1645.
As specimens of religious offences—a gentleman was prosecuted for bringing home a millstone on a Sunday; another, for gathering gooseberries in time of sermon. It was found regarding Patrick Wilson, that he had sat up with a company drinking till after cockcrow, consuming in all eleven pints—that is, about two dozen quart bottles—of ale; he had struck a man, and railed in his drinkat several gentlemen of the parish. ‘The brethren ordained Patrick to stand in sackcloth two Sabbaths, and pay four merks penalty.’
The Lady Frendraught,105who now lived at Kinnairdie, in the parish of Aberchirder, is a conspicuous subject of the discipline of the Strathbogie presbytery, on account of her being a papist. To leave this inoffensive lady in the quiet exercise of her own religious forms was not within the capabilities of the Christian charity of that day. It is no over-statement of the case that this ecclesiastical body set themselves to simply harass her out of her peculiar convictions—or rather professions; for they seem to have been content when they could effect an external conformity, and the horrible guilt of forcing a fellow-creature into a mere hypocrisy, seems never to have been present to their minds.
1645.
So early as 1636, the synod had sent one of their number to deal with her, and induce her to go to church; for a time she conformed. Two years after, a similar visitation of the lady had become necessary; so she and her daughter Elizabeth were summoned for ‘not hearing of the word, and not communicating.’ What came of this does not appear; but in 1643, a deputation of ministers was sent to deal with her according to the ordinance of the General Assembly, and to report her answer. It was soon after reported that ‘she promised to hear the word, and desired a time for further resolution.’ It was then agreed to give her some short space to decide on becoming ‘a daily hearer,’ but ‘if she refused, the process to go on against her.’ The poor lady once more promised ‘to hear the word, as she had done before,’ and it was resolved to ask the advice of the General Assembly on the point. Years passed on, without bringing her further than to agree to go to the church which her husband frequented—which was out of the bounds of this presbytery. What immediately happened after this does not appear; but, on the presbytery resolving (January 1647) again to proceed against her ladyship, it was reported that she was out of the country. A few months later, the commissioners of the General Assembly ‘granted her liberty to be ane ordinar hearer of the word at Forgue for a time.’ This, however, did not stop the process. The lady was hunted into another presbytery, where she seems to have kept them at bay for a little while. In June 1648, Mr John Reidford reported that he had spoken her, but ‘found no effect of his travels;’ herequired further time. Soon after, the same minister reported that on a second interview, she expressed herself as ‘willing to hear the word in any kirk save Aberchirder and such as are within the presbytery of Strathbogie.’ This was not to be endured. She was immediately summoned as a contumacious person. On the day of call, she ‘compeared not;’ and Mr John Reidford, her parish minister, proceeded to give from his pulpit, on successive Sundays, a series of three admonitions addressed to her; then, in like manner, a series of three prayers. As her ladyship continued to disregard all proceedings in her case, the presbytery prepared itself to pass the awful doom of excommunication, when, behold! another act of concession on her part stays all: she agrees to be present at family worship in her own house—her husband was all this time a leading Covenanter—and promised also to hear sermon; whereupon the sentence was suspended for a time. In August 1649, the minister Reidford reported that she had ‘keepit sermon at Innerkeithing the last Lord’s day, and daily keepit family worship.’ This was not enough. They instruct Reidford ‘to shew her that, if she did not conform in all points, the sentence of excommunication would be pronounced before the next assembly.’ Reidford soon after pleaded for her, that she had heard three sermons; but the brethren ‘thought not that kind of hearing satisfactory.’ They ordained him to put her to a decided test at once, by offering her the Covenant: failing her subscribing that, Reidford was to pronounce sentence.
1645.
