Note 242 — REIGN OF JAMES VI.: 1591-1603. (continued 3)

This James Learmont of Balcomie had, nearly twenty years before, fixed on the college-gate at St Andrews a placard offensive to Andrew Melville, who consequently broke out upon him as he sat in church, to this effect: ‘Thou Frenchiest, Italianest jolly gentleman, wha has defiled the bed of sae many married [men], and now boasts with thy bastinadoes to defile this kirk and put hands on His servants, thou sall never enjoy the fruits of marriage, by having lawful succession of thy body; and God shall baston thee in His righteous judgments!’ ‘This,’ says James Melville, ‘was remembered when the said James lived many years in marriage without child, and taken by the Highlandmen coming out of Lewis, was siccarly bastoned, and sae hardly used, that soon thereafter he died in Orkney.’