Volume 2 — INTERREGNUM: 1649-1660. (continued 2)

About April 1652, we begin to find dissent taking recognisable forms. There were now Antinomians, Antitrinitarians, Familists,156 and Seekers, as well as Brownists, Independents, and Erastians. Where there had formerly been no avowed Anabaptists, there were now many, ‘sae that thrice in the week—namely, on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday—there were some dippit at Bonnington Mill, betwixt Leith and Edinburgh, both men and women of good rank. Some days there would be sundry hundred persons attending that action, and fifteen persons baptised in one day by the Anabaptists.’ Among the converts was ‘the Lady Craigie Wallace, a lady in the west country.’—Nic. In autumn, at Cupar, Mr Brown, preacher to Fairfax’s regiment, re-baptised several of the soldiers ‘in the Eden, near to Airdrie’s lodging, by dipping them over head and ears, many of the inhabitants looking on.’—Lam.

1652. Mar.

1652.

The Castle of Dunnottar was now almost the only place of strength in the kingdom which resisted the English arms. It held out with a small garrison under the command of George Ogilvie of Barras, whose anxiety to maintain his post was increased by the consideration that within these sea-girt walls rested the regalia of the kingdom—the crown, sceptre, and sword of state—which had been consigned by the Committee of Estates to this fort, under the care of the Earl Marischal, as being the strongest place in the kingdom that remained untaken after the reduction of Edinburgh Castle. For many months, Ogilvie and his little garrison had defied the English forces; but now it was likely that he could not hold out much longer—in which case, of course, the regalia must fall into the hands of the enemy. The Earl Marischal had been taken with the Committee of Estates at Alyth, and shipped off to London as a prisoner. He contrived, however, to send by a private hand the key of the closet in which the regalia lay, to his mother, the Dowager-countess, who by the advice of her son, opened a communication with Mr James Grainger, minister of Kineff, a person in whom the family reposed great faith, with a view to his assisting in the conveying away of the precious ‘honours.’ The minister and his wife, Christian Fletcher [posterity will desire the preservation of her whole name], entered heartily into the wishes of the countess.157 Mrs Grainger, by permission of the English commander, visiting the wife of the governor of the castle, received from that lady, but without the knowledge of her husband, the crown into her lap. The sceptre and sword, wrapped up in a bundle of hards or lint, were placed on the back of a female attendant. When Mrs Grainger and her maid returned through the beleaguering camp, it appeared as if she were taking away some lint to be spun for Mrs Ogilvie. So far from suspecting any trick, the English officer on duty is said to have helped Mrs Grainger upon her horse. The castle was rendered three months afterwards, when great was the rage of the English on finding that the regalia were gone. It was adroitly given out that they had been carried beyond sea by Sir John Keith, a younger brother of the earl, and handed to King Charles at Paris.

1652.

In reality, on reaching the manse of Kineff, Mrs Grainger had delivered the crown, sceptre, and sword to her husband, who took the earliest opportunity of burying them under the floor of his church, imparting the secret of their concealment to no one but the Countess Marischal. To the credit of the worthy minister and his wife, they preserved their secret inviolate till the Restoration, eight years afterwards, when ‘the honours’ were exhumed, and replaced under proper custody. An order of the Scottish parliament, dated January 11, 1661, rewarded Mrs Grainger with two thousand merks; Ogilvie was created a baronet; while Sir John Keith, whose immediate concern in the affair does not appear to have been great, was made Knight Marischal of Scotland, with a salary of £400 yearly; to which rewards was added in 1677 a peerage under the title of Earl of Kintore.158

‘In these times, the English commanders had great respect to justice, and in doing execution upon malefactors, such as thieves, harlots, and others of that kind, by scourging, hanging, kicking, cutting off their ears, and stigmating of them with het irons.’—Nic.

The diarist acknowledges that the English judicature established at Leith condemned the native one by its impartiality, suitors returning from it ‘with great contentment.’ He adds: ‘To speak the truth, the English were more indulgent and merciful to the Scots nor the Scots were their awn countrymen and neighbours. They filled up the rooms of justice-courts with very honest clerks,’ &c.

Mar. 29.

Being Monday, a celebrated eclipse of the sun took place between eight and eleven in the morning, with a perfectly clear sky. ‘The whole body of the sun did appear to us as if it had been covered with the moon; only there was a circle about the sun that appeared somewhat clear without any light [the corona?]. At that time there did a star appear in the firmament, near to the place of the eclipse.’ ‘There was ane manifest darkness for the space of some moments.’—Lam. ‘The time of the eclipse it was exceedingly fearful and dark, to the terror of many.’—Nic. Another account says, the darkness continued about eight minutes, and the people began to pray to God.159 ‘The like, as thought by astrologers, was not since the darkness at our Lord’s passion. The country people, tilling, loosed their ploughs, and thought it had been the latter day.... The birds clapped to the ground.’—Law. The day of this eclipse was long remembered, under the name of Mirk Mononday.

Apr. 20.

1652.

Died at the Wemyss in Fife, Eleanour Fleming, Countess of Wemyss, without children. She had been married to her husband only two years, but in that time had made him, if report spoke true, ‘a hundred thousand merk worse’ than before. ‘She caused her husband give a free discharge to her brother, the Lord Fleming, of her whole tocher, being about twenty thousand merks Scots, before any of it was paid to him. She caused her husband and her brother to give Mr Patrick Gillespie a bond of four thousand merks.... She caused also a door to be strucken through the wall of her chamber, for to go to the wine-cellar; for she had, as is said by many, a great desire after strong drink.’—Lam. Verily, a trying sort of lady for a quiet nobleman like Lord Wemyss, who nevertheless ventured on a third wife before the year was out—the mother of Anne Duchess of Monmouth.

June 17.

‘It pleased God to lay the town of Glasgow desolate by a violent and sudden fire.... The far best part of the fore streets and most considerable buildings were burnt, together with above fourscore lanes and closes, which were the dwellings of above a thousand families, and almost all the shops and warehouses of the merchants, many whereof are near by ruined. Besides, a great many more of widows, orphans, and distressed honest families, having lost what they had, are now put to starving and begging. The like of this fire has not been formerly heard of in this nation.’—Nic. ‘It was said 1060 houses burnt.’—C. P. H.

Five days after this fire, the Town Council appointed ‘the provost, with John Bell, to ride to Ayr, to the English officers there, wha has been here and seen the town’s lamentable condition—such as Colonel Overton and others—and to obtein from them letters of recommendation to such officers or judges who sits in Edinburgh, to the effect that the same may be recommendit by them to the parliament of England, that all help and supply may be gotten thereby that may be, for the supply of such as has their lands and guids burnt.’160

It must have been with a sore heart that the newly subjugated city of the west condescended to beg from the parliament of the sectaries. The case, however, was one of extreme misery, for the resources of Scotland, and of the west as much as anywhere, had been exhausted by the war, so that without foreign help it must have been impossible to repair the calamity.

Little more than four years after this period, Robert Baillie speaks of Glasgow as much revived. ‘Our people,’ he says, ‘has much more trade in comparison than any other: their buildings increase strangely both for number and fairness.’ He adds, that in his time the city had been more than doubled.

July.

1652.

In a General Assembly which sat at Edinburgh, sixty-five of the clergy protested against the lawfulness of the last General Assemblies, in which resolutions in favour of the king had been sanctioned. Andrew Cant, Samuel Rutherford, and Robert Traill were the leaders of this zealous faction—the Protesters or Remonstrators—against whom the censures of the kirk were threatened by the majority in vain. By this schism, the hitherto admired unity of the Scottish kirk was broken up, and henceforth, for several years, there scarcely ever was a meeting of any of its courts unmarked by scenes of indecent violence. At a synod held at Glasgow in October, two days being spent in contentions about the choice of a moderator, the meeting dissolved without attempting any other business.—Nic. Not long after, when the General Assembly ordered a fast for the sins of the nation, and because ‘few were seeking the things of Jesus Christ,’ the Remonstrators disallowed it, and appointed among themselves ‘a day of humiliation for that humiliation.’ In all matters regarding the settlement of ministers in parishes, there was furious and uncompromising war for a series of years between the two parties.

This summer was remarkable for clear, dry, warm weather, parching up the herbage, and producing exceedingly light crops on the best lands. The harvest commenced in June, and in a field near Dundee there were stooks on the 7th of July. At the end of July and beginning of August, the harvest was general; and before the end of the latter month, all was ‘in’—circumstances unexampled, and which have perhaps never again occurred. ‘The pease wallowed [that is, faded in the bloom] a fortnight before Lammas, whereas some years they continue till Michaelmas.’—Lam. ‘All the corn was got in without rain, and long before the usual time. The like harvest was in England.’ ‘It is truly reported that in England there was such abundance of white butterflies as was never heard of before. They destroyed all cabbage; and divers cobles coming from sea, hardly could see the land for them.’—Nic.

The summer ‘produced ripe wine-berries and grapes, and abundance of Scotch chestanes openly sauld at the Mercat Cross of Edinburgh, and baken in pasties at banquets.’—Nic.

1652.

The weather, strange to say, remained of the same character all the latter part of the year, so that fruit-trees had a second blossoming in November, and some of them brought forth fruit, ‘albeit not in perfection.’ The furze and broom bloomed again; the violet, not due till March, presented its modest head in November. Birds began to build their nests, and lay eggs, at or near Martinmas, and salads and sybows were cried and sold in Edinburgh on the 27th of November.—Nic.

