In November 1630, a curious circumstance is noted
regarding the Dr William Leslie above named. Licence was granted to him by
the Privy Council to return temporarily to medicate to
the Marquis of Huntly, he being the person ‘whose
judgment in matters of that kind the said marquis does only trust,’ it
being provided ‘that the said Dr William shall behave himself modestly,
without giving offence and scandal in matters concerning the religion.’—P.
C. R.It is remarkable
that, while the histories of our country and its national church are
careful to note every particular of the conflict between presbytery and
episcopacy at this period, there is nowhere the slightest allusion to
these sufferings of the remnant of Romanists, towards which Presbyterians
and Episcopalians alike contributed. It is to be feared that the actual
severities which were dealt upon the party were not the wont evils in the
case. In the external conformity which was forced upon many—so many that
only sixty avowed papists were thought to be left in Scotland—we cannot
doubt that there was involved a hypocrisy which would be bitterly
felt—always the more bitterly where there was an upright and hononrable
spirit—and which would in the long-run have the most demoralising effects.
A full history of the proceedings of
the Romish priests in Scotland, during the reigns of James
VI. and Charles I., would show examples
of heroic courage, self-devotion, and religious enthusiasm, equalling any
that can be adduced from the reformed denominations. ‘Capuchin Leslie,
called the Archangel,’ appears, from his biography, to have been a man of
singular gifts and earnestness. The eldest son of the Laird of Monymusk,
in Aberdeenshire, he had been brought up at Paris, and there converted to
Romanism in his youth. Before attaining majority, he had gone to those
heights in devotion and asceticism which produce hallucinative voices and
lights. Making his way through unnumbered dangers to his native castle, he
there set himself to the work of preaching. He collected the people in the
woods, or beset them as they were leaving the parish church; addressed
them in a style of burning eloquence, with threats of the fate reserved
for heretics; and is said to have brought thousands into his views in a
few weeks. His admiring biographer tells how he confounded the minister of
Monymusk by asking him to exhibit any reference to the church of Geneva in
the Bible, shewing him at the same time the Scriptural foundation of the
true church, by pointing
out Paul’s Epistle to the Romans! His mother and other relatives were
brought over to the ancient faith. For two years he exposed his life in
this manner, but was at length obliged to leave the district by one of
these threatening edicts. Meanwhile, his family, being discovered to be
Catholics, had their property confiscated, and his mother was obliged to
retire to a hovel, where she endeavoured to support herself by spinning.
It is related that Father Archangel, being resolved at all hazards to
visit her, dressed himself like a gardener, and cried herbs through the
village till he discovered his mother. After a hurried interview, he was
obliged to leave her once more, and depart from the kingdom. He
nevertheless returned and recommenced his labours; and this extraordinary
man ultimately sunk at an early age, under a fever caught while making a
skulking journey across the Border.
Apr 21
John Hart, printer in Edinburgh, being about to bring out an edition of
the Bible, the Town Council gave him formal permission to take a new
apprentice ‘for the advancement of the said wark,’ ‘notwithstanding the
time of three years be not past, since he replaced an apprentice last;’
‘providing always it sall not be lawful to him to tak and have ane other
prentice before the expiring of six years.’—Ed. Coun. Reg.
As restrictions on the taking of
apprentices still exist in various trades, we must not be too ready to
smile at this as a peculiar trait of the barbarous political economy of a
past age.
May 29
On the birth of the prince, afterwards Charles II., which took place
between eleven and twelve this forenoon, the Lyon King at Arms was
despatched by the king from London, to carry the news to Scotland. The
Lyon arrived in Edinburgh on the third day thereafter, June 1st, when
immediately cannon were shot, bells rung, and a table spread in the High
Street, between the Cross and the Tron, for two hundred persons, including
the nobility, Privy Council, and judges, the company being waited on by
the heralds and trumpeters in their official dress.—Bal.
‘In this May were five Saturdays,
five Mondays, twa changes of the moon, twa eclipses of the sun, ane other
of the moon, all in our horizon.’—. Chron.
Perth.
June 20
Writers of the religious history of Scotland during the Seventeenth
century, pause upon a remarkable administration of the communion which
took place at this date in the Kirk of Shotts. The great attraction on the
occasion was a young clergyman, afterwards famous, named John Livingstone.
In consequence of the impression now made, a great portion of the
assembled multitude remained at the place over the night; so it was
necessary for the favourite preacher to hold forth next day. He did so
with such power, and such a ‘down-pouring of the spirit,’ that the
congregation was thrown into ‘unusual motion,’ and five hundred traced
their conversion to that sermon alone. Amongst the hearers were three
young men of Glasgow, who, journeying to Edinburgh on a
pleasure-excursion, chanced to stop at the village for breakfast and the
refreshment of their horses. So affected were they, that they entered into
no amusements in Edinburgh, but speedily returned home, and were ever
after noted as serious Christians. This is understood to have been the
first instance of what has since been a common custom; that is, to have
services on the Monday following the communion.—Gilles.
In this year and for some time
afterwards, the parish of Stewarton, in Ayrshire, was the scene of ‘a very
solemn and extraordinary out-letting of the spirit,’ few Sundays passing
'without some one being converted, or some convincing proofs of the power
of God accompanying his word.’ . . . . ‘Yea, many were so choked and taken
by the heart, that, through terror, . . . they have been made to fall
over, and thus carried out of the church, who after proved most solid and
lively Christians.’ The fervour spread from house to house along both
sides of Stewarton Water. The profane called it the Stewarton Sickness.
