But by his assumption of a more than kingly prerogative of arbitrary and general Taxation, to the extent of 20,000 marks in 1594, and £40,000 in 1595–6, and by the addition of a third to every Standard of weight and measure, and consequently to every Teind and Duty, he touched the interests, and roused the active opposition of a class less patient and more powerful than the Odaller, whom he had learned to coerce or crush at pleasure—the larger Feuars of the Kirk lands, the old opponents of his father. Confident in their Island strongholds and in their Crown Charters, titulars of their own Teinds, with independent jurisdictions and other rights as well defined as his own, and less precarious, they opposed his usurpations, defied his power, retorted his injuries, and even protected his victims. One after another he had long waged against them a desultory war of law and violence. For the siege and capture of Noltland Castle, and imprisonment of the Laird of Monquhannie (1592), the Court of Session had punished him with escheit and heavy damages; and in defiance of his edicts against suing in any Court beyond the bounds of Orkney and Zetland, Mudy of Breckness, Bellenden of Evie, the Goodman of Eday, and even his own brothers, had carried to the Supreme Court similar complaints with similar results; and the Earl could only vent his rage upon the servants who had convoyed their masters beyond reach of his jurisdiction.
He had, however, influence to obtain another renewal of his grant (1st March 1601), with powers and rights even more extensive, and in spite of unanswerable evidence, Court favour had quashed at least one alarming Bill of Indictment against him (1606). But even the unjust Judges of Scotland were at last wearied by the continual coming of Complainers of every kind, nation and degree, and at this crisis of his fate, he provoked another powerful enemy to join in the combined attack which ended in his ruin.
Earl Patrick had enjoyed the temporalities of the Bishopric for many years undisturbed, but the appointment of James Law to the long vacant See (28th February 1605–6), alarmed him for his possession, and he hastened to secure it by new contracts with the Bishop, sanctioned by the King as a temporary arrangement till he should redeem the Bishopric by a rental of £3000 in England (17th November 1606). The Earl had never shown much regard to an obligation, and now overwhelmed with debts, and pressed by Creditors, he was unable, if willing, to fulfil his contract. By unpunctuality, evasion, and insolent refusals, he drove the Bishop to throw his great talents and commanding influence into the common cause of his many enemies, and Law’s rank and character necessarily placed him at their head. Even the Anglo-Scottish Court of James VI. could not resist the Bishop’s just claims, well supported charges, and representations of treason, misrule and inhuman oppression, and on 27th December 1608, Earl Patrick was summoned to Edinburgh, to compear on 2nd March “to answer to the Complaintis of the puir distressed people of Orknay.” It is possible that Bishop Law was sincere in his sympathy for the Earl’s victims; but his Rental of 1614 is as grasping as the worst of its predecessors, and his own day of unlimited power was marked by no redress or relaxation of the bonds of iniquity.
Earl Patrick’s subsequent fate, his long imprisonment, his base repudiation of the son who had risked and lost life and all to serve and save him, and his trials and execution for treason as a subject, not for tyranny as a ruler, have been too amply illustrated elsewhere to need notice here. The consequent forfeiture of the Earldom and annexation of all the lands and rights in the Islands—the excambion and redistribution of Orkney and Zetland into Earldom, Bishopric and Lordship, and the final abrogation of the native laws—might give interest to this Sketch, but would extend beyond its limits of time or subject. The demands of Denmark, and evasions of Scotland, relative to the redemption and restitution of the Islands, would also be a curious and cognate inquiry, which, with many others of this unexhausted theme, must be left for a future time and another hand. Each subsequent century has had its characteristic type of oppressors, wrongs and victims, feudal, fiscal or judicial. By no course of action, resistance or submission, could the Islanders escape from legalized extortion. They gave Montrose 2000 men and £40,000, and the Commonwealth exacted 300 Horse and £60,000 (1650). Again, they raised another Regiment and Contribution for Charles II. (1651); and he rewarded their loyalty and their sufferings by a further exaction of £182,000, in 1662, and then surrendered the Islands to the tender mercies of the Earl of Morton, the worst King Stork of all the Donataries.
