile; and Mark Loch, betwix Carlisle and Annan,
twelve mile; Andrew M‘Min betwix Dumfries and Steps of Orr, twelve
mile; Ninian Mure betwix the Steps of Orr and Gatehouse of Fleet,
twelve mile; and George Bell from thence to the Pethhouse, eleven mile;
and John Baillie from thence to the Kirk of Glenluce, thirteen mile;
and John M‘Caig from that to the port, ten mile.’ These persons were
considered ‘the only ones fit for that employment, as being innkeepers
and of approved honesty in these parts.’ The lords of the Privy
Council were (September 27) supplicated to ratify the arrangements,
and to ‘allow John M‘Caig, postmaster in Port-Patrick, to have a post
bark.’ The supplication was at once complied with.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR.]
At this time of general strife and trouble, when civil war was
beginning to appear inevitable, a monster passed through the country
for exhibition to the curious. It was an Italian of about twenty-four
years of age, ‘having from his birth, growing from the breast upwards,
face to face, as it were ane creature having a head and syde [long]
hair, like the colour of the man’s hair; the head still drooping
backward and downward. He had eyes, but closed, not opened. He had
ears, two arms, two hands, three fingers on ilk hand, ane body, ane
leg, ane foot with six taes; the other leg within the flesh, inclining
to the left side.... It had a kind of life and feeling, but void of
all other senses; fed by the man’s own nourishment.... This great wark
of God was admired of by many in Aberdeen and through the country,
as he travelled; yet such was the goodness of God, that he would go
and walk where he listed, carrying this birth without any pain, yea
unespied when his clothes was on. When he came to the town, he had two
servants waiting upon him, who with himself were well clad. He had his
portraiture with the monster drawn, and hung out at his lodging to the
view of the people. The one servant [was] ane trumpeter, who sounded at
such time as the people should come to see this monster, who flocked
abundantly into his lodging. The other servant received the monies frae
ilk person for sight, some more, some less. And after there was so much
collected as could be gotten, he, with his servants, shortly left the
town and went south again.’--_Spal._
It may somewhat stay our smiles at the simplicity of Spalding’s
narration, that it was not till the present century that the
true theory of such monsters was arrived at--to wit, that they
are twin-births, in which, through some simple disturbing cause,
development has been arrested or taken a wrong course.
[Sidenote: 1642.]
There is an account of this remarkable person, illustrated by a
portrait, in Palfyn’s _Traité des Monstres, de leur Causes, de
leur Nature_, &c. (Leyden, 1708). The author had first seen him at
Copenhagen, and afterwards at Bâle, while he was still a young man.
He bore the name of Lazare Colloredon Genois, and the attached figure
had been baptised separately under the name of Jean Baptiste. Lazare
is described as a man of good stature and appearance, and of agreeable
manners. He wore a large cloak, to conceal the unsightly brother whom
nature had attached to his breast. Usually he shewed a good deal of
vivacity, but was now and then depressed in thinking of what should be
his fate, if, as was likely, his brother should die before him. Jean
Baptiste was a very imperfect being, nourished only by what Lazare ate;
his eyes nearly closed, and his respiration scarcely perceptible.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR. 10.]
As it had been with Christmas, so it now was with Pasch. According to
Spalding, ‘no flesh durst be sold in Aberdeen for making good cheer,
as wont was to be. So ilk honest man [Episcopalian] did the best he
could for himself. A matter never before heard of in this land, that
Pasch-day should be included within Lentron time, because it was now
holden superstitious; nor nae communion given on Good Friday nor this
Pasch-day, as was usit before. Marvellous in Aberdeen to see no market,
fowl or flesh, to be sold on Pasch-even.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE.]
Up to this time, from the beginning of the year, there was a scarcity
of white fish along the east coast, ‘to the hurt and hunger of the
poor ... and beggaring of the fishermen. It was reported that when the
fishers had laid their lines and taken fishes abundantly, there came
ane beast called the Sea Dog to the lines, and ate and destroyed the
haill bodies, and left nothing on the lines but the heads. A judgment
surely from God Almighty, for the like scarcity of fishes to continue
so long has scarcely been seen here in Scotland; whilk bred great
dearth of meal and malt, at aucht, nine, or ten pounds the boll, and
all other meats also very dear.’--_Spal._
The honest town-clerk of Aberdeen probably by sea-dog means the
well-known _dog-fish_, one of the cartilaginous family, which is a
constant enemy of our fisheries at this day.
The same authority informs us that dearth continued throughout the
ensuing winter. ‘White meal,’ he says, probably meaning flour, ‘was
at eight pounds the boll.’ The people had been accustomed to dear
summers--the stock of grain of the preceding year usually getting low
at that season--but this was the first dear winter for many years.
‘There was also great rains, whereby none was able to travel; great
storms in the sea, and few fish gotten, to the great grief of the
people.’
[Sidenote: 1642.]
In November, when the recent commencement of hostilities between the
king and the English parliament must have been thrilling men’s minds
in Scotland, Spalding notes, that ‘in ane seaman’s house in Peterhead,
there was heard, upon the night, beating of drums, other times
sounding of trumpets, playing on piffers, and ringing of bells, to the
astonishment of the hearers. Troubles followit.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT. 18.]
The preservation of the strict rule of the church was at this time
sought in the most earnest manner, no one dreaming of any such thing
on the other side as the rights of conscience, or the danger of
creating a reaction to contrary purposes. At a provincial assembly
held in Aberdeen, there was much business regarding the few symptoms
of _Brownism_ or independency lately presented throughout the country.
Gilbert Garden, younger of Tillifroskie, in the parish of Birse, was
denounced by his parish minister for forsaking the kirk, and affecting
to regard his private family devotions as sufficient. Being brought
before the court, he confessed that such was his case, but defended
himself; whereupon the minister was enjoined to excommunicate him if
he proved obdurate. (About a twelvemonth after, young Tillifroskie was
seized ‘upon the causey of Edinburgh,’ and put in the Tolbooth there,
on account of his Brownism.) One Ferendale was afterwards proceeded
with in the same sharp way, but was induced to deny the Brownist
tenets in time to save himself. Another man, named Maxwell, ‘a silly
wheel-wright of his calling,’ who had also been summoned for Brownism,
deemed it most prudent to vanish from the town. After an ineffectual
search for this important recusant, the ministers out of their pulpits
forbade all men to ‘reset’ him.--_Spal._
[Sidenote: 1642.]
One of the means of keeping up the excitement necessary for sustaining
the war against the king was to thunder constantly in the pulpits about
the papists. The difficulty seems to have been to find a real live
papist, to give some sort of countenance to these fulminations, for at
this time, in the simple but expressive words of Spalding, ‘none durst
be seen.’ Now and then, a smart _razzia_ brought out one or two cowed
professors of the abhorred faith. A small clerical party, supported
by a couple of bailies, went out of Aberdeen on the evening of Sunday
the 16th of April (1643), ‘with caption to tak Alexander Hervie in
Grandhame for popery, who was lying bedfast in the gut [gout], to have
taken him as ane excommunicat papist; but they could not find him.
His son they saw upon horseback, excommunicat likewise; but they
had no commission against him.’ Two days later, the young Laird of
Birkenbog seized a priest named Robertson in the house of Forbes of
Blackton, and brought him to Aberdeen. Being soon after transported to
Edinburgh, this priest was sent to West Flanders, with a hint that, if
he reappeared in Scotland, he should be hanged.
On the 8th of October 1643, Thomas Blackhall and his wife, and the
wife of one Collieson, were excommunicated as papists by Andrew Cant,
minister of Aberdeen. ‘Strange to see,’ says Spalding, ‘the wife to be
excommunicat, and the husband not to keep company with her!’
One of the saddest acts of discipline that proceeded from the dominant
party at this time, was the banishment of Dr Forbes of Corse, who had
been professor of divinity in Aberdeen under the Episcopal Church.
Learned above his fellows, modest and peaceable even in his opposition,
and protesting that he was sound in the controversies against papists,
Socinians, and Arminians, he was, nevertheless, compelled to leave
his country, April 1644, because he could not be induced to sign the
Covenant. He had purchased a house for the professors of divinity, but
neglected to reserve his own liferent; so he was obliged to leave it
to his Covenanting successor, at the same time breaking up his library
and selling a part of his books. ‘Surely,’ says Spalding, ‘this was ane
excellent religious man, who feirit God, charitable to the poor, and
ane singular scholar; yet he was put fra his calling, his country, his
friends, and all, for not subscryving our Covenant, to the grudge and
grief of the best.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1643.
FEB. 1.]
The Aberdeen annalist tells a wild story of a complex murder which
befell to-day. The young Laird of Calder was married to a daughter
of the Laird of Cromarty, who, having no pleasure in him, prepared a
potion for his destruction. Hutcheon Ross of Auchincloch and two other
gentlemen, visiting the house this evening, ‘were made welcome, supped
merrily, and were all three found dead in their beds on the morn,’
having through some mistake received the poison meant for young Calder,
‘who by his friends was hastily removed out of that place, and never
more tried.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: FEB.]
[Sidenote: 1643.]
Whilst the first battles of the Civil War were causing universal
excitement, some further rumours of prodigies were circulated in
the country. It was stated that a battle was seen at the hill of
Manderlee, four miles from Banff; and so strongly did the vision
impress itself on the beholders, that many ran to bury their valuables
in the earth. At Bankafair and Drum, touking of drums was heard. Mr
Andrew Leitch, minister of Ellon in Aberdeenshire, sitting at supper
one night, ‘heard touking of drums vively, sometimes appearing near at
hand, and sometimes far off. On the 7th of February, it was written
here to Aberdeen, that Kentoun battle at Banbury,[94] wherein his
majesty was victorious, has in vision been seen seven sundry times
sin-syne.’--_Spal._ On the 12th, about eight in the morning, being a
misty day, ‘visions seen at the hill of Brimman, within four miles
of Aberdeen. William Anderson, tenant in Crabstone, told me he saw
ane great army as appeared to him, both of horse and foot, about
eight hours in the morning, being misty, and visibly continued till
sunrising; syne vanished away in his sight with noise, into ane moss
hard beside. Likewise in the muir of Forfar, armies of men seen in the
air. Whilk visions the people thought to be prodigious tokens, _as it
fell out over true_.’--_Spal._
The same minister of Ellon, happening to step out of his manse one
night between twelve and one o’clock, ‘did see the sun to shine,
as if it had been mid-day, and, much astonished at so fearful a
prodigy, he called up his bedral to see it also; and, lest the truth
hereof should not win belief, he caused the bedral to raise a number
of the neighbours from their beds, all which did testify the same,
when the preacher was questioned about it by the committee sitting
at Aberdeen.’--_Pa. Gordon._ To make up for this unusual solar
demonstration, the sun by day ‘was seen in divers parts to shine with
a faint beam, yielding a dim and shadowy light even in a clear heaven,
and sometime did shew like a deep and large pond or lake of blood.’
[Sidenote: 1643.]
We learn from the same authority, that ‘at Rethine, in Buchan, there
was about the time of morning-prayer, for divers days together heard
in a church a choir of music, both of voices, organs, and other
instruments, and with such a ravishing sweetness, that they were
transported, which in numbers resorted to hear it.... The preacher
one day being much taken with the harmony, went, with divers of his
parishioners into the church, to try if their eyes could bear witness
to what their ears had heard; but they were no sooner entered when,
lo! the music ceased with a long note or stroke of the viol di gambo;
and the sound came from ane upper loft, where the people used to hear
service, but they could see nothing.’
Gordon adds an account of a prodigious noise which was heard all over
the kingdom at the moment when Alaster Macdonald landed with his Irish
in the west of Scotland, to join Montrose in behalf of the king--that
‘warning piece shot from heaven as the last signal that should be given
us of our near approaching punishment; this I am sure the whole kingdom
can testify, since the report did ring in the ears of every man,
woman, and child throughout the kingdom, as if it had been levelled at
themselves, as well in the houses as the fields, not only in one day
and one hour, but at one moment of time.’
When we read the history of two centuries ago, we little reflect on the
mental condition and furniture of the principal actors, or the manner
in which the public at large was prepared to receive and treat events.
Yet it cannot be doubted that history must have in a great measure
taken its bent and character from these circumstances. In reviewing
the events of the Civil War, it is most essential to keep in view the
style of religious convictions under which men acted, and even their
superstitions.
[Sidenote: 1643.]
The Diary of Sir Thomas Hope, the king’s advocate under Charles I.,
and a leader in all the proceedings of the Covenanters, shews us that
Sir Thomas, in most affairs of difficulty, accepted the thoughts which
occurred to his mind after prayer as a divine impulse to the right
course of action.[95] It reveals not merely the generally devout
life of the man, his frequent prayers and communions, and his entire
resignation to the divine will, but his being subject to superstitions
at which a child would now smile. He has frequently such entries as the
following: ‘June 24, 1643.--This night I thought that a tooth (whilk
was loose) fell out of my gums, and that I took it up in my hands and
kep it; and it seemed so real that while [till] I awakit, I thought it
really true, and could scarcely believe it otherwise when I had awakit.
Thir repeated dreams portends some calamity to me or mine; but I have
resolved to submit myself to my good Lord, and to adore his providence;
and the Lord give me grace to bear it patiently.’ ‘June 25.--At night
I dreamed that while I was pulling on my left buit, both the tongues
of it brake. This fell out really on the 26 September thereafter....
God prepare me. The Lord prepare me, for I look certainly to suffering
in such way as my Lord pleases.’ ‘April 8, 1644.--This night a dream
occurrit, whilk carries some fear with it; but I wait on the Lord. It
was, that the rod wherewith I walk was broken in pieces, and nothing
left of it but the silver head.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR.]
‘Horribly uncouth and unkindly weather at this time ... marvellous to
see in April! Fishes, fowls, and all other commodities scarce gettable
in Aberdeen. White meal at nine pound ... the boll.’ Merchants,
expecting still greater prices elsewhere, bought up and exported all
the grain they could collect, ‘to the wreck of our country,’ and not
without ‘the country people’s malison.’ Spalding, who relates these
circumstances, tells us that this malison was ‘heard;’ for on the 29th
of May, a ship loading with meal in the Ythan river in Aberdeenshire,
slipped a plank, so as to let in the salt water and destroy the cargo.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV.]
‘There came to Aberdeen ane Doctor Pont[hus], who had some stage plays,
whilk drew the people to behold the sport; syne, upon the stage sold
certain balms, oils, and other physical ointments, whereof he made
great gain. Thereafter he went north to other burghs, and did the
like.’--_Spal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1643.]
If it were allowable to use the language of the day, we might say that
the devil had at this time broken out in unusual activity. Accordingly,
the public authorities had not only to prepare an army for the aid of
the parliament against the king in England, and make vigorous crusades
in Strathbogie and other over-loyal districts, but to meet the powers
of darkness with all the terrors of the criminal law. The number of old
women who suffered for offending at once against the 18th chapter of
Deuteronomy and the 73d act of the ninth parliament of Queen Mary,[96]
in Fife alone, was thirty.[97] One noted case was that of Agnes Finnie,
a poor woman dealing in small articles at the Potterrow Port in
Edinburgh, who was convicted and burned in 1644. Mr Charles K. Sharpe
has presented us with the articles of her dittay, and as they afford a
highly characteristic picture of the acts then attributed to a witch,
and give some curious glimpses of the private life of the period, I
make no apology for transferring them to these pages.
‘Having threatened Mr William Fairlie’s son to send him halting hame,
because, going by her door, he, in a nickname, called her _Annie
Winnie_, he within twenty-four hours after, lost the power of his left
side by her witchcraft, and languished in so incurable a disease, that
the whole physicians called it supernatural, and the haill substance of
his body ran out at his cute [ankle]; and the boy laid the whole wyte
[blame] of his death constantly upon the panel.
‘She laid upon Beatrix Nisbet a fearful disease, so that _she lost the
power of her tongue!_ because she paying the said Agnes two dollars
owing her by her father, would not give her annual rent [interest]
therefor. She laid a grievous sickness upon Jonet Grinton, whom ye
threatened that she should never eat more in this world, because she
had brought again two herring she had bought from you, they not being
caller [fresh], and sought back her eight pennies [two-thirds of a
penny sterling], and of which she died, without eating or drinking
conform to your threatening.
‘Ye came in to visit John Buchanan’s bairn, being sick of a palsy,
and bade the father and mother go ben the house [remove to the inner
apartment] a while and pray to God for him; and in the meanwhile ye
stayed with him, and when they returned, they fand him violently sick
that he could neither stir hand nor foot, and that by your devilry; and
fand on his right buttock about the breadth of one’s loof, the same so
sore as if a collop had been ta’en out of it; and he died in eight days
in great dolour.
[Sidenote: 1643.]
‘Falling a scolding with Betty Currie, the said bairn’s mother, about
the changing of a sixpence which ye alleged to be ill, ye, in great
rage, threatened that ye should gar [cause] the devil tak a bite of
her. Ye laid a grievous sickness on her husband, John Buchanan, that
he burned a whole night as if he had been in a fire, for taking his
wife Betty Currie’s part against you, and boasting [threatening] to
cast you over the stair, and calling you a witch; whereon ye threatened
to make him repent his speeches; and for taking the same off him, he
coming the next day and drinking a pint of ale with you, and telling
you that if you tormented him so another night, he should make all the
town hear tell of it; whereon he was weel. The said John being offended
at you because ye would not trust his wife a twelvepenny cake [penny
roll], ye bade him go his way, and as he had begun with witches, so he
should end; after which threatening, he straight contracted a long and
grievous sickness, whereof he was like to melt away in sweating.
‘In your scolding with Euphame Kincaid, ye calling her a drunkard, and
she calling you a witch, ye replied: “That if ye was a witch, she and
hers should have better cause to call ye so;” accordingly, a great
joist fell on the said Euphame’s daughter’s leg, being playing near
your house, and crushed the same, and that by your sorcery.
‘Ye, ending an account with Isobel Acheson, and because ye could not
get all your unreasonable demands, bade the devil ride about the town
with her and hers; whereupon, the next day, she brake her leg by a fall
from a horse, and ye came and saw her, and said: “See that ye say not
that I have bewitched you, as other neighbours say.”
‘Robert Watt, deacon of the cordwainers, having fined Robert Pursell,
your son-in-law, for a riot, ye came where he and the rest of the craft
were convened, and cursed them most outrageously, whereon Robert Watt
broke the cap upon your head; since which time he fell away in his
worldly means, till long after, he being in your good-son’s house,
where ye likewise was, ye asked “if he remembered since he broke the
cap on your head? and that he had never thriven since, nor should,
till you had amends of him;” whereon, he being reconciled with you, he
prospered in his worldly state as before.
‘The laying on of a grievous sickness on Christian Harlaw, for sending
back a plack’s worth of salt which ye had sent her, it being too
little; ye having threatened her that it should be the dearest salt
that ever she saw with her eyes, and then, at her entreaty, ye came to
her house, and she became presently weel; whereon Christian said, that
“if ought ailed her thereafter, she should wyte [blame] you.” Christian
Simpson being owing you some money, and because she craved only eight
days’ delay to pay it, ye threatened in great rage, that “she should
have a sore heart ere that day eight days;” according whereto, the said
Christian’s husband broke his leg within the said eight days.
[Sidenote: 1643.]
‘John Robison, having called you a witch, you, in malice, laid a flux
on him by your sorcery. Appearing to John Cockburn in the night, when
both doors and windows were fast closed, and terrifying him in his
sleep, because he had discorded with your daughter the day before.
Causing all William Smith’s means to evanish, to the intent he might
never be able to relieve some clothes he had pawned beside you, worth
an 100 lb., for 14 merks Scots only. Onlaying a grievous sickness
on Janet Walker lying in childbed; and then ye being sent for, and
the said Janet’s sister begging her health at you for God’s sake, ye
assented, and she recovered of her sickness presently by your sorcery.
‘Being disappointed of having Alexander Johnston’s bairn’s name, ye, in
a great rage and anger, told him, that “it should be telling him 40 lb.
betwixt and that time twelvemonth, that he had given you his bairn’s
name;” whereon he took a strange sickness, and languished long; and at
length, by persuasive of neighbours, he came to your house, and after
he had eaten and drunken with you, ye with your sorcery made him whole.
_Item_, the child whose name ye got not was past eleven years ere he
could go.
‘Having fallen in a controversy with Margaret Williamson, ye most
outrageously wished the devil to blow her blind; after which she by
your sorcery took a grievous sickness, whereof she went blind. Laying
a madness on Andrew Wilson, conform to your threatening, wishing the
devil to rive the soul out of him (which words, the time of his frenzy,
were never out of his mouth), and that because he had fallen in a
brawling with your daughter. _Item_, for taking off it.
‘Bearing company with the devil these twenty-eight years by-past; for
consulting with him for laying on and taking off diseases, as weel on
men as women and bestial; which is notourly known.’
[Sidenote: 1643.]
It clearly appears that this woman had, at the utmost, been guilty of
bad wishes towards her neighbours, and that if these had any effect, it
was only through their superstitious apprehensions. We may suppose such
to be the type of a class of cases--the _simply maledictory_. It is
fairly presumable, however, that, while the community was so ignorant
as to believe that malediction could have positively injurious effects,
it _would occasionally have these effects by its influence on the
imagination_, and consequently become an active evil. In this we can
see a possible cause of the long persistence of the belief in witches.
The ignorant, seeing an effect, and not observing the influence of the
imagination in the case, would of course find no objection to laying it
all to the account of witchcraft. The enlightened, again, disbelieving
witchcraft, but at the same time ignorant of the influence of
imagination, would have no alternative but to deny the facts; and this
unreasoning and unsound scepticism, being contrary to the experience of
the ignorant, would fail to disabuse them of their superstitions.
In this year (December 31, 1643) is an entry in the parish register
of Markinch, Fifeshire--‘Compeared Janet Brown, and being posed
if she used charms, she confessed that she did charm two several
persons--viz., James Hullock and Janet Scott, but no moe. The words of
the charm are these:
“Our Lord forth raide,
His foal’s foot slade:
Our Lord down lighted,
His foal’s foot righted;
Saying: Flesh to flesh, blood to blood, and bane to bane,
In our Lord his name.”
Being posed who learned her the foresaid charm, answered, ane man in
the parish of Strathmiglo.’[98]
There is reason to believe that this is a charm of great antiquity for
the healing of bruises and sprains.[99]
[Sidenote: 1643.]
The faith in necromantic power being wholly a part of the religious
earnestness of the time, it is only to be expected that the clergy
should appear deeply interested in prosecutions of this class, and
sedulous that suspected persons should be duly tried and the guilty
brought to punishment. In October 1644, Margaret Young, spouse of
William Morison, merchant in Dysart, described herself, in a petition
to the Privy Council, as having lain miserably in prison for ten weeks,
in consequence of a false accusation got up against her as ‘a consulter
of spirits,’ by a few neighbours acting under a feeling of ‘spleen
and envy,’ ‘albeit she is ane honest young woman, of good reputation,
without any scandal or blot, and never knew nothing of that is put to
her charge.’ She had petitioned the Privy Council to have the bailies
and ministers of Dysart summoned before them, and ordained to set
her at liberty; and on an appointed day, one of the ministers came
forward, and craved to have a longer time ‘to see if any dittay sould
be given in against her.’ Even that time was now expired, and yet,
with no charge against her, she continued to languish in her wretched
imprisonment. The lords agreed to liberate Margaret, on her husband
giving security to the extent of five hundred merks, that she would
compear if afterwards called upon.--_P. C. R._
In the ensuing month--so frequent were accusations of witchcraft at
this time--one Margaret Thomson, wife of Alexander Gray in Calder,
complained before the same tribunal, against the Tutor of Calder and
the minister of that parish, for ‘waking her the space of twenty days
naked, and having nothing on her but a sackcloth,’ under a charge of
witchcraft. She had been ‘laid in the stocks, and kept separate from
all company and worldly comfort;’ nor could she ‘see any end of her
misery by lawful trial.’ The lords, having the woman’s husband before
them, and also the tutor and minister, and no regular charge being
forthcoming, ordained her to be liberated upon security.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1644.
JULY 7.]
(Sunday) A solemn fast and humiliation was kept throughout Scotland,
on account of backsliding from the Covenant, and the prevalence of
vice and godlessness; as also to entreat the favour of Heaven for the
parliamentary arms, and to pray for the filling of the king’s heart
with the love of reformation. A fast in those days was a reality.
In Old Aberdeen, the people entered the church at nine o’clock, and
continued hearing prayers and sermons till two. They might have then
dismissed for a space, but they sat still hearing ‘reading’ till the
commencement of afternoon service, which ended at six. Then the bell
rang for evening-prayers, which continued till seven. ‘Thus was the
people wearied with fasting and praying, under colour of zeal, whilk
rather appeared a plain mockery of God.’ On the ensuing Thursday, a
similar fast was kept, when the king and queen were prayed for, in a
manner, it may be suspected, for which their majesties would not be
duly thankful. ‘No prayer to confound the armies raised against him,
but rather prayer for their good success.’--_Spal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP.]
[Sidenote: 1644.]
Immediately after Montrose had gained his first victory at Tippermuir,
and while his army lay at Collace, in Perthshire, his adherent, Lord
Kilpont, eldest son of the Earl of Airth, lost his life in a lamentable
manner. His friend and associate in arms, James Stewart of Ardvoirlich,
had been incensed at some outrages committed on his lands by the Irish
auxiliaries under Alaster Macdonald or MacCol-keitoch, while they
were advancing to join Montrose. He had complained to Montrose, had
had a violent altercation with Alaster MacCol, and it had been found
necessary to place both him and MacCol under arrest. This step was
taken at the recommendation of Lord Kilpont. To pursue the narrative
of a descendant of Stewart: ‘Montrose, seeing the evil of such a feud
at such a critical time, effected a sort of reconciliation between
them, and forced them to shake hands in his presence; when it was said
that Ardvoirlich, who was a very powerful man, took such a hold of
Macdonald’s hand as to make the blood start from his fingers. Still, it
would appear, Ardvoirlich was by no means reconciled.
‘A few days after the battle of Tippermuir, when Montrose with his
army encamped at Collace, an entertainment was given by him to his
officers, in honour of the victory he had obtained, and Kilpont and
his comrade Ardvoirlich were of the party. After returning to their
quarters, Ardvoirlich, who seemed still to brood over his quarrel with
Macdonald, and being heated with drink, began to blame Lord Kilpont
for the part he had taken in preventing his obtaining redress, and
reflecting against Montrose for not allowing him what he considered
proper reparation. Kilpont of course defended the conduct of himself
and his relative Montrose, till their arguments came to high words;
and, finally, from the state they were both in, by an easy transition
to blows, when Ardvoirlich with his dirk struck Kilpont dead on the
spot. He immediately fled, and under cover of a thick mist escaped
pursuit, leaving his eldest son, Henry, who had been mortally wounded
at Tippermuir, on his death-bed.’[100]
[Sidenote: 1644.]
This story will be generally recognised as one which has supplied some
leading incidents in the _Legend of Montrose_. The present version of
it, more favourable in some features to Ardvoirlich than that which
occurs in Wishart’s _Life of Montrose_, was communicated to Sir Walter
Scott in 1830 by Robert Stewart of Ardvoirlich, who stated that it had
come to his father from a man who lived to a hundred years of age, the
great-grandson of the homicide laird by a natural son, who was present
with him at the time of the deplorable incident.[101]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT.]
After the taking of Newcastle in this month by the Scottish Covenanting
army, ‘the pest’ came from that place[102] into Scotland, where it met
a field highly calculated for its diffusion. There had been dearth
the preceding year from deficient harvest, and since then, what with
the drawing away of men for the army, the grievance of a heavy excise
to support it, the incessant harassment of many districts by hostile
and plundering armies, and the extreme anxiety and distress of mind
occasioned by the civil war, assisted, doubtless, by the generally
depressing effect of incessant preachings, prayings, fastings, and
_thanksgivings_, by which the whole sunshine of life was, as it were,
squeezed out of the community--those vital powers which resist and beat
off disease must have been reduced to a point much below average. It
is not surprising, therefore, that the plague took deadly hold of the
country, and rapidly spread from Edinburgh to Borrowstounness, Kelso,
Perth, and other towns, all of which were grievously afflicted by it
during the next year.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1645.]
[Sidenote: 1645.]
Of the ecclesiastical discipline of this period, and its bearing upon
the habits of the people, we get a good idea from the Presbytery
Record of Strathbogie, which has been published by the Spalding Club.
The whole moral energy of the country appears as concentrated in
an effort to fix a certain code of theological views, including a
rigid observance of the Sabbath, the suppression of witchcraft, the
maintenance of a serious style of manners, and the extirpation of
popery.
A committee of the presbytery made periodical visits to the several
parishes, called the minister and chief parishioners before them, and
examined the parties separately as to each other’s spiritual condition
and religious practice. For example, at Rhynie, the minister, Henry
Ross, being removed, the elders were sworn and interrogated as to
his efficiency. They ‘all in ane voice deponed that concerning his
literature he was very weak, and gave them little or no comfort in his
ministry; but, as concerning his life, he was mended, and was blameless
now in his conversation.’ The elders being in their turn removed, the
minister was called in and examined regarding them. He ‘regretted that
the parishioners frequented not the church, nor assisted him in his
discipline, but despised him.’
To be absent any considerable number of times from church was
punishable; and if the parishioner proved contumacious, he was liable
to be excommunicated--a doom inferring a loss of all civil rights, and
a complete separation from human converse.[103] To refuse to take the
Covenant, or to have any dealings with the loyalist Huntly, brought
men into similar troubles. Old women using charms for healing, persons
‘kindling needfire’ for the cure of cattle,[104] or reserving a field
for the devil (the _Guidman’s Croft_), and females pilgrimising to holy
wells, according to old custom, were all vigorously proceeded against,
in obedience to repeated acts of the General Assembly for uprooting
of _all superstition_. Irregularities between the sexes, and even
quarrelling and scolding, had to be expiated in sackcloth before the
congregation. Drunkenness and swearing were also censured. In dealing
with these offences, an unsparing inquisition into domestic and family
matters was used, and no rank, age, or sex seems to have afforded the
subject any protection.
[Sidenote: 1645.]
As specimens of religious offences--a gentleman was prosecuted
for bringing home a millstone on a Sunday; another, for gathering
gooseberries in time of sermon. It was found regarding Patrick Wilson,
that he had sat up with a company drinking till after cockcrow,
consuming in all eleven pints--that is, about two dozen quart
bottles--of ale; he had struck a man, and railed in his drink at
several gentlemen of the parish. ‘The brethren ordained Patrick to
stand in sackcloth two Sabbaths, and pay four merks penalty.’
The Lady Frendraught,[105] who now lived at Kinnairdie, in the parish
of Aberchirder, is a conspicuous subject of the discipline of the
Strathbogie presbytery, on account of her being a papist. To leave
this inoffensive lady in the quiet exercise of her own religious forms
was not within the capabilities of the Christian charity of that day.
It is no over-statement of the case that this ecclesiastical body set
themselves to simply harass her out of her peculiar convictions--or
rather professions; for they seem to have been content when they could
effect an external conformity, and the horrible guilt of forcing a
fellow-creature into a mere hypocrisy, seems never to have been present
to their minds.
[Sidenote: 1645.]
So early as 1636, the synod had sent one of their number to deal with
her, and induce her to go to church; for a time she conformed. Two
years after, a similar visitation of the lady had become necessary; so
she and her daughter Elizabeth were summoned for ‘not hearing of the
word, and not communicating.’ What came of this does not appear; but in
1643, a deputation of ministers was sent to deal with her according to
the ordinance of the General Assembly, and to report her answer. It was
soon after reported that ‘she promised to hear the word, and desired a
time for further resolution.’ It was then agreed to give her some short
space to decide on becoming ‘a daily hearer,’ but ‘if she refused,
the process to go on against her.’ The poor lady once more promised
‘to hear the word, as she had done before,’ and it was resolved to
ask the advice of the General Assembly on the point. Years passed on,
without bringing her further than to agree to go to the church which
her husband frequented--which was out of the bounds of this presbytery.
What immediately happened after this does not appear; but, on the
presbytery resolving (January 1647) again to proceed against her
ladyship, it was reported that she was out of the country. A few months
later, the commissioners of the General Assembly ‘granted her liberty
to be ane ordinar hearer of the word at Forgue for a time.’ This,
however, did not stop the process. The lady was hunted into another
presbytery, where she seems to have kept them at bay for a little
while. In June 1648, Mr John Reidford reported that he had spoken
her, but ‘found no effect of his travels;’ he required further time.
Soon after, the same minister reported that on a second interview,
she expressed herself as ‘willing to hear the word in any kirk save
Aberchirder and such as are within the presbytery of Strathbogie.’ This
was not to be endured. She was immediately summoned as a contumacious
person. On the day of call, she ‘compeared not;’ and Mr John Reidford,
her parish minister, proceeded to give from his pulpit, on successive
Sundays, a series of three admonitions addressed to her; then, in
like manner, a series of three prayers. As her ladyship continued to
disregard all proceedings in her case, the presbytery prepared itself
to pass the awful doom of excommunication, when, behold! another
act of concession on her part stays all: she agrees to be present
at family worship in her own house--her husband was all this time
a leading Covenanter--and promised also to hear sermon; whereupon
the sentence was suspended for a time. In August 1649, the minister
Reidford reported that she had ‘keepit sermon at Innerkeithing the last
Lord’s day, and daily keepit family worship.’ This was not enough.
They instruct Reidford ‘to shew her that, if she did not conform in
all points, the sentence of excommunication would be pronounced before
the next assembly.’ Reidford soon after pleaded for her, that she had
heard three sermons; but the brethren ‘thought not that kind of hearing
satisfactory.’ They ordained him to put her to a decided test at once,
by offering her the Covenant: failing her subscribing that, Reidford
was to pronounce sentence.
[Sidenote: 1645.]
The lady, with the ingenuity of her sex, contrived once more to
put them off--she told Reidford she would take a thought about
it. Meanwhile, she amused them with hopes by continuing to attend
church; telling them ‘she was not fully satisfied for subscribing the
Covenant.’ But even female wit could not hold out for ever against such
a siege. In June 1650, after an incessant harassment of fourteen years,
she gave them ‘satisfaction’ by subscribing the Covenant, and thus
abjuring in words the faith she still held in her heart. Little more
than two years had elapsed, when the presbytery learned that she had
‘relapsed to popery,’ and appointed commissioners to confer with her on
the subject. It was found she was now obstinate in her original belief,
‘professing, moreover, that she repented of her former repentance
more than of any sin that ever she committed, and thought that she
had reason to repent all her lifetime for subscribing the National
Covenant and Solemn League and Covenant.’ Then took place a renewal
of the same tedious dealings with the lady, ending at last in 1654,
in a peremptory order for her excommunication. By that time, however,
excommunication had lost much of its terrors, as Cromwell, then master
of Scotland, would not allow the sentence to have any consequences in
respect of civil rights.
Many traits of barbarous manners occur in the record, shewing that the
clergy had somewhat rough materials to deal with, in their efforts
to build up a perfect system. Many offences of a violent, and even
sanguinary character, are noticed. There were also several persons
so far left to a wicked nature as to hold the dicta of the reverend
presbytery itself in contempt. For instance, John Tulloch, on being
summoned regarding an irregularity with Elspeth Gordon, answered, ‘the
devil a care cared he for their excommunication; excommunicate him the
morn [to-morrow] if they pleased.’ Three witnesses attested regarding
James Middleton, that, on his being rebuked by the minister, they heard
him say that ‘he cared not for him, nor any minister in Scotland;’ and
when the minister threatened to put him in the _jougs_, they heard
him say that ‘neither he nor the best minister within seven miles
durst do so much.’ One William Gordon, in Dumbennan parish, declined
(June 1652) the authority of the presbytery, in consideration of the
many sad experiences he had had of the usurpation of civil power by
the Presbyterian government, and its ‘tyrannous persecuting of men’s
consciences who, out of tender scruples, did differ from their opinions
in matters indifferent and circumstantial; as also, finding that the
greatest part of their prayer and preaching doth more tender the
advancement of their private interest and faction than the propagation
of the gospel; and seeing their frequent railing against the authority
and civil power which God hath set over us, whereby the people’s minds
are kept unsettled and averse from the cordial union of both nations,
which, by God’s great mercy, we are now like to enjoy.’ He declared
himself separate from them, and that he would ‘no more esteem of their
excommunication than they did formerly of the pope.’ On sentence
of excommunication being passed on this recusant, ‘he lookit very
frowardly, and uttered himself most proudly and maliciously.’
[Sidenote: 1645.]
The opinion of the royalist party regarding the general condition
of the nation at the time when the Covenanting spirit was at its
height is sketched by one of their number. ‘Seven years,’ says he,
‘had this terrible distemper of the unparalleled Covenant ruled, or
rather overruled this kingdom.... It was now grown to ane height, and
had cast this nation in a new mould, for the laws were rolled up in
oblivion, the College of Justice was discharged from sitting, and over
all the land the ordinary seats of justice were no more frequented,
only the private committees in every shire and county ordained what
they list, and must not be controlled, under pain of a fearful plunder.
Nor was it right or wrong that must be decided by these committees,
but grievous exactions and heavy subsidies, with new stents, almost
every quarter, of horse and foot levies.... The poor was not pitied nor
the rich respected; the good man was not remembered nor the virtuous
man rewarded: only the soldier was in esteem and enriched, who could
murder, kill, and oppress.’--_Pa. Gordon._
At the same time, the general expressions of the church of the day
involve heavy charges against the clergy themselves, partly founded
perhaps on actual offences in their case, and partly the result
merely of the disposition to think every grace of poor human nature
insufficient, in comparison with the ideal religious standard set up.
Thus we find the Commissioners of the General Assembly denouncing
‘the enormities and corruptions observed to be in the ministry,’ and
making out a list which is difficult to reconcile with our ideas of the
boasted golden age of the Scottish Presbyterian polity. There is ‘much
fruitless conversing in company,’ ‘great worldliness,’ ‘slighting of
God’s worship in families,’ ‘want of gravity in carriage and apparel,’
‘tippling and bearing company in untimeous drinking in taverns,’
‘discountenancing of the godly,’ even a want of decent observance of
the Sabbath. ‘There are also to be found amongst us [some] who use
small and minced oathes.’[106]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: FEB. 13.]
Notwithstanding the high pressure exercised by the kirk at this time
in matters of discipline, we have ample evidence that there were
many sad and pestilent escapes of human nature, occasioning infinite
distress to sessions, presbyteries, and assemblies. There was one old
popular institution, called the Penny Bridal, which has been under
notice before, as producing a suspicious amount of happiness among the
commonalty. The General Assembly now saw proper to launch a solemn act
against these merry assemblies, ordaining the presbyteries to put them
under the severest restrictions.[107]
[Sidenote: 1645.]
Two years after, February 7, 1647, the presbyteries of Haddington
and Dunbar are found taking measures for putting this act in force;
and from their proceedings, we incidentally learn how far the late
religious fervours were from decidedly reforming or purifying manners.
Multitudes exceeding twenty assembled on these occasions. The paying of
extravagant sums--sums exceeding 12_s._ for a man and 8_s._ for a woman
(that is, _one shilling_ and _eightpence_ respectively)--caused great
immoralities--‘piping and dancing before and after dinner or supper,’
drinking after dinner, and so forth. ‘Moreover, loose speeches, singing
of licentious songs, and profane minstrelling, in time of dinner or
supper, tends to great deboshry.’ ‘Through all which causes, penny
bridals, in our judgment, become seminaries of all profanation.’ They
therefore ordained that not above twenty persons should ever gather
on such occasions; that the men should never give above a shilling,
and the women eightpence; and that all piping, dancing, singing, and
loose speeches, should cease. To make sure that these rules should be
observed, it was further ordained that a pair about to marry and to
hold a penny bridal, should not have the ceremony performed till they
had lodged twenty pounds or other guarantee, to be forfeited in the
event of disobedience.[108]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: FEB. 27.]
The arrangements for the maintenance of a militia in Scotland were
fixed by the Estates. Each county and burgh was ordered to raise and
maintain a certain number of foot-soldiers (exclusive of horse),
according to their respective amounts of population, at £9 Scots per
month for each man. The lists are curious, as informing us of the
assumed comparative population of the several counties and burghs in
that age.
[Sidenote: 1645.]
COUNTIES.--Aberdeen, 727; Ayr, 674; Argyle, 323; Banff, 159; Berwick,
395; Bute, 51; Caithness, 105; Clackmannan, 58; Cromarty, 11;
Dumbarton, 137; Dumfries, 494; Edinburgh, 463; Elgin, 210; Fyfe,
738; Forfar, 556; Haddington, 376; Inverness, 464; Kincardine, 174;
Kinross, 16; Lanark, 598; Linlithgow, 194; Nairn, 35; Peebles, 182;
Perth, 889; Renfrew, 245; Roxburgh, 642; Selkirk, 142; Stirling, 282;
Sutherland, 47; Wigton and Kirkcudbright, 486. BURGHS.--Aberdeen, 160;
Aberbrothock, 10; Ayr, 41; Annan, 3; Anstruther Easter, 31; Anstruther
Wester, 6; Banff, 8; Brechin, 20; Burntisland, 16; Crail, 24; Cupar,
24; Culross, 12; Cullen, 4; Dumfries, 44; Dunbar, 12; Dumbarton,
12; Dunfermline, 12; Dundee, 186; Dysart, 30; Edinburgh, 574; Elgin,
20; Forfar, 6; Forres, 6; Galloway, 1; Glasgow, 110; Haddington, 36;
Jedburgh, 18; Inverkeithing, 10; Inverness, 40; Irvine, 23; Kilrenny,
3; Kinghorn, 14; Kirkcaldy, 46; Kirkcudbright, 20; Lanark, 16; Lauder,
5; Linlithgow, 30; Lochmaben, 3; Montrose, 53; Nairn, 4; North Berwick,
4; Peebles, 10; Perth, 110; Pittenweem, 15; Queensferry, 7; Renfrew,
10; Rothesay, 5; Rutherglen, 5; Sanquhar, 3; St Andrews, 60; Selkirk,
10; Stirling, 36; Tain, 12; Wigton, 15; Whithorn, 5.
The total number is, for counties, 9873; for burghs, 1879--total,
11,772. If we assume that the aim was to call out one soldier for every
sixty souls, the entire population would be 706,320. Edinburgh would
have 34,440 inhabitants; Glasgow and Perth, each 6600; Stirling and
Haddington, each 2160; Ayr, 2460; Dundee, 11,160; Inverness, 2400; St
Andrews, 3600; Dumfries, 2640; Montrose, 3180; &c.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR. 1.]
‘This day, Kelso, with the haill houses, corns, barns, barn-yards,
burnt by fire, caused by a clenging of ane of the houses thereof whilk
was infected with the plague.’--_Hope’s Diary._
The pest appears by this time to have reached Edinburgh. The Town
Council agreed (April 10) with Joannes Paulitius, M.D., that he should
visit the infected at a salary of eighty pounds Scots per month. A
great number of people affected by the malady were quartered in huts in
the King’s Park; others were kept at home; and for the relief of these,
the aid of the charitable was invoked from the pulpits. The session of
the Holyroodhouse or Canongate parish ordained (June 27) that ‘to avoid
contention in this fearful time,’ those who should die in the Park
‘shall be buried therein, and not within the church-yard, except they
mortified (being able to do so) somewhat _ad pios usus_, for the relief
of the other poor, being in extreme indigence.’
The Estates, then sitting in Edinburgh, were pleased (August 2) to
order five hundred bolls of meal to be given from the public magazine
‘for relief of the poor of Leith, which are sorely visited with the
pestilence.’--_Bal._
[Sidenote: 1645.]
Under the pressing exigencies caused by the epidemic, the Town Council
of Edinburgh came to the resolution (August 13) of liberating those
confined for debt in the Tolbooth, obtaining first the consent of
creditors. They retained, however, several political prisoners,
particularly the Earl of Crawford and Lord Ogilvie, who had signalised
themselves by their fidelity to the king. A few weeks after, Montrose
having at Kilsyth overthrown the last militia army that had been
mustered against him, came to Bothwell, and thence despatched a letter
to the Edinburgh magistrates, demanding the liberation of these
captives, under threats of fire and sword; and they then completed
their jail delivery. The marquis was solely prevented by the plague
from advancing and taking possession of the city.
Among the regulations established during the time of this pestilence
was one for preventing people from travelling into any district
suspected of being under the influence of the disease. We find it
proclaimed, for example, in the parish kirk of Humbie, August 10, ‘that
none presume, either masters or servants, men or women, to go out of
the bounds that they dwell, upon whatsomever errand or business, to any
suspected place, without special leave of the masters of the ground.’
If any transgressed this order, ‘they sall not be received back to
their own houses or dwellings, but their houses sall be locked and
closed up.’ No stranger could be received into a house without ‘liberty
from the masters of the ground and the kirk-session conjointly.’[109]
On this occurrence of the plague, a Scotch gentleman is found copying
and sending to a friend the following specific for the disease, an
invention of Dr Burgess:
‘Tak three mutchkins of Malvoysie, and ane handfull of red sage, and a
handfull of rue, and boil them till a mutchkin be wasted. Then strain
it, and set it over the fire again; then put thereinto ane pennyworth
of long pepper, half ane of ginger, and ane quarter of ane unce of
nutmegs, all beaten together; then let it boil a little, and put
thereto five pennyworth of Mithridate and two of treacle, and a quarter
of a mutchkin of the best Angelic water.
‘_Keep this all your life, above all bodily treasures._ Tak it always
warm, both morning and evening, ane half spoonfull if ye be in health,
and one or two if ye be infected; and sweat thereupon.
‘In all your plague-time, under God, trust to this; for there was never
man, woman, nor child, that this deceived.
‘This is not only for the common plague which is called the Sickness,
but also for the small-pox, missles, surfeat, and divers other
diseases.’[110]
[Sidenote: 1645.]
It is understood that those who died by the plague were usually
buried in places apart from churchyards, from an apprehension that
the infection might burst out and spread, if the graves should be
reopened. We find that the Estates ordained (August 4), ‘since that
it pleased God to call the Laird of Craigies of the pest, who was
lodged in the sheriff-clerk’s house, that these that are within the
house shall inter him in a remote place of the ordinary burial-place
of the town.’--_Bal._ In the parish of Cramond, there are four graves
of victims of the plague, in solitary situations; two of them at a
place called the Whinny Haugh, in King’s Cramond Park, marked with
small head-stones, on which are these inscriptions: ‘Here lies Janet
Dalmahoy, who deceased the 20th of October 1647,’ and ‘Here lies John
D----, who died the 20th of November 1647.’[111]
On this occasion, the pest lingered in the country for a considerable
time. It was in full force in Glasgow towards the close of 1646. The
infected were either shut up in their houses or sent out to a muir at
some distance from the town. ‘December 12, compeared the haill tacksmen
of the mill, ladles, tron, and brig,’ complaining to the Council that,
‘in respect of the sickness and visitation, they could get naething of
their duties.’ Graves of persons who were suspected of having died of
pest were ordered to be marked. The disease does not appear to have
entirely ceased in Glasgow till October 1647.--_M. of G._
[Sidenote: 1645.]
An anecdote illustrating the terrors inspired in private circles by
the plague, is related with regard to this occurrence of the disease,
in the memoir of the Stewarts of Coltness by Sir Archibald Stewart
Denham of Westshield, a gentleman born in 1683. Speaking of Sir Thomas
Stewart, he says: ‘A remarkable incident happened him in his youth,
when the pestilence broke out in Edinburgh in 1645. He with a son
of Westshield, a merchant apprentice, had gone to a public-house,
and received change of some money, and next day that house was shut
up, as infected with the plague. This gave a strong alarm at home.
James Denham was sent for, and both were strictly examined as to
every circumstance. Thomas had received the money in change, and so
frightened were all, that none would touch the pocket in which the
money was, but at a distance; and after the pocket was cut out, it was
with tongs cast in a fire, and both lads were shut up in a bed-chamber,
sequestrate from all company, and had victuals at proper times handed
into them. While they thus stood their quarantine, by strength of
imagination or power of fancy, some fiery spots broke out on their arms
and thighs, and they imagined no less than unavoidable death. They
mutually lamented; Thomas had more courage and Christian resignation
than his companion. “James,” said he, “let us trust in God and in the
family prayers, for Jesus’ sake, who, as he cures the plague of the
heart, can, if we are infected, cure the most noisome disease of the
body.” They both went to their knees, and joined in most solemn prayer,
had much spiritual comfort, and in a fortnight were set at liberty, and
the family retired to the country.’[112]
As far as appears, the plague did not visit Scotland after this time--a
circumstance the more remarkable, as it was so deadly in London in
1665, and even reappeared there in the ensuing year. In connection
with the plague, the tale of Bessie Bell and Mary Gray has obtained
a large currency in Scotland. According to a report on the subject,
communicated to the Antiquarian Society in 1781 by Major Barry of
Lednoch,[113] the incident took place in the year 1666; but this is
probably a mistake, arising from an assumption that the last great
pestilence of London was general over the country (1665 being further
mistaken for 1666). Major Barry says:
‘When I first came to Lednoch, I was shewn (in a part of my ground
called the Dronoch Haugh) a heap of stones almost covered with briers,
thorns, and fern, which they assured me was the burial-place of Bessie
Bell and Mary Gray.
[Sidenote: 1645.]
‘The tradition of the country relating to these ladies is, that Mary’s
father was Laird of Lednoch, and Bessie Bell’s of Kinvaid, a place in
this neighbourhood, and an intimate friendship subsisted between them:
that, while Miss Bell was on a visit to Miss Gray, the plague broke
out in the year 1666; in order to avoid which, they built themselves
a bower about three-quarters of a mile west from Lednoch House, in a
very retired and romantic place called Burn Braes, on the side of the
Beanchie Burn. Here they lived for some time; but the plague raging
with great fury, they caught the infection (it is said) from a young
gentleman who was in love with them both. He used to bring them their
provision. They died in this bower, and were buried in the Dronoch
Haugh, at the foot of a brae of the same name, and near to the bank of
the river Almond. The burial-place lies about half a mile west from
the present house of Lednoch [now called Lyndoch].’[114]
The major adds: ‘I have removed all the rubbish from this little spot
of classic ground, enclosed it with a wall, planted it round with
flowering shrubs, made up the grave double, and fixed a stone in the
wall, on which are engraved the names of Bessie Bell and Mary Gray.’
It will be found that while the plague raged in London in 1665,
Scotland was free of it; neither is there any notice of the malady
occurring in 1666, either in Lamont’s or Nicol’s Diary, where it could
not have failed to be mentioned if it had occurred. It therefore
seems necessary to place the story of Bessie Bell and Mary Gray under
1645.[115]
The sad fate of the two girls became the subject of a ballad, which
commenced thus:
‘Bessie Bell and Mary Gray,
They were twa bonnie lasses,
They biggit a bower on yon burn brae,
And theekit it ower wi’ rashes.’
The rest has been lost, except the concluding stanza:
‘They wadna lie in Methven kirk-yard,
Amang their gentle kin;
But they wad lie in Dronoch Haugh,
To beek fornent the sin.’[116]
[Sidenote: 1646.
OCT.]
A set of ‘malignants’ intruded themselves into the magistracy of
Glasgow, ‘and at the very same time did the pestilence arrive in the
town.’ Spreull, the town-clerk, with Mr George Porterfield and Mr John
Graham, had to go to Edinburgh to complain of this intrusion before
the Estates. During the winter, while they were absent, the plague
was so severe, that the malignants would fain have been quit of the
magistracy. ‘In February 1648,’ says Spreull, ‘having carried the point
at the parliament, we came home and were reponed; whereupon, though
there were several hundreds of families shut up for the sickness, yet
for twenty days after, there died not so much as one person thereof,
and frae thenceforth it did abate till it evanished.’[118]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1647.
SEP. 17.]
A letter of this date, from James Morphie, tailor in Edinburgh, to
the Earl of Airly, has been preserved, and is in its way a curious
memorial of the past. When found a few years ago in Cortachie Castle,
it contained five pieces of cloth, being, we may presume, those alluded
to by the writer, and all as fresh as on the day they were cut.
[Sidenote: 1647.]
‘RIGHT HONOURABLE LORD--I received your lordship’s letter, and have
tried for the nearest swatches of cloths I could find, conform to the
orders received, and has enclosed them in this letter, with the prices
written by them. As for the Kentish cloths your lordship desired, there
is few or none to be found; but we expect some to be home shortly.
There is only ane swatch of Kentish cloth here, with the price thereof.
Likewise receive the piece that was taken out of the tail of your
lordship’s doublet. Any of thir clothes your lordship pleases, send
for them by the first occasion, or [ere] they be gone. Not troubling
your lordship ony forder, but rests your lordship’s humble and obedient
servant, JAMES MORPHIE. From Edinburgh, the 17 day of September 1647.
[Addressed] For the Right Honourable the Earl of Airly.’
The letter and pieces of cloth were placed in the Arbroath Museum.[119]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1647.]
‘Two years before this, one Captain George Scott came to Inverness, and
built a ship of a prodigious bigness for bulk and burden--never such
a one seen in our north seas. The carpenters he brought with him to
the north, and my Lord Lovat gave him wood--fir and oak--in Dalcattack
Woods. I myself was aboard of her in the Road of Kessock, April 1645,
and many more, to whom it was a wonder. She set sail the day before the
battle of Auldearn; and among other passengers that went in her south
were--Colonel Fraser, and his lady, Christina Baillie; Hugh Fraser,
younger of Clanvacky, and Andrew Fraser in Leys; also John and William
Fraser in Leys. This ship rode at anchor in the river mouth of Nairn,
when the battle of Auldearn was fought in view. Captain Scott enlarged
the ship afterwards, as a frigate, for war, and sailed with her to the
Straits, his brother William with him. William was made a colonel, at
Venice, and his martial achievements in defence of that state against
the Turks may very well admit him to be ranked amongst our worthies.
He became vice-admiral to the Venetian fleet, and the bane and terror
of Mussulman navigators. Whether they had gallies, galloons, or
galliasses, or great war-ships, it was all one to him. He set upon
all alike, saying, the more they were the more he would kill, and the
stronger the rencounter should be, the greater should be his honour,
and the richer his prize. He oftentimes so scourged the Archipelago
of the Mussulmans, that the Ottoman power, and the very gates of
Constantinople, would quake at the report of his victories; and he
did so ferret them out of all the creeks of the Adriatic Gulf, and
so sharply put them to it, that they hardly knew in what part of the
Mediterranean they should best shelter themselves from the fury of his
blows. He died in his bed of a fever, in the Isle of Candy, in 1652. He
was truly the glory of his nation and country, and was honoured, after
his death, with a statue of marble, which I saw, near the Rialto of
Venice, April 1659.’--_Fraser of Wardlaw’s MS., 1666._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1648.
JUNE.]
Amongst those who looked ill upon the expedition which the Duke of
Hamilton was preparing for the relief of the king in England, was his
Grace’s own parish minister at Hamilton, Mr James Naismith. Wodrow
records, as a traditionary story, that, on the Sunday before the
Duke went to England, Mr Naismith preached before his Grace on the
text: ‘Weep ye not for the dead, neither bemoan him: but weep sore
for him that goeth away: for he shall return no more, nor see his
native country,’ _Jer._ xxii. 10. The preacher said that God would
regard neither dukes nor generals, and as sure as the Bible was the
word of God, any who went on in a course of opposition to him, should
not return in peace. ‘On the Monday after, when the duke was leaving
Hamilton, there was a crowd of women looking on. Mr Naismith said:
“Hold him! hold him! for you will never see his face any more.” The
Duke at his death in England,[120] said he would give never so much to
see his own faithful minister, Mr Naismith.’--_Wod. An._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 28.]
The Shorter Catechism recently framed by the Westminster Assembly of
Divines, for the instruction ‘of such as are of weaker capacity,’ and
which has since been in constant and universal use in Scotland, was
this day sanctioned by the General Assembly, sitting in Edinburgh.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT. 4.]
[Sidenote: 1648.]
Oliver Cromwell paid his first visit to Edinburgh. He came hot from
the destruction of the Duke of Hamilton’s semi-royalist Scotch army at
Preston, designing to confer with the heads of the ultra-presbyterian
party for the extinction of that kind of opposition in the northern
part of the island. The Earl of Kirkcudbright and Major-general Holburn
conducted him into the city, where he was lodged very handsomely in
the Earl of Moray’s house in the Canongate; a strong guard _of his
own troops_ was mounted at the gate. ‘The Earl of Moray’s house,’
says Thomas Carlyle, ‘still stands in the Canongate, well known to
the inhabitants there--a solid spacious mansion, which, when all
bright and new two hundred years ago, must have been a very adequate
lodging.’ ‘As soon as he came there, the Chancellor [Loudon], the
Marquis of Argyle, the Earl of Cassillis, the Lord Burleigh, the
Provost of Edinburgh,[121] with many other lords and gentlemen, went
to pay their respects to him; and the next day, the Earl of Cassillis
and Sir Archibald Johnston of Warriston went to visit him on the part
of the Committee of Estates, to know what he had to communicate to
them. Cromwell presented them a writing, whereby he demanded that, in
order to keep Hamilton’s party from being able to rise up again in
Scotland, where they might embroil the two kingdoms, they would be
pleased to order that none of those who had carried arms under his
command, or who had consented to the invasion of England, should have
any public employment in Scotland. The committee granted him that
article.’ Such was the ostensible, and, as far as appears on any good
evidence, the real business between Cromwell and the committee men.
Bishop Guthry adds the vulgar royalist rumour: ‘While Cromwell remained
in the Canongate, those that haunted him most were, besides the Marquis
of Argyle, Loudon the chancellor, the Earl of Lothian, the Lords
Arbuthnot, Elcho, and Burleigh; and of ministers, Mr David Dickson,
Mr Robert Blair, and Mr James Guthrie. What passed among them came
not to be known infallibly; but it was talked very loud, that he did
communicate to them his design in reference to the king, and had their
assent thereto.’
Cromwell was only three days in Edinburgh on this occasion. On
Saturday, all business being adjusted, ‘“when we were about to come
away, several coaches were sent to bring up the lieutenant-general, the
Earl of Leven [governor of the Castle and Scotch commander-in-chief],
with Sir Arthur Haselrig, and the rest of the officers, to Edinburgh
Castle; where was provided a very sumptuous banquet [old Leven doing
the honours], my Lord Marquis of Argyle and divers other lords
being present to grace the entertainment. At our departure, many
pieces of ordnance and a volley of small shot was given us from the
Castle; and some lords convoying us out of the city, we were parted.”
The lord provost had defrayed us all the while in the handsomest
manner.’--_Carlyle._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1648.]
To the fall of this year is to be traced the origin of the term
_Whig_, as applicable to a well-known party in the state. Burnet, who
was likely to know the facts well, makes the following statement:
‘The south-west counties of Scotland have seldom corn enough to serve
them round the year; and the northern parts producing more than they
need, those in the west come in the summer to buy at Leith the stores
that come from the north. From a word Whiggan, used in driving their
horses, all that drove were called the _Whiggamores_, and, shorter, the
_Whigs_.... After the news came down of Duke Hamilton’s defeat, the
ministers animated their people to rise and march to Edinburgh; and
they came up marching on the head of their parishes, with an unheard-of
fury, praying and preaching all the way as they came. The Marquis of
Argyle and his party came and headed them, they being about 6000. This
was called the Whiggamores’ Inroad [strictly the _Whigs’ Raid_]; and
ever after that, all that opposed the court came in contempt to be
called Whigs.’
We find John Nicoll, the diarist, in 1666, speaking of the west-country
Presbyterians as ‘commonly called the Whigs,’ implying that the term
was new. The sliding of the appellation from these obscure people to
the party of the opposition in London a few years later, is indicated
by Daniel Defoe as occurring immediately after the affair of Bothwell
Bridge in 1679. The Duke of Monmouth then returning from his command in
Scotland, instead of thanks for his good service, found himself under
blame for using the insurgents too mercifully. ‘And Lauderdale told
Charles, with an oath, that the Duke had been so civil to the Whigs,
because he was himself a Whig in his heart. This made it a court-word;
and in a little while, all the friends and followers of the Duke began
to be called _Whigs_.’[122]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1648.]
The time of the _Whigs’ Raid_, and from that to the execution of
Montrose (May 1650), may be considered as that of an entire supremacy
of the religious or rather ecclesiastical system for which the majority
of the nation had been struggling for several years. The view of it
taken by the royalists is sketched in strong terms by the writers on
their side. ‘The kingdom groaned under the most cruel tyranny that
ever scourged and afflicted the sons of men. The jails were crammed
full of innocent people; the scaffolds daily smoked with the blood of
our best patriots. The bones of the dead were dug out of their graves,
and their living friends were compelled to ransom them at exorbitant
sums. Such as they were pleased to call Malignants were taxed and
pillaged at discretion. The Committee of the Kirk sat at the helm, and
they were supported by a small number of fanatical persons and others
who called themselves the Committee of Estates, but were truly nothing
else but the barbarous executioners of their wrath and vengeance. Nor
were they ill satisfied with their office, on account of the profits
it brought them by fines, sequestrations, and forfeitures, besides
the other opportunities it gave them of amassing riches. Every parish
had a tyrant, who made the greatest lord in his district stoop to his
authority. The kirk was the place where he kept his court; the pulpit,
his throne, or tribunal, from whence he issued his terrible decrees;
and twelve or fourteen sour enthusiasts, under the title of elders,
composed his council. If any, of what quality soever, had the assurance
to disobey his edicts, the dreadful sentence of excommunication
was immediately thundered out against him, his goods and chattels
confiscated and seized, and he himself being looked upon as actually
in the possession of the devil, and irretrievably doomed to eternal
perdition, all that conversed with him were in no better esteem.’
The moderates involved in the late expedition of Duke Hamilton for the
king, were now brought to punishment. ‘They compelled every one that
escaped to sit several Sundays in sackcloth before them, mounted, as a
spectacle of reproach and infamy, upon the stool of repentance in view
of “the elect,” and to undergo such other penance as they were pleased
to impose.’[123]
Amongst the penitents was the Chancellor Earl of Loudon, of whom it was
scarcely to have been expected that he should join in the Engagement.
His submission is alleged by Burnet to have been enforced by his wife,
a high Covenanter and an heiress, who threatened him with a process
for conjugal unfaithfulness, ‘in which she could have had very copious
proofs.’ So he made a public repentance in the church of Edinburgh,
‘with many tears confessing his weakness in yielding to the temptation
of what had a show of honour and loyalty.’
INTERREGNUM: 1649-1660.
The execution of the king, among its other bad effects, put enmity
between the ruling powers of Scotland and England. A set of Scottish
commissioners protested against it before the English parliament--were
slighted, and turned out of the country under a guard. The leaders at
Edinburgh, notwithstanding their condemnation of the late ‘Engagement,’
upheld monarchy in principle; and therefore, while England was
declaring itself a commonwealth or republic, Scotland proclaimed the
late king’s son--a youth of nineteen, living in exile--as Charles II.,
King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland. At the same time, the Scots
were determined not to receive the young king as their sovereign, or
to befriend him in any way, until he should have accepted that Solemn
League and Covenant, which proclaimed a crusade against all doctrine
inconsistent with pure Presbyterianism.
With this difference as to a principle, Scotland was, in 1649 and
the early part of 1650, as purely a republic as England. The state
authority rested, as it had practically done for years past, in a
standing Committee of Estates, in which the Marquis of Argyle, the
Chancellor Earl of Loudon, and Sir Archibald Johnston of Warriston,
were the most prominent figures. Religion, however, being the chief
matter of concernment in those days, it naturally came about that a
similar standing committee, called the Commission of the Kirk, had a
great influence in public affairs. Under the excitement produced by the
struggle against the late king, these ruling parties, as well as the
people at large, had contracted an exclusive and overweening attachment
to Presbyterianism and its objects, as expressed in the Solemn League,
insomuch that no person could be allowed to remain at peace without
signing that document; while to give it adherence and support was to
manifest the highest of virtues, or rather, to do that which was held
as a summary of all virtue. The racking concentration of attention
on one subject during a long course of years, to the neglect of all
other healthy objects--the constant temptation to dissimulation under
a constraint which left no choice between avowed profession and moral
and legal outlawry--the effects of an ultra-austere code of morals,
which allowed no excuse for natural impulses--the confounding effect of
a system which subordinated all the really weighty matters of the law
to the mechanical fact of a signature--produced results on the general
surface of society of a kind by no means pleasant to contemplate.
There was throughout a sad want of the milder graces of Christianity.
The miraculous workings of divine vengeance against the opponents
of the children of Israel, and against apostates and idolaters
among themselves, were dwelt on in every pulpit and in numberless
publications, with constant application to those who went against the
Covenanted work. The breathings of divine love in the sermon on the
mount, and in the whole life of Jesus, were little, if ever, heard of.
One thing must clearly be admitted in regard to the conduct of the
Scots following upon the death of Charles I., that it was marked by
a consistency speaking much more of sincerity than of wisdom. Though
conscious that they could not command a sixth part of the force which
England could muster--though the _Engagement_ had shewn what it was
to meet the veterans of Edgehill and Naseby in the field--they did
not scruple to do that which was sure to incur a war with the young
republic, because so they wrought out the plan of the Covenant, to
which they had sworn, and so did they believe they would advance the
glory of God.
Commissioners sent to the young king at the Hague negotiated for his
coming to Scotland as their Covenanted monarch. He would fain have
evaded the condition; but on that point no concession could be made.
He, therefore, while the treaty was going on, was induced to sanction a
descent upon Scotland, which Montrose had planned, with a view to raise
the royalists. In the spring of 1650, the marquis, furnished with a
royal commission, landed in Orkney, with a handful of German soldiers
and some arms and ammunition. Advancing through Ross-shire with about
fifteen hundred men, he utterly failed to meet the support which he
expected. A body of troops sent against him under Colonel Strachan,
fell upon his little army in Strathoikel, and quickly routed it. The
unfortunate commander fled into Assynt--was given up by a treacherous
friend, and, being then brought to Edinburgh, was there hanged as ‘an
excommunicat traitor’ (May 21, 1650).
Seeing no better course now open to him for the recovery of his
kingdoms, Charles agreed that, on coming into Scotland, he should sign
the Covenant. The Scotch leaders, with their knowledge of his concern
in Montrose’s expedition, should have seen that he could be no sincere
adherent of that bond. They should have scrupled to accept such a
signature, or even to ask it. But it was just one of the unfortunate
consequences of the worship that had come to be paid to this document,
that adherences to it were demanded, nay, forced, without any regard to
conscientious objections, and accepted in the face of the most glaring
proofs that it was secretly protested against and hated, and would on
the first opportunity be thrown aside. Accordingly, a young prince,
wholly a man of pleasure, is now seen giving a false vow to a body of
earnest religious men, who had every reason to know what the votary
felt, meant, and Mould ultimately do in the case. Charles landed at
the mouth of the Spey, and was received with all outward appearances
of respect by the Scottish leaders and the chief divines, while they
trusted him with no real power. He visited Aberdeen, Perth, and
Stirling, everywhere a mere puppet, and much at a loss, it is said, to
endure the long sermons to which his situation compelled him to listen.
Cromwell, fresh from the reduction of Ireland, came into Scotland with
an army in July, to put down this movement. A large force was prepared
by the Scots, and placed in front of Edinburgh. It might have been
larger, if the leaders, in their extreme zeal for purity of religion,
had not deemed it proper to reject all who were yet unreconciled to
the church for their concern in the Engagement, as well as all pure
royalists. Cromwell, after all, found the campaign less simple than
he anticipated. Distressed by want of provisions and by sickness, he
was even inclined to withdraw along the east coast. But the Scottish
army posted on the Doon Hill, near Dunbar, made such a movement
impossible. In these circumstances, he must soon have been brought to
a capitulation. But the imprudence of the Scottish leaders, in forcing
General Leslie to attack the English, proved his salvation. He gained
a complete victory (September 3), killing three thousand, and taking
several thousand prisoners, many of whom were sent to the plantations
as slaves. Edinburgh and its Castle fell into his hands, along with
most of the southern provinces.
The Scottish government gathered the remains of its strength at
Stirling, and was soon able again to present a respectable front
to Cromwell, though only by admitting to its leaguer those troops,
Engagers and royalists, who had formerly been rejected. The
determination of the leaders was marked by a formal crowning of the
king at Scone (January 1, 1651), the Marquis of Argyle putting the
emblem of sovereignty on the royal head. By this time, the eyes of
many had been opened to the false position in which the country lay
with respect to their former associates of England, and some began to
fraternise with Cromwell. A division took place in the church regarding
the king, some adhering to certain _resolutions_ in his favour, others
protesting against them; hence respectively called _Resolutioners_
and _Protesters_. From this time, the latter party, called also
_Remonstrants_, embracing the great bulk of those who took the most
scrupulous views regarding the Covenanted work, proved a sore thorn in
the side of the more moderate party, who for the meantime had gained
an ascendency. After a long inactivity, Cromwell, in July 1651, made
a movement to Perth, so as to threaten the Scottish army in rear, but
left a way open into England. At the urgency of the king, who hoped
for assistance in the south, the Scots marched across the west border,
and advanced through Lancashire, hotly followed by Cromwell. In a
well-contested and bloody action at Worcester (September 3, 1651), the
Scottish army was utterly routed; and Charles with difficulty escaped
abroad, Scotland had now expended nearly the whole of her military
strength in a vain endeavour to support her ecclesiastical system, in
connection with a limited monarchy, against the English commonwealth.
Her towns and principal places of strength fell into the hands of the
English troops. The Committee of Estates were surprised and taken
prisoners at a place called Alyth, on the skirts of the Grampians.
The General Assembly was dispersed, and no church-courts above synods
were allowed to meet. Henceforth, the Resolutioners and Remonstrants,
the moderate majority and furious minority of the church, were allowed
to gnaw at and tear each other to pieces, with little result but
that of making many calm men despair of peace under such a mode of
church-government. With little ceremony, the country was declared to
be united with England. In 1653, the remnants of the party friendly
to royalty drew together in the Highlands under the Earl of Glencairn
and Lord Kenmure, and for upwards of a year, under these nobles, and
latterly under General Middleton, with the assistance of certain
clans, they were able to maintain their ground. At length, even this
guerrilla opposition ceased. Eight thousand English troops and four
forts--at Ayr, Leith, Perth, and Inverness--proved sufficient to keep
our ancient kingdom in subjection. The essentially aggressive spirit
of the Solemn League was revenged by nine years of humiliation, during
which all classes seem to have suffered, but especially the nobles, who
were ground to the dust by heavy fines. It is admitted, nevertheless,
that the country was benefited by the keeping down of the religious
factions, as well as by the impartiality of a corps of English judges,
who superseded the native bench.
During the greater part of this time, Cromwell was the undisputed ruler
of Scotland, as well as of England and Ireland. At length, after his
death in 1658, confusion and difficulty were renewed, and to these an
effectual stop was not put till, by the happy intervention of General
Monk, Charles II. was restored as king (May 1660).
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1649.]
[Sidenote: 1649.]
In the early part of this year, the Scottish Estates are found engaged
in various objects of apparently a contradictory character. They were
eager, through their commissioners in London, to save the king’s life;
so much so that, on some one proposing that they should wait over three
or four days for a general fast, the idea was overruled in favour of
the immediate employment of worldly means. They were at the same time
bringing to punishment, or scarcely less penal repentance, thousands
of people who had taken arms for the king in the preceding year. After
Charles I. was no more, they sat on under the sanction of the name of
‘our sovereign lord Charles II.,’ and yet if that sovereign lord had
ventured to set his foot on Scottish soil, it is most probable that he
would have been immediately made a prisoner and treated as a dangerous
person. The truth is, the powers now in the ascendant were only
monarchists in subordination to a superior principle, which had in view
the establishment of a perfect Presbyterian church, as meditated in
the Solemn League and Covenant. While they so far favoured Charles I.,
then, as not to desire his death, they regarded as wholly mischievous
all who had befriended or proposed to befriend him or his son on other
terms than an adherence to the Covenant.
[Sidenote: 1649.]
The Highlanders were not sensible of these refining distinctions.
They rose in a considerable body in February under Thomas Mackenzie
of Pluscardine, a brother of the Earl of Seaforth; professing only a
desire to restore the king. This little band took Inverness, but was
soon put down. The only effect was, that the ruling powers now wreaked
vengeance on their old opponent, the Marquis of Huntly, who had been
a pining prisoner in Edinburgh Castle for sixteen months, and was not
likely to have long troubled them, since he was manifestly dying of a
dysentery. We have seen this noble entering life as Master of the king
of France’s Scottish guard. A great prince he was in the north. Through
the whole civil war, he had been constant to the king as simply the
king, but had not always acted with consummate prudence. Now comes at
length an evil day for the House of Gordon, when the wrath accumulated
against it for its seventy years’ opposition to a ‘truth’ which it
could never appreciate, must be discharged. It might have been expected
that the Marquis of Argyle, who was Huntly’s brother-in-law, and to
appearance all-powerful, would interfere to save him. To that end,
his sister, the Marchioness of Douglas, and his three daughters--the
Lady Drummond, the Lady Seton, and the Countess of Haddington, went
and threw themselves on their bended knees before Macaleinmore. He
declined to meddle with what the parliament had decreed, the truth
being, that no lay power was then able to stand against an object on
which the leading clergy had set their hearts. The poor ladies pleaded
even to have a respite of a few days, hoping that nature would save
their brother and parent a public and cruel death; but even this boon
could not be obtained. On the 22d of March, the marquis is brought down
from his airy prison, along the High Street of Edinburgh, clad in
the deepest mourning, very weak in body, we are told, but cheerful in
spirit, as not wishing to live after his master was gone, and placed on
a scaffold at the Cross, where the Maiden stands prepared to receive
him in her dismal embraces. He writes a few lines to his children, and
speaks a few sentences to the multitude. The gleaming axe descends, and
the noble of a score of illustrious titles is no more.[124]
After all, the Highlanders were not disposed to be at peace. One
Sunday in May, about fifteen hundred Mackenzies and Mackays came over
the Kessock Ferry to Inverness, while the people were at church,
and proceeded to great insolencies. ‘Instead of bells to ring in to
service,’ says a clergyman who was present, ‘I saw and heard no other
than the noise of pipes, drums, pots, pans, kettles, and spits in
the streets, to provide them with victuals in every house. In their
quarters the rude rascality would eat no meat at their tables, until
the landlord laid down a shilling Scots upon each trencher, terming
this _argiod cagainn_, or chewing money, which every soldier got, so
insolent were they.’ This doughty band was in a few days half cut
to pieces by two troops of horse under Colonels Strachan and Kerr,
and about a thousand of them came back as prisoners to Inverness,
where, ‘those men who, in their former march, would hardly eat their
meat without money, are now begging food, and, like dogs, lap the
water which was brought them in tubs and other vessels in the open
streets.’[125] Such are amongst the scenes proper to a time of civil
broil.
The clergy were sensible of the benighted state of the Highlands, and
longed to see the Gael brought to a sense of the beauty of a pure
faith. As one small effort towards the object, the General Assembly
ordained a collection to be made for the purpose of keeping forty
Highland boys at school. It appears, however, that very little was
efficiently done for the education of youth in the Highlands, till
fully a century later. Dr Shaw, in his _History of the Province of
Moray_, published in 1775, makes the remarkable declaration: ‘I well
remember when from Speymouth (through Strathspey, Badenoch, and
Lochaber) to Lorn _there was but one school_--viz., at Ruthven in
Badenoch; and it was much to find, in a parish, three persons that
could read and write.’
[Sidenote: 1649.]
A perfect accord reigned between the clergy and the Estates, the
latter ratifying whatever the former required. A seasonable
testimony against the sins and dangers of the times being issued
by the church-commission, the Estates passed an act responding to
it, ‘heartily concurring in the grounds thereof against toleration
and the present proceedings of the Sectaries in England;’ declaring
for ‘one King, one Covenant, one Religion;’ promising all strenuous
endeavour for ‘the settling truth and peace in these kingdoms upon
the propositions so often agreed to’--that is, by the forcible
putting down of every profession in England and Ireland but that of
pure Presbyterianism. At the request of the church, lay patronages
were abolished, and acts were passed imposing capital punishment on
blasphemy, the worship of false gods, and incest. The church had
for some time been under great concern about ‘the growth of the
sins of witchcraft, charming, and consulting,’ and it now appointed
a conference of ministers, lawyers, and physicians, ‘to consider
seriously of that matter, and advise therein amongst themselves,’ and
afterwards report. The Estates, fully entering into these views, passed
an act not expressly against witchcraft, for that had been done, as we
have seen, so long ago as Queen Mary’s days, but to meet the fact that
there are people who consult devils and familiar spirits, thinking to
escape punishment because consulters of spirits are not mentioned in
the former act. For this reason, the parliament enacted the punishment
of death to ‘consulters,’ at the same time ratifying ‘all former acts
against witches, sorcerers, necromancers, and consulters with them, in
the whole heads, articles, and clauses thereof.’[126]
The perfect simplicity and earnestness of all this is, in the
conception of the author, as certain as its being obviously short of
the better wisdom and better temper of our own time. The evil effects
of the pursuit of rigorous extremes in state policy, in religious
doctrine, and in ecclesiastical systems, had not then been experienced.
No one yet dreamed of there being any harm in intolerance, but, on
the contrary, it seemed a sin and a scandal to omit any means which
promised to compel the wandering to come in. As to witchcraft and
consulting, which we have learned to regard as imaginary offences, it
was enough for the jurist of the seventeenth century that these _words_
were entered in the Levitical law as descriptive of crimes deserving
punishment.
[Sidenote: 1649.]
One direction in which the earnestness of the time more especially
projected itself, was towards an absolute exclusion of all shortcoming
in religion, or even in what might be called church politics. Not only
did an act of parliament thrust out of offices and places of trust all
who had been in the slightest degree concerned in the Engagement--who
must have been a large portion of the middle and upper classes of lay
society--but the church-courts were equally unsparing of any clergy
who had touched the unclean thing, or proved at all slack in faith
and zeal. As a specimen--In September, a ‘visitation’ sat at the
appointment of the General Assembly in the synodal province of Angus
and Mearns, under the moderatorship of Mr Andrew Cant. It called
several ministers of twenty years’ standing before it to preach, that
there might be trial of doctrine and efficiency. In all, eighteen
ministers were deposed, on the ground of insufficiency, ‘silence
during the time of the late Engagement,’ ‘famishing of congregations,’
and corruption of life or doctrine.--_Lam._ This was only one of
‘diverse commissions’ which had gone east, west, north, and south,
as Robert Baillie expresses it, and ‘deposed many ministers, to the
pity and grief of my heart; for sundry of them might have been, for
more advantage every way, with a rebuke, keeped in their places; _but
there was few durst profess so much_.’ In short, as invariably happens
in revolutions and times of danger, an institution professedly of a
popular cast was ruled by this Mr Cant and two or three of his fellows,
with as uncontrolled a power as usually belongs to institutions of an
avowedly despotic character; and, doubtless, unavoidably so. It is
at the same time evident that large numbers of individuals could not
thus be made to suffer for merely sentimental offences, without some
perilous consequences. It only afforded too good a precedent, as well
as excuse, for retributory acts of the same kind after a reaction had
set in. It is clear that the throwing of so many people out of their
ordinary means of livelihood must have added not a little to the
distresses of a time which, from natural as well as political causes,
was one of general suffering.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: FEB.]
[Sidenote: 1649.]
Among the persons of some figure who had taken part in the Engagement,
and were consequently liable to punishment at the hands of the now
triumphant Whiggamores, was Mr Robert Farquhar, a rich Aberdeen
merchant (provost of the city), who had at an earlier period been a
most serviceable friend to the Covenanting cause, in as far as he
helped it with large sums of money. In 1640 and 1641, he had advanced
to the leaders ‘far more than he was worth:’ they ordered him to
receive £4000 of the ‘brotherly assistance’ money paid by the English
parliament to the Scots at the close of the first troubles; and this
sum he brought down to Burntisland by sea, at great hazard from
pirates; when no sooner had he arrived, than the Covenanting leaders
forcibly borrowed the money again from him to supply the urgent
necessities of the state. At the end of the second troubles in 1647,
the debt of the state to Robert Farquhar was £133,132 Scots; and the
parliament passed an act appointing him to receive, as to account,
£5000 sterling of the second instalment of £200,000, then to be paid by
the English parliament to the kingdom of Scotland. Two years, however,
passed on, without anything being realised, and by accumulation of
interest, the debt had reached the enormous sum of £180,859 Scots, so
that Farquhar was much distressed in his affairs.
[Sidenote: 1649.]
We can readily imagine the feelings of a government creditor to so
large an amount, who had done something that usually provoked _fines_
on the part of that government, on his receiving a summons to come
to Edinburgh. He prepared to obey with fear and trembling; but the
extraordinary sagacity attributed to the citizens of Aberdeen did not
desert him. Near by, lived Mr Andrew Cant, the minister of his native
city, whom he knew to be influential with the Committees ruling in
Edinburgh. On the Sunday evening preceding the Monday morning on which
he was to take horse for the south, he caused his wife to prepare a
good supper, to which he proceeded to invite Mr Cant, for, as has
been already intimated, Sunday-evening entertainments were among the
domestic institutions of the age. The remainder of the story may be
given in the words of the contemporary narrator. Mr Andrew, he says,
‘refuses to come once, twice; at last Mr Robert resolves with himself
to have him at any rate, and forthwith goes to his house himself and
very earnestly, in submissive and humble terms, entreats him to let
him be honoured with his company at supper. The minister refuses, in
respect of the coldness of the night. He still urges him to go, and he
should find ane sure antidote for any cold. At last, being overcome by
Mr Robert’s importunity, he goes home with him--all this time it is
observable how he called him no other but still Mr Robert--and being
set by the fire, and made very welcome, Mr Robert goes to his closet,
and brings to the hall a gown of black velvet, lined with martricks,
and would have Mr Andrew put it on, which, with small entreaty, he
did. (Thereafter, in all his discourses, he calls him either provost
or commissary, and not Mr Robert.) So, having supped, and made a
plentiful meal, and being again set by the fire, Mr Robert asks the
minister if he had any service to command to Edinburgh, for he was
cited to appear there, before the parliament, to make his accounts, and
therefore besought Mr Andrew that he would recommend him to some of
his most confident friends; which he promised to do. At last, bedtime
drawing near, Mr Andrew rises to begone, and would have casten off the
gown; but Mr Robert entreated him not to do so, nor wrong him that far,
in respect he had brought him from his own warm house, in so cold and
rigid a night, to partake of so homely fare, for no other end but to
bestow that chamber-gown upon him, as befitting his age and gravity....
Such as it was, he humbly entreated him to accept of it, as an
assurance and token of his love and affection to him; which Mr Andrew
did without more ceremonies. So Mr Robert did accompany him home, with
his gown on his shoulders, and at parting Mr Andrew told him “he should
not do weel to go without his letters.” He said he would not. To-morrow
he gets his letters, one to Argyle, another to Loudon, and the third
to the Register Warriston, with two to some ministers, which made him
welcome to Edinburgh, and afterwards to dance about that fire which,
as he feared, should, if not burned him, at least scalded him very
sore.’[127]
On the 1st of August, the Estates passed an act acknowledging
Farquhar’s enormous debt, and arranging for its reduction by the
payment to him of the third of all the fines imposed on delinquents
north of the Tay; so that, instead of having his own feathers plucked,
he was invested with a power of plucking others. In the subsequent
year, he received the honour of knighthood from Charles II.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1649.]
It is worthy of notice that a few wealthy merchants like this Mr Robert
Farquhar (another of great note was Sir William Dick of Edinburgh,
afterwards to be noticed) had proved the principal means of fitting
out the Covenanting troops on several occasions. The register of
parliament is swelled at this time with their claims, and the efforts
of the government to give them satisfaction. The meagre Excise revenue,
which never perhaps reached thirty thousand pounds, was pledged and
forestalled to the teeth. One other resource much looked to was that
of the fines imposed on gentlemen who had shewn disinclination to the
good cause. It must be observed, that to have failed to subscribe any
sort of declaration of opinion that was required, to have, above all,
refused a signature to the Covenant, even to dally under a summons to
appear before one of the revolutionary committees, inferred a severe
pecuniary exaction. Thus the war was made in some degree to support
itself, but not the less of course to the general impoverishment of the
country.
[Sidenote: JULY 18.]
As an illustrative case--exhibiting this oppressive mulcting system,
and that general interference with personal liberty which the
revolutionary government (by the unavoidable necessity, we may admit,
of its position) was accustomed to visit upon its subjects, when these
were in any degree slack of obedience--we may mention the case of
James Farquharson of Inverey, in Aberdeenshire; premising that the
statement is his own in a petition to the Estates. Having been summoned
by the Committee of Estates in May 1647, but not duly receiving the
notice, he failed of course to attend, and was consequently punished
with a fine of £4000 [Scots?]. The exaction of this fine was assigned
to Forbes, Laird of Leslie, probably in recompense of services or
repayment of public debt; and Forbes immediately became the prosecutor
of Farquharson at law. It was in vain that Farquharson, when apprised
of his liability, offered to stand a trial for any offence laid to his
charge. In the spring of 1649, he, being a man of seventy-three years
of age, was dragged from his house, his wife and young children, to
Edinburgh, where probably this Deeside baron had never been in his
life. There he was clapped up in the Tolbooth, and kept for twelve
weeks, till, afraid to perish in so horrible a den, and sensible of
the hard condition of his family at home, he at length succeeded in
attracting some charitable attention from the Estates. It was only,
after all, on his agreeing with the Laird of Leslie for a composition
of his fine, that this gentleman, who boldly challenged any trial, but
was never tried, could obtain his liberty.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE.]
[Sidenote: 1649.]
One Alexander Stewart, calling himself professor of physic,[128]
travelled about the country, picking up a scanty livelihood by the
exercise of his art, but also beholden in part for his subsistence
to the kindness of friends. He had lived in this way twenty years,
without any fixed habitation of his own, and it chanced in the summer
of this year that he had to travel from the house of his brother,
the minister of Rothesay, to St Johnston, ‘hoping to have had some
residence there in the exercise of his calling,’ when he was seized
as ‘an intelligencer and seminary priest,’ carried to Edinburgh, and
imprisoned in the Tolbooth. He was under the necessity of petitioning
the Estates, setting forth his innocency of all offence against kirk
or state, and shewing that he had already cleared himself before the
presbytery of St Johnston, ‘who could find nothing of that kind against
him;’ yet he was suffered to lie ‘miserably in prison, destitute of all
help.’ The Estates, having apparently ascertained that a mistake had
been made in the seizure of this poor mediciner, ordered his liberation.
* * * * *
This was a year of extreme dearth. Wheat was at seventeen pounds Scots
per boll; oats, twelve pounds; and other grains in proportion. Owing,
also, to the coldness and dryness of the spring, the herbage and hay
proved deficient, and cheese and butter consequently attained high
prices--the former three, and the latter six pounds per stone. ‘In
the beginning of June, the parliament licensed Englishmen to buy and
transport oxen, kine, sheep of all sorts, likewise horses and colts;
which was one of the most hurtful acts could be made to ruin Scotland,
and advance the designs of the enemies thereof; bestial of all sorts
being at so high a rate these four years past in this country, and
flesh in the common markets scarce buyable but at very exorbitant
rates; the like has not been seen in this kingdom heretofore since it
was a nation.’--_Bal._
The luxuries of life were correspondingly dear at this time: the best
ale, 3s. 4d. (3-1/3d. sterling); sack wine, 36s.; and French wine, 16s.
per pint.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG.]
‘About Lammas and afterwards, in many parts of this kingdom, both among
bear and oats, there were seen a great number of creeping things--which
was not ordinar--which remained in the head of the stalk of corn, at
the root of the pickle.’--_Lam._
* * * * *
‘About Lammas ... there was a star seen by many people of Edinburgh,
betwixt twelve and two hours of the day, even when the sun shined most
bright; which was taken for a comet, and a forerunner of the troubles
that followed.’--_C. P. H._
[Sidenote: 1649.]
No such comet is noted by astronomers, the only two in the first
half of the seventeenth century being in 1607 and 1618. It was
probably a star of high magnitude, or planet rendered visible by some
extraordinary state of the atmosphere.
* * * * *
The anxiety about witchcraft manifested by the General Assembly and
parliament this year, was not allowed to expend itself in empty words.
‘This summer,’ says Lamont in his _Diary_, ‘there was very many witches
taken and brunt in several parts of this kingdom, as in Lothian and
Fife.’ The register of the Committee of Estates shews no fewer than
five several commissions issued on the 4th, and two on the 6th of
December, for the trial of witches in various parts of the country.
The procedure, as far as revealed to us, seems to have been this: The
suspected were first taken in hand by the minister and his session
or consistory, with a view to obtain proof or extort confession.
Generally, the poor wretches--moved partly by their own religious
feelings--confessed; then a commission was sought for and granted to
certain gentlemen of the district, for the trial of the accused. The
trial seems to have been little more than a form, for condemnation and
execution almost invariably followed.
Margaret Henderson, ‘Lady Pittathrow,’ described as sister to the Laird
of Fordel, and residing in Inverkeithing, was delated by sundry persons
who had lately suffered for witchcraft, ‘to be ane witch, and that she
has keepit several meetings and abominable society with the devil.’ So
says a grave petition of the General Assembly to parliament (July 19).
Fearing punishment, she withdrew to the city of Edinburgh, and there
lurked ‘till it pleasit the Almighty God to dispose in His providence
that she is now apprehendit and put in firmance in the Tolbooth.’ The
Assembly now craving her trial, so that ‘this land and city may be free
of her, and justice done upon her,’ the Estates were pleased to issue a
command to Mr Thomas Nicholson, his majesty’s advocate, to proceed with
her arraignment before the justice-general; and if she be guilty of the
said crime, ‘to convict and condemn her, pronounce sentence of death
against, cause strangle her, and burn her body, and do every requisite
in sic cases.’ The diarist Lamont gives us the conclusion of the case.
‘After remaining in prison for a time, [she] being in health at night,
was upon the morning found dead. It was thought and spoken by many that
she wronged herself, either by strangling or poison; but we leave that
to the judgment of the great day.’
[Sidenote: 1649.]
There was a kind of infection in witchcraft, for one unhappy victim
was sure to accuse others, albeit with no more justice than what there
was in the charge against herself. It was probably in consequence
of such ‘delations’ on the part of Lady Pittathrow that we find the
presbytery of Dunfermline and minister of Inverkeithing giving in a
supplication to parliament (July 31, 1649), shewing that there had been
‘declarations of witchcraft against the wives of the magistrates and
other persons of the burgh of Inverkeithing, whom the said magistrates
refused to apprehend.’ The presbytery had visited the burgh, and
‘dealt with the magistrates and town-council to give the full power
and commission to certain honest men of the town, to apprehend, put
in firmance, and tak trial of such persons as they should allow and
judge worthy to be apprehendit and tried, as said is.’ The surprise
of these worthy bailies on being told that the wives of their own
bosoms were witches, would have been not a little amusing to a man
of the nineteenth century, could he have been present to witness it.
We are told that they at first seemed to see the reasonableness of
deputing their ordinary power to a set of ‘honest men’ for the trial
of their suspected helpmates; but when their ghostly visitors had
left them, they were brought to view things in a different light. The
magistrates now ‘slights that work, and refuses to give the power in
manner foresaid.’ For this reason it had become necessary to apply
to parliament for a commission to the ‘honest men’ to do the duty
of the magistrates, and this was readily granted. What came of the
magistrates’ wives under this perilous accusation, does not appear.[129]
[Sidenote: 1649.]
In August, a poor woman, named Bessie Graham, living in Kilwinning,
was apprehended and thrown into prison, for some threatening words she
had used in drink against a neighbour woman who had since died. During
a confinement of thirteen weeks, she was visited by the minister, Mr
James Fergusson, who, it was thought, might ascertain whether she was a
witch or not. He found her obdurate in non-confession, and was greatly
inclined to think her innocent. One Alexander Bogue, ‘skilled in
searching the mark,’ came to examine her person, and finding a spot in
the middle of her back, thrust in a pin, which neither inflicted pain
nor drew blood. Still the minister hesitated to believe her guilty. He
entered on a course of prayers for divine direction. Soon after, going
one evening to the prison with his bedral, Alexander Simpson, he made
a strenuous attempt to induce Bessie to confess, but without effect.
To pursue his own narrative: ‘When I came to the stair-head, I resolved
to halt a little to hear what she would say. Within a very short space,
she begins to discourse, as if it had been to somebody with her. Her
voice was so low, that I could not understand what she said, except
one sentence, whereby I perceived she was speaking of somewhat I had
been challenging her of and she had denied.... After a little while, I
heard another voice speaking and whispering as it were conferring with
her, which presently I apprehended to be the foul fiend’s voice....
She, having kept silence a time, began to speak again; and before she
had well ended, the other voice speaketh as it were a long sentence,
which, though I understood not what it was, yet it was so low and
ghostly, that I was certainly persuaded that it was another voice than
hers. Besides, her accent and manner of speaking was as if she had
been speaking to some other; and that other voice, to the best of my
remembrance, did begin before she had ended, so that two voices were to
be heard at once.
‘By this time fear took hold on Alexander Simpson, being hindmost in
the stair, and thereby he cries out. I did exhort him with a loud voice
not to fear; and we came all of us down the stair, blessing God that
had given me such a clearance in the business.’
This poor woman, on a subsequent conference with Mr Fergusson,
confessed all she was accused of, except the imputed witchcraft. She
said: ‘She knew she would die, and desired not to live; and she thought
we would be free before God of her blood, because that, however she was
free, yet there were so many things deponed against her, that it was
hard for us to think otherwise of her than we did; yet she knew well
enough her own innocence.’ Bessie was soon after tried, condemned, and
executed, denying her guilt to the last.[130]
[Sidenote: 1649.]
In the ensuing month, Agnes Gourlay was examined by the kirk-session
of Humbie, concerning some practices of hers for charming the milk of
kine. It was alleged that Anna Simpson, servant to Robert Hepburn of
Keith, having found fault with the milk she drew from her master’s
cows, Agnes told her of a way to remedy the evil, and soon after came
and put it in practice. Throwing a small quantity of the milk into the
_grupe_ or sewer of the cow-house, she called out: ‘God betak us to!
May be, they are under the earth that have as much need of it, as they
that are above the earth!’ after which she put wheat bread and salt
into the cows’ ears. Agnes by and by confessed that she had so done,
and was ordained to make public repentance in sackcloth.[131]
* * * * *
Lord Linton, son of the Earl of Traquair, married Henrietta Gordon,
daughter of the lately executed Marquis of Huntly, and relict of George
Lord Seton; she being an excommunicated papist. ‘The minister of
Dawick, being an old man, did marry thir foresaid persons privately,
without proclamation of their banns, according to the custom; for
which, shortly after, he was excommunicate, his church declared vacant,
and he by the state banished.’--_Lam._ Lord Linton was fined in £5000
Scots, and likewise excommunicated and imprisoned.--_Nic._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 18.]
[Sidenote: 1649.]
The reader will remember the strenuous opposition of John Mean,
merchant in Edinburgh, to the Episcopal innovations, and his sufferings
in that cause; likewise the strong suspicion entertained that it
was his wife who discharged her stool at the bishop’s head when the
Service-book was introduced into St Giles’s in July 1637. It was
natural that John, who was a man of good account in the world, as
well as a most earnest Presbyterian, should have flourished under the
present order of things. We therefore hear without surprise that the
Post in Edinburgh--the germ of a most important institution--was now
under the care of John Mean. It seems to have been confined as yet to
the transmission of letters between London and Edinburgh. At the date
noted, he addressed a petition to the Committee of Estates, regarding
‘his great charges and expenses in attending the Letter-office in
this city, and his allowance therefor.’ He states that ‘the benefit
arising by the letters sent from this to London and coming from thence
hither, by the ordinary post, will amount to four hundred pounds
sterling yearly or thereby, all charges being deduced for payment of
the postmaster from Newcastle to Edinburgh inclusive, and no proportion
thereof laid upon the Berwick pacquet.’ In consideration of his
charges, John was allowed to retain for himself the eighth penny upon
all the letters sent from Edinburgh to London, and the fourth penny
upon all those coming from London to Edinburgh.--_R. C. E._
* * * * *
In the year 1649, as is believed, a cateran named Mac-Allister, with
a band of followers, kept a large portion of Caithness in terror.
The people of Thurso having somehow given him offence, he determined
to revenge himself by suddenly coming down upon them on a Sunday and
burning them in church. He and his men had provided themselves with
withes of twigs to fasten the doors, in order to keep the people in,
while fire should be set to the building. Some one remonstrating with
him for contemplating such an unholy design on the Sabbath-day, he
avowed that, in spite of God and the Sabbath both, he would shed blood.
Fortunately, some humane person became aware of the design, and set
off at speed to give the alarm. This had scarcely been done, when the
caterans, twenty in number, arrived. There were seven doors to the
church, as may be verified by an inspection of the ruins at this day.
An old woman dexterously thrust her stool into one near which she sat,
so as to prevent it from being closed; the people were eager to defend
the rest as far as they could. Mac-Allister himself came to the door
of a gallery at the south-west angle of the building, accessible by
an outer stair. Here sat Sir James Sinclair of Murkle, an able and
determined man, who made a practice of coming to church armed. Meeting
the robber in the doorway, he thrust his sword through him, but with
no apparent effect. His servant, however, superstitiously fearing
that Mac-Allister was impervious to cold steel, cut a triangular
silver button from Sir James’s coat, and with that shot the fellow in
the head. He tumbled over the stair, saying in Gaelic: ‘Hoot-toot,
the bodach has deafened me!’ It was a mortal wound in the ear. The
rest of the party were then set upon by the congregation, and after
a hard contest, overpowered, many of them, like their master, being
killed.[132]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1650.
MAR. 9.]
[Sidenote: 1650.]
The Marquis of Douglas, formerly Earl of Angus, one of the greatest and
wealthiest of the nobility, was a Catholic; and his wife, a daughter
of the first Marquis of Huntly, was a not less firm adherent of the
ancient faith. For many years past, the presbytery of Lanark had acted
as an inquisition over them, sending deputations every now and then to
Douglas Castle, to deal with them for their conversion, intermeddling
with their domestic affairs, and threatening them with excommunication
if they did not speedily give ‘satisfaction.’ With great difficulty,
and after many conferences, they had prevailed on the _Lady Marquesse_
to attend the parish church, and allow her children to be instructed
in the Presbyterian catechism: a mere external conformity, of course,
but involving a homage to the system which seems to have pleased the
ecclesiastical authorities. It took six years to bring the marquis
to an inclination to abjure popery and sign the Covenant; and
great was the rejoicing when he performed this ceremony before the
parish congregation. A moderator of presbytery reported his ‘great
contentment’ in seeing his lordship communicate and give attentive ear
to the sermons. Seeing, however, that the lady remained immovable, the
reverend court deemed it necessary to demand of the noble pair that
their children should be secluded from them, in order that assurance
might be had of their being brought up in the Protestant religion. This
seems to have been too much for the old peer. He plainly broke through
all engagements to them, by going and joining Montrose.
As his lordship fell into the hands of the Estates, by whom he was
imprisoned in Dumbarton Castle, the presbytery obtained an increased
power over the lady. They now brought her before them, to examine her
touching her ‘malignancy and obstinate continuance in the profession
of popery.’ Imagine the daughter of the superb Huntly, the mother of
the future head of the chivalric house of Douglas, forced to appear
‘with bated breath and whispering humbleness’ before the presbytery
of Lanark! She really did give them such smooth words as induced them
to hold off for a little while. But they soon had occasion once more
to bewail the effects of their ‘manifold expressions of lenity and
long-suffering’ towards her, which they saw attended by no effect but
‘disobedience.’ The process for her excommunication and the taking away
of her children was in full career in January 1646; and yet by some
means which do not appear, it did not advance.
[Sidenote: 1650.]
[Sidenote: 1650.]
Meanwhile the marquis had been suffering a long imprisonment for his
lapse with Montrose, and his estate was embarrassed with a fine of
50,000 merks. It had become indispensable for the good of his family,
that he should be somehow reconciled to the stern powers then ruling.
At the beginning of 1647, the descendant of those mail-clad Douglases
who in the fifteenth century shook the Scottish throne, was found
literally on his knees before the Lanark presbytery, expressing his
penitence for breach of covenant, and giving assurance of faithfulness
in time to come. The Estates consequently contented themselves with
one half of his fine, and an offer of the use of his lands for the
quartering of troops, and he was then liberated. Soon after, he
agreed to consign his children to be boarded with the minister of
the parish of Douglas, while a young man should attend to act as
their preceptor; but the satisfaction produced by this concession was
quickly dashed, when the presbytery learned that his lordship was
secretly arranging to send his youngest son to be bred in France. It
was really a curious game between their honest unsparing zeal on the
one hand, and his lordship’s craft and territorial consequence on
the other. Every now and then we have a peep of the demure lady, not
less resolute in adhering to her faith than they were pertinacious
in seeking to bring her to the superior light. How the recusant pair
must have in secret chafed under the mute acquiescence which they were
forced to give, in a rule outraging every sense of natural right,
and every feeling of self-respect! With what smothered rage would
they view those presbyterial deputations on their approach to Douglas
Castle--more formidable than a thousand of the troops of Long-shanked
Edward had ever been to the good Sir James! During the predominance
of the Hamilton Engagement, there was a slight intermission: in those
partially clouded days of the church, the presbytery was obliged to
speak a little less resolutely. In October 1648, the cloud had passed
away: Cromwell was now in the Canongate, conferring with Argyle,
Loudon, and Dickson. We accordingly find the Lanark inquisition
laconically ordering that, failing immediate satisfaction, his lordship
be summoned and the lady ‘excommunicat.’ The noble marquis appeared in
this month before them, to answer sundry challenges--‘for not keeping
his son at the school with a sufficient pedagogue approven by the
presbytery; for not delivering his daughter to some Protestant friend
by sight [that is, under the approbation] of the presbytery; for not
having a sufficient chaplain approven as said is, for family exercise
in his house; for not calling home his son, who is in France;’ and,
finally, for his grievous oppression of his tenants. On all of these
points, he was forced to make certain professed concessions. And we
soon after find this proud grandee pleading to have his son brought
from the school of Glasgow to that of Lanark, but ‘_not to come home to
his parents except the presbytery permit_.’ Still there was no real
progress made with either the marquis or his lady, and simply because
they continued to be Catholics at heart, and had it not in their power
to give more than lip-worship to any other system.
Such being the case, what are we to think of the conclusion of the
affair with the marchioness, when, on the 9th of March 1650, two
ministers went to pass upon her that sentence of excommunication
which was to make her homeless and an outlaw,[133] unless she should
_instantly_ profess the Protestant faith; at the same time telling
her ‘how fearful a sin it was to swear with equivocation or mental
reservation.’ The lady of course reflected that the system represented
by her visitors was now triumphant over everything--that, for one
thing, it had brought her brother Huntly, not a twelvemonth ago,
beneath the stroke of the Maiden. She ‘declared she had no more
doubts,’ and at the command of one of the ministers, held up her hand,
and solemnly accepted the Covenant before the congregation. ‘After he
had read the Solemn League and Covenant, and desired her to hold up
her hand and swear by the great name of God to observe, according to
her power, every article thereof, she did so; and after divine service
was ended, he desired her to go to the session-table and subscribe the
Covenant, and, before the minister and elders, she went to the said
table and did subscribe.’
‘Heaven scarce believed the conquest it surveyed,
And saints with wonder heard the vows I made.’
[Sidenote: 1650.]
On the very day that this was reported by the two ministers to the
presbytery, the court, ‘hearing that of late the Marquis of Douglas and
his lady had sent away one of their daughters to France, to a popish
lady, to be bred with her in popery, without the knowledge of the
presbytery, and without any warrant from the Estates, thought the fault
intolerable, and so much the more, because they had sent away one of
their sons before to the court of France.’ For some time after, the
reverend presbytery dealt earnestly with the marquis for the withdrawal
of his children from France, but without success. They also had
occasion to lament that he and his lady rarely attended public worship,
and failed to have private exercises at home. Of their own great
error in forcing this noble family into hypocritical professions, and
interfering so violently with their domestic arrangements, no suspicion
seems ever once to have crossed their minds.[134]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAR.]
At the same time that the presbytery of Lanark was driving on matters
with the Marchioness of Douglas, it had another serious affair on its
hands. Towards the close of the preceding year, the marquis had sent
eleven women of his parish to Lanark, as accused of witchcraft by one
Janet Couts, ‘a confessing witch,’ then in prison at Peebles. There
was a difficulty about the case, for the burgh declined to maintain so
many persons pending their trial. It was therefore necessary to send
them back to Crawford Douglas under security. Afterwards, one George
Cathie, ‘the pricker,’ being brought to Lanark, the women were brought
forward again, when, ‘before famous witnesses--namely, Gideon Jack and
Patrick Craig, bailies in Lanark, James Cunningham of Bonniton, &c.,
Mr Robert Birnie himself [the minister of Lanark] being also present,
and by consent of the women, the said George did prick pins in every
one of them, and in divers of them without pain the pin was put in,
as the witnesses can testify.’ The women were accordingly detained in
prison. As ‘it was not possible for the parish out of which they came
to furnish watches night and day for them,’ the county ‘did ordain that
each parish should, proportionally to their quantity, furnish twelve
men every twenty-four hours; whereupon the presbytery did ordain that
the minister of that parish out of which the watches shall come for
their turn, shall come along with them, to wait upon the suspected
persons, and to take pains, by prayer and exhortation, to bring them to
a confession.’
[Sidenote: 1650.]
We next see the presbytery sending a deputation to the Council of State
in Edinburgh, to urge that a commission should be appointed for the
trial of the witches. While this was in preparation, they sent to the
parish to collect evidence against the poor women. It might have been
supposed that, when, after a sermon in the church, no one came forward
to say a word against them, some doubts might have entered the minds of
the presbytery. Such, however, was not the case. They sent again and
again, till at length charges were made against three of the suspected.
Meanwhile, one whom Janet Couts herself ‘cleansed,’ was liberated.
Six more, against whom no charge was made, were allowed to go home on
giving security that they would reappear if called upon. Finally, two,
named Janet M‘Birnie and Marion Laidlaw, were at this date tried by the
commission on various points delated against them; as that, ‘on a time
Janet followed William Brown, a slater, to crave somewhat, and fell in
evil words, after which time, within twenty-four hours, he fell off
ane house and brake his neck; that Janet was the cause of the discord
between [the laird of] Newton and his wife, and that she and others was
the death of William Geddes;’ that ‘Marion and Jean Blacklaw differed
in words for Marion’s hay, and, after that, Jean her kye died;’ and
that she, the said Marion, ‘had her husband by unlawful means, and a
beard!’ After most strictly examining the witnesses on their oaths, the
commission could find nought proven against the two prisoners, and they
were therefore dismissed on giving caution to appear again if called
upon.
It does not appear that this result in any degree modified the views
of the reverend presbytery regarding witchcraft. On the very day when
this case was reported to them, they received a communication from Mr
Richard Inglis, the chaplain or preceptor whom they had established in
the Marquis of Douglas’s family, setting forth the confession of ‘ane
warlock called Archibald Watt, alias _Sole the paitlet_, pointing out
the way of his making covenant with the devil, as also many meetings
since his covenant keeped with the devil, and other witches, in divers
places.’ And immediately they sent a gentleman to Edinburgh for ‘a
commission for ane assize to sit upon the foresaid warlock.’
The end of the prosecution of the eleven women is highly instructive.
Janet Couts, before her death, which probably was by burning, withdrew
the charge she had made against them. It is on the same day when the
presbytery orders one of their number to go and read a paper to this
effect in the church of Douglas, that they make the above arrangement
for the prosecution of the warlock; shewing that they had not been
in the least staggered on the general question, by finding the gross
mistake they had made in this instance.--_R. P. L._
[Sidenote: 1650.
MAR.]
The church was now in the highest power--every vestige of episcopacy
banished, popery treated as a crime, the doctrine of the headship
of Christ in full paramountcy, and enabling the clergy to exercise
an unlimited authority over the external religious practice and
professions of the community. It was ruled that each head of a family
should conduct worship and reading of the Scriptures daily in his
house, catechise, reprove, and exhort amongst his children, servants,
and dependents. On Sunday, after private devotions by the several
members of the family, and a general service in the parlour, the
master was to take care that all within his charge repaired to public
worship. This being finished--in those days it lasted many hours--he
was to exercise the family on what they had heard, and the remainder of
the day was to be spent in ‘reading, meditation, and secret prayer.’
Diligence and ‘sincerity’ in these duties were strongly enjoined, and
individuals were encouraged to confer with and prompt one another on
religious subjects. But it was forbidden that families should meet
together for religious exercises, as it had been found that such
practices tended to schism.[135]
It may be remarked, that the ministrations of the parochial ministers
were not then confined to two services on Sunday. In Edinburgh, after
March 1650, there was ‘a lectorie’ every afternoon in the week at four
o’clock, the ministers of the city taking the duty by turns. ‘Which did
much good to the soul and body, the soul being edified and fed by the
Word, and the body withhalden from unnecessar _bebbing_ [drinking],
whilk at that hour of the day was in use and custom.’--_Nic._
[Sidenote: 1650.]
The morals of the flock were superintended with something beyond
pastoral care. Promiscuous dancing was strictly prohibited. For ‘the
downbearing of sin,’ women were not allowed to act as waiters in
taverns, ‘but allenarly men-servands and boys.’[136] An elder had a
certain little district assigned to him, which he carefully inspected
once a month. Any scandalous sin which he discovered, or even the
existence of any stranger without a certificate of character, he had
to report to the kirk-session. The being drunk, or the utterance of
a profane word, inferred kirk-discipline. The inspecting elder was
also to take cognizance of how everybody spent his time on Sunday. For
acts of a licentious character, both sexes were alike punished in the
manner most likely to mortify persons of a sensitive nature. Whatever
their quality, they had to stand three Sundays in sackcloth before
the congregation. A second fault brought the same punishment for six
Sundays; a third kept the delinquent on the seat of shame for half a
year. That all this was done in honour and sincerity, and not primarily
from the love of power, is shewn by the impartial severity which the
clergy exercised upon each other; regarding not only moral aberrations,
but such faults as that of conversing with ‘malignants’ (persons
inclined to be loyal to the king without regard to the terms of the
Solemn League and Covenant), and any shortcoming in efficiency either
as preachers or as disciplinarians.
‘None of the clergy in those days,’ says one of their successors in
the next age, ‘durst be scandalous in their conversation, or negligent
in their office.... In many places the spirit seemed to be poured out
with the word.... There were no fewer than sixty aged people, men and
women, who went to school, that even then they might be able to read
the Scripture with their own eyes. I have lived many years in a parish
where I never heard an oath, and you might have rid many miles before
you heard any.... You could not have lodged in a family where the Lord
was not worshipped by reading, singing, and public prayer. Nobody
complained more of our church-government than our taverners, whose
ordinary lamentation was, their trade was broke, people were become so
sober.’[137]
It is to be feared that Mr Kirkton wrote under the influence of that
palliative spirit with which we are apt to look back upon a past age or
upon the days of our youth, for, undoubtedly, strong evidences exist
that the period now under review was not free from great vices and
criminalities of a very deep shade. The diarist John Nicoll mentions,
under February 1650, that ‘Much falset and cheating was detected at
this time by the Lords of Session; for the whilk there was daily
hanging, scourging, nailing of lugs [ears] and binding of people to the
Tron [the public weighing-machine in Edinburgh], and boring of tongues;
so that it was ane fatal year for false notars and witnesses, as daily
experience did witness.’
