The execution of the king, among its other bad effects,
put enmity between the ruling powers of Scotland and England. A set of
Scottish commissioners protested against it before the English
parliament—were slighted, and turned out of the country under a guard. The
leaders at Edinburgh, notwithstanding their condemnation of the late
‘Engagement,’ upheld monarchy in principle; and therefore, while England
was declaring itself a commonwealth or republic, Scotland proclaimed the
late king’s son—a youth of nineteen, living in exile—as Charles II., King
of Great Britain, France, and Ireland. At the same time, the Scots were
determined not to receive the young king as their sovereign, or to
befriend him in any way, until he should have accepted that Solemn League
and Covenant, which proclaimed a crusade against all doctrine inconsistent
with pure Presbyterianism.
With this difference as to a principle, Scotland was,
in 1649 and the early part of 1650, as purely a republic as England. The
state authority rested, as it had practically done for years past, in a
standing Committee of Estates, in which the Marquis of Argyle, the
Chancellor Earl of London, and Sir Archibald Johnston of Warriston, were
the most prominent figures. Religion, however, being the chief matter of
concernment in those days, it naturally came about that a similar standing
committee, called the Commission of the Kirk, had a great influence in
public affairs. Under the excitement produced by the struggle against the
late king, these ruling parties, as well as the people at large, had
contracted an exclusive and overweening attachment to Presbyterianism and
its objects, as expressed in the Solemn League, insomuch that no person
could be allowed to remain at peace without signing that document; while
to give it adherence and support was to manifest the highest of virtues,
or rather, to do that which was held as a summary of all virtue. The
racking concentration of attention on one subject during a long course of
years, to the neglect of all other healthy objects—the constant temptation
to dissimulation under a constraint which left no choice between avowed
profession and moral and legal outlawry—the effects of an ultra-austere
code of morals, which allowed no excuse for natural impulses—the
confounding effect of a system which subordinated all the really weighty
matters of the law to the mechanical fact of a signature—produced results
on the general surface of society of a kind by no means pleasant to
contemplate. There was throughout a sad want of the milder graces of
Christianity. The miraculous workings of divine vengeance against the
opponents of the children of Israel, and against apostates and idolaters
among themselves, were dwelt on in every pulpit and in numberless
publications, with constant application to those who went against the
Covenanted work. The breathings of divine love in the sermon on the mount,
and in the whole life of Jesus, were little, if ever, heard of.
One thing must clearly be admitted in regard to the
conduct of the Scots following upon the death of Charles I., that it was
marked by a consistency speaking much more of sincerity than of wisdom.
Though conscious that they could not command a sixth part of the force
which England could muster—though the Engagement had shewn what it
was to meet the veterans of Edgehill and Naseby in the field—they did not
scruple to do that which was sure to incur a war with the young republic,
because so they wrought out the plan of the Covenant, to which they had
sworn, and so did they believe they would advance the glory of God.
Commissioners sent to the young king at the Hague
negotiated for his coming to Scotland as their Covenanted monarch. He
would fain have evaded the condition; but on that point no concession
could be made. He, therefore, while the treaty was going on, was induced
to sanction a descent upon Scotland, which Montrose had planned, with a
view to raise the royalists. In the spring of 1650, the marquis, furnished
with a royal commission, landed in Orkney, with a handful of German
soldiers and some arms and ammunition. Advancing through Ross-shire with
about fifteen hundred men, he utterly failed to meet the support which he
expected. A body of troops sent against him under Colonel Strachan, fell
upon his little army in Strathoikel, and quickly routed it. The
unfortunate commander fled into Assynt—was given up by a treacherous
friend, and, being then brought to Edinburgh, was there hanged as ‘an
excommunicat traitor’ (May 21, 1650).
Seeing no better course now open to him for the
recovery of his kingdoms, Charles agreed that; on coming into Scotland, be
should sign the Covenant. The Scotch leaders, with their knowledge of his
concern in Montrose’s expedition, should have seen that he could be no
sincere adherent of that bond. They should have scrupled to accept such a
signature, or even to ask it. But it was just one of the unfortunate
consequences of the worship that had come to be paid to this document,
that adherences to it were demanded, nay, forced, without any regard to
conscientious objections, and accepted in the face of the most glaring
proofs that it was secretly protested against and hated, and would on the
first opportunity be thrown aside. Accordingly, a young prince, wholly a
man of pleasure, is now seen giving a false vow to a body of earnest
religious men, who had every reason to know what the votary felt, meant,
and would ultimately do in the case. Charles landed at the mouth of the
Spey, and was received with all outward appearances of
respect by the Scottish leaders and the chief divines, while they trusted
him with no real power. He visited Aberdeen, Perth, and Stirling,
everywhere a mere puppet, and much at a loss, it is said, to endure the
long sermons to which his situation compelled him to listen.
Cromwell, fresh from the reduction of Ireland, came
into Scotland with an army in July, to put down this movement. A large
force was prepared by the Scots, and placed in front of Edinburgh. It
might have been larger, if the leaders, in their extreme zeal for purity
of religion, had not deemed it proper to
reject all who were yet unreconciled to the church for their concern in
the Engagement, as well as all pure royalists. Cromwell, after all, found
the campaign less simple than he anticipated. Distressed by want of
provisions and by sickness, he was even inclined to withdraw along the
east coast. But the Scottish army posted on the Doon Hill, near Dunbar,
made such a movement impossible. In these circumstances, he must soon have
been brought to a capitulation. But the imprudence of the Scottish
leaders, in forcing General Leslie to attack the English, proved his
salvation. He gained a complete victory (September 3), killing three
thousand, and taking several thousand prisoners, many of whom were sent to
the plantations as slaves. Edinburgh and its Castle fell into his hands,
along with most of the southern provinces.
