English and Scottish Ballads, Volume VI

by Unknown

From Motherwell's Minstrelsy, p. 161.

"A mortal feud having arisen between the Laird of Frendraught [Sir James Chrichton] and the Laird of Rothiemay [William Gordon], both gentlemen of Banffshire, a rencontre took place, at which the retainers of both were present, on the 1st of January, 1630; when Rothiemay was killed, and several persons hurt on both sides. To stanch this bloody quarrel, the Marquis of Huntly, who was chief to both parties, and who had therefore a right to act as arbiter between them, ordered Frendraught to pay fifty thousand merks to Rothiemay's widow. In the ensuing September, Frendraught fell into another quarrel, in the course of which James Lesly, son to Lesly of Pitcaple, was shot through the arm. Soon after the last inci

dent, Frendraught, having paid a visit to the Marquis of Huntly at the Bog of Gight, the Laird of Pitcaple came up with thirty armed men, to demand atonement for the wound of his son. Huntly acted in this case with great discretion. Without permitting the two lairds to come to a conference, he endeavored to persuade the complaining party that Frendraught was in reality innocent of his son's wound; and, as Pitcaple went away vowing vengeance, he sent Frendraught home under a strong escort, which was commanded by his son, the Viscount Aboyne, and by the young Laird of Rothiemay, son to him whom Frendraught had killed some months before. The party reached Frendraught Castle without being attacked by Pitcaple; when, Aboyne and Rothiemay offering to take leave of Frendraught and his lady, in order to return home, they were earnestly entreated by these individuals to remain a night, and postpone their return till to-morrow. Being with difficulty prevailed upon, the young Viscount and Rothiemay were well entertained, and after supper went cheerfully to bed. To continue the narrative in the words of Spalding—"The Viscount was laid in an bed in the Old Tower going off the hall, and standing upon a vault, wherein there was ane round hole, devised of old, just under Aboyne's bed. Robert Gordon, his servitor, and English Will, his page, were both laid in the same chamber. The Laird of Rothiemay, with some servants beside him, was laid in another chamber just above Aboyne's chamber; and in another room above that chamber, were laid George Chalmers of Noth, and George Gordon, another of the Viscount's servants; with them also was laid Captain Rolloch, then

in Frendraught's own company. All being thus at rest, about midnight that dolorous tower took fire in so sudden and furious a manner, yea, and in ane clap, that the noble Viscount, the Laird of Rothiemay, English Will, Colonel Wat, another of Aboyne's servants, and other two, being six in number, were cruelly burnt and tormented to the death, without help or relief; the Laird of Frendraught, his lady, and haill household looking on, without moving or stirring to deliver them from the fury of this fearful fire, as was reported. Robert Gordon, called Sutherland Gordon, being in the Viscount's chamber, escaped this fire with the life. George Chalmers and Captain Rolloch, being in the third room, escaped this fire also, and, as was said, Aboyne might have saved himself also if he would have gone out of doors, which he would not do, but suddenly ran up stairs to Rothiemay's chamber, and wakened him to rise; and as he is awakening him, the timber passage and lofting of the chamber hastily takes fire, so that none of them could win down stairs again; so they turned to a window looking to the close, where they piteously cried many times, "Help! help! for God's cause!" The Laird and Lady, with their servants, all seeing and hearing the woeful crying, made no help or manner of helping; which they perceiving, cried oftentimes mercy at God's hands for their sins; syne clasped in each other's arms, and cheerfully suffered their martyrdom. Thus died this noble Viscount, of singular expectation, Rothiemay, a brave youth, and the rest, by this doleful fire, never enough to be deplored, to the great grief and sorrow of their kin, parents, and hail common people, especially to the noble Marquis, who for his good will got this

reward. No man can express the dolour of him and his lady, nor yet the grief of the Viscount's own dear lady, when it came to her ears, which she kept to her dying day, disdaining after the company of men all her life-time, following the love of the turtle dove.

'It is reported that upon the morn after this woeful fire, the Lady Frendraught, daughter to the Earl of Sutherland, and near cousin to the Marquis, backed in a white plaid, and riding on a small nag, having a boy leading her horse, without any more in her company, in this pitiful manner she came weeping and mourning to the Bog, desiring entry to speak with my lord; but this was refused; so she returned back to her own house, the same gate she came, comfortless.'—Spalding's History of the Troubles in Scotland.

"Suspicion formed two theories regarding the cause of the fire of Frendraught. The first was, that the Laird had wilfully set fire to the tower, for the purpose of destroying the young Laird of Rothiemay. The other was, that it originated in the revengeful feelings of the Laird of Pitcaple. In the first theory there is extremely little probability. First, it could not have been premeditated; because the circumstance of Frendraught being accompanied home that day by Aboyne and Rothiemay, was entirely accidental. In the second place, there was no reason for Frendraught being inclined to murder Rothiemay, except that he grudged the payment of the fifty thousand merks to his mother; while there was every reason for his being inclined rather to befriend a youth whom he had already injured by occasioning the death of his father. In the third place, all Frendraught's family papers, with much gold and silver, both in

money and plate, were consumed in the fire. And, in the fourth place, it is extremely improbable that any man of his rank should commit so deliberate and so atrocious an act of villainy. On the other hand, it seems by no means improbable that Pitcaple should have caused fire to be set to his enemy's house; a mode of reprisal which had been practised in the same district of country, as we have already seen, by a gentleman of only the preceding age. Pitcaple's men, moreover, had been heard to declare an intention of attempting some such enterprise against Frendraught; as was proved on the trial of a gentleman of the name of Meldrum, who was apprehended, condemned, and executed, for his alleged accession to their conspiracy."—Chambers's Scottish Ballads, p. 85.

This ballad was first printed in the North Countrie Garland, p. 4, and afterwards with a few slight corrections in Motherwell's Minstrelsy, having in both cases been furnished by Mr. C. K. Sharpe. The tragic story was celebrated by one Arthur Johnston, a contemporary scholar, in two Latin poems, the one entitled, Querela Sophiæ Hay, dominæ de Melgeine, de morte mariti, and the other, De Johanne Gordonio, Vicecomite de Melgeine, el Johanne Gordonio de Rothemay, in arce Frendriaca combustis (Finlay, i. 67). In Herd's Collection (i. 199) is a modern piece on the subject called Frennet Hall, in the detestable style of the last century. This very feeble production is also to be found in Ritson's Scottish Songs (ii. 31), Johnson's Museum, and elsewhere. But Ritson gives these few stanzas of an excellent old ballad, as remembered by the Rev. Mr. Boyd, the translator of Dante: