curious trial before Mr Baron Hullock. The action was taken against one
Mrs Wakefield and her two sons, for conspiring "to take away by subtle
stratagems" a young lady named Turner, who had not yet left school. The
David Laing above mentioned was called as a witness on behalf of the
defendants, and he affirmed that the couple were married lawfully
according to the Scottish fashion--namely, by putting on the lady's finger
a ring. The witness said he was seventy-five years old, and had spent more
than half of his life in the performance of marriages. In
cross-examination by Mr Brougham, he admitted obtaining L30 for this
particular ceremony, or even L50, but could not remember exactly, "being
somewhat hard of hearing." The accused was found guilty of causing this
young lady to "contract matrimony without the consent of her father, and
to the great disparagement of the King's peace." The chief prisoner, E.
Gibbon Wakefield, was convicted of abduction, and the marriage, which
excited considerable public attention, was afterwards rendered invalid,
and annulled by an Act of Parliament specially obtained. After this
flagrant case Gretna Green marriages fell into disrepute, and the business
showed a steady decline, though cases of the employment of pseudo-parsons
are on much later record. In 1853, a person named Thomas Blythe, a witness
before the Court of Probate at Westminster, stated that he lived at
Springfield, Gretna Green, and that he obtained his livelihood by means of
agriculture, but that he not unfrequently took advantage of opportunities
to increase his income by small strokes of business in the "joining" line.
Again, the demise of another "joiner" was announced so late as 1872, when
the obituary of Simon Laing appeared in the _Glasgow Herald_. It is
probable, however, that the pursuit of his "clerical" profession ceased
long before the date of his death, for, in 1856, the old law by which the
mere verbal declaration of consent before witnesses was sufficient to
constitute a Scottish legal marriage became effete through the passing of
the Act of Parliament, 19 and 20 Victoria, cap. 96. By this Act the laws
of Scotland and England were brought into assimilation, and in that year
the occupation of the northern hedge-parsons was virtually gone.
It may be said such marriages as those we have described were considered
as clandestine and ill-advised in Scotland, as in more southern parts, the
Church of Scotland doing all that lay in its power to discourage and
prevent them. The only punishment, however, which it had for transgressors
being excommunication, the restraint by the Kirk was very slight, its
injunctions and fulminary condemnations being treated with contempt.
Probably the best known of the notable marriages which have taken place at
Gretna is that of the Earl of Westmoreland with the daughter of Child, the
banker, whose counting-house was at the sign of the Marygold, in the
Strand. The romantic but determined couple had the advantage of an early
start, one starlight night in May, but the pursuit was not less hot than
the departure had been well arranged, and when within a few miles of the
Border the coach was nearly overtaken by Mr Child's carriage. The Earl,
however, not to be baulked when so near the end of the journey, shot down
one of the pursuing horses, while one of the servants cut the carriage
straps behind. The crown of firs which mark Gretna from the surrounding
country came quickly into view, the bridge was crossed, and the village
was reached by the reckless couple. A parson was found, and quickly the
Earl and Miss Child were made one. Within a year Mr Child died, it is
said, of the mortification and disappointment connected with this affair.
The elder daughter of the match, Lady Sophia Fane, afterwards married Lord
Jersey, and inherited his immense fortune, including Child's Bank at
Temple Bar.
Death and Burial Customs and Superstitions.
Among the many pagan beliefs and observances which were adhered to during
many centuries of Christian creed and worship, and some of which have
survived among the less enlightened even to the present day, a large place
is held by those connected with death and burial. In Scotland, many
trivial things were regarded as omens of death. In the northern Highlands,
an itching of the nose was believed to prognosticate the death of a
neighbour. In the southern parts, a humming in the ear was held to prelude
the death of a relative. The crowing of a cock at an unusual hour was
regarded as a token of the death of some person in the parish. In the
Lowlands, the howling of a strange dog was accepted as a warning of the
approaching death of some inmate of the house near which the melancholy
wail was raised. The "death candle," as the phosphoric light sometimes
seen flickering over burial-grounds was called, was similarly regarded in
the Hebrides.
In some parts of the Highlands it is still believed that the last moments
of a dying person are prolonged by the door of the death-chamber being
closed. It is usual, therefore, for it to be left ajar, so that there may
be room for the departing spirit to take its flight, and yet the intrusion
of any evil thing be prevented. When a death occurred, the clock was
stopped, and its face covered, as were all the mirrors in the house. A
bell was laid under the head of the corpse, and a vessel containing earth
and salt placed upon the breast.
