This day commenced a period of thanksgiving through all the parishes
in Lothian, for the restoration of the king. The magistrates and
town-council of Edinburgh went to church in solemn procession, all in
their best robes, and with ‘the great mace and sword of honour’ borne
before them. After service, they went with a great number of citizens
to the Cross, where a long board, covered with sweetmeats and wine,
had been placed, under a burgess guard numbering four or five hundred
persons. Here the healths of the king and the Duke of York were drunk
with the utmost enthusiasm, three hundred dozen of glasses being cast
away and broken on the occasion. At the same time, bells rang, drums
beat, trumpets sounded, and the multitude of people cheered. The spouts
of the Cross ran with claret for the general benefit. At night, there
were bonfires throughout the streets, and fireworks in the Castle and
the citadel of Leith till after midnight. ‘There were also six viols,
three of them base viols, playing there continually. There were also
some musicians placed there, wha were resolved to act their parts, and
were willing and ready, but by reason of the frequent acclamations and
cries of the people universally through the haill town, their purpose
was interrupted. Bacchus also, being set upon ane puncheon of wine upon
the front of the Cross with his cummerholds, was not idle. In the end,
the effigies of Oliver Cromwell, being set upon a pole, and the devil
upon another, upon the Castle Hill, it was ordered by firework, engine,
and train, that the devil did chase that traitor, till he blew him in
the air.’--_Nic._
[Sidenote: 1660.]
The same chronicler notes a circumstance very likely to occur at a
Restoration. ‘There went out from Scotland an innumerable number
of people of all sorts, ranks, and degrees--earls, lords, barons,
burgesses, and some ministers--pretending their errand to be to
congratulate the king; but the truth is, it was for procuring of
dignities, honours, and offices, and for sundry other ends; carrying
with them great soums of money, to the vastation of this puir land,
being altogether ruined of before in their means and estate.’
‘His majesty not being able to satisfy all, there did arise great
heart-burnings, animosity, and envy among them,’ particularly ‘betwixt
the Earl of Southesk and the Master of Gray, for the sheriffship of
Forfarshire; and in that contention they drew to parties, and provoked
other to duels, in the whilk the Earl of Southesk did kill the Master
of Gray upon this side of London.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG.]
We hear at this time of a number of ‘louss and idle men in the
Hielands,’ who had gathered themselves together in companies, and were
employed in ‘carrying away _spraichs_ of cattle and other bestial to
the hills, and committing many other insolencies:’ that is to say,
the more active spirits on the Highland border were taking advantage
of this interval of regular authority to help themselves from the
pastures of their Lowland neighbours. The newly reassembled Committee
of Estates, having no force at their command for the repression of
these disorders, were glad to revert to the old practice of holding
the chiefs of clans ‘bund for the peaceable behaviour of their clan,
kinsmen, followers, and tenants.’ They therefore (August 29) sent
letters to the Earls of Seaforth, Tullibardine, Athole, Airlie, and
Aboyne, the Lords Reay and Lovat, the Lairds of Ballingowan, Foulis,
Assynt, Glengarry, M‘Leod, Locheil, Macintosh, Grant, Glenurchy,
Auchinbreck, Luss, Macfarlane, Buchanan, and Edzell, Sir James
Macdonald, the Captain of Clanranald, Callum Macgregor Tutor of
Macgregor, and others, calling on them to take special notice of their
dependents, ‘and of all others travelling through your bounds whom you
may stop or let,’ that they carry themselves inoffensively; certifying
these heads of clans, that they will be called to account for any
depredations or insolencies hereafter committed.
[Sidenote: 1660.]
Having immediately after heard of an assault committed by one Robert
Oig Buchanan and a companion upon Robert M‘Capie, a tenant of Lord
Napier (they had attacked him in his own house at night, wounded him,
and cut off his ear, after which they drove off his cattle), the
Committee ordered the Laird of Buchanan to forward the guilty persons
to them before a certain day, in order that they might be brought to
punishment. The two culprits failed to appear on summons, and their
chief was then commissioned to seize them wherever they could be found.
At the beginning of October, the chancellor received a letter from
the Laird of Grant, stating that he had apprehended ‘ane noted robber
named _Halkit Stirk_.’[186] The Committee of Estates immediately sent
an answer heartily thanking the laird ‘for doing so good a work for his
majesty and the peace of the kingdom;’ further informing him that they
would protect and maintain him against all injury that might be done to
him or his followers on that account. They soon after gave the laird
a commission to raise a band of forty men for the taking of Highland
sorners and robbers.
The _Halkit Stirk_ was subsequently ordered to be handed by the Laird
of Grant to the magistrates of Aberdeen; by them to the magistrates
of Montrose; from these again to those of Dundee; thence to Cupar and
Burntisland in succession, under a suitable guard; to rest in the
Tolbooth of Burntisland till further orders.
At the same time, the Highland bandit, John Dhu Ger, whom we have
seen killed three times about twenty years before, is ordered to be
brought under a sufficient guard from Stirling to the Tolbooth of
Edinburgh.--_R. C. E._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP. 13.]
The Letter-office at Edinburgh was in 1649 under the care of Mr John
Mean, a merchant noted throughout the reign of Charles I. for his zeal
as a Presbyterian; which, however, had not forbidden him to be also a
strenuous loyalist.[187] Latterly, the same function had been bestowed
upon Messrs Mew and Barringer, who, from their names, may be supposed
to have been Englishmen, friends of the Cromwellian rule. At the date
now noted, the king bestowed the office upon Robert Mean, superseding
the two above-mentioned officials, and the Committee of Estates
accordingly inducted him, ‘requiring the postmaster of Haddington to
direct the packets constantly from time to time to the said Robert
Mean, and cause the same to be delivered to him at Edinburgh.’--_R. C.
E._
[Sidenote: 1660.]
