Part 9

At this time, Mr William Collace was first regent in St Leonard’s College, St Andrews; he ‘had the estimation of being the maist solid and learnit in Aristotle’s philosophy.’ James Melville gives an interesting picture of this learned person, to whose class he came at fifteen years of age, so ill prepared for understanding the language (Latin) in which the prelections took place, that ‘I did naething,’ says Melville, ‘but bursted and grat at his lessons, and was of mind to have gone home again, were [it] not the loving care of that man comforted me; [he] took me in his awn chalmer, causit me to lie with himself, and every night teached me in private till I was acquainted with the matter. Then he gave us ane compend of his awn of philosophy and the parts thereof ... whilk I thought I understood better. About the whilk time my father, coming to the town, begoud to examine me, and, finding some beginning, was exceeding rejoiced, and uttered sweeter affection to me than ever before. He enterteinit my regent very heartily in his lodging, and gave him great thanks; he sent me to him, after he had taken leave, with twa pieces of gold in a napkin; but the gentleman was sae honest and loving, that he wald have none of his gold, but with austere countenance sent me back with it; nay, never wald receive gold or silver all the time of my course.’

Melville mentions having frequent opportunities at this time of seeing and hearing John Knox, who had taken refuge in St Andrews, while Edinburgh was possessed by the queen’s party. ‘Mr Knox wald some time come in and repose him in our college yard, and call us scholars unto him and bless us, and exhort us to knaw God and his wark in our country, and stand by the gude cause, and follow the guid example of our masters.’

‘I saw him every day of his doctrine go hooly and fair [softly and fairly] with a furring of matricks about his neck, a staff in ane hand, and guid godly Richard Ballanden, his servant, halding up the other oxter [armpit] from the abbey to the parish kirk, and by the said Richard and another servant, lifted up to the pulpit, whaur he behovit to lean at his first entry, but ere he had done with his sermon, he was sae active and vigorous, that he was like to ding that pulpit in blads [knock the pulpit in splinters], and flie out of it.’

He adds: ‘This year, in the month of July, Mr John Davidson, ane of our regents, made a play at the marriage of Mr John Colvin, whilk I saw playit in Mr Knox’s presence, wherein, according to Mr Knox’s doctrine, the castle of Edinburgh was besieged, taken, and the captain, with ane or twa with him, hangit in effigy.’

[Sidenote: 1571.]

This dramatic performance represented an unfulfilled prophecy of the reformer. When Kirkaldy of Grange, after many years of zealous service in the reforming cause, declared for the Queen, and held out Edinburgh Castle against the Regent, Knox, who had loved him much, was deeply grieved. He felt, however, no doubt as to the ultimate triumph of his own cause against all such opposition, and it was perhaps no great venture for so acute a person to utter the prediction that, notwithstanding the trust which Kirkaldy put in that powerful fortress, it should yet run like a sand-glass; it should spew out the captain with shame; he should not come out at the gate, but over the walls. Mr Robert Hamilton, minister of St Andrews, asking his warrant for this vaticination, he said: ‘God is my warrant, and ye shall see it.’ ‘As the other was scarcely satisfied,’ says James Melville, ‘the next sermon from the pulpit, he repeats the threatenings, and adds thereto: “Thou that will not believe my warrant, shall see it with thy e’es that day, and shall say: ‘What have I to do here?’” This sermon the said Mr Robert’s servant wrote....’--_Ja. Mel._

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This year ‘great weirs in the north land betwixt the Gordons and Forbeses, and the Forbeses put till the warst, and mony slain of them, and towns wasted and burnt.’--_C. F._

Adam Gordon, brother of the Earl of Huntly, was a leader in these broils, and of some avail in supporting the queen’s cause. He stained his name by a frightful act of cruelty. The house of Towie, belonging to Alexander Forbes, was maintained by his lady against Gordon. On his sending to demand its surrender, the brave dame answered that she could not give it up without direction from her husband. Gordon then set fire to it, and burnt the heroic woman, her children and servants--twenty-seven persons in all!

