1608, Nov 8
‘There was an earthquake at nine hours at night,
sensible enough at St Andrews, Cupar, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee, but more
sensible at Dumbarton; for there the people were so affrayed, that they
ran to the kirk, together with their minister, to cry to God, for they
looked presently for destruction. It was thought the extraordinar drouth
in the summer and winter before was the cause of it.’—Cal.
At Perth, this earthquake shook the
east end of the Tolbooth, insomuch that ‘many stones fell aff it.’—Chron.
Perth.
At Aberdeen, where the shock excited
great alarm, the kirk-session met, and accepting the earthquake as ‘a
document that God is angry against the land, and against this city in
particular, for the manifold sins of the people,’ appointed a solemn fast
to be held on the ensuing day, and ‘the covenant to be renewed by the
haill people with God, by halding up of their hands publicly before God in
his sanctuary, and promising by his grace to forbear in time coming from
their sins.’ There was one particular sin which was thought to have had a
great concern in bringing about the earthquake—namely, the salmon-fishing
practised on the Dee on Sunday. Accordingly, the proprietors of the
salmon-fishings were called before the session, and rebuked. ‘Some,’ says
the session record, ‘promist absolutely to forbear, both by himselfs and
their servands in time coming; other promised to forbear, upon the
condition subscryvant; and some plainly refusit anyway to forbear.’
[The fishing of salmon in the river Dee on
Sunday was a custom of some antiquity, as it had been expressly warranted
by a bull of Pope Nicolas V. in 1451. The privilege was limited to the
Sundays of those five months of the year in which salmon most abound; and
the first salmon taken each Sunday was to belong to the parish church. The
bull recites that both by the canon and the common law, the right of
prosecuting the herring-fishing on Sunday was conceded to all the
faithful.—Reg. Epis. Aber. (Spalding Club).]
Dec 1
‘The Earl of Mar declared to the [Privy] Council that some women were
ta’en in Broughton, as witches, and being put to ane assize, and convict,
albeit they persevered constant in their denial to the end, yet they were
burnt quick [alive], after sic ane cruel manner, that some of them deit in
despair, renuncaud and blasphemand, and others, half burnt, brak out of
the fire, and was cast in quick in it again, while [till] they were burnt
to the deid.’’
1609, Jan 5
'...... the wind did blow so boisterously, that the like was not heard in
the memory of man. Houses in burgh and land were thrown down with the
violence of it; trees rooted up, corn-stacks and hay-stacks blown away.
Some men passing over bridges were driven over violently and killed. The
wind continued vehement many days and weeks, even till mid-March, howbeit
not in the same measure that it blowed this day.’—Cal.
The book entitled Regiam
Majestatem, containing the ancient laws of Scotland, seems to have
been printed by a contribution from the burghs. In April this year, we
find the magistrates of Glasgow charged to make payment of £100 on this
account. In September, the learned author, Sir John Skene, had some
difficulty with his printer, Thomas Finlayson, of importance enough to
come under the attention of the Privy Council. It was alleged that Thomas,
after perfyting the Scottish volume, ‘upon some frivole consait and
apprehension of his own, without ony warrant of law or pretence of
reason,’ maliciously refused to deliver the volume to Sir John, ‘but
shifts and delays him fra time to time with foolish and impertinent
excuses, to Sir John’s heavy hurt and prejudice.’ The Lords of Council
ordered Thomas to deliver the book to its author within eight days, on
pain of being denounced rebel; and ‘whereas there is some little
difference and question betwixt the said parties anent their comptis,’
a committee was appointed ‘to sort the same, and put them to ane
rest.’—P. C. R.
May
The severities called for by the General Assembly against the papist
nobles and others, had been, to appearance, backed up by the royal power.
The Marquis of Huntly was actually in prison at Stirling as an
excommunicated rebel. The king probably felt this a high price for the
soothing of Presbyterian scruples regarding episcopacy; but it had so far
been paid. He contemplated having the observance of Christmas brought in
at the end of the year; and it was therefore advisable to shew a little
further earnestness in the right direction.
By the activity of Spottiswoode, archbishop of Glasgow,
John Hamilton, a zealous trafficking priest, was apprehended—an act the
more important that this culprit was uncle to the king’s advocate. Another
priest, named Paterson, was taken with all his vestments, while
celebrating mass in a house in the Canongate in Edinburgh before an
audience of thirty persons. These must, of course, have been gratifying
proofs of the royal zeal, albeit Calderwood cannot repress a bitter remark
as to the ‘tolerable entertainment’ allowed to the prisoners (the
allowance made in another case for an incarcerated priest, and probably in
these also, was a merk—1s. 1 1/3d sterling—per diem), while
ministers incarcerated for opposition to the king’s episcopal innovations
‘were left to their shifts.’
About the same time, the archbishop went with a party
to the town of New Abbey, in the stewartry of Kirkcudbright, and there
broke into the house of Mr Gilbert Brown, former abbot of New Abbey, ‘and
having found a great number of popish books, copes, chalices, pictures,
images, and such other popish trash, he most worthily and dutifully as
became both a prelate and a councillor, on a mercat-day, at a great
confluence of people in the hie street of the burgh of Dumfries, did burn
all those copes, vestments, and chalices,’ delivering up the books to
Maxwell of Kirkconnel, to be afterwards dealt with. The Privy Council
(June 13, 1609) allowed this to be good service on the part of the
archbishop, and granted him a gift of the books left unburnt.—P. C. R.
