and
it really proved so, as since that time I was never troubled therewith.
That same morning, while I am casting up the Bible, that place came first
to my hand and eye which saith, "Though Noah, Job, and Daniel would pray,
yet would I not hear them." Whereupon I was exceedingly confounded in
reference to our present case, and some weeks thereafter, having gone to
Leith to join myself to the forces there, I dried up in my prayers so as I
would pray none at all, and was glad to take the first opportunity that
offered to retire When Dunbar was foughten, and the news thereof came to
Glasgow within a day or two thereafter, while I am thinking thereupon, it
is borne in upon my mind, that our way in that business was not what it
ought to have been; and after some getting it laid to heart, I was
challenged for my implicit engaging therein; whilk came to that height
that I resolved never more to follow any course upon the opinion of any
person whatsomever, which accordingly the Lord has helped me to mind in
some weak measure ‘—Spreull.
Aug
While the two hostile armies lay about Edinburgh, ‘there was such great
scarcity, that all sorts of vines, meat and drink, could hardly be had for
money, and such as was gotten was foisted [musty], and sald at a double
price. The haill inhabitants were forced to contribute and provide for the
[Scottish] army, not-withstanding of this scarcity; as also to furnish
feather beds, bowsters, cods, blankets, sheets . . . .
for the hurt soldiers to lie upon, with pots and pans for making
ready their meat; and to collect money for providing honest entertainment
to the hurt soldiers that lay in the [Heriot’s] Hospital and Paul’s Wark.’—Nic.
Sep
The bellman was accustomed to intimate the death of a citizen through the
streets, and in the same way give invitations to the fuieral. At this time
the Edinburgh official was ordered to give up the phrase, ‘faithful
brother or sister,’ and retain brother or sister only. [The
formula used on the occasion is given in the following terms by a writer
of the seventeenth century: ‘When any one dies, the bellman goes about
ringing the passing bell, and acquaints the people therewith in the
following form: "Beloved brethren and sisters, I let you to wit, that
there is ane faithful brother lately departed out of this present warld,
at the pleesure of Almichty God (and then he veils his bonnet); his name
is Wully Woodcock, third son to Jemmy Woodcock, a cordinger; he ligs at
the slat door within the Norgate, close on the Nether Wynd, and I would
you gang to his burying on Thursday before twa o’clock, &c." The time
appointed for his burying being come, the bellman calls the company
together, and he is carried to the burying-place, and thrown into the
grave as dog Lion was, and there is an end of Wully.’—A Modern Account
of Scotland, 1670. Harleian Miscellany, vi. 121.]
—Nic.
Oct
This was a sore time for the southern counties of Scotland. Owing to the
futile opposition presented to Cromwell by the ultra-Presbyterians in the
west, a large detachment of the English army had to parade through the
country. ‘Much corns destroyed by them and their horses
. . . . the kirks and kirk-yards made stables and sentries for
their guards and horses... The corns of the field were not only destroyed
by this foreign enemy, and by the Scots armies at home, wha rampit and
raged through the land, eating and destroying wherever they went, but also
the Lord from the heavens destroyed much of the rest by storms and
tempests of weet and wind. The seas also were closed up by the enemy,
whase ships enclosed us on every side, so that no man was able to travel
by sea, neither yet by land without a pass.’— Nic.
‘Cromwell and his army of cavalry domineered in all
parts where they came, and in especial about Edinburgh, and in East
Lothian. The good Earl of Winton, to whose well-furnished table all the
noblemen and gentlemen had ever been welcome, was pitifully abused by
them; his fair house of Seaton made a common inn; himself threatened to be
killed, if they had not whatsoever they called for; his rich furniture and
stuff plundered, and all the enormities that could be offered by Jews or
Turks to Christians, he suffered daily; and when he complained to those of
our nobility who now rule all, he got no redress, but [was] ordered with
patience to give them whatsoever they called for. Their general, Cromwell,
stayed in Edinburgh, a stately lodging being appointed for him. He went
not to their churches, but it is constantly reported that every day he had
sermons in his own lodgings, himself being the preacher, whensoever the
spirit came upon him; which took him like the fits of an ague, sometimes
twice, sometimes thrice in a day.
