Sir Robert Grierson of Lagg—who, having been an active servant of the late government in some of its worst work, is the subject of high popular disrepute as a persecutor—was seized in his own house by Lord Kenmure, and taken to the jail of Kirkcudbright—thence afterwards to the Edinburgh Tolbooth. He seems to have been liberated about the end of August, on giving security for peaceable behaviour.
The most marked and hated instrument of King James was |1689.| certainly the Chancellor Earl of Perth. He had taken an early opportunity of trying to escape from the country, so soon as he learned that the king himself had fled. It would have been better for all parties if his lordship had succeeded in getting away; but some officious Kirkcaldy boatmen had pursued his vessel, and brought him back; and after he had undergone many contumelies, the government consigned him to close imprisonment in Stirling Castle, ‘without the use of pen, ink, or paper,’ and with only one servant, who was to remain close prisoner with him. Another high officer of the late government, John Paterson, Archbishop of Glasgow, was placed in close prison in Edinburgh Castle, and not till after many months, allowed even to converse with his friends: nor does he appear to have been released till January 1693.
Among the multitude of the incarcerated was an ingenious foreigner, who for some years had been endeavouring to carve a subsistence out of Scotland, with more or less success. We have heard of Peter Bruce before[[11]] as constructing a harbour, as patentee for a home-manufacture of playing-cards, and as the conductor of the king’s Catholic printing-house at Holyrood. It ought likewise to have been noted as a favourable fact in his history, that the first system of water-supply for Edinburgh—by a three-inch pipe from the lands of Comiston—was effected by this clever Flandrian. At the upbreak of the old government in December, Bruce’s printing-office was destroyed by the mob, and his person laid hold of. We now (June 1689) learn, by a petition from him to the Privy Council, that he had been enduring ‘with great patience and silence seven months’ imprisonment, for no other cause or crime but the coming of one Nicolas Droomer, skipper at Newport, to the petitioner’s house, which Droomer was likewise on misinformation imprisoned in this place, but is released therefra four weeks ago,’ He adds that he looks on his imprisonment to be ‘but ane evil recompense for all the good offices of his art, has been performed by him not only within the town of Edinburgh, but in several places of the kingdom, to which he was invited from Flanders. He, being a stranger, yet can make it appear [he] has lost by the rabble upwards of twenty thousand merks of writs and papers, besides the destruction done to his house and family, all being robbed, pillaged, and plundered from him, and not so much as a shirt left him or his wife.’ He |1689.| thinks ‘such barbarous usage has scarce been heard [of]; whereby, and through his imprisonment, he is so out of credit, that himself was like to starve in prison, [and] his family at home in the same condition.’ Peter’s petition for his freedom was acceded to, on his granting security to the extent of fifty pounds for peaceable behaviour under the present government.
Another sufferer was a man of the like desert—namely, John Slezer, the military engineer, to whom we owe that curious work the Theatrum Scotiæ. The Convention was at first disposed to put him into his former employment as a commander of the artillery; but he hesitated about taking the proper oath, and in March a warrant was issued for securing him ‘untill he find caution not to return to the Castle [then held out for King James].’[[12]] He informed the Council (June 3) that for some weeks he had been a close prisoner in the Canongate Tolbooth by their order, till now, his private affairs urgently requiring his presence in England, he was obliged to crave his liberation, which, ‘conceiving that he knew himself to be of a disposition peaceable and regular,’ he thought they well might grant. They did liberate him, and at the same time furnished him with a pass to go southward.
One of the petitioning prisoners, Captain Henry Bruce, states that he had been in durance for nine months, merely because, when the rabble attacked Holyroodhouse, he obeyed the orders of his superior officer for defending it. That superior officer himself, Captain John Wallace, was in prison on the same account. He presented a petition to the Council—February 5, 1691—setting forth how he had been a captive for upwards of a year, though, in defending Holyrood from the rabble, he had acted in obedience to express orders from the Privy Council of the day, and might have been tried by court-martial and shot if he had not done as he did. He craved liberation on condition of self-banishment. The Council ordered their solicitor to prosecute him; and on a reclamation from him, this order was repeated. In the ensuing November, however, we find Wallace still languishing in prison, and his health decaying—although, as he sets forth in a petition, ‘by the 13th act of the Estates of this kingdom, the imprisoning persons without expressing the reasons, and delaying to put them to a trial, is utterly and directly contrary to the known statutes, laws, and freedoms of this kingdom.’ He was not |1689.| subjected to trial till August 6, 1692, when he had been nearly four years a prisoner. The laborious proceedings, extending over several days, and occupying many wearisome pages of the Justiciary Record, shew the anxiety of the Revolution government to be revenged on this gallant adversary; but the trial ended in a triumphant acquittal.
Several men and women were imprisoned in the Tolbooth for giving signals to the garrison holding out the Castle. One Alexander Ormiston petitioned for his liberation as innocent of the charge. He had merely wiped his eyes, which were sore from infancy, with his napkin, as he passed along the Grassmarket; and this had been interpreted into his giving a signal. After a confinement of twelve days, Alexander obtained his liberation, ‘free of house-dues.’
John Lothian petitioned, August 19, for liberation, having been incarcerated on the 8th of July. He declared himself unconscious of anything that ‘could have deserved his being denied the common liberty of a subject,’ A most malignant fever had now broken out in the Tolbooth, whereof one prisoner died last night, and on all hands there were others infected beyond hope of recovery. He, being reduced to great weakness by his long confinement, was apprehensive of falling a victim. John Rattray, on the ensuing day, sent a like petition, stating that he had lain six weeks ‘in close prison, in a most horrible and starving condition, for want of meat, drink, air, and bedding,’ A wife and large family of small children were equally destitute at home, and likely to starve, ‘he not having ane groat to maintain either himself or them.’ Lothian was liberated, but the wretched Rattray was only transferred to ‘open prison’—that is, a part of the jail where he was accessible to his family and to visitors.
Amongst the multitude of political prisoners was one James Johnstone, who had been put there two years before, without anything being laid to his charge. The new government had ordered his liberation in June, but without paying up the aliment due to him; consequently, he could not discharge his prison-dues; and for this the Goodman—so the head-officer of the jail was styled—had detained him. He was reduced to the most miserable condition, often did not break bread for four or five days, and really had no dependence but on the charity of the other scarcely less miserable people around him. The Council seem to have felt ashamed that a friend of their own should have been allowed to lie nine months in jail after the Revolution; so they ordered |1689.| his immediate dismissal, with payment of aliment for four hundred and two days in arrear.[[13]]
Christopher Cornwell, servitor to Thomas Dunbar, stated to the Privy Council, March 19, 1690, that he had been in the Edinburgh Tolbooth since June last with his master, ‘where he has lived upon credit given him by the maid who had the charge of the provisions within the prison, and she being unable as well as unwilling to furnish him any more that entertainment, mean as it was, his condition hardly can be expressed, nor could he avoid starving.’ He was liberated upon his parole.
David Buchanan, who had been clerk to Lord Dundee’s regiment, was seized in coming northward, with some meal believed to be the property of his master, and he was thrown in among the crowd of the Tolbooth. For weeks he petitioned in vain for release.