Part 49

All of these friends had, of course, come to see justice done to their respective principals--that is, to outbrave each other in forcing a favourable decision as far as possible. What followed is equally characteristic. While the Council was endeavouring to exact security from the several parties for their keeping the peace, both sent off private friends to the king to give him a favourable impression of their cases. ‘The king, in his wisdom, considering how much this controversy might hinder and endamage the peace and quietness of his realm in the parts where they did live, happening between persons powerful in their own countries, and strong in parties and alliances, did write thrice very effectually to the Privy Council, _to take up this matter from the rigour of law and justice unto the decision and mediation of friends_.’ The Council acted accordingly, but not without great difficulty. While the matter was pending, Lord Gordon, son of the Marquis of Huntly, happened to come to Edinburgh from court; and his friends, having access to him, were believed by the Earl of Caithness to have given him a favourable view of their case against himself. ‘So, late in the evening, the Lord Gordon coming from his own lodging, accompanied with Sir Alexander Gordon and sundry others of the Sutherland men, met the Earl of Caithness and his company upon the High Street, between the Cross and the Tron. At the first sight, they fell to jostling and talking; then to drawing of swords. Friends assembled speedily on all hands. Sir Robert Gordon and Mackay, with the rest of the company, came presently to them; but the Earl of Caithness, after some blows, given and received, perceiving that he could not make his part good, left the street, and retired to his lodging; and if the darkness of the night had not favoured him, he had not escaped so. The Lord Gordon, taking this broil very highly, was not satisfied that the Earl of Caithness had given him place, and departed; but, moreover, he, with all his company, crossed thrice the Earl of Caithness his lodging, thereby to provoke him to come forth; but perceiving no appearance thereof, he retired himself to his own lodging. The next day, the Earl of Caithness and the Lord Gordon were called before the Lords of the Privy Council, and reconciled in their presence.’

It was not till several years later that these troubles came to an end.

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[Sidenote: MAR. 28.]

Proceeding upon the principle that the smallest trait of industrial enterprise forms an interesting variety on the too ample details of barbarism here calling to be recorded, I remark with pleasure a letter of the king of this date, agreeing to the proposal lately brought before him by a Fleming--namely, to set up a work for the making of ‘brinston, vitreall, and allome,’ in Scotland, on condition that he received a privilege excluding rivalry for the space of thirteen years. About the same time, one Archibald Campbell obtained a privilege to induce him ‘to bring in strangers to make red herrings.’ In June 1613, he petitioned that the king would grant him, by way of pension for his further encouragement, the fourteen lasts of herrings yearly paid to his majesty by the Earl of Argyle, ‘as the duty of the tack of the assize of herrings of those parts set to him,’ being of the value of £38 yearly.--_M. S. P._

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[Sidenote: MAR. 29.]

[Sidenote: 1612.]

Some of the principal Border gentlemen--Scott of Harden, Scott of Tushielaw, Scott of Stirkfield, Gladstones of Cocklaw, Elliot of Falnash, and others--had a meeting at Jedburgh, with a view to making a final and decisive effort for stopping that system of blood and robbery by which the land had been so long harassed, even to the causing of several valuable lands to be left altogether desolate. They entered into a sort of bond, declaring their abhorrence of all the ordinary violences, and agreeing thenceforth to shew no countenance to any lawless persons, but to stand firm with the government in putting them down. Even where the culprits were their own dependents or tenants, they were to take part in bringing them to justice, and, if they fled, were to deprive them of their ‘tacks and steedings,’ and ‘put in other persons to occupy the same.’ Should any fail to act in this way, or to pursue culprits to justice, they agreed that a share of guilt should lie with that person. This bond seems to have been executed with the concurrence of the state-officers, and more especially under encouragement from the king, who, they say, had shewn his anxiety every way ‘for the suppressing of that infamous byke[342] of lawless limmers.’[343]

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[Sidenote: MAR. APR.]

