Part 55

Such houses were not many, for the religion of Rome has never been able to get any footing worth speaking of in Scotland, and even the patronage of this unfortunate king had done little for it. The mansion of the Maxwells near Dumfries and Traquair House near Peebles, were the only ones in the south which challenged particular attention. In the latter case, the marriage of the second Earl of Traquair to a daughter of the Earl of Winton,[322] had been the means of introducing a form of faith which the family has never since changed. We have seen something of the difficulties which his countess had in rearing her son, the present Earl, in her own religion; but she had succeeded in her object, notwithstanding all that presbyteries and privy councils could do. We learn that he was a quiet inoffensive man, who had never accepted any office under King James;[323] but that did not avail to save his house from the zealous on this occasion.

[Sidenote: 1688.]

Behold a resolute band leaving Edinburgh in December, and making their way ‘through frost and snow’ to that remote stately mansion on the Tweed, where the hated idolatry has for thirty years offended all well-disposed minds. The leader is Donald Ker of Kersland, a name suggestive of sufferings for presbytery in the past reign. They found at Traquair a great quantity of ‘Romish wares,’ but not all they came in search of, for a quantity had been carried off and secreted. Here, however, were an altar, a large crucifix of brass; several other crucifixes; ‘a large brodd opening with two leaves [triptich], covered within with cloth of gold of Arras work, having a veil covering the middle part, wherein were sewed several superstitious pictures;’ a eucharist cup of silver; an _Agnus Dei_ of amber with a picture above; a box of relics, ‘wherein were lying, amongst silk-cotton, several pieces of bone, tied with a red thread, having written upon them the saint they belonged to--namely, St Crescentius, St Marianus, St Angelus, &c.;’ another ‘box of relics of bones, tied with a string--namely, St Victoria, St Theodora, St Donatus, St Benedictus, St Laureata, St Venturiana;’ ‘a harden bag, near full of beads;’ ‘a timber box, with many wafers in it;’ ‘a pot full of holy oil;’ ‘the holy-water sponge;’ ‘Mary and the Babe in a case most curiously wrought in a kind of pearl;’ several other examples of Mary and the Babe; about twelve dozen of wax candles; many papers containing pictures; about one hundred and thirty books, some of them with silver clasps; and a considerable number of other articles of less importance.[324] All of these they seized without any resistance, for the earl and the priests had fled from the house on their approach.

According to the recital of Walker--Ker sent James Harkness and some other persons to the house of a neighbouring clergyman, ‘who had the name of a Presbyterian minister,’ one Mr Thomas Louis, with orders to search it narrowly for the missing articles, but to ‘behave themselves discreetly.’ ‘Mr Louis and his wife mocked them, without offering them either meat or drink, though they had much need of it [!] At last, they found two trunks locked, which they desired to have opened. Mr Louis then left them. They broke up the coffers, wherein they found a golden cradle, with Mary and the Babe in her bosom; in the other trunk, the priests’ robes.’

[Sidenote: 1688.]

The whole of these articles, being brought together, were carried to Peebles (distance seven miles), and ‘all solemnly burned at the cross.’ The spoils of the Maxwells about the same time furnished the materials of a like _solemnity_ at the cross of Dumfries.

[Illustration: The Jougs--at Duddingston Church.]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Kennedy’s _Annals of Aberdeen_, i. 176.

[2] A marble effigy of this Lord Belhaven, in a reclining posture, is to be seen over his tomb in Holyrood Chapel.

[3] The Hon. Sir William Hamilton. He was long after resident at Rome for Queen Henrietta Maria.

[4] Wodrow’s Life of Trochrig, MS., quoted in _Paisley Magazine_, 1828.

[5] Stevenson’s _Hist. of the Church of Scotland_, quoting _Historical Collections_, MS.

[6] _Spottiswoode Misc._, ii. 379.

