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Title: Domestic Annals of Scotland from the Reformation to the Revolution
Author: Robert Chambers
Release date: May 25, 2024 [eBook #73694]
Language: English
Original publication: Edinburgh: W. & R. Chambers, 1859
Credits: Susan Skinner, Mr David Mowatt 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.
The index to volumes I. and II. has been copied from volume II. and
reproduced at the end of volume I.
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 I.
[Illustration: Bannatyne House, Strathmore.]
W. & R. CHAMBERS, EDINBURGH AND LONDON.
MDCCCLIX.
Edinburgh:
Printed by W. and R. Chambers.
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
It has occurred to me that a chronicle of domestic matters in Scotland
from the Reformation downwards--the period during which we see a
progress towards the present state of things in our country--would be
an interesting and instructive book. History has in a great measure
confined itself to political transactions and personages, and usually
says little of the people, their daily concerns, and the external
accidents which immediately affect their comfort. This I have always
thought was much to be regretted, and a general tendency to the same
view has been manifested of late years. I have therefore resolved to
make an effort, in regard to my own country, to detail her DOMESTIC
ANNALS--the series of occurrences beneath the region of history, the
effects of passion, superstition, and ignorance in the people, the
extraordinary natural events which disturbed their tranquillity,
the calamities which affected their wellbeing, the traits of false
political economy by which that wellbeing was checked, and generally
those things which enable us to see how our forefathers thought, felt,
and suffered, and how, on the whole, ordinary life looked in their days.
Nor are these details, broken up and disjointed as they often are,
without a useful bearing on certain generalisations of importance, or
devoid of instruction for our own comparatively enlightened age. A good
end is obviously served by enumerating, for example, all the famines
and all the pestilences that have beset the country; for when this is
done, it becomes evident that famine and pestilence have been connected
in the way of cause and effect. For the astronomer, the meteorologist,
and the naturalist, many of the accounts of comets, meteors, and
extraordinary natural productions here given, must have some value.[1]
To the political economist, it may be of service to see the accounts
here drawn from contemporary records of the productiveness and failure
of many seasons, and of the varying proportions of bad seasons to
good throughout considerable spaces of time. As for the numberless
narratives and anecdotes illustrative of the mistaken zeal, the
irregular passions, the deplorable superstitions, and erroneous ideas
and ways in general, of our ancestors, they furnish beyond doubt a rich
pabulum for the student of human nature; nor may they be without some
practical utility amongst us, since many of the same errors continue
in a reduced style to exist, and it may help to extinguish them all
the sooner, that we are enabled here to look upon them in their most
exaggerated and startling form, and as essentially the products and
accompaniments of ignorance and barbarism.
It will probably be matter of regret that this work consists of a
series of articles generally brief and but little connected with
each other, producing on the whole a desultory effect. Might not the
materials have been fused into one continuous narration? I am very
sensible how desirable this was for literary effect; but I am at the
same time assured that, in such a mode of presenting the series of
occurrences, there would have been a constant temptation to generalise
on narrow and insufficient grounds--to make singular and exceptional
incidents pass as characteristic beyond the just degree in which they
really are so--namely, as matters just possible in the course of the
national life of the period to which they refer. It seemed to me the
most honest plan, to present them detachedly under their respective
dates, thus allowing each to tell its own story, and have its own
proper weight with the reader, and no more, in completing the general
picture.
As one means of conveying ‘the body of each age, its form and
pressure,’ the language of the original contemporary narrators is
given, wherever it was sufficiently intelligible and concise. Thus
each age in a manner tells its own story. It has not been deemed
necessary, however, to retain antiquated modes of orthography, beyond
what is required to indicate the old pronunciation, nor have I scrupled
occasionally to omit useless clauses of sentences, when that seemed
conducive to making the narration more readable. This procedure will
not be quite approved of by the rigid antiquary; but it will be for the
benefit of the bulk of ordinary readers.
In general, the events of political history are presented here in only
a brief narrative, such as seemed necessary for connection. But I have
introduced a few notices of these events where there was a contemporary
narration either characteristic in its style, or involving particulars
which might be deemed illustrative of the general feeling of the time.
EDINBURGH, _January 25, 1858_.
CONTENTS OF VOL I.
PAGE
INTRODUCTORY, 1
REIGN OF MARY: 1561-5, 7
REIGN OF MARY: 1565-7, 35
REGENCY OF MORAY: 1567-70, 43
REGENCIES OF LENNOX AND MAR: 1570-2, 61
REGENCY OF MORTON: 1572-8, 82
REIGN OF JAMES VI.: 1578-85, 126
REIGN OF JAMES VI.: 1585-90, 160
REIGN OF JAMES VI.: 1591-1603, 219
REIGN OF JAMES VI.: 1603-25, 379
GENERAL INDEX.
Illustrations.
VOL. I.
_Frontispiece Vignette._--BANNATYNE HOUSE, NEWTYLE--WHERE GEORGE
BANNATYNE IS SUPPOSED TO HAVE WRITTEN HIS MANUSCRIPT.
PAGE
EDINBURGH CASTLE, _RESTORED_ AS IN 1573, XII
AN EDINBURGH HAMMERMAN, 1555, 10
QUEEN MARY’S HARP, 31
THE BRANKS, AN INSTRUMENT OF PUNISHMENT, 47
GEORGE BANNATYNE’S ARMS AND INITIALS, 58
THE MAIDEN, 144
THE DEVIL PREACHING TO THE WITCHES, 215
BAILIE MACMORAN’S HOUSE, 263
WITCH SEATED ON THE MOON, 378
SILVER HEART IN CULROSS ABBEY, 450
HOUSE OF ROBERT GOURLAY, A RICH EDINBURGH CITIZEN OF 1574, 554
INDEX
TO SUCH
BOOKS AND AUTHORITIES AS, FROM THEIR MORE FREQUENT OCCURRENCE, ARE
QUOTED IN AN ABRIDGED FORM.
_D. O._--Diurnal of Remarkable Occurrents in Scotland, 1513-1575.
(Maitland Club.) 4to. 1833
_Cal._--History of the Kirk of Scotland. By Mr David Calderwood.
(Wodrow Society.) 8 vols. 1842
_Pit._--Criminal Trials in Scotland, from 1488 to 1624, with
Historical Notes and Illustrations. By Robert
Pitcairn, Esq. 3 vols. 4to. Edin. 1833
_Knox._--History of the Reformation in Scotland. By John Knox. From
MS. Edited by David Laing. 2 vols. (Wodrow Society.)
Edin. 1846
_C. F._--Chronicle of Fortingall [a composition of the sixteenth
century, preserved in the charter-chest of the Marquis
of Breadalbane, and printed in the same volume with
the Black Book of Taymouth, Edinburgh, 4to. 1855]
_P. C. R._--Privy Council Record, MS. in General Register House,
Edinburgh.
_Mar._--Annales of Scotland from the year 1513 to the year 1591.
By George Marioreybanks, burges of Edinburghe. From MS.
8vo. 1814
_Bir._--Diary of Robert Birrel, burges of Edinburghe, from 1532
to 1605. Dalyell’s Fragments of Scottish History.
From MS. 4to. Edin. 1798
_E. C. R._--Edinburgh Council Record, MS. in Council Chamber,
Edinburgh.
_H. K. J._--Historie of King James the Sext. 4to. Edin. 1825
_C. C. R._--Canongate Council Record [extracts printed in Maitland
Club
Miscellany, vol. ii.]
_Ban._--Journal of the Transactions in Scotland, 1570, 1571, 1572,
1573. By Richard Bannatyne, Secretary to John Knox.
From MS. 8vo. Edin. 1806
_Ken._--Historical Account of the Name of Kennedy. From MS. With
Notes by Robert Pitcairn. 4to. 1830
_Ja. Mel._--Autobiography and Diary of Mr James Melville,
1556-1610. From MS. Edited by Robert Pitcairn.
(Wodrow Society.) 8vo. 1842
_Bal._--Annales of Scotland, 1057-1603. By Sir James Balfour.
From MS. 4 vols. 8vo. Edin. 1824
_Spot._--History of the Church of Scotland. By the Right Rev. John
Spottiswoode, Archbishop of St Andrews. 3 vols. 8vo. 1847
_Howes._--Chronicle of England. By Edmond Howes. Fol. 1615
_H. of G._--History of the House of Douglas. By Mr David Hume of
Godscroft. 2 vols. 1748
_Jo. R. B. Hist._--Historia Rerum Britannicarum, &c. Auctore
Roberto Johnstono. Fol. Amstel. 1655
_R. G. K. E._--Register of the General Kirk of Edinburgh,
1574-1575. Maitland Club Miscellany, vol. i.
_B. U. K._--Booke of the Universall Kirk of Scotland.
(Bannatyne Club.) 3 vols. 4to. Edin. 1839-40
_Chr. Aber._--Chronicle of Aberdeen, 1491-1595.
(Spalding Club Miscellany.)
_Hist. Acc. Fam. Innes._--Historical Account of the Origine
and Succession of the Family of Innes, &c. From orig.
MS. Edin. 1820
_M. of S.--Mem. Som._--The Memorie of the Somervilles, &c.
2 vols. 8vo. 1815
_Moy._--Memoirs of the Affairs of Scotland, 1577-1603. By David
Moysie. From MS. (Maitland Club.) 4to. 1830
_Moy. R._--Idem, Ruddiman’s edition. 12mo. 1755
_Ab. C. R._--Extracts from the Council Register of the Burgh of
Aberdeen, 1570-1625. (Spalding Club.) 1848
_Row._--Row’s History of the Kirk of Scotland. (Wodrow Society.) 1842
_Pa. And._--History of Scotland. By Patrick Anderson. MS.
Advocates’ Library.
_M. of G._--Memorabilia of the City of Glasgow, selected from
the Minute-books of the Burgh. Glasgow, printed for
private circulation. 1835
_C. K. Sc._--Chronicle of the Kings of Scotland. From MS.
(Maitland Club.) 1830
_Jo. Hist._--Johnston’s History of Scotland. MS. Advocates’ Library.
_Chron. Perth._--The Chronicle of Perth, &c., from 1210 to 1668.
(Maitland Club.) 4to. Edin. 1831
_G. H. S._--Genealogical History of the Earldom of Sutherland.
By Sir Robert Gordon, Bart. Fol. Edin. 1813
_Stag. State._--The Staggering State of Scots Statesmen from 1550
to 1650. By Sir John Scot of Scotstarvet. From MS.
12mo. Edin. 1754
_S. A._--Acts of Parliament made by King James I., and his Royal
Successors. 3 vols. 1682
Acts of the Parliament of Scotland. 11 vols. fol.
_P. K. S. R._--Perth Kirk-Session Records. Spottiswoode Club
Miscellany.
_A. K. S. R._--Aberdeen Kirk-Session Records. (Spalding Club.)
Aber. 1846
_A. P. R._--Aberdeen Presbytery Records. (Spalding Club.) Aber. 1846
_M. S. P._--State Papers, &c., of Thomas Earl of Melrose.
(Abbotsford Club.) 2 vols. 4to. Edin. 1837
_An. Scot._--Analecta Scotica: Collections illustrative of the
Civil, Ecclesiastical, and Literary History of
Scotland. Edited by James Maidment. 2 vols. Edin. 1834-38
_R. P. L._--Selections from the Registers of the Presbytery
of Lanark, 1623-1709. 4to. Edin. 1839
_Foun. Hist. Ob._--Historical Observes, &c. By Sir John Lauder
of Fountainhall. 4to. Edin. 1840
_Foun. Dec._--Fountainhall’s Decisions of the Court of Session.
2 vols. fol. Edin. 1759
_Fount._--Historical Notices of Scottish Affairs, from the MSS.
of Sir John Lauder of Fountainhall. 2 vols. 4to. Edin. 1848
_W. A._--Analecta, or Materials for a History of Remarkable
Providences, &c. By the Rev. Robert Wodrow. 4 vols.
(Maitland Club.) Edin. 1842
_Stev. Hist. C. of Scot._--History of the Church of Scotland.
By Andrew Stevenson, writer in Edinburgh.
2d ed. Edin. 1844
_B. A._--Book of Adjournal. MS. Advocates’ Library.
_Gillies._--Historical Collections relating to Remarkable Periods
of the Success of the Gospel, &c. By John Gillies.
2 vols. Glas. 1754
_Spal._--Memorials of the Troubles in Scotland and England,
A.D. 1624-A.D. 1645. By John Spalding. 2 vols. 4to.
(Spalding Club.) Aber. 1850
_Ab. Re._--A Little yet True Rehearsal of Several Passages of
Affairs that did occur from the year 1633 till this
present year 1655. Collected by a friend of
Dr Alexander’s at Aberdeen. Sir Lewis Stewart’s
Collections. MS. Advocates’ Library.
_Pa. Gordon._--A Short Abridgment of Britanes Distemper, from
the year of God 1639 to 1649. By Patrick Gordon of
Ruthven. (Spalding Club.) 1844
_Carlyle._--Oliver Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches, with
Elucidations by Thomas Carlyle. 2 vols. 1845
_Lam._--Diary of Mr John Lamont of Newton, 1649-1671. Edin. 1830
_C. P. H._--Collections by a Private Hand at Edinburgh, 1650-1661.
Stevenson, Edin. 1832
_Nic._--Diary of Public Transactions and other Occurrences,
chiefly in Scotland. By John Nicoll. 4to. Edin. 1836
_R. C. E._--Register of the Committee of Estates. MS. General
Register House, Edinburgh.
_Spreull._--Some Remarkable Passages of the Lord’s Providence
towards Mr John Spreull, Town-clerk of Glasgow,
1635-1664. Stevenson, Edin. 1832
_Law._--Memorials; or Memorable Things, &c., from 1638 to 1684.
By the Rev. Robert Law. From MS. Edin. 1818
_Bail._--Letters and Journals of Robert Baillie, A.M., Principal
of the University of Glasgow. From MS. 3 vols. Edin. 1841
_Kir._--Secret and True History of the Church of Scotland, from
the Restoration to the year 1678. By the Rev. James
Kirkton. 4to. Edin. 1817
_Pat. Walker._--Biographia Presbyteriana. [Lives of Alexander
Peden, &c., by Patrick Walker.] 2 vols. Edin. 1827
[Illustration: Edinburgh Castle, _restored_ as in 1573.]
DOMESTIC ANNALS OF SCOTLAND.
INTRODUCTORY.
Our attention lights, a few years after the middle of the sixteenth
century, on a little independent kingdom in the northern part of the
British island--a tract of country now thought romantic and beautiful,
then hard-favoured and sterile, chiefly mountainous, penetrated by deep
inlets of the sea, and suffering under a climate not so objectionable
on account of cold as humidity. It contains a scattered population
of probably seven hundred thousand:--the Scots--thought to be a very
ancient nation, descended from a daughter of Pharaoh, king of Egypt,
and living under a monarchy believed to have originated about the time
that Alexander conquered India. A very poor, rude country it is, as it
well might be in that age, and seeing that it lay so far to the north
and so much out of the highway of civilisation. No well-formed roads
in it--no posts for letters or for travelling. A printing-press in the
head town, Edinburgh, but not another anywhere. A regular localised
court of law had not yet existed in it thirty years. No stated means
of education, excepting a few grammar-schools in the principal towns,
and three small universities. Society consisted mainly of a large
agricultural class, half enslaved to the lords of the soil: above
all, obliged to follow them in war. Other industrial pursuits to be
found only in the burghs, the chief of which were Edinburgh, Glasgow,
Stirling, Perth, Dundee, and Aberdeen.
In reality, though it was not known then, the bulk of the people of
Scotland were a branch of the great Teutonic race which possesses
Germany and some other countries in the north-west of Europe. Precisely
the same people they were with the bulk of the English, and speaking
essentially the same language, though for ages they had been almost
incessantly at war with that richer and more advanced community. As
England, however, was neighboured by Wales, with a Celtic people, so
did Scotland contain in its northern and more mountainous districts a
Celtic people also, rude, poor, proud, and of fiery temper, but brave
and possessed of virtues of their own, somewhat like the Circassians
of our own day. These Highland clansmen--whom the English of that
time contemptuously called _Redshanks_, with reference to their
naked hirsute limbs--were the relics of a greater nation, who once
occupied all Scotland, and of whose blood some portion was mingled
with that of the Scots of the Lowlands, producing a certain fervour of
character--‘_perfervidum ingenium Scotorum_’--which is not found in
purely Teutonic natures. The monarchy had originated with them early
in the sixth century of the Christian era, and had gradually absorbed
the rest of Scotland, even while its original subjects were hemmed more
and more within the hilly north. But, by the marriages of female heirs,
this thorn-encircled crown had come, in the fourteenth century, into a
family of Norman-English extraction, bearing the name of Stuart.
The present monarch was ‘our Sovereign Lady Mary,’ a young and
beautiful woman, married to Francis II. of France. She had been carried
thither in a troublous time during her childhood, and in her absence,
a regent’s sceptre was swayed by her mother, a princess of the House
of Guise. Up to that time, Scotland, like most of the rest of Europe,
was observant of the Catholic religion, and under vows of obedience to
the pope of Rome. But the reforming ideas of Luther and Melancthon,
of Zuinglius and Calvin, at length came to it, and surprising were
the effects thereof. As by some magical evolution, the great mass of
the people instantaneously threw off all regard to the authority of
the pope, with all their old habits of worship, professing instead a
reverence for the simple letter of Scripture, as interpreted to them
by the reforming preachers. Indignant at having been so long blinded
by the Catholic priesthood--whose sloth and luxury likewise disgusted
them--they attacked the churches and monasteries, destroyed the altars
and images--did not altogether spare even the buildings, alleging that
rooks were best banished by pulling down their nests: in short, made
a very complete practical reformation through all the more important
provinces. This was done by the populace, with the countenance and
help of a party of the nobility and gentry; and the regent, Mary de
Guise, who was firm in the old faith, in vain strove to stem the
torrent. Obtaining troops from France, she did indeed maintain for a
time a resistance to the reforming lords and their adherents. But they,
again, were supported by some troops from Elizabeth of England, whose
interest it was to protestantise Scotland; and so the Reformation got
the ascendency. Mary the Regent sunk into the grave, just about the
time that her faith came to its final and decisive ruin within her
daughter’s dominions.
This change may be considered as having been completed in August
1560, when an irregular parliament, or assembly of the Estates of the
kingdom, abolished the jurisdiction of the pope, proscribed the mass
under the severest penalties, and approved of a Confession of Faith
resembling the articles which had been established in England by Edward
VI. The chief feature of the new system was, that each parish should
have its own pastor, elected by the people, or at least a reader
to read the Scriptures and common prayers. While thus essentially
presbyterian, there was a trace of episcopal arrangements in the
appointment of ten _superintendents_ (one of whom, however, was a
layman), whose duty it should be to go about and see that the ordinary
clergy did their duty. The great bulk of the possessions and revenues
of the old church fell into the hands of the nobles, or remained with
nominal bishops, abbots, and other dignitaries, who continued formally
to occupy their ancient places in parliament, while the presbyterian
clergy were insufficient in number, and in general very poorly
supported.
‘Lo here,’ then, ‘a nation born in one day; yea, moulded into one
congregation, and sealed as a fountain with a solemn oath and
covenant!’ So exclaims a clerical writer a hundred years later; and
we, who live two hundred years still further onward, may well echo the
words. But a little while ago, there were priests, with vestments of
ancient and gorgeous form, saying mass in churches, which were the only
elegant structures in the country. The name of the pope was a word to
bow at. Confession was one of the duties of life. Barefooted friars
wandered about in the enjoyment of universal reverence. Any gentleman
going out with his sovereign on a military expedition, would have been
thought liable to every evil under the sun, and altogether a scandalous
person, if he did not beforehand obtain pardon for his sins from the
Grayfriars, and leave in their hands his most valuable possessions,
including the very titles of his estate, which he might hope to get
back if he survived; but otherwise, he well knew all would go to
the enriching of these same friars, who were under vows to live in
perpetual poverty.[2] The king himself sought for his highest religious
comfort in pilgrimising to St Duthac’s shrine in Ross-shire, or to the
chapel of our Lady of Loretto, at Musselburgh. The bishop of Aberdeen
felt a solacement in the hour of death, in the trust that his bowels
would be buried, as he requested, in the Blackfriars Monastery in
Edinburgh.[3] So lately as 1547, the Scotch, fighting with the English
at Pinkie, called out reproachful names to them, on the score of their
having deserted the ancient faith. But here is now Scotland also
converted, and that as it were in a day, from all those old reverences
and observances, and taken possession of by a totally new set of ideas.
_The Bible in the vulgar tongue has been suddenly laid open to them._
Their minds, earnest and reflecting, though unenlightened, have been
impressed beyond description by the tale of miraculous history which
it unfolds, and the deeply touching scheme for effecting the salvation
of man which the theologian constructs from it. They feel as if they
had got hold of something of priceless value, and in comparison with
which all the forms and rites of medieval Christianity are as dust and
rubbish. The _Evangel_, the _True Religion_, as they earnestly called
it, is henceforth all in all with this poor and homely, but resolute
people. Nothing inconsistent therewith can be listened to for a moment.
Scarcely can a dissentient be permitted to live in the country. The
state, too, must maintain this system, and this system alone, or it is
no state for them. Above all, the errors of Popery must be unsparingly
put down. The mass is idolatry: God, in his Book, says that idolatry
is a sin to be visited with the severest judgments; therefore, if you
wish to avoid judgments, you must extinguish the mass. Even modified
forms and rituals which have been preserved by English Protestantism,
as calculated to raise or favour a spirit of devotion, and maintain
a decency in worship, are here regarded as but the rags of Rome, and
spurned with nearly the same vehemence as the mass itself. Scotland
will have nothing but a preacher to expound, and say a prayer. That,
with the Bible in the hands of the people, is enough for her. No
hierarchy does she require to maintain order in the church. Let the
ministers meet in local courts and in General Assembly, and settle
everything by equal votes. Bishops and archbishops are a popish breed,
who must, if possible, be kept at a distance.
Even one who may now take more charitable and lenient views
can scarcely fail to sympathise with, yea, admire, this little
out-of-the-way nation, in seeing it dictate and do thus against the
might of an ancient institution of such imposing dimensions as the
Romish Church. And to do it, too, in the teeth of their own ruling
power, such as it was. And all so effectually, that from that hour
to this, Rome, in all her back-surgings upon the ground she lost in
the sixteenth century, was never able to put Scottish Protestantism
once in the slightest danger. Undoubtedly, if there be merit in a
faithful contending for what is felt to be all-important truth, it
was a worthy thing, and one that shewed there was some good metal
in the constitution of the Scottish mind. It could not surprise one
that a people who acted thus, should also prove to be a valiant and
constant people under physical difficulties; that they should make
wonderful results out of a poor soil and climate; that they should do
some considerable things in the science of thinking and in letters;
and, above all, stand well to their own opinions and ways, and to the
maintenance of their political liberties and national independence,
frown, threaten, and drive at them who might.
It was so--_and yet_--for every picture of noble humanity has its
reverse--it is forced upon us that the Scots were, at this very time,
a fearfully rude and ignorant people. As usual, they were so without
having the least consciousness of it: their greatest author of that
age, George Buchanan, speaks in perfect earnest of the _refinement_
of his own time, in comparison with the barbarism of former days.[4]
But, whatever the age might be relatively to past ages, it was rude in
itself. The Scotland of that day was ruder than the England of that
day, ruder than many other European states. Few persons could read or
write. Few knew aught beyond their daily calling. Men carried weapons,
and were apt to use them on light occasion. The lords, and the rich
generally, exercised enormous oppression upon the poor. The government
was a faction of nobles, as against all the rest. When a man had a
suit at law, he felt he had no chance without using ‘influence.’ Was
he to be tried for an offence?--his friends considered themselves
bound to muster in arms round the court to see that he got fair-play;
that is, to get him off unharmed if they could. Men were accustomed
to violence in all forms, as to their daily bread. The house of a
man of consideration was a kind of castle: at the least, it was a
tall narrow tower, with a grated door and a wall of defence. No one
in those days had any general conceptions regarding the processes of
nature. They saw the grass grow and their bullocks feed, and thought
no more of it. Any extraordinary natural event, as an eclipse of the
sun or an earthquake, still more a comet, affected them as an immediate
expression of a frowning Providence. The great diseases, such as
pestilence, which arose in consequence of their uncleanly habits and
the wide-spread famines from which they often suffered, appeared to
them as divine chastisements; not perhaps for the sins of those who
suffered--which would have been comparatively reasonable--but probably
for the sins of a ruler who did not suffer at all. The ruling class
knew no more of a just public economy than the poor. Through absurd
attempts to raise the value of coin by statute, the Scotch pound had
fallen to a fraction of its original worth. By ridiculous endeavours
to control markets, and adjust exportation and importation, mercantile
freedom was paralysed, and penury and scarcity among the poor greatly
increased. The good plant of Knowledge not being yet cultivated, its
weed-precursor, Superstition, largely prevailed. Bearded men believed
that a few muttered words could take away and give back the milk of
their cattle. An archbishop expected to be cured of a deadly ailment
by a charm pronounced by an ignorant countrywoman. The forty-six men
who met as the first General Assembly, and drew from the Scriptures
the Confession of Faith which they handed down as stereotyped truth to
after-generations, were every one of them not more fully persuaded of
the soundness of any of the doctrines of that Confession, than they
were of the reality of sorcery, and felt themselves not more truly
called upon by the Bible to repress idolatry than to punish witches.
They were good men, earnest, and meaning well to God and man; but they
were men of the sixteenth century, ignorant, and rough in many of their
ways.
While, then, we shall see great occasion to admire the hardy valour
with which this people achieved their deliverance from bondage, we
must also be prepared for finding them full of vehement intolerance
towards all challenge of their own dogmas and all adherence to alien
forms of faith. We shall find them utterly incapable of imagining
a conscientious dissent, much less of allowing for and respecting
it. We must be prepared to see them--while repudiating one set of
superstitious incrustations upon the original simple gospel--working
it out on their own part in creeds, plats, covenants, and church
institutions generally, full of mere human logic and device, but yet
assumed to be as true as if a divine voice had spoken and framed
them, breathing war and persecution towards all other systems, and
practically operating as a tyranny only somewhat less formidable than
that which had been put away.
REIGN OF MARY: 1561-1565.
The regent, Mary de Guise, having died in June 1560, while her daughter
Mary, the nominally reigning queen, was still in France, the management
of affairs fell into the hands of the body of nobles, styled Lords
of the Congregation, who had struggled for the establishment of
the Protestant faith. The chief of these was Lord James Stuart, an
illegitimate son of James V., and brother of the queen--the man of by
far the greatest sagacity and energy of his age and country, and a most
earnest votary of the new religion.
Becoming a widow in December 1560, by the death of her husband, Francis
II., Mary no longer had any tie binding her to France, and consequently
she resolved on returning to her own dominions. When she arrived in
Edinburgh, in August 1561, she found the Protestant religion so firmly
established, and so universally accepted by the people--there being
only some secluded districts where Catholicism still prevailed--that,
so far from having a chance of restoring her kingdom to Rome, as
she, ‘an unpersuaded princess,’ might have wished to do, it was with
the greatest difficulty that she could be allowed to have the mass
performed in a private room in her palace. The people regarded her
beautiful face with affection; and, as she allowed her brother, Lord
James, and other Protestant nobles to act for her, her government was
far from unpopular.
Mary’s conduct towards the Protestant cause appeared as that of one who
submits to what cannot be resisted. Before she had been fifteen months
in the country, she accompanied her brother (whom she created Earl of
Moray) on an expedition to the north, where she broke the power of
the Gordon family, who boasted they could restore the Catholic faith
in three counties. What is still more remarkable, she dealt with the
patrimony of the church, accepting part of the spoils for the use of
the state. It is believed, nevertheless, that she designed ultimately
to act in concert with the Catholic powers of the continent for the
restoration of the old religion in Scotland. One obvious motive for
keeping on fair terms with Protestantism for the present, lay in her
hopes of succeeding to the English crown, in the event of the death of
Elizabeth, whose next heir she was.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1561.]
A custom, dating far back in Catholic times, prevailed in Edinburgh
in unchecked luxuriance down almost to the time of the Reformation.
It consisted in a set of unruly dramatic games, called _Robin Hood_,
the _Abbot of Unreason_, and the _Queen of May_, which were enacted
every year in the floral month just mentioned. The interest felt by the
populace in these whimsical merry-makings was intense. At the approach
of May, they assembled and chose some respectable individuals of their
number, very grave and reverend citizens perhaps, to act the parts of
Robin Hood and Little John, of the Lord of Inobedience, or the Abbot of
Unreason, and ‘make sports and jocosities’[5] for them. If the chosen
actors felt it inconsistent with their tastes, gravity, or engagements,
to don a fantastic dress, caper and dance, and incite their neighbours
to do the like, they could only be excused on paying a fine. On the
appointed day, always a Sunday or holiday, the people assembled
in their best attire and in military array, and marched in blithe
procession to some neighbouring field, where the fitting preparations
had been made for their amusement. Robin Hood and Little John
robbed bishops, fought with pinners, and contended in archery among
themselves, as they had done in reality two centuries before.[6] The
Abbot of Unreason kicked up his heels and played antics like a modern
pantaloon. The popular relish for all this was such as can scarcely
now be credited. ‘A learned prelate [Latimer] preaching before Edward
VI., observes, that he once came to a town upon a holiday, and gave
information on the evening before of his design to preach. But next day
when he came to the church, he found the door locked. He tarried half
an hour ere the key could be found, and instead of a willing audience,
some one told him: “This is a busy day with us; we cannot hear you. It
is Robin Hood’s day. The parish are gone abroad to gather for Robin
Hood. I pray you let [hinder] them not.” I was fain (says the bishop)
to give place to Robin Hood. I thought my rochet should have been
regarded, though I were not; but it would not serve. It was fain to
give place to Robin Hood’s men.’[7]
[Sidenote: 1561.]
Such were the Robin Hood plays of Catholic and unthinking times. By and
by, when the Reformation approached, they were found to be disorderly
and discreditable, and an act of parliament was passed against
them.[8] Still, while the upper and more serious classes frowned, the
common sort of people loved the sport too much to resign it without a
struggle. It came to be one of the first difficulties of the men who
had carried through the Reformation, how to wrestle the people out of
their love of the May-games.
In April 1561, one George Durie was chosen in Edinburgh as Robin Hood
and Lord of Inobedience, and on Sunday the 12th of May, he and a great
number of other persons came riotously into the city, with an ensign
and arms in their hands, in disregard of both the act of parliament
and an act of the town-council. Notwithstanding an effort of the
magistrates to turn them back, they passed to the Castle Hill, and
thence returned at their own pleasure. For this offence a cordiner’s
servant, named James Gillon, was condemned to be hanged on the 21st of
July.
[Sidenote: 1561.
JULY 21.]
‘When the time of the poor man’s hanging approachit, and that the
[hangman] was coming to the gibbet with the ladder, upon which the
said cordiner should have been hangit, the craftsmen’s childer[9] and
servants past to armour; and first they housit Alexander Guthrie and
the provost and bailies in the said Alexander’s writing booth, and
syne came down again to the Cross, and dang down the gibbet, and brake
it in pieces, and thereafter passed to the Tolbooth, whilk was then
steekit [shut]; and when they could not apprehend the keys thereof,
they brought fore-hammers and dang up the same Tolbooth door perforce,
the provost, bailies, and others looking thereupon; and when the
said door was broken up, ane part of them past in the same, and not
allenarly [only] brought the same condemnit cordiner forth of the said
Tolbooth, but also all the remanent persons being thereintill; and this
done they past down the Hie Gait [High Street], to have past forth at
the Nether Bow, whilk was then steekit, and because they could not get
furth thereat, they past up the Hie Gait again; and in the meantime
the provost, bailies, and their assisters being in the writing-booth
of Alexander Guthrie, past to the Tolbooth; and in their passing up
the said gait, they being in the Tolbooth, as said is, shot forth at
the said servants ane dag, and hurt ane servant of the craftsmen’s.
That being done, there was naething but tak and slay; that is, the
ane part shooting forth and casting stanes, the other part shooting
hagbuts in again; and sae the craftsmen’s servants held them [conducted
themselves] continually fra three hours afternoon while [till] aucht
at even, and never ane man of the town steirit to defend their provost
and bailies. And then they sent to the masters of the craftsmen to
cause them, gif they might, to stay the said servants; wha purposed to
stay the same, but they could not come to pass, but the servants said
they wald have ane revenge for the man whilk was hurt. And thereafter
the provost sent ane messenger to the constable of the Castle to come
to stay the matter, wha came; and he with the masters of the craftsmen
treated on this manner, that the provost and bailies should discharge
all manner of actions whilk they had against the said craftschilder
in ony time bygane, and charged all their masters to receive them in
service as they did of before, and promittit never to pursue them in
time to come for the same. And this being done and proclaimit, they
skaled [disbanded], and the provost and bailies came furth of the
Tolbooth.’--_D. O._
[Illustration: An Edinburgh Hammerman, 1555.[10]]
[Sidenote: 1561.]
This was altogether an unprotestant movement, though springing only
from a thoughtless love of sport. We may see in the attack on the
Tolbooth a foreshadow of the doings of the Porteous mob in a later age.
It appears that the magistrates, though reformers, were unpopular;
hence the neutrality of the citizens, who, when solicited to interfere
for the defence of the city-rulers, went to their four hours penny,[11]
and returned for answer: ‘They will be magistrates alone; let them rule
the multitude alone.’--_Cal._ Thirteen persons were afterwards ‘fylit’
by an assize for refusing to help the magistrates.--_Pit._
* * * * *
On its being known that Queen Mary was about to arrive in Scotland
from France, there was a great flocking of the upper class of people
from all parts of the country to Edinburgh, ‘as it were to a common
spectacle.’
[Sidenote: AUG. 19.]
The queen arrived with her two vessels in Leith Road, at seven in the
morning of a dull autumn-day. She was accompanied by her three uncles
of the House of Guise--the Duc d’Aumale, the Grand Prior, and the
Marquis d’Elbeuf; besides Monsieur d’Amville, son of the constable of
France, her four gentlewomen, called the _Maries_, and many persons of
inferior note. To pursue the narrative of one who looked on the scene
with an evil eye: ‘The very face of heaven, the time of her arrival,
did manifestly speak what comfort was brought unto this country with
her;’ to wit, sorrow, dolour, darkness, and all impiety; for in the
memory of man, that day of the year, was never seen a more dolorous
face of the heaven, than was at her arrival, which two days after did
so continue; for beside the surface weet and corruption of the air, the
mist was so thick and so dark, that scarce might any man espy ane other
the length of twa butts. The sun was not seen to shine two days before
nor two days after. That forewarning gave God unto us; but, alas, the
most part were blind.
[Sidenote: 1561.]
‘At the sound of the cannons which the galleys shot, the multitude
being advertised, happy was he and she that first might have presence
of the queen.... [At ten hours her hieness landed upon the shore of
Leith.] Because the palace of Holyroodhouse was not thoroughly put in
order ... she remained [in Andrew Lamb’s house] in Leith till towards
the evening, and then repaired thither. In the way betwixt Leith and
the Abbey, met her the rebels of the crafts ... that had violated the
authority of the magistrates and had besieged the provost; but because
she was sufficiently instructed that all they did was done in despite
of the religion, they were easily appardoned. Fires of joy were set
forth all night, and a company of the most honest, with instruments
of music, and with musicians, gave their salutations at her chalmer
window. The melody, as she alleged, liked her weel; and she willed the
same to be continued some nichts after.’--_Knox._
The magistrates of Edinburgh, although all of them zealous for the
reformed religion, resolved to give their young sovereign a gallant
reception, taxing the community for the expenses. It was likewise
thought good that, ‘for the honour and pleasure of our sovereign,
ane banquet sould be made upon Sunday next, to the princes, our said
sovereign’s kinsmen.’
[Sidenote: SEP. 2.]
The queen ‘made her entres in the burgh of Edinburgh in this manner.
Her hieness departed of Holyroodhouse, and rade by the Lang Gate[12]
on the north side of the burgh, unto the time she came to the Castle,
where was ane yett [gate] made to her, at the whilk she, accompanied
by the maist part of the nobility of Scotland, came in and rade up the
castle-bank to the Castle, and dined therein.’
[Sidenote: 1561.]
‘When she had dined at twelve hours, her hieness came furth of
the Castle ..., at whilk departing the artillery shot vehemently.
Thereafter, when she was ridand down the Castle Hill, there met her
hieness ane convoy of the young men of the burgh, to the number of
fifty or thereby, their bodies and thies covered with yellow taffetas,
their arms and legs frae the knee down bare, coloured with black,
in manner of Moors; upon their heads black hats, and on their faces
black visors; in their mouths rings garnished with untellable precious
stanes; about their necks, legs, and arms, infinite of chains of gold:
together with saxteen of the maist honest men of the town, clad in
velvet gowns and velvet bonnets, bearand and gangand about the pall
under whilk her hieness rade; whilk pall was of fine purpour velvet,
lined with red taffetas, fringed with gold and silk. After them was
ane cart with certain bairns, together with ane coffer wherein was the
cupboard and propine [gift] whilk should be propinit to her hieness.
When her grace came forward to the Butter Tron, the nobility and convoy
procedand, there was ane port made of timber in maist honourable
manner, coloured with fine colours, hung with sundry arms; upon whilk
port was singand certain bairns in the maist heavenly wise; under the
whilk port there was ane cloud opening with four leaves, in the whilk
was put ane bonnie bairn. When the queen’s hieness was coming through
the said port, the cloud openit, and the bairn descended down as it
had been ane angel, and deliverit to her hieness the keys of the town,
together with ane Bible and ane Psalm-buik coverit with fine purpour
velvet.[13] After the said bairn had spoken some small speeches, he
delivered also to her hieness three writings, the tenour whereof is
uncertain. That being done, the bairn ascended in the cloud, and the
said cloud steekit.’
‘Thereafter the queen’s grace came down to the Tolbooth, at the whilk
was ... twa scaffats, ane aboon, and ane under that. Upon the under was
situate ane fair virgin called Fortune, under the whilk was three fair
virgins, all clad in maist precious attirement, called ... , Justice,
and Policy. And after ane little speech made there, the queen’s grace
came to the Cross, where there was standand four fair virgins, clad in
the maist heavenly claithing, and frae the whilk Cross the wine ran out
at the spouts in great abundance. There was the noise of people casting
the glasses with wine.’
‘This being done, our lady came to the Salt Tron, where there was
some speakers; and after ane little speech, they burnt upon the
scaffat made at the said Tron the manner of ane sacrifice. Sae that
being done, she departed to the Nether Bow, where there was ane other
scaffat made, having ane dragon in the same, with some speeches; and
after the dragon was burnt, and the queen’s grace heard ane psalm
sung, her hieness passed to the abbey of Holyroodhouse, with the said
convoy and nobilities. There the bairns whilk was in the cart with the
propine made some speech concerning the putting away of the mass, and
thereafter sang ane psalm. And this being done, the ... honest men
remained in her outer chalmer, and desired her grace to receive the
said cupboard, whilk was double over-gilt; the price thereof was 2000
merks; wha received the same and thankit them thereof. And sae the
honest men and convoy come to Edinburgh.’--_D. O._
The Sunday banquet to the queen’s uncles duly took place in the
cardinal’s lodging in Blackfriars’ Wynd. The entire expenses on the
occasion of this royal reception were 4000 merks.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1561.
OCT. 8.]
Before the queen had been settled for many weeks in her capital,
the new-born zeal of the people against the old religion found vent
in a way that shewed in how little danger she was of being spoilt by
complaisance on the part of her subjects. The provost of Edinburgh,
Archibald Douglas, with the bailies and council, ‘causit ane
proclamation to be proclaimit at the Cross of Edinburgh, commanding
and charging all and sundry monks, friars, priests, and all others
papists and profane persons, to pass furth of Edinburgh within
twenty-four hours, under the pain of burning of disobeyers upon the
cheek and harling of them through the town upon ane cart. At the whilk
proclamation, the queen’s grace was very commovit.’--_D. O._ She had,
after all, sufficient influence to cause the provost and bailies to be
degraded from their offices for this act of zeal.
* * * * *
The autumn of this year, the weather was ‘richt guid and fair.’ In the
winter quarter, the weather was still fair, and there was ‘peace and
rest in all Scotland.’--_C. F._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 16.]
William Guild was convicted, notwithstanding his being a minor and of
weak mind, of ‘the thieftous stealing and taking forth of the purse
of Elizabeth Danielstone, the spouse of Niel Laing, hinging upon her
apron ... she being upon the High Street, standing at the krame of
William Speir ... in communing with him, the time of the putting of ane
string to ane penner and inkhorn, whilk she had coft [bought] fra the
said kramer, of ane signet of gold, ane other signet of gold set with
ane cornelian, ane gold ring set with ane great sapphire, ane other
gold ring with ane sapphire formit like ane heart, ane gold ring set
with ane turquois, ane small double gold ring set with ane diamond and
ane ruby, ane auld angel-noble, and ane cusset ducat.’--_Pit._ This
account of the contents of Mrs Laing’s purse, in connection with the
decorations of the fifty young citizens who convoyed the queen in her
procession through the city, raises unexpected ideas as to the means
and taste of the middle classes in 1561.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1561.
DEC. 24.]
Mr William Balfour, indweller in Leith, was convicted of breaking the
queen’s proclamation for the protection of the reformed religion. One
of his acts--‘He, accompanied with certain wicked persons ... upon
set purpose, came to the parish kirk of Edinburgh, callit Sanct Giles
Kirk, where John Cairns was examining the common people of the burgh,
before the last communion ... and the said John, demanding of ane poor
woman, “Gif she had ony hope of salvation by her awn good works,” he,
the said Mr William, in despiteful manner and with thrawn countenance,
having naething to do in that kirk but to trouble the said examination,
said to the said John thir words: “Thou demands of that woman the thing
whilk thou nor nane of thy opinion allows or keeps.” And, after gentle
admonition made to him by the said John, he said to him alsae thir
words: “Thou art ane very knave, and thy doctrine is very false, as all
your doctrine and teaching is.” And therewith laid his hand upon his
weapons, and provoking battle; doing therethrough purposely that was in
him to have raisit tumult amang the inhabitants of this burgh.’--_Pit._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1561-2.
JAN. 1.]
Alexander Scott, a poet of that time, sometimes called the Scottish
Anacreon, because he sung so much of love, sent _Ane New Year Gift_ to
the queen, in the form of a poetical address in twenty-eight stanzas.
‘Welcome, illustrate lady, and our queen!’ it begins. ‘This year
sall richt and reason rule the rod’--‘this year sall be of peace,
tranquillity, and rest!’ says the sanguine bard, speaking from his
wishes rather than a contemplation of known facts. He calls on Mary to
found on the four cardinal virtues, to cleave to Christ, and be the
‘protectrice of the puir.’ ‘Stanch all strife’--‘the pulling down of
policy reprove.’
‘At Cross gar cry by open proclamation,
Under great pains, that neither he nor she
Of haly writ have ony disputation,
But letterit men or learnit clerks thereto;
For limmer lads and little lasses low
Will argue baith with bishops, priests, and frier;
To danton this thou has eneuch to do,
God give thee grace against this guid new year!’
Mary would probably feel the force of the seventh line of this stanza.
With commendable prudence, seeing he was addressing a papist queen,
honest Alexander says:
‘With mess nor matins noways will I mell,
To judge them justly passes my ingine;
They guide nocht ill that governs weel themsel.’
Yet he deems himself at liberty to remark--doubtless suspecting that
Mary would not be much displeased--that instead of old idols has now
come in another called _Covetice_, under whose auspices, certain
persons, while
[Sidenote: 1561-2]
‘Singing Sanct David’s psalter on their books,’
are found
‘Rugging and ryving up kirk rents like rooks.’
‘Protestants,’ he goes on to say,
‘takes the friers’ antetume,[14]
Ready receivers, but to render nocht.’
On this Lord Hailes remarks: ‘The reformed clergy expected that the
tithes would be applied to charitable uses, to the advancement of
learning and the maintenance of the ministry. But the nobility, when
they themselves had become the exactors, saw nothing rigorous in the
payment of tithes, and derided those _devout imaginations_.’[15]
In one verse of his poem, Scott makes pointed allusion to certain
prophecies which seemed to assign a brilliant future to Mary:
‘If saws be sooth to shaw thy celsitude,
What bairn should brook all Britain by the sea,
The prophecy expressly does conclude
The French wife of the Bruce’s blood should be:
Thou art by line from him the ninth degree,
And was King Francis’ perty maik and peer;
So by descent the same should spring of thee,
By grace of God against this good new year.’
The poet here undoubtedly had in view a prediction which occurs in
a rude metrical tract printed at Edinburgh by Robert Waldegrave in
1603, under the title, ‘The Whole Prophesies of Scotland, England, and
somepart of France and Denmark, prophesied by mervellous Merling, Beid,
Bertlingtoun, Thomas Rymour, Waldhave, &c., all according in one.’[16]
These so-called prophecies are unintelligible rhapsodies about lions,
dragons, foumarts, conflicts of knights, of armies, and of navies--how
there should be fighting on a moor beside a cross, till by the
multitude of slain the crow should not find where the cross stood--how
the dead shall rise, ‘and that shall be wonder’--how
‘When the man in the moon is most in his might,
Then shall Dunbarton turn up that is down,
And the mouth of Arran both at one time,
And the lord with the lucken hand his life shall he lose--’
and much more of the like kind.
[Sidenote: 1561-2.]
From the style of the verse, which is in general alliterative, as well
as some of the allusions, it may be surmised that these prophecies
were written in the minority of James V., on the basis of obscure
popular sayings attributed to Merlin, Rymour, and other early sages.
The special passage which Alexander Scott refers to was in Rymour’s
prophecies, but also given in a slightly different form in those of
Bertlingtoun:
‘A French wife shall bear the son,
Shall rule all Britain to the sea,
That of the Bruce’s blood shall come,
As near as to the ninth degree.’
There can be no doubt that it is applicable to Queen Mary, who was a
French wife, and in the ninth degree of descent from Bruce; and did we
know for certain that it formed a part of the prophecies made up in the
minority of her father, it would be remarkable. But the probability
is, that the verse was a recent addition to the old rhymes, a mere
conjecture formed in the view of the possibility and the hope that
a child of Mary would succeed to the English crown at the close of
Elizabeth’s life. What makes the allusion of Scott chiefly worthy of
notice, is the knowledge it gives us of the public mind being then
possessed by such soothsayings. It certainly was so, to a degree and
with effects beyond what we now may readily imagine.[17]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1561-2.]
While Scotland was noted in the eyes of foreigners as a barren
land--Shakspeare comparing it for nakedness to the palm of the
hand[18]--its own people were fain to believe and eager to boast
that it was rich in minerals. In 1511, 1512, and 1513, James IV. had
gold-mines worked on Crawford Muir, in the upper ward of Lanarkshire--a
peculiarly sterile tract, scarcely any part of which is less than a
thousand feet above the sea. In the royal accounts for those years,
there are payments to Sir James Pettigrew, who seems to have been
chief of the enterprise, to Simon Northberge, the master-finer,
Andrew Ireland, the finer, and Gerald Essemer, a Dutchman, the melter
of the mine. Under the same king, in 1512, a lead-mine was wrought
at Wanlock-head, on the other side of the same group of hills in
Dumfriesshire. The operations, probably interrupted by the disaster of
Flodden, were resumed in 1526, under James V., who gave a company of
Germans a grant of the mines of Scotland for forty-three years. Leslie
tells us that these Germans, with the characteristic perseverance of
their countrymen, toiled laboriously at gold-digging for many months in
the surface alluvia of the moor, and obtained a considerable amount of
gold, but not enough, we suspect, to remunerate the labour: otherwise
the work would surely have been continued.
We shall find that the search for the precious metals in the
mountainous district at the head of the vales of the Clyde and Nith,
did not now finally cease, but that it never proved remunerative work.
On the other hand, the lead-mines of the district have for centuries,
and down to the present day, borne a conspicuous place in the economy
of Scotland. It must be interesting to see the traces of the first
efforts to get at
‘the wealth
Hopetoun’s high mountains fill.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Jan. 23.]
John Acheson, master-cunyer, and John Aslowan, burgess of Edinburgh,
now completed an arrangement with Queen Mary, by virtue of which they
had licence to work the lead-mines of Glengoner and Wanlock-head, and
carry as much as twenty thousand stone-weight of the ore to Flanders,
or other foreign countries, for which they bound themselves to deliver
at the queen’s cunyie-house before the 1st of August next, forty-five
ounces of fine silver for every thousand stone-weight of the ore,
‘extending in the hale to nine hundred unces of utter fine silver.’
Acheson and Aslowan were continuing to work these mines in August 1565,
when the queen and her husband, King Henry, granted a licence to John,
Earl of Athole, ‘to win forty thousand trone stane wecht, counting six
score stanes for ilk hundred, of lead ore, and mair, gif the same may
guidly be won, within the nether lead hole of Glengoner and Wanlock.’
The earl agreed to pay to their majesties in requital fifty ounces of
fine silver for every thousand stone-weight of the ore.--_P. C. R._
How the enterprise of Acheson and Aslowan ultimately succeeded does
not appear. We suspect that, to some extent, it prospered, as the name
Sloane, which seems the same as Aslowan, continued to flourish at
Wanlock-head so late as the days of Burns.
A similar licence, on similar terms, was granted by the king and queen
to James Carmichael, Master James Lindsay, and Andrew Stevenson,
burgesses of Edinburgh, referring, however, to any part of the realm
save ‘the mine and werk of Glengoner and Wanlock.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1561-2.
FEB. 8.]
The Lord James, newly created Earl of Mar (subsequently of Moray),
‘was married-upon Annas Keith, daughter to William Earl Marischal,
in the kirk of Sanct Geil in Edinburgh, with sic solemnity as the
like has not been seen before; the hale nobility of this realm being
there present, and convoyit them down to Holyroodhouse, where the
banquet was made, and the queen’s grace thereat.’ The _solemnity_
was of a kind which seems rather frisky for so zealous an upholder
of the presbyterian cause. ‘At even, after great and divers balling,
and casting of fire-balls, fire-spears, and running with horses,’ the
queen created sundry knights. Next day, ‘at even, the queen’s grace and
the remaining lords came up in ane honourable manner frae the palace
of Holyroodhouse to the Cardinal’s lodging in the Blackfrier Wynd,
whilk was preparit and hung maist honourably; and there her hieness
suppit, and the rest with her. After supper, the honest young men in
the town [the youths of the upper classes] came with ane convoy to her,
and other some came with merschance, well accouterit in maskery, and
thereafter departit to the said palace.’--_D. O._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Feb.]
There was ‘meikle snaw in all parts; mony deer and roes slain.’--_C. F._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1562.
APR.]
The queen was at St Andrews, inquiring into a conspiracy of which the
Duke of Chatelherault and the Earl of Bothwell had been accused by the
Duke’s son, the Earl of Arran. In the midst of the affair, Arran proved
to be ‘phrenetick.’ On the 4th of May, ‘my Lords Arran, Bothwell, and
the Commendator of Kilwinning came fra St Andrews to the burgh of
Edinburgh in this manner; that is to say, my Lord Arran was convoyit in
the queen’s grace’s _coach_, because of the phrenesy aforesaid, and the
Earl of Bothwell and my Lord Commendator of Kilwinning rade, convoyit
with twenty-four horsemen, whereof was principal Captain Stewart,
captain of the queen’s guard.’--_D. O._
[Sidenote: 1562.]
This is not the first notice of a travelling vehicle that occurs in
our national domestic history. Several payments in connection with a
chariot belonging to the late Queen Mary de Guise, so early as 1538,
occur in the lord-treasurer’s books.[19] It is not, however, likely
that either the chariot of the one queen or the coach of the other was
a wheeled vehicle, as, if we may trust to an authority about to be
quoted, such a convenience was as yet unknown even in England.
‘In the year 1564, Guilliam Boonen, a Dutchman, became the queen’s
coachman, and was the first that brought the use of coaches into
England. And after a while, divers great ladies, with as great jealousy
of the queen’s displeasure, made them coaches, and rid in them up and
down the countries, to the great admiration of all the beholders;
but then, by little and little, they grew usual among the nobility
and others of sort, and within twenty years became a great trade of
coachmaking.
‘And about that time began long waggons to come in use, such as now
come to London from Canterbury, Norwich, Ipswich, Gloucester, &c., with
passengers and commodities. Lastly, even at this time (1605) began the
ordinary use of carouches.’--_Howes’s Chronicle._
The author of the _Memorie of the Somervilles_--who, however, lived in
the reign of Charles II., and probably wrote from tradition only--says
that the Regent Morton used a coach, which was the _second_ introduced
into Scotland, the _first_ being one which Alexander Lord Seaton
brought from France, when Queen Mary returned from that country. It
is to be remarked that the Lord Seaton of that day was George, not
Alexander; and it is evident that Mary did not use a coach on her
landing, or at her ceremonial entry into Edinburgh.
* * * * *
To turn for a moment to one of the remoter and wilder parts of the
country--John Mackenzie of Kintail ‘was a great courtier with Queen
Mary. He feued much of the lands of Brae Ross. When the queen sent her
servants to know the condition of the gentry of Ross, they came to his
house of Killin; but before their coming he had gotten intelligence
that it was to find out the condition of the gentry of Ross that they
were coming; whilk made him cause his servants to put ane great fire of
fresh arn [alder] wood when they came, to make a great reek; also he
caused kill a great bull in their presence; whilk was put altogether
into ane kettle to their supper. When the supper came, there were a
half-dozen great dogs present, to sup the broth of the bull, whilk put
all the house through-other with their tulyie. When they ended the
supper, ilk ane lay where they were. The gentlemen thought they had
gotten purgatory on earth, and came away as soon as it was day; but
when they came to the houses of Balnagowan, and Foulis, and Milton,
they were feasted like princes. [Sidenote: 1562.]
‘When they went back to the queen, she asked who were the ablest men
they saw in Ross. They answered: “They were all able men, except that
man that was her majesty’s great courtier, Mackenzie--that he did both
eat and lie with his dogs.” “Truly,” said the queen, “it were a pity of
his poverty--he is the best man of them all.” Then the queen did call
for all the gentry of Ross to take their land in feu, when Mackenzie
got the cheap feu, and more for his thousand merks than any of the rest
got for five.’[20]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP. 23.]
This day commenced a famous disputation between John Knox and Quintin
Kennedy, abbot of Crossraguel, concerning the doctrines of popery.
Kennedy was uncle to the Earl of Cassillis, a young Protestant
noble, and the greatest man in the west of Scotland. The birth and
ecclesiastical rank of the abbot made him an important person in his
province, and he possessed both zeal for the ancient religion and
talents to set it in its fairest light. Early in September, John Knox,
coming into Ayrshire for certain objects connected with the Protestant
cause, found that Abbot Kennedy had set forth, in the church of
Kirkoswald, articles in support of the Catholic faith, which he was
willing to defend. The fiery reformer immediately resolved to take
up the challenge; and after a tedious correspondence between the two
regarding the place, time, and number to be present, they met in the
house of the provost of the collegiate church of Maybole, under the
sanction of the Earl of Cassillis, and with forty persons on each side.
The conference commenced at eight in the morning, being opened by John
Knox with a prayer, which Kennedy admitted to be ‘weel said.’
[Sidenote: 1562.]
We can imagine the forty supporters of Kennedy full of joyful
anticipation as to the defeat which their champion was to give the
unpolite heretic Knox, and the company of the latter not less hopeful
regarding the triumph which he was to achieve over the luxurious abbot.
Acts of parliament had done their best to put down the old church,
and still it had some obstinate adherents; but now comes the valiant
reformer, with pure argument from Scripture, to sweep one of these
recusants off the face of the earth, and leave the rest without an
excuse for their obstinacy. Now are the mass, purgatory, worship of
saints, and other popish doctrines, to be finally put down. If such
were the anticipations, they were doomed to a sad disappointment. The
disputation proved to be the very type of all similar wranglings which
have since taken place between the two parties.
It will scarcely be believed, but there is only too little reason
why it should not, that three days were consumed by these redoubted
controversialists in debating one question. The warrant of the abbot
for considering the mass as a sacrifice was the priesthood and oblation
of Melchizedek. ‘The Psalmist,’ said he, ‘and als the apostle St Paul
affirms our Saviour to be ane priest for ever according to the order
of Melchizedek, wha made oblation and sacrifice of bread and wine unto
God, as the Scripture plainly teacheth us.... Read all the evangel wha
pleases, he sall find in no place of the evangel where our Saviour
uses the priesthood of Melchizedek, declaring himself to be ane priest
after the order of Melchizedek, but in the Latter Supper, where he made
oblation of his precious body and blude under the form of bread and
wine prefigurate by the oblation of Melchizedek: then are we compelled
to affirm that our Saviour made oblation of his body and blude in the
Latter Supper, or else he was not ane priest according to the order of
Melchizedek, which is express against the Scripture.’
To this Knox answered that Scripture gives no warrant for supposing
that Melchizedek offered bread and wine unto Abraham, and therefore
the abbot’s warrant fails. The abbot called on him to prove that
Melchizedek did not do so. Knox protested that he was not bound to
prove a negative. ‘For what, then,’ says Kennedy, ‘did Melchizedek
bring out the bread and wine?’ Knox said, that though he was not bound
to answer this question, yet he believed the bread and wine were
brought out to refresh Abraham and his men. In barren wranglings on
this point were nearly the whole three days spent; and, for anything we
can see, the disputation might have been still further protracted, but
for an opportune circumstance. Strange to say--looking at what Maybole
now is--it broke down under the burden of eighty strangers in three
days! They had to disperse for lack of provisions.[21]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1562.
NOV.]
There raged at this time in Edinburgh a disease called the _New
Acquaintance_. The queen and most of her courtiers had it; it spared
neither lord nor lady, French nor English. ‘It is a pain in their heads
that have it, and a soreness in their stomachs, with a great cough; it
remaineth with some longer, with others shorter time, as it findeth apt
bodies for the nature of the disease.’[22] Most probably, this disorder
was the same as that now recognised as the influenza.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1563.
MAY 19.]
Sir John Arthur, a priest, was indicted for baptising and marrying
several persons ‘in the auld and abominable papist manner.’ Here and
there, the old church had still some adherents who preferred such
ministrations to any other. It appears that Hugh and David Kennedy
came with two hundred followers, ‘boden in effeir of weir;’ that is,
with jacks, spears, guns, and other weapons; to the parish kirk of
Kirkoswald and the college kirk of Maybole, and there ministered and
abused ‘the sacraments of haly kirk, otherwise and after ane other
manner nor by public and general order of this realm.’ The archbishop
of St Andrews in like manner came, with a number of friends, to
the Abbey Kirk of Paisley, ‘and openly, publicly, and plainly took
auricular confession of the said persons, in the said kirk, town,
kirk-yard, chalmers, barns, middings, and killogies thereof.’--_Pit._
‘After great debate, reasoning, and communication had in the council
by the Protestants, wha was bent even to the death against the said
archbishop and others kirkmen, the archbishop passed to the Tolbooth,
and became in the queen’s will; and sae the queen’s grace commandit him
to pass to the Castle of Edinburgh induring her will, to appease the
furiosity foresaid.’--_D. O._ The other offenders also made submission,
and were assigned to various places of confinement. William Semple of
Thirdpart and Michael Nasmyth of Posso afterwards gave caution to the
extent of £3000 for the future good behaviour of the archbishop.--_Pit._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1563.
JUNE 4.]
In the parliament now sitting, some noticeable acts were passed. One
decreed that ‘nae person carry forth of this realm ony gold or silver,
under pain of escheating of the same and of all the remainder of their
moveable guids,’ merchants going abroad to carry only as much as they
strictly require for their travelling expenses. Another enacted, that
‘nae person take upon hand to use ony manner of witchcrafts, sorcery,
or necromancy, nor give themselves furth to have ony sic craft or
knowledge thereof, therethrough abusing the people;’ also, that ‘nae
person seek ony help, response, or consultation at ony sic users or
abusers of witchcrafts ... under the pain of death.’ This is the
statute under which all the subsequent witch-trials took place.
A third statute, reciting that much coal is now carried forth of the
realm, often as mere ballast for ships, causing ‘a maist exorbitant
dearth and scantiness of fuel,’ forbade further exportations of
the article, under strong penalties. In those early days, coal was
only dug in places where it cropped out or could be got with little
trouble. As yet, no special mechanical arrangements for excavating it
had come into use. The comparatively small quantity of the mineral
used in Edinburgh--for there peat was the reigning fuel--was brought
from Tranent, nine miles off, in _creels_ on horses’ backs. The above
enactment probably referred to some partial and temporary failure
of the small supply then required. It never occurred to our simple
ancestors, that to export a native produce, such as coal, and get money
in return, was tending to enrich the country, and in all circumstances
deserved encouragement instead of prohibition.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 2.]
Henry Sinclair, Bishop of Ross and President of the Court of
Session--‘a cunning and lettered man as there was,’ remarkable for
his ‘singular intelligence in theology and likewise in the laws,’
according to the _Diurnal of Occurrents_--‘ane perfect hypocrite and
conjured enemy to Christ Jesus,’ according to John Knox--left Scotland
for Paris, ‘to get remede of ane confirmed stane.’ This would imply
that there was not then in our island a person qualified to perform
the operation of lithotomy. The reverend father was lithotomised by
Laurentius, a celebrated surgeon; but, fevering after the operation, he
died in January 1564-5: in the words of Knox, ‘God strake him according
to his deservings.’
[Sidenote: 1563.
SEP. 13.]
At the same time there were not wanting amongst us pretenders to the
surgical art. In this very month, Robert Henderson attracted the
favourable notice of the town-council of Edinburgh by performing sundry
wonderful cures--namely, healing a man whose hands had been cut off,
a man and woman who had been run through the body with swords by the
French, and a woman understood to have been suffocated, and who had
lain two days in her grave. The council ordered Robert twenty merks as
a reward.[23] Two gentlemen became sureties in Edinburgh for Marion
Carruthers, co-heiress of Mousewald, in Dumfriesshire, ‘that she shall
not marry ane chief traitor nor other broken man of the country,’ under
pain of £1000 (_Pit_)--a large sum to stake upon a young lady’s will.
* * * * *
This was a year of dearth throughout Scotland; wheat being six pounds
the boll, oats fifty shillings, a draught-ox twenty merks, and a wedder
thirty shillings. ‘All things apperteining to the sustentation of man
in triple and more exceeded their accustomed prices.’ Knox, who notes
these facts, remarks that the famine was most severe in the north,
where the queen had travelled in the preceding autumn: many died there.
‘So did God, according to the threatening of his law, punish the
idolatry of our wicked queen, and our ingratitude, that suffered her to
defile the land with that abomination again [the mass].... The riotous
feasting used in court and country wherever that wicked woman repaired,
provoked God to strike the staff of breid, and to give his malediction
upon the fruits of the earth.’
It was of the frame of the reformer’s ideas, that a judgment would
be sent upon the poor for the errors of their ruler, and that this
judgment would be intensified in a particular district merely because
the ruler had given it her personal presence. He failed to observe, or
threw aside, the fact, that the same famine prevailed in England, where
a queen entirely agreeable to him and his friends was now reigning, and
certainly indulging in not a few banquetings. Theories of this kind
sometimes prove to be two-edged swords, that will strike either way. It
might have been replied to him: ‘Accepting your theory that nations,
besides suffering from the simple misgovernment of their rulers,
are punished for their personal offences, what shall we say of the
Protestant Elizabeth, whose people now suffer not merely under famine,
as the Scotch are doing, but are visited by a dreadful pestilence
besides,[24] from which Scotland is exempt?’
[Sidenote: 1563-4.
JAN. 20.]
‘God from heaven, and upon the face of the earth, gave declaration that
he was offended at the iniquity that was committed within this realm;
for, upon the 20th day of January, there fell weet in great abundance,
whilk in the falling freezit so vehemently, that the earth was but ane
sheet of ice. The fowls both great and small freezit, and micht not
flie: mony died, and some were taken and laid beside the fire, that
their feathers might resolve. And in that same month, the sea stood
still, as was clearly observed, and neither ebbed nor flowed the space
of twenty-four hours.’--_Knox._
[Sidenote: FEB. 15
and 18.]
In the ensuing month meteorological signs even more alarming to the
great reformer took place. There were seen in the firmament, says
he, ‘battles arrayit, spears and other weapons, and as it had been
the joining of two armies. Thir things were not only observed, but
also spoken and constantly affirmed by men of judgment and credit.’
Nevertheless, he adds, ‘the queen and our court made merry.’
The reformer considered these appearances as declarations of divine
wrath against the iniquity of the land, and he is evidently solicitous
to establish them upon good evidence. There can be no difficulty in
admitting the facts he refers to. The debate must be as to what the
facts were. Most probably they were resolvable into a simple example of
the _aurora borealis._
* * * * *
The crimes of unruly passion and of superstition predominated in this
age; but those of dexterous selfishness were not unknown.
[Sidenote: 1563-4.
FEB.]
Thomas Peebles, goldsmith in Edinburgh, was convicted of forging
coin-stamps and uttering false coin--namely, _Testons_, _Half-testons_,
_Non-sunts_, and _Lions_ or _Hardheads_. It appeared that he had given
some of his false hardheads to a poor woman as the price of a burden
of coal. With this money she came to the market to buy some necessary
articles, and was instantly challenged for passing false coin. ‘The
said Thomas being named by her to be her warrant, and deliverer of the
said false coin to her, David Symmer and other bailies of the burgh of
Edinburgh come with her to the said Thomas’s chalmer, to search him
for trial of the verity. He held the door of his said chalmer close
upon him, and wald not suffer them to enter, while [till] they brake up
the door thereof upon him, and entered perforce therein; and the said
Thomas, being inquired if he had given the said poor woman the said
lions, for the price of her coals, confessit the same; and his chalmer
being searched, there was divers of the said irons, as well sunken and
unsunken, together with the said false testons, &c., funden in the
same, and confessit to be made and graven by him and his colleagues.’
Thomas was condemned to be hanged, and to have his property escheat to
the queen.--_Pit._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAR. 22.]
In consequence of the slaughter of the Laird of Cessford, in an
encounter with the Laird of Buccleuch, at Melrose, in 1526, a feud
had ever since raged between their respective dependents, the Kerrs
and Scotts. In 1529, there had been an effort to put an end to this
broil by an engagement between Walter Kerr of Cessford, Andrew Kerr
of Ferniehirst, Mark Kerr of Dolphinston, George Kerr, tutor of
Cessford, and Andrew Kerr of Primsideloch, for themselves and kin on
the one part, and Walter Scott of Branxholm, knight, with sundry other
gentlemen of his clan on the other side, whereby the latter became
bound to perform the four pilgrimages of Scotland--that is, to the
churches of Melrose, Dundee, Scone, and Paisley--as a reparation for
the slaughter. Bad blood being nevertheless kept up, Sir Walter Scott
of Branxholm, Laird of Buccleuch, was slain on the streets of Edinburgh
by Cessford, in 1552.[25]
[Sidenote: 1563-4.]
At the date now under attention, a meeting of the heads of the two
houses took place in Edinburgh, and a contract was drawn up, setting
forth certain terms of agreement, and arranging that, ‘for the mair
sure removing, stanching, and away-putting of all inimity, hatrent,
and grudge standing and conceivit betwin the said parties, through the
unhappy slaughter of the umwhile Sir Walter Scott of Branksome, knight,
and for the better continuance of amity, favour, and friendship, amangs
them in time coming, the said Sir Walter Kerr of Cessford sall, upon
the 23 day of March instant, come to the perish kirk of Edinburgh, now
commonly callit Sanct Giles’s Kirk, and there, before noon, in sight
of the people present for the time, reverently upon his knees ask God
mercy of the slaughter aforesaid, and sic like ask forgiveness of
the same fra the said Laird of Buccleuch and his friends whilk sall
happen to be present; and thereafter promise, in the name and fear
of God, that he and his friends sall truly keep their part of this
present contract, and sall stand true friends to the said Laird of
Buccleuch and his friends in all time coming: the whilk the said Laird
of Buccleuch sall reverently accept and receive, and promise, in the
fear of God, to remit his grudge, and never remember the same.’ A
subsequent part of the agreement was, that the son of Cessford should
marry a sister of Buccleuch, and Sir Andrew Ker of Fawdonside another
sister, both without portion.[26]
This singular meeting would of course take place, but with what effect
may well be doubted. It appears that the feud which had begun in 1526
still remained in force in 1596, ‘when both chieftains paraded the
streets of Edinburgh with their followers, and it was expected their
first meeting would decide their quarrel.’[27]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAR. 24.]
At a time when the most prominent events were clan-quarrels and the
rough doings connected with the trampling out of an old religion, it
is pleasant to trace even speculative attempts to enlarge the material
resources and advance the primary interests of the country.
At the date noted, the queen granted to John Stewart of Tarlair,[28]
and William Stewart his son, licence to win all kinds of metallic ores
from the country between Tay and Orkney, on the condition of paying
one stone of ore for every ten won; and this arrangement to last for
nine years, during the first two of which their work was to be free,
‘in respect of their invention and great charges made, and to be made,
in outreeking of the same.’ In the event of their finding any gold and
silver where none were ever found before, they had the same licence,
with only this condition, that the product was to be brought to her
majesty’s cunyie-house, ‘the unce of gold for ten pund, and the unce of
utter fine silver for 24s.’ It was too early for such an enterprise,
and we hear no more of it in the hands of the two Stewarts of Tarlair.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1564.
MARCH.]
John Knox, at the age of fifty-eight, entered into the state of wedlock
for the second time, by marrying Margaret Stewart, daughter of Lord
Ochiltree. She proved a good wife to the old man, and survived him.
The circumstance of a young woman of rank, with royal blood in her
veins--for such was the case--accepting an elderly husband so far
below her degree, did not fail to excite remark; and John’s papist
enemies could not account for it otherwise than by a supposition of the
black art having been employed. The affair is thus adverted to by the
reformer’s shameless enemy, Nicol Burne: ‘A little after he did pursue
to have alliance with the honourable house of Ochiltree, of the king’s
majesty’s awn bluid. Riding there with ane great court [cortège], on
ane trim gelding, nocht like ane prophet or ane auld decrepit priest,
as he was, but like as he had been ane of the bluid royal, with his
bands of taffeta fastenit with golden rings and precious stanes: and,
as is plainly reportit in the country, by sorcery and witchcraft, [he]
did sae allure that puir gentlewoman, that she could not live without
him; whilk appears to be of great probability, she being ane damsel of
noble bluid, and he ane auld decrepit creature of maist base degree,
sae that sic ane noble house could not have degenerate sae far, except
John Knox had interposed the power of his master the devil, wha, as he
transfigures himself sometimes as ane angel of licht, sae he causit
John Knox appear ane of the maist noble and lusty men that could be
found in the warld.’[29]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAY 17.]
‘... the Lord Fleming married the Lord Ross’s eldest daughter, wha
was heretrix both of Ross and Halket; and the banquet was made in the
park of Holyroodhouse, under Arthur’s Seat, at the end of the loch,
where great triumphs was made, the queen’s grace being present, and the
king of Swethland’s ambassador being then in Scotland, with many other
nobles.’--_Mar._
In the romantic valley between Arthur’s Seat and Salisbury Crags,
there is still traceable a dam by which the natural drainage had
been confined, so as to form a lake. It was probably at the end of
that sheet of water that the banquet was set forth for Lord and Lady
Fleming’s wedding. The incident is so pleasantly picturesque, and
associates Mary so agreeably with one of her subjects, that it is
gratifying to reflect on Lord Fleming proving a steady friend to
the queen throughout her subsequent troubles. He stoutly maintained
Dumbarton Castle in her favour against the Regents, and against
Elizabeth’s general, Sir William Drury; nor was it taken from him
except by stratagem.[30]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1564.
AUG.]
At the beginning of this month, Queen Mary paid a visit of pleasure
to the Highlands of Perthshire, where the Earl of Athole was her
entertainer. It is understood that Glen Tilt was the scene of a grand
hunt, in the characteristic style of the country, at which the queen
was present, and of which an account has been preserved to us by a
scholarly personage who was in the royal train. ‘In the year 1563,’
says he (mistaking the year), ‘the Earl of Athole, a prince of the
blood-royal, had, with much trouble and vast expense, a hunting-match
for the entertainment of our most illustrious and most gracious queen.
Our people call this a royal hunting. I was then,’ says William
Barclay, ‘a young man, and was present on the occasion. Two thousand
Highlanders, of wild Scotch, as you call them here, were employed to
drive to the hunting-ground all the deer from the woods and hills
of Athole, Badenoch, Mar, Murray, and the counties about. As these
Highlanders use a light dress, and are very swift of foot, they went
up and down so nimbly that in less than two months’ time they brought
together 2000 red deer, besides roes and fallow-deer. The queen, the
great men, and others, were in a glen when all the deer were brought
before them. Believe me, the whole body of them moved forward in
something like battle order. This sight still strikes me, and ever
will, for they had a leader whom they followed close wherever he moved.
This leader was a very fine stag, with a very high head. The sight
delighted the queen very much; but she soon had occasion for fear,
upon the earl’s (who had been accustomed to such sights) addressing
her thus: “Do you observe that stag who is foremost of the herd? There
is danger from that stag; for if either fear or rage should force him
from the ridge of that hill, let every one look to himself, for none of
us will be out of the way of harm; for the rest will follow this one,
and having thrown us under foot, they will open a passage to this hill
behind us.” What happened a moment after confirmed this opinion; for
the queen ordered one of the best dogs to be let loose upon a wolf;[31]
this the dog pursues, the leading stag was frightened, he flies by the
same way he had come there, the rest rush after him, and break out
where the thickest body of the Highlanders was. They had nothing for
it but to throw themselves flat on the heath, and to allow the deer to
pass over them. It was told the queen that several of the Highlanders
had been wounded, and that two or three had been killed outright; and
the whole body had got off, had not the Highlanders, by their skill
in hunting, fallen upon a stratagem to cut off the rear from the main
body. It was of those that had been separated that the queen’s dogs,
and those of the nobility, made slaughter. There were killed that day
360 deer, with five wolves and some roes.’[32]
[Illustration: Queen Mary’s Harp.]
[Sidenote: 1564.]
The queen, in the course of her excursion, is believed to have taken
an interest in the native music of the Highlands, in which, as in
Ireland, the harp bore a distinguished part. It is even reported that
a kind of competition amongst the native harpers took place in her
presence, at which she adjudged the victory to Beatrix Gardyn, of
Banchory, Aberdeenshire. Certain it is, that the Robertsons of Lude
possessed a harp of antique form, which family tradition represented
as having come to them through a descendant of Beatrix Gardyn, who had
married a Robertson of Lude; and the same authority regarded this
harp with veneration, as having been the prize conferred on the fair
Beatrix by Queen Mary, for her superior excellence as a performer on
the instrument.[33] Queen Mary’s harp, as it is called, is now in the
possession of Mr Stewart of Dalguise.[34] It is a small instrument
compared with the modern harp, being fitted for twenty-eight strings,
the longest extending twenty-four inches, the shortest two and a
half. There had once been gems set in it, and also, it is supposed, a
portrait of the queen. It was strung anew and played upon in 1806.
* * * * *
This summer there was ‘guid cheap of victuals in all parts. The year
afore, the boll of meal gave five merk, and this summer it was 18s.
There ye may see the grace of God.’--_C. F._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT.]
‘... William Smibert, being callit before the kirk [session of the
Canongate] why he sufferit his bairn to be unbaptised, answers: “No,
I have my bairn baptised, and that in the queen’s grace’s chapel,”
because, as he allegit, the kirk refusit him; and being requirit wha
was witness unto the child, answers: “I will show no man at this time.”
For the whilk, James Wilkie, bailie, assistant with the kirk, commands
the said William to be halden in ward until he declare wha was his
witness, that the kirk may be assurit the bairn to be baptisit, and by
wham.’--_Kirk-session Rec. of Canongate._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1564-5.
JAN.]
The queen making a progress in Fife caused so much banqueting as to
produce a scarcity of wild-fowl: ‘partridges were sold for a crown
apiece.’--_Knox._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1565.
APR. 1.]
The communion was administered in Edinburgh, and as it was near Easter,
the few remaining Catholics met at mass. The reformed clergy were on
the alert, and seized the priest, Sir James Carvet, as he was coming
from the house where he had officiated. Knox tells us with what an
absurd degree of leniency the offender was treated. They ‘conveyed
him,’ says he, ‘together with the master of the house, and one or two
more of the assistants, to the Tolbooth, and immediately revested
him with all his garments upon him, and so carried him to the Market
Cross, where they set him on high, binding the chalice in his hand, and
himself tied fast to the said Cross, where he tarried the space of one
hour; during which time _the boys served him with his Easter eggs_.
‘The next day, Carvet with his assistants were accused and convinced
by an assize, according to the act of parliament; and, albeit for the
same offence he deserved death, yet, for all punishment, he was set
upon the Market Cross for the space of three or four hours, the hangman
standing by and keeping him, [while] the boys and others were busy with
eggs-casting.’
The queen sent an angry letter to the magistrates about this business;
from which ‘may be perceived how grievously the queen’s majesty would
have been offended if the mess-monger had been handled according to his
demerit’--that is, hanged.--_Knox._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR.]
A discovery of antique remains was made at Inveresk, near Musselburgh,
revealing the long-forgotten fact of the Romans once having had a
settlement on that fine spot. Randolph, the English resident at
Mary’s court, communicated some account of the discovery to the
Earl of Bedford. ‘April 7, For certain there is found a cave beside
Musselburgh, standing upon a number of pillars, made of tile-stones
curiously wrought, signifying great antiquity, and strange monuments
found in the same. This cometh to my knowledge, besides the common
report, by th’ assurance of Alexander Clerk, who was there to see
it, which I will myself do within three or four days, and write unto
your lordship the more certainty thereof, for I will leave nothing
of it unseen.’ ‘April 18, The cave found beside Musselburgh, seemeth
to be some monument of the Romans, by a stone which was found, with
these words graven upon him, APPOLLONI GRANNO Q. L. SABINIANUS PROC.
AUG. Divers short pillars set upright upon the ground, covered with
tile-stones, large and thick, torning into divers angles, and certain
places like unto chynes [chimneys] to avoid smoke. This is all I can
gather thereof.’[35]
[Sidenote: 1565.]
The reader will be amused at the difficulty which Randolph seems to
have felt in visiting a spot scarcely six miles from Edinburgh. He
will, however, be equally gratified to know that the queen herself
became interested in the preservation of the remains found on this
occasion. Her treasurer’s accounts contain an entry of twelvepence,
paid to ‘ane boy passand of Edinburgh, with ane charge of the queen’s
grace, direct to the bailies of Musselburgh, charging them to tak
diligent heed and attendance, that the monument of grit antiquity, new
fundin, be nocht demolishit nor broken down.’
The monument here spoken of was, in reality, an altar dedicated to
Apollo Grannicus, the Long-haired Apollo, by Sabinianus, proconsul
of Augustus, while the cave with pillars was the hypocaust or
heating-chamber of a bath, connected with a villa, of which further
remains were discovered in January 1783. The spot where the
antiquities were discovered in 1565 is occupied by the lawn in front
of Inveresk House. Camden reports the following as an accurate copy
of the inscription, made by Sir Peter Young, preceptor to King James
VI.--‘APPOLLINI GRANNO Q. LUSIUS SABINIANUS PROC. AUG. VSSLVM.’--which
is thus extended and translated by the ingenious Robert Stuart in
his _Caledonia Romana_ (1845): ‘Appollini Grannico Quintus Lusius
Sabinianus Proconsul Augusti, votum susceptum solvit lubens volens
merito;’ that is, ‘To Appollo Granicus, Quintus Lusius Sabinianus, the
Proconsul of Augustus [dedicates this], a self-imposed vow, cheerfully
performed.’
Napier alludes to the Inveresk altar in his Commentary on the
Apocalypse, and it appears to have attracted the attention of Ben
Jonson, when he was in Scotland in 1618. We last hear of it from Sir
Robert Sibbald, who died in 1711. In Gordon’s _Itinerarium_, published
a few years later, it is not noticed; wherefore it may be conjectured
that this interesting relic of antiquity was lost sight of or destroyed
about the beginning of the eighteenth century.
REIGN OF MARY: 1565-1567.
In July 1565, Mary married her youthful cousin, Henry Lord Darnley,
son of the Earl of Lennox. This was a match not without its politic
aspect, as things stood at that time, for, by accepting Darnley as her
husband, the Scottish queen took a rival out of her way to the English
throne, and added his pretensions to her own. As Darnley, however, was
a Catholic, the union was disrelished by Queen Elizabeth, as well as by
all the leaders of the Protestant interest in Scotland. A still greater
objection to it lay in the weak and childish character of the young
king.
Moray and his friends were thrown by the event into a rebellion; which,
however, quickly ended in his defeat and exile. The queen then ruled
for some time with the assistance of her husband and of her Italian
secretary, David Riccio. In such circumstances, it was unavoidable that
the confidence of her Protestant people should abate. Darnley soon
proved to be little worth the sacrifice she had made for his sake. By a
freak of youthful folly, prompted by jealousy of Riccio’s influence, he
associated in a conspiracy with the banished Moray and his associates,
for putting the Italian away from the queen; thinking he might then
bear undivided sway. Riccio was assassinated at Holyroodhouse, in the
queen’s presence (March 9, 1566), and the Protestant lords immediately
returned. The horrible outrage took a strong hold of Mary’s feelings,
and was allowed too much to sway her subsequent actions. She seemed,
however, to be reconciled to her husband; and not long after, her son,
who afterwards became James VI., was born (June 19, 1566).
The childishness and low habits of Darnley completely unfitted him to
become an adviser and help to the queen; he proved, on the contrary, a
source of great trouble and vexation. Indignant as she was at Moray,
Morton, and other Protestant lords who had been concerned in the Riccio
assassination, she was little inclined to lean upon them as before. As
the only remaining resource, she began to give her confidence to the
Earl of Bothwell and the Earl of Huntly, two nobles of great power,
but whose administration could not bring her so much popularity.
Bothwell was a man of coarse character, fully as much disposed as any
man in that age to gain his ambitious ends by violence. As early as
March 1561-2, he had formed a plan for seizing the queen’s person,
and carrying her to the castle of Dumbarton, that he and the Duke of
Chatelherault might enjoy the government between them. He had since
then been restored to favour; but, so far from the queen having ever
appeared to regard him as a lover, she had, so lately as February
1565-6, promoted and sanctioned his marriage to a friend of her own,
a sister of the Earl of Huntly. He seems now to have thought that an
opportunity was presented for his acquiring a mastery in Scotland. He
caused the wretched Darnley to be murdered at his lodging in the Kirk
of Field, near Edinburgh (March 12, 1567). Being suspected and accused
of this act, he submitted to a trial, but was able to overbear justice,
and to maintain his place in the queen’s councils.
Mary, consequently, suffered in reputation, though whether she was
aware of Bothwell’s guilt is to this day a matter of doubt; much less
is it certain that she had, as has been suspected, a guilty knowledge
of her husband’s death.
Having procured the countenance of some of the nobility to his
plans, Bothwell seized the queen at the river Almond (April 24), and
conducted her to his castle of Dunbar, where he kept her a prisoner,
as was generally believed, by her own consent. His wife being hastily
divorced, he married the queen (May 15), and thus seemed to have fully
attained the object of his ambition; but the Protestant leaders rose
in arms, took the queen away from him, and drove him into banishment.
Mary, as one suspected of horrible crimes, was imprisoned in Lochleven
Castle (June 17), and forced to sign a deed of abdication in favour of
her infant son, who was consequently crowned as James VI., with the
Earl of Moray as regent during his minority (July 29).
* * * * *
‘Ane guid summer and har’est.’--_C. F._
[Sidenote: 1565.
AUG. 6.]
The queen and her husband were obliged, immediately after their
marriage, to set about the suppression of a rebellion. The measure they
adopted for raising troops was according to the custom and rule of the
Scottish government. ‘There was ane proclamation at the Mercat Cross of
Edinburgh, commanding all and sundry earls, lords, barons, freeholders,
gentlemen, and substantious yeomen, to address them with fifteen days
victuals, to pass and convoy the king and queen to the parts of Fife,
under the pain of tinsel [loss] of life, lands, and guids; and also
commanding all and sundry the inhabitants of the burgh of Edinburgh,
betwixt sixteen and sixty, to address them in the same manner, under
the pains aforesaid.’--_D. O._ On the 22d of the month, this order was
extended to ‘all our sovereign’s lieges.’
[Sidenote: 1565.]
This feudal mode of raising an army was felt as a serious burden,
particularly in the larger towns, where industry had attained, of
course, the highest organisation. For the Rothschilds of Edinburgh,
such as they were, there was another trouble. The mode of raising money
adopted by Henry and Mary was not quite what would suit the views
of modern men of that class. Sept. 27, ‘Our soveranes causit certain
of the principals of Edinburgh to come to them to Halyrudehouse, and
after their coming, some of free will, and some brought agains their
will, our soverane lady made ane orison to them, desiring them to lend
her certain sowms of money, whilk they refusit to do; and therefore
they were commandit to _remain in ward within the auld tower_ wherein
my lord of Murray lodgit, wherein they remainit.’ Ultimately, the two
difficulties were in a manner solved by each other. On the 6th of
October, the above-mentioned notables of the city ‘agreeit with our
soveranes in this manner, to lend their majesties ten thousand merks,
upon the superiority of Leith, under reversion ... and alse to give
their highnesses ane thousand pounds, _to suffer the haill town to
remain at hame_.’
For some time after, the criminal records abound in cases of persons
‘delatit for abiding from the queen’s host.’ On such occasions, some
are found excusing themselves on account of sickness or personal
infirmity; others plead their having sent substitutes. When no excuse
could be made, fines are imposed. On the whole, it appears to have been
a public burden of no light character, and during the reign of Mary,
and the subsequent regencies, it was, owing to the great troubles of
the country, of frequent occurrence.
* * * * *
‘Great herships and oppression in mony parts of Scotland, in
Strathearn, in Lennox, in Glenalmond, in Breadalbin; baith slaughter
and oppression being made in sundry other parts by the Earl of Argyle
and M‘Gregor and their accomplices. Siclike in Strathardle, mony men
slain by the men of Athole and the Stuarts of Lorn.’--_C. F._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV.]
The town-council of Edinburgh were accustomed annually, at this time,
to bestow upon their chief a bullock, which was called _The Provost’s
Ox_, twelve pounds Scots being allowed for the purpose of buying
the best that was to be had. They also now gave him a tun of wine,
and twelve ells of velvet to make him a gown, as an acknowledgment
of special services he had done to the city.--_City Register, apud
Maitland._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1565-6.
MAR. 2.]
‘... it was ordainit by the ministers, exhorters, and readers of this
realm, that they should begin ane public abstinence fra that day aucht
hours afternoon, whilk was Saturday, unto Sunday at five hours at
even, and then to take but bread and drink, and that in ane sober
manner, during the whilk time the people to be occupiet in prayers
and hearing the word of God; and as meikle to be done the next Sunday
thereafter, for to pray to the eternal God that he wald saften and
pacify his angry wrath whilk appearandly is come upon us for our sins,
and specially that God wald inform, mollify, and make soft the hearts
of our sovereigns towards our nobility whilk are now banished in
England....’--_D. O._
These nobles were meanwhile arranging very active measures by the arm
of flesh to bring about the desired change. Before the second fast
had taken place, Riccio lay cold with his fifty-six wounds in the
ante-chamber of Holyrood, the palace was in the hands of Morton, and
the exiled lords had returned to Edinburgh.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1566.
JUNE.]
Paul Methven, originally a baker in Dundee, afterwards minister of
Jedburgh, for an immorality of a gross kind, was excommunicated by the
General Assembly in 1563. He was from the first penitent, offering to
submit to any punishment which the church might impose for his offence,
‘even if it were to lose any member of his body.’ After two or three
years of troubles and buffetings to and fro, he succeeded in inducing
the Assembly to look mildly on his case. ‘It was ordainit that he
present himself personally before the Assembly, and, being entrit,
[he] prostrate[d] himself before the whole brethren with weeping and
howling, and, being commandit to rise, might not express farther his
request, being, as appeared, so sore troublit with anguish of heart.’
The penance imposed gives a striking idea of the discipline of these
Calvinistic fathers: ‘The said Paul upon the twa preaching-days betwixt
the Sundays, sall come to the kirk door of Edinburgh when the second
bell rings, clad in sackcloth, bareheaded and barefooted, and there
remain while [until] he be brought in to the sermon, and placed in the
public spectacle above the people ... in the next Sunday after sall
declare signs of his inward repentance to the people, humbly requiring
the kirk’s forgiveness; whilk done, he sall be clad in his awn apparel,
and received in the society of the kirk as ane lively member thereof.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1566.
JUNE 19.]
A prince, who subsequently became James VI., was born to the queen in
Edinburgh Castle, within that small irregularly shaped room, of about
eight feet each way, which is still to be seen in the angle of the old
palace. The wet-nurse of the royal babe was a certain Lady Reres, whose
name occurs unpleasantly in the subsequent history of Mary. At the
same time, the Countess of Athole, who was believed to have magical
gifts, was brought to bed in the Castle. In a conversation which took
place five years after, at Fallside in Fife, between one Andrew Lundie
and John Knox, the former related that, ‘when the queen was lying in
_gisson_ of the king, the Lady Athole, lying there likewise, baith
within the Castle of Edinburgh, he came there for some business, and
callit for the Lady Reres, whom he fand in her chalmer, lying bedfast,
and, he asking of her disease, she answerit that she was never so
troubled with no bairn that ever she bare, for the Lady Athole had
casten all the pyne of her childbirth upon her.’[36]
It was a prevalent belief of that age that the pains of parturition
could be transferred by supernatural art, and not merely to another
woman, but to a man or to one of the lower animals. Amongst the charges
against an enchantress of the upper ranks called Eupham M‘Calyean,
twenty-five years after this time, is one to the effect, that, for
relief of her pain at the time of the birth of her two sons, she had
had a bored stone laid under her pillow, and enchanted powder rolled
up in her hair--likewise ‘your guidman’s sark tane aff him, and laid
womplit under your bed-feet; the whilk being practisit, your sickness
was casten aff you unnaturally, upon ane dog, whilk ran away and was
never seen again.’[37]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1566.
DEC. 10.
DEC. 17.]
‘The Earl of Bedford, accompanied with forty horsemen, Englishmen, come
as ambassador frae the queen’s majesty of England, to nominate ane
woman in Scotland, to be _cummer_ to our sovereigns, to the baptising
of our prince, their son, to the burgh of Edinburgh, and was lodgit
in my lord duke’s lodging at the Kirk of Field. In his coming in
Edinburgh, he was honourably convoyit by the gentlemen of Lothian,
but for the maist part by them of the Religion, because the said earl
favourit the same greatumly. The said earl brought ane font, frae the
queen’s grace of England, of twa stane wecht, to be presentit to our
sovereigns, in the whilk their son and our prince should be baptisit;
the same was of fine gold. And he brought ane ring with ane stane,
to be delivered to the said woman wha should occupy the place of the
queen’s grace of England in the time of the said baptising.’--_D. O._
The young prince was baptised at Stirling Castle, and named Charles
James. The preparations in apparel and decorations were magnificent
beyond everything of the kind hitherto known. ‘The said prince was
borne out of his chalmer to the chapel by the French ambassador, my
Lady of Argyle, _cummer_ for the Queen of England by commission, and
Monsieur La Croc for the Duke of Savoy. All the barons and gentlemen
bore prickets of wax, wha stood in rank on ilk side, frae the prince’s
chalmer door to the said chapel. Next the French ambassador, ane
great serge of wax by the Earl of Athole, the salt-vat by the Earl of
Eglintoun, the cude by the Lord Semple, the basin and laver by the Lord
Ross; and at the chapel door, the prince was receivit by my Lord Sanct
Androis, wha was _executor officii in pontificalibus_, with staff,
mitre, cross, and the rest. Collaterals to him were the Bishops of
Dunkeld [and] Dumblane, with their rochets and hoods; and also assistit
with rochets and hoods the Bishop of Ross, the Prior of Whithorn, and
sundry others with serpclaiths and hoods, and the hale college of the
chapel royal, with their habits and u[p]maist copes[?]. The prince was
baptisit in the said font, and thir solemnities endit by near five
hours afternoon, with singing and playing on organs.’--_D. O._
It appears that at these festivities the skeleton was not wanting.
‘There was sitting in the entry of the Castle a poor man asking
alms, having a young child upon his knee, whose head was so great
[hydrocephalus?] that the body of the child could scarce bear it up. A
certain gentleman perceiving it, could scarce refrain from tears, for
fear of the evils he judged to be portended.’--_Knox._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1566-7.
FEB. 10.]
‘... At twa hours in the morning, there come certain traitors to the
provost’s house [in the Kirk of Field], wherein was our sovereign’s
husband Henry, and ane servant of his, callit William Taylor, lying in
their naked beds; and there privily with wrang keys openit the doors,
and come in upon the said prince, and there without mercy worried him
and his said servant in their beds; and thereafter took him and his
servant furth of that house, and cuist him naked in ane yard beside
the Thief Raw, and syne come to the house again, and blew the house
in the air, sae that there remainit not ane stane upon ane other,
undestroyit.... At five hours, the said prince and his servant was
found lying dead in the said yard, and was ta’en into ane house in the
Kirk of Field, and laid while [till] they were buriet.’--_D. O._
Buchanan relates two ‘prodigies’ which happened in connection with the
death of Darnley. ‘One John Lundin, a gentleman of Fife, having long
been sick of a fever, the day before the king was killed, about noon,
raised himself a little in his bed, and, as if he had been astonished,
cried out to those that stood by him, with a loud voice, “to go help
the king, for the parricides were just then murdering him;” and a while
after he called out with a mournful tone, “Now it is too late to help
him; he is already murdered;” and he himself lived not long after he
had uttered these words.’ The other circumstance occurred just at the
time the murder happened. ‘Three of the familiar friends of the Earl
of Athole, the king’s cousin, men of reputation for valour and estate,
had their lodgings not far from the king’s. When they were asleep about
midnight, there was a certain man seemed to come to Dugald Stewart,
who lay next the wall, and to draw his hand gently over his beard and
cheek, so as to awake him, saying, “Arise, they are offering violence
to you.” He presently awaked, and was considering the apparition within
himself, when another of them cries out presently in the same bed, “Who
kicks me?” Dugald answered, “Perhaps it is a cat, which used to walk
about in the night;” upon which the third, who was not yet awake, rose
presently out of his bed, and stood upon the floor, demanding “who it
was that had given him a box on the ear?” As soon as he had spoken, a
person seemed to go out of the house by the door, and that not without
some noise. Whilst they were descanting on what they had heard and
seen, the noise of the blowing up of the king’s house put them into a
very terrible consternation.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1567.
APR. 24.]
‘... whilk was Sanct Mark’s even, our sovereign lady, riding frae
Stirling (whereto she passed a little before to visie her son) to
Edinburgh, James Earl of Bothwell, accompaniet with seven or aucht
hundred men and friends, whom he causit believe that he would ride upon
the thieves of Liddesdale, met our sovereign lady betwixt Kirkliston
and Edinburgh, at ane place called the _Briggis_, accompaniet with ane
few number, and there took her person, [which he conducted] to the
castle of Dunbar. The rumour of the ravishing of her majesty coming to
the provost of Edinburgh, incontinent the common bell rang, and the
inhabitants ran to armour and weapons, the ports was steekit, [and] the
artillery of the Castle shot.’--_D. O._
The place indicated was well chosen for the purpose, being in an angle
of ground enclosed by the Almond River and the Gogar Burn, which meet
here; so that the queen and her little party could not have fled except
at considerable risk. The post-road from Linlithgow to Edinburgh still
passes by the spot, immediately after crossing the river Almond by the
Boat-house Bridge.[38] Thus characterised, it is perhaps of all places
on the road from Linlithgow to Edinburgh, that which Bothwell might be
expected to choose if he had been in no collusion with the queen, and
anxious to take her at advantage.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAY 11.]
The queen had time at this remarkable crisis of her history--when just
about to be married to Bothwell--to grant a letter to ‘the cunning men
of the occupation and craft of chirurgeons,’ freeing them from the duty
of attending hosts and wappenshaws, and also from that of ‘passing
upon inquests and assizes,’ in order that they might have ‘the greater
occasion to study the perfection of the said craft, to the uttermost of
their ingynes [abilities].’[39]
There is a common belief that surgeons and butchers are exempt from
serving on juries, on account of the assumed effect of their profession
in making them reckless as to destruction of life. Perhaps the notion
has in part taken its rise in this exemption from service for the
surgeons, though it appears to have been granted on more honourable
consideration.
REGENCY OF MORAY: 1567-1570.
Mary remained a prisoner in Lochleven Castle for ten months, while
Moray, as Regent, maintained a good understanding with England, and did
much to enforce internal peace and order. At length (May 1568), the
unhappy Queen made her escape, and threw herself into the arms of the
powerful family of Hamilton, who had continued unreconciled to the new
government. They raised for her a considerable body of retainers, and
for a few days she seemed to have a chance of recovering her authority;
but her army was overthrown at Langside by the Regent, and she had
then no resource but to pass into England, and ask refuge with Queen
Elizabeth. By her she was received with a show of civility, but was
in reality treated as a prisoner, and even subjected to the indignity
of a kind of trial, where her brother Moray acted as her accuser.
The proofs brought forward for her guilt were such as not to allow
of any judgment being passed against her by Elizabeth, and it cannot
be said that they have secured a decidedly unfavourable verdict from
posterity. The series of circumstances is, no doubt, calculated to
excite suspicion; yet they are not incompatible with the theory; that
she was trained into them by others; and it must be admitted that one
who had previously lived so blamelessly--rejecting the suit of Bothwell
when they were both free persons--and who afterwards made so noble an
appearance when adjudged to a cruel death for offences of which she
was innocent, was not the kind of person likely to have assisted in
murdering a husband, or to have deliberately united herself to one whom
she believed to be his murderer.
Under a protestant Regent, with the friendship and aid of Elizabeth,
whose interest it was to keep popery out of the whole island, Scotland
might have enjoyed some years of tranquillity. Moray, whatever opinion
may be entertained of his conduct towards his sister, proved a vigorous
and just ruler, insomuch as to gain the title of the _Good Regent_; but
he was early cut off in his course, falling a victim to private revenge
at Linlithgow (January 23, 1569-70).
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1567.
OCT.]
The long-enduring system of predatory warfare carried on by the
borderers against England rendered them a lawless set at all times;
but in the present state of the government, they were unusually
troublesome. ‘In all this time,’ says the _Diurnal of Occurrents_,
‘frae the queen’s grace’ putting in captivity to this time, the
thieves of Liddesdale made great hership on the poor labourers of
the ground, and that through wanting of justice; for the realm was
sae divided in sundry factions and conspirations, that there was nae
authority obeyed, nor nae justice execute.’--_D. O._
[Sidenote: 1567.]
Sir Richard Maitland of Lethington gives us a lively description of
these men and their practices:
‘Of Liddesdale the common thieves
Sae pertly steals now and reaves,
That nane may keep
Horse, nolt, or sheep,
For their mischieves.
They plainly through the country rides,
I trow the meikle De’il them guids,
Where they onset,
Ay in their gait,
There is nae yett,
Nor door, them bides.
Thae thieves that steals and turses[40] hame
Ilk ane of them has ane to-name,[41]
_Will of the Laws_,
_Hab of the Shaws_;
To mak bare wa’s,
They think nae shame.
They spulyie puir men of their packs,
They leave them nought on bed nor balks,[42]
Baith hen and cock,
With reel and rock,
The _Laird’s Jock_
All with him taks.
They leave not spendle, spoon, nor spit,
Bed, bolster, blanket, sark, nor sheet;
John of the Park
Rypes[43] kist and ark;
For all sic wark
He is right meet.
He is weel-kenned, _Jock of the Syde_,
A greater thief did never ride.
He never tires
For to break byres;
O’er muir and mires,
O’er guid ane guide....
Of stouth[44] though now they come good speed,
That nother of God nor men has dread,
Yet or[45] I die,
Some shall them see
Hing on a tree,
While[46] they be dead.’[47]
If it was at this time, as is likely, that Sir Richard wrote these
verses, he might well calculate on the vigour of the Regent while
prophesying sad days for the Border men.
‘... there was ane proclamation [October 10], to meet the Regent in
Peebles upon the 8 of November next, for the repressing of the thieves
in Annandale and Eskdale; but my Lord Regent thinking they wald get
advertisement, he prevented the day, and came over the water secretly,
and lodged in Dalkeith; this upon the 19 day [October]; and upon the
morrow he departed towards Hawick, where he came both secretly and
suddenly, and there took thirty-four thieves, whom he partly caused
hang and partly drown; five he let free upon caution; and upon the 2nd
day of November, he brought other ten with him to Edinburgh, and there
put them in irons.’--_Bir._
We have some trace of these men in the Lord Treasurer’s accounts
as inmates of the Tolbooth of Edinburgh. On the 30th of November,
thirty-two pounds are paid to Andro Lindsay, keeper of that prison, for
the furnishing of meat and drink to Robert Elliot, alias _Clement’s
Hob_, and Archy Elliot, called _Archy Kene_. On the same day,
twenty-three pounds four shillings are disbursed for a month’s board
in the same black hotel, for ‘Robert Elliot, called _Mirk Hob_; Gavin
Elliot, called _Gawin of Ramsiegill_; Martin Elliot, called _Martin of
Heuchous_; Robert Elliot, son to _Elder Will_; Robert Elliot, called
the _Vicar’s Rob_; Robert Elliot, called _Hob of Thorlieshope_; Dandy
Grosar, called _Richardtoncleucht_; and Robert Grosar, called _Son to
Cockston_.’
[Sidenote: 1567.]
In an act of the Privy Council, 6th November 1567, it is alleged that
the thieves of Liddesdale, and other parts of the Scottish Border,
have been in the habit, for some time past, of taking sundry persons
prisoners, and giving them up upon ransom--exactly the conduct of
the present banditti of the Apennines. It is also averred that many
persons are content to pay ‘black-mail’ to these thieves, and sit
under their protection, ‘permittand them to reif, herry, and oppress
their neighbours in their sicht, without contradiction or stop.’ Such
practices were now forbidden under severe penalties; and it was
enjoined that ‘when ony companies of thieves or broken men comes ower
the swires within the in-country,’ all dwelling in the bounds shall
‘incontinent cry on hie, raise the fray, and follow them, as weel in
their in-passing as out-passing,’ in order to recover the property
which may have been stolen.
* * * * *
Walter Scott of Harden, a famous Border chief, was this year married
to Mary Scott of Dryhope, commonly called the _Flower of Yarrow_. The
pair had six sons, from five of whom descended the families of Harden
(which became extinct); Highchesters, now represented by Lord Polwarth,
Raeburn (from which came Sir Walter Scott of Abbotsford), Wool, and
Synton; and six daughters, all of whom were married to gentlemen of
figure, and all had issue.
It is a curious consideration to the many descendants of Walter Scott
of Harden, that his marriage-contract is signed by a notary, because
none of the parties could write their names. The father-in-law, Scott
of Dryhope, bound himself to find Harden in horse meat and man’s meat,
at his own house, for a year and day; and five barons engaged that he
should remove at the expiration of that period, without attempting to
continue in possession by force.
Harden was a man of parts and sagacity, and living to about the year
1629, was popularly remembered for many a day thereafter under the name
of ‘Auld Watt.’ One of his descendants relates the following anecdote
of him:--‘His sixth son was slain at a fray, in a hunting-match, by
Scott of Gilmanscleuch. His brothers flew to arms; but the old laird
secured them in the dungeon of his tower, hurried to Edinburgh, stated
the crime, and obtained a gift of the lands of the offenders from the
crown. He returned to Harden with equal speed, released his sons, and
shewed them the charter. “To horse, lads!” cried the savage warrior,
“and let us take possession! The lands of Gilmanscleuch are well worth
a dead son.”’[48]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT. 30.]
Bessie Tailiefeir, in the Canongate, Edinburgh, having slandered
Bailie Thomas Hunter by saying ‘he had in his house ane false stoup
[measure],’ which was found not to be true, she was sentenced to be
[_brankit_] and set on the Cross for an hour.[49]
[Sidenote: 1567.]
The punishment of branking, which was a customary one for scolds,
slanderers, and other offenders of a secondary class, consisted in
having the head enclosed in an iron frame, from which projected a kind
of spike, so as to enter the mouth and prevent speech.
[Illustration: The Branks.]
[Sidenote: NOV. 20.]
Charles Sandeman, cook, on being made a member of the guild of
Edinburgh, came under an obligation that, from that time forth, ‘he
sall not be seen upon the causey,’ like other cooks, carrying meat
to sell in common houses, but cause his servants pass with the same;
and ‘he sall hald his tavern on the Hie Gait ... and behave himself
honestly in all time coming, under pain of escheat of his wines.’--_E.
C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV. 24.]
‘... At 2 afternoon, the Laird of Airth and the Laird of Wemyss met
upon the Hie Gait of Edinburgh; and they and their followers faught a
very bluidy skirmish, where there was many hurt on both sides with shot
of pistol.’--_Bir._ Apparently in consequence of this affair, there
was, on the 27th, ‘a strait proclamation,’ discharging the wearing of
culverins, dags, pistolets, or ‘sic other firewerks,’ with injunctions
that any one contravening should be seized and subjected to summary
trial, ‘as gif they had committit recent slauchters.’--_P. C. R._
This is the first of a series of street-fights by which the Hie Gait
of Edinburgh was reddened during the reign of James VI., and which
scarcely came to an end till his English reign was far advanced. It is
worthy of note that _sword and buckler_ were at this time the ordinary
gear of gallant men in England--a comparatively harmless furnishing;
but we see that small firearms were used in Scotland.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1567.
DEC. 15.]
An act of parliament was passed to prevent horses being exported, it
being found that so many had lately been taken to Bordeaux and other
places abroad, as to cause ‘great skaith’ by the raising of prices at
home.
* * * * *
There has been a feeling of rivalry between Perth and Dundee from time
immemorial, and it probably will never cease while both towns exist.
At a parliament now held by the Regent Moray, the representatives of
each burgh strove for the next place after Edinburgh in that equestrian
procession which used to be called the _Riding of the Estates_. A
tumult consequently arose upon the street, and it was with difficulty
that this was stilled. Birrel relates how the Regent was ‘much troubled
to compose those two turbulent towns of Perth and Dundee,’ and that ‘it
was like to make a very great deal of business, had not the same been
mediate for the present by some discreet men who dealt in the matter.’
Due investigation was afterwards made (January 9, 1567-8), that it
might be ascertained ‘in whais default the said tumult happenit.’ It
was found that ‘James Wedderburn and George Mitchell, burgesses of
Dundee, and William Rysie, bearer of the handsenyie [ensign] thereof,’
were no wise culpable; and they were accordingly allowed to depart.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 27.]
Alexander Blair younger of Balthayock, and George Drummond of Blair,
gave surety before the Privy Council for Alexander Blair of Freirton,
near Perth, ‘that Jonet Kincraigie, spouse to the said Alexander, sall
be harmless and skaithless of him and all that he may let, in time
coming, under the pain of five hundred merks; and als that he sall
resave the said Jonet in house, and treat, sustene, and entertene her
honestly as becomes ane honest man to do to his wife, in time coming;’
besides paying to her children by a former husband their ‘bairn’s part
of geir.’--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 31.]
‘Robert Jack, merchant and burgess of Dundee, was hangit and quarterit
for false coin called _Hardheads_, whilk he had brought out of
Flanders.’--_Bir._ ‘Fals lyons callit hardheades, plakis, balbeis,[50]
and other fals money,’ is the description given in another record,
_literatim_.
[Sidenote: 1567.]
The hardhead was originally a French coin, denominated in Guienne
_hardie_, and identical with the liard. It was of debased copper, and
usually of the value of three-halfpence Scotch; but further debasement
was oftener than once resorted to by Scottish rulers as a means of
raising a little revenue. Knox, in 1559, complains that ‘daily there
were such numbers of _lions_ (alias called _hardheads_) prented, that
the baseness thereof made all things exceeding dear.’ So also the
Regent Morton increased his unpopularity by diminishing the value of
hardheads from three halfpence to a penny, and the plack-piece from
fourpence to twopence.[51]
Robert Jack had probably made a sort of mercantile speculation in
bringing in a debased foreign _hardhead_. The importance attached to
his crime is indicated by the payment (January 28, 1567-8) of £33, 6s.
8d. to George Monro of Dalcartie, for ‘expenses made by him upon six
horsemen and four footmen for the sure convoying of Robert Jack, being
apprehended in Ross for false cunyie.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1567-8.
JAN. 5.]
It may somewhat modify the views generally taken of the destruction
of relics of the ancient religion under the Protestant governments
succeeding the Reformation, that John Lockhart of Bar was denounced
rebel at this time for conveying John Macbrair forth of the castle of
Hamilton, and ‘for down-casting of images in the kirk of Ayr and other
places.’[52]
About the same time, the Regent learned that the lead upon the
cathedrals of Aberdeen and Elgin was in the course of being piecemeal
taken away. Thinking it as well that some public good should be
obtained from this material, the Privy Council ordered (February 7,
1567-8) that the whole be taken down and sold for the support of the
army now required to reduce the king’s rebels to obedience.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1567-8.
JAN. 17.]
‘A play made by Robert Semple,’ was ‘played before the Lord Regent
and diverse others of the nobility.’--_Bir._ There have been several
conjectures as to this play and its author, with little satisfactory
result. It was probably a very simple representation of some historical
scene or transaction, such as we can imagine the life of the execrable
Bothwell to have gratefully furnished before such a company. Semple
appears to have been in such a rank of life as not to be above ordinary
pecuniary rewards for his services, as on the 12th of February there is
an entry in the treasurer’s books of £66, 13s. 4d. ‘to Robert Semple.’
He was a fruitful, but dull writer, being the author of _The Regentis
Trajedie_, 1570; _The Bishopis Lyfe and Testament_, 1571; _My Lord
Methvenis Trajedie_, 1572; and _The Siege of the Castle of Edinburgh_,
1573: besides various poems preserved in the Bannatyne Manuscript.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: FEB. 24.]
Seeing that ‘in the spring of the year all kinds of flesh decays and
grows out of season, and that it is convenient for the commonweal that
they be sparit during that time, to the end that they may be mair
plenteous and better cheap the rest of the year,’ the Privy Council
forbade the use of flesh of any kind during ‘Lentern.’ Fleshers,
hostelers, cooks, and taverners, were forbidden to slay any animals for
use during that season hereafter, under pain of confiscation of their
movable goods.--_P. C. R._ This order was kept up in the same terms
for many years, a forced economy preserving a rule formerly based on a
religious principle.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAR. 4.]
The Regent granted a licence to Cornelius De Vois, a Dutchman, for
nineteen years, to search for gold and silver in any part of Scotland,
‘break the ground, mak sinks and pots therein, and to put labourers
thereto,’ as he might think expedient, with assurance of full
protection from the government, paying in requital for every hundred
ounces of gold or silver which could be purified by washing, eight
ounces, and for every hundred of the same which required the more
expensive process of a purification by fire, four ounces.--_P. C. R._
[Sidenote: 1567-8.]
Stephen Atkinson, who speculated in the gold-mines of Scotland a
generation later, gives us[53] some account of Cornelius De Vois,
whom he calls a German lapidary, and who, he says, had come to
Scotland with recommendations from Queen Elizabeth. According to this
somewhat foolish writer, ‘Cornelius went to view the said mountains in
Clydesdale and Nydesdale, upon which mountains he got a small taste of
small gold. This was a whetstone to sharpen his knife upon; and this
natural gold tasted so sweet as the honey-comb in his mouth. And then
he consulted with his friends at Edinburgh, and by his persuasions
provoked them to adventure with him, shewing them at first the natural
gold, which he called the temptable gold, or alluring gold. It was in
sterns, and some like unto birds’ eyes and eggs: he compared it unto a
woman’s eye, which entiseth her lover into her bosom.’ Cornelius was
not inferior to his class in speculative extravagance. He found in his
golden dreams a solution for the question regarding the poor. He saw
Scotland and England ‘both oppressed with poor people which beg from
door to door for want of employment, and no man looketh to it.’ But
all these people were to find good and profitable employment if his
projects were adopted. We are not accustomed to consider our countrymen
inferior in energy and enterprise to the Germans. Yet Cornelius stated,
that if he had been able to shew in his own country such indications
of mineral wealth as he had found in Scotland, ‘then the whole country
would confederate, and not rest till young and old that were able be
set to work thereat, and to discover this treasure-house from whence
this gold descended; and the people, from ten years old till ten times
ten years old, should work thereat: no charges whatsoever should be
spared, till mountains and mosses were turned into valleys and dales,
but this treasure-house should be discovered.’
It appears that Cornelius so far prevailed on the Scots to
‘confederate,’ that they raised a stock of £5000 Scots, equal to about
£416 sterling, and worked the mines under royal privileges. According
to Atkinson, this adventurer ‘had sixscore men at work in valleys and
dales. He employed both lads and lasses, idle men and women, which
before went a-begging. He profited by their work, and they lived well
and contented.’ They sought for the valuable metal by washing the
detritus in the bottoms of the valleys, receiving from their employer a
mark sterling for every ounce they realised. So long after as 1619, one
John Gibson survived in the village of Crawford to relate how he had
gathered gold in these valleys in pieces ‘like birds’ eyes and birds’
eggs,’ the best being found, he said, in Glengaber Water, in Ettrick,
which he sold for 6s. 8d. sterling per ounce to the Earl of Morton.
Cornelius, within the space of thirty days, sent to the cunyie-house in
Edinburgh as much as eight pound-weight of gold, a quantity which would
now bring £450 sterling.
What ultimately came of Cornelius’s adventure does not appear. He
vanishes notelessly from the field. We are told by Atkinson that the
adventure was subsequently taken up by one Abraham Grey, a Dutchman
heretofore resident in England, commonly called _Greybeard_, from his
having a beard which reached to his girdle. He hired country-people at
4d. a day, to wash the detritus of the valleys around Wanlock-head for
gold; and it is added, that enough was found to make ‘a very fair deep
basin of natural gold,’ which was presented by the Regent Morton to the
French king, filled with gold pieces, also the production of Scotland.
[Sidenote: 1567-8.]
The same valleys were afterwards searched for gold by an Englishman
named George Bowes, who also sunk shafts in the rock, but probably with
limited success, as has hitherto been experienced in ninety-nine out of
every hundred instances, according to Sir Roderick Murchison.
* * * * *
In consequence of an extremely dry summer, the yield of grain and
herbage in 1567 was exceedingly defective. The ensuing winter being
unusually severe, there was a sad failure of the means of supporting
the domestic animals. A stone of hay came to be sold in Derbyshire at
fivepence,[54] which seems to have been regarded as a starvation price.
There was a general mortality among the sheep and horses. In Scotland,
the opening of 1568 was marked by scarcity and all its attendant
evils. ‘There was,’ says a contemporary chronicler, ‘exceeding dearth
of corns, in respect of the penury thereof in the land, and that
beforehand a great quantity thereof was transported to other kingdoms:
for remeed whereof inhibitions were made sae far out of season, that
nae victual should be transported furth of the country under the pain
of confiscation, even then when there was no more left either to
satisfy the indigent people, or to plenish the ordinar mercats of the
country as appertenit.’--_H. K. J._
* * * * *
During his short administration, the Regent Moray gave a large portion
of his time and attention to the repression of lawless people. Justice
was executed in no sparing manner. March 8, 1567-8, ‘the Regent went
to Glasgow, and there held ane justiceaire, where there was execute
about the number of _twenty-eight persons_ for divers crimes.’ July
1568, he ‘rade to St Andrews, and causit drown a man callit Alexander
Macker and six more, for piracy.’ Sep. 13, ‘the Lord Regent rade
to the fair to Jedburgh, to apprehend the thieves; but they being
advertised of his coming, came not to the fair; sae he was frustrate
of his intention, excepting three thieves whilk he took, and caused
hang within the town there.’--_Bir._ April 1569, the Regent made a raid
to the Border against the thieves, accompanied by a party of English.
‘But the thieves keepit themselves in sic manner, that the Regent gat
nane thereof, nor did little other thing, except he brint and reft the
places of Mangerton and Whithope, with divers other houses belonging to
the said thieves.’--_D. O._
[Sidenote: 1567-8.]
In the same month, a number of the most considerable persons in the
southern counties entered into a bond at Kelso, agreeing to be obedient
subjects to the Regent Earl of Moray, and to do all in their power
for the putting down of the thieves of Liddesdale, Ewesdale, Eskdale,
and Annandale, especially those of the names Armstrong, Elliot,
Nickson, Croser [Grozart?], Little, Bateson, Thomson, Irving, Bell,
Johnston, Glendoning, Routledge, Henderson, and Scott; not resetting or
intercommuning with them, their wives, bairns, tenants, and servants,
or suffering any meat or drink to be carried to them, ‘where we may
let;’ also, if, ‘in case of the resistance or pursuit of any of the
said thieves, it sall happen to ony of them to be slain or brint, or
ony of us and our friends to be harmit by them, we sall ever esteem the
quarrel and deadly feid equal to us all, and sall never agree with the
said thieves but together, with ane consent and advice.’[55]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1568.
JULY 13.]
Axel Wiffirt, servant of the king of Denmark, was licensed to levy 2000
men of war in Scotland, and to convey them away armed as culviriners
on foot, ‘as they best can provide them,’ being to serve the Danish
monarch in his wars.[56]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 15.]
‘Touran Murray, brother-german to the Laird of Tullibardine, was shot
and slain out of the place of Auchtertyre, in Stratherne, by one Wood
[Mad] Andrew Murray and his confederates, who kept the said place
certain days, and slew some six persons more, yet made escape at that
present.’--_Bir._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP. 8.]
‘Ane called James Dalgliesh, merchant, brought the pest in[to]
Edinburgh.’--_D. O._
[Sidenote: 1568.]
According to custom in Edinburgh, when this dire visitor made his
appearance, the families which proved to be infected were compelled
to remove, with all their goods and furniture, out to the Burgh-moor,
where they lodged in wretched huts hastily erected for their
accommodation. They were allowed to be visited by their friends,
in company with an officer, after eleven in the forenoon; any one
going earlier was liable to be punished with death--as were those
who concealed the pest in their houses. Their clothes were meanwhile
purified by boiling in a large caldron erected in the open air,
and their houses were ‘clengit’ by the proper officers. All these
regulations were under the care of two citizens selected for the
purpose, and called _Bailies of the Muir_; for each of whom, as for
the cleansers and bearers of the dead, a gown of gray was made, with
a white St Andrew’s cross before and behind, to distinguish them from
other people. Another arrangement of the day was, ‘that there be made
twa close biers, with four feet, coloured over with black, and [ane]
white cross with ane bell to be hung upon the side of the said bier,
whilk sall mak warning to the people.’[57]
The public policy was directed rather to the preservation of the
untainted, than to the recovery of the sick. In other words,
selfishness ruled the day. The inhumanity towards the humbler classes
was dreadful. Well might _Maister Gilbert Skeyne, Doctour in Medicine_,
remark in his little tract on the pest, now printed in Edinburgh:
‘Every ane is become sae detestable to other (whilk is to be lamentit),
and specially the puir in the sight of the rich, as gif they were not
equal with them touching their creation, but rather without saul or
spirit, as beasts degenerate fra mankind.’[58] This worthy mediciner
tells us, indeed, that he was partly moved to publish his book by
‘seeand the puir in Christ inlaik [perish] without assistance of
support in body, all men detestand aspection, speech, or communication
with them.’
Dr Skeyne’s treatise, which consists of only forty-six very small
pages, gives us an idea of the views of the learned of those days
regarding the pest. He describes it as ‘ane feverable infection, maist
cruel, and sundry ways strikand down mony in haste.’ It proceeds,
in his opinion, from a corruption of the air, ‘whilk has strength
and wickedness above all natural putrefaction,’ and which he traces
immediately to the wrath of the just God at the sins of mankind.
There are, however, inferior causes, as stagnant waters, corrupting
animal matters and filth, the eating of unwholesome meat and decaying
fruits, and the drinking of corrupt water. Extraordinary humidity in
the atmosphere is also dwelt upon as a powerful cause, especially when
it follows in autumn after a hot summer. ‘Great dearth of victual,
whereby men are constrained to eat evil and corrupt meats,’ he sets
down as a cause much less notable. He does not forget to advert to the
suspicious intermeddling of comets and shooting-stars. ‘Nae pest,’ he
says, ‘continually endures mair than three years;’ and he remarks how
‘we daily see the puir mair subject to sic calamity nor the potent.’
[Sidenote: 1568.]
Dr Skeyne’s regimen for the pest regards both its prevention and its
cure, and involves an immense variety of curious recipes and rules of
treatment, expressed partly in Latin and partly in English. He ends
by calling his readers to observe--‘As there is diversity of time,
country, age, and consuetude to be observit in time of ministration
of ony medicine preservative or curative, even sae there is divers
kinds of pest, whilk may be easily knawn and divided by weel-learnit
physicians, whase counsel in time of sic danger of life is baith
profitable and necessar, in respect that in this pestilential disease
every ane is mair blind nor the moudiewort in sic things as concerns
their awn health.’
There has been preserved a curious letter which Adam Bothwell, bishop
of Orkney, addressed in this time of plague to his brother-in-law,
Sir Archibald Napier of Merchiston, regarding the dangers in which
the latter was placed by the nearness of his house to the bivouac of
the infected on the Burgh-moor.[59] It opens with an allusion to Sir
Archibald’s present position as a friend of Queen Mary in trouble with
the Regent:
[Sidenote: 1568.]
‘RICHT HONOURABLE SIR AND BROTHER--I heard, the day, the rigorous
answer and refuse that ye gat, whereof I was not weel apayit. But
always I pray you, as ye are set amids twa great inconvenients, travel
to eschew them baith. The ane is maist evident--to wit, the remaining
in your awn place where ye are; for by the number of sick folk that
gaes out of the town, the muir is [li]able to be overspread; and it
cannot be but, through the nearness of your place and the indigence of
them that are put out, they sall continually repair about your room,
and through their conversation infect some of your servants, whereby
they sall precipitate yourself and your children in maist extreme
danger. And as I see ye have foreseen the same for the young folk,
whaise bluid is in maist peril to be infectit first, and therefore
purposes to send them away to Menteith, where I wald wiss at God
that ye war yourself, without offence of authority, or of your band,
sae that your house get nae skaith. But yet, sir, there is ane mid
way whilk ye suld not omit, whilk is to withdraw you frae that side
of the town to some house upon the north side of the samen; whereof
ye may have in borrowing, when ye sall have to do--to wit, the Gray
Crook, Innerleith’s self, Wairdie, or sic other places as ye could
choose within ane mile; whereinto I wald suppose ye wald be in less
danger than in Merchanston. And close up your houses, your granges,
your barns, and all, and suffer nae man come therein, while [till] it
please God to put ane stay to this great plague; and in the meantime,
make you to live upon your penny, or on sic thing as comes to you
out of Lennox or Menteith;[60] whilk gif ye do not, I see ye will
ruin yourself; and howbeit I escape in this voyage,[61] I will never
look to see you again, whilk were some mair regret to me than I will
expreme by writing. Always [I] beseeks you, as ye love your awn weal,
the weal of your house, and us your friends that wald you weel, to
tak sure order in this behalf; and, howbeit your evil favourers wald
cast you away, yet ye tak better keep on yourself, and mak not them to
rejoice, and us your friends to mourn baith at ance. Whilk God forbid,
and for his goodness, preserve you and your posterity from sic skaith,
and maintein you in [his] holy keeping for ever. Of Edinburgh, the
21st day of September 1568, by your brother at power,
‘THE BISHOP OF ORKNEY.’
The bishop speaks with unmistakable friendship for his brother-in-law;
but what he says and what he does not say of the miserables of the
Burgh-moor, tends much to confirm Dr Skeyne’s remarks on the absence of
Christian kindness among the upper classes towards the afflicted poor
on this occasion.
This pestilence, lasting till February, is said to have carried off
2500 persons in Edinburgh, which could not be much less than a tenth of
the population. From the double cause of the pest and the absence of
the Regent in England, there were ‘nae diets of Justiciary halden frae
the hinderend of August to the second day of March.’[62] Such of the
inhabitants of the Canongate as were affected had to go out and live
in huts on the Hill (by which is probably meant Salisbury Crags), and
there stay till they were ‘clengit.’ A collection of money was made
among the other inhabitants for their support.[63]
[Sidenote: 1568.]
The distresses of pestilence were preceded and attended by those of
a famine, which suffered a great and sudden abatement in the month
of August 1569, perhaps in consequence of favourable appearances in
the crop then about to be gathered. At least, we are informed by the
_Diurnal of Occurrents_, that on that day, in the forenoon, ‘the boll
of ait meal was sauld for 3_l._ 12_s._, the boll of wheat for 4_l._
10_s._, and the boll of beare for 3_l._; but ere twa afternoon upon
the same day, the boll of ait meal was sauld for 40_s._, 38_s._, and
36_s._, the boll of wheat for 50_s._, and the beare for 33_s._‘--_D.
O._[64]
Little doubt is now entertained that the exanthematous disease called
long ago the Pest, and now the Plague, and which has happily been
unknown in the British Islands for two centuries, was the consequence
of miasma arising from crowded and filthy living, acting on bodies
predisposed by deficient aliment and other causes, and that at a
certain stage it assumed a contagious character. It will be found
throughout the present work that the malady generally, though not
invariably, followed dearth and famine--a generalisation harmonising
with the observations of Professor Alison as to the connection between
destitution and typhus fever, and supporting the views of those who
hold that it is for the interest of the community that all its members
have a sufficiency of the necessaries of life. The pest was not the
only epidemic which afflicted our ancestors in consequence of erroneous
living and misery endured by great multitudes of people. There was
one called the _land-ill_ or _wame-ill_, which seems to have been of
the nature of cholera. In an early chronicle quoted below,[65] is the
following striking notice of this kind of malady in connection with
famine as occurring in 1439:--‘The samen time there was in Scotland
a great dearth, for the boll of wheat was at 40_s._, and the boll of
ait meal 30_s._; and verily the dearth was sae great that there died
a passing [number of] people for hunger. And als the land-ill, the
wame-ill, was so violent, that there died mae that year than ever there
died, owther in pestilence, or yet in ony other sickness in Scotland.
And that samen year the pestilence came in Scotland, and began at
Dumfries, and it was callit the _Pestilence but Mercy_, for there took
it nane that ever recoverit, but they died within twenty-four hours.’
[Sidenote: OCT.
1568.]
At the time when the pest broke out in Edinburgh, there lived in the
city a young man of the middle class, bearing the name of George
Bannatyne, who was somewhat addicted to the vain and unprofitable art
of poesy. He was acquainted with the writings of his predecessors,
Dunbar, Douglas, Henryson, Montgomery, Scott, and others, through the
manuscripts to which alone they had as yet been committed. It was not
then the custom to print literary productions unless for some reason
external to their literary character, and these poems, therefore, were
existing in the same peril of not being preserved to posterity as
the works of Ennius in the days of Augustus. In all probability, the
greater part of them, if not nearly the whole, would have been lost,
but for an accidental circumstance connected with the plague now raging.
[Illustration: George Bannatyne’s Arms and Initials.]
[Sidenote: 1568.]
In that terrible time, when hundreds were dying in the city, and
apprehensions for their own safety engrossed every mind, the young
man George Bannatyne passed into retirement, and for three months
devoted himself to the task of transcribing the fugitive productions
of the Scottish muse into a fair volume. His retreat is supposed to
have been the old manor-house of Newtyle, near the village of Meigle
in Strathmore, and nothing could be more likely, as this was the
country-house of his father, who seems to have been a prosperous
lawyer in Edinburgh. In the short space of time mentioned, George had
copied in a good hand, from the mutilated and obscure manuscripts he
possessed, three hundred and seventy-two poems, covering no less than
eight hundred folio pages; a labour by which he has secured the eternal
gratitude of his countrymen, and established for himself a fame granted
to but few for their own compositions. The volume--celebrated as the
BANNATYNE MANUSCRIPT--still exists, under the greatest veneration, in
the Advocates’ Library, Edinburgh, after yielding from its ample stores
the materials of Ramsay’s, Hailes’s, and other printed selections.[66]
[Sidenote: NOV. 18.]
In this time of dearth and pestilence, the council of the Canongate
providently ordained that ‘the fourpenny loaf be weel baken and
dried, gude and sufficient stuff, and keep the measures and _paik_
of twenty-two ounces;’ ‘that nae browsters nor ony tapsters sell ony
dearer ale nor 6d. the pint;’ and ‘that nae venters of wine buy nae
new wine dearer than that they may sell the same commonly to all our
sovereign’s lieges for 16d. the pint.’
They also ordained (January 10, 1568-9), that ‘nae maner of person
inhabiter within this burgh, venters of wine, hosters, or tapsters of
ale, nor others whatsomever, thole or permit ony maner of persons to
drink, keep company at table in common taverners’ houses, upon Sunday,
the time of preaching, under the pain of forty shillings, to be upta’en
of the man and wife wha aucht the said taverners’ houses sae oft as
they fails, but favour.’[67]
It is evident from this injunction, that the keeping of public-houses
open on Sundays, at times different from those during which there was
public worship, was not then forbidden.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1568-9.
JAN. 10.]
In presence of the magistrates of the Canongate, Edinburgh, ‘William
Heriot, younger, baxter, became, out of his awn free motive will,
cautioner for George Heriot, that the said George sall remove furth
of this burgh and freedom thereof, within the space of fifteen days
next, and nae be fund thereintill, in case the said George associate
not himself to the religion of Christ’s kirk, and satisfie the kirk in
making of repentance, as effeirs.’--_C. C. R._
This was a part of the process of completing the Reformation.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1569.
MAY.]
[Sidenote: 1569.
AUG. 16.]
‘... the Regent made progress first to Stirling, where four priests
of Dumblane were condemnit to the death, for saying of mess against
the act of parliament; but he remittit their lives, and causit them
to be bund to the mercat cross with their vestments and chalices
in derision, where the people cast eggs and other villanie at their
faces, by the space of ane hour; and thereafter their vestments and
chalices were burnt to ashes. From that he passed to Sanctandrois,
where a notable sorcerer called Nic Neville was condemnit to the death
and brunt; and a Frenchman callit Paris, wha was ane of the devisers
of the king’s death, was hangit in Sanctandrois, and with him William
Stewart, Lyon King of Arms, for divers points of witchcraft and
necromancy.’--_H. K. J._
The _Diurnal of Occurrents_ relates the Regent’s proceedings against
the powers of the other world in this journey in a style equally cool
and laconic. ‘In my Lord Regent’s passing to the north, he causit burn
certain witches in Sanctandrois, and in returning he causit burn ane
other company of witches in Dundee.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP.]
The Regent once more set out on an expedition against the Border
thieves, attended by a hundred men of war. In the words of a poetical
panegyrist:
‘... having established all thing in this sort,
To Liddesdale again he did resort.
Through Ewesdale, Esdale, and all the dales rade he,
And also lay three nichts in Cannobie,
Where nae prince lay thir hunder years before;
Nae thief durst stir, they did him fear so sore;
And that they should nae mair their theft allege,
Threescore and twelve he brought of them in pledge,
Syne warded them, whilk made the rest keep order,
Than _might the rash buss keep kye on the Border_.’[68]
It is said that no former ruler had ever so thoroughly awed the Border
men. On his return to Edinburgh in November, he distributed the
hostages among certain barons of the realm.
This, however, was the last of Moray’s expeditions against the thieves.
He was approaching the end of his career, doomed by party hatred in
conjunction with private malice.
[Sidenote: 1569-70.
JAN. 23.]
‘The Earl of Moray, the Good Regent, was slain in Linlithgow by James
Hamilton of Bothwell-haugh, who shot the said Regent with a gun out at
ane window, and presently thereafter fled out at the back, and leapt on
a very good horse, which the Hamiltons had ready waiting for him; and,
being followed speedily, after that spur and wand had failed him, he
drew forth his dagger, and struck his horse behind; whilk causit the
horse to leap a very broad stank; by whilk means he escaped.’--_Bir._
REGENCIES OF LENNOX AND MAR: 1570-1572.
The death of the Regent Moray proved a great blow to the infant king’s
party, for there was no man of equal mark and energy to take his place.
The friends of the exiled queen raised their heads again, and in a
force which might well give the ruling party some anxiety. Seeing the
imminence of the danger, Elizabeth yielded to the wishes of Mary’s
enemies, and sent an army under the Earl of Sussex into Scotland in
April, who ‘burnt, herrit, and destroyit sae mickle of the Merse
and Teviotdale as they might be masters of, asseizit the castle of
Farniehirst, and demolishit the same, and thereafter past to Hawick
and to Branksholm, and burnt and herrit the same,’ thus punishing the
Scotts, Kerrs, and others who had lately made a hostile incursion
in Mary’s behalf into England. Towards the end of the month, they
besieged and took Hume Castle. A similar army under Sir William Drury
entered Scotland in the ensuing month, and committed the like havock
in Lanarkshire, so as to disable the queen’s friends of the house of
Hamilton. The sufferings thus occasioned in certain districts were
dreadful, and the principal sufferers were the poor. In Hume Castle,
when taken by Sussex, ‘was the hale guids and gear perteining to the
hale tenants of my Lord Hume, wherethrough the saids puir tenants
were allutterly herrit.’ The devastation at Hamilton was ‘in sic sort
and maner as the like in this realm has not been heard before.’ And
when the English troops came thence to Linlithgow on their return,
‘they herrit all the Monkland, the Lord Fleming’s bounds, my Lord
Livingstone’s bounds, together with all their puir tenants and friends,
in sic maner that nae heart can think thereon but the same must be
dolorous.’--_D. O._ Yet this was but a foretaste of the woes which a
disputed succession was now for three years to lay upon the land.
At the dictation of Elizabeth--for the Protestant lords in Scotland
were wholly subservient to her--Matthew, Earl of Lennox, paternal
grandfather of the young king, was elected Regent (July 17, 1570).
The real ruling spirit was the Earl of Morton, who lost no time in
proceeding against some friends of Queen Mary in the north. Taking the
town of Brechin, which had been held for her, he caused thirty-one
of the garrison to be mercilessly put to death. ‘The deaths of thir
persons were greatomly bewailit by mony.’ At the same time, the Earl
of Sussex made an inroad into Dumfriesshire, cast down many houses of
Mary’s friends, ‘burnt certain houses in the town of Dumfries, and reft
and spulyit all that they micht get.’ Three considerable districts in
Scotland were this summer reduced to a desert.
The Gordon power in the north, that of the Hamiltons and Argyle in the
west, and the Border chiefs, formed the great centres of Mary’s party,
which altogether was so strong, that it must have triumphed but for the
backing which the other party received from England. As matters stood,
the king’s friends were able to maintain themselves in possession of
the country at large, holding Stirling as the seat of government, while
Kirkaldy of Grange, governor of the Castle of Edinburgh, unexpectedly
went over to the queen’s side, as did Maitland of Lethington, and
some others lately arrayed against her. Edinburgh and its castle
consequently became a centre of operations for that party. Then
commenced an intestine war, at first consisting of mutual devastations
on each other’s lands, but soon assuming a sanguinary character. It
is not consistent with our design to relate it in detail; but a few
characteristic proceedings are given in the chronicle, usually in the
simple and pathetic language of the time.
Lennox being killed in a surprise at Stirling (September 3, 1571),
the Earl of Mar was chosen to the vacant regency. Under him the war
advanced with even increased ferocity, until it came to be a rule
that no quarter should be given on either side. In little more than
a twelvemonth, this gentle-natured noble sunk under the burden of
government; ‘the maist cause of his deid was that he lovit peace, and
could not have the same.’--_D. O._ The Earl of Morton, the ablest
man of the whole party since Moray, but merciless and greedy in the
extreme, succeeded, with the full approbation of the Mistress of the
Protestant party of Scotland.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1570.
MAY.]
Lord Fleming being a conspicuous leader on the queen’s side, and
captain of Dumbarton Castle, his lands in the counties of Lanark and
Dumbarton were amongst those which fell under the vengeance of the
ruling party. As one of the enormities perpetrated by the Earl of
Lennox and his men on Lord Fleming’s estates--‘they have slain and
destroyit the deer of his forest of Cumbernauld, and the white kye and
bulls of the said forest, to the great destruction of policy and hinder
of the commonweal. For that kind of kye and bulls has been keepit thir
mony years in the said forest, and the like was not maintenit in ony
other parts of the Isle of Albion, as is weel knawn.’[69]
[Sidenote: 1570.]
The ‘white kye and bulls’ here spoken of are believed to have been a
remnant of the original wild cattle of the Caledonian forest. Boece
describes them as white, with lion-like manes, fierce, untamable,
and shunning human society--so misanthropical, indeed, that they
would eat nothing which the hand of man had touched. He, like the
writer quoted above, says that none of them were left but only in
Cumbernauld. Leslie, however, tells us that they also existed in the
parks of Stirling and Kincardine. Latterly, there have been herds of
the same oxen (but perhaps imported) in the Duke of Hamilton’s park
of Cadzow, in Lanarkshire; in the Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry’s
at Drumlanrig; and in Lord Tankerville’s park at Chillingham, in
Northumberland.
* * * * *
Perhaps the severities of the English army on this occasion were only
what her Scottish allies would themselves have practised against their
opponents. What follows, however, seems to have gone a little beyond
the bounds of partisan vengeance, while it not less illustrates the
sacrifice of national dignity at which the enemies of Mary were content
to purchase the aid of the English queen.
[Sidenote: MAY 29.]
Sir William Drury, returning with the English army from the devastation
of the Duke of Chatelherault’s country in Lanarkshire, resolved to
destroy the town of Linlithgow, in retribution for its having proved a
harbour for the enemies of Elizabeth and of her ally the young Scottish
king. It seemed but right that the scene of the murder of Moray should
thus suffer. He therefore called the provost of the burgh before him,
and announced his intention, saying, however, that he would allow time
for the carrying away of any women in childbed or impotent people, and
also conceding that a place should be appointed, to which the goods
belonging to the citizens should be brought for preservation.
‘The time being come for this execution, the Earl of Morton, that still
accompanied the English general, offered himself as an intercessor to
entreat and sue for a pardon, bringing afore the general a multitude of
wailing people, whose mournful and most piteous cries was lamentable
and very importunate.’
[Sidenote: 1570.
JULY 4.]
Drury insisted that justice demanded an example being made of
Linlithgow; but ‘the people of all sorts so pressed about him, and
made such pitiful cries and sorrowful noise, with children sucking
of their mothers’ breasts, that he, taking ruth of their miserable
estates, at this their lamentable suit, especially at the great
instance of the Earl of Morton, _who came bareheaded to speak for
them_, the general was content to save the town and people therein.’ He
took assurance from them, however, that the chief inhabitants should
follow his camp to Berwick, and there wait the clemency of the queen of
England.--_Holinshed._
‘... at 10 hours at night, there was ane earthquake in the city of
Glasgow, and lastit but ane short space; but it causit the inhabitants
of the said city to be in great terror and fear.’--_D. O._
* * * * *
‘In this time there was ane monstrous fish seen in Loch Fyne, having
great een in the head thereof, and at some times wald stand aboon the
water as high as the mast of a ship; and the said [creature] had upon
the head thereof [twa crowns, ane] aboon little, and the downmaist
crown meikle; whilk was reportit by wise men, that the same was ane
sign and taiken of ane sudden alteration within this realm.’--_D. O._
The low intelligence of the age is seen in nothing more conspicuously
than in the numerous tales of animals alleged to have been seen, with
peculiarities impossible in nature, and believed to be ominous of
public calamity. The appearance of a similar animal in another of the
Argyleshire lochs in 1510 is noted by Hector Boece, on the information
of Duncan Campbell, a noble knight. This ‘terrible beast’ was ‘of the
bigness of a greyhound, and footed like a gander. Issuing out of the
water early in the morning about midsummer,’ he ‘did very easily and
without any force or straining of himself overthrow huge oaks with his
tail, and therewith killed outright three men that hunted him with
three strokes of his said tail, the rest of them saving themselves in
trees thereabouts, whilst the aforesaid monster returned to the water.
Those that are given to the observation of rare and uncouth sights,
believe that this beast is never seen but against some great trouble
and mischief to come upon the realm of Scotland.’[70]
In Holinshed’s _Chronicle_ (1577), the Firth of Forth is said
occasionally to contain ‘sundry fishes of a monstrous shape, with cowls
hanging over their heads like unto monks, and in the rest resembling
the body of man. They shew themselves above the water to the navel,
howbeit they never appear but against some great pestilence of men or
murrain of cattle; wherefore their only sight doth breed great terror
to the Scottish nation, who are very great observers of uncouth signs
and tokens.’
On the whole, it is most likely that some species of the _cetacea_ or
_phocidæ_ was concerned in giving rise to these tales of sea-monsters.
[Sidenote: 1570.]
Sir William Sinclair of Roslin, who was living at this time, thus
notes the appearance of an extraordinary animal in the year 1500:
‘Hutcheon Frizell in Glenconie, the best and maist in estimation of the
Lord Lovat’s kin, he and ane servand with him, being at the hunting
on ane hie land amang very rank heather, twa arrow-draught frae him
he heard like the call of ane ratch approaching near and near, while
[till] at the last he saw it, and shot at it ane dead straik with
ane arrow; where it lap and welterit up and down ane spear length of
breadth and length. The heather and bent being mair nor ane foot of
height, it being in the deid-thraw, brint all to the eird [earth], as
it had been muirburn. It was mair nor twa eln of length, as great as
the coist of ane man, without feet, having ane mickle fin on ilk side,
with ane tail and ane terrible head. His great deer-dogs wald not come
near it. It had great speed. They callit it ane dragon.’[71]
He commemorates a sea-animal not less wonderful, which was thrown upon
the coast of Northumberland in 1544. ‘At the sea-side at Bamburgh,
there was nae kind of fish ta’en by the space of twa year; but the sea
made ane great routing and horrible noise, which was by [beside] custom
and use. So it chancit, at the hie spring [tide], that ane terrible
beast was casten in dead, of the quantity [bulk] of ane man. Nae man
could devise ane thing mair terrible, with horns on the head of it, red
een, with misshapen face, with lucken [webbed] hands and feet, and ane
great rumple hinging to the eird. It consumit and stinkit sae, that in
short time nae man nor beast might come near it; but all the country
about saw it before, and sundry took great fear and dreadour for the
sicht of it a lang space after. It was callit a Sea-devil. Witness the
Laird of Mow.’[72]
* * * * *
‘The summer right guid, and all victuals guid cheap; the August right
fair and guid weather.’--_C. F._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP. 1.
1570.]
An extraordinary act of Gilbert, Earl of Cassillis, sometimes called
KING OF CARRICK, on account of the great power which he possessed in
that district.
The revenues of the abbey of Crossraguel, in Carrick, had been
bestowed upon Master Allan Stewart. The earl had got a feu of the abbey
from a predecessor of Stewart, but it never was confirmed. After some
fruitless endeavours to obtain a confirmation from Stewart, the earl
inveigled him to the castle of Dunure, a strong fortalice situated on a
rocky part of the coast overlooking the Atlantic.
Here the Commendator was honourably entertained--‘gif a prisoner can
think ony entertainment pleasing. But after that certain days were
spent, and that the earl could not obtain the feus of Crossraguel
according to his awn appetite, he determined to prove gif a collation
could work that which neither dinner nor supper could do of a long
time. And so the said Master was carried to a secret chalmer [according
to Stewart’s own account, to a house called the _Black Voute_ (Vault)
of Dunure; there is something horribly suitable in the name]. With
him passit the honourable earl, his worshipful brother, and sic as
was appointed to be servants at that banquet. In the chalmer there
was a great iron chimney, under it a fire; other great provision was
not seen. The first course was: “My lord abbot (said the earl), it
will please you confess here, that with your awn consent ye remain in
my company, because ye dare not commit you to the hands of others.”
The abbot answered: “Wald ye, my lord, that I should make a manifest
leasing for your pleasure? The truth is, my lord, it is against my will
that I am here; neither yet have I ony pleasure in your company.” “But
ye sall remain with me at this time,” said the earl. “I am not able to
resist your will and pleasure,” said the abbot, “in this place.” “Ye
maun then obey me,” said the earl. And with that were presented unto
him certain letters to subscrive, amongst which there was a five-year
tack [lease] and a nineteen-year tack, and a charter of feu of all the
lands of Crossraguel, with all the clauses necessar for the earl to
haste him to hell! For gif adultery, sacrilege, oppression, barbarous
cruelty, and theft heaped upon theft, deserve hell, the great King of
Carrick can no more escape hell, for ever, nor the imprudent abbot
escaped the fire for a season, as follows.
[Sidenote: 1570.]
‘After that the earl espied repugnance, and that he could not come
to his purpose by fair means, he commandit his cooks to prepare the
banquet. And so first they flayit the sheep, that is, they took off
the abbot’s claithes, even to his skin; and next they band him to the
chimney, his legs to the one end and his arms to the other; and so they
began to beet the fire, sometimes to his buttocks, sometimes to his
legs, sometimes to his shoulders and arms. And that the roast should
not burn, but that it might roast in sop, they spared not flamming
with oil. (Lord, look thou to sic cruelty!) And, that the crying of the
miserable man sould not be heard, they closed his mouth.... In that
torment they held the poor man, while that ofttimes he cried “for God’s
sake to dispatch him; he had as meikle gold in his awn purse as wald
buy powder eneugh to shorten his pain.”
‘The famous King of Carrick and his cooks, perceiving the roast to be
eneugh, commandit it to be tane from the fire, and the earl himself
began the grace in this manner: “_Benedicite, Jesus, Maria!_ you are
the most obstinate man that ever I saw! Gif I had known that ye had
been so stubborn, I wold not for a thousand crowns handled you so. I
never did so to man, before you.”‘--_Ban._
The abbot’s own account, in the complaint which he afterwards rendered
to the privy-council, is different, in as far as it describes him as
now yielding to the earl’s desire, in order to save his life and free
himself from the pain he was suffering. He also says that he at this
time subscribed the papers presented by the earl, though, it would
appear, in an incomplete manner. He goes on--‘which being done, the
earl causit the tormentors of me sweir upon ane bible never to reveal
ane word of this my unmerciful handling to ony person or persons.
‘Yet he, not being satisfied with their proceedings, came again upon
the 7 day of the month, bringing with him the same charter and tack,
which he compellit me to subscrive, and required me to ratify and
approve the same before notar and witnesses; which alluterly I refused.
And therefore he, as of before, band me, and put me to the same manner
of tormenting, and I said, notwithstanding, “he should first get my
life ere ever I agreed to his desire;” and being in so great pain as
I trust never man was in, with his life, I cried: “Fye upon you! will
ye ding whingers in me, and put me out of this world! Or else put a
barrel of powder under me, rather nor be demeaned in this unmerciful
manner!” The earl hearing me cry, bade his servant, Alexander Richard,
put ane serviette [towel] in my throat, which he obeyed; the same being
performed at 11 hours at night; wha then seeing that I was in danger of
my life, my flesh consumed and burnt to the bones, and that I wald not
condescend to their purpose, I was releivit of that pain; wherethrough
I will never be able nor well in my life time.’
[Sidenote: 1570.]
The abbot was relieved from Dunure by the Laird of Bargeny, an enemy
of Cassillis. The government was too weak and in too much trouble to
avenge his cause against the earl, who thenceforth continued to draw
the revenues of Crossraguel. But ‘my lord gave the abbot some money to
live upon, whilk contentit him all his days.’--_Hist. Ken._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP. 7.]
Robert Hepburn, second son of the Laird of Waughton, was a partisan of
the queen. Travelling to visit his friends in Lothian, he was betrayed
by a companion to the knowledge of a party of the king’s friends,
consisting of the Lairds of Applegarth and Carmichael, who consequently
made an attempt to lay hold of him as he was passing Bathgate. ‘He,
being alone with ane boy, fled, and they chasit him continually fra the
said place while he come to the castle of Edinburgh, wherein he was
resavit with great difficulty; for when the said Robert was passand
in at the castle-yett, his adversaries were at Patrick Edgar his
house-end. Ane thing to be wonderit at that he could escape the hands
of the said persons, considering their multitude and [their being]
as weel horsit as he was; and he being riding upon ane brown naig,
could never have space to change off the same upon his led horse, but
continually rade while he come to the castle foresaid; but his pursuers
not only changit horse, but also did cast from them saddles and other
gear, to mak licht for pursuing of him.’[73]--_D. O._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT. 4.
1570.]
John Kello, minister of Spott, in Haddingtonshire, was executed in
Edinburgh for the murder of his wife. The confession of this wretched
man shews that he was tempted to the horrible act by a desire to marry
more advantageously, his circumstances being somewhat straitened. He
deliberated on the design for forty days; tried poison, which failed;
then accomplished it by strangulation. His confession admits the
amiable character of the victim; nay, he tells that, ‘in the verie
death, she could not believe I bure her onie evil will, but was glad,
as she then said, to depart, gif her death could do me either vantage
or pleasure.’[74] According to a contemporary recital, ‘he stranglit
her in her awn chamber, and thereafter closit the ordinar door that
was within the house for his awn passage, and sae finely seemit to
colour that purpose after he had done it, that immediately he passed
to the kirk, and in the presence of the people made sermon as if he
had done nae sic thing. And when he was returnit hame, he brought
some neighbours into his house to vissie his wife, and callit at the
ordinar door, but nae answer was made. Then he passed to another back
passage with the neighbours, and that was fund open, and she hinging
stranglit at the roof of the house. Then, with admiration, he cryit, as
though he had knawn naething of the purpose, and they for pity in like
manner cryit out. But, in [the] end, finding himself prickit with the
judgments of God, of the grievous punishment wherewith transgressors
have been plagued in time bygane, he thought gude to communicate his
fact to ane of his brether in office, wha then was schoolmaster at
Dunbar.’--_H. K. J._
To resume his own confession: ‘Mr Andrew Simson, minister of Dunbar,
did so lively rype furth the inward cogitations of my heart, and
discover my mind so plainly, that I persuaded myself God spak in him
... he remembered me of ane dream which in my great sickness did
apparently present the self. “Brother,” said he, “I do remember when I
visited you in time of your sickness, ye did expose to me this vision,
that ye were carried by ane great man before the face of ane terrible
judge, and to escape his fury, ye did precipitate yourself in ane deep
river, when his angels and messengers did follow you with two-edged
swords, and sae when they struck at you, ye did decline and jouk in the
water, while in the end, by ane way unknown to you, ye did escape. This
vision I do interpret, that ye are the author yourself of this cruel
murder then conceived in your heart, and ye were carried before the
terrible judgments of God in your awn conscience, which now stands in
God’s presence to accuse you; the messengers of God is the justice of
the country before the which ye sall be presented; the water wherein
ye stood is that vain hypocrisy of your awn, and feigned blasphemy
of God’s name, whereby ye purpose to colour your impiety; your
deliverance sall be spiritual.”... At this time did God move my heart
to acknowledge the horror of my awn offence, and how far Sathan had
obteinit victory ower me.’--_Ban. J._ ‘Briefly, by his awn confession,
being clearly convict, he was condemnit to be hangit, and his body to
be casten in the fire and brynt to ashes, and so to die without any
burial. And thus he departit this life, with an extreme penitent and
contrite heart, baith for this and all other his offences in general,
to the great gude example and comfort of all beholders.’--_H. K. J._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT.
