A severe murrain commenced amongst the cattle, thought to be owing to
the deficient herbage of the preceding year, and the heavy rains of the
intermediate season.[287] The support of cattle during winter was at
all times a trying difficulty in those days of no turnip-husbandry; but
on an occasion like this it was scarcely possible. It was remarked that
the farmers had to cut heather for their beasts to lie upon, and pull
the old straw out of the coverings of their houses to feed them with.
The murrain lasted till May, when some tenants in the Highlands lost as
many as forty cows by it.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR. 18.]
A complaint presented to the Privy Council by Janet Stewart, servant to
Mr William Dundas, advocate, set forth that James Aikenhead, apothecary
in Edinburgh, took upon him ‘to compose and vent poisonous tablets,’
and ‘Mistress Elizabeth Edmonstoun, having got notice of these tablets,
and that they would work strange wanton affections and humours in the
bodies of women,’ sent James Chalmers for some of them, which she
caused to be administered to the complainer, in presence of several
persons, ‘as a sweetmeat tablet.’ Janet having innocently accepted of
the tablet, ate of it, and in consequence ‘fell into a great fever,
wherein she continued for twenty days, before anybody knew what was the
cause of it; so that the poison has crept into her bones, and she is
like never to recover.’
Fountainhall tells us that Janet would not have recovered, ‘had not
Doctor Irvine given her an antidote.’ The Council remitted the case to
the College of Physicians, as being skilled in such matters (_periti in
arte_), ‘who,’ says Fountainhall, ‘thought such medicaments not safe to
be given _without first taking their own advice_.’[288]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAY 3.]
[Sidenote: 1682.]
A riot took place in the streets of Edinburgh, in consequence of an
attempt to carry away, as soldiers to serve the Prince of Orange,
some young men who had been imprisoned for a trivial offence. As the
lads were marched down the street under a guard, to be put on board
a ship in Leith Road, some women called out to them: ‘Pressed or not
pressed?’ They answered: ‘Pressed,’ and so caused an excitement in
the multitude. A woman who sat on the street selling pottery, threw a
few sherds at the guard, and some other people, finding a supply of
missiles at a house which was building, followed her example. ‘The
king’s forces,’ says Fountainhall, ‘were exceedingly assaulted and
abused.’ Under the order of their commander, Major Keith, they turned
and fired upon the crowd, when, as usual, only innocent bystanders
were injured. Seven men and two women were killed, and twenty-five
wounded--a greater bloodshed than ‘has been at once these sixty years
done in the streets of Edinburgh.’ One of the women being pregnant, the
child was cut from her and baptised in the streets. Three of the most
active individuals in this mob were seized and tried, but the assize
would not find them guilty. The magistrates were severely blamed for
their negligence and cowardice in this affair.
It gave origin to the well-known _Town-guard_ of Edinburgh, for, under
the recommendation of the Privy Council, and with the sanction of the
king, it was agreed to raise a body of a hundred and eight men, to
serve as a protection to the city in all emergencies. The inhabitants
were taxed to pay for it, ‘some a groat, some fivepence, and the
highest at sixpence a week;’ but this being found oppressive, the
support of the corps, which cost 22,000 merks a year, was soon after
put upon the town’s common good.[289] Patrick Graham, a younger son of
Graham of Inchbrakie, was appointed captain, at the dictation of the
Duke of York, who, says Fountainhall, ‘would give a vast sum to have
such a breach in London’s walls.’
Many who remember the Town-guard, with their rusty brown uniform,
their Lochaber axes, and fierce Highland faces, as a curiosity of the
streets of Edinburgh in their young days, will be perhaps unpleasingly
surprised to learn that the corps was originally an engine of the
government of the last Stuarts. Captain Graham, who was a sincere
loyalist by blood, being descended from the Inchbrakie who sheltered
Montrose on his commencing the insurrection of 1644, figured with his
guards on various occasions during the remainder of the Stuart reigns,
particularly at the bringing in of the Earl of Argyle to be executed in
1685, when he and the hangman received the unhappy Maccallummore at the
Watergate, and conducted him along the street to prison.
[Sidenote: 1682.]
The Town-guard was disbanded in November 1817, by which time it had
been reduced to twenty-five privates, two sergeants, two corporals, and
two drummers.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAY 6.]
The _Gloucester_ frigate, on her voyage from London to Edinburgh with
the Duke of York and his friends, and attended by some smaller vessels,
was by a blunder wrecked on Yarmouth Sands. A signal-gun brought boats
from the other vessels to the rescue of the distressed party, and the
duke and several other men of importance were taken from the vessel,
just before she went to pieces. A hundred and fifty persons, of whom
eighty were men of quality, including the Earl of Roxburgh, the Laird
of Hopetoun, Sir Joseph Douglas of Pumpherston, and Lord O’Brian of the
Irish peerage, were drowned. Sir George Gordon of Haddo, president of
the Court of Session, and who had just received the high appointment of
Chancellor of Scotland, escaped by leaping into the water, whence he
was drawn by the hair of the head into a boat. The Earl of Roxburgh had
been heard crying for a boat, and offering twenty thousand guineas for
one. His servant in the water took him on his back, and was swimming
with him to a boat, when a drowning person clutched at them, and the
unfortunate earl fell off and perished, his servant barely escaping
for the moment, and dying an hour after. The duke and the rest of the
survivors arrived in Leith next day, without further accident.
‘The pilot, one Aird, of Borrowstounness, was threatened with hanging
for going to sleep and giving wrong directions ... he was condemned to
perpetual imprisonment.’--_Foun._
It is remarkable that the widow of the Earl of Roxburgh survived him
_in widowhood_ for seventy-one years, dying in 1753.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 13.]
[Sidenote: 1682.]
Sir Alexander Lindsay of Evelick--an ancient castle on the high grounds
overlooking the Carse of Gowrie--had married as a second wife the
widow of Mr William Douglas, ‘the advocate and poet.’[290] Both had
children approaching maturity, and William Douglas, the lady’s son,
became very naturally the playfellow of Sir Alexander’s heir Thomas.
Whether jealousy on account of the superior prospects of Thomas Lindsay
had entered William Douglas’s heart, we cannot tell; but the two boys
being out one day in the Den of Pitrodie, a romantic broomy dell near
Evelick, Douglas was tempted to stab Lindsay with a clasp-knife, and so
murder him.
The wretched boy gave a confession next day, fully admitting his guilt.
It commences thus: ‘I have been over proud and rash all my life. I was
never yet firmly convinced there was a God or a devil, a heaven or a
hell, till now. To tell the way how I did the deed my heart doth quake
[and] head ryves. As I was playing and kittling at the head of the
brae, I stabbed him with the only knife which I have, and I tumbled
down the brae with him to the burn; all the way he was struggling with
me, while I fell upon him in the burn, and there he uttered one or two
pitiful words. The Lord Omnipotent and all-seeing God learn my heart to
repent.’ On this occasion, ‘he also produced the little knife called
_Jock the leig_, with ane iron haft.’
Being on the ensuing day brought before the sheriff-court of Perth, it
was there alleged against him that ‘he did conceive ane deadly hatred
and evil [will] against Thomas Lindsay, son to Sir Alexander Lindsay
of Evelick, with a settled resolution to bereave him of life; he did
upon the thretteen day of this instant month, being Tuesday last, about
seven hours in the afternoon or thereby, as he was coming along the Den
of Pitrodie in company with the said Thomas Lindsay, fall upon the said
Thomas, and with his knife did give him five several stabs and wounds
in his body, whereof one about the mouth of his stomach, and thereafter
dragged him down the brae of the den to the burn, and there with his
feet did trample upon the said Thomas lying in the water, and as yet
he not being satisfied with all that cruelty which he did to the said
Thomas, he did with a stone dash him upon the head, so that immediately
the said Thomas died.’
[Sidenote: 1682.]
