‘... the wind did blow so boisterously, that the like was not heard in
the memory of man. Houses in burgh and land were thrown down with the
violence of it; trees rooted up, corn-stacks and hay-stacks blown away.
Some men passing over bridges were driven over violently and killed.
The wind continued vehement many days and weeks, even till mid-March,
howbeit not in the same measure that it blowed this day.’--_Cal._
* * * * *
The book entitled _Regiam Majestatem_, containing the ancient laws of
Scotland, seems to have been printed by a contribution from the burghs.
In April this year, we find the magistrates of Glasgow charged to make
payment of £100 on this account. In September, the learned author, Sir
John Skene, had some difficulty with his printer, Thomas Finlayson, of
importance enough to come under the attention of the Privy Council.
It was alleged that Thomas, after _perfyting_ the Scottish volume,
‘upon some frivole consait and apprehension of his own, without ony
warrant of law or pretence of reason,’ maliciously refused to deliver
the volume to Sir John, ‘but shifts and delays him fra time to time
with foolish and impertinent excuses, to Sir John’s heavy hurt and
prejudice.’ The Lords of Council ordered Thomas to deliver the book to
its author within eight days, on pain of being denounced rebel; and
‘whereas there is some little difference and question betwixt the said
parties _anent their comptis_,’ a committee was appointed ‘to sort the
same, and put them to ane rest.’--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAY.]
[Sidenote: 1609.]
The severities called for by the General Assembly against the papist
nobles and others, had been, to appearance, backed up by the royal
power. The Marquis of Huntly was actually in prison at Stirling as an
excommunicated rebel. The king probably felt this a high price for the
soothing of Presbyterian scruples regarding episcopacy; but it had
so far been paid. He contemplated having the observance of Christmas
brought in at the end of the year; and it was therefore advisable to
shew a little further earnestness in the right direction.
By the activity of Spottiswoode, archbishop of Glasgow, John Hamilton,
a zealous trafficking priest, was apprehended--an act the more
important that this culprit was uncle to the king’s advocate. Another
priest, named Paterson, was taken with all his vestments, while
celebrating mass in a house in the Canongate in Edinburgh before an
audience of thirty persons. These must, of course, have been gratifying
proofs of the royal zeal, albeit Calderwood cannot repress a bitter
remark as to the ‘tolerable entertainment’ allowed to the prisoners
(the allowance made in another case for an incarcerated priest, and
probably in these also, was a merk--1s. 1-1/3d. sterling--_per diem_),
while ministers incarcerated for opposition to the king’s episcopal
innovations ‘were left to their shifts.’
About the same time, the archbishop went with a party to the town of
New Abbey, in the stewartry of Kirkcudbright, and there broke into the
house of Mr Gilbert Brown, former abbot of New Abbey, ‘and having found
a great number of popish books, copes, chalices, pictures, images, and
such other popish trash, he most worthily and dutifully as became both
a prelate and a councillor, on a mercat-day, at a great confluence of
people in the hie street of the burgh of Dumfries, did burn all those
copes, vestments, and chalices,’ delivering up the books to Maxwell of
Kirkconnel, to be afterwards dealt with. The Privy Council (June 13,
1609) allowed this to be good service on the part of the archbishop,
and granted him a gift of the books left unburnt.--_P. C. R._
In the parliament held a few days after the last date, several acts
were passed against popery--one ordaining that pedagogues sent abroad
with the sons of noblemen and others, should be duly licensed by a
bishop; another that the young persons so sent abroad should remain at
places where ‘the religion’ is professed, and ‘where there is no cruel
inquisition;’ a third for confiscating the property of papists to the
king’s use; a fourth was meant to deprive Catholics of all benefit from
the legal system of the country. The more severe class of Presbyterians
looked on, with no inclination to object to these measures, but only
with a disbelief in the sincerity of the government which had brought
them forward. They had begun to see that it was ‘to grace the bishops,
and procure them greater credit and authority in the country,’ that
popery was thus dealt with.--_Cal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY.]
[Sidenote: 1609.]