1570.]
In those days, while as yet there were not only no newspapers, but
no ready means of conveying letters, true intelligence made its way
slowly, and the most ridiculous rumours obtained circulation. For
example, on John Knox being at this time struck with apoplexy, ‘a
bruit [report] went through Scotland and England, that he was become
the most deformed creature that ever was seen; that his face was turned
awry to his neck; and that he would never preach or speak again.’ In
the ensuing year, while the venerable reformer lived at St Andrews, it
was rumoured, and very generally believed as a serious truth, that he
had been banished from the town, ‘because in his yard he had raised
some sancts, among whom came up the devil with horns; which, when his
servant, Richard Bannatyne, saw, he ran wood, and so died.’ It is
stated that Lady Hume and some others thronged round the postman of
St Andrews, with anxious inquiries whether it was true that Knox was
banished from St Andrews, and that Bannatyne had run mad in consequence
of seeing the devil raised.[75]
* * * * *
At this time, the witches of Athole are spoken of as noted personages.
In the late and present civil dissensions they sided with the
unfortunate queen, having probably too much Highland feeling to dissent
from the great man of the district, the Earl of Athole, who was one
of her majesty’s warmest friends. About the time indicated, a present
was sent to Mary, supposed to be from this uncanny portion of her late
subjects. It was ‘a pretty hart horn, not exceeding in quantity the
palm of a man’s hand, covered with gold, and artificially wrought. In
the head of it were curiously engraven the arms of Scotland; in the
nether part of it a throne, and a gentlewoman sitting in the same, in
a robe-royal, with a crown upon her head. Under her feet was a rose
environed with a thistle. Under that were two lions, the one bigger,
the other lesser. The bigger lion held his paw upon the face of the
other, as his lord and commander. Beneath all were written these words:
“Fall what may fall,
The lion shall be lord of all.”’
[Sidenote: 1570.]
This was evidently designed to convey a hope and wish that Mary should
erelong, in spite of all contrarious circumstances, be in possession of
England as well as of her native dominions.[76] In the same spirit was
a rhymed prophecy which, at the same time, came into circulation, but
which was quickly falsified:
‘The howlet shall lead the bear to his bane,
The queen of England shall die the twelfth year of her reign;
The court of England that is so wanton,
Shall shortly be brought to confusion.’--_Cal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV. 12.]
A sad picture of civil war is presented by the so-called _Harrying
of Bothwell Moor_. ‘Captain Andrew Cunningham and Captain Thomas
Crawford, accompanied with certain men of weir, departit of Glasgow,
and passed in the night to Bothwell Moor, where they reft and spulyit
all the inhabitants and tenants thereof; and because the Hamiltons was
gathering to rescue the said guids, they fearit to return again to
the said town of Glasgow, but came to Edinburgh with the same. They
brought to the said burgh of Edinburgh 400 kye and oxen, 600 sheep,
and 60 mares and staigs [colts]; this done, they passed to my Lord
Regent, he being in Dalkeith, and knew his mind, whither they should
take ane composition from the poor tenants, awners of the same, or not;
but the matter was sae unmercifully handled, that the said guids were
proclaimit by sound of drum and trumpet, to be sauld [to] whatsomever
persons wald buy the same.... To hear the lamentable crying of the said
poor tenants, for the unmerciful robbery and oppression committit upon
the said persons by the men of weir, it wald made ane stane-heartit
man to greit and bewail. But cry what they wald cry, and lament as
they pleasit, there was nane that obtainit comfort at their unmerciful
hands; for when the said poor creatures made their complaint to the
Regent, he wald not hear them, while [till] the oppression was cryit
out upon by John Craig, minister. And then the Regent and lords of
secret council ordainit that ane half of the guids be renderit again to
the said poor tenants; but ere this time, the men of weir had sparfilit
the best of them, and then the poor tenants were constrainit either to
take again the ane half of the warst of the said guids that were left
behind, or else they wald not have gotten naething.’--_D. O._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 7.
1570.
DEC. 9.]
‘... there was ane day of law betwixt the Hoppringles and Elliots in
Edinburgh, wherein the ane party set upon the other, and, had not the
town of Edinburgh redd [separated] them, there had been great slauchter
done the said day.’--_D. O._
‘Patrick Moscrop, son to John Moscrop, advocate, and Eupham M’Calyean,
only apparent heir to Mr Thomas M‘Calyean, ane of the senators of the
College of Justice, were married in the said Thomas M‘Calyean’s house
within Edinburgh, but nocht by permission of the kirk, and that for
fear of tumult to be made by Archibald Ruthven, brother to William
Lord Ruthven, wha allegit he had the first promise of her.... This
order of marriage endured in ane manner ane slander to the kirk of
God.’[77]--_D. O._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1570-1.
JAN. 15.]
From this day till the 22d March, ‘great frost, that nae plews gaed
while aucht days; and men might pass and repass on the ice of Lyon the
3d day of March.’ February 22, after noon, ‘there came ane great storm,
and snaw and hail and wind, that nae man nor beast might take up their
heads, nor gang, nor ride, and mony beasts, and mony men and women,
were perished in sundry parts, and all kind of victuals right dear, and
that because nae mills might grind for the frost.’--_C. F._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1571.
MAR.]
A General Assembly sitting in Edinburgh issued an order that
adulterers, murderers, and others guilty of heinous offences, who might
desire to be received back into Christian fellowship, should first
appear penitently before their respective ministers, and then present
themselves in linen clothes, bareheaded and barefooted, before the
synod of their district. It was presently found, however, that divers
of these penitents were too far distant from the meeting-places of
the synods, and others were in such poverty, or _under such terror of
enemies_, that they could not, or durst not travel through the country.
This fact verifies to us a passage in a contemporary historian: ‘The
haill realm of Scotland was sae divided in factions, that it was hard
for any peaceable man as he rade out the hie way, to profess himself
openly, either to be a favourer of the king or queen. All the people
were casten sae lowss, and were become of sic dissolute minds and
actions, that nane was in account but he that could either kill or
rieve his neighbour.’--_H. K. J._
[Sidenote: 1571.]
Incidents characteristic of such a time abound in the contemporary
diarists. ‘March 27, David Lawtie, writer to the signet [in Edinburgh]
was invaded by Thomas Douglas, and the maist part of his fore-finger
strucken fra him.’--_D. O._ October 30, ‘There was ane combat betwixt
Campbell on the king’s part, and ane Smith, a lieutenant or servant
within Edinburgh. Campbell strack him twice through the body without
blood drawn upon himself, except a scrape upon the thumb.’--_Ban._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR. 7.]
The castle of Dumbarton being taken by surprise, great joy was
experienced by the king’s party on finding John Hamilton, archbishop
of St Andrews, among the prisoners. The primate, a zealous adherent
of the ancient faith, and partisan of the queen, was suspected of
various crimes against the Protestant cause; so no mercy was to be
expected for him. Then was seen the remarkable spectacle of the head
of the church in Scotland--he whom Jerome Cardan travelled from London
to Scotland only to cure of some trifling ailments--dragged with but
little ceremony to a scaffold and put to a dog’s death--a victim of
the frightful passions excited by civil war. In answer to a dittay
which George Buchanan assisted in bringing against him at Stirling,
he denied everything but a foreknowledge of and participation in the
death of Moray, ‘of whilk he repentit, and askit God mercy. Being
further accusit gif ony of his surname or friends were upon the counsel
thereof, he answerit that he wold accuse nae man at that time but
himself. As touching his religion,’ says this chronicler, ‘I reasonit
with him, and could find naething but that he was ane papist, and
exhortit sic as were near hand upon the scaffold to abide at the
Catholic faith--sae he termed the papistry. In the castle, he desirit
some papist priest to whom he micht confess him, and of whom he micht
resave consolation [absolution] of his sins, according to the order
of the kirk (as he spak); and sae he continuit to the death in the
papistry, as he livit. As the bell struck at six hours at even, he was
hangit at the mercat-cross of Stirling, upon ane gibbet, on whilk was
written thir twa verses following:
“Cresce diu, felix arbor, semperque vireto
Frondibus, ut nobis talia poma feras.”--_D. O._
[Sidenote: 1571.]
At this time, Mr William Collace was first regent in St Leonard’s
College, St Andrews; he ‘had the estimation of being the maist solid
and learnit in Aristotle’s philosophy.’ James Melville gives an
interesting picture of this learned person, to whose class he came at
fifteen years of age, so ill prepared for understanding the language
(Latin) in which the prelections took place, that ‘I did naething,’
says Melville, ‘but bursted and grat at his lessons, and was of mind
to have gone home again, were [it] not the loving care of that man
comforted me; [he] took me in his awn chalmer, causit me to lie with
himself, and every night teached me in private till I was acquainted
with the matter. Then he gave us ane compend of his awn of philosophy
and the parts thereof ... whilk I thought I understood better. About
the whilk time my father, coming to the town, begoud to examine me,
and, finding some beginning, was exceeding rejoiced, and uttered
sweeter affection to me than ever before. He enterteinit my regent very
heartily in his lodging, and gave him great thanks; he sent me to him,
after he had taken leave, with twa pieces of gold in a napkin; but the
gentleman was sae honest and loving, that he wald have none of his
gold, but with austere countenance sent me back with it; nay, never
wald receive gold or silver all the time of my course.’
Melville mentions having frequent opportunities at this time of seeing
and hearing John Knox, who had taken refuge in St Andrews, while
Edinburgh was possessed by the queen’s party. ‘Mr Knox wald some time
come in and repose him in our college yard, and call us scholars
unto him and bless us, and exhort us to knaw God and his wark in our
country, and stand by the gude cause, and follow the guid example of
our masters.’
‘I saw him every day of his doctrine go hooly and fair [softly and
fairly] with a furring of matricks about his neck, a staff in ane hand,
and guid godly Richard Ballanden, his servant, halding up the other
oxter [armpit] from the abbey to the parish kirk, and by the said
Richard and another servant, lifted up to the pulpit, whaur he behovit
to lean at his first entry, but ere he had done with his sermon, he was
sae active and vigorous, that he was like to ding that pulpit in blads
[knock the pulpit in splinters], and flie out of it.’
He adds: ‘This year, in the month of July, Mr John Davidson, ane of our
regents, made a play at the marriage of Mr John Colvin, whilk I saw
playit in Mr Knox’s presence, wherein, according to Mr Knox’s doctrine,
the castle of Edinburgh was besieged, taken, and the captain, with ane
or twa with him, hangit in effigy.’
[Sidenote: 1571.]
This dramatic performance represented an unfulfilled prophecy of
the reformer. When Kirkaldy of Grange, after many years of zealous
service in the reforming cause, declared for the Queen, and held out
Edinburgh Castle against the Regent, Knox, who had loved him much, was
deeply grieved. He felt, however, no doubt as to the ultimate triumph
of his own cause against all such opposition, and it was perhaps no
great venture for so acute a person to utter the prediction that,
notwithstanding the trust which Kirkaldy put in that powerful fortress,
it should yet run like a sand-glass; it should spew out the captain
with shame; he should not come out at the gate, but over the walls.
Mr Robert Hamilton, minister of St Andrews, asking his warrant for
this vaticination, he said: ‘God is my warrant, and ye shall see it.’
‘As the other was scarcely satisfied,’ says James Melville, ‘the next
sermon from the pulpit, he repeats the threatenings, and adds thereto:
“Thou that will not believe my warrant, shall see it with thy e’es that
day, and shall say: ‘What have I to do here?’” This sermon the said Mr
Robert’s servant wrote....’--_Ja. Mel._
* * * * *
This year ‘great weirs in the north land betwixt the Gordons and
Forbeses, and the Forbeses put till the warst, and mony slain of them,
and towns wasted and burnt.’--_C. F._
Adam Gordon, brother of the Earl of Huntly, was a leader in these
broils, and of some avail in supporting the queen’s cause. He stained
his name by a frightful act of cruelty. The house of Towie, belonging
to Alexander Forbes, was maintained by his lady against Gordon. On
his sending to demand its surrender, the brave dame answered that
she could not give it up without direction from her husband. Gordon
then set fire to it, and burnt the heroic woman, her children and
servants--twenty-seven persons in all!
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY.
1571.]
The queen’s party, after holding a parliament in Edinburgh, where they
affected formally to re-establish her government, sent a pursuivant to
Jedburgh, ‘to proclaim the new erected authority,’ probably thinking
that the man would be safe in the performance of his duty at that town
through the favour of Kerr of Ferniehirst, their fellow-partisan.
They little reckoned on the spirit of the Border burghers. ‘He was
suffered to read his letters till he came to this point, that the lords
assembled in Edinburgh had found all the proceedings against the queen
null, and that all men should obey her only. Then the provost caused
the pursuivant to come down from the cross, and _eat his letters_.
Thereafter, [he] caused loose down his points, and gave him his wages
---- with a bridle; and threatened that if ever he came again, he
should lose his life. Ferniehirst threatened the town: but they gave
him the defiance.’--_Cal._
A few months after, Ferniehirst and Buccleuch mustered a great
multitude of the Border thieves, and came to take vengeance on the
burghers of Jedburgh. The town, assisted by Kerr of Cessford, stood to
its defence; and when Lord Ruthven came with a party of horse to aid
them, they were able to beat back the assailants, many of whom fell
into their hands.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG. 1.]
‘There was ane sow farried in William Davidson’s house, flesher in
Edinburgh, of thirteen gryces [pigs], of the whilk there was ane a
monster. It had the gruntle [snout] in the heich of the heid, and
under that it had twa een, ane nose and mouth, ane brow, ane cheek,
ane tongue, and lugs like to the similitude of man in all sorts; the
remanent thereof was like ane other gryce without hair. This portendit
some mischief to this burgh.’--_D. O._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG.]
The Earl of Argyle, Robert Lord Boyd, and some other nobles, lately
friends of the queen, were now brought over to the king’s side, after
sundry meetings and discussions with the Regent. ‘The greedy and
insatiable appetite of benefices was the maist cause thereof, for there
was nane that was brought under the king’s obedience but for reward
either given or promised. Als he [the Earl of Argyle] was greatumly
persuadit hereto by Lord Boyd, wha persuadit the kirk to part the said
earl and his wife, and [the earl] to marry his [Lord Boyd’s] daughter,
wha was married upon the young laird of Cunninghamheid of before.’--_D.
O._
After these particulars, it is instructive to read the epitaph
inscribed on Lord Boyd’s tomb in the Laigh Kirk (Burns’s Laigh Kirk) of
Kilmarnock:
‘Heir lyis y^t godlie, noble, wyis Lord Boyd,
Quha kirk and king and commonweil decoird,
Quhilk war (quhill they yis jowell all injoyd)
Defendit, counsaild, governd, by that lord.’ &c.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG. 28.]
The Regent Lennox held a parliament at Stirling, where he made an
oration to the nobility. The king, five years old, was present, and,
while his grandfather was speaking, he looked up and espied a hole in
the roof, occasioned by ‘the lack of some sclates.’ At the conclusion
of the harangue, the child remarked: ‘I think there is ane hole in this
parliament.’
[Sidenote: 1571.]
‘In effect, his majesty’s words came true; for the same month, about
the end of the parliament (September 3), there came to Striviling in
the night, ere the nobility or town knew, the Earl of Huntly, the
queen’s lieutenant, Claud Hamilton, with the Lairds of Buccleuch and
Ferniehirst, who, ere day brake, had possessed themselves of the town,
crying “God and the Queen!” so that those that were for the King and
his Regent could not, for the multitude of enemies, come to a head.
Wherever they could see any that belonged to the Regent, him they
killed without mercy. The Regent being taken prisoner by the Laird of
Buccleuch, and horsed behind him, ane wicked fellow lift up his jack,
and shot him through the body with a pistol.... [On a counter-surprise,
the queen’s party] departed the town immediately. The Earl of Mar was
declared Regent, and concluded the parliament. This was the hole which
the young king did see in the parliament, although he meant nothing
less.’--_Bal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV. 10.]
Robert Lord Boyd entered this day into a bond of _manred_ with William
Fairly, brother of David Fairly of that Ilk. Manred, properly, is a
service of allegiance; but in Scotland it had come, in the course of
time, to be an agreement, sometimes between a great man and a less,
sometimes between two or more equally great men, to stand by each other
in all contingencies of war and law, excepting only (and perhaps it was
but a hypocritical exception) where the king’s majesty and his commands
were concerned. It was an arrangement dictated by the exigencies of a
rude time, when law was but partial and uncertain in its actings, and
natural feeling often called for something being done, whether the law
would or no. As something not very consonant with good government, or
even such attempts at the same as might be made in those days, manred
had been denounced by a statute so long ago as 1457, when it was
enacted ‘that nae man dwelling within burgh be fund in manrent, nor
ride in rout in feir of weir with nae man, but with the king or his
officers, or with the lord of the burgh.’ But acts of parliament were
voices crying in the wilderness in Scotland, and manred still continued
to have its place in the economy of life in this age.
[Sidenote: 1571.]
On this occasion, William Fairly binds and obliges himself to be ‘man
and subject servant’ to Lord Boyd and his heirs, ‘aefaldly and truly
to serve them upon their retinue and expenses in household and out of
household, as best sall please them in all their affairs, and as weel
in defence as pursuit, with whom or against whom it sall happen them
to have action and ado,’ the king excepted. He is likewise to help
them with his good counsel, ‘and sall never hear nor know their hurt,
damage, nor skaith, in ony sort, but sall diligently sift out the same,
and mak true declaration thereof.’
The consideration for all this service is the possession of ‘the
thretty-shilling land of auld extent of Byrehill.’
This was but the first of a long series of similar engagements which
Lord Boyd formed down to his death in 1589.[78] For a forty-shilling
land, the Laird of Fergushill becomes bound, October 26, 1572, in the
same way as William Fairly, and to take part with the said lord and
his heirs, in all their actions, quarrels, questions, and debates.
The Laird of Lochrig, the Laird of Rowallan, Andrew Macfarlane of
Arroquhar, and the Laird of Camstroddan, all in succession put
themselves in this relation to his lordship. In March 1575, the
Laird of Blair engaged with his friends, tenants, and servants, to
‘ride, gang, and assist with the said lord, in all kind of leeful
conventions.’ It was with such satellites that a great man of that
age, if to be tried on any criminal charge, appeared at the place of
law, professedly that he might be sure of fair-play, but in reality
with the effect of overbearing justice. It was with such assistants
that two or three lords were sometimes enabled to take possession of
the government, and for a time rule all at their pleasure. Amongst the
most curious things in the early history of the reformed religion,
are the occasions when it was manifestly indebted for its progress to
associations of this irregular kind.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 24.]
About this time, there was apprehended ‘one that keepit ane hostelry
at Brechin, who before, at divers times, had murdered sundry that came
to lodge with him, the wife being also as busy as the man with a mell
[mallet], to fell their guests sleeping in their beds.’--_Ban._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1571-2.
JAN.
FEB. 8.]
Among numberless skirmishes, surprises, and barbarous ravagings which
marked the struggle between the friends of the queen and those of the
infant king, was an affair of several parts or acts in this and the
ensuing month. Lord Maxwell being contracted in marriage to a sister of
the Earl of Angus, the lady’s relation, the Earl of Morton, proposed to
give a banquet on the occasion at Dalkeith Castle. The wine required
at the feast was to be brought in carts from Leith, together with some
venison and a quantity of silver plate. Kirkaldy and his friends in
the castle hearing of this, sent out a party of horse, which surprised
Morton’s servants, and took as spoil the materials of the proposed
banquet. Morton who, it was said, smarted more from the loss of the
plate than the killing of a few of his servants in the struggle,
immediately sent a party to requite Kirkaldy’s attack by laying waste
his estate in Fife. Kirkaldy, again, repaid these attentions by sending
a party a few nights after to set fire to the town of Dalkeith. On this
occasion, he killed ten of Morton’s people, and took nine prisoners.
‘In their return [they] perceived fifty-sax horses from Dalkeith to
Leith, passing laded with ale; they brake the barrels, and made prey
of the horses, and brought into Edinburgh many kye and oxen forth of
that lordship for supply of their scant and hunger.’--_H. K. J._ ‘These
three scuffles went all under one name, and were ever after called
_Lord Maxwell’s Handfasting_.’[79]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1572.
MAR.]
The condition of the ordinary places of worship in this time of civil
war is sketched in the _Lamentation of Lady Scotland_, printed by
Lekprevik in 1572.
‘The rooms appointit people to consider,
To hear God’s word, where they suld pray together,
Are now convertit in sheep-cots and faulds,
Or else are fallen, because nane them uphalds.
The parish kirks, I ween, they sae misguide,
That nane for wind and rain therein may bide:
Therefore nae pleasure tak they of the temple,
Nor yet to come where nocht is to contemple,
But craws and dows, cryand and makand beir,
That nane throuchly the minister may hear.
But feathers, filth, and dung does lie abroad,
Where folk should sit to hear the word of God;
Whilk is occasion to the adversaries,
To mock and scorn sic things before your eyes.
Thus to disdain the house of orison,
Does mak folk cauld to their devotion;
And als they do disdain to hear God’s word,
Thinking the same to be ane jesting bourd;
They go to labour, drinking, or to play,
And not to you,[80] upon the Sabbath day.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1572.]
The civil war told nowhere with more severity than on Edinburgh, which
was the scene of the principal transactions. The bringing of victuals
or coal to the city was forbidden by the beleaguering troops under
pain of death, and the penalty was exacted in many instances. The
consequence was ‘great penury and scant of vivres, sae that all was
at ane exceeding dearth.’--_D. O._ In May, oatmeal was nine shillings
of the native money per peck; eleven ounces of wheaten bread cost
8d., ‘and baps of nine [ounces] for 12d.’ It was found necessary to
demolish some houses for the sake of the wood, to be used as fuel. At
the commencement of a truce on the 22d of July, the meal had risen to
twelve shillings, the boll of wheat to ten pounds, and a carcass of
beef to sixteen pounds. On that day, ‘after noon, the victuals whilk
was keepit to ane dearth was brought to Leith and sauld, the meal
for five shillings the peck, ... and [sae] very mickle bread baken,
that it that was sauld for sixteen pennies was sauld for six pennies.
Thanks to God.’ During the scarcity, ale not being to be had, a drink
of vinegar and water was substituted.--_D. O._ ‘Nochttheless,’ if we
are to believe the same chronicle, ‘the remainers therein [that is,
in Edinburgh] abade patiently and were of good comfort, and usit all
pleasures whilk were wont to be usit in the month of May in auld times,
viz., Robin Hood and Little John.’
[Sidenote: APR. 16.]
From the day here noted to the 8th of June, the war between the queen’s
party in Edinburgh and the king’s beyond the city was conducted on
the principle of _No quarter_. All who were taken on either side were
presently put to death. The common belief was, that this frightful
system originated with Morton, who conceived that by such severity the
war would sooner cease. In the end, both parties, ‘wearied of execution
daily made, were content to cease from such rigour, and use fair wars,
as in former times.’--_Spot._
[Sidenote: APR. 21.]
‘... there was ane minister [named Robert Waugh] hangit in Leith (and
borne to the gibbet, because he was birsit[81] with the boots[82]).
The principal cause was that he said to the Earl of Morton, that he
defended ane unjust cause, and that he wald repent when nae time was to
repent. And when he was required by whom he was commanded to say the
same, he answered and said: “By the haly spreit.”‘--_D. O._
In the same year, Mr Andrew Douglas, minister of Dunglass, was first
tortured, and then hanged, for publicly rebuking Morton on account of
his living with the widow of Captain Cullen.
[Sidenote: JULY 19.
1572.]
Another characteristic incident of the time, but of a somewhat
mysterious character, occurred in a southern burgh. James Tweedie,
burgess of Peebles, John Wightman, Martin Hay, and John Bower there,
and Thomas Johnston, son to Thomas Johnston of Craigieburn, were
tried for being concerned in ‘the cruel slaughter of the umwhile John
Dickison of Winkston; committit within the town of Peebles on the
1st of Julii instant.’ They were acquitted. The fact is only worth
mentioning here, to afford an opportunity of illustrating the long
perseverance of tradition in certain favouring circumstances. In his
youth, which was passed in the town referred to, the author distinctly
remembers hearing an aged person speak of how Provost Dickison was long
ago ‘stickit’ at the back of the Dean’s Well in the High Street. The
event was then 240 years past.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT. 29.]
‘The Earl of Mar, Regent, ended his life, about three hours in the
morning. It was constantly affirmed, that about the time of his death,
the trough of the water of Montrose, where it runneth through his
lands, was dry, the water running nevertheless above [higher up]. At
the same time, a violent wind drave a great number of sheep from the
links of Montrose into the sea.’--_Cal._
Some events of the kind did certainly occur about the time of the
Regent’s death; but, contrary to all rule in such matters, they came
after that event, if we are to believe another historian, who places
them under November, and describes them as follows:
‘In this mean time was ane great ferly in Montrose. By the space of
six hours, the water thereof was dry in the sea, and during the whilk
space the people past within the said sea, and got sundry fishes....
After the whilk space, the people on the sands perceiving the water as
ane popill pitt, frae the whilk they fled to land, and syne it was sea
again suddenly, and never nane perishit hereinto. Also there was ane
hill callit ... , whilk burnt by the said space; men riding by the way,
the manes and coils of their horses burnt, the wands of their hands
burnt; poor men passing on the way, the staves in their hands burnt,
and when they wald dight [wipe] off the fire thereof, it wald entres
again.’--_D. O._
REGENCY OF MORTON: 1572-1578.
The Earl of Morton had no sooner assumed the reins of government, than
his vigorous talents began to be felt. The chief strength of Mary’s
friends was in Edinburgh Castle, held for her by Kirkaldy of Grange.
All the means at the Regent’s command proving insufficient to reduce
this fortress, he obtained from England an army of 1500 men, commanded
by Sir William Drury, and provided with artillery. The castle stood a
siege of three weeks, and was then obliged to yield (May 29, 1573).
With mean vindictiveness, Morton sent the gallant Kirkaldy to the
gallows. Maitland of Lethington might have shared the same fate, if
it had not been anticipated either by a natural death or suicide. The
other chiefs of the queen’s party were spared. After this event, the
friends of Mary could no longer make an appearance anywhere in her
favour. The new government remained triumphant, and peace was restored
to a bleeding and exhausted country.
Morton was, on the whole, a serviceable, though not a just or clement
ruler. It was his policy, arising from his love of money, to punish his
adversaries rather by fines than bloodshed. All the persons of note
who had befriended the queen, he caused to give security for their
future behaviour. The smallest offence forfeited the pledge, and the
cautioners were then mulcted without mercy. Under this ruling passion,
he tampered with the coin, sold justice, and cheated the church of its
revenues. It was supposed that he had concealed large treasures in his
castle of Dalkeith; but we have no certain account of their ever being
found, and probably the popular notions on the subject were exaggerated.
Under Morton, a slight move was made towards the establishment of a
kind of episcopacy in the church, though the persons he appointed to
the sees were mere creatures who consented to be receivers of the
revenues on his account. The general feeling of the people continued
to be decidedly in favour of the simple presbyterian polity, and the
Regent’s interference with the purity of that system was one cause
of his loss of popularity, and of his subsequent ruin. While the
recognised champion of the Protestant interest in Scotland, and, as
such, the _protégé_ of Elizabeth, he disliked the presbyterian clergy.
He not only refused to countenance by his presence any of their
assemblies, but ‘threatened some of the most zealous with hanging,
alleging that otherwise there could be no peace or order in the
country.’[83] The noted efforts of King James to bring the church into
a prelatic conformity with England, had in reality an exemplar in the
doings of the Regent Morton.
Meanwhile the young king was reared in great seclusion in Stirling
Castle, under the care of the celebrated scholar George Buchanan. His
acquirements, at a very early age, were such as to raise great hopes
of his future rule. Killegrew, the English ambassador, reports having
heard him, at eight years of age, translate the Bible, _ad aperturam
libri_, from Latin into French, and from French into English, ‘so
well as few men could have added anything to his translation.’ But,
in reality, his character was a strange mixture of cleverness and
weakness, of wit and folly. His greatest deficiency was in a courageous
will to pursue the ends of justice. He could clearly enough apprehend
the disease, and speak and write about it plausibly; but he could do
little towards its cure, because he shrank from all strong measures
except against poor and inferior people, and those who had wounded his
own pettier feelings.
The regency of Morton came to a premature conclusion in consequence of
a combination raised against him by the Earls of Athole and Argyle;
and James became nominally the acting ruler (March 1578), ere he had
completed his twelfth year.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1572.
NOV. 18.]
‘... in the morning, was seen a star northward, very bright and
clear, in the constellation of Cassiopeia, at the back of her chair;
which, with three chief fixed stars of the said constellation, made a
geometrical figure lozenge-wise, of the learned men called _rhombus_.
This star, at the first appearing, seemed bigger than Jupiter, and
not much less than Venus when she seemeth greatest ... the said star
never changed his[84] place ... and so continued (by little and
little appearing less) the space of sixteen months; at what time it
was so small, that rather thought, by exercise of oft viewing, might
imagine the place, than any eye could judge the presence of the
same.’--_Holinshed._
[Sidenote: 1572.]
This was the celebrated _Star of Tycho_, so called because Tycho Brahé
made it the subject of observation. The Danish astronomer is known
to have first observed it a few days before the date assigned by
Holinshed--namely, on the 11th of November, while taking an evening
walk in the fields. From the suddenness of its appearance, and its
very great brightness, he suspected that his sense was deceived, and
was only convinced he saw truly when he found some peasants gazing
at the imposing stranger with as much astonishment as himself. It has
been regarded as an example of a class of stars which move in periods
between remote and comparatively near points in space; and as there was
a similar object seen in 945 and 1264, it was supposed that the period
of this star was somewhat over 300 years. But ‘the period of 300 years,
which Goodriche conjectured, has been reduced by Kiell and Pigot to 150
years.’[85]
The Star of Tycho, during the time it was visible, ‘suffered several
very remarkable changes. On a sudden it became so brilliant, that it
surpassed in brightness even Venus and Mercury, and was visible on the
meridian in the daytime. Its light then began to diminish, till it
disappeared sixteen months after it had been first seen.’[86]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1572-3.]
‘This year, a great and sharp frost almost continually lasted from
before the feast of All Saints, till after the feast of Epiphany of
our Lord, with sometimes great and deep snows, and sometimes rains,
which freezed as fast as the same fell to the ground, wherethrough at
Wrotham, in Kent, and many other places, the arms and boughs of trees,
being overcharged with ice, broke off and fell from the stocks ... also
the wind continued north and east till after the Ascension Day, with
sharp frosts and snows, whereby followed a late spring.’--_Stowe._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1573.
APR. 3.]
The gipsies, who are usually said to have wandered into Europe from
the East in the beginning of the fifteenth century, are not heard of
in Scotland before 1540, when a writ of the Privy Seal was passed in
favour of ‘John Faw, Lord and Earl of Little Egypt,’ enabling him
to rule his company in conformity with the laws of his pretended
country. First accepted as noble refugees, possessing a semi-religious
character, they were in time discovered to be mere rogues and
vagabonds. It was now declared in the Privy Council, that ‘the
commonweal of this realm was greatumly damnifiet and harmit through
certain vagabond, idle, and counterfeit people of divers nations,
falsely named Egyptians, living on stowth and other unlawful means.’
These people were commanded to settle to fixed habitations and honest
industry; otherwise it should be competent to seize and throw them into
the nearest prison, when, if they could not give caution for a due
obedience to this edict, they were ‘to be scourgit throughout the town
or parish, and sae to be imprisonit and scourgit fra parish to parish,
while [till] they be utterly renderit furth of this realm.’--_P. C. R._
Little more than three years onward (August 27, 1576), it was declared
that this act had ‘wantit execution’--a very common misfortune to
acts of council in those days; and it was found that ‘the said idle
vagabonds has continuit in their wicked and mischievous manner of
living, committing murders, theft, and abusing the simple and ignorant
people with sorcery and divination.’ Men in authority were now enjoined
to stricter courses with these wanderers, on pain of being held as
their accomplices.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAY 2.]
An English force having come to help the Regent in winning Edinburgh
Castle, the operations of the siege commenced by the fixing up of
twenty ‘great pieces’ at four several places around the ancient
fortress. ‘They shot so hard continually, that the second day they had
beat down wholly three towers. The Laird of Grange ... would not give
over, but shot at them continually, both with great shot and small; so
that there was a very great slaughter amongst the English cannoneers,
sundry of them having their legs and arms torn from their bodies in the
air by the violence of the great shot. At last, the Regent continuing
his siege so close and hard--the captain being forced by the defendants
for lack of victuals--rendered the same, after a great many of them
were slain [May 29].’--_Bir._
Mr Robert Hamilton, minister of St Andrews, was in Edinburgh at
this time, along with the servant who had written down John Knox’s
prediction regarding the fate of Kirkaldy (see under 1571). According
to James Melville, ‘they gaed up to the Castle-hill, and saw the
forewark of the castle all demolished, and running like a sandy brae;
they saw the men of weir all set in order. The captain, with a little
staff in his hand, taken down over the walls upon the ladders, and Mr
Robert, troubled with the thrang of the people, says: “Go, what have
I ado here?” In going away, the servant remembers his master of the
sermon, and the words, wha was compelled to glorify God, and say he was
a true prophet.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG. 3.
1573.]
‘William Kirkaldy of Grange, knight, sometime captain of the Castle
of Edinburgh, and James Mosman, goldsmith, were harlit in twa carts
backward, frae the Abbey to the Cross of Edinburgh, where they, with Mr
James [Kirkaldy] and James Cockie, were hangit,’ ‘for keeping of the
said castle against the king and his regent.’--_D. O._ _Bir._
Such was the dismal end of one who had undoubtedly been a most valiant
soldier, though, it must be added, an unsteady politician, and too
much a follower of private ends in public affairs. His concern in
the assassination of Cardinal Beaton also detracts somewhat from the
sympathy which would naturally be felt for him on this occasion. James
Melville relates some curious particulars regarding his latter days and
his execution:
When John Knox was on his death-bed in Edinburgh, November 1572,
the situation of Kirkaldy and his friends in the castle had become
critical. Mr David Lindsay, minister of Leith, came to visit the
reformer, and asked how he did. ‘He answerit: “Weel, brother, I thank
God; I have desired all this day to have you, that I may send you yet
to yon man in the castle, whom ye ken I have loved sae dearly. Go, I
pray you, tell him that I have sent you to him yet ance to warn and
bid him, in the name of God, leave that evil cause, and give ower that
castle: gif not, he shall be brought down ower the walls with shame,
and hing against the sun: sae God has assured me.” Mr David, howbeit
he thought the message hard, and the threatening over particular, yet
obeyed, and passed to the castle; and meeting with Sir Robert Melville
walking on the wall, tauld him, wha was, as he thought, meikle movit
with the matter. Thereafter [he] communed with the captain, whom he
thought also somewhat moved; but he passed from him into the Secretar
Lethington, with whom, when he had conferred a while, he came out to
Mr David again, and said to him: “Go, tell Mr Knox he is but ane ...
prophet.” Mr David, returning, tauld Mr Knox he had discharged the
commission faithfully, but that it was not weel accepted of after the
captain had conferrit with the secretar. “Weel (says Mr Knox) I have
been earnest with my God anent the twa men; for the ane [Kirkaldy] I am
sorry that so should befall him; yet God assures me there is mercy for
his saul: for that other [the Secretary Lethington], I have nae warrant
that ever he shall be weel.”’
[Sidenote: 1573.]
The castle surrendered, and Kirkaldy fell into the power of the Regent
Morton. He offered all he possessed for his life. But the reformer’s
prophecy was to be fulfilled, and how far it served to fulfil
itself, we may surmise from what Morton wrote to the English agent.
‘Considering,’ he says, ‘what has been, and daily is, _spoken by the
preachers, that God’s plague will not cease while the land be purged
of blood_, and having regard that such as are interested by the death
of their friends, the destruction of their houses, and away taking
of their goods, could not be satisfied by any offer made to me in
particular.... I deliberated to let justice proceed.’[87]
Mr David Lindsay, who had gone with Kirkaldy’s fruitless offer, ‘the
morn by nine hours comes again to the captain, the Laird of Grange
[who was now confined under a guard in a house in the High Street],
and taking him to a fore-stair of the lodging apart, resolves him it
behoved him to suffer. “O, then, Mr David (says he), for our auld
friendship, and for Christ’s sake, leave me not.” So he remains with
him, wha, passing up and down a while, came to a shot [a hole fitted
with a sliding panel in the wooden front of the house], and seeing the
day fair, the sun clear, and a scaffold preparing at the Cross, he
falls in a great study [reverie], and alters countenance and colour;
whilk, when Mr David perceived, he came to him and asked what he was
doing. “Faith, Mr David (says he), I perceive weel now that Mr Knox was
the true servant of God, and his threatening is to be accomplished.”’
Lindsay mentioned the assurance which Knox had had regarding the
ultimate salvation of the unfortunate man; which gave him much comfort
and renewed courage; ‘sae that he dined moderately, and thereafter took
Mr David apart for his strengthening to suffer that death, and in [the]
end beseeks him not to leave him, but to convoy him to the place of
execution. “And take heed (says he), I hope in God, after I shall be
thought past, to give you a taiken of the assurance of that mercy to my
saul, according to the speaking of that man of God.”
‘Sae, about three hours afternoon, he was brought out, and Mr David
with him, and about four, the sun being wast about the northward nook
of the steeple, he was put aff the ladder, and his face first fell to
the east, but within a little while, turned about to the west, and
there remained against the sun; at whilk time Mr David, ever present,
says he marked him, when all thought he was away [dead], to lift up his
hands that were bund before him, and lay them down again saftly; whilk
moved him with exclamation to glorify God before all the people.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG.
1573.]
On the destruction of the queen’s party, ‘the burgesses and craftsmen
wha remainit the time of the cummers [troubles] in Edinburgh, behovit
to compone for their life, and the least that any man payit was twenty
merks, and they that had nocht to pay were continuit to the third
day of the aire, with fifteen days’ warning, to be halden within the
sheriffdom. This composition should have been equally distributed
betwixt the Regent and the burgesses that had their houses destroyit;
but the Regent causit bring the haill to the Castle of Edinburgh,
and wald not part with ane penny; for the whilk causes the burgesses
stayit and wald not pursue nane hereafter, by occasion they were nocht
the better, and also therethrough obteinit the indignation of their
neighbours. God of his grace grant the poor consolation, for they thole
great trouble!’
Afterwards--‘the burgesses and craftsmen and others wha remainit in the
town in the time of the cummers, were chargit that they, on their awn
expenses, might mak black gray gowns, with the whilk they stood at the
kirk door ane hour before the preaching ..., whilk gowns were decernit
to be dealt to the poor.’--_D. O._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG. 25.]
During the late troubles, the Border-men had been in a great measure
left to pursue their own courses unmolested. Now that the civil war was
ended, Morton was able to turn his attention in that direction. At this
date, he proceeded from Dalkeith with a host of 4000 men to Peebles,
where he was met by the Earl of Argyle with a hundred horse and an
equal number of ‘carriage-men;’ and the party then went to Jedburgh
against ‘the thieves.’ ‘Some thieves came in and gave baud for the
rest, and some pledges were delivered to the Regent for good order; but
or [ere] they wald obey, their corns and houses were destroyed, with
great spulyie of their goods.’ The Regent returned in a few days to
Dalkeith. ‘Notwithstanding of this raid, the haill thieves convenit,
and harried the country, following ay on the host.’ A second and more
vigorous expedition of the same kind having then been resolved on,
‘seven score or thereby of the thieves come to the Regent, and pledges
for the rest, wha was put in prison, some in the Castle of Edinburgh,
some in the Tolbooth thereof, and some in the north land.’--_D. O._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1573-81.]
The burgh records of Glasgow from 1573 to 1581, of which liberal
excerpts have been published by the Maitland Club,[88] throw much
light on manners and the state of society, and also on the burgal or
municipal customs. Glasgow was then a little town, undistinguished
from any other of its size, excepting in its university and a small
commerce, chiefly of a coasting description. We see in these records
all the common affairs of a petty town, but with the rough character
proper to an age of ignorance and ill-regulated feeling.
The quarrels, flytings (scoldings), and acts of personal violence form
by far the most conspicuous entries in these records. Men strike women,
women clapperclaw each other, and even the dignitaries of the town
are assailed on the street and in their council-house. Whingers (that
is, swords) and pistols are frequently used in these conflicts, and
sometimes with dire effects. As examples--
_April 9, 1574._--‘Alexander Curry and Marion Smith, spouses, are found
in the wrang for troublance done by them to Margaret Hunter, in casting
down of two pair of sheets, tramping them in the gutter, and striking
of the said Margaret.’ Surety is given that Alexander and Marion shall
in future abstain from striking each other; and ‘gif they flyte, to
be _brankit_‘--that is, invested with the kind of iron bridle, with a
tongue retroverted into the mouth, of which a description has already
been given. (See under Oct. 30, 1567.)
_April 23._--William Wilson is found in the wrong for blooding of
Richard Wardrope on the head. Richard and Andrew Wardrope are at the
same time found in the wrong as the occasion thereof; and John and
Andrew Wardrope, for hurting and wounding of the said William Wilson,
to the great effusion of his blood in the Gallowgate on the morning
thereafter. So also, Richard and John Wardrope are declared guilty
of ‘onsetting and invading of the said William with drawn swords and
pistols in the mercat, on Shere Thursday last.’ Shere Thursday,[89]
otherwise called Maundy Thursday, is the day before Good Friday.
[Sidenote: 1573-81.]
One common species of case is an attack of one female upon another,
‘striking of her, scarting of her, and dinging her to the erd’ [earth];
in one instance, ‘shooting of her down in her awn fire.’ Injurious
words often accompany or provoke these violent acts. Bartilmo Lawteth
strikes ‘ane poor wife’ to the effusion of her blood. Ninian Swan
strikes Marion Simpson with ‘ane tangs’ [pair of tongs], and knocks her
down--she, however, having previously spit in his face. ‘Andrew Heriot
is [November 8, 1575] fund in the wrang and amerciament of court for
troublance done to David Morison, in striking of him with his neive
in Master Henry Gibson’s writing-chamber, on the haffet [side of the
head], and also for the hitting of him on the face with his neive upon
the Hie Gait, and making him baith blae and bloody therewith.’
George Elphinstone of Blythswood, one of the bailies, suffered a
violent attack in the council-house (August 24, 1574) from Robert
Pirry, a tailor, who wounded him with his whinger, striking one of
the officers at the same time. For this, Pirry lost his freedom as a
burgess. Six years afterwards, the same magistrate was assaulted on the
street by George Herbertson, ‘saying how durst he be sae pert to deal
ony wines without his advice;’ after which he threatened the bailie
with his whinger. Immediately thereafter, Herbertson assailed the
magistrate in the Tolbooth, ‘giving him many injurious words, sic as
knave, skaybell, matteyne, and loon, and that he was gentiller nor he,
having his hand on his whinger, rugging it halflings in and out, and
that he cared him not, nor the land that he had nowther.’
In June 1589, Thomas Miln, chirurgeon, was brought before the
magistrates for slanderous speeches against them, and for applying
to the town itself an epithet which now, at least, appears strangely
inapplicable--the Hungry Town of Glasgow. He was sentenced to appear at
the Cross and openly confess his fault.
Much light is thrown on the character of the age by the magistrates
ordering ‘every booth-halder [shopkeeper] to have in readiness within
the booth ane halbert, jack, and steel bonnet, for eschewing of
sic inconveniences as may happen, conform to the auld statute made
thereanent.’
The streets of the town appear to have been kept much in the same
state in which we now find those of neglected country villages, yet
not without efforts towards a better order of things. The ordinances
for good order may be said to prove the disorder. It is statute (1574)
‘that there be nae middings laid upon the fore-gate [front street],
nor yet in the Green, and that nae fleshers toom their uschawis upon
the fore-gate, and that nae stanes or timber lie on the gate langer
nor year and day.’ In 1577, this statute is renewed in nearly the same
words, shewing that it was but imperfectly obeyed; and next year there
is a simple order ‘that the haill middings be removed off the Hie Gait,
and that nane scrape on the Hie Gait.’
[Sidenote: 1573-81.]
The town, according to a common custom, had its ‘minstrels,’ by
which is inferred simply musicians--probably a couple of bagpipers.
In 1579, there is an entry of ten shillings ‘to the minstrels, for
their expenses to Hamilton siege.’ This was a siege in which popular
affections would probably be engaged at Glasgow, as its object was
to destroy the last vestige of the queen’s interest in Scotland. At
the Whitsunday court 1574, the minstrels are continued until ‘the
Summerhill,’ by which was meant a court annually held at a place so
called, when the marches of the town’s property were subjected to
review. There, accordingly, on Sunday the 20th June, Archibald Bordland
and Robert Duncan are ‘admittit to be menstrals to the town for this
instant year, and to have frae ilk freeman allenarly, but meat, twa
shillings money at the least, with mair at the giver’s pleasure.’
In the treasurer’s accounts, we are struck by the many considerable
presents, chiefly of wine, given by the town to noblemen possessing
influence over its fortunes. We find, amongst frequent propines of wine
to the Earl of Argyle, as much as seventeen gallons given at once.
Two hogsheads are given to Lord Boyd, six quarts to the lord provost,
two quarts to the parson of Glasgow, and so forth. At the town’s
banquets, aquavitæ figures on several occasions, a quart being charged
twenty-four shillings.
Several allusions are made in these records to the ‘knocks’--that is,
clocks--set up for the public conveniency. An old one is repaired,
and James Scott gets a sum ‘for labour done by him in colouring of
the knock, moon, and horologe, and other common work of the town.’
References are made to several trades not known in our age by the same
names, as a _lorimer_, the maker of the ironwork in horse-furniture; a
_snap-maker_, by which is to be understood a maker of firelocks, then
called _snap-hances_; a _ladleman_; a tabroner, meaning a drummer; &c.
In 1577, the magistrates grant a pension of ten marks to Alexander Hay,
chirurgeon, to encourage him to remain in Glasgow, ‘in readiness for
serving of the town by his craft and art.’ This gentleman would bleed
the citizens in exigencies of their health, and shave them daily.
[Sidenote: 1573-81.]
The editor of these records remarks on the treasurer’s accounts,
that the revenue is fully stated, and the whole expenditure minutely
detailed. ‘It is true,’ he says, ‘the magistrates and “divers honest
men” occasionally treat themselves to a dejeune; but this is after
the completion of some public business, tending to the honour and
profit of the commonweal. Indeed, the class of disbursements which,
strictly speaking, are the least legal, the most rigid corrector of
abuses could not well object to. We allude to the numerous benevolences
bestowed upon poor scholars to buy them a suit of clothes, or books, to
enable them to prosecute their studies; the sums voted to shipwrecked
mariners, to ruined merchants who had lost their horses by some
untoward accident, or to the widows and children of those burgesses
whom unforeseen difficulties had plunged into absolute want. Not a
little of the public funds is sometimes devoted to ransom unfortunate
burgesses from captivity among the Turks, while considerable sums are
expended in providing medical aid for those afflicted with physical
infirmities, or who have met with severe bodily injuries.... Much
curious matter may be elicited regarding the sports and pastimes of
the people. The diverse disbursements for foot-balls are not unworthy
of notice. We also meet with payments made to a piper called _Ryall
Dayis_, and to “a fule with a treen sword,” as well as to certain young
men of the town, for their playing--probably bearing a part in some
mask or public pageant. The care bestowed on the decorement of the
town’s minstrels is evinced in the entry of the purchase of blue cloth
to make two coats for them, with as much “cramosie” as would serve for
containing the town’s arms thereon. Nevertheless, though this care
was shewn for the recognised minstrels of the burgh, the profession
had thus early fallen into disrepute; for in the ordinance anent the
pest [in 1574], “pipers, fiddlers, and minstrels,” are unceremoniously
classed together as vagabonds, and threatened with severe penalties,
should they venture into the city in contravention of the act.’
In those days, the citizens of Glasgow kept each his cow, which was
fed, under the care of a town’s herdsman, in a common beyond the walls,
as is the case with small burghs like Lauder and Peebles at the present
day. In March 1589, John Templeton and John Hair were appointed herds
for the year to come, John Templeton for ‘the nolt and guids aboon the
Cross,’ and John Hair for ‘the nolt and guids beneath the Cross and the
rest of the nether parts of the town.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1574.
APR. 11.]
A strange tragedy took place at the Cross of Edinburgh. Robert
Drummond, sometimes called _Doctor Handie_, who had been a great seeker
and apprehender of papists, had been punished for adultery by exposure
in the church and banishment from the city. Out of favour on account
of his services against popery, he was pardoned and brought back;
but being again found guilty of the same offence, he was condemned to
exposure in the stocks at the Cross, along with the companion of his
crime; after which he was to be burnt in the cheek. While undergoing
this punishment, ‘there being great science (?) of people about them,
and the Doctor Handie being in ane great furie, said: “What wonder ye?
I sall give you more occasion to wonder.” So, suddenly, he took his
awn knife, wha strake himself three or four times fornent the heart,
with the whilk he departit. This done, the magistrates causit harl him
in ane cart through the town, and the bloody knife borne behind in his
hand; and on the morn harlit in the same manner to the gallows on the
Burghmuir, where he was buried.’--_D. O._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAY.]
The Regent had passed an act, very agreeable to the people, to prevent
the transporting of grain out of the country. There were, however,
certain merchants who found it not difficult, by means of bribes,
to obtain from him a licence enabling them to break the law. One
of these was Robert Gourlay, originally a servant of the Duke of
Chatelherault,[90] but now a rich merchant in Edinburgh--at least so
we may reasonably infer from the grandeur of his house, not long ago
existing. Robert was driving a good trade in this way, when the kirk,
of which he was an elder, interfered to put an end to what it regarded
as an unrighteous traffic. He was pronounced by the General Assembly to
be guilty of a high offence in transporting victual out of the realm,
and was sentenced to appear in the _marriage-place_ in the church, and
publicly confess his offence, clad in a gown of his own, which should
thereafter be given to the poor. He obstinately refused to submit. The
Regent came forward as his friend, and told the minister, Mr James
Lowson: ‘I gave him licence, and it pertaineth not to you to judge of
that matter.’[91] But it was all in vain. A week after, Robert was glad
not only to go through the prescribed penance, but to crave forgiveness
of the kirk for his temporary disobedience.[92]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 29.
1574.]
The press was not likely to be a friend to the Regent, and the Regent,
therefore, was not a friend to the press. At this date he induced the
Privy Council to issue an edict that ‘nane tak upon hand to emprent
or sell whatsoever book, ballet, or other werk,’ without its being
examined and licensed, under pain of death, and confiscation of
goods.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP. 3.]
The town-council of Edinburgh agreed with a Frenchman that he should
set up a school in the city, to teach his own language, for which he
should be entitled to charge each child twenty-five shillings yearly,
besides enjoying a salary of twenty pounds during the council’s
pleasure.--_City Register, apud Maitland._
* * * * *
‘The summer right evil weather, and dear; the boll of malt five merk
and half merk, and the boll of meal four merk and three merk. Evil
August; wind and rain. The harvest evil weather that ever was seen;
continual weet.’--_C. F._
Consequently, in autumn and winter, ‘there was ane great dearth in
Scotland of all kinds of victuals.’--_D. O._ ‘About Lammas, wheat
was sold at London for three shillings the bushel; but shortly after
it was raised to four shillings, five shillings, six shillings, and
before Christmas to a noble and seven shillings, which so continued
long after. Beef was sold for twenty pence and two-and-twenty pence
the stone, and all other flesh and white meats at an excessive price;
all kind of salt fish very dear, as five herrings twopence. Yet great
plenty of fresh fish, and oft times the same very cheap.... All this
dearth notwithstanding (thanks be given to God) there was no want of
anything to him that wanted not money.’--_Howes._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT. 14.]
‘The pest came to Leith by ane passenger wha came out of England, and
sundry died thereof before it was known.’ On the 24th, it entered
Edinburgh, ‘brought in by ane dochter of Malvis Curll out of Kirkaldy.’
The Court of Session abstained from sitting in consequence. ‘My Lord
Regent’s grace skalit his house and men of weir, and was but six in
household; I know not whether for fear of the pest or for sparing of
expenses.’--_D. O._
[Sidenote: 1574.]
In December, the kirk-session of Edinburgh, ‘foreseeing the great
apparent plague and scourge of pest, hinging universally upon the haill
realm,’ and considering that ‘the only ordinary means appointed by God
in his holy word, whereby the said apparent scourge may be removed, is
ane public fast and humiliation,’ did accordingly appoint such a fast,
to last for eight days, with sermon and prayers every day, and the
people’s ‘food to be breid and drink with all kind of sobriety.’[93]
We do not hear of the pest proving very deadly in Scotland on this
occasion.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 25.]
This Christmas-day, the minister and reader of Dumfries having
refused to teach or read, ‘the town ... brought a reader of their
own, with tabret and whistle, and caused him read the prayers.’ This
extraordinary exercise they maintained during all the days of Yule. It
was complained of at the subsequent General Assembly, and referred to
the Regent.--_Cal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1574.]
In this year died David Home of Wedderburn, a gentleman of good account
in Berwickshire, and father of the David Home of Godscroft, to whom
Scottish literature owes the _History of the House of Douglas_. The
son has left us a portraiture of the father, which, even when we
make a good allowance for filial partiality, must be held as shewing
that society was not then without estimable members. ‘He died in the
fiftieth year of his age, of a consumption, being the first (as is
said) of his family who had died a natural death--all the rest having
lost their lives in defence of their country.
[Sidenote: 1574.]
‘He was a man remarkable for piety and probity, ingenuity [candour],
and integrity; neither was he altogether illiterate, being well versed
in the Latin tongue.... He had the Psalms, and particularly some short
sentences of them, always in his mouth; such as: “It is better to trust
in the Lord than in the princes of the earth:” “Our hope ought to be
placed in God alone.” He particularly delighted in the 146th psalm,
and sung it whilst he played on the harp with the most sincere and
unaffected devotion. He was strictly just, utterly detesting all manner
of fraud. I remember, when a conversation happened among some friends
about prudence and fraud, his son George happened to say, that it was
not unlawful to do a good action, and for a good end, although it might
be brought about by indirect methods, and that this was sometimes
necessary. “What,” says he, “George, do you call ane indirect way? It
is but fraud and deceit covered under a specious name, and never to be
admitted or practised by a good man.” He himself always acted on this
principle, and was so strictly just, and so little desirous of what was
his neighbour’s, that, in the time of the civil wars, when Alexander,
his chief, was forfeit for his defection from the queen’s party, he
might have had his whole patrimony, and also the abbacy of Coldingham,
but refused both the one and the other. When Patrick Lindsay desired
that he would ask something from the governor [Morton], as he was sure
whatever he asked would be granted, he refused to ask anything, saying
that he was content with his own. When Lindsay insisted, says he:
“Since you will have it so, I will ask something; but you must first
assure me I will not be refused.” Then Lindsay swore to him that he
should have whatever he desired. “Let me have, then,” says he, “the
abbacy of Haddington.” “That you cannot get,” says Lindsay, “as I
received it myself some time ago. But ask something seriously; for if
you do not get a share of our enemies’ estates, our party will never
put sufficient trust in you.” To this David answered: “If I never can
give proofs of my fidelity otherwise than in that manner, I will never
give any, let him doubt of it who may. I have hitherto lived content
with my own, and will live so, nor do I want any more.”
‘David was a man of that temper, that he never was willing to offer
any injury, nor to take notice of one when offered. His uncle George
Douglas sometimes stayed at Wedderburn. He still kept up a secret
grudge at Alexander of Home on account of that controversy they had
had about Cockburnspath. Alexander happened to be at this time at
Manderston, which is within half a mile of Wedderburn. Alexander of
Manderston, with a great number of attendants, goes out with him to
hunt; and as he was a turbulent man, and much given to ostentation,
under the pretext of seeking game, he ranges through all Wedderburn’s
fields. This was intended as an affront to George Douglas, and to shew
him what trouble he occasioned to his nephew David.
‘George had resolved to bear the thing patiently, and to dissemble; but
David, knowing their intention, and not bearing that any affront should
be put upon his uncle, mounts his horse, and orders his servants to do
the like, and, taking George along with him, he presses hard upon the
heels of Alexander, who was then going home, and follows him to the
very doors of his own house of Manderston, and hunted about the whins
and broom at the back of the garden, till evening forced him to return
home.’[94]
[Sidenote: 1574.]
At this time was the conspiracy or Black Band formed against him,
which he bore patiently, and at the same time wisely repulsed. I know
not upon what account some gentlemen of the Merse entered into this
conspiracy; it is certain it was for no misdemeanour of his, nor did
they pretend any. Alexander of Manderston was the contriver of the
whole. It was a thing openly known, for in the meetings of the judges
on the Borders about mutual restitutions, the one [party] stood on
this side, and the other on that, like opposite armies.... One day,
when both parties were returning home, and among the rest Manderston,
some of Wedderburn’s followers, flushed with indignation, advised him
no longer to bear the arrogance of the confederates. He, on the other
hand, refused to stain his hands in blood, saying that Manderston was
furious and insolent in his youth, but would grow wiser when he was
old, and acknowledge his fault.’
John Stuart, the titular abbot of Coldingham, a natural son of James
V., was importuned to join the Black Band, but had too much regard
for Wedderburn to do so. While he was absent in the north with his
brother the Regent Moray, his wife, who had a spite at Wedderburn, made
a strange kind of demonstration against him. She ‘ordered the men of
her faction to be present on a certain day, and to bring along with
them wains, carts, and other things fit for carrying off the corns,
all of which was carefully done. But Wedderburn with his friends
having gathered together about 500 horse, hastens to the fields, and
dissipates the scattered troops before they could unite themselves into
one, breaks the wagons, looses the horses, and drives them away. On
this they all betake themselves to flight, together with Stuart’s wife
(she was called Hepburn, and a sister of old Bothwell). A few received
some strokes; none were wounded; but so great was the terror struck
into them all, that they all sought hiding-places in their flight. Some
hid themselves among the furze or broom; others under the banks of
the river; some in the fields of corn, and all either in one place or
other. One John Edington (commonly called the Liar, as he was always
the messenger of strange news, which was commonly false) hid himself
in the ambry of a poor old woman, from which he was dislodged, to the
great diversion of his enemies and his own great terror. When their
fear a little subsided, and it appeared that none were hurt, the affair
appeared so ridiculous both to themselves and others, that Hepburn
(as she was a woman of a pretty good genius and poetically inclined)
described the whole in some verses. Nor was there ever anything
afterwards attempted by the confederates.’
[Sidenote: 1574.]
David is described as being swift of foot, and fond of foot-races.
Horse-racing was also one of his amusements. ‘He collected a number
of the swiftest horses both from the north of Scotland and from
England, by the assistance of one Graeme, recommended to him by his
brother-in-law, Lochinvar. He generally had eight or more of that kind,
so that the prize was seldom won by any but those of his family....
He was so great a master of the art of riding, that he would often
be beat to-day, and within eight days lay a double wager on the same
horses, and come off conqueror.... He went frequently from home to
his diversion, sometimes to Haddington, and sometimes to Peebles, the
one of which is eighteen, and the other twenty-four miles distant,
and sometimes stayed there for several days with numerous attendants,
regardless of expense, as being too mean and sordid a care, and below
the dignity of one of his rank.
‘Being educated in affluence, he delighted in fencing, hunting, riding,
throwing the javelin, managing horses, and likewise in cards and dice.
Yet he was sufficiently careful of his affairs without doors. Those
of a more domestic nature he committed to the care of his wife, and
when he had none, to his servants; so that he neither increased nor
diminished his patrimony.’
The writer, in the true spirit of his age, cites Wedderburn’s love of
the house of Home as ‘_not the least of his virtues_.’ The chief was
prejudiced against him, but ‘he bore it patiently, and never failed
giving him all due honour.’ At length, Lord Home being taken prisoner
by Morton at the close of the queen’s wars, and put into Leith Fort,
Wedderburn went to see him, and acted so much as his friend as to
obtain his release and secure his love.
David’s first wife, of the Johnstons of Elphinston, in Haddingtonshire,
was a paragon of benevolence. She not only supplied the poor
bountifully, but often gave large help to superior people who had
fallen back in the world. She would give the clothes of her own
children to clothe the naked and friendless. Yet, such was her good
management, that she left at her death 3000 merks in gold--‘a great sum
in those days.’ ‘Everything in the family had a splendid appearance;
and this she affected in compliance to her husband’s temper. As she
was herself, so she instructed her children in the fear of God, and
in everything that was good and commendable. To sum up her whole
character, she obtained from all the appellation of the Good Lady
Wedderburn.’
[Sidenote: 1574.]
David ‘was of a beautiful and manly make. His complexion (for a man)
was rather too fair. He had yellow hair, and an aquiline nose; his
stature rather inclining to tall, his countenance comely and majestic,
claiming at the same time both love and reverence. He much affected
elegance in his dress, but not extravagance. He was very fond of his
children, and seldom ceased to dance them in his arms.... These are the
parents who make me rejoice in my birth. These are the parents who are
an honour to their posterity. To live and die like them, loving and
beloved by all, is my great and only ambition.’[95]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1574-5.
FEB.]
‘In the meantime, there was ane great dearth in Scotland of all kind of
victuals.’--_D. O._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAR. 7.]
In the course of the late civil war, Lords John and Claud Hamilton came
to an inn to apprehend old Carmichael and the Laird of Westerhall. The
house being beset and set on fire, the two gentlemen surrendered, on
condition that their lives should be spared; but after they came forth,
and were disarmed, Westerhall was slain, and Carmichael carried away a
prisoner.
Westerhall being a dependent of the house of Angus, his death added
largely to the resentment already felt by the Regent towards the
Hamiltons. Love, however, which so often raises wrath, here came in
to smooth it. There was a certain widowed Countess of Cassillis, whom
Lord John knew and loved; and, as she was a cousin of the Regent, it
became necessary to effect a reconciliation with him before a match
could be effected. As one step towards this object--for doubtless there
would be others, and particularly one involving a money-payment to the
griping Morton--Lord John, now the actual head of the princely house
of Hamilton, agreed, along with his brother, to perform a ceremony
of expiation for the death of Westerhall. The Earl of Angus, head of
the house of Douglas, being placed in the inner court of Holyrood
Palace, Lords John and Claud walked across barefooted and bareheaded,
and falling down on their knees before the earl, held up to him each
a naked sword by the point, implying that they put their lives in
his power, trusting solely to his generosity for their not being
immediately slain. Soon after this strange scene, Lord John wedded Lady
Cassillis.
[Sidenote: 1574-5.]
This seems, after all, to have been but a partial and temporary
restoration of the Hamiltons to court favour. There were many who
could not forget or forgive their concern in the slaughter of the
Regents Moray and Lennox. Douglas of Lochleven, uterine brother of
Moray, was irreconcilably bitter against them. ‘Twice he set upon the
Lord Hamilton, as he was coming from Aberbrothick, and chased him so
that he was constrained to return to Aberbrothick again. Another time,
as he was coming through Fife, he made him flee to Dairsie, which he
beset and lay about it till the Regent sent to him and commanded him to
desist.’--_H. of G._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAR. 8.]
Though copies of the English Bible had found their way into Scotland,
and been of great service in promoting and establishing the reformed
doctrines, there was as yet no abundance of copies, nor had any edition
been printed within the kingdom. There was, however, a burgess of
Edinburgh named Thomas Bassendyne, who for some years had had a small
printing-office there. He was probably too poor a man to undertake
the printing of a thick quarto, the form in which the Bible was then
usually presented; but he took into association with himself a man
of better connection and means, named Alexander Arbuthnot, also an
Edinburgh burgess; and now it was deemed possible that an edition of
the Scriptures might be brought out within the realm of Scotland. The
government, under the Regent Morton, gave a favourable ear to the
project, and it was further encouraged by the bishops, superintendents,
and other leading men of the kirk.
On the day noted, the Privy Council, seeing that ‘the charge and hazard
of the wark will be great and sumptuous,’ decreed that each parish in
the kingdom should advance £5 as a contribution, to be collected under
the care of the said officers of the church, £4, 13s. 4d. of this
sum being considered as the price of a copy of the impression, to be
afterwards delivered, ‘weel and sufficiently bund in paste or timmer,’
and the remaining 6s. 8d. as the expense of collecting the money. The
money was to be handed to Alexander Arbuthnot before the 1st of July
next.
[Sidenote: 1574-5.]
Arbuthnot and Bassendyne, on their parts, bound themselves to execute
the work under certain penalties, and respectable men came forward as
their sureties. Those who stood for Arbuthnot were David Guthrie of
Kincaldrum, William Guthrie of Halkerton, William Rynd of Carse, and
James Arnot of Lentusche--all Forfarshire gentlemen, be it remarked--a
fact arguing that Arbuthnot himself was of the same district. The exact
arrangements of Arbuthnot and Bassendyne between themselves do not at
this time appear; but we find that Bassendyne engaged in Flanders
one ‘Salomon Kerknett of Magdeburg’ to come and act as ‘composer’ at
49s. of weekly wages, and sought the aid of Mr George Young, servant
of the abbot of Dunfermline, as corrector of the press. Having ‘guid
characters and prenting irons,’ it was to be expected that the work,
great and sumptuous as it was, would go quickly and pleasantly on. This
hope, however, was not to be realised. (See under July 18, 1576.)--_P.
C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAR.]
Among the evils of these times, was one which the present generation
knows nothing of but from history. Owing to the constant exporting of
good coin, and the importing of bad, the circulating medium of the
country was in a wretched state. There seems to have been a regular
system for coining base placks and lions (otherwise called _hardheads_)
in the Low Countries, to be introduced by merchants into Scotland. The
Regent, in a proclamation, described the abundance of debased money as
the chief cause of the present dearth, the possessors of grain being
thus induced to withhold it from market. For this reason, according to
his own account, proceeding upon an act of the convention now sitting,
he ordained the old coin to be brought to the cunyie-house, where it
would be ‘clippit, and put in ane close lockit coffer upon the count
and inventar of the quantity receivit frae every person;’ and meanwhile
the lately issued genuine placks and lions were to have currency at
twopence and a penny apiece respectively--that is, at denominations
above their value. Any one hereafter possessing the false coin, was to
be punished as an out-putter of false money.
‘Every day after this proclamation, induring the convention, the poor
veriit and banned the Regent and haill lords openly in their presence,
whenever they passed or repassed frae the Abbey, whilk was heavy and
lamentable to hear.’--_D. O._
The Regent, while thus an oppressor of his people by attempting to
enhance the value of the coin, was engaged in several sumptuous
undertakings. He was restoring the Castle of Edinburgh at a vast
expense, and also erecting a new mint--putting over its door, by the
way, a prayer which he had at this time much need to use--
BE MERCYFULL TO ME, O GOD.
[Sidenote: 1574-5.]
His own personal extravagances were not less remarkable. He erected
at Dalkeith a magnificent palace, richly adorned with tapestries and
pictures, and fitter for a king than a subject. Here he lived in an
appropriate style. All this he did at the expense of his enemies. He
kept a fool named Patrick Bonny, who, seeing him one day pestered by a
concourse of beggars, advised him to have them all burnt in one fire.
‘What an impious idea!’ said the Regent. ‘Not at all,’ replied the
jester; ‘if the whole of these poor people were consumed, you would
soon make more poor people out of the rich.’--_Jo. R. B. Hist._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1575.
MAR. 30.]
‘There was ane calf calfit at Roslin, with ane heid, four een,
three lugs [ears], ane in the middle, and ane on ilk side, twa
mouths.’[96]--_Sinclair of Roslin’s MS. additions to Extracta ex
Chronicis Scotie._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE.]
A number of French Protestants having at this time taken refuge in
London in great poverty, there was a collection in Edinburgh for their
benefit, one person being commissioned to go ‘through the Lords of
Session, advocates, and scribes,’ and another ‘to pass to the deacons
and crafts,’ in order to gather their respective contributions.--_R. G.
K. E._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG.]
The General Assembly declared its mind regarding the dress fit for
clergymen and their wives. ‘We think all kind of broidering unseemly;
all begares[97] of velvet, in gown, hose, or coat, and all superfluous
and vain cutting out, steeking with silks, all kind of costly sewing on
passments[98] ... all kind of costly sewing, or variant hues in sarks;
all kind of light and variant hues in clothing, as red, blue, yellow,
and such like, which declare the lightness of the mind; all wearing of
rings, bracelets, buttons of silver, gold, or other metal; all kinds
of superfluity of cloth in making of hose; all using of plaids in the
kirk by readers or ministers, namely in the time of their ministry, or
using of their office; all kind of gowning, cutting, doubletting, or
breeks of velvet, satin, taffeta, or such like; all silk hats, and hats
of divers and light colours.’ It was recommended to the clergy, that
‘their whole habit be of grave colour, as black, russet, sad gray, or
sad brown; or serges, worset, chamlet, grogram, lytes worset, or such
like.... And their wives to be subject to the same order.’
[Sidenote: 1575.]
It is rather curious that any such sumptuary regulations should have
been required for the Presbyterian ministers, or even their helpmates,
as, according to all accounts, their incomes for the first forty years
after the Reformation were wretchedly narrow and irregular. The thirds
of the old benefices assigned to them by Queen Mary’s act were far from
being well paid. In the pathetic words of a memorial they presented to
Mary in 1562, ‘most of them led a beggar’s life.’ They were as ill off
under the grasping Morton as at any other time. The proceedings of the
General Assembly of 1576 reveal that some were compelled to eke out
their miserable stipends by selling ale to their flocks. The question
was then formally put: ‘Whether a minister or reader may tap ale, beer,
or wine, and keep an open tavern?’ to which it was answered: ‘Ane
minister or reader that taps ale or beer or wine, and keeps ane open
tavern, sould be exhorted by the commissioners to keep decorum.’--_B.
U. K._
* * * * *
Towards the end of this year, the Regent Morton was at Dumfries,
holding justice-courts for the punishment of the Borderers. ‘Many
were punished by their purses rather than their lives. Many gentlemen
of England came thither to behald the Regent’s court, where there
was great provocation made for the running of horses. By chance my
Lord Hamilton had there a horse sae weel bridled and sae speedy, that
although he was of a meaner stature than other horses that essayit
their speed, he overran them all a great way upon Solway Sands,
whereby he obtained great praise both of England and Scotland at that
time.’--_H. K. J._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1576.
MAR. 27.]
It was found that in Meggotland, Eskdale-muir, and other parts near the
Border, ‘where our sovereign lord’s progenitors were wont to have their
chief pastime of hunting,’ the deer were now slain with guns, not only
by Scotsmen, but by Englishmen whom Scotsmen smuggled in across the
Border, and this often at forbidden times; all which was ‘against the
commonweal and policy of the realm.’ The Privy Council accordingly took
measures to put a stop to these practices.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAY 1.]
‘The first day of May, 1576 years, was sae evil, the wind and weet at
the west-north-west, with great showers of snaw and sleet, that the
like was nocht seen by them that was living, in mony years afore, sae
evil.’--_Chr. Aber._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAY.
1576.]
The Earl of Huntly died in a sudden and mysterious manner at
Strathbogie Castle. Having fallen down in a fit while playing at
foot-ball, he was carried to bed, where he foamed at the mouth and
nostrils, struggled with his hands, and stared wildly, as if he would
have spoken, but could never command but one word--‘Look, look, look.’
He also vomited a good deal of blood. After four hours’ illness, he
expired.
‘The Earl of Huntly being dead thus on Saturday at even, Adam [Gordon,
his brother] immediately causit bear but [out, outward] the dead
corpse to the chalmer of dais [room of state], and causit bear into
the chalmer where he had lain, the whole coffers, boxes, or lettrens
[desks], that the earl himself had in handling, and had ony gear in
keeping in; sic as writs, gold, silver, or golden work, whereof the
keys were in ane lettren. The key of that lettren was at his awn bag,
whilk Adam took and openit that, and took out the rest of the keys, and
made ane inventory upon all the gear he fand within that coffer, or at
least on the maist part and special part of that that was within; and
when he had ta’en out sic money as to make his awn expenses south, he
lockit all the coffers again, and thereafter lockit the chalmer door,
and put up the key, and causit lock the outer chalmer door where the
dead corpse lay. After they had set candles in the chalmer to burn,
and gave the key of that chalmer door to John Hamilton, wha was man
having greatest care within that place and credit of the Earl of Huntly
in his time--this done, with sic other directions made for waiting on
the place, Adam made him ready, and took the post south at 12 hours on
the night, as I believe.... At ten hours or thereby before noon, on
the morn after the earl was dead, there was in ane chalmer together,
callit the leather chalmer, ... fourteen or sixteen men lamenting the
death that was so suddenly fallen, every man for his part rehearsing
the skaith [damage] that was to come by that death to them. Amangst
the whilk there was ane westland man standing upright [with] his back
at the fire, wha said the cause was not so hard to nane as [it] was
to him, for he was newlings come out of Lochinvar, for some evil turn
that he had done that he might not brook his awn country for ... he
falls flat down on his face to the ground dead. The men pullit him up,
cuist up door and window, and gave him air; there could appear no life
in him, except he was hot.’ After lying several hours in the fit, ‘he
recovered with great sobbing and working with his hands, feet, and
body, and he cried, “Cauld, cauld.”’ This lasted till next morning,
when he recovered thoroughly.
[Sidenote: 1576.]
‘On the morn ... Tyesday next after the earl’s death, John Hamilton
was gone up to the gallery of the new wark [building] to bring
down spicery or some other gear for the kitchen, and had with him
ane Mr James Spittal, and ane other man of the place, whose name I
have forgotten.... This John Hamilton opened ane coffer, taking out
something that he needit; he says: “I am very sick,” and with that he
falls down, crying, “Cauld, cauld.” The other twa took him quickly up,
cast up the window, and had him up and down the house. At length he
said he was very sick; he wald have been in ane bed. Mr James Spittal
convoyit him down the stair. When he was there down, he remembered
that he had forgotten ane coffer open behind him; he turned again and
the said Mr James with him, and when they had come again, they found
the third man that was with them fallen dead ower the coffer, and he
on his wambe lying ower the coffer. John Hamilton might make no help,
by reason he himself was evil at ease. Mr James Spittal ran down, and
brought up twa or three other men, and carried him down the stair, and
up and down the close, but could find no life in him. At length they
laid him in ane bed, where within ane while he recovered, with sighing
and sobbing, wrestling with hands, feet, and body, and ever as he got
ony words betwixt the swooning, he cried, “Cauld, cauld;” and this
lasted twelve or thirteen hours, and I trow langer, if he was sae weel
waited on as the lave [rest], as he was not, but gave him leave to work
him alane, because he was ane simple poor man. All these wrought as the
Earl of Huntly did in his dead passions, except they vomited not, nor
fumed at the mouth and nostrils.
[Sidenote: 1576.]
‘Upon that Tyesday after the deid [death], ane surgeoner of Aberdeen,
callit William Urquhart, came to Strathbogie and bowelled the dead
corpse, which, after the bowelling, was ta’en out of the chalmer and
had into the chapel, where it remaineth to the burial. John Hamilton
receivit the key of the chalmer door again when the dead corpse was
ta’en out. On Wednesday next after the deid, Patrick Gordon, the earl’s
brother, was sitting on ane form next to that chalmer door where that
the dead corpse was bowelled; he hears ane great noise and din in that
chalmer, whether it was of speech, of graning, or rumbling, I cannot
tell. There was sixteen or twenty men in the hall with him; he gars
call for John Hamilton, and asks gif there was onybody in that chalmer;
the other said: “Nay.” He bade him hearken what he heard at the door,
wha heard as he did. Then the key was brought him. He commandit John
Hamilton to gang in, wha refused; he skipped in himself; John Hamilton
followed ane step or twa, and came with speed again to the door for
fear. Patrick passed to the inner side of the chalmer, and heard the
like noise as he did when he was thereout, but yet could see nothing,
for it was even, at the wayganging of the daylight. He came back gain
very affrayedly, and out at the door, and show[ed] so mony as bidden in
the hall what he had heard, wha assayit to pass to the chalmer, to know
what was there; but nane enterit ower the threshold; all came back for
fear. This pastime lasted them more nor ane hour. Candles were brought,
the chalmer vissied [examined]; nothing there. As soon as they came
to the door again, the noise was as great as of before, the candles
burning there ben [within]; they said to me that knows it, there is not
sae meikle a quick thing as a mouse may enter within that chalmer, the
doors and windows [being] steekit, it is so close all about. Judge ye
how ghaists and gyre-carlins come in among them. They were ane hour or
twa at this bickering, while ane man of the place comes in among them,
and said to Patrick: “Fye, for gif he was not tentie [careful], the
bruit [report] wald pass through the country that the Earl of Huntly
had risen again.” Then Patrick called them that had heard it, and
commandit that nae sic word should be spoken.’--_Ban._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 18.]
The work of printing the Bible, undertaken by Arbuthnot and Bassendyne
in March of the year preceding, had proved a heavier undertaking than
they expected, and had met with ‘impediments.’ They now therefore came
with their sureties before the Privy Council, and pleaded for nine
months further time to complete the work, obliging themselves, in case
of failure, to return the money which had been contributed by the
various parishes. This grace was extended to them.
On the 5th January 1576-7, the work of the Bible was still in hand, and
we have then a complaint made to the Regent by ‘Salomon Kerknett of
Magdeburg, composer of wark of the Bible,’ to the effect that Thomas
Bassendyne had refused since the 23d of December by past, to pay him
the weekly wages of 49s., agreed upon between them when he was engaged
in Flanders. The Regent, finding the complaint just, ordered Bassendyne
to pay Kerknett his arrears, and continue paying him at the same rate
till the work should be finished.
[Sidenote: 1576.]
Six days later, a more serious complaint was made against
Bassendyne--namely, by Alexander Arbuthnot, that he would not deliver
to Alexander, as he had contracted to do, the printing-house and
the Bible, so far as printed, ‘wherethrough the wark lies idle, to
the great hurt of the commonweal of the realm.’ The Regent, having
heard parties, and being ripely advised by the Lords of the Council,
ordered that Bassendyne should deliver the printing-house and Bible to
Alexander Arbuthnot before the end of the month.--_P. C. R._
Such were the difficulties which stood in the way of the first edition
of the Bible printed in Scotland.
* * * * *
It was found necessary to issue an edict to the gold-seekers in
Crawford-muir, Roberton, and Henderland, forbidding them to continue
selling their gold to merchants for exportation, but to bring all, as
was legally due, to the king’s cunyie-house, to be sold there at the
accustomed prices, for the use of the state.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
‘The whilk summer was right guid weather; but there was weir betwixt my
Lord of Argyle and my Lord Athole, and great spoliation made by the men
of Lochaber on puir men. God see till that.’
‘All June, July, and August right evil weather.... Nae aits shorn in
Fortirgall the 23 day of September.... All October evil weather; mickle
corn unshorn and unled.’--_C. F._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV. 8.]
The trial of Elizabeth or Bessie Dunlop of Lyne, in Ayrshire, for the
alleged crime of witchcraft. Bessie was a married woman, apparently
in middle life, and her only offence was giving information, as from
a supernatural source, regarding articles which had been stolen, and
for the cure of diseases. ‘She herself had nae kind of art nor science
sae to do;’ she obtained her information, when she required it, from
‘ane Tom Reid, wha died at Pinkie,’ that is, at the battle fought there
twenty-nine years before. Her intercourse with a deceased person seems
to have given herself little surprise, and she spoke of it with much
coolness.
[Sidenote: 1576.]
Being asked, ‘what kind of man this Tom Reid was, [she] declairit,
he was ane honest, weel, elderly man, gray-beardit, and had ane gray
coat with Lombard sleeves of the auld fashion; ane pair of gray breeks
and white shanks [stockings], gartenit aboon the knee; ane black
bonnet on his head, close behind and plain before; with silken laces
drawn through the lips thereof; and ane white wand in his hand. Being
interrogat how and in what manner of place the said Tom Reid came to
her, [she] answerit, as she was ganging betwixt her awn house and the
yard of Monkcastle, driving her kye to the pasture, and making heavy
sair dule with herself, greeting very fast for her cow that was dead,
her husband and child that were lying sick in the land-ill, and she
new risen out of gissan [childbed], the said Tom met her by the way,
halsit her [took her round the neck, saluting her], and said: “Gude
day, Bessie;” and she said: “God speed you, gudeman.” “Sancta Maria,”
said he, “Bessie, why makes thou sae great dule and sair greeting for
ony warldly thing?” She answerit: “Alas, have I not cause to make great
dule? for our gear is traikit [dwindled away], and my husband is on
the point of deid, and ane baby of my awn will not live, and myself at
ane weak point; have I not gude cause, then, to have ane sair heart?”
But Tom said: “Bessie, thou hast crabbit [irritated] God, and askit
something you should not have done; and therefore I counsel thee to
mend to him, for I tell thee thy bairn shall die, and the sick cow, ere
you come hame; thy twa sheep shall die too; but thy husband shall mend,
and be as haill and feir as ever he was.” And then was I something
blyther, frae he tauld me that my gudeman wald mend. Then Tom Reid went
away from me in through the yard of Monkcastle; and I thought he gaed
in at ane narrower hole of the dyke nor ony eardly man could have gane
through; and sae I was something fleyit [frightened].’ ... The third
time that Tom and Bessie met, ‘he appeared to her as she was ganging
betwixt her awn house and the Thorn of Damustarnock, where he tarriet
ane gude while with her, and speerit [inquired] at her, “Gif she wald
not trow in him?” She said: “She wald trow in onybody did her gude.”
And Tom promisit her baith gear, horses, and kye, and other graith, gif
she wald deny her christendom and the faith she took at the font-stane.
Whereunto she answerit: “That gif she should be riven at horse-tails,
she should never do that,” but promisit to be leal and true to him in
ony thing she could do.
[Sidenote: 1576.]
‘... The feird [fourth] time, he appearit in her awn house to her,
about the 12 hour of the day, where there was sitting three tailors
and her awn gudeman ... he took her apron and led her to the door with
him, and she followit, and gaed up with him to the kiln-end, where he
forbade her to speak or fear ony thing she heard or saw ... when they
had gane ane little piece forward, she saw twelve persons, aucht women
and four men: the men were clad in gentlemen’s claithing, and the women
had all plaids round about them, and were very seemly-like to see. And
Tom was with them. Demandit if she knew any of them, answerit: “Nane,
except Tom.” Demandit what they said to her, answerit: They bade her
sit down, and said, “Welcome, Bessie; will thou go with us?” But she
answerit not, because Tom had forbidden her.’
‘And further declairit, that she knew not what purpose they had amongst
them; only she saw their lips move; and within a short space, they
partit all away; and ane hideous ugly sough of wind followit them; and
she lay sick till Tom came back again frae them.... Being demandit gif
she speerit at Tom what persons they were, answerit: “That they were
the gude wights that winnit in the court of Elfame, wha came there to
desire her to go with them.” And further, Tom desirit her to do the
same; wha answerit: “She saw nae profit to gang thae kind of gaits [to
go such ways], unless she kend wherefore.” Tom said: “Sees thou not me,
baith meat-worth, claith-worth, and gude eneuch like in person? and
[he] should make her far better nor ever she was.” She answerit: “That
she dwelt with her awn husband and bairns, and could not leave them.”
And sae Tom began to be very crabbit with her, and said: “Gif sae she
thought, she wald get little gude of him.”’
[Sidenote: 1576.]
Bessie from time to time consulted her ghostly friend about cases of
sickness for which her skill was required. ‘Tom gave out of his awn
hand, ane thing like the root of ane beet, and bade her either seethe
or make ane saw [salve] of it, or else dry it, and make powder of it,
and give it to sick persons, and they should mend.... She mendit John
Jack’s bairn, and Wilson’s of the town, and her gudeman’s sister’s
cow.... The Lady Johnston, elder, sent to her ane servant to help ane
young gentlewoman, her doughter, now married on the young Laird of
Stanley, and I thereupon askit counsel of Tom. He said to me, “that her
sickness was ane cauld blude that gaed about her heart, that causit
her to dwalm [faint]” ... and Tom bade her take ane part of ginger,
clows, anniseeds, liquorice, and some stark [strong] ale, and seethe
them together, and share it, and put it in ane vessel, and take ane
little quantity of it in ane mutchkin can, and some white suckar casten
amang it; take and drink thereof ilk day, in the morning; gang ane
while after, before meat; and she wald be haill.... Demandit what she
gat for her doing, declairit “ane peck of meal and some cheese.” ...
Interrogate, gif she could tell of ony thing that was away, or ony
thing that was to come, [she] answerit, that she could do naething of
herself, but as Tom tauld her ... mony folks in the country [came to
her] to get wit of gear stolen frae them.... The Lady Thirdpart in the
barony of Renfrew sent to her and speerit at her, wha was it that had
stolen frae her twa horns of gold, and ane crown of the sun, out of
her purse? And after she had spoken with Tom, within twenty days, she
sent her word wha had them; and she gat them again.... Being demandit
of William Kyle, burgess in Irvine, as he was coming out of Dumbarton,
wha was the stealer of Hugh Scott’s cloak, ane burgess of the same
town? Tom answerit: ‘That the cloak wald not be gotten, because it was
ta’en away by Mally Boyd, dweller in the same town, and was put out of
the fashion of ane cloak in [to] ane kirtle,’ &c.
Bessie, being asked how she knew that her visitor was Tom Reid who had
died at Pinkie, answered: ‘That she never knew him when he was in life,
but that she should not doubt that it was he bade her gang to Tom Reid
his son, now officer in his place to the Laird of Blair, and to certain
others his kinsmen and friends there, whom he named, and bade them
restore certain goods and mend other offences that they had done....
Interrogate gif Tom, at his awn hand, had sent her to ony person to
shaw them things to come, declarit that he sent her to nae creature in
middle-eard but to William Blair of the Strand, and his eldest dochter,
wha was contractit and shortly to be married with .... Crawford, young
Laird of Baidland, and declare unto them, “That gif she married that
man she should either die ane shameful death, slay herself, or gae
red-wod [mad];” whereby the said marriage was stayit, and the laird
foresaid married her youngest sister.’
Bessie denied any further advances on Tom’s part than his taking her
once by the apron, and asking her to go with him to Elfame, that
is, Fairyland. He used to come chiefly to her at noon. She had seen
him walking among the people in the kirk-yard of Dalry; also once
in the High Street of Edinburgh, on a market-day, where he laughed
to her. Having once ridden with her husband to Leith to bring home
meal--‘ganging afield to tether her horse at Restalrig Loch, there came
ane company of riders bye, that made sic ane din as heaven and eard
had gane together; and incontinent they rade into the loch, with mony
hideous rumble. Tom tauld it was the gude wights that were riding in
middle-eard.’
Being found guilty of the sorcery and other evil arts laid to her
charge, Bessie Dunlop was consigned to the flames.--_Pit._
The modern student of insanity can have no difficulty with this
case: it is simply one of hallucination, the consequence of diseased
conditions.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1576.?]
The family of Innes of that Ilk, seated in their fine old castle on the
coast of Moray, near Elgin, was one of prime importance in the country.
The present laird, Alexander, ‘though gallant, had something of
particularity in his temper, was proud and positive in his deportment,
and had his lawsuits with several of his friends; amongst the rest with
Innes of Peithock, which had brought them both to Edinburgh in the
year 1576, as I take it; where the laird having met his kinsman at the
Cross, fell in words with him for daring to give him a citation, and
in choler either stabbed the gentleman with a dagger, or pistolled him
(for it is variously reported). When he had done, his stomach would not
let him fly, but he walked up and down upon the spot, as if he had done
nothing that could be quarrelled (his friend’s life being but a thing
that he could dispose of without being bound to account for it to any
other); and there stayed until the Earl of Morton, who was Regent, sent
a guard and carried him away to the Castle.
‘When he found truly the danger of his circumstances, and that his
proud rash action behoved to cost him his life, he was then free to
redeem that at any rate; and made an agreement for a remission with
the Regent, at the price of the barony of Kilmalemnock, which this day
extends to twenty-four thousand merks rent yearly.
‘The evening after the agreement was made, and writ given, being merry
with his friends at a collation, and talking anent the dearness of the
ransom the Regent had made him pay for his life, he vaunted that, had
he his foot once loose, he would fain see what Earl of Morton durst
come and possess his lands; which being told to the Regent that night,
he resolved to play sure game with him; and therefore, though what he
spoke was in drink, the very next day he put the sentence in execution
against him by causing his head to be struck off in the Castle, and
then possessed the estate.’--_Hist. Acc. Fam. Innes._
This is a traditionary tale, perhaps true in the main facts; but there
is reason to believe that it is to some extent misreported. On the 8th
of January 1575-6, Robert Innes, of Innermarky, and James Adamson,
burgess of Edinburgh, gave security to the extent of a thousand pounds,
that Alexander Innes of that Ilk, being relieved from ward in Edinburgh
Castle, should not go beyond the bounds of the town.
[Sidenote: 1576?]
On the 18th of February, this surety was discharged by the Regent
in council, in order that the laird might ‘do his utter and exact
diligence for apprehending of John Innes in Garmouth, callit the _Sweet
Man_; Thomas Innes, callit the _Little_; John Adam, callit _Meat and
Rest_; and John Innes, callit the _Noble_; and bringing them before the
justice to be punished for the slauchter of umwhile David Mawer of the
Loch;’ which duty he had undertaken to perform before the 1st of August
next, under pain of a thousand pounds.--_P. C. R._
It is of course not impossible that after these events the laird was
treated in the manner described by the family memoirs.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1576-7.
FEB. 14.]
The Regent, seeing the present abundance of corns in the country, and
considering how in bypast times of dearth the people of Scotland had
‘received large help and support of victuals out of the easter seas,
France, Flanders, and England,’ thought it proper that ‘the like favour
and guid neighbourheid, charity and amity, should be extendit towards
the people of the said countries in this present year, when it has
pleasit God to visie them with the like dearth and scarcity.’ This was
the more proper, in as far as ‘the farmers sould be greatly interested,
gif they were constrainit to sell their corns at the low prices now
current,’ seeing that their expenses were now as great as when in
other times they were getting double prices. For these and other good
reasons (whereof probably not the least was a good douceur from a few
corn-merchants, such as Robert Gourlay), the Regent was pleased to
arrange for a short suspension of the act of parliament forbidding
the export of corn out of the country, taking on himself the power of
licensing that operation to a certain modified extent.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1577.]
‘That April, right evil weather; and the May, mickle weet and rain; and
June, right evil, weet and wind; and the beir seed right late in all
places, while after Sanct Colm’s Day [9th June].’--_C. F._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV. 13.]
‘This year, in the winter, appeared a terrible comet, the stern [star,
forming the head] whereof was very great, and proceeding from it
towards the east a long tail, in appearance of an ell and a half, like
to a besom or scourge made of wands all fiery. It raise nightly in the
south-west, not above a degree and a half ascending above the horizon,
and continued about a sax weeks or twa month, and piece and piece wore
away. The greatest _effects_ whereof that out of our country we heard,
was a great and mighty battle in Barbaria in Afric, wherein three kings
were slain, with a huge multitude of people. And within the country the
chasing away of the Hamiltons, &c.’--_Ja. Mel._
[Sidenote: 1577.]
The notices of comets given by our old historical writers and diarists
have no scientific value. They are only worthy of notice, as shewing
the views entertained regarding comets by the people of an early and
unenlightened age. The real nature of these strangers of the sky is not
yet ascertained; but we have at least come to know some of the laws
by which they are governed; above all, we know the great fact, that
they are obedient to law. To our ancestors, they appeared in a very
different light--as menacing messengers, sent for special reasons,
‘importing change of times and states.’ Some of the views expressed
regarding them are sufficiently remarkable to be worthy of preservation.
The comet of 1577 was a very noted one, seen over Europe and Asia, also
in Peru, and well observed by Tycho Brahé. Its tail, according to the
description of the Danish astronomer, extended over 22 degrees. Such
was the real space described by James Melville as an ell and a half!
This comet passed its perihelion on the 26th of October in the year
mentioned, and was visible, as we see, for a considerable portion of
the winter. The date here given for its first appearance in Scotland is
from the _Aberdeen Chronicle_.
The most noted comet at this time recent, was one called in Scotland
the _Fiery Besom_, which has been set down at various dates by English
and Scottish historians, but was undoubtedly identical with that so
well known in the history of astronomy as having appeared in 1556. John
Knox tells us that it presented itself during the winter which he spent
in Scotland before his last return to France--a time when the doctrines
of the Reformation stood in the most perilous circumstances in both
England and Scotland, and men’s minds were consequently in a state of
great excitement. Sir James Balfour speaks of it as having portended
change not only in government, but in religion, and Knox takes care
to note--‘_Soon after_, Christian, king of Denmark, died, and war
raise betwixt Scotland and England, &c.’ Modern astronomers believe
this comet to be the same with one which alarmed Europe in 1264, and
Professor Hind is predicting that it must speedily revisit our skies,
at the very time when these sheets are passing through the press. It is
a curious consideration, that a heavenly body which left the confines
of our sphere on its stated journey when Cranmer stood at the stake
in Oxford, should next come amongst us when we are busy with such an
affair (for example) as the laying of the electric telegraph across the
Atlantic.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 18.
1577.]
‘The Lord Somerville had often importuned the Lords of Session for a
hearing in the Inner House [of a cause respecting lands, in which he
was engaged against his relation, Somerville of Cambusnethan], but
was still postponed by the moyen [means] and interest of the Laird
of Cambusnethan and the Lady. At length he was advised to use this
policy, by one who knew the temper and avarice of Morton, then Regent.
This gentleman’s advice was, that the Lord Somerville should have his
advocates in readiness, and his process in form, against the next
day; timely in the morning, that he might not be prevented by other
solicitors, he should wait upon the Regent in his own bed-chamber, and
inform him that his business was already fully debated and concluded;
that only Cambusnethan had given in a petition of new, craving that his
business might be heard again _in presentiâ_, before their decerniture,
which hitherto, notwithstanding of his bill, he had hindered himself;
therefore his desire should be that his royal highness[99] should be
pleased to call his action against Cambusnethan, that so long had been
depending before them. And, whatever answer he should receive from the
Regent, he desired my Lord Somerville not to be much concerned; but
upon his taking leave, he should draw out his purse, and make as though
he intended to give the waiting-servants some money, and thereupon slip
down his purse with the gold therein, upon the table, and thereafter
make quickly down stairs, without taking notice of any cry that might
come after him. The Lord Somerville punctually obeyed this gentleman’s
direction and advice in all points; for, having advised his business
the night before with his advocates, and commanded his agents to have
all his papers together against the morrow, for he hoped to bring his
business to a close, being prepared, timely the next morning with his
principal advocate he was with the Regent, and informed him fully of
his affair; he gave a sign to his advocate to remove, as though he
had something to speak to the Regent in private; when he observed his
advocate to be gone, he takes his leave of the Regent, there being
by good-fortune none in the room but themselves, two of the Regent’s
pages, and the door-keeper within. It being the custom for noblemen
and gentlemen at that time always to keep their money in purses, this
the Lord Somerville draws out, as it were to take out a piece of money
to give to the door-keeper, and leaves it negligently upon the table.
He went quickly down stairs, and took no notice of the Regent’s still
crying after him: “My lord, you have forgot your purse,” but went on
still, until he came the length of the outer porch, now the Duke of
Hamilton’s lodging, when a gentleman that attended the Regent came up,
and told him that it was the Regent’s earnest desire that his lordship
would be pleased to return and breakfast with him; which accordingly
the Lord Somerville did, knowing weel that his project had taken effect.
[Sidenote: 1577.]
‘About ten o’clock, the Regent went to the house, which was the same
which is now the Tolbooth Church, in coach. There was none with him but
the Lord Boyd and the Lord Somerville. This was the second coach that
came to Scotland, the first being brought by Alexander Lord Seaton,
when Queen Mary came from France. Cambusnethan, by accident, as the
coach passed, was standing at Niddry’s Wynd head, and having inquired
who was in it with the Regent, he was answered: “None but the Lord
Somerville and the Lord Boyd;” upon which he struck his breast, and
said: “This day my cause is lost;” and indeed it proved so; for about
eleven hours, the 18th day of December 1577, this action was called
and debated until twelve most contentiously by the advocates upon both
sides.... After the debate was closed, the interlocutor passed in my
Lord Somerville’s favours.... Thus ended that expensive plea betwixt
the houses of Cowthally and Cambusnethan, after seven or eight years’
debate, and these lands of Lothian [Drum, Gilmerton, and Goodtrees]
returned again to the Lords Somerville, when they had been fourscore
years complete in the possession of the family of Cambusnethan.’--_M.
of S._
Although this story was transcribed from family tradition a century
after the alleged occurrence, there is too much reason in the monstrous
avarice of Morton to believe it near the truth.
The commencement of the lawsuit between Lord Somerville and his cousin
forms an equally curious tale. The Laird of Cambusnethan had a second
wife, exceedingly ambitious of the advancement of her own children.
First and second alike had been favourites of King James V., and women
of great beauty. To promote a match for her son with Lord Somerville’s
second daughter, Lady Cambusnethan brought a package of family papers
to Cowthally, intending to shew that the young man would inherit
a large portion of his father’s property--namely, the Mid-Lothian
estates. It happened that Mr John Maitland, younger brother of
Secretary Lethington, was then living in retirement with his kinsman,
Lord Somerville; and, the papers being put into his hands, he soon
discovered that the lands destined for the young man were recoverable
by his lordship. He took a duplicate of one important document, and
then the whole were returned to Lady Cambusnethan, who by and by took
her leave with a fair answer from Lord Somerville, though in reality he
only felt disgust at a proposal which aimed at a severe injury to the
heir of her husband’s house.
Lord Somerville and Maitland took the pleasure of hunting that
afternoon. ‘During their sport, Mr Maitland takes occasion to inquire
at his cousin, if his lordship’s predecessors had ever any interest
in Mid-Lothian, and if he knew how they parted with the same. He
answered they had; and to the best of his knowledge, the house of
Cambusnethan had these among many other lands they received from his
great-grandfather, Lord John, who, upon the account of his son of the
second marriage, went near to have ruined his family, by reason of the
great fortune he left to the son of that marriage. By this answer, Mr
Maitland understood that his cousin Lord James was altogether ignorant
of the way and manner of the conveyance of Drum, Gilmerton, and
Goodtrees from his family to that of Cambusnethan, and therefore, in a
drolling way, he asked his cousin what he would bestow upon that person
that should put him in a way to recover these lands. My Lord, smiling,
said: “Cousin, the bargain should soon be made, if once I saw the man
that made the offer.” Whereupon Mr Maitland pulling out the paper,
which was the double of King James the Fourth’s gift, delivers it to my
lord, saying: “There it is that will effectuate and do that business;
and seeing I am the man that has made the discovery, I crave no more
but your lordship’s white gelding.” Hearing this discourse, and having
read the note, Lord Somerville immediately lights from his horse, and
taking his cousin all in his arms--“Here is not only my gelding, but
take this, which in these troublesome times I have still kept upon
me, not knowing what might befall, having, as was my duty, sided and
taken part with that just interest of my princes which has had but
bad success in the world.” That which the Lord Somerville gave with
the gelding to his cousin was a purse sewed by his mother, Dame Janet
Maitland, with silk and silver, containing twenty old pieces of gold;
and, indeed, it could not be better bestowed than upon her nephew, a
brave gentleman, whose great abilities and personal worth afterward
brought him to be the principal officer of state in Scotland.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1577.]
The crop of this year must have failed to a lamentable extent,
as, immediately after harvest, we hear of ‘exorbitant dearth of
victual and penury thereof,’ and the ensuing year was, according to
a contemporary diarist, marked by ‘ane great dearth of all kinds of
victuals, through all Scotland, that the like was not seen in man’s
days afore.’ According to the latter authority, ‘the meal was sauld
for sax shillings the peck, the ale for tenpence the pint, the wine
for the best cheap forty pence the pint; fish and flesh was scant and
dear.’--_Aber. Chron._
In November 1577 two boat-loads of _beir_ were about to sail from
Aberdeen harbour for Leith, when the town-council arrested them, and
ordained the victual to be sold to the inhabitants of Aberdeen at
‘competent prices.’[100]
According to the usual policy in such cases, the government (April
14, 1578) issued a proclamation commanding the possessors of grain to
thrash it out before the 10th of June, under pain of escheating, and
that no person should keep more victual than was sufficient to serve
him and his family a quarter of a year, the rest to be brought to the
market within twenty days. It was also ordered, that no grain should
be taken forth of the kingdom, but ‘strangers bringing in victual
should be favourably enterteened and thankfully paid.’--_Cal._ This
proclamation, being entirely accordant with the prejudices of the
masses, was ‘mickle commendit.’--_Moy._
Following the usual rule, the scarcity of 1577 was attended by an
epidemic disease. At least, so we think may be inferred from an entry
in Marjorebanks’s _Annals_, under 1580:
‘There was twa years before this time ane great universal sickness
through the maist part of Scotland: uncertain what sickness it was, for
the doctors could not tell, for there was no remede for it; and the
commons called it _Cowdothe_.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1577-8.
MAR. 17.]
There was an ancient feud between the families of Glammis and Crawford,
but as the present lords were on the same side in politics, it was felt
by both as inexpedient that any hostility should take place between
them. Moreover, it would have been highly indecent of Lord Glammis, who
was chancellor of the kingdom, to allow any demonstration of rancour to
come from his side. Nevertheless, a fatal collision took place between
these two nobles.
[Sidenote: 1577-8.]
About the dusk of a spring day, Lord Glammis was coming down from
Stirling Castle to his own house in the town, attended as usual
by some of his friends and followers, when, in a narrow lane, he
encountered the Earl of Crawford similarly attended. The two nobles
bade their respective followers give way to the other; and the order
was obeyed by all except the two last, who either wilfully or by
accident jostled each other, and then immediately drew their swords and
fell a-fighting. A skirmish then took place between the two parties, in
the course of which Lord Glammis, whose stature made him overtop the
company, was shot through the head with a pistol, and many were hurt on
both sides.
‘Lord Glammis was a learned, godly, and wise man. He sent to Beza
when the work of policy was in hands, and craved his judgment in
some questions of policy; whereupon Beza wrote the book _De Triplici
Episopatu_, Of the threefold bishopric, divine, human, and devilish,
and his answers to his questions. Mr Andrew Melville made this epigram
upon him after his death:
Tu Leo magne jaces inglorius: ergo, manebunt
Qualia fata canes? qualia fata sues?
Since lowly lies thou, noble lyon fine,
What sall betide, behind? the dogs and swine?--_Cal._
The respective friends of Glammis and Crawford fell into active
hostilities after this event, and Crawford was seized and thrown into
prison. Being really free from blame, and befriended by many of the
nobility, he was soon liberated, to the great joy of his own people.
The general joy diffused by this event exasperated Thomas Lyon, a
nephew of the deceased chancellor, insomuch that ‘Crawford all his life
was glad to stand in a soldier’s posture.’--_Jo. Hist._
Godscroft relates that the slaughter of Lord Glammis, which was
committed at five in the afternoon in Stirling, was ‘reported
punctually and perfectly in Edinburgh at six, being twenty-four
[Scotch] miles distant.’ He perhaps means to insinuate that the deed
was premeditated. Under November 1585 will be found another instance of
miraculous-looking quickness in the communication of intelligence.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1578.
JUNE 13.]
_A Band of Friendship_--a sort of modification of the old bonds of
manred--was formed by the Earl of Eglintoun, the Earl of Glencairn,
Lord Boyd, the respective eldest sons of these nobles, Sir Matthew
Campbell of Loudon, and Wallace of Craigie, for the repressing of
diverse troubles in the country, and with a view to their greater
efficiency in the king’s service. They bound themselves, upon
their faith and honours, ‘the holy evangel touched, to tak true,
faithful, plain, and aefald part all together, as weel by way of law
as deed, pursuit as defence, ... in all actions, causes, quarrels,
controversies, and debates, movit or to be movit by or against us
... against whatsomever person or persons, the king’s majesty alane
excepted.’ It was also concluded ‘that all castles, houses, strengths
perteining to us sall be ready and patent to ilk ane of us, as the
occasion may require.’ Then came a remarkable clause--‘Gif it sall
happen, as God forbid, ony different, slaughter, bluid, or other
inconvenient, to fall out amangs us, our friends, servants, or
dependers, the same, of whatsomever wecht or quality it sall be of,
sall be remitted to the decision and judgment of the remanent of us,
wha sall have power to judge and decern thereintill, whase sentence and
decreet baith the parties sall bide at, fulfil, and observe without
reclamation, and sall be as valid and effectual in all respects, and
have as full execution, as the same had been given and pronounced after
cognition in the cause, by the Lords of Session, Justice-general of
Scotland, or ony other judge ordinar within this realm.’[101]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY.]
In the parliament held at this time, Lord Home was restored from
the forfeiture passed against his father in consequence of his
adherence to the queen’s party. David Home of Godscroft represents
this as being mainly brought about by the intervention of Sir
George Home of Wedderburn with the Earl of Morton; and according to
Godscroft’s narration, it was against the will and judgment of Morton
that Wedderburn’s end was gained. The affair stands out in strong
illustration of the principle of clanship and kindred as affecting
even Lowland bosoms in that age. Morton freely told Wedderburn that
‘he thought it not his best course; “For,” said he, “you never got any
good of that house, and if it were once taken out of the way, you are
next--and it may be you will get small thanks for your pains.”
[Sidenote: 1578.]
‘Sir George answered, that “the Lord Home _was his chief_, and he could
not see his house ruined. If they were unkind, that would be their own
fault. This he thought himself bound to do. And, for his own part,
whatsoever their carriage were to him, he would do his duty to them.
_If his chief should turn him out at the fore door, he would come in
again at the back door._”
“Well,” says Morton, “if you be so minded, it shall be so. I can do no
more but tell you my opinion.” And so [he] consented to do it.’[102]
Sir George Home of Wedderburn was son and successor of the Merse
gentleman described under 1574, and a sketch of him, drawn by the
perhaps partial hand of his brother, David of Godscroft, is well worthy
of preservation. He was now twenty-eight years of age; he had been
trained to pious habits by his parents, and completed his education at
the Regent’s court, in company with the young Earl of Angus. He knew
Latin and French thoroughly, had studied logic, and acquired such an
extensive knowledge of geography, that, ‘though he had never been out
of his own country, he could dispute with any one who had travelled in
France or elsewhere. He learned the use of the triangle in measuring
heights, without any teaching, or ever having read of it; so that he
may be said to have invented it.
‘He was diligent in reading the sacred Scriptures, and not to little
purpose. He was assiduous in settling controverted points, and at
table, or over a bottle, he either asked other people’s opinions,
or freely gave his own.... He did read a great deal when his public
and private business allowed him. He likewise wrote meditations
upon the Revelations, the soul, love of God, &c. He also gave some
application to law, and even to physic.... As to his body, he was
well-proportioned; his countenance was lovely and modest, and his
limbs handsome and of great strength. He was polite and unaffected in
his manners. He sung after the manner of the court. He likewise sang
Psaltery to his own playing on the harp. He also sometimes danced.
He was very keen for hare-hunting, and delighted much in hawks,
particularly that kind that have a small body and large wings, called
_marlins_. With these he caught both partridges and muirfowl. He was so
much given to diversion that he built a hunting-house, which he called
_Handaxewood_, in the hills of Lammermuir, in which he might divert
himself in the night-time. He first delighted most in those hawks
called _falcons_; but, wearying of them, he took to the other kind,
called _tercels_, which he used even in his old age.
[Sidenote: 1578.]
‘He rode skilfully, and sometimes applied himself to the breaking of
the fiercest horses. He was skilful in the bow beyond most men of
his time. He was able to endure cold, hunger, thirst, fatigue, and
watching.... He was moderate both in his eating and drinking, which
was in those days scarce any praise, temperance being then frequent,
though it is now very rare.’
Being, while at court in his youth, stinted of money by a step-mother,
he had to avoid cards and dice, and restrict himself to tennis. He was
forced by the same cause to restrain the affection he began to feel for
the sister of Angus, who, by and by, was married to Lord Maxwell, ‘not
at all agreeable to her own inclination, but by the express command of
the Regent, who would not neglect this opportunity.’ Having succeeded
to his estate, ‘his first care was to restore his family to its ancient
splendour and fulness, from which it had fallen by the sordidness
of his step-mother. Therefore he always went with a great number of
attendants, kept a great family, about eighteen horsemen, each of whom
had two horses. He was likewise attended by his vassals in Kimmerghame,
which was a village at no great distance. They were about twelve in
number, and had generally been made use of by his predecessors in
services of this kind. They never took greater care of their fields
than of their horses, and never ceased accustoming and perfecting
themselves in the use of arms. They seldom employed themselves in the
country work, and never made use of their horses for that purpose, and
they were so swift and beautiful that they might even have contended
with those of their master’s domestics. They were always ready at
command on every emergency to be led or sent where he pleased. Thus,
he was always guarded with twenty or thirty horsemen, all brave and
warlike, in order that he might be more respected. Nor was he mistaken
in his opinion; it procured him such great fame and authority both with
his friends and others, it so much checked his rivals, that they all
yielded to him in the beginning, nor ever dared to oppose any of his
attempts.
[Sidenote: 1578.]
‘Nor did he acquire less glory in the care he took of his sisters,
which was crowned with success. The remembrance of the best of mothers,
their own goodness and beauty, procured them his love. Chance assisted
the care he had, advantageously to dispose of Isobel, the eldest. John
Haldane of Gleneagles, who having come to the Earl of Morton, who
was then governor, to transact and agree with him about the ward and
marriage of his lands, Morton answered he had given all right he had
to it to Isobel, Wedderburn’s sister, and he might go and take her and
it together. There were, along with Haldane, his uncles, Richard and
Robert, and David Erskine, abbot of Dryburgh. They, without delay,
come to Wedderburn, where they see, converse with, and please the
young lady, who had before been known to them by report only; they
treat and agree with the brother, and the marriage-day is set. He had
resolved that she should be dismissed as honourably as possible. For
that purpose, there was a most splendid apparatus and entertainment,
which was made up by the bride’s direction, and it greatly added to
the fame of her prudence, as few had ever seen so grand and genteel a
marriage-feast, and all who were present never failed to give it the
greatest commendations.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP. 11.]
An attempt was made by proclamation to raise the value of the coin,
thirty-shilling pieces being ordained to pass for 32s. 8d., and twenty,
ten, and five shilling pieces in proportion, refusal of the coin at
the exalted rates being threatened with capital punishment. ‘This
was altogether mislikit by the common people, and specially by the
inhabitants of Edinburgh.’--_Moy._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1578-9.
FEB. 21.]
‘The whilk day, the lords of secret council has thought meet and
expedient that the king’s majesty sould not write to the lords of
his hienes’ council and session, in furtherance or hindrance of ony
particular persons’ actions and causes in time coming, but suffer them
to proceed and do justice in all actions privilegit to be decidit by
them, as they sall answer to God and his hienes thereupon.’--_P. C. R._
James was now twelve and a half years old, but nominally in possession
of the government. We see that his influence was already sought by
individuals, to affect the course of the chief civil tribunal of the
country. It will appear a characteristic circumstance, and there are
many others to corroborate its general purport. Yet it is but right to
remark, as the general impression produced by a perusal of the Privy
Council Record, that the decisions given there on matters of right
between individuals are, on the whole, marked by an appearance of
fairness and impartiality. Oppression from high quarters is frequently
denounced; and there are numberless instances of a humane and
forbearing spirit towards poor and unfortunate people.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1579.]
‘The magistrates of [Glasgow], by the earnest dealing of Mr Andrew
Melville and other ministers, had condescended to demolish the
cathedral, and build with the materials thereof some little churches
in other parts, for the ease of the citizens. Divers reasons were
given for it--such as, the resort of superstitious people to do their
devotion in that place; the huge vastness of the church, and that the
voice of a preacher could not be heard by the multitudes that convened
to sermon; the more commodious service of the people; and the removing
of that idolatrous monument (so they called it) which was of all the
cathedrals in the country only left unruined, and in a possibility
to be repaired. To do this work, a number of quarriers, masons, and
other workmen, was conduced, and the day assigned when it should take
beginning. Intimation being made thereof, and the workmen by sound of a
drum warned to go unto their work, the crafts of the city in a tumult
took arms, swearing with many oaths, that he who did cast down the
first stone should be buried under it. Neither could they be pacified
till the workmen were discharged by the magistrates. A complaint
was hereupon made, and the principals cited before the council for
insurrection: where the king, not as then thirteen years of age, taking
the protection of the crafts, did allow [sanction] the opposition they
had made, and inhibited the ministers (for they were the complainers)
to meddle any more in that business, saying, “That too many churches
had already been destroyed, and that he would not tolerate more abuses
in that kind.”‘--_Spot._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR.]
John Stewart, Earl of Athole, was one of the more respectable of the
Scottish nobility of this age. To Queen Mary--whom he had entertained
at a hunt in Glen Tilt in 1564--he proved a faithful friend,[103] till
her fatal marriage with Bothwell, when, although a Catholic, he joined
those who crowned her son as king. During the regencies, he lived in
dignified retirement, till called upon to make an effort to rescue
the young king from the thraldom in which he was held by Morton. A
temporary fall of Morton in 1577 left Athole chancellor of the kingdom.
[Sidenote: 1579.]
He now came to Stirling, to assist in accommodating some quarrels
of the friends of the Mar family regarding the custody of the young
king and the government of Stirling Castle. ‘Matters being seemingly
adjusted, the old Countess of Mar, or the Earl of Morton, in her
name, invited the chancellor to an entertainment. While they were
drinking hard, somebody conveyed a deadly poison into the chancellor’s
glass.’ April 16th, ‘the chancellor passed forth of Stirling to
Kincardine,[104] very sick and ill at ease, and upon the 24th day
deceased there.’ His friends, thinking he had got foul play, sent
to Edinburgh for surgeons to open the body; and though these men of
skill declared upon oath that they found no trace of poison or mark
of violence done to the deceased, the widow and eldest son entered a
protest that this should not prejudge the criminal process which they
intended before the Justice-general. ‘Some blamed the old Countess of
Mar for it; others suspected the Earl of Morton at the bottom of it.’
Both suspicions were probably groundless; it may even be doubted if
the earl was poisoned at all. When under sentence of death some years
after, Morton solemnly denied the crime imputed to him, and said in no
circumstances would he have injured a hair of Athole’s head.
‘Upon the sevent of July, the corpse of the Earl of Athole being
convoyit to Dunblane, was carried forth thereof the direct way to
Dunfermline, where they remained that night. Upon the morn, they passed
forth to Edinburgh, where a great number of friends were convenit to
the burial. Upon the tenth day, [the body of the earl] was honourably
convoyit with his friends from Haliroodhouse to St Giles’ Kirk, where
he was buried on the east side of the altar on the south side of the
church.’ Owing to the general belief as to the mode of the earl’s
death, his funeral brought forth strong marks of public feeling.[105]
It appears that, before it took place, there was a rumour that the
relatives of the deceased designed that it should be attended with
sundry superstitious rites, as ‘a white cross in the _mortclaith_,
lang gowns with stroups, and torches.’ A deputation from the General
Assembly came to inquire, and were asked to satisfy themselves by
inspecting the preparations. ‘The kirk thought the cross and the
stroups superstitious and ethnic-like, and desirit them to remove the
same.’ It was accordingly arranged to cover the cross with black velvet
and to remove the stroups.--_B. U. K._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAY.
1579.]
There was at this time a collection of money in Aberdeen and other
parts of Scotland, for the support and relief of the ‘Scottismen
prisoners in Argier in Affrik, and other parts within the Turk’s
bounds.’ One Andro Cook engaged himself to dispose of this money
as intended, and to deliver the surplus, ‘gif ony,’ to the royal
treasurer, to be used as his majesty might think fit.--_Ab. C. R._, _P.
C. R._
This collection did not go on briskly, or come to any important
effect. On the 26th of October 1583, nothing had been done beyond the
collecting of £562, exclusive of what had been bestowed in expenses.
Cook was dead, but his son had this sum in his hands, and was desirous
of rendering it up under proper authority. It was found, however,
that the unhappy captives at Algiers were removed from all earthly
hardships, so that it was desirable to devote the money to some other
object. By the king it was ordained in council that the sum resting
with Cook’s son should be paid to the procurators of David Hume,
shipper in Leith, who was now lying captive at Bordeaux.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG. 12.]
‘Twa poets of Edinburgh, remarking some of his [the Earl of Morton’s]
sinistrous dealing, did publish the same to the people by a famous
libel written against him; and Morton, hearing of this, causit the men
to be brought to Stirling, where they were convict for slandering ane
of the king’s councillors, and were there baith hangit. The names of
the men were William Turnbull, schoolmaster in Edinburgh, and William
Scott, notar. They were baith weel beloved of the common people for
their common offices.’--_H. K. J._ ‘Which was thought a precedent,
never one being hanged for the like before; and in the meantime, at the
scattering of the people, there were ten or twelve despiteful letters
and infamous libels in prose, found, as if they had been lost among
the people, tending to the reproach of the Earl of Morton and his
predecessors.’--_Moy. R._
At the fall of Morton, less than two years after, when he was taken
prisoner and conducted to Edinburgh Castle--‘as he passed the Butter
Tron, a woman who had her husband put to death at Stirling for a ballad
entitled _Daff and dow nothing_,[106] sitting down on her bare knees,
poured out many imprecations upon him.’--_Cal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG. 17.]
During the night following this day, ‘there blew sic ane tempest at the
herring drave of Dunbar, that threescore fisher-boats and three hundred
men perished.’--_Moy._
REIGN OF JAMES VI.: 1578-1585.
Very soon after Morton had demitted the regency, he partly recovered
his power, and this he continued for some time to exercise. The young
king remained in Stirling Castle, under considerable restraint.
With a view to acquire some control over him, as the only means of
resisting the English or Protestant interest, his mother and French
grand-uncles sent to his court a young gentleman of engaging manners,
in whom they had confidence. This was Esme Stuart, usually called
Monsieur d’Aubigné, a member of the Lennox family, being nephew
of the late Regent, but who had been brought up in France. It was
believed that he carried with him forty thousand pieces of gold, to
be employed in winning favour with the Scottish nobility. ‘He was,’
says a contemporary, ‘a man of comely proportion, civil behaviour,
red-beardit, honest in conversation, weel likit of by the king and a
part of his nobility at the first.’[107] To aid him in his purpose,
he brought with him one called Monsieur Mombirneau, ‘a merry fellow,
able in body and quick in spirit.’[108] The young king readily opened
his heart to this pleasant relative, who took care to accommodate
himself to his tastes, and to assist, above all, in making his time
pass agreeably. About the same time, another but more distant relative,
James Stuart, of the Ochiltree family, a captain in the royal guard,
began to acquire favour with the king. This was altogether a less
worthy person than D’Aubigné, being arrogant, domineering, and vicious.
D’Aubigné, however, being a Catholic, and suspected of designs in
favour of popery, was perhaps the least liked of the two.
It was in September 1579, when little more than thirteen years of
age, that James was for the first time so far liberated from the
control of Morton and other councillors, as to be able to leave his
castle of Stirling. Accompanied by D’Aubigné, then newly arrived, he
made a formal visit to Edinburgh, where the citizens gave him a most
affectionate reception.
This was a more important crisis of British history than is generally
supposed. It was now that a commencement was made of that struggle
for authority which we see going on through the remainder of this
and the whole of the ensuing century. James had been reared as the
creature of the zealous Presbyterian party. When he began to judge
for himself, and to become conversant with minds beyond the range of
his earlier associations, his affections led him to prefer those who
had been his mother’s friends, and he soon came to believe that they
and such as they were likely to be his own warmest supporters. What
was most important of all, he found that the Presbyterian clergy,
while professing respect for him as the chief-magistrate of the land,
and disposed to obey him in civil matters, claimed to be, in things
ecclesiastical, not merely independent of him, but his superiors.
Restricting the idea of the church to those ‘exercising the spiritual
function among the congregations of them that profess the truth,’ they
asserted that it had ‘a certain power granted by God,’ having ‘ground
in the word of God,’ and ‘to be put into execution by them unto whom
the government of the kirk by lawful calling is committed.’ And, ‘as
the ministers and others of the ecclesiastical state are subject to the
magistrate civil, so aucht the person of the magistrate to be subject
to the kirk spiritually and in ecclesiastical government.’ In their
view, as far as his own religious and moral practice was concerned,
King James was only a parishioner of the Canongate. On the other hand,
when one of their order interfered with politics in his sermon, he was
only liable to be challenged by his presbytery. The claim was presented
by men of whose disinterestedness there can be no more doubt than of
their religious zeal; that it might have worked satisfactorily if it
had ever found a monarch who would cordially accept and submit to it,
cannot be denied, for we have had no experience on the subject, the
final settlement of the Scotch church at the Revolution having left it
in a doubtful state. The compromise which was attained at the end of a
century-long struggle, was unattainable in the days of King James. The
pretension only set him upon looking up scriptural texts too, texts
which could be interpreted as setting the royal authority equally
above human challenge; and such were not difficult to be found. Hence
arose the celebrated doctrine of the divine right of kings--a sort of
antithesis to a doctrine which would have made kings in one important
respect the subjects of a set of church-courts. And so commenced
that unfortunate course of things in our national history, which has
presented this king as in constant antagonism to the ecclesiastical
forms and order of worship preferred by the great bulk of his people,
as seeking by all arts to thrust hated systems upon them, and as
founding a policy which, becoming a deadly and obstinate struggle
with his descendants, alternately gave us anarchy and despotism, till
it ended in the total overthrow of the main line of the House of
Stuart. Such were the natural fruits of the earnestness, beautiful
but terrible, with which men then seized and worked out principles
which they found, or thought they found, in the Bible--arguing on the
religion of peace and good-will to men, with swords in their hands,
and laws as cruel as swords, till a sense of the inconsequentiality of
such reasoning for any good at length came over most of them with the
sickening effect of a wind from a field of battle, and disposed them
to rest content with the sulky mutual protest in which they have since
lived.
Notwithstanding a strenuous opposition from Elizabeth and the
Presbyterian clergy, D’Aubigné, whom James made Earl, and finally Duke
of Lennox, succeeded in greatly advancing the French interest. It was
in vain that the ministers railed at him as a papist: he coolly came
before them and abjured popery. A confession of faith, condemning the
pope and all his pretensions and works, was brought forward: James and
his councillors, including the Earl of Lennox, unhesitatingly signed
it (January 28, 1580-1). Morton, who alone possessed the personal
character that could effectually stand for the English interest and the
kirk, had, by his cruel and avaricious conduct, lost the support of all
classes, the clergy included. It was even found possible to effect the
ruin of this great man. On the last of December 1580, the adventurer
Stuart came into the council-chamber, and, falling on his knees,
accused the ex-Regent of being concerned in the murder of his majesty’s
father. To the general surprise, he fell without a struggle, and after
a few months’ confinement, he perished on the scaffold (June 2, 1581).
Under Lennox and Stuart--the latter now created Earl of Arran--a
movement was made for bringing an episcopate into the church. Arran is
said to have put the idea of absolute power into the king’s mind, and a
French alliance was threatened. The clergy, in general assembly, shewed
their usual courage in protesting against the court proceedings. The
conduct of their moderator, Andrew Melville, was specially remarkable.
When he and his fellow-commissioners came before the council with their
_grieves_, Arran, according to a contemporary narration, ‘begins to
threaten, with thrawn brow and boasting language. “What!” says he,
“wha dar subscryve thir treasonable articles?” Mr Andrew answers: “We
dar, and will subscryve them, and give our lives in the cause!” And
withal starts to, and taks the pen fra the clerk and subscryves, and
calls to the rest of his brethren with courageous speeches; wha all cam
and subscryvit.’ Such were the men who faced the king in behalf of an
independent rule for the kirk of Scotland.
At length there was a reaction against the dominion of the two court
favourites. A combination of nobles of the ultra-Protestant party--the
Earl of Gowrie, the Earl of Mar, Lord Glammis, and others, laid a
gentle compulsion on the young king while he was staying at Ruthven
House near Perth (August 1582), and his councillors Lennox and Arran
were debarred from his presence. After this event, known in our history
as the _Raid of Ruthven_, the king remained under the control of his
new councillors for a year, during which a pure Presbyterianism was
again encouraged, and the English alliance was cultivated. The Duke of
Lennox was forced to withdraw to France, where, to the great grief of
the king, he soon after contracted a sickness, and died.
Regaining his liberty by stratagem, James once more put himself
under the guidance of the profligate but energetic Arran. A modified
episcopate was established in the church, under a subordination to
the state, and a restraint was imposed on the tongues of the clergy
in the pulpit. The Earl of Gowrie was brought to the block. Several
ministers, including Melville, had to take refuge in England. But the
general tendency of things in Scotland was inconsistent with the rule
of a man possessing the genius of Arran. Elizabeth, too, deemed it
best for her interests that others should have the control of Scottish
affairs. Accordingly, a new and more formidable combination was formed.
Joined by Lord John Hamilton, the head of the long proscribed house of
Hamilton, and by Lord Maxwell, whom Arran had offended, they advanced
with an army of 5000 men to Stirling, then the seat of the court.
Arran, unable to resist, fled, and was allowed to fall into obscurity.
The king with great placidity put himself into the hands of his new
councillors (November 1585). This _coup d’état_ was followed by the
restoration of the Hamilton family to its titles and estates.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1579.]
The young king having now assumed the government, and being about to
make his first visit to Edinburgh, the magistrates and citizens were
anxious to give him an honourable reception. There was immediately a
great bustle regarding the preparation of a silver cupboard and other
pieces of plate to be presented to him, as well as the getting of
dresses suitable to be worn by the chief men at the royal entry. There
was even a deputation to the High School, ‘to vesie the maister of the
Hie Schule tragedies to be made by the bairns, and to report;’ besides
another ‘to speak the Frenchman for his opinion in device of the
triumph.’
All merchants stented to above ten pounds were enjoined to have
‘everilk ane of them ane goune of fine black camlet of silk of serge,
barrit with velvet, effeiring his substance.’ All stented to sixteen
pounds, ‘to have their gounes of the like stuff, the breists thereof
linit with velvet, and begairit with coits of velvet, damas, or
sattin.’ The thirteen city-officers were to have each a livery composed
of three ells of English _stemming_ to be hose, six quarters of Rouen
canvas to be doublets, with 13s. 4d. for passments, and a black hat
with a white string.
[Sidenote: 1579.]
Another preparative was an edict, that all manner of persons having
_cruives_ for swine under their stairs or in common vennels, ‘and sic
like as has middings and fulyie collectit, or has tar barrels on the
Hie Street, as also ony redd[109] stanes or timber on the said Hie
Street or common vennels, remove the same.’ Pioneers, too, ‘to shool
in the muck outwith the West Port.’ The inhabitants to hang their
stairs with tapestry and arras wark.[110] The Privy Council, on their
part, proclaimed penalties against all who should come with firearms,
or any other armour than their swords and whingers.
[Sidenote: SEP. 30.
1579.]
The boy-king came from Stirling attended by about two thousand men on
horseback, and his reception in the city was quaintly magnificent.
‘At the West Port he was receivit by the magistrates under a pompous
pall of purple velvet. That port presentit unto him the wisdom of
Solomon, as it is written in the thrid chapter of the first book of
Kings; that is to say, King Solomon was representit with the twa women
that contendit for the young child. This done, they presented unto
the king, the sword for the one hand, and the sceptre for the other.
And as he made further progress within the town, in the street that
ascends to the Castle there is an ancient port [the West Bow], at the
whilk there hang a curious globe that openit artificially as the king
came by, wherein was a young boy that descendit craftily, presenting
the keys of the town to his majesty, that were all made of fine massy
silver; and these were presently receivit by ane of his honourable
council at his awn command. During this space, Dame Music and her
scholars exercisit her art with great melody. Then in his descent
[along the High Street], as he came fornent the house of Justice, there
shew themselves unto him four gallant vertuous ladies; to wit, Peace,
Justice, Plenty, and Policie; and either of them had ane oration to his
majesty. Thereafter, as he came toward the chief collegiate kirk, there
Dame Religion shew herself, desiring his presence, whilk he then obeyit
by entering the kirk; where the chief preacher for that time made a
notable exhortation unto him for the embracing of religion and all her
cardinal vertues, and of all other moral vertues. Thereafter he came
forth, and made progress to the Mercat Cross, where he beheld Bacchus
with his magnifick liberality and plenty distributing of his liquor to
all passengers and beholders, in sic appearance as was pleasant to see.
A little beneath is a mercat place of salt, whereupon was paintit the
genealogy of the kings of Scotland, and a number of trumpets sounding
melodiously, and crying with loud voice, _Welfare to the King!_ At the
east port was erectit the conjunction of the planets, as they were in
their degrees and places the time of his majesty’s happy nativity, and
the same vively representit by the assistance of King Ptolemy. And
withal the haill streets were spread with flowers, and the fore-houses
of the streets, by the whilk the king passit, were all hung with
magnifick tapestry, with paintit histories and with the effigies of
noble men and women. And thus he passed out of the town of Edinburgh,
to his palace of Halyroodhouse.’--_H. K. J._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT. 20.]
The Estates passed an act against ‘strang and idle beggars,’ and ‘sic
as make themselves fules and are bards;’ likewise against ‘the idle
people calling themselves Egyptians, or any other that feigns them to
have knowledge of charming, prophecy, or other abused sciences, whereby
they persuade the people that they can tell their weirds, deaths, and
fortunes, and sic other fantastical imaginations.’ The act condemns
all sorts of vagrant idle people, including ‘minstrels, sangsters, and
tale-tellers, not avowed in special service by some of the lords of
parliament or great burghs,’ and ‘vagabond scholars of the universities
of St Andrews, Glasgow, and Aberdeen.’ The same act made some provision
for the genuine poor, enjoining them all to repair to their native
parishes and there live in almshouses: a very nice arrangement for
them, it must be owned; only there were not any almshouses for them to
live in.
Two poets hanged in August, and an act of parliament against bards and
minstrels in October; truly, it seems to have been sore times for the
tuneful tribe!
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1579.]
By this time, Arbuthnot’s edition of the Bible was completed and in
circulation. The gratification of the clergy on seeing such a product
of the native press, found eloquent expression in an address of the
General Assembly to the king (June 1579), when they took occasion to
praise the printer as ‘a man who hath taken great pains and travel
worthy to be remembered;’ and told how there should henceforth be a
copy in every parish kirk, to be called the Common Book of the Kirk,
‘as the most meet ornament for such a place.’ ‘Oh what difference,’
exclaimed these devout men, ‘between thir days of light, when almost
in every private house the book of God’s law is read and understood
in our vulgar language, and the age of darkness, when scarcely in a
whole city, without the cloisters of monks and friers, could the book
of God once be found, and that in a strange tongue of Latin, not good,
but mixed with barbarity, used and read by few, and almost understood
and exponed by none.’ All worldly wealth seemed vain and poor compared
with this fountain of spiritual comfort. ‘We ought,’ they said, ‘with
most thankful hearts to praise and extol the infinite goodness of God,
who hath accounted us worthy to whom He should open such an heavenly
treasure.’--_B. U. K._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV. 10.]
In that unmistrusting reliance on force for religious objects which
marked the age, it was enacted in parliament, that each householder
worth three hundred merks of yearly rent, and all substantious yeomen
and burgesses esteemed as worth five hundred pounds in land and goods,
should have a Bible and psalm-book in the vulgar tongue, under the
penalty of ten pounds. A few months later (June 16, 1580), one John
Williamson was commissioned under the privy seal to visit and search
every house in the realm, ‘and to require the sicht of their Bible and
psalm-buke, gif they ony have, to be marked with their awn name, for
eschewing of fraudful dealing in that behalf.’[111]
* * * * *
The zeal of the clergy, their self-denying poverty, their resoluteness
in advancing their views of church polity against court influence, have
all been touched upon. Little more than six hundred in number--for
hundreds of the parishes had no minister--they were indefatigable in
their efforts to moralise the rude mass of the community; although it
was, by their own account, such as might have appeared hopeless to
other men; there being now, as they said, an ‘universal corruption in
the whole realm,’ ‘great coldness and slackness’ even in the professors
of religion, and a ‘daily increase of all kinds of fearful sins and
enormities, as incest, adulteries, murders, ... cursed sacrilege,
ungodly sedition and division, ... with all manner of disorders and
ungodly living.’[112]
[Sidenote: 1579.]
The picture which James Melville gives of the four ministers of
Edinburgh, then living in one house--where the Parliament House now
stands--is very interesting: ‘God glorified himself notably,’ says he,
‘with that ministry of Edinburgh in these days. The men had knawledge,
uprightness, and zeal; they dwelt very commodiously together, as in a
college, with a wonderful concert in variety of gifts; all strake on ae
string, and soundit a harmony. John Durie was of small literature, but
had seen and marked the great warks of God in the first Reformation,
and been a doer baith with tongue and hand. He had been a diligent
hearer of Mr Knox, and observer of all his ways. He conceivit the
best grounds of matters weel, and could utter them fairly, fully, and
fearfully, with a mighty spreit, voice, and action. The special gift I
marked in him was haliness, and a daily and nightly careful, continual
walking with God in meditation and prayer. _He was a very gude
fallow_, and took delight, as his special comfort, to have his table
and house filled with the best men. These he wald gladly hear, with
them confer and talk, professing he was but a book-bearer, and wald
fain learn of them; and getting the ground and light of knawledge in
any guid point, then wald he rejoice in God, praise and pray thereupon,
and urge it with sae clear and forcible exhortation in assemblies and
pulpit, that he was esteemed a very furthersome instrument. There
lodgit in his house at all these assemblies in Edinburgh for common,
Mr Andrew Melville, Mr Thomas Smeaton, Mr Alexander Arbuthnot, three
of the learnedest in Europe; Mr James Melville, my uncle, Mr James
Balfour, David Ferguson, David Home, ministers; with some zealous,
godly barons and gentlemen. In time of meals was reasoning upon guid
purposes, namely matters in hand; thereafter earnest and lang prayer;
thereafter a chapter read, and every man about [in turn] gave his note
and observation thereof; sae that, gif all had been set down in write,
I have heard the learnedest and best in judgment say, they wald not
have wished a fuller and better commentary nor [than] sometimes wald
fall out in that exercise. Thereafter was sung a psalm; after the whilk
was conference and deliberation upon the purposes in hand; and at
night before going to bed, earnest and zealous prayer according to the
estate and success of matters. And oft times, yea almost daily, all the
college was together in ane or other of their houses, &c.’
[Sidenote: 1579.]
The picture which the same writer gives of his uncle Andrew is full
of fine touches. Andrew was principal of the theological college (St
Mary’s) at St Andrews; deeply learned, logical, not arrogant for
himself, but possessed of all that disinterestedness and integrity
which form the peculiar glory of Knox’s character; to crown all,
strenuous and fearless in the advocacy of his views of religion and
church-discipline. James describes him as remarkable for patience and
equal temper, where others were hot. Yet--‘this I ever marked to be Mr
Andrew’s manner: Being sure of a truth in reasoning, he wald be extreme
hot, and suffer nae man to bear away the contrair, but with reason,
words, and gesture, he wald carry it away, caring for nae person, how
great soever they were, namely in matters of religion. And in all
companies at table and otherways, as he understood and took up the
necessity of the persons and matter in hand to require, he wald _freely
and bauldly hald their ears fu’ of the truth_; and, take it as they
wald, he wald not cease nor keep silence; yea, and not only anes or
twice, but at all occasions, till he fand them better instructed, and
set to go forward in the good purpose.’
His ‘heroic courage and stoutness’ in advancing his own views, and
resisting persons of authority set upon establishing what he thought
error, was equally remarkable. For example--‘The Regent [Morton],
seeing he could not divert him by benefits and offers, calls for him ae
day indirectly, and after lang discoursing upon the quietness of the
country, peace of the kirk, and advancement of the king’s majesty’s
estate, he breaks in upon sic as were disturbers thereof by their
conceits and ower-sea dreams, imitation of Geneva discipline and laws;
and after some reasoning and grounds of God’s word alledgit, whilk
irritat the Regent, he breaks out in choler and boasting [threatening]:
“There will never be quietness in this country till half a dozen of you
be hangit or banishit the country.” “Tush, sir,” says Mr Andrew, “I
have been ready to give my life where it was not half sae weel wared
[spent], at the pleasure of my God. I lived out of your country ten
years as weel as in it. Let God be glorified, it will not lie in your
power to hang or exile his truth.”’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1580.
APR.]
John Innes, of that Ilk, being childless, entered, in March 1577, into
a mutual bond of _tailyie_ with his nearest relation, Alexander Innes,
of Cromy, conveying to him his whole estate, failing heirs-male of
his body, and taking the like disposition from Cromy of his estate.
There was a richer branch of the family represented by Robert Innes,
of Innermarky, who pined to see the poorer preferred in this manner.
So loud were his expressions of displeasure, that ‘Cromy, who was the
gallantest man of his name, found himself obliged to make the proffer
of meeting him single in arms, and, laying the tailyie upon the grass,
see if he durst take it up--in one word, to pass from all other
pretensions, and let the best fellow have it.’
[Sidenote: 1580.]
This silenced Innermarky, but did not extinguish his discontent. He
began to work upon the feelings of the Laird of Innes, representing
how Cromy already took all upon himself, even the name of Laird,
leaving him no better than a masterless dog--as contemptible, indeed,
as a beggar--a condition from which there could be no relief but by
putting the usurper out of the way. This he himself offered to do
with his own hand, if the laird would concur with him: it was an
unpleasant business, but he would undertake it, rather than see his
chief made a slave. By these practices, the weak laird was brought
to give his consent to the slaughter of an innocent gentleman, his
nearest relation, and whom he had not long before regarded with so much
good-will as to admit him to a participation of his whole fortune.
‘There wanted nothing but a conveniency for putting their purpose
in execution, which did offer itself in the month of April 1580. At
which time Alexander, being called upon some business to Aberdeen,
was obliged to stay longer there than he intended, by reason that his
only son Robert, a youth of sixteen years of age, had fallen sick at
the college, and his father could not leave the place till he saw
what became of him. He had transported him out of the Old Town, and
had brought him to his own lodgings in the New Town. He had also sent
several of his servants home from time to time, to let his lady know
the reason of his stay.
‘By means of these servants, it came to be known perfectly at Kinnairdy
in what circumstances Alexander was at Aberdeen, where he was lodged,
and how he was attended, which invited Innermarky to take the occasion.
Wherefore, getting a considerable number of assistants with him, he and
Laird John ride to Aberdeen; they enter the town upon the night, and
about midnight came to Alexander’s lodging.
‘The outer gate of the close they found open, but all the rest of the
doors shut. They were afraid to break up the doors by violence, lest
the noise might alarm the neighbourhood; but choiced rather to raise
such a cry in the close as might oblige those who were within to open
the doors and see what it might be.
‘The feuds at that time betwixt the families of Gordon and Forbes were
not extinguished; therefore they raised a cry as if it had been upon
some outfall among these people, crying, “_Help a Gordon--a Gordon!_”
which is the gathering-word of the friends of that family. Alexander,
being deeply interested in the Gordons, at the noise of the cry started
from his bed, took his sword in hand, and opening a back-door that led
to the court below, stepped down three or four steps, and cried to
know what was the matter. Innermarky, who by his word knew him, and by
his white shirt discerned him perfectly, cocks his gun, and shoots him
through the body. In an instant, as many as could get about him fell
upon him, and butchered him barbarously.
[Sidenote: 1580.]
‘Innermarky, perceiving, in the meantime, that Laird John stood by, as
either relenting or terrified, held the bloody dagger to his throat,
that he had newly taken out of the murdered body, swearing dreadfully
that he would serve him in the same way if he did not as he did, and
so compelled him to draw his dagger, and stab it up to the hilt in the
body of his nearest relation, and the bravest that bore his name. After
his example, all that were there behoved to do the like, that all might
be alike guilty. Yea, in prosecution of this, it has been told me, that
Mr John Innes, afterwards of Coxton, being a youth then at school, was
raised out of bed, and compelled by Innermarky to stab a dagger into
the dead body, that the more might be under the same condemnation--a
very crafty cruelty.
‘The next thing looked after was the destruction of the sick youth
Robert, who had lain that night in a bed by his father, but, upon the
noise of what was done, had scrambled from it, and by the help of one
John of Coloreasons, or rather of some of the people of the house,
had got out at an unfrequented back-door into the garden, and from
that into a neighbour’s house, where he had shelter, the Lord in his
providence preserving him for the executing of vengeance upon these
murderers for the blood of his father.
‘Then Innermarky took the dead man’s signet-ring, and sent it to his
wife, as from her husband, by a servant whom he had purchased to
that purpose, ordering her to send him such a particular box, which
contained the bond of tailyie and all that had followed thereupon
betwixt him and Laird John, whom, the servant said, he had left with
his master at Aberdeen, and that, for dispatch, he had sent his best
horse with him, and had not taken leisure to write, but sent the ring.
‘Though it troubled the woman much to receive so blind a message, yet
her husband’s ring, his own servant, and his horse, prevailed so with
her, together with the man’s importunity to be gone, that she delivered
to him what he sought, and let him go.
[Sidenote: 1580.]
‘There happened to be then about the house a youth related to the
family, who was curious to go the length of Aberdeen, and see the young
laird who had been sick, and to whom he was much addicted. This youth
had gone to the stable, to intercede with the servant that he might
carry him behind him; and in his discourse had found the man under
great restraint and confusion of mind, sometimes saying he was to go
no further than Kinnairdy (which indeed was the truth), and at other
times that he behoved to be immediately at Aberdeen. This brought him
to jalouse [suspect], though he knew not what; but further knowledge
he behoved to have, and therefore he stepped out a little beyond the
entry, watching the servant’s coming, and in the by-going suddenly
leaped on behind him, or have a satisfying reason why he refused him.
The contest became such betwixt them, that the servant drew his dirk to
rid him of the youth’s trouble, which the other wrung out of his hands,
and downright killed him with it, and brought back the box, with the
writs and horse, to the house of Innes (or Cromy, I know not which).
‘As the lady is in a confusion for what had fallen out, there comes
another of the servants from Aberdeen, who gave an account of the
slaughter, so that she behoved to conclude a special hand of Providence
to have been in the first passage. Her next course was to secure her
husband’s writs the best she could, and fly to her friends for shelter,
by whose means she was brought with all speed to the king, before whom
she made her complaint.’
The son of the murdered man was taken under the care of the Earl of
Huntly, who was his relation; but so little apprehension was there of
a prosecution for the murder, that Innermarky, five weeks after the
event, obtained from his chief a disposition of the estate in his own
favour. Two or three years after, however, the young Laird of Cromy
came north with a commission for the avenging of his father’s murder,
and the Laird of Innes and Innermarky were both obliged to go into
hiding. For a time, the latter skulked in the hills, but, wearying
of that, he got a retreat constructed for himself in the house of
Edinglassie, where he afterwards found shelter. Here young Cromy
surprised him in September 1584. The same young man who had killed
his servant was the first to enter his Patmos, for which venturesome
act he was all his life after called _Craig-in-peril_. Innermarky’s
head was cut off, and, it is said, afterwards taken by Cromy’s widow
to Edinburgh, and cast at the king’s feet. The Innermarky branch
being thus set aside, young Cromy succeeded in due time as Laird of
Innes.--_Hist. Acc. Fam. Innes._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 25.]
‘... being Saturday, betwixt three o’clock afternoon and Sunday’s
night thereafter, there blew such a vehement tempest of wind, that it
was thought to be the cause that a great many of the inhabitants of
Edinburgh contracted a strange sickness, which was called _Kindness_.
It fell out in the court, as well as sundry parts of the country, so
that some people who were corpulent and aged deceased very suddenly. It
continued with every one that took it three days at least.’--_Moy. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY.
1580.]
The king being at St Andrews, on a progress with the Regent Morton,
the gentlemen of the country had a _guise_ or _fence_ to play before
him. ‘The play was to be acted in the New Abbey.[113] While the people
is gazing and longing for the play, Skipper Lindsay, a phrenitic man,
stepped into the place which was kept void till the players came, and
paceth up and down in sight of the people with great gravity, his hands
on his side, and looking loftily. He had a manly countenance, but was
all rough with hair. He had great tufts of hair upon his brows, and
also a great tuft upon the neb of his nose. At the first sight, the
people laughed loud; but when he began to speak he procured attention,
as if it had been to a preacher. He discoursed with great force of
spirit, and mighty voice, exhorting men of all ranks and degrees to
hear him, and take example by him. He declared how wicked and riotous
he had been, what he had done and conquest [acquired] by sea, how he
had spended and abased himself on land, and what God had justly brought
upon him for the same. He had wit, he had riches, he had strength
and ability of body, he had fame and estimation above all others of
his trade and rank; but all was vanity that made him misken his God.
But God would not be miskenned by the highest. Turning himself to
the boss [empty] window, where the king and Aubigné was above, and
Morton standing beneath, gnapping upon his staff, he applied to him in
special, as was marvellous in the ears of the hearers; so that many
were astonished and some moved to tears, beholding and hearkening
to the man. Among other things, he warned the earl, not obscurely,
that his judgment was drawing near and his doom in dressing. And in
very deed at the same time was his death contrived. The contrivers
would have expected a discovery, if they had not known the man to be
phrenitic and bereft of his wit. The earl was so moved and touched at
the heart, that, during the time of the play, he never changed the
gravity of his countenance, for all the sports of the play.’--_Cal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP. 9.
1580.]
One Arnold Bronkhorst, a Fleming, had found his way into Scotland,
as one of a group of adventurers who were disposed to make a new
effort for the successful working of the gold-mines of Lanarkshire.
The account we have of the party is obscure and traditional.[114]
One Nicolas Hilliard, goldsmith in London, and miniature-painter
to Queen Elizabeth, is said to have belonged to it, and to have
brought Bronkhorst as his servant or assistant. The story is, that,
being disappointed of a patent for the mines from the Regent Morton,
Bronkhorst was glad at last to remain about the Scottish court as
portrait-painter to the king. He certainly did serve the king in that
capacity, as we have an account of his paid at this date, to the amount
of £64, for three specimens of his art--namely, ‘Ane portrait of his
majesty fra the belt upward,’ ‘ane other portrait of Maister George
Buchanan,’ and ‘ane portrait of his majesty full length,’ besides a
gift of a hundred merks, ‘as ane gratitude for his repairing to this
country.’ A twelvemonth later, King James constituted him his own
painter for his lifetime, ‘with all fees, duties, and casualties, usit
and wont.’[115]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP. 20.]
In the midst of the strange phantasmagoria of rudeness and murderous
violence on the one hand, and exalted religious zeal on the other,
which now passes before us, we find that industrious men were
prosecuting useful merchandise at home and abroad, but under painful
risks imposed by the general neglect of the laws of health. Witness
the following little episode. John Downie’s ship, the _William_, on
her return with a cargo from Danskein [Dantzig], enters the Firth of
Forth. Seven merchants of Edinburgh, and some from other towns, are in
this vessel, returning from foreign parts, where they have been upon
their lawful business. All are doubtless full of pleasant anticipations
of the home-scenes which they expect to greet them as soon as they
once more set foot on their native soil. Alas! the pest breaks out
in the vessel, and sundry of these poor citizens are swept off. The
captain dare not approach the shore, but must wait the orders which
the authorities may send him. There is immediately a meeting of the
Privy Council, at which an order goes forth that the survivors in John
Downie’s ship shall land on the uninhabited island called St Colm’s
Inch in the Firth of Forth, and there remain till ‘cleansed,’ on pain
of death, and no one to traffic with them under the same penalty.
The chief chapter of this sad story, so characteristic of the time, is
told in few words by Moysie: ‘There were forty persons in the ship,
whereof the most part died.’
[Sidenote: 1580.]
On the 27th of November we have a pendant to the tale of the
plague-ship. Downie the skipper is dead, leaving a widow and eleven
children. James Scott and David Duff, mariners, are also dead, the
former leaving a widow and seven children. Several of the passengers
are also dead, while the others are pining on the lonely islands of
Inchkeith and Inch Garvie. The ship, with its cargo unbroken, is riding
at St Colm’s Inch, and beginning to leak, so that much property is
threatened with destruction. In these circumstances, the Privy Council,
on petition, enacted that orders should be taken, as far as consistent
with the public safety, for the preservation of the vessel.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT.]
Lord Ruthven and Lord Oliphant were at feud, in consequence of a
dispute about teinds. The former, on his return from Kincardine, where
he had been attending the Earl of Mar’s marriage, passed near Lord
Oliphant’s seat of Dupplin, near Perth. This was construed by Oliphant
into a bravado on the part of Ruthven. His son, the Master of Oliphant,
accordingly came forth with a train of armed followers, and rode
hastily after Lord Ruthven. The foremost of Ruthven’s party, taking a
panic, fled in disorder, notwithstanding their master’s call to them
to stay. He was then obliged to fly also; but his kinsman, Alexander
Stewart, of the house of Traquair, stayed to try to pacify the Oliphant
party. He was shot with a harquebuss by one who did not know who he
was, to the great grief of the Master.
Lord Ruthven prosecuted the Master for this outrage. The Earl of
Morton, out of regard to Douglas of Lochleven, whose son-in-law
Oliphant was, gave his influence on that side, and thus incurred some
odium, which probably helped to bring about his destruction soon
after.--_Cal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT. 20.
1580.]
In a General Assembly held at Edinburgh, an order was issued to execute
the acts of the kirk upon _apostates_, and let them be punished as
_adulterers_; ‘perticularly that the Laird of Dun execute this act upon
the Master of Gray, an apostate now returned to Scotland. It being
reported to the king that the Master of Gray his house did shake and
rock in the night as with an earthquake, and the king [then fourteen
years old] interrogating David Fergusson [minister of Dunfermline],
“What he thought it could mean that that house alone should shake and
totter?” he answered: “Sir, why should not the devil rock his awn
bairns?”’[116]
An earthquake, noted in Howes’s _Chronicle_ as having been experienced
in Kent at midnight of the 1st of May this year, was probably the cause
of the rocking felt at the Master of Gray’s house. In Kent it made ‘the
people to rise out of their beds and run to the churches, where they
called upon God by earnest prayers to be merciful to them.’
* * * * *
George Auchinleck of Balmanno had been one of the confidants of the
Regent in the days of his power. It being well known that he had
influence in bringing about the decision of lawsuits, the highest
nobility were glad at that time to pay court to him. As an illustration
of the nature of his position--Coming one day from the Regent’s house
at Dalkeith to Edinburgh, and walking up the High Street, he met one
Captain Nesbit, with whom he had some slight quarrel, and drawing his
sword, instantly thrust him through the body, so that he was left for
dead. So far from seeking concealment after this violence, Auchinleck
held straight on to the Tolbooth, where the Court of Session sat, as
though he had done no wrong; after which he coolly made his way back to
the Regent’s court at Dalkeith. It does not appear that he was in any
way punished for stabbing Nesbit.