The Scottish government gathered the remains of its
strength at Stirling, and was soon able again to present a respectable
front to Cromwell, though only by admitting to its leaguer those troops,
Engagers and royalists, who had formerly been rejected. The determination
of the leaders was marked by a formal crowning of the king at Scone
(January 1, 1651), the Marquis of Argyle putting the emblem of sovereignty
on the royal head. By this time, the eyes of many had been opened to the
false position in which the country lay with respect to their former
associates of England, and some began to fraternise with Cromwell. A
division took place in the church regarding the king, some adhering to
certain resolutions in his favour, others protesting against them;
hence respectively called Resolutioners and Protesters. From
this time, the latter party, called also Remonstrants, embracing
the great bulk of those who took the most
scrupulous views regarding the Covenanted work, proved a sore thorn in the
side of the more moderate party, who for the meantime had gained an
ascendency. After a long inactivity, Cromwell, in
July 1651, made a movement to Perth, so as to threaten the Scottish army
in rear, but left a way open into England. At the urgency of the king, who
hoped for assistance in the south, the Scots marched across the west
border, and advanced through Lancashire, hotly followed by Cromwell. In a
well-contested and bloody action at Worcester (September 3, 1651), the
Scottish army was utterly routed; and Charles with difficulty escaped
abroad.
Scotland had now expended nearly the whole of her
military strength in a vain endeavour to support her ecclesiastical
system, in connection with a limited monarchy, against the English
commonwealth. Her towns and principal places of strength fell into the
hands of the English troops. The Committee of Estates were surprised and
taken prisoners at a place called Alyth, on the skirts of the Grampians.
The General Assembly was dispersed, and no church-courts above synods were
allowed to meet. Henceforth, the Resolutioners and Remonstrants, the
moderate majority and furious minority of the church, were allowed to gnaw
at and tear each other to pieces, with little result but that of making
many calm men despair of peace under such a mode of church-government.
With little ceremony, the country was declared to be united with England.
In 1653, the remnants of the party friendly to royalty drew together in
the Highlands under the Earl of Glencairn and Lord Kenmure, and for
upwards of a year, under these nobles, and latterly under General
Middleton, with the assistance of certain clans, they were able to
maintain their ground. At length, even this guerrilla opposition ceased.
Eight thousand English troops and four forts—at Ayr, Leith, Perth, and
Inverness—proved sufficient to keep our ancient kingdom in subjection. The
essentially aggressive spirit of the Solemn League was revenged by nine
years of humiliation, during which all classes seem to have suffered, but
especially the nobles, who were ground to the dust by heavy fines. It is
admitted, nevertheless, that the country was benefited by the keeping down
of the religious factions, as well as by the impartiality of a corps of
English judges, who superseded the native bench.
During the greater part of this time, Cromwell was the
undisputed ruler of Scotland, as well as of England and Ireland. At
length, after his death in 1658, confusion and difficulty were renewed,
and to these an effectual stop was not put till, by
the happy intervention of General Monk, Charles II. was restored as king
(May 1660).
1649
In the early part of this year, the Scottish Estates are found
engaged in various objects of apparently a contradictory
character. They were eager, through their commissioners in London, to save
the king’s life; so much so that, on some one proposing that they should
wait over three or four days for a general fast, the idea was overruled in
favour of the immediate employment of worldly means. They were at the same
time bringing to punishment, or scarcely less penal repentance, thousands
of people who had taken arms for the king in the preceding year. After
Charles I. was no more, they sat on under the sanction of the name of ‘our
sovereign lord Charles II.,’ and yet if that sovereign lord had ventured
to set his foot on Scottish soil, it is most probable that he would have
been immediately made a prisoner and treated as a dangerous person. The
truth is, the powers now in the ascendant were only monarchists in
subordination to a superior principle, which had in view the establishment
of a perfect Presbyterian church, as meditated in the Solemn League and
Covenant. While they so far favoured Charles I., then, as not to desire
his death, they regarded as wholly mischievous all who had befriended or
proposed to befriend him or his son on other terms than an adherence to
the Covenant.
The Highlanders were not sensible of these refining
distinctions. They rose in a considerable body in February under Thomas
Mackenzie of Pluscardine, a brother of the Earl of Seaforth; professing
only a desire to restore the king. This little band took Inverness, but
was soon put down. The only effect was, that the ruling powers now wreaked
vengeance on their old opponent the Marquis of Huntly, who had been a
pining prisoner in Edinburgh Castle for sixteen months, and was not likely
to have long troubled them, since he was manifestly dying of a dysentery.
We have seen this noble entering life as Master of the king of France’s
Scottish guard. A great prince he was in the north. Through the whole
civil war, he had been constant to the king as simply the king, but had
not always acted with consummate prudence. Now comes at length an evil day
for the House of Gordon, when the wrath accumulated against it for its
seventy years’ opposition to a ‘truth’ which it could never appreciate,
must be discharged. It might have been expected that the Marquis of
Argyle, who was Huntly’s brother-in-law, and to appearance all-powerful,
would interfere to save him. To that end, his sister, the Marchioness of
Douglas, and his three daughters—the Lady Drummond, the Lady Seton, and
the Countess of Haddington, went and threw themselves on their bended
knees before Macaleinmore. He declined to meddle with what the parliament
had decreed, the truth being, that no lay power was then able to stand
against an object on which the leading clergy had set their hearts. The
poor ladies pleaded even to have a respite of a few days, hoping that
nature would save their brother and parent a public and cruel death; but
even this boon could not be obtained. On the 22d of March, the marquis is
brought down from his airy prison, along the High Street of Edinburgh,
clad in the deepest mourning, very weak in body, we are told, but cheerful
in spirit, as not wishing to live after his master was gone, and placed on
a scaffold at the Cross, where the Maiden stands prepared to receive him
in her dismal embraces. He writes a few lines to his children, and speaks
a few sentences to the multitude. The gleaming axe descends, and the noble
of a score of illustrious titles is no more.
