INTERREGNUM: 1649-1660.
The execution of the king, among its other bad effects, put enmity between the ruling powers of Scotland and England. A set of Scottish commissioners protested against it before the English parliament—were slighted, and turned out of the country under a guard. The leaders at Edinburgh, notwithstanding their condemnation of the late ‘Engagement,’ upheld monarchy in principle; and therefore, while England was declaring itself a commonwealth or republic, Scotland proclaimed the late king’s son—a youth of nineteen, living in exile—as Charles II., King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland. At the same time, the Scots were determined not to receive the young king as their sovereign, or to befriend him in any way, until he should have accepted that Solemn League and Covenant, which proclaimed a crusade against all doctrine inconsistent with pure Presbyterianism.
With this difference as to a principle, Scotland was, in 1649 and the early part of 1650, as purely a republic as England. The state authority rested, as it had practically done for years past, in a standing Committee of Estates, in which the Marquis of Argyle, the Chancellor Earl of Loudon, and Sir Archibald Johnston of Warriston, were the most prominent figures. Religion, however, being the chief matter of concernment in those days, it naturally came about that a similar standing committee, called the Commission of the Kirk, had a great influence in public affairs. Under the excitement produced by the struggle against the late king, these ruling parties, as well as the people at large, had contracted an exclusive and overweening attachment to Presbyterianism and its objects, as expressed in the Solemn League, insomuch that no person could be allowed to remain at peace without signing that document; while to give it adherence and support was to manifest the highest of virtues, or rather, to do that which was held as a summary of all virtue. The racking concentration of attention on one subject during a long course of years, to the neglect of all other healthy objects—the constant temptation to dissimulation under a constraint which left no choice between avowed profession and moral and legal outlawry—the effects of an ultra-austere code of morals, which allowed no excuse for natural impulses—the confounding effect of a system which subordinated all the really weighty matters of the law to the mechanical fact of a signature—produced results on the general surface of society of a kind by no means pleasant to contemplate. There was throughout a sad want of the milder graces of Christianity. The miraculous workings of divine vengeance against the opponents of the children of Israel, and against apostates and idolaters among themselves, were dwelt on in every pulpit and in numberless publications, with constant application to those who went against the Covenanted work. The breathings of divine love in the sermon on the mount, and in the whole life of Jesus, were little, if ever, heard of.
One thing must clearly be admitted in regard to the conduct of the Scots following upon the death of Charles I., that it was marked by a consistency speaking much more of sincerity than of wisdom. Though conscious that they could not command a sixth part of the force which England could muster—though the Engagement had shewn what it was to meet the veterans of Edgehill and Naseby in the field—they did not scruple to do that which was sure to incur a war with the young republic, because so they wrought out the plan of the Covenant, to which they had sworn, and so did they believe they would advance the glory of God.
Commissioners sent to the young king at the Hague negotiated for his coming to Scotland as their Covenanted monarch. He would fain have evaded the condition; but on that point no concession could be made. He, therefore, while the treaty was going on, was induced to sanction a descent upon Scotland, which Montrose had planned, with a view to raise the royalists. In the spring of 1650, the marquis, furnished with a royal commission, landed in Orkney, with a handful of German soldiers and some arms and ammunition. Advancing through Ross-shire with about fifteen hundred men, he utterly failed to meet the support which he expected. A body of troops sent against him under Colonel Strachan, fell upon his little army in Strathoikel, and quickly routed it. The unfortunate commander fled into Assynt—was given up by a treacherous friend, and, being then brought to Edinburgh, was there hanged as ‘an excommunicat traitor’ (May 21, 1650).
Seeing no better course now open to him for the recovery of his kingdoms, Charles agreed that, on coming into Scotland, he should sign the Covenant. The Scotch leaders, with their knowledge of his concern in Montrose’s expedition, should have seen that he could be no sincere adherent of that bond. They should have scrupled to accept such a signature, or even to ask it. But it was just one of the unfortunate consequences of the worship that had come to be paid to this document, that adherences to it were demanded, nay, forced, without any regard to conscientious objections, and accepted in the face of the most glaring proofs that it was secretly protested against and hated, and would on the first opportunity be thrown aside. Accordingly, a young prince, wholly a man of pleasure, is now seen giving a false vow to a body of earnest religious men, who had every reason to know what the votary felt, meant, and Mould ultimately do in the case. Charles landed at the mouth of the Spey, and was received with all outward appearances of respect by the Scottish leaders and the chief divines, while they trusted him with no real power. He visited Aberdeen, Perth, and Stirling, everywhere a mere puppet, and much at a loss, it is said, to endure the long sermons to which his situation compelled him to listen.
Cromwell, fresh from the reduction of Ireland, came into Scotland with an army in July, to put down this movement. A large force was prepared by the Scots, and placed in front of Edinburgh. It might have been larger, if the leaders, in their extreme zeal for purity of religion, had not deemed it proper to reject all who were yet unreconciled to the church for their concern in the Engagement, as well as all pure royalists. Cromwell, after all, found the campaign less simple than he anticipated. Distressed by want of provisions and by sickness, he was even inclined to withdraw along the east coast. But the Scottish army posted on the Doon Hill, near Dunbar, made such a movement impossible. In these circumstances, he must soon have been brought to a capitulation. But the imprudence of the Scottish leaders, in forcing General Leslie to attack the English, proved his salvation. He gained a complete victory (September 3), killing three thousand, and taking several thousand prisoners, many of whom were sent to the plantations as slaves. Edinburgh and its Castle fell into his hands, along with most of the southern provinces.
The Scottish government gathered the remains of its strength at Stirling, and was soon able again to present a respectable front to Cromwell, though only by admitting to its leaguer those troops, Engagers and royalists, who had formerly been rejected. The determination of the leaders was marked by a formal crowning of the king at Scone (January 1, 1651), the Marquis of Argyle putting the emblem of sovereignty on the royal head. By this time, the eyes of many had been opened to the false position in which the country lay with respect to their former associates of England, and some began to fraternise with Cromwell. A division took place in the church regarding the king, some adhering to certain resolutions in his favour, others protesting against them; hence respectively called Resolutioners and Protesters. From this time, the latter party, called also Remonstrants, embracing the great bulk of those who took the most scrupulous views regarding the Covenanted work, proved a sore thorn in the side of the more moderate party, who for the meantime had gained an ascendency. After a long inactivity, Cromwell, in July 1651, made a movement to Perth, so as to threaten the Scottish army in rear, but left a way open into England. At the urgency of the king, who hoped for assistance in the south, the Scots marched across the west border, and advanced through Lancashire, hotly followed by Cromwell. In a well-contested and bloody action at Worcester (September 3, 1651), the Scottish army was utterly routed; and Charles with difficulty escaped abroad, Scotland had now expended nearly the whole of her military strength in a vain endeavour to support her ecclesiastical system, in connection with a limited monarchy, against the English commonwealth. Her towns and principal places of strength fell into the hands of the English troops. The Committee of Estates were surprised and taken prisoners at a place called Alyth, on the skirts of the Grampians. The General Assembly was dispersed, and no church-courts above synods were allowed to meet. Henceforth, the Resolutioners and Remonstrants, the moderate majority and furious minority of the church, were allowed to gnaw at and tear each other to pieces, with little result but that of making many calm men despair of peace under such a mode of church-government. With little ceremony, the country was declared to be united with England. In 1653, the remnants of the party friendly to royalty drew together in the Highlands under the Earl of Glencairn and Lord Kenmure, and for upwards of a year, under these nobles, and latterly under General Middleton, with the assistance of certain clans, they were able to maintain their ground. At length, even this guerrilla opposition ceased. Eight thousand English troops and four forts—at Ayr, Leith, Perth, and Inverness—proved sufficient to keep our ancient kingdom in subjection. The essentially aggressive spirit of the Solemn League was revenged by nine years of humiliation, during which all classes seem to have suffered, but especially the nobles, who were ground to the dust by heavy fines. It is admitted, nevertheless, that the country was benefited by the keeping down of the religious factions, as well as by the impartiality of a corps of English judges, who superseded the native bench.
During the greater part of this time, Cromwell was the undisputed ruler of Scotland, as well as of England and Ireland. At length, after his death in 1658, confusion and difficulty were renewed, and to these an effectual stop was not put till, by the happy intervention of General Monk, Charles II. was restored as king (May 1660).
1649.
1649.
In the early part of this year, the Scottish Estates are found engaged in various objects of apparently a contradictory character. They were eager, through their commissioners in London, to save the king’s life; so much so that, on some one proposing that they should wait over three or four days for a general fast, the idea was overruled in favour of the immediate employment of worldly means. They were at the same time bringing to punishment, or scarcely less penal repentance, thousands of people who had taken arms for the king in the preceding year. After Charles I. was no more, they sat on under the sanction of the name of ‘our sovereign lord Charles II.,’ and yet if that sovereign lord had ventured to set his foot on Scottish soil, it is most probable that he would have been immediately made a prisoner and treated as a dangerous person. The truth is, the powers now in the ascendant were only monarchists in subordination to a superior principle, which had in view the establishment of a perfect Presbyterian church, as meditated in the Solemn League and Covenant. While they so far favoured Charles I., then, as not to desire his death, they regarded as wholly mischievous all who had befriended or proposed to befriend him or his son on other terms than an adherence to the Covenant.
1649.
The Highlanders were not sensible of these refining distinctions. They rose in a considerable body in February under Thomas Mackenzie of Pluscardine, a brother of the Earl of Seaforth; professing only a desire to restore the king. This little band took Inverness, but was soon put down. The only effect was, that the ruling powers now wreaked vengeance on their old opponent, the Marquis of Huntly, who had been a pining prisoner in Edinburgh Castle for sixteen months, and was not likely to have long troubled them, since he was manifestly dying of a dysentery. We have seen this noble entering life as Master of the king of France’s Scottish guard. A great prince he was in the north. Through the whole civil war, he had been constant to the king as simply the king, but had not always acted with consummate prudence. Now comes at length an evil day for the House of Gordon, when the wrath accumulated against it for its seventy years’ opposition to a ‘truth’ which it could never appreciate, must be discharged. It might have been expected that the Marquis of Argyle, who was Huntly’s brother-in-law, and to appearance all-powerful, would interfere to save him. To that end, his sister, the Marchioness of Douglas, and his three daughters—the Lady Drummond, the Lady Seton, and the Countess of Haddington, went and threw themselves on their bended knees before Macaleinmore. He declined to meddle with what the parliament had decreed, the truth being, that no lay power was then able to stand against an object on which the leading clergy had set their hearts. The poor ladies pleaded even to have a respite of a few days, hoping that nature would save their brother and parent a public and cruel death; but even this boon could not be obtained. On the 22d of March, the marquis is brought down from his airy prison, along the High Street of Edinburgh, clad in the deepest mourning, very weak in body, we are told, but cheerful in spirit, as not wishing to live after his master was gone, and placed on a scaffold at the Cross, where the Maiden stands prepared to receive him in her dismal embraces. He writes a few lines to his children, and speaks a few sentences to the multitude. The gleaming axe descends, and the noble of a score of illustrious titles is no more.[124]
After all, the Highlanders were not disposed to be at peace. One Sunday in May, about fifteen hundred Mackenzies and Mackays came over the Kessock Ferry to Inverness, while the people were at church, and proceeded to great insolencies. ‘Instead of bells to ring in to service,’ says a clergyman who was present, ‘I saw and heard no other than the noise of pipes, drums, pots, pans, kettles, and spits in the streets, to provide them with victuals in every house. In their quarters the rude rascality would eat no meat at their tables, until the landlord laid down a shilling Scots upon each trencher, terming this argiod cagainn, or chewing money, which every soldier got, so insolent were they.’ This doughty band was in a few days half cut to pieces by two troops of horse under Colonels Strachan and Kerr, and about a thousand of them came back as prisoners to Inverness, where, ‘those men who, in their former march, would hardly eat their meat without money, are now begging food, and, like dogs, lap the water which was brought them in tubs and other vessels in the open streets.’[125] Such are amongst the scenes proper to a time of civil broil.
The clergy were sensible of the benighted state of the Highlands, and longed to see the Gael brought to a sense of the beauty of a pure faith. As one small effort towards the object, the General Assembly ordained a collection to be made for the purpose of keeping forty Highland boys at school. It appears, however, that very little was efficiently done for the education of youth in the Highlands, till fully a century later. Dr Shaw, in his History of the Province of Moray, published in 1775, makes the remarkable declaration: ‘I well remember when from Speymouth (through Strathspey, Badenoch, and Lochaber) to Lorn there was but one school—viz., at Ruthven in Badenoch; and it was much to find, in a parish, three persons that could read and write.’
1649.
A perfect accord reigned between the clergy and the Estates, the latter ratifying whatever the former required. A seasonable testimony against the sins and dangers of the times being issued by the church-commission, the Estates passed an act responding to it, ‘heartily concurring in the grounds thereof against toleration and the present proceedings of the Sectaries in England;’ declaring for ‘one King, one Covenant, one Religion;’ promising all strenuous endeavour for ‘the settling truth and peace in these kingdoms upon the propositions so often agreed to’—that is, by the forcible putting down of every profession in England and Ireland but that of pure Presbyterianism. At the request of the church, lay patronages were abolished, and acts were passed imposing capital punishment on blasphemy, the worship of false gods, and incest. The church had for some time been under great concern about ‘the growth of the sins of witchcraft, charming, and consulting,’ and it now appointed a conference of ministers, lawyers, and physicians, ‘to consider seriously of that matter, and advise therein amongst themselves,’ and afterwards report. The Estates, fully entering into these views, passed an act not expressly against witchcraft, for that had been done, as we have seen, so long ago as Queen Mary’s days, but to meet the fact that there are people who consult devils and familiar spirits, thinking to escape punishment because consulters of spirits are not mentioned in the former act. For this reason, the parliament enacted the punishment of death to ‘consulters,’ at the same time ratifying ‘all former acts against witches, sorcerers, necromancers, and consulters with them, in the whole heads, articles, and clauses thereof.’[126]
The perfect simplicity and earnestness of all this is, in the conception of the author, as certain as its being obviously short of the better wisdom and better temper of our own time. The evil effects of the pursuit of rigorous extremes in state policy, in religious doctrine, and in ecclesiastical systems, had not then been experienced. No one yet dreamed of there being any harm in intolerance, but, on the contrary, it seemed a sin and a scandal to omit any means which promised to compel the wandering to come in. As to witchcraft and consulting, which we have learned to regard as imaginary offences, it was enough for the jurist of the seventeenth century that these words were entered in the Levitical law as descriptive of crimes deserving punishment.
1649.
One direction in which the earnestness of the time more especially projected itself, was towards an absolute exclusion of all shortcoming in religion, or even in what might be called church politics. Not only did an act of parliament thrust out of offices and places of trust all who had been in the slightest degree concerned in the Engagement—who must have been a large portion of the middle and upper classes of lay society—but the church-courts were equally unsparing of any clergy who had touched the unclean thing, or proved at all slack in faith and zeal. As a specimen—In September, a ‘visitation’ sat at the appointment of the General Assembly in the synodal province of Angus and Mearns, under the moderatorship of Mr Andrew Cant. It called several ministers of twenty years’ standing before it to preach, that there might be trial of doctrine and efficiency. In all, eighteen ministers were deposed, on the ground of insufficiency, ‘silence during the time of the late Engagement,’ ‘famishing of congregations,’ and corruption of life or doctrine.—Lam. This was only one of ‘diverse commissions’ which had gone east, west, north, and south, as Robert Baillie expresses it, and ‘deposed many ministers, to the pity and grief of my heart; for sundry of them might have been, for more advantage every way, with a rebuke, keeped in their places; but there was few durst profess so much.’ In short, as invariably happens in revolutions and times of danger, an institution professedly of a popular cast was ruled by this Mr Cant and two or three of his fellows, with as uncontrolled a power as usually belongs to institutions of an avowedly despotic character; and, doubtless, unavoidably so. It is at the same time evident that large numbers of individuals could not thus be made to suffer for merely sentimental offences, without some perilous consequences. It only afforded too good a precedent, as well as excuse, for retributory acts of the same kind after a reaction had set in. It is clear that the throwing of so many people out of their ordinary means of livelihood must have added not a little to the distresses of a time which, from natural as well as political causes, was one of general suffering.
Feb.
1649.
Among the persons of some figure who had taken part in the Engagement, and were consequently liable to punishment at the hands of the now triumphant Whiggamores, was Mr Robert Farquhar, a rich Aberdeen merchant (provost of the city), who had at an earlier period been a most serviceable friend to the Covenanting cause, in as far as he helped it with large sums of money. In 1640 and 1641, he had advanced to the leaders ‘far more than he was worth:’ they ordered him to receive £4000 of the ‘brotherly assistance’ money paid by the English parliament to the Scots at the close of the first troubles; and this sum he brought down to Burntisland by sea, at great hazard from pirates; when no sooner had he arrived, than the Covenanting leaders forcibly borrowed the money again from him to supply the urgent necessities of the state. At the end of the second troubles in 1647, the debt of the state to Robert Farquhar was £133,132 Scots; and the parliament passed an act appointing him to receive, as to account, £5000 sterling of the second instalment of £200,000, then to be paid by the English parliament to the kingdom of Scotland. Two years, however, passed on, without anything being realised, and by accumulation of interest, the debt had reached the enormous sum of £180,859 Scots, so that Farquhar was much distressed in his affairs.
1649.
We can readily imagine the feelings of a government creditor to so large an amount, who had done something that usually provoked fines on the part of that government, on his receiving a summons to come to Edinburgh. He prepared to obey with fear and trembling; but the extraordinary sagacity attributed to the citizens of Aberdeen did not desert him. Near by, lived Mr Andrew Cant, the minister of his native city, whom he knew to be influential with the Committees ruling in Edinburgh. On the Sunday evening preceding the Monday morning on which he was to take horse for the south, he caused his wife to prepare a good supper, to which he proceeded to invite Mr Cant, for, as has been already intimated, Sunday-evening entertainments were among the domestic institutions of the age. The remainder of the story may be given in the words of the contemporary narrator. Mr Andrew, he says, ‘refuses to come once, twice; at last Mr Robert resolves with himself to have him at any rate, and forthwith goes to his house himself and very earnestly, in submissive and humble terms, entreats him to let him be honoured with his company at supper. The minister refuses, in respect of the coldness of the night. He still urges him to go, and he should find ane sure antidote for any cold. At last, being overcome by Mr Robert’s importunity, he goes home with him—all this time it is observable how he called him no other but still Mr Robert—and being set by the fire, and made very welcome, Mr Robert goes to his closet, and brings to the hall a gown of black velvet, lined with martricks, and would have Mr Andrew put it on, which, with small entreaty, he did. (Thereafter, in all his discourses, he calls him either provost or commissary, and not Mr Robert.) So, having supped, and made a plentiful meal, and being again set by the fire, Mr Robert asks the minister if he had any service to command to Edinburgh, for he was cited to appear there, before the parliament, to make his accounts, and therefore besought Mr Andrew that he would recommend him to some of his most confident friends; which he promised to do. At last, bedtime drawing near, Mr Andrew rises to begone, and would have casten off the gown; but Mr Robert entreated him not to do so, nor wrong him that far, in respect he had brought him from his own warm house, in so cold and rigid a night, to partake of so homely fare, for no other end but to bestow that chamber-gown upon him, as befitting his age and gravity.... Such as it was, he humbly entreated him to accept of it, as an assurance and token of his love and affection to him; which Mr Andrew did without more ceremonies. So Mr Robert did accompany him home, with his gown on his shoulders, and at parting Mr Andrew told him “he should not do weel to go without his letters.” He said he would not. To-morrow he gets his letters, one to Argyle, another to Loudon, and the third to the Register Warriston, with two to some ministers, which made him welcome to Edinburgh, and afterwards to dance about that fire which, as he feared, should, if not burned him, at least scalded him very sore.’[127]
On the 1st of August, the Estates passed an act acknowledging Farquhar’s enormous debt, and arranging for its reduction by the payment to him of the third of all the fines imposed on delinquents north of the Tay; so that, instead of having his own feathers plucked, he was invested with a power of plucking others. In the subsequent year, he received the honour of knighthood from Charles II.
