Although the preceding had been, according to Nicoll, ‘a dangerous,
cruel, and bloody year,’ and though at this time an order stood
forbidding commerce with the plague-stricken south, yet ‘upon the 1st
day of January 1666, there was _as much drinking and carousing as in
former times_.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR. 3.]
After the restoration of Episcopacy, the attendance at the churches in
Glasgow fell so much off, that the collection for the poor no longer
produced nearly what was necessary for their sustentation. At this
date, we find the archbishop writing to the Town Council, adverting to
the ‘several persons, men and women, who ordinarily dishaunts public
ordinances, and flatters themselves with hope of impunity.’ His grace
threatened to employ some of the officers of his majesty’s militia,
‘both to observe who withdraws from ordinances and to exact the
penalties imposed by law.’ The magistrates then resolved to take steps
for collecting the fines for non-attendance at church, as being better
‘than that any sodgers should have the collecting thereof.’--_M. of G._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR. 12.]
[Sidenote: 1666.]
At a horse-race at Cupar, ‘the Lord Lithgow and the Lord Carnegie,
after cups, there passed some words betwixt them, and about night they
drew off from the rest, on the hill towards Tarbet Broom, and drew
their swords one at another, till at last Carnegie gave Lithgow a sore
wound. While this was noised abroad, divers of the nobility and others
there present did ride to stop them; among whom was the Earl of Wemyss,
who, labouring to ride in betwixt the parties, had both his own horse
under him, and his man’s horse, thrust through by them, while they were
drawing one at another, so that both the horses died; also one of Lord
Melville’s horses was hurt, and the Lord Newark had one of his servants
ridden down also and hurt. At night they were both put under arrest
by his majesty’s commissioner [the Earl of Rothes] at Cupar, in their
several quarters.’--_Lam._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR.]
[Sidenote: 1666.]
For several years after the Restoration, various districts in the
Highlands continued to be haunted by groups of wild and lawless men who
made prey of their more industrious and peaceable neighbours. The only
resource of the government was to appoint some considerable man of the
disturbed district to raise a force among his tenants and dependents,
for the execution of the laws against the delinquents. Thus, we find a
small military party under the Marquis of Montrose appointed (April 5,
1666), under the name of a _Watch_, to keep the peace in the district
of Cowal, in Argyleshire. Another _watch_ of sixty men, under Mungo
Stirling of Glorat, was appointed for Stirlingshire and Dumbartonshire.
A third district, often and seriously disturbed by robberies, was
Strathspey and the alpine ground extending from it towards Perthshire
and Aberdeenshire--a country of Macphersons and M‘Intyres, now the
scene of an improved agriculture, and the nursery of vast herds of
sheep and cattle devoted to the sustenance of the industrial cities
of England. In those days, men who would now be successful farmers,
exemplifying the decent virtues of the Scottish middle class, were
little better than banditti. Their names and localities will verify
this fact to all who are acquainted with the Strathspey of our day.
Besides Patrick Roy Macgregor, who seems to have been the leader of
the set, there were ‘John M‘Inteir at Invereshie; M‘Phatrig M‘Inteir,
in Auchnahad; Thomas M‘Pherson, in Tullilundley; John Reoch, there;
Walter Mitchell, sometime in Tulliboe; Duncan M‘Connochy, sometime in
Doghillocks; John Urquhart, sometime in Caldwell; Ewen Cameron, in
Glensyth; John M‘Gremmon, in Rippach; John M‘Fillech, alias _Breck_,
in Delvorer; John M‘Gremmon, in Bellerathens in Strathaven; Alaster
M‘Phatrig, in Elsheirland; James Strauchen, in Cairlies; William
Storach, in the Mill of Auchinhandach; Thomas Forbes, sometime in
Muiresk; John M‘Andley, in Lesmurdie; Thomas Gordon, in Tilliesoul,
called the _Skinner_; John Oig Gordon, in Strathaven, called
_Moonlight_; Donald M‘Gillandries, who haunts in Spey; John Bane
M‘Alister Gourlay, in Auchnakint in Badenoch; M‘Phatrig M‘Inteir,
there; John Roy M‘Inteir, there; John M‘Inteir, called the _Ratton_,
in Glenlivet;’ and many other Gordons, Reochs, Forbeses, &c., together
with the wives of several of the same individuals, all of whom were
denounced at the horn for ‘not appearing to underly the law.’