The Presbyterian historian of this period notes, that ‘in the months of March and April fell forth prodigious works and rare accidents. A cow brought forth fourteen great dog-whelps, instead of calves. Another, after the calving, became stark mad, so that the owner was forced to slay her. A dead bairn was found in her belly. A third brought forth a calf with two heads. One of the Earl of Argyle’s servants being sick, vomited two toads and a serpent, and so convalesced; but after[wards] vomited a number of little toads. A man beside Glasgow murdered both his father and mother. A young man going at the plough near Kirkliston, killeth his own son accidentally with the throwing of a stone, goeth home and hangeth himself. His wife, lately delivered of a child, running out of the house to seek her husband, a sow had eaten her child.’--_Cal._ It is curious thus to see what a former age was capable of believing. The circumstances here related regarding the first two cows are now known to be impossibilities; and no such relation, accordingly, could move one step beyond the mouths of the vulgar with whom it originated. Yet it found a place in the work of a learned church historian of the seventeenth century.

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[Sidenote: JUNE.]

There was at this time an ‘extraordinary drowth, whilk is likely to burn up and destroy the corns and fruits of the ground.’ On this account, a fast was ordered at Aberdeen.--_A. K. S. R._ In September, and for some months after, there are notices of ‘great dearth of victual,’ doubtless the consequence of this drouth. ‘The victual at ten pound the boll.’--_Chron. Perth._

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[Sidenote: JULY 28.]

[Sidenote: 1612.]

Gregor Beg Macgregor, and nine others of his unhappy clan, were tried for sundry acts of robbery, oppression, and murder; and being all found guilty, were sentenced to be hanged on the Burgh-moor of Edinburgh.--_Pit._ The relics of the broken Clan Gregor lived at this time a wild predaceous life on the borders of the lowlands of Perthshire--a fearful problem to the authorities of the country, from the king downward. One called Robin Abroch, from the nativity of his father (Lochaber), stood prominently out as a clever chief of banditti, being reported, says Sir Thomas Hamilton, king’s advocate, as ‘the most bluidy murderer and oppressor of all that damned race, and most terrible to all the honest men of the country.’[344] In a memoir of the contemporary Earl of Perth occurs an anecdote of Robin, which, though somewhat obscure, speaks precisely of the style of events which modern times have seen in the Abruzzi and the fastnesses of the Apennines. The incident seems to have occurred in 1611.

‘In the meantime, some dozen of the Clan Gregor came within the _laigh_ of the country--Robin Abroch, Patrick M‘Inchater, and Gregor Gair, being chiefs. This Abroch sent to my chamberlain, David Drummond, desiring to speak to him. After conference, Robin Abroch, for reasons known to himself, alleging his comrades and followers were to betray him, was contented to take the advantage, and let them fall into the hands of justice. The plot was cunningly contrived, and six of that number were killed on the ground where I, with certain friends, was present; three were taken, and one escaped, by Robin and his man. This execution raised great speeches in the country, and made many acknowledge that these troubles were put to ane end, wherewith King James himself was well pleased for the time.’[345] We nevertheless find the king’s advocate soon after desiring of the king that, for the sake of public peace, he would withdraw a certain measure of protection he had extended to Robin, and replace him under the same restrictions as had been prescribed to the rest of his clan.

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In this year, a large body of troops was levied in Scotland in a clandestine manner for the service of the king of Sweden, in his unsuccessful war with Christian IV. of Denmark. As the king of Great Britain was brother-in-law of the latter monarch, this illegal levying of troops was an act of the greater presumption. The Privy Council fulminated edicts against the proceedings as most obnoxious to the king,[346] but without effect. One George Sinclair--a natural brother of the Earl of Caithness, and who, if we are to believe Sir Robert Gordon (an enemy), had stained himself by a participation in the treacherous rendition of Lord Maxwell--sailed with nine hundred men, whom he had raised in the extreme north.

[Sidenote: 1612.]

