NOTES.
I.
JANE SETON.
The unfortunate passage in Scottish history, which afforded a hint for the foregoing romance, will be found in "Pitcairn's Criminal Trials," at considerable length, and also in a little history of the "Life of James V.," reprinted in Miscellanea Scotica from the edition of 1710; but as both these works may be beyond the reader's reach, we may briefly state the facts as being these.
In the year 1537, Jane Douglas, the young and beautiful widow of Lord Glammis, and sister of the Earl of Angus, together with her second husband, the Laird of Skipness, an aged priest, and others, were accused by a person named William Lyon, of endeavouring to compass the king's death by poison and sorcery.
Slighting the addresses of Lyon and many others who aspired to her hand, after the death of Lord Glammis, she had preferred Campbell of Skipness; upon which Lyon, inflamed by rivalry and revenge, made a terrible vow, that his life should be dedicated to her destruction; and hence came the charge, upon which she and her immediate friends were committed to the Castle of Edinburgh.
"The accuser, who had the ear of the jealous king, used all his rhetoric to aggravate the matter, that he might dispose him to treat them with all possible cruelty," says the old French author of James the Fifth's life. "He represented that the family of Douglas had always been dangerous and troublesome to his predecessors, himself, and his kingdom, and reminded him of the insolence of Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus, the prisoner's brother, in the time of his majesty's minority—a peer whose practices were so pernicious, that by a public decree he was banished the kingdom, as a disturber of the peace of his native country; and that since that time he had become the subject of Henry, King of England."
Examined, on the rack, by the king's advocate, and questioned mercilessly, notwithstanding her rank, delicacy, and beauty,—for which she was renowned through all Britain,—she was compelled to admit the alleged treason and sorcery and James having solemnly sworn never to forgive a Douglas she was burned alive on the Castle-hill, on the 17th July, in presence of the citizens, and almost in view of her son and husband, who were confined in David's Tower. There the former remained a prisoner until 1542; but the latter, when attempting to escape, like Roland Vipont, by means of a rope, on the night of the execution, fell, and was found next morning, literally dashed to pieces, at the bottom of the rocks. Struck with remorse, James V., who was naturally a merciful prince, set the old friar at liberty. But it is remarkable that William Lyon was merely banished from Scotland; while a quack named Makke, by whom the pretended poison, or magical preparation was made up, escaped with the loss of his ears.—See Pinkerton, Tytler, Lesley, Arnot, &c. &c.
II.
JOHN OF THE SILVERMILLS.
This character is purely imaginary. James IV. and James V., both great dabblers in alchemy, are said to have had a laboratory, furnace, and their appurtenances at Silvermills, a little village which took its name from these operations, and is now a district of Edinburgh. It was probably at these mills that the gold, of which great quantities were found during the reign of James V., was refined. The preface to the French life of that monarch, printed at Paris in 1612, states that he had "three hundred men employed for several summers in washing gold, of which they got above £100,000 of English money."
Lest some may suppose we have overdrawn the popular credulity of 1537, in delineating John of the Silvermills, we may mention that it is not long since a similar character existed in Scotland, and was put under the ban of an ecclesiastical court.
This individual, whose name was Andrew Dawson, lived on the Grampians, and having been unfortunate as a farmer, became a veterinary surgeon, and dealer in herbs for the cure of his own species. His mother having enjoyed the reputation of being uncanny, Andrew easily succeeded to this unenviable inheritance; but patients flocked to him from all quarters, and his chief mode of cure was friction, accompanied by charms muttered, or chaunted, in an unintelligible language. "His hut," says the Dundee Courier, "which was built by himself, like the Black Dwarf's, on a muir, was situated not far from a spot called the 'Fairy's Knowe,' and was the terror of the benighted traveller." Strange sounds were heard; unearthly lights were seen; and the fame of unhallowed rites, together with a distemper among the cattle, soon brought Andrew on a distinct "charge of sorcery before the Kirk Session."
This Scottish Paracelsus had treated three citations with sovereign contempt; but he was compelled to attend on the fourth being served at his hut; and on the appointed day appeared before the Session an aged and infirm man. On the minister asking him, if he "wished the sentence of excommunication reopened, and on what grounds?" Andrew pulled from his ample pouch three common quartz pebbles, and explained that in all diseases of the head he had employed, by friction, one which bore a rude resemblance to that part of the body. In diseases of the heart, he used another, shaped like that organ; and the third was for affections of the kidneys, to which it bore a resemblance. As to his wakes and nightly orgies, he admitted that they were meant to impose upon the ignorant, and increase the mystery. "To describe the shame and astonishment at this recital would have required the pen of Scott, or the pencil of Allan."—Dundee Courier, Dec. 25th, 1851.
