‘Lord Colville took journey to France, to crave the re-establishment of
the Scots Guard and Company of Scottish Men at Arms, according to their
first institution and the French king’s promise often made to that
effect.’--_Bal._
[Sidenote: 1623.]
The Scots Guard of the French king was an old institution, and for a
long time past the command had passed from generation to generation of
the Sieurs D’Aubigné (Earls and Dukes of Lennox). Louis XIII. readily
agreed to the proposed revival of the corps, and designed to confer
the command on Ludovick, Duke of Richmond and Lennox, the favourite
councillor of King James. It chanced, however, that the duke was
suddenly cut off by apoplexy (February 1624), ‘beloved and lamented’
beyond all remembered example, ‘because he was naturally inclined to
do good without distinction of persons.’--_G. H. S._ The honour was
therefore transferred to his nephew, Lord Gordon, son of the Marquis of
Huntly.
In July 1625, Lord Gordon made his first muster of the corps on the
Links of Leith, in presence of several officers deputed by the French
king for that purpose. These gentlemen had been conducted to Edinburgh
by Sir Robert Gordon, Tutor of Sutherland; they were there entertained
in the handsomest manner by the Lord Gordon and other nobles, ‘and sent
home again to their master, the French king, in great satisfaction
and content.’ Lord Gordon’s younger brother, Lord Melgum, was his
lieutenant, and the first gentleman of the company was Sir William
Gordon, son of George Gordon of Kindroch, a branch of the family of
Pitlurg.--_G. H. S._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 20.]
‘... the king’s picture in the hall of the palace of Linlithgow fell
... and brake in pieces. The like befell the king of France’s picture,
in that same place, six weeks before his death.’--_Cal._
Such incidents were then invariably noted with superstitious awe.
Aubrey tells us that on the first day of the sitting of the Long
Parliament, the picture of Archbishop Laud fell in his closet, by the
breaking of the string.[411]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1623.]
George, Earl of Caithness, was one of the most unruly spirits of his
age. The almost uncontrolled power which he possessed in his own
remote country, was generally employed by him in advancing base and
selfish purposes, and half his life was passed in a state of outlawry.
Sometimes he is found at war with the Sutherland family, sometimes with
his neighbours the Mackays of Strathnaver. One year, he is proclaimed a
rebel; the next, he is found honoured with a royal commission against
some other rebel. (See the account of the case of the Earl of Orkney in
1615.) He was overwhelmed with debt, yet did not regard it much. His
son, Lord Berriedale, having become responsible for him, lay five years
in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, as a prisoner to the earl’s creditors,
while Caithness himself passed a pleasant life in his sea-cliff
fortalices of Girnigo and Aikergill, in the far north. There must have
been something plausible about this singular noble. Notwithstanding
all the injuries he had inflicted on the Sutherland family, and the
badness of his general character, he contrived, in 1619, to patch up a
reconciliation with Sir Robert Gordon, a most respectable man, a friend
and servant of the king, and who represented the interests of that
great family. He had on that occasion visited Sir Robert in Sutherland,
and Sir Robert in his turn spent several days with the earl at Girnigo.
The truce, however, was not of long continuance, for the Earl of
Caithness’s outrages were incessant. It was felt by the Privy Council
as a scandal to the country, that such a hardy rebel against the
ordinary authorities of the land should exist, and they looked about
for the means of putting him down. The usual expedient of the age was
resorted to--namely, to employ some other great man against him--thus
accomplishing by a kind of private war what ought to have been the
business of a force of their own. Sir Robert was the man they pitched
upon.
Behold, then, this courtier of St James’s and Newmarket, leaving those
scenes in the south where he was accustomed to meet Bacon and (not many
years ago) Shakspeare, and coming down to the land of Mackays, Guns,
and Sinclairs, in order to conduct an army against one of those rude
grandees who could even trouble a king. He had a strange associate in
the enterprise; Lord Berriedale had been liberated from prison, on a
paction with the creditors, that he might do what he could to bring his
heartless father within the grasp of the law.
[Sidenote: SEP. 3.]
