IV., he and several other Scotch nobles joined Albany’s conspiracy.
England thus assumed a menacing attitude towards Scotland. Parliament
met in March, 1482, to deliberate on the state of affairs which had
arisen. In the record of the proceedings Edward IV. was termed a
usurper and a robber, “who had broken faith with Scotland, and invaded
it, robbed, burned, and destroyed the property of the King’s subjects.
And it was well known that this usurper, from his enormous avarice
and false love of conquest, neither fearing God nor the effusion of
Christian blood, nor remembering that he was obliged and sworn to
keep the truce, but casting his fidelity and honour to the winds, he
has determinedly resolved to continue this war, which he has caused
and begun, and with all his power to invade, and so far as he can,
conquer this kingdom. Those present in Parliament therefore promised
to support the King to the utmost of their power, and to defend him
and the kingdom as their forefathers had always done.” It was resolved
to muster the whole force of the country to resist the usurper Edward,
“and if he shall come in person, then he shall be resisted by our King
in person, and with the body of the people, who will live or die in his
defence.”¹
¹ _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume II., pages
138‒139.
In July, 1482, a strong army assembled on the Boroughmoor, near
Edinburgh; and Cochrane, who had assumed the title of Earl of Mar, was
appointed to command the artillery. The army, with the King in person,
marched toward the Border, but when it reached Lauder a tragic action
happened. The nobles, headed by the Earl of Angus, met in a church,
and after some discussion they resolved to seize the King and to sweep
off his favourites. While they were considering how to execute their
resolution a knock was heard at the door; it was Cochrane with a
message from the King. The Earl of Angus instantly seized and pulled
the gold chain from Cochrane’s neck, saying that “a rope would befit
him better.” “My lords,” said he, “is it jest or earnest?” He was told
that it was earnest, and was quickly bound and placed under guard. A
party of the nobles, who were despatched to the royal tent, instantly
seized the King’s musician, Rogers, and the rest of his favourites.
These were then led, along with Cochrane, to the Bridge of Lauder,
where they were all hanged. After these cruel executions the nobles
disbanded the army, returned to the capital with the King, and
imprisoned him in the castle of Edinburgh; and thus left the southern
quarter of the kingdom a prey to the enemy.¹
¹ Buchanan’s _History of Scotland_, Book XII., Chapter 46;
Lesley’s _History of Scotland_, page 48; Pitscottie.
The English retook Berwick, which henceforth remained in their
possession. The English army, accompanied by the Duke of Albany,
advanced to Edinburgh with the intention of placing him on the throne
of Scotland. When Albany’s aim was discovered, it was seen that the
people would not submit to his scheme without a severe struggle. The
unhappy and captive King had still some loyal and powerful adherents,
including the Earl of Huntly, the representative of the house which
saved the crown of James II. By the efforts of these and the citizens
of Edinburgh, the King was released from prison,¹ and a partial
reconciliation between him and Albany was effected, on the ground that
Albany should return to his allegiance and be restored to his estates.
For a short time Albany attempted to rule the kingdom.
¹ On the 16th of November, 1482, the King granted a charter
to the citizens of Edinburgh, which constituted the
provost-sheriff within the boundaries of the burgh for ever;
and another charter which confirmed to the citizens of the
burgh the customs of the port of Leith, for assisting in
his deliverance from prison. _Burgh Records of Edinburgh_,
Volume I., page 43, 332.
On the 2nd of December, 1482, a Parliament met at Edinburgh, which was
under the control of Albany. A number of Acts were passed, in one of
which the King was made to express his warm thanks to his brother for
delivering him from imprisonment; and the unhappy King was also forced
to entreat Albany to accept the office of Lieutenant-General of the
Kingdom. Albany further received a grant of the Earldom of Mar as a
reward for his great services to the State. Thus Albany was virtually
placed in supreme power.
But he continued his intrigues with the English Government, and
entered into new plots and engagements. When his treason became known
his position was untenable, and he was forced to retire to England; but,
before he departed, he placed the castle of Dunbar in the hands of the
English. Edward IV. died on the 9th of April, 1483, and this event, and
those which followed in England, upset Albany’s schemes. A Parliament
met at Edinburgh on the 24th of June, 1483, to which Albany was
summoned to appear and answer to a charge of treason; as he failed to
appear, his estates were forfeited to the Crown, and also the lands of
his chief adherents. Albany afterwards crossed the English Channel, and
finally settled in France.¹
¹ _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume II., pages
142‒152.
A party of the nobles, chiefly connected with the southern part of the
kingdom, still continued to plot against the King with the intention
of dethroning him, and for the ensuing five years the Government and
the country were in an unsettled state. Truces for short periods were
concluded with England, and in 1485 the league with France was renewed.
Although Parliaments were assembled and many Acts passed touching the
disorder of the kingdom, the holding of courts, and the repression of
crime, the affairs of the Church, the currency of the kingdom, commerce,
and the herring-fishery, still the conspiracy against the King was
proceeding. Queen Margaret died at Stirling in 1486, and she left three
children――Prince James, the heir to the throne; John, who received the
title of Earl of Mar; and the Duke of Ross, who was born in March, 1476,
and educated under George Schaw, Abbot of Paisley; he was appointed
Archbishop of St. Andrews in 1497, Chancellor of the kingdom in 1502,
and died in 1503. The year following the death of his Queen, James III.
opened communication with Henry VII. with a view to a marriage with the
widow of Edward IV.; but the hapless King of Scots soon had other work
to engage his attention.¹
¹ _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume II., pages
165‒184; _Fœdera_, Volume VII., pages 236, _et seq._;
_Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland_, Volume I.,
Preface, page 64.
The conspiracy of the nobles against the King was matured. It had
occurred to them that the King’s son, a youth of sixteen years of age,
would serve their purpose, and the southern nobles induced him to join
them, and rise in rebellion against his own father. They mustered their
followers and advanced upon Edinburgh, where the King was then staying.
James crossed the Forth and passed into the northern counties, which
were loyal, and there a strong army rallied round him. He then marched
southward, and came in sight of the rebellious nobles at Blackness,
in West Lothian, where the Earl of Buchan attacked and drove back the
advance wing of the insurgent army. A pacification was arranged in May,
1488, and the King disbanded his army and returned to Edinburgh, as
the nobles had promised to return to their allegiance, to maintain the
rights of the Crown, and the peace of the kingdom.
But the disaffected nobles remained in arms, with the young Prince
at their head, whom they used as their tool. The hapless King again
mustered an army, and advanced towards Stirling to secure the passage
of the Forth, but the gates of the castle were closed against him, as
the Governor had joined the insurgent nobles. On the 11th of June, 1488,
the two armies approached each other at a small brook called Sauchie
Burn, about a mile from the field of Bannockburn. An engagement ensued,
and though the royal troops were outnumbered, the action was long
and fiercely contested. The King, in retiring from the field, was
thrown from his horse, and some of the rebels came up and killed
him. Thus fell James III., in the thirty-seventh year of his age, and
the twenty-eighth of his reign, another victim to the ambition of a
reckless aristocracy.¹
¹ Pitscottie, pages 133‒143; Buchanan, Book XII., Chapter 61;
_Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume II., page 184.
The victorious nobles passed the night on the field of battle, and on
the following morning proceeded to Linlithgow; and that day, the 12th
of June, the prince issued a proclamation, and granted a commission to
William Hepburn, as Clerk of Council and Register. The dominant party
immediately seized the Government and the royal treasure, divided
the chief offices among themselves, and placed the royal castles in
the hands of their own adherents. On the 25th of June the Prince was
crowned at Scone, with the usual circumstance and ceremony, under the
title of James IV.; and the faction who had raised him to the throne
pampered his youthful passions and propensities. Theatrical farces,
dances, and masked balls, were got up for his special amusement, and
in this way the nobles degraded the character of the young King.¹
¹ _Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland_, Volume I.,
pages 79‒87, 276, 277, 280, 288, 293, 304, _et seq._
The party of the nobles who had attained the ascendancy exerted
themselves to the utmost to secure their position. They appointed an
embassy to proceed to the English courts, headed by the Archbishop of
St. Andrews, and the Bishops of Glasgow and Aberdeen, but Henry VII.
had not much confidence in the new Government. They obtained, however,
a renewal of the truce between the two kingdoms. At home they acted
with surprising energy; the supporters of the late King, including
the Earl of Buchan, Lord Forbes, Lord Bothwell, Sir Alexander Dunbar,
and others, were summoned to appear before Parliament and answer to a
charge of treason. Parliament met at Edinburgh on the 6th of October,
1488, and proceeded to consider the position of those who had been
summoned for treason. The Earl of Buchan appeared, and tendered his
submission to the King, and he was pardoned and restored to favour.
None of the others cited appeared, and consequently their possessions
were placed at the disposal of Parliament; and Lord Bothwell, John Ross,
the late King’s advocate, and others, were forfeited. Ross’s lands were
given to Patrick Home of Fast Castle; and the lordships of Bothwell
and Crichton were formed into the Earldom of Bothwell and given to
Patrick Hepburn, Lord Hailes, who was then created Earl of Bothwell,
as a reward for his service to his country at Sauchie Burn. The
leading members of this Parliament having succeeded so far, proceeded
to investigate the causes of the recent rebellion. After carefully
examining the whole matter, they unanimously came to the conclusion
“that the slaughter committed in the field near Stirling, where the
King’s father happened to be slain, and others of his barons, was
solely to be ascribed to the offences, falsehood, and deceit practiced
by him and his wicked counsellors before the battle. Therefore our
King that now is, and the true lords and barons who were with him in
the same field, were innocent, quit, and free, of the said slaughters,
battle, and pursuit, and did not cause or occasion them.” To this
statement the leading nobles of the party, some of the bishops and
burgesses, affixed their seals, in order that copies of it might
be sent to the Pope, the Kings of France, Denmark, Spain, and other
foreign powers.
Some concessions were granted to the supporters of the late King and
their kindred. It was enacted that the heirs of those who had fallen
in arms against the King at the battle near Stirling, should be allowed
to succeed to their estates, notwithstanding the legal difficulty
that their predecessors were slain when in open rebellion. The goods
belonging to the poor and unlanded people, which had been seized during
the recent struggle, were to be restored to them; and that castles and
lands, which had been plundered and occupied by either party, were to
be delivered to their owners.¹ Still, there were murmurs amongst the
people concerning the hard fate of the late King. In 1489 the Earls
of Lennox and Huntly, Lord Forbes, and others, rose in arms against
the party in power; but after a short struggle, they were defeated, and
the rising extinguished. The dominant faction then ran its course; and
James IV. gradually assumed his proper functions, and became an active
prince. Yet a parliament which met at Edinburgh on the 6th of February,
1492, found it necessary to allay “the heavy murmurs of the people
concerning the death and slaughter of our sovereign lord’s father,
whom God absolve, King James III., that those who slew him should be
punished as they deserved to be.” A reward of a hundred marks of land
was then offered to any one who should reveal the perpetrators of the
deed;² but the reward was never claimed.
¹ _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume II., pages 199,
201‒205, 209‒211, 269.
² _Ibid._, pages 223, 230.
Parliament assembled at Edinburgh in May 1493, and proceeded to pass
enactments touching the Church. All those who had pleas depending in
the Court of Rome were commanded to cease their litigation in that
Court, and bring their pleas before the courts of the kingdom, where
justice should be administered to them. Acts were passed which aimed
at withdrawing the appointment to the benefices of the monasteries from
the Court of Rome. The rights and the privileges of the Archbishops of
St. Andrews and Glasgow were confirmed. The doom of treason was to be
pronounced against every one who attempted to take the King’s rights
of patronage to the Court of Rome. Yet it appears that this was not
effective, for in 1496 parliament renewed the former Acts, and passed a
new one, which runs thus:――“For the honour of the kingdom and the good
of the community, and for averting innumerable evils daily incurred
upon the kingdom and the people through the exorbitant cost and expense
of churchmen, by their purchasing at the Court of Rome benefices and
elections contrary to the Acts of Parliament. Also by purchasing and
bringing in of novelties and innovations into the Church without the
advice of the King, distraining the kingdom of money, and putting the
King and patrons out of their possessions. Hereafter, all those who
go out of the realm on such business, without a license from the King,
shall be proclaimed rebels and put to the King’s horn.”¹
¹ _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume II., pages
232, 237.
This parliament directed its attention to the state of the Highlands,
and it was alleged that since 1475 repeated attempts had been made in
the name of John, Lord of the Isles, to recover the earldom of Ross,
which was then held by the King’s brother. Therefore the title and
the estates of the aged Lord of the Isles were forfeited to the Crown.
Shortly after he surrendered to the King, and retired to the monastery
of Paisley, where he died in 1498, and was interred in the tomb of his
royal relative, King Robert III.
After the surrender of the Lord of the Isles, preparations were made
for an expedition into the Highlands and Islands with the aim of
establishing the royal authority. Towards the end of the summer of 1493
the King proceeded to the Isles, and received the submission of several
of the chiefs. In the spring of the following year the King again
visited the Isles, and repaired and garrisoned the castle of Tarbert
as a base of operations. He reduced the castle of Dunaverty in Cantyre,
garrisoned it, and then returned to Stirling in August. It seems that
James IV. did not adopt an effective mode of governing the Highlands
and Islands, though he was active and moved about rapidly, he followed
no defined and clear line of government. In autumn he proceeded with
the Northern Circuit Courts, and was in Inverness on the 6th of October,
and in Elgin at the end of the month; thence he passed to Banff and
Aberdeen, and then returned south. Starting from Edinburgh early in
February 1495, he followed the Southern Circuit Courts to Lanark,
Peebles, Selkirk, Jedburgh, Dumfries, and Ayr. In May he was at the
castle of Mingarry, in Ardnamurchan, and a number of the local chiefs
rendered submission to him, including the chief of Clanranald, and
Ewen, son of Alan of Lochiel, Captain of the clan Cameron. But James
returned to Glasgow before the end of June; what have been called his
expeditions to the Highlands and Islands were merely flying visits.¹
Still, it seems that the King and his government had a good opportunity,
after the surrender of the Lord of the Isles, for improving the
government of the Celtic people, and if they had been reasonably
treated and properly ruled, they would have soon settled into a state
of comparative quietness and order under the Crown. Unfortunately the
King and his government, after a time, divested themselves of their
functions and responsibilities to govern the Celtic people of the
Highlands and Islands, and assigned this duty to local and interested
nobles.
