[1] Kennedy’s _Annals of Aberdeen_, i. 176.
[2] A marble effigy of this Lord Belhaven, in a reclining posture, is
to be seen over his tomb in Holyrood Chapel.
[3] The Hon. Sir William Hamilton. He was long after resident at Rome
for Queen Henrietta Maria.
[4] Wodrow’s Life of Trochrig, MS., quoted in _Paisley Magazine_, 1828.
[5] Stevenson’s _Hist. of the Church of Scotland_, quoting _Historical
Collections_, MS.
[6] _Spottiswoode Misc._, ii. 379.
[7] Published in thin folio at London in 1637. 23d June 1637, ‘appeared
George Deuchar, agent, and in name of Colonel Monro presented one book
entitled _Monro his Expeditions_, in token of his affection for the
good town.’--_Edinburgh Coun. Register._
[8] John Gordon, of the house of Gight, engaged himself on the other
side; and while serving the emperor as governor of Egra in Bohemia,
he performed the notable act of the assassination of Wallenstein, for
which his imperial master liberally rewarded him.
[9] _Bannatyne Misc._, iii. 221.
[10] Documents quoted in the _Transactions of the Antiquarian Society
of Scotland_, iii. 251. _Black Book of Taymouth_, p. 437.
[11] The failure of the Duke of Buckingham’s army to relieve Rochelle,
and its shameful retreat from the Isle of Ré.
[12] Stevenson’s _History of the Church of Scotland_ quoting a
contemporary history which he supposes to have been written by one who
was minister of Carlaverock or Ruthwell.
[13] Sir John is described in other entries as keeping priests in his
house of Caddell, and there setting the law at defiance.
[14] Row’s _Hist. Church of Scot._, p. 348.
[15] Stevenson, quoting _Historical Collections_.
[16] _Privy Council Record._ _Book of Adjournal._
[17] In June 1569, the Regent Moray reported to the General Assembly of
the church a case which had puzzled him on a justiciary visit to Elgin.
It was that of one Nicol Sutherland in Forres, who was convicted by an
assize of incest with a woman who had been the paramour of his mother’s
brother. The regent hesitated about considering this crime as rightly
named, and wished the decision of the assembly on the point. The
reverend assembly had no hesitation in pronouncing in the affirmative.
Nicol would consequently be hanged.--_B. U. K._
In August 1626, William Hamilton of Cultes was under discipline in the
presbytery of Lanark for his incestuous marriage with his good dame’s
brother’s wife--that is, we presume, the widow of his step-mother or
step-grandmother’s brother.--_R. P. L._
[18] In the General Assembly of 1565, the church found that the
marriage of cousins was not forbidden in Scripture; but seeing that it
had been attended with inconveniences, desired that the matter should
be settled by the civil magistrate.--_B. U. K._
[19] Dalyell’s _Darker Superstitions of Scotland_, p. 641.
[20] In the _Privy Council Record_ is a list of a great number of
persons dwelling in the eastern part of Berwickshire, who were summoned
to give evidence on this trial, all their landlords being at the same
time enjoined to see that they attended.
[21] Martine’s _Gen. Collections, Macfarlane’s MS._ (Adv. Lib.), vol.
i., p. 168.
[22] The lands of Powes, Powmill, Carsebrook, and Woodside are
mentioned as amongst those destroyed.
[23] From the original in the General Register House.
[24] The life here spoken of was written by Rinuccini, Archbishop of
Fermo. From an abridgment of it in the _Scots Magazine_ for March 1802,
we derive the few particulars which follow.
[25] Kirkton’s _Church History_, p. 19.
[26] _Blair’s Memoirs_, MS. quoted in Notes to Kirkton.
[27] _Wodrow’s Preface to Dickson’s Truth’s Victory over Error_, _apud
Gillies_.
[28] _Livingstone’s Characteristics_, quoted in Notes to Kirkton.
[29] _Analecta_, iii. 450.
[30] £2915.
[31] Father Blackhall’s _Narrative_ (Spalding Club), p. 125.
[32] December 16, 1630, the Privy Council granted commission to a
portion of their number, amongst whom was a bishop (Dumblane), to
assemble in the Laigh Council-house for the examination of Margaret
Wood, ‘and as they shall find occasion to cause put her to some _slight
and spare torture_ for the better trial and discovery of the truth of
the matter.’
[33] See proceedings in Appendix to Spalding’s _Troubles_, vol. i.
(Spalding Club edition).
[34] _New Stat. Acc. of Scotland_--Banffshire, p. 131.
[35] The notes to this article are from another list in the
_Spottiswoode Miscellany_, ii. 383.
[36] James Spence of Wormiston. He became Lord of Noreholm and
Chancellor of Sweden.
[37] Subsequently Earl of Brentford in the English peerage.
[38] Created Lord Eythan by Charles I. in 1642.
[39] He died of his wounds, a captive, at Gortz.
[40] Betrayed and taken at Hanau, and died in prison.
[41] Killed before Bremen.
[42] Called Dear Sandie--he was subsequently employed in the artillery
of the Scottish Covenanting army.
[43] He was assassinated by a lieutenant of his own regiment, whom he
had been provoked to batoon. A court-martial of Germans acquitted the
lieutenant, on the ground that it was contrary to Swedish discipline to
cudgel an officer. General Leslie, being then governor of Staten where
the earl was buried, had the lieutenant immediately apprehended and
shot at a post.
[44] Stevenson.
[45] Stevenson, quoting _Historical Collections_, MS.
[46] _Book of Adjournal._ _P. C. R._
[47] _Black Book of Taymouth_, p. 75.
[48] _Black Book of Taymouth_, p. 440.
[49] _Black Book of Taymouth_, p. 77.
[50] See Cunningham’s _Lives of British Painters_, &c., v. 22, art.
