CONCLUSION.
"So they were wedded, and life's smoothest tide
Bore on its breast the bridegroom and the bride."--CROLY.
With these two lines we might fairly dismiss the hero and heroine of
these volumes, without describing, or expatiating on the explanations
that brought about a termination so pleasing; but it suddenly
occurred to us that the reader, who had kindly accompanied us so far,
might have some curiosity to learn the fate of the other actors in
our drama or history, for it partakes of both.
Jane's relations accounted for the extorted letter which caused such
pain to Roland; and the next messenger from Falkland announced that a
pardon had actually been granted by the king, while the whole plot
against her life and honour was fully revealed and made conspicuous
by the secret papers and correspondence of Redhall, all of which were
purchased at the sale of the effects of an eminent antiquary, lately
deceased, and are preparing for publication by a Scottish literary
club.
Roland and his bride lived to see the subversion of all order in the
days of the Douglas wars, when he fought valiantly under the Duke of
Chatelherault for his queen, like a man of truth and honour, for
which he received from her own fair finger a ring of gold, which his
descendants possess unto the present day.
Released from Inchkeith by order of the king, the venerable Countess
of Ashkirk had soon after the happiness of procuring from Rome,
through the influence of Cardinal Beaton, a dispensation, by which
Sybil Douglas of Kilspindie was married to her cousin, the earl, who
survived that period more than fifty years; and, during a long and
useful life, was eminently distinguished for his loyalty and
patriotism. The last time we heard or read of him was in 1587, when,
on tidings of Mary's murder at Fotheringay arriving at Edinburgh, he
appeared at Holyrood with his eight tall sons, all sheathed in black
armour, to show King James VI. what he considered the most proper
court mourning for the occasion.
Father St. Bernard lived to see the Reformation, which nearly broke
the old man's heart; for he thought that the end of the world was at
hand. In his ninetieth year he died among the monks of St. Jerome,
at the Escurial, in Spain, whither he had travelled to deposit the
arm-bone of St. Giles.
Ten years after the events we have narrated, the gallant Sir John
Forrester fell, fighting for his country, at the battle of Pinkey, on
the 10th September, 1547. He was shot when making a brilliant charge
with his own vassals against those regiments of Spanish arquebusiers,
who, under Don Pedro de Gamboa, gained that battle for the Duke of
Somerset.
Honest old Lintstock, the ex-gunner, instead of settling on the
estate which Vipont received in free barony from the king, married
the hostel, or rather the hosteller's widow, to whom he had paid his
court so long; and though he became one of the wealthiest burgesses
of the good town, instead of becoming either a councillor or baillie,
he preferred to doze away his time by the tap-room fire, where, with
other old iron-headed troopers and trampers, over a can of mum-beer,
he told long and interminable stories of the battles of Flodden and
Haddonrig; of sakers, of carthouns, and cannons-royale; and of
blowing Englishmen, Spaniards, and Highlandmen all to rags and
fritters, for he had fought against them all in his time.
The end of Dobbie the Doomster is buried in obscurity, unless we
connect him in some way with the same legal functionary who is said
to have drowned himself by leaping in a drunken fit from the steep
pinnacle of rock which overhangs the Loch of Duddingstone, and is now
known as the _Hangman's Knowe_; but if it will comfort the reader to
know the end of Birrel the Brodder, we may add that this amiable
individual became unfortunately involved in the murder of Cardinal
Beaton in the year 1546, and being taken with other prisoners when
St. Andrew's was stormed by the admiral of the galleys, Leon, prior
of Capua, he was conveyed to France, where he died, miserably chained
to an oar, and scourged almost to a skeleton, in a galley at Brest.
John of the Silvermills, first deacon of the barber-chirurgeons at
Edinburgh, never completed his famous elixir, which would have
brought his profession to a close, and enabled us to live without an
ache or an ailment for ever. This precious compound was just on the
point of completion by the addition of that small ingredient it had
lacked so long, and for which he had found a substitute in the blood
of a certain reptile, mentioned in the black letter "Ereptology" of
Francis Redi, when one dark night ten thousand Englishmen landed and
gave all to fire and sword in and around Edinburgh. This was Lord
Hertford's famous invasion in 1544.
Poor John's laboratory was destroyed, and for months afterwards he
was to be seen, like the ghost of himself, rending his beard, and
lamenting over the ruins of his premises, strewed with shattered
retorts and broken crucibles, and mourning heavily, like another
Jeremiah, over the fall of an imaginary Babylon.
NOTES.
I.
JANE SETON.
The unfortunate passage in Scottish history, which afforded a hint
for the foregoing romance, will be found in "Pitcairn's Criminal
Trials," at considerable length, and also in a little history of the
"Life of James V.," reprinted in _Miscellanea Scotica_ from the
edition of 1710; but as both these works may be beyond the reader's
reach, we may briefly state the facts as being these.
