Part 33
‘About the same time, another mountebank, a High German, had the like sports and commodities to gain money. He was at Edinburgh twice, as also at Aberdeen and Dundee. He likewise had the leaping and flying rope--viz., coming down ane high tow, and his head all the way downward, his arms and feet holden out all the time; and this he did divers times in one afternoon.’--_Lam._
In December 1665, a doctor of physic, named Joanna Baptista, acting under his majesty’s warrant, ‘erected a stage [in Edinburgh] between Niddry’s and Blackfriars’ Wynd head, and there vended his drugs, powder, and medicaments, for the whilk he received a great abundance of money.’--_Nic._
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[Sidenote: SEP.]
‘It pleased the king’s majesty at this time to raise [five] companies of foot-soldiers, weel provided in arms, able stout Scotsmen, by and attour those of the life-guard, wha attended his majesty’s service in and about Edinburgh, ever ready to attend the king’s pleasure and the parliament’s direction.’--_Nic._
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[Sidenote: OCT. 15.]
Died, the Earl of Balcarres, a boy. ‘The lady, his mother, caused open him, and in his heart was found a notched stone, the bigness of one’s five fingers, Dr Martin and John Gourlay [apothecary] being present at his embalming.’[209]--_Lam._
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[Sidenote: NOV.]
The clergymen of Edinburgh, five in number, were all displaced for non-conformity to the new Episcopal rule, excepting one, Mr Robert Lowrie, who consequently obtained the name of the _Nest Egg_. He became Dean of Edinburgh. The inhabitants of the city, not relishing the new ministers, began to desert the churches and go to worship elsewhere. At the same time, the Monday’s sermon, which had for some years been in use, was discontinued.
[Sidenote: 1662.]
In the new church establishment the chief object held in view was to get the church courts controlled by bishops and the royal supremacy. Matters of worship and discipline were left much as they had been. No ceremonies of any kind, nor any liturgy, were attempted. ‘The reading of Scriptures was brought in again, and the psalms sung with this addition: “Glory to the Father, to the Son, and to Holy Ghost,” &c.’ That was all. While the famous Perth articles were left in oblivion, it was felt to be necessary that there should be some respect paid to the day of the Nativity. Accordingly, the next Christmas-day was solemnly kept in Edinburgh, the bishop preaching in the Easter Kirk (St Giles) to a large audience, in which were included the commissioner, chancellor, and all the nobles in town. ‘The sermon being ended, command was given by tuck of drum, that the remanent of the day should be spent as a holiday, that no work nor labour should be used, and no mercat nor trade on the streets, and that no merchant booth should be opened under pain of £20 in case of failyie.’--_Nic._
There was also a kind of volunteer effort in certain classes to get up an observance of the day consecrated to the national saint. November 30, a Sunday, being St Andrew’s Day, ‘many of our nobles, barons, gentry, and others of this kingdom, put on ane livery or favour, for reverence thereof. This being a novelty, I thought good to record, because it was never of use heretofore since the Reformation.’--_Nic._
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[Sidenote: 1663.
FEB.]
Died David Mitchell, Bishop of Aberdeen, ‘a little man, of a brisk lively temper, well learned, and a good preacher. He lived a single life, and his manners were without reproach.’ This prelate had experienced some strange vicissitudes of fortune. Originally a protégé of Archbishop Spottiswoode, and probably by his favour advanced from a parish pulpit in the Mearns to be a dean, he had been thrust out by the Covenanters in 1638, and retired to Holland. There, ‘being a good mechanic, he gained his bread by making clocks and watches.’ At the Restoration, being enabled to return to his native country, he was made a prebend of Westminster, and thence advanced to the see of Aberdeen.[210]
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[Sidenote: MAR.]
[Sidenote: 1663.]
‘There was ane lioness brought to Edinburgh with ane lamb in its company, with whom she did feed and live; wha did embrace the lamb in her arms, as gif it had been her awn birth.’--_Nic._
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‘This year was a very plentiful year of corns and stone-fruit,’ and the ensuing winter was ‘exceeding fair and warm weather, without any frost or snow.’--_Nic._
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[Sidenote: NOV.]