The post-system for correspondence underwent a considerable
improvement under the _régime_ of the Restoration. The parliament,
in August 1662,[188] ordained that for this purpose posts should be
established between Edinburgh and Port-Patrick, the intermediate
stations being Linlithgow, Kilsyth, Glasgow, Kilmarnock, Ayr, Drumbeg,
and Ballantrae. Robert Mean was commissioned to establish these posts
for the next ensuing year, and allowed ‘for each letter from Edinburgh
to Glasgow two shillings Scots (twopence sterling), from thence to any
part within Scotland three shillings Scots, and for all such letters
as goes for Ireland six shillings Scots.’ To encourage him in the
business, and help him to build a boat for the Port-Patrick ferry, he
was allowed a gift of two hundred pounds, on condition that the boat
should carry the letter-packet free. ‘All other posts, either foot or
horse,’ were discharged.--_P. C. R._
The horse-post of Mr Mean had not been long in operation, when it was
found that sundry persons carried letters along the same line on foot,
to the injury of the postmaster, and possibly to the encouragement of
treasonable designs. At his request, a warrant was granted (December
26) against such interlopers.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP. 28.]
William Woodcock, ‘late officer in Leith,’ was this day licensed by the
magistrates of Edinburgh, to set up ‘ane hackney-coach, for service
of his majesty’s lieges, betwixt Leith and Edinburgh.’ The hire up
and down for a single person was to be a shilling; and if the person
engaging the carriage chose to wait for one or two persons more to
accompany him, the same fare was to be sufficient. ‘If any mae nor
three, each man to pay four shillings Scots [fourpence sterling]
for their hire; and the persons coming up to Edinburgh, to light at
the foot of Leith Wynd, for the steyness [steepness] thereof.’ This
arrangement was not to prevent Woodcock from ‘serving others going to
and from the country to other places, as he and they can agree.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1660.]
At the surrender of Edinburgh Castle to Cromwell in December 1650, one
of the articles of rendition insured that the public registers, public
movables, and private evidences and writs heretofore preserved there,
should be allowed to pass forth, and that wagons and ships should be
provided for transporting them. These precious documents, with certain
exceptions, were accordingly taken to Stirling Castle, where, however,
it was not their fate to rest long. In August next year, while the
Scottish army was advancing through England, to be annihilated at
Worcester, General Monk took Stirling Castle, with ‘all the Records
of Scotland, the chair and cloth of state, the sword, and other rich
furniture of the kings.’ These were soon after transported to the Tower
of London, not under any such feeling as the wantonness of conquest,
but with a view to their proving serviceable for the scheme then
entertained by Cromwell of a complete union of the two countries. In
the Tower, they were deposited in a building called the Bowyers’ House,
which was also the residence of the keeper of the English Records, Mr
Ryley.
After the establishment of an English judicatory in Scotland, it was
found necessary that such documents as referred to the rights of
private parties should be in possession of the English commissioners;
and on the petition of these gentlemen (April 8, 1653), an order of
parliament was issued for the sending of all such documents back to
Scotland, to be deposited as formerly in Edinburgh Castle. This seems
to have been done either partially now, and conclusively in 1657, or
wholly at the latter date, the amount of documents returned being
sixteen hundred volumes.
[Sidenote: DEC.]
[Sidenote: 1660.]
After the Restoration, the Scottish records remaining in the Tower,
being those of a public and historical character, were ordered to be
returned to Edinburgh. Being put up in hogsheads, a ship was prepared
to carry them down to Scotland. ‘But it was suggested to Clarendon,
that the original Covenant signed by the king, and some other
declarations under his hand, were among them. And he, apprehending that
at some time or other an ill use might have been made of these, would
not suffer them to be shipped till they were visited: nor would he
take Primrose’s promise of searching for these carefully, and sending
them up to him. So he ordered a search to be made. None of the papers
he looked for were found. But so much time was lost, that the summer
was spent. So they were sent down in winter.’--_Burnet_. They were
shipped at Gravesend on board the _Eagle_ frigate, commanded by Major
John Fletcher; but, a storm arising, the captain was obliged, for the
safety of his vessel, to trans-ship eighty-five hogsheads of these
documents into a vessel called the _Elizabeth_ of Burntisland. The
_Elizabeth_ having sunk with its whole cargo, the eighty-five hogsheads
of registers were lost, ‘to the great hurt of this nation,’ as Nicoll
with due sensibility remarks. From this wreck there escaped the records
of parliament, and that of the Secret Council--the latter, we are
bound to say, a specially fortunate escape for us, since the record in
question has supplied the great bulk of what is at once new and curious
in the present work. ‘The want of any inventory of the whole must leave
us for ever in the dark as to the real extent of the loss which was
then sustained. Among the lost records, however, we may probably reckon
the rolls of the greater part of the charters of Robert I. and David
II., and the far greater part of the original instruments of a public
nature, which must be presumed to have existed in the archives of the
kingdom, at their removal from Scotland in 1651.’[189]
One of the records, that of the Privy Seal, had escaped the general
seizure by the English, and passed through some adventures not much
less romantic than those of the Regalia. Consisting of about a hundred
volumes, it rested in the care of Andrew Martin, writer in Edinburgh,
who, on the approach of danger, carried it into the Highlands, and
there preserved it from the enemy ‘with great expenses and fatigue,
for ten years at least, to the hazard of his life and irrecoverable
ruin of his family.’ After his death and that of his son, this record
fell into the possession of John Corse, writer in Edinburgh, who had
advanced considerable sums to the Martins, ‘on the faith of those
books.’ On the 24th of March 1707, Mr Corse addressed a petition to the
Scottish parliament, setting forth these particulars, and claiming a
remuneration for ‘the expenses and great pains that has been expended
in preserving these records,’ requesting at the same time that they
should be taken into public custody. The parliament accordingly
recommended Mr Corse’s claim to the queen.[190]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1661. JAN.]
[Sidenote: 1661.]
Reduced as the state of Scotland was at the close of the Interregnum,
no sooner had the Restoration taken place than such a ‘bravery’ broke
out as if there had been no such thing as poverty in the land. The
City of Edinburgh surrounded the Cross at the proclamation of the
first parliament with twelve hundred men in arms. When the Earl of
Middleton came on the last day of the year to open the parliament next
day, sixteen hundred persons met him on horseback a few miles from
town--‘there was seldom the like shaw.’ ‘All the nobles at this time,
as also the barons and burgesses, were metamorphosed like guisers,
their apparel rich, full of ribbons, feathers, and costly lace, to the
admiration of many.’ It was all from joy at the idea of the troubles of
the country being now brought to an end.
