1689, Sep
Alexander Irvine of Drum, the representative of a distinguished historical
family in Aberdeenshire, was unfortunately weak both in mind and body,
although it is related that he could play well on the viol, and had picked
up the then popular political tune of Lullibullero in the course of
a few days. Under sanction of the Privy Council, Dr David Mitchell of
Edinburgh undertook to keep him in his house in a style befitting his
quality, and with the care required by his weakly condition, and for this
purpose hired some additional rooms, and made other necessary furnishings
and preparations. The laird came to him at the close of July, but before
the end of August, Marjory Forbes had induced the laird to own her as his
wife, and it became necessary that Drum should leave his medical
protector. A petition being presented by Dr Mitchell for payment of board
and recompense for charges thus needlessly incurred, he was allowed by the
Lords £500 Scots, or £41 13s. 4d. sterling, over and above twenty
pieces he had received for a professional visit paid to the laird’s
Aberdeenshire castle, to arrange for his migration to Edinburgh.
James Broich, skipper of Dundee, was
proceeding in his scout to Norway with a small parcel of goods, and
a thousand pounds Scots wherewith to buy a larger vessel. In mid-sea he
fell in with a French privateer, who, after seizing cargo and money,
having no spare hands to leave on board, proceeded to cut holes in the
vessel, in order to sink her, proposing to put the unfortunate crew to
their boat, in which case they must have perished, 'there being then a
great stress.’ By the prayers and tears of the skipper and his people, the
privateer was at length induced to let them go in their vessel, but not
without first obtaining a bond from Broich, undertaking to remit six
hundred guelders to Dunkirk by a particular day. As a guarantee for this
payment, the rover detained and carried off the skipper’s son, telling him
he would hear no good of him if the money should fail to be forthcoming.
Poor Broich got safe home, where his
case excited much commiseration, more particularly as he had suffered from
shipwreck and capture four times before in the course of his professional
life. He was penniless, and unable to support his family; his son, also—’
the stay and staff of his old age’—had a wife and small children of his
own left desolate. Here was a little domestic tragedy very naturally
arising out of the wars of the Grand Monarque! Beginning in the
council - room of Versailles, such was the way they told upon humble
industrial life in the port of Dundee in Scotland. It was considered, too,
that the son was in ‘as bad circumstances, in being a prisoner to the
French king, as if he were a slave to the Turks.’
Sep 2
On the petition of Broich, the Privy Council ordained a voluntary
contribution to be made for his relief in Edinburgh, Leith,
Borrowstounness, and Queensferry, and in the counties of Fife and Forfar.
In a contemporary case, that of a
crew of Grangepans, carried by a privateer to Dunkirk, and confined in
Rochefort, it is stated that they were each allowed half a sous per
diem for subsistence, and were daily expecting to be sent to the
galleys.’
Oct 19
It was now acknowledged of the glass-work at Leith, that it was carried on
successfully in making green bottles and ‘chemistry and apothecary
glasses.’ It produced its wares ‘in greater quantity in four months that
was ever vended in the kingdom in a year, and at as low rates as any
corresponding articles from London or Newcastle.’ The Privy Council
therefore gave it the privileges of a manufactory, and forbade
introduction of foreign bottles, only providing that the Leith work should
not charge more than half-a-crown a dozen.
Dec 2
The magistrates of Edinburgh were ordered to put William Mitchell upon the
Tron, ‘and cause the hangman nail his lug thereto,’ on Wednesday the 4th
instant, between eleven and twelve in the forenoon, with a paper on his
breast, bearing ‘that he stands there for the insolencies committed by him
on the Guards, and for words of reflection uttered by him against the
present government.'
1690, Feb 2
A large flock of mere-swine (porpoises?) having entered the Firth
of Forth, as often happens, and a considerable number having come ashore,
as seldom happens, at Cramond, the tenants of Sir John Inglis, proprietor
of the lands there, fell upon them with all possible activity, and slew
twenty-three, constituting a prize of no inconsiderable value. After
fastening the animals with ropes, so as to prevent their being carried out
to sea—for the scene of slaughter was half a mile in upon a flat sandy
beach—the captors sold them for their own behoof to Robert Douglas,
soap-boiler in Leith, fully concluding that they had a perfect right to do
so, seeing that mere-swine are not royal fish, and neither had they been
cast in dead, in which case, as wrack, I presume, they would have belonged
to the landlord.
The greater part of the spoil had
been barrelled and transported to Leith—part of the price paid, too, to
the captors—when John Wilkie, surveyor there, applied to the Privy Council
for a warrant to take the mere-swine into his possession and dispose of
them for the benefit of such persons as they should be found to belong to.
He accordingly seized upon the barrels, and disposed of several of them at
eleven pounds four shillings per barrel, Douglas protesting loudly against
his procedure. On a petition, representing how the animals had been killed
and secured, Wilkie was ordained to pay over the money to Douglas,
deducting only his reasonable charges.
