REIGN OF CHARLES I.: 1625-1637.
James I. was peaceably succeeded on the throne by his son Charles I., then in the twenty-fifth year of his age. The administration of Scottish affairs continued to be conducted by the Privy Council in Edinburgh. For the endowment of the Episcopal Church now established, the king (1625) attempted a revocation of the church-lands from the lay nobles and others into whose hands they had fallen; but this excited so strong a spirit of resistance, that he was obliged to give it up. He ended by issuing (1627) a commission to receive the surrender of impropriated tithes and benefices, and out of these, and the superiorities of the church-lands, to increase the provisions of the clergy. These proceedings, though legal, were unpopular. The nobles, alarmed for their property, began to lean towards the middle and humbler classes, who objected to a hierarchy on religious grounds solely. While all was smooth on the surface, while the lords of the Privy Council were full of expressions of servile obedience, while they, as well as all judges and magistrates, gave most loyal and regular attendance at church, and duly knelt at the communion—a strong spirit of discontent ran through society. The more zealous Presbyterians formed the habit of meeting in private houses for prayer and worship. They beheld with apprehension the tendency to medieval ceremonies which Charles, and his favourite councillor, Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, were manifesting in England. That leaning to Arminianism which the English Church was also accused of—modifying Calvinism so far as to say that the perdition of sinners had been only foreseen, not decreed, and that God’s wrath against them was not to last for ever—was viewed with the utmost alarm in Scotland. The only means the king had of giving reassurance was to make a loud profession of horror for popery, and to practise all possible severities upon its adherents. That the king and his Council availed themselves of this chance, will be found abundantly evidenced in our chronicle.
It is rather remarkable, that the adjustment of the tithes by King Charles in 1627 has proved a most useful practical measure, in annulling a certain class of disputes between the clergy and their flocks; anticipating, in short, the valuable commutation acts of England and Ireland by upwards of two centuries.
During the first few years of the reign, large bodies of troops were raised in Scotland, and conducted by native officers to serve the Protestant powers of the continent, engaged in the great thirty years’ struggle with Catholic Germany.
The king paid a visit to Scotland in 1633, in order to be crowned as its sovereign, and to see what further could be done for perfecting the Episcopal system. His reception was respectful, but not so affectionate as that experienced by his father. He wanted the good-humour of James; he treated all difficulties in a stern and imperious manner. The people were overborne by his power and his obduracy, but left unconvinced, unreconciled. In the subsequent year, he lost additional ground by a tyrannical and unjust trial of the Lord Balmerino on a charge of treason, for merely having in his possession the scroll of a petition against the royal measures. At the same time, the Scotch people knew of the king’s quarrels with the English patriots Elliot, Pym, and others; they knew that he had resolved on calling no more parliaments; they heard of Strafford’s despotic government in Ireland; they sympathised with the Puritans who were now and then pilloried and cropped of their ears, or driven in multitudes to Holland and America. Although, then, there was a strong prepossession for the institution of monarchy, there was also a steady muster of irritation and fear against the government of this particular monarch. It might have been evident to any dispassionate observer, that, if the present system were persevered in, an explosion would sooner or later take place.
There was this further difference between the late and present king, that while James was only anxious for a church polity which would work harmoniously with his doctrines of state, Charles—who, unlike his father, was an earnestly religious man—deemed Episcopacy a necessary part of faith. The struggle was now, therefore, between a people fanatic for one system, and a king fanatic for another. One thing Charles had long considered as necessary to complete his favourite project in Scotland—the introduction of a liturgy into the ordinary worship. He thought the proper time was now come, because he everywhere saw external obedience. A service-book being accordingly prepared by Laud, on the basis of that commonly used in England, but with a few innovations relishing of popery and Arminianism, an order of Privy Council was given for its being read in the churches. This was precisely what was necessary to exhaust the popular powers of endurance. It seemed to the multitude as if popery, almost undisguised, were once more about to be introduced. When the dreaded book was opened in St Giles’s Church (July 1637), the congregation rose in violent agitation to protest against it. It was hooted as a mass in disguise, and a stool was thrown at the head of the reader. Similar scenes occurred elsewhere; but the clergy in general had declined to bring the book forward. The state-officers and bishops now found themselves objects of popular hate to such an extent that they could not present themselves in public. The service-book was not merely a failure in itself, but it had produced a kind of rebellion. Charles discovered, when too late, that, as usually happens with men of headstrong temper, the truth had been concealed from him. The general obedience had been a hypocrisy. Nineteen-twentieths of the people were in their hearts opposed to his measures, and now he had given them occasion to declare themselves and enter at all hazards upon a course of resistance.
1625. May 28.
This is the date of the patent of Charles I., conferring on Sir Robert Gordon of Gordonstown the dignity of a baronet of Nova Scotia, being the first patent of the kind granted. Gordon of Cluny and Gordon of Lesmoir also got similar patents during the same year, and Lesmoir’s eldest son, being of full age, was at the same time made a knight; such being the original design regarding this honour. The order of baronets of Nova Scotia, which still holds an honourable place in Scottish society, was projected by King James, as an encouragement to gentlemen of property in his native kingdom to enter into the scheme of Sir William Alexander (subsequently Earl of Stirling) to plant Nova Scotia. In the patent of each, a certain portion of land in that country is assigned along with the honour, the infeoffment being executed on the Castle Hill of Edinburgh; but this, as is well known, has never been otherwise than an ideal advantage. ‘His majesty, the more to encourage the baronets in that heroic enterprise [of planting Nova Scotia], besides other privileges, did augment every one of their coats of arms by joining thereto a saltire azure, or a blue St Andrew’s cross, set in a white field, with another scutcheon in the middle of the blue cross, comprehending a red rampant lion in a yellow field, with a red tressure of fleur-de-luces about the lion, with an imperial crown above the scutcheon, being the arms of New Scotland. The crest of the arms of New Scotland is two hands joined together, the one armed, the other unarmed, holding a laurel and a thistle twisted, issuing out of them, with this motto, “Munit hæc, et altera vincit.” The supporters are a unicorn upon the right side, and a savage man upon the left.’—G. H. S.
The town-council of Aberdeen at this time anticipated the wisdom and good manners of a later age, by ordaining that ‘no person should, at any public or private meeting, presume to compel his neighbour, at table with him, to drink more wine or beer than what he pleased, under the penalty of forty pounds.’[1]
June 12.
Thomas Crombie, burgess of Perth, was ‘summoned to underlie the law, for the alleged slaughter of ane William Blair, a westland gentleman, wha notwithstanding had done the same negligently to himself. Being of intention to have struck the said Thomas with ane whinger, he hurt himself in the arm, whereof he died twenty days after. The said Thomas compeared with eighty burgesses of Perth, besides five earls, six lords, and twenty-six barons, upon the burgh of Perth’s desire to back him, [and] was clengit and freed therefrae.’—Chron. Perth.
July 20.
By the royal command, a fast was held throughout Scotland, in consequence of the heavy rains which had prevailed since the middle of May, threatening the destruction of the fruits of the earth. It was a time of calamity. The marriage of the king to the Princess Henrietta Maria of France (June 16th), had of course brought the mass into London, and ‘no sooner was the queen’s mass, the plague of the soul, received, than a raging pestilence broke out in the city of London and parts adjoining, which in a short time cut off above 40,000 persons.’—Stevenson’s Hist. C. Scot.
July 26.
1625.
The government was incensed by bruits set in circulation by a set of ‘restless and unquiet spirits,’ to the effect that the king designed some change in the kirk and its canons. The king issued a proclamation denouncing these injurious rumours as troublesome to the commonwealth, and protesting that so well was he pleased with the existing arrangements, that, if he had not found them established by his late dear father, he would himself have never rested till they were perfected as they now stood. It may be suspected that this proclamation did not put an end to the bruits, for in October the king discovered that a number of Catholic noblemen and gentlemen were bringing up their children in popish seminaries abroad, and at the same time entertaining popish priests at home; wherefore it had become necessary that some suitable anti-papist edicts should be published. The parents of children educated abroad were ordered to have them brought home before a certain day, under severe penalties. Great pains were threatened against those who should give entertainment or shelter to popish priests after a certain day. Finally, the proclamation charged ‘all our subjects, of whatsoever rank or degree, to conform themselves to the publict profession of the true religion, prohibiting the exercise of ony contrary profession, under the pains conteinit in the laws made thereanent.’—P. C. R.
Aug. 30.
A proclamation was resolved on for a strict execution of the laws against the selling of tallow out of the country. Contrary to the views of modern mercantile men, there was a general fear and dislike in those days regarding export trade. It was always thought to have a bad effect in making things scarce and dear at home. No one seems ever to have dreamed of the profitable quid pro quo without which the trade could not have been carried on. We require to have a full conception of this universal delusion, before we can understand the frame of mind under which the Privy Council of the day could speak of the transport of tallow as ‘a crime most pernicious and wicked,’ perpetrated by a set of ‘godless and avaritious persons,’ acting ‘without regard of honesty or of those common duties of civil conversation whilk in a good conscience they ought to carry in the estate.’
It was, to all appearance, under a sincere horror for ‘this mischeant and wicked trade,’ which threatened to leave not enough of tallow to supply the needs of the population, that the lords announced their resolution to punish it with confiscation of all the remaining movable goods of the guilty parties.—P. C. R.
John Gordon of Enbo, having suffered some injury at the hands of Sutherland of Duffus, longed for revenge, but for some time in vain. At length, riding with a single friend between Sideray and Skibo, he encountered Duffus’s brother, the Laird of Clyne, also attended by a single friend on horseback. Gordon, with a cudgel in his hand, assaulted Clyne, and gave him many blows. ‘Then they drew their swords, and, with their seconds, fell to it eagerly.’
1625.
Clyne, after being sorely wounded in the head and hand, was suffered by Eubo to escape with his life.
The curious part of the affair is to come. Enbo was prosecuted by Duffus before the Privy Council, and committed to the Castle of Edinburgh. The Duffus party were full of triumph, making sure of ample retribution. At that crisis arrives the sage and courteous Sir Robert Gordon of Gordonstown, who had heretofore made so many rough matters smooth in the north. He first dealt with Duffus, to induce him to withdraw the prosecution, which he apparently looked on in no other light than as a species of unrighteous revenge. Duffus proved obdurate, ‘thinking to get great sums of money decerned to him by the lords from John Gordon, for satisfaction of the wrong done to his brother, whereby he might undo John Gordon’s estate.’ Feeling now relieved from all ties towards Duffus, Sir Robert ‘dealt by all means for John Gordon’s relief and mitigation of his fine.’ Very much by the interest of the Lord Gordon, then in Edinburgh with the French commissioners, he succeeded in inducing the Privy Council to let John Gordon off with a fine of a hundred pounds Scots, equal to £8, 6s. 8d. sterling!—‘and nothing to the party.’ Duffus left Edinburgh in sad discomfiture, to meet the blame of his friends for not having accepted the better conditions offered at first by Sir Robert Gordon. The proto-baronet at the same time returned to the north, bringing John Gordon of Enbo along with him, ‘beyond the expectation of all his friends and foes in those parts, who thought that he should not have been released so soon, nor fined at so small a rate, wherein Sir Robert purchased himself great credit and commendation.’ So Sir Robert calmly assures us in his own narrative of the transaction.—G. H. S.
Oct. 27.
1625.
A convention of Estates was held, under the Earl of Nithsdale as commissioner, to treat regarding the revocation of the church-lands. Those whose fortunes were thus threatened were greatly alarmed and incensed by the urgency of the king. The suspicion of the Earl of Nithsdale being a papist must have added to the unpopularity of the affair. If we are to believe a story which Burnet reports from Sir Archibald Primrose, they held a private meeting to consult how they might best protect their own interests, and it was agreed by them that, when assembled, ‘if no other argument did prevail to make the Earl of Nithsdale desist, they would fall upon him and all his party in the old Scots manner, and knock them on the head.... One of these lords, Belhaven, of the name of Douglas, who was blind, bid them set him by one of the party, and he would make sure of one. So he was set next the Earl of Dumfries. He was all the while holding him fast. And when the other asked him what he meant by that, he said, ever since the blindness was come on him, he was in such fear of falling, that he could not help the holding fast to those who were next to him. He had all the while a poniard in his other hand, with which he had certainly stabbed Dumfries, if any disorder had happened. The appearance at that time was so great, and so much heat was raised upon it, that the Earl of Nithsdale would not open all his instructions, but came back to court, looking on the service as desperate.’
It is much to be desired for this anecdote that it had some support in other authority. The Lord Belhaven pointed to was then a man little over fifty, and his epitaph in Holyrood Abbey describes him as kind to his relations, charitable to the poor, moderate in prosperity, and constant under adversity—though, to be sure, posthumous certificates of that kind do not generally rank as evidence of the first class.[2]
Oct.
A taxation was granted to the king by the Scottish parliament, amounting to £40,000 Scots. Some of the burghs came to an agreement with the lords of the Privy Council for certain proportions of this taxation, to be paid annually while it continued; and we are thus supplied with a means of estimating the comparative importance and wealth of some of the principal towns in the kingdom. We find the following towns set down, with the annexed sums at their names: Glasgow, £815, 12s. 6d.; Linlithgow, £163, 2s. 6d.; Stirling, £422, 17s. 9d.; St Andrews, £490; Dunbar, £90, 15s.; Culross, £84, 10s.; Canongate, £100; Hamilton, 100 merks.
1626. Apr.
Paisley, now a huge city of the industrious, was, in the reign of Charles I., only a village surrounding the ruins of an ancient abbey. The dominant personage of the place was the Earl of Abercorn, a cadet of the Hamilton family, enriched by the possession of the abbey-lands. Through the influence of the earl’s mother, who had become a Catholic, the town was described as ‘a nest of papists.’ Nevertheless, the interest of Lady Abercorn’s relative, Lord Boyd, had procured a presentation to the parish church in favour of Mr Robert Boyd of Trochrig, recently principal of the Edinburgh University—one of a group of men deep in theological learning, adepts in Latin versifying, who then threw a lustre upon Scotland—but at the same time a zealous protester against the late Episcopalian innovations in the church. Being thus obnoxious to Lady Abercorn, albeit her ladyship’s relation, his settling in Paisley was viewed by her, her sons, and her friends, with great disrelish, and the consequence was a material resistance to the presentee, being perhaps the first occurrence of the kind in our country, the precursor of many.
‘He was ordained to have his manse in the fore-house of the abbey, as the most convenient place for that use. And having put his books and a bed thereintill; one Sunday, he being preaching, in the afternoon, the Master of Paisley,[3] being the Earl of Abercorn’s brother, with some others, came to the minister’s house, none being thereintill, and cast all his books on the ground, and thereafter locked the door.’ On a complaint from Boyd to the Privy Council, the Master was brought to penitence for this outrage, and it was then hoped that matters would go on smoothly. On his returning, however, to his manse, he found the locks of the doors stopped up with stones, so that he could not get in without force, which he was not permitted to use. As he was going away, ‘the rascally women of the town, coming to see the matter—for the men purposely absented themselves—not only upbraided Mr Robert with opprobrious speeches, and shouted and hoyed him, but likewise cast dirt and stones at him; so that he was forced to leave the town and go to Glasgow.’
Being a man of a gentle nature, Boyd withdrew to his house of Trochrig in Ayrshire, without making any complaint as to his late ill-usage. The case, however, being taken up by the Archbishop of Glasgow, and brought before the Privy Council, Lady Abercorn, the earl her son, and the Master her second son, all came to Edinburgh in the earl’s ‘gilded carroch,’ accompanied in the usual manner with their friends, to answer for the outrages which had been committed. An order was given for the replacement of Boyd in his parish; but, meanwhile, he sunk under a weakly and reduced constitution, and died, January 5, 1627, at the age of forty-nine.[4]
1626. June 15.
‘Betwixt the hours of eight and nine in the morning, there appeared a phenomenon in the open firmament, which was looked on by many as a presage of some future calamity. The sun shining bright, there appeared, to the view of all people, as it were three suns; one be-east, and the other south-be-west the true sun, and in appearance not far from it. From that which lay south-west, there proceeded a luminary in the form of a horn, that pointed north-west, and carried as it were a rainbow, in colour gray, but clearer than the rest of the sky. Whether these signs were ominous or not, manifold were the calamities which then prevailed.[5]
June.
Oct. 10.
Just before this time, a large body of men, variously stated at 3000 and 4400, was raised in Scotland by Sir Donald M‘Kay of Strathnaver, ‘a gentleman of a stirring spirit,’ and Sir James Leslie—supposed to have been of the Lindores family—to assist Ernest Count Mansfeldt in the Bohemian army against the Emperor of Germany. This being the Protestant cause, and likewise the cause of the king’s brother-in-law, the Elector Palatine, who had accepted the crown of Bohemia, the enlistment received the royal sanction and patronage, £2000 being disbursed to Sir Donald, and £600 to Sir James, while a further sum of £400 was promised to be at the service of the troops on their landing in Hamburg.[6] The movement harmonised with the feelings of the people of Scotland, to many of whom an honourable military service with pay was convenient and agreeable on less exalted considerations than that of religious sympathy, as the industry of the country was then too little advanced to hold out a gainful occupation to all who were anxious for it. The estates and influence of Sir Donald being in Sutherlandshire, it naturally fell out that a large portion of the officers of the corps were from that county and the adjacent districts of Ross and Caithness—Monroes, Mackenzies, Rosses, Gordons, Sinclairs, and Gunns. The greater number of the recruits embarked at Cromarty in October, and had a prosperous voyage to the Elbe; but their commander, Sir Donald, was detained by sickness till the spring of the ensuing year. Owing to the death of Count Mansfeldt, the corps took a new destination, though adhering to the same cause, for they entered the service of the King of Denmark, their own king’s uncle, who had engaged in the war against the emperor.
1626.
The exploits of these Scottish levies have been recorded in a curious but confused narrative, the production of one of the officers, and now a great rarity, entitled Monro his Expedition, with the worthy Scots Regiment called M‘Kay’s Regiment, &c.[7] The author, Colonel Robert Monro, states that he composed it at his spare hours, ‘for the use of all worthy cavaliers favouring the laudable profession of arms.’ He gives a long list of officers, all bearing familiar Scottish names—as Forbes, Monro, M‘Kay, Sinclair, Ross, Gordon, Stewart, Innes, Seton, Dunbar, Hay, and Gunn. In the ranks were included a small band of Macgregors, who had been lying for some time in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, on account of their irregularities, and who are said to have proved good soldiers under regular discipline and with a legitimate outlet for their inherent turbulence and courage.
One portion of the Scots Regiment was sent to join the English auxiliaries under General Morgan. Another was put to a severe duty in defending the Pass of Oldenburg against Tilly’s army. The latter are described as shewing a remarkable degree of firmness and gallantry in that trying situation, from which they had to retire, after a loss of four hundred men. Another party, of four companies, under Major Dunbar, defended the Castle of Brandenburg in Holstein against 10,000 men under Tilly, with such desperate and sanguinary pertinacity, that, on the place being ultimately taken, they were all put to the sword. On many other occasions, these valiant Scotsmen distinguished themselves greatly, insomuch that they came to be called the Invincible Regiment. It was greatly owing to them that Stralsund made such an obstinate defence against Wallenstein. Here they lost 500 men in seven weeks, only about 400 being now left. When the Danish king was forced to evacuate Pomerania, the Scots defended the bridge at Wolgast, till he was safe. So early as January 1628, Sir Donald M‘Kay had to go home for fresh levies. He returned in July with as many as raised the corps to 1400 effective men. But before any further remarkable service had been performed by the regiment, the King of Denmark was glad to make peace.
1626.
The regiment then transferred itself to the service of Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, who had now put himself at the head of the Protestant interest against Catholic Germany. Throughout his remarkable campaign in Pomerania and Mecklenburg, our brave Scots were on incessant service, and were usually employed on posts of peculiar difficulty or danger. The waste of men was enormous; and in February 1631, Lord Reay—for so Sir Donald M‘Kay was now styled—returned home once more for fresh levies. He was detained in England by some circumstances of an unpleasant nature, which enter into our national history; but the levies were sent out notwithstanding, and the efficiency of the Scots Regiment, or rather regiments, never for a moment flagged. At the brilliant capture of Frankfort-on-the-Oder, when so many of the imperialists perished, and so much of their wealth fell into the hands of the Swedish king, our countrymen had a distinguished part. In the subsequent transactions ending with the splendid victory of Leipsic, by which the Protestant world was for the time liberated, they were ever in the front, doing and suffering much. And so it went on, even after the death of the king at Lutzen in 1633, their great losses being continually made up again by the arrival of fresh levies from Scotland. Amongst many gallant officers who received their training in these wars, were two men destined to take prominent parts in the history of their country—namely, Colonels Alexander and David Leslie.[8]
July 19.
Amongst the preparations for war at this time, the Privy Council, reflecting on the inconveniences of being wholly dependent on foreign countries for gunpowder, empowered Sir James Baillie of Lochend, knight, to see if he could induce some Englishmen to come and settle in Scotland for the manufacture of that article.—P. C. R.
Sep.
1626.
Mr Thomas Ramsay, minister of Dumfries, was unusually zealous against popery, probably by reason of its peculiar abundance within the bounds of his cure. One day, as he and some co-presbyters were passing along the bridge over the Nith, they encountered a person on horseback whom they recognised to be ‘ane mess priest by whom numbers of the country people are pervertit not only in their religion, but in their allegiance to the king’s majesty.’ ‘Having used their best endeavours to have apprehendit the priest, it fell out that, by the help of some excommunicat papists, who was in company with him, he escaped.’ They, however, secured ‘his horse and cloak-bag, wherein there was a number of oisties, superstitious pictures, priests’ vestments, altar, chalice, plate-boxes with oils and ointments, with such other trash as priests carry about with them for popish uses.’
Mr Thomas Ramsay and his friends immediately came to Edinburgh, and presented themselves before the Privy Council, who, according to their wishes, passed an act of approbation in their favour, and ordered them to make a bonfire at the market-cross of Dumfries, and there burn all the popish ‘trash’ excepting the silver articles, which were to be melted down for the benefit of the poor.—P. C. R.
1627. July 17.
Four of the bishops, and a number of commissioners from presbyteries, met in Edinburgh to deliberate on church matters, being the nearest approach to a General Assembly which could now be permitted. Amongst the matters discussed were the increase of papistry and sin, the persecutions of the Protestants in Germany, and the war against France. Anxiety was also expressed regarding the prospects of the harvest. ‘Because of the extraordinar rains, which now threaten rotting of the fruits of the ground before they be ripe, and so a fearful famine upon this land in so dangerous a time, when the seas are closed by the enemies, and no hope of help from other countries if God shall send a famine, [it was resolved] to entreat the Lord that he wold cause the heaven answer the earth, and the earth answer the corn, and the corns to answer our necessity, and us to answer His will, in faith, repentance, and obedience.’[9]
1627.
At this time, Great Britain might be said to be drifting towards a war with France. The king having offended Louis XIII. by turning off all the Catholic priests who had come over in attendance upon his queen, the French monarch retaliated by ordering the seizure of British vessels within his ports. There were a hundred and twenty English and Scottish ships in those ports, chiefly loading with wine, and the whole were seized. The Scotch, however, contrived to make themselves appear as still connected with France by an ancient league—a league which, it is to be feared, only existed as a friendly illusion common to the two nations. Out of deference to this notion, the Scotch vessels were all dismissed, while the English were retained.—Bal.
‘There was a warrant from the king’s majesty and his Council, for listing in Scotland 9000 men, to go to serve under the king of Denmark, in the German wars for renewing the palatinate and Bohemia.... There was many forcit, as beggars, idle men, and [those wanting] competent means to live upon, under the conduct of the Earl of Nithsdale, my Lord Spynie, and the Laird of Murkle (Sinclair), as colonels.
‘There was the same year 2000 gentlemen, landed men, barons, lords, and others of guid sort, levanted from Scotland under the Earl of Morton, for helping to take the Isle of [Ré] in France. But the isle was recovered by the French frae the English.’—Chron. Perth.
The recruiting of these German legions does not appear to have been conducted in a very scrupulous manner. Some of the circumstances afford a rich illustration of the social condition of Scotland at that time. On the 1st of November 1627, Robert Scott, bailie of Hawick, reported to the Privy Council a number of ‘idle and masterless men, fit to be employed in the wars’—namely, ‘Allan Deans, miller; Allan Wilson; George Dickson, callit the Wran; John Rowcastle; Walter Scott, maltman; John Tait, piper; William Beatison; Robert Lidderdale, callit the Corbie; Robert Langlands; James Waugh, officiar; James Towdop; William Scott, callit Young Gillie; John Laing, piper; William M‘Vitie; Walter Fowler; and Andrew Deans.’ This proceeding of Bailie Scott was in obedience to an act of Estates. The lords, having narrowly examined these men, liberated seven as ‘not fit persons to be employed in the wars.’ Two were set free, under surety to appear again when called upon. The remaining persons they ordained to be delivered to the Earl of Nithsdale, ‘to be sent by him with the rest of his company to the wars in Germany.’ Seeing, however, that ‘the said persons are men and servants to William Douglas of Drumlanrig, and that reason and equity craves that they sould be rather delivered to Sir James Douglas of Mowsill, brother to the said Laird, nor to any other colonel or captain whatsoever,’ they ordained accordingly, provided that Sir James should satisfy the Earl for his expenses. The men thus dealt with were to be lodged in the Tolbooth, until the ship should be ready to carry them abroad, the Earl undertaking to satisfy Andrew White the jailer, ‘for their expenses during the time of their remaining in ward.’—P. C. R.