The people were delighted to see the parliament sit down, merely as
a token of the restoration of their national independency. They felt
a peculiar joy in seeing the Earl Marischal and his two brothers
come to Edinburgh, bearing with them the long-lost emblems of the
native sovereignty.[191] Nicoll says, the gallant carriage of the
people generally was ‘wonderful;’ ‘all of them, even the landward
people [rustics], belted in their swords and pistols.’ ‘Our gentry of
Scotland,’ he elsewhere adds, ‘did look with such joyful and gallant
countenances as if they had been the sons of princes. It was the joy of
this nation to see them upon brave horses, prancing in their accustomed
places, in tilting, running of races, and such like, the like whereof
was never seen in many score of years before.’
‘Our mischiefs,’ says the _Mercurius Caledonius_, ‘began with tumults
and sedition, and we are restored to our former felicity with miracles.
The sea-coasts of Fife, Angus, Mearns, and Buchan, which was famous
for the fertility of fishing, were barren since his majesty went from
Scotland to Worcester; insomuch that the poor men who subsisted by the
trade, were reduced to go a-begging in the in-country. But now, blessed
be God, since his majesty’s return, the seas are so plentiful, that in
some places they are in a condition to dung the land with soles. An
argument sufficient to stop the black mouths of those wretches that
would have persuaded the people that curses were entailed on the royal
family. As our old laws are renewed, so is likewise our good, honest,
ancient customs; for nobility in streets are known by brave retinues of
their relations, when, during the captivity, a lord was scarcely to be
distinguished from a commoner. The old hospitality returns; for that
_laudable custom of suppers_, which was covenanted out with raisins and
roasted cheese, is again in fashion; and where before a peevish nurse
would have been seen tripping up stairs and down stairs with a posset
or berry for the laird or the lady, you shall now see sturdy jackmen,
groaning with the weight of sirloins of beef, and chargers loaden with
wild fowl and capons.’
[Sidenote: 1661.]
_Mercurius_ is careful to state that, on the 1st of January 1661, the
swans which used to dwell on Linlithgow Loch, and which had deserted
their haunt at the time of the king’s departure from Scotland, did
now grace his return by reappearing in a large flock upon the lake.
There was also a small fish called the _Cherry of the Tay_, a kind of
whiting, which returned from a voluntary exile along with the king.
John Ray was at Linlithgow in August 1661, and heard from Mr Stuart,
one of the bailies, about the return of the swans. Mr Stuart
alleged that two had been brought to the lake for trial during the
Commonwealth, but would not stay. ‘At the time of the king’s coming
to London, two swans, _nescio unde sponte et instinctu proprio_, came
hither, and there still continue.’[192]
The superstitious Wodrow notes the fact of the swans in his _History_,
and adds: ‘Upon the citadel of Perth, where the arms of the
Commonwealth had been put up, in May last year a thistle grew out of
the wall near the place, and quite overspread them. Both these may be,
without anything extraordinary, accounted for; but they were matter of
remark and talk, it may be more than they deserve.’
[Sidenote: 1661.]
The jollity so highly appreciated by _Mercurius Caledonius_ is
generally described in the writings of the Presbyterian clergy as
beastly excess. ‘Nothing to be seen but debauch and revelling,’ says
Kirkton; ‘nothing heard but clamorous crimes, all flesh corrupted their
way.’ The Commissioner Middleton, keeping high festival daily during
the sitting of parliament, sometimes was so manifestly drunk when he
took his place on the throne, that it was necessary to adjourn the
sitting. In his progress through the west country in autumn 1662, ‘such
who entertained him best had their dining-rooms, their drinking-rooms,
their vomiting-rooms, and sleeping-rooms when the company had lost
their senses.’ It was averred that, while he and his court were at
Ayr, ‘the devil’s health was drunk at the Cross there, in one of their
debauches, about the middle of the night.’--_Wod._ ‘The commissioner
had £60 English a day allowed him, which he spent faithfully amongst
his northern pantalons; and so great was the luxury, and so small the
care of his family, that when he filled his wine-cellars, his steward
thought nothing to cast out full pipes to make way for others. They
made the church their stews; you might have found chambers filled with
naked men and women; cursing, swearing, and blasphemy were as common
as prayer and worship was rare.’--_Kir._ It was thought a suspicious
circumstance regarding a man that he exhibited any gravity; it smelled
of rebellion. If he wished to pass for a loyal man, to advance his
prospects, or even to escape being thought a dangerous person, it was
necessary he should put on the air of a swaggerer and a drunkard.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JAN. 7.]
By order of the king, the magistracy of Edinburgh raised the trunk
of the Marquis of Montrose from under the gallows on the Burgh-moor,
in presence of a great number of nobles, gentlemen, and others, who
expressed the most lively interest in the scene.[195] This relic being
wrapped in ‘curious cloths’ and put into a coffin, was carried along
under a velvet canopy, to the Tolbooth, the nobles and gentry attending
on horseback, while many thousands followed on foot, colours at the
same time flying, drums beating, trumpets sounding, muskets cracking,
and cannon roaring from the Castle. At the Tolbooth, the head of
the Great Marquis, which had grinned there for ten years, was taken
reverentially down, ‘some bowing, some kneeling, some kissing it,’ and
deposited in its proper place in the coffin, ‘with great acclamations
of joy,’ the trumpets, drums, and cannon giving all possible éclat
to the act. The coffin was then carried in solemn procession to the
Palace, to rest till a proper funeral-ceremony should be ordered. While
the ‘excommunicat traitor’ of 1650 was thus treated, the triumphant and
all-powerful noble of that time, the Marquis of Argyle, was a prisoner
in the Castle, waiting a doom which was precisely to resemble that of
Montrose, excepting in some particulars of inhumanity, which vengeful
loyalty could not descend to.
[Sidenote: 1661.]
The Presbyterian historians, however, have taken care to chronicle that
the Laird of Gorthie, who took the head off the spike, died within a
few hours, and the Laird of Pitcur, one of Montrose’s great adherents,
went to bed in health, and was found dead next morning. This was a
mysterious circumstance, which would probably be cleared up if we had
a return of the quantity of brandy which Gorthie and Pitcur had drunk
on the occasion. ‘Such was the testimony of honour Heaven was pleased,’
says worthy Mr Kirkton, ‘to allow Montrose’s pompous funerals.’