George Jameson.
[51] Mixed with Spalding’s quaint narration, are here inserted some
special descriptions from the authorised account, published at the
time, as abridged in Jackson’s _History of the Scottish Stage_.
[52] _Muse’s Threnodie_, ii. 118. Some specimens of the dress of the
morris-dancers are still preserved at Perth.
[53] _Black Book of Taymouth_, p. 437.
[54] Another account states the number drowned at eight.
[55] From a manuscript of Sir James Balfour. _Ancient Heraldic and
Antiquarian Tracts.,_ Edinburgh. 1837.
[56] _Ed. Phil. Journal_, Apr. 1839.
[57] _View of Diocese of Aberdeen_, Spal. Club.
[58] Go-summer and go-har’st are terms applied in Scotland to the mild
weather which sometimes occurs between autumn and winter. There is a
proverb in Peeblesshire: ‘If the deer lie down dry and rise dry on
Rood-e’en (September 18), it’s a sign we’ll have a good go-har’st.’
[59] See Johnson’s _Scots Mus. Museum_, new edition, _notes_.
[60] _Staggering State of Scots Statesmen._
[61] Spalding. Balfour.
[62] Stevenson.
[63] _Rushworth’s Collections._ _Southey’s Commonplace-book, 3d
Series_, p. 528.
[64] Oliver and Boyd’s _Almanac_ for 1839, p. 92.
[65] _Collections for the His^t. Aber. and Banff_, Spal. Club.
[66] The chancellor seems to have been involved in an unpleasant affair
a short while before his death. Ho had procured the marriage of a young
lady, named Inglis, with a good portion, to a nephew of his, named
Butter, and thus disappointed the Earl of Traquair, who desired the
‘morsel for a cousin of his awn, with whom he was to have divided the
prey.’ Traquair proceeded to ‘raise all the furies of the court against
the chancellor,’ and procured a warrant for examination of some of
his accounts--which, however, terminated in clearing his lordship of
all suspicion. Traquair only shewed ‘his awn base ingratitude towards
him who first of all men brought him to have the king’s favour and
respect.’--_Bal._
[67] Manuscript of Sir James Balfour, _Heral. and Ant. Tracts_,
Edinburgh, 1837.
[68] Notes to Spalding Club edition of Spalding.
[69] _Spalding Club Miscellany_, ii. 73.
[70] For these authentic particulars of Gilderoy’s fate, we are
indebted to the extracts from the _Privy Council Record_ printed in the
Appendix to the Spalding Club edition of Spalding’s _Troubles_.
[71] Act of Privy Council, quoted in _Blackwood’s Magazine_, i. 66.
[72] ‘... many mouths were there opened to the bishop’s disgrace.
“False Antichristian!” “Wolf!” “Beastly belly-god!” and “Crafty fox!”
were the best epithets and titles of dignity given him. The dean was
mightily upbraided. Some cried: “He’s a son of a witch’s breeding and
the de’il’s get. Nae halesome water can come forth from such a polluted
fountain!” Others cried: “Ill-hanged thief, if at that time thou
went’st to court, thou had been well hanged, thou hadst not been here
to be a pest to God’s church this day!” One did cast a stool at him,
intending to have given him a ticket of remembrance; but jouking became
his safeguard at that time.’--_Brief and True Relation of the Broil_,
&c., printed in App. to Rothes’s _Relation_, 1830.
[73] See Vol. I. p. 545.
[74] Rothes’s _Relation of Proceedings Concerning the Affairs of the
Kirk_.
[75] Become fusty.
[76] Inundation.
[77] Clarendon’s Life, ii. 333.
[78] Whitelock’s _Memorials_, 485.
[79] Gordon of Rothiemay’s _Hist. Scots Affairs from 1637 to 1641_.
Spalding Club, vol. i. 57.
[80] Lady Mary Stewart, daughter of Esme, first Duke of Lennox.
[81] Some extracts from this book were printed by the late Charles
Kirkpatrick Sharpe, Esq., 4to, without date.
[82] The moneys are Scots, being but a fraction of sterling money of
the same denomination.
[83] The lady thus devoted her plate to the maintenance of the
Covenanted cause.
[84] Cosmo Innes--preface to _Fasti Aberdonenses_, Spalding Club, 1854.
[85] Gordon’s _Hist. Scots Affairs_.
[86] _Maitland Club Misc._, i. 476.
[87] Turners made by gipsies (cairds).
[88] The reader cannot fail to have perceived that John Dhu Ger has
been twice killed already. How he contrived to outlive so many deaths,
I am unable to explain.
[89] Guthry’s _Memoirs_.
[90] _Edinburgh Magazine_, March 1819.
[91] Balfour’s _Annals of Scotland_, iii. 128.
[92] _Archæologia Scotica_, i. 503, _note_.
[93] Wodrow’s _Analecta_, ii. 209, 280.
[94] The battle of Edgehill, fought on the 24th of October 1642.
[95] According to Burnet, Sir Archibald Johnston of Warriston did the
same thing. ‘He would often pray in his family two hours at a time, and
had an unexhausted copiousness that way. What thought soever struck his
fancy during those effusions, he looked on as an answer to prayer, and
was wholly determined by it.’
[96] This whimsical association actually occurs in the dittay of a
witch of this period.
[97] Stevenson’s _History of the Church of Scotland_.
[98] Willis’s _Current Notes_, April 1857.
[99] See Thorpe’s _Northern Mythology_; also article on Sandsting in
_New Stat. Acc. Scotland_.
