Part 7

Dr Skeyne’s regimen for the pest regards both its prevention and its cure, and involves an immense variety of curious recipes and rules of treatment, expressed partly in Latin and partly in English. He ends by calling his readers to observe--‘As there is diversity of time, country, age, and consuetude to be observit in time of ministration of ony medicine preservative or curative, even sae there is divers kinds of pest, whilk may be easily knawn and divided by weel-learnit physicians, whase counsel in time of sic danger of life is baith profitable and necessar, in respect that in this pestilential disease every ane is mair blind nor the moudiewort in sic things as concerns their awn health.’

There has been preserved a curious letter which Adam Bothwell, bishop of Orkney, addressed in this time of plague to his brother-in-law, Sir Archibald Napier of Merchiston, regarding the dangers in which the latter was placed by the nearness of his house to the bivouac of the infected on the Burgh-moor.[59] It opens with an allusion to Sir Archibald’s present position as a friend of Queen Mary in trouble with the Regent:

[Sidenote: 1568.]

‘RICHT HONOURABLE SIR AND BROTHER--I heard, the day, the rigorous answer and refuse that ye gat, whereof I was not weel apayit. But always I pray you, as ye are set amids twa great inconvenients, travel to eschew them baith. The ane is maist evident--to wit, the remaining in your awn place where ye are; for by the number of sick folk that gaes out of the town, the muir is [li]able to be overspread; and it cannot be but, through the nearness of your place and the indigence of them that are put out, they sall continually repair about your room, and through their conversation infect some of your servants, whereby they sall precipitate yourself and your children in maist extreme danger. And as I see ye have foreseen the same for the young folk, whaise bluid is in maist peril to be infectit first, and therefore purposes to send them away to Menteith, where I wald wiss at God that ye war yourself, without offence of authority, or of your band, sae that your house get nae skaith. But yet, sir, there is ane mid way whilk ye suld not omit, whilk is to withdraw you frae that side of the town to some house upon the north side of the samen; whereof ye may have in borrowing, when ye sall have to do--to wit, the Gray Crook, Innerleith’s self, Wairdie, or sic other places as ye could choose within ane mile; whereinto I wald suppose ye wald be in less danger than in Merchanston. And close up your houses, your granges, your barns, and all, and suffer nae man come therein, while [till] it please God to put ane stay to this great plague; and in the meantime, make you to live upon your penny, or on sic thing as comes to you out of Lennox or Menteith;[60] whilk gif ye do not, I see ye will ruin yourself; and howbeit I escape in this voyage,[61] I will never look to see you again, whilk were some mair regret to me than I will expreme by writing. Always [I] beseeks you, as ye love your awn weal, the weal of your house, and us your friends that wald you weel, to tak sure order in this behalf; and, howbeit your evil favourers wald cast you away, yet ye tak better keep on yourself, and mak not them to rejoice, and us your friends to mourn baith at ance. Whilk God forbid, and for his goodness, preserve you and your posterity from sic skaith, and maintein you in [his] holy keeping for ever. Of Edinburgh, the 21st day of September 1568, by your brother at power,

‘THE BISHOP OF ORKNEY.’

The bishop speaks with unmistakable friendship for his brother-in-law; but what he says and what he does not say of the miserables of the Burgh-moor, tends much to confirm Dr Skeyne’s remarks on the absence of Christian kindness among the upper classes towards the afflicted poor on this occasion.

This pestilence, lasting till February, is said to have carried off 2500 persons in Edinburgh, which could not be much less than a tenth of the population. From the double cause of the pest and the absence of the Regent in England, there were ‘nae diets of Justiciary halden frae the hinderend of August to the second day of March.’[62] Such of the inhabitants of the Canongate as were affected had to go out and live in huts on the Hill (by which is probably meant Salisbury Crags), and there stay till they were ‘clengit.’ A collection of money was made among the other inhabitants for their support.[63]

[Sidenote: 1568.]

