Part 20
Attention was strongly fixed at this time on the confidence manifested by such as were of the Catholic religion, chiefly gentry, in entertaining Jesuits and seminary priests, who performed mass in their houses, and even took possession of some of the ruinous parish churches, doing what in them lay to seduce the people back to the old faith. We are told, for instance, that Lord Maxwell openly caused mass to be sung in the abbey-church of Lincluden, near Dumfries, on three successive days at Christmas 1586. Pasch and Yule began again to be kept by the common sort of people, and saints’ wells were much resorted to for the cure of diseases. The General Assembly declared it to be ‘ane exceeding great grief to all such as have any spunk of the love of God and his kirk,’ to see the land thus polluted with ‘idolatry’ and ‘pusionable doctrine.’ They considered the evil as chiefly owing to the laxity of the state in the repression of papistry, and the positive encouragement which it rendered in some instances to papists. At the same time, the reformed religion was in miserable condition, many of the parish kirks being ruinous and destitute of pastors, while the pastors that did anywhere exist were defrauded of their revenues, starved, and sometimes greatly abused in their very persons by the papist gentle-folks. A great defection was seriously apprehended as now imminent, unless some change should take place in the king’s counsels and conduct. He was pathetically exhorted to execute the laws against both the priests and their entertainers. It was demanded, in particular, that all papist noblemen should be ‘presently exiled the country,’ while certain of the priests should be sent away by the first ships, with certification that on their daring to return they should be hanged without further process.
According to the same General Assembly, the moral condition of the country was awful, ‘ugly heaps of all kinds of sin lying in every nook and part’ of it--no spot but what was overwhelmed as by ‘a spate’ [inundation], ‘with abusing of the blessed name of God, with swearing, perjury, and lies, with profaning of the Sabbath-day with mercats, gluttony, drunkenness, fighting, playing, dancing, &c., with rebelling against magistrates and the laws of the country, with blood touching blood, with incest, fornication, adulteries, and sacrilege, theft and oppression, with false witness[ing], and finally with all kinds of impiety and wrong.’ The poor at the same time ‘vaiging [wandering] in great troops and companies through the country, without either law or religion.’--_B. U. K._
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[Sidenote: 1587.
MAY.]
The French poet, Guillaume Sallust, Sieur du Bartas, paid a visit to Scotland. For any eminent literary man of either England or France to travel north of the Tweed, was as yet a rarity and a marvel. The king, however, had contracted an admiration of Du Bartas, and translated some of his poetry; and now a royal invitation had brought him to Holyrood. It would be curious to learn what were the sentiments of the polite Frenchman on coming in contact with James’s circle at the palace, or seeing the rude state of the people generally throughout the country.
[Sidenote: 1587.]
We learn that ‘he was received according to his worthiness, entertained honourably, and liberally propined’--that is, favoured with presents. At the end of June, the king made an excursion to St Andrews, taking the French poet along with him, that he might see the principal seat of learning in Scotland. We have some curious particulars of the visit from the Dutch pencil of James Melville. St Mary’s College, the principal theological seminary of the country, was now presided over by the faithful Presbyterian Andrew Melville, the man of most marked talent and energy in the Scotch church after the days of Knox. In the Castle lived, in much reduced state, the nominal archbishop, Patrick Adamson, a man of fine literary talents, but weak in character, and, upon the whole, not a credit to Scottish Episcopacy. James admired and patronised Adamson; but he had a trembling faith in the powerful wit and inflexible courage and integrity of Melville. The king, ‘coming first without any warning to the new college [St Mary’s], he calls for Mr Andrew, saying he was come with that gentleman to have a lesson. Mr Andrew answers, “that he had teached his ordinar that day in the forenoon.” “That is all ane,” says the king; “I maun have a lesson, and be here within an hour for that effect.” And indeed, within less than an hour, his majesty was in the school, and the haill university convenit with him, before whom Mr Andrew extempore entreated maist clearly and mightily of the right government of Christ, and in effect refuted the haill acts of parliament made against the discipline thereof, to the great instruction and comfort of his auditory, except the king alane, wha was very angry all that night.’