After all, the Highlanders were not disposed to be at
peace. One Sunday in May, about fifteen hundred Mackenzies and Mackays
came over the Kessock Ferry to Inverness, while the people were at church,
and proceeded to great insolencies. ‘Instead of bells to ring in to
service,’ says a clergyman who was present, ‘I saw and heard no other than
the noise of pipes, drums, pots, pans, kettles, and spits in the streets,
to provide them with victuals in every house. In their quarters the rude
rascality would eat no meat at their tables, until the landlord laid down
a shilling Scots upon each trencher, terming this argiod cagainn,
or chewing money, which every soldier got, so insolent were they.’ This
doughty band was in a few days half cut to pieces by two troops of horse
under Colonels Strachan and Kerr, and about a thousand of them came back
as prisoners to Inverness, where, ‘those men who, in their former march,
would hardly eat their meat without money, are now begging food, and, like
dogs, lap the water which was brought them in tubs and other vessels in
the open streets.' Such are amongst the scenes proper to a time of civil
broil.
The clergy were sensible of the benighted state of the
Highlands, and longed to see the Gael brought to a sense of the beauty of
a pure faith. As one small effort towards the object, the General Assembly
ordained a collection to be made for the purpose of keeping forty Highland
boys at school. It appears, however, that very little was efficiently done
for the education of youth in the Highlands, till fully a century later.
Dr Shaw, in his History of the Province of Moray, published in
1775, makes the remarkable declaration: ‘I well remember when from
Speymouth (through Strathspey, Badenoch, and Lochaber) to Lorn there
was but one school—viz., at Ruthven in Badenoch; and it was much to
find, in a parish, three persons that could read and write.’
A perfect accord reigned between the clergy and the
Estates, the latter ratifying whatever the former required. A seasonable
testimony against the sins and dangers of the times being issued by the
church-commission, the Estates passed an act responding to it, ‘heartily
concurring in the grounds thereof against toleration and the present
proceedings of the Sectaries in England;’ declaring for ‘one King, one
Covenant, one Religion;’ promising all strenuous endeavour for ‘the
settling truth and peace in these kingdoms upon the propositions so often
agreed to ‘—that is, by the forcible putting
down of every profession in England and Ireland but that of pure
Presbyterianism. At the request of the church, lay patronages were
abolished, and acts were passed imposing capital punishment on blasphemy,
the worship of false gods, and incest. The church had for some time been
under great concern about ‘the growth of the sins of witchcraft, charming,
and consulting,’ and it now appointed a conference of ministers, lawyers,
and physicians, ‘to consider seriously of that matter, and advise therein
amongst themselves,’ and afterwards report. The Estates, fully entering
into these views, passed an act not expressly against witchcraft, for that
had been done, as we have seen, so long ago as Queen Mary’s days, but to
meet the fact that there are people who consult devils and familiar
spirits, thinking to escape punishment because consulters of spirits are
not mentioned in the former act. For this reason, the parliament enacted
the punishment of death to ‘consulters,’ at the same time ratifying ‘all
former acts against witches, sorcerers, necromancers, and consulters with
them, in the whole heads, articles, and clauses thereof.’
The perfect simplicity and earnestness of all this is,
in the conception of the author, as certain as its being obviously short
of the better wisdom and better temper of our own time. The evil effects
of the pursuit of rigorous extremes in state policy, in religious
doctrine, and in ecclesiastical systems, had not then been experienced. No
one yet dreamed of there being any harm in intolerance, but, on the
contrary, it seemed a sin and a scandal to omit any means which promised
to compel the wandering to come in. As to witchcraft and consulting, which
we have learned to regard as imaginary offences, it was enough for the
jurist of the seventeenth century that these words were entered in
the Levitical law as descriptive of crimes deserving punishment.
One direction in which the earnestness of the time more
especially projected itself, was towards an absolute exclusion of all
shortcoming in religion, or even in what might be called church politics.
Not only did an act of parliament thrust out of offices and places of
trust all who had been in the slightest degree concerned in the
Engagement—who must have been a large portion of the middle and upper
classes of lay society—but the church-courts were equally unsparing of any
clergy who had touched the unclean thing, or proved at all slack in faith
and zeal. As a specimen—In September, a ‘visitation’ sat at the
appointment of the General Assembly in the synodal province of Angus and
Mearns, under the moderatorship of Mr Andrew Cant. It called several
ministers of twenty years’ standing before it to preach, that there might
be trial of doctrine and efficiency. In all, eighteen ministers were
deposed, on the ground of insufficiency, ‘silence during the time of the
late Engagement,’ ‘famishing of congregations,’ and corruption of life or
doctrine.—Lam. This was only one of ‘diverse commissions’ which had
gone east, west, north, and south, as Robert Baillie expresses it, and
‘deposed many ministers, to the pity and grief of my heart; for sundry of
them might have been, for more advantage every way, with a rebuke, keeped
in their places; but there was few durst profess so much.’ In
short, as invariably happens in revolutions and times of danger, an
institution professedly of a popular cast was ruled by this Mr Cant and
two or three of his fellows, with as uncontrolled a power as usually
belongs to institutions of an avowedly despotic character; and, doubtless,
unavoidably so. It is at the same time evident that large numbers of
individuals could not thus be made to suffer for merely sentimental
offence; without some perilous consequences. It only afforded too good a
precedent, as well as excuse, for retributory acts of the same kind after
a reaction had set in. It is clear that the throwing of so many people out
of their ordinary means of livelihood must have added not a little to the
distresses of a time which, from natural as well as political causes, was
one of general suffering.
