We have already seen several instances of a considerable town burnt
down by accidental fire, with the inevitable consequence to the
inhabitants, of their being driven into the shelterless fields, in a
state of utter desolation; all reminding us of a time when as yet no
mechanical arrangements had been made for checking such conflagrations,
and no process of assurance had been instituted for providing against
the loss and penury following. We have now another and highly
characteristic example, in the almost entire destruction of the town of
Kelso. It will be observed that the town, being probably composed of
thatched houses, in few instances exceeding two stories in height, was
extremely inflammable, and therefore the fire was rapid.
[Sidenote: 1684.]
The fire began, between three and four in the afternoon, in a
malt-kiln, and quickly caused the destruction of several stacks of
corn. Thence, under the influence of a violent wind, it spread over the
whole town, and so quickly, ‘that these[310] who were helping their
neighbours did not know when their own houses were burning. Before
nine o’clock at night, not only all the houses, but the most part of
all the goods therein, and several merchants’ shops of considerable
value, and above four thousand bolls of victual lying in girnels, and
all the corn-stacks in the town, were laid in ashes. The fury of the
flame and rage of the smoke were so great in all places of the town,
that with great difficulty sick and infirm persons and infant children
could be carried away from the danger to the open fields. Three hundred
and six families had their houses utterly burnt down, and of these not
twenty will ever be able to rebuild upon their own means. The loss of
merchants is so great that it cannot weel be known, the particular loss
of some of them being valued above twenty thousand pounds Scots, and
of others, above ane thousand pounds sterling. The more indigent sort
of people have lost the whole sustenance of their livelihood.’ If we
are to understand that the three hundred and six burnt-out families
composed the whole population, we may estimate that this town, now so
remarkable for its beauty, and which contains a population of 5000,
was then a comparatively poor village of about 1400 inhabitants. It is
remarkable, however, to find that it contained merchants’ shops so well
stocked with goods.
The usual and only resource of that age for such cases of public
calamity was taken advantage of by the Privy Council, to whom the
inhabitants appealed for succour; namely, a collection at the parish
churches on one Sunday throughout the kingdom. And till this collection
could take place, it was ordered that some of the money now in the
course of being raised for the relief of prisoners in the hands of
the Turks, should be given to the distressed people of Kelso, to be
afterwards replaced from the money collected on account of the fire.
Some time afterwards, we find a petition from the magistrates of
Glasgow, setting forth that a sum of money had been collected there for
the unfortunate people at Kelso, but in the meantime Glasgow had had a
conflagration of its own, resulting in the destitution of a number of
people; so they had thought proper to ask for permission to apply the
money for the relief of the distress in their own community--which was
granted.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR.]
Cornelius a-Tilbourne, a German mountebank, craved from the Privy
Council licence to erect a stage in Edinburgh. It was granted,
notwithstanding opposition from the College of Physicians. He had made
a successful experiment on himself, in London, in presence of the
king, for counteracting some poisons which the physicians there had
prescribed to him, the secret consisting in drinking a considerable
quantity of oil. But it appears that he expressly excluded mercury,
aqua-fortis, and other corrosives from the trial. The king, who had a
curiosity about chemical experiments, had granted Cornelius a medal and
chain. He repeated the experiment in Edinburgh, on his man or servant,
who died under it.
Men of this class appear to have also practised surgery. In March 1683,
the Town Council of Glasgow disbursed five pounds to John Maxwell, to
replace a like sum ‘whilk he payit to the mountebank for cutting off
_umwhile_ Archibald Bishop’s leg.’--_M. of G._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR. 22.]
[Sidenote: 1684.]
A petition from the Earl of Errol to the Privy Council set forth
that it was the custom of the north country for ‘the seamen of
fish-boats’ to be ‘tied and obliged to the same servitude and service
that coal-hewers and salters are here in the south,’ and ‘it is not
lawful for any man whatsomever to resett, harbour, or entertein the
fishers and boatmen who belong to another.’ His lordship complained of
Alexander Brodie and Andrew Buchlay, who were fishermen in his service,
having ‘fled away from him without leave, to his damage and prejudice;’
and he demanded warrants for reclaiming them. The petition was complied
with.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR. 24.]
A proclamation proceeding upon the recent sumptuary act, makes us aware
that it had comparatively failed to accomplish its object. ‘Several
women, even [!] in our capital city of Edinburgh and elsewhere, have
presumed to go abroad with clothes made of the prohibited stuffs,
upon pretext that they are only night-gowns, undresses, or manteaux,
whereas all manner of wearing of the said stuffs was discharged.’
