Baillie, writing a little before this time, laments ‘the abolition of
almost all our church liberties.’ By the putting down of our General
Assemblies and Kirk Commission, licence had been given, he says, to
‘any who will to profess grievous errors.’ This, where ‘we expected a
full and perfect reformation, does oft break our heart.’ It has already
been seen that, so soon as the incoming of the English sectaries had to
some degree checked the ‘church liberties,’ dissent had begun to appear
in various forms. We now hear of off-breakings of a kind more alarming
than ever.
[Sidenote: 1655.]
There arose at this time--to use the language of a contemporary--‘great
numbers of that damnable sect of the Quakers, who, being deluded by
Satan, drew away mony to their profession, both men and women.’[173]
‘They, in a furious way, cry down both ministry and magistracy. Some of
them seem actually possessed by a devil; their fury, their irrational
passions, and convulsions are so great.’[174] ‘Sundry of them walking
through the streets, all naked except their shirts, crying: “This is
the way, walk ye in it;” others crying out: “The day of salvation is at
hand; draw near to the Lord, for the sword of the Lord is drawn, and
will not be put up till the enemies of the Lord be destroyed.”’
[Sidenote: 1655.]
Under the same mania, several of the English soldiers and certain
of the native inhabitants created disturbances in the churches of
Edinburgh, calling on the people not to believe the false doctrine
which was preached to them. ‘The devil, working strongly upon their
imaginations, made them to believe that the Spirit descendit upon them
like ane dow; carried them from one place to another, and made mony
of them cry out: “I am the way, the truth, and the life,”’ and ‘make
circles about them[selves] with their hands, with many like actions.’
The devil also told them he was ‘putting aff the old man, that the
stones were taken out of their hearts, and they had now got hearts of
flesh.’ He threw stones among them, crying out: ‘Lo, here is my heart
of stone!’ made swallows come down from chimneys, and cry out: ‘My
angels! my angels!’ ‘They continuing in this motion, he made them to
believe that Christ pointed at them, and to leave wives and children,
and to hear voices, sometimes condemning, sometimes pardoning their
sins.... Some of thir Quakers, being recalled [to sanity], began to
question whether that power by which they were so strongly act[uat]ed,
were divine or diabolical. Thereupon they were stricken with panic
fears, and some hands were carried to take up a knife lying upon a
table, and their hands carried to their throat, and a voice said: “Open
a hole there, and I will give thee the words of eternal life;” which
made some of them to apprehend that it was the devil, he being the
prince of the powers of the air.... This evil spirit prevailed with
much people,[175] and charged them to deny all ministerial teaching
and ordinances, together with all notional knowledge formerly gained
by such means, to become as though they had never learned anything
savingly, and to lay ane new groundwork--namely, to be taught of
God within ourselves by waiting upon ane inward light ... and much
more.’--_Nic._
It is remarked by Nicoll, under May 1656, that the Quakers were at that
time increasing and becoming more confident, and that their _pretended_
sermons and hortations on the Castle Hill of Edinburgh were well
attended. It was alleged that the continued divisions among the clergy
contributed much to the increase of this heresy.
Towards the end of 1656, the Quaker doctrines had begun to appear among
the people in the presbytery of Lanark. The ministers of Douglas and of
Lesmahago gave in the names of certain of their parishioners who had
been thus deluded. One named William Mitchell compeared, and denied
the Confession of Faith; and it appeared soon after that he maintained
that ‘there was no baptism with water in the church--God gives every
man saving grace--sprinkling of infants and marrying of people with
joining of hands was the mark of the beast--there is no natural light
in man--no man was fallen--and the preaching of the gospel as it is in
Scotland by the priests thereof was anti-Christian.’ Others ‘reset’ the
Quakers, ‘saying they get as much good of them as of anybody else.’ On
the 30th of April 1657, the presbytery excommunicated eight persons on
account of their obstinate adherence to these doctrines.--_R. P. L._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: FEB.]
In consequence of excessively stormy weather this month, many thousands
of dead eels were cast out upon the banks of the North Loch at
Edinburgh, ‘to the admiration of many.’--_Nic._
A severe frost set in, and continued till the middle of April, to the
interruption of farmwork; and it was deemed necessary to announce
a fast for an early day. ‘No sooner was this fast and humiliation
intimate from the pulpits of Edinburgh, but it seemed--and there was no
doubt--the Lord was weel pleased; and it was his pleasure to tryst the
desire of the people with fair and seasonable weather.’--_Nic._
[Sidenote: 1655.]
Heavy and continual rains in August threatened the crop with
destruction. A solemn fast and humiliation was held on the 16th of
August, in the hope of averting the threatened calamity. But ‘the
people were not rightly humbled; there was no fervent prayer; the
Lord’s face was not earnestly sought ... as was evident by the Lord’s
frowning countenance and augmentation of the rain, whilk daily
increased, and sometimes three days and three nights together without
intermission, continuing sae ... till the 15th day of September.’
For two years past, ‘victual of all sorts was exceeding cheap,
the best peck of meal in the mercat of Edinburgh being sold for
a groat, and sometimes for [3-1/3d.], the boll of wheat for [6s.
