A General Assembly sitting in Edinburgh issued an order that
adulterers, murderers, and others guilty of heinous offences, who might
desire to be received back into Christian fellowship, should first
appear penitently before their respective ministers, and then present
themselves in linen clothes, bareheaded and barefooted, before the
synod of their district. It was presently found, however, that divers
of these penitents were too far distant from the meeting-places of
the synods, and others were in such poverty, or _under such terror of
enemies_, that they could not, or durst not travel through the country.
This fact verifies to us a passage in a contemporary historian: ‘The
haill realm of Scotland was sae divided in factions, that it was hard
for any peaceable man as he rade out the hie way, to profess himself
openly, either to be a favourer of the king or queen. All the people
were casten sae lowss, and were become of sic dissolute minds and
actions, that nane was in account but he that could either kill or
rieve his neighbour.’--_H. K. J._
[Sidenote: 1571.]
Incidents characteristic of such a time abound in the contemporary
diarists. ‘March 27, David Lawtie, writer to the signet [in Edinburgh]
was invaded by Thomas Douglas, and the maist part of his fore-finger
strucken fra him.’--_D. O._ October 30, ‘There was ane combat betwixt
Campbell on the king’s part, and ane Smith, a lieutenant or servant
within Edinburgh. Campbell strack him twice through the body without
blood drawn upon himself, except a scrape upon the thumb.’--_Ban._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR. 7.]
The castle of Dumbarton being taken by surprise, great joy was
experienced by the king’s party on finding John Hamilton, archbishop
of St Andrews, among the prisoners. The primate, a zealous adherent
of the ancient faith, and partisan of the queen, was suspected of
various crimes against the Protestant cause; so no mercy was to be
expected for him. Then was seen the remarkable spectacle of the head
of the church in Scotland--he whom Jerome Cardan travelled from London
to Scotland only to cure of some trifling ailments--dragged with but
little ceremony to a scaffold and put to a dog’s death--a victim of
the frightful passions excited by civil war. In answer to a dittay
which George Buchanan assisted in bringing against him at Stirling,
he denied everything but a foreknowledge of and participation in the
death of Moray, ‘of whilk he repentit, and askit God mercy. Being
further accusit gif ony of his surname or friends were upon the counsel
thereof, he answerit that he wold accuse nae man at that time but
himself. As touching his religion,’ says this chronicler, ‘I reasonit
with him, and could find naething but that he was ane papist, and
exhortit sic as were near hand upon the scaffold to abide at the
Catholic faith--sae he termed the papistry. In the castle, he desirit
some papist priest to whom he micht confess him, and of whom he micht
resave consolation [absolution] of his sins, according to the order
of the kirk (as he spak); and sae he continuit to the death in the
papistry, as he livit. As the bell struck at six hours at even, he was
hangit at the mercat-cross of Stirling, upon ane gibbet, on whilk was
written thir twa verses following:
“Cresce diu, felix arbor, semperque vireto
Frondibus, ut nobis talia poma feras.”--_D. O._
[Sidenote: 1571.]
At this time, Mr William Collace was first regent in St Leonard’s
College, St Andrews; he ‘had the estimation of being the maist solid
and learnit in Aristotle’s philosophy.’ James Melville gives an
interesting picture of this learned person, to whose class he came at
fifteen years of age, so ill prepared for understanding the language
(Latin) in which the prelections took place, that ‘I did naething,’
says Melville, ‘but bursted and grat at his lessons, and was of mind
to have gone home again, were [it] not the loving care of that man
comforted me; [he] took me in his awn chalmer, causit me to lie with
himself, and every night teached me in private till I was acquainted
with the matter. Then he gave us ane compend of his awn of philosophy
and the parts thereof ... whilk I thought I understood better. About
the whilk time my father, coming to the town, begoud to examine me,
and, finding some beginning, was exceeding rejoiced, and uttered
sweeter affection to me than ever before. He enterteinit my regent very
heartily in his lodging, and gave him great thanks; he sent me to him,
after he had taken leave, with twa pieces of gold in a napkin; but the
gentleman was sae honest and loving, that he wald have none of his
gold, but with austere countenance sent me back with it; nay, never
wald receive gold or silver all the time of my course.’
Melville mentions having frequent opportunities at this time of seeing
and hearing John Knox, who had taken refuge in St Andrews, while
Edinburgh was possessed by the queen’s party. ‘Mr Knox wald some time
come in and repose him in our college yard, and call us scholars
unto him and bless us, and exhort us to knaw God and his wark in our
country, and stand by the gude cause, and follow the guid example of
our masters.’
