Part 1

Transcriber’s Notes:

Italic text is marked _thus_.

The original accentuation, and spelling has been retained. Hyphenation has been made consistent as far as possible.

DOMESTIC

ANNALS OF SCOTLAND.

DOMESTIC

ANNALS OF SCOTLAND

From the Reformation to the Revolution.

BY ROBERT CHAMBERS, F.R.S.E., F.S.A.Sc., &c.

SECOND EDITION.

VOLUME II.

[Illustration: Dunnottar Castle.]

W. & R. CHAMBERS, EDINBURGH AND LONDON.

MDCCCLIX.

Edinburgh: Printed by W. and R. Chambers.

CONTENTS OF VOL. II.

PAGE

REIGN OF CHARLES I.: 1625-1637, 1

REIGN OF CHARLES I.: 1637-1649, 105

INTERREGNUM: 1649-1660, 174

REIGN OF CHARLES II.: 1660-1673, 255

REIGN OF CHARLES II.: 1673-1685, 349

REIGN OF JAMES VII.: 1685-1688, 469

GENERAL INDEX, 503

Illustrations.

VOL. II.

_Frontispiece Vignette._--DUNNOTTAR CASTLE.

PAGE

BOG AN GICHT CASTLE, 46

HOLYROOD PALACE, AS BEFORE THE FIRE OF 1650, 205

MONS MEG, 468

THE JOUGS--AT DUDDINGSTON CHURCH, 501

HALF-GLAZED WINDOW OF SEVENTEENTH CENTURY, 524

DOMESTIC

ANNALS OF SCOTLAND.

REIGN OF CHARLES I.: 1625-1637.

James I. was peaceably succeeded on the throne by his son Charles I., then in the twenty-fifth year of his age. The administration of Scottish affairs continued to be conducted by the Privy Council in Edinburgh. For the endowment of the Episcopal Church now established, the king (1625) attempted a revocation of the church-lands from the lay nobles and others into whose hands they had fallen; but this excited so strong a spirit of resistance, that he was obliged to give it up. He ended by issuing (1627) a commission to receive the surrender of impropriated tithes and benefices, and out of these, and the superiorities of the church-lands, to increase the provisions of the clergy. These proceedings, though legal, were unpopular. The nobles, alarmed for their property, began to lean towards the middle and humbler classes, who objected to a hierarchy on religious grounds solely. While all was smooth on the surface, while the lords of the Privy Council were full of expressions of servile obedience, while they, as well as all judges and magistrates, gave most loyal and regular attendance at church, and duly knelt at the communion--a strong spirit of discontent ran through society. The more zealous Presbyterians formed the habit of meeting in private houses for prayer and worship. They beheld with apprehension the tendency to medieval ceremonies which Charles, and his favourite councillor, Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, were manifesting in England. That leaning to Arminianism which the English Church was also accused of--modifying Calvinism so far as to say that the perdition of sinners had been only foreseen, not decreed, and that God’s wrath against them was not to last for ever--was viewed with the utmost alarm in Scotland. The only means the king had of giving reassurance was to make a loud profession of horror for popery, and to practise all possible severities upon its adherents. That the king and his Council availed themselves of this chance, will be found abundantly evidenced in our chronicle.

It is rather remarkable, that the adjustment of the tithes by King Charles in 1627 has proved a most useful practical measure, in annulling a certain class of disputes between the clergy and their flocks; anticipating, in short, the valuable commutation acts of England and Ireland by upwards of two centuries.

During the first few years of the reign, large bodies of troops were raised in Scotland, and conducted by native officers to serve the Protestant powers of the continent, engaged in the great thirty years’ struggle with Catholic Germany.

