Paisley, now a huge city of the industrious, was, in the reign of
Charles I., only a village surrounding the ruins of an ancient abbey.
The dominant personage of the place was the Earl of Abercorn, a cadet
of the Hamilton family, enriched by the possession of the abbey-lands.
Through the influence of the earl’s mother, who had become a Catholic,
the town was described as ‘a nest of papists.’ Nevertheless, the
interest of Lady Abercorn’s relative, Lord Boyd, had procured a
presentation to the parish church in favour of Mr Robert Boyd of
Trochrig, recently principal of the Edinburgh University--one of a
group of men deep in theological learning, adepts in Latin versifying,
who then threw a lustre upon Scotland--but at the same time a zealous
protester against the late Episcopalian innovations in the church.
Being thus obnoxious to Lady Abercorn, albeit her ladyship’s relation,
his settling in Paisley was viewed by her, her sons, and her friends,
with great disrelish, and the consequence was a material resistance to
the presentee, being perhaps the first occurrence of the kind in our
country, the precursor of many.
‘He was ordained to have his manse in the fore-house of the abbey, as
the most convenient place for that use. And having put his books and
a bed thereintill; one Sunday, he being preaching, in the afternoon,
the Master of Paisley,[3] being the Earl of Abercorn’s brother, with
some others, came to the minister’s house, none being thereintill, and
cast all his books on the ground, and thereafter locked the door.’ On
a complaint from Boyd to the Privy Council, the Master was brought to
penitence for this outrage, and it was then hoped that matters would
go on smoothly. On his returning, however, to his manse, he found the
locks of the doors stopped up with stones, so that he could not get in
without force, which he was not permitted to use. As he was going away,
‘the rascally women of the town, coming to see the matter--for the
men purposely absented themselves--not only upbraided Mr Robert with
opprobrious speeches, and shouted and hoyed him, but likewise cast dirt
and stones at him; so that he was forced to leave the town and go to
Glasgow.’
Being a man of a gentle nature, Boyd withdrew to his house of Trochrig
in Ayrshire, without making any complaint as to his late ill-usage.
The case, however, being taken up by the Archbishop of Glasgow, and
brought before the Privy Council, Lady Abercorn, the earl her son, and
the Master her second son, all came to Edinburgh in the earl’s ‘gilded
carroch,’ accompanied in the usual manner with their friends, to answer
for the outrages which had been committed. An order was given for the
replacement of Boyd in his parish; but, meanwhile, he sunk under a
weakly and reduced constitution, and died, January 5, 1627, at the age
of forty-nine.[4]
[Sidenote: 1626.