‘The poor people, purely from
conscience, were seized with such an apprehension of God’s wrath, and fear
of eternal damnation because of their sins, that rest they could have
none. This they were able to demonstrate to be no melancholy fancy, but a
rational apprehension of their real danger, being at that time both
ignorant, profane, and absolutely strangers to Jesus Christ, by [beside or
apart from] whom they could have neither hope of mercy nor title to
salvation; and this was beyond the reply of any divine. When by godly
ministers . . . . they were directed to
the performance of those duties which accomplish conversion from Satan to
Christ, their peace became as strong as their terror had been
troublesome....' ‘The Countess of Eglintoun did
much countenance them, and persuaded her noble lord to spare his hunting
and hawking some days to confer with some of them whom she had sent for to
that effect. Her lord, after conference with them, protested that he never
spoke with the like of them, and wondered at the wisdom they manifested in
their speech.’
The Stewarton Sickness took its
first rise in the ministrations of Mr David Dickson, minister of Irvine,
afterwards a conspicuous figure in the time of the National Covenant. He
was accustomed each Monday, being the market-day of the burgh, to give a
sermon for the benefit of those who came there with their commodities for
sale; and thus it was that the Stewarton people had opportunities of
kindling under his eloquence. ‘At Irvine, Mr Dickson’s ministry was
singularly countenanced of God. Multitudes were convinced and converted;
and few that lived in his day were more honoured to be instruments of
conversion than he. People under exercise and soul-concern came from every
place about Irvine and attended upon his sermons, and the most eminent and
serious Christians from all corners of the church came and joined him at
his communions, which were indeed times of refreshing from the presence of
the Lord.’ ‘Yea, not a few came from distant places and settled at
Irvine, that they might be under the drop of his ministry. Yet he himself
observed that the vintage of Irvine was not equal to the gleanings of Ayr
in Mr Welch’s time.’
‘John Lockhart tells me (1727) that
he was in company with an old Christian who was a young man in the time of
the famous Stewarton Sickness. In a great many, it came to a kindly
conversion . . . . but in severals it came to nothing, and in a little
time wore off, and the persons became just what they were formerly.’ -
Wodrow.
July
At this time there lived near the town of Dunse a poor woman
generally believed to be possessed by an evil
spirit. The Earl (afterwards Duke) of Lauderdale, when a prisoner in
Windsor Castle in 1659, sent an account of her to Mr Richard Baxter, who
has published it in his Certainty of
the World of Spirits.
The earl, then a boy at school, used to hear
conversations about the possessed woman between his father and the
minister of Dunse, who was fully convinced of the fact of the possession.
This clergyman and some other clergymen proposed to the Privy Council a
fast for her benefit; but it was not allowed by the bishops. ‘I will not,’
says the earl, ‘trouble you with many circumstances; one only I shall tell
you, which I think will evince a real possession. The report being spread
in the country, a knight of the name of Forbes, who lived in the north of
Scotland, being come to Edinburgh, meeting there with a minister of the
north, and both of them desirous to see the woman, the northern minister
invited the knight to my father’s house (which was within ten or twelve
miles of the woman), whither they came, and next morning went to see the
woman. They found her a poor ignorant creature, and seeing nothing
extraordinary, the minister says in Latin to the knight: "Nondum audivimus
spiritum loquentem." Presently a voice comes out of the woman’s mouth:
"Audis loquentem, audis loquentem." This put the minister into some
amazement (which I think made him not mind his own Latin); he took off his
hat, and said: "Misereatur Deus peccatoris!" The voice presently out of
the woman’s mouth said: "Dic peccatricis, die peccatricis;" whereupon both
of them came out of the house fully satisfied, took horse immediately, and
returned to my father’s house at Thirlstane Castle, in Lauderdale, where
they related this passage. This I do exactly remember. Many more
particulars might be got in that part of the country; but the Latin
criticism, in a most illiterate ignorant woman, where there was no
pretence to dispossessing, is enough, I think.’
It may be remarked that the speaking
of various languages which they had never learned, was one of the marks
required by the canons of the Romish Church to distinguish those under
real possession. The Dunse demoniac was remarkably superior in this
respect to her contemporaries, the nuns of Loudun, who, in their
demonstrations of possession in the celebrated ease of Urban Grandier,
spoke very bad Latin, not to mention their utter inability to converse in
Greek or Hebrew, and yet were held by the authorities as genuine vessels
of diabolic influence.
The fact of there being a reputedly
possessed woman in Dunse at this time, as the Earl of Lauderdale has
stated, is verified by the Privy Council Record, which contains, under
date July 13, 1630, an order for bringing before them Margaret Lumsden,
‘the possessed woman in Dnnse,’ together with her brother and
father-in-law, that order might be taken concerning them, ‘as the
importance and nature of such a great cause requires.’
Sep 23
Susanna Chancellor, daughter of the Laird of Shieldhill, was accused
before the presbytery of Lanark of consulting with charmers, and ‘burying
a child’s clothes betwixt [three] lairds’ lands, for health.’ By
penitently presenting herself on her knees before the reverend brethren,
she was saved from the due punishment.- R. P.
L.