The king paid a visit to Scotland in 1633, in order to be crowned as its sovereign, and to see what further could be done for perfecting the Episcopal system. His reception was respectful, but not so affectionate as that experienced by his father. He wanted the good-humour of James; he treated all difficulties in a stern and imperious manner. The people were overborne by his power and his obduracy, but left unconvinced, unreconciled. In the subsequent year, he lost additional ground by a tyrannical and unjust trial of the Lord Balmerino on a charge of treason, for merely having in his possession the scroll of a petition against the royal measures. At the same time, the Scotch people knew of the king’s quarrels with the English patriots Elliot, Pym, and others; they knew that he had resolved on calling no more parliaments; they heard of Strafford’s despotic government in Ireland; they sympathised with the Puritans who were now and then pilloried and cropped of their ears, or driven in multitudes to Holland and America. Although, then, there was a strong prepossession for the institution of monarchy, there was also a steady muster of irritation and fear against the government of this particular monarch. It might have been evident to any dispassionate observer, that, if the present system were persevered in, an explosion would sooner or later take place.

There was this further difference between the late and present king, that while James was only anxious for a church polity which would work harmoniously with his doctrines of state, Charles--who, unlike his father, was an earnestly religious man--deemed Episcopacy a necessary part of faith. The struggle was now, therefore, between a people fanatic for one system, and a king fanatic for another. One thing Charles had long considered as necessary to complete his favourite project in Scotland--the introduction of a liturgy into the ordinary worship. He thought the proper time was now come, because he everywhere saw external obedience. A service-book being accordingly prepared by Laud, on the basis of that commonly used in England, but with a few innovations relishing of popery and Arminianism, an order of Privy Council was given for its being read in the churches. This was precisely what was necessary to exhaust the popular powers of endurance. It seemed to the multitude as if popery, almost undisguised, were once more about to be introduced. When the dreaded book was opened in St Giles’s Church (July 1637), the congregation rose in violent agitation to protest against it. It was hooted as a mass in disguise, and a stool was thrown at the head of the reader. Similar scenes occurred elsewhere; but the clergy in general had declined to bring the book forward. The state-officers and bishops now found themselves objects of popular hate to such an extent that they could not present themselves in public. The service-book was not merely a failure in itself, but it had produced a kind of rebellion. Charles discovered, when too late, that, as usually happens with men of headstrong temper, the truth had been concealed from him. The general obedience had been a hypocrisy. Nineteen-twentieths of the people were in their hearts opposed to his measures, and now he had given them occasion to declare themselves and enter at all hazards upon a course of resistance.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: 1625.

MAY 28.]

This is the date of the patent of Charles I., conferring on Sir Robert Gordon of Gordonstown the dignity of a baronet of Nova Scotia, being the first patent of the kind granted. Gordon of Cluny and Gordon of Lesmoir also got similar patents during the same year, and Lesmoir’s eldest son, being of full age, was at the same time made a knight; such being the original design regarding this honour. The order of baronets of Nova Scotia, which still holds an honourable place in Scottish society, was projected by King James, as an encouragement to gentlemen of property in his native kingdom to enter into the scheme of Sir William Alexander (subsequently Earl of Stirling) to plant Nova Scotia. In the patent of each, a certain portion of land in that country is assigned along with the honour, the infeoffment being executed on the Castle Hill of Edinburgh; but this, as is well known, has never been otherwise than an ideal advantage. ‘His majesty, the more to encourage the baronets in that heroic enterprise [of planting Nova Scotia], besides other privileges, did augment every one of their coats of arms by joining thereto a saltire azure, or a blue St Andrew’s cross, set in a white field, with another scutcheon in the middle of the blue cross, comprehending a red rampant lion in a yellow field, with a red tressure of fleur-de-luces about the lion, with an imperial crown above the scutcheon, being the arms of New Scotland. The crest of the arms of New Scotland is two hands joined together, the one armed, the other unarmed, holding a laurel and a thistle twisted, issuing out of them, with this motto, “_Munit hæc, et altera vincit_.” The supporters are a unicorn upon the right side, and a savage man upon the left.’--_G. H. S._

* * * * *

The town-council of Aberdeen at this time anticipated the wisdom and good manners of a later age, by ordaining that ‘no person should, at any public or private meeting, presume to compel his neighbour, at table with him, to drink more wine or beer than what he pleased, under the penalty of forty pounds.’[1]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: JUNE 12.]