To the great concern of his friends, the boy now retracted his
confession, alleging that he found Thomas Lindsay lying in the burn,
and in trying to help him up had fallen upon him. The trial was
consequently postponed to a future day. Meanwhile his friends exerted
themselves to bring back the culprit to a sense of his guilt, and
after a few days, they seem to have succeeded. On the 25th of June,
his mother is found writing to the Laird of Balhaivie, a cousin of
the murdered youth, relating how she had been witness to the power
of God in changing the heart of the obstinate. ‘In a very little,’
says she, ‘after you went to the door, he rose up in such a passion
of grief and sorrow, crying out in such bitterness, rapping on the
table, and cursing the hour it entered into his head to recant, and
promised through the Lord’s strength, nothing should persuade him to
do it again, but that he should constantly affirm the truth of his
first declaration. He took out the declaration the devil had belied him
to write, and cried to cast it in the fire, with so much sorrow and
tears, as he took his head in his hand and said he feared to distract
[become distracted], and prayed that the Lord would help him in his
right judgment, that he might still adhere to truth. This,’ continues
the wretched mother, ‘was some consolation to my poor confounded mind;
but when I consider that deceitful bow the heart, and his frequent
distemper, my spirit fails.... I desire you and the rest of your worthy
friends no to pit yourself to needless charges in the affair, for
I, his nearest relation, being not only convinced justice should be
satisfied, but am desirous nothing may occur to hinder. And as I know,
though both he and I hath creditable friends, they will be ashamed to
own me in this. The good God that best knows my pitiful case bear [me]
up under this dismal lot, and give you and all Christians a heart to
pray for him, and your poor afflicked servant, Rachel Kirkwood.’
The Laird of Balhaivie seems to have entered kindly into the lady’s
feelings. His answer contains a few traits highly characteristic of
the time. ‘Much honoured madam, as soon as Sir Pat[rick Threipland]
gave me account yesternight of your son’s second confession, I went
alongs with Sir Patrick and saw him, and I swear to outward appearance
he seemed very serious, and I pray God Almighty continue him so.... My
cousin, young Evelick, and all his relations are very sensible of your
ladyship’s extraordinary and wonderful good carriage in ane affair so
astounding as this has been, and ye renew it in your letter, wherein ye
desire they should not be put to needless trouble and charges in the
affair. The truth is, madam, there is none of us but are grieved to the
bottom of our hearts that we should be obliged to pursue your son to
death; but we keep evil consciences if we suffer the murder of so near
a relation to go unpunished; and his life for the taking away of the
other’s is the least atonement that credit and conscience can allow....
His dying by the hand of justice will be the only way to expiate so
great a crime, and likewise be a means to take away all occasion of
grudge which otherwise could not but continue in the family....’[291]
[Sidenote: 1682.]
The youth was brought to trial in Edinburgh, and condemned to suffer
death on the 4th of August. After the trial, he confessed that it
was he who in the January preceding ‘put fire in Henry Graham’s
writing-chamber, out of revenge, and that he had first stolen some
books there.’ He was subjected to a new trial for this crime, because,
being treason, it would have inferred a forfeiture of his estate, worth
upwards of £2000; but on this occasion he retracted his confession, nor
could any thing prevail with him to renew it judicially. The jury, who
were honest Edinburgh citizens, seeing that the design was to enrich
certain courtiers at the expense of the sisters of the young homicide,
acquitted him of the new charge, to the great irritation of the king’s
advocate, who ‘swore that the next assizers he should choose should be
Linlithgow’s soldiers, to curb the phanaticks.’[292]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 5.]
The magistrates of Dumfries had a man called Richard Storie in their
jail, on a charge of murder, and were put to great charges in keeping
and guarding him, because several of his friends from the Borders
daily _threatened to force the prison_ and permit him to make his
escape ‘if he shall remain any longer there.’[293] It was therefore
found necessary to order that Storie should be transferred by the
sheriff under a sufficient guard to the next sheriff upon the road to
Edinburgh, and so on to Edinburgh itself, where he should be placed in
firmance in the Tolbooth.
[Sidenote: 1682.]
