1657.
‘It was found still a convenient nursery was wanted for an interesting young family, and a lower addition was made to the east end of the new buildings, and to run parallel with the south side of the high house, towards the gardens. The low room was for a woman-house, and the upper room was the nursery; and both nursery and woman-house had passage to the great house, by proper doors, and a timber trap-stair made a communication betwixt the nursery and the woman-house. In short, after all was finished, the fabric was wholly irregular as to the outside appearance, and both house and policy were more contrived for conveniency and hospitality, than for beauty or regular proportion;and so was the humour of these times, that, if there was lodging, warmness, and plenty within doors, a regular front or uniform roof were little thought of. All above was executed the three years 1657, 1658, as appears from the dates on the upper lintel ornaments of the window.’
Dec.
Notwithstanding a good harvest, ‘poverty and scarcity of money daily increased, by reason of the great burdens and charges imposed upon the people, which constrained them to sell not only their lands and estates, but even their household geir, insight, and plenishing, and some their claiths and habulyiements. Witness the bell, which did daily ring in Edinburgh, making intimation to the inhabitants of such frequent rouping as was in use.’—Nic.
1658.May.
Stage-coaches were at this time advertised as to go from ‘the George Inn without Aldersgate’ to sundry parts of England thrice a week; to Leeds, Wakefield, and Halifax once a week, charge 40s.; to Durham and Newcastle, once a week, charge £3; and ‘toEdinburgh in Scotland, once in three weeks, for £4, 10s.’—in all cases, ‘with good coaches and fresh horses on the roads.’178
During this year, the people of Edinburgh, Glasgow, and other considerable towns, were amused in succession with the performances of a horse brought from England, ‘wha, being trained up in dancing and other conceits of that kind, did afford much sport and contentment to the people, but not without gain, for none was admitted to see the dancing without twopence the piece, and some more.’—Nic.
Oct. 1.
A supplication was this day given in to the Town Council of Glasgow by one Robert Marshall, shewing that he was willing, if permitted, to exercise the calling of a house-painter in the city. The Council, having had it represented to them that there was ‘but one the like within this burgh, and not ane other in all the west of Scotland,’ gave Robert permission to wash and paint houses to any who pleased to employ him.—M. of G.
1658.
This gives a curious idea of Glasgow two centuries ago. The magistrates had a little before this time induced a printer to come from Edinburgh and settle amongst them. The man doesnot seem to have succeeded, for in May 1660, they give him fifty merks, ‘to help to transport his guids and flitting to Edinburgh again.’ A few months after this date, Robert Sanders was encouraged to set up a printing-office in Glasgow, with a pension of £40 a year, ‘he to print gratis anything that the town shall employ him to print.’ In 1660, they caused a plasterer to be sent for from Perth, ‘to come here for plastering of Hucheson’s Hospital.’—M. of G.
Nov.
The lamentations, of which we have seen several examples, over the depressed condition of Scotland under the English tyranny, are repeated at this time by a man of moderate and sagacious character, the Rev. Robert Baillie. He says: ‘The country lies very quiet; it is exceeding poor; trade is nought; the English has all the moneys. Our noble families are almost gone: Lennox has little in Scotland unsold; Hamilton’s estate, except Arran and the barony of Hamilton, is sold; Argyle can pay little annual-rent [interest] for seven or eight hunched thousand merks [of debt]; and he is no more drowned in debt than public hatred, almost of all, both Scotch and English. The Gordons are gone; the Douglases little better; Eglintoun and Glencairn on the brink of breaking. Many of our chief families’ states are cracking; nor is there any appearance of any human relief for the time.’179It may give some idea of the reduced state of the nobility during these evil days, that the allowance made by the English government out of the sequestered estates of the Balcarres family for the earl, a minor, and his younger brother, was only ten pounds a year!180
Nicoll, adverting to the same time, says: ‘The condition of this nation of Scotland yet remains sad, by reason of poverty and heavy burdens.’ The crop of the year ‘was very poor by reason of the spring-time, whilk was very cold and weety the space of many weeks.’ The price of victual was consequently for this year double what it had recently been.
1658.