In the parliament held a few days after the last date,
several acts were passed against popery—one ordaining that pedagogues sent
abroad with the sons of noblemen and others, should be duly licensed by a
bishop; another that the young persons so sent abroad should remain, at
places where ‘the religion’ is professed, and ‘where there is no cruel
inquisition;’ a third for confiscating the property of papists to the
king’s use; a fourth was meant to deprive Catholics of all benefit from
the legal system of the country. The more severe class of Presbyterians
looked on, with no inclination to object to these measures, but only with
a disbelief in the sincerity of the government which had brought them
forward. They had begun to see that it was ‘to grace the bishops, and
procure them greater credit and authority in the country,’ that popery was
thus dealt with.—Cal.
July
We have sen that, so lately as September 1606, the Borders were reduced to
obedience by a moral medicine of considerable sharpness, administered by
the Earl of Dunbar; that is to say, one hundred and forty thieves had been
hanged. We now find that the effect was only temporary, for it had become
necessary for the earl to go once more to Dumfries to hold a
justice-court. On this occasion, he was equally severe with such offenders
as were in custody, causing many to be hanged.—Cal. The Chancellor
Dunfermline wrote to the king that Lord Dunbar ‘has had special care to
repress, baith in the in-country and on the Borders, the insolence of all
the proud bangsters, oppressors, and nembroths [Nimrods], but [without]
regard or respect to ony of them; has purgit the Borders of all the
chiefest malefactors, robbers, and brigands as were wont to reign and
triumph there, as clean, and by as great wisdom and policy, as Hercules
sometime is written to have purged Augeas, the king of Elide, his escuries;
and by the cutting aff. . . . the Laird
of Tynwald, Maxwell, sundry Douglases, Johnstons, Jardines, Armstrangs,
Beatisons, and sic others, magni nominis luces, in that broken
parts, has rendered all those ways and passages betwixt your majesty’s
kingdoms of Scotland and England, as free and peaceable, as Phœbus in auld
times made free and open the ways to his awn oracle in Delphos, and to his
Pythic plays and ceremonies, by the destruction of Phorbas and his
Phlegians, all thieves, voleurs, bandsters, and throat-cutters. These
parts are now, I can assure your majesty, as lawful, as peaceable, and as
quiet, as any part in any civil kingdom of Christianity."
This was too happy a consummation to be quite realised.
We find, not long after, a representation going up to the king from the
well-disposed people of the Borders, shewing that matters were become as
bad as ever. It is a curious document, full of Latin quotations. The
thieves, it says, are like the beasts of the field, according to the words
of Cicero in his oration for Cluentius; quœ, fame dominante, ad eum
locum ubi aliquando pastœ sunt,
revertuntur. Lord Dunbar being now gone with his justice-courts, they
are returned to their old evil courses, and there is nothing which they
will not attempt. ‘Wild incests, adulteries, convocations of lieges,
shooting and wearing of hagbuts, pistolets, and lances, daily bloodsheds,
oppression, and disobedience in civil matters, neither are nor has been
punished . . . .. there is no more
account made of going to the horn, than to the ale-house.’ Lord Scone and
his guard are of no use, for they favour their friends. ‘If diligent
search were made. . .. there would be
found ane grit number of idle people, without any calling, industry, or
lawful means to live by, except it be upon the blood of the poorest and
most obedient sort.’
The final attempt to plant the Lewis took place this
year, under the care of only two adventurers, Sir George Hay (subsequently
chancellor of Scotland) and Sir James Spens of Wormiston. The Lord of
Kintail had in the interval made an unsuccessful attempt to obtain a grant
of the island.
The two undertakers went to the island with a force
which they considered sufficient to meet the opposition of the
pertinacious Niel Macleod. ‘The Lord of Kintail did privately and
underhand assist Niel Macleod, and sent his brother, Rorie Mackenzie,
openly with some men to aid the undertakers by virtue of the king’s
commission. He promised great friendship to the adventurers, and sent unto
them a supply of victuals in a ship from Ross. In the meantime he sendeth
quietly to Niel Macleod, desiring him to take the ship by the way, that
the adventurers, trusting to these victuals, and being disappointed, might
thereby be constrained to abandon the island, which fell out accordingly;
for Sir George Hay and Sir James Spens failing to apprehend Niel, and
lacking victuals for their army, they wearied of the bargain, and
dismissed all the neighbouring forces. Sir George Hay and Wormiston
retired into Fife, leaving some of their men in the island to keep the
fort, until they should send unto them supply of men and victuals.
Whereupon Niel Macleod, assisted by his nephew . . . .
and some other of the Lewis men, invaded the undertakers’ camp,
burnt the fort, apprehended the men which were left behind them in the
island, and sent them home safely into Fife, since which time they never
returned again into the island.’—G. H. S.
The Lord of Kintail afterwards obtained possession of
the isle of Lewis, and Niel, thoroughly circumvented by the Clan Kenzie,
was driven for refuge with a small company to a fortified rock called
Berissay. ‘The Clan Kenzie then gathered together the wives and children
of those that were in Berissay, and such as, by way of affinity or
consanguinity, within the island, did appertein to Niel and his followers,
and placed them all upon a rock within the sea, where they might be heard
and seen from Berissay. They vowed and protested that they would suffer
the sea to overwhelm them the next flood, if Niel did not presently
surrender the fort; which pitiful spectacle did so move Niel Macleod and
his company to compassion, that immediately they yielded the rock and left
the Lewis; whereupon the women and children were rescued and rendered.’—G.