There was the more reason for the magistrates of Dumfries being anxious
about the detention of Richard Storie, that George Storie, an associate
in his crime, had already escaped. These two men were accused of
having basely and cruelly murdered Francis Armstrong in Alisonbank, in
the preceding month of June. The witnesses being Englishmen, it was
necessary (December 7, 1682) to recommend to the sheriff of Cumberland
to take measures for insuring their appearance before the Court of
Justiciary at the approaching trial. This proving ineffectual, the
widow and six children of Francis Armstrong petitioned in March for
further and more effectual efforts; and the lords agreed to address the
English secretary of state on the subject.
Not long after (April 30, 1684), the Council was informed that, ‘by
the throng of prisoners in the Tolbooth of Dumfries, the same has been
already broken, and is yet in the same hazard.’ Being at the same time
made aware ‘that, within the castle of Dumfries, there are some strong
vaults fit for the keeping of prisoners,’ they gave orders to have
these prepared for the
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 7.]
A poor Quaker, named Thomas Dunlop, had taken a house in Musselburgh,
and was endeavouring by humble industry to support himself and his
family, without being burdensome to any. But other Quakers came
occasionally about him, to the annoyance of the magistrates of the
town; and finding he broke a local law, in having no certificate of
character from the minister of the parish in which he had last resided,
they took advantage of the circumstance to get quit of him. Poor Thomas
and his wife and little children were thrust out of their home into
the fields, notwithstanding his entreaties for delay till he should
get letters certifying his respectability from persons they knew. He
had now been lodging for thirteen days and nights in the fields, the
magistrates resisting all pleadings in his favour from charitable
persons, and disregarding the misery which he was manifestly enduring.
On his petition to that body which almost every week was sending
recusant Whigs to the scaffold, they lent him a patient hearing, and
summoned the Musselburgh magistrates before them; but all that the laws
permitted them to do in the case, was to ordain that Thomas might have
recourse to a legal action if the magistrates had not ‘removed him in
ane orderly manner.’--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 8.]
[Sidenote: 1682.]
James Somerville, younger of Drum, riding home to that place from
Edinburgh, found on the way two friends fighting with swords--namely,
Thomas Learmont, son of Mr Thomas Learmont, an advocate, and Hew
Paterson, younger of Bannockburn. These two young men had quarrelled
over their cups. Young Somerville dismounted, and tried to separate
them, but received a mortal wound from Paterson’s sword, though
inflicted by the hand of Learmont, the two combatants having perhaps,
like Hamlet and Laertes, exchanged weapons. The wounded man lived two
days, and expressed his forgiveness of Learmont, who, by his advice,
fled. ‘Some alleged his wounds were not mortal, but misguided.’
Somerville was the progeny of the marriage described as having taken
place at Corehouse in November 1650. He left an infant son, who carried
on the line of the family.--_Foun._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG. 17.]
A comet began to appear in the north-west. ‘The star was big, and the
tail broad and long, at the appearance of four yards.’ It continued
visible for twenty days.--_Law._
This was the celebrated _Halley’s Comet_, so called in honour of the
illustrious astronomer who first ascertained, by his calculations
regarding it, the periodicity of comets. The same object had been
observed by Kepler in 1607, and by Apian in 1531. ‘The identity of
these meteors seeming to Halley unquestionable, he ventured to predict
that the same comet would reappear in 1758, and that it would be found
to revolve in a very elongated ellipse in about seventy-six years. As
the critical period approached, which was to decide so momentous a
question regarding the system of the world, the greatest mathematicians
endeavoured to track the comet’s course with a minuteness which
Halley’s opportunities did not permit him to reach. The illustrious
Clairhaut, feeling that a general prediction was not enough, undertook
the most complex problem as to the disturbing effects of the planets
through whose orbits it must pass.... He succeeded in predicting one of
the positions for the comet for the middle of April; stating, however,
that he might be in error by thirty days. The comet occupied the
position referred to on the 12th of March.’--_Nichol’s Contemplations
on the Solar System._
[Sidenote: 1682.]