‘One of his commanders being quartered with one of the
magistrates of the city, that he might be used with the more reverence,
and entertained with the more graceful respect, the master of the house
brought the preacher of the parish, a discreet and modest man, to
accompany him, whose conversation, he hoped, would be pleasing to him. The
preacher, after he had blessed the table, according to our Scottish
custom, prayed for the continuance and prosperous success of the Covenant,
which did so offend the English captain and those gentlemen who attended
upon him, as the preacher was threatened and abused most beastly, for
presuming in their presence to extol their rotten Covenant (as he termed
it); and with many reproachful terms told the preacher, that they had in
England trodden his Covenant under their feet, and they hoped, before it
was long, to consume it in Scotland with fire, and with disgrace to
extinguish the memory thereof The preacher would have answered, but he
durst not...
‘In the time that the English stayed, there were daily
and continual complaints given in; the people being unable to endure their
insolent carriage, so that there were many brawls, fighting, and killing
in private corners, where the Scots might be their masters. And one day in
Edinburgh, upon the High Street, and before the general’s lodgings, where
the English were always going forth in at the gate, one of their officers
was coming forth and going to his horse in great chafe, because he had
complained of a great injury done to some of the troop by the Scots, where
they were quartered, and not being justly satisfied with the general’s
answer, when he had mounted his horse, he spake aloud these words: "With
my own hands I killed that Scot which ought this horse and this case of
pistols, and who dare say that in this I wronged him?" "I dare say it,"
said one standing by; "and thus shall revenge it;" and with the word
pulling forth his sword, thrust him quite through the body, and with a
prompt celerity, as if he had been all in motion, just as he struck
him—who was already falling to the ground—and mounting his horse, rides
the way with a fierce gallop, and winning the port, goes to the fields,
and by an honourable flight frees himself from all danger.’
Nov 13
At this distressing time, when the best part of the country was in the
hands of foreign invaders, and the ancient monarchy of Scotland threatened
with destruction, there occurred a calamitous event which must have been
peculiarly bewailed. The palace of Holyrood, being then in the occupation
of a party of the English troops, took fire, and was in great part
destroyed. The most interesting portion of the building—the north-west
tower, containing the apartments of Queen Mary—was fortunately preserved;
but the principal façade was
laid in ruins, so that the general appearance was, on a restoration, much
changed. About the same time, the English soldiery, for the sake of fuel,
broke down the furniture of the University buildings, the High School, and
of three churches—College, Greyfriars, and Lady Yester’s—besides the
plenishing of many houses in town and country.
‘In all parts of the land, where the English army come,
the ministers fled, and the Lord’s houses were closed and laid waste; so
that the word of the Lord became very precious to many.’ ‘The land [was]
mourning, languishing, left desolate, every part thereof shut up, and no
safe going out nor coming in the Lord hiding his face all this time for
the sins of Scotland.’—Nic.
Dec
‘I thought it good to remember here how that the names of Protestant and
Papist were not now in use. . . . in place
thereof raise up the name of Covenanters, Anti-Covenanters,
Cross-Covenanters, Puritans, Babarteris, Roundheads, Auld Horns, New
Horns, Cross-petitioners, Brownists, Separatists, Malignants, Sectaries,
Royalists, Quakers, Anabaptists.’ - Nic.
1651, May 6
The bitter feeling of the ruling powers towards the English sectarian army
was shewn in the way they treated any erring enthusiast who, in the spirit
of dissent, sent information to Cromwell. One Archibald Hamilton, who
acted in this manner, was ‘condemned to be hanged on a gallows in chains,
so long as one bone could hang at another of him.’ We now find the son of
an old acquaintance in their hands for this high offence. His father was
that John Mean, a merchant of Edinburgh, who had been in trouble as a
resister of Episcopal fashions in the reign of King James, and whom we
have just seen in the capacity of post-master in Edinburgh. His mother was
believed to be the identical female who cast the stool at the bishop’s
head in St Giles’s Church, on the first reading of the Service-book in
1637. The delinquent confessed his guilt, and was condemned by a council
of war sitting at Stirling; but as he was going to be hanged, the king
pardoned him, ‘in respect his father, old John Mean, in Edinburgh, put him
out to General Leslie as a knave and one corrupted by the English, and
entreated him to cause apprehend him.’ —Bal.
The son of a pair so peculiarly noted, being pardoned
by Charles II. for treason in favour of Cromwell, is a curious conjunction
of circumstances.
June 22
Some idea of the enormous sacrifices made by Scotland to resist the
English sectarian army, may be formed from a tolerably exact account,
which has been preserved, of what was done in that cause by the county of
Fife alone, between the 1st of June 1650 and the present date, being
somewhat less than thirteen months.
