The history of plague in Scotland subsequent to the medieval period is of interest chiefly as affording early illustrations of the practice of quarantine. We last saw the disease prevailing in or near Edinburgh in 1475, the island of Inchkeith, in the Firth of Forth, being used as a quarantine station. It was doubtless the possession of convenient islands near the capital—Inch Colm and Inch Garvie were both used for the same purpose afterwards—that led the Scots government to follow the example of Venice and other foreign cities at no long interval of time. When we next hear of plague in Scotland it is again in connexion with infected persons on the island of Inchkeith and in the town of Leith, some time between 13th August, 1495, and 4th July, 1496[726].
But these quarantine practices were not confined to the Firth of Forth. On the 17th May, 1498, the town of Aberdeen was warned by proclamation of the bell of certain measures to be taken so as to preserve the town from the pestilence “and strange sickness abefore,” the principal precaution being a guard of citizens at each of the four gates during the day, and that the gates be “lockit with lokis and keis” at night. The “strange sickness abefore” is doubtless the other invasion (of syphilis) which the aldermen tried to check by an order of April, 1497; but “the pestilence” in the order of May 1498 must have been the plague itself[727]. Nothing more is heard of it at Aberdeen or elsewhere in Scotland in that year. It appears to have been somewhat general in Scotland in 1499 and 1500. The audit of burgh accounts, mostly held in June, 1499, was postponed to January 1500 in some cases, the bailie of North Berwick explaining that he was prevented by the plague from coming to the Exchequer[728]. An extra allowance is made to the comptroller, Sir Patrick Hume, in March 1500, “for his great labour in collecting fermes in different parts of the kingdom in time of the infection of the plague.” At Peebles, hides and woolfells were destroyed during the plague of 1499. There was a renewal of it in 1500, the audit being again delayed until November. The custumar of Aberdeen brings his account of the great customs of that burgh down only to the 3rd July, 1500, “because after that date the accountant, from dread of the plague, did not enter the burgh of Aberdeen[729].”
It is from the same northern city that our information on plague in Scotland comes exclusively for the next forty-five years, not, of course, because its experience was singular, but because its borough records are known[730].
On the 24th April, 1514, various orders were made at Aberdeen against a disease that seems to have been the plague: “for keeping of the town from strange sickness, and specially this contagious pestilence ringand in all parts about this burgh;” and, again, watching the gates (as in 1498) against persons “coming forth of suspect places where this violent and contagious pestilence reigns.” Lodges were erected on the Links and Gallow-hill, where the infected or suspected were to remain for forty days. In the following year (1515), sixteen persons were banished from the town for a year and a day for disobeying the orders “anent the plague.” On the 27th July, 1530, these orders are renewed “for evading this contagious pestilence reigning in the country.” On September 15, 1539 (the year after a plague in the North of England), the plague is called in the municipal orders by a distinctive name: the orders are for avoiding the “contagius infeckand pest callit the boiche, quilk ryngis in diverse partis of the same [realm] now instantly”—the botch being a name given to plague in England also as late as the Elizabethan and Stuart periods.
The years 1545 and 1546 were also plague-years in Scotland. At a council held at Stirling on the 14th June, 1545, the session of the law courts was transferred to Linlithgow “because of the fear of the pest that is lately reigning in the town of Edinburgh[731].” On 10th September, of the same year, the town council of Aberdeen issued orders for evading the pest. On September 18 the plague was in the English army at Warkeshaugh, and it is reported from Newcastle, on 5 October, to be raging on the borders[732]. On March 21, 1546, a house in Aberdeen was shut up for the pest; and there are evidences of its continuance in August, October and December both in that town and “in certain parts of the realm:” on the 11th October the St Nicholas “braid silver” was given for the sustentation of the sick folk of the pest; on the 17th December an Aberdonian named David Spilzelaucht was ordered to be “brint on the left hand with ane het irne” for not showing the bailies “the seiknes of his barne, quilk was seik in the pest[733].” In November, 1548, the plague is at St Johnstone (Perth), and the Rhinegrave, with troops there, sick of it and like to die[734].
In 1564 the Scots Privy Council ordered quarantine for arrivals from Denmark, in the manner that was practised on merchandise for nearly three centuries after. As these early practices in the Forth are curiously like those that used to be practised in the Medway in the eighteenth century, I shall quote a part of the order of the Scots Privy Council, dated, Edinburgh, September 23, 1564[735]:
“That is to say, becaus maist danger apperis to be amangis the lynt, that the samyn be loissit, and houssit in Sanct Colm’s Inche, oppynout, handillet and castin forth to the wynd every uther fair day, quhill the feist of Martimes nixt to cum, be sic visitouris and clengearis as sal be appointit and deput thairto be the Provest, Baillies and Counsall of the burgh of Edinburgh upoun the expensis of the marchantis, ownaris of the saidis gudis. And as concerning the uther gudis, pik, tar, irine, tymmer, that the samyn be clengeit be owir flowing of the sey, at one or twa tydis, the barrellis of asse to be singit with huddir set on fyre, and that the schippis be borit and the sey wattir to haif interes into thame, to the owir loft, and all the partis within to be weschin and clengeit; and siclike that the marinaris and utheris that sall loase and handill the gudis above written, be clengeit and kepit apart be thameselffis for ane tyme, at the discretioun of the saidis visitouris, and licenses to be requirit had and obtenit of the saidis Provest, Baillies and Counsall before they presume to resort opinlie or quietlie amangis oure Soverane Ladeis fre liegis.”
The same autumn another foul ship from the Baltic arrived and entered the port of Leith in evasion of quarantine; the master and others are to be apprehended and kept in prison until justice be done upon them for the offence[736].
A severe outbreak of plague in Scotland in the year 1568 gave occasion to the first native treatise upon the disease in the English tongue, the essay by Dr Gilbert Skene, at one time lecturer on medicine at King’s College, Aberdeen, but probably removed before 1568 to Edinburgh, where he became physician to James VI.[737] The author says that the plague has “lately entered” the country, and he is led to write upon it in the vulgar tongue for the benefit of those who could not afford to pay for skilled advice, or could not get it on any terms: “Medecineirs are mair studious of their awine helthe nor of the common weilthe.” The panic caused by the plague must have been considerable: “Specialie at this time whan ane abhorris ane other in sic maneir as gif nothing of humanitie was restand but all consumit, euery ane abydand diffaent of ane other.”
Although Skene’s treatise bears numerous traces of the influence of foreign writers on plague, the same being freely acknowledged in the section of prescriptions and regimen, yet the book is much better than a mere compilation. Thus, under the causes of plague, he gives the stock recital of blazing stars, south-winds, corrupt standing waters, and the like; but in mentioning, as others do, dead carrion unburied, he adds that the corrupting human body is most dangerous of all “by similitude of nature.”