Great excitement prevailed throughout all Scotland, in apprehension of
invasion by the Spanish Armada. There was not wanting a party prepared
to co-operate with the Spaniards, if they had landed in Scotland. In
this exigency, the king was compelled to forget his anger at Elizabeth
on account of the recent death of his mother; he made all possible
preparation for resistance, and when Sir Robert Sidney, the English
ambassador, told him that if the Spaniard took England, the king might
expect no greater kindness at his hand, James ‘merrily answered: “That
he looked for no other benefit of the Spaniard in that case, than that
which Polyphemus promised to Ulysses--namely, to devour him after all
his fellows were devoured.”‘--_Spot._
‘Terrible was the fear,’ says James Melville, ‘piercing were the
preachings, earnest, zealous, and fervent were the prayers, sounding
were the sichs and sobs, and abounding was the tears at that fast and
General Assembly keepit at Edinburgh, when the news were credibly
tauld, sometimes of their landing at Dunbar, sometimes at St Andrews,
and in Tay, and now and then at Aberdeen and Cromarty Firth. And in
very deed, as we knew certainly soon after, the Lord of armies, wha
rides upon the wings of the winds, the keeper of his awn Israel, was
in the meantime convoying that monstrous navy about our coasts, and
directing their hulks and galiots to the islands, rocks, and sands,
whereupon he had destinat their wrack and destruction. For within twa
or three month thereafter, early in the morning, ane of our bailies
came to my bedside, saying (but not with fray): “I have to tell you
news, sir. There is arrivit within our harbour [Anstruther, on the
coast of Fife] this morning a ship full of Spaniards, but not to give
mercy but to ask.” And sae shaws me that the commanders had landed,
and he had commandit them to their ship again, till the magistrates of
the town had advisit, and the Spaniards had humbly obeyit; therefore
desirit me to rise and hear their petition with them. Up I got with
diligence, and assembling the honest men of the town, came to the
tolbooth; and after consultation taken to hear them, and what answer
to make, there presents us a very reverend man of big stature, and
grave and stout countenance, gray-haired, and very humble-like, wha,
after meikle and very low courtesy, bowing down with his face near
the ground, and touching my shoe with his hand, began his harangue
in the Spanish tongue, whereof I understood the substance, and being
about to answer in Latin, he having only a young man with him to be
his interpreter, began and tauld ower again to us in gude English. The
sum was, that King Philip, his master, had riggit out a navy and army
to land in England for just causes to be avengit of many intolerable
wrangs whilk he had receivit of that nation; but God for their sins had
been against them, and, by storm of weather, had driven the navy by the
coast of England, and him, with a certain [number] of captains, being
the general of twenty hulks, upon an isle in Scotland, callit the Fair
Isle, where they made shipwreck, and where sae mony as had escapit
the merciless sea, had mair nor sax or seven weeks sufferit great
hunger and cauld, till, conducting that bark out of Orkney, they were
come hither as to their special friends and confederates to kiss the
king’s majesty’s hand of Scotland (and therewith becket [bowed] even
to the yird), and to find relief and comfort thereby to himself, these
gentlemen captains, and the poor souldiers, whase condition was for the
present maist miserable and pitiful.
‘I answerit this meikle in sum: “That, howbeit neither our friendship,
whilk could not be great, seeing their king and they were friends to
the greatest enemy of Christ, the pope of Rome, and our king and we
defied him, nor yet their cause against our neighbours and special
friends of England could procure any benefit at our hands for their
relief and comfort; nevertheless, they should know by experience that
we were men, and sae moved by humane compassion, and Christians of
better religion nor they, whilk should kythe in the fruits and effect
plain contrair to theirs. For, whereas our people, resorting amang them
in peaceable and lawful affairs of merchandise, were violently taken
and cast in prison, their gudes and gear confiscat, and their bodies
committit to the cruel flaming fire for the cause of religion, they
should find naething amang us but Christian pity and warks of mercy and
alms, leaving to God to work in their hearts concerning religion as it
pleasit him.” This being truly reported again to him by his trunshman,
with great reverence he gave thanks, and said he could not make answer
for their kirk and the laws and order thereof, only for himself that
there were divers Scotsmen wha knew him, and to whom he had shewn
courtesy and favour at Calais, and, as he supposit, some of this same
town of Anstruther. Sae [I] shew him that the bailies granted him
licence with the captains to go to their lodging for their refreshment,
but to nane of their men to land till the ower-lord of their town was
advertised, and understand the king’s majesty’s mind anent them. Thus,
with great courtesy, he departed.