1627. Aug. 12.
In the exigencies of the unfortunate wars in which the king became involved with Spain and France, he was led to the strange idea of raising a small troop of Highland bowmen. This weapon, which had long since declined in most European countries before the advance of firearms, was still in use in the north of Scotland—indeed, continued partially so for sixty years yet to come. Most probably it was the chief of the MacNaughtans, now a gentleman of the Privy Chamber, who had suggested such a levy to the king, for he it was who undertook to raise and command the corps. At the date noted, Charles wrote to the Privy Council of Scotland, to the Earl of Morton, and the Laird of Glenurchy, asking assistance and co-operation for MacNaughtan in his endeavours to raise the men, it being declared that they should have ‘as large privileges as any has had heretofore in the like kind.’
It appears that MacNaughtan came to the Highlands in the course of the autumn, and engaged upwards of one hundred men for this extraordinary service. ‘George Mason’s ship’ was placed at Lochkilcheran, to receive the men as they were engaged, and carry them to their field of action. It seems to have been designed that they should join a regiment commanded by the Earl of Morton, which was now lying at the Isle of Wight, designed to support the Duke of Buckingham in the dismally unfortunate expedition he had made for the relief of Rochelle. It was not till some weeks after that affair was concluded by his Grace’s evacuation of the Isle of Ré, that the bowmen, to the stinted number of one hundred, left their native shores. Departing in the very middle of winter, the ship encountered weather unusually tempestuous, was chased by the enemy, and obliged to put into Falmouth. There MacNaughtan wrote to the Earl of Morton—‘Our bagpipers and marlit plaids served us to guid wise in the pursuit of ane man-of-war that hetly followit us.’ He told his lordship he would come on with his men to the Isle of Wight as soon as possible, being afraid of a lack of victuals where he was; and meanwhile he entreated that his lordship would prepare clothes for the corps, ‘for your lordship knows, although they be men of personages, they cannot muster before your lordship in their plaids and blue caps.’
What came of these ‘poor sojours, quho ar far from thair owin countrie,’ we nowhere learn.[10]
1627. Aug.
‘... there being upon the coast of Zetland about the number of 250 Fleming busses at the herring-fishing, attended with nine waughters ... there cam upon them fourteen great Biscayen Spanish ships, in whilk there were 4000 soldiers, with ane great sum of money for the payment of the Spanish army in Germany; whilk ships, being bound for Dunkirk, cam that north way for their safest passage, till keep themselves free from the harm of Flemish or English ships. But, approaching to the said coast, they set upon the Hollanders, and, sinking three of the waughters, the haill busses took the flight, some till little creeks in Zetland, where the Spaniard did sink a number of their busses, and taking their master, did put the rest of their company to the edge of the sword, with some also of the country people, inhabitants thereof, resisting their tyranny.’
The Privy Council, duly apprised of these outrages on the 13th of the month, were taking measures for their correction, when, on the 16th, ‘there arase a great fray in the town of Edinburgh, for, the busses having left the waughters combating with the Dunkirkers, and having fled away therefrae, there cam of them the number of threescore all together in form of ane half-moon, up the Firth of Forth; where, at the first perceiving afar off of such a number of ships in the form foresaid, as if they had been in battle or onset thereof, the haill people thought they had been ane army of Spaniards and Dunkirkers assuredly. Whereupon the Privy Council caused mak a proclamation, that all manner of men, offensive and defensive, under the pain of death, should all in arms to the sea-shore, upon the first touk of the drum. All this day, the Lords of Council held their council at Leith, where also David Aikenhead, provost of Edinburgh, with some of the bailies and council thereof, attended the event of the said ships, till advertise the people of the town what they sould do thereanent. About eight hours at night, by command of the Privy Council, the cannons were trailed down with furnishing thereto from the Castle of Edinburgh till Leith, and the town of Edinburgh were put in arms under ten handseignies, every man better resolved than another to abide the worst till death, or they to put the enemies to destruction.... About ten hours at night certain word cam, by two boats that was sent from Leith, to the effect that they were our friends and only a number of busses fled from the tyranny of the Dunkirkers ... and then the cannons were trailed back again to the Castle, and the people were commanded to their rest.’—Jo. H.
1627. Oct. 10.
As the Privy Council was sitting in its chamber in Holyrood Palace, an outrage took place, recalling the wild acts of thirty years since. One John Young, poultry-man, attacked Mr Richard Bannatyne, bailie-depute of the regality of Broughton, at the council-room door, and struck him in the back with a whinger, to the peril of his life. The Council, in great indignation, immediately sent off Young to be tried on the morrow at the Tolbooth, with orders, ‘if he be convict, that his majesty’s justice and his depute cause doom to be pronounced against him, ordaining him to be drawn upon ane cart backward frae the Tolbooth to the place of execution at the Mercat Cross of Edinburgh, and there hangit to the deid and quartered, and his head to be set upon the Nether Bow, and his hand to be set upon the Water Yett.’—P. C. R.
Nov. 27.
A warrant was granted by the Privy Council regarding Alexander Robison, a Jesuit lately taken and put into the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, ‘where he has remained divers months bygane’ [since the 20th September of preceding year]. As his staying in the country could not but lead to the corruption of the people in their religious opinions and their allegiance to the king, the Council deemed it expedient that Robison be ‘sent away out of the country nor unnecessarily halden within the same.’ He was therefore to be called before a justice court in the Tolbooth, where, ‘after acknowledging of his offence in transgressing of his majesty’s laws made against the resorting and remaining of Jesuits within this kingdom,’ they were to ‘take him solemnly sworn and judicially acted, that he sall depairt and pass furth of this kingdom with the first commodity of a ship going toward the Low Countries, and that he sall not return again within the same without his majesty’s licence ... under pain of deid.’—P. C. R.
Two days after, the Council took into consideration certain petitions of Alexander Robison, ‘heavily regretting the want of means to entertein him in ward and satisfy his bypast charges therein.’ ‘Seeing it accords not with Christian charity to suffer him to starve for hunger, he being his majesty’s prisoner,’ the lords agreed that he should have 13s. 4d. [that is, 1s. 1-1/3d. sterling] per day, counting from the 20th of September last.
1627.
The latter part of this year, marked by a military disaster and disgrace nearly unexampled in British annals[11], was made further memorable by a tempest of extraordinary violence, which destroyed a vast quantity of mercantile shipping, including many collier vessels carrying their commodity to the Thames. At one part of the coast of Scotland, a high tide, assisted by the storm, produced an inundation over a large tract of low land. It came upon the Blackshaw in Carlaverock parish, and upon certain parts of the parish of Ruthwell ‘in such a fearful manner as none then living had ever seen the like. It went at least half a mile beyond the ordinary course, and threw down a number of houses and bulwarks in its way, and many cattle and other bestial were swept away with its rapidity; and, what was still more melancholy, of the poor people who lived by making salt on Ruthwell sands seventeen perished; thirteen of these were found next day, and were all buried together in the churchyard of Ruthwell, which no doubt was an affecting sight to their relations, widows, and children, &c., and even to all that beheld it. One circumstance more ought not to be omitted. The house of Old Cockpool being environed on all hands, the people fled to the top of it for safety; and so sudden was the inundation upon them, that, in their confusion, they left a young child in a cradle exposed to the flood, which very speedily carried away the cradle; nor could the tender-hearted beholders save the child’s life without the manifest danger of their own. But, by the good providence of God, as the cradle, now afloat, was going forth of the outer door, a corner of it struck against the door-post, by which the other end was turned about; and, going across the door, it stuck there till the waters were assuaged.
‘Upon the whole, that inundation made a most surprising devastation in those parts; and the ruin occasioned by it had an agreeable influence on the surviving inhabitants, convincing them, more than ever, of what they owed to divine Providence; and for ten years thereafter, they had the holy communion about that time, and thereby called to mind even that bodily deliverance.’[12]
Dec. 25.
1627.
There now being much anxiety about foreign invasion, some care was taken to ascertain the state of the national defences, and there was also a proposal to fortify various places, of which, it may be remarked, Leith was one. Sir John Stewart of Traquair had been sent to inquire into the condition of Dumbarton Castle, and now reported as follows: ‘At his entry within the castle, he found only three men and a boy in ordinar guarding the same. The walls in the chief and most important parts were ruinous and decayed; the house wanting doors, locks, or bolts, and nather wind nor water tight; the ordnance unmounted, and little or no provision of victuals and munition (except some few rusty muskets) within the same.’
The description, it is to be feared, was generally characteristic. In those days, which we look back upon as so romantic, there was one thing wanting—revenue. In Scotland, owing to the poverty of the government, national buildings alternated between long periods of neglect and decay, and abrupt attempts at repair when there was a pressing need. As to the case of Dumbarton, Sir John Stewart was empowered to get it put into proper order, with a promise of reimbursement.—P. C. R.
1629. Mar. 11.
The Privy Council took energetic measures against certain persons of the south-western province, including Herbert Maxwell of Kirkconnel, Charles Brown in New Abbey, Barbara Maxwell Lady Mabie, John Little, master of household to the Earl of Nithsdale, John Allan in Kirkgunzeon, John Williamson in Lochrutton, and many others, all apparently people in respectable circumstances. It was found that these individuals proudly and contemptuously disregarded both the excommunication and the horning which they had brought upon themselves by persisting in their ‘obdured and popish opinions and errors,’ haunted and frequented all public parts of the country, ‘as if they were free and lawful subjects,’ and were ‘reset, supplied, and furnished with all things necessar and comfortable unto them,’ a great encouragement to them to continue in their erroneous opinions, ‘whereas if this reset, supply, and comfort were refused unto them, they might be reclaimed from their opinions, to the acknowledgment of their bypast misdemeanours.’ As if to mark more effectually the infamy of these recusants, a pair who had been excommunicated for adultery were classed with them. A commission was issued for the apprehension and trial of all persons ‘who are suspect guilty of the reset and supply of the said excommunicat rebels.’
1628.
Two of the commissioners—Sir William Grier of Lag and Sir John Charteris of Amisfield—went very promptly to that peculiar nest of papists, New Abbey, and there apprehended Charles and Gilbert Brown, two of the ‘excommunicat rebels.’ Enraged by this act, the wife of Charles Brown, and a number of other women, raised a mob against the minister and schoolmaster of the parish, ‘whose wives and servants they shamefully and mischantly abused, and pursued with rungs [sticks] and casting of stones.’ This being held as a great insolency, and likely to prove an evil example if unpunished, the Council ordered the commissioners to hold a court at Dumfries for the trial and punishment of the offenders.—P. C. R.
A few weeks afterwards, one of the excommunicated ladies, Janet Johnston, spouse of Brown of Lochhill, was taken into custody; but being in a delicate state, she was allowed (June 26) to go home till the time of her accouchement, on condition that she gave caution for her living during the interval ‘without offence and scandal to the kirk,’ and ‘conform with the ministry for giving unto them satisfaction regarding her religion;’ failing which, immediately after her recovery, ‘she sall depairt furth of the kingdom, and not return again within the same without his majesty’s licence, under pain of ane thousand merks.’—P. C. R.
These proceedings were followed up by some sharp handling of the papists of Aberdeenshire and the priests trafficking there.
Apr. 2.
1628.
The clergy of the city of Edinburgh, eight in number, were now disposed to sympathise in and support their flocks in the general repugnance to the new arrangements at the celebration of the communion. They had become sensible of the great inconvenience of dissent, and wished to bring the people back to the churches. There was, however, but a faint hope of prevailing with the king to sanction a return to the old simple forms. At the approach of the Easter celebration of the communion, ‘there was in the Little East Kirk a private meeting of the ministers of Edinburgh, and a certain number of the citizens of the said town, to the end they might reconceil the hearts of the people to their pastors, to the end, if it might be possible, they might have acquired ane dispensation from the king to celebrate the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper without kneeling, after the ancient form of the discipline of the Kirk of Scotland.... The conveners, having met three or four times thereupon, thought best to send Mr William Livingstone to the king’s majesty to deal for obteining the said dispensation; but before he cam to court, his majesty was informed of his message, and absolutely refused the same until he were further advised.’—Jo. H. The king afterwards sent an imperious order to the Archbishop of St Andrews, desiring him to see to the condign punishment of the authors of this movement. The people were silenced, but soured; and the course of things that led to the Civil War went on.
Dec. 2.
George Lauder of the Bass, and his mother, ‘Dame Isobel Hepburn Lady Bass,’ were at this time in embarrassed circumstances, ‘standing at the horn at the instance of divers of their creditors.’ Nevertheless, as was complained of them, ‘they peaceably bruik and enjoy some of their rents, and remain within the craig of the Bass, presuming to keep and maintein themselves, so to elude justice and execution of the law.’ A Scotch laird and his mother holding out against creditors in a tower on that inaccessible sea-rock, form rather a striking picture to the imagination. But debt even then had its power of exorcising romance. The Lords of Council issued a proclamation, threatening George Lauder and his mother with the highest pains if they did not submit to the laws. A friend then came forward and represented to the lords ‘the hard and desolate estate’ of the two rebels, and obtained a protection for them, enabling them to come to Edinburgh to make arrangements for the settlement of their affairs.—P. C. R.
1628.
Under encouragement, as was supposed, from the Duke of Buckingham, the Scottish Catholics had for some time been raising their heads in a manner not known for many years before. They began to indulge a hope that possibly a certain degree of toleration might be extended to them. Some impetuous spirits amongst them went so far in ‘insolency’ as to write pasquinades upon the Bishop of Aberdeen, and post them upon his own church doors. The Privy Council were too well aware of the unpopularity of the king on account of the episcopal innovations which he loved, to allow him to remain under any additional odium on account of a faith about which he was, at the best, indifferent. Besides, ‘taking order’ with popery was always a cheap and ready means of making political capital against Presbyterian opponents. We accordingly find the Council at this date issuing orders regarding a number of persons of consideration in the north, as well as the priests whom they entertained, but particularly against the Marquis of Huntly, whose protection they deemed to be the chief cause why popery was not better repressed in that quarter.
There was first a recital regarding a host of men who acted as officers, or lived as tenants, upon the extensive estates of the marquis—‘Mr Robert Bisset of Lessendrum, bailie of Strabogie; Alexander Gordon of Drumquhaill, chamberlain of Strabogie; Patrick Gordon of Tilliesoul; John Gordon, in Little-mill; Adam Smith, chamberlain of the Enzie; Robert Gordon, in Haddo; Barbara Law, spouse to the said Adam Smith; Margaret Gordon, good wife of Cornmellat; Malcolm Laing, in Gulburn; and Mr Adam Strachan, chamberlain to the Earl of Aboyne.’ It was stated of them, that they had remained indifferent under the ‘fearful sentence of excommunication,’ and the consequent process of horning—that is, rebellion—frequenting all parts of the country ‘as if they had been true and faithful subjects.’ They were alleged to be encouraged in their rebellious life by the marquis, who was properly answerable for them; so he was charged to present them on a certain day of February next, under pain of horning.
1628.
There was next a recital regarding a number of persons, including, besides several of the above, ‘Mr Alexander Irving, burgess of Aberdeen; Thomas Menzies of Balgownie; Walter Leslie, in Aberdeen; Robert Irwing, burgess there; John Gordon, appearand of Craig; James Forbes of Blackton; Robert Gordon, in Cushnie; James Philip, in Easton; James Con, in Knockie; John Gordon, in Bountie; Alexander Harvie, in Inverury; John Gordon, in Troups-mill; John Spence, notar in Pewsmill; Francis Leslie, brother to Capuchin Leslie; Alexander Leslie, brother to the Laird of Pitcaple; Thomas Cheyne, in Ranniston; William Seton of Blair; Thomas Laing, goldsmith, burgess of Aberdeen; Alexander Gordon, in Tilliegreg; Alexander Gordon, in Convach; Agnes Gordon his spouse; Margaret Gordon, spouse to Robert Innes, in Elgin;’ who had all been excommunicated and denounced rebels for the same reason: also seven men and two women, including, besides several of those formerly cited, Alexander Gordon, in Badenoch; Angus M‘Ewen M‘William there; and Alexander Gordon, ‘appearand’ of Cairnbarrow; and Helen Coutts his spouse; who had been put to the horn for not coming to answer for their ‘not conforming themselves to the religion presently professed within this kingdom, and for their scandalous behaviour otherwise, to the offence of God, disgrace of the Gospel, and misregard of his majesty’s authority.’ Having most ‘proudly and contemptuandly remained under excommunication this long time bygane,’ they went about everywhere as if they had been good subjects, ‘hunting and seeking all occasion where they may have the exercise of their false religion; for which purpose they are avowed resetters of Jesuits, seminary and mass priests, accompanying them through the country, armed with unlawful weapons.’ The Marquis of Huntly, as sheriff-principal of Aberdeen, and Lord Lovat, as ‘sheriff of Elgin and Forres,’ were charged to search for and capture these persons, in order that they might be punished.
There was, finally, an order regarding the priests, who, it was said, were not only corrupting the religion of the people, but perverting their loyalty—‘namely, Mr Andrew Steven, callit Father Steven; Mr John Ogilvie; Father Stitchill; Father Hegitts; Capuchin Leslie, commonly callit The Archangel; Father Ogilvie; Mr William Leslie, commonly callit The Captain; Mr Andrew Leslie; Mr John Leslie; —— Christie, commonly callit The Principal of Dowie; with other twa Christies; Father Brown, son to umwhile James Brown at the Nether Bow of Edinburgh; Father Tyrie; three Robertsons, callit Fathers; Father Robb; Father Paterson; Father Pittendreich; Father Dumbreck; and Doctor William Leslie.’ The Marquis of Huntly, as the proper legal authority for the purpose, ‘and the special man of power, friendship, authority, and commandment in the north parts of the kingdom, and who for many other respects is obleist to contribute his best means for the furtherance and advancement of his majesty’s authority and service,’ was charged to hunt out and apprehend these pestilent men, that the laws might be executed upon them.
To these measures was added a proclamation, chiefly to the people of the northern districts, pointing out the priests by name, as the ‘most pernicious pests in this commonweal,’ and commanding ‘that nane presume nor take upon hand to reset, supply, nor furnish meat, drink, house, nor harboury’ to them, ‘nor keep company with them, nor convoy them through the country, nor to have no kind of dealing nor trafficking with them,’ under the penalties laid down in the acts of parliament. There was a like proclamation regarding the excommunicated laymen and women above mentioned. At the same time, the bishop and magistrates of Aberdeen were commissioned to go with armed bands, and endeavour to apprehend both the priests and their resetters.
1628.
While charging the Marquis of Huntly with some duty against the papists on his own estates and those throughout his jurisdiction, the Council were quite aware of their false position in regard to him, and they deemed it proper (December 4) to send a letter to the king on that special point. They expressed their belief that the chief cause of the late increase of popery and insolency of the papists lay in the fact, that the execution of the laws on these matters was in the hands of notoriously avowed professors of the same faith—men of such power, that inferior officers, however well affected to their duty, were overawed. They in all grief and humility presented this case for his majesty’s serious consideration, entreating that he would debar from the Council and from public employments all who were suspected of popery; manifestly pointing to the marquis. Meanwhile, they said, we have directed warrants to the sheriffs and other authorities, ‘to apprehend the delinquents if they can or darr.’
The Marquis of Huntly, who had been last converted from popery a dozen years ago, and had since, as usual, relapsed, took little trouble with a commission which he felt to be so disagreeable. When the 3d of February arrived, his depute came before the Council, and made some excuse for him, on the ground that execution of the warrants had been delayed by the wintry weather until the delinquents had all escaped; adding a petition that they would not press him to remove his chamberlains till these men should have accounted to him for large sums which they owed to him. Feeling that the marquis had wilfully failed in his duty, they denounced him as a rebel.
1628.
On the 18th of June 1629, the Council issued a charge against Sir John Campbell of Caddell;[13] Mr Alexander Irving, burgess of Aberdeen; Thomas Menzies of Balgownie; Mr Robert Bisset of Lessendrum; John Gordon of Craig; James Forbes of Blackton; Thomas Cheyne of Ranniston; William Seton of Blair; Alexander Gordon of Tilliegreg; Patrick Gordon of Tilliesoul; and Margaret Gordon, goodwife of Cornmellat; representing that, notwithstanding all that had been lately done, they continue obdurate against kirk and law, going about as if nothing were amiss, and enjoying possession of ‘their houses, goods, and geir, whilk properly belongs to his majesty as escheat.’ Seeing that by the latter circumstance they are ‘strengthened and fostered in their popish courses,’ the Council ordained that officers-at-arms ‘pass, pursue, and take the said rebels their houses, remove them and their families furth thereof, and keep and detein the same in his majesty’s name;’ also to search out, poind, and uplift all ‘geir’ of theirs wherever to be found, and bring it to the exchequer. All neighbours were commanded to assist in enforcing these orders.
It was ascertained that the acts against resetting of priests had been ‘eluded by the wives of persons repute and esteemed to be sound in religion, who, pretending misknowledge of the actions of their wives in thir cases, thinks to liberate themselves of the danger of the said resett, as if they were not to answer for their wives’ doings.’ Wherefore, the Council ordained that the husband shall be always, in such cases, answerable for the wife.
At the same time, to gratify the desire of his Scottish Council, the king sent an order that, for the detection of papists in high places, the communion should be administered to all his councillors and judges, all advocates, writers, and officers of the government, in his chapel at Holyroodhouse, and this to be repeated at least once a year. At his majesty’s command, a kind of convention of dignitaries of church and state met at the same place to give the Council their assistance. The result was a commission issued (July 25, 1629) to a great number of nobles and gentlemen, in the several districts popishly affected, to search for and bring to justice those ‘pernicious and wicked pests,’ ‘avowed enemies to God’s truth and all Christian government,’ the Jesuits, seminary and mass priests concealed throughout the country; also to seize all persons of whatever rank, ‘whom they sall deprehend going in pilgrimage to chapels and wells, or whom they sall know themselves to be guilty of that crime,’ that they may be punished according to act of parliament. Supposing the priests and other delinquents should fly to fortified places, then the commissioners were empowered and ordered to ‘follow, hunt, and pursue them with fire and sword, assiege the said strengths and houses, raise fire, and use all other force and warlike engine that can be had for winning and recovery thereof, and apprehending of the said Jesuits and excommunicat papists being therein.’ The commissioners at the same time received assurance that no act of bloodshed on either side, or any destruction of property occasioned in the execution of this order, should be imputed to them as a fault.
1628.
The dignitaries and ministers of the Established Church, without any appearance of unwillingness, took part in this persecution. Many of the bishops sat as members of the Privy Council, and we hear of the ‘dioceses and presbyteries’ helping the government to lists of avowed and suspected papists, against whom proceedings might be taken. None were more active than Spottiswoode, archbishop of St Andrews, and Forbes, bishop of Aberdeen. It was no blank fusillade for mere terror. A great number of the gentlemen and ladies aimed at in the fulminations of the Council were really struck in their persons and estates. We hear of many being thrown into prison, and kept there till they either professed conformity or gave caution that they would depart from the country. Their property was at the same time held as escheat to the crown.
Agreeably to the royal order, the communion was administered in the king’s chapel at Holyroodhouse in July, ‘by sound of trumpet,’ to all such of his majesty’s councillors, members of the College of Justice, and others, as were disposed thus to testify their worthiness of the royal favour. On the 6th of November, the king wrote a letter to his Scottish Council on this subject. ‘Understanding,’ he says, ‘that some popishly affected have neglected this course, we, out of our care and affection for the maintenance of the professed religion, are pleased to will and require that you remove from our council-table all such who are disobedient in that kind.’ This the Council (December 3) obediently resolved to do.
1628.
The Council was much importuned by the captive papists for relief; but it was pithily ordained that none now or hereafter ‘sall be relieved out of ward, but upon obedience and conformity to the true religion, or else upon their voluntary offer of banishment furth of his majesty’s whole dominions.’
One remarkable captive was the Marchioness of Abercorn, whom we have already seen manifesting some ultra-ardour on her own side. This lady had lain for a long time in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh—a lodging which was loathsome in the reign of George III., and may be presumed to have been still worse in that of Charles I. The confinement had procured her ladyship ‘many heavy diseases, so as this whole last winter she was almost tied to her bed,’ and she now ‘found a daily decay and weakness in her person.’ The severity of the fate of this, as of some other persons, may be measured by the mercy extended to her. It being represented to the king that her ladyship, being oppressed with sickness and disease of body, required the benefit of a watering-place, he, being inclined, on the one hand, to do nothing that would derogate from the authority of the church, but, on the other, being unwilling that the lady should be ‘brought to the extremity of losing her life for want of ordinary remedies,’ ordered (July 9, 1629) that she should have a licence to go to the baths of Bristol, but only on condition that she should not attempt to appear at court, and after her recovery, return and put herself again at the disposal of the Council.
Her ladyship, after all, did not go to the Bristol baths, but, after a further restraint of six months in the Canongate [jail?], was permitted to go to reside in the house of Duntarvie, on condition that ‘she sall contain herself [therein] so warily and respectively as she sall not fall under the break of any of his majesty’s laws;’ also that she should, while living there, have conference with the ministry, but allow none to Jesuits or mass priests. Her ladyship is found to have ‘contained herself’ in Duntarvie for a considerable time, but to have at length been under a necessity of resorting to Paisley for the ‘outred’ of some weighty affairs. In March 1631, when she had been under restraint about three years, she was formally licensed to go to Paisley, but only under condition that she should not, while there, ‘reset Thomas Algeo nor no Jesuits,’ and return by a certain day under penalty of five thousand merks.
1628.
Some, while preparing to pass into exile, were naturally concerned about the means of living abroad. These persons, therefore, petitioned that some portion of their confiscated fortunes might be granted to them for their subsistence. The king took these petitions into consideration, and ‘out of his gracious bounty and clemency, in hope of their timely reclaiming,’ ordained that the proceeds of their estates should be divided into three parts, ‘whereof twa sall wholly belong to his majesty, and the third part his majesty does freely bestow upon the said persons;’ this, however, to be wholly forfeited, if the inventory of their possessions rendered by them should prove to be untrue.