1649.
It is worthy of notice that a few wealthy merchants like this Mr Robert Farquhar (another of great note was Sir William Dick of Edinburgh, afterwards to be noticed) had proved the principal means of fitting out the Covenanting troops on several occasions. The register of parliament is swelled at this time with their claims, and the efforts of the government to give them satisfaction. The meagre Excise revenue, which never perhaps reached thirty thousand pounds, was pledged and forestalled to the teeth. One other resource much looked to was that of the fines imposed on gentlemen who had shewn disinclination to the good cause. It must be observed, that to have failed to subscribe any sort of declaration of opinion that was required, to have, above all, refused a signature to the Covenant, even to dally under a summons to appear before one of the revolutionary committees, inferred a severe pecuniary exaction. Thus the war was made in some degree to support itself, but not the less of course to the general impoverishment of the country.
July 18.
As an illustrative case—exhibiting this oppressive mulcting system, and that general interference with personal liberty which the revolutionary government (by the unavoidable necessity, we may admit, of its position) was accustomed to visit upon its subjects, when these were in any degree slack of obedience—we may mention the case of James Farquharson of Inverey, in Aberdeenshire; premising that the statement is his own in a petition to the Estates. Having been summoned by the Committee of Estates in May 1647, but not duly receiving the notice, he failed of course to attend, and was consequently punished with a fine of £4000 [Scots?]. The exaction of this fine was assigned to Forbes, Laird of Leslie, probably in recompense of services or repayment of public debt; and Forbes immediately became the prosecutor of Farquharson at law. It was in vain that Farquharson, when apprised of his liability, offered to stand a trial for any offence laid to his charge. In the spring of 1649, he, being a man of seventy-three years of age, was dragged from his house, his wife and young children, to Edinburgh, where probably this Deeside baron had never been in his life. There he was clapped up in the Tolbooth, and kept for twelve weeks, till, afraid to perish in so horrible a den, and sensible of the hard condition of his family at home, he at length succeeded in attracting some charitable attention from the Estates. It was only, after all, on his agreeing with the Laird of Leslie for a composition of his fine, that this gentleman, who boldly challenged any trial, but was never tried, could obtain his liberty.
June.
1649.
One Alexander Stewart, calling himself professor of physic,[128] travelled about the country, picking up a scanty livelihood by the exercise of his art, but also beholden in part for his subsistence to the kindness of friends. He had lived in this way twenty years, without any fixed habitation of his own, and it chanced in the summer of this year that he had to travel from the house of his brother, the minister of Rothesay, to St Johnston, ‘hoping to have had some residence there in the exercise of his calling,’ when he was seized as ‘an intelligencer and seminary priest,’ carried to Edinburgh, and imprisoned in the Tolbooth. He was under the necessity of petitioning the Estates, setting forth his innocency of all offence against kirk or state, and shewing that he had already cleared himself before the presbytery of St Johnston, ‘who could find nothing of that kind against him;’ yet he was suffered to lie ‘miserably in prison, destitute of all help.’ The Estates, having apparently ascertained that a mistake had been made in the seizure of this poor mediciner, ordered his liberation.
This was a year of extreme dearth. Wheat was at seventeen pounds Scots per boll; oats, twelve pounds; and other grains in proportion. Owing, also, to the coldness and dryness of the spring, the herbage and hay proved deficient, and cheese and butter consequently attained high prices—the former three, and the latter six pounds per stone. ‘In the beginning of June, the parliament licensed Englishmen to buy and transport oxen, kine, sheep of all sorts, likewise horses and colts; which was one of the most hurtful acts could be made to ruin Scotland, and advance the designs of the enemies thereof; bestial of all sorts being at so high a rate these four years past in this country, and flesh in the common markets scarce buyable but at very exorbitant rates; the like has not been seen in this kingdom heretofore since it was a nation.’—Bal.
The luxuries of life were correspondingly dear at this time: the best ale, 3s. 4d. (3-1/3d. sterling); sack wine, 36s.; and French wine, 16s. per pint.
Aug.
‘About Lammas and afterwards, in many parts of this kingdom, both among bear and oats, there were seen a great number of creeping things—which was not ordinar—which remained in the head of the stalk of corn, at the root of the pickle.’—Lam.
‘About Lammas ... there was a star seen by many people of Edinburgh, betwixt twelve and two hours of the day, even when the sun shined most bright; which was taken for a comet, and a forerunner of the troubles that followed.’—C. P. H.
1649.
No such comet is noted by astronomers, the only two in the first half of the seventeenth century being in 1607 and 1618. It was probably a star of high magnitude, or planet rendered visible by some extraordinary state of the atmosphere.
The anxiety about witchcraft manifested by the General Assembly and parliament this year, was not allowed to expend itself in empty words. ‘This summer,’ says Lamont in his Diary, ‘there was very many witches taken and brunt in several parts of this kingdom, as in Lothian and Fife.’ The register of the Committee of Estates shews no fewer than five several commissions issued on the 4th, and two on the 6th of December, for the trial of witches in various parts of the country. The procedure, as far as revealed to us, seems to have been this: The suspected were first taken in hand by the minister and his session or consistory, with a view to obtain proof or extort confession. Generally, the poor wretches—moved partly by their own religious feelings—confessed; then a commission was sought for and granted to certain gentlemen of the district, for the trial of the accused. The trial seems to have been little more than a form, for condemnation and execution almost invariably followed.
Margaret Henderson, ‘Lady Pittathrow,’ described as sister to the Laird of Fordel, and residing in Inverkeithing, was delated by sundry persons who had lately suffered for witchcraft, ‘to be ane witch, and that she has keepit several meetings and abominable society with the devil.’ So says a grave petition of the General Assembly to parliament (July 19). Fearing punishment, she withdrew to the city of Edinburgh, and there lurked ‘till it pleasit the Almighty God to dispose in His providence that she is now apprehendit and put in firmance in the Tolbooth.’ The Assembly now craving her trial, so that ‘this land and city may be free of her, and justice done upon her,’ the Estates were pleased to issue a command to Mr Thomas Nicholson, his majesty’s advocate, to proceed with her arraignment before the justice-general; and if she be guilty of the said crime, ‘to convict and condemn her, pronounce sentence of death against, cause strangle her, and burn her body, and do every requisite in sic cases.’ The diarist Lamont gives us the conclusion of the case. ‘After remaining in prison for a time, [she] being in health at night, was upon the morning found dead. It was thought and spoken by many that she wronged herself, either by strangling or poison; but we leave that to the judgment of the great day.’
1649.
There was a kind of infection in witchcraft, for one unhappy victim was sure to accuse others, albeit with no more justice than what there was in the charge against herself. It was probably in consequence of such ‘delations’ on the part of Lady Pittathrow that we find the presbytery of Dunfermline and minister of Inverkeithing giving in a supplication to parliament (July 31, 1649), shewing that there had been ‘declarations of witchcraft against the wives of the magistrates and other persons of the burgh of Inverkeithing, whom the said magistrates refused to apprehend.’ The presbytery had visited the burgh, and ‘dealt with the magistrates and town-council to give the full power and commission to certain honest men of the town, to apprehend, put in firmance, and tak trial of such persons as they should allow and judge worthy to be apprehendit and tried, as said is.’ The surprise of these worthy bailies on being told that the wives of their own bosoms were witches, would have been not a little amusing to a man of the nineteenth century, could he have been present to witness it. We are told that they at first seemed to see the reasonableness of deputing their ordinary power to a set of ‘honest men’ for the trial of their suspected helpmates; but when their ghostly visitors had left them, they were brought to view things in a different light. The magistrates now ‘slights that work, and refuses to give the power in manner foresaid.’ For this reason it had become necessary to apply to parliament for a commission to the ‘honest men’ to do the duty of the magistrates, and this was readily granted. What came of the magistrates’ wives under this perilous accusation, does not appear.[129]
1649.
In August, a poor woman, named Bessie Graham, living in Kilwinning, was apprehended and thrown into prison, for some threatening words she had used in drink against a neighbour woman who had since died. During a confinement of thirteen weeks, she was visited by the minister, Mr James Fergusson, who, it was thought, might ascertain whether she was a witch or not. He found her obdurate in non-confession, and was greatly inclined to think her innocent. One Alexander Bogue, ‘skilled in searching the mark,’ came to examine her person, and finding a spot in the middle of her back, thrust in a pin, which neither inflicted pain nor drew blood. Still the minister hesitated to believe her guilty. He entered on a course of prayers for divine direction. Soon after, going one evening to the prison with his bedral, Alexander Simpson, he made a strenuous attempt to induce Bessie to confess, but without effect. To pursue his own narrative: ‘When I came to the stair-head, I resolved to halt a little to hear what she would say. Within a very short space, she begins to discourse, as if it had been to somebody with her. Her voice was so low, that I could not understand what she said, except one sentence, whereby I perceived she was speaking of somewhat I had been challenging her of and she had denied.... After a little while, I heard another voice speaking and whispering as it were conferring with her, which presently I apprehended to be the foul fiend’s voice.... She, having kept silence a time, began to speak again; and before she had well ended, the other voice speaketh as it were a long sentence, which, though I understood not what it was, yet it was so low and ghostly, that I was certainly persuaded that it was another voice than hers. Besides, her accent and manner of speaking was as if she had been speaking to some other; and that other voice, to the best of my remembrance, did begin before she had ended, so that two voices were to be heard at once.
‘By this time fear took hold on Alexander Simpson, being hindmost in the stair, and thereby he cries out. I did exhort him with a loud voice not to fear; and we came all of us down the stair, blessing God that had given me such a clearance in the business.’
This poor woman, on a subsequent conference with Mr Fergusson, confessed all she was accused of, except the imputed witchcraft. She said: ‘She knew she would die, and desired not to live; and she thought we would be free before God of her blood, because that, however she was free, yet there were so many things deponed against her, that it was hard for us to think otherwise of her than we did; yet she knew well enough her own innocence.’ Bessie was soon after tried, condemned, and executed, denying her guilt to the last.[130]
1649.
In the ensuing month, Agnes Gourlay was examined by the kirk-session of Humbie, concerning some practices of hers for charming the milk of kine. It was alleged that Anna Simpson, servant to Robert Hepburn of Keith, having found fault with the milk she drew from her master’s cows, Agnes told her of a way to remedy the evil, and soon after came and put it in practice. Throwing a small quantity of the milk into the grupe or sewer of the cow-house, she called out: ‘God betak us to! May be, they are under the earth that have as much need of it, as they that are above the earth!’ after which she put wheat bread and salt into the cows’ ears. Agnes by and by confessed that she had so done, and was ordained to make public repentance in sackcloth.[131]
Lord Linton, son of the Earl of Traquair, married Henrietta Gordon, daughter of the lately executed Marquis of Huntly, and relict of George Lord Seton; she being an excommunicated papist. ‘The minister of Dawick, being an old man, did marry thir foresaid persons privately, without proclamation of their banns, according to the custom; for which, shortly after, he was excommunicate, his church declared vacant, and he by the state banished.’—Lam. Lord Linton was fined in £5000 Scots, and likewise excommunicated and imprisoned.—Nic.
Dec. 18.
1649.
The reader will remember the strenuous opposition of John Mean, merchant in Edinburgh, to the Episcopal innovations, and his sufferings in that cause; likewise the strong suspicion entertained that it was his wife who discharged her stool at the bishop’s head when the Service-book was introduced into St Giles’s in July 1637. It was natural that John, who was a man of good account in the world, as well as a most earnest Presbyterian, should have flourished under the present order of things. We therefore hear without surprise that the Post in Edinburgh—the germ of a most important institution—was now under the care of John Mean. It seems to have been confined as yet to the transmission of letters between London and Edinburgh. At the date noted, he addressed a petition to the Committee of Estates, regarding ‘his great charges and expenses in attending the Letter-office in this city, and his allowance therefor.’ He states that ‘the benefit arising by the letters sent from this to London and coming from thence hither, by the ordinary post, will amount to four hundred pounds sterling yearly or thereby, all charges being deduced for payment of the postmaster from Newcastle to Edinburgh inclusive, and no proportion thereof laid upon the Berwick pacquet.’ In consideration of his charges, John was allowed to retain for himself the eighth penny upon all the letters sent from Edinburgh to London, and the fourth penny upon all those coming from London to Edinburgh.—R. C. E.
In the year 1649, as is believed, a cateran named Mac-Allister, with a band of followers, kept a large portion of Caithness in terror. The people of Thurso having somehow given him offence, he determined to revenge himself by suddenly coming down upon them on a Sunday and burning them in church. He and his men had provided themselves with withes of twigs to fasten the doors, in order to keep the people in, while fire should be set to the building. Some one remonstrating with him for contemplating such an unholy design on the Sabbath-day, he avowed that, in spite of God and the Sabbath both, he would shed blood. Fortunately, some humane person became aware of the design, and set off at speed to give the alarm. This had scarcely been done, when the caterans, twenty in number, arrived. There were seven doors to the church, as may be verified by an inspection of the ruins at this day. An old woman dexterously thrust her stool into one near which she sat, so as to prevent it from being closed; the people were eager to defend the rest as far as they could. Mac-Allister himself came to the door of a gallery at the south-west angle of the building, accessible by an outer stair. Here sat Sir James Sinclair of Murkle, an able and determined man, who made a practice of coming to church armed. Meeting the robber in the doorway, he thrust his sword through him, but with no apparent effect. His servant, however, superstitiously fearing that Mac-Allister was impervious to cold steel, cut a triangular silver button from Sir James’s coat, and with that shot the fellow in the head. He tumbled over the stair, saying in Gaelic: ‘Hoot-toot, the bodach has deafened me!’ It was a mortal wound in the ear. The rest of the party were then set upon by the congregation, and after a hard contest, overpowered, many of them, like their master, being killed.[132]
1650. Mar. 9.
1650.
The Marquis of Douglas, formerly Earl of Angus, one of the greatest and wealthiest of the nobility, was a Catholic; and his wife, a daughter of the first Marquis of Huntly, was a not less firm adherent of the ancient faith. For many years past, the presbytery of Lanark had acted as an inquisition over them, sending deputations every now and then to Douglas Castle, to deal with them for their conversion, intermeddling with their domestic affairs, and threatening them with excommunication if they did not speedily give ‘satisfaction.’ With great difficulty, and after many conferences, they had prevailed on the Lady Marquesse to attend the parish church, and allow her children to be instructed in the Presbyterian catechism: a mere external conformity, of course, but involving a homage to the system which seems to have pleased the ecclesiastical authorities. It took six years to bring the marquis to an inclination to abjure popery and sign the Covenant; and great was the rejoicing when he performed this ceremony before the parish congregation. A moderator of presbytery reported his ‘great contentment’ in seeing his lordship communicate and give attentive ear to the sermons. Seeing, however, that the lady remained immovable, the reverend court deemed it necessary to demand of the noble pair that their children should be secluded from them, in order that assurance might be had of their being brought up in the Protestant religion. This seems to have been too much for the old peer. He plainly broke through all engagements to them, by going and joining Montrose.
As his lordship fell into the hands of the Estates, by whom he was imprisoned in Dumbarton Castle, the presbytery obtained an increased power over the lady. They now brought her before them, to examine her touching her ‘malignancy and obstinate continuance in the profession of popery.’ Imagine the daughter of the superb Huntly, the mother of the future head of the chivalric house of Douglas, forced to appear ‘with bated breath and whispering humbleness’ before the presbytery of Lanark! She really did give them such smooth words as induced them to hold off for a little while. But they soon had occasion once more to bewail the effects of their ‘manifold expressions of lenity and long-suffering’ towards her, which they saw attended by no effect but ‘disobedience.’ The process for her excommunication and the taking away of her children was in full career in January 1646; and yet by some means which do not appear, it did not advance.
1650.
1650.
Meanwhile the marquis had been suffering a long imprisonment for his lapse with Montrose, and his estate was embarrassed with a fine of 50,000 merks. It had become indispensable for the good of his family, that he should be somehow reconciled to the stern powers then ruling. At the beginning of 1647, the descendant of those mail-clad Douglases who in the fifteenth century shook the Scottish throne, was found literally on his knees before the Lanark presbytery, expressing his penitence for breach of covenant, and giving assurance of faithfulness in time to come. The Estates consequently contented themselves with one half of his fine, and an offer of the use of his lands for the quartering of troops, and he was then liberated. Soon after, he agreed to consign his children to be boarded with the minister of the parish of Douglas, while a young man should attend to act as their preceptor; but the satisfaction produced by this concession was quickly dashed, when the presbytery learned that his lordship was secretly arranging to send his youngest son to be bred in France. It was really a curious game between their honest unsparing zeal on the one hand, and his lordship’s craft and territorial consequence on the other. Every now and then we have a peep of the demure lady, not less resolute in adhering to her faith than they were pertinacious in seeking to bring her to the superior light. How the recusant pair must have in secret chafed under the mute acquiescence which they were forced to give, in a rule outraging every sense of natural right, and every feeling of self-respect! With what smothered rage would they view those presbyterial deputations on their approach to Douglas Castle—more formidable than a thousand of the troops of Long-shanked Edward had ever been to the good Sir James! During the predominance of the Hamilton Engagement, there was a slight intermission: in those partially clouded days of the church, the presbytery was obliged to speak a little less resolutely. In October 1648, the cloud had passed away: Cromwell was now in the Canongate, conferring with Argyle, Loudon, and Dickson. We accordingly find the Lanark inquisition laconically ordering that, failing immediate satisfaction, his lordship be summoned and the lady ‘excommunicat.’ The noble marquis appeared in this month before them, to answer sundry challenges—‘for not keeping his son at the school with a sufficient pedagogue approven by the presbytery; for not delivering his daughter to some Protestant friend by sight [that is, under the approbation] of the presbytery; for not having a sufficient chaplain approven as said is, for family exercise in his house; for not calling home his son, who is in France;’ and, finally, for his grievous oppression of his tenants. On all of these points, he was forced to make certain professed concessions. And we soon after find this proud grandee pleading to have his son brought from the school of Glasgow to that of Lanark, but ‘not to come home to his parents except the presbytery permit.’ Still there was no real progress made with either the marquis or his lady, and simply because they continued to be Catholics at heart, and had it not in their power to give more than lip-worship to any other system.
Such being the case, what are we to think of the conclusion of the affair with the marchioness, when, on the 9th of March 1650, two ministers went to pass upon her that sentence of excommunication which was to make her homeless and an outlaw,[133] unless she should instantly profess the Protestant faith; at the same time telling her ‘how fearful a sin it was to swear with equivocation or mental reservation.’ The lady of course reflected that the system represented by her visitors was now triumphant over everything—that, for one thing, it had brought her brother Huntly, not a twelvemonth ago, beneath the stroke of the Maiden. She ‘declared she had no more doubts,’ and at the command of one of the ministers, held up her hand, and solemnly accepted the Covenant before the congregation. ‘After he had read the Solemn League and Covenant, and desired her to hold up her hand and swear by the great name of God to observe, according to her power, every article thereof, she did so; and after divine service was ended, he desired her to go to the session-table and subscribe the Covenant, and, before the minister and elders, she went to the said table and did subscribe.’
