But the Danish king was already well acquainted with those proceedings; for the British envoy at Copenhagen wrote to King James on the 10th August 1612 (the king had written to him on the 9th August) that the King of Denmark was informed that "one Menigowe, a Fleming, having in company with him fifteen hundred men, is to meet with Andrew Ramsay in some part of the north of Scotland, about Caithness or Orkney, who has more than a thousand Scottish men with him; and so they mind to join their forces together, and to fall upon Norway and spoil some towns, and so go into Sweden." The King of Denmark, added the envoy, had been informed by persons from Scotland that Ramsay had levied men about Edinburgh and embarked them at Leith; and His Majesty argued that "such levies so near Edinburgh could not be done without permission of the State."
Indeed, the excuses of the Scottish Privy Council, to the effect that the levies had been made secretly, did not satisfy even King James, who wrote to his envoy that, to quote his own expression, he "misliked some dulness of theirs."
The action taken by the Scottish Privy Council immediately on receipt of the peremptory orders of the king was as follows:—
On the 4th August 1612 a proclamation was issued "discharging the transporting of soldiers to Sweden," and another "against the soldiers enlisted for Sweden;" while two acts were passed—the one "charging" or accusing "Captains Hay, Ker, and Sinclair" of having enlisted men for the wars of Sweden, and ordering them to desist from their enterprise, etc.; the other summoning Colonel Andrew Ramsay to appear before the Council to "hear and see His Majesty's will, pleasure, and direction" in respect of the men of war enlisted under his pay and command to be transported to Sweden. Next day the Lords of the Council ordered officers of arms "to pass, command, and charge the masters, owners, skippers, and mariners of ships and vessels freighted for transport of soldiers to Sweden, that they bring in their ships to the harbour of Leith, and there suffer them to lie," and not to set sail until they know the Council's will and pleasure towards them, under pain of being denounced as rebels and "put to the horn."[33]
On the 15th August an act was passed by the Council, ordering that "the companies of men lately enlisted under the charge and commandment of Colonel Ramsay and some other captains, for the wars of Sweden, be broken up, and that they shall in no wise be transported to Sweden;" and on the same day another act, ordaining that the companies under Colonel Ramsay, who had meanwhile professed his willingness to render obedience to the king by disbanding them, should be landed, one half at Leith, the other half at Brunt or Burnt Island, on the other side of the Forth.
The latest document regarding these matters, obtained from the General Register Office in Edinburgh, is dated the 18th September 1612. Colonel Andrew Ramsay had been summoned to appear before the Council on the latter date, to answer regarding the unlawful levying of troops; and having failed to do so, he was forthwith denounced as a rebel.
Those acts and proclamations[34] give a very interesting and, indeed, important insight into the methods Colonel Andrew Ramsay and his confederates had adopted in Scotland.
We first of all find that Sir Robert Ker had apprehended in the middle shires[35] of Scotland a number of malefactors, part of whom he sent, or rather intended to send, to Sweden. In the second place, the proclamations assert that the Scottish officers therein named "have violently pressed and taken a great many honest men's sons, and have carried them to their ships against their will, of purpose to transport them to Sweden." They are accused of going "about the country in a swaggering manner, awaiting the time and occasion how and where they may apprehend any persons travelling on their lawful adois,[36] and if they be masters of them they immediately lay hands on them and by force and violence convey them to the next shore, where they have their boats in readiness to take them on board of their ships.... So that there is such a fear and dread arising among the common people that none of them dare travel," unless they be "able to withstand and resist the violence and injury of the said persons." ... "And divers young fellows," continues the proclamation, "who were resolved to have come to these parts to have awaited upon the harvest and cutting down of the corn are," for those reasons, "afraid to come here." In the charge against Captains Hay, Ker, and Sinclair, it is alleged that the "honest men's bairns and servants" are detained on board the ships "as slaves and captives."
Any person disobeying the orders of the Council was threatened with the penalty of death. The levies were to be discontinued, the ships seized, their sails taken from the yards, and the men on board set at liberty; but not before the local authorities had visited the vessels, and taken out of them and delivered over to the bailies of Edinburgh "the persons who had been delivered to them by the Commissioners of the late Borders," as well as the persons whom Colonel Ramsay and his captains had received out of the tolbooths of Edinburgh and Dunbar.
The remainder of the companies were ordered to be landed, as already said, at Leith and Burntisland, but on condition that the men should not remain together or travel back in groups of more than two after their disembarkation, under penalty of death, to obviate the possibility of their committing acts of violence on passing through the country.