Aug.
There was a Presbyterian prejudice against burying in churches, and the blame of kirk-burial had not only been a subject for the pamphleteer, but the legislature. Nevertheless, John Schaw of Sornbeg in Ayrshire, on the death of his wife, resolved to inhume her corpse in his parish kirk of Galston, in spite of all the minister and session could say or do to the contrary. Accompanied by his brother and his ‘bailie,’ and attended by a numerous party, ‘all bodin in feir of weir,’ he came to the church, broke up the door with fore-hammers, and dug a grave, in which he deposited his spouse. He was afterwards glad to make public repentance for this fact, and pay twenty pounds to the box-master of the kirk, besides which the Privy Council ordained him to appear again as a penitent, and solemnly promise never again to attempt to bury any corpse within the church.’—P. C. R.
Aug. 10.
Notwithstanding Lord Ochiltree’s protestations of innocence regarding the assassination of Lord Torthorald, the relatives of the latter continued to bear a deadly grudge at him, and seemed likely to wreak it out in some wild manner. This came to the knowledge of the king, who felt himself called upon to interfere. The Privy Council, in obedience to the royal letters, had the parties summoned before them. William Lord Douglas and James Lord Torthorald appeared before them that day, and undertook, before the 20th of September, that ‘they sall owther pursue the said Lord Ochiltree criminally before his majesty’s justice in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, for airt, part, rede, and counsel, of the slaughter of umwhile Lord Torthorald, or then that they sould reconceil themselves with the said Lord Ochiltree, and be agreit with him.’—P. C. R.
1609.
Oct. 26.
Under favour of the king, a number of strangers had been introduced into the country to practise the making of cloths of various kinds. A colony of them was settled in the Canongate, Edinburgh, headed by one John Sutherland and a Fleming named Joan Van Headen, and ‘are daily exercised in their art of making, dressing, and litting of stuffis, and gives great licht and knowledge of their calling to the country people.’ These industrious and inoffensive men, notwithstanding the letters of the king, investing them with various privileges, were now much molested by the magistrates of the Canongate, with a view to forcing them to become burgesses and freemen there in the regular way. On an appeal to the Privy Council, their exemption was affirmed.