1606.
‘The 6 of November, about four afternoon, they were desired to come to the boat whilk was prepared for them by the water-bailie of Leith and Edinburgh; who, obeying, came, accompanied with some of their dearest friends and wives, to the pier, where there was a good number of people waiting on, to tak the guid-night at them, and to see them; but after their coming thither, Mr John Welch conceived a prayer, whilk bred great motion in the hearts of all the hearers. Prayers ended, they took guid-night of their friends, wives, and many other weel-wishers who were present, [and] entered into the boat, where they remained a guid space waiting on the skipper.’ The skipper not being ready to weigh that night, ‘they were desired by the water-bailie either to go aboard and lie in the ship that night, or else to go to their lodging, and be ready at the next call.
‘They, by God’s special providence, chused to go to their lodging; for that night came on a great storm, [so] that the ship was forced to save herself in Kinghorn road all that night. They were called again by two hours in the morning, who, obeying, came to the shore and pier, accompanied as the night before, no small concourse of people being with them, beyond expectation, so early to see them boat. Prayer conceived as before by Mr John Welch, they embarked, giving many exhortations to all to hold fast the truth of the doctrine whilk they had delivered; for the whilk they doubted nothing to lay down their lives, let be to suffer banishment; adding thereto, that whilk they suffered was the great joy of their conscience. In the meantime, the mariners hasted them away ... they departed out of our sight, making us hear the comfortable joy whilk they had in God, in singing a psalm.’[323]
1606.
While Protestant clergymen of the puritan type were thus suffering, and evoking by their fortitude the deserved sympathy and admiration of large masses of their countrymen, they were so far from being alone in martyrdom, that suffering was inflicted upon another class of religionists, if not at their dictation, at least with their full approval. The Earl of Angus, one of the three Catholic lords whose correspondence with Spain caused so much trouble sixteen years before, had since lived at home in quietness and obedience. It was not many months after the embarkation of the six Presbyterian ministers at Leith, that we find his lordship pleading that, to avoid imprisonment for his religion, he might be allowed to go into exile—thus calling for the punishment inflicted upon the six clergymen, as a kind of relief from the more severe penalties demanded against him by the party to which these clergymen belonged. In a letter to the king, August 10, 1608, adverting to the fact of the General Assembly having given forth an act for his immediate excommunication, he says: ‘What grief and sorrow this brings to my heart, God knows; because my greatest care has ever been, and sall be, that I might end my days (whilk, I am persuaded, will not be many) at peace with God, and in your majesty’s obedience.... The permission whilk of grace only I crave (gif it please not your hieness to ease me with a better) is either to depart this country ... with surety not to return, or else that it wald please your majesty to confine me in ane of mine awn houses, and so mony miles about the same, where I am glad to live as ane private subject, and never to meddle me with public affairs, but by your majesty’s direction.’
The earl was compelled to leave his country, and he died at Paris three years after, aged fifty-seven. In his epitaph, he is made to say—‘jussus, religionis causâ, patriâ excedere aut in custodiam pergere, vitæ quietiori turbinibus averruncandis delegeram Galliam, caram alteram Scotis patriam.’
The utter unconsciousness of the persecuted Presbyterians of there being any harm in visiting the papists with the like severities might almost provoke a smile. While the six ministers lay in expectation of banishment, their brethren detained in England received a visit from Law, Bishop of Orkney. The conversation turned on the present state of the church in Scotland, and the bishop endeavoured to convince them that the royal policy was right, as the same Linlithgow convention which had condemned the six recusant ministers had ‘taken strait order with the papists.’ Seeing they appeared to have no great faith in that demonstration, the bishop endeavoured to reassure them. ‘They shall call me a false knave,’ said he, ‘and never to be believed again, if the papists be not sae handled as they never were in Scotland.‘[324]
Dec. 23.
The Privy Council had some time ago issued a proclamation, forbidding what was called the backing of pairties to the bar—that is, each party in a lawsuit coming into court with a number of friends and favourers behind him, with a view to exercising some influence over the course of justice. Finding that the former denouncement of ‘this indecent and unseemly custom’ had not been attended with any effect, partly through the public being unacquainted with it, and partly through the negligence of the officers of the law, the Council now renewed their proclamation, with assurance that their orders would in future be strictly acted upon. The reader will find that the practice continued in force some years later.—P. C. R.