Among the violences of the age, what would now be called agrarian outrages were very common. Sometimes it was a pretender to proprietorship who came in to trouble the tenants of the landlord in possession; sometimes a tenant was the object of wrathful jealousy among persons of his own class. Of the former order of troubles we have an example at this time, in a charge brought before the Privy Council (February 19, 1601) against David Hamilton, younger, of Bothwell-haugh, ‘servant to the Laird of Innerwick.’ It was for the turning out of his wife from Woodhouselee, that Hamilton of Bothwell-haugh murdered the Good Regent. We now see his representative breaking other laws on account of the same lands.[269] Sir James Bellenden of Broughton, who was landlord de facto, complains against David Hamilton, that, with a company ‘bodin and furnist in feir of weir,’ he had come, on the 10th of February instant, to the tenants of the lands of Woodhouselee, ‘where they were in peaceable and quiet maner at their plews,’ and there assailed them with furious speeches, ‘threatening to have their lives gif they insistit in manuring and lawboring of the said lands,’ and actually compelled them through fear to give up their work. As David failed to appear and answer this charge, letters were ordered to denounce him as a rebel.
Before a month elapsed, the Council had under its attention a still more violent affair, forming a specimen of the second class of outrages. The complainer here is Patrick Monypenny of Pilrig—an estate with an old manor-house situated between Edinburgh and Leith. Patrick states that he was of mind to have set that part of his lands of Pilrig, called the Round-haugh, to Harry Robertson and Andrew Alis, to his utility and profit. But on a certain day not specified, David Duff, indweller in Leith, came to these persons, and uttered furious menaces against them in the event of their occupying these lands, so that they had departed from their purpose of occupying them. Duff, accompanied with two men named Matheson, had also, on the 2d March instant, attacked the servants of Monypenny, as they were labouring the lands in question, with similar speeches, threatening their lives if they persisted in working there; and at night, they, or some persons hounded out by them, had come and broken their plough, and thrown it into the river. ‘John Matheson, after the breaking of the complenar’s plew, come to John Porteous’s house, his tenant, and bad him gang now betwix the plew stilts, and see how she wald gang while [till] the morn.’ To this was added a threat to break his head if he should ever say that Duff had broken his plough. ‘Likeas the said David sinsyne come to the complenar’s lands, being tilled, and trampit and cast the tilled furs down, thus committing manifest oppression upon the complainant.’ In this case, the accused persons were assoilzied, but only, it would appear, by hard swearing in their own cause.
Apr. 15. 1601.
Apr. 17.
‘The king’s majesty came to Perth, and was made burgess at the mercat-cross. There was ane puncheon of wine set there, and all drucken out. He receivit the banquet frae the town, and subscribit the guild book with his awn hand—“Jacobus Rex: parcere subjectis, et debellare superbos.”’—Chron. Perth.
John Watt, Deacon of the deacons in Edinburgh, or he would have latterly been called Convener of the Trades, was shot dead on the Burgh-moor. This was the same gallant official who raised the trades for the protection of the king at the celebrated tumult of the 17th December 1596. One Alexander Slummon, a by-stander, was tried for the murder, but found innocent. We are told by Calderwood that Watt, having offered to invade the person of the minister, Robert Bruce, was well liked by the king, who accordingly was exact in regard to Slummon’s trial. The historian also relates that ‘the judgment threatened against this man by Mr Robert Bruce came to pass.’ Such threatenings or prognostications of judgments are of course very likely to bring their own fulfilment.
Apr. 24.
‘Sundry Jesuits, seminary priests, and trafficking papists, enemies to God’s truth and all Christian government,’ were stated to be at this time ‘daily creeping within the country,’ with the design, ‘by their godless practices, not only to disturb the estate of the true religion, but also his hieness’ awn estate, and the common quietness of the realm.’—P. C. R.
William Barclay, a new-made advocate, brother of Sir Patrick Barclay of Tollie, was tried in Edinburgh for the crime of being present at ‘twa messes whilk were said by Mr Alex. M‘Whirrie, ane Jesuit priest, within Andro Napier’s dwelling-house in Edinburgh,’ aggravated by perjury, he having some time before sworn and subscribed before the presbytery of Edinburgh, that he was of the religion presently professed within the realm. The culprit was declared infamous, and banished from the country, ‘never to return to the same, unless, by satisfaction of the kirk, he obtain our special licence to that effect.’—Pit. Cal.