The celebrated Beau Fielding is supposed to have at this time paid a
visit to Edinburgh, while in difficulties on account of his suspected
share in the murder of Robert Perceval--a young libertine found dead
one morning near the Maypole in the Strand. He and two Scotch gentlemen
of his own sort, being met one evening at their cups in a house in
Edinburgh, were reputed to have drunk three toasts, ‘horrid to think
on’--namely, the Trinity, their own confusion, and the devil.--_Law._
The allegation is but too credible, for about this time there begins
to appear an extreme form of profligacy and impiety--confined, indeed,
to a few of the upper classes--such as had never before been known in
Scotland.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JAN. 18.]
[Sidenote: 1677.]
The system formerly adopted for keeping peace and maintaining law
in the Highlands--namely, the making heads of clans answerable for
their dependents and inferiors--was now declared to have been found
not to answer, ‘in respect the said duty doth lie upon many persons
in general, and no person doth make it his work.’ Consequently,
‘the insolency and villainy of thieves, sorners, and other wicked
and lawless persons do abound and increase, to the affront of our
authority and oppression of the lieges.’ The government therefore
deemed it necessary to try the effect of a different plan, and
granted a commission to Sir James Campbell of Lawers to use means for
apprehending thieves and broken men in the Highlands, in order that
they might be brought to justice. It was also arranged that when any
cattle or other property was stolen, Sir James should make restitution
to the owners, only taking them bound to support him in the legal
processes by which he should endeavour to rescue the goods from the
thieves, and get due punishment inflicted. All sheriffs, chiefs,
landlords, and others were enjoined to assist and countenance Sir James
in this thief-taking commission.
Eneas Lord Macdonald was afterwards conjoined with Sir James Campbell;
and for his service during the year ending the 1st of September 1677,
Sir James was ordered the sum of _one hundred and fifty pounds!_ But
this seems to have been regarded as rather scanty remuneration, and it
was (September 8, 1677) decreed that for the fture there should be a
salary of two hundred pounds to ‘ilk ane of the said two persons.’
As necessary to support the two gentlemen in their task, a garrison of
a hundred soldiers was sent to Inverlochy, care being previously taken
to have dwellings built for them, ‘as the house there is altogether
out of repair and unlodgeable.’ The Marquis of Huntly and the Laird of
Grant were called upon to exert themselves to convince the minor chiefs
in their several districts that the government was now determined to
put down the lawless system in the Highlands. It was intimated by other
means that letters of fire and sword would be granted against any
district in which gentler means had been found unavailing.
[Sidenote: 1677.]
In February 1680, James M‘Nab in Achessan represented to the Privy
Council that, being engaged by Sir James Campbell of Lawers to assist
in apprehending Highland robbers, he had, at the hazard of his life,
taken John, Callum, and Duncan M‘Gibbons, and delivered them to the
governor of the garrison at Finlarig--an unusually perilous piece of
duty, for which he had been promised the sum of eight hundred merks,
now refused by Sir James. As a plea at law ‘against a person of such
dexterity’ would have exhausted the reward, he had had no alternative
but to apply to the Council. Sir James was ordered to pay the reward as
claimed.--_P. C. R._
A very compendious view of some of the customs of the Highlanders in
the seventeenth century was given by Mr John Fraser, an Episcopal
minister, author of a _Treatise on Second-Sight_: ‘In general they
were litigious, ready to take arms upon a small occasion, _very
predatory_, much given to tables, carding, and dicing. Their games
was military exercise, and such as rendered them fittest for war, as
arching, running, jumping, with and without race, swimming, continual
hunting and fowling, feasting, especially upon their holidays, the
which they had enough, borrowed from popery. Their marriage and funeral
solemnities were much like [those of] their neighbours in the low
country; only at their funerals, there was fearful howling, screeching,
and crying, with very bitter lamentation, and a complete narration
of the descent of the dead person, the valorous acts of himself and
his predecessors, sung with tune in measure, continual piping, if the
person was of any quality or professing arms. Their chiliarchy had
their ushers that gaed out and came in before them, in full arms. I
cannot pass by a cruel custom that’s hardly yet extinct. They played
at cards or tables (to pass the time in the winter nights) in parties,
perhaps four on a side; the party that lost, was obliged to make his
man sit down on the midst of the floor; then there was a single-soled
shoe, well plated, wherewith his antagonist was to give him [the man]
six strokes on end, upon his bare loof [palm], and the doing of that
with strength and art was thought gallantry.’[253]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: FEB. 1.]