The four members of Montrose were also recovered from the four towns,
Glasgow, Stirling, Perth, and Aberdeen, to which they had been
severally sent for ignominious exhibition; and these being now placed
in the coffin, the body was complete as far as circumstances permitted,
excepting that the heart remained in the silver case where Lady Napier
had enshrined it, and in which it continued to be preserved, under the
care of the Napier family, till the period of the French Revolution.
[Sidenote: 1661.]
Four months afterwards (May 11), the ceremonial funeral of Montrose
was performed with an amount of joyful display that rendered it a
most singular affair. Twenty-three companies of a burgess-guard lined
the streets, that the procession might pass without interruption.
First went the new Life Guard; next twenty-six boys in mourning,
carrying the arms of Montrose and the great men of his house; then the
provost, bailies, and council of Edinburgh, all in mourning habits;
after whom, again, came the barons of parliament and the members
representing burghs. A gentleman clad in bright armour was followed by
eighteen others, carrying banners of honour, and the spurs, gloves,
breast-piece, and back-piece of the deceased, on the ends of staves.
Next came a led horse in the accoutrements used by the marquis at the
riding of parliaments, and attended by his lackey in armour. The flower
of the Scottish nobility followed in good order; then the Lord Lyon,
and his officers. Followed the friends of the deceased, bearing the
marquis’s cap of state, coronet, &c. Then the COFFIN, under its rich
pall, carried by honourable lords and gentlemen, with six trumpets
sounding before it. Some ladies clad in mourning followed. The Lord
Commissioner (Middleton), in his coach of state, closed the long and
splendid column, which, however, was closely followed by an honourable
procession doing like honours to the corpse of Hay of Dalgetty, another
royalist victim of the Civil War. The bells rang all the time while the
corpse of Montrose went on to its final honourable resting-place in St
Giles’s Cathedral. It was remarked that this was a funeral where the
relatives of the deceased wore countenances of joy, while there were
others, not related to him, who beheld it with sadness and gloom, or
shrunk aside into holes and corners, not daring to look upon it.
The strong feeling which existed in loyal breasts at the Restoration
regarding the treatment which Montrose had experienced, is shewn by
the long imprisonment and sufferings of Neil M‘Leod of Assynt, who
had taken the marquis prisoner after his defeat in Strathoikel, and
delivered him up (for a mean reward, it is said, of certain bolls of
meal). On the 10th of December 1664, the Council received a petition
from M‘Leod, shewing that he had now been confined in the Tolbooth and
city of Edinburgh for _four years_, so that, by the neglect of his
affairs, he was ‘brought near the point of ruin.’ ‘Being,’ he said, ‘a
stranger and far from his country and friends, and out of all credit
and respect by reason of his long imprisonment,’ he could have ‘no one
to engage for him as caution;’ but he offered to come under any kind of
bond for his reappearance, if allowed a temporary liberty. The Earl of
Kincardine offering to be security that M‘Leod would send a guarantee
to the amount of twenty thousand pounds Scots, he was favoured by
the Council with liberty to go home for the next four months. It was
not till February 1666 that a special letter from the king at length
freed M‘Leod from trouble on account of his concern in the doom of
Montrose.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JAN. 8.]
[Sidenote: 1661.]
This day appeared the first number of the first original newspaper
attempted in Scotland. It was a small weekly sheet, entitled _Mercurius
Caledonius; comprising the Affairs now in Agitation in Scotland, with
a Survey of Foreign Intelligence_. The editor was Thomas Sydserf, or
Saint Serf, son of a former bishop of Galloway, who was soon after
promoted to the see of Orkney. Principal Baillie alludes to this
‘diurnaler’ in bitter terms--‘a very rascal, a profane atheistical
papist, as some count him;’ the truth being that he was an Episcopalian
loyalist of merely a somewhat extravagant type. Little is known of his
previous history, beyond his having borne arms under Montrose, and
published in London in 1658 a translation from the French under the
title of _Entertainments of the Cours, or Academicall Conversations_,
dedicated to the young Marquis of Montrose. Of the _Mercurius
Caledonius_, only nine numbers were published, the last being dated
March 28, 1661. It must be admitted that the style of composition and
editorship was frivolous and foolish to a degree surprising even for
that delirious period.
At various times throughout the Civil War, when transactions of moment
were going on in Scotland--as, for instance, in the autumn of 1643,
when the Solemn League and Covenant was in preparation--news-sheets
referring to our country had been published in London. There does not
appear, however, to have been any regular or avowed attempt to give
Scottish news in connection with English and Irish, until June 1650,
when the march of Cromwell with an army to put down the Scots and their
puppet king excited of course an unusual interest regarding Scotland.
Then was commenced by ‘Thomas Newcomb, near Baynard’s Castle, Thames
Street,’ a weekly _diurnal_, under the title of _Mercurius Politicus;
comprising the Sum of all the Intelligence, with the Affairs and
Designs now on foot in the three Nations of England, Ireland, and
Scotland. In Defence of the Commonwealth and for Information of the
People_. A weekly number of this work, consisting of two sheets of
dwarf quarto, being sixteen pages, presented letters of news from the
principal cities of Europe; and during the years 1650, 1, 2, 3, and 4,
the intelligence from Scotland, chiefly of military operations there,
was a conspicuous department.[196]
[Sidenote: 1661.]
According to Mr George Chalmers,[197] Cromwell conveyed to Leith in
1652 one Christopher Higgins, who, in November of that year, began
to reprint, for the information of the English garrison, a London
newspaper, entitled _A Diurnal of some Passages and Affairs_. This is
said to have not survived many months. It was followed up by a reprint
of the afore-mentioned _Mercurius Politicus_, which Higgins commenced
at Leith in October 1653, but soon after transferred to Edinburgh,
where it was carried on till the eve of the Restoration--the imprint
being, ‘Edinburgh: Reprinted by Christopher Higgins, in Hart’s Close,
over against the Tron Church.’ This paper was afterwards resumed under
a slight change of title, and continued till not earlier than June
1662. Partly contemporary with it was a paper entitled the _Kingdom’s
Intelligencer_, begun at Edinburgh on the same day with the _Mercurius
Caledonius_, and carried on till at least December 24, 1663. The number
for the latter date contained among other articles, ‘A Remarkable
Advertisement to the Country and Strangers,’ to the following effect:
‘That there is a glass-house erected in the citadel of Leith, where
all sorts and quantities of glasses are made and sould at the prices
following: To wit, the wine-glass at three shillings two boddels; the
beer-glass, at two shillings sixpence; the quart bottel, at eighteen
shillings; the pynt bottel, at nine shillings; the chopin bottel, at
four shillings sixpence; the muskin bottel, at two shillings sixpence,
all Scots money, and so forth of all sorts; better stuff and stronger
than is imported.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAR.]
