“According to custom in Edinburgh the families which proved to be infected were compelled to remove, with all their goods and furniture, out to the Burgh-moor, where they lodged in wretched huts hastily erected for their accommodation. They were allowed to be visited by their friends, in company with an officer, after eleven in the forenoon; anyone going earlier was liable to be punished with death—as were those who concealed the pest in their houses. Their clothes were meanwhile purified by boiling in a large caldron erected in the open air, and their houses were clensed by the proper officers. All these regulations were under the care of two citizens selected for the purpose, and called Bailies of the Muir; for each of whom, as for the cleansers and bearers of the dead, a gown of gray was made, with a white St Andrew’s Cross before and behind. Another arrangement of the day was ‘that there be made twa close biers, with four feet, coloured over with black, and [ane] white cross with ane bell, to be hung upon the side of the said bere, which sall mak warning to the people.’”
The same writer says that the plague lasted in Edinburgh until February, 1569, and that it was reported to have carried off 2500 of the inhabitants. The plague-stricken in the Canongate were sent to huts “on the hill” and money was collected for their support[741].
The plague of 1574 was again chiefly along the shores of the Firth of Forth. It came to Leith on October 14th, it was said by a passenger from England, and several died in that town before its existence was known at large. On October 24th it entered Edinburgh, “brought in by ane dochter of Malvis Curll out of Kirkcaldy[742].” On the 29th October the town council of Glasgow ordered that no one should be allowed to enter from Leith, Kirkcaldy, Dysart, Burntisland and Edinburgh (in respect of Bellis Wynd only), and that no one in Glasgow was to repair to Edinburgh without a pass[743]. Two days after (October 31st) the Scots Privy Council, at Dalkeith, issued an order to check the spreading of the plague landwards “through the departure of sick folk and foul persons:” no one to conceal the existence of plague, and the infected “to cloise thame selffis in[744].” On November 14th the sittings of the Court of Session were suspended owing to pest within some parts of Edinburgh, in Leith, and some towns and parts of the north coast of Fife[745]. In December the Kirk session of Edinburgh appointed an eight days’ fast for the plague threatening the whole realm.
In January, 1577, plague is reported to be raging on the English border, causing alarm in Kirkcudbright[746]. On the 19th October, 1579, the king and council are credibly informed that “the infectioun and plague of the pistolence” is not only in divers towns and parts of the coast of England frequented by Scots shipping but also in Berwick and sundry other bounds of the East and Middle Marches of England; the markets at Duns and Kelso are therefore forbidden, and traders not to repair to infected places or to break bulk of their wares[747]. Next year, 1580, on September 10th, a ship laden with lint and hemp from “Danske,” with forty persons on board, including seven Edinburgh merchants, arrived in the Forth, and was quarantined for many weeks at Inchcolm; the master and several others died of plague, and the survivors were transferred in November, some to Inchkeith and some to Inchgarvie, the ship being still at Inchcolm in a leaky state. On November 22 a vessel which had come down the Tay with plague-stricken inhabitants of Perth, some of whom were dead, and with their goods and gear, was ordered to the Isle of May[748].
One of the most serious epidemics of plague in Scotland was from 1584 to 1588. It was said to have been brought to Wester Wemyss, in Fife, by a certain “creare;” but it was in some other places at the same time, and was probably a revival of old seeds of the disease. On July 28th the Privy Council issued orders that beggars and tramps should be kept from wandering about[749]. On the 24th September, 27th October, 4th November, and the 11th December, the Privy Council issued order after order to stop all traffic, unless by licence, from Fife, Perth, and other places north of the Forth; sails were to be taken out of the ferry-boats at all ferries except Burntisland and Aberdour, and eventually at these also, Leith and Pettycur being left free[750]. For Perth we have some particulars of this great outbreak. From the 24th September, 1584, to August, 1585, there died 1437 persons, young and old[751]. It was also in Dysart and other parts of Fife through the winter of 1584-85[752].