We have seen that, so lately as September 1606, the Borders were
reduced to obedience by a moral medicine of considerable sharpness,
administered by the Earl of Dunbar; that is to say, one hundred and
forty thieves had been hanged. We now find that the effect was only
temporary, for it had become necessary for the earl to go once more
to Dumfries to hold a justice-court. On this occasion, he was equally
severe with such offenders as were in custody, causing many to be
hanged.--_Cal._ The Chancellor Dunfermline wrote to the king that Lord
Dunbar ‘has had special care to repress, baith in the in-country and on
the Borders, the insolence of all the proud bangsters, oppressors, and
nembroths [Nimrods], but [without] regard or respect to ony of them;
has purgit the Borders of all the chiefest malefactors, robbers, and
brigands as were wont to reign and triumph there, as clean, and by as
great wisdom and policy, as Hercules sometime is written to have purged
Augeas, the king of Elide, his escuries; and by the cutting aff ...
the Laird of Tynwald, Maxwell, sundry Douglases, Johnstons, Jardines,
Armstrangs, Beatisons, and sic others, _magni nominis luces_, in that
broken parts, has rendered all those ways and passages betwixt your
majesty’s kingdoms of Scotland and England, as free and peaceable, as
Phœbus in auld times made free and open the ways to his awn oracle in
Delphos, and to his Pythic plays and ceremonies, by the destruction
of Phorbas and his Phlegians, all thieves, voleurs, bandsters, and
throat-cutters. These parts are now, I can assure your majesty, as
lawful, as peaceable, and as quiet, as any part in any civil kingdom of
Christianity.’[334]
[Sidenote: 1609.]
This was too happy a consummation to be quite realised. We find,
not long after, a representation going up to the king from the
well-disposed people of the Borders, shewing that matters were become
as bad as ever. It is a curious document, full of Latin quotations. The
thieves, it says, are like the beasts of the field, according to the
words of Cicero in his oration for Cluentius; _quæ, fame dominante, ad
eum locum ubi aliquando pastæ sunt, revertuntur_. Lord Dunbar being
now gone with his justice-courts, they are returned to their old evil
courses, and there is nothing which they will not attempt. ‘Wild
incests, adulteries, convocations of lieges, shooting and wearing of
hagbuts, pistolets, and lances, daily bloodsheds, oppression, and
disobedience in civil matters, neither are nor has been punished
... there is no more account made of going to the horn, than to the
ale-house.’ Lord Scone and his guard are of no use, for they favour
their friends. ‘If diligent search were made ... there would be found
ane grit number of idle people, without any calling, industry, or
lawful means to live by, except it be upon the blood of the poorest
and most obedient sort.’
* * * * *
The final attempt to plant the Lewis took place this year, under the
care of only two adventurers, Sir George Hay (subsequently chancellor
of Scotland) and Sir James Spens of Wormiston. The Lord of Kintail had
in the interval made an unsuccessful attempt to obtain a grant of the
island.
The two undertakers went to the island with a force which they
considered sufficient to meet the opposition of the pertinacious Niel
Macleod. ‘The Lord of Kintail did privately and underhand assist Niel
Macleod, and sent his brother, Rorie Mackenzie, openly with some men
to aid the undertakers by virtue of the king’s commission. He promised
great friendship to the adventurers, and sent unto them a supply of
victuals in a ship from Ross. In the meantime he sendeth quietly to
Niel Macleod, desiring him to take the ship by the way, that the
adventurers, trusting to these victuals, and being disappointed,
might thereby be constrained to abandon the island, which fell out
accordingly; for Sir George Hay and Sir James Spens failing to
apprehend Niel, and lacking victuals for their army, they wearied of
the bargain, and dismissed all the neighbouring forces. Sir George
Hay and Wormiston retired into Fife, leaving some of their men in the
island to keep the fort, until they should send unto them supply of men
and victuals. Whereupon Niel Macleod, assisted by his nephew ... and
some other of the Lewis men, invaded the undertakers’ camp, burnt the
fort, apprehended the men which were left behind them in the island,
and sent them home safely into Fife, since which time they never
returned again into the island.’--_G. H. S._
[Sidenote: 1609.]
The Lord of Kintail afterwards obtained possession of the isle of
Lewis, and Niel, thoroughly circumvented by the Clan Kenzie, was driven
for refuge with a small company to a fortified rock called Berissay.
‘The Clan Kenzie then gathered together the wives and children of
those that were in Berissay, and such as, by way of affinity or
consanguinity, within the island, did appertein to Niel and his
followers, and placed them all upon a rock within the sea, where they
might be heard and seen from Berissay. They vowed and protested that
they would suffer the sea to overwhelm them the next flood, if Niel
did not presently surrender the fort; which pitiful spectacle did so
move Niel Macleod and his company to compassion, that immediately they
yielded the rock and left the Lewis; whereupon the women and children
were rescued and rendered.’--_G. H. S._
This unfortunate insular chief, falling into the hands of his enemies,
was taken to Edinburgh, and there executed in April 1613.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG.]
