Part 35
Although these incidents are stated by Walker to have happened at places _subsequently_ remarkable for preachings, it is evident that the people who saw and heard them were pious persons, deeply interested in the religious affairs of the time, and in an excitable state on that subject. Modern science is at no loss to account for such experiences under certain predisposing causes, without recourse to the supernatural. In the learned and laborious work of De Boismont on Hallucinations, they are fully treated and accounted for. ‘Illusions of sight and hearing,’ he says, ‘have often assumed the form of an epidemic. History records a number of facts of this character. One of the chief is the transformation of clouds into armies, and all sorts of figures; to which religious belief, optical phenomena, physical laws then unknown, high fevers of a pestilential character, and the derangement of the brain, all give a very natural explanation. Pausanias relates that, four hundred years after the battle of Marathon, the neighing of horses and the shock of armies were nightly heard on the spot. At the battle of Platæa, the air resounded with a fearful cry, which the Athenians attributed to the god Pan.... According to Josephus: Before sunrise on the 27th of May, there appeared in the air, throughout the whole country, chariots full of armed men, traversing the clouds and spreading round the cities, as if to enclose them. On the day of Pentecost, the priests, being at night in the inner temple to celebrate divine service, heard a noise, and afterwards a voice that repeated three several times: “Let us go out from hence.”’
History abounds in such facts, for facts they are in one sense. The predominant popular idea always appears in the vision. When a dreaming shepherd-boy in a Catholic country has a religious vision, the person most apt to be presented to him is the Virgin Mary. When a Scottish peasant had a similar experience in the seventeenth century, it took the form of preaching and psalm-singing.
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[Sidenote: 1667.
JAN. 31.]
[Sidenote: 1667.]
Heretofore there had been only an irregular transmission of letters by means of foot-messengers between Edinburgh and Aberdeen, and in the latter city there had been ‘long experience of the prejudice sustained, not only by the said burgh of Aberdeen, but by the nobility, gentry, and others in the north country, by the miscarrying of missive letters, and by the not timous delivery and receiving returns of the samen.’ It was now thought that there ought to be a constant post at Aberdeen, whereby ‘every man might have their letters delivered and answers returned at certain diets and times.’ It was therefore arranged with the consent of Patrick Graham of Inchbrakie, his majesty’s postmaster-general, that Lieutenant John Wales should establish a regular horse-post at Aberdeen, to carry letters to Edinburgh every Wednesday and Friday, returning every Tuesday and Thursday in the afternoon; every single letter to pay 2s., and every double letter 4s., every packet 5s. per ounce (in all cases Scots money). All other posts were discharged. Two years later (January 28, 1669) Inverness became sensible of a need for the same accommodation, though on a humbler footing. Accordingly, Robert Mean, keeper of ‘the Letter-office’ in Edinburgh, having, with concurrence of Patrick Graham of Inchbrakie, his majesty’s postmaster-general for Scotland, undertaken ‘to settle a constant foot-post between Edinburgh and Inverness, for the advancement of trade, correspondence, and convenience of the king’s subjects,’ the Privy Council, on petition, granted warrant for the purpose, the post ‘to go and return two times every week to Aberdeen, and once every week to Inverness, wind and weather serving,’ and the rates to be--‘For the conveyance of every single letter not exceeding one sheet of paper, to and from any place not exceeding forty miles Scots distant from the place where such letter shall be received, 2s. Scots money, and every double letter for the miles foresaid 4s. Scots, and for every ounce-weight the foresaid miles 5s.;’ for distances of threescore and fourscore miles, in proportion. ‘Wind and weather serving’ is an amusing qualification, considering that there was only one ferry of six or seven miles and another of two miles to cross. The Inverness post had not yet acquired the resolution which is said to have been expressed many years later by a carrying communication between Edinburgh and that northern burgh, when it was announced that ‘a waggon would leave the Grassmarket for Inverness every Tuesday, God willing, but on Wednesday _whether or no_.’
[Sidenote: 1667.]