A travelling doctor, styling himself Joannes Baptista Marentini, under
licence from the king, and with the permission of the magistrates of
Edinburgh, had a stage erected in that city, ‘for practising his skill
in physic and otherwise.’ His term of permission being about to expire,
and the magistrates unwilling to renew it, he found it necessary to
apply to the Privy Council for a further term, on the ground that he
needed some more time for effecting the cure of certain persons under
his hands. The Council gratified him with a prolongation till the 1st
of April, in order that, ‘having finished the said undertaken cures, he
may the more freely, and with the greater approbation, depart from this
city to some other.’
[Sidenote: 1677.]
A little case of the heart comes in as a pendant to the above
narrative. Four days after the end of the term assigned in the act of
the Privy Council, James Baynes, wright, came before that august body
with a petition, setting forth how ‘one Monsieur Devoe, servant to
the mountebank who was lately in this place, hath, by sinistrous and
indirect means, secured and enticed the petitioner’s daughter and only
child to desert her parents, and to live with him upon pretence of a
clandestine marriage.’ There being reason to fear that he might escape,
unless very prompt measures were taken, the Council granted warrant to
have the offender imprisoned in the Tolbooth. After escaping from these
matrimonial troubles, Devoe settled in Edinburgh as a dancing-master,
and we shall find his name coming before us several times on other
occasions.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: FEB.]
The deaf and dumb Laird of Duntreath, a noted person in those days,
being at Paisley, ‘made signs to some of great fightings and troubles
to be in the land in a few months.’--_Law._
This gentleman, who was said to be, notwithstanding his deficiencies,
of a very devout frame of mind, had in the preceding December made a
more special divination. ‘There was one of his acquaintance went forth
to a water at a good distance frae him upon the ice, and had fallen
in; and he, at that instant of time, gave warning of it by a sign.’ On
another occasion, when the Dumb Laird was sitting in his own house at
Duntreath, ‘two of his neighbours falling out at two miles’ distance
from him, the one striking the other with a whinger in the arm, he, in
the same instant of time, makes a sign of it.’
It was a general belief that many persons born deaf and dumb possessed
this supposed gift of clairvoyance or second-sight. One, attended by
another man, coming to the Boat of Balloch, at the foot of Loch Lomond,
and seeing a salmon-net drawing in, signed that there were five fish in
it, and one of them with a hook in its mouth, indicating the hook by
crooking his finger and putting it in his cheek. ‘The other man, being
curious to know the truth of it, causes reckon the fishes, and see if
any of them had a hook; and it was found so as it was signed by the
dumb man. He tells the fishers what the dumb man had signed, and they
gave the dumb man one of them.’--_Law._
[Sidenote: 1677.]
At Colzium House, the seat of Sir Archibald Edmondstone of Duntreath,
there is a portrait of his predecessor, the Deaf and Dumb Laird,
presenting an aspect of intelligence much beyond what could have been
anticipated regarding one subject to so great an infirmity. It is a
tradition in the family that, in early life, finding himself much
overlooked on account of his inability to communicate, and being in
particular left at home when the rest went to church, he was found one
day, on the family returning from worship, sitting among the horses
in the stable. When his mother let him know that this conduct excited
surprise, he imparted to her by such means as were at his command,
that, seeing himself treated as if he were something less than a human
being, he had thought it only right and proper that he should place
himself in the society of the animals which had the same deficiency as
himself. The reproach was felt, and he was thenceforth treated more on
a footing of equality, and allowed to go to church with the rest of the
family.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE.]