The letters sent home by the English soldiery now marching through the Highlands, describe the country as mountainous, yet the valleys rich; the houses of earth and turf so low that the horsemen sometimes rode over them; the people generally going with plaids about their middles, both men and women; ‘simple and ignorant in the things of God, and some of them as brutish as heathens;’ nevertheless, ‘some did hear the English preachers with great attention and groaning.’161

In some churches in Fife, as Kirkcaldy and Kennoway, the English soldiers ‘did pull down the stool of repentance; they did sit in them also, in contempt, in some places where they came, in time of sermon.’ Several ministers were openly challenged for their expressions in prayers and sermons, by these soldiers. Mr George Hamilton at Pittenweem was so troubled by some of Fairfax’s regiment, that he had to break off; ‘at which time there was great uproar in the church there.’—Lam.

Aug.

The Earl of Crawford, having been taken by the English at Alyth a twelvemonth before, now lay a prisoner in the Tower. The countess—a sister of the late Duke of Hamilton—desiring to visit her husband in his affliction, left Scotland for the purpose in a stage-coach which had recently been established for the keeping up of communication between the two countries—‘the journey coach,’ says Lamont, ‘that comes ordinarily between England and Scotland.’ We do not learn the periods of departure, or any other detail regarding this vehicle; but from a paragraph which occurs under May 1658, we may presume that it did not go oftener than once in three weeks, and charged for a seat fully as much as a first-class railway ticket of the present day.

Sep. 30.

‘There came into the very brig of Leith ane little whale, which rendered much profit to the English.’—Nic.

1652.

This ‘little whale’ would probably be a stray member of a flock of the Delphinus globioceps, which so frequently are embayed and slaughtered in Zetland and the Faröe Islands. The appearance of such an animal in Leith harbour is an event of a very rare character.

Oct.

Four English gentlemen, Messrs George Smith, John Martin, Andrew Owen, and Edward Mosley, the commissioners appointed by Cromwell for the administration of justice in Scotland in place of the Court of Session, commenced their labours in the criminal department at Edinburgh. Three days were spent in the trial and fining of persons of impure life, of whom there were above sixty brought before the judges in a day. ‘It is observable,’ says an English newspaper of the time, ‘that such is the malice of these people, that most of them were accused for facts done divers years since, and the chief proof against them was their own confession before the kirk, who are in this worse than the Roman religion, who do not make so ill a use of their auricular confession. Some of the facts were committed five, ten, nay, twenty years. There was one Ephraim Bennet, a gunner in Leith, indicted, convicted, and condemned for coining sixpences, shillings, and half-crowns. Also two Englishmen, Wilkinson and Newcome, condemned for robbing three men, and for killing a Scottishman near Haddington in March last. But that which is most observable is, that some were brought before them for witches, two whereof had been brought before the kirk about the time of the armies coming into Scotland, and having confessed, were turned over to the civil magistrate. The court demanding how they came to be proved witches, they declared they were forced to it by the exceeding torture they were put to, which was by tying their thumbs behind them, and then hanging them up by them: two Highlanders whipped them, after which they set lighted candles to the soles of their feet, and between their toes, then burned them by putting lighted candles in their mouths, and then burning them in the head: there were six of them accused in all, four whereof died of the torture.... Another woman that was suspected, according to their thoughts, to be a witch, was twenty-eight days and nights with bread and water, being stripped stark naked, and laid upon a cold stone, with only a haircloth over her. Others had hair-shirts dipped in vinegar put on them, to fetch off the skin.’—Mercurius Politicus.162 The resolution of the judges to inquire into these cruelties is intimated.

1652.

Regarding a man accused of witchcraft, it is mentioned a few days later by the same newspaper, that he first confessed a number of ridiculous things, including frequent converse with the devil, but before the judges he denied all, and said that he had only been in a dream. ‘The truth is, he lived in so poor a condition, that he confessed or rather said anything that was put into his head.... By this you may guess upon what grounds many hundreds have heretofore been burnt in this country for witches.’ A most pregnant remark, truly.

Whitelocke intimates letters from Scotland at this time, stating that sixty persons, men and women, had been accused of witchcraft before the commissioners for the administration of justice in Scotland at the last circuit; but ‘they found so much malice and so little proof against them, that none were condemned.’163

The Scottish civil bench having not long been free from an evil reputation for budds or bribes, and to the last liable to the charge of partiality, it is alleged that the English judges rather surprised the public by their equitable decisions. It is added that some one, in a subsequent age, was lauding to the Lord-president Gilmour, the remarkable impartiality of these judges and the general equity of their proceedings, when the Scottish judge answered in his rough way: ‘Deil thank them, they had neither kith nor kin!‘164

1653. Feb. 11.

A person who was ‘both man and woman, a thing not ordinar in this kingdom,’ was hanged at Edinburgh on account of some irregularities of conduct. ‘His custom was always to go in a woman’s habit.’—Lam. This person passed by the name of Margaret Rannie. ‘When opened by certain doctors and apothecaries, [he] was found to be two every way, having two hearts, two livers, two every inward thing....’—C. P. H. The same day, an old man was burnt for warlockry, ‘wha had come in and rendered himself to prison, confessing his sin, and willing that justice be execute on him, for safety of his saul.’—Nic.

June.

Early in this month, a number of pellochs or porpoises were thrown ashore dead on the coast of Fife; ‘whilk was taken to be very ominous.’—Nic.

1653. July 20.

1653.

The humiliation of the ecclesiastical system of Scotland, lately so triumphant, was this day completed by the breaking up of the General Assembly at the order of Cromwell. The court had met in Edinburgh, and the moderator, Mr David Dickson, had prayed and begun to call the roll, when ‘there comes in two lieutenant-colonels of the English forces, and desired them to be silent, for they had something to speak to them. So one of the lieutenant-colonels [Cotterell] began to ask them by what authority they met—if by authority of the late parliament, or by authority of the commander-in-chief, or if by the authority of their late king? [Mr David Dickson, the moderator of the former assembly, ‘said to him: “Sir, you ask by what authority we sit here; we sit, not as having authority from any power on earth, but as having power and authority from Jesus Christ; and by him, and for him, and for the good of his church, do we sit.” Cotterell answered: “You are to sit no more;” whereby he declared himself, and them that employed him, enemies to Christ.’—C. P. H.]... He desired further, that all the names of the members of the assembly might be given him. The moderator replied that they could not give them, because they were not called; but if he would have a little patience till they called the roll, he should have them. He answered, if it were not longsome, he should do it. So the moderator began at the presbytery of Argyle, to examine their commission. Here the English officer replied that that would prove tedious, so that he could not wait upon it, but desired them to remove and begone; and if they would not, he had instructions what to do. [‘He would drag us out of the room.’—Bail.] Upon this the moderator protested, in the name of the assembly, that they were Christ’s court, and that any violence or injury done to them might not hinder any meeting of theirs when convenient occasion should offer itself. He desired they might pray a little before they dissolved. The moderator began prayer; and after he had spoken five or six sentences, the English officer desired them again to be gone. Notwithstanding, the moderator went on in prayer, but was forced at length to break off. So they arose and came forth. [‘When we had entered a protestation of this unexampled violence, we did rise and follow him; he led us through the streets a mile out of town, encompassing us with foot-companies of musketeers and horsemen without; all the people gazing and mourning as at the saddest spectacle they had ever seen.’—Bail.] They were guarded on both hands up the way to the Weigh-house, where they were carried along to the Port, and thence to the Quarry Holes [Bruntsfield Links], where they made them to stand. The English required again all their names; they said they were most willing. So they told all their names. So the moderator protested again at that place. After their names were written, they discharged them to meet again, under the pain of being breakers of the peace.... The English desired them to go back to Edinburgh and lodge there all night, and be gone before eight o’clock next day; and discharged that not above two of them should be seen together.’—Nic.

‘The day following, by sound of trumpet, we were commanded off the town, under pain of present imprisonment. Thus our General Assembly, the glory and strength of our church, is crushed and trod under foot. Our hearts are sad, our eyes run down with water, we sigh to God against whom we have sinned, and wait for the help of his hand.’—Bail.

The suppression of the supreme church-court was followed (August 4) by a proclamation at Edinburgh, ‘discharging the ministry to pray for the king, or to preach anything against the title of England to Scotland. Mr Robert Lawrie, in his prayer, prayed for the king. When he came from the pulpit, he was carried to the Castle, but stayed short while, because an Englishman would be caution that he should answer whenever he should be called. Notwithstanding, the ministry, finding it a duty lying on them by the Covenants, continued all of them praying for the king, and gave their reasons for it to the English commissioners.’—C. P. H.

(Sep.)

The heat of the summer 1652, and the earliness of the harvest, had not been attended with such plenty as to produce extraordinary cheapness. During this summer of 1653, wheat was £1, 5s. sterling per boll, and the inferior grains about 20s. An excellent crop having been secured, ‘the prices fell strangely, so that from Michaelmas till the end of the year, oats were at [6s. 8d.] per boll, and wheat [11s. 8d. and 13s. 4d.].’—Lam.

The Trembling Exies—that is, ague—was this year ‘exceeding frequent through all parts of this nation, in such condition as was never seen before ... the smallpox also, whereof many people, both old and young, perished.’—Nic.

Dec.

1653.

The gallant resistance made to the English by the loyal forces under Lord Kenmure, in the north of Scotland, was heard of with much interest by Charles II. and his little court at Paris. Amongst other adherents of royalty assembled there, was a Welsh gentleman of about twenty-three years of age, styled Captain Wogan, who, entering in mere boyhood into the service of the parliament under General Ireton, had been converted by the king’s death, and since distinguished himself in the loyal movements made in Ireland under the Marquis of Ormond. Wogan was one of those ardent spirits whom Montrose would have been delighted to associate in his enterprises. He now planned an expedition of a most extraordinary nature. He proposed nothing less than to march, with such as would join him, through the length of England and Lowland Scotland, in order to take part in the guerrilla war going on in the Highlands. Clarendon tells how reluctant the young king was to sanction so mad an undertaking; but at length he was induced to give it his countenance.