[Sidenote: 1650.]
Nicoll enumerates many of the offenders. One was John Lawson, of Leith,
who had taken a leading part in causing a house, left by one who died
of the plague, to come by a false service to one who had no claim
for it. ‘He was brought to the Tron betwixt eleven and twelve before
noon, and fast bund thereto, with ane paper on his head declaring his
fault.... His tongue was drawn out with ane turkes [pincers] by the
common hangman, and laid on ane little buird, ... and run through
with ane het iron or bodkin.’ Another delinquent was Thomas Hunter,
a writer, guilty of perjury; for which he was declared incapable of
‘agenting ony business within the house and college of justice.’
William Blair, ‘messer,’ was hanged ‘for sundry falsets committed by
him in his calling.’
[Sidenote: 1650.]
At the same time, gross offences connected with the affections never
abounded more, if we can believe Nicoll, than they did at this time.
Some of an indescribable kind appeared in an unheard-of frequency, and
continued indeed to do so all through the time of the Interregnum.
In Lamont’s _Diary_, the number of gentlemen in Fife who are stated
as having broken the seventh commandment during the time of the
Commonwealth, is surprisingly great. Even the sanctimonious Chancellor
Loudon himself had to give satisfaction to the kirk in 1651. The
writer of the Statistical Account of Melrose remarks the surprising
number of penitents which he finds in the session-books during the
seventeenth century--‘far exceeding the average of the present day,
when the population is nearly trebled.’ The churchmen of that period
themselves not merely admit, but loudly proclaim the extreme immorality
of their people, the following being cited, for example, among the
causes for a solemn fast in 1653: ‘the growth of sin of all sorts,
particularly pride, uncleanness, contempt of ordinances, oppression,
violence, fraudulent dealing--_maist part of the people growing worse
and worse_.’ We might set this down in great measure as the effect
of entertaining a high view of human duty, were it not for the many
facts which have been reported by diarists and others. In short, it
fully appears that human nature was not effectually restrained by
the rigorous discipline now temporarily reigning, but only shewed a
tendency to go into moral aberrations of an abnormal and horrible kind.
At the same time, the land was full of persecution on account of merely
sentimental offences--Catholic gentlemen forced to leave their native
country; moderate Presbyterians obliged to do penance, or else thrust
from their offices, for being concerned in the Duke of Hamilton’s final
expedition in behalf of the late king; corpses denied Christian burial
if their owners had not subscribed or adhered to the Covenant.[138]
‘There was ane honest man in Glasgow, called John Bryson, who, being
at the Mercat Cross of that city, and hearing a proclamation there,
and a declaration against the Marquis of Montrose, wherein he was
styled traitor and excommunicate rebel, did cry out and called him as
honest ane nobleman as was in this kingdom. The magistrates of that
town, being informed of his speeches, was forced to take and apprehend
him, and carried him to Edinburgh by ane guard of the town’s officers,
presented him to the Committee of State then sitting there; wha, by
their order, was casten into the Thieves’ Hole, wherein he lay in great
misery by the space of many weeks.’--_Nic._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAR.]
Throughout this and the ensuing two months, there ‘fell out much
unseasonable weather, the like whereof was not usual, for weets, cold,
frosts, and tempests.’--_Nic._
The same writer informs us that on the 28th of May, ‘there rained blood
the space of three miles in the Earl of Buccleuch’s bounds, near the
English Border; whilk was verified in presence of the Committee of
State.’
In the ensuing month there was an epidemic called the _Irish Ague_,
‘which was a terrible sore pain in the head, some saying that their
heads did open. The ordinary remedy was the hard tying up of their
head. A disease not before this known to the inhabitants of this
kingdom.’
Gerard Boate, physician to the parliamentary forces in Ireland, who
wrote about this time his _Natural History of Ireland_, specifies agues
among the _Endemii Morbi_ of that country, evidently alluding, in the
opinion of a living medical authority,[139] to the well-known Irish
typhoid fevers. This ailment, the flux, and plague, had prevailed to a
deplorable extent in Ireland during the time of the civil war.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAY 15.]
[Sidenote: 1650.]
‘The new Psalm-books were read and ordained to be sung through all the
kingdom.’--_Nic._ This was the translation of the Psalms which is still
used by the Church of Scotland and all Presbyterian congregations in
the kingdom. It was based on a homely version produced originally in
1643, by Francis Rous, a member of the Long Parliament, who ultimately
became provost of Eton, and died in 1658. What was rather odd, Rous was
at this time joined to the sectaries, against whom the Scotch church
entertained so bitter a feeling. It must be admitted that his version
underwent great improvements in the hands of the committees of the
General Assembly appointed for its revision. As now finally set forth,
it was in many respects most felicitous. The general strain and metre
is that of the old homely native ballad. It is occasionally harsh and
obscure, has a few Scottish idioms, and sometimes requires an obsolete
pronunciation to make out the prosody; yet, with all these obvious
faults, it perhaps comes nearer to the simple archaic beauty of the
original than any other metrical translation.[140]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAY 21.]
[Sidenote: 1650.]
The Marquis of Montrose, taken in an unsuccessful attempt to restore
the king without the ceremony of the Covenant, was hanged in Edinburgh
on a gibbet thirty feet high. The heroic firmness displayed at his
death harmonised well with the gallantry exhibited in his short but
brilliant career. It affords a striking idea of the taste of men of
the highest rank in that age, that the Marquis of Argyle appeared on a
balcony to see him driven on the hangman’s hurdle to the prison from
which he was two days after to walk to the gallows, and that Lord
Lorn took post at a window near the scaffold, to see the body cut to
pieces after death. The head being stuck on the Tolbooth of Edinburgh,
and the limbs sent for exhibition over the ports of Glasgow, Perth,
Stirling, and Aberdeen, Charles II. was compelled to behold those
ghastly relics of the most loyal of his subjects, when, less than a
month after, he progressed through the country. If Montrose had died
free of excommunication, his body would have been given to his friends;
as matters stood, it was inhumed beneath a gibbet at the Burgh-moor.
There was, however, a female heart that secretly wept for the untimely
end of the great marquis. His niece, Lady Napier, sent men by night who
dug up the body, and stole away the heart; and this relic she consigned
to a steel case made out of the hero’s sword, which again she enclosed
in a gold filagree box, which had been presented by a doge of Venice to
her husband’s grandfather, the inventor of the logarithms. It will be
found that, after the Restoration, when it became the fate of Argyle
and others to atone by their blood for the severities inflicted on
Montrose, the remains of the culprit of 1650 were gathered together
and treated with a funeral that might have been honourable to a king.
The heart and its case were, however, retained in the possession of
the Napier family for several generations, and only were lost sight of
amidst the confusions of the French Revolution.[141]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY.]
Cromwell having crossed the Tweed with his army on the 22d of this
month, a large body of troops assembled on Leith Links to oppose him,
all animated with a good spirit in behalf of their king and country,
but unluckily not all equally sound in the faith of the Solemn League
and Covenant. Thousands were sent back, ‘to the discontentment of much
people.’ The leaders thought it safer to meet Cromwell with twenty
thousand who were of right principles, than with thirty thousand of
whom a third were merely patriotic and loyal. While the army, as honest
John Nicoll remarks, ‘stood daily in purging upon the Links,’ the young
king came to review them, and doubtless was right sorry to see so many
hearty soldiers turned away from his banners.
[Sidenote: 1650.]
A Glasgow citizen, full of zeal against the English army, as a type of
the abomination of toleration, came to this singular leaguer, but even
after all its purgation, did not find the service satisfactory. ‘While
Oliver Cromwell,’ he says, ‘is reported to be come over the Border with
his army, at my first hearing of it, I was so stirred in my spirit at
the evil of toleration, that I never remember that I attained to the
like again; and while I am pouring out my heart before the Lord on that
account, there is a thought darted in upon my heart, that I should be
healed of an impurity in my stomach which I had been under for several
years ... and it really proved so, as since that time I was never
troubled therewith.... That same morning, while I am casting up the
Bible, that place came first to my hand and eye which saith, “Though
Noah, Job, and Daniel would pray, yet would I not hear them.” Whereupon
I was exceedingly confounded in reference to our present case, and some
weeks thereafter, having gone to Leith to join myself to the forces
there, I dried up in my prayers so as I would pray none at all, and
was glad to take the first opportunity that offered to retire.... When
Dunbar was foughten, and the news thereof came to Glasgow within a
day or two thereafter, while I am thinking thereupon, it is borne in
upon my mind, that our way in that business was not what it ought to
have been; and after some getting it laid to heart, I was challenged
for my implicit engaging therein; whilk came to that height that I
resolved never more to follow any course upon the opinion of any person
whatsomever, which accordingly the Lord has helped me to mind in some
weak measure....’--_Spreull._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG.]
While the two hostile armies lay about Edinburgh, ‘there was such great
scarcity, that all sorts of vivres, meat and drink, could hardly be
had for money, and such as was gotten was fuisted [musty], and sald at
a double price. The haill inhabitants were forced to contribute and
provide for the [Scottish] army, notwithstanding of this scarcity; as
also to furnish feather beds, bowsters, cods, blankets, sheets ... for
the hurt soldiers to lie upon, with pots and pans for making ready
their meat; and to collect money for providing honest entertainment
to the hurt soldiers that lay in the [Heriot’s] Hospital and Paul’s
Wark.’--_Nic._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP.]
The bellman was accustomed to intimate the death of a citizen through
the streets, and in the same way give invitations to the funeral.
At this time the Edinburgh official was ordered to give up the
phrase, ‘faithful brother or sister,’ and retain brother or sister
only.[142]--_Nic._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT.]
[Sidenote: 1650.]
This was a sore time for the southern counties of Scotland. Owing to
the futile opposition presented to Cromwell by the ultra-Presbyterians
in the west, a large detachment of the English army had to parade
through the country. ‘Much corns destroyed by them and their horses ...
the kirks and kirk-yards made stables and sentries for their guards
and horses.... The corns of the field were not only destroyed by this
foreign enemy, and by the Scots armies at home, wha rampit and raged
through the land, eating and destroying wherever they went, but also
the Lord from the heavens destroyed much of the rest by storms and
tempests of weet and wind. The seas also were closed up by the enemy,
whase ships enclosed us on every side, so that no man was able to
travel by sea, neither yet by land without a pass.’--_Nic._
‘Cromwell and his army of cavalry domineered in all parts where they
came,’ and in especial about Edinburgh, and in East Lothian. The good
Earl of Winton, to whose well-furnished table all the noblemen and
gentlemen had ever been welcome, was pitifully abused by them; his fair
house of Seaton made a common inn; himself threatened to be killed, if
they had not whatsoever they called for; his rich furniture and stuff
plundered, and all the enormities that could be offered by Jews or
Turks to Christians, he suffered daily; and when he complained to those
of our nobility who now rule all, he got no redress, but [was] ordered
with patience to give them whatsoever they called for. Their general,
Cromwell, stayed in Edinburgh, a stately lodging being appointed for
him.[143] He went not to their churches, but it is constantly reported
that every day he had sermons in his own lodgings, himself being the
preacher, whensoever the spirit came upon him; which took him like the
fits of an ague, sometimes twice, sometimes thrice in a day.
[Sidenote: 1650.]
‘One of his commanders being quartered with one of the magistrates
of the city, that he might be used with the more reverence, and
entertained with the more graceful respect, the master of the house
brought the preacher of the parish, a discreet and modest man, to
accompany him, whose conversation, he hoped, would be pleasing to him.
The preacher, after he had blessed the table, according to our Scottish
custom, prayed for the continuance and prosperous success of the
Covenant, which did so offend the English captain and those gentlemen
who attended upon him, as the preacher was threatened and abused most
beastly, for presuming in their presence to extol their rotten Covenant
(as he termed it); and with many reproachful terms told the preacher,
that they had in England trodden his Covenant under their feet, and
they hoped, before it was long, to consume it in Scotland with fire,
and with disgrace to extinguish the memory thereof. The preacher would
have answered, but he durst not....
‘In the time that the English stayed, there were daily and continual
complaints given in; the people being unable to endure their insolent
carriage, so that there were many brawls, fighting, and killing in
private corners, where the Scots might be their masters. And one day
in Edinburgh, upon the High Street, and before the general’s lodgings,
where the English were always going forth in at the gate, one of their
officers was coming forth and going to his horse in great chafe,
because he had complained of a great injury done to some of the troop
by the Scots, where they were quartered, and not being justly satisfied
with the general’s answer, when he had mounted his horse, he spake
aloud these words: “With my own hands I killed that Scot which ought
this horse and this ease of pistols, and who dare say that in this I
wronged him?” “I dare say it,” said one standing by; “and thus shall
revenge it;” and with the word pulling forth his sword, thrust him
quite through the body, and with a prompt celerity, as if he had been
all in motion, just as he struck him--who was already falling to the
ground--and mounting his horse, rides the way with a fierce gallop, and
winning the port, goes to the fields, and by an honourable flight frees
himself from all danger.’[144]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV. 13.]
[Sidenote: 1650.]
At this distressing time, when the best part of the country was in
the hands of foreign invaders, and the ancient monarchy of Scotland
threatened with destruction, there occurred a calamitous event which
must have been peculiarly bewailed. The palace of Holyrood, being
then in the occupation of a party of the English troops, took fire,
and was in great part destroyed. The most interesting portion of the
building--the north-west tower, containing the apartments of Queen
Mary--was fortunately preserved; but the principal _façade_ was laid
in ruins, so that the general appearance was, on a restoration, much
changed. About the same time, the English soldiery, for the sake
of fuel, broke down the furniture of the University buildings, the
High School, and of three churches--College, Greyfriars, and Lady
Yester’s--besides the plenishing of many houses in town and country.
[Illustration: Holyrood Palace, as before the Fire of 1650.]
‘In all parts of the land, where the English army come, the ministers
fled, and the Lord’s houses were closed and laid waste; so that the
word of the Lord became very precious to many.’ ‘The land [was]
mourning, languishing, left desolate, every part thereof shut up, and
no safe going out nor coming in ... the Lord hiding his face all this
time for the sins of Scotland.’--_Nic._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC.]
‘I thought it good to remember here how that the names of Protestant
and Papist were not now in use ... in place thereof raise up the
name of Covenanters, Anti-Covenanters, Cross-Covenanters, Puritans,
Babarteris, Roundheads, Auld Horns, New Horns, Cross-petitioners,
Brownists, Separatists, Malignants, Sectaries, Royalists, Quakers,
Anabaptists.’--_Nic._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1651.
MAY 6.]
[Sidenote: 1651.]
The bitter feeling of the ruling powers towards the English sectarian
army was shewn in the way they treated any erring enthusiast who, in
the spirit of dissent, sent information to Cromwell. One Archibald
Hamilton, who acted in this manner, was ‘condemned to be hanged on a
gallows in chains, so long as one bone could hang at another of him.’
We now find the son of an old acquaintance in their hands for this high
offence. His father was that John Mean, a merchant of Edinburgh, who
had been in trouble as a resister of Episcopal fashions in the reign of
King James, and whom we have just seen in the capacity of post-master
in Edinburgh.[145] His mother was believed to be the identical female
who cast the stool at the bishop’s head in St Giles’s Church, on the
first reading of the Service-book in 1637. The delinquent confessed his
guilt, and was condemned by a council of war sitting at Stirling; but
as he was going to be hanged, the king pardoned him, ‘in respect his
father, old John Mean, in Edinburgh, put him out to General Leslie as
a knave and one corrupted by the English, and entreated him to cause
apprehend him.’--_Bal._
The son of a pair so peculiarly noted, being pardoned by Charles
II. for treason in favour of Cromwell, is a curious conjunction of
circumstances.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 22.]
Some idea of the enormous sacrifices made by Scotland to resist the
English sectarian army, may be formed from a tolerably exact account,
which has been preserved, of what was done in that cause by the county
of Fife alone, between the 1st of June 1650 and the present date, being
somewhat less than thirteen months.
[Sidenote: 1651.]
In June 1650, when Cromwell was about to invade Scotland, Fife[146]
sent forth 1800 foot and 290 horse, the former ‘with four pounds of
outreik money for every man, with a four-tailed coat, stockings and
shoes,’ the latter at 300 merks each; being in all 151,800 merks. In
the ensuing month, a second levy, precisely the same as the first, was
made by the county. In September, 700 men were raised for the artillery
force, with a third levy of 290 horse and 350 dragoons. In January,
two regiments, amounting in whole to 2400 men, were raised in the
county by the Earls of Kelly and Crawford, and to this force the county
gave twenty-four pounds per man for arms and bounty. So much for the
personal force contributed, being in all 7920 men out of a population
which, so lately as 1801, was under 100,000. Then the county made large
contributions of meal and other provisions, besides money, and also
horses, for the use of the army; 5000 bolls of meal at one time, 3000
at another, 100 stone of cheese, tents, dishes, and axes, oats for the
horses, quarters for ten horse regiments, and so forth. The sum of the
whole was reckoned up to 2,395,857 merks, which we assume to have been
equal to £137,309.--_Bal._
It is difficult to understand how a province of a country so poor
as Scotland then was[147] could spare so much means towards even so
cherished an object as the resistance of the English sectaries.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP. 1.]
During the occupation of the southern parts of Scotland by the English
army, Dundee had become the retreat of many of the principal people of
the country, and a storehouse of much valuable property. On the Sunday
before the battle of Worcester, it was assaulted by General Monk, who
played upon it with battering-pieces all night, and in the morning
entered and subjected it to massacre and pillage. Upwards of a thousand
men and sevenscore women and children, are said to have been killed.
‘It is reported by credible men that the English army had gotten above
twa hundred thousand pound sterling, partly of ready gold, silver, and
silver wark, jewels, rings, merchandise and merchant wares, and other
precious things, belonging to the city of Edinburgh, beside all that
belonged to the town, and other people of the country, wha had sent in
their guids for safety to that town.’--_Nic._
* * * * *
This year was one of even greater dearth than the preceding, bear
being £20 Scots per boll--equal to £1, 13s. 4d.--in many parts of the
country. The best sack wine was 4s. sterling, and French wine 1s.
6d. per pint. The best ale 4d. a pint.[148] ‘Yet God’s providence
was such toward the nation, that even when our awn corns failed us,
the English nation did bring in abundantly wheat, bear, peas, and
such like, and brought down the dearth of our mercats, by [beyond]
expectation.’--_Nic._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV. 13.]
[Sidenote: 1651.]
James Somerville, younger of Drum and Cambusnethan, author of the
Memorie of the Somervilles, was this day married to Martha Bannatyne
of Corehouse, at Lesmahago kirk, he being nineteen, and she eighteen.
The bridegroom’s own account of the affair: ‘A matchlier pair was
not seen within the walls of that kirk this last century, nor a
greater wedding--considering the great consternation the country
had been in for some few months preceding--for nobility and gentry;
there being one marquis, three earls, two lords, sixteen barons, and
eight ministers present at this solemnity, but _not one musician_.
They liked better the bleating of the calves of Dan and Bethel--the
ministers’ long-winded and sometimes nonsensical graces, little to the
purpose--than all musical instruments of the sanctuary, at so solemn
an occasion, which, if it be lawful at all to have them, certainly
it ought and should be upon a wedding-day, for divertisement to the
guests, that innocent recreation of music and dancing being much more
warrantable and a far better exercise than drinking and smoking of
tobacco, wherein these holy brethren of the Presbyterian [persuasion]
for the most part employed themselves, without any formal health or
remembrance of their friends; a nod with their head, or a sigh, with
the turning up of the white of the eye, served for that ceremony.’
[Sidenote: 1651.]
It is pleasant to find that little more than two months after Worcester
fight, it was possible to bring such a large and brilliant company to
a wedding in Scotland. Even when the public at large is the stricken
deer, there will be individual ‘harts ungalled’ who will ‘go play.’
Somerville’s description of his first visit to his bride’s house and
of herself, is interesting. It was just after the rout of Dunbar, when
the young Laird of Corehouse, who had been at that battle, spent a few
days at Cambusnethan, and insisted on young Somerville accompanying
him to the banks of the Clyde. ‘They set forth, weel furnished with
hawks and dogs, which gave them much sport, the fields and ways between
Cambusnethan and Corehouse being fitted for hawking and hunting. At
night they came to the Corehouse, where they were courteously received
by the lady, and modestly by the young ladies.... Martha, the youngest,
was not seen till supper, and then came into the room in a plain
country dress. The truth is, she needed nothing else, being always an
ornament to her clothes when at the best.... At her age of fifteen
complete, she attained to her full height, which was so far above the
stature of most women, that she was accounted among the tallest of
our nation, but so as that diminished nothing of her handsomeness,
every part answering thereto, as a slender waist, large shoulders, big
breast, henches full and round.... Her visage was long, her nose high,
her brow brent and smooth as alabaster, her chin and cheeks somewhat
full, with a little red, especially in hot weather. There was nothing
bore so little proportion to her body as her hand and foot, both being
extremely little, but weel-shapen, white and full of flesh. Her skin
was smooth and clear, but what was covered not so white as I have seen
several of her complexion that was purely sanguinean; her hair, being
of a bright flaxen, which darkened as she grew in age, added much to
her beauty; wherein there was no blemish, her mien being answerable to
that, and her person gave occasion to those that saw her at church or
any other public meeting, to assert she graced the place and company
where she was. It has often been observed that, when this gentlewoman
walked upon the street--which was but upon occasion, being better
employed at home--the eyes not only of the men, but also of her own
sex, was upon her, so far as their sight could serve them, admiring her
parts and handsomeness.’--_Mem. Som._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV.]
The western clergy sought in their meetings to learn the cause of the
heavy wrath which the Almighty was pouring out upon the land. ‘After
long attendance, their resolutions ended in confusion, distraction,
and division among themselves, prognosticating much more desolation on
the land. Whilk did manifestly appear among all estates and ranks of
people; for religion and justice being the twa pillars of the land,
were houghed [tripped] and near drawn down.... There were no courts
of justice, sic as the Secret Council, Session, and Exchequer sitting
for the time. All our records and registers carried aff the kingdom
to the Tower of London; the Lords of Council, Session, and Exchequer,
with their clerks and members of court not daring [to] kythe[149]
in their strength for the use of the lieges, but, for fear of the
English armies, were forced to abandon themselves; for the whilk cause
the people of the land were forced to suit justice frae the English
governors and commanders. As for Edinburgh, there was no magistrate
there, nor no common council since the fecht at Dunbar; and therefore
all petitions and complaints went to the captain of Edinburgh Castle
and governor of Leith, wha in effect (to speak truly) proceeded
more equitably and conscientiously in justice nor our awn Scottish
magistrates.’--_Nic._
[Sidenote: 1651.]
We hear about this time of a paper given in by ‘a godly Scot’ to the
Commission of the Kirk, alleging that the causes of the evils of
the country lay, among other things, in the undertaking of solemn
engagements unwarranted by the word of God, in a fleshly zeal in
carrying on of these obligations by cruel oppressions for the
constraint of the unwilling, and the idolising of individuals and
receiving doctrine from them implicitly.[150]
At this very time, a lively controversy was going on between Sir
Alexander Irvine of Drum, in Aberdeenshire, and the presbytery of
Aberdeen, as to the title which the latter body assumed of controlling
his spiritual interests. A quarrel had taken place between the parties
regarding the settlement of an incumbent in Sir Alexander’s parish,
and he had appealed from the power of the local court to the English
commander, Colonel Overton--a proceeding which must have been deeply
grievous to the presbytery. A sentence of excommunication having been
consequently pronounced against the knight, he uttered a protest
against it in animated terms. It proceeded, he said, ‘from men more
full of fiery zeal to advance their own interests than the gospel of
Jesus Christ.’ They had urged him by threats to subscribe the Solemn
League and Covenant, ‘as gif it had been a matter of salvation for me
to swear to establish by arms Presbyterian government in England.’
And not only would they have had him to forswear himself, but ‘they
did urge with the like threatenings my wife and three young maids, my
dochters, who, for their age and sex, are not capable of such politic
theology.’ To make good their charge against him of being a papist--a
‘pretext to satisfy their restless ambition and execute their rage upon
all who will not implicitly obey them’--they ‘enforced my servants to
reveal upon oath what they saw, heard, or knew done in my house--beyond
which no Turkish inquisition could pass.’ Sir Alexander, therefore,
now appeared by procurator, declaring, ‘I separate myself from the
discipline of presbytery, particularly that of Aberdeen, as a human
invention that is destructive to the civil peace of Christians;’
further appealing them before Colonel Overton, or any other judge who
shall be appointed by the English commissioners, ‘to hear yourselves
censured and condignly punished for your open contempt of their
authority, for your false slanders raised against me, and for your
cruel proceedings and erring sentence of excommunication.’[151]
[Sidenote: 1651.]
Whitelocke, in January 1652, quotes letters which speak of the ‘great
pride and insolency of the presbyteries in Scotland,’ with particular
reference to the Laird of Drum’s case. It is stated that the laird
wrote a letter of thanks to Lieutenant-general Monk, ‘for relieving
those who were oppressed in their consciences by the presbyteries.’ The
Cromwellian army was on principle favourable to toleration, and adverse
to all sorts of church-discipline. Monk was therefore ready to issue
an order, ‘that no oaths should be imposed by any of the kirk-officers
upon any person without order from the state of England, nor any
covenant, and, if they do, that he will deal with them as enemies....
The provost and bailiffs of Aberdeen were to proclaim this.’
[Sidenote: 1651.]
From a petition presented to the king after the Restoration by his son,
the bitterness of Sir Alexander’s experiences throughout the troubles
appears to have been much the same in character as that of which an
example has been given in the case of Farquharson of Inverey. ‘His
lands were the first of Scotland that were spoiled.’ He was ‘twice
fined in £4000 sterling, his house of Drum four times garrisoned and
at length totally plundered, and his wife and children turned out of
doors.’[152] For five years his revenues were detained from him by ‘one
Forbes’--doubtless the same minion to whom the government had committed
the fining of old Inverey.[153] Another Aberdeenshire laird, Sir
Gilbert Menzies of Pitfoddels, being really a Catholic, had come even
worse off. Throughout the whole period of the troubles, not only were
his lands taxed like those of his neighbours for the support of the
Covenanting armies, but he suffered endless finings, quarterings, and
repeated banishments, on account of his inability in personal sentiment
to go along with the popular movement. It appears from a petition he
presented after the Restoration, that fully £12,000 sterling had been
extorted from his estate, leaving it greatly reduced in extent and
‘like to ruin;’ as a matter of course, he and his family had undergone
the greatest poverty abroad, and in one of the flights made by his
family from Scotland, his wife and one of his sons had perished in a
storm at sea.[154] We obtain from these historiettes, which are but
examples of a large class, some notion of the grounds of the charges
brought by cavalier writers against the men who, in all sincerity,
believed they were establishing the reign of Christ upon the earth.
Trusting to force for the attainment of the ideal which they had
placed before them, they stirred up a spirit which made their object
only the more unattainable.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC.]
One good consequence of the English military rule now established in
Scotland was the introduction of some improved police regulations into
Edinburgh. Householders were compelled to hang out lanterns, from six
to nine at night, at their doors and windows; by which arrangement,
‘the winter night was almost as light as the day.’ The expense was
reckoned to be about forty-five pounds a night. Rigorous measures
were also taken for the cleaning of the streets and lanes, and for
preventing foul water being thrown forth from windows.
It would appear that these regulations were steadily kept up during
the English occupation. In April 1657, there was a petition from the
magistrates of Edinburgh to the commissioners of justiciary craving
remission of certain fines, amounting in all to £50 sterling, which had
been imposed on the magistrates ‘for not cleansing the streets.’ They
alleged that they had ‘employed scavengers’ with a view to giving the
commissioners satisfaction.--_B. A._
* * * * *
Nicoll, writing towards the close of 1651, gives a second and most
unflattering picture of the moral conditions of Scotland. ‘Under
heaven,’ he says, ‘there was not greater falset, oppression, division,
hatred, pride, malice, and envy, nor was at this time, and diverse
and sundry years before (ever since the subscribing the Covenant);
every man seeking himself and his awn ends, even under a cloak of
piety, whilk did cover much knavery.’ He adds: ‘Much of the ministry,
also, could not purge themselves of their vices of pride, avarice, and
cruelty; where they maligned, they were divided in their judgments and
opinions, and made their pulpits to speak ane against another. Great
care they had of their augmentations, and _Reek Pennies_,[155] never
before heard of but within thir few years. Pride and cruelty, ane
against another, much abounded; little charity or mercy to restore the
weak, was to be found among them.... This I observe not out of malice
to the ministry, but to record the truth, for all offended, from the
prince to the beggar.’
[Sidenote: 1651.]
It is instructive to observe that no sooner had the ecclesiastical
system recently paramount received a blow, than dissent, so long
repressed, began to make itself heard. Nicoll notes that ‘much
hypocrisy and falset formerly hid did now break out amang our Scots,
wha, leaving their former principles of religion, became papists and
atheists.’ Many sought favour with the English by supporting their
rule, advising that liberty of conscience which was regarded with such
abhorrence by the Scottish church, and calling for a restraint to be
put upon the power of presbyteries as ‘anti-Christian and tyrannical.’
‘Others vilipend the Covenant, holding it lawful for all men to break
it, as being ane human institution;’ at the same time denouncing many
of the clergy as not worthy to teach, declaring the Sabbath to be
unnecessary, and propounding that children should not be baptised ‘till
they could give confession of their faith.’
About April 1652, we begin to find dissent taking recognisable forms.
There were now Antinomians, Antitrinitarians, Familists,[156] and
Seekers, as well as Brownists, Independents, and Erastians. Where there
had formerly been no avowed Anabaptists, there were now many, ‘sae that
thrice in the week--namely, on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday--there
were some dippit at Bonnington Mill, betwixt Leith and Edinburgh, both
men and women of good rank. Some days there would be sundry hundred
persons attending that action, and fifteen persons baptised in one day
by the Anabaptists.’ Among the converts was ‘the Lady Craigie Wallace,
a lady in the west country.’--_Nic._ In autumn, at Cupar, Mr Brown,
preacher to Fairfax’s regiment, re-baptised several of the soldiers
‘in the Eden, near to Airdrie’s lodging, by dipping them over head and
ears, many of the inhabitants looking on.’--_Lam._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1652.
MAR.]
[Sidenote: 1652.]
The Castle of Dunnottar was now almost the only place of strength in
the kingdom which resisted the English arms. It held out with a small
garrison under the command of George Ogilvie of Barras, whose anxiety
to maintain his post was increased by the consideration that within
these sea-girt walls rested the regalia of the kingdom--the crown,
sceptre, and sword of state--which had been consigned by the Committee
of Estates to this fort, under the care of the Earl Marischal, as
being the strongest place in the kingdom that remained untaken after
the reduction of Edinburgh Castle. For many months, Ogilvie and his
little garrison had defied the English forces; but now it was likely
that he could not hold out much longer--in which case, of course, the
regalia must fall into the hands of the enemy. The Earl Marischal had
been taken with the Committee of Estates at Alyth, and shipped off to
London as a prisoner. He contrived, however, to send by a private hand
the key of the closet in which the regalia lay, to his mother, the
Dowager-countess, who by the advice of her son, opened a communication
with Mr James Grainger, minister of Kineff, a person in whom the family
reposed great faith, with a view to his assisting in the conveying
away of the precious ‘honours.’ The minister and his wife, Christian
Fletcher [posterity will desire the preservation of her whole name],
entered heartily into the wishes of the countess.[157] Mrs Grainger, by
permission of the English commander, visiting the wife of the governor
of the castle, received from that lady, but without the knowledge of
her husband, the crown into her lap. The sceptre and sword, wrapped
up in a bundle of _hards_ or lint, were placed on the back of a
female attendant. When Mrs Grainger and her maid returned through the
beleaguering camp, it appeared as if she were taking away some lint to
be spun for Mrs Ogilvie. So far from suspecting any trick, the English
officer on duty is said to have helped Mrs Grainger upon her horse. The
castle was rendered three months afterwards, when great was the rage
of the English on finding that the regalia were gone. It was adroitly
given out that they had been carried beyond sea by Sir John Keith, a
younger brother of the earl, and handed to King Charles at Paris.
[Sidenote: 1652.]
In reality, on reaching the manse of Kineff, Mrs Grainger had delivered
the crown, sceptre, and sword to her husband, who took the earliest
opportunity of burying them under the floor of his church, imparting
the secret of their concealment to no one but the Countess Marischal.
To the credit of the worthy minister and his wife, they preserved
their secret inviolate till the Restoration, eight years afterwards,
when ‘the honours’ were exhumed, and replaced under proper custody.
An order of the Scottish parliament, dated January 11, 1661, rewarded
Mrs Grainger with two thousand merks; Ogilvie was created a baronet;
while Sir John Keith, whose immediate concern in the affair does not
appear to have been great, was made Knight Marischal of Scotland, with
a salary of £400 yearly; to which rewards was added in 1677 a peerage
under the title of Earl of Kintore.[158]
* * * * *
‘In these times, the English commanders had great respect to justice,
and in doing execution upon malefactors, such as thieves, harlots, and
others of that kind, by scourging, hanging, kicking, cutting off their
ears, and stigmating of them with het irons.’--_Nic._
The diarist acknowledges that the English judicature established at
Leith _condemned_ the native one by its impartiality, suitors returning
from it ‘with great contentment.’ He adds: ‘To speak the truth, the
English were more indulgent and merciful to the Scots nor the Scots
were their awn countrymen and neighbours. They filled up the rooms of
justice-courts with very honest clerks,’ &c.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAR. 29.]
Being Monday, a celebrated eclipse of the sun took place between eight
and eleven in the morning, with a perfectly clear sky. ‘The whole
body of the sun did appear to us as if it had been covered with the
moon; only there was a circle about the sun that appeared somewhat
clear without any light [the corona?]. At that time there did a star
appear in the firmament, near to the place of the eclipse.’ ‘There
was ane manifest darkness for the space of some moments.’--_Lam._
‘The time of the eclipse it was exceedingly fearful and dark, to the
terror of many.’--Nic. Another account says, the darkness continued
about eight minutes, and the people began to pray to God.[159] ‘The
like, as thought by astrologers, was not since the darkness at our
Lord’s passion. The country people, tilling, loosed their ploughs,
and thought it had been the latter day.... The birds clapped to the
ground.’--_Law._ The day of this eclipse was long remembered, under the
name of MIRK MONONDAY.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR. 20.]
[Sidenote: 1652.]
Died at the Wemyss in Fife, Eleanour Fleming, Countess of Wemyss,
without children. She had been married to her husband only two years,
but in that time had made him, if report spoke true, ‘a hundred
thousand merk worse’ than before. ‘She caused her husband give a free
discharge to her brother, the Lord Fleming, of her whole tocher, being
about twenty thousand merks Scots, before any of it was paid to him.
She caused her husband and her brother to give Mr Patrick Gillespie a
bond of four thousand merks.... She caused also a door to be strucken
through the wall of her chamber, for to go to the wine-cellar; for she
had, as is said by many, a great desire after strong drink.’--_Lam._
Verily, a trying sort of lady for a quiet nobleman like Lord Wemyss,
who nevertheless ventured on a third wife before the year was out--the
mother of Anne Duchess of Monmouth.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 17.]
‘It pleased God to lay the town of Glasgow desolate by a violent
and sudden fire.... The far best part of the fore streets and most
considerable buildings were burnt, together with above fourscore lanes
and closes, which were the dwellings of above a thousand families, and
almost all the shops and warehouses of the merchants, many whereof are
near by ruined. Besides, a great many more of widows, orphans, and
distressed honest families, having lost what they had, are now put to
starving and begging. The like of this fire has not been formerly heard
of in this nation.’--_Nic._ ‘It was said 1060 houses burnt.’--_C. P. H._
Five days after this fire, the Town Council appointed ‘the provost,
with John Bell, to ride to Ayr, to the English officers there, wha has
been here and seen the town’s lamentable condition--such as Colonel
Overton and others--and to obtein from them letters of recommendation
to such officers or judges who sits in Edinburgh, to the effect that
the same may be recommendit by them to the parliament of England, that
all help and supply may be gotten thereby that may be, for the supply
of such as has their lands and guids burnt.’[160]
It must have been with a sore heart that the newly subjugated city of
the west condescended to beg from the parliament of the sectaries.
The case, however, was one of extreme misery, for the resources of
Scotland, and of the west as much as anywhere, had been exhausted by
the war, so that without foreign help it must have been impossible to
repair the calamity.
Little more than four years after this period, Robert Baillie speaks of
Glasgow as much revived. ‘Our people,’ he says, ‘has much more trade in
comparison than any other: their buildings increase strangely both for
number and fairness.’ He adds, that in his time the city had been more
than doubled.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY.]
[Sidenote: 1652.]
In a General Assembly which sat at Edinburgh, sixty-five of the clergy
protested against the lawfulness of the last General Assemblies, in
which resolutions in favour of the king had been sanctioned. Andrew
Cant, Samuel Rutherford, and Robert Traill were the leaders of this
zealous faction--the _Protesters_ or _Remonstrators_--against whom the
censures of the kirk were threatened by the majority in vain. By this
schism, the hitherto admired unity of the Scottish kirk was broken up,
and henceforth, for several years, there scarcely ever was a meeting of
any of its courts unmarked by scenes of indecent violence. At a synod
held at Glasgow in October, two days being spent in contentions about
the choice of a moderator, the meeting dissolved without attempting
any other business.--_Nic._ Not long after, when the General Assembly
ordered a fast for the sins of the nation, and because ‘few were
seeking the things of Jesus Christ,’ the Remonstrators disallowed
it, and appointed among themselves ‘a day of humiliation for that
humiliation.’ In all matters regarding the settlement of ministers in
parishes, there was furious and uncompromising war for a series of
years between the two parties.
* * * * *
This summer was remarkable for clear, dry, warm weather, parching up
the herbage, and producing exceedingly light crops on the best lands.
The harvest commenced in June, and in a field near Dundee there were
_stooks_ on the 7th of July. At the end of July and beginning of
August, the harvest was general; and before the end of the latter
month, all was ‘in’--circumstances unexampled, and which have perhaps
never again occurred. ‘The pease wallowed [that is, faded in the bloom]
a fortnight before Lammas, whereas some years they continue till
Michaelmas.’--_Lam._ ‘All the corn was got in without rain, and long
before the usual time. The like harvest was in England.’ ‘It is truly
reported that in England there was such abundance of white butterflies
as was never heard of before. They destroyed all cabbage; and divers
cobles coming from sea, hardly could see the land for them.’--_Nic._
The summer ‘produced ripe wine-berries and grapes, and abundance of
Scotch chestanes openly sauld at the Mercat Cross of Edinburgh, and
baken in pasties at banquets.’--_Nic._
[Sidenote: 1652.]
The weather, strange to say, remained of the same character all the
latter part of the year, so that fruit-trees had a second blossoming
in November, and some of them brought forth fruit, ‘albeit not in
perfection.’ The furze and broom bloomed again; the violet, not due
till March, presented its modest head in November. Birds began to
build their nests, and lay eggs, at or near Martinmas, and salads and
sybows were cried and sold in Edinburgh on the 27th of November.--_Nic._
* * * * *
The letters sent home by the English soldiery now marching through the
Highlands, describe the country as mountainous, yet the valleys rich;
the houses of earth and turf so low that the horsemen sometimes rode
over them; the people generally going with plaids about their middles,
both men and women; ‘simple and ignorant in the things of God, and
some of them as brutish as heathens;’ nevertheless, ‘some did hear the
English preachers with great attention and groaning.’[161]
* * * * *
In some churches in Fife, as Kirkcaldy and Kennoway, the English
soldiers ‘did pull down the stool of repentance; they did sit in
them also, in contempt, in some places where they came, in time of
sermon.’ Several ministers were openly challenged for their expressions
in prayers and sermons, by these soldiers. Mr George Hamilton at
Pittenweem was so troubled by some of Fairfax’s regiment, that he had
to break off; ‘at which time there was great uproar in the church
there.’--_Lam._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG.]
The Earl of Crawford, having been taken by the English at Alyth a
twelvemonth before, now lay a prisoner in the Tower. The countess--a
sister of the late Duke of Hamilton--desiring to visit her husband in
his affliction, left Scotland for the purpose in a stage-coach which
had recently been established for the keeping up of communication
between the two countries--‘the journey coach,’ says Lamont, ‘that
comes ordinarily between England and Scotland.’ We do not learn the
periods of departure, or any other detail regarding this vehicle; but
from a paragraph which occurs under May 1658, we may presume that it
did not go oftener than once in three weeks, and charged for a seat
fully as much as a first-class railway ticket of the present day.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP. 30.]
‘There came into the very brig of Leith ane little whale, which
rendered much profit to the English.’--_Nic._
[Sidenote: 1652.]
This ‘little whale’ would probably be a stray member of a flock of the
_Delphinus globioceps_, which so frequently are embayed and slaughtered
in Zetland and the Faröe Islands. The appearance of such an animal in
Leith harbour is an event of a very rare character.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT.]
Four English gentlemen, Messrs George Smith, John Martin, Andrew Owen,
and Edward Mosley, the commissioners appointed by Cromwell for the
administration of justice in Scotland in place of the Court of Session,
commenced their labours in the criminal department at Edinburgh. Three
days were spent in the trial and fining of persons of impure life, of
whom there were above sixty brought before the judges in a day. ‘It
is observable,’ says an English newspaper of the time, ‘that such is
the malice of these people, that most of them were accused for facts
done divers years since, and the chief proof against them was their
own confession before the kirk, who are in this worse than the Roman
religion, who do not make so ill a use of their auricular confession.
Some of the facts were committed five, ten, nay, twenty years. There
was one Ephraim Bennet, a gunner in Leith, indicted, convicted, and
condemned for coining sixpences, shillings, and half-crowns. Also two
Englishmen, Wilkinson and Newcome, condemned for robbing three men, and
for killing a Scottishman near Haddington in March last. But that which
is most observable is, that some were brought before them for witches,
two whereof had been brought before the kirk about the time of the
armies coming into Scotland, and having confessed, were turned over to
the civil magistrate. The court demanding how they came to be proved
witches, they declared they were forced to it by the exceeding torture
they were put to, which was by tying their thumbs behind them, and then
hanging them up by them: two Highlanders whipped them, after which
they set lighted candles to the soles of their feet, and between their
toes, then burned them by putting lighted candles in their mouths, and
then burning them in the head: there were six of them accused in all,
four whereof died of the torture.... Another woman that was suspected,
according to their thoughts, to be a witch, was twenty-eight days and
nights with bread and water, being stripped stark naked, and laid upon
a cold stone, with only a haircloth over her. Others had hair-shirts
dipped in vinegar put on them, to fetch off the skin.’--_Mercurius
Politicus_.[162] The resolution of the judges to inquire into these
cruelties is intimated.
[Sidenote: 1652.]
Regarding a man accused of witchcraft, it is mentioned a few days later
by the same newspaper, that he first confessed a number of ridiculous
things, including frequent converse with the devil, but before the
judges he denied all, and said that he _had only been in a dream_. ‘The
truth is, he lived in so poor a condition, that _he confessed or rather
said anything that was put into his head_.... By this you may guess
upon what grounds many hundreds have heretofore been burnt in this
country for witches.’ A most pregnant remark, truly.
Whitelocke intimates letters from Scotland at this time, stating that
sixty persons, men and women, had been accused of witchcraft before the
commissioners for the administration of justice in Scotland at the last
circuit; but ‘they found so much malice and so little proof against
them, that none were condemned.’[163]
The Scottish civil bench having not long been free from an evil
reputation for _budds_ or bribes, and to the last liable to the charge
of partiality, it is alleged that the English judges rather surprised
the public by their equitable decisions. It is added that some one,
in a subsequent age, was lauding to the Lord-president Gilmour, the
remarkable impartiality of these judges and the general equity of their
proceedings, when the Scottish judge answered in his rough way: ‘Deil
thank them, they had neither kith nor kin!‘[164]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1653.
FEB. 11.]
A person who was ‘both man and woman, _a thing not ordinar in this
kingdom_,’ was hanged at Edinburgh on account of some irregularities
of conduct. ‘His custom was always to go in a woman’s habit.’--_Lam._
This person passed by the name of Margaret Rannie. ‘When opened by
certain doctors and apothecaries, [he] was found to be two every way,
having two hearts, two livers, two every inward thing....’--_C. P. H._
The same day, an old man was burnt for warlockry, ‘wha had come in
and rendered himself to prison, confessing his sin, and willing that
justice be execute on him, for safety of his saul.’--_Nic._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE.]
Early in this month, a number of _pellochs_ or porpoises were thrown
ashore dead on the coast of Fife; ‘whilk was taken to be very
ominous.’--_Nic._
[Sidenote: 1653.
JULY 20.]
[Sidenote: 1653.]
The humiliation of the ecclesiastical system of Scotland, lately so
triumphant, was this day completed by the breaking up of the General
Assembly at the order of Cromwell. The court had met in Edinburgh, and
the moderator, Mr David Dickson, had prayed and begun to call the roll,
when ‘there comes in two lieutenant-colonels of the English forces,
and desired them to be silent, for they had something to speak to
them. So one of the lieutenant-colonels [Cotterell] began to ask them
by what authority they met--if by authority of the late parliament,
or by authority of the commander-in-chief, or if by the authority
of their late king? [Mr David Dickson, the moderator of the former
assembly, ‘said to him: “Sir, you ask by what authority we sit here;
we sit, not as having authority from any power on earth, but as having
power and authority from Jesus Christ; and by him, and for him, and
for the good of his church, do we sit.” Cotterell answered: “You are
to sit no more;” whereby he declared himself, and them that employed
him, enemies to Christ.’--_C. P. H._]... He desired further, that
all the names of the members of the assembly might be given him. The
moderator replied that they could not give them, because they were not
called; but if he would have a little patience till they called the
roll, he should have them. He answered, if it were not longsome, he
should do it. So the moderator began at the presbytery of Argyle, to
examine their commission. Here the English officer replied that that
would prove tedious, so that he could not wait upon it, but desired
them to remove and begone; and if they would not, he had instructions
what to do. [‘He would drag us out of the room.’--_Bail._] Upon this
the moderator protested, in the name of the assembly, that they were
Christ’s court, and that any violence or injury done to them might not
hinder any meeting of theirs when convenient occasion should offer
itself. He desired they might pray a little before they dissolved. The
moderator began prayer; and after he had spoken five or six sentences,
the English officer desired them again to be gone. Notwithstanding, the
moderator went on in prayer, but was forced at length to break off.
So they arose and came forth. [‘When we had entered a protestation of
this unexampled violence, we did rise and follow him; he led us through
the streets a mile out of town, encompassing us with foot-companies of
musketeers and horsemen without; all the people gazing and mourning
as at the saddest spectacle they had ever seen.’--_Bail._] They were
guarded on both hands up the way to the Weigh-house, where they were
carried along to the Port, and thence to the Quarry Holes [Bruntsfield
Links], where they made them to stand. The English required again all
their names; they said they were most willing. So they told all their
names. So the moderator protested again at that place. After their
names were written, they discharged them to meet again, under the pain
of being breakers of the peace.... The English desired them to go
back to Edinburgh and lodge there all night, and be gone before eight
o’clock next day; and discharged that not above two of them should be
seen together.’--_Nic._
‘The day following, by sound of trumpet, we were commanded off the
town, under pain of present imprisonment. Thus our General Assembly,
the glory and strength of our church, is crushed and trod under
foot. Our hearts are sad, our eyes run down with water, we sigh
to God against whom we have sinned, and wait for the help of his
hand.’--_Bail._
The suppression of the supreme church-court was followed (August 4) by
a proclamation at Edinburgh, ‘discharging the ministry to pray for the
king, or to preach anything against the title of England to Scotland.
Mr Robert Lawrie, in his prayer, prayed for the king. When he came
from the pulpit, he was carried to the Castle, but stayed short while,
because an Englishman would be caution that he should answer whenever
he should be called. Notwithstanding, the ministry, finding it a duty
lying on them by the Covenants, continued all of them praying for the
king, and gave their reasons for it to the English commissioners.’--_C.
P. H._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: (SEP.)]
The heat of the summer 1652, and the earliness of the harvest, had not
been attended with such plenty as to produce extraordinary cheapness.
During this summer of 1653, wheat was £1, 5s. sterling per boll, and
the inferior grains about 20s. An excellent crop having been secured,
‘the prices fell strangely, so that from Michaelmas till the end of the
year, oats were at [6s. 8d.] per boll, and wheat [11s. 8d. and 13s.
4d.].’--_Lam._
* * * * *
The Trembling Exies--that is, ague--was this year ‘exceeding frequent
through all parts of this nation, in such condition as was never seen
before ... the smallpox also, whereof many people, both old and young,
perished.’--_Nic._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC.]
[Sidenote: 1653.]
The gallant resistance made to the English by the loyal forces under
Lord Kenmure, in the north of Scotland, was heard of with much
interest by Charles II. and his little court at Paris. Amongst other
adherents of royalty assembled there, was a Welsh gentleman of about
twenty-three years of age, styled Captain Wogan, who, entering in mere
boyhood into the service of the parliament under General Ireton, had
been converted by the king’s death, and since distinguished himself in
the loyal movements made in Ireland under the Marquis of Ormond. Wogan
was one of those ardent spirits whom Montrose would have been delighted
to associate in his enterprises. He now planned an expedition of a most
extraordinary nature. He proposed nothing less than to march, with such
as would join him, through the length of England and Lowland Scotland,
in order to take part in the guerrilla war going on in the Highlands.
Clarendon tells how reluctant the young king was to sanction so mad an
undertaking; but at length he was induced to give it his countenance.
Captain Wogan accordingly landed with a few companions at Dover, and,
proceeding to London, there went about engaging associates and making
needful preparations, without attracting the notice of the republican
government. The men and horses being rendezvoused at Barnet, Wogan
commenced his march for the north with an armed troop, which passed
everywhere as if it were a part of the regular army. By easy journeys,
but keeping as much as possible out of common roads, they reached
Durham, and thence advanced into Scotland by Peebles. It appears that
one of their first adventures in Scotland was to pass through a fair in
open day.[165] Monk, hearing on a Sunday of their having been on the
preceding night at Peebles, caused parties from Linlithgow, Stirling,
and Glasgow to keep a look-out; but the people of the country did not
help the English soldiery with intelligence, and this net was spread in
vain.[166] Wogan succeeded in conducting his troop in perfect safety
into the Highlands.
[Sidenote: 1653.]
This gallant little party met a cordial reception, and immediately
entered with the greatest activity into the war of skirmishes and
surprises which was then going on. The chief of the Camerons, the
gallant Evan Dhu, hailed in Wogan a kindred spirit, and joined in
some of his enterprises.[167] No garrison within many miles of the
Highland frontier was secure from their inroads. Their united names
became a terror to the English. But one winter month of Highland
campaigning formed the entire career of Wogan. A lieutenant’s party
of the veteran regiment known as the _Brazen Wall_, left the garrison
at Drummond one day, to recover some sheep which had been carried away
by the Highlanders. It became enclosed unawares in a superior force
of the enemy, of which Wogan and his troop formed part. The Brazen
Walls got off with a severe loss; but Wogan had received a wound in
the shoulder from a tuck. It was such an affair as a good surgeon
and a week of quiet might have healed--the circumstances of the poor
youth made it mortal in a few days, to the great grief of all who knew
him.[168] He was buried with military honours, and amidst the greatest
demonstrations of Highland sorrow, in the churchyard of Kenmore[169]
(about February 1, 1654). ‘Great indignation was there,’ says Heath,
‘against Robinson, the surgeon that dressed him, for his neglect of
him, the Earl of Athole having threatened to kill him; so dearly was
this hero beloved by that nation.’ The hope of this English author
‘that some grateful muse should sing his achievements,’ has not as yet
been realised; but the readers of _Waverley_ will remember how the
author represents his hero as gloating over Flora M‘Ivor’s verses _To
an Oak-tree said to mark the Grave of Captain Wogan_:
‘Emblem of England’s ancient faith,
Full proudly may thy branches wave,
Where loyalty lies low in death,
And valour fills a timeless grave.
* * * * *
Thy death-hour heard no kindred wail,
No holy knell thy requiem rung,
Thy mourners were the plaided Gael,
Thy dirge the clamorous pibroch sung.
Yet who, in Fortune’s summer tide,
To waste life’s longest term away,
Would change that glorious dawn of thine,
Though darkened ere its noontide day?’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1654.
MAR.]
From October by-past to this date, the weather was dry and fair to such
a degree as to make the period like a second summer. Nicoll states
that, in all that time, there had not been above six showers of wet or
snow, and two of these fell on Sundays.
[Sidenote: 1654.
MAY 4.]
General Monk coming down to Edinburgh to take command of the forces
against Glencairn and Kenmure, and to proclaim Oliver’s union of
Scotland and England, had a most honourable reception. ‘The provost
and bailies in their scarlet gowns met him at the Nether Bow Port, the
haill council in order going before them.’ After the proclamation, they
‘did convoy him to a sumptuous dinner and feast, prepared by the town
of Edinburgh for him and his special crowners [colonels]. This feast
was six days in preparing, _whereat the bailies of Edinburgh did stand
and serve the haill time of that dinner_.’ ‘There was great preparation
for firewarks, whilk was actit at the Mercat Cross betwixt nine and
twelve hours in the nicht, to the admiration of many people.’--_Nic._
Next day was proclaimed an act of _grace_, forfaulting the heirs of
the Duke of Hamilton and some score of other nobles, and imposing huge
fines upon sundry others; for example, £15,000 on the heirs of the Earl
of Buccleuch, £10,000 on the Earl of Panmure, £6000 on the Earl of
Roxburgh, £5000 on the Earl of Perth, and the latter sum and other sums
down to £1000 on upwards of fifty others, noblemen and gentlemen [these
sums being of sterling money].
If, as has been insinuated by cavalier writers, the Scotch nobles were
prompted in their joining the religious movement of 1637 by a fear
of the revocation of church-lands, they were now suffering a severe
punishment for their hypocrisy. Under the late exhausting wars, in
which they had incurred vast expenses, and the penal fines imposed on
them by Cromwell, they might well be described by a contemporary writer
as nearly all ‘wracked.’ Our authority sums them up in the following
terms:
[Sidenote: 1654.]
‘Dukes Hamilton, the one execute, the other slain; their [e]state
forfault[ed]; one part gifted to English sogers; the rest will not pay
the debt. Huntly execute; his sons all dead but the youngest; there is
more debt on the house nor the land can pay. Lennox is living, as a man
buried, in his house of Cobham. Douglas and his son Arran are quiet men
of no respect. Argyle almost drowned in debt, in friendship with the
English, but in hatred with the country. Chancellor Loudon lives like
an outlaw about Athole, his lands comprised for debt, under a general
very great disgrace. Marischal, Rothes, Eglintoun and his three sons,
Crawford, Lauderdale, and others, prisoners in England, and their lands
all either sequestrat or forfault[ed], and gifted to English sogers.
Balmerino suddenly dead, and his son, for public debt, comprisings,
and captions, keeps not the causey [that is, cannot appear in public].’
Landed proprietors, merchants, and indeed the entire community, were
now in a state of prostration in consequence of the wars. According
to the diarist Nicoll--‘The poverty of the land daily increased, by
reason of inlaik of trade and traffic, both by sea and land, the people
being poor and under cess, quarterings, and other burdens. Falsets
and dyvours [bankrupts] daily increased; sundry of good rank, nobles,
gentry, and burgesses, denuncit to the horn, their escheats taken,
their persons imprisoned, and deteinit therein till their death.
Bankrupts and broken men, through all parts of the nation, for fear of
caption and warding, were forced to flie to Glencairn and Kenmure, who
were now in arms against the English.’
In April of this year, an additional trouble and burden fell upon the
people, in consequence of the royalist insurrections, no person being
now allowed to travel from home without a pass, for which a shilling
sterling was charged. Scotland must have then been in much the same
condition as Hungary and Lombardy were under the Austrians after 1848.
* * * * *
The summer of this year was exceedingly fine, producing ripe peas and
cherries at the beginning of June, and yielding an early and abundant
harvest; so that the best oatmeal was only fourpence sterling per peck.
‘The lambs and fowls were also at ane exceeding cheap rate’ (_Nic._),
and it is also stated that, from the abundance of herrings in the west
seas, these fish were sold so low as twopence a hundred. Cheese was, in
the west country, at 2s. 6d. sterling per stone.--_Caldwell Papers._
This bounty of Providence is not spoken of by contemporary journalists
as abating in any degree the sufferings of the people--though these,
we cannot doubt, would have been much greater if there had been a
dearth. Just at this time, Nicoll returns to the subject of the general
distresses of the country. ‘Much people,’ he says, ‘were brought to
misery,’ and the land ‘groaned under its calamities and burdens.’
[Sidenote: 1654.]
Owing to the drought of the summer, the wells on which Edinburgh
depended for water ran dry, ‘sae that the inhabitants could not get
sufficient for ordering their meat.’ Nevertheless, ‘all the _west
country_ had more than ordinar abundance of rain and weet.’--_Nic._ The
same writer adds afterwards that the people of Edinburgh were obliged
to go a mile before they could get any clean water, ‘either for
brewing of ale, or for their pot meat.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE.]
This seems to have been the time when the word TORIES, since so
notable, was introduced into our island. It had been first applied to
a set of predatory outlaws in Ireland. Thus becoming familiar as a
term for brigands, it naturally was applied to a number of irregular
soldiers connected with the insurgent army of the Earl of Glencairn,
who, according to Nicoll, lay in holes and other private places, and
robbed and spoiled all who fell into their hands, ‘_ofttimes with the
purse cutting the throat of the awner_.’ The English troops bestirred
themselves to capture these Tories, and in July, _eight_ were taken out
of the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, and as many out of the Canongate jail,
besides others from Perth and Dundee, and shipped at Leith to be taken
and sold as slaves in Barbadoes.--_Nic._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP. 4.]
Andrew Hill, musician, was tried for the abduction of a young pupil,
Marion Foulis, daughter of Foulis of Ravelston. One of the many
specific charges against this base fellow was, that ‘he used sorceries
and enchantments--namely, roots and herbs--with which he boasted that
he could gain the affection of any woman he pleased, and which he used
towards the said Marion.’ The jury, while condemning him for the main
offence, acquitted him of sorcery, though finding that he had been
‘a foolish boaster of his skill in herbs and roots for captivating
women.’ While the judges delayed for fifteen days to pass doom upon the
culprit, he was ‘eaten of vermin in prison, and so died.’[170]
[Sidenote: 1654.]
It was surely a very perverse love of the supernatural which caused
our ancestors to surmise the use of sorcery whenever Cupid played any
extraordinary trick. At a later time, when the Earl of Rothes, his
majesty’s commissioner, defied scandal in going about openly with Lady
Anne Gordon, it was thought he had been bewitched by her. It was also
believed that the Duke of Monmouth was spell-bound to Lady Henrietta
Wentworth, the charm being lodged in that golden toothpick case which
he sent to her from the scaffold. The means, however, thought to be
most commonly employed was a _love-philter_. In 1682, James Aikenhead,
apothecary in Edinburgh, was pursued before the Privy Council for
‘selling poisonous and amorous drugs and philters, whereby a woman had
narrowly escaped with her life, had not Doctor Irving given her ane
antidote.’ On this occasion, the case being referred to the College of
Physicians, that sapient body pronounced that it was ‘not safe to give
such medicaments, without first taking their own advice.’--_Fount._
So lately as 1659, a Scotch gentleman is found communicating to a
friend a receipt for that _Powder of Sympathy_ which in a somewhat
earlier age in England was held as qualified for the cure of wounds. It
was in the following terms: ‘Take of asphodel Romano, and set it under
the sun in the canicular days till it become in white ashes, or like
white powder. That done, put it in a box. Then to apply: Take the blood
or matter of the wound, on a clean linen, and lay on a little of the
powder to the blood or matter; and keep the cloth in a box, where it
may neither get much cold nor much heat. This done, dress the wounded
person every day once, and keep always linen cloths above the wound.
But let no linen cloth which hath been used or worn by any woman come
near the powder or wounded person. Observe this secret, and keep it to
yourself.’[171]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT.]
In the course of this month, a number of hares came into the city of
Edinburgh, even into its central parts, the High Street and Parliament
Close, ‘to the great admiration of many.’ ‘The like was never heard nor
seen before.’--_Nic._ This singular circumstance was probably in some
way a consequence of the dry nature of the season.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV.]
At this time commenced the series of alleged incidents constituting the
once famous history of the DEVIL OF GLENLUCE.
[Sidenote: 1654.]
A poor weaver, named Gilbert Campbell, at Glenluce in Galloway, had
given offence to a sturdy beggar, named Agnew, ‘a most wicked and
avowed atheist, for which he was hanged at Dumfries.’ The wretch went
away muttering that he would do the family a mischief. Whether before
or after Agnew’s death does not appear, the weaver and his family began
to be annoyed with whistling noises, and by petty acts of mischief--as
the mislaying and destroying of little articles, and the throwing of
stones and peats, all by unseen hands. Their clothes were sometimes
drawn from them as they lay in bed. At the suggestion of some
neighbours, Campbell sent away his children, and for the time peace
ensued. So it was, after all except Tom had been brought back, and _not
so after Tom had returned likewise_; but, to shew that this was a point
of indifference, when Tom had been again sent away in the keeping of
the minister of the parish, the annoyances recommenced. This lad, it
may be remarked, said he had heard a voice warning him not to go back
to his father’s house; and when he did return, he was ‘sore abused,’
and thus once more driven away.
[Sidenote: 1654.]
In February, the family began to hear a voice speak to them, but could
not tell whence it came. ‘They came at length in familiar discourse
with the foul thief, that they were no more afraid to keep up the
clash with him, than to speak with one another; in this they pleased
him well, for he desired no better than to have sacrifices offered to
him. The minister, hearing of this, went to the house upon the Tuesday,
being accompanied by some gentlemen; one James Bailie of Carphin,
Alexander Bailie of Dunragget, Mr Robert Hay, and a gentlewoman called
Mrs Douglas, with the minister’s wife, did accompany. At their first
coming in, the devil says: “_Quam literarum_ is good Latin.” These are
the first words of the Latin Rudiments, which scholars are taught when
they go to the grammar-school. He cries again: “A dog!” The minister,
thinking he had spoken it to him, said: “He took it not ill to be
reviled by Satan, since his Master had trodden that path before him.”
Answered Satan: “It was not you, sir, I spoke to; I meant the dog
there;” for there was a dog standing behind backs. This passing, they
all went to prayer; which being ended, they heard a voice speaking out
of the ground, from under the bed, in the proper country dialect, which
he did counterfeit exactly, saying: “Would you know the witches of
Glenluce? I will tell you them;” and so related four or five persons’
names that went under a bad report. The weaver informed the company
that one of them was dead long ago. The devil answered and said: “It
is true she is dead long ago, but her spirit is living with us in the
world.” The minister replied, saying (though it was not convenient to
speak to such an excommunicated and intercommuned person): “The Lord
rebuke thee, Satan, and put thee to silence; we are not to receive
information from thee, whatsoever name any person goes under; thou art
seeking but to seduce this family, for Satan’s kingdom is not divided
against itself.” After which, all went to prayer again, which being
ended--for during the time of prayer no noise or trouble was made,
except once that a loud fearful yell was heard at a distance, the
devil threatening and terrifying the lad Tom, who had come back that
day with the minister, “that if he did not depart out of the house,
he would set all on fire”--says the minister: “The Lord will preserve
the house, and the lad too, seeing he is one of the family, and had
God’s warrant to tarry in it.” The fiend answered: “He shall not get
liberty to tarry; he was once put out already, and shall not abide
here, though I should pursue him to the end of the world.” The minister
replied: “The Lord will stop thy malice against him.” And then they
all went to prayer again; which being ended, the devil said: “Give me
a spade and a shovel, and depart from the house for seven days, and I
will make a grave, and lie down in it, and shall trouble you no more.”
The goodman answered: “Not so much as a straw shall be given thee,
through God’s assistance, even though that would do it.” The minister
also added: “God shall remove thee in due time.” The spirit answered:
“I will not remove for you; I have my commission from Christ to tarry
and vex this family.” The minister answered: “A permission thou hast
indeed, but God will stop it in due time.” The devil replied: “I have,
sir, a commission, which perhaps will last longer than your own.” [The
minister died in the year 1655, in December.] The devil had told them
“that he had given his commission to Tom to keep.” The company inquired
at the lad, who said: “There was something put into his pocket, but it
did not tarry.”’
After a great deal of the like talk with the unseen tormentor, ending
with a declaration from him that he was an evil spirit come from the
bottomless pit to vex this house, and that Satan was his father, ‘there
appeared a naked hand, and an arm from the elbow down, beating upon
the floor till the house did shake again.’ This the minister attested,
and also that he heard the voice, saying: ‘Saw you that? It was not my
hand--it was _my father’s_; my hand is more black in the loof [palm].’
[Sidenote: 1654.]
Sinclair, who relates these things,[172] states that he received them
from a son of Campbell who was at Glasgow College with him. ‘I must
here insert,’ he adds, ‘what I heard from one of the ministers of
that presbytery, who were appointed to meet at the weaver’s house for
prayer and other exercises of that kind. When the day came, five only
met; but, before they went in, they stood a while in the croft, which
lies round about the house, consulting what to do. They resolved upon
two things: First, There should be no words of conjuration used, as
commanding him in the name of God to tell whence he was, or to depart
from the family, for which they thought they had no call from God;
Secondly, That when the devil spoke, none should answer him, but hold
on in their worshipping of God, and the duties they were called to.
When all of them had prayed by turns, and three of them had spoken a
word or two from the Scripture, they prayed again, and then ended,
without any disturbance. When that brother who informed me had gone
out, one Hugh Nisbit, one of the company, came running after him,
desiring him to come back, for he had begun to whistle. “No,” says the
other, “I tarried as long as God called me; but go in again I will
not.” After this, the said Gilbert suffered much loss, and had many sad
nights, not two nights in one week free; and thus it continued until
April. From April to July, he had some respite and ease; but after, he
was molested with new assaults. Even their victuals were so abused,
that the family was in hazard of starving; and that which they ate gave
them not their ordinary satisfaction they were wont to find.
[Sidenote: 1654.]
‘In this sore and sad affliction, Gilbert Campbell resolved to make
his address to the synod of presbyters, for advice and counsel what to
do, which was appointed to convene in October 1655--namely, Whether
to forsake the house or not? The synod, by their committee, appointed
to meet at Glenluce in February 1656, thought it fit that a solemn
humiliation should be kept through all the bounds of the synod; and,
among other causes, to request God in behalf of that afflicted family;
which being done carefully, the event was, that his trouble grew less
till April, and from April to August he was altogether free. About
which time the devil began with new assaults; and taking the ready
meat which was in the house, did sometimes hide it in holes by the
doorposts, and at other times hid it under the beds, and sometimes
among the bed-clothes, and under the linens, and at last did carry it
quite away, till nothing was left there save bread and water. This
minds me of a small passage in proof of what it said. The goodwife one
morning making pottage for the children’s breakfast, had the tree-plate
wherein the meal lay snatched from her quickly. “Well,” says she, “let
me have my plate again;” whereupon it came flying at her, without any
skaith done. It is like, if she had sought the meal too, she might
have got it; such is his civility when he is entreated; a small homage
will please him, ere he went. After this, he exercised his malice and
cruelty against all persons in the family, in wearying them in the
night-time, by stirring and moving through the house, so that they
had no rest for noise, which continued all the month of August after
this manner. After which time the devil grew yet worse, by roaring and
terrifying, by casting of stones, by striking them with staves on their
bed in the night-time. And (September 18) about midnight, he cried out
with a loud voice, “I shall burn the house.” And about three or four
nights after, he set one of the beds on fire, which was soon put out,
without any prejudice except the bed itself.’
Robert Baillie, writing to his friend Mr Spang at Rotterdam in 1659,
answers an inquiry of his correspondent regarding ‘the apparition
in Galloway,’ stating that it is ‘notourly known.’ He adds a short
narrative of the chief particulars, informing us that for a twelvemonth
the apparition had been silent.
It is the first, but not the only case of such spiritual visitations,
which is reported as occurring in Scotland during the seventeenth
century: another, which happened at Rerrick in the stewartry of
Kirkcudbright in 1695, attracted great attention. The Glenluce and
Rerrick spirits belong to a class familiar in Germany under the name
of _Poltergeist_. In Beaumont’s _Gleanings of Antiquities_, 1724,
the author quotes from Aventinus’s _Annals of Bavaria_ a case of
poltergeist resembling in many circumstances this Glenluce one. ‘This
pestilent and wicked genius, taking a human shape, gave answers,
discovered thefts, accused many of crimes, and set a mark of infamy on
them, stirred up discords and ill-will among them. By degrees, he set
fire to and burned down cottages, but was more troublesome to one man
than the rest,’ &c.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1655.
JAN.]
Baillie, writing a little before this time, laments ‘the abolition of
almost all our church liberties.’ By the putting down of our General
Assemblies and Kirk Commission, licence had been given, he says, to
‘any who will to profess grievous errors.’ This, where ‘we expected a
full and perfect reformation, does oft break our heart.’ It has already
been seen that, so soon as the incoming of the English sectaries had to
some degree checked the ‘church liberties,’ dissent had begun to appear
in various forms. We now hear of off-breakings of a kind more alarming
than ever.
[Sidenote: 1655.]
There arose at this time--to use the language of a contemporary--‘great
numbers of that damnable sect of the Quakers, who, being deluded by
Satan, drew away mony to their profession, both men and women.’[173]
‘They, in a furious way, cry down both ministry and magistracy. Some of
them seem actually possessed by a devil; their fury, their irrational
passions, and convulsions are so great.’[174] ‘Sundry of them walking
through the streets, all naked except their shirts, crying: “This is
the way, walk ye in it;” others crying out: “The day of salvation is at
hand; draw near to the Lord, for the sword of the Lord is drawn, and
will not be put up till the enemies of the Lord be destroyed.”’
[Sidenote: 1655.]
Under the same mania, several of the English soldiers and certain
of the native inhabitants created disturbances in the churches of
Edinburgh, calling on the people not to believe the false doctrine
which was preached to them. ‘The devil, working strongly upon their
imaginations, made them to believe that the Spirit descendit upon them
like ane dow; carried them from one place to another, and made mony
of them cry out: “I am the way, the truth, and the life,”’ and ‘make
circles about them[selves] with their hands, with many like actions.’
The devil also told them he was ‘putting aff the old man, that the
stones were taken out of their hearts, and they had now got hearts of
flesh.’ He threw stones among them, crying out: ‘Lo, here is my heart
of stone!’ made swallows come down from chimneys, and cry out: ‘My
angels! my angels!’ ‘They continuing in this motion, he made them to
believe that Christ pointed at them, and to leave wives and children,
and to hear voices, sometimes condemning, sometimes pardoning their
sins.... Some of thir Quakers, being recalled [to sanity], began to
question whether that power by which they were so strongly act[uat]ed,
were divine or diabolical. Thereupon they were stricken with panic
fears, and some hands were carried to take up a knife lying upon a
table, and their hands carried to their throat, and a voice said: “Open
a hole there, and I will give thee the words of eternal life;” which
made some of them to apprehend that it was the devil, he being the
prince of the powers of the air.... This evil spirit prevailed with
much people,[175] and charged them to deny all ministerial teaching
and ordinances, together with all notional knowledge formerly gained
by such means, to become as though they had never learned anything
savingly, and to lay ane new groundwork--namely, to be taught of
God within ourselves by waiting upon ane inward light ... and much
more.’--_Nic._
It is remarked by Nicoll, under May 1656, that the Quakers were at that
time increasing and becoming more confident, and that their _pretended_
sermons and hortations on the Castle Hill of Edinburgh were well
attended. It was alleged that the continued divisions among the clergy
contributed much to the increase of this heresy.
Towards the end of 1656, the Quaker doctrines had begun to appear among
the people in the presbytery of Lanark. The ministers of Douglas and of
Lesmahago gave in the names of certain of their parishioners who had
been thus deluded. One named William Mitchell compeared, and denied
the Confession of Faith; and it appeared soon after that he maintained
that ‘there was no baptism with water in the church--God gives every
man saving grace--sprinkling of infants and marrying of people with
joining of hands was the mark of the beast--there is no natural light
in man--no man was fallen--and the preaching of the gospel as it is in
Scotland by the priests thereof was anti-Christian.’ Others ‘reset’ the
Quakers, ‘saying they get as much good of them as of anybody else.’ On
the 30th of April 1657, the presbytery excommunicated eight persons on
account of their obstinate adherence to these doctrines.--_R. P. L._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: FEB.]
In consequence of excessively stormy weather this month, many thousands
of dead eels were cast out upon the banks of the North Loch at
Edinburgh, ‘to the admiration of many.’--_Nic._
A severe frost set in, and continued till the middle of April, to the
interruption of farmwork; and it was deemed necessary to announce
a fast for an early day. ‘No sooner was this fast and humiliation
intimate from the pulpits of Edinburgh, but it seemed--and there was no
doubt--the Lord was weel pleased; and it was his pleasure to tryst the
desire of the people with fair and seasonable weather.’--_Nic._
[Sidenote: 1655.]
Heavy and continual rains in August threatened the crop with
destruction. A solemn fast and humiliation was held on the 16th of
August, in the hope of averting the threatened calamity. But ‘the
people were not rightly humbled; there was no fervent prayer; the
Lord’s face was not earnestly sought ... as was evident by the Lord’s
frowning countenance and augmentation of the rain, whilk daily
increased, and sometimes three days and three nights together without
intermission, continuing sae ... till the 15th day of September.’
For two years past, ‘victual of all sorts was exceeding cheap,
the best peck of meal in the mercat of Edinburgh being sold for
a groat, and sometimes for [3-1/3d.], the boll of wheat for [6s.
8d.]. But immediately after this extraordinary rain, the mercats did
rise, for this unseasonable weather put many in fear of dearth and
famine.’--_Nic._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAY.]
We incidentally learn the wages of a skilled artisan in Scotland at
this time from the account which Lamont gives of the expense of slating
and _pointing_ the house of Lundie in Fife. The work was done by David
Brown, slater in Anstruther, and his son, and so well, he said, that it
would not need to be touched again for seven years. David and his son
were paid for this work--their diet in the house during the twenty-four
working-days they were engaged upon it, and twenty-four shillings
Scots, or _two shillings sterling_, per day, in money.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY.]
On a Sunday, at the close of this month, the communion was administered
in Edinburgh, the first time after an interval of six years, for so
long had the rite been discontinued in the capital and other parts
of the kingdom, by reason of the troubles and divisions which had
prevailed. From one disqualification and another, ‘much people was
debarred.’--_Nic._
[Sidenote: OCT.]
The Council of State having forbidden the clergy to pray for the king
on pain of being silenced, they, ‘knowing that it lay upon them to
preach, and that, if only for naming a king they should occasion the
closing of their own mouth, therein they would greatly sin, generally
desisted from praying for him as king.’--_C. P. H._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT.]
[Sidenote: 1655.]
Owing to the dearth of victual, the burdens of the people were felt as
more than ever oppressive. Yet at this crisis, the cess imposed by the
English was augmented a fifth. In Edinburgh, another cess was imposed,
‘for buying of horse and carts, for carrying away and transporting of
the filth, muck, and fulzie out of the closes and causey of Edinburgh;
whilk [the tax] much grievit the people, and so much the more because
the people receivit no satisfaction for their money, but the causey and
closes continued more and more filthy, and no pains taken for clenging
the streets.’--_Nic._
Rather oddly, the more the poverty of the people increased, vanity the
more abounded; ‘for at this time it was daily seen that gentlewomen
and burgesses’ wives had more gold and silver about their gown and
wyliecoat tails nor their husbands had in their purses and coffers.’
‘Therefore, great judgment was evidently seen upon the land, and the
Lord’s hand stretched out still.’--_Nic._
The Edinburgh municipality, though it had for some time had a plack
on every pint of ale sold in the city, was 1,100,000 merks [upwards
of £61,000] in debt. ‘Oh, for the miseries of kirk and state at this
time!’ exclaims Nicoll. ‘The Lord’s anger hot against both, and nane to
stand up in the gap.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 10.]
After some weeks of severe and stormy weather, there befell this day a
tempest of the most terrible character, from the north-east, producing
fearful havoc among the ships on the east coast, and causing likewise
the loss of great numbers of people, bestial, and goods by land. ‘The
like storm was not seen by the space of many years before; no, not that
great storm that did arise at the death of King James the Sixth [in
March 1625] did equal this storm.’--_Nic._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 19.]
[Sidenote: 1655.]
Died, in Westminster, Sir William Dick, of Braid, Baronet, once
reputed the richest man of his time in Scotland, but latterly in
great misery and want; aged seventy-five. In his earlier life, he
conducted merchandise on a great scale in Edinburgh. The government
in those days pursued that mode of collecting revenue which made
farmers-general so much the objects of popular wrath and hatred in
France in the time of Voltaire. Dick farmed the Scottish customs--also
the revenues of Orkney--yet we do not hear that he bore his faculties
with marked ungentleness. He was rather a simple man, accessible to
the insinuations of vanity, and inspired with a full share of the
earnest religious feelings of his age. When the affair of the Covenant
came upon the tapis, it was thought well to secure the co-operation of
this rich merchant by getting him made provost of Edinburgh. Thus he
was easily persuaded to advance considerable sums in order to enable
his countrymen to resist the king. Sir Walter Scott alludes in one of
his novels to the tradition describing sacks of dollars poured from a
window in Provost Dick’s house into carts, that carried them to the
army at Dunse Law. When the Scottish Covenanters afterwards prepared
an army to assist in putting down the rebellion in Ireland, it could
not have marched without meal and money furnished by Provost Dick. It
appears from an authoritative document, that, on this occasion alone,
Sir William became a national creditor to the extent of £10,000. In all
the other movements of his countrymen at that time, for the protection
and advancement of their favourite church-polity, Dick shewed the same
large faith in the good cause, and probably, but for him, things might
have taken a different turn on many occasions from what they did. What
finally remained owing to him in Scotland amounted to £28,131.[176]
The English parliament was at the same time his debtor to the amount
of £36,803--sums rarely heard of as belonging to an individual in that
age. Sir William had been assured by the leaders he dealt with, both of
thankful repayment from themselves, and of the blessing of the Almighty
for the trust he had reposed in the cause of truth and righteousness.
But the actual result was simply the utter wrack of his worldly
affairs. Efforts were indeed made to repay his advances, but wholly
without effect. In 1652, he proceeded to London, to urge the government
to do him justice. By this time, his affairs had got into confusion,
his credit as a merchant was gone, and his creditors were pressing
upon him. It does not appear that he succeeded in wringing more than
a thousand pounds out of the hands of the Commonwealth men. Finally,
incurring fresh debts for his subsistence in the metropolis, he was
thrown into prison in Westminster--a memorable example of the reverses
of fortune incidental to a time of civil strife.
[Sidenote: 1655.]
A curious and very rare pamphlet in folio, entitled _The Lamentable
Estate and Distressed Case of the Deceased Sir William Dick in Scotland
and his Numerous Family and Creditors for the Commonwealth_, contains
two prints, the first representing Sir William at the crisis when he
was so serviceable to the cause of the Covenant, mounted on a handsome
dress, and with a goodly retinue, his horse trampling on money and
money-bags scattered along the ground. On one hand is seen Hamilton’s
fleet in the Firth of Forth, with the significant date 1639 inscribed
on one of the vessels; on the other, Edinburgh Castle undergoing
siege, with the date 1640, evidently referring to the leaguer which
the Castle underwent when the Covenanters were endeavouring to wrest
it from the officer who held it for the king. Below this print is
inscribed:
‘See here a Merchant who for’s country’s good,
Leaves off his trade to spend both wealth and blood,
Tramples on profit to redeem the fate
Of his decaying church, and prince, and state.
Such traffic sure none can too highly prize,
When gain itself is made a sacrifice.
But oh, how ill will such examples move,
If Loss be made the recompense to Love.’
Sir William’s favourite mottoes are inscribed above--PUBLICA SALUS
NUNC MEA MERCES, and PRO FOEDERE, REGE, ET GREGE. The second print,
of which the original painting is still preserved at Prestonfield
House, near Edinburgh, represents the unfortunate merchant in his
prison-cell, seated on a bulk in a mean dress, manacled and fettered,
with his family weeping around him, and four officers of the law at his
back, scourges and fetters being scattered about the floor. Below are
inscribed the motto, PUBLICA FIDES NUNC MEA SERVITUS, and these lines:
‘He whom you see thus by vile sergeants torn,
Was once his country’s pattern, now their scorn;
Whilst into prison dragged, he there complains,
Who least deserves doth soonest suffer chains.
And who for public doth his faith engage,
Changes his palace for an iron cage.
Then add, to shew his unbecoming fate,
He had been free had he not served the state.’
[Sidenote: 1655.]
The preface to the pamphlet speaks of him as once ‘renowned at home
and abroad as a famous merchant. When all men have sought their own,
he, contrary to the principles of his outward calling, in the time of
public calamity, did cheerfully embark himself, his estate, which was
very considerable, and his credit, which was greater, known by his fame
abroad that his bills were never protested, but accepted through all
Christendom, yea even in the dominions of the Turks--and this not out
of any private end, but for the public good cause, which had so many
prayers laid out for it then, which he believed would be answered in
due time.’ In the ‘Case’ as addressed to parliament, after a recital of
his loans and the many acknowledgments and efforts to pay previously
made, it is said: ‘Notwithstanding all this, and of the aforesaid Sir
William Dick his expense and painful satisfaction by agents and friends
the space of sixteen years, and of his own personal attendance upon
three parliaments and his highness’s council from November 1652 until
November 1655, in his great old age of seventy and five years, and
gray hairs full of sorrow and heaviness of heart, for such deplorable
sufferings in credit and estate, by so good service performed in
England, and with his cries to heaven for justice and mercy to his so
deep afflictions for well-doing; yet, nevertheless, little or nothing
was recovered all his time here, but one small sum of one thousand
pounds in August 1653; insomuch that, by reason of this delay, floods
of desolation and distress have overwhelmed him and his children
with their numerous families and little ones; their lands and houses
being extended and possessed by the creditors in the cruel execution
of the law; their chattels and goods, too, yea their ornaments, the
covering of their nakedness, and the coverlet in which they should
sleep, being publicly distrained and seized upon for these debts and
disbursements engaged in by them to promote the public service. Neither
is this all; one woe is past, and behold two woes come after this.
Ah! the old man himself was once and again disgracefully cast into
prison for small debts contracted for necessary livelihood, during his
attendance for satisfaction.’ ‘In the end, through heart-break by so
long disappointment,’ he died, ‘in great misery and want, and without
the benefit of a decent funeral, after six months’ petitioning for
some little money towards the same. And to complete the third woe and
perfection of sorrowful afflictions, his children are cast at this day,
and lying in prisons these twenty months past for public debts, in
great sufferings of their persons, credit, and calling, and weariness
of life, longing for death more than for treasures, and where they and
their numerous families had already perished for want of bread, if some
little supply by his highness’s goodness had not been lately appointed
them.’
[Sidenote: 1655.]
It appears that after the Restoration the parliament, as might have
been expected, declined to acknowledge the debts contracted by the
irregular governments of the preceding twenty years; so Sir William’s
large loans were never refunded. An advance (100,274 merks) on the
Orkney revenues was ignored in 1669, still further wrecking the
property of the family. The only compensation which Sir Andrew Dick,
son of Sir William, could obtain, was a pension of £132 sterling,
which lasted for a few years only.[177]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1656.
APR.]
The spring being alarmingly bad, ‘the presbytery of Lothian did
conclude a fast to be keepit in the beginning of May; whilk was keepit
in all the kirks of the presbytery, and although with great waikness,
yet it wanted not the awn happy effect and blessing, for frae that day
the Lord did produce much fair and pleasant weather,’ and ‘the like
summer and harvest was never seen in this age.’--_Nic._
‘This year produced abundance of bestial, such as horse, nolt, sheep,
and some of these at ane very easy price. A mart cow was sold for [£1,
6s. 8d.], these bestial being abundant, and the money exceedingly
scant.... There was also exceeding great numbers of salmon and all
other sorts of fish taken this year.’--_Nic._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE.]
It is remarked how much of deceit and cheating was practised at this
time among certain traders in Edinburgh. The beer, ale, and wine sold
in the city were all greatly adulterated. It was customary to mix wine
with milk, brimstone, and other ingredients. ‘Ale was made strong and
heady with hempseed, coriander-seed, Turkish pepper, soot, salt, and by
casting in strong wash under the caldron when the ale was in brewing.’
Blown mutton and corrupted veal, fusty bread and light loaves, false
measures and weights, were common. In all these particulars, the
magistrates were negligent, so that ‘the people were abused and
neglectit.’--_Nic._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE.]
[Sidenote: 1656.]
‘This year the Lord Cranstoun, having got a colonel’s commission,
levied a new regiment of volunteers for the King of Pole’s [Poland’s]
service; and it trysted well for his management and advantage. The
royalists chose rather to go abroad, though in a very mean condition,
than live at home under a yoke of slavery. The colonel sent one Captain
Montgomery north in June, and he had very good luck, listing many
for the service. In August the colonel himself followed after, and
residing at Inverness, sallied out to visit the Master of Lovat, and,
in three days, got forty-three of the Frasers to take on. Amongst the
rest, Captain James Fraser, my Lord Lovat’s son, engages, and, without
degradation, Cranstoun gives him a captain’s commission. Hugh Fraser,
young Clanvacky, takes on as lieutenant; William Fraser, son to Mr
William Fraser of Phopachy, an ensign; and James Fraser, son to Foyer,
a corporal. The Lord Lovat’s son had twenty-two young gentlemen with
the rest, who engaged by themselves, out of Stratherrick, Abertarff,
Aird, and Strathglass. I heard the colonel say he was vain of them for
gallantry--not so much that they were free and willing, but valorous.
I saw them march out of Inverness, and most of the English regiment
there looking on with no small commendation, as well as emulation
of their bravery.’--_Fraser of Kirkhill_. This gallant little levy
proved unfortunate, most of them being cut off early. Fourteen years
later, the same diarist gives us some particulars of the few then
surviving. ‘This October’ [1670], says he, ‘came to this country my
brother-german, William Fraser. He went abroad in the Lord Cranstoun’s
regiment, for the service of Carolus Gustavus, King of Sweden, and
after the peace he went up to Poland, with other Scottish men, and
settled at Plock as a merchant, and was married. He had given trust
and long delay to the Aberdeen’s men, and was necessitated to take
the occasion of a ship and come to Scotland to crave his own. He and
young Clanvacky Hugh are the only surviving two of the gallant crew
who ventured over seas with their chief’s son, Captain James. And he
is glad of this happy occasion to see his old mother and brethren. He
continued here among his friends all the winter, and returned back in
the spring, never to see his country again. Two of his foster-brothers
ventured with him, Farquhar and Rory--very pretty boys. We were six
brothers mustered one day together upon a street, and six sisters
waiting us in my uncle’s house--a pleasant sight. We were not vain
of it, but willing to see one another in one society. We never were
all convened again. We are here in this world planted in order to
our transplantation, where we shall, I hope, one day meet never to
separate.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG. 17.]
[Sidenote: 1656.]
At four o’clock in the morning, according to Baillie, there was ‘a
sensible earthquake’ in all parts of the town of Glasgow, ‘though
I felt it not.’ ‘Five or six years ago, there was ane other in the
afternoon, which I felt, and was followed by that fearful burning,
and all the other shaking [that] has been among us since. The Lord
preserve us from his too well-deserved judgments!’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP. 4.]
The efforts of the presbytery of Lanark to make sincere Presbyterians
of the Marquis and Marchioness of Douglas had signally failed. Their
parish minister reported sundry ‘outbreakings of sin’ in their house,
‘whereof he could get no order;’ above all, there was a neglect of
family worship. After many ineffectual dealings, the presbytery
declared at this date, that, ‘considering how the marquis and his
lady and family continue to be an ill example, and scandalous divers
ways, in regard that he himself does not ordinarily attend the public
ordinance, but some time the forenoon withdrawing himself, and ofttimes
the servants in the afternoon, in sight of the whole congregation; [and
that] he and his lady cometh scarce to the kirk once in a year, and
that there is no worship of God at all in their family,’ they must,
‘if he do not redress the foresaid scandals in some satisfying way,
enter in process of excommunication with him and his lady at the next
meeting.’
After many months, the reverend brethren are still found only ‘dealing’
with the noble marquis and his lady. A peer or peeress seems to have
been a particularly difficult person to excommunicate. Years elapse in
such cases without effecting the object, while a Quaker villager could
be conclusively thrust out of the church in a few weeks.--_R. P. L._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1657.
JUNE.]
Cromwell having been formally installed as Protector, Mr Robert Baillie
notes a popular expectation in Scotland that a storm--that is, a storm
of political trouble--would follow; and some things seemed to foretell
it: for example, the blowing up of a powder-magazine, destroying many
houses and persons; an army of pikemen appearing about the house of
Foggo Muir, near Dunse Law; and the discovery of some thousands of
objects in the form of cannon, shaped from snow without the hand of
man. Yet, to the surprise of the reverend gentleman, months passed on
without any interruption of peace.
[Sidenote: 1657.]
The same writer, addressing a friend abroad, tells of many painful
occurrences which broke the calm tenor of life in Scotland in this and
the next preceding and following years. Several young noblemen were
carried off by acute diseases. Lord Lorn, son of the Marquis of Argyle,
playing at a game in Edinburgh Castle, where stone-bullets were used,
one of them striking him on the head, he fell down as one dead, and
continued so for some time. Three judges died suddenly, one of them in
the court, as he was about to seat himself on the bench. Imprudence
and vice also attracted attention. ‘The Earl of Eglintoun’s heir, the
Lord Montgomery, convoying his father to London, runs away without any
advice, and marries a daughter of my Lord Dumfries, who is a broken
man, when he was sure of my Lady Buccleuch’s marriage, the greatest
match in Britain; _this unexpected prank is worse to all his kin than
his death would have been_. The Earl of Moray did little better, for at
London, without any advice, he ran and married Sir William Balfour’s
second daughter.’ The Earl of Rothes was clapped up in Edinburgh
Castle, by the Protector’s orders, in great infamy on account of a
certain light-mannered Lady Howard, who had come to his lordship’s
house on a visit, and whose husband was now in Scotland, bent on
obtaining a bloody satisfaction for his dishonour. At the same time,
the wife of Lord Forrester sunk into the grave, through grief excited
by the misconduct of her husband and her sister.
The number of cases of uncommon turpitude in a time of extraordinary
religious purism forces itself upon attention. One Foyer, who was under
the notice of the English judges at Glasgow in the spring of 1659, is
described by Robert Baillie as ‘a most wicked hypocrite, who, under
the colour of piety and prayer, has acted sundry adulteries.’ Being
libelled for one only, ‘he was but scourged: many were grieved that he
was not hanged.’ The reverend writer adds: ‘_Great appearance of his
witchery also_, if he had been put to a real trial.’
Offences of a horrible and unnatural kind continued to abound to a
degree which makes the daylight profligacy of the subsequent reign
shine white in comparison. ‘More,’ says Nicoll, ‘within these six or
seven years nor within these fifty years preceding and more.’ Culprits
of all ages, from boys to old men, are heard of every few months as
burnt on the Castle Hill of Edinburgh; sometimes two together. Young
women, who had murdered their own infants--on one occasion it was ‘ane
pretty young gentill woman’--were frequently brought to the same scene
of punishment. John Nicoll states that on one day, the 15th October
1656, five persons, two men and three women, were burnt on the Castle
Hill for offences of the several kinds here glanced at; while two
others were scourged through the city for minor degrees of the same
offences.
[Sidenote: 1657.]
Burnings of warlocks and witches were of not less appalling frequency.
In February 1658, two women and a man were prisoners for this crime
in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh. One of the women died in prison; the
warlock was executed. The other woman, named Jonet Anderson, who had
been married three months before, confessed that she had previously
given herself up, body and soul, to the devil, and that at her nuptials
she saw her spiritual lover standing in the church behind the pulpit.
Though this must have been merely such a case of hallucination as would
now require simply medical treatment, Jonet was only spared till it
was ascertained that she was not pregnant. ‘She made ane happy end,
and gave singular testimonies of her repentance by frequent prayers,
and singing of psalms, before her execution.’ In the ensuing August,
four women, ‘ane of them a maiden,’ were burnt on the Castle Hill, ‘all
confessing the sin of witchcraft.’ Not long after, we hear of _five
women_ belonging to Dunbar, burnt on the Castle Hill together, all
confessing that they had covenanted with Satan, renounced to him their
baptism, and taken from him new names, with suitable marks impressed
on their flesh. And presently follows again the case of _nine_ from
the parish of Tranent, all dying with similar confessions on their
lips.--_Nic._
Although these executions appear to us as tolerably numerous, they were
not enough to satisfy the zealous people of that day. ‘There is much
witchery up and down our land,’ says Robert Baillie; ‘_the English be
but too sparing to try it, but some they execute_.’
It is to be feared that, so long as reputation is to be gained by mere
religious professions, or the adherence to certain systems of doctrine,
cases of hypocrisy like that of Foyer will be occasionally heard of.
Nor will it be doubted that a moral code which presses too severely
upon the natural affections is calculated in all circumstances to have
the consequences here adverted to. Of the cases of witchcraft, we can
only deplore, with humiliation, that such delusions should have formed
a part of the religious convictions of the age. In the seventeenth
century, the ruling minds had a clear apprehension of what they
thought the truth, and went right to their point in seeking to work
it out. Distinctions, refinements, explained-away texts, moderating
reflections, fears of reaction, were reserved for a later day.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE.]
[Sidenote: 1657.]
The magistrates of Glasgow at this time provided themselves with an
engine ‘for the occasion of sudden fire, in spouting out of water
thereon,’ after the form of one recently established in Edinburgh.--_M.
of G._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP.]
The magistrates of Glasgow, feeling the need for ‘ane diurnal’--that
is, newspaper, a luxury hitherto little known in Scotland--‘appoint
John Fleming to write to his man wha lies at London,’ to cause one be
sent for the town’s use. Whether John Fleming’s man, from the fact of
his _lying_ at London, is to be presumed as himself connected with the
public press, may be left to the consideration of the reader.
Before this time, it appears that John Nicoll, a legal agent in
Edinburgh, often quoted here on account of his _Diary_, had supplied
the magistrates of Glasgow with weekly intelligence.
* * * * *
Mr Thomas Stewart, the hero of the plague anecdote of 1645, married in
1654, and retired to enjoy a quiet country life on his father’s estate
of Coltness, in Lanarkshire. His relative, Sir Archibald, gives us a
minute recital of what he did with the old place, in extending its
accommodations and ornamenting its environs, and the result is that
we get a tolerably clear idea of a Scotch gentleman’s country-house,
according to the views and tastes which prevailed in the time of the
Commonwealth.
[Sidenote: 1657.]
‘He set himself to planting and enclosing, and so to embellish the
place. But [as] the old mansion was straitening, and their family
likely to increase, he thought of adding to the old tower (which
consisted only of a vault and two rooms, one above the other, with a
small room on the top of the turnpike stair, and a garret) a large
addition on the south side of the staircase, of a good kitchen, cellar,
meat-room or low parlour; a large hall or dining-room, with a small
bedchamber and closet; over these, and above that, two bedchambers with
closets; and yet higher, in a fourth story, two finished roof-rooms.
And thus he made an addition of a kitchen, six fire-rooms with closets;
and the vault in the old tower, built by Hamilton of Uddeston, was
turned to a convenient useful cellar, with a partition for outer and
inner repositories. The office-houses of bake-house, brew-house,
garner-room, and men-servants’ bedchamber, were on the north of a paved
court; and a high front wall towards the east, with an arched entry
or porch, enclosed all. Without this arched gate was another larger
court, with stables on the south side for the family and strangers’
horses, and a trained up thorn with a bower in it. Opposite to the
stables, north from the mansion-house, with an entry to a good
spring draw-well, as also leading to the byre, sheep-house, barn, and
hen-house, all which made a court, to the north of the other court,
and separate from it with a stone-wall; and on the east part of the
court was a large space for a dunghill. The gardens were to the south
of the house, much improved and enlarged; and the nursery-garden was
a small square enclosure to the west of the house. The slope of the
grounds to the west made the south garden, next the house, fall into
three cross terraces. The terrace fronting the south of the house was
a square parterre, or flower-garden, and the easter and wester, or the
higher and lower plots of ground, were for cherry and nut gardens, and
walnut and chestnut trees were planted upon the head of the upper bank,
towards the parterre; and the slope bank on the east side the parterre
was a strawberry border.
‘These three terraces had a high stone-wall on the south, for ripening
and improving finer fruits; and to the south of this wall, was a good
orchard and kitchen-garden, with broad grass-walks, all enclosed with
a good thorn-hedge; and without this, a ditch and dry fence, enclosing
several rows of timber-trees for shelter; to the west of the house, and
beyond the square nursery-garden, was a large timber tree park, with
birches towards the house, and on the other three sides rows of ash
and plane, and in the middle a goodly thicket of firs. To the north,
the barn court; and north from the house was a grass enclosure of four
acres, with a fishpond in the corner for pikes and perches. All was
enclosed with a strong wall and hedgerows of trees: so the whole of
this policy might consist of an oblong square, and the longer side of
the square fronted to the south; the ordinary entries to the house were
from east to west, but the main access from the east.
[Sidenote: 1657.]
‘It was found still a convenient nursery was wanted for an interesting
young family, and a lower addition was made to the east end of the
new buildings, and to run parallel with the south side of the high
house, towards the gardens. The low room was for a woman-house, and
the upper room was the nursery; and both nursery and woman-house had
passage to the great house, by proper doors, and a timber trap-stair
made a communication betwixt the nursery and the woman-house. In short,
after all was finished, the fabric was wholly irregular as to the
outside appearance, and both house and policy were more contrived for
conveniency and hospitality, than for beauty or regular proportion;
and so was the humour of these times, that, if there was lodging,
warmness, and plenty within doors, a regular front or uniform roof were
little thought of. All above was executed the three years 1657, 1658,
as appears from the dates on the upper lintel ornaments of the window.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC.]
Notwithstanding a good harvest, ‘poverty and scarcity of money daily
increased, by reason of the great burdens and charges imposed upon
the people, which constrained them to sell not only their lands and
estates, but even their household geir, insight, and plenishing, and
some their claiths and habulyiements. Witness the bell, which did
daily ring in Edinburgh, making intimation to the inhabitants of such
frequent rouping as was in use.’--_Nic._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1658.
MAY.]
Stage-coaches were at this time advertised as to go from ‘the George
Inn without Aldersgate’ to sundry parts of England thrice a week; to
Leeds, Wakefield, and Halifax once a week, charge 40s.; to Durham and
Newcastle, once a week, charge £3; and ‘to _Edinburgh in Scotland_,
once in three weeks, for £4, 10s.’--in all cases, ‘with good coaches
and fresh horses on the roads.’[178]
* * * * *
During this year, the people of Edinburgh, Glasgow, and other
considerable towns, were amused in succession with the performances of
a horse brought from England, ‘wha, being trained up in dancing and
other conceits of that kind, did afford much sport and contentment to
the people, but not without gain, for none was admitted to see the
dancing without twopence the piece, and some more.’--_Nic._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT. 1.]
A supplication was this day given in to the Town Council of Glasgow
by one Robert Marshall, shewing that he was willing, if permitted,
to exercise the calling of a house-painter in the city. The Council,
having had it represented to them that there was ‘but one the like
within this burgh, and not ane other in all the west of Scotland,’ gave
Robert permission to wash and paint houses to any who pleased to employ
him.--_M. of G._
[Sidenote: 1658.]
This gives a curious idea of Glasgow two centuries ago. The magistrates
had a little before this time induced a printer to come from Edinburgh
and settle amongst them. The man does not seem to have succeeded, for
in May 1660, they give him fifty merks, ‘to help to transport his guids
and flitting to Edinburgh again.’ A few months after this date, Robert
Sanders was encouraged to set up a printing-office in Glasgow, with a
pension of £40 a year, ‘he to print gratis anything that the town shall
employ him to print.’ In 1660, they caused a plasterer to be sent for
from Perth, ‘to come here for plastering of Hucheson’s Hospital.’--_M.
of G._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV.]
The lamentations, of which we have seen several examples, over the
depressed condition of Scotland under the English tyranny, are
repeated at this time by a man of moderate and sagacious character,
the Rev. Robert Baillie. He says: ‘The country lies very quiet; it is
exceeding poor; trade is nought; the English has all the moneys. Our
noble families are almost gone: Lennox has little in Scotland unsold;
Hamilton’s estate, except Arran and the barony of Hamilton, is sold;
Argyle can pay little annual-rent [interest] for seven or eight hunched
thousand merks [of debt]; and he is no more drowned in debt than public
hatred, almost of all, both Scotch and English. The Gordons are gone;
the Douglases little better; Eglintoun and Glencairn on the brink of
breaking. Many of our chief families’ states are cracking; nor is there
any appearance of any human relief for the time.’[179] It may give some
idea of the reduced state of the nobility during these evil days, that
the allowance made by the English government out of the sequestered
estates of the Balcarres family for the earl, a minor, and his younger
brother, was only ten pounds a year![180]
Nicoll, adverting to the same time, says: ‘The condition of this nation
of Scotland yet remains sad, by reason of poverty and heavy burdens.’
The crop of the year ‘was very poor by reason of the spring-time, whilk
was very cold and weety the space of many weeks.’ The price of victual
was consequently for this year double what it had recently been.
[Sidenote: 1658.]
A Mr Tucker, who was commissioned by Cromwell in 1656 to introduce
order into the customs duties of Scotland, has left a report from which
we obtain particulars as to the trade then carried on with foreign
countries. Notwithstanding that duties were in those days imposed
equally on exported and imported goods, the revenue of Leith port was
only £2335; that of Aberdeen, £573; Glasgow, £554. The respective sums
drawn from these ports, for imports only, in 1844, were £631,926,
£76,259, and £551,841. Other ports were in proportion, though not
uniformly; thus Burntisland, which is now merely a ferry harbour, then
drew nearly as much revenue as Glasgow. The native shipping, consisting
of vessels of from twelve to a hundred and fifty tons, was in not
less marked contrast to that of our day. Glasgow had only twelve such
vessels; Kirkcaldy, an equal number, but not one above a hundred tons;
Dundee and Anstruther, ten; Burntisland, seven; Wemyss, six; Dysart,
four. The extreme narrowness of the resources of Scotland is strikingly
shewn in these facts, and makes us the more disposed to wonder at the
comparatively great sacrifices which the people had been making for
many years for the sake of their church and for its promotion in other
lands.
At the same time that so great poverty prevailed, there was such a
protection to life and property as had never before been known. It was
not, we believe, without cause that the famous Colonel Desborough, in
a speech in the House of Commons (March 17, 1659), made it a boast for
his party, that ‘a man may ride over all Scotland, with a switch in his
hand and a hundred pounds in his pocket, which he could not have done
these five hundred years.’[181]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1659.
JAN.]
The people of Edinburgh were regaled with the sight of a travelling
dromedary, probably the first that had ever come into Scotland. ‘It was
very big,’ says Nicoll, ‘of great height, and cloven-footed like a cow,
and on the back ane seat, as it were a saddle, to sit on.’ ‘Being kept
close in the Canongate, none had a sight of it without threepence the
person. There was brought in with it ane little baboon, faced like unto
an ape.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JAN.]
[Sidenote: 1659.]
At this time the public received a great surprise in the sudden
reappearance of a nobleman, Lord Belhaven, who was understood to have
been dead for the last six years and upwards. At the forfeiture of the
Hamilton family under the English tyranny, Lord Belhaven found himself
engaged as security to the creditors of that house for a much larger
sum than he could pay; so, to escape comprisings of his lands and
imprisonment of his person, he fell upon an extraordinary expedient.
He took a journey to England, and when he had passed Solway Sands, he
caused his servant to come back to his wife with his cloak and hat, and
had it given out that he and his horse had sunk in the quicksands,
and were drowned. None were privy to the secret but his lady and the
servant. The report passed everywhere as authentic, and to make it
more plausible, his lady and children went in mourning for two years.
Passing into England, Lord Belhaven put on a mean suit of apparel,
hired himself to be a gardener, and worked at this humble employment
during the whole time of his absence, no one knowing this part of his
course but his lady. During his absence, his only son, ‘a very hopeful
youth and pretty scholar,’ was struck with a fever, which in a few
days carried him off. ‘In this real death by God’s hand, who will not
be mocked, the hope of that house perished.’--_Bail._ The Duchess of
Hamilton having at length come to a composition with her creditors, his
lordship returned to Scotland, and resumed his rank, ‘to the admiration
of many.’--_Nic._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: FEB. 9.]
The Countess of Buccleuch in her own right, a child of eleven years
of age, the greatest heiress of her time in Scotland, was married at
the place of Wester Wemyss in Fife, to Walter Scott, son of Scott
of Highchester, a youth of fourteen. These indecent nuptials were
performed, without proclamation, by virtue of an order from the
presbytery of Kirkcaldy, ‘purchased by the Earl of Wemyss and some of
the name of Scott:’ that is, obtained by their influence. The Countess
of Wemyss, ‘a witty, active woman,’[182] was mother of the bride.
‘This marriage was celebrate upon a great suddenty, few or none of
her friends made privy to it till the day before, which day they were
contracted. Many expected she should have got some great match (for
both Scots and English had an aim for her); but this youth, that her
mother (who was the only doer of this business) made choice of for
her daughter, was only one of her own vassal’s sons--namely, an oy
[grandson] of the Laird of Harden....’--_Lam._
[Sidenote: 1659.]
An unsuccessful attempt was made by Sir John Scott of Scotstarvet
to reduce the marriage, on the ground that he, her tutor, had not
consented. While the question hung suspended, for there existed then
no judicatory in Scotland, the young lady in August 1659 attained
the age of twelve, at which it was competent for her to effect a
marriage of her own will. She then accordingly emitted a declaration
of her marriage, and her husband meeting her at Leith, amidst great
demonstrations of joy, they went that same night to Dalkeith, to
commence married life.--_Nic._
This poor victim of the cupidity of her seniors was taken by her mother
next year to London, to be touched for the _cruels_ by the king, and
died in the next ensuing year, leaving the succession to her younger
sister Anne, who became the victim of an equally discreditable affair,
in being married while still a child to the king’s natural son, a boy,
subsequently Duke of Monmouth.
The marrying of heiresses under twelve years of age was a not
infrequent misdemeanour in the seventeenth century. ‘1st March 1677,
Trotter, Lady Craigleith, was fined at Secret Council, in 6000 merks,
for conveying away her daughter, heiress of Craigleith, and sending her
to Berwick, where she married young Prestongrange (Morison), and stayed
some two or three months, till she completed her twelve years of age,
after which the marriage could not be dissolved, nor she resile.... Her
maternal uncle, Mortonhall, was fined for his accession in 3000 merks,
and young Prestongrange in 1000 merks.’--_Foun._
In 1680, Patrick Carnegie, brother of the Earl of Northesk, was
prosecuted for conveying away Mary Gray, daughter of the Laird of
Baledgarnie, in the Carse of Gowrie, she being but eleven years and
one month old. ‘Some spoke harsh things, that if he could be got, he
deserved hanging, for ane example to secure men’s children from such
attempts.’ While Patrick escaped from justice, his assistants Kinfauns,
Finhaven, and Pitcur were sent to Edinburgh Castle, and ‘ordained,
under highest pains, to produce him who wounded the servant while he
was resisting their rapt: they came weel off, that their acknowledgment
of the fault was accepted instead of a fine.’--_Foun._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAR. 27.]
[Sidenote: 1659.]
Died this day, ‘sitting in his chair at his awn house, without any
preceding sickness,’ and but ‘little lamented’ (_Nic._), John Earl
of Traquair--a remarkable example of the mutabilities of fortune in
a period of civil broil and revolution. By cleverness and address,
unaccompanied by any nobler qualities, and by making himself useful
to Laud in his views for the reformation of the Scotch church, he had
risen from the condition of a private gentleman to titles, wealth, and
the office of Lord High Treasurer. Of his means and taste at the zenith
of his fortunes, the house of Traquair, with its formal avenues and
garden, is an interesting surviving monument. Clerical zeal ruined what
the skill of Traquair might have built up. The Service-book was pushed
on against his advice, and he could not control the storm. The most
conspicuous service he rendered after that period was to act as his
majesty’s commissioner to the Scottish parliament and General Assembly
of 1640. He did his best to maintain the royal authority, but all was
in vain. His subsequent conduct was not of a bold character; but there
is all reason to believe that he continued a loyalist and a friend
of Episcopacy at heart. Accompanying the army of the Engagement in
1648, along with a regiment of horse of his own raising, he was taken
prisoner at Preston, and committed to Warwick Castle, where he lay for
four years. For this final act of loyalty, the Covenanting parliament
forbade his return into Scotland. At length, when his country had been
taken into the hands of the English, he was liberated, and came home;
but it was to poverty and obscurity. His estate had been sequestered;
it was a time of general suffering and humiliation. Reflected on as
an instrument of the king and Laud in their arbitrary schemes, he
enjoyed respect from no party. In such circumstances, it is scarcely
surprising to be told, as we are on credible authority, that this once
great noble and state officer was reduced so low as to be beholden for
the necessaries of life to charity. ‘He would take an alms, though not
publicly ask for it,’ says the author of a work quoted below,[183]
where it is added: ‘There are some still alive at Peebles that have
seen him dine upon a salt herring and an onion.’ A worse humiliation
remained for him, if Nicoll be right in reporting that the earl was
(August 1655) ‘pannelled and accused before the Criminal Court for
perjury at the instance of his son-in-law.’[184]
The annotator on Scot’s _Staggering State of Scots Statesmen_, says
that at his burial this unfortunate nobleman ‘had no mort-cloth [pall],
but a black apron; nor towels, but leashes belonging to some gentlemen
that were present; and the grave being two feet shorter than his body,
the assistants behoved to stay till the same was enlarged, and he
buried.’
[Sidenote: 1659.
JUNE 21.]
This day, Heriot’s Hospital, which had been founded in 1628, being
now complete, was solemnly dedicated by the ceremony of a preaching
in presence of the magistrates of Edinburgh, the preacher, Mr Robert
Douglas, receiving five double pieces for his pains. There were placed
in it ‘thirty-five boys, of honest parents, but decayit in means, all
of them weel arrayit in purpour clothes and cassocks.’ ‘This hospital,’
says Nicoll, ‘was not ane ordinary hospital, but a hospital very
famous, with halls, chalmers, kitchens, brew-houses, yards, orchards, a
chapel, and all other necessaries.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP. 1.]