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[Sidenote: JULY.

1571.]

The queen’s party, after holding a parliament in Edinburgh, where they affected formally to re-establish her government, sent a pursuivant to Jedburgh, ‘to proclaim the new erected authority,’ probably thinking that the man would be safe in the performance of his duty at that town through the favour of Kerr of Ferniehirst, their fellow-partisan. They little reckoned on the spirit of the Border burghers. ‘He was suffered to read his letters till he came to this point, that the lords assembled in Edinburgh had found all the proceedings against the queen null, and that all men should obey her only. Then the provost caused the pursuivant to come down from the cross, and _eat his letters_. Thereafter, [he] caused loose down his points, and gave him his wages ---- with a bridle; and threatened that if ever he came again, he should lose his life. Ferniehirst threatened the town: but they gave him the defiance.’--_Cal._

A few months after, Ferniehirst and Buccleuch mustered a great multitude of the Border thieves, and came to take vengeance on the burghers of Jedburgh. The town, assisted by Kerr of Cessford, stood to its defence; and when Lord Ruthven came with a party of horse to aid them, they were able to beat back the assailants, many of whom fell into their hands.

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[Sidenote: AUG. 1.]

‘There was ane sow farried in William Davidson’s house, flesher in Edinburgh, of thirteen gryces [pigs], of the whilk there was ane a monster. It had the gruntle [snout] in the heich of the heid, and under that it had twa een, ane nose and mouth, ane brow, ane cheek, ane tongue, and lugs like to the similitude of man in all sorts; the remanent thereof was like ane other gryce without hair. This portendit some mischief to this burgh.’--_D. O._

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[Sidenote: AUG.]

The Earl of Argyle, Robert Lord Boyd, and some other nobles, lately friends of the queen, were now brought over to the king’s side, after sundry meetings and discussions with the Regent. ‘The greedy and insatiable appetite of benefices was the maist cause thereof, for there was nane that was brought under the king’s obedience but for reward either given or promised. Als he [the Earl of Argyle] was greatumly persuadit hereto by Lord Boyd, wha persuadit the kirk to part the said earl and his wife, and [the earl] to marry his [Lord Boyd’s] daughter, wha was married upon the young laird of Cunninghamheid of before.’--_D. O._

After these particulars, it is instructive to read the epitaph inscribed on Lord Boyd’s tomb in the Laigh Kirk (Burns’s Laigh Kirk) of Kilmarnock:

‘Heir lyis y^t godlie, noble, wyis Lord Boyd, Quha kirk and king and commonweil decoird, Quhilk war (quhill they yis jowell all injoyd) Defendit, counsaild, governd, by that lord.’ &c.

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[Sidenote: AUG. 28.]

The Regent Lennox held a parliament at Stirling, where he made an oration to the nobility. The king, five years old, was present, and, while his grandfather was speaking, he looked up and espied a hole in the roof, occasioned by ‘the lack of some sclates.’ At the conclusion of the harangue, the child remarked: ‘I think there is ane hole in this parliament.’

[Sidenote: 1571.]

‘In effect, his majesty’s words came true; for the same month, about the end of the parliament (September 3), there came to Striviling in the night, ere the nobility or town knew, the Earl of Huntly, the queen’s lieutenant, Claud Hamilton, with the Lairds of Buccleuch and Ferniehirst, who, ere day brake, had possessed themselves of the town, crying “God and the Queen!” so that those that were for the King and his Regent could not, for the multitude of enemies, come to a head. Wherever they could see any that belonged to the Regent, him they killed without mercy. The Regent being taken prisoner by the Laird of Buccleuch, and horsed behind him, ane wicked fellow lift up his jack, and shot him through the body with a pistol.... [On a counter-surprise, the queen’s party] departed the town immediately. The Earl of Mar was declared Regent, and concluded the parliament. This was the hole which the young king did see in the parliament, although he meant nothing less.’--_Bal._

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[Sidenote: NOV. 10.]