¹ _Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland_, Volume I.;
Gregory’s _History of the Western Highlands and Isles of
Scotland_.
The head of the Campbells, who had then attained the rank of Earl of
Argyle, practised a policy of encroachment on the small proprietors and
clans in his ♦neighbourhood. In the year 1502 all the charters which
had been granted by the King to the vassals during the last five years
were summarily recalled. The Earl of Argyle was appointed the King’s
Lieutenant, and empowered to let on lease for a term of three years
the whole lordship of the Isles. Argyle immediately proceeded to evict
the proprietors and their tenants from their lands and houses: and
the lands were appropriated by Argyle himself, and a few of the King’s
favourites. The natural result followed; the evicted people rose
in rebellion. As the Earl of Argyle had obtained the functions of
a King in the Western Highlands and Islands, so in the beginning of
the sixteenth century Alexander, third Earl of Huntly, was appointed
Sheriff of Inverness, Ross, Sutherland, and Caithness; and also keeper
of the Castle of Inverness, to which office there was a large extent
of land attached. Huntly had territories in Badenoch and Lochaber, and
the strong castle of Ruthven, although the centre of his power lay in
Strathbogie, in the counties of Aberdeen and Banff. These two Earls
and their successors, for upwards of a century may be said to have
ruled the Highlands and Islands of Scotland; and each earl within his
region often caused disorder, and committed many acts of aggression and
injustice upon the Celtic people.
♦ “neighbourhoood” replaced with “neighbourhood”
When a Government renders its subjects landless and homeless, rebellion
is likely to be the result. After causing a rising of this nature the
King summoned a parliament, which met at Edinburgh in March, 1503.
This parliament and the King then proclaimed that――“If any one should
apprehend and bring to the King, Maclean of Lochbuy, great Macleod
of Lewis, or MacNeil of Barra, they shall receive the half of these
rebels’ lands; and if they capture and bring to the King any other
head-men, or any Highland man whatever connected with the rebellion,
they shall be rewarded therefor according to the value of the land and
the goods of the persons taken.”¹ Such severe measures only served to
incite the people to rebellion; and it was only after a struggle of
three years that it was extinguished. The Earls of Argyle and Huntly,
with the sanction of the King, assumed and exercised the functions of
local and despotic rulers.
¹ _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume II., pages
240‒250.
In the reign of James IV. the relations of Scotland became more
interwoven with the other kingdoms of Europe, and she then really
entered the field of European politics. Scotland had diplomatic
communications with the Kings of France, Spain, the Pope, and other
powers. James IV. had a fondness for excitement and adventure, and a
feature of romance in his character, while his feelings and emotions
were excessively strong, as manifested in various forms. He was not an
adept in diplomacy; in that sphere of action he was apt to be duped,
and an instance of this may be narrated. Perkin Warbeck, a son of a
Florentine Jew, was persuaded by the Duchess of Burgundy, a sister of
Richard III. of England, to personate her nephew Richard, a brother of
Edward V. This character, accompanied by six hundred men, attempted to
land at Kent in July, 1495, but he was repulsed, and one hundred and
fifty of his followers were captured and executed. The adventurer next
made an effort to obtain a footing in Ireland, but he failed. Undaunted
by these failures, Perkin pursued his mission, and with his retinue
he arrived at Stirling on the 20th of November, 1495. He was at once
received by James IV. as “Prince Richard of England,” and was conducted
to apartments which had been prepared for him in Stirling. Immediately
letters were despatched to the lords and nobles of Athole and Strathern,
and to Earl Marischal and the barons of Angus, commanding them to meet
the King and the Prince at Perth; that they might have the honour of
being presented to Prince Richard. As it was intended to wage war in
support of the claims of this noble Prince, letters were sent to the
sheriffs ordering wappenschaws to be held throughout the kingdom.
Perkin soon became a great favourite of the King; and he was married
to the King’s cousin, Lady Gordon, a daughter of the Earl of Huntly,
a personal allowance of £1,200 a year being granted to him, while
his followers were quartered and maintained among the burghs. Perkin
moved through the kingdom in the style of a prince, staying at Perth,
Falkland Palace, Stirling, Linlithgow, Edinburgh, and other places, for
short or long periods as suited his pleasure.
The King having resolved to support the claim of Perkin Warbeck to the
throne of England, ordered the crown vassals to muster at Lauder. The
artillery stored at the King’s work in Leith, the castle of Edinburgh,
and the Abbey of Holyrood, was inspected and put in order. Parties
of workmen were sent to the woods of Melrose and of Irneside to make
carts, wheels, and all the requisite timber appliances, while the
King’s forge was used for preparing the necessary ironwork. New tents
were made for the King, and a banner of red and blue taffeta for Perkin,
who had now assumed the title of Duke of York. The preparations for the
invasion of England were completed on the 12th of September, 1496. John
Sandilands of Hillhouse, who had charge of the artillery, was ready
to advance. The master-gunners were mostly foreigners, the rest were
craftsmen, smiths, carpenters, and quarrymen, who were also trained
to work the guns. Before starting the bellman was thrice sent through
Edinburgh calling for workmen to engage for wages, and one hundred and
forty-three carters, with one hundred and ninety-six horses, were hired
for fourteen days’ service at a shilling a day for each man or horse,
for the conveyance of the guns, carts, tents, and other war materials,
“and seventy-six men with spades and mattocks to clear a way for
the artillery.” On the 14th the King and the Duke of York made their
offerings in Holyrood, and ordered a trental of masses for the success
of the undertaking, and then marched southward. The Scots crossed
the Border and entered Northumberland; the Duke of York then issued a
manifesto to his subjects, declaring that he had come to deliver them
from the usurpation and tyranny of Henry VII.; but the English showed
no signs of enthusiasm for a new King introduced by a Scotch army. The
King and his army plundered Northumberland, and returned to Scotland.
On the 8th of October the King and the Duke had returned to Edinburgh.
After this inglorious and utter failure, Perkin’s followers soon fell
away. James IV. at last discovering that the cause of Perkin was
unpopular among the Scotch people, resolved to send him away. A ship
called the _Cuckoo_ was equipped at Ayr, and stored with provisions,
which consisted of seventeen carcases of beef and twenty-three of
mutton, four tuns of wine, ten pipes of ale, two pipes of cider and
beer, two thousand biscuits, eight bolls of oatmeal, a hogshead of
herring, twelve ♦keeling, and six stone of cheese, and there was also
a store of peats, coal, and one hundred candles. In the middle of July,
1497, Perkin, his wife, and about thirty attendants, sailed from the
port of Ayr, under the care of Robert Barton, a skilful mariner, and
on the 26th of July he arrived at Cork, where he was coldly received;
thence he sailed with three small ships for Cornwall, and landed at
Whitsand Bay on the 7th of September. He assumed the title of Richard
IV. and raised his standard. About three thousand men joined him,
and he attacked Exeter; but he was captured on the 5th of October and
carried to London. He was first placed in the stocks at Westminster,
and then imprisoned in the Tower. Having plotted with the Earl of
Warwick to escape from the Tower, and killed a lieutenant, he was
hanged at Tyburn on the 28th of November, 1499. Thus ended the career
of Perkin Warbeck.¹
♦ “keling” replaced with “keeling”
¹ _Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland_, Volume I.,
Preface, pages 126‒128, 139‒142, _et seq._; _Exchequer
Rolls of Scotland_, Volume XI. I have stated above that
this impostor was a son of a Florentine Jew, but according
to Perkin’s own confession he was a native of Tournay in
Flanders.
After Warbeck’s departure great preparations were made for a raid into
England. A strong force was mustered at Melrose, and the artillery was
put in order at Edinburgh and Leith, and a large number of gunners, men,
oxen and horses, were hired to convey the guns and war materials. But
the only result of these preparations was an unsuccessful siege of the
castle of Norham, and the usual plundering. On the 30th of September,
1497, a truce for seven years was concluded between the two kingdoms,
which was subsequently extended to continue during the lives of the two
Kings.
James IV. was an exceedingly popular King, as he was constantly moving
through the kingdom on pilgrimages, or with the circuit courts, and
was often seen by all classes of his subjects in every quarter of
the country. He was open-handed with his money, and in his movements
through the kingdom always paid even for the smallest services. In July,
1496, Don Pedro de Ayala, the Spanish Ambassador, arrived in Scotland;
he was an able and accomplished man of the world, and having proceeded
to the Scottish court, as the representative of the greatest power in
Europe, he found the King of Scots to be an attractive character. The
Spanish Ambassador said: “When I arrived he was keeping a lady with
great state in a castle. He visited her from time to time. Afterwards
he sent her to the house of her father, who is a knight, and married
her.” This lady was Margaret Drummond, the youngest daughter of John
Lord of Drummond, and she was then living in Stirling Castle. For the
year 1496 the records contain considerable sums of money which were
paid to defray her expenses while she was residing in Stirling, and in
Linlithgow. She returned home in the spring of 1497, and that year she
bore a daughter to the King. This child in due time became the wife
of John Lord Gordon, and thus she was the mother of the fourth Earl
of Huntly.¹ The sad tragedy which befell Margaret Drummond and her two
sisters occurred in 1502. While residing at Drummond Castle the three
sisters, after partaking of breakfast, died in extreme pain, there
being a strong suspicion that they had been poisoned.
¹ _Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland_, Volume I.;
_Exchequer Rolls of Scotland_, Volume XII.
At an early age James IV. formed an intimacy with Margaret, or Mariot,
Boyd, a daughter of Archibald Boyd of Bonshaw, and by this lady the
King had a son, who was born about the year 1491. This son of James
IV., on the death of his uncle, the Duke of Ross and Archbishop of St.
Andrews, in 1503, was appointed to the primacy, which he held for ten
years. He was slain at the Battle of Flodden. James IV. formed another
illicit intimacy with Janet Kennedy, a daughter of Lord John Kennedy,
and by her he had a son, who was born about the year 1500, and named
James Stewart. In 1501 Janet Kennedy retired with her infant son to the
castle of Darnaway in Moray, and there the child was brought up as Earl
of Moray.¹
¹ _Exchequer Rolls of Scotland_, Volume XII.
Some of the obstacles to the King’s projected marriage having been
removed, as indicated in the preceding paragraphs, negotiations were
opened in June 1499, to treat for his marriage with the Princess
Margaret, daughter of Henry VII. The negotiations proceeded smoothly,
but, as James and Margaret were within the prohibited degrees of
relationship, Henry VII., in July, 1500, had to obtain a papal
dispensation which removed this impediment to the marriage. In November
1501, Henry VII. empowered the Earl of Surrey, and the Archbishop of
Canterbury, and the Bishop of Winchester, to treat with the Earl of
Bothwell, the Archbishop of Glasgow, and the Bishop of Moray, on all
the matters connected with the proposed marriage. They immediately
entered on their arduous task, and before the end of January 1502,
they framed three treaties:――one sanctioning the marriage between
the Princess and the King of Scotland; another for a perpetual peace
between the two kingdoms; and the other providing for the preservation
of order on the marches of the two countries. In the marriage treaty
it was stipulated that the Princess should be conveyed to Scotland, at
her father’s expense, and delivered to those appointed to receive her
at Lamberton Church in Lammermoor, on or before the 1st of September,
1503; and that the marriage should be solemnised within fifteen days
thereafter. Immediately after the marriage the Queen should obtain
seisin of all the lands, castles, and possessions, which had in past
times formed the jointure of Queen dowagers; and if the rents of
these possessions be below £2000 sterling, additional lands should
be assigned to her. The Queen should be allowed twenty-four English
servants, also Scotch retainers, and her husband should, at his own
cost, maintain her in a style befitting her rank as a Queen’s daughter
and a King’s consort, and provide her with a yearly allowance of 500
marks sterling. Her dowry, amounting to £10,000 sterling, was to be
paid by her father in three instalments, £3,333 on the marriage day,
and the remainder within three years; and if the Queen died without
issue within this period, then James IV. should have no right to the
unpaid balance. The treaties were duly ratified, and Lord Dacre, Sir
Thomas Darcy, Sir Henry Babington, and other commissioners were sent
from England to see that the contemplated arrangements touching the
jointure lands, and the punishment of offenders on the marches, were
carried into effect.¹
¹ _Fœdera_; _Calender of Documents relating to Scotland_,
Volume IV., pages 332‒336, _et seq._; _Exchequer Rolls_,
Volume XII., page 185.
On the 12th of July James IV. promised to Henry VII. not to renew his
league with France “till he consults with him, or is further advised.”
James also promised to pay suitable wages to Queen Margaret’s English
attendants.
Under the care of the Earl of Surrey the young Princess commenced
her journey to Scotland in the beginning of August, accompanied by a
retinue which increased as it advanced northward. The Earl of Morton
and a number of Scotch nobles proceeded to Lamberton Church and
received the Princess, and James joined the party at Newbottle. The
marriage was celebrated on the 8th of August, 1503, in the church of
Holyrood, amid great rejoicing and magnificent display. Exactly one
hundred years later, the issue of this marriage united the Crowns of
England and Scotland.
It has been already mentioned that the relations of Scotland with
foreign powers had assumed some importance. Henry VII., as we have
seen above, had exacted a promise from his son-in-law that he would not
renew his league with France without consulting him; but Louis XII. of
France despatched Bernard Stuart, Lord of Aubigny, as his ambassador
to the Scottish King. James received him with the utmost respect, and
placed him in the most honourable seat at his own table. Subsequently
Pope Julius II. sent an ambassador to the Court of Scotland, who
presented to James IV. a consecrated hat and sword as a special mark of
the Holy Father’s regard for him. The object of the Pope was to detach
the King from his alliance with France, but he utterly failed. Shortly
after, an embassy from the King of France arrived in Scotland, with
the object of inducing the King to join the ♦Cambray League, which had
been formed in 1508 against the Republic of Venice. It appears that
Henry VII. had some suspicion of his son-in-law, for, on the 12th
of December, 1508, he issued instructions to the Captain of Berwick,
in which it was stated that “if the Scots threatened an invasion or
besieged the town, the garrison of the castle should be increased to
six-hundred-and-thirty men.”¹
♦ “Cambary” replaced with “Cambray”
¹ Pinkerton’s _History of Scotland_, Volume II.; _Calender of
Documents relating to Scotland_, Volume IV., page 351.
Henry VII. died on the 21st of April 1509, and it may be said with
truth that by his death Scotland lost a friend and an unusually quiet
neighbour. His son, Henry VIII., who succeeded to the throne of England,
was a different personage, and not long after his accession the old
strife was renewed.
James IV. took an interest in shipbuilding, and in his reign Scotland
attained some importance as a naval power. Although there were no
war ships, strictly speaking, as the same ships were used for both
commerce and war, according to the exigence of circumstances. Still,
in a limited sense, it might be said that the King possessed a navy.
The King’s most distinguished captains were Sir Andrew Wood and the
Bartons, while the ships which won distinction, the _Yellow Carvel_,
the _Flower_, and others, were simply armed merchantmen.
At this period the distinction between honest trading and piracy
was not clearly drawn, and it was alleged that the Scottish captains
sometimes indulged in piratical exploits. Owing to the complaints
of English merchants against the Scotch captain, Andrew Barton, Lord
Thomas Howard and Sir Edward Howard, with two men-of-war, attacked
Barton’s ship, the _Lion_, and a small sloop called the _Pirwen_, in
the Downs. After a long and severe fight Barton was killed, and his
ships detained as prizes. James IV. immediately sent a herald to demand
satisfaction, but Henry VIII. replied that the destruction of pirates
was no infringement of their treaty. Other causes of quarrel soon arose.
Henry VIII. resolved to engage in a war against France, the ally
of Scotland. Ambassadors from the Pope, Spain, and England, arrived
in Scotland for the purpose of persuading James IV. to join in the
war against France; but all their efforts proved in vain. James IV.
declined to abandon his old ally, and resolved to assist France by
an invasion of England. Attempts were made to dissuade the King from
engaging in a war with England, but he had formed his resolution, and
determined to adhere to it and abide the issue. In the summer of 1513
he ordered the whole feudal force of the kingdom to muster on the
Borough Moor, near Edinburgh; and on the appointed day a large army
assembled. The King placed himself at the head of his army and marched
southward. On the 22nd of August he crossed the Tweed and encamped
on the banks of the Till. There he passed an Act, which ordered that
the heirs of all who fell in this war should be free from the feudal
burdens of “ward, relief, and marriage,” whatever their age might be.
The army marched along the side of the Tweed, and besieged the castle
of Norham, which was captured on the 29th of August. Valuable time was
lost in taking the border castles of Wark, Etal, and Ford, which gave
the enemy an opportunity of mustering his forces and advancing against
the Scots. The English army, under the Earl of Surrey, was advancing
northward, and messages passed between him and James IV. Although
James was brave and determined, as general of an army he had no
qualifications whatever; his idea of leadership was simply to make a
stand-up fight.
On receiving intelligence of the approach of the English army, the
Scots quitted their encampment and took up a strong position upon
Flodden Hill. When Surrey observed the position of the Scots, he did
not deem it wise to attack them then. He passed the Till on the 8th
of September, and marched in a north-westerly direction till near
the confluence of the Till and the Tweed, and then recrossed the Till
at Twisel Bridge. By this movement Surrey placed his army between
the Scots and their own country. He then drew up his army in battle
array on the left bank of the Till. When the Scots saw that they were
outgeneraled, they set fire to the tents of their encampment, descended
from the Hill of Flodden and took possession of the neighbouring height
of Brankston, towards which the enemy was advancing from the opposite
direction.
The opposing armies were nearly equal in numbers, each numbered about
thirty thousand men. The English advanced in four divisions, and the
centre of their line of battle was commanded by the Earl of Surrey.
The left wing of the Scots was commanded by the Earl of Huntly and Lord
Home, and the right wing by the Earls of Argyle and Lennox, and the
King in person and on foot led the centre. At four in the afternoon
of the 9th of September 1513, the battle commenced with cannonading on
both sides; the English artillery was better served than the Scotch,
and did considerable execution in the ranks of the latter. Huntly and
Home with the left wing of the Scots attacked the English vanguard and
drove it back in disorder; but the English reserve then advanced and
kept Huntly in check. After a long and severe struggle, in which the
Earls of Lennox, Argyle, Crawford, Montrose, and many others were slain,
the right and left wings of the Scots were completely routed. Meantime,
the King and the Earl of Surrey were wrestling in a fierce hand-to-hand
combat in the centre. The King placed himself in front of his spearmen
and fought with the utmost fury and bravery, and the English ranks were
repeatedly broken and Surrey’s standard threatened. At last the King
and his division were completely surrounded by the enemy; still the
Scots fought in a circle with their spears extended and repelled their
assailants――
“The stubborn spearmen still made good,
Their dark impenetrable wood,
Each stepping where his comrade stood,
The instant that he fell.
No thought was there of dastard flight,
Link’d in the serried phalanx tight;
Groom fought like noble, squire like knight,
As fearlessly and well.”¹
At length the King himself fell mortally wounded in the head within a
spear’s length of the Earl of Surrey; yet the Scots continued to fight
till night put an end to the contest. Surrey then withdrew his forces,
for he was uncertain of the issue of the battle as the Scottish centre
remained unbroken; but when day dawned, it was seen that the Scots had
retired from the field, and left their artillery standing on the side
of the hill.
¹ Scott’s _Marmion_.
The loss of the Scots on Flodden field was lamentable. Upwards of eight
thousand men were slain, including the King and his son, the Archbishop
of St. Andrews; twelve Earls, Lennox, Argyle, Athole, Erroll, Crawford,
Morton, Montrose, Bothwell, Caithness, Cassilis, and Rothes; five
eldest sons of peers; fifteen lords and chiefs of clans; the Bishop
of Caithness, the Abbots of Inchaffray and Kilwinning, and the Dean
of Glasgow, and La Motte, the French ambassador. Indeed there were
scarcely a single family of note in the kingdom but had lost some
of its members. The English lost about five thousand men, and Surrey
disbanded the remainder of his army. The body of James IV. was found by
Lord Dacre among the slain; and it was embalmed and subsequently placed
in the monastery of Sheen in Surrey.
CHAPTER X.
_The Social Condition of the Nation
in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries._
IN this chapter the social state of the people will be treated at
length. The government and the administration of justice, the power
of the nobles, and the condition of the tenants and labourers of the
land, will be explained; the state of the burghs and towns; the habits,
dress, and amusements of the people will be handled; the state of the
Church, the religious sentiments of the people, and many other matters
associated with the life of the people and the state of society, will
be touched on.
A notice of the King’s Council and its function was given in a
preceding chapter, and its relation to feudalism indicated. The Scotch
parliament gradually arose from these meetings of the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries which were frequently mentioned in preceding
pages. One of the stipulations of the treaty of Brigham declared that
no parliament should be held beyond the boundaries of the kingdom to
treat on Scotch affairs. John Baliol held a meeting at Scone in 1293,
and another at Stirling the same year, and both were called parliaments
in the record. From this date the term parliament was freely applied
to assemblies of a national and legislative character. A parliament met
at Dunfermline on the 23rd of February 1296, and ratified the treaty
between Baliol and the King of France; and the seals of four bishops,
four monasteries, four earls, eleven barons, and six of the burghs,
namely, Aberdeen, Perth, Stirling, Edinburgh, Roxburgh, and Berwick,
were affixed to the treaty. Still, from the phraseology of the deed
itself, it is uncertain whether the representatives of the burghs were
actually present, and voted in parliament, as their consent might have
been obtained in some other way.¹
¹ _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume I., pages
89‒97. On the 29th of March 1298, William Wallace, Guardian
of the kingdom of Scotland, in the name of King John, and
the consent of the community, granted a charter to Alexander
Scrymgeour, conferring on him and his heirs the office of
hereditary Constable of Dundee.
Robert Bruce held a parliament at St. Andrews on the 16th of March
1308, in which a letter to the King of France was dictated. The parties
consenting to the document were styled earls, communities of all the
earldoms of the kingdom, Edward Bruce of Galloway, James, the Steward
of Scotland, Alexander of Argyle, Donald of the Isles, Robert Keith,
Mareschal of Scotland, and other barons, and also the barons of Argyle
and Torchegall, and the whole inhabitants of the kingdom. In November
1314 Bruce assembled a parliament at Cambuskenneth, in which the
bishops, earls, barons, and others of the nobility, but not all the
communities of the kingdom, were present. In the parliament held at
Ayr in 1315, the heads of communities affixed their seals to a deed;
and the parliament which met at Scone in December 1318, settled the
succession to the throne, and also passed a number of other Acts. The
record stated that these were enacted “by the counsel and the express
consent of the bishops, abbots, priors, earls, barons, and the whole
community of the kingdom in our full parliament held at Scone.” Still
it may be doubted if the representatives of the burghs were actually
present as in a parliament, or gave their consent by voting in any
of the meetings noticed above. But in the parliament which met at
Cambuskenneth on the 15th of July 1326, there is clear evidence
that the burgesses sat with the earls, barons, and free tenants.
This parliament voted a supply to meet the expenses of the War of
Independence. It was then resolved that owing to the diminished
value of the Crown lands and revenues, as the result of the war, a
tenth penny should be granted to the King out of all the rents, to be
computed, except in some cases of extreme devastation, according to
the old extent of the reign of Alexander III. From this date onward the
representatives of the burghs usually sat in full parliaments, and were
recognised as a constituent branch of the great legislative and supreme
assembly of the nation.¹
¹ _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume I., pages
91‒127, _et seq._
It is necessary to observe further, in reference to the occurrence in
the national records in times anterior to the period under review, of
such expressions as “with the consent of the people,” “with the consent
of the community,” “with the consent and assent of all the people
of the kingdom,” that such phrases were not always, or even usually,
devoid of historic reality, truth, and value. Although the great body
of the people were not represented in the King’s council, in parliament,
or in any other legally specified form, still the voice and consent
of the people in reference to great undertakings, and the sanction of
important matters, was frequently sought and obtained by the supreme
heads of the kingdom from an early period. In preceding chapters many
indications have been incidentally mentioned as to how the voice and
consent of the people was obtained; as, for instance, when the people
assembled at the coronations of the Kings on the Mote Hill of Scone. On
such occasions the assembled multitude gave their “consent and assent”
to the inauguration of the Kings as their lawful and rightful rulers.
At the election of bishops, and other public officials in early times
“the consent and assent” of the people was sought and given in a
similar way. When Robert II. obtained the solemn sanction of parliament
to his settlement of the succession to the throne of Scotland in the
male line, in 1373, was he then satisfied with this sanction? No; for
it has been already stated, in a preceding chapter, that immediately
after the sanction of parliament was given and completed “the
whole multitude of the clergy and the people in the church of Scone
before the great altar, being specially convened for the purpose,
the aforesaid declaration, ordinance, and statute, thus sworn (in
parliament) being explained to them in a loud and public voice, each
raising his hand, after the manner of faith-giving, in token of the
universal consent of the whole clergy and people, publicly expressed
and declared their consent and assent.”¹ This mode of obtaining the
“consent and assent of the people” to a great and important national
matter was not an innovation of the first Stuart king, it was simply
a revival of a customary manner in which the people had sanctioned,
and given their “consent and assent” to public matters associated
with government for probably thousands of years before the period of
parliaments.
¹ See under page 315.
During the minority of David II. few records of the parliaments which
assembled have been preserved; but, after his return from captivity,
several rolls of the parliamentary proceedings of the later part of his
reign still exist. From its origin onward the Scotch parliament assumed
and exercised the functions of a Supreme Court of appeal and review.
It seems to have extended its power considerably in the reign of
David II. Parliament then treated the details of the administration of
justice, the coinage and the currency of the kingdom; and it assumed
the power and right to dictate terms of peace with foreign kingdoms;
and directly controlled the King himself in his expenditure. This had
become necessary owing to the character of the King, and his intention
to degrade and extinguish the independence of the nation, as was shown
by an enactment passed in a parliament held at Scone in 1367――“that no
officer should put in execution any royal warrant against the statutes
and common form of law.”