[Sidenote: 1587.]
On the morrow, ‘the bishop had baith a prepared lesson and feast made for the king. His lesson was a tighted-up abridgment of all he had teached the year bypast--namely, anent the corrupt grounds whilk he had put in the king’s head contrary to the true discipline. To the whilk lesson Mr Andrew went contrair to his custom, and with his awn pen marked all his false grounds and reasons; and without further [preparation] causit ring his bell at twa afternoon the same day, whereof the king hearing, he sent to Mr Andrew, desiring him to be moderate and have regard to his presence, otherwise he wald discharge him. He answerit courageously, that his majesty’s ear and tender breast was piteously and dangerously filled with errors and untruths by that wicked man, the whilk he could not suffer to pass, and brook a life [and yet remain alive]; otherwise, except the stopping of the breath of God’s mouth and prejudging of his truth, he should behave himself maist moderately and reverently to his majesty in all respects. The king sent again to him and me, desiring it should be sae, and shawing that he wald have his four hours [a light meal at four o’clock] in the college, and drink with Mr Andrew. Sae, coming to that lesson with the bishop, wha requested the king for leave to make answer instantly in case anything were spoken against his doctrine. But there Mr Andrew, making him [affecting] as though he had naething to do but with the papist, brings out their warks, and reads out of them all the bishop’s grounds and reasons. The whilk, when he had at length and maist clearly shawn to be plain papistry, then he sets against the same with all his mean [power], and with immutable force of reasoning, from clear grounds of Scripture, with a mighty parrhesie and flood of eloquence, he dings them sae down, that the bishop was dashed and strucken as dumb as the stock he sat upon. After the lesson, the king, in his mother-tongue, made some distingoes, and discoursit a while thereon, and gave certain injunctions to the university for reverencing and obeying of his bishop; wha fra that day furth began to tire of his teaching, and to fall mair and mair in disgrace and confusion. The king, with Monsieur du Bartas, came to the college-hall, where I causit prepare and have in readiness a banquet of wet and dry confections, with all sorts of wine, whereat his majesty campit very merrily a gude while, and thereafter went to his horse. But Monsieur du Bartas tarried behind, and conferrit with my uncle and me a whole hour, and syne followed after the king; wha inquiring of him that night, as ane tauld me, “What was his judgment of the twa he had heard in St Andrews?” he answerit the king, “that they were baith learned men, but the bishop’s were cunned [conned] and prepared matters, and Mr Andrew had a great ready store of all kind of learning within him; and, by [besides] that, Mr Andrew’s spreit and courage was far above the other.” The whilk judgment the king approved.’
The Sieur du Bartas was ‘dismissed in the harvest, to his majesty’s great praise, sae lang as the French tongue is used and understood in the world.’--_Ja. Mel._
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The small merchant-craft of Scotland was much troubled with pirates, chiefly of the English nation. James Melville gives a lively account of an affair with an English piratical vessel, which took place in connection with the Fife port where he served as pastor.
[Sidenote: 1587.]
‘At my first coming to Anstruther there fell out a heavy accident, whilk vexit my mind mickle at first, but drew me mickle nearer my God, and teached me what it was to have a care of a flock. Ane of our crears,[143] returning from England, was beset by an English pirate, pill[ag]ed, and a very guid honest man of Anstruther slain therein. The whilk loon[144] coming pertly to the very road of Pittenweem, spulyied a ship lying therein, and misused the men thereof. This wrang could not be suffered by our men, lest they should be made a common prey to sic limmers.[145] Therefore, purchasing a commission, they riggit out a proper fly-boat, and every man encouraging another, made almaist the haill honest and best men in all the town to go in her to the sea. This was a great vexation and grief to my heart, to see at my first entry the best part of my flock ventured upon a pack of pirates, whereof the smallest member of the meanest was mair in valour[146] than a shipful of them. And yet I durst not stay some [un]less nor I stayed all, and all I durst not, baith for the dangerous preparative, and the friends of the honest man wha was slain, and of them that were abusit, wha were many, in sic sort as the matter concerned the haill. But my God knaws what a sair heart they left behind when they parted out of my sight, or rather what a heart they carried with them, leaving a bouk[147] behind. I neither ate, drank, nor sleepit, but by constraint of nature, my thought and care always being upon them, and commending them to God, till aucht or ten days were endit, and they in sight returning, with all guid tokens of joy, flags, streamers, and ensignie displayed, whom with great joy we receivit, and went together to the kirk, and praised God.
