Oct.
1638.
Amidst the excitement of the time, a young woman named Mitchelson, who had been subject to fits, attracted attention in Edinburgh by becoming a sort of prophetess or Pythoness of the Covenant. ‘She was acquainted with the Scripture, and much taken with the Covenant, and in her fits spoke much to its advantage, and much ill to its opposers, that would, or at least that she wished to befall them. Great numbers of all ranks of people were her daily hearers; and many of the devouter sex prayed and wept, with joy and wonder, to hear her speak. When her fits came upon her, she was ordinarily thrown upon a down bed, and there prostrate, with her face downwards, spoke such words as were for a while carefully taken from her mouth by such as were skilful in brachygraphy. She had intermissions of her discourses for days and weeks; and before she began to speak, it was made known through Edinburgh. Mr Harry Rollock [one of the clergymen of Edinburgh], who often came to see her, said that he thought it was not good manners to speak while his Master was speaking, and that he acknowledged his Master’s voice in her. Some misconstered her to be suborned by the Covenanters, and at least that she had nothing that savoured of a rapture, but only of memory, and that still she knew what she spoke, and, being interrupted in her discourse, answered pertinently to the purpose. Her language signified little: she spoke of Christ, and called him Covenanting Jesus; that the Covenant was approved from heaven; that the king’s covenant was Satan’s invention; that the Covenant should prosper, but the adherents to the king’s covenant should be confounded; and much other stuff of this nature, which savoured at best of senseless simplicity. The Earl of Airth, upon a time, getting a paper of her prophecies, which was inscribed, “that, such a day and such a year, Mrs Mitchelson awoke and spoke gloriously,” in place of the word “gloriously,” which he blotted out, writt over it the word “gowkedly” or foolishly, [and] was so much distested for a while among the superstitious admirers of this maid, that he had like to have run the fate of one of the bishops, by a charge with stones upon the street. But this blazing star quickly vanished....’[85]
There seems no reason to doubt that Mrs Mitchelson was a sincere young woman, but in an unsound nervous condition. Ecstatics like her are common in the Romish Church, in which case there is much tendency to visions of St Catherine, instead of ravings about the Covenant. From analogous cases of persons under hallucinations, the giving pertinent answers to ordinary questions, which Gordon adduces as a ground of doubt, does not necessarily infer that Mrs Mitchelson was a cunning woman playing a part.
1639. Feb.
The Earl of Montrose went about in the north country with a large armed band, forcing the Covenant upon those who were disinclined to sign it, and raising funds for the use of the Covenanting party. As it never once occurred to the ‘Tables’ that anybody could have a conscientious scruple on the subject, much less that any scruple called for respect and forbearance, force seemed quite fair as a means of attaining to uniformity. The city of Aberdeen, looking with apprehension to this kind of mission, ‘began to choose out captains, ensigns, sergeants, and other officers for drilling their men in the Links, and learning them to handle their arms;’ also ‘to big up their back yetts, close their ports, have their catbands in readiness, their cannons clear, and had ane strict watch day and night keepit.’—Spal. All this to battle off an Idea. Still they feared it might not be sufficient. So, looking to the victual they had against a siege, they began to cast ditches, and towards the south raised up timber sconces, clad with deals. They had eleven pieces of ordnance, each provided with a sconce, planted commodiously on the streets. In short, it was a town pretty well fortified, as such things were in those days, and no doubt the worthy citizens were in good hopes of resisting the storm of Christian reformation which was mustering against them. Alas!
1639.
It soon became evident to the poor Aberdonians that, however well their doctors might argue, the Covenant was not to be resisted. Dismayed at the accounts they got of large forces mustering against them, they abandoned all design of defence. All that the more notable friends of the king and church could do was to fly.
Spalding’s account of the entry of the Covenanting militia under Montrose and Leslie into Aberdeen is highly picturesque.