Whatever may have been the relation in which Robert Boyd stood to the other inhabitants of the Little Cumbrae, their attitude towards him was distinctly hostile. There is good reason to believe that these immediate neighbours of his were not all respectable, peace-abiding folk, but that the island served as a convenient refuge for "rebels, fugitives, and ex-communicates". And it is quite intelligible that these outlaws did not approve of the laird's enterprise, one of the results of which would be to bring their sea-girt asylum into closer touch with the outer world and its justice. Whether for this reason or for the mere sake of plunder, it happened that one day, in 1599, some thirty men, with half a dozen of the Montgomerys as their leaders, came to the fortalice with hagbuts, pistols, culverins, swords, and other weapons, and violently, "with engyne of smythis", broke up the doors and gates, and, after having destroyed the glass windows, boards, and ironwork, "spuilzied" the furniture, together with the materials intended for the construction of the harbour. The perpetration of this outrage was followed by the forcible occupation of the castle by four of the Montgomerys, who fortified it "with men, ammunition, and armour", and "resetted within it not only the disorderit thevis and lymmaris of the Ilis, but also such other malefactors as, for eschewing punishment, resorted towards them".
The document[275] which contains the narrative of the "spulzie" on the Little Cumbrae is interesting, not only because of the glimpse which it affords of the state of the country three hundred years ago, but also, and even more, because of the minute inventory which it includes of the articles either "spulzied" or destroyed in the various parts and chambers of Boyd's castle, together with the value put upon each article or set of articles. In the first place the list indicates the internal structural arrangement of such a dwelling. It consisted of a hall, a kitchen, a chamber, a lower wester chamber and a high wester chamber, a low easter chamber, a wardrobe, a brew-house, and vaults. The contents of the several apartments do not point to luxurious appointment, even in what may be taken as a fair specimen of an ancient Scottish house of the larger and better sort.
The distinction between public rooms and bedrooms does not appear to have existed. There were two or three "stand beds", that is to say, beds with posts, as distinguished from beds that might be folded up, in each of the "chambers". Most of them were of "fir", or plain deal, and valued at £8 Scots, or 13s. 4d. sterling, each. The oak bedsteads, of which there were only two, were set down at 20 marks, or about 23s. sterling apiece. According to the same difference of wood, the "chalmer buirds", as distinct from the "fauldand buird", or dining-table of the kitchen, were worth £4 or £5 respectively. Three beds and a table constituted the sole furniture of the "low easter chalmer" and of the "high wester chalmer". The "lower wester chalmer" was the room which yielded most loot to the raiders. In a cupboard within it they found a "silver piece" of 17 oz. in weight and a cup with a silver foot weighing 7 oz., at £3, that is to say, 5s. an ounce, besides "contracts, obligations, evidents, and books, worth £2000." The same room contained a lockfast chest, which served as a repository for "a doublet and breiks of dun fustian cut out on tawny taffety, a pair of tawny worsted stockings, two linen shirts, two pairs of linen sheets, four pillowslips, two pairs of tablecloths, two broad cloths of linen of five ells in length, two broad towels, and two dozen serviettes".
In the kitchen the utensils were on a scale as moderate as that of the furniture through the whole house. The items which it supplies in the inventory are: Two brass pots, two pans, two spits, a pair of andirons, an iron ladle, a dozen and a half of plates, knives, forks, and spoons for six people, a dozen trenchers, and a folding table. The only engines of war contained in Boyd's fortalice consisted of two "cut-throat guns of iron". They were located in the hall. The whole damage done by the plunder of all the movables and the destruction of such fixtures as doors and windows is estimated at £4776, 10s. 6d. Scots, that is, well under £400 sterling. By no stretch of the imagination can the raid of the Little Cumbrae be considered an event of historical importance. It is rescued from insignificance, however, by virtue of the valuable data which it has been the indirect means of preserving for the information of posterity.
RIOTOUS GLASGOW
In 1605 Glasgow could lay no claim to the position of second city of the kingdom that had virtually, though not yet legally, become United by reason of the accession of James VI of Scotland to the English throne. It was not in the first rank, even on its own side of the Tweed, and in a gracious and flattering reference to its condition and estate His Majesty could not go beyond the qualified statement that, "in quantitie and number of trafficquers and others inhabitants", it was inferior to few of the cities and burghs in his northern dominions.[276] There was, indeed, one matter with regard to which it stood on a lower municipal level than either Edinburgh or Perth, Stirling or Dundee. In the choice of its Provost and Magistrates it did not enjoy the full freedom that was the privilege of those more important centres of population.
Prior to the Reformation, and as late after it as the closing year of the sixteenth century, the nomination of the Provost and the selection of the Bailies lay with the Archbishops as temporal, no less than spiritual, superiors of Glasgow. In 1600, however, the King, by a charter dated November 17th, granted to Ludovic, Duke of Lennox, the castle of Glasgow and the heritable right of appointing the civic rulers.
On September 30th of the same year, Sir George Elphinstone of Blythswood appeared before the Town Council, and presented a letter from Duke Ludovic nominating him Provost for the ensuing year. He was also the bearer of an official communication from the King himself, whose friend and favourite he was, and who warmly recommended him for the dignity. The nomination of Sir George, a clever lawyer, who subsequently rose to the rank of Lord Justice-Clerk, appears to have been popular, and he was duly accepted.