On another occasion, as Auchinleck stood within the bar of the
Tolbooth, an old man of unprosperous appearance made his way through
the crowd, asking permission to speak with him. When Auchinleck turned
to ask what he wanted, the old man said: ‘I am Oliver Sinclair!’
and without another word, turned and went away. It was the quondam
favourite of James V., now a poor and dejected gentleman, albeit
connected by near ties with some of the greatest men in the country.
Men talked much of this proceeding of Sinclair: it seemed to them
equivalent to his saying: ‘Be not too proud of your interest at court.
I was once as you are; you may fall to be as I am.’--_H. of G._
[Sidenote: DEC. 12.
1580.]
The prediction was now verified, for, Morton being now out of power and
in danger of his life, Auchinleck no longer had influence at council
or in court. He, moreover, stood in no small personal danger from his
many enemies. As he was walking on the High Street of Edinburgh, he
was beset at a passage near St Giles’s Church by William Bickerton of
Casch, and four other gentlemen, who assailed him with bended pistols,
by one of which he was shot through the body, after which he was left
for dead. This was thought to be done in revenge for an attack by
him upon Archibald, the brother of William Bickerton. The assailants
were all found guilty of the slaughterous attempt, but without the
aggravation of its being done within three-quarters of a mile of
the king’s person, seeing that ‘the king’s majesty was furth at the
hunting, the time of the committing thereof.’--_Pit._
Auchinleck survived this accident, and we find him in the ensuing March
in the hands of the Earl of Arran, and put to the torture, in order
to extort from him a confession of certain crimes with which he was
charged, but which he denied. He took a part in the affair of the Raid
of Ruthven in August 1582. When the Earl of Arran on that occasion,
hearing of the king’s being secluded in Ruthven House, came to try if
he could gain access to him, ‘the Earl of Gowrie met him at the gate,
and had straightway killed him, if George Auchinleck had not held his
hand as he was about to have pulled out his dagger to have stabbed
him.’--_H. of G._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1580-1.
JAN. 28.]
A Confession of Faith was this day subscribed by the king, his
household and courtiers, including Lennox, and many of the nobility and
other persons, professing ‘the religion now revealed to the world by
the preaching of the blessed evangel,’ and solemnly abjuring all the
doctrines and practices of the Romish Church.[117]
[Sidenote: JAN. 29.]
This day, Sunday, there were gay doings in the boy-king’s court of
Holyrood, namely, running at the ring, justing, and such-like pastimes,
besides sailing about in boats and galleys at Leith.--_Cal._
The reader must not be too much surprised at this occurring the day
after the signing of a solemn confession of the Protestant faith. The
truth seems to have been this: the signers signed under the pressure
of a party they had some interest for the moment in gratifying or
blinding, and the accepters of the document were content with the fact
of the signing, without regard to the too probable hypocrisy under
which it took place. It is not uncommon for professions to be only a
symptom of the reality of the opposite of what is professed.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1581.
MAR. 11.]
The ex-Regent now lay a hopeless prisoner in Dumbarton Castle, chiefly
occupied, we are told, in reading the Bible, which, though he had
forced the people to buy it under a penalty, he had hitherto much
neglected himself. One of his servants, named George Fleck, ‘was
apprehended in Alexander Lawson’s house [in Edinburgh], together with
the said Alexander, not without their own consents, as was alleged, to
reveal where the Earl of Morton’s treasure lay. The bruit [rumour]
went--when the boots were presented to George Fleck, that he revealed a
part of the treasure to be lying in Dalkeith yard, under the ground; a
part in Aberdour, under a braid stone before the gate; a part in Leith.
Certain it is, he [the earl] was the wealthiest subject that had been
in Scotland for many years.’--_Cal._
Sir James Melville tells us that, long before the trial of Morton, his
gold and silver were transported by his natural son, James Douglas,
and one of his servants called John Macmoran. ‘It was first carried in
barrels, and afterwards hid in some secret parts; part was given to be
kept by some who were looked upon as his friends, who made ill account
of it again; so that the most part thereof lighted in bad hands, and
himself was so destitute of money, that when he went through the street
to the Tolbooth to undergo his assize, he was compelled to borrow
twenty shillings to distribute to the poor, who asked alms of him for
God’s sake.’
In May, he ‘was brought to Edinburgh, and kept in Robin Gourlay’s
house,[118] with a band of men of weir.’ James Melville says: ‘The
very day of his putting to assize, I happened to be in Edinburgh,
and heard and saw the notablest example, baith of God’s judgment and
mercy that, to my knowledge, ever fell out in my time. For in that
Tolbooth, where oftentimes, during his government, he had wrested and
thrawn judgment, partly for gain, whereto he was given, and partly for
particular favour, was his judgment overthrown; and he wha, above any
Scotsman, had maist gear, friendship, and cliental,[119] had nane to
speak a word for him that day; but, the greatest part of the assizers
being his knawn unfriends, he was condemned to be headit on a scaffold,
and that head, whilk was sae witty in warldly affairs and policy, and
had commanded with sic authority and dignity within that town and
judgment-seat, to be set upon a prick upon the hichest stane of the
gable of the Tolbooth that is towards the public street.’
[Sidenote: 1581.]
Morton was condemned for being ‘airt and part’[120] concerned in the
murder of Darnley. He was more clearly an actor in the cruel slaughter
of Riccio. After doing his best to insnare Mary into a marriage with
Bothwell, he had headed a rebellion against her on hypocritical
pretences. The extortions he had practised during his regency, in
order to enrich himself, shewed an equally sordid and cruel character.
Throughout all the time of his government, he had outraged decency
by the grossness of his private life. Yet ‘he had great comfort that
he died a Christian, in the true and sincere profession of religion,
whilk he cravit all the faithful to follow, and abide thereat to the
death.’--_Moy._ ‘He keepit the same countenance, gesture, and short
sententious form of language upon the scaffold, whilk he usit in his
princely government. He spake, led about and urgit by the commanders
at the four nooks of the scaffold; but after that ance he had very
fectfully[121] and gravely uttered, at guid length, that whilk he had
to speak, thereafter almaist he altered not thir words: “It is for my
sins that God has justly brought me to this place; for gif I had served
my God as truly as I did my king, I had not come here. But as for that
I am condemned for by men, I am innocent, as God knows. Pray for me.”
... I [am] content to have recordit the wark of God, whilk I saw with
my ees and heard with my ears.’--_Ja. Mel._
[Illustration: The Maiden.]
‘After all was done, he went without fear and laid his neck upon the
block, crying continually: “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit,” till the
axe of the Maiden--which he himself had caused make after the pattern
which he had seen at Halifax in Yorkshire--falling upon his neck, put
an end to his life and that note together. His body was carried to the
Tolbooth, and buried secretly in the night in the Greyfriars. His head
was affixed on the gate of the city.’--_H. of G._
The Maiden, which still exists in the Museum of the Society of the
Antiquaries of Scotland, is an instrument of the same nature as the
guillotine, a loaded knife running in an upright frame, and descending
upon a cross-beam, on which the neck of the culprit is laid. It is
not unlikely that the ex-Regent introduced the Maiden; but another
allegation, which asserts him to have been the first to suffer by it,
is untrue.
At the death of Morton, the common people were much occupied in
discussing a prophecy that the Bleeding Heart should fall by the
Mouth of Arran. Morton, as a Douglas, bore the Bleeding Heart in his
coat-armorial. Captain Stuart having been made Earl of Arran between
the time of the accusation and the execution, here, said they, is the
prediction realised, though what the Mouth of Arran meant it would have
puzzled them to tell. It was probably to this unintelligible stanza in
the prophecies of Merling that they referred:
In the mouth of Arran an selcouth[122] shall fall,
Two bloody harts shall be taken with a false train,
And derfly dung down without any dome,
Ireland, Orkney, and other lands many,
For the death of those two great dule shall make.[123]
Morton may be taken as an example of a class of public men in that
rude and turbulent time, who were to all appearance earnest Christians
of the reforming and evangelical stamp, and nevertheless allowed
themselves a licence in every wickedness, even to treachery and murder,
whenever they had a selfish object in view, or, more strangely still,
when the interests of religion, in their view of the matter, called on
them so to act.
[Sidenote: 1581.]
Nothing is more remarkable in the history of this period than the
coincidence of wicked or equivocal actions and pious professions in
the same person. Adam Bothwell, Bishop of Orkney, who performed the
marriage-ceremony of Mary and Bothwell, and afterwards in the basest
manner took active part against her--who was in constant trouble
with the General Assembly on account of his shortcomings--writes
letters full of expressions of Christian piety and resignation. He is
constantly ‘saying with godly Job, gif we have receivit guid out of
the hand of the Lord, why should we not alsae receive evil--giving
him maist hearty thanks therefore, attesting our godly and stedfast
faith in him, whilk is maist evident in time of probane.’ Sir John
Bellenden, justice-clerk, who had a share in the murder of Signor
David, and who, on receiving a gift of Hamilton of Bothwell-haugh’s
estate of Woodhouselee from the Regent Moray, turned Hamilton’s wife
out of doors, so as to cause her to run mad--this vile man, in his
will, speaks of ‘my saul, wha baith sall meet my Maister with joy and
comfort, to hear that comfortable voice that he has promisit to resotat
[resuscitate], saying, Come unto me thou as ane of my elect.’[124]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 11.]
An entry in the Lord Treasurer’s books reveals the mood of the gay
king and his courtiers, nine days after the bloody end of Morton. It
is Sunday, and James is residing with the Duke of Lennox at Dalkeith
Castle. He attends the parish church within the town, and, after
service, returns, with _two pipers playing before him_.[125]
[Sidenote: 1581.]
It was, however, only four days after the death of Morton, and while
his blood was still fresh upon the streets, that the man who had
brought him to the block passed through the gay scenes of a marriage.
Captain Stuart--for Scottish history can scarcely be induced to
recognise him as Earl of Arran--had formed a shameful connection with
a lady of high birth and rank now figuring at the Scottish court. Born
Elizabeth Stewart, as daughter of the Earl of Athole, she had first
been wife of Lord Lovat--then, after his death, wife of the Earl of
March, brother of the Regent Lennox. Her intrigue with Captain James,
her divorce of the Earl of March on alleged reasons which history would
blush to mention, her quick-following marriage to Arran while in a
condition which would have given her husband a plea of divorce against
herself, and this occurring so close to the time when Arran had shed
the blood of his great enemy, form a series of events sufficient to
mark the character of the court into which the young king had emerged
from the strictness of Presbyterian rule. When the lady brought her
husband a son in the subsequent January,[126] the king was invited to
the baptism, and we only learn that he was prevented from attending in
consequence of a temporary quarrel which had by that time taken place
between Lennox and Arran.
A contemporary writer, speaking of the countess, calls her ‘the
maistresse of all vice and villany,’ and says she ‘infectit the air
in his Hieness’ audience.’ He accuses her of controlling the course
of justice, and alleges that she ‘caused sundrie to be hanged that
wanted their compositions, saying: What had they been doing all
their days, that had not so much as five punds to buy them from the
gallows?‘--_Cal._
The Presbyterian clergy regarded the frivolity of Lennox and
Mombirneau, their foreign vices and oaths, joined to the coarser native
profligacy of Arran and his lady, as forming a bad school for the young
king. A love of amusement and buffoonery he certainly contracted from
this source; but it is remarkable that he was not drawn into any gross
vice by the bad example set before him.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV.]
At this time, upwards of twenty years after the Reformation, it was
still found that ‘the dregs of idolatry’ existed in sundry parts of
the realm, ‘by using of pilgrimage to some chapels, wells, crosses
..., as also by observing of the festival-days of the sancts, sometime
namit their patrons; in setting furth of banefires, [and] singing of
carols within and about kirks at certain seasons of the year.’ An act
of parliament was now passed, condemning these practices, and imposing
heavy fines on those guilty of them; failing which, the transgressors
to endure a month’s imprisonment upon bread and water.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1582.
JUNE.]
The archbishopric of Glasgow being vacant, Mr Robert Montgomery
accepted it from the king, on an understanding with the king’s
favourite, the Duke of Lennox, as to the income. The church
excommunicated him. In Edinburgh, ‘he was openly onbeset [waylaid] by
lasses and rascals of the town, and hued out by flinging of stones
at him, out at the Kirk of Field port, and narrowly escaped with his
life.’--_Moy._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP. 4.]
One consequence of the _coup d’état_ at Ruthven was the return of John
Durie from the banishment into which he had gone in May, to resume his
ministry in Edinburgh. The affair makes a fine historic picture.
‘As he is coming from Leith to Edinburgh, there met him at the Gallow
Green two hundred men of the inhabitants of Edinburgh. Their number
still increased till he came within the Nether Bow. There they began
[with bare heads and loud voices] to sing the 124th psalm--“Now Israel
may say, and that truly,” &c., in four parts [till heaven and earth
resounded]. They came up the street to the Great Kirk, singing thus
all the way, to the number of two thousand. They were much moved
themselves, and so were the beholders. The Duke [of Lennox, who was
lodged in the High Street, and looked out and saw], was astonished and
more affrayed at that sight than at anything that ever he had seen
before in Scotland, and rave his beard for anger. After exhortation
made in the reader’s place by Mr James Lowson, to thankfulness, and the
singing of a psalm, they dissolved with great joy.’--_Cal._
[Sidenote: SEP. 5.
1582.
SEP. 28.]
Another consequence of the change at court was, that the Duke of Lennox
was forced to leave the kingdom. The Presbyterian historians relate
the manner of his departure with evident relish. ‘The duke departed
out of the town, after noon, accompanied with the provost, bailies,
and five hundred men.... He rode towards Glasgow, accompanied by the
Lord Maxwell, the Master of Livingstone, the Master of Eglintoun,
Ferniehirst, and sundry other gentlemen.’[127]... He ‘remained in
Dunbarton at the West Sea, where, or [ere] he gat passage, he was put
to as hard a diet as he caused the Earl of Morton to use there; yea,
even to the other extremity that he had used at court; for, whereas
his kitchen was sae sumptuous that lumps of butter was cast in the
fire when it soked [grew dull], and twa or three crowns waired upon a
stock of kale dressing, he was fain to eat of a meagre guse, scoudered
with beare strae.’[128] Died in Edinburgh, George Buchanan, at the
age of seventy-eight, immediately after concluding his _History of
Scotland_. His high literary accomplishments, especially his exquisite
Latin composition, have made his name permanently famous. His personal
character was not without its shades, yet it stands forth amidst the
rough scenes of that time as something, on the whole, venerable. Sir
James Melville, in noting that, while acting as one of the king’s
preceptors, he kept the young monarch in great awe, goes on to speak
of him as ‘a stoic philosopher,’ who did not act in that capacity with
any view to his worldly interests. ‘A man of notable endowments for his
learning and knowledge in Latin poesy,’ says this mild contemporary,
‘much honoured in other countries, pleasant in conversation, rehearsing
at all occasions moralities short and instructive, whereof he had
abundance, inventing where he wanted. He was also religious, but was
easily abused, and so facile, that he was led by every company that
he haunted, which made him factious in his old days, for he spoke and
wrote as those who were about him informed him; for he was become
careless, following in many things the vulgar opinion; for he was
naturally popular, and extremely revengeful against any man who had
offended him, which was his greatest fault. For he did write despiteful
invectives against the Earl of Monteith, for some particulars that were
between him and the Laird of Buchanan. He became the Earl of Morton’s
great enemy, for that a nag of his chanced to be taken from his servant
during the civil troubles, and was bought by the Regent, who had no
will to part with the said horse, he was so sure-footed and so easy,
that albeit Mr George had ofttimes required him again, he could not
get him. And, therefore, though he had been the Regent’s great friend
before, he became his mortal enemy, and from that time forth spoke evil
of him in all places, and at all occasions.’
[Sidenote: 1582.]
A little while before Buchanan’s death, while his history was passing
through the press of Alexander Arbuthnot in Edinburgh, the Rev. James
Melville, accompanied by his uncle Andrew, came from St Andrews
‘anes-errand’--that is, on set purpose--to see him and his work. ‘When
we came to his chalmer,’ says Melville, ‘we fand him sitting in his
chair, teaching his young man that servit in his chalmer, to spell, a,
b, ab; e, b, eb; &c. After salutation, Mr Andrew says: “I see, sir,
ye are not idle.” “Better this,” quoth he, “nor stealing sheep, or
sitting idle, whilk is as ill.” Thereafter he shew[ed] us the Epistle
Dedicatory to the King; the whilk when Mr Andrew had read he tauld him
it was obscure in some places, and wanted certain words to perfite the
sentence. Says he: “I may do nae mair for thinking on another matter.”
“What is that?” says Mr Andrew. “To die,” quoth he; “but I leave that
and mony mae things for you to help.”
‘We went from him to the printer’s wark-house, whom we fand at the
end of the 17 buik of his chronicle, at a place whilk we thought very
hard for the time, whilk might be an occasion of staying the haill
wark, anent the burial of Davie.[129] Thereafter, staying the printer
from proceeding, we came to Mr George again, and fand him bedfast
by [contrary to] his custom; and asking him how he did--“Even going
the way of weelfare,” says he. Mr Thomas, his cousin, shews him the
hardness of that part of his story, [and] that the king might be
offended with it, and it might stay all the wark. “Tell me, man,” says
he, “gif I have tauld the truth?” “Yes,” says Mr Thomas, “sir, I think
sae.” “I will bide his feid, and all his kin’s then,” quoth he: “pray,
pray to God for me, and let Him direct all.”’
The sternness of Scottish prejudices here reaches the heroic.
With its eight centuries of fable in the front, and its glaring
partisanship in the latter part, we cannot now attach much importance
to Buchanan’s history. Yet in respect of its literary character, it
contains some truly felicitous touches, as where he describes the
surface of Galloway in four words--‘_in modicos colles tumet_;’ or
the remarkable sea-board of Fife in two--‘_oppidulis præcingitur_.’
Expressions like these shew the master of literary art.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 10.]
The king’s new councillors of course felt that hard measure had been
dealt to the ex-Regent. At this date, ‘the Earl of Morton’s head was
taken down off the prick which is upon the high gavell of the Tolbooth,
with the king’s licence, at the eleventh hour of the day; was laid
in a fine cloth, convoyed honourably, and laid in the kist where his
body was buried. The Laird of Carmichael carried it, shedding tears
abundantly by the way.’--_Cal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1582-3.
JAN. 23.
FEB. 4.]
While the king was in the hands of the Ruthven conspirators, two
gentlemen came as ambassadors from France to see what could be done
for him, and were of course treated with little civility by the royal
councillors. The second, M. de Menainville, must have been the less
acceptable to them, if it was true which was alleged, that he had
been one of the chief devisers of the league in Picardy against the
Protestants. With some difficulty, De Menainville made his way into
the royal presence at Holyroodhouse. ‘After some words spoken to the
king, he craved that he might be used as an ambassador; that, as he had
the use of meat and drink for his body, so he might have food for his
soul, meaning the mass, otherwise he would not stay to suffer his most
Christian prince’s authority and ambassage to be violated. The king
rounded [whispered] and prayed him to be sober in that point, and all
would be weel.’ It was not likely that the concession which had been
sternly refused to Queen Mary would, at such a time, be granted to him.
The king, with much ado, prevailed upon the magistracy of Edinburgh to
give the other ambassador, the Sieur de la Motte Fenelon, a banquet on
the eve of his departure. The kirk-session opposed the entertainment;
and when they found they could not prevent it, they did the next
best--held a solemn fast, with preachings and psalm-singing, during
the whole time of the feast--namely, from betwixt nine and ten in the
morning till two in the afternoon. The ministers called the banquet a
holding fellowship with ‘the murderers of the sancts of God.’--_Cal._
[Sidenote: 1583.
MAR. 28.]
De Menainville remained for some time after. ‘Upon Thursday the 28th
of March, commonly called Skyre Thursday, [he] called into his lodging
thirteen poor men, and washed their feet according to the popish
manner, whereat the people was greatly offended.’--_Cal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG. 23.
1583.]
All previous efforts at the finding of metals in the country having
failed, a contract was now entered into between the king and one
Eustachius Roche, described as a Fleming and mediciner, whereby the
latter was to be allowed to break ground anywhere in search of those
natural treasures, and to use timber from any of the royal forests
in furthering of the work, without molestation from any one, during
twenty-one years, on the sole condition that he should deliver for his
majesty’s use, for every hundred ounces of gold found, seven ounces;
and for the like weight of all other metals--as silver, copper, tin, or
lead--ten ounces for every hundred found, and sell the remainder of the
gold for the use of the state at £22 per ounce of utter fine gold, and
of the silver at 50s. the ounce.--_P. C. R._
We light upon Eustachius again on the 3d of December 1585, and he is
then in no pleasant plight with his mines. Assisted by a number of
Englishmen, he had done his best to fulfil his share of the contract,
but ‘as yet he has made little or nae profit of his travel, partly
by reason of the trouble of this contagious sickness, but specially
in the default of his partners and John Scolloce their factor,’ who
would not fulfil either their duty to his majesty or their engagements
to himself. Through these causes, ‘the haill wark has been greatly
hinderit.’ He had Scolloce warded in Edinburgh; but he, ‘by his
majesty’s special command, is latten to liberty, without ony trial
taken.’ At the same time, the king’s treasurer ‘has causit arreist the
leid ore whilk the complener has presently in Leith, and whilk was won
in the mines of Glengoner Water and Winlock.’ This was the greater
hardship, as it was the part he had to set aside for the Earl of Arran,
in virtue of a contract for the protection of his lordship’s rights to
certain lead-mines. The Lords were merciful to the poor adventurer, and
ordered the arrestment to be discharged.--_P. C. R._
He rises once more before us in a new capacity under September 4, 1588.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1583-4.
SEP. 10.
JAN. 9.]
The king having now escaped from his Ruthven councillors and fallen
once more under the influence of the Earl of Arran, Sir Francis
Walsingham came as Elizabeth’s ambassador to express her concern
about these movements, and see what could be done towards opposite
effects. Coming to a king with an unwelcome message has never been a
pleasant duty; but it must have been particularly disagreeable on this
occasion, if it be true, as is alleged by a Presbyterian historian,
that Arran--who, says he, within a few days after his return to court,
‘began to look braid’--hounded out a low woman, called _Kate the
witch_, to assail the ambassador with vile speeches as he passed to
and from the king’s presence. She was, it is alleged, hired by Arran
‘for a new plaid and six pounds in money, not only to rail against the
ministry [clergy], his majesty’s most assured and ancient nobility,
and lovers of the amity [English alliance], but also set in the entry
of the king’s palace, to revile her majesty’s ambassador at Edinburgh,
St Andrews, Falkland, Perth, and everywhere, to the great grief of all
good men, and dishonour of the king and country.’ It is further stated,
that, being imprisoned ‘for a fashion,’ large allowance was made for
her entertainment, and she was relieved as soon as Walsingham had
departed.--_Cal._
While the kirk was beginning to feel the consequences of the king’s
emancipation from the Ruthven lords, it sustained an assault, though
of a very petty character, from a different quarter. Robert Brown,
a Cambridge student, had three years before attracted attention in
Norfolk by his novel and startling ideas regarding ecclesiastical
matters. The Bishop of Norwich imprisoned him, with the usual
non-success as far as the correction of opinion was concerned. He
had then taken refuge at Middleburgh, and there given forth his
notions to the world in the form of a pamphlet. Now he was come to
Scotland, perhaps thinking it a pity that a people should be in
trouble between the contending claims of Prelacy and Presbytery, when
he could shew them that both systems were wrong. Landing at Dundee,
where, it is said, he received some encouragement, he advanced by St
Andrews to Edinburgh, and there took up his quarters ‘in the head of
the Canongate,’ along with four or five English followers, who were
accompanied by their wives and children. The people--who, for the
most part, were passionately attached to the simple fabric of their
national church, and dreamt of no rivalship or enmity to it except in
episcopacy--how they must have felt at the novel sight of a group of
men who, in declaring against bishops, also found fault with sessions
and synods, with indeed all ecclesiastical action whatever, considering
each congregation independent in itself, and no member of it less
entitled to pray and preach than the pastor!
[Sidenote: 1583-4.]
Brown, whose self-confidence in asserting his peculiar doctrines was
very great, did not rest four days in Edinburgh before he had presented
himself to the general kirk-session for a wrangle. We are told by a
Presbyterian historian--he ‘made shew, in an arrogant manner, that he
would maintain that witnesses at baptism was not a thing indifferent,
but simply evil. But he failed in the probation.’ A week after, ‘in
conference with some of the presbytery, he alleged that the whole
discipline of Scotland was amiss; that he and his company were not
subject to it, and therefore he would appeal from the kirk to the
magistrate.’ Considering how the clergy stood with the court, this
must have been a most offensive threat; the more so that the court had
already shewn some symptoms of favour to Brown, in order to ‘molest
the kirk.’ ‘It was thought good that Mr James Lowson and Mr John
Davidson should gather out of his book such opinions as they suspected
or perceived him to err in, and get them ready, to pose him and his
followers thereupon, that thereafter the king might be informed.’ A
week later, Brown and his ‘complices’ came before the presbytery, to
answer the articles prepared against him. We only further learn that he
left Edinburgh, ‘malcontent, because his opinions were not embraced,
and that he was committed to ward a night or two till they were tried’
(_Cal._), a form of religious disputation highly characteristic of
the age. Brown afterwards, when founding his sect of Independents in
England, published a volume containing various invectives against the
Scottish kirk and its leaders, of which Dr Bancroft took advantage in
preaching against presbytery (9th February 1589), while probably ready
to consign their author to the pains which the Bishop of Peterborough
actually meted out to him by excommunication.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1584.]
Thomas Vautrollier, a French Protestant, who had come to England early
in Elizabeth’s reign, migrated about this time to Edinburgh, where
he set up a printing-press. From his office proceeded this year a
small volume of poems, composed by the young king, under the title of
_The Essayes of a Prentise in the Divine Art of Poesie_; to which was
added a prose treatise embracing the ‘rules and cautels for Scottish
poesie:’ a volume of which it may be enough to say, that it betrays a
laudable love of literature in the royal author, joined to some power
of literary expression. Vautrollier does not appear to have met with
sufficient encouragement to induce him to remain in Edinburgh, as he
soon after returned to London.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY.]
At the end of this month, the pest was brought into Scotland at Wester
Wemyss, a small port in Fife--‘where many departed.’--_Moy._
King James tells us in his _Basilicon Doron_, that ‘the pest always
smites the sickarest such as flies it furthest and apprehends deepliest
the peril thereof.’ See his own conduct on this occasion. About the end
of September, while he was hunting at Ruthven, ‘word came that there
were five or six houses in Perth affected with the plague, where his
majesty’s servants were for the time. Whereupon, his majesty _departed
the same night_, with a very small train to Tullibardine, and next
day to Stirling, leaving his whole household servants enclosed in the
place of Ruthven, with express command to them not to follow, nor
remove forth of the same, until they saw what became of them upon the
suspicion.’--_Moy. R._
[Sidenote: 1584.]
The pest on this occasion remained in Perth for several months, working
great destruction. It was ordained by the kirk-session, May 24, 1585,
that ‘hereafter during the time of the plague, no banquets should be
at marriages, and no persons should resort to bridals under pain of ten
pounds ... forty pounds to be paid by them that call more than four on
the side to the banquet, or bridal, during the pest.’
In the ensuing February, under an apprehension about the arrival of
the pestilence in their city, the town-council of Edinburgh adopted a
highly rational sanitary measure, ordering the ashes, dust, and dirt
of their streets to be put up to auction. We do not learn that any
one undertook to pay for the privilege of cleaning the streets of the
capital, and Maitland remarks in his history, that many years elapsed
before the movement was renewed, not to say carried into effect.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 2.]
‘... a baxter’s boy, called Robert Henderson--no doubt by the
instigation of Satan--desperately put some powder and a candle in his
father’s heather-stack, standing in a close opposite to the Tron of
Edinburgh [the public weighing-machine], and burnt the same, with his
father’s house, which lay next adjacent, to the imminent hazard of
burning the whole town. For which, being apprehended most marvellously,
after his escaping out of the town, he was on the next day burnt quick
at the Cross, as an example.’--_Moy. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1585.
APR. 7.]
John Lord Maxwell was at this time the most powerful man in the
south-west province of Scotland. He possessed Caerlaverock Castle
and many fair estates. The next man in the district was the chief of
the clan Johnston, usually called Johnston of that Ilk, or the Laird
of Johnston. The jealousy in which these great lords of the land
usually stood of each other chanced at this time to be inflamed into
hostilities, and Maxwell took such an attitude towards the profligate
government of the Earl of Arran, as to cause himself to be denounced as
a rebel. According to the common practice, the court gave a commission
to Johnston to proceed against Lord Maxwell, only helping him with two
companies of hired troops under the command of Captains Cranstoun and
Lammie.
[Sidenote: 1585.]
This proved an unfortunate movement for the house of Johnston. The
two hired bands were cut to pieces on Crawford Moor[130] by Robert
Maxwell, natural brother to the earl. The same bold man proceeded to
Johnston’s castle of Lochwood, and at the date noted set fire to it,
jestingly remarking that he would give Lady Johnston light ‘to set
her hood.’ Johnston himself sustained a defeat at the hands of the
Maxwells, was made prisoner by them, and died of a broken heart.
This was only the beginning of a protracted feud between the Maxwells
and Johnstons, which cost each family, as will be seen, the destruction
of two of its chiefs.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR. 30.
1585.]
John Livingstone of Belstane[131] complained to the Council of an
assault which had been made upon him on the 3d of the preceding
February by sundry persons, whose motive in so assailing him does not
appear. The affair is most characteristic--indeed, a type of numberless
other lawless proceedings of the time. John quietly leaves his house
before sunrise, meaning no harm to any one, and expecting none to
himself. He walks out, as he says, under God’s peace and the king’s,
when suddenly he is beset by about forty people who had him at feud,
‘all bodin in feir of weir;’ namely, armed with jacks, steel-bonnets,
spears, lance-staffs, bows, hagbuts, pistolets, and other invasive
weapons forbidden by the laws. At the head of them was William, Master
of Yester--a denounced rebel on account of his slaughter of the Laird
of Westerhall’s servant--Alexander Jardine, younger of Applegarth;
his servants, Stephen Jardine and Matthew Moffat in Woodend, James
Borthwick of Colela, John Lauder of Hartpool, Michael Hunter of
Polmood, John Hoppringle in Peebles, James Hoppringle of the same
place, William Brenarde [Burnett?] of the Barns, John Cockburn of Glen,
and Colin Langton of Earlshaugh, were among the company, evidently all
of them men of some figure and importance. Having come for the purpose
of attacking Livingstone, they no sooner saw him than they set upon
him, with discharge of their firearms, to deprive him of his life. He
narrowly escaped, and ran back to his house, which they immediately
environed in the most furious manner, firing in at the windows and
through every other aperture, for a space of three hours. A ‘bullon’
pierced his hat. As they departed, they met his wife and daughter, whom
they abused shamefully. In short, it seems altogether to have been an
affair of the most barbarous and violent kind. The offenders were all
denounced rebels.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAY 7.]
The pest, which had commenced in Perth in the previous September,
was believed to be now brought thence by a servant-woman to the
Fishmarket in Edinburgh (_Moy._), where it ‘was first knawn to be in
Simon Mercerbanks’s house.’ (_Bir._) From accident or otherwise, the
king acted on this occasion exactly as he had done at Perth, when the
plague first declared itself there. On the very day when the disease
appeared in Edinburgh, he left the city, and ‘rode to Dirleton[132]
to a sumptuous banquet prepared by the Earl of Arran.’ (_Cal._) The
pest continued in the capital till the subsequent January, sometimes
carrying off twenty-four people in a single night. ‘The haill people
whilk was able to flee, fled out of the town: nevertheless there died
of people which were not able to flee, fourteen hundred and some odd.’
(_Bir._) It was at St Andrews in August, ‘and continued till upwards
of four hundred people died, and the place was left almost desolate.’
(_Moy._) Dunse is cited as a place where this pestilence ‘raged
extremely.’ (_Mar._). In Perth, between 24th September 1584, and August
1585, when it ceased, it carried off fourteen hundred and twenty-seven
persons, young and old, or thereby. (_Chron. Perth._) This could not be
less than a sixth of the entire population.
June 23, 1585, on account of the pest being in Edinburgh, the business
of the cunyie-house was ordered to be transported to Dundee, and the
coining of gold, silver, and alloyed money to go on there as it had
hitherto done in Edinburgh. On the alloyed pennies, OPPIDUM DUNDEE
was to be substituted for OPPIDUM EDINBURGI. The Exchequer was also
removed to Falkland, and the Court of Session to Stirling. On the 21st
of October, the pest being now in Dundee, the coining was ordered to be
removed to Perth, and the name of that burgh to be substituted in the
circumscription.--_P. C. R._
[Sidenote: 1585.]
The severity of this pestilence excited the rage of the people against
the Earl of Arran and his lady, the then ruling power of the country,
to whose infamous life, and to the banishment of the Protestant
leaders, the evil was attributed. In the course of the summer, the
air being ‘perpetually nebulous,’ and the growing crop ‘universally
corrupted,’[133] the popular feeling was further excited in the same
direction, and the general cry was that the Lord would not stay his
hand till the banished lords were brought home again. These lords
actually did draw nearer to the Border, under the encouragement which
the plague thus afforded them (_Ja. Mel._), and by reason that the
citizens of Edinburgh were not now able to come forward and act, in
blind obedience to court-orders, as they were wont.
The revolution effected by the ultra Protestant party at Stirling
(November 2, 1585), was followed by a stoppage of the pestilence, ‘not
by degrees or piecemeal, but in a instant, as it were; so that never
any after that hour was known to have been infected, nor any of such
as were infected before, to have died. The lane, also, in Stirling by
which they [the banished lords] entered, was wholly infected; yet no
man [of their party] was known to have been tainted with it, or to have
received any hurt: nay, the men of Annandale did rob and ransack the
pest-lodges which were in the field about Stirling, and carried away
the clothes of the infected, but were never known to have been touched
therewith themselves, or any others that got or wore the clothes. They
also that were in the lodges, returned to their houses, and conversed
with their neighbours in the town, who received them without fear,
suspicion, or reproof, and no harm did ensue upon it. As for Edinburgh,
before the 1st of February, within three months it was so well peopled
and filled again with inhabitants, as none could perceive by the number
that any had died out of it.’ This change--‘nothing can be alleged to
have brought it to pass but the very finger of God. Let mankind advert
and admire it; and whosoever shall go about to bereave God of his glory
by laying it upon fortune, may his chance be such as his perverseness
deserveth!‘--_H. of G._
The assumed immunity of the Border thieves is extremely amusing. Being
here engaged in the right cause, it mattered not that they committed
the monstrous inhumanity of plundering the sick and cheating the heirs
of the dead.
[Sidenote: 1585.]
James Melville remarks the same connection of circumstances, but places
the improvement of the public health a month later. From the meeting
of the parliament in December, under the auspices of the king’s new
advisers, ‘the pest abated, and began to be strangely and remarkably
withdrawn by the merciful hand of God, sae that Edinburgh was
frequented again that winter; and at the entry of the spring, all the
towns, almost desolate before, repeopled--St Andrews among the rest.’
Melville relates a remarkable anecdote of this pestilence, under
November, when he had occasion to return from banishment at Berwick,
and to proceed through Edinburgh on his way to attend a General
Assembly at Linlithgow. ‘On the morn, we made haste, and, coming to
Losterrick [Restalrig], disjuned, and about eleven hours, came riding
in at the Water-gate, up through the Canongate, and rade in at the
Nether Bow, through the great street of Edinburgh, to the West Port,
_in all whilk way we saw not three persons_, sae that I miskenned
Edinburgh, and almost forgot that I had ever seen sic a town.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV. 2.]
‘The news of the taking of Stirling was at the court of England and in
London within aught and forty hours; for it being done on Tuesday in
the morning, on the Thursday thereafter Mr Bowes tauld us, and on the
Friday it was common in the mouths of all London.’--_Ja. Mel._
Under March 17, 1578, is another instance of extraordinary quickness
in the communication of intelligence from Stirling to Edinburgh. In
that case, we might suppose that the event only fulfilled a previous
design. Such could scarcely be the case here. Sir John G. Dalyell
remarks, that ‘rumours subsequently verified are undoubtedly sometimes
in circulation. The author recollects very well that the result of the
battle of Trafalgar, or of Corunna, was currently reported in the city
of Edinburgh, previous to any certain intelligence known to have been
received of the fact through what was esteemed the speediest channel:
nor, on subsequently computing the intervals, could satisfactory
conjectures be formed how it had arrived.’[134] It may be remembered
by many that, in the war in Afghanistan in 1842-3, the natives were
remarked often to be possessed of intelligence of events occurring
at a distance, long before any information had come to the British
through recognised channels. The author just quoted expresses his
opinion that, in such cases, there has merely been an anticipation on
probable grounds of an event which was subsequently ascertained to have
happened.
REIGN OF JAMES VI.: 1585-1590.
These years were chiefly marked by the struggles of the more zealous
clergy to replace the church upon a purely Presbyterian basis, and
to maintain their assumed independence of the civil power. The king
found his power encroached on, upon the one hand, by nobles richer,
and having a greater command of followers, than himself; on the other,
by divines who repudiated all subjection to civil authority in matters
ecclesiastical, and yet arrogated powers which greatly concerned the
secular rights and liberties of the people. While the reaction in
his youthful mind against these besetting troubles inspired him with
visionary ideas of the true rights of a monarch, the dissimulation
practised at his court by the astute emissaries of Elizabeth, the
restraints imposed on his liberty and natural sentiments by the more
zealous Protestant party while he was under their rule, and the tricks
he was tempted to have recourse to in order to recover his freedom,
and obtain some share of real power, gave him, before he was twenty,
such a tutoring in craft, as marked his character during the remainder
of life. A more manly and resolute person would have either broken
bravely through such a complication of troubles or perished in the
attempt. With the help of a good-natured pliancy, James floated on. He
was of a timid disposition, greatly disrelishing the sight of weapons,
and along with this temper he exhibited much good-nature. Trembling
at the outrageous dispositions of his nobles, and constitutionally
a lover of peace, he exerted himself to conciliate offenders, and
by persuasion to make them cease to break the laws, when a vigorous
procedure against them in courts of justice would have been required.
For the sake of his hopes of the English succession, if not from his
own convictions--which, however, are not to be doubted--he maintained
the Protestant cause. At the same time, seeing that the Catholics were
friends of monarchy, and might have something to say in the English
succession, he desired, if possible, to avoid offending them past
forgiveness. Even the ultra-zealous Presbyterian clergy, who came to
remonstrate with him, in his own palace, on his public acts or his
private foibles, he could treat with such pleasantry as often disarmed
them, when a more strenuous policy might have failed.
In February 1586-7, the unfortunate Mary was beheaded in Fotheringay
Castle, a victim to the necessities of the Protestant cause.
In 1588, when this cause was threatened with destruction by the Spanish
Armada, King James and his people manifested the greatest zeal in
preparing for the defence of their part of the island. They entered
into a Covenant or bond, in which they made solemn profession of the
Protestant faith, and avowed their resolution to oppose Popery by
every means in their power. After this danger had blown over, a new
alarm was excited by the discovery of a conspiracy amongst the three
leading Catholic nobles of Scotland, Huntly, Errol, and Crawford, to
aid in introducing a Spanish army, through Scotland, for the conquest
of the British island. These nobles having broken out in rebellion, in
concert with a Protestant noble of irregular character, Stuart, Earl of
Bothwell, the king led an army against them, and succeeded in reducing
them to obedience (April 1589). Huntly, Crawford, Errol, and Bothwell
were all convicted of treason; but the king shrank from inflicting a
punishment which was certain to damage his prospects with a large party
in England. They were liberated after only a few months’ imprisonment.
In the latter part of 1589, James effected his marriage with the
Princess Anne of Denmark. His young bride being detained in Norway
for the winter, in consequence of a storm, he sailed for that country
(October 22), and solemnised his nuptials at Upslo (now Christiania).
In May 1590, the royal pair arrived amidst great rejoicings at Leith.
The first year of the king’s married life was strangely disturbed by a
series of trials for the imaginary crime of witchcraft, in which the
character of the age is strongly marked.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1586.
APR. 18.]
The Earl of Eglintoun, ‘a young nobleman of a fair and large stature’
(_Moy._), was murdered by Cunningham of Robertland.
Montgomery and Cunningham were the Montague and Capulet of Ayrshire
in the sixteenth century. The feud had sprung up nearly a hundred
years before the above date, in consequence of the Earl of Glencairn
disputing the title of the Earl of Eglintoun to the bailiery of the
district of Cunningham. There had been attempts at a stanching of
the feud, and even a marriage had been proposed by way of fixing the
parties in amity; but at a time when peace had nearly been effected,
enmity was renewed in consequence of a Montgomery killing a Cunningham
in self-defence.
[Sidenote: 1586.]
‘The Cunninghams, being grieved hereat, made presently a vow that they
should be avenged upon the fattest of the Montgomeries (for these
were their words) for that fact. This vow was sae acceptable to them
all, that a band was concludit, subscrivit with the chiefest of their
hands, to slay the young Earl [of Eglintoun] by whatsoever mean could
be devisit, and that whasoever wald take the turn in hand, and perform
it, he sould not only be sustenit upon the common expenses of the rest,
but sould also be maintenit and defendit by them all from danger and
skaith. At last ane Cunningham of Robertland took the enterprise in
hand, whilk he accomplished in this manner:
‘Twa year before his treasonable attempt, he insinuate himself in
familiarity and all dutiful service to the said young earl, whereby he
movit him to take pleasure without ony suspicion, till he conqueist
[acquired] sic favour at his hand, that neither the gold, money,
horses, armour, clothes, counsel, or voyage was hid from him, that this
same Robertland was made sae participant of them all, even as though
they had been his awn; and besides all this, the confidence and favour
that the earl shew unto him was sae great, that he preferrit him to
be his awn bedfellow. Hereat Lord Hugo, auld Earl of Eglintoun, took
great suspicion, and therefore admonist his son in a fatherly manner
to beware of sic society, whilk, without all doubt, wald turn to his
skaith; for he knew weel the nature of these Cunninghams to be subtle
and false, and therefore willit him to give them nae traist, but to
avoid their company altogether, even as he lovit his awn life or wald
deserve his fatherly blessing. To this counsel the son gave little
regard; but that was to his pains; and the domestic enemy was sae
crafty indeed, that he wald attempt naething during the life of the
father for many respects. But within short time thereafter [the father
died June 1585], as the noble earl was passing a short way in pastime,
accompanied with a very few of his household servants, and evil horsit
himself, Robertland, accompanied with sixty armed men, came running
furiously against him on horseback; and the earl, fearing the thing
that followit, spurrit his horse to have fled away. His servants all
fled another way, and he was left alone. The horsemen ran all upon him,
and unmercifully killed him with shots of guns and strokes of swords.
[Sidenote: 1586.]
‘The complaint of this odious murder being made to the king, he causit
the malefactors to be chargit to a trial. But they all fled beyond
sea. Robertland, wha was the first to make the invasion, passed to
Denmark, where he remainit at court till the king came to Queen Anne.
And because nane of the rest could be apprehendit, the king ordainit
their houses to be renderit to the earl’s brother, to be usit at his
arbitrament, either to be demolishit or otherwise; and he swore the
great aith, that he sould never pardon any of them that had committit
that odious murder. Yet, how soon his majesty was arrivit in Denmark,
his pardon was demandit of the queen for the first petition, and the
same was obtenit, and he was receivit in grace there in presence of
them all. Thereafter he came hame in the queen’s company, and remains
as ane of her majesty’s master stablers.’--_H. K. J._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAY.]
The persecution of the Protestants in France at this time drove a vast
number to England, where great sacrifices were made for their due
entertainment. Scotland, with comparatively limited means, but perhaps
warmer feeling, also made collections of money for the distressed
people. According to James Melville, ‘all the Protestants in France
were chargit off France within sic a day, under pain of life, lands,
gudes, and gear; sae that the number of banished in England were sae
great, and the poor of them sae many, that they were compelled to seek
relief of us for the same ... in the poor bounds I had under charge at
the first beginning of my ministry, we gathered about five hunder merks
for that effect.... The sum of the haill collection whilk the French
kirks gat, extended but till about ten thousand merks.’ A considerable
number of the exiles, including Pierre du Moulin, the minister of
Paris, came to Edinburgh, where the magistrates gave them the common
hall of the university for their worship, along with a stated allowance
of money for support of their clergy. It cannot be doubted that the
sight of these poor French exiles would deepen the feeling of dread and
antipathy towards popery and papists, which was already strongly rooted
in Scotland.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAY 26.]
A singular collusive trial took place this day, for the purpose of
clearing Mr Archibald Douglas, parson of Glasgow, of his concern in
the murder of Darnley. He had been in exile or in hiding ever since,
except during the regency of Morton, whose cousin he was. But now it
was thought he might prove useful in advancing the king’s prospects in
England; so, with the most barefaced contempt for the very forms of
justice, he was tried by a packed jury, and acquitted.
[Sidenote: 1586.]
It is difficult to say to what extent the king was personally concerned
in absolving one of his father’s murderers. Perhaps he was not
over-squeamish about murders of old date. On this point an anecdote may
be quoted, though it stands somewhat under question on the score of
authority. ‘When Bothwell-haugh returned from France, whither he had
fled upon the murder of the Regent, it is reported that he fell down
at the king’s feet, told who he was, and implored pardon. On which the
king said, raising him up: “Pardon you, man; pardon you, man! Blest
be he that got you! for had you not shot that fellow, I had never been
king.”’[135]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 3.]
Sundry persons of the name of Burne, dwelling in the middle march of
Scotland, had appointed a day of combat with several persons residing
in the opposite country within England, ‘upon some light purpose
unknown to his majesty, and without licence cravit of his majesty or
of his dearest sister [Elizabeth] or of her officers, as aucht to be
in sic case.’ It was much to be feared that amongst the many persons
assembled, a very small accident might be sufficient to rekindle old
feuds, and that thus serious evils would arise. The Council, therefore,
forbade all assembling at the place and day appointed, under pain of
treason.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY.]
While the southern and more populous parts of Scotland were, as we see,
sufficiently barbarous, the Highland districts were as the comparative,
and the Hebrides as the superlative degree in the same quality. The
king, in the first edition of his _Basilicon Doron_, tells his son
to think no more of the Islanders than as ‘wolves and wild boars.’
Probably, when the reader has perused the following narrative, he will
think the epithet not unjustly applied, although his majesty afterwards
dropped it in reprinting his book. The tale is of a commotion betwixt
Angus M‘Connel, Lord of Kintyre, and Maclean, Lord of Islay. ‘This
Angus had to his wife the sister of Maclean, and although they were
brether-in-law, yet the ane was always in sic suspicion with the other,
that of either side there was sae little traist, that almaist sendle
[seldom] or never did they meet in amity, like unto the common sort
of people, but rather as barbares upon their awn guard, or by their
messengers. True it is that thir Islandish men are of nature very
proud, suspicious, avaritious, full of deceit and evil intention [each]
against his neighbour, by what way so ever he may circumvent him.
Besides all this, they are sae cruel in taking of revenge, that neither
have they regard to person, age, time, or cause; sae are they generally
all sae far addicted to their awn tyrannical opinions, that in all
respects they exceed in cruelty the maist barbarous people that ever
has been sin’ the beginning of the warld; ane example whereof ye sall
hear in this history following:
[Sidenote: 1586.]
‘Angus M‘Connel, understanding, by divers reports, the gude behaviour
of Maclean to be sae famous, that almaist he was recommended and
praised by the haill neutral people of these parts above himself; whilk
engendered sic rancour in his heart that he pretermitted nae invention
how he might destroy the said Maclean. At last he devised to draw on
a familiarity amang them, and inveited himself to be banqueted by
Maclean; and that the rather, that Maclean should be the readier to
come over to his isle with him the mair gladly, either being required,
or upon set purpose, as best should please him. And when Angus had sent
advertisement to Maclean, that he was to come and make gude cheer, and
to be merry with him certain days, Maclean was very glad thereof, and
answered to the messenger: “My brother shall be welcome,” said he,
“come when he list.” The messenger answered, it wald be to-morrow. So
when Angus arrived in effect, he was richt cheerfully welcomed by his
brother-in-law, wha remained there by the space of five or sax days.
And when it was perceived that Maclean’s provision was almaist spent,
Angus thought it then time to remove. Indeed, the custom of that people
is sae given to gluttony and drinking without all measure, that as
ane is inveited to another, they never sinder sae lang as the vivers
do last. In end, Angus says: “Because I have made the first obedience
unto you, it will please you come over to my isle, that ye may receive
as gude treatment with me as I have done with you.” Maclean answered
that he durst not adventure to come to him for mistrust; and Angus
said: “God forbid that ever I should intend or pretend any evil against
you; but yet, to remove all doubt and suspicion frae your mind, I will
give you twa pledges, whilk shall be sent unto you with diligence; to
wit, my eldest son and my awn only brother-german: these twa may be
keepit here by your friends till ye come safely back again.” Maclean,
hearing this offer, whilk appeared unto him void of all suspicion, and
so decreeted to pass with him to Kintyre; and further to testify that
baith he simply believed all to be true, and that upon hope of gude
friendship to continue, he thought expedient to retein ae only pledge,
and that was Angus’s brother, and wald carry with him his awn nevoy,
the son of Angus. Whether he did this to save himself frae suspicion
of danger, as apparently of the event he did it, or gif he brought him
back again upon liberal favour, I will not dispute; because I have
tauld you afore the perfect nature and qualities of these islands
people; yet, because Maclean’s education was civil, and brought up in
the gude lawis and manners of Scotland from his youth, it may be that
he has had double consideration, ane by kind, and another by art of
honest dissimulation.
[Sidenote: 1586.]
‘To conclude, to Kintyre he came, accompanied with forty-five men of
his kinsfolk and stout servants, in the month of July 1586; where,
at the first arrival, they were made welcome with all humanity, and
were sumptuously banqueted all that day. But Angus in that meantime
had premonished all his friends and weel-willers within his isle of
Kintyre to be at his house that same night at nine of the clock, and
neither to come sooner nor later; for he had concluded with himself
to kill them all the very first night of their arrival, fearing that
gif he should delay any langer time, it might be that either he sould
alter his malicious intention, or else that Maclean wald send for
some greater forces of men for his awn defence. Thus he concealed his
intent still, till baith he fand the time commodious and the very place
proper; and Maclean being lodged with all his men within a lang house,
that was something distant frae other housing, took to bed with him
that night his nevoy, the pledge afore-spoken. But within ane hour
thereafter, when Angus had assembled his men to the number of twa
hundred, he placed them all in order about the house where Maclean then
lay. Thereafter he came himself and called at the door upon Maclean,
offering to him his reposing drink, whilk was forgotten to be given
to him before he went to bed. Maclean answered, that he desired nae
drink for that time. “Although so be,” said the other, “it is my will
that thou arise and come forth to receive it.” Then began Maclean to
suspect the falset, and so arase with his nevoy betwixt his shoulders,
thinking that gif present killing was intended against him, he should
save himself sae lang as he could by the boy; and the boy, perceiving
his father with a naked sword, and a number of his men in like manner
about, cried with a loud voice, mercy to his uncle for God’s sake;
whilk was granted, and immediately Maclean was removed to a secret
chalmer till the morrow. Then cried Angus to the remanent that were
within; sae mony as wald have their lives to be safe, they should come
forth, twa only excepted, whilk he nominate; sae that obedience was
made by all the rest, and these twa only, fearing the danger, refused
to come forth. Angus, seeing that, commanded incontinent to put fire to
the house, whilk was immediately performed; and thus were the twa men
cruelly and unmercifully burnt to the death. These twa were very near
kinsmen to Maclean, and of the eldest of his clan, renowned baith for
counsel and manheid. The rest that were prisoners of the haill number
afore-tauld, were ilk ane beheaded the days following, ane for ilk
day, till the haill number was ended; yea, and that in Maclean’s awn
sight, being constrained thereunto, with a dolorous advertisement to
prepare himself for the like tragical end howsoon they should all be
killed. And when the day came that Maclean should have been brought
forth, miserably to have made his tragical end, like unto the rest, it
pleased Angus to lowp upon his horse, and to come forth for joy and
contentment of mind, even to see and behald the tyrannical fact with
his awn eyes. But it pleased God, wha mercifully deals with all men,
and disappoints the decrees of the wicked, to disappoint his intent
for that day also, for he was not sae soon on horseback, but the horse
stumbled, and Angus fell off him, and brake his leg, and so was carried
hame.’--_H. K. J._
The personages of this well-told tale were properly designated Angus
Macdonald of Islay, and Lachlan Maclean of Dowart; the latter is
described by Mr Tytler as ‘an island Amadis of colossal strength and
stature,’ ‘by no means illiterate,’ ‘and possessing, by the vigour of
his natural talents, a commanding influence over the rude and fierce
islesmen.’ Angus of Islay was step-son to the Irish Earl of Tyrone, and
much mixed up with the troubled politics of the north of Ireland in
that age. There was an old feud regarding land between Angus and his
brother-in-law Maclean. In 1585, it received fresh excitement from an
outrage on the laws of hospitality committed by Maclean’s people upon
the retinue of Donald Mor of Sleat, when that chief chanced to take
shelter from a storm in the isle of Jura. Angus of Islay, having gone
to visit Maclean soon after, was seized and imprisoned along with his
followers; and he was not liberated till he had agreed to renounce the
disputed lands. Such, in reality, was the nature of the visit which the
annalist has described as prompted by deceit on the part of Angus. With
one of the two hostages exacted from Angus on this occasion, Maclean
soon after went to Islay to see after the recovered lands; with strange
simplicity, he complied with an invitation of Angus to visit him at
his house of Mullintrea, though not till he had received repeated
protestations that no harm was intended to him. Here it was that the
barbarous circumstances related by our annalist took place.[136]
[Sidenote: 1586.]
By the intervention of a royal message, and the interference of the
acting head of the clan Campbell, Angus rendered up Maclean, ‘on
receiving a promise of pardon for his crimes, and on eight hostages
of rank being placed in his hands by Maclean, for the performance
of certain conditions which the latter was forced to subscribe. To
complete this singular picture of barbarism, Lachlan was no sooner
free, than he ravaged Islay with fire and sword; in requital of
which, Angus ravaged the isles of Mull and Tiree, killing every human
inhabitant and every beast that fell into his hands.
The various clans siding with their respective friends in this contest,
it became the cause of a general war throughout the islands and West
Highlands, which lasted some time, notwithstanding every effort of the
government to put it down.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1586.
OCT. 8.]
The Master of Yester, whom we have just seen as a peace-breaker, comes
once more before the Council as a turbulent and wicked person. Sir John
Stewart of Traquair, and his brother James Stewart of Shillinglaw,
lieutenant of his majesty’s guard, appear as complainers, setting
forth, in the first place, how it is well known of Sir John Stewart,
that ‘having his dwelling-place on the south side of Tweed, in a
room[137] subject to the invasions and thieves of the broken men of the
Borders, and lying betwixt them and sundry his majesty’s true lieges,
whom commonly they herry and oppress, how at all times himself, his
brother, his friends and neighbours assisting him, dwelling betwixt
the burgh of Peebles and Gaithopeburn, resistit the stouthreif and
oppressions of the said thieves and broken men, to the comfort and
relief of mony true men, in whilk course they intend, God willing,
to continue to their lives end.’ Of late, however, so proceeds the
complaint, ‘they have been, and is greatumly hindered therein, by
reason that William, Master of Yester, by the causing, direction, at
least owersicht and tolerance, of William Lord Hay of Yester, his
father, sheriff of Peebles and provost of the burgh of Peebles (wha,
by the laws of this realm ... aucht to mak his said son answerable,’
but had ‘placit him in the principal house and strength of Neidpath,’
though he has been a denounced rebel for nearly the space of a year
‘for his inobedience to underlie the laws,’ till within the last few
days that he obtained relaxation) ... had in the meantime ‘not only
usurpit and taken upon him the charge of the sheriffship of Peebles,
and provostry of the burgh thereof, but ane absolute command to
proclaim and hald wappinshawings at times nawise appointit by his
hieness’ direction, to banish and give up kindness to all persons in
burgh or land where he pleases, to tak up men’s gear under pretence
of unlaws fra wappinshawings or other unnecessar causes, never being
lawfully callit nor convenit; ... and forder, it is weel knawn to
sundry of the lords of Secret Council, that the said Master socht the
life of the said James Stewart, and dayly shores and boasts[138] to
slay him, and all others of his kin, friends, allies, assisters, and
partakers.’ On the petition of the complainers, the Council heard
parties, the peccant Master appearing for himself, and in excuse for
his father, who was sick and unable to travel. And the end of the
matter was, that the case was remitted to the judgment of the Court of
Session, to be decided by them as they might think proper. Meanwhile,
the Master was enjoined to cease molesting the Stewarts and their
friends and dependents between this and the 8th of January next.--_P.
C. R._
On the 29th April 1587, it is stated that the king had dealt between
these hostile parties, and arranged _letters of affirmance_ between
them, in order to secure peace for the future; but the Master of
Yester had refused to subscribe. For this he is threatened with being
denounced rebel, or, as the ordinary phrase was, being put to the
horn.[139] On the 12th May, the king ordered him to enter in ward north
of the Tay, and there remain till liberated; and a few weeks later, on
this order not being complied with, the Master was denounced rebel, and
all forbidden to assist or receive him.--_P. C. R._
In a memoir of the Hays of Tweeddale, composed by a member of the
family a century later, the character and objects of the parties in
this dispute are precisely reversed. The Master of Yester--whose
nickname, it seems, was _Wood-sword_--is described as a great upholder
of the laws against thieves, while the Stewarts of Traquair were the
reverse. The passage is worth transcribing, as an example of the
favourable views of which a man’s actions are always more or less
susceptible in the eyes of friends, especially after the lapse of a few
years.
[Sidenote: 1586.]
‘In his time, the Borders being much infested with broken men and
thieving, this lord, who always rode accompanied with twenty-four
horsemen and as many footmen armed, did take and hanged a great [many]
of them. He was at feud with the house of Traquair for seconding the
thieves, in pursuit of whom he received a wound in the face. King James
the Sixth being desirous to have this feud taken away, as all others of
the country, and he refusing, was committed to the Castle of Edinburgh,
out of which he made his escape, and immediately made ane new inroad
against the thieves, of whom he killed a great many, in a place called
from thence the _Bloody Haugh_, near Riskin-hope, in Rodonna; whereupon
King James was pleased to make a hunting journey, and came to the house
of Neidpath, whither the king called Traquair, with his two sons, who
made to Lord Yester acknowledgment for the wrong they had done him,
and then peace was made by the king.[140] This was witnessed by one
William Geddes, who was my lord’s butler, and lived till the year
1632.’--_Genealogy of the Hays of Tweeddale, by Father R. A. Hay._
[Sidenote: 1586-7.
FEB.]
A few days before the death of Queen Mary in Fotheringay Castle, the
king, her son, ‘to manifest his natural affection towards his dearest
mother, whose preservation he always earnestly wished, required the
ministers to pray for her, at all preachings and common prayers, after
the following form: “The Lord illuminate and enlighten her spirit, that
she may attain to the knowledge of his truth, for the safety of soul
and body, and preserve her from the present peril.”
‘Some of the ministry agreed to that form of prayer, thinking it
very lawful, since it was his majesty’s pleasure; but some of them,
especially the ministers of Edinburgh, refused to pray but as they were
moved by the spirit.’
[Sidenote: 1586-7.]
‘On the 3d of February [five days before Mary’s execution], the king
appointed Patrick, Archbishop of St Andrews, a man evil thought of
by the ministry and others, to preach in the kirk of Edinburgh, and
resolved to attend the preaching himself.[141] When the day came, Mr
John Coupar, one of the ministers of Edinburgh, accompanied with the
rest of the brethren, came in and prevented the bishop, by taking
place in the pulpit before his coming into the kirk; and as the said
John was beginning the prayer, the king’s majesty commanded him to
stop: whereupon he gave a knock on the pulpit, using an exclamation in
these terms: “This day shall bear witness against you in the day of the
Lord. Wo be to thee, O Edinburgh! for the last of thy plagues shall
be worse than the first!” After having uttered these words, he passed
down from the pulpit, and, together with the whole wives in the kirk,
removed out of the same.’--_Moy. R._
Another account says: ‘The Bishop of St Andrews went up, and, after
the English form, began to beck in a low courtesy to the king; whereas
the custom of this kirk was first to salute God, to do God’s work,
and then, after sermon and divine worship, to give reverence and make
courtesy particularly to the king. But soon after the bishop was
entered into the pulpit, all the people in the kirk gave a shout and
loud cry, so as nothing could be heard, and almost all ran out of the
kirk, especially the women.... This carriage of the people made the
king rise up and cry: “What devil ails the people, that they may not
tarry to hear a man preach!”‘--_Row._
The archbishop ‘preached a sermon concerning prayer for princes,
whereby he convinced the whole people who remained in the kirk, that
the desire of the king’s majesty to pray for his mother was most
honourable and reasonable.’--_Moy. R._
It gives a striking idea of the difficulty attending the transmission
of intelligence in those days--in connection, it must be owned, in this
instance, with the deceitful and stealthy conduct of Elizabeth--that
Mary had been upwards of a fortnight dead before her son King James
was fully apprised of the fact in Edinburgh. On the 15th, he received
a message from Kerr of Cessford, the warden of the Borders, informing
him that the English warden had just communicated to him this sad
intelligence. Not believing it on this authority, the king went to hunt
at Calder, but at the same time sent his secretary to Berwick to make
inquiry. This gentleman returned on the 23d, with certain information
of Mary’s death. ‘This put his majesty into a very great displeasure
and grief, so that he went to bed that night without supper; and
on the morrow, by seven o’clock, went to Dalkeith, there to remain
solitary.’--_Moy. R._
[Sidenote: 1586-7.]
‘Certain it is that King James, her only son, was not a little moved to
hear such unparalleled and uncouth news, who loved his dearest mother
with the greatest piety that could be seen in a son.
[He] took exceeding grief to heart, not without deep displeasure for
the same; and much lamented and mourned for her many days.’--_Pa. And._
Many years after, when he had mounted the English throne, King James
told Sir James Harrington, that his mother’s death had been foreseen in
Scotland, ‘being, as he said, “spoken of in secret by those whose power
of [second] sight presented to them a bloody head dancing in the air.”
He did remark much on this gift, and said he had sought out of certain
books a sure way to attain knowledge of future chances.’[142]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1586-7.]
Attention was strongly fixed at this time on the confidence
manifested by such as were of the Catholic religion, chiefly gentry,
in entertaining Jesuits and seminary priests, who performed mass in
their houses, and even took possession of some of the ruinous parish
churches, doing what in them lay to seduce the people back to the old
faith. We are told, for instance, that Lord Maxwell openly caused mass
to be sung in the abbey-church of Lincluden, near Dumfries, on three
successive days at Christmas 1586. Pasch and Yule began again to be
kept by the common sort of people, and saints’ wells were much resorted
to for the cure of diseases. The General Assembly declared it to be
‘ane exceeding great grief to all such as have any spunk of the love
of God and his kirk,’ to see the land thus polluted with ‘idolatry’
and ‘pusionable doctrine.’ They considered the evil as chiefly owing
to the laxity of the state in the repression of papistry, and the
positive encouragement which it rendered in some instances to papists.
At the same time, the reformed religion was in miserable condition,
many of the parish kirks being ruinous and destitute of pastors, while
the pastors that did anywhere exist were defrauded of their revenues,
starved, and sometimes greatly abused in their very persons by the
papist gentle-folks. A great defection was seriously apprehended as
now imminent, unless some change should take place in the king’s
counsels and conduct. He was pathetically exhorted to execute the laws
against both the priests and their entertainers. It was demanded, in
particular, that all papist noblemen should be ‘presently exiled the
country,’ while certain of the priests should be sent away by the first
ships, with certification that on their daring to return they should
be hanged without further process.
According to the same General Assembly, the moral condition of the
country was awful, ‘ugly heaps of all kinds of sin lying in every nook
and part’ of it--no spot but what was overwhelmed as by ‘a spate’
[inundation], ‘with abusing of the blessed name of God, with swearing,
perjury, and lies, with profaning of the Sabbath-day with mercats,
gluttony, drunkenness, fighting, playing, dancing, &c., with rebelling
against magistrates and the laws of the country, with blood touching
blood, with incest, fornication, adulteries, and sacrilege, theft and
oppression, with false witness[ing], and finally with all kinds of
impiety and wrong.’ The poor at the same time ‘vaiging [wandering] in
great troops and companies through the country, without either law or
religion.’--_B. U. K._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1587.
MAY.]
The French poet, Guillaume Sallust, Sieur du Bartas, paid a visit to
Scotland. For any eminent literary man of either England or France to
travel north of the Tweed, was as yet a rarity and a marvel. The king,
however, had contracted an admiration of Du Bartas, and translated some
of his poetry; and now a royal invitation had brought him to Holyrood.
It would be curious to learn what were the sentiments of the polite
Frenchman on coming in contact with James’s circle at the palace, or
seeing the rude state of the people generally throughout the country.
[Sidenote: 1587.]
We learn that ‘he was received according to his worthiness, entertained
honourably, and liberally propined’--that is, favoured with presents.
At the end of June, the king made an excursion to St Andrews, taking
the French poet along with him, that he might see the principal seat
of learning in Scotland. We have some curious particulars of the
visit from the Dutch pencil of James Melville. St Mary’s College, the
principal theological seminary of the country, was now presided over
by the faithful Presbyterian Andrew Melville, the man of most marked
talent and energy in the Scotch church after the days of Knox. In the
Castle lived, in much reduced state, the nominal archbishop, Patrick
Adamson, a man of fine literary talents, but weak in character, and,
upon the whole, not a credit to Scottish Episcopacy. James admired and
patronised Adamson; but he had a trembling faith in the powerful wit
and inflexible courage and integrity of Melville. The king, ‘coming
first without any warning to the new college [St Mary’s], he calls for
Mr Andrew, saying he was come with that gentleman to have a lesson.
Mr Andrew answers, “that he had teached his ordinar that day in the
forenoon.” “That is all ane,” says the king; “I maun have a lesson,
and be here within an hour for that effect.” And indeed, within less
than an hour, his majesty was in the school, and the haill university
convenit with him, before whom Mr Andrew extempore entreated maist
clearly and mightily of the right government of Christ, and in effect
refuted the haill acts of parliament made against the discipline
thereof, to the great instruction and comfort of his auditory, except
the king alane, wha was very angry all that night.’
[Sidenote: 1587.]
On the morrow, ‘the bishop had baith a prepared lesson and feast made
for the king. His lesson was a tighted-up abridgment of all he had
teached the year bypast--namely, anent the corrupt grounds whilk he
had put in the king’s head contrary to the true discipline. To the
whilk lesson Mr Andrew went contrair to his custom, and with his awn
pen marked all his false grounds and reasons; and without further
[preparation] causit ring his bell at twa afternoon the same day,
whereof the king hearing, he sent to Mr Andrew, desiring him to be
moderate and have regard to his presence, otherwise he wald discharge
him. He answerit courageously, that his majesty’s ear and tender breast
was piteously and dangerously filled with errors and untruths by that
wicked man, the whilk he could not suffer to pass, and brook a life
[and yet remain alive]; otherwise, except the stopping of the breath
of God’s mouth and prejudging of his truth, he should behave himself
maist moderately and reverently to his majesty in all respects. The
king sent again to him and me, desiring it should be sae, and shawing
that he wald have his four hours [a light meal at four o’clock] in the
college, and drink with Mr Andrew. Sae, coming to that lesson with the
bishop, wha requested the king for leave to make answer instantly in
case anything were spoken against his doctrine. But there Mr Andrew,
making him [affecting] as though he had naething to do but with the
papist, brings out their warks, and reads out of them all the bishop’s
grounds and reasons. The whilk, when he had at length and maist clearly
shawn to be plain papistry, then he sets against the same with all his
mean [power], and with immutable force of reasoning, from clear grounds
of Scripture, with a mighty parrhesie and flood of eloquence, he dings
them sae down, that the bishop was dashed and strucken as dumb as the
stock he sat upon. After the lesson, the king, in his mother-tongue,
made some distingoes, and discoursit a while thereon, and gave certain
injunctions to the university for reverencing and obeying of his
bishop; wha fra that day furth began to tire of his teaching, and to
fall mair and mair in disgrace and confusion. The king, with Monsieur
du Bartas, came to the college-hall, where I causit prepare and have in
readiness a banquet of wet and dry confections, with all sorts of wine,
whereat his majesty campit very merrily a gude while, and thereafter
went to his horse. But Monsieur du Bartas tarried behind, and conferrit
with my uncle and me a whole hour, and syne followed after the king;
wha inquiring of him that night, as ane tauld me, “What was his
judgment of the twa he had heard in St Andrews?” he answerit the
king, “that they were baith learned men, but the bishop’s were cunned
[conned] and prepared matters, and Mr Andrew had a great ready store of
all kind of learning within him; and, by [besides] that, Mr Andrew’s
spreit and courage was far above the other.” The whilk judgment the
king approved.’
The Sieur du Bartas was ‘dismissed in the harvest, to his majesty’s
great praise, sae lang as the French tongue is used and understood in
the world.’--_Ja. Mel._
* * * * *
The small merchant-craft of Scotland was much troubled with pirates,
chiefly of the English nation. James Melville gives a lively account
of an affair with an English piratical vessel, which took place in
connection with the Fife port where he served as pastor.
[Sidenote: 1587.]
‘At my first coming to Anstruther there fell out a heavy accident,
whilk vexit my mind mickle at first, but drew me mickle nearer my
God, and teached me what it was to have a care of a flock. Ane of our
crears,[143] returning from England, was beset by an English pirate,
pill[ag]ed, and a very guid honest man of Anstruther slain therein. The
whilk loon[144] coming pertly to the very road of Pittenweem, spulyied
a ship lying therein, and misused the men thereof. This wrang could
not be suffered by our men, lest they should be made a common prey to
sic limmers.[145] Therefore, purchasing a commission, they riggit out
a proper fly-boat, and every man encouraging another, made almaist the
haill honest and best men in all the town to go in her to the sea. This
was a great vexation and grief to my heart, to see at my first entry
the best part of my flock ventured upon a pack of pirates, whereof the
smallest member of the meanest was mair in valour[146] than a shipful
of them. And yet I durst not stay some [un]less nor I stayed all, and
all I durst not, baith for the dangerous preparative, and the friends
of the honest man wha was slain, and of them that were abusit, wha were
many, in sic sort as the matter concerned the haill. But my God knaws
what a sair heart they left behind when they parted out of my sight, or
rather what a heart they carried with them, leaving a bouk[147] behind.
I neither ate, drank, nor sleepit, but by constraint of nature, my
thought and care always being upon them, and commending them to God,
till aucht or ten days were endit, and they in sight returning, with
all guid tokens of joy, flags, streamers, and ensignie displayed, whom
with great joy we receivit, and went together to the kirk, and praised
God.
[Sidenote: 1587.]
‘The captain, for the time, a godly, wise, and stout man, recounted to
me truly their haill proceeding. That they, meeting with their admiral,
a great ship of St Andrews, weel riggit out by the burghs, being
fine of sail, went before her all the way, and made every ship they
forgathered with, of whatsomever nation, to strike and do homage to the
king of Scotland, shawing them for what cause they were riggit forth,
and inquiring of knaves and pirates. At last, they meet with a proud
stiff Englishman, wha refuses to do reverence; therefore the captain,
thinking it was a loon, commands to give them his _nose-piece_,[148]
the whilk delashit[149] lights on the tie of the Englishman’s mainsail,
and down it comes; then he yields, being but a merchant. But there
was the merciful providence of God, in staying a great piece of the
Englishman, lying out her stern in readiness to be shot, whilk, if
it had lighted amang our folks, being many in little room, without
fence, wald have cruelly demeaned them all. But God, directing that
first shot, preserved them. From them they approached to the shore at
Suffolk, and finds by Providence the loon [rogue], wha had newlins
taken a crear of our awn town, and was spulying her. Howsoon they
spy ane coming warlike, the loons leave their prize, and run their
ship on land, our fly-boat after, and almaist was on land with them;
yet, staying hard by, they delash their ordnance at the loons, and a
number going a-land, pursues and takes a half-dozen of them, and puts
them aboard in their boat. The gentlemen of the country and towns
beside, hearing the noise of shooting, gathers with haste, supposing
the Spanyard had landed, and apprehending a number of the loons in our
men’s hands, desirit to knaw the matter. The whilk when the justices of
peace understood, and saw the king of Scotland’s arms, with twa gallant
ships in warlike manner, yielded and gave reverence thereto, suffering
our folks to take with them their prisoners and pirate’s ship, whilk
they brought with them, with half-a-dozen of the loons; whereof twa
were hangit on our pier-end, the rest in St Andrews; with nae hurt
at all to any of our folks, wha ever since syne have been free from
English pirates. All praise to God for ever. Amen.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1587.
MAY 15.]
King James at this time attempted what Dr Robertson, with somewhat
too much complaisance, calls a work worthy of a king. Many of his
nobility were at feud with each other on account of past grievances.
For example, Glammis bore deadly hatred against the Earl of Crawford,
in consequence of the killing of his father by some of Crawford’s
people at Stirling in 1578. With the Earl of Angus, whose piety and
love of the clergy induced James to call him _the Ministers’ King_,
it was sufficient ground of hostility against the Earl of Montrose
that he had sat as chancellor on the jury which adjudged Morton to the
Maiden. The Earls of Huntly and Marischal had some mutual grudge of
their own, perhaps little intelligible to southern men. So it was with
others. The nobility being now assembled at a convention, James, who
never could check outrages amongst them by the sword of justice, did
what a good-natured weak man could to induce them to be reconciled to
each other, and call it peace when there was no peace. Assembling them
all at a banquet in Holyrood on a Sunday, he drank to them thrice, and
solemnly called on them to maintain concord, threatening to be an enemy
to him who should first disobey the injunction. Next day, after supper,
then an early meal, and after ‘many scolls’ had been drunk to each
other, he made them all march in procession ‘in their doublets’ up the
Canongate, two and two, holding by each other’s hands, and each pair
being a couple of reconciled enemies. He himself went in front, with
Lord Hamilton on his right hand, and the Lord Chancellor Maitland on
the left; next after, the Duke of Lennox and Lord Claud Hamilton; then
Angus and Montrose, Huntly and Marischal, Crawford and the Master of
Glammis. Coming to the Tolbooth, his majesty ordered all the prisoners
for debt to be released. Thence he advanced to the picturesque old
market-cross, covered with tapestry for the occasion, and where the
magistrates had set out a long table well furnished with bread, wine,
and sweetmeats. Amidst the blare of trumpets and the boom of cannon,
the young monarch publicly drank to his nobles, wishing them peace and
happiness, and made them all drink to each other. The people, long
accustomed to sights of bloody contention, looked on with unspeakable
joy, danced, broke into songs of mirth, and brought out all imaginable
musical instruments to give additional, albeit discordant expression,
to their happiness. All acknowledged that no such sight had ever
been seen in Edinburgh. In the general transport, the gloomy gibbet,
usually kept standing there in readiness, was cast down, as if it could
never again be needed. Sweetmeats, and glasses from which toasts had
been drunk, flew about both from the table of the feast and from the
responsive parties on the _fore-stairs_. When all was done, the king
and nobles returned in the same form as they had come.--_Moy._ _Bir._
_Cal._ _H. K. J._
Healing measures like these were not nearly so good as they seemed. In
less than two months, we find six or seven of the nobles quarrelling
about priority of voting, and Lord Home passing a challenge to Lord
Fleming--‘wha were not sufferit to fecht, albeit they were baith weel
willing.’
King James had a sincere antipathy to deadly feuds and quarrels,
because he loved peace and good-humour; but timidity, want of
strong will, and partly, perhaps, his very _bonhomie_, prevented
him from taking those severe measures with offenders which alone
could effectually repress such practices. He desired to correct men
by proclamations, or at the most ‘hornings;’ and when one gentleman
had literally killed his neighbour in a casual rencontre, the king
was satisfied if he could induce the son or other relations of the
deceased to meet the guilty person, make up matters for a sum of money,
shake hands, and agree there should be no more of it. He liked to be
personally busy in effecting reconciliations, and at length came to use
what he considered as compulsory measures for bringing the parties to
his presence, that he might see to their renewing friendship. Thus, on
the 22d November 1599, an edict of council was sent to James Hoppringle
of Galashiels, and George Hoppringle of Blindlee, commanding them to
come and submit the quarrel standing between them to the arbitrament
of friends, on pain of being charged with rebellion. On the 12th of
January ensuing, James Tweedie of Drumelzier and William Veitch of
Dawick were charged, under like pains, to come and subscribe letters
of assurance, for ‘the feid and inimitie standing betwixt them.’--_P.
C. R._
* * * * *
In consequence of a bad crop in 1586, there was ‘great scant and
dearth’ this year, ‘and great death of people for hunger.’--_H. K. J._
Elizabeth issued a proclamation regarding scarcity, 2d January
1586-7. She speaks of ‘foreseeing the general dearth of corn and
other victuals, partly through the unseasonableness of the year past,
whereby want hath grown more in some countries than in others, but
most of all, generally, through the uncharitable greediness of great
corn-masters, &c.’ This was the invariable cry on all occasions of
dearth. All would be well if only those possessing grain would not
reserve it in hope of higher prices. No one ever dreamed of that
benefit which the modern political economist sees in the reservings of
the corn-merchant--namely, an equalising of consumption over the whole
period of the scarcity, as contrasted with the over-free use of the
victual at first, and increased scarcity afterwards. Perhaps there was,
after all, some grounds for the wrath at forestallers, for in former
days, as we well know, there was less means of obtaining information
regarding the extent of the failure of a crop than there is now, and
those gentlemen, accordingly, were rather speculators on a possible,
than on an ascertained case. They would hence appear as men aiming at
the making of a scarcity where there was perhaps no great occasion for
it. What offence greater, the poor public would naturally say, than
that of deliberately trying to starve us!
[Sidenote: 1587.]
King James had lately sent Vans of Barnbarroch, and his own
ex-preceptor, Peter Young, as ambassadors to Denmark, to negotiate a
match with the daughter of Frederick II. He now (June 14, 1587) wrote
to those gentlemen, ordering them to see to certain Scotch ships which
had gone to Dantzic for grain, designing to carry it to other foreign
ports for a profit: he demands that they shall not be passed by the
_tollender_ at Elsinore, till the skippers enter into an obligation to
bring the grain to Scotland, ‘for the relief of the puir and supply of
the dearth and scarcity.’[150] How would a modern corn-merchant feel if
his vessels were now stopped at the Sound with such a demand as this!
Patrick Hamilton, brother of the Laird of Preston, and captain of
Brodick Castle in Arran, was denounced rebel for not appearing before
the king and Council, to answer a complaint of Abacuck Bisset, writer
to the Signet in Edinburgh. It appears that Patrick, accompanied by two
nephews, had attacked Mr Bisset in St Giles’s Kirk in Edinburgh, during
the sitting of parliament, with a sword, and cut off ‘the haill fingers
of his left hand.’
This Abacuck Bisset was clerk to Sir John Skene, Lord Clerk Register.
He compiled a treatise entitled _The Rolment of Courtis, contenand the
Auldest Lawis, Actis, Statutis, Constitutionis, and Antiquities of His
Majesties Native and maist Ancient Realme of Scotland, as ane Frie
Kingdome, &c._
We have hitherto heard the name of Queen Mary chiefly in connection
with tragic matters: verily a name of tears. For once we find her
connected with a piece of pleasantry, and it was in association with
the author of the _Rolment of Courtis_. The father of this worthy
writer was caterer to the queen. One day, as she was passing to mass,
he acquainted her with his having a child to be baptised, and desired
her to assign the infant its name. She said she would open the Bible in
the chapel, and whatever name she cast up, that should be given to the
child. The name cast up was that of the prophet Habakkuk, which, in the
form of Abacuck, was accordingly conferred on the future writer.
[Sidenote: 1587.
SEP.]
Abacuck Bisset’s _Rolment of Courtis_ exists in manuscript in the
Advocates’ Library, only a portion of it, containing _A Short Form of
Process_ for civil cases, having been printed. It was composed in the
old age of the author, after the commencement of the reign of Charles
I., and seems to have been designed for immediate publication, as it is
prefaced with sundry of those complimentary verses with which authors
used to gratify each other in days while as yet reviews were not. One
set of these, by Mr Alexander Craig of Rose Craig, and which appears in
his _Poetical Exercises_ (Raban, Aberdeen, 1623), is not without some
feeling:
[Sidenote: 1587.]
’Twixt _was_ and _is_ how various are the odds!
What one man doth another doth undo;
One consecrates religious works to gods,
Another leaves sad wrecks and ruins new.
This book doth shew that such and such things were,
But would to God that it could say, They are!
‘When I perceive the south, north, east, and west,
And mark, alas! each monument amiss,
Then I confer times present with the past,
I read what was, but cannot tell what is:
I praise thy book with wonder, but am sorry
To read old ruins in a recent story.’
Abacuck himself appears to have had a turn for verse, and in this form
he gives his poetical friends notice of the contents of his book, that
they may address him regarding it. After a great deal of very dry prose
matters about decreets, suspensions, exceptions, &c., he either makes
or quotes the following:
CERTAIN AULD RULES CONTEINED IN THE ANCIENT REGISTER OF SCOTLAND ANENT
THE MEITHIS AND MERCHES OF LAND.
All landis, wherever they be
In Scotland partis, has merches three,
Headroom, water, and montis borde,
As eldren men has made record.
Your headroom to the hill direct,
Frae your haugh tilled in effect.
Betwixt twa glenis ane montis borde,
Divides thae glenis, I sall stand for’t.
Water comand frae ane glen head,
Divides that glen, and stanches feid.
Thortrom[151] burnis in montis hie
Sall stop nae headroom, though they be.
The meaning of all this is, that ancient custom in Scotland recognised
three natural divisions or boundaries for land--1. Headroom, the
termination of a piece of territory on the summit of the slope of the
adjacent hill; 2. The line of hills between two glens; 3. The river
passing through a glen. A water crossing the headroom on the summit of
the mountains made no difference.[152]
‘The pest brake up in harvest in Leith, by opening up of some old
kists, and in Edinburgh about the 4th of November. It continued in
these two towns this winter till Candlemass.’--_Cal._
This pest ‘strake a great terror in Edinburgh and all the coast-side,’
says James Melville. He adds: ‘By occasion thereof, we began the
exercise of daily doctrine and prayers in our kirk, whilk continues
to this day with great profit and comfort, baith of the teachers and
hearers.’ The kirk-session of Perth appointed a fast ‘with great
humiliation’ for eight days. In those days, there was scarcely any
other recognised method of averting pestilence. The same simple diarist
tells us: ‘This winter the king was occupied in commenting of the
Apocalypse, and in setting out of sermons thereupon against the Papists
and Spaniards: and yet, by a piece of great oversight, the Papists
practised never more busily in this land, and made greater preparation
for receiving the Spaniards nor [than] that year.’
In October 1588, the town-council of Glasgow was in great apprehension
of a visit of the pest, as it was then in Paisley. They made
arrangements for guarding the ports to prevent the entrance of people
from the infected district.--_M. of G._
[Sidenote: 1587-8.
FEB.]
Mr James Gordon, a Jesuit, uncle to the Earl of Huntly, being now in
Edinburgh, ‘his majesty took purpose to convene some of the ministry of
Edinburgh within his own chamber in Holyroodhouse, and to send for the
said Mr James; who coming before his majesty, his highness declared the
cause for which he had sent for him, which was, that as he understood
him to be a learned man, come into this country on purpose to persuade
the people to embrace the popish religion, he would therefore shew him
that his majesty was himself disposed to use some reasoning with him
on religion. Whereunto Mr James objected, and said that he desired not
to reason with his majesty, but would reason with any other. [James
was now only twenty-one.] The king’s majesty, answering, offered and
promised to lay his crown and royalty aside, and to reason with him
as if he were a private man. And so his majesty began and laid down
some grounds of religion, which he still observed and reasoned upon
for the space of four or five hours. Some things were yielded to by Mr
James, and others denied.... The said Mr James was kept in a chamber in
Holyroodhouse five or six days, and then appointed to pass to Seaton,
till he was ready to depart off the country.’--_Moy. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1588.
MAY 28.
JULY 21.]
Alison Peirson, in Byrehill, was tried for witchcraft. The verdict
recites a number of strange and incoherent charges which had been
proved against her, but whose entire tenor only shews that she was
a sickly nervous woman, who took her own dreams and fancies for
realities. According to her own account, she had learned unlawful
arts from her cousin, Mr William Simpson, son of one who had been the
king’s smith at Stirling, and who had acquired his skill from a big
Egyptian, by whom he had been carried away in his childhood and kept
for twelve years. Being in her own youth afflicted with loss of power
in one of her sides, she had applied to Mr William in Lothian, and
he had not only cured her, but taught her by charms to be a healer
of disease herself. Since then, she had haunted the company of the
queen of Elfame, but had not seen her for the last seven years. At one
time she had many good friends in Elfame; but they were all dead now.
Sometimes she would be in her bed quite well, but could not tell where
or in what state she might be next day. Lying down sick in Grangemuir,
near Anstruther, she had seen a man in green clothes, whom she asked
to help her: he went away at that time, but appeared afterwards with a
multitude of people, when ‘she sanit her [blessed herself] and prayit,
and passed with them further nor she could tell; and saw with them
piping, and merriness, and gude cheer, and was carried to Lothian, and
saw wine-puncheons with tasses [cups] with them.’ ‘Ofttimes they wald
come and sit beside her, and promised that she should never want gif
she wald be faithful and keep promises, but, gif she wald speak and
tell of them and their doings, they sould martyr her.’ For the last
sixteen years, Alison had been frequenting St Andrews as a practitioner
in unlawful methods of healing; and where among her patients had been
no less a person than the titular Archbishop Adamson--a fact of which
his enemies did not fail to take advantage in pasquinading him. For the
healing of his grace, Simpson had bidden her ‘make ane saw [salve] and
rub it on his cheeks, his craig, his breast, stomach, and sides, and
siclike gave her directions to use the ewe-milk, or waidrave [probably
woodroof], with the herbs, claret wine; and with some other things she
gave him ane sodden fowl; and that she made ane quart at ance, whilk he
drank at twa draughts, twa sundry diets.’ Poor Alison was convicted and
burnt.--_Pit._
At the very time when the Spanish Armada was at sea on its way
to England, a Catholic pair of high rank, much though secretly
interested in favour of that enterprise, were wedded at Holyrood.
The bridegroom was the young Earl of Huntly, and the bride Henrietta
Stuart, eldest daughter of the late Duke of Lennox. The affair was
conducted with ‘great triumph, mirth, and pastime;’ but some of the
other circumstances were of a more remarkable nature. The Presbyterian
clergy, in a paroxysm of apprehension about the Armada, took up the
strange position of refusing to allow the marriage to be performed by
any clergyman capable of shewing his face in the country, unless the
earl should first sign the Confession of Faith--that is, abjure his
religion. Huntly was induced to profess an inclination to comply, but
professed to stickle at some of the Protestant doctrines. The king,
on the other hand, who felt as the father of the bride, and knew that
Huntly was in reality his friend, favoured and facilitated the match.
To the great chagrin of the Presbyterian clergy, the ceremony was at
length performed by Patrick Adamson, archbishop of St Andrews--who,
however, was afterwards brought to their feet as an abject penitent,
declaring, among other things, ‘I married the Earl of Huntly contrair
the kirk’s command, without the confession of his faith, and
profession of the sincere doctrine of the Word; I repent, and craves
God pardon.’[153] The writer of Adamson’s life in the _Biographia
Britannica_ has characterised this as ‘one of the completest instances
of ecclesiastical folly and bigotry recorded in history.’ Perhaps
if this biographer had been a Scottish Protestant of 1588, he would
not have thought so; but the affair may at least somewhat abate our
surprise that the Earl of Huntly was found next year in arms against
the Protestant interest.[154]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 30.]
Sir William Stuart of Monkton, a younger brother of the ill-famed
ex-chancellor, ‘Captain James,’ and said to be ‘in qualities and
behaviour naething different’ from that personage, had for some years
had place at the king’s court, serving the government in various
capacities. Only a few weeks before this date, he had conducted
an expedition by which the Castle of Lochmaben was taken from the
rebellious Maxwells. The captain and five of the garrison had been
hung up on the green before the gate, notwithstanding a promise of
their lives, alleged to have been given. Stuart was rewarded with large
spoil; and on his return to Edinburgh, with Lord Maxwell as a prisoner,
he was allowed to have the custody of that nobleman.
Doubtless the blood of the upstart was somewhat heated by so rich a
triumph. Meeting the unruly Earl of Bothwell a few days after in the
king’s chamber, he fell into a dispute with him--the lie was given, and
the altercation closed with a ribald exclamation on his part, followed
by a threat on the other. Nothing more occurred till nearly three weeks
after, when Sir William Stuart, coming down the High Street with a
party of his minions, met Bothwell, accompanied by a younger brother
of the Master of Gray, whom Stuart had lately delated for his betrayal
of the king’s interest in his ambassage for the saving of Queen Mary’s
life. A collision between two such parties was unavoidable. In the
general fight, Stuart killed a servant of Bothwell, but thereby lost
his sword. He fled into the Blackfriars’ Wynd, pursued by the vengeful
Bothwell, who, as Stuart stood defenceless against a wall, ‘strake him
in at the back and out at the belly, and killed him.’--_Bir._ _Cal._
_H. K. J._
We are assured by a contemporary writer, that the slaughter of Sir
William Stuart was ‘to the comfort of mony of the people, wha allegit
that God did the same for his betraying of Mr David Maxwell and his
company in Lochmaben, but specially the Lord Maxwell, wha was his
prisoner in John Gourlay’s house.’--_C. K. Sc._ Bothwell only deemed
it necessary for a few days to keep out of the way. By and by, on the
king’s return from a visit to Fife, he reappeared in court as usual,
‘uncallit, unpursuit, unpunist for this fact.’
[Sidenote: 1588.]
It is curious to find the General Assembly sitting down exactly a week
after this street-conflict, and proceeding quietly with its usual work
of choosing a moderator, arranging about provision for the ministers,
and denouncing the papists, just as it would have done at any time
nearer our own gentler day.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1588.
AUG.]
Great excitement prevailed throughout all Scotland, in apprehension of
invasion by the Spanish Armada. There was not wanting a party prepared
to co-operate with the Spaniards, if they had landed in Scotland. In
this exigency, the king was compelled to forget his anger at Elizabeth
on account of the recent death of his mother; he made all possible
preparation for resistance, and when Sir Robert Sidney, the English
ambassador, told him that if the Spaniard took England, the king might
expect no greater kindness at his hand, James ‘merrily answered: “That
he looked for no other benefit of the Spaniard in that case, than that
which Polyphemus promised to Ulysses--namely, to devour him after all
his fellows were devoured.”‘--_Spot._
‘Terrible was the fear,’ says James Melville, ‘piercing were the
preachings, earnest, zealous, and fervent were the prayers, sounding
were the sichs and sobs, and abounding was the tears at that fast and
General Assembly keepit at Edinburgh, when the news were credibly
tauld, sometimes of their landing at Dunbar, sometimes at St Andrews,
and in Tay, and now and then at Aberdeen and Cromarty Firth. And in
very deed, as we knew certainly soon after, the Lord of armies, wha
rides upon the wings of the winds, the keeper of his awn Israel, was
in the meantime convoying that monstrous navy about our coasts, and
directing their hulks and galiots to the islands, rocks, and sands,
whereupon he had destinat their wrack and destruction. For within twa
or three month thereafter, early in the morning, ane of our bailies
came to my bedside, saying (but not with fray): “I have to tell you
news, sir. There is arrivit within our harbour [Anstruther, on the
coast of Fife] this morning a ship full of Spaniards, but not to give
mercy but to ask.” And sae shaws me that the commanders had landed,
and he had commandit them to their ship again, till the magistrates of
the town had advisit, and the Spaniards had humbly obeyit; therefore
desirit me to rise and hear their petition with them. Up I got with
diligence, and assembling the honest men of the town, came to the
tolbooth; and after consultation taken to hear them, and what answer
to make, there presents us a very reverend man of big stature, and
grave and stout countenance, gray-haired, and very humble-like, wha,
after meikle and very low courtesy, bowing down with his face near
the ground, and touching my shoe with his hand, began his harangue
in the Spanish tongue, whereof I understood the substance, and being
about to answer in Latin, he having only a young man with him to be
his interpreter, began and tauld ower again to us in gude English. The
sum was, that King Philip, his master, had riggit out a navy and army
to land in England for just causes to be avengit of many intolerable
wrangs whilk he had receivit of that nation; but God for their sins had
been against them, and, by storm of weather, had driven the navy by the
coast of England, and him, with a certain [number] of captains, being
the general of twenty hulks, upon an isle in Scotland, callit the Fair
Isle, where they made shipwreck, and where sae mony as had escapit
the merciless sea, had mair nor sax or seven weeks sufferit great
hunger and cauld, till, conducting that bark out of Orkney, they were
come hither as to their special friends and confederates to kiss the
king’s majesty’s hand of Scotland (and therewith becket [bowed] even
to the yird), and to find relief and comfort thereby to himself, these
gentlemen captains, and the poor souldiers, whase condition was for the
present maist miserable and pitiful.
‘I answerit this meikle in sum: “That, howbeit neither our friendship,
whilk could not be great, seeing their king and they were friends to
the greatest enemy of Christ, the pope of Rome, and our king and we
defied him, nor yet their cause against our neighbours and special
friends of England could procure any benefit at our hands for their
relief and comfort; nevertheless, they should know by experience that
we were men, and sae moved by humane compassion, and Christians of
better religion nor they, whilk should kythe in the fruits and effect
plain contrair to theirs. For, whereas our people, resorting amang them
in peaceable and lawful affairs of merchandise, were violently taken
and cast in prison, their gudes and gear confiscat, and their bodies
committit to the cruel flaming fire for the cause of religion, they
should find naething amang us but Christian pity and warks of mercy and
alms, leaving to God to work in their hearts concerning religion as it
pleasit him.” This being truly reported again to him by his trunshman,
with great reverence he gave thanks, and said he could not make answer
for their kirk and the laws and order thereof, only for himself that
there were divers Scotsmen wha knew him, and to whom he had shewn
courtesy and favour at Calais, and, as he supposit, some of this same
town of Anstruther. Sae [I] shew him that the bailies granted him
licence with the captains to go to their lodging for their refreshment,
but to nane of their men to land till the ower-lord of their town was
advertised, and understand the king’s majesty’s mind anent them. Thus,
with great courtesy, he departed.
[Sidenote: 1588.]
‘That night, the lord being advertised, came, and on the morn,
accompanied with a gude number of the gentlemen of the country round
about, gave the said general and the captains presence, and after the
same speeches, in effect as before, receivit them in his house, and
entertained them humanely, and sufferit the souldiers to come a-land,
and lie all together, to the number of thretteen score, for the
maist part young beardless men, silly [weak], trauchled [worn-out],
and hungred, to the whilk a day or two kail, pottage, and fish was
given.... The names of the commanders were Jan Gomez de Medina, general
of twenty hulks, Capitan Patricio, Capitan de Legoretto, Capitan de
Luffera, Capitan Mauritio, and Signor Serrano.
‘Verily, all the while my heart melted within me for desire of
thankfulness to God, when I remembered the prideful and cruel nature
of thae people, and how they wald have usit us in case they had landit
with their forces amang us; and als, the wonderful work of God’s mercy
and justice in making us see them, the chief commanders of them, make
sic courtesy to poor seamen, and their souldiers so abjectly to beg
alms at our doors and in our streets.
‘In the meantime they knew not of the wrack of the rest, but supposed
that the rest of the army was safely returned, till ae day I gat in
St Andrews in print the wrack of the galiots in particular, with the
names of the principal men, and how they were usit in Ireland and
our Highlands, in Wales, and other parts of England; the whilk when
I recordit to Jan Gomez, by particular and special names, O then he
cried out for grief, bursted and grat. This Jan Gomez shewed great
kindness to a ship of our town, whilk he fand arrestit in Calais at his
hame-coming, rade to court for her, and made great roose [praise] of
Scotland to his king, took the honest men to his house, and enquirit
for the laird of Anstruther, for the minister, and his host; and sent
hame many commendations. But we thanked God in our hearts, that we had
seen them amang us in that form.’
This is on the whole a pleasing anecdote. One cannot, however, but wish
that the worthy James had not commenced his speech with a taunt at the
religion of the Spaniards, and that he had had the magnanimity on such
an occasion to forget any injuries formerly inflicted by that nation
upon his.
The shipwrecked Spaniards were not everywhere so well treated. The
kirk-session of Perth, May 18, 1589, ordered the keepers of the
town-gates to exclude _Spaniards and other idle vagabonds and beggars_,
and commanded that all such persons now in the town should immediately
leave it.
[Sidenote: 1588.]
‘In the beginning of October [1588], one of these great ships was drove
in at the Mull of Kintyre, in which there were five hundred men or
thereby; she carried threescore brass cannon in her, besides others,
and great store of gold and silver. She was soon after suddenly blown
up by powder, and two or three hundred men in her, which happened by
some of their own people.’--_Moy. R._
Another of the vessels, having found its way into the Firth of Clyde,
sank in ten fathom water on a sandy bottom, near Portincross Castle
in Ayrshire. Tradition affirms that some of the crew in this case
reached the land. A local newspaper, in October 1855, recorded the
recent death of Archibald Revie, at Lower Boydstone, Ardrossan, at
an advanced age--a descendant of one of the Spanish sailors saved
from the Spanish ship at Portincross in 1588, and who ‘retained many
of the peculiarities of his race.’ In 1740, a number of pieces of
brass and iron ordnance were recovered from this wreck by means of a
diving-machine; and one of the latter still lies on the beach beside
the old castle, bearing faint traces of the Spanish crown and arms near
the breech.[155]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP.]
The Earl of Bothwell having been drawn into the designs of the
popish lords--though led only by a common hatred of the Chancellor
Maitland--raised a company of men, under pretence of an expedition for
the pacification of the remote isle of Lewis. Under favour of a royal
warrant, he demanded a subsidy of five thousand merks from the city
of Edinburgh. Meeting a refusal, he said he should ‘cause the earles
disgorge him a thousand crowns in spite of their hearts.’ There was
some resolution in these gentle burghers. When Bothwell impudently
carried off one of their number, named James Nicol, to Crichton Castle,
as a means of extorting money from him, they ‘threatened to pull
Bothwell out of Crichton by the ears, and make his house equal with the
ground.’ On their complaint to the king, ‘Bothwell, fearing the king
and the town of Edinburgh, set James Nicol at liberty, and so gained
nothing but shame and discredit to himself.’--CAL.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP. 4.]
[Sidenote: 1589.
JUNE 3.]
Though Eustachius Roche is still described as tacksman-general of
the mines, it is to be suspected that that adventure was seen to be
unproductive, as we find him now entering upon a new contract with the
king for a wholly different object. He proposed to make a superior
kind of salt by a cheap process, assigning the profits to the king,
excepting only a tenth for himself and his heirs, ‘unsubject to
confiscation for ony offence or crime.’ He assured the king that this
project would add a hundred thousand merks yearly to his revenue. The
king on his part gave him the exclusive right to make salt in the
proposed new way, with certain other privileges.--_P. C. R._
A Bond of Association was entered into by Sir Walter Scott of Branxholm
and fifty of the most important men of his kin and clan, which throws
an important light on the customs of the age. A later and more notable
Sir Walter Scott says of this bond--which he had seen in the possession
of his cousin, William Scott, Esq. of Raeburn--that ‘it is calculated
to secure against any clansman taking any “room” or possession over the
head of another of the name. Any one who was accused of having done so,
bound himself to stand by the award of five men, to be mutually chosen,
bearing the name of Scott. Even if the chief should encroach upon the
possessions of any inferior person of the name, he declares he will
submit the cause, in like manner, to four persons of the name of Scott;
which shews an independence on the part of the clansmen which I was not
prepared for. The bond ... seems to have been calculated to prevent
kinsmen from going to law with each other, and to secure a species of
justice within the clan, to the advancement of the “guid and godlie
purposes” of their chief.’--_Pit._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE.]
‘In this time, [the Laird of] Easter Wemyss took up 1500 waged men for
the king of Navarre, now allegit king of France.’--_Moy._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY.]
A sad accident befell in the family of Lord Somerville, at Drum, near
Edinburgh.
[Sidenote: 1589.]
‘The Lord Somerville having come from Cowthally early in the morning,
in regard the weather was hot, he had ridden hard to be at the Drum by
ten o’clock, which having done, he laid him down to rest. The servant,
with his two sons, William, Master of Somerville, and John his brother,
went with the horses to ane shot of land, called the Pretty Shot,
directly opposite to the front of the house, where there was some
meadow-ground for grazing the horses, and willows to shadow themselves
from the heat. They had not long continued in this place, when the
Master of Somerville, after some little rest, awaking from his sleep,
and finding his pistols that lay hard by him wet with dew, he began to
rub and dry them, when unhappily one of them went off the ratch [lock],
being lying on his knee and the muzzle turned sideways. The ball struck
his brother John directly in the head, and killed him outright, so that
his sorrowful brother never had one word from him, albeit he begged it
with many tears. A lamentable case, and much to be pitied, two brave
young gentlemen so nearly related, and dearly loving one another, who
besides their being brethren by birth, were entirely so in affection,
communicating all their affairs and designs one to the other, wherein
they were never known to differ in the least....
‘The father, hearing the shot, leapt from his [bed] (being then in the
chamber of dais), to the south light, and seeing his son and servants
all in a cluster, called aloud to know the matter; but receiving no
answer, he suspected some mischief, and thereupon flew hastily down
the stair, and went directly to the place where they were, which the
gentlemen observing, they advised the Master to take him to his horse,
until his father’s passion and fury should be over, which at length,
upon their earnest entreaty, he did, taking his direct way for Smeaton,
where his lady-mother then lived by Smeaton Ford. The father, being
come upon the place, first hears the lamentation of the servants, and
then sees the sad spectacle of his son all bloody and breathless, with
his head laid upon a cloak, whereon he falls himself, and cries aloud:
“My son, my son, dead or alive? dead or alive?” embracing him all the
time, which he continued for some space, and thereby giving opportunity
for his eldest son to escape. At length, finding no motion in his dear
son, all in a fury he arises and cries aloud: “Where is that murderer?
who has done the deed?” Staring wildly about, missing the Master, he
cries out: “Oh, heavens, and is it he? Must I be bereft of two sons
in one day? Yes, it must be so, and he shall have no other judge nor
executioner but myself and these hands.” And with that immediately
mounts his horse, commanding two of his servants to attend him, making
protestation in the meantime that they should both go to the grave
together. But God was more merciful, for by this time the Master was
past Smeaton Ford, and before his father came that length, he was at
Fallside House, out of all danger.... Coming now a little to himself,
he [the father] began much to condemn this unwarrantable attempt of
his, upon second thoughts. Before he came back, the sad object of
his sorrow was removed to the place of Drum, and the corpse decently
handled by the ladies of Edmonston, Woolmet, and Sheriff-hall, near
neighbours, for in less than ane hour the report went over all the
country. Yea, before the king rose from dinner he had notice of it,
being then in Holyroodhouse, with the circumstance of the father’s
following the other son with intention to kill him; for which the king,
within three days thereafter (the Lord Somerville coming to wait upon
his majesty), reproved him by saying “he was a madman; that having
lost one son by so sudden an accident, should needs wilfully destroy
another himself, in whom, as he was certainly informed, there was
neither malice nor design, but a great misfortune, occasioned by unwary
handling of the pistol, which should have rather been a matter of
regret and sorrow to him that the like had happened in his family, than
that he should have sought after revenge. Therefore he commanded him to
send for his eldest son, and be reconciled to him, for he knew he was a
sober youth, and the very thoughts of his misfortune would afflict him
enough, albeit he were not discountenanced by him.”’
The unhappy principal in this tragedy was in reality an amiable young
man, insomuch as to be called the Good Master of Somerville. ‘I have
heard it reported that Sir James Bannatyne of Newhall, one of the
senators of the College of Justice, asserted there was not a properer
youth trod the streets of Edinburgh, nor one of whom there was greater
expectation, than William, Master of Somerville; but when God designs
the ruin of a family, all supports are removed, that the fall may be
the more sudden, as happened in this young nobleman’s case, who after
he had contracted in the latter end of February, and should have been
married in April 1591, that very month he took a fever, which kept him
long, and so weakened his body that he never recovered, but continued
under a languishing sickness for more than ten months. It was supposed
the thoughts of his own great misfortune in killing of his brother,
the disagreement of his parents ... hastened his death. He died at
Cowthally in the month of January 1592.... A devote gentleman, William
Inglis of East Shiel, as the corpse passed the outer gate, struck upon
his breast, and cried out to the hearing of many: “This day the head is
as clean taken off the house of Cowthally, as you would strike off the
head of a syboe!”[156] And indeed it proved so.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1589.
AUG. 30.]
The king, now hourly expecting the arrival of his Danish bride, is
found writing pressing letters to all persons of substance who bore him
any good will, for contributions of means towards the proper outset of
the court on the occasion. From the Laird of Barnbarroch, he entreated
‘sic quantity of fat beef and mutton on foot, wild-fowls and venison,
or other stuff meet for this purpose, as possibly ye may provide and
furnish of your awn or by your moyen.’[157]
On the 2d of September, he wrote to Boswell of Balmouto a pressing,
pleading letter for the loan of a thousand merks, stating that he had
been disappointed of money by any more regular course, on account of
its ‘scarcity in thir quarters,’ and expressing his assurance that he,
the laird, would ‘rather hurt yourself very far than see the dishonour
of your prince and native country.’[158]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP.]
The storm which impeded the Princess Anne’s voyage from Denmark to
Scotland was also felt very severely in our country, and a passage-boat
between Burntisland and Leith was lost, with an interesting person on
board. This was Lady Melville of Garvock, born Jane Kennedy, who had
been one of the maids of Queen Mary, had attended her on the scaffold
at Fotheringay, and bound the embroidered handkerchief upon her eyes.
Jane had subsequently married Sir Andrew Melville, master of household
to King James, who, desiring her presence at the reception of his
queen, because she was ‘discreet and grave,’ caused her to take this
fatal voyage. ‘She, being willing to mak diligence, wald not stay for
the storm, to sail the ferry; when the vehement storm drave a ship upon
the said boat, and drownit the gentlewoman, and all the persons except
twa.’--_Mel._
[Sidenote: OCT. 22.]
The king, hearing of the detention of his bride by stormy weather,
resolved to go to Denmark to bring her home. He sent, ‘directing Robert
Jameson, burgess of Air, to bring his ship whilk was callit the JAMES,
to the road of Leith, she being ane gallant ship, weel appointit with
ordnance, her sails being coverit with red taffeta, and her claiths red
scarlet.’[159] On the day noted, he set sail in this vessel, with other
five ships in company, and after outriding a gale for some time in the
Firth of Forth, proceeded on his course with fair winds. Landing on
the 28th at Flaikray, in Norway, he, after some days’ rest, commenced
a difficult land-journey to Upslo--now Christiania--where the princess
had taken up her residence for the winter. ‘Immediately at his coming
(November 19), [he] passed quietly with buits and all, to her hieness
... he minded to give her a kiss after the Scots fashion, whilk she
refusit, as not being the fashion of her country. Marry, after a
few words spoken privily betwixt his majesty and her, there passed
familiarity and kisses.’[160] They were married four days after at
Upslo, and spent the remainder of the winter in Denmark.
Hitherto, many of the articles of domestic use now largely manufactured
in our country, had been introduced by merchants from abroad. Paper,
glass, tanned leather, and soap were of this number. The present reign
is the era of the first attempts at a native manufacture of all these
articles, as will be fully seen in the following pages.
It was while James was absent on his matrimonial visit to Denmark, that
a native manufacture of paper was first spoken of. Peter Groot Heres, a
German, and sundry unnamed persons associated with him, proposed to set
up this art in Scotland, under favour of certain encouragements which
they demanded from the government. On what river they meant to plant
their work, does not appear. We only find that the Lords of Council
were willing to promote the object, calculating that thus would paper
be made cheaper than hitherto, and also that by and by the natives
would be enabled to become paper-makers themselves.
They granted to Peter and his co-partners liberty to carry on the
manufacture of paper in Scotland for nine years, without competition,
personally free from the duties of watching, warding, and tax-paying,
and ‘under his majesty’s special protection, maintenance, defence, and
sure safeguard.’ The only condition imposed was, that they should begin
their work before the ensuing 1st of August, and carry it on constantly
during the time for which the privilege was granted; otherwise the
licence should be of none effect.--_P. C. R._
[Sidenote: FEB. 4.
FEB. 8.
1589-90.]
It is with unexpected pleasure that we find another matter betokening
the progress of literature and intelligence only four days after the
licence for paper-making. Andro Hart then carried on the business of a
bookseller in Edinburgh, and his name appears on so many interesting
title-pages, that he is really a notable man of the time. He and John
Norton, Englishman, now send a petition to the Privy Council, setting
forth ‘what hurt the lieges of this realm susteint through the scarcity
of buiks and volumes of all sorts,’ and to what exorbitant prices those
had risen which were brought from England. They, ‘upon an earnest zeal
to the propagation and incress of vertue and letters within this realm,
had, two years ago, enterprisit the hame-bringing of volumes and buiks
furth of Almane and Germanie, fra the whilk parts the maist part of
the best volumes in England are brought, and in this trade have sae
behavit themselves that this town is furnist with better buiks and
volumes nor it was at ony time heretofore, and the said volumes sauld
by them in this country are als guid cheap as they are to be sauld in
London or ony other part of England, to the great ease and commodity
of all estates of persons within this realm.’ Behold, however, John
Gourlay, the customer (that is, farmer of customs), had laid hands upon
the books which Hart and Norton were importing, and demanded that they
should pay a duty--a demand altogether unprecedented. ‘Upon the like
complaint made by Thomas Vautrollier, printer, he obteint ane decreet
discharging the provost and bailies of this burgh and their customer
fra all asking of ony customs for ony buiks sauld or to be sauld by
him.’ The present petitioners only demanded to be so treated likewise.
It is gratifying to find that the lords unhesitatingly granted the
prayer of the two booksellers, so that the books they imported from
Germany would thenceforth be duty-free.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1590.]
In the early part of this year, ‘the wicked clan Gregor, so lang
continuing in blood, slaughters, herships, manifest reifs, and
stouths,’ fell under notice for a frightful outrage. The king had his
forest of Glenartney, in Perthshire, under the care of one Drummond,
usually called Drummond-_ernoch_, on account of his having spent part
of his life in Ireland. His neighbours, the Macgregors, taking mortal
offence at this man, for some cause probably connected with their
own misdeeds, fell upon him one day, while he was collecting venison
against the return of the king from Denmark with his new-wed spouse.
They barbarously cut off the forester’s head, which they carried off
with them, wrapped in the corner of a plaid. Soon after, passing the
house of Ardvorlich, the lady of which was sister of the murdered man,
they entered in peaceful fashion, and were regaled with bread and
cheese. While the lady was absent, looking after better entertainment,
they placed Drummond-ernoch’s ghastly head on the table, and put a
piece of bread and cheese in the mouth, telling him in mockery to eat
it, as many a similar morsel he had formerly eaten in that house.
The lady, returning, and seeing the frightful object, in which she
recognised her brother’s features, fled from the house in a state
of distraction, and was recovered to her home and sanity with great
difficulty.
[Sidenote: 1590.]
This part of the story rests on tradition; but the subsequent procedure
of the murderers comes to us on historical authority. The bloody
head being brought to the chief of Macgregor in Balquhidder, he and
the whole clan assembled in the parish kirk, and the head being then
presented, all present laid their hands upon it in succession, avowing
that the homicide had been done under their counsel and with their
sanction, and swearing to defend the actual committers of the fact with
all their power![161]
These proceedings being reported to the Privy Council, a commission was
granted (February 4, 1590) to the Earl of Huntly, and certain other
nobles and gentlemen, to search for the culprits, and, if they should
flee, to pursue them with fire and sword. What success attended this
edict does not appear.
In spring, while the king was absent in Norway, a General Assembly was
held in Edinburgh, and it being found that the country was surprisingly
free of all _steerage_ from either papists or evil-doers, the brethren
praised God for the same, and agreed that there should be fasting
and moderate diet observed every day till the king’s return. ‘The
whilk custom, being found very meet for the exercise of the Sabbath,
was keepit in Edinburgh, in the houses of the godly, continually
thereafter. Sae that, sparing their gross and sumptuous dinners, they
usit nocht but a dish of broth, or some little recreation, till night;
and that whilk was spared was bestowed on the poor.’[162] Such seems
to have been the origin of a custom which many travellers remark in
Scotland in the seventeenth century, of having only a lunch instead of
dinner on Sunday. Our diarist makes, however, only a faint allusion in
the phrase ‘till night,’ to what the same travellers remark, that there
was always a hearty supper in the evenings, amply making up for the
half-fast of the day, and at which human nature found vent occasionally
in a little good-humour and merriment.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1590.
MAY 1.]
‘The king and queen, with sundry of the nobility and blood-royal
of Denmark, accompanied with sixty gentlemen--being seven great
ships--convoyed by the grace of God through ane great mist by the navy
of England--arrivit in the firth of Leith at two afternoon, and came
by boats to Leith, to the great comfort of this nation, being on the
shore of na little number.’ The royal party was ‘receivit by the Duke
of Lennox, Earls Bothwell and Mar, with great din, and ordnance from
Edinburgh Castle, and on the south and east ferries, as by the ships.
The king took the queen by the hand, and led her up ane trance, whilk
was made for that effect, covered with tapestry and claith of gold,
whereon they passed, that their feet should not touch the bare earth:
where Mr James Elphinston, ane of the Lords of Session, made ane orison
in French, to the praise of God for their prosperous voyage.
‘The queen being placed in her lodging in Thomas Lindsay’s, the king
[there] took all the noblemen of Denmark by the hand, every ane after
ane other. And thereafter the king passed to the kirk, where the Lord
Hamilton and Lord Fleming met her grace and convoyit them. Mr Patrick
Galloway made the sermon.... His majesty passed to the lodging, where
they all remained while [till] the sixth day of the same month, [when]
they passed, afternoon, at four hours or thereby, to the Abbey of
Holyroodhouse, the king’s grace and noblemen on horse, and the queen’s
grace in ane _dame’s coach_, drawn with aught great cussers of her
awn, richly reparrit with claith of gold, silver, and purpour velvet;
[and] the town of Edinburgh, Canongate, and Leith, in feir of weir, to
the number of 1600 footmen. At the inner yett of the said abbey, the
horsemen lichtit, [and] the king took the queen by the hand, and passed
through the inner close to the great hall, and through the rest of the
chalmers, which were richly hung with claith of gold and silver, and
tapestry of silk: the said palace was newly repaired.’--_Jo. Hist._
[Sidenote: MAY.]
‘There came with the king and queen’s majesty, Callipier, the
admiral of Denmark, Peter Monk, the captain of Elsinburgh, Stephen
Brahe, Braid Ransome Maugaret, Nicolaus Theophilus, doctor of laws,
and Henry Goodlister, captain of Bocastle, as principal and of the
council of Denmark; William Vanderwant, who was appointed to wait
upon her majesty, with sundry other gentlemen to the number of thirty
or thereby, all in gold chains of good fashion. The number of the
haill train was two hundred and twenty-three persons, who were all
entertained by the king and noblemen of Scotland, and banquetted daily.
They were twelve hundred merks every day for their furnishing, during
the time of their remaining.’--_Moy._[163]
[Sidenote: 1590.
MAY 19.]
The young queen, who had been crowned on the 16th, made her ceremonial
entry into Edinburgh by the West Port, sitting in her chariot, which
was drawn by eight splendidly caparisoned horses. She was attended
by thirty-six Danes on horseback, each accompanied by some Scottish
lord or knight. The citizens gave her welcome ‘with great triumph and
joy, pageants being erected in every place, adorned with all things
befitting. Young boys with artificial wings did fly towards her,
and presented two silver keys of the city’[164]--‘as use is, under a
veil.’ The Castle fired repeatedly in honour of the day, and forty-two
young men of the town, dressed in white taffeta and cloth of silver,
with gold chains, and disguised as Moors, danced before her along the
streets. When she came to the Over Bow,[165] ‘Mr Hercules Rollock,
master of the Grammar School, made his orison. Thereafter [she] came
to a scaffold at the Butter Tron,[166] whilk was plenished with
the fairest young women of the town, fitly apparelled, with organs
playing and musicians singing; where ane bairn made ane Latin orison.
At the Tolbooth was younkers on ane scaffold, in women’s claithing,
representing Peace, Plenty, Policy, Justice, Liberality, and Temperance
[who likewise made her an oration]. Thereafter, [they] passed to the
kirk, where Mr Robert Bruce, minister, made the sermon.’[167] At the
Cross, to which the party next came, there was ‘a covered table,
whereon stood cups of gold and silver full of wine, with the goddess
of corn and wine sitting thereat, and the corn in heaps by her, who,
in Latin, cried that there should be plenty thereof in her time; and
upon the side of the Cross sat the god Bacchus upon a puncheon of
wine, winking, and casting it by cups full upon the people, besides
other of the townsmen, that cast apples and nuts among them; and the
Cross itself ran claret wine upon the causey for the loyalty of that
day.’[168]
[Sidenote: 1590.]
‘All curious pastimes and conceits
Could be imaginat by man,
Was to be seen on Edinburgh gaits,
Frae time that bravity began:
Ye micht have heard on every street
Trim melody and music sweet.
* * * * *
‘Organs and regals[169] there did carp,
With their gay glittering golden strings;
There was the hautboy and the harp,
Playing maist sweet and pleasant springs:
And some on lutes did play and sing,
Of instruments the only king.
‘Viols and virginals were here,
With gitterns maist jucundious;
Trumpets and timbrels made great beir,
With instruments melodious:
The seistar and the sumphion,
With clarche, pipe, and clarion.’[170]
The variety of instruments here specified as in use in Edinburgh in
1590, will probably excite surprise.
From the Cross the queen proceeded to the Salt Tron, ‘where was
represented the king’s grace’ genealogy in the form of a tree, from
the Bruce till himself ... ane bairn at the root of the tree made ane
orison in Latin describing the haill bairns and branches. And syne
[they] come to the Nether Bow, where the seven planets were, and gave
the weird [fortune] in Latin. All their reasons was to the thanking
of God and loving of the king and queen’s grace, and spoken in Latin
because the queen understood na Scots.’[171]
[Sidenote: MAY 23.]
This evening, being a Sunday, the Danish nobles and gentlemen who had
convoyed the queen to Scotland, received a formal entertainment from
the magistrates of Edinburgh. A handsome alcoved room, which still
exists, in the house of the Master of the Mint, in the Cowgate, was
appropriated for the purpose. The style of the banquet seems to have
been more remarkable for abundance than for elegance. There was simply
bread and meat, with four boins of beer, four gang of ale, and four
puncheons of wine. The house, however, was hung with tapestry; and
the tables were decorated with chandlers and flowers. We hear, too,
of napery, of ‘twa dozen great vessels,’ and of ‘cupbuirds, and men
to keep them.’ The furnishing of all these articles was distributed
among the city dignitaries, apparently with some reference to their
respective professions.[172]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1590.
JUNE 3.]
It forms an amusing commentary on the late grand proceedings of King
James, when we find him now trying to squeeze voluntary contributions
out of his courtiers and richer subjects generally, for the purpose of
getting the expenses paid. Under the date marginally noted, he entreats
the Laird of Barnbarroch to send immediately the remaining half of his
subscription of two hundred pounds to Alexander Lawson, ‘for the relief
of him and sic others as had the charge and oversicht of their houses,
that, in default thereof, they be not troubled by the furnishers, wha,
being for the maist part puir folks, shores [threatens] daily to use
the rigour and extremity of the law against them.’[173] There is a
similar letter written in October to the Laird of Caldwell, to quicken
him in sending, what had formerly been asked, ‘according to the custom
observit of auld by our maist noble progenitors;’ namely, ‘ane hackney
for transporting of the ladies accompanying the queen our bedfellow.’
‘In doing whereof,’ he goes on to say, ‘ye will do us richt acceptable
pleasure, to be rememberit in any your adoes, where we may give you
proof of our remembrance of your guid will accordingly. Otherwise,
upon the information we have receivit of sic as ye have, we will cause
the readiest ye have to be ta’en by our authority and brought in till
us.’[174]
After reading these curious missives, it is not difficult to believe
in the existence of a third, which unfortunately has escaped print, in
which James addresses his cousin the Earl of Mar, beseeching the loan
of ‘_the_ pair of silken hose,’ in order to grace his royal person at
the reception of the Spanish ambassador!
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1590.
JUNE.]
In this month commenced a feud which for many years disturbed the
peace of the upper part of the valley of the Tweed. The fact in which
it took its rise was the slaughter of Patrick Veitch, son of William
Veitch of Dawick (now New Posso), by or through James Tweedie of
Drumelzier, Adam Tweedie of Dreva, William Tweedie of the Wrae, John
Crichton of Quarter, Andrew Crichton in Cardon, and Thomas Porteous of
Glenkirk. These persons were in prison in Edinburgh for the fact in
July of this year; but the case was deferred to the _aire_ of Peebles.
Meanwhile, on the 20th of the month just mentioned, two relatives of
the slain youth--James Veitch, younger, of North Synton, and Andrew
Veitch, brother of the Laird of Tourhope--set upon John Tweedie, tutor
of Drumelzier and burgess of Edinburgh, as he walked the streets of
the capital, and killed him. Thus were the alleged murderers punished
through a near relative, probably uncle, of the principal party.
Six days after, the two Veitches were delated for the fact, and we
find Veitch of Dawick taking their part in true Scottish style, by
joining in surety for their appearance at trial to the extent of ten
thousand merks. After some further procedure, the king was pleased to
interfere with an order for the liberation of the Veitches; whereupon
a Presbyterian historian cuttingly remarks: ‘He had soon forgot his
promises made in the Great Kirk.’[175]
It would appear that, within a short space of time, the Tweedies of
Drumelzier took revenge to a considerable extent on the Veitches: in
particular they effected the slaughter of James Geddes of Glenhegden,
who seems to have been brother-in-law to a principal gentleman of
that family. The recital of James Geddes’s death in the Privy Council
Record, affords by its minuteness a curious insight into the manner of
a daylight street-murder of that time. ‘James,’ it is stated, ‘being
in Edinburgh the space of aught days together, haunting and repairing
to and fra openly and publicly, met almaist daily with the Laird [of
Drumelzier] upon the Hie Street. The said laird, fearing to set upon
him, albeit James was ever single and alane, had espies and moyeners
[retainers] lying await for him about his lodging and other parts where
he repairit. Upon the 29th day of December [1592], James being in the
Cowgate, at David Lindsay’s buith, shoeing his horse, being altogether
careless of his awn surety, seeing there was naething intendit again
him by the said laird divers times of before when they met upon the
Hie Gait; the said laird, being advertised by his espies and moyeners,
divided his haill friends and servants in twa companies, and directit
John and Robert Tweedie, his brothers-german,[176] Patrick Porteous of
Hawkshaw, John Crichton of Quarter, Charles Tweedie, household servant
to the said James, and Hob Jardine, to Cow’s Close, being directly
opposite to David Lindsay’s buith, and he himself, being accompanied
with John and Adam Tweedie, sons to the Guidman of Dreva, passed to the
Kirk Wynd, a little bewest the said buith, to await that the said James
sould not have escaped; and baith the companies, being convenit at the
foot of the said close, finding the said James standing at the buith
door with his back to them, they rushit out of the said close, and with
shots of pistolets slew him behind his back.’
The guilty parties were summoned, and, not appearing, were denounced as
rebels.
In June 1593, we find James Tweedie of Drumelzier released from
Edinburgh Castle, under surety that he should presently enter himself
in ward in the sheriffdom of Fife. We next hear of the two belligerent
parties in January 1600, when they were commanded to come and subscribe
letters of assurance ‘for the feid and inimitie standing betwixt them.’
The king seems to have been content with the consideration that they
had now done pretty full justice upon each other, and it was therefore
unnecessary for him to trouble himself any further in the matter. It
was probably with some surprise that, many years after, while residing
in England, he heard that these two Tweeddale clans continued to keep
up their feud. (See under March 1611.)
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 22.]
Two extraordinary trials took place, affording the most striking
illustrations of the vices and superstitions of the time.
The family of Monro of Foulis, in Ross-shire, which still flourishes,
was even then one of great antiquity, being represented by the
seventeenth baron in succession. Holding possessions on the borders of
the Highlands, it hovered between the characters of the Celtic chief
and the Lowland gentleman. Ross of Balnagowan was a rich neighbour
of similar character. The _Lady Foulis_ of the year 1576--to use her
common appellation--was Catherine Ross of the latter family, the second
wife of her husband. She had a son named George; but the succession
was barred to him by two sons of the previous marriage of her husband,
Robert and Hector.
[Sidenote: 1590.]
Her husband and his eldest son were dead when, at the above date, she
and Hector, then representative of the family, were tried separately
for sundry offences, Hector being, strange to say, the private pursuer
against his step-mother, although he had immediately after to take
his own place at the bar as a criminal. The dittay against the lady
set forth a series of attempts at serious crime, partly prosecuted by
natural means, and partly by superstitious practices. It appeared that
she desired to put her eldest step-son out of the way, not, as might
have been supposed, to favour the succession of her own offspring,
but that her brother, George Ross of Balnagowan, might be free to
marry Robert Monro’s wife; to which end she also took steps for the
removal of the wife of George Ross. It appears that she was not only
prompted to, but assisted in her attempts by George Ross himself,
although no judicial notice was taken of his criminality. Catherine
Ross, described as daughter of Sir David Ross of Balnagowan, was
also concerned. Having formed her design some time in the year 1576,
Lady Foulis opened negotiations with various wretched persons in her
neighbourhood, who practised witchcraft; and first with one named
William M‘Gillivray, whom she feed with a present of linen cloth, and
afterwards with sums of money. One Agnes Roy, a notorious witch, was
sent by her to secure the services of a particularly potent sorceress,
named Marion M‘Kean M’Alister, or more commonly _Lasky Loncart_, who
was brought to Foulis, and lodged with Christian Ross Malcomson, that
she might assist with her diabolic arts. Christian, too, was sent to
Dingwall, to bring John M‘Nillan, who appears to have been a wizard
of note. Another, named Thomas M‘Kean M‘Allan M‘Endrick, was taken
into counsel; besides whom there were a few subordinate instruments.
Some of the horrible crew being assembled at Canorth, images of the
young Laird of Foulis and the young Lady Balnagowan were formed of
butter, set up and shot at by Lasky Loncart with an _elf-arrow_; that
is, one of those flint arrow-heads which are occasionally found, and
believed by the ignorant to be fairy weapons, while in reality they
are relics of our savage ancestors. The shot was repeated eight times,
but without hitting the images; so this was regarded as a failure. On
another day, images of clay were set up, and shot at twelve times, yet
equally without effect. Linen cloth had been provided, wherewith to
have swathed the images in the event of their being hit; after which
they would have been interred under the bridge-end of the stank of
Foulis. The object of all these proceedings was of course to produce
the destruction of the persons represented by the images. This plan
being ineffectual, Lady Foulis and her brother are described as soon
after holding a meeting in a kiln at Drimnin, to arrange about further
procedure. The result was a resolution to try the more direct means
of poison with both the obnoxious persons. A stoup of poisoned ale
was prepared and set aside, but was nearly all lost by a leak in the
vessel. Lady Foulis then procured from Lasky Loncart a pipkin of ranker
poison, which she sent to young Monro by her nurse on purpose to have
destroyed him. It fell by the way and broke, when the nurse tasting
the liquor, was immediately killed by it. It was said that ‘the place
where the pig [pipkin] brake, the gerse that grew upon the samen was
so heich bye [beyond] the nature of other gerse, that neither cow
nor sheep ever previt [tasted] thereof yet; whilk is manifest and
notorious to the haill country of Ross.’ Lady Foulis is accused of
afterwards making renewed attempts, not merely to poison young Monro,
but many of his relations, particularly those who stood in the way
of her own son’s succession. There seems, however, to have been no
success in this quarter. Matters turned out better with the innocent
young Lady Balnagowan. Regarding her, Lady Foulis is represented as
thus expressing herself, that ‘she would do, by all kind of means,
wherever it might be had, of God in heaven or the devil in hell, for
the destruction and down-putting of Marjory Campbell.’ By corrupting a
cook, Lady Foulis contrived that some rat-poison should be administered
to her victim in a dish of kid’s kidneys. Catherine Niven, who had
brought this poison, ‘scunnerit [revolted] with it sae meikle, that
she said it was the sairest and maist cruel sight that ever she saw,
seeing the vomit and vexation that was on the young Lady Balnagowan and
her company.’ By vomiting, death seems to have been evaded, but the
lady contracted in consequence what is described at the trial as an
incurable illness.
[Sidenote: 1590.]
Not long after these events, they became the subject of judicial
investigation, and Christian Ross and Thomas M‘Kean were apprehended,
brought to trial, convicted, and burnt, November 1577. It is alleged
that, a few days before they suffered, Lady Foulis came into their
presence, and referring to the common reports against her, accusing
her of sorcery and poisoning, declared herself ready to abide a trial;
when, there being no one present to accuse her, she asked instruments
to that effect; after which, mounting a horse which had been kept
ready, she rode away to Caithness, and remained there three-quarters
of a year. By the intercession of the Earl of Caithness, she was then
taken back by her husband; and there seems to have been no further
notice taken of her case for several years. At length, in 1589, her
husband being dead, his successor, Robert Monro, purchased a commission
for the trial of certain witches and sorcerers, aiming evidently at
retribution upon his wicked step-mother. According to the dittay:
‘Before any publication thereof, and ere he might have convenient time
to put the same in execution, in respect of the troubles that occurred
in the north, thou, knawing thyself guilty, and fearing to bide the
trial of ane assize, fand the moyen [found the means] to purchase
ane suspension of the said commission; and causit insert in the said
suspension, not only thy awn name, and sic others as was specified in
the said commission, but also certain others who were not spoken of ...
whilk, gif thou had been ane honest woman, and willing to abide trial,
thou wald never have causit suspension of ony sic commission, but
wald rather have fortherit the same.’ In the same year, Robert Monro
died, under what circumstances does not appear, leaving the succession
to his brother Hector, who now appeared as nominal prosecutor of his
mother-in-law.
In the circumstances under which the trial took place, the jury being a
packed one of humble dependents on the Foulis family, a conviction was
not to be expected. Lady Foulis was ‘pronounced to be innocent and quit
of the haill points of the dittay; whereupon she asked instruments.’
The dittay against Hector Monro of Foulis sets forth sundry affairs
of necromancy, in which he was alleged to have been concerned along
with reputed sorcerers. He had, in August 1588, communed with three
notorious witches for the recovery of his elder brother, the then young
laird. For this purpose, they ‘pollit the hair of Robert Monro, and
plet the nails of his fingers and taes;’ seeking by these devilish
means to have cured him of his sickness. Meeting no success, they told
him he had been too late in sending for them. He, for fear of his
father, conveyed them away under silence of night.
[Sidenote: 1590.]
Having himself taken sickness in the ensuing January, while lying
at a house in Alness, he had Marion M‘Ingarroch, a notorious witch,
brought to him for the purpose of obtaining the benefit of her skill.
‘She, after her coming to you,’ says the dittay, ‘gave you three
drinks of water forth of three stanes, whilk she had; and, after lang
consultation had with her, she declarit that there was nae remede for
you to recover your health, without the principal man of your blude
should suffer death for you.’ Having pitched upon his half-brother
George, he sent for him from the hunting, and, as a means of working
his destruction, gave his left hand into George’s right hand, taking
care at the same time not to be the first to speak. ‘That night, at ane
after midnight, the said witch, with certain of her complices, passed
forth of the house where ye lay, and took with them spades, and passed
to ane piece of earth, lying betwixt twa sundry superiors’ lands ...
and made ane grave of your length, and took up the ower [upper] part
thereof, and laid it aside; the said earth being near the sea-flood.
And, this being done, she came hame, and convenit certain of your
familiars, that knew thir secrets, and informit them what should be
every ane’s part, in taking of you forth to be eardit in the foresaid
grave, for your relief and to the death of your brother George.
Whase [that is, the accused’s] answer was, that gif George should
depart suddenly, the bruit [report] wald rise, and all thir lives wald
be in danger; and therefore willit her to delay the said George’s death
ane space; and she took in hand to warrant him unto the 17th day of
April next thereafter. And after thir plats, laid by the said witch,
she and certain of your servants ... pat you in ane pair of blankets,
and carried you forth to the said grave. And they were all commanded to
be dumb and never to speak ane word, unto the time that she and your
foster-mother should first speak with her master, the devil. And being
brought forth, [you] was laid in the said grave; and the green earth
which was cuttit, was laid aboon, and halden down with staves, the
said witch being beside you.... Christian Neill, your foster-mother,
was commanded to run the breadth of nine rigs, and in her hand Neill
younger, Hector Leith’s son. And, how soon Christian had run the
breadth of the nine rigs, she came again to the grave, and inquirit at
the said witch, “Whilk was her choice?” Wha answered and said, that Mr
Hector was her choice to live, and your brother George to die for you.
And this form was used thrice that night; and thereafter ye was carried
hame, all the company being dumb, and was put in your bed.’
Contrary to what one would expect of an invalid exposed in this manner
on a January night, Hector Monro recovered. His brother George took
ill in April 1590, and lingered to the beginning of July, when he
died. No doubt being entertained that his mortal illness was caused by
witchcraft, his mother, the subject of the preceding trial, appears to
have immediately commenced a prosecution against Hector, now laird;
and the result was a trial following immediately that in which he had
appeared as prosecutor against her. This trial had the same issue as
the other, the jury being composed in a similar manner.--_Pit._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1590.
AUG. 18.]
Bessie Roy, nurse in the family of Lesly of Balquhain, was tried for
sundry points of witchcraft, leading to the death of several persons.
One minor offence, particularly insisted on in this woman’s case,
was her being ‘a common away-taker of women’s milk.’ It was alleged
that, while living in the family of William King at Barra, she had
bewitched away the milk of a poor woman named Bessie Steel, who came
seeking alms. ‘Sitting down by the fire,’ says the dittay, ‘to give her
bairn souk [suck], thou being ane nourice thyself, and perceiving the
poor woman to have mair abundance of milk than thou had; and seeing
that the goodwife, thy hussie [housewife], should have deteinit the
poor woman and given her the bairn to foster; thou, by thy devilish
incantations and witchcraft, abstracted and took away her milk. And
immediately after the poor woman was past out of the house, she
perceived her milk to be taken away, came again to the said house, and
compleinit to the goodwife, that the nurse had taken away her milk,
and said: “Gif she were not restorit to her milk, she should divulgate
the same through the country, and shaw how ye had used her.” And thou,
fearing thy devilish craft to be revealed, said to the poor woman:
“Gif I have thy milk, come sic a night to me to this house, and ask it
for God’s sake, and thou sall have it.” Likeas the poor woman, being
glad to receive her milk again, came that same night as thou appointed
her, and lay in the house beside ye all night; and about the mids of
the night, thou cried upon her and wakened her, and bade her receive
her milk; and incontinent she wakened, and her paps sprang out full of
milk, and remained with her thereafter.’
Bessie was pronounced innocent by the jury.--_Pit._
* * * * *
The great Highland family now represented by the Marquis of Breadalbane
had at this time for its head Sir Duncan Campbell of Glenurchy,
ordinarily called _Donacha Dhu nan Curich_ (Black Duncan of the Cowl),
a man of considerable force of character, and, for his time, large
means, who died at an advanced age in 1631. He was distinguished for
building, planting, and _improving_; had the taste to hire artists to
decorate his house; and, some years after this time, was one of the
most prominent patrons of the Scottish Vandyke, George Jameson.
[Sidenote: 1590.]
The household books of this great Celtic chief exhibit his style of
life about the time here noted. His rents were principally paid in
kind, and the corn, cattle, and poultry thus supplied by the tenantry
went directly to the support of the laird and his household. ‘In 1590,
the family spent their time between Balloch and Finlarig. The oatmeal
consumed was 364 bolls; the malt, 207 bolls (deducting a small quantity
of _struck_ barley used in the kitchen). They used 90 beeves (“neats,”
“stirks,” or “fed oxen”), more than two-thirds consumed fresh; 20
swine; 200 sheep; 424 salmon, far the greater portion being from the
western rivers; 15,000 herrings; 30 dozen of hard fish; 1805 “heads” of
cheese, new and old, weighing 325 stone; 49 stones of butter; 26 dozen
loaves of wheaten bread; of wheat flour, 3-1/4 bolls. The wine brought
from Dundee was claret and white wine, old and new, in no very large
quantities. [The malt furnished abundance of ale of three kinds--ostler
ale, household ale, and best ale, serving, doubtless, for the different
grades of persons in the family.] Of spices and sweetmeats, we find
only notice on one occasion of small quantities of saffron, mace,
ginger, pepper, “raises of cure,” plumdamas, and _one_ sugar-loaf.’[177]
While the Laird of Glenurchy thus kept house in Strathtay, Lord Lovat
supported a _ménage_ not greatly different in Inverness-shire. The
weekly expenditure of provisions in his house included seven bolls of
malt, seven bolls of meal, and one of flour. Each year seventy beeves
were consumed, besides venison, fish, poultry, kid, lamb, veal, and
all sorts of feathered game in profusion. His lordship imported wines,
sugars, and spices from France, in return for the salmon produced by
his rivers. He was celebrated for a liberal hospitality; and when he
died in 1631, five thousand armed followers and friends attended his
funeral, for all of whom there would be entertainment provided.[178]
The rude abundance shewn in these two establishments, taken in
connection with the account presently to be given of the outward state
of the Marquis of Huntly,[179] the reports afforded by the Water Poet
of the hospitalities he experienced in the braes of Aberdeenshire and
Morayshire,[180] and other particulars involved in our chronicle,
ought somewhat to modify the prevalent notions as to the poverty
of the Celtic part of Scotland in this age. There was, indeed, no
manufacturing industry worth speaking of; but the natural wealth of
the country, the cattle, the wild animals, and the grain, seem to have
furnished the people with no inconsiderable share of the comforts
of life. It will be found, too, that the mansions of Glenurchy and
Huntly, a few years after this date, exhibited elegant architecture and
decoration.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1590.
OCT.]
The rich temporalities of the Abbey of Deir, in Aberdeenshire, had been
held since the Reformation by one who was no friend to the Reformed
clergy--Robert Keith, second son of William, fourth Earl Marischal. In
1587, they had been erected into a temporal lordship, under the name
of the Lordship of Altrie, in their possessor’s favour, to descend,
after his death, to his nephew, George Earl Marischal. There was one
malcontent with this arrangement--Robert Keith of Benholm, brother
of the earl--probably because he had concluded in his own mind that
the abbey-lands formed a more appropriate estate for a cadet than for
the chief of the family, the latter being already a rich man. It would
appear, however, that the earl was understood to have requited the king
for the gift by the splendid style in which he conducted his ambassage
to Denmark, when negotiating the royal marriage.
At the present date, Robert Keith made an attempt to take forcible
possession of the abbey--an act which would have been rash and
dangerous at any ordinary time, but might look feasible enough in an
age so full of violences of all kinds as the present. We learn that he
kept the abbey for six weeks, at the end of which he was driven out
by an armed company brought against him by the Earl Marischal. Then
retiring to the castle of Fedderat, he stood a siege of three days,
which ended in his coming to a truce with his brother, upon what terms
does not appear.
The abbacy was well worthy of a struggle, as in 1565 it comprehended
a rental of £572, 8s. 6d., with thirteen and a half bolls of wheat,
fourteen chalders and ten bolls of beir, and sixty-three chalders
nine bolls of meal. The revenue of the earldom to which this became
an addition on the death of Lord Altrie in 1593, has been stated
at an amount for which there may be some difficulty in obtaining
credence--namely, 270,000 merks. Lord Marischal could enter Scotland
at Berwick, and travel in the leisurely style of those days through
the country to John o’ Groat’s House, and never need to take a meal or
a night’s rest off his own lands. That he used his wealth generously,
no one can deny, when it is remembered that he bestowed part of it in
founding the Marischal College in Aberdeen. Yet, in the eyes of the
common people, a weird hung over him. It was thought he did ill to
stain his hands with the plunder of the old Cistercian monastery on the
banks of the Ugie.
[Sidenote: 1590.]
‘This Earl George, his first wife, daughter to the Lord Home, being a
woman of a high spirit and of a tender conscience, forbids her husband
to have such a consuming moth in his house as was the sacrilegious
meddling with the abbacy of Deir. But fourteen score chalders of
meal and beir was a sore tentation; and he could not weel endure the
rendering back of such a morsel. Upon his absolute refusal of her
demand, she had this vision ... she saw a great number of religious
men, in their habit, come forth of that abbey to the strong craig
of Dunnottar, which is the principal residence of that family. She
also saw them set themselves round about the rock, to get it down and
demolish it, having no instruments but only penknives; wherewith they
foolishly (as it seemed to her) began to pick at the craig. She smiled
to see them intend so fruitless an enterprise, and went to call her
husband, to scoff and jeer them out of it. When she had fand him, and
brought him to see these silly monks at their foolish work, behold!
the whole craig, with all his strong and stately buildings, was by
their penknives undermined and fallen in the sea, so as there remained
nothing but the rack of their rich furniture and stuff floating on the
waves of a raging and tempestuous sea.’[181]
The earl is believed to have mocked the popular notions and his wife’s
foreboding dream, by inscribing on a tower he built at Deir, and
likewise on the wall of his new college, the defying legend:
THAY. HAIF. SAID : QUHAT. SAY. THAY : LAT. THAME. SAY.
The greatness of the Keith Marischal family probably seemed to him as
firmly set as the old Castle of Dunnottar itself on its conglomerate
basis beside the sea. When the above story was put down in writing,
sixty years had elapsed, and the narrator could not but remark the
reduction which the civil war and usurpation of Cromwell had by that
time wrought upon the once enormous wealth of the house of Keith
Marischal. What would he have felt, could he have known that in sixty
years from his time, the family would be out of lands and titles,
exiles from their native country; or that in sixty more, there would
not be a male descendant of the Earls Marischal in existence, of
cadency later than the fifteenth century, while the ancient fortress
of Dunnottar would stand roofless and grass-grown, and, except for the
melancholy interest of the passing visitor, might as well be crumbled
beneath the waves that beat upon the subjacent cliffs!
* * * * *
A series of extraordinary trials for witchcraft and other crimes
commenced at this date.
[Sidenote: 1590.]
One David Seaton, dwelling in Tranent, suspected his servant-maid,
Geilie Duncan, of a supernatural power of curing sickness, and, having
subjected her to the torture of the pilniewinks (a screw for the
fingers), soon extorted from her, not only a confession that the devil
had given her the power of a witch, but information inculpating a
number of persons in the like criminality. Among these were John Fian
(_alias_ Cunningham), schoolmaster at Prestonpans; Agnes Sampson, a
midwife at Keith; Barbara Napier, the wife of a citizen of Edinburgh;
and Eupham M‘Calyean, a lady of rank, daughter of a deceased judge of
the Court of Session. The confessions of these persons, for the most
part wrung from them by torture, form a strange jumble of possible and
impossible, of horrible and ludicrous things; nor are they even devoid
of historical importance, seeing that they involved the honour of the
Earl of Bothwell, who was thus apparently led into those troubles from
which he never got free, and by which the peace of the king and his
kingdom was for some years seriously compromised.
Fian, who was a young man, confessed to some wicked arts which he had
practised for obtaining the love of a young woman of his neighbourhood.
There was nothing in them or their effects but what is easily
reconcilable with natural fact, even to the striking of a rival with
a sort of madness, under which, when brought into the king’s chamber,
where Fian was under examination, he fell abounding and capering with
an energy which it required many persons to restrain, and this for an
hour together, at the end of which he declared that he had been in a
sound sleep. But Fian also admitted, though only under torture, his
having had conferences with the devil; he had attended various meetings
of witches with the Enemy of Man, some of which took place in North
Berwick Kirk, and on these occasions he had acted as registrar or clerk
of proceedings. He had also been one of a party of witches which went
off from Prestonpans one night to a ship at sea, which they sunk by
their incantations. He had chased a cat at Tranent, with the design of
throwing it into the sea, in order to raise storms for the destruction
of shipping; and in this chase it was alleged that he was borne above
the ground, and had leaped a wall, the head of which he could not, but
for witchcraft, have touched with his hand. Out of many facts laid
to his charge at his trial, there is one which modern science has no
difficulty in explaining upon natural principles--‘Passing to Tranent
on horseback, and ane man with him, [he] by his devilish craft, raisit
up four candles upon the horse’s twa lugs [ears], and ane other candle
upon the staff whilk the man had in his hand, and gave sic licht as gif
it had been daylicht; like as the said candles returnit with the said
man at his hame-coming, and causit him fall dead at the entry within
the house.’
[Sidenote: 1590.]
After his first examination and confession, Fian was put into a
separate room, where he quickly came to a state of penitence, renounced
the devil and his works, and professed to have returned to God. Next
day he told his keepers that he had had a vision of the devil, who,
finding him a determined rebel against his authority, said: ‘Once ere
thou die thou shalt be mine;’ after which he broke a white wand which
he held in his hand, and vanished. Fian soon after contrived to escape
from prison, but was retaken and brought back, when, being found to
deny his former confession, the king expressed his belief that he
must have entered into a new compact with the Prince of Darkness. His
person was searched for marks, but in vain; and he was then subjected
to tortures of the direst kind, with a view to bringing him back to his
confession. The nails of the poor wretch were torn away with pincers;
needles were thrust up to the heads in his fingers, and his legs were
crushed in the boots till ‘the blood and marrow spouted forth.’ He
resisted all, and thus only impressed the king and others with the
conviction that the devil had entered into his heart. He was then
arraigned, condemned, and burned.
The trials of three of the women inculpated took place in the course
of a few ensuing months--that of Agnes Sampson on the 27th of January
1591. At the previous examinations, the king presided, manifesting
a deep interest in the declarations of the prisoners, as if he read
therein the materials of a new branch of science; and, indeed, there
can be little doubt that what he now learned formed the groundwork of
his subsequent work on _Demonology_.
The cases were the more remarkable on account of the apparent character
and station of the culprits. Sampson was a grave, matron-like woman,
who gave composed, pertinent answers to all that was put to her; while
Napier and M‘Calyean belonged to the upper class of society. Sampson’s
dittay consists of no fewer than fifty-three articles, each charging
some distinct form or act of sorcery, most of them cures or attempts
to cure, or else prophecies of events which actually came to pass,
all being done with the assistance of her familiar, the devil. The
various articles, numerous as they are, must have been founded on the
confessions previously drawn from the accused by means of the inhuman
torture of a rope twisted round the head, which she is said to have
endured for an hour unmoved. It was alleged that for her cures she
uttered incantations in rhyme; but these appear to have had nothing
devilish in them, one being merely a rough version of the Apostles’
Creed, while another runs as follows:
‘All kinds of ills that ever may be,
In Christ’s name I conjure ye;
I conjure ye baith mair and less,
With all the vertues of the Mess;
And richt sae, by the nailis sae,
That nailit Jesus and nae mae;
[Sidenote: 1590.]
And richt sae, by the samen blude,
That reekit o’er the ruthful rood:
Furth of the flesh and of the bane,
And in the erd and in the stane,
I conjure ye in God’s name!’
In two or three cases, one is reminded of the doctrines of modern
mesmerism. Being called to see a sick boy at Prestonpans, she only
_graipit him_--that is, felt him over--and he was healed. Some cattle
she had cured by going up between them in their stalls, ‘straking
their backs and wames [stroking their backs and bellies], and saying
_Ave Maria_ oft ower.’ The thirty-fifth count charges her with ‘curing
Robert Kerse in Dalkeith, wha was heavily tormented with witchcraft and
disease laid on him by ane westland warlock, when he was in Dumfries;
whilk sickness she took upon herself, and keepit with great groaning
and torment till the morn; on whilk time there was ane great din heard
in the house; whilk sickness she cast off herself in the close, to the
effect ane cat or dog might have gotten the same; and, notwithstanding,
the same was laid upon Alexander Douglas in Dalkeith, wha dwined and
departed therewith, and the said Robert Kerse was made hale.’
[Sidenote: 1590.]
A curious affair is related as taking place at a gentleman’s house near
Edinburgh. ‘When she was sent for to heal the auld Lady Edmestone,
when she lay sick, before the said Agnes departit she tauld to the
gentlewomen that she should tell them that night whether the lady wald
heal or nocht; and appointit them to be in the garden after supper,
betwix five and sax at even. She passit to the garden to devise upon
her prayer, on what time she chargit the devil, calling him _Elva_, to
come and speak to her; wha came in ower the dyke, in likeness of ane
dog, and came sae near her, that she was afraid, and chargit him “on
the law that he lived on,” to come nae nearer, but to answer her; and
she demandit “whether the lady wald live or not.” He said: “Her days
were gane.” When he demandit: “Gif the gentlewomen her dochters, where
they were?” And she said: “That the gentlewomen said, that they were
to be there.” He answerit: “Ane of them sould be in peril, and that he
sould have ane of them.” She answerit: “It sould not be sae;” and sae
[he] departit frae her yowling. Frae this time till after supper, he
remainit in the wall [well]. When the gentlewomen came in, the dog came
out of the wall, and appearit to them; whereat they were affrayit. In
the meantime, ane of the said gentlewomen, the Lady Torsonce, ran to
the wall, being forcit and drawn by the devil, wha wald have drownit
her, were not the said Agnes and the rest of the gentlewomen gat ane
grip of her, and with all their forces drew her back again, whilk
made them all affrayit. The dog passit away thereafter with ane yowl.
Then she said to the gentlewomen that she could not help the lady, in
respect that her prayer stoppit, and that she was sorry for it....’
On Sampson’s trial, some of the transactions first revealed in Fian’s
case came out in greater detail, particularly the night-meeting of
the sorcerers of the district with their grisly master at North
Berwick Kirk. What follows was the woman’s own confession before the
king: ‘The devil, in man’s likeness, met her going out in the fields
from her awn house in Keith, betwix five and sax at even, being her
alane, and commandit her to be at North Berwick Kirk the next nicht.
