[22]. Memorials, I, 17 ff., and the Appendix, p. 381 ff.
[23]. So John Gordon, Viscount Melgum, the second son of the Marquis of Huntly, was indifferently called, though the title of Viscount Aboyne belonged to his elder brother, George, and was not conferred upon him until after John’s death. Sir Robert Gordon says that the Marquis of Huntly “ordained” for Melgum the lands of Aboyne, and others. Melgum was married to Sophia Hay, daughter of the Earl of Errol, as appears also in the ballad.
[24]. What manner of helping Frendraught could have given Spalding does not “condescend upon.” The way down stairs was barred by fire, the windows were barred with iron. [“But the stairs or monty being in fire, and the windows grated with strong bars of iron, there was no moyen to escape:” Blakhal’s Narration, Spalding Club, p. 125.] Ladders and crowbars occur to us, but a tower with walls ten feet thick was not expected to burn, the servants had not been drilled in managing fires, people smoked from their beds at two in the morning are not apt to have their wits about them, and the combustion was rapid.
[25]. All the documents will be found in the Appendix to Spalding. Dr John Hill Burton, in Narratives from Criminal Trials in Scotland, 1852, I, 202 ff, leans hard against Frendraught. “With pretty abundant materials, it is impossible, even at the present day, entirely to clear up the mystery, but we can see by what machinations inquiry was baffled.” “It will be seen that no evidence against him was received, that it was considered an offence to accuse him.” “Frendraught, though he had with a high hand averted even the pretence of inquiry on the part of the government, did not go unpunished, whether he was guilty or not.” Dr Burton speaks with more reserve in his History of Scotland, VI, 209; little more is insisted on than a wish of the Court to foster the Crichtons as a balance to the power of the house of Huntly. It is clear that Frendraught had all the consideration and help from the government which he could claim. Mr Charles Rampini, who has discussed the affair in The Scottish Review, X, 143 ff., 1887, concludes favorably to Frendraught’s innocence of the fire.
[26]. “Many years ago, when the well was cleared out, this tradition was corroborated by their finding the keys: at least, such was the report of the country.” (Finlay, I, xxi, citing a correspondent.) Of course we should have had to believe everything against Lady Frendraught, even that she had been so simple as to throw them in, if keys had been found in the well; but the land-steward of the proprietor of the estate informed the late Mr Norval Clyne that the draw-well was searched, and no keys were found.
[27]. This is, of course, the style of the kirk. The fifty-third psalm of the Vulgate would not have been out of place for Lord John, who was a Catholic; but no doubt Lord John is taken for a Presbyterian in the ballad, and the ‘three’ is for rhyme. Father Blakhal maintains that Frendraught burnt his tower, not to rid himself of Rothiemay, but out of theological malice to Melgum “for his zeal in defending and protecting the poor Catholics against the tyranny of our puritanical bishops and ministers.” “As he [Melgum] was dying for the defence of the poor Catholics, God did bestow upon him the grace to augment the number at the last hour of his life, persuading the Baron of Rothiemay to abjure the heresy of Calvin, and make the profession of the Catholic faith openly, to the hearing of the traitor and all who were with him in the court. They two being at a window, and whilst their legs were burning, they did sing together Te Deum; which ended, they did tell at the window that their legs being consumed even to their knees, etc.... And so this noble martyr finished this mortal life, at the age of four and twenty years.” A Brief Narration, etc., p. 124 f.
Blakhal, who is far from being a cautious writer, also tells us that “the traitor,” Frendraught, “with his men,in arms, walked all the night in the court,” to kill Gordon and Rothiemay, if they should escape from the fire. There is a passage of the same purport in one of Arthur Johnston’s two poems on the burning of Frendraught, “Querela Sophiæ Hayæ,” etc.:
Cur vigil insuetis noctem traduxit in armis,
Cætera cum somno turba sepulta foret?
The other piece ends with a ferocious demand for the use of torture to discover the guilty party. (Delitiæ Poetarum Scotorum, Amsterdam, 1637, pp. 585, 587; or, A. I. Poemata Omnia, Middelburg, 1642, pp. 329, 331.)