It is humiliating to have to remark, that the notices of comets which
we derive from Scotch writers down to this time, contain nothing but
accounts of the popular fancies regarding them. Practical astronomy
seems to have then been unknown in our country; and hence, while in
other lands men were carefully observing, computing, and approaching
to just conclusions regarding these illustrious strangers of the
sky, our diarists could only tell us how many _yards_ long they
seemed to be, what _effects_ were apprehended from them in the way
of war and pestilence, and how certain pious divines ‘improved’ them
for spiritual edification. Early in this century, Scotland had
produced one great philosopher--who had supplied his craft with the
mathematical instrument by which complex problems, such as the movement
of comets, were alone to be solved. It might have been expected that
the country of Napier, seventy years after his time, would have had
many sons capable of applying his key to such mysteries of nature.
But not one had arisen--nor did any rise for fifty years onward, when
at length Colin Maclaurin unfolded in the Edinburgh University the
sublime philosophy of Newton. There could not be a more expressive
signification of the character of the seventeenth century in Scotland.
Our unhappy contentions about external religious matters had absorbed
the whole genius of the people, rendering to us the age of Cowley, of
Waller, and of Milton, as barren of elegant literature, as that of
Horrocks, of Halley, and of Newton, was of science.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV. 23.]
John Corse, Andrew Armour, and Robert Burne, merchants in Glasgow,
were now arranging for the setting up of a manufactory ‘for making of
damaties, fustines, and stripped vermiliones,’ expecting it would be ‘a
great advantage to the country, and keep in much money therein which
is sent out thereof for import of the same.’ Seeing ‘it undoubtedly
will require a great stock and many servants, strangers, which are come
and are to be sent for,’ the enterprisers deemed themselves entitled
to have their work declared a manufactory, so that it might enjoy the
privileges accorded to such by act of parliament. This favour was
granted by the Council for nine years, ‘but prejudice to any other
persons to set up and work in the said work.’--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC.]
[Sidenote: 1682.]
Daniel Mure of Gledstanes,[294] out of health and mental vigour, and
believed to be on his death-bed, was induced to make a disposition
of his estate to Thomas Carmichael of Eastend. Such a disposition,
however, could not be valid by the law of Scotland, unless the testator
appeared afterwards ‘at kirk and market’--an arrangement designed to
insure that natural heirs should not be cheated. By ‘a most devilish
contrivance’ of William Chiesley, writer in Edinburgh, Thomas Bell,
Carmichael’s servant, was dressed up to personate the sick man, and
taken with all due form to the public places appointed by the law. The
notary before whom the man presented himself was so doubtful of his
being Daniel Mure, that he caused him to take his oath that he was
truly that person. When Carmichael and his man afterwards retired to
a tavern with the notary, the latter once more expressed his doubt,
saying: ‘This person is certainly not like Daniel Mure;’ to which
Carmichael answered, that he was really the man, but much altered
by sickness. On the death of Daniel Mure soon after, Carmichael
accordingly appeared as the inheritor of the estate of Gledstanes, to
the exclusion of Francis Mure, merchant in Edinburgh, the brother of
the deceased. The affair was the more wicked, as the estate was one
which had been long in Mure’s family.
[Sidenote: DEC. 21.]
On the whole matter being brought before the Privy Council by Francis
Mure, the truth became clear, and Carmichael was punished by a fine of
five thousand merks, whereof two thousand were assigned to Francis, as
a compensation for the damage he had sustained; while Chiesley, the
writer, was mulcted in three thousand merks for being accessory to
the cheat. An obligation which Francis Mure had been induced to give
to Carmichael, binding himself never to expose or pursue the forgery,
was at the same time discharged. It is not unworthy of remark, that
Chiesley, who had devised this forgery and drawn up the iniquitous
obligation aforesaid, was one of those members of the legal profession
who had refused, from scruples of conscience, to take the Test.--_P. C.
R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 23.]
Alexander Nisbet of Craigentinny and Macdougall of Makerston had
gone abroad to fight a duel, attended by Sir William Scott of Harden
and ---- Douglas, ‘ensign to Colonel Douglas,’ as seconds. The Privy
Council hearing of it, ordered the four gentlemen to be confined in
the Tolbooth in different rooms, until it should be inquired into.
The principals were, on petition, set at liberty in a few days, after
giving caution for reappearance.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1683.