H. S.
This unfortunate insular chief, falling into the hands
of his enemies, was taken to Edinburgh, and there executed in April 1613.
1609, Aug
There was a Presbyterian prejudice against burying in churches, and the
blame of kirk-burial had not only been a subject for the pamphleteer,
but the legislature. Nevertheless, John Schaw of Sornbeg in Ayrshire, on
the death of his wife, resolved to inhume her corpse in his parish kirk of
Galston, in spite of all the minister and session could say or do to the
contrary. Accompanied by his brother and his ‘bailie,’ and attended by a
numerous party, ‘all bodin in feir of weir,’ he came to the church, broke
up the door with fore-hammers, and dug a grave, in which he deposited his
spouse. He was afterwards glad to make public repentance for this fact,
and pay twenty pounds to the box-master of the kirk, besides which the
Privy Council ordained him to appear again as a penitent, and solemnly
promise never again to attempt to bury any corpse within the church.’—P.
C. R.
Notwithstanding Lord Ochiltree’s protestations of
innocence regarding the assassination of Lord Torthorald, the relatives of
the latter continued to bear a deadly grudge at him, and seemed likely to
wreak it out in some wild manner. This came to the knowledge of the king,
who felt himself called upon to interfere. The Privy Council, in obedience
to the royal letters, had the parties summoned
before them. William Lord Douglas and James Lord Torthorald appeared
before them that day, and undertook, before the 20th of September, that
‘they sall owther pursue the said Lord Ochiltree criminally before his
majesty’s justice in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, for airt, part, rede, and
counsel, of the slaughter of umwhile Lord Torthorald, or then that they
sould reconceil themselves with the said Lord Ochiltree, and be agreit
with him.’—P. C. R.
Under favour of the king, a number of strangers had
been introduced into the country to practise the making of cloths of
various kinds. A colony of them was settled in the Canongate, Edinburgh,
headed by one John Sutherland and a Fleming named Joan Van Headen, and
‘are daily exercised in their art of making, dressing, and litting of
stuffis, and gives great licht and knowledge of their calling to the
country people.’ These industrious and inoffensive men, notwithstanding
the letters of the king, investing them with various privileges, were now
much molested by the magistrates of the Canongate, with a view to forcing
them to become burgesses and freemen there in the regular way. On an
appeal to the Privy Council, their exemption was affirmed.
Nov 7
From London, where the pest had long been, a ship had lately come to
Leith, and was now lying at the west side of the bulwark there, prepared
to discharge her cargo. The case looked the more alarming, as several of
the mariners had died of plague during the voyage. The Lords of Council
immediately issued orders that the vessel should be taken to Inchkeith,
where her cargo should be taken out and handled, cleansed, and dressed,
the inhabitants affording all facilities for that purpose, ‘with such
houses and other necessaries as are in the said inch.’—P. C. R.
The time was approaching when, in accordance with a
recent act, the Egyptians were to depart from Scotland, under pain of
being liable thereafter to be killed by any one without challenge of law.
In anticipation of this dread time, one of the nation, named Moses Paw,
appeared before the authorities of the kingdom, and pleaded for permission
to remain under protection of the laws, on the ground that he had wholly
withdrawn himself and his family from that infamous society, and was
willing to give surety for his future good behaviour. The desired
permission was extended to him on that condition.—P. C. R.
Dec 25
Having of late shewn some zeal against popery, King James thought he might
now effect one little change essential to episcopacy, without more than
enough of outcry from the earnest Presbyterians. By his order, sent by
Chancellor Seton, it was arranged that Christmas-day should henceforth be
solemnly held in Scotland. The Court of Session accordingly rose for that
day, and till the 8th of January ensuing. ‘This,’ says Calderwood, ‘was
the first Christmass vacance of the session keepit since the Reformation.
The ministers threatened that the men who devised that novelty for their
own advancement, might receive at God’s hand their reward to their
overthrow, for troubling the people of God with beggarly ceremonies long
since abolished with popery. Christmass was not so weel keepit by feasting
and abstinence from work in Edinburgh these thretty years before, an
evil example to the rest of the country.’
1610, Jan
‘About the end of Januar, the Scotch Secretar, Sir Alexander Hay, came
from court with sundry directions, and among the rest, for the habit of
the senators of the College of Justice [which the Chancellor had told the
king was now, since the departure of the court to England, ‘the special
spunk of light and fondament of your majesty’s estate, and only ornament
of this land’],’ advocates, clerks, and scribes; which was
proclaimed in the beginning of ,Februar—viz., that the senators should
wear a purple robe or gown in judgment and in the streets, when they were
to meet or were dissolved; that advocates, clerks, and scribes should wear
black gowns in the judgment-hall and in the streets . .
. . the provost and bailies of burghs and their councilors should
wear black when they sat in council and judgment; that ministers should
wear black clothes, and in the pulpit black gowns; that bishops and
doctors of divinity should wear black cassikins syde to [long enough to
reach] their knee, black gowns above, and a black crape about their neck.
On the 15th of Februar, the Lords of the Session and the bishops put on
their gowns and came down from the chancellor’s lodging, with their robes,
to the Tolbooth [the court-house—a section of St Giles’s Church]. All the
robes, except the chancellor’s, were of London cloth, purple coloured,
with the fashion of an heckled cloak from the shoulders to the middle,
with a long syde hood on the back, the gown and hood lined with red sattin.