‘Heaven scarce believed the conquest it surveyed,
And saints with wonder heard the vows I made.’
1650.
On the very day that this was reported by the two ministers to the presbytery, the court, ‘hearing that of late the Marquis of Douglas and his lady had sent away one of their daughters to France, to a popish lady, to be bred with her in popery, without the knowledge of the presbytery, and without any warrant from the Estates, thought the fault intolerable, and so much the more, because they had sent away one of their sons before to the court of France.’ For some time after, the reverend presbytery dealt earnestly with the marquis for the withdrawal of his children from France, but without success. They also had occasion to lament that he and his lady rarely attended public worship, and failed to have private exercises at home. Of their own great error in forcing this noble family into hypocritical professions, and interfering so violently with their domestic arrangements, no suspicion seems ever once to have crossed their minds.[134]
Mar.
At the same time that the presbytery of Lanark was driving on matters with the Marchioness of Douglas, it had another serious affair on its hands. Towards the close of the preceding year, the marquis had sent eleven women of his parish to Lanark, as accused of witchcraft by one Janet Couts, ‘a confessing witch,’ then in prison at Peebles. There was a difficulty about the case, for the burgh declined to maintain so many persons pending their trial. It was therefore necessary to send them back to Crawford Douglas under security. Afterwards, one George Cathie, ‘the pricker,’ being brought to Lanark, the women were brought forward again, when, ‘before famous witnesses—namely, Gideon Jack and Patrick Craig, bailies in Lanark, James Cunningham of Bonniton, &c., Mr Robert Birnie himself [the minister of Lanark] being also present, and by consent of the women, the said George did prick pins in every one of them, and in divers of them without pain the pin was put in, as the witnesses can testify.’ The women were accordingly detained in prison. As ‘it was not possible for the parish out of which they came to furnish watches night and day for them,’ the county ‘did ordain that each parish should, proportionally to their quantity, furnish twelve men every twenty-four hours; whereupon the presbytery did ordain that the minister of that parish out of which the watches shall come for their turn, shall come along with them, to wait upon the suspected persons, and to take pains, by prayer and exhortation, to bring them to a confession.’
1650.
We next see the presbytery sending a deputation to the Council of State in Edinburgh, to urge that a commission should be appointed for the trial of the witches. While this was in preparation, they sent to the parish to collect evidence against the poor women. It might have been supposed that, when, after a sermon in the church, no one came forward to say a word against them, some doubts might have entered the minds of the presbytery. Such, however, was not the case. They sent again and again, till at length charges were made against three of the suspected. Meanwhile, one whom Janet Couts herself ‘cleansed,’ was liberated. Six more, against whom no charge was made, were allowed to go home on giving security that they would reappear if called upon. Finally, two, named Janet M‘Birnie and Marion Laidlaw, were at this date tried by the commission on various points delated against them; as that, ‘on a time Janet followed William Brown, a slater, to crave somewhat, and fell in evil words, after which time, within twenty-four hours, he fell off ane house and brake his neck; that Janet was the cause of the discord between [the laird of] Newton and his wife, and that she and others was the death of William Geddes;’ that ‘Marion and Jean Blacklaw differed in words for Marion’s hay, and, after that, Jean her kye died;’ and that she, the said Marion, ‘had her husband by unlawful means, and a beard!’ After most strictly examining the witnesses on their oaths, the commission could find nought proven against the two prisoners, and they were therefore dismissed on giving caution to appear again if called upon.
It does not appear that this result in any degree modified the views of the reverend presbytery regarding witchcraft. On the very day when this case was reported to them, they received a communication from Mr Richard Inglis, the chaplain or preceptor whom they had established in the Marquis of Douglas’s family, setting forth the confession of ‘ane warlock called Archibald Watt, alias Sole the paitlet, pointing out the way of his making covenant with the devil, as also many meetings since his covenant keeped with the devil, and other witches, in divers places.’ And immediately they sent a gentleman to Edinburgh for ‘a commission for ane assize to sit upon the foresaid warlock.’
The end of the prosecution of the eleven women is highly instructive. Janet Couts, before her death, which probably was by burning, withdrew the charge she had made against them. It is on the same day when the presbytery orders one of their number to go and read a paper to this effect in the church of Douglas, that they make the above arrangement for the prosecution of the warlock; shewing that they had not been in the least staggered on the general question, by finding the gross mistake they had made in this instance.—R. P. L.
1650. Mar.
The church was now in the highest power—every vestige of episcopacy banished, popery treated as a crime, the doctrine of the headship of Christ in full paramountcy, and enabling the clergy to exercise an unlimited authority over the external religious practice and professions of the community. It was ruled that each head of a family should conduct worship and reading of the Scriptures daily in his house, catechise, reprove, and exhort amongst his children, servants, and dependents. On Sunday, after private devotions by the several members of the family, and a general service in the parlour, the master was to take care that all within his charge repaired to public worship. This being finished—in those days it lasted many hours—he was to exercise the family on what they had heard, and the remainder of the day was to be spent in ‘reading, meditation, and secret prayer.’ Diligence and ‘sincerity’ in these duties were strongly enjoined, and individuals were encouraged to confer with and prompt one another on religious subjects. But it was forbidden that families should meet together for religious exercises, as it had been found that such practices tended to schism.[135]
It may be remarked, that the ministrations of the parochial ministers were not then confined to two services on Sunday. In Edinburgh, after March 1650, there was ‘a lectorie’ every afternoon in the week at four o’clock, the ministers of the city taking the duty by turns. ‘Which did much good to the soul and body, the soul being edified and fed by the Word, and the body withhalden from unnecessar bebbing [drinking], whilk at that hour of the day was in use and custom.’—Nic.
1650.
The morals of the flock were superintended with something beyond pastoral care. Promiscuous dancing was strictly prohibited. For ‘the downbearing of sin,’ women were not allowed to act as waiters in taverns, ‘but allenarly men-servands and boys.’[136] An elder had a certain little district assigned to him, which he carefully inspected once a month. Any scandalous sin which he discovered, or even the existence of any stranger without a certificate of character, he had to report to the kirk-session. The being drunk, or the utterance of a profane word, inferred kirk-discipline. The inspecting elder was also to take cognizance of how everybody spent his time on Sunday. For acts of a licentious character, both sexes were alike punished in the manner most likely to mortify persons of a sensitive nature. Whatever their quality, they had to stand three Sundays in sackcloth before the congregation. A second fault brought the same punishment for six Sundays; a third kept the delinquent on the seat of shame for half a year. That all this was done in honour and sincerity, and not primarily from the love of power, is shewn by the impartial severity which the clergy exercised upon each other; regarding not only moral aberrations, but such faults as that of conversing with ‘malignants’ (persons inclined to be loyal to the king without regard to the terms of the Solemn League and Covenant), and any shortcoming in efficiency either as preachers or as disciplinarians.
‘None of the clergy in those days,’ says one of their successors in the next age, ‘durst be scandalous in their conversation, or negligent in their office.... In many places the spirit seemed to be poured out with the word.... There were no fewer than sixty aged people, men and women, who went to school, that even then they might be able to read the Scripture with their own eyes. I have lived many years in a parish where I never heard an oath, and you might have rid many miles before you heard any.... You could not have lodged in a family where the Lord was not worshipped by reading, singing, and public prayer. Nobody complained more of our church-government than our taverners, whose ordinary lamentation was, their trade was broke, people were become so sober.’[137]
It is to be feared that Mr Kirkton wrote under the influence of that palliative spirit with which we are apt to look back upon a past age or upon the days of our youth, for, undoubtedly, strong evidences exist that the period now under review was not free from great vices and criminalities of a very deep shade. The diarist John Nicoll mentions, under February 1650, that ‘Much falset and cheating was detected at this time by the Lords of Session; for the whilk there was daily hanging, scourging, nailing of lugs [ears] and binding of people to the Tron [the public weighing-machine in Edinburgh], and boring of tongues; so that it was ane fatal year for false notars and witnesses, as daily experience did witness.’
1650.
Nicoll enumerates many of the offenders. One was John Lawson, of Leith, who had taken a leading part in causing a house, left by one who died of the plague, to come by a false service to one who had no claim for it. ‘He was brought to the Tron betwixt eleven and twelve before noon, and fast bund thereto, with ane paper on his head declaring his fault.... His tongue was drawn out with ane turkes [pincers] by the common hangman, and laid on ane little buird, ... and run through with ane het iron or bodkin.’ Another delinquent was Thomas Hunter, a writer, guilty of perjury; for which he was declared incapable of ‘agenting ony business within the house and college of justice.’ William Blair, ‘messer,’ was hanged ‘for sundry falsets committed by him in his calling.’
1650.
At the same time, gross offences connected with the affections never abounded more, if we can believe Nicoll, than they did at this time. Some of an indescribable kind appeared in an unheard-of frequency, and continued indeed to do so all through the time of the Interregnum. In Lamont’s Diary, the number of gentlemen in Fife who are stated as having broken the seventh commandment during the time of the Commonwealth, is surprisingly great. Even the sanctimonious Chancellor Loudon himself had to give satisfaction to the kirk in 1651. The writer of the Statistical Account of Melrose remarks the surprising number of penitents which he finds in the session-books during the seventeenth century—‘far exceeding the average of the present day, when the population is nearly trebled.’ The churchmen of that period themselves not merely admit, but loudly proclaim the extreme immorality of their people, the following being cited, for example, among the causes for a solemn fast in 1653: ‘the growth of sin of all sorts, particularly pride, uncleanness, contempt of ordinances, oppression, violence, fraudulent dealing—maist part of the people growing worse and worse.’ We might set this down in great measure as the effect of entertaining a high view of human duty, were it not for the many facts which have been reported by diarists and others. In short, it fully appears that human nature was not effectually restrained by the rigorous discipline now temporarily reigning, but only shewed a tendency to go into moral aberrations of an abnormal and horrible kind. At the same time, the land was full of persecution on account of merely sentimental offences—Catholic gentlemen forced to leave their native country; moderate Presbyterians obliged to do penance, or else thrust from their offices, for being concerned in the Duke of Hamilton’s final expedition in behalf of the late king; corpses denied Christian burial if their owners had not subscribed or adhered to the Covenant.[138] ‘There was ane honest man in Glasgow, called John Bryson, who, being at the Mercat Cross of that city, and hearing a proclamation there, and a declaration against the Marquis of Montrose, wherein he was styled traitor and excommunicate rebel, did cry out and called him as honest ane nobleman as was in this kingdom. The magistrates of that town, being informed of his speeches, was forced to take and apprehend him, and carried him to Edinburgh by ane guard of the town’s officers, presented him to the Committee of State then sitting there; wha, by their order, was casten into the Thieves’ Hole, wherein he lay in great misery by the space of many weeks.’—Nic.
Mar.
Throughout this and the ensuing two months, there ‘fell out much unseasonable weather, the like whereof was not usual, for weets, cold, frosts, and tempests.’—Nic.
The same writer informs us that on the 28th of May, ‘there rained blood the space of three miles in the Earl of Buccleuch’s bounds, near the English Border; whilk was verified in presence of the Committee of State.’
In the ensuing month there was an epidemic called the Irish Ague, ‘which was a terrible sore pain in the head, some saying that their heads did open. The ordinary remedy was the hard tying up of their head. A disease not before this known to the inhabitants of this kingdom.’
Gerard Boate, physician to the parliamentary forces in Ireland, who wrote about this time his Natural History of Ireland, specifies agues among the Endemii Morbi of that country, evidently alluding, in the opinion of a living medical authority,[139] to the well-known Irish typhoid fevers. This ailment, the flux, and plague, had prevailed to a deplorable extent in Ireland during the time of the civil war.
May 15.
1650.
‘The new Psalm-books were read and ordained to be sung through all the kingdom.’—Nic. This was the translation of the Psalms which is still used by the Church of Scotland and all Presbyterian congregations in the kingdom. It was based on a homely version produced originally in 1643, by Francis Rous, a member of the Long Parliament, who ultimately became provost of Eton, and died in 1658. What was rather odd, Rous was at this time joined to the sectaries, against whom the Scotch church entertained so bitter a feeling. It must be admitted that his version underwent great improvements in the hands of the committees of the General Assembly appointed for its revision. As now finally set forth, it was in many respects most felicitous. The general strain and metre is that of the old homely native ballad. It is occasionally harsh and obscure, has a few Scottish idioms, and sometimes requires an obsolete pronunciation to make out the prosody; yet, with all these obvious faults, it perhaps comes nearer to the simple archaic beauty of the original than any other metrical translation.[140]
May 21.
1650.
The Marquis of Montrose, taken in an unsuccessful attempt to restore the king without the ceremony of the Covenant, was hanged in Edinburgh on a gibbet thirty feet high. The heroic firmness displayed at his death harmonised well with the gallantry exhibited in his short but brilliant career. It affords a striking idea of the taste of men of the highest rank in that age, that the Marquis of Argyle appeared on a balcony to see him driven on the hangman’s hurdle to the prison from which he was two days after to walk to the gallows, and that Lord Lorn took post at a window near the scaffold, to see the body cut to pieces after death. The head being stuck on the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, and the limbs sent for exhibition over the ports of Glasgow, Perth, Stirling, and Aberdeen, Charles II. was compelled to behold those ghastly relics of the most loyal of his subjects, when, less than a month after, he progressed through the country. If Montrose had died free of excommunication, his body would have been given to his friends; as matters stood, it was inhumed beneath a gibbet at the Burgh-moor. There was, however, a female heart that secretly wept for the untimely end of the great marquis. His niece, Lady Napier, sent men by night who dug up the body, and stole away the heart; and this relic she consigned to a steel case made out of the hero’s sword, which again she enclosed in a gold filagree box, which had been presented by a doge of Venice to her husband’s grandfather, the inventor of the logarithms. It will be found that, after the Restoration, when it became the fate of Argyle and others to atone by their blood for the severities inflicted on Montrose, the remains of the culprit of 1650 were gathered together and treated with a funeral that might have been honourable to a king. The heart and its case were, however, retained in the possession of the Napier family for several generations, and only were lost sight of amidst the confusions of the French Revolution.[141]
July.
Cromwell having crossed the Tweed with his army on the 22d of this month, a large body of troops assembled on Leith Links to oppose him, all animated with a good spirit in behalf of their king and country, but unluckily not all equally sound in the faith of the Solemn League and Covenant. Thousands were sent back, ‘to the discontentment of much people.’ The leaders thought it safer to meet Cromwell with twenty thousand who were of right principles, than with thirty thousand of whom a third were merely patriotic and loyal. While the army, as honest John Nicoll remarks, ‘stood daily in purging upon the Links,’ the young king came to review them, and doubtless was right sorry to see so many hearty soldiers turned away from his banners.
1650.
A Glasgow citizen, full of zeal against the English army, as a type of the abomination of toleration, came to this singular leaguer, but even after all its purgation, did not find the service satisfactory. ‘While Oliver Cromwell,’ he says, ‘is reported to be come over the Border with his army, at my first hearing of it, I was so stirred in my spirit at the evil of toleration, that I never remember that I attained to the like again; and while I am pouring out my heart before the Lord on that account, there is a thought darted in upon my heart, that I should be healed of an impurity in my stomach which I had been under for several years ... and it really proved so, as since that time I was never troubled therewith.... That same morning, while I am casting up the Bible, that place came first to my hand and eye which saith, “Though Noah, Job, and Daniel would pray, yet would I not hear them.” Whereupon I was exceedingly confounded in reference to our present case, and some weeks thereafter, having gone to Leith to join myself to the forces there, I dried up in my prayers so as I would pray none at all, and was glad to take the first opportunity that offered to retire.... When Dunbar was foughten, and the news thereof came to Glasgow within a day or two thereafter, while I am thinking thereupon, it is borne in upon my mind, that our way in that business was not what it ought to have been; and after some getting it laid to heart, I was challenged for my implicit engaging therein; whilk came to that height that I resolved never more to follow any course upon the opinion of any person whatsomever, which accordingly the Lord has helped me to mind in some weak measure....’—Spreull.
Aug.
While the two hostile armies lay about Edinburgh, ‘there was such great scarcity, that all sorts of vivres, meat and drink, could hardly be had for money, and such as was gotten was fuisted [musty], and sald at a double price. The haill inhabitants were forced to contribute and provide for the [Scottish] army, notwithstanding of this scarcity; as also to furnish feather beds, bowsters, cods, blankets, sheets ... for the hurt soldiers to lie upon, with pots and pans for making ready their meat; and to collect money for providing honest entertainment to the hurt soldiers that lay in the [Heriot’s] Hospital and Paul’s Wark.’—Nic.
Sep.
The bellman was accustomed to intimate the death of a citizen through the streets, and in the same way give invitations to the funeral. At this time the Edinburgh official was ordered to give up the phrase, ‘faithful brother or sister,’ and retain brother or sister only.[142]—Nic.
Oct.
1650.
This was a sore time for the southern counties of Scotland. Owing to the futile opposition presented to Cromwell by the ultra-Presbyterians in the west, a large detachment of the English army had to parade through the country. ‘Much corns destroyed by them and their horses ... the kirks and kirk-yards made stables and sentries for their guards and horses.... The corns of the field were not only destroyed by this foreign enemy, and by the Scots armies at home, wha rampit and raged through the land, eating and destroying wherever they went, but also the Lord from the heavens destroyed much of the rest by storms and tempests of weet and wind. The seas also were closed up by the enemy, whase ships enclosed us on every side, so that no man was able to travel by sea, neither yet by land without a pass.’—Nic.
‘Cromwell and his army of cavalry domineered in all parts where they came,’ and in especial about Edinburgh, and in East Lothian. The good Earl of Winton, to whose well-furnished table all the noblemen and gentlemen had ever been welcome, was pitifully abused by them; his fair house of Seaton made a common inn; himself threatened to be killed, if they had not whatsoever they called for; his rich furniture and stuff plundered, and all the enormities that could be offered by Jews or Turks to Christians, he suffered daily; and when he complained to those of our nobility who now rule all, he got no redress, but [was] ordered with patience to give them whatsoever they called for. Their general, Cromwell, stayed in Edinburgh, a stately lodging being appointed for him.[143] He went not to their churches, but it is constantly reported that every day he had sermons in his own lodgings, himself being the preacher, whensoever the spirit came upon him; which took him like the fits of an ague, sometimes twice, sometimes thrice in a day.
1650.
‘One of his commanders being quartered with one of the magistrates of the city, that he might be used with the more reverence, and entertained with the more graceful respect, the master of the house brought the preacher of the parish, a discreet and modest man, to accompany him, whose conversation, he hoped, would be pleasing to him. The preacher, after he had blessed the table, according to our Scottish custom, prayed for the continuance and prosperous success of the Covenant, which did so offend the English captain and those gentlemen who attended upon him, as the preacher was threatened and abused most beastly, for presuming in their presence to extol their rotten Covenant (as he termed it); and with many reproachful terms told the preacher, that they had in England trodden his Covenant under their feet, and they hoped, before it was long, to consume it in Scotland with fire, and with disgrace to extinguish the memory thereof. The preacher would have answered, but he durst not....