Horse-races were now performed every Saturday on the sands of Leith.
They are regularly chronicled amongst the foolish lucubrations of
_Mercurius Caledonius_; as, for example, thus: ‘Our accustomed
recreations on the sands of Leith was much hindered because of a
furious storm of wind, accompanied with a thick snow; yet we have had
some noble gamesters that were so constant at their sport as would
not forbear a designed horse-match. It was a providence the wind was
from the sea; otherwise they had run a hazard either of drowning or
splitting upon Inchkeith! This tempest was nothing inferior to that
which was lately in Caithness, where a bark of fifty ton was blown five
furlongs into the land, and would have gone further, if it had not been
arrested by the steepness of a large promontory.’
In the ensuing month, there were races at Cupar in Fife, where the
Lairds of Philiphaugh and Stobbs, and Powrie-Fotheringham appear to
have been the principal gentlemen who brought horses to the ground. A
large silver cup, of the value of £18, formed the chief prize. These
Cupar races were repeated annually. It is said they had been first
instituted in 1621.--_Lam._
As a variety upon horse-racing, _Mercurius Caledonius_ announced
a foot-race to be run by twelve brewster wives, all of them in a
condition which makes violent exertion unsuitable to the female frame,
‘from the Thicket Burn [probably Figgat Burn] to the top of Arthur’s
Seat, for a groaning cheese of one hundred pound weight, and a budgell
of Dunkeld aquavitæ and rumpkin of Brunswick Mum for the second,
set down by the Dutch Midwife. The next day, sixteen fish-wives to
trot from Musselburgh to the Canon-cross for twelve pair of lamb’s
harrigals.’
[Sidenote: 1661.]
_Mercurius_ seems to have been thrown into great delight by the revival
of a barbarous Shrovetide custom, which, strange to say, continued
to exist in connection with seminaries of education down to a period
within the recollection of living persons. ‘Our carnival sports,’ says
he, ‘are in some measure revived, for, according to the ancient custom,
the work was carried on by cock-fighting in the schools, and in the
streets among the vulgar sort, tilting at cocks with fagot-sticks. In
the evening, the learned Virtuosi of the Pallat recreate themselves
with lusty caudles, powerful cock-broth, and natural crammed pullets, a
divertisement not much inferior to our neighbour nation’s fritters and
pancakes.’
One may in some faint degree imagine the sorrowful indignation with
which the survivors of those who put down Christmas and Easter in 1642
would view these coarse celebrations of Shrovetide.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR. 2.]
A royal life-guard, consisting of sixscore persons, noblemen and
gentlemen’s sons, was this day embodied on the Links of Leith, under
the command of the Earl of Newburgh. They then rode through the city,
‘in gallant order, with their carabines upon their saddles, and their
swords drawn in their hands.’--_Nic._
In July 1662, ‘it pleased his majesty to cause clothe their trumpeters
and master of the kettle-drum in very rich apparel,’ also to give rich
coverings of cramosie velvet for the kettle-drums. At the same time,
a pair of costly colours was presented. Soon after, it is intimated
that the king gave them each a buff-coat, and made an augmentation of
their daily pay. Their chief occupation at this time seems to have been
attendance on the royal commissioner, as he passed daily to and from
the Parliament House.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAY 27.]
‘At two afternoon, the Marquis of Argyle was brought forth of the
Tolbooth of Edinburgh, fra the whilk he was conveyed by the magistrates
to the place of execution; the town being all in arms, and the
life-guard mounted on horseback, with their carabines and drawn swords.
The marquis, having come to the scaffold, with sundry of his friends
in murning apparel, he made a large speech; after whilk and a short
prayer, he committed himself to the block. His head was stricken from
his body, and affixed upon the head of the Tolbooth, where the Marquis
of Montrose[‘s] was affixed of before. It was thought great favour that
he was not drawn and quartered.’--_Nic._
[Sidenote: 1661.]
All the men who came to the scaffold at this time, and also some of
those who obtained high and unexpected preferment, became the subjects
of popular rumours which mark the ideas of the age. Robert Baillie
tells us, as a piece of information he had from his son-in-law, Mr
Robert Watson, who was with the Marchioness of Argyle at Roseneath
on the night the king landed, that ‘all the dogs that day did take a
strange howling and staring up at my lady’s chamber-windows for some
hours together.’ The venerable principal adds: ‘Mr Alexander Colvill,
justice-depute, an old servant of the house, told me that my Lady
Kenmure, a gracious lady, my lord’s sister, from some little skill of
physiognomy which Mr Alexander had taught her, had told him some years
ago that her brother would die in blood.’
It has been stated by Wodrow, that after spending the forenoon of his
last day in settling ordinary accounts, a number of friends being in
the room with him, ‘there came such a heavenly gale from the spirit of
God upon his soul, that he could not abstain from tearing [shedding
tears]. Lest it should be discovered, he turned in to[wards] the fire,
and took up the tongs in his hand, making a fashion of stirring up
the fire in the chimney; but he was not able to contain himself, and,
turning about and melting down in tears, he burst out in these words:
“I see this will not do. I must now declare what the Lord has done
for my soul. He has just now sealed my charter in these words: ‘Son,
be of good cheer; thy sins are forgiven thee.’”’ It is certain that
the marquis stated in his speech on the scaffold that he had that day
received such an assurance.
Mr A. Simson, who had been four years in the Marquis of Argyle’s
family, lived to tell Wodrow that, on the night before his lordship’s
execution--being a Sunday--he was at Inshinnan, where the communion
had been administered, and where next day there were to be prayers in
behalf of the suffering nobleman. He spent the hours from four to ten
in religious exercises alone, and during this time, ‘with a power he
scarce ever felt the like, eight or ten times that petition was borne
in upon him: “Lord, say to him, My son, be of good cheer; thy sins are
forgiven thee!” He did not much notice it till afterwards he saw his
[lordship’s] speech, and saw the account that others had been put to
wrestle for the same.’[198]
[Sidenote: 1661.]