Oct
At no great distance from the Castle of Strathbogie—the modern Huntly—where
the great marquis held state, dwelt two gentlemen of figure, Gordon of
Rothiemay and Crichton of Frendraught. In consequence of a dispute about
the salmon-fishings in the Doveran, these two gentlemen fell into
litigation and had blood; and at length, from finding Rothiemay obdurate,
Frendraught had to get assistance from his neighbours to execute the laws
upon his antagonist. On New-year’s Day 1630, a bloody encounter took place
between them, and Rothiemay was so severely wounded as to die three days
after.
Frendraught could plead that he had
been only carrying out the behests of the law against one who set legal
rights and decrees at defiance. But the Marquis of Huntly and other
Gordons felt that it was a hard thing for Rothiemay to lose his life on
such an account, and Frendraught accordingly fell under their displeasure.
The young Laird of Rothiemay, calling in the assistance of the outlaw
James Grant, laid waste the lands of Frendraught, who was driven in
succession to the Earl of Moray, the king, and the Privy Council for the
protection of the laws. It was found necessary by the Council to send a
commission to allay the heats which this affair had called forth. When Sir
Robert Gordon and other commissioners arrived on the ground in May, they
found James Grant and two hundred Highlanders assembled at Rothiemay,
ready to lay waste Frendraught’s estate with fire and sword; and it was
with no small difficulty that they were stayed. Sir Robert, as a
connection of both Frendraught and the Gordon family, was well qualified
to bring about a reconciliation, and this he effected with the assistance
of the Marquis of Huntly. It was arranged that Frendraught should purchase
the forgiveness of the Rothiemay family by paying a sum of money. ‘And so,
all parties having shaken hands in the orchard of Strathbogie, they were
heartily reconciled,’ says Sir Robert in his gossiping history. One cannot
but see in this mode of stilling quarrels an encouragement to new ones.
Frendraught, having acted all along under law, ought to have been
protected by the law, instead of thus having to pay a fine of fifty
thousand merks’ to buy off the vengeance of a family by whom the law was
disregarded and broken. But in those days the law could only be executed
by favour of the leading men of the country. These leading men had their
passions and their partialities. Sir Robert Gordon probably purchased
Frendraught’s safety on the best terms which, in the circumstances, could
be obtained.
These circumstances form merely the
introduction to a long series of disastrous mischances which befell the
Laird of Frendraught, and which have made his name memorable in Scottish
tradition. In the course of autumn, a gentleman named John Meldrnm, who
had assisted him in the fray with Rothiemay, quarrelled with him for not
being satisfactorily rewarded for his help on that occasion. To make
matters right, this gentleman came and took two horses from Frendraught’s
lands! Frendraught, hearing that the culprit was harboured by a
brother-in-law, Leslie of Pitcaple, came thither to seek back his
property; but the encounter only led to one of his friends wounding a son
of Pitcaple with a pistol-shot. Here was a new trouble for the unfortunate
Frendraught. In great concern for what had taken place, he rode to the
Marquis of Huntly at the Bog—the modern Gordon Castle—to beseech his
intercession for the stanching of the quarrel. At the same time comes
Pitcaple, full of designs of vengeance against Frendraught. The marquis
was obliged to detain the latter as his guest, to save him from
Pitcaple, who went away in great wrath.
Next day, when Frendraught proposed
to go home, the marquis caused his son, Viscount Melgum, to accompany him
with some other friends, in order to protect him from any attack which
Pitcaple might make upon him by the way. It chanced that the Laird of
Rothiemay, so lately reconciled to Frendraught, was present on this
occasion; he generously offered to be one of the escort. So Frendraught
set out with his gallant company, and reached home in safety.
It was only in conformity with the
customs of the age that the laird and his lady should invite Lord Melgum,
Rothiemay, and the rest of the party to remain for the night. They did so.
The gentlemen consented; and after a merry supper, were conducted to
bedrooms in the tall narrow old tower, which, with a modern addition,
formed the Castle of Frendraught. In the first floor, over a vault,
through which there was a round hole, lay Melgum and two servants; in the
second was Rothiemay, also with some servants; in the third, two gentlemen
named Chalmers and Rollock, and some more servants, were accommodated.
Oct 8
About midnight, the tower took fire in a sudden manner, ‘yea, in ane
clap,’ says Spalding, and involved the whole of the inmates in
destruction, except Chalmers, Rollock, and a servant who slept beside Lord
Melgum. Swift as the fire was, three persons escaped, and Lord Melgum
might have also saved himself if he had not, under a friendly impulse, run
up stairs to rouse Rothiemay. While he was engaged in this act, ‘the
timber passage and lofting of the chamber takes fire, so that none of them
could win down stairs again.’ So they turned to a window looking towards
the court yard, where they were heard repeatedly calling: ‘Help, help, for
God’s cause!’ The windows being stanchioned, and the access by the stair
cut off by the flame; it was impossible to render any assistance and
accordingly the six persons enclosed in the burning tower were all
piteously burnt to death. Melgum was but twenty four years of age, and
left a widow and child; Rothiemay was unmarried. It is stated by Lady
Melgum’s chaplain, that in that last moment of extremity, Lord Melgum
induced Rothiemay to make open profession of the Catholic faith; and so,
‘they two being at a window, and whilst their legs were burning, did sing
together Te Deum; which ended, they did tell at the window that
their legs were consumed, recommending their souls to God, and the
nobleman his wife and child, first to God, and then to the king.' A
popular ballad of the day speaks of their being called on to leap from the
window:
‘How can I leap, how can I win,
How can I leap to thee?