The town of Edinburgh obtained an additional impost upon the ale sold
in its bounds; it was now a full penny sterling a pint, so that the
liquor rose to the unheard-of price of 32d. Scots for that quantity.
‘Yet this imposition,’ says Nicoll, ‘seemed not to thrive; for at
the same instant God frae the heavens declared his anger by sending
thunder, and unheard tempests, and storms, and inundations of water,
whilk destroyed their common mills, dams, and warks, to the town’s
great charges and expenses.’ Eleven mills belonging to Edinburgh, and
five belonging to Heriot’s Hospital, all upon the Water of Leith, were
destroyed on this occasion, ‘with their dams, water-gangs, timber and
stone-warks, the haill wheels of their mills, timber graith, and haill
other warks.’ The chronicler, somewhat awkwardly for his hypothesis,
admits that many neighbouring towns suffered by the like destruction of
their mills.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP. 21.]
Nicoll states himself to have seen this day, a youth of sixteen, a
native of Aberdeen, who, having been born without power in his arms,
either to eat or drink, or do any other thing for himself or others,
‘Almighty God, who is able to do all things, gave him power to supply
all these duties with the toes of his feet, and to write in singular
good legible and current write, and that with such haste as any
common notar is in use to do. Yea, further, with his toes he put on
his clothes, kamed his head, made his writing pens, [and] threaded a
needle, in such short time and space as any other person whatsomever
was able to do with his hands.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1659.]
In the Council Records of Inverness occurs, under this year, the
following petition: ‘To the Right Honourable the Magistrates and Town
Council of the burgh of Inverness, the supplication of Frederick
Fraser, tailor burgess of Inverness, and Alexander Duff, burgess there,
for ourselves and in behalf the remanent freemen of that trade, humbly
sheweth--That your supplicants are very much damnified and prejudged
in the enjoyment of their trade, the same being in-falled upon and
taken away by many outlandish men, who dwell round about the burgh for
eschewing of burden, and yet peeps in by night and by day and steals
away the trade of the place, and works the same in the landward, to
our great loss and apparent ruin, so that if speedy redress be not
found, and this evil to this poor trade be not stayed, your supplicants
and our poor families will undoubtedly perish. We are able to shew
your lordships, and to make it out, that in these times we gain not
by our trade for our own subsistence and the upholding of the burdens
of the place, that which our servants were wont to gain under us.
May it please your lordships, therefore, to take the premises into
consideration, and to allow us, your supplicants, or such others of the
trade as your lordships please to nominate, such power and freedom in
the exercise of that trade as formerly we had, and that for the better
restraining of all such as are neither profitable nor allowable to the
place, and for the further and better encouragement of us your poor
supplicants who has and are willing daily to contribute with the place
in weal and woe according to our poor power.’
A local journalist, after giving a transcript of this petition,
adds: ‘Provost Cuthbert and the council turned a friendly ear to the
supplication, and authorised the petitioners to “look and see to
restrain all outlandish tailors,” and empowering them to seize upon the
work of the transgressors, and bring the whole before a magistrate.
Two years afterwards, however, the same parties, with the addition
of John Cumming, tailor, again complain of the outlandish tailors.
They petition that all unfreemen in the town should be discharged
from usurping to themselves the benefits of freemen, and from keeping
apprentices and servants, and _made to live within the verge of their
own calling_. The provost and council granted the desire of the
petition, and authorised the supplicants, with the concurrence of the
burgh officers, to put the act in force. The principles of political
economy or free-trade were not then understood, but the inhabitants
seem to have been willing enough to avail themselves of the cheap
services of the outlandish tailors, else the freemen would not so
strongly have urged their claims upon the council.’[185]
REIGN OF CHARLES II.: 1660-1673.
The wild joy with which the people of England hailed the close of
anarchy and military tyranny in the restoration of Charles II. to
the throne, was fully participated in Scotland by a small loyalist
party. The bulk of the community were also made happy by the event,
for they were pleased to see the monarchy restored, accompanied as
the event was by the revival of their national independence; but the
general happiness was mixed with anxiety regarding the fate of their
favourite church, to which they had long been accustomed to consider
all other institutions as subordinate. In England, almost as a matter
of course, the Episcopal Church was restored with the monarchy, to the
slighting of that Solemn League and Covenant with which the interests
of Presbyterianism had been so long bound up. The temper of the English
people was now strongly against all that had been done during the
troubles by those with whom the Scottish Presbyterians had been in
alliance, and consequently against Scottish Presbyterianism itself. The
joy of the Presbyterian monarchists of Scotland might therefore well be
mixed with fear.
Very naturally, the men of high rank who had done and suffered most
for the cause of monarchy in the late evil days, were appointed
to be at the head of affairs in Scotland. The Earl of Glencairn,
chief of the guerrilla resistance to Cromwell in 1653, was made
Chancellor. Major-general Middleton, who had finally commanded in that
insurrection, and was now promoted to the peerage as Earl of Middleton,
was appointed to be his majesty’s commissioner to parliament. The
Earls of Crawford and Lauderdale, Presbyterian monarchists of 1650-1,
who had since suffered a ten years’ imprisonment in England, were
made respectively Lord Treasurer and Secretary of State. With them
came a host of inferior officials, all more or less under a sense
of suffering through over-zealous Presbyterianism, and mostly eager
to repair their broken fortunes at the expense of their enemies. A
reassemblage in September of the remains of that Committee of Estates
which had been captured at Alyth in 1651, was the first movement made.
It was superseded by the new parliament, which sat down on the 1st of
January 1661 and proceeded to pass many acts for the settlement of
affairs on the new basis. One of these at a single blow annulled all
the acts of the irregular parliaments of the last twenty-three years;
another imposed on men holding offices an oath acknowledging the king
to be ‘supreme governor in all cases, over all persons, ecclesiastical
and civil.’ Finally, in July of that year, the Privy Council was
reconstituted--a judicial as well as political body. At the same time,
the Courts of Session and Justiciary were reconstructed, in place of
the English judicatories which had sat for the last eight years.
The vengeance of the new government fell only on those who had carried
the Presbyterian views to a disloyal extreme, or who had complied with
Cromwell. The chief victim was the Marquis of Argyle--who no doubt
had placed the crown on the king’s head at Scone in 1651, but who had
also been the prime leader in nearly all those movements subsequent to
1638, which had been so destructive to the interests of royalty. His
execution (May 27, 1661) was considered by the royalists as a righteous
retribution for that of Montrose eleven years before. Mr James Guthrie,
minister of Stirling, the leader among the Remonstrators, was hanged.
Sir Archibald Johnston--who had perhaps done more than any other
single man throughout the troubles to promote the pure Presbyterian
cause--escaped to Holland, but after a little time was brought back and
executed (July 1663). Several other ministers of the Remonstrant party,
who failed to make timely submission, were imprisoned, and subsequently
for the most part banished.
The one great subject remaining for consideration was the church--how
was it to be settled? The king, unlike his father, could have
endured the Presbyterian forms, though he is said to have privately
declared Presbyterianism unfit to be the religion of a gentleman. But
Presbyterianism involved something more than forms. As professed by its
more zealous and intelligent adherents, it claimed to have Christ for
its sole head, and therefore to be completely independent of all civil
control. The men in whose hands its fate was now cast--for the reaction
of popular feeling in the entire island made it helpless--had to
consider that this claim had been a source of constant trouble to the
state ever since the minority of King James; they had to judge whether
the Presbyterian Church, holding such a claim as essential to it,
would, if now established, comport with any species of civil government
whatever. Under the light of recent experiences, and led by the general
temper of the time, it was not surprising, though very unfortunate,
that they resolved to restore the so-called moderate Episcopacy of
1638, minus the Book of Canons and Liturgy.
The moderate or Resolutionist party in the church, being the great
majority, had sent Mr James Sharpe, minister of Crail, to represent
their interests in the little body of men surrounding the king at his
return from the continent. Full reliance was placed on Mr Sharpe, for
he was thought to be a conscientious as well as able man: we find
Robert Baillie speaking of him at the time with an affection which
could not have been inspired in so virtuous a bosom without many
merits. But Mr Sharpe proved unable to resist the contagion of feeling
to which he was exposed: he was induced to consent to the restoration
of prelacy, and to take the position of primate. The Presbyterians
considered themselves as betrayed by their own representative. The
bishops of 1638 being all dead but one, and he unable to travel,
Sharpe and three other Presbyterian clergymen received the rite of
consecration in London, and, returning, imparted it to the other
bishops in Holyrood Church. In May 1662, an act of the Estates formally
reconstituted the church on the Episcopal model; the bulk of the people
quietly submitting to what they could not resist, while the more
earnest regarded it as a desertion of Christ’s own standard, calculated
to bring down judgments upon the land.
The burst of loyal feeling at the Restoration had probably led the
government to believe that the settlement of Episcopacy would be an
easy, if not popular act. If they had truly known the antipathy still
entertained for the prelatic model, they might have hesitated to take
such a step, for it might then have appeared more hopeful that the
claim of independence for presbytery would be practically overcome
or made innocuous--as it afterwards was at the Revolution--than that
bishops could be maintained in peace amongst a hostile people. But
here we must remember how force was universally looked to in that
age as a proper and legitimate means of inducing conformity. Under
the recent rule of the Presbyterian Church, there had been heavy
fines, depositions, banishings, excommunications, and confiscations,
for Episcopalian and popish non-conformists; hangings and beheadings
for those who proceeded to an active opposition. And the apparent
conformity which such means can produce had really been attained. The
authors of the new episcopate, having no light beyond their age on
the subject of toleration, might very naturally think that what had
succeeded in 1650 would succeed in 1662: they would compel the people
to be Episcopalians. There was a difference in the two cases which
it would have been well for them to observe. The severe measures of
1650 were the measures of a majority of really religious men--or at
least men of very earnest religious convictions--against a minority
of dissenters or indifferents. The measures now called for were to
be carried out by a minority, chiefly animated by secular maxims,
against a mass of people generally earnest in their peculiar religious
views, and who were liable to become the more so, and consequently the
more troublesome, under persecution. In the one case, the dominant
church was a great Reality, solidly founded in the affections of the
mass of the people; in the other, it was little more than a piece
of statecraft, with the affections of the majority of the people
against it. The _right_ of enforcing conformity we may allow to have
been the same in both cases; but the _consequences_, we can easily
see, were likely to be very different. The new church had scarcely
been constituted, when the unwiseness of the step might have easily
been seen. The clergy generally, but especially in the south-western
counties, shewed their unwillingness to give up their collective powers
into the hands of the bishops. On a precipitate edict of the Archbishop
of Glasgow, calling on the ministers of his province who had been
inducted since 1649 to take out new presentations from the patrons, and
receive collation from their bishops, three hundred and fifty, being a
third of the entire church, resigned their cures. This was a startling
blow to the new system, for, under that incapacity of judging of the
influence of religious feelings which is to be marked in worldly men,
it had been supposed that not more than _ten_ would resign. Of course
these men became troublesome dissenters, notwithstanding all that could
be done to disperse or silence them. In reality, the substitution of a
new bishop-approved minister for one who would not submit to bishops,
was a matter not very immediately affecting congregations, for, under
the late alteration in the church, the forms of worship and professed
Christian doctrine remained the same as before. But the Scotch, during
the last twenty-five years, had been generally instructed regarding
the Presbyterian polity, and trained up to regard it with veneration;
insomuch that the parity of ministers in the church-courts and the
headship of Christ, as exclusive of all supremacy of king or human
law, were points for which they were as much disposed to martyr
themselves as for the most essential points of faith contained in the
catechism. They therefore began to desert the parish churches, and
hold private meetings for worship under the displaced clergy. In our
time, no statesman would think of opposing the people in such a course.
They would be allowed quietly to raise dissenting meeting-houses for
themselves and favourite clergymen, and the peace of the country would
not be disturbed. But the reader must have been prepared to see that
no such course could then be adopted. The Presbyterian establishment
itself had only a few years before sternly put down all external
expression of dissent. It had even forbidden private meetings of little
groups of its own members for worship, lest these should lead to or
give shelter to schism. If they, with their deep religious feelings,
were thus intolerant of dissent, what might we expect from the worldly
statesmen and prelates now at the head of affairs? What but the most
vigorous measures for preserving an outward conformity? The extruded
ministers were forbidden to live within or near their former parishes,
lest their people should attend their ministrations. The people of
those parishes were commanded under heavy pains to attend the regular
church, however odious the new minister might be to them. Even to go
to the church of some neighbouring parish where there was still one of
the old clergy officiating, was forbidden under the like penalties.
Finally, bodies of soldiery were sent to raise the fines, or to
exact free quarters till the fines were paid. These soldiers would
enter the churches of the old Presbyterian clergy yet in possession
of their pulpits, noting such of the congregation as could not swear
that they belonged to the parish, taking the money from their pockets,
or stripping them of articles of wearing apparel, as a punishment for
their breach of law. In some districts, where a very earnest feeling
of religion prevailed, the people were harassed and impoverished to a
degree that made them anxious to leave their native country.
Middleton’s administration came to a sudden close in 1663, in
consequence of an intrigue against Lauderdale; and the latter noble
then succeeded to the chief power. Although he had been a Presbyterian,
and was not originally in favour of setting up the Episcopal Church,
his rule brought no relief. Still, there was a certain leniency in
high quarters, till Sharpe, in order to secure unfaltering severity,
obtained the erection of a court of commission, in which the prelates
should have chief sway. Then came a mercilessness greater than before.
The doings of the soldiery were such as to produce an approach to
desolation in certain districts. Ministers, for merely performing
worship in their own houses, were thrown into vile prisons, or
banished to half-desert islands. Even to give charity to any of the
proscribed clergy was declared to be a crime. When the war with Holland
commenced in the spring of 1665, it was feared that there would be
an insurrection in the west of Scotland, and the whole district was
consequently disarmed. Nevertheless, in November of the ensuing year,
the extreme severity of the soldiery under Sir James Turner occasioned
a partial resistance at Dalry, in the stewartry of Kirkcudbright, and
in a little time a small body of insurgents was collected. Marching
through Ayrshire, their numbers increased to about two thousand, and
they then turned towards Edinburgh, where they expected considerable
accessions. It was a hasty and ill-considered affair, springing merely
from the sense of intolerable suffering. The government, having a
small standing army at its disposal, was at no moment in the least
danger. About nine hundred poor half-armed peasants made a final stand
at Rullion Green, on the eastern skirts of the Pentland Hills, where
they were attacked by a strong body of dragoons under Sir Thomas
Dalyell, routed, and dispersed (November 28, 1666). Many were killed
on the field and in the pursuit, and eighteen were afterwards executed
in Edinburgh. Several of these were previously tortured to extort
confession, the instrument used being a loose frame of wood called the
_Boot_, into which wedges were driven so as to crush the limb of the
prisoner. Thirty-five more were executed in the country, not without
some difficulty to the authorities, as the executioners generally
refused to exercise their profession against such culprits.
Soon after this time, the extreme severity of the government in
Scotland made itself heard of and felt at court, and orders were sent
down for the adoption of gentler measures. In 1668, a milder rule
was established under the Earl of Tweeddale, who would at once have
proceeded to grant some ‘indulgence’ to the Presbyterians, but for
an attempt being made to shoot Archbishop Sharpe, as he was about to
step into his carriage in Edinburgh. As it was, the Indulgence was
granted next year, and consisted in permitting such of the extruded
clergy as had lived peaceably to return to their parishes when a
vacancy occurred, receiving the whole temporalities if they should take
collation from the bishops; and where they did not, to be allowed the
use of the manse and glebe; further, allowing four hundred merks per
annum to all _outed_ ministers, while unpresented to charges, provided
they had lived peaceably, and would agree to do so in future. This
was in reality a measure of greater generosity than the Presbyterian
Church had ever extended to dissenters; yet it was not attended with
much good. It was denounced by all the more zealous sort of people
as _Erastianism_, and consequently the indulged ministers were not
popular. The government, moreover, professing to consider the holding
of irregular meetings for worship as less excusable than before,
became more threatening against them, and thus caused the people to
hold conventicles in the open fields in remote places, attending, in
some instances, with arms in their hands. Hence resulted the fining
of a vast number of respectable people of the middle classes, women
as well as men, and the imprisonment of a considerable number. The
parliament also passed an express act against conventicles, whereby an
ejected or unlicensed minister who should perform worship anywhere but
in his own family, or who should be present at worship in any other
family, became liable to a fine of five thousand merks; the people
being also forbidden to be present at such meetings under pain of fines
proportioned to their circumstances. By this act, the performance of
worship in the fields inferred death, and attendance was to be punished
with double fines. The king is said to have disapproved of the act,
remarking truly that bloody laws did no good; it was detested even by
those who in parliament gave it their votes. In spite of its severity,
the people continued in some districts to meet in the fields for
worship, feeling that there was a great show of the ‘divine presence’
on these occasions. It seemed as if every attempt to enforce conformity
only sent a certain portion of them into a stronger dissent. Although
nearly every one of the measures of the government had its prototype
in those of the Presbyterian régime, and no one thought of demanding
liberty of conscience upon principle, yet such was the effect of the
large scale on which these severities were conducted, that the Scottish
mind was generally impressed with an abhorrence of prelacy and all
its belongings, a feeling which no lapse of time has yet been able to
efface.
The years 1671 and 1672 were distinguished by few events of note
besides the acts of severity against troublesome ministers. During
this time, there was going on a conspiracy on the part of the king
and his ministers to establish absolute monarchy in England, the Earl
of Lauderdale undertaking to secure Scotland, while the French king
was engaged to give his assistance; and to favour the object, a new
war was commenced against Holland. In 1673, the spirit of the English
nation was roused against the ministry, and the contagion was in some
measure communicated to Scotland, where the Duke of Hamilton gave such
a resistance to Lauderdale (now created a duke) that he was obliged to
dissolve the parliament. But no marked improvement in the government
resulted.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1660.
JUNE 19.]
This day commenced a period of thanksgiving through all the parishes
in Lothian, for the restoration of the king. The magistrates and
town-council of Edinburgh went to church in solemn procession, all in
their best robes, and with ‘the great mace and sword of honour’ borne
before them. After service, they went with a great number of citizens
to the Cross, where a long board, covered with sweetmeats and wine,
had been placed, under a burgess guard numbering four or five hundred
persons. Here the healths of the king and the Duke of York were drunk
with the utmost enthusiasm, three hundred dozen of glasses being cast
away and broken on the occasion. At the same time, bells rang, drums
beat, trumpets sounded, and the multitude of people cheered. The spouts
of the Cross ran with claret for the general benefit. At night, there
were bonfires throughout the streets, and fireworks in the Castle and
the citadel of Leith till after midnight. ‘There were also six viols,
three of them base viols, playing there continually. There were also
some musicians placed there, wha were resolved to act their parts, and
were willing and ready, but by reason of the frequent acclamations and
cries of the people universally through the haill town, their purpose
was interrupted. Bacchus also, being set upon ane puncheon of wine upon
the front of the Cross with his cummerholds, was not idle. In the end,
the effigies of Oliver Cromwell, being set upon a pole, and the devil
upon another, upon the Castle Hill, it was ordered by firework, engine,
and train, that the devil did chase that traitor, till he blew him in
the air.’--_Nic._
[Sidenote: 1660.]
The same chronicler notes a circumstance very likely to occur at a
Restoration. ‘There went out from Scotland an innumerable number
of people of all sorts, ranks, and degrees--earls, lords, barons,
burgesses, and some ministers--pretending their errand to be to
congratulate the king; but the truth is, it was for procuring of
dignities, honours, and offices, and for sundry other ends; carrying
with them great soums of money, to the vastation of this puir land,
being altogether ruined of before in their means and estate.’
‘His majesty not being able to satisfy all, there did arise great
heart-burnings, animosity, and envy among them,’ particularly ‘betwixt
the Earl of Southesk and the Master of Gray, for the sheriffship of
Forfarshire; and in that contention they drew to parties, and provoked
other to duels, in the whilk the Earl of Southesk did kill the Master
of Gray upon this side of London.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG.]
We hear at this time of a number of ‘louss and idle men in the
Hielands,’ who had gathered themselves together in companies, and were
employed in ‘carrying away _spraichs_ of cattle and other bestial to
the hills, and committing many other insolencies:’ that is to say,
the more active spirits on the Highland border were taking advantage
of this interval of regular authority to help themselves from the
pastures of their Lowland neighbours. The newly reassembled Committee
of Estates, having no force at their command for the repression of
these disorders, were glad to revert to the old practice of holding
the chiefs of clans ‘bund for the peaceable behaviour of their clan,
kinsmen, followers, and tenants.’ They therefore (August 29) sent
letters to the Earls of Seaforth, Tullibardine, Athole, Airlie, and
Aboyne, the Lords Reay and Lovat, the Lairds of Ballingowan, Foulis,
Assynt, Glengarry, M‘Leod, Locheil, Macintosh, Grant, Glenurchy,
Auchinbreck, Luss, Macfarlane, Buchanan, and Edzell, Sir James
Macdonald, the Captain of Clanranald, Callum Macgregor Tutor of
Macgregor, and others, calling on them to take special notice of their
dependents, ‘and of all others travelling through your bounds whom you
may stop or let,’ that they carry themselves inoffensively; certifying
these heads of clans, that they will be called to account for any
depredations or insolencies hereafter committed.
[Sidenote: 1660.]
Having immediately after heard of an assault committed by one Robert
Oig Buchanan and a companion upon Robert M‘Capie, a tenant of Lord
Napier (they had attacked him in his own house at night, wounded him,
and cut off his ear, after which they drove off his cattle), the
Committee ordered the Laird of Buchanan to forward the guilty persons
to them before a certain day, in order that they might be brought to
punishment. The two culprits failed to appear on summons, and their
chief was then commissioned to seize them wherever they could be found.
At the beginning of October, the chancellor received a letter from
the Laird of Grant, stating that he had apprehended ‘ane noted robber
named _Halkit Stirk_.’[186] The Committee of Estates immediately sent
an answer heartily thanking the laird ‘for doing so good a work for his
majesty and the peace of the kingdom;’ further informing him that they
would protect and maintain him against all injury that might be done to
him or his followers on that account. They soon after gave the laird
a commission to raise a band of forty men for the taking of Highland
sorners and robbers.
The _Halkit Stirk_ was subsequently ordered to be handed by the Laird
of Grant to the magistrates of Aberdeen; by them to the magistrates
of Montrose; from these again to those of Dundee; thence to Cupar and
Burntisland in succession, under a suitable guard; to rest in the
Tolbooth of Burntisland till further orders.
At the same time, the Highland bandit, John Dhu Ger, whom we have
seen killed three times about twenty years before, is ordered to be
brought under a sufficient guard from Stirling to the Tolbooth of
Edinburgh.--_R. C. E._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP. 13.]
The Letter-office at Edinburgh was in 1649 under the care of Mr John
Mean, a merchant noted throughout the reign of Charles I. for his zeal
as a Presbyterian; which, however, had not forbidden him to be also a
strenuous loyalist.[187] Latterly, the same function had been bestowed
upon Messrs Mew and Barringer, who, from their names, may be supposed
to have been Englishmen, friends of the Cromwellian rule. At the date
now noted, the king bestowed the office upon Robert Mean, superseding
the two above-mentioned officials, and the Committee of Estates
accordingly inducted him, ‘requiring the postmaster of Haddington to
direct the packets constantly from time to time to the said Robert
Mean, and cause the same to be delivered to him at Edinburgh.’--_R. C.
E._
[Sidenote: 1660.]
The post-system for correspondence underwent a considerable
improvement under the _régime_ of the Restoration. The parliament,
in August 1662,[188] ordained that for this purpose posts should be
established between Edinburgh and Port-Patrick, the intermediate
stations being Linlithgow, Kilsyth, Glasgow, Kilmarnock, Ayr, Drumbeg,
and Ballantrae. Robert Mean was commissioned to establish these posts
for the next ensuing year, and allowed ‘for each letter from Edinburgh
to Glasgow two shillings Scots (twopence sterling), from thence to any
part within Scotland three shillings Scots, and for all such letters
as goes for Ireland six shillings Scots.’ To encourage him in the
business, and help him to build a boat for the Port-Patrick ferry, he
was allowed a gift of two hundred pounds, on condition that the boat
should carry the letter-packet free. ‘All other posts, either foot or
horse,’ were discharged.--_P. C. R._
The horse-post of Mr Mean had not been long in operation, when it was
found that sundry persons carried letters along the same line on foot,
to the injury of the postmaster, and possibly to the encouragement of
treasonable designs. At his request, a warrant was granted (December
26) against such interlopers.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP. 28.]
William Woodcock, ‘late officer in Leith,’ was this day licensed by the
magistrates of Edinburgh, to set up ‘ane hackney-coach, for service
of his majesty’s lieges, betwixt Leith and Edinburgh.’ The hire up
and down for a single person was to be a shilling; and if the person
engaging the carriage chose to wait for one or two persons more to
accompany him, the same fare was to be sufficient. ‘If any mae nor
three, each man to pay four shillings Scots [fourpence sterling]
for their hire; and the persons coming up to Edinburgh, to light at
the foot of Leith Wynd, for the steyness [steepness] thereof.’ This
arrangement was not to prevent Woodcock from ‘serving others going to
and from the country to other places, as he and they can agree.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1660.]
At the surrender of Edinburgh Castle to Cromwell in December 1650, one
of the articles of rendition insured that the public registers, public
movables, and private evidences and writs heretofore preserved there,
should be allowed to pass forth, and that wagons and ships should be
provided for transporting them. These precious documents, with certain
exceptions, were accordingly taken to Stirling Castle, where, however,
it was not their fate to rest long. In August next year, while the
Scottish army was advancing through England, to be annihilated at
Worcester, General Monk took Stirling Castle, with ‘all the Records
of Scotland, the chair and cloth of state, the sword, and other rich
furniture of the kings.’ These were soon after transported to the Tower
of London, not under any such feeling as the wantonness of conquest,
but with a view to their proving serviceable for the scheme then
entertained by Cromwell of a complete union of the two countries. In
the Tower, they were deposited in a building called the Bowyers’ House,
which was also the residence of the keeper of the English Records, Mr
Ryley.
After the establishment of an English judicatory in Scotland, it was
found necessary that such documents as referred to the rights of
private parties should be in possession of the English commissioners;
and on the petition of these gentlemen (April 8, 1653), an order of
parliament was issued for the sending of all such documents back to
Scotland, to be deposited as formerly in Edinburgh Castle. This seems
to have been done either partially now, and conclusively in 1657, or
wholly at the latter date, the amount of documents returned being
sixteen hundred volumes.
[Sidenote: DEC.]
[Sidenote: 1660.]
After the Restoration, the Scottish records remaining in the Tower,
being those of a public and historical character, were ordered to be
returned to Edinburgh. Being put up in hogsheads, a ship was prepared
to carry them down to Scotland. ‘But it was suggested to Clarendon,
that the original Covenant signed by the king, and some other
declarations under his hand, were among them. And he, apprehending that
at some time or other an ill use might have been made of these, would
not suffer them to be shipped till they were visited: nor would he
take Primrose’s promise of searching for these carefully, and sending
them up to him. So he ordered a search to be made. None of the papers
he looked for were found. But so much time was lost, that the summer
was spent. So they were sent down in winter.’--_Burnet_. They were
shipped at Gravesend on board the _Eagle_ frigate, commanded by Major
John Fletcher; but, a storm arising, the captain was obliged, for the
safety of his vessel, to trans-ship eighty-five hogsheads of these
documents into a vessel called the _Elizabeth_ of Burntisland. The
_Elizabeth_ having sunk with its whole cargo, the eighty-five hogsheads
of registers were lost, ‘to the great hurt of this nation,’ as Nicoll
with due sensibility remarks. From this wreck there escaped the records
of parliament, and that of the Secret Council--the latter, we are
bound to say, a specially fortunate escape for us, since the record in
question has supplied the great bulk of what is at once new and curious
in the present work. ‘The want of any inventory of the whole must leave
us for ever in the dark as to the real extent of the loss which was
then sustained. Among the lost records, however, we may probably reckon
the rolls of the greater part of the charters of Robert I. and David
II., and the far greater part of the original instruments of a public
nature, which must be presumed to have existed in the archives of the
kingdom, at their removal from Scotland in 1651.’[189]
One of the records, that of the Privy Seal, had escaped the general
seizure by the English, and passed through some adventures not much
less romantic than those of the Regalia. Consisting of about a hundred
volumes, it rested in the care of Andrew Martin, writer in Edinburgh,
who, on the approach of danger, carried it into the Highlands, and
there preserved it from the enemy ‘with great expenses and fatigue,
for ten years at least, to the hazard of his life and irrecoverable
ruin of his family.’ After his death and that of his son, this record
fell into the possession of John Corse, writer in Edinburgh, who had
advanced considerable sums to the Martins, ‘on the faith of those
books.’ On the 24th of March 1707, Mr Corse addressed a petition to the
Scottish parliament, setting forth these particulars, and claiming a
remuneration for ‘the expenses and great pains that has been expended
in preserving these records,’ requesting at the same time that they
should be taken into public custody. The parliament accordingly
recommended Mr Corse’s claim to the queen.[190]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1661. JAN.]
[Sidenote: 1661.]
Reduced as the state of Scotland was at the close of the Interregnum,
no sooner had the Restoration taken place than such a ‘bravery’ broke
out as if there had been no such thing as poverty in the land. The
City of Edinburgh surrounded the Cross at the proclamation of the
first parliament with twelve hundred men in arms. When the Earl of
Middleton came on the last day of the year to open the parliament next
day, sixteen hundred persons met him on horseback a few miles from
town--‘there was seldom the like shaw.’ ‘All the nobles at this time,
as also the barons and burgesses, were metamorphosed like guisers,
their apparel rich, full of ribbons, feathers, and costly lace, to the
admiration of many.’ It was all from joy at the idea of the troubles of
the country being now brought to an end.
The people were delighted to see the parliament sit down, merely as
a token of the restoration of their national independency. They felt
a peculiar joy in seeing the Earl Marischal and his two brothers
come to Edinburgh, bearing with them the long-lost emblems of the
native sovereignty.[191] Nicoll says, the gallant carriage of the
people generally was ‘wonderful;’ ‘all of them, even the landward
people [rustics], belted in their swords and pistols.’ ‘Our gentry of
Scotland,’ he elsewhere adds, ‘did look with such joyful and gallant
countenances as if they had been the sons of princes. It was the joy of
this nation to see them upon brave horses, prancing in their accustomed
places, in tilting, running of races, and such like, the like whereof
was never seen in many score of years before.’
‘Our mischiefs,’ says the _Mercurius Caledonius_, ‘began with tumults
and sedition, and we are restored to our former felicity with miracles.
The sea-coasts of Fife, Angus, Mearns, and Buchan, which was famous
for the fertility of fishing, were barren since his majesty went from
Scotland to Worcester; insomuch that the poor men who subsisted by the
trade, were reduced to go a-begging in the in-country. But now, blessed
be God, since his majesty’s return, the seas are so plentiful, that in
some places they are in a condition to dung the land with soles. An
argument sufficient to stop the black mouths of those wretches that
would have persuaded the people that curses were entailed on the royal
family. As our old laws are renewed, so is likewise our good, honest,
ancient customs; for nobility in streets are known by brave retinues of
their relations, when, during the captivity, a lord was scarcely to be
distinguished from a commoner. The old hospitality returns; for that
_laudable custom of suppers_, which was covenanted out with raisins and
roasted cheese, is again in fashion; and where before a peevish nurse
would have been seen tripping up stairs and down stairs with a posset
or berry for the laird or the lady, you shall now see sturdy jackmen,
groaning with the weight of sirloins of beef, and chargers loaden with
wild fowl and capons.’
[Sidenote: 1661.]
_Mercurius_ is careful to state that, on the 1st of January 1661, the
swans which used to dwell on Linlithgow Loch, and which had deserted
their haunt at the time of the king’s departure from Scotland, did
now grace his return by reappearing in a large flock upon the lake.
There was also a small fish called the _Cherry of the Tay_, a kind of
whiting, which returned from a voluntary exile along with the king.
John Ray was at Linlithgow in August 1661, and heard from Mr Stuart,
one of the bailies, about the return of the swans. Mr Stuart
alleged that two had been brought to the lake for trial during the
Commonwealth, but would not stay. ‘At the time of the king’s coming
to London, two swans, _nescio unde sponte et instinctu proprio_, came
hither, and there still continue.’[192]
The superstitious Wodrow notes the fact of the swans in his _History_,
and adds: ‘Upon the citadel of Perth, where the arms of the
Commonwealth had been put up, in May last year a thistle grew out of
the wall near the place, and quite overspread them. Both these may be,
without anything extraordinary, accounted for; but they were matter of
remark and talk, it may be more than they deserve.’
[Sidenote: 1661.]
The jollity so highly appreciated by _Mercurius Caledonius_ is
generally described in the writings of the Presbyterian clergy as
beastly excess. ‘Nothing to be seen but debauch and revelling,’ says
Kirkton; ‘nothing heard but clamorous crimes, all flesh corrupted their
way.’ The Commissioner Middleton, keeping high festival daily during
the sitting of parliament, sometimes was so manifestly drunk when he
took his place on the throne, that it was necessary to adjourn the
sitting. In his progress through the west country in autumn 1662, ‘such
who entertained him best had their dining-rooms, their drinking-rooms,
their vomiting-rooms, and sleeping-rooms when the company had lost
their senses.’ It was averred that, while he and his court were at
Ayr, ‘the devil’s health was drunk at the Cross there, in one of their
debauches, about the middle of the night.’--_Wod._ ‘The commissioner
had £60 English a day allowed him, which he spent faithfully amongst
his northern pantalons; and so great was the luxury, and so small the
care of his family, that when he filled his wine-cellars, his steward
thought nothing to cast out full pipes to make way for others. They
made the church their stews; you might have found chambers filled with
naked men and women; cursing, swearing, and blasphemy were as common
as prayer and worship was rare.’--_Kir._ It was thought a suspicious
circumstance regarding a man that he exhibited any gravity; it smelled
of rebellion. If he wished to pass for a loyal man, to advance his
prospects, or even to escape being thought a dangerous person, it was
necessary he should put on the air of a swaggerer and a drunkard.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JAN. 7.]
By order of the king, the magistracy of Edinburgh raised the trunk
of the Marquis of Montrose from under the gallows on the Burgh-moor,
in presence of a great number of nobles, gentlemen, and others, who
expressed the most lively interest in the scene.[195] This relic being
wrapped in ‘curious cloths’ and put into a coffin, was carried along
under a velvet canopy, to the Tolbooth, the nobles and gentry attending
on horseback, while many thousands followed on foot, colours at the
same time flying, drums beating, trumpets sounding, muskets cracking,
and cannon roaring from the Castle. At the Tolbooth, the head of
the Great Marquis, which had grinned there for ten years, was taken
reverentially down, ‘some bowing, some kneeling, some kissing it,’ and
deposited in its proper place in the coffin, ‘with great acclamations
of joy,’ the trumpets, drums, and cannon giving all possible éclat
to the act. The coffin was then carried in solemn procession to the
Palace, to rest till a proper funeral-ceremony should be ordered. While
the ‘excommunicat traitor’ of 1650 was thus treated, the triumphant and
all-powerful noble of that time, the Marquis of Argyle, was a prisoner
in the Castle, waiting a doom which was precisely to resemble that of
Montrose, excepting in some particulars of inhumanity, which vengeful
loyalty could not descend to.
[Sidenote: 1661.]
The Presbyterian historians, however, have taken care to chronicle that
the Laird of Gorthie, who took the head off the spike, died within a
few hours, and the Laird of Pitcur, one of Montrose’s great adherents,
went to bed in health, and was found dead next morning. This was a
mysterious circumstance, which would probably be cleared up if we had
a return of the quantity of brandy which Gorthie and Pitcur had drunk
on the occasion. ‘Such was the testimony of honour Heaven was pleased,’
says worthy Mr Kirkton, ‘to allow Montrose’s pompous funerals.’
The four members of Montrose were also recovered from the four towns,
Glasgow, Stirling, Perth, and Aberdeen, to which they had been
severally sent for ignominious exhibition; and these being now placed
in the coffin, the body was complete as far as circumstances permitted,
excepting that the heart remained in the silver case where Lady Napier
had enshrined it, and in which it continued to be preserved, under the
care of the Napier family, till the period of the French Revolution.
[Sidenote: 1661.]
Four months afterwards (May 11), the ceremonial funeral of Montrose
was performed with an amount of joyful display that rendered it a
most singular affair. Twenty-three companies of a burgess-guard lined
the streets, that the procession might pass without interruption.
First went the new Life Guard; next twenty-six boys in mourning,
carrying the arms of Montrose and the great men of his house; then the
provost, bailies, and council of Edinburgh, all in mourning habits;
after whom, again, came the barons of parliament and the members
representing burghs. A gentleman clad in bright armour was followed by
eighteen others, carrying banners of honour, and the spurs, gloves,
breast-piece, and back-piece of the deceased, on the ends of staves.
Next came a led horse in the accoutrements used by the marquis at the
riding of parliaments, and attended by his lackey in armour. The flower
of the Scottish nobility followed in good order; then the Lord Lyon,
and his officers. Followed the friends of the deceased, bearing the
marquis’s cap of state, coronet, &c. Then the COFFIN, under its rich
pall, carried by honourable lords and gentlemen, with six trumpets
sounding before it. Some ladies clad in mourning followed. The Lord
Commissioner (Middleton), in his coach of state, closed the long and
splendid column, which, however, was closely followed by an honourable
procession doing like honours to the corpse of Hay of Dalgetty, another
royalist victim of the Civil War. The bells rang all the time while the
corpse of Montrose went on to its final honourable resting-place in St
Giles’s Cathedral. It was remarked that this was a funeral where the
relatives of the deceased wore countenances of joy, while there were
others, not related to him, who beheld it with sadness and gloom, or
shrunk aside into holes and corners, not daring to look upon it.
The strong feeling which existed in loyal breasts at the Restoration
regarding the treatment which Montrose had experienced, is shewn by
the long imprisonment and sufferings of Neil M‘Leod of Assynt, who
had taken the marquis prisoner after his defeat in Strathoikel, and
delivered him up (for a mean reward, it is said, of certain bolls of
meal). On the 10th of December 1664, the Council received a petition
from M‘Leod, shewing that he had now been confined in the Tolbooth and
city of Edinburgh for _four years_, so that, by the neglect of his
affairs, he was ‘brought near the point of ruin.’ ‘Being,’ he said, ‘a
stranger and far from his country and friends, and out of all credit
and respect by reason of his long imprisonment,’ he could have ‘no one
to engage for him as caution;’ but he offered to come under any kind of
bond for his reappearance, if allowed a temporary liberty. The Earl of
Kincardine offering to be security that M‘Leod would send a guarantee
to the amount of twenty thousand pounds Scots, he was favoured by
the Council with liberty to go home for the next four months. It was
not till February 1666 that a special letter from the king at length
freed M‘Leod from trouble on account of his concern in the doom of
Montrose.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JAN. 8.]
[Sidenote: 1661.]
This day appeared the first number of the first original newspaper
attempted in Scotland. It was a small weekly sheet, entitled _Mercurius
Caledonius; comprising the Affairs now in Agitation in Scotland, with
a Survey of Foreign Intelligence_. The editor was Thomas Sydserf, or
Saint Serf, son of a former bishop of Galloway, who was soon after
promoted to the see of Orkney. Principal Baillie alludes to this
‘diurnaler’ in bitter terms--‘a very rascal, a profane atheistical
papist, as some count him;’ the truth being that he was an Episcopalian
loyalist of merely a somewhat extravagant type. Little is known of his
previous history, beyond his having borne arms under Montrose, and
published in London in 1658 a translation from the French under the
title of _Entertainments of the Cours, or Academicall Conversations_,
dedicated to the young Marquis of Montrose. Of the _Mercurius
Caledonius_, only nine numbers were published, the last being dated
March 28, 1661. It must be admitted that the style of composition and
editorship was frivolous and foolish to a degree surprising even for
that delirious period.
At various times throughout the Civil War, when transactions of moment
were going on in Scotland--as, for instance, in the autumn of 1643,
when the Solemn League and Covenant was in preparation--news-sheets
referring to our country had been published in London. There does not
appear, however, to have been any regular or avowed attempt to give
Scottish news in connection with English and Irish, until June 1650,
when the march of Cromwell with an army to put down the Scots and their
puppet king excited of course an unusual interest regarding Scotland.
Then was commenced by ‘Thomas Newcomb, near Baynard’s Castle, Thames
Street,’ a weekly _diurnal_, under the title of _Mercurius Politicus;
comprising the Sum of all the Intelligence, with the Affairs and
Designs now on foot in the three Nations of England, Ireland, and
Scotland. In Defence of the Commonwealth and for Information of the
People_. A weekly number of this work, consisting of two sheets of
dwarf quarto, being sixteen pages, presented letters of news from the
principal cities of Europe; and during the years 1650, 1, 2, 3, and 4,
the intelligence from Scotland, chiefly of military operations there,
was a conspicuous department.[196]
[Sidenote: 1661.]
According to Mr George Chalmers,[197] Cromwell conveyed to Leith in
1652 one Christopher Higgins, who, in November of that year, began
to reprint, for the information of the English garrison, a London
newspaper, entitled _A Diurnal of some Passages and Affairs_. This is
said to have not survived many months. It was followed up by a reprint
of the afore-mentioned _Mercurius Politicus_, which Higgins commenced
at Leith in October 1653, but soon after transferred to Edinburgh,
where it was carried on till the eve of the Restoration--the imprint
being, ‘Edinburgh: Reprinted by Christopher Higgins, in Hart’s Close,
over against the Tron Church.’ This paper was afterwards resumed under
a slight change of title, and continued till not earlier than June
1662. Partly contemporary with it was a paper entitled the _Kingdom’s
Intelligencer_, begun at Edinburgh on the same day with the _Mercurius
Caledonius_, and carried on till at least December 24, 1663. The number
for the latter date contained among other articles, ‘A Remarkable
Advertisement to the Country and Strangers,’ to the following effect:
‘That there is a glass-house erected in the citadel of Leith, where
all sorts and quantities of glasses are made and sould at the prices
following: To wit, the wine-glass at three shillings two boddels; the
beer-glass, at two shillings sixpence; the quart bottel, at eighteen
shillings; the pynt bottel, at nine shillings; the chopin bottel, at
four shillings sixpence; the muskin bottel, at two shillings sixpence,
all Scots money, and so forth of all sorts; better stuff and stronger
than is imported.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAR.]
Horse-races were now performed every Saturday on the sands of Leith.
They are regularly chronicled amongst the foolish lucubrations of
_Mercurius Caledonius_; as, for example, thus: ‘Our accustomed
recreations on the sands of Leith was much hindered because of a
furious storm of wind, accompanied with a thick snow; yet we have had
some noble gamesters that were so constant at their sport as would
not forbear a designed horse-match. It was a providence the wind was
from the sea; otherwise they had run a hazard either of drowning or
splitting upon Inchkeith! This tempest was nothing inferior to that
which was lately in Caithness, where a bark of fifty ton was blown five
furlongs into the land, and would have gone further, if it had not been
arrested by the steepness of a large promontory.’
In the ensuing month, there were races at Cupar in Fife, where the
Lairds of Philiphaugh and Stobbs, and Powrie-Fotheringham appear to
have been the principal gentlemen who brought horses to the ground. A
large silver cup, of the value of £18, formed the chief prize. These
Cupar races were repeated annually. It is said they had been first
instituted in 1621.--_Lam._
As a variety upon horse-racing, _Mercurius Caledonius_ announced
a foot-race to be run by twelve brewster wives, all of them in a
condition which makes violent exertion unsuitable to the female frame,
‘from the Thicket Burn [probably Figgat Burn] to the top of Arthur’s
Seat, for a groaning cheese of one hundred pound weight, and a budgell
of Dunkeld aquavitæ and rumpkin of Brunswick Mum for the second,
set down by the Dutch Midwife. The next day, sixteen fish-wives to
trot from Musselburgh to the Canon-cross for twelve pair of lamb’s
harrigals.’
[Sidenote: 1661.]
_Mercurius_ seems to have been thrown into great delight by the revival
of a barbarous Shrovetide custom, which, strange to say, continued
to exist in connection with seminaries of education down to a period
within the recollection of living persons. ‘Our carnival sports,’ says
he, ‘are in some measure revived, for, according to the ancient custom,
the work was carried on by cock-fighting in the schools, and in the
streets among the vulgar sort, tilting at cocks with fagot-sticks. In
the evening, the learned Virtuosi of the Pallat recreate themselves
with lusty caudles, powerful cock-broth, and natural crammed pullets, a
divertisement not much inferior to our neighbour nation’s fritters and
pancakes.’
One may in some faint degree imagine the sorrowful indignation with
which the survivors of those who put down Christmas and Easter in 1642
would view these coarse celebrations of Shrovetide.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR. 2.]
A royal life-guard, consisting of sixscore persons, noblemen and
gentlemen’s sons, was this day embodied on the Links of Leith, under
the command of the Earl of Newburgh. They then rode through the city,
‘in gallant order, with their carabines upon their saddles, and their
swords drawn in their hands.’--_Nic._
In July 1662, ‘it pleased his majesty to cause clothe their trumpeters
and master of the kettle-drum in very rich apparel,’ also to give rich
coverings of cramosie velvet for the kettle-drums. At the same time,
a pair of costly colours was presented. Soon after, it is intimated
that the king gave them each a buff-coat, and made an augmentation of
their daily pay. Their chief occupation at this time seems to have been
attendance on the royal commissioner, as he passed daily to and from
the Parliament House.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAY 27.]
‘At two afternoon, the Marquis of Argyle was brought forth of the
Tolbooth of Edinburgh, fra the whilk he was conveyed by the magistrates
to the place of execution; the town being all in arms, and the
life-guard mounted on horseback, with their carabines and drawn swords.
The marquis, having come to the scaffold, with sundry of his friends
in murning apparel, he made a large speech; after whilk and a short
prayer, he committed himself to the block. His head was stricken from
his body, and affixed upon the head of the Tolbooth, where the Marquis
of Montrose[‘s] was affixed of before. It was thought great favour that
he was not drawn and quartered.’--_Nic._
[Sidenote: 1661.]
All the men who came to the scaffold at this time, and also some of
those who obtained high and unexpected preferment, became the subjects
of popular rumours which mark the ideas of the age. Robert Baillie
tells us, as a piece of information he had from his son-in-law, Mr
Robert Watson, who was with the Marchioness of Argyle at Roseneath
on the night the king landed, that ‘all the dogs that day did take a
strange howling and staring up at my lady’s chamber-windows for some
hours together.’ The venerable principal adds: ‘Mr Alexander Colvill,
justice-depute, an old servant of the house, told me that my Lady
Kenmure, a gracious lady, my lord’s sister, from some little skill of
physiognomy which Mr Alexander had taught her, had told him some years
ago that her brother would die in blood.’
It has been stated by Wodrow, that after spending the forenoon of his
last day in settling ordinary accounts, a number of friends being in
the room with him, ‘there came such a heavenly gale from the spirit of
God upon his soul, that he could not abstain from tearing [shedding
tears]. Lest it should be discovered, he turned in to[wards] the fire,
and took up the tongs in his hand, making a fashion of stirring up
the fire in the chimney; but he was not able to contain himself, and,
turning about and melting down in tears, he burst out in these words:
“I see this will not do. I must now declare what the Lord has done
for my soul. He has just now sealed my charter in these words: ‘Son,
be of good cheer; thy sins are forgiven thee.’”’ It is certain that
the marquis stated in his speech on the scaffold that he had that day
received such an assurance.
Mr A. Simson, who had been four years in the Marquis of Argyle’s
family, lived to tell Wodrow that, on the night before his lordship’s
execution--being a Sunday--he was at Inshinnan, where the communion
had been administered, and where next day there were to be prayers in
behalf of the suffering nobleman. He spent the hours from four to ten
in religious exercises alone, and during this time, ‘with a power he
scarce ever felt the like, eight or ten times that petition was borne
in upon him: “Lord, say to him, My son, be of good cheer; thy sins are
forgiven thee!” He did not much notice it till afterwards he saw his
[lordship’s] speech, and saw the account that others had been put to
wrestle for the same.’[198]
[Sidenote: 1661.]
Mr James Guthrie, who suffered a few days after Argyle, had also had
warnings, according to the historians of his party. When first induced
in Mr Samuel Rutherford’s chamber at St Andrews to take the Covenant,
‘as he came out at the door, he met the executioner in the way, which
troubled him; and the next visit he made thither, he met him in the
same manner again, which made him apprehend he might be a sufferer
for the Covenant, as indeed he was. He also had a warning of his
approaching sufferings three years before the king’s return, and upon
these he frequently reflected.’--_Kir._ The latter warning was probably
a violent bleeding of the nose, which came upon him in the pulpit,
while discoursing on the famous believers (Heb. xi.) who sealed their
testimony with their blood.[199]
Guthrie seems to have been the very type of the extreme kind of the
Presbyterians, perfectly inflexible in what he thought the right
course, and wholly devoted to the doctrines of his church. When the
generality of his brethren were tacitly allowing men who were only
loyalists to come to the standard in 1651, and union was of the last
degree of consequence, Guthrie, being the minister of Stirling, the
very head-quarters of the army, denounced these backslidings, and
really must have produced great inconvenience to the king. It is told
of the inveterate protester, that Charles thought proper to visit
him one day, hoping perhaps to soften him a little; when Mrs Guthrie
bustling about to get a chair placed for his majesty, the stern divine
calmly said to her: ‘My heart, the king is a young man; he can get a
chair for himself.’
It is also related that, at the same crisis, when a resolution was
adopted to excommunicate General Middleton, and Guthrie was to
perform the duty, the king sent a gentleman on the Sunday morning, to
entreat at least a brief delay, when Guthrie quietly told him to come
to church, and he would get his answer. The unyielding divine duly
proceeded to pronounce the excommunication.
[Sidenote: 1661.]
It was generally believed that the doom of Guthrie was in some
degree owing to the vindictive feeling which this act had engendered
in Middleton. Wodrow relates that, some time after the execution,
Guthrie’s head being placed on the Nether Bow Port in Edinburgh,
Middleton was passing underneath in his coach, when a considerable
number of drops of blood fell from the head upon the top of the coach,
making a stain which no art or diligence availed to wipe out. ‘I have
it very confidently affirmed, that physicians were called, and inquired
if any natural cause could be assigned for the blood’s dropping so
long after the head was put up, and especially for its not wearing out
of the leather; and they could give none. This odd incident beginning
to be talked of, and all other methods being tried, at length the
leather was removed, and a new cover put on.’
* * * * *
A caustic wit of our age has remarked, ‘Whatever satisfaction the
return of King Charles II. might afford to the younger females in his
dominions, it certainly brought nothing save torture to the unfortunate
old women, or witches of Scotland, against whom, immediately on the
Restoration, innumerable warrants were issued forth.’[200] It is quite
true that an extraordinary number of witch prosecutions followed the
Restoration; and the cause is plain. For some years before, the English
judicatories had discountenanced such proceedings. The consequence
was, there was a vast accumulation of old women liable to the charge
throughout all parts of the country. So soon as the native judicatories
were restored, the public voice called for these cases being taken
up; and taken up they were accordingly, the new authorities being
either inclined that way themselves, or unable to resist a demand so
intimately connected with the religious feelings of the people.
[Sidenote: JULY 25.]
[Sidenote: 1661.]
On the day noted, the Council issued a commission for the trial
of Isabel Johnston of Gullan, in the parish of Dirleton, who had
‘confessed herself guilty, in entering in paction with the devil,
renouncing her baptism, and otherwise, as her depositions under the
hands of several of the heritors and other honest men bears,’ and
likewise to proceed to the trial of others in that district who
might be delated of the same crime; for it was always seen that one
apprehended witch produced several others. They at the same time
commissioned three justice-deputes--the learned counsel Sir George
Mackenzie being one of the number--to try a number of male and female
wizards in the parishes of Musselburgh, Duddingston, Newton, Libberton,
and Dalkeith. In this case, the judges were to have an allowance for
their trouble ‘aff the first end of the fines and escheats of such
persons as shall happen to be convict.’ Throughout the remainder of the
year, and for some time after, the number of commissions issued for the
trial of witches was extremely great. On one day, January 23, 1662,
no fewer than thirteen were issued, being the sole public business of
the council for that day, besides the issue of a commission for the
trial of a thief in Sanquhar prison. Ray, the naturalist, who was in
Scotland in August 1661, tells us it was reported that a hundred and
twenty witches suffered about that time, and certainly much more than
that number of individuals are indicated in the commissions as to be
subjected to trial.
As a specimen of the facts elicited on the trials for the condemnation
of these poor people--Margaret Bryson, ‘having fallen out with her
husband for selling her cow, went in a passion to the door of the house
in the night-time, and there did imprecate that God or the devil might
take her from her husband; after which the devil immediately appeared
to her, and threatened to take her body and soul, if she entered not
into his service; whereupon, immediately she covenanted with him, and
entered into his service.’ Another example--Isabel Ramsay ‘conversed
with the devil, and received a sixpence from him; the devil saying
that God bade him give her that; and he asked how the minister did,’
&c. Marion Scott, a girl of eighteen, serving a family in Innerkip
parish, Renfrewshire, would go out in the morning with a hair-tether,
by pulling which, and calling out, ‘God send us milk and mickle of
it!’ she would supply herself with abundance of the produce of her
neighbours’ cows. She had a great deal of intercourse with the devil,
who passed under the name of _Serpent_, and by whose aid she used to
raise windy weather for the destruction of shipping. One day, being out
at sea near the island of Arran, she caused Colin Campbell’s sails to
be riven, but was herself overset with the storm, so as to be thrown
into a fever. After a night-meeting with Satan, he ‘convoyed her home
in the dawing, and when she was come near the house where she was a
servant, her master saw a waff of him as he went away from her,’ &c.
[Sidenote: 1661.]
The whole proceedings were usually of the most cruel description;
and often the worst sufferings of the accused took place before
trial, when dragged from their homes by an infuriated mob, tortured
to extort confession, and half starved in jail. A wretch called John
Kincaid acted as a _pricker_ of witches[201]--that is, he professed
to ascertain, by inserting of pins in their flesh, whether they were
truly witches or not, the affirmative being given when he pricked a
place insensible to pain. Often they were hung up by the two thumbs
till, nature being exhausted, they were fain to make acknowledgment of
the most impossible facts. The presumed offence being of a religious
character, the clergy naturally came to have much to say and do in
these proceedings. For example, as to Margaret Nisbet, imprisoned at
Spott, in Haddingtonshire, the person ordered by the Privy Council
to take trial of her case and report is Mr Andrew Wood, the minister
of the parish. There are many instances in the Privy Council Record
of witches being cleared on trial, but detained at the demand of
magistrates, or clergymen, in the hope that further and conclusive
evidence would yet be obtained against them. Such was the case of
Janet Cook of Dalkeith, who had predicted of a man who beat her, that
he would be hanged--which came to pass; who bewitched William Scott’s
horse and turned him furious; and occasionally healed sick people
by the application of some piece of an animal killed under certain
necromantic circumstances. Janet had been tried, and acquitted; yet she
was kept in durance at the urgency of the kirk-session, as they were
getting fresh grounds of accusation against her.
Occasionally relenting measures were taken by the Council, though it is
to be feared not always with the approval of the local powers. On the
30th of January 1662, they considered a petition from Marion Grinlaw
and Jean Howison, the _survivors_ of ten women and a man who had been
imprisoned at Musselburgh on this charge. Some of the rest had died of
cold and hunger. They themselves had lain in durance _forty weeks_, and
were now in a condition of extreme misery, _although nothing could be
brought against them_. Margaret Carvie and Barbara Honiman of Falkland
had in like manner been imprisoned at the instance of the magistrates
and parish minister, had lain six weeks in jail, subjected to ‘a great
deal of torture by one who takes upon him the trial of witches by
pricking,’ and so great were their sufferings that life was become a
burden to them, notwithstanding that they declared their innocence, and
nothing to the contrary had been shewn. The Council ordered all these
women to be liberated.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY.]
[Sidenote: 1661.]
‘By an act of the parliament, an order is issued out to slight and
demolish the citadels of the kingdom which were built by the English.
This of Inverness had not stood ten years. The first part they seized
upon was the sentinel-houses, neat turrets of hewn stone, curiously
wrought and set up on every corner of the rampart wall, these now
all broken down by the soldiers themselves. The next thing was the
Commonwealth’s arms pulled down and broken, and the king’s arms set up
in their place; the blue bridge slighted, the sally-port broken, the
magazine-house steeple broken, and the great bell taken down--all this
done with demonstrations of joy and gladness, the soldiers shouting
“God save the king,” as men weary of the yoke and slavery of usurpation
which lay so long about their necks. I was an eye-witness of the first
stone that was broken of this famous citadel, as I was also witness
of the foundation-stone laid, _anno_ 1652, in May. This Sconce and
Citadel is the king’s gift to the Earl of Moray, to dispose of at
his pleasure. A rare thing fell out here that was notarly known to a
thousand spectators, that the Commonwealth’s arms set up above the most
conspicuous gate of the citadel, a great _thistle_ growing out above it
covered the whole carved work and arms, so as not a bit of it could be
seen, to the admiration of all beholders! This was a presage that the
Scots therefore should eclipse [triumph.]‘--_Fraser of Wardlaw’s MS.
1666._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1661.]
The Privy Council Record, for a long time after July 1661, is half
filled with the cases of ministers who had been deposed during the
troubles, and who, having for years suffered under extreme poverty,
now petition for some compensation. Sometimes it was a minister who
gave offence by his dislike to the movement of 1638, sometimes one
who had incurred the wrath of the more zealous party by his adherence
to the Engagement of 1648 ‘for procuring the liberation of his late
majesty of blessed memory;’ sometimes the cause of deposition was of
later occurrence. For example: ‘Mr John M‘Kenzie, sometime minister
of the kirk of Urray [Ross-shire], because he would not subscrive
the Covenant and comply with the sinful courses of the time, [was]
banished and forced to fly to England _anno_ 1639, and thereafter was
sent to Ireland, and though provided there with a competency, was
by the rebellion forced to retire to Scotland. After his majesty’s
pacification closed at the Birks, and by the moyen of his friends,
[he] re-entered to the ministry; yet, still retaining his principle of
loyalty and integrity, he was therefore persecuted by the implacable
malice of the violent humours of those times, and again suspended and
thereafter deposed, only for refusing to preach men’s humours and
passions as a trumpet of sedition and rebellion.’ Mr Andrew Drummond
had been deposed from Muthill parish, ‘for no other cause but his
accession to ane supplication to the General Assembly, where he with
divers others, out of the sense of their duty, did declare their
affection to the Engagement, _anno_ 1648,’ and had suffered under this
sentence for five or six years. Mr Robert Tran, minister of Eglesham,
had been deposed in 1645 for no other cause than loyalty to his late
majesty. In some cases, the petitioner tells of the wife and six or
seven children whom his deposition had thrown destitute, and who had
gone through years of penury and hardship. The Council generally
ordered £100 sterling, or, in such a case as that of M‘Kenzie, £150,
out of the stipends of the vacant churches of their bounds.
[Sidenote: 1661.]
The popular writers of this period of Scottish history do not advert
sufficiently to those hard measures of the time of the Solemn League
which may be said, in the way of reaction or retaliation, to have led
to the severities now in the course of being practised upon the more
uncompromising Presbyterians. The many petitions of the persecuted men
of 1638-60 for redress are only slightly alluded to in a few sentences
by Wodrow, while he fills long chapters with those sufferings of
proscribed Remonstrators which would never probably have had existence
but for their own harsh doings in their days of power. He dwells with
much feeling on the banishment passed upon Mr John Livingstone, a
preacher high in the esteem of the more serious people, and deservedly
so. All must sympathise with such a case, and admire the heroic
constancy of the sufferer; but it is striking, only a few months
after his sentence to exile (February 2, 1664), to find a Mr Robert
Aird coming before the Privy Council with a piteous recital of the
distresses to which he and his family had been subjected since 1638, in
consequence of his being then thrust out of his charge at Stranraer,
merely for his affection to the then constituted Episcopal government,
the clergyman put into his place being this same John Livingstone! Aird
tells us that, being then ‘redacted to great straits, he was at last
necessitat to settle himself in Comray, in the diocese of the Isles,
where his provision [patrimony] was,’ that being ‘so little that he was
not able to maintain his family.’ During the usurpation, ‘by reason
of his affection to his majesty, he was quartered upon and otherwise
cruelly abused, to his almost utter ruin.’ The Lords recommended that
Mr Aird should have some allowance out of vacant stipends in the
diocese of the Isles. Another of the zealous clergy whose resistance
to the new rule and consequent troubles and denunciation are brought
conspicuously forward by Wodrow, was Mr James Hamilton, minister of
Blantyre. He was compelled to leave his parish, and not even allowed to
officiate peaceably in his own house at Glasgow. Much to be deplored
truly; but Wodrow does not tell us of a petition which was about the
same time addressed to the Council by the widow of Mr John Heriot,
the former minister of Blantyre, upon whom, in 1653, ‘the prevailing
party of Remonstrators in the presbytery of Hamilton had intruded one
Mr James Hamilton,’ by whom the whole stipend had been appropriated,
so that Heriot, after a few years of penury, had left his widow and
children in absolute destitution. So impressed were the Council by the
petitioner’s case, that they ordered her to receive the whole stipend
of the current year. To any candid person who would study the history
of this period, it appears necessary that these circumstances should
be told, not in justification of the cruel and most unwise measures
of the government and the heads of the new church, but as a needful
explanation of what it was in the minds of these parties which made
them act as they did.
While men tore each other to pieces on account of religion in Scotland,
and all material progress in the country was consequently at a stand,
one sagacious Scotch clergyman visited Holland, and found a very
different state of things there. ‘I saw much peace and quiet,’ he says,
‘in Holland, notwithstanding the diversity of opinions among them;
which was occasioned by the gentleness of the government, and the
toleration that made all people easy and happy. A universal industry
was spread through the whole country.’--_Burnet’s History of his Own
Times._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG. 17.]
[Sidenote: 1661.]
This day, John Ray, the eminent naturalist, entered Scotland for a
short excursion. In the _Itineraries_ which he has left, he gives,
besides zoological observations, some notes on general matters. ‘The
Scots, generally (that is, the poorer sort), wear, the men blue bonnets
on their heads, and some russet; the women only white linen, which
hangs down their backs as if a napkin were pinned about them. When
they go abroad, none of them wear hats, but a party-coloured blanket
which they call a plaid, over their heads and shoulders. The women,
generally, to us seemed none of the handsomest. They are not very
cleanly in their houses, and but sluttish in dressing their meat.
Their way of washing linen is to tuck up their coats, and tread them
with their feet in a tub. They have a custom to make up the fronts of
their houses, even in their principal towns, with fir-boards nailed
one over another, in which are often made many round holes or windows
to put out their heads [called _shots_ or _shot windows_]. In the best
Scottish houses, even the king’s palaces, the windows are not glazed
throughout, but the upper part only, the lower have two wooden shuts
or folds to open at pleasure and admit the fresh air. The Scots cannot
endure to hear their country or countrymen spoken against. They have
neither good bread, cheese, or drink. They cannot make them, nor will
they learn. Their butter is very indifferent, and one would wonder how
they could contrive to make it so bad. They use much pottage, made
of coal-wort, which they call keal, sometimes broth of decorticated
barley. The ordinary country houses are pitiful cots, built of stone,
and covered with turves, having in them but one room, many of them no
chimneys, the windows very small holes, and not glazed. In the most
stately and fashionable houses in great towns, instead of ceiling they
cover the chambers with fir-boards, nailed on the roof within side.
They have rarely any bellows or warming-pans. It is the manner in some
places there to lay on but one sheet as large as two, turned up from
the feet upwards. The ground in the valleys and plains bears good corn,
but especially beer-barley, or bigge, and oats, but rarely wheat and
rye. We observed little or no fallow-grounds in Scotland; some layed
ground we saw which they manured with sea-wreck (sea-weeds). The people
seem to be very lazy, at least the men, and may be frequently observed
to plough in their cloaks. It is the fashion of them to wear cloaks,
when they go abroad, especially on Sundays. They lay out most they are
worth in clothes, and a fellow that hath scarce ten groats besides to
help himself with, you shall see him come out of his smoky cottage clad
like a gentleman.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT. 3.]
[Sidenote: 1661.]
Mr James Chalmers, commissioner for the presbytery of Aberdeen, came
before the Privy Council with a representation that, in conformity with
sundry acts of parliament, the synod had lately made diligent search
within their bounds for papists and seminary priests. A list of the
individuals, which the reverend gentleman handed in, is remarkable as
containing many of the same names as those which we had under notice
upwards of thirty years before for the same scandal. An age of the
most rigorous treatment had failed to convince these people of their
errors. There were the Lady Marquise of Huntly and her children,
Viscount Frendraught with his brethren and children, the Laird of Gight
and his children, the Lairds of Craig, Balgownie, and Pitfoddels, with
many others whose names were not formerly noted, as the Lairds of Drum,
Auchindoir, Monaltrie, Tullos, and Murefield. Altogether, it is a sad
exhibition of pertinacity in unparliamentary opinions. Against these
and many others, including several priests, the synod had proceeded
with censure and excommunication; ‘notwithstanding whereof they
continue in their accustomed course of disobedience and will onnaways
conform to the laws of the church and kingdom, but on the contrair,
in a most insolent manner avow their heretical seditious principles
and practices, to the overthrow of religion, disturbance of church and
state, and the seducing of many poor souls.’ It was suggested that the
Council should issue letters of horning against the delinquents. The
lords promised to give the subject their consideration.
Very soon after this date, the Privy Council are found dealing with
the case of ‘John Inglis and William Brown, apprehended and imprisoned
in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh for being trafficking papists.’ Inglis
had also been guilty of distributing popish books. Brown readily gave
his promise, if liberated, ‘to take banishment upon him, and never to
be seen within the kingdom hereafter;’ but Inglis was more obstinate.
He ‘refused to give notice of such popish priests as of his knowledge
were come within this kingdom,’ and would not on any account relinquish
his own profession. He was told that he must leave the kingdom within
twenty days, and that if ever again found within its bounds, he would
be punished according to law--that is, hanged.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 5.]
On the 5th of December, the Privy Council granted a warrant to Robert
Mean, ‘keeper of the Letter-office in Edinburgh, to put to print and
publish ane diurnal weekly for preventing false news which may be
invented by evil and disaffected persons.’--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1662.
MAR. 13.]
[Sidenote: 1662.]
‘In the night-season, at Edinburgh, one Thomas Hepburn, a writer, being
a young man, was strangled in his bed privately, and, fearing he should
[have] recovered, a knife was stopped in[to] his throat. He was carried
out naked by three or four persons, and laid down on a midden-head
in the High Street. A young maid coming by at the time, being afraid,
cried and went into the Court of Guard, and told the business; upon
this, some of the guard went out and apprehended five men, drinking
with a woman, in the lodging where he lay, and carried them to the
Tolbooth. They all denied they knew any such thing.’--_Lam._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR. 1.]
The late storm of popular rage against witches would now appear to
have spent the worst, though not the whole of its fury. The Privy
Council was become sensible of great inhumanity having been practised
by John Kincaid, the pricker--who, as has been stated, took upon him to
ascertain whether a woman was a witch or not by inserting a pin into
various parts of her body, with the view of finding if in any part she
was insensible to pain! They ordered this man to be put in prison.[202]
A few days afterwards, they issued a proclamation, proceeding on the
assurance they had received, that many persons had been seized and
tortured as witches, by persons having no warrant for doing so, and
who only acted out of envy or covetousness. All such unauthorised
proceedings were now forbidden. Nevertheless, proceedings of a more
legal and less barbarous character went on. Twelve commissions for the
trial of witches in different districts were issued on the 7th of May;
three on the 9th; three on the 2d of June; one upon the 19th; and three
upon the 26th. In these instances, however, a caution was given that
there must be no torture for the purpose of extorting confession. The
judges must act only upon voluntary confessions; and even where these
were given, they must see that the accused appeared fully in their
right mind.
[Sidenote: APR.]
[Sidenote: 1662.]
At Auldearn, in Nairnshire, the notable witch-case of Isobel Gowdie
came before a tribunal composed of the sheriff of the county, the
parish minister, seven country gentlemen, and two of the town’s
men.[203] She was a married woman; her age does not appear, but,
fifteen years before, she had given herself over to the devil, and
been baptised by him in the parish church. She was now extremely
penitent, and made an unusually ample confession, taking on herself
the guilt of every known form of witchcraft. She belonged to a
witch-_covin_ or company, consisting, as was customary, of thirteen
females like herself, who had frequent meetings with the Evil One, to
whom they formed a kind of seraglio. Each had a nickname--as _Pickle
nearest the Wind_, _Over the Dike with it_, _Able and Stout_, &c.,
and had a spirit to attend her, all of which had names also--as the
_Red Riever_, the _Roaring Lion_, and so forth. The devil himself she
described as ‘a very mickle, black, rough man.’
Meeting at night, they would proceed to a house, and sit down to meat,
the _Maiden of the Covin_ always being placed close beside the devil
and above the rest, as he had a preference for young women. One would
say a grace, as follows:
‘We eat this meat in the devil’s name,
With sorrow and _sich_ [sighs] and mickle shame;
We shall destroy house and hald,
Both sheep and nolt intill the fauld:
Little good shall come to the fore
Of all the rest of the little store.’
And when supper was done, the company looked steadily at their grizly
president, and bowing to him, said: ‘We thank thee, our Lord, for this.’
[Sidenote: 1662.]
Occasionally he was very cruel to them. ‘Sometimes, among ourselves,’
says Isobel, ‘we would be calling him _Black John_, or the like, and
he would ken it, and hear us weel eneuch, and he even then come to
us and say: “I ken weel eneuch what ye are saying of me!” And then
he would beat and buffet us very sore. We would be beaten if we were
absent any time, or neglect anything that would be appointed to be
done. Alexander Elder in Earl-seat would be beaten very often. He is
but soft, and could never defend himself in the least, but would greet
and cry when he would be scourging him. But Margaret Wilson would
defend herself finely, and cast up her hands to keep the strokes off
her; and Bessie Wilson would speak crusty, and be belling again to him
stoutly. He would be beating us all up and down with cords and other
sharp scourges, like naked ghaists, and we would still be crying:
“Pity, pity, mercy, mercy, our Lord!” But he would have neither pity
nor mercy. When angry at us, he would girn at us like a dog, as if he
would swallow us up. Sometimes he would be like a stirk, a bull, a
deer, a rae,’ &c.
Isobel stated that when the married witches went out to these nocturnal
conventions, they put a besom into their place in bed, which prevented
their husbands from missing them. When they had feasted in a house and
wished to depart, a corn-straw put between their legs served them as a
horse; and on their crying, ‘Horse and hattock in the devil’s name!’
they would fly away, ‘even as straws would fly upon a highway.’ She
once feasted in Darnaway Castle, and left it in this manner. On another
occasion, the party went to the Downy Hills, where the hill opened,
and they went into a well-lighted room, where they were entertained by
the queen of Faery. This personage was ‘brawly clothed in white linens
and in white and brown clothes;’ while her husband, the king of Faery,
was ‘a braw man, weel-favoured, and broad-faced.’ ‘On that occasion,’
says Isobel, ‘there were elf-bulls routing up and down, and affrighted
me’--a trait which bears so much the character of a dream, as to be
highly useful in deciding that the whole was mere hallucination.
The covin were empowered to take the shapes of hares, cats, and crows.
On assuming the first of these forms, it was necessary to say:
‘I sall go intill a hare,
With sorrow, sich, and mickle care;
And I sall go in the devil’s name,
Aye while I come home again.’
‘I was one morning,’ says Isobel, ‘about the break of day, going to
Auldearn in the shape of ane hare, and Patrick Papley’s servants, going
to their labour, his hounds being with them, ran after me. I ran very
long, but was forced, being weary, at last to take my own house. The
door being left open, I ran in behind a chest, and the hounds followed
in; but they went to the other side of the chest, and I was forced to
run forth again, and wan into ane other house, and there took leisure
to say:
“Hare, hare, God send thee care!
I am in a hare’s likeness now,
But I sall be a woman even now!
Hare, hare, God send thee care!”
[Sidenote: 1662.]
And so I returned to my own shape again. The dogs,’ she added, ‘will
sometimes get bits of us, but will not get us killed. When we turn to
our own shape, we will have the bits, and rives, and scarts in our
bodies.’
Sometimes they would engage in cures, using of course the power derived
from their infernal master. For a sore or a broken limb there was a
charm in verse, which they said thrice over, _stroking the sore_, and
it was sure to heal. They had a similar charm for the _bean-shaw_ or
sciatica:
‘We are three maidens charming for the bean-shaw,
The man of the middle earth,
Blue bearer, land fever,
Manners of stoors,
The Lord flegged the Fiend with his holy candles and yird-fast
stone;
There she sits and here she is gone:
Let her never come here again!’
Another was for cases of fever:
‘I forbid the quaking-fevers, the sea-fevers, the land-fevers, and
all the fevers that ever God ordained,
Out of the head, out of the heart, out of the back, out of the
sides, out of the knees, out of the thies,
Frae the points of the fingers to the nebs of the taes:
Out sall the fevers go, some to the hill, some to the hope,
Some to the stone, some to the stock,
In St Peter’s name, St Paul’s name, and all the saints of heaven,
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Haly Ghaist!’
More generally, however, they were employed in planting or prolonging
diseases. Isobel Gowdie told the minister that, in the preceding
winter, when he was sick, they made a bagful of horrible broth of the
entrails of toads, parings of nails, the liver of a hare, pickles of
beir and bits of rag, and, at the dictation of the devil, pronounced
over it this charm:
‘He is lying in his bed, he is lying sick and sair,
Let him lie intill his bed two months and three days mair,’ &c.
[Sidenote: 1662.]
‘Then we fell down upon our knees, with our hair down over our
shoulders and eyes, and our hands lifted up, and our eyes steadfastly
fixed upon the devil, and said the foresaid words thrice over.... In
the night-time, we came into Mr Harry Forbes’s chalmer, with our hands
all smeared, to swing [the bag] upon Mr Harry, where he was sick in
his bed; and in the daytime [there came ane of our number] to swing
the bag [upon the said Mr Harry, as we could][204] not prevail in the
night-time against him.’
Isobel stated the charm for taking away a cow’s milk. ‘We pull the tow
[rope] and twine it, and plait it the wrong way in the devil’s name;
and we draw the tether, sae made, in betwixt the cow’s hinder feet, and
out betwixt the cow’s forward feet, in the devil’s name; and thereby
takes with us the cow’s milk.... The way to give back the milk again is
to cut the tether. When we take away the strength of any person’s ale,
and gives it to another, we take a little quantity out of each barrel
or stand of ale, and puts it in a stoup, in the devil’s name; and, in
his name, with our awn hands, puts it amang another’s ale, and gives
her the strength and substance of her neighbour’s ale. [The way] to
keep the ale from us, that we have no power of it, is to sanctify it
weel.’
One of their evil doings was to take away the strength of the manure
of such as they wished ill to, or to make their lands unproductive.
‘Before Candlemas, we went be-east Kinloss, and there we yoked a pleuch
of paddocks. The devil held the pleuch, and John Young in Mebestown,
our officer, did drive the pleuch. Paddocks did draw the pleuch as
oxen. Quickens [dog-grass] were soams [traces]; a riglen’s [ram’s]
horn was a coulter; and a piece of a riglen’s horn was a sock. We went
several times about, and all we of the _covin_ went still up and down
with the pleuch, praying to the devil for the fruit of that land, and
that thistles and briers might grow there.’ When they wished to have
fish, they had only to go to the shore just before the boats came home
and say three several times:
‘The fishers are gone to the sea,
And they will bring home fish to me;
They will bring them home intill the boat,
But they sall get of them but the smaller sort.’
Accordingly, they obtained all the fishes in the boats, leaving the
fishermen nothing but slime behind.
[Sidenote: 1662.]
Having conceived a design of destroying all the Laird of Park’s male
children, they made a small effigy of a child in clay, and having
learned the proper charm from their master, fell down before him on
their knees, with their hair hanging over their eyes, and looking
steadily at him, said:
‘In the devil’s name
We pour this water amang the meal,
For lang dwining and ill heal;
We put it intill the fire,
That it may be burned baith stick and stour.
It sall be brunt with our will,
As any stickle[205] upon a kiln.’
‘Then, in the devil’s name,’ says the culprit, ‘we did put it in, in
the midst of the fire. After it was red like a coal, we took it out in
the devil’s name. Till it be broken, it will be the death of all the
male children that the Laird of Park will ever get.... It was roasten
each other day at the fire; sometimes one part of it, sometimes another
part of it, would be wet with water, and then roasten. The bairn would
be burnt and roasten, even as it was by us.’ One child having died, the
hags laid up the image till the next baby was born, and ‘within half a
year after that bairn was born, we took it out again, and would dip it
now and then in water, and beek and roast it at the fire, each other
day once, untill that bairn died also.’
The devil made elf-arrows for them, and, learning to shoot these by an
adroit use of the thumb, they killed several persons with them, also
some cattle. ‘I shot at the Laird of Park,’ says Isobel, ‘as he was
crossing the Burn of Boath; but, thanks be to God that he preserved
him. Bessie Hay gave me a great cuff because I missed him.’ She spoke
of having herself shot a man engaged in ploughing, and also a woman.
[Sidenote: 1662.]
Not satisfied with what they had done against the Laird of Park, they
held a diabolic convention at Elspet Nisbet’s house, to take measures
for the entire destruction of his family and that of the Laird of
Lochloy. Taking some dog’s flesh and some sheep’s flesh, they chopped
it small and seethed it for a whole forenoon in a pot. Then the devil
put in a sheep’s bag, which he stirred about for some time with his
hands. ‘We were upon our knees, our hair about our eyes, and our
hands lifted up, and we looking steadfastly upon the devil, praying
to him, repeating the words which he learned us, that it should kill
and destroy the Lairds of Park and Lochloy, and their male children
and posterity. And then we came to the Inshoch in the night-time, and
scattered it about the gate, and other places where the lairds and
their sons would most haunt, and then we, in the likeness of craws
and rooks, stood about the gate and in the trees opposite. It was
appointed so that if any of them should touch or tramp on any of it,
it should strike them with boils, &c., and kill them. Whilk it did,
and they shortly died. We did it to make that house heirless. It would
wrong none else but they.’
We are not informed of the fate of Isobel Gowdie, or her associate,
Janet Braidhead, from whose confession the last particulars are
extracted; but there can be no doubt that they perished at the stake.
Theirs are clearly cases of hallucination, mistakes of dreams and
passing thoughts for real events, the whole being prompted in the first
place by the current tales of witchcraft, and then made to assume in
their own eyes a character of guilt because the witches themselves
believed in witchcraft and all its turpitude, as well as their
neighbours.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR. 15.]
The new-made Archbishop of St Andrews (Sharpe) commenced a sort of
progress from Edinburgh, to take possession of his see. Dining with Sir
Andrew Ramsay at Abbotshall, he came to lodge at Leslie, attended by
several of the nobility and gentry. The anxiety of the upper classes to
do honour to the new system is shewn in the cortège which accompanied
the prelate next day to St Andrews. He had an earl on each hand, and
various other nobles and lairds, and at one time between seven and
eight hundred mounted gentlemen, in his train. Next Sunday, he preached
in the town-church of St Andrews, on the text, ‘I am determined to know
nothing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.’ ‘His sermon
did not run much on the words, but in a discourse vindicating himself,
and pressing Episcopacy and the utility of it.’--_Lam._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAY 20.]
By an act of parliament, this day was henceforth to be held as a
holiday, both as the king’s birthday and as the anniversary of his
majesty’s restoration. All over Scotland, the ordinance seems to have
been heartily complied with. Everywhere there were religious services
and abstinence from labour, and in most places active demonstrations
of rejoicing, as beating of drums, shooting of cannon, sounding of
trumpets, setting up of bonfires, and ceremonial drinkings of royal
healths in public places.
[Sidenote: 1662.]
Through a peculiar loyal zeal, there was an extraordinary demonstration
at Linlithgow. Not merely was the fine public fountain of that ancient
burgh set flowing with divers coloured wines of France and Spain; not
merely did the magistrates, accompanied by the Earl of Linlithgow and
the minister of the parish, come to the market-place and there drink
the king’s health at a collation in the open air, throwing sweetmeats
and glasses among the people, but an arch had been constructed, with
the genius of the Covenant (an old hag) on one side, a Whiggamore
on the other, and the devil on the top--on the back, a picture of
Rebellion ‘in a religious habit, with turned-up eyes and a fanatic
gesture,’ while on the pillars were drawn ‘kirk-stools, rocks,
and reels,’ ‘brochans, cogs, and spoons,’ with legends containing
burlesque allusions to the doings of the zealous during the preceding
twenty years: and at the drinking of the king’s health, this fabric
was set fire to and consumed, together with copies of the Covenants,
and all the acts of parliament passed during the Civil War, as well
as many protestations, declarations, and other public documents of
great celebrity in their day. When the fire was over, there appeared,
in place of the late fabric, a tablet supported by two angels, and
presenting the following inscription:
‘Great Britain’s monarch on this day was born,
And to his kingdom happily restored;
His queen’s arrived, the matter now is known,
Let us rejoice, this day is from the Lord!
Flee hence all traitors, that did mar our peace;
Flee, all schismatics who our church did rent;
Flee, Covenanting remonstrating race;
Let us rejoice that God this day hath sent.’
Then the magistrates accompanied the earl to the palace, where he, as
keeper, had a grand bonfire, and here the loyal toasts were all drunk
over again. Finally, the magistrates made a procession through the
burgh, saluting every man of account.[206]
Wodrow tells us that this ‘mean mock of the work of reformation,’ was
chiefly managed by Robert Miln, then bailie of Linlithgow, and Mr James
Ramsay, the minister of the parish, subsequently bishop of Dunblane;
both of whom had a few years before ‘solemnly entered into, and renewed
these covenants, with uplifted hands to the Lord.’ ‘The first in
some time thereafter came to great riches and honour [as a farmer of
revenues], but outlived them, and the exercise of his judgment too, and
died bankrupt in miserable circumstances at Holyroodhouse.’
[Sidenote: 1662.
JUNE 16.]
One Grieve, a maltman at Kirkcaldy, was deliberately murdered by his
son, in consequence of family quarrels. The wretched youth took some
cunning measures for concealing the murder, but in vain. ‘He is had to
the corpse; but the corpse did not bleed upon him (for some affirm that
the corpse will not bleed for the first twenty-four hours after the
murder): however, he is keepit, and within some hours after, he is had
to the corpse again, and, the son taking the father by the hand, the
corpse bleeds at the nose; but he still denies. Also, the man’s wife is
brought, and they cause her touch her husband; but he did not bleed.’
The lad afterwards confessed, and was hanged.--_Lam._
* * * * *
This was a year of uncommon abundance, in both grain and fruit, ‘the
like never seen heretofore.’ ‘The streets of Edinburgh were filled full
of all sorts of fruits ... sold exceeding cheap.’--_Nic._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 3.]
Decision was given in the Court of Session of a singular case, in which
several of the peers of the realm were concerned. ‘Lord Coupar, sitting
in parliament, taking out his watch, handed it to Lord Pitsligo, who
refusing to restore it, an action was brought for the value. Lord
Pitsligo said, that Lord Coupar having put his watch in his hand to
see what hour it was, Lord Sinclair putting forth his hand for a sight
of the watch, Lord Pitsligo put it into Lord Sinclair’s hand, in the
presence of Lord Coupar, without contradiction, which must necessarily
import his consent. Lord Coupar answered that, they being then sitting
in parliament, his silence could not import his consent. The Lords
repelled Lord Pitsligo’s defence, and found him liable in the value of
the watch.’[207]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1662.]
The check lately imposed on the cruelty of proceedings in witch cases
was not everywhere effectual; but in one instance of alleged wizardry
in the Highlands, the tyranny of the usual process was controlled in
a most characteristic manner. A group of poor people, tenants in the
parish of Kilmorack and Kiltarnity, in Inverness-shire--namely, Hector
M‘Lean; Jonet M‘Lean, his spouse; Margaret M‘Lean, sister of Jonet; and
ten or twelve other women of indescribable Highland names--had been
apprehended and imprisoned for the alleged crime of witchcraft, at the
instance of Alexander Chisholm, of Commer; Colin Chisholm, his brother;
John Valentine, and Thomas Chisholm, cousins of Alexander. The women
had been put into restraint in Alexander Chisholm’s house, while Hector
M‘Lean was confined in the Tolbooth of Inverness. Donald, a brother of
John M‘Lean, was searched for as being also a wizard, but he kept out
of the way. The Chisholms then set to torturing the women, ‘by waking
them, hanging them up by the thumbs, burning the soles of their feet in
the fire,’ drawing some of them ‘at horses’ tails, and binding of them
with widdies [withes] about the neck and feet.’ Under this treatment,
one became distracted, another died; the rest confessed whatever
was demanded of them. Upon the strength of confessions extorted by
‘tortures more bitter than death itself’--such is the language of the
sufferers--the Chisholms had obtained a commission for trying the
accused.
It was alleged in a petition from M‘Lean and the other prisoners, that
the whole of this prosecution arose from inveterate hatred on the part
of the Chisholms, because they could not get them in a legal way put
out of their lands and possessions, where they had been for between
two and three hundred years past--so early was the fashion of eviction
in the Highlands. And here comes in the characteristic feature of the
case. These M‘Leans, though so long removed from the country of their
chief and dwelling among strangers, were still M‘Leans, owning a fealty
to their chief in his remote Mull fastness, and looking for protection
in return. Accordingly, we have this insular chief, Sir Rory M‘Lean of
Dowart, coming in with a petition to the Privy Council in behalf of
these poor people, setting forth their case in its strongest light, and
demanding justice for them. The Council ordered proceedings under their
commission to be stopped, and sent to require the Chisholms to come
before them along with the prisoners.
How this matter ended we do not learn; but it is evident that the clan
feeling was effectual in saving the M‘Leans from further proceedings of
an arbitrary and cruel nature.--_P. C. R._
[Sidenote: 1662.]
Early in the ensuing year, there occur a number of petitions to
the Council from individuals who had been confined a long time on
charges of witchcraft, either untried for want of evidence, or who
had been tried and acquitted, but were further detained in hope of
evidence being obtained. One of these was from a burgess of Lauder
named Wilkison, in favour of his wife, who was kept in a miserable
condition in prison, even after her accuser had expressed penitence
for ‘delating’ her! The Council generally shewed a disposition to
liberate such persons on petition; but there were cases which lay long
neglected. We hear in January 1666 of a poor woman named, Jonet Howat,
who had been a prisoner in Forfar jail on suspicion of witchcraft for
_several years_, and was now ‘redacted to the extreme of misery,’ never
having all the time been subjected to trial.[208] Jonet was ordered to
be liberated, if her trial could not be immediately proceeded with. It
is rather remarkable to find in the ill-reputed government of this time
traits of a certain considerateness and humanity towards women under
charges of witchcraft--for example, taking care that they should not
be tortured by unauthorised persons, and making sure that even their
voluntary confessions should appear as proceeding from a sane mind;
thus shewing a feeling which was to all appearance unknown during the
late _régime_.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY.]
[Sidenote: 1662.]
Jon Ponthus, a German, styling himself professor of physic, but who
would now be called a quack-doctor, was in Scotland for the third
time, having previously paid professional visits in 1633 and 1643.
His proceedings afford a lively illustration of the state of medical
science in our island, and of the views of the public mind regarding
what is necessary to a good physician. Erecting a stage on the High
Street of Edinburgh, he had one person to play the fool, and another
to dance on a rope, in order to attract and amuse his audience. Then
he commenced selling his drugs, which cost eighteenpence per packet,
and Nicoll allows that they ‘proved very good and real.’ This honest
chronicler seems to have been much pleased with the antics of the
performers. Upon a great rope fixed from side to side of the street, a
man ‘descended upon his breast, his hands loose and stretched out like
the wings of a fowl, to the admiration of many.’ Most curious of all,
‘the chirurgeons of the country, and also the apothecaries, finding
thir drugs and recipes good and cheap, came to Edinburgh from all
parts of the kingdom and bought them,’ for the purpose of selling them
again at a profit. ‘Thir plays and dancings upon the rope continued
the space of many days, whose agility and nimbleness was admirable to
the beholders; ane of these dancers having danced sevenscore times at
a time without intermission, lifting himself and vaulting six quarter
heigh above his awn head, and lighting directly upon the tow, as
punctually as gif he had been dancing upon the plain-stones.’--_Nic._
The quack subsequently exhibited in like manner at Glasgow, Stirling,
Perth, Cupar, and St Andrews.--_Lam._
‘About the same time, another mountebank, a High German, had the like
sports and commodities to gain money. He was at Edinburgh twice, as
also at Aberdeen and Dundee. He likewise had the leaping and flying
rope--viz., coming down ane high tow, and his head all the way
downward, his arms and feet holden out all the time; and this he did
divers times in one afternoon.’--_Lam._
In December 1665, a doctor of physic, named Joanna Baptista, acting
under his majesty’s warrant, ‘erected a stage [in Edinburgh] between
Niddry’s and Blackfriars’ Wynd head, and there vended his drugs,
powder, and medicaments, for the whilk he received a great abundance of
money.’--_Nic._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP.]
‘It pleased the king’s majesty at this time to raise [five] companies
of foot-soldiers, weel provided in arms, able stout Scotsmen, by and
attour those of the life-guard, wha attended his majesty’s service in
and about Edinburgh, ever ready to attend the king’s pleasure and the
parliament’s direction.’--_Nic._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT. 15.]
Died, the Earl of Balcarres, a boy. ‘The lady, his mother, caused open
him, and in his heart was found a notched stone, the bigness of one’s
five fingers, Dr Martin and John Gourlay [apothecary] being present at
his embalming.’[209]--_Lam._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV.]
The clergymen of Edinburgh, five in number, were all displaced for
non-conformity to the new Episcopal rule, excepting one, Mr Robert
Lowrie, who consequently obtained the name of the _Nest Egg_. He became
Dean of Edinburgh. The inhabitants of the city, not relishing the new
ministers, began to desert the churches and go to worship elsewhere. At
the same time, the Monday’s sermon, which had for some years been in
use, was discontinued.
[Sidenote: 1662.]
In the new church establishment the chief object held in view was to
get the church courts controlled by bishops and the royal supremacy.
Matters of worship and discipline were left much as they had been. No
ceremonies of any kind, nor any liturgy, were attempted. ‘The reading
of Scriptures was brought in again, and the psalms sung with this
addition: “Glory to the Father, to the Son, and to Holy Ghost,” &c.’
That was all. While the famous Perth articles were left in oblivion,
it was felt to be necessary that there should be some respect paid
to the day of the Nativity. Accordingly, the next Christmas-day was
solemnly kept in Edinburgh, the bishop preaching in the Easter Kirk (St
Giles) to a large audience, in which were included the commissioner,
chancellor, and all the nobles in town. ‘The sermon being ended,
command was given by tuck of drum, that the remanent of the day should
be spent as a holiday, that no work nor labour should be used, and no
mercat nor trade on the streets, and that no merchant booth should be
opened under pain of £20 in case of failyie.’--_Nic._
There was also a kind of volunteer effort in certain classes to get up
an observance of the day consecrated to the national saint. November
30, a Sunday, being St Andrew’s Day, ‘many of our nobles, barons,
gentry, and others of this kingdom, put on ane livery or favour, for
reverence thereof. This being a novelty, I thought good to record,
because it was never of use heretofore since the Reformation.’--_Nic._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1663.
FEB.]
Died David Mitchell, Bishop of Aberdeen, ‘a little man, of a brisk
lively temper, well learned, and a good preacher. He lived a single
life, and his manners were without reproach.’ This prelate had
experienced some strange vicissitudes of fortune. Originally a protégé
of Archbishop Spottiswoode, and probably by his favour advanced from
a parish pulpit in the Mearns to be a dean, he had been thrust out
by the Covenanters in 1638, and retired to Holland. There, ‘being a
good mechanic, he gained his bread by making clocks and watches.’ At
the Restoration, being enabled to return to his native country, he
was made a prebend of Westminster, and thence advanced to the see of
Aberdeen.[210]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAR.]
[Sidenote: 1663.]
‘There was ane lioness brought to Edinburgh with ane lamb in its
company, with whom she did feed and live; wha did embrace the lamb in
her arms, as gif it had been her awn birth.’--_Nic._
* * * * *
‘This year was a very plentiful year of corns and stone-fruit,’ and the
ensuing winter was ‘exceeding fair and warm weather, without any frost
or snow.’--_Nic._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV.]
‘At this time, came here that valiant Colonel Rutherford, born and
brought up in Edinburgh, a stout champion, late governor of Dunkirk,
and now of Tangier, a man famous for his actions abroad. He came,
having licence from his majesty to visit his friends here for a very
few days.... It wald be here remembered that the Scottish nation in
my time produced not a few such cavaliers; such as Colonel Edment,
born in Stirling, a baxter’s son; Colonel Boog, Colonel Hepburn,
Colonel Douglas, General Ruthven, General Leslie, General King, and
many others, all valiant men, to the credit of this kingdom.’--_Nic._
Colonel Rutherford was ennobled under the title of Earl of Teviot, but
did not long survive, being killed in May 1664, by an army of Moors. He
left money to build eight rooms in the College of Edinburgh, where he
had been educated.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1664.
JAN.]
This month and the succeeding, there were many robberies throughout the
country, and even in the streets and closes of Edinburgh, ‘occasioned
by the poverty of the land, and heavy burdens pressing upon the people;
the haill money of the kingdom being spent by the frequent resort of
our Scotsmen at the court of England.’--_Nic._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR. 20.]
One James Elder, a baker in the Canongate, Edinburgh, was tried for
usury. The witnesses deponed that they saw him receive 8 per cent.
from his debtor, and one of them deponed that he refused to accept 6
per cent. till he got 2 per cent. more. Being found guilty, his goods
were escheat, and he ordered to find security that he would be ready to
undergo any further punishment that might be inflicted upon him.--_B.
of C._
What was then, partly under religious feelings, regarded as a crime,
has since come to be held as legitimate traffic; and it is not unworthy
of remark that the Bank of England was, at the time of the preparation
of this article (November 1857), charging on bills 2 per cent. more
than that rate of interest which caused James Elder in 1664 to forfeit
his whole possessions.
[Sidenote: 1664.
JULY 15.]
The Earl of Leven, a young man, grandson of the great commander,
ended his life in a manner characteristic of this mad-merry time. ‘He
died of a high fever, after a large carouse with the Earl of Dundee
at Edinburgh and the Queensferry. Some say that, in crossing, they
drank sea-water one to another, and, after their landing, seck.’ A
funeral-sermon was preached for him, on the text, ‘Our life is but a
vapour, &c.,’ being ‘the first funeral-sermon that hath been preached
in Fife these twenty-four years last past, or more.’--_Lam._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY.]
At this time, while the plague raged with great violence in Holland,
carrying off as many as 739 persons in one day in Amsterdam, ‘there was
much death in Scotland by ane fever called the _Purple Fever_.’--_Nic._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV.]
‘There fell out much division between the king’s Customers [officers of
customs] and the merchants of Edinburgh, anent the searching of their
merchandise and goods, and payment of their customs; and the Customers
being informed that the merchants had brought in privily from England
certain braid claith, and had convoyed the same over the town-wall
privily in the night, they thereupon received warrant from the Great
Treasurer and his deputes for searching the haill merchants’ booths of
Edinburgh, and to stamp and seal their haill braid claith, and to take
their oaths of verity anent the quantity of their merchandise and goods
customable. The merchants, hearing the report thereof, in a moment
closed up all their shops and doors, and held out Sir Walter Simpson,
principal Customer, and his associates, from entry to their shops; but
he placed sentries at their doors, that they should receive nothing
out.’ The affair ended in a riot, in the course of which Sir Walter’s
house was pillaged and an apprentice shot, and which was only quieted
by military force.--_Nic._
* * * * *
This year, like the two preceding, was remarkable for abundance of
the fruits of the earth. ‘Much corn cuttit down in July ... the
cherries sold at twelve pennies Scots [that is, one penny sterling] the
hundred.’ Great penury nevertheless complained of.--_Nic._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC.]
[Sidenote: 1664.]
‘There appeared nightly, frae four hours in the morning till daylight,
ane fiery comet, tending in our sight frae the south-east to the
north-west, and seen in our horizon betwixt Arthur’s Seat and Pichtland
Hills, with ane tail terrible to the beholders.... This comet, in the
head, was, in our sight, the breadth of ane reasonable man’s hand, and
sprang out in the tail the length of five or six ells.’--_Nic._ It
‘began to appear about three o’clock in the morning, very terrible in
its first apparition; after that, it appeared at evening. It was a star
of a more dim and bluish apparition (like a candle dying out) than the
rest of the stars, with a long train of lightning from it, sometimes a
fathom and a half in appearance, sometimes shorter.’--_Lam._
Pepys relates that the king and queen sat up on the night of the 17th
of December, to see this comet, ‘and did, it seems.’ He also tells us
of a lecture he was present at, in Gresham College, where Mr Hooke made
it seem ‘very probable that this is the very same comet that appeared
before in 1618, and that in such a time probably it will appear again,
which is a very new opinion.’[211]
The comet of 1664 passed its perihelion on the 4th of December, at
a distance from the sun somewhat greater than that of the earth’s
orbit. The remark of Mr Hooke is erroneous in point of fact, but
nevertheless interesting, as shewing that the periodicity of comets was
now a subject of speculation among the few then cultivating natural
philosophy in England.
* * * * *
About the end of this year, Sharpe, Archbishop of St Andrews, purchased
the lands of Scotscraig, a good estate in Fife, at 95,000 merks or
thereby (about £5540). In the spring of 1669, he made a further
purchase of the lands of Strathtyrum, near St Andrews, for about 27,000
merks. These doings argue the lucrative nature of the preferments for
which Sharpe, as his brethren believed, had sold his party and his
conscience. He had a brother William, who was at the same time rising
in prosperity, and who, in 1665, bought the lands of West Newton, near
Musselburgh, now called Stonyhill, at 27,000 merks. This William Sharpe
was knighted by the Commissioner Lauderdale in 1669.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1665.
JAN. 5.]
[Sidenote: 1665.]
The Laird of Lundie, a young unmarried man, was buried in Largo Church,
with that novel and superfluous pomp with which all important matters
had been conducted since the Restoration. The funeral was attended
by a great number of the nobility and gentry of Fife, Lothian, and
the Carse of Gowrie, including the Earls of Crawford, Athole, Kellie,
Wemyss, Tweeddale, and Balcarres, Lords Lyon, Elphinstone, and Newark,
who all dined at the house of Lundie before the corpse ‘was lifted.’
The coach or hearse, decorated with the armorial insignia of the
deceased, and a pall of black velvet, was drawn by six horses, preceded
by three trumpeters and four heralds in proper costume.
‘The heralds and painter got, for their pains, about 800 merks;
the poor ten dollars; the coachmen seven dollars; the trumpeters
forty-eight dollars; the baxter, James Weiland, seven dollars; George
Wan, master of the household ...; the cooks, ...; Mr Waters, that
dressed the coach, seven dollars; ... some men that served ...; the
Kirkcaldy man, for the coffin, 40 lib.; John Gourlay, apothecary,
for drogs, attendance, and bowelling of him, ...; James Thomson, in
Kirkcaldy, for mournings, 412 lib. or thereby; at Edinburgh, for
mournings, 600 lib. or thereby; Gid. Sword for drogs, 16 lib. or
thereby; to the writer at Edinburgh for paper and the burial letters,
12 lib.; at Edinburgh, for claret wine, 200 merks; for seck, 100
lib.; at Edinburgh, two divers times, for spices, about 100 lib.;
for sugar ... R. Dobie, for tobacco, seven lib.; R. Clydesdale, for
ware, 54 lib., 11s.; Will. Foggo, for beef, 84 lib., 12s.; Capper, at
Scoonie, for capps, 6s. ster.; An. Brebner, smith, for the chimlay and
work, near ane 100 lib. or thereby; Robert Bonaly, for dyeing to the
servants, 21 lib., 6s. 8d.; Glover in the Wemyss, for servants’ gloves,
4 lib.’--_Lam._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JAN. 9.]
Died at Cupar, Thomas Seaton, who is described as ‘a great exciseman,’
meaning a farmer of the revenue over a considerable district. The
event would not be worthy of notice, but for a connected circumstance.
‘He died a Catholic Roman, which was never divulged till his
death.’--_Lam._ Such a fact, revealing a lifelong hypocrisy in a man of
some consequence, is very startling amidst the universal professions of
anxiety for ‘the true religion.’ But it may well be supposed to be but
one of many instances in which intolerance produced one of its natural
fruits, dissimulation.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: FEB.]
[Sidenote: 1665.]
In the latter part of this month, for several days, ‘there appeared
in the clear light of day, even at twelve, one, and two o’clock, and
also in the haill afternoon, ane fiery blazing star in the firmament.
This star continued and increased daily and nightly thereafter, by the
space of many weeks, sometimes having a great brugh about it [a halo]
like the moon.’--_Nic._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: FEB.]
In consequence of the war between Great Britain and Holland, great
stagnation of trade was experienced in Scotland, ‘to the heavy damage
and wreck of the people.’ ‘The seamen were daily sought, taken,
and warded, till they were shipped for that service.’ ‘The towns
upon the north shore of the Firth of Forth had daily and nightly
watches for their defence, in case they should be surprised by the
Hollanders.’--_Nic._
* * * * *
Snow had begun at Christmas 1664, and it lay upon the ground till the
14th of March this year--a storm of which the like had not been seen
for many years before.--_Nic._ ‘Some began to say there would hardly
be any seed-time at all this year; but it pleased the Lord, out of
His gracious goodness, on a sudden to send seasonable weather for the
seed-time, so that in many places the oat seed was sooner done this
year [than] in many years formerly; for the long frost made the ground
very free, and the husbandmen, for the most part, affirmed they never
saw the ground easier to labour.’ Many sheep perished during the storm,
and the frost was severe enough to kill the broom and whins in many
places.--_Lam._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAR.]
In the end of this month, appeared a new and fearful comet, greater
than that seen in November. It was visible in all parts of Europe, and
‘set many heads at work.’ The recent alarms spread by the Turks through
Europe, and which had affected even Scotland, and the feeling of
anxiety occasioned by the Dutch war and constant threats of invasion,
gave more than its proper share of terrors to this celestial stranger.
‘They write from Frankfort, Dresden, Berlin, and other places, of
strange sights and terrible in the air; many of which are undoubtedly
augmented by imagination and report, yet a great part of the story is
looked upon as a truth.’--_Nic._
This comet, which was seen in France two months earlier than it
seems to have been in Scotland, was observed by Hevelius, Cassini,
and others. It passed its perihelion on the 24th of April, at
a comparatively small distance from the sun, and with a great
eccentricity of orbit.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR.]
[Sidenote: 1665.]
We get some idea of the expense of building at this time, from the
sum at which Robert Mylne, master-mason in Edinburgh, undertook to
erect an hospital at the kirk-town of Largo. It was a house of fourteen
fire-rooms and a public hall; each room containing a bed, a closet,
and a loom; besides which there was a stone-bridge at the entry, and
a gardener’s house, two stories high. ‘Some say he was to have for
the work, being complete, 9000 merks [£506], and if it was found weel
done, 500 merks more.’--_Lam._ In 1661, according to the same diarist,
when some mason-work was executed at Lundie, in Fife, the master had
tenpence a day, and the other men ninepence, ‘and all their diet in the
house.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 11.]
This day, being Sunday, the news of the great naval victory over the
Dutch reached Edinburgh (in three days from London) during the time
of service. ‘No sooner were these good news divulged, but they were
saluted from the [Leith] Road and from the Castle; as also with all
taikens of joy upon the morrow thereafter, by setting out of bonfires
in the town and places adjacent, and by ringing of bells, shooting of
cannons frae sea; the town of Edinburgh marching with their displayed
colours frae the Abbey, the commissioner’s lodging, to the Castle
yett; all of them dancing and louping for joy through the streets
and bonfires as they went, drinking his majesty’s health at the
bonfires.’--_Nic._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY.]
Scotland was now under great alarm on account of the terrific plague
which had broken out in London, and which lasted with great violence
till October. Orders were issued by the Privy Council, forbidding any
to come on business from the south without a testimonial of health.
‘Albeit there were not a few travellers and resorters therefrae,’ it
pleased God that the pestilence should not come to Scotland.--_Nic._
The exemption of our country is the more remarkable, as the plague made
its way into Ireland, and proved highly destructive in Dublin.
[Sidenote: 1665.]
The great plague of 1665 was the subject of serious remark in Scotland,
in connection with circumstances much calculated to impress certain
minds in that part of the world. ‘I find it taken notice of,’ says
Wodrow, ‘by several papers written at this time, that the appearance of
a globe of fire was seen above that part of the city where the Solemn
League and Covenant was burnt so ignominiously by the hands of the
hangman. _Whatever was in this_, it seems certain that the plague broke
out there; and it was observed to rage mostly in that street, where
that open affront had been put upon the oath of God, and very few were
left alive there.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV. 2.]
The Lord High Commissioner, the Earl of Rothes, commenced a
progress through the west country, attended by the life-guard, the
foot companies, and a cavalcade of _nine hundred gentlemen_, with
trumpeters, kettle-drum, and royal standard. He went to Hamilton,
Paisley, Eglintoun, and Dumbarton, ‘in a triumphant and comely
manner;’ next to the Earl of Montrose’s house of Mugdock, and thence
by Callendar and Linlithgow, back to Edinburgh, everywhere ‘royally
entertained,’ and spending in all eighteen days on the journey.--_Nic._
It is to be suspected that idle and costly amusements of this kind,
which had come in with the Restoration, had something to do with the
poverty now complained of.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV.]
The light regard paid to the personal rights of individuals was shewn
by a wholesale deportation of poor people at this time to the West
Indies. The chronic evil of Scotland, an oppressive multitude of idle
wandering people and beggars, was not now much less afflicting than
it had been in the two preceding reigns. It was proposed to convert
them to some utility by transferring them to a field where there was
a pressing want of labour. On the 2d of November, George Hutcheson,
merchant in Edinburgh, for himself and copartners, addressed the
Privy Council on this subject, ‘out of a desire as weel to promote
the Scottish and English plantations in Gemaica and Barbadoes for the
honour of their country, as to free the kingdom of the burden of many
strong and idle beggars, Egyptians, common and notorious thieves and
other dissolute and louss persons, banished or stigmatised for gross
crimes.’ The petitioners had, by warrant of the sheriffs, justices
of peace, and magistrates of burghs, apprehended and secured some of
these people; yet without authority of the Council they thought they
might ‘meet with some opposition in the promoting and advancing so good
a work.’ It was therefore necessary for them to obtain due order and
warrant from the Council.
[Sidenote: 1665.]
The Council granted warrant and power to the petitioners to transport
all such persons; ‘providing always, that ye bring the said persons
before the Lord Justice-clerk, to whom it is hereby recommended to
try and take notice of the persons, that they be justly convict
for crimes, or such vagabonds as, by the laws of the country may be
apprehended, to the effect the country may be disburdened of them.’
Two months later, James Dunbar, merchant, bound for Barbadoes, was
licensed to take sundry ‘vagabonds and idle persons prisoners in
Edinburgh, content to go of their own accord.’
The population of Barbadoes includes a greater proportion of whites
than that of any other island of the West Indies, and the industrial
economy of the island is also admittedly superior. It is understood
that this is in a great measure owing to the cruel deportations of the
poor people of Scotland to that island in the seventeenth century.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV.]
Another good harvest, ‘whilk was the cause that a number of fee’d
servants, both men and women, did marry at Martinmas, by way of
penny-bridals, both within the town of Edinburgh and other parts of the
country.’--_Nic._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1666.
JAN. 1.]
Although the preceding had been, according to Nicoll, ‘a dangerous,
cruel, and bloody year,’ and though at this time an order stood
forbidding commerce with the plague-stricken south, yet ‘upon the 1st
day of January 1666, there was _as much drinking and carousing as in
former times_.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR. 3.]
After the restoration of Episcopacy, the attendance at the churches in
Glasgow fell so much off, that the collection for the poor no longer
produced nearly what was necessary for their sustentation. At this
date, we find the archbishop writing to the Town Council, adverting to
the ‘several persons, men and women, who ordinarily dishaunts public
ordinances, and flatters themselves with hope of impunity.’ His grace
threatened to employ some of the officers of his majesty’s militia,
‘both to observe who withdraws from ordinances and to exact the
penalties imposed by law.’ The magistrates then resolved to take steps
for collecting the fines for non-attendance at church, as being better
‘than that any sodgers should have the collecting thereof.’--_M. of G._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR. 12.]
[Sidenote: 1666.]
At a horse-race at Cupar, ‘the Lord Lithgow and the Lord Carnegie,
after cups, there passed some words betwixt them, and about night they
drew off from the rest, on the hill towards Tarbet Broom, and drew
their swords one at another, till at last Carnegie gave Lithgow a sore
wound. While this was noised abroad, divers of the nobility and others
there present did ride to stop them; among whom was the Earl of Wemyss,
who, labouring to ride in betwixt the parties, had both his own horse
under him, and his man’s horse, thrust through by them, while they were
drawing one at another, so that both the horses died; also one of Lord
Melville’s horses was hurt, and the Lord Newark had one of his servants
ridden down also and hurt. At night they were both put under arrest
by his majesty’s commissioner [the Earl of Rothes] at Cupar, in their
several quarters.’--_Lam._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR.]
[Sidenote: 1666.]
For several years after the Restoration, various districts in the
Highlands continued to be haunted by groups of wild and lawless men who
made prey of their more industrious and peaceable neighbours. The only
resource of the government was to appoint some considerable man of the
disturbed district to raise a force among his tenants and dependents,
for the execution of the laws against the delinquents. Thus, we find a
small military party under the Marquis of Montrose appointed (April 5,
1666), under the name of a _Watch_, to keep the peace in the district
of Cowal, in Argyleshire. Another _watch_ of sixty men, under Mungo
Stirling of Glorat, was appointed for Stirlingshire and Dumbartonshire.
A third district, often and seriously disturbed by robberies, was
Strathspey and the alpine ground extending from it towards Perthshire
and Aberdeenshire--a country of Macphersons and M‘Intyres, now the
scene of an improved agriculture, and the nursery of vast herds of
sheep and cattle devoted to the sustenance of the industrial cities
of England. In those days, men who would now be successful farmers,
exemplifying the decent virtues of the Scottish middle class, were
little better than banditti. Their names and localities will verify
this fact to all who are acquainted with the Strathspey of our day.