Even the princely Huntly was obliged to bow to the storm. Breaking through an order of the Scottish Privy Council, he proceeded direct to court, in the hope of gaining something from the royal favour. Having resigned into the king’s hands his sheriffship of Aberdeen, and made some excuses for his non-execution of the Council’s orders, he obtained certain ‘instructions for the clergy of Scotland,’ ordering them to use Huntly, Angus, Nithsdale, and Abercorn ‘with discretion,’ and not proceed further against them till he should be consulted; also commanding that papist peeresses be not excommunicated, provided their husbands be responsible for them, and that they reset no Jesuits.[14] Huntly then came (November 3) in humble form before the Council, made excuses for his non-execution of their orders, and besought them for a gift of his own confiscated property in behalf of some person whom he might nominate. Notwithstanding the king’s favourable letter, they demurred to this petition, and put him off for some weeks, at the same time taking caution that he should not pass north of the Tay. Coming again before them on the 8th of December, he was told that he could not be excused from ‘exhibiting’ the papists residing on his estates. He was also commanded to return on a certain day, when he might witness his daughters being ‘sequestrat for their better breeding and instruction in the grounds of the true religion.’
Amongst the movements in this important cause was one regarding the children of noted papists. It was feared that the ordinances for having them brought up under Protestant tutors had been much disregarded. The Earl of Angus had been ordered to place his eldest son, James Douglas, under Principal Adamson of the Edinburgh University, to have remained with him some certain space, in order to have his doubts in religion resolved. The young man had given his tutor the slip. The earl was therefore called before the Council. He explained that he had no knowledge of what the youth had done till it was past, and he had since sent him to the Duke of Lennox, that he might be introduced to some English university. He was obliged to crave pardon of the Council for what he had done. The representative of the great Douglases of the fifteenth century compelled, in the seventeenth, to give up the right to educate his own son, and confess himself a delinquent for even attempting such a thing! ‘The Earl of Errol’s twa daughters, the Laird of Dalgetty’s bairns, and the bairns of Alexander Gordon of Dunkinty,’ were said to be under ‘vehement suspicion of being corrupted in their religion by remaining in their fathers’ company.’ So likewise were the daughters of the Marquis of Huntly, the children of Lord Gray, and many others. The Earl of Nithsdale was ordered to ‘exhibit’ his son, that the Council might see if he was right in the faith. Even Lord Gordon, who soon after undertook a commission for the government against the northern papists, was commanded to send his sons to a tutor approven of by the Archbishop of St Andrews.
1628.
We get a glimpse of some of the proceedings in regard to the estates of the Catholic gentlemen from a supplication presented to the Privy Council on the 15th of December 1629 by the commissioners of the diocese of Aberdeen. It proceeds to narrate that, it having pleased the Lords, ‘to the glory of God and comfort of all weel-affected subjects, for purging the land of popery, to grant sundry letters against excommunicat rebels, their persons, houses, and rents’—decreets, moreover, having been obtained in the Court of Session for poinding and arrestment—the officers had consequently dealt with certain friends of the victims, who had undertaken to labour the lands for the crop 1629, and to account for the result according to a valuation made ‘before the corns came to the hook;’ but there had been some slackness in the working out of these arrangements, ‘to the great hinder of his majesty’s service, and encouraging of these excommunicat rebels to continue in their obstinacy and disobedience.’ It was therefore necessary to take sharper methods; and a strict commission to the Bishop of Aberdeen was suggested. The Council accordingly ordered the bishop to call the officers before him, and have them ‘tried of their diligence’ and honest and dutiful carriage in this matter, and to see that they were prompted where necessary.
For further proceedings regarding the ‘excommunicat papists and rebels,’ see forward, under January 1630.
1629. Jan. 26.
On this day—an unusual season for thunder in our climate—a thunder-clap fell upon Castle-Kennedy, the seat of the Earl of Cassillis in Ayrshire—‘which, falling into a room where there were several children, crushed some dogs and furniture; but happily the children escaped. From thence descending to a low apartment, it destroyed a granary of meal. At the same time, a gentleman in the neighbourhood had about thirty cows, that were feeding in the fields, struck dead by the thunder.’[15]
Apr. 15.
1629.
The case of John Weir ‘in Clenochdyke,’ who had married Isobel Weddell, the relict of his grand-uncle, and thus been guilty of ‘incest,’ was under the consideration of the Privy Council. Weir had been three years under excommunication for this crime, which the Council deemed ‘fit to procure the wrath and displeasure of God to the whole nation.’ The king’s advocate was now ordered to proceed with his trial, and, in the event of his conviction, to cause sentence to be passed; but they superseded execution till July. Weir was actually tried on the 25th of April, found guilty, and sentenced to be beheaded at the Cross of Edinburgh.[16] After suffering a twelvemonth’s imprisonment under this sentence, he became a subject for the special mercy of the king, and was only banished the island for life.
Weir’s is not a solitary case. On the 19th of August in the same year, Henry Dick, ‘in Bandrum,’ was adjudged to lose his head for a transgression in connection with the sister of his wife, this offence being regarded as incest, and misinterpreted as a breach of a well-known text which is still the basis of an English law. In July 1649, Donald Brymer for the same offence was sentenced to the same punishment. It is worthy of notice that, in June 1643, Janet Imrie, who had been the paramour of two brothers, was for that reason condemned to be beheaded.
One of the most remarkable of a large class of cases of this kind was that of Alexander Blair, a tailor in Currie, who had married his first wife’s half-brother’s daughter.[17] For this offence, under reverence for the same misinterpreted text, he was condemned to lose his head! (September 9, 1630.)
It is deplorable to see these severe punishments inflicted for acts which neither interfere with any principle of nature, nor tend in any way to injure the rights of individuals or to trouble society. At the same time, the marriage of first-cousins, which tends to the deterioration of the race, was not forbidden.[18] And offences of real consequence, as affecting the condition of individuals, were visited with comparatively light penalties. Thus, on the same day when Alexander Blair, tailor in Currie, was sentenced to lose his head for marrying his first wife’s half-brother’s daughter, William Lachlane was adjudged to banishment for life for bigamy. The jurisprudence of the country on these points was mainly guided by a few semi-religious or rather superstitious views, while the voice of God through nature no one thought of listening to or applying.
1629. May 14.
Died Jean Gordon, remarkable in our history as the lady whom James Hepburn Earl of Bothwell divorced in 1567, in order to be enabled to ally himself to Queen Mary. She survived that frightful time, in peace and honour, for sixty-two years, exemplifying how durable are calmness and prudence in comparison with passion and guilt. Since her separation from Bothwell, she had been the wife of two other husbands—first, Alexander Earl of Sutherland; and second, the Laird of Boyne. ‘A virtuous and comely lady, judicious, of excellent memory, and of great understanding above the capacity of her sex; in this much to be commended, that, during the continual changes and particular factions of the court in the reign of Queen Mary, and in the minority of King James VI., (which were many,) she always managed her affairs with so great prudence and foresight, that the enemies of her family could never prevail against her, nor move those that were the chief rulers of the state at the time, to do anything to her prejudice; a time indeed both dangerous and deceitful. Amidst all these troublesome storms, and variable courses of fortune, she still enjoyed the possession of her jointure, which was assigned unto her out of the earldom of Bothwell, and kept the same until her death, yea, though that earldom had fallen twice into the king’s hands by forfeiture in her time.... By reason of her husband Earl Alexander his sickly disposition, together with her son’s minority at the time of his father’s death, she was in a manner forced to take upon her the managing of all the affairs of that house a good while, which she did perform with great care, to her own credit, and the weal of that family.... She was the first that caused work the coal heugh beside the river of Brora, and was the first instrument of making salt there. This coal [now interesting chiefly in a geological point of view, as connected with the oolitic formation] was found before by Earl John, father of Earl Alexander; but he, being taken away by an untimely death, had no time to enterprise this work. This lady built the house of Cracock, where she dwelt a long time.’—G. H. S.
This character, though drawn by the partial hand of a son, may be accepted as on the whole a true, as it is certainly a pleasing description, of the divorcée of Bothwell. The lady was buried in Dornoch Cathedral
July 18.
1629.
A service to property depending at this time before the Court of Session between the Earl of Cassillis and the Earl of Wigton, these nobles appeared in Edinburgh, each with a multitude of followers, who paraded the streets in a tumultuous manner, and with such demonstrations of animosity as must have recalled the days of James VI. to many an anxious citizen. The Privy Council met in alarm, and appointed a committee to go and admonish the two litigant nobles about these unseemly appearances. It was enjoined that, while in town waiting on the service, they should not appear on the streets with more than twelve followers each, and that in peaceable manner, nor come to the bar with more than six, dismissing all others who had not known occasion to be present. At the same time, the noblemen who were the friends of the several parties were ‘to forbear the backing of them at this time,’ on pain of censure as ‘troublers of his majesty’s peace.’—P. C. R.
Throughout the whole time of the papist persecution, the Scottish authorities found it necessary to give a good deal of attention to matters of diablerie. Either witches and warlocks were particularly rife at that time, or the same enlightened spirit which assailed the papists was particularly keen-sighted and zealous in finding out offenders connected with the other world.
On the 30th of October 1628, the Earl of Monteath, Lord Justice-general of the kingdom, reported to the Privy Council the case of Janet Boyd, spouse to Robert Neill, burgess of Dumbarton, who had freely confessed that she had entered in covenant with the devil, had received his mark, had renounced her baptism, and been much too intimate with the above grisly personage, through whose power she had laid diseases upon sundry persons. The Council approved of a commission for trying Janet and for ‘the punishing of so foul and detestable a crime.’—P. C. R.
In the course of 1629, Isobel Young, spouse to George Smith, portioner in East Barns in Haddingtonshire, was burnt for witchcraft. She had been accused of both inflicting and curing diseases; and it appears that she and her husband had sent to the Laird of Lee to borrow his curing-stone for their cattle, which had the ‘routing ill.’ This is interesting as an early reference to the well-known Lee Penny, which is yet preserved in the family of Lockhart of Lee, being an ancient precious stone or amulet, set in a silver penny. It is related that Lady Lee declined to lend the stone, but gave flagons of water in which the penny had been steeped. This water, being drunk by the cattle, was believed to have effected their cure.
1629.
One Alexander Hamilton was apprehended as a notorious warlock, and put into the Tolbooth of Edinburgh—where he would have for a companion in captivity the Lady Abercorn, whose offence was not less metaphysical than his own. He ‘delated’ four women of the burgh of Haddington, and five other women of its neighbourhood, as guilty of witchcraft. The Privy Council sent orders (November 1629) to have the whole Circean nine apprehended; and as their poverty made it inconvenient to bring them to Edinburgh, the presbytery of Haddington was enjoined to examine them in their own district. What was done with them ultimately, we are not informed. Another woman, named Katherine Oswald, residing at Niddry near Edinburgh, was likewise accused by Hamilton, and taken into custody. This seems to have been considered an unusually important case, as four lawyers were appointed to act as assessors to the justices on her trial.—P. C. R. It was alleged of Katherine that she had that partial insensibility which was understood to be an undoubted proof of the witch quality. Two witnesses stated that they ‘saw ane preen put in to the heid, by Mr John Aird, minister, in the panel’s shoulder, being the devil’s mark, and nae bluid following, nor she naeways shrinking thereat.’[19]
Hamilton alleged that he had been with Katherine at a meeting of witches between Niddry and Edmondstone, where they met with the devil. It was also stated that she had been one of a witch-party who had met at Prestonpans, and used charms, on the night of the great storm at the end of March 1625. But the chief articles of her dittay bore reference to cures which she had wrought by sorcery. Katherine was convicted and burned.—B. A.
1629.
In November, the Privy Council issued a commission to the Bishop of Dumblane for the examination of John Hog and Margaret Nicolson his spouse, ‘upon their guiltiness of the crime of witchcraft, with power to confront them with others who best can give evidence.’ This pair were soon after brought to the Edinburgh prison, whence, however, they were speedily released on caution for reappearance. The Lords, on the same day, issued a charge against ‘Margaret Maxwell spouse to Nicol Thomson, and Jean Thomson her daughter, spouse to umwhile Edward Hamilton, in Dumfries,’ who, it was said, had procured the death of the said Edward ‘by the devilish and detestable practice of witchcraft.’ Claud Hamilton of Mauchline-hole, brother of the deceased Edward, soon after (December 22, 1629) presented a petition to the Privy Council, claiming that they should order an examination of Geillie Duncan of Dumfries, now in hands there on suspicion of a concern in the fact. The Council accordingly commissioned the magistrates and ministers of Dumfries to effect this examination.
The warlock Alexander Hamilton also accused the Lady Home of Manderston, in Berwickshire, of having practised against the life of her husband by witchcraft. Patrick Abernethy, notar in Dunse, and William Mowat, a servant, were accordingly cited by the Council to come and give information regarding the case. The presence of Sir George himself was of course desirable; but Sir George, like many other good Scotch lairds, of that day and of later days, was under some danger of the law on account of his debts. It therefore became necessary to send him a protection, in order that he might be enabled to appear in the city. There does not seem to have been any other foundation for this charge than the fact, that Sir George Home and his wife did not live on amicable terms. Some months after (June 29, 1630), we find Sir George giving caution that he will not molest his wife or any of her tenants, ‘in their bodies, lands, rooms, possessions, corns, cattle, guids or geir, otherwise nor by order of law.’
Hamilton himself was tried (January 22, 1630), when it came out that he had begun his wicked career in consequence of meeting the devil in the form of a black man on Kingston Hills, in Haddingtonshire. Being engaged to serve the fiend, he was instructed to raise him by beating the ground thrice with a fir-stick, and crying: ‘Rise up, foul thief!’ He had consequently had him up several times for consultations; sometimes in the shape of a dog or cat, sometimes in that of a crow. By diabolic aid, he had caused a mill full of corn, belonging to Provost Cockburn, to be burned, merely by taking three stalks from the provost’s stacks, and burning them on the Garleton Hills. He had been at many witch-meetings where the enemy of man was present. This wretched man was sentenced to be worried at a stake and burned.
1629.
On the 3d of July 1630, the Council took order in the case of Alie Nisbet, midwife, of Hilton (apparently in Berwickshire), and also in that of John Neill, John Smith, and Katharine Wilson, ‘concerning their practice of witchcraft.’ Nisbet was accused of curing a woman by taking a pail with hot water and bathing the patient’s legs. This may appear as a very natural and proper kind of treatment; but there was an addition: she put her fingers into the water, and ran three times round the bed widdershins, or contrary to the direction of the sun, crying: ‘The bones to the fire, and the soul to the devil!’ thereby putting the disease upon another woman, who died in twenty-four hours. Nisbet also had put some enchanted water under a threshold, for the injury of a servant-girl against whom she had a spite, and who passing over it was bewitched, and died instantly. She was ‘worried and burnt.’—B. A.
In March 1631, occurred a case which throws some light upon the affair in which Sir George Home of Manderston was the intended victim. John Neill, in Tweedmouth, was then brought forward and tried for sorcery and witchcraft. It was alleged of him that ‘he made a man’s wife wash her husband’s shirt in a south running water, and then put it on him; whereupon he recovered.’ He professed skill in both laying on and taking off diseases. Amongst other things laid to his charge was ‘meeting with the devil and other witches on Coldingham Law, and consulting how Sir George Home of Manderston might be destroyed, to that end getting ane enchanted dead foal, and putting it in Sir George’s stable, under his horse’s manger, and putting a dead hand enchanted by the devil in Sir George’s garden in Berwick; by which enchantments Sir George contracted a grievous disease, of which he could not be recovered till the said foal and hand were discovered and burnt.’ He was found guilty.[20]—B. A.
Nov. 19.
At this time, the country was overrun by a multitude of ‘strong and sturdy Irish beggars,’ who went in troops, extorting alms where it was not freely given them. ‘Where they perceive they can be masters, they commit sundry insolencies upon his majesty’s good subjects, who are not able to withstand them.’ Thus ‘the native poor are prejudged of their almous by the scoffery and oppression of thir sturdy beggars, who are an heavy and insupportable burden to the country.’ An order was issued by the Privy Council for clearing the country of this nuisance.—P. C. R.
1629.
Lady Jean Drummond, only daughter of the Earl of Perth, was married to the Earl of Sutherland, with a portion of 5000 merks, ‘the greatest portion that ever was given in Scotland before that time.’—Hist. House of Seytoun.
This notice may be held to imply that 5000 merks (£287, 17s. 4d.) was an uncommonly liberal portion for a woman of family in that age; but the writer is not correct in saying that it was unexampled till 1629. This will appear from the following notice, extracted from the Caldwell Papers, in which there are instances of equal or larger dowries before that time, as well as of some smaller: William Mure of Glanderston, marrying Elizabeth Hamilton, aunt to Gavin Commendator of Kilwinning, in 1559, received with her a dower of 400 merks, with a beneficial interest in two farms. In 1583, Lady Anne Montgomery of Eglintoun brought her husband, Lord Semple, 6000 merks. The dowry of Jean Hamilton, the vicar of Dunlop’s daughter, in 1613, was 5000 merks; that of Jean Knox of Ranfurly, 11,000 merks; Jean Mure of Glanderston, in 1671, 8000 merks; Margaret Mowat of Ingliston, in 1682, 12,000 merks.
When we turn back to an earlier age, we find what appears much greater simplicity on the point of tochering daughters. The Laird of Grant and Margaret Ogilvie, daughter of James Ogilvie of Deskford, were married in 1484. For a curious anecdote of their son, Shemus nan Creagh, see under February 7, 1592. ‘Their marriage-contract yet extant [dated 1484] gives account of the tocher, jointure, and friendship between these families. The tocher given by Sir James Ogilvie with his daughter to the Laird of Grant was three hundred merks, paid at five terms or years; that is, forty pounds Scots yearly; and the jointure given by Sir John to his lady, together with the provision of their children, was twenty merks’ worth of land yearly.’[21]
Dec. 26.
1629.
In the fertile district between Falkirk and Stirling, there was a large moss with a little loch in the middle of it, occupying a piece of gradually rising ground; a highly cultivated district of wheat-land lay below. There had been a series of heavy rains, and the moss became overcharged with moisture. After some days, during which slight movements were visible on this quagmire, the whole mass began one night to leave its native situation, and slide gently down to the lower grounds. The people who lived on these lands, receiving sufficient warning, fled and saved their lives; but in the morning light they beheld their little farms, sixteen in number covered six feet deep with liquid moss, and hopelessly lost.[22]
The singular nature of this calamity, and the sad case of the poor people who had by it lost their all, drew general attention. The Privy Councillors sent commissioners to the place to ‘give order where and in what places draughts sall be casten, levels and passages made, and what else is fitting to be done, for securing the neighbouring lands from inundation and skaith.’ There was also a general collection of money throughout the kingdom for the relief of the sufferers.—P. C. R.
1630. Jan.
Jan. 15.
There is no room to doubt that the king, so far as he took any part in the prosecution of the northern papists, only had in view ‘the comfort of his weel-affected subjects,’ and was willing to make the papists suffer no more than was fairly necessary to maintain the reputation of his ecclesiastical policy. He must have strongly sympathised with the Catholic nobles, all of whom were his personal friends, and supporters of his government; nor could he have heard of even the sufferings of the middle-class gentry without some compunctious visitings. We find him in January 1630 venturing on a measure of lenient tendency. The Lord Gordon, eldest son of the Marquis of Huntly, had been, through the influence of the late king, brought up with Protestant leanings. To him King Charles thought of granting a commission for the execution of the laws against the excommunicated papists, no doubt calculating that he would use a humane discretion in the business. The Privy Council accordingly gave him such a commission, to last for four months, and to include the power of appropriating the rebels’ rents to his own use. We learn from Sir Robert Gordon, that Lord Gordon was unwilling to accept this commission, lest he should offend his father and prejudice his position as commander of the King of France’s Scots Guard. But he got over his scruples, and, as Sir Robert tells, performed his duty with a degree of ‘dexterity and moderation’ that gained him the approbation of all parties.
While Lord Gordon proceeded northward with this large commission, his father remained in restraint in Edinburgh, still under obligation to exhibit the rebels on his own property, if Lord Gordon should fail to do so; and his daughters rested there also, under ‘sequestration,’ that the ministers of the true gospel might have access to them and induce them to attend church.
Lord Gordon had scarcely been a fortnight in enjoyment of his commission, when he found occasion to petition the Privy Council regarding the escheats of the rebels. If they gave these men a third of their rents as a means of supporting them abroad, it would be a deduction so far from the remuneration held out to him. Was this just? They appear to have been sensible of the force of this appeal, for they immediately decreed that no such deduction should be made. Whether Lord Gordon actually meant to appropriate these rents wholly to himself, does not appear.
On the 1st of June, Lord Gordon came before the Council to report progress, and it appeared that he had really used some diligence. Mr Robert Bisset; Gordon of Tilliesoul; John Gordon at the Mill of Rathven; Gordon of Drumquhaill; Alaster Gordon, in Badenoch; Hugh Hill; John Spence and his spouse; John Gordon, in Troups-mill, and his spouse; and Alexander Gordon, had all ‘given obedience and reconciled themselves to the kirk;’ that is, had put a constraint upon their professions of belief, and conformed to what in their hearts they detested. Others as yet stood out in their ‘obstinate disobedience to the church’—namely, Robert Bisset’s spouse; Gordon of Cairnbarrow; Gordon of Letterfour; the goodwife of Cornmellat; Malcolm Laing; Adam Strachan; Angus M‘Ewen; Gordon of Corrichie; Forbes of Blackton and his spouse; Robert Innes’s spouse; Con, at Knockmill; Leslie, in Convach; the spouse of Thomas Menzies of Balgownie; and Alexander Irving, his wife, and brother. Gordon of Craig and his eldest son offered caution to retire from the country. Margaret Gordon was confined in Banff, and Menzies of Balgownie was in exile.
1630.
Of nearly every one of the obdurate we have some account of what they afterwards did or suffered. Most of them appeared (July 20), and came under obligation either to conform before a certain day or straightway to leave the country. About the same time, Sir John Ogilvy of Craig, who had long been warded in Edinburgh Castle for his religion, and also Dr William Leslie, came under similar engagements. One of those who seemed least likely to succumb was John Gordon of Bountie. Living close to the gate of Viscount Melgum, the brother of Lord Gordon, he had been bold enough to allow a priest, Mr Robert Mortimer by name, to perform a mass before a large company in his house; and when two of the presbytery came to Lord Melgum’s house to remonstrate, and John was called in to speak for himself, he broke forth in outrageous reviling speeches, saying he would leave the country, but before he went he would take the lives of these two ministers. But even this hot-headed gentleman was brought low. He was induced to make a humble supplication to the Bishop of Aberdeen for reconciliation with the church; and on an ample declaration of his repentance, he was absolved from excommunication. It is lamentable to think, of such a zealot being obliged, for the saving of his property and place in the country, to swear on his ‘great oath’ eternal allegiance to the Protestant Church, and, with a heart full of suppressed rage and indignation, sit down and eat and drink unworthily of the feast which symbolises the union of the heart to the religion of peace and love.
On the 27th of July, the Council received a petition from John Gordon of Craig, which, on account of its simple and touching expression, may be given entire.[23] It ‘humbly sheweth that, for religion, order hath been given for banishing the petitioner’s son, his wife and children, and confining himself—in respect of his great age—in a town within Scotland [Cupar], which order they have all humbly obeyed, his son, wife, and poor children having forthwith abandoned the kingdom. A two part of the poor estate which he hath being allotted for his son and his family, and a third part for himself, he now findeth that by such a mean proportion he cannot be able to live, being both aged and sickly. His humble suit is, that he may have leave to depart the kingdom to live with his son, because by their estate undivided, they may all be more able to subsist than otherwise.’ It will probably surprise the reader, even after the preceding recital, to learn that the Council found the desire of the supplication ‘unreasonable,’ and ‘forder declare that the said John Gordon of Craig sall have no modification nor allowance of ane third part of his estate and living, except he remain within the kingdom and keep the bounds of his confinement.’
1630.
On the 7th of February 1630, it was found that, owing to Cupar being situated on a thoroughfare, old Craig was visited by a considerable number of persons ‘suspect in religion, with whom he has not only secret conference, but there is pregnant presumption that other practices are enterteined amang them in hurt and prejudice to the true religion.’ This being in contravention of the agreement made with Craig, that he should have conference only with the ministry and not with papists, he was ordered to be removed to the out-of-the-way burgh of Crail, and to be confined there and within a mile thereof.
After the popish gentlemen had been thus dealt with, there remained a considerable number of ladies who as yet had not been much troubled. But these gentlewomen were not to escape. On the 23d of December 1630, the Privy Council adverted to ‘Madelen Wood, spouse to —— Leslie of Kincraigie; Jonet Wood, spouse to John Gordon of Bountie; Marjory Malcolm, spouse to Matthew Alexander, in Turriff; Barbara Garden, spouse to ——]; —— Gordon, spouse to Mr Robert Bisset of Lessendrum; Isobel Strachan, spouse to John Spence, in Brunstain; and —— ——, spouse to John Gordon at the Mill of Rathven, who are not only professed and avowed papists, and excommunicat by orders of the kirk for that cause, but with that they are denounced his majesty’s rebels and contemptuously lies at the horn unrelaxt.’ It was further alleged of these ladies, that they ‘are common resetters, hoorders, and enterteiners of Jesuits, and mess priests, and trafficking papists—hears mess of them, and otherwise lives aftir ane most scandalous and offensive manner.’ An order was issued that these women should appear personally with their husbands, ‘that order may be tane with them.’
