Part 26

In a sheltered spot called Greenside, near the northern skirts of the Calton Hill, a small monastery of Carmelite Friars had had a brief existence before the Reformation. On its desolate site, a merchant-burgess of Edinburgh, John Robertson by name (whom we soon after find in the office of bailie), now erected a small house for the reception of lepers, led thereto, it is stated, by a sense of gratitude to God for a signal deliverance vouchsafed to him. The town-council concurred in his object, and undertook the oversight and direction of the establishment. A committee of their number, in conjunction with a minister of the city, and John Robertson himself, drew up rules for the house, and arranged the means of its support. Five men afflicted with leprosy, and two women, the wives of two of these men, but not themselves lepers, were admitted, each leper being allowed four shillings Scots money--equal to 4d. sterling--weekly, and also having a privilege of begging under certain restrictions. They were on no account to go about for alms, or to stir from the house at all, or to admit any visitor, under penalty of death, and, to shew how earnest was the spirit of this rule, a gibbet was erected at the gable of the hospital, ready for the instant execution of any transgressor. From sunset to sunrise, their door was to be kept fast locked, under the same penalty. Each patient was to take his turn of sitting at the door ‘with ane clapper,’ to attract the attention of people passing between Edinburgh and Leith, and to beg from them for the general benefit. The rest were meanwhile to stay within doors. The two wives, Isobel Barear and Jonet Gatt, were to be allowed to go to market, to purchase _vivres_ for the lepers and for themselves, but not to call anywhere else in town, under penalty of death. A person was appointed to read prayers to the inmates each Sunday, and a weekly oversight was confided to the Masters of Trinity Hospital. It serves curiously to realise the whole arrangement to our minds, that this hospital still exists, though the leper-house seems to have been extinct since the middle of the seventeenth century.[185]

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[Sidenote: 1591.

DEC. 10.]

We have under this date a curious specimen of the administration of justice under King James. Letters are raised at the instance of ‘Helen Henderson, spouse of William Murray elder of Romanno; Margaret Tweedie, spouse of John Murray younger of Romanno; and ---- Nisbet, spouse of William Murray, _third_ Laird of Romanno, with the puir tenants, cotters, and labourers of the ground of the lands of Romanno, lying within the sheriffdom of Peebles:’ stating that these three lairds, with sundry other persons, had been denounced at the horn for their concern in the slaughter of John Hamilton of Coitquott[186] and his son; and, on the complaint of the widow and children of the said John, with a false report that the Lairds of Romanno were fortifying their tower of Romanno, there to defend themselves against the powers of the law, ‘his majesty appointit the same to be keepit by four persons, allowing them monthly the sum of twenty merks ... to be payit out of the living of Romanno,’ and caused letters to be directed to the complainers, charging them with this payment. The three ladies appeal against this order, on the ground that they had not been previously heard in their own cause. Had they been so, they could have shewn reasons to the contrary--‘the house of Romanno was never keepit agains his hieness, but the same, as alsae the country, is left by the said rebels, and that immediately after committing the fact (gif in their awn defence and by procurement of other persons God knaws and time will try), and therefore needit nae sic keepers, it being bot ane auld and ruinous touir, not meet for nae man to keep or hazard his life into, and, besides this, the said Helen Henderson, Margaret Tweedie, and ---- Nisbet, are infeft in conjunct fee and liferent in the haill lands of Romanno, whilk is bot a puir ten-pund land, in effect barren of the self, and subject to the incursion and stouthreif of the broken men and thieves of baith the borders, and, as is mair nor notour, will not sustene the said complenars nor their families, they having nae manner of thing else whereupon to live.’ The ladies further pointed out the hardship of punishing the innocent for the guilty, and pleaded how they had already made a great composition with the representatives of the slaughtered persons. Nevertheless, on parties being heard before the Council, the letters complained of were found to be legal and proper, and so the garrison imposed on the old tower would remain for the meantime a burden on the estate.--_P. C. R._

On the ensuing 17th of March, Jonas Hamilton of Coitquott gave surety by sundry of his friends, under large sums, that ‘Margaret Tweedie, relict of John Murray of Romanno, her tenants and servants, sall be harmless and skaithless.’