The distresses of pestilence were preceded and attended by those of a famine, which suffered a great and sudden abatement in the month of August 1569, perhaps in consequence of favourable appearances in the crop then about to be gathered. At least, we are informed by the _Diurnal of Occurrents_, that on that day, in the forenoon, ‘the boll of ait meal was sauld for 3_l._ 12_s._, the boll of wheat for 4_l._ 10_s._, and the boll of beare for 3_l._; but ere twa afternoon upon the same day, the boll of ait meal was sauld for 40_s._, 38_s._, and 36_s._, the boll of wheat for 50_s._, and the beare for 33_s._‘--_D. O._[64]

Little doubt is now entertained that the exanthematous disease called long ago the Pest, and now the Plague, and which has happily been unknown in the British Islands for two centuries, was the consequence of miasma arising from crowded and filthy living, acting on bodies predisposed by deficient aliment and other causes, and that at a certain stage it assumed a contagious character. It will be found throughout the present work that the malady generally, though not invariably, followed dearth and famine--a generalisation harmonising with the observations of Professor Alison as to the connection between destitution and typhus fever, and supporting the views of those who hold that it is for the interest of the community that all its members have a sufficiency of the necessaries of life. The pest was not the only epidemic which afflicted our ancestors in consequence of erroneous living and misery endured by great multitudes of people. There was one called the _land-ill_ or _wame-ill_, which seems to have been of the nature of cholera. In an early chronicle quoted below,[65] is the following striking notice of this kind of malady in connection with famine as occurring in 1439:--‘The samen time there was in Scotland a great dearth, for the boll of wheat was at 40_s._, and the boll of ait meal 30_s._; and verily the dearth was sae great that there died a passing [number of] people for hunger. And als the land-ill, the wame-ill, was so violent, that there died mae that year than ever there died, owther in pestilence, or yet in ony other sickness in Scotland. And that samen year the pestilence came in Scotland, and began at Dumfries, and it was callit the _Pestilence but Mercy_, for there took it nane that ever recoverit, but they died within twenty-four hours.’

[Sidenote: OCT.

1568.]

At the time when the pest broke out in Edinburgh, there lived in the city a young man of the middle class, bearing the name of George Bannatyne, who was somewhat addicted to the vain and unprofitable art of poesy. He was acquainted with the writings of his predecessors, Dunbar, Douglas, Henryson, Montgomery, Scott, and others, through the manuscripts to which alone they had as yet been committed. It was not then the custom to print literary productions unless for some reason external to their literary character, and these poems, therefore, were existing in the same peril of not being preserved to posterity as the works of Ennius in the days of Augustus. In all probability, the greater part of them, if not nearly the whole, would have been lost, but for an accidental circumstance connected with the plague now raging.

[Illustration: George Bannatyne’s Arms and Initials.]

[Sidenote: 1568.]

In that terrible time, when hundreds were dying in the city, and apprehensions for their own safety engrossed every mind, the young man George Bannatyne passed into retirement, and for three months devoted himself to the task of transcribing the fugitive productions of the Scottish muse into a fair volume. His retreat is supposed to have been the old manor-house of Newtyle, near the village of Meigle in Strathmore, and nothing could be more likely, as this was the country-house of his father, who seems to have been a prosperous lawyer in Edinburgh. In the short space of time mentioned, George had copied in a good hand, from the mutilated and obscure manuscripts he possessed, three hundred and seventy-two poems, covering no less than eight hundred folio pages; a labour by which he has secured the eternal gratitude of his countrymen, and established for himself a fame granted to but few for their own compositions. The volume--celebrated as the BANNATYNE MANUSCRIPT--still exists, under the greatest veneration, in the Advocates’ Library, Edinburgh, after yielding from its ample stores the materials of Ramsay’s, Hailes’s, and other printed selections.[66]

[Sidenote: NOV. 18.]

