May 7.
The pest, which had commenced in Perth in the previous September, was believed to be now brought thence by a servant-woman to the Fishmarket in Edinburgh (Moy.), where it ‘was first knawn to be in Simon Mercerbanks’s house.’ (Bir.) From accident or otherwise, the king acted on this occasion exactly as he had done at Perth, when the plague first declared itself there. On the very day when the disease appeared in Edinburgh, he left the city, and ‘rode to Dirleton[132] to a sumptuous banquet prepared by the Earl of Arran.’ (Cal.) The pest continued in the capital till the subsequent January, sometimes carrying off twenty-four people 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.’ (Bir.) It was at St Andrews in August, ‘and continued till upwards of four hundred people died, and the place was left almost desolate.’ (Moy.) Dunse is cited as a place where this pestilence ‘raged extremely.’ (Mar.). In Perth, between 24th September 1584, and August 1585, when it ceased, it carried off fourteen hundred and twenty-seven persons, young and old, or thereby. (Chron. Perth.) This could not be less than a sixth of the entire population.
June 23, 1585, on account of the pest being in Edinburgh, the business of the cunyie-house was ordered to be transported to Dundee, and the coining of gold, silver, and alloyed money to go on there as it had hitherto done in Edinburgh. On the alloyed pennies, Oppidum Dundee was to be substituted for Oppidum Edinburgi. The Exchequer was also removed to Falkland, and the Court of Session to Stirling. On the 21st of October, the pest being now in Dundee, the coining was ordered to be removed to Perth, and the name of that burgh to be substituted in the circumscription.—P. C. R.
1585.
The severity of this pestilence excited the rage of the people against the Earl of Arran and his lady, the then ruling power of the country, to whose infamous life, and to the banishment of the Protestant leaders, the evil was attributed. In the course of the summer, the air being ‘perpetually nebulous,’ and the growing crop ‘universally corrupted,’[133] the popular feeling was further excited in the same direction, and the general cry was that the Lord would not stay his hand till the banished lords were brought home again. These lords actually did draw nearer to the Border, under the encouragement which the plague thus afforded them (Ja. Mel.), and by reason that the citizens of Edinburgh were not now able to come forward and act, in blind obedience to court-orders, as they were wont.
The revolution effected by the ultra Protestant party at Stirling (November 2, 1585), was followed by a stoppage of the pestilence, ‘not by degrees or piecemeal, but in a instant, as it were; so that never any after that hour was known to have been infected, nor any of such as were infected before, to have died. The lane, also, in Stirling by which they [the banished lords] entered, was wholly infected; yet no man [of their party] was known to have been tainted with it, or to have received any hurt: nay, the men of Annandale did rob and ransack the pest-lodges which were in the field about Stirling, and carried away the clothes of the infected, but were never known to have been touched therewith themselves, or any others that got or wore the clothes. They also that were in the lodges, returned to their houses, and conversed with their neighbours in the town, who received them without fear, suspicion, or reproof, and no harm did ensue upon it. As for Edinburgh, before the 1st of February, within three months it was so well peopled and filled again with inhabitants, as none could perceive by the number that any had died out of it.’ This change—‘nothing can be alleged to have brought it to pass but the very finger of God. Let mankind advert and admire it; and whosoever shall go about to bereave God of his glory by laying it upon fortune, may his chance be such as his perverseness deserveth!‘—H. of G.
The assumed immunity of the Border thieves is extremely amusing. Being here engaged in the right cause, it mattered not that they committed the monstrous inhumanity of plundering the sick and cheating the heirs of the dead.
1585.
James Melville remarks the same connection of circumstances, but places the improvement of the public health a month later. From the meeting of the parliament in December, under the auspices of the king’s new advisers, ‘the pest abated, and began to be strangely and remarkably withdrawn by the merciful hand of God, sae that Edinburgh was frequented again that winter; and at the entry of the spring, all the towns, almost desolate before, repeopled—St Andrews among the rest.’
Melville relates a remarkable anecdote of this pestilence, under November, when he had occasion to return from banishment at Berwick, and to proceed through Edinburgh on his way to attend a General Assembly at Linlithgow. ‘On the morn, we made haste, and, coming to Losterrick [Restalrig], disjuned, and about eleven hours, came riding in at the Water-gate, up through the Canongate, and rade 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.’