Thomas Crombie, burgess of Perth, was ‘summoned to underlie the law, for the alleged slaughter of ane William Blair, a westland gentleman, wha notwithstanding had done the same negligently to himself. Being of intention to have struck the said Thomas with ane whinger, he hurt himself in the arm, whereof he died twenty days after. The said Thomas compeared with eighty burgesses of Perth, besides five earls, six lords, and twenty-six barons, upon the burgh of Perth’s desire to back him, [and] was clengit and freed therefrae.’--_Chron. Perth._

* * * * *

[Sidenote: JULY 20.]

By the royal command, a fast was held throughout Scotland, in consequence of the heavy rains which had prevailed since the middle of May, threatening the destruction of the fruits of the earth. It was a time of calamity. The marriage of the king to the Princess Henrietta Maria of France (June 16th), had of course brought the mass into London, and ‘no sooner was the queen’s mass, the plague of the soul, received, than a raging pestilence broke out in the city of London and parts adjoining, which in a short time cut off above 40,000 persons.’--_Stevenson’s Hist. C. Scot._

* * * * *

[Sidenote: JULY 26.]

[Sidenote: 1625.]

The government was incensed by _bruits_ set in circulation by a set of ‘restless and unquiet spirits,’ to the effect that the king designed some change in the kirk and its canons. The king issued a proclamation denouncing these injurious rumours as troublesome to the commonwealth, and protesting that so well was he pleased with the existing arrangements, that, if he had not found them established by his late dear father, he would himself have never rested till they were perfected as they now stood. It may be suspected that this proclamation did not put an end to the _bruits_, for in October the king discovered that a number of Catholic noblemen and gentlemen were bringing up their children in popish seminaries abroad, and at the same time entertaining popish priests at home; wherefore it had become necessary that some suitable anti-papist edicts should be published. The parents of children educated abroad were ordered to have them brought home before a certain day, under severe penalties. Great pains were threatened against those who should give entertainment or shelter to popish priests after a certain day. Finally, the proclamation charged ‘all our subjects, of whatsoever rank or degree, to conform themselves to the publict profession of the true religion, prohibiting the exercise of ony contrary profession, under the pains conteinit in the laws made thereanent.’--_P. C. R._

* * * * *

[Sidenote: AUG. 30.]

A proclamation was resolved on for a strict execution of the laws against the selling of tallow out of the country. Contrary to the views of modern mercantile men, there was a general fear and dislike in those days regarding export trade. It was always thought to have a bad effect in making things scarce and dear at home. No one seems ever to have dreamed of the profitable _quid pro quo_ without which the trade could not have been carried on. We require to have a full conception of this universal delusion, before we can understand the frame of mind under which the Privy Council of the day could speak of the transport of tallow as ‘a crime most pernicious and wicked,’ perpetrated by a set of ‘godless and avaritious persons,’ acting ‘without regard of honesty or of those common duties of civil conversation whilk in a good conscience they ought to carry in the estate.’

It was, to all appearance, under a sincere horror for ‘this mischeant and wicked trade,’ which threatened to leave not enough of tallow to supply the needs of the population, that the lords announced their resolution to punish it with confiscation of all the remaining movable goods of the guilty parties.--_P. C. R._

* * * * *

John Gordon of Enbo, having suffered some injury at the hands of Sutherland of Duffus, longed for revenge, but for some time in vain. At length, riding with a single friend between Sideray and Skibo, he encountered Duffus’s brother, the Laird of Clyne, also attended by a single friend on horseback. Gordon, with a cudgel in his hand, assaulted Clyne, and gave him many blows. ‘Then they drew their swords, and, with their seconds, fell to it eagerly.’

[Sidenote: 1625.]

Clyne, after being sorely wounded in the head and hand, was suffered by Eubo to escape with his life.

