What ultimately came of Cornelius’s adventure does not appear. He vanishes notelessly from the field. We are told by Atkinson that the adventure was subsequently taken up by one Abraham Grey, a Dutchman heretofore resident in England, commonly called Greybeard, from his having a beard which reached to his girdle. He hired country-people at 4d. a day, to wash the detritus of the valleys around Wanlock-head for gold; and it is added, that enough was found to make ‘a very fair deep basin of natural gold,’ which was presented by the Regent Morton to the French king, filled with gold pieces, also the production of Scotland.
1567-8.
The same valleys were afterwards searched for gold by an Englishman named George Bowes, who also sunk shafts in the rock, but probably with limited success, as has hitherto been experienced in ninety-nine out of every hundred instances, according to Sir Roderick Murchison.
In consequence of an extremely dry summer, the yield of grain and herbage in 1567 was exceedingly defective. The ensuing winter being unusually severe, there was a sad failure of the means of supporting the domestic animals. A stone of hay came to be sold in Derbyshire at fivepence,[54] which seems to have been regarded as a starvation price. There was a general mortality among the sheep and horses. In Scotland, the opening of 1568 was marked by scarcity and all its attendant evils. ‘There was,’ says a contemporary chronicler, ‘exceeding dearth of corns, in respect of the penury thereof in the land, and that beforehand a great quantity thereof was transported to other kingdoms: for remeed whereof inhibitions were made sae far out of season, that nae victual should be transported furth of the country under the pain of confiscation, even then when there was no more left either to satisfy the indigent people, or to plenish the ordinar mercats of the country as appertenit.’—H. K. J.
During his short administration, the Regent Moray gave a large portion of his time and attention to the repression of lawless people. Justice was executed in no sparing manner. March 8, 1567-8, ‘the Regent went to Glasgow, and there held ane justiceaire, where there was execute about the number of twenty-eight persons for divers crimes.’ July 1568, he ‘rade to St Andrews, and causit drown a man callit Alexander Macker and six more, for piracy.’ Sep. 13, ‘the Lord Regent rade to the fair to Jedburgh, to apprehend the thieves; but they being advertised of his coming, came not to the fair; sae he was frustrate of his intention, excepting three thieves whilk he took, and caused hang within the town there.’—Bir. April 1569, the Regent made a raid to the Border against the thieves, accompanied by a party of English. ‘But the thieves keepit themselves in sic manner, that the Regent gat nane thereof, nor did little other thing, except he brint and reft the places of Mangerton and Whithope, with divers other houses belonging to the said thieves.’—D. O.
1567-8.
In the same month, a number of the most considerable persons in the southern counties entered into a bond at Kelso, agreeing to be obedient subjects to the Regent Earl of Moray, and to do all in their power for the putting down of the thieves of Liddesdale, Ewesdale, Eskdale, and Annandale, especially those of the names Armstrong, Elliot, Nickson, Croser [Grozart?], Little, Bateson, Thomson, Irving, Bell, Johnston, Glendoning, Routledge, Henderson, and Scott; not resetting or intercommuning with them, their wives, bairns, tenants, and servants, or suffering any meat or drink to be carried to them, ‘where we may let;’ also, if, ‘in case of the resistance or pursuit of any of the said thieves, it sall happen to ony of them to be slain or brint, or ony of us and our friends to be harmit by them, we sall ever esteem the quarrel and deadly feid equal to us all, and sall never agree with the said thieves but together, with ane consent and advice.’[55]