In the year 1537, Jane Douglas, the young and beautiful widow of Lord
Glammis, and sister of the Earl of Angus, together with her second
husband, the Laird of Skipness, an aged priest, and others, were
accused by a person named William Lyon, of endeavouring to compass
the king's death by poison and sorcery.
Slighting the addresses of Lyon and many others who aspired to her
hand, after the death of Lord Glammis, she had preferred Campbell of
Skipness; upon which Lyon, inflamed by rivalry and revenge, made a
terrible vow, that his life should be dedicated to her destruction;
and hence came the charge, upon which she and her immediate friends
were committed to the Castle of Edinburgh.
"The accuser, who had the ear of the jealous king, used all his
rhetoric to aggravate the matter, that he might dispose him to treat
them with all possible cruelty," says the old French author of James
the Fifth's life. "He represented that the family of Douglas had
always been dangerous and troublesome to his predecessors, himself,
and his kingdom, and reminded him of the insolence of Archibald
Douglas, Earl of Angus, the prisoner's brother, in the time of his
majesty's minority--a peer whose practices were so pernicious, that
by a public decree he was banished the kingdom, as a disturber of the
peace of his native country; and that since that time he had become
the subject of Henry, King of England."
Examined, on _the rack_, by the king's advocate, and questioned
mercilessly, notwithstanding her rank, delicacy, and beauty,--for
which she was renowned through all Britain,--she was compelled to
admit the alleged treason and sorcery and James having solemnly sworn
never to forgive a Douglas she was burned alive on the Castle-hill,
on the 17th July, in presence of the citizens, and almost in view of
her son and husband, who were confined in David's Tower. There the
former remained a prisoner until 1542; but the latter, when
attempting to escape, like Roland Vipont, by means of a rope, on the
night of the execution, fell, and was found next morning, literally
dashed to pieces, at the bottom of the rocks. Struck with remorse,
James V., who was naturally a merciful prince, set the old friar at
liberty. But it is remarkable that William Lyon was merely banished
from Scotland; while a quack named Makke, by whom the pretended
poison, or magical preparation was made up, escaped with the loss of
his ears.--See _Pinkerton, Tytler, Lesley, Arnot,_ &c. &c.
II.
JOHN OF THE SILVERMILLS.
This character is purely imaginary. James IV. and James V., both
great dabblers in alchemy, are said to have had a laboratory,
furnace, and their appurtenances at Silvermills, a little village
which took its name from these operations, and is now a district of
Edinburgh. It was probably at these mills that the gold, of which
great quantities were found during the reign of James V., was
refined. The preface to the French life of that monarch, printed at
Paris in 1612, states that he had "three hundred men employed for
several summers in washing gold, of which they got above £100,000 of
English money."
Lest some may suppose we have overdrawn the popular credulity of
1537, in delineating John of the Silvermills, we may mention that it
is not long since a similar character existed in Scotland, and was
put under the ban of an ecclesiastical court.
This individual, whose name was Andrew Dawson, lived on the
Grampians, and having been unfortunate as a farmer, became a
veterinary surgeon, and dealer in herbs for the cure of his own
species. His mother having enjoyed the reputation of being uncanny,
Andrew easily succeeded to this unenviable inheritance; but patients
flocked to him from all quarters, and his chief mode of cure was
friction, accompanied by charms muttered, or chaunted, in an
unintelligible language. "His hut," says the _Dundee Courier_,
"which was built by himself, like the _Black Dwarf's_, on a muir, was
situated not far from a spot called the 'Fairy's Knowe,' and was the
terror of the benighted traveller." Strange sounds were heard;
unearthly lights were seen; and the fame of unhallowed rites,
together with a distemper among the cattle, soon brought Andrew on a
distinct "charge of sorcery before the Kirk Session."
This Scottish Paracelsus had treated three citations with sovereign
contempt; but he was compelled to attend on the fourth being served
at his hut; and on the appointed day appeared before the Session an
aged and infirm man. On the minister asking him, if he "wished the
sentence of excommunication reopened, and on what grounds?" Andrew
pulled from his ample pouch three common quartz pebbles, and
explained that in all diseases of the _head_ he had employed, by
friction, one which bore a rude resemblance to that part of the body.
In diseases of the _heart_, he used another, shaped like that organ;
and the third was for affections of the _kidneys_, to which it bore a
resemblance. As to his wakes and nightly orgies, he admitted that
they were meant to impose upon the ignorant, and increase the
mystery. "To describe the shame and astonishment at this recital
would have required the pen of Scott, or the pencil of
Allan."--_Dundee Courier_, Dec. 25th, 1851.
He died a few months after this scene; the last instance in Scotland
of belief in sorcery, followed by kirk censure; and his resting-place
is still pointed to, with something of fear, as "the warlock's
grave." A still later instance of popular credulity will be found
mentioned in the London _Times_, of the 10th January, 1852, wherein a
gentleman of Marseilles was accused of diseasing a child, by sorcery
and the _evil eye_.