Captain Wogan accordingly landed with a few companions at Dover, and, proceeding to London, there went about engaging associates and making needful preparations, without attracting the notice of the republican government. The men and horses being rendezvoused at Barnet, Wogan commenced his march for the north with an armed troop, which passed everywhere as if it were a part of the regular army. By easy journeys, but keeping as much as possible out of common roads, they reached Durham, and thence advanced into Scotland by Peebles. It appears that one of their first adventures in Scotland was to pass through a fair in open day.165 Monk, hearing on a Sunday of their having been on the preceding night at Peebles, caused parties from Linlithgow, Stirling, and Glasgow to keep a look-out; but the people of the country did not help the English soldiery with intelligence, and this net was spread in vain.166 Wogan succeeded in conducting his troop in perfect safety into the Highlands.

1653.

This gallant little party met a cordial reception, and immediately entered with the greatest activity into the war of skirmishes and surprises which was then going on. The chief of the Camerons, the gallant Evan Dhu, hailed in Wogan a kindred spirit, and joined in some of his enterprises.167 No garrison within many miles of the Highland frontier was secure from their inroads. Their united names became a terror to the English. But one winter month of Highland campaigning formed the entire career of Wogan. A lieutenant’s party of the veteran regiment known as the Brazen Wall, left the garrison at Drummond one day, to recover some sheep which had been carried away by the Highlanders. It became enclosed unawares in a superior force of the enemy, of which Wogan and his troop formed part. The Brazen Walls got off with a severe loss; but Wogan had received a wound in the shoulder from a tuck. It was such an affair as a good surgeon and a week of quiet might have healed—the circumstances of the poor youth made it mortal in a few days, to the great grief of all who knew him.168 He was buried with military honours, and amidst the greatest demonstrations of Highland sorrow, in the churchyard of Kenmore169 (about February 1, 1654). ‘Great indignation was there,’ says Heath, ‘against Robinson, the surgeon that dressed him, for his neglect of him, the Earl of Athole having threatened to kill him; so dearly was this hero beloved by that nation.’ The hope of this English author ‘that some grateful muse should sing his achievements,’ has not as yet been realised; but the readers of Waverley will remember how the author represents his hero as gloating over Flora M‘Ivor’s verses To an Oak-tree said to mark the Grave of Captain Wogan:

1654. Mar.

From October by-past to this date, the weather was dry and fair to such a degree as to make the period like a second summer. Nicoll states that, in all that time, there had not been above six showers of wet or snow, and two of these fell on Sundays.

1654. May 4.

General Monk coming down to Edinburgh to take command of the forces against Glencairn and Kenmure, and to proclaim Oliver’s union of Scotland and England, had a most honourable reception. ‘The provost and bailies in their scarlet gowns met him at the Nether Bow Port, the haill council in order going before them.’ After the proclamation, they ‘did convoy him to a sumptuous dinner and feast, prepared by the town of Edinburgh for him and his special crowners [colonels]. This feast was six days in preparing, whereat the bailies of Edinburgh did stand and serve the haill time of that dinner.’ ‘There was great preparation for firewarks, whilk was actit at the Mercat Cross betwixt nine and twelve hours in the nicht, to the admiration of many people.’—Nic.

Next day was proclaimed an act of grace, forfaulting the heirs of the Duke of Hamilton and some score of other nobles, and imposing huge fines upon sundry others; for example, £15,000 on the heirs of the Earl of Buccleuch, £10,000 on the Earl of Panmure, £6000 on the Earl of Roxburgh, £5000 on the Earl of Perth, and the latter sum and other sums down to £1000 on upwards of fifty others, noblemen and gentlemen [these sums being of sterling money].

If, as has been insinuated by cavalier writers, the Scotch nobles were prompted in their joining the religious movement of 1637 by a fear of the revocation of church-lands, they were now suffering a severe punishment for their hypocrisy. Under the late exhausting wars, in which they had incurred vast expenses, and the penal fines imposed on them by Cromwell, they might well be described by a contemporary writer as nearly all ‘wracked.’ Our authority sums them up in the following terms:

1654.

‘Dukes Hamilton, the one execute, the other slain; their [e]state forfault[ed]; one part gifted to English sogers; the rest will not pay the debt. Huntly execute; his sons all dead but the youngest; there is more debt on the house nor the land can pay. Lennox is living, as a man buried, in his house of Cobham. Douglas and his son Arran are quiet men of no respect. Argyle almost drowned in debt, in friendship with the English, but in hatred with the country. Chancellor Loudon lives like an outlaw about Athole, his lands comprised for debt, under a general very great disgrace. Marischal, Rothes, Eglintoun and his three sons, Crawford, Lauderdale, and others, prisoners in England, and their lands all either sequestrat or forfault[ed], and gifted to English sogers. Balmerino suddenly dead, and his son, for public debt, comprisings, and captions, keeps not the causey [that is, cannot appear in public].’

Landed proprietors, merchants, and indeed the entire community, were now in a state of prostration in consequence of the wars. According to the diarist Nicoll—‘The poverty of the land daily increased, by reason of inlaik of trade and traffic, both by sea and land, the people being poor and under cess, quarterings, and other burdens. Falsets and dyvours [bankrupts] daily increased; sundry of good rank, nobles, gentry, and burgesses, denuncit to the horn, their escheats taken, their persons imprisoned, and deteinit therein till their death. Bankrupts and broken men, through all parts of the nation, for fear of caption and warding, were forced to flie to Glencairn and Kenmure, who were now in arms against the English.’

In April of this year, an additional trouble and burden fell upon the people, in consequence of the royalist insurrections, no person being now allowed to travel from home without a pass, for which a shilling sterling was charged. Scotland must have then been in much the same condition as Hungary and Lombardy were under the Austrians after 1848.

The summer of this year was exceedingly fine, producing ripe peas and cherries at the beginning of June, and yielding an early and abundant harvest; so that the best oatmeal was only fourpence sterling per peck. ‘The lambs and fowls were also at ane exceeding cheap rate’ (Nic.), and it is also stated that, from the abundance of herrings in the west seas, these fish were sold so low as twopence a hundred. Cheese was, in the west country, at 2s. 6d. sterling per stone.—Caldwell Papers. This bounty of Providence is not spoken of by contemporary journalists as abating in any degree the sufferings of the people—though these, we cannot doubt, would have been much greater if there had been a dearth. Just at this time, Nicoll returns to the subject of the general distresses of the country. ‘Much people,’ he says, ‘were brought to misery,’ and the land ‘groaned under its calamities and burdens.’

1654.

Owing to the drought of the summer, the wells on which Edinburgh depended for water ran dry, ‘sae that the inhabitants could not get sufficient for ordering their meat.’ Nevertheless, ‘all the west country had more than ordinar abundance of rain and weet.’—Nic. The same writer adds afterwards that the people of Edinburgh were obliged to go a mile before they could get any clean water, ‘either for brewing of ale, or for their pot meat.’

June.

This seems to have been the time when the word Tories, since so notable, was introduced into our island. It had been first applied to a set of predatory outlaws in Ireland. Thus becoming familiar as a term for brigands, it naturally was applied to a number of irregular soldiers connected with the insurgent army of the Earl of Glencairn, who, according to Nicoll, lay in holes and other private places, and robbed and spoiled all who fell into their hands, ‘ofttimes with the purse cutting the throat of the awner.’ The English troops bestirred themselves to capture these Tories, and in July, eight were taken out of the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, and as many out of the Canongate jail, besides others from Perth and Dundee, and shipped at Leith to be taken and sold as slaves in Barbadoes.—Nic.

Sep. 4.

Andrew Hill, musician, was tried for the abduction of a young pupil, Marion Foulis, daughter of Foulis of Ravelston. One of the many specific charges against this base fellow was, that ‘he used sorceries and enchantments—namely, roots and herbs—with which he boasted that he could gain the affection of any woman he pleased, and which he used towards the said Marion.’ The jury, while condemning him for the main offence, acquitted him of sorcery, though finding that he had been ‘a foolish boaster of his skill in herbs and roots for captivating women.’ While the judges delayed for fifteen days to pass doom upon the culprit, he was ‘eaten of vermin in prison, and so died.’170

1654.

It was surely a very perverse love of the supernatural which caused our ancestors to surmise the use of sorcery whenever Cupid played any extraordinary trick. At a later time, when the Earl of Rothes, his majesty’s commissioner, defied scandal in going about openly with Lady Anne Gordon, it was thought he had been bewitched by her. It was also believed that the Duke of Monmouth was spell-bound to Lady Henrietta Wentworth, the charm being lodged in that golden toothpick case which he sent to her from the scaffold. The means, however, thought to be most commonly employed was a love-philter. In 1682, James Aikenhead, apothecary in Edinburgh, was pursued before the Privy Council for ‘selling poisonous and amorous drugs and philters, whereby a woman had narrowly escaped with her life, had not Doctor Irving given her ane antidote.’ On this occasion, the case being referred to the College of Physicians, that sapient body pronounced that it was ‘not safe to give such medicaments, without first taking their own advice.’—Fount.