In like manner, to elude that part of the law forbidding mourning
cloaks, or ‘in downright mockery’ of the same, ‘several persons have
presumed to wear mantle-cloaks (albeit more expensive than the cloaks
formerly worn) at burials and other occasions upon the death of their
relations.’ ‘Also several persons have lately run to that height of
extravagancy, as to cause cover the coffins of persons to be buried
with fine black cloth and fringes.’ Others, since the passing of the
act, ‘have presumed to make penny-weddings, where great confluence of
our subjects have resorted, which is a most extravagant expense to our
lieges.’
The public was now therefore forbidden by regular proclamation to wear
the prohibited stuffs in any manner of way. Tailors were discharged
from making or setting out, and gentlemen from wearing, the long black
mantle-coats. All were prohibited from ‘making use of any coffin
covered with silk cloth or fringes,’ or which bore any ornamental
metal-work. Penny-weddings were denounced in the strongest terms. And
all these prohibitions were enforced by the threat of a full exaction
of the fines specified in the act.--_P. C. R._.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 22.]
[Sidenote: 1684.]
A strong representation was made to the Privy Council against the
Messrs Fountain, who have ‘gone almost through all Scotland and charged
every person both in town and country who keeps a change, who has in
their house a pair of tables, cards, or kylles, and others of that
nature for gentlemen’s divertisement, upon pretence that they ought
not to have any such plays in their house without licence from them
as Masters of the Revels.’ It was reckoned that they had forced six
thousand people to compound with them, and had thus realised about
£16,000 sterling, ‘which is a most gross and manifest oppression.’ The
lords forbade the Fountains to take any further legal steps. _P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG.]
An instrument of torture, called the _Thumbikens_, was introduced into
practice by the Privy Council, as a means of extorting confessions.
This was done at the recommendation of Generals Dalyell and Drummond,
who had seen the thumbikens used in Russia. One of the first persons,
if not the first, subjected to this torture, was Mr William Spence, a
servant of the Earl of Argyle, who for some weeks had been tortured in
various less compulsory ways to make him confess what he knew of the
rebellious designs of his master. He had maintained firmness under the
_boots_, and contrived to endure without flinching the torture of being
kept awake for five nights, though driven by it ‘half distracted.’ But
after his thumbs had been crushed by the thumbikens, on the boots being
again presented to him, his firmness gave way.[311]
The thumbikens consists of a bar of iron, moving loose upon a vertical
screw, and under which, by the use of a nut moving on the screw,
provided with a handle, the thumbs of the victim can be squeezed so as
to produce the most exquisite pain.
In September of this year, Mr William Carstairs, who had been concerned
in some of the plots of the day, was tortured by the thumbikens before
the Privy Council. He bore the pain with firmness, though not without
giving vent to his agony by cries, until the Dukes of Hamilton and
Queensberry left the room, unable any longer to witness the revolting
spectacle. He was at length induced by these means, to give some
information regarding Baillie of Jerviswood and others.
[Sidenote: 1684.]
After the Revolution, this remarkable man became, as is well known,
Principal of the University of Edinburgh, and the confidential adviser
of King William regarding the affairs of Scotland; he was familiarly
recognised as _Cardinal Carstairs_. The identical thumbikens by which
he had been tortured, was presented to him by the Privy Council, and
it was long preserved by his family. An anecdote was handed down by
his descendants respecting the horrible little instrument. ‘I have
heard, Principal,’ said King William to him, ‘that you were tortured
with something they call _thumbikens_; pray, what sort of instrument
of torture is it?’ ‘I will shew it you,’ answered Carstairs, ‘the
next time I have the honour to wait upon your majesty.’ Soon after,
accordingly, the Principal brought the thumbikens to be shewn to
the king. ‘I must try it,’ said the king; ‘I must put in my thumbs
here--now, Principal, turn the screw. O not so gently--another
turn--another. Stop, stop! no more! Another turn, I am afraid, would
make me confess anything.’[312]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG. 15.]
Monro, the Edinburgh executioner, having beaten a beggar with undue
severity, was deprived of his post, and moreover punished by being
thrown into the Thieves’ Hole. One hears with surprise of such an
interference for humanity, amidst the atrocious cruelties to which
political and religious exasperations were provoking the government.