‘In the time that the English stayed, there were daily and continual complaints given in; the people being unable to endure their insolent carriage, so that there were many brawls, fighting, and killing in private corners, where the Scots might be their masters. And one day in Edinburgh, upon the High Street, and before the general’s lodgings, where the English were always going forth in at the gate, one of their officers was coming forth and going to his horse in great chafe, because he had complained of a great injury done to some of the troop by the Scots, where they were quartered, and not being justly satisfied with the general’s answer, when he had mounted his horse, he spake aloud these words: “With my own hands I killed that Scot which ought this horse and this ease of pistols, and who dare say that in this I wronged him?” “I dare say it,” said one standing by; “and thus shall revenge it;” and with the word pulling forth his sword, thrust him quite through the body, and with a prompt celerity, as if he had been all in motion, just as he struck him—who was already falling to the ground—and mounting his horse, rides the way with a fierce gallop, and winning the port, goes to the fields, and by an honourable flight frees himself from all danger.’[144]
Nov. 13.
1650.
At this distressing time, when the best part of the country was in the hands of foreign invaders, and the ancient monarchy of Scotland threatened with destruction, there occurred a calamitous event which must have been peculiarly bewailed. The palace of Holyrood, being then in the occupation of a party of the English troops, took fire, and was in great part destroyed. The most interesting portion of the building—the north-west tower, containing the apartments of Queen Mary—was fortunately preserved; but the principal façade was laid in ruins, so that the general appearance was, on a restoration, much changed. About the same time, the English soldiery, for the sake of fuel, broke down the furniture of the University buildings, the High School, and of three churches—College, Greyfriars, and Lady Yester’s—besides the plenishing of many houses in town and country.
Holyrood Palace, as before the Fire of 1650.
‘In all parts of the land, where the English army come, the ministers fled, and the Lord’s houses were closed and laid waste; so that the word of the Lord became very precious to many.’ ‘The land [was] mourning, languishing, left desolate, every part thereof shut up, and no safe going out nor coming in ... the Lord hiding his face all this time for the sins of Scotland.’—Nic.
Dec.
‘I thought it good to remember here how that the names of Protestant and Papist were not now in use ... in place thereof raise up the name of Covenanters, Anti-Covenanters, Cross-Covenanters, Puritans, Babarteris, Roundheads, Auld Horns, New Horns, Cross-petitioners, Brownists, Separatists, Malignants, Sectaries, Royalists, Quakers, Anabaptists.’—Nic.
1651. May 6.
1651.
The bitter feeling of the ruling powers towards the English sectarian army was shewn in the way they treated any erring enthusiast who, in the spirit of dissent, sent information to Cromwell. One Archibald Hamilton, who acted in this manner, was ‘condemned to be hanged on a gallows in chains, so long as one bone could hang at another of him.’ We now find the son of an old acquaintance in their hands for this high offence. His father was that John Mean, a merchant of Edinburgh, who had been in trouble as a resister of Episcopal fashions in the reign of King James, and whom we have just seen in the capacity of post-master in Edinburgh.[145] His mother was believed to be the identical female who cast the stool at the bishop’s head in St Giles’s Church, on the first reading of the Service-book in 1637. The delinquent confessed his guilt, and was condemned by a council of war sitting at Stirling; but as he was going to be hanged, the king pardoned him, ‘in respect his father, old John Mean, in Edinburgh, put him out to General Leslie as a knave and one corrupted by the English, and entreated him to cause apprehend him.’—Bal.
The son of a pair so peculiarly noted, being pardoned by Charles II. for treason in favour of Cromwell, is a curious conjunction of circumstances.
June 22.
Some idea of the enormous sacrifices made by Scotland to resist the English sectarian army, may be formed from a tolerably exact account, which has been preserved, of what was done in that cause by the county of Fife alone, between the 1st of June 1650 and the present date, being somewhat less than thirteen months.
1651.
In June 1650, when Cromwell was about to invade Scotland, Fife[146] sent forth 1800 foot and 290 horse, the former ‘with four pounds of outreik money for every man, with a four-tailed coat, stockings and shoes,’ the latter at 300 merks each; being in all 151,800 merks. In the ensuing month, a second levy, precisely the same as the first, was made by the county. In September, 700 men were raised for the artillery force, with a third levy of 290 horse and 350 dragoons. In January, two regiments, amounting in whole to 2400 men, were raised in the county by the Earls of Kelly and Crawford, and to this force the county gave twenty-four pounds per man for arms and bounty. So much for the personal force contributed, being in all 7920 men out of a population which, so lately as 1801, was under 100,000. Then the county made large contributions of meal and other provisions, besides money, and also horses, for the use of the army; 5000 bolls of meal at one time, 3000 at another, 100 stone of cheese, tents, dishes, and axes, oats for the horses, quarters for ten horse regiments, and so forth. The sum of the whole was reckoned up to 2,395,857 merks, which we assume to have been equal to £137,309.—Bal.
It is difficult to understand how a province of a country so poor as Scotland then was[147] could spare so much means towards even so cherished an object as the resistance of the English sectaries.
Sep. 1.
During the occupation of the southern parts of Scotland by the English army, Dundee had become the retreat of many of the principal people of the country, and a storehouse of much valuable property. On the Sunday before the battle of Worcester, it was assaulted by General Monk, who played upon it with battering-pieces all night, and in the morning entered and subjected it to massacre and pillage. Upwards of a thousand men and sevenscore women and children, are said to have been killed. ‘It is reported by credible men that the English army had gotten above twa hundred thousand pound sterling, partly of ready gold, silver, and silver wark, jewels, rings, merchandise and merchant wares, and other precious things, belonging to the city of Edinburgh, beside all that belonged to the town, and other people of the country, wha had sent in their guids for safety to that town.’—Nic.
This year was one of even greater dearth than the preceding, bear being £20 Scots per boll—equal to £1, 13s. 4d.—in many parts of the country. The best sack wine was 4s. sterling, and French wine 1s. 6d. per pint. The best ale 4d. a pint.[148] ‘Yet God’s providence was such toward the nation, that even when our awn corns failed us, the English nation did bring in abundantly wheat, bear, peas, and such like, and brought down the dearth of our mercats, by [beyond] expectation.’—Nic.
Nov. 13.
1651.
James Somerville, younger of Drum and Cambusnethan, author of the Memorie of the Somervilles, was this day married to Martha Bannatyne of Corehouse, at Lesmahago kirk, he being nineteen, and she eighteen. The bridegroom’s own account of the affair: ‘A matchlier pair was not seen within the walls of that kirk this last century, nor a greater wedding—considering the great consternation the country had been in for some few months preceding—for nobility and gentry; there being one marquis, three earls, two lords, sixteen barons, and eight ministers present at this solemnity, but not one musician. They liked better the bleating of the calves of Dan and Bethel—the ministers’ long-winded and sometimes nonsensical graces, little to the purpose—than all musical instruments of the sanctuary, at so solemn an occasion, which, if it be lawful at all to have them, certainly it ought and should be upon a wedding-day, for divertisement to the guests, that innocent recreation of music and dancing being much more warrantable and a far better exercise than drinking and smoking of tobacco, wherein these holy brethren of the Presbyterian [persuasion] for the most part employed themselves, without any formal health or remembrance of their friends; a nod with their head, or a sigh, with the turning up of the white of the eye, served for that ceremony.’
1651.
It is pleasant to find that little more than two months after Worcester fight, it was possible to bring such a large and brilliant company to a wedding in Scotland. Even when the public at large is the stricken deer, there will be individual ‘harts ungalled’ who will ‘go play.’ Somerville’s description of his first visit to his bride’s house and of herself, is interesting. It was just after the rout of Dunbar, when the young Laird of Corehouse, who had been at that battle, spent a few days at Cambusnethan, and insisted on young Somerville accompanying him to the banks of the Clyde. ‘They set forth, weel furnished with hawks and dogs, which gave them much sport, the fields and ways between Cambusnethan and Corehouse being fitted for hawking and hunting. At night they came to the Corehouse, where they were courteously received by the lady, and modestly by the young ladies.... Martha, the youngest, was not seen till supper, and then came into the room in a plain country dress. The truth is, she needed nothing else, being always an ornament to her clothes when at the best.... At her age of fifteen complete, she attained to her full height, which was so far above the stature of most women, that she was accounted among the tallest of our nation, but so as that diminished nothing of her handsomeness, every part answering thereto, as a slender waist, large shoulders, big breast, henches full and round.... Her visage was long, her nose high, her brow brent and smooth as alabaster, her chin and cheeks somewhat full, with a little red, especially in hot weather. There was nothing bore so little proportion to her body as her hand and foot, both being extremely little, but weel-shapen, white and full of flesh. Her skin was smooth and clear, but what was covered not so white as I have seen several of her complexion that was purely sanguinean; her hair, being of a bright flaxen, which darkened as she grew in age, added much to her beauty; wherein there was no blemish, her mien being answerable to that, and her person gave occasion to those that saw her at church or any other public meeting, to assert she graced the place and company where she was. It has often been observed that, when this gentlewoman walked upon the street—which was but upon occasion, being better employed at home—the eyes not only of the men, but also of her own sex, was upon her, so far as their sight could serve them, admiring her parts and handsomeness.’—Mem. Som.
Nov.
The western clergy sought in their meetings to learn the cause of the heavy wrath which the Almighty was pouring out upon the land. ‘After long attendance, their resolutions ended in confusion, distraction, and division among themselves, prognosticating much more desolation on the land. Whilk did manifestly appear among all estates and ranks of people; for religion and justice being the twa pillars of the land, were houghed [tripped] and near drawn down.... There were no courts of justice, sic as the Secret Council, Session, and Exchequer sitting for the time. All our records and registers carried aff the kingdom to the Tower of London; the Lords of Council, Session, and Exchequer, with their clerks and members of court not daring [to] kythe[149] in their strength for the use of the lieges, but, for fear of the English armies, were forced to abandon themselves; for the whilk cause the people of the land were forced to suit justice frae the English governors and commanders. As for Edinburgh, there was no magistrate there, nor no common council since the fecht at Dunbar; and therefore all petitions and complaints went to the captain of Edinburgh Castle and governor of Leith, wha in effect (to speak truly) proceeded more equitably and conscientiously in justice nor our awn Scottish magistrates.’—Nic.
1651.
We hear about this time of a paper given in by ‘a godly Scot’ to the Commission of the Kirk, alleging that the causes of the evils of the country lay, among other things, in the undertaking of solemn engagements unwarranted by the word of God, in a fleshly zeal in carrying on of these obligations by cruel oppressions for the constraint of the unwilling, and the idolising of individuals and receiving doctrine from them implicitly.[150]
At this very time, a lively controversy was going on between Sir Alexander Irvine of Drum, in Aberdeenshire, and the presbytery of Aberdeen, as to the title which the latter body assumed of controlling his spiritual interests. A quarrel had taken place between the parties regarding the settlement of an incumbent in Sir Alexander’s parish, and he had appealed from the power of the local court to the English commander, Colonel Overton—a proceeding which must have been deeply grievous to the presbytery. A sentence of excommunication having been consequently pronounced against the knight, he uttered a protest against it in animated terms. It proceeded, he said, ‘from men more full of fiery zeal to advance their own interests than the gospel of Jesus Christ.’ They had urged him by threats to subscribe the Solemn League and Covenant, ‘as gif it had been a matter of salvation for me to swear to establish by arms Presbyterian government in England.’ And not only would they have had him to forswear himself, but ‘they did urge with the like threatenings my wife and three young maids, my dochters, who, for their age and sex, are not capable of such politic theology.’ To make good their charge against him of being a papist—a ‘pretext to satisfy their restless ambition and execute their rage upon all who will not implicitly obey them’—they ‘enforced my servants to reveal upon oath what they saw, heard, or knew done in my house—beyond which no Turkish inquisition could pass.’ Sir Alexander, therefore, now appeared by procurator, declaring, ‘I separate myself from the discipline of presbytery, particularly that of Aberdeen, as a human invention that is destructive to the civil peace of Christians;’ further appealing them before Colonel Overton, or any other judge who shall be appointed by the English commissioners, ‘to hear yourselves censured and condignly punished for your open contempt of their authority, for your false slanders raised against me, and for your cruel proceedings and erring sentence of excommunication.’[151]
1651.
Whitelocke, in January 1652, quotes letters which speak of the ‘great pride and insolency of the presbyteries in Scotland,’ with particular reference to the Laird of Drum’s case. It is stated that the laird wrote a letter of thanks to Lieutenant-general Monk, ‘for relieving those who were oppressed in their consciences by the presbyteries.’ The Cromwellian army was on principle favourable to toleration, and adverse to all sorts of church-discipline. Monk was therefore ready to issue an order, ‘that no oaths should be imposed by any of the kirk-officers upon any person without order from the state of England, nor any covenant, and, if they do, that he will deal with them as enemies.... The provost and bailiffs of Aberdeen were to proclaim this.’
1651.
From a petition presented to the king after the Restoration by his son, the bitterness of Sir Alexander’s experiences throughout the troubles appears to have been much the same in character as that of which an example has been given in the case of Farquharson of Inverey. ‘His lands were the first of Scotland that were spoiled.’ He was ‘twice fined in £4000 sterling, his house of Drum four times garrisoned and at length totally plundered, and his wife and children turned out of doors.’[152] For five years his revenues were detained from him by ‘one Forbes’—doubtless the same minion to whom the government had committed the fining of old Inverey.[153] Another Aberdeenshire laird, Sir Gilbert Menzies of Pitfoddels, being really a Catholic, had come even worse off. Throughout the whole period of the troubles, not only were his lands taxed like those of his neighbours for the support of the Covenanting armies, but he suffered endless finings, quarterings, and repeated banishments, on account of his inability in personal sentiment to go along with the popular movement. It appears from a petition he presented after the Restoration, that fully £12,000 sterling had been extorted from his estate, leaving it greatly reduced in extent and ‘like to ruin;’ as a matter of course, he and his family had undergone the greatest poverty abroad, and in one of the flights made by his family from Scotland, his wife and one of his sons had perished in a storm at sea.[154] We obtain from these historiettes, which are but examples of a large class, some notion of the grounds of the charges brought by cavalier writers against the men who, in all sincerity, believed they were establishing the reign of Christ upon the earth. Trusting to force for the attainment of the ideal which they had placed before them, they stirred up a spirit which made their object only the more unattainable.
Dec.
One good consequence of the English military rule now established in Scotland was the introduction of some improved police regulations into Edinburgh. Householders were compelled to hang out lanterns, from six to nine at night, at their doors and windows; by which arrangement, ‘the winter night was almost as light as the day.’ The expense was reckoned to be about forty-five pounds a night. Rigorous measures were also taken for the cleaning of the streets and lanes, and for preventing foul water being thrown forth from windows.
It would appear that these regulations were steadily kept up during the English occupation. In April 1657, there was a petition from the magistrates of Edinburgh to the commissioners of justiciary craving remission of certain fines, amounting in all to £50 sterling, which had been imposed on the magistrates ‘for not cleansing the streets.’ They alleged that they had ‘employed scavengers’ with a view to giving the commissioners satisfaction.—B. A.
Nicoll, writing towards the close of 1651, gives a second and most unflattering picture of the moral conditions of Scotland. ‘Under heaven,’ he says, ‘there was not greater falset, oppression, division, hatred, pride, malice, and envy, nor was at this time, and diverse and sundry years before (ever since the subscribing the Covenant); every man seeking himself and his awn ends, even under a cloak of piety, whilk did cover much knavery.’ He adds: ‘Much of the ministry, also, could not purge themselves of their vices of pride, avarice, and cruelty; where they maligned, they were divided in their judgments and opinions, and made their pulpits to speak ane against another. Great care they had of their augmentations, and Reek Pennies,[155] never before heard of but within thir few years. Pride and cruelty, ane against another, much abounded; little charity or mercy to restore the weak, was to be found among them.... This I observe not out of malice to the ministry, but to record the truth, for all offended, from the prince to the beggar.’
1651.
It is instructive to observe that no sooner had the ecclesiastical system recently paramount received a blow, than dissent, so long repressed, began to make itself heard. Nicoll notes that ‘much hypocrisy and falset formerly hid did now break out amang our Scots, wha, leaving their former principles of religion, became papists and atheists.’ Many sought favour with the English by supporting their rule, advising that liberty of conscience which was regarded with such abhorrence by the Scottish church, and calling for a restraint to be put upon the power of presbyteries as ‘anti-Christian and tyrannical.’ ‘Others vilipend the Covenant, holding it lawful for all men to break it, as being ane human institution;’ at the same time denouncing many of the clergy as not worthy to teach, declaring the Sabbath to be unnecessary, and propounding that children should not be baptised ‘till they could give confession of their faith.’
About April 1652, we begin to find dissent taking recognisable forms. There were now Antinomians, Antitrinitarians, Familists,[156] and Seekers, as well as Brownists, Independents, and Erastians. Where there had formerly been no avowed Anabaptists, there were now many, ‘sae that thrice in the week—namely, on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday—there were some dippit at Bonnington Mill, betwixt Leith and Edinburgh, both men and women of good rank. Some days there would be sundry hundred persons attending that action, and fifteen persons baptised in one day by the Anabaptists.’ Among the converts was ‘the Lady Craigie Wallace, a lady in the west country.’—Nic. In autumn, at Cupar, Mr Brown, preacher to Fairfax’s regiment, re-baptised several of the soldiers ‘in the Eden, near to Airdrie’s lodging, by dipping them over head and ears, many of the inhabitants looking on.’—Lam.
1652. Mar.
1652.
The Castle of Dunnottar was now almost the only place of strength in the kingdom which resisted the English arms. It held out with a small garrison under the command of George Ogilvie of Barras, whose anxiety to maintain his post was increased by the consideration that within these sea-girt walls rested the regalia of the kingdom—the crown, sceptre, and sword of state—which had been consigned by the Committee of Estates to this fort, under the care of the Earl Marischal, as being the strongest place in the kingdom that remained untaken after the reduction of Edinburgh Castle. For many months, Ogilvie and his little garrison had defied the English forces; but now it was likely that he could not hold out much longer—in which case, of course, the regalia must fall into the hands of the enemy. The Earl Marischal had been taken with the Committee of Estates at Alyth, and shipped off to London as a prisoner. He contrived, however, to send by a private hand the key of the closet in which the regalia lay, to his mother, the Dowager-countess, who by the advice of her son, opened a communication with Mr James Grainger, minister of Kineff, a person in whom the family reposed great faith, with a view to his assisting in the conveying away of the precious ‘honours.’ The minister and his wife, Christian Fletcher [posterity will desire the preservation of her whole name], entered heartily into the wishes of the countess.[157] Mrs Grainger, by permission of the English commander, visiting the wife of the governor of the castle, received from that lady, but without the knowledge of her husband, the crown into her lap. The sceptre and sword, wrapped up in a bundle of hards or lint, were placed on the back of a female attendant. When Mrs Grainger and her maid returned through the beleaguering camp, it appeared as if she were taking away some lint to be spun for Mrs Ogilvie. So far from suspecting any trick, the English officer on duty is said to have helped Mrs Grainger upon her horse. The castle was rendered three months afterwards, when great was the rage of the English on finding that the regalia were gone. It was adroitly given out that they had been carried beyond sea by Sir John Keith, a younger brother of the earl, and handed to King Charles at Paris.
1652.