So lately as 1659, a Scotch gentleman is found communicating to a friend a receipt for that Powder of Sympathy which in a somewhat earlier age in England was held as qualified for the cure of wounds. It was in the following terms: ‘Take of asphodel Romano, and set it under the sun in the canicular days till it become in white ashes, or like white powder. That done, put it in a box. Then to apply: Take the blood or matter of the wound, on a clean linen, and lay on a little of the powder to the blood or matter; and keep the cloth in a box, where it may neither get much cold nor much heat. This done, dress the wounded person every day once, and keep always linen cloths above the wound. But let no linen cloth which hath been used or worn by any woman come near the powder or wounded person. Observe this secret, and keep it to yourself.’171

Oct.

In the course of this month, a number of hares came into the city of Edinburgh, even into its central parts, the High Street and Parliament Close, ‘to the great admiration of many.’ ‘The like was never heard nor seen before.’—Nic. This singular circumstance was probably in some way a consequence of the dry nature of the season.

Nov.

At this time commenced the series of alleged incidents constituting the once famous history of the Devil of Glenluce.

1654.

A poor weaver, named Gilbert Campbell, at Glenluce in Galloway, had given offence to a sturdy beggar, named Agnew, ‘a most wicked and avowed atheist, for which he was hanged at Dumfries.’ The wretch went away muttering that he would do the family a mischief. Whether before or after Agnew’s death does not appear, the weaver and his family began to be annoyed with whistling noises, and by petty acts of mischief—as the mislaying and destroying of little articles, and the throwing of stones and peats, all by unseen hands. Their clothes were sometimes drawn from them as they lay in bed. At the suggestion of some neighbours, Campbell sent away his children, and for the time peace ensued. So it was, after all except Tom had been brought back, and not so after Tom had returned likewise; but, to shew that this was a point of indifference, when Tom had been again sent away in the keeping of the minister of the parish, the annoyances recommenced. This lad, it may be remarked, said he had heard a voice warning him not to go back to his father’s house; and when he did return, he was ‘sore abused,’ and thus once more driven away.

1654.

In February, the family began to hear a voice speak to them, but could not tell whence it came. ‘They came at length in familiar discourse with the foul thief, that they were no more afraid to keep up the clash with him, than to speak with one another; in this they pleased him well, for he desired no better than to have sacrifices offered to him. The minister, hearing of this, went to the house upon the Tuesday, being accompanied by some gentlemen; one James Bailie of Carphin, Alexander Bailie of Dunragget, Mr Robert Hay, and a gentlewoman called Mrs Douglas, with the minister’s wife, did accompany. At their first coming in, the devil says: “Quam literarum is good Latin.” These are the first words of the Latin Rudiments, which scholars are taught when they go to the grammar-school. He cries again: “A dog!” The minister, thinking he had spoken it to him, said: “He took it not ill to be reviled by Satan, since his Master had trodden that path before him.” Answered Satan: “It was not you, sir, I spoke to; I meant the dog there;” for there was a dog standing behind backs. This passing, they all went to prayer; which being ended, they heard a voice speaking out of the ground, from under the bed, in the proper country dialect, which he did counterfeit exactly, saying: “Would you know the witches of Glenluce? I will tell you them;” and so related four or five persons’ names that went under a bad report. The weaver informed the company that one of them was dead long ago. The devil answered and said: “It is true she is dead long ago, but her spirit is living with us in the world.” The minister replied, saying (though it was not convenient to speak to such an excommunicated and intercommuned person): “The Lord rebuke thee, Satan, and put thee to silence; we are not to receive information from thee, whatsoever name any person goes under; thou art seeking but to seduce this family, for Satan’s kingdom is not divided against itself.” After which, all went to prayer again, which being ended—for during the time of prayer no noise or trouble was made, except once that a loud fearful yell was heard at a distance, the devil threatening and terrifying the lad Tom, who had come back that day with the minister, “that if he did not depart out of the house, he would set all on fire”—says the minister: “The Lord will preserve the house, and the lad too, seeing he is one of the family, and had God’s warrant to tarry in it.” The fiend answered: “He shall not get liberty to tarry; he was once put out already, and shall not abide here, though I should pursue him to the end of the world.” The minister replied: “The Lord will stop thy malice against him.” And then they all went to prayer again; which being ended, the devil said: “Give me a spade and a shovel, and depart from the house for seven days, and I will make a grave, and lie down in it, and shall trouble you no more.” The goodman answered: “Not so much as a straw shall be given thee, through God’s assistance, even though that would do it.” The minister also added: “God shall remove thee in due time.” The spirit answered: “I will not remove for you; I have my commission from Christ to tarry and vex this family.” The minister answered: “A permission thou hast indeed, but God will stop it in due time.” The devil replied: “I have, sir, a commission, which perhaps will last longer than your own.” [The minister died in the year 1655, in December.] The devil had told them “that he had given his commission to Tom to keep.” The company inquired at the lad, who said: “There was something put into his pocket, but it did not tarry.”’

After a great deal of the like talk with the unseen tormentor, ending with a declaration from him that he was an evil spirit come from the bottomless pit to vex this house, and that Satan was his father, ‘there appeared a naked hand, and an arm from the elbow down, beating upon the floor till the house did shake again.’ This the minister attested, and also that he heard the voice, saying: ‘Saw you that? It was not my hand—it was my father’s; my hand is more black in the loof [palm].’

1654.

Sinclair, who relates these things,172 states that he received them from a son of Campbell who was at Glasgow College with him. ‘I must here insert,’ he adds, ‘what I heard from one of the ministers of that presbytery, who were appointed to meet at the weaver’s house for prayer and other exercises of that kind. When the day came, five only met; but, before they went in, they stood a while in the croft, which lies round about the house, consulting what to do. They resolved upon two things: First, There should be no words of conjuration used, as commanding him in the name of God to tell whence he was, or to depart from the family, for which they thought they had no call from God; Secondly, That when the devil spoke, none should answer him, but hold on in their worshipping of God, and the duties they were called to. When all of them had prayed by turns, and three of them had spoken a word or two from the Scripture, they prayed again, and then ended, without any disturbance. When that brother who informed me had gone out, one Hugh Nisbit, one of the company, came running after him, desiring him to come back, for he had begun to whistle. “No,” says the other, “I tarried as long as God called me; but go in again I will not.” After this, the said Gilbert suffered much loss, and had many sad nights, not two nights in one week free; and thus it continued until April. From April to July, he had some respite and ease; but after, he was molested with new assaults. Even their victuals were so abused, that the family was in hazard of starving; and that which they ate gave them not their ordinary satisfaction they were wont to find.

1654.

‘In this sore and sad affliction, Gilbert Campbell resolved to make his address to the synod of presbyters, for advice and counsel what to do, which was appointed to convene in October 1655—namely, Whether to forsake the house or not? The synod, by their committee, appointed to meet at Glenluce in February 1656, thought it fit that a solemn humiliation should be kept through all the bounds of the synod; and, among other causes, to request God in behalf of that afflicted family; which being done carefully, the event was, that his trouble grew less till April, and from April to August he was altogether free. About which time the devil began with new assaults; and taking the ready meat which was in the house, did sometimes hide it in holes by the doorposts, and at other times hid it under the beds, and sometimes among the bed-clothes, and under the linens, and at last did carry it quite away, till nothing was left there save bread and water. This minds me of a small passage in proof of what it said. The goodwife one morning making pottage for the children’s breakfast, had the tree-plate wherein the meal lay snatched from her quickly. “Well,” says she, “let me have my plate again;” whereupon it came flying at her, without any skaith done. It is like, if she had sought the meal too, she might have got it; such is his civility when he is entreated; a small homage will please him, ere he went. After this, he exercised his malice and cruelty against all persons in the family, in wearying them in the night-time, by stirring and moving through the house, so that they had no rest for noise, which continued all the month of August after this manner. After which time the devil grew yet worse, by roaring and terrifying, by casting of stones, by striking them with staves on their bed in the night-time. And (September 18) about midnight, he cried out with a loud voice, “I shall burn the house.” And about three or four nights after, he set one of the beds on fire, which was soon put out, without any prejudice except the bed itself.’

Robert Baillie, writing to his friend Mr Spang at Rotterdam in 1659, answers an inquiry of his correspondent regarding ‘the apparition in Galloway,’ stating that it is ‘notourly known.’ He adds a short narrative of the chief particulars, informing us that for a twelvemonth the apparition had been silent.

It is the first, but not the only case of such spiritual visitations, which is reported as occurring in Scotland during the seventeenth century: another, which happened at Rerrick in the stewartry of Kirkcudbright in 1695, attracted great attention. The Glenluce and Rerrick spirits belong to a class familiar in Germany under the name of Poltergeist. In Beaumont’s Gleanings of Antiquities, 1724, the author quotes from Aventinus’s Annals of Bavaria a case of poltergeist resembling in many circumstances this Glenluce one. ‘This pestilent and wicked genius, taking a human shape, gave answers, discovered thefts, accused many of crimes, and set a mark of infamy on them, stirred up discords and ill-will among them. By degrees, he set fire to and burned down cottages, but was more troublesome to one man than the rest,’ &c.

1655. Jan.

Baillie, writing a little before this time, laments ‘the abolition of almost all our church liberties.’ By the putting down of our General Assemblies and Kirk Commission, licence had been given, he says, to ‘any who will to profess grievous errors.’ This, where ‘we expected a full and perfect reformation, does oft break our heart.’ It has already been seen that, so soon as the incoming of the English sectaries had to some degree checked the ‘church liberties,’ dissent had begun to appear in various forms. We now hear of off-breakings of a kind more alarming than ever.

1655.