A Mr Tucker, who was commissioned by Cromwell in 1656 to introduce order into the customs duties of Scotland, has left a report from which we obtain particulars as to the trade then carried on with foreign countries. Notwithstanding that duties were in those days imposed equally on exported and imported goods, the revenue of Leith port was only £2335; that of Aberdeen, £573; Glasgow, £554. The respective sums drawn from these ports, forimports only, in 1844, were £631,926, £76,259, and £551,841. Other ports were in proportion, though not uniformly; thus Burntisland, which is now merely a ferry harbour, then drew nearly as much revenue as Glasgow. The native shipping, consisting of vessels of from twelve to a hundred and fifty tons, was in not less marked contrast to that of our day. Glasgow had only twelve such vessels; Kirkcaldy, an equal number, but not one above a hundred tons; Dundee and Anstruther, ten; Burntisland, seven; Wemyss, six; Dysart, four. The extreme narrowness of the resources of Scotland is strikingly shewn in these facts, and makes us the more disposed to wonder at the comparatively great sacrifices which the people had been making for many years for the sake of their church and for its promotion in other lands.
At the same time that so great poverty prevailed, there was such a protection to life and property as had never before been known. It was not, we believe, without cause that the famous Colonel Desborough, in a speech in the House of Commons (March 17, 1659), made it a boast for his party, that ‘a man may ride over all Scotland, with a switch in his hand and a hundred pounds in his pocket, which he could not have done these five hundred years.’181
1659.Jan.
The people of Edinburgh were regaled with the sight of a travelling dromedary, probably the first that had ever come into Scotland. ‘It was very big,’ says Nicoll, ‘of great height, and cloven-footed like a cow, and on the back ane seat, as it were a saddle, to sit on.’ ‘Being kept close in the Canongate, none had a sight of it without threepence the person. There was brought in with it ane little baboon, faced like unto an ape.’
Jan.
1659.
At this time the public received a great surprise in the sudden reappearance of a nobleman, Lord Belhaven, who was understood to have been dead for the last six years and upwards. At the forfeiture of the Hamilton family under the English tyranny, Lord Belhaven found himself engaged as security to the creditors of that house for a much larger sum than he could pay; so, to escape comprisings of his lands and imprisonment of his person, he fell upon an extraordinary expedient. He took a journey to England, and when he had passed Solway Sands, he caused his servant to come back to his wife with his cloak and hat, and had it given out thathe and his horse had sunk in the quicksands, and were drowned. None were privy to the secret but his lady and the servant. The report passed everywhere as authentic, and to make it more plausible, his lady and children went in mourning for two years. Passing into England, Lord Belhaven put on a mean suit of apparel, hired himself to be a gardener, and worked at this humble employment during the whole time of his absence, no one knowing this part of his course but his lady. During his absence, his only son, ‘a very hopeful youth and pretty scholar,’ was struck with a fever, which in a few days carried him off. ‘In this real death by God’s hand, who will not be mocked, the hope of that house perished.’—Bail.The Duchess of Hamilton having at length come to a composition with her creditors, his lordship returned to Scotland, and resumed his rank, ‘to the admiration of many.’—Nic.
Feb. 9.
The Countess of Buccleuch in her own right, a child of eleven years of age, the greatest heiress of her time in Scotland, was married at the place of Wester Wemyss in Fife, to Walter Scott, son of Scott of Highchester, a youth of fourteen. These indecent nuptials were performed, without proclamation, by virtue of an order from the presbytery of Kirkcaldy, ‘purchased by the Earl of Wemyss and some of the name of Scott:’ that is, obtained by their influence. The Countess of Wemyss, ‘a witty, active woman,’182was mother of the bride. ‘This marriage was celebrate upon a great suddenty, few or none of her friends made privy to it till the day before, which day they were contracted. Many expected she should have got some great match (for both Scots and English had an aim for her); but this youth, that her mother (who was the only doer of this business) made choice of for her daughter, was only one of her own vassal’s sons—namely, an oy [grandson] of the Laird of Harden....’—Lam.
1659.
