The king’s attention was drawn to two abuses in the police of the city
of Edinburgh. Notwithstanding the warning given by a fire in 1584,
it was still customary for baxters and browsters to keep stocks of
heather and whins in the very heart of the city, to the great hazard
of adjacent buildings; and individuals disposed to build houses within
the city were in some instances prevented by a fear of the risk to
which they would be thus exposed. The other evil complained of was less
dangerous, but more offensive. Candlemakers and butchers were allowed
to pursue their callings within the town, to the great disgust of
‘civil and honest neighbours, and of the nobility and country people
that comes there for their private adoes.’ Indeed, ‘it hath oftentimes
fallen out, that in mony streets and vennels of the said burgh, the
filth of slaughtered guids is in such abundance exposed to the view of
the people, and the closes and streets sae filled therewith, as there
can no passage be had through the same.’ A proclamation was launched
against these abuses.--_P. C. R._
On the 4th of March 1619, the Privy Council sent an order to the
magistrates of Edinburgh, demanding that they should take order for
keeping the streets of the town clean, and describing the existing
state of things in these terms: It ‘is now become so filthy and
unclean, and the streets, vennels, wynds, and closes thereof so
overlaid and coverit with middings, and with the filth of man and
beast, as [that] the noble, councillors, servitors, and others his
majesty’s subjects wha are lodgit within the said burgh, can not have
ane clean and free passage and entry to their lodgings; wherethrough
their lodgings have become so loathsome unto them, as they are resolved
rather to make choice of lodgings in the Canongate and Leith, or some
other parts about the town, nor [than] to abide the sight of this
shameful uncleanliness and filthiness; whilk is so universal and in
such abundance through all parts of this burgh, as in the heat of
summer it corrupts the air, and gives great occasion of sickness;
and, furder, this shameful and beastly filthiness is most detestable
and odious in the sight of strangers, who, beholding the same, are
constrained with reason to give out mony disgraceful speeches agains’
this burgh, calling it a puddle of filth and uncleanness, the like
whereof is not to be seen in no part of the world.’ The plan of police
proposed by the Council is for each inhabitant to ‘keep the streets
fornent their awn bounds clean, as is done in other civil, handsome,
and weel-governed cities.’ No idea of a cleaning department of police.
Considering how closely Edinburgh was built, and that its numberless
narrow alleys were kept in the state which is described, it is not at
all surprising that the pest so frequently broke out within its bounds.
We learn from the above edict that the natural connection of decaying
organic matter with pestilential disease, was not then unknown; the
fact was admitted, but neglected. At this time, the attention of the
public in Scotland was concentrated on questions regarding religious
observances--many of them of little substantial consequence--while
these real life-and-death matters were wholly overlooked.
[Sidenote: 1618.]
It is rather remarkable, that so early as 1527, there appears to have
been a general arrangement for cleaning the city of Edinburgh at stated
times, and with a profit to the corporation. In that year, there is an
entry as follows in the Council Record of the city: ‘The gait-dichting,
and duties thereof, is set this year to come, with the aventure of deid
and weir, to Alexander Pennicuik, for the soum of £20, to be dicht
and clengit sufficiently ilk 8 days anes, with a dozen of servants.’
Pennicuik is enjoined to ‘tak nae mair duties for the dichting thereof,
except and allenarly of fish, flesh, salt, and victuals.’[378]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MAY 13.]
The king having proposed that ‘the most notorious and lewd persons’ in
the middle shires (Borders) might be ‘sent to Virginia, or some other
remote parts,’ the councillors answered that it was not necessary,
because the country was now reduced to ‘obedience and quietness;’ and
it might even prove detrimental, seeing that many who were ‘in danger
of the laws for auld feids,’ but had latterly been at peace, might, if
they heard of such a design, ‘mak choice rather to loup out and become
fugitives, nor to underly the hazard and fear of that matter.’
Notwithstanding the peace and obedience described as now existing,
scarcely two years had elapsed when we find evidences that the king’s
proposal was found to be rational and of promise. In April 1620, ‘a
hundred and twenty of the broken men of the Borders were apprehended
by the landlords and wardens of the Middle Marches, at the command of
the Privy Council, and sent to the Bohemian wars, with Colonel Andrew
Gray.’[379]--_Bal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 2.]
[Sidenote: 1618.]