Among the persons of some figure who had taken part in
the Engagement, and were consequently liable to punishment at the hands of
the now triumphant Whiggamores, was Mr Robert Farquhar, a rich Aberdeen
merchant (provost of the city), who had at an earlier period been a most
serviceable friend to the Covenanting cause, in as far as he helped it
with large sums of money. In 1644 and 1641, he had advanced to the leaders
‘far more than he was worth:’ they ordered him to receive £4000 of the
‘brotherly assistance’ money paid by the English parliament to the Scots
at the close of the first troubles; and this sum he brought down to
Burntisland by sea, at great hazard from pirates; when no sooner had he
arrived, than the Covenanting leaders forcibly borrowed the money again
from him to supply the urgent necessities of the state. At the end of the
second troubles in 1647, the debt of the state to Robert Farquhar was
£133,132 Scots; and the parliament passed an act appointing him to
receive, as to account, £5000 sterling of the second instalment of
£200,000, then to be paid by the English parliament to the kingdom of
Scotland. Two years, however, passed on, without anything being realised,
and by accumulation of interest, the debt had reached the enormous sum of
£180,859 Scots, so that Farquhar was much distressed in his affairs.
We can readily imagine the feelings of a government
creditor to so large an amount, who had done something that usually
provoked fines on the part of that government, on his receiving a
summons to come to Edinburgh. He prepared to obey with fear and trembling;
but the extraordinary sagacity attributed to the citizens of Aberdeen did
not desert him. Near by, lived Mr Andrew Cant, the minister of his native
city, whom he knew to be influential with the Committees ruling in
Edinburgh. On the Sunday evening preceding the Monday morning on which he
was to take horse for the south, he caused his wife to prepare a good
supper, to which he proceeded to invite Mr Cant, for, as has been already
intimated, Sunday-evening entertainments were among the domestic
institutions of the age. The remainder of the story may be given in the
words of the contemporary narrator. Mr Andrew, he says, ‘refuses to come
once, twice; at last Mr Robert resolves with himself to have him at any
rate, and forthwith goes to his house himself and very earnestly, in
submissive and humble terms, entreats him to let him be honoured with his
company at supper. The minister refuses, in respect of the coldness of the
night. He still urges him to go, and he should find ane sure antidote for
any cold. At last, being overcome by Mr Robert’s importunity, he goes home
with him—all this time it is observable how he called him no other but
still Mr Robert—and being set by the fire, and made very welcome, Mr
Robert goes to his closet, and brings to the hall a gown of black velvet,
lined with martricks, and would have Mr Andrew put it on, which, with
small entreaty, he did. (Thereafter, in all his discourses, he calls him
either provost or commissary, and not Mr Robert.) So, having supped, and
made a plentiful meal, and being again set by the fire, Mr Robert asks the
minister if he had any service to command to Edinburgh, for he was cited
to appear there, before the parliament, to make his accounts, and
therefore besought Mr Andrew that he would recommend him to some of his
most confident friends; which he promised to do. At last, bedtime drawing
near, Mr Andrew rises to begone, and would have casten off the gown; but
Mr Robert entreated him not to do so, nor wrong him that far, in respect
he had brought him from his own warm house, in so cold and rigid a night,
to partake of so homely fare, for no other end but to bestow that
chamber-gown upon him, as befitting his age and gravity Such as it was, he
humbly entreated him to accept of it, as an assurance and token of his
love and affection to him; which Mr Andrew did without more ceremonies. So
Mr Robert did accompany him home, with his gown on his shoulders, and at
parting Mr Andrew told him "he should not do weel to go without his
letters." He said he would not. To-morrow he gets his letters, one to
Argyle, another to Loudon, and the third to the Register Warriston, with
two to some ministers, which made him welcome to Edinburgh, and afterwards
to dance about that fire which, as he feared, should, if not burned him,
at least scalded him very sore."
On the 1st of August, the Estates passed an act
acknowledging Farquhar’s enormous debt, and arranging for its reduction by
the payment to him of the third of all the fines imposed on delinquents
north of the Tay; so that, instead of having his own feathers plucked, he
was invested with a power of plucking others. In the subsequent year, he
received the honour of knighthood from Charles II.
It is worthy of notice that a few wealthy merchants
like this Mr Robert Farquhar (another of great note was Sir William Dick
of Edinburgh, afterwards to be noticed) had proved the principal means of
fitting out the Covenanting troops on several occasions. The register of
parliament is swelled at this time with their claims, and the efforts of
the government to give them satisfaction. The meagre Excise revenue, which
never perhaps reached thirty thousand pounds, was pledged and forestalled
to the teeth. One other resource much looked to was that of the fines
imposed on gentlemen who had shewn disinclination to the good cause. It
must be observed, that to have failed to subscribe any sort of declaration
of opinion that was required, to have, above all, refused a signature to
the Covenant, even to daily under a summons to appear before one of the
revolutionary committees, inferred a severe pecuniary exaction. Thus the
war was made in some degree to support itself, but not the less of course
to the general impoverishment of the country.
As an illustrative case—exhibiting this oppressive
mulcting system, and that general interference with personal liberty which
the revolutionary government (by the unavoidable necessity, we may admit,
of its position) was accustomed to visit upon its subjects, when these
were in any degree slack of obedience—we may mention the case of James
Farquharson of Inverey, in Aberdeenshire; premising that the statement is
his own in a petition to the Estates. Having been summoned by the
Committee of Estates in May 1647, but not duly receiving the notice, he
failed of course to attend, and was consequently punished with a fine of
£4000 [Scots?). The exaction of this fine was assigned to Forbes, Laird of
Leslie, probably in recompense of services or repayment of public debt;
and Forbes immediately became the prosecutor of Farquharson at law. It was
in vain that Farquharson, when apprised of his liability, offered to stand
a trial for any offence laid to his charge. In the spring of 1649, he,
being a man of seventy-three years of age, was dragged from his house, his
wife and young children, to Edinburgh, where probably this Deeside baron
had never been in his life. There he was clapped up in the Tolbooth, and
kept for twelve weeks, till, afraid to perish in so horrible a den, and
sensible of the hard condition of his family at home, he at length
succeeded in attracting some charitable attention from the Estates. It was
only, after all, on his agreeing with the Laird of Leslie for a
composition of his fine, that this gentleman, who boldly challenged any
trial, but was never tried, could obtain his liberty.