There arose at this time—to use the language of a contemporary—‘great numbers of that damnable sect of the Quakers, who, being deluded by Satan, drew away mony to their profession, both men and women.’173 ‘They, in a furious way, cry down both ministry and magistracy. Some of them seem actually possessed by a devil; their fury, their irrational passions, and convulsions are so great.’174 ‘Sundry of them walking through the streets, all naked except their shirts, crying: “This is the way, walk ye in it;” others crying out: “The day of salvation is at hand; draw near to the Lord, for the sword of the Lord is drawn, and will not be put up till the enemies of the Lord be destroyed.”’

1655.

Under the same mania, several of the English soldiers and certain of the native inhabitants created disturbances in the churches of Edinburgh, calling on the people not to believe the false doctrine which was preached to them. ‘The devil, working strongly upon their imaginations, made them to believe that the Spirit descendit upon them like ane dow; carried them from one place to another, and made mony of them cry out: “I am the way, the truth, and the life,”’ and ‘make circles about them[selves] with their hands, with many like actions.’ The devil also told them he was ‘putting aff the old man, that the stones were taken out of their hearts, and they had now got hearts of flesh.’ He threw stones among them, crying out: ‘Lo, here is my heart of stone!’ made swallows come down from chimneys, and cry out: ‘My angels! my angels!’ ‘They continuing in this motion, he made them to believe that Christ pointed at them, and to leave wives and children, and to hear voices, sometimes condemning, sometimes pardoning their sins.... Some of thir Quakers, being recalled [to sanity], began to question whether that power by which they were so strongly act[uat]ed, were divine or diabolical. Thereupon they were stricken with panic fears, and some hands were carried to take up a knife lying upon a table, and their hands carried to their throat, and a voice said: “Open a hole there, and I will give thee the words of eternal life;” which made some of them to apprehend that it was the devil, he being the prince of the powers of the air.... This evil spirit prevailed with much people,175 and charged them to deny all ministerial teaching and ordinances, together with all notional knowledge formerly gained by such means, to become as though they had never learned anything savingly, and to lay ane new groundwork—namely, to be taught of God within ourselves by waiting upon ane inward light ... and much more.’—Nic.

It is remarked by Nicoll, under May 1656, that the Quakers were at that time increasing and becoming more confident, and that their pretended sermons and hortations on the Castle Hill of Edinburgh were well attended. It was alleged that the continued divisions among the clergy contributed much to the increase of this heresy.

Towards the end of 1656, the Quaker doctrines had begun to appear among the people in the presbytery of Lanark. The ministers of Douglas and of Lesmahago gave in the names of certain of their parishioners who had been thus deluded. One named William Mitchell compeared, and denied the Confession of Faith; and it appeared soon after that he maintained that ‘there was no baptism with water in the church—God gives every man saving grace—sprinkling of infants and marrying of people with joining of hands was the mark of the beast—there is no natural light in man—no man was fallen—and the preaching of the gospel as it is in Scotland by the priests thereof was anti-Christian.’ Others ‘reset’ the Quakers, ‘saying they get as much good of them as of anybody else.’ On the 30th of April 1657, the presbytery excommunicated eight persons on account of their obstinate adherence to these doctrines.—R. P. L.

Feb.

In consequence of excessively stormy weather this month, many thousands of dead eels were cast out upon the banks of the North Loch at Edinburgh, ‘to the admiration of many.’—Nic.

A severe frost set in, and continued till the middle of April, to the interruption of farmwork; and it was deemed necessary to announce a fast for an early day. ‘No sooner was this fast and humiliation intimate from the pulpits of Edinburgh, but it seemed—and there was no doubt—the Lord was weel pleased; and it was his pleasure to tryst the desire of the people with fair and seasonable weather.’—Nic.

1655.

Heavy and continual rains in August threatened the crop with destruction. A solemn fast and humiliation was held on the 16th of August, in the hope of averting the threatened calamity. But ‘the people were not rightly humbled; there was no fervent prayer; the Lord’s face was not earnestly sought ... as was evident by the Lord’s frowning countenance and augmentation of the rain, whilk daily increased, and sometimes three days and three nights together without intermission, continuing sae ... till the 15th day of September.’

For two years past, ‘victual of all sorts was exceeding cheap, the best peck of meal in the mercat of Edinburgh being sold for a groat, and sometimes for [3-1/3d.], the boll of wheat for [6s. 8d.]. But immediately after this extraordinary rain, the mercats did rise, for this unseasonable weather put many in fear of dearth and famine.’—Nic.

May.

We incidentally learn the wages of a skilled artisan in Scotland at this time from the account which Lamont gives of the expense of slating and pointing the house of Lundie in Fife. The work was done by David Brown, slater in Anstruther, and his son, and so well, he said, that it would not need to be touched again for seven years. David and his son were paid for this work—their diet in the house during the twenty-four working-days they were engaged upon it, and twenty-four shillings Scots, or two shillings sterling, per day, in money.

July.

On a Sunday, at the close of this month, the communion was administered in Edinburgh, the first time after an interval of six years, for so long had the rite been discontinued in the capital and other parts of the kingdom, by reason of the troubles and divisions which had prevailed. From one disqualification and another, ‘much people was debarred.’—Nic.

Oct.

The Council of State having forbidden the clergy to pray for the king on pain of being silenced, they, ‘knowing that it lay upon them to preach, and that, if only for naming a king they should occasion the closing of their own mouth, therein they would greatly sin, generally desisted from praying for him as king.’—C. P. H.

Oct.

1655.

Owing to the dearth of victual, the burdens of the people were felt as more than ever oppressive. Yet at this crisis, the cess imposed by the English was augmented a fifth. In Edinburgh, another cess was imposed, ‘for buying of horse and carts, for carrying away and transporting of the filth, muck, and fulzie out of the closes and causey of Edinburgh; whilk [the tax] much grievit the people, and so much the more because the people receivit no satisfaction for their money, but the causey and closes continued more and more filthy, and no pains taken for clenging the streets.’—Nic.

Rather oddly, the more the poverty of the people increased, vanity the more abounded; ‘for at this time it was daily seen that gentlewomen and burgesses’ wives had more gold and silver about their gown and wyliecoat tails nor their husbands had in their purses and coffers.’ ‘Therefore, great judgment was evidently seen upon the land, and the Lord’s hand stretched out still.’—Nic.

The Edinburgh municipality, though it had for some time had a plack on every pint of ale sold in the city, was 1,100,000 merks [upwards of £61,000] in debt. ‘Oh, for the miseries of kirk and state at this time!’ exclaims Nicoll. ‘The Lord’s anger hot against both, and nane to stand up in the gap.’

Dec. 10.

After some weeks of severe and stormy weather, there befell this day a tempest of the most terrible character, from the north-east, producing fearful havoc among the ships on the east coast, and causing likewise the loss of great numbers of people, bestial, and goods by land. ‘The like storm was not seen by the space of many years before; no, not that great storm that did arise at the death of King James the Sixth [in March 1625] did equal this storm.’—Nic.

Dec. 19.

1655.

Died, in Westminster, Sir William Dick, of Braid, Baronet, once reputed the richest man of his time in Scotland, but latterly in great misery and want; aged seventy-five. In his earlier life, he conducted merchandise on a great scale in Edinburgh. The government in those days pursued that mode of collecting revenue which made farmers-general so much the objects of popular wrath and hatred in France in the time of Voltaire. Dick farmed the Scottish customs—also the revenues of Orkney—yet we do not hear that he bore his faculties with marked ungentleness. He was rather a simple man, accessible to the insinuations of vanity, and inspired with a full share of the earnest religious feelings of his age. When the affair of the Covenant came upon the tapis, it was thought well to secure the co-operation of this rich merchant by getting him made provost of Edinburgh. Thus he was easily persuaded to advance considerable sums in order to enable his countrymen to resist the king. Sir Walter Scott alludes in one of his novels to the tradition describing sacks of dollars poured from a window in Provost Dick’s house into carts, that carried them to the army at Dunse Law. When the Scottish Covenanters afterwards prepared an army to assist in putting down the rebellion in Ireland, it could not have marched without meal and money furnished by Provost Dick. It appears from an authoritative document, that, on this occasion alone, Sir William became a national creditor to the extent of £10,000. In all the other movements of his countrymen at that time, for the protection and advancement of their favourite church-polity, Dick shewed the same large faith in the good cause, and probably, but for him, things might have taken a different turn on many occasions from what they did. What finally remained owing to him in Scotland amounted to £28,131.176 The English parliament was at the same time his debtor to the amount of £36,803—sums rarely heard of as belonging to an individual in that age. Sir William had been assured by the leaders he dealt with, both of thankful repayment from themselves, and of the blessing of the Almighty for the trust he had reposed in the cause of truth and righteousness. But the actual result was simply the utter wrack of his worldly affairs. Efforts were indeed made to repay his advances, but wholly without effect. In 1652, he proceeded to London, to urge the government to do him justice. By this time, his affairs had got into confusion, his credit as a merchant was gone, and his creditors were pressing upon him. It does not appear that he succeeded in wringing more than a thousand pounds out of the hands of the Commonwealth men. Finally, incurring fresh debts for his subsistence in the metropolis, he was thrown into prison in Westminster—a memorable example of the reverses of fortune incidental to a time of civil strife.

1655.

