1681.
Still the Council itself does not seem to have been a consistent patron of such native works. The dress of the infantry of the royal army having hitherto been of a plain kind, it was reported as necessary to have coats for them ‘of such a dye as shall be thought fit to distinguish sojors from other skulking and vagrantpersons, who have hitherto imitated the livery of the king’s sojors.’ The Newmills Cloth Manufacturing Company offered (August 28, 1684) from their own work, to furnish a suitable cloth ‘of what dye should be desired,’ and as cheaply and expeditiously as it could be had from England. They would shew ‘swatches’ [samples] within a fortnight, and give security for the fulfilment of their undertaking. But the lords decided to use English cloth.
Patrick Graham, ‘captain of his majesty’s company of foot within the town of Edinburgh’ (the Town Guard), was empowered (January 8, 1685) to import ‘three hundred ells of English cloth of a scarlet colour, with wrappings and other necessars’ for the clothing of his corps, this being ‘in regard the manufactories are not able to furnish his majesty’s forces with cloth and other necessars.’ Several other commanders of troops got similar licences. The Newmills Company looked on with outraged feelings, and presented a petition desiring that a stop might be put to the importation of English cloth for the soldiery, as the needful article could be furnished as cheaply and of as good quality from the native factory. In order that they might not be ‘utterly ruined and broke,’ they begged that a committee might be appointed to ascertain that such was the case; and a committee was accordingly appointed, but with no result that appears. Meanwhile, we find the Newmills copartnery trying to protect their monopoly against infractions by private parties.
1681.
It made an attack in April 1684 upon five merchants of Edinburgh who continued, in defiance of the law, to deal in English cloth. It was complained of against Robert Cunningham that ‘he sold a suit of clothes of English cloth to Daniel Lockhart; item, a suit to Boghall; item, a suit to Lord Forfar; item, a suit to William Lockhart; which clothes was made by William Cowan, tailor.’ He had likewise ‘sold ane coat of ... ells to the Laird of Blackadder, made by Hugh Galloway, tailor; to the Marquis of Athole, a suit, made by Lachlan M‘Pherson, tailor; item to Mr Thomas Chalmers, two ells and a half English cloth; item to the Bishop of the Isles, two ells and a half English cloth ... item, a suit to the Marquis of Montrose.’ It was alleged that he had imported and sold in all ‘five hundred ells of prohibite cloth, ane thousand ells of prohibite stuffs and serges, and two hundred pair of English worsted and silk stockings less or more.’ James Weir, Andrew Irving, William Fullerton, and Thomas Smith had all committed delinquencies of the same kind, the enumeration of which would only tire the reader; and allthis notwithstanding they had been kindly invited by the Newmills Company to join their concern. What made the matter the more insufferable, a complaint made against them in August last had been graciously superseded in their behalf by royal proclamation; and they, as if to shew ‘their incorrigibleness and obstinacy,’ ‘slighting that so great mark of clemency,’ imported more during the few months since elapsed than they did for two whole years before, ‘in open contempt of his majesty’s laws,to the destruction of trade and commerce within the kingdom, to the cheating, abusing, and oppressing of his majesty’s lieges, and manifest endangering of the said manufactory and ruining of the persons therein concerned.’
The offenders, having been oft called before the Privy Council, and having failed to appear, were held as confessing their guilt, and accordingly decerned to deliver up the prohibited cloths and stockings to be burned, and at the same time to recompense his majesty’s cashkeeper for them ‘at twelve shillings sterling for the ell of cloth, two shillings sterling for the ell of stuff, and five pound sterling for ilk dozen of prohibite stockings.’—P. C. R.
While these strenuous measures were taken for preventing the free importation of English woollen cloth into Scotland, a petition came (December 2, 1684) from persons interested in the linen manufacture of Scotland, complaining of the usage which had lately been experienced by Scotsmen selling their linens in England. Hitherto there had been a free trade for Scotch linen-weavers in the south; and, as ten or twelve thousand persons were employed in such weaving, the results were important not merely to the workers, but to landlords, for the payment of their rents, and to the government, as each of a thousand or twelve hundred packs exported to England paid a custom of three pounds sterling. Latterly, however, the men selling Scotch linen in England had been taken up and whipped as malefactors, and many obliged to give bonds that they would discontinue their traffic.
The Council recommended the secretary of state to interpose with his majesty, that merchants and others might have liberty to sell linen in England as formerly; never once adverting to the fact that they had an act of parliament conceived in the same illiberal spirit towards English woollen manufactures.
1681.