The Privy Council issued a commission to certain gentlemen in Irvine,
to try two persons of that burgh accused of witchcraft. In the
recital on which the commission proceeds, it is set forth--‘that
John Stewart, vagabond, and Margaret Barclay, spouse to Archibald
Deane, burgess of Irvine, were lately apprehendit upon most probable
and clear presumption of their practising of witchcraft agains John
Deane, burgess of Irvine, and procuring thereby the destruction of
the said John, and the drowning and perishing of the ship called the
_Gift of God_, of Irvine, and of the haill persons and goods being
thereintill: likeas the said John Stewart, upon examination, has
clearly and _pounktallie_ confessit the said devilish practices, and
the said Margaret, foolishly presuming by her denial to eschew trial
and punishment, doeth most obdurately deny the truth of that matter,
notwithstanding that the said John constantly avows the same upon her,’
&c.[380]
It appears that Margaret Barclay had conceived and expressed violent
hatred of her brother-in-law, John Deane, and his wife, in consequence
of their raising or propagating a scandal against her. John Deane’s
ship having been lost at Padstow, on the English coast, and John
Stewart, a _spaeman_, having spoken of this fact before it was known by
ordinary means, a suspicion arose that the latter had been concerned
in some sorcery by which the vessel had suffered. On his being taken
up, a confession was extorted from him, that he had taught magical
arts to Margaret Barclay, by which she had brought about the loss
of the vessel; and he narrated a ridiculous scene of enchantment as
having occurred on the shore, with the devil present in the form of a
lady’s lapdog, Margaret Barclay being the principal actor. Margaret
was then apprehended, as also one Isobel Tosh, whom Stewart described
as an assistant at the evil deed. Margaret’s servant-girl, a child of
eight years of age, and Isobel Tosh, were, apparently through terror,
induced to make admissions supporting Stewart’s statement. A most
tragical series of incidents followed. Isobel Tosh, trying to escape
from prison, fell and hurt herself so much that she died in a few
days. Stewart hanged himself in prison. Margaret Barclay, tortured by
the laying of weights upon her limbs, confessed what was laid to her
charge; and though she denied all when relieved, yet was she condemned
and executed, finally returning to an acknowledgment of guilt, which
can only be attributed to hallucination. Throughout all this affair--to
all appearance consisting of a series of forced accusations and
confessions, till reason at length gave way in the principal party--the
Earl of Eglintoun, so noted afterwards as a Covenanter, took part along
with the commissioners; while the assistant parish clergyman, Mr David
Dickson, and several other ministers, most of them noted in the annals
of the time as men of extraordinary piety, assisted in working on the
religious feelings of the accused to induce confession. It does not
seem ever to have occurred to any of these well-meaning persons, lay
or clerical, that a worthy duty in the case would have been to inquire
into the facts, and judge by collating them, whether there was any
ground whatever for the accusation.[381]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 11.]
[Sidenote: 1618.]
The Privy Council was informed of ‘an abuse lately taken up by a number
of young boys and pages, servants to noblemen, barons, and gentlemen.’
It was represented that these persons, ‘whenever they fund ony boy
newly enterit in service, or pagerie, as they term it, lay hands upon
him, and impose upon him [the payment of] some certain pieces of gold,
to be spent in drinking, riot, and excess, for receiving of him in
their society and brotherheid.’ It was further alleged that, ‘if ony
of thir new enterit boys refuse to condescend to them in this point,
they do then shamefully misuse them, awaiting all occasions to harm and
disgrace them;’ so that many open disturbances were the consequence.
The Council issued a proclamation against these practices, threatening
heavy punishment to all who might be guilty of the like in future.--_P.
C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 20.]
‘At twa afternoon, David Toshach of Monyvaird, younger, [was] slain
in the south gate of Perth by Lawrence Bruce, younger of Cultmalindy,
his brother, and divers others their associates; the twa that was with
Monyvaird, ane deadly hurt, but died not; the other [David Malloch],
his right hand clean stricken fra him. This done in a moment of time.
All the committers thereof eschewit out of the town, before any of the
townsmen heard of ony such thing.’[382]
No one seems to have immediately suffered for this outrage; but, four
years after, the Privy Council informed the king that Cultmalindy,
besides banishing his two sons and a servant, had offered a thousand
crowns by way of assythment to the friends of the slaughtered man,
and £2000 to the two men who had been mutilated. ‘This feid,’ it is
added, ‘has altogether undone auld Cultmalindy; for his estate is
exhausted and wracked, and he is become very waik of his judgment and
understanding, by the grief that thir troubles has brought upon him;
whilk were the occasion of his wife’s death, and of the exile and
banishment of his sons and friends, now by the space of four years;
in the whilk exile twa of his friends of good rank and quality has
departed this life.’--_Pit._
Mr Pitcairn quotes a local proverb as having apparently taken its rise
with reference to the misfortune of one of Monyvaird’s servants:
‘Hands aff’s fair-play:
Davie Malloch says nay.’
[Sidenote: 1618.]
It was rather a bitter jest for David. This person, from the locality,
may be presumed to have been an ancestor, or near collateral relation,
of David Malloch, subsequently called Mallet, the poet.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE.]
The king’s declaration regarding sports on the Sunday and other
holidays came to Edinburgh. It commenced with a judicious allusion
to the abundance of papists in Lancashire. He had there found, too,
the people complaining that they were prevented from indulging in
their ancient sports. One effect of this must be that they would
think papistry a better religion, since it allowed of sports. Another
inconvenience is, ‘that this prohibition barreth the common and meaner
people from using such exercises as may make their bodies more able
for war, when we or our successors shall have occasion to use them,
and, in place thereof, sets up filthy tipplings and drunkenness, and
breeds a number of idle and discontented speeches in their ale-houses;
for when shall the common people have leave to exercise, if not upon
the Sundays and holidays, seeing they must apply their labour, and
win their living in other days,’ The king therefore willed that no
lawful recreation be barred to the people--‘such as dancing, either
men or women; archery for men, leaping, vaulting ... nor from having
of May-games, Whitsun-ales, and Morris-dances, and the setting up of
May-poles;’ seeing, however, that no one was allowed so to indulge who
had not previously attended service in church.
