The spirit which dictated these lines was one which in those days forced its way into the legislation of the country. In September 1696, an overture was read before parliament ‘for ane constant fashion of clothes for men, and another for ane constant fashion of clothes for women.’ What came of this does not appear; but two years later, the parliament took under consideration an act for restraining expenses of apparel. There was a debate as to whether the prohibition of gold and silver on clothes should be extended to horse-furniture, and carried that it should. Some one put to the vote whether gold and silver lace manufactured within the kingdom might not be allowed, and the result was for the negative. It was a painful starving-time, and men seem to have felt that, while so many were wretched, it was impious for others to indulge in expensive vanities of attire. The act, passed on the 30th August 1698, discharged the wearing of ‘any clothes, stuffs, ribbons, fringes, tracing, loops, agreements, buttons, made of silver or gold thread, wire, or philagram.’
Apr.
Two young men, Matthew M‘Kail, son of an advocate of the same name, and Mr William Trent, writer, hitherto intimate friends, quarrelled about a trifling matter, and resolved to fight a duel. Accompanied by John Veitch, son of John Veitch, ‘presentee of the signator,’ and William Drummond, son of Logie Drummond, youths scarcely out of their minority, they went two days after—a Sunday having intervened—to the park of Holyrood Palace, and there fought—it does not appear with what weapons—but both were slain on the spot; after which the seconds absconded.[[182]]
July.
A preacher named John Hepburn, who had been called to the parish of Urr in Galloway, before the regular establishment of the church in 1690, continued ever since to minister there and in the neighbouring parish of Kirkgunzeon, without any proper authority. Enjoying the favour of an earnest, simple people, and cherishing |1696.| scruples about the established church, he maintained his ground for several years, in defiance of all that presbyteries, synods, and general assemblies could do for his suppression. Holding a fast amongst his own people (June 25, 1696), he was interrupted by a deputation from the presbytery of Dumfries, but nevertheless persisted in preaching to his people in the open air, though, as far as appears, without any outward disorderliness. It affords a curious idea of the new posture of Presbyterianism in Scotland, that one of the deputation was Mr William Veitch, a noted sufferer for opinion in the late reign.
The Privy Council took up this affair as a scandalous tumult and riot, and had Mr Hepburn brought before them, and condemned to give bond under a large forfeiture that he would henceforth live in the town of Brechin and within two miles of the same—a place where they of course calculated that he could do no harm, the inhabitants being so generally Episcopalian. Meanwhile, he was laid up in the Old Tolbooth, and kept there for nearly a month. There were people who wished to get in to hear him. There were individuals amongst his fellow-prisoners also anxious to listen to his ministrations. The Council denied the necessary permission. We hear, however, of Mr Hepburn preaching every Sunday from a window of his prison to the people in the street. He was then conducted to Stirling Castle, and kept in durance there for several months. It was three years before he was enabled to return to his Galloway flock.[[183]] The whole story reads like a bit of the history of the reign of Charles II. misplaced, with presbyteries for actors instead of prelates.
Sep.
A crew of English, Scots, and foreigners, under an Englishman named Henry Evory or Bridgman, had seized a ship of forty-six guns at Corunna, and had commenced in her a piratical career throughout the seas of India and Persia. Having finally left their ship in the isle of Providence, these pirates had made their way to Scotland, and there dispersed, hoping thus to escape the vengeance of the laws which they had outraged. The Privy Council issued a proclamation, commanding all officers whatsoever in the kingdom to be diligent in trying to catch the pirates, ‘who may probably be known and discovered by the great quantities of Persian and Indian gold and silver which they have with them,’ |1696.| a hundred pounds of reward being offered for apprehending Bridgman, and fifty for each of the others.[[184]]
Sep.
Since the Reformation, there had been various public decrees for the establishment of schools throughout Scotland; but they had been very partially successful in their object, and many parishes continued to be without any stated means of instruction for the young. The Presbyterian or ultra-Protestant party, sensible how important an ability to read the Scriptures was for keeping up a power in the people to resist the pretensions of the Romish Church, had always, on this account, been favourable to the maintenance of schools whereby the entire people might be instructed. Now, that they were placed securely in ascendency, they took the opportunity to obtain a parliamentary enactment ‘for settling of schools,’ by virtue of which it was ordered that the heritors (landowners) of each parish in the realm should ‘meet and provide a commodious house for a school, and settle and modify a salary to a schoolmaster, which shall not be under one hundred nor above two hundred merks [£5, 11s. 1d.⅓ and £11, 2s. 2d.⅔].’[[185]] It was thus made a duty incidental to the possession of land in each parish, that a school and schoolmaster should be maintained, and that the poorest poor should be taught; and, in point of fact, the community of Scotland became thus assured of access to education, excepting in the Highlands, where the vast extent of the parishes and other circumstances interfered to make the act inoperative. The history of the commencement of our parochial school establishment occupies but a page in this record; but the effects of the measure in promoting the economic and moral interests of the Scottish people are indefinite. It would be wrong to attribute to that act solely, as has sometimes been done, all the credit which the nation has attained in arts, in commerce, in moral elevation, and in general culture. But certainly the native energies have been developed, and the national moral character dignified, to a marked extent, through the means of these parish schools—an effect the more conspicuous and unmistakable from the fact of there having been no similar institution to improve the mass of society in the sister-kingdom.