Besides Patrick Roy Macgregor, who seems to have been the leader of
the set, there were ‘John M‘Inteir at Invereshie; M‘Phatrig M‘Inteir,
in Auchnahad; Thomas M‘Pherson, in Tullilundley; John Reoch, there;
Walter Mitchell, sometime in Tulliboe; Duncan M‘Connochy, sometime in
Doghillocks; John Urquhart, sometime in Caldwell; Ewen Cameron, in
Glensyth; John M‘Gremmon, in Rippach; John M‘Fillech, alias _Breck_,
in Delvorer; John M‘Gremmon, in Bellerathens in Strathaven; Alaster
M‘Phatrig, in Elsheirland; James Strauchen, in Cairlies; William
Storach, in the Mill of Auchinhandach; Thomas Forbes, sometime in
Muiresk; John M‘Andley, in Lesmurdie; Thomas Gordon, in Tilliesoul,
called the _Skinner_; John Oig Gordon, in Strathaven, called
_Moonlight_; Donald M‘Gillandries, who haunts in Spey; John Bane
M‘Alister Gourlay, in Auchnakint in Badenoch; M‘Phatrig M‘Inteir,
there; John Roy M‘Inteir, there; John M‘Inteir, called the _Ratton_,
in Glenlivet;’ and many other Gordons, Reochs, Forbeses, &c., together
with the wives of several of the same individuals, all of whom were
denounced at the horn for ‘not appearing to underly the law.’
The Council at length gave a commission of fire and sword to John Lyon
of Muiresk and Alexander his second son, against these outlaws, and
the two gentlemen were preparing means for its execution, when the
whole banditti beset them at the house of Balcheiries, belonging to
John Lyon. The outlaws set fire to the house in all quarters, and the
two gentlemen were obliged to surrender themselves to their mercy. The
assailants then unmercifully fell upon the unfortunate commissioner
and his son with dirks and guns, and soon made an end of them (April
30, 1666). To the number of forty persons, they then made an attack
upon the little burgh of Keith, which they plundered severely, after
fighting with all who opposed them. A second commission to the Earl of
Moray (May 9) had the effect of bringing Patrick Roy Macgregor and some
others of the band into the hands of the authorities at Edinburgh, and
these men were tried in the ensuing March for sorning, fire-raising,
theft, and murder. Macgregor and one Patrick Drummond were sentenced
to be hanged, their right hands being previously cut off. Pitmedden
describes Macgregor as a short, strong-made man, of fierce countenance,
and a quick, hawk-like eye. He bore the torture of the boots with
the firmness of an Indian savage, and was perfectly undaunted at his
execution, notwithstanding that the hangman bungled the cutting off of
his hand, for which he was next day turned out of office.--_B. A._
Two other men of this band were in like manner brought to justice in
May 1668. On the 13th of July, there was an order in Council for a
reward of £150 to John Ogilvie of Milltower and two others for their
service in taking Patrick Roy Macgregor, on which occasion, it is
stated, two of them had been wounded, and one of their attendants
killed.
[Sidenote: 1666.]
An unflattering light is thrown upon the internal condition of
the Highlands at this time, by a petition from George Leslie,
sheriff-clerk of Inverness-shire, to the Privy Council (April 8, 1669),
shewing that it was not suitable for sheriff-clerks, ‘being but mean
persons and not of capacity nor trust,’ to be employed in gathering
his majesty’s taxation; and further stating, that it was particularly
unsuitable for him to have such an employment, ‘who is clerk of the
dismembered shire of Inverness, there being little or nothing left of
that sheriffdom, but the Hielands and Isles, as Lochaber, Badenoch,
Knoydart, Moidart, Glengarie, and other Hieland parts, _whose
inhabitants are not legally disposed, nor willing to pay his majesty’s
dues, being infested with poverty and idleness_--a task upon which
account the petitioner is not able to undergo, seeing disobedience has
been given by them to parties of his majesty’s forces of a considerable
strength.’[212]
In harmony with this picture is an order from the Privy Council, August
25, 1670, proceeding on the information that ‘divers of the inhabitants
of the Highlands are in the use, when they travel through the country,
to be attended by a multitude of _louss and idle persons_, not being
their domestic servants,’ whereby ‘occasion is given for stealing
and sorning.’ All persons were strictly forbidden to travel or hold
meetings in the Highlands in that manner.
[Sidenote: 1666.]
Old grudges amongst neighbouring clans still occasionally worked
themselves out in regular military invasions accompanied by extensive
depredations. There was an old feud between the Clan Cameron in
Lochaber, and Struan Robertson in the upper part of Perthshire; and on
the 14th of August 1666, the renowned chief, Ewen or Evan Cameron, came
with above eighty followers, including several good duniwassals,[213]
to Struan’s lands of Kinloch--quartered there for a night upon the
tenants, beat and threatened them, broke into and searched houses, all
for the purpose of laying hold of their enemy, who, however, was out
of the way. Disappointed of their primary object, the Camerons took
twenty-six head of cattle, and made off with them to their own country.
The misdeed being fully proven in November against Ewen Cameron
Locheil, Sorlie Cameron, John Oig Cameron, and John and Duncan M‘Ewen
Camerons, the lords of the Privy Council ordained the first (who did
not appear) to pay Struan a fine of a thousand merks, and the others,
who had been confined for some time in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, to
restore to Struan the twenty-six stolen cattle.
As might be expected, the record of the Privy Council about this time
contains many complaints from messengers-at-arms, regarding the violent
resistance they had encountered in the Highlands when attempting to
apprehend debtors or delinquents, or even to deliver letters in form of
law.
The Earl of Airth had procured letters of caption against John Graham
of Duchrae, and Thomas Graham, his son, and studied to obtain an
opportunity of putting them in execution. Learning that Thomas Graham
was to have a child baptised at the kirk of Aberfoyle, and judging
that the whole family might probably be found together on such an
occasion, he proceeded thither (February 13, 1671) with Alexander
Mushet, messenger, and a strong party of his friends and dependents,
all well armed. Duchrae, though he considered himself in possession of
a sufficient protection from the king, deemed it necessary that his
christening-party should also be well armed. Where debt and Highland
blood were concerned, there could scarcely but be bloodshed in such
circumstances.
At the Bridge of Aberfoyle, the Duchrae party--including, by the way,
the minister and elders of the parish--met Alexander Mushet, who had
come forward with a few attendants, to execute the writ, while the
Earl of Airth remained with some others of his party at a little
distance. When Mushet told Duchrae to consider himself as his prisoner,
the latter took out a protection, which he held forth with words of
scornful defiance, calling out: ‘What dar ye do? This is all your
masters!’ the truth being that the paper was not a protection from
civil debt, but merely bore reference to another question regarding the
removal from certain lands. Meanwhile, the baby was set down upon the
ground, and the Duchrae party prepared their swords, guns, and pistols
for a conflict, avowing to Mushet and his friends that they would kill
the one half of them, and drown the other. They did accordingly press
first upon Mushet, and then upon the earl and his friends, who quickly
gave way, but rallied and stood upon their defence. It was alleged that
the earl was narrowly missed by several bullets, and it was certain
that some of his servants were wounded, one Robert M‘Farlane losing two
of his fingers. With great difficulty, they were allowed to get off
with their lives.
[Sidenote: 1666.]
Duchrae, notwithstanding an attempt at counter-action, was condemned to
go into Edinburgh Tolbooth, and give ample caution that he would keep
the peace towards the Earl of Airth and his tenants.
In the same year, John Campbell, a messenger, having to execute letters
of caption and inhibition against certain gentlemen in Caithness,
proceeded to that remote province with a couple of concurrents, and was
seized upon by a Captain George Sinclair, and shipped off with his two
associates for France. By mere chance of winds and waves, the ship,
after being a considerable time at sea, came back to Thurso, when the
three unfortunate officers of the law were put up in prison, where
‘they are keepit under a guard, as they were malefactors.’ The Council
ordered them to be liberated, because they had given security to answer
any charge that Captain George Sinclair might bring against them!
One evening in the spring of 1671, a number of gentlemen, including
the Lairds of Lochnell and Lochbuie, and James Menzies of Culdares,
were assembled in the house of John Rowat in Inverary, conversing
about certain private concerns, when, some differences arising, and
_the candle_ having gone out, some one fired a shot whereby the Laird
of Lochnell was killed. This could not but be a fact of considerable
importance at Inverary, as Lochnell was the nearest relative of the
Earl of Argyle after his brother, Lord Niel. It was soon ascertained
by the confession of one Duncan Macgregor, who was present on the
occasion, that he had fired the fatal shot; yet the earl thought proper
to detain Culdares in durance, notwithstanding his protestations of
innocence, and his being in reality grieved as a friend for the death
of the murdered gentleman.
The case is perhaps chiefly worthy of notice on account of the traits
of clan-feeling which it brought out. Culdares represented his case
to the Privy Council as one of the greatest hardship. Here he was, a
prisoner in a strange country, inaccessible to his friends, remote
from the advice of lawyers, about to be subjected to a tribunal, the
head of which was a near relative of the deceased, and where no assize
of barons, his own compeers, could be had. The defunct, moreover, was
‘so related to all the gentlemen of that country,’ and ‘so generally
beloved,’ that an impartial verdict was evidently not to be hoped for.
In short, he ‘finds it very unsafe for him to pass to the knowledge of
ane assize in these places.’ He was, however, ‘most willing to abide a
severe and legal trial at Edinburgh, where he may have the opportunity
of lawyers and ane fair and impartial proceeding.’
[Sidenote: 1666.]
The Council ordered the earl before them, to shew cause why Culdares
should not be sent to Edinburgh for trial; but we do not hear of any
subsequent procedure.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 5.]
In obedience to a letter of the king, the Privy Council decreed that,
‘in order to the conversion of the Marquis of Huntly and the better
ordering of his affairs’ [the marquis was now about sixteen years of
age], his mother should be removed from him and retire with her family
to some of his lordship’s houses in the north. This she was ordered
to do before the 1st of August. It appears that the lady had been
dealt with privately on this matter; but being unwilling, as was very
natural, to part with her son, the king had been obliged to send his
special command to the Council to have the separation effected.
It may be remarked as a strange conjunction of circumstances, that
Charles II., in whose name ran the letter expressing such anxiety for
the Protestant upbringing of the young Gordon, was, in his private
sentiments, a Catholic, while Lauderdale, by whom the letter was
officially signed, was indifferent to all religion. The effort now made
was not successful. The young marquis,--who was raised to be a Duke by
James II., and distinguished himself by his fidelity to that monarch
at the Revolution, when he held out Edinburgh Castle against the new
government--continued a firm papist to the day of his death in 1716.
[Sidenote: 1666.]
Another remarkable case of the same kind of interference with family
arrangements on account of religion, occurs in the Council record
of the same day. Walter Scott of Raeburn, brother of William Scott
of Harden, had been converted to Quakerism, and on that account
was incarcerated in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh. There it was soon
discovered by his relations that he was exposed to the conversation
of other Quakers, prisoners like himself, ‘whereby he is hardened in
his pernicious opinions and principles, without all hope of recovery,
unless he be separat from such pernicious company.’ There was, however,
a more serious evil than even this, in the risk which his children ran
of being perverted to Quakerism, if allowed to keep company with their
father. On a petition, therefore, the Council gave the brother Harden
warrant (June 22, 1665) to take away Raeburn’s children, two boys and
a girl, from their father, that they might be educated in the true
religion. He, ‘after some pains taken with them in his own family, sent
them to the city of Glasgow, to be bred at the schools there.’ On a
second petition from Harden, the Council ordered an annuity of £1000
Scots to be paid to him, out of Raeburn’s estate, for the maintenance
of the children; and they also ordered the father himself to be removed
to Jedburgh Tolbooth, ‘where his friends and others may have occasion
to convert him.’ ‘To the effect he may be secured from the practice of
other Quakers,’ the Lords ‘discharged the magistrates of Jedburgh to
suffer any persons suspect of these principles to have access to him.’
The younger son of the Quaker Raeburn was Walter Scott, commonly
called _Beardie_, great-grandfather of an illustrious modern novelist.
Beardie, so styled from his wearing a long beard, escaped Quakerism,
but fell into Jacobitism at a time when that was not less dangerous
than Quakerism had once been. The circumstances here narrated form
part of what is alluded to by Sir Walter Scott, when he makes Jedediah
Cleishbotham confess himself as bound to a kind of impartiality between
the Prelatic and Presbyterian factions of the seventeenth century, by
reason that ‘my ancestor was one of the people called Quakers, and
suffered a severe handling from either side, even to the extenuation of
his purse and the incarceration of his person.’[214]
Raeburn continued to be a prisoner in Jedburgh jail in June 1669, when
the Privy Council gave a fresh order that ‘none of his persuasion
should have access to him, except his own wife.’ It was at that time
found that ‘John Swinton, Walter Scott of Raeburn, Mr George Keith, and
Mr Robert Burnett, Tutor of Leys, are not only Quakers themselves, but
also studies by all means to pervert and seduce others from their duty
and obedience and to engage them in the same error with themselves,’
for which purpose they, ‘in contempt of the laws, keep frequent
meetings with other Quakers.’ Swinton was ordered to enter himself
as a prisoner in Stirling Castle, where none but his son should have
access to him. On the 29th of July, the Council gave warrant for the
imprisonment of Mr George Keith, Quaker, in the Edinburgh Tolbooth, and
that no one suspected to be of his persuasion should have access to him.
[Sidenote: 1666.]
At length, on the 1st of January 1670, after suffering imprisonment for
four and a half years, Raeburn was ordained to be set at liberty from
jail, but still to remain within the bounds of his own lands, and to
see no other Quaker under a penalty of a hundred pounds, his children
meanwhile remaining as they were. Mr George Keith was set at liberty on
the 6th of March, but only to go into voluntary exile.
Under apprehension that the Tutor of Leys would seek to affect the mind
of his nephew Sir Thomas Burnett, who was now a minor, the mother of
the child caused him to be carried away from all his father’s friends,
‘which,’ says the Tutor, ‘will inevitably ruin him in his education
in literature and all other virtuous breeding.’ The Tutor brought the
matter before the Privy Council, representing that, in order to clear
himself of all suspicion of a desire to influence the child’s mind,
he was arranging ‘to have sent him to Glasgow, to Mr Gilbert Burnett,
professor of divinity there, who is ane brother son of the family,
there to have been educat at schools and universities under the said Mr
Gilbert his inspection and care,’ when the mother took the matter thus
violently into her hands. The two parties being summoned before the
Council, and having made their respective statements, it was ordered
that the child should be restored to the Tutor, all Quaker as he was,
that he might be sent to school.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP.]
Another excellent harvest was secured in Scotland, and very
early.--_Nic._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP.]
About this time the commencement of a standing army was made in
Scotland, in the raising of two regiments of foot and five troops of
horse, under the command of General Sir Thomas Dalyell.--_Lam._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV.]
In this month, while the poor west-country Presbyterians were engaged
in their hopeless expedition, ‘there was sundry fresh, caller, ungutted
herring taken upon the north side of the water of Forth ... like
Dunbar herring, but smaller ... a thing rare and wondrous to the haill
people.’--_Nic._ He notes that, all this winter, all kinds of fish,
including herring, abounded, ‘whilk was very ominous.’
[Sidenote: 1666.]
The defeat of the insurgents at Rullion Green (November 27), and the
subsequent execution of upwards of fifty persons, made it a dreary yet
exciting time. ‘I have,’ says Wodrow, the Presbyterian historian, ‘met
with several prodigies seen in the air about this time; and persons who
lived then, of good information, have left behind them a very strange
passage, that several people about Pittenweem made public faith upon,
that the night after the battle, and after some of these [subsequent]
executions, they heard the voice of a multitude about Gilston Mount
praising and singing psalms with the sweetest melody imaginable.’
‘In the year 1668 or 1669--in these places where the gospel was
most frequently preached afterwards [fields and desert places], how
surprising and astonishing was the sight, both by night and day, of
brae-sides covered with the appearance of men and women with tents,
and voices heard in them! Particularly the first night that Mr John
Dickson preached in the fields in the night-time, east from Glasgow
upon Clyde-side ... several people together, before they came to the
appointed place, saw upon their way a brae-side covered with the
appearance of people, with a tent, and a voice crying aloud: “This is
the everlasting gospel; if ye follow on, to know, believe, and embrace
this gospel, it shall never be taken from you.” When they came to join
them, all disappeared. Other companies of people, in another way going
there, heard a charming sweet sound of singing the 93d psalm, which
obliged them to stand still till it was ended. Other people, who stayed
at home, in several places, some heard the singing of the 44th psalm,
others the 46th psalm. When the people who were there came home, they
who stayed at home said: “Where have you been so long? for the preaching
was near by, for we heard the psalms sweetly sung, and can tell you
a note of the sermon”--which was the foresaid note. Worthy Mr John
Blackadder, who ... used to call these years the _Blink_, was at all
pains to examine the most solid Christians in that bounds, upon their
hearing and seeing these things; who all attested the truth of the
same.
‘Before the gospel came to that known place Craigmad [Stirlingshire]
... one day Alexander Stirling, who lived in the Redden, near that
place, a solid, serious, zealous Christian, who told this several
times to some yet alive, worthy of all credit, who told me of it. That
he, with some others, one day was in that desert place, and saw that
brae-side, close covered with the appearance of men and women, singing
the 121st psalm, with a milk-white horse, and a blood-red saddle on his
back, standing beside the people; which made that serious, discerning,
observing Christian conclude that the gospel would be sent to that
place, and that the white horse was the Gospel, and the red saddle
Persecution.
[Sidenote: 1666.]
‘That known place Darmead, where the gospel was more frequent
afterward than any place I know betwixt Clydesdale and Lothian ...
the like was seen there, singing the 59th psalm. And whoever will
consider the foresaid psalms will see how suitable they are to these
dispensations, and were oft sung by the Lord’s suffering people in that
time....’--_Pat. Walker._
Although these incidents are stated by Walker to have happened at
places _subsequently_ remarkable for preachings, it is evident that the
people who saw and heard them were pious persons, deeply interested
in the religious affairs of the time, and in an excitable state
on that subject. Modern science is at no loss to account for such
experiences under certain predisposing causes, without recourse to
the supernatural. In the learned and laborious work of De Boismont on
Hallucinations, they are fully treated and accounted for. ‘Illusions
of sight and hearing,’ he says, ‘have often assumed the form of an
epidemic. History records a number of facts of this character. One of
the chief is the transformation of clouds into armies, and all sorts
of figures; to which religious belief, optical phenomena, physical
laws then unknown, high fevers of a pestilential character, and
the derangement of the brain, all give a very natural explanation.
Pausanias relates that, four hundred years after the battle of
Marathon, the neighing of horses and the shock of armies were nightly
heard on the spot. At the battle of Platæa, the air resounded with
a fearful cry, which the Athenians attributed to the god Pan....
According to Josephus: Before sunrise on the 27th of May, there
appeared in the air, throughout the whole country, chariots full of
armed men, traversing the clouds and spreading round the cities, as if
to enclose them. On the day of Pentecost, the priests, being at night
in the inner temple to celebrate divine service, heard a noise, and
afterwards a voice that repeated three several times: “Let us go out
from hence.”’
History abounds in such facts, for facts they are in one sense. The
predominant popular idea always appears in the vision. When a dreaming
shepherd-boy in a Catholic country has a religious vision, the person
most apt to be presented to him is the Virgin Mary. When a Scottish
peasant had a similar experience in the seventeenth century, it took
the form of preaching and psalm-singing.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1667.
JAN. 31.]
[Sidenote: 1667.]
Heretofore there had been only an irregular transmission of letters by
means of foot-messengers between Edinburgh and Aberdeen, and in the
latter city there had been ‘long experience of the prejudice sustained,
not only by the said burgh of Aberdeen, but by the nobility, gentry,
and others in the north country, by the miscarrying of missive
letters, and by the not timous delivery and receiving returns of the
samen.’ It was now thought that there ought to be a constant post at
Aberdeen, whereby ‘every man might have their letters delivered and
answers returned at certain diets and times.’ It was therefore arranged
with the consent of Patrick Graham of Inchbrakie, his majesty’s
postmaster-general, that Lieutenant John Wales should establish a
regular horse-post at Aberdeen, to carry letters to Edinburgh every
Wednesday and Friday, returning every Tuesday and Thursday in the
afternoon; every single letter to pay 2s., and every double letter 4s.,
every packet 5s. per ounce (in all cases Scots money). All other posts
were discharged. Two years later (January 28, 1669) Inverness became
sensible of a need for the same accommodation, though on a humbler
footing. Accordingly, Robert Mean, keeper of ‘the Letter-office’ in
Edinburgh, having, with concurrence of Patrick Graham of Inchbrakie,
his majesty’s postmaster-general for Scotland, undertaken ‘to settle a
constant foot-post between Edinburgh and Inverness, for the advancement
of trade, correspondence, and convenience of the king’s subjects,’ the
Privy Council, on petition, granted warrant for the purpose, the post
‘to go and return two times every week to Aberdeen, and once every week
to Inverness, wind and weather serving,’ and the rates to be--‘For the
conveyance of every single letter not exceeding one sheet of paper,
to and from any place not exceeding forty miles Scots distant from
the place where such letter shall be received, 2s. Scots money, and
every double letter for the miles foresaid 4s. Scots, and for every
ounce-weight the foresaid miles 5s.;’ for distances of threescore
and fourscore miles, in proportion. ‘Wind and weather serving’ is an
amusing qualification, considering that there was only one ferry of
six or seven miles and another of two miles to cross. The Inverness
post had not yet acquired the resolution which is said to have been
expressed many years later by a carrying communication between
Edinburgh and that northern burgh, when it was announced that ‘a waggon
would leave the Grassmarket for Inverness every Tuesday, God willing,
but on Wednesday _whether or no_.’
[Sidenote: 1667.]
The interest connected with this important institution may perhaps
justify the preservation of one or two notices in themselves trivial.
February 20, 1668, a complaint was made to the Privy Council by certain
Edinburgh merchants, against Robert Mean, as to his charges of 1d. for
each single, 2d. for each double, and 3d. upon each triple letter,
in addition to the former dues of 4d., 8d., &c., and Robert was
peremptorily ordered to discontinue these extra charges.--_P. C. R._
In August 1672, Anna Keith, relict of John Wales, keeper of the
Letter-office in Aberdeen, complained to the Privy Council against
the magistrates of Aberdeen, for having, on her husband’s death,
extruded her from the office, in contravention of the contract between
them and her husband, which provided that, in the event of his death
before the expiration of the seven years engaged for, his heirs and
representatives were to have the option of carrying on the business, by
providing a qualified substitute. The magistrates had gone so far as
to incarcerate Mrs Wales’s servants for going about their duties, ‘and
by touk of drum discharged all persons from employing the complainer
any further in the said office.’ They had also conferred the office
on another person, without waiting to set it up to auction, ‘though
several of the burgesses did offer considerably for the same.’ The
Council replaced Mrs Wales in her husband’s office.--_P. C. R._
There is a whimsical incongruity in the connection of a Graham of
Inchbrakie with a thing of such modern and commercial associations
as the Post-office. Patrick--his common name was ‘Black Pate’--was
a semi-Highland cavalier of the purest lustre. It was at his house,
situated on the skirts of the Highlands, that Montrose had raised his
meteor-like standard in 1644. The trouble he had given to the lords of
the Covenant and to Cromwell could only be rewarded at the Restoration
with this office, which in 1674 descended to his younger son John.
One could scarcely imagine a more heterogeneous assemblage of ideas
than that of Montrose’s friend as postmaster-general, and the son of
the lady who threw the anti-prelatic stool in 1637 as keeper of the
Edinburgh office under him.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR.]
[Sidenote: 1667.]
During the unfortunate and discreditable war with Holland in 1665-6-7,
a field was obtained for the enterprise of the Scotch in the trade of
privateering. A very considerable number of _cappers_, as they were
called, generally vessels of from a hundred to two hundred tons burden,
were fitted out from Glasgow, Leith, and Burntisland, under clever
and adventurous captains, in order to take the Dutch merchantmen. We
hear of one belonging to Glasgow, so low as sixty tons burden, yet
carrying five guns, and a crew of sixty persons, having further on
board thirty-two firelocks, twelve half-pikes, eighteen pole-axes,
and thirty swords, with provisions for six months.[215] A Glasgow
privateer, commanded by one Chambers, distinguished itself by seizing a
Dutch capper of eight guns and bringing it up the Clyde, along with a
merchant-vessel laden with salt.
Towards the close of the war (February 1667), a Glasgow merchantman
of three hundred tons, returning from Spain with wines, encountered
a Dutch man-of-war. The captain sent most of his crew below, and
remained on deck himself with seven men, to give tokens of submission.
The Dutchman sent twenty-two men in a boat to take possession of his
supposed prize, and, seeing another vessel at the moment, set off in
pursuit of it. The captors suspecting no stratagem, the concealed crew
came forth in the evening, and easily overpowered them, thus retaining
possession of their vessel, which they brought safely into Glasgow with
twenty-two prisoners.[216]
[Sidenote: APR. 30.]
The ports of Leith and Burntisland having in this way given great
annoyance to the Dutch, a resolution was made to attempt a retaliation;
and little more than two months before the celebrated attack on the
Thames shipping, a fleet of thirty sail appeared one day at the mouth
of the Firth of Forth. At first it was supposed to be the English
fleet under Sir Jeremy Smith; but the Dutch colours soon appeared, and
there was then a hasty effort made to protect the coast. The royal
commissioner Rothes placed militia along both shores. Some of the
Burntisland privateers took their cannon on shore, and raised a battery
to defend the harbour.[217] The Dutch ships lashed out with their
ordnance against that town, and knocked down a few chimneys, but did no
further harm. Seeing no great encouragement for landing, they yielded
at length to a somewhat violent west wind, and ‘that night did tak sail
and removed from our coasts, without hurt done to any person.’--_Nic._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 4.]
[Sidenote: 1667.]
Mr William Douglas, son of the deceased Laird of Whittingham, was
tried for his concern in an unfortunate duel, in which Sir James Home
of Eccles was killed. The affair took its origin in a quarrel in a
tavern in Edinburgh, ‘after excessive drinking.’--_Lam._ We learn
from the evidence of a hackney-coachman, that being employed by four
gentlemen--namely, the two who have been mentioned, the Master of
Ramsay, and Archibald Douglas of Spott--he drove them to a lonely spot
on the shore near Leith, where they all came out, and drawing their
swords, ‘went through other.’ He saw Sir James fall under the thrust
of the accused party. Another person saw the accused standing over Sir
James after he fell, and when the unfortunate gentleman was carried
into Leith, he heard the accused ask him forgiveness. A third witness
observed the Master of Ramsay with his foot on Spott’s neck, and when
he (the deponent) removed the Master, Spott got up, ran at the Master,
and called him ‘cullion!’ It seems to have been a barbarous quarrel
barbarously wrought out; and when we see how the men acted after they
began fighting, we cannot but wonder that they were able to come to the
field in one vehicle. William Douglas was sentenced to have his head
stricken off his body three days after at the Cross of Edinburgh.--_B.
A._
* * * * *
There was a great drouth this summer, so that the grass was burned up,
and the victual whitened before the middle of July, and ripened at the
end of that month.--_Lam._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1668.
MAY 7.]
John Gibson of Durie had a petition before the Privy Council regarding
his niece Anna Gibson, daughter of the deceased Sir Alexander Gibson
of Durie. His complaint was, that Anna had been unwarrantably carried
away into the Highlands by certain persons unknown, but for no other
imaginable purpose than to acquire an influence over her mind in the
choice of curators. We learn through other channels that the young
lady was an orphan, scarcely eleven years of age, and that she was
living at Perth at the time of her abduction. Her deceased mother was
Marjory Murray, a sister of the Viscount Stormont, and we are informed
by Lamont, as part of the gossip of the day, that it was by this
nobleman’s means that the young lady was carried off, his aim probably
being to prevent her paternal relatives from acquiring an exclusive
influence over her. The Council, on the supplication of John Gibson,
issued warrants for a search after Anna Gibson, and the taking of her
from the hands of any into whose power she had fallen; also threatening
punishment for her detention, and decreeing a fine of £20,000 Scots to
any man who should marry her.
[Sidenote: 1668.]
We hear nothing more of this case till the ensuing 11th of February,
when the Lord Chancellor acquainted the Council that Anna Gibson had
been brought to his lodging that forenoon. She was ordered to be
placed in the family of Mr Alexander Gibson, one of the clerks of the
Council, ‘ay and while she shall make choice of her curators after
her age of twelve years complete.’ Apparently, the relatives on both
sides had afterwards come to an agreement about this young heiress,
as Lamont tells us that, on the 28th of August 1669, ‘Mistris Anne
Gibson, Durie’s niece, remaining at Durie for the time, did choose her
curators; among whom were the Earl of Rothes the chancellor, Sir Andrew
Murray, and the Tutor of Stormont, her uncles on the mother’s side;
Durie and his brother George Gibson, her uncles on the father’s side,
&c. They dined that day at David Johnston, in Cupar, his house.’
Mrs Anna Gibson afterwards became the wife of John Murray of
Touchadam and Polmaise. It is worthy of observation that she was the
great-granddaughter of Lord Durie who was kidnapped by George Meldrum
of Dumbreck; see under September 1601.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAY 22.]
The town of Kilmarnock was wholly destroyed by an accidental fire,
‘wherethrough about sexscore families are set to the fields destitute
both of goods and houses’--indeed, ‘in a condition of starving.’
Matters were the worse for them, by reason that they, ‘being all poor
tradesmen, and having no other means of livelihood but their daily
employment,’ had some time before been reduced to ‘great misery and
affliction,’ in consequence of the quartering upon them of a great
party of the king’s forces, when these were sent to the west to prevent
a rebellion. Under the sanction of the Privy Council, a collection was
made at the parish churches for the succour of these poor people.
The event is chiefly worthy of notice as marking the smallness of
Kilmarnock in those days, when as yet there was no such thing as
manufacturing industry in the country. A hundred and twenty families
speaks to a population of between five and six hundred: in 1851, this
industrious town contained 21,443 inhabitants within the parliamentary
boundaries.
[Sidenote: 1668.]
In April 1669, a fire broke out at midnight in the town of Cupar
(Fife), and spread so fast and with such violence, that ‘above the
number of twenty considerable families being asleep in bed, did,
unclothed with their apparel, with great difficulty escape their
dwelling-houses,’ which were consumed with their entire contents. Thus,
not only were these people, with their many young children, ‘ruined and
reduced to begging,’ but ‘a great part of that ancient burgh, being the
head burgh of the shire, [was] annihilat and turned to desolation.’ On
a petition, the Privy Council ordered a charitable collection in Fife
and the adjacent counties ‘for the relief of the poor indigent families
of the said ancient burgh.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 9.]
Cases of outrageous personal violence, so common in the reign of James
VI., and even in the ensuing reign, continued to be now and then heard
of. The Privy Council Record, under this date, adverts to one of a
typical character, referring to a remote province, where early forms
and fashions of society still obtained. It appears that Marion Peebles,
‘Lady Cardiness,’ widow of the late ---- Gordon of Cardiness, was an
aged and infirm lady living in the house of Bussabiel in the stewartry
of Kirkcudbright. She was liferented in her husband’s lands; and her
two sons, William and Alexander Gordon, resided with her; but the heir
of the property was a grandchild in infancy. The allegation of William
and Alexander Gordon was, that Sir Alexander M‘Culloch of Myreton had
formed a design to possess himself of Cardiness, for which purpose ‘he
did buy several pleas, debts, comprisings, and factories of the estate,
and used all means to get himself intruded thereinto.’ For a series
of years, he did his best to harass the Gordons and their tenantry
out of their rights and possessions; and at length, on the 19th of
August 1664, he came with a party, consisting of his sons Godfrey and
John; Harry M‘Culloch, younger of Barholm; William M‘Culloch, younger
of Locharduae; John M‘Culloch of Auchleoch; Alexander Fergusson of
Kilkerran; and sundry other persons, attended by their servants, all
armed with swords and pistols, to Bussabiel, where they broke up the
house, and attacked the lady in her bed. They beat her till she fell
in a swoon, then broke down the roof of the house upon her head; and
afterwards, finding her son William, they also ‘wounded him dangerously
in the arm and hand, to the hazard of his life, not permitting his
servants to give him drink or go for a chirurgeon to dress his wounds,
or administer any kind of help or comfort to him for a long time.’
Through their violent treatment, he was ‘forced to forsake the country,
his infirm mother, and business.’
[Sidenote: 1668.]
On a subsequent occasion (October 1665), the same persons came again to
Bussabiel, and committed a fresh assault on Lady Cardiness, ‘striking
her with her own stilt till she fell a-sound among their hands.’ Yet
a third time did they come in March 1666, and with still more fearful
violence. They ‘brake down the doors, and put forth all the servants,
and pulled down the bed about Marion her head, and in ane most inhuman
manner dragged her forth thereof. She not being able to go of herself
by reason of her weakness, they carried her forth of the yett to the
croft,’ letting her head fall against a stone by the way; then leaving
her insensible, they proceeded to demolish and destroy all that was
of any value in the house. The wretched lady was carried by some of
her tenants into a barn, where she remained for the night. Two months
afterwards, they beset her house with a guard, to prevent her from
receiving any succour from friends or servants; and a woman detected
taking in something to her mistress by a back-window, was beaten
cruelly. Then entering the house, ‘they did keep her from sleep as weel
as meat, and further did throw down water and other liquid matters upon
her, so that she was forced to retire and shelter herself within the
bounds of the kitchen chimney for her safety.’ In consequence of these
‘inhuman acts, and keeping of all her rents, corns, goods, and geir,
whereupon she should have lived, from her,’ she was reduced to such a
state of wretchedness, that ‘she within a short time thereafter did
burst forth her heart’s blood and died.’
There were sundry deadly assaults upon the two sons, and some attacks
of a destructive nature upon their house, all betokening a savage
violence on the part of M‘Culloch and his friends.
There is some difficulty as to the decision of the Council. They first
appear as condemning the accused parties to fine and imprisonment; then
next day give an opposite verdict; yet after all, in April next year,
we hear of Godfrey M‘Culloch and Fergusson of Kilkerran as still under
threat of punishment on account of their offence.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 11.]
[Sidenote: 1668.]
‘Saturday, in the evening, as the Archbishop of St Andrews and Bishop
of Orkney were going abroad, the archbishop being in his coach, and the
other stepping in, a wicked fellow standing behind the coach did shoot
the Bishop of Orkney beneath his right hand; which broke his left arm a
little above the wrist with five balls.’ So wrote the Privy Council to
the king.--_P. C. R._ The assassin was a preacher named James Mitchell,
‘a weak scholar,’ according to Kirkton, but whom Wodrow describes as
‘a youth of much zeal and piety.’ We may charitably presume that he
was a weak man infuriated by the sufferings of his party. His design
was to slay the archbishop, who had become more and more odious
to the malcontent Presbyterians. ‘After the shot, he crosses the
street quietly, till he came near Niddry’s Wynd head, and there a man
offered to stop him, upon which he presents the other loaden pistol,
and so the pursuer leaves him. He stepped down the Wynd, and turning
up Steven Law’s Close, entered a house, and shifting his clothes,
passed confidently to the street. The cry arose, A man was killed. The
people’s answer was, It was but a bishop; and so there was no more
noise.’--_Kir._
The government made much noise about this attempt, but failed to
discover the murderer; nor was he discovered till six years after, when
Sharpe himself recognised and had him arrested. Gilbert Burnett says:
‘I lived then much out of the world; yet I thought it decent to go and
congratulate on this occasion. He [Sharpe] was much touched with it,
and put on a show of devotion. He said with a very serious look: “My
times are wholly in Thy hand, O thou God of my life!” This was the
single expression savouring of piety that ever fell from him in all the
conversation that passed between him and me.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1668.]
John Geddie, sheriff-clerk of Fife, residing at Falkland--a prosperous
sort of person, who had gathered some substance while acting as clerk
to the committee of war during the king’s residence in Scotland,
1650-1--attracted attention at this time by a novel plan for the
management of bees. He constructed a bee-house, of wainscot, with
eight sides, about sixteen inches in height, and twenty-three inches
in diameter; containing various divisions, designed to allow of
the swarming of the industrious insects, and save the necessity of
destroying any in order to obtain the result of their labours. In an
age when men seem to have had no extra occupation but that of wrangling
about abstract matters in which they could never hope to convince
each other, it is pleasant to light upon even so simple an exercise
of ingenuity and economic wisdom as the bee-house of John Geddie. The
inventor succeeded in obtaining for his plan the approving notice of
the Royal Society. The king, too, was induced to have a bee-house of
Geddie’s construction erected at Spring Gardens, near Whitehall, and
another at Windsor Castle, ‘where, for several years, his majesty did
come to the places himself, and with delight behold them, and saw
the honey in its season taken forth without troubling the bees, to
his great satisfaction.’ His majesty likewise ‘willed and commanded
another to be erected in his park of Falkland, in the ancient kingdom
of Scotland, for the good and benefit of his whole subjects, rich and
poor therein, in order to stir up noblemen and gentlemen to follow his
example.’ That this might be duly effected, the king granted to Geddie
twenty acres of marsh-land in the east end of the park of Falkland,
‘to be enclosed, trenched, and planted with such herbs, trees, &c.,
as is most suitable and convenient for the maintenance and food of an
apifacture; and ordered a convenient house to be built therein for that
purpose, and did ordain the treasurer and receivers of his majesty’s
revenues to pay John Geddie the sum of £200 sterling for building
and accomplishing the said apifacture.’ In April 1673, a patent was
conferred on Geddie for his invention, for fourteen years. In 1679, the
king further granted him power to buy the island of Inchkeith, probably
with a view to its being employed in apiculture. But owing to troubles
on account of oaths--John being a Presbyterian--it does not appear that
he greatly benefited by the royal favour. He published a small treatise
on the subject, of which a third edition appeared in 1697.--_Abbotsford
Misc._
* * * * *
A pleasant year as to weather, and a great crop--nothing better in
either respect these sixty years past.--_Lam._
In October occurred a violent storm, which produced great damage at
Dundee, both in the structure of the harbour and by loss of ships. An
act of parliament was passed to encourage a voluntary contribution to
repair these disasters.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1669.
JUNE 4.]
One Mungo Murray was tried before the Court of Justiciary in Edinburgh,
on a charge of having, on the 8th day of May preceding, committed an
assault on Thomas Sydserf. The affair is only worthy of noting because
it brings out the fact that there was at this time a theatre in the
Canongate. Thomas Sydserf is the same person whom we have seen engaged
in editing the _Mercurius Caledonius_. He had since turned his mind to
dramatic literature, and written a play called _Tarugo’s Wiles_, which
was acted with applause at the Duke of York’s Theatre in 1668, and on
which the Earl of Dorset had written complimentary verses--representing
Phœbus as saying to Scotland, with reference to such Scotsmen as
Sydserf:
[Sidenote: 1669.]
‘On thee I will bestow my longest days,
And crown thy sons with everlasting bays.
My beams that reach thee shall employ their powers
To ripen souls of men, not fruits and flowers,
Let warmer climes my fading favours boast,
Poets and stars shine brightest in the frost.’
Sydserf was now conducting a theatre in the Canongate, depending in
all probability upon the yet unfaded spirit of cavalierism evoked at
the Restoration, for a slender support which it was not in the nature
of Scotland to give at ordinary times to such an establishment. It
appeared that Mungo Murray broke into Sydserf’s theatre in time of
rehearsal, and attacked him with his drawn sword, but was overpowered
before he could inflict any hurt. He was found guilty, and sentenced to
ask Sydserf’s pardon, and abstain from molesting him in future under
pain of banishment from the city.[218]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 16.]
For several years after the Restoration, a very frequent entry in
the record of the Privy Council is an application from a Scotsman of
good family, resident abroad for a _borbrieff_ [birth-letter], or
certificate of his lineage and family connections, to be drawn up and
transmitted to him, that he might be enabled to appear in a proper
light before the strangers amongst whom he lived. At the date noted,
there is an application of this kind from a lady! ‘Maria Margaret
Urrie, eldest lawful daughter of the deceased Sir John Urrie of that
Ilk, being abroad in a strange country, where her birth and pedigree
is not known, to the prejudice of her fortune in those parts,’ had
‘purchased a certificate of her pedigree under the hands of the Earl
of Panmure and several other noblemen and gentlemen of quality;’ and
she now petitioned for ‘a _borbrieff_ in her favours, conform to the
said certificate.’--_P. C. R._ The requisite warrant for the Chancery
was at once granted. We soon after (29th September 1670) hear of an
application of the same nature from a lady of greater note, Elizabeth,
Countess of Grammont, who states that she had obtained the needful
‘certificate of her descent and pedigree under the hand of the Earl of
Lauderdale, his majesty’s High Commissioner; the Lord Duke of Hamilton,
the Marquis of Douglas, the Earls Marischal, Argyle, and divers other
noblemen.’ She was a descendant of the Abercorn family. Her brother’s
Memoirs of her husband, have made the world generally acquainted with
this elegant woman.
[Sidenote: 1669.]
Among applications for _borbrieffs_ was one in June 1670, from ‘Thomas
Kirkpatrick, secretary to the king of France and Councillor Lord
Duplosse in Dunua, in France, son lawful of Thomas Kirkpatrick, a
Scotsman and sometime one of the twenty-five Scots gentlemen soldiers
of the life-guard of the king of France.’ Another, in 1686, was from
the celebrated Colbert, minister of Louis XIV. of France, in whose
behalf an act of parliament was passed, authorising the required
document. It stated the descent of the Sieur Colbert, Marquis of
Seignelay, at seven removes from Edward Culbert, a son of Culbert or
Cuthbert of Castlehill, near Inverness, a family of king’s barons who
often represented their county in parliament, and whose connections
spread through the best branches of the peerage.--_S. Acts._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG. 24.]
The marriage-day of the unfortunate _Bride of Baldoon_. The story
of this lady has been related with all the graces of fiction in the
tale of the _Bride of Lammermuir_; but in its actual circumstances it
is sufficiently impressive. She was the Honourable Janet Dalrymple,
daughter of the first Lord Stair, so distinguished as a lawyer and by
the part he took in the politics of his day. While still in girlish
years, the young lady contracted a passionate attachment to Lord
Rutherford, the distant relative and heir of that noble champion,
Andrew Rutherford, Earl of Teviot, who is alluded to so respectfully in
this chronicle under 1663. The young nobleman returned this affection,
and the pair plighted their troth in the usual manner, by parting a
coin between them, and imprecating dismal evils upon whoever should
withdraw from or violate the compact. But this alliance did not suit
the views of the parents, whether from deficient fortune in the young
lord, or from contrarious politics, does not appear. They favoured
a new suitor who appeared in the person of David Dunbar, younger of
Baldoon in Wigtonshire.
[Sidenote: 1669.]
On learning that Dunbar was advancing in his suit, Lord Rutherford
wrote to his mistress to remind her of her engagement, but received an
answer from her mother, to the effect that she was now sensible of the
error she had committed in entering into an engagement unsanctioned by
the parental authority; and this engagement it was not her intention to
fulfil. The lover refused to take an answer which did not come directly
from his mistress, and insisted on an interview. It took place, but
in presence of the mother, a woman whom public report represented as
master of her husband and whole family, and indebted for this influence
to witchcraft, though for no reason that can be discerned beyond her
uncommon talents and force of character. It may readily be supposed
that even the resources of love would be of poor avail against the
skill and resolution of such a person. When Rutherford was introduced,
he found her ready to meet his arguments with what was then an
unanswerable defence, a text of Scripture (_Numbers_ xxx., 2, 3, 4, 5),
clearly absolving a woman from a bond entered into in her youth, if her
father shall disallow her fulfilment of it, and promising that, in that
case, ‘the Lord shall forgive her.’ The poor girl herself sat mute and
overwhelmed, while the lover vainly pleaded against the application of
this text; and the scene ended with her surrender of her portion of the
broken coin, and his flying distracted from the house, after telling
her that she would be a world’s wonder from what she had done and was
yet to do.
The union with young Baldoon went on, but entirely under the management
of the mother, for it is inconceivable that the young man could have
pressed his suit, if he had known the extent to which the bride was
under constraint. The wedding was celebrated, as was customary in those
days, in the presence of the relatives of both parties, and with great
festivity; but the bride remained like one lost in a reverie, and who
only moves and acts mechanically. A younger brother lived long enough
to state to a lady who communicated the fact to Sir Walter Scott, that
he had the duty of carrying her on horseback behind him to church, and
he remembered that the hand with which she clasped his waist was ‘cold
and damp as marble.’ ‘Full of his new dress, and the part he acted in
the procession, the circumstance, which he long afterwards remembered
with bitter sorrow and compunction, made no impression on him at the
time.’
[Sidenote: 1669.]
In the evening, the newly wedded pair retired to their chamber, while
the merry-making still proceeded in the hall. The room had been locked,
and the key taken possession of by the brideman, to prevent any of
the unseemly frolics which, it would seem, were sometimes played off
on such occasions. But, suddenly there was heard to proceed from the
bridal-chamber a loud and piercing outcry, followed by dismal groans.
On its being opened, the alarmed company found the bridegroom weltering
in his blood on the threshold, and the bride cowering in a corner of
the chimney, with no covering but her shift, and that dabbled in gore.
She told them ‘to take up their bonny bridegroom.’ It was evident
she was insane, and the general belief was that she had franticly
stabbed her husband. From that moment, she made no other rational
communications, but pined away and died in less than three weeks. Young
Baldoon recovered, but would never enter into explanations regarding
the tragic occurrence. Perhaps it is this mystery alone which has
given rise to the favourite belief of the many descendants of Lord
Stair,[219] that the wound was not inflicted by their unhappy relative,
but by Lord Rutherford, who, they say, secreted himself in the chamber
beforehand, and escaped afterwards by a window. This notion seems to us
contrary to all probability, not merely because the conception of such
an act was too gross for a man of rank even in that day, but because,
had it been acted on, something must have come of it, either in the
way of private revenge or of procedure before a criminal court. The
idea was prevalent at the time; but it may be classed, we think, with
another recorded by the credulous Law, that the poor bride was taken
from her bed and _harled_ through the house by spirits.
David Dunbar is described in an elegy by Mr Andro Simpson, as a most
respectable country gentleman, an agricultural improver,[220] and yet
of studious habits. He died by a fall from his horse while riding
between Leith and Edinburgh in 1682, and was interred in Holyrood
Chapel. Andrew Lord Rutherford is stated in the Peerage to have died
childless in 1685.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG. 24.]
An old man named George Wood, who died this day at the Grange above
Elie in Fife, was interred at Kilconquhar in the evening of the next
day, ‘his funerals being hastened for fear of arresting his corpse by
his creditors.’--_Lam._
[Sidenote: 1669.]
This sufficiently shews that creditors were supposed in Scotland to
have such a power by the law. In June 1677, it became a debate among
the advocates in the Court of Session, whether a dead body could be
arrested and stopped from interment on account of debt. What raised the
question was the death of the Countess of Wemyss, and the clamour made
by her numerous creditors among the merchants of Edinburgh, who feared
that her husband, from whom she had been separated, would not own her
obligations beyond her annuity of 6000 merks, all of which was already
‘fornailed.’ They talked seriously of arresting her ladyship’s body.
Lord Fountainhall says that, though it is a custom in Holland and some
other places, it is reprobated amongst us as a barbarity, and could
in no way be done, except on an express supplication to the Lords of
Session, or the Privy Council, ‘which would never be granted.’[221]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV.]
Robert Donaldson, of Birdstown in Campsie, being in Edinburgh on
business, fell into the company of one Thomas Scott, an English
borderer, who travelled in the equipage of a gentleman. Scott, learning
that Donaldson possessed money, pretended an errand to Glasgow, and so
accompanied him on his way home. The two dined at Falkirk together,
and then set forward, Donaldson inviting Scott to spend the night with
him at his house. Just as they were turned off the main road into that
leading to Donaldson’s house, Scott gave his travelling companion
a stab in the neck with his rapier, and thrust him to the ground,
where he cut his throat. Donaldson was, it seems, a strong man, and
might have defended himself, if he had not been taken by surprise and
encumbered with his cloak, which was buttoned down and heavy with rain.
Scott carried off the horse and money of his victim.
Donaldson’s servants went in search of the murderer, and had gone
many miles in his track when they came up to a carrier wearing their
master’s hood. Immediately the man was interrogated, and told that
he had got the hood from a person now riding on in advance, near
Haddington. They soon came up with the said rider, and laid hands on
him. He being struck with a panic fear, confessed his guilt, for which
he was soon after hanged in Edinburgh.--_Law._
[Sidenote: 1669.
NOV.]
After an interval of a few years, during which no witch-cases appear on
the Privy Council Record, we find a considerable number in the autumn
of this year, some at Aberdeen, some at Fogo in Berwickshire, some at
Castle Tirrim in Inverness-shire. On the 11th of November, the Council
issued a commission for the trial of Grizzel Jaffray, spouse of James
Butchard, maltman, now prisoner in the Tolbooth of Dundee, on suspicion
of ‘the horrid crime of witchcraft.’ The gentlemen of the commission
were empowered to put her to the knowledge of an assize, ‘and if, by
her own confession without any sort of torture or other indirect means
used, it shall be found she hath renounced her baptism, entered into
paction with the devil, or otherwise that malefices be legally proven
against her, that then and no otherwise they cause the sentence of
death to be execute upon her.’ It is believed that, notwithstanding
these enlightened orders, Grizzel suffered incremation.
Tradition connects an affecting anecdote with the case of Grizzel
Jaffray. It is stated that her only son, having been long absent at
sea, returned in command of his vessel to Dundee, and entered the port
at the very time that the execution of his mother was proceeding in the
Sea-gate. On hearing the cause of the unusual bustle seen in the town,
he set sail again, and was never more seen in Dundee.
On the 6th of January 1670, we find the Privy Council engaged in a new
kind of proceeding regarding witchcraft. A woman called Mary M‘Donald,
‘being maliciously pursued by the captain of Clanranald and M‘Donald
of Morar for the alleged crime of witchcraft,’ came before the Council
for protection, being ‘in fear to be apprehended by the said persons,’
notwithstanding her having given caution to appear and underlie the law
in June next. The desired protection was given.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1669.]
Amidst the incessant religious troubles of the period, there were some
symptoms of a disposition to mercantile enterprise. At the suggestion
of sundry ‘expert merchants,’ a Society for Fishing was formed, with
the design of prosecuting that employment around the coast, where it
was notorious that the Dutch were driving a profitable trade. One of
the considerations that weighed with the enterprisers was, that there
were many poor people who would work cheaper than the Dutch, ‘and by
this the country would get vent for their meal and beasts, which gave
no price.’ No one was admitted who did not subscribe at least £100
sterling. The king subscribed £5000, and ‘obliged himself that all
materials should be freed from custom and excise. Yet many gentlemen
refused to enter, fearing that the merchants, who behoved to manage
all, would cheat the other partners; and many merchants refused to
enter a society where so many noblemen were engaged, by whom they were
afraid to be overawed. Yet the stock did soon increase to £25,000
sterling.’[222]
Every mercantile design in that age was clogged by the spirit of
monopoly. If a man proposed to set up a stage-coach, there must be no
other stage-coaches but his upon the road. If a company designed to
introduce the manufacture of glass, or soap, or any other article, they
must have the exclusive right of making the article for a generation.
The Royal Company, as it was called, began as usual by securing
monopolies. ‘No others might import or export salt or fish for certain
months of the year but only of that company.’ This ‘impoverished many
families which traded that way,’ and ‘did occasion great grumbling
among the people.’--_Law._
In 1677, the Royal Company passed an ordinance for strictly enforcing
their exclusive right to fish around the Scottish shores, demanding
that any other party fishing should take out a licence from them. They
themselves being bound only to fish for the service of the country, and
not to send any fish abroad, by this restriction, says Fountainhall,
‘many in Glasgow, Dunbar, &c., will be great losers, who, by the export
of fish on their own private adventures, brought in above 400,000
merks yearly.’ ‘The remedy,’ he adds, ‘will be to enter into the said
company; only, they _would be abler with £50 sterling alone to manage
the said trade, than with £200 given in there_.’
We have here a curious complication of errors in political
economy--private enterprise and fair competition checked, and foreign
trade forbidden. One would think that the most ingenious contrivances
of an enemy could scarcely have devised a state of things more
harassingly detrimental to a country; and the wonder is that even
selfishness should have been so blind as not to see that the free
industry of all was calculated to give better results.
[Sidenote: 1669.]
There is so much in the religious troubles of this period to attract
attention, that history takes little note of anything else. Yet there
was also a complete suite of chronic evils arising from the little
advancement made in the arts and economy of life. The king appropriated
an exclusive right to make salt, though only to hand it over to a
courtier; the salt was consequently bad and dear. In some districts--as
Galloway, the west, and the Highlands--to which the native article
could not be carried, salt was wholly wanting, and the people used
salt-water instead, ‘by which many of them died as of a plague;
others being forced to buy at intolerable rates, as sixteen shillings
the boll, though they formerly had it for four.’ Another statesman,
married to a niece of Lauderdale, had a control over the importation of
brandy, and managed to make that liquor to some extent supersede both
native ‘strong waters’ and Spanish wines. A third, Sir John Nicolson,
was allowed to put a tax on tobacco. He was grandson of Sir William
Dick, and it was thought by this means to repay in some measure the
public debt incurred to that famous merchant in the time of the Civil
War. Moralists of a loyal type tried to make out that it was well to
check the use of ‘an unnecessary and expensive drug;’ but ‘custom
had made tobacco as necessary as nature had made meat and drink, and
consequently this imposition was as grievous as if bread or ale had
been burdened.’[223] Add to these vexing imposts a coin debased for
the profit of the mint-master--a brother of Lauderdale--and it will be
seen that the evils of Scotland during this reign were not wholly of a
sentimental nature.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1670.
APR. 11.]
[Sidenote: 1670.]
Major Weir was strangled at a stake and burnt in Edinburgh, for a
series of sexual offences of the most abominable kinds. His sister,
Jean Weir, who was involved in her brother’s guilt, suffered next
day the less severe penalty of hanging. These were old people, and
hitherto of good character.[224] The major, indeed, was a religious
professor of the highest style of sanctity, making unusual pretensions
to strictness in piety, and noted for his power in prayer. He seems
to have been a singular example of a paradox in human nature far from
uncommon, and which may well make us all humble--an exalted strain of
moral sentiment, refining overmuch, in coexistence with secret and
inexpressibly degrading propensities. The poor man seems to have been
at length unable any longer to endure the sense of secret guilt and
hypocrisy; he sent to the public authorities to come and take him up.
Unable to believe in the turpitude of one externally so well reputed,
they sent physicians of his own religious party to see if he were not
speaking from a disordered mind; and it was only when these reported
him perfectly sane and collected, that he was taken into custody. It
appeared that he had been addicted to his loathsome offences for a
long course of years. The major was condemned upon his own confession,
and thenceforth remained stupid and inaccessible to all that was said
to him. He would not hear any minister pray to or for him, telling
them, when they offered, that it was in vain--‘his condemnation was
sealed; and since he was to go to the devil, he did not wish to anger
him!‘--_Law._
Jean Weir confessed, besides, to intercourse with evil spirits. The
devil had supplied her with lint to her wheel, and when she lived at
Dalkeith, she had had a _familiar_, ‘who used to spin extraordinary
quantities of yarn for her in a shorter time than three or four women
could have done the same.’ That this wretched old woman was under
the influence of hallucinations, there can be no doubt. When she and
her brother were apprehended, ‘she desired the guards to keep him
from laying hold of a certain staff, which, she said, if he chanced
to get into his hands, he would certainly drive them out of doors,
notwithstanding all the resistance they could make. This magical staff
was all of one piece of thornwood, with a crooked head; she said he
received it of the devil, and did many wonderful things with it.... It
was ordered by the judges to be burnt with his body.’[225]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 29.]
[Sidenote: 1670.]
Lord Rutherford, whom we have seen so recently figuring in the romantic
affair of the _Bride of Baldoon_, was now engaged in one of a very
different kind--prosecuting a Captain Rutherford for the improbation
of certain documents believed to have been forged by him, in order to
establish claims on the estate of his lordship’s late brother, the
second lord. The captain, after lying a long time in the Tolbooth of
Edinburgh, was sent for by the Lords of Session (July 27, 1671) to be
interrogated about the case. As he was coming along under the care
of Robert Hamilton, macer of the court, ‘he pretends there were some
papers in Colliston’s chamber in Bess Wynd, which would be of great use
to him if he took them with him; and therefore begged leave to fetch
them, and paroled he should presently return. The macer trusting him
simply, Rutherford makes his escape; the rumour whereof running up and
down the town, Towie Barclay, who was but lately released from his
confinement in Glasgow, comes in to the Lords in the Inner House, and
proffered to find him out and fetch him again within an hour; which
accordingly he did with a great deal of zeal, expressing that he could
not abide cheatry by anything in the world; such persons know one
another’s lurking-places so weel.’--_Foun._
Captain Rutherford was kept in prison seven years, while justice
hesitated about his deservings; but at length, on Sir George Mackenzie
coming in as king’s advocate, with resolutions to be more vigorous, the
culprit was tried along with William Rutherford, messenger, for the
crime of forging writs, and both were soon after (November 28, 1678)
executed in the Grassmarket.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG.]
[Sidenote: 1670.]
The Privy Council was pretty fully occupied at this time in summoning
and fining individuals who had been present at unauthorised religious
meetings. For example, ‘Robert Burnes, merchant in Glasgow,’ expiated
by a fine of 300 merks his having been at a conventicle lately held
at Kirkintilloch. Four persons, described as merchants, were fined
each in £100 Scots for being at such a meeting in Hilderston House,
Linlithgowshire. A fifth, who had not only been there, but had a
child baptised on the occasion, suffered to double the amount. A
great number were brought into trouble by having been present at a
famous conventicle held a short time before at the Hill of Beith, near
Dunfermline. Adam Stobie and eight other men, who had been at both
that conventicle and another at Livingseat, and who refused to take an
oath regarding them, were ‘ordained to be carried to the plantations
in America, and discharged to return under pain of death.’ In thus so
harshly thwarting the extreme Presbyterians in their predilections
as to clergymen and meetings for worship, the government must have
calculated on a certain support from the reactionary feeling engendered
by the recent twenty-two years of troubles--that feeling under which we
may presume they themselves acted. But a constant repetition of such
proceedings against members of the community who were only exercising a
natural privilege, and meaning no harm to their fellow-creatures, could
not fail to create very bitter feelings, and gradually muster elements
for the destruction of the existing _régime_. There was at the same
time an effort to deal what was doubtless intended to be equal justice
towards the various dissenters whom the Presbyterians themselves were
accustomed to persecute when in the possession of power. There were
even now Quakers in the tolbooths of Aberdeen, Inverury, Montrose,
Edinburgh, and other towns, charged with no other offence than that
of holding meetings for their own kind of devotion. Professors of the
Catholic faith were also from time to time assailed in ways which, one
would think, must have been sufficiently annoying to them, although,
there is reason to believe, not quite up to that point of severity
which would have been satisfactory to the people on the opposite
extreme.
On a slight eminence beside the pastoral Doveran in Banffshire, is
a little old-fashioned manor-house, surrounded as usual by a few
trees, and bearing the descriptive name of Kinnairdie. Rothiemay
and Frendraught--names of painful memory--are in the neighbourhood.
Kinnairdie was occupied by the Crichtons of Frendraught, zealous,
though unobtrusive Catholics. Word came to the Council as it sat in
Edinburgh (August 1670), that in this retired villa ‘there is usual
resort publicly to mass every Lord’s day, and four families of the
heritors in the parish do, upon the ringing of a bell, go to a room
in the said house where there is ane altar erected, and priests do
officiate.’ The sheriff of the county was immediately ordered to go
and inquire into the matter, to apprehend the priest if he could, and
also ‘seize upon any vestments or other popish ornaments made use of in
their superstitious worship.’
[Sidenote: 1670.]
The sheriff soon after reported that he had seized a Mr Patrick
Primrose, who was believed to have officiated as priest at Kinnairdie.
He was ordered by the Council to keep this person strictly secured till
he should be subjected to trial. By and by, however, ‘being informed
that Mr Patrick Primrose, prisoner in the Tolbooth of Banff, doeth
belong to the queen’s majesty as one of her servants,’ the Council
ordered his liberation, ‘he always obliging himself to depart furth of
the kingdom, and shall never return thereto under the pain of death.’
This was a comparatively merciful dealing; but poor Primrose was not
destined to be benefited by it. Whether the Tolbooth of Banff had not
agreed with his health, or some natural disease fell upon him, so it
was that he soon after died.
On the 3d of August 1671, severe proceedings were taken with several
north-country Catholic families, Gordon of Carmellie, Gordon of
Littlemill, and Grant of Ballindalloch, for harbouring papist priests,
and being present at mass; also against four priests named Leith,
Ross, Forsyth, and Burnet, for saying mass, baptising children, and
performing the ceremony of marriage, contrary to divers acts of
parliament. On the 1st of February 1672, the Council, understanding
that the Countess of Traquair, ‘being popishly affected, doth keep
in family with her her son, the Earl of Traquair, and endeavours to
educate him in the popish profession, and for that effect doth keep ...
Irving, a priest, to instruct him therein,’ ordered messengers-at-arms
to apprehend her ladyship, or if she could not be laid hold of, to
summon her at the Cross of Edinburgh, that she and her son might come
before them, in order that they might arrange for his ‘education and
breeding conform to act of parliament.’
Accordingly, eight days after, the countess having obeyed the citation,
the Council ordained that before the 22d instant she should ‘send her
son to Glasgow, and cause deliver him to Mr Gilbert Burnet, Professor
of Divinity, to be educat and bred at the College of Glasgow, in the
company of the said Mr Gilbert, at the sight, and by the advice, of
the Archbishop of Glasgow,’ no servants to be allowed to attend the
young earl ‘bot such as are of the reformed religion.’ On the same
day, Wauchope, younger of Niddry, and the Lord Semple, were ordered to
bring and deliver up their children, ‘in order to their education with
some Protestant friend,’ Lord Semple being at the same time called to
account ‘for sending his eldest son abroad contrair to the Council’s
order.’ Wauchope was on this occasion ordered to give up his eldest son
into the charge of his own father, the elder laird, and the parents
were forbidden to have for the future any intercourse with their child,
except in presence of the Protestant preceptor, into whose charge he
was to be put.
[Sidenote: 1670.]
We soon after hear of the Countess of Traquair being subjected to a
horning for disobeying the Council’s order, while Lord Semple was put
into ward in Edinburgh Castle for sending his son to Doway, and only
liberated on a petition craving pardon for his offence, and giving
caution to the extent of ten thousand merks for ‘sending his third son
to be educat in schools in Glasgow.’
Lord and Lady Semple yielded to the order of the Council regarding
their third son; but the result appears to have been of a kind
satisfactory to neither party. In April 1678, Lady Semple (her
husband being then dead) complained to the Council regarding her son,
that, ‘either through the neglect of those he was recommended to,
or through _the general humour and corruption of the place_, he has
been frequently withdrawn from the public ordinances, and so seduced
and poisoned with bad principles anent his majesty’s government and
laws, as may not only hazard his small fortune, but render his loyalty
altogether suspect.’ At her ladyship’s request, the Council gave
commission to the Bishop of Argyle and Lord Ross to appoint ‘a person
of sound principles’ to attend the boy as his pedagogue.
In March 1672, the Council sent orders to the sheriffs of Aberdeen
and Banff for taking stern measures with the papists of their bounds.
Sayers and hearers of mass were to be summoned to answer for their
‘crimes,’ to be excommunicated and escheat, and their estates given to
the universities. The sheriffs were enjoined to give their support to
the bishop and clergy of the diocese in ‘suppressing and rooting out
of Popery and Quakerism.’ And ‘whereas we are informed that there is a
superstitious monument erected upon the grave of the late Mr Patrick
Primrose, priest, in St Peter’s Chapel in the parish of Botarie, we
authorise and require you to cause demolish the same.’ Very likely,
some of Patrick’s skulking flock had ventured to put upon his tomb that
emblem which most expressively recalls what the Saviour suffered for
all sects alike. No such thing could be for a moment endured.
[Sidenote: 1670.]
The Presbyterian historians of the age speak of these papist
persecutions as not springing from a right zeal. Wodrow says the
rulers could not ‘for shame’ but do something of that sort, while at
the same time doing so much against the Whigs. Indeed, Sir George
Mackenzie plainly confesses, it was for ‘allaying the humour of the
people,’ to convince them that the rulers were themselves disinclined
to popery, the people being ‘bred to believe that episcopacy was a
limb of antichrist.’[226] A most deplorable exhibition of Christian
feeling on all hands truly. As regards the persecution of the extreme
Presbyterians, which was beyond all comparison the deadliest then
going on, it takes one of its most curious aspects when, as sometimes
happened, an element of benevolence towards some other kind of person
intruded. For example, Mr Walter Birnie, preacher, having shewn that
he was thrown out of bread in his own profession, and, being blind,
could go about no other employment, the Council ordered him two hundred
merks to be taken in equal parts out of fines lately imposed on John
Tennant in Moss-side and the Lady Glanderston. The pages of Wodrow
have familiarised us so much with the idea of the Privy Council as a
kind of inquisition for the suppression of a respectable dissent, that
we can scarcely think of it in any other character. Yet a survey of
its records would shew many beneficent and merciful edicts mingling
with the severe orders against conventiclers. Petitions for freedom
from sickly prisoners or for an abatement of fines, are yielded to in
numberless instances--indeed, they appear to have never been refused.
In all matters apart from the unhappy religious disputes, there is
no lack of humane feeling or of a desire to promote the good of the
community.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG. 16.]
[Sidenote: 1670.]
Francis Irving, brother of the Laird of Drum, was before the Privy
Council, on account of some very offensive demonstrations which he
had lately made. Being a convert from the Protestant faith, he was
unusually given to the entertaining of Jesuit priests and the getting
up of masses. Under his favour and that of a few similar zealots, a
priest had been emboldened to hold a public disputation in favour of
his religion, an ‘insolency’ of which there had not been an example in
Scotland since Quentin Kennedy argued with John Knox at Maybole. On a
recent occasion, at Aberdeen, when certain persons were to be burned
for sorcery and witchcraft, and a great crowd was assembled, ‘though
he knew that it is a Christian and usual custom that the ministers and
people do join in prayers to God for the persons who are to suffer, yet
he ... when the minister and people went to prayer, stood covered to
the great offence of the people, who knew him,’ and when some reminded
him of his duty, ‘he quarrelled, at least caused his servant quarrel
them.’ His sister Elizabeth, also a papist, being deceased, he resolved
to have her buried in a public way in St Nicolas’ Church in Aberdeen,
being the principal church there, and for this purpose he collected a
great company of his own persuasion, and ‘that the strength, interest,
and boldness of the papists there might the more appear,’ he ‘in a
most insolent and treasonable way, did raise in arms and bring to the
town, from Comar, a band of Highlandmen, armed with guns, hagbuts,
pistols, bows and arrows, and other weapons.’ These, ‘after they had
entered at the ---- Port, albeit they might have taken a nearer and
more private way to the Lady Drum her lodging, where the corpse lay, in
the Guestraw,’ being resolved to affront and provoke the magistrates
and people, ‘had the confidence to march to the said house alongst
----, being the most populous and public street in the said town, in
rank and order and in warlike posture, a commander marching before and
another behind, to the great astonishment and grief of his majesty’s
good subjects, affected to the purity of religion.’ On the morning of
the day of the funeral, a gentleman went at the order of Francis to
the provost of the burgh, told him what was to be done that night, and
warned him that, if the people thronged about the funeral company,
and any ‘inconvenience ensue therethrough,’ it should be at the peril
of the magistracy, who ought to restrain their people--‘which was a
practice without parallel for insolency and boldness.’ ‘About eleven
o’clock that night, the corpse being lifted was carried to the church
of Aberdeen, with great show and in a public way, with many torches, a
great multitude of persons accompanying, the coffin being covered with
velvet or cloth, with a cross upon the same, and a priest or some other
person going before the corpse, holding out his arms before him, and
carrying a crucifix under his cloak or using some other superstitious
ceremony.’ The Highlandmen, having their swords drawn, guarded the
corpse and torches, ‘and when they came to the church-door, divers
others of the company drew their swords and did hold them drawn in the
church all the time the corpse was [being] buried.’ ‘In the throng,
two of the inhabitants of the town was wounded.’ ‘Next morning, the
Highlandmen having marched out of the town, many of them in a braving
and insulting manner did shoot and discharge their guns as they went by
the provost’s lodging.’
[Sidenote: 1670.]
Francis was found guilty of ‘a high and insolent riot,’ and condemned
to be imprisoned in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh during pleasure, besides
paying the expenses incurred in his prosecution. It does not appear
that he suffered much confinement in jail; but he was forbidden to
approach within a mile of Aberdeen. It was only on petition that he
obtained so far a relaxation from this sentence as to be permitted to
visit his mother there, in order to settle some weighty affairs of
hers, on which he acted as trustee. On a subsequent petition in July
1671, he was freed from this restraint.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP. 12.]
One Campbell, a writer in Edinburgh, having obtained decreet for a
debt against Sir Alexander Cunningham of Robertland, sent a messenger
to the baronet’s house with a band of armed Highlanders to poind goods
for the amount. Sir Alexander being from home, the party found no
difficulty in taking some horses from his grounds, and bringing them
to the cross of Irvine to be sold. ‘Sir Alexander gets notice of it;
he runs to the Earl of Eglintoun, as bailie of the district; complains
how he was affronted, that some had come and plundered his horse under
pretence of poinding; [and] procures from him some twenty men to go and
recover them. With thir men he enters Irvine, and with violence offers
to hinder their poinding. The provost being present, entreated them to
behave civilly, and remember they were in a burgh-royal. Robertland’s
man [Alexander Kennedy], after much insolent boasting, drew his sword
and ran at the provost, and would undoubtedly have slain him, had he
not been immediately knocked down by some of the town-officers, and
killed.’
The baronet prosecuted the burgh for this slaughter, before the
Privy Council, but without success. How the burgh sped, in a
counter-prosecution for riot in their bounds, does not appear.--_Foun._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP.]
The Marquis of Douglas, a young man, after being engaged for marriage
with the daughter of one Widow Jack, a taverner at Perth, was wedded
at Alloa House to Lady Barbara Erskine, daughter of the Earl of
Mar.--_Lam._
This was an unfortunate marriage for the lady. The marquis, a man of
profligate conduct, was subsequently led by his factor, Lowrie of
Blackwood (said to have been a rejected suitor of the lady), to suspect
his marchioness of infidelity, and they were consequently separated,
after she had born him one child. The sorrows of the Marchioness of
Douglas were described in a popular ballad of the day, some verses of
which constitute the favourite song of _Waly, waly!_
‘O wherefore should I busk my head,
Or wherefore should I kaim my hair,
Since my true love has me forsook,
And says he’ll never love me mair.
[Sidenote: 1670.]
Now Arthur’s Seat shall be my bed,
The sheets shall ne’er be pressed by me,
St Anton’s Well shall be my drink,
Since my true love’s forsaken me.
O Martinmas wind, when wilt thou blaw,
And shake the green leaf aff the tree?
O gentle death, when wilt thou come,
And take a life that wearies me?’
The prose reality of all this was, that the marchioness by and by
obtained a decree of the Privy Council, allowing her a provision out of
her husband’s estate.
The marquis, by a subsequent marriage, was the father of the semi-mad
Duke of Douglas and of the celebrated Lady Jane Douglas.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1671.
JAN. 19.]
William Head and John Fergusson, who had ‘practised a lottery by
authority in the kingdom of England,’ were authorised by the Privy
Council to set up a similar adventure in any part of Scotland they
pleased, ‘without let or molestation, they behaving themselves as
becometh.’--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAR. 2.]
During the early years of the reign of Charles II., a custom prevailed
to a great extent of obtaining from the Privy Council protections
against the diligence of creditors. Sometimes a Highland chief could
not come to Edinburgh on important affairs of his own, without this
safeguard; sometimes the Council could not otherwise be favoured
with the company of some man of local influence, whom it desired to
see upon important public business. Sir Mungo Murray was unable to
attend the funeral of his cousin and namesake, ‘late lieutenant of
one of his majesty’s troops of guards,’ unless he got ‘protection
against the rigidity of his creditors.’ At this date, the Council
received an application for a protection from James Arnot, postmaster
at Cockburnspath, an important station on the road from Edinburgh to
Berwick. James having involved himself in debt, not only was his person
‘in hazard to be taken with captions, but the horses and furniture
reserved for the public use of the lieges upon the post-road are
threatened to be poindit.’ As the government owed him as much as would
pay his debts, it seemed but reasonable that they should save him from
his creditors, which they accordingly did by granting him and his
horses protection for a year.--_P. C. R._
[Sidenote: 1671.
MAY 14.]
A young woman named Elizabeth Low had an excrescence upon her forehead,
eleven inches long, and usually regarded as a horn. It was this day cut
out by Arthur Temple of Ravelrig, and deposited in the museum of the
Edinburgh University, with a silver plate attesting its history. Law
notes that the girl was alive in 1682, and had another horn growing out
of the same place.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 1.]
Heriot’s Hospital having been for some years established, with sixty
boys as inmates, it was customary to hold the 1st of June as a
holiday in honour of the founder, one part of the formalities being a
procession of the magistrates to the Hospital at nine in the morning
‘to hear sermon.’ David Pringle, ‘nearest of kin to the founder,’ acted
as surgeon and barber to the boys, these two heterogeneous crafts being
somehow combined by our ancestors. To prepare the boys for appearance
this morning before the civic dignitaries, it was necessary that they
should be polled; accordingly, about seven in the morning, Mr Pringle,
his other servants being absent about his business, sent a boy to the
Hospital, desiring him to take with him any person he could readily get
to further the work. The boy unluckily omitted to look for a barber
free of the city corporation of barber-chirurgeons, and took with
him one William Wood, who was only free of the suburban district of
Portsburgh.
[Sidenote: 1671.]
This coming to the ears of Archibald Temple, deacon of the said city
corporation, a court was speedily held, and David Pringle summoned
before it, to answer for the irregularity committed by his boy. The
medical officer of Heriot’s Hospital ingenuously confessed the error;
but represented his boy as having simply taken the readiest assistant
he could get, ‘without the least intention to give the calling
offence:’ he added his solemn promise that no such impropriety should
ever again occur. The court was disposed to pass over the matter
as trivial; but the deacon, having reason to believe that Pringle
designedly employed Wood, pressed for punishment, and solemnly vowed
he would see it inflicted. He very soon caused Wood to be put up in
the Tolbooth. Pringle hereupon appealed to the Town Council for the
liberation of Wood, and so further incensed the corporation against
himself. By using influence with the magistrates, they obtained a
warrant for the apprehension of Pringle, by which he was ‘necessitat
for some time to keep his house, and durst not come abroad, they
having officers both at the head and foot of the close to watch and
catch him.’ Notwithstanding a petition from him to the Town Council,
representing the case, Temple and some of his colleagues persevered
till they got Pringle put up in jail, there to be during the Council’s
pleasure, and till he should give satisfaction to ‘the calling.’ They
also, during his confinement, passed an ordinance depriving him of all
the benefits of his own connection with the corporation, till he should
have made full acknowledgment of his offence in writing, and submitted
to appropriate censure. In short, the affair, trivial at first, came
to be a passionate contention between the barber corporation and their
delinquent member, they determined to assert their privileges, and he
resolute to make no unworthy submission. After much altercation, the
affair came before the Privy Council, who employed the Earl of Argyle
and the Earl of Linlithgow to inquire into and report upon it, and it
was not till the 11th of January 1672 that the case was adjusted by
Pringle making an apology, and the corporation reponing him in his
privileges.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP. 5.]
Donald M‘Donald, commonly called the _Halkit Stirk_,[227] had been
liberated from the Edinburgh Tolbooth in December 1660, on caution
being given by Donald M‘Donald, younger of Slate, to the extent of
£1000 sterling, that the prisoner should present himself, when called
upon, to answer anything that could be laid to his charge. It being
found that the Halkit Stirk had ever since lived the life of a robber,
and had committed divers slaughters, the young Laird of Slate was now
called upon to render up the delinquent or forfeit his caution. The
young laird accordingly brought the Halkit Stirk before the Council,
and got a discharge of his bond. The robber was committed to the
Tolbooth.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1671.]
During this year, a great impulse seemed to be given to Quakerism
both in England and Scotland. It being found, says Law, that a
rejection of ordinances and the Scriptures were not taking with the
people, they began to have preaching and prayer at their meetings,
and to acknowledge the Bible as the rule of their life and judge of
controversies. The profession was found thus to be more ‘ensnaring.’
Some men of note, and of parts and learning, such as Robert Barclay of
Urie, who afterwards wrote the _Apology for the Quakers_, now joined
the society.
In his dedication to the king, written in 1675, Mr Barclay claimed
credit for his sect, not only that they meddled with no civil affairs,
but that, in the times of most violent persecution, being ‘clothed in
innocency, they have boldly stood to their testimony for God, without
creeping into holes or corners, or once hiding themselves, as all
other dissenters have done’--rather a severe taunt at the extreme
Presbyterians, who had been contenders for the political supremacy
of their church, and had now to comport themselves as rebels. The
Presbyterians, while themselves suffering, approved of the severities
against these most innocuous of all Christians; they only thought them
not severe enough. Wodrow speaks of the Council as, in 1666, ‘coming to
some _good resolutions_ against Quakers,’ but complains generally of
its slackness concerning ‘that dangerous sect,’ which, he says, ‘spread
terribly during this reign.’
One William Napier, a seafaring man in Montrose, had turned Quaker,
and other Quakers began in consequence to draw towards that place,
keeping frequent meetings in Napier’s house, ‘to the great scandal of
religion and disturbance of the peace and quiet of the burgh.’ On the
12th of January 1672, ‘betwixt twenty and thretty persons did convene
at William Napier his house, where they had such pretendit devotion
as they pleased to devise, whereupon a great tumult and confusion
was like to have been made,’ and the magistrates, to settle matters
as far as possible, clapped up fifteen of the congregation in the
Tolbooth. On a petition from the magistrates, representing how by these
doings the people were becoming ‘deboshed in their principles,’ the
Council ordered that William Napier should be sent to Edinburgh, and
imprisoned during pleasure in the Tolbooth there, while the rest of
the prisoners should remain in durance at Montrose. In this case the
Council ultimately took a lenient course. On a humble petition from
Napier, representing the injury he would sustain in his business from
an intended voyage being stopped, he was ordered to be set at liberty
after about a fortnight’s confinement. Three of the company were
ordered, on petition, to be liberated eight months after, and on the
ensuing day a general order was issued for the liberation of any other
Quakers that might still remain in confinement at Montrose.--_P. C. R._
[Sidenote: 1671.]
A general order was issued by the Council, in March 1672, to the
magistrates of Aberdeen, commanding them to execute the laws against a
number of the citizens who had deserted the parish churches on account
of Quakerism, enjoining that these people should be strictly punished
according to act of parliament--that is, fined in the proportion of a
fourth of their means for the offence.
In March 1673, there were eleven men in prison at Kelso for attending a
Quaker meeting; but the Council, unwilling to keep them confined till
the circuit court could try them, sent the Earl of Roxburgh with a
commission to judge whether they might be set at liberty or not.
The liberty of conscience which the Quakers asserted as a principle
made them unscrupulous in associating with papists, and this formed
one of the strongest grounds of prejudice against them. Law relates a
childish story of a gentleman Quaker at Montrose being induced by his
daughter to repent, and return to church, where he confessed that the
chief Quakers kept up a correspondence with the chief papists and with
the pope; as also that they ‘had converse with Satan.’
* * * * *
We are assured by Robert Law,[228] that while Quakerism was spreading
with an alarming rapidity, there was also a startling abundance of
profanity and of abominable offences. Some propensities were indulged
with great licence; ‘drunkenness without any shame, men glorying in
it;’ ‘dreadful oppression; high contempt of the gospel; gross idolatry;
a woman in the south drinking the devil’s health and [that of] his
servants; self-murder; and witchcraft and sorceries very common; all
which threatened a sad stroke from God upon us.’
The woman here adverted to by Law seems to have been one Marion M‘Call,
spouse to Adam Reid in Mauchline. She was tried, May 8, 1671, before
the Court of Justiciary at Ayr, for ‘drinking the good health of the
devil,’ and judged to be taken on the first Wednesday of June to the
Market Cross of Edinburgh, ‘to be scourged by the hangman from thence
to the Nether Bow, and thereafter to be brought back to the Cross again
and have her tongue bored and [be] burnt on the cheek;’ further, she
was not to return to the county of Ayr on pain of death.[229]
[Sidenote: 1671.]
Law elsewhere tells of a debauch, at which a similar indecorum was
committed, and which was the means of carrying off two members of
the Scottish peerage. It was the more remarkable as occurring in
January 1643, when the nation at large had certainly some most serious
concerns on hand, and the general tone was earnestly religious. It is
stated that the Earl of Kelly, the Lord Kerr, and David Sandilands,
‘Abercrombie’s brother,’ with other two gentlemen, being met one day,
fell a carousing, and, to encourage each other in drinking, began to
give healths. When they had drunk many healths, not knowing whose to
give next, ‘one of them gives the devil’s health, and the rest pledges
him. Sandilands that night, going down stairs, fell and broke his
neck; Kelly and Kerr within a few days sickened of a fever and died;
the fourth also died shortly; and the fifth, being under some remorse,
lived some time.’ It may be added that ‘ane great drink,’ as it was
called in a chronicle of the day, having thus carried off Lord Kerr,
the titles of his father, the Earl of Roxburgh, passed by his daughter
into a branch of another family, the Drummonds of Perth. This victim of
the wine-cup had appeared for the Covenant at Dunse Law, but afterwards
became a royalist.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1672.
FEB. 26.]
From the commencement of the religious troubles in 1638, the Privy
Council Record gives comparatively few of those notices of new
manufactures attempted in Scotland, or proposed to be introduced
by strangers, for which the previous thirty years of peace were so
remarkable. Amidst endless notices of religious persecution, it gives
an agreeable surprise, at the date noted, to light upon an application
from Philip Vander Straten, a native of Bruges, for the benefit of
naturalisation and freedom of working and trafficking, while embarking
a considerable sum of money in a work at Kelso ‘_for dressing and
refining of wool_.’ The petition was at once complied with.--_P. C. R._
[Sidenote: 1672.]
Two years later (March 19, 1674), the commencement of a humbler and
less useful branch of industry is noted. At that date, Andrew M‘Kairter
represented to the Privy Council that, being a young boy at the schools
of Dalmellington at the time of the Pentland insurrection in 1666, he
had joined in that affair, and after its conclusion, ‘out of a childish
fear did run away to Newcastle, and having there, and in London, and
Holland, served ane long apprenticeship? in spinning of tobacco,’ he
was now returned to his native country, and ‘hath set up the said
trade at Leith.’ His desire was to make his peace with the government
by signing the bond for the public peace. The Council entertained
the petition graciously, and Andrew became, we may suppose, the first
practitioner of tobacco-spinning in Leith.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR.]
At this time, and for six months previously, the small-pox raged in
Glasgow. Hardly a family escaped the infection, and eight hundred
deaths and upwards occurred.--_Law._
* * * * *
Some sensation was excited by the rumour that in a ship lying at
Newcastle, called the _Cape of Good Hope_ of London, the devil had
appeared in bodily shape, in the habit of a seaman, with a blue cravat
about his neck, and desired the master of the ship to remove out of
her; which he did not obey till sic time as she began to sink in the
ocean. Then he, with his company, took his cock-boat, who were saved by
another ship coming by. This was testified by the oaths of them that
were in her.--_Law._ It is seldom that the devil is found so obliging
as he seems to have been in this case.
It may serve to verify the possibility of such a rumour in the reign of
Charles II., that, in March 1682, the Privy Council was informed that
‘one Margaret Dougall is imprisoned in the Tolbooth of Ayr, as alleged
guilty of raising and consulting the devil;’ and an order was given
that she be transported from sheriff to sheriff until brought to and
placed in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, that she might be brought to a
legal trial.--_P. C. R._
[Sidenote: MAY 27.]
[Sidenote: AUG. 22.]
Joannes Michael Philo, physician, and ‘sworn operator to his majesty,’
was, on petition, allowed to erect a public stage in Edinburgh
for the practice of his profession, but ‘discharged to have any
rope-dancing.’--_P. C. R._ It was some time after stated regarding this
personage, that he did erect a stage in Edinburgh, and ‘thereon has
cured thretteen blind persons, several lame, and cut several cancers,
and done many other notable cures, as is notourly known, and that
out of mere charity.’ He was therefore invested by the Council, on
petition, with a warrant to go and do likewise in all the other burghs
of the kingdom, up till February next; the Council further recommending
him to the magistrates of these burghs, that they may give him due help
and countenance.
[Sidenote: 1672.]
His stage was then taken down by the magistrates of Edinburgh, ‘before
he could have time to complete many considerable cures,’ which he had
had on hand. There also came to him from remote parts of the country
‘five or six poor blind people, and as many with cancers, whose
poverty will not admit the same to be done otherwise than upon the
public stage, where they have their cure gratis and their entertainment
in the meantime upon [the operator’s] charges.’ He therefore petitioned
to have his stage re-erected in Edinburgh for a time; which was
complied with.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 12.]
On the parliament sitting down to-day, under the Duke of Lauderdale
as commissioner, his ‘lady, with the number of thirty or forty moe
ladies, accompanies the duke to the parliament in coaches, and are set
down in the Parliament House, and sat there to hear the commissioner’s
speech.’--_Law._ ‘A practice so new and extraordinary, that it raised
the indignation of the people very much against her; they hating
to find that aspired to by her, which none of our queens had ever
attempted.’ It ‘set them to inquire into her origin and faults, and
to rail against the lowness of the one, and the suspicions of the
other.... This malice grew daily against her.’
The duke, at fifty-seven, and, it is said, only six weeks a widower,
had married the duchess in the preceding February in London, all their
friends in Edinburgh making feasts on their marriage-day, while ‘the
Castle shot as many guns as on his majesty’s birthday.’ Her grace, now
forty-five years of age, was in her personal qualities and history a
most remarkable woman. Her wit and cleverness were something singular;
‘nor had the extraordinary beauty she possessed while she was young,
ceded at the age at which she was then arrived.’ The daughter of one
who had been minister of Dysart, she was Countess of Dysart in her
own right, and by Sir Lionel Tollemache had had a large family, which
is still represented in the peerage. There was something romantic in
her union with the now all-powerful Lauderdale. He had owed to her
his life, through her influence with Cromwell, and in his marriage,
which was discommended by all his friends, ‘he really yielded to
his gratitude.’[230] For the next ten years, it might be said that
Lauderdale and his clever duchess were all but nominally king and queen
of Scotland.
REIGN OF CHARLES II.: 1673-1685.
For several years, there was little to be observed regarding Scotland,
but that the non-conformity of its people in several of the more
populous provinces provoked an incessant show of severities on the part
of the government. During this time, literature and science remained
wholly uncultivated; no department of industry shewed any decided
tendency to advance. The energies of the nation were arrested by a
frightful contention, most degrading to the object for which men were
contending, and than which nothing could have been more hostile to the
spirit of religion simple and undefiled.
A preacher named James Mitchell had, in 1668, attempted the life of
Archbishop Sharpe, and had actually inflicted a mortal wound upon
the Bishop of Orkney. Being apprehended in 1674, he was confined
for several years, and at length condemned and executed. The crime
was not so odious among his party as to extinguish their sympathy;
accordingly, this wretched man was looked upon by them as a kind of
martyr. After this, the persecution for field-meetings became more than
ever severe. A calculation has been made that, previously to 1678,
seventeen thousand persons had suffered fining and imprisonment on this
account. The government resolved to try the expedient of pressing the
subscription of a bond renouncing conventicles; and to support them in
their efforts, an army of ten thousand men was collected at Stirling,
of whom the greater part were Highlanders. At the end of January,
this host was let loose upon the western counties, with instructions
to enforce fines from all who would not take the bond. The resistance
was passive, but universal. Only twenty out of two or three thousand
householders in Lanarkshire could be prevailed upon to abandon a mode
of worship which possessed so many charms. They preferred to see
themselves spoiled of a great share of their worldly goods. Even the
nobles, and other conspicuous persons, who lay most open to state
persecution, generally refused the bond. The Council was deeply
mortified at the passiveness of the people, for they had expected a
rebellion, which would have justified them in severer measures. After
a month, finding the attempt ineffectual, Lauderdale was obliged to
order the army away. The Highland Host, as it was called, left a deep
impression upon the memory of those who experienced its oppressions. It
is not alleged that the mountaineers shed much blood, but they freely
helped themselves to whatever movable articles they took a fancy for.
As they returned to the north, the whole country seemed to be removing
its household furniture from one district to another. Ayrshire alone
suffered losses to the amount of £12,000 sterling, which, in those
days, was a very large sum.
A deep spirit of resentment against the Council, and especially the
prelatic part of it, was the natural result of all these occurrences.
The worst passions of human nature mingled themselves with the purest
and noblest aspirations; and men appealed, in language of bitterness,
from the iniquity of their earthly rulers to the justice of God. The
wisest and best natures were perverted by feelings which had become
morbid by extreme excitement. On the 3d of May 1679, while the public
mind was in this condition, a small party of Fife gentlemen went out
with the deliberate intention of assassinating the sheriff at a chase.
Disappointed in that object, they had not dispersed when a greater
victim fell in their way. As they were riding over Magus Moor, near St
Andrews, Archbishop Sharpe happened to pass. The opportunity appeared
to their minds as a dispensation of Providence. They commanded him to
come out of the coach, apparently that his daughter, who was with him,
might not suffer from their shot. The archbishop tremblingly obeyed;
he flung himself upon his knees, offered them mercy, forgiveness,
everything, so that they would spare his life. The leader sternly
reminded him of the deadly injuries he had inflicted upon the church
and its martyrs. A volley of shot was poured upon his suppliant figure,
and finally the unhappy prelate was hewed down with their swords,
crying for mercy with his latest breath. They left his daughter
lamenting over his body, which was afterwards found to bear such marks
of their barbarity as could scarcely be credited.
The assassination of Sharpe produced a great alarm among the remaining
members of the government, each of whom knew how much he had done to
provoke the same fate. In another respect, it was perhaps a matter of
rejoicing to these men, as it afforded them an excuse for increasing
that severity on which alone they depended as a means of maintaining
the state. The Presbyterians never by any formal act expressed approval
of the deed; indeed, many of them must have felt that it was an affair
of the worst omen to their party. Neither, however, did they ever
express themselves as offended by the violence of their brethren; and
even half a century after the event, their historians are more anxious
to shew that the archbishop deserved his fate, than to apologise for
the barbarity of his murderers.
The blame of the murder has been the more plausibly thrown upon the
whole party, that it was immediately followed by an insurrection. On
the 29th of May, which was the king’s birthday, a party of about eighty
deliberately marched into the town of Rutherglen, three miles from
Glasgow, where they publicly burnt all the acts of parliament against
Presbytery. They afterwards extinguished the bonfires, in order to
mark their disapprobation of all holidays of human institution, and
concluded by fixing upon the Cross a declaration of their sentiments
respecting the late proceedings of the government. Having done this,
they retired to a mountainous part of the country between Lanarkshire
and Ayrshire, where there was to be a grand conventicle on the
ensuing Sunday. The government looked upon this proceeding as an act
of rebellion, and despatched a military party after the offenders,
consisting of three troops of newly levied dragoons, under the command
of Captain Graham of Claverhouse, a man of remarkable energy of
character, who had recently entered the king’s service in Scotland.
On Sunday, Graham came up with the insurgents, at a place near
Loudoun Hill, where they were assembled at devotion. They were about
forty horse and two hundred foot, under the command of a gentleman
named Hamilton, but without the least discipline or acquaintance
with military affairs. Graham fired a volley, which they eluded in a
great measure by falling upon their faces. He then tried to charge
them through a morass, behind which they were placed, but in doing
so threw his men into confusion, and exposed himself to the assault
of the enemy. They took instant advantage of his distress, attacked
the dragoons sword in hand, and soon compelled them to retire. Graham
had his horse shot under him, and about twenty of his men were slain,
while only one of the insurgents had fallen. A minister and some
country-people whom he had brought along with him as prisoners were
rescued by the victors.
The broken dragoons retreated to Glasgow, which was then garrisoned by
about eight hundred troops. The insurgents, flushed with their success,
and thinking it safer to go on than to draw back, marched next morning
to that city with considerably increased forces. The troops barricaded
the streets, so that the country-people could make little impression
upon them, while they were greatly exposed in their turn. Eight were
slain in this needless encounter; the rest retreated in rather low
spirits to Hamilton, where they formed a kind of camp.
Their numbers were here augmented in a short time to about five
thousand, chiefly peasants and farmers of Lanarkshire, Ayrshire, and
Galloway, but comprising also a few gentlemen of property, though
none of any note. Hamilton continued to exercise a nominal command,
though rather from his having been the leading man at the commencement,
than from any idea of his fitness for the situation. All of them had
arms, and many of them horses; but there was neither discipline, nor
any attempt to impose it. The whole insurrection proceeded upon mere
impulse. The unfortunate people acted, it would appear, simply from the
pressure of immediate circumstances, glad to protect themselves, for
a while, even at the risk of utter destruction, against an oppression
they could no longer endure.
The Privy Council collected all its disposable forces at Edinburgh,
and requested instructions from the court. It was speedily determined
that the Duke of Monmouth should be sent down to take command of the
army. This was the eldest natural son of the king; a youth of amiable
character, anxious for popularity, and intimately connected with the
English non-conformists, whom he expected to favour him in his views
upon the succession. The duke arrived in Edinburgh on the 19th of
June, and led forward the army to meet the insurgents. He marched very
slowly, in order, as was supposed, to afford them an opportunity of
dispersing; but they shewed no disposition to avail themselves of his
kindness. They had spent the three weeks during which they had existed
as an army, not in training themselves to arms, or arranging themselves
into proper divisions, but in disputing about the spiritual objects
for which they were in arms. One great cause of division was the
Indulgence, which some were for condemning, and others for overlooking;
they were also greatly divided as to the propriety of acknowledging
their allegiance to the king. In these abstractions they lost all view
of practical measures. They called such things ‘trusting in the arm
of flesh,’ for which, of course, they could adduce an abundance of
condemnatory texts.
On Sunday, the 22d of June, Monmouth had advanced to Bothwell, a
village about a mile distant from the insurgent camp. The river
Clyde ran between the two armies, and was only to be crossed by
Bothwell Bridge, a long narrow pass, highly capable of defence. The
non-conformists, who lay upon the ground beyond the bridge, were
still, at this late moment, holding high disputes, and there was even
a proposal for remodelling the army, and appointing new officers. The
moderate party sent two gentlemen in disguise--Mr David Hume and the
Laird of Kaitloch--to present a supplication to the duke, in which
it was proposed to disperse, on the condition that their grievances
should be redressed. But Monmouth was unable, from his instructions, to
treat with them unless they should have first laid down their arms. He
charged the two deputies with a message to that effect, threatening if
they did not throw themselves upon his mercy within half an hour, that
he should advance with his army. When these gentlemen returned, they
found the army on the point of falling to pieces through dissension. In
truth, many must have now been only seeking for occasion to withdraw
themselves from an adventure which they saw to be ruinous. The most
zealous and clamorous were the first to retire. The rest remained,
unable either to take advantage of the duke’s proposal, or to prepare
for giving him battle. At the time he had specified, he advanced his
troops to the brink of the river, and sent a large party to force the
passage of the bridge. That point was stoutly defended, for nearly an
hour, by some men from Galloway and Stirlingshire, under Hackstoun
of Rathillet. At length, when their ammunition ran short, they sent
back to the main body for a supply, which was denied. They were of
course obliged to retire, and leave a free passage to the royal
troops. When the horse soon after rode off from the field, the foot,
left defenceless, could not stand an instant against the charge of
the enemy. Excepting twelve hundred, who laid down their arms, the
whole body took to flight, without having made the least effort at
resistance. About three hundred were cut down in the pursuit.
The prisoners were brought in a body to Edinburgh, and confined,
like sheep in a fold, within the gloomy precincts of the Greyfriars’
Church-yard, where, for four months, they had no seat or couch but
the bare ground, and no covering but the sky. Two clergymen, Kid and
King, were executed. Of the rest, all were set at liberty who would own
the insurrection to have been _rebellion_, and the slaughter of the
archbishop _murder_, and promise never more to take up arms against the
government. Those who refused were sent to the Plantations; a mode of
disposing prisoners which had been introduced by Cromwell.
Under all the severities of this reign, the spirit of English liberty
was still kept alive. The king having been long married without any
children, his brother, the Duke of York, was heir-presumptive. But
this prince, besides various natural faults of character, had unfitted
himself for governing a Protestant people by becoming an avowed convert
to the Catholic faith. An attempt was made in the House of Commons
to pass an act for excluding him from the succession; it was read a
second time by a majority of 207 against 128; and the king only evaded
the question by proroguing the parliament. The duke, seeing himself
so unpopular in England, resolved to make friends, if possible, in
Scotland; so that, in the event of any resistance to his succession
in the former country, he might bring up an army of Scotch to his
assistance. He therefore paid a visit to Edinburgh in October 1679, and
revived the long dormant court of Holyroodhouse. As the persecution
had been in a great measure a local affair, it operated little against
his present views. The gentry, except in the western district, were
chiefly Cavaliers; in the Highlands, altogether so. Among a people
remote from a court, the mere presence of royalty--its slightest acts
of condescension--are sure to communicate a favourable impression,
although, perhaps, accompanied by but little merit or virtue in the
royal person. We are not therefore to be surprised that the duke
somewhat strengthened himself in Scotland on this occasion. He returned
at the end of February 1680 to London.
The excitement of the time now gave rise to a new and more fanatical
sect, who renounced their allegiance, and issued anathemas not only
against their persecutors, but against the great mass of their
brethren, who had submitted to the government. A minister named
Cargill and his associate, Cameron, with about twenty armed men,
appeared at Sanquhar on the 22d of June, and there affixed upon the
market-cross a declaration, in which they disavowed all obedience to
the king, and protested against the succession of the Duke of York.
Cameron was soon after killed, with some of his friends, at Airdsmoss,
and Hackstoun of Rathillet was seized and executed. Cargill, so far
from being deterred, held a large conventicle at Torwood, where he
formally delivered over the king, his brother, and ministers, to Satan,
after the usual forms of excommunication. He was soon after taken
prisoner and hanged. The whole proceedings of this sect were seriously
injurious to the great body of Presbyterians; as the government,
wilfully overlooking remonstrances to the contrary, held all that was
done as criminating the whole body, and took occasion from that to
exercise greater severities.
In October 1680, the Duke of York was again obliged, by the patriotic
party in England, to take up his residence at Holyroodhouse. A bill
for excluding him from the throne was now actually passed by the House
of Commons, but was lost in the House of Lords by thirty-three against
thirty. On Christmas Day, the spirit of the Scottish people against
a Catholic successor was manifested by the students of the Edinburgh
University, who, notwithstanding every effort to prevent them, publicly
burnt the pope in effigy. A parliament, the first for nine years,
sat down in July 1681, the duke acting as commissioner. A test oath
was here framed, to be taken by all persons in public trusts, as an
assurance of their loyalty; but it turned out to be such a jumble of
contradictory obligations, that many persons, including eighty of the
established clergy, refused to take it. The Earl of Argyle, son to the
late marquis, and a faithful friend to the Protestant religion, would
only receive it with an explanation, which was held to be an act of
treason, and he was accordingly tried and condemned to death. The real
object of this prosecution was to destroy a powerful Highland chief,
who might be disposed to use his influence against the succession of
the Duke of York. His lordship contrived to escape to Holland.
In the latter part of this year, the party left by Cargill and
Cameron formed themselves into a secret society, and on the 12th of
January 1682, published at Lanark a declaration of adherence to the
transactions at Sanquhar, which they affected to consider as the
work of a convention of estates. This, of course, only provoked new
severities.
In March 1682, the Duke of York returned to England, in order to hold a
conference with the king. Coming back in May for his family, his vessel
was wrecked on a sandbank near Yarmouth, when a hundred and fifty
persons perished, including some of the first quality. After spending
about a week in Edinburgh, he returned to England.
The ancient Presbyterian spirit was now reduced so low, or so many
of the clergy of that kind were destroyed and imprisoned, that there
was not a single individual who preached in defiance of the king’s
supremacy. The united societies, as the more unsubmissive termed
themselves, were obliged to send a youth named Renwick to Groningen,
in Belgium, in order to study divinity and receive ordination, as they
could not in any other way obtain a preacher. A general disposition to
emigration began to arise; and some gentlemen proposed to sell their
property, and become settlers in the new colony of Carolina. While
engaged at London in making the proper arrangements, they came in
contact with the patriots of the House of Commons, who, defeated in the
Exclusion Bill, were concerting measures for bringing about a change of
government. Common desperation made them friends; and a correspondence
was opened with the Earl of Argyle in Holland, for an invasion from
that quarter, in connection with an insurrection in England. Some
subordinate members of the conspiracy plotted the assassination of
the king; and, being discovered, the whole affair was brought to
light. Lord Russell and Algernon Sidney suffered death. Baillie of
Jerviswood was sent to Scotland, and there, under the most iniquitous
circumstances, consigned to the executioner. It was now hardly
possible, by any course of conduct, to gain assurance of not being
prosecuted. Masters were held liable for servants; landlords for their
tenants; fathers for their wives and children; and to have the least
intercourse with a proscribed person was the same as to be actually
guilty. The soldiery were now permitted by an act of parliament to
execute the laws without trial. If any one, therefore, refused to
answer certain questions, or gave rise to suspicion by running away, he
was shot. Numbers thus perished in the fields and on the highways. In
short, the reign of Charles II. terminated, February 6, 1685, amidst
a scene of oppression, bloodshed, and spoil, such as was never before
witnessed in the country, even in the most barbarous times.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1673.
JUNE.]
[Sidenote: 1673.]
Died Sir Robert Murray of Craigie, Justice-clerk, and an eminent
councillor; memorable above all as one of a small group of learned
and thoughtful men who, in 1662, founded the Royal Society, of which
illustrious body Sir Robert was the first president, and for a time
‘the life and soul.’ For the last six years of his life, he bore
a leading part in the government of Scotland. Not a Whig had been
fined, tortured, or banished; not a commission against ‘the horrid
crime of witchcraft’ had been issued; but the act was sanctioned by
this gentleman, ‘the most universally beloved and esteemed by men
of all sides and sorts, of any man I have ever known in my whole
life,’ and who ‘knew the history of nature beyond any man I ever yet
knew;’ who ‘had a most diffused love to all mankind, and delighted
in every occasion of doing good;’ and who ‘had a superiority of
genius and comprehension to most men.’--_Burnet._ Sir Robert’s father
was a younger son of a distinguished Perthshire family, Murray of
Abercairney. He himself had been the friend of Charles I. and of
Richelieu, and latterly he was a favourite of Charles II. When the
daughter of Sir Robert was married in London to Lord Yester, eldest son
of the Earl of Tweeddale, ‘the king himself led the bride uncovered to
church.’--_Kir._
To find two such amiable men as the Earl of Tweeddale and Sir Robert
Murray taking part for many years in the severe measures against the
Scottish Presbyterians--though, it must be admitted, with the effect
of infusing a certain mildness--and to find day after day the bloody
edicts of the Privy Council sanctioned by not only their names,
but by those of the Duke of Hamilton and the Earl of Argyle, the
latter of whom was to die the death of a martyred patriot, while the
former was to preside in the convention which settled the Stuarts’
forfeited crown on William and Mary, certainly presents a striking
view of the mixed nature of human tendencies. As regards, too, the
philosophical character of the founder of the Royal Society, it can
never be forgotten that one of his contributions to the Transactions
of that sage body was an account of _the development of barnacles into
sea-birds_--a most noted example of the power of preconceived notions
to blind the perceptions of even a faithful and intelligent observer.
His testimony on this subject was thus presented in the _Philosophical
Transactions_:
[Sidenote: 1673.]
‘Being in the isle of East [Uist], I saw lying upon the shore a cut of
a large fir-tree, of about 2-1/2 foot diameter, and nine or ten foot
long; which had lain so long out of the water that it was very dry;
and most of the shells that formerly covered it were worn or rubbed
off. Only on the parts that lay next the ground there still hung
multitudes of little shells, having within them little birds perfectly
shaped, supposed to be barnacles. These shells hang at the tree by a
neck longer than the shell, of a kind of filmy substance, round and
hollow, and creased, not unlike the windpipe of a chicken, spreading
out broadest where it is fastened to the tree, from which it seems to
draw and convey the matter, which serves for the growth and vegetation
of the shell and the little bird within it. This bird, in every shell
that I opened, as well the least as the biggest, I found so curiously
and completely formed, that there appeared nothing wanting as to the
external parts, for making up a perfect sea-fowl; every little part
appearing so distinctly, that the whole looked like a large bird seen
through a concave or diminishing glass, colour and features being
everywhere so clear and neat. The little bill like that of a goose, the
eyes marked, the head, neck, breast, wing, tail, and feet formed; the
feathers everywhere perfectly shaped and blackish coloured; and the
feet like those of other water-fowl, to my best remembrance. All being
dead and dry, I did not look after the inward parts of them. But having
nipped off and broken a great many of them, I carried about twenty or
twenty-four away with me.... Nor did I ever see any of the little birds
alive, nor met with anybody that did. Only, some credible persons have
assured me they have seen some as big as their fist.’
After all, it must be acknowledged there is something very perplexing
about these cirripeds, and calculated to excuse the mistake which so
long existed regarding them, since it was not till about 1840 that
naturalists could determine whether they belonged to the articulate
or the molluscan division of the animal kingdom. It is scarcely
necessary to remark that they are now concluded to be articulates, of
the crustacean class. Even Cuvier had placed them under the mollusca,
though regarding them as intermediate between these and the articulata.
As to the eyes spoken of by Sir Robert Murray, it may be observed that
the barnacle has latterly been found to have visual organs in an early
period of its existence, and to lose them when at full growth. When Mr
Thomson of Cork, about 1830, described the actual characters of the
animal, many naturalists for a long time refused to believe in his
statements.
* * * * *
A sumptuary law was passed in the parliament in 1672, ‘discharging the
wearing of silver lace and silk stuffs, upon a design to encourage the
making of fine stuffs within the kingdom, and to repress the excessive
use of these commodies.’[231]
[Sidenote: JULY 3.]
[Sidenote: 1673.]
An effort was made to carry this law into force. On information from
Alexander Milne, collector of his majesty’s customs in Edinburgh,
the Council had up before them Sir John Colquhoun of Luss, who, in
breach of a late act of parliament forbidding the lieges to wear
clothes ornamented with ‘silk-lace, gimp-lace, or any other lace or
embroidering or silk,’ had appeared, during the bypast month, wearing
‘a black _justicat_,[232] whereupon there was black silk or gimp-lace.’
Sir John was condemned, in terms of the act of parliament, to pay a
fine of five hundred merks, ‘one half to his majesty’s cash-keeper for
his majesty’s use, and the other half to Alexander Milne.’--_P. C. R._
Nearly about the same time, Manna Kinloch, wife of James Charteris,
writer, was arraigned before the Privy Council for wearing fine apparel
contrary to the same sumptuary act, but was discharged for lack of
proof. Two legal questions arose in connection with this case. The
first was: If a woman be convicted and punished for such an offence,
ought her husband to be liable to make good the fine, or should she
alone be punished by imprisonment? Obviously, if the husband be made
liable, ‘many wives, to affront their husbands, or otherwise be avenged
on them, would break the law of purpose.’ The second point was: How
shall the offence, in most instances, be proved, if the evidence of
women be rejected--as it seems to have then been in all except certain
special cases--for it must often be that none but women have an
opportunity of observing the offence?--_Foun._
* * * * *
The summer of this year was exceedingly wet, and the harvest thereby
much endangered.--_Law._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1673.
AUG. 20.]
Most probably, the carriages proposed to be set up in 1610 by Henry
Anderson the Pomeranian, to run between Edinburgh and Leith with a
charge of two shillings Scots for each person,[233] were either not
realised or quickly withdrawn, for nothing more is heard of them, and
we find in 1702 one Robert Miller getting an exclusive privilege of
putting coaches on that brief but important route, implying of course
that no other such conveyances then existed. Street-carriages, which
had been set up in London in the reign of Charles I., did not come into
use in Scotland till after the Restoration. On the occasion of the
unfortunate duel in 1667 between William Douglas of Whittingham and Sir
John Home of Eccles,[234] we hear of the parties going to the ground in
a hackney-coach. Six years later, regular arrangements were made by the
Edinburgh magistrates for a system of street-carriages, and the number
then in service appears to have been twenty. It was ordered that they
should be numbered 1, 2, 3, &c., with a view to ready reference in case
of any complaint from a passenger, and that they should have a fixed
place on the High Street between the heads of Niddry’s and Blackfriars’
Wynds. The fare to Leith for two or three persons in summer was to be
1s. sterling, or for four persons, 1s. 4d.; the fare to the Abbey, 9d.,
and as much back again.[235]
It is pretty certain that this system of street-carriages maintained
its ground, as in _A Short Account of Scotland_, written by an
Englishman in 1688, the author tells us that, while there were no
stage-coaches in Scotland, ‘there are a few hackneys at Edinburgh,
which they may hire into the country on urgent occasions.’ It is to
be remarked, however, that Edinburgh, being all packed within a space
of a mile in length by half a mile in breadth, upon irregular ground,
and with very few streets fit for the passage of wheeled vehicles, was
a discouraging field for this kind of conveyance. Sedans maintained a
preference over coaches till the extension of the city in the reign of
George III. Arnot tells us that while there were, in 1778, only nine
hackney-carriages in our city, there were a hundred and eighty-eight
public chairs, besides about fifty kept by private families.[236]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP. 5.]
During several by-past years, licences had been given in frequent
succession to vessels, to carry off idle, vagrant, and criminal people
to the plantations in Virginia and elsewhere. One ship engaged in
this kidnapping service, and which bore the hypocritical appellative
of _The Ewe and Lamb_, seems to have been particularly active. We now
find complaints made that ‘the master and merchants of the ship called
the _Hercules_, bound for the plantations, have apprehended some free
persons and put them aboard the said ship, upon pretext that they
are vagabonds, or given their consent thereto.’ The Lords therefore
commissioned two of their number to go aboard and inquire, and to
liberate any persons improperly detained.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT. 11.]
[Sidenote: 1673.]
That indispensable conveniency of modern times, _the
coffee-house_--which had taken its rise in London during the
Commonwealth[237] --made its way into Scotland during the ensuing
reign. The first time we hear of it north of the Tweed is when Colonel
Walter Whiteford--are we to suppose some reduced soldier of the
Scottish army of 1651?--was, on application, allowed by the magistrates
of Glasgow to set up a house in that city ‘for making, selling, and
topping of coffee.’--_M. of G._
Under the date noted, the Privy Council Record tells us a note-worthy
tale of an Edinburgh coffee-house.
