[Sidenote: 1641.]
The present was a sad time for the professors of the Catholic religion
in Scotland. Spalding relates in feeling terms the unavoidable exile
of the Dowager-marchioness of Huntly, a lady (daughter of Esme Duke of
Lennox) who had been born and educated in France, and could not now,
with one foot in the grave, alter her religion, while neither could her
high rank and powerful connections avail to obtain for her toleration.
‘Thus, resolutely she settles her estate, rents, and living, and leaves
with woe heart her stately building of the Bog, beautified with many
yards, parks, and pleasures--closes up the yetts, and takes journey
with about sixteen horse; and upon Saturday, the 26th of June, comes
to Aberdeen, lodged in Mr Alexander Reid’s house; and upon Monday
thereafter, she rides frae Aberdeen towards Edinburgh. A strange thing
to see a worthy lady, near seventy years of age, put to such trouble
and travail, being a widow, her eldest son the Lord Marquis being out
of the kingdom, her bairns and oyes dispersed and spread--and, albeit
nobly born, yet left helpless and comfortless, and so put at by the
kirk, that she behoved to go or else to bide excommunication, and
thereby lose her estate and living, whilk she was loath to do! She left
her oye [grandson] Charles, son to the marquis, being but ane bairn,
with Robert Gordon, bailie of the Enzie, to be entertained by him,
when she came from the Bog; and she also sent another of his bairns,
called Lady Mary, to Anna Countess of Perth, her own eldest sister,
to remain with her.... She remains [in Edinburgh] till about the end
of September, but help or remede, syne rides directly to Berwick,
there to abide during her pleasure. It is said she had about 300,000
merks in gold and jewels with her, by and attour the gold and silver
plate of both houses of Bog and Strathbogie; which did little good to
the distressed estate of that noble house.’--_Spal._ It is the more
remarkable that the marchioness found no remedy in Edinburgh, as King
Charles was there during her stay, and he, as her relative, and the
friend of her loyal family, must have been disposed to interfere in her
behalf, if in his power to do so. The marchioness died in France in the
ensuing year.
When the highest rank could not procure the slightest toleration for a
professor of the Romish faith, it was not to be expected that Catholics
of mean estate should be unmolested. In April 1642, Peter Jop, sailor
in Aberdeen, gave in a supplication to the Privy Council, representing
his ‘miserable condition upon occasion of the imprisonment of Isobel
Robertson, his spouse, ane excommunicat papist.’ The Lords wrote to the
magistrates and ministers of Aberdeen, requesting Isobel’s ‘enlargement
upon assurance of conformity, or of removal out of the country;’ and
accordingly she was allowed till the 15th of October to make up her
mind about these alternatives. Now, in the month of July, Peter Jop
represents that his wife is in a delicate condition, and will be
undergoing confinement of another kind about the time assigned as her
longest day. ‘The soonest she can be transported out of the country,
if she do not conform, will be about the month of March’--so declares
Peter; but he humbly assures the Lords that if they will so far extend
the term assigned to her, she will then give obedience without further
delay. The Lords were mercifully inclined, and allowed Isobel to remain
unmolested till the last day of March.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG.]
‘In this month, ane great death, both in burgh and land, of young
bairns in the pox; so that nine or ten children would be buried in New
Aberdeen in one day, and continued a long time. All for our sins, and
yet not taken to heart.’ ‘There was reckoned buried in Aberdeen about
twelve score bairns in this disease,’
Spalding, who notes these particulars, remarks that, since the
beginning of the troubles, there had been no sea-mews seen in the lochs
of New or Old Aberdeen, ‘who before flocked and clecked in so great
abundance, that it was pleasure to behold them flying above our heads,
yea, and some made use of their eggs and birds. In like manner, few or
no corbies seen in either Aberdeens at the water-side of Dee or Don, or
shore, where they wont to flock abundantly for salmon gouries.’
[Sidenote: 1641.]
He tells us that the 14th of September was kept as a solemn
thanksgiving throughout Scotland, on account of the settlement between
the king and Estates. ‘Here it is to be marked, that this day of
thanksgiving was strictly kept, the weather being wonderful fair, and
the poor country people rather wishing to have been at home winning
their corns.... Which is more to be noted, this day of thanksgiving,
being ane wonderful fair day, fit for harvest, whereon they are forced
to sit idle; thereafter there was nothing but tempestuous rains till
the 10th of October, whilk was again ane day of fast; whereby the
people’s hearts were casten down, fearing the loss of their harvest
through this wicked weather.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT. 28.]
At the meeting of the Estates this day, the king communicated
intelligence of the outbreak in Ireland, but without as yet being
able to state whether it was a small or a great revolt. It was not
till Monday, the 1st of November, that he came to the house with the
statement that it appeared to be a general rebellion, from which only
Dublin was safe.[91] He, on that occasion, urged the Estates to send
an armament as soon as possible, to aid in maintaining order in that
distracted country.
Mr Tytler of Woodhouselee had learned, through the medium of tradition,
that the king was engaged in a match at golf, on Leith Links, when a
letter was delivered into his hands, giving him the first intelligence
of the Irish rebellion. ‘On reading which,’ adds Mr Tytler, ‘he
suddenly called for his coach, and leaning on one of his attendants,
and in great agitation, drove to the Palace of Holyroodhouse, from
whence next day he set out for London.[92]
This anecdote is certainly wrong in the last particular, as the king
did not leave Edinburgh on his return to England till the 18th of
November. The remainder of the anecdote may be true. Mr Tytler states
that the king was fond of the game of golf. In Wodrow’s _Analecta_, the
story is related with a wholly different cast, from two sources. It
is here said that the king had been participant in hatching the Irish
rebellion for his own ends, and, when the accounts of the massacre
came, ‘he was playing at the gowf in the Links of Leith. When he
opened the letters and had looked at them, he seemed not in the least
concerned, but ruffled the letter up, and called to his company to play
about.’[93]
[Sidenote: 1641.