My head’s fast in the wire-window,
My feet burning from me.
He’s ta'en the rings from all his
hands,
And thrown them o’er the wall;
Saying: ‘Give them to my lady fair,
Where she sits in the hall.’
This dismal event created a
universal feeling of horror, and plunged the friends of the deceased into
the greatest grief. The Laird and Lady of Frendraught were, to all
appearance, deeply concerned for what had taken place. On the morning
after the fire, the lady, ‘busked in a white plaid, and riding on a small
nag, having a boy leading her horse, without any more in her company, in
this pitiful manner she came weeping and mourning to the Bog, desiring
entry to speak with my lord; but this was refused; so she returned back to
her own house, the same gate she came, comfortless.’—Spalding. Her
repulse was the more remarkable, as Lady Frendraught was a cousin of the
marquis, and brought into bonds of sympathy with him and his family by
being a Catholic. A fixed suspicion that she and her husband were the
authors of the fire, had taken possession of the Huntly and Rothiemay
families, as well as of the populace generally, though not the slightest
evidence of guilt has ever been brought against them, and their loss of
valuable papers, and of gold and silver articles, to the value, it was
alleged, of a hundred thousand marks, rendered any concern of theirs in
the fire-raising the very reverse of probable. The laird himself acted in
the manner of an innocent man anxious to clear himself of suspicion. He
came immediately to the Chancellor Lord Dupplin at Perth, desiring his
protection, and offering to submit to trial. The Privy Council do not seem
ever to have felt that there were any grounds for charging him with the
guilt popularly imputed to him.
More particular suspicions fell upon
John Meldrum of Redhill, the quondam adherent of Frendraught, but
who had latterly fallen into such bad terms with him; likewise upon John
Tosh, the master-household of Frendraught. These persons were accordingly
apprehended, brought to Edinburgh, and examined. A servant-girl called
Wood was also seized and subjected to torture, with a view to extracting
her knowledge of the circumstances; but this only produced prevarications,
making her evidence of no avail, and for which she was scourged and
banished the kingdom.
In March 1631, the Marquis of Huntly,
having resolved ‘not to revenge himself by way of deed,’ as his panegyrist
Spalding does not fail to tell us—as if it were a great merit—proceeded to
Edinburgh in order to lay his wrongs before the Privy Council. Four
commissioners appointed by this body soon after proceeded to Frendraught,
which they examined with great care, in company with several noblemen and
gentlemen of the district. They found evidence that the fire had
originated in the ground-vault of the tower, where there were marks of it
in three several places, one of these being directly under the round hole
in the roof which communicated with Melgum’s apartment above. They could
not determine whether it was accidental; but they felt assured that ‘no
hand without could have raised the fire without aid from within.’
While these matters were pending,
there occurred an incident in itself of little importance, but which marks
the spirit of the time. The young Earl of Sutherland, brother to Lady
Frendraught, and whose late father was cousin-german to Huntly, in the
course of a journey to Edinburgh, resolved to spend a night with the
marquis, and for that purpose sent forward his message from Elgin. When he
arrived in the evening at Bog of Gight, the marquis gave him a cold
reception, and told him that he must either break with his brother-in-law
Frendraught, or with himself; as he could no longer be the friend of both.
The earl answered that he would prefer the marquis to Frendraught, but
that he could not with honour throw off his sister’s husband as long as he
was law-free. Huntly immediately answered: ‘Then God be with you,
my lord,’ and turned away. The Earl of Sutherland lodged that night at a
neighbouring hostelry, and in the morning pursued his way south. The
singularity of such an event, in an age when it was disrespectful to pass
a friend’s door without partaking of his hospitality, gives it great
significance.
John Tosh, after submitting to
examinations by torture, and denying all guilt, was charged (August 3,
1632) with the offence of setting fire to the tower from within; but the
charge was never brought before an assize, the assessors finding that an
insuperable bar lay in his having passed through the ordeal of torture
without confession. There were some suspicious circumstances against him,
chiefly of the nature of inconsistencies in his own declarations; but it
was certainly possible to account for these upon a different theory from
that of his being guilty.
John Meldrum was tried a twelvemonth
later, and as it clearly appeared that he had uttered deadly threatenings
against Frendraught’s life, even specifying burning as the means, he was
found guilty, and executed. The theory of his guilt seems to have been,
that he had set fire to the tower, in the belief that the laird slept
there, and effected his purpose by thrusting combustibles and fire through
three slits in the wall. It must be admitted that Meldrum was the only
man, of all concerned, in whom motive for murder appears; but his guilt
is, after all, far from being clear. The wall was ten feet thick, and the
commission had decidedly pointed to an origin within. No trace of
combustibles was ever adduced, and it was proven that he had been at
Pitcaple, ten or twelve miles off, that night. On the whole, when the
matter is viewed without the passions of the time, it seems most likely
that the fire was accidental.
As for the Gordon family, it
remained fully convinced of the guilt of the Laird and Lady of Frendraught;
and since full retribution could not be obtained by the law, they behoved
to have it in some other way. How they proceeded, will be hereafter
described.
Dec
At Carron, on Speyside, dwelt a branch of the family of the Grants of
Glenmorriston, and near by, at Ballindalloch, was a more important family
of the same name. In consequence of a homicide which James Grant of the
Carron family had committed some years before, there was a fierce feud
between these two families. James, finding his enemies irreconcilable, and
seeing no prospect of peace, became lawless and desperate. The power of
the Earl of Moray proved ineffectual to repress his constant incursions
upon the lands of Ballindalloch, or to obtain possession of his person.