Such were the early struggles of an important branch of industry in Scotland. It was not, after all, to be in this age that good woollen cloth was to be produced in our northern clime. Awriter in 1697 says: ‘We have tried to make several things, and particularly hats and broadcloth, and yetwe cannot make our ware so good as what we can have from abroad.’ He adds, however, as a ground of hope: ‘Those who would propagate any new manufacture must lay their account to labour under several disadvantages at first. When soap-manufactures were first set up in this kingdom, the soap was not so good as what we had from abroad by far. These at Glasgow gave it over, as a thing they could not accomplish; these at Leith continued to work, and now they have acquired so much knowledge in that art, that their soap is better than that we have brought from abroad.’284
Mar. 2.
Three men, named Gogar, Miller, and Sangster, were hanged in the Grassmarket ‘for disowning the king’s authority, and adhering to Cargill’s covenant, declaration, and excommunication, and thinking it lawful to kill the king and his judges.’—Foun.It is to make the rulers of that day somewhat worse than they were, to suppose that they ordered these horrible executions in a purely unfeeling manner, and without any hesitation. It is stated by Fountainhall, a Whig, that the Duke of York sent the Earl of Roscommon to see these men on the scaffold, and try to bring them to such a point as would have allowed of their lives being spared. Had they but pronounced the words, ‘God save the king,’ they would not have been executed. But they refused life on such terms—the more surprising, as there was no want of Scripture texts to warrant them in praying for the reigning sovereign, even supposing him a monster of wickedness. ‘Daniel,’ remarks Fountainhall, ‘wishes Nebuchadnezzar and Darius, heathen kings, to live for ever.’ It would be curious to know what the accomplished Roscommon felt regarding these singular examples of Scottish religious pertinacity.
1681.
On the other hand, it is surprising that when the Duke of York went so far as to offer the poor men their lives on what appear such easy terms, he did not go a little further and see the absurdity of treating such tempers as treasonable. ‘It would have been better,’ says Fountainhall, ‘to have kept them in bonds as madmen, or to have employed physicians to use their skill upon them as on hypochondriac persons.’ One would have thought that the manifest and acknowledged maniacal condition of theBorrowstounness saints might have suggested the true theory as to the obduracy of such men as Gogar, Miller, and Sangster.
Mar. 11.
A process stood at law between Alexander Robertson, laird of Struan, and the Marquis of Athole, arising from a service of Struan as heir to an ancestor who lived two hundred and fifty years before; and amongst the points debated was an alleged superiority of the marquis over some lands held by Struan. These were both Highland chiefs of some importance, but, dwelling near the Lowland Border, might be considered as of those who were most likely to exhibit a tinge of Lowland habits. The marquis was indeed a political character of some figure, holding the office of Lord Privy Seal and a place in the Council.
The Highland laird of those days was acquainted with law, and had often enough occasion to resort to it; but there was an element in his nature which placed him more or less above law. Law-giver and law-executor in his own territory and over his own people, almost without control, it was difficult for him to accommodate himself to the idea of submitting to the formal, pedantic rules and awards of the Session or the Council. So much being premised, we must figure to ourselves the doughty Struan walking about in the Council-chamber on the day noted in the margin, not bearing his ordinary arms, pistol and durk, externally—for that was forbidden—but carrying them in his bosom under his clothes, and no doubt very wrathful at the arrogance of his proud neighbour, the marquis, in claiming any superiority over him.
His business being under consideration, he told the clerk that he was no vassal of the Marquis of Athole. One John Fleming, ‘servitor’ to the marquis—a kind of gentleman dependant—quietly contradicted him, saying that not only did his sasine of the lands of Tulloch clearly shew him as a vassal of the marquis, but there was a mutual contract between him and the marquis, obliging him to hold these lands in that manner, and on this a decreet had been obtained from the Court of Session. The blood of the chief of the Clan Donochy could not brook such an opposition. He broke out upon Fleming with passionate violence, calling him rascal, knave, and villain. He would see the Marquis of Athole hanged before he would be his vassal. And as for the Court of Session, he cared not a snuff for its decreet. Then thrusting his hand under the breast of his upper coat, ‘where his durk and pistol are secretly keeped,’ he said he knew not what held his hand from writing his case on Fleming’s skin.
1681.
This conduct was of course sure to turn to the injury of Struan himself. In a very few days, Fleming had him up by petition before the Privy Council, who, finding the charge proved, sentenced Struan to imprisonment during pleasure in the Tolbooth, to crave pardon first of the Council, and then of the Marquis of Athole, ‘on his knees,’ and to give Fleming security for the expenses (limited to £100 Scots) incurred by the action and by the interruption it had given him in his business.—P. C. R.