[Sidenote: 1618.]
When James Somerville of Drum was at school at the village of Dalserf
in Lanarkshire, about 1608, it was customary ‘to solemnise the first
Sunday of May with dancing about a May-pole, firing of pieces, and
all manner of revelling then in use.’ His grandson tells an anecdote
_apropos_: ‘There being at that time few or no merchants in this petty
village, to furnish necessaries for the scholars’ sports, this youth
resolves to furnish himself elsewhere, that so he may appear with
the bravest. In order to this, by break of day, he rises and goes
to Hamilton, and there bestows all the money that for a long time
before he had gotten from his friends, or had otherwise purchased,
upon ribbons of divers colours, a new hat and gloves. But in nothing
he bestowed his money more liberally than upon gunpowder, a great
quantity whereof he buys for his own use, and to supply the wants of
his comrades. Thus furnished with these commodities, but with ane empty
purse, he returns to Dalserf by seven o’clock (having travelled that
Sabbath morning above eight miles), puts on his ... clothes and new
hat, flying with ribbons of all colours; in this equipage, with his
little fusee upon his shoulder, he marches to the churchyard where
the May-pole was set up, and the solemnity of that day was to be kept.
There first at the foot-ball he equalled any that played; but for
handling of his piece in charging and discharging, he was so ready,
that he far surpassed all his fellow-scholars, and became a teacher
of that art to them before the thirteenth year of his own age.... The
day’s sport being over, he had the applause of all the spectators, the
kindness of his condisciples, and the favour of the whole inhabitants
of that little village.’--_Mem. Som._
In June 1625, the presbytery of Lanark exercised discipline upon John
Baillie, William Baillie, John Hirshaw, John and Thomas Prentices, and
Robert Watt, a piper, ‘profaners of the Sabbath in fetching hame a
May-pole, and dancing about the same, on Pasch Sunday.’--_R. P. L._
It is manifest from the church-registers of that time, that the
universal external observance of the Sunday as a Sabbath, for which
Scotland has long been remarkable, was not yet established. In August
1628, the minister of Carstairs regretted to the presbytery of Lanark
the breach of the Sabbath ‘by the insolent behaviour of men and women
in foot-balling, dancing, and barley-breaks.’ About the same time, two
tailors were libelled before the same court for working on Sunday. Such
things could not have happened a few years later, or at any time since.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY.]
[Sidenote: 1618.]
A mysterious affair occupied the attention of the state-officers. While
the servants of one Kennedy, a notary, residing in Galloway, were
‘filling muck in beir-seed time,’ they had found a withered human hand
amongst some dung. No person having lately been murdered or missed
in the country, it was impossible to tell whence this severed member
had come or to whom it had belonged. Kennedy, who had lately come to
the house, professed to know nothing of the matter. It seemed to him
that the hand had been there many years. This affair might have passed
over with little notice, if it had not been followed up by a series
of marvellous occurrences. As his wife was sitting with some gossips
at supper in her husband’s absence, some blood was observed upon the
candlestick, and afterwards some more matter resembling gore was
found on the threshold of the cellar door. It was also stated that,
as Kennedy was walking one day with the minister, near the parish
church, some drops of blood were seen upon the grass. All these things
being reported to the authorities in Edinburgh, they gave orders for
Kennedy’s apprehension, and he was accordingly brought thither, and
kept six weeks in the Tolbooth. When examined, he could assign no
cause for the above facts, but ‘complained that his cattle and horses
had died in great number, and that his wife had long been vexed with
extraordinary sickness; all which he ascribed to witchcraft used
against them.’ It being impossible to bring anything home against the
man, he was dismissed.--_M. S. P._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG. 11.]
That eccentric genius, John Taylor, the Thames waterman, commonly
called the WATER-POET, set out from his native London on the 14th of
July, on a journey to Scotland--‘because,’ says he, ‘I would be an
eye-witness of divers things which I had heard of that country.’ He
called it a Pennyless Pilgrimage, because he intended to attempt making
his way without any funds of his own, and entirely by the use of what
he might get from friends by the way. Having traversed the intermediate
distance on horseback in about a month, he entered Scotland by the
western border, walking, while a guide rode with his baggage on a
gelding. Somewhat to his surprise, he observed no remarkable change on
the face of nature.
‘There I saw sky above, and earth below,
And as in England, there the sun did shew;
The hills with sheep replete, with corn the dale,
And many a cottage yielded good Scotch ale.’
As he passed along Annandale, he counted eleven hundred neat at as good
grass as ever man did mow. At Moffat, where he arrived much wearied by
his walk from Carlisle, he ‘found good ordinary country entertainment;
my fare and my lodging was sweet and good, and might have served a far
better man than myself.’ He travelled next day twenty-one miles to a
sorry village called Blyth, in Peeblesshire, where his lodging was less
agreeable. Next again, passing through a fertile country for corn and
cattle, he entered Edinburgh.
[Sidenote: 1618.]