In this time of dearth and pestilence, the council of the Canongate providently ordained that ‘the fourpenny loaf be weel baken and dried, gude and sufficient stuff, and keep the measures and _paik_ of twenty-two ounces;’ ‘that nae browsters nor ony tapsters sell ony dearer ale nor 6d. the pint;’ and ‘that nae venters of wine buy nae new wine dearer than that they may sell the same commonly to all our sovereign’s lieges for 16d. the pint.’

They also ordained (January 10, 1568-9), that ‘nae maner of person inhabiter within this burgh, venters of wine, hosters, or tapsters of ale, nor others whatsomever, thole or permit ony maner of persons to drink, keep company at table in common taverners’ houses, upon Sunday, the time of preaching, under the pain of forty shillings, to be upta’en of the man and wife wha aucht the said taverners’ houses sae oft as they fails, but favour.’[67]

It is evident from this injunction, that the keeping of public-houses open on Sundays, at times different from those during which there was public worship, was not then forbidden.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: 1568-9.

JAN. 10.]

In presence of the magistrates of the Canongate, Edinburgh, ‘William Heriot, younger, baxter, became, out of his awn free motive will, cautioner for George Heriot, that the said George sall remove furth of this burgh and freedom thereof, within the space of fifteen days next, and nae be fund thereintill, in case the said George associate not himself to the religion of Christ’s kirk, and satisfie the kirk in making of repentance, as effeirs.’--_C. C. R._

This was a part of the process of completing the Reformation.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: 1569.

MAY.]

[Sidenote: 1569.

AUG. 16.]

‘... the Regent made progress first to Stirling, where four priests of Dumblane were condemnit to the death, for saying of mess against the act of parliament; but he remittit their lives, and causit them to be bund to the mercat cross with their vestments and chalices in derision, where the people cast eggs and other villanie at their faces, by the space of ane hour; and thereafter their vestments and chalices were burnt to ashes. From that he passed to Sanctandrois, where a notable sorcerer called Nic Neville was condemnit to the death and brunt; and a Frenchman callit Paris, wha was ane of the devisers of the king’s death, was hangit in Sanctandrois, and with him William Stewart, Lyon King of Arms, for divers points of witchcraft and necromancy.’--_H. K. J._

The _Diurnal of Occurrents_ relates the Regent’s proceedings against the powers of the other world in this journey in a style equally cool and laconic. ‘In my Lord Regent’s passing to the north, he causit burn certain witches in Sanctandrois, and in returning he causit burn ane other company of witches in Dundee.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: SEP.]

The Regent once more set out on an expedition against the Border thieves, attended by a hundred men of war. In the words of a poetical panegyrist:

‘... having established all thing in this sort, To Liddesdale again he did resort. Through Ewesdale, Esdale, and all the dales rade he, And also lay three nichts in Cannobie, Where nae prince lay thir hunder years before; Nae thief durst stir, they did him fear so sore; And that they should nae mair their theft allege, Threescore and twelve he brought of them in pledge, Syne warded them, whilk made the rest keep order, Than _might the rash buss keep kye on the Border_.’[68]

It is said that no former ruler had ever so thoroughly awed the Border men. On his return to Edinburgh in November, he distributed the hostages among certain barons of the realm.

This, however, was the last of Moray’s expeditions against the thieves. He was approaching the end of his career, doomed by party hatred in conjunction with private malice.

[Sidenote: 1569-70.

JAN. 23.]

‘The Earl of Moray, the Good Regent, was slain in Linlithgow by James Hamilton of Bothwell-haugh, who shot the said Regent with a gun out at ane window, and presently thereafter fled out at the back, and leapt on a very good horse, which the Hamiltons had ready waiting for him; and, being followed speedily, after that spur and wand had failed him, he drew forth his dagger, and struck his horse behind; whilk causit the horse to leap a very broad stank; by whilk means he escaped.’--_Bir._

REGENCIES OF LENNOX AND MAR: 1570-1572.