In the fourteenth century small barons and free tenants considered that
it was a great hardship to have to attend parliament. As yet there was
no regular representation. From this reluctance to give attendance,
some of the peculiarities of the Scotch parliament, and the mode of
conducting business in it, originated. In a parliament held at Scone in
September 1367, it was stated that, as it was autumn, and inconvenient
for many of the members to remain in attendance, a certain number
of persons were elected to hold the parliament, and the rest were
permitted to return home. The following year parliament assembled
at Perth in March, and owing to the inconvenience of the season and
the dearness of provisions, certain persons were elected to hold the
parliament, and they were divided into two committees, one to treat on
the general affairs of the nation, and a smaller one to sit on appeals
from the inferior courts. At another parliament, held in 1369 at Perth,
two committees were appointed, one to deal with appeals, questions,
and quarrels, which ought to be decided in parliament, and the other
to treat on special and secret affairs relating to the King and the
kingdom, previous to their being placed before the full parliament, as
it was inexpedient that the whole body should assist at a deliberation
of this character or be kept in attendance. In these arrangements the
origin of two peculiarities of the Scotch parliament clearly appears,
namely, the institution known under the name of “The Lords of the
Articles,” and “The Judicial Committee of Parliament.”
There was little constitutional development during the reigns of
the first two kings of the Stuart line. The statute passed in the
reign of Robert III., which threw on the King and his officers the
responsibility for the misgovernment of the kingdom, was noticed in
a preceding chapter. In 1427 James I. attempted to introduce a form
of representation of the small freeholders, but the act was totally
ineffectual, as no representatives were actually returned to parliament;
while Acts continued to be passed for upwards of a century to relieve
the small barons from attendance at parliament. In 1457 it was enacted
that no freeholder, who holds of the King under the value of £20,
should be constrained to attend in parliament or a general council.
Again, in 1503, an enactment was passed which declared that no man
should “be compelled to come personally to parliament whose lands
were valued under one hundred marks.” There was no regular form of
representation of the small barons and freeholders in parliament till
1587.
Originally each of the royal burghs had to send at least two
representatives to parliament, but the number of burgh members who
actually attended was unusually small. The great officers of the Crown
had a seat in parliament in virtue of their offices. The members of the
Scotch parliament all sat and voted in one house. But there was a body
called the ‘Lords of the Articles,’ which originated in the latter
years of the reign of David II., as indicated above. At first they
seem to have been elected to deal with special matters, but they
soon obtained the initiative of all measures and the management of
parliamentary business. The mode of electing the Lords of the Articles
seems to have been thus:――The clergy elected a certain number from
their own body, the nobles in like manner, and also the representatives
of the burghs, and the great officers of the Crown were entitled to act
among the Lords of the Articles in virtue of their offices. This body
usually arranged and prepared all the acts and measures, which were
then brought before the full parliament, and at once voted and passed,
without debate or deliberation.
As stated in a preceding chapter, James I. made an attempt to establish
a court of supreme civil jurisdiction; and in 1457, parliament enacted
“that the Lords of the Session should sit thrice every year, and
each time for forty days in these three places, Edinburgh, Perth, and
Aberdeen, and that nine persons should sit, three from each estate.”
In 1503 parliament announced that “there had been a great confusion of
summons at each session, as there was no time to bring them to an issue
and ending, therefore it was statuted, that a council should be chosen
by the King which should sit continually in Edinburgh, or where the
King resides, or where he thinks fit, to decide all manner of summons
in civil matters and causes daily as shall happen to occur; and should
have the same power as the Lords of Session.” These attempts entirely
failed, and parliament continued to appoint its own Judicial Committee,
who exercised the functions of a court of appeal, and also decided
causes in the first instance; their jurisdiction was similar to that
of the King’s Council. In 1467 parliament ordered that “all summons
and causes which were left undecided in this parliament, should be
decided before the Lords of the Council;” and causes which commenced in
the one court were sometimes disposed of in the other. The proceedings
of the Judicial Committee for the period from 1466 to 1494 have been
printed, and also the judicial proceedings of the Lords of Council from
1478 to 1495. These books are the earliest body of recorded law cases
which have been preserved in Scotland, and contain valuable historical
materials. Trial by jury was a characteristic of these courts. Although
the mode of taking evidence was crude, and testimony was admitted on a
principle not admissible now, still there was a striking improvement as
compared with the trial by ordeal and the processes of the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries. The functions of both these judicial bodies were
merged in the Court of Session established in the reign of James V.
In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the courts of the Church
monopolised a large portion of the civil business of the kingdom. The
Consistorial Courts of St. Andrews, Galloway, Edinburgh, and others,
had a great mass of legal business to execute. Their jurisdiction
embraced all cases of legitimacy and divorce; the large class of cases
connected with wills and executory; the affairs of widows and orphans;
questions of slander, and disputes arising on contracts, if they had
been sanctioned by an oath. The Consistorial Courts professed to take
care of the affairs of the poor, and those who were unable to pay for
the advice and assistance of lawyers, but contemporary literature does
not give them much credit for the performance of this part of their
duty.¹
¹ Henryson’s _Poems_, pages 148‒152. Laing’s Edition, 1865.
Owing to the introduction of Norman Feudalism and an extraneous
nobility, from the beginning of the reign of David I. to the reign of
Alexander III., the greater part of the land of the kingdom changed
owners. David I. and his two grandsons bestowed lands on these
extraneous nobles profusely, which entailed a legacy of enormous evil
upon the nation, and created a disorderly condition of society. These
Normans, mainly through their craft in forming marriage contracts,
obtained possession of extensive territories and rose to influence
and power; and at last they claimed the Crown and kingdom of Scotland.
They then sold the independence of this Crown and kingdom without “the
consent or assent of the people.” The invasion of the kingdom and the
War of Independence ensued.
From the commencement of the War of Independence to the middle of the
fourteenth century, the greater part of the land in the country changed
owners three or four times. A number of those Norman nobles who sold
the independence of the kingdom, and aided Edward I., II., and III.,
in their invasions of Scotland, at last forfeited their possessions
in Scotland. Robert Bruce was the first Scotch king since the reign of
Malcolm III., who discovered that no Norman noble could ride upon two
horses at once running in opposite directions. The result of this was
that Robert I. disinherited the Baliols, the Comyns, and many others;
and then conferred their forfeited possessions on his own supporters,
who had assisted him to recover the kingdom from the enemy. In this way
a considerable number of the small families of gentry were raised to
wealth, power, and influence; and amongst these were the Douglasses,
Gordons, Lindsays, Campbells, Hays, and many other families. But
unhappily Robert I. made no effort to limit the feudal power and the
privileges of the nobles in relation to the land and the people; on
the contrary, he rather extended their powers in these directions. He
not only gave his nephew, Thomas Randolph, the earldom of Moray with
the usual rights and privileges, but also conferred on him the burghs
of Elgin, Forres, and Nairn, the customs of Inverness, the burgh of
Lochmaben, extensive estates in the sheriffdoms of Dumfries and Berwick,
and the island of Man. Bruce also gave the town of Cromarty to the Earl
of Ross.¹
¹ _Exchequer Rolls of Scotland_, Volume I.
Although Bruce during his own reign kept his nobles in restraint, owing
to his success, yet in the reign of his son, David II., they greatly
extended their power; while the weak reigns of Robert II., and Robert
III., afforded the nobles many opportunities of extending their power,
which they eagerly embraced; and ere the end of the fourteenth century
they had attained to a position incompatible with any form of settled
government. When two or three of the chief nobles united, they were
more than a match for the King, and they often strengthened themselves
in this way. They entered into bonds and leagues, by which individual
nobles or families bound themselves to take part in the causes and
quarrels of each other; and this reacted in the most disastrous way
upon the social state of the nation. These bonds and leagues became so
universal in the fifteenth century and the first half of the sixteenth,
that there ♦was scarcely a man in Scotland, above the rank of the
smallest landholder, who was not bound in one or more of these private
leagues. Such bonds were always confirmed by the oaths of the parties.
The marriage alliances between families were also usually accompanied
by a bond, obliging the parties to assist each other in “all their
actions, causes, and quarrels, moved and to be moved, with their
persons, goods, fortunes, castles, kin, men, and friends; and all that
will do for them, contra and against all men that live and die may,
their allegiance to our lord, the King, except.” Thus powerful nobles
who held bonds from a host of other nobles and barons sworn to take
part in all their quarrels, were not likely to appeal to the ordinary
courts of law for justice, when they could more effectively secure what
they desired by force. So the King often found it necessary to suspend
and to forbid the holding of courts, in order to prevent hostile
collisions and bloodshed between rival barons and their armed vassals
and sworn adherents. In July 1474 the King sent letters to the Earl
of Buchan and the Lord Oliphant commanding them to stay their muster
for the court of Forfar; it appears that they disobeyed the King,
and the muster issued in bloodshed. Such collisions were a common
enough occurrence. Parliament in 1478 had under consideration the
administration of justice throughout the kingdom; and it was then
resolved that immediate steps should be taken to remedy the great
breaches which existed in various parts of the kingdom; and ♠especially
in Angus, between the Earl of Buchan and the Earl of Erroll and their
parties; and in like manner between the Master of Crawford and the Lord
of ♣Glamis and their parties; and in Nithsdale and Annandale between
Lord ♥Caerlaverock and the Laird of Drumlanrig; and the great struggle
raging in Caithness, Ross, and Sutherland, and in other quarters of the
kingdom.¹
♦ “were” replaced with “was”
♠ “especi-” replaced with “especially”
♣ “Glammis” replaced with “Glamis”
♥ “Caerlaverok” replaced with “Caerlaverock”
¹ _Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland_, Volume I.;
_Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume II., pages 16,
122; _Miscellany of the Old Spalding Club_, Volumes II., IV.
The right which earls possessed of granting charters to their vassals
within the territories of the earldoms, gave them an enormous power
over the people; and as mentioned in a preceding page, Robert I. rather
extended the feudal rights and powers of the nobles than limited them
in any way. But James I. clearly saw and realised that Norman Feudalism
contained in itself the essence of anarchy, and that no effective
government could be established while the nobles had such feudal rights,
and local power over the people. He therefore immediately proceeded to
act, and attempted to reduce the rights and the power of the nobles;
but these were too deeply rooted to be summarily extinguished, and
in spite of his exceptional abilities, his great energy, and his
utmost efforts, he soon fell a victim to their revenge. The attempts of
James II., James III., James IV. and James V., to restrain the lawless
anarchy and the oppression of the feudal nobles all proved equally
unavailing; and their power and turbulence continued to rage unabated
till past the Reformation period.
In the later part of the fourteenth century and the first quarter of
the fifteenth, the social state of the nation was deplorable, the great
nobles oppressing the poor people, and murders, robberies, and other
heinous crimes were committed with impunity. On the most frivolous
pretences, tenants were evicted from their holdings, and the labourers
from their cottages. Parliament tried to check this, and in 1401 it
was enacted that such resumptions of holdings by the overlord should be
null, unless lawful cause was shown; and it was provided that evicted
tenants should not lose their right to their lands till after the lapse
of a year, if they repledged them within forty days. It appears that
the overlords often expelled their vassals by force, and in this way
the nobles were enabled to accommodate their own sworn adherents, and
to crush all those within their territories who may have declined to
join in their projects, quarrels, and lawless proceedings. Thirty years
later, James I. simply requested the barons and bishops not to remove
the husbandmen and labourers suddenly from their lands if they had
leases. In 1449 parliament passed an act which aimed at giving more
security to the tenants, but it was not carried into effect. Parliament
in 1457 passed a statute which allowed lands to be let on feu-tenure,
free from military service; and the Act enjoined that the King should
show an example to the nobles, the bishops, and freeholders, by feuing
the Crown lands. In 1491 it was enacted that when land changed owners,
the tenants, labourers, and the inhabitants should not be removed
before the ensuing Whitsunday. At the terms of Martinmas and Whitsunday
there were always much poinding of the goods and effects of the tenants
for their rents, and a great commotion of “outcasting and incasting
among the tenantry all over the country.”
Even the small class of landed proprietors within the earldoms and
great free baronies of the kingdom were bound hand and foot to the
policy and service of their overlords. The baron always had the power
to expel and disinherit a refractory vassal, on the ground that he had
failed to render the proper feudal services to his lord. The overlord
might also raise a plea that his vassal was not the lawful heir, and
on that ground turn him out of his home and land. Much injustice was
inflicted upon the tenants and the inhabitants of the kingdom by the
action of the creditors of the nobles. When these exalted personages
fell into debt then their creditors sued for briefs of distress,
obtained judgments against them, and immediately seized the property
of the lord’s tenants. By such processes the tenants were often totally
ruined. In 1469 parliament passed a measure which attempted to remedy
this injustice, and it was then declared that the poor tenants should
not be held liable for more than the amount of their rent due to
the lord. If the debt exceeded the rents, then the creditor could
have recourse to the other goods of the debtor, and if he had no
other property but his land, the land itself might be sold to pay his
debt. But the debtor retained the right to reclaim his land from the
purchaser at any time within seven years, if he paid the same price as
it had been sold for. This Act had little or no effect in the fifteenth
century, although subsequently when the power of the nobles began to
wane it came into operation. Such were the relations between the feudal
aristocracy and the occupiers and tillers of the land, as presented in
the national records.¹
¹ _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume I., pages
208‒214, 217; Volume II., pages 17, 35, 225, 49, 96,
213, 248‒255, 286, 288, 367‒369; _Registrum Episcopatus
Moraviensis_, page 382.