[100] On the 8th of June 1643, a case came before the Privy Council, at
the instance of Lawrence Mercer and others, students at St Andrews, who
complained of a scandalous charge got up against them by James Stewart
of Ardvoirlich and his two sons, Robert and Harry, to the effect that
umwhile Alexander Stewart, son of the first party, and brother of the
two others, had received deadly injuries from them in a college tumult,
and died in consequence. It was shewn that Alexander had provoked a
tumult by his insolent speeches, and afterwards lay for a day or two in
bed, but was found on inspection to be quite well, and he had lived in
good health for nine months after. The lords accordingly declared the
complainers to be innocent of what was laid to their charge.
[101] Notes to the Waverley Novels.
[102] In a curious and rare pamphlet, by William Lithgow, descriptive
of the siege of Newcastle (_Edinburgh_, _printed by Robert Bryson_,
1645), we get some idea of the wretched state to which the place was
reduced in consequence of its investiture of several months. ‘We
found great penury and scarcity of victuals, ammunition, and other
necessaries within that dejected town; so that they could not have held
out ten days longer, unless the one half had devoured the other. The
plague was raging in Gateside, Sandside, Sunderland, and many country
villages about.’ For this reason, Tynemouth was obliged to surrender
also; ‘the pestilence having been five weeks there with a great
mortality, they were glad to yield and to scatter themselves abroad,
but to the great undoing and infecting of the country about.’
Lithgow, by the way, was dissatisfied with the treatment of Newcastle
by his countrymen. ‘As they abused their victory,’ says he, ‘in
storming the town, with too much undeserved mercy, so they as unwisely
and imprudently overreached themselves, in plundering the town with
an _ignorant negligence and careless omission_.... And as they thus
defrauded themselves with a whistle in their mouths, so they pitifully
prejudged, by this their inveigled course, the common soldiers of their
just due and dear-bought advantages.’
[103] ‘At Botarie, 25th October 1648, the brethren ordained to
intimat out of their several pulpits, that whosoever receipts and
converses with excommunicat persons, should be processed before the
presbytery.’--_Strathbogie Presbytery Record._
[104] Producing a fire by the friction of two sticks against each other.
[105] Daughter-in-law of the Lady Frendraught formerly noticed.
[106] _Records of the Kirk of Scotland_, 1838, p. 446.
[107] Peterkin’s _Records of the Kirk of Scotland_, p. 427.
[108] _Maitland Miscell._, i. 436.
[109] _Maitland Miscel._, i. 433.
[110] _Caldwell Papers_, i. 91.
[111] Wood’s _Parish of Cramond_, p. 77.
[112] _Coltness Collections_ (Maitland Club), p. 58.
[113] _Archæologia Scotica_, ii. 108.
[114] Lyndoch lies about seven miles north-west from Perth.
[115] It is certain that Perth was visited by the plague in 1646. See
_Memorabilia of Perth_, p. 179.
[116] In a popular publication quoted below[117] occurs the following
notice of a well-known land mollusk, in connection with a traditionary
story of the plague, which has long had general currency in Scotland:
‘In the woodlands, the more formidable black nude slug, the _Arion_
or _Limax ater_, will also be often encountered. It is a huge
voracious creature, herbivorous, feeding, to Barbara’s astonishment,
on tender plants; fruits, as strawberries, apples; and even turnips
and mushrooms; appearing morning and evening, or after rain; suffering
severely in its concealment in long droughts, and remaining torpid in
winter. The gray field slug (_Limax agrestis_) is actually recommended
to be swallowed by consumptive patients! In the town of Dundee there
exists a strange traditionary story of the plague, connected with the
conversion, from dire necessity, of the _Arion ater_, or black slug,
to a use similar to that which the luxurious Romans are said to have
made of the great apple-snail. Two young and blooming maidens lived
together at that dread time, like Bessie Bell and Mary Gray, in a
remote cottage on the steep (indeed almost perpendicular) ascent of the
Bonnetmaker’s Hill. Deprived of friends or support by the pestilence
that walked at noonday, they still retained their good looks and
healthful aspect, even when the famine had succeeded to the plague.
The jaundiced eyes of the famine-wasted wretches around them were
instantly turned towards the poor girls, who appeared to thrive so
well whilst others were famishing. They were unhesitatingly accused of
witchcraft, and had nearly fallen prey to that terrible charge; for
betwixt themselves they had sworn never to tell in words by what means
they were supported, ashamed as they felt of the resource to which they
had been driven; and resolved, if possible, to escape the anticipated
derision of their neighbours on its disclosure. It was only when about
to be dragged before their stern inquisitors, that one of the girls,
drawing aside the covering of a great barrel which stood in a corner
of their domicile, discovered, without violating her oath, that the
youthful pair had been driven to the desperate necessity of collecting
and preserving for food large quantities of these _Limacinæ_, which
they ultimately acknowledged to have proved to them generous and even
agreeable sustenance. To the credit of the times of George Wishart--a
glimpse of pre-reforming enlightenment--the explanation sufficed; the
young women escaped with their lives, and were even applauded for their
prudence.’
[117] _Summer Life on Land and Water._ By William W. Fyfe. 1851.
[118] _Remarkable Passages of the Lord’s Providence towards Mr John
Spreull, Town-clerk of Glasgow, 1635-54._ T. Stevenson, Edinburgh, 1832.
[119] _Arbroath Guide_, Oct. 2, 1847.
[120] Executed in the Palace-yard, Westminster, 9th March 1649.
[121] 6th October 1648--‘appoints the four bailies, the old provost
[Archibald Tod], the deacon of the chirurgeons, and their clerk, to
go down to the Canongate in the afternoon, and in the Council’s name
salute the Lord Cromwell, lieutenant-general of the English forces, and
thir presents sall be their warrand.’--_Ed. Council Register._
[122] Defoe’s _Review of the Brit. Nation_, 1709.
[123] _Life of Cameron of Lochiel._
[124] Balfour’s _Annals_. _Britain’s Distemper_, by Patrick Gordon.