Mr James Guthrie, who suffered a few days after Argyle, had also had
warnings, according to the historians of his party. When first induced
in Mr Samuel Rutherford’s chamber at St Andrews to take the Covenant,
‘as he came out at the door, he met the executioner in the way, which
troubled him; and the next visit he made thither, he met him in the
same manner again, which made him apprehend he might be a sufferer
for the Covenant, as indeed he was. He also had a warning of his
approaching sufferings three years before the king’s return, and upon
these he frequently reflected.’--_Kir._ The latter warning was probably
a violent bleeding of the nose, which came upon him in the pulpit,
while discoursing on the famous believers (Heb. xi.) who sealed their
testimony with their blood.[199]
Guthrie seems to have been the very type of the extreme kind of the
Presbyterians, perfectly inflexible in what he thought the right
course, and wholly devoted to the doctrines of his church. When the
generality of his brethren were tacitly allowing men who were only
loyalists to come to the standard in 1651, and union was of the last
degree of consequence, Guthrie, being the minister of Stirling, the
very head-quarters of the army, denounced these backslidings, and
really must have produced great inconvenience to the king. It is told
of the inveterate protester, that Charles thought proper to visit
him one day, hoping perhaps to soften him a little; when Mrs Guthrie
bustling about to get a chair placed for his majesty, the stern divine
calmly said to her: ‘My heart, the king is a young man; he can get a
chair for himself.’
It is also related that, at the same crisis, when a resolution was
adopted to excommunicate General Middleton, and Guthrie was to
perform the duty, the king sent a gentleman on the Sunday morning, to
entreat at least a brief delay, when Guthrie quietly told him to come
to church, and he would get his answer. The unyielding divine duly
proceeded to pronounce the excommunication.
[Sidenote: 1661.]
It was generally believed that the doom of Guthrie was in some
degree owing to the vindictive feeling which this act had engendered
in Middleton. Wodrow relates that, some time after the execution,
Guthrie’s head being placed on the Nether Bow Port in Edinburgh,
Middleton was passing underneath in his coach, when a considerable
number of drops of blood fell from the head upon the top of the coach,
making a stain which no art or diligence availed to wipe out. ‘I have
it very confidently affirmed, that physicians were called, and inquired
if any natural cause could be assigned for the blood’s dropping so
long after the head was put up, and especially for its not wearing out
of the leather; and they could give none. This odd incident beginning
to be talked of, and all other methods being tried, at length the
leather was removed, and a new cover put on.’
* * * * *
A caustic wit of our age has remarked, ‘Whatever satisfaction the
return of King Charles II. might afford to the younger females in his
dominions, it certainly brought nothing save torture to the unfortunate
old women, or witches of Scotland, against whom, immediately on the
Restoration, innumerable warrants were issued forth.’[200] It is quite
true that an extraordinary number of witch prosecutions followed the
Restoration; and the cause is plain. For some years before, the English
judicatories had discountenanced such proceedings. The consequence
was, there was a vast accumulation of old women liable to the charge
throughout all parts of the country. So soon as the native judicatories
were restored, the public voice called for these cases being taken
up; and taken up they were accordingly, the new authorities being
either inclined that way themselves, or unable to resist a demand so
intimately connected with the religious feelings of the people.
[Sidenote: JULY 25.]
[Sidenote: 1661.]
On the day noted, the Council issued a commission for the trial
of Isabel Johnston of Gullan, in the parish of Dirleton, who had
‘confessed herself guilty, in entering in paction with the devil,
renouncing her baptism, and otherwise, as her depositions under the
hands of several of the heritors and other honest men bears,’ and
likewise to proceed to the trial of others in that district who
might be delated of the same crime; for it was always seen that one
apprehended witch produced several others. They at the same time
commissioned three justice-deputes--the learned counsel Sir George
Mackenzie being one of the number--to try a number of male and female
wizards in the parishes of Musselburgh, Duddingston, Newton, Libberton,
and Dalkeith. In this case, the judges were to have an allowance for
their trouble ‘aff the first end of the fines and escheats of such
persons as shall happen to be convict.’ Throughout the remainder of the
year, and for some time after, the number of commissions issued for the
trial of witches was extremely great. On one day, January 23, 1662,
no fewer than thirteen were issued, being the sole public business of
the council for that day, besides the issue of a commission for the
trial of a thief in Sanquhar prison. Ray, the naturalist, who was in
Scotland in August 1661, tells us it was reported that a hundred and
twenty witches suffered about that time, and certainly much more than
that number of individuals are indicated in the commissions as to be
subjected to trial.
As a specimen of the facts elicited on the trials for the condemnation
of these poor people--Margaret Bryson, ‘having fallen out with her
husband for selling her cow, went in a passion to the door of the house
in the night-time, and there did imprecate that God or the devil might
take her from her husband; after which the devil immediately appeared
to her, and threatened to take her body and soul, if she entered not
into his service; whereupon, immediately she covenanted with him, and
entered into his service.’ Another example--Isabel Ramsay ‘conversed
with the devil, and received a sixpence from him; the devil saying
that God bade him give her that; and he asked how the minister did,’
&c. Marion Scott, a girl of eighteen, serving a family in Innerkip
parish, Renfrewshire, would go out in the morning with a hair-tether,
by pulling which, and calling out, ‘God send us milk and mickle of
it!’ she would supply herself with abundance of the produce of her
neighbours’ cows. She had a great deal of intercourse with the devil,
who passed under the name of _Serpent_, and by whose aid she used to
raise windy weather for the destruction of shipping. One day, being out
at sea near the island of Arran, she caused Colin Campbell’s sails to
be riven, but was herself overset with the storm, so as to be thrown
into a fever. After a night-meeting with Satan, he ‘convoyed her home
in the dawing, and when she was come near the house where she was a
servant, her master saw a waff of him as he went away from her,’ &c.
[Sidenote: 1661.]
