In a General Assembly held at Edinburgh, an order was issued to execute the acts of the kirk upon apostates, and let them be punished as adulterers; ‘perticularly that the Laird of Dun execute this act upon the Master of Gray, an apostate now returned to Scotland. It being reported to the king that the Master of Gray his house did shake and rock in the night as with an earthquake, and the king [then fourteen years old] interrogating David Fergusson [minister of Dunfermline], “What he thought it could mean that that house alone should shake and totter?” he answered: “Sir, why should not the devil rock his awn bairns?”’[116]
An earthquake, noted in Howes’s Chronicle as having been experienced in Kent at midnight of the 1st of May this year, was probably the cause of the rocking felt at the Master of Gray’s house. In Kent it made ‘the people to rise out of their beds and run to the churches, where they called upon God by earnest prayers to be merciful to them.’
George Auchinleck of Balmanno had been one of the confidants of the Regent in the days of his power. It being well known that he had influence in bringing about the decision of lawsuits, the highest nobility were glad at that time to pay court to him. As an illustration of the nature of his position—Coming one day from the Regent’s house at Dalkeith to Edinburgh, and walking up the High Street, he met one Captain Nesbit, with whom he had some slight quarrel, and drawing his sword, instantly thrust him through the body, so that he was left for dead. So far from seeking concealment after this violence, Auchinleck held straight on to the Tolbooth, where the Court of Session sat, as though he had done no wrong; after which he coolly made his way back to the Regent’s court at Dalkeith. It does not appear that he was in any way punished for stabbing Nesbit.
On another occasion, as Auchinleck stood within the bar of the Tolbooth, an old man of unprosperous appearance made his way through the crowd, asking permission to speak with him. When Auchinleck turned to ask what he wanted, the old man said: ‘I am Oliver Sinclair!’ and without another word, turned and went away. It was the quondam favourite of James V., now a poor and dejected gentleman, albeit connected by near ties with some of the greatest men in the country. Men talked much of this proceeding of Sinclair: it seemed to them equivalent to his saying: ‘Be not too proud of your interest at court. I was once as you are; you may fall to be as I am.’—H. of G.
Dec. 12. 1580.
The prediction was now verified, for, Morton being now out of power and in danger of his life, Auchinleck no longer had influence at council or in court. He, moreover, stood in no small personal danger from his many enemies. As he was walking on the High Street of Edinburgh, he was beset at a passage near St Giles’s Church by William Bickerton of Casch, and four other gentlemen, who assailed him with bended pistols, by one of which he was shot through the body, after which he was left for dead. This was thought to be done in revenge for an attack by him upon Archibald, the brother of William Bickerton. The assailants were all found guilty of the slaughterous attempt, but without the aggravation of its being done within three-quarters of a mile of the king’s person, seeing that ‘the king’s majesty was furth at the hunting, the time of the committing thereof.’—Pit.
Auchinleck survived this accident, and we find him in the ensuing March in the hands of the Earl of Arran, and put to the torture, in order to extort from him a confession of certain crimes with which he was charged, but which he denied. He took a part in the affair of the Raid of Ruthven in August 1582. When the Earl of Arran on that occasion, hearing of the king’s being secluded in Ruthven House, came to try if he could gain access to him, ‘the Earl of Gowrie met him at the gate, and had straightway killed him, if George Auchinleck had not held his hand as he was about to have pulled out his dagger to have stabbed him.’—H. of G.
1580-1. Jan. 28.