The lady, with the ingenuity of her sex, contrived once more to put them off—she told Reidford she would take a thought about it. Meanwhile, she amused them with hopes by continuing to attend church; telling them ‘she was not fully satisfied for subscribing the Covenant.’ But even female wit could not hold out for ever against such a siege. In June 1650, after an incessant harassment of fourteen years, she gave them ‘satisfaction’ by subscribing the Covenant, and thus abjuring in words the faith she still held in her heart. Little more than two years had elapsed, when the presbytery learned that she had ‘relapsed to popery,’ and appointed commissioners to confer with her on the subject. It was found she was now obstinate in her original belief, ‘professing, moreover, that she repented of her former repentance more than of any sin that ever she committed, and thought that she had reason to repent all her lifetime for subscribing the National Covenant and Solemn League and Covenant.’ Then took place a renewal of the same tediousdealings with the lady, ending at last in 1654, in a peremptory order for her excommunication. By that time, however, excommunication had lost much of its terrors, as Cromwell, then master of Scotland, would not allow the sentence to have any consequences in respect of civil rights.
Many traits of barbarous manners occur in the record, shewing that the clergy had somewhat rough materials to deal with, in their efforts to build up a perfect system. Many offences of a violent, and even sanguinary character, are noticed. There were also several persons so far left to a wicked nature as to hold the dicta of the reverend presbytery itself in contempt. For instance, John Tulloch, on being summoned regarding an irregularity with Elspeth Gordon, answered, ‘the devil a care cared he for their excommunication; excommunicate him the morn [to-morrow] if they pleased.’ Three witnesses attested regarding James Middleton, that, on his being rebuked by the minister, they heard him say that ‘he cared not for him, nor any minister in Scotland;’ and when the minister threatened to put him in thejougs, they heard him say that ‘neither he nor the best minister within seven miles durst do so much.’ One William Gordon, in Dumbennan parish, declined (June 1652) the authority of the presbytery, in consideration of the many sad experiences he had had of the usurpation of civil power by the Presbyterian government, and its ‘tyrannous persecuting of men’s consciences who, out of tender scruples, did differ from their opinions in matters indifferent and circumstantial; as also, finding that the greatest part of their prayer and preaching doth more tender the advancement of their private interest and faction than the propagation of the gospel; and seeing their frequent railing against the authority and civil power which God hath set over us, whereby the people’s minds are kept unsettled and averse from the cordial union of both nations, which, by God’s great mercy, we are now like to enjoy.’ He declared himself separate from them, and that he would ‘no more esteem of their excommunication than they did formerly of the pope.’ On sentence of excommunication being passed on this recusant, ‘he lookit very frowardly, and uttered himself most proudly and maliciously.’
1645.
The opinion of the royalist party regarding the general condition of the nation at the time when the Covenanting spirit was at its height is sketched by one of their number. ‘Seven years,’ says he, ‘had this terrible distemper of the unparalleled Covenant ruled, or rather overruled this kingdom.... It was now grownto ane height, and had cast this nation in a new mould, for the laws were rolled up in oblivion, the College of Justice was discharged from sitting, and over all the land the ordinary seats of justice were no more frequented, only the private committees in every shire and county ordained what they list, and must not be controlled, under pain of a fearful plunder. Nor was it right or wrong that must be decided by these committees, but grievous exactions and heavy subsidies, with new stents, almost every quarter, of horse and foot levies.... The poor was not pitied nor the rich respected; the good man was not remembered nor the virtuous man rewarded: only the soldier was in esteem and enriched, who could murder, kill, and oppress.’—Pa. Gordon.
At the same time, the general expressions of the church of the day involve heavy charges against the clergy themselves, partly founded perhaps on actual offences in their case, and partly the result merely of the disposition to think every grace of poor human nature insufficient, in comparison with the ideal religious standard set up. Thus we find the Commissioners of the General Assembly denouncing ‘the enormities and corruptions observed to be in the ministry,’ and making out a list which is difficult to reconcile with our ideas of the boasted golden age of the Scottish Presbyterian polity. There is ‘much fruitless conversing in company,’ ‘great worldliness,’ ‘slighting of God’s worship in families,’ ‘want of gravity in carriage and apparel,’ ‘tippling and bearing company in untimeous drinking in taverns,’ ‘discountenancing of the godly,’ even a want of decent observance of the Sabbath. ‘There are also to be found amongst us [some] who use small and minced oathes.’106
Feb. 13.