As a specimen of the dealing of the authorities with the gentler and weaker sex:—On the 9th of September 1630, the Lords of Council received a petition from Elizabeth Garioch, setting forth her case as a sufferer for her ‘averseness and non-conformity to the religion presently professed.’ She was an old decrepit woman, past threescore and ten years, bedrid for the present, and not likely long to live. She had lain for months in the Tolbooth of Aberdeen, with ‘no earthly means to entertein herself but ane croft of sax bolls sawing, and neither husband nor child to attend to the winning and in-gathering thereof.’ The misery of her circumstances made her restraint, she said, the more grievous. Therefore she craved release from prison, professing, ‘for the eschewing of scandal, which her remaining in the country may breed or occasion,’ her willingness to give security that she should remove herself forth of the kingdom. The Lords mercifully remitted to the Bishop of Aberdeen to see to Elizabeth Garioch being liberated on her giving caution to the extent of a thousand merks for her self-banishment.
1630.
In November 1630, a curious circumstance is noted regarding the Dr William Leslie above named. Licence was granted to him by the Privy Council to return temporarily to medicate to the Marquis of Huntly, he being the person ‘whose judgment in matters of that kind the said marquis does only trust,’ it being provided ‘that the said Dr William shall behave himself modestly, without giving offence and scandal in matters concerning the religion.’—P. C. R.
It is remarkable that, while the histories of our country and its national church are careful to note every particular of the conflict between presbytery and episcopacy at this period, there is nowhere the slightest allusion to these sufferings of the remnant of Romanists, towards which Presbyterians and Episcopalians alike contributed. It is to be feared that the actual severities which were dealt upon the party were not the worst evils in the case. In the external conformity which was forced upon many—so many that only sixty avowed papists were thought to be left in Scotland—we cannot doubt that there was involved a hypocrisy which would be bitterly felt—always the more bitterly where there was an upright and honourable spirit—and which would in the long-run have the most demoralising effects.
1630.
A full history of the proceedings of the Romish priests in Scotland, during the reigns of James VI. and Charles I., would shew examples of heroic courage, self-devotion, and religious enthusiasm, equalling any that can be adduced from the reformed denominations. ‘Capuchin Leslie, called the Archangel,’ appears, from his biography,[24] to have been a man of singular gifts and earnestness. The eldest son of the Laird of Monymusk, in Aberdeenshire, he had been brought up at Paris, and there converted to Romanism in his youth. Before attaining majority, he had gone to those heights in devotion and asceticism which produce hallucinative voices and lights. Making his way through unnumbered dangers to his native castle, he there set himself to the work of preaching. He collected the people in the woods, or beset them as they were leaving the parish church; addressed them in a style of burning eloquence, with threats of the fate reserved for heretics; and is said to have brought thousands into his views in a few weeks. His admiring biographer tells how he confounded the minister of Monymusk by asking him to exhibit any reference to the church of Geneva in the Bible, shewing him at the same time the Scriptural foundation of the true church, by pointing out Paul’s Epistle to the Romans! His mother and other relatives were brought over to the ancient faith. For two years he exposed his life in this manner, but was at length obliged to leave the district by one of these threatening edicts. Meanwhile, his family, being discovered to be Catholics, had their property confiscated, and his mother was obliged to retire to a hovel, where she endeavoured to support herself by spinning. It is related that Father Archangel, being resolved at all hazards to visit her, dressed himself like a gardener, and cried herbs through the village till he discovered his mother. After a hurried interview, he was obliged to leave her once more, and depart from the kingdom. He nevertheless returned and recommenced his labours; and this extraordinary man ultimately sunk at an early age, under a fever caught while making a skulking journey across the Border.
Apr. 21.
John Hart, printer in Edinburgh, being about to bring out an edition of the Bible, the Town Council gave him formal permission to take a new apprentice ‘for the advancement of the said wark,’ ‘notwithstanding the time of three years be not past, since he replaced an apprentice last;’ ‘providing always it sall not be lawful to him to tak and have ane other prentice before the expiring of six years.’—Ed. Coun. Reg.
As restrictions on the taking of apprentices still exist in various trades, we must not be too ready to smile at this as a peculiar trait of the barbarous political economy of a past age.
May 29.
On the birth of the prince, afterwards Charles II., which took place between eleven and twelve this forenoon, the Lyon King at Arms was despatched by the king from London, to carry the news to Scotland. The Lyon arrived in Edinburgh on the third day thereafter, June 1st, when immediately cannon were shot, bells rung, and a table spread in the High Street, between the Cross and the Tron, for two hundred persons, including the nobility, Privy Council, and judges, the company being waited on by the heralds and trumpeters in their official dress.—Bal.
‘In this May were five Saturdays, five Mondays, twa changes of the moon, twa eclipses of the sun, ane other of the moon, all in our horizon.’—Chron. Perth.
June 20.
1630.
Writers of the religious history of Scotland during the seventeenth century, pause upon a remarkable administration of the communion which took place at this date in the Kirk of Shotts. The great attraction on the occasion was a young clergyman, afterwards famous, named John Livingstone. In consequence of the impression now made, a great portion of the assembled multitude remained at the place over the night; so it was necessary for the favourite preacher to hold forth next day. He did so with such power, and such a ‘down-pouring of the spirit,’ that the congregation was thrown into ‘unusual motion,’ and five hundred traced their conversion to that sermon alone. Amongst the hearers were three young men of Glasgow, who, journeying to Edinburgh on a pleasure-excursion, chanced to stop at the village for breakfast and the refreshment of their horses. So affected were they, that they entered into no amusements in Edinburgh, but speedily returned home, and were ever after noted as serious Christians. This is understood to have been the first instance of what has since been a common custom; that is, to have services on the Monday following the communion.—Gillies.
In this year and for some time afterwards, the parish of Stewarton, in Ayrshire, was the scene of ‘a very solemn and extraordinary out-letting of the spirit,’ few Sundays passing ‘without some one being converted, or some convincing proofs of the power of God accompanying his word.’... ‘Yea, many were so choked and taken by the heart, that, through terror, ... they have been made to fall over, and thus carried out of the church, who after proved most solid and lively Christians.’ The fervour spread from house to house along both sides of Stewarton Water. The profane called it the Stewarton Sickness.
1630.
‘The poor people, purely from conscience, were seized with such an apprehension of God’s wrath, and fear of eternal damnation because of their sins, that rest they could have none. This they were able to demonstrate to be no melancholy fancy, but a rational apprehension of their real danger, being at that time both ignorant, profane, and absolutely strangers to Jesus Christ, by [beside or apart from] whom they could have neither hope of mercy nor title to salvation; and this was beyond the reply of any divine. When by godly ministers ... they were directed to the performance of those duties which accomplish conversion from Satan to Christ, their peace became as strong as their terror had been troublesome....’[25] ‘The Countess of Eglintoun did much countenance them, and persuaded her noble lord to spare his hunting and hawking some days to confer with some of them whom she had sent for to that effect. Her lord, after conference with them, protested that he never spoke with the like of them, and wondered at the wisdom they manifested in their speech.’[26]
The Stewarton Sickness took its first rise in the ministrations of Mr David Dickson, minister of Irvine, afterwards a conspicuous figure in the time of the National Covenant. He was accustomed each Monday, being the market-day of the burgh, to give a sermon for the benefit of those who came there with their commodities for sale; and thus it was that the Stewarton people had opportunities of kindling under his eloquence. ‘At Irvine, Mr Dickson’s ministry was singularly countenanced of God. Multitudes were convinced and converted; and few that lived in his day were more honoured to be instruments of conversion than he. People under exercise and soul-concern came from every place about Irvine and attended upon his sermons, and the most eminent and serious Christians from all corners of the church came and joined him at his communions, which were indeed times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord.’[27] ‘Yea, not a few came from distant places and settled at Irvine, that they might be under the drop of his ministry. Yet he himself observed that the vintage of Irvine was not equal to the gleanings of Ayr in Mr Welch’s time.’[28]
‘John Lockhart tells me (1727) that he was in company with an old Christian who was a young man in the time of the famous Stewarton Sickness.... In a great many, it came to a kindly conversion ... but in severals it came to nothing, and in a little time wore off, and the persons became just what they were formerly.’—Wodrow.[29]
July.
1630.
At this time there lived near the town of Dunse a poor woman generally believed to be possessed by an evil spirit. The Earl (afterwards Duke) of Lauderdale, when a prisoner in Windsor Castle in 1659, sent an account of her to Mr Richard Baxter, who has published it in his Certainty of the World of Spirits. The earl, then a boy at school, used to hear conversations about the possessed woman between his father and the minister of Dunse, who was fully convinced of the fact of the possession. This clergyman and some other clergymen proposed to the Privy Council a fast for her benefit; but it was not allowed by the bishops. ‘I will not,’ says the earl, ‘trouble you with many circumstances; one only I shall tell you, which I think will evince a real possession. The report being spread in the country, a knight of the name of Forbes, who lived in the north of Scotland, being come to Edinburgh, meeting there with a minister of the north, and both of them desirous to see the woman, the northern minister invited the knight to my father’s house (which was within ten or twelve miles of the woman), whither they came, and next morning went to see the woman. They found her a poor ignorant creature, and seeing nothing extraordinary, the minister says in Latin to the knight: “Nondum audivimus spiritum loquentem.” Presently a voice comes out of the woman’s mouth: “Audis loquentem, audis loquentem.” This put the minister into some amazement (which I think made him not mind his own Latin); he took off his hat, and said: “Misereatur Deus peccatoris!” The voice presently out of the woman’s mouth said: “Dic peccatricis, dic peccatricis;” whereupon both of them came out of the house fully satisfied, took horse immediately, and returned to my father’s house at Thirlstane Castle, in Lauderdale, where they related this passage. This I do exactly remember. Many more particulars might be got in that part of the country; but this Latin criticism, in a most illiterate ignorant woman, where there was no pretence to dispossessing, is enough, I think.’
It may be remarked that the speaking of various languages which they had never learned, was one of the marks required by the canons of the Romish Church to distinguish those under real possession. The Dunse demoniac was remarkably superior in this respect to her contemporaries, the nuns of Loudun, who, in their demonstrations of possession in the celebrated case of Urban Grandier, spoke very bad Latin, not to mention their utter inability to converse in Greek or Hebrew, and yet were held by the authorities as genuine vessels of diabolic influence.
The fact of there being a reputedly possessed woman in Dunse at this time, as the Earl of Lauderdale has stated, is verified by the Privy Council Record, which contains, under date July 13, 1630, an order for bringing before them Margaret Lumsden, ‘the possessed woman in Dunse,’ together with her brother and father-in-law, that order might be taken concerning them, ‘as the importance and nature of such a great cause requires.’
Sep. 23.
1630.
Susanna Chancellor, daughter of the Laird of Shieldhill, was accused before the presbytery of Lanark of consulting with charmers, and ‘burying a child’s clothes betwixt [three] lairds’ lands, for health.’ By penitently presenting herself on her knees before the reverend brethren, she was saved from the due punishment.—R. P. L.
Oct.
At no great distance from the Castle of Strathbogie—the modern Huntly—where the great marquis held state, dwelt two gentlemen of figure, Gordon of Rothiemay and Crichton of Frendraught. In consequence of a dispute about the salmon-fishings in the Doveran, these two gentlemen fell into litigation and bad blood; and at length, from finding Rothiemay obdurate, Frendraught had to get assistance from his neighbours to execute the laws upon his antagonist. On New-year’s Day 1630, a bloody encounter took place between them, and Rothiemay was so severely wounded as to die three days after.
1630.
Frendraught could plead that he had been only carrying out the behests of the law against one who set legal rights and decrees at defiance. But the Marquis of Huntly and other Gordons felt that it was a hard thing for Rothiemay to lose his life on such an account, and Frendraught accordingly fell under their displeasure. The young Laird of Rothiemay, calling in the assistance of the outlaw James Grant, laid waste the lands of Frendraught, who was driven in succession to the Earl of Moray, the king, and the Privy Council for the protection of the laws. It was found necessary by the Council to send a commission to allay the heats which this affair had called forth. When Sir Robert Gordon and other commissioners arrived on the ground in May, they found James Grant and two hundred Highlanders assembled at Rothiemay, ready to lay waste Frendraught’s estate with fire and sword; and it was with no small difficulty that they were stayed. Sir Robert, as a connection of both Frendraught and the Gordon family, was well qualified to bring about a reconciliation, and this he effected with the assistance of the Marquis of Huntly. It was arranged that Frendraught should purchase the forgiveness of the Rothiemay family by paying a sum of money. ‘And so, all parties having shaken hands in the orchard of Strathbogie, they were heartily reconciled,’ says Sir Robert in his gossiping history. One cannot but see in this mode of stilling quarrels an encouragement to new ones. Frendraught, having acted all along under law, ought to have been protected by the law, instead of thus having to pay a fine of fifty thousand merks[30] to buy off the vengeance of a family by whom the law was disregarded and broken. But in those days the law could only be executed by favour of the leading men of the country. These leading men had their passions and their partialities. Sir Robert Gordon probably purchased Frendraught’s safety on the best terms which, in the circumstances, could be obtained.
Bog an Gicht Castle.
1630.
These circumstances form merely the introduction to a long series of disastrous mischances which befell the Laird of Frendraught, and which have made his name memorable in Scottish tradition. In the course of autumn, a gentleman named John Meldrum, who had assisted him in the fray with Rothiemay, quarrelled with him for not being satisfactorily rewarded for his help on that occasion. To make matters right, this gentleman came and took two horses from Frendraught’s lands! Frendraught, hearing that the culprit was harboured by a brother-in-law, Leslie of Pitcaple, came thither to seek back his property; but the encounter only led to one of his friends wounding a son of Pitcaple with a pistol-shot. Here was a new trouble for the unfortunate Frendraught. In great concern for what had taken place, he rode to the Marquis of Huntly at the Bog—the modern Gordon Castle—to beseech his intercession for the stanching of the quarrel. At the same time comes Pitcaple, full of designs of vengeance against Frendraught. The marquis was obliged to detain the latter as his guest, to save him from Pitcaple, who went away in great wrath.
Next day, when Frendraught proposed to go home, the marquis caused his son, Viscount Melgum, to accompany him with some other friends, in order to protect him from any attack which Pitcaple might make upon him by the way. It chanced that the Laird of Rothiemay, so lately reconciled to Frendraught, was present on this occasion; he generously offered to be one of the escort. So Frendraught set out with his gallant company, and reached home in safety.
It was only in conformity with the customs of the age that the laird and his lady should invite Lord Melgum, Rothiemay, and the rest of the party to remain for the night. They did so. The gentlemen consented; and after a merry supper, were conducted to bedrooms in the tall narrow old tower, which, with a modern addition, formed the Castle of Frendraught. In the first floor, over a vault, through which there was a round hole, lay Melgum and two servants; in the second was Rothiemay, also with some servants; in the third, two gentlemen named Chalmers and Rollock, and some more servants, were accommodated.
Oct. 8.
1630.
About midnight, the tower took fire in a sudden manner, ‘yea, in ane clap,’ says Spalding, and involved the whole of the inmates in destruction, except Chalmers, Rollock, and a servant who slept beside Lord Melgum. Swift as the fire was, three persons escaped, and Lord Melgum might have also saved himself, if he had not, under a friendly impulse, run up stairs to rouse Rothiemay. While he was engaged in this act, ‘the timber passage and lofting of the chamber takes fire, so that none of them could win down stairs again.’ So they turned to a window looking towards the court-yard, where they were heard repeatedly calling: ‘Help, help, for God’s cause!’ The windows being stanchioned, and the access by the stair cut off by the flames, it was impossible to render any assistance, and accordingly the six persons enclosed in the burning tower were all piteously burnt to death. Melgum was but twenty-four years of age, and left a widow and child; Rothiemay was unmarried. It is stated by Lady Melgum’s chaplain, that in that last moment of extremity, Lord Melgum induced Rothiemay to make open profession of the Catholic faith; and so, ‘they two being at a window, and whilst their legs were burning, did sing together Te Deum; which ended, they did tell at the window that their legs were consumed, recommending their souls to God, and the nobleman his wife and child, first to God, and then to the king.’[31] A popular ballad of the day speaks of their being called on to leap from the window:
‘How can I leap, how can I win,
How can I leap to thee?
My head’s fast in the wire-window,
My feet burning from me.’
He’s ta’en the rings from aff his hands,
And thrown them o’er the wall;
Saying: ‘Give them to my lady fair,
Where she sits in the hall.’
1630.
This dismal event created a universal feeling of horror, and plunged the friends of the deceased into the greatest grief. The Laird and Lady of Frendraught were, to all appearance, deeply concerned for what had taken place. On the morning after the fire, the lady, ‘busked in a white plaid, and riding on a small nag, having a boy leading her horse, without any more in her company, in this pitiful manner she came weeping and mourning to the Bog, desiring entry to speak with my lord; but this was refused; so she returned back to her own house, the same gate she came, comfortless.’—Spalding. Her repulse was the more remarkable, as Lady Frendraught was a cousin of the marquis, and brought into bonds of sympathy with him and his family by being a Catholic. A fixed suspicion that she and her husband were the authors of the fire, had taken possession of the Huntly and Rothiemay families, as well as of the populace generally, though not the slightest evidence of guilt has ever been brought against them, and their loss of valuable papers, and of gold and silver articles, to the value, it was alleged, of a hundred thousand marks, rendered any concern of theirs in the fire-raising the very reverse of probable. The laird himself acted in the manner of an innocent man anxious to clear himself of suspicion. He came immediately to the Chancellor Lord Dupplin at Perth, desiring his protection, and offering to submit to trial. The Privy Council do not seem ever to have felt that there were any grounds for charging him with the guilt popularly imputed to him.
More particular suspicions fell upon John Meldrum of Redhill, the quondam adherent of Frendraught, but who had latterly fallen into such bad terms with him; likewise upon John Tosh, the master-household of Frendraught. These persons were accordingly apprehended, brought to Edinburgh, and examined. A servant-girl called Wood was also seized and subjected to torture, with a view to extracting her knowledge of the circumstances; but this only produced prevarications, making her evidence of no avail,[32] and for which she was scourged and banished the kingdom.
In March 1631, the Marquis of Huntly, having resolved ‘not to revenge himself by way of deed,’ as his panegyrist Spalding does not fail to tell us—as if it were a great merit—proceeded to Edinburgh in order to lay his wrongs before the Privy Council. Four commissioners appointed by this body soon after proceeded to Frendraught, which they examined with great care, in company with several noblemen and gentlemen of the district. They found evidence that the fire had originated in the ground-vault of the tower, where there were marks of it in three several places, one of these being directly under the round hole in the roof which communicated with Melgum’s apartment above. They could not determine whether it was accidental; but they felt assured that ‘no hand without could have raised the fire without aid from within.’[33]
1630.
While these matters were pending, there occurred an incident in itself of little importance, but which marks the spirit of the time. The young Earl of Sutherland, brother to Lady Frendraught, and whose late father was cousin-german to Huntly, in the course of a journey to Edinburgh, resolved to spend a night with the marquis, and for that purpose sent forward his message from Elgin. When he arrived in the evening at Bog of Gight, the marquis gave him a cold reception, and told him that he must either break with his brother-in-law Frendraught, or with himself, as he could no longer be the friend of both. The earl answered that he would prefer the marquis to Frendraught, but that he could not with honour throw off his sister’s husband as long as he was law-free. Huntly immediately answered: ‘Then God be with you, my lord,’ and turned away. The Earl of Sutherland lodged that night at a neighbouring hostelry, and in the morning pursued his way south. The singularity of such an event, in an age when it was disrespectful to pass a friend’s door without partaking of his hospitality, gives it great significance.
John Tosh, after submitting to examinations by torture, and denying all guilt, was charged (August 3, 1632) with the offence of setting fire to the tower from within; but the charge was never brought before an assize, the assessors finding that an insuperable bar lay in his having passed through the ordeal of torture without confession. There were some suspicious circumstances against him, chiefly of the nature of inconsistencies in his own declarations; but it was certainly possible to account for these upon a different theory from that of his being guilty.
John Meldrum was tried a twelvemonth later, and as it clearly appeared that he had uttered deadly threatenings against Frendraught’s life, even specifying burning as the means, he was found guilty, and executed. The theory of his guilt seems to have been, that he had set fire to the tower, in the belief that the laird slept there, and effected his purpose by thrusting combustibles and fire through three slits in the wall. It must be admitted that Meldrum was the only man, of all concerned, in whom motive for murder appears; but his guilt is, after all, far from being clear. The wall was ten feet thick, and the commission had decidedly pointed to an origin within. No trace of combustibles was ever adduced, and it was proven that he had been at Pitcaple, ten or twelve miles off, that night. On the whole, when the matter is viewed without the passions of the time, it seems most likely that the fire was accidental.
As for the Gordon family, it remained fully convinced of the guilt of the Laird and Lady of Frendraught; and since full retribution could not be obtained by the law, they behoved to have it in some other way. How they proceeded, will be hereafter described.
Dec.
1630.
At Carron, on Speyside, dwelt a branch of the family of the Grants of Glenmorriston, and near by, at Ballindalloch, was a more important family of the same name. In consequence of a homicide which James Grant of the Carron family had committed some years before, there was a fierce feud between these two families. James, finding his enemies irreconcilable, and seeing no prospect of peace, became lawless and desperate. The power of the Earl of Moray proved ineffectual to repress his constant incursions upon the lands of Ballindalloch, or to obtain possession of his person. Ballindalloch himself consequently became desperate. One day, learning that John Grant of Carron and some of his people were in the forest of Abernethy cutting timber, he set upon him with a party, and killed him, but not without loss of life on his own side. He did this on the presumption that Carron aided his relative the outlaw.—G. H. S.
Dec. 3.
The Earl of Moray interposing his power as lord-lieutenant for the protection of Ballindalloch, James Grant vowed to be avenged by his own hand. On the day here noted, he came with a number of associates to Pitchass, the residence of his enemy, who, for his part, had also a number of friends attending him. ‘To train him out, he sets his corn-yard on fire, and haill laigh bigging, barns, byres, stables, wherein many horse, nolt, and sheep were burnt; and sic bestial as was not burnt, they slew and destroyed. But young Ballindalloch kept the house and durst not come out and make any defence. In like manner, James Grant, with his complices, passed to the town and lands of Tulchin, pertaining to old Ballindalloch, and burnt up and destroyed the haill bigging thereof, corns, cattle, goods and geir, and all which they could get, and to the hills goes he.’
Dec. 13.
The Earl of Moray, unable to see any better mode of dealing with this case than to ‘gar one devil ding another,’ made a paction with three broken men, the principal of whom was brother to the late chief of the Clan Mackintosh; who undertook to bring James Grant to him dead or alive. ‘They find him in the town of Auchnachill, at the head of Strathaven, within a house, and ten men with him.... James and his men wins out and takes to flight. They follow sharply, slew four of his men, wounded himself with arrows in eleven parts of his body, and when he could do no more, he was taken, and his six other men.’ As soon as his wounds were cured, he was conducted to Edinburgh, and imprisoned in the Castle, being ‘admired and looked upon as a man of great vassalage;’ but his six men were all hanged.—Spal.
1630.
Grant lay a prisoner in Edinburgh Castle for nearly two years. It is related that, a former neighbour, Grant of Tomnavoulen, passing one day under his prison windows, he called to him, asking, ‘what news from Speyside?’ ‘None very particular,’ rejoined his acquaintance; ‘the best is that the country is rid of you.’ ‘Perhaps we shall meet again,’ said James.[34]
His wife having conveyed to him some ropes in what was believed to be a cask of butter, Grant came over the walls of the Castle (October 15, 1632) at night, and being received into the arms of his bastard son, immediately left town by a western road. For nine days he lay sick in the woods of Herbertshire, near Denny, and then vanished into the Highlands. The Privy Council, exasperated at his escape, offered a large reward for his apprehension, but in vain. He remained quiet till November 1633, when he began to resume the offensive, ‘partly travelling through the country, sometimes on Speyside, sometimes here, sometimes there, without fear or dread.’ His wife having retired in a delicate condition to a small lodging at Carron on Speyside, where Grant was known to visit her occasionally, young Ballindalloch hired a party of the broken Clan Macgregor, under a renowned outlaw of their tribe, named Patrick Dhu Ger, to beset him there. Grant being at Carron one night with only his bastard son and a single attendant, the Macgregors surrounded the house, and began to uncover it, in order to get at their victim. ‘James Grant, hearing the noise, and seeing himself so beset, that he was not able to keep that house nor win away, resolved to keep the door with the other two as long as they might, and shot out arrows at two windows, [so] that few did venture to come near the door, except their captain ... whilk James Grant perceiving, and knowing him well, presently bends a hagbut, and shoots him through both the thighs, and to the ground falls he. His men leave the pursuit, and loup about to lift him up again; but as they are at this work, James Grant, with the other two, loups frae the house and flies, leaving his wife behind him. He is sharply pursued, and many arrows shot at him; yet he wan away safely to a bog near by with his two men. Patrick Ger died of the shot, within short while, a notable thief, robber, and briganer, oppressing the people wherever he came, and therefore they rejoiced at his death.’—Spal.
1630.