[Sidenote: 1591.]

The garrison consisted of this Jonas; William, his brother; William Hamilton in Cranston; and William Brown in Bordland. It appears that the Murrays had held the house in contempt of a summons from John Blainslie, ‘Bute pursuivant,’ and had been thrust out with their families by force. The widow Margaret, with feminine tenacity of purpose, obtained a letter under the king’s signet for dispossessing the Hamilton garrison; and now this was reclaimed against. Parties being heard in presence, his majesty affirmed the order for the surrender of the house to the widow, on condition that she should give security that it should not prove a refuge for her outlawed relatives.--_P. C. R._

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[Sidenote: DEC. 22.]

During this troublous period of the king’s reign, the book of the Privy Council becomes a kind of review of the nobility and gentry of Scotland, as they severally appear to give caution for one another as to the maintenance of the peace, or are cited or denounced for its infraction. As an example of a kind of entry which occurs several times at every meeting, John Murray of Blackbarony becomes ‘actit and obleist as cautioner or surety for William Burnett of the Barns [both in Peeblesshire], that he sall compeir personally before the king’s majesty and Lords of Secret Council, at Halyrudhouse, or where it sall happen to be for the time, the 29 day of December instant, and answer to sic things as sall be inquirit of him, touching sic deidly feid as he has interest in, and that he sall underly sic order as his hieness and the said lords sall demene to him thereanent, under the pain of ane thousand merks.’--_P. C. R._

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The Earl of Bothwell seems to have been little distressed by his forfeiture. According to his own ideas, he was only suffering from the malice of a successful enemy, the Chancellor Maitland. All that he aimed at was a change of administration in his own favour. How to bring it about? In our days, such a discharged favourite would bide his time, in hopes that some new turn of affairs or a gust of popular favour through the House of Commons would bring him into favour again. In Scotland, at the close of the sixteenth century, the needful first step was to obtain, by whatever means, possession of the king’s person. Now then commenced a series of remarkable assaults on King James by his turbulent cousin.

[Sidenote: 1591.]

DEC. 27.]

Having secured some favour among the royal attendants, he came to Holyroodhouse at night, with his friends the Lairds of Spott and Nisbet, Mr Archibald Douglas, a natural son of the Regent Morton, Mr John Colville, and others, to the amount of forty or fifty. They ‘enterit in at a stable-door beside the east gable of the Traitor’s Tower, whilk was called the Duke’s Stable, within the whilk there was a trap and ane entress privily made. Having enterit therein, they first bereft the porter of the keys, and then passed to the chancellor’s chalmer-door; they dang up the same. He, being foreseen by the cry of ane boy that there was ane tumult of men in the close, withdrew himself and some others within his inner chalmer, whilk has ane narrow entress, at whilk the conspirators strake with fore-hammers and shot pistolets. There was some shots of muskets shot out again [by which] some of them were hurt; [so they] for fear to be trappit, passed to the queen’s chalmer-door, whilk they brak up.’

‘In the meantime, the haill noblemen and gentlemen of his majesty’s house raise, who thought to have taken the Earl Bothwell and his complices. The earl fled; yet he returned at the south side of the abbey, where the said earl and his complices slew his majesty’s master-stabler, named William Shaw, and ane with him, named Mr Peter Shaw. But the king’s folk took eight of Bothwell’s faction, and on the morrow hanged them all without ane assize, betwixt the Girth Cross and the Abbey-gate.’--_Moy._ _Bir._

[Sidenote: DEC. 28.]

‘The king’s majesty came to Sanct Geill’s Kirk, and there made ane oration anent the fray made by Bothwell and William Shaw’s slaughter, his master-stabler.’--_Bir._

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[Sidenote: 1591-2.

FEB. 7.]

