Part 18

Brown, whose self-confidence in asserting his peculiar doctrines was very great, did not rest four days in Edinburgh before he had presented himself to the general kirk-session for a wrangle. We are told by a Presbyterian historian--he ‘made shew, in an arrogant manner, that he would maintain that witnesses at baptism was not a thing indifferent, but simply evil. But he failed in the probation.’ A week after, ‘in conference with some of the presbytery, he alleged that the whole discipline of Scotland was amiss; that he and his company were not subject to it, and therefore he would appeal from the kirk to the magistrate.’ Considering how the clergy stood with the court, this must have been a most offensive threat; the more so that the court had already shewn some symptoms of favour to Brown, in order to ‘molest the kirk.’ ‘It was thought good that Mr James Lowson and Mr John Davidson should gather out of his book such opinions as they suspected or perceived him to err in, and get them ready, to pose him and his followers thereupon, that thereafter the king might be informed.’ A week later, Brown and his ‘complices’ came before the presbytery, to answer the articles prepared against him. We only further learn that he left Edinburgh, ‘malcontent, because his opinions were not embraced, and that he was committed to ward a night or two till they were tried’ (_Cal._), a form of religious disputation highly characteristic of the age. Brown afterwards, when founding his sect of Independents in England, published a volume containing various invectives against the Scottish kirk and its leaders, of which Dr Bancroft took advantage in preaching against presbytery (9th February 1589), while probably ready to consign their author to the pains which the Bishop of Peterborough actually meted out to him by excommunication.

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[Sidenote: 1584.]

Thomas Vautrollier, a French Protestant, who had come to England early in Elizabeth’s reign, migrated about this time to Edinburgh, where he set up a printing-press. From his office proceeded this year a small volume of poems, composed by the young king, under the title of _The Essayes of a Prentise in the Divine Art of Poesie_; to which was added a prose treatise embracing the ‘rules and cautels for Scottish poesie:’ a volume of which it may be enough to say, that it betrays a laudable love of literature in the royal author, joined to some power of literary expression. Vautrollier does not appear to have met with sufficient encouragement to induce him to remain in Edinburgh, as he soon after returned to London.

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[Sidenote: JULY.]

At the end of this month, the pest was brought into Scotland at Wester Wemyss, a small port in Fife--‘where many departed.’--_Moy._

King James tells us in his _Basilicon Doron_, that ‘the pest always smites the sickarest such as flies it furthest and apprehends deepliest the peril thereof.’ See his own conduct on this occasion. About the end of September, while he was hunting at Ruthven, ‘word came that there were five or six houses in Perth affected with the plague, where his majesty’s servants were for the time. Whereupon, his majesty _departed the same night_, with a very small train to Tullibardine, and next day to Stirling, leaving his whole household servants enclosed in the place of Ruthven, with express command to them not to follow, nor remove forth of the same, until they saw what became of them upon the suspicion.’--_Moy. R._

[Sidenote: 1584.]

The pest on this occasion remained in Perth for several months, working great destruction. It was ordained by the kirk-session, May 24, 1585, that ‘hereafter during the time of the plague, no banquets should be at marriages, and no persons should resort to bridals under pain of ten pounds ... forty pounds to be paid by them that call more than four on the side to the banquet, or bridal, during the pest.’

In the ensuing February, under an apprehension about the arrival of the pestilence in their city, the town-council of Edinburgh adopted a highly rational sanitary measure, ordering the ashes, dust, and dirt of their streets to be put up to auction. We do not learn that any one undertook to pay for the privilege of cleaning the streets of the capital, and Maitland remarks in his history, that many years elapsed before the movement was renewed, not to say carried into effect.

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[Sidenote: DEC. 2.]

‘... a baxter’s boy, called Robert Henderson--no doubt by the instigation of Satan--desperately put some powder and a candle in his father’s heather-stack, standing in a close opposite to the Tron of Edinburgh [the public weighing-machine], and burnt the same, with his father’s house, which lay next adjacent, to the imminent hazard of burning the whole town. For which, being apprehended most marvellously, after his escaping out of the town, he was on the next day burnt quick at the Cross, as an example.’--_Moy. R._

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[Sidenote: 1585.