She passit there on horseback, convoyit by her good-son, called John
Couper, and lichtit at the kirk-yard: a little before she came to it,
about eleven hours at even, they dancit alangs the kirk-yard. Geilie
Duncan playit to them on ane trump. John Fian, missalit [masked], led
all the rest; the said Agnes and her daughter followit next; besides
thir, wee [little] Kate Gray, George Mowat’s wife, Robert Grierson,
Catherine Duncan, Bessie Wright, Isobel Gylour, John Ramsay’s wife,
Annie Richardson, Jonet Gaw, Nicol Murray’s wife tailor, Christian
Carrington _alias_ Lukit, Maisie Aitchison, Marion Paterson, Alexander
Whitelaw, Marion Nicholson, Marion Bailie, Jonet Nicholson, John
Graymeal, Isobel Lauder, Helen White, Margaret Thomson, Marion Shiel,
Helen Lauder, Archy Hennel’s wife, Duncan Buchanan, Marion Congleton,
Bessie Gullan, Bessie Brown the smith’s wife, Thomas Burnhill and his
wife, Gilbert M‘Gill, John M‘Gill, Catherine M’Gill, with the rest of
their complices, above ane hundred persons, whereof there was sax men,
and all the rest women. The women first made their homage, and next the
men. The men were turned nine times withershins about [contrary to the
direction of the sun], and the women sax times.’ Another account, from
Sampson’s confessions, states that the witches took hands and danced a
reel to Geilie Duncan’s music, singing in one voice:
‘Cummer, go ye before; cummer, go ye;
Gif ye will not go before, cummer, let me.’
Geilie Duncan, being sent for, came and played the very tune over
again, upon a Jew’s harp, before the king.
[Illustration: The Devil preaching to the Witches--From a contemporary
print.]
[Sidenote: 1590.]
To proceed with the narrative as given in the dittay: ‘John Fian blew
up the doors, and blew in the lichts, whilk were like meikle black
candles sticking round about the pulpit. The devil start up himself
in the pulpit, like ane meikle black man, and callit every man by his
name, and every ane answerit: “Here, Master.” Robert Grierson being
namit, they ran all hirdy-girdy, and were angry; for it was promisit,
that he should be callit “Robert the Comptroller, _alias_ Rob the
Rower,” for expreming of his name. The first thing he demandit was,
“Gif they [had] keepit all promise and been guid servants?” and “What
they had done since the last time they had convenit?” On his command,
they openit up the graves, twa within and ane without the kirk, and
took off the joints of their fingers, taes, and knees, and partit
them amang them; and the said Agnes Sampson gat for her part ane
winding-sheet and twa joints, whilk she tint negligently. The devil
commandit them to keep the joints upon them, while [till] they were
dry, and then to make ane powder of them, to do evil withal. Then he
commandit them to keep his commandments, whilk were to do all the evil
they could.’ The devil then ordered them to perform an act of homage
towards himself, which does not admit of description, but which may
be said to have been at least one degree more humiliating than the
kissing of the papal great toe. In the account of the confessions, it
is stated that he inveighed against the king, and, being asked why he
had such a hatred to him, answered: ‘By reason the king is the greatest
enemy he hath in the world.’ According to the dittay, the devil ‘had on
him ane gown and ane hat, whilk were baith black; and they that were
assembled, part stood and part sat. John Fian was ever nearest the
devil, at his left elbock; Graymeal keepit the door.’
Mrs Sampson was adjudged to be taken to the Castle-hill, and there
strangled at a stake, and her body burned to ashes.
Barbara Napier was tried, May 8, 1591, on charges similar to those
preferred against Sampson: she was found guilty of a few of the less
important articles, but acquitted of being at the North Berwick
convention and other more grave charges; nevertheless, she was
condemned to death. The king was highly incensed at the partial
acquittal, and came in person to court to preside at a trial of the
jurors for wilful error, when they contrived to avert his wrath by
throwing themselves on his mercy. After all, Napier had execution
delayed on account of pregnancy, and in the end was set at liberty. Of
the royal leniency on this occasion, the clergy did not fail to take
note. It will be found that they twitted the king with it some time
after.
[Sidenote: 1590.]
At Sampson’s trial, the only charge against her in which the safety
of the king was involved, was the helping to raise a storm to stop
the coming of the queen to Scotland. But now, on the trial of Napier,
more serious charges were preferred. It was alleged that at Lammas
last there had been a witch-meeting at Aitchison’s Haven, and in the
midst of it was the devil, ‘in likeness of ane black man.’ ‘Agnes
Sampson proponit the destruction of his hieness’ person, saying
to the devil: “We have ane turn to do, and we wald be at it if we
could, and therefore help us to it.” The devil answerit, “he sould do
what he could, but it wald be lang to, because it wald be thorterit
[thwarted];” and he promisit to her and them ane picture of wax, and
ordenit her and them to hing, roast, and drop ane taid [toad], and to
lay the drops of the taid, mixed with strong wash, ane adder-skin,
and the thing in the forehead of ane new foalit foal, in his hieness’
way, where it micht drop upon his hieness’ head or his body, for
his hieness’ destruction.... Agnes Sampson was appointit to mak the
picture [of the king], and to give it to the devil to be enchantit,
whilk she made indeed, and gave it to him; and he promisit to give
it to the said Barbara [Napier] and to Effie M‘Calyean, at the next
meeting, to be roastit.... There was ane appointit to seek some of
his hieness’ linen claiths, to do the turn with.’ At the North Berwick
meeting on All-hallow even, ‘Robert Grierson said thir words: “Where
is the thing ye promisit?” meaning the picture of wax devisit for
roasting and undoing his hieness’ person, whilk Agnes Sampson gave
him.... He answerit: “It sould be gotten at next meeting.”... Barbara
and Effie M‘Calyean gat then ane promise of the devil, that his
hieness’ picture sould be gotten to them twa, and that right soon.’ It
is highly noteworthy that none of these particulars appear either in
the indictments against Fian and Sampson, or in the accounts of their
confessions which came out about the time of their trials.
The trial of Eupham M‘Calyean commenced on the 9th of June. She was
taxed with many acts of sorcery of a common kind--such as this:
‘Consulting and seeking help at Anny Sampson, ane notorious witch, for
relief of your pain in the time of the birth of your twa sons, and
receiving frae her to that effect ane bored stane, to be laid under the
bowster, put under your head, enchanted moulds [earth] and powder put
in ane piece paper, to be usit and rowit in your hair; and at the time
of your drowis [throes], your guidman’s sark to be presently ta’en off
him and laid wimplit round your bed feet. The whilk being practisit by
you ... your sickness was casten off you, unnaturally, in the birth of
your first son, upon ane dog, whilk ran away and never was seen again:
and in the birth of your last son, the same practice was usit, and your
natural and kindly pain unnaturally casten off you upon the wanton cat
in the house; whilk likewise was never seen thereafter.’ It was also
alleged of Eupham, that, eighteen years before, she had ‘consulted with
Jonet Cunningham in the Canongate-head, _alias_ callit Lady Bothwell,
ane auld indytit witch of the finest champ, for poisoning of Joseph
Douglas of Pumfrastown, and that by ane potion of composit water whilk
she send her servant John Tweedale for, to be brought up to Barbara
Towers’s house in ane chopin stoup.’ What was more to the purpose, she
was accused of her concern in the affair of the waxen picture, and of
having conspired to raise a storm for stopping or drowning the queen
on her way from Denmark. After a trial of three days, a verdict was
returned against her on the chief points, and this unfortunate lady was
condemned to be burned alive at a stake on the Castle-hill.
[Sidenote: 1590.]
Throughout all the proceedings connected with these trials, as far as
they have been preserved, there is no appearance of any imputation
against the Earl of Bothwell; but Spottiswoode affirms that Sampson,
in her confessions, had attributed to him the guilt of suggesting the
picture device, adding that the devil, finding his plans of no avail
against the king, said: ‘Il est un homme de Dieu.’ It also appears
that James discovered further matter against Bothwell, in the course
of examining the wizard Richard Graham.[182] The turbulent lord was
therefore committed to ward, from which he broke out only three days
before the death of M’Calyean, June 22d. He was now forfaulted on a
former sentence, and henceforth became a broken man, though one still
able to create no small trouble to his sovereign.
A review of these circumstances leaves a strange feeling on the mind,
as if we were reading that which was deficient in some of the most
necessary elements of human action. It is difficult to see to what
extent the so-called wizards and witches were deluders and deluded. Was
there any basis in fact for the affair at North Berwick Kirk, confessed
to by two or three of the culprits, though, it may be remarked, with
varying circumstances? Was Geilie Duncan’s dance-tune truly repeated
before the king? Or were these matters of mere hallucination? Did these
women really aim at doing harm to any one, or were they only lunatics?
The story reads the more inexplicably when we see so many names as of
simple villagers involved in it, and find a king and all his court and
clergy viewing it in a serious light.
* * * * *
This year was marked by ‘a plague amang the bestial.’--_Chron. Perth._
REIGN OF JAMES VI.: 1591-1603.
In this period we see a continuation of the struggles of the clergy for
the independence of the kirk, and those of the king for a supremacy
over it; the merciless measures for repressing the Catholic faith,
and the desperate practices of the Catholics for relief; the weak
rule of the king in all administrative matters; and the efforts of
ambitious courtiers to gain an ascendency in his councils. The first
transactions of any note were those arising from the condemnation
and forfeiture of Stuart, Earl of Bothwell, an illegitimate cousin
of the king, and nephew by his mother to the noted Hepburn, Earl of
Bothwell, the murderer of Darnley. Conceiving himself to be simply a
victim of the jealousy of the Chancellor Maitland, this vivacious noble
was indisposed to submit to his doom; he thought, if he could reach
the king’s ear, he might regain lost power and place. His consequent
intrusions by night into the palace, and appearances at the head of
armed parties in the field, form a strange chapter in the history of
the period.
Our chronicle gives details of an unfortunate collision between the
houses of Huntly and Moray, which resulted in the barbarous slaughter
of the latter nobleman. The loss of public esteem which the king and
the chancellor sustained through their suspected concern in this
affair, and through the undoubted lenity which was shewn to the Earl
of Huntly, reduced the government to such a degree of weakness, that
it became necessary to give way somewhat to the demands of the clergy.
To obtain their support, the episcopal arrangements of 1584 were in a
great measure done away with (June 1592), and James himself passed a
glowing eulogium on the Presbyterian system.
Towards the end of this year, new troubles arose, in consequence of
the discovery of a treasonable correspondence between the Catholic
nobles, Huntly, Errol, and Angus, with the king of Spain. These chiefs,
finding themselves harassed beyond endurance by the now triumphant
Presbyterians, who would allow them no freedom for the exercise of
their religion, resorted to the desperate step of seeking assistance
from a foreign and a Catholic sovereign. Under the urgency of Elizabeth
and the kirk, James proceeded with vigour against these nobles, whose
force he easily dispelled, and whom he prosecuted to forfeiture, but
without meaning to effect their entire destruction. As a set-off to
this procedure, he demanded that Elizabeth should cease to harbour and
support his enemy the Earl of Bothwell. The English queen answered
this with all smoothness, but in secret conspired with certain persons
in Scotland for re-instating Bothwell in power. The unruly earl
obtained by this means a temporary mastery over James (July, August
1593). The king, having contrived by craft and some share of resolution
to emancipate himself, once more resumed his authority. In February
1593-4, while the queen lay in confinement after her first child, James
mustered some forces, and met the Bothwell faction in the field. The
rebels were overthrown, and Bothwell fell into a low and despicable
state.
The general lawlessness of the country at this period, and the
frightful atrocities which were almost daily committed, make some
appearance in the chronicle. Amidst the universal broils, the
Presbyterian clergy formed a virtuous element, zealous for an
improvement of manners and the advance of the ‘evangel,’ but equally
so in using means to force their own convictions upon others, and
often interfering with matters which did not properly fall within
their province. The rashness of the synod of Fife in excommunicating
the papist lords (September 1593), and the freedom of speech which
the members used in discussing and railing at the king’s slackness
regarding the putting down of popery, gave James great disgust. He
spoke sharply of their ‘proud enterprises,’ and declared he should
re-erect the estate of bishops, for the purpose of correcting the
insolence of the Presbyterian clergy, and suppressing the liberties
which they were abusing.
The Catholic lords, being driven to extremities, collected their
vassals and appeared in the field. A royal host under the youthful
Earl of Argyle was sent to meet them, and in a bloody fight which took
place at Glenlivet on the 3d of October 1594, they gained a victory.
This, however, only made it necessary for the king to proceed in person
with a larger host against them. He spent many weeks in the north,
destroying their castles and harassing their vassalage, yet in his
heart was far from coming up to that standard of severity against the
ancient faith which would have conciliated the Presbyterian ministers.
After a little time, the papist nobles yielded to pass into exile. The
Earl of Bothwell, finding his case desperate, also left his native
country, and, as it proved, for ever. He died in obscurity abroad.
A singular riot in Edinburgh in December 1596, of which an account
is given in the chronicle, led to a reaction in favour of the king
against the ultra-zealous Presbyterians. James was enabled to acquire
considerable influence in the church-courts, to obtain seats in
parliament for certain ministers, as representing the ancient bishops,
and to secure a peaceable restoration for the popish lords. His
brightening prospects of the English succession added to his power
within Scotland, and the latter years of his Scottish reign were marked
by comparatively few events of importance.
The most remarkable was the mysterious Gowrie Conspiracy (August 5,
1600). The young Earl of Gowrie and his brother Alexander Ruthven,
sons of the Gowrie who suffered in 1584, appeared to have formed a plan
to entrap the king, and by the possession of his person, to work out
some project for placing themselves at the head of affairs. James was
induced to visit their house at Perth by a tempting story about a man
who knew of a concealed treasure. After dinner, he was conducted by
Alexander Ruthven into a solitary room at the end of a long gallery,
and put into the hands of an armed man. At the same time a false alarm
was given to his attendants, that he had left the house, and was riding
homeward. While they were hurrying to their horses in the court-yard,
the king had a struggle with Ruthven, who first attempted to bind,
and then to poniard him. With great difficulty, and not without the
exercise of considerable presence of mind, he succeeded in giving an
alarm to his attendants; one of whom, named John Ramsay, rushed to
his rescue, and slew the two brothers on the spot. The death of the
conspirators, and the very folly of their alleged plot, caused the
tale of the king’s preservation to be received at the time, by a few
persons, as an obscure and doubtful matter; and in this light it is
still regarded by some; but a dispassionate estimate of probabilities
will, we think, make the affair appear as a true, though foolish scheme
of two hot-headed young men, animated partly by ambition, and partly
by a feeling of revenge. Their bodies were dealt with as those of
traitors on the same day (November 19) on which the king’s second son,
afterwards Charles I., first saw the light.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1590-1.
JAN. 7.]
The imbecility of the king amidst his rude and quarrelsome courtiers,
is strongly marked by several occurrences of this particular time. The
Presbyterian historian tells us that, on the day noted on the margin,
as his majesty was coming down the High Street from the Tolbooth, where
he had been attending the administration of justice, his two chief
friends, the Duke of Lennox and Lord Home, meeting the Laird of Logie,
pulled out their swords and assaulted him. The quarrel was that Logie,
a valet of the royal chamber, had refused to ‘ish’ at the duke’s order,
till he was put out by force; whereupon he had given the duke foul
words. While the two nobles set upon the valet, ‘the king fled into a
close-head, and incontinent retired to a skinner’s booth, where it is
said ... fear.’ Six days after, King James was sitting in the Tolbooth,
hearing the case of the Laird of Craigmillar, who was suing a divorce
against his wife, when the Earl of Bothwell forcibly took away one of
the most important witnesses, carried him to Crichton Castle, and
there threatened him with the gallows. It seemed ‘as if there had been
no king in Israel.’--_Cal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1591.]
[Sidenote: APR. 19]
During this age of general violence, the rights of women were, as a
matter of course, little respected. Abductions, both under the impulse
of passion and from motives of cupidity, were frequent. The young Duke
of Lennox, the cousin and favourite of the king, had contracted a
violent attachment to Lady Sophia Ruthven, one of the numerous children
left by the unfortunate Earl of Gowrie at his death in 1584. At the
order of the king, the young lady was secluded from the duke’s resort
at Easter Wemyss in Fife. The duke, crossing the Firth, took the Lady
Sophia out of the house where she lived, and ‘carried her away on his
awn horse all the night, and on the morn married the said gentlewoman,
contrair the ordinance of the kirk; whereat the king was greatly
commoved.’[183]--_Jo. Hist._
In June 1593, an abduction, of which Plutus was the prompting deity,
took place under extraordinary circumstances. A young lady, daughter
and apparent heir of John Carnegie, had become an object of attention
to James Gray, brother of that dexterous _diplomat_ the Master of
Gray, whose treachery has made him so noted a figure at this period
of Scottish history. She had already been once in the hands of her
disinterested lover, but rendered back to her father, at the command of
the Council. She and her father were now living in the strong house of
Robert Gourlay, the merchant, in Edinburgh, when a new and successful
effort was made.
[Sidenote: 1591.]
On a Sunday, being the 10th of June, Lord Home, who was one of the
king’s chief courtiers, came to the High Street with an armed party,
designed to repress any attempt at rescue. Thus favoured, Gray and
his immediate accomplices took the young lady out of her home, and,
dragging her down a narrow alley to the North Loch, crossed over with
her to the other side, where ten or twelve men were ready to receive
her. ‘They set her upon a man’s saddle, and conveyed her away, her
hair hanging about her face.’ The ravisher was ‘a gentleman of the
king’s bed-chamber!’
The magistrates of Edinburgh went to Holyrood on Tuesday to complain of
this outrage. ‘The king desired to know if they could complean of any
that was about him. In the meantime, my Lord Home, who was chief author
of the riot, was standing by. They answered nothing, because they
expected for no justice.’--_Cal._
On the 6th of September 1594, Margaret Hay, a girl of only fourteen
years, was forcibly taken from her mother’s house at Shiplaw,
Peeblesshire, by Thomas Hay, brother of Hay of Smithfield, John and
Thomas Govan, brothers, and ‘Willie Hay callit the Bastard.’ She was
rescued by Cockburn of Skirling, who refused to give her up. The end of
the matter does not appear.--_P. C. R._
Birrel notes, under 14th August 1595, how Christian Johnston, a widow,
was carried off from Edinburgh by Patrick Aikenhead. ‘The town was
put in ane great fray by the ringing of the common bell,’ and ‘the
said Christian was followit and brought back.’ On the 27th of November
1600, a number of persons were denounced and intercommuned for taking
away the daughter of George Carkettle, burgess of Edinburgh, ‘furth
of his awn house of Monkrig, where she was for the time [living] with
her mother in peaceable and quiet manner.’ It afterwards appeared
that the chief guilty party was Robert Hepburn of Alderston, in East
Lothian.--_P. C. R._
[Sidenote: 1591.]
About two miles to the south-west of Edinburgh, on the slope of the
Craig-Lockhart Hill, there is a mansion called Craig House of the
period of James VI., and which in that time belonged to a branch of the
old family of Kincaid. On the 17th of December 1600, John Kincaid of
Craig House, attended by a party of friends and servants, all ‘bodin
in feir of weir, with swords, secrets, and other weapons,’ came to
the village of Water of Leith, also closely adjacent to Edinburgh,
and there attacked the house of Bailie John Johnston, ‘where Isobel
Hutcheon, widow, was in sober, quiet, and peaceable manner for the
time, dreading nae evil, harm, injury, or pursuit of ony persons, but
to have lived under God’s peace and our sovereign lord’s.’ Kincaid
‘violently and forcibly brak up the doors of the said dwelling-house,
entered therein, and pat violent hands on the said Isobel’s person,
took her captive, reft, ravished, and took her away with him to his
place of Craig House; where he deteined her, while [till] his majesty
being upon the fields, accompanied with John, Earl of Mar, Sir John
Ramsay, and divers others, hearing of the committing of sic ane
horrible fact, directed the said John, Earl of Mar, Sir John Ramsay,
and divers others his hieness’ servants, to follow him, and relieve her
furth of his hands. Wha having come to his place of Craig House, and
requiring for her relief, he refusit to grant the same, while [till]
they menaced to bring his majesty about his said house and raise fire
therein; and sae compellit him to relieve her.’
Kincaid underwent trial for this outrage, January 13, 1601, and his
doom was ordered by the king to be a fine of 2500 merks, payable ‘to us
and our treasurer’--‘as also he sall deliver to us and our treasurer
_his brown horse_.’--_Pit._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR. 30.]
‘John Dickson, younger of Belchester, being apprehended, ta’en, and
brought to Edinburgh, was put to the knawledge of ane assize for the
slaughter of his awn natural father [in July 1588], and also for the
lying for the said offence at the process of excommunication. [Being
convicted, he was] brought to the scaffold, and at the Cross broken on
ane rack, [and] worried--where he lay all that night, and on the morn
[was] carried to the gallows of the Burgh-moor, where the rack was set
up, and the corpse laid thereupon.’--_Jo. Hist._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 6.]
In the midst of the proceedings regarding the witches, two ministers of
Edinburgh broke out against the king in their sermons for his feeble
administration of justice. One spoke of the universal contempt of his
subjects; the other said he did not seem to have any power over even a
witch-wife, meaning Barbara Napier. James sent for them two days after,
at the Tolbooth, where he often sat beside the judges of the session.
He remonstrated with them for the freedom they had used, but could not
bring them to acknowledge any fault. In the conversation which ensued,
they argued with the king about their respective powers. An apostle
said: ‘We shall judge the angels;’ and Christ had said: ‘Ye shall sit
upon twelve thrones and judge.’ Here was sufficient warrant for the
parish ministers of Scotland lording it over the head of the state.
After all, they protested they loved him, and he parted with them in
good-humour.
[Sidenote: 1591.]
On the ensuing 8th of December, a highly characteristic scene took
place at Holyrood--three of the ministers ‘visiting’ the royal family
as censors, ‘to try what negligence was in pastors, and abuses in
the family.’ They went again upon Friday the 10th, when the king
himself was present. They urged the king to have the Scriptures read
at dinner and supper, and ‘willed that new elders could be chosen and
the comptroller left out.’ A week after, one of them, Mr John Davidson,
called in a private capacity at the palace to admonish the king about
his failures in the exercise of king-craft, particularly in appointing
bad men to offices, and pardoning great criminals. ‘The king answered,
he found not concurrence in inferior magistrates ... there were diverse
officers claimed their places by heritage. As for known pardons, he
would answer for every one he gave by law and reason. As for unknown,
such was the multitude of his businesses, that some about him deceived
him by importunity, and got stolen subscriptions, from which kind
of dealing he thought no flesh in his place could always be free.
Further, he saw not where to make choice of fit officers, for when
any man’s particular cometh in question, then their partiality may be
seen.’--_Cal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1591.
OCT. 28.]
On this day are entered in the records of the Privy Council two
complaints which illustrate in a remarkable manner the state of society
at that time. First, James Lord Ogilvie of Airly, ancestor of the Earls
of Airly, complains that, while he was living quietly in the protection
of the law, and dreading harm from no man, the Earl of Argyle, without
any provocation from him, hounded out a set of broken Highlandmen to
the number of about five hundred, to attack him, and spoil his lands.
He had ‘retired in sober and quiet manner, to dwell and make his
residence in Glen Isla,’ when, on the 21st of August, they entered the
district under silence of night, ‘with sic force and violence, that the
said lord, lying far from his friends, was not able to resist them,
but with great difficulty and short advertisement, he, his wife and
bairns, escaped.’ The invading party are described as having slain all
the people they could lay their hands on, eighteen or twenty in number;
besides, they ‘spulyit and away-took ane grit number of nolt, sheep,
and plenishing [furniture], to the utter wreck and undoing of the haill
poor inhabitants of the country.’ Having at the command of the king
retired, they still hovered on the neighbouring hills, and some weeks
after made a new attack upon Glen Isla, as well as Glen Clova, slaying
three or four persons, and taking away much spoil; ‘sae that the poor
men dwelling in Glen Clova, Glen Isla, and other parts adjacent to
the Month, wha are not able to make resistance, are sae oppressed
by the broken men and sorners hounded out by the Earl of Argyle and
his friends, and maintainit and reset by them, that neither by his
majesty’s protection, nor assurance of the party, can their lives and
gudes be in surety.’
This seems very mysterious, till we read the second entry, which is a
complaint that, on the 16th of August bypast (five days previous to the
above incident), Leighton of Usan and sundry of the Ogilvies, to the
number of about threescore persons, had, at the instigation of Lord
Ogilvie, gone with jacks, spears, harquebuses, and other weapons, and
attacked Robert Campbell in Millhorn, William of Soutarhouse, Thomas
Campbell of Keithock, and John Campbell of Muirton, whom they had
mercilessly slain. How this outrage had been provoked, does not appear;
but there can be no doubt that the invasion of Lord Ogilvie’s privacy
in Glen Isla was a consequence of this earlier and similar incident.
* * * * *
The frightful cutaneous disease of leprosy prevailed in Scotland,
as in most other European countries, from an early age. There was
a hospital for the reception of its victims at Kingcase, near Ayr,
believed to have existed from the reign of King Robert I. At Glasgow,
such an establishment was planted by the Lady of Lochow, daughter of
Robert, Duke of Albany, and in 1584 it had six inmates. In a solitary
spot between Old and New Aberdeen, there was a leper-house, but rather
poorly endowed, for in this year King James is found granting the
inmates a right to one peat out of every load of peats sold in the
town, in consideration that their rents were ‘unable to sustene them in
meat and fire, wherethrough they live very miserably.’[184] There were
a few other such refuges of hopeless misery throughout the land.
[Sidenote: 1591.
NOV. 21.]
In a sheltered spot called Greenside, near the northern skirts of
the Calton Hill, a small monastery of Carmelite Friars had had a
brief existence before the Reformation. On its desolate site, a
merchant-burgess of Edinburgh, John Robertson by name (whom we soon
after find in the office of bailie), now erected a small house for the
reception of lepers, led thereto, it is stated, by a sense of gratitude
to God for a signal deliverance vouchsafed to him. The town-council
concurred in his object, and undertook the oversight and direction of
the establishment. A committee of their number, in conjunction with a
minister of the city, and John Robertson himself, drew up rules for
the house, and arranged the means of its support. Five men afflicted
with leprosy, and two women, the wives of two of these men, but not
themselves lepers, were admitted, each leper being allowed four
shillings Scots money--equal to 4d. sterling--weekly, and also having
a privilege of begging under certain restrictions. They were on no
account to go about for alms, or to stir from the house at all, or to
admit any visitor, under penalty of death, and, to shew how earnest
was the spirit of this rule, a gibbet was erected at the gable of the
hospital, ready for the instant execution of any transgressor. From
sunset to sunrise, their door was to be kept fast locked, under the
same penalty. Each patient was to take his turn of sitting at the door
‘with ane clapper,’ to attract the attention of people passing between
Edinburgh and Leith, and to beg from them for the general benefit.
The rest were meanwhile to stay within doors. The two wives, Isobel
Barear and Jonet Gatt, were to be allowed to go to market, to purchase
_vivres_ for the lepers and for themselves, but not to call anywhere
else in town, under penalty of death. A person was appointed to read
prayers to the inmates each Sunday, and a weekly oversight was confided
to the Masters of Trinity Hospital. It serves curiously to realise the
whole arrangement to our minds, that this hospital still exists, though
the leper-house seems to have been extinct since the middle of the
seventeenth century.[185]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1591.
DEC. 10.]
We have under this date a curious specimen of the administration of
justice under King James. Letters are raised at the instance of ‘Helen
Henderson, spouse of William Murray elder of Romanno; Margaret Tweedie,
spouse of John Murray younger of Romanno; and ---- Nisbet, spouse
of William Murray, _third_ Laird of Romanno, with the puir tenants,
cotters, and labourers of the ground of the lands of Romanno, lying
within the sheriffdom of Peebles:’ stating that these three lairds,
with sundry other persons, had been denounced at the horn for their
concern in the slaughter of John Hamilton of Coitquott[186] and his
son; and, on the complaint of the widow and children of the said John,
with a false report that the Lairds of Romanno were fortifying their
tower of Romanno, there to defend themselves against the powers of the
law, ‘his majesty appointit the same to be keepit by four persons,
allowing them monthly the sum of twenty merks ... to be payit out
of the living of Romanno,’ and caused letters to be directed to the
complainers, charging them with this payment. The three ladies appeal
against this order, on the ground that they had not been previously
heard in their own cause. Had they been so, they could have shewn
reasons to the contrary--‘the house of Romanno was never keepit agains
his hieness, but the same, as alsae the country, is left by the said
rebels, and that immediately after committing the fact (gif in their
awn defence and by procurement of other persons God knaws and time will
try), and therefore needit nae sic keepers, it being bot ane auld and
ruinous touir, not meet for nae man to keep or hazard his life into,
and, besides this, the said Helen Henderson, Margaret Tweedie, and ----
Nisbet, are infeft in conjunct fee and liferent in the haill lands of
Romanno, whilk is bot a puir ten-pund land, in effect barren of the
self, and subject to the incursion and stouthreif of the broken men
and thieves of baith the borders, and, as is mair nor notour, will not
sustene the said complenars nor their families, they having nae manner
of thing else whereupon to live.’ The ladies further pointed out the
hardship of punishing the innocent for the guilty, and pleaded how they
had already made a great composition with the representatives of the
slaughtered persons. Nevertheless, on parties being heard before the
Council, the letters complained of were found to be legal and proper,
and so the garrison imposed on the old tower would remain for the
meantime a burden on the estate.--_P. C. R._
On the ensuing 17th of March, Jonas Hamilton of Coitquott gave surety
by sundry of his friends, under large sums, that ‘Margaret Tweedie,
relict of John Murray of Romanno, her tenants and servants, sall be
harmless and skaithless.’
[Sidenote: 1591.]
The garrison consisted of this Jonas; William, his brother; William
Hamilton in Cranston; and William Brown in Bordland. It appears that
the Murrays had held the house in contempt of a summons from John
Blainslie, ‘Bute pursuivant,’ and had been thrust out with their
families by force. The widow Margaret, with feminine tenacity of
purpose, obtained a letter under the king’s signet for dispossessing
the Hamilton garrison; and now this was reclaimed against. Parties
being heard in presence, his majesty affirmed the order for the
surrender of the house to the widow, on condition that she should
give security that it should not prove a refuge for her outlawed
relatives.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 22.]
During this troublous period of the king’s reign, the book of the
Privy Council becomes a kind of review of the nobility and gentry of
Scotland, as they severally appear to give caution for one another as
to the maintenance of the peace, or are cited or denounced for its
infraction. As an example of a kind of entry which occurs several
times at every meeting, John Murray of Blackbarony becomes ‘actit and
obleist as cautioner or surety for William Burnett of the Barns [both
in Peeblesshire], that he sall compeir personally before the king’s
majesty and Lords of Secret Council, at Halyrudhouse, or where it sall
happen to be for the time, the 29 day of December instant, and answer
to sic things as sall be inquirit of him, touching sic deidly feid as
he has interest in, and that he sall underly sic order as his hieness
and the said lords sall demene to him thereanent, under the pain of ane
thousand merks.’--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
The Earl of Bothwell seems to have been little distressed by his
forfeiture. According to his own ideas, he was only suffering from
the malice of a successful enemy, the Chancellor Maitland. All that
he aimed at was a change of administration in his own favour. How to
bring it about? In our days, such a discharged favourite would bide
his time, in hopes that some new turn of affairs or a gust of popular
favour through the House of Commons would bring him into favour again.
In Scotland, at the close of the sixteenth century, the needful first
step was to obtain, by whatever means, possession of the king’s person.
Now then commenced a series of remarkable assaults on King James by his
turbulent cousin.
[Sidenote: 1591.]
DEC. 27.]
Having secured some favour among the royal attendants, he came to
Holyroodhouse at night, with his friends the Lairds of Spott and
Nisbet, Mr Archibald Douglas, a natural son of the Regent Morton,
Mr John Colville, and others, to the amount of forty or fifty. They
‘enterit in at a stable-door beside the east gable of the Traitor’s
Tower, whilk was called the Duke’s Stable, within the whilk there was a
trap and ane entress privily made. Having enterit therein, they first
bereft the porter of the keys, and then passed to the chancellor’s
chalmer-door; they dang up the same. He, being foreseen by the cry
of ane boy that there was ane tumult of men in the close, withdrew
himself and some others within his inner chalmer, whilk has ane narrow
entress, at whilk the conspirators strake with fore-hammers and shot
pistolets. There was some shots of muskets shot out again [by which]
some of them were hurt; [so they] for fear to be trappit, passed to the
queen’s chalmer-door, whilk they brak up.’
‘In the meantime, the haill noblemen and gentlemen of his majesty’s
house raise, who thought to have taken the Earl Bothwell and his
complices. The earl fled; yet he returned at the south side of the
abbey, where the said earl and his complices slew his majesty’s
master-stabler, named William Shaw, and ane with him, named Mr Peter
Shaw. But the king’s folk took eight of Bothwell’s faction, and on the
morrow hanged them all without ane assize, betwixt the Girth Cross and
the Abbey-gate.’--_Moy._ _Bir._
[Sidenote: DEC. 28.]
‘The king’s majesty came to Sanct Geill’s Kirk, and there made ane
oration anent the fray made by Bothwell and William Shaw’s slaughter,
his master-stabler.’--_Bir._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1591-2.
FEB. 7.]
The slaughter of the Bonny Earl of Moray at Dunnibrissle stands
prominent amongst the tragic events of the time. It was much more
a piece of clan warfare than is generally allowed by Scottish
historians. Moray had connected himself with a number of gentlemen
and heads of clans in the north, who had combined against the Earl of
Huntly. In the latter part of 1590, there were in that district of
Scotland musterings, marchings, and fightings, too obscure to make an
appearance in general history, but enough to keep three counties in
a state resembling civil war. Huntly, who acted as lord-lieutenant
of the north, and thus had a colour of law on his side, pursued
the Mackintoshes and Grants, who befriended the Earl of Moray, as
rebels, both against himself, who was their feudal superior, and
against the king. In a reconnoitring expedition which he made at
Darnaway Castle, the Earl of Moray’s house, one of his gentlemen was
unfortunately killed by a musket-shot, discharged by a servant from the
battlements--an injury which the feelings of the day made it a virtue
to revenge.
By the intervention of Lord Ochiltree, Moray came south to his house
of Dunnibrissle, in Fife, with a view to a reconciliation with Huntly.
The northern chief was also at court; but his thoughts were not turned
on peace. In consequence of Moray having befriended the turbulent
Bothwell, the king and Chancellor Maitland were wrought upon to grant
a commission to Huntly for the capture of that nobleman, not dreaming,
as we may charitably hope, of the cruel tragedy which was to ensue.
Perhaps neither did Huntly meditate anything beyond taking Moray, and
having him subjected to trial.
Mustering forty friends on horseback, he set out with them, as to a
race at Leith; but, having thus lulled suspicion, he quickly turned
away, and crossed the Forth at the Queensferry. At a late hour on a
winter night, the Earl of Moray heard his lonely house surrounded by
the hostile Gordons, and received a summons to surrender. He had no
friend with him but one--Dunbar, sheriff of Moray--and a few servants;
yet he determined to make resistance. The Gordons then gathered corn
from the neighbouring farms, and piling it against the door, set it on
fire. To pursue the quaint recitals of the day: ‘The Earl of Moray,
being within, wissed not whether to come out and be slain, or be burned
quick; yet, after avisement, this Dunbar says to my Lord of Moray: “I
will go out at the gate before your lordship, and I am sure the people
will charge on me, thinking me to be your lordship; sae, it being mirk
under night, ye shall come out after me, and look if that ye can fend
[provide] for yourself.” In the meantime, this Dunbar came forth, and
ran desperately amang the Earl of Huntly’s folks, and they all ran upon
him and presently slew him. During this broil with Dunbar, the Earl
of Moray came running out at the gate of Dunnibrissle, which stands
beside the sea, and there sat down amang the rocks. But, unfortunately,
the said lord’s knapscull tippet, whereon was a silk string, had taken
fire, which betrayed him to his enemies in the darkness of the night,
himself not knowing the same. They came down on him on a sudden, and
there most cruelly, without mercy, murdered him.’--_Bir._ _Moy._
[Sidenote: 1591-2.]
Next morning, Edinburgh was full of mourning and lamentation for this
sad event. That the victim was a Protestant and son-in-law of the Good
Regent, while the Earl of Huntly was notedly the head of the popish
party in Scotland, was chiefly remembered by them. The conflict of
interests in the north, the death of John Gordon at Darnaway, and the
possibility of Huntly having been far from meditating slaughter, were
little known or reflected on. The sympathies of the king, on the other
hand, were with Huntly; nor, had it been otherwise, would his majesty
have found it an easy task to bring to justice a grandee who had
recently come forth against the Protestant interest with ten thousand
men at his back.
‘The king went forth to the hunting that morning; and hunting about
Inverleith and Wardie, he saw the fire, which had not yet died out; but
nothing moved with the matter.’--_Cal._ It was generally believed that
both he and the Chancellor Maitland had not been unwilling that Huntly
should do this deed. ‘The king sent for five or six of the ministers,
made an harangue to them, wherein he did what he could to clear
himself, and desired them to clear his part before the people. They
desired him to clear himself with earnest pursuing of Huntly with fire
and sword. The king alleged his part to be like David’s when Abner was
slain by Joab.’--_Cal._ It nevertheless appears, from the records of
Privy Council, that James, on the 8th of February, being the day after
the murder, retracted from Huntly his commission of lieutenancy.
[Sidenote: FEB. 9.]
‘---- the Earl of Moray’s mother, accompanied with her friends, brought
over her son’s and the sheriff of Moray’s dead corpse, in litters, to
Leith, to be brought from thence to be buried in the aile of the Great
Kirk of Edinburgh, in the Good Regent’s tomb, and, as some report, to
be made first a spectacle to the people at the Cross of Edinburgh;
but they were stayed by command from the king. Captain [John] Gordon
[a brother of the Laird of Gicht], was left for dead at Dunnibrissle;
his hat, his purse, his gold, his weapons were taken by one of his own
company; his shanks [stockings] were pulled off. He was taken in by the
Earl of Moray’s mother, and cherished with meat, drink, and clothing.
A rare example! She brought him over with her son’s corpse to seek
justice. The earl’s mother caused draw her son’s picture, as he was
demained, and presented it to the king in a fine _laine_ cloth, with
lamentations, and earnest suit for justice. But little regard was had
to the matter. Of the three bullets she found in the bowelling of the
body of her son, she presented one to the king, another to ..., the
third she reserved to herself, and said: “I sall not part with this
till it be bestowed on him that hindereth justice.”‘[187]--_Cal._
[Sidenote: 1591-2.]
One of the king’s friends, Lord Spynie, hearing that Captain Gordon
had been brought to Leith, got a warrant from the king to bring him to
Edinburgh Castle, ‘to have eschewit the present trial of law;’ but Lord
Ochiltree, being informed of this, took horse with about forty friends
and servants in arms, and went forth after the king, who, even at this
dismal moment, could not restrain his inordinate propensity to hunting.
Lord Ochiltree ‘came upon the king on the north side of Corstorphine
Craigs, where his majesty was taking a drink. [He] lichtit and stayit
his horse at the hill foot, and came to his majesty and show[ed] him
... how far this murder touched his highness, whereof he besought him
maist humbly to consider.... Upon Lord Ochiltree his earnest desire,
his majesty granted him a warrant to present Captain Gordon and his man
to the trial of ane assize that same day; whilk with all diligence the
said lord did perform, and the said captain was beheadit, and his man
hanged. The captain condemned the fact, protesting that he was brought
ignorantly upon it.’--_Moy._ _Cal._
The Earl of Huntly made an appearance of satisfying the demands of law
for the slaughter of Moray, by entering himself in ward in Blackness
Castle, as preliminary to his trial; but the king released him after
eight days’ confinement, and he was not again troubled on that score.
It is to be observed, however, that the Bonny Earl’s death did not pass
without at least an attempt at revenge in the north.
The Clan Chattan or Mackintoshes, and the Grants, were much incensed
by the fact, and made great ‘stirs’ against their superior the Earl
of Huntly. The earl sent the Clan Cameron against the one, and a
leader called Mackranald against the other, and had great slaughter
committed upon both. The Mackintoshes, still indisposed to submit,
came in the fall of the year 1592, eight hundred strong, into the
Gordon territories of Strathdee and Glenmuick, where they killed
four gentlemen of Huntly’s vassalage. One of these was the Laird of
Brackla, a place near the modern watering-village of Ballater. He was
an old man, much given to hospitality, and had received a party of
these invaders without any apprehension of their hostile intentions.
After a kindly entertainment, they killed the old man in his own hall
(November 1)--a circumstance which naturally added much bitterness to
the feelings of his friends, as it was considered as the foulest style
in which murder could be committed.[188]
[Sidenote: 1591-2.]
The Earl of Huntly was interrupted in an invasion of the Mackintosh
estate of Pettie in Inverness-shire, by a report of what was going on
in Aberdeenshire. With his uncle, Sir Patrick Gordon of Auchindoun,
and about thirty-six horsemen, he did not hesitate immediately to ride
into Strathdee and attack the Mackintoshes, now passing over a hill
called Stapliegate in the Cabrach. After a sharp skirmish, he routed
them utterly, killing about sixty. He then caused parties of his people
to invade and spoil the Mackintosh and Grant territories; nor did he
rest till, by slaughter and pillage, he had completely reduced these
clans to his obedience.[189]--_G. H. S._
[Sidenote: 1591-2.]
It is not unworthy of remark, that the Privy Council Record contains
no notice of these outrages in the north, beyond an entry dated
November 9, 1592, adverting to ‘great cruelties, herships, and
disorders recently committit by the lawless broken Highlandmen of the
Clan Chattan, Clan Cameron, Clanranald, and others pretending their
dependence on the Earls of Huntly and Athole;’ which had ‘sae wrackit
and shaken louss sundry parts of the north country, that great numbers
of honest and peaceable folks are murtherit, their houses burnt now
in the winter season, their guids spulyit, disponit, and exponit in
prey, in far greater rigour nor it was with foreign enemies;’ for which
reasons a commission was granted to the Earl of Angus to go north
and deal with the said earls for the pacification of the country,
and, failing this, to raise the well-affected people in arms, and put
down the lawless by force. This view of the matter is so inconsistent
with the statement of Sir Robert Gordon, above quoted, as to suggest
that the Scottish government knew hardly anything of the relations
of parties, and had heard only of there being troubles in a certain
district. No notice whatever is taken of the sweeping vengeance
executed by the Earl of Huntly upon the Mackintoshes and Grants.
Certainly, no feature of the time is more remarkable than this freedom
and power of the great nobles to do what they considered justice upon
their enemies, while the king was unable by any force under his own
immediate control to protect himself in his own palace.
We learn from another source, that the Earl of Angus brought matters to
a bearing in conformity with the king’s direction, by causing ‘baith
the parties subscryve ane assurance, bot of their awn form.’--_Moy._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: FEB. 28.]
Richard Graham had for some years been noted as a prominent licentiate
of the devil’s medical college. He professed to despise common
witchcraft as a vulgar thing, and would only admit that he consulted
spirits. Spottiswoode, speaking of the death of the good Earl of
Angus, says: ‘In the time of his sickness, when the physicians found
his disease not to proceed of any natural cause [it was concluded
to be by enchantment], one Richard Graham being brought to give his
opinion of it, made offer to cure him, saying, as the manner of these
wizards is, “that he had received wrong.” But when he [the earl] heard
that the man was suspected to use unlawful arts, he would by no means
admit him, saying: “That his life was not so dear to him, as, for
the continuance of it some years, he would be beholden to any of the
devil’s instruments; that he held his life of God, and was willing to
render the same at His good pleasure, knowing he should change it for a
better.”‘[190]
[Sidenote: 1591-2.]
It is related that Sir Lewis Bellenden, Lord Justice-clerk, dealt with
Graham to raise the devil. Graham having raised him in Sir Lewis’s own
yard in the Canongate, ‘he [Sir Lewis] was thereby so terrified that he
took sickness and thereof died.’--_Stag. State._
It was satisfactorily made out that Graham had been the adviser of
the witch Barbara Napier and her associates; and we have just seen
that the Earl of Bothwell was likewise believed to have consulted him
regarding the king’s death. This wizard, therefore--‘notour and knawn
necromancer, ane common abuser of the people’--was apprehended; and on
the day noted in the margin, he was ‘worried and burnt at the Cross
of Edinburgh.’ According to Calderwood, ‘he stood hard to his former
confession touching Bothwell’s practice against the king; that Arran,
Lord Fairnyear,[191] was an enchanter; that the devil was raised at
the Laird of Auchinleck’s dwelling-place, and in Sir Lewis Bellenden
the Justice-clerk’s yard. The bruit [rumour] went that the chancellor
[Maitland] had some tables and images about his neck, and that he was
sure [safe] so long as he used them so; but Richard Graham deponed no
such matter.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAR. 7.]
The presbytery of Edinburgh laboured hard to get the Earl of Huntly and
his friends excommunicated. They could not be brought to see that there
was any need for the same severity against the Earl of Bothwell and his
associates, who had tried to seize the king in his palace by night.
James ‘grudged’ at this, ‘and said it would not be weel till noblemen
and gentlemen got licence to break ministers’ heads.’--_Cal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1592.
MAR. 31.]
We have at this date a peculiar proceeding recorded, regarding a
dyvour or bankrupt. ‘In presence of the provost, bailies, council,
and community of the burgh of Edinburgh, Patrick Lindsay, tailor, was
sworn in judgment that he was not worth five ...., sworn in judgment,
divour and _bare man_. This was because he was reteinit in ward at the
instance of John Anderson, burgess of the said burgh, for the sum of
eighty pounds, by the space of sax ouks. After[wards], he was brought
to the Cross, convoyit with the provost, bailies, and officers; and
thereupon, after three _Oyez_’es, the said aith was published by
Bartilmo Uchiltree, officer, wha cut the said Patrick’s belt in three
pieces in presence of the haill people. This form of law was never
practised in Edinburgh on the first erection thereof, and therefore I
thought necessary to put [it] in memory.’--_Jo. Hist._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE (?)]
[Sidenote: 1592.]
‘There came from Aberdeen a young woman, called Helen Guthry, daughter
to John Guthry, saddler, to admonish the king of his duty. She was so
disquieted with the sins reigning in the country--swearing, filthy
speaking, profanation of the Sabbath, &c.--that she could find no rest
till she came to the king. She presented a letter to him when he was
going to see his hounds. After he had read a little of it, he fell a
laughing that he could scarce stand on his feet, and swore so horribly
that the woman could not spare to reprove him. He asked if she was a
prophetess. She answered she was a poor simple servant of God, that
prayed to make him a servant of God also; that was desirous vice should
be punished, and specially murder, which was chiefly craved at his
hands; that she could find no rest till she put him in mind of his
duty. After the king and courtiers had stormed a while, she was sent
to the queen, whom she found more courteous and humane. So great and
many were the enormities in the country, through impunity and want of
justice, that the minds of simple and poor young women were disquieted,
as ye may see; but the king and court had deaf ears to the crying
sins.’--_Cal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 28.]
Half a year had now elapsed since Bothwell’s fruitless attempt on
Holyroodhouse. The king was living his usual free-and-easy life in his
little hunting-seat or palace of Falkland in Fife, when the forfeited
lord thought proper to make a new attempt in his peculiar style at
a change of administration, or restoration of himself to power and
favour. A little after midnight, he suddenly appeared before the royal
residence with three hundred men, and tried, but in vain, to obtain
entrance. James had been forewarned; and, throwing himself into the
tower of the palace, which he had had time to furnish with provisions,
he set the assailants at defiance. Bothwell, baffled, and fearing
to meet the friends who he knew would speedily rally to the king’s
assistance, left the place at seven in the morning, carrying off all
the horses, in order to check pursuit.
‘Thereafter his majesty came over the water, and made ane oration in
the Great Kirk of Edinburgh. Immediately after the fray, Bothwell and
his men came over the water, and there were eighteen of them taken in
Calder Muir, and in other parts near Calder Muir, lying sleeping for
want of rest and enterteenment; and, immediately after their taking,
they were all brought to Edinburgh, and [five of them] hangit.
[Sidenote: 1592.]
‘At the same time [July 1] the Lairds of Niddry and Samuelston
[friends of Bothwell][192] were taken by Lord John Hamilton [lying
sleeping in the meadow of Lesmahago], and warded in the Castle of
Draphane.... Lord Hamilton] came to Edinburgh, thinking to have got
grace to them from his majesty. He came down to his majesty’s lodgings
at the Nether Bow, and going into Mr John Laing’s house, where his
majesty lodgit, the guard standing above the [Nether Bow] port, with
their hagbuts, guns, and other weapons ... seeing my Lord Hamilton, for
the honour of his lordship, shot ane volley at my lord. There was ane
man [James Sinclair of Earstone] speaking to his lordship, shot through
the head; ane other by him shot through the leg; and ane bullet struck
the lintel of the gate just above my lord’s head where he stood, yet no
more harm done. So that, by mere accident, the said Lord Hamilton had
[al]most have been slain, and not through any evil will.
‘The Lord Hamilton, seeing he could get no grace to the said two
gentlemen, sent word to his bastard son Sir John, who convoyit the
said two gentlemen away, and went with them himself for their more
safety.’--_Bir._
Early in August, a plan was devised by two courtiers, Wemyss of Logie
and the Laird of Burleigh, to bring Bothwell privately into the
royal presence at Dalkeith Castle. On this occasion also, the king
was forewarned, and Bothwell had to retire without being introduced.
Burleigh confessed his fault; but Logie either stood out, or at the
utmost admitted that he engaged in the plot for a good end, desiring to
learn what was the purpose of the enemy. ‘The king said: “That was too
much, not making him privy.” Logie said: “God forbid I should have told
you anything, who can keep nothing close!” The king regretted to the
queen that he had none about him who were sure.’--_Cal._ Logie was put
into confinement.
‘Because the event of this matter had sic a success, it sall also be
praised by my pen, as a worthy turn, proceeding from honesty, chaste
love and charity, whilk should on nae ways be obscurit from the
posterity for the guid example: and therefore I have thought guid to
insert the same for a perpetual memory.
[Sidenote: 1592.]
‘Queen Anne, our noble princess, was served with divers gentlewomen of
her awn country, and namely with ane called Mrs Margaret Twinstoun,
to whom this gentleman, Wemyss of Logie, bure great honest affection,
tending to the godly band of marriage; the whilk was honestly requited
by the said gentlewoman, yea even in his greatest mister [trouble].
For, howsoon she understood the said gentleman to be in distress, and
apparently by his confession to be punished to the death; and she,
having privilege to lie in the queen’s chalmer, that same very night of
his accusation, where the king was also reposing that same night, she
came furth of the door privily, baith the princes being then at quiet
rest, and passed to the chalmer where the said gentleman was put in
custody to certain of the guard, and commanded them that immediately
he should be brought to the king and queen; whereunto they giving sure
credence, obeyed. But howsoon she was come back to the chalmer door,
she desired the watches to stay till he should come forth again; and
so she closed the door, and convoyed the gentleman to a window, where
she ministrat a lang cord unto him to convoy himself down upon; and
sae by her guid charitable help he happily escaped by the subtlety of
love.’--_H. K. J._
‘Logie married the gentlewoman after, when he was received into the
king’s favour again.’--_Cal._
This incident has been made the subject of a popular ballad.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG. (?)]
[Sidenote: 1592.
About this time, Bothwell was understood to be retired to his great
estate in Liddesdale, and to be there engaged in a kind of work which
is usually the privilege of royalty. ‘His majesty was informed that
Bothwell had ane that cunyied false cunyie in the house of Row in
Liddesdale.... His majesty wrate to the Lord Ochiltree, desiring him
to go to the said house, and to bring sic men to his majesty as he
fand there, together with all sic instruments as could be there had
for cunying, with power to raise the haill country if need were....
The Lord Ochiltree gathered to the number of seven or aucht score
horse, all in armour, and rade first to Jedburgh, where they stayit
that night, and refreshit himself and his company; and Ferniehirst,
his brother-in-law, sent with him three score horse upon the morn at
night. [They] rade to the house of the Row at Liddesdale, and there
took the twa men out of the house beside the tower, and thereafter
strake up the doors of the tower, and brought the irons that prentit
the cunyie, with all the instruments, together with ane number of
thirty-shilling [half-crown] pieces, whilk were cunyied there, and
delivered the same to his majesty in the Abbey. The false cunyier was
gone in England, and was not to be had; to seek metal to cunyie more,
as was reported.’--_Moy._
On the high ground which skirts the Carse of Gowrie to the north, near
the village of Rait, once stood a fortified house called Gaskenhall.
Only a bit of broken garden-wall and a few trees now indicate the
site. Here lived, at the end of the sixteenth century, Robert Bruce
of Clackmannan, chief of the family which had given Scotland a king
three centuries before, and described in the grave pages of Douglas’s
_Baronage_ as a most respectable person, ‘in high favour with King
James VI., who conferred on him the honour of knighthood at the baptism
of his son Prince Henry.’ Let us see, from the actual doings of this
knight, what sort of person he was.
In August 1592, some goods belonging to Bruce, having to pass through
Perth, were subjected to payment of custom by the magistrates, who,
on payment being refused, seized them. Clackmannan sent a letter of
remonstrance, threatening, if his goods were not restored, to make the
Perth citizens suffer for it when they chanced to pass his house. This
not being attended to, he attacked a party of citizens on their way
from Dundee, and despoiled them of their weapons; for in those days
a party of quiet burghers passing through twenty miles of even this
central and comparatively civilised district of Scotland, could not go
unarmed. The only reply the laird got to a message offering the weapons
back in exchange for his goods, was a visit from a company of Perth
citizens, who destroyed a good deal of his growing corn with their
horses. He came out to remonstrate, and an altercation ensuing, he was
provoked to strike one of the aggressors with a pistol. He then seized
the two chief men of the party, William Inglis and John Balsillie, and
took them as prisoners into his house of Gaskenhall.
That same night, a large party of the citizens of Perth, headed by the
bailies and council, came out in arms to Gaskenhall, where, upon the
morrow, before daylight, they sounded their drum, besieged the laird
in his house, and discharged hagbuts and pistols in at the doors and
windows, whereby a servant of his was wounded. At last setting fire
to the house, they entered at the roof, set free their friends, and
seized the laird, whom they ‘transportit away with them ane certain
space, barefooted and barelegged, not suffering him to put on his
awn claithes.’ They likewise ‘spulyit and took away with them his
haill silver-wark, bedding, claithes, and all the plenishing of his
house.’--_P. C. R._
[Sidenote: 1592.]
This affair came before the king, who seems to have taken no step in
the case beyond declaring both parties in the wrong, and ordering
the laird and the magistrates into divers prisons, there to lie at
their own respective costs, until they should be subjected to an
assize. A Perth chronicler states: ‘They were thereafter agreed upon
the town’s large charges.’ The agreement, however, does not seem to
have been effectual, for, on the 28th of April 1593, as John Wilson
and John Niven, with other citizens of Perth, were passing the Coble
of Rhynd on their way to the market of St Andrews, they were beset by
the laird, accompanied with nine horsemen and footmen, all well armed.
‘The said John Wilson and John Niven, being baith hurt and wounded in
divers parts of their bodies, to the effusion of their blood in great
quantity, the said laird and his accomplices maist shamefully tirrit
them baith naked, and in maist barbarous and shameful manner scourgit
them with horse bridles through the town of Abernethy, as gif they had
been thieves or heinous malefactors; [then] left the said John Niven
lying there for dead, and took the said John Wilson, naked, as captive
and prisoner away with them.’
On the complaint of the magistrates of Perth, among whom was the
afterwards famous Earl of Gowrie, acting as provost, the Laird of
Clackmannan was charged to appear before the king, on pain of being
denounced as a rebel in case of failure.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT.]
‘The ministry of Edinburgh devised twa purposes, which they had baith
in head at a time; either thinking to prevail in ane or else in baith,
as tending to the glory of God, as they pretended. The ane was to
discharge the merchants of Edinburgh from haunting and resorting to
Spain; the other was, that nae mercat-day should be halden in Edinburgh
for selling of wool and sheep’s skins; whereat baith merchants and
craftsmen were grieved.... The ministers at nae time proponit thir
matters to be reasoned or disputed by the provost of the town and his
council, to whom it specially apperteinit; but, as they did, thought
it mair expedient to divulgate the matter openly in the kirk, in
presence of the haill people, alleging that the merchants could not
make voyage to Spain without danger of their sauls, and therefore
willit them in the name of God to abstein.... At divers times this was
openly required, while at last, finding that the merchants continued in
their trade as before, they cried out that unless they wald forbear,
they should expreme their names to the people, and therefore cited
divers merchants before their session, and there commanded them to
abstein. The merchants, seeing this, gave in their complaint to the
king, and tauld how they were discharged [forbidden] by the ministers,
but wald disobey thereunto, if his majesty wald grant them liberty to
pass, whilk was granted; whereat the ministers were sae grieved, that
they boasted [threatened] the merchants with excommunication. But the
provost and council interceded, and stayed that purpose, because that
to the merchants divers Spanyards were addebted, whilk wald never be
repaid unless they went themselves to make count and reckoning with
them; and siclike divers of them were awing to creditors there, and in
that respect till their counts were perfyted and ended, they could not
abstein from travelling.... Sae the ministers had patience for that
time, otherwise this matter had turned to a great popular scism.
[Sidenote: 1592.]
‘... the other conceit had almaist have made a worse end; because
it was sae prejudicial to the commonwealth and estate of the haill
merchants and craftsmen, to wit, the abolition of the Monday’s mercat,
whilk was the only special mercat-day of all the week in respect of the
rest. The reason that the ministers had for them was, that all men that
came to the Monday’s mercat did address him to his journey on Sunday,
whilk day sould be sanctified and keepit holy; but amang many great
infallible reasons, it was funden that the maist part of the mercat
folks did never address themselves to journey while Monday morning, and
therefore the mercat should not cease; and as to these that came far
off, it became the pastors of their parochin to hinder them. Besides
all this, that mercat-day was authorised to the town by the princes
of ancient time, and therefore it became not a subject to consent to
the abolition thereof, unless the matter was moved in presence of
the three estates of parliament.’--_H. K. J._ The people in general
murmured at these interferences with their secular affairs, well meant
as they undoubtedly were. Calderwood speaks bitterly of the satirical
rhymes vented on the occasion against the clergy, adding: ‘Such has
always been the religion of Edinburgh, when they are touched in their
particular.’ At length, in April 1593, the affair of the market came
to a head. ‘The shoemakers, who were most interested in that business,
hearing that the same was to be put in execution, tumultuously
gathering themselves together, came to the ministers’ houses, menacing
to chase them furth of the town if they did urge that matter any more.
After which the motion ceased, the market continuing as before. This
did minister great occasions of sport at that time in court, where it
was said, “that rascals and souters could obtain at the ministers’
hands what the king could not in matters more reasonable.”’--_Spot._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV. 17.]
‘Dame Margaret Douglas, sometime Countess of Bothwell, met the king
at the Castle-yett of Edinburgh on her knees, having up her hood,
crying for Christ’s sake that died on the cross, for mercy to her and
her spouse, with mony tears piteous to behold. The king putting out
his hand to have tane her up, she kissed the back of his hand thrice.
Then he passed into the castle, and the lady came down the street. The
same day, ere the king came out of the palace, the Lairds of Niddry
and Samuelston, with sundry others forfaultit of before, came on
their knees in the outward close of the palace, wha were received in
favours.’--_Jo. Hist._
[Sidenote: NOV. 23.]
‘Ane proclamation that no man shall receipt the Countess of Bothwell,
give her entertainment, or have any commerce or society with her in any
case, wha had been so lately received in his majesty’s favour before.
Behold the changes of court!‘--_Bir._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 25.]
A few days before this date, the Earl of Mar was married at Alloa to
Mary, the second daughter of the late Duke of Lennox and sister of the
Countess of Huntly. The king honoured the marriage with his presence,
and spent his Christmas with the newly wedded pair. It is rather
surprising to find Mar, who had always been on the ultra-Protestant
side, allying himself to a daughter of the papist Lennox; but tradition
informs us that the god of love had in this case overcome that of
politics--if there be such a deity. There were also some natural
obstructions, for the earl was a widower of five-and-thirty, while the
bride was little more than a girl. The story is, that his lordship,
finding the young lady scornful, became low-spirited to such a degree
as to alarm his old school-fellow, the king, for his life. Learning
what was the matter, James told him in his characteristic familiar
style: ‘By ----, ye shanna die, Jock,[193] for ony lass in a’ the
land!’ He then used his influence as virtual guardian of the Lennox
family, and soon brought about the match. From this pair have descended
some of the most remarkable patriots, lawyers, statesmen, and divines,
to which our country has given birth.[194]
[Sidenote: 1592.]
In the midst of the festivities at Alloa, the king was unpleasantly
disturbed by intelligence of the capture of George Ker, adverted to in
the next article.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 27.]
[Sidenote: 1592-3.]
JAN. 9.]
In the latter part of this year, the king was nearly on as bad
terms with the clergy as ever. They openly reproached him in their
pulpits with slackness of justice against the enemies of religion.
One maintained that he might very properly be excommunicated, if he
resisted their behests. The king told the provost to pull them out of
their pulpits when they spoke so against him; but this the provost
plainly said he could not do--he preferred God before men. Things were
in this ticklish state when George Ker was taken with sundry letters
from Catholics at home to Catholics abroad, and three blank letters
from Huntly, Errol, and Angus, believed to be the foundation of a
conspiracy with Spain against the Protestant religion. The brethren met
in Mr Robert Bruce’s gallery to devise measures, and a huge deputation
went down to Holyroodhouse, to confer with the king. He received them
in the great hall, and was at first very angry with them for their thus
meeting unauthorisedly, saying, ‘“he knew not of it till all the wives
in the kail-mercat knew of it.” Yet in the end, to mitigate them in
some measure, he said he liked weel their zeal, for he knew they did
it for love of the good cause.’--_Cal._ So began a sort of civil war,
which lasted two or three years, and ended in the banishment of the
three Catholic nobles, as already related.
Mr Tytler attributes these new troubles to the persecuting spirit
of the Presbyterian divines. ‘The principle of toleration,’ he
says, ‘divine as it assuredly is in its origin, yet so late in its
recognition even amongst the best men, was then utterly unknown to
either party, Reformed or Catholic. The permission even of a single
case of Catholic worship, however secret; the attendance of a solitary
individual at a single mass, in the remotest district of the land, in
the most secluded chamber, and where none could come but such as knelt
before the altar for conscience’ sake, and in all sincerity of soul;
such worship and its permission for an hour, was considered an open
encouragement of Antichrist and idolatry. To extinguish the mass for
ever, to compel its supporters to embrace what the kirk considered
to be the purity of presbyterian truth, and this under the penalties
of life and limb, or in its mildest form of treason, banishment and
forfeiture, was considered not merely praiseworthy, but a high point
of religious duty; and the whole apparatus of the kirk, the whole
inquisitorial machinery of detection and persecution, was brought to
bear upon the accomplishment of these great ends.’
The king, whether from his natural disposition, or views of policy,
was averse to harassing the papists. He one day spoke privately to
Lord Hamilton of his unhappy position. ‘“You see, my lord, how I am
used, and have no man in whom I may trust more than in Huntly, &c.
If I receive him, the ministers cry out that I am an apostate from
the religion; if not, I am left desolate.” “If he and the rest be not
enemies to the religion,” said the Lord Hamilton, “ye may receive them;
otherwise not.” “I cannot tell,” saith the king, “what to make of that;
but the ministry hold them for enemies. Always, I would think it good
that they enjoyed liberty of conscience.” Then the Lord Hamilton crying
aloud, said: “Sir, then we are all gone, then we are all gone, then we
are all gone! If there were no moe to withstand, I will withstand.”
When the king perceived his servants to approach, he smiled and said:
“My lord, I did this to try your mind.”‘--_Cal._ Few things could
better illustrate the sanctity in which the principle of intolerance
was then held, than to find a contemporary historian relating this
anecdote as one simply illustrative of the infirm adherence of King
James to the presbyterian cause.
The Earl of Errol, one of the exiled Catholic lords, writing to the
king from Middleburg in July 1596, speaks of having undergone incessant
troubles ever since he professed the Catholic religion, and of having
for three or four years past been in daily and extreme peril of his
life. He says: ‘My late and greatest extremities have proceeded only
upon that over-great fervour and onnecessar rigour of the ministry,
wha, disdainfully rejecting all reasonable conditions, will force men’s
consciences, not as yet persuaded, till embrace their opinions in
matters of religion.’[195]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1592-3.]
Mr John Graham of Hallyards, a judge of the Court of Session, had an
unfortunate litigation with Sir James Sandilands, the Tutor of Calder,
about some temple-lands which his wife had brought to him. There had
been a deed forged in the case, and a notary hanged for it, and a
collision between the Court of Session and the General Assembly as to
jurisdiction, and now Sir James Sandilands had become incensed to a
degree of fury against his opponent the judge.
[Sidenote: FEB. 13.]
Graham, being charged by the king, for peace’ sake, to depart from
Edinburgh, was passing down Leith Wynd in obedience to the order,
attended by three or four score persons for his protection, when Sir
James Sandilands, accompanied by his friend the Duke of Lennox, and
an armed company, followed hard at his heels. Graham, thinking he
was about to be attacked, turned to make resistance. The duke sent
to tell him that if he proceeded on his journey, no one would molest
him; but the message proved of no use, in consequence of some stray
shot from Graham’s company. The party of Sandilands immediately made
an attack; the other party hastily fled. Graham fell wounded on the
street, and was carried into a neighbouring house. A French boy, page
to Sir Alexander Stewart, one of Sandilands’s friends, seeing his
master slain, followed the hapless judge into the house, ‘douped a
whinger into him,’ and so despatched him. Such was the characteristic
termination of a lawsuit in 1593.--_Cal._
It is highly worthy of remark, that, not many months after, Sir James
Sandilands was once more peaceably living at court.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1593.]
Amongst the complications of the affair between Huntly and Moray in
February 1592, there were mingled the details of a plot in which Huntly
and the Chancellor Maitland were connected with three chieftains of
the clan Campbell--Ardkinlas, Lochnell, and Glenurchy--against the
life of John Campbell of Calder, who was obnoxious to the latter
persons on account of his supreme influence in the affairs of the minor
Earl of Argyle. By the exertions of Ardkinlas, a man called MacEllar
was procured to undertake the assassination of Calder: and in the
same month which saw the tragedy at Dunnibrissle, this wretched man
shot Calder with three bullets, through a window, as the victim sat
unsuspecting of danger in the house of Knepoch in Lorn.
[Sidenote: 1593.]
The youthful earl having threatened vengeance against Ardkinlas, the
latter seems to have lost heart; and being extremely desirous of
recovering his young chief’s regard, he seriously made an endeavour to
that effect by means of witchcraft, and was much disappointed when that
resource failed him. He subsequently tried to accomplish his purpose by
revealing what he knew of another plot in which the same parties were
concerned against the earl’s life. This, however, is aside from our
present subject. It may be sufficient to remark that MacEllar and a
higher agent in the person of John Oig Campbell of Cabrachan, a brother
of Lochnell, were taken and executed for Calder’s death; but owing to
various causes, among which the complicity and friendship of Maitland
was probably the chief, Ardkinlas continued for a considerable time to
keep out of the grasp of the law.
[Sidenote: MAR. 28.]
At the time noted, he sustained an assault of private vengeance which
might well make him tremble. A complaint which he entered before the
Privy Council sets forth that, having occasion to be at Dumbarton with
some friends, including Duncan Campbell, Dean of Brechin, on his way to
Edinburgh, whither he was going in obedience to a summons of the king,
‘he took purpose to hald forward in his journey that same night after
supper, by reason of the troubles whilk are in the country, lippening
[trusting] for naething less than ony injury or trouble to have been
intended him.’ Nevertheless, John Buchanan of Drumfoid, with a party of
friends, and ‘sundry others, broken men and fugitives, to the number
of twenty-four persons, on horse and foot, all bodin in feir of weir,
with lang hagbuts, jacks, pistolets, and other weapons invasive,’ took
up a position in a yard beside the road, with the design of murdering
Campbell. ‘The said Duncan and ane other of his [Ardkinlas’s] servants,
being ganging a little before him, and the persons foresaid surely
believing that ane of them had been the Laird of Ardkinlas, they
dischargit ane dozen of hagbuts at the said twa persons, and shot the
said Duncan in the head; and thereafter, coming furth of the yard,
finding the said Duncan not to be dead, and still believing he had been
the said Laird of Ardkinlas, they shamefully and barbarously mangled
and slew him with swords, and cuttit off his head. And then, perceiving
themselves to be disappointed, they sharply followit the said laird,
shot aucht or nine hagbuts at him, and had not failed likewise to have
slain him, were not that by the providence of God he escaped.’
[Sidenote: 1593.]
The next notice we have of affairs connected with the Campbell
conspiracies is a curious, though obscure one, regarding what was in
the language of that time called a _Day of Law_, held in Edinburgh on
the 19th of June (the king’s birthday) 1593. There appeared as seekers
of justice for Calder’s slaughter, the Earl of Argyle (seventeen years
of age), the sheriff of Ayr, the Earl of Morton, and some others;
as defenders in that cause, Ardkinlas, Glenurchy, and others. The
Chancellor Maitland, whose concern was suspected, but did not become
clear till our own time, had his friends assembled also--namely, the
Earls of Montrose, Eglintoun, and Glencairn, and Lord Livingstone,
‘who all accompanied Lord Hamilton on the streets.’ Against them were
mustered the Duke of Lennox, the Earl of Mar, Lord Home, and some
others, who, favoured with the countenance of the queen, talked of
bringing in Lord _Quondam_ against the chancellor: by this name they
indicated Captain James Stuart, long sunk out of credit and means, but
still eager to take any desperate means of recovering his place. To
this goodly company it was expected that Lord Maxwell and the Laird
of Cessford would soon be added. The affair seemed so threatening,
that the king was seriously alarmed, and commanded all to keep their
lodgings; after which he ‘dealt with the chancellor to entreat them to
depart in peace.’ Such was a _day of law_ in the reign of gentle King
James.
It was not till September 1596 that Ardkinlas underwent a trial for
the slaughter of the Laird of Calder. The matter having doubtless
been arranged beforehand, no pursuers appeared, and he was set at
liberty.[196]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 21.]
George Smollett, burgess of Dumbarton (an ancestor of the novelist),
was denounced rebel for not answering certain charges made against him
by the burghs of Glasgow and Renfrew. It was alleged that Smollett,
having purchased a letter of the king, used it as a sanction to deeds
of violent oppression against the Highland people resorting with
merchandise to those towns. ‘He not only masterfully reives the goods
and bestial, claithing, and other wares, brought by the inhabitants
of the Isles and other parts of the Highlands, to the said burghs,
by sea and land, but takes, apprehends, and imprisons their persons,
and sometimes pursues themselves by way of deid.’ It was added that
the people of the Highlands were, in consequence, inspired with a
deadly hatred of the burghs of Glasgow and Renfrew, and were already
committing such reprisals as threatened civil war.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1593.
JULY 7.]
An act of Privy Council, reciting that ‘vile murders have not only been
committed within kirks and other places, but even within the burgh of
Edinburgh and suburbs thereof, ewest [near] to his hieness’ palace,
to the great hazard of his awn person,’ commands the authorities of
the city, the king’s guard, the master and porter of his palace, to
‘search for all hagbuts and pistolets’ worn by any persons in the city
and king’s palace, and convey the wearers to prison, the weapons to be
escheat for the benefit of the apprehenders. In the parliament which
sat down a few days afterwards, it was enacted: ‘Whaever sall happen,
at ony time hereafter, to strike, hurt, or slay ony person within
his hieness’ parliament-house during the time of the halding of the
parliament; within the king’s inner chalmer, cabinet, or chalmer of
presence, the king’s majesty for the time being within his palace; or
within the Inner Tolbooth the time that the Lords of Session sit for
administration of justice; or within the king’s privy council-house
the time of the council sitting there; or whaever sall happen to
strike, hurt, or slay ony person in the presence of his majesty,
wherever his hieness sall happen to be for the time; sall incur the
pain of treason.’ For those who commit the like offences in places and
presences of less importance, severe penalties are denounced. Another
act aimed at strengthening the hands of the magistrates of Edinburgh in
their endeavours to apprehend turbulent persons and rebels, seeing that
the weakness of such authorities ‘is the original and principal cause
wherefra the great confusion and disorder of this land, in all estates,
proceeds.’--_S. A._ and _P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 22.]
The feud between the Lord Maxwell and the Laird of Johnston, which had
been stayed by a reconciliation, broke out again afresh in consequence
of a foray by William Johnston of Wamphray, usually called, from his
reckless, dissipated character, the _Galliard_, in the lands of the
Crichtons of Sanquhar and Douglases of Drumlanrig. The Galliard being
taken in the fray and hanged, his friends, on being pursued for the
recovery of the stolen cattle, stood at bay and fought so desperately
that many of their enemies bit the dust. A remarkable scene was
consequently presented in Edinburgh. ‘There came certain poor women out
of the south country, with fifteen bloody shirts, to compleen to the
king that their husbands, sons, and servants, were cruelly murdered by
the Laird of Johnston, themselves spoiled, and nothing left them. The
poor women, seeing they could get no satisfaction, caused the bloody
shirts to be carried by pioneers through the town of Edinburgh, upon
Monday, the 23d of July. The people were much moved, and cried out for
a vengeance upon the king and council. The king was nothing moved, but
against the town of Edinburgh and the ministry. The court alleged they
had procured that spectacle in contempt of the king.’--_Cal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 24.]
Bothwell had now been little heard of for upwards of a twelvemonth,
a long interval of quietness for such a politician. The time had at
length come for a third attempt to regain favour with the king. ‘At
eight hours in the morning, the Earl of Bothwell, the Laird of Spott,
Mr William Leslie, and Mr John Colville’ [‘to the number of twa or
three hundred men’], ‘came into the king’s chalmer, weel provided with
pistol. It was reported that the said Earl and Mr John were brought in
by the Lady Athole, at the back yett of the abbey. This earl and his
complices came not this way provided with pistols and drawn swords to
harm the king’s majesty any ways, but because he could not get presence
of his majesty, nor speech of him, for the Homes, who were courtiers
with the king, and enemies to the said Earl of Bothwell. Sae they came
into his majesty’s chalmer, resolving themselves not to be halden back
till they should have spoken with him; and sae after they came in, his
majesty was coming frae the back-stair, with his breeks in his hand,
in ane fear--howbeit he needed not. The foresaid Bothwell and his
complices fell upon their knees, and gave their swords upon the ground,
and beggit mercy at his majesty; and his majesty being wise, merciful,
a noble prince of great pity, not desirous of blood, granted them
mercy, and received them in his favour; and at four hours afternoon
proclaimed them his free lieges.’
‘There was ane great tumult in Edinburgh for this. They come all
down in arms, and cried to understand the king’s mind, who cried out
and said, that he was not captive, but weel, in case that whilk was
promised by them should be keepit; and commanded them all to the
abbey kirk-yard, to stay there till he called for them. Immediately
thereafter, [he] sent for the provost and bailies, and commanded them
to dissolve and go homeward; he houpit all should be weel.’--_Moy._
_Bir._
[Sidenote: 1593.]
For a time the Chancellor Maitland, Lord Home, and other courtiers
gave way before the replaced Bothwell. The English ambassador exerted
influence in his behalf. The zealous clergy befriended him, not for
any virtues he could be said to possess, for he had none, but for that
which was a compendium of all virtue, his professing to be for ‘the
trew religion.’ King James was obliged to seem his friend, and to be
quite against the Catholic lords. One day, as the king was travelling
by Fala, near Soutra Hill, these nobles came up unexpectedly, threw
themselves on their knees before him, and entreated forgiveness and
favour. He told them he could do nothing for them unless they satisfied
the kirk, and ‘he sent back, that same nicht, the Lord Treasurer and
the Abbot of Lindores to the ambassador of England and the ministers of
Edinburgh, _desiring that they should conceive nae evil opinion of his
part for their coming to him_.’--_H. K. J._ Such were the relations of
royalty to the priesthood in those days.
[Sidenote: DEC. 11.]
Notwithstanding such powerful support, Bothwell could not long maintain
his place at court. We soon find him again at the horn, and passing
through a rather picturesque adventure on a mountain-road a few miles
to the south of Edinburgh. ‘It fortuned Sir Robert Kerr, younger
of Cessford, accompanied only with one of his awn servants called
Rutherford, to pass out of Edinburgh, homeward to his wife quietly; in
the way of plain accident, [he] forgathered with the Earl Bothwell, and
ane Gibson with him, beside Humbie on this side of Soutra Hill; where,
meeting twa for twa, they fought a long time on horseback.... The
Laird of Cessford’s man was hurt in the cheek, and at length baith the
parties so wearied with long fechting, [that] they assented baith to
let the others depart and ride away for that time. Cessford came back
to Edinburgh, and tauld the king’s majesty of that accident.’--_Moy._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1593.
JULY 31.]
Aberdeen, a commercial town with a university, bore a singular moral
relation to the adjacent Highlands of the Dee, where a wild and lawless
population, speaking a different language, and using a different dress,
existed. Many were the troubles of the industrious burghers from these
rude neighbours, who would sometimes come sweeping down upon their
borders like a flight of locusts, and leave nothing of value uneaten
or undestroyed. At this time, we find the council of the northern
city meeting to consider ‘the barbarous cruelty lately exercit by the
lawless hielandmen in Birse, Glentanner, and thereabout, not only in
the unmerciful murdering of men and bairns, but in the masterful and
violent spulying of all the bestial, guids, and gear of a great part
of the inhabitants of these bounds ... committit near to this burgh,
within twenty miles thereto;’ for which reason it was ordained that the
whole inhabitants should be ready with arms to meet for the defence of
the town, and to resist and repress the said hielandmen, as occasion
shall be offered.’
The Crichtons and Douglases, whom the Johnstons had plundered in the
summer of this year, having induced Lord Maxwell to take up their
cause, and enter with them into bonds of _manrent_ for mutual support,
it behoved the Laird of Johnston to be stirring. To his aid came the
reiving clans of Scott and Graham, and with them he fell upon and cut
off a party of the Maxwells. This led to a decisive attempt of Lord
Maxwell to bring the Johnstons to subjection; but, though undertaken
under sanction of his office as warden of the west marches, it ended in
a way very unfortunate for himself.
[Sidenote: DEC. 6.]
‘The Lord Maxwell, being on foot 1500 and horse together, coming to the
Lochwood, having special commission of the king to have destroyed the
said Lochwood, and banished and destroyed the haill Johnstons, because
he [the laird] was ane favourer of the Earl Bothwell in some of his
turns--being come over the Water of Annan--the Laird of Johnston, with
the Scotts, to the number of 800 or thereby, ombeset the said lord in
his way; where, without few or na strakes, the said lord was slain with
the Laird Johnston’s awn hand [or, as is alleged, by Mr Gideon Murray,
being servitor till Scott of Buccleuch[197]]; never ane of his awn
folks remained with him (only twenty of his awn household), but all
fled through the water; five of the said lord’s company slain; and his
head and right arm were ta’en with them to the Lochwood, and affixed
on the wall thereof. The bruit ran that the said Lord Maxwell was
treacherously deserted by his awn company.’--_Jo. Hist._
Such was the famous clan-battle of _Dryfe’s Sands_, the last of any
note fought in the southern part of Scotland.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1593-4.
JAN. 21.]
For some time we have heard nothing of Eustachius Roche, _quondam_
tacksman-general of the Scottish mines. From this circumstance, and the
difficulties he seemed to be labouring under the last time we heard
of him, it is little to be doubted that he had found his adventure
unprofitable and hopeless, and given it up. Now another comes forward,
one really notice-worthy, since he prospered to some extent in his
undertaking, and laid the foundation of a property and a work which
still exist. This was Thomas Foulis, goldsmith in Edinburgh.
The Edinburgh goldsmiths of that day, though only occupying a few
small obscure shops stuck between the buttresses of St Giles’s Church,
comprehended in their number two or three persons of such considerable
wealth, as to verge upon a historic importance. Such, for example, was
George Heriot, who in 1597 became goldsmith and jeweller to the king,
and in time accumulated the fortune which enabled his executors to
erect the magnificent hospital bearing his name. Another of the number
was Thomas Foulis, who, when in spring 1593 the king had to march an
army against the Papist lords in the north, supplied a great part of
the funds required for the purpose. What the Bank of England has often
in modern times been to the British government, Thomas Foulis, the
Edinburgh goldsmith, was in those days to King James--a ready resource
when money was urgently required for state purposes. On the 10th of
September 1594, the royal debt to Thomas was no less than £14,598;
and as a security so far for this sum, the king consigned to him ‘twa
drinking pieces of gold, weighing in the haill fifteen pund and five
unce,’ which the consignee was to be at liberty to coin into ‘five-pund
pieces,’ if the debt should not be otherwise paid before the 1st of
November next, ‘the superplus, gif oney beis,’ to be forthcoming for
his majesty’s use. The value of the gold of these drinking-cups at the
present day would be about £950, which shews that the debt in question
was expressed in Scottish money. It may be remarked, that on the same
day the king consigned another gold drinking-cup, weighing twelve
pounds five ounces, in favour of John Arnott, burgess of Edinburgh,
who had lent him £6000. It further appears that Thomas Foulis, very
soon after, lent the king £12,000 more ‘for outredding of sundry his
hieness’ affairs.’
[Sidenote: 1593-4.]
In consideration of the loans he had had from Thomas Foulis, the
king granted him (January 21, 1593-4), a lease of the gold, silver,
and lead mines of Crawford Muir and Glengoner for twenty-one years.
The Edinburgh tradesman probably had the sagacity to see, in a
little time, that there was not, in those districts, a sufficiency
of the more precious metals to pay the expense of collecting. We
find, however, that in 1597 he was working the really valuable lead
deposit of Lanarkshire, as there are acts of council in that year
for the protection of his lead-carriers against ‘broken men of the
borders.’[198]
We shall meet Thomas again. Meanwhile, it may be observed that his
lead-mines in time passed through his granddaughter into the possession
of (her husband) James Hope of Hopetoun, sixth son of the great lawyer,
Sir Thomas, and the founder of the noble house of Hopetoun. It has long
been one of the best estates in Scotland; and it is certainly curious
to trace its origin to the hypocritical military expedition against the
Catholic lords, into which King James was forced by his ultra-zealous
Presbyterian subjects, when he would have much rather been ‘drinking
and driving ower in the auld maner’ at home.
Whatever became of the gold-diggings in Foulis’s hands, we find that,
before the expiration of the term of his lease, they were actively
worked by another person. An Englishman named Bulmer, with the
licence and favour of Queen Elizabeth, and a patent from the king of
Scots, set seriously to work in five different moors--namely, Mannoch
Muir and Robbart Muir in Nithsdale, the Friar Muir on Glengoner
Water, and Crawford Muir in Clydesdale, and Glengaber Water in
Henderland, Peeblesshire. ‘Upon Glengoner Water he builded a very
fair country-house to dwell in; he furnished it fitting for himself
and his family; he kept therein great hospitality; he purchased lands
and grounds round about it; he kept thereupon many cattle, as horses,
kine, sheep, &c. And he brought home a water-course for the washing of
and cleansing of gold; by help thereof he got much straggling gold on
the skirts of the hills and in the valleys, but none in solid places;
which maintained himself then in great pomp, and thereby he kept open
house for all comers and goers; as is reported, he feasted all sorts of
people that thither came.’ A verse upon the lintel of the door of the
house in Glengoner has been preserved:
Sir Bevis Bulmer built this bour,
Who levellèd both hill and moor;
Who got great riches and great honour
In Short-cleuch Water and Glengoner.[199]
[Sidenote: 1593-4.]
Bulmer also set regular apparatus at work in Short-cleugh Water and
Long-cleugh Braes, in Crawford Muir, and often found considerable
quantities of the ore: in the latter place, his people found one piece
of six ounces’ weight within two feet of the mosses. He also found a
considerable quantity in Glengaber, but erected no apparatus there.
After a persevering effort, he became embarrassed, in consequence, it
is affirmed, of prodigal housekeeping, and retired from the adventure
no richer than he commenced it.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: FEB. 19.]
‘... between twa and three hours in the morning, the queen was
delivered of ane young prince, within the Castle of Stirling, in his
majesty’s chalmer there; whilk was a great comfort to the haill people,
moving them till great triumph, wantonness, and play, for banefires
were set out, and dancing and playing usit, in all parts, as gif the
people had been daft for mirth.’--_Moy._
The king had scarcely seen his wife out of the perils of childbirth,
when he was obliged to come to Edinburgh to take measures against the
Earl of Bothwell, who was now breaking out into open rebellion. Fearing
to live in Holyroodhouse, which had already been twice broken into
by the turbulent lord, he took up his quarters in ‘Robert Gourlay’s
lodging’ within the city.
[Sidenote: MAR. 13.]
‘... being Sunday, his majesty came to Mr Robert Bruce’s preaching,
[who] said to his majesty, that God wald stir up mae Bothwells nor ane
(that was, mae enemies to him nor Bothwell), if he revengit not his,
and faucht not God’s quarrels and battles on the papists, before he
faucht or revenged his awn particular.’--_Bir._
[Sidenote: 1594.
APR. 3.]
The king ‘came to the sermon, and there, in presence of the haill
people, promised to revenge God’s cause, and to banish all the papists;
and there requested the haill people to gang with him against Bothwell,
wha was in Leith for the time. The same day, the king’s majesty rase,
and the town of Edinburgh in arms. The Earl of Bothwell, hearing that
his majesty was coming down, with the town of Edinburgh, rase with his
five hundred horse, and rode up to the Hawk-hill, beside Lesterrick
[Restalrig], and there stood till he saw the king and the town of
Edinburgh approaching near him. He drew his company away through
Duddingston. My Lord Home followed till the Woomet, at whilk place the
Earl of Bothwell turned, thinking to have a hit at Home; but Home fled,
and he followed; yet by chance little blood. The king’s majesty stood
himself, seeing the said chase’ [at a safe distance, namely, on the
Burgh-moor].--_Bir._
[Sidenote: 1594.
MAY.]
Within a few days after this affair, the earl, seeing he could not
effect his object, retired into England. Soon after, much to the
scandal of the preachers, he joined the papist lords. All his plans,
however, were frustrated; and early in the next year, he left Scotland,
an utterly broken man, never again to give his royal cousin any
trouble.
Kenneth Mackenzie of Kintail was rising to be a wealthy and influential
man in the west of Inverness-shire. Beginning as simple chief of the
Clan Kenzie, with a moderate estate, he ended as a peer of the realm
and the lord of great possessions. A remarkable notice regarding him
occurs at this time in the Privy Council Record, and it is the more so,
as he had been for some time a member of that body. It is recited that
he had, some time before, purchased a commission of justiciary from
the king, for a district including the lands of certain neighbours,
besides his own, and conferring the power of proceeding against persons
accused of treasonable fire-raising. This was declared to have been
given on wrong representations, and to be contrary to the laws of the
kingdom, and Kenneth was commanded to appear by a certain day before
the Council, and meanwhile abstain from acting upon the commission.--P.
C. R.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 4.]
As a specimen of how nobles possessing castles acted towards meaner men
who had fallen under their displeasure--James, Lord Hay of Yester, was
charged before the Privy Council with having, on the ... day of June
previous, gone to the house of ... Brown of Frosthill, and taken him
forth thereof, and carried him to his ‘place of Neidpath,’ where ‘he
put him in the pit thereof, and detenes him as captive, he being his
majesty’s free subject ... having committit nae crime nor offence, and
the said lord having nae power nor commission to tak him.’ The king
had granted letters charging Lord Yester to liberate Brown, and that
they should both come before him; and this had been of none effect.
The matter being now before the Council, and a procurator having
appeared for Brown to explain that he was still a prisoner at Neidpath,
while Lord Yester made no appearance, officers were charged to go and
denounce the latter as a rebel if he should refuse to obey the king’s
command, Brown having meanwhile given surety to the extent of two
hundred pounds that he should be ready to answer any accusation that
might be brought against him.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1594.
JULY.]
Robert Logan of Restalrig is one of the darkest characters of this
bloody and turbulent time. A few years later, he was plotting with the
Ruthvens of Gowrie for an assault upon the king. So early as February
1592-3, he was denounced for trafficking with the turbulent Bothwell.
In June of this year, he was again denounced, and for a more serious
matter--his sending out two servants, Jockie Houlden and Peter Craik,
to rob travellers on the highway, near his house of Fast Castle in
Berwickshire. They had attacked Robert Gray, burgess of Edinburgh, as
he was passing the Boundrod, near Berwick, and taken from him nine
hundred and fifty pounds, besides battering him to the peril of his
life.--_P. C. R._ His residence, as is well known, was a fortalice
perched on an almost inaccessible crag overhanging the waves of the
sea, with black cliffs above, below, and nearly all round--perhaps the
most romantically situated house in our ancient kingdom. Here, it is
known, Logan had Bothwell for his occasional guest.
In July of this year, Logan entered into a contract with John Napier
of Merchiston, proceeding upon the fact of ‘diverse auld reports,
motives, and appearances, that there should be within the said Robert’s
dwelling-place of Fast Castle a sowm of money and pose, hid and huirdit
up secretly.’ John Napier undertook that he ‘sall do his utter and
exact diligence to search and seek out, and be all craft and ingyne
that he dow [can], to tempt, try, and find out the same, and, be the
grace of God, either sall find out the same, or than mak sure that
nae sic thing has been there.’ For this he was to have a third of any
money found. He was also to be convoyed back in safety to Edinburgh,
unspoiled of his gains.
As Logan was competent to make simple mechanical search for the
supposed treasure without the aid of a philosopher, there is much
reason to believe that Napier designed to use some pseudo-scientific
mode or modes of investigation, such as the divining-rod, or the
so-called magic numbers. The affair, therefore, throws a curious light
on the state of philosophy even in the minds of the ablest philosophers
of that age, the time when Tycho kept an idiot on account of his gift
of prophecy, and Kepler perplexed himself with the _Harmonices Mundi_.
It is not known whether Napier did actually journey to the spray-beaten
tower of Fast Castle, and there practise his craft and ingyne. Probably
he did, and was disappointed in more ways than one, as, two years
after, he is found letting a portion of his property to a gentleman on
the strict condition that no part of it shall be sub-let to any one of
the name of Logan.[200]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1594.]
‘This year, in the Merse, there was a great business about sorcery
and the trial of witches, and many was there burnt, as, namely, one
Roughhead, and Cuthbert Hume’s mother of Dunse, the parson of Dunse’s
wife, and sundry of Eyemouth and Coldingham; near a dozen moe, and
many fugitives, as the old Lady A. Sundry others were delated, and
the Ladies of Butt: and Lady B.: the Laird of B.: his sister; one in
Liddesdale by virtue of [a] superstitious well, whereat was professed
great skill; one Dick’s sister, who had her mother hanged before in
Waughton. They confessed the death of the whole goods [live-stock] of
the country.’--_Pa. And._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV.]
The disposition to violent and lawless acts at this time is strikingly
shewn in the proceedings against Claud and Alexander, two sons of James
Hamilton of Livingstone, in Linlithgowshire. Having some ground of
offence against David Dundas of Priestinch, they had gone at mid-day
with an armed party to his fold, and, there barbarously mutilated and
slaughtered a number of his cattle. They and their elder brother,
Patrick, also destroyed a mill leased by the same person, and further
set fire to his barn-yard at Duddington. Two months afterwards, when
John Yellowlees, a messenger, went with two assistants to the Peel of
Livingstone, to deliver letters of citation against these young men,
the laird, with his wife and four sons, came forth to the gate, and
taking him first by the throat, proceeded to beat him unmercifully, and
then, with a bended pistol at his breast, and many violent threats,
forced him to eat and swallow his four letters, and to promise never
to attempt to bring any such documents against them in future; besides
which, they struck the two witnesses with swords and pistols, and left
them for dead. The family were denounced as rebels.--_Pit._
[Sidenote: 1594-5.
JAN. 19.]
A great _tulyie_ or street-combat this day took place in Edinburgh.
[Sidenote: 1594-5.]
The Earl of Montrose, head of the house of Graham, was of grave
years--towards fifty: he was of such a character as to be chosen, a few
years afterwards, as chancellor of the kingdom: still later, he became
for a time viceroy of Scotland, the king being then in England. Yet
this astute noble was so entirely under the sway of the feelings of
the age, as to deem it necessary and proper that he should revenge the
death of John Graham (see under February 13, 1592-3) upon its author,
under circumstances similar to those which attended that slaughter. On
its being known that the earl was coming with his son and retinue to
Edinburgh, Sandilands was strongly recommended by some of his friends
to withdraw from the town, ‘because the earl was then over great a
party against him. His mind was, notwithstanding, sae undantonit,
and unmindful of his former misdeed, finding himself not sae weel
accompanied as he wald, he sent for friends, and convokit them to
Edinburgh, upon plain purpose rather first to invade the said earl than
to be invadit by him, and took the opportunity baith of time and place
within Edinburgh, and made a furious onset on the earl [at the Salt
Tron in the High Street], with guns and swords in great number.[201]
The earl, with his eldest son, defendit manfully, till at last Sir
James was dung [driven down] on his back, shot and hurt in divers parts
of his body and head, [and] straitly invadit to have been slain out
of hand, gif he had not been fortunately succoured by the prowess of
a gentleman callit Captain Lockhart. The lord chancellor and Montrose
were together at that time; but neither reverence [n]or respect was had
unto him at this conflict, the fury was sae great on either side; sae
that the chancellor retirit himself with gladness to the College of
Justice. The magistrates of the town, with fencible weapons, separatit
the parties for that time; and the greatest skaith Sir James gat on
his party, for he himself was left for dead, and a cousin-german of
his, callit Crawford of Kerse, was slain, and mony hurt: but Sir James
convalescit again, and this recompense he obteinit for his arrogancy.
On the earl’s side was but ane slain, and mony hurt.’--_H. K. J._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: FEB. 18.]
Hercules Stewart was hanged at the Cross in Edinburgh, for his
concern in the crimes of his brother the Earl of Bothwell. The people
lamented his fate, for ‘he was ane simple gentleman, and not ane
enterpriser.’--_Moy._ He ‘was suddenly cut down and carried up to the
Tolbooth to be dressed; but within a little space he began to recover
and move somewhat, and might by appearance have lived. The ministers,
being advertised hereof, went to the king to procure for his life; but
they had already given a new command to strangle him with all speed, so
that no man durst speak in the contrary.’--_Pa. And._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAR. 10.]
[Sidenote: 1595.]
MAY 26.]
Commenced ‘ane horrible tempest of snaw, whilk lay upon the ground till
the 14[th] of April thereafter.’--_Bir._
‘John Gilchrist, Henderson, and Hutton, all three [were] hangit for
making of false writs and pressing to verify the same. Jun. 11. Ane
callit Cuming the Monk [was] hangit for making of false writs.’--_Bir._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY.]
[Sidenote: JULY 12.]
Two gentlemen of Stirlingshire, one named Bruce, the other Forester,
happened to love one woman, about whom they and their respective
friends consequently quarrelled. At a meeting held by the parties with
a view to composing differences, Bruce was hurt. Then the ‘clannit men’
of the names of Livingstone and Bruce in the Carse of Falkirk banded
themselves together for revenge. A bailie of Stirling, named Forester,
who had had no concern in the dispute, was soon after about to journey
from Edinburgh to Stirling, when the friends of the deceased ‘belaid
all the hieways for his return.’ Before he had gone many miles, they
set upon him, and with sword and gun slew him. The most remarkable
part of the affair was what followed. Forester being a special servant
of the Earl of Mar, it was resolved that he should be buried with
solemnity in Stirling. The corpse was met at Linlithgow by the earl
and a large party of friends, with displayed banner, and in ‘effeir of
weir.’ On their journey to Stirling, they passed through the lands of
Livingstone and Bruce, exhibiting ‘a picture of the defunct on a fair
canvas, painted with the number of the shots and wounds, to appear
the more horrible to the behalders, and this way they completed his
burial.’[202]--_H. K. J._
Another curious circumstance followed. The parties involved in the
homicide had a _day of law_ appointed for them in Edinburgh, December
20th, and they, in customary style, summoned their respective friends
to be present. A great attendance was expected; but the Privy Council,
knowing there was deadly feid between a great number of them,
‘feirit that, upon the first occasion of their meeting, some great
inconvenients sall fall out, to the break of his hieness’ peace, and
troubling of the guid and quiet estate of the country[!], beside the
hindering of justice,’ forbade the coming of such persons to Edinburgh
under pain of ‘deid without favour.’--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG. 1.]
[Sidenote: 1595.]
Complaint was made to the Town Council of Edinburgh by the corporation
of surgeons, against M. Awin, a French surgeon, for practising his
art within the liberties of the city. He was ordered to desist, under
a penalty, except for certain branches of surgery--namely, cutting
for the stone, curing of ruptures, couching of cataracts, curing the
pestilence, and diseases of women consequent on childbirth.[203]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP.]
[Sidenote: SEP. 13.]
The violences of the age extended even to school-boys. The ‘scholars
and gentlemen’s sons’ of the High School of Edinburgh had at this time
occasion to complain of some abridgment of their wonted period of
vacation, and when they applied to the Town Council for an extension of
what they called their ‘privilege,’ only three days in addition to the
restricted number of fourteen were granted. It appears that the master
was favourable to their suit, but he was ‘borne down and abused by the
Council, who never understood well what privilege belonged to that
charge. Some of the chief gentlemen’s sons resolved to make a mutiny,
and one day, the master being on necessary business a mile or two off
the town, they came in the evening with all necessary provision, and
entered the school, manned the same, took in with them some fencible
weapons, with powder and bullet, and renforcit the doors, refusing to
let [any] man come there, either master or magistrate, untill their
privilege were fairly granted.’--_Pa. And._
A night passed over. Next morning, ‘some men of the town came to
these scholars, desiring them to give over, and to come forth upon
composition; affirming that they should intercede to obtein them the
license of other eight days’ playing. But the scholars replied that
they were mocked of the first eight days’ privilege ... they wald
either have the residue of the days granted for their pastime, or
else they wald not give over. This answer was consulted upon by the
magistrates, and notified to the ministers; and the ministers gave
their counsel that they should be letten alone, and some men should be
depute to attend about the house to keep them from vivres, sae that
they should be compelled to render by extremity of hunger.’--_H. K. J._
[Sidenote: 1595.]
A day having passed in this manner, the Council lost patience, and
determined to use strong measures. Headed by Bailie John Macmoran, and
attended by a posse of officers, they came to the school, which was a
long, low building standing on the site of the ancient Blackfriars’
monastery. The bailie at first called on the boys in a peaceable
manner to open the doors. They refused, and asked for their master,
protesting they would acknowledge him at his return, but no other
person. ‘The bailies began to be angry, and called for a great jeist
to prize up the back-door. The scholars bade them beware, and wished
them to desist and leave off that violence, or else they vowed to God
they should put a pair of bullets through the best of their cheeks. The
bailies, believing they durst not shoot, continued still to prize the
door, boasting with many threatening words. The scholars perceiving
nothing but extremity, one Sinclair the chancellor of Caithness’ son,
presented a gun from a window, direct opposite to the bailies’ faces,
boasting them and calling them _buttery carles_. Off goeth the charged
gun. [The bullet] pierced John Macmoran through his head, and presently
killed him, so that he fell backward straight to the ground, without
speech at all.’[204]
‘When the scholars heard of this mischance, they were all moved to
clamour, and gave over. Certain of them escaped, and the rest were
carried to prison by the magistrates in great fury, and escaped weel
unslain at that instant. Upon the morn, the said Sinclair was brought
to the bar, and was there accused of that slaughter; but he denied
the same constantly. Divers honest friends convenit, and assisted
him.’[205] The relatives of Macmoran being rich, money-offers were
of no avail in the case: life for life was what they sought for.
‘Friends threatened death to all the people of Edinburgh(!) if they did
the child any harm, saying they were not wise that meddled with the
scholars, especially the gentlemen’s sons. They should have committed
that charge to the master, who knew best the truest remedy without any
harm at all.’
[Sidenote: 1595.]
Lord Sinclair, as head of the family to which the young culprit
belonged, now came forward in his behalf, and, by his intercession,
the king wrote to the magistrates, desiring them to delay proceedings.
Afterwards, the process was transferred to the Privy Council.
Meanwhile, the other youths, seven in number, the chief of whom were a
son of Murray of Spainyiedale and a son of Pringle of Whitebank, were
kept in confinement upwards of two months, while a debate took place
between the magistrates and the friends of the culprits as to a fair
assize; it being alleged that one composed of citizens would be partial
against the boys. The king commanded that an assize of gentlemen
should be chosen, and, in the end, they, as well as Sinclair, got clear
off.
The culprit became Sir William Sinclair of Mey. He married Catherine
Ross of Balnagowan, whom we have seen unpleasantly mixed up in the
charges against Lady Foulis, under July 22, 1590.
[Illustration: Bailie Macmoran’s House.]
[Sidenote: 1595.]
‘Macmoran,’ says Calderwood, ‘was the richest merchant in his time, but
not gracious to the common people, because he carried victual to Spain,
notwithstanding he was often admonished by the ministers to refrain.’
It would appear that he had been a servant of the Regent Morton, and
afterwards was what is called a messenger, or sheriff’s officer.[206]
We have also seen that, after the fall of Morton, he was reported
to have been concerned in secreting the treasures which had been
accumulated by his former master.[207] His house, still standing in
Riddell’s Close in the Lawnmarket, Edinburgh, gives the idea that the
style of living of a rich Scottish merchant of that day was far from
being mean or despicable.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP. 22.]
‘Among the constancies of the court this year, one was remarkable,
that at Glasgow, in September, the king received the Countess of
Bothwell into his favour, the 22d day, at night; and on the 3d of
December, again proscribed and exiled her, under the pain of death; yet
gave her a letter of protection, under his awn hand, within six days
thereafter.’--_Bal._
This inconstancy is partly explained away in the Privy Council Record,
where it is stated that the countess abused the privilege of the letter
granted to her by going about where she pleased and vaunting of her
credit with the king, while in reality it was designed only to serve
‘for remaining of herself and her bairns within the place of Mostour,
that her friends might sometime have resorted to her without danger to
his hieness’s laws.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT.]
James Lord Hay of Yester, brother and successor of the turbulent Master
of Yester already introduced to the reader, kept state in Neidpath
Castle, with his wife, but as yet unblessed with progeny.[208] His
presumptive heir was his second-cousin, Hay of Smithfield, ancestor of
the present Sir Adam Hay of Haystoun. In these circumstances, occasion
was given for a curious series of proceedings, involving the fighting
of a regular passage of arms on a neighbouring plain beside the
Tweed--a simple pastoral scene, where few could now dream that any such
incident had ever taken place.
[Sidenote: 1595.]
Lord Yester had for his page one George Hepburn, brother of the parson
of Oldhamstocks in East Lothian. His master-of-the-horse--for such
officers were then retained in houses of this rank--was John Brown of
Hartree. One day, Brown, in conversation with Hepburn, remarked: ‘Your
father had good knowledge of physic: I think you should have some
also.’ ‘What mean ye by that?’ said Hepburn. ‘You might have great
advantage by something,’ answered Brown. On being further questioned,
the latter stated that, seeing Lord Yester had no children, and Hay
of Smithfield came next in the entail, it was only necessary to give
the former a suitable dose in order to make the latter Lord Yester.
‘If you,’ continued Brown, ‘could give him some poison, you should be
nobly rewarded, you and yours.’ ‘Methinks that were no good physic,’
quoth Hepburn drily, and soon after revealed the project to his lord.
Brown, on being taxed with it, stood stoutly on his denial. Hepburn as
strongly insisted that the proposal had been made to him. For such a
case, there was no solution but the _duellium_.
Due authority being obtained, a regular and public combat was arranged
to take place on Edston-haugh, near Neidpath. The two combatants were
to fight in their doublets, mounted, with spears and swords. Some of
the greatest men of the country took part in the affair, and honoured
it with their presence. The Laird of Buccleuch appeared as judge for
Brown; Hepburn had, on his part, the Laird of Cessford. The Lords
Yester and Newbottle were amongst those officiating. When all was
ready, the two combatants rode full tilt against each other with their
spears, when Brown missed Hepburn, and was thrown from his horse with
his adversary’s weapon through his body. Having grazed his thigh in
the charge, Hepburn did not immediately follow up his advantage, but
suffered Brown to lie unharmed on the ground. ‘Fy!’ cried one of the
judges, ‘alight and take amends of thy enemy!’ He then advanced on foot
with his sword in his hand to Brown, and commanded him to confess the
truth. ‘Stay,’ cried Brown, ‘till I draw the broken spear out of my
body.’ This being done, Brown suddenly drew his sword, and struck at
Hepburn, who for some time was content to ward off his strokes, but at
last dealt him a backward wipe across the face, when the wretched man,
blinded with blood, fell to the ground. The judges then interfered to
prevent him from being further punished by Hepburn; but he resolutely
refused to make any confession.[209]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1595.]
About this time and for some time onward, Scotland underwent the
pangs of a dearth of extraordinary severity, in consequence of the
destruction of the crops by heavy rains in autumn. Birrel speaks of
it as a famine, ‘the like whereof was never heard tell of in any age
before, nor ever read of since the world was made.’ ‘In this month of
October and November,’ he adds, ‘the wheat and malt at £10 the boll; in
March thereafter [1596], the ait meal £10 the boll, the humble corn £7
the boll. In the month of May, the ait meal £20 the boll in Galloway.
At this time there came victual out of other parts in sic abundance,
that, betwixt the 1st of July and the 10th of August, there came into
Leith three score and six ships laden with victual; nevertheless, the
rye gave £10, 10s. and £11 the boll. The 2 of September, the rye came
down and was sold for £7 the boll, and new ait meal for 7s. and 7s.
6d. the peck The 29 of October, the ait meal came up again at 10s. the
peck. The 15 of July, the ait meal at 13s. 4d. the peck; the pease meal
at 11s. the peck.
‘In this year, Clement Orr and Robert Lumsden, his grandson, bought
before hand from the Earl Marischal, the bear meal overhead for 33s.
4d. the boll.’ ‘The ministers pronounced the curse of God against
them, as grinders of the faces of the poor; which curse too manifestly
lighted on them before their deaths.’--_Bal._
As usual, the buying up and withholding of grain with the prospect of
increased prices, was viewed with indignation by all classes of people.
The king issued a proclamation in December 1595, attributing much of
the misery of his people to ‘the avaritious greediness of a great
number of persons that has bought and buys victual afore it come off
the grund, and that forestalls and keeps the same to a dearth,’ and
to ‘the shameless and indiscreet behaviour of the owners of the same
victual, wha refuses to thresh out and bring the same to open markets.’
He threatened to put the laws in force against these guilty persons,
and have the grain escheat to his majesty’s use.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 23.]
[Sidenote: 1595.]
The king professed to be at this time scandalised at the state of the
commonweal, ‘altogether disorderit and shaken louss by reason of the
deidly feids and controversies standing amangs his subjects of all
degrees.’ Seeing how murder had consequently become a daily occurrence,
he resolved upon a new and vigorous effort to bring the hostile
parties to a reconciliation ‘by his awn pains and travel to that
effect,’ so that the country might be the better fitted to resist the
common enemy, now threatening invasion. The Privy Council, therefore,
ordained letters to be sent charging the various parties to make their
appearance before the king on certain days, wherever he might be for
the time, each accompanied by a certain number of friends who might
assist with their advice, but the whole party in each case ‘to keep
their lodgings after their coming, while [till] they be specially sent
for by his majesty.’
The groups of persons summoned were, Robert Master of Eglintoun, and
Patrick Houston of that Ilk; James Earl of Glencairn, and Cunningham of
Glengarnock; John Earl of Montrose, and French of Thorniedykes; Hugh
Campbell of Loudon, sheriff of Ayr, Sandielands of Calder, Sir James
Sandielands of Slamannan, Crawford of Kerse, and Spottiswoode of that
Ilk; David Earl of Crawford and Guthrie of that Ilk; Sir Thomas Lyon
of Auldbar, knight, and Garden of that Ilk; Alexander Lord Livingston,
Sir Alexander Bruce, elder, of Airth, and Archibald Colquhoun of Luss;
John Earl of Mar, Alexander Forester of Garden, and Andro M‘Farlane
of Arrochar; James Lord Borthwick, Preston of Craigmiller, Mr George
Lauder of Bass, and Charles Lauder son of umwhile Andro Lauder in
Wyndpark; Sir John Edmonston of that Ilk, Maister William Cranston,
younger, of that Ilk; George Earl Marischal and Seyton of Meldrum;
James Cheyne of Straloch and William King of Barrach; James Tweedie of
Drumelzier and Charles Geddes of Rachan. The nobles in every instance
were allowed to have sixty, and the commoners twenty-four persons to
accompany them to the place of agreement, and all, while attending,
to have protection from any process of horning or excommunication
which might have been previously passed upon them. Fire and sword was
threatened against all neglecting to comply with the summons.
Earnest as the king seems now to have been, and influential as a royal
tongue proverbially is, we know for certain that several of the parties
now summoned continued afterwards at enmity.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1595-6.
MAR. 15.]
[Sidenote: 1595-6.]
‘The king made ane orison before the General Assembly, with many guid
promises and conditions. I pray God he may keep them, be content to
receive admonitions [from the clergy], and be collected himself and his
haill household, and to lay aside his authority royal and be as ane
brother to them, and to see all the kirks in this country weel planted
with ministers. There are in Scotland 900 kirks, of the whilk there are
400 without ministers or readers.’--_Bir._
The admonitions which it was so desirable that the king should
receive, were embodied in a paper called _Offences in the King’s
House_, under the following heads: ‘1. The reading of the Word, and
thanksgiving before and after meat, oft omitted. 2. Week-sermons oft
neglected, and he would be admonished not to talk with any in time of
divine service. 3. To recommend to him private meditation with God in
spirit and in his awn conscience. 4. Banning and swearing is too common
in the king’s house and court, occasioned by his example. 5. He would
have good company about him: Robertland, papists, murderers, profane
persons, would be removed from him. 6. The queen’s ministry would be
reformed. She herself neglects Word and sacrament, is to be admonished
for night-waking, balling, &c., also touching her company--and so of
her gentlewomen.’--_Row._
On the other hand, the king demanded of this assembly sundry
concessions as to his power over the kirk, and that ministers should
not be allowed to meddle with civil affairs or ‘to name any man in the
pulpit, or so vively to describe him as it shall be equivalent to the
very naming of him, except upon the notoriety of a public crime.’
[Sidenote: 1595-6.]
On this occasion the clergy denounced the _common corruption of all
estates within this realm_; namely, ‘an universal coldness, want of
zeal, ignorance, contempt of the Word, ministry, and sacraments, and
where knowledge is, yet no sense nor feeling, evidenced by the want
of family exercises, prayer, and the Word, and singing of psalms; and
if they be, they are profaned and abused, by calling on the cook,
steward, or jackman to perform that religious duty ... superstition and
idolatry entertained, evidenced in keeping of festival-days, fires,
pilgrimages, singing of carols at Yule, &c. ... swearing, banning, and
cursing: profanation of the Sabbath, especially by working in seed-time
and harvest, journeying, trysting, gaming, dancing, drinking, fishing,
killing, and milling: inferiors not doing duty to superiors, children
having pleas of law against their parents, marrying without their
consent; superiors not doing duty to inferiors, as not training up
their children at schools in virtue and godliness; great and frequent
breaches of duty between married persons: great bloodshed, deadly
feuds arising thence, and assisting of bloodshedders for eluding of
the laws: fornications, adulteries, incests, unlawful marriages and
divorcements, allowed by laws and judges ... excessive drinking and
waughting, gluttony (no doubt the cause of this dearth and famine),
gorgeous and vain apparel, filthy speeches and songs: cruel oppressions
of poor tenants ... idle persons having no lawful callings--as pipers,
fiddlers, songsters, sorners, pleasants, strong and sturdy beggars
living in harlotry.... Lying, finally, is a rife and common sin.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1596.
APR. 12.]
Sir Walter Scott of Branxholm, Laird of Buccleuch, performed an exploit
which has been celebrated both in prose and rhyme.
About the end of January, a ‘day of truce’ was held at a spot called
Dayholm of Kershope in Liddesdale, by the deputies of the English
warden, Lord Scrope, and the Laird of Buccleuch, keeper of Liddesdale.
The Scotch deputy, Scott of Goldielands, had but a small party--not
above twenty--among whom, however, was a noted border reiver, William
Armstrong of Kinmont, commonly known as _Kinmont Willie_. The English
deputy was attended by several hundred followers. It happened that,
before the end of the meeting, a report came to the English deputy
of some outrages at that moment in the course of being committed by
Scottish borderers within the English line. He entered a complaint on
the subject, and received assurance that the guilty parties should be
as soon as possible rendered up to the vengeance of Lord Scrope.
The day of truce ended peaceably; but, as the English party was
retiring along their side of the Liddel, they caught sight of the
Scottish reivers, and gave chase. Kinmont Willie was now riding quietly
along the Scottish side of the Liddel. Mistaking him for one of the
guilty troop, the English pursued him for three or four miles, and
taking him prisoner, bore him off to Carlisle Castle.
Probably the Liddesdale thief had incurred more guilt in England than
ten lives would have expiated. Yet what was this to Buccleuch? To him
the case was simply that of a retainer betrayed while on his master’s
business and assurance. If the affair had a public or national aspect,
it was that of a Scottishman mistreated, to the dishonour of his
sovereign and country. Having in vain used remonstrances with Lord
Scrope, both by himself and through the king’s representations to the
English ambassador, he resolved at last, as himself has expressed it,
‘to attempt the simple recovery of the prisoner in sae _moderate ane
fashion_ as was possible to him.’
[Sidenote: 1596.]
Buccleuch’s moderate proceeding consisted in the assembling of two
hundred armed and mounted retainers at the tower of Morton, an hour
before sunset of the 12th of April. He had arranged that no head of
any house should be of the number, but all younger brothers, that
the consequences might be the less likely to damage his following;
but, nevertheless, three lairds had insisted on taking part in the
enterprise. Passing silently across the border, they came to Carlisle
about the middle of the night. A select party of eighty then made an
attempt to scale the walls of the castle; but their ladders proving too
short, it was found necessary to break in by force through a postern on
the west side. Two dozen men having got in, six were left to guard the
passage, while the remaining eighteen passed on to Willie’s chamber,
broke it up, and released the prisoner. All this was done without
encountering any resistance except from a few watchmen, who were easily
‘dung on their backs.’[210] As a signal of their success, the party
within the castle sounded their trumpet ‘mightily.’ Hearing this,
Buccleuch raised a loud clamour amongst his horsemen on the green. At
the same time, the bell of the castle began to sound, a beacon-fire
was kindled on the top of the house, the great bell of the cathedral
was rung in correspondence, the watch-bell of the Moot-hall joined
the throng of sounds, and, to crown all, the drum began to rattle
through the streets of the city. ‘The people were perturbit from their
nocturnal sleep, then undigestit at that untimeous hour, with some
cloudy weather and saft rain, whilk are noisome to the delicate persons
of England, whaise bodies are given to quietness, rest, and delicate
feeding, and consequently desirous of more sleep and repose in bed.’
Amidst the uproar, ‘the assaulters brought forth their countryman,
and convoyit him to the court, where the Lord Scrope’s chalmer has
a prospect unto, to whom he cried with a loud voice a familiar
guid-nicht! and another guid-nicht to his constable Mr Saughell.’ The
twenty-four men returned with Kinmont Willie to the main body, and the
whole party retired without molestation, and re-entered Scotland with
the morning light. ‘The like of sic ane vassalage,’ says the diarist
Birrel, with unwonted enthusiasm, ‘was never done since the memory of
man, no, not in Wallace’ days!’ Buccleuch himself, with true heroism,
treated the matter calmly and even reasoningly. The simple recovery of
the prisoner, he said, ‘maun necessarily be esteimit lawful, gif the
taking and deteining of him be unlawful, as without all question it
was.’
[Sidenote: 1596.]
The matter was brought before the king in council (May 25) by the
English ambassador, who pleaded that Sir Walter Scott should be given
up to the queen for punishment. It was on this occasion that the
border knight defended himself in the terms above quoted. Of course his
own countrymen sympathised with him in a deed so gallant, and performed
from such a motive, and the king could not readily act in a contrary
strain. Elizabeth never obtained any satisfaction for the taking of
Kinmont Willie.--_Spot._ _Moy._ _H. K. J._ _C. K. S._ _P. C. R._
_Bir._[211]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1596 (?)
APR.]
‘... there came an Englishman to Edinburgh, with a chestain-coloured
naig, which he called Marroco ... he made him to do many rare and
uncouth tricks, such as never horse was observed to do the like before
in this land. This man would borrow from twenty or thirty of the
spectators a piece of gold or silver, put all in a purse, and shuffle
them together; thereafter he would bid the horse give every gentleman
his own piece of money again. He would cause him tell by so many pats
with his foot how many shillings the piece of money was worth. He would
cause him lie down as dead. He would say to him: “I will sell you to
a carter:” then he would seem to die. Then he would say: “Marroco, a
gentleman hath borrowed you, and you must ride with a lady of court.”
Then would he most daintily hackney, amble, and ride a pace, and trot,
and play the jade at his command when his master pleased. He would
make him take a great draught of water as oft as he liked to command
him. By a sign given him, he would beck for the King of Scots and
for Queen Elizabeth, and when ye spoke of the King of Spain, would
both bite and strike at you--and many other wonderful things. I was a
spectator myself in those days. But the report went afterwards that he
devoured his master, because he was thought to be a spirit and nought
else.’--_Pa. And._
This was ‘the dancing horse’ to which Moth alludes in Shakspeare
(_Love’s Labour Lost_, act I., sc. 2). The actual fate of Banks,
the keeper of the animal, was not better than that which vulgar
rumour assigned to him. It is almost an incredible, yet apparently
well-authenticated fact, that horse and man, after wandering through
various countries, were burnt together as magicians at Rome.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1596.
MAY.]
At this time, while the country was suffering from famine, there was a
renewing of the Covenant with fasting and humiliation in St Andrews
presbytery. ‘After this exercise,’ says James Melville, one of those
chiefly concerned in ordering it, ‘we wanted not a remarkable effect.’
‘God extraordinarily provided victuals out of all other countries,
in sic store and abundance as was never seen in this land before;’
without which ‘thousands had died for hunger,’ ‘for,’ he goes on to
say, ‘notwithstanding of the infinite number of bolls of victual that
cam hame from other parts, all the harvest quarter of that year, the
meal gave aucht, nine, and ten pounds the boll, and the malt eleven and
twal, and in the south and west parts many died.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 7.
1596.]
Napier, still brooding over the dangers from popery, devised at this
time certain inventions which he thought would be useful for defending
the country in case of invasion. One was a mirror like that of
Archimedes, which should collect the beams of the sun, and reflect them
concentratedly in one ‘mathematical point,’ for the purpose of burning
the enemy’s ships. Another was a similar mirror to reflect artificial
fire. A third was a kind of shot for artillery, not to pass lineally
through an enemy’s host, destroying only those that stand in its way,
but which should ‘range abroad within the whole appointed place, and
not departing furth of the place till it had executed his [its] whole
strength, by destroying those that be within the bounds of the said
place.’ A fourth, the last, was a closed and fortified carriage to
bring harquebussiers into the midst of an enemy--a superfluity, one
would think, if there was any hopefulness in the third of the series.
‘These inventions, besides devices of sailing under the water, with
divers other stratagems for harming of the enemies, by the grace of
God and work of expert craftsmen, I hope to perform.’[212] So wrote
Napier at the date noted in the margin. Sir Thomas Urquhart describes
the third of the devices as calculated to clear a field of four miles’
circumference of all living things above a foot in height: by it, he
said, the inventor could destroy 30,000 Turks, without the hazard of
a single Christian. He adds that proof of its powers was given on a
large plain in Scotland, to _the destruction of a great many cattle
and sheep_--a particular that may be doubted. ‘When he was desired by
a friend in his last illness to reveal the contrivance, his answer was
that, for the ruin and overthrow of man, there were too many devices
already framed, which if he could make to be fewer, he would, with
his might, endeavour to do; and that therefore, seeing the malice
and rancour rooted in the heart of mankind will not suffer them to
diminish, the number of them, by any concert of his, should never be
increased.’[213]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 24.]
John, Master of Orkney, was tried for the alleged crime of attempting
to destroy the life of his brother the Earl of Orkney, first by
witchcraft, and secondly by more direct means. The case broke down,
and would not be worthy of attention in this place, but for the
nature of the means taken to inculpate the accused. It appeared that
the alleged witchcraft stood upon the evidence of a confession wrung
from a woman called Alison Balfour, residing at Ireland, a village in
Orkney, who had been executed for that imaginary crime in December
1594. The counsel for the Master shewed that, when this poor woman made
her ‘pretended confession,’ as it might well be called, she had been
kept forty-eight hours in the _cashielaws_--an instrument of torture
supposed to have consisted of an iron case for the leg, to which fire
was gradually applied, till it became insupportably painful. At the
same time, her husband, a man of ninety-one years of age, her eldest
son and daughter, were kept likewise under torture, ‘the father being
in the _lang irons_ of fifty stane wecht,’ the son fixed in the _boots_
with fifty-seven strokes, and the daughter in the _pilniewinks_, that
they, ‘being sae tormented beside her, might move her to make any
confession for their relief.’ A like confession had been extorted from
Thomas Palpla, to the effect that he had conspired with the Master
to poison his brother, ‘he being kept in the cashielaws eleven days
and eleven nights, twice in the day by the space of fourteen days
callit [driven] in the boots, he being naked in the meantime, and
scourgit with tows [ropes] in sic sort that they left neither flesh nor
hide upon him; in the extremity of whilk torture the said pretended
confession had been drawn out of him.’ Both of these witnesses had
revoked their confessions, Alison Balfour doing so solemnly on the
Heading Hill of Kirkwall, when about to submit to death for her own
alleged crime, of which she at the same time protested herself to be
innocent. These are among the most painful examples we anywhere find of
the barbarous legal procedure of our ancestors.--_Pit._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG. 3.
1596.]
One John Dickson, an Englishman, was tried for uttering slanderous
speeches against the king, calling him ‘ane bastard king,’ and saying
‘he was not worthy to be obeyed.’ This it appeared he had done in a
drunken anger, when asked to veer his boat out of the way of the king’s
ordnance. He was adjudged to be hanged.--_Pit._ It is curious on this
and some other occasions to find that, while the king got so little
practical obedience, and the laws in general were so feebly enforced,
such a severe penalty was inflicted on acts of mere disrespect towards
majesty.
[Sidenote: AUG. 17.]
The court was at this time unable to keep silence under the pelt of
pasquils which it had brought upon itself. We have now a furious edict
of Privy Council against the writers and promulgators of ‘infamous
libels, buiks, ballats, pasquils, and cantels in prose and rhyme,’
which have lately been set out, and especially against ‘ane maist
treasonable letter in form of a _cockalane_,[214] craftily divulgat
by certain malicious, seditious, and unquiet spirits, uttering mony
shameful and contumelious speeches, full of hatrent and dispite, not
only against God, his servants and ministers, but maist unnaturally
to the prejudice of the honour, guid fame, and reputation of the king
and queen’s majesties, not sparing the prince their dearest son,
besides their nobility, council, and guid subjects.’ The only active
redress, however, was to proclaim a reward for the discovery of the
offenders.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV. 3.]
Since November 1585, when he was driven from the king’s councils, James
Stewart of Newton (sometime Earl of Arran) had lived in obscurity in
the north.[215] Now that the Chancellor Maitland was dead, he formed
a hope that possibly some use might be found for him at court; he
therefore came to Edinburgh privately, and had an interview with the
king at Holyroodhouse. He received some encouragement; but as nothing
could be done for him immediately, and there were many enemies to
reconcile, he bethought him of going to live for a while amongst his
friends in Ayrshire, trusting erelong to be sent for.
[Sidenote: 1596.]
The ex-favourite was travelling by Symington, in the upper ward of
Lanarkshire, when some one who knew him gave him warning that he was
come into a dangerous neighbourhood, for not far from the way he was
about to pass dwelt a leading man of that house of Douglas which he
had mortally offended by his prosecution of the Regent Morton. This
was Sir James Douglas of Parkhead, whose father was a natural brother
of the regent: he was now the husband of the heiress of the house of
Carlyle of Torthorald, and a man of consideration. Stewart replied
disdainfully that he was travelling where he had a right to be, and he
would not go out of his way for Parkhead nor any other of the house of
Douglas. A mean person who overheard this speech made off and reported
it to Douglas, who, on hearing it, rose from table, where he had been
dining, and vowed he would have the life of Stewart at all hazards.
He immediately mounted, and with three servants rode after his enemy
through a valley called the Catslack. When Stewart saw himself pursued,
he asked the name of the place, and being told, desired his people to
come on with all possible speed, for he had got a response from some
soothsayer to beware of that spot. Parkhead speedily overtook him,
struck him from his horse, and then mercilessly killed him. Cutting
off the head, he caused it to be carried by a servant on the point of
a spear, thus verifying another weird saying regarding Stewart, that
he should have the highest head in Scotland. His body was left on the
spot, to become the prey of dogs and swine.[216]
Thus perished an ex-chancellor of Scotland, one who had been permitted
for a time to treat the world as if it had only been made for his own
aggrandisement, who had governed a king, struck down a regent, and made
the greatest of the old nobility of the country tremble. Violence,
insolence, and cruelty had been the ruling principles of his life,
and, as Spottiswoode says, ‘he was paid home in the end.’ No decided
effort was made to execute justice upon his slayer;[217] but it will be
afterwards found that the Ochiltree Stewarts did not forget his death.
(See under July 1608.)
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 17.
1596.]
An edict of the king against what he called unlawful convocations
of the clergy, had raised a general uneasiness and excitement, many
believing that all independent action of the clergy was struck at. The
prosecution of a minister named David Black, who had slandered the king
and queen in the pulpit, and refused to submit to a secular tribunal,
added to the turmoil. James had further raised a great distrust
regarding his fidelity to the Protestant religion by his allowing the
exiled papist lords to return to their own country. It was at this
crisis that the tumult long known in French fashion as the _Seventeenth
of December_ took place.
‘... being Friday, his majesty being in the Tolbooth sitting in
session, and ane convention of ministers being in the New Kirk [a
contiguous section of St Giles’s Church], and some noblemen being
convenit with them, as in special Blantyre and Lindsay, there came in
some devilish officious person, and said that the ministers were coming
to take his life. Upon the whilk, the Tolbooth doors were steekit, and
there arase sic ane crying, “God and the king!” other some crying, “God
and the kirk!” that the haill commons of Edinburgh raise in arms, and
knew not wherefore always. There was ane honest man, wha was deacon
of deacons; his name was John Watt, smith. This John Watt raisit the
haill crafts in arms, and came to the Tolbooth, where the entry is to
the Chequer-house, and there cried for a sight of his majesty, or else
he sould ding up the yett with fore-hammers, sae that never ane within
the Tolbooth sould come out with their life. At length his majesty
lookit ower the window, and spake to the commons, wha offerit to die
and live with him. Sae his majesty came down after the townsmen were
commandit off the gait, and was convoyit by the craftsmen to the abbey
of Holyroodhouse.’--_Bir._
[Sidenote: 1596.]
The king either was really exasperated or pretended to be so. Retiring
to Linlithgow next day, he sent orders to Edinburgh, discharging the
courts of justice from sitting there, commanding one minister to be
imprisoned and others to be put to the horn, and citing the magistrates
to come and answer for the seditious conduct of their people. Great
was the consternation thus produced, insomuch that one Sunday passed
without public worship--‘the like of which had not been seen before.’
On the last day of the year, James returned, to all appearance charged
with the most alarming intentions against the city. A proclamation was
issued, commanding certain lords and Border chiefs of noted loyalty to
occupy certain ports and streets. There consequently arose a rumour
‘that the king’s majesty should send in Will Kinmont, the common thief,
as should spulyie the town of Edinburgh. Upon the whilk, the haill
merchants took their haill geir out of their booths and shops, and
transportit the same to the strongest house that was in the town, and
remainit in the said house with themselves, their servants, and looking
for nothing but that they should have all been spulyit. Siclike, the
haill craftsmen and commons convenit themselves, their best goods,
as it were ten or twelve households in ane, whilk was the strongest
house, and might be best keepit from spulying and burning, with hagbut,
pistolet, and other sic armour, as might best defend themselves. Judge,
gentle reader, gif this be playing! Thir noblemen and gentlemen,
keepers of the ports and Hie Gait, being set at the places foresaid,
with pike and spear, and other armour, stood keeping the foresaid
places appointit, till his majesty came to St Giles’s Kirk, Mr David
Lindsay making the sermon. His majesty made ane oration or harangue,
concerning the sedition of the seditious ministers, as it pleased him
to term them.’--_Bir._
The affair ended three months after, in a way that supports the opinion
of the Laird of Dumbiedykes, that ‘it’s sad work, but siller will help
it.’ March 22d, ‘the town of Edinburgh was relaxed frae the horn, and
received into the king’s favour again, and the session ordained to sit
down in Edinburgh the 25th of May thereafter.’ Next day, ‘the king
drank in the council-house with the bailies, council, and deacons.
The said bailies and council convoyit his majesty to the West Port
thereafter. In the meantime of this drinking in the council-house,
the bells rang for joy of their agreement; the trumpets sounded, the
drums and whistles played, with [as] many other instruments of music as
might be played on; and the town of Edinburgh, for the tumult-raising
the 17 of December before, was _ordained to pay to his majesty thretty
thousand merks Scottish_.’--_Bir._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1596-7.]
John Mure, of Auchindrain, in Ayrshire, was a gentleman of good means
and connections, who acted at one time in a judicial capacity as bailie
of Carrick, and gave general satisfaction by his judgments. He was
son-in-law to the Laird of Bargeny, one of the three chief men of the
all-powerful Ayrshire family of Kennedy. Sir Thomas Kennedy of Colzean,
another of these great men, was on bad terms with Bargeny. Mure, who
might naturally be expected to take his father-in-law’s side, was for
a time restrained by some practical benefits, in the shape of lands,
offered to him by Sir Thomas; but the titles to the lands not being
ultimately made good, the Laird of Auchindrain conceived only the more
furious hatred against the knight of Colzean. This happened about 1595,
and it appears at the same time that Sir Thomas had excited a deadly
rage in the bosom of the Earl of Cassillis’s next brother, usually
called the Master of Cassillis. The Master and Auchindrain, with
another called the Laird of Dunduff, easily came to an understanding
with each other, and agreed to slay Sir Thomas Kennedy the first
opportunity. Such was the manner of conducting a quarrel about
land-rights and despiteful words amongst gentlemen in Ayrshire in those
days.
[Sidenote: JAN. 1.]
On the evening of the 1st of January, Sir Thomas Kennedy supped with
Sir Thomas Nisbet in the house of the latter at Maybole. The Lairds of
Auchindrain and Dunduff, with a few servants, lay in wait for him in
the yard, and when he came forth to go to his own house to bed, they
fired their pistols at him. ‘He being safe of any hurt therewith, and
perceiving them with their swords most cruelly to pursue his life, ...
was forced for his safety to fly; in which chase they did approach him
so near, as he had undoubtedly been overta’en and killed, if he had
not adventured to run aside and cover himself with the ruins of ane
decayed house; whilk, in respect of the darkness of the night, they did
not perceive; but still followed to his lodging, and searched all the
corners thereof, till the confluence of the people ... forced them to
retire.’[218]
For this assault, Sir Thomas Kennedy pursued at law the Lairds of
Auchindrain and Dunduff, and was so far successful that Dunduff had
to retire into England, while ‘Colzean gat the house of Auchindrain,
and destroyit the ... plenishing, and wrackit all the garden. And also
they made mony sets [snares] to have gotten [Auchindrain] himself; but
God preservit him from their tyranny.’[219] Auchindrain, however, was
forced ‘to cover malice by show of repentance, and for satisfaction of
his bypast offence, and _gage_ of his future duty, to offer his eldest
son in marriage to Sir Thomas Kennedy’s dochter; whilk, by intercession
of friends, [was] accepted.’[220]
We shall hear more of this feud hereafter (see under December 11, 1601).
* * * * *
[Sidenote: FEB. 17.
1596-7.]
Under a commission from the king, the provost and bailies of Aberdeen
commenced a series of witch-trials of a remarkable kind. The first
delinquent, Janet Wishart, spouse of John Lees, stabler--a woman
considerably advanced in life--was accused of a great number of
_maléfices_ perpetrated, during upwards of thirty years, against
neighbours, chiefly under a spirit of petty revenge. In the greater
number of cases, the victim was described as being seized with an
ailment under which he passed through the extremes of heat and cold,
and was afflicted with an insatiable drouth. In several cases the
illness had a fatal conclusion. For instance, James Low, stabler,
having refused Janet the loan of his kiln and barn, took a _dwining_
illness in consequence, ‘melting away like ane burning candle,’ till
he died. John, in his last moments, declared his belief that, if he
had lent Janet his kiln and barn, he would still have been a living
man. ‘By the whilk witchcraft casten upon him, and upon his house, his
wife died, his only son [fell] in the same kind of sickness, and his
haill geir, surmounting three thousand pounds, are altogether wrackit
and away.’ It was considered sufficient proof on this point, that
sundry persons testified to having heard James lay on Janet the blame
of his misfortunes. Another person had been ruined in his means, in
consequence of his wife obeying a direction of Janet for the insurance
of constant prosperity--namely, taking nine pickles of wheat and a
piece of rowan-tree, and putting them in the four nooks of the house.
Janet had also caused a dozen fowls belonging to a neighbour to fall
from a roost dead at her feet. She raised wind for winnowing some malt
in her own house, at a moment of perfect calm, by putting a piece of
live coal at each of two doors. She caused a neighbour’s cow to give
something like venom instead of milk. A Mart ox which she wished to
buy, became furious; wherefore she got it at her own price, and on
her laying her hands on it, the animal became quiet. There is also a
terrible recital of her causing a neighbour to accompany her to the
gallows in the Links, where she cut pieces from the various members of
a dead culprit, to be used for effecting some of her devilish purposes.
This story was only reported by one who had received it from the woman
herself, now deceased; but it passed as equally good evidence with the
rest. It was alleged that, twenty-two years ago, she had been found
sitting in a field of green corn before sun-ris, when, being asked what
she was doing, she said: ‘I have been peeling the blades of the corn: I
find it will be ane dear year; the blade of the corn grows withershins
[contrary to the course of the sun]: when it grows sungates about
[in the direction of the sun’s course], it will be ane cheap year.’
One of the last points in the dittay was that, for eight days before
her apprehension, ‘continually there was sic ane fearful rumbling in
thy house, that William Murray, cordiner, believit the house he was
into, next to thy house, should have fallen and smoorit him and his
haill bairns.’ This poor woman appears to have been taken to the stake
immediately after her trial.
Her son, Thomas Lees, was accused of having aided her in her evil
deeds, and being ‘ane common witch and sorcerer,’ and his trial
(February 23) brings out some curious points. He was accused of having
been one of a large company of witches and sorcerers who had gone to
the Market and Fish Crosses of Aberdeen at midnight of the previous
Halloween (All Saints’ Eve), ‘under the guiding and conduct of the
devil ... playing before you on his kind of instruments.’ The company
were all transformed, some as hares, some as cats, some in other
likenesses, and all danced about the two crosses and the meal-market a
long space of time, Thomas being the leader of the ring. One Catherine
Mitchell being somewhat laggard, he beat her to make her go faster; a
fact to which Catherine herself now bore witness. A woman with whom
Thomas had been too intimate also testified to his having offered to
take her to Murrayland and marry her, telling her that by the way, at
the foot of a particular mountain, he could raise a spirit able to
provide them with all necessaries. This poor fellow was also condemned
to the flames. The husband and daughters of Janet Wishart--the latter
of whom are taxed as well known to be ‘quick gangand devils’--narrowly
escaped with banishment from the city.
[Sidenote: 1597.]
Helen Fraser, who was tried in April, was accused of many witchcrafts
of common kinds, and of some less common. For instance, she had
translated a sickness from a man’s horse to his cow, and, worse than
that, the affection of Andrew Tullideff from his wife to a woman
called Margaret Neilson, ‘and sae michtily bewitchit him, that he
could never be reconceillit with his wife, or remove his affection
frae the said harlot.’ Another man, Robert Merchant by name, who had
been married happily to Christian White for two years, being taken to
sow corn for a widow named Isobel Bruce, at the Murihill of Foveran,
where Helen Fraser was then living, ‘fand his affection violently
and extraordinarily drawn away from the said Christian to the said
Isobel, ane great luve being betwixt him and the said Christian
always theretofore, and nae break of luve or discord falling out
or intervening upon either of their parts: whilk thing the country
supposit to be brought about by the unlawful travelling of the said
Helen’--and was further _testified by Robert himself_. Helen was
likewise convicted, and of course burnt.
[Sidenote: 1597.]
Isobel Cockie took from cows the power of giving healthful milk, making
them give a poisonous stuff instead. She also prevented good milk from
‘yirning.’ Horses had fallen dead under her touch.
Men against whom she had pronounced evil words took deadly sicknesses
in consequence, or suffered a decay in their worldly means. Her house
being ruinous, the proprietor, Alexander Anderson, had come in her
absence, and was proceeding to mend the roof, when she came home, and
finding he had uncovered her pantry, where her valuables lay, she said:
‘I shall gar thee forthink it, that thou hast tirrit my house, I being
frae hame,’ and _glowrit up at him_. Immediately Alexander’s speech
went from him, and he retired to bed sick, and could get no rest or
sleep. Under the threats of his son, she was induced to come and charm
this sickness away from him, and ‘gave him droggis, that his speech
came to him again.’[221] By the confession of the recently burnt Thomas
Lees, Isobel Cockie had been second to himself in the infernal dance at
the Fish Cross, ‘and because the devil playit not so melodiously and
weel as thou cravit, thou took his instrument out of his mouth, then
took him on the chafts therewith, and playit thyself thereon to the
haill company.’ Isobel was likewise condemned.
[Sidenote: 1597.]
It would be tedious to enter into the long series of trials which
extended over this year in and near Aberdeen; but a few particulars
are worth giving. The case of Andrew Man, an aged person, formerly of
Tarbrugh, in the parish of Rathven, involves a more imaginative style
of warlockry than is common. According to his own confessions--that is
to say, the hallucinations which he described--the devil came sixty
years ago to his mother’s house, in the form of a woman, called the
Queen of Elfen, and was delivered of a bairn; at which time, he being
a boy, bringing in water, was promised by this distinguished stranger
‘that thou should know all things; and should help and cure all
sorts of sickness, except _stand-deid_, and that thou should be weel
enterteinit, but wald seek thy meat ere thou de’ed, as Thomas Rhymer
did.’ Thirty-two years before, he had begun a guilty intercourse with
this Queen of Elfen, at whose first coming, ‘she caused ane of thy
cattle die upon ane hillock called the Elf-hillock, but promised to do
him good thereafter.’ Andrew, according to his own account, could ‘cure
the falling-sickness, the bairn-bed, and all other sorts of sickness
that ever fell to man or beast, except the _stand-deid_, by baptising
them, reabling them in the auld corunschbald, and striking of the gudis
on the face, with ane fowl in thy hand, and by saying thir words:
“Gif thou will live, live; and gif thou will die, die!” with sundry
other orisons, sic as of Sanct John and the three silly brethren, whilk
thou can say when thou please, and by giving of black wool and salt
as a remeid for all diseases and for causing a man prosper and that
his blude should never be drawn.’ He had cured several persons by his
enchantments, one mode being to put the patient nine times through a
hasp of unwatered yarn, and then a cat as many times backward through
the same hasp, the effect of which was to translate the sickness from
the patient to the cat.
The devil, whom Andrew called Christsonday, and believed to be an
angel, was raised by the word _Benedicite_, and laid again by taking
a dog under his armpit, casting the same in the devil’s mouth, and
speaking the word _Maikpeblis_. ‘The Queen of Elfen has a grip of all
the craft, but Christsonday is the guidman, and has all power under
God, and thou kens sundry deid men in their company, and the king that
died at Flodden and Thomas Rhymer is there.’
‘Upon Rood-day in harvest, in this present year, whilk fell on a
Wednesday, thou saw Christsonday come out of the snaw in likeness of a
staig [young male horse], and the Queen of Elfen was there, and others
with her, riding upon white hackneys.’ ‘The elves have shapes and
claithes like men, and will have fair covered tables, and they are but
shadows, but are starker [stronger] nor men, and they have playing and
dancing when they please; the queen is very pleasand, and will be auld
and young when she pleases; she makes any king whom she pleases.... The
elves will make thee appear to be in a fair chalmer, and yet thou will
find thyself in a moss on the morn. They will appear to have candles,
and licht, and swords, whilk will be nothing else but dead grass and
straes.’ Andrew denied his guilt, but was nevertheless convicted, and
doubtless burnt.
In the dittay against Marjory Mutch, it was alleged that, having an
ill-will against William Smith in Tarserhill, she came to his plough
and bewitched the oxen, so that ‘they instantly ran all wood [mad],
brak the pleuch, twa thereof ran over the hills to Deer, and other
twa thereof up Ithan side, whilk could never be tane nor apprehendit
again.’ This woman was said to have destroyed much cattle, laid
sickness on many persons, and attended all the witch conventions of the
district. In token of her being a witch, there was a spot under her
left ear, into which a gentleman had thrust a pin without producing any
pain.
[Sidenote: 1597.]
Margaret Clark, being sent for by the wife of Nicol Ross, when she was
in childbed, ‘cast the haill dolours, sickness, and pains whilk she
should have susteinit, upon Andrew Harper, wha, during all the time of
her travelling, was exceedingly and marvellously troubled, in ane fury
and madness as it were, and could not be halden; and how soon the said
gentlewoman was delivered, the pains departed frae the said Andrew.’
It is alleged of Violet Leys, that, her husband, a mariner, being
discharged from William Finlay’s ship, she and her late mother
bewitched the said ship, ‘that, since thy husband was put forth of
the same, she never made one good voyage, but either the master or
merchants at some times through tempest of weather, were forced to cast
overboard the greatest part of their lading, or then to perish, men,
ship, and geir.’ Several of the other culprits are accused of raising
and calming the wind at pleasure.[222]
It appears that at this time twenty-two unfortunate men and women,
chiefly the latter, suffered in Aberdeen and its neighbourhood.
Such a tremendous sacrifice to superstition would in itself be
worthy of special notice here; but it becomes the more so from a
probability which appears that Shakspeare must have been acquainted
with the details of these trials. It will be found that the chief
of his company, Lawrence Fletcher, was in Aberdeen with a party of
comedians in October 1601. That Shakspeare was of the party is not
certain; but there is no fact to militate against the probability
that he was. Mr Charles Knight[223] has shewn that in these trials
there occur many things which strongly recall passages in the
witch-scenes of _Macbeth_--as if those scenes had been written by one
who had thoroughly studied the dittays against Janet Wishart and her
associates. Nearly all of those women--and it is very much a special
feature of this group of cases--had laid heavy disease on those whom
they held at ill-will, causing them to suffer fearful pains, and their
strength to decay.
‘He shall live a man forbid:
Weary seven nights nine times nine,
He shall dwindle, peak, and pine.’
[Sidenote: 1597.]
Such are the dread words of the _Macbeth_ hags. We see that the
Aberdeen witches had power over the winds; so had those of Macbeth.
Banquo says to the weird sisters:
‘If you can look into the seeds of time,
And say which grain will grow, and which will not,
Speak then to me.’
This, it must be acknowledged, is wonderfully like a suggestion to the
imagination from such a fact as that of Janet Wishart’s vaticinations
among the growing corn. The witch-dance at the Fish Cross is much like
those under the guidance of Hecate; and Wishart’s dealing with the
malefactor’s corpse at the gallows on the Links, might well furnish a
hint for the incantations over the caldron.
‘Grease that’s sweaten
From the murderer’s gibbet, throw
Into the flame.’
And perhaps even the humble cantrip of Marjory Mutch with William
Smith’s oxen, might suggest the fine passage descriptive of the conduct
of Duncan’s horses at his death; when they
‘Turned wild in nature, broke their stalls, flung out,
Contending ’gainst obedience, as they would
Make war with mankind.’
‘If it be not,’ says Mr Knight, in concluding this curious speculation,
‘to inquire too curiously, may we not trace one of the most striking
passages in _Othello_ to the humble source of an Aberdeen superstition?’
“That handkerchief
Did an Egyptian to my mother give;
She was a charmer, and could almost read
The thoughts of people: she told her, while she kept it,
’Twould make her amiable, and subdue my father
Entirely to her love.”
[Sidenote: 1597.]
In the information against Isobell Straquhan, it is alleged that “the
said Isobell came to Elspet Mutrey in Wodheid, she being a widow, and
asked of her if she had a penny to lend her, and the said Elspet gave
her the penny; and the said Isobell took the penny, and bowit [bent]
it, and took a clout and a piece red wax, and sewed the clout with a
thread, the wax and the penny being within the clout, and gave it to
the said Elspet Mutrey, commanding her to use the said clout to hang
about her craig [neck], and when she saw the man she loved best, take
the clout, with the penny and wax, and stroke her face with it, and she
so doing, should attain in to the marriage of that man whom she loved.”
The “clout” sewed “with a thread” wants, indeed, the poetical colouring
of the “handkerchief” of _Othello_; but still
“There’s magic in the web of it.”
More curious in the effects produced is another example of the
“prophetic fury” of the “sibyl” Isobell Straquhan. She could not only
produce love, but remove hatred: Walter Ronaldson had used to strike
his wife, who took consultation with Scudder (_alias_ Straquhan),
and ‘she did take pieces of paper, and sew them thick with thread of
divers colours, and did put them in the barn amongst the corn, and from
henceforth the said Walter did never strike his wife, neither yet once
found fault with her, whatsoever she did. He was subdued “entirely to
her love.”’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1596-7.
MAR. 11.]
The duellium seems to have been particularly in vogue at this time.
‘There chanced a single combat betwixt James Hepburn of Moreham and one
Birnie, a skinner in Edinburgh [at St Leonard’s Craigs]. They were both
slain [and buried the morning after]. The occasion and quarrel was not
thought to be great nor yet necessary. Hepburn alleged and maintained
that there was seven sacraments; Birnie would have but two, or else he
would fight. The other was content with great protestations that he
would defend his belief with the sword; and so, with great earnestness,
they yoked, and thus the question was decided.’--_P. And._
[Sidenote: 1596-7.]
There was a traditionary tale in Edinburgh, which Sir Walter Scott had
heard in his youth, and which he narrated to the author of this work in
1824, to the effect that, a gentleman having been foully murdered by a
man of formidable repute as a swordsman, his widow brought forward two
sons in succession to challenge the murderer to mortal combat, and when
these had fallen, did not scruple even to send a third, her youngest
and favourite, to avenge the slaughter of the rest; thus imitating, as
Sir Walter remarked, the conduct of Don Arias Gonzalo, in sending his
three sons in succession to meet Don Diego Ordoñez, when the latter
challenged the people of Zamora for sheltering the traitor Vellido--as
related in the _Chronicle of the Cid_.[224] The two first youths, like
the sons of Don Diego, ‘died like good men in their duty;’ but the
third slew the murderer. The last fight, said Sir Walter, took place on
Cramond Island in the Firth of Forth, and since then there has been no
such combat permitted. Apparently the basis of this story is as follows:
[Sidenote: MAR. 15.]
James Carmichael, second son of the Laird of Carmichael, had killed
Stephen Bruntfield, captain of Tantallon, in a duel at St Leonard’s
Craigs, 22d December 1596. Adam Bruntfield, brother of the deceased,
‘allegit that James Carmichael had slain his brother by treason, having
promisit to meet him hand to hand, and had brought others with him to
his slaughter, and therefore was a traitor. The other stood to his
denial, and they baith seyit [tried] their moyen [influence] at his
majesty’s hands for ane license to fecht, whilk with great difficulty
was granted by his grace.’ They met on Barnbougle Sands or Links,[225]
in the presence of a great multitude, and with the Duke of Lennox, the
Laird of Buccleuch, Sir James Sandilands, and Lord Sinclair, to act as
judges. ‘The one was clothed in blue taffeta, the other in red sattin.’
Carmichael, who was ‘as able a like man as was living,’ seemed at first
to have great advantage over Adam Bruntfield, who was ‘but ane young
man, and of mean stature;’ and at the first encounter he struck Adam
on the loin. To the surprise of all, however, Bruntfield ‘strikes him
in the craig [neck], and syne loups aboon him, and gives him sundry
straiks with his dagger, and sae slays him. Adam Bruntfield is convoyit
to Edinburgh with great triumph as ane victorious captain; and the
other borne in deid.’--_Bir._ _Pa. And._ _C. K. Sc._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1597.
MAR. (?)]
This spring, there was ‘sic increase of sawing, that the like has not
been heard of before. Ane man of Libberton, callit Douglas, had, of ten
pecks of beir sawn thirty-one thrave, and every threif had ane boll of
beir and ane peck.’--_Bir._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR. 20.
1597.]
‘At this time, one Sir James Mac Oniel [Mac Connel], _alias_ Sorley
Buie, a great man in Ireland, being here for the time to complain of
our chief islesmen, was knighted, and went with his train and dependers
to visit the Castle and provision therein, and gave great and noble
rewards to the keepers.’--_Pa. And._ ‘The 7th of May, he went homeward,
and for honour of his _bonalley_[226] the cannons shot out of the
Castle of Edinburgh.’--_Bir._ ‘This Sir James was ane man of Scottis
bluid, albeit his lands lies in Ireland. He was ane braw man of person
and behaviour, but had not the Scots tongue, nor nae language but Erse
[Irish].’--_C. K. Sc._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 6.]
There was a proclamation ‘that no man take upon hand to give out money
any dearer nor ten for the hundred [ten per cent. interest], or victual
according thereto, under the pain of confiscation of their goods, and
punishing of their bodies as usurers.’--_Bir._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 10.]
Died Hugh Rose of Kilravock, at an advanced age. A descendant describes
him as ‘ane excellent person.’ ‘He found the fortune [of the family]
low, and under great burden, which he not only defrayed, leaving it
free to his son, but also acquired the whole lands now holden of the
Bishop of Moray. He had seventeen sisters and daughters, all whose
portions, mediately or immediately, he paid, though their very portions
were a considerable debt. He lived in a very divided factious time,
there falling out then great revolutions in church and state; religion
changed from popery to protestant, and the queen laid aside, living
in exile; yet such was his even, ingenious, prudential carriage, that
he wanted not respect from the most eminent of all parties. He had
troubles from neighbours, which he prudently carried, and yet knew how
discreetly to resent them, as appears, that a debate being betwixt him
and two neighbours, he subscribed: “Hucheon Rose of Kilravock, ane
honest man, ill guided betwixt them both.” This was _ridentem dicere
verum_.
‘He was a man that could make good use of his troubles, as appears by
his answer to King James, who, being in Kilravock in his progress to
the north (in the year 1589, as I suppose), inquired how he could live
amongst such ill turbulent neighbours; [he] made this reply: “That they
were the best neighbours he could have, for they made him thrice a day
go to God upon his knees, when perhaps otherwise he would not have gone
once.” And at the same time, as I have learned many years ago from old
persons, the king was pleased to honour him with the name of Father,
and desiring he might be covered.