The successful course of the king of Denmark’s arms had at this time closed up the ordinary and most ready access to Sweden at Gottenburg, and along the adjacent coast. A Colonel Munckhaven, in bringing a large levy of mercenaries from the Netherlands in the spring of 1612, had consequently been obliged to take the riskful step of passing through Norway, then a portion of the dominions of the Danish monarch. The greater part of his soldiery entered the Trondiem Fiord, landed at Stordalen, and proceeded through the mountainous regions of Jempteland towards Stockholm, where they arrived in time to save it from the threats of the Danish fleet.[347]

Colonel Sinclair resolved to take a similar course; but he was less fortunate. Landing in Romsdalen, he was proceeding across Gulbrandsdalen, and had entered a narrow pass at Kringelen, utterly unsuspicious of the presence of an enemy, when he fell into a dire ambuscade formed by the peasantry. Even when aware that a hostile party had assembled, he was craftily beguiled on by the appearance of a handful of rustic marksmen on the opposite side of the river, whose irregular firing he despised, till his column had arrived at the most difficult part of the pass. The boors then appeared amongst the rocks above him, in front and in rear, closing up every channel of egress. Sinclair fell early in the conflict. The most of his party were either cut off by the marksmen, or dashed to pieces by huge rocks tumbled down from above. Of the nine hundred, but sixty were spared. These were taken as prisoners to the houses of various boors, who, however, soon tired of keeping them. It is stated that the wretched Scots were brought together one day in a large meadow, and there murdered in cold blood. Only one escaped.

The Norwegians celebrated this affair in a vaunting ballad, and, strange to say, still look back upon the destruction of Sinclair’s party as a glorious achievement. In the pass of Kringelen, there is a tablet bearing an inscription to the following purport: ‘Here lies Colonel Sinclair, who, with nine hundred Scotsmen, was dashed to pieces like clay-pots by three hundred boors of Lessöe, Vaage, and Froen. Berdon Segelstadt of Ringeböe was the leader of the boors.’ In a peasant’s house near by were shewn to me, in 1849, a few relics of the poor Caithness-men--a matchlock or two, a broadsword, a couple of powder-flasks, and the wooden part of a drum.

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[Sidenote: 1613.]

After the treacherous slaughter of the Laird of Johnston in 1608, Lord Maxwell was so hotly prosecuted by the state-officers, as to be compelled to leave his country. His _Good-night_, a pathetic ballad, in which he takes leave of his lady and friends, is printed in the _Border Minstrelsy_: afterwards, he returned to Scotland, but could not shew himself in public. A succession of skulking adventures ended in his being treacherously given up to justice by his relative, the Earl of Caithness; and he was, without loss of time, beheaded at the Cross of Edinburgh--the sole noble victim to justice out of many of his order who, during the preceding thirty years, had deserved such a fate.

[Sidenote: MAY 21.]

When informed by the magistrates of the city that they had got orders for his execution, he professed submission to the will of God and the king, but declined the attendance of any ministers, as he adhered to the ancient religion. ‘It being foreseen by the bailies and others that gif he sould at his death enter in any discourse of that subject before the people, it might breed offence and sclander, he was desirit, and yielded to bind himself by promise, to forbear at his death all mention of his particular opinion of religion, except the profession of Christianity; which he sinsyne repented, as he declared to the bailies, when they were bringing him to the scaffold.’ On the scaffold, the unfortunate noble expressed his hope that the king would restore the family inheritance to his brother. He likewise ‘asked forgiveness of the Laird of Johnston, his mother, grandmother, and friends, acknowledging the wrong and harm done to them, with protestation that it was without dishonour for the worldly part of it.... Then he retired himself near the block, and made his prayers to God; which being ended, he took leave of his friends and of the bailies of the town, and, suffering his eyes to be covered with ane handkerchief, offered his head to the axe.’[348]

Thus at length ended the feud between the Johnstons and Maxwells, after, as has been remarked, causing the deaths of two chiefs of each house.

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[Sidenote: AUG.]