The people flocked together to behold them. The bishops were ordeened to
have their gowns with lumbard sleeves, according to the form of England,
with tippets and crapes about their craigs [necks]; which was performed.’—Cal.
On the 20th of June, the lord provost of Edinburgh
exhibited in his council ‘twa gowns, the ane red, the other black claith
limit in the breists with sable furring, sent to his lordship by the
king’s majesty for to be worn by him, and to be patterns of the gowns to
be worn by the provost and baffles, and sic of the council and town as are
appointed thereto by his majesty.’
Feb 27
Alexander Kirkpatrick, younger of Closeburn, being in the Tolbooth of
Edinburgh for the slaughter of James Carmichael, son to John Carmichael of
Spothe, the Lady Amisfield, wife of a neighbour, came to the prison, and
entered into conference with the keeper in his private apartments. At her
persuasion, the man allowed ‘Young Closeburn’ to come to speak with her;
and she then executed her design of exchanging clothes with him, and so
allowing him to escape. The lady was warded in the Castle; but what
ultimately became of her does not appear.—Pit.
June
A General Assembly was held at Glasgow, so constituted and managed by
royal authority that the king at length accomplished one grand portion of
his ecclesiastical scheme for Scotland, in being acknowledged as the head
of the kirk. Three English divines, chaplains to the king, Dr Christopher
Hampton, Dr Phineas Hodson, and Dr George Meriton, were present to use
their influence in reconciling the country to ‘a more comely and peaceable
government in our kirk than was presently.’ But for the absence of the six
banished ministers, and the confinement of zealous, fiery, fearless Andrew
Melville in the Tower, it might not have been possible to carry this
measure. The Presbyterian historians also insinuate that bribes were used
with the members, whence they take leave to call it the Golden
Assembly.
‘Immediately after this, the Bishops of Glasgow and
Brechin took journey to court, to report what was done, and got great
thanks frae the king. Galloway followed, who all three abode there till
the month of November, at what time . . . . by a
special commission from the king to the Bishop of London to that effect,
the Archbishop of Glasgow and the other two were solemnly ordained,
inaugurat, and consecrated, with anointing of oil and other ceremonies,
according to the English fashion.’ [The ceremony, which took place in the
chapel at London House, was celebrated by a banquet, at which ‘gifts were
bestowed, and gloves were distributed, in token of the solemnisation of
the marriage between the bishops and their kirks.’—Cal.] The
three new prelates, ‘thereafter [January 23, 1611] returning to Scotland,
did to the Archbishop of St Andrews, in St Andrews, as they were done
withal at Lambeth, as near as they could possibly imitate; and thereafter
the two archbishops consecrated the rest, and the new entrant bishops as
they were nominat by the king . . . . first
quietly, as being ashamed of the foolish guises in it, but afterward more
and more solemnly, as their estate grew.’—Row. ‘All of them [the
whole thirteen] deserted their flocks, and usurped thereafter jurisdiction
over the ministers and people of their dioceses.’—Cal.
At the same time the king established in Scotland a
court of High Commission, by which the new hierarchy acquired great power
over the people.
‘The king was so earnest upon the creating of bishops,
that he cared not what it cost him... .. In
buying in their benefices out 1610 of the hands of the noblemen that had
them, in buying votes at Assemblies, in defraying of all their other
charges, and promoving of all their adoes and business, as coming to, and
going from, and living at court prelate-like; that is, sumptuously and
gorgeously in apparel, house, diet, attendants, etc., [he] did employ (by
the confession of such as were best acquainted with, and were actors in,
these businesses) above the sum of £300,000 sterling money, one huge thing
indeed; but sin lying heavy on the throne, crying aloud for wrath on him
and his posterity, is infinitely sadder nor £300,000 sterling ! ‘—Row.
The Marquis of Huntly, and other papists of rank, had
meanwhile been suffering considerably in order to dispose the Presbyterian
opposition to yield to the king’s wishes. But now there was no longer any
immediate occasion for severity. The marquis, professing to be once more
thoroughly Protestant, was relieved from excommunication, and allowed to
return to his palace in the north. With Errol there was greater
difficulty. The king, through the Earl of Dunbar, had promised that he
should lose his lands. He had, what Huntly happily wanted, a painfully
tender conscience. One day, he was brought to promise that he would
subscribe; but that very night he fell into such a trouble of mind as to
have been on the point of killing himself. ‘Early next morning, the
Archbishop of Glasgow being called, he confessed his dissimulation with
many tears, and; beseeching them that were present to bear witness of his
remorse, was hardly brought to any settling all that day.’ By some
treacherous excuse, lenity was extended to Errol also. Such was the way in
which the king performed his engagements on this solemn subject. ‘The turn
being done,’ says Calderwood, ‘promises were not keepit.’
July 3
An act was passed by the Privy Council in favour of Anthony Aurego,
Anthony Soubouga, and Fabiano Fantone, allowing them to live in the
country, and practise their ‘trade and industry of making hecks and other
machines for taking of rottons and mice.’—P. C. R.