[7] Published in thin folio at London in 1637. 23d June 1637, ‘appeared George Deuchar, agent, and in name of Colonel Monro presented one book entitled _Monro his Expeditions_, in token of his affection for the good town.’--_Edinburgh Coun. Register._

[8] John Gordon, of the house of Gight, engaged himself on the other side; and while serving the emperor as governor of Egra in Bohemia, he performed the notable act of the assassination of Wallenstein, for which his imperial master liberally rewarded him.

[9] _Bannatyne Misc._, iii. 221.

[10] Documents quoted in the _Transactions of the Antiquarian Society of Scotland_, iii. 251. _Black Book of Taymouth_, p. 437.

[11] The failure of the Duke of Buckingham’s army to relieve Rochelle, and its shameful retreat from the Isle of Ré.

[12] Stevenson’s _History of the Church of Scotland_ quoting a contemporary history which he supposes to have been written by one who was minister of Carlaverock or Ruthwell.

[13] Sir John is described in other entries as keeping priests in his house of Caddell, and there setting the law at defiance.

[14] Row’s _Hist. Church of Scot._, p. 348.

[15] Stevenson, quoting _Historical Collections_.

[16] _Privy Council Record._ _Book of Adjournal._

[17] In June 1569, the Regent Moray reported to the General Assembly of the church a case which had puzzled him on a justiciary visit to Elgin. It was that of one Nicol Sutherland in Forres, who was convicted by an assize of incest with a woman who had been the paramour of his mother’s brother. The regent hesitated about considering this crime as rightly named, and wished the decision of the assembly on the point. The reverend assembly had no hesitation in pronouncing in the affirmative. Nicol would consequently be hanged.--_B. U. K._

In August 1626, William Hamilton of Cultes was under discipline in the presbytery of Lanark for his incestuous marriage with his good dame’s brother’s wife--that is, we presume, the widow of his step-mother or step-grandmother’s brother.--_R. P. L._

[18] In the General Assembly of 1565, the church found that the marriage of cousins was not forbidden in Scripture; but seeing that it had been attended with inconveniences, desired that the matter should be settled by the civil magistrate.--_B. U. K._

[19] Dalyell’s _Darker Superstitions of Scotland_, p. 641.

[20] In the _Privy Council Record_ is a list of a great number of persons dwelling in the eastern part of Berwickshire, who were summoned to give evidence on this trial, all their landlords being at the same time enjoined to see that they attended.

[21] Martine’s _Gen. Collections, Macfarlane’s MS._ (Adv. Lib.), vol. i., p. 168.

[22] The lands of Powes, Powmill, Carsebrook, and Woodside are mentioned as amongst those destroyed.

[23] From the original in the General Register House.

[24] The life here spoken of was written by Rinuccini, Archbishop of Fermo. From an abridgment of it in the _Scots Magazine_ for March 1802, we derive the few particulars which follow.

[25] Kirkton’s _Church History_, p. 19.

[26] _Blair’s Memoirs_, MS. quoted in Notes to Kirkton.

[27] _Wodrow’s Preface to Dickson’s Truth’s Victory over Error_, _apud Gillies_.

[28] _Livingstone’s Characteristics_, quoted in Notes to Kirkton.

[29] _Analecta_, iii. 450.

[30] £2915.

[31] Father Blackhall’s _Narrative_ (Spalding Club), p. 125.

[32] December 16, 1630, the Privy Council granted commission to a portion of their number, amongst whom was a bishop (Dumblane), to assemble in the Laigh Council-house for the examination of Margaret Wood, ‘and as they shall find occasion to cause put her to some _slight and spare torture_ for the better trial and discovery of the truth of the matter.’

[33] See proceedings in Appendix to Spalding’s _Troubles_, vol. i. (Spalding Club edition).

[34] _New Stat. Acc. of Scotland_--Banffshire, p. 131.

[35] The notes to this article are from another list in the _Spottiswoode Miscellany_, ii. 383.

[36] James Spence of Wormiston. He became Lord of Noreholm and Chancellor of Sweden.

[37] Subsequently Earl of Brentford in the English peerage.

[38] Created Lord Eythan by Charles I. in 1642.

[39] He died of his wounds, a captive, at Gortz.

