On a low sandy plain near the mouth of the Eden, in Fife, in sight of the antique towers of St Andrews, stands the house of Earlshall, now falling into decay, but in the seventeenth century the seat of a knightly family of Bruces, one of whom has a black reputation as a persecutor, having been captain of one of Claverhouse’s companies. The hall in the upper part of the mansion—a fine room with a curved ceiling, bearing pictures of the virtues and other abstractions, with scores of heraldic shields—testifies to the dignity of this family, as well as their taste. Some months before this date, Andrew Bruce of Earlshall had granted to his son Alexander a disposition to the corns and fodder of the estate, as also to those of the ‘broad lands of Leuchars;’ and Alexander had entered into a bargain for the sale of the produce to John Lundin, younger of Baldastard, for the use of the army. Against this arrangement there was a resisting party in the person of Sir David Arnot of that Ilk.

Sir David, on the day noted, came with a suitable train to Earlshall, and there, with many violent speeches, proceeded to possess himself of the keys of the barns and stables; caused the corns to be thrashed; brought his own oxen to eat part of the straw; and finally forced Earlshall’s tenants to carry off the whole grain to Pitlethie. The produce thus disposed of is described as follows: ‘The Mains [home-farm] of Earlshall paid, and which was in the corn-yard at the time, six chalders victual, corn, and fodder, estimat this year [1697] at fourteen pounds the boll, is ane thousand three hundred and forty-four pounds Scots; and nine chalders of teind out of the lands of Leuchars-Bruce, corn and fodder, estimat at the foresaid price to two thousand and sixteen pounds.’

The Privy Council took up this case of ‘high and manifest oppression and bangstrie,’ examined witnesses on both sides, and then remitted the matter to the Court of Session.

A similar case of violently disputed rights occurred about the same time. John Leas had a tack from the Laird of Brux in Aberdeenshire, for a piece of land called Croshlachie, and finding it a prosperous undertaking, he was ‘invyed’ in it by Mr Robert Irving, minister of Towie. The minister frequently |1696.| threatened Leas to cause the laird dispossess him of his holding, possibly expecting to harass him out of it. Leas stood his ground against such threats; but, being simple, he was induced to let Mr Irving have a sight of his ‘assedation,’ which the minister no sooner got into his hands, than he tore it in pieces. A few weeks after, May 8, 1693, Irving came to Croshlachie, and causing men to divide the farm, took possession of one part, put his cattle upon it, and pulled down two houses belonging to Leas, who was thus well-nigh ruined.

Still unsatisfied with what he had gained, Irving came, in March 1694, with Roderick Forbes, younger of Brux, whom he had brought over to his views, and made a personal attack upon Leas, as he was innocently sowing his diminished acres. ‘Tying his hands behind his back, [Irving] brought him off the ground, and carried him prisoner like a malefactor to his house.’ While they were there preparing papers which they were to force him to subscribe, Leas ‘did endeavour to shake his hands lowse of their bonds; but Mr Robert Irving came and ordered the cords to be more severely drawn, which accordingly was done.’ He was detained in that condition ‘till he was almost dead,’ and so was compelled to sign a renunciation of his tack, and also a disposition of the seed he had sown.

On a complaint from Leas coming before the Privy Council, Irving and young Brux did not appear; for which reason they were denounced rebels. Afterwards (June 16, 1698), they came forward with a petition for a suspension of the decreet, alleging that they had come to the court, but were prevented from appearing by accident. ‘It was the petitioners’ misfortune,’ they said, ‘that the time of the said calling they were gone down to the close, and the macers not having called over the window, or they not having heard, Maister Leas himself craved [that] the letters might be found orderly proceeded.’ On this petition, the decreet was suspended.

In August 1697, we are regaled with an example of female ‘bangstrie’ in an elevated grade of society. It was represented to the Privy Council that the wife of Lumsden of Innergellie, in Fife—we may presume, under some supposed legal claim—came at midnight of the 22d July, with John and Agnes Harper, and a few other persons, to the house of Ellieston, in Linlithgowshire—ostensibly the property of the Earl of Rutherglen—which was fast locked; and there, having brought ladders with them, they scaled the house, and violently broke open the windows, at which they |1696.| entered; after which they broke open the doors. Having thus taken forcible possession of the mansion, they brought cattle, which they turned loose, to eat whatever fodder the place afforded.

On the petition of the Earl of Rutherglen, this affair came before the Council, when, the accused lady not appearing, the Lords gave orders that she and her servants should be cast out of the house of Ellieston, and that John and Agnes Harper should pay a hundred pounds Scots as damages, and to be confined (if caught) until that sum was paid.[[193]]

1697.

Jean Douglas, styled Lady Glenbucket, as being the widow of the late Gordon of Glenbucket, had been endowed by her husband, in terms of her marriage-contract, with a thousand pounds Scots of free rent out of the best of his lands ‘nearest adjacent to the house.’ At his death in 1693, she ‘entered on the possession of the mains and house of Glenbucket, and uplifted some of the rents, out of which she did aliment her eight children till May [1696],’ when an unhappy interruption took place in consequence of a dispute with her eldest son about their respective rights.