In June 1650, when Cromwell was about to invade
Scotland, Fife sent forth 1800 foot and 290 horse, the former ‘with four
pounds of outreik money for every man, with a four-tailed coat, stockings
and shoes,’ the latter at 300 merks each; being in all 151,800 merks. In
the ensuing month, a second levy, precisely the same as the first, was
made by the county. In September, 700 men were raised for the artillery
force, with a third levy of 290 horse and 350 dragoons. In January, two
regiments, amounting in whole to 2400 men, were raised in the county by
the Earls of Kelly and Crawford, and to this force the county gave
twenty-four pounds per man for arms and bounty. So much for the personal
force contributed, being in all 7920 men out of a population which, so
lately as 1801, was under 100,000. Then the county made large
contributions of meal and other provisions, besides money, and also
horses, for the use of the army; 5000 bolls of meal at one time, 3000 at
another, 100 stone of cheese, tents, dishes, and axes, oats for the
horses, quarters for ten horse regiments, and so forth. The sum of the
whole was reckoned up to 2,395,857 merks, which we assume to have been
equal to £137,309.—Bal.
It is difficult to understand how a province of a
country so poor as Scotland then was could spare so much means towards
even so cherished an object as the resistance of the English sectares.
Sep 1
During the occupation of the southern, parts of Scotland by the English
army, Dundee had become the retreat of many of the principal people of the
country, and a storehouse of much valuable property. On the Sunday before
the battle of Worcester, it was assaulted by General Monk, who played upon
it with battering-pieces all night, and in the morning entered and
subjected it to massacre and pillage. Upwards of a thousand men and
sevenscore women and children, are said to have been killed. ‘It is
reported by credible men that the English army had gotten above twa
hundred thousand pound sterling, partly of ready gold, silver, and silver
wark, jewels, rings, merchandise and merchant wares, and other precious
things, belonging to the city of Edinburgh, beside all that belonged to
the town, and other people of the country, wha had sent in their guids for
safety to that town.’ —Nic.
This year was one of even greater dearth than the
preceding, bear being £20 Scots per boll—equal to £1, 13s. 4d.—in many
parts of the country. The best sack wine was 4s. sterling, and French wine
is. 6d. per pint.. The best ale 4d a pint.’ ‘Yet God’s providence was such
toward the nation, that even when our awn corns failed us, the English
nation did bring in abundantly wheat, bear, peas, and such like, and
brought down the dearth of our mercats, by [beyond] expectation.’—Nic.
Nov 13
James Somerville, younger of Drum and Cambusnethan, author of the Memorie
of the Somervilles, was this day married to Martha Bannatyne, of Corehouse,
at Lesmahago kirk, he being nineteen, and she eighteen. The bridegroom’s
own account of the affair: ‘A matchlier pair was not seen within the walls
of that kirk this last century, nor a greater wedding—considering the
great consternation the country had been in for some few months
preceding—for nobility and gentry; there being one marquis, three earls,
two lords, sixteen barons, and eight ministers present at this solemnity,
but not one musician. They liked better the bleating of the calves
of Dan and Bethel—the ministers’ long-winded and sometimes nonsensical
graces, little to the purpose— than all musical instruments of the
sanctuary, at so solemn an occasion, which, if it be lawful at all to have
them, certainly it ought and should be upon a wedding-day, for
divertisement to the guests, that innocent recreation of music and dancing
being much more warrantable and a far better exercise than drinking and
smoking of tobacco, wherein these holy brethren of the Presbyterian
[persuasion] for the most part employed themselves, without any formal
health or remembrance of their friends; a nod with their head, or a sigh,
with the turning up of the white of the eye, served for that ceremony.’
it is pleasant to find that little more than two months
after Worcester fight, it was possible to bring such a large and brilliant
company to a wedding in Scotland. Even when the public at large is the
stricken deer, there will be individual, ‘harts ungalled’ who will ‘go
play.’ Somerville’s description of his first visit to his bride’s house
and of herself, is interesting. It was just after the rout of Dunbar, when
the young Laird of Corehouse, who had been at that battle, spent a few
days at Cambusnethan, and insisted on young Somerville accompanying him to
the banks of the Clyde. ‘They set forth, weel furnished with hawks and
dogs, which gave them much sport, the fields and ways between Cambusnethan
and Corehouse being fitted for hawking and hunting. At night they came to
the Corehouse, where they were courteously received by the lady, and
modestly by the young ladies... Martha, the youngest, was not seen till
supper, and then came into the room in a plain country dress. The truth
is, she needed nothing else, being always an ornament to her clothes when
at the best... At her age of fifteen complete, she attained to her full
height, which was so far above the stature of most women, that she was
accounted among the tallest of our nation, but so as that diminished
nothing of her handsomeness, every part answering thereto, as a slender
waist, large shoulders, big breast, henches full and round... Her visage
was long, her nose high, her brow brent and smooth as alabaster, her chin
and cheeks somewhat full, with a little red, especially in hot weather.