[40] Betrayed and taken at Hanau, and died in prison.

[41] Killed before Bremen.

[42] Called Dear Sandie--he was subsequently employed in the artillery of the Scottish Covenanting army.

[43] He was assassinated by a lieutenant of his own regiment, whom he had been provoked to batoon. A court-martial of Germans acquitted the lieutenant, on the ground that it was contrary to Swedish discipline to cudgel an officer. General Leslie, being then governor of Staten where the earl was buried, had the lieutenant immediately apprehended and shot at a post.

[44] Stevenson.

[45] Stevenson, quoting _Historical Collections_, MS.

[46] _Book of Adjournal._ _P. C. R._

[47] _Black Book of Taymouth_, p. 75.

[48] _Black Book of Taymouth_, p. 440.

[49] _Black Book of Taymouth_, p. 77.

[50] See Cunningham’s _Lives of British Painters_, &c., v. 22, art. George Jameson.

[51] Mixed with Spalding’s quaint narration, are here inserted some special descriptions from the authorised account, published at the time, as abridged in Jackson’s _History of the Scottish Stage_.

[52] _Muse’s Threnodie_, ii. 118. Some specimens of the dress of the morris-dancers are still preserved at Perth.

[53] _Black Book of Taymouth_, p. 437.

[54] Another account states the number drowned at eight.

[55] From a manuscript of Sir James Balfour. _Ancient Heraldic and Antiquarian Tracts.,_ Edinburgh. 1837.

[56] _Ed. Phil. Journal_, Apr. 1839.

[57] _View of Diocese of Aberdeen_, Spal. Club.

[58] Go-summer and go-har’st are terms applied in Scotland to the mild weather which sometimes occurs between autumn and winter. There is a proverb in Peeblesshire: ‘If the deer lie down dry and rise dry on Rood-e’en (September 18), it’s a sign we’ll have a good go-har’st.’

[59] See Johnson’s _Scots Mus. Museum_, new edition, _notes_.

[60] _Staggering State of Scots Statesmen._

[61] Spalding. Balfour.

[62] Stevenson.

[63] _Rushworth’s Collections._ _Southey’s Commonplace-book, 3d Series_, p. 528.

[64] Oliver and Boyd’s _Almanac_ for 1839, p. 92.

[65] _Collections for the His^t. Aber. and Banff_, Spal. Club.

[66] The chancellor seems to have been involved in an unpleasant affair a short while before his death. Ho had procured the marriage of a young lady, named Inglis, with a good portion, to a nephew of his, named Butter, and thus disappointed the Earl of Traquair, who desired the ‘morsel for a cousin of his awn, with whom he was to have divided the prey.’ Traquair proceeded to ‘raise all the furies of the court against the chancellor,’ and procured a warrant for examination of some of his accounts--which, however, terminated in clearing his lordship of all suspicion. Traquair only shewed ‘his awn base ingratitude towards him who first of all men brought him to have the king’s favour and respect.’--_Bal._

[67] Manuscript of Sir James Balfour, _Heral. and Ant. Tracts_, Edinburgh, 1837.

[68] Notes to Spalding Club edition of Spalding.

[69] _Spalding Club Miscellany_, ii. 73.

[70] For these authentic particulars of Gilderoy’s fate, we are indebted to the extracts from the _Privy Council Record_ printed in the Appendix to the Spalding Club edition of Spalding’s _Troubles_.

[71] Act of Privy Council, quoted in _Blackwood’s Magazine_, i. 66.

[72] ‘... many mouths were there opened to the bishop’s disgrace. “False Antichristian!” “Wolf!” “Beastly belly-god!” and “Crafty fox!” were the best epithets and titles of dignity given him. The dean was mightily upbraided. Some cried: “He’s a son of a witch’s breeding and the de’il’s get. Nae halesome water can come forth from such a polluted fountain!” Others cried: “Ill-hanged thief, if at that time thou went’st to court, thou had been well hanged, thou hadst not been here to be a pest to God’s church this day!” One did cast a stool at him, intending to have given him a ticket of remembrance; but jouking became his safeguard at that time.’--_Brief and True Relation of the Broil_, &c., printed in App. to Rothes’s _Relation_, 1830.