The vacant post was conferred on one George Ormiston, whom Fountainhall
describes as ‘a well-favoured discreet fellow.’ If we are to believe
Milne’s Account of the Parish of Melrose, 1743, this man was a member,
if not the representative, of the Ormistons of Westhouse, a family
once of some account, possessing a tower on the Tweed, near Melrose,
and having the custom of a bridge across the river at that place; ‘a
memorandum to old families not to be puffed up with pride, on account
of their antiquity, for they know not what mean offices they or theirs
may be obliged to stoop to.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP. 10.]
Colonel Graham of Claverhouse, as constable of Dundee, represented to
the Privy Council that he found several persons in prison there for
petty thefts, ‘which will be fitter to be punished arbitrarily than
by death.’ In compliance with his humane suggestion, he was empowered
to restrict the treatment of these persons and any others that might
hereafter commit the like offences, ‘to ane arbitrary punishment, such
as whipping or banishment, as he shall find cause.’--_P. C. R._
[Sidenote: 1684.]
It will excite surprise to find the _Bloody Claverse_ interposing for a
gentler justice in behalf of ordinary criminals--he who coolly ordered
the summary death of so many people in Clydesdale and Galloway, for
merely sentimental offences. But, while the _nil admirari_ is nowhere
more applicable than in matters concerning human inconsistency, it
were perhaps no more than justice to one who was at least a gallant
soldier and a steadfast friend in adversity to the sovereign who had
employed him, if we remembered how amiable in private life have been
many modern statesmen noted for severity in public action. Claverhouse
was a political enthusiast, who had made up his mind to the particular
course--rather a rough one--by which the interests of his country were
to be protected and advanced; and with the help of a strong will, and
under the call of what came to him as duty, he scrupled not to walk
in that path, though by no means inhumane or harsh in the matters of
ordinary life. In a letter to the Earl of Aberdeen, written in June
1683, he reveals to us his principle of action in a sentence: ‘I am,’
says he, ‘as sorry to see a man die, even a Whig, as any of themselves;
but when one dies justly for his own faults, and _may save a hundred to
fall in the like_, I have no scruple.’[313]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT.]
One Marion Purdie, dwelling at the West Port of Edinburgh, once a
milk-wife, and now a beggar, was apprehended and imprisoned as a
witch. She was accused of laying diseases and frenzies upon her
neighbours. The king’s advocate was now giving little heed to such
cases, and so poor Marion ‘dies of cold and poverty in prison about the
Christmas.’--_Foun._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT.]
It is remarked at this time that Colonel Douglas was training and
exercising his regiment with extreme diligence. He studied to get his
men all of one height, and would allow none to keep their beards long
or have bad cravats or cravat-strings, being anxious that they should
all look young and brisk. When they were deficient in these articles,
he bought them new ones with their pay. He also ‘caused them all tie
their hair back with a ribbon, so it cannot blow in their eyes when
they visy at their firing.’ (Can this have been the origin of tied
hair?) A more important regulation still of this commander--‘_He
discharges any of their officers to keep cellars, whereby they made
their soldiers waste their pay in drinking_.’--_Foun._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT.]
[Sidenote: 1684.]
A tempest which took place at the end of this month, accompanied both
by snow and thunder, caused the throwing ashore of ‘a new kind of fish
like a mackerel or herring, but with a long snout like a snipe’s beak.
Dr Sibbald says it is the _Acus marinus_, the Sea Needle, described
by him in his _Naturalis Historia_. They have been seen before, but
are not frequent, and therefore are looked upon by the vulgar as
ominous.’--_Foun._
When Charles II. died three months after, Fountainhall remarked there
having been few or no prognostics of the event, ‘unless we recur to the
comet, which is remote, or to the strange fishes mentioned above, or
the vision of blue bonnets ... in none of which is there anything for a
rational man to fix his belief upon.’
* * * * *
By an act of the second parliament of Charles II., fines were appointed
for all who withdrew themselves from the regular parish churches; but
as, because of the law which gives the husband exclusive power over
the goods held by him and his wife in communion, it was impossible to
exact any fine for the delinquency of a married woman, it had become
necessary to make the husband answerable when his wife offended.
Under this arrangement, some ladies of rank, addicted to attending
conventicles, had brought no small trouble upon their partners. The
Council, at length feeling it was a hard law where the husband was a
conformist, requested power from the king to remit the fines in such
cases. Soon after the following case occurred.
[Sidenote: DEC. 4.]
[Sidenote: 1684.]