Feb 28
A few hot-headed Perthshire Jacobites, including Graham
of Inchbrakie, David Oliphant of Culteuchar, and George Graham of
Pitcairns, with two others designed as ensigns, met to-day at the village
of Dunning, with some other officers of the government troops, and,
getting drink, began to utter various insolencies. They drank the health
of King James, ‘without calling him the late king,’ and further proceeded
to press the same toast upon the government officers. One of these,
Ludovick Grant, quarter-master of Lord Rollo’s troop, was prudentially
retiring from this dangerous society, when Ensign Mowat cocked a pistol at
him, saying: ‘Do you not see that some of us are King William’s officers
as well as you, and why will ye not drink the health as well as we?’ Grant
having asked him what he meant by that, Inchbrakie took the pistol, and
fired it up the chimney—which seems to have been the only prudential
proceeding of the day. The party continued drinking and brawling at the
place, till James Hamilton, cornet of Rollo’s troop, came with a party to
seize them, when, drawing their swords, they beat back the king’s officer,
and were not without great difficulty taken into custody. Even now, so far
from being repentant, Inchbrakie ‘called for a dishfui of aqua vitae or
brandy, and drank King James’s health,’ saying ‘they were all knaves and
rascals that would refuse it.’ He said ‘he hoped the guise would turn,’
when Lord Rollo would not be able to keep Scotland, and he would get
Duncrub [Lord Rollo’s house and estate] to himself. His fury against the
soldiers extended so far, that he called for powder and ball to shoot the
sentinels placed over him, and ‘broke Alexander Ross’s face with ane
pint-stoup.’ Even when borne along as prisoners to Perth, and imprisoned
there, these furious gentlemen continued railing at Lord Rollo and his
troop, avowing and justifying all they had done at Dunning.
The offenders, being brought before
the Privy Council, gave in defences, which their counsel, Sir David
Thores, advocated with such rash insolency that he was sent away to
prison. The culprits were punished by fines and imprisonment. We find them
with great difficulty clearing themselves out of jail six months after.’
In religious contentions, there is a
cowardice in the strongest ascendency parties which makes them restlessly
cruel towards insignificant minorities. The Roman Catholics in Scotland
had never since the Reformation been more than a handful of people; but
they had constantly been treated with all the jealous severity due to a
great and threatening sect. Even now, when they were cast lower than at
any former time, through the dismal failure of King James to raise them,
there was no abatement of their troubles.
It was at this time a great
inconveniency to any one to be a Catholic. As a specimen—Alexander Fraser
of Kinnaries, on the outbreak of the Revolution, to obviate any suspicion
that might arise about his affection to the new government, came to
Inverness, and put himself under the view of the garrison there. Fears
being nevertheless entertained regarding him, he was sent to prison.
Liberated by General Mackay upon bail, he remained peaceably in Inverness
till December last, when he was sent to Edinburgh, and there placed under
restraint, not to move above a mile from town. He now represented the
hardship he thus suffered, ‘his fortune being very small, and the most of
his living being only by his own labouring and industry.’ ‘His staying
here,’ he added, ‘any space longer must of necessity tend to his own and
his family’s utter ruin.’ With difficulty, the Lords were induced to
liberate him under caution.
Mr David Fairfoul, a priest confined
in prison at Inverness, only regained his liberty by an extraordinary
accident. James Sinclair of Freswick, a Caithness gentleman, had chanced a
twelvemonth before to be taken prisoner by a French privateer, as he was
voyaging from his northern home to Edinburgh. Having made his case known
to the Scottish Privy Council, he was relieved in exchange for Mr Fairfoul
(June 5, 1690).
About the end of the year, we find a
considerable number of Catholics under government handling. Steven
Maxwell, who had been one of the two masters in the Catholic college at
Holyroodhouse, lay in durance at Blackness. John Abercrombie, ‘a
trafficker,’ and a number of other priests recently collected out of the
Highlands, were immured in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh. Another, named Mr
Robert Davidson, of whom it was admitted that ‘his opinion and deportment
always inclined to sobriety and moderation, shewing kindness and charity
to all in distress, even of different persuasions, and that he made it no
part of his business to meddle in any affairs, but to live peaceably in
his native country for his health’s sake,’ had been put into Leith jail,
with permission to go forth for two hours a day, under caution to the
amount of fifty pounds, lest his health should suffer.
At this very time, a fast was under
order of the General Assembly, with sanction of the government, with a
reference to the consequences of the late oppressive government, citing,
among other things, ‘the sad persecutions of many for their conscience
towards God.’
Apr 25
It was declared in the legislature that there were ‘frequent murders of
innocent infants, whose mothers do conceal their pregnancy, and do not
call for necessary assistance in the birth.’ It was therefore statute,
that women acting in this secretive manner, and whose babes were dead or
missing, should be held as guilty of murder, and punished accordingly.
That is to say, society, by treating indiscretions with a puritanic
severity, tempted women into concealments of a dangerous kind, and then
punished the crimes which itself had produced, and this upon merely
negative evidence.
Terrible as this act was, it did not
wholly avail to make women brave the severity of that social punishment
which stood on the other side. It is understood to have had many victims.
In January 1705, no fewer than four young women were in the Tolbooth of
Aberdeen at once for concealing pregnancy and parturition, and all in a
state of such poverty that the authorities had to maintain them. On the
23d July 1706, the Privy Council dealt with a petition from Bessie
Muckieson, who had been two years ‘incarcerat’ in the Edinburgh Tolbooth
on account of the death of a child born by her, of which Robert Bogie in
Kennieston, in Fife, was the father. She had not concealed her pregnancy,
but the infant being born in secret, and found dead, she was tried under
the act.