There was nothing bore so little proportion to her body as her hand and
foot, both being extremely little, but weel-shapen, white and full of
flesh. Her skin was smooth and clear, but what was covered not so white as
I have seen several of her complexion that was purely sanguinean; her
hair, being of a bright flaxen, which darkened as she grew in age, added
much to her beauty; wherein there was no blemish, her mien being
answerable to that, and her person gave occasion to those that saw her at
church or any other public meeting, to assert she graced the place and
company where she was. It has often been observed that, when this
gentlewoman walked upon the street— which was but upon occasion, being
better employed at home— the eyes not only of the men, but also of her own
sex, was upon her, so far as their sight could serve them, admiring her
parts and handsomeness. ‘—Mem. Som.
Nov
The western clergy sought in their meetings to learn the cause of the
heavy wrath which the Almighty was pouring out upon the land. ‘After long
attendance, their resolutions ended in confusion, distraction, and
division among themselves, prognosticating much more desolation on the
land. Whilk did manifestly appear among all estates and ranks of people;
for religion and justice being the twa pillars of the land, were houghed
[tripped] and near drawn down... There were no courts of justice, sic as
the Secret Council, Session, and Exchequer sitting for the time. All our
records and registers carried aff the kingdom to the Tower of London; the
Lords of Council, Session, and Exchequer, with their clerks and members of
court not daring [to] kythe in their strength for the use of the lieges,
but, for fear of the English armies, were forced to abandon themselves;
for the whilk cause the people of the land were forced to suit justice
frae the English governors and commanders. As for Edinburgh, there was no
magistrate there, nor no common council since the fecht at Dunbar; and
therefore all petitions and complaints went to the captain of Edinburgh
Castle and governor of Leith, whit in effect (to speak truly) proceeded
more equitably and conscientiously in justice nor our awn Scottish
magistrates.’ - Nic
We hear about this time of a paper given in by ‘a godly
Scot’ to the Commission of the Kirk, alleging that the causes of the evils
of the country lay, among other things, in the undertaking of solemn
engagements unwarranted by the word of God, in a fleshly zeal in carrying
on of these obligations by cruel oppressions for the constraint of the
unwilling, and the idolising of individuals and receiving doctrine from
them implicitly.’
At this very time, a lively controversy was going on
between Sir Alexander Irvine of Drum, in Aberdeenshire, and the presbytery
of Aberdeen, as to the title which the latter body assumed of controlling
his spiritual interests. A quarrel had taken place between the parties
regarding the settlement of an incumbent in Sir Alexander’s parish, and he
had appealed from the power of the local court to the English commander,
Colonel Overton—a proceeding which must have been deeply grievous to the
presbytery. A sentence of excommunication having been consequently
pronounced against the knight, he uttered a protest against it in animated
terms. It proceeded, he said, ‘from men more full of fiery zeal to advance
their own interests than the gospel of Jesus Christ.’ They had urged him
by threats to subscribe the Solemn League and Covenant, ‘as gif it had
been a matter of salvation for me to swear to establish by arms
Presbyterian government in England.’ And not only would they have had him
to forswear himself, but ‘they did urge with the like threatenings my wife
and three young maids, my dochters, who, for their age and sex, are not
capable of such politic theology.’ To make good their charge against him
of being a papist—a ‘pretext to satisfy their restless ambition and
execute their rage upon all who will not implicitly obey them ‘—they
‘enforced my servants to reveal upon oath what they saw, heard, or knew
done in my house—beyond which no Turkish inquisition could pass.’ Sir
Alexander, therefore, now appeared by procurator, declaring, ‘I separate
myself from the discipline of presbytery, particularly that of Aberdeen,
as a human invention that is destructive to the civil peace of
Christians;’ farther appealing them before Colonel Overton, or any other
judge who shall be appointed by the English commissioners, to hear
yourselves censured and condignly punished for your open contempt of their
authority, for your false slanders raised against me, and for your cruel
proceedings and erring sentence of excommunication.’
