Mr Peter Blackburn, bishop of Aberdeen, departed this life, after he had lain a long time little better than benumbed. He was little of a zealot on the Episcopal side, and studying to please the Presbyterians, made himself ungracious to both parties. Calderwood alleges, ‘He was more mindful of a purse and 500 merks in it, which he kept in his bosom, than anything else.’
July 11.
Commissioners from a number of the burghs met to deliberate on a proposal of the king for working up, within the country, the whole wool produced in it, ‘in stuffs, plaids, and kerseys.’ They expressed themselves as content that the exportation of wool should be prohibited, in order that a trial should be made; but they could undertake no burden in the matter ‘anent the home-bringing of strangers,’ or for assurance that his majesty’s ends would be attained. A prohibition for the exporting of wool was soon after issued.—P. C. R.
1616. July 19.
A few months after the above date, we find a curious reference to wool in the Privy Council Record. The document states, that ‘in some remote and uncivil places of this kingdom’ an old and barbarous custom was still kept up of plucking the wool from sheep instead of clipping it. The king, hearing of the practice, wrote a letter to his Council, denouncing it as one not to be suffered; telling them it had already been reformed in Ireland, under penalty of a groat on every sheep so used, and was ‘far less to be endured in you.’ The Council immediately (March 17, 1617) passed an act in the same tenor, and further stating that many sheep died in consequence of this cruel treatment—concluding with a threat of severe fines on such as should hereafter continue the practice.—P. C. R.
It is remarkable that in the Faröe Islands there is, to this day, no other way of taking the wool from sheep than that which was then only kept up in remote parts of Scotland.
John Faa, James Faa, his son, Moses Baillie, and Helen Brown, were tried as Egyptians lingering in the country, contrary to a statute which had banished their tribe forth of the realm on pain of death. In respect no caution could be found by them to assure their leaving the country, they were sentenced to be hanged on the Burgh-moor. It is not known that this sentence was carried into execution; but neither is there anything known to make such severity unlikely.
In 1624, six Faas, and two other men of the gipsy tribe, were tried for the same offence of not voluntarily transporting themselves, and these men were executed. A number of their women and children were mercifully allowed to go free, on condition that they should immediately depart from the kingdom.—Pit.