At her trial she had made ingenuous
confession of her offence, while affirming that the child had not been
‘wronged,’ and she protested that even the concealment of the birth was
‘through the Leacherous dealing and abominable counsel of the said Robert
Bogie.’ ‘Seeing she was a poor miserable object, and ane ignorant wretch
destitute of friends, throwing herself at their Lordships’ footstool for
pity and accustomed clernency’—petitioning that her just sentence might be
changed into banishment, ‘that she might be a living monument of a true
penitent for her abominable guilt’—the Lords looked relentingly on the
case, and adjudged Bessie to pass forth of the kingdom for the remainder
of her life.
It was seldom that such leniency was
shewn. In March 1709, a woman named Christian Adam was executed at
Edinburgh for the imputed crime of child-murder, and on the ensuing 6th of
April, two others suffered at the same place on the same account. In all
these three cases, occurring within four weeks of each other, the women
had allowed their pregnancy and labour to pass without letting their
condition be known, or calling for the needful assistance, Adam acting
thus at the entreaty of her Lover, ‘a gentleman,’ who said it would ruin
him if she should declare her state. Another, named Bessie Turnbiill, had
been entirely successful iii concealing all that happened; but the
consciousness of having killed her infant haunted her, till she came
voluntarily forward, and gave herself up. At the scaffold, Adam ‘gave the
ministers much satisfaction;’ Margaret Inglis ‘did not give full
satisfaction to the ministers;’ Turnbull ‘seemed more affected than her
comrade, but not so much as could be wished.'
July 5
Our old acquajntance, Captain John Slezer, turns up at this time in an
unexpected way. Three or four months before, he
had obtained a commission as captain of artillery from their majesties,
and now he was about to leave Edinburgh on duty; but, lo, John Hamilton,
wright, burgess of Edinburgh, ‘out of a disaffection to their majesties
and the present government,’ gave orders to George Gilchrist, messenger,
to put in execution letters of caption against the captain, for a debt due
by him, ‘albeit he {Slezer] the night before
offered him satisfaction of the first end of the money.’ The Council,
‘understanding that the same has been done out of a design to retard their
majesties’ service, called for Hamilton, and, in terms of the late act of
parliament, desired him to take the oath of allegiance and assurance,
which he refused to do.’ They therefore ordained him to be committed
prisoner to the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, and ‘declares Captain Slezer to be
at liberty to prosecute his majesty’s service.’ The debtor and creditor
might thus be said to have changed places: one can imagine what jests there
would be about the case among the Cavalier wits in the Laigh
Coffeehouse—how it would be adduced as an example of that vindication of
the laws which the Revolution professed to have in view—how it would be
thought in itself a very good little Revolution, and well worthy of a
place in the child’s toy picture of The World Turned Upside Down.
After a six weeks’ imprisonment,
Hamilton came before the Council with professions of peaceable inclination
to the present government, and pleaded that he was valetudinary with
gravel, much increased by reason of his confinement, ‘and, being a
tradesman, his employment, which is the mean of his subsistence, is
altogether neglected by his continuing a prisoner,’ and he might be
utterly ruined in body, family, and estate, if not relieved. Therefore the
Lords very kindly liberated this delinquent creditor, he giving caution to
live inoffensively in future, and reappear if called upon.
We find a similar case a few years
onward. Captain William Baillie of Colonel Buchan’s regiment was debtor to
Walter Chiesley, merchant in Edinburgh, to the extent of three thousand
merks, for satisfaction of which he had assigned his estate, with power to
uplift the rents. He was engaged in Edinburgh on the recruiting service,
when Chiesley, out of malice, as was insinuated, towards the government of
which Baillie was the commissioned servant, had him apprehended on caption
for the debt, and put into the Tolbooth of Edinburgh. Thus, as his
petition to the Privy Council runs (February 7, 1693), ‘he is rendered
incapable of executing that important duty he is upon, which will many ways prejudice their majesties’
service;’ for, ‘if such practices be allowed, and are unpunished, there
should not ane officer in their majesties’ forces that owes a
sixpence dare adventure to come to any mercat-town, either to make their
recruits or perform other duty.’ For these good reasons, Bailie craved
that not only he be immediately liberated, but Walter Chiesley be censured
‘for so unwarrantable ane act, to the terror of others to do the like.’
The Council recommended the Court of
Session to expede a suspension, and put at liberty the debtor; but they
seem to have felt that it would be too much to pass a censure on
the merchant for trying to recover what was justly owing to him.
But for our seeing creditors treated
in this manner for the conveniency of the government, it would be
startling to find that the old plan of the supersedere, of which
we have seen some examples in the time of James VI., was still thought not
unfit to be resorted to by that régime which had lately redeemed
the national liberties.
James Bayne, wright in
Edinburgh._.the same rich citizen whose daughter’s clandestine nuptials
with Andrew Devoe, the posture-master, made some noise a few years back—had
executed the carpentrywork of Holyroodhouse; but, like Balunkin in the
ballad, ‘payment gat he nane.’ To pay for timber and workmen’s wages, he
incurred debts to the amount of thirty-five thousand merks (about £1944
sterling), which soon increased as arrears of interest went on, till now,
after an interval of several years, he was in such a position, that,
supposing he were paid his just dues, and discharged his debts, there
would not remain to him ‘one sixpence’ of that good stock with which he
commenced the undertaking.