[Sidenote: 1588.]
‘That night, the lord being advertised, came, and on the morn,
accompanied with a gude number of the gentlemen of the country round
about, gave the said general and the captains presence, and after the
same speeches, in effect as before, receivit them in his house, and
entertained them humanely, and sufferit the souldiers to come a-land,
and lie all together, to the number of thretteen score, for the
maist part young beardless men, silly [weak], trauchled [worn-out],
and hungred, to the whilk a day or two kail, pottage, and fish was
given.... The names of the commanders were Jan Gomez de Medina, general
of twenty hulks, Capitan Patricio, Capitan de Legoretto, Capitan de
Luffera, Capitan Mauritio, and Signor Serrano.
‘Verily, all the while my heart melted within me for desire of
thankfulness to God, when I remembered the prideful and cruel nature
of thae people, and how they wald have usit us in case they had landit
with their forces amang us; and als, the wonderful work of God’s mercy
and justice in making us see them, the chief commanders of them, make
sic courtesy to poor seamen, and their souldiers so abjectly to beg
alms at our doors and in our streets.
‘In the meantime they knew not of the wrack of the rest, but supposed
that the rest of the army was safely returned, till ae day I gat in
St Andrews in print the wrack of the galiots in particular, with the
names of the principal men, and how they were usit in Ireland and
our Highlands, in Wales, and other parts of England; the whilk when
I recordit to Jan Gomez, by particular and special names, O then he
cried out for grief, bursted and grat. This Jan Gomez shewed great
kindness to a ship of our town, whilk he fand arrestit in Calais at his
hame-coming, rade to court for her, and made great roose [praise] of
Scotland to his king, took the honest men to his house, and enquirit
for the laird of Anstruther, for the minister, and his host; and sent
hame many commendations. But we thanked God in our hearts, that we had
seen them amang us in that form.’
This is on the whole a pleasing anecdote. One cannot, however, but wish
that the worthy James had not commenced his speech with a taunt at the
religion of the Spaniards, and that he had had the magnanimity on such
an occasion to forget any injuries formerly inflicted by that nation
upon his.
The shipwrecked Spaniards were not everywhere so well treated. The
kirk-session of Perth, May 18, 1589, ordered the keepers of the
town-gates to exclude _Spaniards and other idle vagabonds and beggars_,
and commanded that all such persons now in the town should immediately
leave it.
[Sidenote: 1588.]
‘In the beginning of October [1588], one of these great ships was drove
in at the Mull of Kintyre, in which there were five hundred men or
thereby; she carried threescore brass cannon in her, besides others,
and great store of gold and silver. She was soon after suddenly blown
up by powder, and two or three hundred men in her, which happened by
some of their own people.’--_Moy. R._
Another of the vessels, having found its way into the Firth of Clyde,
sank in ten fathom water on a sandy bottom, near Portincross Castle
in Ayrshire. Tradition affirms that some of the crew in this case
reached the land. A local newspaper, in October 1855, recorded the
recent death of Archibald Revie, at Lower Boydstone, Ardrossan, at
an advanced age--a descendant of one of the Spanish sailors saved
from the Spanish ship at Portincross in 1588, and who ‘retained many
of the peculiarities of his race.’ In 1740, a number of pieces of
brass and iron ordnance were recovered from this wreck by means of a
diving-machine; and one of the latter still lies on the beach beside
the old castle, bearing faint traces of the Spanish crown and arms near
the breech.[155]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP.]
The Earl of Bothwell having been drawn into the designs of the
popish lords--though led only by a common hatred of the Chancellor
Maitland--raised a company of men, under pretence of an expedition for
the pacification of the remote isle of Lewis. Under favour of a royal
warrant, he demanded a subsidy of five thousand merks from the city
of Edinburgh. Meeting a refusal, he said he should ‘cause the earles
disgorge him a thousand crowns in spite of their hearts.’ There was
some resolution in these gentle burghers. When Bothwell impudently
carried off one of their number, named James Nicol, to Crichton Castle,
as a means of extorting money from him, they ‘threatened to pull
Bothwell out of Crichton by the ears, and make his house equal with the
ground.’ On their complaint to the king, ‘Bothwell, fearing the king
and the town of Edinburgh, set James Nicol at liberty, and so gained
nothing but shame and discredit to himself.’--CAL.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP. 4.]
[Sidenote: 1589.