Part 52
The people of all orders turned their eyes to William Prince of Orange, who had long taken a lead in opposing the arrogant continental policy of the French monarch, and whose court had for some years been a resort of British malcontents. The prince himself was strongly inclined, for reasons of general policy as well as of personal ambition, to attempt a revolution in England. Being invited by a great number of influential persons, of both sides in politics, including some of the clergy, he no longer hesitated to make preparations for an invasion. In October he set sail with an army of about sixteen thousand men, and on the 5th of November cast anchor in Torbay, in Devonshire, while the king’s fleet lay wind-bound at Harwich. James had surrounded himself with a standing army; but, as generally happens in such crises, it partook of the almost universal feeling of the people, and was not to be depended on. Even with the assistance of a less scrupulous force from Scotland, he could hardly venture to risk an engagement with the prince, to whose standard a great number of the nobility had already resorted. He therefore retired before the advancing army to London, and was immediately deserted by all his principal counsellors, and even by his younger daughter, the Princess Anne. Feeling no support around him, he first despatched the queen and her infant to France, and then prepared to follow. In the disguise of a servant, he escaped down the river to Feversham, but being there seized by the populace as a popish refugee, he was brought back to London. It was found, however, that the government could not be settled on a proper footing while he remained in the country; and he was therefore permitted once more to depart (December 23, 1688). He left the kingdom in the belief that the people could not do without him, and would call him back in triumph; but, in reality, nothing could have been more agreeable to them than his departure.
In Scotland, the Privy Council and Established Church were left by the departure of the king an isolated power in the midst of a people generally indisposed to give them support. There was an irrepressible popular eagerness to break out against such popish establishments as the king had set up--to attack and extrude the more obnoxious of the clergy, and to take some vengeance upon the more noted instruments of the late arbitrary power, as the Chancellor Perth and Graham of Claverhouse, whom James had lately created Viscount Dundee. The populace did lose no time in rising against the popishly furnished chapel-royal at Holyrood and a Catholic printing-office which had been placed in its neighbourhood; and after a struggle with the armed guards, both places were pillaged and ruined. The Chancellor Perth, who had incurred peculiar odium from turning papist, was seized in the act of flight and thrown into a vile prison. In the west country, the populace rabbled out two hundred of the parochial clergy, not treating them over-gently, yet after all, using less roughness than might perhaps have been expected. In the other parts of Scotland, where prelacy had won some favour or been quietly endured, no particular movement took place.
In January 1689, about a hundred Scottish noblemen and gentlemen assembled at Whitehall, and, having previously ascertained the disposition of their countrymen, resolved to follow the example of England, by offering the supreme management of their affairs to the Prince of Orange. A Convention was consequently appointed by the prince to meet at Edinburgh on the 14th of March. This assembly, which was elected by the people at large, excluding only the Catholics, experienced at first some embarrassment from the adherents of King James. The Duke of Gordon still held the castle in that interest, and was able, if he pleased, to bombard the Parliament House with his cannon. The Viscount Dundee was also in Edinburgh with a number of his dragoons, and every day attended the assembly. On the other hand, an immense number of the westland Whigs, or Cameronians--as they were called from one of their ministers--had flocked to the city, where they were concealed in garrets and cellars. Dundee, when he saw that there was a majority of the Convention hostile to his old master, concerted with the Earl of Mar and Marquis of Athole a plan for holding a counter-Convention at Stirling, after the manner of the royalist parliament held at Oxford by Charles I. In the expectation that his friends would have been ready to accompany him, he brought out his troop of dragoons to the street; but finding their minds somewhat changed, he was obliged to take his departure by himself, as the parading of armed men so near the Parliament House would have subjected him to a charge of treason. He therefore rode out of the city with only a small squadron, and clambering up the Castle-rock, held a conference with the Duke of Gordon at a postern, where it was resolved upon between them that he should go to raise the Highland clans for King James, while his Grace should continue to hold out the Castle.