At the recommendation of ‘his late
majesty [Charles II?],' the Lords of the
Treasury had considered the case, and found upwards of £2000 sterling to
be due to James Bayne, ‘besides the two thousand pounds sterling for
defalcations and losses, which they did not fully consider,’ and they
consequently ‘recommended him to the Lords of Session for a suspension
against his creditors, ay, and while the money due to him by the king were
paid.’ This he obtained; ‘but at present no regard is had to it.’
Recently, to satisfy some of his most urgent creditors, the Lords of the
Treasury gave him an order for
£500 upon their receiver, Maxwell of Kirkconnel; but no
funds were forthcoming. His creditors then fell upon him with great
rigour, and Thomas Burnet, merchant in Edinburgh, from whom he had been a
borrower for the works at the palace, had now put him in jail, where he
lay without means to support himself and his family.
Bayne craved from the Privy Council that the two
thousand pounds already admitted might as soon as possible be paid to him,
and that, meanwhile, he should be liberated, and receive a protection from
his creditors, ‘whereby authority will appear in its justice, the
petitioner’s creditors be paid, and no tradesman discouraged to meddle in
public works for the advancement of what is proper for the government to
have done.’ The Privy Council considered the petition, and recommended the
Lords of Session ‘to expede ane suspension and charge to put to liberty’
in favour of James Bayne, on his granting a disposition of his effects in
favour of his creditors.
It was, after all, fitting that the
government which interfered, for its own conveniency, to save its servants
from the payment of their just debts, should stave off the payment of
their own, by similar interpositions of arbitrary power.
Aug
The ‘happie revolution’ had not made any essential change in the habits of
those Highlanders who lived on the border of the low countries. It was
still customary for them to make periodical descents upon Morayland,
Angus, the Stormont, Strathearn, and the Lennox, for ‘spreaths’ of cattle
and other goods.
Sir Robert Murray of Abercairney,
having lands in Glenalmond and thereabouts, employed six men, half of whom
were Macgregors, as a watch or guard for the property of his tenants.
These men, coming one day to the market of Monzie, were informed that a
predatory party had gone down into the low country, and ‘fearing that they
might, in their return, come through Sir Robert’s lands, and take away ane
hership from his tenants,’ they lost no time in getting the land, over
which they were likely to pass, cleared of bestial. They were refreshing
themselves after their toil at the kirk-town of Monzie, when the caterans
came past with their booty. Enraged at finding the ground cleared, the
robbers seized the six men, and carried them away as prisoners.
A few days after, having regained
their liberty, they were apprehended by Lord Rollo, on a suspicion of
having been accomplices of the robbers, by whom it appeared his lordship’s
tenants had suffered considerably; and they were immediately dragged off
to Edinburgh, and put into the Canongate jail. There they lay for two
months, ‘it’ a very starving condition, and to the ruin of their poor
families at home;’ when at length, Lord Rollo having failed to make good
anything against them, and Sir Robert Murray having undertaken for their
appearance if called upon, they were allowed to go home, with an order to
the governor of Drummond Castle for the restoration of their arms.
On the 22d January 1691, Lord Rllob
represented to the Privy Council that ‘in the harvest last, the Highland
robbers came down and plundered his ground, and because of his seeking
redress according to law, they threaten his tenants with ane other
depredation, and affrights them so as they are like to leave the
petitioner’s lands, and cast them waste.’ The matter was remitted to the
Commander of the Forces. [A picturesque glimpse of the Highland marauding
of this period was obtained some years ago at secood-hand from the memory
of William Bane Macpherson, who died in 1777 at the age of a hundred. ‘He
was wont to relate that, when a boy of twelve years of age, being engaged
as buochaille [herd-boy] at the summering [i.e. summer grazing]
of Biallid, near Dalwhinnie, he had an opportunity of being an
eye-witness to a creagh and pursuit on a very large scale, which
passed through Badenoch. At noon on a fine autumnal day in 1689, his
attention was drawn to a herd of black-cattle, amounting to about six
score, driven along by a dozen of wild Lochaber men, by the banks of Loch
Erroch, in the direction of Dalunchart in the forest of Alder, now
Ardverikie. Upon inquiry, he ascertained that these had been "lifted’ in
Aberdeenshire, distant more than a hundred miles, and that the reivers had
proceeded thus far with their booty free from molestation and pursuit.
Thus they held on their way among the wild hills of this mountainous
districts far from the haunts of the semicivillsed inhabitants, and within
a day’s journey of their home. Only a few hours had elapsed after the
departure of theso marauders, when a body of nearly fifty horsemen
appeared, toiling amidst the rocks and marshes of this barbarous region,
where not even a footpath helped to mark the intercourse of society, and
following on the trail of the men and cattle which had preceded them. The
troop was well mounted and armed, and led by a person of gentleman-like
appearance and courteous manners; while, attached to the party, was a
number of horses carrying bags of meal and other provisions, intended not
solely for their own support, but, as would seem from the sequel, as a
ransom for the creagh. Signalling William Bane to approach, the
leader minutely questioned him about the movements of the Lochaber men;
their number, equipments, and the line of their route. Along the
precipitons banks of Loch Erroch this large body of horsemen wended their
way, accompanied by William Bane, who was anxious to see the result of the
meeting. It bespoke spirit and resolution in those Strangers to seek an
encounter with the robbers in their native wilds, and on the borders of
that Country, where a signal of alarm would have raised a numerous body of
hardy Lochaber men, ready to defend the creaghs, and punish the
pursners. Towards nightfall, they drew near the encampment of the thieves
at Dalunchart, and observed them busily engaged in roasting, before a
large fire, one of the beeves, newly slaughtered. A council of war was
immediately held, and, on the suggestion of the leader, a flag of truce
was forwarded to the Lochaber men) with an offer to each of a bag of meal
and a pair of shoes, in ransom for the herd of cattle. This offer, being
viewed as a proof of cowardice and fear, was contemptuously rejected, and
a reply sent, to the effect that the cattle, driven so far and with so
much trouble, would not be surrendered. Having gathered in the herd, both
parties prepared for action. The overwhelming number of the pursuers soon
mastered their opponents. Successive discharges of firearms brought the
greater number of the Lochaber men to the ground, and in a brief period
only three remained unhurt, and escaped to tell the sad tale to their
countrymen.’—Inverness Courier, August 17, 1847.]
