1661.
According to Mr George Chalmers,197Cromwell conveyed to Leith in 1652 one Christopher Higgins, who, in November of that year, began to reprint, for the information of the English garrison, a London newspaper, entitledA Diurnal of some Passages and Affairs. This is said to have not survived many months. It was followed up by a reprint of the afore-mentionedMercurius Politicus, which Higgins commenced at Leith in October 1653, but soon after transferred to Edinburgh, where it was carried on till the eve of the Restoration—the imprint being, ‘Edinburgh: Reprinted by Christopher Higgins, in Hart’s Close, over against the Tron Church.’ This paper was afterwards resumed under a slight change of title, and continued till not earlier than June 1662. Partly contemporary with it was a paper entitled theKingdom’s Intelligencer, begun at Edinburgh on the same day with theMercurius Caledonius, and carried on till at least December 24, 1663. The number for the latter date containedamong other articles, ‘A Remarkable Advertisement to the Country and Strangers,’ to the following effect: ‘That there is a glass-house erected in the citadel of Leith, where all sorts and quantities of glasses are made and sould at the prices following: To wit, the wine-glass at three shillings two boddels; the beer-glass, at two shillings sixpence; the quart bottel, at eighteen shillings; the pynt bottel, at nine shillings; the chopin bottel, at four shillings sixpence; the muskin bottel, at two shillings sixpence, all Scots money, and so forth of all sorts; better stuff and stronger than is imported.’
Mar.
Horse-races were now performed every Saturday on the sands of Leith. They are regularly chronicled amongst the foolish lucubrations ofMercurius Caledonius; as, for example, thus: ‘Our accustomed recreations on the sands of Leith was much hindered because of a furious storm of wind, accompanied with a thick snow; yet we have had some noble gamesters that were so constant at their sport as would not forbear a designed horse-match. It was a providence the wind was from the sea; otherwise they had run a hazard either of drowning or splitting upon Inchkeith! This tempest was nothing inferior to that which was lately in Caithness, where a bark of fifty ton was blown five furlongs into the land, and would have gone further, if it had not been arrested by the steepness of a large promontory.’
In the ensuing month, there were races at Cupar in Fife, where the Lairds of Philiphaugh and Stobbs, and Powrie-Fotheringham appear to have been the principal gentlemen who brought horses to the ground. A large silver cup, of the value of £18, formed the chief prize. These Cupar races were repeated annually. It is said they had been first instituted in 1621.—Lam.
As a variety upon horse-racing,Mercurius Caledoniusannounced a foot-race to be run by twelve brewster wives, all of them in a condition which makes violent exertion unsuitable to the female frame, ‘from the Thicket Burn [probably Figgat Burn] to the top of Arthur’s Seat, for a groaning cheese of one hundred pound weight, and a budgell of Dunkeld aquavitæ and rumpkin of Brunswick Mum for the second, set down by the Dutch Midwife. The next day, sixteen fish-wives to trot from Musselburgh to the Canon-cross for twelve pair of lamb’s harrigals.’
1661.
Mercuriusseems to have been thrown into great delight by the revival of a barbarous Shrovetide custom, which, strange to say,continued to exist in connection with seminaries of education down to a period within the recollection of living persons. ‘Our carnival sports,’ says he, ‘are in some measure revived, for, according to the ancient custom, the work was carried on by cock-fighting in the schools, and in the streets among the vulgar sort, tilting at cocks with fagot-sticks. In the evening, the learned Virtuosi of the Pallat recreate themselves with lusty caudles, powerful cock-broth, and natural crammed pullets, a divertisement not much inferior to our neighbour nation’s fritters and pancakes.’
One may in some faint degree imagine the sorrowful indignation with which the survivors of those who put down Christmas and Easter in 1642 would view these coarse celebrations of Shrovetide.
Apr. 2.
A royal life-guard, consisting of sixscore persons, noblemen and gentlemen’s sons, was this day embodied on the Links of Leith, under the command of the Earl of Newburgh. They then rode through the city, ‘in gallant order, with their carabines upon their saddles, and their swords drawn in their hands.’—Nic.
In July 1662, ‘it pleased his majesty to cause clothe their trumpeters and master of the kettle-drum in very rich apparel,’ also to give rich coverings of cramosie velvet for the kettle-drums. At the same time, a pair of costly colours was presented. Soon after, it is intimated that the king gave them each a buff-coat, and made an augmentation of their daily pay. Their chief occupation at this time seems to have been attendance on the royal commissioner, as he passed daily to and from the Parliament House.
May 27.
‘At two afternoon, the Marquis of Argyle was brought forth of the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, fra the whilk he was conveyed by the magistrates to the place of execution; the town being all in arms, and the life-guard mounted on horseback, with their carabines and drawn swords. The marquis, having come to the scaffold, with sundry of his friends in murning apparel, he made a large speech; after whilk and a short prayer, he committed himself to the block. His head was stricken from his body, and affixed upon the head of the Tolbooth, where the Marquis of Montrose[‘s] was affixed of before. It was thought great favour that he was not drawn and quartered.’—Nic.
