June.
During the spring and early summer of this year, the border counties were afflicted with the pest. Various orders were issued with a view to confining the range of the sickness as much as possible. From one of these arose a complaint on the part of Sir John Murray of Philiphaugh, who, as convener of the justices of his county, had occasion to see the arrangements carried out. Having gone to Selkirk for this purpose, he found a citizen named James Murray about to have a daughter married, and ‘a great part of the country’ expected to gather to the ceremony. He forbade the assemblage as dangerous, and enjoined that not above four or five should be present as witnesses; but James Murray would not listen to his remonstrances. When Sir John afterwards sent for him to press still further the necessity of having only a small company, James Murray proudly answered: ‘If ye be feared, come not there.’ Sir John then called on the bailies to commit him to prison, but ‘there was no obedience given thereto;’ and next day, when the marriage took place, ‘there was about four or five score persons who met and drank together all that day till night.’—P. C. R.
July 23.
The intrusion of a service-book or liturgy, upon the Scottish Church has been alluded to in the introduction to the present section. There was an almost universal unwillingness, even among the friends of the reigning system, to give efficacy to the royal orders; for it was seen that the congregations would not calmly see this innovation effected. It was resolved, however, that on Sunday the 23d of July the book should be used in the cathedral of Edinburgh—the ‘Great Church’ of St Giles—where the privy councillors, including the bishops and the lords of session, as well as the city magistrates, usually attended worship, besides a large congregation of the upper class of citizens.
1637.
To pursue the narrative of a contemporary:—‘How soon as Dr George Hanna, dean of Edinburgh, who was to officiate that day, had opened the service-book, a number of the meaner sort of people, most of them waiting-maids and women, who use in that town to keep places for the better sort, with clapping of their hands, cursings, and outcries, raised such an uncouth noise and hubbub in the church, that not any one could either hear or be heard. The gentlewomen did fall a tearing and crying that the mass was entered amongst them, and Baal in the church. There was a gentleman standing behind a pew and answering “Amen” to what the dean was reading; a she-zealot, hearing him, starts up in choler: “Traitor,” says she, “does thou say mass at my ear!” and with that struck him on the face with her Bible in great fury.
‘The bishop of Edinburgh, Mr David Lindsay, stepped into the pulpit, above the dean, intending to appease the tumult, minding them of the place where they were, and entreating them to desist from profaning it. But he met with as little reverence (albeit with more violence) as the dean had found;[72] for they were more enraged, and began to throw at him stools, and their very Bibles, and what arms were in the way of [their] fury. It is reported that he hardly escaped the blow of a stool, which one present diverted. Nor were their tongues idler than their hands. Upon this, John Spottiswoode, archbishop of St Andrews, then Lord Chancellor, and some others, offering to assist the bishop in quelling the multitude, were made partners of the suffering of all these curses and imprecations which they began to pray to the bishops and their abettors. The archbishop, finding himself unable to prevail with the people, was forced to call down from their gallery the provost and bailies and others of the town-council of Edinburgh, who at length, with much tumult and confusion, thrust the unruly rabble out of the church, and made fast the church doors.
1637.
‘The multitude being removed, the dean falls again to read, in presence of the better sort who stayed behind; but all this while, those who had been turned out of doors, kept such a quarter with clamours without, and rapping at the church doors, and pelting the windows with stones, as that the dean might once more be interrupted. This put the bailies once more to the pains to come down from their seat, and interpose with the clamorous multitude to make them quiet. In the midst of these clamours, the service was brought to an end; but the people’s fury was not a whit settled; for after the bishop had stepped up into the pulpit and preached, and the congregation dismissed, the bishop of Edinburgh retiring to his lodging not far distant from the church, was environed and set upon with a multitude of the meaner people, cursing him and crowding about him, that he was in danger of his life, and to be trodden down amongst the people; and having recovered the stairs of his lodging, he no sooner began to go up, but he was pulled so rudely by the sleeve of his gown that he was like to have fallen backwards. Nor was he in more security, having gotten to the top of the stairs; for the door he did find shut against him, and so was at a stand, likely to have been oppressed, had not the Earl of Wemyss, who from the next lodging saw the bishop in danger, sent his servants for to rescue him, who got him at last, breathless, and in much amazement, into his lodging.’—Gordon’s Hist. of Scots Affairs.