[325] Pitcairn. Lives of the Lyndsays. Lands of the Lyndsays.
[326] See depositions of witnesses, &c., in Pitcairn, iii. 47.
[327] 28th April 1608. ‘Forsameikle as the Lords of Secret Council are informit that there is ane horse-race appointit to be at Peblis the ... day of May nextocome, whereunto grit numbers of people of all qualities and ranks, intends to repair, betwixt whom there being quarrels, private grudges, and miscontentment, it is to be feirit that at their meeting upon fields, some troubles and inconvenients sall fall out amangs them, to the break of his Majesty’s peace and disquieting of the country without remeed be providit; Therefore the Lords of Secret Council has dischargit, and be the tenor hereof discharges, the said horse-race, and ordains that the same sall be nawise halden nor keepit this year; for whilk purpose ordains letters to be direct, to command, charge, and inhibit all and sundry his Majesty’s lieges and subjects by open proclamation at the mercat-cross of Peblis and other places needful, that nane of them presume nor tak upon them to convene and assemble themselves to the said race this present year, but to suffer that meeting and action to depart and cease, as they and ilk ane of them will answer upon the contrary at their heichest peril,’ &c.
[328] This was probably at the place called Silver Mills, on the Water of Leith; now involved in the suburbs of Edinburgh.
[329] Atkinson’s Discoverie of Gold Mynes in Scotland (Bann. Club), 1825. Chron. Kings of Scotland.
[330] Napier’s Life of John Napier.
[331] Literally, the separation; in larger sense, the restoration of order.
[332] The fishing of salmon in the river Dee on Sunday was a custom of some antiquity, as it had been expressly warranted by a bull of Pope Nicolas V. in 1451. The privilege was limited to the Sundays of those five months of the year in which salmon most abound; and the first salmon taken each Sunday was to belong to the parish church. The bull recites that both by the canon and the common law, the right of prosecuting the herring-fishing on Sunday was conceded to all the faithful.—Reg. Epis. Aber. (Spalding Club).
[333] Earl of Haddington’s Notes, quoted by Pitcairn, iii. 597. It may be worthy of remark, that no notice of such shocking transactions occurs in the Privy Council Record at this time.
[334] Letters and State Papers of the Reign of James VI.