‘Thomas Foulis conceivit sickness.’--_Bir._ One who knew nothing
more of Thomas Foulis than what Birrel tells, might be surprised to
find the simple fact of his becoming sick entered in this pointed
way by the old diarist. As we have already had Thomas several times
under our attention, and know him for a great goldsmith, banker, and
speculator in mines, we can imagine his indisposition as a public fact
of that degree of consequence that a diarist might well think worth
chronicling. The truth is, King James had gone deeply into debt towards
Thomas for goldsmith work and ready money advanced; his creditors
were now pressing him, and he had nothing wherewith to satisfy them.
The unhappy man consequently fell into a ‘phrensie.’ It would appear
from one chronicler as if the king had not acted humanely towards his
creditor under these circumstances. It is alleged that Thomas’s offices
were taken from him, and he was obliged to surrender a certain jewel
of note, called the H, which he had in pledge from the king[231] for
the sum of twelve thousand pounds. But all this is scarcely in harmony
with the fact that, in June next, one of the doings of a convention
parliament was to arrange ‘that the debt awaud by his majesty to
Thomas Foulis be payit in six years, namely, thirty thousand merks
every year.’--_Bir._ Thomas was at the same time made master of the
_cunyie-house_ (mint).
[Sidenote: 1597-8.]
It appears on the 28th May 1601, that the king owed ‘nine score
thousand punds money’ to Thomas Foulis, goldsmith, Robert Jowsie,
merchant-burgess of Edinburgh, and Thomas Acheson, master-cunyier,
who were in consequence subject to infinite complaints from their
creditors. His majesty professed ‘guid affection and desire to the
payment thereof,’ and arranged that it should be discharged in the
course of eleven years by a preferable power over the receipts of the
royal rents. ‘His majesty als promittis to give to Thomas, his wife
and bairns, during their lifetime successive after others, ane yearly
pension of ane thousand punds money.’--_P. C. R._
In December 1602, a piteous complaint was made before the Privy
Council by Andrew Lockhart, regarding the hardship he underwent as a
creditor of Thomas Foulis and Robert Jowsie, through the effect of a
_supersedere_ they had obtained for their debts. He speaks of having
been, ‘with his wife and aucht bairns,’ reduced to misery, through
the non-payment of what these men owed him, ‘he being ane aigit
gentleman, and a brother of ane honourable house,’ The Council could
not interfere, but engaged that when the present supersedere run out,
which it would do erelong, no other should be granted.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: FEB. 8.]
The impunity of numberless murders and other atrocious crimes in
this reign is not more remarkable than the severity occasionally
exhibited in comparatively trifling cases. For making a false writ
in a matter of three hundred merks, five citizens of Edinburgh were
condemned to death. Such, likewise, was the issue of the trial of John
Moscrop, writer in Edinburgh, for giving himself out as a notary,
and subscribing divers papers as such, he not being one. The six men
appear to have all been tried on one day, and the end of the affair
is chronicled by Birrel: ‘John Windieyetts, John Moscrop, Alexander
Lowrie, John Halliday, and Captain James Lowrie [were] all hangit at
the Cross of Edinburgh for counterfeiting false writs; whilk was great
pity to see.’--_Bir._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: FEB. 16.]
It was now five years since the tragic death of the Earl of Moray, and
yet his corpse lay unburied. So also did that of the late Lord Maxwell,
killed in a conflict with the Johnstons, in December 1593.
Stigmatising this as an abuse that ‘of late has croppin in,’ and in
order to prevent the example from being followed, the king and Council
issued an order to the respective relatives of the two noblemen, that
they have the bodies buried in their ordinary places of sepulture
within twenty days, under pain of rebellion.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: FEB. 25.
1597-8.]
On this day, being Saturday, occurred an eclipse of the sun, total
at Edinburgh, and probably so throughout the country generally. No
event entirely similar had occurred within the memory of living people
in Scotland, and the impression which it was naturally calculated to
produce in an age when such things were regarded as prodigies, was
aggravated by the critical state in which the favourite Presbyterian
institutions were then believed to be placed. Men regarded it as the
omen of a dark period for the Kirk of Scotland.[232]
‘Betwixt nine and ten forenoon,’ says Calderwood, ‘began a fearful
eclipse, which continued about two hours. The whole face of the sun
seemed to be covered and darkened about half a quarter of an hour, in
such measure that none could see to read a book. The stars appeared in
the firmament. Sea, land, and air was still, and stricken dead as it
were. The ravens and fowls flocking together mourned exceedingly in
their kind. Great multitudes of paddocks [frogs] ran together, making
an uncouth and hideous noise; men and women were astonished, as if the
day of judgment had been coming. Some women swooned. The streets of
Edinburgh were full of cries. Some men ran off the streets to the kirk
to pray.’
‘In the session-house or college of justice, no letter nor book could
be read nor looked upon for the space of an hour for darkness, and
yet in the north-east there appeared two stars. After this, the space
of eight days fair weather [which] ensued, was admirable. But the day
after, yea Friday and Saturday, there fell out the greatest rain that
might be, in such a manner that neither plough nor harrow could gang a
long time after.’--_Pa. And._
‘I knew,’ says James Melville, ‘out of ephemeridis and almanack, the
day and hour of it ... also, by natural philosophy, the causes. I set
myself to mark the proceedings of it in a basin of water mixed with
ink, thinking the matter but common. But yet, when it came to the
extremity of darkness, and I myself losit all the sun, I was strucken
with such fear and astonishment, that I had no refuge but to prostrate
[myself] on my knees, and commend myself to God, and cry for mercy.’
[Sidenote: 1597-8.]
‘The like fearful darkness was never seen in this land, so far as
we can read in our histories, or understand from tradition. The wise
and godliest thought it very prodigious, so that from pulpit and by
writ, admonitions were given to the ministers, that the changeable and
glittering show of the world go not in betwixt them and Christ, the Sun
of Righteousness, and remove the clear light of the gospel from the
kirk.’--_Cal._
A Presbyterian diarist is careful to tell us the ‘notable _effects_ of
this eclipse’ in the year following; namely, the death of those famous
‘lights of the Kirk of Scotland, Mr Thomas Buchanan, Mr Robert Rollock,
David Ferguson, &c.’--_Ja. Mel._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1598.