July 27
Piracy was at this time a flourishing trade, and the Scottish and Irish
seas were a favourite walk of its practitioners. Vessels of various
countries besides Scotland, were pursued by these marauders and
mercilessly plundered, their crews seized, tortured, and sometimes
slaughtered, or else set ashore on desolate coasts, that they might not be
readily able to take measures of redress. The Long Island, on the west
coast of Ireland, appears to have served as a regular station for pirate
ships; they also haunted much the Western Isles of Scotland. In 1609, a
piratical crew, headed by two captains named Perkins and Randell, started
from the Long Island in a vessel of 200 tons, named the Iron Prize,
attended by a nimble pinnace of about half that burden; and for some
months they roamed about the northern seas, picking up whatever
small-craft came in their way. They even had the audacity to shew
themselves at the mouth of the Firth of Forth. The attention of the Privy
Council being called to their proceedings, three vessels were fitted out
in a warlike manner at Leith, and sent in quest of the pirates. Perkins
and Randell had meanwhile come to Orkney to refit. They ‘landed at the
castle, and came to the town thereof,’ where they ‘behaved themselves
maist barbarously, being ever drunk, and fechting amang themselves, and
giving over themselves to all manner of vice and villany.’ Three of them
attacked a small vessel belonging to the Earl of Orkney, lying on the
shore, and were taken prisoners in the attempt by the earl’s brother,
James Stewart. A day or two after this event, the three government ships
made their appearance, and immediately a great part of the piratical
company made off in the pinnace. A pursuit proving vain, the government
ships returned and attacked the Iron Prize; and after a desperate
conflict, in which they had two men killed and sundry wounded, they
succeeded in capturing the whole remaining crew, amounting to nearly
thirty men, who, with those previously taken, were brought to Leith and
tried (July 26). Being found guilty, twenty-seven of these wretched men,
including the two captains, were hung upon a gibbet next day at the pier
of Leith. Three were reserved in the hope of their giving useful
information.
The Chancellor Dunfermline, who took the lead in this
severe administration of the law, tells the king in a letter written on
the day of the execution: ‘This company of pirates did enterteen one whom
they did call their Person [parson] for saying of prayers to them twice a
day, who belike either wearied of his cure, or foreseeing the destruction
of his flock, had forsaken them in Orkney, and, privily convoying himself
over land, was at length deprehendit in the burgh of Dundee.’ As he
confessed and gave evidence against the rest, besides bringing some of
them to confession, he was reserved for the king’s pleasure, and probably
let off.—Pit. C. K. Sc.
1610, Aug 12
There was at this time ‘a great visitation of the young children [of
Aberdeen] with the plague of the pocks.’ There were also ‘continual weets,’
which threatened to destroy the crops and cause a famine. The cause being
‘the sins of the land,’ a public fast and humiliation was ordered in
Aberdeen, ‘that God may be met with tears and repentance.’—A. K.
S. R.
Oct 21
‘The Archbishop of St Andrews [Gladstanes], reposing in his bed in time of
the afternoon sermon, the Sabbath after his diocesan synod in St Andrews,
was wakened, and all the kirk and town with him, with a cry of blood and
murder. For his sister son [Walter Anderson], master of his household,
with a throw of his dagger, killed his cook [Robert Green], while as he
was busy in dressing the lord-bishop’s supper. The dagger light[ed] just
under the left pap of the cook, who fell down dead immediately.’ - Cal.
The young man was committed to prison; but, ‘the poor
man’s friends being satisfied with a piece of money, none being to pursue
the murder, he was by moyen [influence] cleansed by a white assize (as
they call it) and let go free.’—Row. This trial took place before
the regality court of St Andrews. On the ensuing 17th January, letters
were raised by the king’s advocate against the assize, but with what
result does not appear.—P. C. R.
Nov 1
'....before the going to of the sun, there were seen by twelve or
thretteen husbandmen, great companies of men in three battles, joining
together and fighting the space of an hour, on certain lands perteening to
my Lord Livingston and the Laird of Cane. The honest men were examined in
the presence of divers noblemen, barons, and gentlemen, and affirmed
constantly that they saw such appearance.’—Cal.
Dec 23
We have now the first hint at public conveyances in Scotland in a letter
of the king, encouraging Henry Anderson of Trailsund to bring a number of
coaches and wagons with horses into Scotland, and licensing him and his
heirs for fifteen years ‘to have and use coaches and wagons, ane or mae,
as he shall think expedient, for transporting of his hieness lieges
betwixt the burgh of Edinburgh and town of Leith . . .
. providing that he be ready at all times for serving of his
majesty’s lieges, and that he tak not aboon the sum of twa shillings Scots
money for transporting of every person betwixt the said twa towns at ony
time.’
1610, Dec 24
A patent was granted for the establishment of a glass-manufacture in
Scotland. The business was commenced at Wemyss, in Fife, and, about
ten years after, we find it, to all appearance, going on prosperously.
‘Braid glass‘—that is, glass for windows—was made, measuring three
quarters of a Scots ell and a nail in length, while the breadth at the
head was an ell wanting half a nail, and at the bottom half an ell wanting
half a nail. It was declared to be equal in quality to Danskine glass. The
glasses for drinking and other uses not being of such excellence, it was
arranged that some specimens of English glass should be bought in London
and established in Edinburgh Castle, to serve as patterns for the Scotch
glass in point of quality. For the encouragement of the native
manufacture, and to keep money within the country, the importation of
foreign glass was (March 6, 1621) prohibited.—P. C. R.
