In the latter part of this year, the king was nearly on as bad
terms with the clergy as ever. They openly reproached him in their
pulpits with slackness of justice against the enemies of religion.
One maintained that he might very properly be excommunicated, if he
resisted their behests. The king told the provost to pull them out of
their pulpits when they spoke so against him; but this the provost
plainly said he could not do--he preferred God before men. Things were
in this ticklish state when George Ker was taken with sundry letters
from Catholics at home to Catholics abroad, and three blank letters
from Huntly, Errol, and Angus, believed to be the foundation of a
conspiracy with Spain against the Protestant religion. The brethren met
in Mr Robert Bruce’s gallery to devise measures, and a huge deputation
went down to Holyroodhouse, to confer with the king. He received them
in the great hall, and was at first very angry with them for their thus
meeting unauthorisedly, saying, ‘“he knew not of it till all the wives
in the kail-mercat knew of it.” Yet in the end, to mitigate them in
some measure, he said he liked weel their zeal, for he knew they did
it for love of the good cause.’--_Cal._ So began a sort of civil war,
which lasted two or three years, and ended in the banishment of the
three Catholic nobles, as already related.
Mr Tytler attributes these new troubles to the persecuting spirit
of the Presbyterian divines. ‘The principle of toleration,’ he
says, ‘divine as it assuredly is in its origin, yet so late in its
recognition even amongst the best men, was then utterly unknown to
either party, Reformed or Catholic. The permission even of a single
case of Catholic worship, however secret; the attendance of a solitary
individual at a single mass, in the remotest district of the land, in
the most secluded chamber, and where none could come but such as knelt
before the altar for conscience’ sake, and in all sincerity of soul;
such worship and its permission for an hour, was considered an open
encouragement of Antichrist and idolatry. To extinguish the mass for
ever, to compel its supporters to embrace what the kirk considered
to be the purity of presbyterian truth, and this under the penalties
of life and limb, or in its mildest form of treason, banishment and
forfeiture, was considered not merely praiseworthy, but a high point
of religious duty; and the whole apparatus of the kirk, the whole
inquisitorial machinery of detection and persecution, was brought to
bear upon the accomplishment of these great ends.’
The king, whether from his natural disposition, or views of policy,
was averse to harassing the papists. He one day spoke privately to
Lord Hamilton of his unhappy position. ‘“You see, my lord, how I am
used, and have no man in whom I may trust more than in Huntly, &c.
If I receive him, the ministers cry out that I am an apostate from
the religion; if not, I am left desolate.” “If he and the rest be not
enemies to the religion,” said the Lord Hamilton, “ye may receive them;
otherwise not.” “I cannot tell,” saith the king, “what to make of that;
but the ministry hold them for enemies. Always, I would think it good
that they enjoyed liberty of conscience.” Then the Lord Hamilton crying
aloud, said: “Sir, then we are all gone, then we are all gone, then we
are all gone! If there were no moe to withstand, I will withstand.”
When the king perceived his servants to approach, he smiled and said:
“My lord, I did this to try your mind.”‘--_Cal._ Few things could
better illustrate the sanctity in which the principle of intolerance
was then held, than to find a contemporary historian relating this
anecdote as one simply illustrative of the infirm adherence of King
James to the presbyterian cause.
The Earl of Errol, one of the exiled Catholic lords, writing to the
king from Middleburg in July 1596, speaks of having undergone incessant
troubles ever since he professed the Catholic religion, and of having
for three or four years past been in daily and extreme peril of his
life. He says: ‘My late and greatest extremities have proceeded only
upon that over-great fervour and onnecessar rigour of the ministry,
wha, disdainfully rejecting all reasonable conditions, will force men’s
consciences, not as yet persuaded, till embrace their opinions in
matters of religion.’[195]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1592-3.]
Mr John Graham of Hallyards, a judge of the Court of Session, had an
unfortunate litigation with Sir James Sandilands, the Tutor of Calder,
about some temple-lands which his wife had brought to him. There had
been a deed forged in the case, and a notary hanged for it, and a
collision between the Court of Session and the General Assembly as to
jurisdiction, and now Sir James Sandilands had become incensed to a
degree of fury against his opponent the judge.
[Sidenote: FEB. 13.]
Graham, being charged by the king, for peace’ sake, to depart from
Edinburgh, was passing down Leith Wynd in obedience to the order,
attended by three or four score persons for his protection, when Sir
James Sandilands, accompanied by his friend the Duke of Lennox, and
an armed company, followed hard at his heels. Graham, thinking he
was about to be attacked, turned to make resistance. The duke sent
to tell him that if he proceeded on his journey, no one would molest
him; but the message proved of no use, in consequence of some stray
shot from Graham’s company. The party of Sandilands immediately made
an attack; the other party hastily fled. Graham fell wounded on the
street, and was carried into a neighbouring house. A French boy, page
to Sir Alexander Stewart, one of Sandilands’s friends, seeing his
master slain, followed the hapless judge into the house, ‘douped a
whinger into him,’ and so despatched him. Such was the characteristic
termination of a lawsuit in 1593.--_Cal._
It is highly worthy of remark, that, not many months after, Sir James
Sandilands was once more peaceably living at court.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1593.]