From the moment of death until the departure of the funeral procession to
the place of burial, the corpse was watched night and day by parties of
friends and neighbours, who relieved each other. Silence was observed, but
this did not prevent the consumption of much ale and whisky. Among the
poorer classes the interment took place soon after death, in order to
lessen the cost of watching, but the well-to-do deferred the funeral for
at least a week, and sometimes a fortnight, in order that the hospitality
of the house might be more extensively offered and enjoyed. Among these a
feast was given on the evening preceding the funeral.
There were many superstitious beliefs and customs connected with funerals.
As in England, the proverb was accepted that "happy is the corpse that the
rain falls on." If the funeral party, on the way to the burial-ground,
walked in a straggling manner, it was regarded as an omen that another
death would soon occur under the same roof. In the Hebrides, if one of the
party stumbled and fell, the incident was held to indicate that he would
be the next to die.
In the last century, there was a lamentable amount of ale and whisky
drinking before and after funerals. The company began to assemble two
hours before the time appointed for the corpse to be carried from the
house. If the deceased was a farmer, each of the guests was offered a
glass of whisky at the gate of the farm-yard, and another on crossing the
threshold. On entering the guest-room, a portion of shortbread and another
glass of whisky were handed to him, a reverential silence being observed
for a time, after which conversation was carried on in whispers. When all
the guests were assembled, the minister commenced a religious service,
which lasted about three-quarters of an hour. This was followed by the
handing round of oatcake, cheese, and whisky, and afterwards shortbread
and more whisky. Then the coffin was carried out, and followed to the
grave by all those who were sufficiently sober to walk straight.
Religious ceremonies at burials have never found favour in the Church of
Scotland. They were discouraged both by the First Book of Discipline and
the Westminster Directory, the compilers of the former saying, "for
avoiding all inconveniences, we judge it best that neither singing nor
reading be at the burial,... yea, without all kind of ceremony heretofore
used, other than that the dead be committed to the grave with such gravity
and sobriety as those that be present may seem to fear the judgment of
God, and to hate sin, which is the cause of death." The Westminster
Directory deals with the matter in much the same way, the Assembly
maintaining that the burial of the dead is not a part of the work of the
ministry, as baptisms and marriages are.
It appears to have been customary in the early centuries of the Church in
Scotland, to bury the dead uncoffined; and this custom prevailed among the
poor for some time after the Reformation. It lingered in rural districts
longer than in towns, and in some later than in others; but the Kirk
Session records of some parishes refer to the provision of coffins for the
interment of persons who were practically paupers in the last quarter of
the seventeenth century. As to the mode of burial before the use of
coffins became general, the General Assembly ordained, in 1563, "that a
bier should be made in every country parish, to carry the dead corpse of
the poor to the burial-place, and that those of the villages or houses
next adjacent to the house where the dead corpse lieth, or a certain
number out of every house, shall convey the dead corpse to the
burial-place, and bury it six feet under the earth."
The biers appear to have been of more than one kind. Some of them were
mere rails upon which the corpse was laid, covered only with a pall,
called in Scotland a mort-cloth. Others were wooden boxes, with the lid on
one side furnished with a hinge, so that the corpse could be taken out,
and lowered into the grave by ropes. In some parts of the Highlands, a
long basket, made of twisted rushes, was used, and called the "death
hamper." There were three pairs of loop handles, through which short iron
bars were passed for convenience of carriage; and on the grave being
reached, it was lowered by ropes, so arranged that it could be turned over
and recovered for future use.
Before the Reformation, it was the custom to bury unbaptised children
apart from members of the Church, the north side of the churchyard being
reserved for that purpose. This was afterwards regarded as contrary to the
true principles of Protestantism, and in 1641 the Synod of Fife ordained
that "all these who superstitiously carries the dead about the kirk before
burial, also these who bury unbaptised bairns apart, be taken notice of
and censured." Suicides and excommunicated persons were also, at one time,
buried apart, and at night. In 1582, the Kirk Session of Perth refused to
allow the corpse of a man who had committed suicide by drowning to be
"brought through the town in daylight, neither yet to be buried among the
faithful,... but in the little Inch within the water."