David Balcanquel of that Ilk, having been, in virtue of the act,
amerced in three years of his valued rent or fifteen hundred pounds,
‘upon the account of his wife not keeping the church,’ represented the
matter very pathetically to the Privy Council, setting forth how he
himself had always kept his parish church, and, ‘notwithstanding the
distractions and disorders that have been in the country where he lives
[Fife], has always demeaned himself as ane dutiful and loyal subject.’
The Council took the case into favourable consideration, and, ‘seeing
it never was the intention of his majesty that his weel-affected
subjects should be ruined by _the mad and wilful opinions of phanatick
wives_, without any fault of their own’--seeing, moreover, that
Balcanquel protested ‘_it is not in his power to persuade his wife to
go to church_, notwithstanding of all the endeavours he has used for
that effect, and _he is willing to deliver her up to the Council to be
disposed of at their pleasure_‘--they agreed to discharge his fine,
taking him only bound ‘to deliver up his wife to justice whenever
required.’--_P. C. R._
It was not always as in this case in regard to conventicle troubles.
Wodrow had heard the following converse case ‘very weel attested:‘[314]
About the time of the Circuit Court in 1685, there was an honest man
in the parish of Baldernock, who was sore bested with a graceless and
imperious wife, a hater of all seriousness. When he performed family
worship, she interrupted him; when he went to a conventicle, she cursed
him; and when he came home, she threw stools at him. Scarce durst the
poor man return from these meetings without a few neighbours to protect
him from his wife’s violence. Being denounced and cited to the court at
Glasgow, he failed to appear; but _she_ came forward, and, on his name
being called, cried out: ‘My lords, it’s all true--he is a rebel; there
is not a conventicle in all the country but he is at it. He deserves
to be hanged. Hang him, my lords!’ The lords asked who she was, and
on being told, and hearing her go on further in the same strain, they
ordered the man to be scored out of the roll, saying: ‘That poor fellow
suffers enough already from such a wife!’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC.]
Amongst those now suffering under the severities of government,
there was no one more remarkable than Sir Patrick Hume of Polwarth,
a Berwickshire gentleman of large fortune, of vigorous character,
and great zeal as a Presbyterian and Whig. Though only recognised
by the government as ‘a factious person,’ he had been several times
rather severely handled. Being now under suspicion of a concern in the
Rye-house plot, he was denounced on the 13th of November as guilty of
treason, and obliged to go out of the way. The harshness with which his
friend Robert Baillie of Jerviswood was treated, was sufficient to shew
that the more closely he concealed himself the better.
[Sidenote: 1684.]
Polwarth, who was a man of forty-three years of age, had a wife and ten
children, all young, residing at his house of Redbraes in the Merse.
Patrick, the eldest son, was taken up and put in prison; and on the
26th of December, there was a petition from him to the Privy Council,
setting forth the piteous condition of the family now deprived of their
father and threatened with the loss of their estate. He was but ‘a poor
afflicted young boy,’ he said, who could do no harm to the state; he,
moreover, cherished loyal principles and a hatred of plots. All he
craved was liberty, that he might ‘see to some livelihood for himself,’
and ‘be in some condition to help and serve his disconsolate mother and
the rest of his father’s ten starving children.’ The boon was granted
grudgingly, the young man being obliged first to obtain security for
his good-behaviour to the extent of two thousand pounds sterling.--_P.
C. R._
[Sidenote: 1684.]
[Sidenote: 1684.]
The first concealment of Sir Patrick was the family burial vault, under
the east end of the parish church of Polwarth, a place where he had
no fire, and only during the day light from an open slit in the wall.
With the comfort of a bed and bed-clothes, he endured life in this
singular Patmos for a whole winter month, supplied nightly with food by
his daughter Grizzel, and having no sort of entertainment to beguile
the tedium of the day but his own reflections, and the repetition of
Buchanan’s Psalms, which had long been charged on his memory. Each
night, the young Grizzel came with a packet of provisions, and stayed
with him as long as she could, so as to get home before day. According
to an interesting family memoir, written by her daughter, Lady Murray
of Stanhope: ‘In all this time, my grandfather shewed the same constant
composure and cheerfulness of mind, that he continued to possess to his
death, which was at the age of eighty-four; all which good qualities
she inherited from him in a high degree. Often did they laugh heartily
in that doleful habitation, at different accidents that happened.
