Another case in which the spirit used personal violence, but of an impalpable kind, is related by Martin as happening at Knockowe, in Skye, and as reported to him by the family who were present when the circumstance occurred. A man-servant, who usually enjoyed perfect health, was one evening taken violently ill, fell back upon the floor, and then began to vomit. The family were much concerned, being totally at a loss to account for so sudden an attack; but in a short while the man recovered, and declared himself free of pain. A seer in the family explained the mystery. In a neighbouring village lived an ill-natured female, who had had some hopes of marriage from this man, but was likely to be disappointed. He had seen this woman come in with a furious countenance, and fall a-scolding her lover in the most violent manner, till the man tumbled from his seat, albeit unconscious of the assault made upon him.
Several instances of second-sight are recorded in connection with historical occurrences. Sir John Harrington relates that, at an interview he had with King James in 1607, the conversation having turned upon Queen Mary, the king told him that her death had been seen in Scotland before it happened, ‘being, as he said, “spoken of in secret by those whose power of sight presented to them a bloody head dancing in the air.” He then,’ continues Harrington, ‘did remark much on this gift.’[[345]] It is related in May’s History of England, that when the family of King James was leaving Scotland for England, an old hermit-like seer was brought before them, who took little notice of Prince Henry, but wept over Prince Charles—then three years old—lamenting to think of the misfortunes he was to undergo, and declaring he should be the most miserable of princes. A Scotch nobleman had a Highland seer brought to London, where he asked his judgment on the Duke of Buckingham, then at the height of his fortunes as the king’s favourite. |1703.| ‘Pish!’ said he, ‘he will come to nothing. I see a dagger in his breast!’ In time the duke, as is well known, was stabbed to the heart by Lieutenant Felton.
In one of the letters on second-sight, written to Mr Aubrey from Scotland about 1693–94, reference is made to the seer Archibald Macdonald, who has already been introduced in connection with instances occurring in Skye. According to this writer, who was a divinity student living in Strathspey, Inverness-shire, Archibald announced a prediction regarding the unfortunate Earl of Argyle. He mentioned it at Balloch Castle (now Castle-Grant), in the presence of the Laird of Grant, his lady, and several others, and also in the house of the narrator’s father. He said of Argyle, of whom few or none then knew where he was, that he would within two months come to the West Highlands, and raise a rebellious faction, which would be divided in itself, and disperse, while the earl would be taken and beheaded at Edinburgh, and his head set upon the Tolbooth, where his father’s head was before. All this proved strictly true.
Archibald Macdonald was a friend of Macdonald of Glencoe, and accompanied him in the expedition of Lord Dundee in 1689 for the maintenance of King James’s interest in the Highlands. Mr Aubrey’s correspondent, who was then living in Strathspey, relates that Dundee’s irregular forces followed General Mackay’s party along Speyside till they came to Edinglassie, when he turned and marched up the valley. At the Milltown of Gartenbeg, the Macleans joined, but remained behind to plunder. Glencoe, with Archibald in his company, came to drive them forward; and when this had been to some extent effected, the seer came up and said: ‘Glencoe, if you will take my advice, you will make off with yourself with all possible haste. Ere an hour come and go, you’ll be as hard put to it as ever you were in your life.’ Glencoe took the hint, and, within an hour, Mackay appeared at Culnakyle, in Abernethy, with a party of horse, and chased the Macleans up the Morskaith; in which chase Glencoe was involved, and was hard put to it, as had been foretold. It is added, that Archibald likewise foretold that Glencoe would be murdered in the night-time in his own house, three months before it happened.
A well-vouched instance of the second-sight connected with a historical incident, is related by Drummond of Bohaldy, regarding the celebrated Highland paladin, Sir Ewen Cameron of Locheil, who died at the age of ninety in 1719. ‘Very early that morning |1703.| [December 24, 1715] whereon the Chevalier de St George landed at Peterhead, attended only by Allan Cameron, one of the gentlemen of his bedchamber, Sir Ewen started, as it were, in a surprise, from his sleep, and called out so loud to his lady (who lay by him in another bed) that his king was landed—that his king was arrived—and that his son Allan was with him, that she awaked.’ She then received his orders to summon the clan, and make them drink the king’s (that is, the Chevalier’s) health—a fête they engaged in so heartily, that they spent in it all the next day. ‘His lady was so curious, that she noted down the words upon paper, with the date; which she a few days after found verified in fact, to her great surprise.’ Bohaldy remarks that this case fully approved itself to the whole clan Cameron, as they heard their chief speak of scarcely anything else all that day.[[346]]
Predictions of death formed a large class of cases of second-sight. The event was usually indicated by the subject of the vision appearing in a shroud, and the higher the vestment rose on the figure, the event was the nearer. ‘If it is not seen above the middle,’ says Martin, ‘death is not to be expected for the space of a year, and perhaps some months longer. When it is seen to ascend higher towards the head, death is concluded to be at hand within a few days, if not hours, as daily experience confirms. Examples of this kind were shewn me, when the person of whom the observation was made enjoyed perfect health.’ He adds, that sometimes death was foretold of an individual by hearing a loud cry, as from him, out of doors. ‘Five women were sitting together in the same room, and all of them heard a loud cry passing by the window. They thought it plainly to be the voice of a maid who was one of the number. She blushed at the time, though not sensible of her so doing, contracted a fever next day, and died that week.’
In a pamphlet on the second-sight, written by Mr John Fraser, dean of the Isles, and minister of Tiree and Coll, is an instance of predicted death, which the author reports on his own knowledge. Having occasion to go to Tobermory, in Mull, to assist in some government investigations for the recovery of treasure in the vessel of the Spanish Armada known to have been there sunk, he was accompanied by a handsome servant-lad, besides other attendants.[[347]] A woman came before he sailed, and, through the |1703.| medium of a seaman, endeavoured to dissuade him from taking that youth, as he would never bring him back alive. The seaman declined to communicate her story to Mr Fraser. The company proceeded on their voyage, and met adverse weather; the boy fell sick, and died on the eleventh day. Mr Fraser, on his return, made a point of asking the woman how she had come to know that this lad, apparently so healthy, was near his death. She told Mr Fraser that she had seen the boy, as he walked about, ‘sewed up in his winding-sheets from top to toe;’ this she always found to be speedily followed by the death of the person so seen.
Martin relates that a woman was accustomed for some time to see a female figure, with a shroud up to the waist, and a habit resembling her own; but as the face was turned away, she never could ascertain who it was. To satisfy her curiosity, she tried an experiment. She dressed herself with that part of her clothes behind which usually was before. The vision soon after presented itself with its face towards the seeress, who found it to be herself. She soon after died.
Although the second-sight had sunk so much in Martin’s time, that, according to him, there was not one seer for ten that had been twenty years before, it continued to be so much in vogue down to the reign of George III., that a separate treatise on the subject, containing scores of cases, was published in 1763 by an educated man styling himself Theophilus Insulanus, as a means of checking in some degree the materialising tendencies of the age, this author considering the gift as a proof of the immortality of the soul. When Dr Johnson, a few years later, visited the Highlands, he found the practice, so to speak, much declined, and the clergy almost all against it. Proofs could, nevertheless, be adduced that there are even now, in the remoter parts of the Highlands, occasional alleged instances of what is called second-sight, with a full popular belief in their reality.
1704. Jan. 25.