III.
THE THUMB.
The ancient mode of confirming any bargain or bond, for good or for
evil, in Scotland, was by the pressure of wetted thumbs, an eastern
custom, which is still traceable among the Moors and other tribes.
It may still be found among the boys in some districts of Scotland.
Doubtless the various sayings now common among the peasantry, such
as, "Here's my thumb on't,"--"Ye needna fash your thumb,"--"Keep your
thumb on that,"--or, "Having one _under_ your thumb," &c., have
arisen from this old custom. The heart-shaped stone, on which
parties were wont to press their wetted thumbs, when ratifying their
bargains at the Cross of Edinburgh, was presented about three years
ago by the Town Council to Lord Cockburn. Prior writes,
"Now let us touch thumbs, and be friends ere we part;
Here, John, is my thumb, and here, Mat, is my heart."
Various old songs record this mystic sign of truth and fealty; one in
_Orpheus Caledonius_, 1725, says,
"Dearest maid! nay, do not fly me,
Let your pride no more deny me;
Never doubt your faithful Willie,
There's _my thumb_, I'll ne'er beguile ye."
Another, in Ramsay's _Tea-table Miscellany_, 1723, has it,
"Though kith and kin, and a' revile ye,
There's my thumb, I'll ne'er beguile ye."
To _bite_ the thumb at any one was anciently an insult in Scotland
and England, as it is still in France. Scott mentions it in the _Lay
of the Last Minstrel_, when describing the quarrel between the Laird
of Hunthill and Conrad of Wolfenstein, canto vi.,
"Stern Rutherford right little said,
But bit his glove, and shook his head," &c.
And Shakespeare, in _Romeo and Juliet_, has,
"I will bite my thumb at them, which is a disgrace if they bear it!"
"Dags and pistols! to bite his thumb at me!"
Innumerable other instances might be cited.
IV.
THE BRODDER.
As stated in the text, this was an indispensable legal functionary,
whose name occurs frequently in all trials for witchcraft in
Scotland. Among the expenses for burning Margaret Denholm, is the
following item:--"To Jhone Kinked, for ye _brodding_ of her, vi. lib.
Scotts."--_Pit. Crim. Trials._
In March, 1619, the magistrates of Newcastle employed a noted
Scottish witch-pricker, to discover all those who dabbled in sorcery
within the walls of their town, "offering him twenty shillings
a-piece for all he should condemn as witches, and a free passage
thither and back" to Scotland. A proclamation by bell summoned all
persons to give information of witchcraft. Thirty women were brought
to the Town Hall, stripped nude, had a pin thrust into their flesh by
this charlatan, who acquainted Lieut.-Colonel Hobson, the English
commandant, that they were guilty, and that "he knew whether women
were witches or no by their look; but when the said person was
searching of a personable and goodlike woman, the Colonel said,
'surely this woman is none, and need not be tried;' but the Scotsman
said she was, and therefore he would try her; and presently he ran a
pin into her, and set her aside as a guilty person and child of the
devil, and fell to try others whom he pronounced guilty.
Lieut.-Colonel Hobson proved upon the spot the fallacy of the
fellow's trial of the woman; and then the Scotsman cleared her, and
said she was not a child of the devil." After being paid in
Newcastle, this witch-finder went into Northumberland, to prove women
at the rate of "three pounds a-piece;" but, on returning into
Scotland, his villany came to light, and he was hanged, confessing
"at the gallows, that he had been the death of above two hundred and
twenty women in Scotland and England, for the gain of twenty
shillings a-piece."--See _Sykes's Local Records of Newcastle_.
As mentioned in the romance, the _brod_, or steel pin, used in
piercing the devil's mark, is now supposed to have been made to slip
into its handle, thus giving the appearance of entering the body
without producing pain--an infallible sign of sorcery.
Within two years after the publication of James the Sixth's
_Demonologie_, twenty-six persons were tortured for witchcraft, at
Aberdeen, and twenty-one were condemned to the flames. "It would
have been considered a prodigal wasting of such a happy windfall, to
have burned all these wretches at once; and accordingly," says the
_Book of Bon Accord_, "by judicious management, and by bringing two
or three to the stake at a time, it was contrived to delight the
public with incremations on the Castle-hill for upwards of a
twelvemonth."
The _last witch_ in Scotland, was accused of transforming her
daughter into a pony, and getting her shod by the devil, for which
she was burned in 1722, near the Earl's Cross at Dornoch, in
Sutherland.
Of the _last witch_ in England, a curious account will be found in
the _Courier_, of the 28th of February, 1834, which records one of
the most gross and startling instances of superstition ever known; it
concerned the enchantment of a herd of pigs in the Forest of Dean.
See also the _Monmouth Merlin_, of the same date.
The Act against Witchcraft was not repealed in Scotland and England
until about 1750; and not in Ireland until 1821!
THE END.