‘At this time, came here that valiant Colonel Rutherford, born and brought up in Edinburgh, a stout champion, late governor of Dunkirk, and now of Tangier, a man famous for his actions abroad. He came, having licence from his majesty to visit his friends here for a very few days.... It wald be here remembered that the Scottish nation in my time produced not a few such cavaliers; such as Colonel Edment, born in Stirling, a baxter’s son; Colonel Boog, Colonel Hepburn, Colonel Douglas, General Ruthven, General Leslie, General King, and many others, all valiant men, to the credit of this kingdom.’--_Nic._ Colonel Rutherford was ennobled under the title of Earl of Teviot, but did not long survive, being killed in May 1664, by an army of Moors. He left money to build eight rooms in the College of Edinburgh, where he had been educated.
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[Sidenote: 1664.
JAN.]
This month and the succeeding, there were many robberies throughout the country, and even in the streets and closes of Edinburgh, ‘occasioned by the poverty of the land, and heavy burdens pressing upon the people; the haill money of the kingdom being spent by the frequent resort of our Scotsmen at the court of England.’--_Nic._
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[Sidenote: APR. 20.]
One James Elder, a baker in the Canongate, Edinburgh, was tried for usury. The witnesses deponed that they saw him receive 8 per cent. from his debtor, and one of them deponed that he refused to accept 6 per cent. till he got 2 per cent. more. Being found guilty, his goods were escheat, and he ordered to find security that he would be ready to undergo any further punishment that might be inflicted upon him.--_B. of C._
What was then, partly under religious feelings, regarded as a crime, has since come to be held as legitimate traffic; and it is not unworthy of remark that the Bank of England was, at the time of the preparation of this article (November 1857), charging on bills 2 per cent. more than that rate of interest which caused James Elder in 1664 to forfeit his whole possessions.
[Sidenote: 1664.
JULY 15.]
The Earl of Leven, a young man, grandson of the great commander, ended his life in a manner characteristic of this mad-merry time. ‘He died of a high fever, after a large carouse with the Earl of Dundee at Edinburgh and the Queensferry. Some say that, in crossing, they drank sea-water one to another, and, after their landing, seck.’ A funeral-sermon was preached for him, on the text, ‘Our life is but a vapour, &c.,’ being ‘the first funeral-sermon that hath been preached in Fife these twenty-four years last past, or more.’--_Lam._
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[Sidenote: JULY.]
At this time, while the plague raged with great violence in Holland, carrying off as many as 739 persons in one day in Amsterdam, ‘there was much death in Scotland by ane fever called the _Purple Fever_.’--_Nic._
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[Sidenote: NOV.]
‘There fell out much division between the king’s Customers [officers of customs] and the merchants of Edinburgh, anent the searching of their merchandise and goods, and payment of their customs; and the Customers being informed that the merchants had brought in privily from England certain braid claith, and had convoyed the same over the town-wall privily in the night, they thereupon received warrant from the Great Treasurer and his deputes for searching the haill merchants’ booths of Edinburgh, and to stamp and seal their haill braid claith, and to take their oaths of verity anent the quantity of their merchandise and goods customable. The merchants, hearing the report thereof, in a moment closed up all their shops and doors, and held out Sir Walter Simpson, principal Customer, and his associates, from entry to their shops; but he placed sentries at their doors, that they should receive nothing out.’ The affair ended in a riot, in the course of which Sir Walter’s house was pillaged and an apprentice shot, and which was only quieted by military force.--_Nic._
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This year, like the two preceding, was remarkable for abundance of the fruits of the earth. ‘Much corn cuttit down in July ... the cherries sold at twelve pennies Scots [that is, one penny sterling] the hundred.’ Great penury nevertheless complained of.--_Nic._
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[Sidenote: DEC.]
[Sidenote: 1664.]