1690, Aug 16
Andrew Cockhurn, the post-boy who carried the packet or letter-bag on that
part of the great line of communication which lies between Cockburnspath
and Haddington, had this day reached a point in his journey between the
Alms-house and Hedderwick Muir, when he was assailed by two gentlemen in
masks; one of them mounted on a blue-gray horse, wearing a stone-gray coat
with brown silk buttons;’ the other ‘riding on a white horse, having a
white English gray cloak coat with wrought silver thread buttons.’ Holding
pistols to his breast, they threatened to kill him if he did not instantly
deliver up ‘the packet, black box, and by-bag’ which he carried; and he
had no choice but to yield. They then bound him, and, leaving him tied by
the foot to his horse, rode off with their spoil to Gariton House near
Haddington.
As the packet contained government
communications besides the correspondence of private individuals, this was
a crime of a very high nature, albeit we may well believe it was committed
on political impulse only. Suspicion seems immediately to have alighted on
James Seton, youngest son of the Viscount Kingston, and John Seton,
brother of Sir George Seton of Gariton; and
Sir Robert Sinclair, the sheriff of the
county, immediately sought for these young gentlemen at their father’s and
brother’s houses, but found them not. With great hardihood, they came to
Sir Robert’s house next morning, to inquire as innocent men why they were
searched for; when Sir Robert, after a short examination in presence of
the post-boy, saw fit to have them disarmed and sent off to Haddington. It
was Sunday, and Bailie Lauder, to whose house they came with their escort,
was about to go to church. If the worthy bailie is to be believed, he
thought their going to the sheriff’s a great presumption of their
innocence. He admitted, too, that Lord Kingston had come and spoken to him
that morning. Anyhow, he concluded that it might be enough in the meantime
if he afforded them a room in his house, secured
their horses in his stable, and left them under charge
of two of the town-officers. Unluckily, however, he required the
town-officers, as usual, to walk before him and his brother-magistrates to
church; which, it is obvious, interfered very considerably with their
efficiency as a guard over the two gentlemen. While things were in this
posture, Messrs Seton took the prudent course of making their escape. As
soon as the bailie heard of it, he left church, and took horse after them
with some neighbours, but he did not succeed in overtaking them.
The Privy Council had an
extraordinary meeting, to take measures regarding this affair, and their
first step was to order Bailie Lauder and the two town-officers into the
Tolbooth of EdInburgh as close prisoners. A few days afterwards, the
magistrate was condemned by the Council as guilty of plain fraud and
connivance, and declared incapable of any public employment. William Kaim,
the smith at Lord Kingston’s house of Whittingham, was also in custody on
some suspicion of a concern in this business; but he and the town-officers
were quickly liberated.’
John Seton was soon after seized by
Captain James Denhoim on board a merchant-vessel bound for Holland, and
imprisoned in the Castle of Edinburgh. He underwent trial in July 1691,
and by some means escaped condemnation. A favourable verdict did not
procure his immediate liberation; but, after three days, he was dismissed
on caution to return into custody if called upon. This final result was
the more remarkable, as his father was by that time under charge of having
aided in the betrayal of the Bass.
Aug 16
William Bridge, an Englishman, had come to Scotland about ten years ago,
at the invitation of a coppersmith and a founder in Edinburgh, to ‘give
them his insight in the airt of casting in brass;’ and now they had
imparted their knowledge to James Miller, brasier in the Canongate. Bridge
petitioned the Privy Council for some charity, ‘seeing he left his own
kingdom for doing good to this kingdom and the good town of Edinburgh’ The
Council took that way of proving their benevolence on which Mr Sidney
Smith once laid so much stress—’ they recommend to the magistrates of
Edinburgh to give the petitioner such charity as he deserves.’’
Aug 26
The monopoly of the manufacture and sale of playing-cards, which was
conferred some years back on Peter Bruce, engineer, had been transferred
by him to James Hamilton of Little Earnock, together with a paper-mill
which be had built at Restairig, and two machines for friezing cloth.
Hamilton now petitioned for, and obtained the Privy Council’s confirmation
of this exclusive right, in consideration of his great expenses in
bringing home foreign workmen, and putting his little manufactory in
order.
Aug
Many gentlemen and others, who for several months had been prisoners in
the Edinburgh Tolbooth, were transported to Blackness, Leith, and Bass,
leaving George Drummond, the ‘Goodman’ of the prison, unpaid for their
aliment and house-dues. The Council ordained the keepers of the prisons of
Blackness and Bass to detain these gentlemen till they had satisfied
Drummond, whatever orders might come for their enlargement.