Notwithstanding the high pressure exercised by the kirk at this time in matters of discipline, we have ample evidence that there were many sad and pestilent escapes of human nature, occasioning infinite distress to sessions, presbyteries, and assemblies. There was one old popular institution, called the Penny Bridal, which has been under notice before, as producing a suspicious amount of happiness among the commonalty. The General Assembly now saw proper to launch a solemn act against these merry assemblies, ordaining the presbyteries to put them under the severest restrictions.107
1645.
Two years after, February 7, 1647, the presbyteries of Haddington and Dunbar are found taking measures for putting this act in force; and from their proceedings, we incidentally learn how far the late religious fervours were from decidedly reforming or purifying manners. Multitudes exceeding twenty assembled on these occasions. The paying of extravagant sums—sums exceeding 12s.for a man and 8s.for a woman (that is,one shillingandeightpencerespectively)—caused great immoralities—‘piping and dancing before and after dinner or supper,’ drinking after dinner, and so forth. ‘Moreover, loose speeches, singing of licentious songs, and profane minstrelling, in time of dinner or supper, tends to great deboshry.’ ‘Through all which causes, penny bridals, in our judgment, become seminaries of all profanation.’ They therefore ordained that not above twenty persons should ever gather on such occasions; that the men should never give above a shilling, and the women eightpence; and that all piping, dancing, singing, and loose speeches, should cease. To make sure that these rules should be observed, it was further ordained that a pair about to marry and to hold a penny bridal, should not have the ceremony performed till they had lodged twenty pounds or other guarantee, to be forfeited in the event of disobedience.108
Feb. 27.
The arrangements for the maintenance of a militia in Scotland were fixed by the Estates. Each county and burgh was ordered to raise and maintain a certain number of foot-soldiers (exclusive of horse), according to their respective amounts of population, at £9 Scots per month for each man. The lists are curious, as informing us of the assumed comparative population of the several counties and burghs in that age.
1645.
Counties.—Aberdeen, 727; Ayr, 674; Argyle, 323; Banff, 159; Berwick, 395; Bute, 51; Caithness, 105; Clackmannan, 58; Cromarty, 11; Dumbarton, 137; Dumfries, 494; Edinburgh, 463; Elgin, 210; Fyfe, 738; Forfar, 556; Haddington, 376; Inverness, 464; Kincardine, 174; Kinross, 16; Lanark, 598; Linlithgow, 194; Nairn, 35; Peebles, 182; Perth, 889; Renfrew, 245; Roxburgh, 642; Selkirk, 142; Stirling, 282; Sutherland, 47; Wigton and Kirkcudbright, 486.Burghs.—Aberdeen, 160; Aberbrothock, 10; Ayr, 41; Annan, 3; Anstruther Easter, 31; Anstruther Wester, 6; Banff, 8; Brechin, 20; Burntisland, 16; Crail, 24; Cupar, 24; Culross, 12; Cullen, 4; Dumfries, 44;Dunbar, 12; Dumbarton, 12; Dunfermline, 12; Dundee, 186; Dysart, 30; Edinburgh, 574; Elgin, 20; Forfar, 6; Forres, 6; Galloway, 1; Glasgow, 110; Haddington, 36; Jedburgh, 18; Inverkeithing, 10; Inverness, 40; Irvine, 23; Kilrenny, 3; Kinghorn, 14; Kirkcaldy, 46; Kirkcudbright, 20; Lanark, 16; Lauder, 5; Linlithgow, 30; Lochmaben, 3; Montrose, 53; Nairn, 4; North Berwick, 4; Peebles, 10; Perth, 110; Pittenweem, 15; Queensferry, 7; Renfrew, 10; Rothesay, 5; Rutherglen, 5; Sanquhar, 3; St Andrews, 60; Selkirk, 10; Stirling, 36; Tain, 12; Wigton, 15; Whithorn, 5.
The total number is, for counties, 9873; for burghs, 1879—total, 11,772. If we assume that the aim was to call out one soldier for every sixty souls, the entire population would be 706,320. Edinburgh would have 34,440 inhabitants; Glasgow and Perth, each 6600; Stirling and Haddington, each 2160; Ayr, 2460; Dundee, 11,160; Inverness, 2400; St Andrews, 3600; Dumfries, 2640; Montrose, 3180; &c.