The curious part of the affair is to come. Enbo was prosecuted by Duffus before the Privy Council, and committed to the Castle of Edinburgh. The Duffus party were full of triumph, making sure of ample retribution. At that crisis arrives the sage and courteous Sir Robert Gordon of Gordonstown, who had heretofore made so many rough matters smooth in the north. He first dealt with Duffus, to induce him to withdraw the prosecution, which he apparently looked on in no other light than as a species of unrighteous revenge. Duffus proved obdurate, ‘thinking to get great sums of money decerned to him by the lords from John Gordon, for satisfaction of the wrong done to his brother, whereby he might undo John Gordon’s estate.’ Feeling now relieved from all ties towards Duffus, Sir Robert ‘dealt by all means for John Gordon’s relief and mitigation of his fine.’ Very much by the interest of the Lord Gordon, then in Edinburgh with the French commissioners, he succeeded in inducing the Privy Council to let John Gordon off with a fine of a hundred pounds Scots, equal to £8, 6s. 8d. sterling!--‘and nothing to the party.’ Duffus left Edinburgh in sad discomfiture, to meet the blame of his friends for not having accepted the better conditions offered at first by Sir Robert Gordon. The proto-baronet at the same time returned to the north, bringing John Gordon of Enbo along with him, ‘beyond the expectation of all his friends and foes in those parts, who thought that he should not have been released so soon, nor fined at so small a rate, _wherein Sir Robert purchased himself great credit and commendation_.’ So Sir Robert calmly assures us in his own narrative of the transaction.--_G. H. S._

* * * * *

[Sidenote: OCT. 27.]

[Sidenote: 1625.]

A convention of Estates was held, under the Earl of Nithsdale as commissioner, to treat regarding the revocation of the church-lands. Those whose fortunes were thus threatened were greatly alarmed and incensed by the urgency of the king. The suspicion of the Earl of Nithsdale being a papist must have added to the unpopularity of the affair. If we are to believe a story which Burnet reports from Sir Archibald Primrose, they held a private meeting to consult how they might best protect their own interests, and it was agreed by them that, when assembled, ‘if no other argument did prevail to make the Earl of Nithsdale desist, they would fall upon him and all his party in the old Scots manner, and knock them on the head.... One of these lords, Belhaven, of the name of Douglas, who was blind, bid them set him by one of the party, and he would make sure of _one_. So he was set next the Earl of Dumfries. He was all the while holding him fast. And when the other asked him what he meant by that, he said, ever since the blindness was come on him, he was in such fear of falling, that he could not help the holding fast to those who were next to him. He had all the while a poniard in his other hand, with which he had certainly stabbed Dumfries, if any disorder had happened. The appearance at that time was so great, and so much heat was raised upon it, that the Earl of Nithsdale would not open all his instructions, but came back to court, looking on the service as desperate.’

It is much to be desired for this anecdote that it had some support in other authority. The Lord Belhaven pointed to was then a man little over fifty, and his epitaph in Holyrood Abbey describes him as kind to his relations, charitable to the poor, moderate in prosperity, and constant under adversity--though, to be sure, posthumous certificates of that kind do not generally rank as evidence of the first class.[2]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: OCT.]

A taxation was granted to the king by the Scottish parliament, amounting to £40,000 Scots. Some of the burghs came to an agreement with the lords of the Privy Council for certain proportions of this taxation, to be paid annually while it continued; and we are thus supplied with a means of estimating the comparative importance and wealth of some of the principal towns in the kingdom. We find the following towns set down, with the annexed sums at their names: Glasgow, £815, 12s. 6d.; Linlithgow, £163, 2s. 6d.; Stirling, £422, 17s. 9d.; St Andrews, £490; Dunbar, £90, 15s.; Culross, £84, 10s.; Canongate, £100; Hamilton, 100 merks.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: 1626.

APR.]

Paisley, now a huge city of the industrious, was, in the reign of Charles I., only a village surrounding the ruins of an ancient abbey. The dominant personage of the place was the Earl of Abercorn, a cadet of the Hamilton family, enriched by the possession of the abbey-lands. Through the influence of the earl’s mother, who had become a Catholic, the town was described as ‘a nest of papists.’ Nevertheless, the interest of Lady Abercorn’s relative, Lord Boyd, had procured a presentation to the parish church in favour of Mr Robert Boyd of Trochrig, recently principal of the Edinburgh University--one of a group of men deep in theological learning, adepts in Latin versifying, who then threw a lustre upon Scotland--but at the same time a zealous protester against the late Episcopalian innovations in the church. Being thus obnoxious to Lady Abercorn, albeit her ladyship’s relation, his settling in Paisley was viewed by her, her sons, and her friends, with great disrelish, and the consequence was a material resistance to the presentee, being perhaps the first occurrence of the kind in our country, the precursor of many.