Apr. 8.
A case before the Privy Council reveals the treatment of the insane in this age. It was a complaint from Mr Alexander Burton against his brother John for putting him into Hopkirk the surgeon’s hands as a madman. It was alleged, on John Burton’s part, that Alexander was really melancholic and furious; so required restraint: also that he was misusing and dilapidating his fortune; hence a bill had been applied for to put his affairs under curators. Alexander answered that ‘he had only craved his annual rents, and to refuse him his own, and treat him as a fool, would raise pepper and passion in any man’s nose, and then they termed the acts fury.’ To settle the matter, the Duke of York, who was present, desired that the alleged fool might be permitted to speak; whereupon he delivered himself so extravagantly, that the Council found it only right that he should be put under restraint, and his affairs placed in charge of his brother. Fountainhall adds: ‘In Scotland, we, having no Bedlam, commit the better sort of mad people to the care and taming of chirurgeons, and the inferior to the scourge [or] the poor.’
May 5.
1681.
M‘Gill of Rankeillour gave in a petition to the Privy Council, craving
permission for his son, Sir James M‘Gill, to come to see him, as he was about to depart from this life. The son had about eight years before been so unfortunate as to kill Sir Robert Balfour of Denmill, and the king had granted him a remission, on the condition that, in order to prevent further bloodshed,
he should never again be seen in Fife
. The father, being eighty years of age, anxious to take farewell of his son, begged the Council to relax this condition for a few days. The Council doubted if they had power to grant the petition; but the Duke of York ‘affirming that he believed the king would not refuse this desire of an old dying gentleman, they granted it in thir terms, that he should go with a guard like a prisoner, and
stay but twenty-four hours, and then depart out of Fife, where the friends of him that was killed live.’—
Foun.
Sir Robert Balfour was the only surviving son and successor of Sir James Balfour of Denmill, the well-known antiquary. He fell in a duel with Sir James M‘Gill, at a spot closely adjacent to the M‘Duff Cross in the parish of Newburgh in Fife. A cairn of stones raised in commemoration of the sad event, and calledSir Robert’s Prap, was in existence a few years ago. This unfortunate gentleman must have fallen in the very morning of life, as he was born in 1652.
Dec. 8.
1681.
Encouraged by the liberality of the Council, Sir James M‘Gill petitioned them anew in December for a removal of all restriction upon his remission, alleging that it was required on account of the decayed and infirm condition of his parents (he being their only son), and the ruin into which his affairs had fallen in consequence of his long exile. Against this petition, however, the friends of Sir Robert Balfour gave in answers, shewing how green such a family wound could then be kept for eight years. They urged that the slaughter of their kinsman, so far from being done as alleged by Sir James in self-defence, was in forethought felony, and it was only owing to an undeserved clemency on his majesty’s part that he had not been brought to condign punishment. The pretexts regarding his parents and estate were frivolous, when the nature of his offence was considered. ‘Though it is insinuate that the said Sir James desires only to live in the parish of Monimail, and not in the parish of Ebdie, where Sir Robert’s nearest relations are, this is a very silly pretence, for this is the very next parish, and Sir Robert’s nearest relations have their interests in this parish itself, and it may be easily considered that, if this be allowed, Sir Robert’s friends will be punished for Sir James’s crime, since they must, to shun his company, neither go to meetings of the shire, baptisms, nor marriages, burials or churches, nay, nor to see their friends nor neighbours, lest they shouldfall in inconveniences with him, which was the ground upon which the restriction was granted at first.’ To prove how unworthy Sir James was even of the favour extended to him in May last, it was set forth that on that occasion ‘he must ride insolently by the very gate of the gentleman whom he had murdered, with a great train of his friends, and in passing the road they did also very insolently boast and upbraid the poor people with whom they met.’ If this, it was added, ‘was done in the very first time, what may be expected when his confidence isincreased by renewed favours, and when Denmill’s friends see that the only satisfaction they got (which was not to see him at all) is taken from them.’
The pleading of Denmill’s friends was too reasonable to be resisted, and M‘Gill’s petition was refused.—P. C. R.
June 2.
On a complaint from the master of the High School of Edinburgh to the Privy Council, two or three private teachers were imprisoned till they should give caution, not to teach Latin without a licence from the bishop, and even then to carry the boys no further than ‘the rudiments and vocables;’ after which it was thought they might be of sufficient strength to go to the High School. What disposed the Council to support the complaint was that there were several private teachers now in Edinburgh, who were ‘outed ministers,’ and accordingly were suspected of poisoning their pupils with disloyal principles.—P. C. R.
June 24.