Sir Robert’s forces were the Clan Sutherland and their friends, a
selection of the most active and hardy, and all well armed. Assembling
in Strathullie, and having been properly arranged and officered, they
lost no time in setting forth to cross the Ord. A company of the Clan
Gun went before to clear the ground and prevent surprise. Before they
had advanced far into Caithness, they learned that the earl, unable
to withstand so great a force, had deserted the country, and taken
refuge in Orkney, intending to go thence to Norway. At Latheron, James
Sinclair of Murkle, Sir William Sinclair of Mey, the Laird of Forss,
and some other Caithness magnates, came to yield their obedience and
offer their assistance. Sir Robert received them with great civility,
but ‘gave small trust to some of them; neither suffered he any of the
inhabitants to come in or go out of the army after the setting of the
sun until sunrising.’
[Sidenote: 1623.]
Passing Wick, he conducted his troops to Girnigo, a castle so strongly
placed on the verge of a lofty cliff overhanging the sea, that there
might have been some difficulty in taking it. The keys, however,
were at once rendered up, and so the army took quiet possession of
the fortress. They went forward, and, in like manner took Aikergill
and Keiss, two forts which the earl had abandoned in succession.
Meanwhile, Sir Robert had spies throughout all Caithness to report to
him about the dispositions of the people. They were said to be quiet,
but angry that any of the House of Sutherland should be charged with
such a commission against their lord.
Learning that Lady Caithness, who was his cousin-german, had removed
to a house a few miles distant, Gordon went to pay his respects to
her. She pleaded for her husband, on the ground that he was not
attempting any resistance; but Sir Robert left her no hopes of his
being speedily pardoned. He proceeded with deliberation to settle Lord
Berriedale in possession of the country and its fortresses, and made
various other arrangements for its benefit; after which he returned
in triumph to Dunrobin, and dismissed his men. ‘Thus you see how the
Earl of Caithness, having attained to the top of fortune’s wheel, and
to the height of his desires, by his service in Orkney, did by his own
misdemeanours, and wicked actions, fall into this extremity, which a
man of his life and conversation could not escape. Neither could the
Earl of Orkney’s example, which was recent before his eyes, divert him
from the course which brought him to this misery. A notable example to
posterity.’--_G. H. S._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 14.]
[Sidenote: 1623.]
During the earlier half of this year, Scotland suffered under a
famine of extreme severity. There was a vast increase to the usually
inordinate number of beggars, in consequence of many of the poorer
class of tenants throwing their farms in the hands of their landlords,
and wandering forth in search of food. And it is remarked that the
condition of these new mendicants was the most miserable of all,
‘because they, being for the most part ashamed to beg, underlies all
the extremities wherethrough the pinching of their bellies may affect
them; whereas, by the contrair, strong and sturdy beggars, by their
importunity and crying, and sometimes by extorting of almous, are in
some measure relieved.’ The administrators of the state are found in
alarm that, unless something be done to enable the poor to tide over
till the new harvest should be realised in September, ‘numbers of them
will betake themselves to live by stowth or [ere] they will starve
through hunger, whilk will not only produce a foul imputation agains
the whole land, but the wrath and anger of God will be wakened.’ At the
date noted, therefore, the Privy Council took measures for bringing
the principal men together in their respective county towns to arrange
for a taxation according to means and substance, in order to procure
victual for the poor. A hundred merks for every thousand pounds of
substance was the rate recommended.
In July, the famine ‘increased daily, till at last many, both in burgh
and land, died of hunger. Many poor came to Edinburgh for succour, of
which number some died in the streets.’ A fast was held on account of
the calamity; ‘the sermons began every day in the week at seven hours,
and ended at nine. Immediately after the fast was ended, that same
night, 7th of July, there was such a fire in the heaven, with thunder
and fire-flaught, that the hearers and beholders thought verily that
the day of judgment was come.’--_Cal._
‘There was this harvest-time ane great mortality ... ten or twelve
died ordinarily every day [in Perth] from midsummer to Michaelmas’
[September 29].--_Chron. Perth._
It was probably to this famine that a story told by Wodrow refers.
While the poor people were dying in great numbers in the fields, ‘some
people passing by saw a young child about seven years old, lying and
dying by a dike-side--which could not but move their pity, though they
could give it no relief. They observed the child to get up to its feet,
and looking up cheerfully towards heaven, clapping its hands, making
a tripping and dancing motion with its feet, they heard it cry: “O!
Lamb’s days for evermore! O! Lamb’s days for evermore! I see heaven!