Robert Lord Boyd entered this day into a bond of _manred_ with William Fairly, brother of David Fairly of that Ilk. Manred, properly, is a service of allegiance; but in Scotland it had come, in the course of time, to be an agreement, sometimes between a great man and a less, sometimes between two or more equally great men, to stand by each other in all contingencies of war and law, excepting only (and perhaps it was but a hypocritical exception) where the king’s majesty and his commands were concerned. It was an arrangement dictated by the exigencies of a rude time, when law was but partial and uncertain in its actings, and natural feeling often called for something being done, whether the law would or no. As something not very consonant with good government, or even such attempts at the same as might be made in those days, manred had been denounced by a statute so long ago as 1457, when it was enacted ‘that nae man dwelling within burgh be fund in manrent, nor ride in rout in feir of weir with nae man, but with the king or his officers, or with the lord of the burgh.’ But acts of parliament were voices crying in the wilderness in Scotland, and manred still continued to have its place in the economy of life in this age.

[Sidenote: 1571.]

On this occasion, William Fairly binds and obliges himself to be ‘man and subject servant’ to Lord Boyd and his heirs, ‘aefaldly and truly to serve them upon their retinue and expenses in household and out of household, as best sall please them in all their affairs, and as weel in defence as pursuit, with whom or against whom it sall happen them to have action and ado,’ the king excepted. He is likewise to help them with his good counsel, ‘and sall never hear nor know their hurt, damage, nor skaith, in ony sort, but sall diligently sift out the same, and mak true declaration thereof.’

The consideration for all this service is the possession of ‘the thretty-shilling land of auld extent of Byrehill.’

This was but the first of a long series of similar engagements which Lord Boyd formed down to his death in 1589.[78] For a forty-shilling land, the Laird of Fergushill becomes bound, October 26, 1572, in the same way as William Fairly, and to take part with the said lord and his heirs, in all their actions, quarrels, questions, and debates. The Laird of Lochrig, the Laird of Rowallan, Andrew Macfarlane of Arroquhar, and the Laird of Camstroddan, all in succession put themselves in this relation to his lordship. In March 1575, the Laird of Blair engaged with his friends, tenants, and servants, to ‘ride, gang, and assist with the said lord, in all kind of leeful conventions.’ It was with such satellites that a great man of that age, if to be tried on any criminal charge, appeared at the place of law, professedly that he might be sure of fair-play, but in reality with the effect of overbearing justice. It was with such assistants that two or three lords were sometimes enabled to take possession of the government, and for a time rule all at their pleasure. Amongst the most curious things in the early history of the reformed religion, are the occasions when it was manifestly indebted for its progress to associations of this irregular kind.

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[Sidenote: DEC. 24.]

About this time, there was apprehended ‘one that keepit ane hostelry at Brechin, who before, at divers times, had murdered sundry that came to lodge with him, the wife being also as busy as the man with a mell [mallet], to fell their guests sleeping in their beds.’--_Ban._

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[Sidenote: 1571-2.

JAN.

FEB. 8.]

Among numberless skirmishes, surprises, and barbarous ravagings which marked the struggle between the friends of the queen and those of the infant king, was an affair of several parts or acts in this and the ensuing month. Lord Maxwell being contracted in marriage to a sister of the Earl of Angus, the lady’s relation, the Earl of Morton, proposed to give a banquet on the occasion at Dalkeith Castle. The wine required at the feast was to be brought in carts from Leith, together with some venison and a quantity of silver plate. Kirkaldy and his friends in the castle hearing of this, sent out a party of horse, which surprised Morton’s servants, and took as spoil the materials of the proposed banquet. Morton who, it was said, smarted more from the loss of the plate than the killing of a few of his servants in the struggle, immediately sent a party to requite Kirkaldy’s attack by laying waste his estate in Fife. Kirkaldy, again, repaid these attentions by sending a party a few nights after to set fire to the town of Dalkeith. On this occasion, he killed ten of Morton’s people, and took nine prisoners. ‘In their return [they] perceived fifty-sax horses from Dalkeith to Leith, passing laded with ale; they brake the barrels, and made prey of the horses, and brought into Edinburgh many kye and oxen forth of that lordship for supply of their scant and hunger.’--_H. K. J._ ‘These three scuffles went all under one name, and were ever after called _Lord Maxwell’s Handfasting_.’[79]

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[Sidenote: 1572.