[73] See Vol. I. p. 545.

[74] Rothes’s _Relation of Proceedings Concerning the Affairs of the Kirk_.

[75] Become fusty.

[76] Inundation.

[77] Clarendon’s Life, ii. 333.

[78] Whitelock’s _Memorials_, 485.

[79] Gordon of Rothiemay’s _Hist. Scots Affairs from 1637 to 1641_. Spalding Club, vol. i. 57.

[80] Lady Mary Stewart, daughter of Esme, first Duke of Lennox.

[81] Some extracts from this book were printed by the late Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, Esq., 4to, without date.

[82] The moneys are Scots, being but a fraction of sterling money of the same denomination.

[83] The lady thus devoted her plate to the maintenance of the Covenanted cause.

[84] Cosmo Innes--preface to _Fasti Aberdonenses_, Spalding Club, 1854.

[85] Gordon’s _Hist. Scots Affairs_.

[86] _Maitland Club Misc._, i. 476.

[87] Turners made by gipsies (cairds).

[88] The reader cannot fail to have perceived that John Dhu Ger has been twice killed already. How he contrived to outlive so many deaths, I am unable to explain.

[89] Guthry’s _Memoirs_.

[90] _Edinburgh Magazine_, March 1819.

[91] Balfour’s _Annals of Scotland_, iii. 128.

[92] _Archæologia Scotica_, i. 503, _note_.

[93] Wodrow’s _Analecta_, ii. 209, 280.

[94] The battle of Edgehill, fought on the 24th of October 1642.

[95] According to Burnet, Sir Archibald Johnston of Warriston did the same thing. ‘He would often pray in his family two hours at a time, and had an unexhausted copiousness that way. What thought soever struck his fancy during those effusions, he looked on as an answer to prayer, and was wholly determined by it.’

[96] This whimsical association actually occurs in the dittay of a witch of this period.

[97] Stevenson’s _History of the Church of Scotland_.

[98] Willis’s _Current Notes_, April 1857.

[99] See Thorpe’s _Northern Mythology_; also article on Sandsting in _New Stat. Acc. Scotland_.

[100] On the 8th of June 1643, a case came before the Privy Council, at the instance of Lawrence Mercer and others, students at St Andrews, who complained of a scandalous charge got up against them by James Stewart of Ardvoirlich and his two sons, Robert and Harry, to the effect that umwhile Alexander Stewart, son of the first party, and brother of the two others, had received deadly injuries from them in a college tumult, and died in consequence. It was shewn that Alexander had provoked a tumult by his insolent speeches, and afterwards lay for a day or two in bed, but was found on inspection to be quite well, and he had lived in good health for nine months after. The lords accordingly declared the complainers to be innocent of what was laid to their charge.

[101] Notes to the Waverley Novels.

[102] In a curious and rare pamphlet, by William Lithgow, descriptive of the siege of Newcastle (_Edinburgh_, _printed by Robert Bryson_, 1645), we get some idea of the wretched state to which the place was reduced in consequence of its investiture of several months. ‘We found great penury and scarcity of victuals, ammunition, and other necessaries within that dejected town; so that they could not have held out ten days longer, unless the one half had devoured the other. The plague was raging in Gateside, Sandside, Sunderland, and many country villages about.’ For this reason, Tynemouth was obliged to surrender also; ‘the pestilence having been five weeks there with a great mortality, they were glad to yield and to scatter themselves abroad, but to the great undoing and infecting of the country about.’

Lithgow, by the way, was dissatisfied with the treatment of Newcastle by his countrymen. ‘As they abused their victory,’ says he, ‘in storming the town, with too much undeserved mercy, so they as unwisely and imprudently overreached themselves, in plundering the town with an _ignorant negligence and careless omission_.... And as they thus defrauded themselves with a whistle in their mouths, so they pitifully prejudged, by this their inveigled course, the common soldiers of their just due and dear-bought advantages.’