1661.
All the men who came to the scaffold at this time, and also some of those who obtained high and unexpected preferment,became the subjects of popular rumours which mark the ideas of the age. Robert Baillie tells us, as a piece of information he had from his son-in-law, Mr Robert Watson, who was with the Marchioness of Argyle at Roseneath on the night the king landed, that ‘all the dogs that day did take a strange howling and staring up at my lady’s chamber-windows for some hours together.’ The venerable principal adds: ‘Mr Alexander Colvill, justice-depute, an old servant of the house, told me that my Lady Kenmure, a gracious lady, my lord’s sister, from some little skill of physiognomy which Mr Alexander had taught her, had told him some years ago that her brother would die in blood.’
It has been stated by Wodrow, that after spending the forenoon of his last day in settling ordinary accounts, a number of friends being in the room with him, ‘there came such a heavenly gale from the spirit of God upon his soul, that he could not abstain from tearing [shedding tears]. Lest it should be discovered, he turned in to[wards] the fire, and took up the tongs in his hand, making a fashion of stirring up the fire in the chimney; but he was not able to contain himself, and, turning about and melting down in tears, he burst out in these words: “I see this will not do. I must now declare what the Lord has done for my soul. He has just now sealed my charter in these words: ‘Son, be of good cheer; thy sins are forgiven thee.’”’ It is certain that the marquis stated in his speech on the scaffold that he had that day received such an assurance.
Mr A. Simson, who had been four years in the Marquis of Argyle’s family, lived to tell Wodrow that, on the night before his lordship’s execution—being a Sunday—he was at Inshinnan, where the communion had been administered, and where next day there were to be prayers in behalf of the suffering nobleman. He spent the hours from four to ten in religious exercises alone, and during this time, ‘with a power he scarce ever felt the like, eight or ten times that petition was borne in upon him: “Lord, say to him, My son, be of good cheer; thy sins are forgiven thee!” He did not much notice it till afterwards he saw his [lordship’s] speech, and saw the account that others had been put to wrestle for the same.’198
1661.
Mr James Guthrie, who suffered a few days after Argyle, had also had warnings, according to the historians of his party. When first induced in Mr Samuel Rutherford’s chamber at St Andrewsto take the Covenant, ‘as he came out at the door, he met the executioner in the way, which troubled him; and the next visit he made thither, he met him in the same manner again, which made him apprehend he might be a sufferer for the Covenant, as indeed he was. He also had a warning of his approaching sufferings three years before the king’s return, and upon these he frequently reflected.’—Kir.The latter warning was probably a violent bleeding of the nose, which came upon him in the pulpit, while discoursing on the famous believers (Heb. xi.) who sealed their testimony with their blood.199
Guthrie seems to have been the very type of the extreme kind of the Presbyterians, perfectly inflexible in what he thought the right course, and wholly devoted to the doctrines of his church. When the generality of his brethren were tacitly allowing men who were only loyalists to come to the standard in 1651, and union was of the last degree of consequence, Guthrie, being the minister of Stirling, the very head-quarters of the army, denounced these backslidings, and really must have produced great inconvenience to the king. It is told of the inveterate protester, that Charles thought proper to visit him one day, hoping perhaps to soften him a little; when Mrs Guthrie bustling about to get a chair placed for his majesty, the stern divine calmly said to her: ‘My heart, the king is a young man; he can get a chair for himself.’
It is also related that, at the same crisis, when a resolution was adopted to excommunicate General Middleton, and Guthrie was to perform the duty, the king sent a gentleman on the Sunday morning, to entreat at least a brief delay, when Guthrie quietly told him to come to church, and he would get his answer. The unyielding divine duly proceeded to pronounce the excommunication.
1661.
It was generally believed that the doom of Guthrie was in some degree owing to the vindictive feeling which this act had engendered in Middleton. Wodrow relates that, some time after the execution, Guthrie’s head being placed on the Nether Bow Port in Edinburgh, Middleton was passing underneath in his coach, when a considerable number of drops of blood fell from the head upon the top of the coach, making a stain which no art or diligence availed to wipe out. ‘I have it very confidently affirmed, that physicians were called, and inquired if any naturalcause could be assigned for the blood’s dropping so long after the head was put up, and especially for its not wearing out of the leather; and they could give none. This odd incident beginning to be talked of, and all other methods being tried, at length the leather was removed, and a new cover put on.’