A curious and very rare pamphlet in folio, entitled The Lamentable Estate and Distressed Case of the Deceased Sir William Dick in Scotland and his Numerous Family and Creditors for the Commonwealth, contains two prints, the first representing Sir William at the crisis when he was so serviceable to the cause of the Covenant, mounted on a handsome dress, and with a goodly retinue, his horse trampling on money and money-bags scattered along the ground. On one hand is seen Hamilton’s fleet in the Firth of Forth, with the significant date 1639 inscribed on one of the vessels; on the other, Edinburgh Castle undergoing siege, with the date 1640, evidently referring to the leaguer which the Castle underwent when the Covenanters were endeavouring to wrest it from the officer who held it for the king. Below this print is inscribed:

Sir William’s favourite mottoes are inscribed above—Publica Salus nunc mea Merces, and Pro Foedere, Rege, et Grege. The second print, of which the original painting is still preserved at Prestonfield House, near Edinburgh, represents the unfortunate merchant in his prison-cell, seated on a bulk in a mean dress, manacled and fettered, with his family weeping around him, and four officers of the law at his back, scourges and fetters being scattered about the floor. Below are inscribed the motto, Publica Fides nunc mea Servitus, and these lines:

1655.

The preface to the pamphlet speaks of him as once ‘renowned at home and abroad as a famous merchant. When all men have sought their own, he, contrary to the principles of his outward calling, in the time of public calamity, did cheerfully embark himself, his estate, which was very considerable, and his credit, which was greater, known by his fame abroad that his bills were never protested, but accepted through all Christendom, yea even in the dominions of the Turks—and this not out of any private end, but for the public good cause, which had so many prayers laid out for it then, which he believed would be answered in due time.’ In the ‘Case’ as addressed to parliament, after a recital of his loans and the many acknowledgments and efforts to pay previously made, it is said: ‘Notwithstanding all this, and of the aforesaid Sir William Dick his expense and painful satisfaction by agents and friends the space of sixteen years, and of his own personal attendance upon three parliaments and his highness’s council from November 1652 until November 1655, in his great old age of seventy and five years, and gray hairs full of sorrow and heaviness of heart, for such deplorable sufferings in credit and estate, by so good service performed in England, and with his cries to heaven for justice and mercy to his so deep afflictions for well-doing; yet, nevertheless, little or nothing was recovered all his time here, but one small sum of one thousand pounds in August 1653; insomuch that, by reason of this delay, floods of desolation and distress have overwhelmed him and his children with their numerous families and little ones; their lands and houses being extended and possessed by the creditors in the cruel execution of the law; their chattels and goods, too, yea their ornaments, the covering of their nakedness, and the coverlet in which they should sleep, being publicly distrained and seized upon for these debts and disbursements engaged in by them to promote the public service. Neither is this all; one woe is past, and behold two woes come after this. Ah! the old man himself was once and again disgracefully cast into prison for small debts contracted for necessary livelihood, during his attendance for satisfaction.’ ‘In the end, through heart-break by so long disappointment,’ he died, ‘in great misery and want, and without the benefit of a decent funeral, after six months’ petitioning for some little money towards the same. And to complete the third woe and perfection of sorrowful afflictions, his children are cast at this day, and lying in prisons these twenty months past for public debts, in great sufferings of their persons, credit, and calling, and weariness of life, longing for death more than for treasures, and where they and their numerous families had already perished for want of bread, if some little supply by his highness’s goodness had not been lately appointed them.’

1655.

It appears that after the Restoration the parliament, as might have been expected, declined to acknowledge the debts contracted by the irregular governments of the preceding twenty years; so Sir William’s large loans were never refunded. An advance (100,274 merks) on the Orkney revenues was ignored in 1669, still further wrecking the property of the family. The only compensation which Sir Andrew Dick, son of Sir William, could obtain, was a pension of £132 sterling, which lasted for a few years only.177

1656. Apr.

The spring being alarmingly bad, ‘the presbytery of Lothian did conclude a fast to be keepit in the beginning of May; whilk was keepit in all the kirks of the presbytery, and although with great waikness, yet it wanted not the awn happy effect and blessing, for frae that day the Lord did produce much fair and pleasant weather,’ and ‘the like summer and harvest was never seen in this age.’—Nic.

‘This year produced abundance of bestial, such as horse, nolt, sheep, and some of these at ane very easy price. A mart cow was sold for [£1, 6s. 8d.], these bestial being abundant, and the money exceedingly scant.... There was also exceeding great numbers of salmon and all other sorts of fish taken this year.’—Nic.

June.

It is remarked how much of deceit and cheating was practised at this time among certain traders in Edinburgh. The beer, ale, and wine sold in the city were all greatly adulterated. It was customary to mix wine with milk, brimstone, and other ingredients. ‘Ale was made strong and heady with hempseed, coriander-seed, Turkish pepper, soot, salt, and by casting in strong wash under the caldron when the ale was in brewing.’ Blown mutton and corrupted veal, fusty bread and light loaves, false measures and weights, were common. In all these particulars, the magistrates were negligent, so that ‘the people were abused and neglectit.’—Nic.

June.

1656.

‘This year the Lord Cranstoun, having got a colonel’s commission, levied a new regiment of volunteers for the King of Pole’s [Poland’s] service; and it trysted well for his management and advantage. The royalists chose rather to go abroad, though in a very mean condition, than live at home under a yoke of slavery. The colonel sent one Captain Montgomery north in June, and he had very good luck, listing many for the service. In August the colonel himself followed after, and residing at Inverness, sallied out to visit the Master of Lovat, and, in three days, got forty-three of the Frasers to take on. Amongst the rest, Captain James Fraser, my Lord Lovat’s son, engages, and, without degradation, Cranstoun gives him a captain’s commission. Hugh Fraser, young Clanvacky, takes on as lieutenant; William Fraser, son to Mr William Fraser of Phopachy, an ensign; and James Fraser, son to Foyer, a corporal. The Lord Lovat’s son had twenty-two young gentlemen with the rest, who engaged by themselves, out of Stratherrick, Abertarff, Aird, and Strathglass. I heard the colonel say he was vain of them for gallantry—not so much that they were free and willing, but valorous. I saw them march out of Inverness, and most of the English regiment there looking on with no small commendation, as well as emulation of their bravery.’—Fraser of Kirkhill. This gallant little levy proved unfortunate, most of them being cut off early. Fourteen years later, the same diarist gives us some particulars of the few then surviving. ‘This October’ [1670], says he, ‘came to this country my brother-german, William Fraser. He went abroad in the Lord Cranstoun’s regiment, for the service of Carolus Gustavus, King of Sweden, and after the peace he went up to Poland, with other Scottish men, and settled at Plock as a merchant, and was married. He had given trust and long delay to the Aberdeen’s men, and was necessitated to take the occasion of a ship and come to Scotland to crave his own. He and young Clanvacky Hugh are the only surviving two of the gallant crew who ventured over seas with their chief’s son, Captain James. And he is glad of this happy occasion to see his old mother and brethren. He continued here among his friends all the winter, and returned back in the spring, never to see his country again. Two of his foster-brothers ventured with him, Farquhar and Rory—very pretty boys. We were six brothers mustered one day together upon a street, and six sisters waiting us in my uncle’s house—a pleasant sight. We were not vain of it, but willing to see one another in one society. We never were all convened again. We are here in this world planted in order to our transplantation, where we shall, I hope, one day meet never to separate.’

Aug. 17.

1656.

At four o’clock in the morning, according to Baillie, there was ‘a sensible earthquake’ in all parts of the town of Glasgow, ‘though I felt it not.’ ‘Five or six years ago, there was ane other in the afternoon, which I felt, and was followed by that fearful burning, and all the other shaking [that] has been among us since. The Lord preserve us from his too well-deserved judgments!’

Sep. 4.

The efforts of the presbytery of Lanark to make sincere Presbyterians of the Marquis and Marchioness of Douglas had signally failed. Their parish minister reported sundry ‘outbreakings of sin’ in their house, ‘whereof he could get no order;’ above all, there was a neglect of family worship. After many ineffectual dealings, the presbytery declared at this date, that, ‘considering how the marquis and his lady and family continue to be an ill example, and scandalous divers ways, in regard that he himself does not ordinarily attend the public ordinance, but some time the forenoon withdrawing himself, and ofttimes the servants in the afternoon, in sight of the whole congregation; [and that] he and his lady cometh scarce to the kirk once in a year, and that there is no worship of God at all in their family,’ they must, ‘if he do not redress the foresaid scandals in some satisfying way, enter in process of excommunication with him and his lady at the next meeting.’

After many months, the reverend brethren are still found only ‘dealing’ with the noble marquis and his lady. A peer or peeress seems to have been a particularly difficult person to excommunicate. Years elapse in such cases without effecting the object, while a Quaker villager could be conclusively thrust out of the church in a few weeks.—R. P. L.

1657. June.

Cromwell having been formally installed as Protector, Mr Robert Baillie notes a popular expectation in Scotland that a storm—that is, a storm of political trouble—would follow; and some things seemed to foretell it: for example, the blowing up of a powder-magazine, destroying many houses and persons; an army of pikemen appearing about the house of Foggo Muir, near Dunse Law; and the discovery of some thousands of objects in the form of cannon, shaped from snow without the hand of man. Yet, to the surprise of the reverend gentleman, months passed on without any interruption of peace.

1657.

The same writer, addressing a friend abroad, tells of many painful occurrences which broke the calm tenor of life in Scotland in this and the next preceding and following years. Several young noblemen were carried off by acute diseases. Lord Lorn, son of the Marquis of Argyle, playing at a game in Edinburgh Castle, where stone-bullets were used, one of them striking him on the head, he fell down as one dead, and continued so for some time. Three judges died suddenly, one of them in the court, as he was about to seat himself on the bench. Imprudence and vice also attracted attention. ‘The Earl of Eglintoun’s heir, the Lord Montgomery, convoying his father to London, runs away without any advice, and marries a daughter of my Lord Dumfries, who is a broken man, when he was sure of my Lady Buccleuch’s marriage, the greatest match in Britain; this unexpected prank is worse to all his kin than his death would have been. The Earl of Moray did little better, for at London, without any advice, he ran and married Sir William Balfour’s second daughter.’ The Earl of Rothes was clapped up in Edinburgh Castle, by the Protector’s orders, in great infamy on account of a certain light-mannered Lady Howard, who had come to his lordship’s house on a visit, and whose husband was now in Scotland, bent on obtaining a bloody satisfaction for his dishonour. At the same time, the wife of Lord Forrester sunk into the grave, through grief excited by the misconduct of her husband and her sister.