June
One Alexander Stewart, calling himself professor of physic, travelled
about the country, picking up a scanty livelihood by the exercise of his
art, but also beholden in part for his subsistence to the kindness of
friends. He had lived in this way twenty years, without any fixed
habitation of his own, and it chanced in the summer of this year that he
had to travel from the house of his brother, the minister of Rothesay, to
St Johnston, ‘hoping to have had some residence there in the exercise of
his calling,’ when he was seized as ‘an intelligencer and seminary
priest,’ carried to Edinburgh, and imprisoned in the Tolbooth. He was
under the necessity of petitioning the Estates, setting forth his
innocency of all offence against kirk or state, and shewing that he had
already cleared himself before the presbytery of St Johnston, ‘who could
find nothing of that kind against him;’ yet he was suffered to lie
‘miserably in prison, destitute of all help.’ The Estates, having
apparently ascertained that a mistake had been made in the seizure of this
poor mediciner, ordered his liberation.
This was a year of extreme dearth. Wheat was at
seventeen pounds Scots per boll; oats, twelve pounds; and other grains in
proportion. Owing, also, to the coldness and dryness of the spring, the
herbage and hay proved deficient, and cheese and butter consequently
attained high prices—the former three, and the latter six pounds per
stone. ‘In the beginning of June, the parliament licensed Englishmen to
buy and transport oxen, kine, sheep of all sorts, likewise horses and
colts; which was one of the most hurtful acts could ‘be made to ruin
Scotland, and advance the designs of the enemies thereof; bestial of all
sorts being at so high a rate these four years past in this country, and
flesh in the common markets scarce buyable but at very exorbitant rates;
the like has not been seen in this kingdom heretofore since it was a
nation.’—Bal.
The luxuries of life were correspondingly dear at this
time: the best ale, 3s. 4d. (3 1/3d. sterling); sack wine, 36s.; and
French wine, 16s. per pint.
Aug
‘About Lammas and afterwards, in many parts of this kingdom, both among
bear and oats, there were seen a great number of creeping things—which was
not ordinar—which remained in the head of the stalk of corn, at the root
of the pickle.’—Lam.
‘About Lammas . . . . there
was a star seen by many people of Edinburgh, betwixt twelve and two hours
of the day, even when the sun shined most bright; which was taken for a
comet, and a forerunner of the troubles that followed.’—C. P. H.
No such comet is noted by astronomers, the only two in
the first half of the seventeenth century being in 1607 and 1618. It was
probably a star of high magnitude, or planet rendered visible by some
extraordinary state of the atmosphere.
The anxiety about witchcraft manifested by the General
Assembly and parliament this year, was not allowed to expend itself in
empty words. ‘This summer,’ says Lamont in his
Diary, ‘there was very many witches taken and brunt in several
parts of this kingdom, as in Lothian and Fife.’ The register of the
Committee of Estates shews no fewer than five several commissions issued
on the 4th, and two on the 6th of December, for the trial of witches in
various parts of the country. The procedure, as far as revealed to us,
seems to have been this: The suspected were first taken in hand by the
minister and his session or consistory, with a view to obtain proof or
extort confession. Generally, the poor wretches—moved partly by their own
religious feelings— confessed; then a commission was sought for and
granted to certain gentlemen of the district, for the trial of the
accused. The trial seems to have been little more than a form, for
condemnation and execution almost invariably followed.
Margaret Henderson, ‘Lady Pittathrow,’ described as
sister to the Laird of Fordel, and residing in Inverkeithing, was delated
by sundry persons who had lately suffered for witchcraft, ‘to be ane
witch, and that she has keepit several meetings and abominable society
with the devil.’ So says a grave petition of the General Assembly to
parliament (July 19). Fearing punishment, she withdrew to the city of
Edinburgh, and there lurked ‘till it pleasit the Almighty God to dispose
in His providence that she is now apprehendit and put in firmance in the
Tolbooth.’ The Assembly now craving her trial, so that ‘this land and city
may be free of her and justice done upon her,’ the Estates were pleased to
issue a command to Mr Thomas Nicholson, his majesty’s advocate, to proceed
with her arraignment before the justice-general; and if she be guilty of
the said crime, ‘to convict and condemn her, pronounce sentence of death
against, cause strangle her and burn her body, and do every requisite in
sic cases.’ The diarist Lamont gives us the conclusion of the case. ‘After
remaining in prison for a time, [she] being in health at night, was upon
the morning found dead. It was thought and spoken by many that she wronged
herself, either by strangling or poison; but we leave that to the judgment
of the great day.’
