The king having now escaped from his Ruthven councillors and fallen
once more under the influence of the Earl of Arran, Sir Francis
Walsingham came as Elizabeth’s ambassador to express her concern
about these movements, and see what could be done towards opposite
effects. Coming to a king with an unwelcome message has never been a
pleasant duty; but it must have been particularly disagreeable on this
occasion, if it be true, as is alleged by a Presbyterian historian,
that Arran--who, says he, within a few days after his return to court,
‘began to look braid’--hounded out a low woman, called _Kate the
witch_, to assail the ambassador with vile speeches as he passed to
and from the king’s presence. She was, it is alleged, hired by Arran
‘for a new plaid and six pounds in money, not only to rail against the
ministry [clergy], his majesty’s most assured and ancient nobility,
and lovers of the amity [English alliance], but also set in the entry
of the king’s palace, to revile her majesty’s ambassador at Edinburgh,
St Andrews, Falkland, Perth, and everywhere, to the great grief of all
good men, and dishonour of the king and country.’ It is further stated,
that, being imprisoned ‘for a fashion,’ large allowance was made for
her entertainment, and she was relieved as soon as Walsingham had
departed.--_Cal._
While the kirk was beginning to feel the consequences of the king’s
emancipation from the Ruthven lords, it sustained an assault, though
of a very petty character, from a different quarter. Robert Brown,
a Cambridge student, had three years before attracted attention in
Norfolk by his novel and startling ideas regarding ecclesiastical
matters. The Bishop of Norwich imprisoned him, with the usual
non-success as far as the correction of opinion was concerned. He
had then taken refuge at Middleburgh, and there given forth his
notions to the world in the form of a pamphlet. Now he was come to
Scotland, perhaps thinking it a pity that a people should be in
trouble between the contending claims of Prelacy and Presbytery, when
he could shew them that both systems were wrong. Landing at Dundee,
where, it is said, he received some encouragement, he advanced by St
Andrews to Edinburgh, and there took up his quarters ‘in the head of
the Canongate,’ along with four or five English followers, who were
accompanied by their wives and children. The people--who, for the
most part, were passionately attached to the simple fabric of their
national church, and dreamt of no rivalship or enmity to it except in
episcopacy--how they must have felt at the novel sight of a group of
men who, in declaring against bishops, also found fault with sessions
and synods, with indeed all ecclesiastical action whatever, considering
each congregation independent in itself, and no member of it less
entitled to pray and preach than the pastor!
[Sidenote: 1583-4.]
Brown, whose self-confidence in asserting his peculiar doctrines was
very great, did not rest four days in Edinburgh before he had presented
himself to the general kirk-session for a wrangle. We are told by a
Presbyterian historian--he ‘made shew, in an arrogant manner, that he
would maintain that witnesses at baptism was not a thing indifferent,
but simply evil. But he failed in the probation.’ A week after, ‘in
conference with some of the presbytery, he alleged that the whole
discipline of Scotland was amiss; that he and his company were not
subject to it, and therefore he would appeal from the kirk to the
magistrate.’ Considering how the clergy stood with the court, this
must have been a most offensive threat; the more so that the court had
already shewn some symptoms of favour to Brown, in order to ‘molest
the kirk.’ ‘It was thought good that Mr James Lowson and Mr John
Davidson should gather out of his book such opinions as they suspected
or perceived him to err in, and get them ready, to pose him and his
followers thereupon, that thereafter the king might be informed.’ A
week later, Brown and his ‘complices’ came before the presbytery, to
answer the articles prepared against him. We only further learn that he
left Edinburgh, ‘malcontent, because his opinions were not embraced,
and that he was committed to ward a night or two till they were tried’
(_Cal._), a form of religious disputation highly characteristic of
the age. Brown afterwards, when founding his sect of Independents in
England, published a volume containing various invectives against the
Scottish kirk and its leaders, of which Dr Bancroft took advantage in
preaching against presbytery (9th February 1589), while probably ready
to consign their author to the pains which the Bishop of Peterborough
actually meted out to him by excommunication.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1584.]
Thomas Vautrollier, a French Protestant, who had come to England early
in Elizabeth’s reign, migrated about this time to Edinburgh, where
he set up a printing-press. From his office proceeded this year a
small volume of poems, composed by the young king, under the title of
_The Essayes of a Prentise in the Divine Art of Poesie_; to which was
added a prose treatise embracing the ‘rules and cautels for Scottish
poesie:’ a volume of which it may be enough to say, that it betrays a
laudable love of literature in the royal author, joined to some power
of literary expression. Vautrollier does not appear to have met with
sufficient encouragement to induce him to remain in Edinburgh, as he
soon after returned to London.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY.]
At the end of this month, the pest was brought into Scotland at Wester
Wemyss, a small port in Fife--‘where many departed.’--_Moy._
King James tells us in his _Basilicon Doron_, that ‘the pest always
smites the sickarest such as flies it furthest and apprehends deepliest
the peril thereof.’ See his own conduct on this occasion. About the end
of September, while he was hunting at Ruthven, ‘word came that there
were five or six houses in Perth affected with the plague, where his
majesty’s servants were for the time. Whereupon, his majesty _departed
the same night_, with a very small train to Tullibardine, and next
day to Stirling, leaving his whole household servants enclosed in the
place of Ruthven, with express command to them not to follow, nor
remove forth of the same, until they saw what became of them upon the
suspicion.’--_Moy. R._
[Sidenote: 1584.]
The pest on this occasion remained in Perth for several months, working
great destruction. It was ordained by the kirk-session, May 24, 1585,
that ‘hereafter during the time of the plague, no banquets should be
at marriages, and no persons should resort to bridals under pain of ten
pounds ... forty pounds to be paid by them that call more than four on
the side to the banquet, or bridal, during the pest.’
In the ensuing February, under an apprehension about the arrival of
the pestilence in their city, the town-council of Edinburgh adopted a
highly rational sanitary measure, ordering the ashes, dust, and dirt
of their streets to be put up to auction. We do not learn that any
one undertook to pay for the privilege of cleaning the streets of the
capital, and Maitland remarks in his history, that many years elapsed
before the movement was renewed, not to say carried into effect.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 2.]
‘... a baxter’s boy, called Robert Henderson--no doubt by the
instigation of Satan--desperately put some powder and a candle in his
father’s heather-stack, standing in a close opposite to the Tron of
Edinburgh [the public weighing-machine], and burnt the same, with his
father’s house, which lay next adjacent, to the imminent hazard of
burning the whole town. For which, being apprehended most marvellously,
after his escaping out of the town, he was on the next day burnt quick
at the Cross, as an example.’--_Moy. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1585.