‘I saw him every day of his doctrine go hooly and fair [softly and
fairly] with a furring of matricks about his neck, a staff in ane hand,
and guid godly Richard Ballanden, his servant, halding up the other
oxter [armpit] from the abbey to the parish kirk, and by the said
Richard and another servant, lifted up to the pulpit, whaur he behovit
to lean at his first entry, but ere he had done with his sermon, he was
sae active and vigorous, that he was like to ding that pulpit in blads
[knock the pulpit in splinters], and flie out of it.’
He adds: ‘This year, in the month of July, Mr John Davidson, ane of our
regents, made a play at the marriage of Mr John Colvin, whilk I saw
playit in Mr Knox’s presence, wherein, according to Mr Knox’s doctrine,
the castle of Edinburgh was besieged, taken, and the captain, with ane
or twa with him, hangit in effigy.’
[Sidenote: 1571.]
This dramatic performance represented an unfulfilled prophecy of
the reformer. When Kirkaldy of Grange, after many years of zealous
service in the reforming cause, declared for the Queen, and held out
Edinburgh Castle against the Regent, Knox, who had loved him much, was
deeply grieved. He felt, however, no doubt as to the ultimate triumph
of his own cause against all such opposition, and it was perhaps no
great venture for so acute a person to utter the prediction that,
notwithstanding the trust which Kirkaldy put in that powerful fortress,
it should yet run like a sand-glass; it should spew out the captain
with shame; he should not come out at the gate, but over the walls.
Mr Robert Hamilton, minister of St Andrews, asking his warrant for
this vaticination, he said: ‘God is my warrant, and ye shall see it.’
‘As the other was scarcely satisfied,’ says James Melville, ‘the next
sermon from the pulpit, he repeats the threatenings, and adds thereto:
“Thou that will not believe my warrant, shall see it with thy e’es that
day, and shall say: ‘What have I to do here?’” This sermon the said Mr
Robert’s servant wrote....’--_Ja. Mel._
* * * * *
This year ‘great weirs in the north land betwixt the Gordons and
Forbeses, and the Forbeses put till the warst, and mony slain of them,
and towns wasted and burnt.’--_C. F._
Adam Gordon, brother of the Earl of Huntly, was a leader in these
broils, and of some avail in supporting the queen’s cause. He stained
his name by a frightful act of cruelty. The house of Towie, belonging
to Alexander Forbes, was maintained by his lady against Gordon. On
his sending to demand its surrender, the brave dame answered that
she could not give it up without direction from her husband. Gordon
then set fire to it, and burnt the heroic woman, her children and
servants--twenty-seven persons in all!
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY.
1571.]
The queen’s party, after holding a parliament in Edinburgh, where they
affected formally to re-establish her government, sent a pursuivant to
Jedburgh, ‘to proclaim the new erected authority,’ probably thinking
that the man would be safe in the performance of his duty at that town
through the favour of Kerr of Ferniehirst, their fellow-partisan.
They little reckoned on the spirit of the Border burghers. ‘He was
suffered to read his letters till he came to this point, that the lords
assembled in Edinburgh had found all the proceedings against the queen
null, and that all men should obey her only. Then the provost caused
the pursuivant to come down from the cross, and _eat his letters_.
Thereafter, [he] caused loose down his points, and gave him his wages
---- with a bridle; and threatened that if ever he came again, he
should lose his life. Ferniehirst threatened the town: but they gave
him the defiance.’--_Cal._
A few months after, Ferniehirst and Buccleuch mustered a great
multitude of the Border thieves, and came to take vengeance on the
burghers of Jedburgh. The town, assisted by Kerr of Cessford, stood to
its defence; and when Lord Ruthven came with a party of horse to aid
them, they were able to beat back the assailants, many of whom fell
into their hands.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG. 1.]
‘There was ane sow farried in William Davidson’s house, flesher in
Edinburgh, of thirteen gryces [pigs], of the whilk there was ane a
monster. It had the gruntle [snout] in the heich of the heid, and
under that it had twa een, ane nose and mouth, ane brow, ane cheek,
ane tongue, and lugs like to the similitude of man in all sorts; the
remanent thereof was like ane other gryce without hair. This portendit
some mischief to this burgh.’--_D. O._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG.]
The Earl of Argyle, Robert Lord Boyd, and some other nobles, lately
friends of the queen, were now brought over to the king’s side, after
sundry meetings and discussions with the Regent. ‘The greedy and
insatiable appetite of benefices was the maist cause thereof, for there
was nane that was brought under the king’s obedience but for reward
either given or promised. Als he [the Earl of Argyle] was greatumly
persuadit hereto by Lord Boyd, wha persuadit the kirk to part the said
earl and his wife, and [the earl] to marry his [Lord Boyd’s] daughter,
wha was married upon the young laird of Cunninghamheid of before.’--_D.