The occupiers of the land and the people generally were severely
oppressed by the nobles and their retinues travelling through the
country; as the nobles, accompanied by a train of retainers, were in
the habit of living at free quarters on the husbandmen and the inferior
clergy, and thus consumed and often destroyed the crops and grass, and
any store of grain which these people possessed. Acts of Parliament
were repeatedly passed, with the object of checking and limiting this
form of oppression, but they failed to remedy the evil. Indeed, so
inveterate was the custom among the nobles of living on the produce
of the people as they passed through the country with their hosts of
followers, that in 1499 parliament found it necessary to enact and
command, “that all the officials and officers holding courts throughout
the kingdom, should ride with a small company only, in order that the
people might not be so grievously oppressed.” At the same time the
coroners were ordered to cease from taking the twopence of unlawful fee
from those who had immediately paid their bail. The oppression of the
people by the nobles, the Crown officers, and the entire organisation
of Norman feudalism, resulted in the infliction of enormous suffering
upon the people of Scotland. Contemporary literature as well as the
national records presents evidence of the oppressive character of
feudalism and the Scotch nobles. Bower, who wrote in the reign of
James II., presents a frightful picture of the state of the nation,
from which I quote the following:――“Confounded as we are with daily
tyranny, oppressed with rapine, spoil, and tribulation.... The groans
of the humble, and the miseries of the poor, whom I myself who write
this, have seen this very day in my own neighbourhood――stripped of
their garments, and inhumanely despoiled of their domestic utensils,
constrains one to exclaim with him who says, ‘I have seen the injuries
which are done, the tears of the innocent, the helpless and the
destitute, who cannot resist violence, and have none to comfort them.’
I have praised the dead more than the living, and happier than both
have I esteemed the unborn, the sole strangers to the evils of this
world.”¹
¹ _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume I., II.;
_Scotichronicon_, Volume II., page 473.
Robert Henryson, the poet, who wrote in the latter part of the
fifteenth century, frequently alludes to the state of society. His
writings indicate very clearly that the husbandmen and tenants were
grievously oppressed by their lords.¹
¹ Henryson’s _Poems_, pages 37, 152, 201, 214, 215.
Under the conditions indicated in the preceding page, agriculture could
not have been in a satisfactory state. In the fourteenth century a
large part of the best land of the country had been so much exposed to
the ravages of war, that some portions of the cultivated lands returned
to its natural state. After the return of James I., parliament passed
various acts relating to husbandry. In 1425 it was ordered that every
man who reasonably was a labourer, should either become the half owner
of an ox in the plough, or dig a plot of land seven feet square every
day. The following year, it was enjoined that every farmer in the
kingdom who possessed a plough of eight oxen, should every year sow
a firlot of wheat, half a firlot of pease, and forty beans, under a
penalty of ten shillings. And in his reign, Acts were passed for the
protection of growing crops, the destruction of wolves, and rooks.
In 1457 all the freeholders of the kingdom were ordered to make
a provision in their leases that their tenants should plant wood,
make hedges, and sow broom in the most suitable places; and that no
one should make enclosures of dry sticks or dressed wood, but only
of living plants, that wood might grow and become plentiful in the
country.¹
¹ _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume II., pages
6‒16, 51.
The Crown lands were extensive in the fifteenth century. In the reign
of James II., the Crown had lands in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh,
including Ballincreiff and Gosford. In the vicinity of Linlithgow, the
royal possessions around the palace were called the King’s acres, and
certain lands in the barony of Houston; and the rents of which amounted
in 1457 to £140 17s. 8d., with one chalder of barley, one of oats, two
dozen of hens, and two dozen of young cocks. The rents of the Crown
lands lying around the castle of Stirling, and in Stirlingshire in 1455,
amounted to £184 19s., with two dozen of salmon. The Earldom of Fife
fell to the Crown in 1425 on the forfeiture of the Duke of Albany; and
in 1457 the gross money rent was £560 12s. 7d., thirty-five chalders
and three bolls of wheat, sixty-two chalders and three bolls of barley,
forty-six chalders and three bolls of oats, and two bolls of oatmeal.
In the year 1451, four hundred and seventy-one young cocks, and one
hundred and four geese, formed a part of the rental of this earldom.
The Earldom of Monteith also fell to the Crown on the execution and
forfeiture of the Albany family in the reign of James I., and the King
retained the greater part of the lands of the earldom in his own hands.
For the year 1451 the money rental of the earldom amounted to £351 12s.
8d., and thirty-four chalders of oats, twenty-four chalders and seven
bolls of oatmeal, two chalders and two bolls of barley, thirty-four
sheep, sixty poultry, and one hundred and forty salmon. The Earldom
of Strathern was in the Crown, and in the latter years of the reign of
James II., its gross money rental annually ran from £316 to £461. The
Earldom of Athole was forfeited to the Crown by the treason of Walter
Stuart in 1437, and its money rental for the year 1450 amounted to £139
13s. 4d. James II. granted this earldom to Sir John Stewart of Balveny
in 1457. A large portion of Perthshire was in the possession of James
II., including the lands of Methven, which extended to the south and
west of the town of Perth; the barony of Strathbraan, which commenced
at Dunkeld, and included Logiealmond, and extended by Crief to
Innerpeffry; and at Loch Fruchy, in the upper reach of the strath, the
King had a hunting lodge. In 1455 the gross money rental of Methven was
£120 8s. 4d., three chalders and eight bolls of meal, and nine dozen of
poultry, while the money rental of Strathbraan was £46. The Crown had
many other lands in Perthshire, the lordship of Strathurd, Glenlyon,
Fothergill and others. In Forfarshire, the lordship of Brechin,
and other lands; and farther north, Aberluthnot, Fettercairn, and
Kincardine, were in the possession of the Crown. It was stated in a
preceding chapter that James I. annexed the Earldom of Mar to the Crown,
which then comprised nearly a half of the county of Aberdeen, and the
family of Erskine claimed it; but it seems to have been a disputed
possession between the Crown and Lord Erskine; and in 1459 James II.
granted the Earldom of Mar to his own youngest son, John, then an
infant. He died in the castle of Craigmillar, and the third son of
James III., John, was created Earl of Mar in 1486. The gross money
rental of the Earldom of Mar for the year 1459 was £396 10s., with
thirty head of cattle, for each of which 5s. was allowed, and two
chalders and four bolls of “custom oats,” for each boll of which 4d.
was allowed. After the Douglas forfeitures, the rents of the thanage
of Kintore fell to the Crown; and amongst the other Crown lands between
the Dee and the Spey were a portion of Badenoch, which fell to the
Crown on the death of Alexander, Earl of Buchan, in 1349, and the money
rental of which for the year 1455 was £20. But the forfeiture of the
Douglas tribe brought to the Crown the lands of Balveny, Boharm, and
Botriphnie, which had belonged to John Douglas, and the annual money
rental of these lands as given in the records vary from £25 to £73,
with seventeen cattle and the same number of sheep. In the same
locality, Kininmont, Buchromb, and the half of Clunymore, had fallen
to the Crown through the illegitimacy of David Garden, proved by a
jury at Aberdeen in the reign of James I. These lands were conferred
in liferent on Sir William Forbes of Kinaldy, and subsequently occupied
by the Earl of Huntly.
The Crown lands beyond the Spey were chiefly in the Earldom of Moray.
Farther northward, in the region between the Moray and Cromarty Firths,
called the Black Isle, also including Dunscathe on the north side
of the Ferry of Cromarty, is usually referred to in the records as
♦Ardmannoch, and sometimes Avach and Eddirdule. This district belonged
to the historic Sir Andrew Moray of Bothwell; but in 1362, Archibald,
Lord of Galloway, afterwards third Earl of Douglas, married Joan Moray,
widow of Thomas Moray, and through her the lands of Avach and Bothwell
passed to the Douglas family. Hugh Douglas derived his title of Earl
from the castle of Avach, on the moot hill of Ormond near Castletown
Point, on the Bay of Munlochy. The gross rental of the lands of
Ardmannoch for the year 1460 was £172 15s. 8d., with ten chalders
and nine bolls of barley, and ten chalders and nine bolls of oatmeal,
twelve cattle and twelve sheep.
♦ “Ardmannock” replaced with “Ardmannoch”
One third of Duffus was another portion of the lands forfeited by
Douglas Earl of Ormond, and its rental in 1458 was £24, with eight
chalders of barley, one chalder and ten bolls of malt, one chalder and
ten bolls of oatmeal, three cattle and three sheep. Strathdearn or the
valley of the Findhorn, and Petty and Brachly lying along the shores
of the Beauly Firth, were forfeited to the Crown by John Douglas of
Balveny. The money rent of Strathdearn in 1460 was £53 6s. 8d. The
rental of Petty and Brachly was £80 6s. 8d., with ten cattle and ten
sheep. In 1456 these lands were in the occupation of the M‘Intoshes.
The Crown held the lands of Bonach and Bannachare, lying to the
westward of Inverness and beyond the river Ness; and the barony
and castle of Urquhart with Glenmoriston lying on the west side of
Loch Ness; but in 1455, this barony, castle, and Glenmoriston, were
conferred in liferent on John Earl of Ross and Lord of the Isles.
The Earldom of March was in the possession of the Crown from 1434
till 1455, when James II. conferred it on his infant son, Alexander,
afterwards Duke of Albany. The gross rents of the lands of the earldom
were sometimes returned as over £570. The lordship of Stewartown, in
Ayrshire, fell to the Crown at the time of the Douglas forfeitures. In
1457 the rental of this lordship was £127 13s. 4d., and two chalders
and eight bolls of meal. The islands of Bute and Arran were in the
hands of the Crown. In the reign of James II. both these islands were
in the occupation of kindly tenants or rentallers. The money rental of
Bute was £141 18s. 6d., which included £40 from the burgh of Rothesay,
and in addition to this one boll of barley was paid for every mark of
money rent. Each tenant had also to give one mart for every five marks
of rent due by him, and these marts were valued at 5s. In the reign of
James IV. these tenants were converted into feuars, and they and their
descendants came subsequently to be popularly known as “the barons of
Bute.”
The annual money rent of Arran was £56 18s. 8d., with barley and
cattle as in Bute. The slate quarries of Bute were worked, and in 1445
11s. 10d. was paid for 13,000 slates, which were sent to Dumbarton to
repair the King’s castle. A passenger boat then plied between Bute and
Cowal, and the ferryman for some time received a boll of barley yearly
from the Crown. It appears that Arran was in a more unsettled state
than Bute, and in the former the King’s rents were not regularly paid.
The shores of Arran supplied the King’s household with the fish, called
in the records “mullones,” large quantities of which were bought at two
shillings a dozen.¹
¹ _Exchequer Rolls of Scotland_, Volume V., Volume VI. 1883.
In the preceding paragraphs the principal, though not the whole, of
the Crown lands have been indicated. It appears that in the fifteenth
century a considerable portion of land rent was still paid in produce.
In the reign of James IV. the Crown lands were fully as extensive as in
the reign of James II.
The Crown lands were mostly in the hands of farmers, who held varying
portions of land for payment in money and produce, under leases which
were renewed from time to time; and kindly tenants or rentallers, who
enjoyed a certain fixity of tenure, which, however, depended on the
current of national events, emergencies, and circumstance; in other
words, the success of the King’s government or the reverse. But, on the
whole, it may be fairly assumed that the farmers and the kindly tenants
on the Crown lands were in a more favourable position than the same
classes on the lands of the nobles. The kings retained small portions
of Crown lands in their own hands, which were cultivated by their own
agricultural labourers.
The tenants on the church lands probably held their lands under
somewhat easier terms than tenants on the estates of the nobles. All
the bishoprics and the great monasteries possessed extensive lands; for
instance, the see of Moray had eight baronies, namely, Spynie, Keith,
Rafford, Birnie, Kynneder, Strathspey, Fothirface, and Kilmiles.
Touching the condition of the actual labourers and tillers of the soil,
it was stated in a preceding chapter that this work was chiefly done
by bondmen and serfs. And farther, it was historically maintained
that these servile classes were mainly created in Scotland by Norman
feudalism in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. It was shown that
serfs were actually bought and sold, and that they could be reclaimed
by their owners like strayed cattle or sheep. The bondmen and serfs
were numerous in the thirteenth century, but they became less numerous
in the fourteenth, and disappeared before the end of the fifteenth
century. What were the causes of their disappearance? No Act of
Parliament nor canon of the Church ever proclaimed their emancipation;
on the contrary, parliament and the civil law supported the institution
of serfdom by written enactments and the decisions of the courts; while
the Church appears to have possessed a large number of serfs, and was
exceedingly careful in tracing and keeping records of their descent.
Indeed, the last case of claiming serfs which occurred in Scotland, so
far as known, was in 1364, when the Bishop of Moray, before the Sheriff
of Banffshire and a jury, obtained a verdict finding that two men were
his natives and property.¹ Thus it is obvious that the extinction of
serfdom was not effected by the Church or Parliament.
¹ _Registrum Episcopatus Moraviensis_, page 161.
The only series of events and social phenomena which contributed to
the emancipation of the serfs were those connected with the War of
Independence. When Edward I. conceived his scheme to conquer Scotland,
he thought that when he obtained the homage and submission of the
Scotch nobles, knights, landowners, clergy, and the magistrates
and heads of the burgh communities, then his object would be easily
accomplished. The mighty Lord Paramount would have disdained to look
at a labourer, a bondman, or serf, or accept homage from them, and yet
they were men perhaps as good, if not better, than himself. Edward,
however, ran his course on his own lines, while the labourers, bondmen,
and serfs ran theirs with more success than he ever achieved in
Scotland. When William Wallace and Sir Andrew Moray crossed the Tay for
the purpose of recruiting and organising an army in the region lying
between the river Ness and the Tay, where the army which fought and
won the battle of Stirling Bridge was solely raised, it may be fairly
assumed that whenever a suitable man presented himself to the patriots,
they never asked him whether he were a serf or not. Then, after the war
had continued for some time, and nobles and churchmen who had renounced
their allegiance to Edward I. were seized and imprisoned, and their
lands often given to Englishmen, the bondmen and serfs would have had
many opportunities of escaping and going wherever they thought fit.
