[Sidenote: 1650.]
The Marquis of Douglas, formerly Earl of Angus, one of the greatest and
wealthiest of the nobility, was a Catholic; and his wife, a daughter
of the first Marquis of Huntly, was a not less firm adherent of the
ancient faith. For many years past, the presbytery of Lanark had acted
as an inquisition over them, sending deputations every now and then to
Douglas Castle, to deal with them for their conversion, intermeddling
with their domestic affairs, and threatening them with excommunication
if they did not speedily give ‘satisfaction.’ With great difficulty,
and after many conferences, they had prevailed on the _Lady Marquesse_
to attend the parish church, and allow her children to be instructed
in the Presbyterian catechism: a mere external conformity, of course,
but involving a homage to the system which seems to have pleased the
ecclesiastical authorities. It took six years to bring the marquis
to an inclination to abjure popery and sign the Covenant; and
great was the rejoicing when he performed this ceremony before the
parish congregation. A moderator of presbytery reported his ‘great
contentment’ in seeing his lordship communicate and give attentive ear
to the sermons. Seeing, however, that the lady remained immovable, the
reverend court deemed it necessary to demand of the noble pair that
their children should be secluded from them, in order that assurance
might be had of their being brought up in the Protestant religion. This
seems to have been too much for the old peer. He plainly broke through
all engagements to them, by going and joining Montrose.
As his lordship fell into the hands of the Estates, by whom he was
imprisoned in Dumbarton Castle, the presbytery obtained an increased
power over the lady. They now brought her before them, to examine her
touching her ‘malignancy and obstinate continuance in the profession
of popery.’ Imagine the daughter of the superb Huntly, the mother of
the future head of the chivalric house of Douglas, forced to appear
‘with bated breath and whispering humbleness’ before the presbytery
of Lanark! She really did give them such smooth words as induced them
to hold off for a little while. But they soon had occasion once more
to bewail the effects of their ‘manifold expressions of lenity and
long-suffering’ towards her, which they saw attended by no effect but
‘disobedience.’ The process for her excommunication and the taking away
of her children was in full career in January 1646; and yet by some
means which do not appear, it did not advance.
[Sidenote: 1650.]
[Sidenote: 1650.]
Meanwhile the marquis had been suffering a long imprisonment for his
lapse with Montrose, and his estate was embarrassed with a fine of
50,000 merks. It had become indispensable for the good of his family,
that he should be somehow reconciled to the stern powers then ruling.
At the beginning of 1647, the descendant of those mail-clad Douglases
who in the fifteenth century shook the Scottish throne, was found
literally on his knees before the Lanark presbytery, expressing his
penitence for breach of covenant, and giving assurance of faithfulness
in time to come. The Estates consequently contented themselves with
one half of his fine, and an offer of the use of his lands for the
quartering of troops, and he was then liberated. Soon after, he
agreed to consign his children to be boarded with the minister of
the parish of Douglas, while a young man should attend to act as
their preceptor; but the satisfaction produced by this concession was
quickly dashed, when the presbytery learned that his lordship was
secretly arranging to send his youngest son to be bred in France. It
was really a curious game between their honest unsparing zeal on the
one hand, and his lordship’s craft and territorial consequence on
the other. Every now and then we have a peep of the demure lady, not
less resolute in adhering to her faith than they were pertinacious
in seeking to bring her to the superior light. How the recusant pair
must have in secret chafed under the mute acquiescence which they were
forced to give, in a rule outraging every sense of natural right,
and every feeling of self-respect! With what smothered rage would
they view those presbyterial deputations on their approach to Douglas
Castle--more formidable than a thousand of the troops of Long-shanked
Edward had ever been to the good Sir James! During the predominance
of the Hamilton Engagement, there was a slight intermission: in those
partially clouded days of the church, the presbytery was obliged to
speak a little less resolutely. In October 1648, the cloud had passed
away: Cromwell was now in the Canongate, conferring with Argyle,
Loudon, and Dickson. We accordingly find the Lanark inquisition
laconically ordering that, failing immediate satisfaction, his lordship
be summoned and the lady ‘excommunicat.’ The noble marquis appeared in
this month before them, to answer sundry challenges--‘for not keeping
his son at the school with a sufficient pedagogue approven by the
presbytery; for not delivering his daughter to some Protestant friend
by sight [that is, under the approbation] of the presbytery; for not
having a sufficient chaplain approven as said is, for family exercise
in his house; for not calling home his son, who is in France;’ and,
finally, for his grievous oppression of his tenants. On all of these
points, he was forced to make certain professed concessions. And we
soon after find this proud grandee pleading to have his son brought
from the school of Glasgow to that of Lanark, but ‘_not to come home to
his parents except the presbytery permit_.’ Still there was no real
progress made with either the marquis or his lady, and simply because
they continued to be Catholics at heart, and had it not in their power
to give more than lip-worship to any other system.
Such being the case, what are we to think of the conclusion of the
affair with the marchioness, when, on the 9th of March 1650, two
ministers went to pass upon her that sentence of excommunication
which was to make her homeless and an outlaw,[133] unless she should
_instantly_ profess the Protestant faith; at the same time telling
her ‘how fearful a sin it was to swear with equivocation or mental
reservation.’ The lady of course reflected that the system represented
by her visitors was now triumphant over everything--that, for one
thing, it had brought her brother Huntly, not a twelvemonth ago,
beneath the stroke of the Maiden. She ‘declared she had no more
doubts,’ and at the command of one of the ministers, held up her hand,
and solemnly accepted the Covenant before the congregation. ‘After he
had read the Solemn League and Covenant, and desired her to hold up
her hand and swear by the great name of God to observe, according to
her power, every article thereof, she did so; and after divine service
was ended, he desired her to go to the session-table and subscribe the
Covenant, and, before the minister and elders, she went to the said
table and did subscribe.’
‘Heaven scarce believed the conquest it surveyed,
And saints with wonder heard the vows I made.’
[Sidenote: 1650.]
On the very day that this was reported by the two ministers to the
presbytery, the court, ‘hearing that of late the Marquis of Douglas and
his lady had sent away one of their daughters to France, to a popish
lady, to be bred with her in popery, without the knowledge of the
presbytery, and without any warrant from the Estates, thought the fault
intolerable, and so much the more, because they had sent away one of
their sons before to the court of France.’ For some time after, the
reverend presbytery dealt earnestly with the marquis for the withdrawal
of his children from France, but without success. They also had
occasion to lament that he and his lady rarely attended public worship,
and failed to have private exercises at home. Of their own great
error in forcing this noble family into hypocritical professions, and
interfering so violently with their domestic arrangements, no suspicion
seems ever once to have crossed their minds.[134]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAR.]
At the same time that the presbytery of Lanark was driving on matters
with the Marchioness of Douglas, it had another serious affair on its
hands. Towards the close of the preceding year, the marquis had sent
eleven women of his parish to Lanark, as accused of witchcraft by one
Janet Couts, ‘a confessing witch,’ then in prison at Peebles. There
was a difficulty about the case, for the burgh declined to maintain so
many persons pending their trial. It was therefore necessary to send
them back to Crawford Douglas under security. Afterwards, one George
Cathie, ‘the pricker,’ being brought to Lanark, the women were brought
forward again, when, ‘before famous witnesses--namely, Gideon Jack and
Patrick Craig, bailies in Lanark, James Cunningham of Bonniton, &c.,
Mr Robert Birnie himself [the minister of Lanark] being also present,
and by consent of the women, the said George did prick pins in every
one of them, and in divers of them without pain the pin was put in,
as the witnesses can testify.’ The women were accordingly detained in
prison. As ‘it was not possible for the parish out of which they came
to furnish watches night and day for them,’ the county ‘did ordain that
each parish should, proportionally to their quantity, furnish twelve
men every twenty-four hours; whereupon the presbytery did ordain that
the minister of that parish out of which the watches shall come for
their turn, shall come along with them, to wait upon the suspected
persons, and to take pains, by prayer and exhortation, to bring them to
a confession.’
[Sidenote: 1650.]
We next see the presbytery sending a deputation to the Council of State
in Edinburgh, to urge that a commission should be appointed for the
trial of the witches. While this was in preparation, they sent to the
parish to collect evidence against the poor women. It might have been
supposed that, when, after a sermon in the church, no one came forward
to say a word against them, some doubts might have entered the minds of
the presbytery. Such, however, was not the case. They sent again and
again, till at length charges were made against three of the suspected.
Meanwhile, one whom Janet Couts herself ‘cleansed,’ was liberated.
Six more, against whom no charge was made, were allowed to go home on
giving security that they would reappear if called upon. Finally, two,
named Janet M‘Birnie and Marion Laidlaw, were at this date tried by the
commission on various points delated against them; as that, ‘on a time
Janet followed William Brown, a slater, to crave somewhat, and fell in
evil words, after which time, within twenty-four hours, he fell off
ane house and brake his neck; that Janet was the cause of the discord
between [the laird of] Newton and his wife, and that she and others was
the death of William Geddes;’ that ‘Marion and Jean Blacklaw differed
in words for Marion’s hay, and, after that, Jean her kye died;’ and
that she, the said Marion, ‘had her husband by unlawful means, and a
beard!’ After most strictly examining the witnesses on their oaths, the
commission could find nought proven against the two prisoners, and they
were therefore dismissed on giving caution to appear again if called
upon.
It does not appear that this result in any degree modified the views
of the reverend presbytery regarding witchcraft. On the very day when
this case was reported to them, they received a communication from Mr
Richard Inglis, the chaplain or preceptor whom they had established in
the Marquis of Douglas’s family, setting forth the confession of ‘ane
warlock called Archibald Watt, alias _Sole the paitlet_, pointing out
the way of his making covenant with the devil, as also many meetings
since his covenant keeped with the devil, and other witches, in divers
places.’ And immediately they sent a gentleman to Edinburgh for ‘a
commission for ane assize to sit upon the foresaid warlock.’
The end of the prosecution of the eleven women is highly instructive.
Janet Couts, before her death, which probably was by burning, withdrew
the charge she had made against them. It is on the same day when the
presbytery orders one of their number to go and read a paper to this
effect in the church of Douglas, that they make the above arrangement
for the prosecution of the warlock; shewing that they had not been
in the least staggered on the general question, by finding the gross
mistake they had made in this instance.--_R. P. L._
[Sidenote: 1650.