A caustic wit of our age has remarked, ‘Whatever satisfaction the return of King Charles II. might afford to the younger females in his dominions, it certainly brought nothing save torture to the unfortunate old women, or witches of Scotland, against whom, immediately on the Restoration, innumerable warrants were issued forth.’200It is quite true that an extraordinary number of witch prosecutions followed the Restoration; and the cause is plain. For some years before, the English judicatories had discountenanced such proceedings. The consequence was, there was a vast accumulation of old women liable to the charge throughout all parts of the country. So soon as the native judicatories were restored, the public voice called for these cases being taken up; and taken up they were accordingly, the new authorities being either inclined that way themselves, or unable to resist a demand so intimately connected with the religious feelings of the people.
July 25.
1661.
On the day noted, the Council issued a commission for the trial of Isabel Johnston of Gullan, in the parish of Dirleton, who had ‘confessed herself guilty, in entering in paction with the devil, renouncing her baptism, and otherwise, as her depositions under the hands of several of the heritors and other honest men bears,’ and likewise to proceed to the trial of others in that district who might be delated of the same crime; for it was always seen that one apprehended witch produced several others. They at the same time commissioned three justice-deputes—the learned counsel Sir George Mackenzie being one of the number—to try a number of male and female wizards in the parishes of Musselburgh, Duddingston, Newton, Libberton, and Dalkeith. In this case, the judges were to have an allowance for their trouble ‘aff the first end of the fines and escheats of such persons as shall happen to be convict.’ Throughout the remainder of the year, and for some time after, the number of commissions issued for the trial of witches was extremely great. On one day, January 23, 1662, no fewer than thirteen were issued, being the sole public business of the council for that day, besides the issue of acommission for the trial of a thief in Sanquhar prison. Ray, the naturalist, who was in Scotland in August 1661, tells us it was reported that a hundred and twenty witches suffered about that time, and certainly much more than that number of individuals are indicated in the commissions as to be subjected to trial.
As a specimen of the facts elicited on the trials for the condemnation of these poor people—Margaret Bryson, ‘having fallen out with her husband for selling her cow, went in a passion to the door of the house in the night-time, and there did imprecate that God or the devil might take her from her husband; after which the devil immediately appeared to her, and threatened to take her body and soul, if she entered not into his service; whereupon, immediately she covenanted with him, and entered into his service.’ Another example—Isabel Ramsay ‘conversed with the devil, and received a sixpence from him; the devil saying that God bade him give her that; and he asked how the minister did,’ &c. Marion Scott, a girl of eighteen, serving a family in Innerkip parish, Renfrewshire, would go out in the morning with a hair-tether, by pulling which, and calling out, ‘God send us milk and mickle of it!’ she would supply herself with abundance of the produce of her neighbours’ cows. She had a great deal of intercourse with the devil, who passed under the name ofSerpent, and by whose aid she used to raise windy weather for the destruction of shipping. One day, being out at sea near the island of Arran, she caused Colin Campbell’s sails to be riven, but was herself overset with the storm, so as to be thrown into a fever. After a night-meeting with Satan, he ‘convoyed her home in the dawing, and when she was come near the house where she was a servant, her master saw a waff of him as he went away from her,’ &c.
1661.
The whole proceedings were usually of the most cruel description; and often the worst sufferings of the accused took place before trial, when dragged from their homes by an infuriated mob, tortured to extort confession, and half starved in jail. A wretch called John Kincaid acted as aprickerof witches201—that is, heprofessed to ascertain, by inserting of pins in their flesh, whether they were truly witches or not, the affirmative being given when he pricked a place insensible to pain. Often they were hung up by the two thumbs till, nature being exhausted, they were fain to make acknowledgment of the most impossible facts. The presumed offence being of a religious character, the clergy naturally came to have much to say and do in these proceedings. For example, as to Margaret Nisbet, imprisoned at Spott, in Haddingtonshire, the person ordered by the Privy Council to take trial of her case and report is Mr Andrew Wood, the minister of the parish. There are many instances in the Privy Council Record of witches being cleared on trial, but detained at the demand of magistrates, or clergymen, in the hope that further and conclusive evidence would yet be obtained against them. Such was the case of Janet Cook of Dalkeith, who had predicted of a man who beat her, that he would be hanged—which came to pass; who bewitched William Scott’s horse and turned him furious; and occasionally healed sick people by the application of some piece of an animal killed under certain necromantic circumstances. Janet had been tried, and acquitted; yet she was kept in durance at the urgency of the kirk-session, as they were getting fresh grounds of accusation against her.
Occasionally relenting measures were taken by the Council, though it is to be feared not always with the approval of the local powers. On the 30th of January 1662, they considered a petition from Marion Grinlaw and Jean Howison, thesurvivorsof ten women and a man who had been imprisoned at Musselburgh on this charge. Some of the rest had died of cold and hunger. They themselves had lain in duranceforty weeks, and were now in a condition of extreme misery,although nothing could be brought against them. Margaret Carvie and Barbara Honiman of Falkland had in like manner been imprisoned at the instance of the magistrates and parish minister, had lain six weeks in jail, subjected to ‘a great deal of torture by one who takes upon him the trial of witches by pricking,’ and so great were their sufferings that life was become a burden to them, notwithstanding that they declared their innocence, and nothing to the contrary had been shewn. The Council ordered all these women to be liberated.—P. C. R.
