Leather stamped and gilded—believed to be originally a Spanish fashion—was a favourite cover for the walls of rooms in the better class of houses in Scotland as well as in England. Some examples of the style still survive, and speak so strongly in its favour, that we might justly wonder at its going out of fashion. Hitherto such ornamental leather was introduced from abroad; but now Alexander Brand, merchant in Edinburgh, by a considerable outlay, had brought workmen and materials into the kingdom, and for the first time was about to set up a work, in which he expected to produce the article ‘at as easy rates as it could be imported.’ On a favourable report from ‘the Committee of Trade,’ the Privy Council gave Brand a privilege of exclusive manufacture for nineteen years.—P. C. R.
Thomas Kennedy and John Trotter, merchants, were at the same time proposing to set up a manufacture of linen and woollen cloth stuffs and stockings in the place called Paul’s Work in Edinburgh, where, so long ago as 1609, there had been an attempt at a woollen work. And as an encouragement, the Council ordained them to have all the privileges offered to manufactories in Scotland by the twelfth act of the present parliament regarding manufactures.
Oct. 1.
The ‘whole settled revenue’ of the king in Scotland was this day leased to Bailie Baird, Charles Murray, and Robert Milne, for seven years, at £90,000 per annum, they advancing £16,000 to pay the army. It appears that the pensions then paid out of the Scottish exchequer amounted to £25,000 a year. It is a curious consideration that at present the Times newspaper pays considerably more revenue than the whole taxation of Scotland in the latter part of the seventeenth century.
Oct. 1.
1681. Oct. 10.
Colonel Gage, commander of a regiment in the service of the King of Spain, proposed to the Duke of York to take a few of the phanatiques now in custody into his regiment, and so relieve the authorities of all further charge of them. The duke caused six, named Forman, Garnock, Lapsley, Stewart, Fairie, and Russell, ‘most of them young fellows,’ to be brought before the Council, with the design of sentencing them to be delivered to Colonel Gage. The men, however, ‘did so misbehave, in declining the king, duke, and Council, and speaking such notorious treason,’ that it was thought necessary to send them instead to the criminal court. There it was only too easy to prove the treasonable nature of their language. Forman had a knife, with a posy, ‘This is to cut the throat of tyrants.’ It appeared that Garnock had at the Council so railed at General Dalyell, calling him ‘a Muscovy beast who used to roast men,’ that the old soldier struck him with the pommel of his sword on the face till the blood sprung. One alone obtained mercy; the other five were doomed to death, Forman having the special sentence to lose his hand before hanging, on account of his knife. These men all died ‘obdurately,’ as their enemies called it, ‘heroically,’ according to their friends, ‘reviling and condemning their judges and all who differed from them,’ says Fountainhall. Patrick Walker adds some curious particulars. ‘The never-to-be forgotten Mr James Renwick told me that he was witness to this public murder at the Gallow-lee, betwixt Leith and Edinburgh, where he saw the hangman hash and hag off their five heads, with Patrick Forman’s right hand. Their bodies were all buried at the gallow’s foot; their heads, with Patrick’s hand, were brought and put on five pikes on the Pleasance Port.... Mr Renwick told me also, that it was the first public action that his hand was at, to convene friends and lift their murdered bodies, and carry them to the West Churchyard, and bury them there. Then they came about the city to the Nether-Bow Port, with a design to retake the heads, hands, and other parts of our martyrs down; but a woman, holding over a candle to let some people see the street, marred them. Then they took down these five heads and that hand, and the day being come, they went quickly up the Pleasance, and when they came to Lauriston yards, upon the south side of the city, they durst not venture, being so light, to go and bury their heads with their bodies, which they designed, it being present death if any of them had been found. Alexander Tweedie, a friend, being with them, who at that time was gardener in these yards, concluded to bury them in his yard, being in a box (wrapped in linen), where they lay forty-five years....’ These relics were exhumed in 1726, with all manifestations of rejoicing.
1681.