The slaughter of the Bonny Earl of Moray at Dunnibrissle stands prominent amongst the tragic events of the time. It was much more a piece of clan warfare than is generally allowed by Scottish historians. Moray had connected himself with a number of gentlemen and heads of clans in the north, who had combined against the Earl of Huntly. In the latter part of 1590, there were in that district of Scotland musterings, marchings, and fightings, too obscure to make an appearance in general history, but enough to keep three counties in a state resembling civil war. Huntly, who acted as lord-lieutenant of the north, and thus had a colour of law on his side, pursued the Mackintoshes and Grants, who befriended the Earl of Moray, as rebels, both against himself, who was their feudal superior, and against the king. In a reconnoitring expedition which he made at Darnaway Castle, the Earl of Moray’s house, one of his gentlemen was unfortunately killed by a musket-shot, discharged by a servant from the battlements--an injury which the feelings of the day made it a virtue to revenge.

By the intervention of Lord Ochiltree, Moray came south to his house of Dunnibrissle, in Fife, with a view to a reconciliation with Huntly. The northern chief was also at court; but his thoughts were not turned on peace. In consequence of Moray having befriended the turbulent Bothwell, the king and Chancellor Maitland were wrought upon to grant a commission to Huntly for the capture of that nobleman, not dreaming, as we may charitably hope, of the cruel tragedy which was to ensue. Perhaps neither did Huntly meditate anything beyond taking Moray, and having him subjected to trial.

Mustering forty friends on horseback, he set out with them, as to a race at Leith; but, having thus lulled suspicion, he quickly turned away, and crossed the Forth at the Queensferry. At a late hour on a winter night, the Earl of Moray heard his lonely house surrounded by the hostile Gordons, and received a summons to surrender. He had no friend with him but one--Dunbar, sheriff of Moray--and a few servants; yet he determined to make resistance. The Gordons then gathered corn from the neighbouring farms, and piling it against the door, set it on fire. To pursue the quaint recitals of the day: ‘The Earl of Moray, being within, wissed not whether to come out and be slain, or be burned quick; yet, after avisement, this Dunbar says to my Lord of Moray: “I will go out at the gate before your lordship, and I am sure the people will charge on me, thinking me to be your lordship; sae, it being mirk under night, ye shall come out after me, and look if that ye can fend [provide] for yourself.” In the meantime, this Dunbar came forth, and ran desperately amang the Earl of Huntly’s folks, and they all ran upon him and presently slew him. During this broil with Dunbar, the Earl of Moray came running out at the gate of Dunnibrissle, which stands beside the sea, and there sat down amang the rocks. But, unfortunately, the said lord’s knapscull tippet, whereon was a silk string, had taken fire, which betrayed him to his enemies in the darkness of the night, himself not knowing the same. They came down on him on a sudden, and there most cruelly, without mercy, murdered him.’--_Bir._ _Moy._

[Sidenote: 1591-2.]

Next morning, Edinburgh was full of mourning and lamentation for this sad event. That the victim was a Protestant and son-in-law of the Good Regent, while the Earl of Huntly was notedly the head of the popish party in Scotland, was chiefly remembered by them. The conflict of interests in the north, the death of John Gordon at Darnaway, and the possibility of Huntly having been far from meditating slaughter, were little known or reflected on. The sympathies of the king, on the other hand, were with Huntly; nor, had it been otherwise, would his majesty have found it an easy task to bring to justice a grandee who had recently come forth against the Protestant interest with ten thousand men at his back.

‘The king went forth to the hunting that morning; and hunting about Inverleith and Wardie, he saw the fire, which had not yet died out; but nothing moved with the matter.’--_Cal._ It was generally believed that both he and the Chancellor Maitland had not been unwilling that Huntly should do this deed. ‘The king sent for five or six of the ministers, made an harangue to them, wherein he did what he could to clear himself, and desired them to clear his part before the people. They desired him to clear himself with earnest pursuing of Huntly with fire and sword. The king alleged his part to be like David’s when Abner was slain by Joab.’--_Cal._ It nevertheless appears, from the records of Privy Council, that James, on the 8th of February, being the day after the murder, retracted from Huntly his commission of lieutenancy.