July.
1661.
‘By an act of the parliament, an order is issued out to slight and demolish the citadels of the kingdom which were built bythe English. This of Inverness had not stood ten years. The first part they seized upon was the sentinel-houses, neat turrets of hewn stone, curiously wrought and set up on every corner of the rampart wall, these now all broken down by the soldiers themselves. The next thing was the Commonwealth’s arms pulled down and broken, and the king’s arms set up in their place; the blue bridge slighted, the sally-port broken, the magazine-house steeple broken, and the great bell taken down—all this done with demonstrations of joy and gladness, the soldiers shouting “God save the king,” as men weary of the yoke and slavery of usurpation which lay so long about their necks. I was an eye-witness of the first stone that was broken of this famous citadel, as I was also witness of the foundation-stone laid,anno1652, in May. This Sconce and Citadel is the king’s gift to the Earl of Moray, to dispose of at his pleasure. A rare thing fell out here that was notarly known to a thousand spectators, that the Commonwealth’s arms set up above the most conspicuous gate of the citadel, a greatthistlegrowing out above it covered the whole carved work and arms, so as not a bit of it could be seen, to the admiration of all beholders! This was a presage that the Scots therefore should eclipse [triumph.]‘—Fraser of Wardlaw’s MS. 1666.
1661.
The Privy Council Record, for a long time after July 1661, is half filled with the cases of ministers who had been deposed during the troubles, and who, having for years suffered under extreme poverty, now petition for some compensation. Sometimes it was a minister who gave offence by his dislike to the movement of 1638, sometimes one who had incurred the wrath of the more zealous party by his adherence to the Engagement of 1648 ‘for procuring the liberation of his late majesty of blessed memory;’ sometimes the cause of deposition was of later occurrence. For example: ‘Mr John M‘Kenzie, sometime minister of the kirk of Urray [Ross-shire], because he would not subscrive the Covenant and comply with the sinful courses of the time, [was] banished and forced to fly to Englandanno1639, and thereafter was sent to Ireland, and though provided there with a competency, was by the rebellion forced to retire to Scotland. After his majesty’s pacification closed at the Birks, and by the moyen of his friends, [he] re-entered to the ministry; yet, still retaining his principle of loyalty and integrity, he was therefore persecuted by the implacable malice of the violent humours of those times, and again suspended and thereafter deposed, only for refusing topreach men’s humours and passions as a trumpet of sedition and rebellion.’ Mr Andrew Drummond had been deposed from Muthill parish, ‘for no other cause but his accession to ane supplication to the General Assembly, where he with divers others, out of the sense of their duty, did declare their affection to the Engagement,anno1648,’ and had suffered under this sentence for five or six years. Mr Robert Tran, minister of Eglesham, had been deposed in 1645 for no other cause than loyalty to his late majesty. In some cases, the petitioner tells of the wife and six or seven children whom his deposition had thrown destitute, and who had gone through years of penury and hardship. The Council generally ordered £100 sterling, or, in such a case as that of M‘Kenzie, £150, out of the stipends of the vacant churches of their bounds.
1661.
The popular writers of this period of Scottish history do not advert sufficiently to those hard measures of the time of the Solemn League which may be said, in the way of reaction or retaliation, to have led to the severities now in the course of being practised upon the more uncompromising Presbyterians. The many petitions of the persecuted men of 1638-60 for redress are only slightly alluded to in a few sentences by Wodrow, while he fills long chapters with those sufferings of proscribed Remonstrators which would never probably have had existence but for their own harsh doings in their days of power. He dwells with much feeling on the banishment passed upon Mr John Livingstone, a preacher high in the esteem of the more serious people, and deservedly so. All must sympathise with such a case, and admire the heroic constancy of the sufferer; but it is striking, only a few months after his sentence to exile (February 2, 1664), to find a Mr Robert Aird coming before the Privy Council with a piteous recital of the distresses to which he and his family had been subjected since 1638, in consequence of his being then thrust out of his charge at Stranraer, merely for his affection to the then constituted Episcopal government, the clergyman put into his place being this same John Livingstone! Aird tells us that, being then ‘redacted to great straits, he was at last necessitat to settle himself in Comray, in the diocese of the Isles, where his provision [patrimony] was,’ that being ‘so little that he was not able to maintain his family.’ During the usurpation, ‘by reason of his affection to his majesty, he was quartered upon and otherwise cruelly abused, to his almost utter ruin.’ The Lords recommended that Mr Aird should have some allowance out ofvacant stipends in the diocese of the Isles. Another of the zealous clergy whose resistance to the new rule and consequent troubles and denunciation are brought conspicuously forward by Wodrow, was Mr James Hamilton, minister of Blantyre. He was compelled to leave his parish, and not even allowed to officiate peaceably in his own house at Glasgow. Much to be deplored truly; but Wodrow does not tell us of a petition which was about the same time addressed to the Council by the widow of Mr John Heriot, the former minister of Blantyre, upon whom, in 1653, ‘the prevailing party of Remonstrators in the presbytery of Hamilton had intruded one Mr James Hamilton,’ by whom the whole stipend had been appropriated, so that Heriot, after a few years of penury, had left his widow and children in absolute destitution. So impressed were the Council by the petitioner’s case, that they ordered her to receive the whole stipend of the current year. To any candid person who would study the history of this period, it appears necessary that these circumstances should be told, not in justification of the cruel and most unwise measures of the government and the heads of the new church, but as a needful explanation of what it was in the minds of these parties which made them act as they did.