A gentleman named Mr John Maxwell, whom he casually encountered,
conducted him to see the Castle, which he deemed impregnable, and where
he noted the extraordinary piece of antique ordnance which still exists
there under the name of Mons Meg. ‘I crept into it, lying on my back,
and I am sure there was room enough and to spare for a greater than
myself.’ He describes the principal street of the city as the fairest
and goodliest he had ever seen, ‘the buildings on each side of the
way being all of squared stone, five, six, and seven stories high.’
‘I found entertainment beyond my expectation or merit, and there had
fish, flesh, bread, and fruit in such variety, that I think I may
without offence call it superfluity. The worst was,’ he adds waggishly,
‘that wine and ale were so scarce, and the people there such misers of
it, that every night before I went to bed, if any man had asked me a
civil question, all the wit in my head could not have made him a sober
answer.’
At Leith, he met a bountiful friend in Bernard Lindsay, one of the
grooms of his majesty’s bed-chamber, and was informed that ‘within the
compass of one year, there was shipped away from that port fourscore
thousand bolls of wheat, oats, and barley, into Spain, France, and
other foreign parts, and every boll contains the measure of four
English bushels ... besides some hath been shipped away from St
Andrews, Dundee, Aberdeen, Dysart, Kirkcaldy, Kinghorn, Burntisland,
Dunbar, and other portable towns.’
[Sidenote: 1618.]
In good time, Taylor commenced a progress through the country,
entertained everywhere by hospitable gentlemen, who probably considered
his witty conversation ample recompense. At Dunfermline, he viewed with
pleasure the palace and remains of the abbacy, and the surrounding
gardens, orchards, and meadows. Then he went to visit at Culross the
enterprising coal-proprietor, Sir George Bruce, who entertained him
hospitably and sent three of his men to guide him over the works. The
imagination of the Water-poet was greatly excited by the singular
mine which Sir George had here formed, partly within the sea-mark.
‘At low-water, the sea being ebbed away, and a great part of the sand
bare--upon this same sand, mixed with rocks and crags, did the master
of this great work build a circular frame of stone, very thick, strong,
and joined together with bituminous matter, so high withal that the sea
at the highest flood, or the greatest rage of storm or tempest, can
neither dissolve the stones so well compacted in the building, nor yet
overflow the height of it. Within this round frame, he did set workmen
to dig ... they did dig forty foot down right into and through a rock.
At last they found that which they expected, which was sea-coal. They,
following the vein of the mine, did dig forward still; so that in the
space of eight-and-twenty or nine-and-twenty years, they have digged
more than an English mile, under the sea, [so] that when men are at
work below, a hundred of the greatest ships in Britain may sail over
their heads. Besides, the mine is most artificially cut like an arch or
vault, all that great length, with many nooks and by-ways; and it is
so made that a man may walk upright in most places.’
‘All I saw was pleasure mixed with profit,
Which proved it to be no tormenting Tophet;
For in this honest, worthy, harmless hall,
There ne’er did any damnèd devil dwell.’
‘The sea at certain places doth leak or soak into the mine, which by
the industry of Sir George Bruce is conveyed to one well near the land,
where he hath a device like a horse-mill, with three great horses and
a great chain of iron, going downward many fathoms, with thirty-six
buckets attached to the chain, of the which eighteen go down still to
be filled, and eighteen ascend still to be emptied, which do empty
themselves without any man’s labour into a trough that conveys the
water into the sea again.... Besides, he doth make every week ninety or
a hundred tons of salt, which doth serve most part of Scotland; some he
sends into England, and very much into Germany.’
The pennyless pilgrim proceeded to Stirling, of whose castle and palace
he speaks in terms of high admiration; stating, moreover, that at his
host Mr John Archibald’s, his only difficulty was for ‘room to contain
half the good cheer that he might have had.’ Advancing to St Johnston
(Perth), he lodged at an inn kept by one Patrick Pitcairn. It was his
design to visit Sir William Murray of Abercairny; but he here learned
that that gentleman had left home on a hunting excursion. It was
suggested that he might overtake him at Brechin; but on reaching that
city, he found that Sir William had left it four days before.
[Sidenote: 1618.]
Taylor now made a journey such as few Englishmen had any experience of
in that age. Proceeding along Glen Esk, and passing by a road which lay
over a lofty precipice, he lodged the first night at a poor cot on the
Laird of Edzell’s land, where nothing but Erse was spoken, and where
he suffered somewhat from vermin--the only place, however, in Scotland
where he met any such troubles. With immense difficulty, he next day
crossed Mount Skene by an uneven stony way, full of bogs, quagmires,
and long heath, ‘where a dog with three legs would outrun a horse with
four,’ and came in the evening to Braemar. This he describes as a large
county, full of lofty mountains, compared with which English hills
are but ‘as a liver or a gizzard below a capon’s wing.’ ‘There I saw
Benawne [Ben Aven], with a furred mist upon his snowy head, instead of
a night-cap.’
