1670.
We soon after hear of the Countess of Traquair being subjected to a horning for disobeying the Council’s order, while Lord Semple was put into ward in Edinburgh Castle for sending his son to Doway, and only liberated on a petition craving pardon for his offence, and giving caution to the extent of ten thousand merks for ‘sending his third son to be educat in schools in Glasgow.’
Lord and Lady Semple yielded to the order of the Council regarding their third son; but the result appears to have been of a kind satisfactory to neither party. In April 1678, Lady Semple (her husband being then dead) complained to the Council regarding her son, that, ‘either through the neglect of those he was recommended to, or through the general humour and corruption of the place, he has been frequently withdrawn from the public ordinances, and so seduced and poisoned with bad principles anent his majesty’s government and laws, as may not only hazard his small fortune, but render his loyalty altogether suspect.’ At her ladyship’s request, the Council gave commission to the Bishop of Argyle and Lord Ross to appoint ‘a person of sound principles’ to attend the boy as his pedagogue.
In March 1672, the Council sent orders to the sheriffs of Aberdeen and Banff for taking stern measures with the papists of their bounds. Sayers and hearers of mass were to be summoned to answer for their ‘crimes,’ to be excommunicated and escheat, and their estates given to the universities. The sheriffs were enjoined to give their support to the bishop and clergy of the diocese in ‘suppressing and rooting out of Popery and Quakerism.’ And ‘whereas we are informed that there is a superstitious monument erected upon the grave of the late Mr Patrick Primrose, priest, in St Peter’s Chapel in the parish of Botarie, we authorise and require you to cause demolish the same.’ Very likely, some of Patrick’s skulking flock had ventured to put upon his tomb that emblem which most expressively recalls what the Saviour suffered for all sects alike. No such thing could be for a moment endured.
1670.
The Presbyterian historians of the age speak of these papist persecutions as not springing from a right zeal. Wodrow says the rulers could not ‘for shame’ but do something of that sort, while at the same time doing so much against the Whigs. Indeed, Sir George Mackenzie plainly confesses, it was for ‘allaying the humour of the people,’ to convince them that the rulers were themselves disinclined to popery, the people being ‘bred to believe that episcopacy was a limb of antichrist.’[226] A most deplorable exhibition of Christian feeling on all hands truly. As regards the persecution of the extreme Presbyterians, which was beyond all comparison the deadliest then going on, it takes one of its most curious aspects when, as sometimes happened, an element of benevolence towards some other kind of person intruded. For example, Mr Walter Birnie, preacher, having shewn that he was thrown out of bread in his own profession, and, being blind, could go about no other employment, the Council ordered him two hundred merks to be taken in equal parts out of fines lately imposed on John Tennant in Moss-side and the Lady Glanderston. The pages of Wodrow have familiarised us so much with the idea of the Privy Council as a kind of inquisition for the suppression of a respectable dissent, that we can scarcely think of it in any other character. Yet a survey of its records would shew many beneficent and merciful edicts mingling with the severe orders against conventiclers. Petitions for freedom from sickly prisoners or for an abatement of fines, are yielded to in numberless instances—indeed, they appear to have never been refused. In all matters apart from the unhappy religious disputes, there is no lack of humane feeling or of a desire to promote the good of the community.
Aug. 16.
1670.
Francis Irving, brother of the Laird of Drum, was before the Privy Council, on account of some very offensive demonstrations which he had lately made. Being a convert from the Protestant faith, he was unusually given to the entertaining of Jesuit priests and the getting up of masses. Under his favour and that of a few similar zealots, a priest had been emboldened to hold a public disputation in favour of his religion, an ‘insolency’ of which there had not been an example in Scotland since Quentin Kennedy argued with John Knox at Maybole. On a recent occasion, at Aberdeen, when certain persons were to be burned for sorcery and witchcraft, and a great crowd was assembled, ‘though he knew that it is a Christian and usual custom that the ministers and people do join in prayers to God for the persons who are to suffer, yet he ... when the minister and people went to prayer, stood covered to the great offence of the people, who knew him,’ and when some reminded him of his duty, ‘he quarrelled, at least caused his servant quarrel them.’ His sister Elizabeth, also a papist, being deceased, he resolved to have her buried in a public way in St Nicolas’ Church in Aberdeen, being the principal church there, and for this purpose he collected a great company of his own persuasion, and ‘that the strength, interest, and boldness of the papists there might the more appear,’ he ‘in a most insolent and treasonable way, did raise in arms and bring to the town, from Comar, a band of Highlandmen, armed with guns, hagbuts, pistols, bows and arrows, and other weapons.’ These, ‘after they had entered at the —— Port, albeit they might have taken a nearer and more private way to the Lady Drum her lodging, where the corpse lay, in the Guestraw,’ being resolved to affront and provoke the magistrates and people, ‘had the confidence to march to the said house alongst ——, being the most populous and public street in the said town, in rank and order and in warlike posture, a commander marching before and another behind, to the great astonishment and grief of his majesty’s good subjects, affected to the purity of religion.’ On the morning of the day of the funeral, a gentleman went at the order of Francis to the provost of the burgh, told him what was to be done that night, and warned him that, if the people thronged about the funeral company, and any ‘inconvenience ensue therethrough,’ it should be at the peril of the magistracy, who ought to restrain their people—‘which was a practice without parallel for insolency and boldness.’ ‘About eleven o’clock that night, the corpse being lifted was carried to the church of Aberdeen, with great show and in a public way, with many torches, a great multitude of persons accompanying, the coffin being covered with velvet or cloth, with a cross upon the same, and a priest or some other person going before the corpse, holding out his arms before him, and carrying a crucifix under his cloak or using some other superstitious ceremony.’ The Highlandmen, having their swords drawn, guarded the corpse and torches, ‘and when they came to the church-door, divers others of the company drew their swords and did hold them drawn in the church all the time the corpse was [being] buried.’ ‘In the throng, two of the inhabitants of the town was wounded.’ ‘Next morning, the Highlandmen having marched out of the town, many of them in a braving and insulting manner did shoot and discharge their guns as they went by the provost’s lodging.’