The infection appeared at Edinburgh about the 1st of May, 1585, in the Flesh Mercat Close by the infection of a woman who had been in St Johnstone (Perth) where the plague was[753]. On the 18th May orders were issued to Edinburgh to remove all filth, filthy beasts and carrion forth of the highways, and the same to be cleansed and kept clean. On the 23rd June the coining-house was removed to Dundee, and the Court of Session transferred to Stirling[754]. The plague next broke out in Dundee, whence the mint was removed to Perth. At St Andrews it appeared in August, 1585, and became a severe epidemic, causing the dispersion of the students, and continuing so long that the miserable state and poverty of the town are in part ascribed, in a petition of March 24, 1593, to the plague[755]. Upwards of four hundred are said to have died of it there[756]. The state of sickness was much aggravated by wet harvest weather. In Edinburgh it continued through the winter until January, 1586, sometimes carrying off twenty-four in a single night: “the haill people, whilk was able to flee, fled out of the town; nevertheless there died of people which were not able to flee, fourteen hundred and some odd” (Birell). James Melville, riding in November from Berwick to Linlithgow, entered Edinburgh by the Water-Gate of the Abbey at eleven o’clock in the forenoon and rode up “through the Canongate, and in at the Nether Bow through the great street of Edinburgh to the West Port, in all whilk way we saw not three persons, sae that I miskenned Edinburgh, and almost forgot that I had ever seen sic a town[757].” The same year it was unusually severe at Duns[758]. In the winter of 1586-7, “the pest abated and began to be strangely and remarkably withdrawn by the merciful hand of God, so that Edinburgh was frequented again that winter, and at the entry of the spring all the towns, almost desolate before, repeopled, and St Andrews among the rest[759].”
In the harvest of 1587 “the pest brake up in Leith, by opening up of some old kists,” and in Edinburgh about the 4th November. It continued in those two towns till Candlemas, 1588[760]. On April 26, 1588, the infection is reported anew from Edinburgh, threatening the law session[761]. In October, 1588, it was at Paisley, causing alarm in Glasgow[762].
On the 8th August, 1593, a ship from an English port, with persons and goods suspected of the plague, was quarantined at Inchcolm[763]. Four years after, on the 6th August, 1597, “the pest began in Leith[764].” Twelve days after, August 18, the Privy Council declared that divers inhabitants of sundry towns near Edinburgh were infected, and that the disease was suspected to be in the capital itself[765]. Many fled from Edinburgh, but the epidemic was over by the end of harvest[766].
In the winter of 1598, the plague which was in Cumberland extended to Dumfries, and caused great decay of trade, and even scarcity of food[767]. On the 12th October, 1600, a petition from Dundee declares that the plague of the pest had “entered and broken up within the town of Findorne[768].” Findhorn had been only one of several places infected in that locality; for in December, the Kirk session of Aberdeen ordered a fast “in respect of the fearful infection of the plague spread abroad in divers parts of Moray[769].”
On the 24th November, 1601, the parishes of Eglishawe, Eastwood, and Pollok, in Renfrewshire, and the town of Crail in Fife are declared infected, and ordered to be shut up. On the 28th of the same month it was in the barony of Calderwood, and on the 21st December, in Glasgow. It increased daily in Crail in January, 1602, and suspects were put out on the muir, so that they wandered to sundry parts of Fife. It still continued in Glasgow, and had appeared at Edinburgh before the 4th of February: the town council built shielings and lodgings for the sick of the plague in the lands of Schenis (Sciennes) belonging to Napier, of Merchiston, without his leave, having ploughed up the old plague-muir, and let it for their profit: against the plague-shelters Napier protested on the 11th March. By the 1st of May it had ceased in Edinburgh, and a solemn thanksgiving was held on the 20th (Birell). A ship owned in Crail arrived in the Forth on 30th July, 1602, from “Danske,” with three or four dead of the plague, and was quarantined at Inchkeith. In April, 1603, James VI. left for England, to assume the English[770] crown, with which event we resume in another chapter the eventful history of Plague under the Stuarts.