From March up to this date, there was a cold drought, which at length inspired so much dread of famine and consequent pestilence, that a fast was proclaimed throughout the kingdom ‘for deprecating God’s wrath and obtaining rain.’ The evil was generally regarded as an effect of the great comet of the past winter; ‘and certainly,’ says Fountainhall, ‘it may drain the moisture from the earth, and influence the weather; but there is a higher hand of Providence above all these signs, pointing out to us our luxury, abuse of plenty, and other crying sins.’ He adds: ‘God thought fit to prevent our applications and addresses, and on the 24th of June and following days, sent plentiful showers.’
July 20.
1681.
Died this evening in his lodgings in Holyrood Palace, the Duke of Rothes, Chancellor of the kingdom, an able and magnificent man, who, by his licentious life, was believed to have set a bad example to the Scottish nobility of his day. The cumbrous grandeur of his funeral excited much attention. The body was carried from St Giles’s Church to Holyrood Chapel, amidst a procession of soldiery, state officials, personal retinue, noblemen and gentlemen mourners, and heraldic personages, which fills six quarto pages in Arnot’sHistory of Edininburgh. It was next day conducted in a hearse to Leith, thence conveyed across the Forth to Burntisland, and ‘the next day after, it was met by thegentlemen of Fife, of which his grace was high-sheriff, and by them accompanied to the family burying-place at Leslie, being laid in the grave with sound of trumpets, and the honours placed above the grave.’
Sep. 1.
Leather stamped and gilded—believed to be originally a Spanish fashion—was a favourite cover for the walls of rooms in the better class of houses in Scotland as well as in England. Some examples of the style still survive, and speak so strongly in its favour, that we might justly wonder at its going out of fashion. Hitherto such ornamental leather was introduced from abroad; but now Alexander Brand, merchant in Edinburgh, by a considerable outlay, had brought workmen and materials into the kingdom, and for the first time was about to set up a work, in which he expected to produce the article ‘at as easy rates as it could be imported.’ On a favourable report from ‘the Committee of Trade,’ the Privy Council gave Brand a privilege of exclusive manufacture for nineteen years.—P. C. R.
Thomas Kennedy and John Trotter, merchants, were at the same time proposing to set up a manufacture of linen and woollen cloth stuffs and stockings in the place called Paul’s Work in Edinburgh, where, so long ago as 1609, there had been an attempt at a woollen work. And as an encouragement, the Council ordained them to have all the privileges offered to manufactories in Scotland by the twelfth act of the present parliament regarding manufactures.
Oct. 1.
The ‘whole settled revenue’ of the king in Scotland was this day leased to Bailie Baird, Charles Murray, and Robert Milne, for seven years, at £90,000 per annum, they advancing £16,000 to pay the army. It appears that the pensions then paid out of the Scottish exchequer amounted to £25,000 a year. It is a curious consideration that at present theTimesnewspaper pays considerably more revenue than the whole taxation of Scotland in the latter part of the seventeenth century.
Oct. 1.
1681.Oct. 10.
Colonel Gage, commander of a regiment in the service of the King of Spain, proposed to the Duke of York to take a few of thephanatiquesnow in custody into his regiment, and so relieve the authorities of all further charge of them. The duke caused six, named Forman, Garnock, Lapsley, Stewart, Fairie, and Russell, ‘most of them young fellows,’ to be brought beforethe Council, with the design of sentencing them to be delivered to Colonel Gage. The men, however, ‘did so misbehave, in declining the king, duke, and Council, and speaking such notorious treason,’ that it was thought necessary to send them instead to the criminal court. There it was only too easy to prove the treasonable nature of their language. Forman had a knife, with a posy, ‘This is to cut the throat of tyrants.’ It appeared that Garnock had at the Council so railed at General Dalyell, calling him ‘a Muscovy beast who used to roast men,’ that the old soldier struck him with the pommel of his sword on the face till the blood sprung. One alone obtained mercy; the other five were doomed to death, Forman having the special sentence to lose his hand before hanging, on account of his knife. These men all died ‘obdurately,’ as their enemies called it, ‘heroically,’ according to their friends, ‘reviling and condemning their judges and all who differed from them,’ says Fountainhall. Patrick Walker adds some curious particulars. ‘The never-to-be forgotten Mr James Renwick told me that he was witness to this public murder at the Gallow-lee, betwixt Leith and Edinburgh, where he saw the hangman hash and hag off their five heads, with Patrick Forman’s right hand. Their bodies were all buried at the gallow’s foot; their heads, with Patrick’s hand, were brought and put on five pikes on the Pleasance Port.... Mr Renwick told me also, that it was the first public action that his hand was at, to convene friends and lift their murdered bodies, and carry them to the West Churchyard, and bury them there. Then they came about the city to the Nether-Bow Port, with a design to retake the heads, hands, and other parts of our martyrs down; but a woman, holding over a candle to let some people see the street, marred them. Then they took down these five heads and that hand, and the day being come, they went quickly up the Pleasance, and when they came to Lauriston yards, upon the south side of the city, they durst not venture, being so light, to go and bury their heads with their bodies, which they designed, it being present death if any of them had been found. Alexander Tweedie, a friend, being with them, who at that time was gardener in these yards, concluded to bury them in his yard, being in a box (wrapped in linen), where they lay forty-five years....’ These relics were exhumed in 1726, with all manifestations of rejoicing.