[Sidenote: 1597.]
‘As to his person, I have had it from such as knew him, that he was of
a tall, and of a square well-compact body, but not corpulent. He was
of a venerable grave aspect; his beard white and long in his old age.
He died full of days, not so much of sickness as nature being worn
out. The night before his death, he went forth to his orchard, and
there supped upon a little broth, and then going to his bed, died the
next morning, without trouble, muttering these words in Latin at his
expiring: “In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum.”‘[227]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 26.]
This was a day of great joy to the friends of the reformed faith,
for the Earls of Huntly and Errol had at length been wrought upon
to make profession of the true religion, and so be relaxed from the
pains of excommunication. Though the pressing nature of the motive was
obvious, no dread of insincerity seems ever to have entered the minds
of the honest zealots who left these lords no other course for their
preservation. The affair took place in the kirk of Aberdeen, and was
in several respects noticeable. The evening before, the Earl of Huntly
shook hands in token of reconciliation with Lord Forbes and young
Irvine of Drum, and signed the articles of the established religion,
swearing not to decline therefrom. On the Sunday, which was observed as
a fast, on account of the importance of this conversion, the two nobles
appeared in the marriage desk or pew in the Old Kirk, where was ‘sic a
confluence of noblemen, barons, gentlemen, and common people, as that
the like was never seen in that kirk.’
[Sidenote: 1597.]
To pursue the narrative of an eye-witness: ‘The bishop preached, and
made a godly and excellent sermon. The sermon being concluded, the
earls rises furth of their desk, comes in before the pulpit, make
ane open confession of their defection and apostasy, affirms the
religion presently confessed to be the only true religion, renounces
all papistry, &c., and of new swears never to decline again, but to
defend the samen to their life’s end. The Earl of Huntly confessed
his offence, first to God, next to his majesty, to the kirk and
country, for the slaughter of the Earl of Moray. And sae the bishop
pronounces openly their sentence of absolution frae the sentence of
excommunication. The earls are then received by the haill ministry,
being in number twelve or thirteen persons, wha, during all the time of
the sermon, sat at the table in the mids’ of the kirk, and with them
the provost, bailies, and maist part of the council. And after the
earls were received by the ministry, then Patrick Murray, commissioner
for his majesty, received them in his hieness’ name; next the provost,
bailies, and council. And sae they were received to the bosom of the
kirk. At the samen time, the Laird of Gight, before the pulpit, sat
down on his knees, and askit God, his majesty, and the kirk pardon and
forgiveness for the receipt of the Earl of Bothwell, for the whilk he
was excommunicate; and he was absolved frae the excommunication. This
being done, the twa earls, with mony mae gentlemen and barons, all the
ministry, communicate together at the table of the Lord.’...
Next day, the Market Cross was solemnly hung with tapestry, and in a
small house close by a band of musicians was placed. Four score of
the young men of the town, in their best habiliments, with hagbuts,
took their station around. There also were placed the magistrates and
council, with six maskers. On a table set out in the street were wine,
glasses, and sweetmeats. The earls’ pacification was then formally
proclaimed by Marchmont herald. ‘The twa earls sat at the Cross in
chairs, with his majesty’s commissioner and the ministry. The wand of
peace delivered to them by Patrick Murray, he receives them in his
majesty’s name; next the ministry embraces them, and then the provost,
bailies, and magistrates. Hagbuts sounded, that day nor dur could not
be heard; wine drunk in abundance; glasses broken; sirfootfeats casten
abroad on the causey, gather whaso please! After this the earls and
their kin passes to the Tolbooth, with the haill ministry; all are made
burgesses of this town, the ministry with the rest. At even, naething
but waughting.’[228]
Of course, all was a forced hypocrisy on the part of the two lords,
merely to avoid the legal consequences of their excommunication. Most
curious it would be to know if there were no misgivings on the subject
among the clergy: certainly none appear. Huntly, as might have been
expected, quickly relapsed to his popish professions, and was again
excommunicated in 1606. Nevertheless, he was some years later accepted
once more as a Protestant, and restored to his civil rights.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1597.]
A deputation of ministers went this summer through the provinces of
Aberdeen, Moray, and Ross, to complete as far as possible the planting
of them with ministers. The chief of the Clan Mackintosh surprised the
deputation by the zeal and cordiality he shewed towards the object.
He met them at Inverness, exhibited a plan for settling ministers in
his country, and subscribed it in their presence. ‘Now,’ said he, ‘it
may be thought I am liberal because nae minister will venture to come
amang us. Get me men and sey [try] me. I will find sufficient caution
in St Johnston, Dundee, or Aberdeen, for safety of their persons,
obedience to their doctrine and discipline, and guid payment of their
stipend.’--_Ja. Mel._ We have seen enough of the leading men of this
age in Scotland not to be too much surprised on learning that this was
the same Highland chief who had sent out his clan on a wild ravaging
expedition in 1592, when the hospitable old baron of Brackla was one of
their victims, and who is summed up in the _Historie of King James the
Sext_, as ‘a man unconstant, false, and double-minded, by the report of
all men.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 14.]
[Sidenote: OCT. 11.]
The Lanarkshire lead-mines, under the care of Thomas Foulis, goldsmith
in Edinburgh, and Bewis Bulmer, an Englishman, whom Thomas had assumed
as partner, were now beginning to be a source of profit. The lead
was transported on the backs of horses to sundry parts of the realm,
but the greater part of it to Leith, where it was disposed of for
exportation. Just, however, as all the mining difficulties had been
overcome, the enterprisers found troubles of a different kind. The
broken men of the Borders had heard of this valuable metal passing
along the uplands of Clydesdale, and it seemed to them not too
hazardous an adventure to cross the hills, and make a dash at such a
booty. We therefore now hear of the carriers of the lead, servants of
Thomas Foulis, being occasionally beset on their way, and robbed by
the borderers of ‘horses, armour, clothing, and their haill carriage.’
Nearer neighbours, too, respectable men, burgesses of Lanark and
Glasgow, were accused of lawlessly helping themselves to the lead and
lead ore, won from the mines in Crawford Muir, not scrupling for this
purpose to seize it in its passage to Leith, and dispose of it for
their own benefit. Nay, these persons, it was said, had appropriated
two horse-load of rye and white bread on its way to the mines, and
within six miles of them, thus seriously hindering the progress of the
work itself.
The Council issued a threatening proclamation against the first class
of spoliators. As the latter set represented themselves as having
lawfully purchased the lead in question, an order was issued that they
should return or pay for it to Thomas Foulis.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1597.
JUNE.]
Owing to the fame of Andrew Melville, the university of St Andrews was
this year attended by a considerable number of foreign youth, Poles,
Danes, Belgians, and Frenchmen: ‘whilk crabbit the king mickle,’ Andrew
being no favourite of his.--_Ja. Mel._
‘Much about this time, there was a great number of witches tried to
be in Scotland, as the like was never heard tell of in this realm,
specially in Athole, both of men and women. There was in May at ane
convention upon a hill in Athole, to the number of twenty-three
hundred, and the devil amongst them. A great witch of Balwery told all
this, and said she knew them all well enough, and what mark the devil
had given severally to every one of them. There was many of them tried
by swimming in the water, by binding of their two thumbs and their
great toes together, for, being thus casten in the water, they floated
ay aboon.’--_Pa. And._
This ‘great witch of Balwery’ was one Margaret Aiken, who, being
tortured on suspicion, not only confessed her guilt, but, for the
saving of her own life, informed upon others, stating that they had a
secret mark in their eyes, by which she could at once tell that they
were witches. For three or four months, she was carried about the
country detecting witches. At Glasgow, owing to the credulity of the
minister John Cowper, several old women suffered in consequence of her
accusations. In time it was found that she was a deceiver; for the
same persons whom one day she declared to be guilty, she would next
day, when they appeared before her in different clothes, affirm to be
innocent. ‘At her trial, she affirmed all to be false that she had
confessed, either of herself or others, and persisted in this till her
death; which made many forthink their too great forwardness that way,
and moved the king to recall the commissions given out against such
persons.’--_Spot._
In November we find the presbytery of Glasgow taking notice of ‘divers
persons wha traduces and slanders the ministry of the city, as the
authors of putting to death the persons lately execute for witchcraft;’
and it ordains that any person hereafter uttering this slander ‘shall
be put in the branks at the judges’ will.’[229]
[Sidenote: 1597.]
As a natural consequence of the deceptions of Margaret Aiken, there
was now in some quarters an apprehension that, in the late proceedings
against witches throughout the provinces, some injustice had been done.
Some had complained ‘that grit danger may ensue to honest and famous
persons, gif commissions grantit to particular men beiring particulars
[that is, having anger] again’ them, sall stand and be authorised.’ The
king professed to see the reality of this danger, and although it was
his purpose to persevere in his efforts to extirpate that ‘maist odious
and abominable crime,’ the Council (August 12) revoked all the lately
granted commissions, certifying to such as hereafter ‘proceeds to the
execution of persons to the deid, or melling with their guids or geir,
that the same sall be repute slauchter upon forethocht, felony, and
spulyie.’
At this time, the enthusiastic section of the church was in a state of
discouragement; otherwise the king might not have been able to concede
to the representations made to him against witch-commissions. It is too
remarkable to be overlooked, that the heat of persecution against these
unfortunates was generally in some proportion to the influence of the
more zealous clergy, either through their direct agency or through the
fear for their reproaches in others.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 23.]
‘Between eight and nine in the morning, there was an earthquake which
made all the north parts of Scotland to tremble; Kintail, Ross,
Cromarty, Mar, Breadalbane, &c. A man in St Johnston [Perth] laying
compts with his compters, the compts lap off the buird; the man’s
thighs trembled; one leg went up, and another down.’--_Cal._
This earthquake happening at the time when King James ‘interrupted Mr
Robert Wallace and undid the ministry of St Andrews,’ James Melville
likens it to that which God sent to punish Uzziah, king of Judah, for
usurping the priestly office--which rent the Temple of Jerusalem, and
caused a beam to hurt the king in the face, the beginning of a leprosy
with which he was afflicted. He adds what he calls a _Dix-huitaine_ on
the subject, concluding in the following strain:
‘King James the Saxt, this year thou fast aspires
O’er Christ his kirk to compass thy desires.
Oh, weigh this weel, and here exemple tak;
Lest Christ, wha this year shook thy north-wast parts,
And with eclipsed sun amazed the hearts
For kings to come thee just exemple mak.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG. 6.
1597.]
‘The pest began in Leith’ (_Bir._), and soon ‘infected sundry parts
about Edinburgh, so that many fled out of the town.’--_Cal._ It raged
during this year in England, 17,890 persons being carried off in London
alone. A fast was held in Edinburgh on account of this visit of the
pestilence, from the 7th of August till the end of harvest, when it
ceased. Notwithstanding the scarcity of food from October 1595 down
almost to this time, the mortality in Scotland does not appear to have
been great--a result probably owing in the main part to the abundant
harvest of the present year.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG. 27.]
‘Ane trouble betwixt certain servants of the Drummonds and Oliver
Young, then one of the bailies of Perth, within the Hie Gait [High
Street] of the said burgh; when the greatest number of the pursuers
leapt the town’s walls, and so few number of them as escapit came to
the Tolbooth. The agreement was made in the South Inch, the 1st of
September thereafter.’--_Chron. Perth._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV. 3.]
‘The Earl of Cassillis marries Dame Jean Fleming, wha was wife to the
last chancellor [Lord Thirlstane], ane very unmeet match, for she was
past bairns-bearing, and he was ane young man not past twenty-three
years or thereby, and his lands unheired. The king and court mockit the
same marriage, and made sonnets in their contempt; and specially his
majesty took his pastime of that sport.’--_C. K. Sc._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV. 7.]
‘... it pleased God to tak the Laird of Bargeny in his mercy; wha was
the nobillest man that ever was in that country [Carrick] in his time.
He was endued with mony guid virtues. First he fearit God, and was fra
the beginning on the right side of religion. He was wise and courteous,
and therewith stout and passing kind; and sic ane noble spender in
outings with the best-halden house at hame that ever was in the land.
He was never behind with na party, and keepit himself ever to the fore
with his living. He had ever in his household twenty-four gallant
gentlemen, double-horsit, and gallantly clad; with sic ane repair to
his house, that it was ane wonder where the same was gotten that he
spendit.’--_Ken._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV.
1597.]
While so much lawless violence prevailed throughout the country at
large, it was not to be expected that the Borders should be quiet. In
truth, the greatest disorders prevailed in that district, particularly
in the west, where certain broken clans--Armstrongs, Johnstons, Bells,
Batisons, Carlyles, and Irvings--lived in a great measure by robbing
and oppressing their neighbours. Occasionally, too, they would make
predatory incursions into England, and thereby endanger the peace
existing between the two realms. The king was at length roused to
make a vigorous effort for the repression of this system of violence.
He came at the beginning of this month to Dumfries, ‘of resolution
not to return therefra till that turn was effectuate, as indeed his
majesty did meikle to it.’--_Moy._ In the course of four weeks, which
he spent in the town, ‘he hangit fourteen or fifteen limmers and
notorious thieves.’ From every branch of the guilty clans, he took one
or two of the principal men, ‘as pledges that the haill stouths and
reifs committed by them, or any of their particular branch, should
be redressed, and that they and all theirs should abstene from sic
insolency in time coming, under pain of hanging.’[230]
For the reception of such persons in general, there was a
_pledge-chalmer_--a sort of honourable jail, we presume--in Dumfries.
On this occasion, however, the pledges, thirty-six in number, were
distributed over his majesty’s houses, where it was ordained they
should each pay 13s. 4d. weekly for their maintenance.
The arrangement for the Court of Redress at Dumfries was in
characteristic terms. It was to be composed of ‘aucht special
honest gentlemen of the country, _least suspect, maist neutral and
indifferent_, and the best inclined to justice,’ with ‘twa or three of
his majesty’s council appointit to be present with them.’--_P. C. R._
Lord Ochiltree, whom the king appointed as warden of the west Border,
‘remainit five or six months at Dumfries, halding courts of redress,
and pacifying the country. He hangit and slew three score, with the
more notable thieves ... and kept the country in great quietness and
guid order all this time.’--_Moy._
There is a small silver toy at Dumfries, in the form of a fusee or
musket, which King James is represented as having gifted to the Seven
Incorporated Trades in 1598, that it might be the prize of an annual
shooting-match. ‘The siller gun,’ as it is called, has till recent
times accordingly been carried by the trades in procession to a
shooting-field near the town, whence the victor used to bring it home
stuck in his hat. Most probably, it was while spending this month in
Dumfries, and not during 1598 (when he certainly did not visit the
town), that he conferred this mark of his favour.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 7.
1597.]
A homicide committed at this time brings out a remarkable illustration
of the exclusive rule of master over man which then prevailed. On the
first day of the sitting of parliament, Archibald Jardine, servitor
and master-stabler to the Earl of Angus, was slain negligently by
Andrew Stalker, goldsmith, at Niddry’s Wynd head. The said Andrew was
apprehendit and put in prison. The young men of the town being all in
arms, as they use to be in the time of the parliament, they came to his
majesty, and desirit grace for the young man wha had done ane reckless
deed. _The king’s majesty desirit them to go to my Lord of Angus,
the man’s master, and satisfy and pacify his wrath, and he should be
contentit to grant his life._ James Williamson, being captain to the
young men, came to my Lord of Angus, offered him their manreid to be
ready to serve him gif he had to do: upon the whilk, he grantit them
his life, and sae the said Andrew was releasit out of prison upon the
said day at even.’--_Bir._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1597-8.
JAN. 16.]
‘Thomas Foulis conceivit sickness.’--_Bir._ One who knew nothing
more of Thomas Foulis than what Birrel tells, might be surprised to
find the simple fact of his becoming sick entered in this pointed
way by the old diarist. As we have already had Thomas several times
under our attention, and know him for a great goldsmith, banker, and
speculator in mines, we can imagine his indisposition as a public fact
of that degree of consequence that a diarist might well think worth
chronicling. The truth is, King James had gone deeply into debt towards
Thomas for goldsmith work and ready money advanced; his creditors
were now pressing him, and he had nothing wherewith to satisfy them.
The unhappy man consequently fell into a ‘phrensie.’ It would appear
from one chronicler as if the king had not acted humanely towards his
creditor under these circumstances. It is alleged that Thomas’s offices
were taken from him, and he was obliged to surrender a certain jewel
of note, called the H, which he had in pledge from the king[231] for
the sum of twelve thousand pounds. But all this is scarcely in harmony
with the fact that, in June next, one of the doings of a convention
parliament was to arrange ‘that the debt awaud by his majesty to
Thomas Foulis be payit in six years, namely, thirty thousand merks
every year.’--_Bir._ Thomas was at the same time made master of the
_cunyie-house_ (mint).
[Sidenote: 1597-8.]
It appears on the 28th May 1601, that the king owed ‘nine score
thousand punds money’ to Thomas Foulis, goldsmith, Robert Jowsie,
merchant-burgess of Edinburgh, and Thomas Acheson, master-cunyier,
who were in consequence subject to infinite complaints from their
creditors. His majesty professed ‘guid affection and desire to the
payment thereof,’ and arranged that it should be discharged in the
course of eleven years by a preferable power over the receipts of the
royal rents. ‘His majesty als promittis to give to Thomas, his wife
and bairns, during their lifetime successive after others, ane yearly
pension of ane thousand punds money.’--_P. C. R._
In December 1602, a piteous complaint was made before the Privy
Council by Andrew Lockhart, regarding the hardship he underwent as a
creditor of Thomas Foulis and Robert Jowsie, through the effect of a
_supersedere_ they had obtained for their debts. He speaks of having
been, ‘with his wife and aucht bairns,’ reduced to misery, through
the non-payment of what these men owed him, ‘he being ane aigit
gentleman, and a brother of ane honourable house,’ The Council could
not interfere, but engaged that when the present supersedere run out,
which it would do erelong, no other should be granted.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: FEB. 8.]
The impunity of numberless murders and other atrocious crimes in
this reign is not more remarkable than the severity occasionally
exhibited in comparatively trifling cases. For making a false writ
in a matter of three hundred merks, five citizens of Edinburgh were
condemned to death. Such, likewise, was the issue of the trial of John
Moscrop, writer in Edinburgh, for giving himself out as a notary,
and subscribing divers papers as such, he not being one. The six men
appear to have all been tried on one day, and the end of the affair
is chronicled by Birrel: ‘John Windieyetts, John Moscrop, Alexander
Lowrie, John Halliday, and Captain James Lowrie [were] all hangit at
the Cross of Edinburgh for counterfeiting false writs; whilk was great
pity to see.’--_Bir._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: FEB. 16.]
It was now five years since the tragic death of the Earl of Moray, and
yet his corpse lay unburied. So also did that of the late Lord Maxwell,
killed in a conflict with the Johnstons, in December 1593.
Stigmatising this as an abuse that ‘of late has croppin in,’ and in
order to prevent the example from being followed, the king and Council
issued an order to the respective relatives of the two noblemen, that
they have the bodies buried in their ordinary places of sepulture
within twenty days, under pain of rebellion.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: FEB. 25.
1597-8.]
On this day, being Saturday, occurred an eclipse of the sun, total
at Edinburgh, and probably so throughout the country generally. No
event entirely similar had occurred within the memory of living people
in Scotland, and the impression which it was naturally calculated to
produce in an age when such things were regarded as prodigies, was
aggravated by the critical state in which the favourite Presbyterian
institutions were then believed to be placed. Men regarded it as the
omen of a dark period for the Kirk of Scotland.[232]
‘Betwixt nine and ten forenoon,’ says Calderwood, ‘began a fearful
eclipse, which continued about two hours. The whole face of the sun
seemed to be covered and darkened about half a quarter of an hour, in
such measure that none could see to read a book. The stars appeared in
the firmament. Sea, land, and air was still, and stricken dead as it
were. The ravens and fowls flocking together mourned exceedingly in
their kind. Great multitudes of paddocks [frogs] ran together, making
an uncouth and hideous noise; men and women were astonished, as if the
day of judgment had been coming. Some women swooned. The streets of
Edinburgh were full of cries. Some men ran off the streets to the kirk
to pray.’
‘In the session-house or college of justice, no letter nor book could
be read nor looked upon for the space of an hour for darkness, and
yet in the north-east there appeared two stars. After this, the space
of eight days fair weather [which] ensued, was admirable. But the day
after, yea Friday and Saturday, there fell out the greatest rain that
might be, in such a manner that neither plough nor harrow could gang a
long time after.’--_Pa. And._
‘I knew,’ says James Melville, ‘out of ephemeridis and almanack, the
day and hour of it ... also, by natural philosophy, the causes. I set
myself to mark the proceedings of it in a basin of water mixed with
ink, thinking the matter but common. But yet, when it came to the
extremity of darkness, and I myself losit all the sun, I was strucken
with such fear and astonishment, that I had no refuge but to prostrate
[myself] on my knees, and commend myself to God, and cry for mercy.’
[Sidenote: 1597-8.]
‘The like fearful darkness was never seen in this land, so far as
we can read in our histories, or understand from tradition. The wise
and godliest thought it very prodigious, so that from pulpit and by
writ, admonitions were given to the ministers, that the changeable and
glittering show of the world go not in betwixt them and Christ, the Sun
of Righteousness, and remove the clear light of the gospel from the
kirk.’--_Cal._
A Presbyterian diarist is careful to tell us the ‘notable _effects_ of
this eclipse’ in the year following; namely, the death of those famous
‘lights of the Kirk of Scotland, Mr Thomas Buchanan, Mr Robert Rollock,
David Ferguson, &c.’--_Ja. Mel._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1598.
MAR.]
‘... the Duke of Holstein, the queen’s brother, came through England
to Edinburgh, and was conveyed the first night to the Palace of
Holyroodhouse, where he was received and welcomed very gladly by
her majesty, and used every way like a prince. His majesty hasted
to Edinburgh to meet with the duke, and at his coming saluted and
entertained him ... as appertained to his rank. The duke made a
progress from Holyroodhouse to the other side of the Forth, the first
night to Ravensheugh, Lord Sinclair’s house, and from thence to
Balcomie, Pittenweem, Anstruther, St Andrews, Dundee, Foulis, Stirling,
and Linlithgow, and returned again to Edinburgh. He was honourably
received and banqueted all the way. His majesty gave him banquets in
Holyroodhouse and Stirling sundry times, and entertained him with
pastime, and all other things to his great liking and contentment;
likewise he was very largely complimented by their majesties.’ That is,
they gave him large presents.--_Moy. R._
_May 2._ ‘The Duke of Holstein got ane banquet in Macmoran’s
lodging,[233] given by the town of Edinburgh. The king’s majesty and
the queen being both there, there was great solemnity and merriness at
the said banquet.’--_Bir._
_June 3._ ‘The Duke of Holstein took his leave of the king and queen,
and shipped at Leith, having got great propines [gifts]; to wit,
a thousand five-pound pieces, a thousand crowns, with a hat and a
string valued at twelve thousand pounds, besides other rich chains and
jewels.’--_Pa. And._ ‘To his bonalley, sixty shot of ordnance shot off
the bulwark of Leith.’--_Bir._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR.
1598.]
Fynes Moryson, gentleman, who had travelled in most of the countries
of Europe, being at Berwick, felt an earnest desire, before returning
southwards, to see the king of Scots’ court. He therefore entered
Scotland, and in one day rode to Edinburgh; after which he proceeded
to Falkland, and designed to visit St Andrews and Stirling, but was
prevented by unexpected business, which recalled him to England. He
tells us little that is remarkable about the localities he visited, but
makes some general observations regarding travelling in Scotland, which
are not devoid of interest.
‘In Scotland,’ he says, ‘a horse may be hired for two shillings the
first day, and eightpence the day till he be brought home; and the
horse-letters used to send a footman to bring back the horse. They
have no such inns as be in England; but in all places some houses
are known where passengers may have meat and lodging; but they have
no bushes or signs hung out, and for the horses, they are commonly
set up in stables in some out-lane, not in the same house where the
passenger lies. And if any man be acquainted with a townsman, he will
go freely to his house, for most of them will entertain a stranger for
his money. A horseman shall pay for oats and straw (for hay is rare in
those parts) some eightpence day and night; and he shall pay no less
in summer for grass, whereof they have no great store. Himself at a
common table shall pay about sixpence for his supper or dinner, and
shall have his bed free; and if he will eat alone in his chamber, he
may have meat at a reasonable rate. Some twenty or thirty years ago,
the first use of coaches came into Scotland; yea, were they rare even
at Edinburgh. At this day, since the kingdoms of England and Scotland
were united, many Scots have been promoted by the king’s favour both in
dignity and estate, and the use of coaches became more frequent, yet
nothing so common as in England. But the use of horse-litters hath been
very ancient in Scotland, as in England, for sickly men and women of
quality.’
[Sidenote: 1598.]
He tells that the Scotch eat much colewort and cabbage, and little
fresh meat. ‘Myself,’ he says, ‘was at a knight’s house, who had many
servants to attend him, that brought in his meat with their heads
covered with blue caps, the table being more than half furnished with
great platters of porridge, each having a little piece of sodden meat.
And when the table was served, the servants did sit down with us; but
the upper mess [those sitting above the salt-vat], instead of porridge,
had a pullet with some prunes in the broth. And I observed no art of
cookery or furniture of household stuff, but rather rude neglect of
both, though myself and companion, sent from the governor of Berwick
about Border affairs, were entertained after their best manner....
They vulgarly eat hearth-cakes of oats [girdles for toasting the cakes
over a fire were subsequently invented at Culross], but in cities have
also wheaten bread, which for the most part was bought by courtiers,
gentlemen, and the best sort of citizens.... They drink pure wines, not
with sugar, as the English; yet at feasts they put comfits in the wine,
after the French manner; but they had not our vintners’ fraud, to mix
the wines....’
‘Their bedsteads were then like cupboards in the wall, with doors to
be opened and shut at pleasure; so we climbed up to our beds. They
used but one sheet, open at the sides and top, but close at the feet,
and so doubled [still practised, and a comfortable custom it is]....
When passengers go to bed, their custom was to present them with a
sleeping-cup of wine at parting.’
‘The husbandmen, the servants, and almost all in the country, did wear
coarse cloth made at home, of gray or sky colour [hodden gray], and
flat blue caps very broad. The merchants in cities were attired in
English or French cloth, of pale colour or mingled black and blue. The
gentlemen did wear English cloth, or silk, or light stuffs, little or
nothing adorned with silk lace, much less with lace of silver or gold,
and all followed at this time the French fashion, especially in court.
Gentlewomen married did wear close upper bodies, after the German
manner, with large whalebone sleeves, after the French manner, short
cloaks like the Germans, French hoods, and large falling bands round
their necks. The unmarried of all sorts did go bareheaded, and wear
short cloaks, with most close linen sleeves on their arms, like the
virgins of Germany. The inferior sort of citizens’ wives, and the women
of the country, did wear cloaks made of a coarse stuff, of two or three
colours in chequer-work, vulgarly called _plodan_.’[234]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAY.]
[Sidenote: 1598.]
‘... Lord Home came to Lauder, [and] asked for William Lauder [bailie
of that burgh, commonly called _William at the West Port_], being the
man who hurt John Cranston (nicknamed _John with the gilt sword_).
[William] fled to the tolbooth, as being the strongest and surest
house, for his relief. But the Lord Home caused put fire to the house,
and burnt it all. The gentleman remained therein till the roof-tree
fell. In end he came desperately out amongst them, and hazard[ed]
a shot of a pistol at John Cranston, and hurt him. But [it] being
impossible to escape with life, they most cruelly without mercy hacked
him with swords and whingers all in pieces.’--_Pa. And._
Lady Marischal, sister of Lord Home, ‘hearing the certainty of the
cruel murder of William Lauder, did mightily rejoice thereat, and writ
it for good news to sundry of her friends in the country. But within
less than twenty-four hours after, the lady took a swelling in her
throat, both without and within, after a great laughter, and could not
be cured till death seized upon her with great repentance.’[235]--_Pa.
And._
A remission for this barbarous slaughter was granted by the king, in
1606, to the Earl of Home, Hume of Hutton Hall, Thomas Tyrie, tutor of
Drumkilbo, John Hume in Kells, and other persons.[236]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 5.]
It does not appear that any effectual order was taken with the Laird
of Johnston for his resistance to the royal authority at Dryfe’s Sands
and the slaughter of Lord Maxwell (December 6, 1593). His turbulent
proceedings at length caused him to be denounced as a rebel. A few days
before this event, his portrait was hung, head downwards, on the gibbet
at the Cross of Edinburgh, and he declared ‘a mansworn man.’--_Bir._ He
was restored to his honours in 1600.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 22.]
The king gave a letter of patent to Archibald Napier, apparent of
Merchiston, for an invention of his, a ‘new order of gooding and
manuring of field-land with common salt, whereby the same may bring
forth in more abundance, both of grass and corn of all sorts, and far
cheaper than by the common way of dunging used heretofore in Scotland.’
That nothing came of this plan need not be told.
[Sidenote: 1598.]
The Merchiston Napiers must have been a theme of some curiosity and
no little remark at this time, seeing that three generations were
now living, all of them busy-brained, ingenious, and original-minded
persons. First was the laird himself, master-general of the
cunyie-house, still in the vigour of life, being not more than
sixty-five years of age. Second was John Napier, the fiar or heir, only
sixteen years the junior of his father, constantly engaged in puzzling
out profound problems in mathematics and prophecies in the Apocalypse.
Finally, this grandson of the laird, a youth of four-and-twenty, and
already, as we see, exhibiting the active intellect of the family.
Archibald became a favourite courtier of James VI. and Charles I.,
by the latter of whom he was raised to the peerage. He joined the
anti-covenanting party, and endured some adversity in his latter days.
* * * * *
The carboniferous formation, as is well known, does not extend in
Scotland beyond the Ochils; but in the remote county of Sutherland, on
the coast at Brora, there is a patch of oolite, in the lower section
of which is a workable bed of coal, between three and four feet thick.
John, tenth Earl of Sutherland, had discovered this valuable deposit,
but being cut off by poison (anno 1567), he had no opportunity of
trying to turn it to advantage. The Sutherland estates were now under
the management of a woman of some force of character, and who has by
accident a place in our national history--Lady Jean Gordon. Being
divorced by Bothwell, in order to admit of his marriage to Queen Mary,
she had subsequently married one Earl of Sutherland, and become the
mother of another, for whom she was now acting. By this clever countess
the coal of Brora was for the first time worked, not merely for its use
in domestic purposes, but as a means of establishing a salt-work. Some
pans being erected by her ‘a little by-west the entry of the river,’
there was good salt made there, ‘which served not only Sutherland and
the neighbouring provinces, but also was transported into England and
elsewhere.’ This was a good effort, but, like all similar enterprises
in that rude age, it met with interruptions. One vigorous renewed
effort was made by the countess’s son, Earl John, in 1614. It was
not, however, till our own time, when the first Duke of Sutherland
spent £16,000 on the coal-works, and £2337 on the salt-works, that the
original designs of Countess Jean could be said to be fully realised.
The works are stated to have given forth twenty thousand tons of coal
between the years 1814 and 1826.[237]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 10.]
[Sidenote: 1598.]
‘... ane man, some callit him a juggler, playit sic supple tricks upon
ane tow, whilk was fastenit betwixt the top of St Giles’s Kirk steeple
and ane stair beneath the Cross, callit Josia’s Close head, the like
was never seen in this country, as he rade down the tow and playit sae
mony pavies on it.’--_Bir._
Practitioners of such dangerous arts were not uncommon in those days.
The death, in Edinburgh, of one Kirkaldy, ‘who had before danced at the
cock of the steeple [St Giles’s],’ is noted in the history of the civil
broils of 1571.[238]
Mr James Melville reports in 1600: ‘Being in Falkland, I saw a
funambulus, a Frenchman, play strange and incredible proticks upon
stented tackle in the palace close before the king, queen, and haill
court.’ He adds the vulgar surmise of the day: ‘This was politickly
done, to mitigate the queen and people for Gowrie’s slaughter.’
It appears that these diverting vagabonds were well rewarded. The
juggler of 1598, called an ‘English sporter,’ had twenty pounds from
the king for the steeple-trick. Two months after, six pounds thirteen
shillings and fourpence was ordered to ‘David Weir, sporter,’ supposed
to be the same person. To Peter Bramhill, the French _pavier_--that is,
player of pavies--there is a precept from his majesty, ordering him no
less a sum than £333, 6s. 8d.[239]--but of course Scottish money.
* * * * *
‘This year the wheat was blasted.’--_Chron. Perth._ ‘The ait meal sold
for 6s. the peck.’--_Bir._
There was, consequently, towards the end of the year, ‘ane extraordinar
dearth of all kinds of _pultrie and other vivres_,’ throughout the
realm, but particularly did this kind of scarcity prevail in Edinburgh,
‘where his hieness, his nobility and council, in sundry seasons of the
year, make their chief residence.’ The king issued a proclamation,
fixing a minimum of prices for the said articles, not to be exceeded
under certain penalties. This, however, was now found ‘likely to become
altogether ineffectual, partly through the avaritious greediness of
some persons wha forestalls and buys the pultrie in grit, and keeps
the same in secret houses, and there sells the same far above the
prices exprest in the proclamation,’ and partly by the negligence of
magistrates, who take no care to punish ‘the authors of this disorder.’
For these reasons, a more rigorous and menacing proclamation was now
made.
[Sidenote: 1598.]
A fortnight after, followed an edict of Council against twenty-four
poultrymen of Edinburgh (surprising there should have then been so
many in the business), who, it was said, had contravened the late
proclamation by forestalling and secretly selling their poultry at high
prices, representing the fowls as ‘his majesty’s awn kain fowls, or
that they are bocht by them for his majesty’s awn mouth ... slanderand
his majesty hereby, as if his majesty were the chief cause of the break
of the said proclamation.’
It is amusing to observe the apparent astonishment of the king and
his councillors on finding how little respect was paid to edicts of
this kind, as if it were a most unrighteous and undutiful thing of
the people to try to get prices for articles proportionate to the
small quantity there was to sell. We must not, however, be too ready
to indulge in a smile at the false political economy of the Scottish
monarch of 1598, when we remember that a law-made scarcity of _vivres_
was kept up in Great Britain till 1846, and observe that at the present
day the sovereign of France still dictates the prices at which beef
and mutton are to be sold in Paris. At the very time when this notice
is penned (September 1856), the newspapers describe the conduct of
butchers in Paris as precisely that of the twenty-four poultrymen of
Edinburgh in 1599; that is to say, they sell their meat in secret to
persons who will give suitable prices.
Considering the scarcity which marked the close of 1598, it is not
surprising to find the Chronicle of Perth adverting next year to ‘ane
great deid among the people.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC.]
The Privy Council Record at this date gives an anecdote which reads
like a tale of patriarchal times--the time when Jacob told his sons to
go down into Egypt and buy corn, ‘that we may live and not die.’
[Sidenote: 1598.]
On some recent occasion of pestilence, Dumfries, being specially and
severely afflicted, was, as usual, sequestered from all intercourse and
traffic--its markets became altogether decayed, and the inhabitants, in
addition to all their other distresses, found themselves ‘evil handlit
for want of necessar sustentation.’ In these circumstances, it seemed
good to them to send two of their number, unsuspected of infection, to
the country about the Water of Cree in Galloway, to purchase cattle.
The two men, James Sharpe and John Mertine, set forth on this quest,
and, coming to the burgh of Wigtown, were there well received by
the magistrates, who seemed willing to give them Christian help and
countenance for their object, on the condition that the cattle were
paid for and the burgh of Wigtown satisfied in their customs. Thus
sanctioned, the Dumfries emissaries went into the country and bought
thirty-eight nolt, which they began to drive towards Dumfries, looking
for no interruption or impediment. At Monygaff on the Water of Cree,
they were met by a large armed party under the command of Patrick
Ahannay, provost of Wigtown, and John Edgar and Archibald Tailfer,
bailies, who laid violent hands upon them, and carried them and their
cattle to Wigtown. We do not learn what was the motive of this conduct,
but may reasonably surmise it was some claim in the way of custom which
the Dumfriessians had failed to satisfy. At Wigtown the cattle were
detained eight days, getting gradually leaner for want of food, till
at last they were ‘extreme lean;’ and it was not till their owners had
paid a hundred merks, that they were allowed to proceed with the beeves
to the starving burgh of Dumfries.
This pitiable affair, which reads so strangely of Dumfries, now the
scene of magnificent markets for the transfer of cattle, came under the
notice of the Privy Council, and was remitted to the ordinary judges to
be settled by them as they might think best.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1598-9.
JAN. 19.]
Thomas Lorn, residing at Overton of Dyce, was brought before the
provost of Aberdeen, accused of ‘hearing of spreits, and wavering
ofttimes frae his wife, bairns, and family, by the space of seven
weeks,’ they not knowing ‘where he has been during the said space.’
He agreed that, if he should ever be found absenting himself in that
manner, without giving warning, he should suffer death ‘as ane guilty
person, dealer with spreits.’--_Ab. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1599.
JULY 26.]
Andrew Melville, of whose courage and zeal for pure presbytery Scottish
history is at this time full, presided at a disputation in the
theological hall of St Mary’s College, St Andrews, where the question
was, ‘Whether by divining or diabolical force of witches and hags,
bodies may be transported or transformed, or souls released for a time
from bodies, and whether this transportation or transformation of
bodies, or resemblance of a projected corpse, without sense and motion,
as if the soul were banished, be a simple lethargy, or a certain
evidence of execrable demonomania?‘[240]
[Sidenote: 1599.]
If the reader be at a loss to conceive how any body of learned men
could gravely treat such a question, he may have the fact verified
to his mind by looking into King James’s book on _Demonologie_, where
the same matter is fully debated between Philomathes and Epistemon,
the two interlocutors in the dialogue of which that treatise consists.
In answer to the question of Philomathes, by what means may it be
possible for witches to come to those conventions where they worship
the devil and receive his orders, Epistemon coolly says: ‘One way is
natural, which is natural riding, going, or sailing: this may be easily
believed. Another way is somewhat more strange ... being carried by
the force of the spirit which is their conductor, either above the
earth or above the sea swiftly, to the place where they meet; which I
am persuaded to be likewise possible, in respect that as Habakkuk was
carried by the angel in that form to the den where Daniel lay, so think
I, the devil will be ready to imitate God as well in that as in other
things.... The third way is that wherein I think them deluded: for some
of them say that, being transported in the likeness of a little beast
or fowl, they will come and pierce through whatsoever house or church,
though all passages be closed, by whatsoever open the air may enter
in at: and some say, that their bodies lying still, as in an ecstasy,
their spirits will be ravished out of their bodies and carried to such
places; and, for verifying thereof, will give evident tokens, as well
by witnesses that have seen their body lying senseless in the meantime,
as by naming persons whom-with they met, and giving token what purpose
was amongst them, whom otherwise they could not have known; for this
form of journeying they affirm to use most, when they are transported
from one country to another.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT.]
The reformed clergy did not at first take a decidedly hostile view of
theatricals, and we have seen that even the Regent Moray allowed a
play to be represented before him. In March 1574, the General Assembly
forbade the playing of ‘clerk plays,’ and ‘comedies and tragedies made
of the canonical scriptures’ both on Sabbath and work-days; but as to
‘comedies, tragedies, and other profane plays not made upon authentic
parts of scripture,’ they were willing that such might be considered
before they be proposed publicly, provided they were to be set forth on
work-days only.--_B. U. K._
[Sidenote: 1599.]
Accordingly, it is not surprising that, when a company of comedians
came to Perth in June 1589, and applied to the kirk-session for a
licence to represent a play, of which they produced a copy, that
reverend court expressed itself as follows: ‘_Perth, June 3,
1589._--The minister and elders give licence to play the play, with
conditions that no swearing, banning, nor nae scurrility shall be
spoken, whilk would be a scandal to our religion, and for an evil
example to others. Also, that nothing shall be added to what is in
the register of the play itself. If any one who plays shall do in the
contrary, he shall be wardit, and make his public repentance.’--_P. K.
S. R._
These are among the proofs to the general conclusion, that the
puritanic strictness for which Scotland has been noted, did not reach
its acme during the first age succeeding the Reformation.
Ten years had since elapsed, during which the English drama had passed
through a vigorous adolescence, drawing the highest wits of the land
into its service. No regular theatre had been set up in Scotland, nor
was the time come when one could be supported; but some inclination
was manifested by the London acting companies to pay occasional visits
to the north, where the mirth-loving king and his court were ready to
patronise them. The clergy were by this time disposed to look more
sourly on the children of Thespis. An English company did come to
Edinburgh about October 1599--possibly the Blackfriars company, to
which Shakspeare belonged; but on this point, and as to the question
whether Shakspeare was of the party, we have no information. It
received a licence from the king to perform.
[Sidenote: NOV. 10.]
[Sidenote: 1599.]
Roused by ‘certain malicious and restless bodies, wha upon every
little occasion misconstrue his majesty’s haill doings,’ the general
kirk-session of the city passed an act in direct opposition to the
purport of the royal licence, threatening with censure all who should
support the comedy; and this they ordered to be read in all pulpits,
where, at the same time, the ‘unruly and immodest behaviour of the
stage-players’ became the theme of abundant declamation. The king
chose to take up this act as a discharge of his licence, and called
the sessions before him, when, after a conference, they professed to
be convinced that ‘his hieness had not commandit nor allowit ony thing
carrying with it ony offence or slander;’ and they readily agreed
to annul their former act. This was accordingly done next day, ‘sae
that now not only may the comedians freely enjoy the benefit of his
majesty’s liberty and warrant grantit to them, but all his majesty’s
subjects, inhabitants within the said burgh, and others whatsomever,
may freely at their awn pleasure repair to the said comedies and plays,
without ony pain, reproach, censure, or slander to be incurrit by
them.’--_P. C. R._
We learn, however, from Spottiswoode, that this was ‘to the great
offence of the ministers.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT.]
The Western Isles being a scene of almost incessant private war and
strife, and the crown-rents remaining unpaid, the king became desirous
to reduce that part of his dominions to obedience and the arts of
peace. It was thought that a plantation of industrious Lowlanders might
prove an effectual means of civilising the district. As a preliminary
step, an act of parliament was passed (June 1598) for depriving of
their lands all who should not shew their titles by a particular day--a
most arbitrary measure, which to some extent the turbulent chieftains
were justified in resisting. In this manner the islands of Lewis and
Harris, the lands of Dunvegan in Skye, and of Glenelg on the mainland,
were declared to be at the disposal of the government. It was resolved
to proceed, in the first place, with the planting of the Lewis, where
there were only two illegitimate sons of the late proprietor to give
any opposition.
Accordingly, a set of gentlemen, chiefly belonging to Fife, associated
themselves together as adventurers; namely, the Duke of Lennox;
Patrick, Commendator of Lindores; William, Commendator of Pittenweem;
Sir James Anstruther, younger of that Ilk; Sir James Sandilands of
Slamanno; James Learmont of Balcomie; James Spens of Wormiston; John
Forret of Fingask; David Home, younger of Wedderburn; and Captain
William Murray. By the terms of a contract between these individuals
and the government, they were, in consideration of the great expenses
to be incurred by them, and the improvements which they were
expected to make, freed from any payment of rent for the lands which
they were to occupy, for seven years. At the end of that time, an
annual grain-rent of one hundred and forty chalders of beir was to
commence.[241]
[Sidenote: 1599.]
In October 1599, ‘the adventurers met altogether in Fife, where
they assembled a company of soldiers, and artificers of all sorts,
with everything which they thought requisite for a plantation. So,
transporting themselves into the Lewis, they began apace to build and
erect houses in a proper and convenient place fit for the purpose.
In the end, they made up a pretty town, where they encamped. Niel
Macleod and Murdo Macleod--now only left in that island of all Rorie
Macleod his children--withstood the undertakers. Murdo Macleod
invaded the Laird of Balcomie, whom he apprehended with his ship [near
the Orkneys], and killed all his men: so, having detained him six
months in captivity within the Lewis, he released him, upon promise
of a ransom. But Balcomie died in his return homeward to Fife,[242]
after his releasement, whereby Murdo Macleod was disappointed of his
ransom.’--_G. H. S._
The two brothers soon after quarrelled, and Niel took Murdo prisoner.
The enterprisers entered into an agreement with him for the delivery
of Murdo to themselves, promising him, in requital, a portion of their
lands. Niel consequently obtained a pardon at Edinburgh, while Murdo
was hanged at St Andrews, confessing that the Lord of Kintail, the
ambitious chief of the Mackenzies, had been the instigator of his
brother and himself in their opposition to the plantation, the fact
being, that Kintail desired to obtain the Lewis himself.
The truth of this appeared when the Lord of Kintail soon after set at
liberty Tormod Macleod, legitimate son of the late proprietor, who
immediately proceeded to raise a new war against the undertakers. Niel
joining him, they attacked the settlement, which they destroyed, killed
most of the people, and took the commanders prisoners. These gentlemen
were only released eight months after, on a promise that they should
abandon the island, and never return; besides which, they undertook to
procure a pardon from the king for their conquerors.
Thus ended, for a time, the attempt to plant the Lewis.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 17.]
[Sidenote: 1599.]
Till this time, the new year legally held in Scotland was that
originally pitched upon by Exiguus when he introduced the Christian
era--namely, the 25th of March, or day of the Annunciation. King James,
probably looking upon the approaching year 1600 as the beginning of a
new century, thought it would be a good occasion for bringing Scotland
into a conformity with other countries in respect of New-year’s Day.
There was therefore passed this day at Holyrood an act of Privy
Council, in which it is set forth that ‘in all other weel-governit
commonwealths and countries, the year begins yearly upon the first of
January, commonly called New-year’s Day, and that this realm only is
different frae all others in the count and reckoning of the years;’ for
which reason they ordained that, in all time coming, Scotland shall
conform to this usage, and that the next first of January shall be the
first day of the year of God 1600.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 27.]
A singular combat being intended betwixt Alexander Livingstone of
Pantaskin and John Kennedy, appeirand of Baltersand, without any
warrant from his majesty, the Privy Council denounced and prohibited
the encounter as contrary to law, and ‘not likely to settle the
trouble whereupon the challenge proceeded and procure peace to baith
parties.’--_P. C. R._
On the 1st of April 1600, there was a strong edict for the execution of
the laws against single combats, which were said, through slackness of
the law, to have become frequent.
* * * * *
During this year ‘there were divers incursions in the Highlands and
Borders, and sundry slaughters committed in divers parts of the
country. Five sundry men were slain in one week within two miles of
Edinburgh.’--_Cal._
[Sidenote: Circa 1599.]
M’Alexander of Drumachryne in Ayrshire had a lease of the teinds of his
estate from the Laird of Girvanmains, who in his turn was head-tenant
of these teinds from the Earl of Cassillis. ‘But this Drumachryne,
being ane proud man, wald now be tenant to my lord himself, and his
man. [That is, he preferred being _man_ or vassal to the earl.] The
Laird of Girvanmains came to my lord, and said his lordship “had [done
him wrang] in setting of his teinds to his awn man ower his head; and
for ony gains he sall reap by that deed, the same sall be but small.”
My lord answerit and said: “Ye dar not find fault with him; for, an
ye do, we knaw whare ye dwell.” The other said: “An he bide by that
deed, he should repent the same, do for him wha likit!” My lord said:
“Ye dar not steir him for your craig [neck]!” and bade him gang to his
yett [gate]. The Laird of Girvanmains rides his ways, and thinking that
the Laird of Drumachryne wald come after him, he stayit, and his twa
servants with him, on a muir called Craigdow, behind ane knowe [knoll],
while that he saw him coming. His brother, the Laird of Corseclays,
being with him, and Oliver Kennedy of ... ; but they strake never ane
strake in his defence. Girvanmains pursues him, and his twa men with
him, callit Gilbert M‘Fiddes and William M‘Fiddes, ane boy, wha was the
spy. They come to them on horseback, and strake him on the head with
swords, and slew him. My lord was very far offendit at this deed, and
avowit to have ane mends thereof, and causit denounce Girvanmains to
the horn; and did all he could to have his life, and wrack him in his
geir.’--_Hist. Ken._
A less tragical, but equally characteristic affair occurred in the same
district about the same period. Let it first be understood that Kennedy
of Bargeny and the Earl of Cassillis had long been on hostile terms.
[Sidenote: Circa 1599.]
‘My lord, having ane decreet against ane servant, of the Laird of
Bargeny’s, callit John M‘Alexander, of the lands of Dangart ... wald
put the same in execution, and intromit with the haill corns that was
upon the grund; and send his household servants, and gart [caused]
intromit with some of the corns, and shore ane part thereof. This
coming to the Laird of Bargeny’s ears, he loups on in Ardstinchar, and
rides to the land, and with horse and carts brought the corns that
they had shorn with him to Ardstinchar; for, he said: “My lord had nae
richt to the corns, albeit he had obteenit decreet against the land.”
This being on the Saturday, my lord provides with all his force he
can, against Monday, to shear the rest of the corns. And the Laird of
Bargeny, in the same manner, provides for the same effect. The Laird of
Bargeny, [being] the nearest hand, comes first to the grund, and to the
number of six hundred men on horse, with twa hundred hagbutters. And my
Lord of Ochiltree came also, with the number of ane hunder horse; so
that, in all, he was, or [ere] twelve hours, the number of nine hunder
men, on foot and horse. My Lord of Cassillis come also, with his haill
force that he might mak, to the like number or few mae [more]. But the
Laird, being in the house and yards, and he having many basses and
hagbuts of found with him, the same was onpossible for my lord to mend
himself. But my Lord of Cathcart, being ane nobleman wha had married to
his wife ane near kinswoman of my Lord Cassillis, and his son having
married the Laird of Bargeny’s sister, travelled amang them, and took
up the matter in this sort, that the laird should have the haill corns
that was on the grund to his servant, and should find caution for the
duty of the land, whilk was my lord’s; and that my lord should come to
the grund of the lands, and, according to his decreet, tak possession
of the same, but not to steir the corns; and the Laird of Carleton
and the Gudeman of Ardmillan to be cautioners for the foresaid duty,
and my lord fand caution not to trouble the corns, nor the man in the
shearing of them. And [according] to this agreeance, the laird rade his
way to Ardstinchar; and my lord came to the land and took possession;
and John M’Alexander shore his corns in peace.’--_Hist. Ken._
[Sidenote: 1600.
JAN.]
There was a feid of old standing between the Lindsays of Forfarshire
and the Lords Glammis; but for some years the parties were put under
the restraint of _letters of assurance_. On a particular Sunday, during
this month, Sir John Lindsay of Woodhead was passing along the High
Street of Edinburgh, ‘gangand to the kirk,’ when he met Lord Glammis.
The noble and gentle, ‘for the reverence they bure to his majesty and
for observance of the assurance standing betwix them, past by other
without provocation of offence or displeasure in word or countenance
offerit by ony of them.’ As in the case of Montague and Capulet,
however, the servants were not always to be restrained by the same
feelings as the masters. After they were past, Patrick Johnston, a
servant or tenant of Glammis, ‘drew his sword, invadit and pursewit
the complenar [Lindsay] of his life, and strak and cuttit through the
shoulder of his cloak, coat, and doublet, without the allowance of Lord
Glammis, and thereby did what in him lay to have begun ane new feid and
quarrel betwixt them, whilk wald not have faillit to have fallen out
were not Lord Glammis himself and the complenar stayit it.’
[Sidenote: JAN. 13.]
Two days after, Lord Glammis appeared personally before the Privy
Council, and ‘renouncit Patrick to be his man, tenant, or servant, sae
that he sall not be repute, halden, nor esteemit to be his man, tenant,
or servant hereafter;’ further avouching that ‘he sall quarrel nor
beir grudge to nane that sall invade or pursue the said Patrick.’ The
Council at the same time charged Patrick to compeir and answer for ‘his
late violent and unhonest pursuit and invasion of Sir John Lindsay,
_without the consent, knowledge, or allowance of Patrick Lord Glammis_,
in whais company he was for the time, doing thereby what in him lay to
have brocht on and protinued furder trouble and inconvenients betwixt
the said Lord Glammis and the friends of the house of Crawford, to the
break of his majesty’s peace and disquieting of the country.’--_P. C.
R._
An order to denounce Patrick as rebel for not appearing, was given on
the 6th of March.
[Sidenote: 1600.]
We receive in this notice a rich illustration of the relation of
superior and ‘man’ in Scotland at the close of the sixteenth century.
Johnston’s crime of assault is here touched upon lightly; what is
pressed, is his committing this assault without the consent of his
lord, and endangering a further quarrel between that lord and the
assaulted man.
The affair appears to have had a sequel not less remarkable than
itself. On Sunday the 6th of August 1601, as Patrick Johnston,
designated as tenant of the Halltown of Belhelvies, was leaving the
kirk of that parish, in time of the ministration of the sacrament
of baptism, accompanied by his wife and two of his children, he was
set upon, within two paces of the door, by Lord Glammis and a party
of his lordship’s relatives and servants, and mercilessly slain with
pistols and swords. We can scarcely doubt that this was the same
Patrick who had incurred his superior’s anger by attacking Sir John
Lindsay. A complaint against Lord Glammis and his ‘complices’ for the
act was made before the presbytery of Aberdeen, by ‘the wife and aucht
fatherless bairns’ of the slain man, and by that reverend court an
effort was made, but in vain, to bring the matter to an arrangement
in their favour. The guilty parties were cited for their crime before
the Court of Justiciary in March 1602; but no punishment appears to
have followed. Lord Glammis obtained a remission for his concern in
Johnston’s slaughter, under the great seal. The ancient feudal ideas
of Scotland were still too strong to allow of such a case being deemed
one of common murder.[243] The fact did not prevent Lord Glammis from
receiving advancement in court-favour and elevation in rank. He was
made Earl of Kinghorn in 1606. It is also somewhat curious to reflect
that to his taste and munificence we owe much of what is grand in the
architecture of Glammis Castle.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: FEB.]
At this time arrived in Edinburgh the young Earl of Gowrie, and his
brother, Alexander Ruthven, from Padua, where they had been studying
for some years. To all appearance, they were disposed to be peaceable
subjects of the king, notwithstanding the hard measure which had been
dealt out to their father sixteen years before. When, some months
afterwards, they came to so tragical an end, a circumstance, which
occurred not long after their arrival in Edinburgh, was remembered, as
betraying a state of mind different from what appeared on the surface
of their general behaviour.
[Sidenote: 1600.]
A certain Colonel Stuart of Houston, who, as commander of the royal
guard, had been employed in seizing the late unfortunate Earl of
Gowrie, was still employed at court. One day in June, as the young
earl, accompanied with seven or eight of his servants, was passing
along the long gallery of the palace, on his way to the king’s chamber,
he observed Colonel Stuart come forth from an interview with his royal
master. To avoid a too close meeting with one so painfully associated
with his family history, he stepped aside a little, in order to let
Stuart pass by. ‘The same being espied by ane of the said earl’s
servants, going in the rank before him, callit Mr Thomas Kinrosser,
[he] said ardently till him: “What, my lord, are you going back for ony
man here? Come forward, my lord, bauldly!” Whilk going aside and then
coming forward again, being seen by Colonel Stuart, he went in again to
the king.
“Sir, it will please your majesty hear ane strange matter, that, for
guid service done to your grace, I sould be so evil rewardit as I am.
Here comes in the Earl of Gowrie, and I see he minds to begin first at
me; but beware next of the best of you all.”
Herewith the said earl enterit in his majesty’s chalmer, and the
colonel went out thereof; but there was nothing of that purpose spoken
betwixt his majesty and the earl at that time. But, the colonel’s words
to the king being reported to the earl, he answered: “_Aquila non
captat muscas_.”‘--_Jo. Hist._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAR. 14.]
The king, returning from a General Assembly in Edinburgh to his palace
of Falkland, crossed the Firth of Forth by the ferry between Leith and
Kirkcaldy. The weather was fair at starting, but became foul on the
passage, and the mariners were obliged to run their boat upon the sands
at Kirkcaldy, where the king was taken out on horseback. ‘He exclaimed
with execration, that he was ever in danger of his life in going to
those assemblies.’--_Cal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR. 2.]
[Sidenote: 1600.]
‘... being the Sabbath-day, Robert Auchmuty, barber, slew James
Wauchope at the combat in St Leonard’s Hill, and upon the 23d, the said
Robert [was] put in ward in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh. In the meantime
of his being in ward, he hang ane cloak without the window of the
iron house, and another within the window there, and, saying that he
was sick, and might not see the light, he had aquafortis continually
seething at the iron window, while [till] at the last the iron window
was eaten through. Sae, upon a morning, he causit his prentice-boy
attend when the town-guard should have dissolvit, at whilk time the
boy waited on, and gave his master ane token that the said guard were
gone, by the show or wave of his handcurch. The said Robert hung out
ane tow whereon he thought to have come down. The said guard spied the
wave of the handcurch, and sae the said Robert was disappointit of his
intention and device; and sae, on the 10 day, he was beheadit at the
Cross, upon ane scaffold.’--_Bir._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAY.]
We possess the rental-sheet of the Marquis of Huntly for this date, and
obtain from it a striking idea of the worldly means resting with that
noble and potent lord. In the first place, the document extends over
fifty-nine pages of print in small quarto, detailing the particulars
of money and produce due from each farm on his lordship’s various
estates--in the lordship of Huntly, the lordship of the Enzie, the
lordship of Badenoch, the barony of Fochabers, the lands of Marr,
the Cabrach, and Lochaber. The sum of ‘silver mail’ or money-rent is
£3819, besides £636 of teind silver. The ‘ferm victual’ payable to his
lordship was 3816 bolls, besides which there were 55 bolls of custom
meal, 436 of multure beir, 108 of custom oats, 83 of custom victual,
167 marts (cattle for slaughter), 483 sheep, 316 lambs, 167 grice
(young pigs), 14 swine, 1389 capons, 272 geese, 3231 poultry, 700
chickens, 5284 eggs, 4 stones of candle, 46 stones of brew tallow, 34
leats of peats, 990 ells of custom linen, 94 stones of custom butter,
40 barrels of salmon, 8 bolls of teind victual, 2 stones of cheese, and
30 kids. The large proportion of payment in kind speaks of a country in
which there was little industry or commerce beyond what was connected
with husbandry and store-farming; but it is easy to see what an amount
of power the noble marquis would derive from possessing the means of
feeding so many retainers.
[Sidenote: 1600.]
In old times, so wealthy a lord was a kind of kinglet, owning, indeed,
the superiority of a sovereign, but at the same time enjoying among
minor lords and gentlemen a sway which barely owned a restraint in
the royal authority. Men approaching him in influence were glad to
form alliances with him, either through the ties of marriage, or by
direct _bonds of manred_, in which they mutually agreed to support
each other in all causes, against all living or dead, excepting only
the king’s grace. Of such bonds, the Gordon charter-chest exhibits a
grand series, extending from 1444, when James of Forbes ‘becomes man
till ane honourable and mighty lord, Alexander of Seton of Gordon ...
again all deadly,’ down to 1670, when Alexander Rose of Tillisnaucht,
gave George, Marquis of Huntly, an engagement to live peaceably under
his protection; being a hundred and seven in all. Even within the
last seventeen years, during which the now existing marquis had been
conducting his own affairs, the house had been receiving bonds of
manred from a remarkable number of important men in the Highlands. The
Earl of Argyle, in 1583, promised to ‘concur and take aefald, true, and
plain part’ with the Gordon, ‘in all his honest and guid causes against
whatsomever that live or die may, our sovereign lord and his authority
alone excepted.’ Two years later, Macleod of Lewis receives promise of
maintenance on the condition of obedience. At the same time, the chief
of the Clan Kenzie, Colin of Kintail, enters into a bond of faithful
service, ‘contrair all persons.’ His lordship received the like
engagements from Monro of Foulis, the chieftain Glengarry, Macgregor
of Glenstrae, and Drummond of Blair. In 1586, Kenneth Mackenzie of
Kintail, Donald Robertson, the heir of Strowan, Donald Gorm of Sleat
(progenitor of the present Lord Macdonald), John Grant of Freuchie, and
the Lady Menzies of Weem, entered into similar undertakings. In 1587,
Rattray of Craighall binds himself, with his dependents, ‘to serve the
said earl in all his actions and adoes, against all persons, the king’s
majesty only excepted, and sall neither hear nor see his skaith, but
sall make him foreseen therewith, and sall resist the same sae far as
in me lies, and that in respect the said earl has given me his band
of maintenance.’ The remaining bonds before 1593 are from the Earl of
Orkney, Menzies of Pitfoddles, Lord Lovat, Menzies of that Ilk, Scott
of Abbotshall, the Laird of Melgund, Mackintosh of Dunnachtan, Innes
of Innermarky, Lord Spynie, Cameron of Locheil, the Clan Macpherson,
sundry barons of Moray, and the Laird of Luss. We may thus see what a
formidable person this Earl of Huntly was to the Protestant interest
in the year last named, and what a problem it must have been to the
pacific King James to give him effectual opposition, however well he
had been so inclined.[244]
[Sidenote: 1600.]
The Marquis of Huntly chiefly dwelt in an ancient seat called
Strathbogie Castle, situated where the rivulet Bogie joins the Doveran,
near the village of Huntly, in Banffshire. He had another seat, called
the Castle of the Bog or of Bogaugicht, on the extensive plain at the
embouchure of the Spey, in the same county. The migrations of the
family between the two places, and between them and a town-mansion
in Aberdeen, are frequently alluded to by the annalist Spalding. In
1602, the marquis rebuilt Strathbogie Castle in a handsome style; and
the remains of the house yet attest a grandness of living suitable
to the wealth and political importance of the family. ‘A spacious
turnpike-stair leads to what has been a very grand hall, and still
bears the marks of splendour and magnificence. Its length is about
forty-three feet, its breadth twenty-nine, and its height sixteen.
There is another grand apartment over this, thirty-seven feet in
length, and twenty-nine in breadth. The chimneys of both are highly
ornamented with curious sculpture of various figures.... Most of the
apartments are still in tolerable preservation, particularly the
ceilings, which are ornamented with a great variety of paintings in
small divisions, containing many emblematical figures, with verses
expressive of some moral sentiment in doggerel rhyme.’[245]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 2.]
John Kincaid of Warriston, near Edinburgh, was married to a handsome
young woman, named Jean Livingstone, daughter to a man of fortune and
influence, the Laird of Dunipace. Owing to alleged maltreatment, the
young wife conceived a deadly hatred of her husband. A base-minded
nurse was near, to whisper means and ways of revenge, and the lady was
induced to tamper with a young man named Robert Weir, a servant of
her father, to become the instrument. At an early hour in the morning
marginally noted, Weir came to Warriston, and, being admitted by the
lady into the gentleman’s chamber, there fell upon him with his fists,
and soon accomplished his death. While Weir fled, the lady remained at
home, along with the nurse. Both were immediately seized, subjected to
a summary kind of trial before the magistrates, and condemned to death.
[Sidenote: 1600.]
In the brief interval between the sentence and execution, this
unfortunate young creature--she was only twenty-one--was brought,
by the discourse of an amiable clergyman, from a state of callous
indifference to one of lively sensibility and religious resignation.
Her case was reported in a small pamphlet of the day. She stated that,
on Weir assaulting her husband, she went to the hall, and waited till
the deed was done. She thought she still heard the pitiful cries
uttered by her husband while struggling with his murderer. Afterwards,
by way of dissembling, she tried to weep; but not a tear could she
shed. She could only regard her approaching death as a just expiation
of her offence. Her relations, feeling shamed by her guilt and its
consequences, made interest to obtain that her execution should be as
little public as possible, and it was accordingly arranged that, while
the nurse was being burnt on the Castle Hill at four in the morning,
and thus attracting the attention of any who might be out of their
beds, the lady should be conducted to the Girth Cross, at the opposite
extremity of the city, and there despatched by the Maiden.
According to the contemporary pamphlet: ‘The whole way, as she went to
the place of execution, she behaved herself so cheerfully, as if she
had been going to her wedding, and not to her death. When she came to
the scaffold, and was carried up upon it, she looked up to the Maiden
with two longsome looks, for she had never seen it before. This I may
say of her, to which all that saw her will bear record, that her only
countenance moved [her countenance alone would have excited emotion],
although she had not spoken a word. For there appeared such majesty in
her countenance and visage, and such a heavenly courage in her gesture,
that many said: “That woman is ravished with a higher spirit than man
or woman’s!”’ After reading a short address to the multitude at the
four corners of the scaffold, she calmly resigned herself to her fate,
uttering expressions of devotion till the descent of the axe cut short
her speech.
Weir, being taken four years after, was broken on the wheel (June
26, 1604), a severe death, scarcely ever before inflicted in
Scotland.--_Pit._ _Bir._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 21.]
In Edinburgh, this day, ‘at nine hours at even, a combat or _tulyie_
[was fought] between twa brether of the Dempsters, and ane of them
slain by John Wilson. [He], being tane with het bluid, was execute at
the flesh-stocks, where he had slain the man the night before.’--_Bir._
[Sidenote: JULY 25.]
Quick as legal vengeance was in this instance, we have proof of its
being of little avail for prevention of like outrages. Alexander
Stewart, son of James Stewart of Allanton, had applied for admission
to the king at Holyroodhouse, at a time ‘when his majesty desirit to
be quiet,’ and Alexander Lockhart, one of the ushers of the chamber,
had accordingly denied him admittance. The young man, conceiving deadly
hatred at Lockhart for this, trained him out of his house unarmed, and
there set upon him with sword and bended pistol to take his life. For a
wonder, Lockhart escaped with only two wounds in the head. The guilty
youth was denounced rebel for not answering for his offence.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY.]
[Sidenote: 1600.]
The calamities of dearth, want, and a high mortality continued this
year to press upon the people, in almost all parts of the country. ‘A
sheaf of oat-straw was sold for forty shillings in Edinburgh. There
was also a great death of little children; six or seven buried [in
Edinburgh] in a day.’--_Cal._
In October, the pest was in the town of Findhorn, in consequence of
which there was an edict of the Privy Council, charging all the people
there and thereabouts to keep at home, lest they should spread the
infection.--_P. C. R._ We find the magistrates of Aberdeen in December
ordaining a fast ‘in respect of the fearful infection of the plague
spread abroad in divers parts of Moray.’--_Ab. C. R._
* * * * *
‘The year of God 1600, fourteen whales, of huge bigness, were casten
in by the sea, upon the sands under the town of Dornoch in Sutherland.
They came in alive, and were slain immediately by the inhabitants, who
reaped some commodity thereby. Some of these fishes were ninety feet in
length.’--_G. H. S._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG. 5.]
In the midst of a time unmarked by great events, great excitement was
caused by the attempt of the Earl of Gowrie and his brother upon the
king’s liberty or life, at Perth. James Melville notes that ‘a little
before or hard about the day of this accident, the sea at an instant,
about low-water, debordit and ran up aboon the sea-mark, higher nor at
any stream-tide, athort all the coast-side of Fife, and at an instant
reteired again to almaist low-water, to the great admiration of all,
and skaith done to some.’
[Sidenote: AUG. 6.]
While Robert Bruce and some others of the clergy professed to regard
the conspiracy with incredulity, the great bulk of the people, going
with their loyalty, as often happens, far beyond the merit of its
object, manifested all tokens of extreme satisfaction at the king’s
escape. On the arrival of the news, ‘there was sic joy, that the
cannons shot, the bells rang, the trumpets sounded, the drums strake.
The town rase in arms, with shooting of muskets, casting of fire-works,
and banefires set forth; the like was never seen in Scotland, there was
sic merriness and dancing all the nicht.’--_Bir._
The same day, the state-officers, with some other nobles, went to the
Cross, ‘and there heard Mr David Lindsay make ane orison, and the haill
people sat down on their knees, giving thanks to God for the king’s
deliverance out of sic ane great danger.’--_Bir._
[Sidenote: AUG. 11.]
[Sidenote: 1600.]
A few days later, the king returned from Perth to Edinburgh. ‘The town,
with the haill suburbs, met him upon the sands of Leith in arms, with
great joy and shooting of muskets, and shaking of pikes. He went to the
kirk of Leith, to Mr David Lindsay’s orison. Thereafter, the town of
Edinburgh having convenit, and standing at the Hie Gait [High Street],
his majesty passed to the Cross, the Cross being hung with tapestry,
and went up thereon with his nobles. Mr Patrick Galloway being there,
made ane sermon upon the 124 psalm; he declared the haill circumstances
of the treason proposed by the Earl of Gowrie and his brother, whilk
the king testified by his awn mouth, sitting on the Cross all the time
of the sermon.’--_Bir._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP. 11.]
‘For divers guid respects and considerations,’ the king in council
ordered that thenceforth the Castle of Stirling, in which his son was
kept, should not be accessible to the whole trains of the nobility and
gentry at such times as the king himself was not present; but every
earl should ‘have access with four persons only, every lord with twa
persons, every baron with ane person, and every gentleman and other
person single, and all, ane and all, without armour, saving their
swords.’ All except the earls, lords, and barons, to ‘lay their swords
fra them at the yett.’--_P. C. R._
Soon after, there was an edict for restricting the number of persons
brought to court by noblemen in their trains. An earl was enjoined to
bring not ‘mony mae’ than twelve persons; a lord, eight; and a baron,
four. The indefiniteness of the order amusingly marks the want of all
stern will in King James.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP. 14.]
This being the Rood Fair-day in Jedburgh, a party of rough borderers,
Turnbulls, Davidsons, and others, to the number of twenty, came to the
town, armed with hagbuts and pistols, and there presented themselves
before the lodging of Sir Andrew Kerr of Ferniehirst, ‘fornent
the market-cross, and after divers brags, insolent behaviour, and
menacings, in contempt of him and his servants,’ slew his brother,
Thomas Kerr, and one of his servants. Eleven persons stood a trial for
this act, when it appeared that they were only, _more suo_, executing a
horning of the sheriff of Roxburgh against Thomas Kerr. Sir Andrew Kerr
and others stood a counter-trial for resisting the execution of the
horning. But the only practical result was, that one Andrew Turnbull,
brother of Turnbull of Bewly, was beheaded at the Cross of Edinburgh
(Dec. 16) for the slaughter of Thomas Kerr.--_Pit._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT. 8.]
[Sidenote: 1600.]
Francis Tennant, a wealthy merchant of Edinburgh, was hanged at the
Cross of Edinburgh for uttering pasquils against the king and ‘his
maist noble progenitors.’ Tennant had been an active friend of the
Earl of Bothwell, and when that nobleman was at his last extremity,
towards the end of 1594, this merchant-burgess had undertaken to get
him delivered up to the king. ‘But by the contrair, howsoon he came
to Bothwell, he revealit the cause of his coming to him, and shew[ed]
what reward he had gotten, and offerit himself with all his guids in
Bothwell’s will, affirming that he would not betray him for all the
gold in the warld.’ It was in a ship furnished by Francis Tennant that
the forlorn Bothwell escaped to France.
Francis appears to have consequently forfeited his position in his
native country. Having now fallen into the king’s hands, he was
arraigned for writing a calumnious letter against the king, dated
at Newcastle, January 17, 1597, addressed to Mr Robert Bruce, the
minister, and another to Mr John Davidson, both being under fictitious
signatures; and which letters ‘he had laid down in the kirk of
Edinburgh, to the effect the same might have fallen in the hands of
the people, thereby to bring his majesty in contempt, and steir up
his people to sedition and disobedience.’ King James must have been
stung to an unusual degree of wrath by these pasquils, for, after the
trial, he sent a warrant to the justice-clerk, ordering for sentence,
that Francis Tennant should ‘have his tongue cuttit out at the rute,’
and then be ‘hangit.’ Four days later, indeed, he departed from this
cruel order, and sent a second warrant, stating that, ‘for certain
causes moving us, we have thought good to mitigate that sentence, by
dispensing with the torturing of the said Francis, other [either] in
the boots, or by cutting out of his tongue, and _are content_ that ye
only pronounce doom agains him to be hangit.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 23.]
The baptism of the young prince, subsequently Charles I., took place
this day at Holyroodhouse. The manner in which the king obtained the
means of holding any such ceremonial is illustrated by the following
letter (printed _literatim_),[246] which he addressed on the occasion
to the Laird of Dundas:
[Sidenote: 1600.]
‘Richt traist friend, we greet you heartily well. The baptism of our
dearest son being appointit at Halyrudhouse upon the xxiii day of
Decem^r instant, wherat some princes of France, strangers, with the
specialis of our nobility, being invyted to be present, necessar it
is that great provisions, gude cheir, and sic uther things necessary
for decorations thairof be providit, whilks cannot be had without the
help of sum of our loving subjects, quhairof accounting you one of
the specialis, we have thought good to request you effectuously to
propyne with vennysons, wyld meit, Brissel fowlis,[247] caponis, with
sic other provisions as are maist seasonable at that time and errand.
To be sent into Halyrudhouse upon the 22 day of the said moneth of
December instant, and herewithall to invvte you to be present at that
solemnitie, to take part of your awin gude cheir, as you tender our
honour, and the honour of the country; swa we committ you to God. From
Lithgow, this 6th of Decem^r. 1600--JAMES R.’
* * * * *
At the close of the century, in the midst of the order of things
arranged under the care of the reformed church, we may be said to have
arrived at a point where it may be proper to take a general survey of
the customs and manners of the people. We are enabled to do this with
comparative ease by the copious extracts which have been published from
the session-records of Perth, Aberdeen, Glasgow, and Edinburgh, the
burgh-records of these cities and other documents.
[SUPERSTITIONS AND SUPERSTITIOUS PRACTICES.]
Of some of the superstitions of the people, particularly that regarding
the pretended power of witchcraft, abundant illustrations have been
presented in the chronicle of the bypast forty years. It may now be
remarked, that, besides the witches of malevolent character, who were
objects of dread to the community, there were ‘wise women,’ who were
understood to possess the power of curing diseases generally, and
restoring the health of sickly children, by charms and other means. We
hear, in 1623, of one Janet at Black Ruthven, near Perth, of whom ‘the
bruit went that she could help bairns who had gotten ane dint of ill
wind.’--_P. K. S. R._ At Ruthven, or Huntingtower, there was a well
the water of which was believed to have sanative qualities when used
under certain circumstances. In May 1618, two women of humble rank were
before the kirk-session of Perth, ‘who being asked if they were at
the well in the bank of Huntingtower the last Sabbath, if they drank
thereof, and what they left at it, answered, that they drank thereof,
and that each of them left a prin [pin] thereat; which was found to be
a point of idolatry, in putting the well in God’s room.’--_P. K. S. R._
They were each fined six shillings, and compelled to make public avowal
of their repentance. In August 1623, Janet Jackson was cited before the
same court for following a witch’s advice in employing the deceased
Isobel Haldane ‘to go silent to the well of Ruthven, and silent back
again with water to wash her bairn.’ It was admitted that ‘Isobel
brought the water and washed the bairn therewith, and put the bairn
through a cake made of nine curns of meal gotten from women, married
maidens,’ which was said to be ‘a common practice used for curing
bairns of the cake-mark.’
At St Wollok’s Kirk, a ruin in the parish of Glass, Aberdeenshire, are
two pools by the river’s side, amongst high rocks, and known far and
wide by the name of St Wollok’s Baths, Wollok having been an anchoritic
saint who dwelt here in the fifth century, and is reckoned as the first
bishop of Aberdeen. These pools, always full of water even in times of
the greatest drought, were resorted to so lately as the seventeenth
century, if not later, for the bathing of sickly children. Near by was
St Wollok’s Well, also believed to have a supernatural virtue for the
healing of diseases.[248]
It was customary for great numbers of persons to go on a pilgrimage
barefooted, on the first of May, to Christie’s Well, in Menteith, and
there perform certain superstitious ceremonies, ‘to the great offence
of God and scandal of the true religion.’ In May 1624, the Privy
Council issued a commission to a number of gentlemen of the district,
enjoining them to post themselves at the well and apprehend all such
superstitious persons and put them into the Castle of Doune.
At the Bay of Nigg, near Aberdeen, was a well dedicated to St
Fiacre, and commonly called St Fittich’s Well, which was long held
in the greatest veneration for its efficacy in disease. On the 28th
of November 1630, Margaret Davidson, a married woman, residing in
Aberdeen, was adjudged in an unlaw of five pounds by the kirk-session,
‘for directing her nurse with her bairn to St Fiack’s Well, and washing
her bairn therein for recovery of her health ... and for leaving an
offering in the well.’ The prevalence of this custom is indicated by
the decree of the session on the same day, threatening heavy censure
and punishment to all who should be ‘found going to Sanct Fiack’s Well,
for seeking health to themselves or bairns.’
This Fiack was a Scottish saint--believed to be a son of Eugenius IV.,
king of Scotland--and it is curious to be assured, as we are, that
‘the name _fiacre_ was first given to hackney-coaches, because hired
carriages were first made use of for the convenience of pilgrims who
went from Paris to visit the shrine of this saint.’[249]
When we consider that sanative effects are attributed in our own time,
by a great number of practitioners, to pure water, we may be the more
disposed to believe that there was some natural ground for the faith
which the simple people of old entertained regarding saints’ wells,
the saintly connection being assumed of course as indifferent in the
case. It is remarkable, moreover, how long this faith continued to be
maintained even in its most superstitious form. We are told in the _New
Statistical Account of Scotland_, that a well dedicated to the Virgin
Mary, at Sigget in Aberdeenshire, continued, till within the memory of
living persons, to be resorted to on Pasch Sunday, the votaries always
taking care to leave money or some other article beside the venerated
lymph on departing. In Easter Ross, there are wells which are still
resorted to by some of the more ignorant portion of the rustic classes.
Charms for the healing of sores and gunshot wounds were in great vogue.
In May 1631, Laurence Boak and his wife were before the kirk-session
of Perth, accused of using such charms, and they admitted that the
following was the formula employed for sores:
‘Thir sairs are risen through God’s wark,
And must be laid through God’s help;
The mother Mary, and her dear son,
Lay thir sairs that are begun.’
The chief of fallen spirits was the subject of a strange superstition,
which dictated that a piece of every farm should be left untilled
for his especial honour. It went by the respectful appellation of
the _Goodman’s Croft_. In May 1594, the General Assembly had under
their attention that such a weird custom was rife in Garioch,
Aberdeenshire; and it called for an act of the Estates ‘ordaining
all persons possessors of the said lands, to cause labour the same,
betwixt and a certain day to be appointed thereto; otherwise, in case
of disobedience, the said lands to fall into the king’s hands, to be
disponed to such persons as please his majesty, who will labour the
same.’--_Cal._
So lately as 1651, at a visitation of the kirk of Rhynie in
Aberdeenshire, it was admitted by Sir William Gordon of Lesmore, that a
part of his _mains_ or home-farm was given away to the _Goodman_, and
used not to be laboured; ‘but he had a mind, by the assistance of God,
to cause labour the same.’[250]
Some religious practices of the Romish Church continued to be in
vogue for many years after the Reformation, notwithstanding all that
the Presbyterian kirk could do for their suppression. There had been
a custom of pilgrimising, for penitential purposes, to certain holy
places, precisely as there still is in the more Catholic districts of
Ireland. We may presume that, as in the sister-island, people went
barefooted to the sacred spot, walked on bare knees repeatedly round
it, repeating prayers, and afterwards formally confessed their sins
to the priests who superintended the ceremonial. In these reformed
times, the affair would be of course shorn of many of its rites; but
certainly the habit of going on pilgrimage was still such as to give
great concern to presbyteries and general assemblies. One of the chief
places still in vogue was the Chapel of Grace, on the western bank of
the Spey, near Fochabers--a mere ruin, but held in great veneration,
and resorted to by devout people from all parts of the north of
Scotland. Another was the Chapel of the Virgin, at Ordiquhill in
Banffshire, where also there was a well believed to possess miraculous
virtue. We find the General Assembly which met at Linlithgow in 1608,
recommending that, for remedy of the growth of papistry, ‘order be
taken with the pilgrimages’--specifying these two, and a well in the
district of Enzie. Of course Catholics were most disposed to making the
pilgrimages. In 1592 Robert Wauchope of Caikmuir, suspected papist,
was accused before his presbytery of going yearly _barefooted_ in
pilgrimage to the Cross of Peebles, and he admitted having been guilty
of such proceedings a few years back, but now he had given it up as a
‘rite unprofitable and ungodly.’ We hear of Lady Aboyne going to the
Chapel of Grace every year, being a journey of thirty Scotch miles, the
two last of which she always performed on her bare feet.[251] About the
time of the National Covenant (1638), what remained of the Chapel of
Grace was thrown down, with a view to putting a stop to the practice;
but this seems to have been far from an effectual measure. In a work
written in 1775, the author says: ‘In the north end of the parish [of
Dundurcus] stood the Chapel of Grace, and near to it the well of that
name, to which multitudes from the Western Isles do still resort, and
nothing short of violence can restrain their superstition.’[252]
There were even practices of an obviously heathen origin still
flourishing in the country. That of kindling fires at Midsummer and
on St Peter’s Eve seems to have been among the most difficult to
eradicate. In July 1608, several inhabitants of Aberdeen were accused
before the kirk-session, of having had fires kindled in front of their
houses on one of these evenings. Gilbert Keith of Achiries, ‘a common
banner and swearer,’ confessed the fault. Mr Thomas Menzies, bailie,
gave an equivocating answer. Others alleged that the fires had been
kindled by their servants and children.--_A. K S. R._
[HOLIDAYS AND POPULAR PLAYS.]
The observance of Yule (Christmas), Pasch (Easter), and the various
saints’ days, had been sternly repressed at the Reformation. So were
the May-games and other holiday amusements in vogue under the ancient
faith. Nevertheless, we still find all of these matters enjoying a sort
of twilight life. They assert their vitality by the very efforts made
from time to time to extinguish them. Passing over the Robin Hood play
and other Edinburgh May-sports, to which repeated reference has been
made in the chronicle, we may advert to the corresponding doings at the
Fair City of the Tay.
The people of Perth had been in the habit, before the Reformation, of
observing Corpus Christi Day (second Thursday after Whitsunday) and
St Obert’s Day. On the former, it was customary to have a play. After
the change of religion, there was a great inclination to keep up these
old practices, which the church, however, condemned as ‘idolatrous,
superstitious, and slanderous.’ In 1577, the kirk-session of Perth
prosecuted several persons for taking part in the Corpus Christi
play. Thomas Thorsails, who had borne the ensenyie or flag, had to
submit himself to the discipline of the kirk, and promise ‘never
to meddle with such things again,’ in order that he might have his
bairn baptised. A considerable number of persons had to make the like
submission that they might be at peace with the session. Nevertheless,
on the ensuing 10th of December, being St Obert’s Eve, there was a
procession as usual; and several citizens were brought to submission,
‘in that they superstitiously passed about the town, disguised, in
piping and dancing, and torches bearing.’ John Fyvie afterwards
confessed that on this occasion ‘he passed through the town striking
the drum, which was one of the common drums of the town, accompanied
with certain others--such as John Macbeth, William Jack riding upon ane
horse going in men’s shoes.’--_P. K. S. R._
In Aberdeen, December 30, 1574, certain persons were charged before
the kirk-session of Aberdeen ‘for playing, dancing, and singing of
filthy carols on Yule Day [Christmas Day] at even, and on Sunday at
even thereafter.’--_A. K. S. R._ January 10, 1575-6, ‘the haill deacons
of crafts within this burgh are ordained to take trial of their crafts
for sitting idle on Yule Day last was.’--_Ibid._ In Perth, January
10, 1596-7, ‘William Williamson, baxter, is accused of baking and
selling great loaves at Yule, which was slanderous, and cherishing a
superstition in the hearts of the ignorant.’--_P. K. S. R._
[FROLICS AND MASQUERADINGS.]
The sessions appear to have everywhere had great battlings with
old-accustomed habits of festival-keeping and merry-making, in which
the people indulged, probably without any idea of committing a sin.
Some of their habits were connected with superstition, and thus gave
double offence.
There was a cave called the Dragon-hole, on the face of the Kinnoul
Hill near Perth. It was of difficult access, and old tradition had her
stories about it. The common sort of people were accustomed to make a
merry procession to the Dragon-hole once a year in May; perhaps they
had continued to do so since the days of heathenrie. May 2, 1580,
‘because that the assembly of minister and elders understand that the
resort to the Dragon-hole, as well by young men as women, with their
piping and drums striking before them through this town, had raised no
small slander to this congregation,’ they therefore ordain that each
person guilty of this practice shall pay twenty shillings to the poor,
and make public repentance.
Notwithstanding all efforts at repression, cases of excessive
conviviality and of questionable frolics are not infrequent in these
moral registers. It seems to have been a favourite prank to interchange
the dresses of the sexes, and make a parade through the town by night,
singing merry songs. At Aberdeen, February 9, 1575-6, Madge Morison
is ‘decreit to pay 6s. 8d. to the magistrate, and Andrew Caithness is
become caution for her repentance-making when she is required, and that
for the abusing of herself in claithing of her with men’s claiths at
the lyke [wake] of George Elmsly’s wife.’ A month after, in the same
place, a group of women, ‘tryit presently as dancers in men’s claiths,
under silence of night, in house and through the town,’ are assured
that if found hereafter in the same fault, ‘they sall be debarrit fra
all benefit of the kirk, and openly proclaimit in pulpit.’
At some blithesome bridal which took place in Aberdeen in August 1605,
a number of young men and women danced through the town together,
‘the young men being clad in women’s apparel, whilk is accounted ane
abomination (Deut. xxii. 5), and the young women with masks on their
faces, thereby passing the bounds of modesty and shamefacedness,
whilk aught to be in young women, namely [especially] in a reformed
city.’ The matter was referred to the provincial assembly, and severe
penalties threatened for future instances of the offence.--_A. K. S. R._
At Perth, in 1609, we find the kirk-session dealing with an ultra-merry
company, composed of Andrew Johnston, James Jackson, and David Dickson,
and three women, two of whom were the wives of the first two men.
They were accused of having gone about the town on the evening of the
preceding Tuesday, disguised, and with swords and staves, molesting
their neighbours. They stated that they had been supping, and after
supper, from mere merriness, had gone about the town, but without
molesting anybody. ‘It was certainly found that they were disguised;
namely, Andrew Johnston’s wife having her hair hanging down, and a
black hat upon her head; her husband with a sword into his hand; James
Jackson having a mutch [woman’s cap] upon his head, and a woman’s
gown; and that they hurt and molested several persons.’ The matter
was aggravated by the consideration that it was a time of plague, and
the offenders were convalescents new come in from the fields, with
‘the blotch and boil’ still on their persons. A public repentance was
decreed to them.--_P. K. S. R._
The chief element of conviviality among the common people, at this
time, and for several generations later, was a light ale which the
keepers of taverns made at home; hence _browster-wife_ came to be
a synonym for a woman keeping a public-house. The fierier and more
fatal whisky was, however, not unknown. In the Aberdeen Kirk-session
Register, under March 1606, we have two men brought up for ‘abusing
themselves last week by extraordinar drinking of aqua-vitie.’
[OBSERVANCE OF SUNDAY.]
The Protestant Church took the observance of Sunday as a Sabbath
from the ancient church; and the Presbyterians of Scotland adopted
it fully, while rejecting all the other festivals--a fact with which
Ninian Winzet did not fail to taunt them as an inconsistency in his
_Tractates_, published immediately after the Reformation.[253] Not
merely ecclesiastical acts, but several statutes of the realm, were
put in effect for the purpose of enforcing the observance of the day
as a day of rest and of religious exercises. From the terms of these,
however, and from the accounts we have of frequent punishments for
their neglect or infraction, it is evident that many years elapsed
before the people of Scotland attained to that placid acquiescence in
the order for the day which we now see.
The main demands of the new church were for a complete abstinence
from work and market-holding, as well as from public amusements, and
a regular attendance on the sermons. We have seen some instances of
the struggles of the church to induce mercantile people to abandon
Sunday-marketing. So late as 1596, it is evident that their wishes
were not fully attained, as we find the presbytery of Meigle then
complaining to the Privy Council of the obstinate refusal of the
people in their district to abandon a Sunday-market.[254] Two years
later, the Town Council of Aberdeen was content to ordain that ‘nae
mercat, either of fish or flesh, shall be on the Sabbath-day _in time
of sermon_‘--a clear proof that they did not look for a complete
suppression of marketing on that day, but only its cessation in time
of church-service. There are many similar indications that at this
early period taverns were allowed to be open, and public amusements
permitted, at times of the day apart from ‘the sermons.’ It is somewhat
startling to find the General Assembly itself, in 1579, expressing
indifference to marriages being solemnised on Sunday (_B. U. K._), and
only so late as January 1586, discharging ‘all marriages to be made
on Sundays in the morning in time coming.’ Nor is it less surprising
to find a kirk-session, so late as 1607, requiring that ‘the mill be
stayit from grinding on the Sabbath-day, _at least by eight in the
morning_.’[255] It clearly appears to have been common in 1609 for
tailors, shoemakers, and bakers in Aberdeen, to work till eight or nine
every Sunday morning, ‘as gif it were ane ouk day.’--_A. K. S. R._
Breach of the Sunday arrangements was usually punished by fines. In
Aberdeen, in 1562, for an elder or deacon of the church to be absent
from the preachings, inferred a penalty of ‘twa shillings;’ for
‘others honest persons of the town,’ sixpence. November 24, 1575, it
is statute that ‘all persons being absent fra the preachings on the
Sunday, without lawful business, and all persons ganging in the gait or
playing in the links [downs], or other places, the times of preaching
or prayers on the Sunday, and all persons making mercat merchandise
on Sunday within the town ... sall be secluded fra all benefit of the
kirk unto the time they satisfy the kirk in their repentance, and
[the] magistrate by ane pecunial fine.’ Notwithstanding this statute,
we find the Town Council in 1588 referring to the fact, that a great
number of the inhabitants of the burgh keep away from church both on
Sundays and week-days, and give themselves to ‘gaming and playing,
passing to taverns and ale-houses, using the trade of merchandise and
handy labour in time of sermon on the week-day;’ for which reason it is
ordained that all shall attend the sermons on Sunday, ‘afore and after
noon;’ as also every Tuesday and Thursday ‘afore noon,’ under certain
penalties--a householder or his wife, 13s. 4d.; a craftsman, 6s. 8d.;
‘and in case ony merchand or burgess of guild be found within his
merchand booth after the ringing of the third bell to the sermon on the
week-day, to pay 6s. 8d.’ These ordinances were acted upon. November
28, 1602, ‘the wife of James Bannerman, for working on the Sabbath-day,
[is] unlawit in 6s. 8d.’ ‘The same day, the session ordains that nae
baxters within this burgh work, nor bake any baken meat, in time
coming, on the Sabbath-day.’ Four Aberdeen citizens were, January 16,
1603, ‘unlawit, ilk ane of them, in 3s. 4d., for their absence fra the
sermons on Sunday last, confessit by themselves.’--_Ab. C. R._ Soon
after we find a bailie and two elders appointed to go through the town
in time of sermon, and searching any house they pleased, note the names
of all they found at home; likewise to watch the ferry-boat, and note
the names of ‘sic as gangs to Downie, that they may be punishit.’--_A.
K. S. R._
At Perth, January 8, 1582-3, ‘it was ordained that an elder of every
quarter shall pass through the same every Sunday in time of preaching
before noon, their time about, and note them that are found in taverns,
baxters’ booths, or on the gaits, and delate them to the Assembly,
that every one of them that is absent from the kirk may be poinded for
twenty shillings, according to the act of parliament.’ Soon after, a
married woman named Hunter was fined three pounds for her absence from
church during the bygone year, and other three pounds for her absence
during the time of fasting. In September 1585, tavern-keepers were
subjected to a heavy fine for selling wine and ale in time of sermon.
In 1587, the Sunday penalties were extended to the Thursday sermon.
February 21, 1591-2, John Pitscottie, younger of Luncarty, and several
other persons, ‘confessed that on the Sunday of the fast, in the time
of preaching in the afternoon, they were playing at foot-ball in the
Meadow Inch of the Muirton, and that the same was an offence; therefore
they were ordained on Sunday next to make their repentance.’
In the same town, January 29, 1592-3, ‘the Lady Innernytie being
called, and accused for absenting herself and the rest of her family
from the hearing of the word on Sabbath, compears and confesses that
she does it not, neither in contempt of the word nor of the minister,
but only by reason of her sickness, and promises when she shall be well
in health, to repair more frequently to the kirk and hearing of the
word.’ This lady was the wife of Elphinstone of Innernytie, a judge of
the Court of Session, and a Catholic. It is therefore probable that
her submission was hypocritical. July 31, 1598, ‘Andrew Robertson,
chirurgeon, being accused of breaking the Sabbath-day by polling and
razing of the Laird of ... , declared he did it quietly at the
request of the gentleman, without outgoing.’ He was ordained to make
repentance, and warned for the future. It will be understood that under
the designation of chirurgeon both surgery and the functions of the
barber were embraced.
The Perth kirk-session also exerted itself to prevent Highland reapers
from sauntering on the streets on Sunday, waiting to be hired (August
1593); and they took strong measures to put an end to the practice of
cadgers departing from the Saturday market on Sunday morning (March
1599). Four persons were rebuked in November of this last year for
‘playing at golf on the North Inch in the time of the preaching after
noon on the Sabbath’--a sport which would not now be indulged in on
Sunday in any part of Scotland. April 13, 1601, ‘George Murray [was]
accused for suffering of ale to be sold in time of preaching on the
Sabbath in his house. [He] answered that he was in the kirk himself,
and his wife also; but his servant came, and brought his wife out of
the kirk to ane daughter of Tullibardine’s [Murray of Tullibardine--the
family since become Dukes of Athole], to give her some clothes which
she had of hers in custody, and in the mean time caused fill drink to
the said gentlewoman and her servants with her.’ Murray was dismissed
with an admonition.
By a stern act of the Aberdeen town-council, passed in 1598, a severe
tariff of fines was ordained for various ranks of people on their
staying away from Sunday and week-day services in the churches,
every husband to be answerable for his wife, and every master for
his servants. A burgess of guild or his wife was to pay 13s. 4d. for
absence from church on Sunday. ‘Likewise, following the example of
other weel-reformit congregations of this realm, [the council] statutes
and ordains that the wives of all burgesses of guild, and of the maist
honest and substantious craftsmen of this burgh, sall sit in the midst
and body of the kirk in time of sermon, and not in the side-ailes, nor
behind pillars, to the effect that they may mair easily see and hear
the deliverer and preacher of the word; and siclike ordains, that the
women of the ranks aforesaid sall repair to the kirk, every ane of
them having a cloak, as the maist comely and decent outer garment, and
not with plaids, as has been frequently used; and that every ane of
them likewise sall have stules, sae mony as may commodiously have the
same, according to the decent form observed in all reformit burghs and
congregations of this realm.’--_Ab. C. R._
While it is thus apparent that observance during time of sermon and
attendance thereupon were the principal objects held in view, it
clearly appears that the day, in its totality, was then a different
thing from what it now is. It was, as in Norway still, held to commence
at sunset of Saturday, and to terminate on Sunday at sunset, or at
six o’clock. As illustrations of this fact, two curious notices may
be cited. In May 1594, the presbytery of Glasgow is found forbidding
a piper to play his pipes on Sunday ‘frae the sun rising till the sun
going-to.’[256] When a fast was ordained in Edinburgh, in December
1574, on account of impending pestilence, it was to commence ‘on
Saturday next at aucht hours at even, and sae to continue while [until]
Sunday at six hours at even.’[257] An act of the presbytery of Glasgow,
January 1, 1635, ordered that the Sabbath be from 12 on Saturday night
to 12 on Sunday night;[258] a clear proof that there was previously a
different arrangement.
Another curious fact, indicative of a progress in the ideas of the
reformed kirk as to Sabbath-keeping, is that there were ‘play-Sundays’
till the end of the sixteenth century. The presbytery of Aberdeen
ordered in 1599 that ‘there be nae play-Sundays hereafter, under all
hiest pain.’--_A. P. R._
In April 1600, in obedience to an ordinance of the General Assembly,
it was arranged at Aberdeen--and of course a similar arrangement would
be made in other places--that ‘on Thursday, ilk ouk [every week],
the masters of households, their wives, bairns, and servants should
compeir, ilk ane within their awn parish kirk, to their awn minister,
to be instructit by them in the grunds of religion and heads of
catechism, and to give, as they should be demanded, ane proof and trial
of their profiting in the said heads.’
After this arrangement had been made, the religious observances of
the citizen occupied a considerable share of his time. He was bound
under penalties to be twice in church on Sunday, to make Monday a
‘pastime-day, for eschewing of the profanation of the Sabbath-day,’ to
give Tuesday forenoon to a service in the parish church, to do the same
on Thursday forenoon, and on that day also to attend a catechetical
meeting with his family. Three forenoons each week remained for his
business and ordinary affairs. Notwithstanding this liberal amount
of external observance, the General Assembly appointed, in 1601, ‘a
general humiliation for the sins of the land and contempt of the
gospel, to be kept the two last Sabbaths of June and all the week
intervening.’
[LICENTIOUS CONDUCT.]
Licentious conduct was from the first an object of severe observation
to the reformed church, and many sharp measures were taken and harsh
punishments inflicted for its repression.
In 1562, the kirk-session of Aberdeen ordained as its punishment, for
the first offence, exposure before the congregation; for the second,
carting and ducking; for the third, banishment from the town. A
subsequent act of parliament imposed still severer punishment--‘That
is to say, for the first fault, as weel the man as the woman sall pay
the sowm of forty pounds, or than [else] he and she sall be imprisoned
for the space of aucht days, their food to be breid and small drink,
and thereafter present[ed] to the mercat-place of the town or parochin,
barehead[ed], and there stand fastened, that they may not remove, for
the space of twa hours.’ To this punishment some additions were made
for a second offence, as cold water for food, and a shaving of the
head. A third inferred ducking and banishment.
At Aberdeen, in 1591, in a case where a marriage relationship existed,
the punishment inferred the depth of horror with which the offence
was on that account regarded, the man being ordained to be banished
from the town, but first to be set up at the cross on three several
market-days, bound to the pillar by a pair of branks, and having a
paper-crown on his head inscribed with his crime; also to stand on
three several Sundays at the kirk-door, in haircloth, barelegged and
barefooted, while the people are assembling; after which to be exposed
in like guise at the pillar of repentance during the whole time of
worship.[259]
November 20, 1582, the kirk-session of Perth ordains John Ronaldson,
having offenders of this class in his custody, ‘to put every one of
them in a sundry house in time coming, to give them bread and small
drink, to let none of them come to the nether window [probably a
window where they could see or converse with the people passing on the
street]; and when they come to the cross-head, that they shall be fast
locked in the irons two hours, their kurchies [caps] off their heads,
and their faces bare, without ane plaid or any other covering.’
A stool or seat was raised in a conspicuous situation in each church,
where penitents under this as well as other offences had to sit during
service, and afterwards bear the rebuke of the minister. Many entries
in the session records shew the difficulty there had always been in
getting penitents, while in this situation, to remain unmuffled or
uncovered. The only correction that seems to have been available was
to ordain that such a sitting went for nothing. The Aberdeen session,
August 1608, ordain that, ‘because, in times past, most part of women
that come to the pillar to make their public repentance, sat thereon
with their plaids about their head, coming down over their faces the
haill time of their sitting on the stool, so that almaist nane of the
congregation could see their faces, or knaw what they were, whereby
they made nae account of their coming to the stool, but misregarded
the same altogether’--the officer should thenceforth take the plaid
away from each penitent ‘before her upganging to the pillar.’ The Perth
session, in August 1599, had to take sharp measures with Margaret Marr,
because being exalted to the seat of repentance, ‘she sat in the back
side with her face covered, and being desired by John Jack, officiar,
to sit on the fore side, and uncover her face that she might be seen,
she uttered words against him in a bitter manner, and extended her
voice in such sort that she was heard through all the kirk in time of
sermon, and so behaved herself uncomely in the presence of strangers,
to the great slander of this congregation.’ In very gross cases, a
paper-crown was added to the external marks of infamy inflicted on
delinquents.
As a specimen of the interference with private life to which the clergy
were led in their anxiety to suppress licentiousness--the kirk-session
of Perth (1586-7) would not suffer two unmarried sisters to continue
to live together in one house, but ordained them to go to service, ‘or
where they may be best entertained without slander,’ under pain of
imprisonment and banishment from the town.
A custom obtained in those days of entering into conjugal life
on the strength simply of a contract of marriage. It was called
_hand-fasting_. The ceremony of marriage might take place afterwards
or not, as the parties pleased. This the reformed clergy denounced as
immoral, and they set themselves to correct it. The Aberdeen session,
December 10, 1562, ordained, ‘Because sundry and many within this
town are hand-fast, as they call it, and made promise of marriage a
long space bygane, some seven year, some sax year, some langer, some
shorter, and as yet will not marry and complete that honourable band,
nother for fear of God nor love of their party’--that ‘all sic persons
as has promised marriage faithfully complete the samen betwixt this
and Fasteren’s Even next to come;’ penalty left blank. Such parties
are also ordained in the meantime to live as single persons. April
12, 1568, the same session ordained that ‘neither the minister nor
reader be present at contracts of marriage-making, as they call their
hand-fastings, nor make nae sic band.’
The kirk-session records of the period must be held as revealing on
the whole a very low state of morals, particularly among the humbler
classes of the people.
[ECCLESIASTICAL DISCIPLINE IN OTHER MATTERS.]
Ecclesiastical discipline took upon it in those days to interfere with
many matters in which it would be set at defiance in our day. It was
part of the earnestness of the general religious feeling, while as yet
no one had ventured to think that there are points which may best be
left to the private consciousness, or which, at least, it can serve no
good end to make matter of public regulation.
Of the sharp dealing of the Presbyterian preachers and their courts
with avowed Catholics, we have already seen abundant illustrations, and
more will yet be presented. Having become satisfied that the Catholic
religion was a system of damnable error, our ancestors acted logically
on the conviction, and thought no measure, however forcible or severe,
misapplied, if it could save the people of that persuasion from the
unavoidable consequences, and prevent the evil from spreading. To
purge the land of papists and idolaters was therefore an object held
constantly in view by the church-courts.
The slightest suspicion of being papistically inclined was sure to
bring any one to trouble. One David Calderwood in Glasgow being found
in possession of a copy of Archbishop Hamilton’s popish catechism,
the presbytery sent a minister ‘to try and find of the said David’s
religion.’ Another citizen of Glasgow was taken to task, on a charge of
having, in the way of his profession as a painter, painted crucifixes
in sundry houses. A Lady Livingston being suspected of unsoundness in
the faith, in order ‘that she may be won to God,’ a deputation was sent
by the presbytery to confer with her, ‘anent the heads of religion,’
and she was summoned under pain of excommunication. The same reverend
body, hearing of one James Fleming, an Irishman, sent ‘to inquire of
him his religion,’ On the 5th of June 1599, they are found taking
measures for discovering Irishmen in their bounds, and ascertaining
‘wha are papists and pernicious to others they haunt amang.’
That to receive a Catholic priest into one’s house was a serious
matter in those days, there is abundant evidence, some of which
will be found in the sequel. But even to receive or keep company
with an excommunicated papist, inferred severe pains; and in
the Perth kirk-session register there are several instances of
these being inflicted. For example, Gabriel Mercer was, in 1595,
ordered to make public declaration from his seat in church of his
offence in entertaining for three days Elphinstone of Innernytie,
an excommunicated papist. The same order was given in 1610 in the
case of Alexander Crichton of Perth, ‘who was convicted on his own
confession of haunting and frequenting the company of Robert Crichton,
excommunicate papist, eating and drinking with him in taverns, and
walking on the street.’--_P. K. S. R._
In 1598, we find the presbytery of Glasgow concerning itself about a
young man who had passed his father without lifting his bonnet. He was
judged ‘a stubborn and disobedient son to his father.’ About 1574, the
kirk-session of Edinburgh was occupied for some days in considering the
case of Niel Laing, accused of making a pompous convoy and superfluous
banqueting at the marriage of Margaret Danielston, ‘to the great
slander of the kirk,’ which had forbid such doings.
The absence of external appearances of joy in Scotland, in contrast
with the frequent holidayings and merry-makings of the continent, has
been much remarked upon. We find in the records of ecclesiastical
discipline clear traces of the process by which this distinction was
brought about. To the puritan kirk of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries every outward demonstration of natural good spirits was a
sort of sin, to be as far as possible repressed. To make marriages
sober and quiet was one special object. It was customary in humble
life for a young couple, on being wedded, to receive miscellaneous
company, and hold a kind of ball, each person contributing towards the
expenses, with something over for the benefit of the young pair. Such a
custom has been kept up almost to our own time, but much shorn of its
original spirit. In the latter years of the sixteenth century, it was
customary for the party to go to the Market-cross, and dance round it.
At Stirling, October 30, 1600, the kirk-session, finding ‘there has
been great dancing and vanity publicly at the Cross usit by married
persons and their company on their marriage-day,’ took measures to put
a stop to the practice. It ordained ‘that nane be married till ten
pounds be consigned, for the better security that there be nae mair
ta’en for ane bridal lawing than five shillings according to order,’
‘with certification, gif the order of the bridal lawing be broken, the
said ten pounds sall be confiscat.’[260]
In like manner the kirk-session of Cambusnethan, in September 1649,
ordained ‘that there suld be no pipers at bridals, and who ever suld
have a piper playing at their bridal, sall lose their consigned money.’
And in June next year, the same reverend body decreed that men and
women ‘guilty of promiscuous dancing,’ should stand in a public place
and confess their fault.[261]
The power of the kirk to enforce its discipline and maintain
conformity, was a formidable one, resting ultimately on their sentence
of excommunication, of which the following contemporary description may
be given: ‘... whasoever incurs the danger thereof is given over in
thir days by the ministers, in presence of the haill people assembled
at the kirk, in the hands of Satan, as not worthy of Christian
society, and therefore made odious to all men, that they should eschew
his company, and refuse him all kind of hospitality; and the person
thus continuing in refusal by the space of a haill year, his goods
are decerned to appertain to the king, sae lang as the disobedient
lives.’[262]--_H. K. J._
No unprejudiced person can doubt that the Presbyterian clergy of this
age were in general correct in their own deportment, and sincerely
anxious to promote virtue among the people; but it is also evident to
us, under our superior lights, that they carried their discipline to a
pitch at once irreconcilable with the natural rights of mankind, and
calculated to have effects different from what were intended. It dived
too much into the details of private life, was too inconsiderate of
human infirmity, was extremely cruel, and altogether erred in trusting
too much to force and too little to moral suasion. Even the innocent
playfulness of the human heart seems to have been viewed by these stern
moralists as an evil thing, or at least a thing leaning to the side of
vice. On the injurious tendency of any system which equally makes a
crime out of some peculiarity of opinion, or indifferent action, and
of an actual infraction of the rights of our fellow-creatures, it were
needless to insist.
[CUSTOMS.]
In the Council Register of Aberdeen, we obtain many notices of the
customs of the burgh, most of which were probably common to other towns.
It seems to have been the practice of the whole people to assemble,
but only at command of the council, in order to deliberate together
upon any matter of importance, and make such arrangements as were
required for the general weal. For this purpose, they were summoned by
the bellman, who went through ‘the haill rews of the town’ ringing his
bell, of which he had to make oath in order to render legal what was
ordained by the meeting.
In 1574, it was ordained at such a meeting that John Cowpar should
‘pass every day in the morning at four hours, and every nicht at eight
hours, through all the rews of the town, playing upon the Almany
whistle [German flute?], with ane servant with him playing on the
tabroun, whereby the craftsmen their servants and all others laborious
folks, being warnit and excitat, may pass to their labours and frae
their labours in due and convenient time.’
In 1576, it is ‘statute with consent of the haill town, that every
brother of guild, merchant, and craftsman, shall have in all time
coming ane halbert, Danish axe, and javelin within his booth.’ The
wearing of plaids by the citizens was at the same time strictly
forbidden, also the use of blue bonnets--for what reason does not
clearly appear. The town’s landmarks were ridden every year. The
keeping of swine within the town is (1578) forbidden, on penalty of
having the animals taken and slain.
December 5, 1582, the town-council of Aberdeen ratified a contract
with John Kay, lorimer, ‘anent the mending of the town’s three knocks
[clocks], and buying fra him of the new knock, for payment to the said
John of twa hundred merks.’ December 17, 1595, the council, considering
that ‘the twa common knocks of this burgh--namely, the kirk knock
and the tolbooth knock--sin Martinmass last, has been evil handlit
and rulit, and has not gane induring the said space, feed Thomas
Gordon, gunmaker, to rule the said twa knocks, and to cause them gang
and strike the hours richtly baith night and day.’ The employment
of a lorimer and a gunmaker in this business seems to imply, that a
clockmaker or watchmaker was not yet one of the trades of Aberdeen.
By an old custom, the boys of the grammar-school of Aberdeen had at
Christmas taken possession of the school, to the exclusion of their
masters and all authority, and a vacation of about a fortnight took
place. In 1580 and 1581, the magistrates are found exerting themselves
to enforce certain statutes by which this assumed privilege of the boys
had been abrogated and discharged; and they agreed that to make up for
the vacation, there should be three holidays at the beginning of each
quarter, making twelve in all for the year. From this and other facts,
it appears that the long vacation now customary in summer or autumn in
Scottish schools, was then unknown.
The school disorder at Yule is again spoken of in 1604 as very violent,
the boys ‘keeping and halding the same against their masters with
swords, guns, pistols, and other weapons, spulying and taking of puir
folks’ geir, sic as geese, fowls, peats, and other vivres, during
the halding thereof.’ It is ordered that, to avoid such disorders
in future, no boy from without the town shall be admitted without a
caution for his good-behaviour.
The Aberdeen magistrates, on hearing (February 22, 1593-4) how the
burghs of Edinburgh, Perth, Dundee, and Montrose had celebrated the
birth of a son and heir to the king ‘by bigging of fires, praising and
thanking God for the benefit, by singing of psalms through the haill
streets and rews of the towns, drinking of wine at the crosses thereof,
and otherwise liberally bestowing of spiceries,’ ordained that it
should be similarly observed in their burgh on _Sunday_ next, the 24th
instant, immediately after the afternoon sermon. It was ordered that
there should be ‘ane table covered at the Cross, for the magistrates
and baith the councils, with twa boyns[263] of English beer ... the
wine to be drunken in sic a reasonable quantity as the dean of guild
sall devise, four dozen buists[264] of scorchets,[265] confeits, and
confections, to be casten among the people, with glasses to be broken.’
June 7, 1596, a number of persons are cited as contravening the ancient
statutes ordaining that ‘all burgesses of guild and freemen of free
regal burghs sall dwell, mak their residence and remaining, with
their wives, bairns, servants, households, and family, hauld stob and
stake,[266] fire and flet,[267] within the burgh where they are free,
scot, lot, watch, walk, and ward.’ In the event of their not conforming
to the rule by an appointed day, they are assured that they shall lose
their privileges.
A prayer appointed (1598) to be said before the election of the
magistrates of Aberdeen is not unworthy of preservation, as a trait of
the feelings of such communities in that age: ‘Eternal and ever-hearing
God, who has created mankind to society, in the whilk thou that is
the God of order and hates confusion, has appointed some to rule and
govern, and others to be governed, and for this cause has set down in
thy word the notes and marks of sic as thou hast appointed to bear
government; likeas of thy great mercy thou has gathered us to be ane
of the famous and honourable burghs of this kingdom, and has reservit
to us this liberty, yearly to cheise our council and magistrates;
we beseech thee, for thy Christ’s sake, seeing we are presently
assembled for that purpose, be present in the midst of us, furnish us
with spiritual wisdom, and direct our hearts in sic sort, that, all
corrupt affections being removed, we may cheise baith to be council and
magistrates, for the year to come, of our brethren fearing God, men of
knawledge, haters of avarice, and _men of courage and action_, that
all our proceedings herein may tend to thy glory, to the weel of the
haill inhabitants of this burgh, and we may have a good testimony of
conscience before thee....’
In the Aberdeen council records, frequent allusions are made to ‘a
custom observit in this burgh heretofore in all ages,’ of giving an
entertainment to strangers of distinction on their arriving in the
town. Being informed, December 13, 1598, that the Duke of Lennox and
the Earl of Huntly are to be in the town this night, the council
‘ordains the said twa noblemen, in signification of the town’s guid
will and favour, to be remembered with the wine and spicery at their
here-coming.’ The articles ordered are, ‘ane dozen buists of scorchets,
confeits, and confections, together with six quarts of wine, thereof
three quarts of the best wine, to wit, Hullock and wine tent, and
three quarts of other wine.’ The Earl of Huntly got another similar
entertainment, March 28, 1599, on coming to Aberdeen, ‘for halding of
justice-courts on shooters and havers of pistols.’
A comical regulation regarding public worship occurs in the Perth
kirk-session record under 1616. The session ordained ‘John Tenender,
session-officer, to have his red staff in the kirk on the Sabbath-days,
therewith to wauken sleepers, and to remove greeting bairns furth of
the kirk.’ Acts of session referring to the practice of the bringing
of dogs into church, by which worship was much disturbed, are also
frequent.
The hours for meals were in those days of a primitive description.
King Henry, Lord Darnley, dined at two o’clock. This was, however,
comparatively a late hour. In 1589, King James, then living in William
Fowler’s house in Edinburgh, went out to the hunting in the morning,
‘trysting to come in to his dinner about ane afternoon.’--_Moy._ In
1607, the wooden bridge of Perth was carried away by a flood ‘betwixt
twelve and ane, on ane Sunday, _in time of dinner_.’ Queen Mary
was sitting at supper between five and six in the afternoon, when
Riccio was reft from her side and slaughtered. And Agnes Sampson, the
noted witch, appointed certain persons to meet her in the garden at
Edmondstone, ‘after supper, betwixt five and sax at even.’ The reader
will remember that it was after supper, and probably some conviviality
following upon it, that King James (May 1587) led forth his nobility in
procession to the Cross of Edinburgh, and delighted the citizens with
the spectacle of so many reconciled enemies.
[TRAITS OF MANNERS.]
The Aberdeen council, in 1592, ‘considering the wicked and ungodly
use croppen in and ower frequently usit amang all sorts of people, in
blaspheming of God’s holy name, and swearing of horrible and execrable
aiths,’ ordained the same to be punished by fine. To make this the
more effectual, masters were ordained to exact the fines from their
servants, and deduct them from wages; husbands to do the same from
their wives, keeping a box in which to put the money, and punish
their children for the like offence with ‘palmers’ [an instrument for
inflicting lashes on the open hand]--‘according to the custom of other
weel-reformed towns and congregations.’ In 1604, the presbytery of
Aberdeen enforced this effort of the magistracy by an edict, ordering
that, for the repression of oaths and blasphemous language, the master
of every house should keep a ‘palmer,’ and therewith punish all
offenders who have no money to pay fines.--_A. P. R._
In February 1592-3, the Aberdeen council, when expecting a visit of
the king, ordained that ‘there sall be propynit to his majesty’s house
... ane puncheon of auld Bourdeaux wine, gif it may be had for money,
and, gif not, ane last of the best and finest ale that may be gotten
within this burgh, together with ... four pund wecht of pepper, half
pund of maces, four unces of saffron, half pund of cannel, fourteen
pund of sucker, twa dozen buists of confeits, ane dozen buists of
sucker-almonds, twa dozen buists of confections, and ane chalder of
coals.’
The king informed the council of Aberdeen in a letter, June 1596, that
he understood ‘that the inhabitants and others resorting to this burgh,
cease not openly to wear forbidden weapons, to the great contempt of
his hieness’ authority and laws.’ He demands, and the council agrees,
that strict order shall be taken to put down this custom, agreeably to
acts of parliament.
The council records of Aberdeen do not bear traces of such frequent
street-conflicts as prevailed in Edinburgh during this period. Such
troubles were not, however, unknown. We find, for example, one citizen
now and then drawing his whinger upon another, and either commencing
a fight, or frightening away his adversary. In November 1598, a
quarrel having taken place between a gentleman named Gordon, brother
of Gordon of Cairnbarrow, and one Caldwell, a dependent and servant of
Keith of Benholm, the magistrates immediately feared a disturbance in
which Keith’s chief, the Earl Marischal, would as a matter of course
be involved, and hearing that the parties were ‘convocating their
friends on either side to come to the cawsey and trouble the town, and
to invade others,’ they ordered that ‘the haill neighbours of this
burgh, merchants and craftsmen, should ... compear in their arms, and
specially in lang weapons ... for staying of trouble to be betwixt the
said parties ... and that the town be warnit to that effect by the
officers in particular, bell or drum, as sall be thought expedient in
general.’
Popery, not infidelity, was the bugbear of those days; but heterodox
opinions were not altogether unknown. The public notice taken of them
was of a kind which might be expected in an age of sincere faith,
unacquainted with reactions or with refined policy. At Aberdeen, one Mr
William Murdo was apprehended by the magistrates, 6th January 1592, as
‘a maintainer of errors, and blasphemer against the ancient prophets
and Christ’s apostles, ane wha damns the haill Auld Testament except
the ten commandments, and the New Testament except the Lord’s Prayer;
an open railer against the ministry and truth preached’--who ‘can not
be sufferit in ane republic.’ He was ordained to be banished from the
burgh, with a threat of having his cheeks branded and ears cropped if
he should come back.--_Ab. C. R._
There are many entries in the Council Record of Aberdeen, shewing that
the burgal authorities took upon them to inquire into cases of reckless
and disorderly life, and cases where regular communicating at the
Lord’s table was neglected. In 1599, one John Hutcheon, a flesher, was
threatened with banishment on these accounts.
The kirk-sessions were rigorous in punishing slander and scolding. That
of Aberdeen made a statute, in 1562, ordaining a fine for slander,
‘and gif the injurious person be simple and of puir degree, he sall
ask forgiveness before the congregation of God and the party, and say:
“_Tongue, ye lied_,” for the first fault, for the second sall be put in
the cockstool, and for the third fault sall be banished the town.’ The
same body ordained at the same time that ‘all common scolds, flyters,
and bards be banished the town, and not to be suffered to remain
therein for nae request;’ bards being strolling rhymers, who were felt
in those days as an oppression much the same as sturdy beggars.
At the Perth kirk-session, August 4, 1578, ‘Catherine Yester and John
Denite were poinded each in half a merk for flyting, while John Tod,
for slandering, was ordained to pay a like sum, and stand in the irons
two hours, besides asking Margaret Cunningham forgiveness.’ In May
1579, Thomas Malcolm was fined and imprisoned for ‘having called Thomas
Brown _loon carle_.’ In August of the same year, it was ordained that
such as were convicted of flyting, and not willing ‘to pass to the
Cross-head [that is, to be exposed on the Cross], according to the
act passed before, should pay half a merk money to the poor, besides
that other half-merk mentioned in the act of before.’ Subsequently
the session gave up this leniency, and finally returned to it again.
‘Money,’ it has been remarked, ‘must have been of great value at that
time, when so small a sum was proposed as the price of exemption from a
most shameful punishment.’
April 25, 1586, the kirk-session of Perth has this minute: ‘Forasmeikle
as John Macwalter and Alison Brice his spouse have been sundry and
divers times called before the assembly for troubling their neighbours,
and especially for backbiting and slandering of Robert Dun and his
wife, and of Malcolm Ferguson and his wife, and presently are convicted
of the crimes laid to their charge by Robert Dun and Malcolm Ferguson;
therefore it is ordained, first, that the said John Macwalter and his
wife be put in ward until the time repentance be found in them for
their slanderous life; secondly, they shall come to the place where
they made the offence, and there on their knees crave pardon of the
offence committed, at the persons whom they have offended; thirdly,
they shall pay a sufficient penalty to the poor, according to the act
made against flyters; lastly, if they ever be found in word or deed
hereafter to offend any neighbour, _the bare accusation shall be a
sufficient plea of conviction_, that so the act made against flyters be
extended against them, and finally to be banished the town for ever.’
November 2, 1589, the act against slandering was put in force at Perth,
on an occasion where we should have little expected it. ‘Forasmeikle as
this day was assigned to certain honest neighbours of Tirsappie[268]
to be present, and of their conscience to declare if it was true that
Guddal, spouse to Richard Watson, was ane witch, as John Watson then
alleged, or what evil likelihood they saw in her--Walter Watson, John
Cowing, George Scott, James Scott, being inquired severally, as they
would answer to God, what they knew, altogether agreed in one without
contradiction, that they saw never such things into her whereby they
might suspect her of the same, but that she was ane honest poor
woman, who wrought honestly for her living, without whose help her
husband, Richard Watson, would have been dead, who was ane old aged
man: therefore the minister and elders ordain the act of slander to
be put in execution against the said John Watson and Helen Watson his
daughter.’
[TRAITS OF THE PUBLIC ECONOMY.]
At Aberdeen, in a time of scarcity in 1579, the transportation of
victual by sea to other parts of the realm was forbidden. In 1583, it
was forbidden to take any sums of money from merchants in other towns
‘to buy wares and salmon, against the common weal.’ The exportation of
sheep-skins to Flanders was at this time prohibited, Edinburgh, Perth,
and Dundee having done the like. In 1584, a severe fine is imposed on
all who should buy grain on its way to market, ‘whilk is the occasion
of great dearth, and the cause that the poor commons of this burgh are
misservit.’ A statute aiming at the same object was passed in 1598,
because such enormities could no longer be sustained ‘without the
imminent peril and wrack of this commonwealth.’
In September 1584, when the pest raged in divers parts of the realm,
the Aberdeen authorities ordered a port to be built on the bridge of
Dee, and other ports to be built at entrances to the town, in order to
check the entrance of persons who might bring the infection. In May of
the ensuing year, the danger becoming more extreme, the magistrates
erected gibbets, ‘ane at the mercat-cross, ane other at the brig of
Dee, and the third at the haven mouth, that in case ony infectit person
arrive or repair by sea or land to this burgh, or in case ony indweller
of this burgh receive, house, or harbour, or give meat or drink to the
infectit person or persons, the man to be hangit, and the woman to be
drownit.’ Frequent notices occur in the Aberdeen Council Records of
precautions adopted on similar occasions: yet it is remarkable, that in
an act of council on the subject in 1603, it is mentioned that ‘it has
pleasit the guidness of God of his infinite mercy to withhald the said
plague frae this burgh thir fifty-five years bygane.’
October 8, 1593, the magistrates of Aberdeen found it necessary to
take order with ‘a great number of idle persons, not having land
nor masters, neither yet using ony lawful merchandise, craft, nor
occupation, fleeing as appears frae their awn dwelling, by reason of
some unlawful causes and odious crimes whereof they are culpable, whilk
are very contagious enemies to the common weal of this burgh.’ The town
was ordered to be cleared of them, and their future harbourage by the
inhabitants was forbidden.
In those days, and for a long time subsequently, there was no regular
post for the transmission of letters in Scotland. When there was
pressing or important business calling for a transmission of letters
to a distance, a special messenger had to be despatched with them
at a considerable expense. The city of Aberdeen seems to have kept
a particular officer, called the Common Post, for this duty; and
in September 1595, this individual, named ‘Alexander Taylor, alias
_Checkum_,’ was ordered by the magistrates a livery of blue, with the
town’s arms on his left arm. Other persons were occasionally employed,
and the town’s disbursements on this ground continue to occupy a
prominent place in its accounts down to 1650, if not later.
In 1574, a general assembly of the inhabitants agreed to weekly
collections for the native poor, according to a roll formerly made with
their own consents, ‘except they wha pleases to augment their promise.’
It was at the same time decreed that beggars not native should be
removed, while those born in the town should wear ‘the town’s taiken
on their outer garment, whereby they may be known.’ In 1587, the
council, ‘having consideration of the misorder and tumult of the puir
folks sitting at the kirk-door begging almous, plucking and pulling
honest men’s gowns, cloaks, and abulyment,’ ordained the repression of
the nuisance. Eight years thereafter, January 23, 1595-6, there was
another public meeting, at which it was agreed to arrange the poor in
four classes--‘babes, decayed persons householders, lame and impotent
persons, and sic as were auld and decrepit.’ Individuals agreed to take
each man ‘ane babe’ into his own house, and a quarterly collection for
the rest was agreed to; begging to be suppressed.
September 2, 1596, the council took into consideration a petition
of ‘Maister Quentin Prestoun, professor of physic, craving at them
the liberty and benefit, in respect of his debility, being somewhat
stricken in age, and sae not able to accomplish the duty without ane
coadjutor, to entertain ane apothecar and his apothecary-shop, for the
better furnishing of this burgh and of the country, of all sorts of
physical and chirurgical medicaments.’ The request was granted during
the will of the council.
April 6, 1599, four fleshers in Aberdeen were fined for contravening
the acts of parliament which forbade that ‘ony flesh should be slain or
eaten frae the first day of March _inclusive_ to the first day of May
_exclusive_.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1601.
FEB.]
[Sidenote: 1601.]
Among the violences of the age, what would now be called agrarian
outrages were very common. Sometimes it was a pretender to
proprietorship who came in to trouble the tenants of the landlord in
possession; sometimes a tenant was the object of wrathful jealousy
among persons of his own class. Of the former order of troubles we have
an example at this time, in a charge brought before the Privy Council
(February 19, 1601) against David Hamilton, younger, of Bothwell-haugh,
‘servant to the Laird of Innerwick.’ It was for the turning out of
his wife from Woodhouselee, that Hamilton of Bothwell-haugh murdered
the Good Regent. We now see his representative breaking other laws on
account of the same lands.[269] Sir James Bellenden of Broughton, who
was landlord _de facto_, complains against David Hamilton, that, with
a company ‘bodin and furnist in feir of weir,’ he had come, on the
10th of February instant, to the tenants of the lands of Woodhouselee,
‘where they were in peaceable and quiet maner at their plews,’ and
there assailed them with furious speeches, ‘threatening to have their
lives gif they insistit in manuring and lawboring of the said lands,’
and actually compelled them through fear to give up their work. As
David failed to appear and answer this charge, letters were ordered to
denounce him as a rebel.
Before a month elapsed, the Council had under its attention a still
more violent affair, forming a specimen of the second class of
outrages. The complainer here is Patrick Monypenny of Pilrig--an estate
with an old manor-house situated between Edinburgh and Leith. Patrick
states that he was of mind to have set that part of his lands of
Pilrig, called the Round-haugh, to Harry Robertson and Andrew Alis, to
his utility and profit. But on a certain day not specified, David Duff,
indweller in Leith, came to these persons, and uttered furious menaces
against them in the event of their occupying these lands, so that they
had departed from their purpose of occupying them. Duff, accompanied
with two men named Matheson, had also, on the 2d March instant,
attacked the servants of Monypenny, as they were labouring the lands
in question, with similar speeches, threatening their lives if they
persisted in working there; and at night, they, or some persons hounded
out by them, had come and broken their plough, and thrown it into the
river. ‘John Matheson, after the breaking of the complenar’s plew,
come to John Porteous’s house, his tenant, and bad him gang now betwix
the plew stilts, and see how she wald gang while [till] the morn.’ To
this was added a threat to break his head if he should ever say that
Duff had broken his plough. ‘Likeas the said David sinsyne come to
the complenar’s lands, being tilled, and trampit and cast the tilled
furs down, thus committing manifest oppression upon the complainant.’
In this case, the accused persons were assoilzied, but only, it would
appear, by hard swearing in their own cause.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR. 15.]
[Sidenote: 1601.
APR. 17.]
‘The king’s majesty came to Perth, and was made burgess at the
mercat-cross. There was ane puncheon of wine set there, and all drucken
out. He receivit the banquet frae the town, and subscribit the guild
book with his awn hand--“JACOBUS REX: PARCERE SUBJECTIS, ET DEBELLARE
SUPERBOS.”’--_Chron. Perth_.
John Watt, Deacon of the deacons in Edinburgh, or he would have
latterly been called Convener of the Trades, was shot dead on the
Burgh-moor. This was the same gallant official who raised the trades
for the protection of the king at the celebrated tumult of the 17th
December 1596. One Alexander Slummon, a by-stander, was tried for the
murder, but found innocent. We are told by Calderwood that Watt, having
offered to invade the person of the minister, Robert Bruce, was well
liked by the king, who accordingly was _exact_ in regard to Slummon’s
trial. The historian also relates that ‘the judgment threatened against
this man by Mr Robert Bruce came to pass.’ Such threatenings or
prognostications of judgments are of course very likely to bring their
own fulfilment.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR. 24.]
‘Sundry Jesuits, seminary priests, and trafficking papists, enemies to
God’s truth and all Christian government,’ were stated to be at this
time ‘daily creeping within the country,’ with the design, ‘by their
godless practices, not only to disturb the estate of the true religion,
but also his hieness’ awn estate, and the common quietness of the
realm.’--_P. C. R._
William Barclay, a new-made advocate, brother of Sir Patrick Barclay of
Tollie, was tried in Edinburgh for the crime of being present at ‘twa
messes whilk were said by Mr Alex. M‘Whirrie, ane Jesuit priest, within
Andro Napier’s dwelling-house in Edinburgh,’ aggravated by perjury,
he having some time before sworn and subscribed before the presbytery
of Edinburgh, that he was of the religion presently professed within
the realm. The culprit was declared infamous, and banished from the
country, ‘never to return to the same, unless, by satisfaction of the
kirk, he obtain our special licence to that effect.’--_Pit._ _Cal._
A week later, Malcolm Laing and Henry Gibson, servants of the Marquis
of Huntly, confessing their having been present ‘at the late mass
within the burgh of Edinburgh,’ were adjudged by the Council to
banishment for life. At the same time, two female servants of the
marchioness having made similar confession, the Council, ‘seeing their
remaining with the said _marquesse_ may procure a forder sclander to
the kirk,’ ordained that her ladyship should remove them from her
company, and no more receive them, under pain of rebellion.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR. 27.]
[Sidenote: 1601.]
‘... Archibald Cornwall, town-officer, hangit at the Cross, and hung
on the gibbet twenty-four hours; and the cause wherefore he was
hangit--He being an unmerciful greedy creature, he poindit ane honest
man’s house, and among the rest, he poindit the king and queen’s
pictures; and when he came to the Cross to comprise the same, he
hung them up upon twa nails on the same gallows to be comprisit; and
they being seen, word gaed to the king and queen, whereupon he was
apprehendit and hangit.’--_Bir._
Cornwall sustained a regular trial before a jury, eight of whom were
tailors. The dittay bears that ‘in treasonable contempt and disdain of
his majesty, he stood up upon ane furm or buird, beside the gibbet, and
called [drove] ane nail therein, as heich as he could reach it, and
lifted up his hieness’ portraitor foresaid, and held the same upon the
gibbet, pressing to have hung the same thereon, and to have left it
there, as an ignominious spectacle to the haill world, gif he had not
been stayed by the just indignation of the haill people, menacing to
stane him dead, and pulling him perforce frae the gibbet.’
The punishment goes so monstrously beyond the apparent offence, that
one is led to suspect something which does not appear. The ‘honest
man’ whose goods were taken might be a known friend of the king, while
Cornwall was known to be the reverse. It was perhaps inferred that
the ‘unmerciful greedy creature’ was only too ready to embrace the
opportunity of holding up the king to contempt. These remarks are only
meant to suggest motives, not to justify the severity of the punishment.
The gibbet on which the portrait had been hung--as something rendered
horrible by that profanity--was ‘taken down and burnt with fire.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1601.]
[Sidenote: APR. 27.]
James Wood, _fiar_--that is, heir--of Bonnington, in Forfarshire, was
a Catholic, and received excommunication on that account a few years
before. He had at the same time had quarrels with his father regarding
questions of property. In March of the present year, he again drew
observation upon himself by coming to Edinburgh and attending the
mass in Andrew Napier’s house. It was further alleged of him that he
had harboured a seminary priest. On the 16th of March, accompanied
by his brother-in-law, William Wood of Latoun, by two blacksmiths
named Daw, and some other persons, he broke into his father’s house,
and took therefrom certain legal papers belonging to the Lady Usen,
besides a quantity of clothes, napery, and blankets. The circumstances
connected with this act, did we know them, would probably extenuate the
criminality. The father made no movement to prosecute his son. He was,
however, tried along with Wood of Latoun before an assize in Edinburgh;
when both were found guilty, and condemned to be hanged. Wood of Latoun
obtained a remission, and great interest was made for the principal
culprit by the Catholic nobles, Huntly, Errol, and Home. James might
have listened favourably, and been content, as in Kincaid’s case, with
a good fine payable ‘to us and our treasurer;’ but ‘the ministers were
instant with the king, to have a proof of his sincerity:’ so says
Calderwood, without telling us whether it was his sincerity against
papists or his sincerity against malefactors in general that was meant.
The young man regarded himself, by admission of the same author, as
suffering for the Catholic religion--though, perhaps, he only meant
that, but for his being a papist, his actual guilt would not have been
punished so severely. He was beheaded at the Cross at six o’clock in
the morning, ‘ever looking for pardon to the last gasp.’--_Pit._ _Cal._
_Bir._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAY.]
The General Assembly arranged that certain ministers should go to the
Catholic nobles, Huntly, Errol, Angus, Home, and Herries, and plant
themselves in their families for the purpose of converting them from
their errors. These ministers were to labour at all times for this
object by preaching, reading, and expounding, and by purging the said
houses of profane and scandalous persons. They were also to catechise
their families twice a day, ‘till they attain some good reasonable
measure of knowledge.’--_Row._
It fully appears that this arrangement was carried into effect. We find
in 1604 that Lord Gordon, the eldest son of the Marquis of Huntly, and
the Master of Caithness, eldest son of the Earl of Caithness, were
being brought up together, under the care of two pedagogues, Thomas
Gordon and John Sinclair, who were compelled to declare themselves
adherents of the reformed faith, and examined as to the nature of the
religious instructions which they imparted. John Sinclair admitted
that, in France, he had gone to mass, but only for the purpose of
seeing the king there. The mass itself he professed to ‘abhor and
detest frae his heart.’ The two pedagogues stated that they instructed
the two young nobles in grammar and oratory, and on Sunday trained
them by a little catechism, besides reading and expounding of the New
Testament.--_A. P. R._
[Sidenote: 1601.]
In 1609, to insure that the sons of noblemen sent abroad under
preceptors, should not be liable to have their religious convictions
perverted, it was enacted by parliament that no preceptor could
lawfully undertake such a duty without a licence from the bishop of his
diocese.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE.]
An effort was made at this time by the burghs to introduce a
cloth-manufacture into Scotland. Seven Flemings were engaged to settle
in the country, in order to set the work agoing, six of them being for
says, and the seventh for broadcloth. When the men came, expecting to
be immediately set to work in Edinburgh, a delay arose while it was
debated whether they should not be dispersed among the principal towns,
in order to diffuse their instructions as widely as possible. We find
the strangers on the 28th of July, complaining to the Privy Council
that they were neither entertained nor set to work, and that it was
proposed to sunder them, ‘whilk wald be a grit hinder to the perfection
of the wark.’
The Council decreed that ‘the haill strangers brought hame for this
errand sall be halden together within the burgh of Edinburgh, and put
to work conform to the conditions past betwix the said strangers and
the commissioners wha dealt with them.’ Meanwhile, till they should
begin their work, the Council ordained ‘the bailies of Edinburgh to
entertene them in meat and drink,’ though this should be paid back to
them by the other burghs, and the strangers were at the same time to be
allowed to undertake any other work for their own benefit.--_P. C. R._
On the 11th of September, the burghs had done nothing to ‘effectuat the
claith working,’ and the Council declared that unless they should have
made a beginning by Michaelmas, the royal privilege would be withdrawn.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG.]
[Sidenote: 1601.]
The bare, half-moorish uplands of Buchan, in Aberdeenshire, are varied,
on the course of the river Ythan, by a deep woody dell, on the edge of
which is perched an ancient baronial castle, named Gight. Here dwelt
a branch of the noble house of Huntly--the GORDONS OF GIGHT--noted in
modern literary history by reason of the heiress, in whom the line
ended, having thrown herself and her family property into the arms
of a certain spendthrift named Byron, by whom she became the mother
of one who flourished as the most noted poet of his day.[270] The
old castellated house in which these lairds lived, and the moderate
estate which gave them subsistence, have for seventy years been part
of the possessions of the Earl of Aberdeen, for whose visitors the
ruined walls and the wildering dell are now merely matters of holiday
interest.[271] At the time of which we are speaking, the Laird of Gight
was a personage of some local importance, a baron of the house of
Gordon, a noted supporter of the marquis in all his enterprises; above
all, a man deeply offensive to the government of his day, on account of
his obstinate adherence to popery.
The kirk had levelled its artillery at George Gordon, the young laird,
for a long time in vain; he had always hitherto contrived to put them
off with fair promises. Now at length the presbytery of Aberdeen
met in a stern mood, and appeared as if it would be trifled with no
longer. Gordon, feeling that his means of resistance were failing,
wrote a pleading letter to the reverend court, telling how he was
deadly diseased, and unable to leave the country, but was willing, if
agreeable to them, to confine himself within a mile of his own house,
‘and receipt nane wha is excommunicat (my bedfellow excepted);’ or he
would go into confinement anywhere else, and confer with Protestant
clergymen as soon as his sickness would permit. ‘I persuade myself,’
he adds, ‘you will nocht be hasty in pronouncing the sentence of
excommunication against me, for I knaw undoubtedly that sentence will
prejudge my warldly estate, and will be ane great motive to you in
the kirk of Scotland to crave my blude.’ He concludes: ‘If it shall
please his majesty and your wisdoms of the Kirk of Scotland sae to
tak my blude for my profession, whilk is Catholic Roman, I will maist
willingly offer it; and, gif sae be, God grant me constancy to abide
the same.’ This letter proved unsatisfactory to the court, seeing it
‘made nae offer that micht move them to stay from the excommunication.’
Therefore, the court in one voice concluded that, unless Gordon came
forward in eight days with sufficient surety for either subscribing or
departing, he should be excommunicated without further delay.
[Sidenote: 1601.]
While thus appearing as willing to be martyrs for religious principle,
the Gight Gordons were no better in secular morality than many of the
Presbyterian leaders of the past age. Indeed, they appear to have been
men of fully as wild and passionate temper as their descendant, the
mother of the poet. Having, for some reason which does not appear, a
spite at Magnus Mowat of Balquhollie, the laird and two of his younger
sons had, in June this year, gone with a large armed and mounted
company to his lands, and destroyed all the growing crops. Following
upon this, they conceived mortal wrath against Alexander Copeland and
Ralph Ainslie, inhabitants of the village of Turriff, probably in
consequence of some circumstances in connection with the above outrage.
On the 18th of July, John Gordon, the second son, came to Turriff with
a friend and a servant, and, attacking these men with deadly weapons,
wounded the latter past hope of his life. The minister came out and
interfered in behalf of peace, promising that the whole inhabitants
should be answerable for any injury the men had done. But though
the Gordons left the village for the time, they returned in greater
strength at midnight--and on this occasion both the laird and his
eldest son were present--broke into the house of William Duffus, and
bringing him forth to the street ‘sark-allane,’ there had nearly taken
his life by firing at him a charge of small-shot.
Alexander Chalmer, messenger, went on the 27th of September to deliver
letters to the Laird of Gight and others, commanding them to appear
and answer for these frightful outrages. He was returning quietly from
the house, ‘lippening for nae harm or pursuit,’ when he found himself
followed by a number of armed servants, and was presently seized and
dragged before the laird. The ferocious baron clapped a pistol to
the man’s breast, and seemed of intent to shoot him, when some one
mercifully put aside the weapon. ‘He then harlit him within his hall,
took the copy of the said letters, whilk he supposed to have been the
principal letters, and cast them in a dish of broe [broth], and forcit
the officer to sup and swallow them,’ holding a dagger at the heart
all the time. Afterwards, the laird, being informed that the principal
letters were yet extant, ‘came to the officer in a new rage and fury,
rave the principal letters out of his sleeve, rave them in pieces, and
cast them in the fire.’
[Sidenote: 1601.]
When King James was at Brechin in the latter part of October, the Laird
of Gight failing to appear to answer for these outrages, a horning was
launched against him. At the same time, the young laird was accused of
having reset John Hamilton, a notorious trafficking Jesuit, and was
commanded to enter himself in ward in Montrose on that account. Surety
was given that he would do so. A few days later, the Privy Council took
into consideration the Turriff outrages, and commissioned the Earl of
Errol to raise a body of men in arms to proceed against the Gordons
and their abettors, but not till the 15th of November. How the matter
ended, does not appear; but for further matters concerning the Gight
Gordons, see under date 20th January 1607.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP. or OCT.]
Among the many men of name pursuing lawless and violent courses, one of
the most noted was George Meldrum, younger, of Dumbreck. In 1599, he
set upon his brother Andrew at the Milltown of Dumbreck, and wounded
him grievously, after which he carried him away, and detained him as
a prisoner for several weeks. In the ensuing year, he had committed
a similar attack upon Andrew Meldrum of Auchquharties, conveying him
as a malefactor from Aberdeenshire to the house of one Fyfe, on the
Burgh-moor of Edinburgh, where he was kept several days, and till he
contrived to make his escape. Law and private vengeance were alike
devoid of terror to this young bravo, who seems never to have had any
difficulty in procuring associates to assist him in his outrageous
proceedings.
[Sidenote: 1601.]
About the time here noted, he entered upon an enterprise partaking
of the romantic, and which has actually been the subject of ballad
celebration, though under a mistake as to his name and condition in
life. Mr Alexander Gibson, one of the clerks of Session, and who
subsequently was eminent as a judge under the designation of Lord
Durie, was, for some reason which does not appear, honoured with the
malice of young Dumbreck. Possibly, there was some legal case pending
or concluded in which Gibson stood opposed to the interests of the
brigand. However it was, Gibson was living quietly at St Andrews--he
being a landed gentleman of Fife--when Meldrum, tracking him by a spy,
learned one day that he was riding with a friend and a servant on the
water-side opposite Dundee. Accompanied by a suitable party, consisting
of two Jardines, a Johnston--border thieves, probably--one called John
Kerr, son to the Tutor of Graden, and Alexander Bartilmo, with two
foot-boys, all armed with sword, hagbuts, and pistols, he set upon Mr
Gibson and his friend in a furious manner, compelling them to surrender
to him as prisoners; after which he robbed them of their purses,
containing about three hundred merks in gold and silver, and hurried
them southward to the ferry of Kinghorn. There, having liberated the
friend and servant, he conducted Mr Gibson across the Firth of Forth,
probably using some means, such as muffling of the face, to prevent
his prisoner from being recognised. At least, we can scarcely suppose
that, even in that turbulent age, it would have been possible otherwise
to conduct so important and well-known a man as an involuntary prisoner
to the house of William Kay in Leith, and thence past the palace
of Holyroodhouse through the whole county of Edinburgh, and thence
again to Melrose, for such was the course they took. Before entering
Melrose, Meldrum divided the money they had taken between himself and
his accomplices, each getting about twenty merks. He then conducted Mr
Gibson across the Border, landing him in the castle of Harbottle, which
appears to have then been the residence of one George Ratcliff; and
here the stolen lawyer was kept in strict durance for eight days.[272]
We may here adopt something of the traditionary story, as preserved
by Sir Walter Scott: ‘He was imprisoned and solitary; receiving his
food through an aperture in the wall, and never hearing the sound of a
human voice save when a shepherd called his dog by the name of _Batty_,
and when a female domestic called upon _Madge_, the cat. These, he
concluded, were invocations of spirits, for he held himself to be in
the dungeon of a sorcerer.’[273]
[Sidenote: 1601.]
How Mr Gibson was liberated, we do not learn. During his absence, his
wife and children mourned him as dead.[274] George Meldrum contrived,
in November 1603, to gain forcible possession of his brother Andrew’s
house of Dumbreck; and there he hoped to set law at defiance. The case,
however, was too clamant to allow of his escaping in this manner. A
party of his majesty’s guard being sent to Aberdeen for his capture,
the citizens added a force of sixteen men, with a commander, and then
a regular siege was established round the den of the outlaw. Being
compelled to submit, he was carried to Edinburgh; and subjected to a
trial, which ended in his having the head struck from his body at the
Cross, January 12, 1604.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT.]
At this time, Aberdeen was visited by a company of players, who bore
the title of the ‘king’s servants,’ and had come ‘recommended by his
majesty’s special letter.’ They performed ‘comedies and stage-plays,’
according to the somewhat awkward report of the town-council record,
where it is stated that the provost, bailies, and council ordained a
present to them of thirty-two merks, equal to about 35s. 6d. sterling.
On the 22d of October, thirteen days after the ordinance for this
gift, the council conferred the freedom of the burgh--the highest
mark of honour they had it in their power to bestow--upon a batch of
strangers, among whom were Sir Francis Hospital, a French nobleman, and
several Scottish gentlemen of rank and importance; among whom, also,
was ‘Lawrence Fletcher, comedian to his majesty,’ being apparently the
chief of the histrionic company then performing in the city.
[Sidenote: 1601.
NOV. 20.]
This fact has an extrinsic interest, on account of Fletcher being known
to have belonged to the company of players in London which included the
immortal Shakspeare. About eighteen months after this time, May 1603,
immediately after James VI. arrived in London to take possession of the
English throne, he granted a patent in favour of the players acting
at the Globe Theatre, ‘Pro Laurentio Fletcher, Gulielmo Shakspeare,
et aliis,’ and which licenses the performances of ‘Lawrence Fletcher,
William Shakspeare, Richard Burbage, Augustine Phillips, John Hemings,
Henry Condel, William Sly, Robert Armin, Richard Cowley, and the rest
of their associates.’ It has therefore been judged as not unlikely
that Shakspeare was present on this occasion in Aberdeen, as one of
the company of ‘the king’s servants’ headed by Fletcher--a probability
which Mr Charles Knight has shewn to be not inconsistent with other
facts known regarding Shakspeare’s movements and proceedings about the
time, and to be favoured by many passages in the subsequently written
tragedy of _Macbeth_, which argue a more correct and intimate knowledge
of Scotland than is usually possessed by individuals who have not
visited it.[275]
The presbytery of Aberdeen was occupied with the case of Walter
Ronaldson of Kirktown of Dyce, a man who was ‘a diligent hearer of the
word, and communicat with the sacrament of the Lord’s Table.’ Walter
was brought before the reverend court for ‘familiarity with a spirit.’
He confessed that, twenty-seven years before, ‘there came to his door a
spirit, and called upon him, “Wattie, Wattie!” and therefrae removed,
and thereafter came to him every year twa times sinsyne, but [he] saw
naething.’ At Michaelmas in the bypast year, ‘it came where the deponer
was in his bed sleeping, and it sat down anent the bed upon a kist, and
callit upon him, saying “Wattie, Wattie!” and then he wakened and saw
the form of it, whilk was like ane little body, having a shaven beard,
clad in white linen like a sark, and it said to Walter: “Thou art under
wrack--gang to the weachman’s house in Stanivoid, and there thou shall
find baith silver and gold with vessel.”’ Walter proceeded to say that,
in compliance with this direction, he went with some friends and spades
to Stanivoid in order to search. He himself was ‘poustless’ [unable
to act]; but his friends searched, and found nothing. He expressed
his belief, nevertheless, that ‘there is gold there, gif it was weel
sought.’ Walter was remitted to his parish minister, ‘to try forder of
him.’--_A. P. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV. 24.]
The pest was declared to have at this time broken out in the town of
Crail in Fife, and in the parishes of Eglesham, Eastwood, and Pollock
in Renfrewshire. Orders for secluding the population of those places
were, as usual, issued.--_P. C. R._
On the 21st of December, the pest was understood to have entered
Glasgow. The inhabitants of that city were therefore forbidden to visit
Edinburgh.
On the 26th of January 1602, it is stated that the infected families
of Crail, being put forth upon the neighbouring moor, and there being
no provision for ‘the entertening of the puir and indigent creatures,’
they had wandered throughout the country in quest of food, and thus
endangered the spread of the disease. The sheriff of Fife was ordered
to see provision made for these people, and to take measures for
punishing those who had wandered.
[Sidenote: 1601.]
On the 4th of February, the pestilence was in Edinburgh, and the Court
of Session was obliged in consequence to rise. Birrel notes: ‘The 19
of February, John Archibald with his family were taken out to the
Burrow-muir, being infectit with the pest.’ Probably others immediately
followed. This circumstance brings before us the celebrated John
Napier, younger of Merchiston, who, on the 11th of March, complained to
the Privy Council that the magistrates having ploughed up and turned
to profitable service the place where they used formerly to lodge
people infected with the pest, had on this occasion planted the sick in
certain yards or parks of his at the Scheens, without any permission
being asked. The magistrates did not come forward to defend themselves;
nevertheless, the Council, considering the urgency of the demands of
the public service, ordained that the lands in question should be left
in the hands of the magistrates till next Candlemas, on terms to be
agreed upon.
On the 16th of March, the pest still increasing in Edinburgh, the king
took thought of Dunfermline, ‘being the ordinar residence of the queen,
his dearest spouse, and of their majesties’ bairns,’ and ordained that,
for its preservation from the contagion, the passage by the Queensferry
should be stopped. He himself seems to have at the same time gone north
to Brechin, where we find the Privy Council held for some weeks.
The 20th of May was ‘ane solemn day of fasting and thanksgiving for his
merciful deliverance of the pest.’--_Bir._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV. 26.]
Owing to the influence of the noble family of Maxwell, popery
had a great harbourage in the town of Dumfries. At this time
denunciations were launched against sundry gentlemen connected with
the place--William, Lord Herries; John, Master of Herries; Walter
Herries of Knockshinnan, Edward Maxwell of the Hills, John Herries in
Braco, Robert Herries in Killiloch, Adam Corsan, John Corsan, Robert
Carran, John Horner, Matthew Forsyth, John Gibson, Robert Ka, Patrick
Ka, Mr John Maxwell, and upwards of a dozen more, charging them with
contravening sundry ‘guid and loveable acts of parliament and secret
council’ against saying and hearing of mass, and entertaining priests.
Mr John Hamilton, and Mr William Brown, sometime commendator of New
Abbey, had been kept amongst them, and they had heard these men say
mass, and allowed them to baptise some children, to the displeasure of
God, and contempt of the king and his laws. For these reasons they were
summoned to appear and answer, under pain of rebellion.--_P. C. R._
[Sidenote: 1601.]
On the 24th of December, sixteen of the men who had been summoned,
including Lord Herries, appeared. For some others a certification was
presented, that they were prevented by infirmity from travelling. Those
who appeared were asked to declare upon their oath what they knew
about the matters in the charge; and on their refusing to do so, they
were ordained to be kept in ward in Edinburgh till they should be tried
for their alleged offence. The others were again summoned.
These, on the 14th of January, the day appointed for their appearing,
failed to appear, and were denounced as rebels.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 11.]
