The letters sent home by the English soldiery now marching through the Highlands, describe the country as mountainous, yet the valleys rich; the houses of earth and turf so low that the horsemen sometimes rode over them; the people generally going with plaids about their middles, both men and women; ‘simple and ignorant in the things of God, and some of them as brutish as heathens;’ nevertheless, ‘some did hear the English preachers with great attention and groaning.’[161]
In some churches in Fife, as Kirkcaldy and Kennoway, the English soldiers ‘did pull down the stool of repentance; they did sit in them also, in contempt, in some places where they came, in time of sermon.’ Several ministers were openly challenged for their expressions in prayers and sermons, by these soldiers. Mr George Hamilton at Pittenweem was so troubled by some of Fairfax’s regiment, that he had to break off; ‘at which time there was great uproar in the church there.’—Lam.
Aug.
The Earl of Crawford, having been taken by the English at Alyth a twelvemonth before, now lay a prisoner in the Tower. The countess—a sister of the late Duke of Hamilton—desiring to visit her husband in his affliction, left Scotland for the purpose in a stage-coach which had recently been established for the keeping up of communication between the two countries—‘the journey coach,’ says Lamont, ‘that comes ordinarily between England and Scotland.’ We do not learn the periods of departure, or any other detail regarding this vehicle; but from a paragraph which occurs under May 1658, we may presume that it did not go oftener than once in three weeks, and charged for a seat fully as much as a first-class railway ticket of the present day.
Sep. 30.
‘There came into the very brig of Leith ane little whale, which rendered much profit to the English.’—Nic.
1652.