As a specimen of the dealing of the authorities with the gentler and weaker sex:—On the 9th of September 1630, the Lords of Council received a petition from Elizabeth Garioch, setting forth her case as a sufferer for her ‘averseness and non-conformity to the religion presently professed.’ She was an old decrepit woman, past threescore and ten years, bedrid for the present, and not likely long to live. She had lain for months in the Tolbooth of Aberdeen, with ‘no earthly means to entertein herself but ane croft of sax bolls sawing, and neither husband nor child to attend to the winning and in-gathering thereof.’ The misery of her circumstances made her restraint, she said, the more grievous. Therefore she craved release from prison, professing, ‘for the eschewing of scandal, which her remaining in the country may breed or occasion,’ her willingness to give security that she should remove herself forth of the kingdom. The Lords mercifully remitted to the Bishop of Aberdeen to see to Elizabeth Garioch being liberated on her giving caution to the extent of a thousand merks for her self-banishment.
1630.
In November 1630, a curious circumstance is noted regarding the Dr William Leslie above named. Licence was granted to him by the Privy Council to return temporarily to medicate to the Marquis of Huntly, he being the person ‘whose judgment in matters of that kind the said marquis does only trust,’ it being provided ‘that the said Dr William shall behave himself modestly, without giving offence and scandal in matters concerning the religion.’—P. C. R.
It is remarkable that, while the histories of our country and its national church are careful to note every particular of the conflict between presbytery and episcopacy at this period, there is nowhere the slightest allusion to these sufferings of the remnant of Romanists, towards which Presbyterians and Episcopalians alike contributed. It is to be feared that the actual severities which were dealt upon the party were not the worst evils in the case. In the external conformity which was forced upon many—so many that only sixty avowed papists were thought to be left in Scotland—we cannot doubt that there was involved a hypocrisy which would be bitterly felt—always the more bitterly where there was an upright and honourable spirit—and which would in the long-run have the most demoralising effects.
1630.
A full history of the proceedings of the Romish priests in Scotland, during the reigns of James VI. and Charles I., would shew examples of heroic courage, self-devotion, and religious enthusiasm, equalling any that can be adduced from the reformed denominations. ‘Capuchin Leslie, called the Archangel,’ appears, from his biography,[24] to have been a man of singular gifts and earnestness. The eldest son of the Laird of Monymusk, in Aberdeenshire, he had been brought up at Paris, and there converted to Romanism in his youth. Before attaining majority, he had gone to those heights in devotion and asceticism which produce hallucinative voices and lights. Making his way through unnumbered dangers to his native castle, he there set himself to the work of preaching. He collected the people in the woods, or beset them as they were leaving the parish church; addressed them in a style of burning eloquence, with threats of the fate reserved for heretics; and is said to have brought thousands into his views in a few weeks. His admiring biographer tells how he confounded the minister of Monymusk by asking him to exhibit any reference to the church of Geneva in the Bible, shewing him at the same time the Scriptural foundation of the true church, by pointing out Paul’s Epistle to the Romans! His mother and other relatives were brought over to the ancient faith. For two years he exposed his life in this manner, but was at length obliged to leave the district by one of these threatening edicts. Meanwhile, his family, being discovered to be Catholics, had their property confiscated, and his mother was obliged to retire to a hovel, where she endeavoured to support herself by spinning. It is related that Father Archangel, being resolved at all hazards to visit her, dressed himself like a gardener, and cried herbs through the village till he discovered his mother. After a hurried interview, he was obliged to leave her once more, and depart from the kingdom. He nevertheless returned and recommenced his labours; and this extraordinary man ultimately sunk at an early age, under a fever caught while making a skulking journey across the Border.
Apr. 21.
John Hart, printer in Edinburgh, being about to bring out an edition of the Bible, the Town Council gave him formal permission to take a new apprentice ‘for the advancement of the said wark,’ ‘notwithstanding the time of three years be not past, since he replaced an apprentice last;’ ‘providing always it sall not be lawful to him to tak and have ane other prentice before the expiring of six years.’—Ed. Coun. Reg.
As restrictions on the taking of apprentices still exist in various trades, we must not be too ready to smile at this as a peculiar trait of the barbarous political economy of a past age.