He here found his friend, Sir William Murray, engaged in Highland
sports, along with the Earl of Mar, the Earl of Enzie (afterwards
second Marquis of Huntly), the Earl of Buchan, and Lord Erskine,
accompanied by their countesses, and a hundred other knights and
squires, with their followers, ‘all in general in one habit, as if
Lycurgus had been there.’ ‘For once in the year, which is the whole
month of August, and sometimes part of September, many of the nobility
and gentry of the kingdom, for their pleasure, come into these Highland
countries to hunt, where they conform to the habit of the Highlandmen,
who for the most part speak nothing but Irish.... Their habit is shoes
with but one sole apiece; stockings which they call short hose, made
of a warm stuff of divers colours, which they call tartan: as for
breeches, many of them, nor their forefathers, never wore any, but a
jerkin of the same stuff that their hose is of, their garters being
bands or wreaths of hay or straw, with a plaid about their shoulders,
which is a mantle of divers colours, [of] much finer and lighter stuff
than their hose; with flat blue caps on their heads, a handkerchief
knit with two knots about their neck; and thus they are attired....
Their weapons are long bows and forked arrows, swords and targets,
harquebusses, muskets, durks, and Lochaber axes. With these arms, I
found many of them armed for the hunting. As for their attire, any man
of what degree soever that comes amongst them, must not disdain to wear
it; for if they do, they will disdain to hunt, or willingly to bring
in their dogs; but if men be kind to them, and be in their habit, then
they are conquered with kindness, and the sport will be plentiful. This
was the reason that I found so many noblemen and gentlemen in those
shapes.’
[Sidenote: 1618.]
Taylor allowed himself to be invested by the Earl of Mar in Highland
attire, and then accompanied the party for twelve days into a
wilderness devoid of corn and human habitations--probably the district
around the skirts of Ben Muicdhui. He found temporary lodges called
_lonchards_, designed for the use of the sportsmen, and he himself
received a kind of accommodation in that of Lord Erskine. The kitchen,
he tells us, was ‘always on the side of a bank, many kettles and pots
boiling, and many spits turning and winding, with great variety of
cheer, as venison--baked, sodden, roast, and stewed beef--mutton,
goats, kid, hares, fresh salmon, pigeons, hens, capons, chickens,
partridge, moorcoots, heath-cocks, cappercailzies, and termagants;
good ale, sack, white and claret, tent (or Alicant), with most potent
_aquavitæ_.’ Thus a company of about fourteen hundred persons was most
amply fed.
‘The manner of the hunting is this: five or six hundred men rise early
in the morning, and disperse themselves divers ways, and seven, eight,
or ten miles compass, they bring or chase in the deer in many herds
(two, three, or four hundred in a herd), to such or such a place, as
the noblemen shall appoint them. Then, when day is come, the lords and
gentlemen of their companies ride or go to the said places, sometimes
wading up to the middle, through burns and rivers; and then they, being
come to the place, lie down on the ground, till those foresaid scouts,
who are called the Tinchel-men, bring down the deer.... After we had
stayed there three hours or thereabouts, we might perceive the deer
appear on the hills round about us (their heads making a show like a
wood), which, being followed close by the Tinchel, are chased down
into the valley where we lay. Then, all the valley on each side being
waylaid with a hundred couple of strong Irish greyhounds, they are let
loose, as occasion serves, upon the herd of deer, [so] that with dogs,
guns, arrows, durks, and daggers, in the space of two hours, fourscore
fat deer were slain, which after are disposed, some one way and some
another, twenty or thirty miles, and more than enough left for us to
make merry withal at our rendezvous’.
[Sidenote: 1618.]
After spending some days in this manner in the Brae of Mar, the party,
attended by Taylor, went into Badenoch, and renewed the sport there for
three or four days, concluding with a brief visit to Ruthven Castle.
This grand old fortress--anciently the stronghold of the Cumins, lords
of Badenoch--seated on an alluvial promontory jutting into the haugh
beside the Spey, occupying an area of a hundred and twenty yards long,
and consisting of two great towers surrounded by a fortified wall with
an iron gate and portcullis,[383] was now the property of the Gordon
family. Here, says Taylor, ‘my Lord of Enzie and his noble countess
(being daughter to the Earl of Argyle) did give us most noble welcome
for three days.’ ‘From thence we went to a place called Ballo[ch]
Castle, a fair and stately house, a worthy gentleman being the owner
of it, called the Laird of Grant.[384]... Our cheer was more than
sufficient, and yet much less than they could afford us. There stayed
there four days four earls, one lord, divers knights and gentlemen,
and their servants, footmen, and horses; and every meal four long
tables furnished with all varieties; our first and second course being
threescore dishes at one board; and after that always a banquet; and
there, if I had not forsworn wine till I came to Edinburgh, I think I
had there drank my last.’
The Water-poet was afterwards four days at Tarnaway, entertained in the
same hospitable manner by the Earl and Countess of Moray. He speaks of
Morayland as the pleasantest and most plentiful country in Scotland,
‘being plain land, that a coach may be driven more than four-and-thirty
miles one way in it, alongst the sea-coast,’ He spent a few days with
the Marquis of Huntly at the Bog, ‘where our entertainment was, like
himself, free, bountiful, and honourable,’ and then returned by the
Cairn-a-mount to Edinburgh.
Here he was again in the midst of plentiful good cheer and good company
for eight days, while recovering from certain bruises he had got at the
Highland hunting. In Leith, at the house of Mr John Stuart, he found
his ‘long approved and assured good friend, Mr Benjamin Jonson,’ who
gave him a piece of gold of the value of twenty-two shillings, to drink
his health in England. ‘So with a friendly farewell, I left him as well
as I hope never to see him in a worse estate; for he is among noblemen
and gentlemen that know his true worth and their own honours, where
with much respective love he is worthily entertained.’