With regard to interment within the churches, the Scottish Reformers seem
to have been in advance of those south of the Border. The Brownists were
as much in advance of the former, for in 1590 one of the leaders of that
denomination wrote:--"Where learned you to bury in hallowed churches and
churchyards, as though you had no fields to bury in? Methinks the
churchyards, of all other places, should be not the convenientest for
burial; it was a thing never used till Popery began, and it is neither
comely nor wholesome." Interment in churches was, on sanitary grounds,
even more objectionable than in the grounds adjacent to them, and in 1576
the General Assembly prohibited the practice, and ordered that those who
contravened the ordinance should be suspended from the privileges of the
Church.
Long after that time, however, burials in churches continued to take
place, owing to the value attached by families of rank above that of the
commonalty to the privilege of having their relatives buried apart. In
1643, the Assembly again prohibited all persons, "of whatsoever quality,
to bury any deceased person within the body of the kirk, where the people
meet for hearing of the Word." But the ordinance was disregarded by all
who thought themselves powerful enough to do so, and as ministers had very
little to do with a matter which had been declared to be unministerial,
they usually found their will sufficient to serve their purpose. In 1695,
the Kirk Session of Kilmarnock recorded a minute that, the north aisle
being then filled with pews, "they shall, when required, cause lift six
pews, on each end, next to the north wall of the aisle, so oft as any of
the families of Rowallan, Craufordland, and Grange, shall have occasion to
bury their dead;... and, after burial, the said pews shall be set up
again in their places, at the expense of the session." Kirk Sessions seem
to have felt themselves powerless to enforce their ordinances in the face
of a long existing custom and a fancied right of the gentry to burial
within the church; and in one instance, which occurred in a Highland
parish in 1727, the Kirk Session petitioned the Presbytery to "put a stop
to such a bad practice."
The custom of ringing a bell at funerals, which was a common one before
the Reformation, was continued afterwards. There is an entry in the
records of Glasgow, for 1577, of the sale of "the auld bell that yed
throw the toun of auld at the burial of the dead." In 1621, the Kirk
Session of Dumbarton ordained that "the beadle, John Tome, and his
successors, shall ring the mort-bell before all persons deceased within
town, for such prices as the minister and session shall set down." It may
be that the custom, like the ringing of church bells, originated in the
superstition that the sound of bells scared away evil spirits; for an
edict of the Town Council of Aberdeen, passed in 1643, includes the
tolling and ringing of bells among the "superstitious rites used at
funerals," which it prohibits.
Towards the close of the seventeenth century, it seems to have been usual
for the church bell to be tolled at funerals, and that without any charge
being made, for, in 1696, the Kirk Session of Mauchline made a minute that
they "thought it reasonable that whoever desired the tolling of the bell
at the funeral of their relations, should pay some small quantity of money
to the kirk treasurer, to be disposed of for the poor's use." Similar
ordinances were passed about the same time by the Kirk Sessions of other
parishes in Ayrshire. It was decided, however, in the Civil Court, in
1730, that the money arising from fees for the ringing of bells and
burials within the church did not properly belong to the fund for the
relief of the poor, but might be used for the maintenance of the fabric of
the church. The poor, however, do not appear to have lost much by this
decision, for during the year ended October, 1732, the "big" bell at
Kilmarnock was tolled for funerals only seven times. It may be explained
that there were two bells in many churches, the larger one to be tolled at
the funerals of the rich, and the smaller at those of the poor. In the
register of burials at Inverness, the words "big bells" are added to the
entries of the funerals of "persons of quality."
The burials register of the parish of Tough, in Aberdeenshire, record
that, in 1784, forty-two of the parishioners joined in the purchase of a
new bell for the church, stipulating that, when deaths occurred in their
families, "the bell be rung once before the day of interment, that is,
when the officer gets the first notice of a contributor's death, and then
upon the day of interment, from morning until the coffin be laid in the
ground, in the manner that bells ought to be rung at funerals, and that
by no other person than the officer allenarlie."
Palls were, from a very early period, regarded as essential parts of the
funeral paraphernalia. In 1598, the Kirk Session of Glasgow ordered a
black cloth to be bought "to be laid on the corpses of the poor," and, for
at least two hundred years afterwards, it was the custom for the
"mort-cloth" to be taken to the house where a corpse awaited burial, and
laid over it. The reason for this may be found in the early custom of
burial without a coffin, and in the case of those who desired to show some
regard for appearances, in the proclamation of Council in 1684, that
coffins should not be covered with silk or decorated with fringes or
metal-work. The mort-cloths kept "to be laid on the corpses of the poor"
were probably of coarse black woollen cloth; but those used at the
funerals of well-to-do people were, as a rule, of richer and more handsome
material. In the sessional records of the parish of Mauchline for 1672
there is an entry of the payment of a sum of no less than L10, 12s. 4d. as
completing the price of a new mort-cloth, which implies that some portion
of the total cost had been paid previously. Another new mort-cloth
provided for the same parish in the last quarter of the eighteenth century
is described as having been made of Genoa velvet, conformably fringed.
