1612.
In this year there happened a strife between the Earl of Caithness on the one side, and Sir Robert Gordon of Gordonston and Donald Mackay on the other, highly illustrative of a state of things when law had only asserted a partial predominancy over barbarism.
1612.
One Arthur Smith, a native of Banff, had been in trouble for coining so long ago as 1599, when his man actually suffered death for that crime. He himself contrived to escape justice, by making a lock of peculiarly fine device, by which he gained favour with the king. Entering into the service of the Earl of Caithness, he lived for seven or eight years, working diligently, in a recess called the Gote, under Castle Sinclair, on the rocky coast of that northern district. If we are to believe Sir Robert Gordon, the enemy of the Earl of Caithness, there was a secret passage from his lordship’s bedroom into the Gote, where Smith was often heard working by night, and at last Caithness, Sutherland, and Orkney were found full of false coin, both silver and gold. On Sir Robert’s representation of the case, a commission was given to him by the Privy Council to apprehend Smith and bring him to Edinburgh.
While the execution of this was pending, one William MacAngus MacRorie, a noted freebooter, was committed to Castle Sinclair, and there bound in fetters. Contriving to shift off his irons, William got to the walls of the castle, and jumping from them down into the sea which dashes on the rocks at a great depth below, swam safely ashore, and escaped into Strathnaver. There an attempt was made by the Sinclairs to seize him; but he eluded them, and they only could lay hold of one Angus Herriach, whom they believed to have assisted the culprit in making his escape. This man being taken to Castle Sinclair without warrant, and there confined, Mackay was brought into the field to rescue his man—for so Angus was—and Caithness was forced to give him up.
May.
The coiner Smith was living quietly in the town of Thurso, under the protection of the Earl of Caithness, when a party of Gordons and Mackays came to execute the commission for apprehending him. They had seized the fellow, with a quantity of false money he had about him, and were making off, when a set of Sinclairs, headed by the earl’s nephew, John Sinclair of Stirkoke, came to the rescue with a backing of town’s-people, and a deadly conflict took place in the streets. Stirkoke was slain, his brother severely wounded, and the rescuing party beat back. During the tumult, Smith was coolly put to death, lest he should by any chance escape. The invading party were then allowed to retire without further molestation. ‘The Earl of Caithness was exceedingly grieved for the slaughter of his nephew, and was much more vexed that such a disgraceful contempt, as he thought, should have been offered to him in the heart of his own country, and in his chief town; the like whereof had not been enterprised against him or his predecessors.’
1612.
The strife is now transferred in partially legal form to Edinburgh, where the parties had counter-actions against each other before the Privy Council. Why the word partially is here used, will appear from Sir Robert Gordon’s account of the procedure. ‘Both parties did come to Edinburgh at the appointed day, where they did assemble all their friends. There were with the Earl of Caithness and his son Berriedale, the Lord Gray, the Laird of Roslin, the Laird of Cowdenknowes (the earl’s sister’s son), the Lairds of Murkle and Greenland (the earl’s two brethren); these were the chief men of their company. There were with Sir Robert Gordon and Donald Mackay, the Earl of Winton and his brother the Earl of Eglintoun, with all their followers; the Earl of Linlithgow, with the Livingstones; the Lord Elphinstone, with his friends; the Lord Forbes, with his friends; Sir John Stewart, captain of Dumbarton (the Duke of Lennox’s bastard son); the Lord Balfour; the Laird of Lairg Mackay in Galloway; the Laird of Foulis, with the Monroes; the Laird of Duffus; divers of the surname of Gordon ... with sundry other gentlemen of name too long to set down. The Earl of Caithness was much grieved that neither the Earl of Sutherland in person, nor Hutcheon Mackay, were present. It galled him to the heart to be thus overmatched, as he said, by seconds and children; for so it pleased him to call his adversaries. Thus, both parties went weel accompanied to the council-house from their lodgings; but few were suffered to go in when the parties were called before the Council.’