Sep. 16.
‘... there arose such a swelling in the sea at Leith, that the like was not seen before for a hundred years. The water came in with violence beside the bulwark, in a place called the Timber Holf [Howf], where the timber lay, and carried some of the timber and many lasts of herrings lying there, to the sea; brake in sundry low houses and cellars, and filled them with water. The like flowing was in Dunbar, Musselburgh, and other parts of the sea-coast. The people took this extraordinary tide to be a forewarning of some evil to come.’—Cal.
The Chronicle of Perth notes for this year ‘great poverty of towns and great dearth;’ probably a consequence of the stormy spring and adust summer of the preceding year.
Oct.
Preparations began to be made for the reception and entertainment of the king, who was expected to visit the country next year. Considerable repairs and improvements were made upon the palaces of Holyrood and Falkland. A proclamation was made that ‘beasts be fed in every place, that there might be abundance of flesh when the king came to the country.’ The Privy Council issued orders for the inhabitants to prepare clean lodgings for the king’s friends and attendants, and took order to have the streets purified.
1616.
The chancellor’s circular to the burghs ordering them to arrange with their butchers for the furnishing of ‘fed beef’ against his majesty’s ‘here-coming,’ met an amusing response in the case of one little town—Wester Anstruther—which would appear to have been most unworthily endowed with burgal privileges. ‘Our toun,’ says this response, ‘is ane very mean toun, yea of all the burghts of this realm the meanest; nather is there ane flesher in our toun, nor any other person that is accustomit with feeding of beef, we being all seafaring men and fishers.’ Nevertheless, the two bailies inform his lordship that they had ‘dealt with some honest men of our neighbours to feed beef, and has enjoinit them to have in readiness the number of four fed nolt against the time of his majesty’s here-coming; whilk may be lookit for in our toun.’ Easter Anstruther, which has always been a better sort of town, was equally unacquainted with ‘that trade of the feeding of beef;’ but the bailie, nevertheless, had ‘taken such order that there sall be in readiness to that diet twelve oxen of the best we can get for money.’ The response of Dysart was a frank promise to have in readiness ‘ten or twelve sufficient and weel-fed beefs upon competent and reasonable prices, and sall feed and keep them sae lang as we may possibly get sufficient food for them, according to the season, not doubting of your lordship’s satisfaction in case of our losses.’—An. Scot.
One of the most notable preparations was the fitting up of a chapel-royal at Holyrood—not in the Abbey-Church, which then served as the parish kirk of the Canongate, but in a private room in the palace. An organ of the value of £400 was sent down from London to aid in the service. There were also timber statues of the twelve apostles and four evangelists, well carved and gilt, for the decoration of the chapel; but ‘the people murmured, fearing great alterations in religion, whereupon the bishops dissuaded the king from setting them up in the chapel.’—Cal.