There was a kind of infection in witchcraft, for one
unhappy victim was sure to accuse others, albeit with no more justice than
what there was in the charge against herself. It was probably in
consequence of such ‘delations’ on the part of Lady Pittathrow that we
find the presbytery of Dunfermline and minister of Inverkeithing giving in
a supplication to parliament (July 31, 1649), shewing that there bad been
‘declarations of witchcraft against the wives of the magistrates and other
persons of the burgh of Inverkeithing, whom the said magistrates refused
to apprehend.’ The presbytery had visited the burgh, and ‘dealt with the
magistrates and town-council to give the full power and commission to
certain honest men of the town, to apprehend, put in firmance, and tak
trial of such persons as they should allow and judge worthy to be
apprehendit and tried, as said is.’ The surprise of these worthy bailies
on being told that the wives of their own bosoms were witches, would have
been not a little amusing to a man of the nineteenth century, could he
have been present to witness it. We are told that they at first seemed to
see the reasonableness of deputing their ordinary power to a set of
‘honest men’ for the trial of their suspected helpmates; but when their
ghostly visitors had left them, they were brought to view things in a
different light. The magistrates now ‘slights that work, and refuses to
give the power in manner foresaid.’ For this reason it had become
necessary to apply to parliament for a commission to the ‘honest men’ to
do the duty of the magistrates, and this was readily granted. What came of
the magistrates’ wives under this perilous accusation, does not appear.
In August, a poor woman, named Bessie Graham, living in
Kilwinning, was apprehended and thrown into prison, for some threatening
words she had used in drink against a neighbour woman who had since died.
During a confinement of thirteen weeks, she was visited by the minister Mr
James Fergusson, who, it was thought, might ascertain whether she was a
witch or not. He found her obdurate in non-confession, and was greatly
inclined to think her innocent. One Alexander Bogue, ‘skilled in searching
the mark,’ came to examine her person, and finding a spot in the middle of
her back, thrust in a pin, which neither inflicted pain nor drew blood.
Still the minister hesitated to believe her guilty. He entered on a course
of prayers for divine direction. Soon after, going one evening to the
prison with his bedral, Alexander Simpson, he made a strenuous attempt to
induce Bessie to confess, but without effect. To pursue his own narrative:
‘When I came to the stair-head, I resolved to halt a little to hear what
she would say. Within a very short space, she begins to discourse, as if
it had been to somebody with her. Her voice was so low, that I could not
understand what she said, except one sentence, whereby I perceived she was
speaking of somewhat I had been challenging her of and she had denied
after a little while, I heard another voice speaking and whispering as it
were conferring with her, which presently I apprehended to be the foul
fiend’s voice She, having kept silence a time, began to speak again; and
before she had well ended, the other voice speaketh as it were a long
sentence, which, though I understood not what it was, yet it was so low
and ghostly, that I was certainly persuaded that it was another voice than
hers. Besides, her accent and manner of speaking was as if she had been
speaking to some other; and that other voice, to the best of my
remembrance, did begin before she had ended, so that two voices were to be
heard at once.
‘By this time fear took hold on Alexander Simpson,
being hindmost in the stair, and thereby he cries out. I did exhort him
with a loud voice not to fear; and we came all of us down the stair,
blessing God that had given me such a clearance in the business.’
This poor woman, on a subsequent conference with Mr
Fergusson, confessed all she was accused of, except the imputed
witchcraft. She said: ‘She knew she would die, and desired not to live;
and she thought we would be free before God of her blood, because that,
however she was free, yet there were so many things deponed against her
that it was hard for us to think otherwise of her than we did; yet she
knew well enough her own innocence.’ Bessie was soon after tried,
condemned, and executed, denying her guilt to the last.’
In the ensuing month, Agnes Gourlay was examined by the
kirk-session of Humbie, concerning some practices of hers for charming the
milk of kine. It was alleged that Anna Simpson, servant to Robert Hepburn
of Keith, having found fault with the milk she drew from her master’s
cows, Agnes told her of a way to remedy the evil, and soon after came and
put it in practice. Throwing a small quantity of the milk into the
grupe or sewer of the cow-house, she called out: ‘God betak us to! May
be, they are under the earth that have as much need of it, as they that
are above the earth!’ after which she put wheat bread and salt into the
cows’ ears. Agnes by and by confessed that she had so done, and was
ordained to make public repentance in sackcloth.’
Lord Linton, son of the Earl of Traquair, married
Henrietta Gordon, daughter of the lately executed Marquis of Huntly, and
relict of George Lord Seton; she being an excommunicated papist. ‘The
minister of Dawick, being an old man, did marry thir foresaid persons
privately, without proclamation of their banns, according to the custom;
for which, shortly after, he was excommunicate, his church declared
vacant, and he by the state banished.’—Lam. Lord Linton was fined
in £5000 Scots, and likewise excommunicated and imprisoned.—Nic.
Dec 18
The reader will remember the strenuous opposition of John Mean, merchant
in Edinburgh, to the Episcopal innovations, and his sufferings in that
cause; likewise the strong suspicion entertained that it was his wife who
discharged her stool at the bishop’s head when the Service-book was
introduced into St Giles’s in July 1637. It was natural that John, who was
a man of good account in the world, as well as a most earnest
Presbyterian, should have flourished under the present other of things. We
therefore hear without surprise that the Post in Edinburgh—the germ of a
most important institution—was now under the care of John Mean. It seems
to have been confined as yet to the transmission of letters between London
and Edinburgh. At the date noted, he addressed a petition to the Committee
of Estates, regarding ‘his great charges and expenses in attending the
Letter-office in this city, and his allowance therefor.’ He states that
‘the benefit arising by the letters sent from this to London and coming
from thence hither, by the ordinary post, will amount to four hundred
pounds sterling yearly or thereby, all charges being deduced for payment
of the postmaster from Newcastle to Edinburgh inclusive, and no proportion
thereof laid upon the Berwick pacquet.’ In consideration of his charges,
John was allowed to retain for himself the eighth penny upon all the
letters sent from Edinburgh to London, and the fourth penny upon all those
coming from London to Edinburgh.—R.C.E.