The public mind being again morbidly excited about witchcraft, the
usual result of a fresh crop of cases--a witch-storm, it may be
called--ensued. In the beginning of this month, a serving-woman, named
Lizzy Mudie, was burnt at Haddington for witchcraft. Her mistress,
Margaret Kirkwood, had hanged herself in her own house on a Sunday
forenoon, while the people were at church. Lizzy on that occasion made
some disturbance, by running aloud over the numbers, one, two, three,
&c., till she came to fifty-nine, when she cried: ‘The turn is done!’
It being found that Margaret Kirkwood, whose age was fifty-nine, had
ended her life at that moment, Lizzy was taken up on suspicion, and
examined for witch-marks. These were found upon her, and she confessed
herself to be a witch. She also _delated_ five other women (two of
them midwives) and a man, as likewise guilty of witchcraft, relating
particular circumstances of their alleged guilt; but they denied all.
Fountainhall says: ‘I did see the man’s body searched and pricked in
two sundry places, one at the ribs, and the other at his shoulder. He
seemed to find pain, but no blood followed.... The marks were bluish,
very small, and had no protuberancy above the skin.’ He adds, with
regard to the official pricker: ‘I remained very dissatisfied with
this way of trial, as most fallacious; and the fellow could give me
no account of the principles of his art, but seemed to be a drunken
foolish rogue.’
[Sidenote: 1677.]
The trade of a pricker of witches, which had some time before been a
regular and a prosperous one, was beginning to fall under suspicion
among the authorities. One Cowan, of Tranent, who had learned the
art from ‘Kincaid, a famous pricker,’[254] was complained of by one
Catherine Liddel, before the Privy Council, about this time, for
subjecting her to the process on suspicion of witchcraft; and he was
by that tribunal condemned to prison during their pleasure. It fully
appears, indeed, that the present rulers of Scotland, while so ruthless
towards religious dissenters, were more enlightened and humane than any
of their predecessors in the matter of necromancy. While introducing
the use of torture in the one case, they discontinued it in the other.
They did, indeed, as we see, still allow of witch prosecutions; but
this perhaps it was beyond their power to resist, and it must be
admitted in their favour that the requirement of voluntary confessions
was a great step in the right direction. On the other hand, the fact of
voluntary confessions being so often made, where death was the certain
consequence, and where a stout denial usually seems to have saved the
accused, is one of a highly remarkable character, and which might give
scope to some interesting speculations. One remark forcibly occurs
regarding such cases, that the accused must have had intentions towards
necromantic results and a full conviction of their possibility, if not
of their occurrence; consequently must have _felt_ guilty.
One of the persons accused by Lizzy Mudie was Marion Phin, a woman of
eighty years of age, living in Haddington. Being consequently thrown
into jail, she lay there three months in a most miserable condition,
suffering much, we presume, from the severity of the treatment, so
unsuitable to her great age, and also distressed by the loss of her
good name, she having hitherto ‘lived always under a good report, never
being stained with the least ignominy, far less with the abominable
crime of witchcraft.’ ‘It were hard,’ she said in a petition to the
Privy Council, ‘that, being of so known integrity, she should suffer
upon the account of such lying accusers, who may and ordinarily do
blunder the best of God’s servants.’ Her petition for being liberated
on caution (August 10) was not yielded to by the Council. They
contented themselves for the meantime with ordering the commission for
her examination to proceed with their duty.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1677.]