‘In Thomas Robertson his new land[238] near to the Parliament
House,’ one James Row kept a coffee-house, probably the first such
establishment known in Edinburgh. On Sunday the 28th of October 1677,
he so far risked the wrath of his neighbours the Privy Councillors, as
to have an unlawful preacher holding forth in his house during the time
of ordinary service in the churches. Robert Johnston, town-major, who
had authority from the Privy Council to see after such matters, came
to the place with some of his myrmidons, and found the ‘turnpike’ or
common stair filled with people, the overflowing of the congregation.
Making his way to the ordinary door of Row’s house, and demanding
admission, he was kept there for some time, during which he heard a
great noise of furniture and of people within. On being admitted, he
found that the minister and his auditors had been smuggled out by ‘a
laigh or privat entry.’ Johnston then returned to the street, and
was walking quietly at the Cross, when Row came up and ‘did upbraid,
threaten, and abuse him for coming to his house, and told him that he
durst not for his hanging come to his house again and do the like, or,
if he came that gait, he should not win so weel away.’ Thus he railed
at the town-major all the way ‘from the Cross Well to the Stane Shop,
shouting and crying so loud as the people gathered in multitudes,’
though, seeing what sort of affair it was, they soon dispersed.
Afterwards, Row went to the magistrates and told them ‘he could not
get God worshipped in his own house for that officious fellow the
town-major, thereby insinuating that the due execution of his majesty’s
laws did prejudge the worship of God.’
Row was fined in five hundred merks, and obliged to ask Johnston’s
pardon; and immediately after, his coffee-house was ordered to be shut
up.--_P. C. R._
[Sidenote: 1673.]
People were already accustomed to go to coffee-houses in order to
learn the news of the day. In 1680, there was an order of the Privy
Council, that ‘the gazettes and news-letters read in coffee-houses,
be first presented to the Bishop of Edinburgh, or any other privy
councillor, that they may consider them, and thereby false and
seditious news and slanders may be prevented.’--_Foun._ And not long
after--namely, in January 1681--by order of the Privy Council, the
magistrates of Edinburgh called all the masters of coffee-houses before
them, and obliged them to come under a bond for five thousand merks
to suffer no newspapers to be read in their houses but such as were
approved of by the officers of state.[239]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 11.]
Mr Robert Kirk, minister of Aberfoyle, petitioned the Privy Council
for liberty to print a translation, executed by himself, of the last
hundred of the Psalms into the Irish tongue. The matter was referred to
the approbation of the Earl of Argyle, and conferences were appointed
about it, to take place at Inverary.
Mr Kirk’s translation of the Psalms into Gaelic was an important
contribution to the means for establishing Protestant Christian worship
in the Highlands. On account of the proficiency which he thus shewed
himself to possess in the Gaelic language, he was sent for to London,
to superintend the printing of the Irish translation of the Bible,
prepared under the direction of Bishop Bedel, and published in 1685. He
died in 1692, and was buried in the church-yard of Aberfoyle, under a
stone bearing this inscription: ‘Robertus Kirk, A.M. _Linguæ Hiberniæ
Lumen_.’
[Sidenote: 1673.]
‘To suppress the impudent and growing atheism of this age,’ Mr
Kirk printed in 1691 a small treatise, ‘An Essay on the Nature and
Actions of the Subterranean (and for the most part) Invisible People,
heretofoir going under the Name of Elves, Faunes, and Fairies ...
as they are described by those having the Second Sight, &c.,’ which
certainly forms a curious illustration of the _quasi_ orthodox beliefs
of a Highland minister of the seventeenth century. He describes the
fairies as possessed of ‘light and changeable bodies of the nature
of a condensed cloud,’ and living in little hillocks, where they are
‘sometimes heard to bake bread, strike hammers, and do such like
services.’ Forced to shift their residences once a quarter, they are
liable to be seen by second-sighted men on their travels at four
seasons of the year; but are also often ‘seen to eat at funerals and
banquets.’ At such festive meetings, each mortal guest is sometimes
observed to have a double of himself ‘perfectly resembling him in all
points,’ being one of these subterranean spirits. The ‘reflex-man’
or ‘co-walker’ haunts the original as his shadow, ‘whether to guard
him from the secret assaults of some of its own folks, or only as
ane apertful ape to counterfeit all his actions.’ ‘Being invited and
earnestly required, these companions make themselves known and familiar
to men; otherwise, being in a different state and element, they neither
can nor will easily converse with them.’
Mr Kirk informs us that these spiritual people live in fair
well-lighted houses, where all the usual affairs of human life go on
in an immaterial fashion. ‘Women are yet alive who tell that they were
taken away to nurse fairy children,’ an image of themselves being
left in their place. ‘When the child is weaned, the nurse dies, or is
conveyed back, or gets it to her choice to stay there.’ One woman thus
carried away returned after two years, was taken in by her husband,
and had some children afterwards. In speech and apparel, the fairy
folk resemble those under whose country they live; they ‘wear plaids
and variegated garments in the Highlands, and suanochs in Ireland.’
Second-sighted men can invoke them at pleasure, but in general do not
relish the sight of them, on account of the hideous spectacles they
present, and their sullen and dismal looks. ‘They [the spirits] are
said to have many pleasant toyish books,’ producing in them fits of
corybantic jollity, ‘as if ravished by a new spirit entering them.’
Other books they have of abstruse science, but no Bibles.
Men of the second-sight do not necessarily discover strange things when
requested; only by fits and starts, ‘as if inspired with some genius
at that instant, which before did lurk in or about them.’ Mr Kirk knew
one whose neighbours often observed him disappear at a certain place,
and some time after reappear at another, a hostile encounter with the
spiritual people being the cause of his disappearance. These seers know
what will happen to their friends, by means of the spirits with whom
they have intercourse.
[Sidenote: 1673.]
The people are said by Mr Kirk to believe that the souls of their
ancestors dwell in the fairy hills, of which one was placed
conveniently to each church-yard. He relates that, about the year
1676, ‘when there was some scarcity of grain, two women living at a
distance from each other dreamed about a treasure hid in a certain
fairy hillock. ‘The appearance of a treasure was first represented to
the fancy, and then an audible voice named the place where it was to
their waking senses. Whereupon both rose, and meeting accidentally at
the place, discovered their design; and jointly digging, found a vessel
as large as a Scottish peck, full of small pieces of good money, of
ancient coin; which halving between them, they sold for dish-fulls of
meal to the country people.’
Dr Grahame, the modern pastor of Aberfoyle, gives us[240] the
traditionary account of the cessation of Mr Kirk’s life, in high
keeping with the style of the mystic world which he endeavoured to
expound. It is stated that, as Mr Kirk was one evening walking in his
night-gown upon one of the fairy mounts above described in the vicinity
of his manse, he sunk down in what seemed to be a fit of apoplexy,
which the unenlightened took for death, while the more understanding
knew it to be a swoon produced by the supernatural influence of the
people whose precincts he had violated. After the ceremony of a seeming
funeral, the form of Mr Kirk appeared to a relation, and commanded
him to go to Graham of Duchray, who was the cousin of both, and tell
him: ‘I am not dead, but a captive in Fairyland, and only one chance
remains for my liberation. At the baptism of my posthumous child, I
will appear in the room, when, if Duchray shall throw over my head the
knife or durk which he holds in his hand, I may be restored to society;
but if this opportunity is neglected, I am lost for ever.’ Duchray
was apprised of what was to be done. The ceremony took place, and the
apparition of Mr Kirk was seen while they were seated at table; but
Duchray, in his astonishment, failed to perform the ceremony enjoined;
consequently, Mr Kirk was left to ‘drie his weird’ in Fairyland.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 22.]
The death of the Rev. John Burnet, minister of Kilbride, is noted as
arising from an extraordinary cause, though the immediate disease was
jaundice. He ‘had a son lately dead before him, and seeing his son
dissected, and the physicians finding fault with his noble [vital]
parts, [the father] presently apprehends a faultiness in his own,
which apprehension stuck with him even to his death, which physicians
took to be the cause of his sickness; so strong is the power of
apprehension.’--_Law._
[Sidenote: 1673.]
Died this year, by a fall from a horse, at Tangier in Morocco, John
Earl of Middleton, governor of that establishment. Of a family of the
minor gentry in Kincardineshire, he had entered life as a pikeman
in Hepburn’s regiment in France, but soon was called to take part
in the civil wars of his own country, serving first the English
parliament and Scottish Estates, and afterwards proving an active and
vigorous partisan of the king. His preferment after the Restoration
as commissioner to the Scottish parliament, and his magnificent but
drunken administration, with all the ills that flowed from it, are part
of our national history. He is said by a contemporary to have been a
man of ‘heroic aspect,’ of ‘manly eloquence,’ ‘happier in his wit than
in his friends;’ of ‘natural courage and generosity;’ ‘more pitied in
his fall than envied in his prosperity.’[241] Though disgraced, the
king could not entirely desert one who had risked and done so much for
him in his worst days; so he appointed him governor of Tangier--a civil
kind of banishment, in which, we see, he died.
[Sidenote: 1673.]
It is scarcely wonderful that a man who went through such changes of
fortune and so many strange adventures--taken prisoner at both Preston
and Worcester, and escaping on both occasions from captivity--should
have been the subject of some of the mystical speculations of his age.
Aubrey relates: ‘Sir William Dugdale informed me that Major-general
Middleton (since Lord) went into the Highlands of Scotland, to
endeavour to make a party for King Charles the First. An old gentleman
that was second-sighted, came and told him that his endeavour was
good, but he would be unsuccessful, and, moreover, that they would
put the king to death, and that several other attempts would be made,
but all in vain: his son would come in, but not reign, but at last be
restored.’ A second tale is told by Law and Wodrow,[242] and repeated
by Aubrey, with slight variations, but to the following general
purport: Being in the army of the Duke of Hamilton in 1648, he had for
his comrade there a certain Laird of Balbegno, who seems to have been
the neighbour of his family in Kincardineshire.[243] A few days before
an expected battle, Middleton and Balbegno had a conversation about the
risks they should run in fight, and agreed that, if one should die,
leaving the other in life, he should return, if possible, and give the
survivor some account of the other world. Balbegno fell in the battle.
Middleton thought no more of the promise of his deceased friend, till
some time after, when a prisoner in the Tower of London, and in some
fear for his life, he one night was sitting alone in a room, ‘under
three locks,’ and with two sentinels outside the door. Chancing to read
a little in the Bible, he had no sooner closed the volume than, looking
towards the door, he saw a human figure standing there in the shadow
of his bed. ‘He called out: “Who is there?” The apparition answered:
“Balbegno.” “That cannot be,” said Middleton, “for I saw him buried
after he was slain in battle!” “Oh, Middleton,” said Balbegno, “do you
not mind the promise I made to you when at such a place, such a night,
on the Border?” and with that came forward and took him by the hand.’
Middleton, in narrating the circumstances, declared that Balbegno’s
hand ‘was hot and soft, just as it used to be, and he in his ordinary
likeness.’ Instead of giving him any intelligence regarding the dead,
the spirit told him he should make his escape in three days--he should
in time be a great man--but let him beware of his end! When Balbegno
had delivered this message, he, according to Aubrey, gave a frisk, and
said:
‘Givanni, Givanni, ’tis very strange
In the world to see so sudden a change!‘[244]
and then vanished. In three days, accordingly, Middleton escaped in
his wife’s clothes. He did afterwards become a great man, and his end
was tragical, for, ‘upon a certain time, he proving a young horse, was
cast off by him, and in the fall hurt himself exceedingly, so that he
sickens and dies of it.’[245]--_Law._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1674.
JAN.]
[Sidenote: 1674.]
At this time commenced a stormy period which was long memorable in
Scotland. It opened with a tempest of east wind, which strewed the
coasts of Northumberland and Berwickshire with wrecks. During February,
the rough weather continued; and at length, on the 20th of the month,
a heavy fall of snow, accompanied by vehement frost, set in, which
lasted for thirteen days. This was afterwards remembered by the name
of the _Thirteen Drifty Days_. There was no decided improvement of
the weather till the 29th of March. ‘All fresh waters was frozen as
if in the midst of winter; all ploughing and delving of the ground
was marred till the aforesaid day; much loss of sheep by the snow,
and of whole families in the moor country and highlands; much loss of
cows everywhere, also of wild beasts, as doe and roe.’--_Law._ This
storm seems to have fallen with greatest severity upon the Southern
Highlands. It is stated in the council books of Peebles, that ‘the most
part of the country lost the most part of their sheep and many of their
nolt, and many all their sheep. It was universal, and many people were
almost starved for want of fuel for fire.’
James Hogg has given a traditionary account of the calamity.[246] ‘It
is said that for thirteen days and nights, the snow-drift never once
abated: the ground was covered with frozen snow when it commenced, and
during all that time the sheep never broke their fast. The cold was
intense to a degree never before remembered; and about the fifth and
sixth days of the storm, the young sheep began to fall into a sleepy
and torpid state, and all that were affected in the evening died
over-night. The intensity of the frost wind often cut them off when
in that state quite instantaneously. About the ninth and tenth days,
the shepherds began to build up huge semicircular walls of their dead,
in order to afford some shelter for the remainder of the living; but
they availed but little, for about the same time they were frequently
seen tearing at one another’s wool with their teeth. When the storm
abated on the fourteenth day from its commencement, there was, on many
a high-lying farm, not a living sheep to be seen. Large mis-shapen
walls of dead, surrounding a small prostrate flock, likewise all dead,
and frozen stiff in their lairs, was all that remained to cheer the
forlorn shepherd and his master; and though on low-lying farms, where
the snow was not so hard before, numbers of sheep weathered the storm,
yet their constitutions received such a shock that the greater part of
them perished afterwards, and the final consequence was, that about
nine-tenths of all the sheep in the south of Scotland were destroyed.
[Sidenote: 1674.]
‘In the extensive pastoral district of Eskdale Moor, which maintains
upwards of 20,000 sheep, it is said none were left alive but forty
young wedders on one farm, and five old ewes on another. The farm of
Phaup remained without a stock and without a tenant for twenty years
subsequent to the storm. At length, one very honest and liberal-minded
man ventured to take a lease of it, at the annual rent of a _gray coat
and a pair of hose_. It is now rented at £500. An extensive glen in
Tweedsmuir, belonging to Sir James Montgomery, became a common at that
time to which any man drove his flocks that pleased, and it continued
so for nearly a century. On one of Sir Patrick Scott of Thirlestane’s
farms, that keeps upwards of 900 sheep, they all died save one black
ewe, from which the farmer had high hopes of preserving a breed; but
some unlucky dogs, that were all laid idle for want of sheep to run at,
fell upon this poor solitary remnant of a good stock, and chased her
into the lake, where she was drowned.’
The _Thirteen Drifty Days_ are the means of bringing the ill-fated Duke
of Monmouth before us in an extraordinary relation of circumstances.
He and his duchess, in December 1675, obtained a licence to import
4800 nolt of a year old, and 200 horses, ‘to be employed in stocking
their waste lands in the south part of this kingdom,’ the bringing in
of live-stock from Ireland being then forbidden by act of parliament.
Walter Scott of Minto, sheriff-depute of Roxburghshire, became caution
that the licence should not be exceeded. But 120 of the oxen were
proved to have been above a year old; and the Council, accordingly
(August 3, 1676), fined Scott in £200 sterling.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: FEB. 19.]
[Sidenote: 1674.]
Agnes Johnston, of Airth in Stirlingshire, an unmarried woman about
fifty years of age, was tried in Edinburgh for the murder of an infant
named Lamb, her own grand-niece. Living with the parents of the
deceased, she took an opportunity, when there was nobody in the house
but herself and the child, to take the infant out of its cradle, lay it
in a bed, and cut its throat. The confession of the wretched woman bore
that, for some time before she committed the deed, she felt a spirit
within her _that did draw her neck together_, and which frequently
tempted her to make away with herself. Once she actually did attempt to
drown herself in a well at Clackmannan; but she cried to a woman near
by, who helped her out. She had never told any one of her temptations,
_nor had she power to tell_; but, her fits being thought fictitious by
her relatives, and they having consequently threatened to turn her out
of their house, she had in revenge resolved to destroy their child.
Agnes, who would now be regarded as a person under hallucinations,
expiated her sad act two days after in the Grassmarket.[247]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: FEB.]
Law, in noting the death of an eminent physician at this time, mentions
the death, some time before, of another, Dr Purves, from _an extreme
cold_, and because he ‘could not be kept in heat,’ ‘God letting us see
that all means applied for our health without his blessing them, are
ineffectual.’ Another writer of this age adverts to a Mr Dalgliesh,
‘curate’ of Parton, who ‘was so chilly, that he wore twenty fold of
cloth on him all the year, and furs on his head day and night.’[248]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAR. 4.]
An act of grace towards the Presbyterians, passed at this time with
the hope of conciliating them, had the effect of encouraging that
disposition to private religious meetings, or conventicles, which for
some years had given the government so much trouble. ‘From that day
Scotland broke loose with conventicles of all sorts, in houses, fields,
and vacant churches.... In Merse, Teviotdale, the Borders, Annandale,
Nithsdale, Clydesdale, Lothian, Stirlingshire, Perthshire, Lennox,
Fife, they fixed so many posts in the fields, mosses, muirs, and
mountains, where multitudes gathered almost every Sabbath,’ until the
time of Bothwell Bridge. ‘At these meetings, many a soul was converted
to Christ, but far more turned from the bishops to profess themselves
Presbyterians. The parish churches of the curates [that is, the regular
parish clergy] came to be like pest-houses; few went to any of them,
none to some, so the doors were kept locked. The discourse up and down
Scotland was the quality and success of last Sabbath’s conventicle,
who the preachers were, what the number of the people was, what the
affections of the people; how sometimes the soldiers assaulted them,
and sometimes killed some of them; sometimes the soldiers were beaten,
and some of them killed.’
[Sidenote: 1674.]
There appears to have been a band of about forty ministers who set
the government at defiance in this manner, most of them young and
active men. In the large towns, house conventicles prevailed; but
in the country, ‘the people had a sort of affectation to the fields
above houses.’ There came to be a regularity in these affairs; when
the people in a rural district wished to have a conventicle minister,
they sent to town to engage one. Danger made the congregations come
armed. ‘Not many gentlemen of estates durst come, but many ladies,
gentlewomen and commons, came in good multitudes. Wonderful conversions
followed upon the sermons. People discovered their own secret scandals.
Sometimes people of age bemoaned their want of baptism, and received
it at these occasions. Sometimes a curate would come, and after the
first sermon, stand up and profess his repentance, and afterwards would
consecrate himself to that work by a solemn field-preaching. So the
work of the gospel advanced in Scotland for several years.’--_Kir._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 4.]
[Sidenote: 1674.]
A strange scene was presented in the Parliament Close in Edinburgh.
As the members of the Council approached their house of meeting, they
found fifteen ladies prepared to present a petition, ‘desiring that
a gospel ministry might be presented for the starving congregations
of Scotland.’ There were present amongst them the widows of Mr Robert
Blair and Mr John Neave, noted as entirely ‘faithful’ clergymen during
the troubles; Lady Crimond, a daughter of Johnston of Warriston; a
sister-in-law of the Laird of Dundas and a sister of the Earl of
Melville; the rest being generally the wives of Edinburgh citizens.
Seeing it was dangerous for men to appear in the form of remonstrants,
these ladies had volunteered to undertake the duty. The singularity
of the occasion had brought together a crowd, which filled the close,
and which is said to have comprised a large proportion of the fair
sex. The press was so great and so tumultuous around the councillors,
that they could scarcely make their way to the council-house. As the
chancellor descended from his coach, Archbishop Sharpe went close
behind him, fearing bodily harm. It is alleged by Sir George Mackenzie
that a design for doing some serious injury to the primate was entered
into on this occasion, and that the ladies were to ‘set upon him’ when
a certain member of the corps should raise her hand as a signal; but
this would need confirmation. He was saluted with reproaches and cries
of Judas! and Traitor! but the only approach to personal violence
was a slap on the neck from one of the sisterhood, who at the same
time took leave to tell him that _that_ (meaning the neck) should
yet pay for it ere all was done! One of the ladies, presenting her
petition to the chancellor, he received it with a courteous salute, and
listened to her with an inclined head till he got to the door of the
council-chamber. Lord Stair tossed his copy to the ground, whereupon
the fair petitioner reminded him he had not acted in that manner with
the famous Remonstrance of 1651, which he helped to pen.
The Council took this matter in high dudgeon. They resented the
personal disrespect of the scene in the Parliament Close, and they
denounced the matter of the petition as tending to stir up hatred
against his majesty’s government. For one thing, it ‘most falsely and
scandalously bears that they [the supplicants] had long been deprived
of the inestimable blessing of the public worship and ordinances of
God, whereas it is notour that his majesty’s subjects do enjoy [those
blessings] in great purity and peace, [there being] ane orderly
ministry authorised and countenanced and established by law.’ In
short, it was a seditious libel, calling for sharp punishment. Two
of the ladies being brought before the Council, refused to take an
oath or give evidence; the rest failed to appear on citation. The
whole were put to the horn as rebels, and three suffered a short
confinement.--_Kir._ _P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1674.]
The Macleans had been a loyal clan, fighting with Montrose for the
king, and suffering not a little in the royal cause. What the Campbells
had been during the same period need not be particularised. Yet, when
the clemency of the government had restored the Argyle estates to the
earl, he was not the less disposed on that account to urge certain
claims of his family upon its more loyal neighbours. Fountainhall
speaks of them as ‘patched-up claims and decreets of his own courts
for contumacy;’ while the fact was that the Macleans durst not make
appearance in the grounds of their enemy, ‘and pretended casualties
of superiority, as escheats, wards, non-entries, reliefs, &c.,’ a
particularly hard case, as these arose in many instances from the
deaths of Macleans in the king’s service, while their superior, the
late Marquis of Argyle, had been ‘the great transgressor.’ Argyle,
however, according to the alleged genius of his family in that age,
‘walked warily in all he did,’ and, the Macleans imprudently despising
his efforts, and neglecting legal measures of resistance, he succeeded
ultimately in obtaining a letter of fire and sword against them.[249]
Behold, then, in the summer of this year, a clan muster of the
Campbells and their connections, to the amount of 2000 men, designed
to enforce certain payments from the Tutor of Maclean in Mull--the
Maclean of the day being a minor under the care of an uncle so called.
The Tutor, on his part, has seven or eight hundred kilted followers to
make resistance; but either his means were inadequate, or his measures
had been ill concerted. The earl ‘besetting the isle with ships and
boats, enters at three several places; at one place, Lord Niel, the
earl’s brother, lights upon the cows which the Highlanders had driven
to that place for safety, and caused cut down and hough [hamstring]
a considerable number of them; which occasioned a great cry by the
women and children keeping them, and running to their husbands and
friends to acquaint them how it stood; whereupon the islanders, being
amazed, fainted and came to a composition of the matter. The earl gets
the castle of Duart into his own hand, and mans it for himself. They
all yield and submit, and promise payment and subjection to the said
earl.’--_Law._ See further transactions next year.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT.]
There was no shearing this year till October, and much of the corn
green when cut even then. Consequently, meal, though of bad quality,
went to a pound sterling the boll. ‘Yet there was not any time cows
found fatter than in this harvest, and no scarcity either of cows or
sheep for slaughter. Thus the Lord, who casts down with one hand, lifts
up with the other.’--_Law._
[Sidenote: 1674.]
It is rather surprising that sheep and cattle should so quickly have
become plentiful after the great destruction of such stock from the
storms of the preceding January. But in as far as the fact was true,
the good condition of the animals might be readily accounted for by
the very humidity of the summer and autumn, producing an abundance of
herbage, while destructive to cereal crops.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1675.]
The winter of 1674-5 is stated to have been singularly mild and free of
rain in Ireland, and probably it was of the same character in Scotland.
In our country, as in Ireland, there was a good harvest; yet victual
continued to be dear by reason of the stock of the preceding scanty
season being so thoroughly exhausted. Another winter of extraordinary
mildness followed. The weather, at the end of November and beginning of
December, is described as very warm. Many people fell sick, and died.
A feverish cold--what might now be called influenza--was epidemic in
town and country, ‘whereof moe die than was observed in other years
before.’--_Law._
Patrick Walker tells us that one night in August of this year, but
more probably the fact occurred in 1674, Mr Donald Cargill, being at
Cowhill in Livingstone parish, saw a great mist come on, and told the
family to be careful of it, keeping close within their houses. He also
desired them to mark where it stood thickest, ‘for there they would
see the effects saddest.’ There was a small place called Craigs, where
they observed the mist unusually thick, and, within four months after,
thirty persons died there. It is probable that Mr Donald’s predictions
in this case were founded upon simple observation of natural facts.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP.]
The Macleans having failed in their agreement with the Earl of Argyle,
and set his claims at nought, his lordship now prepared a second
expedition against Mull, and this time he added to his own forces
some regular soldiers and militia. The Macleans, on the other hand,
had obtained assistance to a considerable amount from Macdonnell of
Glengarry, Cameron of Locheil, and Maclean of Lochbuy. There were
probably not less than fifteen hundred armed Highlanders on each side.
[Sidenote: 1675.]
The Campbells, proceeding in a great fleet of ships and _birlins_,
under the command of the earl’s brother, Lord Niel, encountered a
severe storm on the 21st and 22d of September, by which they were
damaged and driven back, though fortunately no lives were lost. ‘This
storm was so great, that ... great oaks were blown up by the roots ...
old trees of two hundred years standing broken in the midst ... and
the corns so shaken, that the people got little more than straw to
cut down. A rumour went that there was a witch-wife, named Muddock,
had promised to the Macleans that, so long as she lived, the Earl of
Argyle should not enter Mull; and indeed many of the people imputed the
rise of that great storm unto her paction with the devil, how true I
cannot assert.’--_Law._ Might not the autumnal equinox somewhat better
account for the fact?
The Earl of Argyle was so far baffled by this storm, that he had to
give up for the meantime the design of vindicating his rights by force.
We find next year the cause of the Macleans taken up by the Earl of
Seaforth, the Marquis of Athole, and some other chiefs, by whose
means a suspension of Argyle’s powers was obtained, and his account
subjected to a severe reckoning, ‘which he was most averse to.’ They
also hounded out a creditor of his own upon him, and he was obliged to
make a precipitate retreat from Edinburgh to escape caption, and to
carry off the furniture of his Stirling mansion to a secure place in
the Highlands, lest it should be seized for the debt.
The earl and the Macleans are found next year again at legal tilt, but
with no particular result that appears. His own forfeiture for treason,
which soon after occurred, probably saved them from further annoyance.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1676.]
The winter of 1675-6 being singularly mild, was followed by a
favourable spring, and there consequently was an abundant harvest.
The characteristic mutability of our climate was, however, shewn
immediately after. There was a drought in latter autumn, and about
the 18th of December the temperature fell to an extraordinary degree,
‘the most aged never remembered the like. The birds fell down frae the
air dead; the rats in numbers found dead; all liquors froze, even the
strongest ale; and the distilled waters of apothecaries in warm rooms
froze in whole, and the glasses broke.’--_Law._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JAN.]
[Sidenote: 1676.]
Two boys, named Clark and Ramsay, the one seventeen, and the other
fifteen years of age, suffered in Edinburgh for an offence which had
perhaps been suggested by the rumours attending the celebrated case of
the Marchioness de Brinvilliers. John Anderson, a merchant, the master
of Ramsay, had long been pining under an enfeebling malady, which was
likely to have in time brought him to the grave. During his sickness,
Ramsay, in conjunction with his companion Clark, purloined several
articles of value belonging to his master, trusting that he would die,
and that consequently no discovery would take place. Finding Anderson’s
disease taking a turn, the young thieves became alarmed; and took into
counsel another boy named Kennedy, an apothecary’s apprentice, who
supplied them with a drug calculated to keep up the malady under which
Anderson had suffered. The man receiving this in small doses, grew ill
again, and in time died. No suspicion of foul play was entertained, and
apparently the two lads would have been allowed to remain unnoticed, if
they had not offered for sale a gold chain which formed part of their
plunder. Being detained and questioned, they fell into such terror,
that an ingenuous confession of their guilt was easily obtained from
them, accompanied with many expressions of sorrow. They were hanged,
‘both in regard to the theft clearly proven, and for terror that the
Italian trick of sending men to the other world in figs and possets
might not come over seas to our island.’ Kennedy, ‘an outed minister’s
son,’ was detained for want of proof, and ultimately banished.--_Foun._
Wodrow adds a tale of wonder, as told him by his mother-in-law, Mrs
Warner, who had visited the two boys in prison. After the burial of
Anderson, his nephew, Sir John Clerk of Pennycuick, ‘was one night
lying in his own house, in a room with some others, sleeping. In his
sleep he imagined he heard a voice calling to him: “Avenge the blood of
your uncle!” and wakened, and asked if any of them had been speaking
to him. They declared not. He composed himself to sleep, and had it
repeated; and he asked the former question the second time, and those
in the room denied, as above. He slept again, and had the same repeated
the third time; on which he got up, and went immediately to Edinburgh
and made a particular inquiry into the circumstances of his uncle’s
death, at the two apprentices, but found nothing to fix on at this
time. In a little, Sir John met with a medal in a goldsmith’s shop
which he knew to belong to his uncle. This he traced up till he landed
it on the apprentices, who, upon this, confessed they had opened their
master’s cabinet and taken out money, &c.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1676.]
Mr James Mitchell, who made an attempt on Archbishop Sharpe’s life in
1668, and wounded the Bishop of Orkney, was taken prisoner in February
1674, and being subjected to examination, and promised his life if he
would confess, did make a confession--which, however, he afterwards
retracted before the Court of Justiciary, having in the interval been
told that nothing could be proved against him, and warned that perhaps
the promise made to him might not be respected. This conduct put the
government to a difficulty, and irritated them the more against him.
At length, after keeping him in a very hard confinement for two years,
they resolved to subject him to the torture, as the only means left to
bring him back to his confession.
It is not proposed here to detail the sufferings of the wretched
Mitchell; but those who know the courts of law, as they now exist,
will probably view with some interest the arrangements that were made
beforehand for that kind of procedure.
[Sidenote: JAN. 6.]
The resolution having been formed to put Mitchell to the torture of
the _boot_, the Council ‘do hereby nominate the Earls of Linlithgow,
Wigton, Seaforth, the Lords Ross and Treasurer Depute as a committee
of Council to meet on the 24th day of January next, at nine o’clock in
the forenoon in the Parliament House, where the justices do ordinarily
hold their courts, and to cause put the said Mr James Mitchell to the
question and torture concerning his being in the rebellion in the year
1666, and appoints the commissioners of justiciary in a fenced court to
be present then and assistant, in their robes, with their clerks and
other officers of court; and recommends to the said committee, or any
three of them with the commissioners of justiciary, to meet before that
time and consider of the way and manner of the said torture,’ &c.
The Council afterwards ordered that a bailie of Edinburgh should be
present, ‘to receive and put in execution such orders as the lords
shall think fit to give.’--_P. C. R._
The unfortunate Mitchell sustained the torture with surprising
firmness, and without making any admission criminative of himself.
A proposal being afterwards made to torture him in the other leg,
one of his friends (so the report went) dropped an anonymous hint to
Archbishop Sharpe, that if he persisted in the resolution, _he should
have a shot from a steadier hand_; ‘whereupon he was let alone, but
still kept in prison.’--_Law._ At length the unhappy man was brought to
a regular trial, when the state-officers all denied in the witness-box
that fact of the promise of life upon confession, which their own
record bore, and which Mitchell alleged had taken place. It is just
possible that the record misrepresented what took place; but it is very
difficult to make so largely charitable an allowance. Mitchell suffered
in the Grassmarket (January 1678).
[Sidenote: 1676.
JULY 9.]
‘A star was seen at twelve hours of the day by a great company of
people met for sermon on Gargunnock Hills, and that when the sun was
shining.’--_Law._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP.]
One John Scott, a Quaker in Leith, was fined by Bailie Carmichael
there, in a hundred dollars, and banished from the town, for brewing
upon the Sunday, and answering, when challenged for it by the bailie
and Mr Hamilton the minister, that ‘he might as weel brew on the Sunday
as Mr Hamilton might take money for going up to a desk, and talking
and throwing water upon a bairn’s face.’ He appealed to the Privy
Council against the sentence as over-severe and beyond the power of the
magistrate; but ‘he was ill set, for he had both the magistracy and the
clergy--who solicited strongly--against him, for both of them would be
baffled if the sentence were found unjust. The Council ratified the
bailie’s sentence ... whereupon Bailie Carmichael arrested and seized
eighty bolls of malt, the said Scott had paid ten or eleven pound the
boll for, when victual was dear, and caused apprise and judge it to
him, for his hundred dollars.’--_Foun._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC.]
For several years there had been a remarkable lull in the spiritual
world, and, whether from the judicious mildness of the government
in ordering that no women should be condemned for witchcraft except
upon voluntary confession, or any other cause, witch cases had wholly
ceased. All at once, the devil’s work recommenced, and a series of
dismal tragedies ensued. It seems to have been primarily owing to a
vagrant girl named Janet Douglas, who appeared deaf and dumb, and who
may be reasonably set down as one of those singular young persons
who, acting under a morbid love of mischief, have at the same time
marvellous powers of deception. Whether she was the same person who
figures in the anecdote below,[250] we have no means of ascertaining.
[Sidenote: 1676.]
Sir George Maxwell of Pollock had for some weeks been very unwell,
with a pain in his side and one in his shoulder. The illness had
first come upon him suddenly in the night, when at Glasgow, in the
form of a violent heat, attended with pain. At the time noted in the
margin, Janet Douglas came to the neighbouring village, and began
to frequent Pollock House. Attracting the attention of Sir George’s
sister and daughter, she endeavoured to apprise them by signs that, at
a certain cottage not far off, there was a picture of wax turning at
a fire; and she expressed in her imperfect way a wish that a couple
of men should go with her thither. Lady Maxwell, not being inclined
to superstition, would have denied the girl’s request; but the two
other gentlewomen consented. So Janet went away with two men-servants,
and straight conducted them to the cottage of an old woman of evil
fame, named Janet Mathie, whose son the laird had some time before
imprisoned for stealing his fruit. ‘She going in with the men, the
woman on some occasion stepping to the door, the dumb lass instantly
put her hand behind the chimney, and takes out a picture of wax wrapped
in a linen cloth, gives it to the men; away they all come with it,
and let the gentlewomen see it. They find two pins stuck in the right
side of it, and a pin on the shoulder downward, which they take out,
and keeps quiet; and that night the laird had good rest, and mended
afterward, though slowly, for he was sore brought down in his body: and
in two or three days they made him understand the matter. The woman
is apprehended, and laid up in prison in Paisley.’ On being searched,
several _witch-marks_--that is, spots insensible to pain--were found
upon her.
[Sidenote: 1677.]
On the 4th of January, Sir George’s illness recurred with the same
violence as before, and his face assumed the leaden hue of death.
Amidst the anxieties which this occasioned, the dumb girl sent to
inform the family that John Stewart, Mathie’s son, had made a new
image of clay, for the purpose of taking away Sir George’s life. Two
gentlemen went next day with the girl to Mathie’s cottage, and keeping
her at a distance, but acting under her directions, found such an image
under the bolster of a bed, with three pins sticking in it. The young
man and his sister Annaple were immediately apprehended. From that day,
it was said that Sir George began to recover his health.
[Sidenote: 1677.]
Stewart at first denied all concern in the images, but, on witch-marks
being found on his person, he was ‘confounded,’ and joined his sister
in a confession, which described witch-conventions in their mother’s
house, along with ‘a man dressed in black, with a blue band and white
hand-cuffs, with hoggars over his bare feet, which were cloven!’ Three
women of the neighbourhood, Bessie Weir, Margaret Jackson, and Marjory
Craig, were accordingly apprehended and examined, when the second
gave a confession to much the same effect, but the other two proved
‘obdurate.’
In the subsequent judicial proceedings, Annaple Stewart gave a clear
statement regarding the making of the first wax image in October last
in the presence of the Black Man, her mother, and the other three
women. They bound it on a spit, and turned it round before the fire,
saying: ‘Sir George Pollock! Sir George Pollock!’ The young man, who
was not then at home, had returned and been present at the making of
the second image in January. ‘After he had gone to bed, the Black Man
came in, and called him quietly by his name, upon which he arose from
the bed and put on his clothes. Margaret Jackson, Bessie Weir, and
Marjory Craig did enter in at the window in the gable.... The first
thing that the Black Man required was that he should renounce his
baptism and deliver up himself wholly unto him, putting one of his
hands on the crown of his head, and the other to the sole of his foot
... promising he should not want any pleasure, and that he should get
his heart sythe on all that should do him wrong. [All having given
their consent to the making of the clay image, which was meant as a
revenge for Sir George Maxwell taking away his mother], they wrought
the clay, and the Black Man did make the head and face, and the two
arms. The devil set three pins in the same, one in each side, and one
in the breast; and John did hold the candle all the time the picture
was making.... The picture was placed by Bessie Weir in his bed-straw.’
On this occasion, they had all had nicknames given them by the devil,
who himself bore the name of Ejool.[251]
It is noted that when the girl, after confession in bed in Pollock
House, was asked what the devil’s name had been to her, ‘she, being
about to tell, was stopped, the bed being made to shake, and her
clothes under her blown up with a wind.’
[Sidenote: 1677.]
When the two young people had been committed to Paisley prison, Janet,
their mother, desired to see her son, and the request being granted,
‘they make a third and new picture of clay, which the dumb lass again
discovers.’ It was supposed that this was intended for Sir George’s
daughter-in-law, who had taken an active interest in detecting the
diabolic conspiracy, and who fell ill about this time.
In consideration of her nonage and penitency, Annaple Stewart was not
brought to trial, though retained in prison. On the 15th of February,
the rest of the party were tried and condemned, Janet Mathie, Bessie
Weir, and Marjory Craig continuing to deny their guilt to the last.
The obduracy of Mathie was considered the more horrible, as her two
children seriously exhorted her to confession, Annaple with tears
reminding her of her many meetings with the devil, but all in vain. The
four women and the boy actually suffered in Paisley (20th February).
Mathie was first hanged, and then burned, along with the wax and clay
effigies. When Weir, the last of the four, was turned off the gallows,
‘there appears a raven, and approaches the hangman within an ell of
him, and flies away again.’--_Law._
[Sidenote: 1677.]
It is perhaps the most singular fact regarding this case, that the
particulars of it are narrated with all seriousness by Sir George’s
son and successor, Sir John Maxwell, who was subsequently Lord
Justice-clerk--that is, supreme criminal judge in Scotland. He
intimates not the least doubt of any of the facts, neither of any of
the popular inferences from them. Other intelligent men in that age
were struck by the manner in which the doings of the witches were
detected, and Janet Douglas was for some time the subject of general
attention. In the same month which saw the witches done to death on
Paisley green, she detected a similar conspiracy against Mr Hugh
Smith, the minister of Eastwood, who ‘was much afflicted with pain and
sweating, to the changing of half-a-dozen shirts some days, and was
brought very low, but after the discovery, and the effigy gotten, and
the prins taken out, grew well again.’ It was given out regarding the
girl, that she understood any language in which she was addressed.
When she had somewhat recovered the use of her own tongue, which was
about two months after these events, she told that three years before,
she had had ‘an impression on her spirit’ to come to Pollock. ‘Being
asked how she had knowledge of detecting witches and other secrets,
she declared that she knew not from what spirit; only things were
suggested to her; but denied that she had any correspondence with
Satan.’--_Law._ According to Sir John Lauder, she stated that ‘she
had all things revealed to her in her sleep by vision.’ This learned
gentleman adds: ‘What made her very suspect to be haunted only by a
familiar, was her dissolute idle life, having ... not so much as a show
or semblance of piety in it, but much lightness and vanity.’[252]
The Privy Council, hearing much rumour of these things from the west,
sent orders to search for and apprehend Janet Douglas, and she was
brought to Edinburgh in May, and lodged in the Canongate Tolbooth.
People flocked to see her, and she began to exercise her art of
witch-finding amongst them, but with no particular effect. In June,
nevertheless, five or six women of the west, whom she had detected
in killing Hamilton of Barns by a wax image, were burned for their
imaginary crime at Dumbarton. Next month we find a reference to her in
another case.
[Sidenote: 1677.]
Two sons of Douglas of Barloch having been drowned in crossing a river
at one time, the father was induced by Janet Douglas to believe that
the calamity was an effect of witchcraft. Barloch consequently caused
John Gray, Janet M‘Nair, Thomas and Mary Mitchell, to be apprehended
and carried to Stirling Tolbooth. There, ‘their bodies being searched
by the _ordinar_ pricker, there were witch-marks found upon each of
them, and Janet M‘Nair confessed that she got these marks from the grip
of a grim black man, and had a great pain for a time thereafter.’ After
keeping these four persons in jail on his own charges for fourteen
weeks, Barloch found the expense more than he was able to undergo,
‘being but a gentleman of a mean fortune;’ and on his petition, the
Council ordered (July 5, 1677) that the magistrates of Stirling should
in the meantime ‘entertein the prisoners.’ Against this ordinance, the
magistrates immediately reclaimed, ‘seeing it is a great burden to the
town, who have so many other contingencies to undergo;’ and the lords,
reconsidering the matter, commissioned the Lairds of Kier, Touch, and
Herbertshire, to examine the prisoners, and ‘try what they find anent
these persons’ guilt of the crime of witchcraft, and report.’
What was ultimately done with the four Stirling prisoners, we do not
learn. As to Janet Douglas, the Council began to feel that she was
something of an inconvenience in the country; so they determined to
banish her beyond seas. At first, no skipper could be found who was
willing to take her in his vessel; some were disposed to set sail
without a pass, to avoid being compelled to take such a dangerous
commodity on board. But Janet was ultimately banished and heard of no
more.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1676-7.]
Lord Fountainhall notes a remarkable homicide as taking place this
winter, at the village of Abernethy in Fife. A butcher and another man,
sitting in an ale-house together, quarrelled, and in a sudden fit of
passion, the butcher inflicted a mortal stab upon his companion. Some
gentlemen sitting in a neighbouring room heard the fray, and, rushing
in, found the butcher with the bloody knife in his hand. Excited by the
atrocity of the deed, they hurried off the murderer to the regality
gallows, and instantly hanged him, though they had no sort of authority
to act in that manner. They probably acted upon a popular notion, that
a murderer taken _red-hand_, or fresh from the act, may be instantly
done to death by the bystanders; which appears, however, to be a
mistake.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1677.
JAN.]
The celebrated Beau Fielding is supposed to have at this time paid a
visit to Edinburgh, while in difficulties on account of his suspected
share in the murder of Robert Perceval--a young libertine found dead
one morning near the Maypole in the Strand. He and two Scotch gentlemen
of his own sort, being met one evening at their cups in a house in
Edinburgh, were reputed to have drunk three toasts, ‘horrid to think
on’--namely, the Trinity, their own confusion, and the devil.--_Law._
The allegation is but too credible, for about this time there begins
to appear an extreme form of profligacy and impiety--confined, indeed,
to a few of the upper classes--such as had never before been known in
Scotland.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JAN. 18.]
[Sidenote: 1677.]
The system formerly adopted for keeping peace and maintaining law
in the Highlands--namely, the making heads of clans answerable for
their dependents and inferiors--was now declared to have been found
not to answer, ‘in respect the said duty doth lie upon many persons
in general, and no person doth make it his work.’ Consequently,
‘the insolency and villainy of thieves, sorners, and other wicked
and lawless persons do abound and increase, to the affront of our
authority and oppression of the lieges.’ The government therefore
deemed it necessary to try the effect of a different plan, and
granted a commission to Sir James Campbell of Lawers to use means for
apprehending thieves and broken men in the Highlands, in order that
they might be brought to justice. It was also arranged that when any
cattle or other property was stolen, Sir James should make restitution
to the owners, only taking them bound to support him in the legal
processes by which he should endeavour to rescue the goods from the
thieves, and get due punishment inflicted. All sheriffs, chiefs,
landlords, and others were enjoined to assist and countenance Sir James
in this thief-taking commission.
Eneas Lord Macdonald was afterwards conjoined with Sir James Campbell;
and for his service during the year ending the 1st of September 1677,
Sir James was ordered the sum of _one hundred and fifty pounds!_ But
this seems to have been regarded as rather scanty remuneration, and it
was (September 8, 1677) decreed that for the fture there should be a
salary of two hundred pounds to ‘ilk ane of the said two persons.’
As necessary to support the two gentlemen in their task, a garrison of
a hundred soldiers was sent to Inverlochy, care being previously taken
to have dwellings built for them, ‘as the house there is altogether
out of repair and unlodgeable.’ The Marquis of Huntly and the Laird of
Grant were called upon to exert themselves to convince the minor chiefs
in their several districts that the government was now determined to
put down the lawless system in the Highlands. It was intimated by other
means that letters of fire and sword would be granted against any
district in which gentler means had been found unavailing.
[Sidenote: 1677.]
In February 1680, James M‘Nab in Achessan represented to the Privy
Council that, being engaged by Sir James Campbell of Lawers to assist
in apprehending Highland robbers, he had, at the hazard of his life,
taken John, Callum, and Duncan M‘Gibbons, and delivered them to the
governor of the garrison at Finlarig--an unusually perilous piece of
duty, for which he had been promised the sum of eight hundred merks,
now refused by Sir James. As a plea at law ‘against a person of such
dexterity’ would have exhausted the reward, he had had no alternative
but to apply to the Council. Sir James was ordered to pay the reward as
claimed.--_P. C. R._
A very compendious view of some of the customs of the Highlanders in
the seventeenth century was given by Mr John Fraser, an Episcopal
minister, author of a _Treatise on Second-Sight_: ‘In general they
were litigious, ready to take arms upon a small occasion, _very
predatory_, much given to tables, carding, and dicing. Their games
was military exercise, and such as rendered them fittest for war, as
arching, running, jumping, with and without race, swimming, continual
hunting and fowling, feasting, especially upon their holidays, the
which they had enough, borrowed from popery. Their marriage and funeral
solemnities were much like [those of] their neighbours in the low
country; only at their funerals, there was fearful howling, screeching,
and crying, with very bitter lamentation, and a complete narration
of the descent of the dead person, the valorous acts of himself and
his predecessors, sung with tune in measure, continual piping, if the
person was of any quality or professing arms. Their chiliarchy had
their ushers that gaed out and came in before them, in full arms. I
cannot pass by a cruel custom that’s hardly yet extinct. They played
at cards or tables (to pass the time in the winter nights) in parties,
perhaps four on a side; the party that lost, was obliged to make his
man sit down on the midst of the floor; then there was a single-soled
shoe, well plated, wherewith his antagonist was to give him [the man]
six strokes on end, upon his bare loof [palm], and the doing of that
with strength and art was thought gallantry.’[253]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: FEB. 1.]
A travelling doctor, styling himself Joannes Baptista Marentini, under
licence from the king, and with the permission of the magistrates of
Edinburgh, had a stage erected in that city, ‘for practising his skill
in physic and otherwise.’ His term of permission being about to expire,
and the magistrates unwilling to renew it, he found it necessary to
apply to the Privy Council for a further term, on the ground that he
needed some more time for effecting the cure of certain persons under
his hands. The Council gratified him with a prolongation till the 1st
of April, in order that, ‘having finished the said undertaken cures, he
may the more freely, and with the greater approbation, depart from this
city to some other.’
[Sidenote: 1677.]
A little case of the heart comes in as a pendant to the above
narrative. Four days after the end of the term assigned in the act of
the Privy Council, James Baynes, wright, came before that august body
with a petition, setting forth how ‘one Monsieur Devoe, servant to
the mountebank who was lately in this place, hath, by sinistrous and
indirect means, secured and enticed the petitioner’s daughter and only
child to desert her parents, and to live with him upon pretence of a
clandestine marriage.’ There being reason to fear that he might escape,
unless very prompt measures were taken, the Council granted warrant to
have the offender imprisoned in the Tolbooth. After escaping from these
matrimonial troubles, Devoe settled in Edinburgh as a dancing-master,
and we shall find his name coming before us several times on other
occasions.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: FEB.]
The deaf and dumb Laird of Duntreath, a noted person in those days,
being at Paisley, ‘made signs to some of great fightings and troubles
to be in the land in a few months.’--_Law._
This gentleman, who was said to be, notwithstanding his deficiencies,
of a very devout frame of mind, had in the preceding December made a
more special divination. ‘There was one of his acquaintance went forth
to a water at a good distance frae him upon the ice, and had fallen
in; and he, at that instant of time, gave warning of it by a sign.’ On
another occasion, when the Dumb Laird was sitting in his own house at
Duntreath, ‘two of his neighbours falling out at two miles’ distance
from him, the one striking the other with a whinger in the arm, he, in
the same instant of time, makes a sign of it.’
It was a general belief that many persons born deaf and dumb possessed
this supposed gift of clairvoyance or second-sight. One, attended by
another man, coming to the Boat of Balloch, at the foot of Loch Lomond,
and seeing a salmon-net drawing in, signed that there were five fish in
it, and one of them with a hook in its mouth, indicating the hook by
crooking his finger and putting it in his cheek. ‘The other man, being
curious to know the truth of it, causes reckon the fishes, and see if
any of them had a hook; and it was found so as it was signed by the
dumb man. He tells the fishers what the dumb man had signed, and they
gave the dumb man one of them.’--_Law._
[Sidenote: 1677.]
At Colzium House, the seat of Sir Archibald Edmondstone of Duntreath,
there is a portrait of his predecessor, the Deaf and Dumb Laird,
presenting an aspect of intelligence much beyond what could have been
anticipated regarding one subject to so great an infirmity. It is a
tradition in the family that, in early life, finding himself much
overlooked on account of his inability to communicate, and being in
particular left at home when the rest went to church, he was found one
day, on the family returning from worship, sitting among the horses
in the stable. When his mother let him know that this conduct excited
surprise, he imparted to her by such means as were at his command,
that, seeing himself treated as if he were something less than a human
being, he had thought it only right and proper that he should place
himself in the society of the animals which had the same deficiency as
himself. The reproach was felt, and he was thenceforth treated more on
a footing of equality, and allowed to go to church with the rest of the
family.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE.]
The public mind being again morbidly excited about witchcraft, the
usual result of a fresh crop of cases--a witch-storm, it may be
called--ensued. In the beginning of this month, a serving-woman, named
Lizzy Mudie, was burnt at Haddington for witchcraft. Her mistress,
Margaret Kirkwood, had hanged herself in her own house on a Sunday
forenoon, while the people were at church. Lizzy on that occasion made
some disturbance, by running aloud over the numbers, one, two, three,
&c., till she came to fifty-nine, when she cried: ‘The turn is done!’
It being found that Margaret Kirkwood, whose age was fifty-nine, had
ended her life at that moment, Lizzy was taken up on suspicion, and
examined for witch-marks. These were found upon her, and she confessed
herself to be a witch. She also _delated_ five other women (two of
them midwives) and a man, as likewise guilty of witchcraft, relating
particular circumstances of their alleged guilt; but they denied all.
Fountainhall says: ‘I did see the man’s body searched and pricked in
two sundry places, one at the ribs, and the other at his shoulder. He
seemed to find pain, but no blood followed.... The marks were bluish,
very small, and had no protuberancy above the skin.’ He adds, with
regard to the official pricker: ‘I remained very dissatisfied with
this way of trial, as most fallacious; and the fellow could give me
no account of the principles of his art, but seemed to be a drunken
foolish rogue.’
[Sidenote: 1677.]
The trade of a pricker of witches, which had some time before been a
regular and a prosperous one, was beginning to fall under suspicion
among the authorities. One Cowan, of Tranent, who had learned the
art from ‘Kincaid, a famous pricker,’[254] was complained of by one
Catherine Liddel, before the Privy Council, about this time, for
subjecting her to the process on suspicion of witchcraft; and he was
by that tribunal condemned to prison during their pleasure. It fully
appears, indeed, that the present rulers of Scotland, while so ruthless
towards religious dissenters, were more enlightened and humane than any
of their predecessors in the matter of necromancy. While introducing
the use of torture in the one case, they discontinued it in the other.
They did, indeed, as we see, still allow of witch prosecutions; but
this perhaps it was beyond their power to resist, and it must be
admitted in their favour that the requirement of voluntary confessions
was a great step in the right direction. On the other hand, the fact of
voluntary confessions being so often made, where death was the certain
consequence, and where a stout denial usually seems to have saved the
accused, is one of a highly remarkable character, and which might give
scope to some interesting speculations. One remark forcibly occurs
regarding such cases, that the accused must have had intentions towards
necromantic results and a full conviction of their possibility, if not
of their occurrence; consequently must have _felt_ guilty.
One of the persons accused by Lizzy Mudie was Marion Phin, a woman of
eighty years of age, living in Haddington. Being consequently thrown
into jail, she lay there three months in a most miserable condition,
suffering much, we presume, from the severity of the treatment, so
unsuitable to her great age, and also distressed by the loss of her
good name, she having hitherto ‘lived always under a good report, never
being stained with the least ignominy, far less with the abominable
crime of witchcraft.’ ‘It were hard,’ she said in a petition to the
Privy Council, ‘that, being of so known integrity, she should suffer
upon the account of such lying accusers, who may and ordinarily do
blunder the best of God’s servants.’ Her petition for being liberated
on caution (August 10) was not yielded to by the Council. They
contented themselves for the meantime with ordering the commission for
her examination to proceed with their duty.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1677.]
The _Florida_, a large vessel of the Spanish Armada of 1588, carrying
sixty guns, had been blown up and sunk in the Bay of Tobermory, in the
island of Mull:[255] an old and consistent tradition represents it as
having come to this fate by means of Smollett of Dumbarton, presumed to
have been the ancestor of the celebrated novelist. The guns, treasure,
and other valuable things, known or supposed to have been on board,
made the incident a memorable one, and induced a desire, if possible,
to weigh up the vessel, or at least to fish up from it such things as
might be accessible to divers. In the seventeenth century, the recovery
of sunk vessels and their contents was a favourite project among
ingenious and adventurous men. The late Marquis of Argyle had obtained
from the Duke of Lennox, Lord High Admiral of Scotland, a formal gift
of this vessel, and had become ‘clad with possession’ by taking guns
and other things out of it. In 1665, a more vigorous attempt was made
to get up some of its treasures by the present Earl of Argyle, the
immediate operator being, apparently, Maule of Melgum, a Forfarshire
gentleman, who had invented an apparatus precisely of the nature of
what was a century later revived as the _Diving-bell_. Another person
engaged in the business was the almost sole active cultivator of
physics in Scotland during this age--the celebrated George Sinclair,
professor of philosophy in the University of Glasgow--who also obliged
the world some years later with a treatise, entitled _Satan’s Invisible
World Discovered_. Sinclair, in a work named below,[256] tells us that
on this occasion they brought up three pieces of ordnance, one of
brass, one of copper, and one of iron, two of which were eleven feet in
length, and more things might have been recovered but for the coming on
of tempestuous weather. He says they were surprised to find that the
bullets employed for these guns were of stone, instead of metal.
[Sidenote: JULY 27.]
[Sidenote: 1677.]
Hearing of these experiments of the Earl of Argyle, the eminent lawyer,
Sir George Lockhart, prompted the Duke of York to claim the property
as the present Lord High Admiral; and so there arose a litigation on
the subject. Various arguments were presented against Argyle’s right,
particularly that to make possession complete it was necessary that
he should have stirred the ship from the place where it was when his
father got the gift. The earl himself appeared in court, and made a few
remarks, shewing the large expense he had laid out on the discovery of
the lost vessel, and concluding with a wish that it were brought above
board ere any dispute took place about the property, ‘lest it should
verify the story of the king of Spain’s gold.’ The court gave the case
in favour of Argyle.
It is curious to find these two men engaged in such a plea only seven
or eight years before standing in the relative positions of rebellious
subject and vengeful sovereign. Still more curious it is to hear of
this unpopular prince, that ‘he wrote down a very complimentary letter
to Argyle, approving the justice of the lords’ sentence, and shewing
his hearty compliance and acquiescence therein.’--_Foun._
It is worthy of notice that after ‘unfortunate Argyle’ had passed from
life--namely, in May 1686--a warrant was given by James VII. for a
patent to William Harrington and three others, merchants of London,
for enabling them to ‘weigh up, recover, and obtain from under water,
in the roads and seas of Scotland, ships, or ship guns, treasure,
and other goods, which have been shipwrecked, lost, and sunk, and
particularly one ship of the Spanish Armada, sunk in the western
seas of his majesty’s kingdom of Scotland’--the patent to endure for
fourteen years.[257]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT. 1.]
[Sidenote: 1677.]
The Egyptians or gipsies still roamed in a lawless manner over the
country, without attracting much notice from the authorities, their
conduct being now probably less troublesome than it had been in the
reign of King James. Two bands of these people, the Faws and the Shaws,
on their way from Haddington fair to Harestanes, in Peeblesshire, where
they expected to meet and fight two other tribes, the Bailies and
Browns, fell out among themselves at Romanno about the spoil they had
lately acquired, and immediately engaged in battle. ‘Old Sandie Faw,
a bold and proper fellow,’ and his wife, then pregnant, were killed
on the spot, while his brother George was very dangerously wounded.
The Laird of Romanno apprehended ‘Robert Shaw; Margaret Faw, his
spouse; James, Patrick, Alexander, and Thomas Shaws, their sons; and
Helen Shaw, their daughter; Robert and John Faws; John Faw younger;
Agnes and Isobel Shaws; Isobel Shaw younger; and George Faw, and did
commit them prisoners within the Tolbooth of Peebles;’ whence they
were speedily removed to Edinburgh to be tried. We soon after find the
Council despatching a warrant to the Laird of Romanno and Mr Patrick
Purdie, to send to Edinburgh ‘the _money_, _gold_, _gold rings_, and
other things which were upon these persons;’ likewise the weapons with
which they had fought. An account of expenses sent by the magistrates
of Peebles was disallowed, excepting only £15 Scots (£1, 6s. 8d.
sterling) for the sustenance of the company while in jail.--_P. C. R._
In February next year, ‘Old Robin Shaw’ and his three sons were
hanged in the Grassmarket for this murder, and John Faw was executed
in the following week for another murder. Two or three years after,
the Laird of Romanno--a quaint physician named Pennecuik, who wrote
verses--erected a pigeon-house on the scene of the conflict, with this
inscription over the door:
‘The field of gipsy blood which here you see,
A shelter for the harmless dove shall be.’[258]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV. 3.]
A great fire took place in Glasgow, by which a large part of the
Saltmarket on both sides was burnt. It commenced near the Cross,
through the instrumentality of a smith’s apprentice, who being beaten
by his master, set the workshop on fire at night, and fled. This
conflagration was considered an equal calamity to that of 1652. It
threw between six and seven hundred families out of their homes, in
a ruined and starving condition.--_P. C. R._ ‘The heat was so great,
that it fired the horologe of the Tolbooth. There being some prisoners
in it, of whom the Laird of Carsland [Kersland] was one [who had been
confined in various jails for eight years on account of his concern in
the Pentland rising], the people broke open the doors, and set them
free.... Great was the cry of the poor people, and lamentable to see
their confusion.’--_Law._
[Sidenote: 1677.]
The Town Council, in a minute of December 4, speak of ‘the great
impoverishment this burgh is reduced to’ by the fire, which they regard
as a just punishment from God for their iniquities, ‘which we pray
him to mak us sensible of, that we may turn from the evil of our ways
to himself, so his wrath may be averted.’ Yet, they go on to say,
‘because such things are more incident to burghs, by reason of their
joining houses to houses ... especially being reared up of timber,
without so much as the window of stone,’ therefore the Council think
it well to enact that whenever any of the people are in a condition to
rebuild their houses, they shall rebuild them of stone.--_M. of G._ On
a petition from the magistrates, the Privy Council ordered a charitable
collection to be made throughout the country for the poor starving
people.
It does not appear that the engine made in 1657 for quenching of fire
was of any use on this occasion. It had probably been allowed to fall
out of order, as in December 1680, we find an order from the Town
Council to ‘see if it can be yet made use of in case of need.’--_M. of
G._ In 1725, another fire-engine was got from London, at an expense of
£50.--_Strang._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1677.]
The late Laird of Ayton, in Berwickshire, had left an only daughter,
under age, in the care of the Countess of Home. He had bequeathed
to this young lady, Jean Home, his whole estate, though it was more
customary in such cases in Scotland to destine land-property to the
next heir-male. Home of Plendergast, who stood in that relation, was of
course disappointed, but he hoped that a reparation might be made by
the young lady marrying a member of his own family. When, in December
1677, the time approached for her choosing her curators--being then,
we presume, twelve years of age--Plendergast presented a petition to
the Privy Council, desiring that she should be brought as usual to
their bar in order to pass through that ceremony in the presence of
her general kindred. This gentleman, however, appears to have been in
disfavour with the other gentlemen of his name in that province, as
well as with the Countess of Home and Charles Home, the brother of the
earl, with whom the young lady of Ayton at that time lived. On the
evening of the very day when the petition was presented to the Council,
Charles Home, accompanied by Alexander Home of Linthill, Sir Patrick
Home of Polwarth, John Home of Ninewells, Robert Home of Kimmerghame
elder, and Joseph Johnston of Hilton, proceeded to the residence of
the young lady, and carried her off across the Border. ‘There they,
in a most undutiful and unchristian manner, carried the poor young
gentlewoman up and down like a prisoner and malefactor, protracting
time till they should know how to make the best bargain in bestowing
her, and who should offer most. They did at last send John Home of
Ninewells[259] to Edinburgh, and take a poor young boy, George Home,
son to Kimmerghame, out of his bed and marry him to the said Jean, the
very day she should have been presented to the Council.’ The ceremony
was wholly irregular, and performed by an English minister, ‘opening
thereby a new way to slight the clergy of Scotland.’ At the same
time, the countess appeared before the Council, and apologised for
the absence of her ward, ‘as being sickly and tender, and not able to
travel, and not fit for marriage for many years to come.’
[Sidenote: 1678.
MAR. 16.]
The Council took this matter up in high style, and dealt with the
offending parties in strict terms of the statutes which they had broke.
The young husband lost his interest _jure mariti_; the young wife hers
_jure relictæ_. The former was fined in £500 Scots, and the latter in a
thousand merks, for their clandestine marriage. Further, for contempt
of the Council, the young wife was fined in a thousand merks, to be
paid to Home of Plendergast. Ninewells and Hilton suffered amercement
respectively in 1000 and 2000 merks, the former sum to be paid to
Plendergast. The young couple were, moreover, to suffer three months’
imprisonment in Edinburgh Castle.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1678.
MAR. 7.]
Three enterprising persons at Haddington, including William Lamb, one
of the bailies, and Mr James Lauder, sheriff-clerk, formed a project
for a twice-a-week stage-coach ‘to pass through the whole year betwixt
Edinburgh and Haddington, which will be of great conveniency for
travellers of all sorts who may have occasion to repair to Edinburgh
from the eastward.’[260] It was their resolution ‘to employ a
considerable stock of money for erecting the said stage-coaches, buying
of horses, and all other furniture requisite, in expectation of some
small profit by progress of time.’ Wherefore they petitioned for the
exclusive right to have stage-coaches upon that road. The right was
granted for seven years.--_P. C. R._
[Sidenote: JULY 29.]
[Sidenote: 1678.]
A very few months after this date, William Hume, merchant in Edinburgh,
appears to have set up a stage-coach between his own city and Glasgow,
encouraged thereto by the liberality of the two municipalities. The
city of Glasgow undertook to pay four hundred merks annually for two
years.--_M. of G._ Hume proposed that his conveyance should carry only
six passengers, at £4, 16s. Scots each in summer, and £5, 8s. in winter
(respectively 8s. and 9s. sterling), being at the rate of 2s. 8d. a
mile in summer, and 3s. in winter. The Privy Council, on his petition,
gave him an exclusive privilege for seven years, and assured him
against his horses being pressed for any kind of public service.--_P.
C. R._
These are the first conveniences of the kind we hear of as established
between one place and another in Scotland, except the coach between
Edinburgh and Leith, first in December 1610, and secondly in
September 1660 (which see). It is, however, probable that none of
all these enterprises proved successful, or was carried on for any
considerable length of time. A traveller in Scotland in 1688 tells us:
‘Stage-coaches they have none.... The truth is, the roads will hardly
allow them those conveniences, which is the reason that their gentry,
men and women, choose rather to use their horses. However, their great
men often travel with coach and six, but with so much caution, that,
besides their other attendance, they have a lusty running footman on
each side of the coach, to manage and keep it up in rough places.’ It
is added: ‘This carriage of persons from place to place might be better
spared, were there opportunities and means for the speedier conveyance
of business by letters. They have no horse-posts besides those which
ply betwixt Berwick and Edinburgh, and from thence to Port-Patrick for
the sake of the Irish packets.... From Edinburgh to Perth, and so to
other places, they use foot-posts and carriers, which, though a slow
way of communicating our concerns to one another, yet is such as they
acquiesce in till they have a better.’[261]
What makes it the more improbable that William Hume’s enterprise was
successful, notwithstanding the well-meant patronage of the Glasgow
magistrates, is that, in October 1743, the Town Council of the western
city was found considering a similar project of one John Walker,
merchant in Edinburgh, who proposed to ‘erect’ a stage-coach betwixt
the two cities, with six horses, and holding six passengers, to go
twice a week from the one to the other in summer, and once in winter.
The corporation was called upon to guarantee that as many as _two
hundred tickets_ should be sold each year. The proposal does not appear
to have been entertained.
[Sidenote: 1678.]
In 1749, a caravan--a kind of covered spring-cart--passed twice a
week from the one city to the other, taking a day and a half to the
journey!--_Strang._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAY 2.]
Two old women, belonging to the village of Prestonpans, were tried
for witchcraft by a commission, and, ‘on their confession, _no ways
extorted_, were burnt.’ Before their death, they gave information
regarding some other persons who, they said, were also witches; and,
one telling on another, there were in September as many as eight or ten
collected from the parishes of Ormiston, Pencaitland, and Crichton,
besides seven who belonged to Loanhead of Lasswade. The justices
shewed a disinclination to treat all these poor creatures as witches;
and Sir John Clerk of Pennicuik--first baronet of a family which
has produced many scholars, judges, antiquaries, and men of general
talent--declined to be upon the commission appointed for the seven of
Loanhead, ‘alleging drily that he did not feel himself warlock (that
is, conjuror) enough to be judge upon such an inquisition.’[262] The
leniency of the justices was cried out upon by some, as interfering
with the discovery of these enemies of mankind. As usually happened,
the accused made confession of guilt, telling much the same story of
intercourse with the devil, renouncing their baptism, and going about
in the form of ravens, &c., as was set forth by the witches of Auldearn
in 1661--a traditionary set of hallucinations, they may be called, the
uniformity of which ought in itself to have put judges sooner on their
guard against a misjudgment of these unfortunate beings. Fountainhall,
who conversed with a few of the present group, speaks somewhat
rationally about them, and it is evident he was inclined to regard
their adventures with the devil as mere dreams. ‘Only,’ he says, ‘in
these diabolic transports their sleep is so deep, that no pinching will
awake them scarce’--an intimation, some will think, of the sleep being
mesmeric. Sad to say, however, nine of the East Lothian women were
condemned on their confession, although seeming rational and penitent;
and were burnt, five between Edinburgh and Leith, and four at Painston,
while the seven of Loanhead were reserved for future procedure.
[Sidenote: 1678.]
The statement of this case has induced Fountainhall to mention one or
two others by way of digression. In the time of James VI., a Scottish
gentleman, being troubled with a disease, sought relief from a magician
in Italy, but was told he need not have come so far from home, as
there was a person in Scotland who could cure him, and this person he
particularly described, so that the gentleman might know him. Some
years after, being returned, the patient met, on the Bridge of Earn,
one to whom the description in every particular applied; and, having
accosted him, and asked for his aid, he was cured by this stranger with
a few simple herbs. The story being told, the curer of the disease
was prosecuted as a necromancer, in compact with the devil, and found
guilty, notwithstanding his protestation that the cure was natural, and
the devil’s having named or described him was no fault of his. In this
narration, the reader will recognise a story which has been told with
many variations, as to person, place, and circumstances, but always
with the assumption of what would now in certain circles be described
as an exercise of the power of _clairvoyance_ regarding a person
unknown and living at a great distance.
[Sidenote: 1678.]
The other story is even more curious in its details. Fountainhall
says: ‘As for the rencontre between Mr Williamson, schoolmaster at
Cupar (he has writ a grammar), and the Rosicrucians, I never trusted
it till I heard it from his own son, who is present minister of
Kirkcaldy.’ A stranger coming to Cupar called for Mr Williamson, and
they went to drink together at a tavern. When the reckoning came to
be paid, the stranger whistled for spirits, and one in the shape of a
boy came and gave him some gold. It is to be remarked that no servant
had been seen attending the stranger while riding into the town, or
at his inn. ‘He caused his spirits next day bring him noble Greek
wines from the pope’s cellar, and tell the freshest news then was at
Rome.’ Some time after, Mr Williamson, being in London, and passing
along London Bridge, heard himself called by name, and turning about,
discovered it was his Rosicrucian. At the request of the stranger,
he met him at dinner in a house to which he was directed, and there
found a magnificently spread table, with a company of good fashion,
all being served by spirits. The conversation turned on the advantage
of being served by spirits, and Mr Williamson was asked to join their
happy society; but he started back with dismay, when it was mentioned
as a necessary preliminary, that he should _abstract his spirit from
all materiality_, and renounce his baptism. In his alarm, he fell a
praying, whereupon they all disappeared. He was then in a new alarm,
dreading to have to pay a huge reckoning; but the boy who answered his
summons, told him that ‘there was nothing to pay, for they had done it,
and were gone about their affairs in the city.’ It is barely necessary
to remark to those who have seen and believed in the wonders of what is
called electro-biology, there is nothing in Mr Williamson’s case which
might not be explained on that principle--namely, a condition of brain
artificially produced, in which the suggestion of objects and events is
enough to make the patient believe them real.
After this date, witch-cases before the high court are rare, and there
had evidently set in a disrelish for such prosecutions. The fact may
reasonably be attributed in some degree to the publication, in 1677, of
Webster’s rational treatise, _The Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft_.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 19.]
James Gray, a ‘litster,’ that is, dyer, in Dalkeith, went to Glasgow
in March this year as a lieutenant in the Midlothian Militia. He
there met, over a bottle, a young man, named Archibald Murray, son of
the Laird of Newton, and who was a trooper in the king’s Life Guard.
When heated with liquor, Gray began to boast that to be a lieutenant
under the Duke of Lauderdale was as good as to ride in the king’s
Life Guard--rather a petulant speech from a Dalkeith craftsman to the
son of a laird in its neighbourhood. Murray stormed and called him
a base fellow, to compare himself with gentlemen! They went out and
fought, and Gray soon returned, saying: ‘I trow I have pricked him,’
never imagining that he had taken the young man’s life. Such, however,
proved to be the case. Gray, who was a handsome, vigorous man, of
about fifty, was tried for the act, and much interest was felt in his
behalf, as it was believed that he had meant nothing like murder. Five
thousand merks were offered to the friends of the deceased, by way of
assythment. But all was in vain. On the day noted in the margin, ‘he
was beheaded, dying with courage, and declaring that ambition, leading
to discontents and quarrels, _joined to marrying an old woman_, had
ruined him.’--_Foun._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG. 15.]
[Sidenote: 1678.]
Scotland now had a visitor of an extraordinary kind. In a petition
presented to the Privy Council, he described himself as Mercurius
Lascary, a Grecian priest, a native of the island of Samos. He stated
that himself, his brother Demetrius, who was also a priest, and two
sons, had been seized by night by Algerine pirates; and his brother
had now been detained for three years in a most miserable condition in
Barbary. Testimonials from the patriarch of Constantinople and various
Greek bishops confirmed this sad tale; and on his petition, a general
charitable contribution was ordered to be raised in his behalf.--_P. C.
R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP. 12.]
In the history of the introduction of the more refined arts into
Scotland, there is no reason why one so ingenious as _cabinet-making_
should not be included. We now first hear of it on the occasion of a
petition from one James Turner, styling himself ‘cabinet-maker and
mirror-glass maker.’ He having, as he says, ‘with much labour, pains,
and expenses, attained to the art of making cabinets, mirror-glasses,
dressing-boxes, chests of drawers, comb-boxes, and the like curious
work, of the finest olive and princes’ wood, not formerly practised by
any native of this country,’ had been peaceably exercising his craft,
when he was assailed by the deacon of the corporation of wrights as
an unfreeman. He had first been forbidden to work, and then they took
away his tools and materials. On his petition, however, he received the
protection of the Council.--_P. C. R._
Not long after (February 1682), we hear of a kindred trade as being
practised in Edinburgh. Hugh M‘Gie, _mirror-maker_ in the Canongate,
gave in a bill to the Privy Council, representing that, by the practice
of other nations, any tradesman having seven sons together, without the
intervention of a daughter, is declared free of all public burdens and
taxes, and has other encouragements bestowed on him, to enable him to
bring up the said children for the use and benefit of the commonwealth;
and claiming a similar privilege on the strength of his having that
qualification. The Council recommended the magistrates to take Hugh’s
seven sons into consideration when they laid their ‘stents’ upon
him.--_Foun._
Some years later (January 1685), Turner being again troubled by the
wrights’ corporation, the Privy Council, on his producing an essay
piece of ‘an indented cabinet and standishes,’ gave him a licence to
set up as a freeman.--_Foun. Dec._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP. 13.]
[Sidenote: 1678.]
At Prestonpans dwelt a respectable old widow named Katharine Liddell,
or Keddie. During the late panic in East Lothian regarding witches,
she had been seized by John Rutherford, bailie of Prestonpans, as one
liable to suspicion of that crime. With the assistance of a drummer,
two salt-makers, and other persons, he barbarously tormented her in
prison in order to extort a confession, ‘by pricking of pins in several
parts of her body, to the great effusion of her blood, and whereby her
skin is raised and her body highly swelled, and she is in danger of her
life.’ She had also been kept from sleep for several nights and days.
It was not till she had undergone this treatment for six weeks, that
on her petition an order was obtained from the Privy Council for her
liberation.
There must have been some unusual force of character about Katharine
Liddell, for not only had she stood her tortures without confessing
falsehood, as most of her sister unfortunates did, but she turned upon
her tormentors by presenting a petition to the Council, in which she
charged them with defamation, false imprisonment, and open and manifest
oppression, and demanded that they should be exemplarily punished in
their persons and goods. After hearing the accused in answer, the
Council declared Liddell entirely innocent and free, and condemned
Rutherford and his associates for their unwarrantable proceedings.
In respect, however, of ‘the common error and vulgar practice of
others in the like station and capacity,’ they let him off without any
punishment. ‘David Cowan, pricker,’ the most active of the tormentors,
they sentenced to be confined during pleasure in the Tolbooth.--_P. C.
R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT.]
At this time, eighty persons were detained in prison in Edinburgh, on
account of matters of religion, waiting till they should be transported
as slaves to Barbadoes.[263]--_Foun. Dec._
In connection with this distressing fact may be placed one of a
different complexion, which Fountainhall states elsewhere. The
magistrates, he tells us, were sensible of the inadequacy of their
Old Tolbooth for the purposes of justice in these days of pious
zeal. Consequently, one Thomas Moodie leaving them twenty thousand
merks to build a church, they--declaring ‘they have no use for a
church’--offered to build with the money a new Tolbooth, above the West
Port, ‘and to put Thomas Moodie’s name and arms thereon!‘--_Foun_.
[Sidenote: 1678.]
In the entire history of the municipality of Edinburgh, this is _not
the worst_ of its attempts at the perversion of funds intended for
the building of a church. And it really appears that our ancestors
looked upon the building of a jail as a public act of some dignity and
importance. PATRIAE ET POSTERIS [for our country and posterity] is the
self-complacent inscription on the front of the Canongate Tolbooth.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV. 13.]
A civil process of this date between Sir R. Hepburn of Keith and David
Borthwick his tenant, reveals the fact that lime was ‘the usual way of
improving and gooding land in East Lothian, at least in that corner of
it.’--_Foun. Dec_.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1679.]
So early as 1590 a foreigner came to Scotland, and applied for some
encouragement to his design of erecting a paper-work within the
kingdom.[264] There is reason to believe that this design proved
abortive, and that there was no further attempt at a native manufacture
of paper till 1675, when a work was established at Dalry Mills, a place
on the Water of Leith, in the immediate vicinity of Edinburgh. This
work obtained the benefit of an act passed in 1662, offering privileges
to those who should erect such manufactories within the kingdom, and
French workmen were introduced as necessary for the instruction of the
natives. After suffering a temporary stoppage in consequence of the
burning of the buildings, the work was again in such a condition in
1679, that it was able, according to the statement of its owners, to
produce ‘gray and blue paper much finer than ever this country formerly
offered to the Council.’
[Sidenote: MAR. 7.]
[Sidenote: 1679.]
At this date, Alexander Daes, merchant, one of the proprietors,
presented a petition setting forth how this work not only supplied good
paper, but promised another general usefulness in the ‘improvement of
rags, which formerly were put to no good use,’ and in the gathering
of which many poor and infirm people could make their bread: in the
work itself, moreover, ‘many Scotsmen and boys are already, and many
mo may be, instructed in the art of making paper.’ There was but one
thing wanting for the due encouragement of the work, and that was the
suppression of ‘a faulty custom, not practised anywhere else,’ of
employing fine rags in the making of wicks for candles. This custom, it
was alleged, involved a cheat to the lieges, in as far as these rags,
not exceeding eight or ten shillings (8d. or 10d. sterling) per stone
in value, formed part of the weight of the candles, of which the price
was three pounds ten shillings (5s. 10d. sterling). It was represented
that cotton-wicks should be employed, which, if dearer, were also
better, as they gave more light. Thus it was that, in those days,
hardened as every one was in the spirit of monopoly, one trade made
no scruple in interfering with another, if its own selfish ends could
thereby be advanced.
The Council did actually ‘discharge the candlemakers to make use of
clouts and rags for the wicks of candles.’
A subordinate branch of the petition for an extension of the time
during which the privileges granted by statute were to last, was
silently overlooked.--_P. C. R._
There is reason to conclude that this paper-mill was not continued, and
that paper-making was not successfully introduced into Scotland till
the middle of the succeeding century.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 11.]
Robert Mean, keeper of the letter-office in Edinburgh, was brought
before the Privy Council, accused of ‘sending up a _bye-letter_ with
the flying packet upon the twenty-two day of June last, giving ane
account to the postmaster of England of the defeat of the rebels in
the west, which was by the said postmaster communicated to the king
before it could have been done by his majesty’s secretary for Scotland,
and which letter contains several untruths in matter of fact.’
Notwithstanding an abject apology, Mean was sent to the Tolbooth, there
to remain during the Council’s pleasure.--_P. C. R._
Mr Mean’s office was at this time a somewhat critical one. On the 19th
of August 1680, he was imprisoned by a committee of the Privy Council
‘for publishing the news-letter before it was revised by a councillor
or their clerk; though he affirmed he had shewn it to the Earl of
Linlithgow before he divulged it.’ What offended them was a false piece
of intelligence contained in it, to the disparagement of the Duke of
Lauderdale. Robert was liberated in a day or two with a rebuke.[265]
[Sidenote: 1679.]
The bringing of the news of the defeat of the rebels at Bothwell
Bridge seems to have been looked upon as a matter of a high degree
of consequence. The instrument was one James Ker, a barber in the
Canongate, who acted as a messenger between the royal army and the
capital, under favour of the Chancellor Duke of Rothes, whom he had
perhaps attended professionally in Holyroodhouse. The lords of the
Privy Council were so over-joyed at the intelligence, that they
promised James some signal mark of their gratitude; and he soon after
asked them, by way of discharging the obligation, to get him entered as
a freeman in the city corporation of chirurgeons. They used influence
with the deacon of this important body to get Ker’s wish gratified; but
it could not be done--he had not served the proper apprenticeship. He
went to London, and petitioned the king on the subject, ‘who, finding
that the corporation stuck upon their privilege, was graciously pleased
to refer [him] back to the Council, to be rewarded as the Council
should judge fit.’ Upwards of three years after (December 14, 1682), he
is found petitioning the Council for this suitable reward, representing
that by the expense of his journey to London and the loss of his
employment, he and his wife and numerous family had been reduced to
‘great straits and necessity.’ They could only refer him to the Bishop
of Edinburgh, that he might deal with the magistrates, to see their
first recommendation made effectual.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
In 1673, two brothers, probably of English birth, Edward Fountain
of Lochhill and Captain James Fountain, had their patent formally
proclaimed throughout Scotland, as _Masters of the Revels within the
kingdom_. They thus possessed a privilege of licensing and authorising
balls, masks, plays, and such-like entertainments; nor was this quite
such an empty or useless privilege as our traditionary notions of the
religious objections formerly cherished against public amusements might
have led us to suppose.
[Sidenote: JULY 24.]
At the date noted, the two Fountains petitioned the Privy Council
against sundry dancing-masters who took upon them to make ‘public
balls, dances, masks, and other entertainments in their schools,
upon mercenary designs, without any licence or authority from the
petitioners.’ It was set forth that this practice not only invaded
their privileges, but tended to ‘the eminent discouragement of _the
playhouse_,’ which ‘the petitioners had been at great charge in
erecting.’ Agreeing with the views of the petitioners, the Council
ordered all dancing-masters to desist from the above-described
practice, and in particular prohibited ‘Andrew Devoe to keep any ball
to morrow, or at any other time,’ without proper licence.--_P. C. R._
[Sidenote: 1679.]
This as far as I am aware, is the only notice we possess of a
theatre in Edinburgh about 1679. It sounds strange to hear of a
dancing-master’s ball in our city little more than a month after the
battle of Bothwell Bridge, and while a thousand poor men were lodging
on the cold ground in the Greyfriars’ Church-yard.
We find in September 1680 the two Fountains adverting to their
playhouse as still kept up--‘at great expenses;’ and they then petition
for redress against such as ‘keep public games, plays, and _lotteries_’
without that licence which they, as masters of the revels, were alone
entitled to grant. The Council on that occasion directed letters of
horning to be issued against the persons complained of. Soon after,
February 10, 1681, Andrew Devoe, who made his bread by teaching the
children of noblemen and gentlemen to dance, complained that he was
troubled by the two Fountains demanding from him that he should give
caution not to have any more balls in his school. It was an unheard-of
thing in Europe, in Andrew’s opinion, that a school-ball should be
regarded as an infringement of the patent of a master of revels. The
Lords, entering into his views, ordered that any former acts they had
passed in favour of the Messrs Fountain should be held as restricted to
_public_ shows, balls, and lotteries.
The privilege of the Messrs Fountain must have in time become an
insupportable grievance to the lieges, or at least such of them as were
inclined to embroider a little gaiety on the dull serge of common life.
While the parliament sat in August 1681, an act was projected, though
not brought forward, to complain of some oppressive monopolies, and
‘particularly of Mr Fountain’s gifts as Master of the Revels, by which
he exacts so much off every bowling-green, kyle-alley, &c., through
the kingdom, as falling under his gift of lotteries.’[266] In June
1682, Hugh Wallace appeared before the Privy Council as agent for ‘the
haill royal burghs of the kingdom,’ shewing that individuals were daily
charged by these gentlemen ‘upon pretence of gaming at cards and dice,
and other games, or having such plays at their houses,’ acting thus
on the pretended powers derived from certain general letters of the
Council, and proceeding in due course to hornings and captions where
their demands for money were not complied with. The Council ordained
letters to be directed to the Masters of the Revels, if the petitioner
could ‘condescend upon particular acts of exaction.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG. 26.]
[Sidenote: 1679.]
The little village of Corstorphine, three miles from Edinburgh, was
disturbed by a frightful occurrence. The title of Lord Forrester was
at this time borne by a gentleman of mature years, who had acquired it
by his marriage to the heiress, and had subsequently had a family by a
second wife. He lived in the Castle of Corstorphine, the ancient seat
of the family. It appears that he sided with the Presbyterians, and
was zealous enough in their cause to build a meeting-house for their
worship. He had nevertheless formed an improper connection with the
wife of one Nimmo, a merchant in Edinburgh; and, what made this scandal
the greater, the unfortunate woman was niece to his first wife, besides
being grand-daughter of a former Lord Forrester. She was a woman of
violent character, accustomed, it was alleged, to carry a weapon under
her clothes. We are further informed that Mrs Bedford, an adulteress
who had murdered her husband a few years back, was her cousin; and that
Lady Warriston, who suffered for the same offence in 1600, was of the
same family.[267]
It was pretty evident that this was a woman not to be rashly offended.
Lord Forrester had nevertheless spoken opprobriously of her in his
drink, and the fact came to her knowledge. She proceeded to his house
at Corstorphine, and, finding he was at the village tavern, sent for
him. The meeting took place in the garden. After a violent altercation,
the unhappy woman stabbed her paramour with his own sword. ‘He fell
under a tree near the pigeon-house, both of which still remain, and
died immediately. The lady took refuge in the garret of the castle, but
was discovered by one of her slippers, which fell through a crevice
of the floor.’[268] Being seized and brought before the sheriffs of
Edinburgh, she made a confession of her crime, though seeking to
extenuate it, and, two days after, she was tried, and condemned to die.
Taking advantage of a humanity of the law, she contrived by deception
to postpone the execution of the sentence for upwards of two months.
And in this interval, notwithstanding the great care of her enjoined
to John Wan, the keeper of the Tolbooth, she succeeded in making her
escape in men’s apparel, but was found next day at Fala Mill, and
brought back to prison. On the 12th of November, Mrs Nimmo was beheaded
at the Cross of Edinburgh, appearing on the scaffold in mourning, with
a large veil, which, before laying down her head, she put aside, baring
her shoulders at the same time, ‘with seeming courage enough.’[269]
[Sidenote: 1679.]
Connected with the murder, a circumstance characteristic of the age
took place. The deceased nobleman, leaving only heirs of his second
marriage, who took the name of Ruthven from their mother, and who were
in possession of his house, the family honours and estates, which
came by his first wife, by whom he had no surviving progeny, passed,
according to a deed of entail, to another branch of the family. In that
day, no offence was more common than that of violently seizing and
interfering with the legal writings connected with landed properties.
Well knowing this, William Baillie of Torwoodhead and his mother
dreaded that the young Ruthvens might play foul with the late lord’s
charter-chest, and so prejudice their succession. They went with
friends to the house, while the murdered nobleman’s body still lay in
it, and intruded in a violent manner, by way of taking possession of
their inheritance. Their chief aim, as they afterwards alleged, was
to see that no documents should be embezzled or made away with. On a
complaint from the Ruthvens, the Lords adjudged Baillie and his mother
to lie in prison during their pleasure, and fined their assistant, a
Mr Gourlay, in a hundred pounds Scots. The court at the same time took
measures to secure the charter-chest.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT. 26.]
[Sidenote: 1679.]
The Duke of York arrived in Scotland, designing to reside in the
country till the storm of the Exclusion Bill should blow over. He
and his family experienced a favourable reception in Edinburgh.
In July 1681, he was joined by his daughter, styled the Lady Anne
(subsequently Queen Anne). The royal party occupied the palace of
Holyroodhouse, which had recently received such large additions as to
give them handsome accommodation. According to the report of Mr William
Tytler,[270] who had conversed with many who remembered the duke’s
visit, the gaiety and brilliancy of the court of Holyroodhouse on this
occasion was a subject of general satisfaction. ‘The princesses were
easy and affable, and the duke studied to make himself popular among
all ranks of men.’ It was indeed an unpropitious time for the duke to
be in his father’s native kingdom--when a large portion of the people
were at issue with the government about matters of faith, and men
were daily suffering extreme severities on account of their religious
practice. Nevertheless, he was far from being unpopular. It is clearly
intimated by Fountainhall that his birthday came to be observed with
more cordial demonstrations than the king’s.[271] Though the contrary
has been insinuated, there are many instances, credibly reported, of
his shewing humanity towards the unfortunate ‘phanatiques,’ as they
were called, who came under the notice of the local authorities during
the period of his visit.[272]
Mr Tytler reports that the duke and the princesses gave balls, plays,
and masquerades, much to the enjoyment of the nobility and gentry who
attended them, though to the disgust and horror of the more rigid
Presbyterians. It will be found that Nat Lee’s play of _Mithridates,
King of Pontus_, was acted privately at the palace (November 15,
1681), with Lady Anne and the maids of honour as the only performers.
It was probably afterwards that a portion of the duke’s company of
players came down to Edinburgh to give regular performances. Mr Tytler
had a dim recollection of seeing one of their playbills, advertising
in capital letters _The Indian Emperor_, as to be played by them at
the _Queen’s Chocolate House_, which, he thought, would be near the
palace, though we must regard the High Street as a much more likely
situation. This was Dryden’s play on the sad story of Montezuma. The
great English poet comes into connection in another way with this
histrionic expedition to the north, for, when the remainder of the
company appeared at Oxford, he had to write a prologue apologising for
the weakness of the corps, and did it ludicrously at the expense of
Scotland.
[Sidenote: 1679.]
‘Our brethren are from Thames to Tweed departed,
And of our sisters all the kinder-hearted,
To Edinborough gone, or coached or carted.
With bonny Blue-cap there they act all night,
For Scotch half-crown, in English threepence hight.
One nympth to whom fat Sir John Falstaff’s lean,
There with her single person fills the scene.
Another, with long use and wont decayed,
Dived here old woman, and there rose a maid.
Our trusty doorkeepers of former time,
There strut and swagger in heroic rhyme.
Tack but a copper lace to drugget suit,
And there a hero’s made without dispute,
And that which was a capon’s tail before,
Becomes a plume for Indian emperor.
But all his subjects, to express the care
Of imitation, go like Indian bare:
Laced linen there would be a dangerous thing,
It might perhaps a new rebellion bring--
The Scot who wore it would be chosen king.’
Mr Tytler also states that ‘tea, for the first time heard of in
Scotland, was given as a treat by the princesses to the Scottish ladies
who visited at the abbey.’ He adds: ‘The duke was frequently seen in
a party at golf on the Links of Leith, with some of the nobility and
gentry. I remember in my youth to have often conversed with an old man,
named Andrew Dickson, a golf-club maker, who said that, when a boy, he
used to carry the duke’s golf-clubs, and to run before him and announce
where the balls fell.’
In July 1681, hearing that the Duke and Duchess of York were now
residing in Scotland, an Irish theatrical company thought it might be
a good speculation to visit Edinburgh, ‘to set up a playhouse for the
diversion and entertainment of such as shall desire the same.’ They, to
the number of thirty persons, landed at Irvine in Ayrshire, bringing
with them ‘clothes necessar for their employment, mounted with gold
and silver lace,’ when a difficulty was encountered, arising from the
late act of parliament regarding laced clothes. The company was obliged
to send a petition to the Privy Council in Edinburgh, shewing that
‘trumpeters and stage-players’ were exempted from the said act, and
supplicating a pass to be exhibited to the tax-collector at Irvine. His
Royal Highness and the Council at once acceded to the prayer of this
petition.--_P. C. R._
The Duke of York left Edinburgh by sea, on the 6th of March 1682,
‘being desired to see his majesty at Newmarket. There was great
solemnity and attendance at his parture.’[273] He returned to Scotland,
on the 7th of May, also by sea, on which occasion occurred the
disastrous shipwreck of the _Gloucester_ frigate in which he sailed.
His purpose at this time was to bring back his family from Scotland,
and, accordingly, he and the princesses finally departed on the 15th of
the month.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 19.]
[Sidenote: 1679.]
A commission composed of country gentlemen and advocates sat in the
Tolbooth of Borrowstounness to try a number of poor people for the
crime of witchcraft. There was Annaple Thomson, who had had a meeting
with the devil in the time of her widowhood, before she was married to
her last husband, on her coming betwixt Linlithgow and Borrowstounness,
when he, ‘in the likeness of ane black man, told you, that you was ane
poor puddled body, and had an evil life, and difficulty to win through
the world, and promised if you would follow him, and go alongst with
him, you should never want, but have ane better life; and about five
weeks thereafter the devil appeared to ye when you was going to the
coal-hill about seven o’clock in the morning. Having renewed his former
tentation, you did condescend thereto, and declared yourself content
to follow him and become his servant.’ There were also women called
Margaret Pringle, Margaret Hamilton (two of the name), and Bessie
Vicker, besides a man called William Craw. ‘Ye and each person of you
was at several meetings with the devil in the links of Borrowstounness,
and in the house of you Bessie Vicker, and ye did eat and drink with
the devil, and with one another, and with witches in her house in the
night-time; and the devil and the said William Craw brought the ale
which ye drank, extending to about seven gallons, from the house of
Elizabeth Hamilton, and you, the said Annaple, had ane other meeting
about five weeks ago, when you was going to the coal-hill of Grange,
and he invited you to go along with him and drink with him in the
Grange-pans.’ Two of the other accused women were said to have in
like manner sworn themselves into the devil’s service and become his
paramours, one eight years, the other thirty years ago. It was charged
against Margaret Pringle, that ‘the devil took you by the right hand,
whereby it was for eight years grievously pained, but [he] having
touched it of new again, it immediately became haill;’ against Margaret
Hamilton--‘the devil gave you ane five-merk piece of gold, whilk a
little after becam ane sklaitt stane.’ And finally, ‘you and ilk ane of
you was at ane meeting with the devil and other witches at the cross of
Muirstane, above Kinneil, upon the thretteen of October last, where you
all danced, and the devil acted the piper.’[274]
These poor people were solemnly tried by the commissioners before an
assize of _fifty persons_, and, notwithstanding that the indictment
charges scarcely any hurtful attempts against individuals, the whole
were adjudged to be taken four days after to the west end of the town,
and there worried at a stake and burnt.
[Sidenote: 1679.]
Thomas Kirke, a Yorkshire squire, this year published a _Modern Account
of Scotland_, containing an extraordinary effusion of bile against the
country, but also preserving a few traits probably not far from the
truth. He describes the gentlemen’s houses as generally of a fortified
character, ‘with strong iron grates before the windows--the lower part
whereof is only a wooden shutter, and the upper part glass--so that
they look more like prisons than houses of reception. Some few houses
there are of late erection, that are built in a better form, with
good walks and gardens about them; but their fruit rarely comes to
any perfection. The houses of the commonality are very mean, mud-wall
and thatch the best. But the poorer sort live in such miserable huts
as never eye beheld; men, women, and children pig together in a poor
mouse-hole of mud, heath, and such-like matter.... The Lowland gentry
go well enough habited, but the poorer sort almost naked, only an old
cloak or part of their bed-clothes thrown over them. The Highlanders
wear slashed doublets, commonly without breeches, only a plaid tied
about their waists and thrown over one shoulder, with short stockings
to the gartering-place, their knees and part of their thighs being
naked. Others have breeches and stockings all of a piece of plaid ware,
close to their thighs [trews]. In one side of their girdle sticks a
durk or skene [knife], about a foot or half a yard long ... on the
other side a brace at least of brass pistols: nor is this honour
sufficient; if they can purchase more, they must have a long swinging
sword.
‘The highways in Scotland are tolerably good, which is the greatest
comfort a traveller meets with amongst them. They have not inns, but
_change-houses_ [taverns], poor small cottages where you must be
content to take what you find.... The Scotch gentry generally travel
from one friend’s house to another; so seldom require a change-house.
Their way is to hire a horse and a man for twopence a mile;[275] they
ride on the horse thirty or forty miles a day, and the man who is his
guide foots it beside him and carries his luggage to boot.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1680.
FEB. 26.]
[Sidenote: 1680.]
In 1647, while the thoughts of men were engrossed by frightful civil
broils, one quiet country gentleman, Sir Robert Bruce of Clackmannan,
occupied himself in some measure with things of a practically useful
nature. It was a most uncommon way of bestowing spare mental energy
in those days, and perhaps was owing in a great degree to Sir
Robert’s situation in the midst of the fine coal-field still worked
so industriously under the skirts of the Ochils. He was then found
beseeching the attention of the Committee of Estates--amidst military
arrangements, payments of public creditors, punishments of malignants,
sharpening of the weapons of persecution against dissidents of all
kinds--to a mechanical invention of his own--‘ane water-work, never
invented, heard, nor seen heretofore, for drying of all water-heuchs
[coal-mines] within the kingdom, how deep soever the sumptis and growth
of the water-springs be within the samen, by the supplie of two men
allenarly, going by _pace_,[276] _peise_, or _swey_.’[277] The laird,
as usual, sought for his reward in an exclusive right to the use of
this engine for nineteen years, which was granted.
What, if anything, came of this contrivance we do not learn. Most
likely, it was never effectually tried, but fell asleep amongst the
troubles of the time. Yet it would appear that the idea was somehow
kept alive, for at the date noted in the margin, Peter Bruce[278] made
application to the Privy Council for their favour towards an engine
for drawing water out of coal-pits and quarries, which promised to do
more work with a couple of men than six horses could effect by any
other machine now in use; also towards a cutting-mill ‘for ane easy
way of cutting all sorts of great goads and bars of iron in small
lengths, stanchells, or strings, whereby smiths and other artificers
in iron will be able to make nails and other iron works at least £2
Scots cheaper of every hundredweight of iron.’ He had spent much on
these projects, and more was yet required, wherefore he thought himself
entitled to some public encouragement. The Privy Council granted him
an exclusive privilege of making the proposed machines for thirteen
years.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1680.]
A curious trait of the simplicity of Scotland in regard to some of
the mechanical arts occurs in Fountainhall’s _Decisions_ under 1679,
where he tells of plumbers that ‘they cannot subsist in Scotland as
a distinct trade, _there being so little to do; only our curiosity is
daily increasing_.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 15.]
Great efforts were made during this reign for the building of bridges
and repairing of roads, but generally with little good effect. As
an example of the actual condition of a road near the capital of
the country at this time, we find the first four miles of that from
Edinburgh to London--namely, from the Clockmill Bridge to Magdalen
Bridge--are described as being in so ruinous a state, that passengers
were in danger of their lives, ‘either by their coaches overturning,
their horse falling, their carts breaking, their loads casting, and
horse stumbling, the poor people with the burdens on their backs
sorely grieved and discouraged:’ moreover, ‘strangers do often exclaim
thereat.’ A toll of a halfpenny for a laden cart, and a sixth of a
penny for a laden horse, was authorised in order to get this piece of
road kept in repair.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT.]
In one week died Lady Kilbirnie and her husband of a pestilential
fever. ‘The death of thir spouses was much lamented by all sorts of
people.... In the day of the sickening of the laird and lady, his dogs
went into the close, and an unco dog coming amongst them, they all set
up a barking, with their faces up to heaven, howling, yelling, and
youphing; and when the laird called to them, they would not come to him
as in former times.’--_Law._
The same author relates that, before the death of Colquhoun of Luss,
‘the dogs went up to a chamber in the night-time, and made a hideous
lamentable-like noise, and tore down the curtains of the bed, there
being none in it.’ At the sickening of Lord Ross, who died in May 1682,
‘his dogs came up the stair towards his chamber, howling lamentably; he
caused shoot them all one after another.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: [NOV. ?]]
The Duke of York paying a visit to the Castle of Edinburgh, the huge
cannon called MONS MEG was fired in his honour. The charge, which was
done by an English cannoneer, had probably been too large, for it
caused the piece to burst. This ‘some foolishly called a bad omen. The
Scots resented it extremely, thinking the Englishman might of malice
have done it purposely, they having no cannon in all England so big as
she.’--_Foun._
[Sidenote: 1680.]
Mons Meg, with a breach in her side, still adorns the ancient
battlements of Edinburgh Castle, ‘to the great admiration of people,’
being upwards of thirteen feet long, and of twenty inches bore; formed
of longitudinal bars of iron, hooped with rings fused into one mass.
It is an example of a colossal kind of artillery which the sovereigns
of Europe had a craze for making in the middle and latter half of the
fifteenth century--this specimen being probably prepared at the command
of James II. of Scotland.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV.]
An elephant which had been bought for £2000 sterling, and brought to
England for exhibition, was shewn in Scotland, being the first of the
species ever seen in the country. It was a male, eleven years old, ‘a
great beast, with a great body and a great head, small eyes and dull,
lugs like two skats (?) lying close to its head; having a large trunk
coming down from the nether end of the forehead, of length a yard and
a half, in the undermost part small, with a nostril; by which trunk it
breathed and drank, casting up its meat and drink in its mouth below
it; having two large and long bones or teeth, of a yard length, coming
from the upper jaw of it, and at the far end of it inclining one to
another, by which it digs the earth for roots ... it was backed like a
sow, the tail of it like a cow’s: the legs were big, like pillars or
great posts, and broad feet with toes like round lumps of flesh. When
it drinks it sucks up the water with its trunk, which holds a great
deal of water, and then putting the low end in its mouth, by winding
it in, it jaws in the water in its mouth, as from a great spout. It
was taught to flourish the colours with the trunk of it, and to shoot
a gun, and to bow the knees of it, and to make reverence with its big
head. They also rode upon it.... Let this great creature on earth and
the whale at sea be compared with a midge or minnow, and behold what
great wisdom and power is with the great God, the creator and preserver
of both!‘--_Law._
It appears that Alexander Deas and others farmed this elephant from
its owners for several months at £400, in order to shew it through
the country. They refused to pay in full, on the ground of several
failures as to the terms of the contract, alleging, for instance, that
the owners had not shewn all it might do--namely, its drinking, &c.
It was replied, ‘it could not drink every time it was shewn.’ How the
litigation ended does not appear.--_Foun._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 10.]
[Sidenote: 1680.]
A great comet, which had been observed in Germany a month earlier,
was first seen in Scotland this evening, ‘the night being clear and
frosty; between five and seven at night, it set in the west, and was
seen in the south-east in the morning of the following days.[279] [It]
had a great [tail] blazing frae the root of it, was pointed as it came
from the star, and then spread itself; was of a broad and large ascent
up to the heavens ... the stream of it all the night over is seen....
[It] had its recess from the west every night by degrees, as the moon
has from the sun after her change, and being every night more elevate
by degrees in its first after daylight was gone, then the stream of it
mounted to our zenith, and beyond it, very wonderfully. No history ever
made mention of the like comet ... and [it] is certainly prodigious of
great alterations and of great judgments on these lands and nations for
our sins; for never was the Lord more provoked by a people.... [It]
continued till the 16th or 17th day of January, growing smaller and
smaller to its end.’--_Law._
‘When Mr M‘Ward, who was then a-dying, heard of it, he desired Mr
Shields and other friends to carry him out, that he might see it. When
he saw it, he blest the Lord that was now about to close his eyes,
and was not to see the woful days that were coming upon Britain and
Ireland, especially upon sinful Scotland.’--_P. Walker._
[Sidenote: 1680.]
Lord Fountainhall, in noting the appearance of a smaller comet for two
weeks in August 1682, being the time when ‘semblances of joy’ were
presented in Edinburgh for the accouchement of the Duchess of York of
a daughter, adds: ‘I have seen a late French book, proving that comets
prognosticate nothing that’s fatal or dangerous, but rather prosperous
things; yet, at the time it shone, the Duke of Lauderdale, that great
minister of state, died.’--_Hist. Ob._ This ‘yet’ is exceedingly
amusing. He elsewhere states the opinions of those who believe in the
ominousness of comets. According to them, ‘the effects’ do not always
follow immediately: some indeed think a comet ‘takes as many years to
_operate_, as it appears nights.’ He estimates the tail of the comet of
1680 at near [upwards of] 3000 miles in length, because it extends over
60 degrees, ‘and each degree is 60 miles!’ This learned judge, however,
was himself of opinion that comets do not hold forth any prognostics
of blood and desolation, further than by their natural effects in
infecting the air, so as to occasion sterility, pestilential diseases,
and famine.
Lord Fountainhall probably deemed 3000 miles a considerable length for
a comet’s tail. How must he have been surprised to learn that it was in
reality nearly as long as the distance of the earth from the sun, or
not much short of a hundred millions of miles. Equally great must have
been his wonder to learn (as appears from Enke’s recent calculations)
that this illustrious stranger only comes to our part of space once in
8814 years!
[Sidenote: DEC.]
During this month, the public mind was in a highly excited state, owing
to the terrific appearance of the comet overhead, in connection with
the presence of the Duke of York in Edinburgh, and the news of the
struggles in parliament for his exclusion from the throne. One Gray,
a merchant in Edinburgh, gave out that, as he and a country friend
called Yule were looking at the comet, ‘he saw a fire descend from the
Castle down the city of Edinburgh to the Abbey’ [the duke’s residence],
while Yule heard a voice saying: ‘This is the sword of the Lord!’ A man
in a soldier’s apparel came up to Sir George Monro at mid-day in the
street, and bade him go down and tell the Duke of York, if he did not
counsel his brother the king to extirpate the Papists, both he and the
king were dead men. Sir George turned about to call witnesses to what
the man had said, and when he looked again, the man had mysteriously
vanished. To crown all, ‘a hypochondriac fellow’ came out to the
street, and proclaimed openly that the Day of Judgment would take place
next day, offering himself to be hanged if it should prove otherwise.
He was clapped up in the Canongate Tolbooth; rather a prosaic fate for
a prophet. The two first circumstances are clearly to be referred to
the hallucination which is apt to be engendered on occasions of great
public excitement.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 25.]
[Sidenote: 1680.]
The boys at the college in Edinburgh resolved to follow the example
of the London apprentices in getting up a demonstration against the
pope. What gave piquancy to the design was, that the Duke of York was
now living in Edinburgh, under exile from London on account of his
adherence to the Romish faith. They were very cunning and dexterous in
making their arrangements, having first prepared their effigy of the
pope, and then sent a small party with a portrait to the Castle Hill,
in order to make the authorities think that they designed to have a
procession from that place down the High Street to Holyrood Palace,
where the duke lived. While this feint drew off the attention of the
military, the youths brought out the true effigy to the High School
Yard, and then marched with it up Blackfriars’ Wynd to the High Street.
It was a rude statue of timber, with a painted face; on the head, a
gray periwig and triple crown; and in the hands a cross, a candle, and
a piece of money. The figure was clothed in a calico gown, and sat in a
chair. Having set it down on the street, they set fire to it, causing
a quantity of powder within the body to explode and burst it all in
pieces. Notwithstanding their expedition, they were attacked, while
performing the ceremony, by the swords of the Earl of Linlithgow and
a few other friends of the Duke of York; but they stood their ground,
warning the assailants that they might hurt some they would not like
to hurt. When all was over, they dispersed. Many regretted the act,
as inhospitable towards the duke, and we may well believe, if General
Dalyell had not been led with his troops on a false scent, he would
have made the lads repent of their frolic. ‘For a further testimony and
bravado, the school-boys, apprentices, and many other people, mounted
blue ribbons, inscribed with, “No Pope--no Priest--no Bishop--no
Atheist;” which, again, caused the loyal to hoist the rival legend, “I
am no fanatic.”’
One George Redpath, tutor to a gentleman’s two sons, was brought
before the Privy Council, and examined on the accusation of having
drawn up a bond for the execution of this project. But after a few
days’ detention, he was set at liberty ‘by the goodness of his royal
highness, who was always too compassionate to that generation of
vipers,’ says Sir William Paterson.[280] This same Redpath lived to be
an active Whig pamphleteer in London after the Revolution, and was the
author of the _Answer to the Scots Presbyterian Eloquence._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1681.
JAN. 11.]
[Sidenote: 1681.]
The house of Priestfield, under the south front of Arthur’s Seat,
was burnt this evening between seven and eight o’clock. Political
circumstances gave importance to what would otherwise have been
a trivial occurrence. Sir James Dick, the owner, was provost of
Edinburgh, and a friend of the Duke of York. His having adopted
energetic measures with some college youths concerned in the Christmas
anti-papal demonstration, was supposed to have excited a spirit of
retaliation in their companions; and hence a suspicion arose that the
fire was designed and executed by them. The Privy Council were so
far convinced of this being the case, that they shut up the college,
and banished the pupils fifteen miles, unless they could give caution
for their good-behaviour. Sir James’s house was rebuilt at the public
expense, as it now exists in the possession of his descendant, Sir
William Cunningham Keith Dick, Bart.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JAN. 20.]
Six women were hanged in Edinburgh. Two of them, Janet Alison from
Perth, and Marion Harvey from Borrowstounness, ‘were of Cameron’s
faction, bigot and sworn enemies to the king and bishops,’ and, ‘for
all the pains taken, would not once acknowledge the king to be their
lawful prince, but called him a perjured bloody man.’ ‘Some thought the
threatening to drown them privately in the North Loch, without giving
them the credit of a public suffering, would have more effectually
reclaimed them nor any arguments which were used; and the bringing them
to a scaffold but disseminates the infection.’--_Foun._
The other four women were hanged for murdering their own children, born
out of wedlock. It would be hard to say which of the two cases reflects
the most discredit upon the wisdom and humanity of the age.
On the ensuing 13th of April, another woman was hanged in the
Grassmarket for murdering her child, declaring that she had committed
the deed in order ‘to shun the ignominy of the church pillory.’ The
frequency of such cases, and the declaration of this poor woman,
attracted the attention of the Duke of York. He was surprised to hear
of a custom used in no other Christian country, which ‘rather made
scandals than buried them.’ The duke, we are told, ‘was displeased,
and thought it would be a more efficacious restraint, if the civil
magistrate should punish them, either by a pecuniary mulct, or a
corporal punishment.’ Fountainhall, however, thought the practice
justifiable, on the text, ‘They who sin openly should be rebuked
openly,’ and from the penances imposed in the primitive church.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: FEB. 21.]
[Sidenote: 1681.]
A company of distracted people was this day brought into Edinburgh,
under the guardianship of a troop of dragoons. They were commonly known
as the _Sweet Singers of Borrowstounness_, from their noted habit of
frequent chanting of psalms. The religious exasperations of the times,
the execution of a Bo’ness man named Stewart, with two others, on the
preceding 1st of December, and perhaps in addition to these causes,
the terrors diffused by the comet, had now produced in that little
town an epidemic mania of a type only too well known. These people
felt as if all was wrong in church and state, and professed to deny
all kinds of institutions, even the names of the days of the week;
nay, the commonest social obligations, as that of working for one’s
own bread. They protested against taxes, confessions, and covenants;
disowned the king and his government; and called for vengeance on the
murderers of the two late martyrs, Stewart and Potter, whose blood
they carried on a handkerchief. They ran up and down the town in a
furious manner, sometimes uttering prayers which consisted chiefly of
curses invoked against individuals, more frequently singing psalms of
lamentation (74th, 79th, 80th, 83d, and 137th) for the sins of the
land. Such of the females as were married deserted their homes and
husbands, and if the husband, in his endeavours to win his wife back to
rationality, took hold of any part of her dress, she indignantly washed
the place, as to remove an impurity. They followed a gigantic fellow,
commonly called Muckle John Gibb, but who passed among them under the
name of King Solomon, and at length, ‘leaving their homes and soft
warm beds and covered tables,’ six-and-twenty of them went forth from
their native town, notwithstanding the entreaties of weeping husbands,
fathers, and children, calling on them to stay; ‘some women taking the
sucking children in their arms to desert places, to be free of all
snares and sins, and communion with all others, and mourn for their
own sins, the land’s tyranny and defections, and there to be safe from
the land’s utter ruin and desolation by judgments; some of them going
to the Pentland Hills, with a resolution to sit there to see the smoke
and utter ruin of the sinful, bloody city of Edinburgh.... Immediately
after they came to these desert places, they kept a day of fasting and
confessing of their sins one to another; yea, some of them confessed
sins which the world had not heard of, and so not called to confess
them to men.’--_Pat. Walker._
[Sidenote: 1681.]
