[50] See note on p. 123.
[51] Towie-Barclay is the name of an estate in the south-east corner of Turriff parish, Aberdeenshire, near Auchterless Station, and four and a half miles south-east of Turriff. The castle is supposed to have been built in 1593. It remained pretty perfect till 1792, was re-roofed in 1874, and retains a fine baronial hall with vaulted ceiling. From at least the beginning of the fourteenth century till 1733, the estate belonged to the Barclays, one of whose line was the celebrated Russian general, Prince Michael Barclay de Tolly (1759-1818). In 1792 it was sold to the governors of Gordon's Hospital, Aberdeen, for £21,000. Towie is a corruption of Tolly. See Billing's Baronial Antiquities, vol. iv.
[52] Balquholly, now Hatton Castle: a Square, castellated mansion of 1814, with finely wooded grounds, in Turriff parish, three and a quarter miles south-east of Turriff. It comprises a considerable fragment of the ancient baronial castle of Balquholly (Gael. bailecoille, "town in the wood"), the seat of the Mowats from the thirteenth century till 1729, when the estate was sold to Alexander Duff, Esq. Sir Thomas Urquhart must either have rented the house from the Mowats, or have obtained leave to keep arms there. The cellars in which the arms were probably kept are exactly as they were in 1638, except that the old loop-holes are partly filled up. The name of the mansion was changed to Hatton Lodge in 1745, and to Hatton Castle in 1814, when the modern part was built—Hatton being the name of the property in Auchterless, which previously belonged to the Duff family. The present proprietor is Garden Alexander Duff, Esq., who succeeded to the estates in 1866. There is behind Hatton Castle a small croft called Cromartie (see Ordnance Map), probably from our author's occupancy of Balquholly or connexion with it.
[53] An ancestor of Lord Byron.
[54] Spalding's Memorials, i. 185. Until within living memory the exact site of Prott's [or Pratt's] grave was pointed out; but it is now quite obliterated by being ploughed over repeatedly.
[55] MS. Epigrams: The Animadversion.
[56] "Ther fell only two gentlemen upon the Covenanters syde: one Mr James Stacker, a servant to the Lord Mucholles; and one Alexander Forbesse, servante to Forbesse of Tolqhwone: upon the Gordons syde, one common foote souldiour killed, (by the unskilfullnesse of his owne comerades fyring ther musketts, as was thoughte), whom the Gordons caused burye solemnly, that day, out of ane idle vante, in the buriall place of Walter Barcley of Towey, within the church of Turreffe; not without great terror to the minister of the place, Mr Thomas Michell, who all the whyle, with his sonne, disgwysd in a womans habite, had gott upp and was lurkinge above the syling of the churche, whilst the souldiours wer discharging volleyes of shotte within the churche, and peircing the syling with ther bulletts in severall places" (Gordon's Scots Affairs, ii. 258). The reader will keep in mind that Gordon was the family name of the Marquis of Huntly.
[57] This was originally the King's Confession, and was drawn up in 1580 by John Craig, minister of Holyrood House, and subscribed by James VI. and his household on 28th January, 1580-81. It is printed at length in Row's Historie of the Kirk of Scotland. It reaffirms the Confession of Faith of 1560, but contains also a solemn renunciation in great detail of the errors of Popery. It was approved by the General Assembly in April, 1581. A "General Band [Bond] for Maintenance of the true Religion" was added in 1588. The National Covenant of 1637 was an amplification of the previous Confessions, containing in addition an abjuration of Episcopal Church-government, as the King's Confession did of Popery. In September, 1638, Charles I. issued a proclamation for the Scottish people to subscribe this King's Confession and General Band, but the Covenanters regarded this as a subtle plot to divide them, and destroy the National Covenant, and, therefore, protested against the proclamation. The Confession and Band so subscribed, for it was subscribed by some, got the name of the "King's Covenant." It did not, of course, contain the abjuration of Episcopal Church-government. Those who adhered to it were called Malignants; while the name Covenanters was applied to those who subscribed the National Covenant.
[58] Among those who made their escape from Aberdeen along with Urquhart were Adam Bellenden, the bishop of the diocese; Alexander Innes, minister of Rothiemay; Alexander Scrogie, a Regent of King's College; together with the bishop's son, nephew, and servant (Spalding's Memorials).
[59] Lives of the Scottish Writers, vol. i.; Urquhart's MS. Epigrams: The Animadversion.