Dec. 23.
The baptism of the young prince, subsequently Charles I., took place this day at Holyroodhouse. The manner in which the king obtained the means of holding any such ceremonial is illustrated by the following letter (printed literatim),[246] which he addressed on the occasion to the Laird of Dundas:
1600.
‘Richt traist friend, we greet you heartily well. The baptism of our dearest son being appointit at Halyrudhouse upon the xxiii day of Decemr instant, wherat some princes of France, strangers, with the specialis of our nobility, being invyted to be present, necessar it is that great provisions, gude cheir, and sic uther things necessary for decorations thairof be providit, whilks cannot be had without the help of sum of our loving subjects, quhairof accounting you one of the specialis, we have thought good to request you effectuously to propyne with vennysons, wyld meit, Brissel fowlis,[247] caponis, with sic other provisions as are maist seasonable at that time and errand. To be sent into Halyrudhouse upon the 22 day of the said moneth of December instant, and herewithall to invvte you to be present at that solemnitie, to take part of your awin gude cheir, as you tender our honour, and the honour of the country; swa we committ you to God. From Lithgow, this 6th of Decemr. 1600—James R.’
At the close of the century, in the midst of the order of things arranged under the care of the reformed church, we may be said to have arrived at a point where it may be proper to take a general survey of the customs and manners of the people. We are enabled to do this with comparative ease by the copious extracts which have been published from the session-records of Perth, Aberdeen, Glasgow, and Edinburgh, the burgh-records of these cities and other documents.
[SUPERSTITIONS AND SUPERSTITIOUS PRACTICES.]
Of some of the superstitions of the people, particularly that regarding the pretended power of witchcraft, abundant illustrations have been presented in the chronicle of the bypast forty years. It may now be remarked, that, besides the witches of malevolent character, who were objects of dread to the community, there were ‘wise women,’ who were understood to possess the power of curing diseases generally, and restoring the health of sickly children, by charms and other means. We hear, in 1623, of one Janet at Black Ruthven, near Perth, of whom ‘the bruit went that she could help bairns who had gotten ane dint of ill wind.’—P. K. S. R. At Ruthven, or Huntingtower, there was a well the water of which was believed to have sanative qualities when used under certain circumstances. In May 1618, two women of humble rank were before the kirk-session of Perth, ‘who being asked if they were at the well in the bank of Huntingtower the last Sabbath, if they drank thereof, and what they left at it, answered, that they drank thereof, and that each of them left a prin [pin] thereat; which was found to be a point of idolatry, in putting the well in God’s room.’—P. K. S. R. They were each fined six shillings, and compelled to make public avowal of their repentance. In August 1623, Janet Jackson was cited before the same court for following a witch’s advice in employing the deceased Isobel Haldane ‘to go silent to the well of Ruthven, and silent back again with water to wash her bairn.’ It was admitted that ‘Isobel brought the water and washed the bairn therewith, and put the bairn through a cake made of nine curns of meal gotten from women, married maidens,’ which was said to be ‘a common practice used for curing bairns of the cake-mark.’
At St Wollok’s Kirk, a ruin in the parish of Glass, Aberdeenshire, are two pools by the river’s side, amongst high rocks, and known far and wide by the name of St Wollok’s Baths, Wollok having been an anchoritic saint who dwelt here in the fifth century, and is reckoned as the first bishop of Aberdeen. These pools, always full of water even in times of the greatest drought, were resorted to so lately as the seventeenth century, if not later, for the bathing of sickly children. Near by was St Wollok’s Well, also believed to have a supernatural virtue for the healing of diseases.[248]