While men tore each other to pieces on account of religion in Scotland, and all material progress in the country was consequently at a stand, one sagacious Scotch clergyman visited Holland, and found a very different state of things there. ‘I saw much peace and quiet,’ he says, ‘in Holland, notwithstanding the diversity of opinions among them; which was occasioned by the gentleness of the government, and the toleration that made all people easy and happy. A universal industry was spread through the whole country.’—Burnet’s History of his Own Times.
Aug. 17.
1661.
This day, John Ray, the eminent naturalist, entered Scotland for a short excursion. In theItinerarieswhich he has left, he gives, besides zoological observations, some notes on general matters. ‘The Scots, generally (that is, the poorer sort), wear, the men blue bonnets on their heads, and some russet; the women only white linen, which hangs down their backs as if a napkin were pinned about them. When they go abroad, none of them wear hats, but a party-coloured blanket which they call a plaid, over their heads and shoulders. The women, generally, to us seemed none of the handsomest. They are not very cleanly in their houses, and but sluttish in dressingtheir meat. Their way of washing linen is to tuck up their coats, and tread them with their feet in a tub. They have a custom to make up the fronts of their houses, even in their principal towns, with fir-boards nailed one over another, in which are often made many round holes or windows to put out their heads [calledshotsorshot windows]. In the best Scottish houses, even the king’s palaces, the windows are not glazed throughout, but the upper part only, the lower have two wooden shuts or folds to open at pleasure and admit the fresh air. The Scots cannot endure to hear their country or countrymen spoken against. They have neither good bread, cheese, or drink. They cannot make them, nor will they learn. Their butter is very indifferent, and one would wonder how they could contrive to make it so bad. They use much pottage, made of coal-wort, which they call keal, sometimes broth of decorticated barley. The ordinary country houses are pitiful cots, built of stone, and covered with turves, having in them but one room, many of them no chimneys, the windows very small holes, and not glazed. In the most stately and fashionable houses in great towns, instead of ceiling they cover the chambers with fir-boards, nailed on the roof within side. They have rarely any bellows or warming-pans. It is the manner in some places there to lay on but one sheet as large as two, turned up from the feet upwards. The ground in the valleys and plains bears good corn, but especially beer-barley, or bigge, and oats, but rarely wheat and rye. We observed little or no fallow-grounds in Scotland; some layed ground we saw which they manured with sea-wreck (sea-weeds). The people seem to be very lazy, at least the men, and may be frequently observed to plough in their cloaks. It is the fashion of them to wear cloaks, when they go abroad, especially on Sundays. They lay out most they are worth in clothes, and a fellow that hath scarce ten groats besides to help himself with, you shall see him come out of his smoky cottage clad like a gentleman.’
Oct. 3.
1661.
Mr James Chalmers, commissioner for the presbytery of Aberdeen, came before the Privy Council with a representation that, in conformity with sundry acts of parliament, the synod had lately made diligent search within their bounds for papists and seminary priests. A list of the individuals, which the reverend gentleman handed in, is remarkable as containing many of the same names as those which we had under notice upwardsof thirty years before for the same scandal. An age of the most rigorous treatment had failed to convince these people of their errors. There were the Lady Marquise of Huntly and her children, Viscount Frendraught with his brethren and children, the Laird of Gight and his children, the Lairds of Craig, Balgownie, and Pitfoddels, with many others whose names were not formerly noted, as the Lairds of Drum, Auchindoir, Monaltrie, Tullos, and Murefield. Altogether, it is a sad exhibition of pertinacity in unparliamentary opinions. Against these and many others, including several priests, the synod had proceeded with censure and excommunication; ‘notwithstanding whereof they continue in their accustomed course of disobedience and will onnaways conform to the laws of the church and kingdom, but on the contrair, in a most insolent manner avow their heretical seditious principles and practices, to the overthrow of religion, disturbance of church and state, and the seducing of many poor souls.’ It was suggested that the Council should issue letters of horning against the delinquents. The lords promised to give the subject their consideration.
