June 25.
‘... being Saturday, betwixt three o’clock afternoon and Sunday’s night thereafter, there blew such a vehement tempest of wind, that it was thought to be the cause that a great many of the inhabitants of Edinburgh contracted a strange sickness, which was called Kindness. It fell out in the court, as well as sundry parts of the country, so that some people who were corpulent and aged deceased very suddenly. It continued with every one that took it three days at least.’—Moy. R.
July. 1580.
The king being at St Andrews, on a progress with the Regent Morton, the gentlemen of the country had a guise or fence to play before him. ‘The play was to be acted in the New Abbey.[113] While the people is gazing and longing for the play, Skipper Lindsay, a phrenitic man, stepped into the place which was kept void till the players came, and paceth up and down in sight of the people with great gravity, his hands on his side, and looking loftily. He had a manly countenance, but was all rough with hair. He had great tufts of hair upon his brows, and also a great tuft upon the neb of his nose. At the first sight, the people laughed loud; but when he began to speak he procured attention, as if it had been to a preacher. He discoursed with great force of spirit, and mighty voice, exhorting men of all ranks and degrees to hear him, and take example by him. He declared how wicked and riotous he had been, what he had done and conquest [acquired] by sea, how he had spended and abased himself on land, and what God had justly brought upon him for the same. He had wit, he had riches, he had strength and ability of body, he had fame and estimation above all others of his trade and rank; but all was vanity that made him misken his God. But God would not be miskenned by the highest. Turning himself to the boss [empty] window, where the king and Aubigné was above, and Morton standing beneath, gnapping upon his staff, he applied to him in special, as was marvellous in the ears of the hearers; so that many were astonished and some moved to tears, beholding and hearkening to the man. Among other things, he warned the earl, not obscurely, that his judgment was drawing near and his doom in dressing. And in very deed at the same time was his death contrived. The contrivers would have expected a discovery, if they had not known the man to be phrenitic and bereft of his wit. The earl was so moved and touched at the heart, that, during the time of the play, he never changed the gravity of his countenance, for all the sports of the play.’—Cal.
Sep. 9. 1580.
One Arnold Bronkhorst, a Fleming, had found his way into Scotland, as one of a group of adventurers who were disposed to make a new effort for the successful working of the gold-mines of Lanarkshire. The account we have of the party is obscure and traditional.[114] One Nicolas Hilliard, goldsmith in London, and miniature-painter to Queen Elizabeth, is said to have belonged to it, and to have brought Bronkhorst as his servant or assistant. The story is, that, being disappointed of a patent for the mines from the Regent Morton, Bronkhorst was glad at last to remain about the Scottish court as portrait-painter to the king. He certainly did serve the king in that capacity, as we have an account of his paid at this date, to the amount of £64, for three specimens of his art—namely, ‘Ane portrait of his majesty fra the belt upward,’ ‘ane other portrait of Maister George Buchanan,’ and ‘ane portrait of his majesty full length,’ besides a gift of a hundred merks, ‘as ane gratitude for his repairing to this country.’ A twelvemonth later, King James constituted him his own painter for his lifetime, ‘with all fees, duties, and casualties, usit and wont.’[115]
Sep. 20.