In reality, on reaching the manse of Kineff, Mrs Grainger had delivered the crown, sceptre, and sword to her husband, who took the earliest opportunity of burying them under the floor of his church, imparting the secret of their concealment to no one but the Countess Marischal. To the credit of the worthy minister and his wife, they preserved their secret inviolate till the Restoration, eight years afterwards, when ‘the honours’ were exhumed, and replaced under proper custody. An order of the Scottish parliament, dated January 11, 1661, rewarded Mrs Grainger with two thousand merks; Ogilvie was created a baronet; while Sir John Keith, whose immediate concern in the affair does not appear to have been great, was made Knight Marischal of Scotland, with a salary of £400 yearly; to which rewards was added in 1677 a peerage under the title of Earl of Kintore.[158]
‘In these times, the English commanders had great respect to justice, and in doing execution upon malefactors, such as thieves, harlots, and others of that kind, by scourging, hanging, kicking, cutting off their ears, and stigmating of them with het irons.’—Nic.
The diarist acknowledges that the English judicature established at Leith condemned the native one by its impartiality, suitors returning from it ‘with great contentment.’ He adds: ‘To speak the truth, the English were more indulgent and merciful to the Scots nor the Scots were their awn countrymen and neighbours. They filled up the rooms of justice-courts with very honest clerks,’ &c.
Mar. 29.
Being Monday, a celebrated eclipse of the sun took place between eight and eleven in the morning, with a perfectly clear sky. ‘The whole body of the sun did appear to us as if it had been covered with the moon; only there was a circle about the sun that appeared somewhat clear without any light [the corona?]. At that time there did a star appear in the firmament, near to the place of the eclipse.’ ‘There was ane manifest darkness for the space of some moments.’—Lam. ‘The time of the eclipse it was exceedingly fearful and dark, to the terror of many.’—Nic. Another account says, the darkness continued about eight minutes, and the people began to pray to God.[159] ‘The like, as thought by astrologers, was not since the darkness at our Lord’s passion. The country people, tilling, loosed their ploughs, and thought it had been the latter day.... The birds clapped to the ground.’—Law. The day of this eclipse was long remembered, under the name of Mirk Mononday.
Apr. 20.
1652.
Died at the Wemyss in Fife, Eleanour Fleming, Countess of Wemyss, without children. She had been married to her husband only two years, but in that time had made him, if report spoke true, ‘a hundred thousand merk worse’ than before. ‘She caused her husband give a free discharge to her brother, the Lord Fleming, of her whole tocher, being about twenty thousand merks Scots, before any of it was paid to him. She caused her husband and her brother to give Mr Patrick Gillespie a bond of four thousand merks.... She caused also a door to be strucken through the wall of her chamber, for to go to the wine-cellar; for she had, as is said by many, a great desire after strong drink.’—Lam. Verily, a trying sort of lady for a quiet nobleman like Lord Wemyss, who nevertheless ventured on a third wife before the year was out—the mother of Anne Duchess of Monmouth.
June 17.
‘It pleased God to lay the town of Glasgow desolate by a violent and sudden fire.... The far best part of the fore streets and most considerable buildings were burnt, together with above fourscore lanes and closes, which were the dwellings of above a thousand families, and almost all the shops and warehouses of the merchants, many whereof are near by ruined. Besides, a great many more of widows, orphans, and distressed honest families, having lost what they had, are now put to starving and begging. The like of this fire has not been formerly heard of in this nation.’—Nic. ‘It was said 1060 houses burnt.’—C. P. H.
Five days after this fire, the Town Council appointed ‘the provost, with John Bell, to ride to Ayr, to the English officers there, wha has been here and seen the town’s lamentable condition—such as Colonel Overton and others—and to obtein from them letters of recommendation to such officers or judges who sits in Edinburgh, to the effect that the same may be recommendit by them to the parliament of England, that all help and supply may be gotten thereby that may be, for the supply of such as has their lands and guids burnt.’[160]
It must have been with a sore heart that the newly subjugated city of the west condescended to beg from the parliament of the sectaries. The case, however, was one of extreme misery, for the resources of Scotland, and of the west as much as anywhere, had been exhausted by the war, so that without foreign help it must have been impossible to repair the calamity.
Little more than four years after this period, Robert Baillie speaks of Glasgow as much revived. ‘Our people,’ he says, ‘has much more trade in comparison than any other: their buildings increase strangely both for number and fairness.’ He adds, that in his time the city had been more than doubled.
July.
1652.
In a General Assembly which sat at Edinburgh, sixty-five of the clergy protested against the lawfulness of the last General Assemblies, in which resolutions in favour of the king had been sanctioned. Andrew Cant, Samuel Rutherford, and Robert Traill were the leaders of this zealous faction—the Protesters or Remonstrators—against whom the censures of the kirk were threatened by the majority in vain. By this schism, the hitherto admired unity of the Scottish kirk was broken up, and henceforth, for several years, there scarcely ever was a meeting of any of its courts unmarked by scenes of indecent violence. At a synod held at Glasgow in October, two days being spent in contentions about the choice of a moderator, the meeting dissolved without attempting any other business.—Nic. Not long after, when the General Assembly ordered a fast for the sins of the nation, and because ‘few were seeking the things of Jesus Christ,’ the Remonstrators disallowed it, and appointed among themselves ‘a day of humiliation for that humiliation.’ In all matters regarding the settlement of ministers in parishes, there was furious and uncompromising war for a series of years between the two parties.
This summer was remarkable for clear, dry, warm weather, parching up the herbage, and producing exceedingly light crops on the best lands. The harvest commenced in June, and in a field near Dundee there were stooks on the 7th of July. At the end of July and beginning of August, the harvest was general; and before the end of the latter month, all was ‘in’—circumstances unexampled, and which have perhaps never again occurred. ‘The pease wallowed [that is, faded in the bloom] a fortnight before Lammas, whereas some years they continue till Michaelmas.’—Lam. ‘All the corn was got in without rain, and long before the usual time. The like harvest was in England.’ ‘It is truly reported that in England there was such abundance of white butterflies as was never heard of before. They destroyed all cabbage; and divers cobles coming from sea, hardly could see the land for them.’—Nic.
The summer ‘produced ripe wine-berries and grapes, and abundance of Scotch chestanes openly sauld at the Mercat Cross of Edinburgh, and baken in pasties at banquets.’—Nic.
1652.
The weather, strange to say, remained of the same character all the latter part of the year, so that fruit-trees had a second blossoming in November, and some of them brought forth fruit, ‘albeit not in perfection.’ The furze and broom bloomed again; the violet, not due till March, presented its modest head in November. Birds began to build their nests, and lay eggs, at or near Martinmas, and salads and sybows were cried and sold in Edinburgh on the 27th of November.—Nic.
The letters sent home by the English soldiery now marching through the Highlands, describe the country as mountainous, yet the valleys rich; the houses of earth and turf so low that the horsemen sometimes rode over them; the people generally going with plaids about their middles, both men and women; ‘simple and ignorant in the things of God, and some of them as brutish as heathens;’ nevertheless, ‘some did hear the English preachers with great attention and groaning.’[161]
In some churches in Fife, as Kirkcaldy and Kennoway, the English soldiers ‘did pull down the stool of repentance; they did sit in them also, in contempt, in some places where they came, in time of sermon.’ Several ministers were openly challenged for their expressions in prayers and sermons, by these soldiers. Mr George Hamilton at Pittenweem was so troubled by some of Fairfax’s regiment, that he had to break off; ‘at which time there was great uproar in the church there.’—Lam.
Aug.
The Earl of Crawford, having been taken by the English at Alyth a twelvemonth before, now lay a prisoner in the Tower. The countess—a sister of the late Duke of Hamilton—desiring to visit her husband in his affliction, left Scotland for the purpose in a stage-coach which had recently been established for the keeping up of communication between the two countries—‘the journey coach,’ says Lamont, ‘that comes ordinarily between England and Scotland.’ We do not learn the periods of departure, or any other detail regarding this vehicle; but from a paragraph which occurs under May 1658, we may presume that it did not go oftener than once in three weeks, and charged for a seat fully as much as a first-class railway ticket of the present day.
Sep. 30.
‘There came into the very brig of Leith ane little whale, which rendered much profit to the English.’—Nic.
1652.
This ‘little whale’ would probably be a stray member of a flock of the Delphinus globioceps, which so frequently are embayed and slaughtered in Zetland and the Faröe Islands. The appearance of such an animal in Leith harbour is an event of a very rare character.
Oct.
Four English gentlemen, Messrs George Smith, John Martin, Andrew Owen, and Edward Mosley, the commissioners appointed by Cromwell for the administration of justice in Scotland in place of the Court of Session, commenced their labours in the criminal department at Edinburgh. Three days were spent in the trial and fining of persons of impure life, of whom there were above sixty brought before the judges in a day. ‘It is observable,’ says an English newspaper of the time, ‘that such is the malice of these people, that most of them were accused for facts done divers years since, and the chief proof against them was their own confession before the kirk, who are in this worse than the Roman religion, who do not make so ill a use of their auricular confession. Some of the facts were committed five, ten, nay, twenty years. There was one Ephraim Bennet, a gunner in Leith, indicted, convicted, and condemned for coining sixpences, shillings, and half-crowns. Also two Englishmen, Wilkinson and Newcome, condemned for robbing three men, and for killing a Scottishman near Haddington in March last. But that which is most observable is, that some were brought before them for witches, two whereof had been brought before the kirk about the time of the armies coming into Scotland, and having confessed, were turned over to the civil magistrate. The court demanding how they came to be proved witches, they declared they were forced to it by the exceeding torture they were put to, which was by tying their thumbs behind them, and then hanging them up by them: two Highlanders whipped them, after which they set lighted candles to the soles of their feet, and between their toes, then burned them by putting lighted candles in their mouths, and then burning them in the head: there were six of them accused in all, four whereof died of the torture.... Another woman that was suspected, according to their thoughts, to be a witch, was twenty-eight days and nights with bread and water, being stripped stark naked, and laid upon a cold stone, with only a haircloth over her. Others had hair-shirts dipped in vinegar put on them, to fetch off the skin.’—Mercurius Politicus.[162] The resolution of the judges to inquire into these cruelties is intimated.
1652.
Regarding a man accused of witchcraft, it is mentioned a few days later by the same newspaper, that he first confessed a number of ridiculous things, including frequent converse with the devil, but before the judges he denied all, and said that he had only been in a dream. ‘The truth is, he lived in so poor a condition, that he confessed or rather said anything that was put into his head.... By this you may guess upon what grounds many hundreds have heretofore been burnt in this country for witches.’ A most pregnant remark, truly.
Whitelocke intimates letters from Scotland at this time, stating that sixty persons, men and women, had been accused of witchcraft before the commissioners for the administration of justice in Scotland at the last circuit; but ‘they found so much malice and so little proof against them, that none were condemned.’[163]
The Scottish civil bench having not long been free from an evil reputation for budds or bribes, and to the last liable to the charge of partiality, it is alleged that the English judges rather surprised the public by their equitable decisions. It is added that some one, in a subsequent age, was lauding to the Lord-president Gilmour, the remarkable impartiality of these judges and the general equity of their proceedings, when the Scottish judge answered in his rough way: ‘Deil thank them, they had neither kith nor kin!‘[164]
1653. Feb. 11.
A person who was ‘both man and woman, a thing not ordinar in this kingdom,’ was hanged at Edinburgh on account of some irregularities of conduct. ‘His custom was always to go in a woman’s habit.’—Lam. This person passed by the name of Margaret Rannie. ‘When opened by certain doctors and apothecaries, [he] was found to be two every way, having two hearts, two livers, two every inward thing....’—C. P. H. The same day, an old man was burnt for warlockry, ‘wha had come in and rendered himself to prison, confessing his sin, and willing that justice be execute on him, for safety of his saul.’—Nic.
June.
Early in this month, a number of pellochs or porpoises were thrown ashore dead on the coast of Fife; ‘whilk was taken to be very ominous.’—Nic.
1653. July 20.
1653.
The humiliation of the ecclesiastical system of Scotland, lately so triumphant, was this day completed by the breaking up of the General Assembly at the order of Cromwell. The court had met in Edinburgh, and the moderator, Mr David Dickson, had prayed and begun to call the roll, when ‘there comes in two lieutenant-colonels of the English forces, and desired them to be silent, for they had something to speak to them. So one of the lieutenant-colonels [Cotterell] began to ask them by what authority they met—if by authority of the late parliament, or by authority of the commander-in-chief, or if by the authority of their late king? [Mr David Dickson, the moderator of the former assembly, ‘said to him: “Sir, you ask by what authority we sit here; we sit, not as having authority from any power on earth, but as having power and authority from Jesus Christ; and by him, and for him, and for the good of his church, do we sit.” Cotterell answered: “You are to sit no more;” whereby he declared himself, and them that employed him, enemies to Christ.’—C. P. H.]... He desired further, that all the names of the members of the assembly might be given him. The moderator replied that they could not give them, because they were not called; but if he would have a little patience till they called the roll, he should have them. He answered, if it were not longsome, he should do it. So the moderator began at the presbytery of Argyle, to examine their commission. Here the English officer replied that that would prove tedious, so that he could not wait upon it, but desired them to remove and begone; and if they would not, he had instructions what to do. [‘He would drag us out of the room.’—Bail.] Upon this the moderator protested, in the name of the assembly, that they were Christ’s court, and that any violence or injury done to them might not hinder any meeting of theirs when convenient occasion should offer itself. He desired they might pray a little before they dissolved. The moderator began prayer; and after he had spoken five or six sentences, the English officer desired them again to be gone. Notwithstanding, the moderator went on in prayer, but was forced at length to break off. So they arose and came forth. [‘When we had entered a protestation of this unexampled violence, we did rise and follow him; he led us through the streets a mile out of town, encompassing us with foot-companies of musketeers and horsemen without; all the people gazing and mourning as at the saddest spectacle they had ever seen.’—Bail.] They were guarded on both hands up the way to the Weigh-house, where they were carried along to the Port, and thence to the Quarry Holes [Bruntsfield Links], where they made them to stand. The English required again all their names; they said they were most willing. So they told all their names. So the moderator protested again at that place. After their names were written, they discharged them to meet again, under the pain of being breakers of the peace.... The English desired them to go back to Edinburgh and lodge there all night, and be gone before eight o’clock next day; and discharged that not above two of them should be seen together.’—Nic.
‘The day following, by sound of trumpet, we were commanded off the town, under pain of present imprisonment. Thus our General Assembly, the glory and strength of our church, is crushed and trod under foot. Our hearts are sad, our eyes run down with water, we sigh to God against whom we have sinned, and wait for the help of his hand.’—Bail.
The suppression of the supreme church-court was followed (August 4) by a proclamation at Edinburgh, ‘discharging the ministry to pray for the king, or to preach anything against the title of England to Scotland. Mr Robert Lawrie, in his prayer, prayed for the king. When he came from the pulpit, he was carried to the Castle, but stayed short while, because an Englishman would be caution that he should answer whenever he should be called. Notwithstanding, the ministry, finding it a duty lying on them by the Covenants, continued all of them praying for the king, and gave their reasons for it to the English commissioners.’—C. P. H.
(Sep.)
The heat of the summer 1652, and the earliness of the harvest, had not been attended with such plenty as to produce extraordinary cheapness. During this summer of 1653, wheat was £1, 5s. sterling per boll, and the inferior grains about 20s. An excellent crop having been secured, ‘the prices fell strangely, so that from Michaelmas till the end of the year, oats were at [6s. 8d.] per boll, and wheat [11s. 8d. and 13s. 4d.].’—Lam.
The Trembling Exies—that is, ague—was this year ‘exceeding frequent through all parts of this nation, in such condition as was never seen before ... the smallpox also, whereof many people, both old and young, perished.’—Nic.
Dec.
1653.
The gallant resistance made to the English by the loyal forces under Lord Kenmure, in the north of Scotland, was heard of with much interest by Charles II. and his little court at Paris. Amongst other adherents of royalty assembled there, was a Welsh gentleman of about twenty-three years of age, styled Captain Wogan, who, entering in mere boyhood into the service of the parliament under General Ireton, had been converted by the king’s death, and since distinguished himself in the loyal movements made in Ireland under the Marquis of Ormond. Wogan was one of those ardent spirits whom Montrose would have been delighted to associate in his enterprises. He now planned an expedition of a most extraordinary nature. He proposed nothing less than to march, with such as would join him, through the length of England and Lowland Scotland, in order to take part in the guerrilla war going on in the Highlands. Clarendon tells how reluctant the young king was to sanction so mad an undertaking; but at length he was induced to give it his countenance.
Captain Wogan accordingly landed with a few companions at Dover, and, proceeding to London, there went about engaging associates and making needful preparations, without attracting the notice of the republican government. The men and horses being rendezvoused at Barnet, Wogan commenced his march for the north with an armed troop, which passed everywhere as if it were a part of the regular army. By easy journeys, but keeping as much as possible out of common roads, they reached Durham, and thence advanced into Scotland by Peebles. It appears that one of their first adventures in Scotland was to pass through a fair in open day.[165] Monk, hearing on a Sunday of their having been on the preceding night at Peebles, caused parties from Linlithgow, Stirling, and Glasgow to keep a look-out; but the people of the country did not help the English soldiery with intelligence, and this net was spread in vain.[166] Wogan succeeded in conducting his troop in perfect safety into the Highlands.
1653.
This gallant little party met a cordial reception, and immediately entered with the greatest activity into the war of skirmishes and surprises which was then going on. The chief of the Camerons, the gallant Evan Dhu, hailed in Wogan a kindred spirit, and joined in some of his enterprises.[167] No garrison within many miles of the Highland frontier was secure from their inroads. Their united names became a terror to the English. But one winter month of Highland campaigning formed the entire career of Wogan. A lieutenant’s party of the veteran regiment known as the Brazen Wall, left the garrison at Drummond one day, to recover some sheep which had been carried away by the Highlanders. It became enclosed unawares in a superior force of the enemy, of which Wogan and his troop formed part. The Brazen Walls got off with a severe loss; but Wogan had received a wound in the shoulder from a tuck. It was such an affair as a good surgeon and a week of quiet might have healed—the circumstances of the poor youth made it mortal in a few days, to the great grief of all who knew him.[168] He was buried with military honours, and amidst the greatest demonstrations of Highland sorrow, in the churchyard of Kenmore[169] (about February 1, 1654). ‘Great indignation was there,’ says Heath, ‘against Robinson, the surgeon that dressed him, for his neglect of him, the Earl of Athole having threatened to kill him; so dearly was this hero beloved by that nation.’ The hope of this English author ‘that some grateful muse should sing his achievements,’ has not as yet been realised; but the readers of Waverley will remember how the author represents his hero as gloating over Flora M‘Ivor’s verses To an Oak-tree said to mark the Grave of Captain Wogan:
‘Emblem of England’s ancient faith,
Full proudly may thy branches wave,
Where loyalty lies low in death,
And valour fills a timeless grave.
Thy death-hour heard no kindred wail,
No holy knell thy requiem rung,
Thy mourners were the plaided Gael,
Thy dirge the clamorous pibroch sung.
Yet who, in Fortune’s summer tide,
To waste life’s longest term away,
Would change that glorious dawn of thine,
Though darkened ere its noontide day?’
1654. Mar.
From October by-past to this date, the weather was dry and fair to such a degree as to make the period like a second summer. Nicoll states that, in all that time, there had not been above six showers of wet or snow, and two of these fell on Sundays.
1654. May 4.
General Monk coming down to Edinburgh to take command of the forces against Glencairn and Kenmure, and to proclaim Oliver’s union of Scotland and England, had a most honourable reception. ‘The provost and bailies in their scarlet gowns met him at the Nether Bow Port, the haill council in order going before them.’ After the proclamation, they ‘did convoy him to a sumptuous dinner and feast, prepared by the town of Edinburgh for him and his special crowners [colonels]. This feast was six days in preparing, whereat the bailies of Edinburgh did stand and serve the haill time of that dinner.’ ‘There was great preparation for firewarks, whilk was actit at the Mercat Cross betwixt nine and twelve hours in the nicht, to the admiration of many people.’—Nic.