The whole proceedings were usually of the most cruel description;
and often the worst sufferings of the accused took place before
trial, when dragged from their homes by an infuriated mob, tortured
to extort confession, and half starved in jail. A wretch called John
Kincaid acted as a _pricker_ of witches[201]--that is, he professed
to ascertain, by inserting of pins in their flesh, whether they were
truly witches or not, the affirmative being given when he pricked a
place insensible to pain. Often they were hung up by the two thumbs
till, nature being exhausted, they were fain to make acknowledgment of
the most impossible facts. The presumed offence being of a religious
character, the clergy naturally came to have much to say and do in
these proceedings. For example, as to Margaret Nisbet, imprisoned at
Spott, in Haddingtonshire, the person ordered by the Privy Council
to take trial of her case and report is Mr Andrew Wood, the minister
of the parish. There are many instances in the Privy Council Record
of witches being cleared on trial, but detained at the demand of
magistrates, or clergymen, in the hope that further and conclusive
evidence would yet be obtained against them. Such was the case of
Janet Cook of Dalkeith, who had predicted of a man who beat her, that
he would be hanged--which came to pass; who bewitched William Scott’s
horse and turned him furious; and occasionally healed sick people
by the application of some piece of an animal killed under certain
necromantic circumstances. Janet had been tried, and acquitted; yet she
was kept in durance at the urgency of the kirk-session, as they were
getting fresh grounds of accusation against her.
Occasionally relenting measures were taken by the Council, though it is
to be feared not always with the approval of the local powers. On the
30th of January 1662, they considered a petition from Marion Grinlaw
and Jean Howison, the _survivors_ of ten women and a man who had been
imprisoned at Musselburgh on this charge. Some of the rest had died of
cold and hunger. They themselves had lain in durance _forty weeks_, and
were now in a condition of extreme misery, _although nothing could be
brought against them_. Margaret Carvie and Barbara Honiman of Falkland
had in like manner been imprisoned at the instance of the magistrates
and parish minister, had lain six weeks in jail, subjected to ‘a great
deal of torture by one who takes upon him the trial of witches by
pricking,’ and so great were their sufferings that life was become a
burden to them, notwithstanding that they declared their innocence, and
nothing to the contrary had been shewn. The Council ordered all these
women to be liberated.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY.]
[Sidenote: 1661.]
‘By an act of the parliament, an order is issued out to slight and
demolish the citadels of the kingdom which were built by the English.
This of Inverness had not stood ten years. The first part they seized
upon was the sentinel-houses, neat turrets of hewn stone, curiously
wrought and set up on every corner of the rampart wall, these now
all broken down by the soldiers themselves. The next thing was the
Commonwealth’s arms pulled down and broken, and the king’s arms set up
in their place; the blue bridge slighted, the sally-port broken, the
magazine-house steeple broken, and the great bell taken down--all this
done with demonstrations of joy and gladness, the soldiers shouting
“God save the king,” as men weary of the yoke and slavery of usurpation
which lay so long about their necks. I was an eye-witness of the first
stone that was broken of this famous citadel, as I was also witness
of the foundation-stone laid, _anno_ 1652, in May. This Sconce and
Citadel is the king’s gift to the Earl of Moray, to dispose of at
his pleasure. A rare thing fell out here that was notarly known to a
thousand spectators, that the Commonwealth’s arms set up above the most
conspicuous gate of the citadel, a great _thistle_ growing out above it
covered the whole carved work and arms, so as not a bit of it could be
seen, to the admiration of all beholders! This was a presage that the
Scots therefore should eclipse [triumph.]‘--_Fraser of Wardlaw’s MS.
1666._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1661.]
The Privy Council Record, for a long time after July 1661, is half
filled with the cases of ministers who had been deposed during the
troubles, and who, having for years suffered under extreme poverty,
now petition for some compensation. Sometimes it was a minister who
gave offence by his dislike to the movement of 1638, sometimes one
who had incurred the wrath of the more zealous party by his adherence
to the Engagement of 1648 ‘for procuring the liberation of his late
majesty of blessed memory;’ sometimes the cause of deposition was of
later occurrence. For example: ‘Mr John M‘Kenzie, sometime minister
of the kirk of Urray [Ross-shire], because he would not subscrive
the Covenant and comply with the sinful courses of the time, [was]
banished and forced to fly to England _anno_ 1639, and thereafter was
sent to Ireland, and though provided there with a competency, was
by the rebellion forced to retire to Scotland. After his majesty’s
pacification closed at the Birks, and by the moyen of his friends,
[he] re-entered to the ministry; yet, still retaining his principle of
loyalty and integrity, he was therefore persecuted by the implacable
malice of the violent humours of those times, and again suspended and
thereafter deposed, only for refusing to preach men’s humours and
passions as a trumpet of sedition and rebellion.’ Mr Andrew Drummond
had been deposed from Muthill parish, ‘for no other cause but his
accession to ane supplication to the General Assembly, where he with
divers others, out of the sense of their duty, did declare their
affection to the Engagement, _anno_ 1648,’ and had suffered under this
sentence for five or six years. Mr Robert Tran, minister of Eglesham,
had been deposed in 1645 for no other cause than loyalty to his late
majesty. In some cases, the petitioner tells of the wife and six or
seven children whom his deposition had thrown destitute, and who had
gone through years of penury and hardship. The Council generally
ordered £100 sterling, or, in such a case as that of M‘Kenzie, £150,
out of the stipends of the vacant churches of their bounds.
[Sidenote: 1661.]
The popular writers of this period of Scottish history do not advert
sufficiently to those hard measures of the time of the Solemn League
which may be said, in the way of reaction or retaliation, to have led
to the severities now in the course of being practised upon the more
uncompromising Presbyterians. The many petitions of the persecuted men
of 1638-60 for redress are only slightly alluded to in a few sentences
by Wodrow, while he fills long chapters with those sufferings of
proscribed Remonstrators which would never probably have had existence
but for their own harsh doings in their days of power. He dwells with
much feeling on the banishment passed upon Mr John Livingstone, a
preacher high in the esteem of the more serious people, and deservedly
so. All must sympathise with such a case, and admire the heroic
constancy of the sufferer; but it is striking, only a few months
after his sentence to exile (February 2, 1664), to find a Mr Robert
Aird coming before the Privy Council with a piteous recital of the
distresses to which he and his family had been subjected since 1638, in
consequence of his being then thrust out of his charge at Stranraer,
merely for his affection to the then constituted Episcopal government,
the clergyman put into his place being this same John Livingstone! Aird
tells us that, being then ‘redacted to great straits, he was at last
necessitat to settle himself in Comray, in the diocese of the Isles,
where his provision [patrimony] was,’ that being ‘so little that he was
not able to maintain his family.’ During the usurpation, ‘by reason
of his affection to his majesty, he was quartered upon and otherwise
cruelly abused, to his almost utter ruin.’ The Lords recommended that
Mr Aird should have some allowance out of vacant stipends in the
diocese of the Isles. Another of the zealous clergy whose resistance
to the new rule and consequent troubles and denunciation are brought
conspicuously forward by Wodrow, was Mr James Hamilton, minister of
Blantyre. He was compelled to leave his parish, and not even allowed to
officiate peaceably in his own house at Glasgow. Much to be deplored
truly; but Wodrow does not tell us of a petition which was about the
same time addressed to the Council by the widow of Mr John Heriot,
the former minister of Blantyre, upon whom, in 1653, ‘the prevailing
party of Remonstrators in the presbytery of Hamilton had intruded one
Mr James Hamilton,’ by whom the whole stipend had been appropriated,
so that Heriot, after a few years of penury, had left his widow and
children in absolute destitution. So impressed were the Council by the
petitioner’s case, that they ordered her to receive the whole stipend
of the current year. To any candid person who would study the history
of this period, it appears necessary that these circumstances should
be told, not in justification of the cruel and most unwise measures
of the government and the heads of the new church, but as a needful
explanation of what it was in the minds of these parties which made
them act as they did.