O._
After these particulars, it is instructive to read the epitaph
inscribed on Lord Boyd’s tomb in the Laigh Kirk (Burns’s Laigh Kirk) of
Kilmarnock:
‘Heir lyis y^t godlie, noble, wyis Lord Boyd,
Quha kirk and king and commonweil decoird,
Quhilk war (quhill they yis jowell all injoyd)
Defendit, counsaild, governd, by that lord.’ &c.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG. 28.]
The Regent Lennox held a parliament at Stirling, where he made an
oration to the nobility. The king, five years old, was present, and,
while his grandfather was speaking, he looked up and espied a hole in
the roof, occasioned by ‘the lack of some sclates.’ At the conclusion
of the harangue, the child remarked: ‘I think there is ane hole in this
parliament.’
[Sidenote: 1571.]
‘In effect, his majesty’s words came true; for the same month, about
the end of the parliament (September 3), there came to Striviling in
the night, ere the nobility or town knew, the Earl of Huntly, the
queen’s lieutenant, Claud Hamilton, with the Lairds of Buccleuch and
Ferniehirst, who, ere day brake, had possessed themselves of the town,
crying “God and the Queen!” so that those that were for the King and
his Regent could not, for the multitude of enemies, come to a head.
Wherever they could see any that belonged to the Regent, him they
killed without mercy. The Regent being taken prisoner by the Laird of
Buccleuch, and horsed behind him, ane wicked fellow lift up his jack,
and shot him through the body with a pistol.... [On a counter-surprise,
the queen’s party] departed the town immediately. The Earl of Mar was
declared Regent, and concluded the parliament. This was the hole which
the young king did see in the parliament, although he meant nothing
less.’--_Bal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV. 10.]
Robert Lord Boyd entered this day into a bond of _manred_ with William
Fairly, brother of David Fairly of that Ilk. Manred, properly, is a
service of allegiance; but in Scotland it had come, in the course of
time, to be an agreement, sometimes between a great man and a less,
sometimes between two or more equally great men, to stand by each other
in all contingencies of war and law, excepting only (and perhaps it was
but a hypocritical exception) where the king’s majesty and his commands
were concerned. It was an arrangement dictated by the exigencies of a
rude time, when law was but partial and uncertain in its actings, and
natural feeling often called for something being done, whether the law
would or no. As something not very consonant with good government, or
even such attempts at the same as might be made in those days, manred
had been denounced by a statute so long ago as 1457, when it was
enacted ‘that nae man dwelling within burgh be fund in manrent, nor
ride in rout in feir of weir with nae man, but with the king or his
officers, or with the lord of the burgh.’ But acts of parliament were
voices crying in the wilderness in Scotland, and manred still continued
to have its place in the economy of life in this age.
[Sidenote: 1571.]
On this occasion, William Fairly binds and obliges himself to be ‘man
and subject servant’ to Lord Boyd and his heirs, ‘aefaldly and truly
to serve them upon their retinue and expenses in household and out of
household, as best sall please them in all their affairs, and as weel
in defence as pursuit, with whom or against whom it sall happen them
to have action and ado,’ the king excepted. He is likewise to help
them with his good counsel, ‘and sall never hear nor know their hurt,
damage, nor skaith, in ony sort, but sall diligently sift out the same,
and mak true declaration thereof.’
The consideration for all this service is the possession of ‘the
thretty-shilling land of auld extent of Byrehill.’
This was but the first of a long series of similar engagements which
Lord Boyd formed down to his death in 1589.[78] For a forty-shilling
land, the Laird of Fergushill becomes bound, October 26, 1572, in the
same way as William Fairly, and to take part with the said lord and
his heirs, in all their actions, quarrels, questions, and debates.
The Laird of Lochrig, the Laird of Rowallan, Andrew Macfarlane of
Arroquhar, and the Laird of Camstroddan, all in succession put
themselves in this relation to his lordship. In March 1575, the
Laird of Blair engaged with his friends, tenants, and servants, to
‘ride, gang, and assist with the said lord, in all kind of leeful
conventions.’ It was with such satellites that a great man of that
age, if to be tried on any criminal charge, appeared at the place of
law, professedly that he might be sure of fair-play, but in reality
with the effect of overbearing justice. It was with such assistants
that two or three lords were sometimes enabled to take possession of
the government, and for a time rule all at their pleasure. Amongst the
most curious things in the early history of the reformed religion,
are the occasions when it was manifestly indebted for its progress to
associations of this irregular kind.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 24.]
About this time, there was apprehended ‘one that keepit ane hostelry
at Brechin, who before, at divers times, had murdered sundry that came
to lodge with him, the wife being also as busy as the man with a mell
[mallet], to fell their guests sleeping in their beds.’--_Ban._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1571-2.