The death of the Regent Moray proved a great blow to the infant king’s party, for there was no man of equal mark and energy to take his place. The friends of the exiled queen raised their heads again, and in a force which might well give the ruling party some anxiety. Seeing the imminence of the danger, Elizabeth yielded to the wishes of Mary’s enemies, and sent an army under the Earl of Sussex into Scotland in April, who ‘burnt, herrit, and destroyit sae mickle of the Merse and Teviotdale as they might be masters of, asseizit the castle of Farniehirst, and demolishit the same, and thereafter past to Hawick and to Branksholm, and burnt and herrit the same,’ thus punishing the Scotts, Kerrs, and others who had lately made a hostile incursion in Mary’s behalf into England. Towards the end of the month, they besieged and took Hume Castle. A similar army under Sir William Drury entered Scotland in the ensuing month, and committed the like havock in Lanarkshire, so as to disable the queen’s friends of the house of Hamilton. The sufferings thus occasioned in certain districts were dreadful, and the principal sufferers were the poor. In Hume Castle, when taken by Sussex, ‘was the hale guids and gear perteining to the hale tenants of my Lord Hume, wherethrough the saids puir tenants were allutterly herrit.’ The devastation at Hamilton was ‘in sic sort and maner as the like in this realm has not been heard before.’ And when the English troops came thence to Linlithgow on their return, ‘they herrit all the Monkland, the Lord Fleming’s bounds, my Lord Livingstone’s bounds, together with all their puir tenants and friends, in sic maner that nae heart can think thereon but the same must be dolorous.’--_D. O._ Yet this was but a foretaste of the woes which a disputed succession was now for three years to lay upon the land.

At the dictation of Elizabeth--for the Protestant lords in Scotland were wholly subservient to her--Matthew, Earl of Lennox, paternal grandfather of the young king, was elected Regent (July 17, 1570). The real ruling spirit was the Earl of Morton, who lost no time in proceeding against some friends of Queen Mary in the north. Taking the town of Brechin, which had been held for her, he caused thirty-one of the garrison to be mercilessly put to death. ‘The deaths of thir persons were greatomly bewailit by mony.’ At the same time, the Earl of Sussex made an inroad into Dumfriesshire, cast down many houses of Mary’s friends, ‘burnt certain houses in the town of Dumfries, and reft and spulyit all that they micht get.’ Three considerable districts in Scotland were this summer reduced to a desert.

The Gordon power in the north, that of the Hamiltons and Argyle in the west, and the Border chiefs, formed the great centres of Mary’s party, which altogether was so strong, that it must have triumphed but for the backing which the other party received from England. As matters stood, the king’s friends were able to maintain themselves in possession of the country at large, holding Stirling as the seat of government, while Kirkaldy of Grange, governor of the Castle of Edinburgh, unexpectedly went over to the queen’s side, as did Maitland of Lethington, and some others lately arrayed against her. Edinburgh and its castle consequently became a centre of operations for that party. Then commenced an intestine war, at first consisting of mutual devastations on each other’s lands, but soon assuming a sanguinary character. It is not consistent with our design to relate it in detail; but a few characteristic proceedings are given in the chronicle, usually in the simple and pathetic language of the time.

Lennox being killed in a surprise at Stirling (September 3, 1571), the Earl of Mar was chosen to the vacant regency. Under him the war advanced with even increased ferocity, until it came to be a rule that no quarter should be given on either side. In little more than a twelvemonth, this gentle-natured noble sunk under the burden of government; ‘the maist cause of his deid was that he lovit peace, and could not have the same.’--_D. O._ The Earl of Morton, the ablest man of the whole party since Moray, but merciless and greedy in the extreme, succeeded, with the full approbation of the Mistress of the Protestant party of Scotland.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: 1570.

MAY.]

Lord Fleming being a conspicuous leader on the queen’s side, and captain of Dumbarton Castle, his lands in the counties of Lanark and Dumbarton were amongst those which fell under the vengeance of the ruling party. As one of the enormities perpetrated by the Earl of Lennox and his men on Lord Fleming’s estates--‘they have slain and destroyit the deer of his forest of Cumbernauld, and the white kye and bulls of the said forest, to the great destruction of policy and hinder of the commonweal. For that kind of kye and bulls has been keepit thir mony years in the said forest, and the like was not maintenit in ony other parts of the Isle of Albion, as is weel knawn.’[69]

[Sidenote: 1570.]

