We have seen that, so lately as September 1606, the Borders were reduced to obedience by a moral medicine of considerable sharpness, administered by the Earl of Dunbar; that is to say, one hundred and forty thieves had been hanged. We now find that the effect was only temporary, for it had become necessary for the earl to go once more to Dumfries to hold a justice-court. On this occasion, he was equally severe with such offenders as were in custody, causing many to be hanged.—Cal. The Chancellor Dunfermline wrote to the king that Lord Dunbar ‘has had special care to repress, baith in the in-country and on the Borders, the insolence of all the proud bangsters, oppressors, and nembroths [Nimrods], but [without] regard or respect to ony of them; has purgit the Borders of all the chiefest malefactors, robbers, and brigands as were wont to reign and triumph there, as clean, and by as great wisdom and policy, as Hercules sometime is written to have purged Augeas, the king of Elide, his escuries; and by the cutting aff ... the Laird of Tynwald, Maxwell, sundry Douglases, Johnstons, Jardines, Armstrangs, Beatisons, and sic others, magni nominis luces, in that broken parts, has rendered all those ways and passages betwixt your majesty’s kingdoms of Scotland and England, as free and peaceable, as Phœbus in auld times made free and open the ways to his awn oracle in Delphos, and to his Pythic plays and ceremonies, by the destruction of Phorbas and his Phlegians, all thieves, voleurs, bandsters, and throat-cutters. These parts are now, I can assure your majesty, as lawful, as peaceable, and as quiet, as any part in any civil kingdom of Christianity.’[334]

1609.

This was too happy a consummation to be quite realised. We find, not long after, a representation going up to the king from the well-disposed people of the Borders, shewing that matters were become as bad as ever. It is a curious document, full of Latin quotations. The thieves, it says, are like the beasts of the field, according to the words of Cicero in his oration for Cluentius; quæ, fame dominante, ad eum locum ubi aliquando pastæ sunt, revertuntur. Lord Dunbar being now gone with his justice-courts, they are returned to their old evil courses, and there is nothing which they will not attempt. ‘Wild incests, adulteries, convocations of lieges, shooting and wearing of hagbuts, pistolets, and lances, daily bloodsheds, oppression, and disobedience in civil matters, neither are nor has been punished ... there is no more account made of going to the horn, than to the ale-house.’ Lord Scone and his guard are of no use, for they favour their friends. ‘If diligent search were made ... there would be found ane grit number of idle people, without any calling, industry, or lawful means to live by, except it be upon the blood of the poorest and most obedient sort.’

The final attempt to plant the Lewis took place this year, under the care of only two adventurers, Sir George Hay (subsequently chancellor of Scotland) and Sir James Spens of Wormiston. The Lord of Kintail had in the interval made an unsuccessful attempt to obtain a grant of the island.

The two undertakers went to the island with a force which they considered sufficient to meet the opposition of the pertinacious Niel Macleod. ‘The Lord of Kintail did privately and underhand assist Niel Macleod, and sent his brother, Rorie Mackenzie, openly with some men to aid the undertakers by virtue of the king’s commission. He promised great friendship to the adventurers, and sent unto them a supply of victuals in a ship from Ross. In the meantime he sendeth quietly to Niel Macleod, desiring him to take the ship by the way, that the adventurers, trusting to these victuals, and being disappointed, might thereby be constrained to abandon the island, which fell out accordingly; for Sir George Hay and Sir James Spens failing to apprehend Niel, and lacking victuals for their army, they wearied of the bargain, and dismissed all the neighbouring forces. Sir George Hay and Wormiston retired into Fife, leaving some of their men in the island to keep the fort, until they should send unto them supply of men and victuals. Whereupon Niel Macleod, assisted by his nephew ... and some other of the Lewis men, invaded the undertakers’ camp, burnt the fort, apprehended the men which were left behind them in the island, and sent them home safely into Fife, since which time they never returned again into the island.’—G. H. S.

1609.

The Lord of Kintail afterwards obtained possession of the isle of Lewis, and Niel, thoroughly circumvented by the Clan Kenzie, was driven for refuge with a small company to a fortified rock called Berissay. ‘The Clan Kenzie then gathered together the wives and children of those that were in Berissay, and such as, by way of affinity or consanguinity, within the island, did appertein to Niel and his followers, and placed them all upon a rock within the sea, where they might be heard and seen from Berissay. They vowed and protested that they would suffer the sea to overwhelm them the next flood, if Niel did not presently surrender the fort; which pitiful spectacle did so move Niel Macleod and his company to compassion, that immediately they yielded the rock and left the Lewis; whereupon the women and children were rescued and rendered.’—G. H. S.

This unfortunate insular chief, falling into the hands of his enemies, was taken to Edinburgh, and there executed in April 1613.