Next day was proclaimed an act of grace, forfaulting the heirs of the Duke of Hamilton and some score of other nobles, and imposing huge fines upon sundry others; for example, £15,000 on the heirs of the Earl of Buccleuch, £10,000 on the Earl of Panmure, £6000 on the Earl of Roxburgh, £5000 on the Earl of Perth, and the latter sum and other sums down to £1000 on upwards of fifty others, noblemen and gentlemen [these sums being of sterling money].
If, as has been insinuated by cavalier writers, the Scotch nobles were prompted in their joining the religious movement of 1637 by a fear of the revocation of church-lands, they were now suffering a severe punishment for their hypocrisy. Under the late exhausting wars, in which they had incurred vast expenses, and the penal fines imposed on them by Cromwell, they might well be described by a contemporary writer as nearly all ‘wracked.’ Our authority sums them up in the following terms:
1654.
‘Dukes Hamilton, the one execute, the other slain; their [e]state forfault[ed]; one part gifted to English sogers; the rest will not pay the debt. Huntly execute; his sons all dead but the youngest; there is more debt on the house nor the land can pay. Lennox is living, as a man buried, in his house of Cobham. Douglas and his son Arran are quiet men of no respect. Argyle almost drowned in debt, in friendship with the English, but in hatred with the country. Chancellor Loudon lives like an outlaw about Athole, his lands comprised for debt, under a general very great disgrace. Marischal, Rothes, Eglintoun and his three sons, Crawford, Lauderdale, and others, prisoners in England, and their lands all either sequestrat or forfault[ed], and gifted to English sogers. Balmerino suddenly dead, and his son, for public debt, comprisings, and captions, keeps not the causey [that is, cannot appear in public].’
Landed proprietors, merchants, and indeed the entire community, were now in a state of prostration in consequence of the wars. According to the diarist Nicoll—‘The poverty of the land daily increased, by reason of inlaik of trade and traffic, both by sea and land, the people being poor and under cess, quarterings, and other burdens. Falsets and dyvours [bankrupts] daily increased; sundry of good rank, nobles, gentry, and burgesses, denuncit to the horn, their escheats taken, their persons imprisoned, and deteinit therein till their death. Bankrupts and broken men, through all parts of the nation, for fear of caption and warding, were forced to flie to Glencairn and Kenmure, who were now in arms against the English.’
In April of this year, an additional trouble and burden fell upon the people, in consequence of the royalist insurrections, no person being now allowed to travel from home without a pass, for which a shilling sterling was charged. Scotland must have then been in much the same condition as Hungary and Lombardy were under the Austrians after 1848.
The summer of this year was exceedingly fine, producing ripe peas and cherries at the beginning of June, and yielding an early and abundant harvest; so that the best oatmeal was only fourpence sterling per peck. ‘The lambs and fowls were also at ane exceeding cheap rate’ (Nic.), and it is also stated that, from the abundance of herrings in the west seas, these fish were sold so low as twopence a hundred. Cheese was, in the west country, at 2s. 6d. sterling per stone.—Caldwell Papers. This bounty of Providence is not spoken of by contemporary journalists as abating in any degree the sufferings of the people—though these, we cannot doubt, would have been much greater if there had been a dearth. Just at this time, Nicoll returns to the subject of the general distresses of the country. ‘Much people,’ he says, ‘were brought to misery,’ and the land ‘groaned under its calamities and burdens.’
1654.
Owing to the drought of the summer, the wells on which Edinburgh depended for water ran dry, ‘sae that the inhabitants could not get sufficient for ordering their meat.’ Nevertheless, ‘all the west country had more than ordinar abundance of rain and weet.’—Nic. The same writer adds afterwards that the people of Edinburgh were obliged to go a mile before they could get any clean water, ‘either for brewing of ale, or for their pot meat.’
June.
This seems to have been the time when the word Tories, since so notable, was introduced into our island. It had been first applied to a set of predatory outlaws in Ireland. Thus becoming familiar as a term for brigands, it naturally was applied to a number of irregular soldiers connected with the insurgent army of the Earl of Glencairn, who, according to Nicoll, lay in holes and other private places, and robbed and spoiled all who fell into their hands, ‘ofttimes with the purse cutting the throat of the awner.’ The English troops bestirred themselves to capture these Tories, and in July, eight were taken out of the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, and as many out of the Canongate jail, besides others from Perth and Dundee, and shipped at Leith to be taken and sold as slaves in Barbadoes.—Nic.
Sep. 4.
Andrew Hill, musician, was tried for the abduction of a young pupil, Marion Foulis, daughter of Foulis of Ravelston. One of the many specific charges against this base fellow was, that ‘he used sorceries and enchantments—namely, roots and herbs—with which he boasted that he could gain the affection of any woman he pleased, and which he used towards the said Marion.’ The jury, while condemning him for the main offence, acquitted him of sorcery, though finding that he had been ‘a foolish boaster of his skill in herbs and roots for captivating women.’ While the judges delayed for fifteen days to pass doom upon the culprit, he was ‘eaten of vermin in prison, and so died.’[170]
1654.
It was surely a very perverse love of the supernatural which caused our ancestors to surmise the use of sorcery whenever Cupid played any extraordinary trick. At a later time, when the Earl of Rothes, his majesty’s commissioner, defied scandal in going about openly with Lady Anne Gordon, it was thought he had been bewitched by her. It was also believed that the Duke of Monmouth was spell-bound to Lady Henrietta Wentworth, the charm being lodged in that golden toothpick case which he sent to her from the scaffold. The means, however, thought to be most commonly employed was a love-philter. In 1682, James Aikenhead, apothecary in Edinburgh, was pursued before the Privy Council for ‘selling poisonous and amorous drugs and philters, whereby a woman had narrowly escaped with her life, had not Doctor Irving given her ane antidote.’ On this occasion, the case being referred to the College of Physicians, that sapient body pronounced that it was ‘not safe to give such medicaments, without first taking their own advice.’—Fount.
So lately as 1659, a Scotch gentleman is found communicating to a friend a receipt for that Powder of Sympathy which in a somewhat earlier age in England was held as qualified for the cure of wounds. It was in the following terms: ‘Take of asphodel Romano, and set it under the sun in the canicular days till it become in white ashes, or like white powder. That done, put it in a box. Then to apply: Take the blood or matter of the wound, on a clean linen, and lay on a little of the powder to the blood or matter; and keep the cloth in a box, where it may neither get much cold nor much heat. This done, dress the wounded person every day once, and keep always linen cloths above the wound. But let no linen cloth which hath been used or worn by any woman come near the powder or wounded person. Observe this secret, and keep it to yourself.’[171]
Oct.
In the course of this month, a number of hares came into the city of Edinburgh, even into its central parts, the High Street and Parliament Close, ‘to the great admiration of many.’ ‘The like was never heard nor seen before.’—Nic. This singular circumstance was probably in some way a consequence of the dry nature of the season.
Nov.
At this time commenced the series of alleged incidents constituting the once famous history of the Devil of Glenluce.
1654.
A poor weaver, named Gilbert Campbell, at Glenluce in Galloway, had given offence to a sturdy beggar, named Agnew, ‘a most wicked and avowed atheist, for which he was hanged at Dumfries.’ The wretch went away muttering that he would do the family a mischief. Whether before or after Agnew’s death does not appear, the weaver and his family began to be annoyed with whistling noises, and by petty acts of mischief—as the mislaying and destroying of little articles, and the throwing of stones and peats, all by unseen hands. Their clothes were sometimes drawn from them as they lay in bed. At the suggestion of some neighbours, Campbell sent away his children, and for the time peace ensued. So it was, after all except Tom had been brought back, and not so after Tom had returned likewise; but, to shew that this was a point of indifference, when Tom had been again sent away in the keeping of the minister of the parish, the annoyances recommenced. This lad, it may be remarked, said he had heard a voice warning him not to go back to his father’s house; and when he did return, he was ‘sore abused,’ and thus once more driven away.
1654.
In February, the family began to hear a voice speak to them, but could not tell whence it came. ‘They came at length in familiar discourse with the foul thief, that they were no more afraid to keep up the clash with him, than to speak with one another; in this they pleased him well, for he desired no better than to have sacrifices offered to him. The minister, hearing of this, went to the house upon the Tuesday, being accompanied by some gentlemen; one James Bailie of Carphin, Alexander Bailie of Dunragget, Mr Robert Hay, and a gentlewoman called Mrs Douglas, with the minister’s wife, did accompany. At their first coming in, the devil says: “Quam literarum is good Latin.” These are the first words of the Latin Rudiments, which scholars are taught when they go to the grammar-school. He cries again: “A dog!” The minister, thinking he had spoken it to him, said: “He took it not ill to be reviled by Satan, since his Master had trodden that path before him.” Answered Satan: “It was not you, sir, I spoke to; I meant the dog there;” for there was a dog standing behind backs. This passing, they all went to prayer; which being ended, they heard a voice speaking out of the ground, from under the bed, in the proper country dialect, which he did counterfeit exactly, saying: “Would you know the witches of Glenluce? I will tell you them;” and so related four or five persons’ names that went under a bad report. The weaver informed the company that one of them was dead long ago. The devil answered and said: “It is true she is dead long ago, but her spirit is living with us in the world.” The minister replied, saying (though it was not convenient to speak to such an excommunicated and intercommuned person): “The Lord rebuke thee, Satan, and put thee to silence; we are not to receive information from thee, whatsoever name any person goes under; thou art seeking but to seduce this family, for Satan’s kingdom is not divided against itself.” After which, all went to prayer again, which being ended—for during the time of prayer no noise or trouble was made, except once that a loud fearful yell was heard at a distance, the devil threatening and terrifying the lad Tom, who had come back that day with the minister, “that if he did not depart out of the house, he would set all on fire”—says the minister: “The Lord will preserve the house, and the lad too, seeing he is one of the family, and had God’s warrant to tarry in it.” The fiend answered: “He shall not get liberty to tarry; he was once put out already, and shall not abide here, though I should pursue him to the end of the world.” The minister replied: “The Lord will stop thy malice against him.” And then they all went to prayer again; which being ended, the devil said: “Give me a spade and a shovel, and depart from the house for seven days, and I will make a grave, and lie down in it, and shall trouble you no more.” The goodman answered: “Not so much as a straw shall be given thee, through God’s assistance, even though that would do it.” The minister also added: “God shall remove thee in due time.” The spirit answered: “I will not remove for you; I have my commission from Christ to tarry and vex this family.” The minister answered: “A permission thou hast indeed, but God will stop it in due time.” The devil replied: “I have, sir, a commission, which perhaps will last longer than your own.” [The minister died in the year 1655, in December.] The devil had told them “that he had given his commission to Tom to keep.” The company inquired at the lad, who said: “There was something put into his pocket, but it did not tarry.”’
After a great deal of the like talk with the unseen tormentor, ending with a declaration from him that he was an evil spirit come from the bottomless pit to vex this house, and that Satan was his father, ‘there appeared a naked hand, and an arm from the elbow down, beating upon the floor till the house did shake again.’ This the minister attested, and also that he heard the voice, saying: ‘Saw you that? It was not my hand—it was my father’s; my hand is more black in the loof [palm].’
1654.
Sinclair, who relates these things,[172] states that he received them from a son of Campbell who was at Glasgow College with him. ‘I must here insert,’ he adds, ‘what I heard from one of the ministers of that presbytery, who were appointed to meet at the weaver’s house for prayer and other exercises of that kind. When the day came, five only met; but, before they went in, they stood a while in the croft, which lies round about the house, consulting what to do. They resolved upon two things: First, There should be no words of conjuration used, as commanding him in the name of God to tell whence he was, or to depart from the family, for which they thought they had no call from God; Secondly, That when the devil spoke, none should answer him, but hold on in their worshipping of God, and the duties they were called to. When all of them had prayed by turns, and three of them had spoken a word or two from the Scripture, they prayed again, and then ended, without any disturbance. When that brother who informed me had gone out, one Hugh Nisbit, one of the company, came running after him, desiring him to come back, for he had begun to whistle. “No,” says the other, “I tarried as long as God called me; but go in again I will not.” After this, the said Gilbert suffered much loss, and had many sad nights, not two nights in one week free; and thus it continued until April. From April to July, he had some respite and ease; but after, he was molested with new assaults. Even their victuals were so abused, that the family was in hazard of starving; and that which they ate gave them not their ordinary satisfaction they were wont to find.
1654.
‘In this sore and sad affliction, Gilbert Campbell resolved to make his address to the synod of presbyters, for advice and counsel what to do, which was appointed to convene in October 1655—namely, Whether to forsake the house or not? The synod, by their committee, appointed to meet at Glenluce in February 1656, thought it fit that a solemn humiliation should be kept through all the bounds of the synod; and, among other causes, to request God in behalf of that afflicted family; which being done carefully, the event was, that his trouble grew less till April, and from April to August he was altogether free. About which time the devil began with new assaults; and taking the ready meat which was in the house, did sometimes hide it in holes by the doorposts, and at other times hid it under the beds, and sometimes among the bed-clothes, and under the linens, and at last did carry it quite away, till nothing was left there save bread and water. This minds me of a small passage in proof of what it said. The goodwife one morning making pottage for the children’s breakfast, had the tree-plate wherein the meal lay snatched from her quickly. “Well,” says she, “let me have my plate again;” whereupon it came flying at her, without any skaith done. It is like, if she had sought the meal too, she might have got it; such is his civility when he is entreated; a small homage will please him, ere he went. After this, he exercised his malice and cruelty against all persons in the family, in wearying them in the night-time, by stirring and moving through the house, so that they had no rest for noise, which continued all the month of August after this manner. After which time the devil grew yet worse, by roaring and terrifying, by casting of stones, by striking them with staves on their bed in the night-time. And (September 18) about midnight, he cried out with a loud voice, “I shall burn the house.” And about three or four nights after, he set one of the beds on fire, which was soon put out, without any prejudice except the bed itself.’
Robert Baillie, writing to his friend Mr Spang at Rotterdam in 1659, answers an inquiry of his correspondent regarding ‘the apparition in Galloway,’ stating that it is ‘notourly known.’ He adds a short narrative of the chief particulars, informing us that for a twelvemonth the apparition had been silent.
It is the first, but not the only case of such spiritual visitations, which is reported as occurring in Scotland during the seventeenth century: another, which happened at Rerrick in the stewartry of Kirkcudbright in 1695, attracted great attention. The Glenluce and Rerrick spirits belong to a class familiar in Germany under the name of Poltergeist. In Beaumont’s Gleanings of Antiquities, 1724, the author quotes from Aventinus’s Annals of Bavaria a case of poltergeist resembling in many circumstances this Glenluce one. ‘This pestilent and wicked genius, taking a human shape, gave answers, discovered thefts, accused many of crimes, and set a mark of infamy on them, stirred up discords and ill-will among them. By degrees, he set fire to and burned down cottages, but was more troublesome to one man than the rest,’ &c.
1655. Jan.
Baillie, writing a little before this time, laments ‘the abolition of almost all our church liberties.’ By the putting down of our General Assemblies and Kirk Commission, licence had been given, he says, to ‘any who will to profess grievous errors.’ This, where ‘we expected a full and perfect reformation, does oft break our heart.’ It has already been seen that, so soon as the incoming of the English sectaries had to some degree checked the ‘church liberties,’ dissent had begun to appear in various forms. We now hear of off-breakings of a kind more alarming than ever.
1655.
There arose at this time—to use the language of a contemporary—‘great numbers of that damnable sect of the Quakers, who, being deluded by Satan, drew away mony to their profession, both men and women.’[173] ‘They, in a furious way, cry down both ministry and magistracy. Some of them seem actually possessed by a devil; their fury, their irrational passions, and convulsions are so great.’[174] ‘Sundry of them walking through the streets, all naked except their shirts, crying: “This is the way, walk ye in it;” others crying out: “The day of salvation is at hand; draw near to the Lord, for the sword of the Lord is drawn, and will not be put up till the enemies of the Lord be destroyed.”’
1655.
Under the same mania, several of the English soldiers and certain of the native inhabitants created disturbances in the churches of Edinburgh, calling on the people not to believe the false doctrine which was preached to them. ‘The devil, working strongly upon their imaginations, made them to believe that the Spirit descendit upon them like ane dow; carried them from one place to another, and made mony of them cry out: “I am the way, the truth, and the life,”’ and ‘make circles about them[selves] with their hands, with many like actions.’ The devil also told them he was ‘putting aff the old man, that the stones were taken out of their hearts, and they had now got hearts of flesh.’ He threw stones among them, crying out: ‘Lo, here is my heart of stone!’ made swallows come down from chimneys, and cry out: ‘My angels! my angels!’ ‘They continuing in this motion, he made them to believe that Christ pointed at them, and to leave wives and children, and to hear voices, sometimes condemning, sometimes pardoning their sins.... Some of thir Quakers, being recalled [to sanity], began to question whether that power by which they were so strongly act[uat]ed, were divine or diabolical. Thereupon they were stricken with panic fears, and some hands were carried to take up a knife lying upon a table, and their hands carried to their throat, and a voice said: “Open a hole there, and I will give thee the words of eternal life;” which made some of them to apprehend that it was the devil, he being the prince of the powers of the air.... This evil spirit prevailed with much people,[175] and charged them to deny all ministerial teaching and ordinances, together with all notional knowledge formerly gained by such means, to become as though they had never learned anything savingly, and to lay ane new groundwork—namely, to be taught of God within ourselves by waiting upon ane inward light ... and much more.’—Nic.
It is remarked by Nicoll, under May 1656, that the Quakers were at that time increasing and becoming more confident, and that their pretended sermons and hortations on the Castle Hill of Edinburgh were well attended. It was alleged that the continued divisions among the clergy contributed much to the increase of this heresy.
Towards the end of 1656, the Quaker doctrines had begun to appear among the people in the presbytery of Lanark. The ministers of Douglas and of Lesmahago gave in the names of certain of their parishioners who had been thus deluded. One named William Mitchell compeared, and denied the Confession of Faith; and it appeared soon after that he maintained that ‘there was no baptism with water in the church—God gives every man saving grace—sprinkling of infants and marrying of people with joining of hands was the mark of the beast—there is no natural light in man—no man was fallen—and the preaching of the gospel as it is in Scotland by the priests thereof was anti-Christian.’ Others ‘reset’ the Quakers, ‘saying they get as much good of them as of anybody else.’ On the 30th of April 1657, the presbytery excommunicated eight persons on account of their obstinate adherence to these doctrines.—R. P. L.
Feb.
In consequence of excessively stormy weather this month, many thousands of dead eels were cast out upon the banks of the North Loch at Edinburgh, ‘to the admiration of many.’—Nic.
A severe frost set in, and continued till the middle of April, to the interruption of farmwork; and it was deemed necessary to announce a fast for an early day. ‘No sooner was this fast and humiliation intimate from the pulpits of Edinburgh, but it seemed—and there was no doubt—the Lord was weel pleased; and it was his pleasure to tryst the desire of the people with fair and seasonable weather.’—Nic.
1655.
Heavy and continual rains in August threatened the crop with destruction. A solemn fast and humiliation was held on the 16th of August, in the hope of averting the threatened calamity. But ‘the people were not rightly humbled; there was no fervent prayer; the Lord’s face was not earnestly sought ... as was evident by the Lord’s frowning countenance and augmentation of the rain, whilk daily increased, and sometimes three days and three nights together without intermission, continuing sae ... till the 15th day of September.’