The ‘white kye and bulls’ here spoken of are believed to have been a remnant of the original wild cattle of the Caledonian forest. Boece describes them as white, with lion-like manes, fierce, untamable, and shunning human society--so misanthropical, indeed, that they would eat nothing which the hand of man had touched. He, like the writer quoted above, says that none of them were left but only in Cumbernauld. Leslie, however, tells us that they also existed in the parks of Stirling and Kincardine. Latterly, there have been herds of the same oxen (but perhaps imported) in the Duke of Hamilton’s park of Cadzow, in Lanarkshire; in the Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry’s at Drumlanrig; and in Lord Tankerville’s park at Chillingham, in Northumberland.

* * * * *

Perhaps the severities of the English army on this occasion were only what her Scottish allies would themselves have practised against their opponents. What follows, however, seems to have gone a little beyond the bounds of partisan vengeance, while it not less illustrates the sacrifice of national dignity at which the enemies of Mary were content to purchase the aid of the English queen.

[Sidenote: MAY 29.]

Sir William Drury, returning with the English army from the devastation of the Duke of Chatelherault’s country in Lanarkshire, resolved to destroy the town of Linlithgow, in retribution for its having proved a harbour for the enemies of Elizabeth and of her ally the young Scottish king. It seemed but right that the scene of the murder of Moray should thus suffer. He therefore called the provost of the burgh before him, and announced his intention, saying, however, that he would allow time for the carrying away of any women in childbed or impotent people, and also conceding that a place should be appointed, to which the goods belonging to the citizens should be brought for preservation.

‘The time being come for this execution, the Earl of Morton, that still accompanied the English general, offered himself as an intercessor to entreat and sue for a pardon, bringing afore the general a multitude of wailing people, whose mournful and most piteous cries was lamentable and very importunate.’

[Sidenote: 1570.

JULY 4.]

Drury insisted that justice demanded an example being made of Linlithgow; but ‘the people of all sorts so pressed about him, and made such pitiful cries and sorrowful noise, with children sucking of their mothers’ breasts, that he, taking ruth of their miserable estates, at this their lamentable suit, especially at the great instance of the Earl of Morton, _who came bareheaded to speak for them_, the general was content to save the town and people therein.’ He took assurance from them, however, that the chief inhabitants should follow his camp to Berwick, and there wait the clemency of the queen of England.--_Holinshed._

‘... at 10 hours at night, there was ane earthquake in the city of Glasgow, and lastit but ane short space; but it causit the inhabitants of the said city to be in great terror and fear.’--_D. O._

* * * * *

‘In this time there was ane monstrous fish seen in Loch Fyne, having great een in the head thereof, and at some times wald stand aboon the water as high as the mast of a ship; and the said [creature] had upon the head thereof [twa crowns, ane] aboon little, and the downmaist crown meikle; whilk was reportit by wise men, that the same was ane sign and taiken of ane sudden alteration within this realm.’--_D. O._

The low intelligence of the age is seen in nothing more conspicuously than in the numerous tales of animals alleged to have been seen, with peculiarities impossible in nature, and believed to be ominous of public calamity. The appearance of a similar animal in another of the Argyleshire lochs in 1510 is noted by Hector Boece, on the information of Duncan Campbell, a noble knight. This ‘terrible beast’ was ‘of the bigness of a greyhound, and footed like a gander. Issuing out of the water early in the morning about midsummer,’ he ‘did very easily and without any force or straining of himself overthrow huge oaks with his tail, and therewith killed outright three men that hunted him with three strokes of his said tail, the rest of them saving themselves in trees thereabouts, whilst the aforesaid monster returned to the water. Those that are given to the observation of rare and uncouth sights, believe that this beast is never seen but against some great trouble and mischief to come upon the realm of Scotland.’[70]