An effort was made at this time by the burghs to introduce a cloth-manufacture into Scotland. Seven Flemings were engaged to settle in the country, in order to set the work agoing, six of them being for says, and the seventh for broadcloth. When the men came, expecting to be immediately set to work in Edinburgh, a delay arose while it was debated whether they should not be dispersed among the principal towns, in order to diffuse their instructions as widely as possible. We find the strangers on the 28th of July, complaining to the Privy Council that they were neither entertained nor set to work, and that it was proposed to sunder them, ‘whilk wald be a grit hinder to the perfection of the wark.’
The Council decreed that ‘the haill strangers brought hame for this errand sall be halden together within the burgh of Edinburgh, and put to work conform to the conditions past betwix the said strangers and the commissioners wha dealt with them.’ Meanwhile, till they should begin their work, the Council ordained ‘the bailies of Edinburgh to entertene them in meat and drink,’ though this should be paid back to them by the other burghs, and the strangers were at the same time to be allowed to undertake any other work for their own benefit.—P. C. R.
On the 11th of September, the burghs had done nothing to ‘effectuat the claith working,’ and the Council declared that unless they should have made a beginning by Michaelmas, the royal privilege would be withdrawn.
Aug.
1601.
The bare, half-moorish uplands of Buchan, in Aberdeenshire, are varied, on the course of the river Ythan, by a deep woody dell, on the edge of which is perched an ancient baronial castle, named Gight. Here dwelt a branch of the noble house of Huntly—the Gordons of Gight—noted in modern literary history by reason of the heiress, in whom the line ended, having thrown herself and her family property into the arms of a certain spendthrift named Byron, by whom she became the mother of one who flourished as the most noted poet of his day.[270] The old castellated house in which these lairds lived, and the moderate estate which gave them subsistence, have for seventy years been part of the possessions of the Earl of Aberdeen, for whose visitors the ruined walls and the wildering dell are now merely matters of holiday interest.[271] At the time of which we are speaking, the Laird of Gight was a personage of some local importance, a baron of the house of Gordon, a noted supporter of the marquis in all his enterprises; above all, a man deeply offensive to the government of his day, on account of his obstinate adherence to popery.
The kirk had levelled its artillery at George Gordon, the young laird, for a long time in vain; he had always hitherto contrived to put them off with fair promises. Now at length the presbytery of Aberdeen met in a stern mood, and appeared as if it would be trifled with no longer. Gordon, feeling that his means of resistance were failing, wrote a pleading letter to the reverend court, telling how he was deadly diseased, and unable to leave the country, but was willing, if agreeable to them, to confine himself within a mile of his own house, ‘and receipt nane wha is excommunicat (my bedfellow excepted);’ or he would go into confinement anywhere else, and confer with Protestant clergymen as soon as his sickness would permit. ‘I persuade myself,’ he adds, ‘you will nocht be hasty in pronouncing the sentence of excommunication against me, for I knaw undoubtedly that sentence will prejudge my warldly estate, and will be ane great motive to you in the kirk of Scotland to crave my blude.’ He concludes: ‘If it shall please his majesty and your wisdoms of the Kirk of Scotland sae to tak my blude for my profession, whilk is Catholic Roman, I will maist willingly offer it; and, gif sae be, God grant me constancy to abide the same.’ This letter proved unsatisfactory to the court, seeing it ‘made nae offer that micht move them to stay from the excommunication.’ Therefore, the court in one voice concluded that, unless Gordon came forward in eight days with sufficient surety for either subscribing or departing, he should be excommunicated without further delay.
1601.
While thus appearing as willing to be martyrs for religious principle, the Gight Gordons were no better in secular morality than many of the Presbyterian leaders of the past age. Indeed, they appear to have been men of fully as wild and passionate temper as their descendant, the mother of the poet. Having, for some reason which does not appear, a spite at Magnus Mowat of Balquhollie, the laird and two of his younger sons had, in June this year, gone with a large armed and mounted company to his lands, and destroyed all the growing crops. Following upon this, they conceived mortal wrath against Alexander Copeland and Ralph Ainslie, inhabitants of the village of Turriff, probably in consequence of some circumstances in connection with the above outrage. On the 18th of July, John Gordon, the second son, came to Turriff with a friend and a servant, and, attacking these men with deadly weapons, wounded the latter past hope of his life. The minister came out and interfered in behalf of peace, promising that the whole inhabitants should be answerable for any injury the men had done. But though the Gordons left the village for the time, they returned in greater strength at midnight—and on this occasion both the laird and his eldest son were present—broke into the house of William Duffus, and bringing him forth to the street ‘sark-allane,’ there had nearly taken his life by firing at him a charge of small-shot.