Lamb’s days for evermore!” And with that it presently fell down and
died. I had this from my mother, who had it from her mother, and that
it was told as a certain truth.’--_W. A._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 10.]
Bessie Smith, of Lesmahago, appeared before the presbytery of Lanark,
and confessed sundry dealings with unlawful arts. She had ‘charmed the
heart-fevers.’ The patients, kneeling under her direction, asked their
health ‘for God’s sake, for Sanct Spirit, for Sanct Aikit, for the nine
maidens that died in the boortree in the Ladywell Bank--This charm to
be buik and beil to me, God grant that sae be.’ She also ‘appointed
them the wayburn leaf, to be eaten nine mornings.’--_R. P. L._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 15.]
[Sidenote: 1623.]
While the Egyptians were everywhere a proscribed race, and often the
victims of an indiscriminate severity, there was one spot where mercy
and even kindness seems to have been extended to them. This was Roslin.
Sir William Sinclair of Roslin, Lord Justice-general under Queen Mary,
riding home one day from Edinburgh, found a poor Egyptian about to be
hanged on the gibbet at the Burgh-moor, and brought him off unharmed.
In remembrance of this kindness, ‘the whole body of gipsies were
accustomed to gather in the stanks [marshes] of Roslin every year,
where they acted several plays during the months of May and June.’ So
tells us the quaint Father Hay, a connection of the Roslin family;
and he adds: ‘There are two towers which were allowed them for their
residence, the one called Robin Hood, the other Little John.’
At the time noted, the Privy Council had their attention called to this
Patmos of the outlawed race. They remark that,‘while the laws enjoined
all persons in authority to execute to the deid the counterfeit thieves
and limmers, the Egyptians,’ it was nevertheless reported that a number
of them were now within the bounds of Roslin, ‘where they have a
peaceable receipt and abode as if they were lawful subjects, committing
stowths and reifs in all parts where they may find the occasion.’ The
Council, therefore, issued an order to the sheriff of the district, who
happened to be Sinclair younger of Roslin himself, commanding him ‘to
pass, search, seek, hunt, follow, and pursue the said vagabond thieves
and limmers,’ and bring them to the Tolbooth of Edinburgh for due
punishment.--_P. C. R._
An order for the execution of a number of Egyptians was actually issued
on the ensuing 27th of January.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG. 1.]
[Sidenote: 1623.]
One Thomas Grieve was tried in Edinburgh for carrying on a species of
medical practice by witchcraft. He was accused of having cured many
people of heavy sickness and grievous diseases, by various magical
arts; as, for instance, the making of signs and crosses upon them, the
washing of their shirts in south-running streams, and the uttering
of unknown words. He took sickness off a woman near Leslie, in Fife,
and put it upon a cow, ‘whilk thereafter ran wood [mad] and died.’
He cured William Kirk’s bairn in Tullibole, of the _morbus caducus_,
‘by straiking back the hair of his head,’ and wrapping the child in
an anointed cloth, by that means putting him asleep. To cure diseased
cattle, he sprinkled a byre with enchanted water. He passed various
patients through a hasp of yarn three several times, and then threw the
hasp into a fire, where it burned _blue_; thus the people were cured.
He was alleged to have cured William Cousin’s wife by manifest sorcery,
‘causing her husband heat the coulter of his plough, and cool the same
in water brought from Holywell of Hillside, thereafter making certain
conjurations, crosses, and signs upon the water,’ which he caused the
patient to drink. One of the items in the dittay was, ‘curing James
Mudie, his wife and children, of the fever; in curing his wife, by
causing ane great fire to be put on, and ane hole to be made in the
north side of the house, and ane quick hen to be put furth thereat,
at three several times, and ta’en in at the house-door witherships
[contrary to the course of the sun]; thereafter taking the hen, and
putting it under the sick woman’s oxter or arm, and therefra carrying
it to the fire, where it was halden doun and burnt quick therein.’
The assize, having read the depositions of sundry parish ministers, and
being ‘ripely advised,’ sentenced Thomas to be strangled at a stake and
burnt.--_Pit._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV. 30.]
‘... about nine hours at night, there appeared like a rainbow in the
west, the moon shining clearly in the east, with some rain in the
meantime, whereat many wondered.’--_Cal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1624.