Apr. 1.
‘This day, Kelso, with the haill houses, corns, barns, barn-yards, burnt by fire, caused by a clenging of ane of the houses thereof whilk was infected with the plague.’—Hope’s Diary.
The pest appears by this time to have reached Edinburgh. The Town Council agreed (April 10) with Joannes Paulitius, M.D., that he should visit the infected at a salary of eighty pounds Scots per month. A great number of people affected by the malady were quartered in huts in the King’s Park; others were kept at home; and for the relief of these, the aid of the charitable was invoked from the pulpits. The session of the Holyroodhouse or Canongate parish ordained (June 27) that ‘to avoid contention in this fearful time,’ those who should die in the Park ‘shall be buried therein, and not within the church-yard, except they mortified (being able to do so) somewhatad pios usus, for the relief of the other poor, being in extreme indigence.’
The Estates, then sitting in Edinburgh, were pleased (August 2) to order five hundred bolls of meal to be given from the public magazine ‘for relief of the poor of Leith, which are sorely visited with the pestilence.’—Bal.
1645.
Under the pressing exigencies caused by the epidemic, the Town Council of Edinburgh came to the resolution (August 13) of liberating those confined for debt in the Tolbooth, obtaining first the consent of creditors. They retained, however, several political prisoners, particularly the Earl of Crawford and Lord Ogilvie, whohad signalised themselves by their fidelity to the king. A few weeks after, Montrose having at Kilsyth overthrown the last militia army that had been mustered against him, came to Bothwell, and thence despatched a letter to the Edinburgh magistrates, demanding the liberation of these captives, under threats of fire and sword; and they then completed their jail delivery. The marquis was solely prevented by the plague from advancing and taking possession of the city.
Among the regulations established during the time of this pestilence was one for preventing people from travelling into any district suspected of being under the influence of the disease. We find it proclaimed, for example, in the parish kirk of Humbie, August 10, ‘that none presume, either masters or servants, men or women, to go out of the bounds that they dwell, upon whatsomever errand or business, to any suspected place, without special leave of the masters of the ground.’ If any transgressed this order, ‘they sall not be received back to their own houses or dwellings, but their houses sall be locked and closed up.’ No stranger could be received into a house without ‘liberty from the masters of the ground and the kirk-session conjointly.’109
On this occurrence of the plague, a Scotch gentleman is found copying and sending to a friend the following specific for the disease, an invention of Dr Burgess:
‘Tak three mutchkins of Malvoysie, and ane handfull of red sage, and a handfull of rue, and boil them till a mutchkin be wasted. Then strain it, and set it over the fire again; then put thereinto ane pennyworth of long pepper, half ane of ginger, and ane quarter of ane unce of nutmegs, all beaten together; then let it boil a little, and put thereto five pennyworth of Mithridate and two of treacle, and a quarter of a mutchkin of the best Angelic water.
‘Keep this all your life, above all bodily treasures.Tak it always warm, both morning and evening, ane half spoonfull if ye be in health, and one or two if ye be infected; and sweat thereupon.
‘In all your plague-time, under God, trust to this; for there was never man, woman, nor child, that this deceived.
‘This is not only for the common plague which is called the Sickness, but also for the small-pox, missles, surfeat, and divers other diseases.’110
1645.
It is understood that those who died by the plague were usually buried in places apart from churchyards, from an apprehension that the infection might burst out and spread, if the graves should be reopened. We find that the Estates ordained (August 4), ‘since that it pleased God to call the Laird of Craigies of the pest, who was lodged in the sheriff-clerk’s house, that these that are within the house shall inter him in a remote place of the ordinary burial-place of the town.’—Bal.In the parish of Cramond, there are four graves of victims of the plague, in solitary situations; two of them at a place called the Whinny Haugh, in King’s Cramond Park, marked with small head-stones, on which are these inscriptions: ‘Here lies Janet Dalmahoy, who deceased the 20th of October 1647,’ and ‘Here lies John D——, who died the 20th of November 1647.’111
On this occasion, the pest lingered in the country for a considerable time. It was in full force in Glasgow towards the close of 1646. The infected were either shut up in their houses or sent out to a muir at some distance from the town. ‘December 12, compeared the haill tacksmen of the mill, ladles, tron, and brig,’ complaining to the Council that, ‘in respect of the sickness and visitation, they could get naething of their duties.’ Graves of persons who were suspected of having died of pest were ordered to be marked. The disease does not appear to have entirely ceased in Glasgow till October 1647.—M. of G.