APR. 7.]

John Lord Maxwell was at this time the most powerful man in the south-west province of Scotland. He possessed Caerlaverock Castle and many fair estates. The next man in the district was the chief of the clan Johnston, usually called Johnston of that Ilk, or the Laird of Johnston. The jealousy in which these great lords of the land usually stood of each other chanced at this time to be inflamed into hostilities, and Maxwell took such an attitude towards the profligate government of the Earl of Arran, as to cause himself to be denounced as a rebel. According to the common practice, the court gave a commission to Johnston to proceed against Lord Maxwell, only helping him with two companies of hired troops under the command of Captains Cranstoun and Lammie.

[Sidenote: 1585.]

This proved an unfortunate movement for the house of Johnston. The two hired bands were cut to pieces on Crawford Moor[130] by Robert Maxwell, natural brother to the earl. The same bold man proceeded to Johnston’s castle of Lochwood, and at the date noted set fire to it, jestingly remarking that he would give Lady Johnston light ‘to set her hood.’ Johnston himself sustained a defeat at the hands of the Maxwells, was made prisoner by them, and died of a broken heart.

This was only the beginning of a protracted feud between the Maxwells and Johnstons, which cost each family, as will be seen, the destruction of two of its chiefs.

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[Sidenote: APR. 30.

1585.]

John Livingstone of Belstane[131] complained to the Council of an assault which had been made upon him on the 3d of the preceding February by sundry persons, whose motive in so assailing him does not appear. The affair is most characteristic--indeed, a type of numberless other lawless proceedings of the time. John quietly leaves his house before sunrise, meaning no harm to any one, and expecting none to himself. He walks out, as he says, under God’s peace and the king’s, when suddenly he is beset by about forty people who had him at feud, ‘all bodin in feir of weir;’ namely, armed with jacks, steel-bonnets, spears, lance-staffs, bows, hagbuts, pistolets, and other invasive weapons forbidden by the laws. At the head of them was William, Master of Yester--a denounced rebel on account of his slaughter of the Laird of Westerhall’s servant--Alexander Jardine, younger of Applegarth; his servants, Stephen Jardine and Matthew Moffat in Woodend, James Borthwick of Colela, John Lauder of Hartpool, Michael Hunter of Polmood, John Hoppringle in Peebles, James Hoppringle of the same place, William Brenarde [Burnett?] of the Barns, John Cockburn of Glen, and Colin Langton of Earlshaugh, were among the company, evidently all of them men of some figure and importance. Having come for the purpose of attacking Livingstone, they no sooner saw him than they set upon him, with discharge of their firearms, to deprive him of his life. He narrowly escaped, and ran back to his house, which they immediately environed in the most furious manner, firing in at the windows and through every other aperture, for a space of three hours. A ‘bullon’ pierced his hat. As they departed, they met his wife and daughter, whom they abused shamefully. In short, it seems altogether to have been an affair of the most barbarous and violent kind. The offenders were all denounced rebels.

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[Sidenote: MAY 7.]

The pest, which had commenced in Perth in the previous September, was believed to be now brought thence by a servant-woman to the Fishmarket in Edinburgh (_Moy._), where it ‘was first knawn to be in Simon Mercerbanks’s house.’ (_Bir._) From accident or otherwise, the king acted on this occasion exactly as he had done at Perth, when the plague first declared itself there. On the very day when the disease appeared in Edinburgh, he left the city, and ‘rode to Dirleton[132] to a sumptuous banquet prepared by the Earl of Arran.’ (_Cal._) The pest continued in the capital till the subsequent January, sometimes carrying off twenty-four people in a single night. ‘The haill people whilk was able to flee, fled out of the town: nevertheless there died of people which were not able to flee, fourteen hundred and some odd.’ (_Bir._) It was at St Andrews in August, ‘and continued till upwards of four hundred people died, and the place was left almost desolate.’ (_Moy._) Dunse is cited as a place where this pestilence ‘raged extremely.’ (_Mar._). In Perth, between 24th September 1584, and August 1585, when it ceased, it carried off fourteen hundred and twenty-seven persons, young and old, or thereby. (_Chron. Perth._) This could not be less than a sixth of the entire population.