For two years past, ‘victual of all sorts was exceeding cheap, the best peck of meal in the mercat of Edinburgh being sold for a groat, and sometimes for [3-1/3d.], the boll of wheat for [6s. 8d.]. But immediately after this extraordinary rain, the mercats did rise, for this unseasonable weather put many in fear of dearth and famine.’—Nic.
May.
We incidentally learn the wages of a skilled artisan in Scotland at this time from the account which Lamont gives of the expense of slating and pointing the house of Lundie in Fife. The work was done by David Brown, slater in Anstruther, and his son, and so well, he said, that it would not need to be touched again for seven years. David and his son were paid for this work—their diet in the house during the twenty-four working-days they were engaged upon it, and twenty-four shillings Scots, or two shillings sterling, per day, in money.
July.
On a Sunday, at the close of this month, the communion was administered in Edinburgh, the first time after an interval of six years, for so long had the rite been discontinued in the capital and other parts of the kingdom, by reason of the troubles and divisions which had prevailed. From one disqualification and another, ‘much people was debarred.’—Nic.
Oct.
The Council of State having forbidden the clergy to pray for the king on pain of being silenced, they, ‘knowing that it lay upon them to preach, and that, if only for naming a king they should occasion the closing of their own mouth, therein they would greatly sin, generally desisted from praying for him as king.’—C. P. H.
Oct.
1655.
Owing to the dearth of victual, the burdens of the people were felt as more than ever oppressive. Yet at this crisis, the cess imposed by the English was augmented a fifth. In Edinburgh, another cess was imposed, ‘for buying of horse and carts, for carrying away and transporting of the filth, muck, and fulzie out of the closes and causey of Edinburgh; whilk [the tax] much grievit the people, and so much the more because the people receivit no satisfaction for their money, but the causey and closes continued more and more filthy, and no pains taken for clenging the streets.’—Nic.
Rather oddly, the more the poverty of the people increased, vanity the more abounded; ‘for at this time it was daily seen that gentlewomen and burgesses’ wives had more gold and silver about their gown and wyliecoat tails nor their husbands had in their purses and coffers.’ ‘Therefore, great judgment was evidently seen upon the land, and the Lord’s hand stretched out still.’—Nic.
The Edinburgh municipality, though it had for some time had a plack on every pint of ale sold in the city, was 1,100,000 merks [upwards of £61,000] in debt. ‘Oh, for the miseries of kirk and state at this time!’ exclaims Nicoll. ‘The Lord’s anger hot against both, and nane to stand up in the gap.’
Dec. 10.
After some weeks of severe and stormy weather, there befell this day a tempest of the most terrible character, from the north-east, producing fearful havoc among the ships on the east coast, and causing likewise the loss of great numbers of people, bestial, and goods by land. ‘The like storm was not seen by the space of many years before; no, not that great storm that did arise at the death of King James the Sixth [in March 1625] did equal this storm.’—Nic.
Dec. 19.
1655.
Died, in Westminster, Sir William Dick, of Braid, Baronet, once reputed the richest man of his time in Scotland, but latterly in great misery and want; aged seventy-five. In his earlier life, he conducted merchandise on a great scale in Edinburgh. The government in those days pursued that mode of collecting revenue which made farmers-general so much the objects of popular wrath and hatred in France in the time of Voltaire. Dick farmed the Scottish customs—also the revenues of Orkney—yet we do not hear that he bore his faculties with marked ungentleness. He was rather a simple man, accessible to the insinuations of vanity, and inspired with a full share of the earnest religious feelings of his age. When the affair of the Covenant came upon the tapis, it was thought well to secure the co-operation of this rich merchant by getting him made provost of Edinburgh. Thus he was easily persuaded to advance considerable sums in order to enable his countrymen to resist the king. Sir Walter Scott alludes in one of his novels to the tradition describing sacks of dollars poured from a window in Provost Dick’s house into carts, that carried them to the army at Dunse Law. When the Scottish Covenanters afterwards prepared an army to assist in putting down the rebellion in Ireland, it could not have marched without meal and money furnished by Provost Dick. It appears from an authoritative document, that, on this occasion alone, Sir William became a national creditor to the extent of £10,000. In all the other movements of his countrymen at that time, for the protection and advancement of their favourite church-polity, Dick shewed the same large faith in the good cause, and probably, but for him, things might have taken a different turn on many occasions from what they did. What finally remained owing to him in Scotland amounted to £28,131.[176] The English parliament was at the same time his debtor to the amount of £36,803—sums rarely heard of as belonging to an individual in that age. Sir William had been assured by the leaders he dealt with, both of thankful repayment from themselves, and of the blessing of the Almighty for the trust he had reposed in the cause of truth and righteousness. But the actual result was simply the utter wrack of his worldly affairs. Efforts were indeed made to repay his advances, but wholly without effect. In 1652, he proceeded to London, to urge the government to do him justice. By this time, his affairs had got into confusion, his credit as a merchant was gone, and his creditors were pressing upon him. It does not appear that he succeeded in wringing more than a thousand pounds out of the hands of the Commonwealth men. Finally, incurring fresh debts for his subsistence in the metropolis, he was thrown into prison in Westminster—a memorable example of the reverses of fortune incidental to a time of civil strife.
1655.
A curious and very rare pamphlet in folio, entitled The Lamentable Estate and Distressed Case of the Deceased Sir William Dick in Scotland and his Numerous Family and Creditors for the Commonwealth, contains two prints, the first representing Sir William at the crisis when he was so serviceable to the cause of the Covenant, mounted on a handsome dress, and with a goodly retinue, his horse trampling on money and money-bags scattered along the ground. On one hand is seen Hamilton’s fleet in the Firth of Forth, with the significant date 1639 inscribed on one of the vessels; on the other, Edinburgh Castle undergoing siege, with the date 1640, evidently referring to the leaguer which the Castle underwent when the Covenanters were endeavouring to wrest it from the officer who held it for the king. Below this print is inscribed:
‘See here a Merchant who for’s country’s good,
Leaves off his trade to spend both wealth and blood,
Tramples on profit to redeem the fate
Of his decaying church, and prince, and state.
Such traffic sure none can too highly prize,
When gain itself is made a sacrifice.
But oh, how ill will such examples move,
If Loss be made the recompense to Love.’
Sir William’s favourite mottoes are inscribed above—Publica Salus nunc mea Merces, and Pro Foedere, Rege, et Grege. The second print, of which the original painting is still preserved at Prestonfield House, near Edinburgh, represents the unfortunate merchant in his prison-cell, seated on a bulk in a mean dress, manacled and fettered, with his family weeping around him, and four officers of the law at his back, scourges and fetters being scattered about the floor. Below are inscribed the motto, Publica Fides nunc mea Servitus, and these lines:
‘He whom you see thus by vile sergeants torn,
Was once his country’s pattern, now their scorn;
Whilst into prison dragged, he there complains,
Who least deserves doth soonest suffer chains.
And who for public doth his faith engage,
Changes his palace for an iron cage.
Then add, to shew his unbecoming fate,
He had been free had he not served the state.’
1655.
The preface to the pamphlet speaks of him as once ‘renowned at home and abroad as a famous merchant. When all men have sought their own, he, contrary to the principles of his outward calling, in the time of public calamity, did cheerfully embark himself, his estate, which was very considerable, and his credit, which was greater, known by his fame abroad that his bills were never protested, but accepted through all Christendom, yea even in the dominions of the Turks—and this not out of any private end, but for the public good cause, which had so many prayers laid out for it then, which he believed would be answered in due time.’ In the ‘Case’ as addressed to parliament, after a recital of his loans and the many acknowledgments and efforts to pay previously made, it is said: ‘Notwithstanding all this, and of the aforesaid Sir William Dick his expense and painful satisfaction by agents and friends the space of sixteen years, and of his own personal attendance upon three parliaments and his highness’s council from November 1652 until November 1655, in his great old age of seventy and five years, and gray hairs full of sorrow and heaviness of heart, for such deplorable sufferings in credit and estate, by so good service performed in England, and with his cries to heaven for justice and mercy to his so deep afflictions for well-doing; yet, nevertheless, little or nothing was recovered all his time here, but one small sum of one thousand pounds in August 1653; insomuch that, by reason of this delay, floods of desolation and distress have overwhelmed him and his children with their numerous families and little ones; their lands and houses being extended and possessed by the creditors in the cruel execution of the law; their chattels and goods, too, yea their ornaments, the covering of their nakedness, and the coverlet in which they should sleep, being publicly distrained and seized upon for these debts and disbursements engaged in by them to promote the public service. Neither is this all; one woe is past, and behold two woes come after this. Ah! the old man himself was once and again disgracefully cast into prison for small debts contracted for necessary livelihood, during his attendance for satisfaction.’ ‘In the end, through heart-break by so long disappointment,’ he died, ‘in great misery and want, and without the benefit of a decent funeral, after six months’ petitioning for some little money towards the same. And to complete the third woe and perfection of sorrowful afflictions, his children are cast at this day, and lying in prisons these twenty months past for public debts, in great sufferings of their persons, credit, and calling, and weariness of life, longing for death more than for treasures, and where they and their numerous families had already perished for want of bread, if some little supply by his highness’s goodness had not been lately appointed them.’
1655.
It appears that after the Restoration the parliament, as might have been expected, declined to acknowledge the debts contracted by the irregular governments of the preceding twenty years; so Sir William’s large loans were never refunded. An advance (100,274 merks) on the Orkney revenues was ignored in 1669, still further wrecking the property of the family. The only compensation which Sir Andrew Dick, son of Sir William, could obtain, was a pension of £132 sterling, which lasted for a few years only.[177]
1656. Apr.
The spring being alarmingly bad, ‘the presbytery of Lothian did conclude a fast to be keepit in the beginning of May; whilk was keepit in all the kirks of the presbytery, and although with great waikness, yet it wanted not the awn happy effect and blessing, for frae that day the Lord did produce much fair and pleasant weather,’ and ‘the like summer and harvest was never seen in this age.’—Nic.
‘This year produced abundance of bestial, such as horse, nolt, sheep, and some of these at ane very easy price. A mart cow was sold for [£1, 6s. 8d.], these bestial being abundant, and the money exceedingly scant.... There was also exceeding great numbers of salmon and all other sorts of fish taken this year.’—Nic.
June.
It is remarked how much of deceit and cheating was practised at this time among certain traders in Edinburgh. The beer, ale, and wine sold in the city were all greatly adulterated. It was customary to mix wine with milk, brimstone, and other ingredients. ‘Ale was made strong and heady with hempseed, coriander-seed, Turkish pepper, soot, salt, and by casting in strong wash under the caldron when the ale was in brewing.’ Blown mutton and corrupted veal, fusty bread and light loaves, false measures and weights, were common. In all these particulars, the magistrates were negligent, so that ‘the people were abused and neglectit.’—Nic.
June.
1656.
‘This year the Lord Cranstoun, having got a colonel’s commission, levied a new regiment of volunteers for the King of Pole’s [Poland’s] service; and it trysted well for his management and advantage. The royalists chose rather to go abroad, though in a very mean condition, than live at home under a yoke of slavery. The colonel sent one Captain Montgomery north in June, and he had very good luck, listing many for the service. In August the colonel himself followed after, and residing at Inverness, sallied out to visit the Master of Lovat, and, in three days, got forty-three of the Frasers to take on. Amongst the rest, Captain James Fraser, my Lord Lovat’s son, engages, and, without degradation, Cranstoun gives him a captain’s commission. Hugh Fraser, young Clanvacky, takes on as lieutenant; William Fraser, son to Mr William Fraser of Phopachy, an ensign; and James Fraser, son to Foyer, a corporal. The Lord Lovat’s son had twenty-two young gentlemen with the rest, who engaged by themselves, out of Stratherrick, Abertarff, Aird, and Strathglass. I heard the colonel say he was vain of them for gallantry—not so much that they were free and willing, but valorous. I saw them march out of Inverness, and most of the English regiment there looking on with no small commendation, as well as emulation of their bravery.’—Fraser of Kirkhill. This gallant little levy proved unfortunate, most of them being cut off early. Fourteen years later, the same diarist gives us some particulars of the few then surviving. ‘This October’ [1670], says he, ‘came to this country my brother-german, William Fraser. He went abroad in the Lord Cranstoun’s regiment, for the service of Carolus Gustavus, King of Sweden, and after the peace he went up to Poland, with other Scottish men, and settled at Plock as a merchant, and was married. He had given trust and long delay to the Aberdeen’s men, and was necessitated to take the occasion of a ship and come to Scotland to crave his own. He and young Clanvacky Hugh are the only surviving two of the gallant crew who ventured over seas with their chief’s son, Captain James. And he is glad of this happy occasion to see his old mother and brethren. He continued here among his friends all the winter, and returned back in the spring, never to see his country again. Two of his foster-brothers ventured with him, Farquhar and Rory—very pretty boys. We were six brothers mustered one day together upon a street, and six sisters waiting us in my uncle’s house—a pleasant sight. We were not vain of it, but willing to see one another in one society. We never were all convened again. We are here in this world planted in order to our transplantation, where we shall, I hope, one day meet never to separate.’
Aug. 17.
1656.
At four o’clock in the morning, according to Baillie, there was ‘a sensible earthquake’ in all parts of the town of Glasgow, ‘though I felt it not.’ ‘Five or six years ago, there was ane other in the afternoon, which I felt, and was followed by that fearful burning, and all the other shaking [that] has been among us since. The Lord preserve us from his too well-deserved judgments!’
Sep. 4.
The efforts of the presbytery of Lanark to make sincere Presbyterians of the Marquis and Marchioness of Douglas had signally failed. Their parish minister reported sundry ‘outbreakings of sin’ in their house, ‘whereof he could get no order;’ above all, there was a neglect of family worship. After many ineffectual dealings, the presbytery declared at this date, that, ‘considering how the marquis and his lady and family continue to be an ill example, and scandalous divers ways, in regard that he himself does not ordinarily attend the public ordinance, but some time the forenoon withdrawing himself, and ofttimes the servants in the afternoon, in sight of the whole congregation; [and that] he and his lady cometh scarce to the kirk once in a year, and that there is no worship of God at all in their family,’ they must, ‘if he do not redress the foresaid scandals in some satisfying way, enter in process of excommunication with him and his lady at the next meeting.’
After many months, the reverend brethren are still found only ‘dealing’ with the noble marquis and his lady. A peer or peeress seems to have been a particularly difficult person to excommunicate. Years elapse in such cases without effecting the object, while a Quaker villager could be conclusively thrust out of the church in a few weeks.—R. P. L.
1657. June.
Cromwell having been formally installed as Protector, Mr Robert Baillie notes a popular expectation in Scotland that a storm—that is, a storm of political trouble—would follow; and some things seemed to foretell it: for example, the blowing up of a powder-magazine, destroying many houses and persons; an army of pikemen appearing about the house of Foggo Muir, near Dunse Law; and the discovery of some thousands of objects in the form of cannon, shaped from snow without the hand of man. Yet, to the surprise of the reverend gentleman, months passed on without any interruption of peace.
1657.
The same writer, addressing a friend abroad, tells of many painful occurrences which broke the calm tenor of life in Scotland in this and the next preceding and following years. Several young noblemen were carried off by acute diseases. Lord Lorn, son of the Marquis of Argyle, playing at a game in Edinburgh Castle, where stone-bullets were used, one of them striking him on the head, he fell down as one dead, and continued so for some time. Three judges died suddenly, one of them in the court, as he was about to seat himself on the bench. Imprudence and vice also attracted attention. ‘The Earl of Eglintoun’s heir, the Lord Montgomery, convoying his father to London, runs away without any advice, and marries a daughter of my Lord Dumfries, who is a broken man, when he was sure of my Lady Buccleuch’s marriage, the greatest match in Britain; this unexpected prank is worse to all his kin than his death would have been. The Earl of Moray did little better, for at London, without any advice, he ran and married Sir William Balfour’s second daughter.’ The Earl of Rothes was clapped up in Edinburgh Castle, by the Protector’s orders, in great infamy on account of a certain light-mannered Lady Howard, who had come to his lordship’s house on a visit, and whose husband was now in Scotland, bent on obtaining a bloody satisfaction for his dishonour. At the same time, the wife of Lord Forrester sunk into the grave, through grief excited by the misconduct of her husband and her sister.
The number of cases of uncommon turpitude in a time of extraordinary religious purism forces itself upon attention. One Foyer, who was under the notice of the English judges at Glasgow in the spring of 1659, is described by Robert Baillie as ‘a most wicked hypocrite, who, under the colour of piety and prayer, has acted sundry adulteries.’ Being libelled for one only, ‘he was but scourged: many were grieved that he was not hanged.’ The reverend writer adds: ‘Great appearance of his witchery also, if he had been put to a real trial.’
Offences of a horrible and unnatural kind continued to abound to a degree which makes the daylight profligacy of the subsequent reign shine white in comparison. ‘More,’ says Nicoll, ‘within these six or seven years nor within these fifty years preceding and more.’ Culprits of all ages, from boys to old men, are heard of every few months as burnt on the Castle Hill of Edinburgh; sometimes two together. Young women, who had murdered their own infants—on one occasion it was ‘ane pretty young gentill woman’—were frequently brought to the same scene of punishment. John Nicoll states that on one day, the 15th October 1656, five persons, two men and three women, were burnt on the Castle Hill for offences of the several kinds here glanced at; while two others were scourged through the city for minor degrees of the same offences.
1657.
Burnings of warlocks and witches were of not less appalling frequency. In February 1658, two women and a man were prisoners for this crime in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh. One of the women died in prison; the warlock was executed. The other woman, named Jonet Anderson, who had been married three months before, confessed that she had previously given herself up, body and soul, to the devil, and that at her nuptials she saw her spiritual lover standing in the church behind the pulpit. Though this must have been merely such a case of hallucination as would now require simply medical treatment, Jonet was only spared till it was ascertained that she was not pregnant. ‘She made ane happy end, and gave singular testimonies of her repentance by frequent prayers, and singing of psalms, before her execution.’ In the ensuing August, four women, ‘ane of them a maiden,’ were burnt on the Castle Hill, ‘all confessing the sin of witchcraft.’ Not long after, we hear of five women belonging to Dunbar, burnt on the Castle Hill together, all confessing that they had covenanted with Satan, renounced to him their baptism, and taken from him new names, with suitable marks impressed on their flesh. And presently follows again the case of nine from the parish of Tranent, all dying with similar confessions on their lips.—Nic.
Although these executions appear to us as tolerably numerous, they were not enough to satisfy the zealous people of that day. ‘There is much witchery up and down our land,’ says Robert Baillie; ‘the English be but too sparing to try it, but some they execute.’
It is to be feared that, so long as reputation is to be gained by mere religious professions, or the adherence to certain systems of doctrine, cases of hypocrisy like that of Foyer will be occasionally heard of. Nor will it be doubted that a moral code which presses too severely upon the natural affections is calculated in all circumstances to have the consequences here adverted to. Of the cases of witchcraft, we can only deplore, with humiliation, that such delusions should have formed a part of the religious convictions of the age. In the seventeenth century, the ruling minds had a clear apprehension of what they thought the truth, and went right to their point in seeking to work it out. Distinctions, refinements, explained-away texts, moderating reflections, fears of reaction, were reserved for a later day.
June.
1657.
The magistrates of Glasgow at this time provided themselves with an engine ‘for the occasion of sudden fire, in spouting out of water thereon,’ after the form of one recently established in Edinburgh.—M. of G.