Whitelocke, in January 1652, quotes letters which speak
of the ‘great pride and insolency of the presbyteries in Scotland,’ with
particular reference to the Laird of Drum’s case. It is stated that the
laird wrote a letter of thanks to Lieutenant-general Monk, ‘for relieving
those who were oppressed in their consciences by the presbyteries.’ The
Cromwellian army was on principle favourable to toleration, and adverse to
all sorts of church-discipline. Monk was therefore ready to issue an
order, ‘that no oaths should be imposed by any of the kirk-officers upon
any person without other from the state of England, nor any covenant, and,
if they do, that he will deal with them as enemies The provost and
bailiffs of Aberdeen were to proclaim this.’
From a petition presented to the king after the
Restoration by his son, the bitterness of Sir Alexander’s experiences
throughout the troubles appears to have been much the same in character as
that of which an example has been given in the case of Farquharson of
Inverey. ‘His lands were the first of Scotland that were spoiled.’ He was
‘twice fined in £4000 sterling, his house of Drum four times garrisoned
and at length totally plundered, and his wife and children turned out of
doors.' For five years his revenues were detained from him by ‘one
Forbes’—doubtless the same minion to whom the government had committed the
fining of old Inverey. Another Aberdeenshire laird, Sir Gilbert Menzies of
Pitfoddels, being really a Catholic, had come even worse off. Throughout
the whole period of the troubles, not only were his lands taxed like those
of his neighbours for the support of the Covenanting armies, but he
suffered endless finings, quarterings, and repeated banishments, on
account of his inability in personal sentiment to go along with the
popular movement. It appears from a petition he presented after the
Restoration, that fully £12,000 sterling had been extorted from his
estate, leaving it greatly reduced in extent and ‘like to ruin;’ as a
matter of course, he and his family had undergone the greatest poverty
abroad, and in one of the flights made by his family from Scotland, his
wife and one of his sons had perished in a storm at sea.’ We obtain from
these historiettes, which are but examples of a large class, some notion
of the grounds of the charges brought by cavalier writers against the men
who, in all sincerity, believed they were establishing the reign of Christ
upon the earth. Trusting to force for the attainment of the ideal which
they had placed before them, they stirred up a spirit which made their
object only the more unattainable.
Dec
One good consequence of the English military rule now established in
Scotland was the introduction of some improved police regulations into
Edinburgh. Householders were compelled to hang out lanterns, from six to
nine at night, at their doors and windows; by which arrangement, ‘the
winter night was almost as light as the day.’ The expense was reckoned to
be about forty-five pounds a night. Rigorous measures were also taken for
the cleaning of the streets and lanes, and for preventing foul water being
thrown forth from windows.
It would appear that these regulations were steadily
kept up during the English occupation. In April 1657, there was a petition
from the magistrates of Edinburgh to the commissioners of justiciary
craving remission of certain fines, amounting in all to £50 sterling,
which had been imposed on the magistrates ‘for not cleansing the streets.’
They alleged that they had ‘employed scavengers’ with a view to giving the
commissioners satisfaction.—B. A.
Nicoll, writing towards the close of 1651, gives a
second and most unflattering picture of the moral conditions of Scotland.
‘Under heaven,’ he says, ‘there was not greater falset, oppression,
division, hatred, pride, malice, and envy, nor was at this time, and
diverse and sundry years before (ever since the subscribing the Covenant);
every man seeking himself and his awn ends, even under a cloak of piety,
whilk did cover much knavery.’ He adds: ‘Much of the ministry, also, could
not purge themselves of their vices of pride, avarice, and cruelty; where
they maligned, they were divided in their judgments and opinions, and made
their pulpits to speak ane against another. Great care they had of their
augmentations, and Reek Pennies, never before heard of but within
thir few years. Pride and cruelty, ane against another, much abounded;
little charity or mercy to restore the weak, was to be found among them...
This I observe not out of malice to the ministry, but to record the truth,
for all offended, from the prince to the beggar.’
It is instructive to observe that no sooner had the
ecclesiastical system recently paramount received a blow, than dissent, so
long repressed, began to make itself heard. Nicoll notes that ‘much
hypocrisy and falset formerly hid did now break out amang our Scots, wha,
leaving their former principles of religion, became papists and atheists.’
Many sought favour with the English by supporting their rule, advising
that liberty of conscience which was regarded with such abhorrence by the
Scottish church, and calling for a restraint to be put upon the power of
presbyteries as ‘anti-Christian and tyrannical.’ ‘Others vilipend the
Covenant, holding it lawful for all men to break it, as being ane human
institution;’ at the same time denouncing many of the clergy as not worthy
to teach, declaring the Sabbath to be unnecessary, and propounding that
children should not be baptised ‘till they could give confession of their
faith.’
