‘The whilk day, the lords of secret council has thought meet and
expedient that the king’s majesty sould not write to the lords of
his hienes’ council and session, in furtherance or hindrance of ony
particular persons’ actions and causes in time coming, but suffer them
to proceed and do justice in all actions privilegit to be decidit by
them, as they sall answer to God and his hienes thereupon.’--_P. C. R._
James was now twelve and a half years old, but nominally in possession
of the government. We see that his influence was already sought by
individuals, to affect the course of the chief civil tribunal of the
country. It will appear a characteristic circumstance, and there are
many others to corroborate its general purport. Yet it is but right to
remark, as the general impression produced by a perusal of the Privy
Council Record, that the decisions given there on matters of right
between individuals are, on the whole, marked by an appearance of
fairness and impartiality. Oppression from high quarters is frequently
denounced; and there are numberless instances of a humane and
forbearing spirit towards poor and unfortunate people.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1579.]
‘The magistrates of [Glasgow], by the earnest dealing of Mr Andrew
Melville and other ministers, had condescended to demolish the
cathedral, and build with the materials thereof some little churches
in other parts, for the ease of the citizens. Divers reasons were
given for it--such as, the resort of superstitious people to do their
devotion in that place; the huge vastness of the church, and that the
voice of a preacher could not be heard by the multitudes that convened
to sermon; the more commodious service of the people; and the removing
of that idolatrous monument (so they called it) which was of all the
cathedrals in the country only left unruined, and in a possibility
to be repaired. To do this work, a number of quarriers, masons, and
other workmen, was conduced, and the day assigned when it should take
beginning. Intimation being made thereof, and the workmen by sound of a
drum warned to go unto their work, the crafts of the city in a tumult
took arms, swearing with many oaths, that he who did cast down the
first stone should be buried under it. Neither could they be pacified
till the workmen were discharged by the magistrates. A complaint
was hereupon made, and the principals cited before the council for
insurrection: where the king, not as then thirteen years of age, taking
the protection of the crafts, did allow [sanction] the opposition they
had made, and inhibited the ministers (for they were the complainers)
to meddle any more in that business, saying, “That too many churches
had already been destroyed, and that he would not tolerate more abuses
in that kind.”‘--_Spot._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR.]
John Stewart, Earl of Athole, was one of the more respectable of the
Scottish nobility of this age. To Queen Mary--whom he had entertained
at a hunt in Glen Tilt in 1564--he proved a faithful friend,[103] till
her fatal marriage with Bothwell, when, although a Catholic, he joined
those who crowned her son as king. During the regencies, he lived in
dignified retirement, till called upon to make an effort to rescue
the young king from the thraldom in which he was held by Morton. A
temporary fall of Morton in 1577 left Athole chancellor of the kingdom.
[Sidenote: 1579.]
He now came to Stirling, to assist in accommodating some quarrels
of the friends of the Mar family regarding the custody of the young
king and the government of Stirling Castle. ‘Matters being seemingly
adjusted, the old Countess of Mar, or the Earl of Morton, in her
name, invited the chancellor to an entertainment. While they were
drinking hard, somebody conveyed a deadly poison into the chancellor’s
glass.’ April 16th, ‘the chancellor passed forth of Stirling to
Kincardine,[104] very sick and ill at ease, and upon the 24th day
deceased there.’ His friends, thinking he had got foul play, sent
to Edinburgh for surgeons to open the body; and though these men of
skill declared upon oath that they found no trace of poison or mark
of violence done to the deceased, the widow and eldest son entered a
protest that this should not prejudge the criminal process which they
intended before the Justice-general. ‘Some blamed the old Countess of
Mar for it; others suspected the Earl of Morton at the bottom of it.’
Both suspicions were probably groundless; it may even be doubted if
the earl was poisoned at all. When under sentence of death some years
after, Morton solemnly denied the crime imputed to him, and said in no
circumstances would he have injured a hair of Athole’s head.
‘Upon the sevent of July, the corpse of the Earl of Athole being
convoyit to Dunblane, was carried forth thereof the direct way to
Dunfermline, where they remained that night. Upon the morn, they passed
forth to Edinburgh, where a great number of friends were convenit to
the burial. Upon the tenth day, [the body of the earl] was honourably
convoyit with his friends from Haliroodhouse to St Giles’ Kirk, where
he was buried on the east side of the altar on the south side of the
church.’ Owing to the general belief as to the mode of the earl’s
death, his funeral brought forth strong marks of public feeling.[105]
It appears that, before it took place, there was a rumour that the
relatives of the deceased designed that it should be attended with
sundry superstitious rites, as ‘a white cross in the _mortclaith_,
lang gowns with stroups, and torches.’ A deputation from the General
Assembly came to inquire, and were asked to satisfy themselves by
inspecting the preparations. ‘The kirk thought the cross and the
stroups superstitious and ethnic-like, and desirit them to remove the
same.’ It was accordingly arranged to cover the cross with black velvet
and to remove the stroups.--_B. U. K._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAY.
1579.]
There was at this time a collection of money in Aberdeen and other
parts of Scotland, for the support and relief of the ‘Scottismen
prisoners in Argier in Affrik, and other parts within the Turk’s
bounds.’ One Andro Cook engaged himself to dispose of this money
as intended, and to deliver the surplus, ‘gif ony,’ to the royal
treasurer, to be used as his majesty might think fit.--_Ab. C. R._, _P.
C. R._
This collection did not go on briskly, or come to any important
effect. On the 26th of October 1583, nothing had been done beyond the
collecting of £562, exclusive of what had been bestowed in expenses.
Cook was dead, but his son had this sum in his hands, and was desirous
of rendering it up under proper authority. It was found, however,
that the unhappy captives at Algiers were removed from all earthly
hardships, so that it was desirable to devote the money to some other
object. By the king it was ordained in council that the sum resting
with Cook’s son should be paid to the procurators of David Hume,
shipper in Leith, who was now lying captive at Bordeaux.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG. 12.]
‘Twa poets of Edinburgh, remarking some of his [the Earl of Morton’s]
sinistrous dealing, did publish the same to the people by a famous
libel written against him; and Morton, hearing of this, causit the men
to be brought to Stirling, where they were convict for slandering ane
of the king’s councillors, and were there baith hangit. The names of
the men were William Turnbull, schoolmaster in Edinburgh, and William
Scott, notar. They were baith weel beloved of the common people for
their common offices.’--_H. K. J._ ‘Which was thought a precedent,
never one being hanged for the like before; and in the meantime, at the
scattering of the people, there were ten or twelve despiteful letters
and infamous libels in prose, found, as if they had been lost among
the people, tending to the reproach of the Earl of Morton and his
predecessors.’--_Moy. R._
At the fall of Morton, less than two years after, when he was taken
prisoner and conducted to Edinburgh Castle--‘as he passed the Butter
Tron, a woman who had her husband put to death at Stirling for a ballad
entitled _Daff and dow nothing_,[106] sitting down on her bare knees,
poured out many imprecations upon him.’--_Cal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG. 17.]
During the night following this day, ‘there blew sic ane tempest at the
herring drave of Dunbar, that threescore fisher-boats and three hundred
men perished.’--_Moy._