June 23, 1585, on account of the pest being in Edinburgh, the business of the cunyie-house was ordered to be transported to Dundee, and the coining of gold, silver, and alloyed money to go on there as it had hitherto done in Edinburgh. On the alloyed pennies, OPPIDUM DUNDEE was to be substituted for OPPIDUM EDINBURGI. The Exchequer was also removed to Falkland, and the Court of Session to Stirling. On the 21st of October, the pest being now in Dundee, the coining was ordered to be removed to Perth, and the name of that burgh to be substituted in the circumscription.--_P. C. R._

[Sidenote: 1585.]

The severity of this pestilence excited the rage of the people against the Earl of Arran and his lady, the then ruling power of the country, to whose infamous life, and to the banishment of the Protestant leaders, the evil was attributed. In the course of the summer, the air being ‘perpetually nebulous,’ and the growing crop ‘universally corrupted,’[133] the popular feeling was further excited in the same direction, and the general cry was that the Lord would not stay his hand till the banished lords were brought home again. These lords actually did draw nearer to the Border, under the encouragement which the plague thus afforded them (_Ja. Mel._), and by reason that the citizens of Edinburgh were not now able to come forward and act, in blind obedience to court-orders, as they were wont.

The revolution effected by the ultra Protestant party at Stirling (November 2, 1585), was followed by a stoppage of the pestilence, ‘not by degrees or piecemeal, but in a instant, as it were; so that never any after that hour was known to have been infected, nor any of such as were infected before, to have died. The lane, also, in Stirling by which they [the banished lords] entered, was wholly infected; yet no man [of their party] was known to have been tainted with it, or to have received any hurt: nay, the men of Annandale did rob and ransack the pest-lodges which were in the field about Stirling, and carried away the clothes of the infected, but were never known to have been touched therewith themselves, or any others that got or wore the clothes. They also that were in the lodges, returned to their houses, and conversed with their neighbours in the town, who received them without fear, suspicion, or reproof, and no harm did ensue upon it. As for Edinburgh, before the 1st of February, within three months it was so well peopled and filled again with inhabitants, as none could perceive by the number that any had died out of it.’ This change--‘nothing can be alleged to have brought it to pass but the very finger of God. Let mankind advert and admire it; and whosoever shall go about to bereave God of his glory by laying it upon fortune, may his chance be such as his perverseness deserveth!‘--_H. of G._

The assumed immunity of the Border thieves is extremely amusing. Being here engaged in the right cause, it mattered not that they committed the monstrous inhumanity of plundering the sick and cheating the heirs of the dead.

[Sidenote: 1585.]

James Melville remarks the same connection of circumstances, but places the improvement of the public health a month later. From the meeting of the parliament in December, under the auspices of the king’s new advisers, ‘the pest abated, and began to be strangely and remarkably withdrawn by the merciful hand of God, sae that Edinburgh was frequented again that winter; and at the entry of the spring, all the towns, almost desolate before, repeopled--St Andrews among the rest.’

Melville relates a remarkable anecdote of this pestilence, under November, when he had occasion to return from banishment at Berwick, and to proceed through Edinburgh on his way to attend a General Assembly at Linlithgow. ‘On the morn, we made haste, and, coming to Losterrick [Restalrig], disjuned, and about eleven hours, came riding in at the Water-gate, up through the Canongate, and rade in at the Nether Bow, through the great street of Edinburgh, to the West Port, _in all whilk way we saw not three persons_, sae that I miskenned Edinburgh, and almost forgot that I had ever seen sic a town.’

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[Sidenote: NOV. 2.]