The _Florida_, a large vessel of the Spanish Armada of 1588, carrying
sixty guns, had been blown up and sunk in the Bay of Tobermory, in the
island of Mull:[255] an old and consistent tradition represents it as
having come to this fate by means of Smollett of Dumbarton, presumed to
have been the ancestor of the celebrated novelist. The guns, treasure,
and other valuable things, known or supposed to have been on board,
made the incident a memorable one, and induced a desire, if possible,
to weigh up the vessel, or at least to fish up from it such things as
might be accessible to divers. In the seventeenth century, the recovery
of sunk vessels and their contents was a favourite project among
ingenious and adventurous men. The late Marquis of Argyle had obtained
from the Duke of Lennox, Lord High Admiral of Scotland, a formal gift
of this vessel, and had become ‘clad with possession’ by taking guns
and other things out of it. In 1665, a more vigorous attempt was made
to get up some of its treasures by the present Earl of Argyle, the
immediate operator being, apparently, Maule of Melgum, a Forfarshire
gentleman, who had invented an apparatus precisely of the nature of
what was a century later revived as the _Diving-bell_. Another person
engaged in the business was the almost sole active cultivator of
physics in Scotland during this age--the celebrated George Sinclair,
professor of philosophy in the University of Glasgow--who also obliged
the world some years later with a treatise, entitled _Satan’s Invisible
World Discovered_. Sinclair, in a work named below,[256] tells us that
on this occasion they brought up three pieces of ordnance, one of
brass, one of copper, and one of iron, two of which were eleven feet in
length, and more things might have been recovered but for the coming on
of tempestuous weather. He says they were surprised to find that the
bullets employed for these guns were of stone, instead of metal.
[Sidenote: JULY 27.]
[Sidenote: 1677.]
Hearing of these experiments of the Earl of Argyle, the eminent lawyer,
Sir George Lockhart, prompted the Duke of York to claim the property
as the present Lord High Admiral; and so there arose a litigation on
the subject. Various arguments were presented against Argyle’s right,
particularly that to make possession complete it was necessary that
he should have stirred the ship from the place where it was when his
father got the gift. The earl himself appeared in court, and made a few
remarks, shewing the large expense he had laid out on the discovery of
the lost vessel, and concluding with a wish that it were brought above
board ere any dispute took place about the property, ‘lest it should
verify the story of the king of Spain’s gold.’ The court gave the case
in favour of Argyle.
It is curious to find these two men engaged in such a plea only seven
or eight years before standing in the relative positions of rebellious
subject and vengeful sovereign. Still more curious it is to hear of
this unpopular prince, that ‘he wrote down a very complimentary letter
to Argyle, approving the justice of the lords’ sentence, and shewing
his hearty compliance and acquiescence therein.’--_Foun._
It is worthy of notice that after ‘unfortunate Argyle’ had passed from
life--namely, in May 1686--a warrant was given by James VII. for a
patent to William Harrington and three others, merchants of London,
for enabling them to ‘weigh up, recover, and obtain from under water,
in the roads and seas of Scotland, ships, or ship guns, treasure,
and other goods, which have been shipwrecked, lost, and sunk, and
particularly one ship of the Spanish Armada, sunk in the western
seas of his majesty’s kingdom of Scotland’--the patent to endure for
fourteen years.[257]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT. 1.]
[Sidenote: 1677.]
The Egyptians or gipsies still roamed in a lawless manner over the
country, without attracting much notice from the authorities, their
conduct being now probably less troublesome than it had been in the
reign of King James. Two bands of these people, the Faws and the Shaws,
on their way from Haddington fair to Harestanes, in Peeblesshire, where
they expected to meet and fight two other tribes, the Bailies and
Browns, fell out among themselves at Romanno about the spoil they had
lately acquired, and immediately engaged in battle. ‘Old Sandie Faw,
a bold and proper fellow,’ and his wife, then pregnant, were killed
on the spot, while his brother George was very dangerously wounded.
The Laird of Romanno apprehended ‘Robert Shaw; Margaret Faw, his
spouse; James, Patrick, Alexander, and Thomas Shaws, their sons; and
Helen Shaw, their daughter; Robert and John Faws; John Faw younger;
Agnes and Isobel Shaws; Isobel Shaw younger; and George Faw, and did
commit them prisoners within the Tolbooth of Peebles;’ whence they
were speedily removed to Edinburgh to be tried. We soon after find the
Council despatching a warrant to the Laird of Romanno and Mr Patrick
Purdie, to send to Edinburgh ‘the _money_, _gold_, _gold rings_, and
other things which were upon these persons;’ likewise the weapons with
which they had fought. An account of expenses sent by the magistrates
of Peebles was disallowed, excepting only £15 Scots (£1, 6s. 8d.
sterling) for the sustenance of the company while in jail.--_P. C. R._
In February next year, ‘Old Robin Shaw’ and his three sons were
hanged in the Grassmarket for this murder, and John Faw was executed
in the following week for another murder. Two or three years after,
the Laird of Romanno--a quaint physician named Pennecuik, who wrote
verses--erected a pigeon-house on the scene of the conflict, with this
inscription over the door:
‘The field of gipsy blood which here you see,
A shelter for the harmless dove shall be.’[258]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV. 3.]