‘There appeared nightly, frae four hours in the morning till daylight, ane fiery comet, tending in our sight frae the south-east to the north-west, and seen in our horizon betwixt Arthur’s Seat and Pichtland Hills, with ane tail terrible to the beholders.... This comet, in the head, was, in our sight, the breadth of ane reasonable man’s hand, and sprang out in the tail the length of five or six ells.’--_Nic._ It ‘began to appear about three o’clock in the morning, very terrible in its first apparition; after that, it appeared at evening. It was a star of a more dim and bluish apparition (like a candle dying out) than the rest of the stars, with a long train of lightning from it, sometimes a fathom and a half in appearance, sometimes shorter.’--_Lam._
Pepys relates that the king and queen sat up on the night of the 17th of December, to see this comet, ‘and did, it seems.’ He also tells us of a lecture he was present at, in Gresham College, where Mr Hooke made it seem ‘very probable that this is the very same comet that appeared before in 1618, and that in such a time probably it will appear again, which is a very new opinion.’[211]
The comet of 1664 passed its perihelion on the 4th of December, at a distance from the sun somewhat greater than that of the earth’s orbit. The remark of Mr Hooke is erroneous in point of fact, but nevertheless interesting, as shewing that the periodicity of comets was now a subject of speculation among the few then cultivating natural philosophy in England.
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About the end of this year, Sharpe, Archbishop of St Andrews, purchased the lands of Scotscraig, a good estate in Fife, at 95,000 merks or thereby (about £5540). In the spring of 1669, he made a further purchase of the lands of Strathtyrum, near St Andrews, for about 27,000 merks. These doings argue the lucrative nature of the preferments for which Sharpe, as his brethren believed, had sold his party and his conscience. He had a brother William, who was at the same time rising in prosperity, and who, in 1665, bought the lands of West Newton, near Musselburgh, now called Stonyhill, at 27,000 merks. This William Sharpe was knighted by the Commissioner Lauderdale in 1669.
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[Sidenote: 1665.
JAN. 5.]
[Sidenote: 1665.]
The Laird of Lundie, a young unmarried man, was buried in Largo Church, with that novel and superfluous pomp with which all important matters had been conducted since the Restoration. The funeral was attended by a great number of the nobility and gentry of Fife, Lothian, and the Carse of Gowrie, including the Earls of Crawford, Athole, Kellie, Wemyss, Tweeddale, and Balcarres, Lords Lyon, Elphinstone, and Newark, who all dined at the house of Lundie before the corpse ‘was lifted.’ The coach or hearse, decorated with the armorial insignia of the deceased, and a pall of black velvet, was drawn by six horses, preceded by three trumpeters and four heralds in proper costume.
‘The heralds and painter got, for their pains, about 800 merks; the poor ten dollars; the coachmen seven dollars; the trumpeters forty-eight dollars; the baxter, James Weiland, seven dollars; George Wan, master of the household ...; the cooks, ...; Mr Waters, that dressed the coach, seven dollars; ... some men that served ...; the Kirkcaldy man, for the coffin, 40 lib.; John Gourlay, apothecary, for drogs, attendance, and bowelling of him, ...; James Thomson, in Kirkcaldy, for mournings, 412 lib. or thereby; at Edinburgh, for mournings, 600 lib. or thereby; Gid. Sword for drogs, 16 lib. or thereby; to the writer at Edinburgh for paper and the burial letters, 12 lib.; at Edinburgh, for claret wine, 200 merks; for seck, 100 lib.; at Edinburgh, two divers times, for spices, about 100 lib.; for sugar ... R. Dobie, for tobacco, seven lib.; R. Clydesdale, for ware, 54 lib., 11s.; Will. Foggo, for beef, 84 lib., 12s.; Capper, at Scoonie, for capps, 6s. ster.; An. Brebner, smith, for the chimlay and work, near ane 100 lib. or thereby; Robert Bonaly, for dyeing to the servants, 21 lib., 6s. 8d.; Glover in the Wemyss, for servants’ gloves, 4 lib.’--_Lam._
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[Sidenote: JAN. 9.]
Died at Cupar, Thomas Seaton, who is described as ‘a great exciseman,’ meaning a farmer of the revenue over a considerable district. The event would not be worthy of notice, but for a connected circumstance. ‘He died a Catholic Roman, which was never divulged till his death.’--_Lam._ Such a fact, revealing a lifelong hypocrisy in a man of some consequence, is very startling amidst the universal professions of anxiety for ‘the true religion.’ But it may well be supposed to be but one of many instances in which intolerance produced one of its natural fruits, dissimulation.
