Part 51
David Balcanquel of that Ilk, having been, in virtue of the act, amerced in three years of his valued rent or fifteen hundred pounds, ‘upon the account of his wife not keeping the church,’ represented the matter very pathetically to the Privy Council, setting forth how he himself had always kept his parish church, and, ‘notwithstanding the distractions and disorders that have been in the country where he lives [Fife], has always demeaned himself as ane dutiful and loyal subject.’ The Council took the case into favourable consideration, and, ‘seeing it never was the intention of his majesty that his weel-affected subjects should be ruined by _the mad and wilful opinions of phanatick wives_, without any fault of their own’--seeing, moreover, that Balcanquel protested ‘_it is not in his power to persuade his wife to go to church_, notwithstanding of all the endeavours he has used for that effect, and _he is willing to deliver her up to the Council to be disposed of at their pleasure_‘--they agreed to discharge his fine, taking him only bound ‘to deliver up his wife to justice whenever required.’--_P. C. R._
It was not always as in this case in regard to conventicle troubles. Wodrow had heard the following converse case ‘very weel attested:‘[314] About the time of the Circuit Court in 1685, there was an honest man in the parish of Baldernock, who was sore bested with a graceless and imperious wife, a hater of all seriousness. When he performed family worship, she interrupted him; when he went to a conventicle, she cursed him; and when he came home, she threw stools at him. Scarce durst the poor man return from these meetings without a few neighbours to protect him from his wife’s violence. Being denounced and cited to the court at Glasgow, he failed to appear; but _she_ came forward, and, on his name being called, cried out: ‘My lords, it’s all true--he is a rebel; there is not a conventicle in all the country but he is at it. He deserves to be hanged. Hang him, my lords!’ The lords asked who she was, and on being told, and hearing her go on further in the same strain, they ordered the man to be scored out of the roll, saying: ‘That poor fellow suffers enough already from such a wife!’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC.]
Amongst those now suffering under the severities of government, there was no one more remarkable than Sir Patrick Hume of Polwarth, a Berwickshire gentleman of large fortune, of vigorous character, and great zeal as a Presbyterian and Whig. Though only recognised by the government as ‘a factious person,’ he had been several times rather severely handled. Being now under suspicion of a concern in the Rye-house plot, he was denounced on the 13th of November as guilty of treason, and obliged to go out of the way. The harshness with which his friend Robert Baillie of Jerviswood was treated, was sufficient to shew that the more closely he concealed himself the better.
[Sidenote: 1684.]
Polwarth, who was a man of forty-three years of age, had a wife and ten children, all young, residing at his house of Redbraes in the Merse. Patrick, the eldest son, was taken up and put in prison; and on the 26th of December, there was a petition from him to the Privy Council, setting forth the piteous condition of the family now deprived of their father and threatened with the loss of their estate. He was but ‘a poor afflicted young boy,’ he said, who could do no harm to the state; he, moreover, cherished loyal principles and a hatred of plots. All he craved was liberty, that he might ‘see to some livelihood for himself,’ and ‘be in some condition to help and serve his disconsolate mother and the rest of his father’s ten starving children.’ The boon was granted grudgingly, the young man being obliged first to obtain security for his good-behaviour to the extent of two thousand pounds sterling.--_P. C. R._
[Sidenote: 1684.]
[Sidenote: 1684.]
The first concealment of Sir Patrick was the family burial vault, under the east end of the parish church of Polwarth, a place where he had no fire, and only during the day light from an open slit in the wall. With the comfort of a bed and bed-clothes, he endured life in this singular Patmos for a whole winter month, supplied nightly with food by his daughter Grizzel, and having no sort of entertainment to beguile the tedium of the day but his own reflections, and the repetition of Buchanan’s Psalms, which had long been charged on his memory. Each night, the young Grizzel came with a packet of provisions, and stayed with him as long as she could, so as to get home before day. According to an interesting family memoir, written by her daughter, Lady Murray of Stanhope: ‘In all this time, my grandfather shewed the same constant composure and cheerfulness of mind, that he continued to possess to his death, which was at the age of eighty-four; all which good qualities she inherited from him in a high degree. Often did they laugh heartily in that doleful habitation, at different accidents that happened. She at that time had a terror for a church-yard, especially in the dark, as is not uncommon at her age, by idle nursery stories; but when engaged by concern for her father, she stumbled over the graves every night alone, without fear of any kind entering her thoughts, but for soldiers and parties in search of him, which the least noise or motion of a leaf put her in terror for. The minister’s house was near the church; the first night she went, his dogs kept such a barking, as put her in the utmost fear of a discovery; my grandmother sent for the minister the next day, and, under pretence of a mad dog, got him to hang all his dogs. There was also difficulty of getting victuals to carry him without the servants suspecting; the only way it was done, was by stealing it off her plate at dinner into her lap. Many a diverting story she has told about this, and other things of a like nature. Her father liked sheep’s head, and while the children were eating their broth, she had conveyed most of one into her lap; when her brother Sandy (the late Lord Marchmont) had done, he looked up with astonishment, and said: “Mother, will ye look at Grizzel; while we have been eating our broth, she has ate up the whole sheep’s head.” This occasioned so much mirth among them, that her father at night was greatly entertained by it, and desired Sandy might have a share in the next.... As the gloomy habitation my grandfather was in, was not to be long endured but from necessity, they were contriving other places of safety for him; amongst others, particularly one under a bed which drew out, in a ground-floor, in a room of which my mother kept the key. She and the same man worked in the night, making a hole in the earth, after lifting the boards, which they did by scratching it up with their hands, not to make any noise, till she had left not a nail upon her fingers; she helping the man to carry the earth as they dug it, in a sheet on his back out at the window into the garden; he then made a box at his own house, large enough for her father to lie in, with bed and bed-clothes, and bored holes in the boards for air. When all this was finished, for it was long about, she thought herself the most secure happy creature alive. When it had stood the trial for a month of no water coming into it, which was feared from being so low, and every day examined by my mother, and the holes for air made clear, and kept clean picked, her father ventured home, having that to trust to. After being at home a week or two, the bed daily examined as usual, one day, in lifting the boards, the bed bounced to the top, the box being full of water; in her life she was never so struck, and had near dropt down, it being at that time their only refuge. Her father, with great composure, said to his wife and her, he saw they must tempt providence no longer, and that it was now fit and necessary for him to go off, and leave them; in which he was confirmed, by the carrier telling for news he had brought from Edinburgh, that the day before, Mr Baillie of Jerviswood had his life taken from him at the Cross, and that everybody was sorry, though they durst not shew it. As all intercourse by letters was dangerous, it was the first notice they had of it, and the more shocking, that it was not expected. They immediately set about preparing for my grandfather’s going away. My mother worked night and day in making some alterations in his clothes for disguise; they were then obliged to trust John Allan, their grieve, who fainted away when he was told his master was in the house, and that he was to set out with him on horseback before day, and pretend to the rest of the servants that he had orders to sell some horses at Morpeth fair. Accordingly, my grandfather getting out at a window to the stables, they set out in the dark. Though, with good reason, it was a sorrowful parting, yet after he was fairly gone, they rejoiced, and thought themselves happy that he was in a way of being safe, though they were deprived of him, and little knew what was to be either his fate or their own.
‘My grandfather, whose thoughts were much employed, and went on as his horse carried him, without thinking of his way, found himself at Tweedside, out of his road, and at a place not fordable, and no servant. After pausing, and stopping a good while, he found means to get over, and get into the road on the other side, where, after some time, he met his servant, who shewed inexpressible joy at meeting him, and told him, as he rode first, he thought he was always following him, till upon a great noise of the galloping of horses, he looked about and missed him; this was a party sent to his house to take him up, where they searched very narrowly, and possibly hearing horses were gone from the house, suspected the truth and followed. They examined this man, who, to his great joy and astonishment, missed his master, and was too cunning for them, that they were gone back before my grandfather came up with him. He immediately quitted the high road, after a warning by so miraculous an escape, and in two days sent back his servant, which was the first notice they had at home of his not having fallen into their hands.’[315]
Sir Patrick escaped to Holland, whence he returned with the Prince of Orange to take a high place in the councils of his country under a happier _régime_.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 2.]
We have seen many instances of Catholics deprived, under acts of parliament, of the privilege of educating their own children. This statutory power was now applied by the government to gentlefolk of what were called fanatical principles. The Lady Colville was imprisoned in the Edinburgh Tolbooth for her irregularities of religious practice, and particularly for ‘breeding up her son Lord Colville in fanaticism and other disloyal principles.’--_Foun. Dec._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1685.
JAN.]
[Sidenote: 1685.]
‘One James Cathcart, a pretended mathematician and astrologer, emitted a printed paper at Edinburgh, inviting any to come to him, and get resolutions of any difficult questions they had to ask, such as anent their death, their marriage, what husbands or wives they would get, and if they would prosper and succeed in such projects of love, or journeys, &c.; as also professed skill to cure diseases. This was a great impudence in a Christian commonwealth to avow such an art; for if he had it by magic, then he was a sorcerer; if not, he was an impostor and abuser of the people, which even is death.... In his paper, he cited some texts of Scripture, allowing an influence to the stars.’--_Foun._
[Illustration: Mons Meg.]
REIGN OF JAMES VII.: 1685-1688.
James Duke of York succeeded his brother in the three kingdoms (February 6, 1685), at a mature period of life, being fifty-three years of age. While reckoning as James II. in England and Ireland, he was the seventh of the name in Scotland.
The transition from the one sovereign to the other was very much like that from James VI. to Charles I. It was in each case from a man of lax principle to one who carried principle to obstinacy. It was also in each case a change from that easy good-nature which gets through difficulties, to a certain severity of temper which does not so much subdue difficulties as it makes them. If James could have kept his religion out of sight, there was enough of loyalty in the nation to have carried him to the end of a prosperous reign; he might have even completed his brother’s designs for rendering the English crown absolute. But he was too earnest a Catholic to give his subjects a pretext for forgetting the fact, or to allow of their winking at his assaults upon their liberties.
The Duke of Monmouth, who had set up some pretensions to the crown as a legitimate son of Charles II., now resided in exile at Brussels. He had ingratiated himself with the dissenters in England, and hoped by their assistance to dethrone the new monarch. He formed a design, in concert with the Earl of Argyle, for an invasion of the island. The latter nobleman set sail in May, and, after touching at the Orkneys, descended upon the west of Scotland, where he was joined by two thousand five hundred of his clan. A boat’s crew whom he sent on shore at Orkney being taken prisoners, gave information of his design, and the bishop of that diocese immediately carried the intelligence to Edinburgh. The militia of the kingdom was called out. The gentlemen of Argyle’s clan were seized and brought to the capital. The earl, finding all his prospects blighted, made a hesitating and timid advance towards Glasgow, where he hoped, but vainly, to be joined by the persecuted people of the west. The government forces advancing on every hand to meet him, his troops melted away; and after pursuing a solitary flight for a little way in disguise, he was taken prisoner at Inchinnan in Renfrewshire, and transported to Edinburgh, where he was immediately executed upon his former sentence (June 30, 1685).
The expedition which Monmouth conducted to the west of England was equally unfortunate, and that nobleman being seized under similar circumstances, was also executed. The exasperations, terrors, and anxieties which the sovereign had endured, first from the endeavours of the Whig party to exclude him from the throne, and latterly from these two rebellions, revenged themselves in severities which have fixed an indelible stigma upon his name. Under the Chief-justice Jeffries, hundreds of Monmouth’s followers, and even some wholly innocent, were summarily condemned and executed. It became a ‘killing time’ with the poor Presbyterians of the west of Scotland, many of whom were seized and shot dead in the fields. Everywhere men were reduced to silence; but at the same time, much of their respect and affection was lost.
From the commencement of his reign, James took no pains to conceal his religion. Encouraged by the suppressed rebellions and the stillness which everywhere prevailed, he now thought he might safely commence a series of measures for restoring the Catholic faith in his dominions. As the law stood, no papist could hold any office in the state. They were excluded, in both kingdoms, by a test oath, abjuring the errors of popery. Early in 1686, James endeavoured to get an act passed in both parliaments for dispensing with this oath, so that he might be enabled to introduce men of his own religion into all places of trust, which he judged to be the best way of proselytising the people at large. But to his surprise, the same parliaments which had already declared his temporal power to be nearly absolute, refused to yield to him on the subject of religion. Neither entreaties nor threats could prevail upon them to pass the necessary acts. In Scotland, the Duke of Queensberry, Sir George Mackenzie, and other statesmen, who had hitherto been the readiest to yield him obedience in all his most unpopular measures, submitted rather to be displaced than to surrender up the religion along with the liberties of the nation.
When he found that the parliaments would not yield to him, he dissolved them, and, pretending that he had only asked their consent out of courtesy, assumed to himself the right of dispensing with the test. This was establishing a power in the crown to subvert any act of parliament, and consequently no law could henceforth stand against the royal pleasure. If it had been assumed upon a temporal point, it is not probable that any resistance would have been made; for the right of the king to do as he pleased, and the illegality of all opposition to his will on the part of the people, were principles now very generally conceded. But it concerned the existence of the Church of England, and the religious prepossessions of the great majority of the people. There was therefore an almost universal spirit of resistance.
In order to give his measures an appearance of fairness and put them on a sufficiently broad ground, he granted a toleration to all kinds of dissenters from the Established Church. Affecting to have long been convinced that ‘conscience ought not to be constrained nor people forced in matters in religion;’ that all attempts of the kind were detrimental to the social economy and the interests of government, leading only to ‘animosities, name-factions, and sometimes to sacrilege and treason;’ he, by proclamations in the first six months of 1687, discharged all existing laws against dissenters in both sections of Britain, with certain moderate reservations, making it practicable for Presbyterians in Scotland to set up chapels for their own worship. This was a most remarkable step for a British sovereign to take. First, it openly assumed a right of the monarch, by his ‘absolute power’--for such was the phrase he used--to overrule the acts of parliament. Next, it gave ‘a degree and amount of toleration, beyond what any class of religionists was quite prepared to sanction. Therefore it was at once unconstitutional and over-liberal. Obvious as the royal motives were, there was a general expression of satisfaction with the measure among the English dissenters, while a considerable meeting of Presbyterian clergy in Scotland sent an address of thanks, with a promise of ‘entire loyalty in doctrine and practice’ for the future. But everywhere, the established clergy and the great bulk of the respectable middle classes, adherents of episcopalian protestantism, were alarmed and alienated, judging the movement to be, as it undoubtedly was, designed as a step towards the return of popery.
In the height of his power, James had deprived the boroughs of both kingdoms of their charters, and granted new ones, in which he was left the power of nominating the magistracies. He took advantage of this liberty to put Catholics into every kind of burgal office. He also attempted to get men of the same religion introduced into the chief seats in the universities.
What rendered these events the more alarming to the nation was the revocation of the Edict of Nantes by the king of France, in consequence of which the Protestants of that kingdom were subjected to a cruel persecution at the hands of their Catholic brethren. The people of Great Britain received about fifty thousand of these innocent persons under their protection; and as they were scattered over the whole country, they everywhere served as living proofs of Romish intolerance and cruelty. The British saw that if the king were not resisted in his endeavours to introduce popery, they would soon be groaning in hopeless subjection to a small dominant party, if not driven, like the French Protestants, far from their homes and native seats of industry, to wander like beggars over the earth.
The king had commanded the clergy to read in their pulpits his edict of universal toleration. Several of the English bishops, after ascertaining that the whole body almost to a man would support them, presented a petition to the king, in which they respectfully excused themselves from obeying his command. For this they were thrown into the Tower, and brought to trial, but, to the great joy of the nation, acquitted.
At this time (June 1688), the birth of a son to the king threw the nation into a state of extreme anxiety for the ultimate interests of the Protestant religion. It is to be observed that, if this prince had not come into the world, the crown would have fallen, in the course of time, to the king’s daughter Mary, who, for some years, had been married to the Prince of Orange. This lady being a Protestant, and the king being now advanced in life, the people had hitherto cherished a prospect of seeing the Protestant faith eventually secured under her sway. But now the Protestant line was excluded, and with it all hope was at an end. To add to the general dissatisfaction, there was some cause to suspect that the child was a spurious one, brought forward for the purpose of keeping up a popish line of succession.
The concurrence of all these circumstances brought the nation to such a uniformity of sentiment as had not been witnessed for fifty years. While the old enemies of the dynasty remained as they had always been, its best friends and supporters were now disaffected and thrown into alarm. Tories as well as Whigs, church zealots as well as dissenters, were become impressed with the idea that some extraordinary measure was necessary to save the nation from popery, if not from slavery.