[Sidenote: 1587.]
‘The captain, for the time, a godly, wise, and stout man, recounted to me truly their haill proceeding. That they, meeting with their admiral, a great ship of St Andrews, weel riggit out by the burghs, being fine of sail, went before her all the way, and made every ship they forgathered with, of whatsomever nation, to strike and do homage to the king of Scotland, shawing them for what cause they were riggit forth, and inquiring of knaves and pirates. At last, they meet with a proud stiff Englishman, wha refuses to do reverence; therefore the captain, thinking it was a loon, commands to give them his _nose-piece_,[148] the whilk delashit[149] lights on the tie of the Englishman’s mainsail, and down it comes; then he yields, being but a merchant. But there was the merciful providence of God, in staying a great piece of the Englishman, lying out her stern in readiness to be shot, whilk, if it had lighted amang our folks, being many in little room, without fence, wald have cruelly demeaned them all. But God, directing that first shot, preserved them. From them they approached to the shore at Suffolk, and finds by Providence the loon [rogue], wha had newlins taken a crear of our awn town, and was spulying her. Howsoon they spy ane coming warlike, the loons leave their prize, and run their ship on land, our fly-boat after, and almaist was on land with them; yet, staying hard by, they delash their ordnance at the loons, and a number going a-land, pursues and takes a half-dozen of them, and puts them aboard in their boat. The gentlemen of the country and towns beside, hearing the noise of shooting, gathers with haste, supposing the Spanyard had landed, and apprehending a number of the loons in our men’s hands, desirit to knaw the matter. The whilk when the justices of peace understood, and saw the king of Scotland’s arms, with twa gallant ships in warlike manner, yielded and gave reverence thereto, suffering our folks to take with them their prisoners and pirate’s ship, whilk they brought with them, with half-a-dozen of the loons; whereof twa were hangit on our pier-end, the rest in St Andrews; with nae hurt at all to any of our folks, wha ever since syne have been free from English pirates. All praise to God for ever. Amen.’
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[Sidenote: 1587.
MAY 15.]
King James at this time attempted what Dr Robertson, with somewhat too much complaisance, calls a work worthy of a king. Many of his nobility were at feud with each other on account of past grievances. For example, Glammis bore deadly hatred against the Earl of Crawford, in consequence of the killing of his father by some of Crawford’s people at Stirling in 1578. With the Earl of Angus, whose piety and love of the clergy induced James to call him _the Ministers’ King_, it was sufficient ground of hostility against the Earl of Montrose that he had sat as chancellor on the jury which adjudged Morton to the Maiden. The Earls of Huntly and Marischal had some mutual grudge of their own, perhaps little intelligible to southern men. So it was with others. The nobility being now assembled at a convention, James, who never could check outrages amongst them by the sword of justice, did what a good-natured weak man could to induce them to be reconciled to each other, and call it peace when there was no peace. Assembling them all at a banquet in Holyrood on a Sunday, he drank to them thrice, and solemnly called on them to maintain concord, threatening to be an enemy to him who should first disobey the injunction. Next day, after supper, then an early meal, and after ‘many scolls’ had been drunk to each other, he made them all march in procession ‘in their doublets’ up the Canongate, two and two, holding by each other’s hands, and each pair being a couple of reconciled enemies. He himself went in front, with Lord Hamilton on his right hand, and the Lord Chancellor Maitland on the left; next after, the Duke of Lennox and Lord Claud Hamilton; then Angus and Montrose, Huntly and Marischal, Crawford and the Master of Glammis. Coming to the Tolbooth, his majesty ordered all the prisoners for debt to be released. Thence he advanced to the picturesque old market-cross, covered