In the year 1649, as is
believed, a cateran named Mac-Allister, with a band of followers, kept a
large portion of Caithness in terror. The people of Thurso having somehow
given him offence, he determined to revenge himself by suddenly coming
down upon them on a Sunday and burning them in church. He and his men had
provided themselves with withes of twigs to fasten the doors, in order to
keep the people in, while fire should be set to the building. Some one
remonstrating with him for contemplating such an unholy design on the
Sabbath-day, he avowed that, in spite of God and the Sabbath both, he
would shed blood. Fortunately, some humane person became aware of the
design, and set off at speed to give the alarm. This had scarcely been
done, when the caterans, twenty in number, arrived. There were seven doors
to the church, as may be verified by an inspection of the ruins at this
day. An old woman dexterously thrust her stool into one near which she
sat, so as to prevent it from being closed; the people were eager to
defend the rest as far as they could. Mac-Allister himself came to the
door of a gallery at the south-west angle of the building, accessible by
an outer stair. Here sat Sir James Sinclair of Murkle,. an able and
determined man, who made a practice of coming to church armed. Meeting the
robber in the doorway, he thrust his sword through him, but with no
apparent effect. His servant, however, superstitiously fearing that Mac-Allister
was impervious to cold steel, cut a triangular silver button from Sir
James’s coat, and with that shot the fellow in the head. He tumbled over
the stair, saying in Gaelic: ‘Hoot-toot, the bodach has deafened me!’ It
was a mortal wound in the ear. The rest of the party were then set upon by
the congregation, and after a hard contest, overpowered, many of them,
like their master, being killed.’
1650, Mar 9
The Marquis of Douglas, formerly Earl of Angus, one of the greatest and
wealthiest of the nobility, was a Catholic; and his wife, a daughter of
the first Marquis of Huntly, was a not less firm adherent of the ancient
faith. For many years past, the presbytery of Lanark had acted as an
inquisition over them, sending deputations every now and then to Douglas
Castle, to deal with them for their conversion, intermeddling with their
domestic affairs, and threatening them with excommunication if they did
not speedily give ‘satisfaction.’ With great difficulty, and after many
conferences, they had prevailed on the Lady Marquesse to attend the
parish church, and allow her children to be instructed in the Presbyterian
catechism: a mere external conformity, of course, but involving a homage
to the system which seems to have pleased the ecclesiastical authorities.
It took six years to bring the marquis to an inclination to abjure popery
and sign the Covenant; and great was the rejoicing when he performed this
ceremony before the parish congregation. A moderator of presbytery
reported his ‘great contentment’ in seeing his lordship communicate and
give attentive ear to the sermons. Seeing, however, that the lady remained
immovable, the reverend court deemed it necessary to demand of the noble
pair that their children should be secluded from them, in order that
assurance might be had of their being brought up in the Protestant
religion. This seems to have been too much for the old peer. He plainly
broke through all engagements to them, by going and joining Montrose.
As his lordship fell into the hands of the Estates, by
whom he was imprisoned in Dumbarton Castle, the presbytery obtained an
increased power over the lady. They now brought her before them, to
examine her touching her ‘malignancy and obstinate continuance in the
profession of popery.’ Imagine the daughter of the superb Huntly, the
mother of the future head of the chivalric house of Douglas, forced to
appear ‘with bated breath and whispering humbleness’ before the presbytery
of Lanark! She really did give them such smooth words as induced them to
hold off for a little while. But they soon had occasion once more to
bewail the effects of their ‘manifold expressions of lenity and
long-suffering’ towards her, which they saw attended by no effect but
‘disobedience.’ The process for her excommunication and the taking any of
her children was in full career in January 1646; and yet by some means
which do not appear, it did not advance.
Meanwhile the marquis had been suffering a long
imprisonment for his lapse with Montrose, and his estate was embarrassed
with a fine of 50,000 merks. It had become indispensable for the good of
his family, that he should be somehow reconciled to the stern powers then
ruling. At the beginning of 1647, the descendant of those mail-clad
Douglases who in the fifteenth century shook the Scottish throne, was
found literally on his knees before the Lanark presbytery, expressing his
penitence for breach of covenant, and giving assurance of faithfulness in
time to come. The Estates consequently contented themselves with one half
of his fine, and an offer of the use of his lands for the quartering of
troops, and he was then liberated. Soon after, he agreed to consign his
children to be boarded with the minister of the parish of Douglas, while a
young man should attend to act as their preceptor; but the satisfaction
produced by this concession was quickly dashed, when the presbytery
learned that his lordship was secretly arranging to send his youngest son
to be bred in France. It was really a curious game between their honest
unsparing zeal on the one hand, and his lordship’s craft and territorial
consequence on the other. Every now and then we have a peep of the demure
lady, not less resolute in adhering to her faith than they were
pertinacious in seeking to bring her to the superior light. How the
recusant pair must have in secret chafed under the mute acquiescence which
they were forced to give, in a rule outraging every sense of natural
right, and every feeling of self-respect! With what smothered rage would
they view those presbyterial deputations on their approach to Douglas
Castle—more formidable than a thousand of the troops of Long shanked
Edward had ever been to the good Sir James! During the predominance of the
Hamilton Engagement, there was a slight intermission: in those partially
clouded days of the church, the presbytery was obliged to speak a little
less resolutely. In October 1648, the cloud had passed away: Cromwell was
now in the Canongate, conferring with Argyle, Loudon, and Dickson. We
accordingly find the Lanark inquisition laconically ordering that, failing
immediate satisfaction, his lordship be summoned and the lady ‘excommunicat.’
The noble marquis appeared in this month before them, to answer sundry
challenges—’for not keeping his son at the school with a sufficient
pedagogue approven by the presbytery; for not delivering his daughter to
some Protestant friend by sight [that is, under the approbation] of the
presbytery; for not having a sufficient chaplain approven as said is, for
family exercise in his house; for not calling home his son, who is in
France;’ and, finally, for his grievous oppression of his tenants. On all
of these points, he was forced to make certain professed concessions. And
we soon after find this proud grandee pleading to have his son brought
from the school of Glasgow to that of Lanark, but ‘not to come home to
his parents except the presbytery permit.’ Still there was no real
progress made with either the marquis or his lady, and simply because they
continued to be Catholics at heart, and had it not in their power to give
more than lip-worship to any other system.