The preaching of funeral sermons received little favour in Scotland during
the early period of the Reformed Church. "We have," says Baillie, writing
from London during the sitting of the Westminster Assembly, "with much
difficulty, passed a proposition for abolishing their ceremonies at
burials, but our difference about funeral sermons seems irreconcilable. As
it has been here and everywhere preached, it is nothing but an abuse of
preaching, to serve the humours only of rich people for a reward. Our
Church has expressly discharged them, on many good reasons; it's here a
good part of the minister's livelihood, therefore they will not quit it.
After three days' debate, we cannot yet find a way of agreeance."
It was in consequence of this inability to agree on the subject that the
Scottish commissioners at Westminster declined to hear the sermon preached
on the occasion of the funeral of Pym. Baillie wrote:--"On Wednesday, Mr
Pym was carried from his house to Westminster on the shoulders, as the
fashion is, of the chief men of the Lower House, all the House going in
procession before him, and before them the Assembly of Divines. Marshall
had a most eloquent and pertinent funeral sermon--which we would not hear,
for funeral sermons we must have away, with the rest."
The earliest registers of deaths are those of Aberdeen, which commence in
1560; Perth, beginning in 1561, and the Canongate, Edinburgh, in 1565. The
register of burials in the last-named parish commences in 1612, and that
of Greyfriars in 1658. Those of rural parishes generally commence in the
last century, and they are, as a rule, more or less imperfect. It appears
from the Edinburgh registers, in which the deaths are summarised annually,
that the mortality has greatly diminished during the last hundred and
fifty years. In the first four decades of the last century, nearly
two-thirds of the deaths were those of children, and the deaths of adult
females were double those of adult males. The dawn of a better state of
things appears in 1741, when the deaths of 276 men, 401 women, and 942
children, were registered, which, if we accept the generally received
statement that the population of the city was then fifty thousand, gives
an annual average death-rate of 34 per thousand. The average mortality of
the ten years ending with 1878, as shown by the report of the Registrar
General, was 24 per thousand; and that of the week ending October 8, 1898,
was 20 per thousand; which was precisely that of the thirty-three largest
towns of the southern portion of the island.
Contemporary events in other places were not unfrequently recorded in the
local registers of deaths in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Thus, in the Aberdeen register, we have the murder of Lord Darnley very
circumstantially recorded as follows, though under a wrong date:--"The
ninth [10th] day of February, the year of God 1566, Henry Stuart, Lord
Darnley, King of Scotland, who married Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland,
daughter to King James the Fifth, was cruelly murdered under night, in
Edinburgh, in the Cowgate, at the Kirk of Field, by James Hepburn, Earl of
Bothwell, and other his assisters, whose deed God revenge. So be it."[13]
The ascription of the crime to Bothwell does not appear in the Canongate
register, which merely records the fact of Darnley being blown up with
gunpowder.
The assassination of the Earl of Murray is recorded in several parish
registers. The session clerk of Aberdeen recorded it, with much
particularity, as follows:--"The twenty-third day of January, the year of
God 1569, James, Earl of Murray, Lord Abernethy, Regent to the King and
realm of Scotland, was cruelly murdered and shot in the town of
Linlithgow, by a false traitor, James Hamilton of Bodywallhaucht, by the
conspiracy and treason of his own servant, William Kircaldy, and John
Hamilton, bloody Bishop of St. Andrew's, whose deed we pray God to
revenge. So be it." With equal circumstantiality the same clerk made an
entry in the register of the murder of Coligny, and the horrible massacre
of the Protestants of Paris, on St. Bartholomew's day, 1572, which event
he prays God to revenge.
Some of the entries in the church registers of Edinburgh are of
considerable historical interest. In that of St. Giles is chronicled the
removal of the remains of the Marquis of Montrose from the Abbey Church of
Holyrood to St. Giles's Church, where they were honoured with a
magnificent and pompous funeral. The entry in the register of burials
records the final interment as follows:--"11 May 1661.--The Rt. Hon.