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[Sidenote: FEB.]
[Sidenote: 1665.]
In the latter part of this month, for several days, ‘there appeared in the clear light of day, even at twelve, one, and two o’clock, and also in the haill afternoon, ane fiery blazing star in the firmament. This star continued and increased daily and nightly thereafter, by the space of many weeks, sometimes having a great brugh about it [a halo] like the moon.’--_Nic._
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[Sidenote: FEB.]
In consequence of the war between Great Britain and Holland, great stagnation of trade was experienced in Scotland, ‘to the heavy damage and wreck of the people.’ ‘The seamen were daily sought, taken, and warded, till they were shipped for that service.’ ‘The towns upon the north shore of the Firth of Forth had daily and nightly watches for their defence, in case they should be surprised by the Hollanders.’--_Nic._
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Snow had begun at Christmas 1664, and it lay upon the ground till the 14th of March this year--a storm of which the like had not been seen for many years before.--_Nic._ ‘Some began to say there would hardly be any seed-time at all this year; but it pleased the Lord, out of His gracious goodness, on a sudden to send seasonable weather for the seed-time, so that in many places the oat seed was sooner done this year [than] in many years formerly; for the long frost made the ground very free, and the husbandmen, for the most part, affirmed they never saw the ground easier to labour.’ Many sheep perished during the storm, and the frost was severe enough to kill the broom and whins in many places.--_Lam._
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[Sidenote: MAR.]
In the end of this month, appeared a new and fearful comet, greater than that seen in November. It was visible in all parts of Europe, and ‘set many heads at work.’ The recent alarms spread by the Turks through Europe, and which had affected even Scotland, and the feeling of anxiety occasioned by the Dutch war and constant threats of invasion, gave more than its proper share of terrors to this celestial stranger. ‘They write from Frankfort, Dresden, Berlin, and other places, of strange sights and terrible in the air; many of which are undoubtedly augmented by imagination and report, yet a great part of the story is looked upon as a truth.’--_Nic._
This comet, which was seen in France two months earlier than it seems to have been in Scotland, was observed by Hevelius, Cassini, and others. It passed its perihelion on the 24th of April, at a comparatively small distance from the sun, and with a great eccentricity of orbit.
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[Sidenote: APR.]
[Sidenote: 1665.]
We get some idea of the expense of building at this time, from the sum at which Robert Mylne, master-mason in Edinburgh, undertook to erect an hospital at the kirk-town of Largo. It was a house of fourteen fire-rooms and a public hall; each room containing a bed, a closet, and a loom; besides which there was a stone-bridge at the entry, and a gardener’s house, two stories high. ‘Some say he was to have for the work, being complete, 9000 merks [£506], and if it was found weel done, 500 merks more.’--_Lam._ In 1661, according to the same diarist, when some mason-work was executed at Lundie, in Fife, the master had tenpence a day, and the other men ninepence, ‘and all their diet in the house.’
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[Sidenote: JUNE 11.]
This day, being Sunday, the news of the great naval victory over the Dutch reached Edinburgh (in three days from London) during the time of service. ‘No sooner were these good news divulged, but they were saluted from the [Leith] Road and from the Castle; as also with all taikens of joy upon the morrow thereafter, by setting out of bonfires in the town and places adjacent, and by ringing of bells, shooting of cannons frae sea; the town of Edinburgh marching with their displayed colours frae the Abbey, the commissioner’s lodging, to the Castle yett; all of them dancing and louping for joy through the streets and bonfires as they went, drinking his majesty’s health at the bonfires.’--_Nic._
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[Sidenote: JULY.]
Scotland was now under great alarm on account of the terrific plague which had broken out in London, and which lasted with great violence till October. Orders were issued by the Privy Council, forbidding any to come on business from the south without a testimonial of health. ‘Albeit there were not a few travellers and resorters therefrae,’ it pleased God that the pestilence should not come to Scotland.--_Nic._ The exemption of our country is the more remarkable, as the plague made its way into Ireland, and proved highly destructive in Dublin.
[Sidenote: 1665.]