Ballindalloch himself consequently became desperate. One day, learning
that John Grant of Canon and some of his people were in the forest of
Abernethy cutting timber, he set upon him with a party, and killed him,
but not without loss of life on his own side. He did this on the
presumption that Canon aided his relative the outlaw.—G.
H. S.
Dec 3
The Earl of Moray interposing his power as lord-lieutenant for the
protection of Ballindalloch, James Grant vowed to be avenged by his own
hand. On the day here noted, he came with a number of associates to
Pitchass, the residence of his enemy, who, for his part, had also a number
of friends attending him. ‘To train him out, he sets his corn-yard on
fire, and haill laigh bigging, barns, byres, stables, wherein many horse,
nolt, and sheep were burnt; and sic bestial as was not burnt, they slew
and destroyed. But young Ballindalloch kept the house and durst not come
out and make any defence. In like manner, James Grant, with his complices,
passed to the town and lands of Tulchin, pertaining to old Ballindalloch,
and burnt up and destroyed the hail bigging thereof, corns, cattle, goods
and geir, and all which they could get, and to the hills goes he.’
The Earl of Moray, unable to see any
better mode of dealing with this case than to ‘gar one devil ding
another,’ made a paction with three broken men, the principal of whom was
brother to the late chief of the Clan Mackintosh; who undertook to bring
James Grant to him dead or alive. ‘They find him in the town of
Auchnachill, at the head of Strathaven, within a house, and ten men with
him. James and his men wins out and takes to flight. They follow sharply,
slew four of his men, wounded himself with arrows in eleven parts of his
body, and when he could do no more, he was taken, and his six other men.’
As soon as his wounds were cured, he was conducted to Edinburgh, and
imprisoned in the Castle, being ‘admired and looked upon as a man of great
vassalage;’ but his six men were all hanged.—Spal.
Grant lay a prisoner in Edinburgh
Castle for nearly two years. It is related that, a former neighbour, Grant
of Tomnavoulen, passing one day under his prison windows, he called to
him, asking, ‘what news from Speyside?’ ‘None very particular,’ rejoined
his acquaintance; ‘the best is that the country is rid of you.’ ‘Perhaps
we shall meet again,’ said James.
His wife having conveyed to him some
ropes in what was believed to be a cask of butter, Grant came over the
walls of the Castle (October 15, 1632) at night, and being received into
the arms of his bastard son, immediately left town by a western road. For
nine days he lay sick in the woods of Herbertshire, near Denny, and then
vanished into the Highlands. The Privy Council, exasperated at his escape,
offered a large reward for his apprehension, but in vain. He remained
quiet till November 1633, when he began to resume the offensive, ‘partly
travelling through the country, sometimes on Speyside, sometimes here,
sometimes there, without fear or dread.’ His wife having retired in a
delicate condition to a small lodging at Carron on Speyside, where Grant
was known to visit her occasionally, young Ballindalloch hired a party of
the broken Clan Macgregor, under a renowned outlaw of their tribe, named
Patrick Dhu Ger, to beset him there. Grant being at Canon one night with
only his bastard son and a single attendant, the Macgregors surrounded the
house, and began to uncover it, in order to get at their victim. ‘James
Grant, hearing the noise, and seeing himself so beset, that he was not
able to keep that house nor win away, resolved to keep the door with the
other two as long as they might, and shot out arrows at two windows, [so]
that few did venture to come near the door, except their captain . . . .
whilk James Grant perceiving, and knowing him well, presently bends a
hagbut, and shoots him through both the thighs, and to the ground falls
he. His men leave the pursuit, and loup about to lift him up again; but as
they are at this work, James Grant, with the other two, loups frae the
house and flies, leaving his wife behind him. He is sharply pursued, and
many arrows shot at him; yet he wan away safely to a bog near by with his
two men. Patrick Ger died of the shot, within short while, a notable
thief, robber, and briganer, oppressing the people wherever he came, and
therefore they rejoiced at his death.’—Spal.
Another year elapsed, during which
there had been some abortive attempts at a paction between Grant and young
Ballindalloch. One evening in the depth of winter (December 7, 1634), as
the latter was sitting at supper in his house of Pitchass, Grant’s wife
came in and whispered something in his ear. He rose, took his wife’s plaid
about him, and his sword and target in his hand, and went out with the
lady, his wife following under anxiety about his welfare. He thus easily
fell into an ambuscade which James Grant had set for him, and was hurried
off during the night, over moss and muir, to a kiln in the low country
near Elgin, where he was kept in bonds under a strong guard, without any
of the comforts of life, for three weeks. From this miserable condition,
he escaped by the aid of one of his guards named Leonard Leslie, and got
in safety to Innes House, where he was kindly entertained. By his own
exertions, one Thomas Grant, the owner of the kiln, was hanged next summer
for harbouring the outlaw James; two other men were banished for the same
offence. Meanwhile, the Macgregors were active in despoiling and laying
waste the lands of Corse and Craigievar, in professed revenge for the
slaughter of Patrick Ger; but in February 1636, by the exertions of
Stewart of Craigievar, seven of them were taken and hanged at the Cross of
Edinburgh. This, again, brought into prominence a lawless Macgregor, known
popularly under the name of Gilderoy, who, desiring vengeance on the
Stewarts, burned some of their lands in Athole. Thus it was that
wickedness continued its own existence in those days when public justice
was weak.