1611, Mar
The Veitches and Tweedies of the upper part of Peeblesshire had long been
at issue, and peace was only kept between them by means of mutual
assurances given to the Privy Council. The king heard of the case, and was
the more concerned about it, because he believed he had, by his personal
exertions, so entirely suppressed what he called the wild and
detestable monster of deidly feid in Scotland, that ‘we do
hardly think there be any one feid except this in all that kingdom
unreconciled.’ As to these belligerent men of the Tweed, ‘the wrongs and
mischiefs done by either of, as we understand, to others’ [each other], is
‘in such a proportion of compensation, as neither party can either boast
of advantage, or otherwise think himself too much behind.’ He now ordered
his Scottish Council, ‘that you call before you the principals of either
surname, and then take such course for removing of the feid, and
reconceiling, as you have been accustomed to do in the like cases’—that
is, force them into bonds of amity, if they would not go of their own
accord.—P. C. R.
May 10
It was found necessary to put some restraint upon the number of poor
Scotch people who repaired to the English court in hope of bettering their
circumstances. The evil is spoken of as a ‘frequent and daily resort of
great numbers of idle persons, men and women, of base sort and condition,
and without ony certain trade, calling, or dependence, going from hence to
court, by sea and land.’ It was said to be ‘very unpleasant and offensive
to the king’s majesty, in so far as he is daily importuned with their
suits and begging, and his royal court almost filled with them, they
being, in the opinion and conceit of all behalders, but idle rascals and
poor miserable bodies;’ the country, moreover, ‘is heavily disgracit, and
mony slanderous imputations given out against the same, as gif there were
no persons of guid rank, comeliness, nor credit within the same.’ The
Council, therefore, deemed it necessary to cause an order to be proclaimed
in all the burghs and seaports, forbidding masters of vessels to carry any
people to England without first giving up their names, and declaring their
errands and business to the Lords, under heavy penalties.—P. C. R.
A number of the king’s Scottish courtiers had, as is
well known, accompanied or followed him into England, and obtained shares
of his good-fortune. Sir George Home, now Earl of Dunbar; Sir John Ramsay,
created Earl of Haddington; Sir James Hay, ultimately made Earl of
Carlisle; and recently, Mr Robert Ker, who became the king’s especial
favourite, and was made Earl of Somerset, are notable examples. The
English, regarding the Scottish courtiers with natural jealousy, called
them ‘beggarly Scots’ of which they complained to the king, who is said to
have jocosely replied: ‘Content yourselves; I will shortly make the
English as beggarly as you, and so end that controversy.’ On one occasion,
this jealousy broke out with some violence at a race at Croydon, in
consequence of a Scotsman named Ramsay striking the Earl of Montgomery
with his riding-switch. ‘The English,’ says the scandal-mongering Osborne,
‘did, upon this accident, draw together, to make it a national quarrel; so
far as Mr John Pinchbeck, a maimed man, having but the perfect use of two
fingers, rode about with his dagger in his hand, crying: "Let us break our
fast with them here, and dine with the rest in London!" But Herbert, not
offering to strike again, there was nothing lost but the reputation of a
gentleman." A ballad of the day described the metamorphosis which
Scotchmen were understood to have undergone after their migration into
England:
‘Bonny Scot, we all witness can,
That England hath made thee a gentleman.
Thy blue bonnet, when thou came hither,
Could scarce keep out the wind and weather,
But now it is turned to a hat and a feather;
Thy bonnet is blown, the devil knows whither.
Thy shoes on thy feet, when thou carnest from
plough,
Were made of the hide of an old Scots cow;
But now they are turned to a rare Spanish leather,
And decked with roses altogether.
Thy sword at thy back was a great black blade,
With a great basket-hilt of iron made;
But now a long rapier doth hang at thy side,
And huffingly doth this bonny Scot ride.’
Even Osborne acknowledges that the ordinary conceptions
as to the enrichment of the Scots courtiers were exaggerated. He says: ‘If
many Scots got much, it was not more with one hand than they spent with
the other;’ and he explains how Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, the king’s
English treasurer, ‘had a trick to get the kernel, and leave the Scots but
the shell, and yet cast all the envy on them. He would make them buy books
of fee-farms, some £100 per annum, some 100 marks; and he would compound
with them for £1000 . . . . then would
he fill up this book with such prime land as should be worth £10,000 or
£20,000, which was easy for him, being treasurer, so to do Salisbury by
this means enriched himself infinitely.’ The case is a significant one.
The experience by the Scots, a simple rustic people, of the superior
mercantile sharpness of the English, on coming into business relations
with them, is probably the main cause of that dry cautious manner which
the English censure in them as a national characteristic.
July 11
From an act of the Privy Council of this date, we get a curious idea of
the customs of the age regarding legal suits. It was declared that one of
the chief causes of ‘the frequent and unlawful convocations, and the
uncomely backing of noblemen and pairties upon the streets of Edinburgh,’
was the fact that ‘noblemen, prelates, and councillors repairing to this
burgh, do ordinarily walk on the streets upon foot, whereby all persons of
their friendship and dependence, and who otherwise has occasion to solicit
them in their actions and causes, do attend and await upon them, and
without modesty or discretion, importunes and fashes them with untimely
solicitations and impertinent discourses, and sometimes by their foolish
insolence and misbehaviour gives occasion of great misrule and unquietness
within this burgh.’
The remedy ordered was as curious as the evil itself.