[Sidenote: FEB. 9.]

‘---- the Earl of Moray’s mother, accompanied with her friends, brought over her son’s and the sheriff of Moray’s dead corpse, in litters, to Leith, to be brought from thence to be buried in the aile of the Great Kirk of Edinburgh, in the Good Regent’s tomb, and, as some report, to be made first a spectacle to the people at the Cross of Edinburgh; but they were stayed by command from the king. Captain [John] Gordon [a brother of the Laird of Gicht], was left for dead at Dunnibrissle; his hat, his purse, his gold, his weapons were taken by one of his own company; his shanks [stockings] were pulled off. He was taken in by the Earl of Moray’s mother, and cherished with meat, drink, and clothing. A rare example! She brought him over with her son’s corpse to seek justice. The earl’s mother caused draw her son’s picture, as he was demained, and presented it to the king in a fine _laine_ cloth, with lamentations, and earnest suit for justice. But little regard was had to the matter. Of the three bullets she found in the bowelling of the body of her son, she presented one to the king, another to ..., the third she reserved to herself, and said: “I sall not part with this till it be bestowed on him that hindereth justice.”‘[187]--_Cal._

[Sidenote: 1591-2.]

One of the king’s friends, Lord Spynie, hearing that Captain Gordon had been brought to Leith, got a warrant from the king to bring him to Edinburgh Castle, ‘to have eschewit the present trial of law;’ but Lord Ochiltree, being informed of this, took horse with about forty friends and servants in arms, and went forth after the king, who, even at this dismal moment, could not restrain his inordinate propensity to hunting. Lord Ochiltree ‘came upon the king on the north side of Corstorphine Craigs, where his majesty was taking a drink. [He] lichtit and stayit his horse at the hill foot, and came to his majesty and show[ed] him ... how far this murder touched his highness, whereof he besought him maist humbly to consider.... Upon Lord Ochiltree his earnest desire, his majesty granted him a warrant to present Captain Gordon and his man to the trial of ane assize that same day; whilk with all diligence the said lord did perform, and the said captain was beheadit, and his man hanged. The captain condemned the fact, protesting that he was brought ignorantly upon it.’--_Moy._ _Cal._

The Earl of Huntly made an appearance of satisfying the demands of law for the slaughter of Moray, by entering himself in ward in Blackness Castle, as preliminary to his trial; but the king released him after eight days’ confinement, and he was not again troubled on that score. It is to be observed, however, that the Bonny Earl’s death did not pass without at least an attempt at revenge in the north.

The Clan Chattan or Mackintoshes, and the Grants, were much incensed by the fact, and made great ‘stirs’ against their superior the Earl of Huntly. The earl sent the Clan Cameron against the one, and a leader called Mackranald against the other, and had great slaughter committed upon both. The Mackintoshes, still indisposed to submit, came in the fall of the year 1592, eight hundred strong, into the Gordon territories of Strathdee and Glenmuick, where they killed four gentlemen of Huntly’s vassalage. One of these was the Laird of Brackla, a place near the modern watering-village of Ballater. He was an old man, much given to hospitality, and had received a party of these invaders without any apprehension of their hostile intentions. After a kindly entertainment, they killed the old man in his own hall (November 1)--a circumstance which naturally added much bitterness to the feelings of his friends, as it was considered as the foulest style in which murder could be committed.[188]

[Sidenote: 1591-2.]

The Earl of Huntly was interrupted in an invasion of the Mackintosh estate of Pettie in Inverness-shire, by a report of what was going on in Aberdeenshire. With his uncle, Sir Patrick Gordon of Auchindoun, and about thirty-six horsemen, he did not hesitate immediately to ride into Strathdee and attack the Mackintoshes, now passing over a hill called Stapliegate in the Cabrach. After a sharp skirmish, he routed them utterly, killing about sixty. He then caused parties of his people to invade and spoil the Mackintosh and Grant territories; nor did he rest till, by slaughter and pillage, he had completely reduced these clans to his obedience.[189]--_G. H. S._

[Sidenote: 1591-2.]