Even the Whig clergymen who had gone to the wilderness rather than own
an uncovenanted king, were surprised at the more extreme feelings of
the Sweet Singers. Walker tells how he was with the Rev. Mr Cargill at
Darmead Muirs, when the Gibbites were ‘lying in the Deer Slunk, in the
midst of a great flow-moss betwixt Clydesdale and Lothian about a mile
distant.’ Gibb and another man came armed, and held a conference with
Mr Cargill in a barn, but it led to no good. After resting a while,
the chief of the Sweet Singers rose in haste and went to the muir all
night. ‘I well remember,’ says Walker, ‘it was a cold easterly wet
fog.’ Cargill was shocked by the state of mind he had found them in.
They were afterwards all taken by a troop of dragoons at the Woolhill
Craigs, betwixt Lothian and Tweeddale, a very desert place, and carried
to Edinburgh, where the men were put into the Canongate Tolbooth,
and the women into the Correction-house, where they were soundly
scourged. After a little time, these poor people cooled down somewhat,
and were one by one set at liberty. Walker says the most of them
ultimately returned to their right mind, and he had had some edifying
conversations with them since.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAR. 1.]
[Sidenote: 1681.]
Articles used in clothing in Scotland had hitherto been almost wholly
of home manufacture. As in Sweden to this day, the great bulk of the
people spun their own wool and flax, each family for itself, and had
the yarn woven into cloth by the village webster. There were as yet but
the merest attempts at a manufacture of cloths or hosen for general
sale and use. We have seen a modest attempt made by certain foreigners
in Edinburgh so early as 1609.[281] It is stated that in the reign
of Charles I., there were cloth-works on a small scale at Newmills
in Haddingtonshire, at Bonnington near Edinburgh, and at Ayr. That
at Newmills was in a thriving condition till Dundee was stormed and
sacked by Monk in 1651, when a store of its cloth was taken, and the
troubles soon after closed the work.[282] Latterly, it could scarcely
be said there was any general manufacture of articles of attire except
at Aberdeen. There one George Pyper had a number of country-people
engaged in working stockings with the needles, paying them at the rate
of five groats (equal to 1-2/3d. sterling) a pair for the making; and
he raised the working to such a fineness in some instances, ‘that he
hath given twenty shillings sterling and upward for the pair.’[283]
In this province there was also a manufacture of _plaiden_ stuffs and
_fingrams_, which was the more meritorious as the wool was mostly
brought by sea-carriage from the southern parts of the kingdom. It
is related that a Mr Barnes, ‘a substantious merchant in Edinburgh,’
thought he might make a saving by getting the same stuffs made in his
own neighbourhood, and have an advantage over the Aberdeen merchants in
sending out his cloth to the Dutch market. But, on trying an experiment
with ‘ten sea-packs of plaiden, which might be worth £20,000,’ he found
that he had scarcely produced his cloth at as low a rate as that at
which the Aberdeen merchants sold theirs. The explanation, which he
obtained from Mr Alexander Farquhar, a merchant in Aberdeen, might be
worthy of Mr Babbage’s attention for a new edition of his _Economy
of Manufactures_. It was, that the people who worked these cloths in
the north ‘had not by far such entertainment as his [Mr Barnes’s]
servants had--they oftener drank clear spring-water than ale.’ When
Mr Barnes heard this, he gave up his manufacture. Of late years, even
this frugally conducted manufacture, which had in some years brought a
hundred thousand rix-dollars into the country, and greatly facilitated
the payment of rents, was much decayed--the goods reduced to half their
wonted prices, and yet not the half exported that was--and all from a
cause also of much significance in the philosophy of business--namely,
‘deceitful mismanagement,’ leading of course to loss of confidence, and
a consequent checking of orders.
The faculties for business which the Duke of York possessed in so
respectable a degree, seem to have now begun to tell upon the country
in which he found a refuge. While joining in the unhappy severities
dictated by the Privy Council against the poor Whigs, he gave attention
to the solid interests of the nation at large, and had consultations
with such men of mercantile spirit as the country then possessed, with
a view to the planting of cloth-factories similar to those which had
long been realising good results in England. It was pointed out that
the making of the better kinds of cloth within the country was becoming
a matter of most serious concernment, because, owing to the great
drain of money which was occasioned by the importation of such cloths
from the south, ‘English money was not to be had under 6 or 7 per
cent., scarce at any rate,’ and exchange between Edinburgh and London
had risen against the former place as high as 12 or 15 per cent. ‘Our
four-merk pieces,’ it was added, ‘the best coin of our kingdom, were
almost wholly exported, and above £20,000 sterling in dollars left the
country in the year 1680.’
[Sidenote: 1681.]
The result of the duke’s patriotic deliberations was the passing of
acts of Council in March and April, and the passing of an act of
parliament in September 1681, for the encouragement of trade and
manufactories. Through his personal exertions, a body of men, including
Mr Robert Blackwood and several other merchants in Edinburgh, was
induced to associate for the setting up of a new work at Newmills,
the produce of which was to be disposed of by them under peculiar
regulations. It was to be under the care of an enterprising Englishman
named Sir James Stanfield, who for some time had been settled there.
In August, six _sheermen_ and a foreman having been brought down
from England, this work commenced with two looms--soon increased to
eight--soon after to twenty-five; and in 1683 it was still extending.
‘We began,’ says the pamphleteer formerly quoted, ‘to make the coarsest
of white cloths first, wherein we continued till October 1682; then we
turned part of our people to coarse mixed cloth, and so on gradually
to finer, and _now we are upon superfine cloths_, and have brought
the spinners and rest of the work-people that length, that we hope
against May next to have superfine cloths as good as generally are
made in England.’ There was also a manufacture of silk-stockings going
on at Newmills. The whole work seems to have then been in a hopeful
condition, albeit on the unsound footing of a monopoly, all English
goods of the same kinds being prohibited under severe penalties.
The act was, indeed, too sweeping in its tendency, for it forbade the
importing of a great number of stuffs--as silks, embroideries, gold
lace, ribbons, silk fringes, cambrics, and damasks, which it was not
in the power of any native manufacturer to supply, and which certain
classes of the people were little inclined to dispense with. It was
thought necessary by these means to save the money of the country. It
led to a strange scene one day on the High Street of Edinburgh. George
Fullerton, a merchant of that city, had committed a gross violation
of the law, first in smuggling in some packs of English cloth, and
afterwards, when they were seized by the authorities, repossessing
himself of them by violence. The Privy Council ordered him to be
declared fugitive, had the two ‘waiters’ of the West Port scourged for
allowing the goods to be introduced, and ordained the cloth itself to
be burnt at the Cross by the hand of the hangman. The common people
beheld this last spectacle with feelings of their own, for they thought
it might have been better to distribute the cloth among the poor:
however, says Fountainhall in a whisper, it was only the worst bales
that were burned: the best were ‘privily preserved.’
[Sidenote: 1681.]
Absurd as all this procedure may appear, it precisely represents the
existing policy of Sweden and some other continental countries in
respect of British manufactures.
One natural result of the act very soon appears, in the magistrates of
Edinburgh being called before the Privy Council at the suggestion of
the Duke of York, and recommended to call up the merchants, in order
to discharge them from ‘extortioning the lieges, by taking exorbitant
prices for the merchandises now prohibited ... on the pretence that
there no more of that kind to be imported within the kingdom.’
In February 1683, General Dalyell, finding ‘that he cannot be provided
in this kingdom with as much cloth of one colour as will be clothes to
the regiment of dragoons,’ obtained a licence from the Privy Council
permitting the cloth-manufacturing company at Newmills ‘to import 2536
ells of stone-gray cloth from England, for clothing the said regiment
of dragoons,’ they finding caution under £500 sterling to limit the
importation strictly to that quantity. About a month later, the Council
made a change in this order, to the effect that the general might
appoint a person to import the cloth--not exceeding five shillings
sterling the ell--instead of the Newmills company.
In May 1683, Captain John Graham of Claverhouse was permitted by the
Privy Council, on petition, to import from England, for the use of his
troops, 150 ells of red cloth, 40 ells of white cloth, and 550 dozen
of buttons; giving security that no advantage should be taken of this
licence to bring in any other cloth.
Of a small cloth-work in Leith it was declared (December 1683) that the
partners engaged ‘are excellently skilled in their trade, and can dye
and mix wool and cloth, and takes in wool from the merchant or other
person, and does dye and mix it; and when they get in yarn, does weave
and dress it, and deliver it in broadcloth; and has already made good
broadcloth to many of the merchants of Edinburgh.’ ‘Seeing that this
is so good a work,’ the Privy Council, on petition, extended to it the
privileges proposed in the act for encouraging manufactures.--_P. C. R._
[Sidenote: 1681.]
Still the Council itself does not seem to have been a consistent patron
of such native works. The dress of the infantry of the royal army
having hitherto been of a plain kind, it was reported as necessary
to have coats for them ‘of such a dye as shall be thought fit to
distinguish sojors from other skulking and vagrant persons, who have
hitherto imitated the livery of the king’s sojors.’ The Newmills Cloth
Manufacturing Company offered (August 28, 1684) from their own work,
to furnish a suitable cloth ‘of what dye should be desired,’ and as
cheaply and expeditiously as it could be had from England. They would
shew ‘swatches’ [samples] within a fortnight, and give security for the
fulfilment of their undertaking. But the lords decided to use English
cloth.
Patrick Graham, ‘captain of his majesty’s company of foot within the
town of Edinburgh’ (the Town Guard), was empowered (January 8, 1685)
to import ‘three hundred ells of English cloth of a scarlet colour,
with wrappings and other necessars’ for the clothing of his corps,
this being ‘in regard the manufactories are not able to furnish his
majesty’s forces with cloth and other necessars.’ Several other
commanders of troops got similar licences. The Newmills Company
looked on with outraged feelings, and presented a petition desiring
that a stop might be put to the importation of English cloth for the
soldiery, as the needful article could be furnished as cheaply and of
as good quality from the native factory. In order that they might not
be ‘utterly ruined and broke,’ they begged that a committee might be
appointed to ascertain that such was the case; and a committee was
accordingly appointed, but with no result that appears. Meanwhile, we
find the Newmills copartnery trying to protect their monopoly against
infractions by private parties.
[Sidenote: 1681.]
It made an attack in April 1684 upon five merchants of Edinburgh who
continued, in defiance of the law, to deal in English cloth. It was
complained of against Robert Cunningham that ‘he sold a suit of clothes
of English cloth to Daniel Lockhart; item, a suit to Boghall; item, a
suit to Lord Forfar; item, a suit to William Lockhart; which clothes
was made by William Cowan, tailor.’ He had likewise ‘sold ane coat of
... ells to the Laird of Blackadder, made by Hugh Galloway, tailor;
to the Marquis of Athole, a suit, made by Lachlan M‘Pherson, tailor;
item to Mr Thomas Chalmers, two ells and a half English cloth; item to
the Bishop of the Isles, two ells and a half English cloth ... item, a
suit to the Marquis of Montrose.’ It was alleged that he had imported
and sold in all ‘five hundred ells of prohibite cloth, ane thousand
ells of prohibite stuffs and serges, and two hundred pair of English
worsted and silk stockings less or more.’ James Weir, Andrew Irving,
William Fullerton, and Thomas Smith had all committed delinquencies of
the same kind, the enumeration of which would only tire the reader;
and all this notwithstanding they had been kindly invited by the
Newmills Company to join their concern. What made the matter the more
insufferable, a complaint made against them in August last had been
graciously superseded in their behalf by royal proclamation; and they,
as if to shew ‘their incorrigibleness and obstinacy,’ ‘slighting that
so great mark of clemency,’ imported more during the few months since
elapsed than they did for two whole years before, ‘in open contempt of
his majesty’s laws, _to the destruction of trade and commerce within
the kingdom_, to the cheating, abusing, and oppressing of his majesty’s
lieges, and manifest endangering of the said manufactory and ruining of
the persons therein concerned.’
The offenders, having been oft called before the Privy Council, and
having failed to appear, were held as confessing their guilt, and
accordingly decerned to deliver up the prohibited cloths and stockings
to be burned, and at the same time to recompense his majesty’s
cashkeeper for them ‘at twelve shillings sterling for the ell of cloth,
two shillings sterling for the ell of stuff, and five pound sterling
for ilk dozen of prohibite stockings.’--_P. C. R._
While these strenuous measures were taken for preventing the free
importation of English woollen cloth into Scotland, a petition came
(December 2, 1684) from persons interested in the linen manufacture of
Scotland, complaining of the usage which had lately been experienced
by Scotsmen selling their linens in England. Hitherto there had been
a free trade for Scotch linen-weavers in the south; and, as ten or
twelve thousand persons were employed in such weaving, the results
were important not merely to the workers, but to landlords, for the
payment of their rents, and to the government, as each of a thousand or
twelve hundred packs exported to England paid a custom of three pounds
sterling. Latterly, however, the men selling Scotch linen in England
had been taken up and whipped as malefactors, and many obliged to give
bonds that they would discontinue their traffic.
The Council recommended the secretary of state to interpose with his
majesty, that merchants and others might have liberty to sell linen in
England as formerly; never once adverting to the fact that they had
an act of parliament conceived in the same illiberal spirit towards
English woollen manufactures.
[Sidenote: 1681.]
Such were the early struggles of an important branch of industry in
Scotland. It was not, after all, to be in this age that good woollen
cloth was to be produced in our northern clime. A writer in 1697
says: ‘We have tried to make several things, and particularly hats and
broadcloth, and yet _we cannot make our ware so good as what we can
have from abroad_.’ He adds, however, as a ground of hope: ‘Those who
would propagate any new manufacture must lay their account to labour
under several disadvantages at first. When soap-manufactures were first
set up in this kingdom, the soap was not so good as what we had from
abroad by far. These at Glasgow gave it over, as a thing they could
not accomplish; these at Leith continued to work, and now they have
acquired so much knowledge in that art, that their soap is better than
that we have brought from abroad.’[284]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAR. 2.]
Three men, named Gogar, Miller, and Sangster, were hanged in the
Grassmarket ‘for disowning the king’s authority, and adhering to
Cargill’s covenant, declaration, and excommunication, and thinking
it lawful to kill the king and his judges.’--_Foun._ It is to make
the rulers of that day somewhat worse than they were, to suppose
that they ordered these horrible executions in a purely unfeeling
manner, and without any hesitation. It is stated by Fountainhall, a
Whig, that the Duke of York sent the Earl of Roscommon to see these
men on the scaffold, and try to bring them to such a point as would
have allowed of their lives being spared. Had they but pronounced the
words, ‘God save the king,’ they would not have been executed. But
they refused life on such terms--the more surprising, as there was no
want of Scripture texts to warrant them in praying for the reigning
sovereign, even supposing him a monster of wickedness. ‘Daniel,’
remarks Fountainhall, ‘wishes Nebuchadnezzar and Darius, heathen kings,
to live for ever.’ It would be curious to know what the accomplished
Roscommon felt regarding these singular examples of Scottish religious
pertinacity.
[Sidenote: 1681.]
On the other hand, it is surprising that when the Duke of York went
so far as to offer the poor men their lives on what appear such
easy terms, he did not go a little further and see the absurdity of
treating such tempers as treasonable. ‘It would have been better,’
says Fountainhall, ‘to have kept them in bonds as madmen, or to have
employed physicians to use their skill upon them as on hypochondriac
persons.’ One would have thought that the manifest and acknowledged
maniacal condition of the Borrowstounness saints might have suggested
the true theory as to the obduracy of such men as Gogar, Miller, and
Sangster.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAR. 11.]
A process stood at law between Alexander Robertson, laird of Struan,
and the Marquis of Athole, arising from a service of Struan as heir to
an ancestor who lived two hundred and fifty years before; and amongst
the points debated was an alleged superiority of the marquis over
some lands held by Struan. These were both Highland chiefs of some
importance, but, dwelling near the Lowland Border, might be considered
as of those who were most likely to exhibit a tinge of Lowland habits.
The marquis was indeed a political character of some figure, holding
the office of Lord Privy Seal and a place in the Council.
The Highland laird of those days was acquainted with law, and had often
enough occasion to resort to it; but there was an element in his nature
which placed him more or less above law. Law-giver and law-executor in
his own territory and over his own people, almost without control, it
was difficult for him to accommodate himself to the idea of submitting
to the formal, pedantic rules and awards of the Session or the Council.
So much being premised, we must figure to ourselves the doughty Struan
walking about in the Council-chamber on the day noted in the margin,
not bearing his ordinary arms, pistol and durk, externally--for that
was forbidden--but carrying them in his bosom under his clothes, and
no doubt very wrathful at the arrogance of his proud neighbour, the
marquis, in claiming any superiority over him.
His business being under consideration, he told the clerk that he was
no vassal of the Marquis of Athole. One John Fleming, ‘servitor’ to
the marquis--a kind of gentleman dependant--quietly contradicted him,
saying that not only did his sasine of the lands of Tulloch clearly
shew him as a vassal of the marquis, but there was a mutual contract
between him and the marquis, obliging him to hold these lands in that
manner, and on this a decreet had been obtained from the Court of
Session. The blood of the chief of the Clan Donochy could not brook
such an opposition. He broke out upon Fleming with passionate violence,
calling him rascal, knave, and villain. He would see the Marquis of
Athole hanged before he would be his vassal. And as for the Court of
Session, he cared not a snuff for its decreet. Then thrusting his hand
under the breast of his upper coat, ‘where his durk and pistol are
secretly keeped,’ he said he knew not what held his hand from writing
his case on Fleming’s skin.
[Sidenote: 1681.]
This conduct was of course sure to turn to the injury of Struan
himself. In a very few days, Fleming had him up by petition before the
Privy Council, who, finding the charge proved, sentenced Struan to
imprisonment during pleasure in the Tolbooth, to crave pardon first
of the Council, and then of the Marquis of Athole, ‘on his knees,’
and to give Fleming security for the expenses (limited to £100 Scots)
incurred by the action and by the interruption it had given him in his
business.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR. 8.]
A case before the Privy Council reveals the treatment of the insane
in this age. It was a complaint from Mr Alexander Burton against his
brother John for putting him into Hopkirk the surgeon’s hands as a
madman. It was alleged, on John Burton’s part, that Alexander was
really melancholic and furious; so required restraint: also that he was
misusing and dilapidating his fortune; hence a bill had been applied
for to put his affairs under curators. Alexander answered that ‘he had
only craved his annual rents, and to refuse him his own, and treat him
as a fool, would raise pepper and passion in any man’s nose, and then
they termed the acts fury.’ To settle the matter, the Duke of York, who
was present, desired that the alleged fool might be permitted to speak;
whereupon he delivered himself so extravagantly, that the Council found
it only right that he should be put under restraint, and his affairs
placed in charge of his brother. Fountainhall adds: ‘In Scotland, we,
having no Bedlam, commit the better sort of mad people to the care and
taming of chirurgeons, and the inferior to the scourge [or] the poor.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAY 5.]
[Sidenote: 1681.]
M‘Gill of Rankeillour gave in a petition to the Privy Council, craving
permission for his son, Sir James M‘Gill, to come to see him, as he was
about to depart from this life. The son had about eight years before
been so unfortunate as to kill Sir Robert Balfour of Denmill, and the
king had granted him a remission, on the condition that, in order to
prevent further bloodshed, _he should never again be seen in Fife_. The
father, being eighty years of age, anxious to take farewell of his son,
begged the Council to relax this condition for a few days. The Council
doubted if they had power to grant the petition; but the Duke of York
‘affirming that he believed the king would not refuse this desire of
an old dying gentleman, they granted it in thir terms, that he should
go with a guard like a prisoner, and stay but twenty-four hours, and
then depart out of Fife, where the friends of him that was killed
live.’--_Foun._
Sir Robert Balfour was the only surviving son and successor of Sir
James Balfour of Denmill, the well-known antiquary. He fell in a
duel with Sir James M‘Gill, at a spot closely adjacent to the M‘Duff
Cross in the parish of Newburgh in Fife. A cairn of stones raised in
commemoration of the sad event, and called _Sir Robert’s Prap_, was in
existence a few years ago. This unfortunate gentleman must have fallen
in the very morning of life, as he was born in 1652.
[Sidenote: DEC. 8.]
[Sidenote: 1681.]
Encouraged by the liberality of the Council, Sir James M‘Gill
petitioned them anew in December for a removal of all restriction
upon his remission, alleging that it was required on account of the
decayed and infirm condition of his parents (he being their only
son), and the ruin into which his affairs had fallen in consequence
of his long exile. Against this petition, however, the friends of Sir
Robert Balfour gave in answers, shewing how green such a family wound
could then be kept for eight years. They urged that the slaughter
of their kinsman, so far from being done as alleged by Sir James in
self-defence, was in forethought felony, and it was only owing to
an undeserved clemency on his majesty’s part that he had not been
brought to condign punishment. The pretexts regarding his parents and
estate were frivolous, when the nature of his offence was considered.
‘Though it is insinuate that the said Sir James desires only to live
in the parish of Monimail, and not in the parish of Ebdie, where Sir
Robert’s nearest relations are, this is a very silly pretence, for
this is the very next parish, and Sir Robert’s nearest relations have
their interests in this parish itself, and it may be easily considered
that, if this be allowed, Sir Robert’s friends will be punished for
Sir James’s crime, since they must, to shun his company, neither go to
meetings of the shire, baptisms, nor marriages, burials or churches,
nay, nor to see their friends nor neighbours, lest they should _fall
in inconveniences with him_, which was the ground upon which the
restriction was granted at first.’ To prove how unworthy Sir James
was even of the favour extended to him in May last, it was set forth
that on that occasion ‘he must ride insolently by the very gate of the
gentleman whom he had murdered, with a great train of his friends, and
in passing the road they did also very insolently boast and upbraid
the poor people with whom they met.’ If this, it was added, ‘was done
in the very first time, what may be expected when his confidence is
increased by renewed favours, and when Denmill’s friends see that the
only satisfaction they got (which was not to see him at all) is taken
from them.’
The pleading of Denmill’s friends was too reasonable to be resisted,
and M‘Gill’s petition was refused.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 2.]
On a complaint from the master of the High School of Edinburgh to the
Privy Council, two or three private teachers were imprisoned till they
should give caution, not to teach Latin without a licence from the
bishop, and even then to carry the boys no further than ‘the rudiments
and vocables;’ after which it was thought they might be of sufficient
strength to go to the High School. What disposed the Council to support
the complaint was that there were several private teachers now in
Edinburgh, who were ‘outed ministers,’ and accordingly were suspected
of poisoning their pupils with disloyal principles.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 24.]
From March up to this date, there was a cold drought, which at length
inspired so much dread of famine and consequent pestilence, that a fast
was proclaimed throughout the kingdom ‘for deprecating God’s wrath and
obtaining rain.’ The evil was generally regarded as an effect of the
great comet of the past winter; ‘and certainly,’ says Fountainhall, ‘it
may drain the moisture from the earth, and influence the weather; but
there is a higher hand of Providence above all these signs, pointing
out to us our luxury, abuse of plenty, and other crying sins.’ He adds:
‘God thought fit to prevent our applications and addresses, and on the
24th of June and following days, sent plentiful showers.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 20.]
[Sidenote: 1681.]
Died this evening in his lodgings in Holyrood Palace, the Duke of
Rothes, Chancellor of the kingdom, an able and magnificent man, who,
by his licentious life, was believed to have set a bad example to the
Scottish nobility of his day. The cumbrous grandeur of his funeral
excited much attention. The body was carried from St Giles’s Church
to Holyrood Chapel, amidst a procession of soldiery, state officials,
personal retinue, noblemen and gentlemen mourners, and heraldic
personages, which fills six quarto pages in Arnot’s _History of
Edininburgh_. It was next day conducted in a hearse to Leith, thence
conveyed across the Forth to Burntisland, and ‘the next day after, it
was met by the gentlemen of Fife, of which his grace was high-sheriff,
and by them accompanied to the family burying-place at Leslie, being
laid in the grave with sound of trumpets, and the honours placed above
the grave.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP. 1.]
Leather stamped and gilded--believed to be originally a Spanish
fashion--was a favourite cover for the walls of rooms in the better
class of houses in Scotland as well as in England. Some examples of the
style still survive, and speak so strongly in its favour, that we might
justly wonder at its going out of fashion. Hitherto such ornamental
leather was introduced from abroad; but now Alexander Brand, merchant
in Edinburgh, by a considerable outlay, had brought workmen and
materials into the kingdom, and for the first time was about to set up
a work, in which he expected to produce the article ‘at as easy rates
as it could be imported.’ On a favourable report from ‘the Committee
of Trade,’ the Privy Council gave Brand a privilege of exclusive
manufacture for nineteen years.--_P. C. R._
Thomas Kennedy and John Trotter, merchants, were at the same time
proposing to set up a manufacture of linen and woollen cloth stuffs
and stockings in the place called Paul’s Work in Edinburgh, where, so
long ago as 1609, there had been an attempt at a woollen work. And as
an encouragement, the Council ordained them to have all the privileges
offered to manufactories in Scotland by the twelfth act of the present
parliament regarding manufactures.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT. 1.]
The ‘whole settled revenue’ of the king in Scotland was this day leased
to Bailie Baird, Charles Murray, and Robert Milne, for seven years, at
£90,000 per annum, they advancing £16,000 to pay the army. It appears
that the pensions then paid out of the Scottish exchequer amounted
to £25,000 a year. It is a curious consideration that at present
the _Times_ newspaper pays considerably more revenue than the whole
taxation of Scotland in the latter part of the seventeenth century.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT. 1.]
[Sidenote: 1681.
OCT. 10.]
Colonel Gage, commander of a regiment in the service of the King of
Spain, proposed to the Duke of York to take a few of the _phanatiques_
now in custody into his regiment, and so relieve the authorities of all
further charge of them. The duke caused six, named Forman, Garnock,
Lapsley, Stewart, Fairie, and Russell, ‘most of them young fellows,’
to be brought before the Council, with the design of sentencing them
to be delivered to Colonel Gage. The men, however, ‘did so misbehave,
in declining the king, duke, and Council, and speaking such notorious
treason,’ that it was thought necessary to send them instead to the
criminal court. There it was only too easy to prove the treasonable
nature of their language. Forman had a knife, with a posy, ‘This is to
cut the throat of tyrants.’ It appeared that Garnock had at the Council
so railed at General Dalyell, calling him ‘a Muscovy beast who used
to roast men,’ that the old soldier struck him with the pommel of his
sword on the face till the blood sprung. One alone obtained mercy; the
other five were doomed to death, Forman having the special sentence
to lose his hand before hanging, on account of his knife. These men
all died ‘obdurately,’ as their enemies called it, ‘heroically,’
according to their friends, ‘reviling and condemning their judges and
all who differed from them,’ says Fountainhall. Patrick Walker adds
some curious particulars. ‘The never-to-be forgotten Mr James Renwick
told me that he was witness to this public murder at the Gallow-lee,
betwixt Leith and Edinburgh, where he saw the hangman hash and hag off
their five heads, with Patrick Forman’s right hand. Their bodies were
all buried at the gallow’s foot; their heads, with Patrick’s hand, were
brought and put on five pikes on the Pleasance Port.... Mr Renwick told
me also, that it was the first public action that his hand was at, to
convene friends and lift their murdered bodies, and carry them to the
West Churchyard, and bury them there. Then they came about the city
to the Nether-Bow Port, with a design to retake the heads, hands, and
other parts of our martyrs down; but a woman, holding over a candle
to let some people see the street, marred them. Then they took down
these five heads and that hand, and the day being come, they went
quickly up the Pleasance, and when they came to Lauriston yards, upon
the south side of the city, they durst not venture, being so light,
to go and bury their heads with their bodies, which they designed, it
being present death if any of them had been found. Alexander Tweedie, a
friend, being with them, who at that time was gardener in these yards,
concluded to bury them in his yard, being in a box (wrapped in linen),
where they lay forty-five years....’ These relics were exhumed in 1726,
with all manifestations of rejoicing.
[Sidenote: 1681.]
The day after the five men had suffered at the Gallow-lee, the duke had
other four called before the Council, with a view to their being sent
away with Colonel Gage. ‘When they were brought in, they began in the
very same strain with their neighbours who were hanged the day before;
but the duke caused hastily remove them, that they might not also hang
themselves with their own tongue.’--_Foun._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV. 15.]
Amongst the gaieties of this day at Holyroodhouse, in celebration of
the queen’s birthday, was ‘the acting a comedy called _Mithridates,
King of Pontus_, wherein Lady Anne, the duke’s daughter, and the
ladies of honour, were the only actors.’ Fountainhall, who states
this occurrence, only adds the remark: ‘Not only the canonists, both
Protestant and Popish, but the very heathen Roman lawyers, declared
all scenic and stage players infamous, and will scarce admit them to
the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.’ On this occasion, there was a
prologue by the Earl of Roscommon, addressed specially to the duke, and
conceived in a strain of extravagant flattery ludicrously in contrast
with the feelings of a large body of the people:
‘When wealthy neighbours strove with us for power,
Let the sea tell how, in their fatal hour,
Swift as an eagle our victorious prince,
Great Britain’s genius, flew to her defence.
His name struck fear, his conduct won the day....
O happy islands, if you knew your bliss!
Strong by the sea’s protection, safe by his!
Express your gratitude the only way,
And humbly own a debt too vast to pay,’ &c.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV. 24.]
[Sidenote: 1681.]
The test being a puzzle and a bewilderment to some of the sagest
statesmen of the day, it is not surprising that it should have somewhat
confounded the magistrates of a simple Scotch burgh. At this date,
there was a petition to the Privy Council from William Plenderleith,
provost; John Hope, bailie; and John Givan, treasurer of Peebles, in
name of the council of that burgh, setting forth that, ‘being desired
to take the test, they were always willing;’ yet, ‘the town being very
inconsiderable, and _the petitioners very illiterate and ignorant_,
and living in a remote place where they could get no person to inform
them of the difference betwixt the act of parliament and the act of
Council, and not having the act of parliament in all the country, _nor
yet the confession of faith_, to which it related, the petitioners
humbly desired a time to advise as concerning the test.’ At their late
election, they had contented themselves with taking the Declaration,
‘thinking that the first of January was sufficient to take the test.’
But now, understanding what was required of them, they protested their
eager willingness to take the test, ‘having always been very loyal,’ as
they had shewn by their conduct on the occasion of the Bothwell Bridge
rebellion, for which they had received the thanks of the Council. The
Lords seem to have looked leniently on the omission of this innocent
little municipality, and now accepted their signatures in good part.
The magistrates of Peebles were, not long after, involved in a trouble
of a different complexion, in consequence of an unpopular movement
for the letting of a piece of commonty near the walls of the town,
which they had found to be ‘a pretext for incomers to the said burgh,
and the poor people, to eat up their neighbours’ corns.’ While they
were engaged in their Tolbooth or court-house (March 1, 1682) in
the administration of justice, a mob of irate burgesses, of whom
thirty-seven are named, came to express their disapprobation of a late
act of Council on that subject, and, if possible, frighten them from
proceeding with it; ‘menacing the provost that if he did so, he should
be sticked as Provost Dickison was.’[285] The magistrates put two of
their assailants in jail; but these were soon liberated by force. Then
the magistrates got the two burgesses and five of their liberators
clapped up in prison; but, behold, next day, taking a leaf out of the
history of the troubles of 1637, a mob of women assembled--namely,
Marion Bennett, Marion Grieve, Margaret Wilson, Isobel Wilson, Isobel
Robertson, Janet Ewmond, Isobel Ewmond, and Helen Steel--the names
of such heroines are worth preserving--and ‘did in a tumultuous and
irregular way take out of prison the persons of William Porteous,
Andrew Halden [the original prisoners], Thomas Stoddart, Alexander
Jonkieson, John Tweedie, Thomas King, James Waldie, and William
Leggat, and went to the Cross of Peebles with them, and there drank
their good healths as protectors of the liberties of the poor, and the
confusion of the said magistrates and council, and took up with them
stones to stone to death such as should oppose them; and thereafter,
they being about three hundred persons, divided themselves in several
companies, and every company convoyed home a prisoner, and drank their
good health, to the great astonishment of all honest and well-meaning
people.’
[Sidenote: 1681.]
This affair being brought as a gross riot before the Privy Council,
five of the men liberated, including the two who had first been in
prison, were deprived of their burgess privileges, and committed to
the Tolbooth of Edinburgh during pleasure, while the magistrates were
enjoined to ‘convene before them the haill rest of the inhabitants
that were accessory to the tumult and riot libelled, and to proceed
against them therefor, in fining, imprisonment, or ryving their
burgess-tickets, as they shall find cause.’
On the same day in which this case was judged, a petition was
presented from the five ex-burgesses, representing themselves as ‘poor
and ignorant persons,’ who had not meant any harm--as most of them
valetudinary and unable to bear confinement in jail--and, moreover,
as required to be now engaged in the labours of the season; wherefore
their liberation was craved. This was soon after acceded to, on their
giving security to reappear if called upon, and that they would go and
confess their fault, and crave pardon of the Peebles magistrates.--_P.
C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 22.]
As an example of the benevolence of the Privy Council of this time,
in cases where the reigning political prepossessions were not
offended--we find, on the very same day with some strong proceedings
against Presbyterian recusants, a representation from John Riddell,
merchant in Edinburgh, setting forth some recent heavy losses of
merchandise at sea, and certain obligations he was under in the way of
cautionry, whereby he had been reduced for eleven months past to the
sad condition of a prisoner in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, with ‘nothing
left to maintain himself and three motherless children, unless that
that the charitable supply of tender-hearted Christians doth support
and help him.’ Though he had no claim on public benevolence beyond
some sufferings long ago for the king at and before Worcester, the
Council gave warrant to the Archbishop of St Andrews and the Bishop of
Edinburgh for a voluntary contribution on Riddell’s behalf throughout
these two dioceses, enjoining them to cause the ministers to ‘make due
and lawful intimation thereof.’--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC.]
[Sidenote: 1681.]
Poor as Scotland was universally reputed to be, foreign adventurers
in search of fortune would occasionally resort to it. Peter Bruce
or de Bruis was one of these--a native of Flanders, and a Catholic.
We have already (February 1680) seen him asking public favour for a
water-pumping engine and an iron-cutting mill which he had invented. We
hear of him in Fountainhall, about that time, as building a harbour
at Cockenzie for the Earl of Winton, and having a long litigation
about the payment. He seems to have been an active spirit. In December
1681, he succeeded in obtaining from the Privy Council a patent for
the exclusive manufacture and sale of playing-cards, under the usual
pretence that money would thus be retained within the country. Within a
very few months, he had erected a work near Leith for this manufacture,
and brought home from Holland and Flanders ‘expert masters’ for making
the cards, and ‘carvers for making the patterns,’ all of whom he took
bound to instruct native workmen. In a very short time, we find him at
war with two merchants who were accustomed to import playing-cards,
and not disposed to brook his monopoly. Perhaps Peter was too vehement
in his proceedings for the Scotch people among whom he cast his lot;
perhaps they were unduly jealous of this keen-witted stranger. How it
came we cannot tell; but before the work had been long erected, the
tacksman of Canonmills set upon it and did somewhat to demolish it,
and, horrid to relate, threw Madame de Bruis into the dam, besides
using opprobrious words; for which he was fined in £50, and imprisoned.
Not long after, Peter gained a triumph over the two importers of cards,
for they were ordered by the Council to compound with him at so much a
pack before they could be allowed to sell them.[286]
[Sidenote: 1682.
FEB. 16.]
In the ensuing February, Peter was again in trouble. Alexander Daes,
owner of the paper-manufactory at Dalry Mills, complained that his
privilege of making paper and playing-cards had been infringed by Peter
Bruce and James Lithgow, who had clandestinely obtained a licence for
a playing-card manufactory. They had likewise enticed away a workman
named Nicolas de Champ, whom he had brought from France, and caused
the abstraction from his work of some of his haircloths. The Council
freed Peter and his associate from everything but the charge of taking
away the haircloths, which they left to be dealt with by the ordinary
judge.--_P. C. R._
[Sidenote: 1681.]
Altogether, Peter seems to have found great difficulty in preventing a
sale of foreign cards. It was difficult to detect the importation of
such articles. A package containing a quantity of them had lately been
brought by the ship of one Adam Watt; and even the custom-house officer
winked at its being smuggled ashore. Peter craved the Council (June 7,
1682) for general letters against the contraveners of his privilege;
but the Council, apparently warned by the complaints about the Messrs
Fountain, would only, on that occasion, agree to give warrant for
particular cases. Afterwards (July 5), they gave a more general
warrant, but still declaring that Bruce, in the event of making a wrong
charge, should be liable to a fine.
Finally, persecuted out of Edinburgh, Peter betook himself to Glasgow,
and tried to set up a paper-mill at Woodside, near that city; but here,
too, he encountered a variety of troubles and oppressions, designed
for the purpose of neutralising his monopoly of the manufacture of
playing-cards, his builders failing in their engagements, his men
being seduced away from him, his mill-course defrauded of water, and
so forth. He complained to the Privy Council (January 6, 1685), and
got a decree against his two chief persecutors, John Campbell and
James Peddie, for a thousand merks as compensation for the injuries he
had suffered. When everything else failed, Peter seems to have turned
his religious professions to some account, as he is last seen acting
as printer to the Catholic chapel and college at Holyrood--where,
doubtless, the Revolution gave him a disagreeable surprise.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 26.]
The college youths renewed the demonstration of last year. ‘Their
preparations were so quiet, that none suspected it this year. They
brought [the pope] to the Cross, and fixed his chair in that place
where the gallows stands. He was tricked up in a red gown and a mitre,
with two keys over his arm, a crucifix in one hand, and the oath of the
Test in the other. Then they put fire to him, and it burnt lengthy till
it came to the powder, at which he blew up in the air.
‘At this time, many things were done in mockery of the Test: one I
shall tell. The children of Heriot’s Hospital, finding that the dog
which kept the yards of that hospital had a public charge and office,
ordained him to take the Test, and offered him a paper. But he, loving
a bone better than it, absolutely refused it. They then rubbed it over
with butter, which they called an Explication of the Test, in imitation
of Argyle, and he licked off the butter, but did spit out the paper;
for which they held a jury upon him, and, in derision of the sentence
on Argyle, they found the dog guilty of treason, and actually hanged
him.’--_Foun._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1682.
JAN. 16.]
[Sidenote: 1682.]
Alexander Cockburn, the hangman of Edinburgh, was tried before the
magistrates as sheriffs, for the murder, in his own house, of one
Adamson or Mackenzie, a blue-gown beggar. The proof was slender, and
chiefly of the nature of presumption--as, that he had denied Adamson’s
being in his house on the alleged day, the contrary being proved,
groans having been heard, and bloody clothes found in the house; and
this evidence, too, was chiefly from women. Yet he was condemned to be
hanged within three suns. One Mackenzie, whom Cockburn had caused to
lose his place of hangman at Stirling, performed the office.--_Foun._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: FEB. 11.]
Three men were drowned this day, by falling through the ice on the
North Loch. ‘We have a proverb that the fox will not set his foot on
the ice after Candlemas, especially in the heat of the sun, as this was
at two o’clock; and at any time the fox is so sagacious as to lay his
ear to the ice, to see if it be frozen to the bottom, or if he hear the
murmuring and current of the water.’--_Foun._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: FEB.]
[Sidenote: 1682.]
A strange story was circulated regarding a servant lass in the burgh
of Irvine. Her mistress, the wife of the Honourable Major Montgomery,
having had some silver articles stolen, blamed the lass, who, taking
the accusation much amiss, and protesting her innocence, said she would
learn who took those things, though she should raise the devil for it.
The master and mistress let this pass as a rash speech; but the girl,
being resolute, on a certain day ‘goes down to a laigh cellar, takes
a Bible with her, and draws a circle about her, and turns a riddle on
end twice from south to north, or from the right hand to the left hand,
having in her hand nine feathers, which she pulled out of the tail
of a black cock, and having read the 21st [psalm] forward, she reads
backward chap. ix., verse 19, of the book of Revelation; _he_ appears
in a seaman’s clothing, with a blue cap, and asks what she would. She
puts one question to him, and he answers it; and she casts three of the
feathers at him, charging him to his place again; then he disappears.
He seemed to her to rise out of the earth to the middle of his body.
She reads the same verse backward the second time, and he appears the
second time, rising out of the ground, with one leg above the ground;
she asks him a second question, and she casts other three feathers at
him, charging him to his place; he again disappears. She reads again
the third time the verse backward, and he appears the third time with
his body above ground (the last two times in the shape of a black grim
man in black clothing, and the last time with a long tail); she asks
a third question at him, and casts the three last feathers at him,
charging him to his place; and he disappears. The major-general and
his lady, being above stairs, though not knowing what was a-working,
were sore afraid, and could give no reason of it; the dogs in the city
making a hideous barking round about. This done, the woman, aghast, and
pale as death, comes and tells her lady who had stolen the things she
missed, and they were in such a chest in her house, belonging to some
of the servants; which being searched, was found accordingly. Some of
the servants, suspecting her to be about this work, tells the major of
it, and tells him they saw her go down to the cellar; he lays her up
in prison, and she confesses as is before related, telling them that
she learned it in Dr Colvin’s house in Ireland, who used to practise
this.’--_Law._
Fountainhall relates this story more briefly as ‘a strange accident,’
and remarks that the divination _per cribrum_ (by the sieve) is very
ancient, having been practised among the Greeks. He is puzzled about
her confession, as it may be from frenzy and hatred of life; but if
the fact of the consultation can be proved, he is clear that it infers
death.
Divination by a sieve was performed in this manner: ‘The sieve being
suspended, after repeating a certain form of words, it is taken between
the two fingers only, and the names of the parties suspected, repeated:
he at whose name the sieve turns, trembles, or shakes, is reputed
guilty of the evil in question.... It was sometimes practised by
suspending the sieve by a thread, or fixing it to the points of a pair
of scissors, giving it room to turn, and naming as before the parties
suspected: in this manner Coscinomancy is still practised in some parts
of England.’--_Demonologia._ _By J. S. F._ _London_, 1827; p. 146.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: FEB.]
‘Strange apparitions were seen in and about Glasgow, and strange voices
and wild cries [were heard], particularly one night about the Deanside
well, was heard a cry, _Help, help!_‘--_Law._ Many such occurrences
are noted about this time and for four or five years before. In March
1679, for instance, a voice was heard at Paisley Abbey, crying: ‘Wo,
wo, wo--pray, pray, pray!’ Such reports reveal the excited state of
the public mind and a general sense of anxiety under the religious
variances of the time.
[Sidenote: 1682.
MAR.]
Major Learmont, an old soldier of the Covenant, though only a tailor
to his trade, was taken in his own house near Lanark, or rather in a
vault connected with it which he had contrived for hiding. ‘It had its
entry in his house, upon the side of a wall, and closed up with a whole
stone, so close that none could have judged it but to be a stone of
the building. It descended below the foundation of the house, and was
in length about forty yards, and in the far end, the other mouth of
it, was closed with feal [turf], having a feal dyke built upon it; so
that with ease, when he went out, he shot out the feal and closed it
again. Here he sheltered for the space of sixteen years, taking to it
at every alarm, and many times hath his house been searched for him by
the soldiers; but where he sheltered none was privy to it but his own
domestics, and at length it is discovered by his own herdsman.’--_Law._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAR. 9.]
Thomas Barclay of Collerine in Fife was a youth of eighteen, in
possession of ‘an opulent estate,’ and likewise of a considerable
jurisdiction in his county. His predecessors were loyalists; but
Thomas himself, by the remarriage of his mother to Mure of Rowallan in
Ayrshire, was, according to the allegation of his uncle John Barclay,
in the way of being ‘bred up in a family of fanatical and disloyal
principles, not being permitted to visit or be acquainted with his
nearest relations and friends, and denied all manner of education
suitable to his quality ... not being sent to college’--he had,
moreover, been influenced to choose ‘curators altogether strangers to
his family, of known disaffected and disloyal principles.’ It seemed,
in John Barclay’s judgment, unavoidable in these circumstances that a
supporter would be lost to his majesty’s interests, unless a remedy
were provided.
It seems so far creditable to a government which has a good many sins
at its charge, that, when this case came before the Duke of York and
the Privy Council, on John Barclay’s petition, and both sides had been
heard--namely, the uncle on one side, and the Lady Rowallan, with the
three curators, Montgomery younger of Skelmorley, the Laird of Dunlop,
and Mr John Stirling, minister of Irvine, on the other--they decided
that the young Barclay was of age to act and choose curators for
himself, and that the defenders were not bound to produce him in court;
thus frankly consenting that the young man should rest in the danger of
being perverted from the loyalty of his family.-- _P. C. R._
[Sidenote: 1682.
APR.]
A severe murrain commenced amongst the cattle, thought to be owing to
the deficient herbage of the preceding year, and the heavy rains of the
intermediate season.[287] The support of cattle during winter was at
all times a trying difficulty in those days of no turnip-husbandry; but
on an occasion like this it was scarcely possible. It was remarked that
the farmers had to cut heather for their beasts to lie upon, and pull
the old straw out of the coverings of their houses to feed them with.
The murrain lasted till May, when some tenants in the Highlands lost as
many as forty cows by it.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR. 18.]
A complaint presented to the Privy Council by Janet Stewart, servant to
Mr William Dundas, advocate, set forth that James Aikenhead, apothecary
in Edinburgh, took upon him ‘to compose and vent poisonous tablets,’
and ‘Mistress Elizabeth Edmonstoun, having got notice of these tablets,
and that they would work strange wanton affections and humours in the
bodies of women,’ sent James Chalmers for some of them, which she
caused to be administered to the complainer, in presence of several
persons, ‘as a sweetmeat tablet.’ Janet having innocently accepted of
the tablet, ate of it, and in consequence ‘fell into a great fever,
wherein she continued for twenty days, before anybody knew what was the
cause of it; so that the poison has crept into her bones, and she is
like never to recover.’
Fountainhall tells us that Janet would not have recovered, ‘had not
Doctor Irvine given her an antidote.’ The Council remitted the case to
the College of Physicians, as being skilled in such matters (_periti in
arte_), ‘who,’ says Fountainhall, ‘thought such medicaments not safe to
be given _without first taking their own advice_.’[288]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAY 3.]
[Sidenote: 1682.]
A riot took place in the streets of Edinburgh, in consequence of an
attempt to carry away, as soldiers to serve the Prince of Orange,
some young men who had been imprisoned for a trivial offence. As the
lads were marched down the street under a guard, to be put on board
a ship in Leith Road, some women called out to them: ‘Pressed or not
pressed?’ They answered: ‘Pressed,’ and so caused an excitement in
the multitude. A woman who sat on the street selling pottery, threw a
few sherds at the guard, and some other people, finding a supply of
missiles at a house which was building, followed her example. ‘The
king’s forces,’ says Fountainhall, ‘were exceedingly assaulted and
abused.’ Under the order of their commander, Major Keith, they turned
and fired upon the crowd, when, as usual, only innocent bystanders
were injured. Seven men and two women were killed, and twenty-five
wounded--a greater bloodshed than ‘has been at once these sixty years
done in the streets of Edinburgh.’ One of the women being pregnant, the
child was cut from her and baptised in the streets. Three of the most
active individuals in this mob were seized and tried, but the assize
would not find them guilty. The magistrates were severely blamed for
their negligence and cowardice in this affair.
It gave origin to the well-known _Town-guard_ of Edinburgh, for, under
the recommendation of the Privy Council, and with the sanction of the
king, it was agreed to raise a body of a hundred and eight men, to
serve as a protection to the city in all emergencies. The inhabitants
were taxed to pay for it, ‘some a groat, some fivepence, and the
highest at sixpence a week;’ but this being found oppressive, the
support of the corps, which cost 22,000 merks a year, was soon after
put upon the town’s common good.[289] Patrick Graham, a younger son of
Graham of Inchbrakie, was appointed captain, at the dictation of the
Duke of York, who, says Fountainhall, ‘would give a vast sum to have
such a breach in London’s walls.’
Many who remember the Town-guard, with their rusty brown uniform,
their Lochaber axes, and fierce Highland faces, as a curiosity of the
streets of Edinburgh in their young days, will be perhaps unpleasingly
surprised to learn that the corps was originally an engine of the
government of the last Stuarts. Captain Graham, who was a sincere
loyalist by blood, being descended from the Inchbrakie who sheltered
Montrose on his commencing the insurrection of 1644, figured with his
guards on various occasions during the remainder of the Stuart reigns,
particularly at the bringing in of the Earl of Argyle to be executed in
1685, when he and the hangman received the unhappy Maccallummore at the
Watergate, and conducted him along the street to prison.
[Sidenote: 1682.]
The Town-guard was disbanded in November 1817, by which time it had
been reduced to twenty-five privates, two sergeants, two corporals, and
two drummers.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAY 6.]
The _Gloucester_ frigate, on her voyage from London to Edinburgh with
the Duke of York and his friends, and attended by some smaller vessels,
was by a blunder wrecked on Yarmouth Sands. A signal-gun brought boats
from the other vessels to the rescue of the distressed party, and the
duke and several other men of importance were taken from the vessel,
just before she went to pieces. A hundred and fifty persons, of whom
eighty were men of quality, including the Earl of Roxburgh, the Laird
of Hopetoun, Sir Joseph Douglas of Pumpherston, and Lord O’Brian of the
Irish peerage, were drowned. Sir George Gordon of Haddo, president of
the Court of Session, and who had just received the high appointment of
Chancellor of Scotland, escaped by leaping into the water, whence he
was drawn by the hair of the head into a boat. The Earl of Roxburgh had
been heard crying for a boat, and offering twenty thousand guineas for
one. His servant in the water took him on his back, and was swimming
with him to a boat, when a drowning person clutched at them, and the
unfortunate earl fell off and perished, his servant barely escaping
for the moment, and dying an hour after. The duke and the rest of the
survivors arrived in Leith next day, without further accident.
‘The pilot, one Aird, of Borrowstounness, was threatened with hanging
for going to sleep and giving wrong directions ... he was condemned to
perpetual imprisonment.’--_Foun._
It is remarkable that the widow of the Earl of Roxburgh survived him
_in widowhood_ for seventy-one years, dying in 1753.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 13.]
[Sidenote: 1682.]
Sir Alexander Lindsay of Evelick--an ancient castle on the high grounds
overlooking the Carse of Gowrie--had married as a second wife the
widow of Mr William Douglas, ‘the advocate and poet.’[290] Both had
children approaching maturity, and William Douglas, the lady’s son,
became very naturally the playfellow of Sir Alexander’s heir Thomas.
Whether jealousy on account of the superior prospects of Thomas Lindsay
had entered William Douglas’s heart, we cannot tell; but the two boys
being out one day in the Den of Pitrodie, a romantic broomy dell near
Evelick, Douglas was tempted to stab Lindsay with a clasp-knife, and so
murder him.
The wretched boy gave a confession next day, fully admitting his guilt.
It commences thus: ‘I have been over proud and rash all my life. I was
never yet firmly convinced there was a God or a devil, a heaven or a
hell, till now. To tell the way how I did the deed my heart doth quake
[and] head ryves. As I was playing and kittling at the head of the
brae, I stabbed him with the only knife which I have, and I tumbled
down the brae with him to the burn; all the way he was struggling with
me, while I fell upon him in the burn, and there he uttered one or two
pitiful words. The Lord Omnipotent and all-seeing God learn my heart to
repent.’ On this occasion, ‘he also produced the little knife called
_Jock the leig_, with ane iron haft.’
Being on the ensuing day brought before the sheriff-court of Perth, it
was there alleged against him that ‘he did conceive ane deadly hatred
and evil [will] against Thomas Lindsay, son to Sir Alexander Lindsay
of Evelick, with a settled resolution to bereave him of life; he did
upon the thretteen day of this instant month, being Tuesday last, about
seven hours in the afternoon or thereby, as he was coming along the Den
of Pitrodie in company with the said Thomas Lindsay, fall upon the said
Thomas, and with his knife did give him five several stabs and wounds
in his body, whereof one about the mouth of his stomach, and thereafter
dragged him down the brae of the den to the burn, and there with his
feet did trample upon the said Thomas lying in the water, and as yet
he not being satisfied with all that cruelty which he did to the said
Thomas, he did with a stone dash him upon the head, so that immediately
the said Thomas died.’
[Sidenote: 1682.]
To the great concern of his friends, the boy now retracted his
confession, alleging that he found Thomas Lindsay lying in the burn,
and in trying to help him up had fallen upon him. The trial was
consequently postponed to a future day. Meanwhile his friends exerted
themselves to bring back the culprit to a sense of his guilt, and
after a few days, they seem to have succeeded. On the 25th of June,
his mother is found writing to the Laird of Balhaivie, a cousin of
the murdered youth, relating how she had been witness to the power
of God in changing the heart of the obstinate. ‘In a very little,’
says she, ‘after you went to the door, he rose up in such a passion
of grief and sorrow, crying out in such bitterness, rapping on the
table, and cursing the hour it entered into his head to recant, and
promised through the Lord’s strength, nothing should persuade him to
do it again, but that he should constantly affirm the truth of his
first declaration. He took out the declaration the devil had belied him
to write, and cried to cast it in the fire, with so much sorrow and
tears, as he took his head in his hand and said he feared to distract
[become distracted], and prayed that the Lord would help him in his
right judgment, that he might still adhere to truth. This,’ continues
the wretched mother, ‘was some consolation to my poor confounded mind;
but when I consider that deceitful bow the heart, and his frequent
distemper, my spirit fails.... I desire you and the rest of your worthy
friends no to pit yourself to needless charges in the affair, for
I, his nearest relation, being not only convinced justice should be
satisfied, but am desirous nothing may occur to hinder. And as I know,
though both he and I hath creditable friends, they will be ashamed to
own me in this. The good God that best knows my pitiful case bear [me]
up under this dismal lot, and give you and all Christians a heart to
pray for him, and your poor afflicked servant, Rachel Kirkwood.’
The Laird of Balhaivie seems to have entered kindly into the lady’s
feelings. His answer contains a few traits highly characteristic of
the time. ‘Much honoured madam, as soon as Sir Pat[rick Threipland]
gave me account yesternight of your son’s second confession, I went
alongs with Sir Patrick and saw him, and I swear to outward appearance
he seemed very serious, and I pray God Almighty continue him so.... My
cousin, young Evelick, and all his relations are very sensible of your
ladyship’s extraordinary and wonderful good carriage in ane affair so
astounding as this has been, and ye renew it in your letter, wherein ye
desire they should not be put to needless trouble and charges in the
affair. The truth is, madam, there is none of us but are grieved to the
bottom of our hearts that we should be obliged to pursue your son to
death; but we keep evil consciences if we suffer the murder of so near
a relation to go unpunished; and his life for the taking away of the
other’s is the least atonement that credit and conscience can allow....
His dying by the hand of justice will be the only way to expiate so
great a crime, and likewise be a means to take away all occasion of
grudge which otherwise could not but continue in the family....’[291]
[Sidenote: 1682.]
The youth was brought to trial in Edinburgh, and condemned to suffer
death on the 4th of August. After the trial, he confessed that it
was he who in the January preceding ‘put fire in Henry Graham’s
writing-chamber, out of revenge, and that he had first stolen some
books there.’ He was subjected to a new trial for this crime, because,
being treason, it would have inferred a forfeiture of his estate, worth
upwards of £2000; but on this occasion he retracted his confession, nor
could any thing prevail with him to renew it judicially. The jury, who
were honest Edinburgh citizens, seeing that the design was to enrich
certain courtiers at the expense of the sisters of the young homicide,
acquitted him of the new charge, to the great irritation of the king’s
advocate, who ‘swore that the next assizers he should choose should be
Linlithgow’s soldiers, to curb the phanaticks.’[292]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 5.]
The magistrates of Dumfries had a man called Richard Storie in their
jail, on a charge of murder, and were put to great charges in keeping
and guarding him, because several of his friends from the Borders
daily _threatened to force the prison_ and permit him to make his
escape ‘if he shall remain any longer there.’[293] It was therefore
found necessary to order that Storie should be transferred by the
sheriff under a sufficient guard to the next sheriff upon the road to
Edinburgh, and so on to Edinburgh itself, where he should be placed in
firmance in the Tolbooth.
[Sidenote: 1682.]
There was the more reason for the magistrates of Dumfries being anxious
about the detention of Richard Storie, that George Storie, an associate
in his crime, had already escaped. These two men were accused of
having basely and cruelly murdered Francis Armstrong in Alisonbank, in
the preceding month of June. The witnesses being Englishmen, it was
necessary (December 7, 1682) to recommend to the sheriff of Cumberland
to take measures for insuring their appearance before the Court of
Justiciary at the approaching trial. This proving ineffectual, the
widow and six children of Francis Armstrong petitioned in March for
further and more effectual efforts; and the lords agreed to address the
English secretary of state on the subject.
Not long after (April 30, 1684), the Council was informed that, ‘by
the throng of prisoners in the Tolbooth of Dumfries, the same has been
already broken, and is yet in the same hazard.’ Being at the same time
made aware ‘that, within the castle of Dumfries, there are some strong
vaults fit for the keeping of prisoners,’ they gave orders to have
these prepared for the
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 7.]
A poor Quaker, named Thomas Dunlop, had taken a house in Musselburgh,
and was endeavouring by humble industry to support himself and his
family, without being burdensome to any. But other Quakers came
occasionally about him, to the annoyance of the magistrates of the
town; and finding he broke a local law, in having no certificate of
character from the minister of the parish in which he had last resided,
they took advantage of the circumstance to get quit of him. Poor Thomas
and his wife and little children were thrust out of their home into
the fields, notwithstanding his entreaties for delay till he should
get letters certifying his respectability from persons they knew. He
had now been lodging for thirteen days and nights in the fields, the
magistrates resisting all pleadings in his favour from charitable
persons, and disregarding the misery which he was manifestly enduring.
On his petition to that body which almost every week was sending
recusant Whigs to the scaffold, they lent him a patient hearing, and
summoned the Musselburgh magistrates before them; but all that the laws
permitted them to do in the case, was to ordain that Thomas might have
recourse to a legal action if the magistrates had not ‘removed him in
ane orderly manner.’--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 8.]
[Sidenote: 1682.]
James Somerville, younger of Drum, riding home to that place from
Edinburgh, found on the way two friends fighting with swords--namely,
Thomas Learmont, son of Mr Thomas Learmont, an advocate, and Hew
Paterson, younger of Bannockburn. These two young men had quarrelled
over their cups. Young Somerville dismounted, and tried to separate
them, but received a mortal wound from Paterson’s sword, though
inflicted by the hand of Learmont, the two combatants having perhaps,
like Hamlet and Laertes, exchanged weapons. The wounded man lived two
days, and expressed his forgiveness of Learmont, who, by his advice,
fled. ‘Some alleged his wounds were not mortal, but misguided.’
Somerville was the progeny of the marriage described as having taken
place at Corehouse in November 1650. He left an infant son, who carried
on the line of the family.--_Foun._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG. 17.]
A comet began to appear in the north-west. ‘The star was big, and the
tail broad and long, at the appearance of four yards.’ It continued
visible for twenty days.--_Law._
This was the celebrated _Halley’s Comet_, so called in honour of the
illustrious astronomer who first ascertained, by his calculations
regarding it, the periodicity of comets. The same object had been
observed by Kepler in 1607, and by Apian in 1531. ‘The identity of
these meteors seeming to Halley unquestionable, he ventured to predict
that the same comet would reappear in 1758, and that it would be found
to revolve in a very elongated ellipse in about seventy-six years. As
the critical period approached, which was to decide so momentous a
question regarding the system of the world, the greatest mathematicians
endeavoured to track the comet’s course with a minuteness which
Halley’s opportunities did not permit him to reach. The illustrious
Clairhaut, feeling that a general prediction was not enough, undertook
the most complex problem as to the disturbing effects of the planets
through whose orbits it must pass.... He succeeded in predicting one of
the positions for the comet for the middle of April; stating, however,
that he might be in error by thirty days. The comet occupied the
position referred to on the 12th of March.’--_Nichol’s Contemplations
on the Solar System._
[Sidenote: 1682.]
It is humiliating to have to remark, that the notices of comets which
we derive from Scotch writers down to this time, contain nothing but
accounts of the popular fancies regarding them. Practical astronomy
seems to have then been unknown in our country; and hence, while in
other lands men were carefully observing, computing, and approaching
to just conclusions regarding these illustrious strangers of the
sky, our diarists could only tell us how many _yards_ long they
seemed to be, what _effects_ were apprehended from them in the way
of war and pestilence, and how certain pious divines ‘improved’ them
for spiritual edification. Early in this century, Scotland had
produced one great philosopher--who had supplied his craft with the
mathematical instrument by which complex problems, such as the movement
of comets, were alone to be solved. It might have been expected that
the country of Napier, seventy years after his time, would have had
many sons capable of applying his key to such mysteries of nature.
But not one had arisen--nor did any rise for fifty years onward, when
at length Colin Maclaurin unfolded in the Edinburgh University the
sublime philosophy of Newton. There could not be a more expressive
signification of the character of the seventeenth century in Scotland.
Our unhappy contentions about external religious matters had absorbed
the whole genius of the people, rendering to us the age of Cowley, of
Waller, and of Milton, as barren of elegant literature, as that of
Horrocks, of Halley, and of Newton, was of science.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV. 23.]
John Corse, Andrew Armour, and Robert Burne, merchants in Glasgow,
were now arranging for the setting up of a manufactory ‘for making of
damaties, fustines, and stripped vermiliones,’ expecting it would be ‘a
great advantage to the country, and keep in much money therein which
is sent out thereof for import of the same.’ Seeing ‘it undoubtedly
will require a great stock and many servants, strangers, which are come
and are to be sent for,’ the enterprisers deemed themselves entitled
to have their work declared a manufactory, so that it might enjoy the
privileges accorded to such by act of parliament. This favour was
granted by the Council for nine years, ‘but prejudice to any other
persons to set up and work in the said work.’--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC.]
[Sidenote: 1682.]
Daniel Mure of Gledstanes,[294] out of health and mental vigour, and
believed to be on his death-bed, was induced to make a disposition
of his estate to Thomas Carmichael of Eastend. Such a disposition,
however, could not be valid by the law of Scotland, unless the testator
appeared afterwards ‘at kirk and market’--an arrangement designed to
insure that natural heirs should not be cheated. By ‘a most devilish
contrivance’ of William Chiesley, writer in Edinburgh, Thomas Bell,
Carmichael’s servant, was dressed up to personate the sick man, and
taken with all due form to the public places appointed by the law. The
notary before whom the man presented himself was so doubtful of his
being Daniel Mure, that he caused him to take his oath that he was
truly that person. When Carmichael and his man afterwards retired to
a tavern with the notary, the latter once more expressed his doubt,
saying: ‘This person is certainly not like Daniel Mure;’ to which
Carmichael answered, that he was really the man, but much altered
by sickness. On the death of Daniel Mure soon after, Carmichael
accordingly appeared as the inheritor of the estate of Gledstanes, to
the exclusion of Francis Mure, merchant in Edinburgh, the brother of
the deceased. The affair was the more wicked, as the estate was one
which had been long in Mure’s family.
[Sidenote: DEC. 21.]
On the whole matter being brought before the Privy Council by Francis
Mure, the truth became clear, and Carmichael was punished by a fine of
five thousand merks, whereof two thousand were assigned to Francis, as
a compensation for the damage he had sustained; while Chiesley, the
writer, was mulcted in three thousand merks for being accessory to
the cheat. An obligation which Francis Mure had been induced to give
to Carmichael, binding himself never to expose or pursue the forgery,
was at the same time discharged. It is not unworthy of remark, that
Chiesley, who had devised this forgery and drawn up the iniquitous
obligation aforesaid, was one of those members of the legal profession
who had refused, from scruples of conscience, to take the Test.--_P. C.
R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 23.]
Alexander Nisbet of Craigentinny and Macdougall of Makerston had
gone abroad to fight a duel, attended by Sir William Scott of Harden
and ---- Douglas, ‘ensign to Colonel Douglas,’ as seconds. The Privy
Council hearing of it, ordered the four gentlemen to be confined in
the Tolbooth in different rooms, until it should be inquired into.
The principals were, on petition, set at liberty in a few days, after
giving caution for reappearance.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1683.
JAN. 5.]
[Sidenote: 1683.]
The widow of Andrew Anderson at this time carried on business in
Edinburgh as the king’s printer, by virtue of a royal gift debarring
others from exercising the like art. The bibles produced by her are
said by Fountainhall to have been wretchedly executed. One David
Lindsay having now got a similar gift, Mrs Anderson endeavoured to
keep him out of the trade, setting forth that she had been previously
invested with the privilege, and ‘_one press is sufficiently able to
serve all Scotland_, our printing being but inconsiderable.’[295] The
Lords ordained that Mrs Anderson’s monopoly should be held as only
including the printing of such things as had been specified in the gift
to her husband’s predecessor Tyler.
There were at this time printers in Glasgow and Aberdeen, but probably
no other part of Scotland--though St Andrews had had a press before
the Reformation. The business of the printer has been of slow growth
in our country. Edinburgh contained in 1763 only six printing-offices;
in 1790, sixteen;[296] there are, in 1858, sixty-two printing firms,
besides several publishing offices, in which special printing work is
executed.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: FEB. 1.]
It was represented to the Privy Council by the Bishop of Aberdeen that
the Quakers in his diocese were now proceeding to such insolency, as
to erect meeting-houses for their worship and ‘schools for training
up their children in their godless and heretical opinions;’ providing
funds for the support of these establishments, and in some instances
adding burial-grounds for their own special use. The Council issued
orders to have proper investigations made amongst the leading Quakers
concerned and the proprietors of the ground on which the said
meeting-houses and schools had been built.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR. 5.]
At the funeral of the Duke of Lauderdale at Haddington, while the usual
dole of money was distributing among the beggars, one, named Bell,
stabbed another. ‘He was apprehended, and several stolen things found
on him; and, he being made to touch the corpse, the wound bled afresh.
The town of Haddington, who it seems have a sheriff’s power, judged him
presently, and hanged him over the bridge next day.’--_Foun._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR. 19.]
[Sidenote: 1683.]
Alexander Robertson of Struan, whom we saw two years back breaking
out with mortal fury against an agent of the Marquis of Athole in the
chamber of the Privy Council, now comes before us in a more agreeable
light--namely, as one seeking to cultivate an industrial economy in
the midst of the vicious idleness and barbarism of the Highlands. Far
up among the Perthshire alps, on the dreary shores of Loch Rannoch,
there was then ‘a considerable wood,’ the property of Struan. This
would have been useless to him and the country--being in so remote a
wilderness--‘if he had not, with great expenses and trouble, caused
erect _saw-mills_, in which, these divers years past, there has been
made the number of 176,000 deals.’ This had redounded ‘to the great
benefit and conveniency of the country adjacent, besides the keeping
of many persons at work’ who would otherwise have been idle and in
wretchedness. Struan, however, could not obtain a market for the great
bulk of his timber, without sending it in floats along Loch Rannoch,
and down the water of Tummel into the Tay; and in this long and tedious
passage, it was sometimes driven by storms and spates [floods] on
shore, or on the banks of the rivers, where it was made prey of by
the country people, ‘thinking they would be no further liable than
to a _dead spulyie_.’ Occasionally, ‘louss and broken men’ attacked
his mills in the night-time, and helped themselves to such timber as
they wanted. ‘So that his work was likely to be broken and ruined.’
The Privy Council, on Struan’s petition, issued a strong edict for
the prevention of these spoliations, and further gave him power to
make roads between his saw-mills in Carrie and Apnadull, and to take
a charge of those from Rannoch to Perth, so that he might have the
alternative of land-carriage for his timber.--_P. C. R._
The chance of getting the spoliations put down must have been very
small, for thieving raged like a very pestilence in the Highlands. The
Earl of Perth, writing from Drummond in July 1682, says expressively:
‘We are so plagued with thieving here, it would pity any heart to see
the condition the poor people are in.’[297]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR.]
Sir Thomas Stewart of Coltness[298] was obliged to fly to Holland,
in consequence of a vague threat held out by Sir George Mackenzie,
supposed to have been designed to frighten the unfortunate gentleman
away, that his estate might be seized. The subsequent circumstances,
as related by his son, give a striking view of the troubles in which a
Presbyterian family of rank might then be involved, even while making
no active demonstrations against the government.
[Sidenote: 1683.]
‘The day after he was gone, came one of the Lord Advocate’s
emissaries, Irvine of Bonshaw, with a party of dragoons heated with
fury and with liquor.... They demanded the family horses, though their
warrant bore no more than to apprehend the person of Thomas Stewart
of Coltness; and when Irvine was told by Mr James Stewart, Coltness’s
second son, that he was acting beyond orders in offering to seize
horses or goods, he swore and blasphemed against rebels and assassins,
and that any treatment was warrantable against such. The child Robert
made some childish noise, and he threw down the boy of eight years old
from a high leaping-on stone. The lady, seven months gone with child,
came down to reason with him, but he was so much the more enraged. He
offered to shoot the groom [who] stood behind, for denying the keys
of the stable, and at length carried off the young gentlemen David
and James’s horses.... There was a complaint given in at Edinburgh,
and the horses were returned, jaded and abused by ramblers. This Mr
Irvine, some months after, in a drunken quarrel at Lanark, was stabbed
to death on a dunghill by one of his own gang: a proper exit for such a
blood-hound.’
The lady immediately displenished her house, and, notwithstanding
the delicate state in which she was, prepared to follow her husband
to Holland. Taking with her her step-son David, and a niece of three
years, the child of Mr James Stewart, also an exile in Holland, she
set sail from Borrowstounness in the beginning of June. The ship
encountered a severe storm. ‘The sea was so boisterous, the lady was
in danger of being tossed from her bed, and her step-son was alarmed,
and got up staggering in the hold, and bewailing; but she composedly
said: “David, go to your cabin-bed, and be more quiet, for there is no
back-door here to fly out by.” In some days after, they got safe to
harbour. They took the treck-scuit from Rotterdam to Utrecht, and a
surprising accident happened by the way, and in the scuit close by her:
a Dutch minister’s wife, a fellow-traveller and with child, miscarried
and died instantly. The husband was as one distracted, and would not be
persuaded she was dead, but in a swoon. He made lamentable outcries,
but all to no effect. This was alarming to the lady, and made her
reflect and acknowledge the kind Providence had preserved her and the
fruit of her womb, when in danger both in the journey and the stormy
voyage. Coltness has a remark of thanksgiving on this in his diary,
and concludes with this, “God makes our hymn sound both of mercy and
judgment.”
[Sidenote: 1683.]
‘Her husband, with Mr Pringle of Torwoodlee, came half-way on to
Leyden, and met these recent fugitives, and conducted them to Utrecht,
where trouble was in part forgot, and sorrow in some measure fled,
upon the first transports of being safe and together. Here was the
ingenuous, upright Archibald Earl of Argyle, too virtuous for so
licentious a court as that of King Charles. Here was the Earl of
Loudon, who died anno 1684, and lies buried in the English church
at Leyden. There was here the Lord Viscount Stair, and with him for
education his son, Sir David Dalrymple, in better times Lord Advocate,
and his grandson John, that great general under Queen Anne, and the
ambassador of elegant figure in France, and a field-marshal under King
George. Here was also Lord Melville, [who became] High Commissioner
to the Restitution Parliament under King William, and secretary of
state, and with him his son the Earl of Leven, who went to the king of
Prussia’s service, and after this was commander-in-chief in Scotland,
and governor of Edinburgh Castle in Queen Anne’s reign. But it were
endless to name all the honest party of gentry and ministers, outlawed,
banished, and forfaulted, for the cause of religion and civil liberty.’
In July, Lady Coltness brought into the world the person who relates
the above particulars. ‘The occasion was joyful to the parents; but
the mother had not the blessing of the breasts, and there was hard
procuring a nurse for a stranger. This gave a damp; but a Dutch lady
was so kind as wean her daughter a little sooner, and so a careful and
experienced nurse was procured.’
[Sidenote: 1683.]
‘... Coltness fell in straits ... for he soon spent the little he
brought with him, and remittances were uncertain and but small. His
friends at home were under a cloud. Alertoun, his brother-in-law, was
imprisoned and fined; Sir John Maxwell, his other brother-in-law, was
fined £10,000 and imprisoned; and his younger children had none to
care for them, but their grandmother, Sir James Stewart’s widow. She
had a large jointure [that] was not affected, and acted the part of a
kind parent.... In this present situation, the old widow lady could
give little relief to those banished. It was chargeable supporting
the expenses of a family in Holland, and all visible sources were
stopped or withdrawn; yet a kind Providence raised up friends in a
strange land. Of these the most sympathising was Mr Andrew Russell,
merchant-factor at Rotterdam; he generously proffered money, and
genteelly, as it were, forced it upon Coltness (and so he did to Sir
Patrick Hume of Polwarth, Mr James Stewart, advocate, and others),
though he could have no probable prospect of recovering it; and yet all
was thankfully repaid after the Revolution.’
‘In the end of 1684, Coltness removed to Rotterdam, and there he
received many civilities and friendships from his countrymen,
merchants, and others, and had some remittances, and in part
provisions, transmitted in Scotch ships. Here he had much society of
fellow-sufferers, and they had select meetings for conference and
intelligence. The badge of such select club was a seal in wax, upon
a bit of rounded card, with a blue ribbon and a knot, all in a small
spale-box. I have seen Coltness’s ticket; the device was handsome, the
motto _Omne tulit punctum_, the seal was upon a single spot of the
heart suite card.’[299]
[Sidenote: 1683.]
[Sidenote: 1683.]
These severities against the Coltness family form a striking example
of those now practised every day upon the known adherents of the more
extreme Presbyterian views, and the whole would be quite unintelligible
to a candid mind in our times, if we were not aware that, thirty years
before, the party in which Sir Thomas Stewart’s father was a leader,
were subjecting _their_ dissidents to precisely similar treatment:[300]
see, for example, the case of the family of Menzies of Pitfoddels,
fined, confiscated, driven from their native land and means of living,
and the lady and one of her sons lost in a storm at sea;[301] see
the case of Dr Forbes of Corse, thrust from his college and country
because he scrupled to subscribe the Solemn League and Covenant; his
very bones refused burial in his own ground! It happened that, in
the very same month which saw Sir Thomas Stewart’s family subjected
to the harsh treatment above described, there was an application to
the Privy Council regarding the sufferings of an Episcopalian family
through two generations, in consequence of the rigours exercised partly
under the dictation of Sir Thomas’s father. It is in the form of a
petition from Mr John Ross, minister of Foveran in Aberdeenshire, and
Mr Alexander Ross, parson of Perth. Their grandfather, Mr John Ross,
parson of Birse in Aberdeenshire, had been turned out of his ministry
in 1647, merely for his ‘opposition to the rebellious and seditious
principles and practices which at that time had overspread the land.’
He was likewise ‘fined at several times in five thousand merks, and
imprisoned in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh for the space of nine months
together, and forced to lend the sum of four thousand merks on the
public bands, as they were called, for carrying on that unnatural
war.’ He had ‘his house frequently plundered by the rebellious armies
then on foot, so that [he] was prejudged in at least the sum of twenty
thousand pounds Scots.’ Thus pillaged, and kept out of his ministry
for thirteen years, he had been reduced to great straits, and left
his family in poverty. The claim of the sufferer and his family was
acknowledged at the Restoration by an order of two hundred pounds out
of the vacant stipends; but it had never been paid. His eldest son,
parson of Monymusk, the father of the petitioners, and who had likewise
suffered for his loyalty, was kept poor all his days through the losses
of his father, and had lately died, leaving a widow and eight children
alive, besides the petitioners, with no means of support but what the
petitioners could contribute.[302] Here, in short, was a clerical
family originally of some substance, reduced to poverty through the
oppressions which had been exercised upon it by those now in their
turn suffering, or their predecessors.[303] In such facts there is
certainly no valid excuse for the severities of the present time; but
they tell us how these severities came to be practised. The reaction,
however, from the Presbyterian reign of terror in the middle of the
century was now beginning to strain and crack, and a settlement of the
political pendulum was not far distant.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 5.]
At the circuit court at Stirling, a man was tried for reviling a
parson, ‘in causing the piper play _The Deil stick the Minister_.
Sundry pipers were there present as witnesses, to declare it was the
name of ane spring.’[304]--_Foun._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 12.]
Captain Thomas Hamilton, merchant in Edinburgh, who had for some years
carried on a considerable trade with the American plantations in the
importation of beaver and racoon skins, craved and obtained privileges
for a manufactory of _beaver hats_ which he proposed to set up, being
the first ever attempted in Scotland. He set forth his design as one
which ‘will do no prejudice to any felt-makers,’ while it would benefit
the kingdom by furnishing a particular class of articles ‘at easy
rates.’ He expected also to be able to export his hats.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP.]
Alexander Young, Bishop of Ross, ‘a moderate and learned man,’ being
afflicted with stone, was obliged, like his predecessor in the like
circumstances above a hundred years before,[305] to travel to Paris for
the purpose of having a surgical operation performed for his relief.
Like his predecessor, also, he sank under the consequences of the
operation.--_Foun._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP. 10.]
[Sidenote: 1683.]
It was believed that much native copper existed in Scotland; yet all
attempts at realising it by mining had failed. A German named Joachim
Gonel, highly skilled in copper-mining, now proposed to the Privy
Council to work a copper-mine in the parish of Currie with proper
workmen brought from abroad, all at his own expense, provided only he
got a present of the mine from the state. The Council, deeming such a
work calculated to be useful to the public interest, recommended the
government to comply with the request.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV.]
At this time began a frost which lasted with great severity till March,
‘with some storms and snow now and then.’ ‘The rivers at Dundee,
Borrowstounness, and other places where the sea ebbs and flows, did
freeze, which hath not been observed in the memory of man before; and
thereby the cattle, especially the sheep, were reduced to great want
... the like not seen since the winter 1674.’--_Foun._
This frost prevailed equally in England and Ireland, producing ice on
the Thames below Gravesend. One remarkable circumstance arising from it
is noted by a gentleman residing in London, that printing was hindered
for a quarter of a year (by the hardening of the ink).[306]
Patrick Walker speaks emphatically of this frost, and says: ‘Even
before the snow fell, when the earth was as iron, how many graves
were in the west of Scotland in desert places, in ones, twos, threes,
fours, fives together, which was no imaginary thing! Many yet alive,
who measured them with their staves, [found them] exactly the deepness,
breadth, and length of other graves, and the lump of earth lying whole
together at their sides, which they set their feet upon and handled
with their hands. Which many concluded afterwards did presage the two
bloody slaughter years that followed, when eighty-two of the Lord’s
people were suddenly and cruelly murdered in desert places.’
‘An old minister, Mr Bennet, records in his manuscripts, that, before
our late troubles [the Civil War], there were a number of graves cast
open in a moor in the south.’--_Law._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC.]
A scandal broke forth against Mr John M‘Queen, one of the ministers
of Edinburgh. It was alleged that, having fallen besottedly in love
with Mrs Euphame Scott, who despised him, he contrived by a trick to
obtain possession of one of her under-garments, out of which he made
a waistcoat and pair of drawers, by wearing which he believed the
lady would infallibly be induced to give him her affections. ‘He was
suspended for thir fooleries; but in the beginning of February 1684,
the bishop reponed him.’--_Foun._
[Sidenote: 1683.]
If the Presbyterian satirists are not altogether fable-mongers, the
bishop (Paterson) must have had a strong fellow-feeling for M‘Queen.
‘He is said to have kissed his band-strings in the pulpit, in the midst
of an eloquent discourse, which was the signal agreed upon betwixt
him and a lady to whom he was suitor, to shew he could think upon her
charms even while engaged in the most solemn duties of his profession.
Hence he was nicknamed _Bishop Band-strings_.’[307]
* * * * *
It appears there were now two sugar-works in the kingdom, and only
two--being placed at Glasgow[308]--and one of them was in danger of
being stopped in consequence of the death of Peter Gemble, one of
the four partners, his widow refusing to advance her share of what
was necessary for carrying on of the work. Materials, utensils, and
men, to the extent of £16 sterling of wages monthly, were thus thrown
idle--a general calamity. The Privy Council (December 20) enjoined the
magistrates of Glasgow to use their endeavours to get the difference
composed and the work kept up.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 26.]
[Sidenote: 1683.]
A dismally tragical incident occurred at the Hirsel, the seat of the
Earl of Home near Coldstream. The earl having been long detained
in London, the countess, to beguile the time during the Christmas
holidays, had a party of the neighbouring gentlemen invited to the
house. Amongst these were Johnston of Hilton, Home of Ninewells,
and the Hon. William Home, brother of the earl, and the sheriff of
Berwickshire--three gentlemen who, like the countess, have all been
before us lately in connection with the abduction of the young Lady
Ayton. Cards and dice being resorted to, and William having lost
a considerable sum, a quarrel took place among the gentlemen, and
Johnston, who was of a haughty and hot temper, gave William a slap
in the face. The affair seemed to have been amicably composed, and
all had gone to bed, when William Home rose and went to Johnston’s
chamber, to call him to account for the affront he conceived himself
to have suffered. What passed in the way of conversation between the
two is not known; but certain it is that Home stabbed Johnston in his
bed with nine severe wounds. Home of Ninewells, who slept near by,
came to see what caused the disturbance, and, as he entered the room,
received a sword-thrust from the sheriff, who was now retiring, and
who immediately fled into England upon Johnston’s horse.
The unfortunate Hilton died in a few days. Ninewells recovered. The
sheriff--of whom it was shudderingly remarked that this bloody fact
happened exactly a twelvemonth after the execution of a Presbyterian
rebel whom he had apprehended--was never caught. He was supposed to
have entered some foreign service, and died in battle. In advanced
life, he is said to have made an experiment to ascertain if he could
be allowed to spend the remainder of his days in his native country.
A son of the slaughtered Johnston, while at a public assembly, ‘was
called out to speak with a person, who, it was said, brought him some
particular news from abroad. The stranger met him at the head of the
staircase, in a sort of lobby which led into the apartment where the
company were dancing. He told young Johnston of Hilton, that the man
who had slain his father was on his death-bed, and had sent him to
request his forgiveness before he died. Before granting his request,
Johnston asked the stranger one or two questions; and observing that
he faltered in his answers, he suddenly exclaimed: “You yourself are
my father’s murderer,” and drew his sword to stab him. Home--for it
was the homicide himself--threw himself over the balustrade of the
staircase, and made his escape.’[309]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1683.]
This year a great alarm was excited by a conjunction of the planets
Saturn and Jupiter in the constellation of Leo. It was announced as an
extraordinary conjunction, which had only happened twice before since
the creation of the world; and ‘our prognosticators all spoke of it
as very ominous,’ ‘portending great alterations in Europe.’ Mr George
Sinclair, Professor of Natural Philosophy in Glasgow, considered it as
nothing less than ‘terrible.’ To add to the general uneasiness, some
one brought out a treatise on comets, promising a further one under the
title of _Catastrophe Mundi_. Fountainhall was evidently puzzled, for
from November 1682 to March 1683, the season had been ‘like a spring
for mildness,’ and he really could not say whether such an event as
this could be ascribed to the conjunction. Had he waited a little, he
might have seen the matter in a clearer light, for in April there took
place pestilential fevers, with other terrible and uncommon disorders.
‘In Montrose, several families were taken with an _unco disease_, like
unto convulsion fits, their face thrawing about to their neck, their
hands griping close together, so as the very nails of their fingers
make holes in their _looves_; lose their senses, and have a devouring
appetite, eat much, yet not satisfied.’--_Law._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1684.
APR. 8.]
We have already seen several instances of a considerable town burnt
down by accidental fire, with the inevitable consequence to the
inhabitants, of their being driven into the shelterless fields, in a
state of utter desolation; all reminding us of a time when as yet no
mechanical arrangements had been made for checking such conflagrations,
and no process of assurance had been instituted for providing against
the loss and penury following. We have now another and highly
characteristic example, in the almost entire destruction of the town of
Kelso. It will be observed that the town, being probably composed of
thatched houses, in few instances exceeding two stories in height, was
extremely inflammable, and therefore the fire was rapid.
[Sidenote: 1684.]
The fire began, between three and four in the afternoon, in a
malt-kiln, and quickly caused the destruction of several stacks of
corn. Thence, under the influence of a violent wind, it spread over the
whole town, and so quickly, ‘that these[310] who were helping their
neighbours did not know when their own houses were burning. Before
nine o’clock at night, not only all the houses, but the most part of
all the goods therein, and several merchants’ shops of considerable
value, and above four thousand bolls of victual lying in girnels, and
all the corn-stacks in the town, were laid in ashes. The fury of the
flame and rage of the smoke were so great in all places of the town,
that with great difficulty sick and infirm persons and infant children
could be carried away from the danger to the open fields. Three hundred
and six families had their houses utterly burnt down, and of these not
twenty will ever be able to rebuild upon their own means. The loss of
merchants is so great that it cannot weel be known, the particular loss
of some of them being valued above twenty thousand pounds Scots, and
of others, above ane thousand pounds sterling. The more indigent sort
of people have lost the whole sustenance of their livelihood.’ If we
are to understand that the three hundred and six burnt-out families
composed the whole population, we may estimate that this town, now so
remarkable for its beauty, and which contains a population of 5000,
was then a comparatively poor village of about 1400 inhabitants. It is
remarkable, however, to find that it contained merchants’ shops so well
stocked with goods.
The usual and only resource of that age for such cases of public
calamity was taken advantage of by the Privy Council, to whom the
inhabitants appealed for succour; namely, a collection at the parish
churches on one Sunday throughout the kingdom. And till this collection
could take place, it was ordered that some of the money now in the
course of being raised for the relief of prisoners in the hands of
the Turks, should be given to the distressed people of Kelso, to be
afterwards replaced from the money collected on account of the fire.
Some time afterwards, we find a petition from the magistrates of
Glasgow, setting forth that a sum of money had been collected there for
the unfortunate people at Kelso, but in the meantime Glasgow had had a
conflagration of its own, resulting in the destitution of a number of
people; so they had thought proper to ask for permission to apply the
money for the relief of the distress in their own community--which was
granted.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR.]
Cornelius a-Tilbourne, a German mountebank, craved from the Privy
Council licence to erect a stage in Edinburgh. It was granted,
notwithstanding opposition from the College of Physicians. He had made
a successful experiment on himself, in London, in presence of the
king, for counteracting some poisons which the physicians there had
prescribed to him, the secret consisting in drinking a considerable
quantity of oil. But it appears that he expressly excluded mercury,
aqua-fortis, and other corrosives from the trial. The king, who had a
curiosity about chemical experiments, had granted Cornelius a medal and
chain. He repeated the experiment in Edinburgh, on his man or servant,
who died under it.
Men of this class appear to have also practised surgery. In March 1683,
the Town Council of Glasgow disbursed five pounds to John Maxwell, to
replace a like sum ‘whilk he payit to the mountebank for cutting off
_umwhile_ Archibald Bishop’s leg.’--_M. of G._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR. 22.]
[Sidenote: 1684.]
A petition from the Earl of Errol to the Privy Council set forth
that it was the custom of the north country for ‘the seamen of
fish-boats’ to be ‘tied and obliged to the same servitude and service
that coal-hewers and salters are here in the south,’ and ‘it is not
lawful for any man whatsomever to resett, harbour, or entertein the
fishers and boatmen who belong to another.’ His lordship complained of
Alexander Brodie and Andrew Buchlay, who were fishermen in his service,
having ‘fled away from him without leave, to his damage and prejudice;’
and he demanded warrants for reclaiming them. The petition was complied
with.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR. 24.]
A proclamation proceeding upon the recent sumptuary act, makes us aware
that it had comparatively failed to accomplish its object. ‘Several
women, even [!] in our capital city of Edinburgh and elsewhere, have
presumed to go abroad with clothes made of the prohibited stuffs,
upon pretext that they are only night-gowns, undresses, or manteaux,
whereas all manner of wearing of the said stuffs was discharged.’
In like manner, to elude that part of the law forbidding mourning
cloaks, or ‘in downright mockery’ of the same, ‘several persons have
presumed to wear mantle-cloaks (albeit more expensive than the cloaks
formerly worn) at burials and other occasions upon the death of their
relations.’ ‘Also several persons have lately run to that height of
extravagancy, as to cause cover the coffins of persons to be buried
with fine black cloth and fringes.’ Others, since the passing of the
act, ‘have presumed to make penny-weddings, where great confluence of
our subjects have resorted, which is a most extravagant expense to our
lieges.’
The public was now therefore forbidden by regular proclamation to wear
the prohibited stuffs in any manner of way. Tailors were discharged
from making or setting out, and gentlemen from wearing, the long black
mantle-coats. All were prohibited from ‘making use of any coffin
covered with silk cloth or fringes,’ or which bore any ornamental
metal-work. Penny-weddings were denounced in the strongest terms. And
all these prohibitions were enforced by the threat of a full exaction
of the fines specified in the act.--_P. C. R._.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 22.]
[Sidenote: 1684.]
A strong representation was made to the Privy Council against the
Messrs Fountain, who have ‘gone almost through all Scotland and charged
every person both in town and country who keeps a change, who has in
their house a pair of tables, cards, or kylles, and others of that
nature for gentlemen’s divertisement, upon pretence that they ought
not to have any such plays in their house without licence from them
as Masters of the Revels.’ It was reckoned that they had forced six
thousand people to compound with them, and had thus realised about
£16,000 sterling, ‘which is a most gross and manifest oppression.’ The
lords forbade the Fountains to take any further legal steps. _P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG.]
An instrument of torture, called the _Thumbikens_, was introduced into
practice by the Privy Council, as a means of extorting confessions.
This was done at the recommendation of Generals Dalyell and Drummond,
who had seen the thumbikens used in Russia. One of the first persons,
if not the first, subjected to this torture, was Mr William Spence, a
servant of the Earl of Argyle, who for some weeks had been tortured in
various less compulsory ways to make him confess what he knew of the
rebellious designs of his master. He had maintained firmness under the
_boots_, and contrived to endure without flinching the torture of being
kept awake for five nights, though driven by it ‘half distracted.’ But
after his thumbs had been crushed by the thumbikens, on the boots being
again presented to him, his firmness gave way.[311]
The thumbikens consists of a bar of iron, moving loose upon a vertical
screw, and under which, by the use of a nut moving on the screw,
provided with a handle, the thumbs of the victim can be squeezed so as
to produce the most exquisite pain.
In September of this year, Mr William Carstairs, who had been concerned
in some of the plots of the day, was tortured by the thumbikens before
the Privy Council. He bore the pain with firmness, though not without
giving vent to his agony by cries, until the Dukes of Hamilton and
Queensberry left the room, unable any longer to witness the revolting
spectacle. He was at length induced by these means, to give some
information regarding Baillie of Jerviswood and others.
[Sidenote: 1684.]
After the Revolution, this remarkable man became, as is well known,
Principal of the University of Edinburgh, and the confidential adviser
of King William regarding the affairs of Scotland; he was familiarly
recognised as _Cardinal Carstairs_. The identical thumbikens by which
he had been tortured, was presented to him by the Privy Council, and
it was long preserved by his family. An anecdote was handed down by
his descendants respecting the horrible little instrument. ‘I have
heard, Principal,’ said King William to him, ‘that you were tortured
with something they call _thumbikens_; pray, what sort of instrument
of torture is it?’ ‘I will shew it you,’ answered Carstairs, ‘the
next time I have the honour to wait upon your majesty.’ Soon after,
accordingly, the Principal brought the thumbikens to be shewn to
the king. ‘I must try it,’ said the king; ‘I must put in my thumbs
here--now, Principal, turn the screw. O not so gently--another
turn--another. Stop, stop! no more! Another turn, I am afraid, would
make me confess anything.’[312]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG. 15.]
Monro, the Edinburgh executioner, having beaten a beggar with undue
severity, was deprived of his post, and moreover punished by being
thrown into the Thieves’ Hole. One hears with surprise of such an
interference for humanity, amidst the atrocious cruelties to which
political and religious exasperations were provoking the government.
The vacant post was conferred on one George Ormiston, whom Fountainhall
describes as ‘a well-favoured discreet fellow.’ If we are to believe
Milne’s Account of the Parish of Melrose, 1743, this man was a member,
if not the representative, of the Ormistons of Westhouse, a family
once of some account, possessing a tower on the Tweed, near Melrose,
and having the custom of a bridge across the river at that place; ‘a
memorandum to old families not to be puffed up with pride, on account
of their antiquity, for they know not what mean offices they or theirs
may be obliged to stoop to.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP. 10.]
Colonel Graham of Claverhouse, as constable of Dundee, represented to
the Privy Council that he found several persons in prison there for
petty thefts, ‘which will be fitter to be punished arbitrarily than
by death.’ In compliance with his humane suggestion, he was empowered
to restrict the treatment of these persons and any others that might
hereafter commit the like offences, ‘to ane arbitrary punishment, such
as whipping or banishment, as he shall find cause.’--_P. C. R._
[Sidenote: 1684.]
It will excite surprise to find the _Bloody Claverse_ interposing for a
gentler justice in behalf of ordinary criminals--he who coolly ordered
the summary death of so many people in Clydesdale and Galloway, for
merely sentimental offences. But, while the _nil admirari_ is nowhere
more applicable than in matters concerning human inconsistency, it
were perhaps no more than justice to one who was at least a gallant
soldier and a steadfast friend in adversity to the sovereign who had
employed him, if we remembered how amiable in private life have been
many modern statesmen noted for severity in public action. Claverhouse
was a political enthusiast, who had made up his mind to the particular
course--rather a rough one--by which the interests of his country were
to be protected and advanced; and with the help of a strong will, and
under the call of what came to him as duty, he scrupled not to walk
in that path, though by no means inhumane or harsh in the matters of
ordinary life. In a letter to the Earl of Aberdeen, written in June
1683, he reveals to us his principle of action in a sentence: ‘I am,’
says he, ‘as sorry to see a man die, even a Whig, as any of themselves;
but when one dies justly for his own faults, and _may save a hundred to
fall in the like_, I have no scruple.’[313]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT.]
One Marion Purdie, dwelling at the West Port of Edinburgh, once a
milk-wife, and now a beggar, was apprehended and imprisoned as a
witch. She was accused of laying diseases and frenzies upon her
neighbours. The king’s advocate was now giving little heed to such
cases, and so poor Marion ‘dies of cold and poverty in prison about the
Christmas.’--_Foun._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT.]
It is remarked at this time that Colonel Douglas was training and
exercising his regiment with extreme diligence. He studied to get his
men all of one height, and would allow none to keep their beards long
or have bad cravats or cravat-strings, being anxious that they should
all look young and brisk. When they were deficient in these articles,
he bought them new ones with their pay. He also ‘caused them all tie
their hair back with a ribbon, so it cannot blow in their eyes when
they visy at their firing.’ (Can this have been the origin of tied
hair?) A more important regulation still of this commander--‘_He
discharges any of their officers to keep cellars, whereby they made
their soldiers waste their pay in drinking_.’--_Foun._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT.]
[Sidenote: 1684.]
A tempest which took place at the end of this month, accompanied both
by snow and thunder, caused the throwing ashore of ‘a new kind of fish
like a mackerel or herring, but with a long snout like a snipe’s beak.
Dr Sibbald says it is the _Acus marinus_, the Sea Needle, described
by him in his _Naturalis Historia_. They have been seen before, but
are not frequent, and therefore are looked upon by the vulgar as
ominous.’--_Foun._
When Charles II. died three months after, Fountainhall remarked there
having been few or no prognostics of the event, ‘unless we recur to the
comet, which is remote, or to the strange fishes mentioned above, or
the vision of blue bonnets ... in none of which is there anything for a
rational man to fix his belief upon.’
* * * * *
By an act of the second parliament of Charles II., fines were appointed
for all who withdrew themselves from the regular parish churches; but
as, because of the law which gives the husband exclusive power over
the goods held by him and his wife in communion, it was impossible to
exact any fine for the delinquency of a married woman, it had become
necessary to make the husband answerable when his wife offended.
Under this arrangement, some ladies of rank, addicted to attending
conventicles, had brought no small trouble upon their partners. The
Council, at length feeling it was a hard law where the husband was a
conformist, requested power from the king to remit the fines in such
cases. Soon after the following case occurred.
[Sidenote: DEC. 4.]
[Sidenote: 1684.]
David Balcanquel of that Ilk, having been, in virtue of the act,
amerced in three years of his valued rent or fifteen hundred pounds,
‘upon the account of his wife not keeping the church,’ represented the
matter very pathetically to the Privy Council, setting forth how he
himself had always kept his parish church, and, ‘notwithstanding the
distractions and disorders that have been in the country where he lives
[Fife], has always demeaned himself as ane dutiful and loyal subject.’
The Council took the case into favourable consideration, and, ‘seeing
it never was the intention of his majesty that his weel-affected
subjects should be ruined by _the mad and wilful opinions of phanatick
wives_, without any fault of their own’--seeing, moreover, that
Balcanquel protested ‘_it is not in his power to persuade his wife to
go to church_, notwithstanding of all the endeavours he has used for
that effect, and _he is willing to deliver her up to the Council to be
disposed of at their pleasure_‘--they agreed to discharge his fine,
taking him only bound ‘to deliver up his wife to justice whenever
required.’--_P. C. R._
It was not always as in this case in regard to conventicle troubles.
Wodrow had heard the following converse case ‘very weel attested:‘[314]
About the time of the Circuit Court in 1685, there was an honest man
in the parish of Baldernock, who was sore bested with a graceless and
imperious wife, a hater of all seriousness. When he performed family
worship, she interrupted him; when he went to a conventicle, she cursed
him; and when he came home, she threw stools at him. Scarce durst the
poor man return from these meetings without a few neighbours to protect
him from his wife’s violence. Being denounced and cited to the court at
Glasgow, he failed to appear; but _she_ came forward, and, on his name
being called, cried out: ‘My lords, it’s all true--he is a rebel; there
is not a conventicle in all the country but he is at it. He deserves
to be hanged. Hang him, my lords!’ The lords asked who she was, and
on being told, and hearing her go on further in the same strain, they
ordered the man to be scored out of the roll, saying: ‘That poor fellow
suffers enough already from such a wife!’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC.]
Amongst those now suffering under the severities of government,
there was no one more remarkable than Sir Patrick Hume of Polwarth,
a Berwickshire gentleman of large fortune, of vigorous character,
and great zeal as a Presbyterian and Whig. Though only recognised
by the government as ‘a factious person,’ he had been several times
rather severely handled. Being now under suspicion of a concern in the
Rye-house plot, he was denounced on the 13th of November as guilty of
treason, and obliged to go out of the way. The harshness with which his
friend Robert Baillie of Jerviswood was treated, was sufficient to shew
that the more closely he concealed himself the better.
[Sidenote: 1684.]
Polwarth, who was a man of forty-three years of age, had a wife and ten
children, all young, residing at his house of Redbraes in the Merse.
Patrick, the eldest son, was taken up and put in prison; and on the
26th of December, there was a petition from him to the Privy Council,
setting forth the piteous condition of the family now deprived of their
father and threatened with the loss of their estate. He was but ‘a poor
afflicted young boy,’ he said, who could do no harm to the state; he,
moreover, cherished loyal principles and a hatred of plots. All he
craved was liberty, that he might ‘see to some livelihood for himself,’
and ‘be in some condition to help and serve his disconsolate mother and
the rest of his father’s ten starving children.’ The boon was granted
grudgingly, the young man being obliged first to obtain security for
his good-behaviour to the extent of two thousand pounds sterling.--_P.
C. R._
[Sidenote: 1684.]
[Sidenote: 1684.]
The first concealment of Sir Patrick was the family burial vault, under
the east end of the parish church of Polwarth, a place where he had
no fire, and only during the day light from an open slit in the wall.
With the comfort of a bed and bed-clothes, he endured life in this
singular Patmos for a whole winter month, supplied nightly with food by
his daughter Grizzel, and having no sort of entertainment to beguile
the tedium of the day but his own reflections, and the repetition of
Buchanan’s Psalms, which had long been charged on his memory. Each
night, the young Grizzel came with a packet of provisions, and stayed
with him as long as she could, so as to get home before day. According
to an interesting family memoir, written by her daughter, Lady Murray
of Stanhope: ‘In all this time, my grandfather shewed the same constant
composure and cheerfulness of mind, that he continued to possess to his
death, which was at the age of eighty-four; all which good qualities
she inherited from him in a high degree. Often did they laugh heartily
in that doleful habitation, at different accidents that happened.
She at that time had a terror for a church-yard, especially in the
dark, as is not uncommon at her age, by idle nursery stories; but
when engaged by concern for her father, she stumbled over the graves
every night alone, without fear of any kind entering her thoughts, but
for soldiers and parties in search of him, which the least noise or
motion of a leaf put her in terror for. The minister’s house was near
the church; the first night she went, his dogs kept such a barking,
as put her in the utmost fear of a discovery; my grandmother sent for
the minister the next day, and, under pretence of a mad dog, got him
to hang all his dogs. There was also difficulty of getting victuals
to carry him without the servants suspecting; the only way it was
done, was by stealing it off her plate at dinner into her lap. Many a
diverting story she has told about this, and other things of a like
nature. Her father liked sheep’s head, and while the children were
eating their broth, she had conveyed most of one into her lap; when
her brother Sandy (the late Lord Marchmont) had done, he looked up
with astonishment, and said: “Mother, will ye look at Grizzel; while
we have been eating our broth, she has ate up the whole sheep’s head.”
This occasioned so much mirth among them, that her father at night
was greatly entertained by it, and desired Sandy might have a share
in the next.... As the gloomy habitation my grandfather was in, was
not to be long endured but from necessity, they were contriving other
places of safety for him; amongst others, particularly one under a bed
which drew out, in a ground-floor, in a room of which my mother kept
the key. She and the same man worked in the night, making a hole in
the earth, after lifting the boards, which they did by scratching it
up with their hands, not to make any noise, till she had left not a
nail upon her fingers; she helping the man to carry the earth as they
dug it, in a sheet on his back out at the window into the garden; he
then made a box at his own house, large enough for her father to lie
in, with bed and bed-clothes, and bored holes in the boards for air.
When all this was finished, for it was long about, she thought herself
the most secure happy creature alive. When it had stood the trial for
a month of no water coming into it, which was feared from being so
low, and every day examined by my mother, and the holes for air made
clear, and kept clean picked, her father ventured home, having that to
trust to. After being at home a week or two, the bed daily examined
as usual, one day, in lifting the boards, the bed bounced to the top,
the box being full of water; in her life she was never so struck, and
had near dropt down, it being at that time their only refuge. Her
father, with great composure, said to his wife and her, he saw they
must tempt providence no longer, and that it was now fit and necessary
for him to go off, and leave them; in which he was confirmed, by the
carrier telling for news he had brought from Edinburgh, that the day
before, Mr Baillie of Jerviswood had his life taken from him at the
Cross, and that everybody was sorry, though they durst not shew it.
As all intercourse by letters was dangerous, it was the first notice
they had of it, and the more shocking, that it was not expected. They
immediately set about preparing for my grandfather’s going away. My
mother worked night and day in making some alterations in his clothes
for disguise; they were then obliged to trust John Allan, their grieve,
who fainted away when he was told his master was in the house, and
that he was to set out with him on horseback before day, and pretend
to the rest of the servants that he had orders to sell some horses at
Morpeth fair. Accordingly, my grandfather getting out at a window to
the stables, they set out in the dark. Though, with good reason, it was
a sorrowful parting, yet after he was fairly gone, they rejoiced, and
thought themselves happy that he was in a way of being safe, though
they were deprived of him, and little knew what was to be either his
fate or their own.
‘My grandfather, whose thoughts were much employed, and went on as
his horse carried him, without thinking of his way, found himself
at Tweedside, out of his road, and at a place not fordable, and no
servant. After pausing, and stopping a good while, he found means to
get over, and get into the road on the other side, where, after some
time, he met his servant, who shewed inexpressible joy at meeting him,
and told him, as he rode first, he thought he was always following him,
till upon a great noise of the galloping of horses, he looked about and
missed him; this was a party sent to his house to take him up, where
they searched very narrowly, and possibly hearing horses were gone from
the house, suspected the truth and followed. They examined this man,
who, to his great joy and astonishment, missed his master, and was too
cunning for them, that they were gone back before my grandfather came
up with him. He immediately quitted the high road, after a warning by
so miraculous an escape, and in two days sent back his servant, which
was the first notice they had at home of his not having fallen into
their hands.’[315]
Sir Patrick escaped to Holland, whence he returned with the Prince of
Orange to take a high place in the councils of his country under a
happier _régime_.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 2.]
We have seen many instances of Catholics deprived, under acts of
parliament, of the privilege of educating their own children. This
statutory power was now applied by the government to gentlefolk of what
were called fanatical principles. The Lady Colville was imprisoned in
the Edinburgh Tolbooth for her irregularities of religious practice,
and particularly for ‘breeding up her son Lord Colville in fanaticism
and other disloyal principles.’--_Foun. Dec._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1685.
JAN.]
[Sidenote: 1685.]
‘One James Cathcart, a pretended mathematician and astrologer, emitted
a printed paper at Edinburgh, inviting any to come to him, and get
resolutions of any difficult questions they had to ask, such as
anent their death, their marriage, what husbands or wives they would
get, and if they would prosper and succeed in such projects of love,
or journeys, &c.; as also professed skill to cure diseases. This was
a great impudence in a Christian commonwealth to avow such an art;
for if he had it by magic, then he was a sorcerer; if not, he was an
impostor and abuser of the people, which even is death.... In his
paper, he cited some texts of Scripture, allowing an influence to the
stars.’--_Foun._
[Illustration: Mons Meg.]
REIGN OF JAMES VII.: 1685-1688.
James Duke of York succeeded his brother in the three kingdoms
(February 6, 1685), at a mature period of life, being fifty-three years
of age. While reckoning as James II. in England and Ireland, he was the
seventh of the name in Scotland.
The transition from the one sovereign to the other was very much like
that from James VI. to Charles I. It was in each case from a man of
lax principle to one who carried principle to obstinacy. It was also
in each case a change from that easy good-nature which gets through
difficulties, to a certain severity of temper which does not so much
subdue difficulties as it makes them. If James could have kept his
religion out of sight, there was enough of loyalty in the nation to
have carried him to the end of a prosperous reign; he might have
even completed his brother’s designs for rendering the English crown
absolute. But he was too earnest a Catholic to give his subjects a
pretext for forgetting the fact, or to allow of their winking at his
assaults upon their liberties.
The Duke of Monmouth, who had set up some pretensions to the crown as a
legitimate son of Charles II., now resided in exile at Brussels. He had
ingratiated himself with the dissenters in England, and hoped by their
assistance to dethrone the new monarch. He formed a design, in concert
with the Earl of Argyle, for an invasion of the island. The latter
nobleman set sail in May, and, after touching at the Orkneys, descended
upon the west of Scotland, where he was joined by two thousand five
hundred of his clan. A boat’s crew whom he sent on shore at Orkney
being taken prisoners, gave information of his design, and the bishop
of that diocese immediately carried the intelligence to Edinburgh.
The militia of the kingdom was called out. The gentlemen of Argyle’s
clan were seized and brought to the capital. The earl, finding all
his prospects blighted, made a hesitating and timid advance towards
Glasgow, where he hoped, but vainly, to be joined by the persecuted
people of the west. The government forces advancing on every hand to
meet him, his troops melted away; and after pursuing a solitary flight
for a little way in disguise, he was taken prisoner at Inchinnan in
Renfrewshire, and transported to Edinburgh, where he was immediately
executed upon his former sentence (June 30, 1685).
The expedition which Monmouth conducted to the west of England was
equally unfortunate, and that nobleman being seized under similar
circumstances, was also executed. The exasperations, terrors, and
anxieties which the sovereign had endured, first from the endeavours of
the Whig party to exclude him from the throne, and latterly from these
two rebellions, revenged themselves in severities which have fixed
an indelible stigma upon his name. Under the Chief-justice Jeffries,
hundreds of Monmouth’s followers, and even some wholly innocent, were
summarily condemned and executed. It became a ‘killing time’ with the
poor Presbyterians of the west of Scotland, many of whom were seized
and shot dead in the fields. Everywhere men were reduced to silence;
but at the same time, much of their respect and affection was lost.
From the commencement of his reign, James took no pains to conceal his
religion. Encouraged by the suppressed rebellions and the stillness
which everywhere prevailed, he now thought he might safely commence a
series of measures for restoring the Catholic faith in his dominions.
As the law stood, no papist could hold any office in the state. They
were excluded, in both kingdoms, by a test oath, abjuring the errors of
popery. Early in 1686, James endeavoured to get an act passed in both
parliaments for dispensing with this oath, so that he might be enabled
to introduce men of his own religion into all places of trust, which
he judged to be the best way of proselytising the people at large. But
to his surprise, the same parliaments which had already declared his
temporal power to be nearly absolute, refused to yield to him on the
subject of religion. Neither entreaties nor threats could prevail upon
them to pass the necessary acts. In Scotland, the Duke of Queensberry,
Sir George Mackenzie, and other statesmen, who had hitherto been the
readiest to yield him obedience in all his most unpopular measures,
submitted rather to be displaced than to surrender up the religion
along with the liberties of the nation.
When he found that the parliaments would not yield to him, he dissolved
them, and, pretending that he had only asked their consent out of
courtesy, assumed to himself the right of dispensing with the test.
This was establishing a power in the crown to subvert any act of
parliament, and consequently no law could henceforth stand against the
royal pleasure. If it had been assumed upon a temporal point, it is not
probable that any resistance would have been made; for the right of
the king to do as he pleased, and the illegality of all opposition to
his will on the part of the people, were principles now very generally
conceded. But it concerned the existence of the Church of England, and
the religious prepossessions of the great majority of the people. There
was therefore an almost universal spirit of resistance.
In order to give his measures an appearance of fairness and put them
on a sufficiently broad ground, he granted a toleration to all kinds
of dissenters from the Established Church. Affecting to have long been
convinced that ‘conscience ought not to be constrained nor people
forced in matters in religion;’ that all attempts of the kind were
detrimental to the social economy and the interests of government,
leading only to ‘animosities, name-factions, and sometimes to sacrilege
and treason;’ he, by proclamations in the first six months of 1687,
discharged all existing laws against dissenters in both sections of
Britain, with certain moderate reservations, making it practicable for
Presbyterians in Scotland to set up chapels for their own worship. This
was a most remarkable step for a British sovereign to take. First, it
openly assumed a right of the monarch, by his ‘absolute power’--for
such was the phrase he used--to overrule the acts of parliament. Next,
it gave ‘a degree and amount of toleration, beyond what any class of
religionists was quite prepared to sanction. Therefore it was at once
unconstitutional and over-liberal. Obvious as the royal motives were,
there was a general expression of satisfaction with the measure among
the English dissenters, while a considerable meeting of Presbyterian
clergy in Scotland sent an address of thanks, with a promise of ‘entire
loyalty in doctrine and practice’ for the future. But everywhere,
the established clergy and the great bulk of the respectable middle
classes, adherents of episcopalian protestantism, were alarmed and
alienated, judging the movement to be, as it undoubtedly was, designed
as a step towards the return of popery.