As the struggle proceeded, lands all over the country fell into the
hands of new owners, which again in a short time were seized and the
ownership changed. This process continued, with short intervals, for
half a century, and by that time the institution of serfdom was broken
up, and beyond restitution. Thus the emancipation of the bondmen and
the serfs was an effect of the War of Independence――an effect rendered
more effectual by many of the class in question taking an active part
in the struggle themselves. Subsequently we learn from the Acts of
Parliament in the reign of James I., and succeeding reigns that some
of the serfs became labourers and tilled pieces of land, as indicated
in the Act of 1425, which was referred to in a preceding page, while
others found employment in the towns at various kinds of work, and
ultimately the servile class became merged in the society of the nation
and disappeared as a separate class.
Although the burgh communities suffered severely from the War of
Independence, they recovered from its desolating effects wonderfully
well. Having regard to locality, external and surrounding circumstances,
the towns of Scotland may be historically treated in three groups,
namely, the Border burghs, those in the northern quarter, and those
in the centre of the kingdom.
The Border burghs comprised Berwick, Roxburgh, Jedburgh, Dumfries,
Dunbar, Kelso, Peebles, and a few others. These towns were exposed to
the first brunt of war throughout the long struggle between England and
Scotland, and to the harassing and desolating effects of the constantly
recurring raids on the marches. This tended to engender many strongly
marked features of character and habits amongst the people of the
Borders, which were manifested in acts of daring, tragic deeds, and
many touching and romantic incidents.
Berwick was a place of habitation in far-gone ages, and a centre
of industry long before the period of record. In the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries it was the chief mart of traffic in Scotland;
but the town was desolated and its citizens massacred by Edward I.
The town never recovered its former trading pre-eminence. In 1327 the
customs of Berwick amounted to £673, and in 1331 it was £549. Two years
after Berwick fell into the hands of the English, and although it was
retaken several times by the Scots, it was not permanently retained by
Scotland.¹
¹ _Exchequer Rolls of Scotland_, Volume I.
Roxburgh was an early site of habitation, and it had some trade
and wealth from an early period; but in the period under review the
importance of the town mainly arose from its strong castle, which was
a good defensive position. Still the burgh had its craftsmen, mills,
markets, and fishings; and in 1327 its rent to the Crown was £20. It
was the scene of many contests between the English and the Scots. In
the fourteenth century the town was much injured by the war. It was
repeatedly taken by the English, and retaken by the Scots, but in the
reign of David II. the castle fell into the hands of the English, and
they occupied it till 1460, when it was captured by the Scots, who
then razed the castle to the ground; and the town itself has long since
disappeared.
The town of Dunbar lies on the south-east border of Scotland, and
throughout this period its strong castle rendered the town an important
position, and in fact it was the key to that quarter of the kingdom.
In 1338 the castle of Dunbar stood a memorable siege, when Black Agnes,
the Countess of March, a daughter of Randolph Earl of Moray, heroically
defended it for five months against the English army, and ultimately
forced the enemy to raise the siege. In the latter half of the
fourteenth century Dunbar had a considerable trade, chiefly in wool,
the customs on which in 1378 amounted to £139; but in the succeeding
century its trade seems to have fallen off.
Jedburgh rose into importance from its castle and its monastery.
Subsequently it was occasionally the mustering place of the Scottish
army; and the justiciary’s courts for that quarter of the kingdom
were often held there. In 1320 Robert I. granted to Sir James Douglas
the market, town, castle, forest, and mains, of Jedburgh, and in the
following year this was confirmed, along with other grants, to Douglas.
Jedburgh and its castle fell into the hands of the English early in
the reign of David II., and they held it for upwards of half a century,
being only finally expelled from it in 1409. The following year the
English burned the town. In 1416 and 1466 it was also destroyed by fire.
The men of Jedburgh and the forest in its vicinity were well inured to
war and brave in battle. They were engaged in most of the raids across
the Border; their special weapon was the Jedburgh staff, manufactured
in the town, which was four feet long, with a steel head. Their war-cry
was “Jeddards here,” and their onset was not easily withstood. The
town has passed through many viscissitudes, and is associated with many
interesting historic events and incidents.
The burgh of Dumfries has many historic associations which cannot be
detailed in this work. The burgh had a royal castle in the thirteenth
century. In 1288 the Crown rents of the burgh amounted to £20, and in
1330 these crown rents were £30, but at the later date the customs of
the burgh were only £4; being an inland town it had not much trade. At
the end of the fifteenth century the burgh paid to the Crown a sum of
about £20 annually by feu-charter in lieu of rents. In the fifteenth
century the Maxwells became the leading family in the Dumfries district,
and attained a commanding influence in the affairs of the burgh, as
will subsequently appear.
The town of Kelso attained some note owing to its rich monastery.
William of Dalgarnock, Abbot of Kelso, accompanied the young prince,
David II., to France as his preceptor.
Peebles was created a royal burgh in the reign of David I.; and it
became a favourite residence of the Kings. Charters of David I.,
Malcolm IV., William the Lion, Alexander II., and Edward I., were dated
at Peebles. In the fourteenth century the town and castle became a
kind of border garrison, as an outpost of Edinburgh. The Crown rents
of Peebles for the year 1327 were £23 6s. 8d., and in 1343 these rents
were £12 13s. 4d. In 1460 the burgh of Peebles gave a contribution of
£38 17s. 8d. toward the payment of the King’s ransom. David II. granted
to John Gray, Clerk of the Rolls, all the rents and issues of the burgh
for life, except the issues of the Chamberlain’s court. In 1398 the
Crown rents of Peebles were let by lease of Sir William Stewart of
Jedburgh to the bailies for an annual sum of £2 13s. 4d., and £6 13s.
4d. for the burgh mills, making a total sum of £9 6s. 8d. The burgh
fell into arrears, and in 1457 the Crown rent stood――arrears £8, by
feu-charter £9 6s. 8d., sum due £17 6s. 8d. But Peebles paid up the
arrears, and subsequently continued to pay the annual sum stated above
to the end of the century. In 1501, however, the bailies of the burgh
were fined £18 for failing to appear before the Exchequer.¹
¹ _Exchequer Rolls of Scotland_, Volumes I., II., III., IV.,
V., VI., VII., X., XI.
The town of Peebles was repeatedly burned by the English in the
fourteenth century, and the citizens were often subjected to all
the horrors of war. Peebles had seven yearly markets, some of which
extended over several days, and the records of the burgh contain many
regulations touching the markets.¹
¹ _Burgh Records of Peebles_, pages 67, 85, 209‒211.
The conditions and circumstances under which the people on the
Borders lived tended to encourage and to prolong the continuance of
the predatory spirit and habits; and the disorder on the Borders gave
the Government much work and trouble; still, these people were not
naturally more lawless than the inhabitants of any other quarter of
the country. The state in which they lived was a result of historic
conditions, for the creation of which they were responsible only in
a very limited measure. The Norman nobles planted upon the borders
of Scotland in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries had nearly all
disappeared long before the end of the fifteenth century, but the
effects of the feudalism, which was introduced along with them,
remained.
Turning to the northern burghs, including Inverness, Dingwall, Forres,
Elgin, Cullen, Banff, and others. During the period under review
Inverness was a burgh of comparative wealth and trade. The customs of
Inverness in 1366 were £81 5s., and those of Elgin £67 11s. 7d. In 1373
the customs of Inverness were £145 13s. 11d., and the same year the
Crown rents and the petty customs amounted to £40; in 1380 the customs
of the burgh were £248 19s., and the Crown rents and petty customs,
by lease of the Chamberlain, £53 6s. 8d. The same year the Crown rents
and petty customs of Banff were £33 6s. 8d. The trade of these northern
burghs, by sea at least, does not seem to have increased much during
the fifteenth century, as the customs of Inverness in 1455 were
returned at £62 8s. In 1499 the customs of Inverness, Forres, and Elgin,
were returned together, and consisted of a charge of £131 of custom
on 55 lasts of salted salmon exported, and a quantity of hides charged
£7 19s. 2d. The same year the Crown rents of the burgh of Inverness,
by feu-charter, were £57 6s. 8d. and one pound of pepper.
Cullen was a royal burgh in the reign of William the Lion. In the reign
of Alexander III. there was a royal residence at Cullen, and in 1266
the hall and the brewing utensils of the town were repaired. Robert
Bruce’s queen, Elizabeth, died at Cullen in November, 1327, and her
body was embalmed there, and she was buried at Dunfermline. Robert I.
founded a chaplainry at Cullen “to pray for the soul of his spouse,
Queen of Scots, who died in our said burgh of Cullen;” and £4 was paid
yearly out of the burgh rents to the chaplain celebrating mass for her
soul. The regular accounts of Cullen drop out of the burgh rolls after
the year 1343; but they were resumed in 1496. In that and succeeding
years the rents of various lands held by the burgh from the Crown were
accounted for, and the annuity to the chaplain still appears in the
accounts.¹
¹ _Exchequer Rolls of Scotland_
Alexander II. in 1227 granted a charter to Dingwall, which conferred
on the citizens the same liberties as the burgesses of Inverness, and
authorised a weekly market to be held on Monday. In 1265 Alexander
Comyn, Earl of Buchan and Justiciary of Scotland, was bailie of
Dingwall. Robert I. granted the burgh of Dingwall to the Earl of Ross,
and the town remained in the hands of the Earls of Ross for upwards
of a century. In 1475 parliament ordered the Sheriff of Inverness to
summon John, Earl of Ross and Lord of the Isles, either at the castle
of Dingwall or the cross of Inverness, to appear at Edinburgh and
answer for his crimes, and accordingly he was summoned at the gate of
the castle of Dingwall. The proceedings which followed on this were
stated in a preceding chapter. In 1498 James IV. renewed and confirmed
the rights and privileges of Dingwall, which had completely fallen into
desuetude.¹
¹ Ibid., Volume I.; _Origines Parochiales Scotiæ_, Volume II.,
page 494; _Burgh Charters_.
In 1266 the town of Cromarty paid to the Crown £7 of rent for lands;
but Robert I. granted the town of Cromarty to the Earl of Ross. In fact
the whole of the northern burghs were much under the control of the
local nobles during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Elgin, Tain,
and other towns associated with the Church, were often under a kind
of vassalage to the local nobles. The city of Elgin, with her grand
cathedral and upwards of a hundred churchmen, was sometimes forced
to place herself under the protection of the Earls of Moray and other
nobles.¹ In 1472 the citizens of the burgh of Nairn entered into a bond
of manrent with Lord Fraser of Lovat, and his heirs and successors.
¹ _Old Statistical Account of Scotland_, Volume V.
Adverting now to the more settled quarters of the kingdom, or the
region extending from the river Deveron to the border counties in
the south, which may be called the heart of the nation. In 1327
the Crown rents paid by the chief burghs to the Chamberlain were as
follows:――Aberdeen £213 6s. 8d., Perth £160, Stirling £36, Edinburgh
£34, Ayr £30, Rutherglen £30, Haddington £29, Dumbarton £22, Forfar
£18, Inverkeithing £15, Montrose £13, Lanark £12, and Linlithgow £10.
As indicated in a preceding chapter, the burghs eventually obtained
feu-charters, under which they paid a fixed yearly rent to the Crown,
and thus they at length acquired a perpetual right to collect and apply
to their own use the rents, small customs, and dues formerly levied by
the Crown. Aberdeen had obtained such a feu-charter in 1319 for the
yearly rent stated above, but none of the other burghs had obtained
such a charter in 1327, although Edinburgh obtained one in 1329 for
a yearly rent of £34 13s. 2d. In July 1386, Robert II. granted a
feu-charter to Stirling for an annual payment fixed at £16, and Dundee
obtained one in 1365 for a fixed annual payment of £20.
In the reign of Robert I., what was termed the great custom consisted
of the charges levied on the exports of wools, wool-fells, and hides. A
last of wool consisted of ten sacks, and the sack of twenty-four stones;
the last of hides contained twenty dacres, and the dacre ten hides.
The charges on the exports of these goods were the chief source of the
Crown customs during this period. In 1327 the customs of the following
burghs stood thus:――Edinburgh £439, Aberdeen £349, Dundee £240, Perth
£108, Linlithgow £14, Cupar-Fife £13, Inverkeithing £8, Ayr £3, and
Stirling £2. These are small sums, but it has to be observed that
lords of regality and church burghs had the right to export wool and
hides at their own ports custom free; so the sums collected by the
Crown officials only represent a part of the customs of the kingdom.
Before the year 1357 the usual rate of customs on exports had been
half a mark on the sack of wool, three shillings and fourpence on the
hundred woolfells, and one mark on the last of hides. In order to raise
money to pay the instalments of David II.’s ransom, the customs on
the above goods were doubled, and in 1359 tripled. The customs of the
chief burghs for the year 1360 stood thus:――Edinburgh £1300, Linlithgow
£356, Aberdeen £669, Dundee £485, Perth £437, Haddington £261, Montrose
£226, St. Andrews £249, Inverkeithing £72, and Stirling £37. Taking
for comparison the customs of the chief burghs for the year 1379, the
following results appear:――Edinburgh £2285, Aberdeen £1449, Dundee
£918, Haddington £617, Linlithgow £825, Perth £517, North-Berwick £269,
Montrose £235, St. Andrews £143, Stirling £49, and Inverkeithing £34.