‘The news of the taking of Stirling was at the court of England and in London within aught and forty hours; for it being done on Tuesday in the morning, on the Thursday thereafter Mr Bowes tauld us, and on the Friday it was common in the mouths of all London.’--_Ja. Mel._

Under March 17, 1578, is another instance of extraordinary quickness in the communication of intelligence from Stirling to Edinburgh. In that case, we might suppose that the event only fulfilled a previous design. Such could scarcely be the case here. Sir John G. Dalyell remarks, that ‘rumours subsequently verified are undoubtedly sometimes in circulation. The author recollects very well that the result of the battle of Trafalgar, or of Corunna, was currently reported in the city of Edinburgh, previous to any certain intelligence known to have been received of the fact through what was esteemed the speediest channel: nor, on subsequently computing the intervals, could satisfactory conjectures be formed how it had arrived.’[134] It may be remembered by many that, in the war in Afghanistan in 1842-3, the natives were remarked often to be possessed of intelligence of events occurring at a distance, long before any information had come to the British through recognised channels. The author just quoted expresses his opinion that, in such cases, there has merely been an anticipation on probable grounds of an event which was subsequently ascertained to have happened.

REIGN OF JAMES VI.: 1585-1590.

These years were chiefly marked by the struggles of the more zealous clergy to replace the church upon a purely Presbyterian basis, and to maintain their assumed independence of the civil power. The king found his power encroached on, upon the one hand, by nobles richer, and having a greater command of followers, than himself; on the other, by divines who repudiated all subjection to civil authority in matters ecclesiastical, and yet arrogated powers which greatly concerned the secular rights and liberties of the people. While the reaction in his youthful mind against these besetting troubles inspired him with visionary ideas of the true rights of a monarch, the dissimulation practised at his court by the astute emissaries of Elizabeth, the restraints imposed on his liberty and natural sentiments by the more zealous Protestant party while he was under their rule, and the tricks he was tempted to have recourse to in order to recover his freedom, and obtain some share of real power, gave him, before he was twenty, such a tutoring in craft, as marked his character during the remainder of life. A more manly and resolute person would have either broken bravely through such a complication of troubles or perished in the attempt. With the help of a good-natured pliancy, James floated on. He was of a timid disposition, greatly disrelishing the sight of weapons, and along with this temper he exhibited much good-nature. Trembling at the outrageous dispositions of his nobles, and constitutionally a lover of peace, he exerted himself to conciliate offenders, and by persuasion to make them cease to break the laws, when a vigorous procedure against them in courts of justice would have been required. For the sake of his hopes of the English succession, if not from his own convictions--which, however, are not to be doubted--he maintained the Protestant cause. At the same time, seeing that the Catholics were friends of monarchy, and might have something to say in the English succession, he desired, if possible, to avoid offending them past forgiveness. Even the ultra-zealous Presbyterian clergy, who came to remonstrate with him, in his own palace, on his public acts or his private foibles, he could treat with such pleasantry as often disarmed them, when a more strenuous policy might have failed.

In February 1586-7, the unfortunate Mary was beheaded in Fotheringay Castle, a victim to the necessities of the Protestant cause.

In 1588, when this cause was threatened with destruction by the Spanish Armada, King James and his people manifested the greatest zeal in preparing for the defence of their part of the island. They entered into a Covenant or bond, in which they made solemn profession of the Protestant faith, and avowed their resolution to oppose Popery by every means in their power. After this danger had blown over, a new alarm was excited by the discovery of a conspiracy amongst the three leading Catholic nobles of Scotland, Huntly, Errol, and Crawford, to aid in introducing a Spanish army, through Scotland, for the conquest of the British island. These nobles having broken out in rebellion, in concert with a Protestant noble of irregular character, Stuart, Earl of Bothwell, the king led an army against them, and succeeded in reducing them to obedience (April 1589). Huntly, Crawford, Errol, and Bothwell were all convicted of treason; but the king shrank from inflicting a punishment which was certain to damage his prospects with a large party in England. They were liberated after only a few months’ imprisonment.