[103] ‘At Botarie, 25th October 1648, the brethren ordained to intimat out of their several pulpits, that whosoever receipts and converses with excommunicat persons, should be processed before the presbytery.’--_Strathbogie Presbytery Record._

[104] Producing a fire by the friction of two sticks against each other.

[105] Daughter-in-law of the Lady Frendraught formerly noticed.

[106] _Records of the Kirk of Scotland_, 1838, p. 446.

[107] Peterkin’s _Records of the Kirk of Scotland_, p. 427.

[108] _Maitland Miscell._, i. 436.

[109] _Maitland Miscel._, i. 433.

[110] _Caldwell Papers_, i. 91.

[111] Wood’s _Parish of Cramond_, p. 77.

[112] _Coltness Collections_ (Maitland Club), p. 58.

[113] _Archæologia Scotica_, ii. 108.

[114] Lyndoch lies about seven miles north-west from Perth.

[115] It is certain that Perth was visited by the plague in 1646. See _Memorabilia of Perth_, p. 179.

[116] In a popular publication quoted below[117] occurs the following notice of a well-known land mollusk, in connection with a traditionary story of the plague, which has long had general currency in Scotland:

‘In the woodlands, the more formidable black nude slug, the _Arion_ or _Limax ater_, will also be often encountered. It is a huge voracious creature, herbivorous, feeding, to Barbara’s astonishment, on tender plants; fruits, as strawberries, apples; and even turnips and mushrooms; appearing morning and evening, or after rain; suffering severely in its concealment in long droughts, and remaining torpid in winter. The gray field slug (_Limax agrestis_) is actually recommended to be swallowed by consumptive patients! In the town of Dundee there exists a strange traditionary story of the plague, connected with the conversion, from dire necessity, of the _Arion ater_, or black slug, to a use similar to that which the luxurious Romans are said to have made of the great apple-snail. Two young and blooming maidens lived together at that dread time, like Bessie Bell and Mary Gray, in a remote cottage on the steep (indeed almost perpendicular) ascent of the Bonnetmaker’s Hill. Deprived of friends or support by the pestilence that walked at noonday, they still retained their good looks and healthful aspect, even when the famine had succeeded to the plague. The jaundiced eyes of the famine-wasted wretches around them were instantly turned towards the poor girls, who appeared to thrive so well whilst others were famishing. They were unhesitatingly accused of witchcraft, and had nearly fallen prey to that terrible charge; for betwixt themselves they had sworn never to tell in words by what means they were supported, ashamed as they felt of the resource to which they had been driven; and resolved, if possible, to escape the anticipated derision of their neighbours on its disclosure. It was only when about to be dragged before their stern inquisitors, that one of the girls, drawing aside the covering of a great barrel which stood in a corner of their domicile, discovered, without violating her oath, that the youthful pair had been driven to the desperate necessity of collecting and preserving for food large quantities of these _Limacinæ_, which they ultimately acknowledged to have proved to them generous and even agreeable sustenance. To the credit of the times of George Wishart--a glimpse of pre-reforming enlightenment--the explanation sufficed; the young women escaped with their lives, and were even applauded for their prudence.’

[117] _Summer Life on Land and Water._ By William W. Fyfe. 1851.

[118] _Remarkable Passages of the Lord’s Providence towards Mr John Spreull, Town-clerk of Glasgow, 1635-54._ T. Stevenson, Edinburgh, 1832.

[119] _Arbroath Guide_, Oct. 2, 1847.

[120] Executed in the Palace-yard, Westminster, 9th March 1649.

[121] 6th October 1648--‘appoints the four bailies, the old provost [Archibald Tod], the deacon of the chirurgeons, and their clerk, to go down to the Canongate in the afternoon, and in the Council’s name salute the Lord Cromwell, lieutenant-general of the English forces, and thir presents sall be their warrand.’--_Ed. Council Register._

[122] Defoe’s _Review of the Brit. Nation_, 1709.