It was, that noblemen, prelates, and councillors, when they come to the
council, or are abroad in the town on their private affairs, should, as
became their rank, ‘ride on horseback with footmantles or in coaches
‘—thus freeing themselves of that flocking of suitors which so much beset
them when they appeared on foot—P. C. R.
July 17
This day, John Mure of Auchindrain, James Mure, his son, and James
Bannatyne of Chapeldonald, were brought to trial in Edinburgh for sundry
crimes of a singularly atrocious character. The first of these personages
has been before us on two former occasions—namely, under January 1,
1596—7, and May 11, 1602; to which reference may be made for an
introduction to what is now to be related.
Auchindrain, it appears, felt that the boy William
Dalrymple, who had carried the letter making the appointment for a meeting
with Colzean, was a living evidence of his having been the deviser of the
slaughter of that gentleman. He got the lad into his hand; and kept him
for a time in his house; then, on his wearying of confinement, sent him to
a friend in the Isle of Arran; thence, on his wearying of being ‘in a
barbarous country among rude people,’ he had him brought back to his own
house, and, as soon as possible, despatched him with a friend to become a
soldier in Lord Buccleuch’s regiment, serving under Maurice Prince of
Orange. Dalrymple had not been long in the Low
Countries when he tired of being a soldier, and came back to Scotland.
Once more he was at large in Ayrshire, and a source of uneasiness to Mure
of Auchindrain. It was now necessary to take more decisive measures. Mure
and his son (September 1607) sent a servant to the young man to take him
to the house of James Bannatyne of Chapeldonald, and arranging to join
them on the way, ‘held divers purpose; speeches, and conferences with him,
tried of him the estate of the Low Countries and sundry other matter;’ and
finally placed him as a guest in Chapeldonald House, under the name of
William Montgomery.
According to appointment, at ten o’clock of the
evening of next day, James Bannatyne came with Dalrymple to meet the
two Mures on the sands near Girvan. There, the elder Mure explained to
Bannatyne the cause of his fears regarding the young man, telling him ‘he
saw no remeed but to redd Dalrymple furth of this life, since he could not
otherwise be kept out of his way, Whereunto Bannatyne making answer, that
it was ane cruel purpose to murder the poor innocent youth, specially
seeing they might send him to Ireland, to be safely kept there Auchindrain
seemed to incline somewhat to that expedient; and, in the uncertainty of
his resolution, turning toward the part where his son stood, of purpose,
as appeared, to consult with him, young Auchindrain perceived them no
sooner near, but, thereby assuring himself of their assistance, in the
execution of that whilk his father and he had concluded, he did violently
invade Dalrymple, rushed him to the ground, and never left him till,
helped by his father, with his hands and knees he had strangled him.’
The horrid deed being accomplished, the Mures, with
spades they had brought, tried to bury Dalrymple in the sand; but,
finding the hole always fill up with water, they were at length obliged to
carry the body into the sea, going in as far as they could wade, and
hoping that an outgoing wind would carry it to the coast of Ireland. Five
nights after, it was thrown back upon the beach at the very scene of the
murder, and was soon found by the country people. The Earl of Cassillis
heard of it, and caused an account of the discovery to be published
throughout the district. By the mother and sister of Dalrymple, it was at
once pronounced to be his corpse, and suspicion instantly alighted upon
the Mures. A relative, advised with about the rumour, said it could not be
safe for them to brave the law in the teeth of so much prejudice; neither,
supposing they absconded under such a suspicion, could their friends stand
up for them. The only expedient was to make an excuse for going out of the
way—assault, for instance, Hugh Kennedy of Garriehorn, a servant of the
Earl of Cassillis, a man against whom they had many ‘probable quarrels.’
The Mures actually adopted this expedient, setting upon Garriehorn in the
town of Ayr, and only failing to slay him by reason of the vigour of his
defence. The earl then saw that it was necessary to take strong measures
against enemies capable of such doings, and he accordingly had them
summoned both for Dalrymple’s murder and for the assault of Garriehorn.
They allowed themselves to be put to the horn—that is, denounced as rebels
for not appearing—but loudly professed that, if freed on the score of the
assault, they would stand their trial for the murder, alleging their
entire innocence of that transaction. The king was now made acquainted
with the case, and, by his orders, Auchindrain the elder was seized, and
thrown into the Tolbooth in Edinburgh. The two culprits nevertheless
continued to feel confidence in the want of proof against them, believing
that, if Bannatyne were out of the way, it would be impossible to bring
the fact home to them. The younger Mure, still at large, accordingly dealt
with Bannatyne to induce him to go to Ireland. It is a wonder he did not
at once send his friend to a more distant bourn. When Bannatyne was gone,
young Mure came boldly forward to take his trial, somewhat to the
embarrassment of the officers of justice. However, by the suggestion of
his majesty, he was not allowed to depart till he should have suffered the
torture, with a view to making him confess. To the admiration of all, he
bore this treatment with unflinching fortitude, and confessed nothing.
Public sentiment now rose in favour of the Mures as
persecuted men, and the Privy Council was inclined to let them off; and
would have done so, had not the king continued firm in his belief of their
guilt, and ordered them to be detained. Some years passed on, and proof
seemed still past hope, when the Earl of Abercorn contrived to find out
Bannatyne in Ireland, and caused him to be brought over to his own house
in Paisley. There, Bannatyne gave a full account of the murder, but
claimed, as fulfilment of a condition, that he should be allowed his
freedom. The earl told him he had had no such understanding of the matter;
but, to take away all ground of complaint, he would liberate him for the
meantime, but at the end of ten days make every possible effort to take
him unconditionally, whether dead or alive. At this Bannatyne hesitated;
he knew that already the Mures had been laying plots to get him cut off in
Ireland—now, between their vengeance and the extreme persecution
threatened by Lord Abercorn, he could see no chance for safety. He
therefore avowed his inclination to make a full confession before a court
of law, and trust to his majesty’s clemency.