1645.
An anecdote illustrating the terrors inspired in private circles by the plague, is related with regard to this occurrence of the disease, in the memoir of the Stewarts of Coltness by Sir Archibald Stewart Denham of Westshield, a gentleman born in 1683. Speaking of Sir Thomas Stewart, he says: ‘A remarkable incident happened him in his youth, when the pestilence broke out in Edinburgh in 1645. He with a son of Westshield, a merchant apprentice, had gone to a public-house, and received change of some money, and next day that house was shut up, as infected with the plague. This gave a strong alarm at home. James Denham was sent for, and both were strictly examined as to every circumstance. Thomas had received the money in change, and so frightened were all, that none would touch the pocket in which the money was, but at a distance; and after the pocket was cut out, it was with tongs cast in a fire, and both lads were shut up in a bed-chamber, sequestrate from all company, and had victuals at proper timeshanded into them. While they thus stood their quarantine, by strength of imagination or power of fancy, some fiery spots broke out on their arms and thighs, and they imagined no less than unavoidable death. They mutually lamented; Thomas had more courage and Christian resignation than his companion. “James,” said he, “let us trust in God and in the family prayers, for Jesus’ sake, who, as he cures the plague of the heart, can, if we are infected, cure the most noisome disease of the body.” They both went to their knees, and joined in most solemn prayer, had much spiritual comfort, and in a fortnight were set at liberty, and the family retired to the country.’112
As far as appears, the plague did not visit Scotland after this time—a circumstance the more remarkable, as it was so deadly in London in 1665, and even reappeared there in the ensuing year. In connection with the plague, the tale of Bessie Bell and Mary Gray has obtained a large currency in Scotland. According to a report on the subject, communicated to the Antiquarian Society in 1781 by Major Barry of Lednoch,113the incident took place in the year 1666; but this is probably a mistake, arising from an assumption that the last great pestilence of London was general over the country (1665 being further mistaken for 1666). Major Barry says:
‘When I first came to Lednoch, I was shewn (in a part of my ground called the Dronoch Haugh) a heap of stones almost covered with briers, thorns, and fern, which they assured me was the burial-place of Bessie Bell and Mary Gray.
1645.
‘The tradition of the country relating to these ladies is, that Mary’s father was Laird of Lednoch, and Bessie Bell’s of Kinvaid, a place in this neighbourhood, and an intimate friendship subsisted between them: that, while Miss Bell was on a visit to Miss Gray, the plague broke out in the year 1666; in order to avoid which, they built themselves a bower about three-quarters of a mile west from Lednoch House, in a very retired and romantic place called Burn Braes, on the side of the Beanchie Burn. Here they lived for some time; but the plague raging with great fury, they caught the infection (it is said) from a young gentleman who was in love with them both. He used to bring them their provision. They died in this bower, and were buried in the Dronoch Haugh, at the foot of a brae of the same name, and near to the bank of the river Almond. The burial-place liesabout half a mile west from the present house of Lednoch [now called Lyndoch].’114
The major adds: ‘I have removed all the rubbish from this little spot of classic ground, enclosed it with a wall, planted it round with flowering shrubs, made up the grave double, and fixed a stone in the wall, on which are engraved the names of Bessie Bell and Mary Gray.’
It will be found that while the plague raged in London in 1665, Scotland was free of it; neither is there any notice of the malady occurring in 1666, either in Lamont’s or Nicol’s Diary, where it could not have failed to be mentioned if it had occurred. It therefore seems necessary to place the story of Bessie Bell and Mary Gray under 1645.115
The sad fate of the two girls became the subject of a ballad, which commenced thus:
‘Bessie Bell and Mary Gray,They were twa bonnie lasses,They biggit a bower on yon burn brae,And theekit it ower wi’ rashes.’