Another year elapsed, during which there had been some abortive attempts at a paction between Grant and young Ballindalloch. One evening in the depth of winter (December 7, 1634), as the latter was sitting at supper in his house of Pitchass, Grant’s wife came in and whispered something in his ear. He rose, took his wife’s plaid about him, and his sword and target in his hand, and went out with the lady, his wife following under anxiety about his welfare. He thus easily fell into an ambuscade which James Grant had set for him, and was hurried off during the night, over moss and muir, to a kiln in the low country near Elgin, where he was kept in bonds under a strong guard, without any of the comforts of life, for three weeks. From this miserable condition, he escaped by the aid of one of his guards named Leonard Leslie, and got in safety to Innes House, where he was kindly entertained. By his own exertions, one Thomas Grant, the owner of the kiln, was hanged next summer for harbouring the outlaw James; two other men were banished for the same offence. Meanwhile, the Macgregors were active in despoiling and laying waste the lands of Corse and Craigievar, in professed revenge for the slaughter of Patrick Ger; but in February 1636, by the exertions of Stewart of Craigievar, seven of them were taken and hanged at the Cross of Edinburgh. This, again, brought into prominence a lawless Macgregor, known popularly under the name of Gilderoy, who, desiring vengeance on the Stewarts, burned some of their lands in Athole. Thus it was that wickedness continued its own existence in those days when public justice was weak.
One Thomas Grant, believed to be the same person who had thrown a taunt at James in Edinburgh Castle, was reputed to have undertaken, for Ballindalloch, to bring the outlaw to him dead or alive. James, hearing of this, came to Thomas’s house, and, missing him, killed sixteen of his cattle. Lighting upon Thomas lying in bed at a friend’s house near by, with his bastard brother, the pitiless outlaw took them both out naked and killed them (April 5, 1636). A few days after, he came with four men to Strathbogie, and by chance craved food at the hangman’s house. The hangman, frightened at the appearance of his visitors, stole away and gave information to the bailie, who presently came with an armed party and surrounded the house. Then a desperate and bloody conflict took place, in the course of which the bailie lost two of his men. Grant after all got clear of his assailants under cloud of night; leaving, however, his bastard son and two of his men a prey to justice. Very soon after (July 27), Gilderoy and some of his associates were likewise brought to Edinburgh, and hanged.
1630.
Notwithstanding the accumulated guilt of James Grant, he subsequently obtained a remission, and lived to take part in the troubles attending the introduction of the Covenant.
Dec. 14.
The Privy Council issued a thundering order for the putting down of those ‘vagabonds, thieves, and limmers,’ the Egyptians, of whom large bands were going about in the north parts of the kingdom, armed, extorting whatever they needed from such of the lieges as were not able to resist them.
1631. Jan. 11.
We get some idea of the difficulties which beset the people of a country before time and means have been obtained for forming roads, bridges, and other public works of utility, from a petition presented to the Privy Council by the minister of Rattray regarding the river Ericht, a well-known stream which debouches from the Highlands in his neighbourhood, amidst a scene truly romantic to the gaze of the modern tourist, but formerly pregnant with trouble to the people of the country. A much-frequented road or line of communication between the north and south parts of the kingdom crossed this stream at Craighall without a bridge. In a time of stormy weather, this river runs with such force that there is no ford, ‘and very oft for the space of aucht days together all passage at that water, either by coble, horse, or foot, is interrupted, to the great hinder of his majesty’s subjects, and to the extreme hazard of many of their lives, of whom, during the short time the supplicant has attended the kirk of Rattray, auchteen persons to his knowledge have perished in that water.’ An order was given for a general subscription to build a bridge.—P. C. R.
Mar. 31.
There being a scarcity at this time on the continent, while Scotland possessed a considerable quantity of wheat, the Privy Council, considering these facts, and, moreover, that wheat is not ‘the common grain wherewith the whole lieges are ordinarily fed,’ granted licence for the exporting of 4000 bolls.—P. C. R.
Apr. 10.
1631.
The Town Council of Edinburgh forbade the wearing of plaids by women in the streets, under pain of corporal punishment. The plaid was the Scottish mantilla, and, serving to hide the face, was supposed to afford a protection to immodest conduct. A few years later (1636), the Council found that women were still addicted to the use of the plaid, or went about with their skirts over their heads, ‘so that the same is now become the ordinar habit of all women within the city, to the general imputation of their sex, matrons not being able to be discerned from loose-living women, to their awn dishonour and scandal of the city.’ For these faults, heavy fines were announced.
It is amusing to find ladies subjecting themselves to false imputations, by following this denounced fashion, when they had only to walk about with their faces exhibited in order to refute or repel all scandal.
July 16.
Died this day Francis, eighth Earl of Errol, noted about forty years before for his concern in the various papist rebellions, by which the reign of King James was so much troubled. ‘He was buried in the church of Slaines, in the night, convoyed quietly with his own domestics and country friends with torch-light. It was his will to have no gorgeous burial, nor to convocate his noble friends with making great charges and expenses, but to be buried quietly, and such expenses as should be wared prodigally upon his burial, to give the same to the poor. This was a noble man, of a great and courageous spirit, who had great troubles in his time, which he stoutly and honourably still carried, and now in favour died in peace with God and man, and a loyal subject to the king, to the great grief of his kin and friends.’—Spal.
July.
When word came to Scotland regarding the seven hundred Protestants expelled from the Palatinate, and who had arrived in Nuremberg in great distress, there was a strong feeling excited in their behalf, and a collection for their relief was resolved on. It appears that, within a twelvemonth, one thousand pounds sterling was collected and sent to London; to which was afterwards added five hundred more. A considerable sum, considering the time, means of the people, and the object.—P. C. R.
Aug.
1631.
A levy of 6000 Scots passed to Germany for the assistance of Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden against the emperor. They were under the command of James Marquis of Hamilton, who appeared to have raised them on his own account, and without any sanction from the king, though in reality Charles was interested in the expedition, as calculated to favour the restoration of his brother-in-law the Elector Palatine of the Rhine. This body of troops contributed to the great victory of Leipzig, which threw the whole of Northern Germany into the power of Gustavus, and it afterwards helped in the recovery of Magdeburg; but bravery and zeal could not save it from the diseases which afflicted a country reduced by war to the last extremity of wretchedness. A year saw it the mere shadow of what it originally was, while the marquis was recalled in disgust to his own country. Nevertheless, the remains of the force adhered to the Swedish service.
Monro, in his confused way, gives a list of the Scottish officers who were under the command of Gustavus in the latter part of 1632, adding in some instances particulars of their subsequent career. It may be transferred to these pages, as the memorial of a brave and honourable movement of the Scottish nation, and because the very names of these Monroes, Leslies, and Ramsays of two hundred years ago, can scarcely be read in such an association of ideas without exciting some interest in a Scottish bosom.[35]
‘Field Officers.—The Marquis of Hamilton, general of the British army; Sir James Spence, general over Scots;[36] Sir Patrick Ruthven, governor of Ulm, and since general;[37] Sir Alexander Leslie, governor over the cities along the Baltic coast, and since field-marshal over the army in Westphalia [subsequently Earl of Leven]; Major-general James King, since lieutenant-general;[38] Sir David Drummond, general-major and governor of Stettin, in Pomerania;[39] Sir James Ramsay, general-major, had a regiment of Scots, and since was governor of Hanau.[40]
1631.
‘Colonels that served then of Scots.—My Lord of Reay ( M‘Kay), colonel to a brigade of Scots; Sir John Hepburn, colonel, succeeded to command the Scottish brigade, and since was slain in France; Sir John Ruthven, colonel to a brigade of Dutch, and since general-major; Sir James Lumsden, colonel to a regiment of Scots; Alexander Ramsay, colonel and governor of Creutzenach; Robert Leslie, colonel to a regiment of Scots; Robert Monro, baron of Foulis, colonel of horse and foot over Dutch, and since died of his wounds at Ulm; John Monro of Obstell, colonel to a regiment of Scots, and since slain on the Rhine at Weteraw; Ludovick Leslie, colonel to a regiment of Scots, which was Sir John Hamilton’s; Robert Monro, colonel to a regiment of Scots, which was my Lord of Reay’s; James Kerr, colonel to a regiment of Scots, and since general-major; Sir Frederick Hamilton, colonel to a regiment of Scots and Irish; the Master of Forbes, colonel to a regiment of Scots;[41] Alexander Hamilton, colonel to a regiment of Scots;[42] the Earl of Crawfurd-Lindsay, colonel to a foot-regiment of Dutch, and since slain;[43] William Baillie, colonel to a regiment of foot of Dutch; Sir William Ballantyne, colonel to a foot-regiment of English; Sir James Ramsay, colonel to a foot-regiment of English, and since died at London; Alexander Forbes, called Finnesse Forbes, colonel to a regiment of Finnes; Walter Leckie, colonel to foot.
‘Scots Colonels that served this time in Sweden, Liefland, and Spruce.—James Seaton, colonel to foot of Swedes; Colonel Kinninmond, colonel to foot of Swedes, since dead; Colonel Thomson, colonel to foot of Swedes, since dead; Colonel Scott, colonel to foot of Finnes, since dead; William Cunningham, colonel to foot of Scots, in Spruce; Francis Ruthven, colonel to foot of Dutch, in Spruce; Sir John Meldrum, colonel in Spruce to foot.
‘Lieutenant-colonels.—Thomas Hume of Carolside, —— Douglas, Henry Muschamp, Alexander Leslie, Alexander Cunningham, —— Vavasour, William Gunn, John Leslie, Finnesse Forbes, Alexander Forbes, called the Bald, Robert Stewart, Hector Monro, Sir George Douglas, George Leslie, John Lindsay of Bainshow, —— Monypenny, Alexander Lindsay, John Sinclair, William Stewart, Henry Lindsay, William Lindsay, James Henderson, Sir Arthur Forbes, Robert Weir, John Lyell, James Dickson, —— Sandilands, William Borthwick, —— Macdowgal, James Hepburn, Robert Hannan, John Monro, Robert Lumsden, William Herring, Sir James Cunningham, William Spence, John Ennis, Poytaghee Forbes, John Forbes of Tulloch, George Forbes, Alexander Hay, David Leslie [Lord Newark].’
Sep.
1631.
The persecution of the Catholics had, in 1629, reached a pitch of keenness which it was not possible to maintain. The king occasionally ventured to interfere with special letters in favour of certain Romanists of rank, his personal friends, allowing them to stay in the country on hope of conversion, or else permitting them a temporary return from exile to see after their private affairs. The Privy Council itself could not always keep up the proper degree of severity. Being partly a lay-body, it would now and then take a mild view of a case, though in a hesitating manner.
Sir John Ogilvy of Craig, after enduring imprisonment for a time in Edinburgh Castle, was allowed to live in Edinburgh and in St Andrews under a modified restraint. Finally, he was permitted to go home to his dwelling-house of Craig, ‘upon promise of ane sober and modest behaviour without scandal or offence to the kirk.’ ‘Nevertheless,’ as the Council proceeds to remark, ‘Sir John, since his going home, has behaved himself very scandalously, daily conversing with excommunicat persons, privately resetting seminary and mass priests, and restraining his bairns and servants from coming to the kirk, to the heigh offence of God and disgrace of his majesty’s government.’ For this reason, he was ordered (September 22) to go into ward in St Andrews, ‘until he be freed and relaxed by the Lords.’
1631.
A supplication presented by Sir John, some weeks later, to the Council, complained of his having been condemned without a hearing, and while he was ‘innocent of these imputations.’ He went on to say that he had nevertheless done his best to yield obedience to their order. He ‘took journey from his awn house [in Forfarshire] toward St Andrews, being heavily diseased by reason of a dizziness in his head, so that he was not able to travel on horseback for fear of falling from his horse, and therefore was compelled, although with great pain and travel, to make journey upon his foot, being led all the way with two men. At last he atteined with great trouble to the town of Dundee,’ where, however, sickness stopped him. He petitioned, for the sake of his health, to be allowed to return to Craig, ‘where, if he die, he may have the presence and comfort of his wife and children.’ The Lords yielded to this supplication, on condition of his giving a bond that ‘he sall cause his eldest son and the remanent of his children and domestics, resort to the kirk every Sabbath when possibly they may; that he sall not travel on the Sabbath from his own house, or profane the same by any slanderous behaviour in his own person, nor in any that is in his power; that he sall remain in his awn house and twa mile about the same; and that he sall not reset priests, nor be found reasoning against the religion presently professed.’
On the 17th of November 1631, the Privy Council, considering that the Earl of Nithsdale is ‘vehemently suspected in his religion, and that the remaining of Lord Maxwell, his son, in his company, may prove very dangerous to the youth, and now in his tender years infect and poison him with opinions wherefra it will be difficult thereafter to reclaim him,’ ordered his lordship to ‘exhibit’ his son, that ‘direction may be given for his breeding and education in the true religion.’—P. C. R. When we remember that the Earl of Nithsdale was the most powerful man in the southern part of the kingdom, and had so lately as 1625 acted as the royal commissioner to parliament, and since conducted a large auxiliary force for the service of the king’s brother-in-law in Germany, the character of this interference with his domestic arrangements becomes the more noticeable.
Patrick Con of Achry, having early yielded to the orders of Council, and retired from the country, was nevertheless excommunicated by the presbytery of Aberdeen; in consequence of which, those left in charge of his estate appropriated it and threw him into destitution. He presented a petition to the king for permission to return for a time, and to have the benefit of a temporary relaxation of the pains of excommunication, in order that he might recover his property; and this permission, extending to a twelvemonth, was granted, on condition ‘that, during the said space, he give no scandal or just offence to the kirk nor government.’ We shall presently see something more of Patrick.
In February 1632, Gordon of Craig petitioned the king for what the Council had some time before refused; and his majesty, ‘conceiving his demand to be very reasonable, and (in respect of his age and infirmity of body) to require our princely commiseration,’ enjoined the Council either to allow him to join his son abroad or live in such part of Scotland as he himself chose. The Lords found it ‘no ways fitting’ that Gordon should be allowed to leave the country, but gave him a licence to take his choice of a place of residence within the country.
1631.
At length the interferences of the king in behalf of the proscribed papists produced in his Scottish councillors a degree of disapprobation which could no longer be repressed. A diocesan assembly met at Aberdeen, and elected Mr William Gould as a commissioner to proceed to lay their views before the Privy Council (July 1632). It was represented by this venerable person, that, when the exiled papists were allowed to return temporarily, all of their profession were ‘thereby encouraged, upon expectation of finding the like liberty, to return to the country when they sall be reduced to the same extremity.’ Some who had been brought to the point of yielding obedience, were now become once more ‘so obstinate that they will abide the last dint of excommunication.’ The returned exiles had ‘come not alone;’ but through their means, priests were introduced in great numbers, and ‘going about the houses of simple ones, perverts them.’ The hands and hearts of pastors were much discouraged when they found that, after their great trouble with the process of excommunication, and in urging the Council to the execution of the laws, all ended in a licence to return from banishment, ‘in ane increase of obstinacy.’ The petition concluded with a wish that the Council would lay their grievances before the king, with a view to inducing him to be more strict with the papists. The Council complied with this request, and at the same time (July 12, 1632) caused two of the returned exiles, Dr William Leslie and Mr Robert Irving, to be brought before them to exhibit their licences—a movement, however, which was not attended with any remarkable result.
Nov. 17.
The Privy Council heard of the apprehension of one Andrew Anderson, ‘are busy and trafficking papist,’ believed to be engaged at and about Dumfries in arranging for the conducting of gentlemen’s sons beyond sea, that they might be educated in the popish religion. Immediately on his apprehension, he had been committed to the Pledge-chamber in Dumfries. The Lords sent for him, that he might be subjected to examination in Edinburgh; but before any progress had been made in his case, he died in the Tolbooth. The Council could only issue an order to the provost and bailies to inquire into the ‘form, manner, and cause of his death.’—P. C. R.
1631.
Serious people in Scotland were at this time much scandalised by reports from England, regarding clergymen who openly preached Arminianism, and others who wrote in favour of a lax observance of the Sabbath. At home, the bishops and other leaders of the church were manifestly departing from the old Scottish observances. ‘The house of one Dickson in the Potterrow, in the suburbs of Edinburgh, was, to some of them, their place of recreation on Sabbath afternoons. It was remarked of Spottiswoode, and some other of the bishops, that they sojourned [travelled] more on that than on other days. And Mr Thomas Foster, minister at Melrose, having but one hutt of corn in his barn-yard, would needs shew his Christian liberty, by causing his servants cast it in upon that holy day. Thus fast were we hastening to destruction.’[44]
1632.
Witches being so numerous at this time, it was not surprising that ‘John Balfour in Corshouse’ took upon him the profession of a discoverer of witches, ‘by remarking the devil’s mark upon some part of their persons, and thristing of preens in the same.’ ‘Upon the presumption of this knowledge,’ say the Privy Council, he ‘goes athort the country abusing simple and ignorant people for his private gain and commoditie.’ Measures were taken for looking into John’s pretensions to such knowledge, ‘and how and by what means he has the same.’—P. C. R.
1633. Feb. 7.
‘There began a great storm of snow, with horrible high winds, whilk were noted to be universal through all Scotland.... The like had never been seen in these parts, for it would overturn countrymen’s houses to the ground, and some persons suddenly smo’ered within, without relief. It also threw down the stately crown bigged of curious ashler wark, off the steeple of the King’s College of Old Aberdeen. This outrageous storm stopped the ordinary course of ebbing and flowing on sundry waters, by the space of twenty-four hours, such as the waters of Leith, Dundee, Montrose, and other ports—whilk signified great troubles to be in Scotland, as after ye sall hear how truly came to pass.’—Spal.
An irregular tide on the east coast of Scotland is no unexampled phenomenon, and could easily be explained; but it would probably defy a Humboldt or a Whewell to explain another wonder which a grave church historian of the eighteenth century—a ‘writer’ in Edinburgh, too—sets down as occurring at the same time. ‘What was yet more marvellous,’ says he, ‘the moon, though in her first quarter, set not, but was seen from the Wednesday to the Thursday at even.’[45]
1633.
George Nicol, the son of a tailor in Edinburgh, and who had been secretary or clerk to Sir Archibald Acheson, under an unlucky zeal for the public good, resolved to expose some malpractices of the Scottish rulers which had fallen under his attention, or which he believed to exist. Being in London, he presented to the king some information against the Chancellor, the Earls of Morton and Stratherne, the Lord Traquair, the Lord Advocate, &c., for mismanagement of the treasury. These officers were summoned to London to meet the charges brought against them, when it soon appeared that Nicol had advanced what he could not prove.
Mar. 5.
He was returned to Scotland under the power of the men whom he had accused, and was adjudged by the Privy Council guilty of leasing-making, and to stand at the entry of the session-house for an hour, and two hours at the Cross, with a paper on his head bearing, ‘Here stands Mr George Nicol, who is tried, found, and declared to be a false calumnious liar,’ and thereafter to receive six stripes on his naked back by the hand of the hangman, and then to be led back to the Tolbooth with his shoulders still exposed.[46]
This prototype of Scottish political reformers met ‘with much compassion from the promiscuous beholders, who generally believed he suffered wrongfully.’ He was afterwards deported to Flanders.
Colin Campbell, Laird of Glenurchy, who had succeeded his father Duncan in 1631, seems to have outrivalled him in his taste for elegant things. In the quaint memoir of his family written about this time, it is stated: ‘The said Sir Colin bestowit and gave to ane German painter, whom he entertainit in his house aucht month, and that for painting of thretty brods of the kings of Scotland, and of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, and twa of their majesties’ queens of guid memory, and of the said Sir Colin his awn and his predecessors’ portraits, whilk portraits are set up in the hall and chalmer of dais of the house of Balloch, the soum of ane thousand pounds.’[47]
He also patronised the portrait-painter, George Jameson, now in the zenith of his fame, and settled in Edinburgh. From a letter written by this distinguished person to Sir Colin, June 23, 1635, it appears that he charged for his portraits twenty merks each, he furnishing ‘claith and colours.’ The laird had given an order for pictures of a considerable number of his friends, and Jameson promised, if he began in July, to have sixteen ready in September.[48]
1633.
His labours are thus spoken of in the family chronicle: ‘Sir Colin gave unto George Jameson, painter in Edinburgh, for King Robert and King David Bruces, kings of Scotland, and Charles I., king of Great Britain, and his majesty’s queen, and for nine more of the queens of Scotland their portraits, whilk are set up in the hall of Balloch, the soum of twa hundred threescore pounds.’... ‘For the knight of Lochow’s lady, and the first Countess of Argyle, and six of the ladies of Glenurchy their portraits, and Sir Colin his awn portrait, whilk are set up in the chalmer of dais of Balloch, [he gave] ane hundred fourscore pounds.’[49] If we are to presume that Scots money is meant in all these instances, it would appear that this eminent artist was content to execute a bust portrait at a pound sterling!
June 13.
The king arrived in Edinburgh, accompanied by the Duke of Lennox, the Marquis of Hamilton, and divers other Scotch and English lords and gentlemen, to the number of about five hundred. His furniture and plate were carried about with him in princely form. He, riding on horseback, was received at the West Port in a theatrical manner, after the fashion of the allegorical entertainments with which Ben Jonson has made us familiar. There was a kind of theatre under an arch, where a nymph representing Edinburgh appeared on a mountain, which was so arranged as to move at the approach of majesty. The nymph was attired in a sea-green velvet mantle, with sleeves and under-robe of blue tissue, and blue buskins on her feet: about her neck she wore a chain of diamonds; her head-dress represented a castle with turrets, and her locks dangled about her shoulders.
A speech of welcome was delivered by this fair lady, together with the keys of the city. Meanwhile, the provost, Alexander Clark, and the bailies, in furred red robes, with about threescore councillors and others, in black velvet gowns, had taken up a position on a wooden stand at the other side of the gate. Thence the provost addressed the king in a brief speech, presenting him at the same time with a gold basin worth five thousand merks, into which were shaken out of an embroidered purse a thousand golden double angels, as a token of the town’s love and service. ‘The king looked gladly upon the speech and gift both; but the Marquis of Hamilton, master of his majesty’s horse, hard beside, meddled with the gift, as due to him by virtue of his office.’
1633.
The provost then mounted his own horse, which was sumptuously attired, and, followed by the councillors and others on foot attended his majesty along the Grassmarket. Here appeared ‘a brave company of town’s soldiers all clad in white satin doublets black velvet breeches, and silk stockings, with hats, feathers, scarfs, bands, and the rest correspondent. These gallants had dainty muskets, pikes, and gilded partisans, and such like,’ and attended his majesty as a guard. At the gate in the middle of the West Bow, there was another theatre, presenting a Highland scene, labelled with the word Grampius, and from which a female, representing the genius of Caledonia, welcomed his majesty in verse. Coming to the west end of the Tolbooth, he there found an arch across the narrowed street, surmounted by a crown; Mars, as the protecting deity of the country, on one side, and Minerva on the other. Here, on the withdrawal of a curtain, Mercury appeared, as just arrived from the Elysian fields with his majesty’s deceased progenitors. This was a part of the spectacle really interesting to the king, for the portraits struck his tasteful eye as well executed; and so they were, being the work of George Jameson of Aberdeen.[50] Here there was a fourth speech.
‘At the Mercat Cross, he had a fifth speech, where his majesty’s health was drunk by Bacchus on the Cross, and the haill stroups [spouts] thereof running over with wine in abundance. At the Tron, Parnassus hill was erected curiously, all green with birks, where nine pretty boys, representing the nine nymphs or muses, was nymph-like clad [in varying taffetas, cloth of silver, and purple].’ Amidst the trees, appeared Endymion, like a shepherd, in a long coat of crimson velvet, with gilt leather buskins, telling the king, in William Drummond’s verse, that he had been despatched by Cynthia to celebrate the day.
‘Roused from the Latmian cave, where many years
That empress of the lowest of the spheres,
Who cheers the night, and kept me hid, apart
From mortal wights, to case her love-sick heart;
As young as when she did me first enclose,
As fresh in beauty as the Maying rose,
Endymion, that whilom kept my flocks
Upon Ionia’s flowery hills and rocks,
And sweet lays warbling to my Cynthia’s beams,
O’ersang the swannets of Meander’s streams,’ &c.
1633.
At the Nether Bow, where he made his exit from the city, another speech was addressed to him. ‘Whilk haill orations his majesty, with great pleasure and delight, sitting on horseback, as his company did, heard pleasantly; syne rode down the Canongate to his own palace of Holyroodhouse, where he stayed that night. The provost with the rest returned home.’—Spal.[51]
Next day (Sunday) the king received Cornelius Smoski, the Polish ambassador, in great state, in his privy chamber at Holyrood; and on the ensuing day, the Prince Shemei and his brother, two proper gentlemen, sons of the Duke de Arscotte, had audience in the same place. The ambassador was entertained, while in Scotland, ‘upon his majesty’s charges.’—Bal.
On the same day, the king made a procession in his coach to the Castle, where he was magnificently banqueted, ‘served with his awn official’s and with his awn provision, vessels, and plate.’ Thence he returned next day, conducted by his nobility in state, in his royal robes, to the Abbey Kirk of Holyrood, and there was solemnly crowned by the Bishop of Brechin. ‘It is markit that there was are four-nuikit table in manner of ane altar, having standing thereon twa books called blind books, with twa chandlers, and twa wax-candles, whilks were unlichtit, and are basin wherein there was nothing. At the back of this altar there was ane rich tapestry, wherein the crucifix was curiously wrought; and as thir bishops who was in service passed by this crucifix, they were seen to bow their knee and beck, which with their habit was noted, and bred grit fear of inbringing of popery.’—Spal.
1633.
