And hurl her in the sea.’
[13]. The day before the execution Lady Wariston desired to see her infant son. The minister feared lest the sight of him should make her wae to leave him, but she assured that the contrair should be seen, took the child in her arms, kissed him, blessed him, and recommended him to the Lord’s care, and sent him away again without taking of any sorrow. Memorial, p. IX.
[14]. Fraser, The Book of Carlaverock, I, 300. “John, ninth Lord Maxwell, was born about the year 1586.” He was married in 1601, and imprisoned for his papistical propensity in the same year. Either the date is too late, or Maxwell was one of those avenging children who mature so very fast: see ‘Jellon Grame,’ II, 303, 513.
[15]. Some sort of “agreement” had been made in 1605, as we see by the “Summons” referred to further on, and Lord Maxwell mentions this agreement in a conversation with Sir Robert Maxwell. Pitcairn’s Trials, III, 36, 44.
[16]. In the indictment (“Summons, etc., against John, Lord Maxwell”), it is said that Johnstone was shot through the shoulder with two poisoned bullets. If there was evidence as to this aggravating circumstance, it has not been made accessible. In his “Offers of Submission,” etc., by which Lord Maxwell hoped to avoid the extreme penalty of the law, he makes oath on his salvation and damnation that the unhappy slaughter was nowise committed upon forethought felony or set purpose; and on the scaffold, while declaring that he had justly deserved his death and asking forgiveness of the Johnstone family, he protested that his act had been without dishonor or infamy; meaning, of course, perfidy.
[17]. Spotiswood’s History, ed. 1655, pp. 338 f., 400 f., 504 f.; Historie of King James the Sext, pp. 209 f., 297–99; Moysie’s Memoirs, p. 109 f.; Pitcairn’s Criminal Trials, III, 31–40, 43–47, 51–53; Fraser, The Book of Carlaverock, 1873, pp. 300 f., 314, 321; Taylor, The Great Historic Families of Scotland, 1887, II, 10, 14–25.
[18]. In a petition presented to the Privy Council by Robert Maxwell in behalf of his brother, the ‘sometime’ Lord Maxwell, by his attorney, craves “forgiveness of his offence done to the Marquís of Hamilton [his wife’s brother] and his friends.” Pitcairn, III, 52. Whether this was penitence or policy, it shows that great offence had been taken. Some verses inserted by Scott in his edition of the ballad, in which his lady urges Maxwell to go with her to her brother’s stately tower, where “Hamiltons and Douglas baith shall rise to succour thee,” are quite misplaced.
[19]. Frendraught is in the parish of Forgue, Aberdeenshire, Rothiemay in Banffshire; they lie on opposite sides of the Deveron.
[20]. A Genealogical History of the Earldom of Sutherland, 1813, pp. 412, 416 ff. Sir Robert Gordon’s book stops before the (inconclusive) legal and judicial proceedings were finished. He seems to share the suspicion of the “most part,” that the Leslies and Meldrum set the fire.
[21]. See Spalding, Memorialls of the Trubles in Scotland and in England, 1624–1645, Spalding Club, I, 45–51, 420–23, 430–35, and the continuator of Sir Robert Gordon, p. 474 f. Frendraught is generally represented to have been utterly ruined in his estate, but that is probably an exaggeration. His sufferings are thus depicted in the Charges against the Marquis of Huntly and others anent the disorders in the North (Spalding, I, 420): “Forasmuch as the Lords of Secret Council are informed that great numbers of sorners and broken men of the clan Gregor, clan Lachlan (etc.), as also divers of the name of Gordon ... have this long time, and now lately very grievously, infested his Majesty’s loyal subjects in the north parts, especially the laird of Frendraught and his tenants, by frequent slaughters, herships, and barbarous cruelties committed upon them, and by a late treasonable fireraising within the said laird of Frendraught his bounds, whereby not only is all the gentleman’s lands laid waste, his whole goods and bestial spoiled, slain and maigled, some of his servants killed and cruelly demeaned, but also the whole tenants of his lands and domestics of his house have left his service, and himself, with the hazard of his life, has been forced to steal away under night and have his refuge to his Majesty’s Council, etc.” It was reported that Frendraught obtained a decree against the marquis for 200,000 merks (Scots) for scathe, and another for 100,000 pounds (or merks) for spoliation of tithes, but that he recovered the money does not appear. (Spalding, I, 71, 115.) In 1636, through the exertions of Sir Robert Gordon, Huntly and Frendraught were brought to submit all differences on either side, “and particularly a great action of law prosecuted by Frendraught against the marquis,” to the arbitrament of friends. Huntly died before a decision was reached, but “the Laird of Frendraught retired himself home to his own lands, and there lived peaceably.” (Genealogical History of Sutherland, p. 479.)