[125] Excerpts from Fraser of Wardlaw’s Memoirs. _Inverness Courier._
[126] Rescinded Acts. _Records of Kirk of Scotland._
[127] Balfour’s _Annals_, iii. 427.
[128] Son to umquhile John Stewart, usher to his majesty.
[129] _Acts of Estates, MS._ Gen. Reg. House.
[130] This narration is taken from Fergusson’s _Diary_, as quoted in
_Satan’s Invisible World_. We are obliged, however, for the name of the
minister to Wodrow, _Analecta_, i. 65.
[131] _Maitland Miscel._, i. 439.
[132] From tradition.
[133] On the 18th of March 1647, finding that ‘the pride and insolency
of excommunicate persons doeth exceedingly increase, and that the
dreadful censure of excommunication is much slighted and vilipended,
whereby God is much dishonoured,’ the Estates passed an act renewing
the force of all previous acts against such persons, and ordaining
that, after forty days, letters of horning and caption should be issued
against them, to be of full force unless they can shew that they have
given ‘full obedience and satisfaction to the kirk.’ The acts against
papists were at the same time renewed; none such to be capable of
public employment, husbands to be ‘countable for their wives’ if the
ladies should reset priests, and no person to take a servant unprovided
with ‘a testimonial of the soundness of their religion from the
minister where they dwelt.’
[134] _Register of the Presbytery of Lanark._ _Acts of the Scottish
Parliament, MS._
[135] _Records of Kirk of Scotland_, p. 473.
[136] Nicoll’s _Diary_.
[137] Kirkton’s _Hist. Church Scot._, p. 64.
[138] Nicoll’s _Diary_, p. 8.
[139] Dr Wilde, in Census of Ireland for 1851; part V., vol. i., p. 110.
[140] Baillie’s _Letters_, iii. pp. 97, 550.
[141] See an interesting narration on this subject in Mr Mark Napier’s
_Montrose and the Covenanters_, 1838.
[142] The formula used on the occasion is given in the following terms
by a writer of the seventeenth century: ‘When any one dies, the bellman
goes about ringing the passing bell, and acquaints the people therewith
in the following form: “Beloved brethren and sisters, I let you to wit,
that there is ane faithful brother lately departed out of this present
warld, at the pleasure of Almichty God (and then he veils his bonnet);
his name is Wully Woodcock, third son to Jemmy Woodcock, a cordinger;
he ligs at the sixt door within the Norgate, close on the Nether Wynd,
and I would you gang to his burying on Thursday before twa o’clock,
&c.” The time appointed for his burying being come, the bellman
calls the company together, and he is carried to the burying-place,
and thrown into the grave as dog Lion was, and there is an end of
Wully.’--_A Modern Account of Scotland_, 1670. _Harleian Miscellany_,
vi. 121.
[143] The mansion of the Earl of Moray in the Canongate, the same house
that Cromwell occupied on his brief visit in 1648. It is now the Normal
School of the Education Committee of the Free Church of Scotland.
[144] These anecdotes appear in _A Short Abridgment of Britain’s
Distemper from 1639 to 1649_. By Patrick Gordon of Ruthven. Spalding
Club. 1844. They are placed by the author in connection with Cromwell’s
comparatively peaceful visit to Edinburgh in 1648, but must, beyond a
doubt, refer to the crisis of 1650.
[145] See under date December 18, 1649.
[146] The small county of Kinross was included.
[147] The annual valued rent of Fife and Kinross in 1674 amounted to
£383,379 Scots.
[148] It appears from factory accounts in the Caldwell papers as if
oats fluctuated in the period 1645-54 between 6s. 1d. and 17s. 8d.
sterling per boll. But probably the highest prices do not chance to
occur in these accounts.
[149] Shew themselves.
[150] Nicoll, p. 67.
[151] _Spalding Miscellany_, iii. 205.
[152] From a copy of the petition in possession of the present Irvine
of Drum.
[153] See under July 18, 1649.
[154] _Illust. Shires of Aber. and Banff._ Spal. Club. Vol. i. p. 285.
[155] Apparently a tax imposed on houses--equivalent to hearth-money.
[156] A small sect who held that families were the only proper
congregations.
[157] _Register of the Committee of Estates_ (Gen. Reg. House), Sept.
28, 1660.
[158] _Account of the Regalia_, by Sir Walter Scott.
[159] Burgh Record of Peebles.
[160] Strang’s _Glasgow and its Clubs_, p. 7.
[161] Whitelocke’s _Memorials_, 514, 515.
[162] Quoted in _Spottiswoode Miscellany_, ii. 91.
[163] Whitelock, 520.
[164] See the _Court of Session Garland_ (Stevenson, Edinburgh, 1839),
p. 4.
[165] Heath’s _Chronicle_, p. 356.
[166] _Mil. Memoirs of the Great Civil War_, 4to, p. 220.
[167] _Memoirs of Locheil_, p. 129.
[168] Clarendon.
[169] Wogan lay at Weem during his illness, and might therefore have
been expected to lie interred in the churchyard of that parish; but
Heath gives Kenmore as his last resting-place.
[170] _Abbreviate of Justiciary Register_, by Lord Fountainhall, quoted
in notes to Law’s _Memorials_, p. 91.
[171] _Caldwell Papers_, i. 92.
[172] _Satan’s Invisible World Discovered._
[173] Nicoll’s _Diary_.
[174] Baillie’s _Letters_, iii. 323.
[175] About July 1655, a woman in Suffolk was taken possession of by a
devil at a Quaker meeting, and carried home, where she soon after died.