The Council at length gave a commission of fire and sword to John Lyon
of Muiresk and Alexander his second son, against these outlaws, and
the two gentlemen were preparing means for its execution, when the
whole banditti beset them at the house of Balcheiries, belonging to
John Lyon. The outlaws set fire to the house in all quarters, and the
two gentlemen were obliged to surrender themselves to their mercy. The
assailants then unmercifully fell upon the unfortunate commissioner
and his son with dirks and guns, and soon made an end of them (April
30, 1666). To the number of forty persons, they then made an attack
upon the little burgh of Keith, which they plundered severely, after
fighting with all who opposed them. A second commission to the Earl of
Moray (May 9) had the effect of bringing Patrick Roy Macgregor and some
others of the band into the hands of the authorities at Edinburgh, and
these men were tried in the ensuing March for sorning, fire-raising,
theft, and murder. Macgregor and one Patrick Drummond were sentenced
to be hanged, their right hands being previously cut off. Pitmedden
describes Macgregor as a short, strong-made man, of fierce countenance,
and a quick, hawk-like eye. He bore the torture of the boots with
the firmness of an Indian savage, and was perfectly undaunted at his
execution, notwithstanding that the hangman bungled the cutting off of
his hand, for which he was next day turned out of office.--_B. A._
Two other men of this band were in like manner brought to justice in
May 1668. On the 13th of July, there was an order in Council for a
reward of £150 to John Ogilvie of Milltower and two others for their
service in taking Patrick Roy Macgregor, on which occasion, it is
stated, two of them had been wounded, and one of their attendants
killed.
[Sidenote: 1666.]
An unflattering light is thrown upon the internal condition of
the Highlands at this time, by a petition from George Leslie,
sheriff-clerk of Inverness-shire, to the Privy Council (April 8, 1669),
shewing that it was not suitable for sheriff-clerks, ‘being but mean
persons and not of capacity nor trust,’ to be employed in gathering
his majesty’s taxation; and further stating, that it was particularly
unsuitable for him to have such an employment, ‘who is clerk of the
dismembered shire of Inverness, there being little or nothing left of
that sheriffdom, but the Hielands and Isles, as Lochaber, Badenoch,
Knoydart, Moidart, Glengarie, and other Hieland parts, _whose
inhabitants are not legally disposed, nor willing to pay his majesty’s
dues, being infested with poverty and idleness_--a task upon which
account the petitioner is not able to undergo, seeing disobedience has
been given by them to parties of his majesty’s forces of a considerable
strength.’[212]
In harmony with this picture is an order from the Privy Council, August
25, 1670, proceeding on the information that ‘divers of the inhabitants
of the Highlands are in the use, when they travel through the country,
to be attended by a multitude of _louss and idle persons_, not being
their domestic servants,’ whereby ‘occasion is given for stealing
and sorning.’ All persons were strictly forbidden to travel or hold
meetings in the Highlands in that manner.
[Sidenote: 1666.]
Old grudges amongst neighbouring clans still occasionally worked
themselves out in regular military invasions accompanied by extensive
depredations. There was an old feud between the Clan Cameron in
Lochaber, and Struan Robertson in the upper part of Perthshire; and on
the 14th of August 1666, the renowned chief, Ewen or Evan Cameron, came
with above eighty followers, including several good duniwassals,[213]
to Struan’s lands of Kinloch--quartered there for a night upon the
tenants, beat and threatened them, broke into and searched houses, all
for the purpose of laying hold of their enemy, who, however, was out
of the way. Disappointed of their primary object, the Camerons took
twenty-six head of cattle, and made off with them to their own country.
The misdeed being fully proven in November against Ewen Cameron
Locheil, Sorlie Cameron, John Oig Cameron, and John and Duncan M‘Ewen
Camerons, the lords of the Privy Council ordained the first (who did
not appear) to pay Struan a fine of a thousand merks, and the others,
who had been confined for some time in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, to
restore to Struan the twenty-six stolen cattle.
As might be expected, the record of the Privy Council about this time
contains many complaints from messengers-at-arms, regarding the violent
resistance they had encountered in the Highlands when attempting to
apprehend debtors or delinquents, or even to deliver letters in form of
law.
The Earl of Airth had procured letters of caption against John Graham
of Duchrae, and Thomas Graham, his son, and studied to obtain an
opportunity of putting them in execution. Learning that Thomas Graham
was to have a child baptised at the kirk of Aberfoyle, and judging
that the whole family might probably be found together on such an
occasion, he proceeded thither (February 13, 1671) with Alexander
Mushet, messenger, and a strong party of his friends and dependents,
all well armed. Duchrae, though he considered himself in possession of
a sufficient protection from the king, deemed it necessary that his
christening-party should also be well armed. Where debt and Highland
blood were concerned, there could scarcely but be bloodshed in such
circumstances.