[Sidenote: 1613.]

Edward Lord Bruce of Kinloss lost his life in a duel fought near Bergen-op-zoom with Sir Edward Sackville, afterwards Earl of Dorset. They were gay young men, living a life of pleasure in London, and in good friendship with each other, when some occurrence, arising out of their pleasures, divided them in an irremediable quarrel. Clarendon states that on Sackville’s part the cause was ‘unwarrantable.’ Lord Kinloss, in his challenge, reveals to us that they had shaken hands after the first offence, but with this remarkable expression on his own part, that he reserved the heart for a truer reconciliation. Afterwards, in France, Kinloss learned that Sackville spoke injuriously of him, and immediately wrote to propose a hostile meeting. ‘Be master,’ he said, ‘of your own weapons and time; the place wheresoever I will wait on you. By doing this, you will shorten revenge, and clear the idle opinion the world hath of both our worths.’

Sackville received this letter at his father-in-law’s house, in Derbyshire, and he lost no time in establishing himself, with his friend, Sir John Heidon, at Tergoso, in Zealand, where he wrote to Lord Kinloss, that he would wait for his arrival. The other immediately proceeded thither, accompanied by an English gentleman named Crawford, who was to act as his second; also by a surgeon and a servant. They met, accompanied by their respective friends, at a spot near Bergen-op-Zoom, ‘where but a village divides the States’ territories from the archduke’s ... to the end that, having ended, he that could, might presently exempt himself from the justice of the country by retiring into the dominion not offended.’

In the preliminary arrangements, some humane articles were agreed upon, probably by the influence of the seconds; but, if we are to believe Sir Edward Sackville, Lord Kinloss, in choosing his adversary’s weapon, expressed some blood-thirsty sentiments, that gave him reason to hope for little mercy if he should be the vanquished party. Being on his part incensed by these unworthy expressions, he, though heavy with a recent dinner, hurried on the combat. To follow his remarkable narrative:[349]

[Sidenote: 1613.]

‘I being verily mad with anger [that] the Lord Bruce should thirst after my life with a kind of assuredness, seeing I had come so far and heedlessly to give him leave to regain his lost reputation, bade him alight, which with all willingness he quickly granted; and there, in a meadow ankle-deep in water at the least, bidding farewell to our doublets, in our shirts began to charge each other; having afore commanded our surgeons to withdraw themselves a pretty distance from us, conjuring them besides, as they respected our favours or their own safeties, not to stir, but suffer us to execute our pleasures; we being fully resolved (God forgive us!) to despatch each other by what means we could. I made a thrust at my enemy, but was short, and in drawing back my arm, I received a great wound thereon, which I interpreted as a reward for my short-shooting; but, in revenge, I pressed in to him, though I then missed him also, and then received a wound in my right pap, which passed level through my body, and almost to my back. And there we wrestled for the two greatest and dearest prizes we could ever expect trial for--honour and life; in which struggling, my hand, having but an ordinary glove on it, lost one of her servants, though the meanest, which hung by a skin.... At last, breathless, yet keeping our holds, there passed on both sides propositions of quitting each other’s swords; but when amity was dead, confidence could not live, and who should quit first, was the question; which on neither part either would perform, and restriving again afresh, with a kick and a wrench together, I freed my long captivated weapon; which incontinently levying at his throat, being master still of his, I demanded if he would ask his life, or yield his sword; both which, though in that imminent danger, he bravely denied to do. Myself being wounded, and feeling loss of blood, having three conduits running on me, which began to make me faint, and he courageously persisting not to accord to either of my propositions, through remembrance of his former bloody desire, and feeling of my present state, I struck at his heart, but with his avoiding missed my aim, yet passed through the body, and drawing out my sword, repassed it again through another place, when he cried: “O, I am slain!” seconding his speech with all the force he had to cast me; but being too weak, after I had defended his assault, I easily became master of him, laying him on his back, when, being upon him, I redemanded if he would request his life; but it seemed he prized it not at so dear a rate to be beholden for it, bravely replying, “he scorned it.” Which answer of his was so noble and worthy, as I protest I could not find in my heart to offer him any more violence; only keeping him down, until at length his surgeon, afar off, cried out, “he would immediately die if his wounds were not stopped.” Whereupon, I asked if he desired his surgeon should come, which he accepted of; and so being drawn away, I never offered to take his sword, accounting it inhuman to rob a dead man, for so I held him to be. This thus ended, I retired to my surgeon, in whose arms, after I had remained a while for want of blood, I lost my sight, and withal, as I then thought, my life also. But strong water and his diligence quickly recovered me, when I escaped a great danger. For my lord’s surgeon, when nobody dreamt of it, came full at me with his lord’s sword; and had not mine, with my sword, interposed himself, I had been slain by those base hands; although my Lord Bruce, weltering in his blood, and past all expectation of life, comformable to all his former carriage, which was undoubtedly noble, cried out: “Rascal, hold thy hand!”’