In short, Taylor, in his progress through Scotland, seems to have been
everywhere feasted sumptuously, and supplied liberally with money. So
much of a virtue comparatively rare in England, and so much plenty
in a country which his own people were accustomed to think of as the
birthplace of famine, seems to have greatly astonished him. The wonder
comes to a climax at Cockburnspath, near his exit from Scotland, where
he was handsomely entertained at an inn by Master William Arnot and his
wife, the owners thereof. ‘I must explain,’ he says, ‘their bountiful
entertainment of guests, which is this:
[Sidenote: 1618.]
‘Suppose ten, fifteen, or twenty men and horses come to lodge at their
house. The men shall have flesh, tame and wild fowl, fish, with all
variety of good cheer, good lodging, and welcome, and the horses shall
want neither hay nor provender; and at the morning at their departure
the reckoning is just nothing. This is this worthy gentleman’s use,
his chief delight being to give strangers entertainment _gratis_! And
I am sure that in Scotland, beyond Edinburgh, I have been at houses
like castles for building; the master of the house’s beaver being his
blue bonnet, one that will wear no other shirts but of the flax that
grows on his own ground, and of his wife’s, daughters’, or servants’
spinning; that hath his stockings, hose, and jerkin of the wool of
his own sheep’s backs; that never by his pride of apparel caused
mercer, draper, silk-man, embroiderer, or haberdasher, to break and
turn bankrupt; and yet this plain home-spun fellow keeps and maintains
thirty, forty, fifty servants, or perhaps more, every day relieving
three or four score poor people at his gate; and besides all this, can
give noble entertainment for four days together to five or six earls
and lords, besides knights, gentlemen, and their followers, if they be
three or four hundred men and horse of them, where they shall not only
feed but feast, and not feast but banquet; this is a man that desires
to know nothing so much as his duty to God and his king, whose greatest
cares are to practise the works of piety, charity, and hospitality.
He never studies the consuming art of fashionless fashions; he never
tries his strength to bear four or five hundred acres on his back at
once; his legs are always at liberty, not being fettered with golden
garters and manacled with artificial roses.... Many of these worthy
housekeepers there are in Scotland....
‘There th’ Almighty doth his blessings heap,
In such abundant food for beasts and men,
That I ne’er saw more plenty or more cheap.’[385]
[Sidenote: 1618.]
In the summer of this year, Scotland received a visit from the famous
Ben Jonson. The burly laureate walked all the way, notwithstanding a
previous hint from Lord Bacon, that ‘he loved not to see Poesy go on
other feet than poetical Dactylus and Spondæus.’ Among the motives
for a journey then undertaken by few Englishmen, might be curiosity
regarding a country from which he knew that his family was derived,
his grandfather having been one of the Johnstons of Annandale. He had
many friends, too, particularly among the connections of the Lennox
family, whom he might be glad to see at their own houses. Indeed, his
biographer, Gifford, expressly says he had received from some of these
friends an invitation to spend some time amongst them in the north. In
September, he was found by Taylor the water-poet, residing with one Mr
John Stuart in Leith; and Taylor speaks of him generally as being then
‘among noblemen and gentlemen who knew his true worth and their own
honours, where with much respective love he is entertained.’
Among those with whom he had amicable intercourse, was William
Drummond, the poet, then in the prime of life, and living as a bachelor
in his romantic mansion of Hawthornden, on the Esk, seven miles from
Edinburgh. It is probable that Drummond and Jonson had met before in
London, and indulged together in the ‘wit-combats’ at the Mermaid and
similar scenes. Indeed, there is a prevalent belief in Scotland that it
was mainly to see Drummond at Hawthornden that Jonson came so far from
home. The story is, that the pilgrim came first to Hawthornden, and was
received by Drummond with wonted ceremony, under the Covine Tree--that
is, company tree--which still stands on the lawn in front of the house,
when their greetings very appropriately took the form of a couplet:
[Sidenote: 1618.]
_D._ Welcome, welcome, royal Ben!
_J._ Thank ye, thank ye, Hawthornden--
the laureate having already learned to address a Scottish laird by
what Scott calls ‘his territorial appellation.’ Be this as it may,
we have no authentic notice of any intercourse between the two poets
till the commencement of the ensuing year, when they undoubtedly spent
a considerable time together, as it was then that they had those
_Conversations_, which, being noted down by Drummond, and published
many years after in his _Works_, have furnished so much food for
modern controversy. These memoranda partly relate facts regarding
Jonson himself, but chiefly report his opinions of his poetical
contemporaries, which are generally of a censorious character. Added to
them, however, is Drummond’s report on Jonson himself, in these terms:
‘Ben Jonson was a great lover and praiser of himself, a contemner
and scorner of others, given rather to lose a friend than a jest;
jealous of every word and action of those about him, especially after
drink, which is one of the elements in which he lived; a dissembler
of the parts which reign in him; a bragger of some good that he
wanted; thinketh nothing well done but what either he himself or
some of his friends have said or done. He is passionately kind and
angry, careless either to gain or keep; vindictive, but if he be well
answered, at himself; interprets best sayings and deeds often to the
worst. He was for any religion, as being versed in both; oppressed
with fancy, which hath overmastered his reason, a general disease
in many poets,’ &c. Drummond has been severely blamed for stating so
much, even privately, regarding a man whom he treated with all the
external marks of friendship; but the censure seems scarcely just. It
is not necessarily to be supposed that he was the less sensible of
the merits of Jonson, that he also observed his being marked by that
vanity, impulsiveness, and irritability which have been remarked in so
many poets. Neither may he have loved him the less--possibly he only
loved him the more--because of his faults. As to the act of taking such
notes, some allowance may be made for a man of literary tastes, living
at a distance from the centre of the world of letters, in an age when
there were no periodicals to prattle about literary celebrities, or an
opportunity occurring of hearing a famous poet talk of his poetical
brethren, and of seeing that eminent person revealing his own character.