The number of cases of uncommon turpitude in a time of extraordinary religious purism forces itself upon attention. One Foyer, who was under the notice of the English judges at Glasgow in the spring of 1659, is described by Robert Baillie as ‘a most wicked hypocrite, who, under the colour of piety and prayer, has acted sundry adulteries.’ Being libelled for one only, ‘he was but scourged: many were grieved that he was not hanged.’ The reverend writer adds: ‘Great appearance of his witchery also, if he had been put to a real trial.’

Offences of a horrible and unnatural kind continued to abound to a degree which makes the daylight profligacy of the subsequent reign shine white in comparison. ‘More,’ says Nicoll, ‘within these six or seven years nor within these fifty years preceding and more.’ Culprits of all ages, from boys to old men, are heard of every few months as burnt on the Castle Hill of Edinburgh; sometimes two together. Young women, who had murdered their own infants—on one occasion it was ‘ane pretty young gentill woman’—were frequently brought to the same scene of punishment. John Nicoll states that on one day, the 15th October 1656, five persons, two men and three women, were burnt on the Castle Hill for offences of the several kinds here glanced at; while two others were scourged through the city for minor degrees of the same offences.

1657.

Burnings of warlocks and witches were of not less appalling frequency. In February 1658, two women and a man were prisoners for this crime in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh. One of the women died in prison; the warlock was executed. The other woman, named Jonet Anderson, who had been married three months before, confessed that she had previously given herself up, body and soul, to the devil, and that at her nuptials she saw her spiritual lover standing in the church behind the pulpit. Though this must have been merely such a case of hallucination as would now require simply medical treatment, Jonet was only spared till it was ascertained that she was not pregnant. ‘She made ane happy end, and gave singular testimonies of her repentance by frequent prayers, and singing of psalms, before her execution.’ In the ensuing August, four women, ‘ane of them a maiden,’ were burnt on the Castle Hill, ‘all confessing the sin of witchcraft.’ Not long after, we hear of five women belonging to Dunbar, burnt on the Castle Hill together, all confessing that they had covenanted with Satan, renounced to him their baptism, and taken from him new names, with suitable marks impressed on their flesh. And presently follows again the case of nine from the parish of Tranent, all dying with similar confessions on their lips.—Nic.

Although these executions appear to us as tolerably numerous, they were not enough to satisfy the zealous people of that day. ‘There is much witchery up and down our land,’ says Robert Baillie; ‘the English be but too sparing to try it, but some they execute.’

It is to be feared that, so long as reputation is to be gained by mere religious professions, or the adherence to certain systems of doctrine, cases of hypocrisy like that of Foyer will be occasionally heard of. Nor will it be doubted that a moral code which presses too severely upon the natural affections is calculated in all circumstances to have the consequences here adverted to. Of the cases of witchcraft, we can only deplore, with humiliation, that such delusions should have formed a part of the religious convictions of the age. In the seventeenth century, the ruling minds had a clear apprehension of what they thought the truth, and went right to their point in seeking to work it out. Distinctions, refinements, explained-away texts, moderating reflections, fears of reaction, were reserved for a later day.

June.

1657.

The magistrates of Glasgow at this time provided themselves with an engine ‘for the occasion of sudden fire, in spouting out of water thereon,’ after the form of one recently established in Edinburgh.—M. of G.

Sep.

The magistrates of Glasgow, feeling the need for ‘ane diurnal’—that is, newspaper, a luxury hitherto little known in Scotland—‘appoint John Fleming to write to his man wha lies at London,’ to cause one be sent for the town’s use. Whether John Fleming’s man, from the fact of his lying at London, is to be presumed as himself connected with the public press, may be left to the consideration of the reader.

Before this time, it appears that John Nicoll, a legal agent in Edinburgh, often quoted here on account of his Diary, had supplied the magistrates of Glasgow with weekly intelligence.

Mr Thomas Stewart, the hero of the plague anecdote of 1645, married in 1654, and retired to enjoy a quiet country life on his father’s estate of Coltness, in Lanarkshire. His relative, Sir Archibald, gives us a minute recital of what he did with the old place, in extending its accommodations and ornamenting its environs, and the result is that we get a tolerably clear idea of a Scotch gentleman’s country-house, according to the views and tastes which prevailed in the time of the Commonwealth.

1657.

‘He set himself to planting and enclosing, and so to embellish the place. But [as] the old mansion was straitening, and their family likely to increase, he thought of adding to the old tower (which consisted only of a vault and two rooms, one above the other, with a small room on the top of the turnpike stair, and a garret) a large addition on the south side of the staircase, of a good kitchen, cellar, meat-room or low parlour; a large hall or dining-room, with a small bedchamber and closet; over these, and above that, two bedchambers with closets; and yet higher, in a fourth story, two finished roof-rooms. And thus he made an addition of a kitchen, six fire-rooms with closets; and the vault in the old tower, built by Hamilton of Uddeston, was turned to a convenient useful cellar, with a partition for outer and inner repositories. The office-houses of bake-house, brew-house, garner-room, and men-servants’ bedchamber, were on the north of a paved court; and a high front wall towards the east, with an arched entry or porch, enclosed all. Without this arched gate was another larger court, with stables on the south side for the family and strangers’ horses, and a trained up thorn with a bower in it. Opposite to the stables, north from the mansion-house, with an entry to a good spring draw-well, as also leading to the byre, sheep-house, barn, and hen-house, all which made a court, to the north of the other court, and separate from it with a stone-wall; and on the east part of the court was a large space for a dunghill. The gardens were to the south of the house, much improved and enlarged; and the nursery-garden was a small square enclosure to the west of the house. The slope of the grounds to the west made the south garden, next the house, fall into three cross terraces. The terrace fronting the south of the house was a square parterre, or flower-garden, and the easter and wester, or the higher and lower plots of ground, were for cherry and nut gardens, and walnut and chestnut trees were planted upon the head of the upper bank, towards the parterre; and the slope bank on the east side the parterre was a strawberry border.

‘These three terraces had a high stone-wall on the south, for ripening and improving finer fruits; and to the south of this wall, was a good orchard and kitchen-garden, with broad grass-walks, all enclosed with a good thorn-hedge; and without this, a ditch and dry fence, enclosing several rows of timber-trees for shelter; to the west of the house, and beyond the square nursery-garden, was a large timber tree park, with birches towards the house, and on the other three sides rows of ash and plane, and in the middle a goodly thicket of firs. To the north, the barn court; and north from the house was a grass enclosure of four acres, with a fishpond in the corner for pikes and perches. All was enclosed with a strong wall and hedgerows of trees: so the whole of this policy might consist of an oblong square, and the longer side of the square fronted to the south; the ordinary entries to the house were from east to west, but the main access from the east.

1657.

‘It was found still a convenient nursery was wanted for an interesting young family, and a lower addition was made to the east end of the new buildings, and to run parallel with the south side of the high house, towards the gardens. The low room was for a woman-house, and the upper room was the nursery; and both nursery and woman-house had passage to the great house, by proper doors, and a timber trap-stair made a communication betwixt the nursery and the woman-house. In short, after all was finished, the fabric was wholly irregular as to the outside appearance, and both house and policy were more contrived for conveniency and hospitality, than for beauty or regular proportion; and so was the humour of these times, that, if there was lodging, warmness, and plenty within doors, a regular front or uniform roof were little thought of. All above was executed the three years 1657, 1658, as appears from the dates on the upper lintel ornaments of the window.’

Dec.

Notwithstanding a good harvest, ‘poverty and scarcity of money daily increased, by reason of the great burdens and charges imposed upon the people, which constrained them to sell not only their lands and estates, but even their household geir, insight, and plenishing, and some their claiths and habulyiements. Witness the bell, which did daily ring in Edinburgh, making intimation to the inhabitants of such frequent rouping as was in use.’—Nic.

1658. May.

Stage-coaches were at this time advertised as to go from ‘the George Inn without Aldersgate’ to sundry parts of England thrice a week; to Leeds, Wakefield, and Halifax once a week, charge 40s.; to Durham and Newcastle, once a week, charge £3; and ‘to Edinburgh in Scotland, once in three weeks, for £4, 10s.’—in all cases, ‘with good coaches and fresh horses on the roads.’178

During this year, the people of Edinburgh, Glasgow, and other considerable towns, were amused in succession with the performances of a horse brought from England, ‘wha, being trained up in dancing and other conceits of that kind, did afford much sport and contentment to the people, but not without gain, for none was admitted to see the dancing without twopence the piece, and some more.’—Nic.

Oct. 1.

A supplication was this day given in to the Town Council of Glasgow by one Robert Marshall, shewing that he was willing, if permitted, to exercise the calling of a house-painter in the city. The Council, having had it represented to them that there was ‘but one the like within this burgh, and not ane other in all the west of Scotland,’ gave Robert permission to wash and paint houses to any who pleased to employ him.—M. of G.

1658.