On the 20th, the Estates sat down, after one of those formal processions so often alluded to in Scottish history as the Riding of the Parliament. Such had been the custom from an early period; but latterly the riding was an affair of greatly increased splendour, and never had it been so grand as on this occasion. The procession started at the Abbey Close, or court in front of the palace, and extended along the principal street of the city to the Tolbooth, where the parliament was to be held. First went the commissioners for burghs, ‘ilk ane in their awn places, weel clad in cloaks, having on their horses black velvet footmantles.’ Then in order went the commissioners for barons or minor gentry, the lords of spirituality, and the bishops, the latter being all present but the Bishop of Aberdeen, who lay sick at home. The temporal lords, the viscounts, and earls followed in order of rank and date, the Earl of Buchan carrying the sword, and Rothes the sceptre; after whom came the Marquis of Douglas (lately Earl of Angus) bearing the crown, and with the Duke of Hamilton on his right hand, and the Marquis of Hamilton on his left. All the nobles rode in scarlet furred robes, with footmantles. ‘Then cam his majesty riding upon ane gallant chestnut-coloured horse having in his head ane fair bunch of feathers, with ane foot-mantle of purpour velvet. His majesty made choice to ride in King James IV.’s robe-royal, whilk was of purpour velvet, richly furrit and lacit with gold, hanging over his horse-tail ane great deal,’ and borne by five grooms in a line. The king ‘had upon his head ane hat and ane rod in his hand. The lion heralds, pursuivants, macers, and trumpeters followed his majesty in silence.’ At the Nether Bow, where he entered the bounds of the city, the king was saluted by the provost, who attended him closely the rest of the way. Within the city there was a space of the street staked off, sanded, and lined with a guard of armed citizens. At a style or passage in the Luckenbooths, the king lighted, and was conducted by the Lord High Constable, the Earl of Errol, to ‘the outer door of the Heich Tolbooth,’ where ‘the Earl Marischal, as Marischal of Scotland, with all humility received him, and convoyed him to his tribunal.’ On the second day of the parliament, the king went in his coach, and after the business was ended, walked back to the palace, moving so swiftly as to throw his foot-guard into a perspiration, ‘being ane able footman as was within, the town.’—Spal. The whole reception of King Charles was magnificent to a degree unprecedented. The people viewed their sovereign as a stranger of great distinction, and were more awed than won by his grandeur, while under all lurked the dread of that constant tampering with the national church and worship which for some years had been so conspicuous.
June 23.
1633.
(Sunday) ‘the king came to St Giles’s Church to hear sermon, and after he was set down in his awn place, the ordinary reader being [engaged in] reading the word and singing psalms, before sermon, Mr John Maxwell, minister of Edinburgh, came down from the king’s loft, caused the reader remove from his place, and set down there two English chaplains, clad with surplices, who with the help of other chaplains and bishops there present, acted their English service. This being ended, in came Mr John Guthrie, Bishop of Moray, clad also with a surplice, went up to the pulpit, and taught a sermon. At thir things many marvelled.
‘Sermon being ended, the king and all his nobles goes into the banqueting-house, prepared by the town of Edinburgh, that they might feast him. The banqueting-house was so near the kirk, and so great noise in it of men, musical instruments, trumpets, playing, singing, also shooting of cannon, that no service was had in the afternoon, either in the greater or lesser kirk of St Giles.’—Row.
Another contemporary says: ‘The people of Edinburgh, seeing the bishop teach in his rochet, whilk was never seen in St Giles’s Kirk sin’ the Reformation, and by him who sometime was are of their awn town’s puritan ministers, were grievit, thinking the same smellit of popery.’ Here lay the canker of this flowery scene. Could any one have foretold that, in the course of a series of circumstances flowing from these matters of dress and ceremonial, the youthful king now present in such grandeur would perish on a scaffold; that Bishop Guthrie would, for what he did this very day, be deposed and excommunicated; and that Maxwell, who was now on the eve of being made a bishop, would be deposed and frightened out of his country, be half cut to pieces in a massacre in Ireland, and finally die of grief on account of his sovereign’s irretrievable misfortunes—how strange it would have appeared!
June 24.
This day, being St John’s Day, the king went in state to the Chapel Royal, Holyroodhouse, and there, after a solemn offertory, touched about a hundred persons for the king’s evil, ‘putting about every one of their necks a piece of gold, coined for the purpose, hung at a white silk riband.’—Bal.
On the same day, the city gave a banquet to the English nobility, ‘with music and much merriment. After dinner, the provost, bailies, and councillors, ilk are in others’ hands, with bare heads, cam dancing down the High Street with all sort of music, trumpeters, and drums. The nobles went to the king, and told him their entertainment, joy, and gladness, whereat the king was weel pleasit.’—Spal.
July 8.
1633.
After a sporting tour by Linlithgow, Dunfermline, and Falkland, ‘his majesty came to Perth, and was weel receivit with tenscore of men for guard, all in white doublets and red breeks, with partisans. Mr William Bell delivered him a speech.... There was are sword-dance dancit to his majesty the morn after his coming, upon an island made of timmer on the water of Tay, and certain verses spoken to his majesty by ane boy, representing the person of the river Tay, and some conference in his majesty’s praise betwixt Tay and another representing Perth, made by Andrew Wilson, bailie.’—Chron. Perth.
The king on this occasion lodged in the house which had belonged to the late Earl of Gowrie, and where his father had had a memorable adventure in 1600. The arrangement for the sword-dance is more particularly described in the record of the corporation of glovers. His majesty ‘went down to the garden, and being set upon the wall next the water of Tay, whereupon was ane fleeting stage of timber clad about with birks, upon the whilk thirteen of this our calling of glovers, with green caps, silver strings, red ribbons, white shoes, and bells about their legs, shewing rapiers in their hands, and all other abulyiement, dancit our sword-dance, with mony difficile knots, five being under and five above, upon their shoulders, three of them dancing through their feet and about them, drinking wine and breaking glasses. Whilk, God be praisit, was actit and done without hurt or skaith till any. Whilk drew us till great charges and expenses, amounting to the sum of 350 merks.’[52]
We have no actual account of Highlanders present on this occasion; but it fully appears that Charles, ten days before, caused a letter to be sent to the Laird of Glenurchy, desiring that there might be a ‘show and muster’ of that class of his subjects at Perth, ‘in their country habit and best order.’ The laird was requested to ‘single out and convene a number of [his] friends, followers, and dependers, men personable for stature, and in their best array and equipage, with trews, bows, dorlochs [swords], and others their ordinary weapons and furniture, and to send them to the burgh of Perth,’ for the king’s contentment.[53]
If these mountaineers made their appearance as requested, there must have been precisely the same mixture of Highland and more civilised costumes at Perth on this occasion, as was presented in Edinburgh at the visit of George IV. in 1822.
July 10.
1633.
On his return to Edinburgh, the king crossed the Firth of Forth, in fair weather; nevertheless, a boat perished in his sight, containing thirty-five of his domestics, all of whom excepting two were drowned.[54] ‘His majesty’s silver plate and household stuff perished with the rest; a pitiful sight, no doubt, to the king and the haill beholders ... betokening great troubles to fall betwixt the king and his subjects, as after does appear.’—Spal.
July 12.
The aged Marquis of Huntly desired to take advantage of the king’s presence in Scotland to interest him in the affair of Frendraught; but in his journey from the north to Edinburgh he fell sick at Candechyll, a country-house he had on Dee-side, and could go no further. ‘He sent his lady with the Lady Aboyne [his daughter-in-law] to complain unto his majesty anent the fire of Frendraught; who took their own time as commodiously as they could, and, accompanied with some other ladies in mourning weed, pitifully told the king of the murder ... humbly craving at his hands justice. The king with great patience heard this complaint, whilk he bewailed, comforted the ladies the best way he could, and promised justice.’ They could get no more for the present, but humbly took their leave at the king, and returned to their lodgings.—Spal.
This mourning procession for justice was in imitation of similar incidents which took place while James lived in Holyrood. The two ladies were not altogether unsuccessful, as they did not return from Edinburgh till they had urged on the trial of John Meldrum, and seen him executed. He ‘died but any certain or real confession, as was said, anent this doleful fire.’—Spal.
The king left Edinburgh on the 13th of July, on his journey to London. ‘It is said his majesty commendit our Scottish enterteinment and brave behaviour, albeit some lords grudgit with him.’—Spal.
July 30.
Licence was given to one Edward Graham to have the keeping of a camel belonging to the king, and to take the animal throughout the kingdom that it might be shewn to the people, ‘by tuck of drum or sound of trumpet, from time to time, without trouble or let,’ he and his servants engaging to behave themselves modestly, and not exhibit the camel on the Sabbath-day.—P. C. R.
Aug. 19.
1633
The moral wildness which still clung to the Highlands was evinced by a rude incident which happened in the course of a deer-stalking adventure of Alexander Gordon of Dunkintie and his eldest son. Having gone into the savage wilderness at the head of Strathaven, the two gentlemen suddenly lighted upon a party of natives, believed to be of the Clan Chattan, who were sleeping upon the hillside. Suspecting these men to be rogues, the two gentlemen shot at them, and wounded one. The men then set upon Gordon and his son, and killed both, but not before two more of their party had fallen. The servants of the Gordons then retreated to give an alarm.
When Dunkintie’s second son soon after came to the spot with a few friends, he found his father’s and brother’s bodies lying on the ground, beside one of the slain Highlanders, while the other two slain men were very cunningly buried in one hole. The young man piously disposed the bodies of his father and brother in two chests, to be taken to Elgin for interment. Then cutting off the head of one of the Highlanders, he caused it to be erected on a pointed stick, and carried before the coffins on their way to the grave. ‘Upon the 22d day of August, with great lamentation, they were buried within the Marquis’s Aisle, and immediately thereafter this limmer’s head was set up on ane iron stob, upon the end of the Tolbooth of Elgin, in example of others to do the like.’
The Marquis of Huntly took the death of these his near relatives greatly to heart, and used his utmost influence to detect the offenders and bring them to justice, but in vain: ‘some thought this strange that the great marquis should see his blood destroyed without trial or reparation.’—Spal.
Nov.
1633.
The parish of Duddingstone, near Edinburgh, had for its pastor Mr Robert Monteath, who came to have a strange history. Of Arminian tendencies, and perhaps further infected with Romanism from his parishioner the Marchioness of Abercorn, he incurred the enmity of the Calvinists in consequence of pasquinading them. Such a walk as his would have required great circumspection; he, on the contrary, fell under the serious blame of adultery with the wife of another parishioner, Sir James Hamilton of Priestfield. The unfortunate minister fled to France, there joined the Catholic church, and attached himself to the service, first of M. de la Porte, Grand Prior of France, and afterwards of the famous Cardinal du Retz, who, forming a high opinion of his talents, bestowed on him a canonry in Notre Dame. He wrote Histoire des Troubles de la Grande Brétagne depuis l’an 1633 jusques 1649 (Paris, fol. 1661), of which an English translation appeared in 1735, bearing the words ‘by Robert Monteth of Salmonet.’ It is told of him that, on arriving in France, being asked of what family he was, and finding that ‘blood’ was essential to his prospering there, he described himself as one of the Monteaths of Salmonet—a word that sounded well, while the fact was that his father was a mere fisherman (user of a salmon-net) on the Forth at Stirling; but another account denies this story, and makes Salmonet a real house of that age, and one in tolerable esteem, being a branch of the Monteaths of Kerse.
William Coke and Alison Dick were burnt for witchcraft on the sands of Kirkcaldy. An account, which has been preserved in the session records of the parish, of the expenses incurred on the occasion, reveals some parts of the process of witch-prosecution, including the lamentable fact of the concern borne in such matters by the ministers of religion. There is first paid, for the kirk’s part, £17, 10s., composed as follows: Mr John Miller, when he went to Preston for a man to try them, £2, 7s.; to the man of Culross, when he went away the first time [probably a pricker], 12s.; for coals for the witches, £1, 4s.; in purchasing the commission, £9, 3s.; for one to go to Finmouth for the laird to sit upon their assize as judge, 6s.; for harden to be jumps to them, £3, 10s.; for making of them, 8s. Then, of the town’s part, for ten loads of coal to burn them, 5 merks, £3, 6s. 8d.; for a tar-barrel, 14s.; for tows, 6s.; to him that brought the executioner, £2, 18s.; to the executioner for his pains, £8, 14s.; for his expenses here, 16s. 4d.; for one to go to Finmouth for the laird, 6s.; in all, £17, 1s. Sum of the expense, £34, 11s. Scots.
1634. Mar. 25.
James Smith, ‘servitor to the Earl of Winton,’ having to build some houses in the village of Seaton, found that he could not obtain the proper timber required without sending for it to Norway. It occurred to him that the wood might most conveniently be paid for by sending thirty-six bolls of wheat of his own growth, the one article to be exchanged against the other. This was a very rational idea; but how to carry it out? In those days, exportation, as already explained, was a thing generally unpopular, as being supposed to cause scarcity at home; and the sending out of corn was forbidden by particular laws. It affords a curious idea of the difficulties which might then attend the simplest movements in life, through the efficacy of erroneous doctrines in political economy, that James Smith had to petition the government before he could get the Norwegian timber for those houses about to be built at Seaton. By favour probably of the Earl of Winton, who sat in the Council, he was permitted to export the thirty-six bolls of wheat to ‘Birren [Bergen] in Norway.’—P. C. R.
Mar.
Thomas Menzies, burgess of Aberdeen, who had been driven into exile on account of popery some years before, now petitioned the king for leave to return for a few months, to dispose of his estate and recover some money owing to him, in order ‘that he may abandon the kingdom, without staying any longer to give offence to the present professed religion.’ The king, seeing that Thomas had comported himself modestly during his exile, was pleased to recommend the case to his Scottish Council, by whom the necessary permission and protection were granted.—P. C. R.
June 3.
A fulmination took place in the Privy Council concerning the south-country papists. They gave final decision in the case of Robert Rig, wright at the Brig-end of Dumfries, who had been more than once before the presbytery of that district for marrying Elspeth Maxwell, ‘ane excommunicat papist.’ Robert, on being questioned, owned that ‘he was married by a popish priest, upon the 17th of November last, being Sunday, at night, with candle-light, above the bridge of Cluden, in the fields, and that four were present at the marriage, beside the priest, whereof some were men and some were women, whom he knew not, because they had their faces covered.’ Mr Thomas Ramsay, minister of Dumfries, was present to support the proceedings of the presbytery in the case. Robert himself was full of contrition, and humbly craved pardon for his offence. The lords, having fully considered everything, found that ‘Robert Rig has violat and contravened the laws of this kingdom, in marrying ane excommunicat woman, by a priest who has no power to exerce any function within this kingdom,’ and they sentenced him to be imprisoned during their pleasure in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh; ‘no person from the said Elspeth Maxwell, his wife, to have access to him by word or write.’
1634.
The Council, soon after, had in hands the case of Elspeth herself, who for some time had been expiating her candle-light nuptials by imprisonment in Dumfries jail. A group of people, fourteen of them women, mostly wives of tradesmen in Dumfries, were also now or had lately been, prisoners in the same jail, ‘for hearing of mass and being present thereat sundry times within thir twelvemonths bygane, as their confessions bears.’ The Council ordered that all these people should be ‘exhibit’ before them, on a certain day, ‘to the intent such order may be ta’en with them as may give terror to others to commit the like.’
In obedience to the charge of the Council, Mr Thomas Ramsay, minister of Dumfries, and John Williamson, one of the bailies, appeared on the 3d of July, and exhibited nearly the whole of these delinquents. Eight ‘declared that they were heartily sorrowful for the scandal they had given to the kirk by hearing of mass, and craved pardon for the same;’ adding a faithful promise ‘in all time coming to obey the laws, and for that effect to resort to the kirk, hear preachings and to communicate, and that they should not hear mass nor reset Jesuits.’ These were commanded to remain in their lodgings in Edinburgh till further orders. Seven, wholly women, ‘refused to conform to the religion presently professed within the kingdom; in respect whereof, the Lords ordains them to be committed to ward within the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, therein to remain upon their awn expenses till they be freed and relieved by the said Lords.’ Five days after, the whole were committed to the hands of Patrick, Archbishop of Glasgow, to be dealt with as he might think fit.’—P. C. R.
June 11.
Walter, first Earl of Buccleuch, who had died in London towards the close of the preceding year, was buried in the magnificent manner then customary. His body, having been embalmed, was sent down to Scotland ‘in one John Simpson’s ship of Kirkcaldy;’ but the ship, meeting a storm, was driven to the coast of Norway, and only with great difficulty, and after a long delay, reached Leith. After resting twenty days in the church there, the corpse ‘were thence, by his honourable friends, transported to his awn house of Branxholm, where they remained till the 11th of June,’ when the funeral was at length solemnly effected at Hawick.
1634.
A striking sight it must have been, that long heraldic procession which went before the body of the deceased noble, along the banks of the Teviot, on that bright June day. First were forty-six saulies in black gowns and hoods, with black staves in their hands, headed by one called a conductor, who was attended by an old man in a mourning-gown; a trumpeter in the Buccleuch livery following, and sounding his trumpet. Next came Robert Scott of Howshaw, fully armed, riding on a fair horse, and carrying on the point of a lance a little banner of the defunct’s colours, azure and or. Then a horse in black, led by a lackey in mourning, a horse with a crimson velvet foot-mantle, and ‘three trumpets in mourning on foot, sounding sadly.’ Then, the great gumpheon of black taffeta carried on a lance, the deceased’s spurs carried by Walter Scott of Lauchope, his sword borne by Andrew Scott of Broadmeadows, his gauntlets by Francis Scott of Castleside, and his coat of honour by Mr Lawrence Scott.
The next great section of the procession was a purely heraldic display. Eight gentlemen of the Clan Scott bore each the coat of arms of one of the various paternal and maternal ancestors of the defunct. Other gentlemen of the name—Scott of Harden, Scott of Scotstarvet, &c.—carried the great pencil, the deceased’s standard, his coronet, and his ‘arms in metal and colour.’ Near whom were three more trumpets, and three pursuivants, all in mourning. ‘Last of all cam the corps, carried under a fair pall of black velvet, decked with arms, larmes [tears], and cipress of sattin, knopt with gold, and on the coffin the defunct’s helmet and coronet, overlaid with cipress, to shew that he was a soldier. And so in this order, with the conduct of many honourable friends, marched they from Branxholm to Hawick Church, where, after the funeral-sermon ended, the corps were interred amongst his ancestors.’[55]
June 14.
An arrangement was made by royal authority for putting the sale of tobacco under some restriction, so as to insure that only a good and wholesome article should be presented to the public. Sir James Leslie, knight, and Thomas Dalmahoy, servant to the Marquis of Hamilton, were to sell licences to retailers, and account to the royal revenue for the proceeds, as might be arranged between the parties. Thus it was hoped that the great abuses from ‘the ungoverned sale and immoderate use of tobacco’ might be abated.—P. C. R. Numberless entries in the Record shew that great difficulty was experienced in carrying out this arrangement.
June 19.
1634.
The Privy Council had under its consideration a supplication from the Bishops of Orkney and Caithness, setting forth the miserable condition to which those districts were like to be reduced by famine. Owing to tempestuous weather, the corns of the bypast year had not filled, or proved answerable to the people’s expectation, ‘the boll of aits in many parts not giving ane peck of meal.’ In the consequent deficiency of seed, ‘the thrid rig lyeth unsown, and in many parts the half is not sown.’ Even now, from the scarcity of victual, ‘multitudes die in the open fields, and there is none to bury them, but where the minister goeth furth with his man to bury them where they are found. The ground,’ it was said, ‘yields them no corns, and the sea affords no fishes unto them as it wont to do. The picture of Death is seen in the faces of many. Some devour the sea-ware, some eat dogs, some steal fowls. Of nine in a family, seven at once died, the husband and wife expiring at one time. Many are reduced to that extremity that they are forced to steal, and thereafter are execut, and some have desperately run in the sea and drowned themselves. So great is the famine, that the people of mean estate have nothing, and those of greater rank nothing that they can spare.’
The lords recommended the case of these poor people to the charity of their countrymen generally.—P. C. R. Supplies of food were soon after sent, but not in time or quantity to save a deplorable mortality.
July.
A project was submitted to the government by Colonel Robert Monro, for erecting in Scotland an hospital for the reception of disabled Scottish soldiers. It received some encouragement, and a general contribution was authorised under the colonel’s care; but it does not appear that the scheme was ever in any degree realised.—P. C. R.
‘About this time, a pot [eddy-pool] of the water of Brechin, called South Esk, became suddenly dry, and for a short space continued so, but bolts up again, and turns to its own course; which was thought to be an ominous token for Scotland, as it so fell out.’
1634.
A sudden desiccation or stoppage of the flow of rivers, is a phenomenon not unknown to modern science. The rivers Teviot, Clyde, and Nith, were all of them reduced, on the 27th of November 1838, to such a smallness that the mills everywhere ceased to work. The small feeding-streams were observed on this occasion to be completely dried up. The phenomenon was variously attributed to an earthquake (though none was felt), to a high wind obstructing the current, and to a frost. Mr David Milne made some careful inquiries into the subject, and ascertained that on the previous evening the thermometer had suddenly sunk to 26 degrees all over the south of Scotland, producing a very low temperature. He considered the depletion to be caused by the frost, arresting the small rills in the upper parts of the rivers, and yet not sufficient to prevent the water further down from flowing away.[56]
Tired of the slow march of legal vengeance, and enraged that only John Meldrum could be brought to death for the Frendraught tragedy, the Gordons commenced this year to execute what they called justice with their own hand. The plan they followed was to take advantage of the propensity of the neighbouring Highland clans to despoil the country of Moray. The broken men of the Clan Gregor, the Clan Cameron under its chief Allan M‘Ian Dhui, the Macdonalds of Glengarry and Clanranald, the Clan Lachlan, were all ready instruments to their hands; and bands of them, to the amount of several hundreds, were easily mustered. ‘They came to the house of Chalmers of Ormiston, bound himself and his wife hand and foot, spoiled his house, and reft and away took ane thousand pounds or thereby.... They in like manner spoiled and herried the house of Andrew Geddes in Gairmouth.... They came to the house of John Mair in Braemurray, and robbed and spoiled the said John of his goods, and gave Mr James Cumming (being in the house for the time) eleven wounds with his own durk.... They violently lifted and took away ane hership of fifty head of oxen off the mount of Dallas.... They stole three mares from Thomas Gilyean in Halton, together with ane black horse, and ... they violently drove away eleven horse and mares belonging to John Hay in Orton; ... by the whilk and many more grievous oppressions and depredations, committed upon his majesty’s good subjects in the in-country of Moray by thir broken limmers and sorners, who go about the country in great troops and companies, with unlawful weapons, the haill inhabitants in these bounds are in continual fear of their lives and spoiling of their goods, and dare not keep their horse or cattle in the country.’
Sep. 25.
1634.
A gentleman having come from Moray to Edinburgh, on purpose to give information of these outrages, the Privy Council granted a commission to fifteen men of name in the country, not one of them a Gordon, to raise armed forces for the purpose of pursuing the ‘limmers’ and bringing them to justice.
Nov. 13.
It soon after appears, from the proceedings of the Privy Council, that the real authors of these disorders were believed to be the Marquis of Huntly and a certain number of men of his house, lairds respectively of Buckie, Carnbarrow, Tulloch, Lesmore, Letterfour, Ardlogie, Innermarky, Park, Cluny, &c.; together with the Earl of Athole, Lord Lovat, Innes of Balveny, the Lady Rothiemay, and a few other persons. And the grand aim of the outbreak had developed itself in an attack upon the lands of Frendraught. These lands had been visited with fire and sword, and swept of all cattle and other ‘geir’ that could be carried away, The act of Council speaks also of the laird’s servants killed and maimed, his tenants and domestics frightened away from him, and himself at the hazard of his life stealing away under night to claim the protection of the Council in Edinburgh. The disorders of the country, it further says, are come to such a height, ‘that almost nowhere in the north country can his majesty’s subjects promise safety to their persons or means ... the very burghs and towns themselves are in continual fear of some sudden surprise, by fire or otherwise, from thir broken men.’
1634.
It appears, however, that Frendraught had not passively yielded to these assaults. On a hership of goods being taken away in September, ‘he with some horsemen followed sharply, and brought back his haill goods again but strake of sword.’ In October, a hership of threescore nolt and elevenscore sheep was successfully taken away; but shortly thereafter, on six hundred of the limmers coming into his neighbourhood, he raised a force of two hundred foot and a hundred and forty horsemen, and falling upon them by surprise, dispersed them in flight. It was in November that, seeing the overpowering force which was mustering against him, he went to claim the protection of the Council. While the law was there issuing writs in his favour, the Gordons openly broke out and took away another large hership of cattle and sheep. ‘To hold siller among their hands,’ they took their prey to a fair, and sold it, accepting a dollar for each cow, and a groat for each sheep. Among other violent acts, finding one of Frendraught’s men on the outlook for information, they hanged him as a spy. The quantity of plunder they took from Frendraught almost reaches a fabulous amount. After all they had already done, they ‘raised out of the ground thirteenscore of nolt and eighteenscore of sheep,’ which they took and stored in the Castle of Strathbogie, with a view to obtaining the protection of the marquis for their misdeeds. They also burnt fourscore stacks on his home-farm.—Spal.
It was fully believed in the country that these violences were committed under the sanction of the Lady Rothiemay, who had the death of both a husband and a son to avenge upon Frendraught. At her trial in Edinburgh, two years after, it was charged against her, that she had received and entertained the Highlanders and their leaders, on their coming to make the attack on Frendraught. Certain it is, they now came with their prey to Rothiemay, entered the house, and began to live in riotous style upon Frendraught’s bestial, killing at once threescore bullocks and a hundred sheep. ‘Some they salted, some they roasted, and some they ate fresh.’ They also compelled Frendraught’s tenants to supply them with meal, malt, and poultry. According to Spalding, there was an appearance of force exercised on the lady and her two daughters, who were thrust into a kiln-barn to be out of the way of the depredators. But no one doubted that, in reality, the lady was happy to see them in her house. In her dittay, it is alleged that, on their return from the first day’s adventures, she had tables spread for them, and she and her daughters received them with salutations. On the evening of the day when they burned Frendraught’s stackyard, with twelvescore bolls of corn, the lady expressed herself as well pleased with their success; and at Christmas ‘she dancit with the licht horsemen in the place of Rothiemay, the cushion-dance, [bearing the cushion] upon her shoulder.’ Till the house, indeed, was summoned and rendered to the sheriff of Banff, in January 1635, she had given no token of disrelish for any of the proceedings of the depredators.