‘He was ordained to have his manse in the fore-house of the abbey, as the most convenient place for that use. And having put his books and a bed thereintill; one Sunday, he being preaching, in the afternoon, the Master of Paisley,[3] being the Earl of Abercorn’s brother, with some others, came to the minister’s house, none being thereintill, and cast all his books on the ground, and thereafter locked the door.’ On a complaint from Boyd to the Privy Council, the Master was brought to penitence for this outrage, and it was then hoped that matters would go on smoothly. On his returning, however, to his manse, he found the locks of the doors stopped up with stones, so that he could not get in without force, which he was not permitted to use. As he was going away, ‘the rascally women of the town, coming to see the matter--for the men purposely absented themselves--not only upbraided Mr Robert with opprobrious speeches, and shouted and hoyed him, but likewise cast dirt and stones at him; so that he was forced to leave the town and go to Glasgow.’

Being a man of a gentle nature, Boyd withdrew to his house of Trochrig in Ayrshire, without making any complaint as to his late ill-usage. The case, however, being taken up by the Archbishop of Glasgow, and brought before the Privy Council, Lady Abercorn, the earl her son, and the Master her second son, all came to Edinburgh in the earl’s ‘gilded carroch,’ accompanied in the usual manner with their friends, to answer for the outrages which had been committed. An order was given for the replacement of Boyd in his parish; but, meanwhile, he sunk under a weakly and reduced constitution, and died, January 5, 1627, at the age of forty-nine.[4]

[Sidenote: 1626.

JUNE 15.]

‘Betwixt the hours of eight and nine in the morning, there appeared a phenomenon in the open firmament, which was looked on by many as a presage of some future calamity. The sun shining bright, there appeared, to the view of all people, as it were three suns; one be-east, and the other south-be-west the true sun, and in appearance not far from it. From that which lay south-west, there proceeded a luminary in the form of a horn, that pointed north-west, and carried as it were a rainbow, in colour gray, but clearer than the rest of the sky. Whether these signs were ominous or not, manifold were the calamities which then prevailed.[5]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: JUNE.]

[Sidenote: OCT. 10.]

Just before this time, a large body of men, variously stated at 3000 and 4400, was raised in Scotland by Sir Donald M‘Kay of Strathnaver, ‘a gentleman of a stirring spirit,’ and Sir James Leslie--supposed to have been of the Lindores family--to assist Ernest Count Mansfeldt in the Bohemian army against the Emperor of Germany. This being the Protestant cause, and likewise the cause of the king’s brother-in-law, the Elector Palatine, who had accepted the crown of Bohemia, the enlistment received the royal sanction and patronage, £2000 being disbursed to Sir Donald, and £600 to Sir James, while a further sum of £400 was promised to be at the service of the troops on their landing in Hamburg.[6] The movement harmonised with the feelings of the people of Scotland, to many of whom an honourable military service with pay was convenient and agreeable on less exalted considerations than that of religious sympathy, as the industry of the country was then too little advanced to hold out a gainful occupation to all who were anxious for it. The estates and influence of Sir Donald being in Sutherlandshire, it naturally fell out that a large portion of the officers of the corps were from that county and the adjacent districts of Ross and Caithness--Monroes, Mackenzies, Rosses, Gordons, Sinclairs, and Gunns. The greater number of the recruits embarked at Cromarty in October, and had a prosperous voyage to the Elbe; but their commander, Sir Donald, was detained by sickness till the spring of the ensuing year. Owing to the death of Count Mansfeldt, the corps took a new destination, though adhering to the same cause, for they entered the service of the King of Denmark, their own king’s uncle, who had engaged in the war against the emperor.

[Sidenote: 1626.]