Jan. 16.
The imbecile Laird of Drum was recently dead, and the lady who had intruded herself into the position of his wife—Marjory Forbes by name—professed a strong conviction that she would ere long become the mother of an heir to the estate. For this consummation, however, it was necessary that she should have fair-play, and this she was not likely to get. Alexander Irvine of Murtle, heir of tailzie to the estate in default of issue of the late laird, had equally strong convictions regarding the hopes which Lady Drum asserted herself to entertain. He deemed himself entitled to take immediate possession of the castle, while Marjory, on her part, was resolved to remain there till her |1696.| expected accouchement. Here arose a fine case of contending views regarding a goodly succession, worthy to be worked out in the best style of the country and the time.
Marjory duly applied to the Privy Council with a representation of her circumstances, and of the savage dealings of Murtle. When her condition and hopes were first spoken of some months ago, ‘Alexander Irvine, pretended heir of tailzie to the estate of Drum’—so she designated him—‘used all methods in his power to occasion her abortion, particularly by such representations to the Privy Council as no woman of spirit, in her condition, could safely bear.’ When her husband died, and while his corpse lay in the house, Murtle ‘convocat a band of armed men to the number of twenty or thirty, with swords, guns, spears, fore-hammers, axes, and others, and under silence of night did barbarously assault the house of Drum, scaled the walls, broke up the gates and doors, teared off the locks, and so far possessed themselves of all the rooms, that the lady is confined in a most miserable condition in a remote, obscure, narrow corner, and no access allowed to her but at ane indecent and most inconvenient back-entry, not only in hazard of abortion, but under fear of being murdered by the said outrageous band of men, who carouse and roar night and day to her great disturbance.’
The lady petitioned that she should be left unmolested till it should appear in March next whether she was to bring forth an heir; and the Lords gave orders to that effect. Soon after, on hearing representations from both parties, four ladies—namely, the spouses of Alexander Walker and John Watson of Aberdeen, on Murtle’s part, and the wife of Count Leslie of Balquhain and the Lady Pitfoddels, on Lady Drum’s part—were appointed to reside with her ladyship till her delivery, Murtle meanwhile keeping away from the house.[[175]]
If I am to believe Mr Burke, Marjory proved to have been under a fond illusion, and as even a woman’s tenacity must sometimes give way, especially before decrees of law, I fear that Murtle would have her drummed out of that fine old Aberdeenshire château on the ensuing 1st of April.
Sir Robert Grierson of Lagg, the notable ‘persecutor,’ who had been not a little persecuted himself after the Revolution as a person dangerous to the new government, was now in trouble on |1696.| a different score. He was accused of the crimes of ‘clipping of good money and coining of false money, and vending the samen when clipped and coined,’ inferring the forfeiture of life, land, and goods.
It appears that Sir Robert had let his house of Rockhill to a person named John Shochon, who represented himself as a gunsmith speculating in new modes of casting lead shot and stamping of cloth. A cloth-stamping work he had actually established at Rockhill, and he kept there also many engraving tools which he had occasion to use in the course of his business. But a suspicion of clipping and coining having arisen, a search was made in the house, and though no false or clipped coin was found, the king’s advocate deemed it proper to prosecute both Shochon and his landlord on the above charge.
June 22.
The two cases were brought forward separately at the Court of Justiciary, and gave rise to protracted proceedings; but the result was, that Sir Robert and Shochon appeared to have been denounced by enemies who, from ignorance, were unable to understand the real character of their operations, and the prosecution broke down before any assize had been called.[[176]]
Shochon was residing in Edinburgh in 1700, and then petitioned parliament for encouragement to a manufactory of arras, according to a new method invented by him, ‘the ground whereof is linen, and the pictures thereof woollen, of all sorts of curious colours, figures, and pictures.’[[177]]