Thus miserably, a victim of passion, died a young nobleman who might otherwise have lived a long and useful life. Being childless, his title and estates went to his next brother, Thomas. Through what means it came about, we cannot tell, but possibly it might be in consequence of some recollection of a well-known circumstance in the history of a former great man of his family, King Robert Bruce, the heart of Edward Lord Kinloss was enclosed in a silver case, brought to Scotland, and deposited in the abbey-church of Culross, near the family seat. The tale of the _Silver Heart_ had faded into a family tradition of a very obscure character, when, in 1808, this sad relic was discovered, bearing on the exterior the name of the unfortunate duellist, and containing what was believed to be the remains of a human heart. It was again deposited in its original place, with an inscription calculated to make the matter clear to posterity. The Bruce motto, FUIMUS, is also seen on the wall, conveying to the visitor an indescribable feeling of melancholy, as he reflects on the stormy passion which once swelled the organ now resting within, and the wild details of that deadly quarrel of days long gone by.

[Illustration: Silver Heart in Culross Abbey-church.]

[Sidenote: 1613.]

‘The unfortunate Lord Bruce saw distinctly the figure or impression of a mort-head, on the looking-glass in his chamber, that very morning he set out for the fatal place of rendezvous, where he lost his life in a duel; and asked of some that stood by him if they observed that strange appearance: which they answered in the negative. His remains were interred at Bergen-op-Zoom, over which a monument was erected, with the emblem of a looking-glass impressed with a mort-head, to perpetuate the surprising representation which seemed to indicate his approaching untimely end. I had this narration from a field-officer, whose honour and candour is beyond suspicion, as he had it from General Stuart in the Dutch service. The monument stood entire for a long time, until it was partly defaced when that strong place was reduced by the weakness or treachery of Cronstrom, the governor.’--_Theophilus Insulanus’s Treatise on the Second-Sight._ 1763.

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[Sidenote: SEP. 11.]

Robert Philip, a priest, returned from Rome in the summer of this year, and performed mass in sundry places in a clandestine manner, but with the proper dresses, utensils, and observances. One James Stewart, living at the Nether Bow Port in Edinburgh, commonly called _James of Jerusalem_--a noted papist and resetter of seminary priests--was accustomed to have this condemned ceremonial performed in his house, in presence of a small company. Both men were now tried for these offences; and two days after, a third, John Logan, portioner of Restalrig, was also put to an assize, for being one of the audience at Stewart’s house. One cannot, in these days of tolerance, read without a strange sense of uncouthness, the solemn expressions of horror employed in the dittays of the king’s advocate against the offenders, being precisely the same expressions which were used against heinous offences of a more tangible nature. Philip and Stewart were condemned to banishment,[350] and Logan, in as far as he expressed penitence and shewed that he had since conformed to the kirk, and even borne office in the session, was let off with a fine of one thousand pounds!

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[Sidenote: DEC. 1.]

[Sidenote: 1613.]