In the latter part of 1589, James effected his marriage with the Princess Anne of Denmark. His young bride being detained in Norway for the winter, in consequence of a storm, he sailed for that country (October 22), and solemnised his nuptials at Upslo (now Christiania). In May 1590, the royal pair arrived amidst great rejoicings at Leith. The first year of the king’s married life was strangely disturbed by a series of trials for the imaginary crime of witchcraft, in which the character of the age is strongly marked.

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[Sidenote: 1586.

APR. 18.]

The Earl of Eglintoun, ‘a young nobleman of a fair and large stature’ (_Moy._), was murdered by Cunningham of Robertland.

Montgomery and Cunningham were the Montague and Capulet of Ayrshire in the sixteenth century. The feud had sprung up nearly a hundred years before the above date, in consequence of the Earl of Glencairn disputing the title of the Earl of Eglintoun to the bailiery of the district of Cunningham. There had been attempts at a stanching of the feud, and even a marriage had been proposed by way of fixing the parties in amity; but at a time when peace had nearly been effected, enmity was renewed in consequence of a Montgomery killing a Cunningham in self-defence.

[Sidenote: 1586.]

‘The Cunninghams, being grieved hereat, made presently a vow that they should be avenged upon the fattest of the Montgomeries (for these were their words) for that fact. This vow was sae acceptable to them all, that a band was concludit, subscrivit with the chiefest of their hands, to slay the young Earl [of Eglintoun] by whatsoever mean could be devisit, and that whasoever wald take the turn in hand, and perform it, he sould not only be sustenit upon the common expenses of the rest, but sould also be maintenit and defendit by them all from danger and skaith. At last ane Cunningham of Robertland took the enterprise in hand, whilk he accomplished in this manner:

‘Twa year before his treasonable attempt, he insinuate himself in familiarity and all dutiful service to the said young earl, whereby he movit him to take pleasure without ony suspicion, till he conqueist [acquired] sic favour at his hand, that neither the gold, money, horses, armour, clothes, counsel, or voyage was hid from him, that this same Robertland was made sae participant of them all, even as though they had been his awn; and besides all this, the confidence and favour that the earl shew unto him was sae great, that he preferrit him to be his awn bedfellow. Hereat Lord Hugo, auld Earl of Eglintoun, took great suspicion, and therefore admonist his son in a fatherly manner to beware of sic society, whilk, without all doubt, wald turn to his skaith; for he knew weel the nature of these Cunninghams to be subtle and false, and therefore willit him to give them nae traist, but to avoid their company altogether, even as he lovit his awn life or wald deserve his fatherly blessing. To this counsel the son gave little regard; but that was to his pains; and the domestic enemy was sae crafty indeed, that he wald attempt naething during the life of the father for many respects. But within short time thereafter [the father died June 1585], as the noble earl was passing a short way in pastime, accompanied with a very few of his household servants, and evil horsit himself, Robertland, accompanied with sixty armed men, came running furiously against him on horseback; and the earl, fearing the thing that followit, spurrit his horse to have fled away. His servants all fled another way, and he was left alone. The horsemen ran all upon him, and unmercifully killed him with shots of guns and strokes of swords.

[Sidenote: 1586.]

‘The complaint of this odious murder being made to the king, he causit the malefactors to be chargit to a trial. But they all fled beyond sea. Robertland, wha was the first to make the invasion, passed to Denmark, where he remainit at court till the king came to Queen Anne. And because nane of the rest could be apprehendit, the king ordainit their houses to be renderit to the earl’s brother, to be usit at his arbitrament, either to be demolishit or otherwise; and he swore the great aith, that he sould never pardon any of them that had committit that odious murder. Yet, how soon his majesty was arrivit in Denmark, his pardon was demandit of the queen for the first petition, and the same was obtenit, and he was receivit in grace there in presence of them all. Thereafter he came hame in the queen’s company, and remains as ane of her majesty’s master stablers.’--_H. K. J._

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[Sidenote: MAY.]