One Thomas Grant, believed to be the
same person who had thrown a taunt at James in Edinburgh Castle, was
reputed to have undertaken, for Ballindalloch, to bring the outlaw to him
dead or alive. James, hearing of this, came to Thomas’s house, and,
missing him, killed sixteen of his cattle. Lighting upon Thomas lying in
bed at a friend’s house near by, with his bastard brother, the pitiless
outlaw took them both out naked and killed them (April 5, 1636). A few
days after, he came with four men to Strathbogie, and by chance craved
food at the hangman’s house. The hangman, frightened at the appearance of
his visitors, stole away and gave information to the bailie, who presently
came with an armed party and surrounded the house. Then a desperate and
bloody conflict took place, in the course of which the bailie lost two of
his men. Grant after all got clear of his assailants under cloud of night;
leaving, however, his bastard son and two of his men a prey to justice.
Very soon after (July 27), Gilderoy and some of his associates were
likewise brought to Edinburgh, and hanged.
Notwithstanding the accumulated
guilt of James Grant, he subsequently obtained a remission, and lived to
take part in the troubles attending the introduction of the Covenant.
Dec 14
The Privy Council issued a thundering order for the putting down of those
‘vagabonds, thieves, and limmers,’ the Egyptians, of whom large bands were
going about in the north parts of the kingdom, armed, extorting whatever
they needed from such of the lieges as were not able to resist them.
1631, Jan 11
We get some idea of the difficulties which beset the people of a country
before time and means have been obtained for forming roads, bridges, and
other public works of utility, from a petition presented to the Privy
Council by the minister of Rattray regarding the river Ericht, a
well-known stream which debouches from the Highlands in his neighbourhood,
amidst a scene truly romantic to the gaze of the modem tourist, but
formerly pregnant with trouble to the people of the country. A
much-frequented road or line of communication between the north and south
parts of the kingdom crossed this stream at Craighall without a bridge. In
a time of stormy weather, this river runs with such force that there is no
ford, ‘and very oft for the space of aucht days together all passage at
that water, either by coble, horse, or foot, is interrupted, to the great
hinder of his majesty’s subjects, and to the extreme hazard of many of
their lives, of whom, during the short time the supplicant has attended
the kirk of Rattray, auchteen persons to his knowledge have perished in
that water.’ An order was given for a general subscription to build a
bridge.—P.C.R.
Mar 31
There being a scarcity at this time on the continent, while Scotland
possessed a considerable quantity of wheat, the Privy Council, considering
these facts, and, moreover, that wheat is not ‘the common grain wherewith
the whole lieges are ordinarily fed,’ granted licence for the exporting of
4000 bolls.—P. C. R.
Apr 10
The Town Council of Edinburgh forbade the wearing of plaids by women in
the streets, under pain of corporal punishment. The plaid was the Scottish
mantilla, and, serving to hide the face, was supposed to afford a
protection to immodest conduct. A few years later (1636), the Council
found that women were still addicted to the use of the plaid, or went
about with their skirts over their heads, ‘so that the same is now become
the ordinar habit of all women within the city, to the general imputation
of their sex, matrons not being able to be discerned from loose-living
women, to their awn dishonour and scandal of the city.’ For these faults,
heavy fines were announced.
It is amusing to find ladies
subjecting themselves to false imputations, by following this denounced
fashion, when they had only to walk about with their faces exhibited in
order to refute or repel all scandal.
July 16
Died this day Francis, eighth Earl of Errol, noted about forty years
before for his concern in the various papist rebellions, by which the
reign of King James was so much troubled. ‘He was buried in the church of
Slaines, in the night, convoyed quietly with his own domestics and country
friends with torch-light. It was his will to have no gorgeous burial, nor
to convocate his noble friends with making great charges and expenses, but
to be buried quietly, and such expenses as should be wared prodigally upon
his burial, to give the same to the poor. This was a noble man, of a great
and courageous spirit, who had great troubles in his time, which he
stoutly and hononrably still carried, and now in favour died in peace with
God and man, and a loyal subject to the king, to the great grief of his
kin and friends.’—Spal.
July
When word came to Scotland regarding the seven hundred Protestants
expelled from the Palatinate, and who had arrived in Nuremberg in great
distress, there was a strong feeling excited in their behalf, and a
collection for their relief was resolved on. It appears that, within a
twelvemonth, one thousand pounds sterling was collected and sent to
London; to which was afterwards added five hundred more. A considerable
sum, considering the time, means of the people, and the object.—P.
C. R.
Aug
A levy of 6000 Scots passed to Germany for the assistance of Gustavus
Adolphus of Sweden against the emperor. They were under the command of
James Marquis of Hamilton, who appeared to have raised them on his own
account, and without any sanction from the king, though in reality Charles
was interested in the expedition, as calculated to favour the restoration
of his brother-in-law the Elector Palatine of the Rhine. This body of
troops contributed to the great victory of Leipzig, which threw the whole
of Northern Germany into the power of Gustavus, and it afterwards helped
in the recovery of Magdeburg; but bravery and zeal could not save it from
the diseases which afflicted a country reduced by war to the last
extremity of wretchedness. A year saw it the mere shadow of what it
originally was, while the marquis was recalled in disgust to his own
country. Nevertheless, the remains of the force adhered to the Swedish
service.