with tapestry for the occasion, and where the magistrates had set out a long table well furnished with bread, wine, and sweetmeats. Amidst the blare of trumpets and the boom of cannon, the young monarch publicly drank to his nobles, wishing them peace and happiness, and made them all drink to each other. The people, long accustomed to sights of bloody contention, looked on with unspeakable joy, danced, broke into songs of mirth, and brought out all imaginable musical instruments to give additional, albeit discordant expression, to their happiness. All acknowledged that no such sight had ever been seen in Edinburgh. In the general transport, the gloomy gibbet, usually kept standing there in readiness, was cast down, as if it could never again be needed. Sweetmeats, and glasses from which toasts had been drunk, flew about both from the table of the feast and from the responsive parties on the _fore-stairs_. When all was done, the king and nobles returned in the same form as they had come.--_Moy._ _Bir._ _Cal._ _H. K. J._
Healing measures like these were not nearly so good as they seemed. In less than two months, we find six or seven of the nobles quarrelling about priority of voting, and Lord Home passing a challenge to Lord Fleming--‘wha were not sufferit to fecht, albeit they were baith weel willing.’
King James had a sincere antipathy to deadly feuds and quarrels, because he loved peace and good-humour; but timidity, want of strong will, and partly, perhaps, his very _bonhomie_, prevented him from taking those severe measures with offenders which alone could effectually repress such practices. He desired to correct men by proclamations, or at the most ‘hornings;’ and when one gentleman had literally killed his neighbour in a casual rencontre, the king was satisfied if he could induce the son or other relations of the deceased to meet the guilty person, make up matters for a sum of money, shake hands, and agree there should be no more of it. He liked to be personally busy in effecting reconciliations, and at length came to use what he considered as compulsory measures for bringing the parties to his presence, that he might see to their renewing friendship. Thus, on the 22d November 1599, an edict of council was sent to James Hoppringle of Galashiels, and George Hoppringle of Blindlee, commanding them to come and submit the quarrel standing between them to the arbitrament of friends, on pain of being charged with rebellion. On the 12th of January ensuing, James Tweedie of Drumelzier and William Veitch of Dawick were charged, under like pains, to come and subscribe letters of assurance, for ‘the feid and inimitie standing betwixt them.’--_P. C. R._
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In consequence of a bad crop in 1586, there was ‘great scant and dearth’ this year, ‘and great death of people for hunger.’--_H. K. J._
Elizabeth issued a proclamation regarding scarcity, 2d January 1586-7. She speaks of ‘foreseeing the general dearth of corn and other victuals, partly through the unseasonableness of the year past, whereby want hath grown more in some countries than in others, but most of all, generally, through the uncharitable greediness of great corn-masters, &c.’ This was the invariable cry on all occasions of dearth. All would be well if only those possessing grain would not reserve it in hope of higher prices. No one ever dreamed of that benefit which the modern political economist sees in the reservings of the corn-merchant--namely, an equalising of consumption over the whole period of the scarcity, as contrasted with the over-free use of the victual at first, and increased scarcity afterwards. Perhaps there was, after all, some grounds for the wrath at forestallers, for in former days, as we well know, there was less means of obtaining information regarding the extent of the failure of a crop than there is now, and those gentlemen, accordingly, were rather speculators on a possible, than on an ascertained case. They would hence appear as men aiming at the making of a scarcity where there was perhaps no great occasion for it. What offence greater, the poor public would naturally say, than that of deliberately trying to starve us!
[Sidenote: 1587.]