Sep.
The magistrates of Glasgow, feeling the need for ‘ane diurnal’—that is, newspaper, a luxury hitherto little known in Scotland—‘appoint John Fleming to write to his man wha lies at London,’ to cause one be sent for the town’s use. Whether John Fleming’s man, from the fact of his lying at London, is to be presumed as himself connected with the public press, may be left to the consideration of the reader.
Before this time, it appears that John Nicoll, a legal agent in Edinburgh, often quoted here on account of his Diary, had supplied the magistrates of Glasgow with weekly intelligence.
Mr Thomas Stewart, the hero of the plague anecdote of 1645, married in 1654, and retired to enjoy a quiet country life on his father’s estate of Coltness, in Lanarkshire. His relative, Sir Archibald, gives us a minute recital of what he did with the old place, in extending its accommodations and ornamenting its environs, and the result is that we get a tolerably clear idea of a Scotch gentleman’s country-house, according to the views and tastes which prevailed in the time of the Commonwealth.
1657.
‘He set himself to planting and enclosing, and so to embellish the place. But [as] the old mansion was straitening, and their family likely to increase, he thought of adding to the old tower (which consisted only of a vault and two rooms, one above the other, with a small room on the top of the turnpike stair, and a garret) a large addition on the south side of the staircase, of a good kitchen, cellar, meat-room or low parlour; a large hall or dining-room, with a small bedchamber and closet; over these, and above that, two bedchambers with closets; and yet higher, in a fourth story, two finished roof-rooms. And thus he made an addition of a kitchen, six fire-rooms with closets; and the vault in the old tower, built by Hamilton of Uddeston, was turned to a convenient useful cellar, with a partition for outer and inner repositories. The office-houses of bake-house, brew-house, garner-room, and men-servants’ bedchamber, were on the north of a paved court; and a high front wall towards the east, with an arched entry or porch, enclosed all. Without this arched gate was another larger court, with stables on the south side for the family and strangers’ horses, and a trained up thorn with a bower in it. Opposite to the stables, north from the mansion-house, with an entry to a good spring draw-well, as also leading to the byre, sheep-house, barn, and hen-house, all which made a court, to the north of the other court, and separate from it with a stone-wall; and on the east part of the court was a large space for a dunghill. The gardens were to the south of the house, much improved and enlarged; and the nursery-garden was a small square enclosure to the west of the house. The slope of the grounds to the west made the south garden, next the house, fall into three cross terraces. The terrace fronting the south of the house was a square parterre, or flower-garden, and the easter and wester, or the higher and lower plots of ground, were for cherry and nut gardens, and walnut and chestnut trees were planted upon the head of the upper bank, towards the parterre; and the slope bank on the east side the parterre was a strawberry border.
‘These three terraces had a high stone-wall on the south, for ripening and improving finer fruits; and to the south of this wall, was a good orchard and kitchen-garden, with broad grass-walks, all enclosed with a good thorn-hedge; and without this, a ditch and dry fence, enclosing several rows of timber-trees for shelter; to the west of the house, and beyond the square nursery-garden, was a large timber tree park, with birches towards the house, and on the other three sides rows of ash and plane, and in the middle a goodly thicket of firs. To the north, the barn court; and north from the house was a grass enclosure of four acres, with a fishpond in the corner for pikes and perches. All was enclosed with a strong wall and hedgerows of trees: so the whole of this policy might consist of an oblong square, and the longer side of the square fronted to the south; the ordinary entries to the house were from east to west, but the main access from the east.
1657.
‘It was found still a convenient nursery was wanted for an interesting young family, and a lower addition was made to the east end of the new buildings, and to run parallel with the south side of the high house, towards the gardens. The low room was for a woman-house, and the upper room was the nursery; and both nursery and woman-house had passage to the great house, by proper doors, and a timber trap-stair made a communication betwixt the nursery and the woman-house. In short, after all was finished, the fabric was wholly irregular as to the outside appearance, and both house and policy were more contrived for conveniency and hospitality, than for beauty or regular proportion; and so was the humour of these times, that, if there was lodging, warmness, and plenty within doors, a regular front or uniform roof were little thought of. All above was executed the three years 1657, 1658, as appears from the dates on the upper lintel ornaments of the window.’
Dec.
Notwithstanding a good harvest, ‘poverty and scarcity of money daily increased, by reason of the great burdens and charges imposed upon the people, which constrained them to sell not only their lands and estates, but even their household geir, insight, and plenishing, and some their claiths and habulyiements. Witness the bell, which did daily ring in Edinburgh, making intimation to the inhabitants of such frequent rouping as was in use.’—Nic.
1658. May.
Stage-coaches were at this time advertised as to go from ‘the George Inn without Aldersgate’ to sundry parts of England thrice a week; to Leeds, Wakefield, and Halifax once a week, charge 40s.; to Durham and Newcastle, once a week, charge £3; and ‘to Edinburgh in Scotland, once in three weeks, for £4, 10s.’—in all cases, ‘with good coaches and fresh horses on the roads.’[178]
During this year, the people of Edinburgh, Glasgow, and other considerable towns, were amused in succession with the performances of a horse brought from England, ‘wha, being trained up in dancing and other conceits of that kind, did afford much sport and contentment to the people, but not without gain, for none was admitted to see the dancing without twopence the piece, and some more.’—Nic.
Oct. 1.
A supplication was this day given in to the Town Council of Glasgow by one Robert Marshall, shewing that he was willing, if permitted, to exercise the calling of a house-painter in the city. The Council, having had it represented to them that there was ‘but one the like within this burgh, and not ane other in all the west of Scotland,’ gave Robert permission to wash and paint houses to any who pleased to employ him.—M. of G.
1658.
This gives a curious idea of Glasgow two centuries ago. The magistrates had a little before this time induced a printer to come from Edinburgh and settle amongst them. The man does not seem to have succeeded, for in May 1660, they give him fifty merks, ‘to help to transport his guids and flitting to Edinburgh again.’ A few months after this date, Robert Sanders was encouraged to set up a printing-office in Glasgow, with a pension of £40 a year, ‘he to print gratis anything that the town shall employ him to print.’ In 1660, they caused a plasterer to be sent for from Perth, ‘to come here for plastering of Hucheson’s Hospital.’—M. of G.
Nov.
The lamentations, of which we have seen several examples, over the depressed condition of Scotland under the English tyranny, are repeated at this time by a man of moderate and sagacious character, the Rev. Robert Baillie. He says: ‘The country lies very quiet; it is exceeding poor; trade is nought; the English has all the moneys. Our noble families are almost gone: Lennox has little in Scotland unsold; Hamilton’s estate, except Arran and the barony of Hamilton, is sold; Argyle can pay little annual-rent [interest] for seven or eight hunched thousand merks [of debt]; and he is no more drowned in debt than public hatred, almost of all, both Scotch and English. The Gordons are gone; the Douglases little better; Eglintoun and Glencairn on the brink of breaking. Many of our chief families’ states are cracking; nor is there any appearance of any human relief for the time.’[179] It may give some idea of the reduced state of the nobility during these evil days, that the allowance made by the English government out of the sequestered estates of the Balcarres family for the earl, a minor, and his younger brother, was only ten pounds a year![180]
Nicoll, adverting to the same time, says: ‘The condition of this nation of Scotland yet remains sad, by reason of poverty and heavy burdens.’ The crop of the year ‘was very poor by reason of the spring-time, whilk was very cold and weety the space of many weeks.’ The price of victual was consequently for this year double what it had recently been.
1658.
A Mr Tucker, who was commissioned by Cromwell in 1656 to introduce order into the customs duties of Scotland, has left a report from which we obtain particulars as to the trade then carried on with foreign countries. Notwithstanding that duties were in those days imposed equally on exported and imported goods, the revenue of Leith port was only £2335; that of Aberdeen, £573; Glasgow, £554. The respective sums drawn from these ports, for imports only, in 1844, were £631,926, £76,259, and £551,841. Other ports were in proportion, though not uniformly; thus Burntisland, which is now merely a ferry harbour, then drew nearly as much revenue as Glasgow. The native shipping, consisting of vessels of from twelve to a hundred and fifty tons, was in not less marked contrast to that of our day. Glasgow had only twelve such vessels; Kirkcaldy, an equal number, but not one above a hundred tons; Dundee and Anstruther, ten; Burntisland, seven; Wemyss, six; Dysart, four. The extreme narrowness of the resources of Scotland is strikingly shewn in these facts, and makes us the more disposed to wonder at the comparatively great sacrifices which the people had been making for many years for the sake of their church and for its promotion in other lands.
At the same time that so great poverty prevailed, there was such a protection to life and property as had never before been known. It was not, we believe, without cause that the famous Colonel Desborough, in a speech in the House of Commons (March 17, 1659), made it a boast for his party, that ‘a man may ride over all Scotland, with a switch in his hand and a hundred pounds in his pocket, which he could not have done these five hundred years.’[181]
1659. Jan.
The people of Edinburgh were regaled with the sight of a travelling dromedary, probably the first that had ever come into Scotland. ‘It was very big,’ says Nicoll, ‘of great height, and cloven-footed like a cow, and on the back ane seat, as it were a saddle, to sit on.’ ‘Being kept close in the Canongate, none had a sight of it without threepence the person. There was brought in with it ane little baboon, faced like unto an ape.’
Jan.
1659.
At this time the public received a great surprise in the sudden reappearance of a nobleman, Lord Belhaven, who was understood to have been dead for the last six years and upwards. At the forfeiture of the Hamilton family under the English tyranny, Lord Belhaven found himself engaged as security to the creditors of that house for a much larger sum than he could pay; so, to escape comprisings of his lands and imprisonment of his person, he fell upon an extraordinary expedient. He took a journey to England, and when he had passed Solway Sands, he caused his servant to come back to his wife with his cloak and hat, and had it given out that he and his horse had sunk in the quicksands, and were drowned. None were privy to the secret but his lady and the servant. The report passed everywhere as authentic, and to make it more plausible, his lady and children went in mourning for two years. Passing into England, Lord Belhaven put on a mean suit of apparel, hired himself to be a gardener, and worked at this humble employment during the whole time of his absence, no one knowing this part of his course but his lady. During his absence, his only son, ‘a very hopeful youth and pretty scholar,’ was struck with a fever, which in a few days carried him off. ‘In this real death by God’s hand, who will not be mocked, the hope of that house perished.’—Bail. The Duchess of Hamilton having at length come to a composition with her creditors, his lordship returned to Scotland, and resumed his rank, ‘to the admiration of many.’—Nic.
Feb. 9.
The Countess of Buccleuch in her own right, a child of eleven years of age, the greatest heiress of her time in Scotland, was married at the place of Wester Wemyss in Fife, to Walter Scott, son of Scott of Highchester, a youth of fourteen. These indecent nuptials were performed, without proclamation, by virtue of an order from the presbytery of Kirkcaldy, ‘purchased by the Earl of Wemyss and some of the name of Scott:’ that is, obtained by their influence. The Countess of Wemyss, ‘a witty, active woman,’[182] was mother of the bride. ‘This marriage was celebrate upon a great suddenty, few or none of her friends made privy to it till the day before, which day they were contracted. Many expected she should have got some great match (for both Scots and English had an aim for her); but this youth, that her mother (who was the only doer of this business) made choice of for her daughter, was only one of her own vassal’s sons—namely, an oy [grandson] of the Laird of Harden....’—Lam.
1659.
An unsuccessful attempt was made by Sir John Scott of Scotstarvet to reduce the marriage, on the ground that he, her tutor, had not consented. While the question hung suspended, for there existed then no judicatory in Scotland, the young lady in August 1659 attained the age of twelve, at which it was competent for her to effect a marriage of her own will. She then accordingly emitted a declaration of her marriage, and her husband meeting her at Leith, amidst great demonstrations of joy, they went that same night to Dalkeith, to commence married life.—Nic.
This poor victim of the cupidity of her seniors was taken by her mother next year to London, to be touched for the cruels by the king, and died in the next ensuing year, leaving the succession to her younger sister Anne, who became the victim of an equally discreditable affair, in being married while still a child to the king’s natural son, a boy, subsequently Duke of Monmouth.
The marrying of heiresses under twelve years of age was a not infrequent misdemeanour in the seventeenth century. ‘1st March 1677, Trotter, Lady Craigleith, was fined at Secret Council, in 6000 merks, for conveying away her daughter, heiress of Craigleith, and sending her to Berwick, where she married young Prestongrange (Morison), and stayed some two or three months, till she completed her twelve years of age, after which the marriage could not be dissolved, nor she resile.... Her maternal uncle, Mortonhall, was fined for his accession in 3000 merks, and young Prestongrange in 1000 merks.’—Foun.
In 1680, Patrick Carnegie, brother of the Earl of Northesk, was prosecuted for conveying away Mary Gray, daughter of the Laird of Baledgarnie, in the Carse of Gowrie, she being but eleven years and one month old. ‘Some spoke harsh things, that if he could be got, he deserved hanging, for ane example to secure men’s children from such attempts.’ While Patrick escaped from justice, his assistants Kinfauns, Finhaven, and Pitcur were sent to Edinburgh Castle, and ‘ordained, under highest pains, to produce him who wounded the servant while he was resisting their rapt: they came weel off, that their acknowledgment of the fault was accepted instead of a fine.’—Foun.
Mar. 27.
1659.
Died this day, ‘sitting in his chair at his awn house, without any preceding sickness,’ and but ‘little lamented’ (Nic.), John Earl of Traquair—a remarkable example of the mutabilities of fortune in a period of civil broil and revolution. By cleverness and address, unaccompanied by any nobler qualities, and by making himself useful to Laud in his views for the reformation of the Scotch church, he had risen from the condition of a private gentleman to titles, wealth, and the office of Lord High Treasurer. Of his means and taste at the zenith of his fortunes, the house of Traquair, with its formal avenues and garden, is an interesting surviving monument. Clerical zeal ruined what the skill of Traquair might have built up. The Service-book was pushed on against his advice, and he could not control the storm. The most conspicuous service he rendered after that period was to act as his majesty’s commissioner to the Scottish parliament and General Assembly of 1640. He did his best to maintain the royal authority, but all was in vain. His subsequent conduct was not of a bold character; but there is all reason to believe that he continued a loyalist and a friend of Episcopacy at heart. Accompanying the army of the Engagement in 1648, along with a regiment of horse of his own raising, he was taken prisoner at Preston, and committed to Warwick Castle, where he lay for four years. For this final act of loyalty, the Covenanting parliament forbade his return into Scotland. At length, when his country had been taken into the hands of the English, he was liberated, and came home; but it was to poverty and obscurity. His estate had been sequestered; it was a time of general suffering and humiliation. Reflected on as an instrument of the king and Laud in their arbitrary schemes, he enjoyed respect from no party. In such circumstances, it is scarcely surprising to be told, as we are on credible authority, that this once great noble and state officer was reduced so low as to be beholden for the necessaries of life to charity. ‘He would take an alms, though not publicly ask for it,’ says the author of a work quoted below,[183] where it is added: ‘There are some still alive at Peebles that have seen him dine upon a salt herring and an onion.’ A worse humiliation remained for him, if Nicoll be right in reporting that the earl was (August 1655) ‘pannelled and accused before the Criminal Court for perjury at the instance of his son-in-law.’[184]
The annotator on Scot’s Staggering State of Scots Statesmen, says that at his burial this unfortunate nobleman ‘had no mort-cloth [pall], but a black apron; nor towels, but leashes belonging to some gentlemen that were present; and the grave being two feet shorter than his body, the assistants behoved to stay till the same was enlarged, and he buried.’
1659. June 21.
This day, Heriot’s Hospital, which had been founded in 1628, being now complete, was solemnly dedicated by the ceremony of a preaching in presence of the magistrates of Edinburgh, the preacher, Mr Robert Douglas, receiving five double pieces for his pains. There were placed in it ‘thirty-five boys, of honest parents, but decayit in means, all of them weel arrayit in purpour clothes and cassocks.’ ‘This hospital,’ says Nicoll, ‘was not ane ordinary hospital, but a hospital very famous, with halls, chalmers, kitchens, brew-houses, yards, orchards, a chapel, and all other necessaries.’
Sep. 1.
The town of Edinburgh obtained an additional impost upon the ale sold in its bounds; it was now a full penny sterling a pint, so that the liquor rose to the unheard-of price of 32d. Scots for that quantity. ‘Yet this imposition,’ says Nicoll, ‘seemed not to thrive; for at the same instant God frae the heavens declared his anger by sending thunder, and unheard tempests, and storms, and inundations of water, whilk destroyed their common mills, dams, and warks, to the town’s great charges and expenses.’ Eleven mills belonging to Edinburgh, and five belonging to Heriot’s Hospital, all upon the Water of Leith, were destroyed on this occasion, ‘with their dams, water-gangs, timber and stone-warks, the haill wheels of their mills, timber graith, and haill other warks.’ The chronicler, somewhat awkwardly for his hypothesis, admits that many neighbouring towns suffered by the like destruction of their mills.
Sep. 21.
Nicoll states himself to have seen this day, a youth of sixteen, a native of Aberdeen, who, having been born without power in his arms, either to eat or drink, or do any other thing for himself or others, ‘Almighty God, who is able to do all things, gave him power to supply all these duties with the toes of his feet, and to write in singular good legible and current write, and that with such haste as any common notar is in use to do. Yea, further, with his toes he put on his clothes, kamed his head, made his writing pens, [and] threaded a needle, in such short time and space as any other person whatsomever was able to do with his hands.’
1659.
In the Council Records of Inverness occurs, under this year, the following petition: ‘To the Right Honourable the Magistrates and Town Council of the burgh of Inverness, the supplication of Frederick Fraser, tailor burgess of Inverness, and Alexander Duff, burgess there, for ourselves and in behalf the remanent freemen of that trade, humbly sheweth—That your supplicants are very much damnified and prejudged in the enjoyment of their trade, the same being in-falled upon and taken away by many outlandish men, who dwell round about the burgh for eschewing of burden, and yet peeps in by night and by day and steals away the trade of the place, and works the same in the landward, to our great loss and apparent ruin, so that if speedy redress be not found, and this evil to this poor trade be not stayed, your supplicants and our poor families will undoubtedly perish. We are able to shew your lordships, and to make it out, that in these times we gain not by our trade for our own subsistence and the upholding of the burdens of the place, that which our servants were wont to gain under us. May it please your lordships, therefore, to take the premises into consideration, and to allow us, your supplicants, or such others of the trade as your lordships please to nominate, such power and freedom in the exercise of that trade as formerly we had, and that for the better restraining of all such as are neither profitable nor allowable to the place, and for the further and better encouragement of us your poor supplicants who has and are willing daily to contribute with the place in weal and woe according to our poor power.’
A local journalist, after giving a transcript of this petition, adds: ‘Provost Cuthbert and the council turned a friendly ear to the supplication, and authorised the petitioners to “look and see to restrain all outlandish tailors,” and empowering them to seize upon the work of the transgressors, and bring the whole before a magistrate. Two years afterwards, however, the same parties, with the addition of John Cumming, tailor, again complain of the outlandish tailors. They petition that all unfreemen in the town should be discharged from usurping to themselves the benefits of freemen, and from keeping apprentices and servants, and made to live within the verge of their own calling. The provost and council granted the desire of the petition, and authorised the supplicants, with the concurrence of the burgh officers, to put the act in force. The principles of political economy or free-trade were not then understood, but the inhabitants seem to have been willing enough to avail themselves of the cheap services of the outlandish tailors, else the freemen would not so strongly have urged their claims upon the council.’[185]