At the Bridge of Aberfoyle, the Duchrae party--including, by the way,
the minister and elders of the parish--met Alexander Mushet, who had
come forward with a few attendants, to execute the writ, while the
Earl of Airth remained with some others of his party at a little
distance. When Mushet told Duchrae to consider himself as his prisoner,
the latter took out a protection, which he held forth with words of
scornful defiance, calling out: ‘What dar ye do? This is all your
masters!’ the truth being that the paper was not a protection from
civil debt, but merely bore reference to another question regarding the
removal from certain lands. Meanwhile, the baby was set down upon the
ground, and the Duchrae party prepared their swords, guns, and pistols
for a conflict, avowing to Mushet and his friends that they would kill
the one half of them, and drown the other. They did accordingly press
first upon Mushet, and then upon the earl and his friends, who quickly
gave way, but rallied and stood upon their defence. It was alleged that
the earl was narrowly missed by several bullets, and it was certain
that some of his servants were wounded, one Robert M‘Farlane losing two
of his fingers. With great difficulty, they were allowed to get off
with their lives.
[Sidenote: 1666.]
Duchrae, notwithstanding an attempt at counter-action, was condemned to
go into Edinburgh Tolbooth, and give ample caution that he would keep
the peace towards the Earl of Airth and his tenants.
In the same year, John Campbell, a messenger, having to execute letters
of caption and inhibition against certain gentlemen in Caithness,
proceeded to that remote province with a couple of concurrents, and was
seized upon by a Captain George Sinclair, and shipped off with his two
associates for France. By mere chance of winds and waves, the ship,
after being a considerable time at sea, came back to Thurso, when the
three unfortunate officers of the law were put up in prison, where
‘they are keepit under a guard, as they were malefactors.’ The Council
ordered them to be liberated, because they had given security to answer
any charge that Captain George Sinclair might bring against them!
One evening in the spring of 1671, a number of gentlemen, including
the Lairds of Lochnell and Lochbuie, and James Menzies of Culdares,
were assembled in the house of John Rowat in Inverary, conversing
about certain private concerns, when, some differences arising, and
_the candle_ having gone out, some one fired a shot whereby the Laird
of Lochnell was killed. This could not but be a fact of considerable
importance at Inverary, as Lochnell was the nearest relative of the
Earl of Argyle after his brother, Lord Niel. It was soon ascertained
by the confession of one Duncan Macgregor, who was present on the
occasion, that he had fired the fatal shot; yet the earl thought proper
to detain Culdares in durance, notwithstanding his protestations of
innocence, and his being in reality grieved as a friend for the death
of the murdered gentleman.
The case is perhaps chiefly worthy of notice on account of the traits
of clan-feeling which it brought out. Culdares represented his case
to the Privy Council as one of the greatest hardship. Here he was, a
prisoner in a strange country, inaccessible to his friends, remote
from the advice of lawyers, about to be subjected to a tribunal, the
head of which was a near relative of the deceased, and where no assize
of barons, his own compeers, could be had. The defunct, moreover, was
‘so related to all the gentlemen of that country,’ and ‘so generally
beloved,’ that an impartial verdict was evidently not to be hoped for.
In short, he ‘finds it very unsafe for him to pass to the knowledge of
ane assize in these places.’ He was, however, ‘most willing to abide a
severe and legal trial at Edinburgh, where he may have the opportunity
of lawyers and ane fair and impartial proceeding.’
[Sidenote: 1666.]
The Council ordered the earl before them, to shew cause why Culdares
should not be sent to Edinburgh for trial; but we do not hear of any
subsequent procedure.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 5.]
In obedience to a letter of the king, the Privy Council decreed that,
‘in order to the conversion of the Marquis of Huntly and the better
ordering of his affairs’ [the marquis was now about sixteen years of
age], his mother should be removed from him and retire with her family
to some of his lordship’s houses in the north. This she was ordered
to do before the 1st of August. It appears that the lady had been
dealt with privately on this matter; but being unwilling, as was very
natural, to part with her son, the king had been obliged to send his
special command to the Council to have the separation effected.
It may be remarked as a strange conjunction of circumstances, that
Charles II., in whose name ran the letter expressing such anxiety for
the Protestant upbringing of the young Gordon, was, in his private
sentiments, a Catholic, while Lauderdale, by whom the letter was
officially signed, was indifferent to all religion. The effort now made
was not successful. The young marquis,--who was raised to be a Duke by
James II., and distinguished himself by his fidelity to that monarch
at the Revolution, when he held out Edinburgh Castle against the new
government--continued a firm papist to the day of his death in 1716.
[Sidenote: 1666.]