Monro, in his confused way, gives a
list of the Scottish officers who were under the command of Gustavus in
the latter part of 1632, adding in some instances particulars of their
subsequent career. It may be transferred to these pages, as the memorial
of a brave and honourable movement of the Scottish nation, and because the
very names of these Monroes, Leslies, and Ramsays of two hundred years
ago, can scarcely be read in such an association of ideas without exciting
some interest in a Scottish bosom.
‘Field Officers.—The
Marquis of Hamilton, general of the British army; Sir James Spence,
general over Scots; Sir Patrick Ruthven, governor of Ulm, and since
general; Sir Alexander Leslie, governor over the cities along the Baltic
coast, and since field-marshal over the army in Westphalia [subsequently
Earl of Leven]; Major-general James King, since lieutenant-general; Sir
David Drummond, general-major and governor of Stettin, in Pomerania; Sir
James Ramsay, general-major, had a regiment of Scots, and since was
governor of Hanau.
‘Colonels that served then of
Scots.—My Lord of Reay (M’Kay),
colonel to a brigade of Scots; Sir John Hepburn, colonel, succeeded to
command the Scottish brigade, and since was slain in France; Sir John
Ruthven, colonel to a brigade of Dutch, and since general-major; Sir James
Lumsden, colonel to a regiment of Scots; Alexander Ramsay, colonel and
governor of Creutzenach; Robert Leslie, colonel to a regiment of Scots;
Robert Monro, baron of Foulis, colonel of horse and foot over Dutch, and
since died of his wounds at Ulm; John Monro of Obstell, colonel to a
regiment of Scots, and since slain on the Rhine at Weteraw; Ludovick
Leslie, colonel to a regiment of Scots, which was Sir John Hamilton’s;
Robert Monro, colonel to a regiment of Scots, which was my Lord of Reay’s;
James Kerr, colonel to a regiment of Scots, and since general-major; Sir
Frederick Hamilton, colonel to a regiment of Scots and Irish; the Master
of Forbes, colonel to a regiment of Scots; Alexander Hamilton, colonel to
a regiment of Scots; the Earl of Crawfurd-Lindsay, colonel to a
foot-regiment of Dutch, and since slain; William Baillie, colonel to a
regiment of foot of Dutch; Sir William Ballantyne, colonel to a
foot-regiment of English; Sir James Ramsay, colonel to a foot-regiment of
English, and since died at London; Alexander Forbes, called Finnesse
Forbes, colonel to a regiment of Finnes; Walter Leckie, colonel to foot.
‘Scots Colonels that served this
time in Sweden, Liefland, and Spruce.—James
Seaton, colonel to foot of Swedes; Colonel Kinninmond, colonel to foot of
Swedes, since dead; Colonel Thomson, colonel to foot of Swedes, since
dead; Colonel Scott, colonel to foot of Finnes, since dead; William
Cunningham, colonel to foot of Scots, in Spruce; Francis Ruthven, colonel
to foot of Dutch, in Spruce; Sir John Meldrum, colonel in Spruce to foot.
‘Lieutenant-colonels.——Thomas
Hume of Carolside, Douglas, Henry Muschamp, Alexander Leslie, Alexander
Cunningham, Vavasour, William Gunn, John Leslie, Finnesse Forbes,
Alexander Forbes, called the Bald, Robert Stewart, Hector Monro, Sir
George Douglas, George Leslie, John Lindsay of Bainshow, Monypenny,
Alexander Lindsay, John Sinclair, William Stewart, Henry Lindsay, William
Lindsay, James Henderson, Sir Arthur Forbes, Robert Weir, John Lyell,
James Dickson, Sandilands, William Borthwick, Macdowgal, James Hepburn,
Robert Hannan, John Monro, Robert Lumsden, William Herring, Sir James
Cunningham, William Spence, John Ennis, Poytaghee Forbes, John Forbes of
Tulloch, George Forbes, Alexander Hay, David Leslie [Lord Newark].
The persecution of the Catholics
had, in 1629, reached a pitch of keenness which it was not possible to
maintain. The king occasionally ventured to interfere with special letters
in favour of certain Romanists of rank, his personal friends, allowing
them to stay in the country on hope of conversion, or else permitting them
a temporary return from exile to see after their private affairs. The
Privy Council itself could not always keep up the proper degree of
severity. Being partly a lay-body, it would now and then take a mild view
of a case, though in a hesitating manner.
Sir John Ogilvy of Craig, after
enduring imprisonment for a time in Edinburgh Castle, was allowed to live
in Edinburgh and in St Andrews under a modified restraint. Finally, he was
permitted to go home to his dwelling-house of Craig, ‘upon promise of ane
sober and modest behaviour without scandal or offence to the kirk.’
‘Nevertheless,’ as the Council proceeds to remark, ‘Sir John, since his
going home, has behaved himself very scandalously, daily conversing with
excommunicat persons, privately resetting seminary and mass priest; and
restraining his bairns and servants from coming to the kirk, to the heigh
offence of God and disgrace of his majesty’s government.’ For this reason,
he was ordered (September 22) to go into ward in St Andrew; ‘until he be
freed and relaxed by the Lords.’