[123] _Life of Cameron of Lochiel._

[124] Balfour’s _Annals_. _Britain’s Distemper_, by Patrick Gordon.

[125] Excerpts from Fraser of Wardlaw’s Memoirs. _Inverness Courier._

[126] Rescinded Acts. _Records of Kirk of Scotland._

[127] Balfour’s _Annals_, iii. 427.

[128] Son to umquhile John Stewart, usher to his majesty.

[129] _Acts of Estates, MS._ Gen. Reg. House.

[130] This narration is taken from Fergusson’s _Diary_, as quoted in _Satan’s Invisible World_. We are obliged, however, for the name of the minister to Wodrow, _Analecta_, i. 65.

[131] _Maitland Miscel._, i. 439.

[132] From tradition.

[133] On the 18th of March 1647, finding that ‘the pride and insolency of excommunicate persons doeth exceedingly increase, and that the dreadful censure of excommunication is much slighted and vilipended, whereby God is much dishonoured,’ the Estates passed an act renewing the force of all previous acts against such persons, and ordaining that, after forty days, letters of horning and caption should be issued against them, to be of full force unless they can shew that they have given ‘full obedience and satisfaction to the kirk.’ The acts against papists were at the same time renewed; none such to be capable of public employment, husbands to be ‘countable for their wives’ if the ladies should reset priests, and no person to take a servant unprovided with ‘a testimonial of the soundness of their religion from the minister where they dwelt.’

[134] _Register of the Presbytery of Lanark._ _Acts of the Scottish Parliament, MS._

[135] _Records of Kirk of Scotland_, p. 473.

[136] Nicoll’s _Diary_.

[137] Kirkton’s _Hist. Church Scot._, p. 64.

[138] Nicoll’s _Diary_, p. 8.

[139] Dr Wilde, in Census of Ireland for 1851; part V., vol. i., p. 110.

[140] Baillie’s _Letters_, iii. pp. 97, 550.

[141] See an interesting narration on this subject in Mr Mark Napier’s _Montrose and the Covenanters_, 1838.

[142] The formula used on the occasion is given in the following terms by a writer of the seventeenth century: ‘When any one dies, the bellman goes about ringing the passing bell, and acquaints the people therewith in the following form: “Beloved brethren and sisters, I let you to wit, that there is ane faithful brother lately departed out of this present warld, at the pleasure of Almichty God (and then he veils his bonnet); his name is Wully Woodcock, third son to Jemmy Woodcock, a cordinger; he ligs at the sixt door within the Norgate, close on the Nether Wynd, and I would you gang to his burying on Thursday before twa o’clock, &c.” The time appointed for his burying being come, the bellman calls the company together, and he is carried to the burying-place, and thrown into the grave as dog Lion was, and there is an end of Wully.’--_A Modern Account of Scotland_, 1670. _Harleian Miscellany_, vi. 121.

[143] The mansion of the Earl of Moray in the Canongate, the same house that Cromwell occupied on his brief visit in 1648. It is now the Normal School of the Education Committee of the Free Church of Scotland.

[144] These anecdotes appear in _A Short Abridgment of Britain’s Distemper from 1639 to 1649_. By Patrick Gordon of Ruthven. Spalding Club. 1844. They are placed by the author in connection with Cromwell’s comparatively peaceful visit to Edinburgh in 1648, but must, beyond a doubt, refer to the crisis of 1650.

[145] See under date December 18, 1649.

[146] The small county of Kinross was included.

[147] The annual valued rent of Fife and Kinross in 1674 amounted to £383,379 Scots.

[148] It appears from factory accounts in the Caldwell papers as if oats fluctuated in the period 1645-54 between 6s. 1d. and 17s. 8d. sterling per boll. But probably the highest prices do not chance to occur in these accounts.

[149] Shew themselves.

[150] Nicoll, p. 67.

[151] _Spalding Miscellany_, iii. 205.

[152] From a copy of the petition in possession of the present Irvine of Drum.

[153] See under July 18, 1649.