The interest connected with this important institution may perhaps justify the preservation of one or two notices in themselves trivial. February 20, 1668, a complaint was made to the Privy Council by certain Edinburgh merchants, against Robert Mean, as to his charges of 1d. for each single, 2d. for each double, and 3d. upon each triple letter, in addition to the former dues of 4d., 8d., &c., and Robert was peremptorily ordered to discontinue these extra charges.--_P. C. R._
In August 1672, Anna Keith, relict of John Wales, keeper of the Letter-office in Aberdeen, complained to the Privy Council against the magistrates of Aberdeen, for having, on her husband’s death, extruded her from the office, in contravention of the contract between them and her husband, which provided that, in the event of his death before the expiration of the seven years engaged for, his heirs and representatives were to have the option of carrying on the business, by providing a qualified substitute. The magistrates had gone so far as to incarcerate Mrs Wales’s servants for going about their duties, ‘and by touk of drum discharged all persons from employing the complainer any further in the said office.’ They had also conferred the office on another person, without waiting to set it up to auction, ‘though several of the burgesses did offer considerably for the same.’ The Council replaced Mrs Wales in her husband’s office.--_P. C. R._
There is a whimsical incongruity in the connection of a Graham of Inchbrakie with a thing of such modern and commercial associations as the Post-office. Patrick--his common name was ‘Black Pate’--was a semi-Highland cavalier of the purest lustre. It was at his house, situated on the skirts of the Highlands, that Montrose had raised his meteor-like standard in 1644. The trouble he had given to the lords of the Covenant and to Cromwell could only be rewarded at the Restoration with this office, which in 1674 descended to his younger son John. One could scarcely imagine a more heterogeneous assemblage of ideas than that of Montrose’s friend as postmaster-general, and the son of the lady who threw the anti-prelatic stool in 1637 as keeper of the Edinburgh office under him.
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[Sidenote: APR.]
[Sidenote: 1667.]
During the unfortunate and discreditable war with Holland in 1665-6-7, a field was obtained for the enterprise of the Scotch in the trade of privateering. A very considerable number of _cappers_, as they were called, generally vessels of from a hundred to two hundred tons burden, were fitted out from Glasgow, Leith, and Burntisland, under clever and adventurous captains, in order to take the Dutch merchantmen. We hear of one belonging to Glasgow, so low as sixty tons burden, yet carrying five guns, and a crew of sixty persons, having further on board thirty-two firelocks, twelve half-pikes, eighteen pole-axes, and thirty swords, with provisions for six months.[215] A Glasgow privateer, commanded by one Chambers, distinguished itself by seizing a Dutch capper of eight guns and bringing it up the Clyde, along with a merchant-vessel laden with salt.
Towards the close of the war (February 1667), a Glasgow merchantman of three hundred tons, returning from Spain with wines, encountered a Dutch man-of-war. The captain sent most of his crew below, and remained on deck himself with seven men, to give tokens of submission. The Dutchman sent twenty-two men in a boat to take possession of his supposed prize, and, seeing another vessel at the moment, set off in pursuit of it. The captors suspecting no stratagem, the concealed crew came forth in the evening, and easily overpowered them, thus retaining possession of their vessel, which they brought safely into Glasgow with twenty-two prisoners.[216]
[Sidenote: APR. 30.]
The ports of Leith and Burntisland having in this way given great annoyance to the Dutch, a resolution was made to attempt a retaliation; and little more than two months before the celebrated attack on the Thames shipping, a fleet of thirty sail appeared one day at the mouth of the Firth of Forth. At first it was supposed to be the English fleet under Sir Jeremy Smith; but the Dutch colours soon appeared, and there was then a hasty effort made to protect the coast. The royal commissioner Rothes placed militia along both shores. Some of the Burntisland privateers took their cannon on shore, and raised a battery to defend the harbour.[217] The Dutch ships lashed out with their ordnance against that town, and knocked down a few chimneys, but did no further harm. Seeing no great encouragement for landing, they yielded at length to a somewhat violent west wind, and ‘that night did tak sail and removed from our coasts, without hurt done to any person.’--_Nic._
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[Sidenote: JUNE 4.]
[Sidenote: 1667.]
Mr William Douglas, son of the deceased Laird of Whittingham, was tried for his concern in an unfortunate duel, in which Sir James Home of Eccles was killed. The affair took its origin in a quarrel in a tavern in Edinburgh, ‘after excessive drinking.’--_Lam._ We learn from the evidence of a hackney-coachman, that being employed by four gentlemen--namely, the two who have been mentioned, the Master of Ramsay, and Archibald Douglas of Spott--he drove them to a lonely spot on the shore near Leith, where they all came out, and drawing their swords, ‘went through other.’ He saw Sir James fall under the thrust of the accused party. Another person saw the accused standing over Sir James after he fell, and when the unfortunate gentleman was carried into Leith, he heard the accused ask him forgiveness. A third witness observed the Master of Ramsay with his foot on Spott’s neck, and when he (the deponent) removed the Master, Spott got up, ran at the Master, and called him ‘cullion!’ It seems to have been a barbarous quarrel barbarously wrought out; and when we see how the men acted after they began fighting, we cannot but wonder that they were able to come to the field in one vehicle. William Douglas was sentenced to have his head stricken off his body three days after at the Cross of Edinburgh.--_B. A._
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There was a great drouth this summer, so that the grass was burned up, and the victual whitened before the middle of July, and ripened at the end of that month.--_Lam._
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[Sidenote: 1668.
MAY 7.]
John Gibson of Durie had a petition before the Privy Council regarding his niece Anna Gibson, daughter of the deceased Sir Alexander Gibson of Durie. His complaint was, that Anna had been unwarrantably carried away into the Highlands by certain persons unknown, but for no other imaginable purpose than to acquire an influence over her mind in the choice of curators. We learn through other channels that the young lady was an orphan, scarcely eleven years of age, and that she was living at Perth at the time of her abduction. Her deceased mother was Marjory Murray, a sister of the Viscount Stormont, and we are informed by Lamont, as part of the gossip of the day, that it was by this nobleman’s means that the young lady was carried off, his aim probably being to prevent her paternal relatives from acquiring an exclusive influence over her. The Council, on the supplication of John Gibson, issued warrants for a search after Anna Gibson, and the taking of her from the hands of any into whose power she had fallen; also threatening punishment for her detention, and decreeing a fine of £20,000 Scots to any man who should marry her.
[Sidenote: 1668.]
We hear nothing more of this case till the ensuing 11th of February, when the Lord Chancellor acquainted the Council that Anna Gibson had been brought to his lodging that forenoon. She was ordered to be placed in the family of Mr Alexander Gibson, one of the clerks of the Council, ‘ay and while she shall make choice of her curators after her age of twelve years complete.’ Apparently, the relatives on both sides had afterwards come to an agreement about this young heiress, as Lamont tells us that, on the 28th of August 1669, ‘Mistris Anne Gibson, Durie’s niece, remaining at Durie for the time, did choose her curators; among whom were the Earl of Rothes the chancellor, Sir Andrew Murray, and the Tutor of Stormont, her uncles on the mother’s side; Durie and his brother George Gibson, her uncles on the father’s side, &c. They dined that day at David Johnston, in Cupar, his house.’
Mrs Anna Gibson afterwards became the wife of John Murray of Touchadam and Polmaise. It is worthy of observation that she was the great-granddaughter of Lord Durie who was kidnapped by George Meldrum of Dumbreck; see under September 1601.
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[Sidenote: MAY 22.]
The town of Kilmarnock was wholly destroyed by an accidental fire, ‘wherethrough about sexscore families are set to the fields destitute both of goods and houses’--indeed, ‘in a condition of starving.’ Matters were the worse for them, by reason that they, ‘being all poor tradesmen, and having no other means of livelihood but their daily employment,’ had some time before been reduced to ‘great misery and affliction,’ in consequence of the quartering upon them of a great party of the king’s forces, when these were sent to the west to prevent a rebellion. Under the sanction of the Privy Council, a collection was made at the parish churches for the succour of these poor people.
The event is chiefly worthy of notice as marking the smallness of Kilmarnock in those days, when as yet there was no such thing as manufacturing industry in the country. A hundred and twenty families speaks to a population of between five and six hundred: in 1851, this industrious town contained 21,443 inhabitants within the parliamentary boundaries.
[Sidenote: 1668.]
In April 1669, a fire broke out at midnight in the town of Cupar (Fife), and spread so fast and with such violence, that ‘above the number of twenty considerable families being asleep in bed, did, unclothed with their apparel, with great difficulty escape their dwelling-houses,’ which were consumed with their entire contents. Thus, not only were these people, with their many young children, ‘ruined and reduced to begging,’ but ‘a great part of that ancient burgh, being the head burgh of the shire, [was] annihilat and turned to desolation.’ On a petition, the Privy Council ordered a charitable collection in Fife and the adjacent counties ‘for the relief of the poor indigent families of the said ancient burgh.’
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[Sidenote: JULY 9.]
Cases of outrageous personal violence, so common in the reign of James VI., and even in the ensuing reign, continued to be now and then heard of. The Privy Council Record, under this date, adverts to one of a typical character, referring to a remote province, where early forms and fashions of society still obtained. It appears that Marion Peebles, ‘Lady Cardiness,’ widow of the late ---- Gordon of Cardiness, was an aged and infirm lady living in the house of Bussabiel in the stewartry of Kirkcudbright. She was liferented in her husband’s lands; and her two sons, William and Alexander Gordon, resided with her; but the heir of the property was a grandchild in infancy. The allegation of William and Alexander Gordon was, that Sir Alexander M‘Culloch of Myreton had formed a design to possess himself of Cardiness, for which purpose ‘he did buy several pleas, debts, comprisings, and factories of the estate, and used all means to get himself intruded thereinto.’ For a series of years, he did his best to harass the Gordons and their tenantry out of their rights and possessions; and at length, on the 19th of August 1664, he came with a party, consisting of his sons Godfrey and John; Harry M‘Culloch, younger of Barholm; William M‘Culloch, younger of Locharduae; John M‘Culloch of Auchleoch; Alexander Fergusson of Kilkerran; and sundry other persons, attended by their servants, all armed with swords and pistols, to Bussabiel, where they broke up the house, and attacked the lady in her bed. They beat her till she fell in a swoon, then broke down the roof of the house upon her head; and afterwards, finding her son William, they also ‘wounded him dangerously in the arm and hand, to the hazard of his life, not permitting his servants to give him drink or go for a chirurgeon to dress his wounds, or administer any kind of help or comfort to him for a long time.’ Through their violent treatment, he was ‘forced to forsake the country, his infirm mother, and business.’
[Sidenote: 1668.]
On a subsequent occasion (October 1665), the same persons came again to Bussabiel, and committed a fresh assault on Lady Cardiness, ‘striking her with her own stilt till she fell a-sound among their hands.’ Yet a third time did they come in March 1666, and with still more fearful violence. They ‘brake down the doors, and put forth all the servants, and pulled down the bed about Marion her head, and in ane most inhuman manner dragged her forth thereof. She not being able to go of herself by reason of her weakness, they carried her forth of the yett to the croft,’ letting her head fall against a stone by the way; then leaving her insensible, they proceeded to demolish and destroy all that was of any value in the house. The wretched lady was carried by some of her tenants into a barn, where she remained for the night. Two months afterwards, they beset her house with a guard, to prevent her from receiving any succour from friends or servants; and a woman detected taking in something to her mistress by a back-window, was beaten cruelly. Then entering the house, ‘they did keep her from sleep as weel as meat, and further did throw down water and other liquid matters upon her, so that she was forced to retire and shelter herself within the bounds of the kitchen chimney for her safety.’ In consequence of these ‘inhuman acts, and keeping of all her rents, corns, goods, and geir, whereupon she should have lived, from her,’ she was reduced to such a state of wretchedness, that ‘she within a short time thereafter did burst forth her heart’s blood and died.’
There were sundry deadly assaults upon the two sons, and some attacks of a destructive nature upon their house, all betokening a savage violence on the part of M‘Culloch and his friends.
There is some difficulty as to the decision of the Council. They first appear as condemning the accused parties to fine and imprisonment; then next day give an opposite verdict; yet after all, in April next year, we hear of Godfrey M‘Culloch and Fergusson of Kilkerran as still under threat of punishment on account of their offence.
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[Sidenote: JULY 11.]
[Sidenote: 1668.]
‘Saturday, in the evening, as the Archbishop of St Andrews and Bishop of Orkney were going abroad, the archbishop being in his coach, and the other stepping in, a wicked fellow standing behind the coach did shoot the Bishop of Orkney beneath his right hand; which broke his left arm a little above the wrist with five balls.’ So wrote the Privy Council to the king.--_P. C. R._ The assassin was a preacher named James Mitchell, ‘a weak scholar,’ according to Kirkton, but whom Wodrow describes as ‘a youth of much zeal and piety.’ We may charitably presume that he was a weak man infuriated by the sufferings of his party. His design was to slay the archbishop, who had become more and more odious to the malcontent Presbyterians. ‘After the shot, he crosses the street quietly, till he came near Niddry’s Wynd head, and there a man offered to stop him, upon which he presents the other loaden pistol, and so the pursuer leaves him. He stepped down the Wynd, and turning up Steven Law’s Close, entered a house, and shifting his clothes, passed confidently to the street. The cry arose, A man was killed. The people’s answer was, It was but a bishop; and so there was no more noise.’--_Kir._
The government made much noise about this attempt, but failed to discover the murderer; nor was he discovered till six years after, when Sharpe himself recognised and had him arrested. Gilbert Burnett says: ‘I lived then much out of the world; yet I thought it decent to go and congratulate on this occasion. He [Sharpe] was much touched with it, and put on a show of devotion. He said with a very serious look: “My times are wholly in Thy hand, O thou God of my life!” This was the single expression savouring of piety that ever fell from him in all the conversation that passed between him and me.’
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[Sidenote: 1668.]