A supplication presented by Sir
John, some weeks later, to the Council, complained of his having been
condemned without a hearing, and while he was ‘innocent of these
imputations.’ He went on to say that he had nevertheless done his best to
yield obedience to their order. He ‘took journey from his awn house [in
Forfarshire] toward St Andrew; being heavily diseased by reason of a
dizziness in his head, so that he was not able to travel on horseback for
fear of falling from his horse, and therefore was compelled, although with
great pain and travel, to make journey upon his foot, being led all the
way with two men. At last he atteined with great trouble to the town of
Dundee,’ where, however, sickness stopped him. He petitioned, for the sake
of his health, to be allowed to return to Craig, ‘where, if he die, he may
have the presence and comfort of his wife and children.’ The Lords yielded
to this supplication, on condition of his giving a bond that ‘he sall
cause his eldest son and the remanent of his children and domestics,
resort to the kirk every Sabbath when possibly they may; that he sall not
travel on the Sabbath from his own house, or profane the same by any
slanderous behaviour in his own person, nor in any that is in his power;
that he sall remain in his awn house and twa mile about the same; and that
he sail not reset priests, nor be found reasoning against the religion
presently professed.’
On the 17th of November 1631, the
Privy Council, considering that the Earl of Nithsdale is ‘vehemently
suspected in his religion, and that the remaining of Lord Maxwell, his
son, in his company, may prove very dangerous to the youth, and now in his
tender years infect and poison him with opinions wherefra it will be
difficult thereafter to reclaim him,’ ordered his lordship to ‘exhibit’
his son, that ‘direction may be given for his breeding and education in
the true religion.’—P. C. R. When we remember that the Earl of
Nithsdale was the most powerful man in the southern part of the kingdom,
and had so lately as 1625 acted as the royal commissioner to parliament,
and since conducted a large auxiliary force for the service of the king’s
brother-in-law in Germany, the character of this interference with his
domestic arrangements becomes the more noticeable.
Patrick Con of Achry, having early
yielded to the orders of Council, and retired from the country, was
nevertheless excommunicated by the presbytery of Aberdeen; in consequence
of which, those left in charge of his estate appropriated it and threw him
into destitution. He presented a petition to the king for permission to
return for a time, and to have the benefit of a temporary relaxation of
the pains of excommunication, in order that he might recover his property;
and this permission, extending to a twelvemonth, was granted, on condition
‘that, during the said space, he give no scandal or just offence to the
kirk nor government.’ We shall presently see something more of Patrick.
In February 1632, Gordon of Craig
petitioned the king for what the Council had some time before refused; and
his majesty, ‘conceiving his demand to be very reasonable, and (in respect
of his age and infirmity of body) to require our princely commiseration,’
enjoined the Council either to allow him to join his son abroad or live in
such part of Scotland as he himself chose. The Lords found it ‘no ways
fitting’ that Gordon should be allowed to leave the country, but gave him
a licence to take his choice of a place of residence within the country.
At length the interferences of the
king in behalf of the proscribed papists produced in his Scottish
councillors a degree of disapprobation which could no longer be repressed.
A diocesan assembly met at Aberdeen, and elected Mr William Gould as a
commissioner to proceed to lay their views before the Privy Council (July
1632). It was represented by this venerable person, that, when the exiled
papists were allowed to return temporarily, all of their profession were
‘thereby encouraged, upon expectation of finding the like liberty, to
return to the country when they sall be reduced to the same extremity.’
Some who had been brought to the point of yielding obedience, were now
become once more ‘so obstinate that they will abide the last dint of
excommunication.’ The returned exiles had ‘come not alone;’ but through
their means, priests were introduced in great numbers, and ‘going about
the houses of simple ones, perverts them.’ The hands and hearts of pastors
were much discouraged when they found that, after their great trouble with
the process of excommunication, and in urging the Council to the execution
of the laws, all ended in a licence to return from banishment, ‘in ane
increase of obstinacy.’ The petition concluded with a wish that the
Council would lay their grievances before the king, with a view to
inducing him to be more strict with the papists. The Council complied with
this request, and at the same time (July 12, 1632) caused two of the
returned exiles, Dr William Leslie and Mr Robert Irving, to be brought
before them to exhibit their licences—a movement, however, which was not
attended with any remarkable result.
Nov 17
The Privy Council heard of the apprehension of one Andrew Anderson, ‘ane
busy and trafficking papist,’ believed to be engaged at and about Dumfries
in arranging for the conducting of gentlemen’s sons beyond sea, that they
might be educated in the popish religion. Immediately on his apprehension,
he had been committed to the Pledge-chamber in Dumfries. The Lords sent
for him, that he might be subjected to examination in Edinburgh; but
before any progress had been made in his case, he died in the Tolbooth.
The Council could only issue an order to the provost and bailies to
inquire into the ‘form, manner, and cause of his death.’—P. C. R.
Serious people in Scotland were at
this time much scandalised by reports from England, regarding clergymen
who openly preached Arminianism, and others who wrote in favour of a lax
observance of the Sabbath. At home, the bishops and other leaders of the
church were manifestly departing from the old Scottish observances. ‘The
house of one Dickson in the Potterrow, in the suburbs of Edinburgh, was,
to some of them, their place of recreation on Sabbath afternoons. It was
remarked of Spottiswoode, and some other of the bishops, that they
sojourned [traveiled] more on that than on other days. And Mr Thomas
Foster, minister at Melrose, having but one hutt of corn in his barn-yard,
would needs shew his Christian liberty, by causing his servants cast it in
upon that holy day. Thus fast were we hastening to destruction.' |