1681.
The day after the five men had suffered at the Gallow-lee, the duke had other four called before the Council, with a view to their being sent away with Colonel Gage. ‘When they were broughtin, they began in the very same strain with their neighbours who were hanged the day before; but the duke caused hastily remove them, that they might not also hang themselves with their own tongue.’—Foun.
Nov. 15.
Amongst the gaieties of this day at Holyroodhouse, in celebration of the queen’s birthday, was ‘the acting a comedy calledMithridates, King of Pontus, wherein Lady Anne, the duke’s daughter, and the ladies of honour, were the only actors.’ Fountainhall, who states this occurrence, only adds the remark: ‘Not only the canonists, both Protestant and Popish, but the very heathen Roman lawyers, declared all scenic and stage players infamous, and will scarce admit them to the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.’ On this occasion, there was a prologue by the Earl of Roscommon, addressed specially to the duke, and conceived in a strain of extravagant flattery ludicrously in contrast with the feelings of a large body of the people:
‘When wealthy neighbours strove with us for power,Let the sea tell how, in their fatal hour,Swift as an eagle our victorious prince,Great Britain’s genius, flew to her defence.His name struck fear, his conduct won the day....O happy islands, if you knew your bliss!Strong by the sea’s protection, safe by his!Express your gratitude the only way,And humbly own a debt too vast to pay,’ &c.
‘When wealthy neighbours strove with us for power,Let the sea tell how, in their fatal hour,Swift as an eagle our victorious prince,Great Britain’s genius, flew to her defence.His name struck fear, his conduct won the day....O happy islands, if you knew your bliss!Strong by the sea’s protection, safe by his!Express your gratitude the only way,And humbly own a debt too vast to pay,’ &c.
‘When wealthy neighbours strove with us for power,Let the sea tell how, in their fatal hour,Swift as an eagle our victorious prince,Great Britain’s genius, flew to her defence.His name struck fear, his conduct won the day....O happy islands, if you knew your bliss!Strong by the sea’s protection, safe by his!Express your gratitude the only way,And humbly own a debt too vast to pay,’ &c.
‘When wealthy neighbours strove with us for power,
Let the sea tell how, in their fatal hour,
Swift as an eagle our victorious prince,
Great Britain’s genius, flew to her defence.
His name struck fear, his conduct won the day....
O happy islands, if you knew your bliss!
Strong by the sea’s protection, safe by his!
Express your gratitude the only way,
And humbly own a debt too vast to pay,’ &c.
Nov. 24.
1681.
The test being a puzzle and a bewilderment to some of the sagest statesmen of the day, it is not surprising that it should have somewhat confounded the magistrates of a simple Scotch burgh. At this date, there was a petition to the Privy Council from William Plenderleith, provost; John Hope, bailie; and John Givan, treasurer of Peebles, in name of the council of that burgh, setting forth that, ‘being desired to take the test, they were always willing;’ yet, ‘the town being very inconsiderable, andthe petitioners very illiterate and ignorant, and living in a remote place where they could get no person to inform them of the difference betwixt the act of parliament and the act of Council, and not having the act of parliament in all the country,nor yet the confession of faith, to which it related, the petitioners humbly desired a time to advise as concerning the test.’ At their late election, they had contented themselves with taking the Declaration,‘thinking that the first of January was sufficient to take the test.’ But now, understanding what was required of them, they protested their eager willingness to take the test, ‘having always been very loyal,’ as they had shewn by their conduct on the occasion of the Bothwell Bridge rebellion, for which they had received the thanks of the Council. The Lords seem to have looked leniently on the omission of this innocent little municipality, and now accepted their signatures in good part.