An unsuccessful attempt was made by Sir John Scott of Scotstarvet to reduce the marriage, on the ground that he, her tutor, had not consented. While the question hung suspended, for there existed then no judicatory in Scotland, the young lady in August 1659 attained the age of twelve, at which it was competent for her to effect a marriage of her own will. She then accordinglyemitted a declaration of her marriage, and her husband meeting her at Leith, amidst great demonstrations of joy, they went that same night to Dalkeith, to commence married life.—Nic.
This poor victim of the cupidity of her seniors was taken by her mother next year to London, to be touched for thecruelsby the king, and died in the next ensuing year, leaving the succession to her younger sister Anne, who became the victim of an equally discreditable affair, in being married while still a child to the king’s natural son, a boy, subsequently Duke of Monmouth.
The marrying of heiresses under twelve years of age was a not infrequent misdemeanour in the seventeenth century. ‘1st March 1677, Trotter, Lady Craigleith, was fined at Secret Council, in 6000 merks, for conveying away her daughter, heiress of Craigleith, and sending her to Berwick, where she married young Prestongrange (Morison), and stayed some two or three months, till she completed her twelve years of age, after which the marriage could not be dissolved, nor she resile.... Her maternal uncle, Mortonhall, was fined for his accession in 3000 merks, and young Prestongrange in 1000 merks.’—Foun.
In 1680, Patrick Carnegie, brother of the Earl of Northesk, was prosecuted for conveying away Mary Gray, daughter of the Laird of Baledgarnie, in the Carse of Gowrie, she being but eleven years and one month old. ‘Some spoke harsh things, that if he could be got, he deserved hanging, for ane example to secure men’s children from such attempts.’ While Patrick escaped from justice, his assistants Kinfauns, Finhaven, and Pitcur were sent to Edinburgh Castle, and ‘ordained, under highest pains, to produce him who wounded the servant while he was resisting their rapt: they came weel off, that their acknowledgment of the fault was accepted instead of a fine.’—Foun.
Mar. 27.
1659.
Died this day, ‘sitting in his chair at his awn house, without any preceding sickness,’ and but ‘little lamented’ (Nic.), John Earl of Traquair—a remarkable example of the mutabilities of fortune in a period of civil broil and revolution. By cleverness and address, unaccompanied by any nobler qualities, and by making himself useful to Laud in his views for the reformation of the Scotch church, he had risen from the condition of a private gentleman to titles, wealth, and the office of Lord High Treasurer. Of his means and taste at the zenith of his fortunes, the house of Traquair, with its formal avenues and garden, is an interesting surviving monument. Clerical zeal ruined what the skill ofTraquair might have built up. The Service-book was pushed on against his advice, and he could not control the storm. The most conspicuous service he rendered after that period was to act as his majesty’s commissioner to the Scottish parliament and General Assembly of 1640. He did his best to maintain the royal authority, but all was in vain. His subsequent conduct was not of a bold character; but there is all reason to believe that he continued a loyalist and a friend of Episcopacy at heart. Accompanying the army of the Engagement in 1648, along with a regiment of horse of his own raising, he was taken prisoner at Preston, and committed to Warwick Castle, where he lay for four years. For this final act of loyalty, the Covenanting parliament forbade his return into Scotland. At length, when his country had been taken into the hands of the English, he was liberated, and came home; but it was to poverty and obscurity. His estate had been sequestered; it was a time of general suffering and humiliation. Reflected on as an instrument of the king and Laud in their arbitrary schemes, he enjoyed respect from no party. In such circumstances, it is scarcely surprising to be told, as we are on credible authority, that this once great noble and state officer was reduced so low as to be beholden for the necessaries of life to charity. ‘He would take an alms, though not publicly ask for it,’ says the author of a work quoted below,183where it is added: ‘There are some still alive at Peebles that have seen him dine upon a salt herring and an onion.’ A worse humiliation remained for him, if Nicoll be right in reporting that the earl was (August 1655) ‘pannelled and accused before the Criminal Court for perjury at the instance of his son-in-law.’184
The annotator on Scot’sStaggering State of Scots Statesmen, says that at his burial this unfortunate nobleman ‘had no mort-cloth [pall], but a black apron; nor towels, but leashes belonging to some gentlemen that were present; and the grave being two feet shorter than his body, the assistants behoved to stay till the same was enlarged, and he buried.’
