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.
1603.
Mar. 26.
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.
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.
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.
July 21.
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.
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]
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.
Nov. 20.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
May 2.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Aug.
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.
Oct. 3.
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.
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.
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.’
Mar. 29 and 30.
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.
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.
May 17.
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]
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.
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.
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.
July 5.
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.
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.’
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.
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]
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.
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]
Sep.
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]
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.
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]
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]
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.
1607. Jan. 20.
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.
Apr. 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.
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.
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.
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.
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]
July.
A tragical event, which now occurred at Dornoch in Sutherland, is related in a characteristic manner by Sir Robert Gordon.
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:
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.
Aug. 5.
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.
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]
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.
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.
1608.
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.
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.
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.
May 8.
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]
May 31.
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.
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.
July 1.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
1608.
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.
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.
Aug. 29.
The plague broke out in Perth, and continued till the ensuing May, ‘wherein deit young and auld five hundred persons.’—Chron. Perth.
Sep. 1.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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]
Dec. 1.
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]
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.
May.
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.
July.
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]
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.
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.
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.
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.
1609.
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.
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.
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.
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.’
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]
Feb. 27.
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.
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.
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.’
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.
July 27.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Dec. 23. 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.
[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.
May 10.
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:
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.
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.’
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.
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.
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.’
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]
Aug.
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.
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.’
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.
Oct. 25. 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.
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.
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.
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.’
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.’
June.
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.
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.
Mar. 29.
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]
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.
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.
July 28.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Aug.
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]
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.
Silver Heart in Culross Abbey-church.
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.
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!
Dec. 1.
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.
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.
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.
Dec. 16.
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.
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.
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.
Aug. 12.
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]
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.
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]
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.
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).
Jan.
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.
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.
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.’
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.
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.’
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]
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.
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]
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.’
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.
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.
Apr.
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.
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.
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.’
Dec. 18.
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.
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.
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.’
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.
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.
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.
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.
Feb. 20.
This day three men were tried for an extraordinary and most atrocious crime.
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.
June 4. 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.
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.
June 30.
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.
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.’
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.’
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]
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.
May 13.
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.
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]
1616.
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.
June 20.
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]...
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]
June 30.
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.”
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:
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]
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.
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.
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]
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.
June 2.
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]
June 11.
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.
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.’
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.
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.
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.
July.
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.
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.
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.’
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.
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.’
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’.
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:
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]
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:
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.’
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:
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.’
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.
Aug. 20.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.’
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.
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.
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.
Oct. 20.
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.
1620. Mar. 30.
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.
May 3.
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]
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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]
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.’
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.
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.
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.’
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]
Aug. 2.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.’
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.
May 22.
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]
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.
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.
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.
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]
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.
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.’
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]
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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]
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.
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.’
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.
June 14.
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.
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.
July 15.
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.
Aug. 1.
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.
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.
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.
Feb. 18.
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.
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, [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.
May.
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.
June 10.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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]
Nov. 1.
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.’
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.
Nov. 23.
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.
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.
Dec. 8.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Mar. 30.
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.
House of Robert Gourlay, a rich Edinburgh Citizen of 1574.
See pages [143] and [255].