On being confronted with Bannatyne, the Mures appeared
as obstinate in their protestations of innocence as ever, contradicting
everything he said, and denouncing him as a tool of their enemies. They
were, nevertheless, brought to trial, along with Bannatyne, on the day
noted in the margin—found guilty, and condemned to be beheaded at the
Cross of Edinburgh, with forfeiture. of all they possessed to his
majesty’s use. So ended this extraordinary tissue of crimes, old
Auchindrain being at the time about eighty years of age.
Aug
Macleod of Raasay had been proprietor of the lands of Gairloch on the
mainland of Ross-shire. He had the misfortune to live in the same time
with Kenneth Mackenzie of Kintail, who has already been described as a man
much too clever for his neighbours. Lord Kintail—for he had recently been
made a peer—had a wadset or bond over a third of Gairloch, and by proper
use of this legal footing in the estate, joined to neglect of legal
defences by the insular chieftain, was in the way of becoming proprietor
of the whole. While Raasay, however, neglected law, he had no reluctance
to use the sword: so a hot feud subsisted between him and the crafty
Mackenzie. The latter had already pursued the Macleods out of Gairloch
with fire and sword.
Uuder the date noted in the margin, Lord Kintail hired
a ship, that his son Murdo Mackenzie might go to Skye with a proper
following, in order to apprehend one John Holmogh MacRorie, a duniwassal
of Raasay, who had given him some trouble in the Gairloch. The vessel,
with whatever design it set out, soon changed its course, and arrived
opposite Macleod’s castle in the isle of Raasay—the same place where
Johnson and Boswell afterwards found such an elegant scene of Highland
hospitality. MacGilliecallum—such is the Highland appellative of the Laird
of Raasay— seeing the vessel, went out to it with twelve of his followers,
to buy some wine. ‘When Murdo Mackenzie did see them coming, he, with all
his train, lest they should be seen, went to the lower rooms of the ship,
leaving the mariners only above the decks. The Laird of Raasay entered;
and, having spoken the mariners, he departed, with a resolution to return
quickly. Murdo Mackenzie, understanding that they were gone, came out of
the lower rooms; and perceiving them coming again, he resolved to conceal
himself no longer. The Laird of Raasay desired his brother Murdo to follow
him into the ship with more company in another galley, that they might
carry to the shore some wine which he had bought from the mariners; so
returning to the ship, and finding Murdo Mackenzie there beyond his
expectation, he consulteth with his men, and thereupon resolveth to take
him prisoner, in pledge of his cousin John MacAllan MacRorie, whom the
Laird of Gairloch detained in captivity.’—G. H. S.
The History of the Mackenzie family (MS.) says that
Raasay, on coming the second time into the vessel, fell to drinking with
Murdo Mackenzie in loving terms. ‘Four of Murdo’s men, fearing the worst,
kept themselves fresh [sober] . . . . Raasay,
sitting on the right hand of Murdo, said to him: "Murdo, thou art my
prisoner!" Murdo, hearing this, starts, and, taking Raasay by the middle,
threw him upon the deck, and said he scorned to be his prisoner. With that
a fellow of Raasay’s strake him with a dirk. He, finding himself wounded,
drew back to draw his sword, [so] that he went overboard. He, thinking to
swim to the coast of Sconsarie, was drowned by the small boats that were
coming from Raasay. His men, seeing him killed, resolved to sell their
lives at the best rate they could. The four men that kept themselves
fresh, fought so manfully in their own defence, and in revenge of their
master, that they killed the Laird of Raasay and Gilliecallum More, the
author of this mischief:, his two sons, with all the rest that came to the
vessel with Raasay. Tulloch’s son, with six of Murdo’s company, were
killed as they were coming above deck from the place where they lay drunk.
The four [sober] men . . . were all pitifully
hurt. When they were drawing the anchor, the fourth man, called Hector Oig
M’Echin Vich Kinnich, ane active young gentleman, was shot with a chance
bullet from the boats. The other three, cutting the tow of the anchor, did
sail away with the dead corpses of both parties.’
‘Thus,’ says Sir Robert Gordon in conclusion to this
murderous story, ‘hath the Laird of Gairloch obtained peaceable
possession of that land.’
Sep 24
‘Sir James Lawson of Humbie, riding in Balhelvie Sands, where many other
gentlemen were passing their time, sank down in a part of the sands and
perished. He was found again on the morn, but his horse was never
seen.’—Cal.
Oct 25
It had been customary for the Scottish universities to receive students
who had, through misbehaviour, become fugitives from other seats of
learning; and now, as a natural consequence, it was found that the native
youth at the university of Edinburgh, presuming on impunity for any
improprieties they might commit, or a resource in ease of punishment being
attempted, ‘has ta’en and takes the bauldness to misknow the principal and
regents, and to debord in all kind of uncomely behaviour and insolencies,
no wise seemly in the persons of students and scholars.’ The Privy Council
therefore issued a strict order forbidding the reception of fugitive
students into the universities—P. C. R.