‘About the end of Januar, the Scotch Secretar, Sir Alexander Hay, came from court with sundry directions, and among the rest, for the habit of the senators of the College of Justice [which the Chancellor had told the king was now, since the departure of the court to England, ‘the special spunk of light and fondament of your majesty’s estate, and only ornament of this land‘],[335] advocates, clerks, and scribes; which was proclaimed in the beginning of Februar—viz., that the senators should wear a purple robe or gown in judgment and in the streets, when they were to meet or were dissolved; that advocates, clerks, and scribes should wear black gowns in the judgment-hall and in the streets ... the provost and bailies of burghs and their councillors should wear black when they sat in council and judgment; that ministers should wear black clothes, and in the pulpit black gowns; that bishops and doctors of divinity should wear black cassikins syde to [long enough to reach] their knee, black gowns above, and a black crape about their neck.... On the 15th of Februar, the Lords of the Session and the bishops put on their gowns and came down from the chancellor’s lodging, with their robes, to the Tolbooth [the court-house—a section of St Giles’s Church]. All the robes, except the chancellor’s, were of London cloth, purple coloured, with the fashion of an heckled cloak from the shoulders to the middle, with a long syde hood on the back, the gown and hood lined with red sattin. The people flocked together to behold them. The bishops were ordeened to have their gowns with lumbard sleeves, according to the form of England, with tippets and crapes about their craigs [necks]; which was performed.’—Cal.
On the 20th of June, the lord provost of Edinburgh exhibited in his council ‘twa gowns, the ane red, the other black claith linit in the breists with sable furring, sent to his lordship by the king’s majesty for to be worn by him, and to be patterns of the gowns to be worn by the provost and bailies, and sic of the council and town as are appointed thereto by his majesty.’[336]
Feb. 27.
1610.
Alexander Kirkpatrick, younger of Closeburn, being in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh for the slaughter of James Carmichael, son to John Carmichael of Spothe, the Lady Amisfield, wife of a neighbour, came to the prison, and entered into conference with the keeper in his private apartments. At her persuasion, the man allowed ‘Young Closeburn’ to come to speak with her; and she then executed her design of exchanging clothes with him, and so allowing him to escape. The lady was warded in the Castle; but what ultimately became of her does not appear.—Pit.
June.
A General Assembly was held at Glasgow, so constituted and managed by royal authority that the king at length accomplished one grand portion of his ecclesiastical scheme for Scotland, in being acknowledged as the head of the kirk. Three English divines, chaplains to the king, Dr Christopher Hampton, Dr Phineas Hodson, and Dr George Meriton, were present to use their influence in reconciling the country to ‘a more comely and peaceable government in our kirk than was presently.’ But for the absence of the six banished ministers, and the confinement of zealous, fiery, fearless Andrew Melville in the Tower, it might not have been possible to carry this measure. The Presbyterian historians also insinuate that bribes were used with the members, whence they take leave to call it the Golden Assembly.
‘Immediately after this, the Bishops of Glasgow and Brechin took journey to court, to report what was done, and got great thanks frae the king. Galloway followed, who all three abode there till the month of November, at what time ... by a special commission from the king to the Bishop of London to that effect, the Archbishop of Glasgow and the other two were solemnly ordained, inaugurat, and consecrated, with anointing of oil and other ceremonies, according to the English fashion.’ [The ceremony, which took place in the chapel at London House, was celebrated by a banquet, at which ‘gifts were bestowed, and gloves were distributed, in token of the solemnisation of the marriage between the bishops and their kirks.’—Cal.] The three new prelates, ‘thereafter [January 23, 1611] returning to Scotland, did to the Archbishop of St Andrews, in St Andrews, as they were done withal at Lambeth, as near as they could possibly imitate; and thereafter the two archbishops consecrated the rest, and the new entrant bishops as they were nominat by the king ... first quietly, as being ashamed of the foolish guises in it, but afterward more and more solemnly, as their estate grew.’—Row. ‘All of them [the whole thirteen] deserted their flocks, and usurped thereafter jurisdiction over the ministers and people of their dioceses.’—Cal.