The magistrates of Peebles were, not long after, involved in a trouble of a different complexion, in consequence of an unpopular movement for the letting of a piece of commonty near the walls of the town, which they had found to be ‘a pretext for incomers to the said burgh, and the poor people, to eat up their neighbours’ corns.’ While they were engaged in their Tolbooth or court-house (March 1, 1682) in the administration of justice, a mob of irate burgesses, of whom thirty-seven are named, came to express their disapprobation of a late act of Council on that subject, and, if possible, frighten them from proceeding with it; ‘menacing the provost that if he did so, he should be sticked as Provost Dickison was.’285The magistrates put two of their assailants in jail; but these were soon liberated by force. Then the magistrates got the two burgesses and five of their liberators clapped up in prison; but, behold, next day, taking a leaf out of the history of the troubles of 1637, a mob of women assembled—namely, Marion Bennett, Marion Grieve, Margaret Wilson, Isobel Wilson, Isobel Robertson, Janet Ewmond, Isobel Ewmond, and Helen Steel—the names of such heroines are worth preserving—and ‘did in a tumultuous and irregular way take out of prison the persons of William Porteous, Andrew Halden [the original prisoners], Thomas Stoddart, Alexander Jonkieson, John Tweedie, Thomas King, James Waldie, and William Leggat, and went to the Cross of Peebles with them, and there drank their good healths as protectors of the liberties of the poor, and the confusion of the said magistrates and council, and took up with them stones to stone to death such as should oppose them; and thereafter, they being about three hundred persons, divided themselves in several companies, and every company convoyed home a prisoner, and drank their good health, to the great astonishment of all honest and well-meaning people.’
1681.
This affair being brought as a gross riot before the PrivyCouncil, five of the men liberated, including the two who had first been in prison, were deprived of their burgess privileges, and committed to the Tolbooth of Edinburgh during pleasure, while the magistrates were enjoined to ‘convene before them the haill rest of the inhabitants that were accessory to the tumult and riot libelled, and to proceed against them therefor, in fining, imprisonment, or ryving their burgess-tickets, as they shall find cause.’
On the same day in which this case was judged, a petition was presented from the five ex-burgesses, representing themselves as ‘poor and ignorant persons,’ who had not meant any harm—as most of them valetudinary and unable to bear confinement in jail—and, moreover, as required to be now engaged in the labours of the season; wherefore their liberation was craved. This was soon after acceded to, on their giving security to reappear if called upon, and that they would go and confess their fault, and crave pardon of the Peebles magistrates.—P. C. R.
Dec. 22.
As an example of the benevolence of the Privy Council of this time, in cases where the reigning political prepossessions were not offended—we find, on the very same day with some strong proceedings against Presbyterian recusants, a representation from John Riddell, merchant in Edinburgh, setting forth some recent heavy losses of merchandise at sea, and certain obligations he was under in the way of cautionry, whereby he had been reduced for eleven months past to the sad condition of a prisoner in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, with ‘nothing left to maintain himself and three motherless children, unless that that the charitable supply of tender-hearted Christians doth support and help him.’ Though he had no claim on public benevolence beyond some sufferings long ago for the king at and before Worcester, the Council gave warrant to the Archbishop of St Andrews and the Bishop of Edinburgh for a voluntary contribution on Riddell’s behalf throughout these two dioceses, enjoining them to cause the ministers to ‘make due and lawful intimation thereof.’—P. C. R.
Dec.
1681.
Poor as Scotland was universally reputed to be, foreign adventurers in search of fortune would occasionally resort to it. Peter Bruce or de Bruis was one of these—a native of Flanders, and a Catholic. We have already (February 1680) seen him asking public favour for a water-pumping engine and an iron-cutting mill which he had invented. We hear of him in Fountainhall,about that time, as building a harbour at Cockenzie for the Earl of Winton, and having a long litigation about the payment. He seems to have been an active spirit. In December 1681, he succeeded in obtaining from the Privy Council a patent for the exclusive manufacture and sale of playing-cards, under the usual pretence that money would thus be retained within the country. Within a very few months, he had erected a work near Leith for this manufacture, and brought home from Holland and Flanders ‘expert masters’ for making the cards, and ‘carvers for making the patterns,’ all of whom he took bound to instruct native workmen. In a very short time, we find him at war with two merchants who were accustomed to import playing-cards, and not disposed to brook his monopoly. Perhaps Peter was too vehement in his proceedings for the Scotch people among whom he cast his lot; perhaps they were unduly jealous of this keen-witted stranger. How it came we cannot tell; but before the work had been long erected, the tacksman of Canonmills set upon it and did somewhat to demolish it, and, horrid to relate, threw Madame de Bruis into the dam, besides using opprobrious words; for which he was fined in £50, and imprisoned. Not long after, Peter gained a triumph over the two importers of cards, for they were ordered by the Council to compound with him at so much a pack before they could be allowed to sell them.286
1682.Feb. 16.