‘Bessie Bell and Mary Gray,They were twa bonnie lasses,They biggit a bower on yon burn brae,And theekit it ower wi’ rashes.’
‘Bessie Bell and Mary Gray,They were twa bonnie lasses,They biggit a bower on yon burn brae,And theekit it ower wi’ rashes.’
‘Bessie Bell and Mary Gray,
They were twa bonnie lasses,
They biggit a bower on yon burn brae,
And theekit it ower wi’ rashes.’
The rest has been lost, except the concluding stanza:
‘They wadna lie in Methven kirk-yard,Amang their gentle kin;But they wad lie in Dronoch Haugh,To beek fornent the sin.’116
‘They wadna lie in Methven kirk-yard,Amang their gentle kin;But they wad lie in Dronoch Haugh,To beek fornent the sin.’116
‘They wadna lie in Methven kirk-yard,Amang their gentle kin;But they wad lie in Dronoch Haugh,To beek fornent the sin.’116
‘They wadna lie in Methven kirk-yard,
Amang their gentle kin;
But they wad lie in Dronoch Haugh,
To beek fornent the sin.’116
1646.Oct.
A set of ‘malignants’ intruded themselves into the magistracy of Glasgow, ‘and at the very same time did the pestilence arrive in the town.’ Spreull, the town-clerk, with Mr George Porterfield and Mr John Graham, had to go to Edinburgh to complain of this intrusion before the Estates. During the winter, while they were absent, the plague was so severe, that the malignants would fain have been quit of the magistracy. ‘In February 1648,’ says Spreull, ‘having carried the point at the parliament, we came home and were reponed; whereupon, though there were several hundreds of families shut up for the sickness, yet for twenty days after, there died not so much as one person thereof, and frae thenceforth it did abate till it evanished.’118
1647.Sep. 17.
A letter of this date, from James Morphie, tailor in Edinburgh, to the Earl of Airly, has been preserved, and is in its way a curious memorial of the past. When found a few years ago in Cortachie Castle, it contained five pieces of cloth, being, we may presume, those alluded to by the writer, and all as fresh as on the day they were cut.
1647.
‘Right Honourable Lord—I received your lordship’s letter, and have tried for the nearest swatches of cloths I could find, conform to the orders received, and has enclosed them in this letter, with the prices written by them. As for the Kentish cloths your lordship desired, there is few or none to be found; but we expect some to be home shortly. There is only ane swatch of Kentish cloth here, with the price thereof. Likewise receive the piece thatwas taken out of the tail of your lordship’s doublet. Any of thir clothes your lordship pleases, send for them by the first occasion, or [ere] they be gone. Not troubling your lordship ony forder, but rests your lordship’s humble and obedient servant,James Morphie. From Edinburgh, the 17 day of September 1647. [Addressed] For the Right Honourable the Earl of Airly.’
The letter and pieces of cloth were placed in the Arbroath Museum.119
1647.
‘Two years before this, one Captain George Scott came to Inverness, and built a ship of a prodigious bigness for bulk and burden—never such a one seen in our north seas. The carpenters he brought with him to the north, and my Lord Lovat gave him wood—fir and oak—in Dalcattack Woods. I myself was aboard of her in the Road of Kessock, April 1645, and many more, to whom it was a wonder. She set sail the day before the battle of Auldearn; and among other passengers that went in her south were—Colonel Fraser, and his lady, Christina Baillie; Hugh Fraser, younger of Clanvacky, and Andrew Fraser in Leys; also John and William Fraser in Leys. This ship rode at anchor in the river mouth of Nairn, when the battle of Auldearn was fought in view. Captain Scott enlarged the ship afterwards, as a frigate, for war, and sailed with her to the Straits, his brother William with him. William was made a colonel, at Venice, and his martial achievements in defence of that state against the Turks may very well admit him to be ranked amongst our worthies. He became vice-admiral to the Venetian fleet, and the bane and terror of Mussulman navigators. Whether they had gallies, galloons, or galliasses, or great war-ships, it was all one to him. He set upon all alike, saying, the more they were the more he would kill, and the stronger the rencounter should be, the greater should be his honour, and the richer his prize. He oftentimes so scourged the Archipelago of the Mussulmans, that the Ottoman power, and the very gates of Constantinople, would quake at the report of his victories; and he did so ferret them out of all the creeks of the Adriatic Gulf, and so sharply put them to it, that they hardly knew in what part of the Mediterranean they should best shelter themselves from the fury of his blows. He died in his bed of a fever, in the Isle of Candy, in 1652. He was truly the glory of his nation and country, and was honoured, after his death, witha statue of marble, which I saw, near the Rialto of Venice, April 1659.’—Fraser of Wardlaw’s MS., 1666.