This gives a curious idea of Glasgow two centuries ago. The magistrates had a little before this time induced a printer to come from Edinburgh and settle amongst them. The man does not seem to have succeeded, for in May 1660, they give him fifty merks, ‘to help to transport his guids and flitting to Edinburgh again.’ A few months after this date, Robert Sanders was encouraged to set up a printing-office in Glasgow, with a pension of £40 a year, ‘he to print gratis anything that the town shall employ him to print.’ In 1660, they caused a plasterer to be sent for from Perth, ‘to come here for plastering of Hucheson’s Hospital.’—M. of G.

Nov.

The lamentations, of which we have seen several examples, over the depressed condition of Scotland under the English tyranny, are repeated at this time by a man of moderate and sagacious character, the Rev. Robert Baillie. He says: ‘The country lies very quiet; it is exceeding poor; trade is nought; the English has all the moneys. Our noble families are almost gone: Lennox has little in Scotland unsold; Hamilton’s estate, except Arran and the barony of Hamilton, is sold; Argyle can pay little annual-rent [interest] for seven or eight hunched thousand merks [of debt]; and he is no more drowned in debt than public hatred, almost of all, both Scotch and English. The Gordons are gone; the Douglases little better; Eglintoun and Glencairn on the brink of breaking. Many of our chief families’ states are cracking; nor is there any appearance of any human relief for the time.’179 It may give some idea of the reduced state of the nobility during these evil days, that the allowance made by the English government out of the sequestered estates of the Balcarres family for the earl, a minor, and his younger brother, was only ten pounds a year!180

Nicoll, adverting to the same time, says: ‘The condition of this nation of Scotland yet remains sad, by reason of poverty and heavy burdens.’ The crop of the year ‘was very poor by reason of the spring-time, whilk was very cold and weety the space of many weeks.’ The price of victual was consequently for this year double what it had recently been.

1658.

A Mr Tucker, who was commissioned by Cromwell in 1656 to introduce order into the customs duties of Scotland, has left a report from which we obtain particulars as to the trade then carried on with foreign countries. Notwithstanding that duties were in those days imposed equally on exported and imported goods, the revenue of Leith port was only £2335; that of Aberdeen, £573; Glasgow, £554. The respective sums drawn from these ports, for imports only, in 1844, were £631,926, £76,259, and £551,841. Other ports were in proportion, though not uniformly; thus Burntisland, which is now merely a ferry harbour, then drew nearly as much revenue as Glasgow. The native shipping, consisting of vessels of from twelve to a hundred and fifty tons, was in not less marked contrast to that of our day. Glasgow had only twelve such vessels; Kirkcaldy, an equal number, but not one above a hundred tons; Dundee and Anstruther, ten; Burntisland, seven; Wemyss, six; Dysart, four. The extreme narrowness of the resources of Scotland is strikingly shewn in these facts, and makes us the more disposed to wonder at the comparatively great sacrifices which the people had been making for many years for the sake of their church and for its promotion in other lands.

At the same time that so great poverty prevailed, there was such a protection to life and property as had never before been known. It was not, we believe, without cause that the famous Colonel Desborough, in a speech in the House of Commons (March 17, 1659), made it a boast for his party, that ‘a man may ride over all Scotland, with a switch in his hand and a hundred pounds in his pocket, which he could not have done these five hundred years.’181

1659. Jan.

The people of Edinburgh were regaled with the sight of a travelling dromedary, probably the first that had ever come into Scotland. ‘It was very big,’ says Nicoll, ‘of great height, and cloven-footed like a cow, and on the back ane seat, as it were a saddle, to sit on.’ ‘Being kept close in the Canongate, none had a sight of it without threepence the person. There was brought in with it ane little baboon, faced like unto an ape.’

Jan.

1659.

At this time the public received a great surprise in the sudden reappearance of a nobleman, Lord Belhaven, who was understood to have been dead for the last six years and upwards. At the forfeiture of the Hamilton family under the English tyranny, Lord Belhaven found himself engaged as security to the creditors of that house for a much larger sum than he could pay; so, to escape comprisings of his lands and imprisonment of his person, he fell upon an extraordinary expedient. He took a journey to England, and when he had passed Solway Sands, he caused his servant to come back to his wife with his cloak and hat, and had it given out that he and his horse had sunk in the quicksands, and were drowned. None were privy to the secret but his lady and the servant. The report passed everywhere as authentic, and to make it more plausible, his lady and children went in mourning for two years. Passing into England, Lord Belhaven put on a mean suit of apparel, hired himself to be a gardener, and worked at this humble employment during the whole time of his absence, no one knowing this part of his course but his lady. During his absence, his only son, ‘a very hopeful youth and pretty scholar,’ was struck with a fever, which in a few days carried him off. ‘In this real death by God’s hand, who will not be mocked, the hope of that house perished.’—Bail. The Duchess of Hamilton having at length come to a composition with her creditors, his lordship returned to Scotland, and resumed his rank, ‘to the admiration of many.’—Nic.

Feb. 9.

The Countess of Buccleuch in her own right, a child of eleven years of age, the greatest heiress of her time in Scotland, was married at the place of Wester Wemyss in Fife, to Walter Scott, son of Scott of Highchester, a youth of fourteen. These indecent nuptials were performed, without proclamation, by virtue of an order from the presbytery of Kirkcaldy, ‘purchased by the Earl of Wemyss and some of the name of Scott:’ that is, obtained by their influence. The Countess of Wemyss, ‘a witty, active woman,’182 was mother of the bride. ‘This marriage was celebrate upon a great suddenty, few or none of her friends made privy to it till the day before, which day they were contracted. Many expected she should have got some great match (for both Scots and English had an aim for her); but this youth, that her mother (who was the only doer of this business) made choice of for her daughter, was only one of her own vassal’s sons—namely, an oy [grandson] of the Laird of Harden....’—Lam.

1659.

An unsuccessful attempt was made by Sir John Scott of Scotstarvet to reduce the marriage, on the ground that he, her tutor, had not consented. While the question hung suspended, for there existed then no judicatory in Scotland, the young lady in August 1659 attained the age of twelve, at which it was competent for her to effect a marriage of her own will. She then accordingly emitted a declaration of her marriage, and her husband meeting her at Leith, amidst great demonstrations of joy, they went that same night to Dalkeith, to commence married life.—Nic.

This poor victim of the cupidity of her seniors was taken by her mother next year to London, to be touched for the cruels by the king, and died in the next ensuing year, leaving the succession to her younger sister Anne, who became the victim of an equally discreditable affair, in being married while still a child to the king’s natural son, a boy, subsequently Duke of Monmouth.

The marrying of heiresses under twelve years of age was a not infrequent misdemeanour in the seventeenth century. ‘1st March 1677, Trotter, Lady Craigleith, was fined at Secret Council, in 6000 merks, for conveying away her daughter, heiress of Craigleith, and sending her to Berwick, where she married young Prestongrange (Morison), and stayed some two or three months, till she completed her twelve years of age, after which the marriage could not be dissolved, nor she resile.... Her maternal uncle, Mortonhall, was fined for his accession in 3000 merks, and young Prestongrange in 1000 merks.’—Foun.

In 1680, Patrick Carnegie, brother of the Earl of Northesk, was prosecuted for conveying away Mary Gray, daughter of the Laird of Baledgarnie, in the Carse of Gowrie, she being but eleven years and one month old. ‘Some spoke harsh things, that if he could be got, he deserved hanging, for ane example to secure men’s children from such attempts.’ While Patrick escaped from justice, his assistants Kinfauns, Finhaven, and Pitcur were sent to Edinburgh Castle, and ‘ordained, under highest pains, to produce him who wounded the servant while he was resisting their rapt: they came weel off, that their acknowledgment of the fault was accepted instead of a fine.’—Foun.

Mar. 27.

1659.

Died this day, ‘sitting in his chair at his awn house, without any preceding sickness,’ and but ‘little lamented’ (Nic.), John Earl of Traquair—a remarkable example of the mutabilities of fortune in a period of civil broil and revolution. By cleverness and address, unaccompanied by any nobler qualities, and by making himself useful to Laud in his views for the reformation of the Scotch church, he had risen from the condition of a private gentleman to titles, wealth, and the office of Lord High Treasurer. Of his means and taste at the zenith of his fortunes, the house of Traquair, with its formal avenues and garden, is an interesting surviving monument. Clerical zeal ruined what the skill of Traquair might have built up. The Service-book was pushed on against his advice, and he could not control the storm. The most conspicuous service he rendered after that period was to act as his majesty’s commissioner to the Scottish parliament and General Assembly of 1640. He did his best to maintain the royal authority, but all was in vain. His subsequent conduct was not of a bold character; but there is all reason to believe that he continued a loyalist and a friend of Episcopacy at heart. Accompanying the army of the Engagement in 1648, along with a regiment of horse of his own raising, he was taken prisoner at Preston, and committed to Warwick Castle, where he lay for four years. For this final act of loyalty, the Covenanting parliament forbade his return into Scotland. At length, when his country had been taken into the hands of the English, he was liberated, and came home; but it was to poverty and obscurity. His estate had been sequestered; it was a time of general suffering and humiliation. Reflected on as an instrument of the king and Laud in their arbitrary schemes, he enjoyed respect from no party. In such circumstances, it is scarcely surprising to be told, as we are on credible authority, that this once great noble and state officer was reduced so low as to be beholden for the necessaries of life to charity. ‘He would take an alms, though not publicly ask for it,’ says the author of a work quoted below,183 where it is added: ‘There are some still alive at Peebles that have seen him dine upon a salt herring and an onion.’ A worse humiliation remained for him, if Nicoll be right in reporting that the earl was (August 1655) ‘pannelled and accused before the Criminal Court for perjury at the instance of his son-in-law.’184