[284]. “After making considerable researches upon the subject, I am come to the conclusion that it was Towie House that was burnt. Cargarf never was in possession of a Forbes.” (Joseph Robertson, Kinloch MSS, VI, 28.) What is said of Corgarf in the View of the Diocese of Aberdeen, 1732, Robertson, Collections for a History of the Shires of Aberdeen and Banff, pp. 611, 616, is derived from Lumsden. Robert Gordon, writing about 1654, says, “Non procul a fontibus [Donæ] jacet Corgarf, exigui nominis.” A description of the parish of Strathdon, written about 1725, in Macfarlane’s Geographical Collections, MS., says of Curgarf, “This is an old castle belonging to the earls of Mar, but nothing remarkable about it:” pp. 26, 616, of the work last cited. The Statistical Accounts of Scotland give no light; the older tells the story of Corgarf, the later of both Corgarf and Towie, and the one is as uncritical as the other.
John Forbes of Towie (Tolleis) is one of a long list of that name in an order of the Lords of Council concerning an action of the Forbes clan against the Earl of Huntly in 1573; and in another paper, dated July, 1578, which has reference to the same action, the Forbeses complain that “sum of thair housiss, wyiffis and bairnis being thairin, were all uterlie wraikit and brount.” (Robertson, Illustrations, etc., IV, 762, 765.) Bearing in mind the latitude of phraseology customary in indictments, we are perhaps under no necessity of thinking that the atrocity of Towie was but one of several instances of houses burnt, wives (women) and bairns being therein. There may be those who will think it plausible that “Carrigill” in the Diurnal of Occurrents should be Corgarf, and that both were burnt.
[285]. The making Gordon burn a house of the Hamiltons, who were of the queen’s party, is a heedless perversion of history such as is to be found only in ‘historical’ ballads. The castle of Hamilton had been burnt in 1570, “and the toun and palice of Hamiltoun thairwith,” more than a year before the burning of Towie, but by Lennox and his English allies. (Diurnal of Occurrents, p. 177.)
“The old castle of Loudoun,” says the Rev. Norman Macleod, “was destroyed by fire about 350 years ago [that is, about 1500]. The current tradition regarding the burning of the old castle ascribes that event to the clan Kennedy at the period above mentioned, and the remains of an old tower at Achruglen, on the Galston side of the valley, is still pointed out as having been their residence.”
[286]. F. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18. G. 1, 2, 3, 4, 13, 14, 5, 6, 30, 20, 15, 16, 22, 24, 25, 26, 34, 35.
[287]. “At the queen last being at Stirling, the prince being brought unto her, she offered to kiss him, but he would not, but put her away, and did to his strength scratch her. She offered him an apple, but it would not be received of him, and to a greyhound bitch having whelps was thrown, who eat it, and she and her whelps died presently. A sugar-loaf also for the prince was brought at the same time; it is judged to be very ill compounded.” Calendar of State Papers, Foreign, May 20, 1567, p. 235: cited by Burton. Considering that the prince had only just passed his eleventh month, it would seem that the apple or the sugar-loaf might have served without any compounding.
[288]. Historie of King James the Sext, p. 165 ff; Tytler’s History, VIII, 35 ff; Burton, V, 163 ff.
[289]. Historie of King James the Sext, p. 246.
[290]. Spottiswood’s History, ed. 1666, p. 387. See also The Historie of King James the Sext, p. 246 ff.; Moysie’s Memoirs, p. 88 ff.; Birrel’s Diary, p. 26 f.
[291]. History of the Church of Scotland, published by the Wodrow Society, Edinburgh, 1844, V, 173; in Maidment’s Scotish Ballads and Songs, 1859, p. 8.