Another remarkable case of the same kind of interference with family
arrangements on account of religion, occurs in the Council record
of the same day. Walter Scott of Raeburn, brother of William Scott
of Harden, had been converted to Quakerism, and on that account
was incarcerated in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh. There it was soon
discovered by his relations that he was exposed to the conversation
of other Quakers, prisoners like himself, ‘whereby he is hardened in
his pernicious opinions and principles, without all hope of recovery,
unless he be separat from such pernicious company.’ There was, however,
a more serious evil than even this, in the risk which his children ran
of being perverted to Quakerism, if allowed to keep company with their
father. On a petition, therefore, the Council gave the brother Harden
warrant (June 22, 1665) to take away Raeburn’s children, two boys and
a girl, from their father, that they might be educated in the true
religion. He, ‘after some pains taken with them in his own family, sent
them to the city of Glasgow, to be bred at the schools there.’ On a
second petition from Harden, the Council ordered an annuity of £1000
Scots to be paid to him, out of Raeburn’s estate, for the maintenance
of the children; and they also ordered the father himself to be removed
to Jedburgh Tolbooth, ‘where his friends and others may have occasion
to convert him.’ ‘To the effect he may be secured from the practice of
other Quakers,’ the Lords ‘discharged the magistrates of Jedburgh to
suffer any persons suspect of these principles to have access to him.’
The younger son of the Quaker Raeburn was Walter Scott, commonly
called _Beardie_, great-grandfather of an illustrious modern novelist.
Beardie, so styled from his wearing a long beard, escaped Quakerism,
but fell into Jacobitism at a time when that was not less dangerous
than Quakerism had once been. The circumstances here narrated form
part of what is alluded to by Sir Walter Scott, when he makes Jedediah
Cleishbotham confess himself as bound to a kind of impartiality between
the Prelatic and Presbyterian factions of the seventeenth century, by
reason that ‘my ancestor was one of the people called Quakers, and
suffered a severe handling from either side, even to the extenuation of
his purse and the incarceration of his person.’[214]
Raeburn continued to be a prisoner in Jedburgh jail in June 1669, when
the Privy Council gave a fresh order that ‘none of his persuasion
should have access to him, except his own wife.’ It was at that time
found that ‘John Swinton, Walter Scott of Raeburn, Mr George Keith, and
Mr Robert Burnett, Tutor of Leys, are not only Quakers themselves, but
also studies by all means to pervert and seduce others from their duty
and obedience and to engage them in the same error with themselves,’
for which purpose they, ‘in contempt of the laws, keep frequent
meetings with other Quakers.’ Swinton was ordered to enter himself
as a prisoner in Stirling Castle, where none but his son should have
access to him. On the 29th of July, the Council gave warrant for the
imprisonment of Mr George Keith, Quaker, in the Edinburgh Tolbooth, and
that no one suspected to be of his persuasion should have access to him.
[Sidenote: 1666.]
At length, on the 1st of January 1670, after suffering imprisonment for
four and a half years, Raeburn was ordained to be set at liberty from
jail, but still to remain within the bounds of his own lands, and to
see no other Quaker under a penalty of a hundred pounds, his children
meanwhile remaining as they were. Mr George Keith was set at liberty on
the 6th of March, but only to go into voluntary exile.
Under apprehension that the Tutor of Leys would seek to affect the mind
of his nephew Sir Thomas Burnett, who was now a minor, the mother of
the child caused him to be carried away from all his father’s friends,
‘which,’ says the Tutor, ‘will inevitably ruin him in his education
in literature and all other virtuous breeding.’ The Tutor brought the
matter before the Privy Council, representing that, in order to clear
himself of all suspicion of a desire to influence the child’s mind,
he was arranging ‘to have sent him to Glasgow, to Mr Gilbert Burnett,
professor of divinity there, who is ane brother son of the family,
there to have been educat at schools and universities under the said Mr
Gilbert his inspection and care,’ when the mother took the matter thus
violently into her hands. The two parties being summoned before the
Council, and having made their respective statements, it was ordered
that the child should be restored to the Tutor, all Quaker as he was,
that he might be sent to school.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP.]
Another excellent harvest was secured in Scotland, and very
early.--_Nic._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP.]
About this time the commencement of a standing army was made in
Scotland, in the raising of two regiments of foot and five troops of
horse, under the command of General Sir Thomas Dalyell.--_Lam._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV.]
In this month, while the poor west-country Presbyterians were engaged
in their hopeless expedition, ‘there was sundry fresh, caller, ungutted
herring taken upon the north side of the water of Forth ... like
Dunbar herring, but smaller ... a thing rare and wondrous to the haill
people.’--_Nic._ He notes that, all this winter, all kinds of fish,
including herring, abounded, ‘whilk was very ominous.’