1648.June.
Amongst those who looked ill upon the expedition which the Duke of Hamilton was preparing for the relief of the king in England, was his Grace’s own parish minister at Hamilton, Mr James Naismith. Wodrow records, as a traditionary story, that, on the Sunday before the Duke went to England, Mr Naismith preached before his Grace on the text: ‘Weep ye not for the dead, neither bemoan him: but weep sore for him that goeth away: for he shall return no more, nor see his native country,’Jer.xxii. 10. The preacher said that God would regard neither dukes nor generals, and as sure as the Bible was the word of God, any who went on in a course of opposition to him, should not return in peace. ‘On the Monday after, when the duke was leaving Hamilton, there was a crowd of women looking on. Mr Naismith said: “Hold him! hold him! for you will never see his face any more.” The Duke at his death in England,120said he would give never so much to see his own faithful minister, Mr Naismith.’—Wod. An.
July 28.
The Shorter Catechism recently framed by the Westminster Assembly of Divines, for the instruction ‘of such as are of weaker capacity,’ and which has since been in constant and universal use in Scotland, was this day sanctioned by the General Assembly, sitting in Edinburgh.
Oct. 4.
1648.
Oliver Cromwell paid his first visit to Edinburgh. He came hot from the destruction of the Duke of Hamilton’s semi-royalist Scotch army at Preston, designing to confer with the heads of the ultra-presbyterian party for the extinction of that kind of opposition in the northern part of the island. The Earl of Kirkcudbright and Major-general Holburn conducted him into the city, where he was lodged very handsomely in the Earl of Moray’s house in the Canongate; a strong guardof his own troopswas mounted at the gate. ‘The Earl of Moray’s house,’ says Thomas Carlyle, ‘still stands in the Canongate, well known to the inhabitants there—a solid spacious mansion, which, when all bright and new two hundred years ago, must have been a very adequate lodging.’ ‘As soon as he came there, the Chancellor [Loudon], the Marquisof Argyle, the Earl of Cassillis, the Lord Burleigh, the Provost of Edinburgh,121with many other lords and gentlemen, went to pay their respects to him; and the next day, the Earl of Cassillis and Sir Archibald Johnston of Warriston went to visit him on the part of the Committee of Estates, to know what he had to communicate to them. Cromwell presented them a writing, whereby he demanded that, in order to keep Hamilton’s party from being able to rise up again in Scotland, where they might embroil the two kingdoms, they would be pleased to order that none of those who had carried arms under his command, or who had consented to the invasion of England, should have any public employment in Scotland. The committee granted him that article.’ Such was the ostensible, and, as far as appears on any good evidence, the real business between Cromwell and the committee men. Bishop Guthry adds the vulgar royalist rumour: ‘While Cromwell remained in the Canongate, those that haunted him most were, besides the Marquis of Argyle, Loudon the chancellor, the Earl of Lothian, the Lords Arbuthnot, Elcho, and Burleigh; and of ministers, Mr David Dickson, Mr Robert Blair, and Mr James Guthrie. What passed among them came not to be known infallibly; but it was talked very loud, that he did communicate to them his design in reference to the king, and had their assent thereto.’
Cromwell was only three days in Edinburgh on this occasion. On Saturday, all business being adjusted, ‘“when we were about to come away, several coaches were sent to bring up the lieutenant-general, the Earl of Leven [governor of the Castle and Scotch commander-in-chief], with Sir Arthur Haselrig, and the rest of the officers, to Edinburgh Castle; where was provided a very sumptuous banquet [old Leven doing the honours], my Lord Marquis of Argyle and divers other lords being present to grace the entertainment. At our departure, many pieces of ordnance and a volley of small shot was given us from the Castle; and some lords convoying us out of the city, we were parted.” The lord provost had defrayed us all the while in the handsomest manner.’—Carlyle.
