An express which left London on the 2d of February, arrived in Edinburgh on the 6th, bringing intelligence of the king having been struck with an apoplectic fit. On the 10th, early in the morning, the privy council received the news of his death, and at ten o’clock, the authorities proceeded in their robes to the cross, where the Chancellor, “who,” says Fountainhall, “carried his own purse, and weeping,” proclaimed James Duke of Albany, the only undoubted and lawful king of this realm, under the name of James VII. But he had not taken, and never did take, the Scottish coronation oath:—so scrupulous was he with regard to his own conscience in matters of religion. The proclamation, however, which was sent down from London, paid less respect to the consciences of his subjects, who were bound by every sacred and constitutional tie to resist popery and popish rulers. After declaring that his majesty, their only righteous sovereign over all persons and in all causes, held his imperial crown from God alone, thus concluded—“And we—(the lords of his majesty’s privy council, with the concurrence of several others, lords spiritual and temporal, barons and burgesses of this realm)—hereby give our oaths, with uplifted hands, that we shall bear true and faithful allegiance unto our said sacred Sovereign, James VII., King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith!! &c. and to his lawful heirs and successors; and shall perform all duties, service, and obedience to him, as becomes his faithful, loyal, and dutiful subjects. So help us GOD.” Then followed another, announcing that his majesty continued all the servants of the crown in their offices till he had leisure to send down new commissioners.
Next day the Court of Session met, when the lords not only took the oath of allegiance, and swore the test again themselves, but administered them likewise to all the advocates, clerks, and writers. The king’s speech to his cabinet—-in which he promised to follow the example of his brother in his great clemency and tenderness to his people, to preserve the government in church and state, as by law established; and as he would never depart from the just rights and prerogatives of the crown, so he would never invade any man’s property—was extensively circulated; and the people were desired to believe that the royal papist would promote the Protestant religion, or at least preserve it.
As a practical illustration of his majesty’s professions, the council appointed a committee to inquire into the state of the prisoners in the Canongate jail; and, upon their report, sent two to the justiciary, and fourteen to the plantations, because they would not violate their consciences; and for the same obstinacy, the Dumbarton commission court fined John Napier of Kilmahew in £2000 sterling; John Zuil of Darleith, £1000; John Campbell of Carrick, £1500, for himself and lady; and Isabel Buchanan, £100; and ordered them to be imprisoned till they paid their fines, or gave satisfaction to Queensberry, the lord-treasurer.
At the same time, the work of blood went on in the fields. Captain Bruce surprised (February 19th) six of the wanderers on Lochenket-muir, in Galloway, and ordered four of them to be shot without further inquiry. The other two he carried to Sir Robert Grierson of Lag, at Irongray, who, upon their refusing the abjuration, instantly hanged them upon an oak-tree. One of them, a married man, before his execution, was asked if he had any word to send to his wife, answered, “I leave her and my two babes on the Lord and on his promise;—a father to the fatherless, and an husband to the widow is the Lord, in his holy habitation.” Two days after, five were murdered at Kirkconnel; and early next month, other three, in the parish of Kirkpatrick, were despatched in the same summary manner, by the same miserable slave of the prelates.
But the day did not suffice. Like the wild beasts, these monsters prowled about at night, seeking for their prey. On the 28th, about eleven o’clock, p.m., Lieutenant Douglas surrounded the house of Dalwin, and apprehended David Martin. When going away, they perceived a youth, Edward Kyan, concealing himself between the end of one house and the sidewall of another. He was immediately dragged forth; and, without being asked any other question than where he lived, the lieutenant shot him through the head, first with one pistol and then with another; and the soldiers pretending to observe some motion, shot him a third time. Martin underwent a more aggravated death. When the soldiers stripped him of his coat, they made him kneel beside the mangled body of his friend. Six were ordered to present their pieces, when another of the party stept between them and their intended victim, and begged the lieutenant to spare him till next day, alleging they might get some discoveries, to which Douglas consenting, his life was spared; but terror had deprived the poor youth of his reason, who at the same time being struck with palsy, was carried to bed, where he lingered four years, and died. Several women compassionating the sufferer, were cruelly beat and wounded, for displaying the natural sympathy of their sex. After this exploit, Douglas caught one Edward Mackeen, and because he had a flint-stone, perhaps for striking fire in his hiding-place, shot him without other evidence of guilt.
Sir Robert Grierson of Lag, while ranging the country, having surprised Mr Bell of Whiteside, step-son to Viscount Kenmuir, with whom he himself was well acquainted, and other four in company, in the parish of Tongland, Galloway, they surrendered without resistance, upon assurance of having their lives spared; but the wretch murdered them instantly, without even allowing them time to pray; and when Mr Bell earnestly begged only for a quarter of an hour to prepare for death, he refused it with an oath, asking contemptuously, “What the devil! have you not had time enough to prepare since Bothwell?”