In the height of his power, James had deprived the boroughs of both
kingdoms of their charters, and granted new ones, in which he was left
the power of nominating the magistracies. He took advantage of this
liberty to put Catholics into every kind of burgal office. He also
attempted to get men of the same religion introduced into the chief
seats in the universities.
What rendered these events the more alarming to the nation was the
revocation of the Edict of Nantes by the king of France, in consequence
of which the Protestants of that kingdom were subjected to a cruel
persecution at the hands of their Catholic brethren. The people of
Great Britain received about fifty thousand of these innocent persons
under their protection; and as they were scattered over the whole
country, they everywhere served as living proofs of Romish intolerance
and cruelty. The British saw that if the king were not resisted in his
endeavours to introduce popery, they would soon be groaning in hopeless
subjection to a small dominant party, if not driven, like the French
Protestants, far from their homes and native seats of industry, to
wander like beggars over the earth.
The king had commanded the clergy to read in their pulpits his edict
of universal toleration. Several of the English bishops, after
ascertaining that the whole body almost to a man would support them,
presented a petition to the king, in which they respectfully excused
themselves from obeying his command. For this they were thrown into
the Tower, and brought to trial, but, to the great joy of the nation,
acquitted.
At this time (June 1688), the birth of a son to the king threw the
nation into a state of extreme anxiety for the ultimate interests of
the Protestant religion. It is to be observed that, if this prince had
not come into the world, the crown would have fallen, in the course
of time, to the king’s daughter Mary, who, for some years, had been
married to the Prince of Orange. This lady being a Protestant, and the
king being now advanced in life, the people had hitherto cherished a
prospect of seeing the Protestant faith eventually secured under her
sway. But now the Protestant line was excluded, and with it all hope
was at an end. To add to the general dissatisfaction, there was some
cause to suspect that the child was a spurious one, brought forward for
the purpose of keeping up a popish line of succession.
The concurrence of all these circumstances brought the nation to such
a uniformity of sentiment as had not been witnessed for fifty years.
While the old enemies of the dynasty remained as they had always been,
its best friends and supporters were now disaffected and thrown into
alarm. Tories as well as Whigs, church zealots as well as dissenters,
were become impressed with the idea that some extraordinary measure was
necessary to save the nation from popery, if not from slavery.
The people of all orders turned their eyes to William Prince of Orange,
who had long taken a lead in opposing the arrogant continental policy
of the French monarch, and whose court had for some years been a resort
of British malcontents. The prince himself was strongly inclined,
for reasons of general policy as well as of personal ambition, to
attempt a revolution in England. Being invited by a great number of
influential persons, of both sides in politics, including some of the
clergy, he no longer hesitated to make preparations for an invasion.
In October he set sail with an army of about sixteen thousand men, and
on the 5th of November cast anchor in Torbay, in Devonshire, while the
king’s fleet lay wind-bound at Harwich. James had surrounded himself
with a standing army; but, as generally happens in such crises, it
partook of the almost universal feeling of the people, and was not to
be depended on. Even with the assistance of a less scrupulous force
from Scotland, he could hardly venture to risk an engagement with the
prince, to whose standard a great number of the nobility had already
resorted. He therefore retired before the advancing army to London,
and was immediately deserted by all his principal counsellors, and
even by his younger daughter, the Princess Anne. Feeling no support
around him, he first despatched the queen and her infant to France, and
then prepared to follow. In the disguise of a servant, he escaped down
the river to Feversham, but being there seized by the populace as a
popish refugee, he was brought back to London. It was found, however,
that the government could not be settled on a proper footing while he
remained in the country; and he was therefore permitted once more to
depart (December 23, 1688). He left the kingdom in the belief that the
people could not do without him, and would call him back in triumph;
but, in reality, nothing could have been more agreeable to them than
his departure.
In Scotland, the Privy Council and Established Church were left by
the departure of the king an isolated power in the midst of a people
generally indisposed to give them support. There was an irrepressible
popular eagerness to break out against such popish establishments as
the king had set up--to attack and extrude the more obnoxious of the
clergy, and to take some vengeance upon the more noted instruments
of the late arbitrary power, as the Chancellor Perth and Graham of
Claverhouse, whom James had lately created Viscount Dundee. The
populace did lose no time in rising against the popishly furnished
chapel-royal at Holyrood and a Catholic printing-office which had
been placed in its neighbourhood; and after a struggle with the armed
guards, both places were pillaged and ruined. The Chancellor Perth,
who had incurred peculiar odium from turning papist, was seized in
the act of flight and thrown into a vile prison. In the west country,
the populace rabbled out two hundred of the parochial clergy, not
treating them over-gently, yet after all, using less roughness than
might perhaps have been expected. In the other parts of Scotland, where
prelacy had won some favour or been quietly endured, no particular
movement took place.
In January 1689, about a hundred Scottish noblemen and gentlemen
assembled at Whitehall, and, having previously ascertained the
disposition of their countrymen, resolved to follow the example of
England, by offering the supreme management of their affairs to the
Prince of Orange. A Convention was consequently appointed by the
prince to meet at Edinburgh on the 14th of March. This assembly, which
was elected by the people at large, excluding only the Catholics,
experienced at first some embarrassment from the adherents of King
James. The Duke of Gordon still held the castle in that interest, and
was able, if he pleased, to bombard the Parliament House with his
cannon. The Viscount Dundee was also in Edinburgh with a number of
his dragoons, and every day attended the assembly. On the other hand,
an immense number of the westland Whigs, or Cameronians--as they were
called from one of their ministers--had flocked to the city, where
they were concealed in garrets and cellars. Dundee, when he saw that
there was a majority of the Convention hostile to his old master,
concerted with the Earl of Mar and Marquis of Athole a plan for holding
a counter-Convention at Stirling, after the manner of the royalist
parliament held at Oxford by Charles I. In the expectation that his
friends would have been ready to accompany him, he brought out his
troop of dragoons to the street; but finding their minds somewhat
changed, he was obliged to take his departure by himself, as the
parading of armed men so near the Parliament House would have subjected
him to a charge of treason. He therefore rode out of the city with only
a small squadron, and clambering up the Castle-rock, held a conference
with the Duke of Gordon at a postern, where it was resolved upon
between them that he should go to raise the Highland clans for King
James, while his Grace should continue to hold out the Castle.
The liberal members of the Convention took advantage of this movement
to summon the people to arms for their protection, and they were
instantly surrounded by hundreds of armed Cameronians, who completely
overawed the adherents of the late government. The Convention then
declared King James to have forfeited the crown, by his attempts to
overcome the religion and liberties of his subjects. The sovereignty of
Scotland was settled, like that of England, upon the next Protestant
heirs, the Prince and Princess of Orange, who were accordingly
proclaimed at Edinburgh on the 11th of April.
It is not necessary here to detail the efforts made by King James to
recover possession of Ireland--ending in his overthrow at the Boyne--or
the gallant stand made for him in the spring of 1689 by the Duke of
Gordon in Edinburgh Castle, and by Lord Dundee in the Highlands of
Perthshire. By the death of the latter at the battle of Killiecrankie
(July 27), all formidable opposition to the new settlement came to an
end. It is understood that, if circumstances would have permitted,
King William would have rather continued to maintain the Episcopal
Church in Scotland than establish any other. Finding, however, that
the bishops remained faithful to King James, he was compelled to take
the Presbyterians under his protection. The Convention, changed by
the royal mandate into a Parliament, proceeded in July to abolish
prelacy in the Church, and to establish the moderate Presbyterianism
which still exists. All the clergy formerly in possession of churches
were permitted to retain them, if they felt disposed to accede to the
new system, and take the oaths to government. The Solemn League and
Covenant, though still supported by a party, was overlooked. The clergy
were deprived of the power of inflicting a civil punishment by means
of excommunication. General Assemblies and other Church courts were
restored, with independent powers in ecclesiastical matters, and, the
act of supremacy being abolished, Christ was understood to reign as
formerly over the church. The clergy, however, tacitly admitted the
king to be their patron and nursing father; and while the moderator
of the assemblies convened and dissolved them in the name of Christ,
the king’s commissioner, or representative, was also allowed to do
the same in the name of the sovereign. Thus at length, by one of
those compromises which sometimes follow the exhaustion of passion, a
sort of middle way was found, in which the religious prepossessions
of the great bulk of the people could rest in peace, while still the
reasonable powers of the state were not dangerously interfered with.
So did the great troubles of the seventeenth century come to an end,
and allow the genius of the nation at length to give a due share of its
energies to that material prosperity which had so long been repressed.
The course of Scotland since, under its moderate church and zealous
dissenting communions, its useful parish schools, and mild government;
the advance of the country in population, in the culture of its soil,
in every branch of honourable industry, and in the paths of science and
literature; these might well form the subjects of another work equal in
extent to the present.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1685.
FEB. 26.]
The curious book, entitled ‘_Satan’s Invisible World Discovered_,
by Mr George Sinclair, late professor of philosophy at the college
of Glasgow,’ was endowed by the Lords of the Privy Council with a
copyright of eleven years; all persons whatsoever being prohibited
‘from printing, reprinting, or importing into this kingdom, any copies
of the said book,’ during that space of time. This little volume,
which was often reprinted during the eighteenth century, and so lately
as 1814, contains, in the language of its own title-page, a ‘Choice
Collection of Modern Relations, proving evidently _against the Atheists
of this present age_, that there are Devils, Spirits, Witches, and
Apparitions, from authentic records and attestations of witnesses of
undoubted veracity.’
[Sidenote: 1685.]
To maintain the efficacy of witchcraft and the reality of spirits and
apparitions was at that time a part of the external Christianity of the
country, and it was a recognised part of ‘atheism,’ as all freedom of
judgment was then called, to entertain a doubt about either. The work
of Mr George Sinclair was an example of a series in which the popular
beliefs on these subjects were defended as essential to orthodoxy. One
of the most remarkable of these treatises was the _Antidote against
Atheism_, published by Dr Henry More in 1655; in which we find, first,
a most ingenious, and, for the age, well-informed exposition of the
arguments for a God from the remarkable adaptations and provisions
seen, throughout animated nature--next, and in close connection, a
deduction of theism and providence from examples of bewitched persons,
ghosts, vampires, guardian genii, &c. The heading of one of his
chapters is: ‘That the evasions of Atheists against Apparitions are so
weak and silly, that it is an evident argument that they are convinced
in their own judgment of the truth of these kinds of phenomena, which
forces them to answer as well as they can, though they be so ill
provided.’ Not less remarkable was the _Saducismus Triumphatus_ of
Joseph Glanvil, printed in 1681; in which are presented many narratives
regarding both witches and spirits, including the celebrated one
of the Drummer of Tedworth, all evidently deemed as necessary by
the author for the overthrow and refutation of one of the prevalent
forms of infidelity. It is equally worthy of notice, that when John
Webster, ‘practitioner in physic,’ ventured before the world in 1677
with his book, _The Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft_, in which he
threw ridicule on the whole popular code of ideas regarding the doings
of witches, his greatest solicitude was to guard himself against the
imputation of being one who treated lightly anything of the nature of
scriptural evidence.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAR. 3.]
Robert Mean, of the Letter-office, had written a report to London, to
the effect that the westland people were again in arms, and the king’s
forces marching against them. Lord Livingstone consequently posted down
from London, to take command of the forces. When his lordship arrived
and found the report false, he made a complaint against Robert, who
was consequently imprisoned for his indiscretion, being not the first
or second time he had been in trouble for similar offences. Colonel
Worden, a friend of the new king, felt that it was hard to make Mean
suffer where his intention was so good; so he procured a royal letter
in favour of the postmaster. On a penitent petition, Robert was
liberated, and allowed to resume his office, but with a warning ‘that
if he shall be found in any fault of his office hereafter, he shall be
severely punished therefor.’--_Foun._ _P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR. 8.]
The Duke of Queensberry, the Earl of Perth, and the Archbishop of St
Andrews, arrived in Edinburgh from London, ‘having been only eight days
by the way.’--_Foun._
[Sidenote: 1685.]
This must have appeared as rapid travelling in those days, for, twelve
years later, the stage-coach from York to London spent the whole lawful
days of a week upon its journey. This fact we learn from a passage
in the diary of George Home of Kimmerghame, in Berwickshire,[316]
where the following statement is made: ‘Thursday, October 21 [1697],
Sir John Home of Blackadder set out post for London, at two o’clock.
It afterwards appears that he tired of posting [as slow], and [for
expedition, doubtless] got into the stage-coach at York on Monday the
25th, and was expected to reach London in it on Saturday the 30th.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR. 16.]
The equestrian statue of Charles II., which had cost £1000, though only
formed of lead, was set up in the Parliament Close, Edinburgh. ‘The
vulgar people, who had never seen the like before, were much amazed at
it. Some compared it to Nebuchadnezzar’s image, which all fell down and
worshipped, and others foolishly to the pale horse in the Revelations,
and he that sat thereon was death.’--_Foun._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR.]
Sir Alexander Forbes of Tolquhoun, in Aberdeenshire, having entertained
in his house Alexander Ogilvie of Forglen, Sir John Falconer, and
Lord Pitmedden, missed immediately after two mazer cups on which he
set great value. He wrote to Ogilvie, mentioning the fact of the cups
being missed, and asking if he could tell anything about them. Ogilvie,
though feeling that this was scarcely civil, returned a friendly
answer, assuring Sir Alexander that he had never even seen the cups,
and knew absolutely nothing directly or indirectly about them. Hereupon
Sir Alexander replied apologetically, and for some years he conducted
himself in the most friendly way towards Ogilvie, as if to make up for
his former incivility.
[Sidenote: 1685.]
Afterwards, on Ogilvie refusing to take part with him in some quarrels
with a third party, Sir Alexander appeared to conceive a malicious
feeling towards him. To wreak this out, he raised an action against him
in the Court of Session, on the allegation that he had fraudulently
abstracted the fore-mentioned cups. ‘And when the case was called,
Tolquhoun had the confidence to appear personally at the bar and own
and countenance the same, and crave [Ogilvie’s] oath of calumny anent
that defamatory libel.’ After Ogilvie had thus acquitted himself,
Tolquhoun craved permission to enter on a proof of the libel by
witnesses; which the lords assented to. While the matter was pending,
Tolquhoun frequently upbraided Ogilvie with the terms _cup-stealer_
and _cup-cheater_: nor did he hesitate to resort to legal quirks for
keeping the charge as long as possible over the head of the accused.
At length, the case came on, and, being found wholly without sound
evidence, was pronounced to be altogether founded in malice.
[Sidenote: APR. 30.]
A subsequent process by Forglen against Tolquhoun for oppression and
defamation was undefended by the latter, and ended in his being amerced
in twenty thousand merks Scots, whereof one-half was adjudged to the
aggrieved party.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE.]
A dog being stolen out of the house of the Earl of Morton in Peebles,
it chanced that the Earl’s son, the Hon. George Douglas, soon after
observed the animal following the Laird of Chatto on the High Street
of Edinburgh. On Douglas claiming it, the Laird of Chatto very civilly
gave it up. Some days after, as Douglas was walking the street,
followed by the dog, John Corsehill, a footman of Chatto, came up and
attempted to take the animal into his possession, doubtless believing
that it was his master’s property. Douglas bade him forbear, as the
dog was his; but John Corsehill, not being satisfied, gave him some
foul language, and when Douglas soon after returned along the street,
Corsehill renewed his attempt; whereupon Douglas called him a rascal,
to which the lackey responded in the same terms. ‘Which being such an
indignity to any gentleman, [Douglas] did step back, and make to his
sword; but before he got it drawn, the footman did hit him twice with
a cudgel over the head, and did continue violently to assault him,
[Douglas] still retiring, and with his sword warding the blows; but
the footman was so furious, that he run himself upon the point of the
sword, and so was killed.’
The excuse of Douglas for this unhappy chance was, that Corsehill had
been the first aggressor, and that ‘no gentleman could endure publicly
to be called a rascal without resentment.’ He protested that he had
only acted in self-defence.--_P. C. R._
Another, though less fatal quarrel took place soon after, in
consequence of a similar circumstance. Captain Scott, of the King’s
Guard, having lost his dog in the college of Edinburgh, adopted the
belief that it had been appropriated by Mr Gregory, the professor of
mathematics. On this notion he acted so far as to fall upon the learned
gownsman and give him a hearty beating. The other professors took up
the case, and on their complaint to the Chancellor, Scott was compelled
to crave pardon.--_Foun. Dec._
[Sidenote: 1685.
JULY 7.]
Sir John Cochrane of Ochiltree, an associate in Argyle’s expedition,
and a forfaulted traitor, was taken in a relative’s house in
Renfrewshire at the end of June, and was on the 3d July, with his son
and another traitor, brought into Edinburgh, ‘bound and bareheaded,
by the hangman.’ On the day noted in the margin, the English packet
coming to Edinburgh was known to have been twice stopped and robbed
near Alnwick. It was conjectured at the time that this might be done
by some of Sir John Cochrane’s friends, ‘lest there should have been
any warrant from the king by these packets to have execute him; that
so the Earl of Arran might have leisure to inform the king what Sir
John could discover, and so obtain a countermand.’--_Foun._ There were
other conjectures on the subject; but no one could have surmised that
the robber of the packet was Sir John’s daughter Grizzel, disguised in
men’s clothes, as was long after ascertained to be the case. Sir John
obtained a pardon from the king, and lived to be Earl of Dundonald. The
heroine Grizzel was married to John Kerr of Morriston, in Berwickshire.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG.]
‘Sir George Drummond, provost of Edinburgh, breaks and runs to the
Abbey for debt, the first provost that, during his office, has broke
in Edinburgh.’--_Foun._ A week or two after, in consequence of some
objectionable matters being thrown over the windows of Patrick
Graham, captain of the Town-guard, whereby some gentlemen’s clothes
were spoiled, a trivial riot took place at the guard-house. The Lord
Chancellor, Earl of Perth, who of course was bound to do what he could
for a Drummond, took advantage of this petty affair to get a protection
to the bankrupt provost, to enable him to appear and defend the town.
Thus he was ‘brought to the street again.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP.]
[Sidenote: 1685.]
George Scott of Pitlochie had some claims upon the public in
compensation for certain manuscripts originally belonging to his
father, Sir John Scott of Scotstarvet, which he had surrendered to the
Court of Session. Sir John had written a curious book, entitled an
_Account of the Staggering State of Scots Statesmen_, in which, with
irrepressible marks of gusto, he detailed the misfortunes which had
befallen the persons and families of most of those who had taken a lead
in public affairs or borne office during the preceding century. Now the
usual destiny had overtaken his own son, who was fallen into poverty,
and somewhat at a shift for a living. For some time, he besieged the
Privy Council for help or patronage, and was at length gratified with
a very peculiar gift. About two hundred westland peasants had been
taken up for various acts of recusancy, and, for safety on the approach
of Argyle, they were gathered out of the prisons, driven off like a
flock of sheep to the east side of the island, and huddled into a vault
of Dunnottar Castle, where they lived for a few weeks in circumstances
of privation, as to food, air, water, and general accommodation, truly
piteous. Hearing of their sad state, and relenting somewhat, the
Council caused these poor people to be brought to Leith. It was hoped,
perhaps, that they would now make such submissions as might warrant
their liberation; and some did thus work themselves free. But the
greater number positively refused to take the oath of allegiance, ‘as
embodied with the supremacy,’ as they would thus be rejecting Christ
from ‘the rule in his own house,’ as well as over their own consciences.
[Sidenote: SEP. 5.]
Pitlochie, who was himself a vexed Presbyterian, being now in
contemplation of a settlement in the colony of East Jersey, and in want
of labourers or bondsmen for the culture of his lands, petitioned the
Council for a consignment of these tender-conscienced men, and nearly a
hundred, who had been condemned to banishment, were at once ‘gifted’ to
him. He freighted a Newcastle ship to carry them, and the vessel sailed
from Leith roads, carrying with her a number of ‘dyvours and broken
men’ besides the Covenanters. It was a most disastrous voyage.
Partly perhaps because of the reduced and sickly state of many of
the prisoners at starting, but more through deficiency of healthful
food, and the want of air and comfort, a violent fever broke out in
the ship before she had cleared the Land’s End. It soon assumed a
malignant type, and scarcely any individual on board escaped. The whole
crew excepting the captain and boatswain died; Pitlochie himself and
his lady also sunk under the disease. Three or four dead were thrown
overboard every day. ‘Notwithstanding of this raging sickness, much
severity was used towards the prisoners at sea by the master of the
ship and others: those under deck were not allowed to go about worship
by themselves, and when they essayed it, the captain would throw down
great planks of timber upon them to disturb them, and sometimes to the
danger of their lives.’
[Sidenote: 1685.]
Fifteen long weeks were spent by this pest-ship before she arrived at
her destination; and in that time seventy had perished! The remainder
were so reduced in strength as to be scarcely able to go ashore. The
people at the place where they landed, ‘not having the gospel among
them,’ were indifferent to the fate of the Scottish Presbyterians.
But at a place a few miles inland, where there was a minister and a
congregation, they were received with great kindness. They then became
the subject of a singular litigation, a Mr Johnston, the son-in-law
and heir of Pitlochie, suing them for their value as bond-servants. A
jury found that there was no indenture between Pitlochie and them, but
that they were shipped against their will; therefore Mr Johnston had
no control over them. A good many of them are said to have died within
a short space of time in the plantations; the rest returned to their
native country at the Revolution. Such was the sad story of Pitlochie’s
voyage.--_P. C. R._ _Wod._ _Foun._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT.]
Robert Pringle of Clifton, a considerable gentleman of Roxburghshire,
was lately dead, leaving one child, Jonet Pringle, now about twenty
years of age, as heir to the bulk of his property, while his brother
Andrew succeeded as heir of provision. It was obviously desirable
for the general interest of the family, that the two branches should
be re-united, and when any interest of this sort existed, objections
of a natural and moral kind seldom stood long in the way. Andrew
Pringle’s eldest son was only thirteen; therefore, if suitable at all
as a match for his fair cousin, he was certainly not suitable _yet_.
But then there was a tribe of Murrays of Livingstone, the relations
of Jonet’s mother, who anxiously desired to have the disposal of her.
Already Lieutenant George Murray, of the King’s Guard, was alive to
his prospective interests in the matter. How to countermine him? The
young lady vanished from society; much reason to suppose it was by
the prompting and assistance of her uncle Andrew. Lieutenant Murray
obtained from the Privy Council an order against Andrew Pringle to
produce his niece; but he cleared himself by oath of the charge of
having been concerned in putting her away. Murray urged that she
should be exhibited--as her relation he had an interest in seeing
this done--and Andrew Pringle, who had not acted very well towards
his deceased brother, was ill fitted to take a charge of the niece.
Mr Pringle was ordered, on pain of a fine of ten thousand merks, to
bring forward his niece before the 5th of November, and, to make sure
of him, he was put into prison. It was, however, soon ascertained that
the young lady had gone over the Border with her boy-cousin, and been
married to him by a regular English clergyman!
[Sidenote: 1685.]
In these circumstances, it became needless for the lieutenant to go
forward with his case against Mr Pringle. A contract was made between
him and Pringle, whereby for seven thousand merks he agreed to withdraw
all opposition. All offence to the laws of the country by so improper a
marriage was soon after effaced by a fine of five hundred merks imposed
on the young couple.--_Foun._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT. 20.]
At a meeting of the synod of Edinburgh, there was a report from the
presbytery of Haddington on the case of a poor man, the gardener of
Sir John Seton of Garmilton, who, having turned Catholic, had become
in their opinion liable to a sentence of excommunication. But such
processes had now become a matter of some delicacy, as the king might
thereby be offended. The bishop, in some terror, signed the warrant
for going on with the process against the gardener, and, lest the act
should appear a strong one, he tried to soften it by professing to
his clergy to have little fear of popery, as the king had promised
to protect the Protestant religion. A few weeks after, a letter came
down from the king, forbidding the church authorities to go on with
the excommunication of the gardener. With what grim smiles would the
westland Whigs hear of this transaction!--_Foun._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 17.]
In the course of our perquisitions into domestic matters in Scotland,
the first trace that is found of any effort at a systematic education
of young ladies in elegant accomplishments, occurs in a petition of
Isobel Cumming to the Privy Council at this date. She was a widow
and a stranger, who had been invited some years before to come to
Edinburgh, ‘where she conceived the centre of virtue to be in this
kingdom,’ in order to instruct young gentlewomen ‘in all sorts of
needlework, playing, singing, and in several other excellent pieces
of work, becoming ladies of honour.’ In this useful course of life,
she had received much encouragement, and she was going on continually
‘improving herself for the advantage of young ladies of quality.’
Now, however, she was beset by a serious obstruction, in an order to
quarter a certain number of soldiers in her house. She petitioned for
an immunity from this branch of citizenly duty, and the lords--who,
as oftener than once remarked, seem never to have been deficient in
Christian-like feeling in matters apart from Christianity--immediately
granted her request.--_P. C. R._ [Sidenote: 1686.
JAN. 31.]
After what we have seen of the hardness of general feeling towards
the Catholic religion during the last hundred years, it may be
well understood that the fitting up of a popish chapel, college,
and printing-office in Holyrood Palace would be regarded with no
resigned feelings by the multitude, whatever might be the views of
state-councillors, under a sense of delicacy or deference towards
the king. At the ‘skailing’ of the chapel one day, some of the
populace threw dirt and called names to the worshippers, and one of
the offenders, ‘a baxter lad,’ was consequently whipped through the
Canongate. On the youth being rescued by the mob, the guards were
called in, and a woman and two men were shot. ‘Then all were commanded
off the streets, and all ordained to hang out bowets [lanterns]; and
some being apprehended, the next day a woman and two men were scourged
... guarded all the way betwixt two files of musketeers and pikemen,
for fear of being deforced again.’ Afterwards, a drummer who said
he could find it in his heart to run his sword through all papists,
was shot; and one Keith, a fencing-master, who spoke some sentences
in a jovial company approving of the tumult, saying, ‘if the trades
lads would fall upon the Town-guard, he would secure Captain Patrick
Graham,’ was tried, condemned, and hanged, ‘dying piously in much
composure.’--_Foun._
Such were the symptoms of popular feeling which heralded the Revolution.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: FEB. 16.]
The Archbishop of St Andrews and Bishop of Edinburgh departed for
London, ‘in the _retour coach_ which had, the week before, brought down
the Marquis of Athole and Sir William Bruce from thence.’--_Foun._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR.]
‘Two charlatans came to Edinburgh, with recommendations from his
majesty, called Doctor Reid and Salvator Moscow, from Sicily.’
They ‘erected stages, and in their printed papers did brag of
admirable cures, as sixty-four blind persons restored to sight,
who had never seen from their birth, with many other extravagant
undertakings.’--_Foun._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 14.]
[Sidenote: 1686.]
The parliament passed an act to encourage Mr John Adair to proceed with
a design he had formed and in part executed, for producing serviceable
maps of the counties of Scotland, and a hydrographical description of
its sea-coasts for the use of mariners. It was arranged to remunerate
Adair by a small tax on tonnage. He accordingly proceeded with his
work, obtained mathematical instruments to the value of £100 from
abroad, brought one Maxon an engraver from Holland at a cost of
£70, and ‘did truly survey, navigate, and delineate the coast from
Sunderland Point in England to Buchan-ness, in eight large maps,
including the rivers and firths of Forth and Tay, likewise the Firth of
Clyde on the west sea in one large map; upon which he bestowed (having
ordinarily paid 20s. sterling _per diem_ for boats) £200 sterling.’
At a time when, even in England, Flamstead’s salary of a hundred a year
was often in arrears, it was not to be expected that any government
patronage to science in Scotland should be effectively carried out.
It appears that the tonnage-rate assigned to Adair proved, from one
cause and another, unproductive, and he was left with the work on his
hands, seriously embarrassed by his expenses, and unable to publish
what he had executed. About 1691, an effort was made to get the maps
engraved and published by a subscription at one pound per copy; but
of seven hundred subscribers required, no more than a hundred could
be procured--so few were then the individuals possessing the union
of taste, public spirit, and means necessary to make them encourage
such a project. At length, in 1694, on Adair’s petition, the Privy
Council made some arrangements for supplying him with funds, and he was
commissioned to go on with his labours. It was at the same time made an
instruction to him that, while conducting his surveys, he should obtain
information regarding the natural curiosities of the country, and also
its antiquities. Among the former were mentioned, clays and marls dug
from the ground, and crystals, flints, and ‘figured stones, having the
_shapes_ of plants, shells, animals, &c.’--such being the conception of
that age regarding those _fossils_ in which the geologist now sees the
actual remains of the organisms of the earlier epochs of creation! The
funds, derived from a tonnage-rate, seem to have come in very slowly
and in inadequate amount. Adair nevertheless, had a hired vessel for a
succession of summers along the western coast, and in 1703 he was able
to bring out a volume in folio, containing maps of the east coast, with
letter-press descriptions. He described himself next year as having
received £1800 sterling to account, while about £500 remained due. He
adds that, even if that balance were paid, he would have no profit for
his own trouble, or anything to reimburse him for what he had spent in
the support of his numerous family while absent on his surveys.
[Sidenote: 1686.]
Owing to the difficulty of obtaining the needful funds, the remainder
of Adair’s work, though in a state of forwardness, was never presented
to the world. It appears that he died in London towards the close
of 1722, probably in reduced circumstances. His wife was next year
honoured with a pension of £40.[317]
A man of kindred talents was endeavouring at the same time with Adair
to produce a work which was calculated to reflect some honour on the
country. We refer to John Slezer, a German or Dutchman, who had come
to our northern land in 1669, and been patronised by several of the
nobility, who by and by procured for him a commission as engineer in an
artillery corps. He was afterwards encouraged by Charles II., the Duke
of York, and other great personages, to undertake a work descriptive of
Scotland; and the first result appeared in 1693, in a folio entitled
_Theatrum Scotiæ[_, containing fifty-seven views of palaces and
noblemen’s seats. The country was vain enough to desire to see such a
work executed, but too poor to give it a remunerative sale. Yet Slezer
struggled on to complete it by other volumes. The Scottish parliament,
on his petition, made some arrangements to assist him with money, but
they were attended with little good effect. Two volumes of additional
drawings, therefore, remained for years unengraved, or at least unready
for publication; and the poor author had to betake himself to the
sanctuary of Holyroodhouse, where he and his talents lay useless for
thirteen years, while his family lived miserably in the city. Here he
died in November 1717, leaving debts to the amount of £2249, and claims
on the government to a nearly equal amount.[318]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE and JULY.]
[Sidenote: 1686.]
‘In the year 1686,’ says Patrick Walker, ‘especially in the months of
June and July, about Crossford, two miles below Lanark, especially at
the Mains on the water of Clyde, many people gathered together for
several afternoons, where there were showers of bonnets, hats, guns,
and swords, which covered the trees and ground; companies of men in
arms marching along the water-side; companies meeting companies all
through other, and then all falling to the ground, and disappearing,
and other companies appearing the same way. I went there three
afternoons together, and, as I could observe, there were two of the
people that were together saw, and a _third that saw not_; and _though
I could see nothing_, yet there was such a fright and trembling upon
those that did see, that was discernible to all from those that saw
not. There was a gentleman standing next to me who spoke as too
many gentlemen and others speak. He said: “A pack of damned witches
and warlocks that have the second-sight! De’il haet do I see!” And
immediately there was a discernible change in his countenance, with as
much fear and trembling as any woman I saw there; who cried out: “Oh,
all ye that do not see, say nothing; for I persuade you it is matter
of fact, and discernible to all that is not stone-blind!” Those that
did see, told what works the guns had, and their length and wideness;
and what handles the swords had, whether small, or three-barred, or
Highland guards; and the closing knots of the bonnets, black and blue;
and these who did see them there, wherever they went abroad, saw a
bonnet and a sword drop by the way.’
The explanation of this kind of marvel has already been given under
1668. In the present instance, the subjective character of the
phenomenon is borne out by what Walker tells of some, including
himself, not being able to see anything, and of a gentleman suddenly
becoming sensible of the vision.
[Sidenote: 1686.]
Honest Patrick acknowledges having been afterwards much twitted
and laughed at by ‘learned critics,’ and even ‘young ministers and
expectants,’ about his report of the Crossford visions, on the score
of his having been himself present, without witnessing the alleged
prodigy. He admits that he was there _three days, and saw nothing_,
but goes on: ‘Will these wild-ass colts tell me what stopped the eyes
of the long clear-sighted Balaam, that saw a star arise out of Jacob,
... yet saw not the angel standing with a drawn sword in his hand, and
his dull ass saw him, and stopped three times? And what stopped the
eyes of the men that were with Daniel, at the river Hiddekel, when he
saw the vision, but they saw not, but greatly quaked? And what stopped
the ears of Paul’s companions in wickedness, going the devil’s errand
to Damascus, that saw the light and made them fall to the ground, but
heard not the words of the voice that spake to him? And what stopped
the ears and eyes of the captain of the Castle of Edinburgh, who was
alarmed three times at night, while the sentinels were with him; but
when they were sent off, he both saw and heard the different beating
of drums, both English and Scots, in that strange apparition in the
year 1650, before the English came to it?’
* * * * *
‘This winter, there happened three fires at Edinburgh, and all on
the Sabbath-day, to signify God’s displeasure at the profanation of
his day.’ And yet ‘there is no certain conclusion can be drawn from
these providential accidents, for a few would draw just the contrary
conclusion--that God was dissatisfied with our worshipping him on that
day: so these providences may be variously interpreted.’--_Foun._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1687.
JAN. 13.]
One Reid, a mountebank, was at this time practising in Edinburgh. He
was popishly inclined, and actually, four days after this date, was
received into the Catholic church with one of his blackamoors; which,
Fountainhall tells us, was ‘a great trophy’ to the popish party, now in
the ascendency. On the date here noted, Reid had Scott of Harden and
his lady in court ‘for stealing away from him a little girl called the
_Tumbling Lassie_, who danced upon his stage; she danced in all shapes,
and, to make her supple, he daily oiled all her joints; and he claimed
damages, and produced a contract, where he had bought her from her
mother for £30 Scots. But,’ adds Fountainhall, ‘we have no slaves in
Scotland, and mothers cannot sell their bairns; and physicians attested
the employment of tumbling would bruise all her bowels and kill her;
and her joints were now grown stiff, and she declined to return.’ The
mountebank, though favoured by the chancellor on account of his popery,
lost his cause.--_Foun. Dec._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAY 1.]
[Sidenote: 1687.]
Being Sunday, a young woman of noted piety, Janet Fraser by name, the
daughter of a weaver in the parish of Closeburn, Dumfriesshire, had
gone out to the fields with a young female companion, and sat down to
read the Bible not far from her father’s house. Feeling thirsty, she
went to the river-side (the Nith) to get a drink, leaving her Bible
open at the place where she had been reading, which presented the
verses of the 34th chapter of Isaiah, beginning--‘My sword shall be
bathed in heaven: behold, it shall come down upon Idumea, and upon the
people of my curse, to judgment,’ &c. On returning, she found a patch
of something like blood covering this very text. In great surprise,
she carried the book home, where a young man tasted the substance with
his tongue, and found it of a saltless or insipid flavour. On the two
succeeding Sundays, while the same girl was reading her Bible in the
open air, similar blotches of matter, like blood, fell upon the leaves.
She did not perceive it in the act of falling till it was about an inch
from the book. ‘It is not blood, for it is as tough as glue, and will
not be scraped off by a knife, as blood will; but it is so like blood,
as none can discern any difference by the colour.’
Showers of blood are amongst the familiar prodigies by which mankind
were alarmed in days of ignorance and superstition. A writer of our
time remarks that it is most probable that these bloody waters were
never _seen_ falling, but that people, seeing the standing waters
blood-coloured, were assured, from their not knowing how else it should
happen, that it had rained blood into them. ‘Swammerdam,’ he goes on to
say, ‘relates that, one morning in 1670, great excitement was created
in the Hague, by a report that the lakes and ditches about the city
were found to be full of blood. A certain physician went down to one of
the canals, and taking home a quantity of this blood-coloured water,
examined it with the microscope, and found that the water was water
still, and had not at all changed its colour, but that it was full of
prodigious swarms of small red animals, all alive, and very nimble
in their motions, the colour and prodigious numbers of which gave a
reddish tinge to the whole body of the water in which they lived....
The animals which thus colour the water of lakes and ponds are the
_pulices arborescentes_ of Swammerdam, or the water-fleas with branched
horns. These creatures are of a reddish-yellow or flame-colour. They
live about the sides of ditches, under weeds, and amongst the mud;
and are therefore the less visible, except at a certain time, which
is the beginning or end of June. It is at this time that these little
animals leave their recesses to float about the water, and meet for the
propagation of their species; and by this means they become visible
in the colour which they give the water. The colour in question is
visible, more or less, in one part or other of almost all standing
waters at this season; and it is always at the same season that the
bloody waters have alarmed the ignorant.’--_Encyc. Brit., 7th ed._,
xix. 59. If we can suppose some quantity of the water so discoloured to
be carried up by a whirlwind, transported along, and afterwards allowed
to fall, such a fact as the depositing of blood-like stains on Janet
Fraser’s Bible might be accounted for.
[Sidenote: 1687.]
Medieval history is full of stories of blood being found on or in
the host, and of dismal misinterpretations of the phenomenon being
accepted. Several massacres of Jews have arisen from this cause alone.
Modern science sees the matter in its true light. In 1848, Dr Eckhard,
of Berlin, when attending a case of cholera, found potatoes and bread
within the house spotted with a red colouring matter, which, being
forwarded to Ehrenberg, was found by him to be due to the presence of
an animalcule, to which he gave the name of the _Monas Prodigiosa_.
It was found that other pieces of bread could be inoculated with this
matter. It is curious to reflect that, if Ehrenberg had been present to
examine a certain spotted host in Frankfort in 1296, and supposing his
rational explanations to be received, the lives of ten thousand unhappy
descendants of Abraham might have been saved.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 6.]
In compliance with ‘a general outcry and complaint’ from the public,
the magistrates of Edinburgh called up the butchers and vintners, and
fined them for extortion. It was in vain that these men set forth that
there was no rule or law broken, and that when they bought dear they
must sell dear. It was held as a sufficient answer to the butchers,
that they did exact large profits, besides using sundry arts to pass
off their meat as better than it was, and they _regrated the market_
by taking all the parks and enclosures about Edinburgh, so as to
prevent any from ‘furnishing’ but themselves. It was alleged of the
vintners, that they exacted for a prepared fowl triple what it cost
in the market; they sold bread purposely made small; they charged
twenty-four pence for the pound of sugar, while the cost to themselves
was eightpence, ‘and even so in the measure of tobacco.’--_Foun._
[Sidenote: 1687.]
Though the butchers formed one of the fourteen incorporated trades of
Edinburgh, their business was of a limited description, and indeed
continued so till a comparatively recent time, owing to the generally
prevalent use of meat salted at Martinmas, a practice rendered
unavoidable by the scarcity of winter fodder for cattle before the days
of turnip husbandry. Of the animals used, cattle formed but a small
proportion. John Strachan, a ‘flesh-cady’ or market-porter, who died
in 1791 in the 105th year of his age, remembered the time--not long
after that now under our attention--‘when no flesher would venture to
kill any beast [that is, bullock] till all the different parts were
bespoken.’[319] It may also be remarked that Pennant, in his _Tour in
Scotland_, 1772, tells us that ‘the gentleman is now living who first
introduced stall-fed beef into Perth.’ He adds, with strict truth:
‘Before that time the greater part of Scotland lived on salt meat
throughout the winter, as the natives of the Hebrides do at present,
and as the English did in the feudal times.’
A truer remedy for the alleged extortions of the butchers was soon
after hit upon by the Privy Council, in allowing meat to be brought
into town by ‘landward men’ not of the corporation. ‘Some,’ adds
Fountainhall timidly, ‘think that all [should be] permitted to bring
in bread every day,’ being the same case with that of the maltmen, who
were forbidden to form a deaconry.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV. 24.]
The usual rule of the government in the two last reigns against
unlicensed printing, was now very rigorously enforced, in order to
prevent the issue of controversial pamphlets against the Catholic
religion. James Glen, bookseller in Edinburgh, was imprisoned by an
order from the Chancellor, for publishing a brochure called _The Root
of Romish Ceremonies_, designed ‘to prove popery to be only paganism
revived.’ It was a remarkable step for the government to take, while an
uncontrolled popish printer was at constant work in the palace. Perhaps
Lord Perth, who had become a Catholic (some say to please his wife,
some to please the king, no one to please himself), felt sore at a _bon
mot_ of Glen, which Fountainhall has thought worthy of being preserved.
The Council having (January 1686) issued an edict against the selling
of books reflecting on popery, and their macer having brought this to
Glen amongst others, he quietly remarked that ‘there was a book in his
shop which condemned popery very directly--namely, the _Bible_--might
he sell that?’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1688.
JAN.]
At this time, so unpropitious to literature, an attempt was made
to establish a periodical work of a kind which we only expect to
see arising when the affairs of the learned republic are at a
comparatively advanced stage. Mr John Cockburn, minister at Ormiston,
in Haddingtonshire, printed the first number of a work containing ‘the
monthly transactions and an account of books out of the Universal
Bibliotheque and others.’ The Chancellor, finding in it some passages
reflecting on the Roman Catholic Church, at once suppressed the
publication.--_Foun. Dec._
[Sidenote: 1688.
JAN. 19.]
Copious periwigs, with curls flowing down to the shoulders, were now
in vogue, both at home and abroad. There being an active exportation
of hair for the foreign peruke-makers, the article was found to have
become dear, and the native artists began to complain. On their
petition, the Privy Council forbade the exporting of hair.--_Foun._
It may give some idea of circumstances attending this fashion, that at
a date not long subsequent to the period under our attention, a female
living in a town in the south of Scotland was accustomed to dispose of
her crop of _yellow hair_ to a travelling merchant at fixed intervals,
and always got a guinea for it.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: FEB.]
Sir James Stanfield was one of the English manufacturers who had
been induced to settle and practise their art at Newmills, in
Haddingtonshire, in order that Scotch money should not need to be sent
away for English-made goods. This respectable man was afflicted with a
profligate eldest son, whom he at length saw fit to disinherit. He had
become melancholy, probably in consequence of domestic troubles, and
on a certain day in November, he was found drowned in a pool of water
near his own house. It was debated whether he had been murdered or had
drowned himself; and it was noted that the widow and son contended for
the latter view of the case, and accordingly, without further ado, took
measures for having the body immediately buried. A suspicion, however,
arose that Sir James had met with foul play, and two surgeons were sent
by the authorities in Edinburgh, to examine the body and report.
[Sidenote: 1688.]
The corpse was raised from the grave, after it had lain there two
days; and the surgeons, having made an incision near the neck, became
convinced that death had been induced by strangulation; so that the
supposition of suicide was set aside. This inspection took place in
the church. After the cut had been sewed up, and the body washed,
and put into clean linen, James Row, a merchant of Edinburgh, and
Philip Stanfield, eldest son of the deceased, took it up, one on
each side, to deposit it in the coffin, when, behold, an effusion of
blood was observed to take place on the side sustained by the son,
so as to defile his hands. He instantly let the body fall, with the
exclamation, ‘Lord, have mercy on me!’ and rushed, horror-struck, into
the precentor’s desk, where he lay for some time groaning and in great
agitation, utterly refusing to touch the corpse again. This incident
was at once accepted in the light of a revelation of the young man’s
guilt as his father’s murderer; and he was therefore taken into custody
and brought to Edinburgh for trial.
The trial took place on the 7th of February, but brought out little
evidence worthy of attention. Nevertheless, on the strength of the
bleeding, and of his being known to have cursed his father, the
unfortunate young man was found guilty, and sentenced to death, with
sundry aggravations of punishment.
By pretending an inclination to turn papist, he got a brief respite,
but, on the 24th of the month, was hanged, protesting his innocence
to the last, and finally dying Protestant. By reason of a slip of the
rope, he came down till his knees rested on the scaffold, and it was
necessary to use more direct means of strangulation. Then his tongue
was cut out, as a retribution for the cursing of his father, and his
hand hacked off and sent to be put up on the east port of Haddington,
as a memorial of the murder. The body was hung up in chains, but
after a few days was stolen away, and found lying in a ditch among
water. It was hung up again, but a second time taken down. Both in the
strangulation on the scaffold and the being found in a ditch among
water, the superstitious remarked something like a providential notice
of the facts of the murder of which he was assumedly guilty.
It will be acknowledged that, in the circumstances related, there is
not a particle of valid evidence against the young man. The surgeon’s
opinion as to the fact of strangulation is not entitled to much regard;
but, granting its solidity, it does not prove the guilt of the accused.
The horror of the young man on seeing his father’s blood, might be
referred to painful recollections of that profligate conduct which
he knew had distressed his parent and brought his gray hairs with
sorrow to the grave--especially when we reflect that Stanfield would
himself be impressed with the superstitious feelings of the age, and
might accept the hæmorrhage as an accusation by heaven on account of
the concern his conduct had had in shortening the life of his father.
The whole case seems to be a lively illustration of the effect of
superstitious feelings in blinding justice.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAR. 6.]
[Sidenote: 1688.]
The Privy Council considered a legal case about a very small matter.
The beautiful lake of Duddingston, under the southeast front of
Arthur’s Seat, and adjoining to the royal park of Holyrood, had been
graced by the late Duke of Lauderdale with a few swans. His too clever
duchess--who had for years been carrying on terrible legal wars with
his heirs--deemed herself entitled to take out five of these birds
at her own pleasure. Sir James Dick, the proprietor of the lake,
determined to recover the swans; so he caught three of them, and
broke a lockfast place in order to get the remaining two; and then
placed them all once more upon the loch. Hereupon the duchess raised
a process, which was now decided in her favour, on the ground that
the birds had been brought to the loch by the late duke, and that Sir
James’s tolerance of them there did not make them his. The baronet,
indignant at being thus balked, turned all the rest of the swans off
his lake; but here he was met by the Duke of Hamilton, heritable keeper
of the palace, alleging that, as the lake bounded the royal park, the
wild animals upon it belonged to him. So he caused the swans to be once
again restored to their haunt.--_Foun. Dec._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAR.]
One Niven, a musician in Inverness, caused a girl of twelve years,
his pupil, to marry him under basely deceptious pretences. To induce
a minister to perform the ceremony, he suborned a youth to personate
the girl’s brother, and convey the consent of the father, who was
himself a clergyman. For this ‘abominable imposture and treachery,’ he
was condemned to stand with his ear nailed to the pillory, and then
banished.--_Foun. Dec._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY.]
For some time, we have heard little of witches; but now one appears.
An old woman at Dunbar having threatened some people who refused to
give her money, and ‘some evil accidents befalling them shortly after,’
she was seized and tried before a commission. She at first confessed,
but afterwards retracted; nevertheless, the commission condemned her.
Before proceeding to any greater extremity, they thought it well to
bring her before the Council itself, who were at first inclined to
‘assoilzie’ her; but afterwards, ‘she was remitted back to Dunbar, _to
be burnt there, if her judges pleased_.’--_Foun._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1688.
JULY 22.]
The _girdle_--a round iron plate used for baking oaten cakes over a
fire--a household article once universal among the middle and humbler
classes in Scotland--was invented and first made at the little burgh of
Culross, in Fife. In 1599, King James gave the Culrossians an exclusive
privilege to make girdles, and this had been confirmed by a gift from
Charles II. in 1666. Nevertheless, a neighbouring gentleman, Preston
of Valleyfield, had kept girdle-makers (_craticularum fabros_) on
his barony, for which he was now challenged at law by the burghers of
Culross. He defended himself on various grounds; and the lords, before
decision, ‘recommended to Drumcairn to take trial if the girdle-makers
of Culross have any other trade or craft than that of making girdles,
and at what prices they sell the same; and likewise to try if the men
at Valleyfield do make sufficient girdles, and at what prices they make
the same, and if they have any other trade than making of girdles, &c.’
How the matter ended we do not learn.--_Foun. Dec._
* * * * *
About this time, an Englishman, apparently a military officer,
described Scotland from personal observation, and so has preserved for
us some general traits of the people.
‘Their drink,’ he says, ‘is beer, sometimes so new that it is scarce
cold when brought to table. But their gentry are better provided, and
give it age, yet think not so well of it as to let it go alone, and
therefore add brandy, cherry brandy, or brandy and sugar, and [this]
is the nectar of their country, at their feasts and entertainments,
and carries with it a mark of great esteem and affection. Sometimes
they have wine--a thin-bodied claret, at tenpence the mutchkin, which
answers our quart.’
It is evident from this that whisky as yet formed no conspicuous
indulgence among the Scottish people. They had come, however, to be
much given to another stimulant, which has ever since had a great
fascination for them. ‘They are fond of tobacco, but more from the
sneesh-box [snuff-box] than the pipe. And they have made it so
necessary, that I have heard some of them say, that, should their bread
come in competition with it, they would rather fast than their _sneesh_
should be taken away. Yet mostly it consists of the coarsest tobacco,
dried by the fire, and powdered in a little engine after the form of
a _tap_, which they carry in their pockets, and is both a _mill_ to
grind, and a _box_ to keep it in.’[320]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1689.]
The infatuated king had fled to France, the ministers of his will had
dispersed in terror, and a convention was about to meet and settle
the crown upon William and Mary, when a singular instance of private
revenge, recalling the rougher days of a century earlier, took place in
Edinburgh.
[Sidenote: 1689.]
Sir George Lockhart, long the most eminent counsel at the Scottish
bar--‘the most learned lawyer and the best pleader,’ says Burnet, ‘I
have ever known of any nation’--and now President of the Court of
Session, had had occasion, in the routine of judicial business, to
give an award in favour of the unhappy wife and children of Chiesley
of Dalry, near Edinburgh--a profligate man of violent passions, the
descendant of a noted fanatic of the time of the Civil War. The
sum assigned them from the husband and father’s estate was only
ninety-three pounds a year. Chiesley openly avowed a resolution to be
avenged on the judge; nay, he wrote to him, saying: ‘You have taken
the government of my family from me--I desire a remedy at your hands;
otherwise, I will not scruple to attack you at kirk or market;’ or
using words to that effect.
[Sidenote: 1689.]
On Sunday, the 31st of March--while the town was under the excitement
of the siege of the Castle by the troops of the new government--Sir
George Lockhart attended worship, as usual, in the New Church, a
portion of St Giles’s cathedral. Chiesley came armed, and endeavoured,
by money offered to the _bedral_, to get into Lord Castlehill’s seat,
which was just behind that of the President, being resolved there to
wreak out his vengeance, although certain to lose his own life in
consequence. Not succeeding in getting into this seat, he flitted
restlessly about the church till the conclusion of the service, when he
walked out, and preceded the Lord President to the head of the close
near by,[321] in which the latter had his residence. The President came
along, attended by Lord Castlehill and Mr Daniel Lockhart, and as he
entered the close saluted Chiesley, who gloomily returned his greeting.
To pursue the narrative of a contemporary: ‘My Lord Castlehill and
Daniel Lockhart convoyed him a piece down the close, and talked a while
with him, after which they both departed. The President called back the
last, and whilst Daniel was returning, Dalry approached, to whom Daniel
said: “I thought you had been at London,” without any other answer
than that he was there [that is, here] now. Daniel offered to take him
by the hand; but the other shuffled by him, and coming close to the
President’s back, discharged his pistol before that any suspected his
design. The bullet going in beneath the right shoulder and out at the
left pap, was battered on the wall. The President immediately turned
about, looked the murderer grievously in the face, and then finding
himself beginning to fail, he leant to the wall, and said to Daniel:
“Hold me, Daniel, hold me.” These were his last words. He was carried
immediately to his own house, and was almost dead before he could reach
it. Daniel and the President’s chaplain apprehended in the meanwhile
Dalry, who owned the fact, and never offered to flee. He was carried to
the guard, kept in the Weigh-house, and afterwards taken to prison. The
President’s lady, hearing the shot and a cry in the close, got in her
smock out of bed, and took the dead body in her arms; at which sight,
swooning, she was taken to her chamber. The corpse were laid in the
same room where he used to consult.’--_Father Hay._
The murderer was tortured, but confessed nothing, and in three days
he was hanging in chains at Drumsheuch; whence, however, his body was
stolen away by his friends. Within the present century, on enlarging a
cellar in Dalry house, a skeleton with some rusty irons about it was
found in the earth, and concluded to be the remains of Chiesley.
* * * * *
Here--for the present, at least--ends our record of domestic
occurrences and things in Scotland. It brings the life of the nation
from the rudeness of the middle of the sixteenth century down to the
comparative civilisation of the close of the seventeenth, when the
existing political system was nearly settled. A strange phantasmagoria,
beginning with the half mail-clad baron and his band of followers in
swords and pistols, and ending in the silken and embroidered gallant
in full periwig and a rapier for show. We have seen in the earlier
years of the period little regard for law amongst the people, and no
power in the government to enforce it. But gentlemen have latterly
rather fallen out of the custom of stabbing an enemy as he walked
the High Street. They no longer go in force and in ‘effeir of weir’
to assail a neighbour in his house, or throw lighted brands into it,
or drive off his horses and cattle, by way of making out a point of
legal satisfaction from him. The maintenance of any form of peace in
Aberdeenshire or Banffshire does not now wholly depend on the good-will
of the head of the Gordon family, himself a constant offender against
law in as far as he clung to the Romish religion. As regards the
protection of life and property, a great improvement has evidently
been effected. It is evident from many circumstances that, during the
whole time, there was a pressing tendency to improvement--partly to be
accounted for, doubtless, by the near neighbourhood of England. But it
was impeded by the almost incessant civil strife that was kept up in
consequence of the contention between two principles of ecclesiastical
polity--an assertion of infallibility and independence in the church on
the one hand, and an effort to bend this to supposed state necessities
on the other: men, in trying to make each other Episcopalians and
Presbyterians, almost ceasing to be Christians. Throughout this broil,
some fine traits of earnestness and self-devotion were evoked; but so
absorbing a concentration of the general mind on certain theological
or _quasi_-theological doctrines could not be healthful, could not be
favourable even to a sound spirit of religion, could not but check any
enlightened desire for material improvements. Hence, the population
was yet small and generally poor, and little had yet been done to
advance the arts of life. There had never yet been beyond the most
feeble attempts in any kind of manufactures: even such articles as
paper and woollen cloth had to be imported. No movement had yet been
even thought of for advancing any branch of rural economy. Scotland had
sent forth no voice in either literature or science; her universities
could not train either the lawyer or the physician. She had not a bank,
and there was not perhaps above half a million of coin in circulation.
No news-sheet had yet taken root in the country. A post system had
only existed on a small scale during the last twenty-five years. No
stage-coaches were yet permanently established between our towns, or
between Edinburgh and London. The most delicate lady, under noble rank,
had to perform journeys on horseback, and if she had not strength or
health to ride, she could not travel. No system of police existed in
any city of the realm.
In certain intellectual and moral respects, the country was in no
better state. The judge was understood to be accessible to private
persuasions; and even direct bribes were suspected. The people believed
as firmly in witchcraft as in the first principles of their religion,
and we are not yet come within thirty years of the last example of a
poor wretch burnt for mishaps that chanced to follow her evil wishes.
Gentlemen of ancient family and good account were not above using
the basest tricks or the grossest violence, in order to secure, by
marriage, the fortune of some hapless young heiress of eleven years of
age. Fallacies about markets and marketings were rife; monopolies and
patents over-rode the people and kept them in poverty, no man being yet
quite able to believe that there was room in the world for anybody but
himself. Having concluded about any matter of opinion, men could bear
with no dissent from that. It seemed to them the highest of earthly
duties, that the thing each felt as a religious error should be rooted
out, even though that could only be done by the extirpation of the
persons entertaining it. This was to be doing God service and saving
men from destruction; no one perceiving that the object aimed at was
never attained, or that, if attainable, it was an immorality to attempt
its attainment. Even the Claim of Rights, in which the sufferings
of Presbytery since 1660 were enumerated, and its claims asserted,
set forth among its demands that no popish book should henceforth be
allowed to be printed.
Such was the Scotland of 1689--an improvement upon the Scotland of
1560, though to no great extent. Perhaps, after all, if we consider
how surprisingly late are all the great discoveries, inventions, and
social arrangements for convenience; how gaslight, steam-machinery,
railways, and the electric-telegraph are of our own day; how lately
it is that mankind learned that air and water are gaseous compounds,
that gravitation arranges the worlds, that our own little earth passed
through a long and wonderful history before man came upon it; how it
is but as yesterday that the British people led the way in universal
liberation of industry, and unhappily have yet many obvious social
evils to be cured; we shall not greatly wonder that this land of
mountain and flood, seated far northward and off at a side, was no
better than it was at the close of the reign of the last James. We may
at least view congratulatingly one thing which has been made out--that
the bulk of the people shall be allowed to have, under sanction of law,
the style of external Christianity which they prefer; so that, anyhow,
it shall not be the majority which is persecuted. That attained--and
only smaller denominations treated with harshness--behold, the country
begins to make a real, though at first slow advance. In five years from
the settlement of its religious troubles, it has its first bank; in a
few years more, it has native newspapers. Other troubles or chances
of trouble being removed by a union with England, and the suppression
of all hopes in favour of a discrowned dynasty, commerce becomes
active; an improved agriculture commences; and nearly every kind of
manufacture for which England is distinguished, takes hearty root
with us. Scotsmen, frugally reared, and endowed with the elements of
learning at their parish-schools, go forth into every realm to take
leading positions. Literature and science are cultivated at home with
the most brilliant success. And the short period of a century sees
nearly every disadvantageous contrast between our country and her
neighbours obliterated.
* * * * *
ARTICLE OMITTED.
[Sidenote: 1688.
DEC.]
The break-down of King James’s power in this month let loose a
popular feeling which had been long under the restraint of terror.
The proceedings of an Edinburgh mob on the 10th of December, when the
Catholic chapel and college at Holyrood were rifled and destroyed,
and the books, trinkets, and images burned in the court-yard, are
detailed in Wodrow. At that time, according to the honest confession
of Patrick Walker, the extreme Presbyterians, regarding the Revolution
as a _surprising, unexpected, merciful dispensation_, ‘thought it
someway belonged to us to go to all the popish houses and destroy their
monuments of idolatry, with their priests’ robes, and put in prison
[the priests] themselves.’
Such houses were not many, for the religion of Rome has never been
able to get any footing worth speaking of in Scotland, and even the
patronage of this unfortunate king had done little for it. The mansion
of the Maxwells near Dumfries and Traquair House near Peebles, were the
only ones in the south which challenged particular attention. In the
latter case, the marriage of the second Earl of Traquair to a daughter
of the Earl of Winton,[322] had been the means of introducing a form of
faith which the family has never since changed. We have seen something
of the difficulties which his countess had in rearing her son, the
present Earl, in her own religion; but she had succeeded in her object,
notwithstanding all that presbyteries and privy councils could do. We
learn that he was a quiet inoffensive man, who had never accepted any
office under King James;[323] but that did not avail to save his house
from the zealous on this occasion.
[Sidenote: 1688.]
Behold a resolute band leaving Edinburgh in December, and making
their way ‘through frost and snow’ to that remote stately mansion on
the Tweed, where the hated idolatry has for thirty years offended all
well-disposed minds. The leader is Donald Ker of Kersland, a name
suggestive of sufferings for presbytery in the past reign. They found
at Traquair a great quantity of ‘Romish wares,’ but not all they came
in search of, for a quantity had been carried off and secreted. Here,
however, were an altar, a large crucifix of brass; several other
crucifixes; ‘a large brodd opening with two leaves [triptich], covered
within with cloth of gold of Arras work, having a veil covering the
middle part, wherein were sewed several superstitious pictures;’
a eucharist cup of silver; an _Agnus Dei_ of amber with a picture
above; a box of relics, ‘wherein were lying, amongst silk-cotton,
several pieces of bone, tied with a red thread, having written upon
them the saint they belonged to--namely, St Crescentius, St Marianus,
St Angelus, &c.;’ another ‘box of relics of bones, tied with a
string--namely, St Victoria, St Theodora, St Donatus, St Benedictus,
St Laureata, St Venturiana;’ ‘a harden bag, near full of beads;’ ‘a
timber box, with many wafers in it;’ ‘a pot full of holy oil;’ ‘the
holy-water sponge;’ ‘Mary and the Babe in a case most curiously wrought
in a kind of pearl;’ several other examples of Mary and the Babe; about
twelve dozen of wax candles; many papers containing pictures; about
one hundred and thirty books, some of them with silver clasps; and a
considerable number of other articles of less importance.[324] All of
these they seized without any resistance, for the earl and the priests
had fled from the house on their approach.
According to the recital of Walker--Ker sent James Harkness and some
other persons to the house of a neighbouring clergyman, ‘who had the
name of a Presbyterian minister,’ one Mr Thomas Louis, with orders to
search it narrowly for the missing articles, but to ‘behave themselves
discreetly.’ ‘Mr Louis and his wife mocked them, without offering them
either meat or drink, though they had much need of it [!] At last, they
found two trunks locked, which they desired to have opened. Mr Louis
then left them. They broke up the coffers, wherein they found a golden
cradle, with Mary and the Babe in her bosom; in the other trunk, the
priests’ robes.’
[Sidenote: 1688.]
The whole of these articles, being brought together, were carried to
Peebles (distance seven miles), and ‘all solemnly burned at the cross.’
The spoils of the Maxwells about the same time furnished the materials
of a like _solemnity_ at the cross of Dumfries.
[Illustration: The Jougs--at Duddingston Church.]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Kennedy’s _Annals of Aberdeen_, i. 176.
[2] A marble effigy of this Lord Belhaven, in a reclining posture, is
to be seen over his tomb in Holyrood Chapel.
[3] The Hon. Sir William Hamilton. He was long after resident at Rome
for Queen Henrietta Maria.
[4] Wodrow’s Life of Trochrig, MS., quoted in _Paisley Magazine_, 1828.
[5] Stevenson’s _Hist. of the Church of Scotland_, quoting _Historical
Collections_, MS.
[6] _Spottiswoode Misc._, ii. 379.
[7] Published in thin folio at London in 1637. 23d June 1637, ‘appeared
George Deuchar, agent, and in name of Colonel Monro presented one book
entitled _Monro his Expeditions_, in token of his affection for the
good town.’--_Edinburgh Coun. Register._
[8] John Gordon, of the house of Gight, engaged himself on the other
side; and while serving the emperor as governor of Egra in Bohemia,
he performed the notable act of the assassination of Wallenstein, for
which his imperial master liberally rewarded him.
[9] _Bannatyne Misc._, iii. 221.
[10] Documents quoted in the _Transactions of the Antiquarian Society
of Scotland_, iii. 251. _Black Book of Taymouth_, p. 437.
[11] The failure of the Duke of Buckingham’s army to relieve Rochelle,
and its shameful retreat from the Isle of Ré.
[12] Stevenson’s _History of the Church of Scotland_ quoting a
contemporary history which he supposes to have been written by one who
was minister of Carlaverock or Ruthwell.
[13] Sir John is described in other entries as keeping priests in his
house of Caddell, and there setting the law at defiance.
[14] Row’s _Hist. Church of Scot._, p. 348.
[15] Stevenson, quoting _Historical Collections_.
[16] _Privy Council Record._ _Book of Adjournal._
[17] In June 1569, the Regent Moray reported to the General Assembly of
the church a case which had puzzled him on a justiciary visit to Elgin.
It was that of one Nicol Sutherland in Forres, who was convicted by an
assize of incest with a woman who had been the paramour of his mother’s
brother. The regent hesitated about considering this crime as rightly
named, and wished the decision of the assembly on the point. The
reverend assembly had no hesitation in pronouncing in the affirmative.
Nicol would consequently be hanged.--_B. U. K._
In August 1626, William Hamilton of Cultes was under discipline in the
presbytery of Lanark for his incestuous marriage with his good dame’s
brother’s wife--that is, we presume, the widow of his step-mother or
step-grandmother’s brother.--_R. P. L._
[18] In the General Assembly of 1565, the church found that the
marriage of cousins was not forbidden in Scripture; but seeing that it
had been attended with inconveniences, desired that the matter should
be settled by the civil magistrate.--_B. U. K._
[19] Dalyell’s _Darker Superstitions of Scotland_, p. 641.
[20] In the _Privy Council Record_ is a list of a great number of
persons dwelling in the eastern part of Berwickshire, who were summoned
to give evidence on this trial, all their landlords being at the same
time enjoined to see that they attended.
[21] Martine’s _Gen. Collections, Macfarlane’s MS._ (Adv. Lib.), vol.
i., p. 168.
[22] The lands of Powes, Powmill, Carsebrook, and Woodside are
mentioned as amongst those destroyed.
[23] From the original in the General Register House.
[24] The life here spoken of was written by Rinuccini, Archbishop of
Fermo. From an abridgment of it in the _Scots Magazine_ for March 1802,
we derive the few particulars which follow.
[25] Kirkton’s _Church History_, p. 19.
[26] _Blair’s Memoirs_, MS. quoted in Notes to Kirkton.
[27] _Wodrow’s Preface to Dickson’s Truth’s Victory over Error_, _apud
Gillies_.
[28] _Livingstone’s Characteristics_, quoted in Notes to Kirkton.
[29] _Analecta_, iii. 450.
[30] £2915.
[31] Father Blackhall’s _Narrative_ (Spalding Club), p. 125.
[32] December 16, 1630, the Privy Council granted commission to a
portion of their number, amongst whom was a bishop (Dumblane), to
assemble in the Laigh Council-house for the examination of Margaret
Wood, ‘and as they shall find occasion to cause put her to some _slight
and spare torture_ for the better trial and discovery of the truth of
the matter.’
[33] See proceedings in Appendix to Spalding’s _Troubles_, vol. i.
(Spalding Club edition).
[34] _New Stat. Acc. of Scotland_--Banffshire, p. 131.
[35] The notes to this article are from another list in the
_Spottiswoode Miscellany_, ii. 383.
[36] James Spence of Wormiston. He became Lord of Noreholm and
Chancellor of Sweden.
[37] Subsequently Earl of Brentford in the English peerage.
[38] Created Lord Eythan by Charles I. in 1642.
[39] He died of his wounds, a captive, at Gortz.
[40] Betrayed and taken at Hanau, and died in prison.
[41] Killed before Bremen.
[42] Called Dear Sandie--he was subsequently employed in the artillery
of the Scottish Covenanting army.
[43] He was assassinated by a lieutenant of his own regiment, whom he
had been provoked to batoon. A court-martial of Germans acquitted the
lieutenant, on the ground that it was contrary to Swedish discipline to
cudgel an officer. General Leslie, being then governor of Staten where
the earl was buried, had the lieutenant immediately apprehended and
shot at a post.
[44] Stevenson.
[45] Stevenson, quoting _Historical Collections_, MS.
[46] _Book of Adjournal._ _P. C. R._
[47] _Black Book of Taymouth_, p. 75.
[48] _Black Book of Taymouth_, p. 440.
[49] _Black Book of Taymouth_, p. 77.
[50] See Cunningham’s _Lives of British Painters_, &c., v. 22, art.
George Jameson.
[51] Mixed with Spalding’s quaint narration, are here inserted some
special descriptions from the authorised account, published at the
time, as abridged in Jackson’s _History of the Scottish Stage_.
[52] _Muse’s Threnodie_, ii. 118. Some specimens of the dress of the
morris-dancers are still preserved at Perth.
[53] _Black Book of Taymouth_, p. 437.
[54] Another account states the number drowned at eight.
[55] From a manuscript of Sir James Balfour. _Ancient Heraldic and
Antiquarian Tracts.,_ Edinburgh. 1837.
[56] _Ed. Phil. Journal_, Apr. 1839.
[57] _View of Diocese of Aberdeen_, Spal. Club.
[58] Go-summer and go-har’st are terms applied in Scotland to the mild
weather which sometimes occurs between autumn and winter. There is a
proverb in Peeblesshire: ‘If the deer lie down dry and rise dry on
Rood-e’en (September 18), it’s a sign we’ll have a good go-har’st.’
[59] See Johnson’s _Scots Mus. Museum_, new edition, _notes_.
[60] _Staggering State of Scots Statesmen._
[61] Spalding. Balfour.
[62] Stevenson.
[63] _Rushworth’s Collections._ _Southey’s Commonplace-book, 3d
Series_, p. 528.
[64] Oliver and Boyd’s _Almanac_ for 1839, p. 92.
[65] _Collections for the His^t. Aber. and Banff_, Spal. Club.
[66] The chancellor seems to have been involved in an unpleasant affair
a short while before his death. Ho had procured the marriage of a young
lady, named Inglis, with a good portion, to a nephew of his, named
Butter, and thus disappointed the Earl of Traquair, who desired the
‘morsel for a cousin of his awn, with whom he was to have divided the
prey.’ Traquair proceeded to ‘raise all the furies of the court against
the chancellor,’ and procured a warrant for examination of some of
his accounts--which, however, terminated in clearing his lordship of
all suspicion. Traquair only shewed ‘his awn base ingratitude towards
him who first of all men brought him to have the king’s favour and
respect.’--_Bal._
[67] Manuscript of Sir James Balfour, _Heral. and Ant. Tracts_,
Edinburgh, 1837.
[68] Notes to Spalding Club edition of Spalding.
[69] _Spalding Club Miscellany_, ii. 73.
[70] For these authentic particulars of Gilderoy’s fate, we are
indebted to the extracts from the _Privy Council Record_ printed in the
Appendix to the Spalding Club edition of Spalding’s _Troubles_.
[71] Act of Privy Council, quoted in _Blackwood’s Magazine_, i. 66.
[72] ‘... many mouths were there opened to the bishop’s disgrace.
“False Antichristian!” “Wolf!” “Beastly belly-god!” and “Crafty fox!”
were the best epithets and titles of dignity given him. The dean was
mightily upbraided. Some cried: “He’s a son of a witch’s breeding and
the de’il’s get. Nae halesome water can come forth from such a polluted
fountain!” Others cried: “Ill-hanged thief, if at that time thou
went’st to court, thou had been well hanged, thou hadst not been here
to be a pest to God’s church this day!” One did cast a stool at him,
intending to have given him a ticket of remembrance; but jouking became
his safeguard at that time.’--_Brief and True Relation of the Broil_,
&c., printed in App. to Rothes’s _Relation_, 1830.
[73] See Vol. I. p. 545.
[74] Rothes’s _Relation of Proceedings Concerning the Affairs of the
Kirk_.
[75] Become fusty.
[76] Inundation.
[77] Clarendon’s Life, ii. 333.
[78] Whitelock’s _Memorials_, 485.
[79] Gordon of Rothiemay’s _Hist. Scots Affairs from 1637 to 1641_.
Spalding Club, vol. i. 57.
[80] Lady Mary Stewart, daughter of Esme, first Duke of Lennox.
[81] Some extracts from this book were printed by the late Charles
Kirkpatrick Sharpe, Esq., 4to, without date.
[82] The moneys are Scots, being but a fraction of sterling money of
the same denomination.
[83] The lady thus devoted her plate to the maintenance of the
Covenanted cause.
[84] Cosmo Innes--preface to _Fasti Aberdonenses_, Spalding Club, 1854.
[85] Gordon’s _Hist. Scots Affairs_.
[86] _Maitland Club Misc._, i. 476.
[87] Turners made by gipsies (cairds).
[88] The reader cannot fail to have perceived that John Dhu Ger has
been twice killed already. How he contrived to outlive so many deaths,
I am unable to explain.
[89] Guthry’s _Memoirs_.
[90] _Edinburgh Magazine_, March 1819.
[91] Balfour’s _Annals of Scotland_, iii. 128.
[92] _Archæologia Scotica_, i. 503, _note_.
[93] Wodrow’s _Analecta_, ii. 209, 280.
[94] The battle of Edgehill, fought on the 24th of October 1642.
[95] According to Burnet, Sir Archibald Johnston of Warriston did the
same thing. ‘He would often pray in his family two hours at a time, and
had an unexhausted copiousness that way. What thought soever struck his
fancy during those effusions, he looked on as an answer to prayer, and
was wholly determined by it.’
[96] This whimsical association actually occurs in the dittay of a
witch of this period.
[97] Stevenson’s _History of the Church of Scotland_.
[98] Willis’s _Current Notes_, April 1857.
[99] See Thorpe’s _Northern Mythology_; also article on Sandsting in
_New Stat. Acc. Scotland_.
[100] On the 8th of June 1643, a case came before the Privy Council, at
the instance of Lawrence Mercer and others, students at St Andrews, who
complained of a scandalous charge got up against them by James Stewart
of Ardvoirlich and his two sons, Robert and Harry, to the effect that
umwhile Alexander Stewart, son of the first party, and brother of the
two others, had received deadly injuries from them in a college tumult,
and died in consequence. It was shewn that Alexander had provoked a
tumult by his insolent speeches, and afterwards lay for a day or two in
bed, but was found on inspection to be quite well, and he had lived in
good health for nine months after. The lords accordingly declared the
complainers to be innocent of what was laid to their charge.
[101] Notes to the Waverley Novels.
[102] In a curious and rare pamphlet, by William Lithgow, descriptive
of the siege of Newcastle (_Edinburgh_, _printed by Robert Bryson_,
1645), we get some idea of the wretched state to which the place was
reduced in consequence of its investiture of several months. ‘We
found great penury and scarcity of victuals, ammunition, and other
necessaries within that dejected town; so that they could not have held
out ten days longer, unless the one half had devoured the other. The
plague was raging in Gateside, Sandside, Sunderland, and many country
villages about.’ For this reason, Tynemouth was obliged to surrender
also; ‘the pestilence having been five weeks there with a great
mortality, they were glad to yield and to scatter themselves abroad,
but to the great undoing and infecting of the country about.’
Lithgow, by the way, was dissatisfied with the treatment of Newcastle
by his countrymen. ‘As they abused their victory,’ says he, ‘in
storming the town, with too much undeserved mercy, so they as unwisely
and imprudently overreached themselves, in plundering the town with
an _ignorant negligence and careless omission_.... And as they thus
defrauded themselves with a whistle in their mouths, so they pitifully
prejudged, by this their inveigled course, the common soldiers of their
just due and dear-bought advantages.’
[103] ‘At Botarie, 25th October 1648, the brethren ordained to
intimat out of their several pulpits, that whosoever receipts and
converses with excommunicat persons, should be processed before the
presbytery.’--_Strathbogie Presbytery Record._
[104] Producing a fire by the friction of two sticks against each other.
[105] Daughter-in-law of the Lady Frendraught formerly noticed.
[106] _Records of the Kirk of Scotland_, 1838, p. 446.
[107] Peterkin’s _Records of the Kirk of Scotland_, p. 427.
[108] _Maitland Miscell._, i. 436.
[109] _Maitland Miscel._, i. 433.
[110] _Caldwell Papers_, i. 91.
[111] Wood’s _Parish of Cramond_, p. 77.
[112] _Coltness Collections_ (Maitland Club), p. 58.
[113] _Archæologia Scotica_, ii. 108.
[114] Lyndoch lies about seven miles north-west from Perth.
[115] It is certain that Perth was visited by the plague in 1646. See
_Memorabilia of Perth_, p. 179.
[116] In a popular publication quoted below[117] occurs the following
notice of a well-known land mollusk, in connection with a traditionary
story of the plague, which has long had general currency in Scotland:
‘In the woodlands, the more formidable black nude slug, the _Arion_
or _Limax ater_, will also be often encountered. It is a huge
voracious creature, herbivorous, feeding, to Barbara’s astonishment,
on tender plants; fruits, as strawberries, apples; and even turnips
and mushrooms; appearing morning and evening, or after rain; suffering
severely in its concealment in long droughts, and remaining torpid in
winter. The gray field slug (_Limax agrestis_) is actually recommended
to be swallowed by consumptive patients! In the town of Dundee there
exists a strange traditionary story of the plague, connected with the
conversion, from dire necessity, of the _Arion ater_, or black slug,
to a use similar to that which the luxurious Romans are said to have
made of the great apple-snail. Two young and blooming maidens lived
together at that dread time, like Bessie Bell and Mary Gray, in a
remote cottage on the steep (indeed almost perpendicular) ascent of the
Bonnetmaker’s Hill. Deprived of friends or support by the pestilence
that walked at noonday, they still retained their good looks and
healthful aspect, even when the famine had succeeded to the plague.
The jaundiced eyes of the famine-wasted wretches around them were
instantly turned towards the poor girls, who appeared to thrive so
well whilst others were famishing. They were unhesitatingly accused of
witchcraft, and had nearly fallen prey to that terrible charge; for
betwixt themselves they had sworn never to tell in words by what means
they were supported, ashamed as they felt of the resource to which they
had been driven; and resolved, if possible, to escape the anticipated
derision of their neighbours on its disclosure. It was only when about
to be dragged before their stern inquisitors, that one of the girls,
drawing aside the covering of a great barrel which stood in a corner
of their domicile, discovered, without violating her oath, that the
youthful pair had been driven to the desperate necessity of collecting
and preserving for food large quantities of these _Limacinæ_, which
they ultimately acknowledged to have proved to them generous and even
agreeable sustenance. To the credit of the times of George Wishart--a
glimpse of pre-reforming enlightenment--the explanation sufficed; the
young women escaped with their lives, and were even applauded for their
prudence.’
[117] _Summer Life on Land and Water._ By William W. Fyfe. 1851.
[118] _Remarkable Passages of the Lord’s Providence towards Mr John
Spreull, Town-clerk of Glasgow, 1635-54._ T. Stevenson, Edinburgh, 1832.
[119] _Arbroath Guide_, Oct. 2, 1847.
[120] Executed in the Palace-yard, Westminster, 9th March 1649.
[121] 6th October 1648--‘appoints the four bailies, the old provost
[Archibald Tod], the deacon of the chirurgeons, and their clerk, to
go down to the Canongate in the afternoon, and in the Council’s name
salute the Lord Cromwell, lieutenant-general of the English forces, and
thir presents sall be their warrand.’--_Ed. Council Register._
[122] Defoe’s _Review of the Brit. Nation_, 1709.
[123] _Life of Cameron of Lochiel._
[124] Balfour’s _Annals_. _Britain’s Distemper_, by Patrick Gordon.
[125] Excerpts from Fraser of Wardlaw’s Memoirs. _Inverness Courier._
[126] Rescinded Acts. _Records of Kirk of Scotland._
[127] Balfour’s _Annals_, iii. 427.
[128] Son to umquhile John Stewart, usher to his majesty.
[129] _Acts of Estates, MS._ Gen. Reg. House.
[130] This narration is taken from Fergusson’s _Diary_, as quoted in
_Satan’s Invisible World_. We are obliged, however, for the name of the
minister to Wodrow, _Analecta_, i. 65.
[131] _Maitland Miscel._, i. 439.
[132] From tradition.
[133] On the 18th of March 1647, finding that ‘the pride and insolency
of excommunicate persons doeth exceedingly increase, and that the
dreadful censure of excommunication is much slighted and vilipended,
whereby God is much dishonoured,’ the Estates passed an act renewing
the force of all previous acts against such persons, and ordaining
that, after forty days, letters of horning and caption should be issued
against them, to be of full force unless they can shew that they have
given ‘full obedience and satisfaction to the kirk.’ The acts against
papists were at the same time renewed; none such to be capable of
public employment, husbands to be ‘countable for their wives’ if the
ladies should reset priests, and no person to take a servant unprovided
with ‘a testimonial of the soundness of their religion from the
minister where they dwelt.’
[134] _Register of the Presbytery of Lanark._ _Acts of the Scottish
Parliament, MS._
[135] _Records of Kirk of Scotland_, p. 473.
[136] Nicoll’s _Diary_.
[137] Kirkton’s _Hist. Church Scot._, p. 64.
[138] Nicoll’s _Diary_, p. 8.
[139] Dr Wilde, in Census of Ireland for 1851; part V., vol. i., p. 110.
[140] Baillie’s _Letters_, iii. pp. 97, 550.
[141] See an interesting narration on this subject in Mr Mark Napier’s
_Montrose and the Covenanters_, 1838.
[142] The formula used on the occasion is given in the following terms
by a writer of the seventeenth century: ‘When any one dies, the bellman
goes about ringing the passing bell, and acquaints the people therewith
in the following form: “Beloved brethren and sisters, I let you to wit,
that there is ane faithful brother lately departed out of this present
warld, at the pleasure of Almichty God (and then he veils his bonnet);
his name is Wully Woodcock, third son to Jemmy Woodcock, a cordinger;
he ligs at the sixt door within the Norgate, close on the Nether Wynd,
and I would you gang to his burying on Thursday before twa o’clock,
&c.” The time appointed for his burying being come, the bellman
calls the company together, and he is carried to the burying-place,
and thrown into the grave as dog Lion was, and there is an end of
Wully.’--_A Modern Account of Scotland_, 1670. _Harleian Miscellany_,
vi. 121.
[143] The mansion of the Earl of Moray in the Canongate, the same house
that Cromwell occupied on his brief visit in 1648. It is now the Normal
School of the Education Committee of the Free Church of Scotland.
[144] These anecdotes appear in _A Short Abridgment of Britain’s
Distemper from 1639 to 1649_. By Patrick Gordon of Ruthven. Spalding
Club. 1844. They are placed by the author in connection with Cromwell’s
comparatively peaceful visit to Edinburgh in 1648, but must, beyond a
doubt, refer to the crisis of 1650.
[145] See under date December 18, 1649.
[146] The small county of Kinross was included.
[147] The annual valued rent of Fife and Kinross in 1674 amounted to
£383,379 Scots.
[148] It appears from factory accounts in the Caldwell papers as if
oats fluctuated in the period 1645-54 between 6s. 1d. and 17s. 8d.
sterling per boll. But probably the highest prices do not chance to
occur in these accounts.
[149] Shew themselves.
[150] Nicoll, p. 67.
[151] _Spalding Miscellany_, iii. 205.
[152] From a copy of the petition in possession of the present Irvine
of Drum.
[153] See under July 18, 1649.
[154] _Illust. Shires of Aber. and Banff._ Spal. Club. Vol. i. p. 285.
[155] Apparently a tax imposed on houses--equivalent to hearth-money.
[156] A small sect who held that families were the only proper
congregations.
[157] _Register of the Committee of Estates_ (Gen. Reg. House), Sept.
28, 1660.
[158] _Account of the Regalia_, by Sir Walter Scott.
[159] Burgh Record of Peebles.
[160] Strang’s _Glasgow and its Clubs_, p. 7.
[161] Whitelocke’s _Memorials_, 514, 515.
[162] Quoted in _Spottiswoode Miscellany_, ii. 91.
[163] Whitelock, 520.
[164] See the _Court of Session Garland_ (Stevenson, Edinburgh, 1839),
p. 4.
[165] Heath’s _Chronicle_, p. 356.
[166] _Mil. Memoirs of the Great Civil War_, 4to, p. 220.
[167] _Memoirs of Locheil_, p. 129.
[168] Clarendon.
[169] Wogan lay at Weem during his illness, and might therefore have
been expected to lie interred in the churchyard of that parish; but
Heath gives Kenmore as his last resting-place.
[170] _Abbreviate of Justiciary Register_, by Lord Fountainhall, quoted
in notes to Law’s _Memorials_, p. 91.
[171] _Caldwell Papers_, i. 92.
[172] _Satan’s Invisible World Discovered._
[173] Nicoll’s _Diary_.
[174] Baillie’s _Letters_, iii. 323.
[175] About July 1655, a woman in Suffolk was taken possession of by a
devil at a Quaker meeting, and carried home, where she soon after died.
A circumstance which figures in the diagnosis of many cases of alleged
possession, is related regarding her. ‘Something ran up and down in her
body under the skin, that bellowed in her like a calf.’--_Nic._
[176] In an act of the Estates, March 22, 1647, it is acknowledged
that, at Martinmas of the preceding year, the debt owing to Sir William
Dick by the public was £533,971, 6s. 9d. Scots. In a supplication, he
set forth ‘his hard and distrest condition for want thereof.’
[177] The English parliament, March 3, 1660, granted a protection to
Sir Andrew Dick, and _continued_ to him a pension of £5 a week which
had been for some time in arrears, recommending him at the same time to
the Council of State for such preferment in Scotland as he is capable
of.--_Mercurius Politicus_: March 15, 1660.
[178] _Mercurius Politicus_, May 20, 1658.
[179] Baillie’s _Letters_, iii. 387.
[180] _Lives of the Lyndsays_, i. 296.
[181] _Parliamentary Diary_, iv. 168. Desborough, along with one
Downing, represented Edinburgh in the parliament which Cromwell
assembled at Westminster in 1654.
[182] Baillie. _Letters_, iii. 438. The countess is said by Baillie
to have been the medium through which the Scottish nobility acted
on General Monk, in prompting him to go to London, just before the
Restoration.
[183] _A Journey through Scotland, in Familiar Letters_, &c. 8vo.
London, 1723.
[184] In August 1657, his son, Lord Linton, was cited before the
presbytery of Peebles for certain scandalous miscarriages--as, frequent
absence from church, drinking, and swearing. He submitted, and was
rebuked. On the 3d of December of the same year, ‘the presbytery,
taking into their consideration a letter of complaint formerly sent
unto them by the Lord Linton, complaining of his father as slandering
him of unnatural dealing towards his parents,’ appointed a committee to
speak with them both, and report. Lord Linton was afterwards asked to
give in particulars of his complaint, but he does not appear to have
complied with the request.
[185] _Inverness Courier_, January 1851.
[186] _Stirk_, a young ox. _Hawkit_, white-faced.
[187] John Mean had assisted Montrose and the Engagement, and incurred
losses on these accounts. _Acts of S. Parl._, vii., _App._ 93.
[188] We only know of this act from its being alluded to in the Privy
Council Record.
[189] Cosmo Innes’s Preface to the Acts of the Parliament of Scotland,
1844.
[190] Thomson’s _Scottish Acts_, xi., _App._ p. 139.
[191] See under March 1652.
[192] In the parish of Aberdour, on the north coast of Aberdeenshire,
is the house of Auchmedden, once belonging to a family named Baird.
A local writer in 1724 reports that, among some high rocks near the
Auchmedden millstone quarry, ‘there is an eagle’s nest; and the pair
which breed there have continued in that place time out of mind,
sending away their young ones every year, so that there is never
more stays but the old pair.’[193] ‘At one period,’ says a writer of
our own day, ‘there was a pair of eagles that regularly nestled and
brought forth their young in the rocks of Pennan; but, according to the
tradition of the country, when the late Earl of Aberdeen purchased the
estate from the Bairds, the former proprietors, the eagles disappeared,
in fulfilment of a prophecy of Thomas the Rhymer, “that there should be
an eagle in the crags while there was a Baird in Auchmedden.” But the
most remarkable circumstance, and what certainly appears incredible,
is, that when Lord Haddo, eldest son of the Earl of Aberdeen, married
Miss Christian Baird of New Byth, the eagles returned to the rocks, and
remained until the estate passed into the hands of the Hon. William
Gordon, when they again fled, and have never since been seen in the
country. These facts, marvellous as they may appear, are attested by a
cloud of famous witnesses.’[194]
[193] _View of Dio. of Aberdeen_, Spal. Club, p. 447.
[194] _New Stat. Acc. of Scot._
[195] See under May 21, 1650.
[196] See _Spottiswoode Miscellany_, vol. ii., for a series of extracts.
[197] _Life of Thomas Ruddiman_, 117.
[198] Wodrow’s _Analecta_, i. 301.
[199] _Analecta_, i. 106.
[200] Law’s _Memorials_. By C. K. Sharpe, p. lxviii.
[201] Contemporary with Kincaid flourished, in the north country, a
pricker named John Dick. One named John Hay, a messenger in Tain, who
had reached sixty without any discredit attaching to his name, was
denounced by a distracted woman as a wizard, and immediately seems to
have fallen into the hands of Dick, who, without any authority, pricked
him all over his body, having first shaved his head to ascertain that
there were no insensible parts in that region. He was then transferred
to Edinburgh, a journey of nearly two hundred miles, and locked
up in the Tolbooth. On a petition from Hay, and the exhibition of
certificates of character, he was ordered by the Lords of Council to be
liberated.
[202] Kincaid lay nine weeks in jail, and then petitioned for his
liberty, representing that, being an old man, he had suffered much in
health by his confinement, and, if longer confined, might be brought to
mortal sickness; whereupon the Lords liberated him, on condition of his
giving security that he would prick no more without warrant.
[203] The full confessions of Isobel Gowdie and Janet Braidhead, being
perhaps the two most remarkable witch-cases on record in Scotland,
are given in Mr Pitcairn’s _Criminal Trials_, iii. 600. From these
confessions, the following narration is made up.
[204] The hiatus here supplied are a consequence of mutilation of the
manuscript.
[205] Stubble.
[206] _A Dismal Account of the Burning of our Solemn League and
National Covenant ... at Linlithgow, May 29, 1662._ Reprinted by
Stevenson, Edinburgh, 1832.
[207] Wood’s _Peerage_, quoting Morison’s _Decisions_, 5626.
[208] In those days, there being as yet no _habeas corpus_ act, it
was quite common for persons suspected of crimes to lie several
years untried in prison. On the 15th of February 1666, William Drew
petitioned for trial or liberation, after having been _five years_
confined in Glasgow jail, on a charge of murder exhibited against him
by the Laird of Keir.
[209] In Richard Baxter’s treatise on the _Divine Life_ are some
consolatory remarks which he addressed on this occasion to the bereaved
mother of the young earl.
[210] _View of Diocese of Aberdeen_, Spal. Club.
[211] Pepys’s _Diary_, 3d ed., ii. 408, 437.
[212] In compliance with his petition, Leslie was relieved from the
duty of the collection.
[213] Men near akin to the chief.
[214] Introduction to the _Heart of Midlothian_.
[215] M‘Ure’s _Hist. of Glasgow_ (reprint), p. 166.
[216] _London Gazette_, Feb. 18, 1667.
[217] _London Gazette_, May 6, 1667.
[218] _Abbotsford Miscellany._ Mungo Murray seems to have been a
lieutenant of the king’s guard, and to have enjoyed a pension of £200.
See _Maitland Misc._, iii. 154.
[219] See a letter from Sir Robert Dalrymple Horn Elphinstone to
Sir James Stewart Denham, inserted in the Abbotsford edition of the
Waverley Novels.
[220] About the time of his marriage, there are several entries
regarding him in the Privy Council Record, as having contravened the
law in the introduction and keeping of Irish cattle and horses.
[221] The editor of Lamont’s Diary gives the following note on George
Wood’s funeral: ‘The revolting practice of attaching the corpse of a
debtor seems from this entry to have been known in Scotland, even at
this late period; while there does not appear to have been any legal
authority for its adoption. The notion of its legality, however, still
prevails among the vulgar in England; and although the late Lord
Ellenborough held it to be contrary to the law of England, it was
observed by the unfeeling creditors of Weivitzer the actor, and of the
celebrated Richard Brinsley Sheridan. How absurd soever this notion may
seem, a still more glaring error is known in the north of Scotland. It
is there believed by the common people, that a widow is relieved of
her husband’s debts, if she follow his corpse to the door, and, in the
presence of the assembled mourners, openly call upon him to return and
pay his debts, as she is unable! Strange and unfeeling as this ceremony
may be, the editor recollects an instance in which it was practised by
the widow of a man in good society.’[325]
[222] Sir George Mackenzie’s _Mem. Affairs Scot._, 4to, p. 183.
[223] Mackenzie’s _Mem. Affairs Scot._, p. 244.
[224] Weir had been an officer on the popular side in the Civil War.
In the registers of Estates, under March 3, 1647, reference is made
to a supplication of Major Thomas Weir, in which he craved payment of
600 merks due to him by an act of the Committee of Estates of date the
17th of December 1644, and also payment of what might be due to him
‘for his service as major in the Earl of Lanark’s regiment by the space
of twell months, and his service in Ireland as ane captain-lieutenant
in Colonel Robert Home his regiment by the space of nineteen months;’
further asking ‘that the parliament wald ordain John Acheson, keeper of
the magazine, to re-deliver to the supplicant the band given by him to
the said John upon the receipt of ane thousand pound weight of poulder,
twa thousand weight of match, and ane thousand pound weight of ball,
sent with the supplicant to Dumfries for furnishing that part of the
country.’ The matter was given over to a committee.
[225] _Ravaillac Redivivus_, p. 64.
[226] _Mem. Affairs Scotland_, p. 62.
[227] See under August 1660.
[228] _Memorials_, p. 43.
[229] _Analecta Scotica_, ii. 167.
[230] Sir George Mackenzie, _Memoirs of Affairs of Scot._, p. 217.
[231] Mackenzie’s _Mem. Scot. Affairs_, p. 226.
[232] A tight body-coat, from Fr. _just-au corps_.
[233] See vol. i., p. 427.
[234] See vol. ii., p. 318.
[235] Edin. Council Record.
[236] Arnot’s _Hist. Edinburgh_, 1779, p. 598.
[237] It is usually stated that the first coffee-house in England was
set up in 1654 in a shed in the church-yard of St Michael, Cornhill, by
one Pasqua, a Greek, servant of Mr Daniel Edwards, a Smyrna merchant.
[238] A tall house of several stories so called in Edinburgh.
[239] Crookshanks’s _Hist. Ch. of Scot._, ii. 127.
[240] _Sketches of Perthshire_ (1812), quoted in _Letters on
Demonology_.
[241] Sir George Mackenzie’s _Hist. Affairs of Scot._, p. 7.
[242] See Wodrow’s _Analecta_, i. 84.
[243] Balbegno is the name of a small estate in that county, near
Middleton’s patrimonial property. It was bought in 1690 by Middleton’s
brother.--_Wood’s Peerage._
[244] Law cites the following couplet, apparently as the last words of
the apparition:
‘Plumashes above, and gramashes below, It’s no wonder to see how the
world doth go.’
Plumashes are plumages; gramashes, coarse hose used as gaiters. The
words seem to be used allegorically to express the two opposite
conditions of life--that of the gay cavalier and the plain hard-working
man.
[245] ‘Lord Middleton used to assert that a certain palmister, whom he
met in his youth, had predicted his elevation to the supreme command
of his country; but the end of this prediction he always concealed,
which made his companions suspect it was tragical, as afterwards it did
indeed prove.’--_Kirkton’s Church History._
[246] _Blackwood’s Magazine_, v. 75. Mr Hogg mis-states the year as
1620.
[247] Rec. of Justiciary, Arnot’s _Crim. Trials_, p. 138.
[248] _Answer to Scots Presbyterian Eloquence._
[249] A copy of this document, extracted from the Record of the
Privy Council, is printed in full in the appendix to Pennant’s Tour.
It recites that Lachlan Maclean of Broloies, Hector Og Maclean his
brother, and others, had been denounced rebels for refusing to answer
to the Earl of Argyle, justiciar of Argyle, for having in the preceding
April assembled three or four hundred men by the fire-process (_the
fiery cross_) in Mull, Moveran, and other places, and taken warlike
possession of the lands of Knockersmartin, &c. It grants commission
to Lord Niel Campbell, and nine other gentlemen, to raise forces and
proceed in warlike manner against the rebels, assuring them that no
slaughter or fire-raising they may commit will be imputed to them as a
crime, provided only they give an account of their proceedings before
next New-year’s Day.
[250] A daughter of Hamilton of Bardowie, in Baldernoch parish,
designed to pay a visit to her sister-in-law at Hamilton, when a deaf
and dumb woman, who had a year before given a remarkable warning, came
to the house, and, with many signs, endeavoured to dissuade the young
lady from her journey. ‘She takes her down to the yard, and cuts at
the root of a tree, making signs that it would fall and kill her. That
not being understood by her nor any of them, she takes her journey,
the dumb lass holding her to stay. When the young gentle-woman is at
Hamilton, her sister-in-law and she go forth to walk in the park; and
in their walking they both come under a tree that is cut through at the
root, and leaning by the top upon another tree. In that very instant,
they hear it shaking and coming down; her sister-in-law turns to the
right hand, and she herself flees to the left, that way that the tree
fell, and so it crushed her and wounded her sore, so that she dies in
two or three days’ sickness.’--_Law._
[251] _Satan’s Invisible World Discovered_, p. 4-10.
[252] The idea of familiar spirits was entertained in this age by
persons of the most dignified character. In October 1675, the bishop
and synod of Aberdeen were engaged in considering ‘divers complaints
that some, under pretence of trances and familiarity with spirits,
by going with these spirits commonly called the fairies, hath spoken
reproachfully of some persons, whereof some are dead, and some living.’
The synod threatened both the _seducers_ and the _consulters_ with
censure, ‘if, after admonition publicly given, they forbear not such
practices, or to vent and spread such reproachful speeches, whereof the
seducers are the authors.’--_A. S. R._
[253] _Analecta Scotica_, i. 117.
[254] See under July 25, 1661, and April 1, 1662.
[255] Several of the inhabitants of Mull told me, that they had
conversed with their relatives that were living at the harbour when the
ship was blown up, and they gave an account of a remarkable providence
that appeared, in the preservation of one Dr Beaton (the famous
physician of Mull), who was on board the ship when she blew up, and was
then sitting on the upper deck, which was blown up entire, and thrown
a good way off; yet the doctor was saved, and lived several years
after.--_Martin’s Descrip. West. Isles_, 1703. See of the present work,
vol. i. p. 189.
[256] _Ars Nova et Magna Gravitatis et Levitatis._ In a subsequent
work, entitled _Hydrostatical Experiments_, Sinclair described a kind
of diving-bell of his own invention, which he called an _Ark_.
[257] _Archæologia Scot._, iv. 437.
[258] Works of Dr Alexander Pennecuik, p. 178.
[259] The grandfather of the celebrated David Hume.
[260] The distance is seventeen miles.
[261] _A Short Account of Scotland._ Published in London in 1702.
[262] Sir Walter Scott, _Letters on Demonology_, p. 323. Sir Walter
attributes the anecdote to a generation too late.
[263] See under November 1665.
[264] See under February 1589-90.
[265] Fountainhall’s _Decisions_, i. 113.
[266] Fountainhall’s _Decisions_, i. 157.
[267] Fountainhall.
[268] This is the traditionary account, from Sharpe’s _Notes to
Kirkton’s History_, p. 182.
[269] Fountainhall.
[270] _Archæologia Scotica_, i. 499.
[271] _Historical Observes_, p. 49.
[272] See Fountainhall’s _Decisions_, _passim._
[273] Fountainhall’s _Historical Observes_, p. 62.
[274] The documents connected with this curious witch-trial are printed
in the _Scots Magazine_ for 1772, and again in the same work in 1814.
[275] _Vide_ Fynes Moryson on Scottish travelling, _sub anno_ 1598.
[276] _Pace_, the weight of a clock, from Fr. _le poids_.
[277] _Swey_, a kind of crane moving on a hinge against a wall.
[278] It might have been supposed that this was a descendant of Sir
Robert Bruce; but the account of the Clackmannan family in Douglas’s
_Baronage_ takes no notice of such a person; and it was beyond doubt
Peter de Bruis, ‘a Flandrian,’ who is mentioned several times in
Fountainhall’s _Decisions_ as building a harbour at Cockenzie, and
obtaining a privilege for making playing-cards.
[279] It was at its perihelion on the 17th of December, when it was
only 128,000 geographical miles from the sun.
[280] _Abbotsford Miscellany_, i. 356.
[281] See vol. i. p. 421.
[282] Pamphlet on Woollen Manufactories, printed at Edinburgh in 1683.
[283] _Memorials for the Gov. of Royal Burghs in Scotland._ By
Philopoliteios [Bailie Skene of Aberdeen]. Aberdeen, 1685.
[284] _Husbandry Anatomised, or an Inquiry into the Present Manner of
Tilling the Ground in Scotland_, &c. By Ja. Donaldson. Edinburgh, 1697.
[285] Provost Dickison was assassinated in 1572. See vol. i. p. 81.
[286] Fount. _Decisions_, i. 189, 193.
[287] This epizootic raged also in England and other countries. It was
a disease styled _Angina Maligna_ (probably _pneumonia_); a blue mist
was seen on the pastures.--_Short’s Chron. Hist. of Air Meteors_, &c.,
1748.
[288] This curious case is stated more briefly in the present volume,
p. 227.
[289] The common men were paid at the rate of 6d. a day; drummers, 1s.;
sergeants, 1s. 6d.
[290] Fountainhall’s _Decisions_, i. 187.
[291] From original documents.
[292] Fountainhall’s _Decisions_, i, 188. In January 1686, the widow of
Patrick Cunningham, apothecary, successfully pursued Lady Evelick for
two hundred merks, being a sum the lady had promised in writing ‘for
the skaith the said Patrick suffered when her son James Douglas put
fire in Harry Graham’s chamber.’--_Foun. Dec._
[293] The jail of Dumfries seems to have then been either insecure
or ill-conducted. In May 1683 there was a complaint before the Privy
Council from Sir Patrick Maxwell of Springkell, regarding a notorious
robber named Ludovick Irving, whom he had caused to be followed to
Ireland, there apprehended, and then brought to Dumfries at an expense
to himself of two hundred pounds sterling. The man was first put into
‘a sure vault,’ but was removed by the magistrates into ‘ane utter
room, which had no sure posts nor doors;’ so he had no difficulty in
escaping. Sir Patrick claimed his expenses from the magistrates, and
demanded their punishment.--_P. C. R._
[294] Strictly Wester Gledstanes, situated in the barony of Carnwath
and county of Lanark.
[295] From a petition of the workmen employed in the king’s
printing-office in 1678, craving exemption from watching and warding,
it appears they were _fifteen_ in number.--_P. C. R._
[296] Creech’s _Fugitive Pieces_, p. 82.
[297] Letters to Earl Aberdeen (Spal. Club), p. 36.
[298] The same with Mr Thomas Stewart noticed at p. 245 of this volume.
[299] _Coltness Collections._
[300] Sir Thomas’s father, Sir James Stewart of Coltness, presided
as provost of Edinburgh at the execution of Montrose. Ho suffered
imprisonment after the Restoration, and is said to have been only
rescued from something worse by the intercession of a cavalier
gentleman whose son’s life he had saved by his humane intercession some
years before.
[301] Adverted to in this volume, p. 211.
[302] The Council (April 23) ordered three hundred pounds to the Rosses
out of vacant stipends; but it is most unlikely that the money or any
part of it was ever realised.
[303] In April 1684, Mrs Jean Barron, relict of the minister of Birse,
craved charity of the Privy Council as the daughter of Mr Robert
Barron, professor of divinity at Aberdeen, who ‘having had the honour
to be the first who opposed the Covenant,’ was pursued for his life
and banished on that account, finally dying in exile, in such poverty
that any means he might have had for the maintenance of his family
was lost; nor had any benefit ever been derived from his nomination
to the bishopric of Orkney, by which King Charles I. had endeavoured
to recompense his sufferings. Mrs Jean was now with three fatherless
children reduced to great misery, in which she humbly hoped that the
Council would not allow the daughter of so great a sufferer to remain.
The Council recommended her case to the Lord Treasurer.
Anna Morton represented herself to the Council (July 20, 1685) as
the daughter of Mr William Morton, formerly minister of South Leith,
who, in 1640, for his refusal of the Covenant, was ‘not only thrust
out of his church, and plundered of all his goods and gear, but, from
the violent malice of these bloody persecutors, the Covenanters, was
necessitat for shelter of his life to leave his native country and fly
to England, where, thereafter, through their cruel malice, he was most
pitifully used, being apprehended and incarcerat within the prison of
York, and continued there in a most miserable and penurious condition,
to the utter ruin of himself, his family, his fortune, and estate;’ all
of which was fully testified by competent witnesses. The petitioner
was now a widow with a charge of children, in helpless poverty and
wretchedness, all traceable to the impoverishment of her father. The
Council ordered her two thousand merks out of the vacant stipends of
the diocese of Argyle.
[304] The death of the old Laird of Dumbiedykes in Scott’s tale of the
_Heart of Mid-Lothian_, involves an allusion to this piece of national
music: ‘He drank three bumpers of brandy continuously, and “soughed
awa’,” as Jenny expressed it, in an attempt to sing _Deil stick the
Minister_.’
[305] See vol. i. p. 24.
[306] MS. quoted in Wilde’s Table, Census of Ireland, 1851.
[307] _Notes to Fountainhall’s Chronological Notes of Scottish
Affairs_, p. 5.
[308] A sugar-house was first set up in Glasgow in 1667.--_Gibson’s
Hist. Glasgow._
[309] Sir Walter Scott relates this anecdote on the authority of Mrs
Murray Keith.--_Notes to Fountainhall’s Chron. Notes, &c._, p. 33.
[310] ‘These’ is always used for ‘those’ in Scottish documents of this
age.
[311] Fountainhall’s _Decisions_. Burnet’s History.
[312] _Statistical Account of Scotland_, vol. v.
[313] Letters to George Earl of Aberdeen (Spal. Club), p. 122.
[314] _Analecta_, i. 114.
[315] _Memoirs of Lady Grizzel Baillie._
[316] MS. in possession of Sir Hugh Purves Hume Campbell, Bart.,
Marchmont House.
[317] _Papers Relating to the Geographical Description, Maps, and
Charts of Scotland, by John Adair. Bann. Club Misc._, ii. 345.
[318] _Papers Relating to Slezer’s Theatrum Scotiæ, in Bann. Club
Misc._, ii. 307.
[319] _Scots Magazine_, Obituary, 1791.
[320] _A Short Account of Scotland_, &c. London, 1702.
[321] Called the Old Bank Close, in the Lawnmarket, where Melbourne
Place now is.
[322] The earl’s first marriage to a daughter of the Marquis of
Huntly--who, however, was not the mother of his children--is noticed in
this volume under 1649.
[323] [Mackie’s] _Journey through Scotland_, 1723, p. 18.
[324] From an original inventory of the articles, read before the
Society of the Antiquaries of Scotland by Sir David Laing, in 1857.
[325] Lamont’s _Diary_ (Edinburgh, 1830), p. 212, _foot-note_.
GENERAL INDEX.
Abduction, cases of, i. 222, 419, 469; ii. 251, 319, 390.
ABERCORN, Lady, her persecution of Boyd of Trochrig, ii. 7, 8;
imprisonment in the Tolbooth, 25, 26.
Aberdeen, its relation to the Highlands of the Dee, i. 251;
remarkable trials for witchcraft in, 278-285;
election prayer of, 341;
frequent clan-combats and riots at, 384;
banqueting at baptisms forbidden, 541.
Threatened bar at mouth of harbour of, ii. 115;
its doctors, 119-121, 123-126.
Accidents, Presbyterian historian’s notes of rare, i. 444.
ACHESON and ASLOWAN, adventurers in gold-seeking, i. 18.
Actors, companies of, in Perth and Edinburgh, i. 306;
at Aberdeen, 357.
A company at Edinburgh, ii. 404.
_Acus marinus_, or sea-needle, ii. 463.
ADAIR, John, his maps of the counties of Scotland, &c., ii. 483-485.
Adulteration by Edinburgh traders, ii. 240.
AIKEN, Margaret, ‘the great witch of Balwery,’ i. 291.
AIKENHEAD, James, charged with selling amorous drugs, ii. 227.
AIRD, Robert, a distinguished Episcopalian clergyman, petition of,
ii. 281.
AIRTH, Earl of, remark of, on a Presbyterian prophetess, ii. 122;
his encounter with Graham of Duchrae, 309.
Ale, impost-duty on, ii. 253.
Algiers and Africa, collection for Scottish prisoners in, i. 124,
125, 471.
Petitions for Scottish mariners taken by pirates, ii. 93.
Anabaptists, dipping of the, ii. 213.
ANDERSON, Andrew, a trafficking papist, dies in the Tolbooth, ii.
60.
ANDERSON, Dr Patrick, his tract on _Cold Spring of Kinghorn_, i.
506.
ANDERSON, Father, banished from Scotland, i. 514.
ANDERSON, Walter, kills Archbishop Gladstanes’s cook, i. 431.
ANDERSON, Widow, the king’s printer, her petition, ii. 450.
ANGUS, Earl of, a papist, commissioned to
pacify the north, i. 234;
craves permission to go into exile, 402, 403.
ANGUS, the Good Earl of; anecdote of his last illness, i. 235.
_Apology for the Quakers_, Barclay of Urie’s, ii. 344.
Apostates, punished as adulterers, i. 140.
Apparitions, frequent, ii. 435.
Apprentices, restriction of, ii. 41.
ARDKINLAS, Laird of, his narrow escape, i. 246, 247.
ARDVOIRLICH, his dispute with Lord Kilpont, ii. 154-156.
ARDVOIRLICH, Lady of, Macgregors’ barbarous conduct to, i. 195.
ARGYLE, sixth Earl of, Lord Boyd, and other nobles, forsake Queen
Mary, i. 76.
ARGYLE, seventh Earl of, becomes a papist, i. 504.
ARGYLE, ninth Earl of, tried for qualifying the test, ii. 354;
his letter of fire and sword against the Macleans, 370-372;
his expedition and death, 469.
ARGYLE, Marquis of, beheaded, ii. 274, 275.
Arminianism, alarm for it in Scotland, ii. 1;
spread of, in England, 60.
Army, old mode of raising an, i. 36.
ARTHUR, Sir John, a priest, prosecuted, i. 23.
_Atheism, Antidote against_, Dr More’s, ii. 475.
ATHOLE, John Stewart, Earl of, entertains Queen Mary at a hunt, i.
29;
his suspicious death, 123, 124.
ATHOLE, Marquis of, his dispute with Laird of Struan, ii. 423.
Athole, witches of, warm friends of Queen Mary, i. 70;
sad account of country of, 405.
ATKINSON, Stephen, a speculator in gold-mines, i. 50, 474.
AUCHINLECK, George, of Balmanno, stabs Captain Nisbet, i. 141.
AUCHMUTY, a barber, beheaded for killing James Wauchope, i. 314.
AWIN, M., a French surgeon, complaint against, by his Edinburgh
brethren, i. 260.
BAILLIE, Memoirs of Lady Grizzel, quoted, ii. 465-467.
BALBEGNO’S ghost appears to General Middleton, ii. 364.
BALCANQUEL, of that Ilk, fined for his wife’s non-attendance at
parish church, ii. 463.
BALCARRES, Earl of, his death, ii. 296.
BALFOUR, John, a discoverer of witches, ii. 61.
----, William, a papist, his violence in St Giles’ Kirk, i. 14, 15.
BALLINDALLOCH and CARRON, Grants of, feud between, ii. 50-54.
_Band of Friendship_ entered into by Earl of Eglintoun, Earl of
Glencairn, and others, i. 118, 119.
Bankrupt or dyvour, curious proceeding regarding, i. 236.
Bankrupts, severities against, i. 392.
BANNATYNE, George, transcribes Scottish poetry, i. 57;
his arms and initials, 58.
