The imbecility of the king amidst his rude and quarrelsome courtiers,
is strongly marked by several occurrences of this particular time. The
Presbyterian historian tells us that, on the day noted on the margin,
as his majesty was coming down the High Street from the Tolbooth, where
he had been attending the administration of justice, his two chief
friends, the Duke of Lennox and Lord Home, meeting the Laird of Logie,
pulled out their swords and assaulted him. The quarrel was that Logie,
a valet of the royal chamber, had refused to ‘ish’ at the duke’s order,
till he was put out by force; whereupon he had given the duke foul
words. While the two nobles set upon the valet, ‘the king fled into a
close-head, and incontinent retired to a skinner’s booth, where it is
said ... fear.’ Six days after, King James was sitting in the Tolbooth,
hearing the case of the Laird of Craigmillar, who was suing a divorce
against his wife, when the Earl of Bothwell forcibly took away one of
the most important witnesses, carried him to Crichton Castle, and
there threatened him with the gallows. It seemed ‘as if there had been
no king in Israel.’--_Cal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1591.]
[Sidenote: APR. 19]
During this age of general violence, the rights of women were, as a
matter of course, little respected. Abductions, both under the impulse
of passion and from motives of cupidity, were frequent. The young Duke
of Lennox, the cousin and favourite of the king, had contracted a
violent attachment to Lady Sophia Ruthven, one of the numerous children
left by the unfortunate Earl of Gowrie at his death in 1584. At the
order of the king, the young lady was secluded from the duke’s resort
at Easter Wemyss in Fife. The duke, crossing the Firth, took the Lady
Sophia out of the house where she lived, and ‘carried her away on his
awn horse all the night, and on the morn married the said gentlewoman,
contrair the ordinance of the kirk; whereat the king was greatly
commoved.’[183]--_Jo. Hist._
In June 1593, an abduction, of which Plutus was the prompting deity,
took place under extraordinary circumstances. A young lady, daughter
and apparent heir of John Carnegie, had become an object of attention
to James Gray, brother of that dexterous _diplomat_ the Master of
Gray, whose treachery has made him so noted a figure at this period
of Scottish history. She had already been once in the hands of her
disinterested lover, but rendered back to her father, at the command of
the Council. She and her father were now living in the strong house of
Robert Gourlay, the merchant, in Edinburgh, when a new and successful
effort was made.
[Sidenote: 1591.]
On a Sunday, being the 10th of June, Lord Home, who was one of the
king’s chief courtiers, came to the High Street with an armed party,
designed to repress any attempt at rescue. Thus favoured, Gray and
his immediate accomplices took the young lady out of her home, and,
dragging her down a narrow alley to the North Loch, crossed over with
her to the other side, where ten or twelve men were ready to receive
her. ‘They set her upon a man’s saddle, and conveyed her away, her
hair hanging about her face.’ The ravisher was ‘a gentleman of the
king’s bed-chamber!’
The magistrates of Edinburgh went to Holyrood on Tuesday to complain of
this outrage. ‘The king desired to know if they could complean of any
that was about him. In the meantime, my Lord Home, who was chief author
of the riot, was standing by. They answered nothing, because they
expected for no justice.’--_Cal._
On the 6th of September 1594, Margaret Hay, a girl of only fourteen
years, was forcibly taken from her mother’s house at Shiplaw,
Peeblesshire, by Thomas Hay, brother of Hay of Smithfield, John and
Thomas Govan, brothers, and ‘Willie Hay callit the Bastard.’ She was
rescued by Cockburn of Skirling, who refused to give her up. The end of
the matter does not appear.--_P. C. R._
Birrel notes, under 14th August 1595, how Christian Johnston, a widow,
was carried off from Edinburgh by Patrick Aikenhead. ‘The town was
put in ane great fray by the ringing of the common bell,’ and ‘the
said Christian was followit and brought back.’ On the 27th of November
1600, a number of persons were denounced and intercommuned for taking
away the daughter of George Carkettle, burgess of Edinburgh, ‘furth
of his awn house of Monkrig, where she was for the time [living] with
her mother in peaceable and quiet manner.’ It afterwards appeared
that the chief guilty party was Robert Hepburn of Alderston, in East
Lothian.--_P. C. R._
[Sidenote: 1591.]
