The spring being alarmingly bad, ‘the presbytery of Lothian did
conclude a fast to be keepit in the beginning of May; whilk was keepit
in all the kirks of the presbytery, and although with great waikness,
yet it wanted not the awn happy effect and blessing, for frae that day
the Lord did produce much fair and pleasant weather,’ and ‘the like
summer and harvest was never seen in this age.’--_Nic._
‘This year produced abundance of bestial, such as horse, nolt, sheep,
and some of these at ane very easy price. A mart cow was sold for [£1,
6s. 8d.], these bestial being abundant, and the money exceedingly
scant.... There was also exceeding great numbers of salmon and all
other sorts of fish taken this year.’--_Nic._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE.]
It is remarked how much of deceit and cheating was practised at this
time among certain traders in Edinburgh. The beer, ale, and wine sold
in the city were all greatly adulterated. It was customary to mix wine
with milk, brimstone, and other ingredients. ‘Ale was made strong and
heady with hempseed, coriander-seed, Turkish pepper, soot, salt, and by
casting in strong wash under the caldron when the ale was in brewing.’
Blown mutton and corrupted veal, fusty bread and light loaves, false
measures and weights, were common. In all these particulars, the
magistrates were negligent, so that ‘the people were abused and
neglectit.’--_Nic._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE.]
[Sidenote: 1656.]
‘This year the Lord Cranstoun, having got a colonel’s commission,
levied a new regiment of volunteers for the King of Pole’s [Poland’s]
service; and it trysted well for his management and advantage. The
royalists chose rather to go abroad, though in a very mean condition,
than live at home under a yoke of slavery. The colonel sent one Captain
Montgomery north in June, and he had very good luck, listing many
for the service. In August the colonel himself followed after, and
residing at Inverness, sallied out to visit the Master of Lovat, and,
in three days, got forty-three of the Frasers to take on. Amongst the
rest, Captain James Fraser, my Lord Lovat’s son, engages, and, without
degradation, Cranstoun gives him a captain’s commission. Hugh Fraser,
young Clanvacky, takes on as lieutenant; William Fraser, son to Mr
William Fraser of Phopachy, an ensign; and James Fraser, son to Foyer,
a corporal. The Lord Lovat’s son had twenty-two young gentlemen with
the rest, who engaged by themselves, out of Stratherrick, Abertarff,
Aird, and Strathglass. I heard the colonel say he was vain of them for
gallantry--not so much that they were free and willing, but valorous.
I saw them march out of Inverness, and most of the English regiment
there looking on with no small commendation, as well as emulation
of their bravery.’--_Fraser of Kirkhill_. This gallant little levy
proved unfortunate, most of them being cut off early. Fourteen years
later, the same diarist gives us some particulars of the few then
surviving. ‘This October’ [1670], says he, ‘came to this country my
brother-german, William Fraser. He went abroad in the Lord Cranstoun’s
regiment, for the service of Carolus Gustavus, King of Sweden, and
after the peace he went up to Poland, with other Scottish men, and
settled at Plock as a merchant, and was married. He had given trust
and long delay to the Aberdeen’s men, and was necessitated to take
the occasion of a ship and come to Scotland to crave his own. He and
young Clanvacky Hugh are the only surviving two of the gallant crew
who ventured over seas with their chief’s son, Captain James. And he
is glad of this happy occasion to see his old mother and brethren. He
continued here among his friends all the winter, and returned back in
the spring, never to see his country again. Two of his foster-brothers
ventured with him, Farquhar and Rory--very pretty boys. We were six
brothers mustered one day together upon a street, and six sisters
waiting us in my uncle’s house--a pleasant sight. We were not vain
of it, but willing to see one another in one society. We never were
all convened again. We are here in this world planted in order to
our transplantation, where we shall, I hope, one day meet never to
separate.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG. 17.]
[Sidenote: 1656.]
At four o’clock in the morning, according to Baillie, there was ‘a
sensible earthquake’ in all parts of the town of Glasgow, ‘though
I felt it not.’ ‘Five or six years ago, there was ane other in the
afternoon, which I felt, and was followed by that fearful burning,
and all the other shaking [that] has been among us since. The Lord
preserve us from his too well-deserved judgments!’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP. 4.]
The efforts of the presbytery of Lanark to make sincere Presbyterians
of the Marquis and Marchioness of Douglas had signally failed. Their
parish minister reported sundry ‘outbreakings of sin’ in their house,
‘whereof he could get no order;’ above all, there was a neglect of
family worship. After many ineffectual dealings, the presbytery
declared at this date, that, ‘considering how the marquis and his
lady and family continue to be an ill example, and scandalous divers
ways, in regard that he himself does not ordinarily attend the public
ordinance, but some time the forenoon withdrawing himself, and ofttimes
the servants in the afternoon, in sight of the whole congregation; [and
that] he and his lady cometh scarce to the kirk once in a year, and
that there is no worship of God at all in their family,’ they must,
‘if he do not redress the foresaid scandals in some satisfying way,
enter in process of excommunication with him and his lady at the next
meeting.’
After many months, the reverend brethren are still found only ‘dealing’
with the noble marquis and his lady. A peer or peeress seems to have
been a particularly difficult person to excommunicate. Years elapse in
such cases without effecting the object, while a Quaker villager could
be conclusively thrust out of the church in a few weeks.--_R. P. L._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1657.