A letter written by Drummond to Jonson in this very month, and probably
only a few days after their conversation, has been preserved:[386]
‘TO HIS WORTHY FRIEND, MR BENJAMIN JONSON.
‘SIR--Here you have that epigram you desired, with another of the like
argument. If there be any other thing in this country (unto which my
power can reach), command it; there is nothing I wish more than to be
in the calendar of them who love you. I have heard from court that the
late masque was not so much approved of the king as in former times,
and that your absence was regretted--such applause hath true worth,
even of those who otherwise are not for it. Thus, to the next occasion
taking my leave, I remain
Your loving friend,
WILLIAM DRUMMOND.
_January 17, 1619._’
[Sidenote: 1618.]
From a consideration of the whole circumstances, it is most likely
that Jonson had spent some time in autumn with his Lennox friends,
and thus been introduced to the romantic beauties of Loch Lomond,
and perhaps also to the romantic sports indulged in by the gentry
of its neighbourhood. Certain it is, from Drummond’s report of his
conversations, that he designed ‘to write a Fisher or Pastoral Play,
and make the stage of it on the Lomond Lake.’ And after he had returned
to London, Drummond sent him ‘a description of Loch Lomond, with a
map of Inch Merinoch,’ which, he says, ‘may by your book be made most
famous.’ It is possible, however, that this description of Loch Lomond
and map of Inch Merinoch--one of the many isles in the lake--may
have been intended for a prose work, which he also contemplated
writing--namely, his ‘Foot Pilgrimage’ to Scotland, which, with a
feeling very natural in one who found so much to admire where so little
had been known, he spoke of entitling _A Discovery_. Unfortunately,
this work, as well as a poem in which he called Edinburgh
‘The Heart of Scotland, Britain’s other eye,’
has not been preserved to us. We can readily see that the work
contemplated must have been of a general character, for Jonson wrote to
Drummond (London, May 10, 1619), not merely for ‘some things concerning
the Loch of Lomond,’ but for copies of ‘the inscriptions at Pinkie,’
referring probably to the Roman antiquities which had been found in
Queen Mary’s time at Inveresk, and also bids him ‘urge Mr James Scott,’
and send ‘what else you can procure for me with all speed.’ The king,
he adds, was ‘pleased to hear of the purpose of my book.’ How much to
be regretted that we have not the Scotland of that day delineated by so
vigorous a pen as that of the author of _Sejanus_!
The last visit Jonson paid in Scotland was to Drummond at Hawthornden
in the month of April, just before his return to London, which, as we
see, he had reached before the 10th of May. He lived with Drummond on
that occasion three weeks, enjoying, doubtless, the vernal beauties
of that romantic spot, as well as the converse of his friend, and the
more substantial hospitalities for which, if Drummond be right, he
had only too keen a relish. Their parting--which, by Scottish use and
wont, would be under the Covine Tree, when royal Ben set out on foot
as before to return to London--who but wishes he could picture as it
really was! Jonson’s letter of the 10th May, written soon after his
arrival in London, and breathing of the feelings which his excursion
had excited, may aptly conclude this notice:
[Sidenote: 1618.]
‘TO MY WORTHY, HONOURED, AND BELOVED FRIEND, MR W. DRUMMOND.
‘MOST LOVING AND BELOVED SIR--against which titles I should most
knowingly offend, if I made you not some account of myself to come
even with your friendship--I am arrived safely, with a most Catholic
welcome, and my reports not unacceptable to his majesty. He professed,
thank God, some joy to see me, and is pleased to hear of the purpose
of my book; to which I most earnestly solicit you for your promise
of the inscriptions at Pinkie, some things concerning the Loch of
Lomond, touching the government of Edinburgh, to urge Mr James Scott,
and what else you can procure for me with all speed. Though these
requests be full of trouble, I hope they shall neither burthen nor
weary such a friendship, whose commands to me I shall ever interpret
a pleasure. News we have none here, but what is making against the
queen’s funeral, whereof I have somewhat in hand, that shall look
upon you with the next. Salute the beloved Fentons, the Nisbets, the
Scotts, the Livingstones, and all the honest and honoured names with
you, especially Mr James Wroth, your sister, &c. And if you forget
yourself, you believe not in
Your most true friend and lover,
BEN JONSON.[387]
LONDON, _May 10, 1619_.’
[Sidenote: 1618.]