King James had lately sent Vans of Barnbarroch, and his own ex-preceptor, Peter Young, as ambassadors to Denmark, to negotiate a match with the daughter of Frederick II. He now (June 14, 1587) wrote to those gentlemen, ordering them to see to certain Scotch ships which had gone to Dantzic for grain, designing to carry it to other foreign ports for a profit: he demands that they shall not be passed by the _tollender_ at Elsinore, till the skippers enter into an obligation to bring the grain to Scotland, ‘for the relief of the puir and supply of the dearth and scarcity.’[150] How would a modern corn-merchant feel if his vessels were now stopped at the Sound with such a demand as this!
Patrick Hamilton, brother of the Laird of Preston, and captain of Brodick Castle in Arran, was denounced rebel for not appearing before the king and Council, to answer a complaint of Abacuck Bisset, writer to the Signet in Edinburgh. It appears that Patrick, accompanied by two nephews, had attacked Mr Bisset in St Giles’s Kirk in Edinburgh, during the sitting of parliament, with a sword, and cut off ‘the haill fingers of his left hand.’
This Abacuck Bisset was clerk to Sir John Skene, Lord Clerk Register. He compiled a treatise entitled _The Rolment of Courtis, contenand the Auldest Lawis, Actis, Statutis, Constitutionis, and Antiquities of His Majesties Native and maist Ancient Realme of Scotland, as ane Frie Kingdome, &c._
We have hitherto heard the name of Queen Mary chiefly in connection with tragic matters: verily a name of tears. For once we find her connected with a piece of pleasantry, and it was in association with the author of the _Rolment of Courtis_. The father of this worthy writer was caterer to the queen. One day, as she was passing to mass, he acquainted her with his having a child to be baptised, and desired her to assign the infant its name. She said she would open the Bible in the chapel, and whatever name she cast up, that should be given to the child. The name cast up was that of the prophet Habakkuk, which, in the form of Abacuck, was accordingly conferred on the future writer.
[Sidenote: 1587.
SEP.]
Abacuck Bisset’s _Rolment of Courtis_ exists in manuscript in the Advocates’ Library, only a portion of it, containing _A Short Form of Process_ for civil cases, having been printed. It was composed in the old age of the author, after the commencement of the reign of Charles I., and seems to have been designed for immediate publication, as it is prefaced with sundry of those complimentary verses with which authors used to gratify each other in days while as yet reviews were not. One set of these, by Mr Alexander Craig of Rose Craig, and which appears in his _Poetical Exercises_ (Raban, Aberdeen, 1623), is not without some feeling:
[Sidenote: 1587.]
’Twixt _was_ and _is_ how various are the odds! What one man doth another doth undo; One consecrates religious works to gods, Another leaves sad wrecks and ruins new. This book doth shew that such and such things were, But would to God that it could say, They are! ‘When I perceive the south, north, east, and west, And mark, alas! each monument amiss, Then I confer times present with the past, I read what was, but cannot tell what is: I praise thy book with wonder, but am sorry To read old ruins in a recent story.’
Abacuck himself appears to have had a turn for verse, and in this form he gives his poetical friends notice of the contents of his book, that they may address him regarding it. After a great deal of very dry prose matters about decreets, suspensions, exceptions, &c., he either makes or quotes the following:
CERTAIN AULD RULES CONTEINED IN THE ANCIENT REGISTER OF SCOTLAND ANENT THE MEITHIS AND MERCHES OF LAND.
All landis, wherever they be In Scotland partis, has merches three, Headroom, water, and montis borde, As eldren men has made record. Your headroom to the hill direct, Frae your haugh tilled in effect. Betwixt twa glenis ane montis borde, Divides thae glenis, I sall stand for’t. Water comand frae ane glen head, Divides that glen, and stanches feid. Thortrom[151] burnis in montis hie Sall stop nae headroom, though they be.
The meaning of all this is, that ancient custom in Scotland recognised three natural divisions or boundaries for land--1. Headroom, the termination of a piece of territory on the summit of the slope of the adjacent hill; 2. The line of hills between two glens; 3. The river passing through a glen. A water crossing the headroom on the summit of the mountains made no difference.[152]