Great hatred and strife had now lasted for some years between the
Earl of Cassillis[276] and Sir Thomas Kennedy of Colzean, on the one
side, and the Laird of Bargeny, the Laird of Blairwhan, the Laird
of Girvanmains, and some other Carrick gentlemen, on the other. The
crafty Laird of Auchindrain, though professedly reconciled to Sir
Thomas Kennedy,[277] was mainly on the side of Bargeny, who was his
brother-in-law. It is believed that he employed himself to inflate
Bargeny, who was but a youth, with ambitious designs, making him
believe that he could easily put himself on a level with the Earl of
Cassillis. The king made an effort to reconcile the parties, but it
had no permanent effect. For some time these Carrick chieftains were
chiefly busied in devising plots against each other’s lives. On one
occasion, the earl, having been induced to accept the hospitality of
the Laird of Blairwhan, was apprised that certain of his unfriends,
along with Blairwhan, intended to murder him in his bed; he therefore
left the house by a back-door, and made his way by night to Maybole.
On another occasion, with the consent of Bargeny, the Laird of Benand,
with some associates, lay in ambush in the kiln of Daljarrock, in
which they had made holes for their hagbuts, designing to shoot Lord
Cassillis as he passed that way. Receiving timely warning, he escaped
the danger by going his journey by another road.
[Sidenote: 1601.]
On the 6th of December 1601, the Laird of Bargeny had occasion to go
to Ayr on business. Along with him rode his brother and the Laird of
Benand--the two leaders in the affair of the kiln--and ten or twelve
other horsemen. Passing within a quarter of a mile of Cassillis Castle,
and not stopping to pay their respects to the earl, they violated one
of the most sacred of the social laws then existing. Lord Cassillis
could interpret it into nothing but the grossest insult. He was the
more enraged, knowing that Bargeny’s two principal companions had
lately lain in wait for his life. He immediately took measures for
gathering his friends about him, and sent spies to Ayr to apprise him
of all Bargeny’s movements.
After spending four or five days in Ayr, Bargeny proposed to return
to his own house, much against the advice of his friends, who feared
dangers by the way. Setting out with a company of about eighty on
horseback, in the midst of a dense snow-storm, he made a halt at the
Bridge of Doon--that place since made so famous from another cause--and
there addressed his people, protesting that he sought no quarrel with
Lord Cassillis, but expressing his hope that, if attacked, they would
stand around him, and do their duty as became men of honour. They all
assured him that they would die in his defence. He then divided his
train into two parties, and riding on, at the Lady Cross met the earl,
who came out of Maybole with fully two hundred men. ‘Being all ready
to meet, the ane on the Teind knowe, and the other on the next, within
the shot of ane musket, they began to flyte [use despiteful language
towards each other]. Patrick Rippet [of the earl’s party], cryit:
“Laird of Benand! Laird of Benand! Laird of Benand! This is I, Patrick
Rippet, that took thy [hagbut]. Come down here in the holm, and break
ane tree for thy love’s sake!” But the other gave nae answer, albeit he
had given the laird stiff council to ride forward before.’
[Sidenote: 1601.]
The Laird of Bargeny, anxious still to avoid fighting if possible,
led off his men along the side of a bog; but the Cassillis party came
by the other side, and met him at the bottom. He then made a dash
forward across a ditch, with Mure of Auchindrain, his page, and three
other gentlemen, but, not being supported by any others, found himself
outnumbered by the enemy. A brief conflict took place, in which the
laird and his friends did some damage to the opposite party; but it was
all in vain. Auchindrain was wounded, the page was killed, one of his
friends unhorsed, and another sore hurt. He himself, though but one of
his friends remained, was not daunted, but rode rapidly into the ranks
of the enemy, calling: ‘Where is my lord himself? Let him now keep
promise and break ane tree!’ He was instantly set upon by a host of the
earl’s friends, who strake at him with swords, and bore him back by
sheer force. At that moment, one John Dick, who had formerly received
benefits at his hands, thrust a lance through his throat and stopped
his breath. The poor gentleman was then borne off by his horse towards
such of his party as still stood their ground, and fell at their feet.
The skirmish being now at an end, they were allowed to conduct him
away from the field, taking him first to a barn at a place called
Dingham, then to Maybole, and finally to Ayr, where he soon after died,
being but twenty-five years of age, leaving a widow and two children
to bewail his bloody end. ‘He was,’ says the contemporary historian of
the Kennedies, ‘the brawest man that was to be gotten in ony land; of
hich stature and weel made; his hair black, but of ane comely face; the
brawest horseman, and the ae-best of mony at all pastimes ... gif he
had [had] time to [have] had experience to his wit, he had been by his
marrows [superior to all his mates].’
The procedure consequent on this sad tragedy is very notable. The
Countess of Cassillis--a lady much the senior of her husband, the
widow of the late Chancellor Maitland, and of course well acquainted
with all the principal people around the king--rode immediately to
court, to intercede for James’s favour towards her lord. With the
help of the Laird of Colzean, she contrived to obtain an act of
Council, making the earl’s part in the late conflict ‘good service to
the king’--the pretext being that, in the opposite party, was Thomas
Kennedy, Bargeny’s brother, a denounced rebel. ‘_The ten thousand merks
given to the treasurer was what did the turn._‘[278] The earl was able
afterwards to reimburse himself by causing all the gentlemen who had
been with Bargeny to come to him and purchase remissions for their
concern in the death of one of his followers, slain in the skirmish.
‘The Lady Bargeny rade to Edinburgh, and made her complent to the king
and queen, but was little better, or least but heard; for she was
compellit to buy the ward of her son, and to give thirteen thousand
merks for the same.’ It is alleged that she afterwards used all the
means she could to take the life of Lord Cassillis, in revenge for her
husband’s death. An ambush was laid for him at Monkton, but getting
timely warning, he waited for an increase to his retinue, by which he
overawed the intending assassins. Lady Bargeny died in 1605, on her way
home from London, whither she had gone to consult Dr Martin for ‘the
eittik’ [that is, hectic, meaning a pulmonary consumption]. Her body
was met at Sanquhar by ‘the haill friends of the house,’ and by them
brought ceremonially to Ayr, and placed beside her deceased husband in
the church. She had, however, erected a sumptuous tomb to her lord in
the church of Ballantrae, and to this the two bodies were transferred
with great state, ‘the _honours_ and all the rest being preparit very
honourably.’ By this is meant, a procession bearing the escutcheon,
pencil of honour, sword, helmet, corslet, &c., of the deceased. ‘The
day being come, there was of noblemen the Earls of Eglinton, Abercorn,
and Winton, with the Lords Semple, Cathcart, Loudoun, and Ochiltree,
the Lairds of Bombie, Blairwhan, and Gairland [Garthland], with ane
great number whilk I will not mint [attempt] to express; his honours
being borne by the Guidman of Ardmillan, the Guidman of Kirkhill,
with sundry mae of the friends; his sister’s son, Young Auchindrain,
bearing the _Banner of Revenge_, whereon was paintit his portraiture,
with all his wounds, with his son sitting at his knees, and this ditty
written betwixt his hands: “JUDGE AND REVENGE MY CAUSE, O LORD!” And
sae, conveyit to Ayr, bure all very honourably, to the number of ane
thousand horse, of gentlemen, and laid in the foresaid tomb.’--_Hist.
Ken._
It is scarcely necessary to remark the amount of local means here
indicated by a funeral train of a _thousand mounted gentlemen_. The
Banner of Revenge seems to have been an imitation of that carried in
the streets of Edinburgh in June 1567, to inflame the popular mind
against Queen Mary.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1602.]
The winter of 1601-2 is described by Birrel as of unheard-of severity
and duration. It lasted from the 1st of November to the 1st of May.
In February was a ten-days’ snow-fall.[279] The Earl of Sutherland
was at this time travelling with his ordinary train from Golspie
through the glen of Loth, on his way to Killeirnan. The ground being
already deeply covered with snow, the party found themselves in a hard
plight, when a fresh storm burst upon them, driving thick snow full in
their faces. The like was not seen for many years after. ‘Some of the
company being thirsty, drank _aquavitæ_, which by chance happened to be
there. This made them afterwards so feeble, that they were not able to
endure against the storm.’ This is an observation in conformity with a
statement of Sir John Franklin respecting his men when travelling in
the frozen regions. Spirituous liquor, according to him, did no one
any good. The earl, being strong, made his way through the snow, and
such of his company as kept close together near him were safe. ‘Some
were dispersed by the extremity of the tempest; some were carried home
upon their fellows’ shoulders, and recovered afterwards.’ Several
others, including the earl’s _harper_, were found dead in the snow next
morning.--_G. H. S._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: FEB. 14.]
James and George Vallam, sons of David Vallam of Woodwrae, were hanged
in Edinburgh for stouthrief. The dittay reveals some of the practices
of the age. These two men had, in June 1596, attacked two cadgers
or carriers at the Cot-town of Melgum in Forfarshire, as they were
‘driving seven packs of merchant geir on seven horses towards Brechin,
to the fair thereof,’ and did ‘thiftously and masterfully convey the
same away with them, together with the said cadgers, to the mouth of
Glenmoy, and disponed upon a grit part of the said merchant geir at
their pleasure.’ The circumstances are precisely what might occur at
the present day in Spain.--_Pit._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: FEB. 26.]
[Sidenote: 1602.]
After such a variety of examples of violence in the south and west
provinces, where a comparative civilisation prevailed, it may be
curious to see an example of the outrages occasionally committed in the
north. On this day, if we are to believe the statement of the suffering
party, the house of Moy, belonging to John Campbell, commissary of
Inverness, was attacked, despoiled, and utterly destroyed by a party
under command of Alexander M’Ranald of Glengarach. They came ‘to the
number of three score persons,[280] all thieves, broken men, and
sorners of clans, bodin and furnist with bows, habershons, twa-handit
swords, and other weapons invasive, and with hagbuts and pistolets.’
Reaching Moy ‘upon fair daylicht,’ they ‘divided their company in twa
several companies, ane whereof remainit about the complenar’s house
and biggings, where they treasonably and awfully raisit fire, burnt
and destroyit his haill house, onsets, and biggings; consisting of
ane hall, twa chalmers, ane kitchen, ane stable, and ane barn, and
some other office-houses; together with his haill corns being in the
barn and barn-yard, extending to twa grit stacks of aits, ane stack of
wheat, and ane grit stack of beir, after they had spulyit, reft, and
intromittit with his haill insicht plenishing’.
The other company ‘past to the house of umwhile James Buchan, the
complenar’s tenant, where they first spulyit his house, guids, and
geir, and then treasonably raisit fire therein.... They took James
Buchan, Patrick Buchan his son, and Robert Anderson his servant, and
having cuttit off their legs and arms, and otherwise dismemberit them
at their pleasure, they cast them quick in the fire and burnt them....
In their departing, they reft and away-took with them twenty oxen and
three score sheep pertening to the complenar, and wrackit and herryit
his haill puir tenants. The like of whilk barbarous cruelty committit
sae fer within the in-country has sendil been heard of.’
All that could be immediately done in this frightful case was to
denounce the guilty parties as rebels for not appearing to answer
Campbell’s complaint. Soon after, we find the Privy Council expressing
its grief that the broken men of the Highlands, ‘not content with the
robbery and reif whilk they were accustomed to commit upon the borders
of the country, have tane the bauldness in troops to repair in fair
daylicht within the heart of the in-country and to the ports of Elgin,
whilk was the maist peaceable and obedient part of the haill land, and
there to herry and sorn at their pleasure.’ The gentlemen of Morayshire
were summoned to advise with his majesty, as to the best means of
restraining this insolence.--_P. C. R._
There is afterwards (June 28), a complaint by Campbell of Moy as to the
favour and entertainment which Dunbar of Westfield, sheriff of Moray,
had given to the men by whom his estate was despoiled. It was even
alleged that the Dunbars had brought the broken men into the country.
This group of men accordingly had some trouble about this business, but
not any of serious consequence. We do not find that any of the actual
perpetrators of the outrage at Moy ever suffered for it.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR. 8.]
[Sidenote: 1602.]
Thomas Musgrave, Captain of Bewcastle, being accused before the Privy
Council of England, of sundry breaches of duty, particularly of having
made Bewcastle a den of thieves, and open to the Scots at their
pleasure, challenged the accuser, one Lancelot Carleton, to the trial
by combat on Canonbie Holm, ‘before England and Scotland,’ on Thursday
in Easter-week, being the 8th of April 1602, betwixt nine o’clock and
one of the same day. It was agreed that they should fight on foot,
armed with jack, steel-cap, plait sleeves, plait breeches, plait socks,
two baslaerd swords,[281] with blades a yard and half a quarter long,
and two Scotch dirks at their girdles. Two gentlemen were to view the
field, and see that the agreement as to arms and weapons was strictly
observed; and the field being so viewed, the gentlemen were to ride to
the rest of the company, leaving the combatants only two boys to hold
their horses. The result is not known.[282]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAY 11.]
Sir Thomas Kennedy of Colzean was this day murdered in the immediate
neighbourhood of the town of Ayr. ‘He was ane very potentous man, and
very wise. He had buildit ane proper house in the Cove [the mansion
superseded by the present Colzean Castle], with very brave yards; and,
by ane moyen and other, had conquest ane guid living.’ We have seen,
under January 1, 1596-7, an attempt upon the life of this gentleman at
Maybole, by Mure of Auchindrain, who subsequently was reconciled to
him, and, for the confirmation of amity, caused his son to be married
to Sir Thomas’s daughter. It nevertheless became in time apparent that
Mure was the prime mover of this atrocious murder, the circumstances of
which are thus related by the king’s advocate, Sir Thomas Hamilton.
[Sidenote: 1602.]
Sir Thomas Kennedy, ‘being only intentive on his own _adoes_, whilk
did require his resort to Edinburgh, there to consult with his lawyers
in his wechty business, he send his servant to Maybole, to seek
Auchindrain and advertise him of his purpose; with direction, if he
missed him there, that he sould certify him by letter of his intended
journey; to the effect Auchindrain might, upon the next day, meet
him upon the way at [the Duppil, a place near Ayr], and inform him
of anything he wald wish him to do for him in Edinburgh, seeing it
was but ane travel for him to do his friend’s business and his own.
This servant of Colzean’s, missing Auchindrain in Maybole, desired
Mr Robert Mure, schoolmaster at Maybole, to write ane letter of that
substance to Auchindrain; who did so, and sent it by ane boy of his
school, called William Dalrymple; who, finding Auchindrain at his house
of Auchindrain, with his cousin Walter Mure of Cloncaird, ane deadly
enemy to the Earl of Cassillis; so soon as he [Auchindrain] fand
himself certified of Colzean’s purpose and diet, he dismissed the boy,
commanding him to return back in haste, carrying the letter with him;
directing him further to shaw to his master and Colzean’s man that he
had not fand him at his house.... Immediately thereafter, [he] resolved
with his cousin Cloncaird, that this occasion of revenge of Bargeny’s
slaughter by Colzean’s murder was not to be unslipped.... After some
deliberation, [he] concluded upon the choice of the actors and manner
of the execution, making advertisement thereof, as weel by letter to
Thomas Kennedy of Drumurchy ... as by message to Cloncaird.... The said
Thomas Kennedy, Walter Mure of Cloncaird, and four or five servants
with them, weel armed and horsed, convoying themselves near the way
appointed by Colzean’s letter for his meeting with Auchindrain, did
lie await for Colzean’s by-coming; who, being in full security of his
dangerless estate, riding upon ane pacing nag, and having with him ane
servant only, they suddenly surprised him, and with their pistols and
swords gave him ane number of deadly wounds; and, not content to have
so barbarously and traitorously bereft him of his life, spoiled him
of ane thousand merks of gold, being in his purse, ane number of gold
buttons upon his coat, and some rings and other jewels.’
‘He being slain, his man Lancelot brings him with him to the Greenan,
and there gets ane horse litter, and takes him to Maybole, where there
was great dule made for him.’--_Hist. Ken._
Sir Thomas Hamilton proceeds to narrate that, while the actual
murderers were first outlawed and afterwards forefaulted, Auchindrain
fell under strong suspicion of having been the deviser of the deed.
He, ‘being summoned to underlie the law, did boldly compear, and,
seeing that the pursuers, for want of sufficient evidence, were not
then to adventure his trial, fearing that he might be cleansed and
so perpetually freed of that crime ... he seemed grieved thereat, as
bragging exceedingly of his innocency, whereof he had given proof, by
offering himself to trial of law--[he now proposed] if there were any
man of Colzean’s kindred or friendship, who wald advow him any ways
participant of the device or execution of that murder, he wald readily
offer himself in that quarrel to the trial of combat to the death....
So, wanting ane party, [he] was dismissed, more free in the persuasion
of most part of such as were present, than in his own conscience.’
[Sidenote: 1602.]
The reader must be referred onward to July 1611 for the remainder of
the history of this extraordinary criminal. Here, however, may be
introduced the remarkable fact, that the Earl of Cassillis made an
attempt to obtain a private revenge on Auchindrain for the murder of
his uncle Colzean. The earl had long been on bad terms with his brother
Hugh, whom we have seen as the guilty associate of Auchindrain. Now, he
made up all past quarrels with Hugh, and granted him a bond, September
4, 1602, stating: ‘Howsoon our brother, Hugh Kennedy of Brownston, with
his complices, _takes the Laird of Auchindrain’s life_, we sall mak
guid and thankful payment to him and them of the sum of twelve hundred
merks yearly, together with corn to six horses, [until] we receive them
in household with ourself, beginning the first payment immediately
after their committing of the said deed. Attour [moreover], howsoon we
receive them in household, we shall pay to the twa serving gentlemen
the fees, yearly, as our awn household servants. And hereto we oblige
us, _upon our honour_.’[283]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT. 8.]
[Sidenote: 1602.]
A proclamation issued by the king at Dumfries, gives some idea of the
social state of the middle marches, and of the arrangements required
for the execution of justice amongst the rude and turbulent people of
that district, while as yet the government had no standing force at its
command. ‘Forsamickle,’ it proceeds, ‘as the king’s Majesty has causit
proclaim and appoint justice-courts to be halden within the burghs of
Peblis and Jedburgh upon the fifteen and twenty-sex day of October
instant, for punishing and trying be order of justice the monyfauld
enormities and insolencies whilk has been sae frequent and common
thir years bygane within the middle marches, Like as his Majesty,
accompaniet with a nowmer of his council, intends to be present at
the said courts, and to hald hand to the due execution of justice,
Wherefore necessity it is that his Majesty be weel and substantially
accompaniet with a force of his guid subjects, Therefore ordains
letters to be direct, charging all and sundry his Majesty’s lieges and
subjects betwixt saxty and saxteen years, and others fencible persons,
as well dwelling to burgh as to land, regality and royalty, within the
bounds of the sheriffdoms of Peblis, Selkirk, and Roxburgh, that they
ilk ane of them weel bodin in feir of weir in their substantious and
weirlike manner address themselves to meet his Majesty at the days and
places following; That is to say, the saids inhabitants within the
sheriffdoms of Selkirk and Peblis to meet his Majesty at Peblis the
said fifteen day of October instant, and the saids inhabitants within
the sheriffdom of Roxburgh to meet his Majesty at Jedburgh upon the
twenty-five day of the same month, provided to remain and attend upon
his Majesty the space of fifteen days after their coming to the said
burghs under the pain of tinsel of life, lands, and guids.’--_P. C. R._
From some expressions in this proclamation, it seems likely to have
been written by the king himself.
He did make a progress by Peebles and Jedburgh, and executed justice
upon a number of luckless Elliots and Armstrongs.
* * * * *
A quarrel at this time took place between two chiefs of the North
Highlands, Kenneth Mackenzie of Kintail and Macdonald of Glengarry.
It were not easy to arrive at a just understanding of the case, or of
the degrees of blame to which the several parties were liable; but it
is not necessary. Enough that there was blood between these fierce
paladins of the north, and that, however the right stood, the affair
boded ill for Glengarry, seeing that he had to contend with an enemy
crafty and able far beyond his class, and one who, by these means, was
generally able to keep on good terms with the heads of administration
in Edinburgh.
[Sidenote: 1602.]
According to an unprinted memoir of the Clan Mackenzie--Glengarry and
his son Angus, who had recently attained perfect age, took advantage of
the temporary absence of Kintail in France to make a charge against the
latter before the Privy Council; and Mackenzie was summoned at the pier
of Leith to ‘compear’ before a certain day, under pain of forfeiture.
This ‘moved Mr John Mackenzie of Tollie, parson of Dingwall, to travel
to France, and bring his chief against the day of compearance. He
came to Edinburgh only the night before, and having advised with his
friends, he kept the diet unexpectedly before the Council. In the
meantime, Alister M‘Gorrie and Ronald M‘Rorie [Glengarry men] made
another onset to the Brae of Kissearn, and killed a gentleman of
the family of Davachmaluach, called Donald M’Kinnich Vich Allister,
sleeping in his bed; whose bloody shirt Mr John Mackenzie presented
that day at Edinburgh. Glengarry could prove nothing against Mackenzie
done in his time; but Mr John proved Glengarry to have been the
instruments of this murder. Likewise he proved him to be a worshipper
of the _Coan_, which image was afterwards brought to Edinburgh,
and burnt at the Cross. Also he gave in against him that he was an
extortioner and oppressor, sorning on his own commons and the commons
of others, and that he still lived in adultery. Which moved Glengarry
to steal from the place of justice, and to take to the hills, whereupon
he was proclaimed rebel, and Mackenzie got the laws against him.’
Glengarry’s son having invaded Kintail, and done some mischief
there, Mackenzie raised a force of seven hundred men, and retaliated
by spoiling the district of Morar. Then the Macdonalds came in
thirty-seven boats to Loch Broom, and counter-retaliated. Here Alister
M‘Gorrie, one of their party, was killed, and his party beat back
to sea. Indeed, the whole expedition failed. Soon after, however,
while Mackenzie was absent in Mull, the Macdonalds came once more to
his country, at Loch Carron, and committed great devastations. Their
leader, Glengarry’s son, not only carried off all the cows he could
find, but slew all the people that fell in his way, even the women and
children. He was overtaken, however, by a fearful retribution.
[Sidenote: 1602.]
‘Advertisement was sent to Kintail and Lochalsh, who gathered as fast
as they could; but he [Glengarry’s son, Angus] had his boats laden
before they came. After they gave him a flight of arrows, he took the
sea, and they wanting boats, could not follow; but part of them went
afoot to the Kyle; others made straight to Ellandonan, where they got
a ten-oared boat and a four-oared boat. Mackenzie’s lady carried to
them arrows and ammunition with her own hand. They rowed to the Kyle
boldly, having no chieftain, but ilk ane striving who would act more
for his mistress’s credit, and for the country’s defence. They came to
the Kyle [a narrow strait] after the night had fallen. When they spied
the first of Glengarry’s boats, they resolved to let her pass without
challenge. He followed next himself in his long-boat of thirty-two
oars, loaded with men and spoil, which, when they perceived, they rowed
calmly to meet him; and he challenging them, and asking who they were,
they answered: “We are all Clan Vich Allister,” giving them balls and
arrows alike; at which they took alarm. The clouds overshadowing the
moon, made a dark shadow on the sea; so they thought it had been shore,
and got all to the fore-end of the boat, which made the boat to sink.
When the Mackenzies saw their boat sink, they sent their little boat
ashore, lest any should make their escape to land, and _the Kintail men
had the killing of them like selchies_ [seals]. At last they killed
Glengarry’s son and all those that were in that great boat with him.
The rest, when they heard the alarm, retired to Strathardle, and left
their boats; from whence they went afoot, and took boats from the Isles
to Morer. When they knew their chieftain was dead, with the best of his
company, they gathered all together to ane isle, where the Lord Kintail
came timeously the next morning in the sight of the Isles....
‘When Mackenzie came to the Kyle, he spied a number of dead corpses
which the rage of the sea had casten ashore, which made him to think,
seeing his enemy together a little while before, that it was his own
men that were killed there. He had in his company two of Glengarry’s
natives, who had quat Glengarry and submitted to him, and who were
acquaint with both the country people [both clans or sets of people in
the district] ... whom he desired to go ashore and see who they were
that were dead. No sooner were they ashore but he espied them strike
their hands upon their breasts, making great lamentation. “Praised
be God!” said Kintail, “it is not for my countrymen you make such
great lamentation. I am confident that God hath been favourable to my
countrymen in giving them a pleasant victory.” When Robert [one of the
Glengarry men] returned to the boat, Kintail asked: “What news?” “My
lord,” saith he, “good news for your lordship; there is many a brave
fellow of your enemies dead in yonder place; not so much as one of your
countrymen amongst them.” Immediately they sailed away to Ellandonan,
where Kintail’s men were no sooner landed but he met his countrymen
returning from the burial of young Glengarry, whom they buried _in the
very door of the Kirk of Kintail, as testimony that they might trample
over his body whenever they went to church_.’[284]
Next year, Glengarry and some of his friends were indicted for
slaughter in the Mackenzie country; and not long after, his lands of
Lochalsh and castle of Strome had passed to the possession of the chief
of Kintail.
[Sidenote: 1602.]
In a _Catalogue of the Scots Nobility and Officers of the Estate_, by
John Colville, written between 1600 and 1603, several of the Highland
or rather Hebridean chiefs are described, as ‘The Lord of the Isles,
callit Makrenald; ane Irish [Celtic] and barbar--The Lord of Kintyre,
callit Makoneill; Irish and barbar--The Lord of the Lewis, callit
Makgloyid; Irish and barbar--The Lord of Makklen, callit Makklen;
Irish, a child of good expectation.’
The chief personage of the preceding notice is thus introduced: ‘The
Lord of Makkenzie, callit Makkenzie; Irish; a protestant _and verey
politique_.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV. 1.]
At Perth--‘Henry Balnaves and William Jack made their repentance in
their awn seats on Sabbath afternoon, for making libel against Mr
William Couper, minister, and Henry Elder, clerk--
As King David was ane sair sanct to the crown,
So is Mr William Couper and the clerk to this poor town.
Ane act of council against them, that nane of them should bear office
or get honourable place in the town thereafter.’--_Chron. Perth._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 1.]
It had become a practice for persons who had revengeful feelings
towards their neighbours to obtain petards from the continent, and
employ them for the destruction of those against whom they had an
ill-will. The king now issued a proclamation against ‘sic detestable
and unworthy crimes, without example in any other kingdom,’ whereby
‘na man of whatsomever rank and calling can assure his awn safety and
preservation within his awn house and iron yetts.’ He ordered all who
have any ‘pittartis’ to surrender them at the next burgh immediately,
and forbade any more being brought home by sea, or made or mended
within the country.--_P. C. R._
It seems not unworthy of observation, that by his familiarity with this
explosive practice in his own country, as well as by the recollection
of his father’s fate at the Kirk of Field, James might be in some
measure prepared to smell out the gunpowder treason, as he did a few
years later.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1603.
JAN. 3.]
‘John Haitly of Mellerstanes [was] slain at the Salt Tron [in
Edinburgh] by William Home, his guid-father.’--_Bir._
We have no account of what led to this dreadful kind of homicide; but,
five years after (April 28, 1608), we find that the king had exerted
himself to reconcile the friends of the parties, and they were ordered
by the Privy Council to come forward on a particular day, and _chop
hands_ on the subject.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JAN. 30.]
[Sidenote: 1603.]
‘Francis Mowbray brak ward out of the [Edinburgh] Castle, and he fell
owir the wall, and brak his craig [neck]. Thereafter, he was trailit to
the gallows, and hangit; and thereafter he was quarterit, and his head
and four quarters put on the four ports.’
In this brief manner Birrel narrates the sad end of a sprightly and
gallant, though intemperate spirit. Francis Mowbray was a son of Sir
John Mowbray of Barnbougle, an ancient house long since gone down to
nothing. Francis himself was the friend and companion of the Earl
of Buccleuch, the hero of the attack on Carlisle Castle in 1596. He
had taken part in that exploit, but soon after got into trouble, in
consequence of a quarrel with one William Schaw, whom he struck through
with a rapier, and killed. Worse than this, he was a Catholic, and
engaged himself actively in some of those underhand political practices
which at length came to a head in the Gunpowder Treason. He spent some
time in a most suspicious place--the Infant’s Court at Brussels.
An Italian fencer named Daniel, residing in London, denounced Mowbray
to Elizabeth’s government as having undertaken to kill the king of
Scots. Mowbray denied the accusation, and offered the combat. The two
being sent down to Edinburgh, it was arranged that they should fight
hand to hand in the great close of Holyroodhouse; but before the
appointed day arrived, notice came from England that some witnesses
had come forward who could prove the treason. On the 29th of January,
Mowbray was confronted with the two witnesses, who, however, were
considered as ‘of light account,’ being men of bankrupt fortunes, who
had from that cause left their country. Mowbray still stood stoutly
to his denial, uttering this adjuration before the king: ‘If ever I
thought evil, or intended evil against my prince, God, that marketh
the secrets of all hearts, make me fall at my enemies’ feet--make me
a spectacle to all Edinburgh, and cast my soul in hell for ever!’ The
two were placed in several apartments in Edinburgh Castle, the Italian
occupying a room immediately above Mowbray.
[Sidenote: 1603.]
At eight o’clock in the evening of the 30th of January, being Sunday,
Francis Mowbray was found dying at the foot of the Castle rock. It was
stated that he had sewed his blankets together, and let himself down
over the wall; but the line being too short, he fell, and mortally
injured himself. The unfortunate man died in the course of the night.
An attempt was made by some friends to raise a report that he had been
thrown over the window; but this was believed by few, and really is not
very credible. The authorities shewed no hesitation about the matter;
but, concluding on the guilt of the deceased, had his body dragged
backwards through the streets to the bar of the Court of Justiciary,
where sentence was duly passed against him. The corpse was then dealt
with as Birrel relates. The superstitious remarked the verification of
the fearful words of the deceased--that he might fall at his enemies’
feet, and become a spectacle to all Edinburgh.--_Pit. Cal. Spot. Notes
to Russell’s edition of Spottiswoode_, 1851.
* * * * *
This year was published in Edinburgh a comedy, entitled _Philotus_,
which we must consider as a curiosity in its way, since it is the
first known effort of the Scottish muse in that department of
literature.[285] It is founded on a story which we find under the name
of _Philotus and Emilia_ in a volume by Barnaby Riche, originally
published in 1581,[286] being, in plain terms, a somewhat licentious
Italian novel. The Scotch comedy is in rhymed verse, and entirely in
the characteristic Scotch manner of that age; but not a shadow of
plausible conjecture has yet been indulged in regarding the possible
author.[287]
The main series of incidents involves the fate of a young woman,
Emilia, who is solicited to become the second wife of Philotus, an old
and rich man. A _Macrell_, or go-between, is employed to bring her to
his wishes, and addresses her in a long speech, which incidentally
illustrates the life of a fine lady of that age:
[Sidenote: 1603.]
‘Ye neither mell with lad nor loon,
But with the best in all this toun;
His wife may ay sit foremost doun,
At either buird or bink,
Gang foremost in at door or yett,
And ay the first guid-day wald get,
With all men honourit and weel-tret,
As ony heart wald think.
See what a woman’s mind may meese,[288]
And hear what honour, wealth, and ease,
Ye may get with him, an ye please
To do as I devise:
Your fire sall first be burning clear,
Your maidens then sall have your geir[289]
Put in guid order and effeir,[290]
Ilk morning or[291] you rise.
And say: ‘Lo, mistress, here your muils;[292]
Put on your wyliecoat or it cuils;
Lo, here ane of your velvet stuils,
Whereon ye sall sit doun:
Then twasome come to kame your hair,
Put on your head-geir soft and fair;
Tak there your glass--see all be clair;
And sae gaes on your goun.
Then tak, to stanch your morning drouth,
Ane cup of Malvoisie, for your mouth;
For fume cast succar in a fouth,[293]
Together with a toast.
Three garden gowps[294] tak of the air,
And bid your page in haste prepare,
For your disjune, some dainty fair,
And care not for nae cost.
Ane pair of plovers piping het,
Ane partrick and ane quailie get,
Ane cup of sack, sweet and weel set,
May for ane breakfast gain.[295]
Your cater he may care for syne
Some delicate, again’ you dine;
Your cook to season all sae fine,
Then does employ his pain.
To see your servants may you gang,
And look your maidens all amang,
And, gif there ony wark be wrang,
Then bitterly them blame:
Then may ye have baith quoifs and kells,[296]
Hich candie ruffs, and barlet bells,
All for your wearing and nought els,
Made in your house at hame.
And now when all thir warks are done,
For your refreshing after noon,
Gar bring into your chamber soon,
Some dainty dish of meat;
Ane cup or twa with Muscadel,
Some other licht thing therewithal--
For raisins or for capers call,
Gif that ye please to eat.
Till supper time then may ye chuse,
Into your garden to repose,
Or merrily to tak ane gloze,[297]
Or tak ane book and read on;
Syne to your supper are ye brought,
Till fare, full far that has been sought,
And dainty dishes dearly bought,
That ladies love to feed on.
The organs then, into your hall,
With shalm and timbrel sound they sall,
The viol and the lute withal,
To gar your meat digest:
The supper done, then up ye rise,
To gang ane while, as is the guise[298]--
By ye have roamit ane alley thrice,
It is a mile almaist.
Then ye may to your chalmer gang,
Beguile the nicht, gif it be lang,
With talk, and merry mows[299] amang,
To elevate the spleen.
For your collation tak ane taste,
Some little licht thing till digest,
At nicht use Rhen’sh wine ay almaist
For it is cauld and clean.
And for your back I dare be bold,
That ye sall wear even as ye wold,
With double garnishings of gold,
And crape above your hair.
Your velvet hat, your hood of state,
Your missle[300] when ye gang the gait,
Frae sun and wind, baith air and late,
To keep that face sae fair.
Of Paris wark, wrought by the lave,[301]
Your fine half-cheinyies ye sall have;
For to decore, ane carkat[302] crave,
That comely collar-bane.
Your great gold cheinyie for your neck,
Be bowsome to the carle, and beck,
For he has gold eneuch, what-reck?
It will stand on nane.
[Sidenote: 1603.]
And for your gouns, ay the new guise
Ye with your tailors may devise,
To have them loose with plaits and plies,
Or claspit close behind:
The stuff, my heart, ye need not hain,
Pan velvet raised, figurit or plain,
Silk, satin, damask, or grograin,
The finest ye can find.
Your claiths on colours cuttit out,
And all pasmented[303] round about,
My blessing on that seemly snout,
Sae weel, I trow, sall set them!
Your shanks[304] of silk, your velvet shoon,
Your broidered wyliecoat aboon,
As ye devise, all sall be done,
Uncraipit, when ye get them.
Your tablet, by your halse[305] that hings,
Gold bracelets, and all other things,
And all your fingers full of rings,
With pearls and precious stanes,
Ye sall have ay while ye cry ho,
Rickles[306] of gold and jewels too,
What reck to tak the bogle-go,
My bonny bird, for anes.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: FEB. 9.]
This is the date of an outbreak of private warfare which throws all
contemporary events of the same kind into the shade.
[Sidenote: 1603.]
In pursuance of a quarrel of some standing between the Clan Gregor and
Colquhoun, Laird of Luss, the former came in force to the banks of Loch
Lomond. The parties met in Glenfruin, and the Colquhouns, out-manœuvred
by the enemy, were overthrown. The Macgregors, besides killing a
number of persons, variously stated at three score and four score,
in the battle, are alleged to have murdered a number of prisoners
(amongst whom, by the way, was Tobias Smollett, bailie of Dumbarton,
very likely an ancestor of the novelist, his namesake), and also some
poor unarmed people. The whole slaughter is set down at 140 persons.
Besides all this, they carried off 600 cattle, 800 sheep and goats,
fourteen score of horse and mares, ‘with the haill plenishing, gudes
and geir, of the four-score-pound land of Luss, burning and destroying
everything else.’ It has been alleged that they killed the laird after
taking him prisoner, and murdered a number of school-boys from the
college or school of Dumbarton; but these would appear to be groundless
charges. Such as their guilt was, it proved the commencement of a long
course of oppression and misery endured by this clan. According to a
contemporary writer, a mournful procession came to Edinburgh, bearing
eleven score of bloody shirts, to excite the indignation of the king
against the Macgregors. There being no friend of the Macgregors present
to plead their cause, letters of intercommuning were immediately issued
against them.
The feeling of a state-officer of these days regarding the unruly
population of the north, comes strongly out in a letter of the
President Lord Fyvie, written to the king a few weeks after he had gone
to London. ‘Your majesty will understand by your Council’s letters the
estate and proceedings with the Macgregors. _Gif all the great Highland
clans war at the like point, I wald think it ane great ease and weel to
this commonwealth, and to your majesty’s guid subjects here._‘[307]
It was arranged soon after that a large number of the Clan Gregor
should be deported from the country, but whither does not appear. The
Privy Council requested the king to allow a ship to be sent for them,
‘seeing all these wha are to depart, in whilk number the laird himself
is ane, are ... unable of themselves aither to defray their charges,
furnish themselves of victuals, or pay their fraught.’
[Illustration: Witch seated on the Moon.--From a Sculpture in Elgin
Cathedral.]
REIGN OF JAMES VI.: 1603-1625.
The death of Elizabeth, March 24, 1603, opened the way for King James
to the English throne. He left Scotland on the 5th of April, after
taking a tender farewell of his Scottish subjects, and promising
to revisit them once every three years. He did not allow one year
to elapse without making an effort to accomplish a union between
England and Scotland; but it ended in the comparatively narrow result
of establishing that the _postnati_--that is, Scotsmen born after
the king’s accession to the English crown--should be regarded as
naturalised in both countries.
James, thoroughly believing that no puritan could be a loyal subject,
continued to be anxious for the reduction of the Scottish Church under
the royal supremacy and a hierarchy. The personal influence he acquired
as king of England enabled him in some degree to accomplish this
object, though all but wholly against the inclinations of the clergy
and people.
The more zealous Presbyterian clergy had made up their minds, in a
General Assembly now to be held at Aberdeen, to ‘call in question
all the conclusions taken in former assemblies for the episcopal
government.’[308] The king, hearing of their design, caused his
commissioner, Sir Alexander Straiton of Laurieston, to forbid the
meeting. About twenty bold spirits, nevertheless, assembled (July
1605); and when Sir Alexander ordered them to dissolve, they did not
obey till they had asserted their independence by appointing another
day of meeting. When called soon after before the Privy Council,
thirteen came in the king’s mercy; but eight stood out for the
independence of their church, and were sent to various prisons.
Six of the recusant clergymen were tried at Linlithgow (January 1606)
for high treason, and found guilty. After their condemnation, they
were remanded to various prisons to await his majesty’s pleasure. (See
November 6, 1606.)
At a parliament held in Perth (July 1606), under the king’s favourite
minister, George Home, Earl of Dunbar, bishops were introduced, and the
king’s prerogative confirmed in ample style. The Scottish statesmen and
councillors were full of servility to the king. James caused several
of the more zealous Presbyterian clergy, including the venerable but
still energetic Andrew Melville, and his nephew James, to be brought
to a conference in London, hoping to prevail upon them to cease their
opposition; but it ended in the one being banished for an epigram,
and the other being confined for life to the town of Berwick. In 1610,
the king’s supremacy was acknowledged by the General Assembly, and
consecrated bishops were settled in authority over dioceses. A court
of High Commission, with immense power over clergy, schools, colleges,
and people was also introduced. Regal influence, gold, cajolery, and
a judicious deliberation, effected the _appearance_ of an episcopal
reformation, while the great bulk of the people endured with a silent
protest what they could not resist.
At the same time, the new strength of the crown, as administered under
the able chancellor, Seton, Earl of Dunfermline, and Thomas, Earl of
Melrose (subsequently of Haddington), caused such an obedience to the
laws throughout Scotland as had never before been known. The attempt at
a plantation of the island of Lewis, with a view to the civilisation
of the Hebrides, was renewed under these favouring circumstances, but
altogether without success.
The king’s sole visit to his native kingdom took place in 1617, as to
some extent detailed in the chronicle. His chief design was to advance
the desired reformation of the national religion, by paving the way for
an introduction of some of the English ceremonies. These were--kneeling
at the eucharist, private administration of baptism to weak children,
private administration of the communion to dying Christians, the
confirmation of children, and the observance of Christmas and Easter.
Protestant churches of most respectable character make no objection to
these rites and forms; but among the Scottish people of that day they
were viewed with great dislike. From a subservient General Assembly
(1618), the Five Articles of Perth, as they were called, received
a reluctant assent, and three years after they were confirmed by
parliament.
While these struggles were going on between Presbyterianism and
Episcopacy, the adherents of both systems cordially concurred in the
persecution of the Catholics. Nobles and gentlemen of that persuasion
were unblushingly called upon either to embrace Protestantism or submit
to forfeiture of property and country. Priests were severely punished;
one hanged. Shewing severity to the Papists was one of the principal
means used by the king to conciliate the Presbyterians to his prelatic
innovations.
Beyond inducing a few ministers to accept the mitre, and obtaining a
hollow conformity from persons in authority, James made no progress
in converting the Scotch to episcopacy, excepting in Aberdeenshire
and some other northern provinces. The people refused to kneel at the
communion, or have baptism and the eucharist administered in private.
The holidays were disregarded. Withdrawing from the churches, the
people began to meet in conventicles or in private houses for worship
after their own manner. The established church sank into the character
of ‘an institution.’
The English reign of James VI. was, nevertheless, in secular respects,
a comparatively serene and happy time in Scotland. Peace blessed
the land. For the first time, the law was everywhere enforced with
tolerable vigour; some practical improvements were introduced. Even the
Highlands began during this period to shew some approach to order.
James died March 27, 1625, in his fifty-ninth year, after a nominal
reign over Scotland of little less than fifty-eight years.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1603.]
[Sidenote: MAR. 26.]
[Sidenote: APR. 3.]
Intelligence of the death of Elizabeth--the event took place at an
early hour on the morning of Thursday the 24th March--was brought to
King James by Robert Carey, a young aspirant of the English court,
who, making a rapid journey on horseback, reached Holyroodhouse on
Saturday evening after the king had retired to rest. This was probably
the most rapid transit from London to Edinburgh previous to the
days of railways. The son of the governor of Berwick came next day
and delivered the keys of that town to the Scottish monarch. On the
ensuing Sunday, James appeared in his ordinary seat in St Giles’s Kirk,
attended by a number of the English nobility; and after service, made
an _orison_ or harangue to the people, promising to defend the faith,
and to ‘visit his people and guid subjects in Scotland every three
years.’ On the 5th of April, ‘his majesty took journey to Berwick; at
whilk time there was great lamentation and mourning amang the commons
for the loss of the daily sight of their blessit prince. At this time,
all the haill commons of Scotland that had rede or understanding were
daily speaking and exponing of Thomas the Rhymer his prophecy, and of
other prophecies whilk were prophecied in auld times; as namely it was
prophecied in Henry the 8 days--HEMPE is begun, God give it long to
last; Frae Hempe begun, England may tak rest. To make it that it may be
understood, H for Henry, E for England, M for Mary, P for Philip, king
of Spain, that marryit with Queen Mary, and E for worthy good Queen
Elizabeth: sae it is come that England may tak rest; for there is no
more England, but Great Britain. Siclike it was spoken in Scots--Ane
French wife shall bear a son shall brook all Britain by the sea. For it
is true that King James 6 his mother was ane French wife, in respect
she was marryit to the Prince of France, wha was so stylit.... It was
likewise writ in another prophecy:
[_Post Jacobum, Jacobus Jacobum, Jacobus quoque quintus;
At Sextus Jacobus regno regnabit utroque._]--_Bir._
Now-a-days, it would be ‘all the people that had _not_ rede or
understanding’ that would be speaking of prophecies in relation to
public events. At that time, however, as has been stated before,
metrical and other prophecies, commonly attributed to Thomas the
Rhymer, a sage who lived at the end of the thirteenth century, were
in great vogue. In this year, Robert Waldegrave printed a _brochure_
containing a collection of these metrical predictions, ascribed to
Merlin, Bede, Waldhave, Thomas Rymour, and others. In this volume may
be found the prediction of Hempe, but in a different form, and the two
others quoted by Birrel. The reader may turn back to January 1, 1561-2,
for an account of Waldegrave’s book of prophecies, and some remarks on
that special prediction regarding the son of the French wife, which was
now called so particularly into notice.
[Sidenote: MAY 28.]
‘The queen and prince came from Stirling [to Edinburgh]. There were
sundry English ladies and gentlewomen come to give her the convoy.’
On the 30th, ‘her majesty and the prince came to St Giles Kirk, weel
convoyit with coaches, herself and the prince in her awn coach, whilk
came with her out of Denmark, and the English gentlewomen in the rest
of the coaches. They heard ane guid sermon in the kirk, and thereafter
rade hame to Halyroodhouse.’--_Bir._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE.]
The pestilence, which had for some time been raging in England, is
noted as now affecting the south of Scotland, and continuing till the
ensuing February.--_Chron. Perth._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 21.]
[Sidenote: 1603.]
James Reid, a noted sorcerer and charmer, was strangled and burnt on
the Castle Hill of Edinburgh for his alleged practice of healing by
the black art. ‘Whilk craft,’ says his dittay, ‘he learnt frae the
devil, his master, in Binnie Craigs and Corstorphin Craigs, where he
met with him and consulted with him to learn the said craft; wha gave
him three pennies at ane time, and a piece creish[309] out of his bag
at ane other time; he having appeared to the said James diverse times,
whiles in the likeness of a man, whiles in the likeness of a horse
... whilk likewise learned him to tak south-rinning water to cure the
said diseases.’ It was alleged that James had cured Sarah Borthwick of
a grievous ailment by ‘casting a certain quantity of wheat and salt
about her bed.’ He had tried to destroy the crops of David Libberton,
a baker, by directing an enchanted piece of raw flesh to be put under
his mill-door, and casting nine stones upon his lands. Nay, he had
done what he could to destroy David himself, by making a picture of
him in wax, and turning it before a fire. The authorities made short
work of so grievous an offender by sending him direct from judgment to
execution.’--_Pit._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT. 2.]
Campbell of Ardkinlas, set on by the Earl of Argyle, exerted himself
to capture Macgregor of Glenstrae, who for some months had been under
ban of the government on account of the slaughterous conflict of
Glenfruin. He called Macgregor to a banquet in his house, which stands
within a loch, and there made no scruple to lay hold of the unfortunate
chieftain. Being immediately after put into a boat, under a guard of
five men, to be conducted to the Earl of Argyle, Macgregor contrived to
get his hands loose, struck down the guardsman nearest him, and leaping
into the water, swam to land unharmed.
Some time after, the Earl of Argyle sent a message to Macgregor,
desiring him to come and confer with him, under promise to let him go
free if they should not come to an agreement. ‘Upon the whilk, the
Laird Macgregor came to him, and at his coming was weel received by the
earl, wha shew him that he was commanded by the king to bring him in,
but he had no doubt but his majesty wald, at his request, pardon his
offence, and he should with all diligence send twa gentlemen to England
with him.... Upon the whilk fair promises, he was content, and came
with the Earl of Argyle to Edinburgh’ (January 9, 1604), ‘with eighteen
mae of his friends.’[310]
[Sidenote: 1603.]
The sad remainder of the transaction is narrated by the diarist Birrel,
with a slight difference of statement as to the agreement on which the
surrender had taken place. Macgregor ‘was convoyit to Berwick by the
guard, conform to the earl’s promise; for he promised to put him out
of Scots grund. Sae he keepit ane Hieland-man’s promise, in respect
he sent the guard to convoy him out of Scots grund; but they were not
directed to part with him, but to fetch him back again. The 18 of
January, he came at even again to Edinburgh, and upon the 20 day, he
was hangit at the Cross, and eleven mae of his friends and name, upon
ane gallows; himself being chief, he was hangit his awn height above
the rest of his friends.’
A confession of Macgregor has been printed by Mr Pitcairn. It might
rather be called a justification, the whole blame being thrown upon
Argyle, whose crafty policy it fully exposes. It is alleged that, after
instigating Ardkinlas to take Macgregor, the earl endeavoured to induce
Macgregor to undertake the murder of Ardkinlas, besides that of the
Laird of Ardencaple. ‘I never granted thereto, through the whilk he did
envy me greatumly’ [that is, bore me a great grudge]. His whole object,
Macgregor says, was ‘to put down innocent men, to cause poor bairns and
infants beg, and poor women to perish for hunger, when they are herried
of their geir.’
Even in that barbarous age, when executions were lamentably frequent,
the spectacle of twelve men hanging on one gallows, one of them a
chieftain of ancient lineage, must have been an impressive one. ‘A
young man, called James Hope, beholding the execution, fell down, and
power was taken from half of his body. When he was carried to a house,
he cried that one of the Highland men had shot him with an arrow. He
died upon the Sabbath-day after.’--_Cal._
The subsequent persecution of the Macgregors, persevered in by the
government during many years, belongs to history. Its severity ‘obliged
multitudes of them to abandon their habitations; and they retired to
such places as they thought would afford them security and protection.
The better sort made the best bargains they could with their enemies,
and gave up their estates and possessions for small compositions. By
these transmigrations, they came, in the end, to be scattered through
all parts of the kingdom, where their posterity are still to be found
under different names, and even many of them have lost the very memory
of their original.... They are still pretty numerous in the Highlands
... many are found in other parts of the kingdom, who are possessed of
opulent fortunes; and some of that race have since made a considerable
figure, both in civil and military government, though covered under
borrowed names.’--_Memoir of Sir Ewen Cameron, by Drummond of
Balhadies, about 1737._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV. 20.]
[Sidenote: 1603.]
It was found at Aberdeen, that, great numbers of people resorting
thither at Whitsunday and Martinmas ‘for their leesome affairs, some
to receive in their debts, others to uplift and give out siller on
profit,’ quarrels were extremely apt to fall out amongst them, on
account of old ‘feids standing unreconcilit.’ Hence, it sometimes
happened that this commercial city became a scene of wide-spread
tumult, the strangers dividing into hostile parties and fighting with
each other, in defiance of all that the magistrates could do to make
them desist. Nay, ‘the magistrates and neighbours of this burgh,
standing betwixt the said parties, for redding and staunching the said
tumults, has been divers and sundry times in great danger and peril,
and some of them hurt and woundit, not being of power to resist the
said parties.’
For these reasons, the town-council, at this date, passed a strict
act for the preservation of the peace, but probably with very little
immediate effect.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1604.
APR.]
‘Ane servant woman of Mr John Hall, minister, died in his awn house,
alleged to be the pest, as God forbid: yet he and his house was
clengit.’--_Bir._ The fear of pestilence, here so strikingly expressed,
was too well founded. The disease spread in May, and increased in the
heat of July. The people fled from the town, and we find that one
William Kerr, a blacksmith, thought it a good opportunity for helping
himself to property not his own, and was hanged in December for having
opened the doors of several of the empty houses.--_Bir._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 15.]
‘The men of Black Ruthven and Huntingtower cuist turfs on our burgh
moor at command of the comptroller, Sir David Murray, captain of his
majesty’s guard, and our provost for the time. The town rase aught
hundred men in arms, and put them off. Angus Cairdney died of the
apoplexy there. No ma harm, but great appearance of skaith.’--_Chron.
Perth._
It is remarkable to find that Perth could then send out 800 armed men.
This, however, was not the utmost strength of the Fair City; for in the
ensuing month, when a parliament was held there, ‘the town mustered
fourteen hundred men in arms and guid equipage.’--_Chron. Perth._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1604.]
Patrick, Earl of Orkney, paid a visit to the Earl of Sutherland at
Dornoch, where he spent some time, ‘honourably enterteened with
comedies, and all other sports and recreations that Earl John could
make him.’--_G. H. S._
James Melville notes in his _Diary_ the appearance of a brilliant star
which shone out this year ‘aboon Edinburgh, hard by the sun,’ in the
middle of the day; ‘prognosticating, undoubtedly, strange alterations
and changes in the world; namely, under our climate.’
This notice most probably refers to a star, of the same kind with that
mentioned in 1572, and nearly as brilliant, which is described as
having appeared in the east foot of Serpentarius, in October of this
year.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP. 10.]
‘The general master of the cunyie-house took shipping to London, for
the defence of the Scotch cunyie before the Council of England. Wha
defendit the same to the uttermost; and the wit and knawledge of the
general was wondered at by the Englishmen. The said general and master
came hame the 10 of December.’--_Bir._
That the general master of the cunyie-house should have shewed so much
wit and knowledge on this occasion, will not excite much surprise in
the reader, when it is made known that he was Napier of Merchiston,
father of the great philosopher.--_Bal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 7.]
‘Ane hour before the sun rose, the moon shining clear two days before
the change, in a calm and pleasant morning, there was at ane instant
seen great inflammations of fire-flaughts in the eastern hemisphere,
and suddenly thereafter there was heard ane crack, as of a great
cannon, and sensibly marked a great globe or bullet, fiery coloured,
with a mighty whistling noise, flying from the north-east to the
south-west, whilk left behind it a blue train and draught in the air,
most like ane serpent in mony faulds and linkit wimples; the head
whereof breathing out flames and smoke, as it wald directly invade the
moon, and swallow her up; but immediately the sun, rising fair and
pleasant, abolished all. The crack was heard of all, within as without
the house; and sic as were without at the time, or hastily ran out to
see, did very sensibly see and mark the rest above rehearsed. Here was
a subject for poets and prophets to play upon....’--_Ja. Mel._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1605.
JAN. 19.]
‘James Young, player at cards and dice, was slain in the kirk [St
Giles] by ane boy of sixteen years of age, called Lawrence Man.
This Lawrence was beheaded on the Castle Hill, the last day of
Januar.’--_Bir._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAY 2.]
[Sidenote: 1605.]
A curious case was considered by the Privy Council. James Blackadder
of Tulliallan had been charged by Sir Michael Balfour of Burleigh, to
address himself to Perth, and there buy from him and his factor John
Jamieson three stands of horsemen’s arms, under pain of rebellion if
he failed to do so before a particular day. James represented to the
lords that long before Sir Michael had brought home these arms, he had
provided himself otherwise with ‘twa good corslets of proof for his
awn person, besides a number of jacks for his servants, with certain
muskets, hagbuts, pikes, spears, and all other sort of arms sufficient
for aucht persons,’ although not bound by his rent to provide arms for
more than two. He wholly resisted the demand of Sir Michael, inferring
an outlay of sixty pounds, on the ground that his estate did not extend
beyond twenty-four chalders of victual, out of which he had diverse
sums of interest to pay--inferring that he was not liable to have more
than one stand of horsemen’s arms. The lords decreed that James was
in the right, and that Sir Michael’s proceedings against him should
cease.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 17.]
‘Ane combat or tulyie [was] foughten at the Salt Tron of Edinburgh,
betwixt the Laird of Ogle [Edzell], younger, and his complices, and the
young Laird of Pitarrow, Wishart. The faught lasted frae 9 hours till
11 at night, twa hours. There were sundry hurt on both sides, and ane
Guthrie slain, which was Pitarrow’s man, ane very pretty young man. The
18th, they were accusit before the Council, and wardit.’--_Bir._
The Lairds of Edzell and Pitarrow were committed to ward, for not
having confined their sons, as the chancellor had commanded. Edzell,
foreseeing troubles to himself and his son from the death of Guthrie,
sent a surgeon to examine the corpse, with a view to establishing that
the young man had not died of the wounds he received in the tulyie, but
had been ‘smoored in the throng.’
Edzell was in his way a remarkable man. Possessing a degree of taste
uncommon in that age, he had built for himself at Edzell on the Esk in
Forfarshire, a mansion of singular elegance, possessing in particular a
screen-wall, ornamented with allegorical figures, the remains of which
even at this day excite the surprise of the passing traveller. His
latter days were clouded by the consequences of the violent passions
of his eldest son, one of the principals in the above combat. We shall
presently hear more of both him and his son.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1605.]
A man called Alister Mac William Mor, a servant of Hugh Mackay of Far,
happening to go into Caithness on some business, was there entrapped
by emissaries of the Earl of Caithness, who bore him a grudge for his
conduct in a former feud. The earl caused Alister to be beheaded before
his eyes next day. The subsequent proceedings are curious. Mackay
prosecuted Lord Caithness before the Justiciary Court at Edinburgh; but
the Marquis of Huntly brought them together at Elgin; and ‘the Earl of
Caithness acknowledged his offence before the friends there present;
whereupon they were finally agreed, and all past injuries were again
forgiven by either party.’ Not a word of the general claim of justice
on behalf of the public!--_G. H. S._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY.]
At the end of this month, the pest broke out in Edinburgh, Leith,
St Andrews, and other parts of the kingdom. Among the first houses
infected in Edinburgh was that of the Chancellor Dunfermline. James
Melville, looking to the recent proceedings of this statesman against
the more zealous ministers, considered him as overtaken by ‘the penalty
pronounced by Joshua upon the building up of Jericho.... His eldest and
only son died, and a young damosel his niece, so that he was compelled
to dissolve his family, and go with his wife alone, as in hermitage,
with great fear of the death of his daughter also, on whom the boils
brake forth. This was marked and talked of by the people.’
* * * * *
The Fife adventurers who had been obliged to leave the Lewis in 1601 on
a promise never to return, made a new attempt at this time to complete
their unhappy undertaking. Attended with considerable forces, led
partly by one William Mac Williams, chieftain of the Clan Gunn, they
landed in the island, and ‘sent a message unto Tormod Macleod, shewing
that if he would yield unto them, in name and behalf of the king [now
a more formidable name than it had been], they should transport him
safely to London, where his majesty then was; and being arrived there,
they would not only obtein his pardon, but also suffer him, without
let or hindrance, to deal by his friends for his majesty’s favour,
and for some means whereby he might live. Whereunto Tormod Macleod
condescended, and would not adventure the hazard of his fortune against
so great forces as he perceived ready there to assail him. This did
Tormod Macleod against the opinion and advice of his brother, Niel
Macleod, who stood out and would not yield.
[Sidenote: 1605.]
‘So the adventurers sent Tormod Macleod to London, where he caused
his majesty to be rightly informed of the case; how the Lewis was his
just inheritance; how his majesty was sinistrously informed by the
undertakers, who had abused his majesty in making him believe that
the same was at his disposition, whereupon proceeded much unnecessary
trouble and great bloodshed; and thereupon he humbly entreated
his majesty to do him justice, and to restore him to his own. The
adventurers, understanding that his majesty began to hearken to the
complaint of Tormod Macleod, used all their credit at court to cross
him. In end, they prevailed so far--some of them being the king’s
domestic servants--that they procured him to be taken and sent home
prisoner into Scotland, where he remained captive at Edinburgh, until
the month of March 1615 years, that the king gave him liberty to pass
into Holland, to Maurice, Prince of Orange, where Tormod ended his
days.’--_G. H. S._
Tormod being thus put out of the way, ‘the enterprise of the Lewis was
again set on foot by Robert Lumsden of Airdrie and Sir George Hay of
Netherliffe, to whom some of the first undertakers had made over their
right. In August they took journey thither, and by the assistance of
Mackay Mackenzie and Donald Gorm, forced the inhabitants to remove
forth of the isle, and give surety not to return.
‘Airdrie and his co-partners, thinking all made sure, returned south
about Martinmas, leaving some companies to maintain their possession,
which they made good all that winter, though now and then they were
assaulted by the islesmen. In the spring, Airdrie went back, taking
with him fresh provision, and fell to building and manuring the lands.
But this continued not long; for, money failing, the workmen went away,
and the companies diminishing daily, the islesmen made a new invasion
about the end of harvest, and by continual incursions so outwearied the
new possessors, as they gave over their enterprise, and were contented
for a little sum of money to make away their rights to the Laird of
Mackenzie [Mackenzie of Kintail]. This turned to the ruin of divers
of the undertakers, who were exhausted in means before they took the
enterprise in hand, and had not the power which was required in a
business of that importance.’--_Spot._
It will be found that there was a third attempt to plant the Lewis. See
under 1609.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG.]
[Sidenote: 1605.]
Mr Gilbert Brown, called Abbot of New Abbey, had for many years escaped
the law while exercising his functions as a priest in the neighbourhood
of Dumfries. The Presbyterian historians stigmatise him as ‘a famous
excommunicat, forfaulted, perverting papist,’ who ‘kept in ignorance
almost the haill south-west parts of Scotland,’ and was ‘continually
occupied in practising against the religion.’ He was now taken prisoner
by Lord Cranston, ‘not without peril from the country people, who rose
to rescue him out of his hands.’ He was brought to Blackness, where,
for a night, he was the fellow-prisoner of the recusant Presbyterian
brethren. It is to be feared that community of misfortune did not bring
the two parties into any greater harmony or charity with each other
than they had hitherto been. When the government thus ‘took order’
with a papist priest, the only feeling of the zealous people on the
other side was a jealous curiosity to see whether it was in earnest
or not. The government, on its part, felt that it was on its good
behaviour, and dreaded to be too lenient. Abbot Brown, being taken
to Edinburgh Castle, was for some time entertained with an unpopular
degree of mildness and liberality, his food being furnished at the
king’s expense, and his friends being allowed to see him, while the
Presbyterian captives were obliged to live at their own charges.
Finally, the ‘excommunicat papist’ was allowed to quit the country with
all his priestly furnishings, not without some suspicion of having been
allowed to say mass in private before his departure.--_Cal._
It is probable that this leniency was found to have been attended with
the effect of exciting a troublesome degree of suspicion against the
government, for another ‘priest, who had been a certain time in ward
in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, was (September 27, 1607) brought down on
the mercat-day to the Mercat Cross, with all his mess clothes upon him,
wherewith he was taken, with his chalice in his hand. He stayed at the
Cross from ten hours till twelve. Then all his mess clothes and chalice
were burned in a fire beside the Cross, and himself carried back to
ward.’--_Cal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT. 3.]
[Sidenote: 1605.]
The Privy Council, sitting at Perth, dealt with a complaint from Mr
Alexander Ireland, minister of Kincleven, against Sir John Crichton
of Innernytie, who has already been introduced to our notice as a
professor of the ancient faith. It appeared that the minister had had
to adopt measures of discipline with Sir John ‘for halding of profane
plays on the Sabbath-day, resetting of seminary priests, and divers
other offences condemned by the word of God.’ The knight, rebelling
against an authority which he bore in no reverence, had resented the
interference with his personal freedom by going with an armed party to
Ireland’s house and committing sundry outrages, even to the beating of
his wife, though she was not far from her confinement. Owing to an
imperfection of the record, the end of the affair is unknown.--_P. C.
R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV. 5.]
On the evening of this day, when the Gunpowder Plot was to have taken
effect, a high wind produced some effects in the north of Scotland,
which seemed in harmony with that wild affair. ‘All the inner stone
pillars of the north side of the cathedral church at Dornoch (lacking
the roof before), were blown from the very roots and foundation, quite
and clean over the outer walls of the church; which walls did remain
nevertheless standing, to the great astonishment of all such as have
seen the same. These great winds did even then prognosticate and
foreshew some great treason to be at hand; and as the devil was busy
then to trouble the air, so was he busy, by these his firebrands, to
trouble the estate of Great Britain.’--_G. H. S._
The Privy Council issued sundry proclamations ‘anent the Poulder
Treason,’ one for the apprehension of Percy, the prime conspirator.
There was a general joy in Scotland at the detection of the plot. In
Aberdeen, the people repaired to the church to give formal thanks for
the deliverance of the royal family and nobility. Bonfires were lighted
on the public ways, and the people went about for an afternoon, singing
psalms of thankfulness. The magistrates and others had also a public
banquet at the market-cross, where glasses were ‘drunk and cassen,’ in
token of their rejoicing for the said merciful delivery.--_Ab. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1606.
JAN. 21.]
The Earl of Errol wrote from Perth to the king, promising, in
compliance with a command just received, to be ‘careful to provide ane
tercel[311] to the hawk of Foulsheuch,’ and to be ‘answerable to your
majesty for the same, in case the auld tercel be dead.’ Foulsheuch is
a sea-cliff about four miles south of Stonehaven, 200 feet in height,
where so lately as 1808 a family of hawks, of uncommonly large size,
continued to build. James’s love of what old Gervase Markham calls the
‘most princely and serious delight’ of hawking, caused him to keep up
a constant correspondence with friends in Scotland for the supply of
the needful birds, and of this the earl’s letter is a specimen. His
lordship goes on with laudable particularity: ‘Your majesty’s mongrel
falcon, whilk I have, sould have been at your hieness lang or now
[ere now], but that as my falconer was ready to tak his journey, she
contracted ane disease, wherewith he durst not adventure to travel her,
in respect of the great frosts and storms. I will be answerable to your
majesty that she has been in nae ways stressed, but as weel treated
as any hawk could be. Naither shall your majesty suspect that I have
reteinit her for my awn plesure, whilk I sall never compare in the
greatest thing whatsoever with your majesty’s meanest contentment, nor
am I able as yet, even at this present, to travel upon the fields for
any game. Albeit, how soon it sall be possible that the hawk may in any
sort be travellit, she sall be at your majesty with all diligence. She
had the same sickness the last year, in this same season, and was not
free of it till near March.’[312]
So keenly interested was James respecting the tercel of Foulsheuch,
that he had written to the Earl of Mar regarding it; and this nobleman
replied on the same date with Lord Errol, assuring the king that he
will see after it carefully. ‘I cannot as yet,’ he says, ‘certify your
majesty whether he be alive or not, but, within few days, I think, I
sall go near to get the certainty that may be had of so oncertain a
matter.’
There is extant a characteristic letter written by James at Perth in
March 1597, to Fraser of Philorth, regarding a bird of sport. ‘Hearing
that ye have ane gyre-falcon, whilk is esteemed the best hawk in all
that country, and meetest for us that have sae guid liking of that
pastime, we have therefore taken occasion effectuously to requeest and
desire you, _seeing hawks are but gifting geir_, and nae otherwise to
be accounted betwix us and you, being sae well acquainted, that of
courtesy ye will bestow on us that goshawk, and send her here to us
with this bearer, our servant, whom we have on this errand directed to
bring and carry her tenderly. Wherein, as he sall report our hearty
and special thanks, sae sall ye find us ready to requite your courtesy
and good-will with nae less pleasure in any the like gates [ways] as
occasion sall present.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAR. 29 and 30.]
[Sidenote: 1606.]
The equinoctial gale of this year is described by a contemporary
chronicler as of extreme violence. He says, with regard to the two
days marginally noted: ‘The wind was so extraordinary tempestuous and
violent, that it caused great shipwreck in Scotland, England, France,
and the Netherlands. It blew trees by the roots, ruined whole villages,
and caused the sea and many rivers so to overflow their wonted
limits and bounds, that many people and chattels were drowned and
perished.’--_Bal._
* * * * *
An outbreak of touchiness on heraldic matters, which recently took
place in Scotland, excited some surprise amongst English statesmen
and others. It is certain, however, that wherever two nations are
associated under one monarchy, the smaller usually manifests no
small amount of jealousy regarding its national flag and every other
thing which marks its distinction and may have been associated with
the national history. The government of Sweden is at this day under
constant anxiety regarding the rampant lion and battle-axe of the
Norwegian flag, lest on any occasion due honour should not be paid to
it, and feelings of international hostility be thereby engendered.
[Sidenote: APR. 12.]
When the Scottish king added England and Ireland to his dominions,
his native subjects manifested the utmost jealousy regarding their
heraldic ensigns; and some troubles in consequence arose between them
and their English neighbours, especially at sea. We find that at this
time, ‘for composing of some difference between his subjects of North
and South Britain travelling by seas, anent the bearing of their flags,
and for avoiding all such contentions hereafter,’ the king issued a
proclamation, ordaining ‘the ships of both nations to carry on their
main-tops the flags of St Andrew and St George interlaced, and those
of North Britain in their stern that of St Andrew, and those of South
Britain that of St George.’--_Bal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAY 17.]
[Sidenote: 1606.]
In an early and rude state of society, bankruptcy is always looked
on with harshness, and punished cruelly; and perhaps it is really
then less excusable than it becomes when commerce is more advanced,
and the returns of transactions can less certainly be calculated on.
Even Venice in old times had its stone of shame for bankrupts. Well,
then, might Edinburgh have one in 1606. At the date noted in the
margin, the Privy Council ordered the magistrates of that city to
erect ‘ane pillory of hewen stone near the Mercat Cross; upon the head
thereof ane seat to be made, whereupon in time coming sall be set all
_dyvours_,[313] wha sall sit thereon ane mercat-day, from ten hours
in the morning till ane hour after dinner.’[314] The unfortunates
were obliged to wear a yellow bonnet on these occasions, and for ever
after--the livery of slavery in the middle ages, and of which we have
a relic in the under-clothes of the Christ’s Hospital boys in London.
An act of the Lords of Session in 1688 is more particular regarding the
indignities to be visited upon dyvours. It ‘ordains the magistrates of
the burgh (where the debtor is incarcerated), before his liberation
out of prison, to cause him take on, and wear upon his head, a bonnet,
partly of a brown, and partly of a yellow colour, with uppermost
hose, or stockings, on his legs, half-brown and half-yellow coloured,
conform to a pattern delivered to the magistrates of Edinburgh, to be
keeped in their Tolbooth; and that they cause take the dyvour to the
Mercat Cross, betwixt ten and eleven o’clock in the fore noon, with the
foresaid habit, where he is to sit upon the dyvour-stone, the space
of ane hour, and then to be dismissed; and ordains the dyvour to wear
the said habit in all time thereafter; and in case he be found either
wanting or disguising the samen, he shall lose the benefit of his
bonorum.’[315]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 1.]
A parliament met at Perth, chiefly with a view to re-instating the
bishops in those revenues which alone could make them efficient in
their office. They themselves appeared for the first time during many
years in a style calculated to impress the senses of the people. The
king had taken care that they, as well as the nobility, should wear
ceremonial dresses.[316] In the ‘riding’ or equestrian procession to
the parliament house, they took their place immediately after the
earls, ‘all in silk and velvet footmantles, by pairs, two and two, and
St Andrews, the great Metropolitan, alone by himself, and ane of the
ministers of no small quality, named Arthur Futhie, with his cap at his
knee, walkit at his stirrup along the street.’ ‘This was called the
_Red Parliament_, whilk in old prophecies was talked many years ago
sould be keepit in St Johnston, because all the noblemen and officers
of estate came riding thereto and sat therein, with red gowns and
hoods, after the manner of England, for ane new solemnity; whilk many
did interpret a token of the red fire of God’s wrath to be kindled both
upon kirk and country.’--_Ja. Mel._
[Sidenote: 1606.]
At this parliament appeared two western nobles between whose families
there had long subsisted great enmity--namely, the Earls of Eglintoun
and Glencairn. Notwithstanding the known anxiety of the king for an
oblivion of all such ‘deidly feids,’ the two earls and their respective
attendants came to a collision on the street. ‘It lasted fra seven till
ten hours at night, with great skaith,’ one man of the Glencairn party
being slain outright. It was not without great exertion on the part of
the citizens that the tumult was quelled.
This feud, which was of early origin, acquired fresh stimulus from the
murder of the Earl of Eglintoun by Cunningham of Robertland in 1586,
the Earl of Glencairn, as head of the Cunninghams, being held as in
some degree answerable for, and bound to protect, the actual assassin.
The affair now involved the Lord Semple and other men of consequence in
the west, and it took no small pains on the part of the king and his
Scottish ministers to get it composed.
The reconciliation of the Earl of Glencairn with Lord Semple took place
in a formal and public manner, at the command of the Privy Council,
nearly three years afterwards (May 22, 1609). The scene of this
important transaction was the Green of Glasgow. On the occasion, ‘for
eschewing of all inconvenients of trouble whilk may happen (whilk God
forbid!),’ the town-council arranged that the provost with one of the
bailies and whole council should go to the place, attended by forty
citizens in arms, while the other two bailies, each attended by sixty
of the citizens with ‘lang weapons and swords,’ should ‘accompany and
convoy the said noblemen, with their friends, in and out, in making
their reconciliation.’--_M. of G._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY.]
Glasgow--now a city of 400,000 inhabitants, and the scene of a
marvellous concentration of the industrial energies of the nineteenth
century--how curious to look in upon it in 1606! when it was only a
small burgh and university town, containing perhaps 5000 inhabitants
at the utmost, some of them merchants (that is, shopkeepers), others
craftsmen--not such folk, however, as would now be found carrying
on trade and the useful arts in a burgh of the same size, but men
accustomed to the use of arms, and the exercise of the violent passions
which call arms into use--not inspired with the independent political
ideas of our time, but trained to look up to the great landlords of
their neighbourhood as leaders to be in all things followed: in short,
a small burgal community, retaining a strong tinge of the old feudal
system.
[Sidenote: JULY 5.]
[Sidenote: 1606.]
The city was at this time the scene of ‘a very great trouble and
commotion,’ arising from a change which had been made in the system of
municipal election. The change seems to have been effected in legal and
proper manner by Sir George Elphinstone, the provost; but it was odious
to a neighbouring knight, Sir Matthew Stewart of Minto, whose ancient
local influence it threatened to subvert. He accordingly wrought upon
the ‘crafts’ of the burgh, till he induced them to believe that the
new system was a gross tyranny to their order. They consequently held
a meeting in the house of a citizen--an act unlawful, without the
sanction of the magistrates--ostensibly to get up a petition, but in
reality armed for action with swords, targes, and other abulyiements.
Climbing up to the platform of the Market Cross, they proclaimed
their remonstrance against the new arrangements, in the sight of the
magistrates, who sat in their council-house close by. It was believed
that the object of the insurgents was to provoke the magistrates
to come out and interfere with their proceedings; which might have
been made a pretence for involving them in a murderous quarrel. But
‘God furnished the magistrates with patience to abide all their
indignities.’ They even so far deferred to the popular party, as to
appoint a day when they might meet and argue out their differences.
[Sidenote: 1606.]
According to the provost and magistrates, in a complaint which they
sent to the Privy Council, this peaceful measure did not suit the views
of Sir Matthew Stewart and his friends. Accordingly, ‘knawing that,
upon the twenty-three day of the month, whilk was the day preceding
the appointit time of meeting, Sir George was to go to the archery,
they made choice of that time and occasion, to work their turn.’ Sir
Walter Stewart, son of Sir Matthew, with John and Alexander Stewarts,
‘lay in wait for him and his company, wha were but five in number,
without ony kind of armour, saufing their bows; and perceiving them,
about seven hours at even, come up the Dry-gate, of purpose to have
passed to the _Castle butts_, and there to have endit their game, and
James Forrat, ane of Sir George’s company, going to his awn house with
his bow disbendit in his hand, to have fetchit some Bute arrows; Sir
Walter thought meet to mak the first onset upon him, and thereby to
draw Sir George back.’ The assault upon Forrat having caused a great
cry to arise, Sir George returned through the Castle port to learn
what was the matter, when, meeting young Minto in the act of pursuing
the unarmed man, he remonstrated first in gentle words, and then in
language more emphatic, finally commanding him in the king’s name to
desist and go home. Hereupon a party of forty, all armed with steel
bonnets, secrets, plait sleeves, ‘lang staffs,’ and other weapons,
issued from the wynd-head, where they had been concealed, and, joining
with young Minto, drove Sir George and his small party of friends back
to the Castle port, where they were happily relieved from present
danger. Being thus disappointed of their purpose, the rioters retired
to the wynd-head, and presently sent off one of their number down the
High Gait to rouse the other citizens. This man, James Braidwood, ran
along crying, ‘Arm you! arm you! They are yokit!’ whereupon a great
number of the seditious faction, including Sir Matthew Stewart of
Minto himself, assembled in arms, and joining the other party at the
wynd-head, came in full force, and in the most furious manner to the
Castle, where, but for the interposition of the Earl of Wigton and two
other privy-councillors, who were present, they would certainly have
slain their provost. ‘Seeing they could not win towards Sir George
with lang staffs and weapons, they despitefully cast stanes at him.’
Then, refusing to obey the commands of the privy-councillors to go
peaceably home, ‘they past tumultuously down the gait to the Barras
Yett, far beneath the Cross, and come up the gait again with three
hundred persons, with drawn swords in their hands, some of the rascal
multitude crying: “I sall have this buith, and thou sall have that
buith!” and of new assailit the Castle port, with full purpose by
force to have enterit within the same.’ It was alleged that, but for
the courageous resistance of the three noble privy-councillors, they
would have accomplished the destruction of Sir George Elphinstone on
this occasion. As it was, they laid violent hands on three several
magistrates who came to his help, altogether ‘committing manifest
insolency and insurrection within the said city, to the great trouble
and inquietation thereof, and ane evil example to others to do the like
hereafter.’
[Sidenote: 1606.]
Such was the Elphinstone story regarding this tumult. It was, however,
met by a counter-complaint from young Minto, to the following effect.
He was, he said, ‘coming down the Rotton Raw, in peaceable and quiet
maner to his awn lodging, accompanit only with twa servants,’ when
‘he perceivit Sir George Elphinstone with nine or ten persons in his
company, coming up the Dry Gait.’ Although he was in the straight way
for his lodging, ‘yet in respect of some dryness between Sir George
and him, he left that gait, and past ane other way, of purpose to have
eschewit all occasion of trouble and unquietness betwixt them.’ Here,
however, ‘James Forrat, ane of Sir George’s company, cast him directly
in the complainer’s way, and pressit to have stayit his passage.’
When young Minto ‘soberly found fault with him,’ Forrat ‘immediately
bendit his bow, and had not failed to have shot and slain him, were not
ane in company with the complainer cuttit the bow-string.’ Whereupon,
according to the recital, Sir George Elphinstone and his servants fell
upon young Minto and his servants in the most violent manner with their
swords, and would certainly have slain them, if they had not by God’s
providence escaped.--_P. C. R._
We learn from another source, that, after all, ‘the skaith was not
great; only ane man callit Thomas Cloggy died, without ony wound, and
sundry hurt with staves.’[317]
The government authorities must have felt puzzled by this local
squabble, and hardly known how to apportion punishment amongst the
parties. The Minto knights were ordered into ward in Dumbarton Castle,
and Sir George Elphinstone in the castle of Glasgow, till his majesty’s
pleasure should be known. The Privy Council afterwards absolved young
Minto from the charge of being the aggressor in the conflict of the 23d
July; but the two knights and their principal supporters were confined
for some time in Linlithgow, on account of the general ‘insolency’ of
which they had been guilty.
[Sidenote: 1606.
AUG.]
There is something affecting in the history of the families concerned
in this tumult. A mural tablet in Glasgow cathedral commemorated the
names of six or eight Stewarts of Minto in succession, ‘knights created
under the banner,’ and men of great sway in the district. But when
M‘Ure wrote his _History of Glasgow_ in 1736, the family was ‘mouldered
so quite away, that the heir in our time was reduced to a state of
penury little short of beggary.’ A memorandum of Paton, the antiquary,
queried, ‘If true that the last of the family was a poor boy sent into
Edinburgh barefooted with a letter to Stewart of Coltness, who [being]
promising, was recommended to the Duke of Hamilton, got some education,
and afterwards went abroad to Darien, where he died.’ Sir George
Elphinstone, who had been the familiar servant and friend of King
James, acquired a great estate at Glasgow, and after this time rose
to be Lord Justice-clerk, nevertheless ‘died so poor, that his corpse
was arrested by his creditors, and his friends buried him privately in
his own chapel adjoining his house.’ His family went out in the second
generation.
While the attention of the people was absorbed by the matter of the
bishops and their robes and renewed dignity, the consequences of the
continual neglect of those natural conditions on which their physical
health depended were about to be once more and most severely felt.
The _pest_ broke out and spread over the more populous districts with
frightful rapidity. ‘It raged so extremely in all the corners of the
kingdom, that neither burgh nor land in any part was free. The burghs
of Ayr and Stirling were almost desolate; and all the judicatories of
the land were deserted.’--_Bal._ It was not till the middle of winter
that it sensibly declined.
The chancellor wrote to the king in October, that scarcely any part of
the country was free of the scourge. ‘This calamity,’ he says, ‘hinders
all meetings of Council, and all public functions for ministration of
justice and maintenance of good rule and government, except sic as we
tak at starts, with some few, at Edinburgh, or in sic other place for a
day, to keep some countenance of order.’
The unconforming clergy now imprisoned at Blackness wrote a petition
for mercy to the king (August 23), in which they describe the state of
the country under its present affliction. They speak of ‘the destroying
angel hewing down day and night continually, in sic a number in some
of our congregations, that the like thereof has not been heard many
years before.’ They add: ‘What is most lamentable, they live and die
comfortless under the fearful judgment, filling the heaven and the
earth with their sighs, sobs, and cries of their distressed souls,
for being deprived not only of all outward comforts (whilk were great
also), but also of all inward consolation, through the want of the
ordinary means of their peace and life, to wit, the preaching of the
word of our ministry.’[318]
[Sidenote: 1606.]
We have a remarkable trait of the treatment of the pest in outlying
districts, in a bond granted on this occasion by some Aberdeenshire
gentlemen to the burgh of Dundee for five hundred merks, as requital
for their sending two professional _clengers_ from their town to
the valley of the Dee, that they might deal with an infection which
had fallen forth in the house of Mr Thomas Burnet, minister of
Strathauchan, and in the house of John Burnet of Slowy--two places
divided by the river, but both on the line of the great road leading
from the south to the north of Scotland. The country gentlemen, on
hearing of the infection in their district, had been obliged to convene
and devise measures for meeting the calamity.
Their first step was to send for two _clengers_ a hundred miles off to
come with all speed, although at a high cost, which the gentlemen, as
we see, were obliged to pay in behalf of themselves and neighbours.[319]
Another trait of the public economy regarding this pestilence occurs
in the record of the Privy Council. It was represented to that august
body on the 2d of September, that ‘certain lodges’ had been ‘biggit by
James Lawrieston and David and George Hamiltons, upon the common muir
of Gogar, for the ease and relief of certain their tenants, infectit
with the pest;’ but Thomas Majoribanks, portioner of Ratho, and other
persons had cast down these lodges, apparently on the plea that the
erecting of them was an intrusion on their property. The Council
found that the muir was common property, and ordered the lodges to
be rebuilt by those who had originally set them up, on the part of
the muir nearest to their own grounds, ‘where they may have the best
commodity of water,’ the other party being at the same time forbidden
to interfere under heavy penalties.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP. 4.]
The Chancellor Dunfermline intimated to the king the pitiful case
of the inhabitants of Dumbarton, their town being unable to defend
themselves against ‘the surges and inundations of the sea, which is
likely to destroy and tak away their haill town, and cannot be repulsit
by nae moyen their poor ability and fortunes are able to furnish.’
Those who were appointed to inquire into the matter now reported that
it would require at least thirty thousand pounds Scots to make a
proper bulwark. It was proposed to defray this charge by a tax on the
country.[320]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP.]
[Sidenote: 1606.]
‘George, Earl of Dunbar, his majesty’s commissioner for ordering the
Borders, took such a course with the broken men and sorners [there],
that, in two justiciary-courts halden by him, he condemned and caused
hang above a hundred and forty of the nimblest and most powerful
thieves in all the Borders ... and fully reduced the other inhabitants
there to the obedience of his majesty’s laws.’--_Bal._ The chancellor
told the king next month that the Borders were now ‘satled, far by
onything that ever has been done there before.’[321]
It was declared a few months later (November 20), that one of the
principal difficulties experienced by the emissaries of government in
executing justice on the Borders lay in the strength of the houses in
which the ‘thieves and limmers’ dwelt or took refuge, and particularly
the ‘iron yetts’ with which these houses were furnished. The Privy
Council therefore ordained that all iron yetts in houses belonging
to persons below the rank of barons, should be ‘removit and turnit
in plew irons or sic other necessar wark as to the awners sall seem
expedient.’--_P. C. R._
These iron gates, of which many specimens still survive in ancient
country-houses in Scotland, are composed grill-wise, the bars curiously
interlacing with each other, and generally with huge staples and
padlocks. Such a gate, made in 1568 for Kilravock Castle, Nairnshire,
by George Robertson, smith in Elgin, weighed thirty-four stone three
pounds, and cost ‘£34, 3s. 9d. usual money, together with three bolls
meal, ane stane butter, and ane stane cheese.’[322]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV. 7.]
The six clergymen who had been tried for treason, on account of their
refusal to break up the General Assembly at Aberdeen, and who had been
condemned to banishment, were sent forth of the kingdom at Leith,
after a long confinement in Blackness Castle. The punishment, it may
be remarked, would have been remitted if they would have acknowledged
their alleged offence and come in the king’s will.
[Sidenote: 1606.]
‘The 6 of November, about four afternoon, they were desired to come to
the boat whilk was prepared for them by the water-bailie of Leith and
Edinburgh; who, obeying, came, accompanied with some of their dearest
friends and wives, to the pier, where there was a good number of people
waiting on, to tak the guid-night at them, and to see them; but after
their coming thither, Mr John Welch conceived a prayer, whilk bred
great motion in the hearts of all the hearers. Prayers ended, they took
guid-night of their friends, wives, and many other weel-wishers who
were present, [and] entered into the boat, where they remained a guid
space waiting on the skipper.’ The skipper not being ready to weigh
that night, ‘they were desired by the water-bailie either to go aboard
and lie in the ship that night, or else to go to their lodging, and be
ready at the next call.
‘They, by God’s special providence, chused to go to their lodging;
for that night came on a great storm, [so] that the ship was forced
to save herself in Kinghorn road all that night. They were called
again by two hours in the morning, who, obeying, came to the shore
and pier, accompanied as the night before, no small concourse of
people being with them, beyond expectation, so early to see them boat.
Prayer conceived as before by Mr John Welch, they embarked, giving
many exhortations to all to hold fast the truth of the doctrine whilk
they had delivered; for the whilk they doubted nothing to lay down
their lives, let be to suffer banishment; adding thereto, that whilk
they suffered was the great joy of their conscience. In the meantime,
the mariners hasted them away ... they departed out of our sight,
making us hear the comfortable joy whilk they had in God, in singing a
psalm.’[323]
[Sidenote: 1606.]
While Protestant clergymen of the puritan type were thus suffering,
and evoking by their fortitude the deserved sympathy and admiration
of large masses of their countrymen, they were so far from being
alone in martyrdom, that suffering was inflicted upon another class
of religionists, if not at their dictation, at least with their full
approval. The Earl of Angus, one of the three Catholic lords whose
correspondence with Spain caused so much trouble sixteen years before,
had since lived at home in quietness and obedience. It was not many
months after the embarkation of the six Presbyterian ministers at
Leith, that we find his lordship pleading that, to avoid imprisonment
for his religion, he might be allowed to go into exile--thus calling
for the punishment inflicted upon the six clergymen, as a kind of
relief from the more severe penalties demanded against him by the party
to which these clergymen belonged. In a letter to the king, August
10, 1608, adverting to the fact of the General Assembly having given
forth an act for his immediate excommunication, he says: ‘What grief
and sorrow this brings to my heart, God knows; because my greatest
care has ever been, and sall be, that I might end my days (whilk, I am
persuaded, will not be many) at peace with God, and in your majesty’s
obedience.... The permission whilk of grace only I crave (gif it please
not your hieness to ease me with a better) is either to depart this
country ... with surety not to return, or else that it wald please
your majesty to confine me in ane of mine awn houses, and so mony
miles about the same, where I am glad to live as ane private subject,
and never to meddle me with public affairs, but by your majesty’s
direction.’
The earl was compelled to leave his country, and he died at Paris
three years after, aged fifty-seven. In his epitaph, he is made to
say--‘jussus, religionis causâ, patriâ excedere aut in custodiam
pergere, vitæ quietiori turbinibus averruncandis delegeram Galliam,
caram alteram Scotis patriam.’
The utter unconsciousness of the persecuted Presbyterians of there
being any harm in visiting the papists with the like severities might
almost provoke a smile. While the six ministers lay in expectation of
banishment, their brethren detained in England received a visit from
Law, Bishop of Orkney. The conversation turned on the present state of
the church in Scotland, and the bishop endeavoured to convince them
that the royal policy was right, as the same Linlithgow convention
which had condemned the six recusant ministers had ‘taken strait order
with the papists.’ Seeing they appeared to have no great faith in that
demonstration, the bishop endeavoured to reassure them. ‘_They shall
call me a false knave_,’ said he, ‘_and never to be believed again, if
the papists be not sae handled as they never were in Scotland._‘[324]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 23.]
The Privy Council had some time ago issued a proclamation, forbidding
what was called the _backing of pairties to the bar_--that is, each
party in a lawsuit coming into court with a number of friends and
favourers behind him, with a view to exercising some influence over
the course of justice. Finding that the former denouncement of ‘this
indecent and unseemly custom’ had not been attended with any effect,
partly through the public being unacquainted with it, and partly
through the negligence of the officers of the law, the Council now
renewed their proclamation, with assurance that their orders would in
future be strictly acted upon. The reader will find that the practice
continued in force some years later.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1607.
JAN. 20.]
[Sidenote: 1606.]
At this time, Gordon of Gight, Forbes of Corsindae, and some others,
formed themselves into what they called the SOCIETY OF THE BOYS--much
after the manner perhaps of the White Boys of Ireland, in more recent
times. They bound themselves by oath to consider all quarrels as common
amongst them, and are accused of having committed ‘open and avowed
reifs, herships, and other enormities, in all parts where they be
maisters and commanders.’ All this appears from a letter of the Privy
Council, of date January 20, 1607, to the Marquis of Huntly, commanding
him to take order for their suppression, ‘as your lordship wald eschew
that hard censure and construction which his majesty maun mak of your
behaviour in this point.’
It will be remembered that Gight was a Catholic, and the probability is
that this fraternity of the Boys was simply a desperate effort on his
part and that of his co-religionists to repel, as far as they could,
the persecutions to which they were subjected.
However this might be, we soon after (April 2) find the Council engaged
in trying to bring George Gordon of Gight to justice for sundry popish
practices of which he was alleged to have been guilty. It was charged
against him that, at the burial of his mother, Isobel Ochterlony, on
a particular day in the year 1604, he had caused his tenant, David
Wilson, to ‘carry ane crucifix upon ane speir immediately before the
corpse;’ in like manner, at the burial of the late William Gordon of
Gight in 1605, he had caused George Crawford, his servant, to ‘bear
ane crucifix upon ane speir the haill way before the body;’ he being
personally present on both occasions: ‘whereby, as he has offendit
God, slanderit his kirk and haly ministry, sae he has committit a very
great contempt against his majesty, and has violate his hieness’ laws
and acts of parliament.’ The laird and his two dependents having failed
to appear on several former occasions, the officers of justice were
now directed to go to them, and command them to enter as prisoners in
Edinburgh Castle within fifteen days, on pain of rebellion.--_P. C. R._
The immediate results of these measures do not appear. Seven years
after (February 1614), we learn that the Lairds of Gight and Newton,
both Gordons, and both Catholics, were sentenced by the Privy Council
to perpetual banishment, and ‘never to set foot in Scotland under pain
of death, unless they submit themselves to the orders of the church;’
that is, embrace the Protestant faith as professed in Scotland.
However it was as to their faith, the Gight Gordons are found in their
usual place in Aberdeenshire only two years after this time. See under
December 1615.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR.]
[Sidenote: 1607.
JUNE 2.]
The pest broke out again in Dundee, Perth, and other parts of the
country.--_Ab. C. R._
The Privy Council refer to ‘a very ancient and lovable custom,’ of
giving a blue gown, purse, and as many Scotch shillings as agreed with
the years of the king’s age, to as many ‘auld puir men’ as likewise
agreed with the king’s years; and seeing it to be ‘very necessary and
expedient that the said custom should be continuit,’ they give orders
accordingly.--_P. C. R._
The ‘auld puir men’ so favoured were called the King’s Bedesmen, and
were privileged to go about the country as beggars, notwithstanding
any general enactments that might exist against mendicancy. Their
blue cloak bore a pewter badge which assured them of this right. They
were expected to requite the king’s bounty by their prayers; and,
doubtless, as they had such an interest in the increase of his years,
their intercessions for his prolonged life must have been sincere.
The distribution of their cloaks and purses used to take place on the
king’s birthday, at the end of the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, till a time
not long gone by.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 30.]
A sad account is given of the country of Athole. This province, ‘whilk
of auld was maist quiet and peaceable, and inhabit be a number of civil
and answerable gentlemen, professed and avowed enemies to thieves,
robbers, and oppressors,’ is described as having ‘now become very louss
and broken,’ ‘ane ordinary resett for the thieves and broken men of
the north and south Hielands;’ moreover, a great number of the native
people, ‘sic as John Dow M’Gillicallum and his complices,’ shaking off
all fear of God and reverence for his majesty and the laws, ‘are become
maist insolent, committing wild and detestable murders, open reifs,
privy stouthrie, barbarous houghing and goring of oxen, and other
enormities,’ without hinderance or challenge.
[Sidenote: AUG.]
The Privy Council ordered the immediate reappointment of a guard or
watch for the country, such as was customary. James Gordon of Lesmoir
undertook to apprehend John Dow and his brother Allaster; and when many
attempts had failed, ‘in end lichtit upon the limmers.’ ‘After a lang
and het combat, and the slauchter of four or five of the principals
of them, the said Allaster was apprehendit, and John, being very evil
hurt, by the darkness of the night escaped.’ Allaster, who had many
murders on his head, was brought to Edinburgh, and laid in irons in
the Tolbooth, notwithstanding many offers from his friends for his
liberation. He was in due time tried and executed.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1607.]
David, Master of Crawford, was noted as a wicked and lawless man.
In the course of his violent proceedings in the district where he
possessed influence--Forfarshire--he had slaughtered (October 25, 1605)
Sir Walter Lyndsay of Balgavies. This brought out the violent feelings
of the young Laird of Edzell, whom we have already seen engaged in
matters of blood. Young Edzell and his brother determined to avenge the
slaughter of their uncle, Sir Walter, upon the Master of Crawford, who
was also their near relation.
[Sidenote: JULY 5.]
One summer evening, between nine and ten o’clock, the Master of
Crawford was walking up the High Street of Edinburgh, accompanied by
his uncle, Alexander, Lord Spynie, and Sir James Douglas of Drumlanrig.
Lord Spynie was a popular character, a favourite courtier of King
James, and uncle to both the Master of Crawford and young Edzell.
Knowing the revengeful design of the latter person, he had been
endeavouring to bring about a peace between him and the Master; but
his well-meant efforts were destined only to result in his own death.
At this very time young Edzell was lying in wait with eight armed
men to attack the Master. The three gentlemen approach, and are in a
moment beset by the ambushed party; sword-strokes and pistol-shots are
exchanged; the Master and Drumlanrig are severely wounded, and Lord
Spynie receives mortal hurt. Young Edzell then withdrew his party.
Drumlanrig recovered from his wounds with difficulty; Lord Spynie died
of his in eleven days. Thus the innocent alone suffered from this
attempt at ‘wild justice;’ the very kind of event which wild justice is
most apt to bring about, and for which it is chiefly to be condemned.
Young Edzell fled, with the dismal pain upon his conscience of having
caused the violent death of his own uncle, whom he had ever regarded
with affection. To escape justice, he was compelled to retire to
the remotest parts of his paternal property in the Braes of Angus.
Meanwhile, his father suffered great harassment from the law on his
account, and was soon brought down in sorrow to the grave. It cost the
son a good estate and ten thousand merks to settle matters ultimately
with the heirs of Lord Spynie.[325]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY.]
A tragical event, which now occurred at Dornoch in Sutherland, is
related in a characteristic manner by Sir Robert Gordon.
[Sidenote: 1607.]
‘About the year 1585, there came into Sutherland one called Mr William
Pape, a reasonable good scholar, and of a quick and ready wit. This man
was first admitted to be schoolmaster in the town of Dornoch; then he
was appointed to be resident minister in that same place; and withal
he came to be chanter of Caithness. In progress of time, by his virtue
and diligence, he became wealthy, and of good account in the county
of Sutherland. His two brethren, Charles and Thomas, perceiving his
good success, came also thither out of Ross, where they were born,
thinking to settle their fortunes with their elder brother. Thomas
Pape was made chancellor of Caithness, and minister at Rogart. Charles
Pape was a public notary, and a messenger-at-arms; who, being of an
affable and merry conversation, did so behave himself that he procured
the love of his master, the Earl of Sutherland, and the good liking of
all his countrymen, so that in the end he was made sheriff-clerk of
Sutherland. These three brethren married in Sutherland, and anchored
their fortunes in that country; but as wealth and prosperity often
beget pride, so doth pride bring with it a certain contempt of others.
These brethren, dwelling for the most part in Dornoch, being both
provident and wealthy, thought by progress of time to purchase and buy
the most part of the tenements of that town, and drive the ancient and
natural inhabitants from their possessions; which the townsmen in end
perceiving, they grudged in their hearts, though they could take no
just exceptions thereat, seeing that these brethren did purchase the
same with their money; yet they concluded with themselves to utter
their hatred and revenge when occasion should serve. So at last, upon a
particular quarrel which began between one of these brethren, and one
of the inhabitants of the town, their ruin thus followed:
[Sidenote: 1607.]
‘Every man being departed from the town of Dornoch unto this convention
at Strathullie [to resist an invasion of the Earl of Caithness], except
William Moray, a bowyer, and some few others, who were also ready to
go away the next morning. Mr William and Mr Thomas Pape, with some
others of the ministry, had a meeting at Dornoch concerning some of the
church affairs. After they had dissolved their meeting, they went to
breakfast to an inn or victualling-house of the town. As they were at
breakfast, one John Macphail entered the house and asked some drink for
his money, which the mistress of the house refused to give him, thereby
to be rid of his company, because she knew him to be a brawling fellow.
John Macphail, taking this refusal in evil part, reproved the woman,
and spoke somewhat stubbornly to the ministers, who began to excuse
her; whereupon Thomas Pape did threaten him, and he again did thrust
into Thomas’s arm an arrow with a broad-forked head, which then he held
in his hand. So being parted and set asunder at that time, Mr William
and his brother Thomas came the same evening into the churchyard, with
their swords about them; which John Macphail perceiving, and taking
it as a provocation, he went with all diligence and acquainted his
nephew, Hutcheon Macphail, and his brother-in-law, William Moray the
bowyer, therewith; who being glad to find this occasion whereby to
revenge their old grudge against these brethren, they hastened forth,
and meeting with them in the churchyard, they fell a quarrelling,
and from quarrelling to fighting. Charles Pape had been all that day
abroad; and at his return, understanding in what case his brethren
were, he came in a preposterous haste to the fatal place of his end
and ruin. They fought a little while; in the end, Charles hurt William
Moray in the face, and thereupon William Moray killed him. Mr William
and Thomas were both extremely wounded by John Macphail and his nephew
Hutcheon, and were lying in that place for dead persons, without hope
of recovery; but they recovered afterwards beyond expectation. The
offenders escaped, because there was none in the town to apprehend
them (except such as favoured them), the inhabitants being all gone
to the assembly at Strathullie. John Macphail and his nephew Hutcheon
have both since ended their days in Holland. William Moray yet lives
(reserved, as I should suppose, to a greater judgment). Mr William
Pape and his brother Thomas thereupon left the county of Sutherland,
and settled themselves in Ross, where Thomas now dwelleth. Mr William
died in the town of Nigg, where he was planted minister. Thus did these
brethren begin and end in this country; which I have declared at length
to shew us thereby that man in full prosperity should never think too
much of himself, nor contemn others, upon whom it hath not pleased God
to bestow such measure of gifts and benefits.’--_G. H. S._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG. 5.]
[Sidenote: 1607.]
A parliamentary enactment had appointed the 5th of August to be kept
as a holiday, on account of the king’s escape from the Gowrie treason.
On this occasion, the day ‘was solemnly kept in Edinburgh. The king’s
scoll [health] was drunk by the duke his commissioner, and some other
noblemen, at the Cross of Edinburgh, which was covered for the greater
solemnity. Bacchus was set up, and much wine drunk, and sweetmeats cast
about; much vanity and pastime, beside ringing of bells, and setting on
of balefires. _The pest brake up soon after._‘--_Cal._
The death of the late Lord Maxwell in the battle of Dryfe’s Sands left
a feeling of deadly bitterness in his son’s mind against the name of
Johnston. A series of turbulent proceedings, marking the untamable
spirit of the young lord, ended in his being warded in the Castle of
Edinburgh, where he had for a fellow-prisoner a Hebridean magnate of
similar character and history--Sir James M‘Connel or Macdonald.
[Sidenote: DEC. 4.]
‘Seeing not how he was to be relieved, he devises with Sir James
M’Connel and Robert Maxwell of Dinwoodie, what way he and they might
escape. So, he calls ane great number of the keepers of the Castle into
his chalmer, where he drinks them all fou.’ Pretending to act a sort
of play, he asked them for their swords as part of the performance;
and having thus armed himself and his two companions, he passed out
with them, locking the door behind him. The three passed to the inner
gate, where a servant stood in the way, holding the porter in parley.
The latter, an old man, tried to make resistance. ‘False knave,’ cried
Maxwell, ‘open the yett, or I shall hew thee in blads’ [pieces]. He did
strike the man in the arm, and likewise wounded another keeper in the
hand. Then he and Sir James ‘passed to the west castle-wall that goes
to the West Port of Edinburgh,’ and climbing over it, leaped down, and
disappeared amongst the suburbs. Robert Maxwell, however, was locked in
and detained. The insular chieftain, who had irons upon him, was seized
in an attempt to conceal himself in a dunghill, while Lord Maxwell
escaped on a horse which had been kept in readiness for him. ‘The king
was very far offended, and made proclamation that nane should reset him
under the pain of death.’[326]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV.]
‘A vehement frost continued from Martinmas till the 20th of February.
The sea froze so far as it ebbed, and sundry went into ships upon ice
and played at the _chamiare_ a mile within the sea-mark. Sundry passed
over the Forth a mile above Alloa and Airth, to the great admiration of
aged men, who had never seen the like in their days.’--_Cal._
[Sidenote: 1607.]
The keenness and duration of this frost was marked by the rare
occurrence of a complete freezing of the Thames at London, where
accordingly a fair was held upon the ice. In Scotland, rivers and
springs were stopped; the young trees were killed, and birds and beasts
perished in great numbers. Men, travelling on their affairs, suffered
numbness and lassitude to a desperate degree. Their very joints were
frozen; and unless they could readily reach a shelter, their danger
was very great. In the following spring, the fruit-trees shewed less
growth than usual; and in many places the want of singing-birds was
remarked.--_Jo. Hist._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1608.]
[Sidenote: APR. 6.]
‘The Lord Maxwell, being proclaimed traitor after the breaking out of
ward in the Castle of Edinburgh, and thereupon driven to great straits,
sent to the Laird of Johnston, craved a meeting, pretending he would
now be heartily reconciled with him, and not for the fashion, as he was
before at the king’s pleasure, because he perceived he did not trouble
him now, being an outlaw, as he looked for. They meet at the place
appointed, Maxwell and one with him, Johnston and another with him;
and Sir Robert Maxwell of Spotts (near cousin to the Lord Maxwell, and
brother-in-law to the Laird of Johnston), who was employed by Maxwell
to draw on the tryst. They meet on horseback, and salute each other
heartily in outward show, and went apart to confer together. While
Johnston and Maxwell are conferring apart, Maxwell’s second began to
quarrel Johnston’s second, [and] shot a pistolet at him, whereupon he
fell. Johnston, hearing the shot, cried “Treason!” and, riding from
Maxwell to the two gentlemen, to understand what the matter meant,
Maxwell shooteth him behind the back. So Johnston fell, and died of the
shot. Soon after, proclamation was made at the Cross of Edinburgh, that
none, under pain of death, transport or carry away the Lord Maxwell
out of the country, in ship or craer, seeing the king and Council was
to take order with him, for the traitorous murdering of the Laird of
Johnston and his other offences.’--_Cal._
‘The fact was detested by all honest men, and the gentleman’s
misfortune sore lamented; for he was a man full of wisdom and
courage, and every way well inclined, and to have been by his too
much confidence in this sort treacherously cut off, was a thing most
pitiful. Maxwell, ashamed of that he had done, forsook the country, and
had his estate forfeited.’--_Spot._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1608.]
Horse-racing was early practised as a popular amusement in Scotland. In
1552, there was an arrangement for an annual horse-race at Haddington,
the prize being, as usual, a silver bell. Early in the reign of James
VI., there were races at both Peebles and Dumfries. The Peebles race
was accustomed to take place on Beltane-day, the 1st of May; it was the
chief surviving part of the festivities which had from an early period
distinguished the day and place, and which were celebrated in the old
poem of _Peebles to the Play_.
[Sidenote: APR. 28.]
The great difficulty attending such popular festivals arose from the
tendency of the people to mark them with bloodshed. Men assembled
there from different parts of the country, each having of course his
peculiar enmities, and the object of similar enmities in his turn;
and when they met and had somewhat inflamed themselves with liquor,
it was scarcely avoidable that mutual provocations should be given,
leading to conflicts with deadly weapons. So great reason was there now
for fearing a sanguinary scene at Peebles, that the Lords of Council
thought proper to issue a proclamation forbidding the race to take
place.[327]--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAY 8.]
[Sidenote: 1608.]
This day commenced an unfortunate adventure of the king for obtaining
silver in certain mines at Hilderstone in the county of Linlithgow.
Some years before, a collier, named Sandy Maund, wandering about the
burn-sides in that district, chanced to pick up a stone containing
veins of a clear metal, which proved to be silver. A gentleman of
Linlithgow, to whom he shewed it, recommended him to go to Leadhills,
and submit it to Sir Bevis Bulmer, who was engaged in gold-seeking
there. The consequence was, that a search was made at Hilderstone for
silver, and, some very hopeful masses of ore being found, a commission
was appointed by the king, with the consent of Sir Thomas Hamilton,
his majesty’s advocate, the proprietor of the ground, for making a
search for silver ore, with a view to trying it at the mint. In January
1608, thirty-eight barrels of ore, weighing in all 20,224 pounds, were
won, packed, and sent to the Tower of London. It is said that this
ore gave about twenty-four ounces of silver to every hundredweight,
while some gave double this quantity. Samuel Atkinson, who was engaged
in working the mine, tells that on some days he won as much silver
as was worth £100. The shaft, indeed, received the name of _God’s
Blessing_, as expressive of its fertile character. The whole results
appearing favourable, the king’s cupidity was excited, and he easily
fell into the proposal of his astute councillor, Hamilton, to become
the purchaser of _God’s Blessing_ for the sum of £5000, and work it
at the public expense. Bulmer, created a knight, was its governor.
There were ‘drawers up of metal, drawers up of water, and lavers up
of water to the pumps under the ground, shedders and washers, washers
with the sieve, dressers and washers with the buddle, and washers with
the canvas, quarriers, shoolmen,’ and many other workers of different
kinds. A mill for melting and fining the metal was established at
Leith.[328] Another fining-mill and a stamp-mill, with warehouses,
were built on the water running out of Linlithgow loch. Some Brunswick
miners were brought to give the benefit of their skill. All, however,
was of no avail. From the time of the transference of the mine into
royal hands, it did no more good. After a persevering effort of two
years and a half, the king gave up the adventure, with a loss of a
considerable sum of money.
The same mine was granted, in 1613, to Sir William Alexander, Thomas
Foulis, and Paulo Pinto, a Portuguese, to be wrought by them on the
condition of their paying a tenth of the refined ore to the crown. What
success attended this adventure is not known.
The scene of the mining operations is still traceable in a hollow
place to the east of Cairn-apple Hill, four miles south of Linlithgow.
A neighbouring excavation for limestone is named from it the
_Silver-mine Quarry_: such is the only local memorial of the affair now
existing.[329]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAY 31.]
[Sidenote: 1608.]
Margaret Hertsyde had entered the service of the queen in a humble
capacity in Scotland, and accompanying her majesty to England, was
there considerably advanced, and received from the queen many marks
of favour. Enriched with the royal liberality, she returned to her
native country as a great lady, attended by her husband, John Buchanan,
who had been a servant of the king. The pair attracted an invidious
attention by the high airs they gave themselves, affecting by the
purchase of land to become persons of quality, appearing in a carriage
drawn by white horses, and apparently wholly forgetful of their humble
origin. It was therefore with no great regret that the public learned
that Margaret was apprehended, on suspicion of having taken jewellery
from her royal mistress, to the value of upwards of £400 sterling. The
unfortunate woman confessed her guilt to the queen; but on her being
brought to trial at Linlithgow, some technical difficulties arose as
to how far a person could be considered guilty of theft who had only
withheld unaccounted for certain articles of which she had been in
trust. A direct conviction could not therefore be recorded. In these
circumstances, by an irregularity which marks the character of the age,
the king interfered with an order that Margaret Hertsyde be declared
infamous and banished to Orkney. She was also adjudged to pay £400
sterling to the commissioner upon her majesty’s dotarial estate of
Dunfermline. A grave historian of that day moralises upon the case as a
sad example of the mutability of fortune.
In 1619, ‘her doom having been humbly and with great patience embraced
and underlain by her, and her behaviour continually sin syne having
been very dutiful,’ Margaret so far succeeded in obtaining the king’s
grace as to have the reproach of infamy removed.--_Pit._ _Jo. Hist._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE.]
By slow and safe steps, King James was constantly working for the
subjection of Scottish ecclesiastical matters to an episcopal model. At
this time, his favourite Scottish minister, the Earl of Dunbar, came
down from London, accompanied by two eminent English divines, Dr Abbot
(subsequently Archbishop of Canterbury) and Dr Higgins, while a third,
named Maxy, came by sea.
[Sidenote: JULY 1.]
[Sidenote: 1609.]
On the approach of the earl and his clerical associates, ‘the noblemen,
barons, and councillors that were in Edinburgh went out to accompany
him into the town. So he entered in Edinburgh with a great train. The
chancellor, then provost, the bailies, and many of the citizens, met
him at the Nether Bow Port. It was spoken broadly that no small sums of
money were sent down with him to be distributed among the ministers and
sundry others. The English doctors seemed to have no other direction
but to persuade the Scots that there was no substantial difference
in religion betwixt the two realms, but only in things indifferent
concerning government and ceremonies.’--_Cal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 5.]
Dundee is described as suffering under ‘the contagious sickness of
the pest, and a great many of the houses are infectit therewith,
and greater infection like to ensue in respect of the few number of
magistrates within the same, and the little care and regard had of the
government thereof, ane of the said magistrates being departit this
life, and ane other of them visited with disease and infirmity, and not
able to undergo sae great pains and travels in his person and otherwise
as is requisite at sae necessar a time.’ For these reasons, the Privy
Council appointed three citizens to act as assistant-magistrates.--_P.
C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 13.]
We hear at this time of one of the last attempts to settle a dispute by
regular combat; and it is the more remarkable, as several persons were
concerned on each side. On the one part stood ‘the Lord Sinclair, David
Seton of Parbroth, and John Sinclair elder and John Sinclair younger,
sons to the said Lord Sinclair;’ on the other were George Martin of
Cardone and his three sons. A mutual challenge had passed between the
parties, ‘with special designation of time, place, form, and manner of
the combat,’ and the rencontre would have, to all appearance, taken
place, had not some neighbours interfered to prevent it. The parties
were summoned before the Privy Council, to answer for their conduct.
Martin and his sons were denounced as rebels for not appearing (July
21).--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1608.]
The slaughter of Captain James Stewart by Sir James Douglas of
Parkhead, in 1596, had not been allowed to pass unnoticed by the
Ochiltree family, to which the murdered man belonged. At that time,
however, a man of rank was not to be punished as a malefactor in
Scotland. His offence was expiated by an assythment, or the king
interposed to reconcile the friends of the deceased to the culprit and
his friends, as if the affair had been merely an unfortunate quarrel.
For years there stood a variance between the Ochiltree Stewarts
and the murderer of their relation, and from time to time they had
to come under heavy sureties to keep the peace towards each other,
Lord Ochiltree and Sir James Douglas (now called Lord Torthorald) in
£5000 each; and the brothers and nephews of Stewart in lesser sums.
This arrangement had been last renewed on the 30th of May, to endure
for a year. All seemed composed--a General Assembly was sitting in
Edinburgh--no one seems to have been apprehensive of any immediate
quarrel or trouble, when a terrible incident suddenly fell out.
[Sidenote: JULY 14.]
Lord Torthorald was walking one morning, between six and seven o’clock,
in the High Street, below the Cross, unaccompanied by any friend or
servant, dreading no harm, when William Stewart, nephew of the man he
had slain twelve years before, observing him, was unable to restrain
the rancorous feeling of the moment, and pulling out a short sword he
carried, stabbed him in the back, so that he fell to the ground and
instantly died.
William Stewart escaped, and we hear no more of him. The Privy Council,
horror-struck at the outrage, had two meetings on the same day to
consider what should be done. At the first, before noon, they ordered
that the Earl of Morton, James commendator of Melrose, Sir George and
Sir Archibald Douglas, his uncles, ---- Douglas now of Torthorald,
William Douglas, apparent of Drumlanrig, Archibald Douglas of Tofts,
and Sir James Dundas of Arniston--all friends of the deceased, and
presumably eager to revenge his slaughter--should be confined to their
lodgings. Lord Ochiltree, on whom the Douglases might be apt to vent
their fury, was likewise commanded to keep within doors. At the second
meeting, after noon, they gave an order for the apprehension of the
culprit.
There is a remarkable connection of murders recalled by this shocking
transaction. Not only do we ascend to Torthorald’s slaughter of Stewart
in 1596, and Stewart’s deadly prosecution of Morton to the scaffold in
1581; but William Stewart was the son of the Sir William Stewart who
was slain by the Earl of Bothwell in Blackfriars’ Wynd in 1588. This,
however, is the last open murder of one gentleman by another which we
have to record as taking place on a street in Edinburgh.
Lord Torthorald lies buried under a carved slab in Holyrood Chapel,
where the guide reads his name daily to hundreds of visitors, few of
whom know what a series of tragic circumstances in old Scottish history
lies concentered in the body of him who sleeps below.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1608.]
[Sidenote: JULY.]
The progress of persecution against the Catholics may be traced all
through this period by the equal progress of the king’s measures for
introducing the episcopal system into the church. A General Assembly,
which met at Linlithgow in December 1606, was brought by court
influence to give a consent to the principle of permanent moderators
for presbyteries--a necessary step to the assumption of entire power
over dioceses by the bishops. They sent the act to court, with a
petition for fresh securities against the Catholic nobles of the north,
and their ladies. James affected to listen to their desires, and
promised well, but does not seem to have taken any decisive steps till
he found that the act for constant moderators, as interpreted by him,
met considerable resistance. He then called another General Assembly,
mainly for the purpose of taking ‘strait order’ with the adherents of
the proscribed faith.
This reverend body professed to consider the country as in unexampled
danger from popery. It is found complaining that Jesuit and seminary
priests were allowed to traffic within the land, that papistical books
were brought from abroad, and that persons in authority often shewed
favour to traffickers and excommunicated papists, ‘such as the abbot of
New Abbey and other mass priests, demitted, as is thought, out of ward,
not without reward [bribery], and without all warrant of his majesty,
and presently tolerated in this country without pursuit.’ Amongst some
objects petitioned for from the king, were--that papists of rank be
imprisoned, and only Protestants have access to them; that orders be
given for down-casting of the Laird of Gight’s chapel, and the house
of John Cheyne in Kissilmonth, who receipted all Jesuits and seminary
priests; and that order be taken with the pilgrimages--namely, to the
Chapel called Ordiquhill, and the Chapel of Grace, and to a well in the
bounds of Enzie upon the south side of Spey.
[Sidenote: 1608.]
The most important of their actual measures bore reference to the
Marquis of Huntly, and the Earls of Angus and Errol, who were
considered as the prime supports of popery in the northern section
of the kingdom. Huntly we have seen (June 1597) received formally
and publicly into the Presbyterian Church, with all appearances
of sincerity on his part, while the truth was that he only gave a
lip-obedience in order to save his estates and place in the country,
of which otherwise he would have been deprived. The hollowness of
his professions was soon after sufficiently apparent, for he built a
popish chapel in his house, and he continued, as before, to ‘reset’
priests. The Presbyterian tutors imposed on his family may be presumed
to have made little progress in their work, as his children all grew up
Catholics. Processes had been raised against him in the church-courts
for ‘relapse in popery;’ and though the king had tried to screen
him from the vengeance he had incurred, it was ineffectual. It was
now necessary for James, if he would make way with his episcopal
innovations, that he should give proof of sincerity in Protestantism,
by leaving his old friend and councillor to the mercy of the General
Assembly.
Accordingly, the business being ripe for instantly proceeding, the
moderator--being the same Bishop Law who had promised such a sore
‘handling’ of the Catholics to James Melville and his friends in
London (see under November 7, 1606)--pronounced the sentence of
excommunication ‘after a very solemn manner;’ while the Earl of Dunbar,
the king’s commissioner, promised that, ‘forty days being expired from
the pronouncing of the sentence, the civil sword should strike without
mercy or favour to him or his; and although some of his friends should
come and buy his escheat, it should be refused.’--_Cal._ Arrangements
were made for taking the same measures with Errol and Angus, Dunbar
promising the like severity with them.
While the Assembly continued sitting, a gentleman came on behalf of
the Marquis of Huntly, pleading for a little extension of time ‘till
he had perfyter resolution,’ shewing that he was not _opiniâtre_, as
had appeared from his ‘yielding to have conference,’ and from his
‘going to the kirk;’ he entreated to be heard for himself before final
condemnation. But the petition was set aside as frivolous, and because
he had failed to fulfil his promise given by solemn bond a month ago to
communicate before a certain day.--_Cal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG. 29.]
The plague broke out in Perth, and continued till the ensuing May,
‘wherein deit young and auld five hundred persons.’--_Chron. Perth._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP. 1.]
[Sidenote: 1608.]
It was reported to the Privy Council that a quarrel had arisen between
John Napier of Merchiston, and the sons and daughters of the late
Sir Archibald Napier of Edinbellie, regarding the right to the teind
sheaves of the lands of Merchiston for the crop of the present year.
‘Baith the said parties,’ says the record, ‘_intends to convocate their
kin, and sic as will do for them in arms_, for leading [home-bringing],
and withstanding of leading, of the said teinds; whereupon further
inconvenients are like to fall out.’ To prevent breach of the peace,
William Napier of Wrightshouses, a neutral person, was ordered
to collect the teind sheaves of Merchiston, and account to the
Council.--_P. C. R._ ‘Whilk order,’ says John Napier, ‘is guid eneuch
for me, and little to their contentment;’ that is, to the contentment
of his Edinbellie relatives.[330]
This, it must be owned, is a new light in which to view the inventor of
the logarithms. It is, however, worthy of observation, that a dispute
between other parties on the same grounds is described in precisely
similar terms, and the same arrangement made to preserve the peace.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP.]
‘In the beginning of September, the Duke of Wirtemberg, a prince in
Germany, a young man of comely behaviour, accompanied with twenty-four
in train, came to see the country. He was convoyed from place to place
by noblemen, by the king’s direction, and weel enterteened. His train
were all clothed in black.’--_Cal._
The duke was a great friend and ally of the king, who, soon after his
accession, sent Lord Spencer with a splendid ambassage to Stuttgart, to
invest his serene highness with the Order of the Garter.
* * * * *
The records of Privy Council are still full of instances of assaults
made by men of rank and others with deadly weapons upon persons
against whom they bore hatred. It would be wearisome to enumerate even
those which occur throughout a single year. It is to be remembered
there were famous acts of parliament against going armed defensively
or offensively; yet in every case we find the guilty parties set
about their vengeful proceedings in steel bonnets, gauntlets, and
plait-sleeves, and with swords and pistolets.
[Sidenote: 1608.]
As an example--one Gavin Thomson, burgess of Peebles, was held at
hatred by Charles Pringle, another burgess; we do not learn for what
cause. One day in September 1608, as Gavin was walking in sober and
quiet manner along the High Street of the burgh, Charles Pringle,
accompanied by nine or ten persons, all armed with lances and
whingers, set upon and ‘cruelly hurt and wounded the said Gavin upon
the left hand, drave him perforce back, and housit him within the
dwelling-place and lock-fast yetts of Isobel Anderson; and were it not
by the providence of God, that the Person and Minister of Peebles,
accompanied with some others weel-affected persons to the peace of the
said town, and knawing the said Gavin his innocency, come forth to
the redding,[331] they had not failit, as they had begun, with great
jeists, trees, and fore-hammers, to have surprised and strucken up the
yetts and doors of the said dwelling-house, and within the same to have
unmercifully slain and murdered the said Gavin.’
For several subsequent months, Pringle and his associates had lain in
wait at divers times to kill Gavin, so that he had been prevented from
attending kirk or market, or going about the business of his farm.
At length, on the 2d of December, as he was walking peaceably on the
street, they attacked him again, armed as before. ‘Being informit that
he had come furth of his house, they first bostit and menaced him
aff the hie street, and he retiring himself hame again in quietness,
they all followit and pursewit him with drawn swords,’ when one of
the party, Alexander Dalmahoy, ‘by his sword, with ane great stane of
aucht pund wecht in his hand, hurt the said Gavin his thie-bone.’ The
assailants ‘hurt and woundit William Murray of Romanno and divers other
gentlemen redders, and in end fiercely pursewit Gavin and housit him
within the dwelling-house of the close yetts of William Elliot, and
cryit for jeists and fore-hammers, and had not failit to have strucken
up the doors and yetts thereof, and to have slain the said Gavin within
the same, were not timous relief come at hand.’ The active parties in
this wickedness were denounced rebels by the Council.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT.]
William Turnbull of Airdrie lived in Edinburgh, having in his family
a daughter, Elizabeth, eleven years of age. He admitted to his
house, and often civilly entertained Robert Napier son of William of
Wrightshouses--a gentleman who has just been under our notice. On the
4th of October, Turnbull complained to the Privy Council that, on the
29th of September, Robert Napier had by craft and violence taken away
his daughter, under cloud of night, and now keeps her in some obscure
place, refusing to render and deliver her up to her father. The Council
caused Robert Napier to be denounced as a rebel for this fact.
[Sidenote: 1608.]
The abduction of women, of which some examples were formerly given,
was still an offence of frequent occurrence. On the subsequent 8th
of December, there is a complaint before the Council from Margaret
Stewart, widow, that as she was walking home from her booth to her
dwelling-house in Edinburgh, between seven and eight o’clock in the
evening of the 5th of the same month, accompanied by her orphan
grandchild, Katherine Weir, fourteen years of age, a young citizen,
named William Geddes, had beset her with six men armed like himself
with swords, gauntlets, steel bonnets, and plait-sleeves, and violently
took the child from her, ‘without pity of her manifold exclamations and
crying.’ Geddes was likewise denounced rebel.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV. 8.]
‘There was an earthquake at nine hours at night, sensible enough at
St Andrews, Cupar, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee, but more sensible at
Dumbarton; for there the people were so affrayed, that they ran to the
kirk, together with their minister, to cry to God, for they looked
presently for destruction. It was thought the extraordinar drouth in
the summer and winter before was the cause of it.’--_Cal._
At Perth, this earthquake shook the east end of the Tolbooth, insomuch
that ‘many stones fell aff it.’--_Chron. Perth._
At Aberdeen, where the shock excited great alarm, the kirk-session met,
and accepting the earthquake as ‘a document that God is angry against
the land, and against this city in particular, for the manifold sins of
the people,’ appointed a solemn fast to be held on the ensuing day, and
‘the covenant to be renewed by the haill people with God, by halding
up of their hands publicly before God in his sanctuary, and promising
by his grace to forbear in time coming from their sins.’ There was
one particular sin which was thought to have had a great concern in
bringing about the earthquake--namely, the salmon-fishing practised on
the Dee on Sunday. Accordingly, the proprietors of the salmon-fishings
were called before the session, and rebuked. ‘Some,’ says the session
record, ‘promist absolutely to forbear, both by himselfs and their
servands in time coming; other promised to forbear, upon the condition
subscryvant; and some plainly refusit anyway to forbear.’[332]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 1.]
[Sidenote: 1608.]
‘The Earl of Mar declared to the [Privy] Council that some women were
ta’en in Broughton, as witches, and being put to ane assize, and
convict, albeit they persevered constant in their denial to the end,
yet they were burnt quick [alive], after sic ane cruel manner, that
some of them deit in despair, renuncand and blasphemand, and others,
half burnt, brak out of the fire, and was cast in quick in it again,
while [till] they were burnt to the deid.’[333]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1609.
JAN. 5.]
‘... the wind did blow so boisterously, that the like was not heard in
the memory of man. Houses in burgh and land were thrown down with the
violence of it; trees rooted up, corn-stacks and hay-stacks blown away.
Some men passing over bridges were driven over violently and killed.
The wind continued vehement many days and weeks, even till mid-March,
howbeit not in the same measure that it blowed this day.’--_Cal._
* * * * *
The book entitled _Regiam Majestatem_, containing the ancient laws of
Scotland, seems to have been printed by a contribution from the burghs.
In April this year, we find the magistrates of Glasgow charged to make
payment of £100 on this account. In September, the learned author, Sir
John Skene, had some difficulty with his printer, Thomas Finlayson, of
importance enough to come under the attention of the Privy Council.
It was alleged that Thomas, after _perfyting_ the Scottish volume,
‘upon some frivole consait and apprehension of his own, without ony
warrant of law or pretence of reason,’ maliciously refused to deliver
the volume to Sir John, ‘but shifts and delays him fra time to time
with foolish and impertinent excuses, to Sir John’s heavy hurt and
prejudice.’ The Lords of Council ordered Thomas to deliver the book to
its author within eight days, on pain of being denounced rebel; and
‘whereas there is some little difference and question betwixt the said
parties _anent their comptis_,’ a committee was appointed ‘to sort the
same, and put them to ane rest.’--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAY.]
[Sidenote: 1609.]
The severities called for by the General Assembly against the papist
nobles and others, had been, to appearance, backed up by the royal
power. The Marquis of Huntly was actually in prison at Stirling as an
excommunicated rebel. The king probably felt this a high price for the
soothing of Presbyterian scruples regarding episcopacy; but it had
so far been paid. He contemplated having the observance of Christmas
brought in at the end of the year; and it was therefore advisable to
shew a little further earnestness in the right direction.
By the activity of Spottiswoode, archbishop of Glasgow, John Hamilton,
a zealous trafficking priest, was apprehended--an act the more
important that this culprit was uncle to the king’s advocate. Another
priest, named Paterson, was taken with all his vestments, while
celebrating mass in a house in the Canongate in Edinburgh before an
audience of thirty persons. These must, of course, have been gratifying
proofs of the royal zeal, albeit Calderwood cannot repress a bitter
remark as to the ‘tolerable entertainment’ allowed to the prisoners
(the allowance made in another case for an incarcerated priest, and
probably in these also, was a merk--1s. 1-1/3d. sterling--_per diem_),
while ministers incarcerated for opposition to the king’s episcopal
innovations ‘were left to their shifts.’
About the same time, the archbishop went with a party to the town of
New Abbey, in the stewartry of Kirkcudbright, and there broke into the
house of Mr Gilbert Brown, former abbot of New Abbey, ‘and having found
a great number of popish books, copes, chalices, pictures, images, and
such other popish trash, he most worthily and dutifully as became both
a prelate and a councillor, on a mercat-day, at a great confluence of
people in the hie street of the burgh of Dumfries, did burn all those
copes, vestments, and chalices,’ delivering up the books to Maxwell of
Kirkconnel, to be afterwards dealt with. The Privy Council (June 13,
1609) allowed this to be good service on the part of the archbishop,
and granted him a gift of the books left unburnt.--_P. C. R._
In the parliament held a few days after the last date, several acts
were passed against popery--one ordaining that pedagogues sent abroad
with the sons of noblemen and others, should be duly licensed by a
bishop; another that the young persons so sent abroad should remain at
places where ‘the religion’ is professed, and ‘where there is no cruel
inquisition;’ a third for confiscating the property of papists to the
king’s use; a fourth was meant to deprive Catholics of all benefit from
the legal system of the country. The more severe class of Presbyterians
looked on, with no inclination to object to these measures, but only
with a disbelief in the sincerity of the government which had brought
them forward. They had begun to see that it was ‘to grace the bishops,
and procure them greater credit and authority in the country,’ that
popery was thus dealt with.--_Cal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY.]
[Sidenote: 1609.]
We have seen that, so lately as September 1606, the Borders were
reduced to obedience by a moral medicine of considerable sharpness,
administered by the Earl of Dunbar; that is to say, one hundred and
forty thieves had been hanged. We now find that the effect was only
temporary, for it had become necessary for the earl to go once more
to Dumfries to hold a justice-court. On this occasion, he was equally
severe with such offenders as were in custody, causing many to be
hanged.--_Cal._ The Chancellor Dunfermline wrote to the king that Lord
Dunbar ‘has had special care to repress, baith in the in-country and on
the Borders, the insolence of all the proud bangsters, oppressors, and
nembroths [Nimrods], but [without] regard or respect to ony of them;
has purgit the Borders of all the chiefest malefactors, robbers, and
brigands as were wont to reign and triumph there, as clean, and by as
great wisdom and policy, as Hercules sometime is written to have purged
Augeas, the king of Elide, his escuries; and by the cutting aff ...
the Laird of Tynwald, Maxwell, sundry Douglases, Johnstons, Jardines,
Armstrangs, Beatisons, and sic others, _magni nominis luces_, in that
broken parts, has rendered all those ways and passages betwixt your
majesty’s kingdoms of Scotland and England, as free and peaceable, as
Phœbus in auld times made free and open the ways to his awn oracle in
Delphos, and to his Pythic plays and ceremonies, by the destruction
of Phorbas and his Phlegians, all thieves, voleurs, bandsters, and
throat-cutters. These parts are now, I can assure your majesty, as
lawful, as peaceable, and as quiet, as any part in any civil kingdom of
Christianity.’[334]
[Sidenote: 1609.]
This was too happy a consummation to be quite realised. We find,
not long after, a representation going up to the king from the
well-disposed people of the Borders, shewing that matters were become
as bad as ever. It is a curious document, full of Latin quotations. The
thieves, it says, are like the beasts of the field, according to the
words of Cicero in his oration for Cluentius; _quæ, fame dominante, ad
eum locum ubi aliquando pastæ sunt, revertuntur_. Lord Dunbar being
now gone with his justice-courts, they are returned to their old evil
courses, and there is nothing which they will not attempt. ‘Wild
incests, adulteries, convocations of lieges, shooting and wearing of
hagbuts, pistolets, and lances, daily bloodsheds, oppression, and
disobedience in civil matters, neither are nor has been punished
... there is no more account made of going to the horn, than to the
ale-house.’ Lord Scone and his guard are of no use, for they favour
their friends. ‘If diligent search were made ... there would be found
ane grit number of idle people, without any calling, industry, or
lawful means to live by, except it be upon the blood of the poorest
and most obedient sort.’
* * * * *
The final attempt to plant the Lewis took place this year, under the
care of only two adventurers, Sir George Hay (subsequently chancellor
of Scotland) and Sir James Spens of Wormiston. The Lord of Kintail had
in the interval made an unsuccessful attempt to obtain a grant of the
island.
The two undertakers went to the island with a force which they
considered sufficient to meet the opposition of the pertinacious Niel
Macleod. ‘The Lord of Kintail did privately and underhand assist Niel
Macleod, and sent his brother, Rorie Mackenzie, openly with some men
to aid the undertakers by virtue of the king’s commission. He promised
great friendship to the adventurers, and sent unto them a supply of
victuals in a ship from Ross. In the meantime he sendeth quietly to
Niel Macleod, desiring him to take the ship by the way, that the
adventurers, trusting to these victuals, and being disappointed,
might thereby be constrained to abandon the island, which fell out
accordingly; for Sir George Hay and Sir James Spens failing to
apprehend Niel, and lacking victuals for their army, they wearied of
the bargain, and dismissed all the neighbouring forces. Sir George
Hay and Wormiston retired into Fife, leaving some of their men in the
island to keep the fort, until they should send unto them supply of men
and victuals. Whereupon Niel Macleod, assisted by his nephew ... and
some other of the Lewis men, invaded the undertakers’ camp, burnt the
fort, apprehended the men which were left behind them in the island,
and sent them home safely into Fife, since which time they never
returned again into the island.’--_G. H. S._
[Sidenote: 1609.]
The Lord of Kintail afterwards obtained possession of the isle of
Lewis, and Niel, thoroughly circumvented by the Clan Kenzie, was driven
for refuge with a small company to a fortified rock called Berissay.
‘The Clan Kenzie then gathered together the wives and children of
those that were in Berissay, and such as, by way of affinity or
consanguinity, within the island, did appertein to Niel and his
followers, and placed them all upon a rock within the sea, where they
might be heard and seen from Berissay. They vowed and protested that
they would suffer the sea to overwhelm them the next flood, if Niel
did not presently surrender the fort; which pitiful spectacle did so
move Niel Macleod and his company to compassion, that immediately they
yielded the rock and left the Lewis; whereupon the women and children
were rescued and rendered.’--_G. H. S._
This unfortunate insular chief, falling into the hands of his enemies,
was taken to Edinburgh, and there executed in April 1613.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG.]
There was a Presbyterian prejudice against burying in churches, and the
_blame of kirk-burial_ had not only been a subject for the pamphleteer,
but the legislature. Nevertheless, John Schaw of Sornbeg in Ayrshire,
on the death of his wife, resolved to inhume her corpse in his parish
kirk of Galston, in spite of all the minister and session could say or
do to the contrary. Accompanied by his brother and his ‘bailie,’ and
attended by a numerous party, ‘all bodin in feir of weir,’ he came to
the church, broke up the door with fore-hammers, and dug a grave, in
which he deposited his spouse. He was afterwards glad to make public
repentance for this fact, and pay twenty pounds to the box-master of
the kirk, besides which the Privy Council ordained him to appear again
as a penitent, and solemnly promise never again to attempt to bury any
corpse within the church.’--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG. 10.]
Notwithstanding Lord Ochiltree’s protestations of innocence regarding
the assassination of Lord Torthorald, the relatives of the latter
continued to bear a deadly grudge at him, and seemed likely to wreak it
out in some wild manner. This came to the knowledge of the king, who
felt himself called upon to interfere. The Privy Council, in obedience
to the royal letters, had the parties summoned before them. William
Lord Douglas and James Lord Torthorald appeared before them that day,
and undertook, before the 20th of September, that ‘they sall owther
pursue the said Lord Ochiltree criminally before his majesty’s justice
in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, for airt, part, rede, and counsel, of the
slaughter of umwhile Lord Torthorald, or then that they sould reconceil
themselves with the said Lord Ochiltree, and be agreit with him.’--_P.
C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1609.]
[Sidenote: OCT. 26.]
Under favour of the king, a number of strangers had been introduced
into the country to practise the making of cloths of various kinds. A
colony of them was settled in the Canongate, Edinburgh, headed by one
John Sutherland and a Fleming named Joan Van Headen, and ‘are daily
exercised in their art of making, dressing, and litting of stuffis,
and gives great licht and knowledge of their calling to the country
people.’ These industrious and inoffensive men, notwithstanding the
letters of the king, investing them with various privileges, were now
much molested by the magistrates of the Canongate, with a view to
forcing them to become burgesses and freemen there in the regular way.
On an appeal to the Privy Council, their exemption was affirmed.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV. 7.]
From London, where the pest had long been, a ship had lately come
to Leith, and was now lying at the west side of the bulwark there,
prepared to discharge her cargo. The case looked the more alarming, as
several of the mariners had died of plague during the voyage. The Lords
of Council immediately issued orders that the vessel should be taken to
Inchkeith, where her cargo should be taken out and handled, cleansed,
and dressed, the inhabitants affording all facilities for that purpose,
‘with such houses and other necessaries as are in the said inch.’--_P.
C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV. 9.]
The time was approaching when, in accordance with a recent act, the
Egyptians were to depart from Scotland, under pain of being liable
thereafter to be killed by any one without challenge of law. In
anticipation of this dread time, one of the nation, named Moses Faw,
appeared before the authorities of the kingdom, and pleaded for
permission to remain under protection of the laws, on the ground that
he had wholly withdrawn himself and his family from that infamous
society, and was willing to give surety for his future good behaviour.
The desired permission was extended to him on that condition.--_P. C.
R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 25.]
Having of late shewn some zeal against popery, King James thought he
might now effect one little change essential to episcopacy, without
more than enough of outcry from the earnest Presbyterians. By his
order, sent by Chancellor Seton, it was arranged that Christmas-day
should henceforth be solemnly held in Scotland. The Court of Session
accordingly rose for that day, and till the 8th of January ensuing.
‘This,’ says Calderwood, ‘was the first Christmass vacance of the
session keepit since the Reformation. The ministers threatened that the
men who devised that novelty for their own advancement, might receive
at God’s hand their reward to their overthrow, for troubling the people
of God with beggarly ceremonies long since abolished with popery.
Christmass was not so weel keepit by feasting and abstinence from work
in Edinburgh these thretty years before, _an evil example to the rest
of the country_.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1610.
JAN.]
‘About the end of Januar, the Scotch Secretar, Sir Alexander Hay, came
from court with sundry directions, and among the rest, for the habit
of the senators of the College of Justice [which the Chancellor had
told the king was now, since the departure of the court to England,
‘the _special spunk of light and fondament of your majesty’s estate,
and only ornament of this land_‘],[335] advocates, clerks, and scribes;
which was proclaimed in the beginning of Februar--viz., that the
senators should wear a purple robe or gown in judgment and in the
streets, when they were to meet or were dissolved; that advocates,
clerks, and scribes should wear black gowns in the judgment-hall and in
the streets ... the provost and bailies of burghs and their councillors
should wear black when they sat in council and judgment; that ministers
should wear black clothes, and in the pulpit black gowns; that bishops
and doctors of divinity should wear black cassikins syde to [long
enough to reach] their knee, black gowns above, and a black crape about
their neck.... On the 15th of Februar, the Lords of the Session and
the bishops put on their gowns and came down from the chancellor’s
lodging, with their robes, to the Tolbooth [the court-house--a section
of St Giles’s Church]. All the robes, except the chancellor’s, were of
London cloth, purple coloured, with the fashion of an heckled cloak
from the shoulders to the middle, with a long syde hood on the back,
the gown and hood lined with red sattin. The people flocked together to
behold them. The bishops were ordeened to have their gowns with lumbard
sleeves, according to the form of England, with tippets and crapes
about their craigs [necks]; which was performed.’--_Cal._
On the 20th of June, the lord provost of Edinburgh exhibited in his
council ‘twa gowns, the ane red, the other black claith linit in the
breists with sable furring, sent to his lordship by the king’s majesty
for to be worn by him, and to be patterns of the gowns to be worn
by the provost and bailies, and sic of the council and town as are
appointed thereto by his majesty.’[336]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: FEB. 27.]
[Sidenote: 1610.]
Alexander Kirkpatrick, younger of Closeburn, being in the Tolbooth of
Edinburgh for the slaughter of James Carmichael, son to John Carmichael
of Spothe, the Lady Amisfield, wife of a neighbour, came to the prison,
and entered into conference with the keeper in his private apartments.
At her persuasion, the man allowed ‘Young Closeburn’ to come to speak
with her; and she then executed her design of exchanging clothes with
him, and so allowing him to escape. The lady was warded in the Castle;
but what ultimately became of her does not appear.--_Pit._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE.]
A General Assembly was held at Glasgow, so constituted and managed by
royal authority that the king at length accomplished one grand portion
of his ecclesiastical scheme for Scotland, in being acknowledged as
the head of the kirk. Three English divines, chaplains to the king, Dr
Christopher Hampton, Dr Phineas Hodson, and Dr George Meriton, were
present to use their influence in reconciling the country to ‘a more
comely and peaceable government in our kirk than was presently.’ But
for the absence of the six banished ministers, and the confinement of
zealous, fiery, fearless Andrew Melville in the Tower, it might not
have been possible to carry this measure. The Presbyterian historians
also insinuate that bribes were used with the members, whence they take
leave to call it _the Golden Assembly_.
‘Immediately after this, the Bishops of Glasgow and Brechin took
journey to court, to report what was done, and got great thanks frae
the king. Galloway followed, who all three abode there till the month
of November, at what time ... by a special commission from the king
to the Bishop of London to that effect, the Archbishop of Glasgow and
the other two were solemnly ordained, inaugurat, and consecrated,
with anointing of oil and other ceremonies, according to the English
fashion.’ [The ceremony, which took place in the chapel at London
House, was celebrated by a banquet, at which ‘gifts were bestowed, and
gloves were distributed, in token of the solemnisation of the marriage
between the bishops and their kirks.’--_Cal._] The three new prelates,
‘thereafter [January 23, 1611] returning to Scotland, did to the
Archbishop of St Andrews, in St Andrews, as they were done withal at
Lambeth, as near as they could possibly imitate; and thereafter the two
archbishops consecrated the rest, and the new entrant bishops as they
were nominat by the king ... first quietly, as being ashamed of the
foolish guises in it, but afterward more and more solemnly, as their
estate grew.’--_Row._ ‘All of them [the whole thirteen] deserted their
flocks, and usurped thereafter jurisdiction over the ministers and
people of their dioceses.’--_Cal._
[Sidenote: 1610.]
At the same time the king established in Scotland a court of High
Commission, by which the new hierarchy acquired great power over the
people.
‘The king was so earnest upon the creating of bishops, that he cared
not what it cost him.... In buying in their benefices out of the
hands of the noblemen that had them, in buying votes at Assemblies,
in defraying of all their other charges, and promoving of all their
adoes and business, as coming to, and going from, and living at court
prelate-like; that is, sumptuously and gorgeously in apparel, house,
diet, attendants, etc., [he] did employ (by the confession of such
as were best acquainted with, and were actors in, these businesses)
above the sum of £300,000 sterling money, one huge thing indeed; but
sin lying heavy on the throne, crying aloud for wrath on him and his
posterity, is infinitely sadder nor £300,000 sterling!‘--_Row._
The Marquis of Huntly, and other papists of rank, had meanwhile been
suffering considerably in order to dispose the Presbyterian opposition
to yield to the king’s wishes. But now there was no longer any
immediate occasion for severity. The marquis, professing to be once
more thoroughly Protestant, was relieved from excommunication, and
allowed to return to his palace in the north. With Errol there was
greater difficulty. The king, through the Earl of Dunbar, had promised
that he should lose his lands. He had, what Huntly happily wanted, a
painfully tender conscience. One day, he was brought to promise that
he would subscribe; but that very night he fell into such a trouble
of mind as to have been on the point of killing himself. ‘Early next
morning, the Archbishop of Glasgow being called, he confessed his
dissimulation with many tears, and, beseeching them that were present
to bear witness of his remorse, was hardly brought to any settling all
that day.’ By some treacherous excuse, lenity was extended to Errol
also. Such was the way in which the king performed his engagements on
this solemn subject. ‘The turn being done,’ says Calderwood, ‘promises
were not keepit.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 3.]
An act was passed by the Privy Council in favour of Anthony Aurego,
Anthony Soubouga, and Fabiano Fantone, allowing them to live in the
country, and practise their ‘trade and industry of making hecks and
other machines for taking of rottons and mice.’--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 27.]
[Sidenote: 1610.]
Piracy was at this time a flourishing trade, and the Scottish and
Irish seas were a favourite walk of its practitioners. Vessels of
various countries besides Scotland, were pursued by these marauders
and mercilessly plundered, their crews seized, tortured, and sometimes
slaughtered, or else set ashore on desolate coasts, that they might
not be readily able to take measures of redress. The Long Island,
on the west coast of Ireland, appears to have served as a regular
station for pirate ships; they also haunted much the Western Isles
of Scotland. In 1609, a piratical crew, headed by two captains named
Perkins and Randell, started from the Long Island in a vessel of 200
tons, named the _Iron Prize_, attended by a nimble pinnace of about
half that burden; and for some months they roamed about the northern
seas, picking up whatever small-craft came in their way. They even had
the audacity to shew themselves at the mouth of the Firth of Forth.
The attention of the Privy Council being called to their proceedings,
three vessels were fitted out in a warlike manner at Leith, and sent in
quest of the pirates. Perkins and Randell had meanwhile come to Orkney
to refit. They ‘landed at the castle, and came to the town thereof,’
where they ‘behaved themselves maist barbarously, being ever drunk, and
fechting amang themselves, and giving over themselves to all manner
of vice and villany.’ Three of them attacked a small vessel belonging
to the Earl of Orkney, lying on the shore, and were taken prisoners
in the attempt by the earl’s brother, James Stewart. A day or two
after this event, the three government ships made their appearance,
and immediately a great part of the piratical company made off in the
pinnace. A pursuit proving vain, the government ships returned and
attacked the _Iron Prize_; and after a desperate conflict, in which
they had two men killed and sundry wounded, they succeeded in capturing
the whole remaining crew, amounting to nearly thirty men, who, with
those previously taken, were brought to Leith and tried (July 26).
Being found guilty, twenty-seven of these wretched men, including the
two captains, were hung upon a gibbet next day at the pier of Leith.
Three were reserved in the hope of their giving useful information.
[Sidenote: 1610.
AUG. 12.]
The Chancellor Dunfermline, who took the lead in this severe
administration of the law, tells the king in a letter written on the
day of the execution: ‘This company of pirates did enterteen one whom
they did call their Person [parson] for saying of prayers to them
twice a day, who belike either wearied of his cure, or foreseeing the
destruction of his flock, had forsaken them in Orkney, and, privily
convoying himself over land, was at length deprehendit in the burgh of
Dundee.’ As he confessed and gave evidence against the rest, besides
bringing some of them to confession, he was reserved for the king’s
pleasure, and probably let off.--_Pit._ _C. K. Sc._
There was at this time ‘a great visitation of the young children [of
Aberdeen] with the plague of the pocks.’ There were also ‘continual
weets,’ which threatened to destroy the crops and cause a famine. The
cause being ‘the sins of the land,’ a public fast and humiliation
was ordered in Aberdeen, ‘that God may be met with tears and
repentance.’--_A. K. S. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT. 21.]
‘The Archbishop of St Andrews [Gladstanes], reposing in his bed in time
of the afternoon sermon, the Sabbath after his diocesan synod in St
Andrews, was wakened, and all the kirk and town with him, with a cry of
blood and murder. For his sister son [Walter Anderson], master of his
household, with a throw of his dagger, killed his cook [Robert Green],
while as he was busy in dressing the lord-bishop’s supper. The dagger
light[ed] just under the left pap of the cook, who fell down dead
immediately.’--_Cal._
The young man was committed to prison; but, ‘the poor man’s friends
being satisfied with a piece of money, none being to pursue the murder,
he was by moyen [influence] cleansed by a white assize (as they call
it) and let go free.’--_Row._ This trial took place before the regality
court of St Andrews. On the ensuing 17th January, letters were raised
by the king’s advocate against the assize, but with what result does
not appear.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV. 1.]
‘... before the going to of the sun, there were seen by twelve or
thretteen husbandmen, great companies of men in three battles, joining
together and fighting the space of an hour, on certain lands perteening
to my Lord Livingston and the Laird of Carse. The honest men were
examined in the presence of divers noblemen, barons, and gentlemen, and
affirmed constantly that they saw such appearance.’--_Cal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 23.]
[Sidenote: 1610.
DEC. 24.]
We have now the first hint at public conveyances in Scotland in a
letter of the king, encouraging Henry Anderson of Trailsund to bring a
number of coaches and wagons with horses into Scotland, and licensing
him and his heirs for fifteen years ‘to have and use coaches and
wagons, ane or mae, as he shall think expedient, for transporting of
his hieness lieges betwixt the burgh of Edinburgh and town of Leith ...
providing that he be ready at all times for serving of his majesty’s
lieges, and that he tak not aboon the sum of twa shillings Scots money
for transporting of every person betwixt the said twa towns at ony
time.’
A patent was granted for the establishment of a glass-manufacture in
Scotland. The business was commenced at Wemyss, in Fife, and, about
ten years after, we find it, to all appearance, going on prosperously.
‘Braid glass’--that is, glass for windows--was made, measuring three
quarters of a Scots ell and a nail in length, while the breadth at
the head was an ell wanting half a nail, and at the bottom half an
ell wanting half a nail. It was declared to be equal in quality to
Danskine glass. The glasses for drinking and other uses not being of
such excellence, it was arranged that some specimens of English glass
should be bought in London and established in Edinburgh Castle, to
serve as patterns for the Scotch glass in point of quality. For the
encouragement of the native manufacture, and to keep money within
the country, the importation of foreign glass was (March 6, 1621)
prohibited.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1611.
MAR.]
The Veitches and Tweedies of the upper part of Peeblesshire had long
been at issue,[337] and peace was only kept between them by means of
mutual assurances given to the Privy Council. The king heard of the
case, and was the more concerned about it, because he believed he had,
by his personal exertions, so entirely suppressed what he called _the
auld and detestable monster of deidly feid_ in Scotland, that ‘we do
hardly think there be any one feid except this in all that kingdom
unreconciled.’ As to these belligerent men of the Tweed, ‘the wrongs
and mischiefs done by either of, as we understand, to others’ [each
other], is ‘in such a proportion of compensation, as neither party can
either boast of advantage, or otherwise think himself too much behind.’
He now ordered his Scottish Council, ‘that you call before you the
principals of either surname, and then take such course for removing of
the feid, and reconceiling, as you have been accustomed to do in the
like cases’--that is, force them into bonds of amity, if they would not
go of their own accord.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAY 10.]
[Sidenote: 1611.]
It was found necessary to put some restraint upon the number of poor
Scotch people who repaired to the English court in hope of bettering
their circumstances. The evil is spoken of as a ‘frequent and daily
resort of great numbers of idle persons, men and women, of base sort
and condition, and without ony certain trade, calling, or dependence,
going from hence to court, by sea and land.’ It was said to be ‘very
unpleasant and offensive to the king’s majesty, in so far as he is
daily importuned with their suits and begging, and his royal court
almost filled with them, they being, in the opinion and conceit of all
behalders, bot idle rascals and poor miserable bodies;’ the country,
moreover, ‘is heavily disgracit, and mony slanderous imputations given
out against the same, as gif there were no persons of guid rank,
comeliness, nor credit within the same.’ The Council, therefore, deemed
it necessary to cause an order to be proclaimed in all the burghs and
seaports, forbidding masters of vessels to carry any people to England
without first giving up their names, and declaring their errands and
business to the Lords, under heavy penalties.--_P. C. R._
A number of the king’s Scottish courtiers had, as is well known,
accompanied or followed him into England, and obtained shares of his
good-fortune. Sir George Home, now Earl of Dunbar; Sir John Ramsay,
created Earl of Haddington; Sir James Hay, ultimately made Earl of
Carlisle; and recently, Mr Robert Ker, who became the king’s especial
favourite, and was made Earl of Somerset, are notable examples. The
English, regarding the Scottish courtiers with natural jealousy, called
them ‘beggarly Scots,’ of which they complained to the king, who is
said to have jocosely replied: ‘Content yourselves; I will shortly
make the English as beggarly as you, and so end that controversy.’ On
one occasion, this jealousy broke out with some violence at a race
at Croydon, in consequence of a Scotsman named Ramsay striking the
Earl of Montgomery with his riding-switch. ‘The English,’ says the
scandal-mongering Osborne, ‘did, upon this accident, draw together,
to make it a national quarrel; so far as Mr John Pinchbeck, a maimed
man, having but the perfect use of two fingers, rode about with his
dagger in his hand, crying: “Let us break our fast with them here, and
dine with the rest in London!” But Herbert, not offering to strike
again, there was nothing lost but the reputation of a gentleman.’[338]
A ballad of the day described the metamorphosis which Scotchmen were
understood to have undergone after their migration into England:
[Sidenote: 1611.]