Such being the case, what are we to think of the
conclusion of the affair with the marchioness, when, on the 9th of March
1650, two ministers went to pass upon her that sentence of excommunication
which was to make her homeless and an outlaw,’ unless she should
instantly profess the Protestant faith; at the same time telling her
‘how fearful a sin it was to swear with equivocation or mental
reservation.’ The lady of course reflected that the system represented by
her visitors was now triumphant over everything—that, for one thing, it
had brought her brother Huntly, not a twelvemonth ago, beneath the stroke
of the Maiden. She ‘declared she had no more doubts,’ and at the command
of one of the ministers, held up her hand, and solemnly accepted the
Covenant before the congregation. ‘After he had read the Solemn League and
Covenant, and desired her to hold up her hand and swear by the great name
of God to observe, according to her power, every article thereof, she did
so; and after divine service was ended, he desired her to go to the
session-table and subscribe the Covenant, and, before the minister and
elders, she went to the said table and did subscribe,’
‘Heaven scarce believed the conquest it surveyed,
And saints with wonder heard the vows I made.’
On the very day that this was reported by the two
ministers to the presbytery, the court, ‘hearing that of late the Marquis
of Douglas and his lady had sent away one of their daughters to France, to
a popish lady, to be bred with her in popery, without the knowledge of the
presbytery, and without any warrant from the Estates, thought the fault
intolerable, and so much the more, because they had sent away one of their
sons before to the court of France.’ For some time after, the reverend
presbytery dealt earnestly with the marquis for the withdrawal of his
children from France, but without success. They also had occasion to
lament that he and his lady rarely attended public worship, and failed to
have private exercises at home. Of their own great error in forcing this
noble family into hypocritical professions, and interfering so violently
with their domestic arrangements, no suspicion seems ever once to have
crossed their minds.
Mar
At the same time that the presbytery of Lanark was driving on matters with
the Marchioness of Douglas, it had another serious affair on its hands.
Towards the close of the preceding year, the marquis had sent eleven women
of his parish to Lanark, as accused of witchcraft by one Janet Couts, ‘a
confessing witch,’ then in prison at Peebles. There was a difficulty about
the case, for the burgh declined to maintain so many persons pending their
trial. It was therefore necessary to send them back to Crawford Douglas
under security. Afterwards, one George Cathie, ‘the pricker,’ being
brought to Lanark, the women were brought forward again, when, ‘before
famous witnesses—namely, Gideon Jack and Patrick Craig, bailies in Lanark,
James Cunningham of Bonniton, &c., Mr Robert Birnie himself [the minister
of Lanark] being also present, and by consent of the women, the said
George did prick pins in every one of them, and in divers of them without
pain the pin was put in, as the witnesses can testify.’ The women were
accordingly detained, in prison. As ‘it was not possible for the parish
out of which they came to furnish watches night and day for them,’ the
county ‘did ordain that each parish should, proportionally to their
quantity, furnish twelve men every twenty-four hours; whereupon the
presbytery did ordain that the minister of that parish out of which the
watches shall come for their turn, shall come along with them, to wait
upon the suspected persons, and to take pains, by prayer and exhortation,
to bring them to a confession.’
We next see the presbytery sending a deputation to the
Council of State in Edinburgh, to urge that a commission should be
appointed for the trial of the witches. While this was in preparation,
they sent to the parish to collect evidence against the poor women. It
might have been supposed that, when, after a sermon in the church, no one
came forward to say a word against them, some doubts might have entered
the minds of the presbytery. Such, however, was not the case. They sent
again and again, till at length charges were made against three of the
suspected. Meanwhile, one whom Janet Couts herself ‘cleansed,’ was
liberated. Six more, against whom no charge was made, were allowed to go
home on giving security that they would reappear if called upon. Finally,
two, named Janet M’Birnie and Marion Laidlaw, were at this date tried by
the commission on various points delated against them; as that, ‘on a time
Janet followed William Brown, a slater, to crave somewhat, and fell in
evil words, after which time, within twenty-four hours, he fell off ane
house and brake his neck; that Janet was the cause of the discord between
[the laird of] Newton and his wife, and that she and others was the death
of William Geddes;’ that ‘Marion and Jean Blacklaw differed in words for
Marion’s hay, and, after that, Jean her kye died;’ and that she, the said
Marion, ‘had her husband by unlawful means, and a beard!’ After most
strictly examining the witnesses on their oaths, the commission could find
nought proven against the two prisoners, and they were therefore dismissed
on giving caution to appear again if called upon.
It does not appear that this result in any degree
modified the views of the reverend presbytery regarding witchcraft. On the
very day when this case was reported to them, they received a
communication from Mr Richard Inglis, the chaplain or preceptor whom they
had established in the Marquis of Douglas’s family, setting forth the
confession of ‘ane warlock called Archibald Watt, alias
Sole the paitlet, pointing out the
way of his making covenant with the devil, as also many meetings since his
covenant keeped with the devil, and other witches, in divers places.’ And
immediately they sent a gentleman to Edinburgh for ‘a commission for ane
assize to sit upon the foresaid warlock.’
The end of the prosecution of the eleven women is
highly instructive. Janet Couts, before her death, which probably was by
burning, withdrew the charge she had made against them. It is on the same
day when the presbytery orders one of their number to go and read a paper
to this effect in the church of Douglas, that they make the above
arrangement for the prosecution of the warlock; shewing that they had not
been in the least staggered on the general question, by finding the gross
mistake they had made in this instance. - R. P. L.. |