1660.
After the Restoration, the Scottish records remaining in the Tower, being those of a public and historical character, were ordered to be returned to Edinburgh. Being put up in hogsheads, a ship was prepared to carry them down to Scotland. ‘But it was suggested to Clarendon, that the original Covenant signed by the king, and some other declarations under his hand, were among them. And he, apprehending that at some time or other an ill use might have been made of these, would not suffer them to be shipped till they were visited: nor would he take Primrose’s promise of searching for these carefully, and sending them up to him. So he ordered a search to be made. None of the papers he looked for were found. But so much time was lost, that the summer was spent. So they were sent down in winter.’—Burnet. They were shipped at Gravesend on board the Eagle frigate, commanded by Major John Fletcher; but, a storm arising, the captain was obliged, for the safety of his vessel, to trans-ship eighty-five hogsheads of these documents into a vessel called the Elizabeth of Burntisland. The Elizabeth having sunk with its whole cargo, the eighty-five hogsheads of registers were lost, ‘to the great hurt of this nation,’ as Nicoll with due sensibility remarks. From this wreck there escaped the records of parliament, and that of the Secret Council—the latter, we are bound to say, a specially fortunate escape for us, since the record in question has supplied the great bulk of what is at once new and curious in the present work. ‘The want of any inventory of the whole must leave us for ever in the dark as to the real extent of the loss which was then sustained. Among the lost records, however, we may probably reckon the rolls of the greater part of the charters of Robert I. and David II., and the far greater part of the original instruments of a public nature, which must be presumed to have existed in the archives of the kingdom, at their removal from Scotland in 1651.’[189]
One of the records, that of the Privy Seal, had escaped the general seizure by the English, and passed through some adventures not much less romantic than those of the Regalia. Consisting of about a hundred volumes, it rested in the care of Andrew Martin, writer in Edinburgh, who, on the approach of danger, carried it into the Highlands, and there preserved it from the enemy ‘with great expenses and fatigue, for ten years at least, to the hazard of his life and irrecoverable ruin of his family.’ After his death and that of his son, this record fell into the possession of John Corse, writer in Edinburgh, who had advanced considerable sums to the Martins, ‘on the faith of those books.’ On the 24th of March 1707, Mr Corse addressed a petition to the Scottish parliament, setting forth these particulars, and claiming a remuneration for ‘the expenses and great pains that has been expended in preserving these records,’ requesting at the same time that they should be taken into public custody. The parliament accordingly recommended Mr Corse’s claim to the queen.[190]
1661. Jan.
1661.
Reduced as the state of Scotland was at the close of the Interregnum, no sooner had the Restoration taken place than such a ‘bravery’ broke out as if there had been no such thing as poverty in the land. The City of Edinburgh surrounded the Cross at the proclamation of the first parliament with twelve hundred men in arms. When the Earl of Middleton came on the last day of the year to open the parliament next day, sixteen hundred persons met him on horseback a few miles from town—‘there was seldom the like shaw.’ ‘All the nobles at this time, as also the barons and burgesses, were metamorphosed like guisers, their apparel rich, full of ribbons, feathers, and costly lace, to the admiration of many.’ It was all from joy at the idea of the troubles of the country being now brought to an end.
The people were delighted to see the parliament sit down, merely as a token of the restoration of their national independency. They felt a peculiar joy in seeing the Earl Marischal and his two brothers come to Edinburgh, bearing with them the long-lost emblems of the native sovereignty.[191] Nicoll says, the gallant carriage of the people generally was ‘wonderful;’ ‘all of them, even the landward people [rustics], belted in their swords and pistols.’ ‘Our gentry of Scotland,’ he elsewhere adds, ‘did look with such joyful and gallant countenances as if they had been the sons of princes. It was the joy of this nation to see them upon brave horses, prancing in their accustomed places, in tilting, running of races, and such like, the like whereof was never seen in many score of years before.’
‘Our mischiefs,’ says the Mercurius Caledonius, ‘began with tumults and sedition, and we are restored to our former felicity with miracles. The sea-coasts of Fife, Angus, Mearns, and Buchan, which was famous for the fertility of fishing, were barren since his majesty went from Scotland to Worcester; insomuch that the poor men who subsisted by the trade, were reduced to go a-begging in the in-country. But now, blessed be God, since his majesty’s return, the seas are so plentiful, that in some places they are in a condition to dung the land with soles. An argument sufficient to stop the black mouths of those wretches that would have persuaded the people that curses were entailed on the royal family. As our old laws are renewed, so is likewise our good, honest, ancient customs; for nobility in streets are known by brave retinues of their relations, when, during the captivity, a lord was scarcely to be distinguished from a commoner. The old hospitality returns; for that laudable custom of suppers, which was covenanted out with raisins and roasted cheese, is again in fashion; and where before a peevish nurse would have been seen tripping up stairs and down stairs with a posset or berry for the laird or the lady, you shall now see sturdy jackmen, groaning with the weight of sirloins of beef, and chargers loaden with wild fowl and capons.’
1661.