She at that time had a terror for a church-yard, especially in the
dark, as is not uncommon at her age, by idle nursery stories; but
when engaged by concern for her father, she stumbled over the graves
every night alone, without fear of any kind entering her thoughts, but
for soldiers and parties in search of him, which the least noise or
motion of a leaf put her in terror for. The minister’s house was near
the church; the first night she went, his dogs kept such a barking,
as put her in the utmost fear of a discovery; my grandmother sent for
the minister the next day, and, under pretence of a mad dog, got him
to hang all his dogs. There was also difficulty of getting victuals
to carry him without the servants suspecting; the only way it was
done, was by stealing it off her plate at dinner into her lap. Many a
diverting story she has told about this, and other things of a like
nature. Her father liked sheep’s head, and while the children were
eating their broth, she had conveyed most of one into her lap; when
her brother Sandy (the late Lord Marchmont) had done, he looked up
with astonishment, and said: “Mother, will ye look at Grizzel; while
we have been eating our broth, she has ate up the whole sheep’s head.”
This occasioned so much mirth among them, that her father at night
was greatly entertained by it, and desired Sandy might have a share
in the next.... As the gloomy habitation my grandfather was in, was
not to be long endured but from necessity, they were contriving other
places of safety for him; amongst others, particularly one under a bed
which drew out, in a ground-floor, in a room of which my mother kept
the key. She and the same man worked in the night, making a hole in
the earth, after lifting the boards, which they did by scratching it
up with their hands, not to make any noise, till she had left not a
nail upon her fingers; she helping the man to carry the earth as they
dug it, in a sheet on his back out at the window into the garden; he
then made a box at his own house, large enough for her father to lie
in, with bed and bed-clothes, and bored holes in the boards for air.
When all this was finished, for it was long about, she thought herself
the most secure happy creature alive. When it had stood the trial for
a month of no water coming into it, which was feared from being so
low, and every day examined by my mother, and the holes for air made
clear, and kept clean picked, her father ventured home, having that to
trust to. After being at home a week or two, the bed daily examined
as usual, one day, in lifting the boards, the bed bounced to the top,
the box being full of water; in her life she was never so struck, and
had near dropt down, it being at that time their only refuge. Her
father, with great composure, said to his wife and her, he saw they
must tempt providence no longer, and that it was now fit and necessary
for him to go off, and leave them; in which he was confirmed, by the
carrier telling for news he had brought from Edinburgh, that the day
before, Mr Baillie of Jerviswood had his life taken from him at the
Cross, and that everybody was sorry, though they durst not shew it.
As all intercourse by letters was dangerous, it was the first notice
they had of it, and the more shocking, that it was not expected. They
immediately set about preparing for my grandfather’s going away. My
mother worked night and day in making some alterations in his clothes
for disguise; they were then obliged to trust John Allan, their grieve,
who fainted away when he was told his master was in the house, and
that he was to set out with him on horseback before day, and pretend
to the rest of the servants that he had orders to sell some horses at
Morpeth fair. Accordingly, my grandfather getting out at a window to
the stables, they set out in the dark. Though, with good reason, it was
a sorrowful parting, yet after he was fairly gone, they rejoiced, and
thought themselves happy that he was in a way of being safe, though
they were deprived of him, and little knew what was to be either his
fate or their own.
‘My grandfather, whose thoughts were much employed, and went on as
his horse carried him, without thinking of his way, found himself
at Tweedside, out of his road, and at a place not fordable, and no
servant. After pausing, and stopping a good while, he found means to
get over, and get into the road on the other side, where, after some
time, he met his servant, who shewed inexpressible joy at meeting him,
and told him, as he rode first, he thought he was always following him,
till upon a great noise of the galloping of horses, he looked about and
missed him; this was a party sent to his house to take him up, where
they searched very narrowly, and possibly hearing horses were gone from
the house, suspected the truth and followed. They examined this man,
who, to his great joy and astonishment, missed his master, and was too
cunning for them, that they were gone back before my grandfather came
up with him. He immediately quitted the high road, after a warning by
so miraculous an escape, and in two days sent back his servant, which
was the first notice they had at home of his not having fallen into
their hands.’[315]
Sir Patrick escaped to Holland, whence he returned with the Prince of
Orange to take a high place in the councils of his country under a
happier _régime_.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 2.]
We have seen many instances of Catholics deprived, under acts of
parliament, of the privilege of educating their own children. This
statutory power was now applied by the government to gentlefolk of what
were called fanatical principles. The Lady Colville was imprisoned in
the Edinburgh Tolbooth for her irregularities of religious practice,
and particularly for ‘breeding up her son Lord Colville in fanaticism
and other disloyal principles.’--_Foun. Dec._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1685.