In another case, which came before
them in the ensuing January, the Council acted much in the spirit of their
late ordinance in favour of William Bridge the brass-founder. Gavin
Littlejohn, a prisoner in the Edinburgh Tolbooth, had been ordered by them
to be set at liberty, but he was detained by his jailer for fourscore
pounds Scots of house-dues. Being poor, ‘he was no ways able to make
payment, albeit he should die in prison,’ and he therefore craved the
Lords that they would, as usual in such cases, recommend the discharge of
his debt by the treasury. The Lords, having considered this petition,
‘recommend to George Drummond, master of the Tolbooth, to settle with
the petitioner, that he may be set at liberty.’
Sep
Law had not yet so well asserted her supremacy in Scotland as to entirely
banish the old inclination to enforce an assumed right by the strong hand.
Of the occasional violences still used in debatable matters of property, a
fair specimen is presented by a case which occurred at this time between
Andrew Johnstone of Lockerby and Mrs Margaret Jolinstone, the widow of his
eldest son. For a year or two past, Mrs Margaret, supported by her father,
Sir James Johnstone of Westerhall, and with the aid of sundry servants of
her own and her father, had been accustomed to molest Andrew Johnstone,
his friends and tenants, in the possession of their lands, and to threaten
them with acts of violence. They had been obliged to take out a writ of
lawborrows against the wrathful lady and her ‘accomplices;’ but it had
proved of no avail in inducing peaceful measures.
One day in the last spring, as
Johnstone’s tenants were labouring their lands at Turrie-muir, his furious
daughter-in-law and her ‘accomplices’ came upon them, loosed the horses
from their ploughs and harrows, cut the harness, and beat the workmen.
James Johnstone, a younger son of Lockerby, was present, and on his trying
to prevent these outrages, they fell upon him violently, and wounded him
under the eye with a penknife, ‘to the great hazard of the loss of his
eye.’
In June, a set of Mrs Margaret’s
friends, headed by David Carlyle, and his sons William and Robert, took an
opportunity of making a deadly personal assault upon Mrs Mary Johnstone,
wife of the Laird of Lockerby. The poor lady was cut down, and left as
dead, while her friend, Mrs Barbara Hill, was run through the thigh with a
sword. These ladies had since lain under the care of surgeons, and it was
uncertain whether they would live or die. Janet Geddes, servant of Mungo
Johnstone of Netherplace, a friend of Lockerbv, had also been assailed by
the Carlyles, pulled to the ground by the hair of her head, cruelly beaten
and wounded, and nearly choked with a horn snuff-box which they
endeavoured to force down her throat.
In May, a group of Mrs Margaret’s
friends came armed to the lands of Hass and Whitwyndhill, with ‘horrid and
execrable oaths,’ and ‘masterfully drove away the sheep and bestial. The
poor tenants and their wives came to rescue their property, when the
assailing party rode them down, and beat them so sore, that several had to
be taken home in blankets. Not long after, Westerhail’s servants came to
the same lands, and took by violence from Robert Johnstone of Roberthill
fourteen kine and oxen, ‘which were reset by Sir James, being carried home
to his house and put in his byres, and set his mark upon them, and
thereafter sold ten of the said beasts, ilk ane being worth forty pounds.’
Last, and worst of all, Walter
Johnstone, brother of Mrs Margaret, had come with attendants to the house
of Netherplace by night, broke in, and beat the owner, Mungo Jolinstone,
in a most outrageous manner, besides squeezing the hands of his son, a
boy, that the blood sprung below his nails.
The matter was brought before the
Privy Council by complaints from both parties, and as the awards went
rather against Lockerby and his son for keeping his daughter-in-law
out of her rights, than against her and her friends for their violent
procedure on the other side, we may reasonably infer that the James VI.
style of justice was far from extinct in the land.
A case of violent procedure on the part of a
landlord towards a tenant occurred about the same time. Catherine Herries
possessed the lands of Mabie, in the stewartry of Kirkcudbright, in
liferent. In the early part; of 1689, she entered into a communing with
one Robert Sturgeon, to set to him the small farm of Crooks, promising him
a nine years’ lease; and he was admitted to possession, though upon a
verbal agreement only. He immediately addressed himself to the improvement
of the ground by ditching and draining, and in a year laid out upon it two
hundred merks, or something more than eleven pounds sterling. Meanwhile,
the lady united herself to John Maxwell of Carse, ‘a notorious papist,’
who had not long before been searched for as a person dangerous to the new
government. When the lady learned that Sturgeon had been active among the
searchers, she seems to have resolved to discontinue his connection with
her estate. At Lamrnas 1690, alleging that he had been warned away at the
preceding Pasch, she caused him to be summoned before the steward-depute
of Kirkcudbright, who decreed him to remove within an irregularly brief
period. He had no resource but to go to Edinburgh, and sue for a
suspension of the decree; but when he returned with this document, he
found that the lady, the day before, had violently ejected his wife,
bairns, and bestial, ‘whereof many were lost.’ He intimated the
suspension; but Lady Mabie, disregarding it, obtained a precept from the
steward-depute, ordering him to answer for a thousand merks on account of
his unlawful intrusion upon her estate, and authorising his imprisonment
till this was paid. Without any other warrant, as Sturgeon complains to
the Council, the lady, under cloud of night, sends fifteen or sixteen
persons, whereof John Larierick, writer in Dumfries, was ringleader, with
swords and staves, and takes the complainer out of his bed, as if he had
been.a notorious malefactor, and carries him bound prisoner to the
Tolbooth of Kirkcudbright, where he lay six weeks, his wife, bairns, and
goods being again ejected, and his house shut up.