Very soon after this date, the Privy Council are found dealing with the case of ‘John Inglis and William Brown, apprehended and imprisoned in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh for being trafficking papists.’ Inglis had also been guilty of distributing popish books. Brown readily gave his promise, if liberated, ‘to take banishment upon him, and never to be seen within the kingdom hereafter;’ but Inglis was more obstinate. He ‘refused to give notice of such popish priests as of his knowledge were come within this kingdom,’ and would not on any account relinquish his own profession. He was told that he must leave the kingdom within twenty days, and that if ever again found within its bounds, he would be punished according to law—that is, hanged.—P. C. R.
Dec. 5.
On the 5th of December, the Privy Council granted a warrant to Robert Mean, ‘keeper of the Letter-office in Edinburgh, to put to print and publish ane diurnal weekly for preventing false news which may be invented by evil and disaffected persons.’—P. C. R.
1662.Mar. 13.
1662.
‘In the night-season, at Edinburgh, one Thomas Hepburn, a writer, being a young man, was strangled in his bed privately, and, fearing he should [have] recovered, a knife was stopped in[to] his throat. He was carried out naked by three or fourpersons, and laid down on a midden-head in the High Street. A young maid coming by at the time, being afraid, cried and went into the Court of Guard, and told the business; upon this, some of the guard went out and apprehended five men, drinking with a woman, in the lodging where he lay, and carried them to the Tolbooth. They all denied they knew any such thing.’—Lam.
Apr. 1.
The late storm of popular rage against witches would now appear to have spent the worst, though not the whole of its fury. The Privy Council was become sensible of great inhumanity having been practised by John Kincaid, the pricker—who, as has been stated, took upon him to ascertain whether a woman was a witch or not by inserting a pin into various parts of her body, with the view of finding if in any part she was insensible to pain! They ordered this man to be put in prison.202A few days afterwards, they issued a proclamation, proceeding on the assurance they had received, that many persons had been seized and tortured as witches, by persons having no warrant for doing so, and who only acted out of envy or covetousness. All such unauthorised proceedings were now forbidden. Nevertheless, proceedings of a more legal and less barbarous character went on. Twelve commissions for the trial of witches in different districts were issued on the 7th of May; three on the 9th; three on the 2d of June; one upon the 19th; and three upon the 26th. In these instances, however, a caution was given that there must be no torture for the purpose of extorting confession. The judges must act only upon voluntary confessions; and even where these were given, they must see that the accused appeared fully in their right mind.
Apr.
1662.
At Auldearn, in Nairnshire, the notable witch-case of Isobel Gowdie came before a tribunal composed of the sheriff of the county, the parish minister, seven country gentlemen, and two of the town’s men.203She was a married woman; her age does not appear, but, fifteen years before, she had given herself over tothe devil, and been baptised by him in the parish church. She was now extremely penitent, and made an unusually ample confession, taking on herself the guilt of every known form of witchcraft. She belonged to a witch-covinor company, consisting, as was customary, of thirteen females like herself, who had frequent meetings with the Evil One, to whom they formed a kind of seraglio. Each had a nickname—asPickle nearest the Wind,Over the Dike with it,Able and Stout, &c., and had a spirit to attend her, all of which had names also—as theRed Riever, theRoaring Lion, and so forth. The devil himself she described as ‘a very mickle, black, rough man.’
Meeting at night, they would proceed to a house, and sit down to meat, theMaiden of the Covinalways being placed close beside the devil and above the rest, as he had a preference for young women. One would say a grace, as follows:
‘We eat this meat in the devil’s name,With sorrow andsich[sighs] and mickle shame;We shall destroy house and hald,Both sheep and nolt intill the fauld:Little good shall come to the foreOf all the rest of the little store.’
‘We eat this meat in the devil’s name,With sorrow andsich[sighs] and mickle shame;We shall destroy house and hald,Both sheep and nolt intill the fauld:Little good shall come to the foreOf all the rest of the little store.’
‘We eat this meat in the devil’s name,With sorrow andsich[sighs] and mickle shame;We shall destroy house and hald,Both sheep and nolt intill the fauld:Little good shall come to the foreOf all the rest of the little store.’
‘We eat this meat in the devil’s name,
With sorrow andsich[sighs] and mickle shame;
We shall destroy house and hald,
Both sheep and nolt intill the fauld:
Little good shall come to the fore
Of all the rest of the little store.’
And when supper was done, the company looked steadily at their grizly president, and bowing to him, said: ‘We thank thee, our Lord, for this.’
1662.