It is not unworthy of remark, that the Privy Council Record contains no notice of these outrages in the north, beyond an entry dated November 9, 1592, adverting to ‘great cruelties, herships, and disorders recently committit by the lawless broken Highlandmen of the Clan Chattan, Clan Cameron, Clanranald, and others pretending their dependence on the Earls of Huntly and Athole;’ which had ‘sae wrackit and shaken louss sundry parts of the north country, that great numbers of honest and peaceable folks are murtherit, their houses burnt now in the winter season, their guids spulyit, disponit, and exponit in prey, in far greater rigour nor it was with foreign enemies;’ for which reasons a commission was granted to the Earl of Angus to go north and deal with the said earls for the pacification of the country, and, failing this, to raise the well-affected people in arms, and put down the lawless by force. This view of the matter is so inconsistent with the statement of Sir Robert Gordon, above quoted, as to suggest that the Scottish government knew hardly anything of the relations of parties, and had heard only of there being troubles in a certain district. No notice whatever is taken of the sweeping vengeance executed by the Earl of Huntly upon the Mackintoshes and Grants. Certainly, no feature of the time is more remarkable than this freedom and power of the great nobles to do what they considered justice upon their enemies, while the king was unable by any force under his own immediate control to protect himself in his own palace.

We learn from another source, that the Earl of Angus brought matters to a bearing in conformity with the king’s direction, by causing ‘baith the parties subscryve ane assurance, bot of their awn form.’--_Moy._

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[Sidenote: FEB. 28.]

Richard Graham had for some years been noted as a prominent licentiate of the devil’s medical college. He professed to despise common witchcraft as a vulgar thing, and would only admit that he consulted spirits. Spottiswoode, speaking of the death of the good Earl of Angus, says: ‘In the time of his sickness, when the physicians found his disease not to proceed of any natural cause [it was concluded to be by enchantment], one Richard Graham being brought to give his opinion of it, made offer to cure him, saying, as the manner of these wizards is, “that he had received wrong.” But when he [the earl] heard that the man was suspected to use unlawful arts, he would by no means admit him, saying: “That his life was not so dear to him, as, for the continuance of it some years, he would be beholden to any of the devil’s instruments; that he held his life of God, and was willing to render the same at His good pleasure, knowing he should change it for a better.”‘[190]

[Sidenote: 1591-2.]

It is related that Sir Lewis Bellenden, Lord Justice-clerk, dealt with Graham to raise the devil. Graham having raised him in Sir Lewis’s own yard in the Canongate, ‘he [Sir Lewis] was thereby so terrified that he took sickness and thereof died.’--_Stag. State._

It was satisfactorily made out that Graham had been the adviser of the witch Barbara Napier and her associates; and we have just seen that the Earl of Bothwell was likewise believed to have consulted him regarding the king’s death. This wizard, therefore--‘notour and knawn necromancer, ane common abuser of the people’--was apprehended; and on the day noted in the margin, he was ‘worried and burnt at the Cross of Edinburgh.’ According to Calderwood, ‘he stood hard to his former confession touching Bothwell’s practice against the king; that Arran, Lord Fairnyear,[191] was an enchanter; that the devil was raised at the Laird of Auchinleck’s dwelling-place, and in Sir Lewis Bellenden the Justice-clerk’s yard. The bruit [rumour] went that the chancellor [Maitland] had some tables and images about his neck, and that he was sure [safe] so long as he used them so; but Richard Graham deponed no such matter.’

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[Sidenote: MAR. 7.]

The presbytery of Edinburgh laboured hard to get the Earl of Huntly and his friends excommunicated. They could not be brought to see that there was any need for the same severity against the Earl of Bothwell and his associates, who had tried to seize the king in his palace by night. James ‘grudged’ at this, ‘and said it would not be weel till noblemen and gentlemen got licence to break ministers’ heads.’--_Cal._

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[Sidenote: 1592.

MAR. 31.]