The great plague of 1665 was the subject of serious remark in Scotland, in connection with circumstances much calculated to impress certain minds in that part of the world. ‘I find it taken notice of,’ says Wodrow, ‘by several papers written at this time, that the appearance of a globe of fire was seen above that part of the city where the Solemn League and Covenant was burnt so ignominiously by the hands of the hangman. _Whatever was in this_, it seems certain that the plague broke out there; and it was observed to rage mostly in that street, where that open affront had been put upon the oath of God, and very few were left alive there.’
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[Sidenote: NOV. 2.]
The Lord High Commissioner, the Earl of Rothes, commenced a progress through the west country, attended by the life-guard, the foot companies, and a cavalcade of _nine hundred gentlemen_, with trumpeters, kettle-drum, and royal standard. He went to Hamilton, Paisley, Eglintoun, and Dumbarton, ‘in a triumphant and comely manner;’ next to the Earl of Montrose’s house of Mugdock, and thence by Callendar and Linlithgow, back to Edinburgh, everywhere ‘royally entertained,’ and spending in all eighteen days on the journey.--_Nic._ It is to be suspected that idle and costly amusements of this kind, which had come in with the Restoration, had something to do with the poverty now complained of.
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[Sidenote: NOV.]
The light regard paid to the personal rights of individuals was shewn by a wholesale deportation of poor people at this time to the West Indies. The chronic evil of Scotland, an oppressive multitude of idle wandering people and beggars, was not now much less afflicting than it had been in the two preceding reigns. It was proposed to convert them to some utility by transferring them to a field where there was a pressing want of labour. On the 2d of November, George Hutcheson, merchant in Edinburgh, for himself and copartners, addressed the Privy Council on this subject, ‘out of a desire as weel to promote the Scottish and English plantations in Gemaica and Barbadoes for the honour of their country, as to free the kingdom of the burden of many strong and idle beggars, Egyptians, common and notorious thieves and other dissolute and louss persons, banished or stigmatised for gross crimes.’ The petitioners had, by warrant of the sheriffs, justices of peace, and magistrates of burghs, apprehended and secured some of these people; yet without authority of the Council they thought they might ‘meet with some opposition in the promoting and advancing so good a work.’ It was therefore necessary for them to obtain due order and warrant from the Council.
[Sidenote: 1665.]
The Council granted warrant and power to the petitioners to transport all such persons; ‘providing always, that ye bring the said persons before the Lord Justice-clerk, to whom it is hereby recommended to try and take notice of the persons, that they be justly convict for crimes, or such vagabonds as, by the laws of the country may be apprehended, to the effect the country may be disburdened of them.’
Two months later, James Dunbar, merchant, bound for Barbadoes, was licensed to take sundry ‘vagabonds and idle persons prisoners in Edinburgh, content to go of their own accord.’
The population of Barbadoes includes a greater proportion of whites than that of any other island of the West Indies, and the industrial economy of the island is also admittedly superior. It is understood that this is in a great measure owing to the cruel deportations of the poor people of Scotland to that island in the seventeenth century.
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[Sidenote: NOV.]
Another good harvest, ‘whilk was the cause that a number of fee’d servants, both men and women, did marry at Martinmas, by way of penny-bridals, both within the town of Edinburgh and other parts of the country.’--_Nic._
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[Sidenote: 1666.
JAN. 1.]
Although the preceding had been, according to Nicoll, ‘a dangerous, cruel, and bloody year,’ and though at this time an order stood forbidding commerce with the plague-stricken south, yet ‘upon the 1st day of January 1666, there was _as much drinking and carousing as in former times_.’
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[Sidenote: APR. 3.]
After the restoration of Episcopacy, the attendance at the churches in Glasgow fell so much off, that the collection for the poor no longer produced nearly what was necessary for their sustentation. At this date, we find the archbishop writing to the Town Council, adverting to the ‘several persons, men and women, who ordinarily dishaunts public ordinances, and flatters themselves with hope of impunity.’ His grace threatened to employ some of the officers of his majesty’s militia, ‘both to observe who withdraws from ordinances and to exact the penalties imposed by law.’ The magistrates then resolved to take steps for collecting the fines for non-attendance at church, as being better ‘than that any sodgers should have the collecting thereof.’--_M. of G._
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[Sidenote: APR. 12.]
[Sidenote: 1666.]