About two miles to the south-west of Edinburgh, on the slope of the
Craig-Lockhart Hill, there is a mansion called Craig House of the
period of James VI., and which in that time belonged to a branch of the
old family of Kincaid. On the 17th of December 1600, John Kincaid of
Craig House, attended by a party of friends and servants, all ‘bodin
in feir of weir, with swords, secrets, and other weapons,’ came to
the village of Water of Leith, also closely adjacent to Edinburgh,
and there attacked the house of Bailie John Johnston, ‘where Isobel
Hutcheon, widow, was in sober, quiet, and peaceable manner for the
time, dreading nae evil, harm, injury, or pursuit of ony persons, but
to have lived under God’s peace and our sovereign lord’s.’ Kincaid
‘violently and forcibly brak up the doors of the said dwelling-house,
entered therein, and pat violent hands on the said Isobel’s person,
took her captive, reft, ravished, and took her away with him to his
place of Craig House; where he deteined her, while [till] his majesty
being upon the fields, accompanied with John, Earl of Mar, Sir John
Ramsay, and divers others, hearing of the committing of sic ane
horrible fact, directed the said John, Earl of Mar, Sir John Ramsay,
and divers others his hieness’ servants, to follow him, and relieve her
furth of his hands. Wha having come to his place of Craig House, and
requiring for her relief, he refusit to grant the same, while [till]
they menaced to bring his majesty about his said house and raise fire
therein; and sae compellit him to relieve her.’
Kincaid underwent trial for this outrage, January 13, 1601, and his
doom was ordered by the king to be a fine of 2500 merks, payable ‘to us
and our treasurer’--‘as also he sall deliver to us and our treasurer
_his brown horse_.’--_Pit._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR. 30.]
‘John Dickson, younger of Belchester, being apprehended, ta’en, and
brought to Edinburgh, was put to the knawledge of ane assize for the
slaughter of his awn natural father [in July 1588], and also for the
lying for the said offence at the process of excommunication. [Being
convicted, he was] brought to the scaffold, and at the Cross broken on
ane rack, [and] worried--where he lay all that night, and on the morn
[was] carried to the gallows of the Burgh-moor, where the rack was set
up, and the corpse laid thereupon.’--_Jo. Hist._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 6.]
In the midst of the proceedings regarding the witches, two ministers of
Edinburgh broke out against the king in their sermons for his feeble
administration of justice. One spoke of the universal contempt of his
subjects; the other said he did not seem to have any power over even a
witch-wife, meaning Barbara Napier. James sent for them two days after,
at the Tolbooth, where he often sat beside the judges of the session.
He remonstrated with them for the freedom they had used, but could not
bring them to acknowledge any fault. In the conversation which ensued,
they argued with the king about their respective powers. An apostle
said: ‘We shall judge the angels;’ and Christ had said: ‘Ye shall sit
upon twelve thrones and judge.’ Here was sufficient warrant for the
parish ministers of Scotland lording it over the head of the state.
After all, they protested they loved him, and he parted with them in
good-humour.
[Sidenote: 1591.]
On the ensuing 8th of December, a highly characteristic scene took
place at Holyrood--three of the ministers ‘visiting’ the royal family
as censors, ‘to try what negligence was in pastors, and abuses in
the family.’ They went again upon Friday the 10th, when the king
himself was present. They urged the king to have the Scriptures read
at dinner and supper, and ‘willed that new elders could be chosen and
the comptroller left out.’ A week after, one of them, Mr John Davidson,
called in a private capacity at the palace to admonish the king about
his failures in the exercise of king-craft, particularly in appointing
bad men to offices, and pardoning great criminals. ‘The king answered,
he found not concurrence in inferior magistrates ... there were diverse
officers claimed their places by heritage. As for known pardons, he
would answer for every one he gave by law and reason. As for unknown,
such was the multitude of his businesses, that some about him deceived
him by importunity, and got stolen subscriptions, from which kind
of dealing he thought no flesh in his place could always be free.
Further, he saw not where to make choice of fit officers, for when
any man’s particular cometh in question, then their partiality may be
seen.’--_Cal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1591.