In such a relation of parties, even
had the proceedings of Lady Mabie and her husband been more regular, the
Lords of the Privy Council could have no difficulty in deciding. They
fined the lady and her husband in two hundred merks, one half to go as
compensation to the ejected tenant.’
Sep
If the author could be allowed to indulge in a little personality, he
would recall a walk through the streets of Edinburgh with Sir Walter
Scott in the year 1824—one of many which he was privileged to enjoy,
and during which many old Scottish matters, such as fill this work, were
discussed. Sir Walter, having stopped for a moment in the crowd to
exchange greetings with a portly middle-aged man, said, on coming up to
continue his walk ‘That was Campbell of Blythswood—we always shake hands
when we meet, for there is some old cousinred between us.’ Let this
occurrence, only redeemed from triviality by its bringing up a peculiar
Scotch phrase unknown to Jamieson, be introduction to a characteristic
letter of the year 1690, which seems worthy of a place here. First be it
noted, the ‘cousinred’ between the illustrious fictlonist of our century
and the great laird of the west, took its origin two centuries
earlier, thus forming a curious example of the tenacity of the Scottish
people regarding relationships. The paternal great~grandfather of Sir
Walter Scott was a person of his own name, the younger of the two Sons of
that Scott of Raeburn whom we have seen in 1665 set aside from the use of
his property, the education of his family, and the enjoyment of his
liberty, in consequence of his becoming a Quaker. The young Walter Scott
spent his mature life in Kelso; we find him spoken of in a case under the
attention of the Privy Council as a ‘merchant’ there: from devotion to the
House of Stuart, he never shaved after the Revolution, and consequently
acquired the nickname of Beardie. It was his fortune in the month
of September 1690, to ride to Glasgow, and there wed a lady of a noted
mercantile family, being daughter to Campbell of Silvercraigs, whose uncle
was the first Campbell of Blythswood provost of Glasgow in 1660. The house
of the Campbells of Silvercraigs in the Saltmarket was a handsome and
spacious one, which Cromwell had selected for his residence when he
visited Glasgow.’ Here, of course, took place the wedding of this young
offshoot of Roxburghshire gentility with Mary Campbell, the niece of
Blythswood, the result, most probably, of a line of circumstances
originating in that tyrannical decreet of the Privy Council which ordained
the Quaker Raeburn’s bairns to be taken from him, and educated in a sound
faith at the schools of Glasgow (see under July 5, 1666).
The letter in question is one which
Walter Scott wrote to his mother immediately after his marriage, stating
the fact, and giving her directions about horses and certain articles to
be sent to liira against his intended return home with his bride. It is
merely curious as illustrating the personal furnishings of a gentleman in
that age, and the manner in which he travelled.
‘DEAR
MOTHER—The long designed marriadge betwixt
Mary Campbell and mee was accomplished upon the 18th of this instant, and
I having stayed here longer than I thought to doe, thought fitt to lett
you know soe much by this. I have sent home Mr Robert Ellott his mare with
many thanks, and tell him she has 1
been fed since I came from home with good hay
and come, and been more idle as rideing. I have sent you the key of the
studdy, that you may send mee with Robt Paterson and my horses my two
cravatts that are within, and one pare I suppose within my desk the key
and keep till I come home. As also send mee ane clene shirt, my hatt that
is within my trunk send hither, and give to Robert Paterson, to putt one,
another hat that is in itt—the trunk is open already. Send me out of ane
bagge of rix dollars that you shall find in my desk, 30 rix dollars, and
my little purse with the few pieces of gold. You will find there also two
pairs of sleives and a plain cravatt: give with my hatts to Rot. my coat
and old , to
putt one, if they bee meet for him. Let Rot. come in by Edr and call at
Dykes the shoe maker for my boots and one of the pairs of the shoes lie
has making for me, if they be ready, and bring them with him hither. Let
him bring my own sadie and pistolls upon the one horse, and borrow my good
sisters syde sadle and bring upon the other. Lett him be sure to bee here
upon Tuesday the thirteenth instant and desire him to be carefull of all
thir things. William Anderson says he will come home with
us. We are all in good health here. My wife with all the rest of us gives
our service to you. Wee hope to see you upon the Saturday night after Rot.
Paterson comes hither. We pray for God’s blessing and yours. I have writt
to desire my brother to come again thatt time hither and come home with
us. God be with you, dear mother. I am your loving sonne,
‘W.
SCOTT.
‘GLASGOW, Sept- 22, 1690.
‘1ff my brother could bee here sooner, I wish he would
come, and Robt. also, for I mean to stay from home, and our time will much
depend on their coming.’
For a notice of a visit paid by Beardie to Glasgow in
February 1714, on the occasion of the death of his father-in-law, see
under that date.