There was a Presbyterian prejudice against burying in churches, and the
_blame of kirk-burial_ had not only been a subject for the pamphleteer,
but the legislature. Nevertheless, John Schaw of Sornbeg in Ayrshire,
on the death of his wife, resolved to inhume her corpse in his parish
kirk of Galston, in spite of all the minister and session could say or
do to the contrary. Accompanied by his brother and his ‘bailie,’ and
attended by a numerous party, ‘all bodin in feir of weir,’ he came to
the church, broke up the door with fore-hammers, and dug a grave, in
which he deposited his spouse. He was afterwards glad to make public
repentance for this fact, and pay twenty pounds to the box-master of
the kirk, besides which the Privy Council ordained him to appear again
as a penitent, and solemnly promise never again to attempt to bury any
corpse within the church.’--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG. 10.]
Notwithstanding Lord Ochiltree’s protestations of innocence regarding
the assassination of Lord Torthorald, the relatives of the latter
continued to bear a deadly grudge at him, and seemed likely to wreak it
out in some wild manner. This came to the knowledge of the king, who
felt himself called upon to interfere. The Privy Council, in obedience
to the royal letters, had the parties summoned before them. William
Lord Douglas and James Lord Torthorald appeared before them that day,
and undertook, before the 20th of September, that ‘they sall owther
pursue the said Lord Ochiltree criminally before his majesty’s justice
in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, for airt, part, rede, and counsel, of the
slaughter of umwhile Lord Torthorald, or then that they sould reconceil
themselves with the said Lord Ochiltree, and be agreit with him.’--_P.
C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1609.]
[Sidenote: OCT. 26.]
Under favour of the king, a number of strangers had been introduced
into the country to practise the making of cloths of various kinds. A
colony of them was settled in the Canongate, Edinburgh, headed by one
John Sutherland and a Fleming named Joan Van Headen, and ‘are daily
exercised in their art of making, dressing, and litting of stuffis,
and gives great licht and knowledge of their calling to the country
people.’ These industrious and inoffensive men, notwithstanding the
letters of the king, investing them with various privileges, were now
much molested by the magistrates of the Canongate, with a view to
forcing them to become burgesses and freemen there in the regular way.
On an appeal to the Privy Council, their exemption was affirmed.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV. 7.]
From London, where the pest had long been, a ship had lately come
to Leith, and was now lying at the west side of the bulwark there,
prepared to discharge her cargo. The case looked the more alarming, as
several of the mariners had died of plague during the voyage. The Lords
of Council immediately issued orders that the vessel should be taken to
Inchkeith, where her cargo should be taken out and handled, cleansed,
and dressed, the inhabitants affording all facilities for that purpose,
‘with such houses and other necessaries as are in the said inch.’--_P.
C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV. 9.]
The time was approaching when, in accordance with a recent act, the
Egyptians were to depart from Scotland, under pain of being liable
thereafter to be killed by any one without challenge of law. In
anticipation of this dread time, one of the nation, named Moses Faw,
appeared before the authorities of the kingdom, and pleaded for
permission to remain under protection of the laws, on the ground that
he had wholly withdrawn himself and his family from that infamous
society, and was willing to give surety for his future good behaviour.
The desired permission was extended to him on that condition.--_P. C.
R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 25.]
Having of late shewn some zeal against popery, King James thought he
might now effect one little change essential to episcopacy, without
more than enough of outcry from the earnest Presbyterians. By his
order, sent by Chancellor Seton, it was arranged that Christmas-day
should henceforth be solemnly held in Scotland. The Court of Session
accordingly rose for that day, and till the 8th of January ensuing.
‘This,’ says Calderwood, ‘was the first Christmass vacance of the
session keepit since the Reformation. The ministers threatened that the
men who devised that novelty for their own advancement, might receive
at God’s hand their reward to their overthrow, for troubling the people
of God with beggarly ceremonies long since abolished with popery.
Christmass was not so weel keepit by feasting and abstinence from work
in Edinburgh these thretty years before, _an evil example to the rest
of the country_.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1610.