1659.June 21.
This day, Heriot’s Hospital, which had been founded in 1628, being now complete, was solemnly dedicated by the ceremony of a preaching in presence of the magistrates of Edinburgh, the preacher, Mr Robert Douglas, receiving five double pieces for his pains. There were placed in it ‘thirty-five boys, of honest parents, but decayit in means, all of them weel arrayit in purpour clothes and cassocks.’ ‘This hospital,’ says Nicoll, ‘was not ane ordinary hospital, but a hospital very famous, with halls, chalmers, kitchens, brew-houses, yards, orchards, a chapel, and all other necessaries.’
Sep. 1.
The town of Edinburgh obtained an additional impost upon the ale sold in its bounds; it was now a full penny sterling a pint, so that the liquor rose to the unheard-of price of 32d. Scots for that quantity. ‘Yet this imposition,’ says Nicoll, ‘seemed not to thrive; for at the same instant God frae the heavens declared his anger by sending thunder, and unheard tempests, and storms, and inundations of water, whilk destroyed their common mills, dams, and warks, to the town’s great charges and expenses.’ Eleven mills belonging to Edinburgh, and five belonging to Heriot’s Hospital, all upon the Water of Leith, were destroyed on this occasion, ‘with their dams, water-gangs, timber and stone-warks, the haill wheels of their mills, timber graith, and haill other warks.’ The chronicler, somewhat awkwardly for his hypothesis, admits that many neighbouring towns suffered by the like destruction of their mills.
Sep. 21.
Nicoll states himself to have seen this day, a youth of sixteen, a native of Aberdeen, who, having been born without power in his arms, either to eat or drink, or do any other thing for himself or others, ‘Almighty God, who is able to do all things, gave him power to supply all these duties with the toes of his feet, and to write in singular good legible and current write, and that with such haste as any common notar is in use to do. Yea, further, with his toes he put on his clothes, kamed his head, made his writing pens, [and] threaded a needle, in such short time and space as any other person whatsomever was able to do with his hands.’
1659.
In the Council Records of Inverness occurs, under this year, the following petition: ‘To the Right Honourable the Magistrates and Town Council of the burgh of Inverness, the supplication of Frederick Fraser, tailor burgess of Inverness, and Alexander Duff, burgess there, for ourselves and in behalf the remanent freemenof that trade, humbly sheweth—That your supplicants are very much damnified and prejudged in the enjoyment of their trade, the same being in-falled upon and taken away by many outlandish men, who dwell round about the burgh for eschewing of burden, and yet peeps in by night and by day and steals away the trade of the place, and works the same in the landward, to our great loss and apparent ruin, so that if speedy redress be not found, and this evil to this poor trade be not stayed, your supplicants and our poor families will undoubtedly perish. We are able to shew your lordships, and to make it out, that in these times we gain not by our trade for our own subsistence and the upholding of the burdens of the place, that which our servants were wont to gain under us. May it please your lordships, therefore, to take the premises into consideration, and to allow us, your supplicants, or such others of the trade as your lordships please to nominate, such power and freedom in the exercise of that trade as formerly we had, and that for the better restraining of all such as are neither profitable nor allowable to the place, and for the further and better encouragement of us your poor supplicants who has and are willing daily to contribute with the place in weal and woe according to our poor power.’
A local journalist, after giving a transcript of this petition, adds: ‘Provost Cuthbert and the council turned a friendly ear to the supplication, and authorised the petitioners to “look and see to restrain all outlandish tailors,” and empowering them to seize upon the work of the transgressors, and bring the whole before a magistrate. Two years afterwards, however, the same parties, with the addition of John Cumming, tailor, again complain of the outlandish tailors. They petition that all unfreemen in the town should be discharged from usurping to themselves the benefits of freemen, and from keeping apprentices and servants, andmade to live within the verge of their own calling. The provost and council granted the desire of the petition, and authorised the supplicants, with the concurrence of the burgh officers, to put the act in force. The principles of political economy or free-trade were not then understood, but the inhabitants seem to have been willing enough to avail themselves of the cheap services of the outlandish tailors, else the freemen would not so strongly have urged their claims upon the council.’185