At the very time when Ben Jonson and John Taylor had the pleasant
experiences of the Highlands which are above described and adverted to,
sundry parts of that province of Scotland were the scene of lawless
violences, which these English poets could not have heard of without
horror. M‘Ronald of Gargarach,[388] ‘with a band of lawless limmers his
assisters and accomplices,’ went about ‘committing murders, slaughters,
treasonable fire-raisings, and other insolencies, in all parts where
they had any mastery or command.’ It was necessary to give his rival
and antagonist, Sir Lachlan MacIntosh, a commission ‘to pursue him to
the deid with fire and sword.’ At the same time, several men of the
Clan Campbell, taking advantage of the absence of their chief, the Earl
of Argyle, ‘has lately broken louss, and goes athort the country, in
companies, sorning [upon] and oppressing his majesty’s guid subjects,
in all parts where they may be masters.’ The earl, it appeared, had
nominated none in his absence ‘to have the charge and burden to retein
his clan and country under obedience.’ To supply this defect, the
Council (July 9, 1618) summoned the chief men of the name--the Lairds
of Glenurchy, Caddell, Lawers, Auchinbreck, and Glenlyon--to give
information about the delinquents, and surety for the future peace of
the country.
Contemporaneously with these outrages, were others of the like nature
committed by ‘a number of vagabonds and broken men of the Clan Donochie
(Robertsons),’ particularly in the lands of Simon Lord Fraser of
Lovat.--_P. C. R._
It may be remarked that the Earl of Argyle had gone abroad, either from
dissatisfaction with the rewards assigned him for his putting down of
the Macgregors and MacConnel of Kintyre,[389] or because of troubles
on account of his debts.[390] To the surprise of his countrymen, he
entered the service of Philip III. against the people of the Low
Countries, and, by the persuasion of his wife, joined the Church of
Rome. The poet Craig thus satirised him:
‘Now, Earl of Guile and Lord Forlorn, thou goes,
Quitting thy prince to serve his Spanish foes:
No faith in plaids, no trust in Highland trews,
Chameleon-like, they change so many hues.’
The king felt as indignant as any, and on the 4th of February 1619, the
Privy Council had this ‘shameful defection’ under its notice. It was
alleged that the apostate earl not only goes openly to mass, but has
associated with ‘auld M‘Ranald’ and sundry other exiled rebels. Sundry
charges against him having been slighted, the Council now ‘do repute
him as a traitor,’ and ordain him to be pursued as such. The earl, who,
before leaving his country, had handed over his estates to his son, did
not return till he was enabled to do so by the grace of Charles I. in
1638.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG. 20.]
[Sidenote: 1618.]
Thomas Ross, a man of good family, formerly minister of Cargill, in
Perthshire, had gone to Oxford to study; but in a moment of partial
lunacy--for the act can be accounted for in no other way--he wrote
a libel on the Scottish nation, and affixed it to the door of St
Mary’s Church. It spoke in scurrilous terms of the people of Scotland,
excepting only the king and a few others, and counselled that the
king should banish all Scots from his court. James took the matter in
high dudgeon, and had Ross sent down to Scotland, with strict orders
to bring him to condign punishment. He was accordingly tried at the
date marginally noted, for an act of which the design was assumed to
be to have stirred up the people of England ‘to the cruel, barbarous,
and unmerciful murdering, massacring, and assassine of the haill
Scots people, as well noblemen and councillors as others, attendants
about his highness’s royal person in court.’ The unfortunate satirist
professed penitence, and craved mercy, averring that he had been _inops
mentis_ at the time of his committing the act. Nothing could avail to
save him. His right hand was first struck off, and then he was beheaded
and quartered, his head being fixed on a prick at the Nether Bow Port,
and his hand at the West Port.--_Pit._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG. 29.]
Mr John Guthrie, minister of Perth, ‘on ane Sunday after the
afternoon’s sermon, married the Master of Sanquhar with Sir Robert
Swift’s daughter, ane English knight in Yorkshire. Neither of the
parties exceeded thirteen years of age.’--_Chron. Perth._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV. 18.]
‘About the midst of November, there appeared a prodigious comet in the
morning, in the north-east, broad, and stretching with a large tail
towards the north-west. It appeared fine and clear some few days in
the beginning, and after became more dim and obscure, and vanished
away at last in the north. This comet by appearance portended the wars
of Germany, which began not long after, and continueth yet to this
hour.’--_Cal._
Dr Bembridge, ‘a very profound and learned mathematician,’ obliged the
king with an account of this comet. He told him it was as far above
the moon as the moon is above the earth, and not less than 2,300,000
English miles! Rushworth speaks of it as followed by, first, the
Bohemian wars, then the German and Swedish, &c. ‘Dr Bembridge observed
it to be vertical to London, and to pass over it in the morning; so
it gave England and Scotland in their civil wars a sad wipe with its
tail.’--_Foun. Hist. Ob._
This notable comet was observed in Silesia, Rome, and Ispahan. From
Skipton’s observations, Halley afterwards computed its orbit. It passed
its perihelion on the 8th of November, at little more than a third of
the earth’s distance from the sun. On the 9th of December, its tail was
70° in length, being, according to Kepler, the longest that had been
seen for a hundred and fifty years.
[Sidenote: 1618.