He died a few months after this scene; the last instance in Scotland of belief in sorcery, followed by kirk censure; and his resting-place is still pointed to, with something of fear, as "the warlock's grave." A still later instance of popular credulity will be found mentioned in the London Times, of the 10th January, 1852, wherein a gentleman of Marseilles was accused of diseasing a child, by sorcery and the evil eye.
III.
THE THUMB.
The ancient mode of confirming any bargain or bond, for good or for evil, in Scotland, was by the pressure of wetted thumbs, an eastern custom, which is still traceable among the Moors and other tribes. It may still be found among the boys in some districts of Scotland. Doubtless the various sayings now common among the peasantry, such as, "Here's my thumb on't,"—"Ye needna fash your thumb,"—"Keep your thumb on that,"—or, "Having one under your thumb," &c., have arisen from this old custom. The heart-shaped stone, on which parties were wont to press their wetted thumbs, when ratifying their bargains at the Cross of Edinburgh, was presented about three years ago by the Town Council to Lord Cockburn. Prior writes,
"Now let us touch thumbs, and be friends ere we part;
Here, John, is my thumb, and here, Mat, is my heart."
Various old songs record this mystic sign of truth and fealty; one in Orpheus Caledonius, 1725, says,
"Dearest maid! nay, do not fly me,
Let your pride no more deny me;
Never doubt your faithful Willie,
There's my thumb, I'll ne'er beguile ye."
Another, in Ramsay's Tea-table Miscellany, 1723, has it,
"Though kith and kin, and a' revile ye,
There's my thumb, I'll ne'er beguile ye."
To bite the thumb at any one was anciently an insult in Scotland and England, as it is still in France. Scott mentions it in the Lay of the Last Minstrel, when describing the quarrel between the Laird of Hunthill and Conrad of Wolfenstein, canto vi.,
"Stern Rutherford right little said,
But bit his glove, and shook his head," &c.
And Shakespeare, in Romeo and Juliet, has,
"I will bite my thumb at them, which is a disgrace if they bear it!"
"Dags and pistols! to bite his thumb at me!"
Innumerable other instances might be cited.
IV.
THE BRODDER.
As stated in the text, this was an indispensable legal functionary, whose name occurs frequently in all trials for witchcraft in Scotland. Among the expenses for burning Margaret Denholm, is the following item:—"To Jhone Kinked, for ye brodding of her, vi. lib. Scotts."—Pit. Crim. Trials.
In March, 1619, the magistrates of Newcastle employed a noted Scottish witch-pricker, to discover all those who dabbled in sorcery within the walls of their town, "offering him twenty shillings a-piece for all he should condemn as witches, and a free passage thither and back" to Scotland. A proclamation by bell summoned all persons to give information of witchcraft. Thirty women were brought to the Town Hall, stripped nude, had a pin thrust into their flesh by this charlatan, who acquainted Lieut.-Colonel Hobson, the English commandant, that they were guilty, and that "he knew whether women were witches or no by their look; but when the said person was searching of a personable and goodlike woman, the Colonel said, 'surely this woman is none, and need not be tried;' but the Scotsman said she was, and therefore he would try her; and presently he ran a pin into her, and set her aside as a guilty person and child of the devil, and fell to try others whom he pronounced guilty. Lieut.-Colonel Hobson proved upon the spot the fallacy of the fellow's trial of the woman; and then the Scotsman cleared her, and said she was not a child of the devil." After being paid in Newcastle, this witch-finder went into Northumberland, to prove women at the rate of "three pounds a-piece;" but, on returning into Scotland, his villany came to light, and he was hanged, confessing "at the gallows, that he had been the death of above two hundred and twenty women in Scotland and England, for the gain of twenty shillings a-piece."—See Sykes's Local Records of Newcastle.
As mentioned in the romance, the brod, or steel pin, used in piercing the devil's mark, is now supposed to have been made to slip into its handle, thus giving the appearance of entering the body without producing pain—an infallible sign of sorcery.
Within two years after the publication of James the Sixth's Demonologie, twenty-six persons were tortured for witchcraft, at Aberdeen, and twenty-one were condemned to the flames. "It would have been considered a prodigal wasting of such a happy windfall, to have burned all these wretches at once; and accordingly," says the Book of Bon Accord, "by judicious management, and by bringing two or three to the stake at a time, it was contrived to delight the public with incremations on the Castle-hill for upwards of a twelvemonth."
The last witch in Scotland, was accused of transforming her daughter into a pony, and getting her shod by the devil, for which she was burned in 1722, near the Earl's Cross at Dornoch, in Sutherland.
Of the last witch in England, a curious account will be found in the Courier, of the 28th of February, 1834, which records one of the most gross and startling instances of superstition ever known; it concerned the enchantment of a herd of pigs in the Forest of Dean. See also the Monmouth Merlin, of the same date.
The Act against Witchcraft was not repealed in Scotland and England until about 1750; and not in Ireland until 1821!
THE END.