Amongst the complications of the affair between Huntly and Moray in
February 1592, there were mingled the details of a plot in which Huntly
and the Chancellor Maitland were connected with three chieftains of
the clan Campbell--Ardkinlas, Lochnell, and Glenurchy--against the
life of John Campbell of Calder, who was obnoxious to the latter
persons on account of his supreme influence in the affairs of the minor
Earl of Argyle. By the exertions of Ardkinlas, a man called MacEllar
was procured to undertake the assassination of Calder: and in the
same month which saw the tragedy at Dunnibrissle, this wretched man
shot Calder with three bullets, through a window, as the victim sat
unsuspecting of danger in the house of Knepoch in Lorn.
[Sidenote: 1593.]
The youthful earl having threatened vengeance against Ardkinlas, the
latter seems to have lost heart; and being extremely desirous of
recovering his young chief’s regard, he seriously made an endeavour to
that effect by means of witchcraft, and was much disappointed when that
resource failed him. He subsequently tried to accomplish his purpose by
revealing what he knew of another plot in which the same parties were
concerned against the earl’s life. This, however, is aside from our
present subject. It may be sufficient to remark that MacEllar and a
higher agent in the person of John Oig Campbell of Cabrachan, a brother
of Lochnell, were taken and executed for Calder’s death; but owing to
various causes, among which the complicity and friendship of Maitland
was probably the chief, Ardkinlas continued for a considerable time to
keep out of the grasp of the law.
[Sidenote: MAR. 28.]
At the time noted, he sustained an assault of private vengeance which
might well make him tremble. A complaint which he entered before the
Privy Council sets forth that, having occasion to be at Dumbarton with
some friends, including Duncan Campbell, Dean of Brechin, on his way to
Edinburgh, whither he was going in obedience to a summons of the king,
‘he took purpose to hald forward in his journey that same night after
supper, by reason of the troubles whilk are in the country, lippening
[trusting] for naething less than ony injury or trouble to have been
intended him.’ Nevertheless, John Buchanan of Drumfoid, with a party of
friends, and ‘sundry others, broken men and fugitives, to the number
of twenty-four persons, on horse and foot, all bodin in feir of weir,
with lang hagbuts, jacks, pistolets, and other weapons invasive,’ took
up a position in a yard beside the road, with the design of murdering
Campbell. ‘The said Duncan and ane other of his [Ardkinlas’s] servants,
being ganging a little before him, and the persons foresaid surely
believing that ane of them had been the Laird of Ardkinlas, they
dischargit ane dozen of hagbuts at the said twa persons, and shot the
said Duncan in the head; and thereafter, coming furth of the yard,
finding the said Duncan not to be dead, and still believing he had been
the said Laird of Ardkinlas, they shamefully and barbarously mangled
and slew him with swords, and cuttit off his head. And then, perceiving
themselves to be disappointed, they sharply followit the said laird,
shot aucht or nine hagbuts at him, and had not failed likewise to have
slain him, were not that by the providence of God he escaped.’
[Sidenote: 1593.]
The next notice we have of affairs connected with the Campbell
conspiracies is a curious, though obscure one, regarding what was in
the language of that time called a _Day of Law_, held in Edinburgh on
the 19th of June (the king’s birthday) 1593. There appeared as seekers
of justice for Calder’s slaughter, the Earl of Argyle (seventeen years
of age), the sheriff of Ayr, the Earl of Morton, and some others;
as defenders in that cause, Ardkinlas, Glenurchy, and others. The
Chancellor Maitland, whose concern was suspected, but did not become
clear till our own time, had his friends assembled also--namely, the
Earls of Montrose, Eglintoun, and Glencairn, and Lord Livingstone,
‘who all accompanied Lord Hamilton on the streets.’ Against them were
mustered the Duke of Lennox, the Earl of Mar, Lord Home, and some
others, who, favoured with the countenance of the queen, talked of
bringing in Lord _Quondam_ against the chancellor: by this name they
indicated Captain James Stuart, long sunk out of credit and means, but
still eager to take any desperate means of recovering his place. To
this goodly company it was expected that Lord Maxwell and the Laird
of Cessford would soon be added. The affair seemed so threatening,
that the king was seriously alarmed, and commanded all to keep their
lodgings; after which he ‘dealt with the chancellor to entreat them to
depart in peace.’ Such was a _day of law_ in the reign of gentle King
James.
It was not till September 1596 that Ardkinlas underwent a trial for
the slaughter of the Laird of Calder. The matter having doubtless
been arranged beforehand, no pursuers appeared, and he was set at
liberty.[196]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 21.]
George Smollett, burgess of Dumbarton (an ancestor of the novelist),
was denounced rebel for not answering certain charges made against him
by the burghs of Glasgow and Renfrew. It was alleged that Smollett,
having purchased a letter of the king, used it as a sanction to deeds
of violent oppression against the Highland people resorting with
merchandise to those towns. ‘He not only masterfully reives the goods
and bestial, claithing, and other wares, brought by the inhabitants
of the Isles and other parts of the Highlands, to the said burghs,
by sea and land, but takes, apprehends, and imprisons their persons,
and sometimes pursues themselves by way of deid.’ It was added that
the people of the Highlands were, in consequence, inspired with a
deadly hatred of the burghs of Glasgow and Renfrew, and were already
committing such reprisals as threatened civil war.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1593.