Occasionally he was very cruel to them. ‘Sometimes, among ourselves,’ says Isobel, ‘we would be calling himBlack John, or the like, and he would ken it, and hear us weel eneuch, and he even then come to us and say: “I ken weel eneuch what ye are saying of me!” And then he would beat and buffet us very sore. We would be beaten if we were absent any time, or neglect anything that would be appointed to be done. Alexander Elder in Earl-seat would be beaten very often. He is but soft, and could never defend himself in the least, but would greet and cry when he would be scourging him. But Margaret Wilson would defend herself finely, and cast up her hands to keep the strokes off her; and Bessie Wilson would speak crusty, and be belling again to him stoutly. He would be beating us all up and down with cords and other sharp scourges, like naked ghaists, and we would still be crying: “Pity, pity, mercy, mercy, our Lord!” But he would have neither pity nor mercy. When angry at us, he would girn at us like a dog, as if he wouldswallow us up. Sometimes he would be like a stirk, a bull, a deer, a rae,’ &c.
Isobel stated that when the married witches went out to these nocturnal conventions, they put a besom into their place in bed, which prevented their husbands from missing them. When they had feasted in a house and wished to depart, a corn-straw put between their legs served them as a horse; and on their crying, ‘Horse and hattock in the devil’s name!’ they would fly away, ‘even as straws would fly upon a highway.’ She once feasted in Darnaway Castle, and left it in this manner. On another occasion, the party went to the Downy Hills, where the hill opened, and they went into a well-lighted room, where they were entertained by the queen of Faery. This personage was ‘brawly clothed in white linens and in white and brown clothes;’ while her husband, the king of Faery, was ‘a braw man, weel-favoured, and broad-faced.’ ‘On that occasion,’ says Isobel, ‘there were elf-bulls routing up and down, and affrighted me’—a trait which bears so much the character of a dream, as to be highly useful in deciding that the whole was mere hallucination.
The covin were empowered to take the shapes of hares, cats, and crows. On assuming the first of these forms, it was necessary to say:
‘I sall go intill a hare,With sorrow, sich, and mickle care;And I sall go in the devil’s name,Aye while I come home again.’
‘I sall go intill a hare,With sorrow, sich, and mickle care;And I sall go in the devil’s name,Aye while I come home again.’
‘I sall go intill a hare,With sorrow, sich, and mickle care;And I sall go in the devil’s name,Aye while I come home again.’
‘I sall go intill a hare,
With sorrow, sich, and mickle care;
And I sall go in the devil’s name,
Aye while I come home again.’
‘I was one morning,’ says Isobel, ‘about the break of day, going to Auldearn in the shape of ane hare, and Patrick Papley’s servants, going to their labour, his hounds being with them, ran after me. I ran very long, but was forced, being weary, at last to take my own house. The door being left open, I ran in behind a chest, and the hounds followed in; but they went to the other side of the chest, and I was forced to run forth again, and wan into ane other house, and there took leisure to say:
“Hare, hare, God send thee care!I am in a hare’s likeness now,But I sall be a woman even now!Hare, hare, God send thee care!”
“Hare, hare, God send thee care!I am in a hare’s likeness now,But I sall be a woman even now!Hare, hare, God send thee care!”
“Hare, hare, God send thee care!I am in a hare’s likeness now,But I sall be a woman even now!Hare, hare, God send thee care!”
“Hare, hare, God send thee care!
I am in a hare’s likeness now,
But I sall be a woman even now!
Hare, hare, God send thee care!”
1662.
And so I returned to my own shape again. The dogs,’ she added,‘will sometimes get bits of us, but will not get us killed. When we turn to our own shape, we will have the bits, and rives, and scarts in our bodies.’
Sometimes they would engage in cures, using of course the power derived from their infernal master. For a sore or a broken limb there was a charm in verse, which they said thrice over,stroking the sore, and it was sure to heal. They had a similar charm for thebean-shawor sciatica:
‘We are three maidens charming for the bean-shaw,The man of the middle earth,Blue bearer, land fever,Manners of stoors,The Lord flegged the Fiend with his holy candles and yird-fast stone;There she sits and here she is gone:Let her never come here again!’
‘We are three maidens charming for the bean-shaw,The man of the middle earth,Blue bearer, land fever,Manners of stoors,The Lord flegged the Fiend with his holy candles and yird-fast stone;There she sits and here she is gone:Let her never come here again!’
‘We are three maidens charming for the bean-shaw,The man of the middle earth,Blue bearer, land fever,Manners of stoors,The Lord flegged the Fiend with his holy candles and yird-fast stone;There she sits and here she is gone:Let her never come here again!’
‘We are three maidens charming for the bean-shaw,
The man of the middle earth,
Blue bearer, land fever,
Manners of stoors,
The Lord flegged the Fiend with his holy candles and yird-fast stone;
There she sits and here she is gone:
Let her never come here again!’
Another was for cases of fever:
‘I forbid the quaking-fevers, the sea-fevers, the land-fevers, and all the fevers that ever God ordained,Out of the head, out of the heart, out of the back, out of the sides, out of the knees, out of the thies,Frae the points of the fingers to the nebs of the taes:Out sall the fevers go, some to the hill, some to the hope,Some to the stone, some to the stock,In St Peter’s name, St Paul’s name, and all the saints of heaven,In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Haly Ghaist!’