MAR.]

The condition of the ordinary places of worship in this time of civil war is sketched in the _Lamentation of Lady Scotland_, printed by Lekprevik in 1572.

‘The rooms appointit people to consider, To hear God’s word, where they suld pray together, Are now convertit in sheep-cots and faulds, Or else are fallen, because nane them uphalds. The parish kirks, I ween, they sae misguide, That nane for wind and rain therein may bide: Therefore nae pleasure tak they of the temple, Nor yet to come where nocht is to contemple, But craws and dows, cryand and makand beir, That nane throuchly the minister may hear. But feathers, filth, and dung does lie abroad, Where folk should sit to hear the word of God; Whilk is occasion to the adversaries, To mock and scorn sic things before your eyes. Thus to disdain the house of orison, Does mak folk cauld to their devotion; And als they do disdain to hear God’s word, Thinking the same to be ane jesting bourd; They go to labour, drinking, or to play, And not to you,[80] upon the Sabbath day.’

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[Sidenote: 1572.]

The civil war told nowhere with more severity than on Edinburgh, which was the scene of the principal transactions. The bringing of victuals or coal to the city was forbidden by the beleaguering troops under pain of death, and the penalty was exacted in many instances. The consequence was ‘great penury and scant of vivres, sae that all was at ane exceeding dearth.’--_D. O._ In May, oatmeal was nine shillings of the native money per peck; eleven ounces of wheaten bread cost 8d., ‘and baps of nine [ounces] for 12d.’ It was found necessary to demolish some houses for the sake of the wood, to be used as fuel. At the commencement of a truce on the 22d of July, the meal had risen to twelve shillings, the boll of wheat to ten pounds, and a carcass of beef to sixteen pounds. On that day, ‘after noon, the victuals whilk was keepit to ane dearth was brought to Leith and sauld, the meal for five shillings the peck, ... and [sae] very mickle bread baken, that it that was sauld for sixteen pennies was sauld for six pennies. Thanks to God.’ During the scarcity, ale not being to be had, a drink of vinegar and water was substituted.--_D. O._ ‘Nochttheless,’ if we are to believe the same chronicle, ‘the remainers therein [that is, in Edinburgh] abade patiently and were of good comfort, and usit all pleasures whilk were wont to be usit in the month of May in auld times, viz., Robin Hood and Little John.’

[Sidenote: APR. 16.]

From the day here noted to the 8th of June, the war between the queen’s party in Edinburgh and the king’s beyond the city was conducted on the principle of _No quarter_. All who were taken on either side were presently put to death. The common belief was, that this frightful system originated with Morton, who conceived that by such severity the war would sooner cease. In the end, both parties, ‘wearied of execution daily made, were content to cease from such rigour, and use fair wars, as in former times.’--_Spot._

[Sidenote: APR. 21.]

‘... there was ane minister [named Robert Waugh] hangit in Leith (and borne to the gibbet, because he was birsit[81] with the boots[82]). The principal cause was that he said to the Earl of Morton, that he defended ane unjust cause, and that he wald repent when nae time was to repent. And when he was required by whom he was commanded to say the same, he answered and said: “By the haly spreit.”‘--_D. O._

In the same year, Mr Andrew Douglas, minister of Dunglass, was first tortured, and then hanged, for publicly rebuking Morton on account of his living with the widow of Captain Cullen.

[Sidenote: JULY 19.

1572.]