8d.]. But immediately after this extraordinary rain, the mercats did
rise, for this unseasonable weather put many in fear of dearth and
famine.’--_Nic._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAY.]
We incidentally learn the wages of a skilled artisan in Scotland at
this time from the account which Lamont gives of the expense of slating
and _pointing_ the house of Lundie in Fife. The work was done by David
Brown, slater in Anstruther, and his son, and so well, he said, that it
would not need to be touched again for seven years. David and his son
were paid for this work--their diet in the house during the twenty-four
working-days they were engaged upon it, and twenty-four shillings
Scots, or _two shillings sterling_, per day, in money.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY.]
On a Sunday, at the close of this month, the communion was administered
in Edinburgh, the first time after an interval of six years, for so
long had the rite been discontinued in the capital and other parts
of the kingdom, by reason of the troubles and divisions which had
prevailed. From one disqualification and another, ‘much people was
debarred.’--_Nic._
[Sidenote: OCT.]
The Council of State having forbidden the clergy to pray for the king
on pain of being silenced, they, ‘knowing that it lay upon them to
preach, and that, if only for naming a king they should occasion the
closing of their own mouth, therein they would greatly sin, generally
desisted from praying for him as king.’--_C. P. H._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT.]
[Sidenote: 1655.]
Owing to the dearth of victual, the burdens of the people were felt as
more than ever oppressive. Yet at this crisis, the cess imposed by the
English was augmented a fifth. In Edinburgh, another cess was imposed,
‘for buying of horse and carts, for carrying away and transporting of
the filth, muck, and fulzie out of the closes and causey of Edinburgh;
whilk [the tax] much grievit the people, and so much the more because
the people receivit no satisfaction for their money, but the causey and
closes continued more and more filthy, and no pains taken for clenging
the streets.’--_Nic._
Rather oddly, the more the poverty of the people increased, vanity the
more abounded; ‘for at this time it was daily seen that gentlewomen
and burgesses’ wives had more gold and silver about their gown and
wyliecoat tails nor their husbands had in their purses and coffers.’
‘Therefore, great judgment was evidently seen upon the land, and the
Lord’s hand stretched out still.’--_Nic._
The Edinburgh municipality, though it had for some time had a plack
on every pint of ale sold in the city, was 1,100,000 merks [upwards
of £61,000] in debt. ‘Oh, for the miseries of kirk and state at this
time!’ exclaims Nicoll. ‘The Lord’s anger hot against both, and nane to
stand up in the gap.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 10.]
After some weeks of severe and stormy weather, there befell this day a
tempest of the most terrible character, from the north-east, producing
fearful havoc among the ships on the east coast, and causing likewise
the loss of great numbers of people, bestial, and goods by land. ‘The
like storm was not seen by the space of many years before; no, not that
great storm that did arise at the death of King James the Sixth [in
March 1625] did equal this storm.’--_Nic._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 19.]
[Sidenote: 1655.]
Died, in Westminster, Sir William Dick, of Braid, Baronet, once
reputed the richest man of his time in Scotland, but latterly in
great misery and want; aged seventy-five. In his earlier life, he
conducted merchandise on a great scale in Edinburgh. The government
in those days pursued that mode of collecting revenue which made
farmers-general so much the objects of popular wrath and hatred in
France in the time of Voltaire. Dick farmed the Scottish customs--also
the revenues of Orkney--yet we do not hear that he bore his faculties
with marked ungentleness. He was rather a simple man, accessible to
the insinuations of vanity, and inspired with a full share of the
earnest religious feelings of his age. When the affair of the Covenant
came upon the tapis, it was thought well to secure the co-operation of
this rich merchant by getting him made provost of Edinburgh. Thus he
was easily persuaded to advance considerable sums in order to enable
his countrymen to resist the king. Sir Walter Scott alludes in one of
his novels to the tradition describing sacks of dollars poured from a
window in Provost Dick’s house into carts, that carried them to the
army at Dunse Law. When the Scottish Covenanters afterwards prepared
an army to assist in putting down the rebellion in Ireland, it could
not have marched without meal and money furnished by Provost Dick. It
appears from an authoritative document, that, on this occasion alone,
Sir William became a national creditor to the extent of £10,000. In all
the other movements of his countrymen at that time, for the protection
and advancement of their favourite church-polity, Dick shewed the same
large faith in the good cause, and probably, but for him, things might
have taken a different turn on many occasions from what they did. What
finally remained owing to him in Scotland amounted to £28,131.[176]
The English parliament was at the same time his debtor to the amount
of £36,803--sums rarely heard of as belonging to an individual in that
age. Sir William had been assured by the leaders he dealt with, both of
thankful repayment from themselves, and of the blessing of the Almighty
for the trust he had reposed in the cause of truth and righteousness.
But the actual result was simply the utter wrack of his worldly
affairs. Efforts were indeed made to repay his advances, but wholly
without effect. In 1652, he proceeded to London, to urge the government
to do him justice. By this time, his affairs had got into confusion,
his credit as a merchant was gone, and his creditors were pressing
upon him. It does not appear that he succeeded in wringing more than
a thousand pounds out of the hands of the Commonwealth men. Finally,
incurring fresh debts for his subsistence in the metropolis, he was
thrown into prison in Westminster--a memorable example of the reverses
of fortune incidental to a time of civil strife.
[Sidenote: 1655.]
A curious and very rare pamphlet in folio, entitled _The Lamentable
Estate and Distressed Case of the Deceased Sir William Dick in Scotland
and his Numerous Family and Creditors for the Commonwealth_, contains
two prints, the first representing Sir William at the crisis when he
was so serviceable to the cause of the Covenant, mounted on a handsome
dress, and with a goodly retinue, his horse trampling on money and
money-bags scattered along the ground. On one hand is seen Hamilton’s
fleet in the Firth of Forth, with the significant date 1639 inscribed
on one of the vessels; on the other, Edinburgh Castle undergoing
siege, with the date 1640, evidently referring to the leaguer which
the Castle underwent when the Covenanters were endeavouring to wrest
it from the officer who held it for the king. Below this print is
inscribed:
‘See here a Merchant who for’s country’s good,
Leaves off his trade to spend both wealth and blood,
Tramples on profit to redeem the fate
Of his decaying church, and prince, and state.
Such traffic sure none can too highly prize,
When gain itself is made a sacrifice.
But oh, how ill will such examples move,
If Loss be made the recompense to Love.’
Sir William’s favourite mottoes are inscribed above--PUBLICA SALUS
NUNC MEA MERCES, and PRO FOEDERE, REGE, ET GREGE. The second print,
of which the original painting is still preserved at Prestonfield
House, near Edinburgh, represents the unfortunate merchant in his
prison-cell, seated on a bulk in a mean dress, manacled and fettered,
with his family weeping around him, and four officers of the law at his
back, scourges and fetters being scattered about the floor. Below are
inscribed the motto, PUBLICA FIDES NUNC MEA SERVITUS, and these lines:
‘He whom you see thus by vile sergeants torn,
Was once his country’s pattern, now their scorn;
Whilst into prison dragged, he there complains,
Who least deserves doth soonest suffer chains.
And who for public doth his faith engage,
Changes his palace for an iron cage.
Then add, to shew his unbecoming fate,
He had been free had he not served the state.’
[Sidenote: 1655.]
The preface to the pamphlet speaks of him as once ‘renowned at home
and abroad as a famous merchant. When all men have sought their own,
he, contrary to the principles of his outward calling, in the time of
public calamity, did cheerfully embark himself, his estate, which was
very considerable, and his credit, which was greater, known by his fame
abroad that his bills were never protested, but accepted through all
Christendom, yea even in the dominions of the Turks--and this not out
of any private end, but for the public good cause, which had so many
prayers laid out for it then, which he believed would be answered in
due time.’ In the ‘Case’ as addressed to parliament, after a recital of
his loans and the many acknowledgments and efforts to pay previously
made, it is said: ‘Notwithstanding all this, and of the aforesaid Sir
William Dick his expense and painful satisfaction by agents and friends
the space of sixteen years, and of his own personal attendance upon
three parliaments and his highness’s council from November 1652 until
November 1655, in his great old age of seventy and five years, and
gray hairs full of sorrow and heaviness of heart, for such deplorable
sufferings in credit and estate, by so good service performed in
England, and with his cries to heaven for justice and mercy to his so
deep afflictions for well-doing; yet, nevertheless, little or nothing
was recovered all his time here, but one small sum of one thousand
pounds in August 1653; insomuch that, by reason of this delay, floods
of desolation and distress have overwhelmed him and his children
with their numerous families and little ones; their lands and houses
being extended and possessed by the creditors in the cruel execution
of the law; their chattels and goods, too, yea their ornaments, the
covering of their nakedness, and the coverlet in which they should
sleep, being publicly distrained and seized upon for these debts and
disbursements engaged in by them to promote the public service. Neither
is this all; one woe is past, and behold two woes come after this.
Ah! the old man himself was once and again disgracefully cast into
prison for small debts contracted for necessary livelihood, during his
attendance for satisfaction.’ ‘In the end, through heart-break by so
long disappointment,’ he died, ‘in great misery and want, and without
the benefit of a decent funeral, after six months’ petitioning for
some little money towards the same. And to complete the third woe and
perfection of sorrowful afflictions, his children are cast at this day,
and lying in prisons these twenty months past for public debts, in
great sufferings of their persons, credit, and calling, and weariness
of life, longing for death more than for treasures, and where they and
their numerous families had already perished for want of bread, if some
little supply by his highness’s goodness had not been lately appointed
them.’
[Sidenote: 1655.]
It appears that after the Restoration the parliament, as might have
been expected, declined to acknowledge the debts contracted by the
irregular governments of the preceding twenty years; so Sir William’s
large loans were never refunded. An advance (100,274 merks) on the
Orkney revenues was ignored in 1669, still further wrecking the
property of the family. The only compensation which Sir Andrew Dick,
son of Sir William, could obtain, was a pension of £132 sterling,
which lasted for a few years only.[177]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1656.