‘I forbid the quaking-fevers, the sea-fevers, the land-fevers, and all the fevers that ever God ordained,Out of the head, out of the heart, out of the back, out of the sides, out of the knees, out of the thies,Frae the points of the fingers to the nebs of the taes:Out sall the fevers go, some to the hill, some to the hope,Some to the stone, some to the stock,In St Peter’s name, St Paul’s name, and all the saints of heaven,In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Haly Ghaist!’
‘I forbid the quaking-fevers, the sea-fevers, the land-fevers, and all the fevers that ever God ordained,Out of the head, out of the heart, out of the back, out of the sides, out of the knees, out of the thies,Frae the points of the fingers to the nebs of the taes:Out sall the fevers go, some to the hill, some to the hope,Some to the stone, some to the stock,In St Peter’s name, St Paul’s name, and all the saints of heaven,In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Haly Ghaist!’
‘I forbid the quaking-fevers, the sea-fevers, the land-fevers, and all the fevers that ever God ordained,
Out of the head, out of the heart, out of the back, out of the sides, out of the knees, out of the thies,
Frae the points of the fingers to the nebs of the taes:
Out sall the fevers go, some to the hill, some to the hope,
Some to the stone, some to the stock,
In St Peter’s name, St Paul’s name, and all the saints of heaven,
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Haly Ghaist!’
More generally, however, they were employed in planting or prolonging diseases. Isobel Gowdie told the minister that, in the preceding winter, when he was sick, they made a bagful of horrible broth of the entrails of toads, parings of nails, the liver of a hare, pickles of beir and bits of rag, and, at the dictation of the devil, pronounced over it this charm:
‘He is lying in his bed, he is lying sick and sair,Let him lie intill his bed two months and three days mair,’ &c.
‘He is lying in his bed, he is lying sick and sair,Let him lie intill his bed two months and three days mair,’ &c.
‘He is lying in his bed, he is lying sick and sair,Let him lie intill his bed two months and three days mair,’ &c.
‘He is lying in his bed, he is lying sick and sair,
Let him lie intill his bed two months and three days mair,’ &c.
1662.
‘Then we fell down upon our knees, with our hair down over our shoulders and eyes, and our hands lifted up, and our eyes steadfastly fixed upon the devil, and said the foresaid words thrice over.... In the night-time, we came into Mr Harry Forbes’s chalmer, with our hands all smeared, to swing [the bag] upon Mr Harry, where he was sick in his bed; and in the daytime [there came ane of our number] to swing thebag [upon the said Mr Harry, as we could]204not prevail in the night-time against him.’
Isobel stated the charm for taking away a cow’s milk. ‘We pull the tow [rope] and twine it, and plait it the wrong way in the devil’s name; and we draw the tether, sae made, in betwixt the cow’s hinder feet, and out betwixt the cow’s forward feet, in the devil’s name; and thereby takes with us the cow’s milk.... The way to give back the milk again is to cut the tether. When we take away the strength of any person’s ale, and gives it to another, we take a little quantity out of each barrel or stand of ale, and puts it in a stoup, in the devil’s name; and, in his name, with our awn hands, puts it amang another’s ale, and gives her the strength and substance of her neighbour’s ale. [The way] to keep the ale from us, that we have no power of it, is to sanctify it weel.’
One of their evil doings was to take away the strength of the manure of such as they wished ill to, or to make their lands unproductive. ‘Before Candlemas, we went be-east Kinloss, and there we yoked a pleuch of paddocks. The devil held the pleuch, and John Young in Mebestown, our officer, did drive the pleuch. Paddocks did draw the pleuch as oxen. Quickens [dog-grass] were soams [traces]; a riglen’s [ram’s] horn was a coulter; and a piece of a riglen’s horn was a sock. We went several times about, and all we of thecovinwent still up and down with the pleuch, praying to the devil for the fruit of that land, and that thistles and briers might grow there.’ When they wished to have fish, they had only to go to the shore just before the boats came home and say three several times:
‘The fishers are gone to the sea,And they will bring home fish to me;They will bring them home intill the boat,But they sall get of them but the smaller sort.’
‘The fishers are gone to the sea,And they will bring home fish to me;They will bring them home intill the boat,But they sall get of them but the smaller sort.’
‘The fishers are gone to the sea,And they will bring home fish to me;They will bring them home intill the boat,But they sall get of them but the smaller sort.’
‘The fishers are gone to the sea,
And they will bring home fish to me;
They will bring them home intill the boat,
But they sall get of them but the smaller sort.’
Accordingly, they obtained all the fishes in the boats, leaving the fishermen nothing but slime behind.
1662.
Having conceived a design of destroying all the Laird of Park’s male children, they made a small effigy of a child in clay, and having learned the proper charm from their master, fell down before him on their knees, with their hair hanging over their eyes, and looking steadily at him, said: