Chapter 34

25Kirkton’sChurch History, p. 19.

26Blair’s Memoirs, MS. quoted in Notes to Kirkton.

27Wodrow’s Preface to Dickson’s Truth’s Victory over Error,apud Gillies.

28Livingstone’s Characteristics, quoted in Notes to Kirkton.

29Analecta, iii. 450.

30£2915.

31Father Blackhall’sNarrative(Spalding Club), p. 125.

32December 16, 1630, the Privy Council granted commission to a portion of their number, amongst whom was a bishop (Dumblane), to assemble in the Laigh Council-house for the examination of Margaret Wood, ‘and as they shall find occasion to cause put her to someslight and spare torturefor the better trial and discovery of the truth of the matter.’

33See proceedings in Appendix to Spalding’sTroubles, vol. i. (Spalding Club edition).

34New Stat. Acc. of Scotland—Banffshire, p. 131.

35The notes to this article are from another list in theSpottiswoode Miscellany, ii. 383.

36James Spence of Wormiston. He became Lord of Noreholm and Chancellor of Sweden.

37Subsequently Earl of Brentford in the English peerage.

38Created Lord Eythan by Charles I. in 1642.

39He died of his wounds, a captive, at Gortz.

40Betrayed and taken at Hanau, and died in prison.

41Killed before Bremen.

42Called Dear Sandie—he was subsequently employed in the artillery of the Scottish Covenanting army.

43He was assassinated by a lieutenant of his own regiment, whom he had been provoked to batoon. A court-martial of Germans acquitted the lieutenant, on the ground that it was contrary to Swedish discipline to cudgel an officer. General Leslie, being then governor of Staten where the earl was buried, had the lieutenant immediately apprehended and shot at a post.

44Stevenson.

45Stevenson, quotingHistorical Collections, MS.

46Book of Adjournal.P. C. R.

47Black Book of Taymouth, p. 75.

48Black Book of Taymouth, p. 440.

49Black Book of Taymouth, p. 77.

50See Cunningham’sLives of British Painters, &c., v. 22, art. George Jameson.

51Mixed with Spalding’s quaint narration, are here inserted some special descriptions from the authorised account, published at the time, as abridged in Jackson’sHistory of the Scottish Stage.

52Muse’s Threnodie, ii. 118. Some specimens of the dress of the morris-dancers are still preserved at Perth.

53Black Book of Taymouth, p. 437.

54Another account states the number drowned at eight.

55From a manuscript of Sir James Balfour.Ancient Heraldic and Antiquarian Tracts.,Edinburgh. 1837.

56Ed. Phil. Journal, Apr. 1839.

57View of Diocese of Aberdeen, Spal. Club.

58Go-summer and go-har’st are terms applied in Scotland to the mild weather which sometimes occurs between autumn and winter. There is a proverb in Peeblesshire: ‘If the deer lie down dry and rise dry on Rood-e’en (September 18), it’s a sign we’ll have a good go-har’st.’

59See Johnson’sScots Mus. Museum, new edition,notes.

60Staggering State of Scots Statesmen.

61Spalding. Balfour.

62Stevenson.

63Rushworth’s Collections.Southey’s Commonplace-book, 3d Series, p. 528.

64Oliver and Boyd’sAlmanacfor 1839, p. 92.

65Collections for the Hist. Aber. and Banff, Spal. Club.

66The chancellor seems to have been involved in an unpleasant affair a short while before his death. Ho had procured the marriage of a young lady, named Inglis, with a good portion, to a nephew of his, named Butter, and thus disappointed the Earl of Traquair, who desired the ‘morsel for a cousin of his awn, with whom he was to have divided the prey.’ Traquair proceeded to ‘raise all the furies of the court against the chancellor,’ and procured a warrant for examination of some of his accounts—which, however, terminated in clearing his lordship of all suspicion. Traquair only shewed ‘his awn base ingratitude towards him who first of all men brought him to have the king’s favour and respect.’—Bal.

67Manuscript of Sir James Balfour,Heral. and Ant. Tracts, Edinburgh, 1837.

68Notes to Spalding Club edition of Spalding.

69Spalding Club Miscellany, ii. 73.

70For these authentic particulars of Gilderoy’s fate, we are indebted to the extracts from thePrivy Council Recordprinted in the Appendix to the Spalding Club edition of Spalding’sTroubles.

71Act of Privy Council, quoted inBlackwood’s Magazine, i. 66.

72‘... many mouths were there opened to the bishop’s disgrace. “False Antichristian!” “Wolf!” “Beastly belly-god!” and “Crafty fox!” were the best epithets and titles of dignity given him. The dean was mightily upbraided. Some cried: “He’s a son of a witch’s breeding and the de’il’s get. Nae halesome water can come forth from such a polluted fountain!” Others cried: “Ill-hanged thief, if at that time thou went’st to court, thou had been well hanged, thou hadst not been here to be a pest to God’s church this day!” One did cast a stool at him, intending to have given him a ticket of remembrance; but jouking became his safeguard at that time.’—Brief and True Relation of the Broil, &c., printed in App. to Rothes’sRelation, 1830.

73See Vol. I. p. 545.

74Rothes’sRelation of Proceedings Concerning the Affairs of the Kirk.

75Become fusty.

76Inundation.

77Clarendon’s Life, ii. 333.

78Whitelock’sMemorials, 485.

79Gordon of Rothiemay’sHist. Scots Affairs from 1637 to 1641. Spalding Club, vol. i. 57.

80Lady Mary Stewart, daughter of Esme, first Duke of Lennox.

81Some extracts from this book were printed by the late Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, Esq., 4to, without date.

82The moneys are Scots, being but a fraction of sterling money of the same denomination.

83The lady thus devoted her plate to the maintenance of the Covenanted cause.

84Cosmo Innes—preface toFasti Aberdonenses, Spalding Club, 1854.

85Gordon’sHist. Scots Affairs.

86Maitland Club Misc., i. 476.

87Turners made by gipsies (cairds).

88The reader cannot fail to have perceived that John Dhu Ger has been twice killed already. How he contrived to outlive so many deaths, I am unable to explain.

89Guthry’sMemoirs.

90Edinburgh Magazine, March 1819.

91Balfour’sAnnals of Scotland, iii. 128.

92Archæologia Scotica, i. 503,note.

93Wodrow’sAnalecta, ii. 209, 280.

94The battle of Edgehill, fought on the 24th of October 1642.

95According to Burnet, Sir Archibald Johnston of Warriston did the same thing. ‘He would often pray in his family two hours at a time, and had an unexhausted copiousness that way. What thought soever struck his fancy during those effusions, he looked on as an answer to prayer, and was wholly determined by it.’

96This whimsical association actually occurs in the dittay of a witch of this period.

97Stevenson’sHistory of the Church of Scotland.

98Willis’sCurrent Notes, April 1857.

99See Thorpe’sNorthern Mythology; also article on Sandsting inNew Stat. Acc. Scotland.

100On the 8th of June 1643, a case came before the Privy Council, at the instance of Lawrence Mercer and others, students at St Andrews, who complained of a scandalous charge got up against them by James Stewart of Ardvoirlich and his two sons, Robert and Harry, to the effect that umwhile Alexander Stewart, son of the first party, and brother of the two others, had received deadly injuries from them in a college tumult, and died in consequence. It was shewn that Alexander had provoked a tumult by his insolent speeches, and afterwards lay for a day or two in bed, but was found on inspection to be quite well, and he had lived in good health for nine months after. The lords accordingly declared the complainers to be innocent of what was laid to their charge.

101Notes to the Waverley Novels.

102In a curious and rare pamphlet, by William Lithgow, descriptive of the siege of Newcastle (Edinburgh,printed by Robert Bryson, 1645), we get some idea of the wretched state to which the place was reduced in consequence of its investiture of several months. ‘We found great penury and scarcity of victuals, ammunition, and other necessaries within that dejected town; so that they could not have held out ten days longer, unless the one half had devoured the other. The plague was raging in Gateside, Sandside, Sunderland, and many country villages about.’ For this reason, Tynemouth was obliged to surrender also; ‘the pestilence having been five weeks there with a great mortality, they were glad to yield and to scatter themselves abroad, but to the great undoing and infecting of the country about.’Lithgow, by the way, was dissatisfied with the treatment of Newcastle by his countrymen. ‘As they abused their victory,’ says he, ‘in storming the town, with too much undeserved mercy, so they as unwisely and imprudently overreached themselves, in plundering the town with anignorant negligence and careless omission.... And as they thus defrauded themselves with a whistle in their mouths, so they pitifully prejudged, by this their inveigled course, the common soldiers of their just due and dear-bought advantages.’

Lithgow, by the way, was dissatisfied with the treatment of Newcastle by his countrymen. ‘As they abused their victory,’ says he, ‘in storming the town, with too much undeserved mercy, so they as unwisely and imprudently overreached themselves, in plundering the town with anignorant negligence and careless omission.... And as they thus defrauded themselves with a whistle in their mouths, so they pitifully prejudged, by this their inveigled course, the common soldiers of their just due and dear-bought advantages.’

103‘At Botarie, 25th October 1648, the brethren ordained to intimat out of their several pulpits, that whosoever receipts and converses with excommunicat persons, should be processed before the presbytery.’—Strathbogie Presbytery Record.

104Producing a fire by the friction of two sticks against each other.

105Daughter-in-law of the Lady Frendraught formerly noticed.

106Records of the Kirk of Scotland, 1838, p. 446.

107Peterkin’sRecords of the Kirk of Scotland, p. 427.

108Maitland Miscell., i. 436.

109Maitland Miscel., i. 433.

110Caldwell Papers, i. 91.

111Wood’sParish of Cramond, p. 77.

112Coltness Collections(Maitland Club), p. 58.

113Archæologia Scotica, ii. 108.

114Lyndoch lies about seven miles north-west from Perth.

115It is certain that Perth was visited by the plague in 1646. SeeMemorabilia of Perth, p. 179.

116In a popular publication quoted below117occurs the following notice of a well-known land mollusk, in connection with a traditionary story of the plague, which has long had general currency in Scotland:‘In the woodlands, the more formidable black nude slug, theArionorLimax ater, will also be often encountered. It is a huge voracious creature, herbivorous, feeding, to Barbara’s astonishment, on tender plants; fruits, as strawberries, apples; and even turnips and mushrooms; appearing morning and evening, or after rain; suffering severely in its concealment in long droughts, and remaining torpid in winter. The gray field slug (Limax agrestis) is actually recommended to be swallowed by consumptive patients! In the town of Dundee there exists a strange traditionary story of the plague, connected with the conversion, from dire necessity, of theArion ater, or black slug, to a use similar to that which the luxurious Romans are said to have made of the great apple-snail. Two young and blooming maidens lived together at that dread time, like Bessie Bell and Mary Gray, in a remote cottage on the steep (indeed almost perpendicular) ascent of the Bonnetmaker’s Hill. Deprived of friends or support by the pestilence that walked at noonday, they still retained their good looks and healthful aspect, even when the famine had succeeded to the plague. The jaundiced eyes of the famine-wasted wretches around them were instantly turned towards the poor girls, who appeared to thrive so well whilst others were famishing. They were unhesitatingly accused of witchcraft, and had nearly fallen prey to that terrible charge; for betwixt themselves they had sworn never to tell in words by what means they were supported, ashamed as they felt of the resource to which they had been driven; and resolved, if possible, to escape the anticipated derision of their neighbours on its disclosure. It was only when about to be dragged before their stern inquisitors, that one of the girls, drawing aside the covering of a great barrel which stood in a corner of their domicile, discovered, without violating her oath, that the youthful pair had been driven to the desperate necessity of collecting and preserving for food large quantities of theseLimacinæ, which they ultimately acknowledged to have proved to them generous and even agreeable sustenance. To the credit of the times of George Wishart—a glimpse of pre-reforming enlightenment—the explanation sufficed; the young women escaped with their lives, and were even applauded for their prudence.’

‘In the woodlands, the more formidable black nude slug, theArionorLimax ater, will also be often encountered. It is a huge voracious creature, herbivorous, feeding, to Barbara’s astonishment, on tender plants; fruits, as strawberries, apples; and even turnips and mushrooms; appearing morning and evening, or after rain; suffering severely in its concealment in long droughts, and remaining torpid in winter. The gray field slug (Limax agrestis) is actually recommended to be swallowed by consumptive patients! In the town of Dundee there exists a strange traditionary story of the plague, connected with the conversion, from dire necessity, of theArion ater, or black slug, to a use similar to that which the luxurious Romans are said to have made of the great apple-snail. Two young and blooming maidens lived together at that dread time, like Bessie Bell and Mary Gray, in a remote cottage on the steep (indeed almost perpendicular) ascent of the Bonnetmaker’s Hill. Deprived of friends or support by the pestilence that walked at noonday, they still retained their good looks and healthful aspect, even when the famine had succeeded to the plague. The jaundiced eyes of the famine-wasted wretches around them were instantly turned towards the poor girls, who appeared to thrive so well whilst others were famishing. They were unhesitatingly accused of witchcraft, and had nearly fallen prey to that terrible charge; for betwixt themselves they had sworn never to tell in words by what means they were supported, ashamed as they felt of the resource to which they had been driven; and resolved, if possible, to escape the anticipated derision of their neighbours on its disclosure. It was only when about to be dragged before their stern inquisitors, that one of the girls, drawing aside the covering of a great barrel which stood in a corner of their domicile, discovered, without violating her oath, that the youthful pair had been driven to the desperate necessity of collecting and preserving for food large quantities of theseLimacinæ, which they ultimately acknowledged to have proved to them generous and even agreeable sustenance. To the credit of the times of George Wishart—a glimpse of pre-reforming enlightenment—the explanation sufficed; the young women escaped with their lives, and were even applauded for their prudence.’

117Summer Life on Land and Water.By William W. Fyfe. 1851.

118Remarkable Passages of the Lord’s Providence towards Mr John Spreull, Town-clerk of Glasgow, 1635-54.T. Stevenson, Edinburgh, 1832.

119Arbroath Guide, Oct. 2, 1847.

120Executed in the Palace-yard, Westminster, 9th March 1649.

1216th October 1648—‘appoints the four bailies, the old provost [Archibald Tod], the deacon of the chirurgeons, and their clerk, to go down to the Canongate in the afternoon, and in the Council’s name salute the Lord Cromwell, lieutenant-general of the English forces, and thir presents sall be their warrand.’—Ed. Council Register.

122Defoe’sReview of the Brit. Nation, 1709.

123Life of Cameron of Lochiel.

124Balfour’sAnnals.Britain’s Distemper, by Patrick Gordon.

125Excerpts from Fraser of Wardlaw’s Memoirs.Inverness Courier.

126Rescinded Acts.Records of Kirk of Scotland.

127Balfour’sAnnals, iii. 427.

128Son to umquhile John Stewart, usher to his majesty.

129Acts of Estates, MS.Gen. Reg. House.

130This narration is taken from Fergusson’sDiary, as quoted inSatan’s Invisible World. We are obliged, however, for the name of the minister to Wodrow,Analecta, i. 65.

131Maitland Miscel., i. 439.

132From tradition.

133On the 18th of March 1647, finding that ‘the pride and insolency of excommunicate persons doeth exceedingly increase, and that the dreadful censure of excommunication is much slighted and vilipended, whereby God is much dishonoured,’ the Estates passed an act renewing the force of all previous acts against such persons, and ordaining that, after forty days, letters of horning and caption should be issued against them, to be of full force unless they can shew that they have given ‘full obedience and satisfaction to the kirk.’ The acts against papists were at the same time renewed; none such to be capable of public employment, husbands to be ‘countable for their wives’ if the ladies should reset priests, and no person to take a servant unprovided with ‘a testimonial of the soundness of their religion from the minister where they dwelt.’