In the ensuing February, Peter was again in trouble. Alexander Daes, owner of the paper-manufactory at Dalry Mills, complained that his privilege of making paper and playing-cards had been infringed by Peter Bruce and James Lithgow, who had clandestinely obtained a licence for a playing-card manufactory. They had likewise enticed away a workman named Nicolas de Champ, whom he had brought from France, and caused the abstraction from his work of some of his haircloths. The Council freed Peter and his associate from everything but the charge of taking away the haircloths, which they left to be dealt with by the ordinary judge.—P. C. R.
1681.
Altogether, Peter seems to have found great difficulty in preventing a sale of foreign cards. It was difficult to detect the importation of such articles. A package containing a quantity of them had lately been brought by the ship of one Adam Watt; and even the custom-house officer winked at its beingsmuggled ashore. Peter craved the Council (June 7, 1682) for general letters against the contraveners of his privilege; but the Council, apparently warned by the complaints about the Messrs Fountain, would only, on that occasion, agree to give warrant for particular cases. Afterwards (July 5), they gave a more general warrant, but still declaring that Bruce, in the event of making a wrong charge, should be liable to a fine.
Finally, persecuted out of Edinburgh, Peter betook himself to Glasgow, and tried to set up a paper-mill at Woodside, near that city; but here, too, he encountered a variety of troubles and oppressions, designed for the purpose of neutralising his monopoly of the manufacture of playing-cards, his builders failing in their engagements, his men being seduced away from him, his mill-course defrauded of water, and so forth. He complained to the Privy Council (January 6, 1685), and got a decree against his two chief persecutors, John Campbell and James Peddie, for a thousand merks as compensation for the injuries he had suffered. When everything else failed, Peter seems to have turned his religious professions to some account, as he is last seen acting as printer to the Catholic chapel and college at Holyrood—where, doubtless, the Revolution gave him a disagreeable surprise.
Dec. 26.
The college youths renewed the demonstration of last year. ‘Their preparations were so quiet, that none suspected it this year. They brought [the pope] to the Cross, and fixed his chair in that place where the gallows stands. He was tricked up in a red gown and a mitre, with two keys over his arm, a crucifix in one hand, and the oath of the Test in the other. Then they put fire to him, and it burnt lengthy till it came to the powder, at which he blew up in the air.
‘At this time, many things were done in mockery of the Test: one I shall tell. The children of Heriot’s Hospital, finding that the dog which kept the yards of that hospital had a public charge and office, ordained him to take the Test, and offered him a paper. But he, loving a bone better than it, absolutely refused it. They then rubbed it over with butter, which they called an Explication of the Test, in imitation of Argyle, and he licked off the butter, but did spit out the paper; for which they held a jury upon him, and, in derision of the sentence on Argyle, they found the dog guilty of treason, and actually hanged him.’—Foun.
1682.Jan. 16.
1682.
Alexander Cockburn, the hangman of Edinburgh, was triedbefore the magistrates as sheriffs, for the murder, in his own house, of one Adamson or Mackenzie, a blue-gown beggar. The proof was slender, and chiefly of the nature of presumption—as, that he had denied Adamson’s being in his house on the alleged day, the contrary being proved, groans having been heard, and bloody clothes found in the house; and this evidence, too, was chiefly from women. Yet he was condemned to be hanged within three suns. One Mackenzie, whom Cockburn had caused to lose his place of hangman at Stirling, performed the office.—Foun.
Feb. 11.
Three men were drowned this day, by falling through the ice on the North Loch. ‘We have a proverb that the fox will not set his foot on the ice after Candlemas, especially in the heat of the sun, as this was at two o’clock; and at any time the fox is so sagacious as to lay his ear to the ice, to see if it be frozen to the bottom, or if he hear the murmuring and current of the water.’—Foun.
Feb.
1682.