_Banner of Revenge_, followed by a thousand mounted gentlemen, i.
363.
Baptisms, order against extravagance at, i. 541.
_Bar, backing of parties to the_, proclamation against, i. 403.
An example of it, ii. 30.
Barbadoes, white population of, ii. 305;
religionists transported as slaves to, 397.
BARCLAY, Margaret, tried for witchcraft, i. 488, 489.
BARCLAY of Collerine, his uncle’s petition, ii. 436.
Bards and minstrels, act against; two poets hanged, i. 131.
BARGENY, Laird of, his death and character,i. 293;
another Laird of, collision with the Earl of Cassillis, 311;
killed in a fight near Brig of Doon, 360.
_Barnacles_, their development into sea-birds, Sir Robert Murray’s
account of, ii. 356.
BARTAS, Sieur du, a French poet, visits Scotland, i. 173-175.
Bass, Lauder of the, and his mother, hold out against their
creditors, ii. 20.
Battle-visions, and ominous sights and sounds, superstitious
feelings regarding, ii. 146-148.
Beacons for shipping, introduction of; Isle of May light-house, i.
522, 523.
_Beardie_, great-grandfather of Sir Walter Scott, ii. 312.
_Beaver hats_, Captain Hamilton’s petition for liberty to
manufacture, ii. 453.
Bedesmen, the King’s, ancient custom regarding, i. 405.
BEDFORD, Earl of, ambassador to Scotland at baptism of King James
VI., i. 39.
Bee-house, John Geddie’s novel, ii. 323.
Beggars, strong and idle, act against, i. 131, 478.
BELHAVEN, Lord, anecdote of the blind, ii. 7.
----, Lord, curious incident in life of, ii. 249.
Bellman, formula used by the Edinburgh, ii. n. 202.
_Bessie Bell and Mary Gray_, tale of, ii. 166, 167.
Bible, first edition of the, printed in Scotland, by Arbuthnot and
Bassendyne, Edinburgh burgesses, i. 100;
difficulties of its progress through the press, 106, 107;
gratification of clergy at its completion, 131.
BIRNIE, Walter, preacher, the Privy Council’s kindness to, ii. 338.
Birthday, anniversary of Charles II.’s, held as a holiday all over
Scotland, ii. 291.
BISSET, Abacuck, maimed; anecdote of Queen Mary concerning, i. 180,
181.
_Black Band_, a conspiracy formed against Home of Wedderburn, i.
96, 97.
_Black Saturday_, why so called, i. 523.
BLACKADDER of Tulliallan, his case with Balfour of Burleigh, i.
386, 387.
BLACKBURN, Peter, Bishop of Aberdeen, his death, i. 475.
BLACKHALL, Father, narrative of his career as a priest in Scotland,
ii. 129-134.
BLAIR, Alexander, of Freirton, gives surety for improved conduct to
his wife, i. 48.
Bleeding heart prophecy, i. 145.
Blood-showers, their probable origin, ii. 199, 488, 489.
Bog an Gicht Castle, illustration, ii. 48.
Bohemian army, from 3000 to 4400 men raised in Scotland for the,
ii. 9-11.
Bond of Association between Sir Walter Scott of Branxholm and fifty
of his clan, i. 190.
Books imported from Germany duty-free, i. 194, 195.
_Borbrieffs_, or birth-letters, petitions for, ii. 325.
Border Thieves, Regent Moray’s raid against, i. 60;
Regent Morton’s raid, 88;
their immunity from the pest, 158;
James VI.’s punishment of, 293, 294;
above 140 hanged by Earl of Dunbar, 400, 422, 423;
strong effort for suppression of, 443;
120 sent to Bohemian wars, 488;
Earl of Traquair’s rigorous measures with at Jedburgh, ii. 100.
_Borrowing Days_, storm of, i. 552, 553.
Borrowstounness, curious witch-trial at, ii. 405, 406;
Sweet Singers of, 414-416.
BOTHWELL, Adam, Bishop of Orkney, letter of, on plague, i. 55;
his character, 145.
BOTHWELL, Countess of, her humble supplication to James VI., i. 243;
inconstancy of James’s favour to, 264.
BOTHWELL, Hepburn, Earl of, his abduction of Queen Mary, i. 41.
BOTHWELL, Stuart, Earl of, demands 5000 merks from city of
Edinburgh, i. 189;
his attempt to seize James VI. at Holyroodhouse, 229;
second attempt at Falkland Palace, 237;
third attempt at Dalkeith Castle, 238;
scene in James VI.’s chamber at Holyrood, 250;
his encounter with Laird of Cessford, 251;
his encounter with Lord Home, 255;
joins the papist lords, 255.
Bothwell Moor, harrying of, i. 71.
Bowmen, Charles I. raises a small troop of Highland, ii. 14.
BOYD, Janet, tried for witchcraft, ii. 31.
----, Robert, Lord, deserts the Queen’s party, i. 76;
bond of _manred_ with William Fairly, 77.
BOYD of Trochrig, suffers great persecution in Paisley, ii. 8.
_Boys, Society of the_, i. 403, 404.
BRACKLA, Laird of, murdered, i. 233.
BRAIDHEAD, Janet, the witch, extracts from her confession, ii.
285-291.
BRAND, John, beheaded for murder, i. 467.
Brandy, its importation restricted, ii. 332.
Branks, an instrument of punishment, i. 47.
_Brazen Wall_, a party of this regiment surprised by Captain Wogan,
ii. 224.
Brechin, a keeper of a hotel in, apprehended for murdering his
guests in bed, i. 78.
_Bride of Baldoon_, original of the _Bride of Lammermuir_, story
of, ii. 326-328.
Bridges and roads, ruinous state of, ii. 409.
Brimstone, vitriol, and alum, privilege of making, granted, i. 443.
BRONKHORST, a Fleming, tries to get a patent for the gold-mines of
Lanarkshire, i. 138;
acts as portrait-painter to the king, 139.
BROWN, Gilbert, ex-abbot of New Abbey, imprisoned, i. 389;
his books, &c., burnt, 422.
BROWN of Hartree, his duel with Hay of Smithfield, i. 264, 265.
BROWN, Robert, a Cambridge student; his peculiar religious
doctrines, i. 153.
_Brownism_, a tendency towards, rebuked, ii. 127, 145.
_Browster-wife_, origin of the term, i. 328.
Comic race by twelve brewster-wives, ii. 273.
BRUCE and FORESTER, of Stirlingshire, their dispute, i. 260.
BRUCE, Edward Lord, of Kinloss, his duel with Sir Edward Sackville,
i. 447-451.
BRUCE of Clackmannan, patents a coal-mine water-engine, ii. 408.
BRUCE, Peter, his patents for various machines, ii. 408;
his patent for playing-cards, 432.
BRUCE, Robert, of Clackmannan; an incident in his life, i. 240, 241.
BRUCE, Sir George, anecdote of James VI.’s visit to, at Culross, i.
485.
_Bruits_, rumours so called: their effects, ii. 4, 5.
BRUNTFIELD, Adam, slays James Carmichael in single combat, i. 286.
BUCCLEUCH, Countess of, her early marriage and death, ii. 250.
BUCCLEUCH, first Earl of, his burial-procession, ii. 73, 74.
BUCHANAN, George, tutor to James VI., i. 83;
his death and character, 149, 150.
BULMER, on Englishman, works the gold-mines in Scotland, i. 254,
255, 290.
BURGESS, Dr, his specific for the plague, ii. 164.
BURNET, Rev. John, death of, ii. 363.
Burntisland, extraordinary riot in, i. 466.
Shipping at, in time of Commonwealth, ii. 249;
Dutch ships attack, 318.
BURTON, John, his brother’s complaint against him, ii. 424.
Butchers and Vintners, outcry against extortion of, ii. 489, 490.
Cabinet-making, James Turner’s petition, ii. 396.
CAITHNESS, Earl of, beheads Alister Mac William Mor, i. 387, 388;
strife between, and Gordon and Mackay, 440-443;
his unruly conduct checked, 536-538.
CALDER, Laird of, three gentlemen receive and die of poison meant
for, ii. 146.
Caligraphy, Esther Inglis, a Frenchwoman, her MS. volumes, i.
550-552.
Camel, exhibition of a, ii. 69.
Camerons’ raid against Struan of Kinloch, ii. 308.
CAMPBELL and SMITH, a combat between, in Edinburgh, i. 72, 73.
CAMPBELL, Colin, of Glenurchy, a patron of the fine arts, ii. 62.
CAMPBELL, John, of Calder, shot by Mac Ellar, i. 246.
CAMPBELL of Moy, M‘Ranald of Glengarach’s attack on house of, i.
364.
CAMPBELL, Sir Duncan, Laird of Glenurchy, his style of living, i.
207.
CAMPBELL, Sir James, of Lawers, his thief-taking commission, ii.
381, 382.
Canongate, inhabitants of, infected by the pest, i. 56;
tavern arrangements in, 59.
CANT, Andrew, his moderatorship, ii, 181;
anecdote of, 182, 183.
_Cape of Good Hope_, the devil appears on board of a ship so
called, ii. 347.
_Cappers_, Scotch privateer vessels so called, ii. 317.
Caravan betwixt Edinburgh and Glasgow, ii. 393.
CARDINESS, Lady, Sir Alexander M‘Culloch’s assaults on, ii. 321.
CARGILL, Donald, his predictions, ii. 372.
CARMICHAEL, James, kills Stephen Bruntfield in a duel, i. 286.
CARNEGIE and LITHGOW, Lords, duel of, ii. 305.
CARRUTHERS, Marion, an heiress, i. 25.
CARSTAIRS, Cardinal, anecdote of the thumbikens, ii. 460.
Cart, Hamilton’s patent for a new, i. 550.
CARVET, a Romish priest, pilloried, i. 33.
_Cashielaws_, an instrument of torture, i. 273.
CASHOGLE and DRUMLANRIG, private war between, i. 520, 521.
CASSILLIS and WIGTON, Earls of, dispute between, ii. 30.
CASSILLIS, Earl of, and Kennedy of Bargeny, dispute between, i.
310, 363-366.
CASSILLIS, Earl of, marries widow of Lord Thirlstane; unmeetness of
the match, i. 293.
CASSILLIS, Gilbert, Earl of, sometimes called King of Carrick, his
extraordinary torture of Master Allan Stewart, i. 65-68.
Castle-Kennedy, anecdote of a thunder-clap at, ii. 28.
_Catastrophe Mundi_, a treatise on comets, ii. 456.
CATHCART, James, a pretended astrologer, ii. 467.
CATHKIN and LAWSON, oppose Episcopalian principles, i. 512.
Catholic missionaries, success in Switzerland, i. 515.
Catholics, see _Papists_.
Catholic nobles, driven to extremities, i. 219;
their treasonable correspondence with Spain, 244;
their sons placed under care of reformed ministers, 351;
progress of persecution against, 415-417, 421, 422, 429.
Further persecutions of, ii. 57-60, 335-338.
CHALMERS, James, his list of papists and seminary priests, ii. 283,
284.
CHANCELLOR, Susanna, accused of consulting charmers, ii. 44.
_Change-houses_, Kirke’s description of Scotch, ii. 407.
Chapel of Grace, pilgrimages to, i. 325.
CHARLES I., his baptism, i. 321.
His marriage, ii. 4;
proclamation against popery, 4;
raises troop of Highland bowmen, 14;
letter to the Scottish Council, 25;
grants commission to Lord Gordon against papists, 36-41;
his interference on behalf of papists, 57-60;
his visit to Edinburgh, 63-69;
proclamation against communion stragglers, 81;
his expeditions against Scottish Covenanters, 106;
commences the civil war, 109;
rendered up by Scottish army, 112;
his remark on death of Earl of Haddington, 137;
anecdote of Irish rebellion, 141;
his execution creates enmity between ruling powers of England and
Scotland, 174.
CHARLES II., demonstrations on birth of, ii. 41;
invited to Scotland and proceedings there, 174;
his restoration, 255;
remark on inhumane laws, 260;
joy at restoration of, 261, 266;
anecdote of his visit to James Guthrie, 276;
extraordinary demonstration at Linlithgow on his birthday, 291,
292;
his fondness for bees, 323, 324;
evils of his reign, 330, 332;
his equestrian statue in Parliament Close, 477.
Charms for healing sores, &c., i. 324.
Specimen of, ii. 153.
CHATTAN or MACINTOSH, Clan, Earl of Moray’s expedition against, i.
542, 543.
Cheviot, order against hunting in, i. 453.
CHIESLEY of Dalry shoots Sir George Lockhart, ii. 495.
CHIESLEY, William, writer in Edinburgh, punished for a cheat, ii.
445.
Child-murder, hanging of women for, &c., ii. 414.
CHISHOLMS prosecute M‘Leans for witchcraft, ii. 293, 294.
Christie’s Well, pilgrimages to, i. 323.
Christmas-day, James VI. orders keeping of, i. 426;
general disregard of, 506.
Its observance in Edinburgh, ii. 297.
Church-discipline, severity of, i. 336; ii. 196-199.
Church-lands, convention for revocation of, ii. 6.
Church matters, meeting for deliberation on, ii. 12.
Citadels, order for destroying those raised during the
Commonwealth, ii. 279.
_Clairvoyance, quasi_ case of, ii. 394.
CLARK, Alexander, provost of Edinburgh, his reception of Charles
I., ii. 63-65.
CLARK and RAMSAY, hanged for poisoning their master, ii. 373.
Clergy, their zeal and self-denying poverty, i. 132;
collisions with Edinburgh merchants, 241, 242;
their intolerance, 244;
their admonitions of James VI., and general denunciations against
common corruption of all estates of the realm, 267.
Perfect accord with the Estates, ii. 179-181.
Clothing and cloth-works in Scotland, anecdotes connected with, ii.
416-422.
Cloth-manufacture, seven Flemings engaged to set agoing; result, i.
362;
encouraged by James VI., 425.
At Newmills, near Haddington, ii. 418.
Coaches, early examples of, i. 19;
first hint at public coaches and wagons in Scotland, 431.
Street coaches, ii. 358;
stage-coaches, 218, 247, 391, 476.
Coal, early digging of, i. 24;
Countess of Sutherland first works coal of Brora, 302;
coal-works at Culross, 485;
price of coal fixed, 519;
Johnston’s licence to export, 520.
COCHRANE of Ochiltree, saved by his heroic daughter Grizzel, ii.
479.
COCKBURN, the executioner, hanged, ii. 433.
COCKIE, Isobel, burned for witchcraft, i. 280.
Cockpool, inundation of house of Old, anecdote of, ii. 17.
_Coffee-houses_, first known in Edinburgh and Glasgow, ii. 359-361.
Coin, attempt to raise the value of, i. 122.
COKE, William, burned for sorcery;
bill of expenses, ii. 70, 71.
COLLACE, Mr William, first regent in St Leonard’s College, i. 73.
College of Physicians, proposed in Edinburgh, i. 521.
COLQUHOUNS and MACGREGORS, battle between, i. 377, 378.
COLVILLE, Lady, imprisoned for educating her son in disloyal
principles, ii. 467.
COLVILLE, Lord, mission to France concerning the Scots Guard, i.
535.
Combat, a remarkable, i. 285;
among the last attempts to settle a dispute by, 414.
Comets, early ideas about, i. 112, 113;
appearance of a remarkable, in 1618, 505.
Appearance of one during the day, ii. 185;
in 1664 and 1665, 300-302;
in 1676, 376;
in 1680, curious notions regarding, 410-412;
Halley’s, in 1682, 444.
Communion Tuesday meetings; their object, i. 508.
Communion administered in Edinburgh after an interval of six
years, ii. 235.
CON of Achry, a papist, excommunicated by presbytery of Aberdeen,
ii. 59.
Confession of Faith, commonly called the _King’s Confession_, i.
142.
Conventicles, various persons fined for attending, ii. 334.
Copper-mine in parish of Currie, ii. 453.
Corn, great dearth of in 1567, i. 52.
CORNWALL, Archibald, hanged for poinding the king and queen’s
portraits, i. 349.
Corstorphine, frightful tragedy at village of, ii. 401-403.
Costume, court order of, i. 426.
Court of Session, suspension of, ii. 128.
COUTS, Janet, accuses eleven women of witchcraft, ii. 194, 195.
Covenant, National, signed, ii. 105, 116;
forced on people at Aberdeen, 120, 123.
Covenant, Solemn League and, made, ii. 109;
character and consequences of, 111;
forced on Lady Frendraught, 159;
opinion of royalists regarding rule of, 160, 161;
taken by Charles II., 175;
forced on Marquis and Marchioness of Douglas, 191, 193;
burned at Linlithgow, 291.
Covenanters, proceedings of the, ii. 106-113, 119-121, 123-126.
_Covenanter’s Ribbon_, ii. 124.
_Cowdothe_, an epidemic so called, i. 117.
COWPER, William, bishop of Galloway, a libel against, i. 372;
his sudden death, 507, 508.
CRAIG, Marjory, hanged as a witch, ii. 377-379.
CRAWFORD and GLAMMIS, feud between, i. 117, 118.
CRAWFORD, Earl of, confined in the Tower, ii. 218;
appointed Lord Treasurer, 255.
CRAWFORD, Master of, young Edzell’s attack on, i. 405, 406.
Crawford gold-field, i. 17, 51, 253, 290, 474.
Creditors, supposed power of, over interment of the dead, ii. 328,
329.
CRICHTON of Frendraught and GORDON of Rothiemay, dispute between
ii. 45-50, 76-79, 84.
CRICHTON, Sir Robert, of Cluny, a caption used against him in
church, i. 474.
CROMBIE, Thomas, summoned for slaughter of William Blair, ii. 4.
CROMWELL, Oliver, his first visit to Edinburgh, ii. 170, 171;
crosses the Tweed with an English army, 201-207;
anecdotes of, 203, 204;
his law-commissioners for Scotland, 219;
breaks up the General Assembly, 221;
proclaimed protector, 242-244.
_Crossford visions_, Walker’s account of the, ii. 485-487.
CULTMALINDY and MONYVAIRD, feud between, i. 490.
CUMMING, Isobel, a teacher of young ladies, her petition, ii. 482.
CUNNINGHAM and CRAWFORD, Captains, harry Bothwell Moor, i. 71.
CUNNINGHAM of Robertland, murders Earl of Eglintoun, i. 161.
Poinding of his goods, ii. 340.
Cunyie-house, master of, visits England, i. 386.
Cupar (Fife), great fire at, in 1668, ii. 321.
Custom-officers and Edinburgh merchants, dispute between, ii. 299.
Customs, i. 339-342;
Spalding bewails suppression of old Christian, ii. 142.
DAES, Alexander, introduces paper-making, ii. 398;
favours the shewing of an elephant, 410;
complaint from, 432.
Dalkeith, James VI. residing at, i. 146.
Dalry paper-mills, Daes’s petition for, ii. 398.
DALRYMPLE, Janet, the unfortunate _Bride of Baldoon_, ii. 326-328.
DALRYMPLE, William, murdered by Mures of Auchindrain, i. 435-437.
Dancing, laws against, i. 338.
Danish nobles and gentlemen entertained by Edinburgh magistrates,
i. 199.
DARNLEY, Lord, i. 35-37;
his murder, 40.
DAVIDSON, William, an Edinburgh flesher, a monster-pig farrowed in
his house, i. 76.
_Day of Law_ in the reign of James VI., i. 247.
Dearths in Scotland, i. 59, 94, 99, 116, 117, 179, 180, 265, 271,
303, 304, 318, 444, 476, 530, 531, 538, 539; ii. 74, 75, 85,
134, 144, 149, 156, 185, 207, 235.
Deer slain with guns near the Border, i. 103.
Deer-hunting, the Water-poet’s description of Highland, i. 497.
_Deil stick the Minister_, anecdote of, ii. 453.
Denmark, King of, 2000 men raised in Scotland for, i. 53.
_Devil of Glenluce_, a house-infesting spirit, ii. 228-232.
DEVOE, Andrew, a dancing-master in Edinburgh, Bayne’s petition
against, ii. 384;
his complaint against the Fountains, 401.
DE VOIS, Cornelius, a gold-seeking adventurer, i. 50.
DICK, Alison, burnt for witchcraft; curious bill of expenses, ii.
70, 71.
DICK, Sir William, wealth of, ii. 183;
his history and death, 236-240.
DICK’S house of Priestfield burnt, ii. 413.
DICKISON, Provost, murdered in Peebles, i. 81.
Allusion to, ii. 480.
DICKSON, David, minister of Irvine, Stewarton Sickness takes its
rise under, ii. 43;
moderator of the General Assembly, 221.
DICKSON, John, an Englishman, hanged for slanderous speeches
against James VI., i. 273.
DICKSON, John, of Belchester, broken on the rack for murder of his
father, i. 224.
Dissection, malefactors given for, ii. 96.
Dissent, progress of Presbyterian, i. 543-545.
Divines, Assembly of, at Westminster, ii. 111.
_Diving-bell_, Maule of Melgum’s invention of the, ii. 387.
Dog dispute, tragical issue of a, ii. 478.
Dogs, acts against bringing to church, i. 342.
DONALDSON, Robert, murdered, ii. 329.
DOUGLAS, Andrew, minister of Dunkeld, tortured and hanged for
rebuking Morton, i. 80.
DOUGLAS, Colonel, diligent training of his regiment, ii. 462.
DOUGLAS, Hon. George, his quarrel with John Corsehill, ii. 478.
DOUGLAS, Janet, a deaf and dumb girl, her deceptions as a
witch-finder, ii. 376-381.
DOUGLAS, Marquis of, his difficulties with the presbytery of
Lanark, ii. 190-194.
DOUGLAS, second Marquis of, his separation from Lady Barbara
Erskine, ii. 340.
DOUGLAS, Mr Archibald, his mock-trial for concern in murder of
Darnley, i. 163.
DOUGLAS of Lochleven, his hatred of the Hamiltons, i. 100.
DOUGLAS, Sir James, of Parkhead, slays James Stewart of Newton, i.
274.
DOUGLAS, William, beheaded for concern in duel with Home of Eccles,
ii. 318.
DOUGLAS, William, stabs Thomas Lindsay, ii. 439-442.
DOWNIE, John, the pest breaks out in his ship, i. 139.
Dowries or Tochers, examples of, ii. 35.
Dragon-hole, near Perth, yearly procession to, i. 327.
Dream regarding Dunnottar Castle, i. 210.
Dress of clergymen and their wives, General Assembly’s regulations
regarding, i. 102.
Dresses of the sexes, prank of interchanging, i. 327.
Drinking, Aberdeen town-council’s order against compulsory, ii. 4.
Drinking-debauch, unfortunate issue of a, ii. 345, 346.
Dromedary, exhibition of a travelling, ii. 249.
DRUMLANRIG and CASHOGLE, private war between, i. 520, 521.
DRUMMOND, Lady Jean, her portion of 5000 merks, ii. 34, 35.
DRUMMOND of Hawthornden, Ben Jonson’s visit to, i. 500-503.
DRUMMOND, Robert, his exposure in the ‘stocks’ for adultery, i. 92.
DRUMMOND, Sir George, becomes bankrupt, ii. 479.
DRUMMONDS and OLIVER YOUNG, dispute between servants of the, i. 293.
DRURY, Sir William, threatens to destroy the town of Linlithgow, i.
63.
_Dryfe’s Sands_, clan-battle of, i. 252.
Duddingston Loch, legal case about swans on, ii. 492.
DUFF, David, outrages committed by, in a dispute about land, i. 348.
Dumbarton, Castle of, taken by surprise by the king’s party, i. 73.
Its ruinous state for national defence, ii. 18.
Dumbarton, encroachments of the sea on, i. 400.
Dumblane, four priests of, condemned to death for saying mass, i.
59.
Dumfries, complaint against minister and reader of, i. 95;
James VI. executes justice at, 294;
anecdote of a mission to Wigtown to purchase cattle, 304.
A papist priest taken at, ii. 11;
papist marriage at, 72;
case of poisoning at, 92;
insecurity of its jail, 442.
DUNBAR, Earl of, hangs above 140 Border thieves, i. 400;
his ecclesiastical mission to Scotland from James VI., 413;
further proceedings against Border thieves, 422, 423.
Dunbar, 300 fishermen perish at, i. 125.
Battle of, ii. 176;
the witch of, 493.
Dundee, its quarrel with Perth, i. 48;
coining at, 157;
anecdote connected with the pest, 399;
suffers under pest, 414.
Sack of, by General Monk, ii. 207;
witch case at, 330;
a jail delivery by Graham of Claverhouse, 461.
Dunfermline, great fire at, i. 542.
Dunglass Castle, dismal accident at, ii. 136.
DUNLOP, Bessie, her trial for witchcraft, i. 107-110.
DUNLOP, Thomas, a poor Quaker, persecution of, ii. 443.
Dunnottar Castle, dream regarding, i. 210.
Siege of; anecdote of regalia of Scotland, ii. 213;
Whigs confined in, 480.
Dunse, possessed woman at, ii. 43.
Dunse Law, magazine of pebbles at, ii. 126.
DUNTREATH, deaf and dumb Laird of, his divinations, ii. 384, 385.
DURIE, Gibson of, story of his kidnapping, i. 355, 356.
DURIE, John, a minister of Edinburgh; his return from banishment,
i. 148.
Dutch invasion; fleet appears at mouth of Firth of Forth, ii. 318.
Eagles, remarkable anecdotes of, ii. _n._ 268.
‘_Earth-dogs_,’ or terriers, James VI. writes to Earl of Mar for,
i. 547.
Earthquakes, i. 140, 292, 420, 454, 522; ii. 241.
Easter Sunday, communion on, disinclination of the people to
kneeling, i. 509.
Ecclesiastical discipline, i. 336-338.
Its bearing on the habits of the people, ii. 156-161.
Echt, Barmkyn of, strange sounds heard at, ii. 115.
Eclipses of the sun, i. 296; ii. 215.
Economy, traits of the public, i. 345-347.
Eddy-pool of Water of Brechin, drying up of, ii. 75.
Edinburgh, effects of the civil war on, i. 79-81, 87, 88;
spirited resistance to Earl of Bothwell, 189;
filthiness of, in 1617, 486.
Charles I.’s visit to; his reception, ii. 63-69;
taxes, poverty, vanity, and debt of, 235, 236, 247;
three fires at, on one Sunday, 487.
_See whole work passim._
Edston-haugh, near Peebles, duel at, i. 265.
EDZELL, Laird of, his attack on Master of Crawford, i. 405, 406.
Eels, thousands of dead, cast on banks of North Loch, ii. 234.
Eggs, act against exporting, i. 467.
EGLINTOUN and GLENCAIRN, Earls of, feud between, i. 394, 395.
EGLINTOUN, Earl of, murdered by Cunningham of Robertland, i.
161-163.
Egyptians, Privy Council’s order against, ii. 54.
ELDER, James, a baker, tried for usury, ii. 298.
Elephant, the first seen in Scotland, ii. 410.
Elgin Cathedral, choir of, destroyed by a high wind, ii. 114;
casting down of timber-screen of, 138.
ELIZABETH, Queen, sends a hostile army against Queen Mary’s friends
in Scotland, i. 61;
another, 85;
intelligence of her death brought to King James, 381.
ELPHINSTONE, George, a Glasgow bailie, violent attacks against, i.
90.
ELPHINSTONE, Sir George, his dispute with Sir M. Stewart at
Glasgow, i. 396-398.
English judicature at Leith, impartiality of, ii. 215.
English soldiers, their description of the Highlands, ii. 218;
their contempt for stool of repentance, _ibid._
English, their jealousy of the Scotch in reign of James VI., i.
432-434.
Entry-money at taking service, Privy Council’s proclamation
against, i. 489.
Episcopacy introduced by James VI., i. 379, 394, 415, 426, 428,
480, 523; ii. 1, 2;
abrogated, 106;
re-established, 256;
finally abolished, 474.
Equinoctial gale of 1606, devastating effects of, i. 392.
Ericht, subscription for building a bridge over river, ii. 54.
ERROL, Earl of, makes his peace with Kirk of Aberdeen, i. 288;
trait of his domestic circumstances, 466.
His death, ii. 55.
ERSKINE, Robert, with his three sisters, condemned to death for
poisoning his two nephews, i. 452.
Eskdale Muir denuded of sheep, ii. 367.
Estates and Clergy, perfect accord between, ii. 179-181.
Evelick, singular boy-murder near, ii. 439.
_Ewe and Lamb_, a kidnapping ship so called, ii. 359.
Excommunicated persons, Privy Council’s measures against, ii. 18,
20-28, 36-41.
Excommunication, i. 336;
pronounced against Marquis of Huntly, 417.
Dealt out liberally, ii. 173;
of a gardener revoked by James VII., 482.
FAAS, gipsies, a number of, executed, i. 476.
Falkirk and Stirling, sixteen farms between, buried in moss, ii. 35.
Falkland and Holyrood, improvement on the palaces of, for king’s
visit, i. 476.
Famine in 1563, i. 25;
severity of, in 1623, 538, 539.
See _Dearths_.
FARQUHAR, Robert, a rich Aberdeen merchant, his loans to the state,
ii. 181;
story of, 182.
FARQUHARSON of Inverey, his fine of £4000 [Scots?], ii. 184.
Fast-day in Old Aberdeen, in 1644, a reality, ii. 154.
FAW, Moses, a gipsy, his petition granted, i. 426.
FAWS and the SHAWS, battle between, ii. 388.
Female Remonstrants in Parliament Close, strange scene with, ii.
369.
FENELON, Sieur de la Motte, a French ambassador, i. 151.
_Fiacre_, origin of application of the term to hackney-coaches, i.
324.
FIAN, John, schoolmaster at Prestonpans, burnt as a wizard, i. 211,
212.
FIELDING, Beau, and two Scotch gentlemen, drink three horrid
toasts, ii. 381.
_Fiery-cross_, the Macleans raise 300 men by the, ii. _n._ 371.
Fife and Kinross, enormous sacrifices made by counties of, to
resist Cromwell’s invasion, ii. 206.
Fines, Scottish Estates impose severe, ii. 183, 184;
for attending conventicles, 334.
FINNIE, Agnes, burnt for witchcraft, ii. 149-153.
Fire-engine for Glasgow, first, ii. 244.
Fires on Midsummer and St Peter’s Eves, i. 326.
Fish, white, destroyed by dog-fish; Spalding’s idea of, ii. 144.
Fishermen, Earl of Errol’s petition against, ii. 458.
Fishing Society, formation of a, ii. 330, 331.
FLECK, George, reveals where the Earl of Morton’s treasure lay, i.
142.
FLEMING, Lord, his marriage celebrated, i. 29;
sufferings in the civil war, 1570, 62.
Flesh, use of, forbidden by Privy Council, i. 50.
FLETCHER, Christian, saves the regalia of Scotland, ii. 214.
Flood in the Tay, remarkable, i. 525-527.
_Florida_, one of the Spanish Armada vessels, blown up, ii. 386-388.
Foot-race, curious, of twelve brewsterwives, and sixteen fishwives,
ii. 273.
Foot-soldiers, five companies raised by Charles II., ii. 296.
FORBES, Dr, bishop of Edinburgh, i. 544.
----, of Corse, banishment of, ii. 146;
his corpse refused burial in his own ground, 451.
FORBES, Master of, and GEORGE LESLIE, fight between, ii. 134.
FORBES of Leslie, his prosecution of Farquharson of Inverey, ii.
184.
FORBES of Tolquhoun and OGILVIE of Forglen, dispute between, ii.
477.
FORESTER, a bailie of Stirling, rare form of his funeral, i. 260.
FORRESTER, Lord, murdered by his mistress, ii. 401.
Forth, Firth of, alarm of invasion from vessels appearing in, ii.
15.
FOULIS, Lady, extraordinary trial of, for witchcraft, i. 202-205.
FOULIS, Thomas, an Edinburgh goldsmith;
his gold, silver, and lead mines, i. 252-254, 290;
a creditor of James VI., 295, 296.
FOUNTAINS, two brothers, their patent as _Masters of the Revels_,
ii. 400, 459.
France, differences between Great Britain and, ii. 12.
FRASER, Helen, burnt for witchcraft, i. 280.
----, Janet, strange phenomenon on her Bible, ii. 488.
FRASER, Lord, and Laird of Philorth, dispute between, ii. 99, 100.
FRASER of Kirkhill, extracts from his diary, ii. 241.
FRASER’S view of the customs of the Highlanders, ii. 383.
FRENCH, Adam, of Thornydykes, his abduction, i. 469.
French language, town-council of Edinburgh patronise the teaching
of, i. 94.
French Protestants, contributions for, i. 102;
warmly entertained in England and Scotland, 163.
FRENDRAUGHT and ROTHIEMAY, dispute between, ii. 45-50, 76-79, 84,
98.
FRENDRAUGHT, Lady, falls under discipline of presbytery of
Strathbogie, ii. 158-160;
persecution of, 335.
Frolics and masqueradings, i. 327-329.
Frosts, great, in 1570-1-2-3, i. 72, 84, 457;
freezing of several rivers in Scotland; a fair held upon the ice
on the Thames, 409.
Frost of 1683, ii. 454.
Gallow-lee, five _phanatiques_ hanged at the, ii. 428.
GEDDES, Jenny, supposed heroine who cast the first stool at the
bishop, ii. 103.
GEDDIE, John, his novel bee-house, ii. 323.
General Assembly, fasts for _steerage_ from papists, i. 196;
held in 1608, 416.
Covenanting assembly at Glasgow, ii. 106;
suppression of, by order of Cromwell, 221, 222.
GER, John Dhu, an outlaw, outrages of, ii. 121, 128, 135, 263.
German legions, unscrupulous recruiting of, in Scotland, ii. 13.
GIBB, Muckle John, chief of the Sweet Singers of Borrowstounness,
ii. 415.
GIBSON, Alexander, kidnapped, i. 355.
----, Anna, abduction of, ii. 319.
GILDEROY, with nine caterans, executed, ii. 96-98.
GILLON, James, condemned for a riot, i. 9.
Gipsies, their first appearance in Scotland; act against, i. 84;
severities against, six hanged, 476;
their harbourage at Roslin, 539.
Edict against, ii. 54;
some in Haddington jail, ordered to be hanged and drowned, 99.
_Girdle_ for baking invented in Culross, ii. 493.
GIRVANMAINS, Laird of, kills M‘Alexander of Drumachryne, i. 310,
311.
GLADSTANES, Archbishop, his cook killed, i. 431.
GLADSTANES, Marion, nearly poisons Nicolas Johnston, ii. 92.
GLAMMIS and CRAWFORD, feud between, i. 117, 118.
GLAMMIS, Lords, and LINDSAYS of Forfarshire, feud between, i. 312,
313.
GLANVIL’S _Saducismus Triumphatus_, ii. 476.
Glasgow, an earthquake in, i. 64;
Smith’s excerpts from burgh records, 88-92;
attempt to demolish its cathedral, 122, 123;
tumult in 1606, 395-399.
Great fire at, ii. 216;
interesting incidents connected with, 244, 245, 247;
another fire at, 389;
a cloth manufactory set up in, 445;
subscription for a fire at Kelso, 458.
Glass-manufacture, patent granted for, i. 432.
----work in Wemyss, Fife, the first known in Scotland, i. 510, 511.
GLEN, James, fined for publishing the _Root of Romish Ceremonies_,
ii. 490.
GLENCAIRN and EGLINTOUN, Earls of, feud between, i. 394, 395.
Glengoner, gold-digging in, i. 18, 152, 253.
_Glenluce, Devil of_, incidents in history of the, ii. 228-232.
_Gloucester_ frigate, shipwreck of the, ii. 405, 439.
_God and the King_, a book so called, i. 474.
_God’s Blessing_, a shaft of Hilderstone silver-mine so called, i.
412.
GOGAR, MILLER, and SANGSTER, hanged, ii. 422.
Gold and silver, licence to search for, i. 50.
----, exportation of, forbidden, i. 107.
---- mines in Lanarkshire, i. 17, 50, 152, 253.
_Golden Assembly_, why so called, i. 428.
Goldsmiths, the Edinburgh, historic importance of, i. 253.
_Goodman’s Croft_, the, act against, i. 324, 325.
GORDON, Adam, sets fire to Alex. Forbes’s house, and burns his
lady, children, and servants--twenty-seven in all, i. 75.
GORDON, Adam, and FRANCIS HAY, combat between, i. 468.
GORDON and MACKAY, strife between, and Earl of Caithness, i.
440-443.
GORDON, Jean, _divorcée_ of Bothwell; her coal and salt works at
Brora, i. 302.
Pleasing character of, ii. 30.
GORDON, Lord, commander of French Scots Guards, i. 535, 536.
His commission against excommunicated papists, ii. 36-41.
GORDON, Mr James, a Jesuit, James VI. reasons with, i. 182.
GORDON of Craig, banished for papistry, i. 545, 546.
His petition to the Council, ii. 38;
petitions Charles I., 59.
GORDON of Dunkintie and his eldest son slain, ii. 69.
GORDON of Enbo, his quarrel with Sutherland of Duffus, ii. 5, 6.
GORDON of Gight, revenges his brother’s death, i. 468.
GORDONS OF GIGHT, persecuted for papistry,
i. 352, 353, 403, 404;
outrage by, at Turriff, 354;
strange act at Aberdeen, 468.
GORDON of Rothiemay and CRICHTON of Frendraught, dispute between,
ii. 45-50, 76-79, 84.
GORDON, Sir Robert, sent against Earl of Caithness, i. 536-538.
GORDON, William, his contempt of presbytery, ii. 160.
Go-summer and go-har’st, definition of, ii. _n._ 79.
GOULD, Mr William, his representations to Council against papists,
ii. 59, 60.
GOURLAY, Agnes, punished for charming the milk of kine, ii. 188.
GOURLAY, John, customer, i. 195.
----, Robert, punished for exporting grain, i. 93;
Regent Morton confined in his house, 143;
king lives in same house, 255;
illustration, 554.
GOWDIE, Isobel, the witch, her confession, ii. 286-291.
GOWRIE, Earl of, arrives with his brother in Edinburgh from Padua,
i. 313;
their attempt on life of James VI., 319.
Gowrie treason, anniversary of, a holiday, i. 408.
_Grace, Act of_, its effects, ii. 225.
GRAHAM, Bessie, executed for witchcraft, ii. 187, 188.
GRAHAM, Helen, an heiress, abduction of, i. 470.
GRAHAM, Mr John, of Hallyards, and Sir JAMES SANDILANDS, litigation
between, i. 245.
GRAHAM of Claverhouse, imports cloth for his soldiers, ii. 419;
entreats mild punishment for ordinary crimes, 461;
his conduct at the Revolution, 473.
GRAHAM of Duchrae, his encounter with Earl of Airth, ii. 309.
GRAHAM of Inchbrakie, postmaster-general for Scotland, ii. 316, 317.
GRAHAM, Patrick, Captain of Town Guard of Edinburgh, ii. 420, 438.
GRAHAM, Richard, a wizard, worried and burnt at Cross of Edinburgh,
i. 235.
Grain and fruit, abundance of, ii. 293.
GRAINGER, Mrs, saves the Scottish regalia, ii. 214.
GRANT, memoir of the family of; traditionary anecdote, i. _n._ 234.
GRANT of Carron and GRANT of Ballindalloch, feud between, ii. 50-54.
GRANT, younger of Ballindalloch, presents M‘Grimmen’s head to the
Council, ii. 85.
GRAY, James, his forcible abduction of the daughter of John
Carnegie, i. 222.
GRAY, James, a lieutenant in the Midlothian Militia, beheaded, ii.
395.
GREG, John, singular persecution of, ii. 99.
GREGOR, Clan, proclamation against, i. 524.
_Greybeard_, a Dutchman, works valleys of Wanlock-head for gold, i.
51.
Greyfriars, influence of, i. 3.
GRIEVE, a maltman, murdered by his son, ii. 293.
GRIEVE, Thomas, accused of curing disease by witchcraft, i. 540,
541.
GUELDRES, Mary de, re-interment of her supposed remains, i. _n._
222.
GUILD, William, convicted of stealing, i. 14.
_Guinea_, a gold coin so called, ii. 114.
Gunpowder, manufacture of, ii. 11.
---- Plot, general joy in Scotland at detection of, i. 391.
GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS, 6000 Scots go to assistance of, ii. 55-57.
GUTHRIE, Bishop, preaches before Charles I., ii. 67.
GUTHRIE, James,beheaded; anecdotes of, ii. 275-277.
GUTHRIE, John, minister of Perth, marries a couple of thirteen, i.
505.
GUTHRY, Helen, admonishes James VI. of his duty, i. 236, 237.
Hackney-coach licensed between Leith and Edinburgh, ii. 264.
HAITLY of Mellerstanes, slain by his father-in-law, i. 372.
_Halkit Stirk_, a Highland robber so called, apprehended by Laird
of Grant, ii. 263;
committed to the Tolbooth, 343.
_Halley’s Comet_ in 1682, ii. 414.
Hallucinations, curious religious, ii. 313-315.
HAMILTON, a soldier, resolves to challenge Captain Bruce, i. 549.
HAMILTON, Alexander, a warlock, worried and burnt, ii. 32, 33.
HAMILTON, Archibald, a spy for Cromwell, hanged in chains, ii. 205.
HAMILTON, David, younger of Bothwell-haugh, complaint against, i.
347.
HAMILTON, James,of Bothwell-haugh, shoots the Regent Moray, i. 60.
HAMILTON, John, archbishop, keeps up the rites of the Catholic
church, i. 23;
hanged at Stirling, 73.
HAMILTON, Lords John and Claud; their conduct to old Carmichael and
Laird of Westerhall, i. 99.
HAMILTON, Lord John, his narrow escape from town-guards’ volley of
honour, i. 238.
HAMILTON, Marquis (subsequently Duke) of, raises 6000 Scots for
Gustavus Adolphus, ii. 55-57;
his expedition in 1648, 113, 170.
HAMILTON, Mr Robert, minister of St Andrews, writes down Knox’s
prediction about Kirkaldy of Grange, i. 85.
HAMILTON, Patrick, his attack on Abacuck Bisset, i. 180.
HAMILTONS of Livingstone, lawless acts of, i. 258.
Hammerman, an Edinburgh, 1555, illustration, i. 10.
_Hand-fasting_, a custom so called, i. 335.
_Hardheads_, base coin so called in Scotland, act against, i. 101.
Hares, singular visit of, to city of Edinburgh, ii. 228.
HART and NORTON, booksellers, petition for liberty to import German
books duty-free, i. 194.
HART, Andro, printer of Napier’s Logarithms, i. 455.
HART, John, printer, his edition of the Bible, ii. 41.
Harvests, plentiful, ii. 222, 226.
Hawking, James VI.’s love of this sport, i. 391.
HAY, Francis, and ADAM GORDON, combat between, i. 468.
HAY, Lord, of Yester, his conduct to Brown of Frosthill, i. 256.
HAY, Lord, of Yester, brother of the preceding, his widow founds a
church in Edinburgh, i. _n._ 264.
HAY, Margaret, forcible abduction of, i. 223.
Heiresses under twelve years, fines for marrying, ii. 251.
HENDERSON, Robert, a baxter’s boy, burnt for fire-raising, i. 155.
HENDERSON, Robert, his wonderful cures, i. 24.
HEPBURN, George, his duel with Brown of Hartree, i. 264, 265.
HEPBURN, Robert, a partisan of Queen Mary, i. 68.
HEPBURN, James, of Moreham, his duel with Birnie, a skinner in
Edinburgh, i. 285.
HEPBURN, Thomas, murder of, ii. 284.
Heraldry, Scottish touchiness regarding, i. 393.
HERES, Peter Groot, a German, receives a licence for paper-making,
i. 194.
HERIOT, George, founder of Heriot’s Hospital, i. 253.
HERIOT, William, becomes cautioner for repentance of George Heriot,
i. 59.
Heriot’s Hospital, solemn dedication of, ii. 253;
barber-chirurgeon dispute, 342.
Hermaphrodite, a, hanged at Edinburgh, ii. 220.
HERTSYDE, Margaret, her prosperity and adversity, i. 412.
Hesse’s eldest son, Landgrave of, visits Edinburgh, i. 530.
HIGGINS, an Englishman, reprints the _Mercurius Politicus_ at
Leith, ii. 272.
High Commission Court established, i. 428.
---- School boys of Edinburgh, mutiny of, i. 261-264.
Illiberality of master of, to private teachers, ii. 426.
Highland and Border incursions, i. 310.
---- bowmen, Charles I. raises a small troop of, ii. 14.
Highland _spraichs_, ii. 262.
Highlanders, pure loyalty of the, ii. 178, 179.
Highlands, rude condition of, i. 164, 378; ii. 306-311.
Scarcity of schools in, 179.
Hilderstone silver-mines, i. 411, 412.
Hill, a musician, his abduction of Marion Foulis, ii. 227.
Hirsel, tragical incident at the, ii. 455.
HOGG, James, account of ‘Thirteen Drifty Days,’ ii. 366.
Holidays and popular plays, i. 326, 327.
Holland, war with, causes stagnation of trade, ii. 302.
HOLSTEIN, Duke of, visits Scotland, i. 298.
Holyrood and Falkland, improvements on the palaces of, for king’s
visit, i. 476.
Holyrood Palace, as before the Fire of 1650, illustration, ii. 205;
a popish chapel, college, and printing-office in, 483.
HOME, David, of Wedderburn; his son’s portraiture of, i. 95-99.
HOME, Jean, of Ayton, her abduction and marriage to George Home,
ii. 390.
HOME, Lady, of Manderston, tried for witchcraft, ii. 33.
HOME, Lord; slaughter of Bailie Lauder, i. 300.
HOME, Sir George, of Wedderburn; sketch of his character by David
of Godscroft, i. 119-122.
HOME, William, stabs Johnston of Hilton, ii. 455.
HOPE, Sir Thomas, extracts from his Diary, ii. 148.
HOPPRINGLES and ELLIOTS in Edinburgh, day of law between, i. 71.
Horse, exhibition of a dancing, ii. 247.
Horse-racing in Scotland, early practice of, i. 103, 410, 514.
Every Saturday at Leith, ii. 273.
Horses, act preventing exportation of, i. 47.
House-painter craves permission to set up in Glasgow, ii. 247.
HUME, Sir Patrick, of Polwarth, his remarkable hiding-place and
escape, ii. 464-467.
Huntingtower Well, supposed sanative qualities of, i. 322.
HUNTLY, fifth Earl of, his mysterious death, i. 103-106.
HUNTLY, sixth Earl (subsequently first Marquis) of, marriage to
Lady Henrietta Stuart, i. 184;
slaughter of Bonny Earl of Moray, 230-236;
makes his peace with the kirk at Aberdeen, 288;
his rental sheet, 315-317;
excommunicated as an apostate papist, 417;
relieved from excommunication, 429;
Orders of Privy Council against, ii. 20-28, 36-41;
his death and character, 89-92.
HUNTLY, Marchioness of, her mourning procession to Charles I., ii.
69;
persecuted and exiled as a Catholic, 139.
HUNTLY, second Marquis of, marriages of his daughters, ii. 134;
beheaded, 178.
HUNTLY, fourth Marquis of, decree ordering him to be separated from
his mother, ii. 311.
Idolatry, act against, i. 147.
Illusions of sight and sound, curious, ii. 313-315.
Importation of goods, decree against, i. 458.
‘Incest,’ trials, and severe punishment of cases so called, ii. 28,
29.
Independents in civil war, ii. 111.
_Indian Emperor_, Dryden’s prologue to the, ii. 404.
INGLIS, Esther, her beautiful handwriting, i. 550.
INNES, Alexander, slays Innes of Peithock; beheaded, i. 110-112.
INNES, tragedy, the, i. 134-137.
Insane, treatment of the, in past times, ii. 424.
Interregnum, 1649-1660, ii. 174-254.
Inundation and violent tempest, memorable, ii. 17.
Invasion, alarm of, from vessels in Firth of Forth, ii. 15;
fear of, 18;
by the Dutch fleet, 318.
Inverness-shire, sad account of, in 1666, ii. 308.
IRELAND, Alexander, minister of Kincleven, his complaint against
Sir John Crichton, of Innernytie, i. 390.
_Irish Ague_, an epidemic so called, ii. 199.
Irish beggars, order against, ii. 34.
---- rebellion, anecdote of Charles I., ii. 141.
‘Iron yetts’ of the Border thieves, i. 401.
IRVINE of Drum, his dispute with presbytery of Aberdeen, ii.
210-212.
IRVING, Francis, imprisoned in the Edinburgh Tolbooth for a papist
riot, ii. 338-340.
ISLAY and KINTYRE, Lords of, tale of commotion between, i. 164-168.
JACK, Robert, merchant, hanged for coining, i. 48.
JAFFRAY, Alexander, an Aberdeen magistrate, ii. 96.
JAFFRAY, Grizzel, executed for witchcraft; affecting anecdote of
her son, ii. 330.
JAMES VI., his birthplace, i. 38;
writes to lords of secret council, 122;
his formal visit to Edinburgh, 126, 129-131;
sets up the doctrine of the divine right of kings, 127;
a _guise_ or _fence_ played before him at St Andrews, 138;
his gay mood after Morton’s death, 146;
policy with French ambassadors, 151;
his _Essayes of a Prentise in the Divine Art of Poesie_, 154;
his opinion of the pest, 154;
anecdote of Bothwell-haugh, 163;
orders prayers for his mother, 170;
his grief at her death, 171;
his visit to St Andrews with Du Bartas the French poet, and
disputation with Andrew Melville, 173-175;
his attempt to reconcile his nobles, 177, 178;
writes to Denmark about grain, 179;
reasons with Mr James Gordon, a Jesuit, 182;
anecdote of Spanish Armada, 185;
in expectation of his Danish bride, writes pressing letters for
contributions, 192-200;
sets sail for Denmark to bring her home, 193;
his arrival with the queen at Leith, 196;
her reception in Edinburgh, 196-199;
supposed groundwork of his _Demonology_, 212,
quoted, 306;
his imbecility amidst his rude courtiers, 221;
remonstrates with two Edinburgh ministers, 224;
admonished by James Davidson, minister, for failures in
king-craft, 227;
his grudge against the ministers, 236;
admonished by Helen Guthry, 236;
Earl of Bothwell’s first, second, and third attempts to seize his
person, 229, 237, 238;
commissions Lord Ochiltree to seize the house of Row as a
manufactory of false coin, 239;
anecdote of courtship of Earl of Mar, 243;
again in bad odour with clergy, 243-245;
scene with Bothwell in his chamber at Holyrood, 250, 251;
Thomas Foulis his Bank of England, 253;
his queen delivered of a prince, 255;
his fear of Bothwell, 255;
inconstancy of his favour to Countess of Bothwell, 264;
his proclamation against forestallers, 266;
attempts to reconcile his hostile nobles, 266, 267;
admonitions from clergy, 267, 268;
his edict against, 275;
its consequences, 276, 277;
revokes commissions against witchcraft, 291;
Melville’s _Dix-huitaine_, 291;
hangs a number of Border thieves, 293;
his debts to Edinburgh goldsmiths, 294, 95;
nearly drowned on returning to Falkland from a General Assembly,
314;
Gowrie conspiracy, 319;
his restriction on number of persons entering Stirling Castle,
320;
letter to laird of Dundas, 322;
made a burgess of Perth, 348;
poinding of his and the queen’s portraits, 349;
his proclamation at Dumfries, 368;
death of Queen Elizabeth, 381;
his fondness of hawking, 391, 392;
his unfortunate silver-mine adventure, 411, 412;
his episcopal innovations, 415-417;
persecution of Catholics, 421, 422;
encourages cloth-making, 425;
orders keeping of Christmas-day, 426;
acknowledged head of the Kirk, 428;
his reply about ‘beggarly Scots,’ 433;
unrelenting towards satirists, 453;
his ideas of free-trade, 459;
Lord Melville’s letter to, 473;
his visit to Scotland, 479-486;
his disputations with Edinburgh professors, 483-485;
anecdote of visit to Culross coal-mines, 485;
his declaration regarding Sunday sports, 491;
his interest in the pearl-fishery, 518;
his _Counterblast to Tobacco_, 532;
his letter to his Scottish councillors about _liberty of
conscience_, 533;
his picture falls from hall of Linlithgow Palace, 536;
his death, 552.
JAMES VII., his residence at Holyroodhouse, ii. 403;
gives balls, plays, and masquerades, 404;
plays golf on Leith Links, 405;
Mons Meg fired in honour of, 409;
his act for encouragement of trade and manufactures, 417;
Earl of Roscommon’s prologue to, 429;
nearly drowned, 439;
flies to France, 494.
JAMESON, George, the Scottish portrait-painter, ii. 62, 63.
Jedburgh, attempt made to proclaim Queen Mary at, i. 75.
Jesuits in Scotland, i. 182;
fast held for discovery of, 465, 466.
JOHNSTON, Agnes, executed for murder of her grand-niece, ii. 367.
JOHNSTON, Janet, excommunicated; anecdote of her _accouchement_,
ii. 19.
JOHNSTON, Laird of, and Lord John Maxwell, feud between, i. 155,
251, 301.
JOHNSTON, Laird of, shot by Lord Maxwell, i. 410.
JOHNSTON, Nicolas, Marion Gladstanes nearly poisons, ii. 92.
JOHNSTON of Hilton, stabbed by William Home, ii. 455.
JOHNSTON, Sir Archibald, his prayers, ii. 148;
executed, 256.
JONSON, Ben, his visit to Scotland, i. 499-503.
JOP, Peter, a sailor, his petition to Privy Council on behalf of
his papist wife, ii. 140.
_Jougs_, James Middleton threatened with the, ii. 160;
illustration, 501.
Jugglers and the steeple-trick, i. 303.
_Kate the Witch_ assails Sir F. Walsingham, i. 152.
KEITH, Robert, attempts to take forcible possession of the Abbey of
Deir, i. 209.
KELLO, John, minister of Spott, executed for the murder of his
wife, i. 68.
Kelso burnt down in 1645, ii. 163;
again in 1684, 457.
KENMURE, Lord, a partisan of Charles II., ii. 222.
KENNEDY, a notary in Galloway, mysterious circumstance regarding,
i. 492.
KENNEDY of Bargeny and Earl of Cassillis, dispute between, i. 311,
360-363.
KENNEDY, Quentin, disputation with John Knox at Maybole, i. 21.
KENNEDY, Sir Thomas, of Colzean, his feud with Mure of Auchindrain,
i. 277, 360-363, 366-368, 435-437.
KER, James, a barber, his petition, ii. 399.
---- of Kersland, leader of an Edinburgh mob for burning popish
relics, ii. 500.
KERR, a blacksmith, hanged, i. 385.
---- of Cessford, act of penitence for murder of Scott of
Buccleuch, i. 27.
KERR, Robert, younger of Cessford, his encounter with Earl of
Bothwell, i. 251.
KERR, Thomas, killed by Turnbull at Jedburgh, i. 320.
KILBIRNIE, Lady, and her husband, die of a pestilential fever, ii.
409.
Kilmarnock completely destroyed by fire in 1668, ii. 321.
KILPONT, Lord, his dispute with Ardvoirlich, ii. 154-156.
KINCAID, John, of Craig House, fined 2500 merks for abduction of
Isobel Hutcheon, i. 223.
KINCAID, John, a _pricker_ of witches, ii. 278, 285.
KINCAID of Warriston, murdered at instigation of his wife, i. 317.
_Kindness_, a sickness so called, i. 137.
King, clergy cease praying for the, ii. 235.
_Kingdom’s Intelligencer_, remarkable advertisement in the, ii. 272.
King’s evil, Charles I. touches 100 persons for, ii. 67.
_Kinmont Willie_, Buccleuch’s gallant relief of, i. 269-271.
KINNOUL, first Earl of, his funeral-procession, ii. 88.
KINTAIL, Mackenzie (subsequently Lord) of, a royal commission given
to him and retracted, i. 256;
bond of friendship with Earl of Huntly, 316;
his quarrel with Macdonald of Glengarry, 369-372;
his dispute with Macleod of Raasay, 437-439;
obtains possession of island of Lewis, 424.
KINTYRE and ISLAY, Lords, tale of commotion between, i. 164-170.
KIRK, Robert, minister of Aberfoyle, his translations and Essay on
Fairies, &c., ii. 361-363.
KIRKALDY of Grange, his defence of Edinburgh Castle, i. 82;
hanged by Regent Morton, 85-87.
KIRKE, Thomas, account of Scotland by, ii. 407.
KIRKPATRICK, younger, of Closeburn, Lady Amisfìeld contrives his
escape from prison, i. 427.
KIRKTON, Rev. James, his praise of the morals of Scotland in 1650,
ii. 197.
KNOX, John--disputation at Maybole, i. 21;
his second marriage, 28;
ridiculous rumours about, 69;
Melville’s recollections of, 74;
his prediction of Kirkaldy of Grange’s death, 85-87.
Lamb, its use forbidden by Privy Council, i. 458.
_Lamentation of Lady Scotland_, i. 79.
LAMMIE, Captain, his ensign of white taffety, i. _n._ 155.
Lanark, presbytery of, its severity with the Douglas family, ii.
191;
deals with eleven witches, 194, 195.
Largo, expense of building a hospital at kirk-town of, ii. 302, 303.
LASCARY, a Grecian priest, visits Scotland, ii. 395.
Latin, a licence required to teach, ii. 426.
LAUDER, William, murder of, i. 300.
LAUDERDALE, Earl (subsequently Duke) of, his account of the
possessed woman of Dunse, ii. 43, 44;
great influence of, 348;
a beggar stabbed at his funeral, 447.
LAWSON and CATHKIN oppose Episcopalian principles, i. 512.
LAWSON, Sir James, of Humbie, drowned, i. 439.
Lawsuits, curious custom regarding, i. 434.
LAWTIE, David, writer, attacked by Thomas Douglas, i. 72.
Lead-mines of Lanarkshire, i. 254, 290.
LEARMONT of Balcomie, anecdote of, i. _n._ 309.
Leather, tanning of, its introduction, i. 516.
Ornamental, ii. 427.
_Lee Penny_ or _curing-stone_, of Lockhart of Lee, ii. 31.
LEES, Thomas, burnt as a wizard, i. 280.
_Legend of Montrose_, original story of, ii. 154-156.
LEITCH, Andrew, minister of Ellon, strange visions of, ii. 147.
Leith, English judicature at, ii. 215;
a whale at, 218;
revenue of port in 1656, 248.
Leith Roads, sea-fight between a Spanish ship and two Dutch
waughters in, i. 529.
LENNOX and MAR, Regents; Lennox’s oration to the nobility at the
parliament of Stirling, i. 76;
death of Mar, 81.
LENNOX, Duke of, forced to leave the kingdom, i. 148.
LENNOX, young Duke of, his abduction of Lady Sophia Ruthven, i. 222.
Leprosy, its early prevalence in Scotland, i. 226.
LESLIE and M‘KAY raise men for Bohemian army, ii. 9-11.
LESLIE, Capuchin, called the ‘Archangel,’ his character, ii. 40, 41.
LESLIE, George, and Master of Forbes, fight between, ii. 134.
LESLIE, George, sheriff-clerk of Inverness-shire, his petition, ii.
307, 308.
Letter-post, establishment in Scotland of a regular, ii. 85-87.
LEVEN, Earl of, a funeral-sermon preached for, ii. 299.
Lewis, attempts to plant Lowlanders in, i. 308, 309, 388, 389, 424.
LEYS, Tutor of, a Quaker, his nephew restored to him, ii. 313.
Libel, repentance made in church for, i. 372.
Licentious conduct, church-discipline with, i. 334-336.
LIDDELL, Katharine, persecuted as a witch, ii. 396.
Liddesdale, thieves of, i. 43-45.
Life-guard, a royal, embodied under the command of Earl of
Newburgh, ii. 274.
Light-house on Isle of May established, i. 522.
Lime used for manure in East-Lothian, ii. 398.
Lincluden Church, popish service in, in 1587, i. 172.
LINDSAY, Mr David, minister of Leith; his mission from Knox to
Kirkaldy of Grange, i. 86, 87.
LINDSAY, Skipper, warns Morton of his doom, i. 138.
LINDSAY, Thomas, stabbed by William Douglas, ii. 439-442.
LINDSAYS of Forfarshire and Lords Glammis, feud between, i. 312,
313.
Linen manufacture of Scotland, ii. 421, 427.
Linlithgow, extraordinary demonstration at, on Charles II.’s
birthday, ii. 291, 292.
LINTON, Lord, fined £5000 Scots for marrying an excommunicated
papist, ii. 189.
Lioness and lamb, exhibited in Edinburgh, ii. 298.
LITHGOW and CARNEGIE, Lords, duel of, ii. 305.
LIVINGSTON and CARSE, Lairds of, strange appearance seen on their
lands, i. 431.
LIVINGSTON, Jean, beheaded by the Maiden for murder of her husband,
i. 317.
LIVINGSTONE, John, of Belstane, a barbarous assault upon, i. 156.
LIVINGSTONE, John; remarkable administration of the communion, ii.
41, 42;
his courtship, 79, 80;
banishment of, 281.
LOCHNELL, Laird of, shot by Duncan Macgregor, ii. 310.
LOCKHART, John, of Bar, outlawed for breaking images in kirk of
Ayr, &c., i. 49.
LOCKHART, Sir George, murdered by Chiesley of Dalry, ii. 495.
LOGAN, Robert, of Restalrig, his contract with Napier of
Merchiston, i. 257.
LOGIE, Laird of, assaulted in presence of James VI., i. 221.
Lord’s Supper, repugnance of the people to kneeling at the, ii. 19.
LORN, Thomas, accused of wandering from his family, i. 305.
Lottery-adventure authorised in 1671, ii. 341.
LOVAT, Lord, liberal hospitality of, i. 208.
_Love-philters_, supposed effects of, ii. 227.
LOW, Elizabeth, an excrescence eleven inches long cut from her
forehead, ii. 342.
LUMSDEN, Margaret, the possessed woman of Dunse, ii. 43, 44.
LUNDIE, Laird of, his funeral-procession, ii. 300.
M‘ALEXANDER of Drumachryne, killed by Laird of Girvanmains, i.
310, 311.
MAC-ALLISTER, a cateran, anecdote of his attack on church of
Thurso, ii. 190.
M‘BIRNIE, John, his character, i. 457.
M‘CALL, Marion, tried for drinking the devil’s health, ii. 345.
M‘CALYEAN, Eupham, charge against her, i. 39;
burned for witchcraft, 217.
MAC CONNEL, Sir James, a great man in Ireland, visits Scotland, i.
286.
M‘CULLOCH, Sir Alexander, his assaults on Lady Cardiness, ii. 321.
MACDONALD, Lord, his thief-taking commission, ii. 382.
MACDONALD of Glengarry and Kenneth Mackenzie of Kintail, quarrel
between, i. 369-372.
M‘GIE, a mirror-maker, his petition, ii. 396.
M‘GILL of Rankeillour, exiled for murder, petition of, ii. 424-426.
MACGREGOR of Glenstrae, with twelve of his clan, hanged on one
gallows, i. 383.
MACGREGOR, Patrick Roy, and his band, executed, ii. 306, 307.
MACGREGOR, Robin Abroch, anecdote of, i. 444, 445.
MACGREGORS, their barbarous slaughter of Drummond-ernoch, i. 195;
battle with Colquhouns, 377;
proclamation against, 524.
MACKAY and GORDON, strife between, and Earl of Caithness, i.
440-443.
M‘KAY and LESLIE raise men for Bohemian army, ii. 9-11.
MACKENZIE, John, of Kintail, i. 20.
----, Kenneth. See _Kintail, Mackenzie of_.
MACKER, Alexander, and six others, drowned for piracy, i. 52.
MACKINTOSH, chief of the Clan; his zeal in behalf of clergy, i. 289.
M‘LEANS and others, tortured for witchcraft, ii. 293, 294.
MACLEANS, Argyle’s letter of fire and sword against the, ii. 370,
372.
M‘LEOD of Assynt, petition of, ii. 271.
MACLEOD of the Lewis, banished to Holland, i. 389.
MACLEOD of Raasay, his dispute with Mackenzie of Kintail, i.
437-439.
MACMORAN, Bailie John, shot by Sinclair, son of the Chancellor of
Caithness, i. 262;
illustration of his house, 263.
M‘QUEEN, John, an Edinburgh minister, scandal against, ii. 454.
M‘RONALD of Gargarach, outrages of, i. 503.
Machar Kirk, removal of memorials of ancient worship from, ii. 136.
Machines, Peter Bruce receives patents for various, ii. 408.
_Maiden_, the, illustration of, i. 144, 145.
MAITLAND, Sir Richard, of Lethington, his description of thieves of
Liddesdale, i. 44.
_Malignants_, persecution of, ii. 108, 173.
MAN, Andrew, convicted of warlockry, i. 281.
MAN, Lawrence, a boy of sixteen, beheaded, i. 386.
_Manatus_, supposed appearance of one in Water of Don, ii. 87.
Manners, traits of, i. 342-345.
_Manred_, definition of the term, i. 77;
many connected with Huntly family, 315.
Maps and charts of Scotland, Adair’s, ii. 483-485.
MAR and LENNOX, Regencies of, 1570-2.
See _Lennox_ and _Mar_.
MAR, Dowager-countess of, extracts from her household book, ii.
117-119.
MAR, seventh Earl of, his marriage to Mary, daughter of Duke of
Lennox, i. 243.
His death, ii. 83.
MARENTINI, a travelling quack-doctor, his petition, ii. 383.
MARISCHAL, George, fourth Earl of, extent of his lands, i. 209;
death of his lady, 301.
Market-cross, marriage-parties dance round, i. 337.
Market-cross of Edinburgh, foundation of new, i. 479.
Markets, interference with, i. 94, 241, 265, 303, 345, 458; ii. 489.
Marroco, the wonderful horse, i. 271.
MARY DE GUISE, i. 7.
----, Queen, her early reign, i. 7;
arrival of at Leith, 11;
a conspiracy against her, 19;
hunting visit to Athole, 29;
her harp, 31;
progress in Fife, 32;
her marriage to Darnley, 35;
her abduction, 36, 41;
her death, 170;
a pleasant anecdote of, 180.
Masqueradings and frolics, i. 327-329.
Mass, General Assembly exhort the suppression of, i. 172;
William Barclay and others, banished for attending, 349;
denounced as rebels, 359, 360;
mass performed in Edinburgh, 451.
Fourteen wives of Dumfries tradesmen imprisoned for hearing, ii.
72, 73.
MATHIE, Janet, burned as a witch, ii. 377-379.
MAULD, Patrick, gets a patent for making soap, ii. 80.
MAXWELL, John, minister of Edinburgh, ii. 66, 67.
MAXWELL, Lord John, and Laird of Johnston, feud between, i. 155,
252, 296.
MAXWELL of Garrarie and his son, beheaded for treason, i. 510.
MAXWELL of Pollock, witch-conspiracy against, ii. 376-379.
MAXWELL, young Lord, his escape from Edinburgh Castle, i. 409;
kills Laird of Johnston, 410;
beheaded, 446, 447.
_Maxwell’s, Lord, Handfasting_, i. 78, 79.
May-pole dancing in Scotland, i. 491, 492.
MEAN, John, a zealous Presbyterian, i. 506, 544, 545, 549.
His wife supposed to cast the first stool at the bishop, ii. 103;
becomes master of the Edinburgh Post-office, 189;
his son condemned as a spy for Cromwell, 206.
MEAN, Robert, appointed post-master at Edinburgh on Restoration,
ii. 263, 264;
his weekly diurnal, 284;
complaint against, 316, 317;
sent to the Tolbooth, 399;
his false report, 476.
MELDRUM, John, executed on suspicion of setting fire to tower of
Frendraught Castle, ii. 46-50.
MELDRUM of Haltoun, his conduct under ban of the horn, i. 527.
MELDRUM, younger, of Dumbreck; his capture of Gibson of Durie, i.
355-357.
MELGUM, Viscount, burnt in tower of Frendraught Castle, ii. 47-50.
MELGUM, Viscountess, attack of the Clan Cameron on her Castle of
Aboyne, ii. 128-134.
MELVILLE, Andrew, his courageous conduct in protesting against
Episcopacy, i. 128;
his nephew’s picture of, 133;
his disputes with James VI. at St Andrews, 175-177, 290;
disputation on witch-transportation, 305;
his tirade against Balcomie, _n._ 309.
MELVILLE, James; his recollections of Knox, Collace, &c., i. 73-75,
87;
his picture of four Edinburgh ministers, 132;
picture of his uncle, 133;
description of Regent Morton’s last days, 143, 144;
reception by, of mariners of Spanish Armada, 186-189;
his _Dix-huitaine_ on James VI., 292;
his notice of a fiery globe, 386.
MELVILLE, Lady, of Garvock, drowned, i. 193.
----, Sir Robert, congratulates James VI. on improvement in the
social state of Scotland, i. 473.
MENAINVILLE, De, a French ambassador, i. 150, 151.
MENZIES of Culdares, his dispute with Earl of Argyle, ii. 310.
MENZIES, Thomas, a papist, his petition, ii. 72.
_Mercurius Caledonius_, first original newspaper attempted in
Scotland, notices from, ii. 267, 271.
Mermaids seen at Pitsligo, ii. 88.
Meteors--Battles in the air, i. 26.
METHVEN, Paul, his strange act of penitence, i. 38.
MIDDLETON, Earl of, his administration, ii. 255;
his death and character, 364.
Militia in Scotland, list of, raised by counties and burghs, ii.
162, 163.
MILLER, GOGAR, & SANGSTER, hanged, ii. 422.
Mills, great destruction of water-, ii. 253.
MILNE, Thomas, maker of virginals, i. 507.
Mining by Stewart of Tarlair, i. 28.
Ministers, deposition of, remarks on, ii. 280-282.
Ministers’ stipend, discontent about, i. 552.
Minstrels in Glasgow, i. 90.
_Mirk Mononday_, why so called, ii. 215.
MITCHELL, David, Bishop of Aberdeen, his vicissitudes of fortune,
ii. 297.
MITCHELL, James, shoots Bishop of Orkney, ii. 322;
hanged, 374.
MITCHELSON, a prophetess of the Covenant, ii. 122.
_Mithridates, King of Pontus_,a comedy, acted at Holyroodhouse, ii.
429.
_Monas Prodigiosa_, an animalcule so called, ii. 489.
Money, a restriction to 10 per cent. on, i. 287.
MONK, General, his reception at Edinburgh, ii. 225.
MONMOUTH, Duke of, re-stocks his Scotch estates, ii. 367.
MONRO, Hector, of Foulis, extraordinary trial of, i. 205, 206.
_Monro, his Expeditions_, ii. 10.
MONRO, the Edinburgh hangman, deposed; George Ormiston succeeds,
ii. 461.
MONRO’S list of Scottish officers under command of Gustavus
Adolphus, ii. 56, 57.
Mons Meg, the Water-poet’s notice of, i. 493.
Bursting of, ii. 409;
illustration of, 468.
Monster, an Italian, travels in Scotland, ii. 143.
MONTEATH, Robert, minister of Duddingston, indicted for adultery,
ii. 70;
note on, 501.
MONTGOMERY, Isobel, kept in durance by her sister, i. 471.
MONTGOMERY, Mr Robert, excommunicated, i. 148.
MONTROSE, Earl of, and Sir James Sandilands, street-combat between,
i. 258.
MONTROSE, Marquis of, ii. 109;
heads a Covenanting deputation to Aberdeen, 119;
enforces the signing of the Covenant, 123;
lamentable incident after battle of Tippermuir, 154-156;
demands liberation of Earl of Crawford and Lord Ogilvie, 163, 164;
his death, 200;
his ceremonial funeral at Restoration, 269-271.
Montrose, strange events occur there on the death of the Earl of
Mar, i. 81.
MONYVAIRD and CULTMALINDY, feud between, i. 490.
MOODIE’S legacy, attempted perversion of, ii. 397.
Moon, strange irregularity imputed to the, ii. 61.
MORAY, Bonny Earl of, slaughter of the, i. 230-235;
order for burial of, 296.
MORAY, James, Earl of, his marriage, i. 18;
his difficulty in quieting towns of Perth and Dundee, 48;
diminishes value of hardheads, 48;
his gold and silver licence to De Vois, 50;
his ‘justiceaire,’ 52;
his raid to Jedburgh, 52;
expedition against Border thieves, 60;
his death, 60.
MORPHIE, James, tailor, his letter to Earl of Airly, ii. 168.
MORTIMER, George, a trafficking Jesuit, imprisoned, i. 533.
MORTON, Regent, effects of his rule, i. 82;
takes Edinburgh Castle, 85;
his money-grasping spirit, 87, 88, 99;
his raid against the Border-men, 88;
his act against exporting grain, 93;
no friend to the press, 94;
proclamation against base coin, erects a new mint, and
magnificent palace at Dalkeith, 101;
pungent jest by his fool, Patrick Bonny, 102;
holds justice-courts at Dumfries, 103;
beheads Alexander Innes of that Ilk, 111;
suspends the act against exporting corn, 112;
bribed by Lord Somerville, 114-116;
his fall, 125, 128;
his last days, 143-145;
his head taken down from the Tolbooth, 150.
MORYSON, Fynes, an Englishman, visits Scotland, his observations,
i. 298, 299.
MOSCROP, Patrick, and EUPHAM M‘CALYEAN, marry without permission of
the Kirk, i. 72;
Eupham M‘Calyean burned for witchcraft, 217.
MOSMAN, James, an Edinburgh goldsmith, and others, hanged, i. 85.
Moss, between Falkirk and Stirling, slides over sixteen farms, ii.
35.
Mountebank, German, receives a licence to erect a stage in
Edinburgh, ii. 458.
MOWBRAY, Francis, killed in his endeavour to escape over wall of
Edinburgh Castle, i. 372.
MUDIE, Lizzy, burned for witchcraft, ii. 385.
MUNGO, Murray, his attack on Thomas Sydserf, ii. 324.
MUNRO, General, his attack on Strathbogie, ii. 135.
MURCHISON, Sir Roderick, quoted, i. 51.
MURE, John, of Auchindrain, his feud with Sir Thomas Kennedy of
Colzean, i. 277, 360-363, 366-368;
trial for murder, 435-437.
MURE of Gledstanes, personated by Thomas Bell, ii. 445.
Murrain amongst cattle, severe, ii. 437.
MURRAY of Philiphaugh, his complaint against James Murray, ii. 101.
MURRAY, Sir Robert, of Craigie, founder of the Royal Society, ii.
355-357.
MURRAY, Touran, and six others, shot by Wood [Mad] Andrew Murray
and his confederates, i. 53.
MUSGRAVE of Bewcastle’s combat with Lancelot Carleton, i. 365.
NAISMITH, James, his sermon, preached before Duke of Hamilton, ii.
170.
NAPIER, Archibald; his manure patent, i. 301.
NAPIER, Barbara, an Edinburgh citizen’s wife, tried for witchcraft,
i. 216.
NAPIER, John, of Merchiston, his contract with Logan of Restalrig,
i. 257;
his war inventions, 272;
his complaint to Privy Council, 359;
his dispute with Napiers of Edinbellie, 417;
publication of his work on the logarithms, 455;
visit of Henry Briggs to, 456.
NAPIER, Sir Archibald, of Merchiston, Bishop of Orkney’s letter to,
regarding the plague, i. 55.
NAPIER, William, a Quaker, imprisoned, ii. 344.
NATIONAL COVENANT, the, ii. 105-113;
signing of, 116.
National defences, proposal to fortify Leith, &c., ii. 18.
Naval victory over the Dutch, rejoicings at the great, ii. 303.
NEILL, John, tried for sorcery, ii. 34.
_Nest Egg_, Mr Robert Lowrie so called, ii. 296.
NEVILLE, Nic, a sorcerer, burnt, i. 60.
_New Acquaintance_, a disease so called, i. 22.
Newcastle, pitiful state of, after siege, ii. _n._ 156.
NEWCOMB’S _Mercurius Politicus_, started, ii. 272.
Newmills, cloth-works at, ii. 416-421.
Newspapers overlook Scotland till 1637, ii. 113;
one ordered from London for Glasgow, 245;
an early one (_Mercurius Caledonius_) quoted, 267, 273;
history of, 271;
diurnal of John Mean, 284.
New-year’s Day, act appointing first of January as, i. 309.
NICOL, George, punished for _leasing-making_, ii. 61, 62.
_Night-walkers_, Privy Council acts against, i. 440.
NIMMO, Mrs, beheaded for murder of Lord Forrester, ii. 402.
NISBET, Alie, worried and burnt as a witch, ii. 33.
NISBET of Craigentinny, his duel with Macdougall of Makerston, ii.
446.
NITHSDALE, Earl of, commissioner for revocation of church-lands,
ii. 6, 7;
his domestic arrangements interfered with, 59.
NIVEN, a musician, punished with the pillory, ii. 493.
Noises heard in the air before the civil war, ii. 115.
North Loch, three men drowned in, ii. 434.
Nova Scotia, first colonised by men of Sutherland, i. 525.
Order of baronets, ii. 3.
OCHILTREE, Lord, grudge of Lord Torthorald against, i. 425.
OCHILTREE, Lord, warden of west Border, i. 294.
_Offences in the King’s House_, i. 268.
OGILVIE, John, a Jesuit, hanged, i. 462-465.
----, Lord, of Airly, his complaint against Earl of Argyle, i. 225.
OGILVIE of Barras, defends the Castle of Dunnottar against the
English, ii. 213.
OGILVIE of Forglen and Forbes of Tolquhoun, dispute between, ii.
477.
OGILVY of Craig, his persecution as a papist, ii. 58.
OGLE and PITARROW, younger, Lairds of, combat between, i. 387, 406.
OLIPHANT and RUTHVEN, Lords, feud between, i. 140.
Ominous sounds heard in a seaman’s house in Peterhead, ii. 145.
ORKNEY, Bishop of, shot, ii. 322.
----, Earl of, visits Earl of Sutherland, i. 385.
ORKNEY, John, Master of, tried for alleged attempt on life of Earl
of Orkney, by witchcraft, &c., i. 273.
ORKNEY, Patrick Earl of, beheaded, i. 459-462;
sketch of his style of living, 460.
OSWALD, Katherine, burnt as a witch, ii. 32.
Paisley, horse-races at, i. 513.
Opposition to a clergyman at, ii. 8.
Paper, first manufacture of, designed in Scotland, i. 194.
First established at Dalry, ii. 398.
PAPES, family of the, in Sutherland, prosperity and adversity of,
i. 406-408.
Papistry, Presbyterian measures against, i. 336, 337, 343.
Papists, thought to be regaining confidence, i. 172;
papist nobles driven to extremities, 218;
papists perform mass in Edinburgh, 349;
persecutions of, 353, 359, 389, 403, 415, 421; ii. 20-28, 36-41,
57-60, 145, 211, 335, 499.
Paris butchers of 1856 and Edinburgh poultrymen of 1599, parallel
between, i. 304.
Parliament, riding of, i. 48, 394; ii. 65;
rejoicings at first Scottish, after Restoration, 266-269.
Parturition pains, superstitious belief regarding, i. 39.
Pasch-day, sale of flesh forbidden in Aberdeen on, ii. 144.
Pearl, a large one found in the Ythan, i. 517;
proclamation for preservation of the fishery, 518.
Peebles, assassination at, i. 81;
host assembled at, against Border thieves, 88;
provostry of, usurped by Master of Yester, 168;
James VI. visits, 170;
holds justice-court at, 368;
horse-races at, 410;
street-fight at, 418.
Council books of, quoted, as to solar eclipse, ii. 215;
as to snow-storm, 366;
petition on account of test-act, 429;
mob of women at, 430;
popish furniture and trinkets burned at, 501.
PEEBLES, Thomas, a goldsmith, hanged for coining, i. 26.
PEIRSON, Alison, in Byrehill, burnt for witchcraft, i. 183.
Penny Bridals, i. 337;
General Assembly’s act against, ii. 161, 162;
increase of, 305.
Periwigs in vogue in 1688, ii. 491.
_Perth Kirk-session Records_, quoted, i. 306, 322-347.
Perth, quarrel with Dundee, i. 48;
pest at, 154;
Gowrie treason at, 222, 319;
troubles with Bruce of Clackmannan, 240;
strange frolic at, 328;
holiday amusements at, 326;
Sunday observance at, 331;
king made a burgess of, 348;
1400 armed men raised in, 385;
parliament at, 394;
flood at, 525.
Pest, said to be brought into Edinburgh by James Dalgliesh, a
merchant, i. 53;
regulations regarding, 54;
Dr Skeyne’s treatise on, 54;
2500 persons die of, 56;
remarks regarding cause of, 57;
kirk-session of Edinburgh appoint a fast for, 94;
John Downie’s plague-ship, 139;
James VI.’s inconsistency regarding, 154, 157;
town-council of Edinburgh’s sanitary measure, 155;
breaks out in Edinburgh and Perth, &c.; one-sixth of the entire
population perish by, 157-159;
Melville’s remarkable anecdote of, 159;
days of humiliation for, 182;
plague among the bestial, 218;
17,890 persons die of, in London, 292;
breaks out in Aberdeen and Findhorn, 319;
precautions of Aberdeen council against, 346;
its reappearance in various quarters, 358, 359;
in south of Scotland, 382;
alleged case of, 385;
Chancellor of Dunfermline’s eldest son and niece die of, 388;
general spread and curious treatment of, 399, 400;
in Dundee, Perth, &c., 404, 414, 417;
a vessel from London ordered to discharge cargo at Inchkeith for
fear of, 426;
it again breaks out in Edinburgh, 548.
40,000 persons die of, in London, ii. 4;
breaks out in Cramond, 89;
its appearance after siege of Newcastle, 156;
anecdotes and regulations regarding, 165-168;
great London plague, 303.
Petards, proclamation against, i. 372.
_Phanatiques_, five of them hanged, ii. 427.
PHILIP, Robert, banished for performing mass, i. 451.
PHILO, Joannes Michael, a quack-doctor, miraculous cures of, ii.
347.
PHILORTH, Laird of, and Lord Fraser, dispute between, ii. 99, 100.
_Philotus_, a comedy, first known effort of Scottish muse in this
department of literature, quoted, i. 374-377.
PHIN, Marion, her petition refused, ii. 386.
Pig, monster, farrowed in Edinburgh, i. 76.
_Pilniewinks_, a screw for the fingers, i. 210.
Pirates, Melville’s account of an affair at Anstruther with
English, i. 175, 176;
execution of twenty-seven, 429, 430.
PITARROW and OGLE, younger, Lairds of, combat between, i. 387.
PITTATHROW, Lady, accused of witchcraft, ii. 186.
Plague of London in 1665, Wodrow’s notice of, ii. 303.
See _Pest_.
_Plaiden_ stuffs and _fingrams_, manufacture of, ii. 416.
Plaids, town-council of Edinburgh’s order against ladies wearing,
ii. 54.
Players, an Irish company of, ii. 405.
_Playhouse_ in Edinburgh, the first, ii. 400.
Plays, popular, and holidays, i. 326, 327.
_Pledge chalmer_ at Dumfries, i. 294.
Plumbers, curious trait regarding, ii. 408.
Poland, Lord Cranstoun raises a regiment for king of, ii. 240, 241.
Poland, Scotch merchants threatened with expulsion from, i. 547.
Police of Edinburgh, proclamation against two abuses in, i. 486;
order for cleaning the city, 487.
Improvement of regulations, ii. 212.
_Poltergeist_, a German spirit, ii. 232.
PONTIUS, Doctor, a quack, his visit to Aberdeen, ii. 149;
his exhibitions, 295.
Poor, weekly collections for, i. 346.
Falling off of collections in Glasgow churches, ii. 305.
Pope, Edinburgh apprentices burn him in effigy, ii. 412, 433.
Popery, Privy Council’s orders against persons professing, ii.
20-28.
Popish relics and furniture burnt by an Edinburgh mob, ii. 499-501.
Porpoises, or _pellochs_, thrown ashore on coast of Fife, ii. 220.
Post, the Aberdeen common, i. 346.
From Edinburgh to London, established, ii. 85-87;
between Port-Patrick, Edinburgh, and Carlisle, 142;
arrangements in 1649, 189;
improvement of, at Restoration, 263, 264;
between Edinburgh, Aberdeen, and Inverness, rates of, &c.,
315-317.
_Powder of Sympathy_, receipt for, ii. 228.
_Prap, Sir Robert’s_, a cairn so called, ii. 425.
Presbyterian ministers, the banishment of six, i. 401, 402.
Presbyterian party in civil war, ii. 110.
Presbyterians, their severe discipline in time of the civil war,
ii. 156;
their inconsiderate rigours, 174, 181-185, 190-194;
conduct when paramount in 1650, 196;
extreme rigours with opponents, 209-212, 257, 258, 281, 451, 452,
460, 463-467;
humbled by Cromwell, 221;
severities against them, 280, 349, 353, 427, 448;
act of grace in favour of, its effects, 368.
Presbytery, claim of independence by, its serious consequences, i.
127.
How disposed of at the Restoration, ii. 256.
Press, the Regent Morton’s edict against, i. 93.
PRIMROSE, Patrick, a popish priest, his death, ii. 335-337.
PRINGLE, David, barber-chirurgeon to Heriot’s Hospital, ii. 342.
PRINGLE, Jonet, her marriage with her boy-cousin of thirteen, ii.
481.
PRINGLE, Thomas, his assault on Gavin Thomson, i. 418.
Printing-offices in Edinburgh in 1763, 1790, and 1858, ii. 447.
Printing, rule against unlicensed, enforced, ii. 490.
Privateering against the Dutch, ii. 317, 318.
Privy Council, book of, a review of the nobility and gentry of
Scotland, i. 229;
acts of, against murder, &c., 248;
furious edict of, 274.
Its occasional humanity, ii. 338.
Privy Seal record, strange adventure of, ii. 266.
Proclamation against penny-weddings, &c., ii. 459.
Prophecies regarding Queen Mary, i. 16;
regarding Scots king’s succession to England, 381.
Protections against creditors, Council grants, ii. 341.
Protestant and Papist, supersession of the names, ii. 205.
Protestants expelled from the Palatinate, subscription for 700, ii.
55.
_Protesters_ or _Remonstrators_ of the kirk, ii. 216, 217.
Provost’s ox, the, i. 37.
Psalms, translation of the, introduced into Church of Scotland, ii
199;
Kirk’s Irish and Gaelic, 361.
_Pulices arborescentes_ of Swammerdam, ii. 488.
PURDIE, Marion, imprisoned as a witch, ii. 462.
_Purple Fever_, mortality of the, ii. 299.
PURVES, his death from _extreme cold_, ii. 368.
_Putters_, or short pieces of ordnance, ii. 135.
Quakers, their increase and strange doings, ii. 232-234;
persecution of, 311;
increase of, 343;
the bishop’s complaint against, at Aberdeen, 447.
_Queen’s Chocolate House_, in Edinburgh, Dryden’s play acted at
the, ii. 404.
Rain, great fall of, in Moray-land, ii. 113, 114.
RAMSAY and CLARK, hanged for poisoning their master, ii. 373.
RAMSAY, Thomas, minister of Dumfries, his zeal against popery, ii.
11, 72, 73.
Rats and mice, act favouring machines for catching, i. 429.
RAY, John, the naturalist, his journey into Scotland, ii. 282, 283.
Records of Scotland, interesting notices regarding, ii. 264-266.
Red herrings, privilege of making, granted, i. 443.
_Red Parliament_, Melville’s definition of, i. 394.
_Red-hand_, a butcher taken, and instantly hanged, ii. 381.
REDPATH, George, author of _Answer to the Scots Presbyterian
Eloquence_, ii. 413.
Redshanks, Highlanders so called, i. 2.
_Reek Pennies_, or hearth-money, ii. 212.
Reformation, i. 2, 4.
Regalia of Scotland, interesting anecdote ofthe, ii. 213, 214.
Regals, or rigols, an ancient musical instrument, i. _n._, 198.
_Regiam Majestatem_, dispute between author and printer of, i. 421.
REID, a mountebank, and his _Tumbling Lassie_, ii. 487.
REID, a sorcerer, strangled and burnt, i. 382.
REID and MOSCOW, two charlatans, pretend to cure the blind, ii. 483.
Religious persecutions, remarks on, ii. 451.
_Remonstrance_, presentation of the famous, ii. 108.
_Remonstrators_ or _Protesters_ of the kirk, ii. 216, 217.
Restoration, rejoicings in Edinburgh at the, ii. 261, 266.
_Revels, Masters of the_, the Fountains’ patent as, ii. 400.
Revenue of Scotland, let on lease, ii. 427.
Revolutionary symptoms in Edinburgh, ii. 483.
RICCIO, David, murdered, i. 35, 38.
RIDDELL, John, a broken merchant, petition of, ii. 431.
_Riding of the Parliament_, i. 48.
Increased splendour of, ii. 65, 66.
RIG of Atherny, threatens the clergy, i. 544, 545, 549.
RIG, Robert, imprisoned for marrying an excommunicated papist, ii.
72.
Riot of 1682 in Edinburgh, ii. 437.
Roads and bridges, ruinous state of, ii. 409.
Robberies, their frequency in 1664, ii. 298.
ROBERTSON, Bailie John, erects a leper-house in Greenside,
Edinburgh, i. 226.
ROBERTSON of Struan, quarrel with Marquis of Athole, ii. 423;
his wood and saw mills in Rannoch, 447.
Robin Hood games, i. 8.
ROBISON, Alexander, a Jesuit, petitions of, ii. 16.
ROCHE, Eustachius, contracts with James VI. for gold-mines, i. 151,
152;
proposes to make a superior kind of salt, 189.
Roman antiquities found at Inveresk, i. 33.
ROMANNO, Murrays of, letters raised at the instance of the, i.
227-229.
Gipsy-fight at, ii. 388.
RONALDSON, Walter, his ‘familiarity with a spirit,’ i. 358.
ROSE, Hugh, of Kilravock; character of, i. 287, 288.
Roslin, monster-calf at, i. 102;
a grand resort for gipsies, 539, 540.
ROSS, Sinclair, Bishop of, afflicted with stone, i. 24.
Young, Bishop of, afflicted with same disease, ii. 453.
ROSS, Thomas, his libel on the Scottish nation; beheaded and
quartered, i. 504.
ROSSES, clergymen, crave compensation for losses incurred through
persecution, ii. 451-453.
ROTHES, Earl (subsequently Duke) of, Lord High Commissioner, his
progress through the west country, ii. 304;
his funeral-procession, 426.
ROTHIEMAY and FRENDRAUGHT, dispute between, ii. 45-50, 76-79, 84,
98.
ROY, Bessie, tried for witchcraft, i. 206.
RUTHERFORD, Colonel, killed by the Moors, ii. 298.
RUTHERFORD, Lord, his engagement with
the _Bride of Baldoon_, ii. 326-328;
his prosecution of Captain Rutherford, 333.
RUTHVEN and OLIPHANT, Lords, feud between, i. 140.
_Ruthven, Raid of_, i. 128.
RUTHVEN, Sophia, Duchess of Lennox, buried, i. 222.
RUTHVENS, their complaint against Baillie of Torwoodhead, ii. 403.
SACKVILLE, Sir Edward, his duel with Edward Lord Bruce of Kinloss,
i. 447-451.
St Andrew’s Day, kept as a holiday, ii. 297.
St Fittich’s and St Wollok’s Wells, sickly children bathed at, i.
323, 324.
Salt, Charles II.’s restrictions on making, ii. 332.
Saltmarket of Glasgow, great fire in, ii. 389.
SAMPSON, Agnes, burnt for witchcraft, i. 212-216.
SANDEMAN, Charles, his obligations as a cook, i. 47.
SANDILANDS, Sir James, and Mr John Graham of Hallyards, litigation
between, i. 246.
SANDILANDS, Sir James, and Earl of Montrose, street-combat between,
i. 258.
SANGSTER, GOGAR, & MILLER, hanged, ii. 422.
_Saw-mills_, Robertson of Struan’s, ii. 447.
SCHAW, John, fined for burying his wife in parish-church of
Galston, i. 425.
School-discipline at Kirk of Dundonald, in Ayrshire, ii. 138.
Schools, Privy Council order plantation of parish, i. 479.
Scolding and slander, rigorous punishment of, i. 344, 345.
Scotch, order against their going to England, i. 432.
Nobles and entire community nearly ruined by the civil wars, ii.
225.
Scotland, general sketch of, i. 1-6;
factious state of, in 1571, 72.
Indifference of England to, ii. 113;
state of, after Cromwell’s invasion, 209, 212;
concluding remarks on, 496.
_Scotland, Perfect Description of the People and Country of_, a
satire, i. 481.
Scots, their supposed origin, i. 1.
---- Guard of the French king, its re-establishment craved, i. 535,
536.
SCOTT, Alexander, poet, his New-year Gift to Queen Mary, i. 15.
SCOTT, Captain, beats Mr Gregory, ii. 478.
----, George, Walter, & Ingram, condemned to death for an atrocious
crime, i. 472.
SCOTT, George and William, their achievements, ii. 169.
SCOTT, John, a Quaker, fined for brewing on Sunday, ii. 376.
SCOTT of Pitlochie, story of his unfortunate voyage to East Jersey,
ii. 479-481.
SCOTT of Raeburn, a Quaker, his children ordered to be separated
from him, ii. 311.
SCOTT, Sir Walter, of Branxholm, Laird of Buccleuch, celebrated
exploit of, i. 269-271.
SCOTT, Thomas, hanged for murder of Robert Donaldson, ii. 329.
SCOTT, Walter, of Harden, married to the Flower of Yarrow, i. 46.
Sea-monsters, various appearances of;
superstitions regarding, i. 64-66.
SEATON, Thomas, his religions dissimulation, ii. 301.
SEMPLE, Lord, and his son, ii. 336.
----, Robert, his writings, i. 49.
Service-book or Liturgy introduced into Scottish church; its
reception, ii. 101-104.
_Seventeenth of December_, tumult of the, i. 276-278.
SHAKSPEARE, surmised to have been in Aberdeen while the remarkable
witch-trials were proceeding; quotations from _Macbeth_ and
_Othello_ strengthening this supposition, i. 283-285, 357.
SHARPE, Archbishop, ii. 256;
his _cortège_ to St Andrews, 291;
his land purchases, 300;
attempt on his life, 322;
assassination of, 350.
SHAWS and the FAWS, battle between, ii. 388.
Sheep and cattle, abundance of, ii. 371.
Ship-of-war burnt in Leith Roads through the mad humour of an
Englishman, i. 453.
_Shorter Catechism_, General Assembly sanction, ii. 170.
Shotts, Kirk of, communion at, ii. 41.
Shrovetide customs, revival of, ii. 273, 274.
Sieve, divination by the, strange story of, ii. 434.
Sigget Well, dedicated to Virgin Mary, i. 324.
Siller Gun at Dumfries, i. 294.
Silver Heart in Culross Abbey Church, wood-cut of, i. 450.
Silver lace and silk stuffs, law against wearing, ii. 357, 358.
SINCLAIR, Colonel, with 900 Scotsmen, slain in Norway, i. 446.
SINCLAIR, George, author of _Satan’s Invisible World Discovered_,
ii. 387;
his copyright of, 475.
SINCLAIR, Henry, Bishop of Ross, dies of stone, i. 24.
SINCLAIR, Sir William, of Mey, shoots Bailie Macmoran, i. 262, 263.
Single-combats, edict against, i. 310.
SKEYNE, Dr, his treatise on the pest, i. 54.
SLEZER’S _Theatrum Scotiæ_, ii. 485.
Small-pox, severe visitation of, in Aberdeen, i. 431.
Great severity of, ii. 85;
about 240 children die of, 140;
upwards of 800 deaths in Glasgow from, 347.
SMIBERT, William, his unbaptised child, i. 32.
SMITH, James, barters wheat for Norway timber, ii. 71.
SMOLLETT, George, an ancestor of the novelist, denounced as a
rebel, i. 248.
Spanish ship blown up by, ii. 387.
_Sneesh-box_, fondness of the Scotch for the, ii. 494.
Snow-storm, an enormous, i. 458, 459.
Great, in 1633, ii. 61;
in 1664-5, 302;
in 1674, 365.
Soap, first manufactured in Leith, by Nathaniel Uddart, i. 511, 512.
Patent granted to Patrick Mauld for making, ii. 80, 81.
Soldiers, Colonel Monro endeavours to erect hospital for Scottish,
ii. 75.
SOMERVILLE, James, younger of Drum and Cambusnethan, his marriage,
ii. 207-209;
his son’s death, 443.
SOMERVILLE, Lord; his lawsuit with his cousin, and its success, i.
113-116.
SOMERVILLE, Lord, sad accident in the family of, i. 190-192.
SOMERVILLE of Drum, anecdote of, i. 491.
Spanish and Dutch sea-fight on coast of Zetland, ii. 15.
Spanish Armada, excitement in Scotland caused by, i. 185-189;
vessels destroyed, 186; ii. 386.
‘Speat’ on the Water of Carron, ii. 98.
Sports, James VI.’s declaration regarding, on Sundays and holidays,
i. 491.
SPYNIE, Lord, dies of wounds received in a street-fight, i. 406.
Stage-coach, Countess of Crawford travels to England in a, ii. 218;
advertised for various towns, 247;
betwixt Edinburgh and Haddington, and Edinburgh and Glasgow, 391.
STAIR, Lord, ii. 370.
STALKER, Andrew, a goldsmith, kills a servant of Earl of Angus, i.
294.
Standing army in Scotland, commencement of a, ii. 313.
STANFIELD, Sir James, his son hanged for his murder, ii. 491, 492.
Star, Melville’s notice of a brilliant, i. 386;
appearance of a great fiery, 472; ii. 84.
_Star of Tycho_, Holinshed’s notice of, i. 84.
STERCOVIUS, a Pole, beheaded for publishing his _Legend of
Reproaches_ against the Scottish nation, i. 452.
STEWART, Alexander, an itinerant doctor, ii. 184.
STEWART, Hercules, brother of the Earl of Bothwell, hanged at the
Cross of Edinburgh, i. 259.
STEWART, James, banished for performing mass, i. 451.
STEWART, Janet, petition of, ii. 437.
----, John, a vagabond, hangs himself in prison, i. 488, 489.
STEWART, John, hanged for witchcraft, ii. 377-379.
STEWART, Margaret, abduction of her daughter, i. 419.
STEWART, Master Allan, receives the revenues of the Abbey of
Crossraguel; his torture by Earl of Cassillis, i. 65-68.
STEWART of Minto, his dispute with Sir George Elphinstone, i.
396-398.
STEWART of Tarlair, mining by, i. 28.
----, William, stabs Lord Torthorald, i. 415.
STEWARTS of Coltness; anecdote of the plague, ii. 165;
Thomas of, his country-house, 245;
his flight to Holland, 448-451.
STEWARTS of Traquair, and Hay of Yester, feud between, i. 168-170.
_Stewarton Sickness_, a religious fervour so called, ii. 42, 43.
Stirling, a parliament held by Regent Lennox at, i. 76;
taking of, quick transmission of news to London, 159;
strange sounds heard by four gentlemen of, 541.
Sixteen farms between Falkirk and, buried in moss, ii. 35;
the session sit at, 116.
Stones, large, transported by a river, ii. 98.
Stool of repentance, i. 334, 335.
STORIE, Richard, charged with murder, ii. 442.
STRACHAN of Thornton, his alleged theft, i. 534, 535.
Strathbogie, Presbytery Record of, extracts from, ii. 156-161.
Street-carriages of Edinburgh, regular system of, ii. 358.
Street-conflicts in Aberdeen, i. 343.
---- fights, Edinburgh, the first of, i. 48.
STRUAN, Laird of, his dispute with Marquis of Athole, ii. 423;
his saw-mills, 447.
STRUTHERS, William, his sermon, i. 513.
STUART, Esme, usually called Monsieur D’Aubigné; his mission to
Scotland, i. 126-128.
STUART, James (Earl of Arran), his rise, i. 126;
influence over James VI., 128;
his fall, 129;
his marriage to the Countess of March, 146;
his death, 275;
his death avenged, 414.
STUART, Robert, natural son of the Earl of Orkney, beheaded, i. 461.
STUART, Sir William of Monkton, slain by Stuart Earl of Bothwell,
i. 184, 185.
SUFFOLK, Earl of, his journey of pleasure through Scotland, i. 454,
455.
Sugar-works at Glasgow, ii. 455.
_Summaries_:
Reign of Mary, 1561-1565, i. 7;
Regency of Moray, 1567-1570, 43;
Regencies of Lennox and Mar, 1570-1572, 61, 62;
Regency of Morton, 1572-1578, 82, 83;
Reign of James VI. 1578-1585, 126-129;
1585-1590, 160, 161;
1591-1603, 219-221; 1603-1625, 379-381.
Reign of Charles I., 1625-1637, ii. 1-3;
1637-1649, 105-113;
Interregnum, 1649-1660, 174-177;
Reign of Charles II., 1660-1673, 255-261;
1673-1685, 349-355;
Reign of James VII., 469-475;
concluding remarks, 496-499.
Sun, total eclipse of the, i. 296.
Celebrated eclipse of, ii. 215.
Suns, curious appearance of three, ii. 9.
Sunday, observance of, i. 329-333.
Superstitions and superstitious practices, i. 322-326.
_Suppers_, laudable custom of, revived, ii. 267.
Surgeons exempted from serving as jury-men, i. 42.
SUTHERLAND, Earl of, overtaken by a snow-storm, i. 363;
contributions of tenantry to, 517.
SUTHERLAND of Duffus, his quarrel with Gordon of Enbo, ii. 5, 6.
Swans on Linlithgow Loch, anecdotes of, ii. 267, 268.
Swearing, fines for, i. 342.
Sweden, king of, troops levied in Scotland for, i. 445;
unfortunate issue, 446.
Sword-dance, description of the, ii. 67, 68.
SYDSERF, Thomas, editor of the _Mercurius Caledonius_, ii. 271;
his theatre, 324.
TAILIEFEIR, Bessie, sentenced to be _brankit_, i. 46.
Tailors, petition against outlandish, ii. 253, 254.
Tallow, laws against exporting, ii. 5.
_Tarugo’s Wiles_, Sydserf’s play called, ii. 324.
Taxes, allocation of, to various towns, ii. 7.
Tay, remarkable flood in the, i. 525-527.
TAYLOR, John the Water-poet, his visit to Scotland, i. 493-500.
Tea, in Scotland, its first introduction, ii. 405.
TENNANT, Francis, hanged for his pasquils against the king and
progenitors, i. 320.
Tercel called for by James VI., i. 391.
Test, magistrates of Peebles in a puzzle about the, ii. 429;
burlesque of, 433.
Thanksgiving-day, on settlement between King and Estates, ii. 140.
Theatre, first, in Edinburgh established about 1679, ii. 400.
Theatricals in Scotland, toleration of, i. 306, 307.
_Thirteen Drifty Days_, Hogg’s account of the, ii. 365-367.
THOMSON, Annaple, and others, worried and burnt as witches, ii.
405, 406.
THOMSON, Gavin, assaulted by Thomas Pringle, i. 418.
THOMSON, Margaret, her complaint against Tutor of Calder, ii. 154.
_Thumbikens_, an instrument of torture so called, ii. 460.
Tide, remarkable swelling of the, at Leith, &c., i. 476.
Tobacco, Murray’s patent for importing, i. 531, 532.
Licence for sale of, ii. 74;
tax on, 332;
first practitioner of tobacco-spinning in Leith, 346.
Toe-writing, singular instance of, ii. 253.
Toleration, want of, in Scotland, i. 244;
imputation of toleration indignantly repudiated by King James,
533.
Declared against by the Presbyterian kirk, ii. 180;
granted by James VII., 470;
want of, at the Revolution, 498.
_Tories_, first introduction of the word into Scotland, ii. 227.
TORTHORALD, Lord, stabbed by William Stewart, i. 415.
Town-guard of Edinburgh, origin of the, ii. 438.
Trade, decree against freedom of, i. 458.
Interesting particulars regarding, in Scotland, ii. 248, 249.
Transmigration of witches to distant places, &c., disputation on,
i. 305.
Traquair, burning at Peebles of popish relics found at, ii. 499-501.
TRAQUAIR, Countess of, and her son, ii. 336.
----, first Earl of, anecdote of, ii. _n._ 88;
his death and character, 251, 252.
Travelling, anecdotes of, i. 299, 381, 493; ii. 218, 247, 391, 476.
_Trembling Exies_, a disease so called, ii. 222.
Trough, Children of the (a singular anecdote), i. _n._ 234.
_Tulyies_ or combats in Edinburgh, i. 47, 185, 258, 318.
_Tumbling Lassie_ and Reid the mountebank, ii. 487.
TURNBULL and SCOTT, hanged for publishing a libel against Morton,
i. 125.
TURNBULL, Andrew, beheaded, i. 320.
---- of Airdrie, abduction of his daughter, i. 419.
_Turners_, a base coin so called, ii. 128.
TWEEDIES and VEITCHES, feud between, i. 200-202;
James VI. endeavours to suppress, 432.
Universities, order against receiving fugitive students at, i. 439.
URQUHART of Craigston, singular fortunes of his grandson, ii. 81-83.
USHER, Adie, a Border-thief, hanged; his son Willie, i. 546.
Usury severely punished, ii. 298.
VALLAM, James and George, hanged for robbery, i. 364.
VAUTROLLIER, a French Protestant, prints a volume of poems for
James VI., i. 154.
VEITCHES and TWEEDIES, feud between, i. 200-202, 432.
Victory, naval, over the Dutch, rejoicings at, ii. 303.
Vintners and Butchers, outcry against extortion of, ii. 489, 490.
Visions in the air, ii. 313-315.
VOIS, Cornelius de, his gold and silver licence, i. 50.
Wages of skilled artisans in Scotland, ii. 235.
WALDEN, Lord, his journey of pleasure in Scotland, i. 454, 455.
WALKER, Patrick, his account of illusive psalm-singing, ii. 314;
of visions of bonnets and weapons at Crossford, 485.
WALLACE, Margaret, worried and burnt for witchcraft, i. 527-529.
WALSINGHAM, Sir Francis, a councillor of Queen Elizabeth, his
mission to James VI., i. 152.
_Waly, waly!_ a popular ballad, composed on the Marchioness of
Douglas, ii. 340.
_Wame-ill_ or _land-ill_, also called the _Pestilence but Mercy_,
i. 57.
_Wappinshaw_, why so called, i. 542.
_Watch_, a body of men appointed to keep peace in the Highlands,
ii. 306.
WATSON, William, minister of Burntisland, i. 467.
WATT, John, shot dead on the Burgh-moor, i. 349.
WAUGH, Robert, hanged for rebuking the Regent Morton, i. 80.
Weather, the, i. 107, 112, 259, 286, 421, 431, 457, 458, 523, 541;
ii. 4, 12, 17, 28, 61, 79, 83, 113, 115, 122, 134, 149, 199,
217, 222, 224, 234-236, 240, 253, 298, 299, 305, 313, 319, 324,
358, 365-367, 371-373, 426, 454, 462.
WEIR, Bessie, hanged as a witch, ii. 377-379.
----, John, tried for ‘incest,’ for marrying the relict of his
grand-uncle, ii. 28.
WEIR, Major, strangled and burnt, ii. 332.
----, of Cloburn, a boy of fourteen, taken to Ireland, and married
to a daughter of Laird of Corehouse, i. 454.
Wells of Edinburgh run dry, ii. 226.
WEMYSS, Countess of, death and extravagance of the, ii. 215.
WEMYSS of Logie, Mrs Margaret Twinstoun contrives his escape from
confinement, i. 238.
West Indies, deportation of poor people to the, ii. 304, 305.
WESTERHALL, Laird of, slain by the Hamiltons, i. 99.
Whale captured by the English at Leith, ii. 218.
Whales, fourteen killed at Dornoch, i. 319.
Wheat, Council grants licence for exporting 4000 bolls, ii. 54.
_Whig_, origin of the term, ii. 171, 172.
_Whilliwha’s_, swindlers so called, i. 468.
WIGTON and CASSILLIS, Earls of, dispute between, ii. 30.
Wind, tremendous storm of, i. 421.
Wine, its importation into Western Isles restricted, i. 531.
WIRTEMBERG, Duke of, visits Scotland, i. 418.
WISHART, Janet, burnt for witchcraft, i. 278, 279.
Witchcraft, act against, i. 24;
William Stewart, Lyon King-of-arms hanged for, 60;
witches of Athole, 70;
Bessie Dunlop, burnt for, 107-110;
Alison Peirson, burnt for, 183;
trials of Lady Foulis and Hector Monro, 202-206;
Bessie Roy tried for, 206;
extraordinary trials for, 210-218;
devil preaching to witches, illustration, 215;
numerous cases of, 257;
barbarous legal procedure in cases of, 273;
remarkable trials in Aberdeen, 278-285;
‘the great witch of Balwery,’ 291;
wood-cut of a witch seated on the moon, 378;
the Broughton witches, 420;
Margaret Barclay, executed for, 488;
John Stewart, tried for, 488;
Margaret Wallace, worried and burnt for, 527-529;
Bessie Smith, of Lesmahago, 539;
Thomas Grieve, strangled and burnt, 540;
Privy Council’s doubts regarding, 548.
Various cases of, ii. 31-34;
John Balfour, a discoverer of, 61;
William Coke and Alison Dick, burnt for witchcraft, their bill of
expenses, 70, 71;
case of Agnes Finnie and others, 149-154;
conference of ministers on, 180;
several trials and burnings for, 186-189;
presbytery of Lanark and the eleven witches, 194, 195;
proceedings of Cromwell’s law-commissioners for Scotland, 219,
220;
burnings for, 243, 244;
numerous trials for, at the Restoration, 277-279;
confessions of Isobel Gowdie and Janet Braidhead, 285-291;
M‘Leans and others tortured for, 293-295;
more cases of, 330;
Jean Weir hanged, 333;
curious cases of, 376-381;
another witch-storm, 385, 386;
anecdotes of, 393-395;
Katherine Liddel persecuted for, 396;
curious witch-trial at Borrowstounness, 405, 406;
Marion Purdie imprisoned for, 462;
books on, 475.
WOGAN, Captain, his daring march to the north, ii. 223;
verses quoted from _Waverley_ on his death, 224.
WOOD, George, threatened arrestment of his corpse, ii. 328, 329.
WOOD, James, heir of Bonnington, beheaded, i. 350.
Wool, prohibition against exporting, &c., i. 475;
Petition for dressing and refining of, ii. 346.
Wreckers of Dunbar and Western Islands, Council’s proceedings
against, ii. 94, 95.
Writs, several persons hanged for making false, i. 260, 296.
YESTER, Master of, and Stewarts of Traquair, feud between, i.
168-170.
YORK, James, Duke of. See _James VII_.
YOUNG, Isobel, burnt for witchcraft, ii. 31.
----, John, his attack on Richard Bannatyne, ii. 16.
YOUNG, Margaret, petitions Privy Council against false
imprisonment, ii. 153.
END OF VOL. II.
Edinburgh:
Printed by W. and R. Chambers.
[Illustration: Half-glazed Window of Seventeenth Century.--See page
283.]
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