Another characteristic incident of the time, but of a somewhat mysterious character, occurred in a southern burgh. James Tweedie, burgess of Peebles, John Wightman, Martin Hay, and John Bower there, and Thomas Johnston, son to Thomas Johnston of Craigieburn, were tried for being concerned in ‘the cruel slaughter of the umwhile John Dickison of Winkston; committit within the town of Peebles on the 1st of Julii instant.’ They were acquitted. The fact is only worth mentioning here, to afford an opportunity of illustrating the long perseverance of tradition in certain favouring circumstances. In his youth, which was passed in the town referred to, the author distinctly remembers hearing an aged person speak of how Provost Dickison was long ago ‘stickit’ at the back of the Dean’s Well in the High Street. The event was then 240 years past.

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[Sidenote: OCT. 29.]

‘The Earl of Mar, Regent, ended his life, about three hours in the morning. It was constantly affirmed, that about the time of his death, the trough of the water of Montrose, where it runneth through his lands, was dry, the water running nevertheless above [higher up]. At the same time, a violent wind drave a great number of sheep from the links of Montrose into the sea.’--_Cal._

Some events of the kind did certainly occur about the time of the Regent’s death; but, contrary to all rule in such matters, they came after that event, if we are to believe another historian, who places them under November, and describes them as follows:

‘In this mean time was ane great ferly in Montrose. By the space of six hours, the water thereof was dry in the sea, and during the whilk space the people past within the said sea, and got sundry fishes.... After the whilk space, the people on the sands perceiving the water as ane popill pitt, frae the whilk they fled to land, and syne it was sea again suddenly, and never nane perishit hereinto. Also there was ane hill callit ... , whilk burnt by the said space; men riding by the way, the manes and coils of their horses burnt, the wands of their hands burnt; poor men passing on the way, the staves in their hands burnt, and when they wald dight [wipe] off the fire thereof, it wald entres again.’--_D. O._

REGENCY OF MORTON: 1572-1578.

The Earl of Morton had no sooner assumed the reins of government, than his vigorous talents began to be felt. The chief strength of Mary’s friends was in Edinburgh Castle, held for her by Kirkaldy of Grange. All the means at the Regent’s command proving insufficient to reduce this fortress, he obtained from England an army of 1500 men, commanded by Sir William Drury, and provided with artillery. The castle stood a siege of three weeks, and was then obliged to yield (May 29, 1573). With mean vindictiveness, Morton sent the gallant Kirkaldy to the gallows. Maitland of Lethington might have shared the same fate, if it had not been anticipated either by a natural death or suicide. The other chiefs of the queen’s party were spared. After this event, the friends of Mary could no longer make an appearance anywhere in her favour. The new government remained triumphant, and peace was restored to a bleeding and exhausted country.

Morton was, on the whole, a serviceable, though not a just or clement ruler. It was his policy, arising from his love of money, to punish his adversaries rather by fines than bloodshed. All the persons of note who had befriended the queen, he caused to give security for their future behaviour. The smallest offence forfeited the pledge, and the cautioners were then mulcted without mercy. Under this ruling passion, he tampered with the coin, sold justice, and cheated the church of its revenues. It was supposed that he had concealed large treasures in his castle of Dalkeith; but we have no certain account of their ever being found, and probably the popular notions on the subject were exaggerated.

Under Morton, a slight move was made towards the establishment of a kind of episcopacy in the church, though the persons he appointed to the sees were mere creatures who consented to be receivers of the revenues on his account. The general feeling of the people continued to be decidedly in favour of the simple presbyterian polity, and the Regent’s interference with the purity of that system was one cause of his loss of popularity, and of his subsequent ruin. While the recognised champion of the Protestant interest in Scotland, and, as such, the _protégé_ of Elizabeth, he disliked the presbyterian clergy. He not only refused to countenance by his presence any of their assemblies, but ‘threatened some of the most zealous with hanging, alleging that otherwise there could be no peace or order in the country.’[83] The noted efforts of King James to bring the church into a prelatic conformity with England, had in reality an exemplar in the doings of the Regent Morton.