1668.
On a subsequent occasion (October 1665), the same persons came again to Bussabiel, and committed a fresh assault on Lady Cardiness, ‘striking her with her own stilt till she fell a-sound among their hands.’ Yet a third time did they come in March 1666, and with still more fearful violence. They ‘brake down the doors, and put forth all the servants, and pulled down the bed about Marion her head, and in ane most inhuman manner dragged her forth thereof. She not being able to go of herself by reason of her weakness, they carried her forth of the yett to the croft,’ letting her head fall against a stone by the way; then leaving her insensible, they proceeded to demolish and destroy all that was of any value in the house. The wretched lady was carried by some of her tenants into a barn, where she remained for the night. Two months afterwards, they beset her house with a guard, to prevent her from receiving any succour from friends or servants; and a woman detected taking in something to her mistress by a back-window, was beaten cruelly. Then entering the house, ‘they did keep her from sleep as weel as meat, and further did throw down water and other liquid matters upon her, so that she was forced to retire and shelter herself within the bounds of the kitchen chimney for her safety.’ In consequence of these ‘inhuman acts, and keeping of all her rents, corns, goods, and geir, whereupon she should have lived, from her,’ she was reduced to such a state of wretchedness, that ‘she within a short time thereafter did burst forth her heart’s blood and died.’
There were sundry deadly assaults upon the two sons, and some attacks of a destructive nature upon their house, all betokening a savage violence on the part of M‘Culloch and his friends.
There is some difficulty as to the decision of the Council. They first appear as condemning the accused parties to fine and imprisonment; then next day give an opposite verdict; yet after all, in April next year, we hear of Godfrey M‘Culloch and Fergusson of Kilkerran as still under threat of punishment on account of their offence.
July 11.
1668.
‘Saturday, in the evening, as the Archbishop of St Andrews and Bishop of Orkney were going abroad, the archbishop being in his coach, and the other stepping in, a wicked fellow standing behind the coach did shoot the Bishop of Orkney beneath his right hand; which broke his left arm a little above the wrist with five balls.’ So wrote the Privy Council to the king.—P. C. R. The assassin was a preacher named James Mitchell, ‘a weak scholar,’ according to Kirkton, but whom Wodrow describes as ‘a youth of much zeal and piety.’ We may charitably presume that he was a weak man infuriated by the sufferings of his party. His design was to slay the archbishop, who had become more and more odious to the malcontent Presbyterians. ‘After the shot, he crosses the street quietly, till he came near Niddry’s Wynd head, and there a man offered to stop him, upon which he presents the other loaden pistol, and so the pursuer leaves him. He stepped down the Wynd, and turning up Steven Law’s Close, entered a house, and shifting his clothes, passed confidently to the street. The cry arose, A man was killed. The people’s answer was, It was but a bishop; and so there was no more noise.’—Kir.
The government made much noise about this attempt, but failed to discover the murderer; nor was he discovered till six years after, when Sharpe himself recognised and had him arrested. Gilbert Burnett says: ‘I lived then much out of the world; yet I thought it decent to go and congratulate on this occasion. He [Sharpe] was much touched with it, and put on a show of devotion. He said with a very serious look: “My times are wholly in Thy hand, O thou God of my life!” This was the single expression savouring of piety that ever fell from him in all the conversation that passed between him and me.’