A circumstance which figures in the diagnosis of many cases of alleged
possession, is related regarding her. ‘Something ran up and down in her
body under the skin, that bellowed in her like a calf.’--_Nic._
[176] In an act of the Estates, March 22, 1647, it is acknowledged
that, at Martinmas of the preceding year, the debt owing to Sir William
Dick by the public was £533,971, 6s. 9d. Scots. In a supplication, he
set forth ‘his hard and distrest condition for want thereof.’
[177] The English parliament, March 3, 1660, granted a protection to
Sir Andrew Dick, and _continued_ to him a pension of £5 a week which
had been for some time in arrears, recommending him at the same time to
the Council of State for such preferment in Scotland as he is capable
of.--_Mercurius Politicus_: March 15, 1660.
[178] _Mercurius Politicus_, May 20, 1658.
[179] Baillie’s _Letters_, iii. 387.
[180] _Lives of the Lyndsays_, i. 296.
[181] _Parliamentary Diary_, iv. 168. Desborough, along with one
Downing, represented Edinburgh in the parliament which Cromwell
assembled at Westminster in 1654.
[182] Baillie. _Letters_, iii. 438. The countess is said by Baillie
to have been the medium through which the Scottish nobility acted
on General Monk, in prompting him to go to London, just before the
Restoration.
[183] _A Journey through Scotland, in Familiar Letters_, &c. 8vo.
London, 1723.
[184] In August 1657, his son, Lord Linton, was cited before the
presbytery of Peebles for certain scandalous miscarriages--as, frequent
absence from church, drinking, and swearing. He submitted, and was
rebuked. On the 3d of December of the same year, ‘the presbytery,
taking into their consideration a letter of complaint formerly sent
unto them by the Lord Linton, complaining of his father as slandering
him of unnatural dealing towards his parents,’ appointed a committee to
speak with them both, and report. Lord Linton was afterwards asked to
give in particulars of his complaint, but he does not appear to have
complied with the request.
[185] _Inverness Courier_, January 1851.
[186] _Stirk_, a young ox. _Hawkit_, white-faced.
[187] John Mean had assisted Montrose and the Engagement, and incurred
losses on these accounts. _Acts of S. Parl._, vii., _App._ 93.
[188] We only know of this act from its being alluded to in the Privy
Council Record.
[189] Cosmo Innes’s Preface to the Acts of the Parliament of Scotland,
1844.
[190] Thomson’s _Scottish Acts_, xi., _App._ p. 139.
[191] See under March 1652.
[192] In the parish of Aberdour, on the north coast of Aberdeenshire,
is the house of Auchmedden, once belonging to a family named Baird.
A local writer in 1724 reports that, among some high rocks near the
Auchmedden millstone quarry, ‘there is an eagle’s nest; and the pair
which breed there have continued in that place time out of mind,
sending away their young ones every year, so that there is never
more stays but the old pair.’[193] ‘At one period,’ says a writer of
our own day, ‘there was a pair of eagles that regularly nestled and
brought forth their young in the rocks of Pennan; but, according to the
tradition of the country, when the late Earl of Aberdeen purchased the
estate from the Bairds, the former proprietors, the eagles disappeared,
in fulfilment of a prophecy of Thomas the Rhymer, “that there should be
an eagle in the crags while there was a Baird in Auchmedden.” But the
most remarkable circumstance, and what certainly appears incredible,
is, that when Lord Haddo, eldest son of the Earl of Aberdeen, married
Miss Christian Baird of New Byth, the eagles returned to the rocks, and
remained until the estate passed into the hands of the Hon. William
Gordon, when they again fled, and have never since been seen in the
country. These facts, marvellous as they may appear, are attested by a
cloud of famous witnesses.’[194]
[193] _View of Dio. of Aberdeen_, Spal. Club, p. 447.
[194] _New Stat. Acc. of Scot._
[195] See under May 21, 1650.
[196] See _Spottiswoode Miscellany_, vol. ii., for a series of extracts.
[197] _Life of Thomas Ruddiman_, 117.
[198] Wodrow’s _Analecta_, i. 301.
[199] _Analecta_, i. 106.
[200] Law’s _Memorials_. By C. K. Sharpe, p. lxviii.
[201] Contemporary with Kincaid flourished, in the north country, a
pricker named John Dick. One named John Hay, a messenger in Tain, who
had reached sixty without any discredit attaching to his name, was
denounced by a distracted woman as a wizard, and immediately seems to
have fallen into the hands of Dick, who, without any authority, pricked
him all over his body, having first shaved his head to ascertain that
there were no insensible parts in that region. He was then transferred
to Edinburgh, a journey of nearly two hundred miles, and locked
up in the Tolbooth. On a petition from Hay, and the exhibition of
certificates of character, he was ordered by the Lords of Council to be
liberated.
[202] Kincaid lay nine weeks in jail, and then petitioned for his
liberty, representing that, being an old man, he had suffered much in
health by his confinement, and, if longer confined, might be brought to
mortal sickness; whereupon the Lords liberated him, on condition of his
giving security that he would prick no more without warrant.
[203] The full confessions of Isobel Gowdie and Janet Braidhead, being
perhaps the two most remarkable witch-cases on record in Scotland,
are given in Mr Pitcairn’s _Criminal Trials_, iii. 600. From these
confessions, the following narration is made up.
[204] The hiatus here supplied are a consequence of mutilation of the
manuscript.
[205] Stubble.
[206] _A Dismal Account of the Burning of our Solemn League and
National Covenant ... at Linlithgow, May 29, 1662._ Reprinted by
Stevenson, Edinburgh, 1832.
[207] Wood’s _Peerage_, quoting Morison’s _Decisions_, 5626.
[208] In those days, there being as yet no _habeas corpus_ act, it
was quite common for persons suspected of crimes to lie several
years untried in prison. On the 15th of February 1666, William Drew
petitioned for trial or liberation, after having been _five years_
confined in Glasgow jail, on a charge of murder exhibited against him
by the Laird of Keir.