‘Bonny Scot, we all witness can,
That England hath made thee a gentleman.
Thy blue bonnet, when thou came hither,
Could scarce keep out the wind and weather
But now it is turned to a hat and a feather;
Thy bonnet is blown, the devil knows whither.
Thy shoes on thy feet, when thou camest from plough,
Were made of the hide of an old Scots cow;
But now they are turned to a rare Spanish leather,
And decked with roses altogether.
Thy sword at thy back was a great black blade,
With a great basket-hilt of iron made;
But now a long rapier doth hang at thy side,
And huffingly doth this bonny Scot ride.’[339] &c.
Even Osborne acknowledges that the ordinary conceptions as to the
enrichment of the Scots courtiers were exaggerated. He says: ‘If many
Scots got much, it was not more with one hand than they spent with
the other;’ and he explains how Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, the king’s
English treasurer, ‘had a trick to get the kernel, and leave the Scots
but the shell, and yet cast all the envy on them. He would make them
buy books of fee-farms, some £100 per annum, some 100 marks; and he
would compound with them for £1000 ... then would he fill up this book
with such prime land as should be worth £10,000 or £20,000, which
was easy for him, being treasurer, so to do.... Salisbury by this
means enriched himself infinitely.’ The case is a significant one.
The experience by the Scots, a simple rustic people, of the superior
mercantile sharpness of the English, on coming into business relations
with them, is probably the main cause of that dry cautious manner which
the English censure in them as a national characteristic.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 11.]
From an act of the Privy Council of this date, we get a curious idea
of the customs of the age regarding legal suits. It was declared that
one of the chief causes of ‘the frequent and unlawful convocations,
and the uncomely backing of noblemen and pairties upon the streets of
Edinburgh,’ was the fact that ‘noblemen, prelates, and councillors
repairing to this burgh, do ordinarily walk on the streets upon foot,
whereby all persons of their friendship and dependence, and who
otherwise has occasion to solicit them in their actions and causes,
do attend and await upon them, and without modesty or discretion,
importunes and fashes them with untimely solicitations and impertinent
discourses, and sometimes by their foolish insolence and misbehaviour
gives occasion of great misrule and unquietness within this burgh.’
[Sidenote: 1611.]
The remedy ordered was as curious as the evil itself. It was, that
noblemen, prelates, and councillors, when they come to the council,
or are abroad in the town on their private affairs, should, as became
their rank, ‘ride on horseback with footmantles or in coaches’--thus
freeing themselves of that flocking of suitors which so much beset them
when they appeared on foot.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 17.]
This day, John Mure of Auchindrain, James Mure, his son, and James
Bannatyne of Chapeldonald, were brought to trial in Edinburgh for
sundry crimes of a singularly atrocious character. The first of these
personages has been before us on two former occasions--namely, under
January 1, 1596-7, and May 11, 1602; to which reference may be made for
an introduction to what is now to be related.
Auchindrain, it appears, felt that the boy William Dalrymple, who had
carried the letter making the appointment for a meeting with Colzean,
was a living evidence of his having been the deviser of the slaughter
of that gentleman. He got the lad into his hands, and kept him for a
time in his house; then, on his wearying of confinement, sent him to
a friend in the Isle of Arran; thence, on his wearying of being ‘in a
barbarous country among rude people,’ he had him brought back to his
own house, and, as soon as possible, despatched him with a friend to
become a soldier in Lord Buccleuch’s regiment, serving under Maurice
Prince of Orange. Dalrymple had not been long in the Low Countries,
when he tired of being a soldier, and came back to Scotland. Once more
he was at large in Ayrshire, and a source of uneasiness to Mure of
Auchindrain. It was now necessary to take more decisive measures. Mure
and his son (September 1607) sent a servant to the young man to take
him to the house of James Bannatyne of Chapeldonald, and arranging to
join them on the way, ‘held divers purposes, speeches, and conferences
with him, tried of him the estate of the Low Countries and sundry other
matters,’ and finally placed him as a guest in Chapeldonald House,
under the name of William Montgomery.
[Sidenote: 1611.]
According to appointment, at _ten o’clock of the evening of next day_,
James Bannatyne came with Dalrymple to meet the two Mures on the sands
near Girvan. There, the elder Mure explained to Bannatyne the cause of
his fears regarding the young man, telling him ‘he saw no remeed but
to redd Dalrymple furth of this life, since he could not otherwise be
kept out of his way. Whereunto Bannatyne making answer, that it was ane
cruel purpose to murder the poor innocent youth, specially seeing they
might send him to Ireland, to be safely kept there.... Auchindrain
seemed to incline somewhat to that expedient; and, in the uncertainty
of his resolution, turning toward the part where his son stood, of
purpose, as appeared, to consult with him, young Auchindrain perceived
them no sooner near, but, thereby assuring himself of their assistance,
in the execution of that whilk his father and he had concluded, he
did violently invade Dalrymple, rushed him to the ground, and never
left him till, helped by his father, with his hands and knees he had
strangled him.’
[Sidenote: 1611.]
The horrid deed being accomplished, the Mures, _with spades they had
brought_, tried to bury Dalrymple in the sand; but, finding the hole
always fill up with water, they were at length obliged to carry the
body into the sea, going in as far as they could wade, and hoping that
an outgoing wind would carry it to the coast of Ireland. Five nights
after, it was thrown back upon the beach at the very scene of the
murder, and was soon found by the country people. The Earl of Cassillis
heard of it, and caused an account of the discovery to be published
throughout the district. By the mother and sister of Dalrymple, it
was at once pronounced to be his corpse, and suspicion instantly
alighted upon the Mures. A relative, advised with about the rumour,
said it could not be safe for them to brave the law in the teeth of
so much prejudice; neither, supposing they absconded under such a
suspicion, could their friends stand up for them. The only expedient
was to make an excuse for going out of the way--assault, for instance,
Hugh Kennedy of Garriehorn, a servant of the Earl of Cassillis, a man
against whom they had many ‘probable quarrels.’ The Mures actually
adopted this expedient, setting upon Garriehorn in the town of Ayr, and
only failing to slay him by reason of the vigour of his defence. The
earl then saw that it was necessary to take strong measures against
enemies capable of such doings, and he accordingly had them summoned
both for Dalrymple’s murder and for the assault of Garriehorn. They
allowed themselves to be put to the horn--that is, denounced as rebels
for not appearing--but loudly professed that, if freed on the score
of the assault, they would stand their trial for the murder, alleging
their entire innocence of that transaction. The king was now made
acquainted with the case, and, by his orders, Auchindrain the elder was
seized, and thrown into the Tolbooth in Edinburgh. The two culprits
nevertheless continued to feel confidence in the want of proof against
them, believing that, if Bannatyne were out of the way, it would be
impossible to bring the fact home to them. The younger Mure, still at
large, accordingly dealt with Bannatyne to induce him to go to Ireland.
It is a wonder he did not at once send his friend to a more distant
bourn. When Bannatyne was gone, young Mure came boldly forward to take
his trial, somewhat to the embarrassment of the officers of justice.
However, by the suggestion of his majesty, he was not allowed to
depart till he should have suffered the torture, with a view to making
him confess. To the admiration of all, he bore this treatment with
unflinching fortitude, and confessed nothing.
Public sentiment now rose in favour of the Mures as persecuted men,
and the Privy Council was inclined to let them off; and would have
done so, had not the king continued firm in his belief of their guilt,
and ordered them to be detained. Some years passed on, and proof
seemed still past hope, when the Earl of Abercorn contrived to find
out Bannatyne in Ireland, and caused him to be brought over to his own
house in Paisley. There, Bannatyne gave a full account of the murder,
but claimed, as fulfilment of a condition, that he should be allowed
his freedom. The earl told him he had had no such understanding of the
matter; but, to take away all ground of complaint, he would liberate
him for the meantime, but at the end of ten days make every possible
effort to take him unconditionally, whether dead or alive. At this
Bannatyne hesitated; he knew that already the Mures had been laying
plots to get him cut off in Ireland--now, between their vengeance and
the extreme persecution threatened by Lord Abercorn, he could see no
chance for safety. He therefore avowed his inclination to make a full
confession before a court of law, and trust to his majesty’s clemency.
On being confronted with Bannatyne, the Mures appeared as obstinate
in their protestations of innocence as ever, contradicting everything
he said, and denouncing him as a tool of their enemies. They were,
nevertheless, brought to trial, along with Bannatyne, on the day noted
in the margin--found guilty, and condemned to be beheaded at the Cross
of Edinburgh, with forfeiture of all they possessed to his majesty’s
use. So ended this extraordinary tissue of crimes, old Auchindrain
being at the time about eighty years of age.[340]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG.]
[Sidenote: 1611.]
Macleod of Raasay had been proprietor of the lands of Gairloch on
the mainland of Ross-shire. He had the misfortune to live in the same
time with Kenneth Mackenzie of Kintail, who has already been described
as a man much too clever for his neighbours. Lord Kintail--for he
had recently been made a peer--had a wadset or bond over a third of
Gairloch, and by proper use of this legal footing in the estate, joined
to neglect of legal defences by the insular chieftain, was in the way
of becoming proprietor of the whole. While Raasay, however, neglected
law, he had no reluctance to use the sword: so a hot feud subsisted
between him and the crafty Mackenzie. The latter had already pursued
the Macleods out of Gairloch with fire and sword.
Under the date noted in the margin, Lord Kintail hired a ship, that his
son Murdo Mackenzie might go to Skye with a proper following, in order
to apprehend one John Holmogh MacRorie, a duniwassal of Raasay,[341]
who had given him some trouble in the Gairloch. The vessel, with
whatever design it set out, soon changed its course, and arrived
opposite Macleod’s castle in the isle of Raasay--the same place where
Johnson and Boswell afterwards found such an elegant scene of Highland
hospitality. MacGilliecallum--such is the Highland appellative of the
Laird of Raasay--seeing the vessel, went out to it with twelve of his
followers, to buy some wine. ‘When Murdo Mackenzie did see them coming,
he, with all his train, lest they should be seen, went to the lower
rooms of the ship, leaving the mariners only above the decks. The Laird
of Raasay entered; and, having spoken the mariners, he departed, with
a resolution to return quickly. Murdo Mackenzie, understanding that
they were gone, came out of the lower rooms; and perceiving them coming
again, he resolved to conceal himself no longer. The Laird of Raasay
desired his brother Murdo to follow him into the ship with more company
in another galley, that they might carry to the shore some wine which
he had bought from the mariners; so returning to the ship, and finding
Murdo Mackenzie there beyond his expectation, he consulteth with his
men, and thereupon resolveth to take him prisoner, in pledge of his
cousin John MacAllan MacRorie, whom the Laird of Gairloch detained in
captivity.’--_G. H. S._
[Sidenote: 1611.]
The History of the Mackenzie family (MS.) says that Raasay, on
coming the second time into the vessel, fell to drinking with Murdo
Mackenzie in loving terms. ‘Four of Murdo’s men, fearing the worst,
kept themselves fresh [sober].... Raasay, sitting on the right hand
of Murdo, said to him: “Murdo, thou art my prisoner!” Murdo, hearing
this, starts, and, taking Raasay by the middle, threw him upon the
deck, and said he scorned to be his prisoner. With that a fellow of
Raasay’s strake him with a dirk. He, finding himself wounded, drew back
to draw his sword, [so] that he went overboard. He, thinking to swim
to the coast of Sconsarie, was drowned by the small boats that were
coming from Raasay. His men, seeing him killed, resolved to sell their
lives at the best rate they could. The four men that kept themselves
fresh, fought so manfully in their own defence, and in revenge of their
master, that they killed the Laird of Raasay and Gilliecallum More,
the author of this mischief, his two sons, with all the rest that came
to the vessel with Raasay. Tulloch’s son, with six of Murdo’s company,
were killed as they were coming above deck from the place where they
lay drunk. The four [sober] men ... were all pitifully hurt. When they
were drawing the anchor, the fourth man, called Hector Oig M‘Echin Vich
Kinnich, ane active young gentleman, was shot with a chance bullet from
the boats. The other three, cutting the tow of the anchor, did sail
away with the dead corpses of both parties.’
‘Thus,’ says Sir Robert Gordon in conclusion to this murderous story,
‘hath the Laird of Gairloch obtained _peaceable_ possession of that
land.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP. 24.]
‘Sir James Lawson of Humbie, riding in Balhelvie Sands, where many
other gentlemen were passing their time, sank down in a part of the
sands and perished. He was found again on the morn, but his horse was
never seen.’--_Cal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT. 25.]
[Sidenote: 1611.
NOV. 4.]
It had been customary for the Scottish universities to receive
students who had, through misbehaviour, become fugitives from other
seats of learning; and now, as a natural consequence, it was found
that the native youth at the university of Edinburgh, presuming on
impunity for any improprieties they might commit, or a resource in
case of punishment being attempted, ‘has ta’en and takes the bauldness
to misknow the principal and regents, and to debord in all kind of
uncomely behaviour and insolencies, no wise seemly in the persons
of students and scholars.’ The Privy Council therefore issued a
strict order forbidding the reception of fugitive students into the
universities.--_P. C. R._
The Privy Council was at this time obliged to renew former acts against
_Night-walkers_ of the city of Edinburgh--namely, idle and debauched
persons who went about the streets during the night, in the indulgence
of wild humours, and sometimes committing heinous crimes. If it be
borne in mind that there was at that time no system of lighting for the
streets of the city, but that after twilight all was sunk in Cimmerian
darkness, saving for the occasional light of the moon and stars, the
reader will be the better able to appreciate the state of things
revealed by this public act.
Reference is made to ‘sundry idle and deboshit persons, partly
strangers, who, debording in all kind of excess, riot, and drunkenness
... commit sundry enormities upon his majesty’s peaceable and guid
subjects, not sparing the ordinar officers of the burgh, who are
appointit to watch the streets of the same--of whom lately some has
been cruelly and unmercifully slain, and others left for deid.’ The
Council ordered that no persons of any estate whatsoever presume
hereafter to remain on the streets ‘after the ringing of the ten-hour
bell at night.’ The magistrates were also ordained to appoint some
persons to guard the streets, and apprehend all whom they might find
there after the hour stated.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1612.]
In this year there happened a strife between the Earl of Caithness on
the one side, and Sir Robert Gordon of Gordonston and Donald Mackay on
the other, highly illustrative of a state of things when law had only
asserted a partial predominancy over barbarism.
[Sidenote: 1612.]
One Arthur Smith, a native of Banff, had been in trouble for coining so
long ago as 1599, when his man actually suffered death for that crime.
He himself contrived to escape justice, by making a lock of peculiarly
fine device, by which he gained favour with the king. Entering into the
service of the Earl of Caithness, he lived for seven or eight years,
working diligently, in a recess called the Gote, under Castle Sinclair,
on the rocky coast of that northern district. If we are to believe Sir
Robert Gordon, the enemy of the Earl of Caithness, there was a secret
passage from his lordship’s bedroom into the Gote, where Smith was
often heard working by night, and at last Caithness, Sutherland, and
Orkney were found full of false coin, both silver and gold. On Sir
Robert’s representation of the case, a commission was given to him by
the Privy Council to apprehend Smith and bring him to Edinburgh.
While the execution of this was pending, one William MacAngus MacRorie,
a noted freebooter, was committed to Castle Sinclair, and there bound
in fetters. Contriving to shift off his irons, William got to the
walls of the castle, and jumping from them down into the sea which
dashes on the rocks at a great depth below, swam safely ashore, and
escaped into Strathnaver. There an attempt was made by the Sinclairs
to seize him; but he eluded them, and they only could lay hold of one
Angus Herriach, whom they believed to have assisted the culprit in
making his escape. This man being taken to Castle Sinclair without
warrant, and there confined, Mackay was brought into the field to
rescue his man--for so Angus was--and Caithness was forced to give him
up.
[Sidenote: MAY.]
The coiner Smith was living quietly in the town of Thurso, under the
protection of the Earl of Caithness, when a party of Gordons and
Mackays came to execute the commission for apprehending him. They had
seized the fellow, with a quantity of false money he had about him,
and were making off, when a set of Sinclairs, headed by the earl’s
nephew, John Sinclair of Stirkoke, came to the rescue with a backing
of town’s-people, and a deadly conflict took place in the streets.
Stirkoke was slain, his brother severely wounded, and the rescuing
party beat back. During the tumult, Smith was coolly put to death, lest
he should by any chance escape. The invading party were then allowed
to retire without further molestation. ‘The Earl of Caithness was
exceedingly grieved for the slaughter of his nephew, and was _much more
vexed_ that such a disgraceful contempt, as he thought, should have
been offered to him in the heart of his own country, and in his chief
town; the like whereof had not been enterprised against him or his
predecessors.’
[Sidenote: 1612.]
The strife is now transferred in partially legal form to Edinburgh,
where the parties had counter-actions against each other before the
Privy Council. Why the word _partially_ is here used, will appear from
Sir Robert Gordon’s account of the procedure. ‘Both parties did come
to Edinburgh at the appointed day, where they did assemble all their
friends. There were with the Earl of Caithness and his son Berriedale,
the Lord Gray, the Laird of Roslin, the Laird of Cowdenknowes (the
earl’s sister’s son), the Lairds of Murkle and Greenland (the earl’s
two brethren); these were the chief men of their company. There were
with Sir Robert Gordon and Donald Mackay, the Earl of Winton and his
brother the Earl of Eglintoun, with all their followers; the Earl of
Linlithgow, with the Livingstones; the Lord Elphinstone, with his
friends; the Lord Forbes, with his friends; Sir John Stewart, captain
of Dumbarton (the Duke of Lennox’s bastard son); the Lord Balfour;
the Laird of Lairg Mackay in Galloway; the Laird of Foulis, with the
Monroes; the Laird of Duffus; divers of the surname of Gordon ...
with sundry other gentlemen of name too long to set down. The Earl
of Caithness was much grieved that neither the Earl of Sutherland in
person, nor Hutcheon Mackay, were present. It galled him to the heart
to be thus overmatched, as he said, by seconds and children; for so
it pleased him to call his adversaries. Thus, both parties went weel
accompanied to the council-house from their lodgings; but few were
suffered to go in when the parties were called before the Council.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE.]
[Sidenote: 1612.]
All of these friends had, of course, come to see justice done to their
respective principals--that is, to outbrave each other in forcing
a favourable decision as far as possible. What followed is equally
characteristic. While the Council was endeavouring to exact security
from the several parties for their keeping the peace, both sent off
private friends to the king to give him a favourable impression of
their cases. ‘The king, in his wisdom, considering how much this
controversy might hinder and endamage the peace and quietness of his
realm in the parts where they did live, happening between persons
powerful in their own countries, and strong in parties and alliances,
did write thrice very effectually to the Privy Council, _to take up
this matter from the rigour of law and justice unto the decision and
mediation of friends_.’ The Council acted accordingly, but not without
great difficulty. While the matter was pending, Lord Gordon, son of
the Marquis of Huntly, happened to come to Edinburgh from court;
and his friends, having access to him, were believed by the Earl of
Caithness to have given him a favourable view of their case against
himself. ‘So, late in the evening, the Lord Gordon coming from his own
lodging, accompanied with Sir Alexander Gordon and sundry others of the
Sutherland men, met the Earl of Caithness and his company upon the High
Street, between the Cross and the Tron. At the first sight, they fell
to jostling and talking; then to drawing of swords. Friends assembled
speedily on all hands. Sir Robert Gordon and Mackay, with the rest of
the company, came presently to them; but the Earl of Caithness, after
some blows, given and received, perceiving that he could not make his
part good, left the street, and retired to his lodging; and if the
darkness of the night had not favoured him, he had not escaped so. The
Lord Gordon, taking this broil very highly, was not satisfied that the
Earl of Caithness had given him place, and departed; but, moreover, he,
with all his company, crossed thrice the Earl of Caithness his lodging,
thereby to provoke him to come forth; but perceiving no appearance
thereof, he retired himself to his own lodging. The next day, the Earl
of Caithness and the Lord Gordon were called before the Lords of the
Privy Council, and reconciled in their presence.’
It was not till several years later that these troubles came to an end.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAR. 28.]
Proceeding upon the principle that the smallest trait of industrial
enterprise forms an interesting variety on the too ample details of
barbarism here calling to be recorded, I remark with pleasure a letter
of the king of this date, agreeing to the proposal lately brought
before him by a Fleming--namely, to set up a work for the making of
‘brinston, vitreall, and allome,’ in Scotland, on condition that he
received a privilege excluding rivalry for the space of thirteen years.
About the same time, one Archibald Campbell obtained a privilege to
induce him ‘to bring in strangers to make red herrings.’ In June 1613,
he petitioned that the king would grant him, by way of pension for
his further encouragement, the fourteen lasts of herrings yearly paid
to his majesty by the Earl of Argyle, ‘as the duty of the tack of the
assize of herrings of those parts set to him,’ being of the value of
£38 yearly.--_M. S. P._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAR. 29.]
[Sidenote: 1612.]
Some of the principal Border gentlemen--Scott of Harden, Scott of
Tushielaw, Scott of Stirkfield, Gladstones of Cocklaw, Elliot of
Falnash, and others--had a meeting at Jedburgh, with a view to making a
final and decisive effort for stopping that system of blood and robbery
by which the land had been so long harassed, even to the causing of
several valuable lands to be left altogether desolate. They entered
into a sort of bond, declaring their abhorrence of all the ordinary
violences, and agreeing thenceforth to shew no countenance to any
lawless persons, but to stand firm with the government in putting them
down. Even where the culprits were their own dependents or tenants,
they were to take part in bringing them to justice, and, if they fled,
were to deprive them of their ‘tacks and steedings,’ and ‘put in other
persons to occupy the same.’ Should any fail to act in this way, or
to pursue culprits to justice, they agreed that a share of guilt
should lie with that person. This bond seems to have been executed
with the concurrence of the state-officers, and more especially under
encouragement from the king, who, they say, had shewn his anxiety
every way ‘for the suppressing of that infamous byke[342] of lawless
limmers.’[343]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAR. APR.]
The Presbyterian historian of this period notes, that ‘in the months of
March and April fell forth prodigious works and rare accidents. A cow
brought forth fourteen great dog-whelps, instead of calves. Another,
after the calving, became stark mad, so that the owner was forced to
slay her. A dead bairn was found in her belly. A third brought forth a
calf with two heads. One of the Earl of Argyle’s servants being sick,
vomited two toads and a serpent, and so convalesced; but after[wards]
vomited a number of little toads. A man beside Glasgow murdered both
his father and mother. A young man going at the plough near Kirkliston,
killeth his own son accidentally with the throwing of a stone, goeth
home and hangeth himself. His wife, lately delivered of a child,
running out of the house to seek her husband, a sow had eaten her
child.’--_Cal._ It is curious thus to see what a former age was capable
of believing. The circumstances here related regarding the first
two cows are now known to be impossibilities; and no such relation,
accordingly, could move one step beyond the mouths of the vulgar with
whom it originated. Yet it found a place in the work of a learned
church historian of the seventeenth century.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE.]
There was at this time an ‘extraordinary drowth, whilk is likely to
burn up and destroy the corns and fruits of the ground.’ On this
account, a fast was ordered at Aberdeen.--_A. K. S. R._ In September,
and for some months after, there are notices of ‘great dearth of
victual,’ doubtless the consequence of this drouth. ‘The victual at ten
pound the boll.’--_Chron. Perth._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 28.]
[Sidenote: 1612.]
Gregor Beg Macgregor, and nine others of his unhappy clan, were
tried for sundry acts of robbery, oppression, and murder; and being
all found guilty, were sentenced to be hanged on the Burgh-moor of
Edinburgh.--_Pit._ The relics of the broken Clan Gregor lived at
this time a wild predaceous life on the borders of the lowlands of
Perthshire--a fearful problem to the authorities of the country, from
the king downward. One called Robin Abroch, from the nativity of his
father (Lochaber), stood prominently out as a clever chief of banditti,
being reported, says Sir Thomas Hamilton, king’s advocate, as ‘the
most bluidy murderer and oppressor of all that damned race, and most
terrible to all the honest men of the country.’[344] In a memoir of the
contemporary Earl of Perth occurs an anecdote of Robin, which, though
somewhat obscure, speaks precisely of the style of events which modern
times have seen in the Abruzzi and the fastnesses of the Apennines. The
incident seems to have occurred in 1611.
‘In the meantime, some dozen of the Clan Gregor came within the _laigh_
of the country--Robin Abroch, Patrick M‘Inchater, and Gregor Gair,
being chiefs. This Abroch sent to my chamberlain, David Drummond,
desiring to speak to him. After conference, Robin Abroch, for reasons
known to himself, alleging his comrades and followers were to betray
him, was contented to take the advantage, and let them fall into the
hands of justice. The plot was cunningly contrived, and six of that
number were killed on the ground where I, with certain friends, was
present; three were taken, and one escaped, by Robin and his man.
This execution raised great speeches in the country, and made many
acknowledge that these troubles were put to ane end, wherewith King
James himself was well pleased for the time.’[345] We nevertheless find
the king’s advocate soon after desiring of the king that, for the sake
of public peace, he would withdraw a certain measure of protection he
had extended to Robin, and replace him under the same restrictions as
had been prescribed to the rest of his clan.
* * * * *
In this year, a large body of troops was levied in Scotland in a
clandestine manner for the service of the king of Sweden, in his
unsuccessful war with Christian IV. of Denmark. As the king of Great
Britain was brother-in-law of the latter monarch, this illegal levying
of troops was an act of the greater presumption. The Privy Council
fulminated edicts against the proceedings as most obnoxious to the
king,[346] but without effect. One George Sinclair--a natural brother
of the Earl of Caithness, and who, if we are to believe Sir Robert
Gordon (an enemy), had stained himself by a participation in the
treacherous rendition of Lord Maxwell--sailed with nine hundred men,
whom he had raised in the extreme north.
[Sidenote: 1612.]
The successful course of the king of Denmark’s arms had at this time
closed up the ordinary and most ready access to Sweden at Gottenburg,
and along the adjacent coast. A Colonel Munckhaven, in bringing a large
levy of mercenaries from the Netherlands in the spring of 1612, had
consequently been obliged to take the riskful step of passing through
Norway, then a portion of the dominions of the Danish monarch. The
greater part of his soldiery entered the Trondiem Fiord, landed at
Stordalen, and proceeded through the mountainous regions of Jempteland
towards Stockholm, where they arrived in time to save it from the
threats of the Danish fleet.[347]
Colonel Sinclair resolved to take a similar course; but he was
less fortunate. Landing in Romsdalen, he was proceeding across
Gulbrandsdalen, and had entered a narrow pass at Kringelen, utterly
unsuspicious of the presence of an enemy, when he fell into a dire
ambuscade formed by the peasantry. Even when aware that a hostile
party had assembled, he was craftily beguiled on by the appearance of
a handful of rustic marksmen on the opposite side of the river, whose
irregular firing he despised, till his column had arrived at the most
difficult part of the pass. The boors then appeared amongst the rocks
above him, in front and in rear, closing up every channel of egress.
Sinclair fell early in the conflict. The most of his party were either
cut off by the marksmen, or dashed to pieces by huge rocks tumbled
down from above. Of the nine hundred, but sixty were spared. These
were taken as prisoners to the houses of various boors, who, however,
soon tired of keeping them. It is stated that the wretched Scots were
brought together one day in a large meadow, and there murdered in cold
blood. Only one escaped.
The Norwegians celebrated this affair in a vaunting ballad, and,
strange to say, still look back upon the destruction of Sinclair’s
party as a glorious achievement. In the pass of Kringelen, there is
a tablet bearing an inscription to the following purport: ‘Here lies
Colonel Sinclair, who, with nine hundred Scotsmen, was dashed to
pieces like clay-pots by three hundred boors of Lessöe, Vaage, and
Froen. Berdon Segelstadt of Ringeböe was the leader of the boors.’ In
a peasant’s house near by were shewn to me, in 1849, a few relics of
the poor Caithness-men--a matchlock or two, a broadsword, a couple of
powder-flasks, and the wooden part of a drum.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1613.]
After the treacherous slaughter of the Laird of Johnston in 1608,
Lord Maxwell was so hotly prosecuted by the state-officers, as to be
compelled to leave his country. His _Good-night_, a pathetic ballad, in
which he takes leave of his lady and friends, is printed in the _Border
Minstrelsy_: afterwards, he returned to Scotland, but could not shew
himself in public. A succession of skulking adventures ended in his
being treacherously given up to justice by his relative, the Earl of
Caithness; and he was, without loss of time, beheaded at the Cross of
Edinburgh--the sole noble victim to justice out of many of his order
who, during the preceding thirty years, had deserved such a fate.
[Sidenote: MAY 21.]
When informed by the magistrates of the city that they had got orders
for his execution, he professed submission to the will of God and the
king, but declined the attendance of any ministers, as he adhered to
the ancient religion. ‘It being foreseen by the bailies and others
that gif he sould at his death enter in any discourse of that subject
before the people, it might breed offence and sclander, he was desirit,
and yielded to bind himself by promise, to forbear at his death all
mention of his particular opinion of religion, except the profession
of Christianity; which he sinsyne repented, as he declared to the
bailies, when they were bringing him to the scaffold.’ On the scaffold,
the unfortunate noble expressed his hope that the king would restore
the family inheritance to his brother. He likewise ‘asked forgiveness
of the Laird of Johnston, his mother, grandmother, and friends,
acknowledging the wrong and harm done to them, with protestation that
it was without dishonour for the worldly part of it.... Then he retired
himself near the block, and made his prayers to God; which being ended,
he took leave of his friends and of the bailies of the town, and,
suffering his eyes to be covered with ane handkerchief, offered his
head to the axe.’[348]
Thus at length ended the feud between the Johnstons and Maxwells,
after, as has been remarked, causing the deaths of two chiefs of each
house.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG.]
[Sidenote: 1613.]
Edward Lord Bruce of Kinloss lost his life in a duel fought near
Bergen-op-zoom with Sir Edward Sackville, afterwards Earl of Dorset.
They were gay young men, living a life of pleasure in London, and in
good friendship with each other, when some occurrence, arising out of
their pleasures, divided them in an irremediable quarrel. Clarendon
states that on Sackville’s part the cause was ‘unwarrantable.’ Lord
Kinloss, in his challenge, reveals to us that they had shaken hands
after the first offence, but with this remarkable expression on his
own part, that he reserved the heart for a truer reconciliation.
Afterwards, in France, Kinloss learned that Sackville spoke injuriously
of him, and immediately wrote to propose a hostile meeting. ‘Be
master,’ he said, ‘of your own weapons and time; the place wheresoever
I will wait on you. By doing this, you will shorten revenge, and clear
the idle opinion the world hath of both our worths.’
Sackville received this letter at his father-in-law’s house, in
Derbyshire, and he lost no time in establishing himself, with his
friend, Sir John Heidon, at Tergoso, in Zealand, where he wrote to Lord
Kinloss, that he would wait for his arrival. The other immediately
proceeded thither, accompanied by an English gentleman named Crawford,
who was to act as his second; also by a surgeon and a servant.
They met, accompanied by their respective friends, at a spot near
Bergen-op-Zoom, ‘where but a village divides the States’ territories
from the archduke’s ... to the end that, having ended, he that could,
might presently exempt himself from the justice of the country by
retiring into the dominion not offended.’
In the preliminary arrangements, some humane articles were agreed
upon, probably by the influence of the seconds; but, if we are to
believe Sir Edward Sackville, Lord Kinloss, in choosing his adversary’s
weapon, expressed some blood-thirsty sentiments, that gave him reason
to hope for little mercy if he should be the vanquished party. Being
on his part incensed by these unworthy expressions, he, though heavy
with a recent dinner, hurried on the combat. To follow his remarkable
narrative:[349]
[Sidenote: 1613.]
‘I being verily mad with anger [that] the Lord Bruce should thirst
after my life with a kind of assuredness, seeing I had come so far
and heedlessly to give him leave to regain his lost reputation, bade
him alight, which with all willingness he quickly granted; and there,
in a meadow ankle-deep in water at the least, bidding farewell to
our doublets, in our shirts began to charge each other; having afore
commanded our surgeons to withdraw themselves a pretty distance from
us, conjuring them besides, as they respected our favours or their own
safeties, not to stir, but suffer us to execute our pleasures; we being
fully resolved (God forgive us!) to despatch each other by what means
we could. I made a thrust at my enemy, but was short, and in drawing
back my arm, I received a great wound thereon, which I interpreted as
a reward for my short-shooting; but, in revenge, I pressed in to him,
though I then missed him also, and then received a wound in my right
pap, which passed level through my body, and almost to my back. And
there we wrestled for the two greatest and dearest prizes we could
ever expect trial for--honour and life; in which struggling, my hand,
having but an ordinary glove on it, lost one of her servants, though
the meanest, which hung by a skin.... At last, breathless, yet keeping
our holds, there passed on both sides propositions of quitting each
other’s swords; but when amity was dead, confidence could not live,
and who should quit first, was the question; which on neither part
either would perform, and restriving again afresh, with a kick and a
wrench together, I freed my long captivated weapon; which incontinently
levying at his throat, being master still of his, I demanded if he
would ask his life, or yield his sword; both which, though in that
imminent danger, he bravely denied to do. Myself being wounded, and
feeling loss of blood, having three conduits running on me, which
began to make me faint, and he courageously persisting not to accord
to either of my propositions, through remembrance of his former bloody
desire, and feeling of my present state, I struck at his heart, but
with his avoiding missed my aim, yet passed through the body, and
drawing out my sword, repassed it again through another place, when he
cried: “O, I am slain!” seconding his speech with all the force he had
to cast me; but being too weak, after I had defended his assault, I
easily became master of him, laying him on his back, when, being upon
him, I redemanded if he would request his life; but it seemed he prized
it not at so dear a rate to be beholden for it, bravely replying, “he
scorned it.” Which answer of his was so noble and worthy, as I protest
I could not find in my heart to offer him any more violence; only
keeping him down, until at length his surgeon, afar off, cried out, “he
would immediately die if his wounds were not stopped.” Whereupon, I
asked if he desired his surgeon should come, which he accepted of; and
so being drawn away, I never offered to take his sword, accounting it
inhuman to rob a dead man, for so I held him to be. This thus ended,
I retired to my surgeon, in whose arms, after I had remained a while
for want of blood, I lost my sight, and withal, as I then thought, my
life also. But strong water and his diligence quickly recovered me,
when I escaped a great danger. For my lord’s surgeon, when nobody
dreamt of it, came full at me with his lord’s sword; and had not mine,
with my sword, interposed himself, I had been slain by those base
hands; although my Lord Bruce, weltering in his blood, and past all
expectation of life, comformable to all his former carriage, which was
undoubtedly noble, cried out: “Rascal, hold thy hand!”’
Thus miserably, a victim of passion, died a young nobleman who might
otherwise have lived a long and useful life. Being childless, his title
and estates went to his next brother, Thomas. Through what means it
came about, we cannot tell, but possibly it might be in consequence
of some recollection of a well-known circumstance in the history of a
former great man of his family, King Robert Bruce, the heart of Edward
Lord Kinloss was enclosed in a silver case, brought to Scotland, and
deposited in the abbey-church of Culross, near the family seat. The
tale of the _Silver Heart_ had faded into a family tradition of a
very obscure character, when, in 1808, this sad relic was discovered,
bearing on the exterior the name of the unfortunate duellist, and
containing what was believed to be the remains of a human heart. It was
again deposited in its original place, with an inscription calculated
to make the matter clear to posterity. The Bruce motto, FUIMUS, is also
seen on the wall, conveying to the visitor an indescribable feeling of
melancholy, as he reflects on the stormy passion which once swelled the
organ now resting within, and the wild details of that deadly quarrel
of days long gone by.
[Illustration: Silver Heart in Culross Abbey-church.]
[Sidenote: 1613.]
‘The unfortunate Lord Bruce saw distinctly the figure or impression of
a mort-head, on the looking-glass in his chamber, that very morning he
set out for the fatal place of rendezvous, where he lost his life in a
duel; and asked of some that stood by him if they observed that strange
appearance: which they answered in the negative. His remains were
interred at Bergen-op-Zoom, over which a monument was erected, with the
emblem of a looking-glass impressed with a mort-head, to perpetuate
the surprising representation which seemed to indicate his approaching
untimely end. I had this narration from a field-officer, whose honour
and candour is beyond suspicion, as he had it from General Stuart in
the Dutch service. The monument stood entire for a long time, until it
was partly defaced when that strong place was reduced by the weakness
or treachery of Cronstrom, the governor.’--_Theophilus Insulanus’s
Treatise on the Second-Sight._ 1763.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP. 11.]
Robert Philip, a priest, returned from Rome in the summer of this
year, and performed mass in sundry places in a clandestine manner, but
with the proper dresses, utensils, and observances. One James Stewart,
living at the Nether Bow Port in Edinburgh, commonly called _James
of Jerusalem_--a noted papist and resetter of seminary priests--was
accustomed to have this condemned ceremonial performed in his house,
in presence of a small company. Both men were now tried for these
offences; and two days after, a third, John Logan, portioner of
Restalrig, was also put to an assize, for being one of the audience at
Stewart’s house. One cannot, in these days of tolerance, read without
a strange sense of uncouthness, the solemn expressions of horror
employed in the dittays of the king’s advocate against the offenders,
being precisely the same expressions which were used against heinous
offences of a more tangible nature. Philip and Stewart were condemned
to banishment,[350] and Logan, in as far as he expressed penitence and
shewed that he had since conformed to the kirk, and even borne office
in the session, was let off with a fine of one thousand pounds!
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 1.]
[Sidenote: 1613.]
Robert Erskine, brother of the lately deceased Laird of Dun, in
Forfarshire, was put upon trial for an offence that recalls the
tale of the Babes in the Wood. To open the succession to himself,
he formed the resolution to put away his two nephews, John and
Alexander Erskine, minors, and for this purpose consulted with his
three sisters, Isobel, Annas, and Helen. These women, readily entering
into his views, attempted to bribe a servant to engage a witch for
the purpose of destroying the two boys; but the man’s virtue was
proof to the temptation. Annas and Helen then made a journey across
the Cairn-a-mount to a place called the Muir-alehouse, where dwelt
a noted witch called Janet Irving. From her they came back, bearing
certain deadly herbs fitted for their purpose, and gave these to their
brother. He, doubtful of the efficacy of the herbs, went himself to
the witch, to get full assurance on that point; and, finding reason to
believe that they could destroy the two boys, lost no time in making an
infusion of them in ale, which he administered to his victims in the
house of their mother at Montrose. The effect was not immediate; but it
inflicted the most horrible torments upon the poor youths, one of whom,
after _dwining_ for three years, died, uttering, just before death,
these affecting words: ‘Wo is me! that ever I had right of succession
to ony lands or living, for, gif I had been born some poor cotter’s
son, I had not been sae demeaned [treated], nor sic wicked practices
had been plotted against me for my lands!’ The other remained without
hope of recovery at the time of the trial.
Robert Erskine was found guilty and condemned to be beheaded. His
sisters were tried June 22, 1614, for their share of the guilt, and
also condemned to death, which two of them suffered. Helen alone, as
being less guilty and more penitent than the rest, had her sentence
commuted to banishment. The case must have been felt as deeply
afflicting by the friends of the Presbyterian cause, as these wretched
victims of the mean passion of avarice were the great-grandchildren of
the venerated reformer, John Erskine of Dun.--_Pit._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1613(?)]
One John Stercovius, a Pole, had come into Scotland in the dress of
his country, which exciting much vulgar attention, he was hooted at on
the streets, and treated altogether so ill, that he was forced to make
an abrupt retreat. The poor man, returning full of wounded feelings
to his own country, published a _Legend of Reproaches_ against the
Scottish nation--‘ane infamous book against all estates of persons
in this kingdom.’--_P. C. R._ It will now be scarcely believed, in
Scotland or elsewhere, that King James, hearing of this libel, employed
Patrick Gordon, a foreign agent--himself a man of letters--to raise a
prosecution against Stercovius in his own country, and had the power
to cause the unhappy libeller to be beheaded for his offence! The
affair cost six thousand merles, and a convention of burghs was called
(December 3, 1613), to consider means of raising this sum by taxation.
This mode of raising the money having failed, the king made an effort
to obtain aid for the payment of the money from the English resident in
the town of Danzig--with what result does not appear. It is a notable
circumstance, that while James was on the whole a mild administrator
of justice, he was unrelenting towards satirists, and the grossest
judicial cruelties of his reign are against men who had been in one way
or another contumelious towards himself.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1613.
DEC. 10.]
One of the king’s large ships-of-war, which had lain in the Roads
of Leith for six weeks, and was about to set sail on her return to
England, met her destruction ‘about the twelfth hour of the day,’
through the mad humour of an Englishman, who, while the captain and
some of his officers were on shore, laid trains of powder throughout
the vessel, notwithstanding that his own son was on board, along with
about sixty other men. ‘The ship and her whole provision were burnt;
only the bottom and some of the munition were safe. Twenty-four of
the men were burnt or perished in the sea; the rest were mutilated
and lamed, notwithstanding of all the help that could be made. The
fire made the ordnance to shoot, so that none durst come near to
help.’--_Cal._
‘The sixty-three men that escaped were shipped and transported to
London.’--_Bal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 16.]
[Sidenote: 1613.]
The Privy Council of Scotland had this day under their consideration a
subject which must have sent their minds back to the associations of
an earlier and more romantic age. That custom among the people of the
Scottish Border, of going into Cheviot to hunt, which had led to the
dismal tragedy narrated in the well-known ballad of _Chevy Chase_, was,
it seems, still kept up. What was once the border of either country
being now the middle of both in their so far united condition, the king
felt the propriety of putting down a custom so apt to lead to bad blood
between his English and Scottish subjects; and accordingly, his council
now ordered that the inhabitants of Roxburgh and Selkirk shires, of
Liddesdale and Annandale, should cease their ancient practice of going
into Tynedale, Redesdale, the fells of Cheviot and Kidland, for
hunting and the cutting of wood, under pain of confiscation of their
worldly goods.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1614.
JAN. 18.]
Hugh Weir of Cloburn, a boy of fourteen years, had been taken out of
the town of Edinburgh from his mother’s friends, and carried over to
Ireland, and there married to the daughter of the Laird of Corehouse.
He ‘was, by Sir James Hamilton’s means, apprehended in Ireland, and
sent back to Scotland, and presented to the Council. He was imprisoned
in the Tolbooth, in a room next the Laird of Blackwood, by whose means
the boy was taken away and sent into Ireland.’--_Bal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAR. 3.]
(Tuesday) at ‘half an hour to sax in the morning, ane earthquake had
in divers places.’ ‘On Thursday thereafter, ane other earthquake at 12
hours in the night, had baith in land and burgh.’-_Chron. Perth._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG. 12.]
[Sidenote: 1614.]
Theophilus Howard, Lord Walden (afterwards Earl of Suffolk), made a
short journey of pleasure in Scotland; and as the details give some
idea of the means there were in the country of entertaining a stranger
of distinction, they may be worth noting. His lordship was received
by the Earl of Home into Dunglass House, in Berwickshire, and ‘used
very honourably.’ He dined next day with his brother-in-law, Sir James
Home of Cowdenknowes, at Broxmouth House, near Dunbar. Advancing
thence towards Edinburgh, he was met by the secretary of state, Sir
Thomas Hamilton of Binning, accompanied by a number of gentlemen of
the country, all of whom had waited for him the preceding night at
Musselburgh Links, but were disappointed of his coming forward. He
was by them convoyed to the Canongate, and lodged in John Killoch’s
house. Next morning, he proceeded to the Castle, and ‘viewed the site,
fortification, and natural strength thereof.’ Having dined, he rode
from Edinburgh with the Lord Chancellor to Dunfermline, where he was
entertained with all kindness and respect till Monday, the 16th. He
then went to Culross, to see Sir George Bruce’s coal-works, which
were one of the wonders of the age; ‘where, having received the best
entertainment they could make him, my Lord Chancellor took leave of
him, and left him to be convoyed by my Lord Erskine to Stirling, where
he could not be persuaded to stay above one night. The next day, he saw
the park of Stirling, dined in the Castle, and raid that night towards
Falkland.’ On the way, Lord Erskine transferred him to the care of
Lord Scone, who, assisted by many gentlemen of Fife, took him to his
house in Falkland.’ There, doubtless to the great distress of Lord
Scone, no entreaties could prevail upon Lord Walden to stay longer than
a night, ‘to receive that entertainment which he wald gladly have made
langer to him.’ So, ‘after the sight of the park and palace, having
dined, his lordship and my Lord of Scone came to Burntisland, where
he had ready and speedy passage; but the wind being very loud, he was
exceeding sick at sea.’ Landing at Leith, the distinguished company was
received for refreshment into the house of a rich and prominent person
of that day, Bernard Lindsay, whom we shall see erelong entertaining
Ben Jonson in the same place. Here the secretary again took up
the stranger, and convoyed him once more to John Killoch’s in the
Canongate, ‘whither the bailies of Edinburgh came to him, and invited
him to supper the next day, but could not induce him by any entreaty to
stay.’ Having dismissed them, he went to see the palace of Holyrood.
Next day, the 19th of August, he left Edinburgh, and rode with the
secretary to Seton, ‘where he was received by the Countess of Winton
and her children, and used with all due respect.’ After taking a sight
of the house, which was of princely elegance, with beautiful gardens,
Lord Walden proceeded to Broxmouth, and there spent the night.
‘In all his journey through this country,’ says the contemporary
writer, ‘great and loving respect has been borne to him by all honest
men, whereof he has proven most worthy; for he has esteemed all things
to the uttermost of their worth, and in his courteous discretion has
favourably excused all oversights and defects.... Every honest man here
wishes him happiness in all his other journeys and enterprises, for the
honourable, wise, and humane behaviour he has used amang them.’[351]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1614.]
In this year, a small volume was printed and published by Andro Hart
of Edinburgh, under the title of _Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonis
Descriptio_, &c., _Auctore et Inventore Joanne Napero, Barone
Merchistonii, Scoto_. This was a remarkable event in the midst of so
many traits of barbarism, bigotry, and ignorance; for in Napier’s
volume was presented a mode of calculation forming an essential
pre-requisite to the solution of all the great problems involving
numbers which have since been brought before mankind.
John Napier is believed to have been engaged in the elaboration of his
Logarithms for fully twenty years, while at the same time giving some
of his time to such inventions as burning-glasses for the destruction
of fleets, to theological discussions, and the occult sciences. The
tall, antique tower of Merchiston, in which he lived and pursued his
studies, still exists at the head of the Burgh-moor of Edinburgh.
[Sidenote: 1614]
Napier’s little book was published in an English translation by Henry
Briggs of Oxford, the greatest mathematician of his day in England.
The admiration of Briggs for the person of Napier was testified in the
summer of 1615 by his paying a visit to Scotland, in order to see him.
Of this rencontre there is a curious and interesting account preserved
by William Lilly in his _Life and Times_. ‘I will acquaint you,’
says he, ‘with one memorable story related unto me by John Marr, an
excellent mathematician and geometrician, whom I conceive you remember.
He was a servant to King James I. and Charles I. When Merchiston first
published his Logarithms, Mr Briggs, then reader of the astronomy
lectures at Gresham College in London, was so surprised with admiration
of them, that he could have no quietness in himself until he had seen
that noble person whose only invention they were. He acquaints John
Marr therewith, who went in[to] Scotland before Mr Briggs, purposely
to be there when these two so learned persons should meet. Mr Briggs
appoints a certain day when to meet at Edinburgh; but failing thereof,
Merchiston was fearful he would not come. It happened one day, as John
Marr and Lord Napier were speaking of Mr Briggs, “Oh! John,” saith
Merchiston, “Mr Briggs will not come now.” At the very instant, one
knocks at the gate. John Marr hasted down, and it proved to be Mr
Briggs, to his great contentment. He brings Mr Briggs into my lord’s
chamber, where almost one quarter of an hour was spent, each beholding
other with admiration, before one word was spoken. At last Mr Briggs
began: “My lord, I have undertaken this long journey purposely to see
your person, and to know by what engine of wit or ingenuity you came
first to think of this most excellent help unto astronomy--namely, the
Logarithms; but, my lord, being by you found out, I wonder nobody else
found it out before, when, now being known, it appears so easy.” He
was nobly entertained by the Lord Napier; and every summer after that,
during the laird’s being alive, this venerable man went purposely to
Scotland to visit him.’
As Napier (whom Lilly erroneously calls lord) died in April 1617, Mr
Briggs could not have made more than one other summer pilgrimage to
Merchiston.
* * * * *
Died John M‘Birnie, minister of St Nicolas’ Church, Aberdeen--a typical
example of the more zealous and self-denying of the Presbyterian clergy
of that age. A similar one of the next age says of M‘Birnie: ‘I heard
Lady Culross say: “He was a godly, zealous, and painful preacher; and
that he used always, when he rode, to have two Bibles hanging at a
leather girdle about his middle, the one original, the other English;
as also, a little sand-glass in a brazen case: and being alone, he
read, or meditated, or prayed; and if any company were with him,
he would read or speak from the Word to them.”... When he died, he
called his wife, and told her he had no outward means to leave her,
or his only daughter, but that he had got good assurance that the
Lord would provide for them; and accordingly, the day he was buried,
the magistrates of the town came to the house, after the burial, and
brought two subscribed papers, one of a competent maintenance to his
wife during her life, another of a provision for his daughter.’[352]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1615.]
The latter part of the winter 1614-15 was of such severity as to
be attended with several remarkable circumstances which were long
remembered. In February, the Tay was frozen over so strongly as
to admit of passage for both horse and man. ‘Upon Fasten’s E’en
[February 21], there was twa puncheons of Bourdeaux wine carriet,
_sting and ling_,[353] on men’s shoulders, on the ice, at the mids of
the North Inch, the weight of the puncheon and the bearers, estimate
to three score twelve stane weight.’ This state of things, however,
was inconvenient for the ferrymen, ‘being thereby prejudgit of their
commodity.’ So they, ‘in the night-time, brak the ice at the entry, and
stayit the passage.’--_Chron. Perth._
[Sidenote: 1615.]
An enormous fall of snow took place early in March, so as to stop all
communication throughout the country. On its third day, many men and
horse perished in vain attempts to travel. The accumulation of snow was
beyond all that any man remembered.
‘In some places, men devised snow-ploughs to clear the ground, and
fodder the cattle.’--_Bal._ The snow fell to such a depth, and endured
so long upon the ground, that, according to Sir Robert Gordon, ‘most
part of all the horse, nolt, and sheep of the kingdom did perish, but
chiefly in the north.’[354]
The Privy Council, viewing the ‘universal death, destruction, and
wrack of the beasts and goods throughout all parts of the country,’
apprehended that, without some extraordinary care, there would not be
enough of lambs left to replenish the farms with sheep for future use.
They accordingly interfered with a decree forbidding the use of lamb
for a certain time. Nevertheless, so early as the 26th of April, it was
ascertained that there were undutiful subjects, who, ‘preferring their
own private contentment and their inordinate appetite, and the delicate
feeding of their bellies, to the reverence and obedience of the law,’
continued to use lamb, only purchasing it in secret places, as if
no such prohibition had ever been uttered. It was therefore become
necessary that severe punishment should be threatened for this offence.
The threats launched forth on this occasion were found next year to
have been of some effect in preserving the remnant of the lamb stock;
and, to complete the restoration of the stock, a new decree to the like
effect was then made (March 14, 1616).
[Sidenote: JAN.]
[Sidenote: 1615.]
The king and his English council having, with the usual short-sighted
policy of the age, decreed that no goods should be imported into or
exported out of England, except in English vessels, the burghs of
Scotland were not slow to perceive that the interests of their country
would be deeply injured thereby, as other states would of course
establish similar restrictions, ‘and if so, there is naething to be
expected but decay and wrack to our shipping, insaemickle as the best
ships of Scotland are continually employed in the service of Frenchmen,
not only within the dominions of France, but also within the bounds
of Spain, Italy, and Barbary, where their trade lies, whilk is ane
chief cause of the increase of the number of Scots ships and of their
maintenance, whereas by the contrary, the half of the number of ships
whilk are presently in Scotland will serve for our awn privat trade and
negotiation.’
The king of France did in reality revenge the selfish policy of England
by issuing a similar order in favour of French shipping, the first
consequence of which was that an English vessel and a Dutch one, lading
in Normandy, were obliged to disburden themselves and come empty home.
‘Ane Scottish bark perteining to Andrew Allan, whilk that same time was
lading with French merchandise,’ would have been subjected to the same
inconvenience, if the master had not pretended to an immunity in favour
of his country, through its ancient alliance with France, ‘inviolably
kept these 800 years bypast.’ The Scots factors in France entered a
complaint before the parliament of Paris, reminding it of that ancient
alliance, and pleading that the French had ever had liberty of trade in
all Scottish ports; shewing, indeed, that Scotland was not comprised
in the edict of the English monarch and his council. The parliament
accordingly decreed that the Scotch should remain in the enjoyment of
freedom of trade within France, as heretofore.
The attention of the king being necessarily called to the interests
of Scotland in this matter, he was found obstinate in favour of the
general principle of the English order in council. ‘Natural reason,’
he said, ‘teaches us that Scotland, being part of an isle, cannot
be mainteined or preserved without shipping, and shipping cannot be
mainteined without employment; and the very law of nature teacheth
every sort of corporation, kingdom, or country, first to set their own
vessels on work, before they employ any stranger.’[355] He was willing,
however, to relax in particular cases. James argues logically, but he
had not sagacity to anticipate the doctrines of Adam Smith.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: FEB. 6.]
This day saw the extraordinary sight of a Scottish earl, cousin-german
to the king, led out to a scaffold in the High Street of Edinburgh, and
there beheaded. The sufferer was Patrick Earl of Orkney, whose father
was a natural son of King James V. Forty years earlier, this man would
have stood his ground against the law: now, it was too strong for him,
and he fell before it.
[Sidenote: 1615.]
Earl Patrick appears to have been a man of grand and ambitious views,
and his dream of life was to make himself a sort of independent prince
in the remote group of islands where lay his estate. The sketch given
of his style of living there by a contemporary writer is striking:
‘He had a princely and royal revenue; and indeed behavit himself
with sic sovereignty, and, gif I durst say the plain verity, rather
tyrannically, by the shadow of Danish laws, different and more rigorous
nor [than] the municipal or criminal laws of the rest of Scotland;
whereby no man of rent or purse might enjoy his property in Orkney,
without his special favour, and the same dear bought.... Fitchit and
forgit faults was so devisit against many of them, that they were
compellit by imprisonment and small rewaird to resign their heritable
titles to him; and gif he had a stieve purse and no rent, then was some
crime devisit against him, whereby he was compellit [to give up] either
half or haill thereof, gif not life and all beside. And his pomp was
so great there [in Kirkwall], as he never went from his castle to the
kirk, nor abroad otherwise, without the convoy of fifty musketeers and
other gentlemen of convoy and guard. And siclike, before dinner and
supper, there were three trumpeters that soundit still till the meat of
the first service was set at table, and siclike at the second service;
and consequently, after the grace. He had also his ships directit to
the sea, to intercept pirates, and collect tribute of uncouth [foreign]
fishers, that came yearly to these seas. Whereby he made sic collection
of great guns and other weapons for weir [war] as no house, palace, nor
castle, yea all in Scotland were not furnished with the like.’
[Sidenote: 1615.]
The doings of this insular potentate at length attracted the attention
of the law, and he was summoned in 1610 to answer for various acts of
the nature of a usurpation of the royal authority during the preceding
twenty years. It appears from this summons, that he made laws of his
own, and prosecuted divers gentlemen for disobeying them. He had forced
some of these persons into a Bond of Manrent, obliging themselves to
maintain his cause against whatsoever persons, and that they should
never know of any ‘skaith’ threatening him but they would reveal it
within twenty-four hours. He had imprisoned sundry persons in irons
and stocks sundry days and weeks, and compelled many of the poorer
class ‘to work for him all manner of work and labour by sea and land,
in rowing and sailing his ships and boats, working in the stane quarry
... loading his boats with stane and lime ... bigging his park dykes,
and all other sorts of servile and painful labour, without either meat,
drink, or hire.’ While forbidding the people generally to sell any of
the produce of their lands without his licence, he imposed on them
grievous taxations. In short, he had acted the baronial tyrant in the
extremest form of the character.
The earl was now a prisoner in Edinburgh Castle, and there could
have been no difficulty in convicting and punishing him. The king,
however, felt mercifully towards his cousin; and after several briefer
postponements, the case was hung up, and the earl conveyed, for the
safer custody of his person, to Dumbarton Castle. It is believed that
King James was even willing to have come to a compromise with the
culprit, granting him the lucrative keepership of some one of the royal
palaces, on condition of his renouncing all claim to Orkney. The earl
refused to temporise, and continued to entertain the secret resolution
to regain, if possible, his island sovereignty, and there set all law
at defiance.
He had a natural son, Robert, a fitting instrument for his designs.
Under his instructions, this youth proceeded to Orkney in 1614, and
there assembling a company, took possession of the castle of Kirkwall,
at the same time fortifying the church and steeple. Voluntarily or by
compulsion, a great number of the islanders signed a bond, engaging to
support him; and it was soon understood that Orkney was in rebellion
against the crown. The Privy Council met to consider what should be
done. The Earl of Caithness was now in Edinburgh, attempting to obtain
remission for offences of his own, one of which consisted in his
waging war in the preceding year against the Earl of Sutherland. It
readily occurred to his wily mind, that, for a culprit like himself,
nothing could be so good as to offer to help the government to punish
the crimes of others. It was, moreover, rather a pleasure than a duty
to carry war into Orkney. His offered services were accepted, and he
quickly sailed with a strong military party for Kirkwall. He found the
fortress strong, the country people generally in favour of the rebels,
and great deficiency of provision for his troops. He nevertheless
beleaguered the castle for about a month, during which time some damage
was done by ordnance on both sides. At length, by adroit dealing with
one Patrick Halcro, the chief associate of Robert Stuart, he brought
about a surrender of the house and all it contained (September 29,
1614), with a condition for the saving of Halcro’s life, but for no
favour to any other.
[Sidenote: 1615.
JAN. 6.]
Robert Stuart was brought to trial in Edinburgh, and condemned to
death. He was a youth of only twenty-two, ‘of a tall stature and
comely countenance;’ and it is to be remembered in his favour, that
he withstood all the persuasions of the Earl of Caithness to give up
Kirkwall Castle, foreseeing that he should be tortured into revealing
his father’s guilt; he only surrendered on finding that Halcro was
going to betray him. He died penitent, with five of his company.
The doom of the earl, the prime mover of the rebellion, followed. He
‘took the sentence impatiently.’ An attempt was made to excite the
king to spare the royal blood, but without effect. ‘The ministers,
finding him so ignorant that he could scarce rehearse the Lord’s
Prayer, entreated the Council to delay his execution some few days,
till he were better informed, and received the Lord’s Supper.... So he
communicate on the Lord’s day, the 5th of February, and was beheaded
at the market-cross of Edinburgh upon Monday the 6th of February; when
Sir Robert Ker, the Earl of Rochester, was decourted. The king laid the
blame of his death upon him [Rochester], but late, as his custom was,
when matters was past remedy.’--_Cal._ _G. H. S._ _Pit._
An entry in the session record of Perth, under September 1632, forms a
curious and striking pendant to the history of this unfortunate branch
of the Stuart family. ‘Disbursed at the command of the ministers to
ane young man called Stewart, son to umwhile the Earl of Orkney, seven
shillings.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: FEB. 28.]
This day, John Ogilvie, a Jesuit, was hanged in Glasgow, being the
first priest who had suffered in that way in Scotland since the
execution of the Archbishop of St Andrews at Stirling in 1571.[356]
[Sidenote: 1615.]
Ogilvie was a Scotsman of good family, who had lived for twenty-one
years in a Jesuit college at Gratz. He came to Scotland in the autumn
of 1613, and spent some time amongst the Catholics in the north, then
went to London, and finally came back to Scotland in June 1614. For
three months he lived skulkingly in Glasgow, occasionally performing
mass, but was at length apprehended in October, along with thirteen or
fourteen persons who had been present at those ceremonies. The latter
were thrown into Dumbarton Castle, and only liberated on payment of
large fines. Ogilvie himself was subjected to examination and trial.
The only account he would give of himself was that he came to Scotland
at the command of his superiors, ‘to save souls.’ To induce further
confession, he was put on low diet and kept from sleep for several
nights in succession; and being thus made ‘light in the head,’ he
‘began to discover certain particulars, but, howsoon he was permitted
to take any rest, he denied all, and was as obstinate in denying as at
first.’
The king, who was tolerant of the religion of the papists, as apart
from their anarchical doctrines regarding papal supremacy, told his
Council to let Ogilvie go unharmed into banishment, if he was but
a Jesuit who had said mass, and only to deal severely with him if
he had been a practiser of sedition, or refused to take the oath of
allegiance. They soon found from his answers to certain questions that
he was a bold and decided adherent of the doctrines of his order,
holding that the pope was superior to the king, and might excommunicate
him, and not clearly denying that the subjects might thus be absolved
from their allegiance to their sovereign, and even slay him. He
denied that he had been guilty of any real crime, saying that acts of
parliament were but the dicta of partial men. The king’s authority came
from predecessors who had acknowledged the supremacy of the pope: ‘if
he will be to me as his predecessors were to mine, I will acknowledge
him,’ not otherwise. In declining the king’s authority in such matters,
he did no more than the best of the Presbyterian clergy did--a course
in which they would persevere if they were wise. ‘I have done no
offence,’ said he, ‘neither will I beg mercy. If I were even now forth
of the kingdom, I should return. If all the hairs in my head were
priests, they should all come into the kingdom.’
The one chance which Ogilvie had in the tolerant spirit of the king
was thus closed. The zealous Presbyterians had of course nothing to
say in arrest of judgment. According to their historian, the bishops
felt it to be necessary that they should do something decided against
the papists ‘_for honesty’s sake_‘--that is, some unmistakably sound
and good thing on the right side, such as the hanging of a Jesuit
clearly was--lest they should appear more inclined to persecute the
ministers of the true, than those of a false religion. Accordingly,
John Spottiswoode, archbishop of Glasgow, was all along the most
conspicuous man in the prosecution of the unfortunate Jesuit. The trial
took place in the Town-hall of Glasgow, before a commission composed of
the magistrates and a number of noblemen, and condemnation was followed
in _three hours_ by execution.
[Sidenote: 1615.]
‘He continued a while upon his knees at prayer, with a cold devotion;
and when the hour of execution approached, his hands being tied by the
executioner, his spirits were perceived much to fail him. In going
towards the scaffold, the throng of people was great, and he seemed
much amazed; and when he was up, Master Robert Scott and Mr William
Struthers, ministers, very gravely and Christianly exhorted him to a
humble acknowledgment of his offence, and if anything troubled his
mind, to disburden his conscience. In matters of religion, they said,
they would not then enter, but prayed him to resolve and settle his
mind, and seek mercy and grace from God through Jesus Christ, in whom
only salvation is to be found. Ogilvie answered that “he was prepared
and resolved.” Once he said that he died for religion, but uttered this
so weakly as scarce to be heard by them that stood by on the scaffold.
Then addressing himself to execution, he kneeled at the ladder-foot,
and prayed. Master Robert Scott, in that while, declaring to the
people, that his suffering was not for any matter of religion, but for
heinous treason against his majesty, which he prayed God to forgive
him. Ogilvie, hearing this, said: “He doeth me wrong.” One called John
Abercrombie, a man of little wit, replied: “No matter, John, the more
wrongs the better.” This man was seen to attend him carefully, and was
ever heard asking of Ogilvie some token before his death; for which,
and other business he made with him, he was put off the scaffold.
‘Ogilvie, ending his prayer, arose to go up the ladder; but strength
and courage, to the admiration of those who had seen him before, did
quite forsake him. He trembled and shaked, saying he would fall, and
could hardly be helped up on the top of the ladder. He kissed the
hangman, and said: “Maria, Mater gratiae, ora pro me; Omnes Angeli,
orate pro me; Omnes Sancti, Sanctaeque, orate pro me!” but with so low
a voice that they which stood at the ladder-foot had some difficulty to
hear him.
‘The executioner willed him to commend his soul to God, pronouncing
these words unto him: “Say, John, Lord have mercy on me, Lord receive
my soul!” which he did, with such feebleness of voice, that scarce
could he be heard. Then he was turned off, and hung till he was
dead.’[357]
[Sidenote: 1615.]
This hanging would of course have procured some popularity for the
king and bishops, if it had proceeded from the right motive. But the
people saw that no gratitude was really due. ‘Some,’ says Calderwood,
‘interpreted this execution to have proceeded rather of a care to
bless the king’s government, than of _any sincere hatred of the popish
religion_. Some [alleged] that it was done to be a terror to the
sincerer sort of the ministry, not to decline the king’s authority in
ony cause whatever.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAR.]
There was believed to be at this time an unusual number of Jesuits
and seminary priests in Scotland, ‘pressing by all means possible to
subvert the true religion.’ The kirk launched a fast at them, and
ordered a general celebration of ‘the holie communion’ for discovery
of all recusants. In Aberdeen, the elders subsequently reported
three men and two women as having been absent on this occasion. Such
persons were proceeded against, so as to force them, if possible, into
conformity, in which case each person was expected to come forward
publicly, and declare, ‘for the peace of my own conscience,’ I do, ‘by
my own free choice and voluntary consent, renounce all the errors and
superstitions of popery,’ and profess, ‘in the true simplicity of my
heart,’ that ‘I shall own and maintain all the doctrines of the true
Reformed Protestant Religion, and shall adhere to the whole worship
and discipline thereof to my life’s end.’[358] In the present case,
four persons remained recusant, and actually were excommunicated in the
ensuing January; thus, in fact, losing all privileges as subjects of
the realm.
[Sidenote: 1615.]
On the 14th of August, three citizens of Edinburgh, named Sinclair,
Wilkie, and Cruikshanks, all men in respectable circumstances, were
tried for the crime of entertaining in their houses three Jesuits or
trafficking priests, including the unfortunate John Ogilvie. Sinclair
confessed to having reset Mr James Moffat in the preceding October, but
said he did it ‘only upon simplicity.’ The three men were condemned
to be executed as traitors; and, as if to shew the certainty of their
doom, a special order from the king was read in court for proceeding
to both sentence and execution. The zealous multitude were accordingly
in full hope of the punishment being inflicted; but there was no
earnestness in the government in these proceedings. Let Calderwood tell
the remainder of the tale. ‘The day following [the trial], betwixt four
and five in the afternoon, they were brought furth with their hands
bound, to the scaffold set up beside the cross and a gallows in it,
according to the custom of execution. While a great multitude of people
were going to see the execution, there was a warrant presented to the
magistrates of Edinburgh to stay the execution. So they were turned
back again to their wards. The people thought this form of dealing
_rather mockery than punishment_.’
The sentence was commuted by the king’s order to banishment from
Edinburgh for Cruikshanks, and for the other two to banishment from the
king’s dominions, both during his royal pleasure.--_Pit._ _Cal._
A little trait of the domestic circumstances of Catholics of rank at
this time is worthy of notice. The Earl of Errol, as a recusant papist,
was only enabled to remain in his country on condition that he should
not pass beyond a small circle around his own castle in Aberdeenshire.
Being embarrassed by debt, and troubled by his creditors, he found
himself constrained to take some legal steps ‘for the provision of his
mony young children, and settling of some good course for the estate
of his house.’ It was necessary that he should be allowed to break
temporarily through the obligation under which he lay to live within
a certain space round his house. He therefore got a formal licence
(November 9, 1615), ‘to repair to Edinburgh, and there to remain in
some lodging, _not kything ony way in daylight upon the heich street_,
for ten days after the 20th of November.’--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR.]
[Sidenote: 1615.]
On the Saturday before Pasch Sunday, ‘ane extraordinar riot’ took place
in the usually quiet little burgh of Burntisland. The gentleman who
acted as chamberlain of the queen in the management of her dotarial
estate of Dunfermline, was called upon, in the course of his duty, to
send ‘precepts of warning to remove’ to Burntisland, ‘according to
common order.’ No immediate steps of a strong character were meditated;
it was merely a form of law. The inhabitants, led, as afterwards
appeared, by their pastor, Mr William Watson, conceived a violent anger
at the proceeding, and determined to give it an active resistance. When
the officer and his witness came to the cross for the execution of his
office, he was assailed by ‘a multitude of women, above ane hundred,
of the bangster Amazon kind’--so states the grave chancellor, Earl of
Dunfermline--and ‘maist uncourteously dung [driven] off his feet, and
his witness with him, they all hurt and bloodit, all his letters and
precepts reft frae him, riven and cast away, and sae staned and chased
out of the town.’ The magistrates are alleged to have looked on without
interference; nay, ‘the bailie’s awn wife’ was ‘the principal leader of
this tumultuary army of Amazons;’ so that there was no room to doubt
that the male inhabitants were the instigators of the riot.
Some sharp measures were taken for the punishment of the rioters, and
the chancellor besought the king to send off Mr Watson to some quieter
part of the country, and ordain Burntisland ‘to be provided with some
minister of mair calm port, to rule and circumsede sic het humours as
may be in that people.’--_M. S. P._
Accordingly, on the 14th of December, the Council decreed that
Mr William Watson should ‘transport himself out of the burgh of
Burntisland’ before the 10th of January next, and thereafter ‘on nae
wise repair to the said burgh, [nor] within aucht miles of the same,
and on nae wise entertein ony intelligence with the inhabitants of
Burntisland in ony matter concerning the government of that town.’--_P.
C. R._ The king sent a warrant from Newmarket for this being carried
into effect.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR. 26.]
‘Amang the mony abuses whilk the iniquity of the time and
private respect of filthy lucre and gain has produced within
the commonwealth’--thus gravely commences an act of the Privy
Council--‘there is of late discoverit a most unlawful and pernicious
tred of _transporting of eggs furth of the kingdom_.’ ‘Certain
avaritious and godless persons, void of modesty and discretion,
preferring their awn private commodity to the commonweal, has gone
and goes athort the country and buys the haill eggs that they can
get, barrels the same, and transports them at their pleasure.’ As
an unavoidable consequence, ‘there has been a great scarcity of
eggs this while bygane,’ and any that are to be had have ‘risen to
such extraordinar and heich prices as are not to be sufferit in a
weel-governit commonwealth.’ ‘Moreover,’ proceeds this sage document,
‘if this unlawful tred be sufferit to be of ony langer continuance, it
will fall out that in a very short time _there will no eggs nor poultry
be funden within the country_.’
The Council was therefore prompted to order letters to be directed to
all merchants and owners of vessels, forbidding them to carry eggs out
of the country, on pain of heavy fines and such further punishment as
the Council might see fit to decree.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAY 30.]
John Brand, student of philosophy, son of a former minister of Holyrood
parish, was tried for the murder of a young man named William King,
by stabbing him with a knife ‘upon St Leonard’s Craigs, beside the
park-dyke.’ He was sentenced to be beheaded at the Cross.--_Pit._
‘About this time certain bare and idle gentlemen lay in wait upon
passengers by the ways about Edinburgh, and in parts of East Lothian,
and would needs have money from them. The common people called them
_Whilliwha’s_.’[359]--_Cal._
* * * * *
Francis Hay, son of the late George Hay of Ardletham, and cousin-german
to the Earl of Errol, was on terms of the most friendly intimacy
with Adam Gordon, brother of Gordon of Gight. One day, when living
familiarly together, a quarrel took place between them, followed by a
single combat, in which Adam Gordon had the advantage, taking Hay’s
sword from him, but instantly restoring it. Hay not being able to
digest the affront, challenged Gordon some time after to renew the
fight. Gordon, if we can believe a historian of the same name, ‘desired
him to forbeir, seeing there was enough done already for any quarrel
that was amongst them. Whereupon Francis came to Adam’s dwelling-place
on horseback, with a pair of pistols at his girdle, and finds Adam
walking about the fields, with his sword about him. Francis flies from
his horse, and desires Adam to do him reason. So they go to it. Then
again it was Adam his good hap to overcome Francis, and grants him his
life; but as Adam was returning home, Francis, disdaining to be thus
twice overthrown, shoots Adam behind his back with a pistol, and slays
him.’
[Sidenote: DEC. 18.]
[Sidenote: 1615.]
Gordon of Gight, resolved to revenge his brother’s death, came to the
house of William Hay of Logyruif, and there, without any warrant,
seized Francis Hay, whom he immediately brought along to Aberdeen,
and imprisoned in his own lodging, called the _Bonnie Wife’s Inn_, in
the Gallowgate, where he kept him for forty-eight hours, excluding
all his friends from seeing him. The sheriff-depute of Aberdeen was
also a Gordon, and, of course, felt as a clansman regarding the late
transaction. He therefore consented to preside at an irregular trial,
to which Hay was forthwith subjected. At this trial, no one was allowed
to appear for the alleged culprit. An advocate, who offered to come and
act as his counsel, was told that if he did so, he should scarcely be
down stairs till twenty whingers were put into him. Francis, in short,
was condemned to lose his head, and next morning was actually led out
to a solitary place, and there butchered by the swords of his enemies.
In this wild way did the passions of men work themselves out in the
north of Scotland, at the time when Bacon and Grotius were writing,
when Drummond sang and Napier geometrised.
The Earl of Errol now came into the field, grievously offended
because his relative had undergone law _without his being consulted_.
The Gordons were summoned to answer for the irregularity of their
proceedings at Edinburgh. This, again, drew forth their chief, the
Marquis of Huntly, both to defend his own sheriffship, and to maintain
his kinsmen. ‘Huntly and Errol did appear at Edinburgh, with all their
friends on either side; so that the whole kingdom was divided in two
factions, ready to fall together by the ears.’ The king himself now
interfered, with a request that all proceedings should be suspended
till he should come to Scotland. Accordingly, upwards of a year after,
on his visiting his native kingdom, he brought the parties together,
and persuaded them to be reconciled to each other, dismissing the
offenders with only nominal punishments. ‘So was this controversy
settled and taken away; yet it was not quite extinguished till 1627,
that Viscount Melgum, the Marquis of Huntly’s third son, married ----
Hay, the Earl of Errol’s daughter.’--_Pit._ _G. H. S._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV.]
Adam French of Thornydykes, ‘ane young bairn scarce past fourteen years
of age,’ was attending school at Haddington, under the guardianship of
Sir John Home of North Berwick, ‘donator to the gift of his ward and
marriage,’ when a plot was laid for making that gift of non-effect by
his maternal uncle, William Home of Hardiesmill, in connection with
John Cranston of Moriston and Sir Patrick Chirnside of East Nisbet.
Under divers pretences, the boy was inveigled away from the house where
he resided, and taken to Rimmelton Law in the Merse, the house of John
Cranston, whence he was next removed to East Nisbet, and introduced
to a daughter of the laird, who was destined to become his wife. A
proclamation of bans being made in hasty style, the young pair were
straightway carried to Berwick, and there married.
[Sidenote: 1615.]
At the urgency of Sir John Home, the three persons concerned in the
abduction, together with one Moffat, a servant, were tried before the
supreme court (November 8, 1616), on the charge of ravishing and taking
away Adam French. It was shewn in defence, that Adam, being fully
fourteen years of age, was competent to contract marriage of his own
freewill--the marriage was regular--he himself was satisfied with what
had been done, and was ready to declare that he considered the accused
parties as his friends. There was much discussion between the king’s
advocate and the counsel of the accused on points of law; and, finally,
the case was remitted to the sheriff of Berwickshire, the parties
giving surety that they would not, in the meantime, fall foul of each
other.--_Pit._
Just about this time, an heiress of the same age as Adam French was
the victim of similar selfishness on the part of her ‘friends.’ A
narrative laid before the Privy Council represented Helen Graham,
daughter of the deceased Sir John Graham of Knockdolian, as having been
left by her father in the hands of persons in whom he had confidence,
and with ‘a reasonable provision.’ Now that she was approaching her
majority, being ‘about the hinder end of the fourteen year of her age,’
‘there has fallen out some contestation betwixt them and others of her
friends anent the keeping of her person, and she has been coupit fra
hand to hand betwixt them, and twice exhibite before the lords of the
secret council.’ In this contestation, ‘there is no regard had by ony
of them to her will, but all of them, seeking their awn advantage,
do what in them lies to procure her wrack and undoing.’ At her last
exhibition before the Council, she had been committed to the care of
John Muirhead of Brydonhill, who, being no relation to her, had no
just pretension to the care of her person nor to the management of her
estate. It was now apparent that John had ‘made merchandise of her,’
for, ‘against all modesty and good conscience,’ he had agreed and
colluded with James Muirhead of Lawhope ‘for bestowing her in marriage
upon Arthur Muirhead, his bastard son, who has no means, moyen, nor
provision whatsoever;’ and she had been carried to the house of this
James Muirhead, and thence by Arthur ‘transported agaitward toward
the realm of England, there to have causit some priest marry her upon
him.’ To all appearance, this project would have been accomplished, but
for the interference of certain justices by the way. The complainer
had, however, been carried back to John Muirhead’s house, and was now
‘deteinit as a prisoner by him, secludit and debarrit fra access,
conference, and advice with ony person who professes her guid will.’
She demanded to be restored to liberty, and to have the free choice
of her own curators; ‘for gif she be deteinit under the power of thir
persons, who, without ony affection to herself, do only respect her
estate and geir, she will be miserably undone and wracked.’
[Sidenote: 1615.]
John Muirhead appeared in answer to a summons, and succeeded in
freeing himself from blame regarding Helen Graham’s abduction; while
Arthur Muirhead was denounced rebel for non-appearance. John, who is
described as ‘ane gentleman of ane honest and upright disposition,’
professed to be animated by the best wishes towards Helen, being
‘mindit, with the advice of the Earl of Montrose, her chief, and others
her friends, to provide and foresee the best occasion for her weal.’
The lords appointed that Helen should remain with him till she should
choose curators; and they at the same time indicated a few gentlemen,
including John Muirhead, whom they thought suitable for the trust.
A few years earlier (June 1612), Mistress Isobel Montgomery, daughter
of the deceased Robert Master of Eglintoun, was represented as being
kept in durance by Hugh Lord Loudon and Mistress Margaret Montgomery,
sister of Isobel, while they endeavoured to compel her to make ‘such
disposition to the lands, guids, and geir appertaining to her, as to
them sall seem expedient.’ The accused parties, being summoned to
appear and bring Isobel before the lords, answered that the complainer
was too sickly to travel; to test which allegation, a medical man was
despatched to her residence, charged with the duty of reporting on her
condition before a certain day.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 15.]
The Privy Council recommended to the charity of the public the case
of Andrew Robertson, John Cowie, John Dauling, James Pratt, and some
others, formerly mariners of Leith, who, being lately on the coast of
Barbary, had fought a bloody skirmish with the merciless Turks, by
whom they were led into captivity, and presented for sale in Algiers.
James Fraser, a resident in Algiers, had been moved with pity to redeem
these poor men by an advance of £140, which they undertook to repay at
a certain time. They, however, being in such poverty as to be unable
to reimburse Fraser, were now throwing themselves upon the compassion
of the public. On the recommendation of the Privy Council, there were
collections made for them in churches.
[Sidenote: 1615.]
Captivity among the Moors of Northern Africa was no uncommon fate with
Scottish mariners of that age. In 1625, there was a church collection
‘for the relief of some folks of Queensferry and Kinghorn, deteinit
under slavery by the Turks at Sallee.’ In 1618, John Harrison sent
to King James an account of his unsuccessful attempts to obtain the
liberation of certain British subjects detained under Muley Sidan,
Emperor of Morocco. Muley seems to have been inaccessible to all
pleadings but those which came in the form of money.[360] A collection
was made, August 1621, in all the parish churches in Scotland, and
amounted to a large sum, ‘for the relief of the Scots prisoners in
Tunis and Algiers.’--_Bal._
[Sidenote: 1616.
JAN. 27.]
‘About five afternoon, there was a great fiery star, in the form of a
dragon with a tail, running through the firmament, and in the running
giving great light and spouting fire, which continued a pretty space
before it vanished. Others describe it thus: that the night being
fair and frosty, there arose a great fiery light in the south-west,
after the setting of the sun, and ran to the north-east, having at
the end thereof, as it were, the shape of the moon; and when it
vanished out of sight, there were two great cracks heard, as if they
had been thunder-claps. There followed a great calmness and frost
for eight or ten days; but the month following was bitter and stormy
weather.’--_Cal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: FEB. 20.]
This day three men were tried for an extraordinary and most atrocious
crime.
[Sidenote: 1616.]
Sir James Douglas of Drumlanrig (ancestor of the Dukes of Queensberry)
had become possessed of the lands of Howpaslot in Roxburghshire, much
to the chagrin of the widow of a former proprietor. On a certain day
in April 1615, Lady Howpaslot, as she was called, along with her
friend, Jean Scott of Satchells, had a meeting at the Cross of Hawick
with a man called George Scott, a cordiner of that town, commonly
called _Marion’s Geordie_; when a course of conduct was resolved upon
for the purpose of defeating the design of Drumlanrig to _stock_ or
_plenish_ the lands. The interest of the cordiner in this object does
not appear; neither does that of three other men, who entered into an
agreement to assist him in his plan--namely, Walter and Ingram Scott,
and another Scott described by his nickname of _the Suckler_. A few
days after the Hawick meeting, George Scott, accompanied by William
Scott of Satchells, ‘mussalit’ (disguised), proceeded under cloud of
night to Elrig-burn-foot, where the Suckler joined them. Then all three
went forward to Birnie Cleuch, where they met Walter and Ingram Scott,
‘having plaids and blue bonnets.’ Here, however, the Suckler deserted
the party. The other men passed on to a cleuch or hollow on the lands
of Howpaslot, where a flock of sheep were lying at rest. There they
fell upon the poor animals with swords, ‘bendit staffs,’ and other
weapons, killing about forty outright, and leaving twenty more wounded
and mutilated on the ground.
On the day noted in the margin, George, Walter, and Ingram Scott,
and John Scott the Suckler, were tried for this horrible crime, when
the last being accepted as a witness for the crown, the other three
were condemned to death. The Suckler suffered for sheep-stealing next
year.--_Pit._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 4.]
[Sidenote: 1616.
JUNE 11.]
The numberless feuds standing between gentlemen-neighbours throughout
the country, were usually dealt with in one simple way. The parties
were summoned to appear personally before the Council, and give
assurances for keeping the peace towards each other for a certain time.
When the time had nearly expired, the parties were again charged to
appear and give renewal of the assurances. Thus things went on from one
period to another, while any hatred remained between the parties. At
the date noted, Harie Wood of Bonnytoun and Francis Ogilvy of Newgrange
were summoned to appear and renew the former standing assurances; and
meanwhile the Council ordered them ‘to observe our sovereign lord’s
peace, and to keep good rule and quietness in the country, and that
they nor nane of them invade or pursue ane another, for whatsomever
deed, cause, or occasion, otherwise nor by order of law, and inflict
ather of them, under the pain of three thousand merks.’ It is evident,
from the Record of the Privy Council, that sanguinary quarrels amongst
the upper classes, though not lessened in number, were not in general
carried to such ferocious extremes as formerly. In April of this
year, we find an aged statesman congratulating the king on the great
improvement which he noted in the social state of Scotland. The person
alluded to is Sir Robert Melville, the friend and servant of Mary, and
who had been a grown man at the time of Pinkie field. Now advanced to
near the ninetieth year of his age, this venerable person had lately
been created a peer under the title of Lord Melville. He thus writes
to the king: ‘All the said years [namely, in his younger days], we was
destitute of the true religion, our country being full of barbarity,
deadly feids, and oppressions. Since the time your majesty took the
management of the affairs of your princely dominions in your awn
hand, all your hieness’s countries has been peaceable and quiet; and
specially this country, where the true religion flourishes, and justice
[is] sae weel ministrat by your election of faithful officiars, as I
may be bauld to affirm that no country is in ane mair happy estate,
and has better occasion to be thankful to God and faithful to your
majesty.’[361]
Stephen Atkinson, an Englishman, heretofore noticed as concerned in
various mining adventures, was this day licensed by the Privy Council
to search for gold, and ‘the Saxeer, the Calumeer, and the Salyneer
stanes,’ in Crawford Muir, on the condition of his bringing all the
gold to be coined at the Scottish mint, and giving a tenth of the
product to the king.
It is not likely that much, if anything at all, was done by Atkinson
in consequence, as in 1621 another similar licence to one Dr Hendlie
speaks of the Crawford gold-field as having been lying for some years
neglected.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 13.]
A book called _God and the King_, ‘shewing that his sacred majesty
being immediately under God within his dominions, doth rightly and
lawfully claim whatsoever is required by the aith of allegiance,’
was now proclaimed as a book of instruction for youth in schools and
universities, ‘whereby, in their tender years, the truth of that
doctrine may be bred and settled in them, and they thereby may be the
better armed and prepared to withstand any persuasion that in their
riper years may be offered and usit towards them for corrupting of them
in their duty and allegiance.’--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 30.]
[Sidenote: 1616.]
This day, being Sunday, Sir Robert Crichton of Cluny went to attend
morning-service at St Cuthbert’s Kirk, near Edinburgh, and had sat
there a considerable time quietly, when he observed a boy belonging
to the Earl of Tullibardine come to the door and look in. As the earl
had before this time ‘sought both his land and life,’ he judged the
boy to be a spy, and apprehended that some evil was designed to him.
He therefore rose to go out, hoping peaceably to convey himself beyond
the earl’s reach; but no sooner had he done so, than three men of the
king’s guard--all, be it remarked, bearing the name of _Murray_, being
that of the earl--rose from a seat behind, and shewed a warrant for
taking him. By their own confession, they had come to church for the
purpose of lying in wait to take Sir Robert, though intending not to
meddle with him till the end of the service. They now told him that
they were willing to wait for him till the dismissal of the people,
keeping him meanwhile in a chamber adjoining to the church, whereas if
he went forth by himself he might get skaith, as there were several of
the earl’s ‘folk’ in the kirk-yard. Sir Robert, however, disdained to
submit to this ignominious treatment; so he and his son, drawing their
swords, prepared to offer resistance. Of course, a tumult took place
in the church, ‘to the scandal of religion, and the great grief of the
haill parochiners and others convenit at the sermon.’
The three guardsmen were ordered, for this offensive affair, to appear
in the place of repentance in the church, and crave forgiveness of
God and the people, while Sir Robert was committed to ward in the
Tolbooth.--_P. C. R._
A few years later (December 18, 1623), we find the Council issuing a
strict order against the using of captions in churches.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE.]
Mr Peter Blackburn, bishop of Aberdeen, departed this life, after he
had lain a long time little better than benumbed. He was little of a
zealot on the Episcopal side, and studying to please the Presbyterians,
made himself ungracious to both parties. Calderwood alleges, ‘He was
more mindful of a purse and 500 merks in it, which he kept in his
bosom, than anything else.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 11.]
Commissioners from a number of the burghs met to deliberate on
a proposal of the king for working up, within the country, the
whole wool produced in it, ‘in stuffs, plaids, and kerseys.’ They
expressed themselves as content that the exportation of wool should
be prohibited, in order that a trial should be made; but they could
undertake no burden in the matter ‘anent the home-bringing of
strangers,’ or for assurance that his majesty’s ends would be attained.
A prohibition for the exporting of wool was soon after issued.--_P. C.
R._
[Sidenote: 1616.
JULY 19.]
A few months after the above date, we find a curious reference to wool
in the Privy Council Record. The document states, that ‘in some remote
and uncivil places of this kingdom’ an old and barbarous custom was
still kept up of _plucking the wool from sheep instead of clipping
it_. The king, hearing of the practice, wrote a letter to his Council,
denouncing it as one not to be suffered; telling them it had already
been reformed in Ireland, under penalty of a groat on every sheep so
used, and was ‘far less to be endured in you.’ The Council immediately
(March 17, 1617) passed an act in the same tenor, and further stating
that many sheep died in consequence of this cruel treatment--concluding
with a threat of severe fines on such as should hereafter continue the
practice.--_P. C. R._
It is remarkable that in the Faröe Islands there is, to this day, no
other way of taking the wool from sheep than that which was then only
kept up in remote parts of Scotland.
John Faa, James Faa, his son, Moses Baillie, and Helen Brown, were
tried as Egyptians lingering in the country, contrary to a statute
which had banished their tribe forth of the realm on pain of death. In
respect no caution could be found by them to assure their leaving the
country, they were sentenced to be hanged on the Burgh-moor. It is not
known that this sentence was carried into execution; but neither is
there anything known to make such severity unlikely.
In 1624, six Faas, and two other men of the gipsy tribe, were tried for
the same offence of not voluntarily transporting themselves, and these
men were executed. A number of their women and children were mercifully
allowed to go free, on condition that they should immediately depart
from the kingdom.--_Pit._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP. 16.]
‘... there arose such a swelling in the sea at Leith, that the like was
not seen before for a hundred years. The water came in with violence
beside the bulwark, in a place called the Timber Holf [Howf], where the
timber lay, and carried some of the timber and many lasts of herrings
lying there, to the sea; brake in sundry low houses and cellars, and
filled them with water. The like flowing was in Dunbar, Musselburgh,
and other parts of the sea-coast. The people took this extraordinary
tide to be a forewarning of some evil to come.’--_Cal._
* * * * *
The Chronicle of Perth notes for this year ‘great poverty of towns and
great dearth;’ probably a consequence of the stormy spring and adust
summer of the preceding year.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT.]
Preparations began to be made for the reception and entertainment of
the king, who was expected to visit the country next year. Considerable
repairs and improvements were made upon the palaces of Holyrood
and Falkland. A proclamation was made that ‘beasts be fed in every
place, that there might be abundance of flesh when the king came to
the country.’ The Privy Council issued orders for the inhabitants to
prepare clean lodgings for the king’s friends and attendants, and took
order to have the streets purified.
[Sidenote: 1616.]
The chancellor’s circular to the burghs ordering them to arrange
with their butchers for the furnishing of ‘fed beef’ against his
majesty’s ‘here-coming,’ met an amusing response in the case of one
little town--Wester Anstruther--which would appear to have been most
unworthily endowed with burgal privileges. ‘Our toun,’ says this
response, ‘is ane very mean toun, yea of all the burghts of this realm
the meanest; _nather is there ane flesher in our toun_, nor any other
person that is accustomit with feeding of beef, _we being all seafaring
men and fishers_.’ Nevertheless, the two bailies inform his lordship
that they had ‘dealt with some honest men of our neighbours to feed
beef, and has enjoinit them to have in readiness the number of four fed
nolt against the time of his majesty’s here-coming; whilk may be lookit
for in our toun.’ Easter Anstruther, which has always been a better
sort of town, was equally unacquainted with ‘that trade of the feeding
of beef;’ but the bailie, nevertheless, had ‘taken such order that
there sall be in readiness to that diet twelve oxen of the best we can
get for money.’ The response of Dysart was a frank promise to have in
readiness ‘ten or twelve sufficient and weel-fed beefs upon competent
and reasonable prices, and sall feed and keep them _sae lang as we may
possibly get sufficient food for them_, according to the season, _not
doubting of your lordship’s satisfaction in case of our losses_.’--_An.
Scot._
One of the most notable preparations was the fitting up of a
chapel-royal at Holyrood--not in the Abbey-Church, which then served as
the parish kirk of the Canongate, but in a private room in the palace.
An organ of the value of £400 was sent down from London to aid in the
service. There were also timber statues of the twelve apostles and four
evangelists, well carved and gilt, for the decoration of the chapel;
but ‘the people murmured, fearing great alterations in religion,
whereupon the bishops dissuaded the king from setting them up in the
chapel.’--_Cal._
[Sidenote: 1616.]
We have a curious trait of the feeling of the people about the
refitting of the chapel at Holyrood in certain entries found at this
time in the Privy Council Record. In July, an agreement had been made
with Nicolas Stone, of London, for repairing the chapel; and next
month the Council became engaged in an altercation with James Paton,
George Coline, and others, slaters in St Andrews, who, doubtless under
religious scruples, refused to undertake any conditions of service at
the said work, though promised good and thankful payment for their
labours. Application had consequently been made to the provost of St
Andrews, requesting that he would command these his citizens to do the
work proposed to them; but he made answer in a style worthy of the name
he bore--John Knox--‘disdainfully alleging that it was not the custom
of the country to press ony man to work;’ ‘wherethrough his majesty’s
warks are hinderit, and by their [evil example] others may take
occasion to leave his majesty’s service.’ The Privy Council ordered
letters to be sent to the parties, charging them to appear and answer
for their conduct; and when the day came, and they failed to make their
appearance, they were put to the horn as rebels.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
An act of Privy Council against beggars, March 5, 1616, describes
Edinburgh as infested with them--‘strang and idle vagabonds’--‘having
their resets in some parts of the Cowgate, the Canongate, Potterrow,
West Port, Pleasance, [and] Leith Wynd, where they ordinarily convene
every night, and pass their time in all kind of riot and filthy
lechery, to the offence and displeasure of God.’ By day, they are said
to present themselves in great companies on the principal streets.
Numbers of them ‘lie all day on the causey of the Canongate, and with
shameful exclamations and crying, not only extorts almous, but by their
other misbehaviour fashes and wearies as weel his majesty’s nobility
and councillors, as others his majesty’s subjects repairing to this
burgh; sae that hardly ony man of whatsomever quality can walk upon the
streets, nor yet stand and confer upon the streets, nor under stairs,
but they are impeshit by numbers of beggars.’ The Council therefore
ordered the magistrates of Edinburgh and Canongate to get these
wretched people expelled from their respective bounds, and suffer them
no longer to seek alms on the streets. In like manner, they commanded
that ‘the Laird of Innerleith and his bailies cause their streets and
vennels to be kept free of beggars;‘[362] as also, that ‘Mr Patrick
Bannatyne and Mr Umphra Bleenseillis remove the haill beggars out
of their houses at the foot of Leith Wynd, and suffer nane to have
residence, beild, or reset there.’ All this under threat of pecunial
fines.
[Sidenote: DEC.]
In anticipation of the king’s visit, it now became necessary to repeat
the above orders, because ‘it is like enough that when his majesty
comes to this country next summer, they will follow his court, to the
great discredit and disgrace of the country.’
[Sidenote: 1616.
DEC. 10.]
Nothing less, perhaps, than the strong language used by the Privy
Council could make us fully aware of what we are spared of unpleasant
sights and rencontres by a good poor-law. In those days, the wretched
and the insane went freely about the highways and thoroughfares, a
constant source of annoyance, disgust, and even terror. Only we of our
day who saw Ireland before 1840 can form any idea of what the country
was in this respect in the seventeenth century.
The Privy Council this day ordained that there should be a school in
every parish in the kingdom, for the advancement of the true religion,
and the training of children ‘in civility, godliness, knowledge,
and learning.’ The school was in each case to be established, and
a fit person appointed to teach the same, upon the expenses of the
parishioners, at the sight and advice of the bishop of the diocese.
Another act on the same day ordained regular catechising of children,
and their being brought before the bishop for confirmation, under
considerable penalties.
The above order for the plantation of schools was not vigorously
carried out, and in 1626, King Charles I. is found making an effort to
remedy the defect.[363]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1617.
FEB.]
‘The new market-cross of Edinburgh was founded by the community of
the said town, and within three months after was completed.’ ‘Also at
this time there was great preparations making for the coming of King
James into Scotland, baith in all his majesty’s palaces, castles, and
abbeys, and especially in his castle of Edinburgh, whereof the new fore
wark, with the great hall thereof, and many other rooms therein, was
biggit to his majesty’s great expenses by Sir Gideon Murray of Elibank,
knight, his majesty’s treasurer-depute.’--_Jo. Hist._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAY 13.]
[Sidenote: 1617.]
‘The king entered into Scotland, accompanied with the Duke of
Lennox, the Earls of Arundel, Southampton, Pembroke, Montgomery,
and Buckingham, Bishops of Ely, Lincoln, and Winchester, and sundry
barons, deans, and gentlemen. He stayed in Dunglass two nights, and
a night in Seaton. On Friday, the 16th, he came to Leith, and about
four afternoon, out of Leith to the West Port of Edinburgh, where he
made his entry on horseback, that he might the better be seen by the
people; whereas before he rode in the coach all the way. The provost,
bailies, and council, and a number of citizens arrayed in gowns [of
plain velvet], and others standing with speat staves,[364] received him
at the port.’ The provost, William Nisbet, and the town-clerk, John
Hay,[365] having severally harangued him, five hundred double angels
in a silver double-gilt basin, were presented to him--‘wha, with ane
mild and gracious countenance, receivit them with their propyne.’ ‘The
cannons of the Castle were shot. He was convoyed first to the great
kirk, where the Bishop of St Andrews had a flattering sermon upon the
21st Psalm, and thanked God for his prosperous journey. He knighted the
provost.... When he came to the palace of Holyroodhouse, the professors
and students of the College of Edinburgh presented to him some poems
made to his praise, and in sign of welcome.’--_Cal._
[Sidenote: MAY 17.]
‘... the English service was begun in the Chapel-royal, with the
singing of choristers, surplices, and playing on organs.’--_Cal._ Amid
the general feeling of satisfaction at seeing their native prince
amongst them once more, this exemplification of ceremonial worship
was allowed by the people to pass without tumult, yet not without
serious discontents and apprehensions. The bishops were so fearful of
the popular spirit, that they endeavoured to dissuade the king, but
without success. The common people in Edinburgh, as we are told by a
native historian, considered the service in the chapel as ‘staining
and polluting the house of religion by the dregs of popery. The more
prudent, indeed, judged it but reasonable that the king should enjoy
his own form of worship in his own chapel; but then followed a rumour,
that the religious vestments and altars were to be forcibly introduced
into all the churches, and the purity of religion, so long established
in Scotland, for ever defiled. And it required the utmost efforts
of the magistrates to restrain the inflamed passions of the common
people.’[366]
[Sidenote: 1616.]
[Sidenote: JUNE 8.]
Having to meet his parliament a few weeks after, the king went to
Falkland to hunt. But the park of his Fife palace did not content
him. Carnegie, Lord Kinnaird, son of a favourite minister of old,
and himself a friend of the king, dwelt in state in a noble castle
overlooking the embouchure of the South Esk in Forfarshire, with an
extensive muir full of game close by--Muirthrewmont or Muirromon (as
the country people call it). James gladly rode thither,[367] for
the sake of the abundant sport. The house of Kinnaird was furnished
on the occasion for various pleasures, and deficient in no sort of
enjoyment.[368] Two poets of temporary and local fame came with courtly
Latin strains suitable to the occasion.[369] His majesty tarried ten
days in the district, and then came to Dundee, which welcomed him with
poem and with speech. Returning to Edinburgh, he set himself to drive
his ends with the clergy, who were now less able or disposed to resist
his innovations than they had been twenty years before. At his command,
several of the Scottish councillors and bishops received the communion
in the English manner in the Chapel-royal, and William Summers, one of
the ministers of Edinburgh, officiated there, ‘observing the English
form in his prayer and behaviour.’ ‘On the 15th June, some noblemen and
bishops who had not communicat before, communicat kneeling, yet not
half of the noblemen that were required. The ministers of Edinburgh,
in the meantime, were silent; neither dissuaded the king privately,
nor opened their mouth in public against this innovation, or bad
example.’--_Cal._
On the 19th of June, the king formally visited the Castle of Edinburgh,
in order to celebrate his fifty-first birthday on the natal spot.
Andrew Kerr, a boy of nine years of age, welcomed him at the gate in
‘ane Hebrew speech.’ At the banquet in the great hall, the English and
Scottish nobility and the magistracy of Edinburgh met in the utmost
amity and satisfaction. By the desire of the king, who wished to
advance his native country in the eyes of the English, the wives and
children of the Scottish nobility appeared in their finest dresses,
shining with jewels, and were treated with great distinction. The feast
was not over till nine at night; and after its conclusion, the Castle
rang with a chorus of the ladies’ voices and a band of instruments.
On the return of the royal party to the Palace, a great multitude
assembled there to see ‘pastimes with firework.’[370]
On the 26th, ‘there was a timber house erected on the back of the Great
Kirk of Edinburgh [south side], which was decored with tapestry, where
the town prepared a banquet for the king and the nobility. The day
following, sundry knights and gentlemen of good note were banqueted in
the same house, and made burgesses. They danced about the Cross with
sound of trumpets and other instruments; throwed glasses of wine from
the Cross upon the people standing about, and ended with the king’s
scoll [health.]‘--_Cal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 20.]
[Sidenote: 1617.]
This day is dated from Leith a satire upon Scotland, heretofore
usually attributed to Sir Anthony Weldon, but upon doubtful evidence.
It was entitled, _A Perfect Description of the People and Country of
Scotland_, and was printed with the signature JOHNE E.
It seems the splenetic effusion of some Cockney who had been tempted to
follow the king’s train into Scotland, and had found himself a smaller
man there than he expected.
In the air, the soil, and the natural productions of Scotland, this
railer can find nothing goodly or agreeable. The thistle, he says, is
the fairest flower in their garden. Hay is a word unknown. ‘Corn is
reasonable plenty at this time; for, since they heard of the king’s
coming, it hath been as unlawful for the common people to eat wheat,
as it was of old for any but the priests to eat the show-bread....
They would persuade the footmen that oaten cakes would make them
well-winded; and the children of the chapel they have brought to
eat of them for the maintenance of their voices.... They persuade
the trumpeters that fasting is guid for men of their quality; for
emptiness, they say, causeth wind, and wind causeth a trumpet sound
sweetly.[371]...
[Sidenote: 1617.]
‘They christen without the cross, marry without a ring, receive the
sacrament without reverence, die without repentance, and bury without
divine service. They keep no holidays, nor acknowledge any saint but St
Andrew, who, they say, got that honour by presenting Christ with ane
oaten cake after his forty days’ fast.... They hold their noses if you
speak of bear-bating, and stop their ears if you speak of play.... I am
verily persuaded if [the] angels at the last day should come down in
their white garments, they would run away, and cry: “The children of
the chapel are come again to torment us!”... For the graven images in
the new beautified chapel, they threaten to pull them down after his
departure, and make of them a burnt-offering to appease the indignation
they imagine is conceived against them in the breast of the Almighty
for suffering such idolatry to enter their kingdom. The organs, I
think, will find mercy, because they say there is some affinity between
them and their bagpipes.[372] The shipper that brought the singing-men
with their papistical vestments, complains that he hath been much
troubled with a strange singing in his head ever since they came aboard
his ship; for remedy whereof the pastor of the parish hath persuaded
him to sell the profaned vessel, and distribute the money among the
faithful brethren.’
Our scribbler speaks of the women as huge-boned monsters, whereof the
upper class are ‘kept like lions in iron grates. The merchants’ wives
are likewise prisoners, but not in such strongholds. They have wooden
cages [meaning the timber galleries in front of the houses], through
which, peeping to catch the air, we are almost choked with the sight
of them.... To draw you down from the citizen’s wife to the country
gentlewomen, and so convey you to the common dames, were to bring you
from Newgate to Bridewell.’
In an answer to this satire, a strong defence is entered on the subject
of victuals and other materials of conviviality. ‘Except meat should
have rained down from heaven, it could not be imagined more cheap,
more plentiful. Ane of those twelve pies that were sold for a penny,
might have stopped your mouth for his quarrel.... What else would you
have had? You know there were some subjects that kept open butteries
and cellars from morning till night.... The man is angry that all the
taps were not pulled out, that every guid fellow might swim in sack and
claret.’[373]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 30.]
[Sidenote: JULY 10.]
The king commenced a second excursion in his native dominions, by
Stirling, Perth, St Andrews--thence back to Stirling, where he received
a deputation of Edinburgh professors, who disputed before him in the
Chapel-royal of the Castle, in the presence of the English and Scottish
nobility and many learned men. Here the British Solomon was quite in
his element. The first question discussed ‘by the learned doctors was,
“Ought sheriffs and other inferior magistrates to be hereditary?”--a
question at this time agitated in the national senate, where it was the
earnest wish of King James that it should be decided in the negative.
As might have been expected, the oppugners of the question soon got the
advantage; for the weighty arguments of royalty were thrown into that
scale.
‘The king was highly delighted with their success; and turning to the
Marquis of Hamilton (hereditary sheriff of Clydesdale), who stood
behind his chair, said: “James, you see your cause is lost, and all
that can be said for it is clearly answered and refuted.”
[Sidenote: 1617.]
‘The second thesis was On the Nature of Local Motion. The opposition to
this was very great, and the respondent produced numerous arguments
from Aristotle in support of his thesis, which occasioned the king to
say: “These men know the mind of Aristotle as well as he did himself
when alive.”
‘The third thesis was Concerning the Origin of Fountains or Springs.
The king was so well pleased with this controversy, that, although the
three-quarters of an hour allotted for the disputation were expired,
he caused them to proceed, sometimes speaking for and against both
respondent and opponent, seldom letting an argument on either side pass
without proper remarks.
‘The disputations being over, the king withdrew to supper; after
which he sent for the disputants, whose names were John Adamson,
James Fairlie, Patrick Sands, Andrew Young, James Reid, and William
King, before whom he learnedly discoursed on the several subjects
controverted by them, and then began to comment on their several names,
and said: “These gentlemen, by their names, were destined for the acts
they had in hand this day;” and proceeded as followeth:
[Sidenote: 1617.]
“Adam was the father of all, and Adam’s son had the first part of
this act. The defender is justly called Fairlie;[374] his thesis had
some fairlies in it, and he sustained them very fairly, and with many
fair lies given to the oppugners. And why should not Mr Sands be the
first to enter the sands? But now I clearly see that all sands are not
barren, for certainly he hath shewn a fertile wit. Mr Young is very old
in Aristotle. Mr Reid need not be red with blushing for his acting this
day. Mr King disputed very kingly, and of a kingly purpose, concerning
the royal supremacy of reason above anger and all passions. I am so
well satisfied,” added his majesty, “with this day’s exercise, that I
will be godfather to the College of Edinburgh, and have it called _the
College of King James_, for, after its founding, it stopped sundry
years in my minority. After I came to knowledge, I held to it, and
caused it to be established; and although I see many look upon it with
an evil eye, yet I will have them know that, having given it my name,
I have espoused its quarrel, and at a proper time will give it a royal
god-bairn gift to enlarge its revenues.” The king being told that
there was one in company his majesty had taken no notice of--namely,
Henry Charteris, principal of the College, who, though a man of great
learning, yet, by his innate bashfulness, was rendered unfit to speak
in such an august assembly--his majesty answered: “His name agrees well
with his nature; for charters contain much matter, yet say nothing;
and, though they say nothing, yet they put great things into men’s
mouths.”
‘The king having signified that he would be pleased to see his remarks
on the professors’ names versified, it was accordingly done as follows:
‘As Adam was the first man, whence all beginning tak,
So Adamson was president, and first man in this act.
The thesis Fairlie did defend, which, though they lies contein,
Yet were fair lies, and he the same right fairlie did maintein.
The field first entered Mr Sands, and there he made me see
That not all sands are barren sands, but that some fertile be.
Then Mr Young most subtilie the thesis did impugn,
And kythed[375] old in Aristotle, although his name be Young.
To him succeeded Mr Reid, who, though Reid be his name,
Needs neither for his dispute blush, nor of his speech think shame.
Last entered Mr King the lists, and dispute like a king,
How reason, reigning like a king, should anger under bring.
To their deserved praise have I thus played upon their names,
And will their college hence be called _The College of King
James_.’[376]
[Sidenote: 1617.]
In the course of his excursion, the king had a hunt in the
neighbourhood of Dunfermline. At this time, the coal-works at Culross,
on the shore of the Firth of Forth, were conducted with great activity
under their enterprising proprietor, Sir George Bruce. James invited
his company to dine with him at a _collier’s house_, referring to an
elegant mansion which Sir George had built for his accommodation in
the town of Culross. They proceeded in the first place to examine
the coal-works, which were then wrought a considerable way under the
sea, issuing at some distance from shore in a little island or moat,
where the product of the mines was put directly on board vessels to
be transported to various places. The king and his courtiers, unaware
of this peculiar arrangement, were conducted along the mine till they
reached the sea-shaft, and here being drawn up, found themselves
suddenly surrounded by the waves. James, always apprehensive of
attempts on his life, was excited to great alarm by this unexpected
situation, and called out ‘Treason!’ His courteous host reassured
him by pointing to an elegant pinnace moored by the moat to carry
him ashore, in the event of his not wishing to return by the mine.
Doubtless the affair added a little zest to the banquet which the party
immediately after partook of in the hospitable mansion of Bruce.[377]
The king pursued his progress by Glasgow, Paisley, Hamilton, and
Dumfries, passing across the Border to Carlisle on the 5th of August,
amidst the general regrets of his subjects. It was remarkable how much
peace and good feeling prevailed amongst the people during the royal
visit. The Chancellor Dunfermline, in afterwards summing up the whole
affair to the king, said: ‘In all the time of your majesty’s remaining
in this kingdom, in sae great companies, and sae many noblemen and
great personages of twa nations convened, never ane action, word,
or appearance of any discord, variance, or offence betwix any of
the nations with other, for whatsomever cause. I doubt gif ever the
like has been seen, at sic occasion of so frequent a meeting of men,
strangers, and unknown to each other.’--_M. S. P._
It may be worth mentioning, that by warrant signed at Hitchinbroke,
October 23, 1618, the king gave to Sir Gideon Murray of Elibank ‘a
gilt basin which was given to us by our burgh of Edinburgh, with their
propine of money, at our first entry of the said burgh, at our last
being in our said kingdom; together with two gilt cups, one of them in
form of a salmon, presented to us by our burgh of Glasgow; and another
gilt cup which was given us by the town of Carlisle; together with some
remanent of musk and ambergrise, which was unspent at our being there;
and, lastly, ane large iron chest, which did sometime belong to the
late Earl of Gowrie.’--_An. Scot._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1618.
FEB.]
The king’s attention was drawn to two abuses in the police of the city
of Edinburgh. Notwithstanding the warning given by a fire in 1584,
it was still customary for baxters and browsters to keep stocks of
heather and whins in the very heart of the city, to the great hazard
of adjacent buildings; and individuals disposed to build houses within
the city were in some instances prevented by a fear of the risk to
which they would be thus exposed. The other evil complained of was less
dangerous, but more offensive. Candlemakers and butchers were allowed
to pursue their callings within the town, to the great disgust of
‘civil and honest neighbours, and of the nobility and country people
that comes there for their private adoes.’ Indeed, ‘it hath oftentimes
fallen out, that in mony streets and vennels of the said burgh, the
filth of slaughtered guids is in such abundance exposed to the view of
the people, and the closes and streets sae filled therewith, as there
can no passage be had through the same.’ A proclamation was launched
against these abuses.--_P. C. R._
On the 4th of March 1619, the Privy Council sent an order to the
magistrates of Edinburgh, demanding that they should take order for
keeping the streets of the town clean, and describing the existing
state of things in these terms: It ‘is now become so filthy and
unclean, and the streets, vennels, wynds, and closes thereof so
overlaid and coverit with middings, and with the filth of man and
beast, as [that] the noble, councillors, servitors, and others his
majesty’s subjects wha are lodgit within the said burgh, can not have
ane clean and free passage and entry to their lodgings; wherethrough
their lodgings have become so loathsome unto them, as they are resolved
rather to make choice of lodgings in the Canongate and Leith, or some
other parts about the town, nor [than] to abide the sight of this
shameful uncleanliness and filthiness; whilk is so universal and in
such abundance through all parts of this burgh, as in the heat of
summer it corrupts the air, and gives great occasion of sickness;
and, furder, this shameful and beastly filthiness is most detestable
and odious in the sight of strangers, who, beholding the same, are
constrained with reason to give out mony disgraceful speeches agains’
this burgh, calling it a puddle of filth and uncleanness, the like
whereof is not to be seen in no part of the world.’ The plan of police
proposed by the Council is for each inhabitant to ‘keep the streets
fornent their awn bounds clean, as is done in other civil, handsome,
and weel-governed cities.’ No idea of a cleaning department of police.
Considering how closely Edinburgh was built, and that its numberless
narrow alleys were kept in the state which is described, it is not at
all surprising that the pest so frequently broke out within its bounds.
We learn from the above edict that the natural connection of decaying
organic matter with pestilential disease, was not then unknown; the
fact was admitted, but neglected. At this time, the attention of the
public in Scotland was concentrated on questions regarding religious
observances--many of them of little substantial consequence--while
these real life-and-death matters were wholly overlooked.
[Sidenote: 1618.]
It is rather remarkable, that so early as 1527, there appears to have
been a general arrangement for cleaning the city of Edinburgh at stated
times, and with a profit to the corporation. In that year, there is an
entry as follows in the Council Record of the city: ‘The gait-dichting,
and duties thereof, is set this year to come, with the aventure of deid
and weir, to Alexander Pennicuik, for the soum of £20, to be dicht
and clengit sufficiently ilk 8 days anes, with a dozen of servants.’
Pennicuik is enjoined to ‘tak nae mair duties for the dichting thereof,
except and allenarly of fish, flesh, salt, and victuals.’[378]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAY 13.]
The king having proposed that ‘the most notorious and lewd persons’ in
the middle shires (Borders) might be ‘sent to Virginia, or some other
remote parts,’ the councillors answered that it was not necessary,
because the country was now reduced to ‘obedience and quietness;’ and
it might even prove detrimental, seeing that many who were ‘in danger
of the laws for auld feids,’ but had latterly been at peace, might, if
they heard of such a design, ‘mak choice rather to loup out and become
fugitives, nor to underly the hazard and fear of that matter.’
Notwithstanding the peace and obedience described as now existing,
scarcely two years had elapsed when we find evidences that the king’s
proposal was found to be rational and of promise. In April 1620, ‘a
hundred and twenty of the broken men of the Borders were apprehended
by the landlords and wardens of the Middle Marches, at the command of
the Privy Council, and sent to the Bohemian wars, with Colonel Andrew
Gray.’[379]--_Bal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 2.]
[Sidenote: 1618.]
The Privy Council issued a commission to certain gentlemen in Irvine,
to try two persons of that burgh accused of witchcraft. In the
recital on which the commission proceeds, it is set forth--‘that
John Stewart, vagabond, and Margaret Barclay, spouse to Archibald
Deane, burgess of Irvine, were lately apprehendit upon most probable
and clear presumption of their practising of witchcraft agains John
Deane, burgess of Irvine, and procuring thereby the destruction of
the said John, and the drowning and perishing of the ship called the
_Gift of God_, of Irvine, and of the haill persons and goods being
thereintill: likeas the said John Stewart, upon examination, has
clearly and _pounktallie_ confessit the said devilish practices, and
the said Margaret, foolishly presuming by her denial to eschew trial
and punishment, doeth most obdurately deny the truth of that matter,
notwithstanding that the said John constantly avows the same upon her,’
&c.[380]
It appears that Margaret Barclay had conceived and expressed violent
hatred of her brother-in-law, John Deane, and his wife, in consequence
of their raising or propagating a scandal against her. John Deane’s
ship having been lost at Padstow, on the English coast, and John
Stewart, a _spaeman_, having spoken of this fact before it was known by
ordinary means, a suspicion arose that the latter had been concerned
in some sorcery by which the vessel had suffered. On his being taken
up, a confession was extorted from him, that he had taught magical
arts to Margaret Barclay, by which she had brought about the loss
of the vessel; and he narrated a ridiculous scene of enchantment as
having occurred on the shore, with the devil present in the form of a
lady’s lapdog, Margaret Barclay being the principal actor. Margaret
was then apprehended, as also one Isobel Tosh, whom Stewart described
as an assistant at the evil deed. Margaret’s servant-girl, a child of
eight years of age, and Isobel Tosh, were, apparently through terror,
induced to make admissions supporting Stewart’s statement. A most
tragical series of incidents followed. Isobel Tosh, trying to escape
from prison, fell and hurt herself so much that she died in a few
days. Stewart hanged himself in prison. Margaret Barclay, tortured by
the laying of weights upon her limbs, confessed what was laid to her
charge; and though she denied all when relieved, yet was she condemned
and executed, finally returning to an acknowledgment of guilt, which
can only be attributed to hallucination. Throughout all this affair--to
all appearance consisting of a series of forced accusations and
confessions, till reason at length gave way in the principal party--the
Earl of Eglintoun, so noted afterwards as a Covenanter, took part along
with the commissioners; while the assistant parish clergyman, Mr David
Dickson, and several other ministers, most of them noted in the annals
of the time as men of extraordinary piety, assisted in working on the
religious feelings of the accused to induce confession. It does not
seem ever to have occurred to any of these well-meaning persons, lay
or clerical, that a worthy duty in the case would have been to inquire
into the facts, and judge by collating them, whether there was any
ground whatever for the accusation.[381]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 11.]
[Sidenote: 1618.]
The Privy Council was informed of ‘an abuse lately taken up by a number
of young boys and pages, servants to noblemen, barons, and gentlemen.’
It was represented that these persons, ‘whenever they fund ony boy
newly enterit in service, or pagerie, as they term it, lay hands upon
him, and impose upon him [the payment of] some certain pieces of gold,
to be spent in drinking, riot, and excess, for receiving of him in
their society and brotherheid.’ It was further alleged that, ‘if ony
of thir new enterit boys refuse to condescend to them in this point,
they do then shamefully misuse them, awaiting all occasions to harm and
disgrace them;’ so that many open disturbances were the consequence.
The Council issued a proclamation against these practices, threatening
heavy punishment to all who might be guilty of the like in future.--_P.
C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 20.]
‘At twa afternoon, David Toshach of Monyvaird, younger, [was] slain
in the south gate of Perth by Lawrence Bruce, younger of Cultmalindy,
his brother, and divers others their associates; the twa that was with
Monyvaird, ane deadly hurt, but died not; the other [David Malloch],
his right hand clean stricken fra him. This done in a moment of time.
All the committers thereof eschewit out of the town, before any of the
townsmen heard of ony such thing.’[382]
No one seems to have immediately suffered for this outrage; but, four
years after, the Privy Council informed the king that Cultmalindy,
besides banishing his two sons and a servant, had offered a thousand
crowns by way of assythment to the friends of the slaughtered man,
and £2000 to the two men who had been mutilated. ‘This feid,’ it is
added, ‘has altogether undone auld Cultmalindy; for his estate is
exhausted and wracked, and he is become very waik of his judgment and
understanding, by the grief that thir troubles has brought upon him;
whilk were the occasion of his wife’s death, and of the exile and
banishment of his sons and friends, now by the space of four years;
in the whilk exile twa of his friends of good rank and quality has
departed this life.’--_Pit._
Mr Pitcairn quotes a local proverb as having apparently taken its rise
with reference to the misfortune of one of Monyvaird’s servants:
‘Hands aff’s fair-play:
Davie Malloch says nay.’
[Sidenote: 1618.]
It was rather a bitter jest for David. This person, from the locality,
may be presumed to have been an ancestor, or near collateral relation,
of David Malloch, subsequently called Mallet, the poet.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE.]
The king’s declaration regarding sports on the Sunday and other
holidays came to Edinburgh. It commenced with a judicious allusion
to the abundance of papists in Lancashire. He had there found, too,
the people complaining that they were prevented from indulging in
their ancient sports. One effect of this must be that they would
think papistry a better religion, since it allowed of sports. Another
inconvenience is, ‘that this prohibition barreth the common and meaner
people from using such exercises as may make their bodies more able
for war, when we or our successors shall have occasion to use them,
and, in place thereof, sets up filthy tipplings and drunkenness, and
breeds a number of idle and discontented speeches in their ale-houses;
for when shall the common people have leave to exercise, if not upon
the Sundays and holidays, seeing they must apply their labour, and
win their living in other days,’ The king therefore willed that no
lawful recreation be barred to the people--‘such as dancing, either
men or women; archery for men, leaping, vaulting ... nor from having
of May-games, Whitsun-ales, and Morris-dances, and the setting up of
May-poles;’ seeing, however, that no one was allowed so to indulge who
had not previously attended service in church.
[Sidenote: 1618.]
When James Somerville of Drum was at school at the village of Dalserf
in Lanarkshire, about 1608, it was customary ‘to solemnise the first
Sunday of May with dancing about a May-pole, firing of pieces, and
all manner of revelling then in use.’ His grandson tells an anecdote
_apropos_: ‘There being at that time few or no merchants in this petty
village, to furnish necessaries for the scholars’ sports, this youth
resolves to furnish himself elsewhere, that so he may appear with
the bravest. In order to this, by break of day, he rises and goes
to Hamilton, and there bestows all the money that for a long time
before he had gotten from his friends, or had otherwise purchased,
upon ribbons of divers colours, a new hat and gloves. But in nothing
he bestowed his money more liberally than upon gunpowder, a great
quantity whereof he buys for his own use, and to supply the wants of
his comrades. Thus furnished with these commodities, but with ane empty
purse, he returns to Dalserf by seven o’clock (having travelled that
Sabbath morning above eight miles), puts on his ... clothes and new
hat, flying with ribbons of all colours; in this equipage, with his
little fusee upon his shoulder, he marches to the churchyard where
the May-pole was set up, and the solemnity of that day was to be kept.
There first at the foot-ball he equalled any that played; but for
handling of his piece in charging and discharging, he was so ready,
that he far surpassed all his fellow-scholars, and became a teacher
of that art to them before the thirteenth year of his own age.... The
day’s sport being over, he had the applause of all the spectators, the
kindness of his condisciples, and the favour of the whole inhabitants
of that little village.’--_Mem. Som._
In June 1625, the presbytery of Lanark exercised discipline upon John
Baillie, William Baillie, John Hirshaw, John and Thomas Prentices, and
Robert Watt, a piper, ‘profaners of the Sabbath in fetching hame a
May-pole, and dancing about the same, on Pasch Sunday.’--_R. P. L._
It is manifest from the church-registers of that time, that the
universal external observance of the Sunday as a Sabbath, for which
Scotland has long been remarkable, was not yet established. In August
1628, the minister of Carstairs regretted to the presbytery of Lanark
the breach of the Sabbath ‘by the insolent behaviour of men and women
in foot-balling, dancing, and barley-breaks.’ About the same time, two
tailors were libelled before the same court for working on Sunday. Such
things could not have happened a few years later, or at any time since.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY.]
[Sidenote: 1618.]
A mysterious affair occupied the attention of the state-officers. While
the servants of one Kennedy, a notary, residing in Galloway, were
‘filling muck in beir-seed time,’ they had found a withered human hand
amongst some dung. No person having lately been murdered or missed
in the country, it was impossible to tell whence this severed member
had come or to whom it had belonged. Kennedy, who had lately come to
the house, professed to know nothing of the matter. It seemed to him
that the hand had been there many years. This affair might have passed
over with little notice, if it had not been followed up by a series
of marvellous occurrences. As his wife was sitting with some gossips
at supper in her husband’s absence, some blood was observed upon the
candlestick, and afterwards some more matter resembling gore was
found on the threshold of the cellar door. It was also stated that,
as Kennedy was walking one day with the minister, near the parish
church, some drops of blood were seen upon the grass. All these things
being reported to the authorities in Edinburgh, they gave orders for
Kennedy’s apprehension, and he was accordingly brought thither, and
kept six weeks in the Tolbooth. When examined, he could assign no
cause for the above facts, but ‘complained that his cattle and horses
had died in great number, and that his wife had long been vexed with
extraordinary sickness; all which he ascribed to witchcraft used
against them.’ It being impossible to bring anything home against the
man, he was dismissed.--_M. S. P._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG. 11.]
That eccentric genius, John Taylor, the Thames waterman, commonly
called the WATER-POET, set out from his native London on the 14th of
July, on a journey to Scotland--‘because,’ says he, ‘I would be an
eye-witness of divers things which I had heard of that country.’ He
called it a Pennyless Pilgrimage, because he intended to attempt making
his way without any funds of his own, and entirely by the use of what
he might get from friends by the way. Having traversed the intermediate
distance on horseback in about a month, he entered Scotland by the
western border, walking, while a guide rode with his baggage on a
gelding. Somewhat to his surprise, he observed no remarkable change on
the face of nature.
‘There I saw sky above, and earth below,
And as in England, there the sun did shew;
The hills with sheep replete, with corn the dale,
And many a cottage yielded good Scotch ale.’
As he passed along Annandale, he counted eleven hundred neat at as good
grass as ever man did mow. At Moffat, where he arrived much wearied by
his walk from Carlisle, he ‘found good ordinary country entertainment;
my fare and my lodging was sweet and good, and might have served a far
better man than myself.’ He travelled next day twenty-one miles to a
sorry village called Blyth, in Peeblesshire, where his lodging was less
agreeable. Next again, passing through a fertile country for corn and
cattle, he entered Edinburgh.
[Sidenote: 1618.]
A gentleman named Mr John Maxwell, whom he casually encountered,
conducted him to see the Castle, which he deemed impregnable, and where
he noted the extraordinary piece of antique ordnance which still exists
there under the name of Mons Meg. ‘I crept into it, lying on my back,
and I am sure there was room enough and to spare for a greater than
myself.’ He describes the principal street of the city as the fairest
and goodliest he had ever seen, ‘the buildings on each side of the
way being all of squared stone, five, six, and seven stories high.’
‘I found entertainment beyond my expectation or merit, and there had
fish, flesh, bread, and fruit in such variety, that I think I may
without offence call it superfluity. The worst was,’ he adds waggishly,
‘that wine and ale were so scarce, and the people there such misers of
it, that every night before I went to bed, if any man had asked me a
civil question, all the wit in my head could not have made him a sober
answer.’
At Leith, he met a bountiful friend in Bernard Lindsay, one of the
grooms of his majesty’s bed-chamber, and was informed that ‘within the
compass of one year, there was shipped away from that port fourscore
thousand bolls of wheat, oats, and barley, into Spain, France, and
other foreign parts, and every boll contains the measure of four
English bushels ... besides some hath been shipped away from St
Andrews, Dundee, Aberdeen, Dysart, Kirkcaldy, Kinghorn, Burntisland,
Dunbar, and other portable towns.’
[Sidenote: 1618.]
In good time, Taylor commenced a progress through the country,
entertained everywhere by hospitable gentlemen, who probably considered
his witty conversation ample recompense. At Dunfermline, he viewed with
pleasure the palace and remains of the abbacy, and the surrounding
gardens, orchards, and meadows. Then he went to visit at Culross the
enterprising coal-proprietor, Sir George Bruce, who entertained him
hospitably and sent three of his men to guide him over the works. The
imagination of the Water-poet was greatly excited by the singular
mine which Sir George had here formed, partly within the sea-mark.
‘At low-water, the sea being ebbed away, and a great part of the sand
bare--upon this same sand, mixed with rocks and crags, did the master
of this great work build a circular frame of stone, very thick, strong,
and joined together with bituminous matter, so high withal that the sea
at the highest flood, or the greatest rage of storm or tempest, can
neither dissolve the stones so well compacted in the building, nor yet
overflow the height of it. Within this round frame, he did set workmen
to dig ... they did dig forty foot down right into and through a rock.
At last they found that which they expected, which was sea-coal. They,
following the vein of the mine, did dig forward still; so that in the
space of eight-and-twenty or nine-and-twenty years, they have digged
more than an English mile, under the sea, [so] that when men are at
work below, a hundred of the greatest ships in Britain may sail over
their heads. Besides, the mine is most artificially cut like an arch or
vault, all that great length, with many nooks and by-ways; and it is
so made that a man may walk upright in most places.’
‘All I saw was pleasure mixed with profit,
Which proved it to be no tormenting Tophet;
For in this honest, worthy, harmless hall,
There ne’er did any damnèd devil dwell.’
‘The sea at certain places doth leak or soak into the mine, which by
the industry of Sir George Bruce is conveyed to one well near the land,
where he hath a device like a horse-mill, with three great horses and
a great chain of iron, going downward many fathoms, with thirty-six
buckets attached to the chain, of the which eighteen go down still to
be filled, and eighteen ascend still to be emptied, which do empty
themselves without any man’s labour into a trough that conveys the
water into the sea again.... Besides, he doth make every week ninety or
a hundred tons of salt, which doth serve most part of Scotland; some he
sends into England, and very much into Germany.’
The pennyless pilgrim proceeded to Stirling, of whose castle and palace
he speaks in terms of high admiration; stating, moreover, that at his
host Mr John Archibald’s, his only difficulty was for ‘room to contain
half the good cheer that he might have had.’ Advancing to St Johnston
(Perth), he lodged at an inn kept by one Patrick Pitcairn. It was his
design to visit Sir William Murray of Abercairny; but he here learned
that that gentleman had left home on a hunting excursion. It was
suggested that he might overtake him at Brechin; but on reaching that
city, he found that Sir William had left it four days before.
[Sidenote: 1618.]
Taylor now made a journey such as few Englishmen had any experience of
in that age. Proceeding along Glen Esk, and passing by a road which lay
over a lofty precipice, he lodged the first night at a poor cot on the
Laird of Edzell’s land, where nothing but Erse was spoken, and where
he suffered somewhat from vermin--the only place, however, in Scotland
where he met any such troubles. With immense difficulty, he next day
crossed Mount Skene by an uneven stony way, full of bogs, quagmires,
and long heath, ‘where a dog with three legs would outrun a horse with
four,’ and came in the evening to Braemar. This he describes as a large
county, full of lofty mountains, compared with which English hills
are but ‘as a liver or a gizzard below a capon’s wing.’ ‘There I saw
Benawne [Ben Aven], with a furred mist upon his snowy head, instead of
a night-cap.’
He here found his friend, Sir William Murray, engaged in Highland
sports, along with the Earl of Mar, the Earl of Enzie (afterwards
second Marquis of Huntly), the Earl of Buchan, and Lord Erskine,
accompanied by their countesses, and a hundred other knights and
squires, with their followers, ‘all in general in one habit, as if
Lycurgus had been there.’ ‘For once in the year, which is the whole
month of August, and sometimes part of September, many of the nobility
and gentry of the kingdom, for their pleasure, come into these Highland
countries to hunt, where they conform to the habit of the Highlandmen,
who for the most part speak nothing but Irish.... Their habit is shoes
with but one sole apiece; stockings which they call short hose, made
of a warm stuff of divers colours, which they call tartan: as for
breeches, many of them, nor their forefathers, never wore any, but a
jerkin of the same stuff that their hose is of, their garters being
bands or wreaths of hay or straw, with a plaid about their shoulders,
which is a mantle of divers colours, [of] much finer and lighter stuff
than their hose; with flat blue caps on their heads, a handkerchief
knit with two knots about their neck; and thus they are attired....
Their weapons are long bows and forked arrows, swords and targets,
harquebusses, muskets, durks, and Lochaber axes. With these arms, I
found many of them armed for the hunting. As for their attire, any man
of what degree soever that comes amongst them, must not disdain to wear
it; for if they do, they will disdain to hunt, or willingly to bring
in their dogs; but if men be kind to them, and be in their habit, then
they are conquered with kindness, and the sport will be plentiful. This
was the reason that I found so many noblemen and gentlemen in those
shapes.’
[Sidenote: 1618.]
Taylor allowed himself to be invested by the Earl of Mar in Highland
attire, and then accompanied the party for twelve days into a
wilderness devoid of corn and human habitations--probably the district
around the skirts of Ben Muicdhui. He found temporary lodges called
_lonchards_, designed for the use of the sportsmen, and he himself
received a kind of accommodation in that of Lord Erskine. The kitchen,
he tells us, was ‘always on the side of a bank, many kettles and pots
boiling, and many spits turning and winding, with great variety of
cheer, as venison--baked, sodden, roast, and stewed beef--mutton,
goats, kid, hares, fresh salmon, pigeons, hens, capons, chickens,
partridge, moorcoots, heath-cocks, cappercailzies, and termagants;
good ale, sack, white and claret, tent (or Alicant), with most potent
_aquavitæ_.’ Thus a company of about fourteen hundred persons was most
amply fed.
‘The manner of the hunting is this: five or six hundred men rise early
in the morning, and disperse themselves divers ways, and seven, eight,
or ten miles compass, they bring or chase in the deer in many herds
(two, three, or four hundred in a herd), to such or such a place, as
the noblemen shall appoint them. Then, when day is come, the lords and
gentlemen of their companies ride or go to the said places, sometimes
wading up to the middle, through burns and rivers; and then they, being
come to the place, lie down on the ground, till those foresaid scouts,
who are called the Tinchel-men, bring down the deer.... After we had
stayed there three hours or thereabouts, we might perceive the deer
appear on the hills round about us (their heads making a show like a
wood), which, being followed close by the Tinchel, are chased down
into the valley where we lay. Then, all the valley on each side being
waylaid with a hundred couple of strong Irish greyhounds, they are let
loose, as occasion serves, upon the herd of deer, [so] that with dogs,
guns, arrows, durks, and daggers, in the space of two hours, fourscore
fat deer were slain, which after are disposed, some one way and some
another, twenty or thirty miles, and more than enough left for us to
make merry withal at our rendezvous’.
[Sidenote: 1618.]
After spending some days in this manner in the Brae of Mar, the party,
attended by Taylor, went into Badenoch, and renewed the sport there for
three or four days, concluding with a brief visit to Ruthven Castle.
This grand old fortress--anciently the stronghold of the Cumins, lords
of Badenoch--seated on an alluvial promontory jutting into the haugh
beside the Spey, occupying an area of a hundred and twenty yards long,
and consisting of two great towers surrounded by a fortified wall with
an iron gate and portcullis,[383] was now the property of the Gordon
family. Here, says Taylor, ‘my Lord of Enzie and his noble countess
(being daughter to the Earl of Argyle) did give us most noble welcome
for three days.’ ‘From thence we went to a place called Ballo[ch]
Castle, a fair and stately house, a worthy gentleman being the owner
of it, called the Laird of Grant.[384]... Our cheer was more than
sufficient, and yet much less than they could afford us. There stayed
there four days four earls, one lord, divers knights and gentlemen,
and their servants, footmen, and horses; and every meal four long
tables furnished with all varieties; our first and second course being
threescore dishes at one board; and after that always a banquet; and
there, if I had not forsworn wine till I came to Edinburgh, I think I
had there drank my last.’
The Water-poet was afterwards four days at Tarnaway, entertained in the
same hospitable manner by the Earl and Countess of Moray. He speaks of
Morayland as the pleasantest and most plentiful country in Scotland,
‘being plain land, that a coach may be driven more than four-and-thirty
miles one way in it, alongst the sea-coast,’ He spent a few days with
the Marquis of Huntly at the Bog, ‘where our entertainment was, like
himself, free, bountiful, and honourable,’ and then returned by the
Cairn-a-mount to Edinburgh.
Here he was again in the midst of plentiful good cheer and good company
for eight days, while recovering from certain bruises he had got at the
Highland hunting. In Leith, at the house of Mr John Stuart, he found
his ‘long approved and assured good friend, Mr Benjamin Jonson,’ who
gave him a piece of gold of the value of twenty-two shillings, to drink
his health in England. ‘So with a friendly farewell, I left him as well
as I hope never to see him in a worse estate; for he is among noblemen
and gentlemen that know his true worth and their own honours, where
with much respective love he is worthily entertained.’
In short, Taylor, in his progress through Scotland, seems to have been
everywhere feasted sumptuously, and supplied liberally with money. So
much of a virtue comparatively rare in England, and so much plenty
in a country which his own people were accustomed to think of as the
birthplace of famine, seems to have greatly astonished him. The wonder
comes to a climax at Cockburnspath, near his exit from Scotland, where
he was handsomely entertained at an inn by Master William Arnot and his
wife, the owners thereof. ‘I must explain,’ he says, ‘their bountiful
entertainment of guests, which is this:
[Sidenote: 1618.]
‘Suppose ten, fifteen, or twenty men and horses come to lodge at their
house. The men shall have flesh, tame and wild fowl, fish, with all
variety of good cheer, good lodging, and welcome, and the horses shall
want neither hay nor provender; and at the morning at their departure
the reckoning is just nothing. This is this worthy gentleman’s use,
his chief delight being to give strangers entertainment _gratis_! And
I am sure that in Scotland, beyond Edinburgh, I have been at houses
like castles for building; the master of the house’s beaver being his
blue bonnet, one that will wear no other shirts but of the flax that
grows on his own ground, and of his wife’s, daughters’, or servants’
spinning; that hath his stockings, hose, and jerkin of the wool of
his own sheep’s backs; that never by his pride of apparel caused
mercer, draper, silk-man, embroiderer, or haberdasher, to break and
turn bankrupt; and yet this plain home-spun fellow keeps and maintains
thirty, forty, fifty servants, or perhaps more, every day relieving
three or four score poor people at his gate; and besides all this, can
give noble entertainment for four days together to five or six earls
and lords, besides knights, gentlemen, and their followers, if they be
three or four hundred men and horse of them, where they shall not only
feed but feast, and not feast but banquet; this is a man that desires
to know nothing so much as his duty to God and his king, whose greatest
cares are to practise the works of piety, charity, and hospitality.
He never studies the consuming art of fashionless fashions; he never
tries his strength to bear four or five hundred acres on his back at
once; his legs are always at liberty, not being fettered with golden
garters and manacled with artificial roses.... Many of these worthy
housekeepers there are in Scotland....
‘There th’ Almighty doth his blessings heap,
In such abundant food for beasts and men,
That I ne’er saw more plenty or more cheap.’[385]
[Sidenote: 1618.]
In the summer of this year, Scotland received a visit from the famous
Ben Jonson. The burly laureate walked all the way, notwithstanding a
previous hint from Lord Bacon, that ‘he loved not to see Poesy go on
other feet than poetical Dactylus and Spondæus.’ Among the motives
for a journey then undertaken by few Englishmen, might be curiosity
regarding a country from which he knew that his family was derived,
his grandfather having been one of the Johnstons of Annandale. He had
many friends, too, particularly among the connections of the Lennox
family, whom he might be glad to see at their own houses. Indeed, his
biographer, Gifford, expressly says he had received from some of these
friends an invitation to spend some time amongst them in the north. In
September, he was found by Taylor the water-poet, residing with one Mr
John Stuart in Leith; and Taylor speaks of him generally as being then
‘among noblemen and gentlemen who knew his true worth and their own
honours, where with much respective love he is entertained.’
Among those with whom he had amicable intercourse, was William
Drummond, the poet, then in the prime of life, and living as a bachelor
in his romantic mansion of Hawthornden, on the Esk, seven miles from
Edinburgh. It is probable that Drummond and Jonson had met before in
London, and indulged together in the ‘wit-combats’ at the Mermaid and
similar scenes. Indeed, there is a prevalent belief in Scotland that it
was mainly to see Drummond at Hawthornden that Jonson came so far from
home. The story is, that the pilgrim came first to Hawthornden, and was
received by Drummond with wonted ceremony, under the Covine Tree--that
is, company tree--which still stands on the lawn in front of the house,
when their greetings very appropriately took the form of a couplet:
[Sidenote: 1618.]
_D._ Welcome, welcome, royal Ben!
_J._ Thank ye, thank ye, Hawthornden--
the laureate having already learned to address a Scottish laird by
what Scott calls ‘his territorial appellation.’ Be this as it may,
we have no authentic notice of any intercourse between the two poets
till the commencement of the ensuing year, when they undoubtedly spent
a considerable time together, as it was then that they had those
_Conversations_, which, being noted down by Drummond, and published
many years after in his _Works_, have furnished so much food for
modern controversy. These memoranda partly relate facts regarding
Jonson himself, but chiefly report his opinions of his poetical
contemporaries, which are generally of a censorious character. Added to
them, however, is Drummond’s report on Jonson himself, in these terms:
‘Ben Jonson was a great lover and praiser of himself, a contemner
and scorner of others, given rather to lose a friend than a jest;
jealous of every word and action of those about him, especially after
drink, which is one of the elements in which he lived; a dissembler
of the parts which reign in him; a bragger of some good that he
wanted; thinketh nothing well done but what either he himself or
some of his friends have said or done. He is passionately kind and
angry, careless either to gain or keep; vindictive, but if he be well
answered, at himself; interprets best sayings and deeds often to the
worst. He was for any religion, as being versed in both; oppressed
with fancy, which hath overmastered his reason, a general disease
in many poets,’ &c. Drummond has been severely blamed for stating so
much, even privately, regarding a man whom he treated with all the
external marks of friendship; but the censure seems scarcely just. It
is not necessarily to be supposed that he was the less sensible of
the merits of Jonson, that he also observed his being marked by that
vanity, impulsiveness, and irritability which have been remarked in so
many poets. Neither may he have loved him the less--possibly he only
loved him the more--because of his faults. As to the act of taking such
notes, some allowance may be made for a man of literary tastes, living
at a distance from the centre of the world of letters, in an age when
there were no periodicals to prattle about literary celebrities, or an
opportunity occurring of hearing a famous poet talk of his poetical
brethren, and of seeing that eminent person revealing his own character.
A letter written by Drummond to Jonson in this very month, and probably
only a few days after their conversation, has been preserved:[386]
‘TO HIS WORTHY FRIEND, MR BENJAMIN JONSON.
‘SIR--Here you have that epigram you desired, with another of the like
argument. If there be any other thing in this country (unto which my
power can reach), command it; there is nothing I wish more than to be
in the calendar of them who love you. I have heard from court that the
late masque was not so much approved of the king as in former times,
and that your absence was regretted--such applause hath true worth,
even of those who otherwise are not for it. Thus, to the next occasion
taking my leave, I remain
Your loving friend,
WILLIAM DRUMMOND.
_January 17, 1619._’
[Sidenote: 1618.]
From a consideration of the whole circumstances, it is most likely
that Jonson had spent some time in autumn with his Lennox friends,
and thus been introduced to the romantic beauties of Loch Lomond,
and perhaps also to the romantic sports indulged in by the gentry
of its neighbourhood. Certain it is, from Drummond’s report of his
conversations, that he designed ‘to write a Fisher or Pastoral Play,
and make the stage of it on the Lomond Lake.’ And after he had returned
to London, Drummond sent him ‘a description of Loch Lomond, with a
map of Inch Merinoch,’ which, he says, ‘may by your book be made most
famous.’ It is possible, however, that this description of Loch Lomond
and map of Inch Merinoch--one of the many isles in the lake--may
have been intended for a prose work, which he also contemplated
writing--namely, his ‘Foot Pilgrimage’ to Scotland, which, with a
feeling very natural in one who found so much to admire where so little
had been known, he spoke of entitling _A Discovery_. Unfortunately,
this work, as well as a poem in which he called Edinburgh
‘The Heart of Scotland, Britain’s other eye,’
has not been preserved to us. We can readily see that the work
contemplated must have been of a general character, for Jonson wrote to
Drummond (London, May 10, 1619), not merely for ‘some things concerning
the Loch of Lomond,’ but for copies of ‘the inscriptions at Pinkie,’
referring probably to the Roman antiquities which had been found in
Queen Mary’s time at Inveresk, and also bids him ‘urge Mr James Scott,’
and send ‘what else you can procure for me with all speed.’ The king,
he adds, was ‘pleased to hear of the purpose of my book.’ How much to
be regretted that we have not the Scotland of that day delineated by so
vigorous a pen as that of the author of _Sejanus_!
The last visit Jonson paid in Scotland was to Drummond at Hawthornden
in the month of April, just before his return to London, which, as we
see, he had reached before the 10th of May. He lived with Drummond on
that occasion three weeks, enjoying, doubtless, the vernal beauties
of that romantic spot, as well as the converse of his friend, and the
more substantial hospitalities for which, if Drummond be right, he
had only too keen a relish. Their parting--which, by Scottish use and
wont, would be under the Covine Tree, when royal Ben set out on foot
as before to return to London--who but wishes he could picture as it
really was! Jonson’s letter of the 10th May, written soon after his
arrival in London, and breathing of the feelings which his excursion
had excited, may aptly conclude this notice:
[Sidenote: 1618.]
‘TO MY WORTHY, HONOURED, AND BELOVED FRIEND, MR W. DRUMMOND.
‘MOST LOVING AND BELOVED SIR--against which titles I should most
knowingly offend, if I made you not some account of myself to come
even with your friendship--I am arrived safely, with a most Catholic
welcome, and my reports not unacceptable to his majesty. He professed,
thank God, some joy to see me, and is pleased to hear of the purpose
of my book; to which I most earnestly solicit you for your promise
of the inscriptions at Pinkie, some things concerning the Loch of
Lomond, touching the government of Edinburgh, to urge Mr James Scott,
and what else you can procure for me with all speed. Though these
requests be full of trouble, I hope they shall neither burthen nor
weary such a friendship, whose commands to me I shall ever interpret
a pleasure. News we have none here, but what is making against the
queen’s funeral, whereof I have somewhat in hand, that shall look
upon you with the next. Salute the beloved Fentons, the Nisbets, the
Scotts, the Livingstones, and all the honest and honoured names with
you, especially Mr James Wroth, your sister, &c. And if you forget
yourself, you believe not in
Your most true friend and lover,
BEN JONSON.[387]
LONDON, _May 10, 1619_.’
[Sidenote: 1618.]
At the very time when Ben Jonson and John Taylor had the pleasant
experiences of the Highlands which are above described and adverted to,
sundry parts of that province of Scotland were the scene of lawless
violences, which these English poets could not have heard of without
horror. M‘Ronald of Gargarach,[388] ‘with a band of lawless limmers his
assisters and accomplices,’ went about ‘committing murders, slaughters,
treasonable fire-raisings, and other insolencies, in all parts where
they had any mastery or command.’ It was necessary to give his rival
and antagonist, Sir Lachlan MacIntosh, a commission ‘to pursue him to
the deid with fire and sword.’ At the same time, several men of the
Clan Campbell, taking advantage of the absence of their chief, the Earl
of Argyle, ‘has lately broken louss, and goes athort the country, in
companies, sorning [upon] and oppressing his majesty’s guid subjects,
in all parts where they may be masters.’ The earl, it appeared, had
nominated none in his absence ‘to have the charge and burden to retein
his clan and country under obedience.’ To supply this defect, the
Council (July 9, 1618) summoned the chief men of the name--the Lairds
of Glenurchy, Caddell, Lawers, Auchinbreck, and Glenlyon--to give
information about the delinquents, and surety for the future peace of
the country.
Contemporaneously with these outrages, were others of the like nature
committed by ‘a number of vagabonds and broken men of the Clan Donochie
(Robertsons),’ particularly in the lands of Simon Lord Fraser of
Lovat.--_P. C. R._
It may be remarked that the Earl of Argyle had gone abroad, either from
dissatisfaction with the rewards assigned him for his putting down of
the Macgregors and MacConnel of Kintyre,[389] or because of troubles
on account of his debts.[390] To the surprise of his countrymen, he
entered the service of Philip III. against the people of the Low
Countries, and, by the persuasion of his wife, joined the Church of
Rome. The poet Craig thus satirised him:
‘Now, Earl of Guile and Lord Forlorn, thou goes,
Quitting thy prince to serve his Spanish foes:
No faith in plaids, no trust in Highland trews,
Chameleon-like, they change so many hues.’
The king felt as indignant as any, and on the 4th of February 1619, the
Privy Council had this ‘shameful defection’ under its notice. It was
alleged that the apostate earl not only goes openly to mass, but has
associated with ‘auld M‘Ranald’ and sundry other exiled rebels. Sundry
charges against him having been slighted, the Council now ‘do repute
him as a traitor,’ and ordain him to be pursued as such. The earl, who,
before leaving his country, had handed over his estates to his son, did
not return till he was enabled to do so by the grace of Charles I. in
1638.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG. 20.]
[Sidenote: 1618.]
Thomas Ross, a man of good family, formerly minister of Cargill, in
Perthshire, had gone to Oxford to study; but in a moment of partial
lunacy--for the act can be accounted for in no other way--he wrote
a libel on the Scottish nation, and affixed it to the door of St
Mary’s Church. It spoke in scurrilous terms of the people of Scotland,
excepting only the king and a few others, and counselled that the
king should banish all Scots from his court. James took the matter in
high dudgeon, and had Ross sent down to Scotland, with strict orders
to bring him to condign punishment. He was accordingly tried at the
date marginally noted, for an act of which the design was assumed to
be to have stirred up the people of England ‘to the cruel, barbarous,
and unmerciful murdering, massacring, and assassine of the haill
Scots people, as well noblemen and councillors as others, attendants
about his highness’s royal person in court.’ The unfortunate satirist
professed penitence, and craved mercy, averring that he had been _inops
mentis_ at the time of his committing the act. Nothing could avail to
save him. His right hand was first struck off, and then he was beheaded
and quartered, his head being fixed on a prick at the Nether Bow Port,
and his hand at the West Port.--_Pit._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG. 29.]
Mr John Guthrie, minister of Perth, ‘on ane Sunday after the
afternoon’s sermon, married the Master of Sanquhar with Sir Robert
Swift’s daughter, ane English knight in Yorkshire. Neither of the
parties exceeded thirteen years of age.’--_Chron. Perth._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV. 18.]
‘About the midst of November, there appeared a prodigious comet in the
morning, in the north-east, broad, and stretching with a large tail
towards the north-west. It appeared fine and clear some few days in
the beginning, and after became more dim and obscure, and vanished
away at last in the north. This comet by appearance portended the wars
of Germany, which began not long after, and continueth yet to this
hour.’--_Cal._
Dr Bembridge, ‘a very profound and learned mathematician,’ obliged the
king with an account of this comet. He told him it was as far above
the moon as the moon is above the earth, and not less than 2,300,000
English miles! Rushworth speaks of it as followed by, first, the
Bohemian wars, then the German and Swedish, &c. ‘Dr Bembridge observed
it to be vertical to London, and to pass over it in the morning; so
it gave England and Scotland in their civil wars a sad wipe with its
tail.’--_Foun. Hist. Ob._
This notable comet was observed in Silesia, Rome, and Ispahan. From
Skipton’s observations, Halley afterwards computed its orbit. It passed
its perihelion on the 8th of November, at little more than a third of
the earth’s distance from the sun. On the 9th of December, its tail was
70° in length, being, according to Kepler, the longest that had been
seen for a hundred and fifty years.
[Sidenote: 1618.
DEC. 23.]
This comet is also remarkable as the only one, besides another in
1607, which was observable by the naked eye in the first half of the
seventeenth century; whereas in other spaces of time of the same
extent, as many as thirteen have been detected. The comet of 1607,
which is the same with that seen in 1682, 1759, and 1835, and usually
known as Halley’s comet, is not mentioned by any of our contemporary
chroniclers as having been visible in Scottish skies.
Christmas was observed in Edinburgh at the command of the king, and
two churches opened for service; but the attendance was scant. ‘The
Great Kirk was not half filled, notwithstanding the provost, bailies,
and council’s travels.... The dogs were playing in the flure of the
Little Kirk, for rarity of people, and these were of the meaner
sort.... Mr Patrick [Galloway] denounced judgments ... famine of the
word, deafness, blindness, lameness, inability to come to the kirk
to hear and see, to fall upon those who came not to his Christmas
sermon.’--_Cal._
A few weeks afterwards, Richard Lawson, James Cathkin, and John Mean,
merchants, were obliged to appear before the Court of High Commission,
accused of ‘not coming to the kirk on Christmas-day, for opening of
their booth-doors, walking before them in time of sermon, dissuading
others from going to the kirk, and reasoning against preaching on
that day. They answered they did nothing of contempt; they reasoned
to receive instruction, and to try what warrant others had. They were
dismissed, with an admonition to be modest in their speeches and
behaviour in time coming.’--_Cal._
On Christmas-day 1621, there was service in the Old Kirk in St Giles,
which the magistrates and state officials attended; but no other
church was open, and Calderwood informs us that ‘one hundred and six
booth-doors or thereby stood open’--a proof of the general disregard of
the festival.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1618.]