1648.
To the fall of this year is to be traced the origin of the termWhig, as applicable to a well-known party in the state. Burnet, who was likely to know the facts well, makes the following statement: ‘The south-west counties of Scotland have seldom corn enough to serve them round the year; and the northern parts producing more than they need, those in the west come in the summer to buy at Leith the stores that come from the north. From a word Whiggan, used in driving their horses, all that drove were called theWhiggamores, and, shorter, theWhigs.... After the news came down of Duke Hamilton’s defeat, the ministers animated their people to rise and march to Edinburgh; and they came up marching on the head of their parishes, with an unheard-of fury, praying and preaching all the way as they came. The Marquis of Argyle and his party came and headed them, they being about 6000. This was called the Whiggamores’ Inroad [strictly theWhigs’ Raid]; and ever after that, all that opposed the court came in contempt to be called Whigs.’
We find John Nicoll, the diarist, in 1666, speaking of the west-country Presbyterians as ‘commonly called the Whigs,’ implying that the term was new. The sliding of the appellation from these obscure people to the party of the opposition in London a few years later, is indicated by Daniel Defoe as occurring immediately after the affair of Bothwell Bridge in 1679. The Duke of Monmouth then returning from his command in Scotland, instead of thanks for his good service, found himself under blame for using the insurgents too mercifully. ‘And Lauderdale told Charles, with an oath, that the Duke had been so civil to the Whigs, because he was himself a Whig in his heart. This made it a court-word; and in a little while, all the friends and followers of the Duke began to be calledWhigs.’122
1648.
The time of theWhigs’ Raid, and from that to the execution of Montrose (May 1650), may be considered as that of an entire supremacy of the religious or rather ecclesiastical system for which the majority of the nation had been struggling for several years. The view of it taken by the royalists is sketched in strong terms by the writers on their side. ‘The kingdom groaned under the most cruel tyranny that ever scourged and afflicted the sons of men. The jails were crammed full of innocent people; the scaffolds daily smoked with the blood of our best patriots. The bones of the dead were dug out of their graves, and their livingfriends were compelled to ransom them at exorbitant sums. Such as they were pleased to call Malignants were taxed and pillaged at discretion. The Committee of the Kirk sat at the helm, and they were supported by a small number of fanatical persons and others who called themselves the Committee of Estates, but were truly nothing else but the barbarous executioners of their wrath and vengeance. Nor were they ill satisfied with their office, on account of the profits it brought them by fines, sequestrations, and forfeitures, besides the other opportunities it gave them of amassing riches. Every parish had a tyrant, who made the greatest lord in his district stoop to his authority. The kirk was the place where he kept his court; the pulpit, his throne, or tribunal, from whence he issued his terrible decrees; and twelve or fourteen sour enthusiasts, under the title of elders, composed his council. If any, of what quality soever, had the assurance to disobey his edicts, the dreadful sentence of excommunication was immediately thundered out against him, his goods and chattels confiscated and seized, and he himself being looked upon as actually in the possession of the devil, and irretrievably doomed to eternal perdition, all that conversed with him were in no better esteem.’
The moderates involved in the late expedition of Duke Hamilton for the king, were now brought to punishment. ‘They compelled every one that escaped to sit several Sundays in sackcloth before them, mounted, as a spectacle of reproach and infamy, upon the stool of repentance in view of “the elect,” and to undergo such other penance as they were pleased to impose.’123
Amongst the penitents was the Chancellor Earl of Loudon, of whom it was scarcely to have been expected that he should join in the Engagement. His submission is alleged by Burnet to have been enforced by his wife, a high Covenanter and an heiress, who threatened him with a process for conjugal unfaithfulness, ‘in which she could have had very copious proofs.’ So he made a public repentance in the church of Edinburgh, ‘with many tears confessing his weakness in yielding to the temptation of what had a show of honour and loyalty.’