[Sidenote: 1666.]
The defeat of the insurgents at Rullion Green (November 27), and the
subsequent execution of upwards of fifty persons, made it a dreary yet
exciting time. ‘I have,’ says Wodrow, the Presbyterian historian, ‘met
with several prodigies seen in the air about this time; and persons who
lived then, of good information, have left behind them a very strange
passage, that several people about Pittenweem made public faith upon,
that the night after the battle, and after some of these [subsequent]
executions, they heard the voice of a multitude about Gilston Mount
praising and singing psalms with the sweetest melody imaginable.’
‘In the year 1668 or 1669--in these places where the gospel was
most frequently preached afterwards [fields and desert places], how
surprising and astonishing was the sight, both by night and day, of
brae-sides covered with the appearance of men and women with tents,
and voices heard in them! Particularly the first night that Mr John
Dickson preached in the fields in the night-time, east from Glasgow
upon Clyde-side ... several people together, before they came to the
appointed place, saw upon their way a brae-side covered with the
appearance of people, with a tent, and a voice crying aloud: “This is
the everlasting gospel; if ye follow on, to know, believe, and embrace
this gospel, it shall never be taken from you.” When they came to join
them, all disappeared. Other companies of people, in another way going
there, heard a charming sweet sound of singing the 93d psalm, which
obliged them to stand still till it was ended. Other people, who stayed
at home, in several places, some heard the singing of the 44th psalm,
others the 46th psalm. When the people who were there came home, they
who stayed at home said: “Where have you been so long? for the preaching
was near by, for we heard the psalms sweetly sung, and can tell you
a note of the sermon”--which was the foresaid note. Worthy Mr John
Blackadder, who ... used to call these years the _Blink_, was at all
pains to examine the most solid Christians in that bounds, upon their
hearing and seeing these things; who all attested the truth of the
same.
‘Before the gospel came to that known place Craigmad [Stirlingshire]
... one day Alexander Stirling, who lived in the Redden, near that
place, a solid, serious, zealous Christian, who told this several
times to some yet alive, worthy of all credit, who told me of it. That
he, with some others, one day was in that desert place, and saw that
brae-side, close covered with the appearance of men and women, singing
the 121st psalm, with a milk-white horse, and a blood-red saddle on his
back, standing beside the people; which made that serious, discerning,
observing Christian conclude that the gospel would be sent to that
place, and that the white horse was the Gospel, and the red saddle
Persecution.
[Sidenote: 1666.]
‘That known place Darmead, where the gospel was more frequent
afterward than any place I know betwixt Clydesdale and Lothian ...
the like was seen there, singing the 59th psalm. And whoever will
consider the foresaid psalms will see how suitable they are to these
dispensations, and were oft sung by the Lord’s suffering people in that
time....’--_Pat. Walker._
Although these incidents are stated by Walker to have happened at
places _subsequently_ remarkable for preachings, it is evident that the
people who saw and heard them were pious persons, deeply interested
in the religious affairs of the time, and in an excitable state
on that subject. Modern science is at no loss to account for such
experiences under certain predisposing causes, without recourse to
the supernatural. In the learned and laborious work of De Boismont on
Hallucinations, they are fully treated and accounted for. ‘Illusions
of sight and hearing,’ he says, ‘have often assumed the form of an
epidemic. History records a number of facts of this character. One of
the chief is the transformation of clouds into armies, and all sorts
of figures; to which religious belief, optical phenomena, physical
laws then unknown, high fevers of a pestilential character, and
the derangement of the brain, all give a very natural explanation.
Pausanias relates that, four hundred years after the battle of
Marathon, the neighing of horses and the shock of armies were nightly
heard on the spot. At the battle of Platæa, the air resounded with
a fearful cry, which the Athenians attributed to the god Pan....
According to Josephus: Before sunrise on the 27th of May, there
appeared in the air, throughout the whole country, chariots full of
armed men, traversing the clouds and spreading round the cities, as if
to enclose them. On the day of Pentecost, the priests, being at night
in the inner temple to celebrate divine service, heard a noise, and
afterwards a voice that repeated three several times: “Let us go out
from hence.”’
History abounds in such facts, for facts they are in one sense. The
predominant popular idea always appears in the vision. When a dreaming
shepherd-boy in a Catholic country has a religious vision, the person
most apt to be presented to him is the Virgin Mary. When a Scottish
peasant had a similar experience in the seventeenth century, it took
the form of preaching and psalm-singing.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1667.