At this time the produce of the custom of wool was nearly thirteen
times more than that of hides.
From the customs for the year 1379, it has been calculated that the
number of sheep then in the country exceeded a million and a half;
while the same year, the number of hides of cattle exported amounted to
44,559; but we have no data for estimating what proportion this number
of hides bore to the whole stock of cattle in the country. Comparing
the customs of 1327 and 1379, in the former year the fleeces of
1,450,485 sheep, and 8861 hides were exported; this, however, included
the exports of a considerable district in the south which was under
English rule in 1379; and making allowance for this, it appears that
the numbers of cattle and of sheep had increased considerably during
the period between 1327 and 1379. This increase of the staple wealth
of the nation is very striking, considering the unsettled state of the
country, and speaks volumes for the energy and industry of the people
under the most unfavourable conditions.¹
¹ _Exchequer Rolls of Scotland_, Volumes I. and II.
The customs from 1379 to the end of the century rather fell off a
little than increased, but in the first twenty years of the fifteenth
century the customs fell very low. This demands some explanation. After
the death of Robert III., under the regency of Albany, it was an every
day occurrence for earls and barons to ship the produce of their lands
custom free, in open defiance of the collectors of customs, and also
to abet the merchants who were under their protection in doing the same
thing. Further, the nobles when they thought fit actually robbed and
plundered the collectors, and even imprisoned them till they delivered
up whatever balance they had in hand. And sometime the Earl of Douglas,
his brother James Douglas, Lord of Balveny, Walter of Haliburton,
Sir William Crawford of Haining, the son and heir of Sir William of
Borthwick, and James Dundas of Dundas, took possession of the tron and
granted a cocket for the shipment of the wool or hides themselves, and
then received the customs from the merchants, and thus prevented it
from coming into the hands of the collectors of customs at all. In the
first audit after the death of Robert III., the collectors of Edinburgh
deponed to £23 5s. 2½d. having been taken by violence from them by
James Douglas, brother of the Earl of Douglas. At the succeeding audit
in March 1408, the sum in question was carried over as arrears; and it
was explained that Douglas claimed the sum for his expenses in setting
fire to Berwick, and at the close of the account it was enumerated with
other sums amounting to about £100, which had been forcibly taken on
various pretexts. In the spring of 1409, Sir William Crawford and other
persons had shipped twenty-three sacks of wool duty free in defiance
of the custom collectors of Edinburgh. The Exchequer audit was held
in May, and the same collectors claimed to be credited with various
sums taken by Crawford and the Earl of Douglas――in all £708 2s. 1d.――as
having been extorted by violence, and by the imprisonment of one
of the collectors in Edinburgh Castle at the instance of Crawford.
The auditors referred this matter to the Regent, and the result of
the reference appeared in the next Edinburgh account, which was the
exoneration of the collectors, and a promise by the Regent to admonish
the Earl of Douglas against similar doings in future.
During part of the years 1411 and 1412 the Earl of Douglas was in
Flanders. The account of 1412, however, showed a new score amounting to
£43 11s., which had arisen from Borthwick and James Douglas, whose wool
had been arrested for payment of duty, but they had broken the arrest
and shipped their goods in defiance of the collectors of customs. The
Earl of Douglas returned to Scotland before 1413, and no doubt he had
received the Regent’s admonition; still at the audit of 1413 the Earl
of Douglas refused to pay the custom on his wool, estimated at £69,
and also carried off the whole balance in the hands of the collectors
of Edinburgh, amounting to £634 10s. 11d. The following year the Earl’s
“ministry” seized by violence the whole of the balance of £1339 5s.
9d. In 1415 the new depredations amounted to a further sum of £1254,
and Douglas then produced a list of his “ministry” who plundered the
customs under his authority, and these included the Earl of Orkney,
Walter of Haliburton, William of Borthwick, James Douglas, Sir William
Douglas of Drumlanrig, and the Earl’s own steward, John of Livingston.
It further appeared that Douglas had directly taken from the merchants
a sum of £240. The habitual evasion of custom greatly increased, and
in 1417 the auditors pressed the collectors to disclose who the evadors
of custom were, and amongst others they named Sir William Crawford,
Lord Seton, George Lauder, and Richard of Winton. It appeared that wool
had been shipped at North Berwick under a cocket, which the collectors
had granted under threats of violence. The collectors also said that
similar evasions of custom by many other persons occurred every day. Of
the balance in the collectors’ hands a sum of £562 4s. 6d. was carried
off by the Earl of Douglas, Haliburton, and the Master of Douglas.
In 1418 the gross customs of Edinburgh had diminished to £1098, and
of this, £378 was seized by the Earl of Douglas’s steward, John of
Livingston; and the collectors again produced a list to the auditors
of the habitual evadors of custom. The collectors of Linlithgow had
a similar narrative of the evasion of custom. Year after year the
collectors were robbed of the money which they had collected, and the
chief criminals were James Douglas and Walter of Haliburton, two of the
Earl of Douglas’s accomplices. On one occasion James Douglas seized the
collectors of Linlithgow and carried them to the castle of Abercorn,
and imprisoned them there till they disbursed the sum demanded.
Sometimes these robbers of the revenue overawed the merchants, and
compelled them by threats and imprisonment to pay their custom to them
instead of the lawful collectors. Such were the acts committed, and
such were the rewards which the Duke of Albany, Regent of Scotland,
covenanted to allow the Earl of Douglas and his associates in return
for their support of his demoralising government of the kingdom.¹
¹ _Exchequer Rolls of Scotland_, Volume IV., pages 80‒321,
Preface, pages 57‒64, 209‒212.
The great customs still continued to be levied at the same rates to
which they had been raised to pay the ransom of David II. The highest
yield of the customs on wool and hides in the reign of James I. was in
1428, when they reached the sum of £6912, but the average annual yield
was about £5000. James I. imposed some new taxes. In 1424 he imposed
a duty on the exportation of skins of the marten, polecat, otter, fox,
hart, hind, roe, and doe. The duty, however, brought only a very small
return to the Crown, and the most that it yielded in any year was £3
16s. 8d., and the average yield was about £1. The skin chiefly exported
was that of the rabbit, though at Inverness the skins of the otter,
♦marten, fox, and polecat appeared in the custom accounts, while deer
skins only occurred in the custom returns of Elgin. At the same time
a duty of 1s. in the pound was imposed on the home-made white woollen
cloth, and it appears from the custom rolls that about £3000 worth of
this cloth was annually exported. A duty on the export of salmon was
imposed, and the ports from which salmon were mostly exported were
Montrose, Aberdeen, and Banff. The average annual yield of the custom
on salmon was about £115, representing £920 worth of fish. All goods
imported from England were subjected to a duty of 2s. 6d. in the pound.¹
♦ “martin” replaced with “marten”
¹ _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume II., pages 6,
8, 13.
Subsequent to the reign of James I. the customs on wool and hides
rather fell off than increased. In the reign of James III. the average
annual yield of the customs was about £3300; and the average yield
of these customs for the last five years of the fifteenth century was
£3106. No doubt one cause of the falling off of the customs was that
greater quantities of the native wool, and also of the hides, were
being gradually consumed and used at home, as the population of the
kingdom increased, and civilisation advanced.
The export duty on salmon was 2s. 6d. in the pound, and in 1478 it
was ordered that salmon must be packed in barrels, under a penalty,
each barrel capable of containing fourteen gallons. In 1481 the duty
was raised by royal proclamation to 4s. per barrel. During the latter
years of the reign of James III. the yield of the custom on salmon, at
the chief ports where they were exported, stood thus:――Aberdeen, £135;
Banff, £47; Perth, £29; Dundee, £14; Montrose, £7; Stirling, £6; and
for the whole of the kingdom, about £310. The herring trade in some
of the arms of the sea on the west coast, and in other quarters was
becoming an important industry. The custom for herrings of Lochfyne
was returned by the collectors of Irvine in 1479 at £10, and in 1481 at
£34; from that date the custom was accounted for by the collectors of
Dumbarton. In 1487 it amounted to £379.
In preceding pages of this chapter it was indicated that the Crown
lands were of considerable extent and value in the later part of the
reign of James II. A large portion of the revenue of the Crown was
derived from the rents of these lands, which were partly paid in money
and partly in produce. It has been approximately calculated that the
revenue of the Crown in the reign of James III. amounted to £16,380,
which is equivalent to about £5,460 sterling money. This revenue was
derived from the following sources:――From the Crown lands, £10,600;
from the sheriffs, £1,720; from customs, £3,300; and from burgh rents,
£760. At the end of the century the Crown lands were still pretty
extensive.¹
¹ _Exchequer Rolls of Scotland_, Volume VIII., IX., and XI.
It was noticed in a preceding chapter that a commercial treaty
was concluded between Flanders and Scotland towards the end of the
thirteenth century, and the commercial dealings between Scotland and
Flanders and the Low Countries continued for many centuries. Edward I.
endeavoured to persuade the Count of Flanders in 1299 to cease all
trading relations with Scotland, but he failed in his object. In
December, 1321, the Count of Flanders gave letters of safe conduct
to Stephen Fourbour, burgess of Berwick, and James Will, burgess of
St. Andrews, and their companions, to come, stay, and go, as their
business might require, in the countries of Zealand, Holland, and
West Friesland. In 1323 Robert I. granted in return that all merchants
from Holland should have free ingress and egress to every quarter of
the kingdom wherever they pleased to land, and he ordered that these
merchants should be honourably treated, and allowed to dispose of
their merchandise according to the usages and the laws of the country.
A commercial treaty was arranged between Flanders and Scotland in
1427 to continue in force for a hundred years and one day. By this
treaty the Scots were allowed to export in bales the home-made white
woollen cloths (already mentioned) to any part of the provinces of
Flanders “without let or hindrance.” It appears that quantities of
this home-made cloth were sent to the low countries to be dyed and
then carried back to Scotland; but during this period Scotland had
commercial dealings with France, Bruges, Prussia, Lombardy, Spain and
England, though her staple trade was chiefly with the Low Countries or
Netherlands.¹
¹ _Scotichronicon_; W. T. M‘Cullagh’s _Industrial History of
Free Nations_, Volume I., pages 58, 76, 105.
Seasons of dearth sometimes occurred, and attempts were made to
mitigate them by encouraging foreigners to import food, and by
regulating the modes of selling. In 1454 it was enacted that strangers
who brought grain into the kingdom should be favourably received and
thankfully paid. There was a great scarcity of victuals in the country
in 1478, and it appeared that foreigners from several nations used
to bring victuals into Scotland, but the new duties imposed on their
goods had prevented them from coming with their cargoes, and the people
had been greatly injured. It was therefore enacted that all foreigners
“coming with their victuals and merchandise should be honourably and
favourably entertained, and have free entry with their goods, according
to former use and custom; and the King to have the first and the best
of their cargoes, next the lords of his council, and after that the
remainder to be sold among the people.” This Act was repeated in 1482
with some additions. “It was declared that any person who bought goods
from strangers and pretended that they were for the King’s use, and
then sold them again, should be banished from the kingdom and all
their property confiscated. Any foreigners in or out of the kingdom
complaining of injuries done to them, should have immediate redress,
according to justice, against any man in the nation. So, through
the fair and honourable treatment of all strangers who come into the
country hereafter, they may be encouraged to return, for the benefit
and utility of the whole community.”¹
¹ _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume II., pages 36,
41, 119, 144.
It is scarcely necessary to remark that the trading regulations of
this period were sometimes based on curious notions. In 1467 Parliament
enacted that none but burgesses living in burghs, or their factors and
servants, should be permitted to sell or traffic in merchandise out of
the kingdom, and so no person, save burgesses, could engage in foreign
commerce. Even within the kingdom no craftsman was allowed to deal in
merchandise himself, nor by his factor, unless he first entirely ceased
to work with his own hands; and “no man should pass out of the kingdom
on business, but a famous and worshipful man, having of his own half
a last of goods, under a penalty of ten pounds.” The same Parliament
enacted that no ship should be freighted by any of the King’s subjects
at the ports of Scotland, nor from a foreign port, without a formal
charter party, that the shipmaster should find a steersman and timber
man, and a sufficient crew to manage the ship. If any dispute should
arise between the shipmaster and the merchantmen it must be referred
to the court of the burgh to which the ship was freighted. There were
careful rules for the protection of the cargoes from damage. Every
ship carrying more than five lasts of goods had to give one sack to
the chaplain of the Scottish nation at the port to which she was bound,
and every ship homeward bound was to bring one ton of materials for
the church work of the town to which she was freighted. It was enjoined
that no drink-money should be given to the shipmaster or his agents;
and also that no shipmaster should sail his vessel during the winter.
The amount and the description of the exports of the kingdom have been
indicated in the preceding pages; but the imports were various and
miscellaneous, including many articles in daily use, luxuries, and
ornaments. Throughout the period under review large quantities of
wines were imported, and wine was very generally and freely used in the
Scottish court, amongst the nobles, the burgesses, the monasteries, and
at festivals of every description. The wines chiefly used were those
of Gascony, Guienne, Burgundy, the Levant, and the Rhine regions; and
claret, which was imported by Scotch and French traders from Bordeaux.
The wines of Spain and Portugal were also imported from Lisbon, Bayonne,
and other ports. The Scotch Parliament encouraged the importation of
wine, and in 1431 it was enacted that those who exported salmon should
sell it only for English money or barter it for Gascon wine. Olives,
oranges, raisins, figs, and other fruit were imported in considerable
quantities. The finer woollen cloths, black, brown, blue, green,
scarlet, and russet; fustians, fine linen, silk stuffs, velvet, many
articles of apparel and ornament, and iron, hardware, armour, and
cannon, were imported.