About April 1652, we begin to find dissent taking
recognisable forms. There were now Antinomians, Antitrinitarians,
Familists, and Seekers, as well as Brownists, Independents, and Erastians.
Where there had formerly been no avowed Anabaptists, there were now many,
‘sae that thrice in the week—namely, on Monday, Wednesday, and
Friday—there were some dippit at Bonnington Mill, betwixt Leith and
Edinburgh, both men and women of good rank. Some days there would be
sundry hundred persons attending that action, and fifteen persons baptised
in one day by the Anabaptists.’ Among the converts was ‘the Lady Craigie
Wallace, a lady in the west country.’—Nic. In autumn, at Cupar, Mr
Brown, preacher to Fairfax’s regiment, re-baptised several of the soldiers
‘in the Eden, near to Airdrie’s lodging, by dipping them over head and
ears, many of the inhabitants looking on.’ —Lam.
1652, Mar
The Castle of Dunnottar was now almost the only place of strength in the
kingdom which resisted the English arms. It held out with a small garrison
under the command of George Ogilvie of Barras, whose anxiety to maintain
his post was increased by the consideration that within these sea-girt
walls rested the regalia of the kingdom—the crown, sceptre, and sword of
state— which had been consigned by the Committee of Estates to this fort,
under the care of the Earl Marischal, as being the strongest place in the
kingdom that remained untaken after the reduction of Edinburgh Castle. For
many months, Ogilvie and his little garrison had defied the English
forces; but now it was likely that he could not hold out much longer—in
which case, of course, the regalia must fall into the hands of the enemy.
The Earl Marischal had been taken with the Committee of Estates at Alyth,
and shipped off to London as a prisoner. He contrived, however, to send by
a private hand the key of the closet in which the regalia lay, to his
mother, the Dowager-countess, who by the advice of her son, opened a
communication with Mr James Grainger, minister of Kineff, a person in whom
the family reposed great faith, with a view to his assisting in the
conveying away of the precious ‘honours.’ The minister and his wife,
Christian Fletcher [posterity will desire the preservation of her whole
name], entered heartily into the wishes of the countess. Mrs Grainger, by
permission of the English commander, visiting the wife of the governor of
the castle, received from that lady, but without the knowledge of her
husband, the crown into her lap. The sceptre and sword, wrapped up in a
bundle of hards or lint, were placed on the back of a female
attendant. When Mrs Grainger and her maid returned through the
beleaguering camp, it appeared as if she were taking away some lint to be
spun for Mrs Ogilvie. So far from suspecting any trick, the English
officer on duty is said to have helped Mrs Grainger upon her horse. The
castle was rendered three months afterwards, when great was the rage of
the English on finding that the regalia were gone. It was adroitly given
out that they had been carried beyond sea by Sir John Keith, a younger
brother of the earl, and handed to King Charles at Paris.
In reality, on reaching the manse of Kineff, Mrs
Grainger had delivered the crown, sceptre, and sword to her husband, who
took the earliest opportunity of burying them under the floor of his
church, imparting the secret of their concealment to no one but the
Countess Marischal. To the credit of the worthy minister and his wife,
they preserved their secret inviolate till the Restoration, eight years
afterwards, when ‘the honours’ were exhumed, and replaced under proper
custody. An order of the Scottish parliament, dated January 11, 1661,
rewarded Mrs Grainger with two thousand merks; Ogilvie was created a
baronet; while Sir John Keith, whose immediate concern in the affair does
not appear to have been great, was made Knight Marischal of Scotland, with
a salary of £400 yearly; to which rewards was added in 1677 a peerage
under the title of Earl of Kintore.’
‘In these times, the English commanders had great
respect to justice, and in doing execution upon malefactors, such as
thieves, harlots, and others of that kind, by scourging, hanging, kicking,
cutting off their ears, and stigmating of them with het irons.’—Nic.
The diarist acknowledges that the English judicature
established at Leith condemned the native one by its impartiality,
suitors returning from it ‘with great contentment.’ He adds: ‘To speak the
truth, the English were more indulgent and merciful to the Scots nor the
Scots were their awn countrymen and neighbours. They filled up the rooms
of justice-courts with very honest clerks,’ &c.