[209] In Richard Baxter’s treatise on the _Divine Life_ are some
consolatory remarks which he addressed on this occasion to the bereaved
mother of the young earl.
[210] _View of Diocese of Aberdeen_, Spal. Club.
[211] Pepys’s _Diary_, 3d ed., ii. 408, 437.
[212] In compliance with his petition, Leslie was relieved from the
duty of the collection.
[213] Men near akin to the chief.
[214] Introduction to the _Heart of Midlothian_.
[215] M‘Ure’s _Hist. of Glasgow_ (reprint), p. 166.
[216] _London Gazette_, Feb. 18, 1667.
[217] _London Gazette_, May 6, 1667.
[218] _Abbotsford Miscellany._ Mungo Murray seems to have been a
lieutenant of the king’s guard, and to have enjoyed a pension of £200.
See _Maitland Misc._, iii. 154.
[219] See a letter from Sir Robert Dalrymple Horn Elphinstone to
Sir James Stewart Denham, inserted in the Abbotsford edition of the
Waverley Novels.
[220] About the time of his marriage, there are several entries
regarding him in the Privy Council Record, as having contravened the
law in the introduction and keeping of Irish cattle and horses.
[221] The editor of Lamont’s Diary gives the following note on George
Wood’s funeral: ‘The revolting practice of attaching the corpse of a
debtor seems from this entry to have been known in Scotland, even at
this late period; while there does not appear to have been any legal
authority for its adoption. The notion of its legality, however, still
prevails among the vulgar in England; and although the late Lord
Ellenborough held it to be contrary to the law of England, it was
observed by the unfeeling creditors of Weivitzer the actor, and of the
celebrated Richard Brinsley Sheridan. How absurd soever this notion may
seem, a still more glaring error is known in the north of Scotland. It
is there believed by the common people, that a widow is relieved of
her husband’s debts, if she follow his corpse to the door, and, in the
presence of the assembled mourners, openly call upon him to return and
pay his debts, as she is unable! Strange and unfeeling as this ceremony
may be, the editor recollects an instance in which it was practised by
the widow of a man in good society.’[325]
[222] Sir George Mackenzie’s _Mem. Affairs Scot._, 4to, p. 183.
[223] Mackenzie’s _Mem. Affairs Scot._, p. 244.
[224] Weir had been an officer on the popular side in the Civil War.
In the registers of Estates, under March 3, 1647, reference is made
to a supplication of Major Thomas Weir, in which he craved payment of
600 merks due to him by an act of the Committee of Estates of date the
17th of December 1644, and also payment of what might be due to him
‘for his service as major in the Earl of Lanark’s regiment by the space
of twell months, and his service in Ireland as ane captain-lieutenant
in Colonel Robert Home his regiment by the space of nineteen months;’
further asking ‘that the parliament wald ordain John Acheson, keeper of
the magazine, to re-deliver to the supplicant the band given by him to
the said John upon the receipt of ane thousand pound weight of poulder,
twa thousand weight of match, and ane thousand pound weight of ball,
sent with the supplicant to Dumfries for furnishing that part of the
country.’ The matter was given over to a committee.
[225] _Ravaillac Redivivus_, p. 64.
[226] _Mem. Affairs Scotland_, p. 62.
[227] See under August 1660.
[228] _Memorials_, p. 43.
[229] _Analecta Scotica_, ii. 167.
[230] Sir George Mackenzie, _Memoirs of Affairs of Scot._, p. 217.
[231] Mackenzie’s _Mem. Scot. Affairs_, p. 226.
[232] A tight body-coat, from Fr. _just-au corps_.
[233] See vol. i., p. 427.
[234] See vol. ii., p. 318.
[235] Edin. Council Record.
[236] Arnot’s _Hist. Edinburgh_, 1779, p. 598.
[237] It is usually stated that the first coffee-house in England was
set up in 1654 in a shed in the church-yard of St Michael, Cornhill, by
one Pasqua, a Greek, servant of Mr Daniel Edwards, a Smyrna merchant.
[238] A tall house of several stories so called in Edinburgh.
[239] Crookshanks’s _Hist. Ch. of Scot._, ii. 127.
[240] _Sketches of Perthshire_ (1812), quoted in _Letters on
Demonology_.
[241] Sir George Mackenzie’s _Hist. Affairs of Scot._, p. 7.
[242] See Wodrow’s _Analecta_, i. 84.
[243] Balbegno is the name of a small estate in that county, near
Middleton’s patrimonial property. It was bought in 1690 by Middleton’s
brother.--_Wood’s Peerage._
[244] Law cites the following couplet, apparently as the last words of
the apparition:
‘Plumashes above, and gramashes below, It’s no wonder to see how the
world doth go.’
Plumashes are plumages; gramashes, coarse hose used as gaiters. The
words seem to be used allegorically to express the two opposite
conditions of life--that of the gay cavalier and the plain hard-working
man.
[245] ‘Lord Middleton used to assert that a certain palmister, whom he
met in his youth, had predicted his elevation to the supreme command
of his country; but the end of this prediction he always concealed,
which made his companions suspect it was tragical, as afterwards it did
indeed prove.’--_Kirkton’s Church History._
[246] _Blackwood’s Magazine_, v. 75. Mr Hogg mis-states the year as
1620.
[247] Rec. of Justiciary, Arnot’s _Crim. Trials_, p. 138.
[248] _Answer to Scots Presbyterian Eloquence._
[249] A copy of this document, extracted from the Record of the
Privy Council, is printed in full in the appendix to Pennant’s Tour.
