Jan.
Public attention was at this time attracted by a report of devilish doings at Calder in Mid-Lothian, and of there being one sufferer of no less distinction than a lord’s son. It was stated that the Hon. Patrick Sandilands, a boy, the third son of Lord Torphichen, was for certain bewitched. He fell down in trances, from which no horse-whipping could rouse him. The renal secretion was as black as ink. Sometimes he was thrown unaccountably about the room, as if some unseen agent were buffeting him. Candles went out in his presence. When sitting in a room with his sisters, he would tell them of things that were going on at a distance. He had the appearance occasionally of being greatly tormented. As he lay in bed one night, his tutor, who sat up watching him, became sleepy, and in this state saw a flash of fire at the window. Roused by this, he set himself to be more careful watching, and in a little time he saw another flash at the window. The boy then told him that between these two flashes, he had been to Torryburn taken away several times; he could tell them when it was to happen; and it was then necessary to watch him, to prevent his being carried off. ‘One day that he was to be waited on, when he was to be taken away, they kept |1720.| the door and window close; but a certain person going to the door, he made shift and got there, and was lifted in the air, but was catched by the heels and coat-tails, and brought back.’ Many other singular and dreadful things happened, which unfortunately were left unreported at the time, as being so universally known.[[536]]
Lord Torphichen became at length convinced that his son was suffering under the diabolic incantations of a witch residing in his village of Calder, and he had the woman apprehended and put in prison. She is described as a brutishly ignorant creature, ‘knowing scarce anything but her witchcraft.’ She readily confessed her wicked practices; told that she had once given the devil the body of a dead child of her own to make a roast of; and inculpated two other women and one man, as associates in her guilt. The baron, the minister, and the people generally accepted it as a time case of witchcraft; and great excitement prevailed. The minister of Inveresk, writing to his friend Wodrow (February 19), says: ‘It’s certain my lord’s son has been dreadfully tormented. Mr Brisbane got one of the women to acknowledge ane image of the child, which, on search, was found in another woman’s house; but they did not know what kind of matter it was made of.’[[537]] The time, however, was past for any deadly proceedings in such a case in the southern parts of Scotland; and it does not appear that anything worse than a parish fast was launched at the devil on the occasion. This solemnity took place on the 14th of January.
For the crazed white-ironsmith of the West Bow,[[538]] the case of the Bewitched Boy of Calder had great attractions. He resolved—unfavourable as was the season for travelling—to go and examine the matter for himself. So, on the day of the fast, January 14, he went on foot in ill weather, without food, to Lord Torphichen’s house at Calder, a walk of about twelve miles. ‘I took,’ says he, ‘the sword of the spirit at my breast, and a small wand in my hand, as David did when he went out to fight against Goliah.’ He found the servants eating and drinking, as if there had been no fast proclaimed; they offered him entertainment, which he scrupulously refused. ‘Then I went to my lord and said, I was sent by God to cast the devil out of his son, by faith in Christ. He seemed to be like that lord who had the charge of the gate in Samaria. Then I said to him: “My lord, do you not |1720.| believe me?” Then he bade me go and speak to many ministers that was near by him; but I said I was not sent to them. Then he went to them himself, and spoke to them what I said; but they would not hear of it; so I went to three witches and a warlock, to examine them, in sundry places. Two of them denied, and two of them confessed. I have no time to relate here all that I said to them, and what they said; but I asked them, “When they took on in that service?” The wife said: “Many years;” and the man said: “It was ten years to him.” Then I asked the wife: “What was her reason for taking on with the devil?” And she said: “He promised her riches, and she believed him.” Then she called him many a cheat and liar in my hearing. Then I went to the man, because he was a great professor, and could talk of religion with any of the parish, as they that was his neighbours said, and he was at Bothwell Bridge fighting against the king; and because of that, I desired to ask questions at him; but my lord’s officer said: “His lord would not allow me.” I said I would not be hindered neither by my lord nor by the devil, before many there present. Then I asked: “What iniquity he found in God, that he left his service?” He got up and said: “Oh, sir, are ye a minister?” So ye see the devil knows me to be a minister better than the magistrates. He said: “He found no fault in God; but his wife beguiled him;” and he said: “Wo be to the woman his wife!” and blamed her only, as Adam did his wife, and the woman blamed the devil; so ye see it is from the beginning. This is a caution to us all never to hearken to our wives except they have Scripture on their side. Then I asked at him: “Did he expect heaven?” “Yes,” said he. Then I asked at him if he could command the devil to come and speak to me? He said: “No.” Then I said again: “Call for him, that I may speak with him.” He said again: “It was not in his power.” Then my lord sent more servants, that hindered me to ask any more questions, otherwise I might have seen the devil, and I would have spoken about his son.’[[539]]
On this fast-day, a sermon was preached in Calder kirk by the Rev. Mr John Wilkie, minister of Uphall, the alleged sorcerers being all present. Lord Torphichen subsequently caused the discourse to be printed. His boy in time recovered, and going to sea, rose by merit to the command of an East Indiaman, but perished in a storm. It brings us strangely near to this |1720.| wild-looking affair, that the present tenth Lord Torphichen (1860) is only nephew to the witch-boy of Calder.
Feb. 5.
The exportation of some corn from Dundee being connected unfavourably in the minds of the populace with a rise of the markets, a tumult took place, with a view to keeping the grain within the country. The mob not only took possession of two vessels loaded with bear lying in the harbour, the property of Mr George Dempster, merchant, but attacked and gutted the house, shops, cellars, and lofts of that gentleman, carrying off everything of value they contained, including twelve silver spoons, a silver salver, and two silver boxes, one of them containing a gold chain and twelve gold rings, some hair ones, and others set with diamonds. Dempster advertised that whoever shall discover to him ‘the havers of his goods,’ should have ‘a sufficient reward and the owner’s kindness, and no questions asked.’[[540]]
A similar affair took place at Dundee nine years later. The country-people in and about the town then ‘carried their resentment so high against the merchants for transporting of victual, that they furiously mobbed them, carried it out of lofts, and cut the sacks of those that were bringing it to the barks.’[[541]]
Mar. 20.
Died, Alexander Rose, who had been appointed Bishop of Edinburgh just before the Revolution. He was the last survivor of the unfortunate episcopate of Scotland, and also outlived all the English bishops who forfeited their sees at the Revolution. Though strenuous during all these thirty-one years as a nonjuror—for which in 1716 he was deprived of a pension assigned him by Queen Anne—he is testified to by his presbyter Robert Keith as ‘a sweet-natured man.’[[542]] His aspect, latterly, was venerable, and the gentleness of his life secured him the respect of laymen of all parties. Descended of the old House of Kilravock, he had married a daughter of Sir Patrick Threipland of Fingask, a family which maintained fidelity to the House of Stuart with a persistency beyond all parallel, never once swerving in affection from the days of the Commonwealth down to recent times. ‘Mr John Rose, son of the Bishop of Edinburgh,’ is in the list of rebels who pled guilty at Carlisle in December 1716. The good bishop, having come to his sister’s house in the Canongate, to see a brother who was there lying sick, had a sudden fainting-fit, |1720.| and calmly breathed his last. He was buried in the romantic churchyard of Restalrig, which has ever since been a favourite resting-place of the members of the Scottish Episcopal communion.