134Register of the Presbytery of Lanark.Acts of the Scottish Parliament, MS.

135Records of Kirk of Scotland, p. 473.

136Nicoll’sDiary.

137Kirkton’sHist. Church Scot., p. 64.

138Nicoll’sDiary, p. 8.

139Dr Wilde, in Census of Ireland for 1851; part V., vol. i., p. 110.

140Baillie’sLetters, iii. pp. 97, 550.

141See an interesting narration on this subject in Mr Mark Napier’sMontrose and the Covenanters, 1838.

142The formula used on the occasion is given in the following terms by a writer of the seventeenth century: ‘When any one dies, the bellman goes about ringing the passing bell, and acquaints the people therewith in the following form: “Beloved brethren and sisters, I let you to wit, that there is ane faithful brother lately departed out of this present warld, at the pleasure of Almichty God (and then he veils his bonnet); his name is Wully Woodcock, third son to Jemmy Woodcock, a cordinger; he ligs at the sixt door within the Norgate, close on the Nether Wynd, and I would you gang to his burying on Thursday before twa o’clock, &c.” The time appointed for his burying being come, the bellman calls the company together, and he is carried to the burying-place, and thrown into the grave as dog Lion was, and there is an end of Wully.’—A Modern Account of Scotland, 1670.Harleian Miscellany, vi. 121.

143The mansion of the Earl of Moray in the Canongate, the same house that Cromwell occupied on his brief visit in 1648. It is now the Normal School of the Education Committee of the Free Church of Scotland.

144These anecdotes appear inA Short Abridgment of Britain’s Distemper from 1639 to 1649. By Patrick Gordon of Ruthven. Spalding Club. 1844. They are placed by the author in connection with Cromwell’s comparatively peaceful visit to Edinburgh in 1648, but must, beyond a doubt, refer to the crisis of 1650.

145See under date December 18, 1649.

146The small county of Kinross was included.

147The annual valued rent of Fife and Kinross in 1674 amounted to £383,379 Scots.

148It appears from factory accounts in the Caldwell papers as if oats fluctuated in the period 1645-54 between 6s. 1d. and 17s. 8d. sterling per boll. But probably the highest prices do not chance to occur in these accounts.

149Shew themselves.

150Nicoll, p. 67.

151Spalding Miscellany, iii. 205.

152From a copy of the petition in possession of the present Irvine of Drum.

153See under July 18, 1649.

154Illust. Shires of Aber. and Banff.Spal. Club. Vol. i. p. 285.

155Apparently a tax imposed on houses—equivalent to hearth-money.

156A small sect who held that families were the only proper congregations.

157Register of the Committee of Estates(Gen. Reg. House), Sept. 28, 1660.

158Account of the Regalia, by Sir Walter Scott.

159Burgh Record of Peebles.

160Strang’sGlasgow and its Clubs, p. 7.

161Whitelocke’sMemorials, 514, 515.

162Quoted inSpottiswoode Miscellany, ii. 91.

163Whitelock, 520.

164See theCourt of Session Garland(Stevenson, Edinburgh, 1839), p. 4.

165Heath’sChronicle, p. 356.

166Mil. Memoirs of the Great Civil War, 4to, p. 220.

167Memoirs of Locheil, p. 129.

168Clarendon.

169Wogan lay at Weem during his illness, and might therefore have been expected to lie interred in the churchyard of that parish; but Heath gives Kenmore as his last resting-place.

170Abbreviate of Justiciary Register, by Lord Fountainhall, quoted in notes to Law’sMemorials, p. 91.

171Caldwell Papers, i. 92.

172Satan’s Invisible World Discovered.

173Nicoll’sDiary.

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