While men tore each other to pieces on account of religion in Scotland,
and all material progress in the country was consequently at a stand,
one sagacious Scotch clergyman visited Holland, and found a very
different state of things there. ‘I saw much peace and quiet,’ he says,
‘in Holland, notwithstanding the diversity of opinions among them;
which was occasioned by the gentleness of the government, and the
toleration that made all people easy and happy. A universal industry
was spread through the whole country.’--_Burnet’s History of his Own
Times._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG. 17.]
[Sidenote: 1661.]
This day, John Ray, the eminent naturalist, entered Scotland for a
short excursion. In the _Itineraries_ which he has left, he gives,
besides zoological observations, some notes on general matters. ‘The
Scots, generally (that is, the poorer sort), wear, the men blue bonnets
on their heads, and some russet; the women only white linen, which
hangs down their backs as if a napkin were pinned about them. When
they go abroad, none of them wear hats, but a party-coloured blanket
which they call a plaid, over their heads and shoulders. The women,
generally, to us seemed none of the handsomest. They are not very
cleanly in their houses, and but sluttish in dressing their meat.
Their way of washing linen is to tuck up their coats, and tread them
with their feet in a tub. They have a custom to make up the fronts of
their houses, even in their principal towns, with fir-boards nailed
one over another, in which are often made many round holes or windows
to put out their heads [called _shots_ or _shot windows_]. In the best
Scottish houses, even the king’s palaces, the windows are not glazed
throughout, but the upper part only, the lower have two wooden shuts
or folds to open at pleasure and admit the fresh air. The Scots cannot
endure to hear their country or countrymen spoken against. They have
neither good bread, cheese, or drink. They cannot make them, nor will
they learn. Their butter is very indifferent, and one would wonder how
they could contrive to make it so bad. They use much pottage, made
of coal-wort, which they call keal, sometimes broth of decorticated
barley. The ordinary country houses are pitiful cots, built of stone,
and covered with turves, having in them but one room, many of them no
chimneys, the windows very small holes, and not glazed. In the most
stately and fashionable houses in great towns, instead of ceiling they
cover the chambers with fir-boards, nailed on the roof within side.
They have rarely any bellows or warming-pans. It is the manner in some
places there to lay on but one sheet as large as two, turned up from
the feet upwards. The ground in the valleys and plains bears good corn,
but especially beer-barley, or bigge, and oats, but rarely wheat and
rye. We observed little or no fallow-grounds in Scotland; some layed
ground we saw which they manured with sea-wreck (sea-weeds). The people
seem to be very lazy, at least the men, and may be frequently observed
to plough in their cloaks. It is the fashion of them to wear cloaks,
when they go abroad, especially on Sundays. They lay out most they are
worth in clothes, and a fellow that hath scarce ten groats besides to
help himself with, you shall see him come out of his smoky cottage clad
like a gentleman.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT. 3.]
[Sidenote: 1661.]
Mr James Chalmers, commissioner for the presbytery of Aberdeen, came
before the Privy Council with a representation that, in conformity with
sundry acts of parliament, the synod had lately made diligent search
within their bounds for papists and seminary priests. A list of the
individuals, which the reverend gentleman handed in, is remarkable as
containing many of the same names as those which we had under notice
upwards of thirty years before for the same scandal. An age of the
most rigorous treatment had failed to convince these people of their
errors. There were the Lady Marquise of Huntly and her children,
Viscount Frendraught with his brethren and children, the Laird of Gight
and his children, the Lairds of Craig, Balgownie, and Pitfoddels, with
many others whose names were not formerly noted, as the Lairds of Drum,
Auchindoir, Monaltrie, Tullos, and Murefield. Altogether, it is a sad
exhibition of pertinacity in unparliamentary opinions. Against these
and many others, including several priests, the synod had proceeded
with censure and excommunication; ‘notwithstanding whereof they
continue in their accustomed course of disobedience and will onnaways
conform to the laws of the church and kingdom, but on the contrair,
in a most insolent manner avow their heretical seditious principles
and practices, to the overthrow of religion, disturbance of church and
state, and the seducing of many poor souls.’ It was suggested that the
Council should issue letters of horning against the delinquents. The
lords promised to give the subject their consideration.
Very soon after this date, the Privy Council are found dealing with
the case of ‘John Inglis and William Brown, apprehended and imprisoned
in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh for being trafficking papists.’ Inglis
had also been guilty of distributing popish books. Brown readily gave
his promise, if liberated, ‘to take banishment upon him, and never to
be seen within the kingdom hereafter;’ but Inglis was more obstinate.
He ‘refused to give notice of such popish priests as of his knowledge
were come within this kingdom,’ and would not on any account relinquish
his own profession. He was told that he must leave the kingdom within
twenty days, and that if ever again found within its bounds, he would
be punished according to law--that is, hanged.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 5.]
On the 5th of December, the Privy Council granted a warrant to Robert
Mean, ‘keeper of the Letter-office in Edinburgh, to put to print and
publish ane diurnal weekly for preventing false news which may be
invented by evil and disaffected persons.’--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1662.