Patrick Anderson, doctor of physic, and who is usually said to have
been physician to Charles I., published a tract on the ‘Cold spring of
Kinghorn,’ its admirable properties for the cure of sundry diseases. He
took care to draw a distinction between the simply natural efficacy of
this well and ‘the superstitious mud-earth wells of Menteith, or our
Lady Well of Strathern, and our Lady Well of Ruthven, with a number of
others in this country, all tapestried about with old rags, as certain
signs and sacraments, wherewith they arle the devil.’[391] He further
assured the public that the ‘clear and delicate cauld water’ of this
spring, being drunk in great quantity, ‘is never for all that felt in
the belly.’ Modern physiologists, it may be remarked, admit the rapid
absorption of saline waters by the stomach; and the drinking of nine
tumblers before breakfast is at this day not uncommon at Airthry.
Dr Patrick Anderson was the inventor of a pill of aloetic character,
which long had a great celebrity in Scotland, and is still in such
repute that an agency-office for its sale may be found in both
Edinburgh and London. He is the more entitled to some notice here, as
our work has been somewhat indebted to a History of Scotland by him, to
be found in manuscript in the Advocates’ Library.
* * * * *
At this time, one Thomas Milne was a maker of virginals in Aberdeen--a
calling, however, ‘but lately put in practice in the burgh.’ The
trade must have been tolerably encouraged, as John Davidson, who had
served an apprenticeship under Milne, now proposed to set up for
himself. On his exhibiting a pair of virginals of his own making as his
‘master-stick’ before the Council, they gave him the freedom of the
burgh without a fee, which he was too poor to pay.--_Ab. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1619.
FEB. 15.]
Died, ‘Mr William Cowper, Bishop of Galloway, a very holy and good
[man], if he had not been corrupted with superior powers and warldly
cares of a bishopric and other such things. He was buried at the south
door of the new kirk callit the South Kirk, in the Greyfriars’ Yard, or
common burial-place of Edinburgh, whilk kirk was newly completed, and
at the funeral sermon consecrated by Mr John Spottiswoode, archbishop
of Sanctandrews.’--_Jo. H._
[Sidenote: 1619.]
Cowper was an eloquent and able man, and had been conspicuous for
his zeal against bishops, ‘appearing to all men to hate very much
that lordly dignity in a kirkman, comparing them and their godless
followers to snuffs of candles, whilk not only is destitute of light,
but also casts out a filthy flewrish stink in man’s noses.’ To a former
friend, who had accepted a bishopric, he wrote a despiteful letter,
telling him he had fallen away and apostatised, and while he still
loved himself, he hated his way. Afterwards, ‘perceiving the courses
of the bishops daily going forward, and being a proud ambitious man,
glorying in his gifts, he began first privately to be social and homely
with the bishops, and then, after the Golden Assembly at Glasgow in
1610, perceiving that the bishops had gotten all their intent, he also
embraced a bishopric, and (1612) was created Bishop of Galloway.’
Peeling that his conduct had been inconsistent, Cowper wrote an
apology, which mainly came to this, that he had got more light than
he had before. ‘One answered merrily: “It is true; for now he has
upon his table two great candles, whereas before he had but one small
candle--other more light I know none.”’
In the end, he announced from the pulpit, he would give full
satisfaction to all who would come and confer with him. ‘Upon whilk
invitation, so many came to him, both in the fields and in his own
house, that he was wearied with them.’ [According to the Chronicle
of Perth--‘The wives of Edinburgh came in to him, and shewed to him
his awn books against friers’ books.’] One person went so far as to
charge him with apostasy, and call upon him to prepare an answer
shortly to the Judge of all the world. It would appear from what
followed that the bishop was by this time out of health. ‘Within a day
or two after, being at his pastime [golf?] in the Links of Leith, he
was terrified with a vision, or an apprehension; for he said to his
playfellows, after he had in an affrighted and commoved way cast away
his play-instruments: “I vow to be about with these two men, who have
now come upon me with drawn swords!” When his playfellows replied: “My
lord, it is a dream: we saw no such thing,” he was silent, went home
trembling, took bed instantly, and died.’--_Row._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAR. 23.]
It had been a custom of the congregations in Edinburgh to hold a
meeting on the Tuesday before the administration of the communion.
‘If anything was amiss in the lives, doctrines, or any part of the
office of their pastors, every man had liberty to shew wherein they
were offended; and if anything was found amiss, the pastors promised
to amend it. If they had anything likewise to object against the
congregation, it was likewise heard, and amendment was promised. If
there was any variance among neighbours, pains were taken to make
reconciliation, that so both pastors and people might communicate in
love at the banquet of love.’ On the present occasion, the affair
had much the character of a modern public meeting, and the people
stood boldly up to their pastors, arguing against the innovations
of worship now about to be introduced, particularly kneeling at the
sacrament.--_Cal._
[Sidenote: 1619.]
‘At various times in the year 1621, there were private meetings of
ministers and other good Christians in Edinburgh, setting apart days
for fasting, praying, and humiliation, crying to God for help in such
a needful time; whilk exercises, joined with handling of Scripture,
resolving of questions, clearing doubts, and tossing of cases of
conscience, were very comfortable.... Thir meetings the bishops and
their followers, enemies still to the power of godliness and life
of religion, hated to the death; and sundry ministers of Edinburgh
inveighed against them, under the name of unlawful conventicles,
candle-light congregations (because sometimes they continued their
exercises for a great part of the night), persecuting them with odious
names of Puritans, Separatists, Brownists, &c.’--_Row._
One of the Edinburgh clergy ‘sent to Nicolas Balfour, daughter of
umwhile Mr James Balfour, minister of Edinburgh, to advertise her that
she was to be banished the town, for entertaining such meetings in
her house; and reviled her despitefully, when she came to confer with
him.’--_Cal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAR. 28.]
This day, being Easter Sunday, the communion was administered in the
Edinburgh churches for the first time after it had been arranged that
the people should kneel on receiving the elements. There being a
general disrelish for this new form, the people left the town in great
numbers to communicate at country churches where the order was not yet
appointed. Of those who attended in town, few willingly knelt besides
government officials and pauper dependents on the church contributions.
‘Some were dashed and kneeled, but with shedding of tears for grief.’
In some churches throughout the country, certain persons told the
ministers: ‘The dangers, if any be, light upon your soul, not on ours!’
Some departed, ‘beseeking God to judge between them and the minister.’
‘It is not to be passed over, how that when John Lauder, minister at
Cockburnspath, was reaching the bread to one kneeling, a black dog
started up to snatch it out of his hand.’--_Cal._
On next Easter Sunday, the like disinclination to kneeling was shewn.
In the College Kirk, where sixteen hundred people communicated, only
about twenty kneeled, and it was thought that none would have done so,
‘if they had not brought the poor out of the hospital, to begin, and
give a good example.’ These, ‘being aged, poor, and ignorant persons,
durst not refuse;’ yet even of them, some, ‘when they were kneeling,
knocked on their breasts and lifted up their hands and eyes.’
While the officers of the government and many others joined cordially
in the new arrangements, the bulk of the people revolted from them.
Whenever they heard of a church in the country where they might be
allowed to communicate sitting, they resorted to it in great numbers;
‘whereupon the auditory of the kirks of Edinburgh became rare and thin.’
[Sidenote: 1619.]
On Easter Sunday, 1622, at the communion in the Old Kirk, Edinburgh,
‘among all the two hundred and fifty [communicants] there was not a
man of honest countenance but the President, Sir William Oliphant,
the Advocate, Sir Henry Wardlaw, the Provost, the Dean of Guild, Dame
Dick, the Master of Works’ wife, and two bailies, who communicate not:
plaids, gray cloaks, and blue bonnets made the greatest show.’
At the same time, ‘many of the profaner sort were drawn out upon the
sixth of May, to May-games in Gilmerton and Roslin; so profanity began
to accompany superstition and idolatry, as it had done in former times.
Upon the first of May, the weavers in Paul’s Work, English and Dutch,
set up a high May-pole, with their garlands and bells hanging at them,
whereat was great concourse of people.’--_Cal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR. 2.]
John Maxwell of Garrarie--‘ane landed gentleman, in the rank of ane
baron, worth three thousand merks of yearly rent, and above’--was, with
his son, George Maxwell, tried for the crime of treason. Garrarie had,
in a crafty manner, possessed himself of the estate and whole worldly
means of John M‘Kie of Glashock, who thus became a miserable dependent
upon him, almost constantly living in his house. At length, tiring of
the company, and probably also of the complaints of the unfortunate
Glashock, Garrarie and his son resolved to be rid of him. On the 8th of
July 1618, when Glashock was coming by night to the place of Garrarie,
the two Maxwells, attended by an armed band of servants, fell upon
him, tied his hands and feet, strangled him, and flung his body into a
peat-moss.
The accused protested their innocence, and it was necessary twice to
postpone proceedings against them, apparently for lack of evidence.
Another remarkable circumstance was, that no fewer than seventeen
gentlemen of the district incurred fines by failing to appear as
jury-men. Notwithstanding these and other impediments, justice asserted
its claims, and Garrarie and his son had their heads stricken off at
the Cross of Edinburgh, with forfeiture of lands and goods.--_Pit._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1619.
JULY 22.]
The period at which we have now arrived, being one of internal peace,
is distinguished as the time when the practice of several of the
useful arts was first introduced into Scotland. Sir George Hay, the
Clerk Registrar--ancestor of the Earls of Kinnoul--a man of talent
and intelligence, had set up, at the village of Wemyss, in Fife, a
small glasswork, being the first known to have existed amongst us. An
ironwork, of what nature we are not informed, was also originated by
Sir George.
The Privy Council informed the king that Sir George Hay had
enterprisingly set up works for iron and glass, which for some years he
supported at high charges, in hopes of being remunerated by profits.
‘But now he has found, by experience, that all the country dispatch of
his glass in ane haill year will not uphold his glassworks the space of
ane month.’ It was entreated that the king would allow of Sir George’s
glass being sold unrestrainedly in England, and at the same time
restrict the exportation of coal into that country. By such means he
admitted he had a hope of thriving.--_M. S. P._
It would appear that the native manufacture, after all, prospered; for
in February 1621, the Privy Council appointed a commission, including
Sir George Hay, to meet and confer anent the glassworks, to examine and
try the glass, and see that measures were taken for the full supply of
the country, so as to save the introduction of foreign glass.
The commission soon after reported that the glassworks at Wemyss were
going on satisfactorily. The cradles or cases contained fifteen wisps,
each wisp having three tables, three-quarters of a Scots ell and a
nail in depth. The glass was fully as good as Danskine glass, though
they could wish it to be ‘thicker and tewcher.’ Being less sure of the
character of the drinking-glasses produced, they recommended patterns
of English glass of that kind to be established in Edinburgh Castle,
for trying the sufficiency of Scots glass in all time coming. On the
strength of this report, the Council granted the desired monopoly as
against foreign glassmakers, on certain conditions, one of which was,
that the price of ‘braid glass’ should not exceed ‘twelve punds the
cradle.’--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT. 20.]
[Sidenote: 1619.]
Before this time, soap was imported into Scotland from foreign
countries, chiefly from Flanders. It was estimated that the entire
quantity brought in was about a hundred and twenty lasts. The king
now gave a patent to Mr Nathaniel Uddart for the manufacture of soap
within the country, and Mr Nathaniel accordingly raised a goodly work
at Leith, furnishing it with all matters pertaining to the business.
Before he had been at work two years (June 21, 1621), he petitioned
the Privy Council that foreign soap should be prohibited, professing
to be able himself to furnish all that was required for the use of
the country people, and thus save money from being sent out of the
country--a piece of false political economy much in favour, as we
have seen, in those days. The Privy Council, after taking some
pains to ascertain the character of ‘Mr Nathaniel his soap,’ and
becoming convinced that he could furnish the quantity needful, granted
the prohibition requested, but not without fixing down the native
manufacturer at a maximum price. This was decreed to be £24 per barrel
for ‘green soap,’ and £32 per barrel for ‘white soap,’ each barrel to
contain sixteen stone.
If we are right in considering the stone at 17·39 pounds avoirdupois,
and the last as containing twelve barrels, the estimated amount of
regularly manufactured soap annually used in Scotland at that time
might be approximately 400,880 pounds. In 1845, taking its consumption
of the same article as one-seventh of that of Great Britain, Scotland
consumed about _twenty-seven million pounds_!
Matters had not proceeded upon the footing of protection for above two
years, when complaints became rife as to the inconveniences sustained
by the lieges. The merchants of Edinburgh felt it as a grievance that
their traffic for soap with the Low Countries was interrupted. They
also complained of the quality of the article produced at Leith. The
merchants of Dumfries and other distant ports groaned at being obliged
to carry soap a long land-journey from Leith, when they could have it
brought by ships direct to their doors. In short, it was not to be
borne.
The Lords of Council took pains to inform themselves of the whole
matter. They also had a letter from the king testifying his ‘dislike
of this and others the like restraints, as being a mean to overthrow
traffic and to destroy commerce.’ Being now satisfied that Uddart’s
privilege was ‘hurtful to the commonweal,’ and that ‘the subjects has
not been so commodiously furnist with the soap made by the said Mr
Nathaniel as formerly they were with foreign soap,’ they decreed (July
1623) that the restraint should terminate in a year, or sooner, if he
should produce an inferior or dearer article.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1620.
MAR. 30.]
[Sidenote: 1620.]
While the struggle was going on between the Episcopalian and
Presbyterian principles, there was a small group of Edinburgh citizens,
including the booksellers Cathkin and Lawson, who took a lead in
opposing the new practices, and standing up against the dictates of
the High Commission. Deeply impressed with evangelical doctrine, and
viewing all ceremonies as tending to the corruption of pure religion,
they were disposed to venture a good way in the course they entered
upon. Their wranglings in the kirk-session against ministers of the
court fashion, and their earnest private exercises, were fully known
to the king; but he bore with them till they began to lend countenance
and active help to the few refractory ministers who fell under the
ban of the bishops. He then, at the date noted, ordered them to be
removed as ‘evil weeds’ from Edinburgh--William Rig, merchant, and
James Cathkin, bookseller, to Caithness; Richard Lawson, to Aberdeen;
Robert Meiklejohn, skinner, to Dunkeld; John Mean, to Wigton in
Galloway; and Thomas Inglis, skinner, to Montrose. This was a great
stretch of power in a country professedly under regular laws; and
even the state-officers felt it to be so. After some dealings, in the
course of which the clergy were eager to negative a suspicion of their
having sent the names of the men to the king, the archbishop of St
Andrews said he would intercede for them, and meanwhile stayed further
proceedings. In the end, the offence of the Edinburgh patriots was
passed over for this occasion.--_Cal._
The Edinburgh pulpits were at this time filled with men wholly devoted
to the Episcopalian system, and such of the people as were strenuous
for the Presbyterian model, had to act not merely without clerical
leaders, but in despite of clerical opposition. As a specimen of the
spirit of these metropolitan clergy--‘Mr William Struthers (January
9, 1619) made a sermon in the Little East Kirk, whilk, by all the
holy divines in Scotland, was judged rather to have been a discourse
of hateful passion nor a sermon of a charitable divine or loving
theologue. For the most part of his haill discourse consisted in
calling Christ’s flock of Edinburgh a pack of cruel people, seeking
the overthrow of their ministry; calling them also the authors of the
_Seventeenth of December_.[392]... He also alleged the doings of the
good town of that day till be in all histories a foul blot to them
for ever. He alleged the people were bund to follow him and the rest
of his brethren the ministers, and to do all things that they bade
them do, calling the ministers the heid, and the people the tail, and
whatever the ministers as the heid spak, it was good and savoury, and
whatever the tail or the people spak was unsavoury, adding thereto that
the language of the tail was deir of the hearing.... This sermon made
me and all the hearers thereof tremble for fear to behold fit untruth
spoken in the chair of verity....’--_Jo. H._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAY 3.]
[Sidenote: 1620.]
It has been seen that horse-racing was, from an early time, practised
as a public amusement at various places in Scotland. One of these,
not formerly noticed, was Paisley. A silver bell of four ounce weight
was made in 1608 to serve as a prize for the Paisley race: such was
in those days the accustomed prize at a race, giving rise to the
proverbial expression--‘He bore off the bell.’ It may be remarked,
however, that the winner of a silver bell at a race did not obtain it
as permanent property, but only for a year’s keeping, as is customary
with the silver arrows and silver clubs now played for by archery and
golfing societies.
At the date noted, the Town Council of Paisley, under the guidance
of their provost, the Earl of Abercorn, arranged that their annual
horse-race should be run on the 6th of May, ‘to be start at the gray
stane called St Cormel’s Stane, and frae that richt east to the little
house at the causeyend of Renfrew, and frae that the king’s highway
to the Wall-neuk of Paisley; and what horse first comes over the
score at ... Renfrew, sall have ane double angel; and the horse and
master thereof that first comes over the score at the Wall-neuk of
Paisley, sall have the said bell with the said burgh’s arms thereon,
for that year, together with the rest of the gold that sall be given
with the said bell ... except ane double angel that sall be given to
the second horse and his master that comes next over the score to the
foremost....’ The horses and their owners to gather at Paisley in good
time before the race, and the riders to be weighed at the Tron of the
burgh. It was also arranged that there should be ‘an aftershot race
... frae ane score at the slates of Ellerslie to ane other score at
the causey-head of the burgh of Paisley, by horse of the price of ane
hundred merks ... for ane furnished saddle, whilk sall be presented by
the said bailies of Paisley present and to come at the score of the
said causey-head.’[393]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1620.]
Patrick Anderson, a native of Ross-shire, and nephew of the celebrated
Bishop Lesly, had risen by learning and talent to be head of the
Scots College at Rome. This situation he left in order to add his
exertions to those which a number of his co-religionists were making,
at the hazard of their lives, for the recovery of Scotland from
what they called the Calvinistic heresy. Dempster speaks of him as
‘moribus innocens ac fide integer,’ and tells us he had no superior in
mathematics and theology. Such as he was, he threw himself into this
mission with a zeal and gallantry which no generous opponent could now
dispute, but which was regarded in the Scotland of his own day as only
a diabolic mania for the turning of living souls to death and perdition.
[Sidenote: MAY 18.]
Poor Patrick had not practised long, when he was apprehended with
his mass-clothes, books, and papers, and committed to prison as
a trafficking Romish priest. He owned to the fact of his having
performed mass sundry times, but would not tell in whose houses. In
the ensuing October, a brother-missionary, an Irishman, named Edmund
Cana, was apprehended, along with a younger brother, ‘who carried his
mass-clothes, a portable altar, a flagon of wine, and other requisites
necessar for the mass.’--_Cal._
Possibly, King James had heard of the merits of Father Anderson as a
man of learning, and felt some sympathy for him; perhaps the French
ambassador made friendly intercession in his behalf. However it was,
after the Father had suffered nine months’ imprisonment, the king came
to the resolution to shew him some mercy. At his command, the Privy
Council liberated the Father from prison, with a suit of good clothes,
and some money in his pocket, on condition that he should leave
Scotland, and return no more; otherwise, he would be liable to capital
punishment. It was enjoined upon the provost and bailies of Edinburgh
that they should ‘try and speir out some ship bown from the port of
Leith towards France or Flanders; and when the ship is ready to lowse,
that they tak the said Patrick Anderson furth of their Tolbooth, carry
him to the ship, and deliver him to the skipper, and see him put aboard
of the ship; and that they give a strait command and direction to the
skipper that the said Anderson be not sufferit to come ashore again
till their arrival at their port in France or Flanders, where they sall
put him a-land, and sall report a certificate from the magistrates of
the town or port where they land, that the said Anderson was set ashore
there.’[394]--_P. C. R._
[Sidenote: 1620.]
The Catholic Church was at this time anxiously set upon the recovery
of Scotland; and many were they who devoted themselves to the work. We
are now disposed to wonder, not merely how so many men were induced to
risk their lives in this mission, but how they should have expected
to produce conversions in a field so inveterately Protestant. There
were, however, some encouraging precedents. It was but recently that St
Francis of Sales had brought thousands of the Swiss Calvinists back to
the bosom of the church. He and his cousin, Lewis de Sales, entered a
Protestant canton in September 1594, amidst the tears and remonstrances
of their friends, who believed their task impracticable, as well as
dangerous. In the course of a very few years, says Alban Butler, ‘his
patience, zeal, and eminent virtue wrought upon the most obdurate, and
insensibly wore away their prejudices. It is incredible what fatigues
and hardships he underwent in this mission; with what devotion and
tears he daily recommended the work of God; with what invincible
courage he braved the greatest dangers; with what meekness and patience
he bore all manner of affronts and calumnies. In 1596, he celebrated
mass on Christmas-day in the church of St Hippolytus at Thonon, and
had then made seven or eight hundred converts. In 1598, the public
exercise of the Catholic religion was restored, and Calvinism banished
by the duke’s orders, over all Chablais and the two bailiwicks of Terni
and Guillard.’ At the same time, ‘his extraordinary sweetness, in
conjunction with his eminent piety, reclaimed as many vicious Catholics
as it converted heretics. The Calvinists ascribe principally to his
meekness the wonderful conversions he made amongst them. They were
certainly the most obstinate of people at that time near Geneva; yet
St Francis converted no fewer than seventy-two thousand of them.’[395]
Such success in the great stronghold of Calvinism might well engender
hopes regarding Scotland, whose determined adherence to the reformed
faith had not then been so much tried as we now know it to have been.
[Sidenote: JUNE.]
The tanning of leather may be said to have been introduced into
Scotland at this time. About a dozen tanners from Durham, Morpeth, and
Chester-le-Street, were brought in, under royal patronage, in order
‘to instruct the tanners and barkers of the kingdom in the true and
perfect form of tanning.’ They were invested with certain privileges,
and distributed to various parts of the kingdom. It was hoped through
this means that much money, which was usually spent on foreign leather,
would now be kept within the kingdom.
[Sidenote: 1620.]
Unfortunately for the success of this reformation, a tax was put upon
the leather--four shillings Scots per hide for the first twenty-one
years, and thereafter one penny. The consequence was a grievous
discontent among the cordwainers, who everywhere did what in them lay
to thwart his majesty’s design. ‘To steir the people up to exclaim
against it, they have very extraordinarily raised the prices of boots
and shoon, to twenty shillings or thereby the pair of boots, and six
shillings or thereby the pair of shoon, more nor was paid before;’
thus oppressing the whole country, and particularly the poorer sort of
people, besides slandering the king and his Council. In January 1622,
the Privy Council dealt with a complaint that many of the tanners
throughout the country, disregarding the obvious benefit to themselves
and the commonwealth from the new modes, continued the old practice of
letting their leather remain but a short time in the pots, and then
bringing it to market in a raw state. By way of a stimulus to these
persons, a certain number of them were proclaimed rebels.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT.]
At this time, the Earl of Sutherland being a minor, and the family
resources much reduced, the inhabitants of the district ‘did shew
themselves exceeding loving and thankful to their Master and superior;
for not only did they give a general contribution--every one according
to his estate and ability--for defraying of his sister’s portion, who
was now to be married to the Laird of Pitfoddels, but also they yielded
a voluntary yearly support to the earl and his two brothers’ fitter
maintenance at the university for the space of five years.... So much
did they value and regard the education and good-breeding of him who
was to govern and command them, knowing how much it doth concern every
state and country to have weel-bred and wise superiors; which good-will
and course of theirs was exceedingly weel thought of by the Earl of
Sutherland and his greatest friends.’--_G. H. S._
* * * * *
We find it noted that in this year a pearl was found in the burn
of Kellie, a tributary of the Ythan, Aberdeenshire, so large and
beautiful that it was esteemed the best that had at any time been
found in Scotland. Sir Thomas Menzies, provost of Aberdeen, obtaining
this precious jewel, went to London to present it to the king, who,
in requital, ‘gave him twelve or fourteen chalder of victual about
Dunfermline, and the custom of merchant goods in Aberdeen during his
life.’[396] It has been reported that this pearl was inserted in the
apex of the crown of Scotland.
[Sidenote: 1620.]
Apparently this circumstance called the king’s attention to the old
repute of certain Scottish rivers for the production of pearls. In
January 1621, we find the Privy Council adverting to the fact, that
the seeking for pearls had for many years been left to interlopers,
who pursued their vocation at unseasonable times, and thus damaged
the fishery, to the hurt of his majesty’s interest, he having an
undoubted right to all pearls, as he had to all precious metals found
in his dominions. Being now inclined to take up pearl-seeking on his
own account, he issued a proclamation for the preservation of ‘the
waters wherein the pearls do breed;’ and, took measures to have the
fishery conducted on a regular plan ‘no pearls to be socht or taken
but at such times and seasons of the year when they are at their chief
perfection both of colour and quality, whilk will be in the months of
July and August yearly.’ The Privy Council commissioned three gentlemen
to protect the rivers, and ‘nominat expert and skilful men to fish
for pearls at convenient seasons;’ one gentleman for the rivers of
Sutherland, another for those of Ross, and another (Mr Patrick Maitland
of Auchincroch) for the waters Ythan and Don. The gentleman just named
was further made commissioner ‘for receiving to his majesty’s use, of
the haill pearls that sall be gotten in the waters within the bounds
above written, and who will give reasonable prices for the same; the
best of the whilk pearls for bigness and colour he sall reserve to his
majesty’s awn use.’
Patrick Maitland gave up his commission in July 1622, and it was then
conferred on Robert Buchan, merchant in Aberdeen, who was reputed to
be skilful in fishing for pearls, and ‘hath not only taken divers of
good value, but hath found some to be in divers waters where none were
expected.’--_P. C. R._
Among the acts of the first parliament of Charles I. was one for
the ‘discharge of Robert Buchan’s patent of the pearl and other
monopolies.’ Since then, there has occasionally been successful fishing
for pearls in this river; it is said that ‘about the middle of the last
century, a gentleman in Aberdeen got £100 for a lot of pearls found
in the Ythan.’ The mouth of the river has a great muscle and cockle
fishery, and is accordingly the haunt of an extraordinary variety and
quantity of sea-fowl. In summer, when the water is low, school-boys
often amuse themselves by going in search of pearls, feeling with
their toes for the shell, which is distinguished by its curved shape,
and griping it when found with a kind of forceps at the end of a long
stick.[397]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1621.
FEB. 6.]
The church historian Calderwood notes the occurrence of three fires in
Edinburgh in one day as being regarded by the people as ‘foretokenings
of some mischief.’ ‘About the same time,’ he adds, ‘there came in a
great whale at Montrose; which was also apprehendit to be a forerunner
of some trouble.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAR. 1.]
On a complaint that coal had risen to eight shillings the load, the
Privy Council had interfered in the usual rash manner, and dictated
a certain maximum price to be exacted for the article; namely,
seven shillings the load--that is, horse-load; for coal was borne
at this time, and for a long time after, on horseback. Certain
coal-proprietors--Alexander, Master of Elphinstone; Samuel Johnston
of Elphinstone; Sir James Richardson of Smeaton; Robert Richardson
of Pencaitland; Jonet Lawson, Lady Fawside; and David Preston of
Whitehall--now petitioned, setting forth that the cost of mining coal
had greatly risen of late years, and that the dearth of the article to
the public was much owing to the base fellows who act as carriers of
coals. It was represented that some of the proprietors of ‘coal-heughs’
were £10,000, and some even £20,000 out of pocket. The Master of
Elphinstone’s coal of Little Fawside had been on fire for several
years; another mine of the same owner had caused an outlay of £8000.
The Smeaton pits had been so unproductive for some years as scarcely
to supply the laird’s house. The coal of Elphinstone had proved for
nine years barren, and 20,000 merks had been sunk upon it, being more
than it promised ever to repay. The coal of Mickle Fawside had undone
the late laird’s estate, and ‘made him to sell ane part of his auld
heritage:’ what with fire on the one hand and water on the other, it
was a hopeless case. As for the coal of Pencaitland, it was wasted
and decayed, past hope of recovery, but at such extraordinary charges
as it was not worth having bestowed upon it. The basis of the evils
complained of lay with the coal-carriers, who dealt fraudulently with
the public. Had the particulars been rightly known, the lords, it was
assumed, would never have given a decreet against the complainers, ‘who
are gentlemen of grit charge and burden,’ overlooking the faults of
those base fellows who carry coals.
[Sidenote: 1621.]
The lords appointed a commission to inquire into the matter, and report
what prices they thought ought to be fixed for this necessary article.
In consequence of a report soon after given in by this commission, it
was ordained that the price of coal at ‘the hill’ should be 7s. 8d.
(7-2/3d. sterling) per load; and it was at the same time agreed that
a measure for the load and a charge for carriage should afterwards be
appointed.--_P. C. R._
On the 23d April 1623, an act of Privy Council was passed in favour of
Samuel Johnston, laird of Elphinstone, in consideration of his having
super-expended 20,000 merks on his coal-heughs, ‘to his great hurt and
apparent wrack.’ It was stated that he had entertained forty families
of men, wives, and children at the work, whose weekly charges exceeded
two hundred merks. His coal would be lost, and these work-people thrown
on the world, if some remedy were not provided, as he could no longer
strive with the adverse circumstances in which he was placed. On the
other hand, if the work could be held forward, and got into proper
order, it might be ‘a gangand coal’ for a hundred years to come.
The Council, in consideration of the losses sustained by the laird,
and to save so many poor people from being thrown out of employment,
granted him what he asked as a remedy--namely, a licence to export coal
for seven years.
It follows from the laird’s statement that the average weekly gains of
a collier’s family reached five merks, or about 5s. 6d. sterling.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAY 12.]
A small private war between the Lairds of Drumlanrig and Cashogle came
to a bearing this day at the Moss of Knockonie. This moss belonged to
David Douglas, brother to Drumlanrig; but Cashogle had always been
allowed to raise peats from it for his winter fuel. The two lairds
having fallen into a coldness, Cashogle would not ask this any longer
as a favour, but determined to take it as a right. Twice his servants
were interrupted in their operations; so he himself came one day to
the moss, with his son Robert and thirty-six men or thereby, armed
with swords, hagbuts, lances, corn-forks, and staves. Hereupon, the
Laird of Mousewald, a brother of the proprietor of the moss (who was
absent), sent a friend to remonstrate, and to urge upon Cashogle the
propriety of his asking the peats ‘out of love,’ instead of taking them
in contempt. The Cashogle party returned only contemptuous answers,
‘declaring they sould cast their peats there, wha wald, wha wald not.’
Some further remonstrances being ineffectual, Drumlanrig himself,
accompanied with friends and servants, came upon the scene, shewing
that he had the royal authority to command Cashogle to desist. But even
this reference failed to induce submission. At length, the Laird of
Mousewald, losing temper, exclaimed: ‘Ye are ower pert to disobey the
king’s majesty’s charge--quickly pack you and begone.’
[Sidenote: 1621.]
‘Immediately, ane of Cashogle’s servants, with ane great kent [staff],
strak Captain Johnston behind his back, twa great straiks upon the
head, whilk made him fall dead to the grund with great loss of blood.
Then Robert Douglas [son of Cashogle] presentit ane bended hagbut
within three ells to the Laird of Drumlanrig’s breast, whilk at the
pleasure of God misgave. Immediately thereafter, Robert of new morsit
the hagbut, and presented her again to him, whilk shot and missed him
at the pleasure of God. Robert Dalyell, natural son to the Laird of
Dalyell, was struck through the body with ane lance, who cried that
he was slain; and some twa or three men was strucken through their
clothes with lances, sae that the haill company thought that they
had been killed, and then thought it was time for them to begin to
defend themselves; whereupon Robert Douglas and three or four of his
folk being hurt, was put to flight, and in flying, the said Robert
fell, where the Laird of Drumlanrig chancit to be nearest him; wha,
notwithstanding the former offer Robert made to him with the hagbut,
not only spared to strike him with his awn hands, but likewise
discouraged all the rest under pain of their lives to steir him.’ One
of the Cashogle party was slain.
Such an occurrence as this in the south of Scotland, and amongst men of
rank and property, shews strikingly that the wild blood of the country
was yet by no means quieted. There was a mutual prosecution between the
parties; but they contrived to make up the quarrel between themselves
out of court, and, private satisfaction being, as usual, deemed enough,
the law interfered no further.[398]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG. 2.]
[Sidenote: 1621.]
Amongst other symptoms of advancing civilisation proper to this period,
was an effort towards the correction of unauthorised medical practice.
‘Persons without knowledge of the science of medicine’ were everywhere
practising, ‘to the great and evident hazard of the lives and healths
of many of our subjects;’ so declared the king. Drugs were also sold by
ignorant persons. Another document refers to the judicatories of the
kingdom for an account of ‘the frequent murders committed by quacks,
women, gardeners, and others.’ The king, desiring to put a check on
these evils, ordered the parliament to frame an act for the erection of
a College of Physicians in Edinburgh, to be composed of seven doctors
and professors of medicine, who should be incorporated, and without
whose warrant no one should practise medicine in or near the city;
three of their number to have the duty of superintending the sale of
drugs. From various causes, this good design did not take practical
effect till a later age.--_An. Scot._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAY.]
‘About this time there was a great earthquake in the town of Montrose
and thereabouts, to the great terror of the inhabitants, so that many
fled out of the town. Some was slain with the thunder there.’--_Cal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE.]
Some foreign vessels trading for coal and salt having been shipwrecked,
during the severe storms of the past winter, on the ‘blind craigs’
(that is, concealed rocks) in the Firth of Forth, it was proposed,
by the enterprising coal and salt proprietor, Sir George Bruce, that
he should be allowed to erect beacons at those dangerous spots, and
reimburse himself by a small tax on the foreign vessels frequenting
the Firth during the ensuing year. Hearing of this proposal, the other
coal-proprietors in Fife and the Lothians felt that they were much
concerned, seeing that ‘no stranger-ships come that way but either
for coal or salt,’ and they considered that ‘the payment of this duty
wald carry with it a very great reproach and scandal to the country,
as if such a small piece of work in the most eminent river in the
kingdom could not be gotten done without the contribution and help of
strangers.’ For these reasons, they themselves undertook to set up the
required beacons.--_M. S. P._
[Sidenote: 1621.]
This movement may be regarded as another mark of the enlightened
attention now beginning to be paid to things in which the material
interests of the people were concerned. How far the proposal of Sir
George Bruce was carried out we do not learn; but the probability is
that he did not allow his plan to fall asleep. It bears out our view
of the spirit beginning to manifest itself in Scotland, that the royal
burghs, a few years later (September 1631), contemplated having lights
erected on the Isle of May in the mouth of the Firth of Forth, and on
‘the Skairheids’ (_P. C. R._), and soon after one was actually put upon
the May, being the first known to have been formed in connection with
the Scottish coasts, and for generations a solitary example on those of
the island generally. A Fife laird, Alexander Cunningham of Barns--a
relative, it would appear, of the wife of the poet Drummond--had the
merit of establishing this useful protection for shipping. Obtaining
the proper authority from Charles I., he, in 1635, erected on the
isle ‘a tower forty feet high, vaulted to the top, and covered with
flag-stones, whereon all the year over,’ says Sir Robert Sibbald,
writing in the reign of Charles II., ‘there burns in the night-time a
fire of coals for a light; for which the masters of ships are obliged
to pay for each ton two shillings [twopence sterling]. This sheweth
light,’ he adds, ‘to all the ships coming out of the Firths of Forth
and Tay, and to all places between St Abb’s Head and Redcastle near
Montrose.’
Through a natural antagonism, we may suppose, between the powers of
darkness and the interest here concerned, the architect of the May
light-tower was drowned on his return from the isle in a storm believed
to have been raised by witches, who were in consequence burnt.[399]
The fire was duly kept burning by the successors of Cunningham till
the erection of a regular light-house on modern principles by the
Commissioners of Northern Lights. It required three hundred and eighty
tons of _Wemyss coal_ annually, that kind being selected on account
of the clearness of its flame. In 1790, the tack or lease of this
privileged light, with its tax of three-halfpence a ton on Scottish,
and threepence on foreign shipping, rose from £280 to £960, and in 1800
it was let at £1500, ‘a striking proof,’ as Mr Adamson justly remarks,
‘of the increase of the trade of this country’ during the period.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG. 4.]
This was a day of great concern and sorrow to the earnest Presbyterians
of Scotland, as on it the parliament sitting at Edinburgh ratified
the Five Articles introducing Episcopalian fashions into the church.
At the moment when the commissioner, the Marquis of Hamilton, rose
to apply the sceptre to the bills, thus giving them symbolically the
royal assent, a flash of lightning burst into the house, followed by a
second and a third, and these by loud thunder. A heavy darkness ensued.
The discharge of rain was so great, that the ceremonial return to
Holyroodhouse could not be effected, and all rushed home in confusion.
The people, affected by these signs and wonders, called the day _Black
Saturday_.
[Sidenote: 1621.]
The weather had been bad during the whole summer, and the harvest was
likely to be late and meagre. A Presbyterian historian, after relating
what happened at the ratification of the Five Articles, adds: ‘That
very day made the greatest alteration of prices of victual within
eight days, that ever was heard of in so short a space in Scotland,
except the _ill-windy Bartle-day_ in anno 159-.’--_Row._ It appears
that wheat rose to £12 per boll, and the price might have been higher
but for the coming in of foreign grain. The autumn was distinguished
by heavy rains, carrying away the crops of extensive haughs or
meadows. And of such as were preserved, scarcely any was ‘won’--that
is, secured--before Hallowmass. The wetness of the season was also
unfavourable to the winning of peat-fuel. ‘Never was greater fear
of famine, nor scarcity of seed to sow the ground. Every person was
careful to ease himself of such persons as he might spare, and to live
as retiredly as possibly he might. Pitiful was the lamentation not only
of vaiging beggars, but also of honest persons.’--_Cal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG. 28.]
‘Because there was a new brood and generation of the Clan Gregor risen
up, who are begun to go in troops and companies about the country,
armed with offensive weapons, there was a proclamation published
that none who carry the name of Macgregor shall wear any armour,
but ane pointless knife to eat their meat with, under the pain of
death.’--_Bal._
The _Chronicle of Perth_ notes the holding of a justice court there,
May 10, 1624, by the chancellor Sir George Hay, ‘where many compeirit
and were clengit by assize; only three hangit--_Macgregors_!’ A
few months later, the same authority tells us of ‘Robert Abroch,
ane Macgregor, ane great limmer,[400] wha had been ance or twice
forgiven and remitted by his majesty, for his oppression, upon hope of
amendment, yet continued still in his knaveries; after there was mickle
searching made for him in the Highlands, and all his friends chargit
to apprehend [him], [he] came to Perth this day, being Tuesday, ane
preaching-day, after sermon, and fell down on his knees, and ane tow
about his neck, and offerit his sword by the point to the Chancellor
of Scotland, wha refusit to accept of it, and commanded the bailies to
ward him; like as they instantly warded him, and put baith his feet on
the gaud,[401] where he remainit.’--_Chron. Perth._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1621.]
‘This year, Sir William Alexander of Menstrie undertook a plantation in
a part of America, which was then called New Scotland [Nova Scotia],
where he intended to send a colony. Sir Robert Gordon, Tutor of
Sutherland, joined himself in this enterprise, and did indent and
contract with Sir William to send thither some men out of Sutherland,
weel provided with corns, cattle, weapons, and other provision fit and
sufficient for that journey, who should have a good portion of that
country allotted them to inhabit. The Earl Marischal of Scotland, the
Earl of Melrose, the Earl of Nithsdale, the Viscount of Dupplin, Sir
Robert Gordon of Lochinvar, Sir Alexander Gordon of Cluny, James Gordon
of Lesmoir, with divers other nobles and gentlemen, were likewise
partners in this plantation. And for further advancement of this
plantation, his majesty concluded to make heritable knights-baronets
in Old Scotland; which honour should be bestowed upon the choicest
undertakers of that enterprise, and upon such as were of best quality
for vertue, birth, and means among the gentry.’--_G. H. S._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT. 12.]
This day, Friday, commenced a remarkable flood in the Tay, which lasted
for three or four days, and caused extensive destruction. The beautiful
bridge, newly completed across the river at Perth, was swept away,
excepting one arch only. In the middle of the second night, the water
had risen so high, that the people living in low houses near the Castle
Gavel Port in Perth, were obliged to remove to higher houses. The town
was so environed with water, that no one could enter or leave it for
several days. Children were let down from upper windows into boats,
in order to be carried to places presumably safer. Household stuff
and provisions were destroyed. The rain was accompanied by a violent
wind from the east, which would somewhat help to maintain the waters
of the river at a high elevation. The water flowed in the High Street
and the Speygate ‘like mill-sluices;’ and one Charles Rollock became a
distinguished public benefactor by going about in a boat through those
streets, and rescuing people who were in danger of drowning--a service
for which he afterwards received a double angel in recompense.
[Sidenote: 1621.]
The people were thrown into a state of extreme consternation, looking
for nothing but the entire destruction of their fair city. ‘Whereupon
Mr John Malcolm, minister, powerfully endued with God’s spirit, caused
ring the preaching-bell on Sunday at seven hours in the morning,
and the haill inhabitants came to the kirk. And there he exhorted
them to repent of their sins, which had provoked the said judgment
of God to come upon the city; assuring them that if they were truly
penitent therefor, and would avow to God to amend their lives in time
coming, God would avert his judgment, and give them deliverance.
Whose powerful exhortations moved the people to cry to God with tears,
clamours, and cries, and to hold up their hands to God, [promising that
they would] amend their lives, and every one of them to abstain from
their domestic sins. The like humiliation of men and women has not been
seen within Perth before. Fasting, preaching, and praying continued
all that week.... The waters began somewhat to decrease after noon on
Sunday; but after daylight passed, there arose a greater tempest of
wind and rain than at any time before, which so affrighted the people
that night, that they looked for nothing but [that] the waters should
have arisen to greater height [than] they were before. Notwithstanding
thereof, miraculously, through the mercy of God, by [past] all men’s
expectation, the waters greatly in the meantime decreased, which in
the morning moved the people in the kirk and all other places to give
hearty thanks to God for his mercy toward them.’[402]
One of the remarks current among the more serious class of people
on this occasion, was that the inundation was sent as a judgment on
Perth, on account of the five Episcopalian articles passed there by
the General Assembly three years before, though how this vengeance
should have fallen on the innocent people living in the place of that
assembly, and not upon the churchmen who passed the articles, or
rather the majority of them as apart from the minority, it is not easy
to reconcile to a sense of either Divine wisdom or Divine justice.
It chances that Perth is built on the meadow or _haugh_ close to a
river--namely, what is properly its flood-course; a kind of situation
where no human habitations should ever be built. It is of course
more or less inundated at every considerable flood, and thus exposed
to no small inconvenience, as well as damage. These evils may be
considered as the natural punishment inflicted on the people for the
solecism against nature which they have committed. It may be safely
presumed that, while their town stands there, it will be liable to such
disasters as that here described, whether general assemblies reform
upwards or downwards within its walls, and in whatever spirit the
inhabitants may regard their consequent sufferings. They are, however,
not alone in this respect, as, unfortunately, the low banks of rivers
are the seats of many towns and parts of towns in all parts of the
world.
[Sidenote: 1621.]
It is remarkable that, though there had been a bridge across the
Tay at Perth so early as the beginning of the thirteenth century,
the structure now destroyed was not replaced till the erection of
the present beautiful fabric in 1771, the intercourse during the
intermediate hundred and fifty years being maintained by ferry-boats.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV.?]
The Record of Privy Council at this time gives an example of the
conduct of a north-country gentleman under ban of the law. George
Meldrum of Haltoun had been put to the horn and denounced rebel for
some failure of duty towards James Crichton of Frendraught and other
persons; and it became necessary for the Marquis of Huntly, as sheriff
of Aberdeen, to send a force for the capture of his person. James
Gordon of Knockespock and George Gordon of Gowie went with a band for
this purpose.
At their approach, Meldrum was out in the fields; but he no sooner saw
them, than, surmising their design, he fled to his house, closed the
gates, and prepared to stand a siege. They, anxious to vindicate the
royal authority, beleaguered the house, resolved not to leave it till
they should have reduced the occupant to his majesty’s obedience. They
had lain about the place forty-eight hours, when John Innes of Crombie,
hearing of what was going on, came to them in the utmost possible
haste, mounted on his best horse, declaring to them his desire to deal
with George for the purpose of inducing him to submit. ‘He entreated
the deputies that, with their allowance, he might go and confer with
the said George thereanent; whereunto they very gladly yielded,
seeing they sought nought but obedience.... The Laird of Crombie in
the meantime seemed very busy in going and coming to and frae the
said George, feeding the deputies with false conceits and hopes, and
sometimes with vain promises that he himself wald be cautioner for the
said George, for the satisfaction of all his creditors ... and so,
under this false pretext, having abused the ... deputies their sincere
and upright meaning making them to believe all that he spak, and sae to
be so much the more careless of looking to the house, he then brought
the said George out of the house, set him upon his best horse, and
put him away, to the great contempt and mocking of justice.’ For this
conduct, the Laird of Crombie was denounced as a rebel.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1622.
MAR. 20.]
Margaret Wallace, the wife of John Dinning, a clothier in Glasgow, was
tried before the Court of Justiciary in Edinburgh, for sundry acts
of witchcraft, and as a common practiser of that nefarious art. She
was reported to have been a friend and confederate of one Christian
Graham, a notorious witch of the same city, who was tried, condemned,
and burnt in the preceding year. There is something singular in Mrs
Dinning’s case, for some of the acts of criminality urged against
her were cures for which no other than a humane motive was or could
be imputed. The case is also curious on account of the remarkable
resemblance of some of the means or modes of cure to the proceedings of
the modern mesmeric hospital.
It was alleged of Margaret, that she had been a witch for eight or
nine years. It was evident that she looked up to Christian Graham as
her preceptress and superior. About four years before the time of her
trial, being in the house of one Vallance, in Glasgow, she had taken
a sudden fit of sickness, and sent for Graham, who came immediately
to her relief. Taking Margaret tenderly in her arms, and kissing her,
Graham said: ‘Nothing shall ail my dear bird;’ then led her down
stairs, and conducted her to her own house, where she completely
recovered. The two women coming back to Vallance’s house, found a
little child of his, named Margaret, at the bottom of the stair, and
it was alleged that they threw the sickness upon her. The child was
found by her mother crying dismally; and all that night she lay in
horrible pain, with pitiful screeches, shouts, and cries, apparently
deprived of the power of her body. Margaret Wallace, coming next day
to see the child, ‘declarit it was the sudden trance or disease that
she had ta’en the day before, and willed the bairn’s mother to send
for Christian Graham to cure her and relieve her thereof.’ The mother
‘having absolutely refused sae to do, saying she wald commit her bairn
to God, and not mell with the devil or ony of his instruments, Margaret
Wallace maist blasphemously answered again, that “Christian Graham
could do as mickle in curing of that disease, as gif God himself wald
come out of heaven and cure her--and, albeit the deid-strake were laid
on, she could tak it aff again--and without her help there could be
nae remeed to the bairn!” Thereafter, without the mother’s knowledge,
Christian Graham was brought in by Margaret Wallace to the bairn; at
whase coming, Margaret lifted up the bairn’s head, and Christian took
her by the shackle-bane [wrist], and brought the bairn forth of her bed
where she was lying in great pain before; and thereafter, setting her
down upon ane stool, with some crosses and signs made upon her, and by
uttering of divers words, restored her to her health.’
[Sidenote: 1622.]
It is quite evident here that Margaret was honourably candid, as
against herself, in the view she took of the cause of the child’s
ailment, and her subsequent conduct in trying to restore the child’s
health, was creditable to her feelings. In another point of her dittay,
however, feelings of a different kind came out.
It was alleged that Margaret had conceived a deadly hatred against
Cuthbert Greig, a cooper, because of certain opprobrious speeches he
had uttered against Christian Graham. ‘She avowed that she should make
Cuthbert, within few days thereafter, not of ability to work or win
himself ane cake of bread.’ According to this devilish threat, Cuthbert
was soon after ‘visit and troublit with ane strange, unnatural, and
unknawn disease,’ attended by continual sweating for fifteen days
together, till in the end he was reduced to the utmost degree of
weakness. It appeared that the man’s friends endeavoured to induce
Margaret to interfere for his recovery; but she long persisted in
refusing. At length, coming to his house, ‘she, to manifest her skill
for his help, took him by the shackle-bane with the ane hand, and laid
her other hand upon his breast, and, without ony word-speaking, save
only by moving of her lips, passed frae him at that instant.’ Returning
next morning, ‘she took him by the arm and bade him rise, wha at that
time and fifteen days before, was not able to lift his legs without
help.’ ‘She, having urged him to rise, and taking him by the hand,
brought him out of his bed, and led him butt the house’ [into the outer
apartment], where he ‘walkit up and down the floor, without help or
support of ony.’ From that time, it is stated, he quickly recovered
from his illness. Here, too, it must be owned, Margaret came ultimately
to act a humane part.
Another child having an uncouth sickness, Wallace associated with
Graham in a practice for her cure. They went under cloud of night ‘to
the yard of James Finlay, burgess of Glasgow, where they remained
the space of ane hour together practising sorcery and witchcraft,
for curing of the bairn by unlawful means,’ and ‘that same night the
sickness was ta’en aff the bairn and she convalesced thereof.’ For
this, the two practitioners got a goose and a pint of wine. On another
occasion, Wallace was alleged to have inflicted deadly sickness on a
child, and allowed her to die.
Margaret had good counsel at her trial, and a stout defence was made;
but all in vain. She was sentenced to be _worried at a stake and burnt_
on the Castle Hill.--_Pit._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAY 22.]
[Sidenote: 1622.]
A Dunkirk ship, belonging to the king of Spain, came up to Leith
pursued by two Dutch waughters, but both were quickly driven out of
the Firth of Forth by a west wind. A few days thereafter, the same
vessels came back to Leith, ‘where they had ane great fecht, frae
twelve at night till four in the morning, and many men slain.’[403] The
magistrates of Edinburgh interfered to prevent further hostilities, and
the three vessels lay there inactive for half a year, the Dunkirker not
being able to get away for fear of the superior metal of her enemies.
At length, the king ordered that the Dunkirker should be allowed to go
out, without being followed by the waughters for a couple of tides.
On the 4th of May 1623, this vessel left the harbour accordingly,
but it ran upon the Mussel-scap, ‘within two pair of butt-lengths
to the Bulwark,’ and thus in due time became liable to the attack
of the waughters. While these were playing their guns upon her, the
authorities in the city, knowing well the king’s favour for Spain,
whose Infanta his son was at this time courting, mustered forces and
cannon, and came hastily to the rescue. Finding that the Dutch had
boarded her, and put up the Prince of Orange’s colours, they sent men
on board to put up the flag of the king of Great Britain. The people
shewed themselves ill affected to the object. ‘Some few went down, with
their swords, and their cloaks about them. The president, chiding the
provost and bailies, said: “I always said to his majesty that Edinburgh
was but a nest of traitors. I shall write to his majesty of this your
rebellion.” It was answered: ... “Edinburgh is not bound to serve in
such a service without their burgh roods.”’ An effort was made to
secure the vessel within the harbour--‘it was sport to see the lords
and their gentlemen hailing St Ambrose with a rope into the harbourie.
But they laboured in vain, for the water began to fall.’ The end of the
business was, that, one night, the Dutch, after respectfully removing
the guard and flag, set the vessel on fire, and having destroyed it,
set sail for their own seas.[404]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAY 29.]
‘The Landgrave of Hesse’s eldest son, of the second marriage, came to
Edinburgh. His lodging and entertainment was not looked to with that
respect that became.’[405]--_Cal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 3.]
‘... there was a fiery dragon, both great and long, appeared to come
from the south to the north, spouting fire from her, half an hour after
the going to of the sun.’--_Cal._
[Sidenote: 1622.]
This was a wretched summer. A fast was ordered at Aberdeen, July 21st,
on account of ‘the felt wrath of God by this present plague of dearth
and famine, and the continuance thereof threatened by thir tempestuous
storms and inundations of weets likely to rot the fruits on the
ground.’--_A. K. S. R._
The usual consequence is recorded: ‘About the harvest, and after, there
was such ane universal sickness in all the country as the like has not
been heard of--but specially in this burgh, that no family in all the
city was free of this visitation. There was also great mortality among
the poor.’--_Chron. Perth._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY.]
An act of Privy Council of this date aims at a restriction of the
importation of wine into the Western Islands--‘with the insatiable
desire whereof the said islanders are so far possest, that when there
arrives ony ship or other vessel there with wines, they spend both days
and nights in their excess of drinking, sae lang as there is any of the
wine left; sae that, being overcome with drink, there falls out mony
inconvenients amangs them, to the break of his majesty’s peace.’[406]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 30.]
The Privy Council had the subject of that ‘infective weed callit
tobacco’ under their attention. The king had formerly, upon good
reasons of policy, forbidden its importation into the country; but
this decree had been sadly evaded, insomuch that ‘the country was ever
universally filled with tobacco, and public and common merchandise
made of the same.’ Then his majesty had tried the restraining effect
of a duty (20s. Scots, or 1s. 8d. English per pound); but the
tobacco-merchants had learned the trick of smuggling, and it was not
likely they would let it lie unfruitful when they could thereby save
the payment of a tax. It had now, accordingly, become necessary to
impose a new restraint; and the importation was again prohibited, under
pain of the goods being confiscated to his majesty’s use.--_P. C. R._
[Sidenote: 1622.]
An act of the Privy Council in the subsequent November explained that
the king did not mean by this restraint ‘to deprive his loving subjects
of the orderly sale and moderate use of tobacco,’ but only to prevent
the abuse or excessive use of the herb. It was no part of his design
to interfere with the patent which had been granted [November 7, 1616]
to the late Captain William Murray, giving him the sole privilege of
importing tobacco for the space of twenty-one years. He therefore now
ordered proclamations to be issued, to the effect that the prohibition
only held good against such as did not possess a licence under favour
of Murray’s patent.--_P. C. R._ In the ensuing March, it was arranged
that importers of tobacco should pay Murray’s representatives a duty of
twenty shillings Scots per pound.
In 1624, the widow and daughter of Captain Murray resigned their
relative’s patent into the hands of commissioners, for his majesty’s
use, on their becoming bound to pay twenty thousand pounds Scots
(£1666, 13s. 4d.) at three half-years terms.[407]
The prejudice of King James against tobacco was a strong feeling,
partaking much of the character of antipathy. He published anonymously,
and afterwards acknowledged the quaint pamphlet, _A Counterblast to
Tobacco_, in which he argues against the use of the herb as a physical
as well as moral corruption. Baker’s _Chronicle_ states that the
expedition of Sir Francis Drake, on its return in 1585[6], passed by
Virginia, ‘a colony which Sir Walter Raleigh had there planted;’ ‘from
whence Drake brings home with him Ralph Lane, who was the first that
brought tobacco into England, which the Indians take against crudities
of the stomach.’ This does not comport with the ordinary notion
entertained in England, which uniformly represents Raleigh as the
first introducer of the Nicotian herb. Lane became a despised man on
account of his pusillanimity in giving up the colony; and there seems
all reason to believe that to him King James alludes in the following
passage from the _Counterblast_: ‘It is not so long,’ says he, ‘since
the first entry of this abuse amongst us here, as this present age
cannot well remember both the first author and the form of the first
introduction of it amongst us. It was neither brought in by king, great
conqueror, nor learned doctor of physic. With the report of a great
discovery for a conquest, some two or three savage men were brought
in, together with a savage custom. But the pity is, the poor barbarous
men died, but that vile barbarous custom is yet alive, yea, in fresh
vigour; so as it seems a miracle to me how a custom, springing from so
vile a ground, and _brought in by a father so generally hated_, should
be welcomed upon so slender a warrant.’
[Sidenote: 1622.]
If a tradition existing in 1667 is to be believed, King James was fain
on one occasion to get over his antipathy to tobacco; but, to be sure,
the compelling cause was a powerful one. ‘The smoke of it’ [tobacco],
says a writer of that date, ‘is one of the wholesomest scents that is,
against all contagious airs, for it o’ermasters all other smells, as
King James, they say, found true, when being once hunting, _a shower of
rain drove him into a pigsty for shelter_, where he caused a pipefull
to be taken on purpose.’[408]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAY 18.]
A trafficking Jesuit, named George Mortimer, had lately been detected
in the house of one Haddow, in Glasgow, and he and Haddow were both
taken into custody. The king lost no time in ordering a court of
justice to be held in Glasgow for the trying of Haddow and his wife
for the crime of resetting Jesuits, certifying that, if found guilty,
they should be banished the kingdom--as the impunity of the offence
‘might hearten that wicked and pernicious sort of people more bauldly
to go on in perverting good subjects in religion, and withdrawing them
from their dutiful obedience to us.’ He at the same time wrote to the
principal ecclesiastical authorities, desiring them to consult about
the best means of checking the present ‘new growth of popery,’ that
‘thereby the world may see that we strike with the sword of justice
equally against the papist and puritan, that thereby no just imputation
may be laid upon our proceedings as a cause of the increase of popery.’
In September, we learn that Mortimer lay a prisoner at Glasgow, ‘so
heavily diseased, as it is feared he shall hardly if ever escape.’
The king--‘because we do not desire the lives of ony of that sort of
people, if we may be secured from ony harm which they micht do by
the perversion of ony of our guid subjects in their duty to God and
us’--was now pleased to order that he should be committed to some ship
sailing to a foreign port, ‘with certification to him, that gif at ony
time hereafter he shall return, it will be capital unto him.’--_P. C.
R._
[Sidenote: 1622.]
This and some other instances of lenity towards Romish clergymen
were ill looked on by the zealous Presbyterians, and there arose a
_fama_ to the king’s prejudice. On the 30th of October, he wrote
from Hitchinbrooke to his Scottish councillors, in great indignation
at a report which had gone abroad, in consequence of some late
circumstances, to the effect that he intended to ‘_tolerate or grant
liberty of conscience_!’ ‘The foolish apprehension thereof’ had ‘given
occasion both to papist and puritan to tak heart and grow insolent,
the one vainly boasting of the said pretendit liberty, and the other
with a seeming fear thereof.’ ‘God knows,’ says the king solemnly,
‘that what proceedit in that course concerning the papists here
was without ony such intention.’ It was ‘groundit upon good reasons
of state, in the deep and mystery whereof every man is not to dive
nor wyde.’ His conscience and his works alike bore witness of his
constancy in the right course. So he ‘could not but marvel how ony
of our subjects can be possest with _so unjust ane opinion of us_.’
The Council was enjoined immediately to consult with the Archbishop
of St Andrews as to the best measures for the ‘curbing of insolent
papists and disconform preachers.’ In case any of the former had shewn
themselves in consequence of the pretended liberty, they were to be
severely punished, as an example and terror to others. The Council,
acknowledging his majesty’s ‘most religious and upright disposition
towards the suppression of popery,’ communicated accordingly with
the archbishop, requesting him to have a care to give his majesty
satisfaction.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT.]
George Earl Marischal, a noble of great wealth and influence, who has
already been under our notice,[409] was now approaching the end of his
earthly pilgrimage. After his death, his countess, who had hastily
re-married, was accused of having been concerned, along with the
gentleman whom she took for her second husband--Sir Alexander Strachan
of Thornton, knight--in stealing forth of his lordship’s house of
Benholm a green coffer belonging to him, containing money and other
valuables, besides the furniture of the house, and a bag containing
evidents of property. James Keith of Benholm was accused of having a
share in the same crime.
[Sidenote: 1622.]
The case is worthy of notice, chiefly on account of the list of
articles contained in the coffer--evidencing as they do a degree of
wealth which few will be prepared to find belonging to a Scottish
nobleman of that age. There were--‘of Portugal ducats and other
species of foreign gold to the avail of twenty thousand pounds or
thereby; thretty-sax dozen of gold buttons; ane rich jewel all set
with diamonts, whilk the earl resavit as ane gift given to him the
time he was ambassador in Denmark, worth sax thousand merks; the Queen
of Denmark’s picture in gold, set about with rich diamonts, estimat
to five thousand merks; ane jasp stane for steming of bluid,[410]
estimat to five hundred French crowns; ane chenyie of equal pearl,
wherein was four hundred pearls great and small; twa chenyies of
gold, of twenty-four unce wecht; ane other jewel of diamonts set in
gold worth three thousand merks; ane great pair of bracelets, all set
with diamonts, price thereof five hundred crowns; the other pair of
gold bracelets, at sax hundred pounds the pair; ane turcas ring worth
ten French crowns; ane diamont set in ane ring, price twenty-eight
French crowns; with ane number of other small rings set with diamonts
and other rich stanes in gold, worth three hundred French crowns;
mair sixteen thousand merks of silver and gold ready-cunyit, whilk
was within the said green coffer; together with the haill tapestry,
silver-work, bedding, and other guids, geir, and plenishing, being
within the said place.’--_Pit._
The king, in a letter to the Chancellor Hay, dated 22d August 1624,
alludes to a recommendation he had formerly sent, that this injury to
his esteemed councillor the Earl Marischal should be inquired into,
and adds: ‘Whereas we are informed that, in a later letter under our
hand, we have shewn to you that it was not our pleasure nor meaning
in ony former letters to hurt the said Lady Marischal or ony other
person, these are now expressly to mak it known to you, that we nather
gave direction to insert any sic clause in our letters, nather, at the
putting of our hand to the samen, did tak heed thereto, nor never meant
ony sic favour to her who hath so ill deserved of one for whose sake we
were only to respect her.’ And then he added a command to proceed with
the case against the peccant lady.--_An. Scot._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1623.
JAN.]
‘Lord Colville took journey to France, to crave the re-establishment of
the Scots Guard and Company of Scottish Men at Arms, according to their
first institution and the French king’s promise often made to that
effect.’--_Bal._
[Sidenote: 1623.]
The Scots Guard of the French king was an old institution, and for a
long time past the command had passed from generation to generation of
the Sieurs D’Aubigné (Earls and Dukes of Lennox). Louis XIII. readily
agreed to the proposed revival of the corps, and designed to confer
the command on Ludovick, Duke of Richmond and Lennox, the favourite
councillor of King James. It chanced, however, that the duke was
suddenly cut off by apoplexy (February 1624), ‘beloved and lamented’
beyond all remembered example, ‘because he was naturally inclined to
do good without distinction of persons.’--_G. H. S._ The honour was
therefore transferred to his nephew, Lord Gordon, son of the Marquis of
Huntly.
In July 1625, Lord Gordon made his first muster of the corps on the
Links of Leith, in presence of several officers deputed by the French
king for that purpose. These gentlemen had been conducted to Edinburgh
by Sir Robert Gordon, Tutor of Sutherland; they were there entertained
in the handsomest manner by the Lord Gordon and other nobles, ‘and sent
home again to their master, the French king, in great satisfaction
and content.’ Lord Gordon’s younger brother, Lord Melgum, was his
lieutenant, and the first gentleman of the company was Sir William
Gordon, son of George Gordon of Kindroch, a branch of the family of
Pitlurg.--_G. H. S._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 20.]
‘... the king’s picture in the hall of the palace of Linlithgow fell
... and brake in pieces. The like befell the king of France’s picture,
in that same place, six weeks before his death.’--_Cal._
Such incidents were then invariably noted with superstitious awe.
Aubrey tells us that on the first day of the sitting of the Long
Parliament, the picture of Archbishop Laud fell in his closet, by the
breaking of the string.[411]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1623.]
George, Earl of Caithness, was one of the most unruly spirits of his
age. The almost uncontrolled power which he possessed in his own
remote country, was generally employed by him in advancing base and
selfish purposes, and half his life was passed in a state of outlawry.
Sometimes he is found at war with the Sutherland family, sometimes with
his neighbours the Mackays of Strathnaver. One year, he is proclaimed a
rebel; the next, he is found honoured with a royal commission against
some other rebel. (See the account of the case of the Earl of Orkney in
1615.) He was overwhelmed with debt, yet did not regard it much. His
son, Lord Berriedale, having become responsible for him, lay five years
in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, as a prisoner to the earl’s creditors,
while Caithness himself passed a pleasant life in his sea-cliff
fortalices of Girnigo and Aikergill, in the far north. There must have
been something plausible about this singular noble. Notwithstanding
all the injuries he had inflicted on the Sutherland family, and the
badness of his general character, he contrived, in 1619, to patch up a
reconciliation with Sir Robert Gordon, a most respectable man, a friend
and servant of the king, and who represented the interests of that
great family. He had on that occasion visited Sir Robert in Sutherland,
and Sir Robert in his turn spent several days with the earl at Girnigo.
The truce, however, was not of long continuance, for the Earl of
Caithness’s outrages were incessant. It was felt by the Privy Council
as a scandal to the country, that such a hardy rebel against the
ordinary authorities of the land should exist, and they looked about
for the means of putting him down. The usual expedient of the age was
resorted to--namely, to employ some other great man against him--thus
accomplishing by a kind of private war what ought to have been the
business of a force of their own. Sir Robert was the man they pitched
upon.
Behold, then, this courtier of St James’s and Newmarket, leaving those
scenes in the south where he was accustomed to meet Bacon and (not many
years ago) Shakspeare, and coming down to the land of Mackays, Guns,
and Sinclairs, in order to conduct an army against one of those rude
grandees who could even trouble a king. He had a strange associate in
the enterprise; Lord Berriedale had been liberated from prison, on a
paction with the creditors, that he might do what he could to bring his
heartless father within the grasp of the law.
[Sidenote: SEP. 3.]
Sir Robert’s forces were the Clan Sutherland and their friends, a
selection of the most active and hardy, and all well armed. Assembling
in Strathullie, and having been properly arranged and officered, they
lost no time in setting forth to cross the Ord. A company of the Clan
Gun went before to clear the ground and prevent surprise. Before they
had advanced far into Caithness, they learned that the earl, unable
to withstand so great a force, had deserted the country, and taken
refuge in Orkney, intending to go thence to Norway. At Latheron, James
Sinclair of Murkle, Sir William Sinclair of Mey, the Laird of Forss,
and some other Caithness magnates, came to yield their obedience and
offer their assistance. Sir Robert received them with great civility,
but ‘gave small trust to some of them; neither suffered he any of the
inhabitants to come in or go out of the army after the setting of the
sun until sunrising.’
[Sidenote: 1623.]
Passing Wick, he conducted his troops to Girnigo, a castle so strongly
placed on the verge of a lofty cliff overhanging the sea, that there
might have been some difficulty in taking it. The keys, however,
were at once rendered up, and so the army took quiet possession of
the fortress. They went forward, and, in like manner took Aikergill
and Keiss, two forts which the earl had abandoned in succession.
Meanwhile, Sir Robert had spies throughout all Caithness to report to
him about the dispositions of the people. They were said to be quiet,
but angry that any of the House of Sutherland should be charged with
such a commission against their lord.
Learning that Lady Caithness, who was his cousin-german, had removed
to a house a few miles distant, Gordon went to pay his respects to
her. She pleaded for her husband, on the ground that he was not
attempting any resistance; but Sir Robert left her no hopes of his
being speedily pardoned. He proceeded with deliberation to settle Lord
Berriedale in possession of the country and its fortresses, and made
various other arrangements for its benefit; after which he returned
in triumph to Dunrobin, and dismissed his men. ‘Thus you see how the
Earl of Caithness, having attained to the top of fortune’s wheel, and
to the height of his desires, by his service in Orkney, did by his own
misdemeanours, and wicked actions, fall into this extremity, which a
man of his life and conversation could not escape. Neither could the
Earl of Orkney’s example, which was recent before his eyes, divert him
from the course which brought him to this misery. A notable example to
posterity.’--_G. H. S._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 14.]
[Sidenote: 1623.]
During the earlier half of this year, Scotland suffered under a
famine of extreme severity. There was a vast increase to the usually
inordinate number of beggars, in consequence of many of the poorer
class of tenants throwing their farms in the hands of their landlords,
and wandering forth in search of food. And it is remarked that the
condition of these new mendicants was the most miserable of all,
‘because they, being for the most part ashamed to beg, underlies all
the extremities wherethrough the pinching of their bellies may affect
them; whereas, by the contrair, strong and sturdy beggars, by their
importunity and crying, and sometimes by extorting of almous, are in
some measure relieved.’ The administrators of the state are found in
alarm that, unless something be done to enable the poor to tide over
till the new harvest should be realised in September, ‘numbers of them
will betake themselves to live by stowth or [ere] they will starve
through hunger, whilk will not only produce a foul imputation agains
the whole land, but the wrath and anger of God will be wakened.’ At the
date noted, therefore, the Privy Council took measures for bringing
the principal men together in their respective county towns to arrange
for a taxation according to means and substance, in order to procure
victual for the poor. A hundred merks for every thousand pounds of
substance was the rate recommended.
In July, the famine ‘increased daily, till at last many, both in burgh
and land, died of hunger. Many poor came to Edinburgh for succour, of
which number some died in the streets.’ A fast was held on account of
the calamity; ‘the sermons began every day in the week at seven hours,
and ended at nine. Immediately after the fast was ended, that same
night, 7th of July, there was such a fire in the heaven, with thunder
and fire-flaught, that the hearers and beholders thought verily that
the day of judgment was come.’--_Cal._
‘There was this harvest-time ane great mortality ... ten or twelve
died ordinarily every day [in Perth] from midsummer to Michaelmas’
[September 29].--_Chron. Perth._
It was probably to this famine that a story told by Wodrow refers.
While the poor people were dying in great numbers in the fields, ‘some
people passing by saw a young child about seven years old, lying and
dying by a dike-side--which could not but move their pity, though they
could give it no relief. They observed the child to get up to its feet,
and looking up cheerfully towards heaven, clapping its hands, making
a tripping and dancing motion with its feet, they heard it cry: “O!
Lamb’s days for evermore! O! Lamb’s days for evermore! I see heaven!
Lamb’s days for evermore!” And with that it presently fell down and
died. I had this from my mother, who had it from her mother, and that
it was told as a certain truth.’--_W. A._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 10.]
Bessie Smith, of Lesmahago, appeared before the presbytery of Lanark,
and confessed sundry dealings with unlawful arts. She had ‘charmed the
heart-fevers.’ The patients, kneeling under her direction, asked their
health ‘for God’s sake, for Sanct Spirit, for Sanct Aikit, for the nine
maidens that died in the boortree in the Ladywell Bank--This charm to
be buik and beil to me, God grant that sae be.’ She also ‘appointed
them the wayburn leaf, to be eaten nine mornings.’--_R. P. L._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 15.]
[Sidenote: 1623.]
While the Egyptians were everywhere a proscribed race, and often the
victims of an indiscriminate severity, there was one spot where mercy
and even kindness seems to have been extended to them. This was Roslin.
Sir William Sinclair of Roslin, Lord Justice-general under Queen Mary,
riding home one day from Edinburgh, found a poor Egyptian about to be
hanged on the gibbet at the Burgh-moor, and brought him off unharmed.
In remembrance of this kindness, ‘the whole body of gipsies were
accustomed to gather in the stanks [marshes] of Roslin every year,
where they acted several plays during the months of May and June.’ So
tells us the quaint Father Hay, a connection of the Roslin family;
and he adds: ‘There are two towers which were allowed them for their
residence, the one called Robin Hood, the other Little John.’
At the time noted, the Privy Council had their attention called to this
Patmos of the outlawed race. They remark that,‘while the laws enjoined
all persons in authority to execute to the deid the counterfeit thieves
and limmers, the Egyptians,’ it was nevertheless reported that a number
of them were now within the bounds of Roslin, ‘where they have a
peaceable receipt and abode as if they were lawful subjects, committing
stowths and reifs in all parts where they may find the occasion.’ The
Council, therefore, issued an order to the sheriff of the district, who
happened to be Sinclair younger of Roslin himself, commanding him ‘to
pass, search, seek, hunt, follow, and pursue the said vagabond thieves
and limmers,’ and bring them to the Tolbooth of Edinburgh for due
punishment.--_P. C. R._
An order for the execution of a number of Egyptians was actually issued
on the ensuing 27th of January.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG. 1.]
[Sidenote: 1623.]
One Thomas Grieve was tried in Edinburgh for carrying on a species of
medical practice by witchcraft. He was accused of having cured many
people of heavy sickness and grievous diseases, by various magical
arts; as, for instance, the making of signs and crosses upon them, the
washing of their shirts in south-running streams, and the uttering
of unknown words. He took sickness off a woman near Leslie, in Fife,
and put it upon a cow, ‘whilk thereafter ran wood [mad] and died.’
He cured William Kirk’s bairn in Tullibole, of the _morbus caducus_,
‘by straiking back the hair of his head,’ and wrapping the child in
an anointed cloth, by that means putting him asleep. To cure diseased
cattle, he sprinkled a byre with enchanted water. He passed various
patients through a hasp of yarn three several times, and then threw the
hasp into a fire, where it burned _blue_; thus the people were cured.
He was alleged to have cured William Cousin’s wife by manifest sorcery,
‘causing her husband heat the coulter of his plough, and cool the same
in water brought from Holywell of Hillside, thereafter making certain
conjurations, crosses, and signs upon the water,’ which he caused the
patient to drink. One of the items in the dittay was, ‘curing James
Mudie, his wife and children, of the fever; in curing his wife, by
causing ane great fire to be put on, and ane hole to be made in the
north side of the house, and ane quick hen to be put furth thereat,
at three several times, and ta’en in at the house-door witherships
[contrary to the course of the sun]; thereafter taking the hen, and
putting it under the sick woman’s oxter or arm, and therefra carrying
it to the fire, where it was halden doun and burnt quick therein.’
The assize, having read the depositions of sundry parish ministers, and
being ‘ripely advised,’ sentenced Thomas to be strangled at a stake and
burnt.--_Pit._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV. 30.]
‘... about nine hours at night, there appeared like a rainbow in the
west, the moon shining clearly in the east, with some rain in the
meantime, whereat many wondered.’--_Cal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1624.
JAN.]
From Martinmas of the preceding year to the end of January in the
present, there was a hard continuous frost, which, after a slight thaw,
was resumed, and lasted till the 23d of February. During this time,
‘eleven carts, with twenty-one puncheons of wine, came over upon the
ice from Dundee here.’--_Chron. Perth._
* * * * *
‘About the midst of Januar, four gentlemen of good credit, having gone
out of Stirling some two miles or thereby, to pass their time, heard
sensibly like the shots of many muskets, and after that, taking better
heed, like the beating upon drums, and playing upon piffers and the
sound of trumpets; and last of all, the shot of great cannons; so that
for fear they went back again to the town, and reported what they had
heard.’--_Cal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: FEB. 18.]
[Sidenote: 1624.]
The Town Council of Aberdeen had occasion to consider an abuse which
had lately crept into their burgh, in the form of ‘costly banqueting
at the baptising of bairns,’ and the ‘convocating of great numbers of
people thereto.’ It is mentioned that, on these occasions, there were
‘all sorts of succours [sugars], confections, spiceries, and dessert,
brought from foreign parts, beside great superfluity of venison, and
wild meat of all sorts ... and withal, extraordinary drinking and
scolling [health-drinking] ... to the slander of the town, in sic a
calamitous time, when God is visiting the whole land with dearth and
famine, and mony poor anes [are] dying and starving at dykes and under
stairs for cauld and hunger.’
The Council ordained that hereafter no person of whatever degree should
have ‘mae than four gossips and four cummers at the maist’ at their
baptisms, that not more than six women be invited ‘to convoy the bairn
to and frae the kirk,’ and that twelve should be the utmost amount of
company present ‘at the dinner, supper, or afternoon’s drink.’ All
extravagances at table were at the same time strictly forbidden.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAY 25.]
The wappinshaw was a periodical muster of the irregular armed force of
the country; it got its name from the more immediate purpose of the
assembly--namely, an exhibition of weapons. At Dunfermline, on this
day, while a wappinshaw was going on, ‘William Anderson, son till John
Anderson, bailiff of the said town, and Charles Richeson, his servant,
being shooting a shot with some of their friends in a certain place of
the town, [a little piece of the lunt flieth upon a thack-house, which
easily kindled. The fire increased with the violency of the wind[412]],
and did flie from house to house, and sometimes wald flie over ane
house without doing it any harm, but wald burn the next house, till the
great admiration of all men; so that this fire burnt so meikle of the
town, that, excepted the abbey and the kirk thereof, the tenth part
were not free of it. This, by the judgment of all the beholders, was
thought till have been some divinity, or some witchcraft, rather nor
this foresaid accidental fire.’--_Jo. H._
‘The fire began at twelve hours, and burnt the whole town, some few
sclate houses excepted, before four afternoon; goods and geir within
houses, malt and victual in kilns and barns, were consumed.’--_Cal._
The town of Dunfermline consisted at this time of 120 houses,
containing 287 families.--_Bal._
There was a collection in the parish churches for ‘the support of the
town of Dunfermline, burnt with fire’ (_R. P. L._); and, in June 1625,
King Charles I. ordered £500 sterling to be added to the fund for the
relief of the poorer class of sufferers.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAY.]
[Sidenote: 1624.]
The Clan Chattan or MacIntosh, seated in the centre of Inverness-shire,
were dependents of the Earls of Moray. None had entered more heartily
into the revenge of the Bonny Earl’s death against the Marquis of
Huntly, and for this service they had obtained certain lands from
the Moray family. Now, that the Earl of Moray was reconciled with
Huntly, he did not see any occasion longer to patronise or favour the
MacIntoshes; so he attempted to remove them from the lands formerly
conferred upon them. ‘This the Clan Chattan could hardly endure,’ says
Sir Robert Gordon: about Whitsuntide, assembling five hundred men
under their infant chief’s uncle, Lachlan MacIntosh [afterwards, by
the by, a stout loyalist in the Civil War], ‘they keepit the fields
in their Highland weed upon foot, with swords, bows, arrows, targets,
hagbuts, pistols, and other Highland arms, and first began to rob
and spulyie the earl’s tenants (who laboured their possessions) of
their haill goods, geir, insight plenishing [household furniture],
horse, nolt, sheep, corns, and cattle, and left them nothing that they
could get within their bounds; syne fell in sorning throughout Moray,
Stratherrick, Urquhart, Ross, Sutherland, Brae of Mar, and divers other
parts, taking their meat and food perforce where they could not get
it willingly, frae friends as well as frae their foes, yet still kept
themselves from shedding of innocent blood.’
The Earl of Moray first brought a band of Monteith Highlanders against
these marauders; but the expedition seems to have failed. Another
enterprise of the same kind was no more successful. It was not till he
went to London, and procured a power of lieutenancy in the north from
the king, that he brought the MacIntoshes to subjection. The affair
had a very characteristic ending. ‘Some slight loons [poor fellows],
followers of the Clan Chattan, were execute; but the principal
outbreakers and malefactors were spared and never troubled.’ Further,
the ‘honest men’ who had disobeyed the order for refusing all supply to
the MacIntoshes, being put to trial, the odd scene was presented of the
criminals standing as witnesses against them; and while these culprits
obtained pardon, their humane resetters ‘were soundly fined in as great
sums as their estates might bear, and some above their estates were
fined, and every one warded within the Tolbooth of Elgin, till the last
mite was paid.’--_Spal._ ‘The fines were granted by his majesty to the
Earl of Moray, as the fines for resetting the Clan Gregor were given to
the Earl of Argyle; but these fines did not much advantage either of
these two earls.’--_G. H. S._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 10.]
[Sidenote: 1624.]
Dissent from the ‘comely order’ of church matters was still making
itself apparent. We hear at this time of many people in Edinburgh
holding private meetings for religious exercises, in contempt of the
ordinary services of their regular pastors in the parish churches.
‘Like as they have assumed to these their seditious conventicles the
name of Congregations, and done what in them lies falsely to impress
on the hearts of his majesty’s people a persuasion that his majesty
persecutes the sincere professors of true religion, and introduces
corruption in the church-government.’ Considering how such practices
‘brought forth damnable sects of Anabaptists, Families of Love,
Brownists, Arminians, Illuminati, and mony such pests, enemies to
religion, authority, and peace, and occasions the murder of millions
of people,’ the Privy Council thought proper to issue a proclamation,
strictly forbidding all such meetings.
The Council had at the same time before them a set of Edinburgh
citizens, partly the same as those whom the king had proposed to
banish a few years before[413]--namely, William Rig of Aitherny, one
of the bailies, John Hamilton, apothecary, John Mean, merchant, and
John Dickson, ‘flesher’--who had again come into collision with the
ecclesiastical authorities. At the usual congregational meeting before
the celebration of the communion, Rig--‘puffed up,’ says Spottiswoode,
‘by a conceit of his own abilities’--took it upon him to challenge Dr
Forbes ‘for sundry points of doctrine delivered by him in his sermons.’
Dr Forbes was a man of remarkable learning and dignity of character,
for which reasons he was in time appointed bishop of Edinburgh by
Charles I. It did not seem to him proper that he should be liable to
the censure of a lay citizen, and he therefore declined to listen to
the bailie. Rig then openly threatened the clergy, ‘that, unless they
returned to the old form of administering the holy communion, the
whole people would forsake them;’ and in this he was supported by his
friends Mean, Hamilton, and Dickson. The Council took the affair up as
an attempt to produce a schism in the church and a violation of the
law. They answered, however--if we are to believe one of their own
party--‘so wisely, punctually, and modestly, that the Council admired
them.’ They were, nevertheless, to satisfy the king, sent to various
prisons, as guilty of a misdemeanour. They ‘remained there, till by
great dealing, pains, and moyen, they were relieved again.’--_Row._
[Sidenote: 1624.]
William Rig and John Mean appear, from the report of their
contemporary and friend, Mr John Livingstone, to have been earnest
Christians of the evangelical type. Rig was ‘much exercised in spirit,
and of great experience in the ways of God. I have been several times
with him in private meetings, and observed that when he prayed, he
began with bitter and heavy complaints and confession beyond any. He
spent his income chiefly on pious uses.’ Mean ‘used both summer and
winter to rise about three o’clock in the morning, and always, as he
put on his clothes, he used to sing some part of a psalm, and then
went to his closet, where he was employed in religious exercises till
six. By that time, the rest of his family being got up, he worshipped
with them, and then went to his shop. He was so much master of the
Scripture, [that] though he had been half sleeping, he could have
corrected readers if they miscalled or wrong cited ony scripture.’[414]
During the time when the king was pressing on the innovations in the
church, dissentients of this kind were rising everywhere throughout
the southern districts of Scotland, many of them lairds, a few of them
nobles, but most of them belonging to the middle classes of society.
Of the lairds, Livingstone enumerates Halhill (Fife), Crosshill
(Lanarkshire), Cunningham-head, Cessnock, and Rowallan (Ayrshire).
There was also a number of ladies, some of them of noble birth, who
embraced and strongly held fast the evangelical views. Such were
Margaret Countess of Wigton, Anne Marchioness of Hamilton, the Countess
of Eglintoun, and Lady Loudon. For the time, these people, as well as
the more earnest of the clergy, were kept silent under the frown of
an imperious government, or made themselves but little heard; but the
fire burned not the less intensely for being covered up; and when the
time for resistance came, it was ready to break forth with the greater
violence that it had been so long suppressed.
[Sidenote: 1624.
JULY 1.]
Almost as a matter of course, while these Presbyterian recusants were
in hands, the state authorities took some order with papistry. John
Gordon of Craig in Aberdeenshire had attracted their notice as ‘an
excommunicat trafficking papist,’ who, not content with blaspheming the
truth and its preachers himself, did all that he could to ‘withhold
his people from coming to the kirk, boasting [threatening] some,
and persuading others;’ thus, it is alleged, ‘he steirs up mony not
weel satled in their religion to imitate him in his contemptuous
and lawless proceedings, and in effect has cassen that pairt of the
country lowss.’ The Council now charged Gordon to appear and answer
for his offences. They likewise despatched an order to the magistrates
of Aberdeen, for the routing up of a set of Catholics who for some
time had been allowed to live peaceably there, commanding that they
be taken and warded till further orders.--_P. C. R._ The government
could calculate with tolerable security on the feeling of the great
bulk of the people, that by thus striking a blow at popery, they would
be allowed without much remonstrance to deal that severity towards
puritanism which would frighten it from a troublesome opposition to the
now semi-episcopalian establishment.
John Gordon of Craig was obliged for the time to leave the kingdom; but
somehow the king was always forgiving to papists, and we accordingly
find that in January 1625, having made submission and promised good
behaviour in future, this ‘excommunicat trafficking papist’ was allowed
to return to Scotland (_P. C. R._), but not ultimately to rest there,
as will hereafter be seen.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 21.]
A Border thief, described as Adie Usher in Birkinhaugh, servant of
Robert Elliot of Redheugh, was condemned and hanged at Edinburgh for
sundry acts of cattle-stealing. In most of his proceedings he had
been accompanied by his son, Willie Usher, a mere boy, who was also
presented for trial, but spared on account of his youth.--_Pit._ After
Willie Usher had spent some months in the Thieves’ Hole in Edinburgh,
the Lords of the Privy Council received a complaint from him, ‘heavily
regretting his hard estate and condition by his detention, thir mony
owks bygane, miserably in ward in the Thieves’ Hole of Edinburgh,
without possibility or mean to entertein himself, he being a young
innocent boy not past the age of fourteen years, and his umwhile father
having underlain his punishment and sufferit death for the crime laid
to the said Willie’s charge.’ The Lords consequently ordered the
magistrates ‘to attend the commodity of some ship going to the Low
Countries,’ and see Willie set aboard thereof, ‘and mak intimation to
the said Willie that if at ony time hereafter he sall return without
licence, it sall be capital unto him.’--_P. C. R._
[Sidenote: 1624.]
The master of Adie Usher seems to have been under suspicion of a
concern in his delinquencies. In November, when about to fly from the
city on account of infection, the Privy Council entered an order in the
case of Lady Jean Stewart, whose husband, Robert Elliot of Redheugh,
had been for some time a prisoner in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh. She
had represented ‘the utter distress, misery, and want whereunto she
and her poor children are reduced, having contracted great debts
and impandit her abulyiements and clothes for enterteinment of her
husband in ward--and she is brocht to that pitch of necessity, that
she has nowther means to live nor credit to afford him ony further
supply.’ The Council ordered her a hundred merks for past charges,
and granted her the sum of ‘threttein shillings and four pennies’
during pleasure--apparently meaning a daily allowance of 1s. 1-1/3d.
sterling.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG. 30.]
Poland is described as in this age swarming with Scotch pedlers. Its
port, Dantzig, contained a number of settled merchants of a respectable
order, some of whom were seen from time to time returning to their
native country with considerable realised wealth. Formerly, the Scotch
merchants at Dantzig, having a kind of rule and governance among
themselves, lived in such a way as to secure the esteem of the people
of the country. But latterly, ‘discipline being dissolved, the most
part of them use such a dissolute form of living, that they are odious
to the inhabitants, hurtful to themselves, and despised by strangers,
to the great ignominy of the whole nation.’ There was also a continual
immigration of multitudes of miserable, debauched, and weakly people
from Scotland, including ‘exorbitant numbers of young boys and maids
unfit for any service,’ reminding us of the overflowings of the Irish
population into England, Scotland, and the United States of America in
more recent days.[415] During this summer, owing, doubtless, to the
pressure of the famine, this scandalous system had been carried to such
a height, that the Scotch merchants were threatened with expulsion
from the city. In this exigency, they wrote to the king, craving his
intercession. Patrick Gordon, who acted as agent for the king in
Dantzig, also wrote, apparently, at the same time, shewing how matters
stood, and entreating that some order and rule should be established
among his countrymen, as they should not otherwise be able much longer
to withstand the strength of their enemies.[416]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV. 1.]
[Sidenote: 1624.]
The king wrote to the Earl of Mar, requesting him to send into
Argyleshire and Glenorchy, for four or five couples of _earth-dogs_
(terriers), which he was desirous of obtaining in order to transmit
them to France. His majesty further requested ‘that ye have a special
care that the oldest of them be not passing three years of age, and
that ye send them not all in one ship, but some in one ship, and other
some in another, lest one ship should miscarry.’[417]
The same Earl of Mar, having to spend the winter of 1631 in Stirling,
and designing to amuse himself with fox-hunting, sent a letter to his
cousin, the Laird of Glenurchy, entreating the favour of ‘a couple of
good earth-dogs;’ and adding, what shews the importance of the favour,
‘I pray you use me as familiarly as I do you, for without ceremony,
cousin, you shall not have a friend over whom ye have greater power
than over me.’ _P. S._--‘What ye send me, let it be good, although it
be but one.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV. 2.]
There is at this time a glimpse of rationality regarding witchcraft
in the public authorities, in as far as the Privy Council deemed it
right to hesitate about the granting of commissions for the trial of
persons charged with that crime. The Council had been troubled by the
importunity of persons seeking for such commissions, and at the same
time concerned to find that the informations on which the commissions
were sought for ‘seemed to be very obscure and dark.’ As anxious for
the truth, and to the intent that neither should the innocent be
molested nor the guilty escape, they now arranged that all informations
should henceforth pass through the hands of the bishop of the diocese,
‘to be seen and considered by him, and such of the ministry as he shall
call unto him.’--_P. C. R._
We have here a revelation of that doubt about the reality of witchcraft
which is suspected to have lurked in the minds of all the principal
official people throughout the seventeenth century. It was a time of
comparative triumph for the established church. The bishops were not
particularly in need of popularity. They could afford to be easy with
both Romanists and necromancers. It was precisely in such circumstances
that we could expect to find the chief administrative body letting slip
a doubt as to the soundness of many of the alleged instances of sorcery
lately subjected to trial.
[Sidenote: NOV. 23.]
[Sidenote: 1624.]
The pest, which had been for some time before in Holland, broke out
‘in sundry houses in Edinburgh, to the great terror of the whole
town. It began in Paul Hay[418] a merchant’s house, a month before,
and was not known till now; therefore the more dangerous, because
hard to discern the clean from the unclean. Upon the last day of
November, the president and other lords of Council and Session, meeting
together, resolve to rise, and continue the session till the 8th of
Januar.’--_Cal._
One consequence of the occurrence of the pest at this time was, that
the king’s design of enforcing a communion at Christmas, where all
the people should kneel, was frustrated. Another result generally
satisfactory was a relaxation of the severity against the Edinburgh
citizens who were banished and imprisoned for opposing the new
ceremonies. William Rig was allowed to leave his prison of Blackness,
and remain for fifteen days with his wife at his house of Morton, where
she was ‘very heavily visite with infirmity and sickness.’ Mean, having
‘a numerous family and his wife grit with child, and nane to have ane
care for order-taking with them, how they sall be providit for and
governit in this [time of] danger,’ was in like manner permitted to
repair to Edinburgh, to see after them, and there remain till the 15th
of January. So also John Hamilton was relieved from the Tolbooth to
attend on his wife, who chanced to be in the same delicate condition as
Mrs Mean. After all, ‘the pest raged not; few houses were infected with
it; so that it appeared the chief end wherefore the Lord had sent it,
was to disappoint the king by scattering the people.’--_Cal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC.]
Amidst the alarms regarding the pest, people heard of a strange case
of personal quarrel and vindictiveness. One William Hamilton, a
soldier, son of the deceased William Hamilton, ‘called of Inchmachan,’
was lately come from the Low Countries, avowing ‘a settled purpose
and resolution to appeal Captain Harie Bruce to the single combat,
or otherwise to watch the opportunity to bereave him of his life.’
The Privy Council was obliged to take means for preventing a hostile
collision.--_P. C. R._
[Sidenote: DEC. 8.]
[Sidenote: 1624.]
The Privy Council readily apprehended that the prosecution of ‘this
damnable and cruel intention’ would both breed danger to the parties
and produce great trouble and controversy among their friends, to the
disturbance of his majesty’s peace, if timous remeed be not provided.
They therefore summoned the parties before them to give assurance of
their good behaviour.
Deeming, as was formerly remarked, anything that illustrates the
progress of the arts as worthy of notice in this record, though perhaps
trifling in itself, we may advert to Mr Alexander Hamilton, brother
to the secretary Earl of Melrose, as having now obtained a patent of
twenty-one years for a new _cart_ invented by him, ‘wherein greater
weight and burdens may with far less force be drawn, and conveniently
carried, than hath been done with ony other kind of cart hitherto known
or heretofore used.’[419]
‘Sandy Hamilton,’ or ‘Dear Sandy,’ as he was called, was a man of note
on account of his skill in some of the useful arts, particularly in
those connected with the munitions of war. He practised these arts for
some time in Germany, whence he was recalled to England, where the king
granted him pensions and allowances to the amount of £800 sterling _per
annum_. When the Civil War broke out, he joined his countrymen, and
helped to fit out the Covenanting army of 1640 with a species of short
but effective gun, which was carried slung between two horses, and the
serviceableness of which was proved at the battle of Newburn-ford, when
the Scots crossed the Tyne in the face of the enemy and became masters
of Newcastle.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1624.]
In this year we have the latest known notice of a woman of
extraordinary attainments who had lived for many years in Edinburgh,
practising an art in which she was long after pronounced to have never
been excelled. Caligraphy, or the art of beautiful writing, was in
greater vogue in the seventeenth century than in our more utilitarian
days. Under what circumstances Esther Inglis, a Frenchwoman residing
in the Scottish capital, came to give her days to so laborious an art,
we do not learn. Neither are we aware how it was that Esther came to
live in the Scottish capital. There, however, we find her, so early as
1599, writing one of the little manuscript volumes which have given her
celebrity. This book, preserved in the Bodleian Library, is entitled
_Les Proverbes de Salomon, escrites en diverses sortes de Lettres,
par Esther Anglois, Françoise. A Lislesbourg en Ecosse._ 1599. ‘This
delicate performance,’ says Ballard,[420] ‘gains the admiration of
all who see it; every chapter is wrote in a different hand; as is the
dedication, and some other things at the beginning of the book, which
makes near forty several sorts of hands. The beginnings and endings
of the chapters are adorned with most beautiful head and tail pieces,
and the margins are elegantly decorated with the pen, in imitation, I
suppose, of the beautiful old manuscripts. The book is dedicated to the
Earl of Essex, Queen Elizabeth’s great favourite. At the beginning are
his arms, neatly drawn, with all its quarterings--in number fifty-six.
In the fifth leaf is her own picture, done with the pen, in the habit
of that time. In her right hand, a pen, the left resting upon a book
opened; in one of the leaves of which is written _De l’Eternel le bien:
de moi le mal, ou rien_. On the table before her there is likewise a
music-book lying open, which perhaps intimates that she had some skill
in that art. Under the picture is an epigram in Latin, made by Andrew
Melvin; and on the next page another, composed by the same author,
which is as follows:
Æmula naturæ manus exprimit una figuras
Mille, animans pictis Signa pusilla notis,
Signa creans animata, polûm spirantia signa:
Quæ picturata margine limbus obit.
Mirum opus: at mage mira Manus; mira omnia vincit
Mens manui moderans, dum manus urget opus.
ANDRÆUS MELVINUS.
Thus translated into English:
One hand dame nature’s mimic does express
Her larger figures, to the life, in less.
In the rich border of her work do stand,
Afresh created by her curious hand,
The various signs and planets of the sky,
Which seem to move and twinkle in our eye.
Much we the work, much more the hand admire,
Her fancy guiding this does raise our wonder higher.
Another of Esther’s transcripts was entitled _Historiæ Memorabiles
Genesis_, 1600. A copy of the French Psalms, written by her, and
presented to Queen Elizabeth, is in the library of Christ Church,
Oxford. There is also in the Bodleian a manuscript of hers, entitled
_Les Vingts et Six Quatrains de Guy de Faur, Sieur de Pybrac, escrits
par Esther Inglis, pour son dernier Adieu, ce 21 Jour de Juin 1617_.
It seems to have been a gift to the celebrated Dr Hall--subsequently
Bishop of Norwich--on parting from him at the time of the king’s visit
to Scotland. The latest known of Esther’s works is a volume preserved
in the Royal Library, _Esther Inglis’s Fifty Emblems_, dated at
Edinburgh 1624.
[Sidenote: 1624.]
When the king was at Stirling, Esther’s son presented to him a little
book entitled _Sidus Celeste_, and he experienced some of James’s
good-natured patronage in consequence. In June 1620, Esther is found
addressing the king in behalf of this son, who, having completed a
school-course, ‘would gladly follow theology.’ But ‘as Dædalus was
not able to free himself of his imprisonment in the isle Creta but by
the help of wings made of pens and wax, even so my son is not able to
free himself of inability to effectuate this his affection, but by the
wings of your majesty’s letter, composed by pen and wax, through which
he may wing his flight happily to some fellowship, either in Cambridge
or Oxford, as occasion sall fall out.’ If so far favoured by his
majesty, ‘I may have my tossed mind relieved of the great care I have
perpetually for this said youth.’--_An. Scot._
Ballard states, on the authority of a memorandum of Hearne, the
antiquary, that Esther Inglis was married to a Scotsman, named
Bartholomew Kello, and had a son, named Samuel Kello, who was educated
at Christ Church College, Oxford, and was afterwards minister at
Speckshall, in Suffolk.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1625.
MAR.]
‘At this time arose great discontentment betwixt the provost, bailies,
and council of Edinburgh, and their ministers, because the ministers
had procured the king’s letter and direction to the magistrates and
council, for augmentation of their yearly stipends. They were not
content with twelve hundred merks for every one, beside their house
mail [rent], which was more than their predecessors, worthier than
they, had, but importunately craved two thousand. The people,’ says
the zealous Presbyterian historian, ‘detested them for their ambition,
their avarice, and malice at honest and godly professors. They were
well fingerfed in other men’s houses, howbeit they had sufficient to
maintain them at home.’--_Cal._
In June 1626, Charles I. enjoined the magistrates to give each of their
ministers £100 sterling of yearly stipend, with a free house.--_Bal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAR. 30.]
[Sidenote: 1625.]
The news of the death of King James--which occurred on the 27th of
March--reached Edinburgh on the 30th, at the outbreak of a storm of
extraordinary violence which raged along the whole coast, destroying
much shipping, and throwing down several harbours. ‘The water raise
above the harbour of Leith, and ran into the houses of the town; yea,
the boats and barks within the same floated so above the shore, that
some of them were cast away upon the sides of the houses; and great
ships therein could not be keepit, with all their anchors and cables,
from doing great skaith, ilk ane to ane other, whereof the like was
never heard tell of in our days. Sundry mariners, keeping their ships
[fra] skaith, were hurt themselves, and in special James Langlands and
Robert Dury, two masters of ships, very expert in that art, were baith
cast away, working for the relief of their awn ships.’--_Jo. H._
‘The like harm was done in sundry other parts upon the coast along the
Firth, in Saltpreston, Kirkcaldy, Ardross, and other parts. Salt-pans
were overthrown, ships and boats broken, coal-heughs beside Culross
drowned. The like of this tempest was not seen in our time, nor the
like of it heard in this country in any age preceding. It was taken
by all men to be a forerunner of some great alteration. And, indeed,
the day following--to wit, the last of March--sure report was brought
hither from court, that the king departed this life, the Lord’s day
before, the 27th of March.’--_Cal._
This was long after remembered as the storm of the _Borrowing Days_,
such being a popular appellation for the last three days of March, as
expressed in a well-known popular rhyme. It is a proverbial observation
of the weather, which seems to be justified by fact, the bad weather
being connected with the vernal equinox.
END OF VOL. I.
Edinburgh:
Printed by W. and R. Chambers.
[Illustration: House of Robert Gourlay, a rich Edinburgh Citizen of
1574.
See pages 143 and 255.]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] ‘A man of science as well as of philosophic mind would employ
himself well in examining those accounts of prodigies in the early
annalists and chroniclers, which of late years have been regarded as
only worthy of contempt.’--SOUTHEY--_Omniana_, i. 266.
[2] De Fratribus Minoribus nulla est quæstio, professi siquidem
simulatam paupertatem, nulla prædia, nullos fundos habent; sed sub
prætextu pietatis ex interceptis testamentis, et stultæ pietatis zelo,
ditissimi facti sunt: quod ex eventu, post infelicem pugnam de Flodden,
compertum est: nam qui eo pugnaturi proficiscebantur, nisi confessione
facta remissionem a Fratribus Minoribus impetrassent, omnia mala
ominabantur. Interea omnem pecuniam, monumenta, et si quid pretiosum
alioqui habebant, eorum fidei committebant, sperantes, se mortuis,
illos ea quæ credebantur omnia fide integra posteris suis restituros:
at illi, eorum qui in prælio occubuerunt, nec fidem reposcere poterant,
bona in fundi comparatione, et ecclesiæ et monasterii exstructione
ad sui ordinis homines convertebant: nec aliter accidit in acie
Pinquini.--_Craig, Jus Feudale_, lib. i.
[3] _Registrum Episcopatus Aberdonensis_, ii., 309, 310.
[4] As often as I turn my eyes to the niceness and elegance of our
own times, the ancient manners of our forefathers appear sober and
venerable, but withal rough and horrid.--_Buchanan: De Jure Regni, as
quoted by Dugald Stewart in Preliminary Dissertation, Encyclopædia
Britannica._
[5] This phrase occurs in an order of the provost of Edinburgh (Earl of
Arran), dated 1518, excusing Francis Bothwell from taking the part of
Little John.--_Napier’s Life of Napier of Merchiston_, p. 53.
[6] See the Rev. Joseph Hunter’s tract, _The Ballad Hero Robin Hood_,
1852; making it at length tolerably certain that the outlaw lived in
the reign of Edward II, and for a short time held office in that king’s
household.
[7] Arnot’s _History of Edinburgh_.
[8] Scots Acts, 1555.
[9] Persons in the employment of the craftsmen; journeymen.
[10] From a sculpture on the Magdalen Chapel, Cowgate, Edinburgh.
[11] Refreshment at 4 o’clock afternoon. Latterly, the term has been
applied to tea-drinking.
[12] A road in the line of the present Princes Street.
[13] Knox says she frowned here, and gave the books to Arther Erskine,
the captain of her guard, ‘the maist pestilent papist within the realm.’
[14] Anti-tune, antiphone, or response.
[15] _Notes to Ancient Scottish Poems from the Bannatyne Manuscript_,
1770.
[16] From a unique copy of this tract a reprint was given by Mr John
Robertson to the Bannatyne Club, 1833.
[17] See under October 1570; also April 5, 1603.
[18] _Comedy of Errors_, Act III. sc. 2.
[19] In July 1538, there is an entry in the treasurer’s books, of
14s. ‘to Alexander Naper for mending of the Queen’s sadill and her
_cheriot_, in Sanct Androis.’ In January 1541-2, there is another:
‘To mend the Quenis cheriot vi-1/4 elnis blak velvet, £16, 17s. 6d.’
Besides something for cramosie, satin, and fringes.
[20] History of the Family of Mackenzie, MS. in possession of J. W.
Mackenzie, Esq., W.S., Edinburgh.
[21] A tract containing the disputation was printed by Lekprivik in
1563, and has been republished, Edinburgh, George Ramsay & Co., 1812.
Dr M‘Crie, in his _Life of John Knox_, gives an ample abstract of this
curious pamphlet.
[22] Randolph to Cecil, Edin. Nov. 30, 1562. Chalmers’s _Life of Queen
Mary_.
[23] Edin. Council Register, apud Maitland.
[24] In England, the spring of 1562 had been marked by excessive rains,
and the harvest was consequently bad. Towards the end of the year,
plague broke out in the crowded and harassed population of Havre, in
France, then undergoing a siege, and from the garrison it was imparted
to England, which had been prepared for its reception by the famine.
There it prevailed throughout the whole year 1563, carrying off 20,000
persons in London alone. ‘The poor citizens,’ says Stowe, ‘were this
year plagued with a threefold plague--pestilence, dearth of money, and
dearth of victuals; the misery whereof were too long here to write. No
doubt the poor remember it.’ On account of the plague at Michaelmas,
no term was kept, and there was _no lord-mayor’s dinner!_ The plague
spread into Germany, where it was estimated to have carried off 300,000
persons.
[25] See notes to Scott’s _Lay of the Last Minstrel_.
[26] This curious contract is printed entire in Pitcairn, iii. 390.
[27] Scott’s notes, _ut supra_.
[28] There is a place called Tarlair near Banff.
[29] Nicol Burne’s Disputation, p. 143.
[30] While Drury lay before the castle, Lord Fleming entered into
a hostile correspondence with Sir George Carey, one of Elizabeth’s
officers. This is given in _Holinshed’s Chronicle_.
[31] Mr Pennant, from whom the above translation is borrowed, says, by
a strange mistake, ‘on one of the deer.’
[32] William Barclay, _De Regno et Regali Potestate adversus
Monarchomachos_. Parisiis, 1600. This author was a native of
Aberdeenshire, but finally settled at Angers, in France, as Professor
of Civil Law in the University there. He died in 1604.
Bishop Geddes, in introducing this extract from Barclay’s forgotten
work to the notice of the Society of the Antiquaries of Scotland
(1782), remarks that a still more grand entertainment of the same kind
was given in 1529 to King James V., his mother, Queen Margaret, and
the pope’s legate, by the then Earl of Athole, and that an account of
the affair has been preserved in Lindsay of Pitscottie’s _History of
Scotland_. The venerable bishop adds: ‘Need I take notice that the
hunting described by Barclay bears some resemblance to the _batidas_ of
the present king of Spain, where several huntsmen form a line and drive
the deer through a narrow pass, at one side of which the king, with
some attendants, has his post, in a green but of boughs, and slaughters
the poor animals as they come out almost as fast as charged guns can
be put into his hand and he fire them. These are things sufficiently
known; and the same manner of stag-hunting is practised in Italy,
Germany, and other parts of Europe.’[421]
[33] Gunn’s _Historical Enquiry respecting the Harp in the Highlands_.
1807.
[34] Agnes Strickland’s _Life of Queen Mary_.
[35] _Archæologia Scotica_, ii. 287.
[36] Richard Bannatyne’s _Memorials_, p. 238.
[37] Dalyell’s _Darker Superstitions of Scotland_, p. 130.
[38] Walter Goodall and Miss Agnes Strickland have been misled by the
description of the place in Bothwell’s Act of Forfeiture--‘_ad pontes,
vulgo vocatos foulbriggs_‘--into the belief that the queen was seized
at the suburb of Edinburgh formerly called Foulbriggs, and now Fountain
Bridge. In reality, the expression in the Act, rightly translated,
applies to the place indicated in the _Diurnal of Occurrents_--‘at
the Briggs, commonly called Foulbriggs,’ the syllable _foul_ being
presumably a vulgar casual addition which the ancient marshy condition
of the place rendered appropriate. All the other contemporary writers
place the scene of the seizure at the Almond--Buchanan, Birrel, and
Herries--while Sir James Melville, who was one of the party seized,
says ‘betwixt Linlithgow and Edinburgh’--an expression he could
scarcely have used if the fact had happened close to the city. In _Ane
Chronicle of the Kings of Scotland_, printed by the Maitland Club, and
apparently contemporary, _the brig of Awmont_ is the locality assigned.
But the most powerful evidence on the subject, and what sets the matter
at rest, is a Remission under the Privy Seal, of date October 1, 1567,
to Andrew Redpath, for his being concerned in ‘besetting the queen’s
way ... _near the water of Awmond_, and for taking and ravishing her,’
&c. It may be remarked that there is no evidence of the suburb alluded
to by Miss Strickland having been called Foulbriggs, or having existed
at all, at that time, while we have proof of the existence of a place
on the Almond Water, under the name of the _Briggs_, long before this
time. In the Register of the Privy Seal is ‘ane lettre maid to Robert
Hamilton in Briggis, makand him capitane and kepar of the place and
palace of Linlithgow,’ &c. 1543, Aug. 22.
[39] Privy Seal Register.
[40] Carries.
[41] Nickname.
[42] Garret.
[43] Searches.
[44] Thievery.
[45] Ere.
[46] Till.
[47] _Ancient Scottish Poems_, 2 vols. 1786.
[48] _Border Minstrelsy_, i. 157.
[49] Burgh Record of Canongate, _Maitland Club Mis._, ii. 303.
[50] Babees, halfpence, from _bas billon_, a low piece of money.
[51] Hume’s _Hist. House of Douglas_.
[52] Privy Seal Register.
[53] _Discoverie and Historie of the Gold Mynes in Scotland._ Written
in 1619. Bannatyne Club, 1825.
[54] _Holinshed’s Chronicle._
[55] The original, preserved in the General Register House, is printed
at length in Pitcairn, iii. 394.
[56] Privy Seal Register.
[57] Council Register, quoted in _Maitland’s History of Edinburgh_, p.
32.
[58] _Ane Breve Descriptioun of the Pest_, &c. 1568.
[59] Mr M. Napier’s Notes to Spottiswoode’s History, Spot. Club edition.
[60] Where Napier had other estates.
[61] The bishop was about to go to York, to attend the investigation
respecting the queen.
[62] Justiciary Records, MS., Adv. Lib., quoted by Mr Mark Napier.
[63] Burgh Records of Canongate, _Mait. Club Mis._, ii. 313.
[64] The pest was severe in London in autumn 1569, whether by
communication from Scotland does not appear.
[65] Ane Addicioun of Scottis Cornicklis and Deidis, printed from an
original manuscript by Thomas Thomson, Esq.
[66] _Memorials of George Bannatyne._ Edited by Sir Walter Scott.
Bannatyne Club-book, 1829.
[67] Extracts from Canongate Council Register, _Maitland Club
Miscellany_, ii. 814.
[68] _Ane Trajedie in forme of ane Diallog betwix Honour, Gude Fame,
and the Authour heirof, in ane Trance._ Lekprevik, 1570.
[69] Dalyell’s _Illustrations of Scottish History_, p. 521.
[70] Harrison’s translation, _apud_ Holinshed.
[71] _Extracta e Chronicis Scocie._ Edin. 1842.
[72] Sir William Sinclair, who records these curious particulars, was
Lord Justice-general of Scotland, and altogether an estimable person.
According to Father Hay: ‘He gathered a great many manuscripts, which
had been taken by the rabble out of our monasteries in the time of the
Reformation.’--_Genealogy of the Sinclairs of Roslin_, edited by James
Maidment, Esq. 1835. See something further about him under June 1623.
[73] The distance from Bathgate to Edinburgh is eighteen miles.
[74] _Bannatyne’s Journal_, 46.
[75] _Calderwood_, iii. 20, 167, and _note_.
[76] The couplet almost verbatim occurs in the prophecies of
Bertlingtoun, in R. Waldegrave’s brochure, already quoted (under Jan.
1, 1561-2):
‘However it happen for to fall,
The Lyon shall be lord of all.’
[77] Eupham M‘Calyean subsequently attained still higher notoriety in
the character of a witch. See under Dec. 26, 1590.
[78] The whole series is printed in _Abbotsford Miscellany_, p. 5.
[79] Crawford’s _Memoirs_, 215.
[80] The Lady Scotland is understood to address ‘the richt honorable
and godly learnit gentleman, the Laird of Dun, minister of God’s word.’
[81] Bruised.
[82] He ‘wes extremelie pynit in the beitis lang of befoir.’--_D. O._
[83] _Calderwood_, iii. 393.
[84] The word _its_ did not then exist, and writers were forced to use
either _his_ or _her_ instead.
[85] Humboldt’s _Cosmos_.
[86] Brewster’s _Encyclopædia_.
[87] Tytler, vii. 388.
[88] Under the care of John Smith, youngest, the secretary of the Club.
1832.
[89] So called ‘for that in old Fathers’ days the people would that
day shear their heads and clip their beards, and so make them honest
against Easter Day.’--Authority quoted in Brand’s _Pop. Antiquities_,
by Ellis.
[90] ‘Robert Gurlay, the duke’s servant,’ is the last in the list of
persons forfeited by the parliament of James VI., August 1571.
[91] Calderwood.
[92] Register of the General Kirk of Edinburgh, _Maitland Club Mis._,
i. 101.
[93] Reg. of Gen. Kirk of Edinburgh, _Maitland Club Mis._, i. 111.
[94] As this conduct was such as might lead to a collision between
the parties, it is not easy to see how it illustrates the author’s
proposition of Wedderburn’s pacific temper.
[95] From a copy in the editor’s possession of a manuscript long
preserved in Broomhouse, Berwickshire.
[96] ‘There was presented to the Queen Regent (1558), by Robert
Ormiston, a calf having two heads, whereat she scripped [mocked], and
said: “It was but a common thing.”‘--_Knox._
[97] Coloured stripes sewed on a garment.
[98] Fringes or trimmings.
[99] This seems too high a phrase of compliment for the Regent Morton.
_His Grace_ was the ordinary phrase, according to Sir James Melville.
[100] Aberdeen Council Register, _Spal. Cl. Mis._ i. 30.
[101] _Abbotsford Miscellany_, 45.
[102] _Hist. of the House of Douglas_, ii. 260.
[103] The wife of the earl--Margaret Fleming, relict of the Master of
Montrose and the Master of Erskine--was believed to have the powers of
incantation. See under June 19, 1566.
[104] The seat of the Earl of Montrose, on the skirts of the Ochil
Hills.
[105] Crawford’s _Officers of State_. Moysie’s _Memoirs_.
[106] As much as to say, ‘Sport, and be at your ease.’
[107] Moysie.
[108] Calderwood.
[109] Arranged--not lying as rubbish.
[110] _Documents Relative to Royal Receptions_, 4to. Edinburgh, 1822.
[111] _Maitland Club Miscellany_, ii. 19.
[112] General Assembly, April 1578.
[113] A house called the _Novum Hospitium_, in the Priory Park. It has
long been demolished, excepting only the court-gate.
[114] _Atkinson’s Discoverie of Gold Mynes in Scotland._
[115] _Trans. Ant. Soc. Scot._ iii. 312.
[116] Row’s _History of the Kirk of Scotland_.
[117] The original of this document, commonly called the _King’s
Confession_, is preserved in the Advocates’ Library.
[118] See under May 1574.
[119] Fr. _clientèle_, dependents.
[120] This Scotch law-phrase has become familiar in England, under the
form of ‘art and part,’ and is not in general correctly understood.
The first word is not art, but _airt_, meaning direction, implying
that the accused was believed to have counselled and guided the actual
perpetrators of the crime.
[121] Powerfully.
[122] A strange thing.
[123] See under Jan. 1, 1561-2.
[124] For the above illustrations of his remark, the author is indebted
to Mr Mark Napier’s curious notes to the edition of Spottiswoode’s
History published by the Spottiswoode Club.
[125] ‘Item, to ane pyper and ane young boy his sone that playit in
Dalkeytht upon Sonday the xj day of Junii, fra the kirk to the castell
befoir his Hienes ... xx_s._‘
[126] A noteworthy anecdote of this lady is stated in Anderson’s
_History of the Family of Fraser_. On the death of her first husband,
the tutorship of her infant son, Lord Lovat, became a matter of
contention between the child’s grand-uncle, Fraser of Struie, and his
uncle Thomas; and it seemed likely there would be a fight between their
various partisans. In these circumstances, a clerical gentleman of the
clan, Donald Fraser Dhu, entreated the widow to interfere, and ask
Struie to retire. She gave an evasive reply, remarking that whatever
might befall, ‘not a drop of Stewart blood would be spilt.’ The
mediator then drew his dirk, and told her ladyship with a fierce oath,
that _her_ blood would be the first that would be spilt, if she did not
do as he requested. She then complied, and Thomas, the child’s uncle,
was accordingly elected as tutor.
[127] Calderwood.
[128] Melville’s Diary.
[129] He states that David Riccio was buried by the queen in the royal
vault, ‘almost in the arms of Magdalene Valois,’ and thence draws a
shameful inference against the chastity of Mary. To dedicate to the
young king a book in which he endeavoured to prove his mother an
adulteress, and the murderer of her husband, gives a strange idea of
the sense of that age regarding the rules of good taste, to say nothing
more.
[130] On this occasion Captain Lammie was killed. Sir Walter Scott, in
relating the incident in the _Border Minstrelsy_, expresses a hope that
he was ‘the same miscreant who, in the day of Queen Mary’s distress,
“his ensign being of white taffety, had painted on it the cruel murder
of King Henry, and laid down before her majesty, at what time she
presented herself as prisoner to the Lords.”--_Birrel’s Diary._’ It
was very probably so, as we find that he then, as well as now, was a
hired soldier of the government. As his painted ensign makes rather a
conspicuous appearance in Scottish history, it may be not unworthy of
notice that the following entry occurs in the Lord Treasurer’s books,
under March 18, 1567-8, nine months after the incident in question: ‘To
Captain Andro Lambie for his expenses passand of Glasgow to Edinburgh
to uplift certain men of weir, and to mak ane _Handsenyie_ of white
taffety, £25.’ He was then acting for the Regent Moray. It seems
probable that, having spoiled his ensign by the picture of the king’s
murder, he was now gratified with a new one at the expense of his
employer.
[131] In the parish of Carluke, Lanarkshire.
[132] He remained at this fine old castle twelve days, attended by
Arran, Sir Robert Melville, Secretary Maitland, Ferniehirst, Colonel
Stuart, and the Master of Gray; and regaled with ‘the play of Robin
Hood.’ ‘After the banquet was ended, Arran fell deadly sick.’--_Cal._
[133] _History of King James VI._
[134] _Darker Superstitions of Scotland_, p. 484.
[135] Note in _Maitland Club Miscellany_, iv. 123.
[136] _Gregory’s History of the Western Highlands and Isles_, p. 234.
[137] Estate--piece of ground.
[138] Threatens.
[139] A horn had originally, or perhaps was still used, in proclaiming
a man rebel; hence the term, horning, or being put to the horn.
[140] October ... 1587, ‘his majesty raid with ane host to Peebles,
for order-taking with the broken men, and returnit the tent
day.’--_Moysie’s Memoirs._
[141] It is understood that this was the place of worship formed out of
the choir or eastern portion of the church of St Giles. Opposite to the
pulpit, which was attached to the first pillar from the east end, was
the royal gallery or loft, also attached to a pillar. Thus the king and
the minister were sufficiently near each other for the colloquies in
which they occasionally indulged. See Wilson’s _Memorials of Edinburgh_.
[142] Harrington’s _Nugæ Antiquæ_, by Park. 2 vols. 1804. Vol. i., p.
369.
[143] A light bark with one mast.
[144] Rascal.
[145] Worthless fellows.
[146] Value.
[147] A bulk, a corpse.
[148] A gun in the poop of the ship.
[149] Discharged.
[150] _Maitland Club Miscellany_, i. 276.
[151] Transverse.
[152] It is to be feared that Abacuck was a person of a litigious and
troublesome temper. A complaint was made against him before the Privy
Council by Kenneth M‘Kenzie of Kintail, to the effect that Bisset had
purchased letters to force Kenneth to produce a clansman named Rory
M‘Allister M‘Kenzie, alleged to be at the horn for default in a civil
cause. It was alleged that, knowing that on the case being called,
he (Kenneth) could shew many good arguments for exonerating himself
of this responsibility, Bisset had delayed the calling, in hopes of
being able to do it when Kenneth should not be at hand to make his
own defence. The matter being brought fully before the Lords in the
presence of parties, it was decreed that Kenneth should be absolved
from the duty implied in Bisset’s letters.--_P. C. R._
In July 1608, Abacuck was involved in a still worse-looking affair. He
was charged before the Privy Council with having prosecuted Mr William
Reid, of Aberdeen, in a malicious manner at law, from no cause but
that of ‘some little eleist’ fallen out between him and Andrew Reid,
brother of William, in which the said William had no interest. He had
also traduced William Hay in regard to the propriety of his marriage,
though it was well known to be ‘an honest and famous marriage.’ The
Council found the charge just, and commanded Abacuck’s proceedings to
be stopped.
[153] _Melville Diary_, 291.
[154] The conduct of the clergy on this occasion is defended, but in
rather subdued terms, by Dr M‘Crie, _Life of Andrew Melville_, i. 395.
[155] _Statistical Acc. of Scot._ ed. 1845, v. 258.
[156] A leek (Fr. _cibolle_).
[157] _Maitland Club Mis._, i. 278.
[158] See the entire letter in _Blackwood’s Magazine_, ii. 313.
[159] _Chronicle Kings of Scotland._
[160] _Moysie’s Memoirs._
[161] Act of Privy Council, Notes to Waverley Novels (_Legend of
Montrose_).
[162] James Melville’s _Diary_.
[163] In this article, both editions of Moysie are used.
[164] Birrel’s _Diary_.
[165] Latterly called the West Bow.
[166] A public weighing-machine at the head of the West Bow.
[167] Johnston’s _Hist. Scot._ MS.
[168] From the reprint of a rare contemporary tract, in _Papers
relative to the Marriage of James VI._ (Bannatyne Club), 1828.
[169] Regals, or rigols, an ancient musical instrument, composed of a
series of reeded tubes resting on a bellows, which the player worked
with his left hand. See Dalyell’s _Musical Memoirs of Scotland_, 1849,
p. 117.
One is at a loss to understand how the poet thought of expressing his
admiration of the strings of the organ and regals.
[170] Burel’s _Description of the Queen’s Entry_, &c., 1590, in
Watson’s _Collection of Scottish Poetry_, 1712.
[171] Johnston’s _Hist. Scot._ MS.
[172] Edin. Council Record.
[173] _Maitland Club Misc._, i. 280.
[174] The entire letter is printed in _Blackwood’s Magazine_, ii. 628,
and in the _Caldwell Papers_.
[175] Calderwood.
[176] ‘Wha were lately pardonit by his majesty for slaughter of the
Laird of Dawick’s son.’
[177] Mr C. Innes’s preface to _Black Book of Taymouth_, xxv.
[178] Anderson’s _Hist. of the Frasers_, p. 102.
[179] See onward, under May 1600.
[180] See onward, under August 1618.
[181] _Britain’s Distemper_, by Patrick Gordon, Spald. Club.
[182] Tytler’s _History_, quoting letters in the State-paper Office.
[183] This lady did not long enjoy the position of a duchess. She died
on the 11th of May 1592, and was ‘buried in the Trinity College, in
the east end thereof, very solemnly.’--_Jo. Hist._ When the Trinity
College Church was taken down, that its site might form part of a
railway station, the remains of a female, believed to be those of the
royal foundress, Mary de Gueldres, were found in a side-aisle, and duly
re-interred in the royal sepulchre at Holyrood. Afterwards, the remains
of another female, who had apparently been buried under circumstances
of distinction, were found in the east end of the church, and suspected
by some to be the remains of the queen. The probability is, that these
latter remains were those of the youthful Sophia Ruthven, Duchess of
Lennox.
[184] May 19, 1591, the town-council of Aberdeen made arrangements for
the support of one Robert Abell, who was ‘visited with leprosy, and
thereby unable to win his living or frequent honest men’s society.’
He was placed in the house here described.--_Ab. C. R._ In 1612,
the magistrates made the like provision for Agnes Jameson, spouse
to Patrick Jack, ‘vexed and diseased with the sickness of leprosy,’
although she was not born and bred in the burgh.
[185] Edin. Council Record. See Professor Simpson’s curious Notices of
Leprosy in Scotland, _Edin. Med. and Surg. Journal_, No. 149.
[186] Now La Mancha.
[187] It will be found that the body of the Bonny Earl remained above
ground for six years, probably with a view to keeping up the popular
indignation against his murderers. (See under February 16, 1597-8.)
[188] It is necessary to distinguish this from the murder of another
Laird of Brackla in 1667, on which a ballad has been composed. See
Jamieson’s _Northern Ballads_.
[189] In a memoir of the family of Grant, written by Mr James Chapman,
minister of Cromdale, in 1729, and preserved in the Macfarlane
Collections in the Advocates’ Library, there is a curious traditionary
anecdote, which the writer connects with the murder of the Laird of
Brackla, and yet dates in 1540. It is given in the following terms:
‘[James Laird of Grant, called _Shemus nan Creagh_, or James the
Ravager] distinguished himself in assisting the Earl of Huntly, his
cousin, against the insults of several enemies, and particularly in
revenging the murder of Gordon Baron of Brackla, on Dee water-side,
who was murdered by the countrymen there. The revenge went such a
length, that above sixscore orphans were left in the desolate country
on Deeside, nobody knowing who their parents were. These miserable
orphans were, out of pity and commiseration, carried by the Earl of
Huntly into his castle, where they were maintained and fed thus. A
long trough of wood was made, wherein was put pottage or any other
kind of food allowed them; and the young ones, sitting round about
the trough, did eat their meat out of it as well as they could. The
Laird of Grant visiting the earl, was, for diversion’s sake, brought
to see the orphans slabbing at the trough; which comical sight so
surprised him, that he proposed to carry one-half of them to Balcastle,
alleging that, having a hand in destroying their parents, he was bound
in justice to take a concern in their preservation and maintenance.
Those of them that were brought to Castle-Grant are to this day called
_Slioch Namor_--that is, the Posterity of the Trough.’ As _Shemus nan
Creagh_ died in 1553, and the Grants were not engaged on the Earl of
Huntly’s side on this occasion, but participated with their relatives
and allies the Mackintoshes in suffering from his vengeance, it may be
presumed that this barbarous tale refers to the date assigned for it by
Chapman--namely, a period fully fifty years earlier than the murder of
the Laird of Brackla. It has nevertheless been introduced by Sir Walter
Scott in his _Tales of a Grandfather_, as applicable to the reign of
James VI.; and the reader who turns it up there, may experience some
amusement in contrasting its ample and picturesque details with the
simple original anecdote as above narrated.
[190] The Earl of Angus in this anecdote was a Protestant, and
succeeded by the earl noticed in the preceding article, who was of the
ancient faith.
[191] Fairnyear, the last year: the phrase means, formerly a lord.
[192] Andrew Wauchope of Niddry, and John Hamilton, younger, of
Samuelston.
[193] The king, probably from recollection of some incident of their
early school-days, used to recognise the grave earl by the name of
_Jock o’ Sklaitts_.
[194] The above anecdote was communicated to me by Sir Walter Scott
in 1827, immediately after he had derived it from the Earl of
Haddington (Earl Charles), to whom, I suppose, it had come through his
predecessors, the descendants of Lord Mar’s brother-statesman, Thomas,
first Earl of Haddington.
[195] _Letters and State Papers of the Reign of James VI._ Abbotsford
Club Series. 1838. P. 16.
[196] Calderwood. _History of James VI._ Pitcairn’s _Criminal Trials_.
Gregory’s _History of the Western Highlands and Isles_.
[197] This interlined in the manuscript in a different hand. Another
report is, that Lord Maxwell was slain by Willie Johnston, nephew of
the _Galliard_, mentioned under July 22, 1593.
[198] G. L. Meason’s preface to _Discoverie and Historie of the Gold
Mynes of Scotland_. Bannatyne Club. 1825.
[199] _Archæologia Scotica_, iv. 404.
[200] Napier’s _Life of Napier of Merchiston_.
[201] Another writer represents the Master of Montrose as setting upon
Sir James Sandilands.
[202] The writer of this curious story speaks of the form of the
funeral as rare.
[203] Council Register in Maitland.
[204] Patrick Anderson’s History MS. He adds: ‘I was at the time by
chance an eye-witness myself.’
[205] _Hist. K. Ja. 6._
[206] March 16, 1575-6, John Macmoran, messenger, reported to the Privy
Council, that in January last, when using his office in execution of
letters upon Patrick M‘Kie, burgess of Wigton, he had been set upon by
Alexander M‘Kie of Myreton and his two brothers, who cruelly struck and
chased him, giving him despiteful words, and threatening him with worse
if he ever again came there in a professional capacity. The offenders,
failing to appear on call to answer for this outrage, were put to the
horn.--_P. C. R._
[207] See _ante_, p. 143.
[208] Lady Yester in her widowhood founded a church in Edinburgh, which
has perpetuated her name. Her ladyship, after the above date, brought
Lord Yester two sons, the elder of whom earned on the line of the
family, and was the first Earl of Tweeddale.
[209] Patrick Anderson’s Hist. MS. Genealogy of the Hays of Tweeddale.
[210] Thrown down.
[211] For the ballad of _Kinmont Willie_, and many particulars of the
affair, see _Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border_.
[212] Napier’s _Life of Napier_, 4to, p. 247.
[213] Wood’s _Peerage_, quoting Urquhart.
[214] Cockalane--Fr. _coq-à-l’âne_, defined in the dictionary of the
Academy, ‘Discours qui n’a point de suite, de liaison, de raison.’
Equivalent to the English phrase, a _cock-and-bull story_. The word
occurs in at least one English author--Etheridge.
[215] Through his connection with the Lovat family, his wife being
the mother of the present Lord Lovat, he was sheltered for some time
in a small island in the lake of Bruiach, a few miles from Beaufort
Castle.--_Anderson’s Hist. Acc. Fraser Family_, p. 90, note.
[216] _Spottiswoode_, iii. 40. Johnston’s Hist. Scot. MS. Scott’s
_Staggering State of Scots Statesmen_.
[217] He was put to the horn, and an edict of Privy Council denounced
those who should ‘reset’ him.
[218] Letter of Sir Thomas Hamilton, king’s advocate, Pitcairn, iii.
162.
[219] _History of the Kennedies_, 27.
[220] Letter above cited.
[221] The resemblance of this case to the phenomena of what is called
electro-biology will be apparent.
[222] The original documents regarding these trials are given in full
in the _Spalding Club Miscellany_, vol. i. Aberdeen. 1841.
[223] _William Shakspere, a Biography._ 1843.
[224] _Chronicle of the Cid_, translated by Robert Southey, pp. 75-83.
[225] Near Cramond Island.
[226] Fr. _Bon aller_, an entertainment at the commencement of a
journey.
[227] _Genealogical Deduction of Kilravock Family_, written in 1683-4.
[228] Letter of Thomas Mallison, Aberdeen, June 28, 1597. _Spalding
Club Misc._, ii. lx.
[229] _Mait. Club Misc._, i. 89.
[230] He held a privy-council on the 4th November, and occasionally
during the month till the 29th, at Dumfries.
[231] Calderwood.
[232] ‘... that fearful eclipse of the sun which continued the space
of two hours, so fearful that that Saturday is yet called by the
people the BLACK SATURDAY; a prognostic, as the times give occasion to
interpret, of that darkness which was to fall upon the kirk.’--_Scot’s
Narration._
[233] The house of Bailie Macmoran, who was killed by a boy at the High
School in 1595. This house still exists (see p. 263), and the room
where the duke was banqueted is now used as the Mechanics’ Library.
[234] Fynes Moryson’s _Itinerary_, folio, 1617.
[235] For an anecdote of this lady, see under October 1590.
[236] Pitcairn’s _Crim. Trials_, iii. 116.
[237] Gordon’s _Hist. House of Sutherland_. Phillips’s _Geology_. _New
Stat. Acc. Scot._ H. Miller’s _Testimony of the Rocks_, p. 496.
[238] _Calderwood_, iii. 76.
[239] Notes to James Melville’s _Diary_, Wodrow edition.
[240] See in _Deliciæ Literariæ_ (Edin. 1840), the title of the rare
tract printed by Waldegrave in 1599, announcing this disputation.
[241] Gregory’s _History of the Western Highlands and Isles_.
[242] This James Learmont of Balcomie had, nearly twenty years before,
fixed on the college-gate at St Andrews a placard offensive to Andrew
Melville, who consequently broke out upon him as he sat in church, to
this effect: ‘Thou Frenchiest, Italianest jolly gentleman, wha has
defiled the bed of sae many married [men], and now boasts with thy
bastinadoes to defile this kirk and put hands on His servants, thou
sall never enjoy the fruits of marriage, by having lawful succession
of thy body; and God shall baston thee in His righteous judgments!’
‘This,’ says James Melville, ‘was remembered when the said James lived
many years in marriage without child, and taken by the Highlandmen
coming out of Lewis, was siccarly bastoned, and sae hardly used, that
soon thereafter he died in Orkney.’
[243] _A. P. R._ Pit. Wood’s _Peerage_.
[244] _Gordon Papers_, _Spalding Club Misc._, iv. 123-319.
[245] _Stat. Acc. Scotland_, xi. 477.
[246] Published in the _Scots Magazine_, January 1807.
[247] Brazil fowls; that is, turkeys.
[248] Macfarlane’s _Genealogical Collections_, Adv. Lib.
[249] Butler’s _Lives of the Saints_.
[250] Extracts from Presbytery Book of Strathbogie (Spald. Club), xxiv.
[251] Father Blackhall’s _Narrative_.
[252] Shaw’s _History of the Province of Moray_, p. 326.
[253] Winzet, remarking how John Knox had put down festival-days as
unsanctioned in Scripture, says: ‘I misknow not some of you to object
the command, charging _sex days to labour, and the sevint to sanctify
the Lord_; therefore I desire the doubtsome man to cause his doctor
and prophet aforesaid [John Knox], with all the assistance of his best
learned scholars, to answer in writ, what Scripture has he, or other
authority, by [besides] the consent of the haly kirk universal, to
sanctify the Sunday to be the sevint day. And gif he abolishes with
us the Saturday, as ceremonial and not requirit in the law of the
evangel, what has he by [besides] the consent of God’s kirk to sanctify
ony day of the seven, and not to labour all the seven days.... Why
abolishes he not the Sunday, as he does Yule, Pasch, and the rest,
&c.?‘--_Tractates_, 1563, reprinted for Maitland Club, 1835.
[254] Privy Council Record.
[255] Extracts from Reg. Kirk-session of Rothiemay, Spal. Club.
[256] See extracts from their Register, Maitland Club Miscellany, i. 67.
[257] _Extracts from Register of General Kirk of Edinburgh_, same book,
p. 111.
[258] Niel’s edition of Zachary Boyd’s poems (1855), p. xli.
[259] _Extracts from the Council Registers of Aberdeen_, p. 71.
[260] _Maitland Club Misc._, i. 135.
[261] _Ibid._ p. 431.
[262] ‘... in that church excommunication is so terrible, that few
will have any manner of conversation with one excommunicated; and the
generality of the people, when they see a man whom their ministers
declare to be excluded from heaven, are easily induced to think
him unworthy to live on earth.’--_Ed. Phillips’s Cont. of Baker’s
Chronicle_, 1670, p. 617.
[263] Tubs.
[264] Boxes.
[265] Supposed to be a kind of sweetmeats.
[266] To hold stob and stake in a place, is an old periphrasis for
making it one’s permanent residence.
[267] The flet was the inside of a house.
[268] A neighbouring hamlet.
[269] January 12, 1591-2, the king repossessed David Hamilton
of Bothwell-haugh, Isobel Sinclair and Alison Sinclair,
heretrices-portioners of the lands of Woodhouselee, of ‘their lands,
houses, tacks, steadings, and possessions, wherefra they were
dispossest upon occasion of the late troubles.’--_P. C. R._
[270] Miss Gordon having married Mr Byron without any ‘settlement,’ her
property was seized by his creditors, and sold for £18,500, while she
and her son, the future poet, were left to penury.
[271] The name has been changed to Formartin--a proceeding against
which every person interested in the verity of history, not to speak of
considerations of taste, must protest.
[272] Pitcairn’s _Criminal Trials_, ii. 429. See also vol. iii. 409.
[273] See the ballad of Christie’s Will, with the notes, in the
_Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border_, iii. 151. This ballad was composed
by the editor on the traditionary story, in which the Earl of Traquair
is introduced as a litigant for whose benefit the capture of the judge
was made, the object being to prevent an adverse judgment in the Court
of Session.
[274] Alexander Gibson of Durie, commonly called Lord Durie, and author
of a well-known work called _Durie’s Practicks_, died June 10, 1614.
The story of his kidnapping was related a century after, as follows:
‘Some party in a considerable action before the Session, finding that
the Lord Durie could not be persuaded to find his plea good, fell upon
a stratagem to prevent the influence and weight which his lordship
might have to his prejudice, by causing some strong masked men kidnap
him, in the links of Leith, at his diversion on a Saturday afternoon,
and transport him to some blind and obscure room in the country, where
he was detained captive, without the benefit of daylight, a matter of
three months (though otherwise civilly and well entertained); during
which time his lady and children went in mourning for him as dead. But
after the cause aforesaid was decided, the Lord Durie was carried back
by incognitos, and dropt in the same place where he had been taken
up.’--Forbes’s _Journal of the Session_, Edin. 1714.
[275] _Book of Bon Accord_ (Aberdeen, 1839), p. 246. Knight’s _William
Shakspere, a Biography_, p. 443.
[276] John, fifth Earl of Cassillis, son of the lord who roasted Allan
Stewart in Dunure Castle; see pp. 65-67.
[277] See under January 1, 1596-7.
[278] Such is the account of a partial contemporary. In the Privy
Council Record, it is stated that the conflict was provoked by Bargeny,
and that his party were fully armed for the purpose with muskets,
hagbuts, and pistolets, while Cassillis’s attendants wore only their
swords. Cassillis’s defence, on the ground of his having commissions
giving him authority over his district, was sustained.
[279] Birrel, by an evident mistake, places this in 1601.
[280] The names of the party, as given in the Privy Council Record,
are curious as a sample of Highland nomenclature of the day. These
were Donald Glas M‘Rannald, and Ronald M’Rannald, brothers of the
aforesaid Alexander; Allaster M‘Ean Vich Innes, John, Angus, Donald,
and Ronald, his sons; Gorie M‘Allaster Vich Gorie, and Allaster his
brother; John Dow M‘Connell Vich Rannald, Allan and Angus his brothers;
Gillespich M‘Ean Vich Connell, William and Angus his brothers; William
M‘Connell Vich Gorie, and Angus his brother; John M‘Ean Vich Finlay
Roy, and Ewen M‘Finlay Roy his brother; John Dow Vich Connell Vich
Finlay; John M‘Innes Vich Connachie, and Paul M‘Connachie Vich Innes
his son; Farquhar Dow M‘Connell Vich Farquhar, Allaster Dow his
brother; Gilliecallum M’Farquhar Vich Connell Vich Farquhar, son to the
said Farquhar; Donald M‘Innes Vich Ean Dowie; Gillespich M‘Innes his
brother, &c.
[281] Poniard swords.
[282] Nicolson and Burn’s _Hist. Westmoreland_, i. 595.
[283] See this singular document in Pitcairn’s _Crim. Trials_, iii.
622; also in _Maitland Club Misc._, i. p. 141, where a fac-simile of it
is presented.
[284] Hist. Clan Mackenzie, MS. in possession of John W. Mackenzie, Esq.
[285] This Scottish _Philotus_ is to be distinguished from the
_Philotas_ of Daniel, for which see Collier’s _Annals of the Stage_,
iii. 350.
[286] _Riche his Farewell to Militaire Profession, &c._ Another of the
tales in the same volume is dramatised by Shakspeare in _Twelfth Night_.
[287] See Mr J. W. Mackenzie’s edition of _Philotus_, presented to the
Bannatyne Club in 1835.
[288] Calm, gratify.
[289] Apparel.
[290] Condition.
[291] Ere.
[292] Slippers.
[293] A quantity.
[294] Mouthfuls.
[295] Serve.
[296] Cauls.
[297] A warm at the fire.
[298] Custom.
[299] Jests.
[300] Mask.
[301] Above the rest.
[302] Necklace.
[303] Decorated with lace.
[304] Stockings.
[305] Throat.
[306] Heaps.
[307] _Letters and State Papers of the Reign of James VI._, p. 47.
[308] Spottiswoode.
[309] Grease.
[310] MS. Hist. of Scotland, quoted by Pitcairn.
[311] The tercel is the male hawk (_Falco peregrinus_), so called
because one-third the size of the female.
[312] _Letters and Papers of the Reign of King James VI._, p. 76.
[313] Bankrupts.
[314] Maitland’s _History of Edinburgh_.
[315] _Acts of Sederunt_, p. 161.
[316] The Privy Council in the previous April had passed an act,
‘that the haill marquisses and earls of this kingdom sall leave off
their former resolution anent the wearing of velvet robes in time of
parliament,’ and ‘that they sall provide themselves with robes of red
scarlet cloth again the next session, &c.’--_Maitland Club Misc._, i.
147.
[317] Letter of the three privy-councillors, in _Letters and State
Papers of the Reign of James VI._, p. 84.
[318] Melville’s _Diary_, p. 648.
[319] These particulars are derived from a fragment of the deed entered
into by the gentlemen for payment of the money.
[320] _Letters, &c., of the Reign of James VI._
[321] _Ibid._, p. 89.
[322] _Geneal. Deduction of Fam. of Rose of Kilravock_, Spald. Club, p.
249.
[323] Letter in James Melville’s _Diary_, Wodrow Club ed., p. 671.
[324] Melville’s _Diary_, p. 688.
[325] Pitcairn. _Lives of the Lyndsays._ _Lands of the Lyndsays._
[326] See depositions of witnesses, &c., in Pitcairn, iii. 47.
[327] 28th April 1608. ‘Forsameikle as the Lords of Secret Council
are informit that there is ane horse-race appointit to be at Peblis
the ... day of May nextocome, whereunto grit numbers of people of
all qualities and ranks, intends to repair, betwixt whom there being
quarrels, private grudges, and miscontentment, it is to be feirit that
at their meeting upon fields, some troubles and inconvenients sall fall
out amangs them, to the break of his Majesty’s peace and disquieting of
the country without remeed be providit; Therefore the Lords of Secret
Council has dischargit, and be the tenor hereof discharges, the said
horse-race, and ordains that the same sall be nawise halden nor keepit
this year; for whilk purpose ordains letters to be direct, to command,
charge, and inhibit all and sundry his Majesty’s lieges and subjects
by open proclamation at the mercat-cross of Peblis and other places
needful, that nane of them presume nor tak upon them to convene and
assemble themselves to the said race this present year, but to suffer
that meeting and action to depart and cease, as they and ilk ane of
them will answer upon the contrary at their heichest peril,’ &c.
[328] This was probably at the place called Silver Mills, on the Water
of Leith; now involved in the suburbs of Edinburgh.
[329] Atkinson’s _Discoverie of Gold Mynes in Scotland_ (Bann. Club),
1825. _Chron. Kings of Scotland._
[330] Napier’s _Life of John Napier_.
[331] Literally, the separation; in larger sense, the restoration of
order.
[332] The fishing of salmon in the river Dee on Sunday was a custom
of some antiquity, as it had been expressly warranted by a bull of
Pope Nicolas V. in 1451. The privilege was limited to the Sundays of
those five months of the year in which salmon most abound; and the
first salmon taken each Sunday was to belong to the parish church.
The bull recites that both by the canon and the common law, the right
of prosecuting the herring-fishing on Sunday was conceded to all the
faithful.--_Reg. Epis. Aber._ (Spalding Club).
[333] _Earl of Haddington’s Notes, quoted by Pitcairn_, iii. 597. It
may be worthy of remark, that no notice of such shocking transactions
occurs in the Privy Council Record at this time.
[334] _Letters and State Papers of the Reign of James VI._
[335] _Letters and State Papers of the Reign of James VI._, p. 56.
[336] _Mait. Club Misc._, i. 158.
[337] See under June 1590.
[338] Osborne’s _Traditional Memoirs_--_Secret Hist. Court James I._
Vol. i., p. 219.
[339] Printed in full in Ritson’s _Country Chorister_.
[340] A large collection of documents illustrative of this case will be
found in Pitcairn’s _Criminal Trials_, iii. 124-199. The story has been
made the subject of a play, under the name of the _Ayrshire Tragedy_,
by Sir Walter Scott.
[341] The superior men of a Highland clan were called the duniwassals.
[342] Hive.
[343] Notes to _Border Minstrelsy_, i. clxxvi.
[344] Melrose State Papers.
[345] _Spal. Club Misc._, ii. 396. For something more regarding Robin
Abroch, see under October 26, 1624.
[346] Privy Council Record.
[347] Von Buch’s _Travels through Norway_.
[348] Denmylne MSS., apud Pitcairn, iii. 52.
[349] This narrative, as well as the letters of challenge, is printed
entire in the _Guardian_, Nos. 129 and 133.
[350] In March 1615, James Stewart is once more, and very solemnly,
condemned by the Privy Council to exile, in consequence of fresh
offences of the same kind.
[351] From a paper in Balfour’s MSS., printed in _Bannatyne
Miscellany_, vol. iii.
[352] Some Observations of Mr John Livingstone, MS. Adv. Lib. ‘It
appears from the council registers of Aberdeen, that the corporation
voluntarily gave a thousand merks for the support of M‘Birnie’s widow
and children.’--_Notes to Coll. Hist. Aber. and Banff_, Spal. Club.
[353] _Sting_ is a Scotch word for a pole, and the phrase _sting and
ling_ is believed to express simply the method of carrying practised by
draymen.
[354] This unheard-of snow-fall was equally notable in the south.
When the thaw came, it caused an unexampled flood in the Ouse of
Yorkshire, which lasted ten days, carrying away a great number of
bridges. ‘After this storm followed such fair and dry weather, that in
April the ground was as dusty as in any time of summer. The drought
continued till the 20th of August, and made such a scarcity of hay,
beans, and barley, that the former was sold at York for 30s. and 40s. a
wainload.’--_History of York_, 1785, i. 256.
[355] _Letters and Papers of the Reign of James VI._, pp. 243, 317.
_Balfour’s Annals_, ii. 58.
[356] Catholic historians note the martyrdom of one of their faith,
which took place amidst the more immediate tumults of the Reformation.
His name was Black, and he is described as a Dominican monk of
Aberdeen, respectable both for piety and learning. Being taken to
Edinburgh to dispute with Willox and other apostles of the Reformation,
the populace cut short the argument by stoning him to death on the
streets, January 7, 1562.--_Dempster._ _D. Camerarius._
[357] _True Relation of the Proceedings against John Ogilvie_, 1615:
reprinted in Pitcairn.
[358] See the entire form of abjuration in _Selections from the Records
of the Kirk Session, Presbytery, and Synod of Aberdeen_. Spalding Club.
1846.
[359] This term is usually applied to an insinuating, wheedling fellow
of swindling propensities.
[360] See papers on these subjects in _Spottiswoode Miscellany_, vols.
i. and ii.
[361] _Letters and State Papers of the Reign of James VI._, p. 293.
[362] The suburb called Portsburgh was under the jurisdiction of Tours,
Laird of Inverleith.
[363] See documents in _Maitland Club Misc._, ii. 26.
[364] Sharp-pointed staves.
[365] ‘Who thereafter wrote himself Sir John Hay of Landes, knight, one
altogether corrupt, full of wickedness and villainy, and a sworn enemy
to the peace of his country.’--_Sir James Balfour’s Annals._
[366] Translated from Johnston’s _Historia Rerum Britannicarum_, _apud_
Secret Hist. of Court of Ja. I., ii. 30.
[367] _Chronicle of Perth._
[368] Johnston’s _Hist. Rer. Brit._, p. 619.
[369] See _Muses’ Welcome_.
[370] Johnston’s _Hist. Rer. Brit._, p. 519. Calderwood.
[371] We can here see the original of Scott’s exquisite picture of
Caleb Balderstone endeavouring to convince a messenger that cold water
was better for his stomach in the morning than ale or brandy.
[372] The organ was no new instrument at Holyrood. There is an entry in
the lord-treasurer’s book, under February 8, 1557-8, of £36 ‘to David
Melville, indweller in Leith, for _ane pair of organs_ to the Chapel in
the Palace of Holyroodhouse.’
[373] See the satire and answer in _Abbotsford Miscellany_, i. 297.
[374] _Ferly_ is the Scotch for _wonder_.
[375] Shewed.
[376] Abridged from the _Muses’ Welcome_.
[377] The above is a traditional story related in Forsyth’s _Beauties
of Scotland_.
[378] Printed in the _Scots Magazine_, January 1806, from a MS. volume
of excerpts of the Edinburgh city records in the Advocates’ Library.
[379] This Colonel Gray, who is stated to have been a rank papist,
embarked at Leith, about the end of May 1620, with a party of fifteen
hundred men for the service of the king of Bohemia.--_Cal._
[380] Act of Secret Council, quoted in _Blackwood’s Magazine_, i. 498.
[381] See the case of Margaret Barclay at greater length in Scott’s
_Demonology_, p. 307.
[382] Fleming’s MS., Adv. Lib., quoted in Pitcairn, iii. 443.
[383] _Survey of Moray._, p. 208.
[384] Now called Castle-Grant.
[385] _Works of John Taylor, the Water-poet._ London, folio, 1630.
[386] See _Drummond’s Works_, folio, Edinburgh, 1711, p. 234.
[387] Gifford’s edition of _Jonson’s Works_. London, 1816, vol. I., p.
cccxxxii.
[388] He seems to have been the same with Macdonald of Keppoch.
[389] _Johnstoni Hist._, p. 529.
[390] Scot’s _Stag. State of Scots Statesmen_.
[391] Earnest-money is arles in Scotland.
[392] See under December 17, 1596.
[393] _Maitland Miscellany_, p. 195.
[394] Father Anderson was afterwards the author of a book entitled _The
Ground of the Catholique and Roman Religion_, 1623, 4to.
[395] _Lives of the Saints_, i. 358.
[396] _Succinct Survey of Aberdeen_, 1685.
[397] _New Stat. Acc. of Scotland_--Aberdeenshire, _passim_. _Beauties
of Scotland_, iv. 199.
[398] _Letters of Reign of James VI._ Pitcairn.
[399] Adamson’s Notes to Sibbald’s _Hist. Fife_.
[400] See under July 28, 1612.
[401] A fixed bar of iron, with fetters attached by movable rings.
[402] Session Register of Perth.
[403] _Chronicle of Perth_, 23.
[404] Calderwood.
[405] Philip, second son of the Landgrave of Hesse, came to the English
court April 6, 1622, on a negotiation from his father.--_Nichols’s
Progresses of King James I._, iii. 759, 763.
[406] Gregory’s _History of the Western Highlands and Isles of
Scotland_, 1836, p. 405.
[407] _Archæologia Scotica_, i. 43.
[408] _Virtues of the Indian Perfume Tobacco_, 1667. _An. Scot._, i. 82.
[409] See under October 1590.
[410] Stones supposed to possess medicinal virtues were then not
uncommon.
[411] _Miscellanies_, p. 39.
[412] Calderwood.
[413] See under March 30, 1620.
[414] _Life of John Livingstone_, Glasgow, 1754, p. 89.
[415] _Letters of Reign of James VI._, p. 368.
[416] See the undated letter of Gordon, _Analecta Scot._ ii. 386.
Patrick Gordon was the person who had acted for the king in prosecuting
poor Stercovius to the gallows for a satire on the Scottish nation. See
pp. 448, 449.
[417] _Mait. Club Misc._, iii. 344.
[418] ‘Wha had brought money with the infection from
Danskein.’--_Chron. Perth._
[419] Extract from _Privy Council Record_, _Edin. Mag._, Oct. 1817.
[420] _Memoirs of Several Ladies of Great Britain_, p. 268.
[421] _Archæologia Scotica_, ii. 111.
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 of the, 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 sitat, 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.
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