Mar 29
Being Monday, a celebrated eclipse of the sun took place between eight and
eleven in the morning, with a perfectly clear sky. ‘The whole body of the
sun did appear to us as if it had been covered with the moon; only there
was a circle about the sun that appeared somewhat clear without any light
[the corona?]. At that time there did a star appear in the firmament, near
to the place of the eclipse.’ ‘There was ane manifest darkness for the
space of some moments.’—Lam. ‘The time of the eclipse it was
exceedingly fearful and dark, to the terror of many.’—Nic. Another
account says, the darkness continued about eight minutes, and the people
began to pray to God. ‘The like, as thought by astrologers, was not since
the darkness at our Lord’s passion. The country people, tilling, loosed
their ploughs, and thought it had been the latter day The birds clapped to
the ground.’—Law. The day of this eclipse was long remembered,
under the name of MIRK MONONDAY.
Apr 20
Died at the Wemyss in Fife, Eleanour Fleming, Countess of Wemyss, without
children. She had been married to her husband only two years, but in that
time had made him, if report spoke true, ‘a hundred thousand merk worse’
than before. ‘She caused her husband give a free discharge to her brother,
the Lord Fleming, of her whole tocher, being about twenty thousand merks
Scots, before any of it was paid to him. She caused her husband and her
brother to give Mr Patrick Gillespie a bond of four thousand merks... She
caused also a door to be strucken through the wall of her chamber, for to
go to the wine-cellar; for she had, as is said by many, a great desire
after strong drink.’—Lam. Verily, a
trying sort of lady for a quiet nobleman like Lord Wemyss, who
nevertheless ventured on a third wife before the year was out—the mother
of Anne Duchess of Monmouth.
June 17
‘It pleased God to lay the town of Glasgow desolate by a violent and
sudden fire... The far best part of the fore streets and most considerable
buildings were burnt, together with above fourscore lanes and closes,
which were the dwellings of above a thousand families, and almost all the
shops and warehouses of the merchants, many whereof are near by ruined.
Besides, a great many more of widows, orphans, and distressed honest
families, having lost what they had, are now put to starving and begging.
The like of this fire has not been formerly heard of in this nation.'—Nic.
‘It was said 1060 houses burnt.’—C. P. H.
Five days after this fire, the Town Council appointed
‘the provost, with John Bell, to ride to Ayr, to the English officers
there, wha has been here and seen the town’s lamentable condition—such as
Colonel Overton and others—and to obtein from them letters of
recommendation to such officers or judges who sits in Edinburgh, to the
effect that the same may be recommendit by them to the parliament of
England, that all help and supply may be gotten thereby that may be, for
the supply of such as has their lands and guids burnt.'
It must have been with a sore heart that the newly
subjugated city of the west condescended to beg from the parliament of the
sectaries. The case, however, was one of extreme misery, for the resources
of Scotland, and of the west as much as anywhere, had been exhausted by
the war, so that without foreign help it must have been impossible to
repair the calamity.
Little more than four years after this period, Robert
Baillie speaks of Glasgow as much revived. ‘Our people,’ he says, ‘has
much more trade in comparison than any other: their buildings increase
strangely both for number and fairness.’ He adds, that in his time the
city had been more than doubled.
July
In a General Assembly which sat at Edinburgh, sixty-five of the clergy
protested against the lawfulness of the last General Assemblies, in which
resolutions in favour of the king had been sanctioned. Andrew Cant, Samuel
Rutherford, and Robert Traill were the leaders of this zealous faction—the
Protesters or Remonstrators - against whom the censures of
the kirk were threatened by the majority in vain. By this schism, the
hitherto admired unity of the Scottish kirk was broken up, and henceforth,
for several years, there scarcely ever was a meeting of any of its courts
unmarked by scenes of indecent violence. At a synod held at Glasgow in
October, two days being spent in contentions about the choice of a
moderator, the meeting dissolved without attempting any other business.—Nic.
Not long after, when the General Assembly ordered a fast for the sins of
the nation, and because ‘few were seeking the things of Jesus Christ,’ the
Remonstrators disallowed it, and appointed among themselves ‘a day of
humiliation for that humiliation.’ In all matters regarding the settlement
of ministers in parishes, there was furious and uncompromising war for a
series of years between the two parties.
This summer was remarkable for clear, dry, warm
weather, parching up the herbage, and producing exceedingly light crops on
the best lands. The harvest commenced in June, and in a field near Dundee
there were stooks on the 7th of July. At the end of July and
beginning of August, the harvest was general; and before the end of the
latter month, all was ‘in ‘—circumstances unexampled, and which have
perhaps never again occurred. ‘The pease wallowed [that is, faded in the
bloom] a fortnight before Lammas, whereas some years they continue till
Michaelmas.’— Lam. ‘All the corn was got in without rain, and long
before the usual time. The like harvest was in England.’ ‘It is truly
reported that in England there was such abundance of white butterflies as
was never heard of before. They destroyed all cabbage; and divers cobles
coming from sea, hardly could see the land for them.’—Nic.