Could Britain prove the abandonment of one exaction, the redress of one oppression, the restitution of one item of official plunder, she might treat the complaints of Orkney and Zetland as bygone and antiquated grievances. But she still enforces every exaction of Tulloch or the Stewarts by a Standard even higher and heavier than theirs—still imposes the double burden of British Cess and Norwegian Skatt with aggravations unknown in Norway—still extorts the last farthing of her claims, just or unjust, and pays her debts by a bankrupt’s composition, compelling a discharge in full—and still appropriates the usurped Church property of Orkney to secular and English uses, transferring its burdens to the other Heritors, and claiming for its last relics the inapplicable immunities of English Crown prerogative, first applied by the democratic Government of Cromwell. The Islands are still robbed of their native Laws, Things, and Jurisdictions, and subjected to foreign codes and courts—while Zetland has of late been mocked with a fractional voice in the British Parliament at the expense of the already nominal representation of Orkney. While Britain parades her maternal care and lavish liberality even to her distant dependencies, Orkney has been neglected by every public officer except the Tax-gatherer. Unaided by one penny of that public money which has enriched other Counties more fortunate or more favoured, Orkney has been left to struggle alone against its many difficulties, fiscal and physical. Twice has its right to the income of its own State Property been officially recognized; once by a Lease from George III., in trust for its public improvements (27th July 1775), and again by a Treasury Warrant for the same purpose, from George IV. (3rd March 1825)—but the first was diverted to the sole use of the Lessee; and the second was evaded by a shuffle of Government Offices, and repudiated on the lawyerly quibble that the British Commissioners of Woods and Forests are not bound by the obligations of the Scottish Exchequer. Instead of due protection in return for the taxation and duty of subjects, a County which contributed 5000 seamen to the British Navy, was denied one Gunboat to guard its own shores and harbours from the repeated insolence of privateers.
Conscious that Orkney was but a pawn which might some day be redeemed by the rightful owner, Scotland, like a temporary tenant, scourged the precarious holding with unfair cropping and stinted outlay; and Britain, her assignee, discovering its capacity to produce and to endure, has followed the same profitable precedent of chronic hard usage. Unthrifty greed has loaded the Land with unjust burdens and undue taxation, has impoverished the Owners with unexpected claims and vexatious lawsuits, has often forced back the cultivated acres into wilderness and driven the cultivator to strive in freer lands for leave to live. But no misrule has yet exhausted the fertility of the soil, or crushed the energy, or worn out the patience of a people still struggling against an evil destiny, but still amenable as ever even to the semblance of lawful authority. Even though Scotland may have reduced Orkney to “the skeleton of a departed country,” Britain has still found profit in gnawing the bones.
ARTICLES AND INFORMATIONS
BY THE
INHABITANTS OF ORKNEY AND ZETLAND
OF THE OPPRESSIONS COMMITTED BY
LORD ROBERT STUART.
DECEMBER M.D.LXXV.
THE COMPLAINTS of the Inhabitants of Orkney and Zetland, in the Year 1575.
Follows certain Articles and Informations of the wrangus usurpation of the King’s Majesty’s authority, and oppression committed by Lord Robert Stuart, fewar of Orkney and Zetland, as after follows—the whilk we take in hand to prove, whilk haill points and articles concernis the King’s Majestie in speciale.
In the first, the said Lord Robert, considering the manifest tyranny, wrangis and oppression done by him, his deputes and servitors, of his causing, upon the poor Inhabitants of Orkney and Zetland, and fearing sometimes God’s judgements and just punishments to be poured upon him by means of some righteous Regent of this realm, when it pleased God to send quietness within the same. For subterfuge, and to avoid punishment for his offence therefore, the said Lord Robert treasonably directed his Maister Household, Gawin Elphingstone, and Henry Sinclair his Chalmerchyld to the King of Denmark, with express commission under his Great Seal and hand writt, to render to the King the supremacy and dominion of the countreis of Orkney and Zetland, as free as they were of auld annexed to the Crown of Denmark, and that upon sic condition as in the said Commission was contained, whilk was done in the year of God 1572. According to the whilk the said Gawin passed to the King of Denmark, and by virtue of his commission foresaid, obtained to the said Lord Robert the said King’s confirmation and gift of the saids countreis, and send the same to him thereafter with Hans Corsmay, Bremer, enclosed in a bolt of Holland clayth, and als send ane Lawrence Carnes to be Lawman, according to the said King’s direction.