1634.
In November, a herald with a trumpeter, sent by the Privy Council, came to summon the misdoers at the market-crosses of the northern burghs. Between Banff and Elgin, ‘he meets with Captain Gordon [brother to the Laird of Park, and one of the chief delinquents], to whom he told his commission, and made intimation of his charges ... who at the giving thereof was weel fearit of his life. Captain Gordon discreetly answered, their blood was taken maist cruelly within the house of Frendraught—justice is sought, but none found; whilk made them desperately to seek revenge upon the Laird of Frendraught, his men, tenants, and servants, at their own hands; but as to the rest of the king’s lieges they would offer no injury.... The herald, glad of this answer, and blyth to win away with his life, took his leave, and the trumpeter sounded ... to whom the captain gave five dollars of wages.’ The herald also went to the Bog to summon the marquis, an extraordinary piece of audacity: however, the marquis, who, in reality, had taken no active part in the business, entertained the poor man civilly, and allowed him to go on to Elgin, Forres, and Inverness, for the fulfilment of his mission, as well as to return peaceably through Moray when all was done.
Dec. 30.
The marquis represented to the Council that, from age and infirmity, he was unable to obey their summons; but he sent several of the gentlemen of his house who had been called upon to appear, and these were all put into the Tolbooth of Edinburgh. The Council at the same time caused the sheriff of Aberdeen to raise two hundred men and proceed to the disturbed country. This officer found no violators of the law in his own county, but learned that there was a host of them at Rothiemay, in the county of Banff. These, being beyond his own bounds, he was obliged to leave to the sheriff of Banff. The latter officer soon after went in similar force to the place of Rothiemay, and, past expectation, ‘found open yetts, enterit the place, sought the haill rooms, but no man was there, for they had fled about twa hours before the sheriff’s coming; whereupon he disbanded the gentlemen.... But the sheriff was no sooner gone, but they came all back again to Rothiemay, where they held house in wonted form.’
It is briefly noted in a manuscript written about 1720, that the family of Frendraught, which once possessed three parishes (Forgue, Inverkeithny, and Aberchirder), was by these inroads of their enemies reduced to poverty, and in seventy years, was ‘stripped of all, and extinguished.’[57]
The spring of this year was cold and dry. During the months of April and May, there was no rain for seven weeks; consequently, the seed in some places never germinated. The summer, however, proved so fine, that after all there was a tolerable harvest.
‘The gose-summer[58] was matchless fair in Moray, without winds, wet, or any storm; the corn was well won; the garden herbs revived, July flowers and roses springing at Martinmass, whilk myself pulled. The kale shot and came to seed, and the March violets were springing as in April.’—Spal.
Nov.
1634.
A specimen of religious courtship of this age is given by Mr John Livingstone in his Memoirs. The lady was daughter to Bartholomew Fleming, merchant in Edinburgh. ‘When I went a visit to Ireland in February 1634, Mr Blair propounded to me that marriage. I had seen her before several times in Scotland, and heard the testimony of many of her gracious disposition, yet I was for nine months seeking, as I could, direction from God about that business; during which time I did not offer to speak to her, who, I believe, had not heard anything of the matter, only for want of clearness in my mind, although I was twice or thrice in the house, and saw her frequently at communions and public meetings, and it is like I might have been longer in such darkness, except the Lord had presented me an occasion of our conferring together; for in November 1634, when I was going to the Friday meeting at Ancrum, I met with her and some others going thither, and propounded to them by the way to confer upon a text whereupon I was to preach the day after at Ancrum, wherein I found her conference so judicious and spiritual, that I took that for some answer to my prayer to have my mind cleared, and blamed myself that I had not before taken occasion to confer with her. Four or five days after, I propounded the matter to her, and desired her to think upon it; and after a week or two, I went to her mother’s house, and being alone with her, desiring her answer, I went to prayer, and urged her to pray, which at last she did; and in that time I got abundance of clearness that it was the Lord’s mind that I should marry her, and then propounded the matter more fully to her mother. And although I was fully cleared, I may truly say it was above a month before I got marriage affection to her, although she was for personal endowments beyond many of her equals; and I got it not till I obtained it by prayer. But thereafter I had a great difficulty to moderate it.’
From this union proceeded a family which has made a distinguished figure in the United States of America.
1634.
The patent granted to Mr Nathaniel Uddart for twenty-one years, for the sole making of soap within the kingdom, was now drawing near to expiration; and by the king’s favour, a new one, to commence with the close of the old, was granted to his ‘daily servitor, Patrick Mauld of Panmure.’ The royal letter, recommending this matter to the Privy Council, proceeds on the consideration how ‘necessar it is, for the guid of his majesty’s ancient kingdom, that the same be furnished with good soaps at reasonable prices within the self’—that is, within the kingdom itself: further, that soap-making ‘is not a trade of such a nature as can be communicat to all his majesty’s lieges, and that the publict would suffer if the same were left indifferently to all;’ while it is equally true, that, such being the case, ‘the choice of the person perteins to his majesty, as a part of his sovereign prerogative.’
Seeing that ‘Patrick Mauld is willing to undergo the said wark, and to provide for all necessars for continuing the same,’ his majesty granted to him and his representatives for thirty-one years ‘the sole and full licence to make and cause to be made, within the said kingdom, soap for washing of clothes, of all such colours and quantity as they sall think good.’ Any quantity made beyond what was required for the country, might be exported upon payment of a duty equal to that paid on soap imported from abroad. Foreigners might be introduced to work for Mauld; but were strictly forbidden to make soap for any other person. As necessarily connected with this patent, the king granted to Mauld, for the same time, ‘licence to fish and trade in the country and seas of Greenland, and in the isles and other parts adjacent thereto, and that for provision of the said soap-works with oils and other materials necessar thereto,’ but solely so, free from all challenge or hinderance on the part of any others of his majesty’s subjects. Considering that there are certain ingredients necessary for the making of soap, and which it would be well to obtain within the kingdom itself, the king further gave Mauld sole licence ‘to make potasses of all sorts, of such wood within the said kingdom, as is most fit for that purpose, and that can be most conveniently spared;’ likewise ‘of all sorts of ferns and other vegetable things whatsoever, fit for the purpose.’ Mauld was only to pay twenty pounds sterling per annum for his privileges.—P. C. R.
Nov. 25.
A proclamation was made by the king regarding ‘an abuse that has of late years prevailed in the kingdom, by the disorderly behaviour of some disobedient people, who ordinarily, when the communion is administrate in their parishes, and at all other times when their occasions and humours serve them, run to seek the communion at the hands of such ministers as they know to be disconforme to all good order.’ Punishment was threatened according to act of parliament.—P. C. R.
Nov.
1634.
John Urquhart of Craigston, in Aberdeenshire, had raised a handsome estate, ‘but court or session’—that is to say, without court favour or by legal oppression—and built himself a beautiful semi-castellated house, the elegance of which is still calculated to impress those who visit it. As grand-uncle of the well-known Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromarty, he had taken charge of that gentleman’s affairs, and thus came to be generally recognised as the Tutor of Cromarty. His death in November 1631 was bewailed by the elegant Aberdeenshire poet, Arthur Johnston, who says of him, in his epitaph in Kinedart church:
‘Posteritas, cui liquit agros et prædia, disce
Illius exemplo vivere, disce mori.’
The son of the Tutor, John Urquhart of Laithers, being deep in debt—to the extent of £40,000 Scots—his father settled the estate upon the next generation, now a boy. As John Urquhart was returning from his father’s funeral, he took sickness suddenly by the way, and soon found himself upon his death-bed. It was a bitter moment for the spendthrift, for he knew that his death would occasion severe losses to many gentlemen who stood as cautioners for his debts, and leave his own widow unprovided for. He could only call the boy to his bedside, and desire him to be good to his step-mother, and pay his father’s debts out of the large estate which would shortly be his. ‘The young boy passed his mourning promise so to do. Then he desires the Laird of Cromarty, who was present, to be nae waur tutor to his son nor his father was to him, and to help to see his debts paid.’
It seems to have been impossible in that age for either boy or girl to be left as this boy was, without becoming the subject of sordid speculations amongst those who had any access to or influence over them. The Laird of Innes, who was brother-in-law to the deceased Laithers, immediately ‘gets the guiding of this young boy, and, but advice of his friends, shortly and quietly marries him upon his awn eldest dochter, Elizabeth Innes.’ Such an outrage to the decency of nature for the sake of rich connection, does not seem to have been thought more than dexterous in those days. Innes, who was one of the first baronets of Nova Scotia, is described as ‘a man of great worth and honour.’ As a member of the Committee of Estates, he took a prominent part in the war which was some years afterwards commenced for the defence of the national religion.
1634. Nov. 30.
To the boy the affair became sadly tragical. When craved by the cautioners for his father’s debts, he was willing to comply; but the selfish father-in-law would not listen to any such proposition. The unfortunate gentlemen had to pay, in some instances to the wreck of their own estates. The many maledictions which they consequently launched at the youth, affected him greatly in his conscience and feelings. ‘And so, through melancholy, as was thought, he contracts ane consuming sickness, whereof he died, leaving behind him ane son called John in the keeping of his mother.’—Spal.
The singular fortunes of this boy of sixteen—for he is said to have been no older at his death—became the subject of a ballad containing some stanzas of a more poetical character than are usually found in that class of compositions.[59]
Dec. 14.
Died at Stirling, the Earl of Mar, Lord-treasurer of Scotland, the school-friend of King James VI., and a most respectable nobleman. Scott of Scotstarvet, who seems to have had rather more than the usual relish for the misfortunes of his neighbours, says of Lord Mar: ‘His chief delight was in hunting; and he procured by acts of parliament, that none should hunt within divers miles of the king’s house; yet often that which is most pleasant to a man is his overthrow; for, walking in his own hall, a dog cast him off his feet, and lamed his leg, of which he died; and at his burial, a hare having run through the company, his special chamberlain, Alexander Stirling, fell off his horse and broke his neck.’[60]
1635.
The winter 1634-5 is described by a contemporary as ‘the most tempestuous and stormy that was seen in Scotland these sixty years past, with such abundance of snow and so rigid a frost, that the snow lay in the plains from the 9th of December to the 9th of March.’—Bal. Another chronicler says that between the 26th of January and the 16th of February, ‘there fell furth ane huge snow, that men nor women could not walk upon our streets [Perth]. It was ten quarter or twa ell heich through all the town. Tay was thirty days frozen ower. There was are fast appointit, and there came a gentle thow, blissit be God.’ From the long stoppage of running waters everywhere, it became impossible to get corn ground, and a scarcity began to be felt. Ale became equally scarce, and no wonder—‘they knockit malt in knocking stanes.’—Chron. Perth. Owing also to the depth of the snow and its lying so long, ‘many bestial, both wild and tame, died; the flocks of sheep in the Lowlands, and the goats in the mountains, went all in effect to destruction.’—Bal.
Jan.
The excuse of the Marquis of Huntly not being held sufficient by the Privy Council, he was obliged to proceed to Edinburgh to answer for the Frendraught outrages. He commenced his journey on the 9th of January, and came by short stages to Aberdeen. In ten days, he had only reached Fettercairn in Forfarshire. Thence, after being storm-stayed in the place for three days, he advanced to Brechin, six miles; thence, next day, proceeded two miles further to his own house of Melgum. Here the snow detained him till the 10th of February. He and his lady then proceeded, ‘in ane coach borne upon lang trees upon men’s arms, because horse might not travel in respect of the great storm and deepness of the way clad with snaw and frost.’ This journey of about a hundred and fifty miles seems to have occupied fully five weeks, including the detentions on the way.
The appearance of the marquis before the Council ended in his liberation, and that of the gentlemen previously imprisoned, upon their undertaking to repress the disorders, and give surety for a second appearance at a fixed time, the marquis also giving caution to Frendraught that he and his tenants should be unharmed, under a penalty of a hundred thousand pounds [probably Scots money]. The affair being thus so far settled, the marquis returned to his own country in May. He returned to the capital in summer, and was favourably received by the Council on account of his endeavours for the quieting of the country.
Jan?
‘... there was seen in Scotland a great blazing star, representing the shape of a crab or cancer, having long spraings spreading from it. It was seen in the county of Moray, and thought by some that this star, and the drying up of the pot of Brechin, as is before noted, were prodigious signs of great troubles in Scotland.’—Spal.
This portent is the more worth noting, as the description so curiously recalls the appearance of some of the nebulæ brought into view by the powers of Lord Rosse’s telescope—though, of course, from anything we know of the distance of these objects, the possibility of one of them coming into view of the naked eye, would scarcely be surmised by any modern astronomer.
1635.
Early in this year commenced a great mortality, probably in consequence of the scarcity which prevailed during the preceding year. The small-pox raged among the young for six or seven months with great severity, and, what was remarked as unusual, some persons took the disease for the second time.[61]
There was also a scarcity this year. ‘The fiar was ten pounds Scots the boll of meal and beir.... Several of the clergy, to the shame of them all, charged twelve pounds Scots and above.’[62]
Mar. 26.
Grant younger of Ballindalloch, reported to the Council that he had lately taken an opportunity to attack some of the broken men who formed the company of the outlaw James Grant. Entering into pursuit of two, named Finlay M‘Grimmen and —— Cumming, he and his people had killed the first, and taken the second. They had carried Cumming three miles, intending to exhibit him alive to the Council, along with the head of M‘Grimmen; but the country rising upon them, they had been obliged to
put the man to death. The Lords accepted this act as good service, and ordered M‘Grimmen’s head to be affixed to the Nether Bow Port; at the same time giving the inbringer of it a guerdon of a hundred merks, ‘for encouragement of others.’—-P. C. R.
1635.
The year at which we are now arrived is the epoch of the establishment of a regular letter-post in Scotland. There was previously a system of posts, in the proper sense of the word—namely, establishments at certain intervals, where horses could be had for travelling, and which had the occasional duty of forwarding packets of letters regarding public affairs. As illustrative of this system of posts, which was probably limited to the road between Edinburgh and Berwick (as part of the great line of communication with London), with possibly one or two other roads—On the 29th of March 1631, the lords of the Privy Council dealt with the fault of —— Forres, postmaster of Haddington, respecting a packet of his majesty’s letters which had been lost by his carelessness. It appears that Forres was bound to have fresh horses always ready for the forwarding of such packets; but on one late occasion he had sent a packet by a foot-boy, who had lost it by the way, and he had never taken any further trouble regarding it. On the ensuing 3d of November, the Council had occasion to find fault with William Duncan, postmaster in the Canongate, and more particularly with a post-boy in Duncan’s employment, because the latter, instead of carrying his majesty’s packet to the postmaster at Haddington, had given it to ‘a whipman’ of Musselburgh, to be carried to Duncan’s house there (designing probably that it should be forwarded by another hand). The Council recommended Sir William Seton ‘to prescribe regulations to the postmasters, for the sure and speedy despatch of his majesty’s packet, both anent the postmasters their constant residence at the place of their charge, and keeping of are register for receipt of the packets.’—P. C. R.
These circumstances appear as characteristic of a time when the postal arrangements were at once very new and very simple.
The necessity of having this system of posts for the communication of intelligence between the king and his Scottish Council was partly incidental to the time. In the days of King James, things were of so simple a nature, and in general so much left to the discretion of the Council, that a system of posts for the despatch of packets was scarcely required. Charles, having entered on a course more difficult, and in which great energy on his own part and that of his subservient Scottish Council was called for, and all little enough as being contrary to the general inclinations of the people, found a need for more frequent communication; and hence these posts in the Canongate and at Haddington.
1635.
At length this system merged in one applicable to the sister-kingdom also, and in which a regular periodical transmission of letters for private individuals was included. To quote from a contemporary writer—‘Till this time [1635] there had been no certain or constant intercourse between England and Scotland. Thomas Witherings, Esq., his majesty’s postmaster of England for foreign parts, was now commanded “to settle one running post, or two, to run day and night between Edinburgh and London, to go thither and come back again in six days; and to take with them all such letters as shall be directed to any post-town in the said road; and the posts to be placed in several places out of the road, to run and bring and carry out of the said roads the letters, as there shall be occasion, and to pay twopence for every single letter under fourscore miles; and if one hundred and forty miles, fourpence; and if above, then sixpence. The like rule the king is pleased to order to be observed to West Chester, Holyhead, and thence to Ireland; and also to observe the like rule from London to Plymouth, Exeter, and other places in that road; the like for Oxford, Bristol, Colchester, Norwich, and other places. And the king doth command that no other messenger, foot-post, or foot-posts, shall take up, carry, receive, or deliver any letter or letters whatsoever, other than the messengers appointed by the said Thomas Witherings: except common known carriers, or a particular messenger to be sent on purpose with a letter to a friend.”‘[63]
The post between London and Edinburgh was of course conducted on horseback. It usually went twice a week, sometimes only once. Three years after, when the troubles had begun, the communication became insecure. A person in England then wrote to his friend in Scotland: ‘I hear the posts are waylaid, and all letters taken from them and brought to Secretary Cooke; therefore will I not, nor do you, send by that way hereafter.’[64]
June.
‘There was seen in the water of Don a monster-like beast, having the head like to ane great mastiff dog or swine, and hands, arms, and paps like to a man. The paps seemed to be white. It had hair on the head, and the hinder parts, seen sometimes above the water, seemed clubbish, short-legged, and short-footed, with ane tail. This monster was seen swimming bodily above the water, about ten hours in the morning, and continued all day visible, swimming above and below the bridge without any fear. The town’s-people of both Aberdeens came out in great multitudes to see this monster. Some threw stones; some shot guns and pistols; and the salmon-fishers rowed cobles with nets to catch it, but all in vain. It never shrinked nor feared, but would duck under the water, snorting and bullering, terrible to the hearers and beholders. It remained two days, and was seen no more.’—Slightly altered from Spalding.
It seems most probable that this was one of the herbivorous cetacea, as the manatus. ‘They have,’ says Cuvier, ‘two mammæ on the breast, and hairy moustaches; two circumstances which, when observed from a distance, may give them some resemblance to human beings, and have probably occasioned those fabulous accounts of Tritons and Sirens which some travellers pretend to have seen.’ The manatus haunts the mouths of rivers in the hottest parts of the Atlantic Ocean, and it is just possible that a stray individual may have found its way to the coast of Scotland, more especially as it was the summer season.
1635
The author of an Account of Buchan,[65] supposed to have been written about 1680, tells us that, some years before, two mermaids had been seen at Pitsligo, by a group of persons, one of whom was Mr Alexander Robertson, chaplain to the Laird of Pitsligo, ‘known to be ingenious.’ This writer refers to the strange marine animal of 1635, as a mermaid.
Aug. 19.
George, first Earl of Kinnoul, Chancellor of Scotland, had died at London in December 1634,[66] and now he was to be interred in his family tomb at the parish church of Kinnoul, near Perth. The funeral was one of those grand heraldic processions, of which that of the Earl of Buccleuch, under June 11, 1634, has been given as an example. There were saulies, trumpeters, and pursuivants in great numbers; relatives to carry the arms of the deceased, his coronet, his spurs, his gauntlet, his mace, and great seal, and the arms of many of his ancestors on both sides. His physician and chaplain in mourning, ‘a horse in dule,’ and two pages of honour, were other figures. And finally came the coffin, surmounted by a pall of black velvet, carried by twelve gentlemen, followed by the deceased’s son, in a long mourning robe and hood, assisted by six earls and three lords going three abreast. ‘In this order went they through the town of Perth, and near the bridge crossed the water (wharves and boats being appointed on purpose), and so marched to Kinnoul church, where, after the funeral-sermon being ended, the corps were set in the tomb prepared for them.’[67]
A full-length figure of the earl still surmounts his tomb; a good illustration of the full dress of a man of first rank in that age. The spiteful Scott of Scotstarvet tells us, ‘he was a man of little or no learning, yet had conquest a good estate—namely, the baronies of Kinnoul, Aberdalgie, Dupplin, Kinfauns, Seggieden, Dunninald, and many others; all which estates in a few years after his decease, his son made havock of.’
1635. Sep. 26.
The pest was at this time at Cramond, near Edinburgh—supposed to have been introduced by a ship from the Low Countries, where the disease largely prevailed. The inhabitants were ordered to keep within their own parish, and two clengers from Newhaven were despatched to bury the dead and take all other needful steps to prevent the spread of infection. A strict order was issued to prevent the landing of people out of ships from Holland, or any intercourse with such vessels as might come into the Firth of Forth. The wife of Thomas Anderson, skipper, having gone on board her husband’s vessel, and remained there some time, after which she returned to her house in Leith, she was commanded to remain within doors. One Francis Vanhoche, of Middleburg, had embarked in a ship bound for Scotland, in order to settle his accounts for lead ore; he had been detained by contrary winds, and then landed at Hull, whence he proceeded to Edinburgh, and took up his quarters with Gilbert Fraser, a merchant-burgess of the city. To the surprise of Francis, he was shut up in the house as a dangerous person, and not liberated till the Laird of Lamington engaged to take him immediately off to Leadhills, where he had business to attend to. The order for the seclusion of the parishioners of Cramond caused enormous misery to the poor, who, being prevented from working, could obtain no supply of the necessaries of life. After a representation of their extreme sufferings, the order was removed (December 15).—P. C. R.
During the ensuing year, the plague declared itself in London, Newcastle, and other towns in England, but hardly appeared in Scotland till November, when the towns of Preston, Prestonpans, and Musselburgh were slightly infected.
(Nov.)
1635.
Soon after the Marquis of Huntly’s summer journey to Edinburgh, Captain Adam Gordon of Park, offended at the severe proceedings of the great lord against himself and others, went to the Council in Edinburgh, and making a separate peace, gave information which led the Council to believe that the marquis had receipted and supplied some of the broken men after undertaking their reduction. The aged noble was accordingly summoned once more, and forced to obey, though it was now ‘the dead of the year, cold, tempestuous, and stormy.’ He and his lady again travelled ‘by chariot.’ On this occasion, he had to submit to a period of imprisonment in the Castle of Edinburgh, in a room where he had no light, and was denied the company of his lady, except on a visit at Christmas. He was afterwards permitted to live in ‘his own lodging, near to his majesty’s palace of Holyroodhouse, with liberty to walk within ane of the gardens, of walks within the precinct of the said palace, and no further.’ Thence, in June 1636, finding himself growing weaker and weaker, he set out for his northern castle, ‘in a wand-bed within his chariot, his lady still with him.’ He died on the journey, in an inn at Dundee, whence his body was brought in a horse-litter to Strathbogie, for burial.
At the end of August, this great man was buried in state at Elgin, according to the forms of the Catholic Church, to which he belonged. ‘He had torch-lights carried in great numbers by friends and gentlemen.’ His son and three other nobles bore the coffin. ‘He was carried to the east style of the College Kirk, in at the south door, [and] buried in his own aile, with much mourning and lamentation; the like form of burial with torchlight was seldom seen here before.’—Spal.
This grand old nobleman had been in possession of his honours for sixty years. In his youth, he had great troubles from his rivalry with the Earl of Moray, and his adherence to the ancient faith. But he had lived down all difficulties, and, considering the sad affair at Dunnibrissle in 1592, died with a wonderfully good character. ‘The marquis,’ says Spalding, ‘was of a great spirit, for in time of trouble he was of invincible courage, and boldly bare down all his enemies. He was never inclined to war himself, but by the pride and influence of his kin, was diverse times drawn into troubles, whilk he did bear through valiantly. He loved not to be in the law contending against any man, but loved rest and quietness with all his heart, and in time of peace he lived moderately and temperately in his diet, and fully set to building all curious devices. A good neighbour in his marches, disposed rather to give than to take a foot wrongously. He was heard to say he never drew sword in his own quarrel. In his youth, a prodigal spender; in his old age, more wise and worldly, yet never counted for cost in matters of credit and honour. A great householder; a terror to his enemies, whom he ever with his prideful kin held under subjection and obedience. Just in all his bargains, and was never heard for his true debt.’
1635
The marquis had had infinite trouble through life in maintaining his faith as a son of the Church of Rome, and it fully appears that the Presbyterians had the trouble of converting him four or five times. ‘In 1588, he gave in his adherence to the reformed establishment, and subscribed the Confession; but in his intercepted letters to the Spanish king, he says that “the whole had been extorted from him against his conscience.” In 1597, his lordship was again reconciled to the kirk, with much public solemnity, signed the Confession of Faith, and partook of the sacrament. His fidelity, however, was wholly feigned, and did not last long. In 1607, Mr George Gladstanes, minister at St Andrews, was appointed by the General Assembly to remain with the Marquis of Huntly “for ane quarter or ane half year, to the effect by his travels and labours, the said noble lord and his family might be informit in the word of truth.” In the following year, Mr Gladstanes reported that he had stayed three days with the marquis, apparently at the time when his lordship was engaged in the re-edification of his castle of Strathbogie, of whose grandeur the existing remains as yet afford ample proof; and having among other things inquired at his lordship “why he resorted not to the preaching at the ordinar times in parish kirks,” he was informed that he could not well resort to the parish kirk, partly in respect of the mean rank of such as were within the parish, and partly in respect his lordship’s predecessors were in use to have ane chapel in their awn house, whilk he was minded to prosecute now, “seeing he was presently preparing his house of Strathbogie.” In 1606, he was accused of giving encouragement to the Roman Catholics, and thereby occasioning a great defection from the reformed opinions, and in 1608 he was excommunicated. In 1616, he was absolved from excommunication by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and afterwards by the General Assembly which met at Aberdeen in that year. There is, however, no doubt that during his whole life he was a warm adherent of the ancient religion.’[68] It would be difficult for a candid mind to say which was most to blame in all this—the marquis for his insincerity, or the church-courts for exercising force and accepting professions where they knew that there was no hearty concession attainable.
1635.
In his latter years, the marquis devoted himself much to what was then called policy—that is, building and planting. We have already seen that he erected an elegant mansion at Strathbogie—the now ruinous Huntly Castle. ‘He built a house at Kinkail on the Dee, called the New-house, which standeth amidst three hunting-forests of his own. He built the house of Ruthven in Badenoch twice, [it] being burnt by aventure or negligence of his servants after he had once finished the same. He built a new house in Aboyne; he repaired his house in Elgin; he hath built a house in the Plewlands in Moray; he hath enlarged and decored the house of Bog-Gicht, which he hath parked about; he repaired his house in the old town of Aberdeen.’—G. H. S.
Dec.
We light upon a curious bit of life in the book of the Privy Council. One day, not long before the date noted, Nicolas Johnston, wife of Mr Francis Irving, commissary-clerk of Dumfries, was walking on the street of that burgh, passing from her mother’s house to the residence of ‘Lady Cockpool,’ when she met Marion Gladstanes, spouse of the schoolmaster. Marion, after many flattering words, invited Nicolas Johnston into her house ‘to drink with her.’ Yielding with some reluctance to this invitation, Nicolas was taken into a quiet room in Marion’s house, where presently a mutchkin of white wine was brought in for the solacement of the two ladies. Marion, as the hostess, drank the first cupful to the health of her gossip’s husband; then, while Nicolas was looking at the hangings of a bed (few rooms were in those days without beds), she filled the cup again. ‘Nicolas, looking about, perceived her tottering the cup in her hand, as if she had the perellis’ [paralysis]. Then she gave it to Nicolas to drink. It appeared to have some brayed nutmeg infused into it. Nicolas, having drunk a little, handed back the cup to Marion, who, ‘pretending it was to the said Nicolas’s husband’s health, urged her at three drinks to drink the same out. Thereafter Marion took the cup, and set it down, saying: “The last that drank out of that cup, loved the wine the better of the nutmegs,” and with that changed her countenance and grew red. Nicolas, fearing some harm, and yet not suspecting any poison to be in the cup, the said Marion took ane clean linen and said: “I think you love not nutmegs,” rubbed the cup clean, filled a drink of wine, drank thereof, and her servant also.’
1635.
Nicolas Johnston afterwards proceeded to Lady Cockpool’s, but in the way experienced a violent attack of thirst, ‘so that she was forced to call for drink, and could scarce be slockened. Thereafter, she came to her mother’s house, and being troubled with the like thirst, drank weak ale and got little rest all the night.’ Next day, her body, from the middle downwards, was enormously swelled, making her a monstrous figure, and this illness did not much abate for twenty days. Soon after, she had to take to her bed again, nor did she begin to recover ‘till she received an antidote from Dr Hamilton.’ Her health did not fully come back.
A commission was issued for inquiry into this affair, but with what result does not appear.—P. C. R.
1636. Jan. 14.
Instances of the capture of Scottish mariners by Barbary rovers, and of charitable efforts at home to redeem them from a cruel slavery, have been already intimated as numerous. At this time, we are informed of one which must have formed a powerful appeal to the humane bosom. A ship called the John of Leith, commanded by John Brown, and having ten sailors on board, is quietly proceeding on a mercantile voyage from London to Rochelle. Near the coast of France, it encounters three Turkish men-of-war, who give chase from sunrise to sundown, and at last take and sink the vessel, after easing her of her crew and all her valuable goods.
The poor skipper Brown and his ten men, being carried to Sallee, were taken to market and sold as slaves. Each bearing iron chains to the weight of eighty pounds, the eleven men were employed all day in grinding in a mill, with nothing to eat but a little dusty bread. ‘In the night, they are put in foul holes, twenty foot under the ground, where they lie miserably, looking nightly to be eaten with rottens and mice.’ It was further stated, that ‘being but a company of poor seafaring men, having nothing but their hires whereby to redeem themselves, and their kin are so mean and unworthy as they will do nothing in that errand, their thraldom and misery will be perpetual unless they be assisted and helped by the charitable benevolence of his majesty’s good subjects.’
The Privy Council, looking kindly on the wretched state of the men, recommended a contribution in their behalf throughout Lothian, Berwick, Stirling, and Fife, under the care of ‘John Brown and Walter Ross, indwellers in Preston.’
1636.
In the ensuing month, the Privy Council had in their hands a supplication from James Duncher, setting forth his pitiful estate as a prisoner among the Turks in Algiers. He had been kept for a long time there, forced to carry water on his back through the town, ‘with an iron chain about his leg and round his middle, instead of sark, hose, and shoes;’ and no food ‘but four unce of bread daily, as black as tar,’ while obliged to endure ‘forty or threescore of stripes with are rope of four inches great upon his naked body, sometimes on his back, and sometimes on his belly.’ ‘When the ship is to go to the sea, he must go perforce and sustein the like misery there, and all because he will not renunce his faith in Christ and become ane Turk.’ His cruel masters having offered to liberate him for twelve hundred merks, he now entreated the Privy Council to recommend his case to the charity of his fellow-countrymen, that that sum might be raised and sent to him. The Council looked kindly on this sad petition, and appointed a collection to be made in the sheriffdoms of Edinburgh and Berwick, the proceeds to be handed to ‘David Corsaw in Dysart, uncle of the supplicant,’ who had undertaken to administer the money for Duncher’s relief.—P. C. R.
Jan. 27.
1636.
A bark belonging to Dundee, carrying goods from Camphire, was overtaken near the mouth of the Firth of Forth by a storm, which obliged the master, after struggling with great difficulties, to run the vessel on shore in an inlet called Thornton Loch, near Dunbar. Immediately she was beset by a multitude of farmers, Dunbar tradesmen, and others, provided with horses and carts, who, cutting a hole in her side with axes, seized and took away her whole cargo. The enumeration of the articles gives some idea of what might constitute a grocer’s stock in those days, and speaks rather more strongly of comfort and luxury than many may be prepared for. There were ‘ten lasts of white pease, three lasts and a half of soap, four great pipes of “alme” [alum?] and three puncheons of “alme,” a ball of madder, three balls of galls, twenty hundred pund weight of sugar, ten trees [barrels] of white stiffin [starch], twenty trees of raisins of the sun, three trees of figs, [three] puncheons of Corse raisins, ten kinkens [kegs] of powder, twa small trees of brimstone, are thousand pund weight of tobacco, seven barrel pipes, four kinkens of indigo, four hundred pund of pepper, fifty pund of cannell [cinnamon], thirteen pund of maces, fifteen pund of saffron, twenty pund of nutmegs, ane thousand pund of ridbrissels (?), ten piece of Holland cloth, thirty-six pund of silk, ane steik of Spanish taffeta, three trees of capers, ane packet of pannis’ (?), and ‘four hundred pund of pewter vessel and stoups,’ besides ‘six hundred and fifty merks of ready gold and silver, being in a purse, with the haill abulyiements and clothing belonging to the company and equipage of the ship.’ Having carried off these articles, they proceeded to sell them to the country people, without any regard to the remonstrances of the master of the ship. ‘The like of whilk barbarous violence, committed in the heart of the country by people who ought to have respect for law and justice, has not been heard of; whereanent some exemplar and severe course ought to be ta’en, lest the oversight and impunity thereof make others to commit the like.’
It is gratifying to find the Council taking up the East Lothian wreckers in this spirit. They did proceed with great energy against such of the individuals accused as they found to be truly guilty, imposing on them severally certain fines, from fifty merks up to fifty pounds, in order to make up a proper compensation to the owners of the goods.—P. C. R.
In July 1636, the Council dealt with a case of wrecking which strongly illustrates the state of morals in the Western Islands. The Susanna, a bark of twenty-four tons, was proceeding, in December 1634, from the port of St Malo, in France, to Limerick, with wines and other goods to the value of a thousand pounds, when she twice encountered stormy weather, and by force of winds and waves, was carried to an inlet in one of the Hebrides. Having lost their boat, the mariners made signs to the people on shore, who presently came on board, armed with swords, pikes, and crossbows, ‘and demanded of the company of the bark what they would give to bring the bark into are harbour.’ It was agreed by the distressed crew, that a butt of sack and a barrel of raisins should be given for that service and for some provisions of which they stood in need. Then the islanders cut the ship’s cable and brought her to land.
The master and his crew expected here to find kindly entertainment and to be in full security; but, instead of this, a great number of people, of whom the captain of the Clanranald and the Laird of Castleborrow were the chief (three hundred in all, it is said), came down upon them in armed fashion, and furnished with barrels and other conveniences; ‘drank and drew out the wine day by day, carried away all their goods and merchandise,’ and even robbed the strangers of their wearing apparel, ‘as weel that upon their bodies as whilk was in the bark.’ By threats and ill-usage, they also obliged a young man, a member of the crew, to assume the character of factor of the vessel, and make a mock sale of her merchandise, ‘in consideration of a sowm of money, although he received nane.’ Finally, under a threat of being sent with the crew ‘to the savages that dwells in the mayne,’ the owner was compelled to accept eight pounds for the vessel, though it was worth a hundred and fifty; and then the crew found it necessary to get away as best they could, for fear of their lives.
1636.
The Council summoned the accused persons, and on their failing to appear, denounced them as rebels.—P. C. R.
Jan.
A difficulty occurring about the election of magistrates for Aberdeen, a leet was sent to the Privy Council, who selected out of it Alexander Jaffray, a distinguished merchant, whom we shall meet again in this chronicle. ‘Many lichtlied both the man and the election, not being of the old blood of the town, but the oy [grandson] of ane baxter [baker], and therefore was set down in the provost’s dais, before his entering, are baken pie, to sermon. This was done divers times; but he miskenned [overlooked] all, and never quarrelled the samen.’—Spal.
Apr. 1.
On the application of Mr William Gordon, professor of medicine and anatomy in the university of Aberdeen, who had hitherto been obliged to illustrate his lessons by dissecting beasts, the Privy Council gave warrant to the sheriffs and magistrates of Aberdeen to allow him the bodies of a couple of malefactors for the service of his class, if such could be had, but, failing these, the bodies of any poor people who might die in hospitals or otherwise, and have no friends to take exception; this being with the approbation of the Bishop of Aberdeen, chancellor of the university.[69]
July 27.
1636.
This was a terrible day for the broken men who had for the last few years been carrying on such wild proceedings in Morayland and other districts bordering on the Highlands. Lord Lorn—who soon after, as Marquis of Argyle, became the leader of the Covenanting party—had exerted himself with diligence to put down the system of robbery and oppression by which the country had been so long harassed; and he had succeeded in capturing ten of the most noted of the catterans, including one whose name enjoys a popular celebrity even to the present day. This was Gilderoy or Gillieroy; such at least was his common appellation—a descriptive term signifying the Red Lad—but he actually bore the name of Patrick Macgregor, being a member of that unhappy clan which the severity of the government had driven to desperate courses about thirty years before. Another of the captured men was John Forbes, who seems to have been the fidus Achates of the notorious outlaw, James Grant. A natural son of Grant was also of the party. These ten men were now brought to trial in Edinburgh.
It was alleged of Gilderoy that he and his band had for three years past sorned ‘through the haill bounds of Strathspey, Braemar, Cromar, and countries thereabout, oppressing the common and poor people, violently taking away from them their meat, drink, and provision, and their haill guids.’ They had taken fifteen nolt from one farm in Glenprosen; had lain for days at Balreny, eating up the country, and possessing themselves of whatever they could lay hands on, and in some instances they had carried off the goodman himself, or the man and wife together, in order to extort money for their ransom. One of the charges leads us to the romantic scenery of Loch Lomond, where there is an island called Inchcailloch (Women’s Island), from having been the seat of a nunnery in ancient times. Gilderoy, in company with his brother, John Dhu Roy, and his half-brother, John Graham, had come to William Stewart’s house in this island, and taken from it ‘the whole insight plenishing, guids, and geir,’ besides the legal papers belonging to the proprietor. There had also been a cruel slaughter of one of the Clan Cameron. The other men were taxed with offences of a similar kind.
If the doom of the ten catterans was duly executed—and we know nothing to the contrary—they were all, two days after, drawn backwards on a hurdle to the Cross, and there hanged, Gilderoy and John Forbes suffering on a gallows ‘ane degree higher’ than that on which their companions suffered, and further having their heads and right hands struck off for exhibition on the city ports.[70]
Gilderoy, as is well known, attained a ballad fame. There is a broadside of the time, containing a lament for him by his mistress, in rude verses not altogether devoid of pathos. She says:
‘My love he was as brave a man
As ever Scotland bred,
Descended from a Highland clan,
A catter to his trade.
No woman then or womankind
Had ever greater joy
Than we two when we lodged alone,
I and my Gilderoy.’
1630.
There is something almost fine in the close of the piece:
‘And now he is in Edinburgh town,
’Twas long ere I came there;
They hanged him upon a pin,
And he wagged in the air:
His relics they were more esteemed
Than Hector’s were at Troy—
I never love to see the face
That gazed on Gilderoy.’
A various version of this doleful ditty appears in A Collection of Old Ballads (London, printed for J. Roberts, &c., 1724). It contains some stanzas not quite consistent with modern taste, and takes such a view of the offences of the hero as might be expected from a woman and a mistress:
‘What kind of cruelty is this,
To hang such handsome men!’
As it breathed, however, a strain of natural feeling, it attracted the attention of Lady Wardlaw, the authoress of the fine ballad of Hardiknute, and by her was put into such an improved form as may be said to have rendered the name of Gilderoy classical.
July 28.
A petition given in to the Privy Council by the parishioners of Denny, craving assistance to rebuild a bridge which had been carried away by a ‘speat’ of the Carron, stated the circumstances of the accident in terms which illustrate the power of running-water in a remarkable manner. The tempest, it was said, exceeded all that could be remembered, ‘by the violence whereof not only houses, with men, wives, and bairns, were pitifully carried away and drowned, but great craigs and rocks were rent, and huge parts of the same, of forty foot of length and above, carried with the violence of the speat, above four or five pair of butts length from the craig, within the water of Carron, to the dry land.’—P. C. R.
Aug. 3.
Lady Rothiemay, after a long detention under caution, was this day subjected to trial for giving encouragement to the Frendraught spoilers two years before. There seems to have been a disposition to look lightly on the offence of a woman who had had the deaths of a husband and a son to excite her feelings, and the charge, after being twice delayed, was finally allowed to fall to the ground.
1636. Nov. 10.
The Privy Council, learning that a number of gipsies had been seized a month before, and thrown into jail at Haddington, decreed that, ‘whereas the keeping of them longer there is troublesome and burdenable to the town,’ therefore the sheriff or his depute should pronounce sentence of death ‘against so many of thir counterfeit thieves as are men, and against so many of the women as wants children, ordaining the men to be hangit, and the women to be drowned;’ while ‘such of the women as has children should be scourged through the burgh.’[71]
Dec. 8.
John Greg, ‘in the Haughs of Fingoth,’ complained to the Privy Council of the conduct of Mr James Stuart, commissary of Dunkeld, who, after passing upon him sundry affronts, had lately fallen upon a new trick for his disgrace—namely, to insert ‘Macgregor’ as his name in all public documents in which he was concerned either as pursuer or defender. ‘Now, lately, under the borrowed name of David Martin, servitor to the Laird of Ballechin, he has ta’en the gift of the complainer’s escheat, and in that same gift he calls the complainer John Macgregor, alias Greg.’ By this it was assumed that the Dunkeld commissary intended ‘to draw the complainer under all the courses that sall be ta’en with the Clan Gregor.’ Greg further affirmed that his family name for generations past memory had been simply Greg, ‘and had nothing to do with the race of Clan Gregor.’
The Council obliged Stuart to give caution that he would discontinue this singular kind of persecution.—P. C. R.
1637. Feb. 23.
We have notice at this time of a very pretty quarrel between Lord Fraser and the Laird of Philorth. ‘The kirkyard dike of Rathin being altogether ruinous and decayed, the gentlemen and others of the parish, out of respect to the honour of God and credit of the parish, concluded to repair and big up the said kirkyard dike,’ except a part which fell properly to be done by the late Lords of Lovat and Fraser. Owing to the death of Lord Lovat, the duty of building the latter portion fell solely upon Lord Fraser, who, when he had executed it, ‘caused put up aboon the kirkstyle his name and arms in carved stones, after a decent and comely order, never thinking that any man would have been so void of modesty and discretion as to have maligned the said wark.’ Nevertheless, Alexander Frisell of Philorth had come with a number of armed followers, under cloud of night, and put up three great brods with the arms of Philorth painted on them, right over the Lord Fraser’s arms, which were now consequently invisible.
Such a proceeding, it was held, could only be interpreted as meant to stir up Lord Fraser into a deadly quarrel; ‘but he, out of respect to his majesty’s obedience and laws, whilk he will ever prefer to his awn unruly passions, has forborne to tak upon him the sword of justice.’ He applies to the Privy Council for the just redress of ‘this inexcusable wrong.’
The Council had the accused parties summoned before them, and the Laird of Philorth, having appeared, could only excuse himself by alleging what he felt to be due to his late father’s ‘funerals.’ The Lords therefore contented themselves with ordering the ‘brod’ with the arms to be taken down ‘at mid-day, in presence of the minister of Rathin.’ A counter complaint from Philorth against Lord Fraser for putting up his arms in stone on the kirkyard dike, was remitted to the judge ordinary of the district.—P. C. R.
Feb. 23.
It is remarkable that the government never previously exerted itself more strenuously for the repression of spoliation and common theft than just before its hands were paralysed by the outbreak of the religious spirit. We have just seen justice done upon a number of broken men of the north and the gipsies of the south; we have now to see even more stern proceedings against the Border thieves. A commission, headed by the Earl of Traquair, sat at Jedburgh on the day noted, when whole droves of culprits came before them, and were dealt with in the most rigorous manner. The number hanged was thirty! Five were burned, and as many fined. Fifteen were banished from the country, under caution never to return. While fifteen were ‘cleansed,’ forty were declared fugitives for non-appearance, and twenty dismissed with assurance that they should be treated in a similar manner if they failed to bring forward caution before a particular day.
1637.
The commissioners framed a number of statutes, some of which speak strongly of the state of things which they were meant to correct. Any person going to Ireland without a licence was to be held as a thief, and brought to trial. It was culpable for any innkeeper to have beef, mutton, or lamb in his house, without ‘presenting the skin, heed, and lugs thereof, to two or more of their honest neighbours, who may bear witness of the mark and birn of the skin and hide, and that the flesh thereof is lawfully becomit.’ No one was to purchase cattle or sheep otherwise than in open market, ‘at the least before twa famous witnesses testifying that the guids is lawfully becomit.’ It was a misdemeanour for any one who had goods stolen to negotiate for their recovery and leave the thief unprosecuted. No one was to give harbourage or assistance in any way to men declared fugitives from justice.—P. C. R.
June.
During the spring and early summer of this year, the border counties were afflicted with the pest. Various orders were issued with a view to confining the range of the sickness as much as possible. From one of these arose a complaint on the part of Sir John Murray of Philiphaugh, who, as convener of the justices of his county, had occasion to see the arrangements carried out. Having gone to Selkirk for this purpose, he found a citizen named James Murray about to have a daughter married, and ‘a great part of the country’ expected to gather to the ceremony. He forbade the assemblage as dangerous, and enjoined that not above four or five should be present as witnesses; but James Murray would not listen to his remonstrances. When Sir John afterwards sent for him to press still further the necessity of having only a small company, James Murray proudly answered: ‘If ye be feared, come not there.’ Sir John then called on the bailies to commit him to prison, but ‘there was no obedience given thereto;’ and next day, when the marriage took place, ‘there was about four or five score persons who met and drank together all that day till night.’—P. C. R.
July 23.
The intrusion of a service-book or liturgy, upon the Scottish Church has been alluded to in the introduction to the present section. There was an almost universal unwillingness, even among the friends of the reigning system, to give efficacy to the royal orders; for it was seen that the congregations would not calmly see this innovation effected. It was resolved, however, that on Sunday the 23d of July the book should be used in the cathedral of Edinburgh—the ‘Great Church’ of St Giles—where the privy councillors, including the bishops and the lords of session, as well as the city magistrates, usually attended worship, besides a large congregation of the upper class of citizens.
1637.
To pursue the narrative of a contemporary:—‘How soon as Dr George Hanna, dean of Edinburgh, who was to officiate that day, had opened the service-book, a number of the meaner sort of people, most of them waiting-maids and women, who use in that town to keep places for the better sort, with clapping of their hands, cursings, and outcries, raised such an uncouth noise and hubbub in the church, that not any one could either hear or be heard. The gentlewomen did fall a tearing and crying that the mass was entered amongst them, and Baal in the church. There was a gentleman standing behind a pew and answering “Amen” to what the dean was reading; a she-zealot, hearing him, starts up in choler: “Traitor,” says she, “does thou say mass at my ear!” and with that struck him on the face with her Bible in great fury.
‘The bishop of Edinburgh, Mr David Lindsay, stepped into the pulpit, above the dean, intending to appease the tumult, minding them of the place where they were, and entreating them to desist from profaning it. But he met with as little reverence (albeit with more violence) as the dean had found;[72] for they were more enraged, and began to throw at him stools, and their very Bibles, and what arms were in the way of [their] fury. It is reported that he hardly escaped the blow of a stool, which one present diverted. Nor were their tongues idler than their hands. Upon this, John Spottiswoode, archbishop of St Andrews, then Lord Chancellor, and some others, offering to assist the bishop in quelling the multitude, were made partners of the suffering of all these curses and imprecations which they began to pray to the bishops and their abettors. The archbishop, finding himself unable to prevail with the people, was forced to call down from their gallery the provost and bailies and others of the town-council of Edinburgh, who at length, with much tumult and confusion, thrust the unruly rabble out of the church, and made fast the church doors.
1637.
‘The multitude being removed, the dean falls again to read, in presence of the better sort who stayed behind; but all this while, those who had been turned out of doors, kept such a quarter with clamours without, and rapping at the church doors, and pelting the windows with stones, as that the dean might once more be interrupted. This put the bailies once more to the pains to come down from their seat, and interpose with the clamorous multitude to make them quiet. In the midst of these clamours, the service was brought to an end; but the people’s fury was not a whit settled; for after the bishop had stepped up into the pulpit and preached, and the congregation dismissed, the bishop of Edinburgh retiring to his lodging not far distant from the church, was environed and set upon with a multitude of the meaner people, cursing him and crowding about him, that he was in danger of his life, and to be trodden down amongst the people; and having recovered the stairs of his lodging, he no sooner began to go up, but he was pulled so rudely by the sleeve of his gown that he was like to have fallen backwards. Nor was he in more security, having gotten to the top of the stairs; for the door he did find shut against him, and so was at a stand, likely to have been oppressed, had not the Earl of Wemyss, who from the next lodging saw the bishop in danger, sent his servants for to rescue him, who got him at last, breathless, and in much amazement, into his lodging.’—Gordon’s Hist. of Scots Affairs.
Tradition in modern times has represented an herb-woman, named Jenny Geddes, as the heroine who more especially cast her stool at the bishop. Wodrow, however, has given us a different account in his Analecta. ‘It is,’ says he, ‘a constantly believed tradition, that it was Mrs Mean, wife to John Mean, merchant in Edinburgh, that cast the first stool when the service-book was read in the New Kirk, Edinburgh, 1637; and that many of the lasses that carried on the fray were prentices in disguise, for they threw stools to a great length.’ Mrs Mean had been the subject of a relenting and humane act on the part of the government. When her husband was under restraint for nonconformity in 1624, he was liberated on a petition setting forth the delicate state of his wife’s health, in order that he might be enabled to return to Edinburgh and attend upon her.[73]
1637.
‘After this Sunday’s wark, the haill kirk doors of Edinburgh was lockit, and no more preaching heard [for four or five weeks]. The zealous puritans flockit ilk Sunday to hear devotion in Fife; syne returned to their houses.’—Spal.
July.
The poor and scattered success of the new liturgy is quaintly dwelt on by a nobleman who took a leading part in the proceedings for obtaining its abrogation. ‘Sundry bishops,’ he says, ‘did establish [the service-book] at their cathedrals, as the bishop of Ross in the Chanrie, Brechin at the kirk of Brechin, Dunblane at Dunblane. It was not fully practised at St Andrews; only a few of the prayers were read by the archdeacon, and having no assistance, left the same, after a few months’ practice of a part of it only. The minister of Brechin, Mr Alexander Bisset, would not practise it; but the bishop read it by his own servant. At Dunblane, the ordinary minister, Mr Pearson, a corrupt worldling, read it ... yet did the said Pearson, after consideration of the general dislike of the service-book, at a meeting of the small barons of Strathearn, subscribe the supplication against the service-book, as the Laird of Kippenross. At Chanrie, it was read by one appointed by the bishop. Except these places, it was not entered nor practised in no place in Scotland; except Dr Scrimgeour at St Fillans read it, and neither being dextrous, nor having any to assist him, as it began to be discountenanced, he dishaunted it. Also in Dingwall in Ross, one Mr Murdo Mackenzie, under censure for divers heinous and foul crimes, practised the same, to obtain remission of his offences. Certain prayers were also read in the New College at St Andrews, some of these that are not themselves corrupt, though joined with the rest—and this obedience given by that fearful man, Dr Howie, who hath fallen back from the truth of his first profession.’[74]