1665. Jan. 5.
1665.
The Laird of Lundie, a young unmarried man, was buried in Largo Church, with that novel and superfluous pomp with which all important matters had been conducted since the Restoration. The funeral was attended by a great number of the nobility and gentry of Fife, Lothian, and the Carse of Gowrie, including the Earls of Crawford, Athole, Kellie, Wemyss, Tweeddale, and Balcarres, Lords Lyon, Elphinstone, and Newark, who all dined at the house of Lundie before the corpse ‘was lifted.’ The coach or hearse, decorated with the armorial insignia of the deceased, and a pall of black velvet, was drawn by six horses, preceded by three trumpeters and four heralds in proper costume.
‘The heralds and painter got, for their pains, about 800 merks; the poor ten dollars; the coachmen seven dollars; the trumpeters forty-eight dollars; the baxter, James Weiland, seven dollars; George Wan, master of the household ...; the cooks, ...; Mr Waters, that dressed the coach, seven dollars; ... some men that served ...; the Kirkcaldy man, for the coffin, 40 lib.; John Gourlay, apothecary, for drogs, attendance, and bowelling of him, ...; James Thomson, in Kirkcaldy, for mournings, 412 lib. or thereby; at Edinburgh, for mournings, 600 lib. or thereby; Gid. Sword for drogs, 16 lib. or thereby; to the writer at Edinburgh for paper and the burial letters, 12 lib.; at Edinburgh, for claret wine, 200 merks; for seck, 100 lib.; at Edinburgh, two divers times, for spices, about 100 lib.; for sugar ... R. Dobie, for tobacco, seven lib.; R. Clydesdale, for ware, 54 lib., 11s.; Will. Foggo, for beef, 84 lib., 12s.; Capper, at Scoonie, for capps, 6s. ster.; An. Brebner, smith, for the chimlay and work, near ane 100 lib. or thereby; Robert Bonaly, for dyeing to the servants, 21 lib., 6s. 8d.; Glover in the Wemyss, for servants’ gloves, 4 lib.’—Lam.
Jan. 9.
Died at Cupar, Thomas Seaton, who is described as ‘a great exciseman,’ meaning a farmer of the revenue over a considerable district. The event would not be worthy of notice, but for a connected circumstance. ‘He died a Catholic Roman, which was never divulged till his death.’—Lam. Such a fact, revealing a lifelong hypocrisy in a man of some consequence, is very startling amidst the universal professions of anxiety for ‘the true religion.’ But it may well be supposed to be but one of many instances in which intolerance produced one of its natural fruits, dissimulation.
Feb.
1665.