A great fire took place in Glasgow, by which a large part of the
Saltmarket on both sides was burnt. It commenced near the Cross,
through the instrumentality of a smith’s apprentice, who being beaten
by his master, set the workshop on fire at night, and fled. This
conflagration was considered an equal calamity to that of 1652. It
threw between six and seven hundred families out of their homes, in
a ruined and starving condition.--_P. C. R._ ‘The heat was so great,
that it fired the horologe of the Tolbooth. There being some prisoners
in it, of whom the Laird of Carsland [Kersland] was one [who had been
confined in various jails for eight years on account of his concern in
the Pentland rising], the people broke open the doors, and set them
free.... Great was the cry of the poor people, and lamentable to see
their confusion.’--_Law._
[Sidenote: 1677.]
The Town Council, in a minute of December 4, speak of ‘the great
impoverishment this burgh is reduced to’ by the fire, which they regard
as a just punishment from God for their iniquities, ‘which we pray
him to mak us sensible of, that we may turn from the evil of our ways
to himself, so his wrath may be averted.’ Yet, they go on to say,
‘because such things are more incident to burghs, by reason of their
joining houses to houses ... especially being reared up of timber,
without so much as the window of stone,’ therefore the Council think
it well to enact that whenever any of the people are in a condition to
rebuild their houses, they shall rebuild them of stone.--_M. of G._ On
a petition from the magistrates, the Privy Council ordered a charitable
collection to be made throughout the country for the poor starving
people.
It does not appear that the engine made in 1657 for quenching of fire
was of any use on this occasion. It had probably been allowed to fall
out of order, as in December 1680, we find an order from the Town
Council to ‘see if it can be yet made use of in case of need.’--_M. of
G._ In 1725, another fire-engine was got from London, at an expense of
£50.--_Strang._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1677.]
The late Laird of Ayton, in Berwickshire, had left an only daughter,
under age, in the care of the Countess of Home. He had bequeathed
to this young lady, Jean Home, his whole estate, though it was more
customary in such cases in Scotland to destine land-property to the
next heir-male. Home of Plendergast, who stood in that relation, was of
course disappointed, but he hoped that a reparation might be made by
the young lady marrying a member of his own family. When, in December
1677, the time approached for her choosing her curators--being then,
we presume, twelve years of age--Plendergast presented a petition to
the Privy Council, desiring that she should be brought as usual to
their bar in order to pass through that ceremony in the presence of
her general kindred. This gentleman, however, appears to have been in
disfavour with the other gentlemen of his name in that province, as
well as with the Countess of Home and Charles Home, the brother of the
earl, with whom the young lady of Ayton at that time lived. On the
evening of the very day when the petition was presented to the Council,
Charles Home, accompanied by Alexander Home of Linthill, Sir Patrick
Home of Polwarth, John Home of Ninewells, Robert Home of Kimmerghame
elder, and Joseph Johnston of Hilton, proceeded to the residence of
the young lady, and carried her off across the Border. ‘There they,
in a most undutiful and unchristian manner, carried the poor young
gentlewoman up and down like a prisoner and malefactor, protracting
time till they should know how to make the best bargain in bestowing
her, and who should offer most. They did at last send John Home of
Ninewells[259] to Edinburgh, and take a poor young boy, George Home,
son to Kimmerghame, out of his bed and marry him to the said Jean, the
very day she should have been presented to the Council.’ The ceremony
was wholly irregular, and performed by an English minister, ‘opening
thereby a new way to slight the clergy of Scotland.’ At the same
time, the countess appeared before the Council, and apologised for
the absence of her ward, ‘as being sickly and tender, and not able to
travel, and not fit for marriage for many years to come.’
[Sidenote: 1678.