Nov 11
The Bible, New Testament, and a catechism, having recently been prepared
in the Irish laiiguage, mainly for the use of the Irish population, it was
thought by some religiously disposed persons in
England, including some of Scottish extraction, that the same might serve
for the people of the Highlands of Scotland, whose language was very
nearly identical. It was accordingly part of the duty of the General
Assembly to-day to make arrangements for receiving and distributing
throughout the Highlands a gift of three thousand Bibles, one thousand New
Testaments, and three thousand catechisms, which was announced to be at
their disposal in London. A thousand pounds Scots was petitioned for from
the Privy Council, to pay the expense df
transporting the books from London and sending them to the various
northern parishes.’ It is to be regretted that so important an event as
the first introduction of an intelligible version of the Scriptures to a
large section of our population should be so meagrely chronicled. We shall
hereafter have much to tell regarding further operations of the same kind
in the northern portion of Scotland.
Dec
The domestic condition of the people is so much affected by certain sacred
principles of law, that the history and progress of these becomes a matter
of the first consequence. We have seen how the new rulers acted in regard
to the sacredness of the subject from imprisonment not meant to issue in
trial; we shall now see how they comported themselves respecting the
unlawfulness of torture, which they had proclaimed, as loudly in their
Declaration or Claim of Rights. We find the Duke of Hamilton, within three
months of his presiding at the passing of this ‘Declaration,’ writing to
Lord Melville about a little Jacobite conspiracy— ‘Wilson can discover
all: if he does not confess freely, it‘s like he may get either the boots
or the thumbikens.’ When, at the crisis of the
battle of the Boyne, the plot of Sir James Montgomery of Skelmorley, the
Earl of Annandale, Lord Ross, and Robert Fergusson, for the restoration of
King James, broke upon the notice of the new government, a Catholic
English gentleman named Henry Neville Payne, who had been sent down to
Scotland on a mission in connection with it, was seized by the common
people in Dumfriesshire, and brought to Edinburgh. Sir William Lockhart,
the solicitor-general for Scotland, residing in London, then coolly wrote
to the Earl of Melville, secretary of state at Edinburgh, regarding Payne,
that there was no doubt he knew as much as would hang a thousand; ‘but,’
says he, ‘except you put him to the torture, he will shame you all. Pray
you put him in such hands as will have no pity on him; for, in the
opinion of all, lie is a desperate cowardly fellow.’
The Privy Council had in reality by this time put Payne
to the torture; but the ‘cowardly fellow’ proved able to bear it without
confession. On the 10th of December, under instructions signed by the
king, and countersigned by the Earl of Melville, the process was repeated
‘gently,’ and again next day after the manner thus described by the Earl
of Crawford, who presided on the occasion: ‘About six this evening, we
inflicted [the torture] on both thumbs and one of his legs, with all
the severity that was consistent with humanity, even unto that pitch
that we could. not preserve life and have gone further, but without
the least success. He was so manly and resolute under his suffering, that
such of the Council as were not acquainted with all the evidences, were
brangled and began to give him charity, that he might be innocent. It was
surprising to me and others, that flesh and blood could, without fainting,
and in contradiction to the grounds we had insinuat of our knowledge of
his accession in matters, endure the heavy penance he was in for two
hours My stomach is truly so far out of tune, by being a witness to an
act so far cross to my natural temper, that I am fitter for rest than
anything else.’
The earl states, that he regarded Payne’s constancy
under the torture as solely owing to his being assured by his religion
that it would save his soul and place him among the saints. His Lordship
would never have imagined such self-consideration as i ;upporting a
westland Whig on the ladder in the Grassmarket.[Mr
Burton, in his History of &ottand from 1689 to 1748,
gives the following account )f this nobleman: ‘The Earl of Crawford, made
chairman of the Estates and a privy councillor, was the only statesman of
the day who adopted the peculiar demeanour and scriptural language of the
Covenanters. It is to him that Burnet and others attribute the severities
against the Episcopal clergymen, and the guidance of the force brought to
bear in the parliament and Privy Council in favour of a Presbyterian
establishment.’]
The conviction doubtless made him the more resolute in
acting as the prompter of the executioner to increase the torture to so
high pitch ‘—his own expression regarding his official connection with the
affair. It is curious that none ever justly apprehend, or will sdmit, the
martyrdoms of an opposite religious party. Always it Ls obstinacy, vanity,
selfishness, or because they have no choice. Sufferings for conscience’
sake are only acknowledged where one’s own views are concerned. It must be
admitted as something of a deduction from the value of martyrdom in
general.
We after this hear of Payne being in a pitiable frame
of body under close confinement in Edinburgh Castle, no one being allowed
to have access to him but his medical attendants. For a little time there
was a disposition to give him the benefit of the rule of the Claim of
Rights regarding imprisonment, and on the 6th January 1691, it was
represented to King William that to keep Payne in prison without trial was
‘contrare to law.’ Nevertheless, and notwithstanding repeated demands for
trial and petitions for mercy on his part, Neville Payne was kept in
durance more or less severe for year after year, until ten had
elapsed! During this time, he became acquainted with the principal
state-prisons if Scotland, including the Edinburgh Tolbooth.
At length, on the 4th of February 1701, the wretched
man sent a petition to the Privy Council, shewing ‘that more than ten
years’ miserable imprisonment had brought to old age and ~xtreme poverty,
accompanied with frequent sickness and many )ther afflictions that are the
constant attendants of both.’ He protested his being all along wholly
unconscious of any guilt. He was then ordered to be liberated, without the
security for reappearance which was customary in such cases. |