The summer ‘produced ripe wine-berries and grapes, and
abundance of Scotch chestanes openly sauld at the Mercat Cross of
Edinburgh, and baken in pasties at banquets.’—Nic.
The weather, strange to say, remained of the same
character all the latter part of the year, so that fruit-trees had a
second blossoming in November, and some of them brought forth fruit,
‘albeit not in perfection.’ The furze and broom bloomed again; the violet,
not due till March, presented its modest head in November. Birds began to
build their nests, and lay eggs, at or near Martinmas, and salads and
sybows were cried and sold in Edinburgh on the 27th of November. - Nic.
The letters sent home by the English soldiery now
marching through the Highlands, describe the country as mountainous, yet
the valleys rich; the houses of earth and turf so low that the horsemen
sometimes rode over them; the people generally going with plaids about
their middles, both men and women; ‘simple and ignorant in the things of
God, and some of them as brutish as heathens;’ nevertheless, ‘some did
hear the English preachers ‘with great attention and groaning.'
In some churches in Fife, as Kirkcaldy and Kennoway,
the English soldiers ‘did pull down the stool of repentance; they did sit
in them also, in contempt, in some places where they came, in time of
sermon.’ Several ministers were openly challenged for their expressions in
prayers and sermons, by these soldiers. Mr George Hamilton at Pittenweem
was so troubled by some of Fairfax’s regiment, that he had to break off;
‘at which time there was great uproar in the church there.’—Lam.
Aug
The Earl of Crawford, having been taken by the English at Alyth a
twelvemouth before, now lay a prisoner in the Tower. The countess—a sister
of the late Duke of Hamilton—desiring to visit her husband in his
affliction, left Scotland for the purpose in a stage-coach which had
recently been established for the keeping up of communication between the
two countries—’ the journey coach,’ says Lamont, ‘that comes ordinarily
between England and Scotland.’ We do not learn the periods of departure,
or any other detail regarding this vehicle; but from a paragraph which
occurs under May 1658, we may presume that it did not go oftener than once
in three weeks, and charged for a seat fully as much as a first-class
railway ticket of the present day.
Sep 30.
‘There came into the very brig of Leith ane little whale, which rendered
much profit to the English.’—Nic.
This ‘little whale’ would probably be a stray member of
a flock of the Deiphinus globioceps, which so frequently are
embayed and slaughtered in Zetland and the Faröe islands. The appearance
of such an animal in Leith harbour is an event of a very rare character.
Oct
Four English gentlemen, Messrs George Smith, John Martin, Andrew Owen, and
Edward Mosley, the commissioners appointed by Cromwell for the
administration of justice in Scotland in place of the Court of Session,
commenced their labours in the criminal department at Edinburgh. Three
days were spent in the trial and fining of persons of impure life, of whom
there were above sixty brought before the judges in a day. ‘It is
observable,’ says an English newspaper of the time, ‘that such is the
malice of these people, that most of them were accused for facts done
divers years since, and the chief proof against them was their own
confession before the kirk, who are in this worse than the Roman religion,
who do not make so ill a use of their auricular confession. Some of the
facts were committed five, ten, nay, twenty years. There was one Ephraim
Bennet, a gunner in Leith, indicted, convicted, and condemned for coining
sixpences, shillings, and half-crowns. Also two Englishmen, Wilkinson and
Newcome, condemned for robbing three men, and for killing a Scottishman
near Haddington in March last. But that which is most observable is, that
some were brought before them for witches, two whereof had been brought
before the kirk about the time of the armies coming into Scotland, and
having confessed, were turned over to the civil magistrate. The court
demanding how they came to be proved witches, they declared they were
forced to it by the exceeding torture they were put to, which was by tying
their thumbs behind them, and then hanging them up by them: two
Highlanders whipped them, after which they set lighted candles to the
soles of their feet, and between their toes, then burned them by putting
lighted candles in their mouths, and then burning them in the head: there
were six of them accused in all, four whereof died of the torture....
Another woman that was suspected, according to their thoughts, to he a
witch, was twenty-eight days and nights with bread and water, being
stripped stark naked, and laid upon a cold stone, with only a haircloth
over her. Others had hair-shirts dipped in vinegar put on them, to fetch
off the skin.’—Mercurius Politicus.’ The resolution of the judges
to inquire into these cruelties is intimated.