The standard value of silver seems to have been about the same in
England and Scotland prior to the fourteenth century. It appears
that Robert I. made a slight diminution in the standard value of
the currency, and the money of Scotland, by successive depreciation,
gradually became of less and less value. Edward III. depreciated the
English currency, and two hundred and seventy pennies was coined from
the pound of silver instead of two hundred ♦and forty. The Steward, as
Regent of Scotland, issued a new coinage even more depreciated than the
money of England, and in 1355 Edward III. proclaimed that the new money
of Scotland was not of the same value as the old, and should only be
received as bullion. In 1366 the Scotch Council ordered that the money
to be coined in future should be similar in weight and fineness to
the English standard money; but a parliament, which met in September,
1367, resolved that the standard should be reduced by ten pennies in
the pound, so that the pound of silver should contain 29s. 4d.; and
from this sevenpence was taken for the King’s use, one penny to the
“custos monete,” and elevenpence to the master coiner and his workmen,
leaving 27s. 9d. for the people. In other words the pound of silver was
coined into 352 pennies instead of 240, which was the standard at the
beginning of the century. The deterioration went on in the reign of
Robert II., and the Act of 1367 was repeated in 1385.
♦ “aud” replaced with “and”
As yet the only coins struck in Scotland were silver pennies, with
their halves and quarters, and groats and half groats. There was no
gold coinage before the reign of Robert II., and the gold money in
circulation in the kingdom prior to this reign were coins of other
nations. According to English proclamations of 1390 and 1398 Scots
money was ordered to be received for only half its nominal value. In
1393 Parliament ordered the coinage of groats, half groats, pennies,
and half-pennies, equal in weight and fineness to the money of David
II., and a gold coin called a lion, worth five shillings; and at the
same time fixed the value of an English noble at nine shillings and
sixpence, and a Flemish noble at nine shillings and fourpence. No mint
records exist for the period of Albany’s regency, and no coins struck
by him have been discovered.¹
¹ _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume I., pages 139,
144, 190, 207.
James I. in 1424, ordered that the coinage should be amended, and
money struck of the same weight and fineness as that of England. In
spite of this enactment, he further debased the coinage of the kingdom.
Parliament in 1436, in order to supply gold and silver for the Mint,
enacted that all exporters of merchandise should import a certain
amount of bullion, while the export of gold or silver, coined or
uncoined, was strictly prohibited. It is possible that part of the
silver coined in the reign of James I. may have been native. In his
first parliament it was declared that mines of gold and silver which
produced three half-pennies of silver out of the pound of lead, should
belong to the King: the King seems to have had some miners in his
employment.¹ In 1428 Scots money was reckoned at half the value of
Flemish money; the English noble passed current for fifteen shillings
Scots, and in Flanders the English noble was current for eight
shillings. A large number of Flemish, French, and English coins were
circulated in Scotland, and these foreign pieces often became a subject
of legislation.
¹ _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume II., pages 6,
13; _Exchequer Rolls of Scotland_, Volume IV.
From the accession of James II., in 1437 to 1450, the amount of gold
coined at the mint of Edinburgh was 48 pounds, which was struck in
demys――a coin of the value of nine shillings at the time of issue. The
amount of silver coined was 563 pounds, which was struck chiefly in
groats, and partly in pennies and half-pennies. During the same period
there was a mint at Stirling, and in 1442 and 1443 forty-eight pounds
of silver were coined there.
In 1451 Parliament resolved to issue a new coinage, conforming in
weight and fineness to the money of England. Eight groats were coined
out of an ounce of silver, and smaller coins――half-groats, pennies,
half-pennies, and farthings, of proportional weight, and each to
be equal in value to the English coin of the same denomination. The
current value of the new groat was fixed at 8d. A new gold coin was
struck with the figure of a lion on one side and the image of St.
Andrew on the other, clothed in a side-coat reaching to his feet;
the current value of this coin was fixed at 6s. 8d. An attempt was
then made to fix the value of the French and other foreign coins in
circulation in Scotland. The master of the mint was held responsible
for all the gold and silver struck under his authority; and power was
given to him to select the persons working under him, and to punish
them when necessary. In 1452 Parliament fixed the value of the English
penny at three pennies Scots, and in 1456 the groat of 1451 was ordered
to pass current at 12d.¹
¹ _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume II., pages 39,
41, 46; _Exchequer Rolls of Scotland_, Volume V.
During the first nine years of the reign of James III. twenty-one
pounds weight of gold were coined, and nine hundred pounds weight
of silver. Among the gold coins of his reign there were two finely
executed pieces, the one called the rider and the other the unicorn;
their types were the King on horseback and the unicorn.
The copper coinage of Scotland commenced in 1466, according to the Act
of Parliament “for the ease and sustentation of the people, and the
giving of alms to the poor folk.” This copper coinage consisted of
farthing pieces, four in the penny, and they were to pass current in
payment of bread and ale, and merchandise up to twelve pence in the
pound. The debased pennies and placks, subsequently issued, and called
“black money,” consisted of copper mixed with silver. These black
pennies and placks caused much discontent among the people, and in
1485 they were all recalled. At the end of the fifteenth century Scotch
money was computed at somewhat less than one-third of the value of
English money, one pound Scots being worth about 6s. 6d. English. There
was a curious fluctuation in the value attached to Scottish coins;
sometimes seven nobles Scots were said to be equal in value to one
great pound of Flanders, at other times six nobles to one great pound,
and in other instances eight to one, and five to one.¹
¹ _Acts of the Lords of Council_, pages 5, 17, 67, 143; _Acts
of the Lords Auditors_, page 34.
The coinage was a matter which often engaged the attention and
deliberation of the Scotch legislators. From the commencement of the
reign of James I. to the end of the fifteenth century, Parliament
passed upwards of forty Acts relating to the coinage, the keeping of
the money in the country, and the importing of bullion into the kingdom;
the Acts ordering the keeping of the money within the realm, and the
importing of bullion from other countries, were often re-enacted. The
Scotch legislators of this period were completely possessed with the
idea that gold, silver, and copper, actually constituted wealth. But
the tendency to regard gold and silver, and even a paper currency as
real wealth, is very strong in human nature, although in reality they
only form one of the elements of the complex whole which constitutes
wealth and power; for the essential elements of the wealth and power of
a nation consist in the energy, the intelligence, the industry, and the
rectitude of the people, as these characteristics have always formed
the essence of wealth, and thus created power.
Having indicated the external relations of the nation in the preceding
pages, attention will now be directed to the internal and every-day
life of the burgh communities. The life of the townsfolk throughout
this period was marked by striking characteristics, and also their
relations with the important Crown official, the Great Chamberlain of
Scotland, present a subject of much historic interest. Some indications
of the functions and the jurisdiction of the Chamberlain have already
been presented in a general way, but it is necessary to offer fuller
details. Among the early collections of laws relating to the royal
burghs there are two which present the form of procedure in the
Chamberlain’s Court, and the matters which he took cognisance of in
his circuit courts throughout the kingdom. One of these belong to the
reign of Robert I. and the other to the end of the fourteenth century.
The procedure in the Chamberlain’s Court was very formal, minute, and
inquisitorial. The Chamberlain’s precept enumerates those who had to
appear at the court, including persons in and without the burghs; then
the brief to the sheriff, which gave intimation thus――“The Chamberlain
to the sheriff and his deputes, greeting: We command and charge you
that immediately ye attach all strangers whose names the bailies of
the burgh shall present to you in writ, placing them under safe and
sure pledges that they shall appear before us or our deputes one or
more ... to answer to charges against them and obey the law.” The
manner of holding the court was thus――“all the burgesses of the burgh
ought to appear before the Chamberlain――non-residents as well as
residents――which ought to be called by their names, and those that are
found absent should be fined by doom, nevertheless the suits should
be called and the court affirmed. Then the bailies and the officer of
court should be called. Then the bailies should be asked if they have
any commission or not, and by what laws they claim the King’s burgh
to be governed; and after that should be called all the actions and
complaints, and thereupon a good assize of the best and worthiest
citizens should be formed. Then should be asked the rental of the burgh,
by which they gather the King’s rents, as well of built and cultivated
lands as of waste. Then should be asked in writing the names of all the
burgesses of guild, both those resident in the burgh and non-resident,
and the names of the other burgesses by themselves. Then the roll of
the suits of court should be asked. Then ought to be asked the names
of the bailies and the officers of the burgh, every one by himself in
writ.”
After these formal proceedings the real business of the court was
commenced. The bailies were first challenged touching the discharge
of their public duties, and subjected to a searching scrutiny. It was
inquired if they had always been ready to do right and reason when they
were required, according to the form of their oath. If they had treated
the poor and the rich with equal justice, or if they had forbore to
execute the law rightly through favour, hatred, love of persons, or
taking gifts. Whether they had caused the assize of bread, ale, wine,
and flesh to be held, as it ought to be; and every week caused the
bread and ale, the wine and flesh, and other things, in the burgh to
be examined. Whether they have executed the commands of the King and
the Chamberlain. If they have sold or granted the freedom of the burgh
to strangers’ servants, that they may sell with the burgesses, and use
and enjoy the same profit. Whether they have caused the burgh to be
properly watched throughout the night, or compelled the poor to watch
and not the rich. “Also if there be a just assedation and uptaking of
the common good of the burgh, and if a faithful account of the same be
made to the community of the burgh: and if it be not so, by whom, and
in whose hands the produce has come; and if the common good is bestowed
in the business of the community.”
The sergeants and officers of the burgh and their duties were then
taken up, and a number of inquiries were dealt with; such as that
they do not present truly all the pledges in their hands; that they
do not cause the rich to take the night watches the same as the poor.
That in collecting the necessary charges for the King’s Justiciary
or Chamberlain they do not always act justly, but spare some of their
friends, and from others of the community charge too much; and whether
with regard to such charges, they have accounted for all the money
which they had collected. Whether they have inspected all kinds of
bread and ale as they ought to have done, or for their own profit
spared some, through which the assize may not have been well kept.
Queries addressed to the public ale-tasters followed, for there were
then officials of this character in every royal burgh of the kingdom.
It was asked if they had been always ready to taste ale whenever the
signal was put out, or if they remained in the house filling their
bellies drinking instead of standing in the middle of the street in
front of the ale-house, to send one of their fellows with the beadle
into the ale-house to choose which pot should be tasted, and then
present it to his fellows, and according to assize they should discern
upon it. Whether they always presented the defaulters before the
bailies at the next court, or if they held a regular assize on the
ale, or only simply said it is good or it is bad. A somewhat similar
set of questions was put to the public pricers of flesh, as in all
the royal burghs the authorities fixed the price of all kinds of meat.
The pricers of flesh were then asked, “if fleshers bought any other
than sound beasts.” Whether they had been always ready to act when
the signal to price flesh was put out, “as well for the profit of the
flesher as for the profit of the people.” If they had attended the
King’s markets every market day and observed the buying of oxen, sheep,
and swine, to be eaten; and after observing the selling and buying in
the market by their discretion, then the price of flesh should be fixed
by an assize, at which no flesher should be permitted to act. “And that
they keep the prices, that neither for gift, prayer, nor gain, they
do favour in their priceing.” That they should fix the price of these
things as oft as they were required.
The fleshers themselves were challenged in the Chamberlain’s court on
a long list of points. “That they sold flesh against the assize of the
worthy men of the town, and before it was priced. That they bought and
slaughtered beasts during the night contrary to the law of the burghs,
and that they forstalled the burgh by buying in the country. That they
sold flesh before the signal was put forth, and that they sold the
good flesh to strangers and the bad to their neighbours, and that they
denied the price when it was asked.” The bakers were asked if they
had more men engaged at their oven than the law allowed, which was
four――the master, two servants and a boy. And if they baked each kind
of bread as the law of the burgh commanded, namely, bread of the finest
flour, bread of the second quality, and bread baken of whole flour;
and if they baked according to price, “that is to say, penny bread,
halfpenny bread, and farthing bread.” The millers were asked if they
had more servants in their mills than the law allowed, “to the scath
of the King and the people”; and if they take smolts in the mill stank
against the inhibition of law; and if they used two measures, “one to
take with and another to deliver with.” The salmon fishers were asked
if they kept in the middle of the stream when fishing, according to
law, and if they ceased fishing on Saturday after evening till Monday
at sunrising. White fishers were asked if they sold their fish at the
bank, when they ought to sell them in the King’s market under the full
penalty of confiscation; and also if they sold their fish in the night
and in hidden places, and not in the market, and if they broke their
fish and sold them in pennyworths contrary to the King’s laws.
The brewers and ale-house keepers were asked, if they had kept the
price imposed by the assize of the worthy men of the town, after the
buying of the malt; if they had neglected to have their ale tasted,
as it should have been according to law; and if they have the proper
measures――“quart, pint, third part, and sixth part, according to the
King’s money, by which measures the people may be well served.” Wine
sellers were asked if they sold their wine without having it tasted by
the public tasters, and whether their own measures were unproved, and
if they mixed good wine with bad and corrupted it. The malt-makers were
asked if they mixed good and bad malt together, when they ought to make
them separate, and then sell them at different prices. That they let
their malt sprout at both ends and shot out all the pith of it, “when
it ought only to chip and come at one end.”
The shoemakers were asked why they made shoes otherwise than the law
had ordained, “that is, the horn and the ear are alike in length.”
They made shoes, boots, and other things of the leather before it was
barked. “They sewed with rotten thread, owing to which the shoes were
lost before they were half worn.” And when they should have given their
leather good oil and tallow, they gave it only water and salt; and they
worked it before it was curried, to the great scath of the community.