James, Marquis of Montrose, Earl of Kincardine, Lord Grahame and Mugdok,
His Majesty's late commissioner and Captain General for the kingdom of
Scotland, and knt. of most hon. order of the Garter, was conveyed from the
kirk of Holyrood House with great honour and solemnity to St. Giles's kirk
and buried." The corpse had been, in the first instance, interred at the
Burgh Muir, so that this was the third removal.
The register of the Greyfriars' Church, Edinburgh, contains the following
record of another and more generally interesting translation:--"Robert
Garvock, Patrick Forman, James Stewart, David Fernie, Alexander Russell,
was executed in the Gallowlee, for owning the truth, upon the 10 day of
October 1681 years, and their heads fixed upon Bristo Port, taken down and
buried privately in Louristone Yards, now accidentally dug up upon the 15
day of October 1726, and buried decently upon the 19 day of the said
month in the Greyfriars' churchyard, close to the Martyrs' Tomb."
The grandeur of the final interment of the remains of the Marquis of
Montrose, followed later by the costly obsequies of Lord Roslin, induced
the Scottish Parliament, in 1681, to pass an Act which, besides
restricting the number of persons who might attend the funeral of a person
of rank to one hundred, prohibited "the using or carrying of any branches,
banners, and other honours at church, except only the eight branches to be
upon the pall, or upon the coffin where there is no pall." The Act seems,
however, to have had little effect in diminishing the excessive costliness
of funerals among all classes above the very poorest. The funeral of Sir
William Hamilton, who died in 1707, was attended with a display and an
amount of hospitality which cost a sum equal to two years of his salary as
a judge. The funeral of Lachlan Macintosh, chief of the Highland clan of
that name, in 1736, cost (including the customary festivities) a sum which
involved his successors in pecuniary embarrassments for a century
afterwards. The funerals of Highland chiefs were attended by all the clan,
sometimes numbering thousands of persons, and the procession to the place
of burial extending to more than a mile in length; the coronach--a hymn of
lamentation, an example of which may be found in Scott's "Lady of the
Lake"--being chanted by hundreds of voices, accompanied by the bagpipes.
The Story of a Stool.
James I. after the Reformation introduced into Scotland bishops, and his
son Charles I. attempted to force upon the Scottish church a book of
canons and a liturgy. Both actions were regarded with strong aversion, and
culminated in bitter strife. The king directed that on Sunday, July 23rd,
1637, the new service-book should be read in every parish church in
Scotland. Before the appointed day arrived, opposition was manifest in all
quarters, and few had the courage, even if they had the desire, to conduct
their services from the new prayer-book.
On the eventful Sunday when the new order of service was to be formally
introduced, the chief church of the capital of Scotland, the old Cathedral
of St. Giles, was filled by an unusually large congregation. Among those
present were two archbishops, several bishops, the lords chancellor and
treasurer, privy council, judges, and magistrates. A large number of the
humble people, composed chiefly of the wives of citizens and their maids,
filled the body of the church. In those days no pews were in the church,
and the poor-folk brought clasp-stools.
When Dean Hannay, attired in a surplice, commenced reading prayers from
the service-book a riot arose which has seldom been equalled in the house
of God. The Dean could not be heard for the clamour of many voices. The
voice of a female--that of Jenny Geddes--was heard above others. She
cried, "Out, out! does the false loon mean to say his black mass at my
lug?" and then threw her stool at the Dean's head.
This was the signal for a riot: an attempt was made to tear from the Dean
his surplice, but he disengaged himself from it, and with difficulty made
his escape. Hand-clapping, hisses, curses, &c., put an end to any attempt
to conduct the service. The Bishop of Edinburgh attempted from the pulpit
to restore order, but a stool was thrown at him, and, had not a friendly
hand averted its course, doubtless he would have been seriously injured,
or even killed. Stones and other missiles were thrown at the pulpit.
The Lord Chancellor, it is recorded, commanded the magistrates to call out
the town-guard to drive the ringleaders from the church. The church was
cleared of the rioters, but outside they battered the doors, broke the
windows, cried out, "A Pope! A Pope!" "Antichrist!" "Stone him! Stone
him!" The Dean tried to resume his reading, but the shouts of the
multitude without drowned his voice.
[Illustration: JENNY GEDDES' STOOL.
_From the Antiquarian Museum, Edinburgh._]