The liberal members of the Convention took advantage of this movement to summon the people to arms for their protection, and they were instantly surrounded by hundreds of armed Cameronians, who completely overawed the adherents of the late government. The Convention then declared King James to have forfeited the crown, by his attempts to overcome the religion and liberties of his subjects. The sovereignty of Scotland was settled, like that of England, upon the next Protestant heirs, the Prince and Princess of Orange, who were accordingly proclaimed at Edinburgh on the 11th of April.
It is not necessary here to detail the efforts made by King James to recover possession of Ireland--ending in his overthrow at the Boyne--or the gallant stand made for him in the spring of 1689 by the Duke of Gordon in Edinburgh Castle, and by Lord Dundee in the Highlands of Perthshire. By the death of the latter at the battle of Killiecrankie (July 27), all formidable opposition to the new settlement came to an end. It is understood that, if circumstances would have permitted, King William would have rather continued to maintain the Episcopal Church in Scotland than establish any other. Finding, however, that the bishops remained faithful to King James, he was compelled to take the Presbyterians under his protection. The Convention, changed by the royal mandate into a Parliament, proceeded in July to abolish prelacy in the Church, and to establish the moderate Presbyterianism which still exists. All the clergy formerly in possession of churches were permitted to retain them, if they felt disposed to accede to the new system, and take the oaths to government. The Solemn League and Covenant, though still supported by a party, was overlooked. The clergy were deprived of the power of inflicting a civil punishment by means of excommunication. General Assemblies and other Church courts were restored, with independent powers in ecclesiastical matters, and, the act of supremacy being abolished, Christ was understood to reign as formerly over the church. The clergy, however, tacitly admitted the king to be their patron and nursing father; and while the moderator of the assemblies convened and dissolved them in the name of Christ, the king’s commissioner, or representative, was also allowed to do the same in the name of the sovereign. Thus at length, by one of those compromises which sometimes follow the exhaustion of passion, a sort of middle way was found, in which the religious prepossessions of the great bulk of the people could rest in peace, while still the reasonable powers of the state were not dangerously interfered with. So did the great troubles of the seventeenth century come to an end, and allow the genius of the nation at length to give a due share of its energies to that material prosperity which had so long been repressed. The course of Scotland since, under its moderate church and zealous dissenting communions, its useful parish schools, and mild government; the advance of the country in population, in the culture of its soil, in every branch of honourable industry, and in the paths of science and literature; these might well form the subjects of another work equal in extent to the present.
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[Sidenote: 1685.
FEB. 26.]
The curious book, entitled ‘_Satan’s Invisible World Discovered_, by Mr George Sinclair, late professor of philosophy at the college of Glasgow,’ was endowed by the Lords of the Privy Council with a copyright of eleven years; all persons whatsoever being prohibited ‘from printing, reprinting, or importing into this kingdom, any copies of the said book,’ during that space of time. This little volume, which was often reprinted during the eighteenth century, and so lately as 1814, contains, in the language of its own title-page, a ‘Choice Collection of Modern Relations, proving evidently _against the Atheists of this present age_, that there are Devils, Spirits, Witches, and Apparitions, from authentic records and attestations of witnesses of undoubted veracity.’
[Sidenote: 1685.]