While the south suffered severely, the north was not exempted. On the 2d of March, the Earls of Errol and Kintore, and Sir George Monro of Culrain, who had been sent thither commissioners, gave in their report to the council, and have thus themselves recorded the oppressions for which they received the thanks of their worthy employers. On their arrival in Morayshire, their first act was to cause a gallows be erected at Elgin, where the court sat, in order to stimulate the loyalty of the inhabitants. Then they issued orders to the sheriff for summoning all disorderly persons within the shires of Banff, Ross, and Sutherland, to appear before them on a certain day, and forbade any person to leave the district without their license, and all who entered it from the south to produce their papers for examination. At the same time, they graciously “allowed” the heritors and the burghs to meet and make address of what they would offer for the security and the peace of the government; and they “unanimously and voluntarily!” made offer of three months’ supply, signed a bond for securing the peace, and did also swear the test and oath of allegiance, except a few heritors, to whom the lords thought fit not to tender the same at that time, but who appeared willing to take it, and some loyal persons absent on excuses—evidently papists, as these alone among the recusants found any favour.[[160]]
[160]. This appears pretty plain from the manner in which Presbyterians were treated and the way their fines were disposed of. The Laird of Grant was fined in £42,000, Scots; the Laird of Brody, £24,000; Laird of Lethin, £40,000; Francis Brody of Miltoun, £10,000; Francis Brody of Windyhills, £3333: 6: 8.; James Brody of Kinlee, £333: 6: 8. These were the sums as reported to the council. In a particular narrative sent Wodrow by “a worthy gentleman in Murray, upon whom the reader may depend for the truth of it,” the sums are rated higher; and it is mentioned besides, that the Laird of Brody—this Brody’s grandfather, which family seems, either from their wealth or worth, or both, to have been peculiarly mulcted—was fined forty-five thousand merks, merely for having a conventicle in his house. Of this plunder, £22,000 were paid to one Colonel Maxwell, a papist; £40,000, Lethin’s fine, were gifted to the Scottish papistical college at Douay, which was compounded for; £30,000 paid to the Earl of Perth. The remainder appears to have been bestowed on the satellites of the party. Gray of Crichy, who adjudged the estate, got the proceeds.—Wodrow, vol. ii. p. 468.
They did very strictly examine all the ministers and elders, with several persons of honour and loyalty, anent the disorderly persons therein, libelled all persons delated, banished some, fined others, and remitted a few to the council. The aged Laird of Fowlis—“a disorderly person not able to travel”!—they imprisoned at Tain, and the younger, at Inverness, in case he refused the bond of peace. They cleansed the country of all “outted” ministers and vagrant preachers; banished four of them for keeping conventicles and refusing to keep the kirk!!—one being an heritor, they fined in ten thousand merks besides!—and sent the five prisoners to Edinburgh. A good many common and very mean people, who were accused and indicted for church disorders, upon inquiry being found to have been formerly punished and since regular, were set free upon finding security for their future good behaviour.
The case of the Laird of Grant, however, deserves especial notice, for the peculiarly unprincipled rapacity displayed by the ravening crew. The decreet against him was founded on his wife’s having confessed two years and a half’s withdrawing from ordinances, his keeping an unlicensed chaplain, hearing “outted” ministers preach and pray several times, which he himself had confessed. To this he answered in a petition to the council, for relief, April 2:—that the parish church was vacant for a year and a half of the time mentioned; and that during the remainder his wife was so unwell, that she was given over by her physicians; and that both before and after the time libelled, she had been a constant hearer. Nor did he or his wife ever hear an “outted” minister either preach or pray, except in the House of Lethin, when his mother-in-law, the Lady Lethin, was on her deathbed, and there were not more than five or six present, who were members of the family, performing the last sacred duties to their dying relative; that Alexander Murray, called his unlicensed chaplain, was never in his service, but was a minister, instituted by Bishop Murdo Mackenzie into the kirk of Daviot, who had given up his charge in consequence of bodily infirmity; and he (Grant) was most desirous, and cheerfully offered, to give all the evidences and demonstrations of his loyalty and affection to the government that could be demanded. Yet did his majesty’s high commissioner and the lords of the privy council, find “that the lords commissioners of the district of Moray had proceeded conform to their instructions, in fining the Laird of Grant, and ordained the same to be put to execution, ay and while the said fine be fully satisfied and paid.”