It recites that Lachlan Maclean of Broloies, Hector Og Maclean his
brother, and others, had been denounced rebels for refusing to answer
to the Earl of Argyle, justiciar of Argyle, for having in the preceding
April assembled three or four hundred men by the fire-process (_the
fiery cross_) in Mull, Moveran, and other places, and taken warlike
possession of the lands of Knockersmartin, &c. It grants commission
to Lord Niel Campbell, and nine other gentlemen, to raise forces and
proceed in warlike manner against the rebels, assuring them that no
slaughter or fire-raising they may commit will be imputed to them as a
crime, provided only they give an account of their proceedings before
next New-year’s Day.
[250] A daughter of Hamilton of Bardowie, in Baldernoch parish,
designed to pay a visit to her sister-in-law at Hamilton, when a deaf
and dumb woman, who had a year before given a remarkable warning, came
to the house, and, with many signs, endeavoured to dissuade the young
lady from her journey. ‘She takes her down to the yard, and cuts at
the root of a tree, making signs that it would fall and kill her. That
not being understood by her nor any of them, she takes her journey,
the dumb lass holding her to stay. When the young gentle-woman is at
Hamilton, her sister-in-law and she go forth to walk in the park; and
in their walking they both come under a tree that is cut through at the
root, and leaning by the top upon another tree. In that very instant,
they hear it shaking and coming down; her sister-in-law turns to the
right hand, and she herself flees to the left, that way that the tree
fell, and so it crushed her and wounded her sore, so that she dies in
two or three days’ sickness.’--_Law._
[251] _Satan’s Invisible World Discovered_, p. 4-10.
[252] The idea of familiar spirits was entertained in this age by
persons of the most dignified character. In October 1675, the bishop
and synod of Aberdeen were engaged in considering ‘divers complaints
that some, under pretence of trances and familiarity with spirits,
by going with these spirits commonly called the fairies, hath spoken
reproachfully of some persons, whereof some are dead, and some living.’
The synod threatened both the _seducers_ and the _consulters_ with
censure, ‘if, after admonition publicly given, they forbear not such
practices, or to vent and spread such reproachful speeches, whereof the
seducers are the authors.’--_A. S. R._
[253] _Analecta Scotica_, i. 117.
[254] See under July 25, 1661, and April 1, 1662.
[255] Several of the inhabitants of Mull told me, that they had
conversed with their relatives that were living at the harbour when the
ship was blown up, and they gave an account of a remarkable providence
that appeared, in the preservation of one Dr Beaton (the famous
physician of Mull), who was on board the ship when she blew up, and was
then sitting on the upper deck, which was blown up entire, and thrown
a good way off; yet the doctor was saved, and lived several years
after.--_Martin’s Descrip. West. Isles_, 1703. See of the present work,
vol. i. p. 189.
[256] _Ars Nova et Magna Gravitatis et Levitatis._ In a subsequent
work, entitled _Hydrostatical Experiments_, Sinclair described a kind
of diving-bell of his own invention, which he called an _Ark_.
[257] _Archæologia Scot._, iv. 437.
[258] Works of Dr Alexander Pennecuik, p. 178.
[259] The grandfather of the celebrated David Hume.
[260] The distance is seventeen miles.
[261] _A Short Account of Scotland._ Published in London in 1702.
[262] Sir Walter Scott, _Letters on Demonology_, p. 323. Sir Walter
attributes the anecdote to a generation too late.
[263] See under November 1665.
[264] See under February 1589-90.
[265] Fountainhall’s _Decisions_, i. 113.
[266] Fountainhall’s _Decisions_, i. 157.
[267] Fountainhall.
[268] This is the traditionary account, from Sharpe’s _Notes to
Kirkton’s History_, p. 182.
[269] Fountainhall.
[270] _Archæologia Scotica_, i. 499.
[271] _Historical Observes_, p. 49.
[272] See Fountainhall’s _Decisions_, _passim._
[273] Fountainhall’s _Historical Observes_, p. 62.
[274] The documents connected with this curious witch-trial are printed
in the _Scots Magazine_ for 1772, and again in the same work in 1814.
[275] _Vide_ Fynes Moryson on Scottish travelling, _sub anno_ 1598.
[276] _Pace_, the weight of a clock, from Fr. _le poids_.
[277] _Swey_, a kind of crane moving on a hinge against a wall.
[278] It might have been supposed that this was a descendant of Sir
Robert Bruce; but the account of the Clackmannan family in Douglas’s
_Baronage_ takes no notice of such a person; and it was beyond doubt
Peter de Bruis, ‘a Flandrian,’ who is mentioned several times in
Fountainhall’s _Decisions_ as building a harbour at Cockenzie, and
obtaining a privilege for making playing-cards.
[279] It was at its perihelion on the 17th of December, when it was
only 128,000 geographical miles from the sun.
[280] _Abbotsford Miscellany_, i. 356.
[281] See vol. i. p. 421.
[282] Pamphlet on Woollen Manufactories, printed at Edinburgh in 1683.
[283] _Memorials for the Gov. of Royal Burghs in Scotland._ By
Philopoliteios [Bailie Skene of Aberdeen]. Aberdeen, 1685.
[284] _Husbandry Anatomised, or an Inquiry into the Present Manner of
Tilling the Ground in Scotland_, &c. By Ja. Donaldson. Edinburgh, 1697.
[285] Provost Dickison was assassinated in 1572. See vol. i. p. 81.
[286] Fount. _Decisions_, i. 189, 193.
[287] This epizootic raged also in England and other countries. It was
a disease styled _Angina Maligna_ (probably _pneumonia_); a blue mist
was seen on the pastures.--_Short’s Chron. Hist. of Air Meteors_, &c.,
1748.
[288] This curious case is stated more briefly in the present volume,
p. 227.
[289] The common men were paid at the rate of 6d. a day; drummers, 1s.;
sergeants, 1s. 6d.
[290] Fountainhall’s _Decisions_, i. 187.
[291] From original documents.