A strange story was circulated regarding a servant lass in the burgh of Irvine. Her mistress, the wife of the Honourable Major Montgomery, having had some silver articles stolen, blamed the lass, who, taking the accusation much amiss, and protesting her innocence, said she would learn who took those things, though she should raise the devil for it. The master and mistress let this pass as a rash speech; but the girl, being resolute, on a certain day ‘goes down to a laigh cellar, takes a Bible with her, and draws a circle about her, and turns a riddle on end twice from south to north, or from the right hand to the left hand, having in her hand nine feathers, which she pulled out of the tail of a black cock, and having read the 21st [psalm] forward, she reads backward chap. ix., verse 19, of the book of Revelation;heappears in a seaman’s clothing, with a blue cap, and asks what she would. She puts one question to him, and he answers it; and she casts three of the feathers at him, charging him to his place again; then he disappears. He seemed to her to rise out of the earth to the middle of his body. She reads the same verse backward the second time, and he appears the second time, rising out of the ground, with one leg above the ground; she asks him a second question, and she casts other three feathers at him, charging him to his place; he again disappears. She reads again the third time the versebackward, and he appears the third time with his body above ground (the last two times in the shape of a black grim man in black clothing, and the last time with a long tail); she asks a third question at him, and casts the three last feathers at him, charging him to his place; and he disappears. The major-general and his lady, being above stairs, though not knowing what was a-working, were sore afraid, and could give no reason of it; the dogs in the city making a hideous barking round about. This done, the woman, aghast, and pale as death, comes and tells her lady who had stolen the things she missed, and they were in such a chest in her house, belonging to some of the servants; which being searched, was found accordingly. Some of the servants, suspecting her to be about this work, tells the major of it, and tells him they saw her go down to the cellar; he lays her up in prison, and she confesses as is before related, telling them that she learned it in Dr Colvin’s house in Ireland, who used to practise this.’—Law.
Fountainhall relates this story more briefly as ‘a strange accident,’ and remarks that the divinationper cribrum(by the sieve) is very ancient, having been practised among the Greeks. He is puzzled about her confession, as it may be from frenzy and hatred of life; but if the fact of the consultation can be proved, he is clear that it infers death.
Divination by a sieve was performed in this manner: ‘The sieve being suspended, after repeating a certain form of words, it is taken between the two fingers only, and the names of the parties suspected, repeated: he at whose name the sieve turns, trembles, or shakes, is reputed guilty of the evil in question.... It was sometimes practised by suspending the sieve by a thread, or fixing it to the points of a pair of scissors, giving it room to turn, and naming as before the parties suspected: in this manner Coscinomancy is still practised in some parts of England.’—Demonologia.By J. S. F.London, 1827; p. 146.
Feb.
‘Strange apparitions were seen in and about Glasgow, and strange voices and wild cries [were heard], particularly one night about the Deanside well, was heard a cry,Help, help!‘—Law.Many such occurrences are noted about this time and for four or five years before. In March 1679, for instance, a voice was heard at Paisley Abbey, crying: ‘Wo, wo, wo—pray, pray, pray!’ Such reports reveal the excited state of the public mind and a general sense of anxiety under the religious variances of the time.
1682.Mar.
Major Learmont, an old soldier of the Covenant, though only a tailor to his trade, was taken in his own house near Lanark, or rather in a vault connected with it which he had contrived for hiding. ‘It had its entry in his house, upon the side of a wall, and closed up with a whole stone, so close that none could have judged it but to be a stone of the building. It descended below the foundation of the house, and was in length about forty yards, and in the far end, the other mouth of it, was closed with feal [turf], having a feal dyke built upon it; so that with ease, when he went out, he shot out the feal and closed it again. Here he sheltered for the space of sixteen years, taking to it at every alarm, and many times hath his house been searched for him by the soldiers; but where he sheltered none was privy to it but his own domestics, and at length it is discovered by his own herdsman.’—Law.
Mar. 9.
Thomas Barclay of Collerine in Fife was a youth of eighteen, in possession of ‘an opulent estate,’ and likewise of a considerable jurisdiction in his county. His predecessors were loyalists; but Thomas himself, by the remarriage of his mother to Mure of Rowallan in Ayrshire, was, according to the allegation of his uncle John Barclay, in the way of being ‘bred up in a family of fanatical and disloyal principles, not being permitted to visit or be acquainted with his nearest relations and friends, and denied all manner of education suitable to his quality ... not being sent to college’—he had, moreover, been influenced to choose ‘curators altogether strangers to his family, of known disaffected and disloyal principles.’ It seemed, in John Barclay’s judgment, unavoidable in these circumstances that a supporter would be lost to his majesty’s interests, unless a remedy were provided.
It seems so far creditable to a government which has a good many sins at its charge, that, when this case came before the Duke of York and the Privy Council, on John Barclay’s petition, and both sides had been heard—namely, the uncle on one side, and the Lady Rowallan, with the three curators, Montgomery younger of Skelmorley, the Laird of Dunlop, and Mr John Stirling, minister of Irvine, on the other—they decided that the young Barclay was of age to act and choose curators for himself, and that the defenders were not bound to produce him in court; thus frankly consenting that the young man should rest in the danger of being perverted from the loyalty of his family.—P. C. R.