To maintain the efficacy of witchcraft and the reality of spirits and apparitions was at that time a part of the external Christianity of the country, and it was a recognised part of ‘atheism,’ as all freedom of judgment was then called, to entertain a doubt about either. The work of Mr George Sinclair was an example of a series in which the popular beliefs on these subjects were defended as essential to orthodoxy. One of the most remarkable of these treatises was the _Antidote against Atheism_, published by Dr Henry More in 1655; in which we find, first, a most ingenious, and, for the age, well-informed exposition of the arguments for a God from the remarkable adaptations and provisions seen, throughout animated nature--next, and in close connection, a deduction of theism and providence from examples of bewitched persons, ghosts, vampires, guardian genii, &c. The heading of one of his chapters is: ‘That the evasions of Atheists against Apparitions are so weak and silly, that it is an evident argument that they are convinced in their own judgment of the truth of these kinds of phenomena, which forces them to answer as well as they can, though they be so ill provided.’ Not less remarkable was the _Saducismus Triumphatus_ of Joseph Glanvil, printed in 1681; in which are presented many narratives regarding both witches and spirits, including the celebrated one of the Drummer of Tedworth, all evidently deemed as necessary by the author for the overthrow and refutation of one of the prevalent forms of infidelity. It is equally worthy of notice, that when John Webster, ‘practitioner in physic,’ ventured before the world in 1677 with his book, _The Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft_, in which he threw ridicule on the whole popular code of ideas regarding the doings of witches, his greatest solicitude was to guard himself against the imputation of being one who treated lightly anything of the nature of scriptural evidence.
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[Sidenote: MAR. 3.]
Robert Mean, of the Letter-office, had written a report to London, to the effect that the westland people were again in arms, and the king’s forces marching against them. Lord Livingstone consequently posted down from London, to take command of the forces. When his lordship arrived and found the report false, he made a complaint against Robert, who was consequently imprisoned for his indiscretion, being not the first or second time he had been in trouble for similar offences. Colonel Worden, a friend of the new king, felt that it was hard to make Mean suffer where his intention was so good; so he procured a royal letter in favour of the postmaster. On a penitent petition, Robert was liberated, and allowed to resume his office, but with a warning ‘that if he shall be found in any fault of his office hereafter, he shall be severely punished therefor.’--_Foun._ _P. C. R._
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[Sidenote: APR. 8.]
The Duke of Queensberry, the Earl of Perth, and the Archbishop of St Andrews, arrived in Edinburgh from London, ‘having been only eight days by the way.’--_Foun._
[Sidenote: 1685.]
This must have appeared as rapid travelling in those days, for, twelve years later, the stage-coach from York to London spent the whole lawful days of a week upon its journey. This fact we learn from a passage in the diary of George Home of Kimmerghame, in Berwickshire,[316] where the following statement is made: ‘Thursday, October 21 [1697], Sir John Home of Blackadder set out post for London, at two o’clock. It afterwards appears that he tired of posting [as slow], and [for expedition, doubtless] got into the stage-coach at York on Monday the 25th, and was expected to reach London in it on Saturday the 30th.’
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[Sidenote: APR. 16.]
The equestrian statue of Charles II., which had cost £1000, though only formed of lead, was set up in the Parliament Close, Edinburgh. ‘The vulgar people, who had never seen the like before, were much amazed at it. Some compared it to Nebuchadnezzar’s image, which all fell down and worshipped, and others foolishly to the pale horse in the Revelations, and he that sat thereon was death.’--_Foun._
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[Sidenote: APR.]
Sir Alexander Forbes of Tolquhoun, in Aberdeenshire, having entertained in his house Alexander Ogilvie of Forglen, Sir John Falconer, and Lord Pitmedden, missed immediately after two mazer cups on which he set great value. He wrote to Ogilvie, mentioning the fact of the cups being missed, and asking if he could tell anything about them. Ogilvie, though feeling that this was scarcely civil, returned a friendly answer, assuring Sir Alexander that he had never even seen the cups, and knew absolutely nothing directly or indirectly about them. Hereupon Sir Alexander replied apologetically, and for some years he conducted himself in the most friendly way towards Ogilvie, as if to make up for his former incivility.
[Sidenote: 1685.]
Afterwards, on Ogilvie refusing to take part with him in some quarrels with a third party, Sir Alexander appeared to conceive a malicious feeling towards him. To wreak this out, he raised an action against him in the Court of Session, on the allegation that he had fraudulently abstracted the fore-mentioned cups. ‘And when the case was called, Tolquhoun had the confidence to appear personally at the bar and own and countenance the same, and crave [Ogilvie’s] oath of calumny anent that defamatory libel.’ After Ogilvie had thus acquitted himself, Tolquhoun craved permission to enter on a proof of the libel by witnesses; which the lords assented to. While the matter was pending, Tolquhoun frequently upbraided Ogilvie with the terms _cup-stealer_ and _cup-cheater_: nor did he hesitate to resort to legal quirks for keeping the charge as long as possible over the head of the accused. At length, the case came on, and, being found wholly without sound evidence, was pronounced to be altogether founded in malice.
[Sidenote: APR. 30.]
A subsequent process by Forglen against Tolquhoun for oppression and defamation was undefended by the latter, and ended in his being amerced in twenty thousand merks Scots, whereof one-half was adjudged to the aggrieved party.--_P. C. R._
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[Sidenote: JUNE.]
A dog being stolen out of the house of the Earl of Morton in Peebles, it chanced that the Earl’s son, the Hon. George Douglas, soon after observed the animal following the Laird of Chatto on the High Street of Edinburgh. On Douglas claiming it, the Laird of Chatto very civilly gave it up. Some days after, as Douglas was walking the street, followed by the dog, John Corsehill, a footman of Chatto, came up and attempted to take the animal into his possession, doubtless believing that it was his master’s property. Douglas bade him forbear, as the dog was his; but John Corsehill, not being satisfied, gave him some foul language, and when Douglas soon after returned along the street, Corsehill renewed his attempt; whereupon Douglas called him a rascal, to which the lackey responded in the same terms. ‘Which being such an indignity to any gentleman, [Douglas] did step back, and make to his sword; but before he got it drawn, the footman did hit him twice with a cudgel over the head, and did continue violently to assault him, [Douglas] still retiring, and with his sword warding the blows; but the footman was so furious, that he run himself upon the point of the sword, and so was killed.’
The excuse of Douglas for this unhappy chance was, that Corsehill had been the first aggressor, and that ‘no gentleman could endure publicly to be called a rascal without resentment.’ He protested that he had only acted in self-defence.--_P. C. R._
Another, though less fatal quarrel took place soon after, in consequence of a similar circumstance. Captain Scott, of the King’s Guard, having lost his dog in the college of Edinburgh, adopted the belief that it had been appropriated by Mr Gregory, the professor of mathematics. On this notion he acted so far as to fall upon the learned gownsman and give him a hearty beating. The other professors took up the case, and on their complaint to the Chancellor, Scott was compelled to crave pardon.--_Foun. Dec._
[Sidenote: 1685.
JULY 7.]
Sir John Cochrane of Ochiltree, an associate in Argyle’s expedition, and a forfaulted traitor, was taken in a relative’s house in Renfrewshire at the end of June, and was on the 3d July, with his son and another traitor, brought into Edinburgh, ‘bound and bareheaded, by the hangman.’ On the day noted in the margin, the English packet coming to Edinburgh was known to have been twice stopped and robbed near Alnwick. It was conjectured at the time that this might be done by some of Sir John Cochrane’s friends, ‘lest there should have been any warrant from the king by these packets to have execute him; that so the Earl of Arran might have leisure to inform the king what Sir John could discover, and so obtain a countermand.’--_Foun._ There were other conjectures on the subject; but no one could have surmised that the robber of the packet was Sir John’s daughter Grizzel, disguised in men’s clothes, as was long after ascertained to be the case. Sir John obtained a pardon from the king, and lived to be Earl of Dundonald. The heroine Grizzel was married to John Kerr of Morriston, in Berwickshire.
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[Sidenote: AUG.]
‘Sir George Drummond, provost of Edinburgh, breaks and runs to the Abbey for debt, the first provost that, during his office, has broke in Edinburgh.’--_Foun._ A week or two after, in consequence of some objectionable matters being thrown over the windows of Patrick Graham, captain of the Town-guard, whereby some gentlemen’s clothes were spoiled, a trivial riot took place at the guard-house. The Lord Chancellor, Earl of Perth, who of course was bound to do what he could for a Drummond, took advantage of this petty affair to get a protection to the bankrupt provost, to enable him to appear and defend the town. Thus he was ‘brought to the street again.’
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[Sidenote: SEP.]
[Sidenote: 1685.]
George Scott of Pitlochie had some claims upon the public in compensation for certain manuscripts originally belonging to his father, Sir John Scott of Scotstarvet, which he had surrendered to the Court of Session. Sir John had written a curious book, entitled an _Account of the Staggering State of Scots Statesmen_, in which, with irrepressible marks of gusto, he detailed the misfortunes which had befallen the persons and families of most of those who had taken a lead in public affairs or borne office during the preceding century. Now the usual destiny had overtaken his own son, who was fallen into poverty, and somewhat at a shift for a living. For some time, he besieged the Privy Council for help or patronage, and was at length gratified with a very peculiar gift. About two hundred westland peasants had been taken up for various acts of recusancy, and, for safety on the approach of Argyle, they were gathered out of the prisons, driven off like a flock of sheep to the east side of the island, and huddled into a vault of Dunnottar Castle, where they lived for a few weeks in circumstances of privation, as to food, air, water, and general accommodation, truly piteous. Hearing of their sad state, and relenting somewhat, the Council caused these poor people to be brought to Leith. It was hoped, perhaps, that they would now make such submissions as might warrant their liberation; and some did thus work themselves free. But the greater number positively refused to take the oath of allegiance, ‘as embodied with the supremacy,’ as they would thus be rejecting Christ from ‘the rule in his own house,’ as well as over their own consciences.
[Sidenote: SEP. 5.]
Pitlochie, who was himself a vexed Presbyterian, being now in contemplation of a settlement in the colony of East Jersey, and in want of labourers or bondsmen for the culture of his lands, petitioned the Council for a consignment of these tender-conscienced men, and nearly a hundred, who had been condemned to banishment, were at once ‘gifted’ to him. He freighted a Newcastle ship to carry them, and the vessel sailed from Leith roads, carrying with her a number of ‘dyvours and broken men’ besides the Covenanters. It was a most disastrous voyage.
Partly perhaps because of the reduced and sickly state of many of the prisoners at starting, but more through deficiency of healthful food, and the want of air and comfort, a violent fever broke out in the ship before she had cleared the Land’s End. It soon assumed a malignant type, and scarcely any individual on board escaped. The whole crew excepting the captain and boatswain died; Pitlochie himself and his lady also sunk under the disease. Three or four dead were thrown overboard every day. ‘Notwithstanding of this raging sickness, much severity was used towards the prisoners at sea by the master of the ship and others: those under deck were not allowed to go about worship by themselves, and when they essayed it, the captain would throw down great planks of timber upon them to disturb them, and sometimes to the danger of their lives.’
[Sidenote: 1685.]
Fifteen long weeks were spent by this pest-ship before she arrived at her destination; and in that time seventy had perished! The remainder were so reduced in strength as to be scarcely able to go ashore. The people at the place where they landed, ‘not having the gospel among them,’ were indifferent to the fate of the Scottish Presbyterians. But at a place a few miles inland, where there was a minister and a congregation, they were received with great kindness. They then became the subject of a singular litigation, a Mr Johnston, the son-in-law and heir of Pitlochie, suing them for their value as bond-servants. A jury found that there was no indenture between Pitlochie and them, but that they were shipped against their will; therefore Mr Johnston had no control over them. A good many of them are said to have died within a short space of time in the plantations; the rest returned to their native country at the Revolution. Such was the sad story of Pitlochie’s voyage.--_P. C. R._ _Wod._ _Foun._
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[Sidenote: OCT.]