[292] Fountainhall’s _Decisions_, i, 188. In January 1686, the widow of
Patrick Cunningham, apothecary, successfully pursued Lady Evelick for
two hundred merks, being a sum the lady had promised in writing ‘for
the skaith the said Patrick suffered when her son James Douglas put
fire in Harry Graham’s chamber.’--_Foun. Dec._
[293] The jail of Dumfries seems to have then been either insecure
or ill-conducted. In May 1683 there was a complaint before the Privy
Council from Sir Patrick Maxwell of Springkell, regarding a notorious
robber named Ludovick Irving, whom he had caused to be followed to
Ireland, there apprehended, and then brought to Dumfries at an expense
to himself of two hundred pounds sterling. The man was first put into
‘a sure vault,’ but was removed by the magistrates into ‘ane utter
room, which had no sure posts nor doors;’ so he had no difficulty in
escaping. Sir Patrick claimed his expenses from the magistrates, and
demanded their punishment.--_P. C. R._
[294] Strictly Wester Gledstanes, situated in the barony of Carnwath
and county of Lanark.
[295] From a petition of the workmen employed in the king’s
printing-office in 1678, craving exemption from watching and warding,
it appears they were _fifteen_ in number.--_P. C. R._
[296] Creech’s _Fugitive Pieces_, p. 82.
[297] Letters to Earl Aberdeen (Spal. Club), p. 36.
[298] The same with Mr Thomas Stewart noticed at p. 245 of this volume.
[299] _Coltness Collections._
[300] Sir Thomas’s father, Sir James Stewart of Coltness, presided
as provost of Edinburgh at the execution of Montrose. Ho suffered
imprisonment after the Restoration, and is said to have been only
rescued from something worse by the intercession of a cavalier
gentleman whose son’s life he had saved by his humane intercession some
years before.
[301] Adverted to in this volume, p. 211.
[302] The Council (April 23) ordered three hundred pounds to the Rosses
out of vacant stipends; but it is most unlikely that the money or any
part of it was ever realised.
[303] In April 1684, Mrs Jean Barron, relict of the minister of Birse,
craved charity of the Privy Council as the daughter of Mr Robert
Barron, professor of divinity at Aberdeen, who ‘having had the honour
to be the first who opposed the Covenant,’ was pursued for his life
and banished on that account, finally dying in exile, in such poverty
that any means he might have had for the maintenance of his family
was lost; nor had any benefit ever been derived from his nomination
to the bishopric of Orkney, by which King Charles I. had endeavoured
to recompense his sufferings. Mrs Jean was now with three fatherless
children reduced to great misery, in which she humbly hoped that the
Council would not allow the daughter of so great a sufferer to remain.
The Council recommended her case to the Lord Treasurer.
Anna Morton represented herself to the Council (July 20, 1685) as
the daughter of Mr William Morton, formerly minister of South Leith,
who, in 1640, for his refusal of the Covenant, was ‘not only thrust
out of his church, and plundered of all his goods and gear, but, from
the violent malice of these bloody persecutors, the Covenanters, was
necessitat for shelter of his life to leave his native country and fly
to England, where, thereafter, through their cruel malice, he was most
pitifully used, being apprehended and incarcerat within the prison of
York, and continued there in a most miserable and penurious condition,
to the utter ruin of himself, his family, his fortune, and estate;’ all
of which was fully testified by competent witnesses. The petitioner
was now a widow with a charge of children, in helpless poverty and
wretchedness, all traceable to the impoverishment of her father. The
Council ordered her two thousand merks out of the vacant stipends of
the diocese of Argyle.
[304] The death of the old Laird of Dumbiedykes in Scott’s tale of the
_Heart of Mid-Lothian_, involves an allusion to this piece of national
music: ‘He drank three bumpers of brandy continuously, and “soughed
awa’,” as Jenny expressed it, in an attempt to sing _Deil stick the
Minister_.’
[305] See vol. i. p. 24.
[306] MS. quoted in Wilde’s Table, Census of Ireland, 1851.
[307] _Notes to Fountainhall’s Chronological Notes of Scottish
Affairs_, p. 5.
[308] A sugar-house was first set up in Glasgow in 1667.--_Gibson’s
Hist. Glasgow._
[309] Sir Walter Scott relates this anecdote on the authority of Mrs
Murray Keith.--_Notes to Fountainhall’s Chron. Notes, &c._, p. 33.
[310] ‘These’ is always used for ‘those’ in Scottish documents of this
age.
[311] Fountainhall’s _Decisions_. Burnet’s History.
[312] _Statistical Account of Scotland_, vol. v.
[313] Letters to George Earl of Aberdeen (Spal. Club), p. 122.
[314] _Analecta_, i. 114.
[315] _Memoirs of Lady Grizzel Baillie._
[316] MS. in possession of Sir Hugh Purves Hume Campbell, Bart.,
Marchmont House.
[317] _Papers Relating to the Geographical Description, Maps, and
Charts of Scotland, by John Adair. Bann. Club Misc._, ii. 345.
[318] _Papers Relating to Slezer’s Theatrum Scotiæ, in Bann. Club
Misc._, ii. 307.
[319] _Scots Magazine_, Obituary, 1791.
[320] _A Short Account of Scotland_, &c. London, 1702.
[321] Called the Old Bank Close, in the Lawnmarket, where Melbourne
Place now is.
[322] The earl’s first marriage to a daughter of the Marquis of
Huntly--who, however, was not the mother of his children--is noticed in
this volume under 1649.
[323] [Mackie’s] _Journey through Scotland_, 1723, p. 18.
[324] From an original inventory of the articles, read before the
Society of the Antiquaries of Scotland by Sir David Laing, in 1857.
[325] Lamont’s _Diary_ (Edinburgh, 1830), p. 212, _foot-note_.